#taper threaded | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fawniswriting · 2 months ago

Text

After I Was Too Late

This fic can be read as a stand-alone or as a sequel to Before I Could Say It.

The above image does not indicate the reader's physical appearance.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Synopsis: The three times Bucky saved your life, and the one time you save each other.

Word Count: 10.1k (I got carried away)

Warning(s): gn!reader (pls advise me if there's any gender-specific detail in the fic), canon typical violence, angst, fluff, near death experience(s), hurt/comfort, alcohol consumption, physical injuries, it's a kinder ending this time I promise 🥺❤️ (lmk if I missed anything!!)

Author's Note: PT 2 IS FINALLY HERE Y'ALL!! I'm so sorryy for the delay, my work has been out of control lately (I legit had to go home at 9.30 PM last week 😭🙏🏼). But I've finally finished this piece, and I hope you guys like it!! I'm tagging everyone who left a comment/reblog-comment on the first part but if you prefer to keep the ending to the fic as it was, then you can just skip reading this. And if any of you want to be removed from the taglist, please just let me know!! As always, don't forget to comment, like, and reblog 💖

Bucky Barnes Masterlist

If someone were to ask you about the beginning, your mind would immediately go straight to that day.

Six years ago, your thread of fate wove into his, placing the two of you on polar ends in the middle of a highway shoot-out that revealed the face beneath the infamous Winter Soldier's mask. You recognized him from the sketches littered across Steve Roger's desk: Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes—Bucky, as Steve had called him. A shadow of the past, long presumed gone to the clutches of war and time.

Yet, there he was.

Alive and breathing.

And he was trying to kill you.

After the events in D.C., you helped the Captain search for the man who had risen from the dead. You saw Bucky's apartment in Bucharest—a depressing little hole in the wall that was barely suitable for a human being to live in. It nicked at your chest, wrestled with a docile side of your heart that you hadn't entertained since they had dubbed you one of earth's mightiest heroes. And when you finally stood in front of the man—not the Soldat, not the merciless assassin who had sliced a dagger to your side two years prior—your chest tapered at the quiet war waging behind his eyes.

“I wasn't in Vienna,” Bucky told Steve. His eyes flickered briefly towards you as he said it, willing, perhaps, for at least one person in that room to put their trust in him; the man standing vulnerably in that apartment, not the weapon he was forced to become.

“I don't do that anymore,” he added.

You believed him.

Steve did, too.

The next few hours were a whirlwind of chasing and being chased. After Zemo broke the Winter Soldier out of the facility in Berlin, you took Steve and Sam to an abandoned site you once neutralized where the three of you could keep Bucky safe from the authorities. You watched from the sideline as Steve interrogated Bucky for answers, listening intently while the Captain and the Falcon began rummaging their heads for a viable plan of action.

Once Sam left to reach out to his contacts, Steve also excused himself from the room, muttering something about needing to make a phone call and leaving you alone with the burly man who was trying miserably to hide behind his curtain of hair.

Wordlessly, you walked towards the paper bag you kept on a rusty oil barrel, grabbing one of its contents before cautiously approaching the brooding man in the center of the room. Bucky looked up the moment you shoved the packaged croissant in his face, confusion shining with blue under the taut crease of dark eyebrows.

“Take it,” you said simply.

Bucky's frown deepened as he stared at your hand.

You masked the sinking feeling in your stomach with a sigh, putting the package next to the makeshift chair Bucky was sitting on.

“You haven't eaten since yesterday.” Your hands were buried in the pocket of your jeans as you spoke, hiding the tremble in them so the man in front of you wouldn't see just how much your heart was breaking for him. “We have a long journey ahead of us. And if Steve is anything to go by when it comes to a super soldier's calorie intake, you must be running on extreme deficit by now.”

Bucky stayed silent.

You scraped the ground with the toe of your shoes, trying to fill in the quietness as you rambled, “I would've loved to prepare you a nice three-course meal, but considering half of the world is on our asses, I didn't think you'd mind a small downgrade. Believe me, I'd kill for a real croissant right now. There's a bakery near the Avengers’ old tower whose owner makes the best chocolate and butter croissants. They're fantastic. This one tastes like a foam board compared to them.”

Bucky continued to stay silent, only perusing you under his intense gaze. You rubbed the back of your neck and managed an awkward chuckle. “You know what? You don't have to eat that. It tastes terrible anyway. I'll just throw it out. Let me see if the pigeons would like some.”

You reached out to grab the plastic packaging, but Bucky stopped you in tracks, grabbing the croissant with a hesitant drag of his hand.

“Thank you,” he muttered curtly.

The sight in front of your eyes would have made you chortle under any other circumstances—the ludicrousness of seeing a Herculean with a metal arm grappling with the flimsy packaging of a factory-made pastry. The croissant was ridiculously small in Bucky’s hand, and you felt foolish for thinking it could offer anything close to sufficient sustenance for a man his size. He could probably devour the whole thing in a single bite and still be starving.

And yet, before he even savored a taste, Bucky tilted the croissant towards you in a silent proposition. An offer to share. To tear the pastry in two as if he didn't barely have enough for himself in the first place. The gesture lurched at something in your chest, winding down your ribs like overgrown vines.

You feigned a smile, feeling it crack around the sorrow you were desperately trying to quell. “That’s for you, Bucky,” you told him softly. “I have mine.”

The man nodded, hesitantly, as if the thought of having something to himself was stranger than fiction. He took a tentative bite, his forehead creasing as he chewed on the sad excuse of a pastry.

“Bad, huh?” You cringed sheepishly. “Told you. It's borderline inedible. You don't have to finish it if you don't want to.”

“I've had worse.”

You clenched your teeth.

There was no room for doubt in your mind that he probably did have worse than an additive-laden confectionery.

“Yeah?” You didn't know why you were asking. “Like what?”

The metal fingers on Bucky's thigh whirred, like he was flexing, removing the stiffness in his joints if there had been flesh instead of vibranium. You waited with bated breath as he stared at a suspicious puddle on the ground.

“I was stuck in an underground cave system once,” Bucky began, pausing to take a tiny bite of the croissant. He looked defenseless that way. Almost like a child. “Spent a few days there. The only thing around me were bats.”

Your nose wrinkled. “You ate bats?”

Bucky didn't attempt to correct your assumption, just kept on munching on the artificial croissant as if he were a kid snacking on candy.

“Were they… good?”

Stupid.

What an incredibly, unbelievably stupid question.

“They were good enough to keep me alive.”

You didn't know what to say to that.

“Well,” you cleared your throat, “just tell me if you change your mind on that croissant. I can get you something else. Remember those pigeons I mentioned? They're not bats, but they've got, you know… protein.”

Then, upon some kind of miracle, it happened.

Bucky smiled.

It was brief, an ephemeral thing that evaporated by the next time you blinked, but it was there. As clear as day, as real as the foul smell of rotten carcasses that surrounded you in that dismal place.

You willed for the excitement in your belly to die down—the last thing Bucky needed was for you to go deranged over a mere smile, probably one of the firsts he allowed himself to have after decades of drought—giving Bucky a short nod before turning around to reward him some privacy, but you didn't go far before a rough voice halted your footsteps.

When your gaze landed on him again, Bucky was tense. His shoulders curled inward as if struggling desperately to keep himself small, his fingers twitched where they were curled around the half-eaten pastry.

“Are you okay?” he eventually asked.

“Me?” Your eyebrows knitted in a mixture of confusion and surprise. “Uh, I'm fine? Well, as fine as one can be after becoming a fugitive of the law, but otherwise—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

His scrutiny roved over your figure from the distance, as though his stare could penetrate through the deepest layer of skin, lighting up a flame that licked through every inch of your bloodstream. Blue irises jerked towards the side of your abdomen, a fleeting tic, but it was enough to force the realization to dawn on you.

Bucky was talking about your wound.

The laceration wound that he—no, that the Soldat—had administered during your altercation in D.C.

Instinctively, your hand lifted, brushing against the jagged scar that you knew was seething under the cover of your shirt. The simple movement didn't escape Bucky's notice, and you chastised yourself for your lack of consideration when you saw his body fold lower towards his knees.

“Bucky—”

“I'm sorry,” he said heavily, shakily. A striking fragility from a man who was supposed to be carved out of steel.

You shook your head in urgency, crossing the distance between you and him before stopping a good six feet away from the defeated man. He didn’t even look up at your proximity, keeping his head angled to the ground, shrinking more and more with every passing second as if he wanted to disintegrate into oblivion.

With careful strides, you removed the remaining space separating you and Bucky, sinking to your knee right in front of him. You called his name softly, begging him to glance up, coaxing him out of the shell of condemnation that he had crawled himself into.

When he finally peered at you, the blue of his eyes had dimmed into a stormy gray. You bit the inside of your cheek, fighting the urge to lean forward and gather this broken man into your arms.

“Bucky,” you called his name again, resolutely this time. Firm and steady, offering no room for even an ounce of doubt or a breath of protest. “It wasn't your fault.”

Bucky fleered.

“I mean it.” You searched his gaze, commanding him to stay there, to not run away from your eyes because you needed him to hear this. You needed him to believe. “I'm not gonna hold you accountable for what happened on that highway, or for anything else you might have done in the past few decades. None of that is your fault. They used you. You couldn't even remember your own name, let alone understand what HYDRA was forcing you to do. You're also a victim here, Bucky.”

He shook his head.

Your heart shattered into tiny little pieces all over the ground.

You shifted on the ball of your knee, sighing as you felt exhaustion pulling at your limbs.

“Steve would agree,” you said quietly.

Those three words managed to snatch Bucky's attention.

“Actually, Steve does agree.” You glimpsed towards the entrance where the Captain had disappeared through earlier, swallowing the lump that had lodged itself in your throat. “It's the reason why he's here. The reason why we all are. He is the literal embodiment of everything good in this world, Bucky. And if Steve Rogers—Captain America himself—looks at you and sees someone worth saving, someone who deserves a second chance despite all that happened, then that says everything I need to know about the kind of man you truly are.”

You waited for something to shift, for the contempt in his eyes to dissipate, for the strain in his shoulders to melt, but nothing happened. He continued to drown, making no moves to get himself out of the murky waters that were pulling him under.

“Everything that happened while you were under HYDRA’s control—the missions, the casualties—none of it is on you, Buck,” you pressed on. “The wound on my side? That wasn't your fault either. Hell, I was shooting at you, too! I didn't know who you were back then. You didn’t know me. You didn’t even know yourself. They made sure of that.”

You took a shuddering breath, physically readying yourself to voice the next conviction out loud.

“If someone has to carry the blame, it should be HYDRA,” you determined. “Not you, Bucky. Never you.”

The silence that followed was strangulating. You watched Bucky with heart in your throat, waiting for him to react, to do something or say something. Perhaps if he had cried, it would've been better. Because then, you might have been able to help, to offer him the solace of your arms, to teach him how he could peel back the guilt that was clinging to him like a second skin.

Yet, Bucky just sat, still as a tombstone and quiet as a graveyard.

The eerie calm before a catastrophic storm.

When he finally looked up, Bucky's eyes were a tempest—dark and turbulent, thundering with the repercussions of a hundred lifetimes he never asked to live.

“Maybe—” Bucky's voice quivered. He ran his flesh hand across his face and started over, “Maybe you're right.

Your chest staggered.

Before you could respond, Bucky's gaze dropped, teetering towards your side, as though he could see the ridges of skin underneath the cotton fabric of your shirt. The place where flesh had once split under a blade he hadn't even known he was holding.

On his knee, Bucky's fingers twitched, like he wanted to reach out, to inspect the remnant of the wound with his own flesh and skin but didn't know how to trust himself enough to do so.

His jaw tightened.

“But it was still me, wasn't it?” Bucky's breathing stammered. The words came out choked, as though the truth tasted like rust on his tongue. “I was still the one holding the knife, Sugar.”

The nickname maimed you more than one could expect. Had Bucky said it with enough cynicism, maybe you would have chalked it up to bitterness and moved on. But he hadn't said it like that—he had said it with a devastating frailness, a frayed piece of another life bleeding through the cracks. It came from a version of him that had smiled at strangers and walked dates home in the rain, a boy from Brooklyn who probably said it with a charming grin and a flirtatious warmth.

Your heart broke for him all over again.

You ransacked your brain for something to say, to convince Bucky that he was wrong, but the sound of incoming footsteps stripped you of the chance, forcing you to quickly rise to your feet just in time for Sam and Steve to enter the room. Your conversation with Bucky was shoved to the backburner as the other two apprised you of your next step, both unaware of the tension stretching taut in the air, suspended between you and Bucky like a ghost no one else could see.

The next thing you knew, your life was unraveling like a house of cards in the span of one night. It felt like you blinked, and suddenly you were standing in the middle of a tarmac, staring down faces you used to sit with during breakfast and mission briefings, others who carried the weight of loyalty you could no longer afford.

The spider-like kid who loved to crawl on things was the first one you faced. He was nimble, all limbs and chatter, a fleck of innocence to testify to his lack of experience. You tuned out his nervous jokes and wide-eyed commentary as you focused on blocking each of his strikes, breathing through the ache in your ribs, willing your body to stay sharp.

But then, your instincts faltered.

The agonized sound wasn't loud, especially compared to the surrounding chaos that had befallen the airport. Your eyes flitted towards the man anyway, as if having a mind of their own, making you lose your footing for a fraction of second as your gaze landed on him from the distance.

Bucky.

The sight of him staggering back—blood blooming across his skin like a crimson tear—rustled an unknown weight within your chest. Natasha stood just a few paces away, her favorite knife in hand, the blade gleaming in the same shade of red running in rivulets down Bucky's cheek.

The moment of distraction was fleeting. Short. But it was the only opening your opponent needed to yank you off balance and send your back straight to the ground.

“Sorry,” the Spidey kid huffed, straddling your legs, his grip surprisingly strong for someone built like a string bean in spandex. “Big fan, though. Seriously. Hey, crazy idea. Maybe after all of this, you can sign my—”

He never got the chance to finish his sentence.

With a drive of your elbow to his side, coupled with a shove of your knee to his chest, Spidey was now the one pinned to the ground—winded limbs and spayed webbing as he stared up at the clouds. You rose to your feet with a heaving chest, the ground trembling beneath your boots as you stole a moment to breathe.

You didn't even notice the light shifting in the sky.

Your reflexes awakened a second too late, stirring only when a dark shadow swept over your head. There was no time to run. Whatever protective measure you could whip up, whatever direction your feet could carry you in a matter of seconds, the end result was clear—you wouldn't be able to make it out of there unscathed.

Or at least, you should not have been able to make it out of there unscathed—but you did.

Because Bucky Barnes—the Winter Soldier, the man whose name was whispered between cautions of death and terror—had saved you.

He lunged from somewhere behind the smoke, arms wrapping around your frame before shoving you forward and down. The force of the blast rocked the ground as a small aircraft detonated a few yards away, radiating a heat so raging it licked at your back. Debris rained down all around you as Bucky’s body remained curled over yours, shielding you from the worst of it, lying like a fortress between you and the explosion's aftermath.

For a moment, all you could hear was your own ragged breathing. Your ears were still ringing when Bucky finally stood up, pulling you by your elbow to your slightly unsteady feet. He examined you from head to toe, his grounding touch remaining steadfast around your forearm, eliciting goosebumps.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

You nodded, still in shock. Still breathless.

“Bucky.” Your fingers convulsed, moving up to clutch his jacket and stopping once you thought better of it. “You saved me.”

He didn't answer at first, and when he did, his eyes evaded yours, jaw clenching as his gaze meandered somewhere distant. “It's the least I could do.”

Then, that same gaze moved, lowering until it settled on your side. You didn’t need him to spell it out to know exactly what he was thinking. The wound had been his doing once, delivered by a man with the same face but none of the same mercy. The shadow of a life that felt like his own but one he gravely wished to relinquish.

You felt the phantom sting of it then, not from the wound, but from the way Bucky was assessing it—like he was measuring his worth by the depth of that scar. Like saving you had been a down payment for a debt he could never repay.

Your mouth parted, already halfway to saying something, anything, that might severe the penance he had inflicted upon himself.

But before you could say a word, the world raged again, sending ripples of a faraway explosion that rattled the earth.

You swallowed hard, grounding yourself as you imparted, “We need to get to the jet.”

Bucky nodded once, his stature straightening as if his resolve had always been intact. The two of you broke into a sprint immediately, side by side, boots striking the tarmac in tandem as the smoke closed in all around you.

That was the first time Bucky Barnes saved your life.

And you knew, as you dashed across the airport grounds, that it wouldn't be the last.

After two years in Wakanda—two years since the disastrous battle on that infamous airport—you were finally bringing Bucky back home to New York.

Tony was not happy when he greeted the two of you at the compound, and you were even less thrilled to see him after everything that went down following his support for the Sokovia Accords—which, to your delight, had officially been nullified. Tony had promised he would play nice, and that included absolving Bucky—or at least, trying to—for all of the crimes that HYDRA forced him to do. It wasn't ideal, but it was a start; a show of good faith as Tony pledged to assist Bucky's recovery in every (financial) way possible.

Still, that didn't stop you from making sure that you walked in front of Bucky while the two of you were approaching the front gate, offering yourself as a human barrier should the philanthropist do anything untoward.

The first few weeks at the compound were dedicated towards ensuring a seamless transition for Bucky. From creating his daily schedule, vouching for a potential therapist, to showing him the nooks and crannies of his new home—you tackled every single task with purpose; convincing yourself that it was about structure, routine, and reintegration, but deep down, you knew better.

It was about keeping him close. Keeping him safe.

And maybe, that was exactly why you found yourself lashing out at Steve when he told you, a few weeks later, that Bucky would be sent on his first mission as an Avenger.

“This is bullshit,” you seethed, your fingers curling around the edge of the conference table in a death grip. “It's barely been two months and already they wanna send him back out there? After everything he's been through?”

The Captain sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don't like this anymore than you do—”

“Then stop it.”

“I tried!” Steve's eyebrows creased, his mouth pressed into a thin line. It was a rare sight to see Captain America this upset. “The higher-ups were asking questions, and his therapist already told them that Buck is ready. I tried talking to him about it, but he's adamant to go. There's nothing else I can do.”

“There's always something,” you retorted. “Maybe you just haven't tried hard enough.”

Despite how much your words stung, Steve forced himself to move past it. He knew they hadn't come from a place of malice. Instead, it had come from a place of affection—perhaps even love—a protectiveness he also shared towards a certain super soldier with a metal arm.

“Look,” Steve began, shifting in his seat, “have you ever thought that maybe this is what Bucky needs?”

Your head snapped up.

Steve took your silence as a cue to continue, “We know he hasn't forgiven himself yet. Not fully. And that's understandable, isn't it? Maybe what he needs, right now, is the chance to make it right. Maybe going on a mission—one he actually chooses to partake in, where he knows something good will come out of it—could be Bucky's way of making his amends.”

The Captain trailed off, letting his words linger above the tense atmosphere of the conference room.

You hated how much it made sense.

With a drop of your shoulders, you pinned your stare on the faraway wall, biting the inside of your cheek before mumbling, “Fine.”

Steve smiled, ready to wrap up the conversation once and for all when your voice interrupted him, “But I'm going.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” You got up from your own chair and sauntered towards the door, flicking a firm glance towards Steve that left no room for objection. “I'm not gonna stop you from assigning Bucky to that mission. But if he's coming, then I'm coming, too. And there's nothing you can do to stop me.”

In the end, Steve had relented, and what was once supposed to be a three-person crew's mission became four as you, Bucky, Sam, and Maria Hill took off towards Panama City.

Interference hailed the four of you upon arrival, running you into more hostiles than the initial intel had suggested. Despite your time away in Wakanda, your instincts didn’t waver. The rhythm came back effortlessly, muscle memory filling in the gaps left by your mind without a sliver of hesitation.

However, between every swift kick and precise strike, your focus frayed. Not from fear, but from a certain super soldier who was never out of your sight for long. Your gaze strayed to his silhouette again and again, making you stumble more times than you cared to admit, trying desperately to stand your ground in your own fight while keeping an eye on him all at once.

It was reckless.

And it was precisely why, as you realized too late, you ended up failing to notice the grenade.

“Watch out!”

Two strong arms—one flesh and one vibranium—shoved you out of the explosion's radius, a flying shrapnel missing your head by inches as your shoulder crashed against the ground. Bucky got thrown immediately on impact, sent over the edge of the skyscraper as the ground started to crack, fragment, and disintegrate into nothing.

“No!”

Horror erupted in your stomach at the building's cession to gravity. You scampered forward, dropping to your hands and knees to lean over the skirt where floor was supposed to be. Your relief escaped in a stammered breath when you spotted Bucky a couple of stories down, still alive, dangling by his flesh arm around the corner of a deteriorating girder.

A window pane launched into the air.

Bucky's agonized scream ripped through the chaos the moment it rammed against his left shoulder.

Something in your guts twisted at the sight of artificial axons peeking out of the ripped seams of his tactical jacket. Blood soaked through the torn fabric, staining the silver beneath in unforgiving red.

“Bucky!” Your pulse hammered. “Don't move, I'm coming to get you!”

“Don't.” Bucky's voice was stern. Final. “You gotta get outta here before the whole thing collapse.”

“I'm not leaving here without you!”

Inside your earpiece, noises began to crackle.

“Guys?” Maria's voice emerged. The sound of punches and clatter reverberated from her end of the line. “I think I need some help over here.”

“Go help Maria,” Bucky commanded.

“But you—”

“Sugar.”

The nickname halted you in place. Bucky was smiling as he looked up at you, although you knew that it was nothing more than a facade. Any other person would have been fooled by his performance, but you could easily pinpoint the shadow of a grimace he was trying to conceal, the exhaustion crippling his body as he struggled to hold himself up at an angle that wouldn't put additional strain to the already splintering steel beam.

Blue eyes softened. “I'm gonna be fine. You should go.”

Your throat constricted.

You crouched frozen on the ledge, the roar of distant gunfire echoing through the shattered high-rise. Fifty stories below, parts of the building's skeleton scattered on the ground. Your hand twitched towards Bucky, wanting to reach out, desperate to haul him back into your arms, but the chasm between you felt impossibly wide.

Meanwhile, Maria's grunts and struggle continued to echo in your ears as she seemed to wrestle a few assailants at once. You knew you should go to her aid. You knew this wasn’t the time for hesitation.

And yet… Bucky.

His lips were still curled into that easy smile—the same one he shared with you during clandestine moments around the compound, because this side of Bucky Barnes was one he reserved specifically for you. His knuckles had gone white from supporting his entire weight, the beam creaking under the slightest sway of his body, jerking slightly.

“I don’t—” Your voice cracked. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I do,” he said gently, as if he weren't hanging by one arm over nothing but air. “You save her.”

You could barely breathe.

The seconds were ticking—Maria was calling for help, and Bucky was slipping.

You weren’t enough to save both of them.

“Sam,” you gasped, pressing your hand to the comms. Static was the only response, and you prayed to the heavens above that wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he could listen to your plea. “You’ve gotta get to Bucky. Now. He’s gonna—I can’t—just… please.”

There was a beat of silence, the kind that stretched longer than a lifetime.

Just when you began to think he wasn't going to answer, Sam's voice fizzled in, “On my way.”

The comms fell silent again.

A violent wind tore through the air, hitting like a freight train.

The steel girder—the one remaining lifeline fastening Bucky to this world—buckled with a piercing screech.

In the blink of an eye, the girder snapped.

“BUCKY!”

A blur of silver and red swooped below him in the same breath, and before you could lunge forward to follow Bucky as he fell, Sam was there—arms locked securely around Bucky’s torso, wings flaring wide to steady the sudden addition of weight. Bucky’s head dropped against Sam’s shoulder, dazed but alive. Your whole limbs teetered towards the verge of liquefying as your lungs finally released the air you didn’t know you were holding.

“You okay, man?” Sam’s voice chirped through your earpiece. “Christ, what did they feed you in Wakanda?”

A sound escaped your chest—something between a strangled sob and a wry laugh.

Gathering yourself, you pressed another hand to the comms, rising to your feet and sprinting towards the server room as you announced, “Hang on tight, Maria. I'm on my way.”

By the time you and Maria went back to the safehouse over an hour later, Sam and Bucky were already there. Bucky was lying on the couch the moment you strode in, his metal arm detached and thrown almost haphazardly on the coffee table while Sam tinkered with Redwing on the kitchen counter.

From the bandage wrapped around Bucky's shoulder, you knew that the on-site medical android had taken a look at him already, but the anxiety in your mind still wasn't pacified. It dribbled all over the floor as you marched towards him, your body shaking partly from the adrenaline still coursing through your veins, but also from the anger and dread boiling in your blood.

“Why the hell did you do that?!”

Venom leaked from your voice the moment you approached the couch. Behind you, Sam and Maria fell silent, readying themselves for the imminent confrontation ahead. Bucky's face remained impassive as he rose to a seating position, a faint tug at the corner of his lips.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

“Don't fucking sweetheart me.”

Your chest rose and fell in a dizzying rythm, daggers flying from your eyes towards the man in front of you. The same one who had nearly, stupidly welcomed death into his arms due to some kind of foolish heroism embedded in his principles. The one who was currently looking at you with cerulean eyes so tender it almost made you forget that he was close to slipping from your fingers a mere hour earlier.

Bucky let out a sigh. “I'm okay.”

“Quit talking to me like I'm stupid, Bucky. We all can see your ripped metal arm on the table. Your bandaged shoulder.”

“It's nothing.”

“It's not nothing!”

“It's nothing compared to what I've suffered before.”

An incredulous laugh tore from your larynx, sharp and sardonic. It was the only thing keeping the lump inside from choking you whole. “Just because you've survived worse doesn't mean you're fucking invincible, Buck! You could've died. You almost died. If Sam hadn't got there in time, you would've—”

The words wedged in your throat.

Your eyes fell shut as you expelled the images of Bucky dangling between life and death out of your mind.

Gentle fingers encircled your wrist. You gasped at the sudden warmth surrounding you, opening your eyes to find that Bucky had tugged you closer to stand between his parted knees. Your palms automatically landed on the column of his neck, chest pounding at the unbearable softness shining out of Bucky’s eyes.

This was new territory—Bucky had always treated closeness like something fleeting, something borrowed. His touches, his embraces, were often hesitant, as though affection was a luxury he couldn’t afford. But now, he held you like he had done it a thousand times before, like your body against his was the very thing chaining him to reality. His hand curled firmly around your waist, anchoring himself, grounding his entire existence to the certainty of your presence.

“Hey,” Bucky said, squeezing your side lightly. “I'm right here, Sugar. I'm alright.”

Your chest burned. “We almost lost you.”

“But you didn't.”

“But what if we had?!”

“Then you should take solace in the knowledge that I haven't gone in vain.”

Your fingers clenched around the edge of Bucky's shoulders, nails branding crescent moons into the skin. He didn't even flinch.

“You don't need to sacrifice your life for me, Bucky. I don't need that kind of thing on my conscience,” you spat.

“I wouldn't call it a sacrifice, sweetheart,” Bucky said firmly, resolutely. “If that's what it takes to keep you safe, then I'd gladly take the fall.”

Bucky's declaration propelled the tears you had been desperately trying to contain to the forefront. A strangled whimper shredded from your lips. You quickly tried to mask it with a scowl.

“That's the very definition of a ‘sacrifice’, you idiot.”

“Not in my book.” Bucky smiled. “Not when it's you.”

Before he could say another word, you removed the distance between you and threw yourself in his arms. The dam within you finally caved in, freeing the ragged sobs you had been trying to keep at bay. Your tears stained the collar of his undershirt, your arms locking around him tightly as though sheer willpower might fetter him to you, to life itself.

He staggered slightly under your weight, grunting from the pull on his wounded shoulder, but his hand—his only hand—immediately rose to your back, fingers splayed as they began tracing slow, calming patterns across your spine.

“Don’t ever do that again,” you whispered hoarsely. “Don’t throw yourself in front of danger for me. I don't ever want to watch you fall like that again. I can’t—”

“I know,” Bucky murmured, pressing his cheek to your temple. “I know, Sugar.”

“Promise me,” you croaked out.

He stilled for a second. “I can't,” Bucky said breathlessly. “I'd do it again in a heartbeat, sweetheart. I’ll always choose to save you.”

A fresh wave of tears surged behind your eyes. Your fingers curled tighter into the fabric of his undershirt. You hated him for that.

And you loved him even more because of it.

From behind you, someone cleared their throat.

“I hate to interrupt the Notting Hill shit we’ve got going on here,” Sam said, “but is anyone else starving or is it only the guy who just saved Barnes’ ass?”

The evening wind bit your cheeks the moment you stepped out of the bar. In a chorus of jovial shrieks and mischievous laughter, your friends from the Academy all bid each other goodbye—some heading straight home, some scuttering after the next round of drinks and fun, but all equally giddy and tipsy—stumbling on the curb and crashing against unassuming lamp posts.

“Sure you're not coming?” one of your friends asked.

“No, told you I've got an early morning tomorrow,” you slurred slightly, shaking your head twice when the face in front of you began to blur around the edges.

“Okay. Text me when you get home!”

You waved them off with a lopsided smile, turning on your heel and starting the slow trek back to the station. The pavement felt oddly slanted under your feet, and you blamed the tequila for the fifth time that night. The wind swept down the empty street, nipping at your exposed skin, sending discarded wrappers tumbling aimlessly along the sidewalk.

“Hey, Gorgeous! You need a ride?” a voice called out.

You didn’t bother looking. The city was full of idiots, and you weren’t in the mood for petty confrontations when your balance already wavered like a tightrope walker with a death wish.

You were in the midst of stifling a yawn when your foot unexpectedly hit a shallow crack in the pavement, pitching your body forward, arms flailing wildly before you caught yourself mid-fall.

The voice spoke again, this time laced with a grin that lit a match in the back of your mind, “Careful, sweetheart. Steve's gonna be pissed if you break an ankle before the mission tomorrow.”

Your eyes snapped up.

Leaning against a dark motorcycle across the street, like some kind of B-list actor playing a bad boy in a trashy movie franchise, was none other than Bucky Barnes. He looked way too good for someone who just watched you nearly eat concrete—leather jacket unzipped, gloved hand resting on the handlebar, and an easy smile tugging at his lips.

Your face broke into an instantaneous grin.

“Bucky, what are you doing here?”

You skipped across the street without looking. The squeal of tires resonated in the air, blaring horns and flashing headlights as you registered too late the oncoming car speeding your way. You stumbled in your haste to escape the street, to save yourself before your crushed skull and its content became the next headline for tomorrow's 6 A.M. news.

But before gravity could make a fool out of yourself, Bucky’s arms were already around you. He caught your body with ease, keeping your face from planting onto the curb, his broad frame shielding you from the splash of puddle as the honking car zipped past.

“Jesus, sweetheart,” he muttered, his metal fingers squeezing your hip, “you lookin’ to give an old man a heart attack?”

“Sorry,” you offered sheepishly, willing the percussion in your chest to assuage. “Thanks for saving me.”

“I'd save you anytime and anywhere, Sugar.” Bucky smiled, his gaze soft and genuine despite the flirtatious nature of his words. “But it'd be nice if I didn't have to do it all the time.”

You feigned a gasp. “And here I thought you were my personal hero on call, Buck.”

The man in front of you laughed—a carefree thing with his head thrown back, ocean blue glinting under the paltry luminance of streetlights. You stepped out of his embrace with great reluctance, shivering slightly in the absence of Bucky's warmth.

The motion didn't escape Bucky's notice. “Did you not bring a jacket?”

“I did.” You wrapped yourself with your own arms, stroking the goosebumps away with your palms. “I lent it to my friend and I guess… well, I forgot to ask for it back.”

“Why does that not surprise me?”

“Because everyone knows how kind, selfless, and generous I am?” You grinned.

Bucky didn't say anything in return. Instead, he made quick work shedding the jacket off his back, revealing the outline of muscles under the gorgeous cover of dusty blue henley. Your throat went dry, every nerve ending lighting up in fireworks when Bucky stepped forward, draping the leather garment around your shoulders.

“There you go. That would have to do for now,” he muttered.

His fingertips brushed your neck as he tugged the leather collar closer around you. The scent of coffee, mint, and something indistinguishably Bucky attacked your senses, stealing your breath and leaving the taste of longing on your tongue. He looked at you in that same infuriating tenderness that made your insides spume, reduced to tiny bubbles filled with hope and yearning.

“Thanks,” you breathed out once he withdrew. “By the way, how come you're here? I thought you had that mission with Nat today.”

“I did,” Bucky replied, burying his hands in his jeans’ pockets.

Your forehead creased. “No way. Did you bail?”

“Are you crazy? Steve would have my ass.”

“Then…”

“Came straight from the jet,” he said casually, the impish quirk of his lips giving him away before his words even landed.

“You what?” You gawked. “Are you serious? Did you even debrief with Steve before you went here? Did you even go to the medbay? At all?”

“It was just recon.” He shrugged, far too nonchalant for your liking. “Nat can handle the debrief. She did all the sneaking around anyway, I barely lifted a finger.”

“That’s not the point.” You groaned, massaging the headache that had started gnawing at your temple. “Who cares if it was just recon, Bucky? The procedure says you're to go to the medbay after every mission. The rule is there for a reason. What if you were injured but you didn't even notice? What if you were exposed to a dangerous substance while you were on the field? It's incredibly reckless, stupid, and—”

Your words dissolved the moment his hands cupped your cheeks.

Bucky studied your countenance in silence, his eyes delicate, his thumbs gentle as they skimmed along your jaw. He smiled at you as if your soul was scribbled in a script only he could decipher. An intimate secret shared between the meager spaces the two of you occupied in this infinite universe.

Your breath hitched.

Everything around you tilted on its axis, the world dulling into a distant hum to make room for the cosmic threads tethering you both to each other. His eyes were tired as they locked onto yours, but behind the muted blue, something else shone through—something steadfast and searing, like an eternal flame trapped in the most secluded heights of the Himalayan range.

“I’m okay,” he said at last, voice low but certain. “I’m right here, and I’m okay.”

You didn't blink—you couldn't.

Your chest deflated in the aftermath of worry, the relief sweeping through you like a tide pulling back after a storm. Bucky withdrew, his hands leaving your face in a parting goodbye, and you had to fight the urge to yank him back in, to stay in the fragile moment that had cracked open between the two of you.

“‘Sides,” he drawled, a teasing glint replacing the ferocity in his eyes, “if I didn't pick you up, you'd probably end up passed out in a dumpster somewhere. Can't have you jeopardizing the mission like that, can I?”

You groaned and shoved his shoulder. “Ass.”

Bucky chuckled, rounding the bike before handing you a helmet. “C'mon, lightweight.”

You rolled your eyes, although the blooming smile on your face betrayed the faux irritation as you climbed onto the motorcycle. Bucky was warm in front of you, your arms finding purchase around his waist the second the engine roared to life, buildings and trees alike blurring past as the two of you sped through the streets of New York.

This time, you held Bucky a little tighter than usual, just in case he forgot how much it mattered that he made it home safely.

The pain was the first thing your brain registered.

Lights spilled through the all-encompassing darkness, rousing you awake, filling the gaps in your mind with an awareness of life. The ache traveled through your body in an unimaginable speed, a ravenous beast as it ate away your soul, and you could barely contain the pained whimper before it tumbled free out of your lips.

Something engulfed your hand.

Warmth.

“Sugar?”

You whimpered louder.

“Shit." There was a rustling by your side before the same voice sprouted again, “Hang on, sweetheart. I'll get the doctor.”

Time stumbled in and out of your grasp. You thought you could hear several voices conversing in the room not long after. One of them, unrecognizable in your ears but settled deeply within your chest, rose above all of them. It sounded desperate, broken, as if the person had attempted to barter with God using merely a mangled heart and a splintered spine.

“...please,” you caught him say, the end of a sentence blown by the breeze before you could curl your fingers around it.

“I understand, Barnes,” another voice spoke. “We'll take care of it. Just wait outside, will you?”

A pair of hands proceeded to roam over your body. You felt the pull of consciousness behind your eyelids, heaving you out of the void, an aimless ghost slipping violently back into flesh.

You gasped.

The world returned in a fragmented mosaic—white ceiling, antiseptic air, and a beeping monitor that echoed stubbornly beside your ear. Inside your body, a burning agony erupted. It sank into the deepest corners of your being, clutching around your lungs, turning you into nothing more than a wailing heap of muscles and bones.

“Hey, hey, easy now,” came a calm voice.

The words arrived in the company of gentle hands, too cold for your liking, but they were a reprieve nonetheless. The face in front of you zoomed in and out of focus like moonlight dancing across shattered glass, the contours merging and sundering as they finally morphed into the features of a familiar friend.

Dr. Helen Cho.

She pressed the back of her hand to your forehead before shining a penlight into your eyes. “Pupils reactive. That’s good. Welcome back.”

You blinked away the harsh light from your vision, wincing when the effort sent a jolt of pain through your neck and shoulder. Your lips parted in an attempt to speak, but your throat felt like it had been shoved with hot coals, shredding your voice into nothing more than a torn, fragile snivel.

“W-what… what happened?” you croaked out.

“You were shot,” Helen answered. “Do you remember?”

Just like that, the memory barreled into you like a sucker punch to the face.

Images of drab walls and ceilings, the sight of mold and moss co-existing with dead rodents’ remains filled your mind. The abandoned building once posed as the warehouse of an illegal bio-weaponry enterprise that had long ceased to operate. The Avengers’ presence on site was supposed to be a straightforward recon—gather the intel on the culpable syndicate, perhaps scour for names complicit in supplying the deadly goods in the first place—and it was implied as such on the case files given to the entire team.

No one could have predicted that the simple job would turn into an ambush.

Your mind began flipping through the pages of memory, recalling how it took you no time at all to neutralize the four agents sent your way. Under different circumstances, you might have felt offended by the measly number of hostiles assigned to you—had your thoughts, of course, not already been preoccupied with a certain super soldier. Still, any insolent disparagement your opponent once hurled at your combat abilities was indefinitely put on ice as you dashed across the site's west wing.

By the time you arrived, Bucky was already cornered.

Instinct, and something else akin to protectiveness, fueled your movements as you thundered into the room. Most of the assailants were already lying in stacks on the floor, the rest following suit with every deliberate strike you threw their way. Your chest rose and fell in erratic bursts, each breath scraping your throat as the last body hit the ground.

Across the room, Bucky rose from behind the makeshift fortress, aiming his gun before stopping dead in tracks. The corner of your mouth lifted when your gazes found each other.

“Hi, handsome. Miss me?”

Bucky let out a rough breath, his grip around the gun loosening. “Was wondering when you'd show up, sweetheart.”

He stood up and approached you in merely four strides, smiling so sweetly as though your presence in front of him had been God's own gift to mankind. You fought off a shudder and attempted nonchalance as your palm brushed the dust off his shoulder.

“Sorry, Sarge. You know I like to keep people on their toes.”

The grin on Bucky's face expanded. He bumped his shoulder to yours, the two of you heading for the exit as Bucky started requesting for extraction through his comms.

A split second was all it took for everything to go sideways.

You didn't know what compelled you to turn around for one last glance. Had you heard something? Felt something? Had the hairs on the back of your neck sensed the imminent danger before your brain could even begin processing it?

It was impossible to say, but something dragged your gaze over your shoulder, an invisible hook yanking you back just in time to catch the glint of metal under the scanty light. One of the bodies on the ground, presumed dead, had begun to stir. His arm trembled as he lifted his gun from the blood-slick floor, the barrel rising with all of the inevitability of a verdict carved in stone.

Your breathing caught.

Everything in your body told you to run. To take shelter behind the wooden crate in the corner of the room, call out a warning, anything. But you knew exactly where that gun was aimed, where that bullet would go if you dared to move even an inch.

Straight into Bucky.

The whole world narrowed. What happened next wasn't a choice—it was a decision your body made under direct instructions of your heart, born not from years of training but from the gentle fondness you harbored for the man beside you. It commanded you to hold your ground, freezing your limbs, your chest pounding as though wishing to somehow intercept the bullet before it could write the ending you weren’t ready to read.

Then, the shot rang out.

Everything else had transpired in a blur. You remembered certain bits and pieces through the fog in your mind—the pain on your neck, the retaliation shot Bucky had fired from his gun, the look of pure terror you saw on his face as he held your crumbling body before it could shatter against the concrete ground.

The confession.

“Bucky.” His name fled your lips before you could even think about it.

Helen's gaze softened. “He's outside. He's been here the whole time. Never left your side since the surgery.”

You swallowed, throat thick with the weight of half-formed questions. “H-How long…?”

“Thirty-eight hours,” she replied. “The bullet missed your artery by millimeters. We almost lost you a couple of times. You were extremely lucky this time, Agent.”

Your eyes closed momentarily. When they opened again, your gaze found Helen with an unshakable purpose. “Could you please send him in?”

The doctor gave you a single nod, landing a reassuring pat on your knee before leaving the room silently.

Not long after, the door opened with a quiet hiss.

The sight of Bucky standing in the doorway smashed your heart into a million little pieces.

His hair was unkempt, sticking to different directions as if his fingers had run through them too many times to count. Even from the distance, you could still see how bloodshot his eyes were, how hollow and agonized they were under the harsh lighting of the room. He looked like a man who had outrun hell only to realize that it had made a home right inside his chest.

“Bucky,” you called out, slowly, gently.

His shoulders tensed at the sound of your voice.

Bucky's movement was tedious, as though it was painful for him to move, as though lifting his head required more strength than Atlas needed to carry the world on his shoulders. The moment his eyes met yours, something inside him cracked and splintered.

“You're awake,” he said hoarsely.

“I am,” you replied, offering a soft, shaky smile. “I'm okay.”

Bucky didn't move.

He looked like he didn't even breathe.

It was as if an intangible weight had shackled itself around his ankles, stopping him in place. Bucky didn't try to fight it, to break himself out of the phantom hold he had been cast under. He just kept standing there, motionless, like he was afraid that if he came any closer, the fragile image of you in front of him—alive, breathing, and speaking—would vanish.

Your throat tightened.

“Buck,” you tried again, a tremor in your voice now, too. “Come here.”

His fingers twitched.

“Please.”

It was that single word that finally did it—the plea that fell onto him like a torrent on scorched earth.

He took one step, then another, erasing the distance between him and the bed with a slowness that might convince someone he was walking barefoot on shards of glass. You watched every inch of him draw nearer, his pain thick in the atmosphere of the room, heavier than the oxygen nesting in your lungs.

The hesitation returned when he reached your bedside, keeping him a good six inches away from you. He hovered in the space around the bed, uncertain, both of his hands clenching and unclenching like they wanted to hold you but were afraid you would completely dissipate like vapor under his touch.

You lifted your hand and reached out, tentatively, with the precision of someone trying to pet an easily-spooked cat. Eternity must have passed at least once or twice when your fingers finally brushed the inside of his wrist.

That was all it took.

The singular touch was all it took for Bucky Barnes—the Winter Soldier, the man with the power of a collapsing star, who had faced death and catastrophe greater than anybody else on earth could ever imagine—to entirely crumble under your palms.

A sound escaped him—something torn and guttural and not meant for human ears to hear. He fell to his knees beside the bed, clutching your hand like it was the only echo of mercy in a world that had offered him none. His head bowed against your stomach, shoulders shaking violently with the aggressive sobs he could no longer contain in his chest.

Your own tears spilled out of you in a tide stronger than the Pacific current, staining your cheeks as you brought your other hand to cradle the back of Bucky's head, threading your fingers through the short tendrils.

“I’m okay. I'm okay, Bucky, I'm fine,” you whispered, over and over, each word a balm against the searing agony inside his bloodstream. “I’m right here, darling. I'm okay now.”

“But you weren’t,” he choked, the sound of his anguish slicing your nerves deeper than the sharpest dagger ever could. “You weren’t, a-and God, I thought I lost you, sweetheart. I was holding you, tried to stop the blood—there was so much blood—and you just… you just went still. Was so cold and still and I couldn't—I didn't know what to do.”

“Bucky.” Your voice quivered. “I'm here, baby. You didn’t lose me.”

“I almost did.”

His head rose, and your breath halted in your throat at the sight or red in Bucky’s eyes. He was not someone who cried often—perhaps it was the archaic 40s’ notion of masculinity that was still embedded in his system—and the only time you had seen him cry was back in Wakanda, when you and Ayo stood by him in the vulnerable moment that confirmed the severance of HYDRA's control over his soul.

Somehow, this Bucky—the one kneeling in front of you—looked even more shattered than the one in your memory.

“Your heart stopped, Sugar,” Bucky continued, the weight of his words pressing and twisting your ribs until you were nothing but a mire. “You weren’t breathing. So cold and stiff, and I… Shit—I didn't know if you'd make it. Had to do CPR the whole flight. Everyone told me to stop. They said y-you were gone. But I couldn't, Sugar. I just—I couldn't.”

“Bucky,” you whimpered. “Darling.”

“I thought I was too late,” he rasped, voice fracturing under the weight of a requiem still resonating in his chest. “I kept thinking if I'd been faster—if I’d stood closer—if I had just noticed sooner, then you… you would've…”

You cupped his face, forcing him to stop his self-torment and look up at you. To remind him that whatever horror still clawing at his being was no longer real, because you were fine, you were alive, and you were here with him. His cheeks were wet, flushed with the remnants of grief and an exhaustion that had been postponed for far too long. The pain in his eyes had dimmed the blue in his irises to gray.

“I'm fine now, Bucky,” you murmured, misty eyes and traces of salt on the tip of your tongue. “You did it. You saved me.”

“I shouldn't have had to,” he said, shaking his head as if trying to reject the truth. “You shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place. You should've been safe. I was supposed to protect you.”

“You did, Bucky. You did protect me.”

“Not enough.”

“Baby, look at me.” Your voice is firm, a lighthouse cutting through a war-born fog. Bucky's forehead furrowed as his eyes locked with yours, as if he still struggled to believe that the you in front of him weren't simply a mirage. “You brought me back, Buck. You didn’t lose me. I'm here because of you.”

His breath hitched.

His lips quivered.

You leaned down, pressing your forehead gently to his, ignoring the strain it caused to your wound because this—the man you held inside your palms, this tender moment you shared after everything the universe had put you through—was far more important than any pain you could ever feel.

“You didn't lose me,” you repeated.

There was silence in the next breath, a sacred one commonly heard in the space between lightning and thunder. You could feel his every exhale, shallow and staggered, like a beast coaxed out of fight but still bristling with a proliferate instinct.

After a stuttered heartbeat, his metal arm slithered around your waist, his flesh one wrapping around your hand again, tighter this time.

“Say it again,” he begged, barely audible. “Please.”

“You didn't lose me,” you uttered. “I'm here, I’m alive, and I’m not going anywhere.”

He crushed you against him then—still careful, still gentle—but underneath the heedfulness, his desperation bled through. Gripping you like you were the only thing that mattered in this vast universe, like he wanted to fold you into himself and keep you some place where danger and death could never lurk over you again.

You felt Bucky's lips on your skin, grazing along your shoulder, moving up the curve of your neck, your jaw, and your cheek. Worshipping you with prayers shaped as a thousand reverent kisses, moving like he was searching for the evidence that you were real, like he was memorizing a miracle while time was still ticking.

And when his mouth finally found yours, the press of his lips wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t greedy.

It was trembling.

He kissed you as if you were the divine being who granted him life, respiring your moans and gasps as if they were the instruments needed to mend his ruptured soul. Bucky tasted like every future you were always too scared to envision for yourself—the promise of companionship, affection, and happiness that had once been too surreal for your heart to believe in. But now, in this moment with him, they all suddenly became inevitable.

You kissed him back, slowly, cradling his face between your hands to hold together all of the fractured pieces that forged his being. Time slipped away in the hush where sorrow once lived, getting you lost in everything Bucky, until eventually, your lungs had to force you to part and come up for air.

“I love you,” Bucky confessed, holding onto your wrists to keep you tethered to him. To this moment. And to life itself.

Your thumb brushed the apple of his cheek, catching a silent tear, leaning in to steal another kiss from the corner of his mouth.

“I love you, too,” you whispered.

A sound between a sob and relief escaped him, and Bucky buried his face in the unwounded crook of your neck, breathing you in like he had been suffocating for days and had finally resurfaced for air. His arms stayed enveloped around you as he murmured praises against your skin—thanking the Gods for listening to his prayers, thanking the universe, thanking you. Paying reverence for the mercy that fate had bestowed over a mangled man such as himself.

You stayed like that for a long time. His weight against your side, his heartbeats slowly steadying beneath your touch. The monitors beeped gently beside you, grounding the two of you to reality, an anchor in the otherwise stagnant room. But in that moment, the only sound that mattered—the only one you cared about—was the soft inhale and exhale of your breaths, a proof of life, shared within the modest spaces that felt more freeing than a hummingbird flying over an open field.

Gradually, the room began to fade into silence.

And in the safety of Bucky's embrace, you had never appreciated the quiet more.

Taglist: @steph88x @athenabarnes @sugarmummystuff6 @wintercrows @jay-jaystevebuckyloki @spideysimpossiblegirl @vainillacookie @mazzaroni-cheese @killerwendigo @s-r-reads @nydubs @rafeskai @unpeellievable @thisismyacc11 @rimunagenius @buckygirls @buckyslove1917 @defn0tonyourleft @buhangini @infinitymitten @lemonhead456 @thescooponsof @buckytheloveofmylife95 @mizukiqr @littlegreenjellybean @p3nis-parker @shortlikerdj @onlyheluvsme @theschoolbasketcase @jjulesii @jvanilly @seaskysunrise @minminswag04 @dameronspector @buckybarnesfic @nameless-ken @marie-sworld @silverwolfeyes @idkitsem @waiting-so-long @redtabularasa @buckyinluv @ghostytoasty17 @moreadsfic @chlovocaine @mcira @personal-fanfic-storage @spookyreads @eternalsams @the-sunflower-room

2K notes · View notes

beloveds-embrace · 3 months ago

Text

(A bit more of fae 141 x human reader) part one || masterlist

The court watched you now, far more than before.

The shift had been slow, creeping like ivy through the cracks of an ancient ruin. Where once they had turned away, now their gazes fully lingered. Where once your presence had been an insult, now it was a curiosity, a subject of whispered speculation.

Yet the air remained thick with a quiet, simmering hostility- resentment wrapped in the guise of courtly smiles, contempt veiled behind compliments laced with poisoned edges- even if you were now adorned in their jewelery and etiquettes rather than what you’d always known and been familiar with.

You had expected as much.

The fae were ancient things, creatures of unfathomable beauty and cruelty, and they did not yield to weakness. To humans. So by the Queen Mother’s decree, you had made yourself into something unyielding, something sharp, something that could not be ignored.

Your gowns no longer draped like soft things meant for a mortal princess, but clung like shadows, corseted into something sculpted, something worthy of standing beside a fae king- the newspapers declared. The fabrics whispered as you moved, stitched with thread that shimmered like moonlight on deep water, woven with fae flora that pulsed faintly, petals shifting as though alive- whispered the noble women between themselves.

Your jewelry was no longer mere ornamentation- it was a message. Rings curled into the shape of talons, necklaces draped like spun starlight, earrings tapering into elegant points to mimic the elongated ears of the fae. A tiara rested against your brow, dark metal curling like the antlers of the fae lords, a crown that was neither delicate nor kind nor soft.

And still, the loneliness gnawed at you; because it was not you they saw, not truly. Ans they didn’t care enough to see.

It was a version of you- a creature carved from necessity, shaped by the will of a Queen Mother who would jot accept failure and of a court that would sooner see you broken than accepted

Tonight, the throne room was a cathedral of darkness and gold, high-arched ceilings threaded with veins of living crystal that pulsed like the veins of a slumbering god.

Tonight, they tested you. Again and again- hungry wolves searching for one singular crack to latch their jawn onto.

The wine was rich, dark as garnets, pooling in the bottom of your goblet as you traced the rim with one idle finger. Nobles gathered in clusters, glittering figures in their twilight silks, voices weaving like threads in a tapestry of laughter, whispers, and secrets.

It had taken time, but you had learned how to listen.

A high lord- one whose name you barely bothered to remember- smiled as he spoke, voice laced with condescension.

"You carry yourself well, my queen," he mused, swirling the deep-red wine in his goblet. "Almost as if you were one of us.”

A deliberate insult. A reminder that no matter how you dressed, no matter how you moved, you would never truly be fae. Him, silently declaring his lack of support for you.

You smiled.

A slow, deliberate thing, lips painted the color of crushed berries, dark as winter fruit.

“Then I suppose I have much to thank you for,” you murmured, tilting your head. As you did so, the golden blossoms woven through your “horns” gleamed sharply. “After all, it is your court that has taught me the importance of adaptation.”

The noble’s eyes flickered, and beside you, Kyle let out a quiet hum of amusement.

Across the room, the Queen Mother watched with narrowed eyes. She did not like you, and you doubted she ever would, but she disliked incompetence even more- and in this moment, you were proving yourself competent. Useful.

You had learned well.

But at what cost?

The night did not end there, of course. For every several fae that despised your existence, there’d be at least one another who wanted to pluck each petal of your potential.

The noblewoman who joined your side a while later leaned in, her voice lowered in a conspiratorial murmur, fan flicked out so the movements of her lips and fangs were just for you. "You must tell me, my queen- who do you favor for the next trade council seat?"

Ah. There it was.

You had not been given power (though the Queen Mother had extended a twig of it towards you); you had taken it, grasping it with fingers that had once been ink-stained and weary, now adorned with clawed rings that gleamed under the torchlight. And some had let you. No- more than that. They sought you now, their careful disdain curling into something closer to reverence.

Soon, it will be more than just a few of them. But for now…

You turned to the noblewoman with a small smile, tilting your goblet just so, watching the wine catch the flickering light.

"I have always believed in those who prove themselves," you murmured, just quiet enough to make her lean in, hungry for more. "The court rewards those who are clever and patient. Not those who… speak a little too much."

Your eyes cut across to the nobleman from earlier, his back turned to you.

Her lips curled into a sharp smile. She would think on those words, twist them in her mind until she convinced herself of their meaning. And when the time came, she would vote exactly as you intended- believing all the while it had been her own decision.

A presence loomed behind you before you heard the footsteps. A flicker in the torchlight, the faint shift of the air.

"You’ve been busy, wife.” Kyle’s voice murmured.

You did not turn immediately. Instead, you let the moment stretch, savoring the weight of his gaze as it traced over the elegant curve of your gown, the delicate glint of the fae-wrought silver in your hair. When you finally glanced over your shoulder, your smile was soft and knowing.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

His brow furrowed slightly, and gods- there was something deeply satisfying about seeing that expression on his face, knowing that you had unsettled him. Satisfying, yet lonesome; must you have this distance even from your own husbands?

"You’re weaving yourself into this court," he said, stepping closer, the low rumble of his voice curling against your skin. Dark eyes peered down at you. "Into us."

The balcony railing was cool beneath your fingers as you turned to face him fully. You let the silk of your gown shift, pooling like liquid shadow at your feet.

“I am your wife,” you reminded him, tilting your head. “Shouldn’t I belong here?”

His jaw clenched. You could feel the weight of his gaze, heavy with something unreadable. But he was not the only one watching.

From the flickering glow of the hall beyond, you caught the subtle shift of movement- Johnny’s quicksilver glance, the way his fingers curled against the stem of his goblet. John, seated at the banquet table, expression sharp and attentive. And Simon was a shadow at the edges, silent, still, his head tilted ever so slightly as if studying the edges of a puzzle he had not yet solved.

If only they would simply speak to me…

Kyle, of course, was not the only one with such thoughts, because Johnny had begun to linger.

His presence had always been bright, a thing of warmth despite the razor-sharp edges that all fae possessed. But now, there was something different in the way he watched you.

It started with small things- the way he leaned in when you spoke, like he was trying to catch something unspoken in your words.

One night, when you retired early from yet another endless evening of courtly games and far too much paperwork, he found you in the moonlit gardens, where fae flora coiled and their petals trembled at your touch.

“You’ve changed even more than I expected, lass,” he said, voice quiet. Not accusing. Just… observing.

You did not look at him. “I had no choice.”

A pause. Then, softer:

“Didn’t you?”

You turned then, meeting his gaze, searching for the mockery, the dismissal. But there was none. Only something unreadable, something deep.

And it was that, more than anything, that sent you retreating back into the palace and ignoring the gazes boring into you.

Because if you allowed yourself to believe- to hope- that they saw you- soft, still human despite everything you’ve done to adapt to them- and not just the queen you had become…

You weren’t sure you would survive the disappointment.

(They hadn’t cared before… why now? Should they not be happy you had become like this, hiding your humanity more and more with each day? Shouldn’t they be?)

2K notes · View notes

salingers · 8 months ago

Text

HAYRIDE. JOEL MILLER.

your failed, medical internship’s the reason that you’re standing in your childhood bedroom, now. under the guise of needing paint, you tag along on joel’s home depot run.

pairing─ joel miller x reader. warnings─ 18+ mdni. anal fingering. cream pie. f oral sex. implied, legal age-gap. unprotected piv sex. w/c─ 2,629. a/n─ a03. masterlist.

A decade’s fleeted, since the last time that Joel Miller’s arcing, bedroom window’s framed your body; You’re nearly an apparition.

Your mere silhouette’s evoking long-neglected memories for Joel; Your private school’s fussy graduation. Whistling, from the bleacher’s humid, metallic plank. Joel’s abruptly blinking away his proud reverie.

Your haphazard, gauzy curtains aren’t proffering any privacy. Your dresser’s girlish; A dust-ladened and weathered wicker. You’re scrounging the half-dozen drawers, sorting teenaged remnants, Joel’s guessing.

It’s arguably morally awry, that he’s guessing at all. You’ve unearthed an ivory-colored pair of panties. You’re sampling the garment’s width, against your clothed waist; Your index finger’s hooking the pliant underwear and slowly stretching. Joel curses, “Fuck’s sake.”

Joel’s denim-clad groin’s growing taut; You’re unbuttoning your pants. His conscience’s hollering, QuitWatchingQuitWatching. Then, Joel’s belatedly swiping his curtain’s panel shut. The plaid, trembling fabric’s punishing him. You’re right there.

Your peripheral’s revealing that brown, tartan material’s now obscuring Joel Miller’s looming, perusing shadow.

Your phone’s deeply droning, near plummeting from your nightstand’s uneven, wickered top. You answer, “Hi.”

Dad’s beginning, “Hi, you.” Before, “Room ‘lright?”

You aimlessly nod, “Yeah. Need ‘t paint it, though.”

The flat, stark white’s reminiscent of an operating room. A scalpel amid your dominant, gloved hand; Your abandoned internship. You’re certainly color-drenching this bland, interim room.

Dad’s conveniently chirping, “Y’know, Joel’s headin’ over ‘t The Home Depot. ‘Jus asked if I needed anythin’ for work.”

You humorously say, “The Home Depot?”

Dad amusedly huffs, “The one ‘n only.” Then, “I’ll dial ‘im back. Tell ‘im ‘t bring ‘ya.”

You’re nervously inquiring, “He won’t mind?”

Dad’s chuckling, “Kid, seriously? ‘S just Joel.”

He hasn’t been just Joel, since his absurdly sexy appearance in Dad’s FaceBook album, dorkily titled, ‘Fishin’ Missions’. Dad’s askew lens, recording Joel’s roughened, veiny hand, sizably surpassing his fish’s ample breadth; His arm’s rind, rugged and sun-freckled.

That heathered-gray muscle-tee; Hued identically to Joel’s own silvery threads. Accentuating. Your horny musing’s interrupted, when the doorbell’s nostalgic ding’s reverberated. A leadened, salacious feeling’s pin-balling your rib’s conical-shaped cage.

You’re descending the stairway’s carpeted tread. A once-over’s rushedly ensuing, amid the entry way’s gritty mirror. You’re timidly turning the front door’s bulbous knob; Your skin’s avidly warming.

Joel’s gruffing, “Waitin’ on an invitation?”

You’re feignedly snark, “Go ‘head, Miller.”

Joel’s arousingly large. His belt’s leathered and suppled; Tapering his tender waist. You’re deliriously visualizing biting it. Your teeth’s individualized grooving, engraving Joel’s every-day accessory.

He’s beckoning, “C’mere. Settlin’ in okay?”

Your pulse’s embarrassingly hurried, as Joel’s hugging you. Your nose’s upturned, against his collar’s corduroy lapel; His inherent aroma’s autumnal. A heady medley of burnt cinnamon, earthy hay.

You breathlessly retort, “Y–Yes. ‘Jus fine.”

His beard’s deliciously graying and scruffy; Bristling you. Joel’s inching away; A hand’s kneading your elbow’s point, “Grown. Ain’t ‘ya?”

You’re muttering, “Think anythin’ in my ‘ol dresser’ll fit?”

Joel rasps, “Be fittin’ somethin’ ‘a mine. Talkin’ like that.”

You teasingly tut, “Oh? Promise?”

His jaw’s tightening, “G–Get in my fuckin’ truck, ‘lready.”

The retail store’s unmistakingly orange and tan exterior’s materializing onward. Joel’s hushedly threatening, “Got ‘t behave.”

You’re amusedly assuring him, “Me? ‘Course.”

He’s backwardly parking. His arm’s generously imposing against your seat’s cushiony spine, “Lot ‘a clients ‘a mine, in ‘ere.”

His chin’s abutting along his broad, reaching shoulder’s top. Joel’s delectable, lofting nose’s leading his prominent side-profile; His pursed, upper lip’s capped under an impressive, stiff mustache. Your cunt’s pulsating. You need to rabidly rut against Joel Miller’s aging, sun-tinged face.

You’re resignedly sighing, “Fine.”

Joel replies, “Bratty fuckin’ girl.”

His accent’s aggressively Texan; Languid. Syrupy. You’re involuntarily leaking, beyond your underwear’s cottony corral. The archaic radio’s uttering early-seventies Linda Ronstadt, until Joel’s halting the ignition.

You murmur, “Any cute clients?”

Joel’s apparently unimpressed; He’s agitatedly rolling his coffee-shaded eyes. Tutting, “Best be ‘lone, when I find ‘ya.”

You’re unpromisingly shrugging, before evacuating his Ford’s heated interior. Whispering, “See ‘bout that, Miller.”

Your skin’s momentarily rasped, from the atypically frigid, October wind. The store-front’s decorated seasonally. There’s pallets, upon pallets, of pumpkins; A uniformed variety of classic orange and creamy white.

You’re distractedly mulling around carving or painting pumpkins, while Joel’s unexpectedly wrapping his freshly-shedded, heavy chore-coat against you; His hand’s comfortingly scrubbing your shoulder’s taut blade.

Joel’s deeply humming, “Better, darlin’? Hm?”

You’re instantaneously arming the clothing item’s perfectly tenderized sleeves, “M–Much, Joel.”

You’re leaning, subsequently touching his torso’s muscular crest. Joel’s thumbing your collar’s curving bone, “Warm, here?”

You whine, “Yes.”

Joel’s beginning to crane downard, until he’s chinning your shoulder’s trembling shelf. You’re gasping, as he’s fingering your loaner, Carhartt jacket’s bottom button, from behind. His arm’s caging you.

His calloused pinky’s reaching, before flitting your pant’s folded fly, “And, here?” He’s wagering, “Warmer?”

You’re groaning, “Ngh. Y–Yeah.”

Joel carnally scolds, “Filthy fuckin’ girl. A–Askin’ me ‘bout other men? While your pussy’s pre-heatin’ ‘f me?”

His finger nail’s raking your zipper’s aluminum teeth. Joel’s tauntingly whispering, “Ain’t brattin’ much, now.”

You’re begging, “L–Let’s leave.”

He’s instantly moving. You’re incoherently stunned, as Joel’s adopting an orange-colored cart, “Find ‘ya in the paintin’ section?”

You’re spluttering, “J–Joel. ‘S not what I meant.”

Joel’s winking, “Darlin’, I know what ‘ya meant.”

He’s ambling ahead, bypassing the automatic door’s yawning jaw. Your dominant hand’s flexing, electrocuted in palpable pleasure; It’s reminiscent of Mr. Darcy. You’re involuntarily summoning an image of Joel, dressed as the aforementioned aristocrat, participating in Halloween.

Joel’s robust shoulders, heaving against an incompletely unbuttoned, wispy shirt. His chest’s foggy-toned, furling hair. His head’s rain-rustled, curly strands. A high-waisted trouser; Ascending his belly’s delectable slope, whilst canopying his cock’s dilating weight. You know it’s big.

You’re unfocused; Footing the hardware store’s threshold. There’s an assortment of motion-triggered, Halloween decorations erected nearby. You’re curiously setting one, an animatronic ‘Boogeyman’. The creepy distraction’s festively futile. Joel Miller’s still permeating your skull.

The paint attendant’s named ‘Ruger’. A gun manufacturer namesake’s befitting, given Ruger’s camouflaged, distressed t-shirt. He’s an Austin, Texas quintessential, twenty-something male; A ‘modernized’ mullet-and-mustache duet? Check. A smothering of ‘patchworked’ tattoos? Check.

He’s flirtatiously greeting, “Sugar. How can I do ‘ya?”

You’re brandishing an array of complimentary paint-swatches, against his counter’s crest, “Do color-matchin’?”

Ruger’s endorsing, “Best ‘round.”

You’re inwardly wincing, but Joel’s abruptly approaching. So, “Ain’t doubt it. Clothes shouldn’t be an issue?”

Your palm’s routing your breast’s pocket; Ruger’s murmuring, “T–That jacket? ‘Moss’ by Carhartt. Got codin’.”

You’re falsely enthusiastic, “Really? You’re the best.”

Ruger tosses an isolated thumb, signaling to his computerized, machine mixer, “Told ‘ya.” Asking, “Color’s goin’ in your bedroom?”

You’re agreeably nodding, “Yep.”

Ruger’s grinning, “Lucky paint.”

You begin, “You? Feelin’ lucky?”

Joel’s reprimanding, “Lucky that I ain’t kill ‘im.” Before, “Passin’ at my girl. Gettin’ paid ‘t do that?”

Ruger’s answering, “N–No, Sir.”

Joel’s deeply repeating, “No.” Then, “Two gallons ‘a Sherwin-Williams. Emerald. Matte finishin’, both of ‘em.”

You’re second-handedly embarrassed and incapable of meeting Ruger’s apologetic, parting peer. Joel’s efficiently emptying his cart’s plastic-composed basin, before rehoming his kindred supplies, upon the check-stand’s laminate surface. You muse, “Emerald’s two-hundred dollars ‘a paint?”

Joel’s genuinely offended, “Ain’t payin’. I’m gettin’ it.”

You’re avidly insisting, “Don’t have ‘t do that, Miller.”

Then, Joel’s rapidly reaching outward; Yanking your belt’s fraying loop. You’re firmly tugged against him. He drawls, “Want ‘t do it.”

His breath’s cinnamony and smoky; An inebriating merging of gum and cigarettes. You dizzyingly respond, “Y–Yeah?”

Joel’s languidly leaning, before brushing his nose’s point against your ear’s lobe, “Yeah.” Whispering, “Paintin’ your bedroom the color ‘a my jacket? What’s that ‘bout, darlin’ girl?”

You’re shyly stammering, “D–‘Dunno.” Accusing, “Sayin’ aloud, ‘my girl’? What’s that ‘bout, Joel?”

Joel’s grinning, “That? Want ‘t find out?”

You’re panting, “Oh?”

His palm’s barreling behind; Stuffing his pant’s pocket. You’re savoring the rattling sound of his key-ring’s recovery. Then, Joel’s rapidly shoving the mixed-metal wad inside your rear-pocket. His bulky hand’s harshly kneading your bottom’s fleshy heft; Your cunt’s thumping.

He demands, “Go ‘head. Right behind ‘ya.”

You’re ocularly rummaging around Joel’s unkempt vehicle. American Spirits. Matches. A thrifted, Patsy Cline cassette. Big Red. Coins. A dog-eared, John Steinbeck novel. The sexual suspense’s dampening your sternum; Sticky. Sweaty. You’re beginning to desperately undress.

The Carhartt coat’s discarded. Your flimsy henley’s unbuttoned. Joel’s egressing from Home Depot’s aromatic interior, before pausing at the Garden Center’s check-stand. No way. A hundred-dollar note’s being thrusted, from Joel’s girthy hand, unto the cashier’s gloved palm.

This broad, burly man’s buying you fucking pumpkins. He’s pensively plucking them. His brow’s furrowing; His forehead’s wrinkling. Joel’s literally examining them, heeding any blemished gourds. You’re bewilderedly blinking, as Joel’s palming them, like they’re… Basketballs.

Your waist’s winding, impatiently rutting against his truck’s benched seat; Your pant’s denimed seam, slotting your cunt’s drooly entry.

Then, Joel’s jerking the back-seat’s door ajar. Asking, “Pick ‘em ‘lright? Did ‘ya see?” His scruffy chin’s jutting, at his quartet of pumpkins.

You’re swallowing, “Y–Yep. Thanks, Miller.”

Joel’s gruffing, “C’mon. ‘Course, pretty girl.”

His arm’s effortlessly flexing, tanned and veined, amid transferring his plastic-bagged supplies. Joel’s guessing, “Need ‘t be fucked, in ‘ere?”

You shamelessly moan, “Mhm.”

He’s teasingly whistling, “Yeah? Ain’t far from home, baby.”

You’re grumbling, “T–Too far.”

Joel’s patronizing, “Gettin’ cocked, in ‘ere? ‘S really slutty.”

You sigh, “Don’t care. C’mere.”

The shopping cart’s rapidly returned, before the driver-seat’s groaning under Joel’s jeaned ass, “Needy pussy.” His construction boot’s tamping the brake’s pedal, “Ain’t it? Get ‘t fingerin’. Feed me somethin’ warm.”

Your brassy button’s unhitching; Your toothy zipper’s buzzing. You’re hurriedly shrugging the denimed material downward; Ankling it. His mouth’s prematurely parting. Your underwear’s transparent, flooding in arousal. Joel’s dangerously speeding, departing the feebly-populated parking lot.

He’s feverishly warning, “There’s an empty hay field, ‘round back. Bit ‘a off-roadin’. Yeah?” Directing, “Give ‘em.”

Then, Joel’s toughly tugging your panty’s waist-line. You’re shamelessly obedient; Your fabric restraint’s promptly removed. His beefy, index finger’s impatiently suspended; Pumping. Your pussy’s watering his passenger-seat’s cushioning; Your underwear’s encircling Joel’s commanding digit.

The all-terrain truck’s bumpily impeling, devouring the barren field’s acreage. Eyes involuntarily shutting, Joel’s blindly steering, inbreathing your underwear’s deluged gusset. His nostril’s flaring. His cock’s pitching, prodding below his crotch’s denimed rein; You’re stuffing your pussy’s well.

Joel’s harshly moaning, “Listen ‘t that. Cryin’ fuckin’ hole.”

You’re whimpering, “M–Mm. Ngh.”

He’s greedily ringing your plunging wrist; Yanking. The rapid removal’s obscenely squelchy. Then, Joel’s immediately slurping your index and middle finger’s balmy glaze; Your thumb’s pinning upon his chin’s graying, scratchy underside. The truck’s recklessly slowing.

Joel’s haphazardly parking. The halting, howling tires begin spewing an autumnal confetti; A misting of dry hay and auburn leaves. You’re suddenly hoisting against Joel’s bulging lap; He’s instantaneously hammering, before spitting out your moistened finger’s duet.

And, Joel Miller’s finally kissing you. His groan’s pouring, beyond your esophagus. Licking your mouth’s rippled roof; Siphoning your tongue’s humid pad. Your naked pussy’s pouncing upon Joel’s clad cock. He’s thumbing your cheek-bone’s divot and cupping your jaw-line’s hind; Whimpering.

He’s arousingly exhaling, “Ngh. ‘S fuckin’ tasty.” Then, Joel’s dropping horizontally. Laying, “Fixin’ ‘t guzzle ‘ya.”

His head’s hedging the passenger-side’s door; His boot’s budging the driver-side’s door. You’re drawing upward, as Joel’s guiding you. Your dewy hole’s ramming against Joel’s awaiting face; He’s nosing your clit’s distended mound. Your innard thigh’s twitching, “G–God. Feel fuckin’ good.”

Arousal’s rigorously sopping Joel’s beard. His mustache’s coated and creamy. Your behind’s leveraging; Ass firmly spreading. Joel’s maneuvering and manhandling you. He’s lapping, nearly pornographically swigging. You’re internally levitating; Your spine’s liquefied, “A–Ahhhh. Joel, Joel.”

Joel’s innocently whispering, “What?” Then, “Asshole’s puckerin’. Need pluggin’?”

You’re deliriously nodding, Yes. His center digit’s tantalizingly traveling below. Brushing your clit’s crest; Scooping your cunt’s slick. Your fluttering, furthest hole’s aching, against Joel’s circling, finger’s pad. He’s beginning to tandemly traverse; Eating. Fingering.

Your stomach’s tightening, as Joel’s knuckling you. His head’s nuzzling; Shaking. His beard’s rigidly whiskering, across your core’s folding, before he’s relentlessly sucking. Your clit’s flickering; You’re blindingly cumming. Joel’s airily humping; His cock’s englarging.

He’s hoarsely speaking, “A–‘Atta girl.” Praising, “Drippin’ inside ‘a my fuckin’ ear?” Sniffling, “Up my fuckin’ nose? Good, wet girl.”

You’re dizzyingly horny, “Miller. PleasePleasePlease.”

Joel’s grinning, “Please?”

Your puffy pussy’s eagerly lowering, “Yes.” You’re gyrating, against his lap’s ridge, “Fuck. F–Fuck me.”

He’s grunting, “Fuck ‘ya? Fuckin’ slut. Keep beggin’.”

Joel’s leaning upright and sitting upward. Your disoriented shirt’s being tossed away. Licking your throat’s trail; Skimming your nipple’s peak. You’re nakedly stamping atop his torso’s towering mass. Your skin’s goose-bumping, “Ngh. P–Please, Daddy.”

His brow’s amusedly arching, “Y–Yeah?” Demanding, “Who’s.” Thrust. “Your.” Thrust. “Daddy?”

Promising, “You.”

Joel’s approvingly nodding; His driver-side door’s thudding open. His arm’s muscularly solid, whilst effortlessly upholding you. You’re burrowing, at his throat’s protruding, pulsing vein, as he’s regressing vertical. His anterior boot’s pressing upon decaying hay; A gelid gust of wind’s wreathing.

He’s attentively mumbling, “Shiverin’? Let’s warm ‘ya. Hm?”

His beard’s balmy and cunt-scented. You’re being settled, amongst his driver-seat’s aged upholstering. You’re amorously fidgeting, as Joel’s flitting his belt’s metallic prong. The accessory’s yanked from his fading Wranglers, as Joel’s abutting the cushion’s edge; His zipper’s deliciously drawing.

The belt’s noisily plummeting; A leathery slap, against the floor-mat’s rubbery surface. Your waist-line’s eagerly grasped, whilst Joel’s positioning your pussy’s twingeing hole. He’s hissing, during an arousing upheaval, of his cock’s entirety; The seeping tip’s bypassing his belly-button’s nook.

His t-shirt’s becoming translucent, as pre-cum’s dampening it. You’re following the ample shaft’s terse twitching. Blurting, “Need. That.”

Joel’s attractively smug, “This?” He’s robustly swatting his cock, across your clit’s cummy summit, “Think it’ll fit?”

You whimper, “F–Fuckin’ make it.”

He’s lowly whispering, “Dirty fuckin’ mouth.” Then, Joel’s abruptly and aggressively entering, “Go ‘head. Keep mouthin’ off.”

The truck’s boisterously creaking, as Joel’s ruggedly rutting. Your cervix wall’s convulsing, crowning his cock’s head. Your shiny spend’s glossing Joel’s graying, pubic tuft. His groin’s angrily clobbering, striking your cunt’s doused expanse. You’re incoherently stammering, “N–Ngh.”

Joel’s responding, “Can’t hear ‘ya, bratty girl.”

You’re painfully stretching, inside-and-out. His jeaned, lower-portion’s gloriously grating your thigh’s rear. Your right-side leg’s hooking through the steering wheel’s median; Your left-side leg’s perching, against Joel’s widening shoulder’s tier, as he’s weightily falling forward, “Say somethin’?”

Your limb’s achingly pinned vertically; Your body’s contorting, creating an indecent, ninety-degree angle. His focused, sun-wrinkled forehead’s grown moist. His furling, silver-tinged strands begin cascading. The benched seat’s dilapidated stitching’s imprinting, decorating your back’s extent.

Your taint’s repeatedly thwacked, by Joel’s brimming balls. His angle’s hitching, hitting that spot. You’re shrieking, “A–Ah.”

Joel’s accordingly bottoming-out, “Doin’ good. Stretchin’ well. Ain’t it?” His hip’s briskly oscillating, “Good girl. Good pussy.”

You’re shuddering, “D–DaddyDaddyDaddy.”

The pleasure’s pouring. Your cunt’s palpitating; Your spine’s taut. Joel’s resultantly stroking, maintaining his pacing, but drilling harder. He’s licking, crossing your hung jaw-line’s road. His tenderized t-shirt’s feathering, against your exposed nipples, over-sensitively tapering them.

Joel’s rasping, “C’mon. Flood my fuckin’ truck.”

His tone’s arousingly languid. That’s it. You’re breathlessly cumming. Every extremity’s tightening, before blissfully dissolving. Your vision’s brightly impaired. Your climaxing moan’s fractured, as Joel’s ingesting it. His mouth’s restorative, whilst being ruining. You’re whispering, “Flood me.”

He’s whimpering, “Y–Yeah?” A prominent vein’s materializing, against his throat’s girthy rind, “Ain’t wet ‘nough, ‘lready? Greedy hole.”

Then, Joel Miller’s hotly erupting. His length’s flinching. Your fatigued, flittering hole’s wringing him. His aging brow’s bunching; You’re caressing his cinched expression. Your right-side leg’s being removed, amidst the steering wheel’s medial opening. Joel’s comforting, “Hurtin’?”

You’re indifferently shrugging; Joel’s unconvinced. His palm’s expertly massaging your leg’s weary ligament. You’re pathetically sighing, making Joel laugh. He’s kneading your knee-cap’s exhausted muscle, before fingering your calf-tendon’s aspiring knot. You stammer, “T–Thanks, Miller.”

Joel’s questioning, “How ‘bout Lowe’s, ‘morrow?”

You’re grinning, “Sure. If ‘ya sleep-over, tonight.”

#dbf!joel #dbf!joel miller #joel miller #joel miller age gap #joel miller imagine #joel miller one shot #joel miller smut #joel miller x fem!reader #joel miller x reader #joel tlou #joel x reader #pedro pascal #pedro pascal smut #smut

2K notes · View notes

dladto · 6 months ago

Text

Applications of Taper Threaded Coupler in Various Construction Projects

The applications of taper threaded couplers are vast and encompass a wide range of construction projects. These couplers are particularly suitable for projects that require efficient and reliable rebar connections:

1. Tunnel construction: Taper threaded couplers play a crucial role in reinforcing the tunnel structure, providing both strength and durability.

2. Tower construction: In erecting tall towers, taper threaded couplers are used to connect rebars vertically, ensuring a robust and stable framework.

3. Bridge construction: Taper threaded couplers are essential for joining rebars in the construction of bridge structures, ensuring a seamless integration and uniform load distribution.

4. Subway construction: The use of taper threaded couplers ensures strong connections between rebars in subway stations and tunnels, enhancing the safety and resilience of the underground infrastructure.

5. Airport construction: Taper threaded couplers offer a reliable solution for connecting rebars in airport runways, taxiways, and terminal buildings, ensuring the structural integrity and longevity of these critical structures.

6. Nuclear power station construction: The high-strength and secure connections provided by taper threaded couplers are indispensable in nuclear power station construction, where safety and structural integrity are paramount.

7. High-rise building construction: Taper threaded couplers facilitate the efficient connection of rebars in high-rise buildings, ensuring structural stability and enabling the construction of taller and more robust structures.

From tunnels and bridges to high-rise buildings and nuclear power stations, taper threaded couplers are a cost-effective solution that ensures the long-term durability and safety of concrete structures.

#taper threaded coupler #rebar coupler #coupler connection

1 note · View note

truly-quirkless · 1 year ago

Text

"Careful, you might end up jinxing the festival." Toshinori joked, a wry smile crossing his face. He sincerely doubted it- call him crazy, but it felt as though the world was relaxing for now...trying to cope with all the madness of the past few months. The media was becoming more and more of a crazy circus, but things had quieted after the yakuza raid...or at least, they seemed to have quieted.

Of course, Yagi didn't pay as much attention to the news as he once did...so that could have explained why the world felt so calm.

"Alright!" He grinned. He hadn't expected Hizashi to agree- but he'd take it as a plus. Any rest for someone who was yawning up a storm (for that matter, anyone who somehow had three jobs) was good. He held out a small thumbs-up. "You got it.- I'll keep an eye on the time and let you know." And now, he had a task to keep in mind- one the former Hero had no intent of failing. Of course, he might meander on his phone since it would be a few hours...but he still planned to keep the exhausted pro company- and do as he said he would.

"Enjoy your rest, Hizashi." He leaned back slightly in his chair, seemingly sitting up a little straighter.

“Good deal.” Hizashi smiled at getting permission to call him Toshinori. He listened to the other, nodding along “yeah, I don’t know the last time I let loose and had fun in a way that wasn’t directly connected to one of my jobs. So I’m excited.”

“Yeah, I’m planning on having whoever ends up running the games to keep track of how many people do each and what they’re saying about it.” He yawned again into his arm.

He looked up at the other when he offered to watch the time “yeah I didn’t realize I was this tired either.” He laughed lightly before looking at his watch and nodding “I actually think I’ll take you up on that. If you could wake me up about half an hour before the end of school so I have time to get my stuff together to go straight to the radio station I’d appreciate it.” He smiled at the other tiredly and rested his head on his arms.

#Through many battles/I have been tested/I’ve never failed/Never have been bested || Toshinori Yagi #Running into the fire/To pull you out || Verse | Unknown #handsupradiohost #//both of them when they desperately need it: sleep? wtf---#//Yag1 has been given a task to help another he is more than happy-#//why does that somehow feel sad XD #//I assume thread will taper off around here (unless you have more to add) but!#//either way feel free to bug Yag1 anytime XD

28 notes · View notes

bakuhve · 2 months ago

Text

in your light, i rest

leona kingscholar x reader! reader

every afternoon, you read beside leona in the botanical garden- your peace, your escape, and maybe something more.

the campus of night raven college was rowdy, as always. during after class club activity time, the rowdiness seemed to double.

laughter and loud voices spilled through the air, sharp whistles cutting through the chatter of students swarming the courtyard. cleats scraped against pavement from the direction of the field, and the clatter of potion bottles echoed from a window flung open in the science wing. a hum of energy buzzed through the edges of your skull, making it impossible for you to think.

you clutched your book to your side and quietly slipped away from the noise.

reading had always been your escape. a soft, quiet world that you could hold in your hands, one page at a time. in a school where magic surged and tempers flared like firecrackers- where you were relied upon to take care of overblots that could swallow weeks of calm in a single breath- there was something sacred about the stillness found between printed worlds. no danger. just stories that waited for you, always there.

your steps carried you to the familiar path that curved toward the botanical garden, already feeling your shoulders loosen at the scent of the sun-warmed earth and the gentle rustle of leaves ahead. you knew who you’d find there, sprawled in a patch of dappled light like he was born to belong in it.

and just like always, where he was, your peace waited.

the glass walls of the botanical garden curved above you like a cathedral of green and gold. sunlight filtered in through the high windows, casting lazy beams over the jungle of vines and flowers and plants. it was warm in the way only enclosed gardens could be- humid and slow, like the world had decided to stop spinning for just a while.

and there, exactly where he always was, laid leona kingscholar.

sprawled across a sunlit patch of grass with his arms behind his head and one leg bent, he looked more like a lion in the savanna than a student. his tail flicked lazily against the ground, his eyes closed but brows relaxed in that rare, unbothered way he only wore here. you didn’t have to say anything as you stepped inside. you didn’t have to.

“took you long enough,” he muttered, the corner of his mouth twitching with the barest hint of a smirk. his eyes stayed shut. “could hear your footsteps halfway down the path. all stomp and no stealth, as usual, herbivore.”

you rolled your eyes fondly and walked past his shaft of sunlight to sit right beside him in the nearby shadow- close, but not quite in the same warmth he claimed. the grass was cool beneath you, the shade a welcome relief on your skin. you always preferred to read in the shadows. the light was too harsh on your pages, too eager to expose what you wanted to disappear into.

“maybe i wouldn’t stomp if the campus wasn’t full of students yelling about spell duels,” you replied, cracking open your book. “some of us are trying to hold onto the last threads of sanity around here.”

leona huffed, amused. “you picked the wrong school for sanity.”

“tell me about it,” you murmured, your voice already falling into that soft, distant cadence you used when reading. “but at least this place still has you.”

his tail flicked again, slower this time.

“damn right it does.”

your conversation tapered off, fading into the hush that always settled over the garden when you were together. the only sounds that remained were the low hum of insects nestled in the leaves, the rustle of branches swaying gently above, and the slow, rhythmic turning of pages as you disappeared into your book.

you always did that- slipping away into other worlds with such ease. your brow would furrow at tense moments, lashes fluttering as if you were blinking back tears, and then your lips would part in a small and amused smile at whatever line the author had crafted. leona watched it all from under half lidded eyes, pupils blown wider than they should have been. the sunlight brushed against his skin like a blanket while the shadows curled softly around you.

his predator-like gaze trailed up the slope of your cheek, the curve of your brow, the way your fingers tightened slightly when something in the story gripped your heart. you were still. but never unmoving. always changing with the story, alive in a quiet, almost sacred way.

if he was the sun in this little routine for you both- stretching out in warmth and demanding the world bend around his comfort- then you were the moon. cool, quiet, steady. you didn’t orbit around him, though. no, he found himself drifting closer to you, again and again.

drawn in by something softer than gravity and twice as stubborn.

you didn’t even notice him staring until his voice cut gently through the air.

“you make the weirdest faces when you read.”

you blinked, lifting your gaze from the page. “excuse me?”

“not bad weird,” he said, tail swishing once behind him. “just… expressive. like you’re living it.”

you smiled, a little embarrassed but not annoyed. “maybe i am.”

“tch.” he let his emerald eyes fall shut again, arms folding behind his head. “figures a herbivore like you would get emotionally invested in a piece of fiction.”

“and yet you never seem to mind watching me do it.”

he didn’t reply right away, but his smirk deepened just a little.

“cause it’s peaceful,” he said low and quiet. “you’re peaceful.”

his voice came out much more soft, much more sweeter than he had intended.

your eyes flicked toward him, cheeks tinting with a quiet warmth you couldn’t hide. no one had really called you that before- not in a world with so much out of your control, not in a school where magic unraveled at the seams and monsters could be classmates in disguise.

you looked at him for a second longer, heart nudging at your ribs, before lowering your gaze and returning back to your pages. that was the thing with leona. he could make your heart skip with the simplest truth- and then let you go on like he hadn’t said a thing.

a few minutes passed, and then without a word, he shifted.

your breath caught slightly as his head slide from the grass to your lap, his ear brushing against your thigh and one hand curling near his chest. he didn’t ask, didn’t need to. he just knew you’d let him. you didn’t say a word, only adjusted yourself slightly, angling your book so the shade still covered your page.

the lion let out a slow exhale, the kind that meant sleep was claiming him fast.

and before long, you were alone in the garden, except for the gentle rise and fall of his breathing, and the feeling of sunlight giving way to dusk.

when leona stirred next, the world was different.

cooler. quieter. the golden haze of the afternoon had slipped into silvery twilight, and above the glass dome shimmered with moonlight. most of the plants had curled into themselves for the night, and a soft blue glow hung in the air like a dream that hadn’t yet faded.

leona blinked slowly, head still heavy in your lap- and then realized you hadn’t moved.

you were asleep too, breath soft and even, lips slightly parted. your book lay beside you, still open to the last page you’d been reading. carefully, leona lifted his head and peered down at it, more out of idle curiosity than anything else.

it was some romance. he could tell by the way the paragraphs dragged on about heartbeats and trembling fingers and stars caught in someone’s eyes. his eyes narrowed slightly as he skimmed a line.

-his mouth found hers, like the moment had been waiting for them to arrive. soft. sure. inevitable.

he stared at the words, then at your sleeping face. the slope of your nose, the softness of your lashes. the way your lips, even in sleep, seemed to beckon.

predator instincts, they always called it. the lion beneath the man. the part of him that hunted without needing to chase.

but this wasn’t hunger.

this was gravity. this was the quiet pull that he had been feeling towards you since you arrived in this cruel and twisted world- the way you always brought a calm he didn’t know he needed until you gave it.

slowly, silently, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the corner of your mouth.

barely there. a brush of warmth. a secret he let the moon keep.

“even in your sleep,” he murmured, pulling back, voice low, “you make it hard not to fall for you.”

his tail swayed once behind him, slow and content. and then he settled beside you again, resting one arm over your legs as if guarding his claim, and let the night carry you both deeper into dreams.

#leona kingscholar fluff #leona kingscholar imagines #leona kingscholar #leona #leona kingscholar x reader #leona x reader #twst x fem reader #twst headcanons #twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #sun and moon #she will always be his moon

350 notes · View notes

hamilton-here · 2 months ago

Text

𝒱𝑒𝓁𝓋𝑒𝓉 𝒱𝑜𝓁𝓉𝒶𝑔𝑒

Authors Note: Hey lovelies! Here is another Met Gala one-shot with Lewis. I absolutely bombed the exam I did today for a subject, so I think I’ll stick with ranking 2nd in Advanced English…Anyway hope you enjoy. Lots of love xx

Summary: When a rising starlet and Lewis Hamilton share a charged encounter at the Met Gala. One stolen night spirals into a whirlwind of intimacy, headlines, and the possibility of something real behind the glamour.

Warnings: sexual content

Taglist: @hannibeeblog @nebulastarr

MASTERLIST

࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊

The Met Gala had always been a spectacle. But this year, it pulsed with something else. Intention.

The theme “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” was already being heralded as one of the boldest and most meaningful in recent memory.

It wasn’t just fashion. It was reclamation. A symphony of threads and tailoring that spoke of history, joy, diaspora and resistance. Art. Identity. Legacy. This wasn’t a red carpet. It was a runway of remembrance.

And for you, it was your first time attending.

Not your first time being photographed, fame had wrapped itself around you quickly and unapologetically over the last two years.

Your debut album went platinum within months, it’s sound hailed as both sultry and sharp, a new voice shaped from old soul. Then came the film that earned you standing ovations from Cannes to TIFF, your name whispered like a secret the world had just learned to pronounce. You were no stranger to flashbulbs.

But the Met Gala was different. It didn’t care who had a box office hit. It didn’t need a Billboard number one. The Met asked for presence, for interpretation, for myth-making and tonight - you answered.

You arrived alone, by choice.

Your car pulled up to the entrance beneath a wave of glowing cameras, the hum of anticipation already thick in the air. Your stylist gave you one last nod as the door opened, and you stepped out. Planting your heels onto the plush carpet like you were anchoring a story that had waited generations to be told.

The media gasped around you.

You didn’t walk. You glided. Every inch of your obsidian velvet gown caught the light like liquid stone.

It was sculpted, with a high neckline and shoulders sharp enough to cast shadows. The sleeves tapered into long, almost glove like silhouettes and the skirt spilled behind you in organza waves - sheer in certain angles like smoke curling through keyholes. Tiny gold beads were hand sewn into the velvet in patterns that resembled constellations, though only those who knew would recognise them as symbols from African diasporic mythologies. Wisdom. Protection. Transformation.

You were both a woman and a monument. You knew it.

The cameras didn’t stop. They roared. Names were shouted. Flashbulbs erupted like lightning strikes against the buildings facade. You paused mid carpet perfectly and deliberately. You turned your head slightly, and gave them the look. The one they’d put on Vogue’s Instagram within seconds. The one that said, “I’m not here to be seen. I’m here to be remembered.”

And then. you felt it.

Not the flashes, not the crowd. Something else. A shift. Like gravity realigning.

You didn’t see him immediately. You felt him.

It was the kind of awareness that travels through skin before it reaches your eyes. A pull. A hum. Like your name was being whispered in a language you’d never heard, but somehow understood.

And when you turned slow, cautious, like you were afraid it might not be real - he was already watching you.

Lewis Hamilton.

He stood beneath the museum’s lights, mid pose just off centre in a halo of fashion editors and photographers. But he was still. Still in a way that made the rest of the world feel like it was moving too fast.

He wasn’t smiling. But his lips curved like he might. Just for you.

His look was lethal in its elegance. The bespoke cream suit by Wales Bonner hugged his frame like second skin, fluid in cut but firm in posture.

A poetic structure. Gold pins traced the lapel like medals of honor, each representing a Black British. His stack of rings glistened in the light, leaving a spark throughout the room. The chainlink detail around his collarbone caught the light just once as he shifted slightly. Subtle, powerful.

But it was the beret that made him dangerous.

Tucked over his dark braided bun with effortless defiance, it crowned him with quiet authority. He looked like a man who had studied revolution and then tailored it to fit.

And his eyes? They never left you.

For one suspended moment, time held its breath. The sound of voices blurred. The flashes faded to static. There were only two people in the museum’s grand entrance now and one unseen string tying them together across a sea of velvet and marble.

You didn’t look away.

Your chin lifted slightly, just enough to acknowledge him. Just enough to say, “I see you, too.”

His jaw shifted, a slight clench. Not tension, just focus. Like he was memorising you. Like he’d wait through a hundred other introductions just to reach yours.

And then, your cue came.

Your name was called by a nearby handler. The moment still thick with heat shimmered, stretched and finally broke as you walked toward the steps, the hem of your gown dragging galaxies behind you.

You felt his eyes follow.

Even as stylists gathered around him. Even as Anna Wintour herself passed nearby. He watched you ascend the carpet, like you were a prophecy walking into frame.

And for the rest of the night you felt it. Every glance across the exhibit floor. Every quiet step he took in the corner of your eye. The air between you never cooled.

It just waited, patiently for the moment it could ignite.

࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊

The rest of the carpet blurred into motion and noise.

You posed, pivoted and smiled on instinct as if your body was moving like a trained rhythm. Your angles memorised from a hundred other carpets.

Yet tonight, every flash of the camera, every shouted question from the press or every click of a stiletto heel beside you felt muffled. Like the world had been draped in velvet too. You floated through the chaos and somewhere beneath it all, his presence still anchored you.

You didn’t have to look to know it, Lewis was still watching.

Across the carpet, he hadn’t moved much. Just a few steps, a brief handshake, the kind of pauses required by social expectation. But even in the blur of celebrity arrivals and camera flashes, the shift in his focus was obvious. Deliberate. Palpable.

"Over here, Lewis!" “Lewis, give us a smile!” “Look left! Look left!”

But he wasn’t really looking at them.

His gaze, unbothered by the frenzy around him kept finding you. Kept staying on you. There was no pretending otherwise.

And social media, as always had clocked it first.

@f1fashiondaily: Is it just us or is Lewis Hamilton absolutely mesmerised by [Y/N] tonight? 👀🔥 #MetGala2025

 @celebwatcher: This year's Met Gala couple we didn’t know we needed??? Hamilton hasn’t stopped staring at her 😭

 @vogueupdates: The velvet, the gaze, the tension. We’re witnessing something ICONIC unfold between Lewis Hamilton and [Y/N].

You stepped inside the museum with a final camera flash at your back and a steadying breath in your lungs. But his eyes, those warm steady eyes, followed you like a hawk.

Inside, the chaos softened.

Candlelight flickered from golden sconces and low arrangements of wildflowers in jewel tones. The museum air hummed with jazz and murmurs and the exhibit hall glowed with reverence. It felt holy, almost. A sanctum of style and ancestry.

You moved slowly, letting your fingers trail near but not quite touching, a hand embroidered kaftan displayed behind glass.

Everything in the exhibit was curated like poetry. Lewis’s touch as co-chair was everywhere. Each mannequin and spotlighted detail whispering something about roots, revolution and remembering.

You were lingering by a Zoot suit, its lapels embroidered with subtle resistance when you felt him again.

Not a sound. Not a brush of fabric. Just a change in the air behind you, warmth.

“That one was my grandfather’s era,” a voice said low and deep behind you. “He used to say that wearing a sharp suit was like putting on armor.”

You turned slowly.

Lewis Hamilton stood just behind you, close enough that you could see the gold threadwork gleaming along the edge of his collar. Close enough that your breath caught before you could stop it.

He was impossibly composed, yet somehow charged. Electricity in human form.

The soft lighting kissed the sharp cut of his jaw, the smooth cream of his tailored suit. That same gold Ghana pin gleamed on his lapel simple, potent. And his scent - spiced vetiver with something rich underneath, wrapped around you like silk smoke.

“Was he into fashion?” you asked, your voice quiet, but steady.

Lewis tilted his head. “He was into dignity. Suits were part of that. Velvet, especially said it looked like royalty if you wore it right.”

His eyes drifted over your dress, deliberate. A slow, admiring pass from collarbone to train. It wasn’t crude. It was reverent.

“He would’ve loved your gown,” Lewis said. “No question.”

You exhaled a small laugh, part surprise, part delight. “Is that a compliment from you, or from him?”

His grin was instant, slow and confident. “Both. But he’d have said it first.”

Something bloomed between you then, not quite flirtation. Something weightier. Deeper.

You turned back toward the exhibit, but he stayed beside you your steps falling into sync. He pointed out pieces with the casual ease of someone deeply involved but never showy. He told you about the designers, the silent icons and the Black tailors who shaped red carpets without ever stepping on one. His knowledge wasn’t performative, it was passionate.

“I’ve never seen someone wear history so casually,” you murmured, eyes still on a piece.

He looked at you, sharp and sudden.

“You’re doing the same,” he said.

The words wrapped around you with a softness that sank straight to your skin. They weren’t a line. They were recognition.

You tried to respond but found yourself tongue tied in a way you hadn’t been in years. So instead, you just walked. Letting the silence between you say what your words couldn’t.

Occasionally, a flash would break through from the corners of the room, photographers grabbing what they could. A few guests glanced over, murmuring as they passed.

But in the space you and Lewis had created, the rest of the world barely existed.

By the time dinner began and seats were assigned, you found yourselves separated. A table and two clusters of celebrities between you. But he found you across the room. Every time you lifted your head, his eyes were waiting.

It became a silent rhythm; Look. Find. Hold. Release.

Like a game. Or maybe a warning.

By dessert, you’d stopped trying to talk yourself out of it.

Later, as music swelled and guests began to migrate toward private afterparties, rooftop lounges or secret downtown clubs. You drifted toward the museum exit. The cool of the evening air was beginning to pull you back to earth. The night had been more than you expected. More than you were ready to let go of.

And then you heard him again.

“Leaving already?”

You turned, and he was there. Framed in shadow and golden hallway light. Hands tucked into the pockets of his cream trousers, his braided bun slightly tousled now beneath the soft dip of his beret. Jaw sharp. Gaze sharper.

You tilted your head. “Thinking about it.”

His eyes skimmed yours for a long moment, unreadable. Then -

“Come to mine instead.”

Your breath caught, not from surprise but from the calm certainty in his voice. There was no arrogance in the offer. Just the same quiet focus you’d seen in him all night.

“To…?”

He stepped a little closer. Not touching. Just near. “My suite. It’s quiet. No cameras. Better view. Champagne that doesn’t taste like regret.”

You raised a brow. “That your standard pitch to everyone tonight?”

His smirk was lazy as he tilted his head, knowing. “Just you.”

You should’ve said no. Should’ve laughed and shaken your head, disappeared into the waiting black car outside.

But instead, you stared at him.

At the way his eyes held yours like a promise. At the way the air between you had already decided.

And then, you nodded. Once.

“I’ll come,” you said.

࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊

Inside, your body was a riot.

Thoughts blurred into pulses, heat coiling low in your stomach, every glance from Lewis replaying like a highlight reel.

Your skin still burned from the way his hand had brushed your lower back exiting the Met. Or from the slow way his eyes had swept over you during dinner, like he hadn’t already memorised every inch.

Now, in the plush darkness of the SUV the silence between you pulsed with thick tension, magnetic and growing louder with every breath. The soft hum of the engine was the only sound until a curve in the road made your knees brush.

Neither of you moved.

He turned his head slightly, eyes catching yours in the shadow. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. There was something loaded in that look. A question. A promise.

When the car pulled into the private entrance of the hotel, it felt like crossing an invisible threshold.

The flashbulbs were gone. The red carpet miles behind you. Here, it was just shadows and soft light and the heavy thud of your heart echoing in your ears.

He held the elevator door with a hand pressed to the metal, letting you step in first. When he followed, the space felt smaller than it should have. Your back was to the mirrored wall, his broad frame taking up too much air. His scent of amber, smoke, something expensive wrapped around you.

Still, no words.

Just that look.

The doors opened with a soft chime.

The penthouse was warm and modern dark wood, creamy walls, floor to ceiling glass revealing a skyline full of flickering lights. Candles flickered along low tables, already lit by some thoughtful assistant. A single jazz record played softly in the background, the needle slipping through honeyed saxophone.

You stood at the window, arms folding in front of you needing a second to breathe. Your reflection shimmered faintly in the glass, gown still clinging to your frame, makeup still pristine. But inside? You felt undone already.

Behind you, you heard the pop of champagne.

Then his voice, low. “Here.”

You turned.

He was holding a glass out to you, the golden liquid catching the candlelight. You took it, fingers brushing, and the contact sent a flutter down your spine.

You sipped.

“I didn’t think you were the afterparty type,” he said, eyes not leaving your face.

“I’m not,” you answered honestly, lips brushing the rim of the glass. “But you’re not a party.”

His smile came slow, like honey spreading across warm toast. A smile with weight, and heat. “I like the way you say that.”

He stepped closer. Two feet between you. Then one.

“Tell me something real,” he said. “Just one honest thing.”

You didn’t even hesitate. “I don’t let people in like this. Not fast. Not ever.”

He nodded, gaze dropping briefly to your lips before lifting again. “Me neither.”

That look held. Lingering. Wanting.

You stepped into him, fingertips grazing the front of his jacket. The fabric was structured, precise, but beneath it was the steady rise and fall of his chest. “You looked” you murmured, fingers brushing the silk lapel, “unreal tonight.”

His hand found your waist. The heat of his palm burned through the velvet. “So did you. From the second I saw you.”

Then quieter, like he didn’t mean to say it out loud “I couldn’t stop watching you all night. You walked in and it was over.”

You didn’t say anything.

You just kissed him.

His lips met yours with a restraint that lasted all of three seconds. Then it gave. Like a dam breaking, like breath being held too long. His hand slid up your back, then into your hair, tilting your head just right. You moaned softly into his mouth, parting your lips, letting him in. The taste of him was warm, rich and darker, something distinctly Lewis.

When he pulled back slightly, your lips barely apart, you whispered, “Do you want me?”

He exhaled roughly. “I’ve wanted you since the second I saw you. Do you know how hard it was not to touch you all night?”

“Then touch me now.”

That was all it took.

He kissed you again, deeper now walking you backward slowly. You felt the edge of the window behind you. Cool glass against the backs of your arms but the rest of you was burning. His hands found the zipper of your gown. “Let me see you,” he said, voice thick.

You nodded.

He undid the dress with excruciating care. The zipper slid down your spine with a hiss. The velvet pooled at your feet. You stood in heels and delicate lingerie, soft blush rising to your cheeks but not from shyness. From power. Because of the way he looked at you.

Like you were the only thing in the world he wanted.

“Fuck,” he whispered, stepping back to take you in.

Then he was on you again, lifting you easily mouth at your throat, hands firm on your thighs. He carried you toward the bed with ease, laying you down onto the plush sheets like he was setting down something precious.

You reached for his jacket. “Your turn.”

He let you undress him piece by piece. Jacket, shirt, chain and belt. Each new inch of skin revealed made you ache. His body was lean and muscled, inked and golden under the candlelight. When you slid your hands down his chest, he made a sound - low, guttural.

“You drive me insane,” he murmured, lips trailing down your stomach, tongue tracing just under the edge of your bra.

His mouth found your breasts first kissing, teasing, worshiping with slow and deliberate attention. He sucked one nipple into his mouth, rolling the other between his fingers and the sound you made pulled a dark smile from him.

“More,” you whispered, arching into his touch.

His hand slid between your thighs, stroking you through the fabric of your lace underwear already soaked. “I haven’t even touched you properly yet,” he groaned, “and you’re this wet?”

“For you,” you gasped.

He kissed down, tongue finding your inner thigh teasing you until you whimpered. Then he slid your delicate underwear down with both hands and buried his face between your legs.

You cried out, thighs clenching around him.

He moaned into you, slow firm strokes of his tongue that had your back arching off the bed. He held you in place, one hand anchoring your hips while the other splayed over your stomach as he worked you open. You came against his mouth breathless and gasping, fingers in his braided hair with your hips trembling.

But he wasn’t finished.

He slid up your body again, kissing you deeply letting you taste yourself on his tongue. “I need to be inside you,” he rasped. “Now.”

“Yes. Please, yes.”

He entered you in one smooth aching thrust and you both froze for a second, the stretch, the fullness, the pressure of it all hitting at once. His forehead dropped to yours.

“You feel like heaven,” he murmured.

Then he began to move.

Slow at first. Deep. Intentional. Then faster, harder, matching your rhythm as you met each thrust with your own. Your name left his lips again and again, broken and reverent. His hands never stopped moving gripping your waist, your hip, your breast, your throat, his touch everywhere, like he needed to feel all of you at once.

When you came again, it was loud. Shaking. Almost overwhelmed.

He followed with a groan so deep it felt like it echoed in your chest.

You stayed wrapped around each other, trembling and sweat slick, his breath ragged against your collarbone. One arm held you close. The other stroked down your spine.

After a while, he tilted your chin up.

“That wasn’t just the gala,” he said, voice quieter now, eyes softer. “That was something starting.”

You brushed your thumb along his lower lip. “Feels like we’ve been waiting for this a long time.”

“Maybe we have.”

You curled into him. His arms pulled you closer like he had no plans of letting go.

Outside, the city glittered like a thousand unspoken promises. But inside, wrapped in his warmth was something rare.

Not just sparks. Not just heat.

Something real. Something beginning.

࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊

It wasn’t the sun that woke you, it was warmth. The kind that wasn’t just under the blankets, but wrapped around you in the form of a body which was strong and still asleep beside you.

You blinked your eyes open to golden light filtering in through the tall windows. The city had softened overnight. No longer glittering with chaos just glowing. Quiet.

You turned your head.

Lewis lay on his side, one arm flung across your waist with his face buried against your shoulder. His braids were slightly tousled, one soft strand falling across his forehead. The sharp, regal lines of his face had softened in sleep. No cameras, no crowd, no mask. Just him.

Your chest swelled with something that almost hurt.

This was the realest he’d ever looked.

You shifted slightly, and his arm tightened around you instinctively, like his body already knew you belonged close.

“Don’t move,” he mumbled, voice rough with sleep. “You’re warm.”

You smiled. “You’re clingy.”

“I’ll be clingy as hell if it means waking up to this.”

You turned to face him fully. His eyes opened slowly, warm brown still heavy with sleep but focused. On you.

“Hi,” you said, voice low.

He smiled, lazy and boyish. “Hi.”

A beat of silence passed, stretched by the weight of what last night meant. Neither of you had said it yet, but you both felt the shift. This wasn’t just a fling. This wasn’t a drunken mistake blurred by champagne and candlelight.

This was the start of something. And that realisation made the air feel sacred.

“Did you sleep okay?” he asked, brushing a strand of hair from your face.

“I did,” you murmured. “Better than I have in a long time.”

“Good.” He traced a finger down your arm, eyes drinking you in like he couldn’t quite believe you were real. “You looked unbelievable last night. But now? Like this?” He shook his head with a breathless laugh. “I think I’m in trouble.”

You leaned in, kissing his jaw gently. “You are.”

He rolled onto his back, pulling you with him, your body draped across his chest. “I was scared it would feel different in the morning,” he confessed quietly. “Like the night would wear off, and I’d wake up and I don’t know. Panic.”

“Do you?”

“No,” he said. “I feel like I’m exactly where I should be.”

You were quiet for a moment, resting your chin on his chest, eyes on his. “That scares me, too.”

“Yeah?”

You nodded. “Because I wasn’t looking for this. But now that it’s here, I don’t want to pretend it’s not real.”

His fingers slipped under your chin, tilting your face toward him again. “Then don’t.”

He kissed you slow, morning sweet, lazy in the best way. It was a kiss that didn’t rush. A kiss that said we have time. We have space. We’re not running anymore.

When he pulled back, he smiled. “Stay today.”

“I have meetings - ”

He cut you off with another kiss. “Cancel them.”

You laughed against his mouth. “That’s easy for you to say.”

“I’ll make it worth it.” His hands slid under the sheet, finding your waist. His touch was soft, but promising. “Stay in bed with me a little longer.”

You bit your lip, already melting. “Just a little?”

His lips brushed your throat. “I’ll take what I can get.”

And so you stayed.

Wrapped in sheets and skin, exchanging stories and slow kisses, hands tangling under sunlight and soft murmurs. He told you about the gala the nerves, the weight of the night. You told him about how you almost didn’t go. How you weren’t supposed to fall for anyone.

And how quickly, he changed that.

At some point, he sat up to grab a room service menu, glasses sliding onto his nose. You didn’t think it was possible to fall harder until you saw him reading options aloud like he hadn’t just wrecked you twelve hours earlier.

You lounged across the bed in one of his shirts, watching him with a smile.

“I can feel you staring,” he said without looking up.

“Good,” you replied.

When breakfast arrived, you sat cross legged on the bed, eating pancakes and fruit while he fed you bites off his fork and wiped syrup from your lips with his thumb. At one point, your foot tangled with his under the tray and the shared look between you was all heat again.

“Careful,” he warned with a smirk. “I’m trying to behave.”

“Are you?”

“Trying. You’re making it hard.”

You laughed, and he pulled you into his lap, kissing you again. This time, deeper. Hungrier.

The plates were forgotten. The sheets shifted again.

And the day stretched on not in obligations or headlines, but in moments. In touches. In whispered confessions. In the kind of morning you don’t just remember, you relive in your mind a hundred times after.

Because it wasn’t just the night that changed everything.

It was the morning that proved it wasn’t just a dream.

࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊

You didn’t expect it to happen that fast.

By the time you stepped out of the penthouse elevator just past noon wearing sunglasses, Lewis’s jacket draped over your shoulders and yesterday’s heels in your hand. It had already begun.

Your phone notifications pinged. Then again. Then again.

A missed call from your manager. Three texts from your stylist. Dozens of notifications lighting up your lock screen like fireworks. You didn’t even need to unlock it before seeing the words

TRENDING #1: Lewis & [Y/N] — Met Gala’s Most Unexpected Couple

“Oh no,” you muttered.

Beside you, Lewis still cool, composed, but scanning his own screen with a growing furrow in his brow just hummed low in his throat. “Well,” he said. “So much for subtle.”

A black SUV waited outside the private entrance. Paparazzi hadn’t spotted you yet, but it felt like only a matter of time. You ducked into the car beside him, silence swelling between you like a held breath.

Inside, your phone kept lighting up. And you couldn’t look away anymore.

Your name was everywhere.

Photos from the Met Gala red carpet. Zoomed in screenshots of Lewis staring at you from across the steps. A slowed down clip of him offering his arm during the exhibit walk through. The shot of him standing too close as you gazed at a velvet zoot suit. Headlines screamed it -

“A New Power Couple? Lewis Hamilton Caught in Candid Moments with [Y/N]”

“Velvet, Stares, and That Kiss: Sources Claim Hamilton Left Gala With Rising Star”

“‘He’s Never Looked at Anyone Like That’ Fans React to Hamilton’s Rumored New Flame”

And then came the more…invasive ones.

A blurry, grainy shot taken from god knows where Lewis’s hand on your lower back, the hem of your dress peeking out as the two of you stepped into the penthouse elevator. Not scandalous. But intimate. Enough to set fire to the speculation.

“Jesus,” you whispered.

Lewis glanced over. “You okay?”

“I don’t know.” You leaned back into the leather seat, heart pounding in your throat. “It’s a lot.”

“I know,” he said gently. “I should’ve warned you.”

“It’s not your fault.” You looked down. “I just I wasn’t ready to be dissected like this.”

He reached over, took your hand in his.

His grip was steady. Grounding.

“They’ll move on in a few days. They always do.”

You swallowed. “Unless we give them something real to keep watching.”

His thumb brushed over your knuckles. “Is that what we’re doing? Giving them something real?”

You met his eyes. “Aren’t we?”

He nodded once. “Yeah. We are.”

Your phone buzzed again this time, a DM from someone you hadn’t spoken to in months. The kind of message that only came when people sensed the air shifting around you. Fame had always been a double edged sword. Now, it felt like you were holding both blades.

You turned the screen off and placed it face down.

“I don’t want to be part of a spectacle,” you said quietly.

“You won’t be. Not if we control the story.” He exhaled. “You’re not a fling. This isn’t gossip. If people are going to talk, let them talk about how I respect you. How you own every room you walk into. How I’ve never met anyone like you.”

You looked at him, stunned by the honesty, the weight of it.

“But that means stepping into this with me,” he added. “Even when it gets messy.”

You didn’t answer right away. Instead, you reached for his hand again, lacing your fingers with his.

“I’d rather it be messy and honest than perfect and fake.”

He smiled, the tension in his jaw softening.

“Then let them talk.”

The car pulled up to your original hotel downtown - a discreet location, but even from inside the tinted windows, you could see it. A small crowd forming. Photographers with long lenses. Fans holding signs.

You hesitated.

Lewis turned to you. “Want me to walk you in?”

“I think - ” You adjusted your sunglasses, sat up straighter. “I think I want them to see me with you.”

A beat passed. He nodded once.

And when you stepped out, the flashbulbs exploded. Voices shouted your names. Questions flew.

But all you could feel was his hand in yours.

He didn’t let go.

Not when the flashes got too bright. Not when a reporter yelled something about “rumored romance.” Not even when a gust of wind blew your hair wildly around your face, catching your laughter in the chaos.

Because in that moment, standing beside Lewis Hamilton in front of the press, the world watching and spinning madly around you -

And you, weren’t afraid anymore.

#lewis hamilton one shot #lewis hamilton x reader #lewis hamilton imagine #lewis hamilton #f1 x reader #lh44 #x reader #lh44 x reader #lh44 imagine #met gala #lewis hamilton x you #f1 imagine #f1 one shot #f1 #f1 drivers #f1 fic #formula 1 #f1 fanfic #formula 1 fanfic

227 notes · View notes

toolssuppliersinuaedubaiuae · 10 months ago

Text

ABASCOTOOLS IS THE TOP STRIKING WRENCH SUPPLIER IN DUBAI

AbascoTools is your go-to source in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for premium striking wrench supplier in dubai uae. For any one of your industrial demands, our wide variety guarantees accuracy and robustness. AbascoTools delivers exceptional performance and dependability.

#tap set suppliers in uae Dubai uae #taper gauge supplier in Dubai uae #Thread Plug Gauge & Ring Gauge Supplier in Dubai UAE #Dubai

0 notes

midnightquips · 13 days ago

Text

Something Like Salvation

Owen Taylor x Reader

Summary: You visit home reluctantly, only to find Owen Taylor has returned. But some things are different now. No longer are you the obedient girl nor is Owen Taylor the pious golden boy. In quiet corners and long drives, you chase something warm and reckless. It may not be redemption... but for Owen, you felt something like salvation.

🔴 MINORS DNI 🔴 Warnings: 18+ content, religious guilt & themes, explicit sexual content, nsfw, eventual smut, dirty talk, praise kink, semi-public sex, soft aftercare, pwp, piv sex, unprotected sex, mild praise kink, foreplay

Author's Note: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SMUT. Please note that this is set in a universe the Jem Starling DOES NOT exist. Owen is also NOT married here. Although I set this to be in a 2nd Person POV, my entire intention is to establish that Y/N is a full-grown adult.

💫 Something Like Salvation Masterlist 📌 Sign Up for TAGLIST

Chapter 3: The Flesh is Willing

You didn’t go back to the store for the next few days.

Not that it helped. The whole town felt smaller now, tighter, like it was closing in around the things you and Owen weren’t saying out loud. The walls of your childhood bedroom were too thin. The air is too heavy. And even the sky seemed like it was waiting for something to snap.

And then, the silence. Not dramatic. Not announced. Just a shift with texts tapering off until there was nothing. Not even a good morning. Not a goodnight. Just blank space where something electric used to live.

You checked your phone too often, left it on the bed beside you like it might buzz if you looked away. But he didn’t text, and neither did you.

You told yourself it was fine. Insisted that some distance would cool things down. Convinced that maybe it was better to let it fade.

But the quiet was deafening and it clawed at your ribs.

Across town, Owen stared at the same message thread in the last week. His thumb hovering over the message space, then pulling away. Repeatedly. Incessantly.

He had typed out at least five drafts and deleted every single one. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to say something, but because everything he wanted to say felt dangerous.

He wanted to ask if your lips still ached like his did. If you still felt his hands. If you were imagining the same things he was at night, just lying in bed remembering the sound you made when you rocked against him. But he said nothing.

And your reciprocal silence felt like permission to stop trying.

Some part of you always knew it couldn’t stay in the shadows forever. You were proven right soon enough.

The first rumor came from your aunt.

“She said she saw her behind the store,” she whispered to your mother in the kitchen. “With the pastor’s boy pressed close. Didn’t look very holy, if you know what I mean.”

You were halfway down the stairs when you heard it. You froze. Just for a second.

Your mom didn’t say anything. Not right away. Then: “She’s not seventeen anymore.”

It was quiet but nevertheless, cut deep. It made you back up the stairs.

You didn’t go out the next day, or the one after that.

You considered packing and just leaving. You wanted to get in your car and drive until the signal faded and the town was nothing but a story you didn’t tell anyone.

You didn’t want to face your mother, or the stares at the store, or the weight of this feeling. You were reminded why you wanted out of here in the first place.

You sat on your bed, a half-zipped suitcase at your feet, your fingers twisting in your bedsheet.

“Do you have to leave?” your sister asked from the doorway.

You looked up. “I need my peace back.”

She only nods, understanding. The guilt of leaving her behind again weighs on you.

The silence this time felt heavier. Like both of you were holding your breath. Like you were waiting to see if the weight of it would collapse whatever this thing was between you.

But the damage had already begun.

Owen sat in the church office, hands steepled in front of his mouth. The leather chair was too stiff beneath him and the cross on the wall was watching like a witness.

The elder, Pastor Gilmore, leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. The other elders sitting beside him, deliberating how to bestow judgement on him.

“There’s concern,” Gilmore starts.

Another elder cleared his throat. “A few people have noticed you spending time with… someone. A former member.”

Owen didn’t move. “I don’t understand. And I haven’t—”

“She’s a non-believer,” Gilmore cut in. “It’s about perception. You’re a leader. You don’t get the same margin for personal mistakes.”

“There’s no mistake.”

That silence afterward was thunderous.

Gilmore’s mouth tightened. “We’re not here to shame you, Owen. But there are expectations. Boundaries.”

Another elder added, “We’d like you to take some time away from public roles. Focus inward. Pray.”

Owen nodded slowly, jaw clenched so tight it hurt. “Of course.”

No one said your name, but they didn’t have to.

They called it “perception.” They called it “confusion.”

Owen called it what it was: punishment for wanting something they deemed holy.

He kept his face neutral, gaze lowered. He said all the right things. Promised discretion. Boundaries. Reflection. But his hands shook under the table. His pulse didn’t slow until long after they left the room.

He stared at the cross on the wall for a long time, then he reached for his phone.

Still no message from you.

But he typed one anyway.

OWEN TAYLOR: Tell me to stay away. And I will.

It sat there. Sent. Read. No reply.

Owen stared at the screen, thumb hovering.

He typed again:

OWEN TAYLOR: Or tell me you want this too.

You didn’t reply. You wanted to.

You almost did. You typed it out three different ways.

“I do.”

“I can’t.”

“Come get me.”

But you sent nothing.

The next morning, your mom said nothing about the rumors and neither did your sister. But the silence at breakfast was thick, eggs scraping on ceramic, the clink of cutlery sharp.

You cleared your plate and left before you could say something stupid.

Suddenly, Owen was there again.

You were walking the long loop around the trail behind the church, the one you used to take just to get out of the house, just to think. The gravel crunched beneath your sneakers, birds loud in the trees. You were wearing headphones, trying to lose yourself in something else when a shadow broke your focus.

There he was. Like a mirage. Leaning against the split-rail fence near the bend in the path. Hat on, head bowed.

He looked up when you stopped.

Neither of you said anything at first.

Then: “Was hoping to see you here.”

You pulled your earbuds out. “Were you?”

He glanced away. “I didn’t come to ambush you.”

“I know.”

A beat.

“You got my message,” he said quietly.

You nodded. “I did.”

“And?”

You took a slow breath. “I don’t want to lie to you. But I also don’t know what saying yes would mean.”

His brow creased. “It means I’m in this with you. If you want me.”

You took the time to look at him, noticing details you normally wouldn’t. His eyes were tired. His jaw tense. His hands buried in the pocket of his hoodie like he didn’t trust what they’d do if he let them out.

You sigh. “I don’t want to be your downfall, Owen.”

He shook his head. “You’re not. You’re the only thing that’s made me feel honest in years.”

His words hit harder than they should have.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” he added. “And not just the… the physical stuff.”

You raised a brow.

He almost smiled. “Okay. Also the physical stuff. A lot.”

That broke the tension.

You laughed, despite yourself. He finally takes a few steps closer.

“I’m not asking for forever,” he said. “I’m just asking for right now.”

You looked up at him. Your breath is caught somewhere between fear and want.

And then you closed the space.

This time, you kissed him first. It started soft. Careful. Familiar in a way that made your knees ache.

But it didn’t stay that way.

He slowly backed you up against the fence post, one hand cupping your face, the other sliding around your waist like he was grounding himself there. His lips parted against yours, tongue meeting yours.

And you melted. You made a sound — soft, needy — and that was all it took.

Owen groaned into your mouth and pressed in tighter, your hips aligned with his. His hands wandered lower, one gripping your thigh, the other sliding under your sweatshirt, fingers dragging along the bare skin at your back.

“We shouldn’t do this here,” you whispered breathlessly between kisses.

“I know,” he murmured, kissing down your jaw. “But I don’t care.”

His car was parked at the edge of the trail, windows tinted, hidden from the main road. You climbed into the back seat like you both had done it before, like your bodies were already used to folding around each other.

The door had barely shut before his hands were on you again, this time hungry and desperate..

Clothes didn’t come off all the way. Just enough. His flannel shirt shoved back. Your sweatshirt lifted. His fingers found your skin with a reverence that made your breath hitch.

You straddled him, knees digging into the upholstery, dress bunched high around your hips. His hand slipped beneath your underwear, fingers dipping through the heat of you.

“I want you.” he muttered, lips brushing your neck. “So bad.”

You gasped when he slid two fingers inside you, his thumb pressing up against your clit.

“Owen—” you breathed, forehead dropping to his shoulder. “Fuck.”

The sound of your voice saying that word made him groan. You felt him twitch under you.

“Don’t say that unless you mean it,” he rasped, kissing your collarbone. “You have no idea what that does to me.”

You rocked into his hand. “Then don’t stop.”

Your hand found his jeans, working the zipper down, your palm brushing the length of him. He sucked in a sharp breath when you wrapped your hand around him, stroking slow, firm.

He tugged your underwear to the side and lined himself up, waiting.

“Are you sure?” he asked, voice rough and frayed.

“Please,” you whispered.

He pushed into you in one slow thrust, forehead pressed to yours, eyes locked on your face.

You gasped, nails digging into his shoulders. “Oh my God.”

“You feel—God,” he choked. “You feel perfect.”

You rocked your hips, the friction unbearable in the best way. His hands grabbed your ass, guiding you, grounding you. Your name tumbled from his lips again and again.

“You drive me crazy,” he muttered. “You don’t even know what you do to me.”

You leaned in, kissed him hard. “Show me.”

He did. The rhythm he built was fast, along with the urgency and the sweat. You came first, clenching around him with a strangled moan, hips jerking as you buried your face in his neck.

“Come inside. I’m on the pill.” You assured him

His mouth dropped open from the assurance. He followed moments later, groaning into your mouth, hand fisting in your sweatshirt as he spilled into you.

You collapsed against him, both of you trembling, breathless, wrecked.

The car was silent but for the uneven, matching breathing.

You didn’t say anything for a long time. But when you finally looked at him, he was already looking at you.

And that said enough.

You were on borrowed time.

That’s what it felt like. Not like a vacation, but rather a stretch of days pulled taut like thread between fingers, always ready to snap.

You fell into a rhythm. A dangerous, magnetic, honey-thick rhythm that made time bend. Mornings blurred into afternoons. Afternoons faded into dark, and somewhere between phone calls and hidden meetups, you paused the thought that there was an end to any of it.

The picnic was your idea.

A sun-dappled clearing behind an abandoned barn, just outside town. Private. Quiet. You spread a blanket on the grass, unpacked sandwiches and fruit, and kicked your shoes off. Owen leaned back on one elbow, watching you like he couldn’t quite believe you were real.

“So,” he asked between bites, “Austin. What’s it like?”

“Loud. Messy. No one cares if you believe in anything. And there’s a taco truck on every corner.”

He smiled. “Sounds like freedom in the best way.”

You told him about work. The long days as an editorial assistant, spending hours shaping other people’s voices, how sometimes your wrists ached more from typing than from thinking.

“But I want to write,” you admitted. “My own book about what it’s like to leave a place like this. About the grief that comes with freedom. About how belief doesn’t just vanish, rather it mutates.”

He nodded like he understood it in his bones. “I’d buy every copy.”

“I want a cat,” you added. “Fat, dramatic, maybe orange. Name it Judas if it claws my furniture.”

He laughed, eyes crinkling. “You’re doing just fine out there.”

Later, when your head was in his lap and his fingers moved gently through your hair, you asked, “What would you do? If you weren’t here?”

“I think I’d teach,” he said eventually. “Somewhere far. Quiet. I liked Peru because I didn’t feel like I had to perform. I could just… show up. Sit with people. Learn.”

“Why haven’t you left?”

He hesitated. “Because when you’ve been told your whole life that you’re a shepherd, you forget you’re allowed to wander.”

You sat up, cupping his face.

He took your hands into his and tugged you into his lap. “Recently, you make it feel possible.”

There was a pause, something tight and vulnerable hanging in the air. Then, he adds softly, “I always had a thing for you, you know. Before you left. I would've asked your parents to marry you if you hadn’t run.”

You blinked, stunned. “You’re serious.”

He nodded, eyes flicking away. “You were already gone in your eyes. But I would've tried.”

You kissed him before you could say something that would make you both retreat.

It’s soft at first but it doesn’t take long before it’s hungrier.

His fingers dragged slowly up your thighs, coaxing your legs wider as he tugged you closer. Your hands slid beneath his shirt, fingertips brushing over warm skin. He hissed through his teeth. You felt him harden beneath you — sudden, unmistakable. He shifted and groaned.

“You always this distracting?” he muttered.

“I haven’t even started trying.”

Your thighs bracketed his lap, dress bunched around your hips, his palms sliding up your sides. You ground down against the hard line of him.

“You’re gonna kill me.” he rasped.

You reached between you, freeing him, and lined yourself up. He just held your hips steady while you sank down onto him. The moan that left his throat was guttural.

“You feel so good,” he said, voice wrecked.

You rolled your hips slowly, savoring every inch.

“Fuck.” He cursed low and helpless under his breath

It lit something inside you. He watched you gasp the moment he said it. Your hips moved faster, eyes pleading.

“You like that?” he asked, breath catching. “Me losing control like that?”

You nodded. “You sound free.”

That made him moan again, hips bucking up into yours.

“You feel like heaven,” he whispered. “And I don’t even care if it’s wrong.”

You rode him harder while his hands gripped your thighs, fingers leaving bruises.

You came with his name on your lips. Soon he followed, trembling, buried deep inside you.

Neither of you moved for a long time.

The chapel came after. Late. Quiet. Dangerous.

You locked the door behind you and leaned against it. Heart was racing, a mischievous smile on your face.

He stood at the edge of the room, eyes burning.

“This is a bad idea,” he whispered

You walked toward him anyway. He licked his lips in anticipation.

“You think I care?”

You pulled him to you, slowly backing until the back of your legs hit the table, your hands already working at the buttons of his shirt.

He immediately helped you up on the table. Stepped in between your open legs, wrapped it around his waist. The desk is cold beneath you, but his heat made you forget the location entirely.

When he entered you, there was no holiness. Only hunger. He was already too far gone.

“Owen—” you moaned when he thrust into you, full and deep and filthy against the worn wood of his desk.

You hold onto his neck as he sped up.

His head fell back. “You’re gonna ruin me.”

“You keep coming back.”

His hands slid up your thighs, your hips meeting his again and again, the slap of skin echoing in a space meant for scripture.

He kissed your throat. Your jaw. His hand held you by the neck, thumb tracing your lips. You sucked on the tip of his thumb softly, making his breath hitch.

“I want to hear you come,” he said, voice low, commanding.

And you did. Loud, trembling, his name like a curse. He didn’t stop though.

“You’re so fucking hot when you say my name like that,” he groaned, pumping harder. “Say it again.”

“Owen—fuck—don’t stop—”

He came moments later, buried in you, his mouth open against your shoulder, breath ragged. You felt it all. The desperation. The hunger. The part of him that was absolutely unrepentant.

The cross on the wall watched.

You didn’t look away.

Next night, you called him.

“I’m alone,” you said, voice soft. “Mom and my sister are at my aunt’s.”

He groaned. “Don’t tell me that unless I can come over.”

“You can’t.”

“Then why are you calling me?”

You smiled, even though he couldn’t see it. “Because I’m thinking about you. About your mouth. About your hands.”

He could feel you smiling. The idea alone was seduction.

He cursed under his breath and asked softly. “Are you touching yourself?”

“Not yet.” You say breathlessly

He replies carefully, “Do you want to be good for me and get under the covers?”

You obeyed and hum

“Tell me what you’re wearing.” he continues

Soft sheets. Bare legs. A tank top with nothing underneath. You let him know just that.

His voice dropped. “Slide your hand down. Slowly.”

You did. Gasps and breathy descriptions spilled between you. Details of where your fingers were, how wet you were, what you’d do if he were there.

“I’d pin your hands down,” he said. “Kiss you until you forgot your name.”

You whimpered.

“Touch yourself the way I would. Use two fingers.”

You followed, hips rolling, heart pounding. “Owen—”

“That’s it, baby. Just like that.”

You came with a gasp, biting your lip to stay quiet.

And on the other end of the line, he was panting too.

“I’m so hard right now,” he murmured. “I wish it was your hand. I wish I could watch you fall apart.”

“What are you doing?” you whispered.

“I’ve got my cock in my hand,” he groaned. “I’m imagining your mouth. The way you moan when I fuck you slow. God, you sound so pretty—”

He stroked himself harder, breath sharp and frantic now.

“You wanna know something?” he added, voice ragged. “I used to touch myself to the image of you in high school. Just the way you looked in church. I never told anyone.”

The confession wrecked you. “Owen.”

“You have no idea what you do to me.”

You moaned, the sound breaking as you reached your second orgasm, body shaking under the sheets.

He followed seconds later, a choked sound slipping from his throat. “Yes, baby. That’s it. That’s it.”

You both stayed quiet after, breath slowing, the line buzzing gently between you.

You lay there in the dark, hearts thudding in different houses.

And still, together. For now.

You didn’t know what came next.

But you weren’t ready to let go.

You drove out of town just after five.

No destination. Just the slow unraveling of familiar roads behind you. Owen’s hand on your knee while your playlist spilled from the open windows. The scent of his cologne mixing with the warm wind.

You wore a dress that would’ve raised brows back home. It was sleeveless, a little too short, cinched at the waist. But you didn’t care. You weren’t from that town anymore, not truly.

“God, you look…” Owen trailed off, stealing another glance. “Unreal.”

“I live like this now,” you said. “Austin taught me how to breathe.”

You glanced at him. “You know what that town does best?”

He shook his head.

“Cuts your wings. Even when you’re not flying. Even when you’re just trying to land.”

The town you stopped in was much bigger than your conservative town. Open, modern. Fairy lights strung between trees, families laughed over blowing bubbles while couples wrapped in quiet affection.

You chose a patio restaurant with soft music, low candlelight, and a table nestled beside ivy-covered stone. Owen held your chair. You ordered a glass of wine. He watched you like he’d never seen you drink before.

“You go out like this often?” he asked, lips curled into a crooked smile.

“Live? Yeah. I try.”

He stared a moment too long. “It looks good on you.”

You sipped slowly, letting the pause stretch. “Feels good. Like I’m not apologizing for breathing. You should try it too.”

“Was it hard?” he asked. “Leaving?”

You nodded. “The leaving part, no. The staying gone? Yeah. There were nights I’d look around and wonder if I was still allowed to be happy.”

He looked down. “I do that now. Wonder if this,” he gestured between you, “can be real.”

You leaned in. “It’s real. It just doesn’t come with rules.”

For dessert, you shared a piece of cake and laughed when he stole the last bite.

When he reached for your hand, you let him.

When he pulled you close beneath a streetlamp and kissed you, you kissed him back like it was your full-time job.

You checked into a modest inn with creaky stairs and a view of nothing. But the bed was big and clean, and the walls were thick.

You dropped your purse on the floor. He shut the door with his back.

And for a second, you just stared at each other.

Then, you urge, “Come here.”

He crossed the room in two steps.

You turned around for him. Quietly gave permission to help you undress. When his fingers reach for your zipper, you let him tug it down and let the fabric slip to the floor. His gaze tracked every inch.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.

You kissed him then — deep, unfiltered. He groaned when your hand palmed him through his jeans.

He broke the kiss for a second to pull off his shirt, then slowly laid you on the bed. He followed, hovering over you. He kissed your collarbone, down to your chest, and when his mouth closed over one nipple, your back arched.

“Jesus,” you gasped.

His hands worshipped you. Slow squeezes, teasing pinches. You whimpered beneath him when you felt his tongue circling the tip of your nipple then gently sucking.

“You like that?” he asked, voice gravel.

“Yes,” you breathed. “Don’t stop.”

You sat up, reached between you, and wrapped your hand around him.

Owen groaned. “Fuck, baby—”

You stroked him as he slipped his fingers beneath your panties. He found your clit first, rubbing gently, slow circles before sliding one finger inside. Then another.

Your moan cracked open the room.

“Watching you touch yourself would kill me,” he murmured. “Would you let me see?”

You nod before pulling away from him and scrambling onto your back. You spread for him as he knelt between your thighs, watching your hand slide through your slick folds.

“God,” he muttered. “You’re soaked.”

“Your fault.”

You met his eyes, continuing to rub yourself. Your hands didn't last before he leaned down and replaced your hand with his mouth. When he sucked your clit into his mouth, you cried out, hands tangling in his hair.

He licked softly, tentatively at first, making you shiver. It didn’t take long before his tongue moved fervently, coaxing your climax. You came shaking.

He immediately hovered over you after, flushed and hard.

“I need to be inside you.”

“Then don’t wait.” You assured

You guided him in slowly, gasping at the stretch, the fullness. Every inch a revelation.

“Holy shit,” he moaned. “You feel perfect.”

He slowly thrusted into you, both of you watching where your bodies met. His hands gripped your hips like he was trying not to come too fast. His movements controlled, savoring each movement.

You clenched around him, made him moan loudly against your mouth. Then he snapped.

He suddenly flipped you over, pulled you onto all fours, and slid back in with a grunt.

“Owen. Please.” You pleaded at the sensation

He only pulled you up, your back flush against his chest. His one hand splayed over your stomach, the other between your legs again.

“Touch me,” you whispered.

He obeyed earnestly. The hand over your stomach slid up to your breast, the other rubbed your clit.

“I want to feel you come on me again,” he growled into your ear.

Your eyes rolled back as he rubbed faster. Urging.

You came with a broken moan, head falling back, body trembling.

Owen followed with a groan, grinding deep as he spilled inside you.

You collapsed together.

A few hours later, you woke up to his mouth on you again.

The room was dark, but you could feel the heat of his breath, the way he kissed your inner thighs before laving his tongue up and over your clit.

“Owen…”

“I just want to taste you again.”

You were too sensitive, but it didn’t matter.

He took his time, building you up, whispering how good you tasted, how much he wanted to hear you fall apart. When you pulled him up and guided him inside, he slid in slow.

You were on your sides, facing the window. His arm curled under your neck, the other between your legs.

“I’ll never get tired of feeling you come around me,” he whispered.

You took his hand and pressed it right where you needed. “Rub me. Just like that.”

His fingers moved as he thrust into you slowly.

“Don’t stop,” you breathed.

He didn’t. Not until your body clenched tight and you cried out his name.

He came with a rough gasp, arms wrapped around you.

You stayed like that. Sweaty and spent until the sky began to lighten.

You drove home before sunrise. Owen’s hand stayed on your thigh the whole way.

You didn’t speak much, but the stillness wasn’t peaceful. He tried to remember how breath-taking you looked, the air blowing the hair away from your face.

Something had shifted.

The world outside was waiting.

And freedom was never free.

Taglist: @shantellorraine @slvt4her @anxious-alto @irlbaristaoc @re-permadrivercurse @lostwhitebunny @loonysbarn @msbyjackal @lewispullsman @wildflowernightmere @ae-aeitch @dontpulloutman @midnighttithe @sarapixieelliott08 @cloudyzip @yoong1stangerine @crashingout2point0 @alltimelowsuckedmydick @kez-bez @a1exisdelrey

#lewis pullman #lewis pullman fic #owen taylor #the starling girl #owen taylor smut #owen taylor x reader #bob floyd #owen taylor fanfiction #owen taylor x y/n #owen taylor fic #lewis pullman fanfiction

114 notes · View notes

silhouette-cosplay · 5 months ago

Text

The part of this process that everyone has been asking about! The fill stitching!

This is a slow but beautiful technique (16 hours total for this gambeson) and I’m so pleased with how it turned out! A couple questions I’ve gotten already:

- the pink lines are my tree outline in heat-erasable frixion pens so I didn’t get lost in the design, especially where the branches taper off

- I had very few thread ends, because mostly I was just pivoting all. The. Time. Which made it much neater in the back.

- I did have to be careful on the curves of this garment to not flatten them out, so there was a lot of shifting the fabric beneath the foot so that wherever I was sewing was flat and not puckering with excess fabric.

- a free motion foot would also work for this, but I liked having the guidance of the wide foot. If I were doing more intense curves, a free motion foot might be better, but this worked out well for my process.

I hope this is a good closer look at the process for everyone!

#wip: galadriel silver gambeson #galadriel #rings of power #cosplay #lotr #lord of the rings #sewing #quilting

365 notes · View notes

eldrith · 6 months ago

Text

˗ˏˋ A Golden Cup ˎˊ˗ Jacaerys Velaryon

jacaerys velaryon x targtower fem!reader [part four of a golden cage series.] words: 14.2k. synopsis: The chains of faith are not so easily cast aside. notes: we are soooo locking in to trauma in this chap. we are soooo drinking from teacups and gossiping with our friends. we are sooooo going to an awkward dinner party. we are sooooo teaching our boyfriend how to pray. we are sooooo scared & sooooo miserable! this is sooooo unedited! but sorry to the people who are here for smut bc there is none in this chapter. enjoy the plot <3 xoxox (pretend i didn't disappear for half a year tyvm) warnings: emotional complexities. unreliable narrator. maybe premonition. canon-typical violence/blood/injury, angst. character death. religious trauma, all kinds of trauma, inner monologues, kissing and some fluff. doubting religion AND the crown. foreshadowing if that's a warning requests closed. this is for my irl roommate & personal kissing mannequin @dipperscavern . & for the loml & other kissing mannequin @systraes . you are the void i shout to. fate into flesh or whatever they say idk. febu previous. series masterlist. masterlist.

PEACE FINDS YOU IN THE MOST BIZARRE OF CIRCUMSTANCES.

It has followed in every step of life – the moment a foot slips from a stirrup, a smile in the first drop on dragonback. Quiet prayers whispered through the torrential downpour on the night your brother slayed Lucerys; Patient words under the scrutiny of the Queen’s entire court. A hand, unwaveringly gripped around sharp steel as your betrothed pointed his sword down your nose.

Perhaps it is a simple and base instinct, some quiet mechanism within the folds of your skittish mind – or, even more likely, a small cry out for mercy to the gods who watch upon those simply caught in the trappings of circumstance.

You were just a young girl, barely old enough to steadily hold yourself upright, when they’d placed the babe in your arms.

Such a small creature. Fresh from the womb, the Septas had pressed him to your chest, murmuring you would be fine for a few minutes; that you had the wisdom of the Mother already, although you'd hardly seen three name days pass yourself.

His skin was so very soft – wisps of those paled curls, the very same that grow from the crown all your siblings, glinted so gently in the muggy heat of afternoon; little shining threads of gold caught in the glaze of sunbreath.

And that violet gaze, locked up at you; an innocence so premature, so unassuming.

It had arrested you, that gaze: Devotion, love, those pure things which he only just learned and had yet to truly understand. All because he knew not any other way; a warmth that had entrapped you within your mind, reeling to recall any similar expressions of affection from your mother nor father at any point in your small life.

You’d come up with scraps: A half-prideful stare from your father, the whisper of Rhaenyra on his breath; your mother’s approving glance when you turned your nose at the presence of the boys wearing cloaks of blue and curls of deep umber. But Daeron - so little, so loving; it had sent such distraction through you that you noticed not as his skin grew rather flushed against the blanket, as his wails grew louder by the short-passing moment.

Your mother wrapped him herself – that, you’d noticed; in lovely cerulean stitching, etched with small embroideries of towers and dragons – but in your admiration of such needlework, his cries became shallow gasps and wails.

You’d known not what to do; entranced in such a calm, paralyzing shock – you’d never seen such light go out of a gaze, never heard such wails taper into pitiful whimpers.

Fear slapping your spine rigid, a solemn beat of your heart as you stared helplessly, flooded with an arresting, unnatural calm.

The Septas returned not moments later, and you still thank the Gods to this day that they did.

Daeron’s breath had been faint – and later that night under the blanket of dark, you’d wondered with tears in your eyes if he’d gone and met the Stranger while still in your hands, if just for a moment.

But the Septas returned.

The blankets had been ripped away and you’d remained in the corner, hands frozen still in the shape of his little bundle, eyes wide and fingers trembling. There’d been nothing within your mind as you watched the Septas scream for the Maesters, as they rushed to cool the expiring soul of your young brother – a wash of calm, in the fear that’d gripped you so tight.

You’d not understood until much later - only when the Septas whispered while you hid behind curtains thicker than your hair. He’d nearly died.

After all, one should know better than to trust children with children.

“Princess.”

And her voice comes to you in a song; or perhaps, a warm memory of silkspun silver tresses and a dreaming gaze – of gentle hums, of clicking legs, of fingers tracing delicate wings through golden cages.

“Princess.”

You swear, you could feel her fingers trace your spine now-

“Princess.”

Your eyes open; less than startled, though your inhale is sharp from your nose.

The tub is warmed with water, and you are bathed gently within it. Your sister is beside you, her gown a deep charcoal; a shade of burnt ash, of rusted spikes somewhere far below where you sit.

Her vision swims in the reflection of your bathwater; You suck in a breath.

“Helaena.” You whisper, blinking away the smudged drops of bathwater from your face.

A quiet moment.

“Pardon me, my Princess?”

Your blink is languid – water sticks to your lashes, clotting your vision until your sweet sister beside you nearly looks like a spider; then, she is a snake – a strike of fear, and sharp spokes which jump up towards you at the end of a long path, and you’re falling – another blink, and you jolt.

Helaena is gone; instead sits Elina, your handmaid. She watches with widened eyes as she tends to your tresses with a comb and soft hands.

A gentle shake of head, the motion snagging a tangle within the spokes of the comb – but you do not wince, eyeing the girl beside you with a bizarre stare. The world is cloudy; not only the skies above, but your own vision, your foggy mind.

“I’m–” You blink again, fighting a sheepish fluster from your cheeks – two other girls in your chambers attend to you, as well. One, scrubbing your nails, the other across the way, preparing evening tea – and they too have paused, hands slowing as they turn to watch you with owl-eyes.

Your lips flounder for only a moment. “Pardon me. I thought… I was recalling memory, I suppose. Of… the Red Keep.” You admit dreamily – you’re unsure why you admit such foolish delusion, though the two girls beside you keep their eyes focused nonetheless.

The maid across the way quickly turns her head away when you seek her; and with quick fingers, she pulls her sleeves over a glimmering spider’s silk scar. An inkling of recognition, slipping away in the afternoon breeze; she measures a dark red herb into a small steeper before the ridges of her spine straighten slowly. Outside, a bird calls. It sounds like a cry.

“Have you slept much as of late?” Elina wonders from beside you, a wisp of blonde peeking from her tied hair. She is a sweet girl – the fondness you hold for her is one tinged with only a piling guilt these days, one which adds in each passing moon. You clear your throat, unoccupied fingers trailing through the ripples upon the water.

A spiced aroma grows within the steamed room – the handmaid has begun pouring your tea, and it bleeds a crimson colour into the teacup. A flash of familiarity in the sweep of her face, though you blink and it is once again gone; It is not often you do not particularly recognize one of the members of household, though perhaps as of recent, such politeness has gotten away from you.

“Forgive me,” your voice is a dream of a far away land. “The Queen’s council has left me…weary this evening.” You admit, sighing.

In the quiet passing of time, eventually your nails and body are cleansed; your mind troubled with thoughts of marriage – but more so with lips, cherry and bitten, with a voice low and murmuring; with a warm gaze turned sharp in the fall of eve; of whispered words and promises in a room floating with ancient dust.

With a quieted voice, you dismiss the maid to your right.

Only moments before the tea is set for you, its tendrils curling up viciously and out towards your open window; the scent is spicy, foreign. “Is this a new blend?” You wonder aloud - the girl with skittish eyes nods, a small squeak from her throat, “Yes, Princess.” She affirms. “A gift from the Queen herself. In congratulations.” Her voice warbles, fingers twitching – a vision of nerves in court, of fingers against a dress of gold.

And there, in the mirror of her anxiety, is that phantom limb once more; a memory lost to a life that is far gone now.

You hum, transfixed on the steam which curls out in spools over the stone table beside the tub. A peculiar gift from the queen – the tea swirls opposite the steam of your bath, and its scent tethers you to the heavy pull of your spine. Your stomach rumbles in interest.

She bows and takes her leave; it is not until you are once again alone with Elina that you speak once more. Through the peace of eveningfall, you ask her of her love again – and as always, she flushes like a rose.

The island breathes in green, slowly blinking a sunset of orange and pink; Elina whispers of the boy she loves as tendrils of scented oils climb into your nostrils and soothe the aches in your muscles. It is a tale she has amused you with many times but one you have not grown weary of either.

A fisherboy from the east coast of the island – a sweetheart since her age of ten, if there ever was such a thing; he has brown curls, an upturned nose, and a laugh like the raucous sea.

Though times have indeed changed, perhaps just as much for the common folk as for you in your ivory castles; with the influx of wartime supplies to the island across the sea, she must only dream of him now; and her tales of youthful kisses and chivalrous walks upon a shoreline grow melancholy as you stare out the window before you, Moondancer’s shadow echoing in the rippled waves of the tides far away.

In the dawn of her tale, she murmurs gently, eyes glancing to the shore. “He says he’ll marry me after the war’s end.”

It is quiet for a long moment. You find nothing to say to her words.

It does not last long – after the final whispers of his name die on her tongue, she clears her throat, endeavoring to wrangle through the knots and tie back your hair. “Something troubles you, Princess.” There are more words waiting on her hesitant tongue; she does not release them.

It is a moment of gathering thought in which you decide she is far more friend than anyone else upon this rock – and that, even without her station, perhaps she’d endeavor to listen to your troubles anyways. “It was decided this evening,” You inform her in a rather formal tone, “that I am to wed Prince Jacaerys after all. Our marriage will be quite soon, and before all of the smallfolk on the Island.”

And then, an afterthought as you gaze to the peeking wander of ships headed west, “perhaps Driftmark, as well.”

Her hands slow in your hair, breath puffing upon the crown of your head. “-That is… quite wonderful news,” She agrees, though her tone bleeds through false words; she knows you all too well, it seems. “A royal wedding will bring a much welcomed recess from the times we live, my Princess.”

Her words fall hollow into the empty chasm of your wounded heart. Sardonically, you smile to your sullen reflection in the pooled bath below. A wedding… while the kingdom prepares to bleed.

Words, those buzzing pests of voices from the council not an hour past: “-And we are to assume that a royal celebration might distract the masses from the acts committed? From the war that brews?”

There’d been sharp looks shared at the news of you and Jace’s resurrected betrothal at council this afternoon; half-surprised, half-concerned glances from both your cousins across the Painted table, though you could not bring yourself to return their gazes. For Daemon’s stare, much too hot and much too amused, burning into the side of your visage; the slippery serpent he is, eyes glancing between you and Jacaerys, taking in the rigidity of your spines with a mirthful glee.

It would have been more excruciating yet had not the discussion been propped by more relevant topics to discuss, as to the efficacy of your union having any effect at all on the tides of war.

The realm watches, Lord Corlys had assured, many lords await the wind to tip the scale. Their marriage is not about turning heads.

Indeed, it is not - and such a burden even in youth, your betrothal was: A thin bridge held together by the grasp of youthful hands that did not wish to touch, an abyssal gap fractured into splintered verdant and carmine shards.

And in these more forgiving moments, when you may wish to let yourself down easy; what an inconsolably crushing weight on shoulders no older than ten and two. For all of those nights you spent lying awake upon sheets of down, wondering up at the swimming dark of the ceiling why the gods had chosen you as your mother’s branch of olives - as your father’s forgotten dove, the small creature who’d always been seen as the shadow of others.

This marriage is not about turning heads, Lord Corlys is correct. Now, it is about swaying swords.

And the thought had been floated – a fickle thing, some brush by way of wind through the chamber doors – boats, they’d said. Tidings.

“-to cause a shift. The Sea Snake’s blockade at the Gullet strangles the trade routes. King's Landing starves, yet Aegon dines easily in the Keep.”

Indeed even now, in the syrupy aftermath of the council, you must admit it is a clever move.

“Along the wedding celebrations, we send boats – as far as the Capital.” Though it’d been your own voice speaking such words, there coils such gripping guilt within you. And there’d been Queen Rhaenyra, nodding solemnly. The boats, to be laden with food - grain, salt, preserved meats; a gift from Dragonstone, tidings from a fruitful green and black union.

Their rightful Queen’s heir; a gift from him and his new wife, the Prince and Princess of Dragonstone.

In recollection, your brows furrow. “There is much more to be done than attend some wedding. It surely is not of much interest to the smallfolk in these times.” You sniff, brushing hair from your face in the swirling quiet. “Especially for the Usurper’s sister.”

The hand within your tresses pauses at your words; for a moment, only the sea breathes. “But the smallfolk love you.” She sounds nearly startled by your words, as if the sheep of thought had yet to cross her mind’s pasture.

You’d laugh, if you had the gall - the smallfolk? The smallfolk have never had the luxury to hate you, nor to love you; never truly had much power to do anything but bend beneath your heels. It is how it has always been.

In youth, a procession had spurred your urge to reach towards a commongirl who had called your name. The sun was high in the sky, and she, a girl of your age – it was then that your kinslayer brother had ripped you back into the cart with a sharp glance. They do not love you, he’d snarled; They are dogs at the foot of a table. Grateful, for scraps discarded from the hands that feast.

As it is, you are incredibly discomforted by Elina’s words, and perhaps it shows on your face – for she falls silent, instead beginning a series of braids from the crown of your head.

“The smallfolk endure us.” You murmur, “Because they have to.”

She does not much respond, and in the silence you hear the voices of the council, reverberating in the breaths from your lungs.

“In every tavern, at every hearth from here to Stoney Sept - the people will speak of your union, of your generosity. The Queen’s heir and his wife – gifting the smallfolk with life.”

Perhaps it is the most prevalent way to avoid bloodshed – noble bloodshed, that is – though it sits incorrectly in your chest. “A gracious gift – the masses will surely remember the ones who saved them from the crimes of war.”

Moondancer flies across the setting wildfire of eve, and you grow more pensive and dreadful by the minute.

“Your tea grows cold.” Elina observes with a concerned glance.

You cannot help the faint smile that befalls your visage at her concern; though you have no interest in its contents, you see her lingering stare, the interest in a pursing of lips. Steam spills from the saucer – it smells of wonderful spices from Essos.

“You have it,” you decide after only a moment, eyes fluttering shut as she finishes the braid upon your left temple.

You feel her hesitation in fingers, hear it in the surprised giggle she belies. “Oh, no, my Princess, it is for you.”

You smile at her uncertainty, keenly aware of her similarities to the golden-locked sister you left across the sea. “I insist, Elina.” You nod, gesturing to it, eyeing the tendrils of steam which rise from your heated skin. “Go, now. You must have it, it smells much too pleasant to be wasted.”

Her grin is bright when she gives in – and with a giggle that you nearly reciprocate, she lifts the teacup to her lips; a long sip, one which heats her cheeks perhaps at the action of using utensils higher than her station. Her flickering eyes and giddy cheeks are endearing – the tea is red upon her lips for only a split moment as she pulls it away.

She enjoys her cup while you leave the bath – a preparation she aids you with while still reposed by the table upon your insistence; supper has been called, and you must meet your family once more for a rather excruciating celebratory feast.

Despite your trivial woes, the evening falls in serenity; you, Elina by your side, sipping gently on tea and whispering about the beasts in the sky.

YOUR GAZE FINDS HIM BEFORE HE IS EVEN AWARE.

Jacaerys, with a templed posture down the flickering hall, a soft clinking of fine leather and metal. A set jaw, one that turns in his sweep – and then eyes of amber find yours. There is a light within them you can still yet see, like feathery papered wings, drawn to your own flickering flame.

A less hurried stride – though no less purposeful than your own – Jace slows his pace when your eyes lock, far enough that his tousled curls blur around the edge of your vision.

Beneath the sleeves of your mahogany gown, your fingers pluck at skin; you still your own pace, swallowing under the weight of silence heavy around you.

There’s a brief moment of recognition, some momentary breath from both parties – and yet after a glance from both pairs of skittish eyes, the hall is deemed empty of lingering stares.

And quite rapidly, the distance between you and your betrothed shortens.

It is bizarre, your pull – and yet you stop only a step away, closer than you’ve been since the Painted Table this afternoon in such heated fervor.

A twitch in his hands, a shift of his weight – he is rather awkward now, and you bite your lip as you both hover in the middle of the stoned floor. Your hands ache to feel his heat, though you linger in your yearning, waiting with baited breath and heated cheeks.

Your name, syrupy and unsure, is the only thing to fall from his lips.

The Prince’s eyes flicker between your own, head declined just enough to stare straight into your own gaze. You’re arrested only momentarily before you snap back to the present, clearing your throat – a rush of heat through you at the soft turn of his gaze, the downturn of his brows that more than likely mirrors your own expression.

There is so much to say.

“Hello.” You select dumbly; though it is received with a small flicker of amusement, some repressed grin that yields a soft turn of dimple in his grin.

“Hello,” He echoes, and it is too much at once – his soft echo of your own awkwardness, the huff of amusement you share. Your face turns hot under the memories of activities held in common between you just hours ago, at the stupidity of your hushed tones, the odd giddiness as if between childhood lovers finally permised to embrace: But that is, as ever it could have been, not the case.

And then, in the groaning whispers of falling nighttime, in the empty hallway, you and your betrothed reach an understanding.

Dark eyes turn upon yours and you sway just so upon your feet, unsure if speaking would worsen this feeling that dances on the tip of your tongue.

And when he is quiet, when he is just as unsure of what to do as you are, he is so very handsome.

A curved jaw, the turned slope of grace he shares with his mother; and a fire within his gaze that sets you warm. Are you truly of the opinion that my actions are driven by nothing more than desire?

Your lips press tight as you cast your glance away, the chiding ramble of your mother in your mind: Rather hypocritical. You sin.

Your inhale is sharp; the amber that flickers over your face, a look twisted in pity – you clench your teeth, clearing your throat. “Jace.” You perhaps plan on guiding your foolish jolts towards conversation in a certain fashion; though his brows lift, a flash of concern through his stare.

His lips, glossy upon the light of torches, press together in some twistedly alluring mix between a smile and a frown.

A hand finds yours; palm warm, soft against your own, and it sends your mind reeling; so delicate a touch. Your brows lift only slightly, fingers lacing with his own after your eyes flick over his tailored shoulder warily.

“Are you…” He does not continue for a brief moment, instead urging closer with half-step — your spine straightens, swept in the woody scent of the forested Dragonmont that accompanies his presence, towered by his imposed height, charmed by the searching warmth in his eyes. “-are you alright?”

He finishes his canvassing in a bent whisper, with knitted brows and pouted lips. After all, it is an odd question — one you’re unsure how to answer; and it lingers, heavier than perhaps it was proposed. Yet Jacaerys waits patiently, teeth worried within the cushion of his bottom lip.

The sting of embarrassment — of a hawkish stare from the rogue prince, the shame, the stupidity of limbs tangled in the dusty light of day — a spoil of some war of bodies upon a table, of fingers knotted in desperation.

And your answer comes easy as ever in a nod and a forced, falsified fable, a lie so often told through your teeth. “I’m fine,” You murmur, “Are you?”

Perhaps it is this moment it hits the prince before you; with a gaze that trickles in a slow leak to the floor separating your pointe shoes from his own boots, he hesitates.

“…I’m not sure.”

It’s a vulnerability; a gaping wound, putrid flesh forgotten in the sun, that festers with each passing day — I don’t know, you agree — I don’t know, but I am scared.

It has never done well to reopen a wound not yet healed.

Your thumb runs over roughened knuckles, his fingers twitching within your grasp, jolting at your very faint touch, though you pretend not to notice.

He seems to find words to fill the absence of sound in the halls. “It’s been some time, but I… tried speaking to them.” His eyes flick away as red lips press together. Your stare must be a breath too blank, for he continues, “–The gods,” He elaborates; your brows raise at his candor. “I suppose for some guidance.” He decides.

His words find you with surprise; not particularly due to what he says but rather for the sheepish way in which he delivers the information, as if unsure how you’ll react. He searches for something, you realize; perhaps the same very thing absent in your own heart.

His eyes are wide, specks deep through a ring of ambered honey – though some twisted thing, that same seed that unfurled and sprouted within your older brother; that envy – it blossoms in your chest, unruly and vicious.

“The gods don’t listen,” you retort swiftly, a sardonic grin flickering miserably across your smile.

His head tilts slightly, eyes narrowing in faint surprise; it’s only now that you register your previous words, a slithering lick of shame curling up your spine.

“No?” Jacaerys wonders – a flicker of surprise that you are not foolish enough to believe is any semblance of disagreement; rather Jace’s preconceived notion that you ring true still among the devout.

Your cheeks are warm, and his eyes are low upon your face. Does he see your mother staring back at him?

A clearing of your throat as you nod, “Not to me, at least,” the edge of your voice is mercifully smoothed by something almost playful; your fingers shift within his grasp, brushing over the calluses on his knuckles. “Perhaps you’ll have better luck, my Prince.” You smile – and though he delivers a less than skeptical look, you’re thankful for his restraint.

And of course, the very dimple of his you so admire blossoms upon his smile when he looks down in the scarce light. “Let us hope then, Princess.”

And despite yourself, a jump within your stomach at his tone, a skip in your heart. Some giddiness, perhaps in reaction to the dread which surrounds the castle, leaks through your chest.

As though deciding within his mind, he looks back to you, clearing his throat. “I know that– that we’ve not had much time to ourselves,” He starts, “Though I’d hoped we could–”

But as his mouth opens once more, footsteps: A sharp laugh muffled only by the separation of stone walls; and then your cousins round the corner, their smiles bright.

Perhaps through some instance of habit, your hands drop each other immediately – you, pulling back and Jacaerys taking a half-stagger towards the wall at the startle as if mere children caught stealing bread from a feast table – both of you glancing down the hall with burning visages.

A weak breath from your lips as you clear your throat uncomfortably, nodding to them as they wave down the tunneled hall.

But Jacaerys’s invitation, half-swallowed by the ignominy of unexpected company, still draws necessity from your gut. “We should, Jacaerys,” you agree with a murmur, sending him a small nod as you turn to him once more.

He need not elaborate; you know well enough he wishes to speak in private. “Perhaps on the morrow?” You suggest, fighting the tension of strained courteousness.

A press of his lips in a concealed, tight-lipped smile brings forth a dimple to the curve of his cheek; a flutter at the sight as he casts his gaze down once more, awaiting your approaching cousins as their conversation tampers to greet you.

DINNER AWARDS NO REST OF TENSION FOR YOU AND JACAERYS.

The hall’s table is set in a long stretch; The scrape of dishes against forks, the crackle of the hearth – you drown in it, not well used to such calm manners of gathering; more oft than not since you arrived upon the island have the feasts with the crowned family ended in sharp tongues and bitter stares. Such instances are, momentarily, absent from the dinner tonight.

Candles drip tallow slowly from their silvered limbs across the walls, backlit and outshined by the bright licks of peat flames – and you, sewn together by the numb acceptance of change, resign quietly in your chair to be gawked at in some form as plans are proposed, rather casually, for the location of your upcoming union to Jacaerys.

At the head Queen Rhaenyra sits – and with a fold of her hands, nods towards a proposed setting. “Perhaps we hold the ceremony here on Dragonstone," she suggests, “Once more, a Targaryen marriage on Targaryen soil.”

It is a thought you’d given little attention – spare for this afternoon as Elina had sipped upon your tea and you’d laid your eyes to watch the free churn of silvery purple wings against the sun in the distance.

And a voice from aside Queen Rhaenyra, slumped in the frame of his chair. “I might remind you that the sept here isn’t exactly grand. It gathers dust with each day.”

The mention of the Sept bristles you; There is a rippling agreement through the table, though with a spare glance to your side, you find Jacaerys fixated upon the vegetables before him, eyes far-off and consumed. Rhaenys carries the same bemused practicality as you’ve always known within her as she begrudgingly agrees with your uncle. “Nor has it seen a ceremony in years. It could hardly hold enough folk for our intentions.”

And the thought of the sept – its cold, hardly adorned walls which whisper in echo to your own quiet prayers; a place uninhabited by any besides the Septas and your own festering thoughts.

The goblet in your hand is gilded with curves of thorned flowers along the base of the cup, your visage corrupted and warped in the golden reflection. You can only stare back at your warped countenance in hopes the conversation will soon end.

It is your cousin’s voice from across the way which gains your attention next, as the contents of your cup slip into your stomach. “It may gather dust,” Rhaena agrees rather gently, casting a quick glance at you, “But it’s hardly abandoned.”

And if the many pairs of eyes were not already upon you, they find you then; Lord Corlys, sitting at the far end of the table, hums.

“There is but one person who keeps that sept from falling entirely to ruin.” His eyes land on you not unkindly – and perhaps in desperation, you find some kind of warmth in his words, as if to acknowledge a quiet dedication he perhaps admires, or simply acknowledges. Your cheeks burn in the shadow of the woman left across the sea, who sits dowager and whispers prayers into the wind of your dreams.

Though in turn of their intentions of setting you at ease, the thought sends a new wave of guilt swirling through you, well-aware of the true purpose of visiting the sept so habitually.

A faint smile curves on Baela’s lips, and she leans forward. “Perhaps it would be appropriate, then? Breathe new life into it, make it…” Though it seems any hope leaves as she trails off, aware of the tepid spirit that surrounds the wedding, of the uncomfortable breaths that fall in tandem from your lips and Jacaerys’.

“...Sacred again, in a way.”

The thought is wholly unpleasant to you; perhaps in your mother’s stern voice in the back of your mind, whispering sharp daggers of criminality into your veins.

Daemon chuckles softly, a sardonic smile tugging at his mouth as he glances at Rhaenyra. “Forgive me, but the future king and queen marrying in a sept nearly swallowed by time is hardly a fitting legacy.” His gaze flickers to you, as though assessing how you might take such a slight; you level him with a stare mirrored in equivocation. The king consort lifts a shoulder. “We’d hardly want it to feel like a funeral.”

A needle carefully placed to sew a new line, red and thin. He aims for the eyes with his sharp point; some stirring amusement within his stare that causes your stubborn proclivities to roar, but you know better than to let temptation unravel you. People much worse than him have tried.

We’d hardly want it to feel like a funeral.

“If it were more frequented, perhaps it wouldn’t feel as such.” You choose instead of the lash of tongue you reign in; the words are sharp and whipped relentlessly – a vision of your mother in green, spilling her words from your tongue as easy as letting a breath into your lungs.

The table falls quiet at this, and in a cold wash of shame, your eyes fall back to the table.

Around you, wary eyes flicker; in a sickness bouting through your stomach, a youthful Jacaerys’ words follow your echoes: It’s like she opens her mouth and her mother speaks through it.

It is a moment in which shame floods the features of your face; and you, awkward as a newborn doe, swallow back your pride.

The room is quiet, but through your embarrassment you register a sudden pressure against your leg; A warm surprise of pressure against your calf.

It is, in a moment of breath, merely a boot sliding against your gown and pressing against your leg under the table. A gesture of reassurance. It is your nature when your gaze flicks momentarily to the prince sat beside you – his jaw remains terse but his gaze has grown quite warm when he returns your glance.

A small nudge from him in the quiet moment; and with a swallow of affinity, you nudge Jacaerys back. His lips twitch just so; you pretend not to notice.

It is only a breath of a moment after that you realign your face into a more serene expression – and with that, you feel a tinge of pride, breathing through the ravaging sea of spite that crashes against the cliffs of your heart. The blood of a Hightower is thick in ambition, you’d once heard Lord Corlys say; perhaps, he is correct.

The smile upon your face might be plastered, but it is radiant.

“Apologies. Though I appreciate the dramatics as always, Daemon,” You address the man with a thinly veiled tone of respect, “Perhaps we should find somewhere… more large. Alive. To gather a larger crowd of folk.”

It is the smallest of gestures — a soft victory within some inlaid battle of words — but you sense Daemon, for all his sarcasm and derision, recognizes it as such. His mouth curves slightly, but the tilt of his eyes does not soften, nor does the rest of Jacaerys’ foot against your own slide away.

There is a brief silence at the table as the meal is served; roast lamb, stew with wild rice, fish – and a few more cups of wine for you and your intended both – in which Daemon proposes a toast.

“To the realm’s future,” He lifts his cup; the others follow suit, as you lift yours with a stare burnt into the man’s jaw. “And to the union of our future King and Queen. May you have a long, happy marriage.”

The words from his lips have scarcely fallen before you see the tense ridge of Jacaerys’ spine, one which straightens your own in a rise of hackles. It is a harmful thing, really – and with a practiced grace, you and Jacaerys both receive the toast with smiles and kind words.

And it would be a lack of verity if you said you did not feel a growth of warmth through you when Jacaerys turns his cup to you, sharing a small glance and smaller grin.

It is a private thing, a quiet moment: A hand, reaching across a tumultuous river. You grasp it back with a clink of your goblet to his own.

The dinner rolls on; the sun is well past its set into the horizon, and even with the light of candles brings you a breath from the oppression of daylight. The food is hearty, enjoyable – it is unlike the many times you’d sat at this very table, surrounded by eyes which saw you a serpent.

And the poison which drips from certain cups this evening is not that of distrust; nor those of old wounds well festered and sored: No, they are instead some foolish urge to prod a slumbering beast, to dangle a fool by his ankle atop a spire and laugh.

In a shimmering glance away from your warped reflection in the boat of gravy before you, a voice brings you to the surface. “I’d assume it would,” Daemon agrees half-heartedly to some forgotten sentence from his daughter; he sits forward, “Though there is much to plan for beyond merely the smallfolk. We must gather arms from the Houses, as the Prince reminded us at council earlier.”

At the mere mention of his title, a stiffness grows once more in Jacaerys’s gaze, though he tamps it down with a measured exhale; a rather thin line to thread now, as you stir your tea and watch its tendrils of steam crawl from its cup.

“All is merry to plan a wedding. Though perhaps some of us will find some plans to put our passion to good use beyond the Painted Table.” a glance to you and Jacaerys both, his eyes mirthful, “Yes?”

A moment too late you register your own irritation; the gall of your uncle to believe he has any right to dangle such foolish deeds over your heads – as if he himself is any vision of the Father.

The thread has been pulled; Jacaerys unravels shortly.

“–If you have something to say, Daemon,” Jace’s voice is controlled in that threadbare way it can be, and his jaw is clenched sharp enough to reflect the light of the hearth behind you. “–then speak plainly,” His voice is low and volatile, “We all tire of your riddles.”

In a rush of shock – or perhaps worry, should Daemon take Jacaerys’s challenge in its face-value, your hand flies to the side.

You find yourself grasping Jace’s forearm below the table, a warning or comfort - Perhaps something in between.

His hand flexes just beneath your grasp, though he does not shake it off.

Murmurs and clink of silver slow around the table; your eyes meet the Queen’s, and with a helpless blink, you look away. In the wake of Jacaerys’ hiss, Daemon’s brows lift, eyes flickering deviously between you and Jacaerys. “Dare I?” He wonders, the sparred bounce of gazes at the table alarming you. “I merely remind us all, there are matters to consider besides the wedding. After all, some bonds are forged long before vows are spoken–”

“-Enough.” You snap; it is a sharp whistle of wind over a peak, though it does enough to quell the tension that courses through your betrothed’s muscles.

“Right,” A voice deep from down the table, and Lord Corlys shifts upon his seat, “There are more pressing matters at hand than whatever game you’re playing.”

Daemon chuckles under his breath, lifting his goblet again in mock surrender towards you, murmuring into the rim, “Pressing matters indeed.”

Your blood boils; but in lieu of any burst of emotion, Jacaerys simply turns to you with a gaze more molten than honey atop a boilpot; an exasperated glance, one of disbelief and a vague sense of panic.

You respond with a subtle, helpless shake of your head – an acknowledgement of your shared misery, one that nobody else in the room is keen to. And then in some exasperated moment, a flicker of amusement in his stare, shared only with you. You share it in return.

An odd thing, to keep close the simmering truth, a thing so wrong and iniquitous. Jacaerys takes your hand and squeezes it gently under the stone table before dropping it to reach for his cup.

And though the conversation around you carries on rather rocky, you bathe in the silence for the remainder of the dinner.

JACAERYS ACCOMPANIES YOU AFTER THE FEAST.

Though not explicit, you see the glint in Rhaenyra’s eye when he offers his arm to you – and it is not until you’ve rounded the corridor away from the stone drum do you and Jacaerys drop the masks woven onto your visages, the tense square of shoulders – and your hand uncurls from the crook of his elbow as a cat would wake from slumber.

A memory from a time so recent, though it feels ages ago – Jace and you, walking quietly towards your chambers; though tonight, you have warm cheeks from wine and not from the remnants of his lips.

It is not until you approach your doors, with your swordsman posted outside, that you slow to murmur, away from wandering ears.

Your hand stops at the crook of Jace’s elbow, coaxing him a step closer as you sigh. “Daemon is…a vexing character.” You put it rather lightly, some form of apology or complaint lodged within your throat. “I often wonder if he lurks in corners merely in hopes of stumbling into matters that are not his,” You attempt a joke – though your heart thumps oddly at the word matters, and you ignore it steadfastly.

Jacaerys huffs, clearly just as thorned as you are by the entire evening, though a direct tick of his lips lets a breath pass before his murmur. “Like flies to shit, that one.”

His bluntness chips away at the emotions swirling within you; and a surprised laugh escapes your lips, bubbling into something warm.

Laughter pools from you before you can stop yourself.

Jacaerys, perhaps startled by your reaction, looks to you; at the sound his own face lights up – a genuine, bright smile. A smile which softens his features, which gives way to those boyish looks that are so often concealed beneath princely decorum and furrowed brows.

And in a soft mix of laughter, Jacaerys’ chuckles murmurs as unfeigned as your own giggles – in the fading of the harmony, your eyes catch the sight of the guard at your door; his eyes flick away, and you swallow back the heat rising in your chest.

There is a mountain of words unspoken between you and Jacaerys. Though it is a late hour, and there are many things to be done in the morrow; so Jacaerys, with a hesitant touch, takes your palm into his grasp swiftly, eyes glancing to the stone beneath your feet.

A thumb brushes over your knuckles – and then he bends, his lips ghosting over the back of your hand; an earnest gesture, perhaps, as it heats your face more so than the wine did at dinner.

Your hand falls to clutch your skirts when he steps away, amber pools of honey taking in your own gaze, searching perhaps uncertainly for your response. You smile in a poorly concealed heat of awkwardness, clearing your throat as if that might ease the moment.

“Sleep-” He clears his own throat, “Sleep well, Princess.”

You nod as he turns, watching the glint upon his glossy tresses in the torchlight. It is only as he’s taken a step away that you respond, calling to the rich slope of his shoulders. “–You too, Prince Jacaerys.”

THE PRESENCE OF YOUR DREAM IS IMMEDIATE.

The wind is sharp in the lick of shadows; and you know you’re not in the realm of the living, no – you’re melded to the ground upon which you stand, stranded in a field of bones. A figure stands just ahead – a girl with pale hair that drips over a gown of gold; your sister turns to you.

Helaena’s eyes, painted in a flickering violet stare as you stagger; paled lips crack open, though no sound escapes - only the flutter of wings, delicate, fragile, frantic.

A butterfly, circling above her head.

A deep unsettle leaks into your subconscious as the sky above, an inky chasm, shifts just so – and the butterfly flutters; climbing frantically upwards, yet looms above a monstrous, scaled form that growls with ancient breath. You cannot seem to warn the butterfly of the impending jaws above, and it strikes fear through your quivering breast.

It is not until you’ve pulled your legs from the gnarled roots of ricages and spines which litter the ground that you reach Helaena; her eyes, slipped as dying stars anchored on a bright heat that rumbles in breaths high above.

Wings turn to ash above you; they find your inhale, seeping into your lungs in one quick gasp. The butterfly is gone – its papery embers burning away into your blood.

Hands, cold and spectral, shove you back into the darkness; you fall upon bones which crack in whispers of your name below your weight, and Helaena steps forward, her lips still moving in whispers you cannot hear.

Her hands hold a chipped teapot; an old one, with etchings of flowers and dainty ladies washing against a peaceful brook.

It is cracked, though. And with her absent stare, you watch in horror as out crawl spiders from the teapot’s fissures – into her palms, skittering down her arms, crawling up her neck.

Your scream is silenced by an echoing crack of ancient stone; a tower in the distance, cracking in half as a shadow falls from high above where it kisses the clouds, a thunderous plume in the wake of its descent. The ancient breaths from above grow hot with unrest as ashy wings of butterflies fall to bless the decaying ground around you.

“The girl,” Helaena mouths, her voice swallowed by the rising wind. There is a searing pain in your eye - the glint of a knife, a breath forever held by the crashing of some distantly cold waters. “The girl.”

You wake with a gasp, tangled in your sheets, the remnants of the warning still burning in your ears.

The girl.

A jolt to the living realm brings a trickle of clammy sweat down your chest; the hearth across the way is surprisingly stoked and well alive.

And then, a strangled noise – a groaning mewl, some doe struck by a hunter’s bow, awaiting the mercy of a quick knife.

The edge of the room stirs with movement and you’re jolted with shock – you blink sleep from your eyes with the gust of wind upon dust-blown streets, sitting up with a thickening pulse. You leap out of your skin when your vision adjusts to the light of the hearth in the room, a gasp flying from your lips in fear.

At the foot of your bed, a spectre of a girl – hair loose, her skin ashy in the moon’s whisper; a gasp from a mouth much too crimson as she sways upon uneven footing.

“Elina?” You croak, heart within your throat – but that gasp, again; and she is doubled over, breathing in sharp gasps. Unease awaits you in the cavern of your chest.

“What’s happened?” You ask quickly, rising from the sheets with a shaky fear.

There is no response: but the girl stumbles forward, her throat beginning to pulse unnaturally – you leap to your feet, wider awake than ever before.

“P-princess,” she chokes out, her body trembles - fingers fall against the post of your bed frame, her voice weaker still than her hallowed visage. “I– didn’t–” but her breath is not correct; it heaves out laborious, sickly.

Her eyes meet yours, and your heart sinks below your stomach; a drop of crimson rolls from her nostril, and then a cough full of wet blood that sputters into her palm, darker than you’ve ever seen.

“S-something’s wrong.” her voice, desperate. Bare feet slap against stone as your hand grasps her arm; skin yields clammy. Panic pulses through you – her lips are a frosting purple, marred only by stretch of bloody string which pulsates from her nose and has begun to drip its way upon her dress.

Your chamber doors are heavy, though you rip them open and spit into the hallway, shaking as the dredges of murky sleep are wiped away by alarm.

Your shout is sharp as a dying hound, “Fetch Maester Gerardys!” You tremble as you nod to the guard, “Now! And alert the Queen– tell,” You look down the hall, unsure what to do, breathing ragged and sporadic, “Tell Jacaerys, tell–”

A yelp, startled as a kicked kitten from behind you and you can only stop yourself, snapping back to your maid’s side, letting your chamber doors remain open as the guards rush down the corridors.

Elina’s frame collapses as you reach her; you fall to your mattress, pulling her into your arms with shaking breaths – and she, with weak effort, presses her hand into your own.

There is no such moment for you to do anything but sit; and so you do, a sense of numb calm washing over you as you coo to her, wiping hair away from a sheened forehead. Her head lolls heavy against your shoulder, tears soaking the sleeve of your nightgown – veins protrude, purple and ghastly, from her eyes and forehead, spreading down her chin under a trail of blood. Any offer of water is slapped across the stone floors of your bedchamber.

“I’m scared,” she whispers, her voice trembling as she curls closer to you, her breath coming in shallow, pained gasps. “It hurts.”

Your throat tightens – her eyes are wide, terrified; a gasp of striking resemblance to that haunting stare from your dreams.

You can only hold her tighter, cradling her head against your chest as if you could shield her from whatever is eating away at her from the inside; though she has begun a series of horrifying convulsions, and you scramble to remember any such prayer for the sick in the recess of your cobwebbed mind.

“I can’t… I can’t remember-” You mutter helplessly, fingers shaking as you stroke her hair, whispering useless comforts as her body shakes against you.

Her hands are tight; wrapped in a clutched embrace, her muscles spasm and kick, marring you with short bursts of pain as you hold onto her, your own tears falling onto her face as a violent foam of bloody saliva begins to brim through her paled lips.

“No-” You hiss, palm cupping her cheeks – but the blood spreads, it taints; eyes have rolled back, her body convulsing as blood pours in a leak from her nose, drips of crimson tears from the corners of vacantly yellowed eyes. Trails of it foam over your grasp from her mouth – choking, she’s begun, and you’re helpless to watch, your breaths eerily calm in the wake of her gasping gurgles.

Maester Gerardys enters first; followed closely by three pairs of feet slamming against stone, but still you rock gently, a horror encasing your mind as you stare at the girl, stilled in your arms.

Your lips are still mumbling, though your chest burns in the need of breath that will not come; the small bird of a girl in your arms, her blood staining your pillows, her heart stilled after a rapid acceleration and a heaving rattle of breath through blood-stained teeth.

You do not let go of her when Maester Gerardys arrives to your side; with a wail and a panicked grasp, you shoot daggers towards the man with a snarl; a cornered hound.

Your name rolls gently from hesitant lips, though, and it arrests your panic.

Jacaerys is just beside you – clad in a sleeping tunic and trousers, cheeks flushed, eyes wide in concern. Your grip loosens around Elina at Jace’s whisper; And when you back away, his arm is around your waist, pulling you away gently.

Queen Rhaenyra, hand over her breast as she watches; and Daemon, eyes dark as he stares from the girl upon your bed to the blood that stains your hands. In the light of the hearth, Jacaerys lights the few candles beside the bed, and you watch with a hitched breath broken only by the sound of your quiet sobs.

Maester Gerardys pulls back from her figure, his voice laced with a gentle, perturbed sorrow. “She’s with the Gods.”

Time escapes you.

Your fingers shake in the fabric of Jacaerys’s tunic as he holds you steady, easing you onto the settee across from the hearth; he remains as Daemon and the Queen repose in succession.

And when Rhaenyra’s palm finds the stillness of your knee, as your stare smolders into the roar of flames before you, Daemon’s voice is shockingly gentle, quiet. “What happened?” He asks – and you stir only then from your halted fear, glancing to where Maester Gerardys and the guards gather the body from your sheets.

Your lashes flicker, and though the press of Jacaerys’ thigh upon your own is warm, you cannot look away from Elina’s stained blonde hair, tresses marred by a thick paint of blackened blood as it sways in the arms of the guard passing by.

The girl, you hear your sister’s voice whisper. You swallow thickly, shaking your head faintly.

“I…” You croak, shaking your head, “She… woke me. Elina. She’d helped me prepare before I went abed – she acted rather normal, though she’d mentioned a stomachache…” Your brows furrow as a distant memory strikes you. “Her pupils were the size of saucers.”

They had been, truly. Pupils blown wide, her lips slick with saliva she wiped with a sleeve – and a whisper, once more as she undid the hair she’d braided into place just hours before – we’ve kept the chambers quite sweltering this evening, haven’t we, My Princess?

“Did she act any differently?”

Your mind stumbles in its tirade down a dark staircase of trivial moments through the day; And then, some horrifying thought that pierces your stomach, paranoia rippling through you.

“Tea.” You murmur, shaking your head, “The tea you gifted me, that’s all,” You murmur, eyeing Queen Rhaenyra. A blank visage flickers in the lick of flame beside her, though her countenance furrows in unfamiliarity.

A slight shake of the head, a bewildered breath from her breast – she need not say it; the tea that was served was not from her. Three pairs of eyes watch you, though in your panic, you jolt upright, only aware of the sleepgown you wear once Queen Rhaenyra places a blanket upon your shoulders.

“-I was served a new tea this afternoon,” You glance at the table in the corner of your chambers, where the odd girl had prepared it. “I- I was told it was a gift, from the Queen–” in a sickening memory, you exhale, “she drank it this afternoon. Elina. It was prepared by a new handmaid who said she’d come from the kitchens, though I swear I’d–”

And it is as if the storm breaks.

In a flash of a moment, memories flood through you in a pounding horror; the girl with her wrist scarred, flickering eyes behind doors of the Hand of the King.

A sea away, and moons ago yet – a green gaze that ducked away when you and your siblings haunted the halls of the Red Keep, and young, dutiful ears which listened to each word uttered by you and your kin.

“She was there. The Red Keep.” You utter, eyes burning a hole through the stone table, mouth open. The shoulder that brushes your own tenses; a shared glance between the three that you nearly miss in your dissociation.

Daemon is upon his feet within moments, voice barking at the men who crowd the room – an order of the kitchens to be torn apart in search of a tea, red and spiced; and to find the girl with the scar on her wrist.

THE MORNING COMES.

It always does; despite it all, the morning comes – and this time, it kisses your shoulders with a chill, seeping into bones weary and plastered heavy to foreign sheets.

Not foreign, particularly – for you know the softness upon you as though a touch of a familiar palm, the quirk of a familiar boyish grin. And you wake slowly, eyes heavy enough to keep you asleep, but you wake smelling of him.

You are not sure what weakened part of you reaches out – to find him, in the chasm of darkness that returns as you do to consciousness; but your hand drifts over the empty space where he should be, only to find a soft crumple of parchment left in his place.

Before your eyes open, you already know.

His absence does not surprise you, nor does the cold weight of realization that settles upon your chest.

The girl. A poisoned cup; the last shuddering rattle of breath from a sweet friend. Dreams of the sister you left, of a thick thread that wound your wrists and tethered you to hands that wanted nothing; a murder of an innocent because of…

Your eyes are weary, and they burn.

Jacaerys brought you to his chambers last night when your shaking slowed; after Maester Gerardys checked upon your tongue, tracked the flickering motions of your eyes, heard the beats of your heart. Jacaerys had not followed Daemon out the doorway upon some warpath once the whisper of poison fell from Maester Gerardys’ lips – he’d remained instead with a hand hovering over yours, his eyes upon his mother, who had taken you into her side as a mother would a hurt child.

You recall, as you stir under his sheets, how you’d heard his heart beat beneath your ear last night - too steady, too forced.

The rhythm, a caged fury for the sake of a girl who’d barely looked at him without baring her teeth; a buzzing regret for the unripened detestation harvested towards her over fields of youth past. Guilt can be a fickle thing.

And it is indeed a frequent visitor at the doors of your mind; it slides in through the cracks when you sit up in bed, head pounding, aching for sustenance though the thought of food leaves your stomach hollowed in fear.

The note is unfolded slowly; Jacaerys’ hand is scribed with no lack of care, though they are quick, speaking of duty and matters with Daemon.

Though he says nothing explicitly, you know. The handmaid who prepared your tea yesterday - they search for her, or worse, they have already found her; and what is left now is that cold calculation of the Father: of justice.

With a shiver, your fingers twitch to your sternum - some odd remainder of a habit formed in youth, watching your mother clutch her seven-pointed-star round her neck in times of strife. You come empty-clutched instead - a seven-pointed chain that’d been casted into the ocean along with the ring your mother gifted you for your nameday many moons ago, now.

Jace’s request sends a strike of warmth through you as you blearily read the scrawled words to send Ser Steffon to fetch Jacaerys when you wake.

Maester Gerardys, too, is mentioned, and the thought of him fussing over your health makes your chest tighten; there is no such relief in the notion being tended to, not now – not when your heart crawls up your throat; a creeping spider up the spout of a teapot, a coil of serpent wrapping around your neck.

Blood still clings to the gown you’d held Elina in, as it sits rumpled and untouched upon the floor of Jacaerys’ chambers – you wear a simpler one now, retrieved from your boudoir by the hands of your betrothed.

You leave the mound of furs and sheets behind in a slow slide towards the window upon Jacaerys’ far chamber wall.

The fog still clings stubbornly to the sea, curling like a serpent over the rocks, refusing to retreat beneath the morning light.

It is not the attempt on your life – that itself has yet to soak through the surface of your ever-porous skin – but rather the absence of the voice which rouses you from slumber each morning, who combs and styles your hair; who bathes you, who laughs with you, who whispers. She is gone.

Along the distance, the fog eats at the fishing villages; mere dots, no larger than gnats even when you squint. You wonder where Elina’s love lies, and if he woke with the same emptiness in his heart that you did.

Below Jacaerys’ window lies a glance at the Sept of Dragonstone; a pierce in your chest that calls upon the emptiness of your heart.

You do not heed your betrothed’s wish to seek him when you wake; instead, you pull round the cloak draped along the table beside you, tying it doubly to account for its larger size; and you slip past Ser Steffon, who watches and trails behind you at a measured pace.

IN SOME LINGERING SHAME, YOU’RE KNELT BEFORE THE GODS BEFORE DAY FULLY BREAKS.

It is not until you step out into the bailey, wrapped in a cloak that is not your own, does the sky split and begin to weep. It laments its sorrow upon the walls as you blink hard ahead, hoping to cease the endless churning of torment spiraling in your mind.

When you find yourself within the dry stone walls once more, the cloak remains upon your frame – a comfort, in its lingering scent; or a repentance, in its damp chill upon your shoulders.

The gods watch as you kneel in silence; the storm blossoms, cackling at some ancient jest in the sky, and you keel over in your grief, sinking to the soil buried far below the stone.

The Maiden’s face watches you – and in her, you see Elina; in that sweet laugh, the ceaseless effort to remain your handmaid, your friend – despite it all. And the reward she was given for such trust, such loyalty: To die on a mattress of the one she served, one final breath sacrificed for the truth:

It hurts. I’m scared.

“Elina,” You whisper with watery words, watching the candle before you light in flame. Your throat constricts. That sacred little lamb, taken upon the altar of your very own mattress.

Innocence, a token offered to gods who never answer – and, mutedly, you wonder. That death was sent for you, after all – so how would you look, eyes wide and unaware of the sharpness of a blade descending towards you?

Across the hall, someone slinks through the shadows. Smoke swirls. A candle is lit with shaky hands.

And there is the blue lamb, too, you think - the one I could not save either. Fingers shaking, pressing the flame against the wyck beside it; it catches with only an extra breath.

“Lucerys,” You whisper, watching the candle flicker.

And nothing changes.

The rain falls outside. The pit lingers within your stomach.There is a scuff – perhaps a Septa, crossing somewhere behind you. A heavy door drags open from the Bailey outside, and in a breeze of the world’s breath, someone enters.

You duck your chin in prayer, that way you did in childhood under the watchful gaze of your seven-pointed mother.

Today, you worry.

Like some favored cup that you’d grasped too tight, afraid it would fall from your clutches and break into thousands of shards – and how instead you’d watch it shatter in your protective, ignorant grasp. Red rivers of disbelief from a trembling palm; pain, that naive version of love.

Father - you look upon his statue, disbelief in your heart. I worry that love is merely a mirror of violence.

That pathetic something – that yearning, an empty chasm that blossomed even in the days of your youth – with cheeks still cherubic and eyes still bright; five children, white of hair; youthful play, ruddy cheeks, fattened legs. Giggles and breathless yells from behind curtains – from a time when whispers were nothing more than a playgame.

The Crone remembers – and you wonder, then, as you look upon stone shrouded in a cloak. What has become of them, now? Of any of you?

And who are you, but the sister who fled? Who are you, but the one who haunts the halls of the Black Queen, with blood of emerald and a dragon that could turn on them in a moment’s notice?

Fingers grasp the stone before you, and white wax drips in slow tears. Crone – you gaze into eyes carved in sorrow, of sagacity unreachable. I worry that wisdom comes only when it is too late.

In your youth, you’d been gifted a plant in an achingly beautiful painted Braavosi pot; the joy of your nameday, you’d insisted upon tending to it. It’d been hours – each day, admiring its pebbled leaves, bursting with budding fruit from within. Hours curbing away the prying, destructive hands of your elder brothers and cousins, of sitting in awed silence watching the leaves change in the sunlight with your sister.

And then came the day you’d woken to its dead leaves. In your devotion, obsession, you’d given it too much water. Mother – you look upon her statue, disbelief sewn far into the creasings of your heart. I worry that my care only brings ruin.

The face of mercy watches you, and it brings nothing but a tremble of hatred through you.

A flash of your own resentment – and of the tarnished beauty which once beheld your own visage, marred by the presence of you upon his side. Despite efforts taken by others to ensure otherwise, you will still remain forever haunted; forever wondering how you could dare stand with Jacaerys when you so taint the memory of his lost brother.

It is a horrible thing, the chain of fate.

A fate written long before you two were placed into cradles as babes, far before you two were given each other’s name as a promise, then as a threat, then as a promise once more. Smith – your heart aches, and it aches for what is to come. I worry that I cannot shape what I wish to mend.

It is the most difficult perhaps, to regard the young woman etched in stone to your left.

In her face is each that you’ve ever come to know. Baela, the first and best of your friends upon this island; Rhaena, the girl whose company you seek with the knowledge that she will regard you as kin, not adversary.

The humming of your sweet sister in her chambers; in quiet harmony with the buzzing of insects, needles pricking her fingers and singing softly to the blood that beads from her flesh. You’re nothing like Helaena, your mother said. And what tragedy, you think as you consider the draped innocence of the Maiden aside you, what a regret that is.

And your mother, for all that she isn’t – for all that she is. For the girl she lost in her youth; for the distaste, perhaps, in the aspects of you that much too echo the girl she once called friend – through some the absent admiration of a father who held you close, who whispered Rhaenyra instead of your own name when he spoke of his love and admiration.

That name, too – still after these years a stinging sore of regret, jealousy; Rhaenyra, the name you cannot help but reach toward, hand forever extended into emptiness. Rhaenyra, the one you’d picture when you watched yourself in the mirror as a girl, tilting your chin as if there were already a crown upon your head.

Rhaenyra – you’re just like Rhaenyra, your father would whisper, proud; and it is, indeed, why your mother watched you with serpent stares, why your family turned chin upon you each time you dared speak her name in years after.

Perhaps there is no particular malice in the end.

You are no fool to believe that Rhaenyra resents you for what has been done by the hands of your blood; but knowing you are bidden forgiveness is not the same as accepting it. And in that festering void within your breast, the one which vies for affection, for the love of a mother’s touch, for acceptance – there lies one small residual pool of envy.

Rhaenyra, Helaena, Alicent, Baela, Rhaena, Elina – your throat, tightening as you consider then your very own name, that cursed name that falls from lips spitting and serpentine; what are you, to them all?

To the girls here on the island who wear red and black maid uniforms and speak with you like you are one of their own, just to die by the hand whose grasp searched for your own throat?

Maiden, you wonder with worried eyes, I worry I will swallow the women I love.

There comes no such reply, but still you remain in folded grief for some time.

The rain falls outside the stoned walls of the Sept, but in here you remain dry. The island is drinking – or perhaps it cleans itself.

It is a pity you are not there with it.

A candle burns out, and in a shaky lump of grief, you move to relight the wyck.

The doors behind you scrape against the stone, and a wet onslaught finds your ears as you shiver in the breeze. Your fingers shake against the stick, watching the flame dance.

“Lucerys,” You say once more, voice less of a whisper and more a plea.

The clink of metal behind you startles your focus – you turn to face the visitor with an open mouth and wide eyes. In a breath of panic, you start.

A boy, shrouded in the swimming shadows of the Sept’s rounded columns – waterlogged breaths, curls that breathe with his chest, alive, sinking, but alive – and the slip of water rushing around him, swelling like the tide as he moves from the shadows.

Luke, you almost call out – but the black of the tunic catches with the silver scars of a wettened sun – and there, a familiar face, searching eyes, the lick of a tide in the slope of his nose.

Jace.

The pearls of lost memories sink to the depths and you are no longer with that ghost – but instead alone with the Gods and with your betrothed.

There is no greeting, but instead the locking of your eyes to his in acknowledgement – and he approaches you as you turn back to the altar, hands clenched to avoid their shake.

“–Do they listen today?” He wonders, breaking the shell of silence; a tentative thing carried through the space of the Sept, a ripple on a calm pool. And though he delivers the query with all intentions of seriousness, you cannot help the small blushing of warmth that floods your cheeks at his recalling of yesterday’s spite.

The gods don’t listen.

You crack the first smile, toothless and small – but he almost eagerly follows suit; and in the small grins shared between you, there is a breath of peace.

“Not any more than they have before, I’m afraid.” You affirm, brushing invisible dust from your sleepgown; it is only when his eyes dip over your frame do you register the cloak you still don, its embroidered sigils of red and black upon the nape of your neck and boyish scent still clinging in the aftermath of the dampened path to the Sept.

You have made no motion to rise to him; though he indeed, still as a pole, has remained without effort to sink to you either, and so you stare up at him. Jacaerys clears his throat, eyes flicking to the two lit candles before you and back to your gaze. “I’d hoped you’d send for me when you woke.” He whispers, some kind of warmth blossoming upon his cheeks.

You watch the flush stain his skin with some assurance; a live boy stands before you, swaying upon his feet, hands perched upon the pommel of a sword and eyes lit with some hesitant kind of hope. You nod absently, “I didn’t much feel like being poked and prodded.”

You’d meant by Maester Gerardys; though in a moment, you see something almost like amusement reflect in Jacaerys’ eyes – though he nods, concealing his dimpled grin and a small laugh. “I cannot hold you to blame for that.”

In the silence, a gap of beamed gray sunlight finds his tresses; and streaks across one amber eye of his, melting in warmth as he watches you warily. You swallow down the part of you that blossoms at a face so beautifully made, and you wonder how he sees you now.

“Why do you come?” His question strikes you once more in the quiet walls.

Perhaps a Septa crosses the way – though your sights are anchored on Jacaerys and his wandering tongue as he glances towards the stony faces staring down at you. He, with an absent voice, continues: “If it’s not for them?”

You swallow hard, fingers knotted like roots within your lap. A ruminating silence, until your voice finds its quiet whisper. “The chains of faith are not so easily cast aside, I suppose.”

His gaze follows your own to the statue of the Mother, looming before you; a shift upon his boots as rainwater slides down the leather to kiss the stone floor.

“And I know here no one will disturb me.” You add as an afterthought, some attempt at humour in the dreary silence, “Some say this Sept is gathering dust these days.”

Your words achieve their desired effect: The prince gives you one of those rare smiles, hands held in some mocking surrender. “I am not some.” He defends; to which you nod with a rare smile of your own.

“No, you are not, Jacaerys.”

It comes much warmer from your lips than expected – the moment passes thickly between you. A rusty memory, to converse so casually with each other – a talent perhaps still being honed, though you feel a birth of warmth in his presence, against the shell of cold that this day has woken.

Still he steps closer, hesitant in footing but deliberate in air, and you tilt your head, curious. “Still,” he speaks, “I hope you might… Let me join you.”

In the moment following, his gaze flickers to the altar; then rises uncertain back to you. His words are awkward, falling hesitantly from his lips, yet still genuine; with their insistence strikes within you a tenderness that must have been absent for far too long. An effort.

“You wish to pray?” you wonder, brows suspended in your surprise.

He merely nods, fidgeting with the edge of his sleeve; a boyish vision despite the burden of his station weighing around him – and your heart skips.

“If you’d show me how,” he says, quieter yet; and a half step towards the altar so that you are nearly in line, you on your knees and he wavering in his height. “I’ve never been quite… good enough at it. Septa used to take me by the ear and scold me when I was young.”

It’s a memory faint but easily recalled in your mind – Jacaerys and Lucerys, with youthful smirks plotting across the altar. A shove, a snort concealed in hands folded to prayer – a pious posture from you, though your eyes flickered so often to their whispered snickers, pressing your lips together when the Septas struck across the back of their heads.

You take in the sincerity of his expression, the slightly placated feeling that has spread from the rare childhood memory so lacking in strife; and how he stands before you, as if asking permission for something far more intimate than prayer.

Slowly, you incline your head, gesturing for him to kneel beside you. “Alright, then. Come.” You instruct shakily.

The sword lies first upon the stone; then comes the sinking of his knees, slow to drop; you resist a squirm, the sight of him joining you sending a quiet warmth through your chest.

It is quiet when he finds himself knelt aside you, hands loose and lips bitten. His tunic brushes your cloak – though you piously fold your hands, looking forward once more if only to avoid the heat that has inconspicuously grown upon your cheeks.

A beat, then two. Slowly, through a glance, his hands fold like yours, though they shake in the reflection of the dreary sunbeams.

Outside, the rain ravages the walls; your breaths fall in quiet releases, echoing each other in the dust.

“I’m not sure what to say,” his voice is rough as it interrupts the silence; a cascade of shivers involuntarily tumble down the ridges of your spine. You’re struck with some spare memory of hands, warm against the line of your back as sleep took you last night; hands that have taken their own time to slide over planes of goose-prickled skin, that have held, and wished, and reached.

Your eyes fall to the candles, unable to meet the gaze searing into your profile – it strikes you, the peculiar kindness of it; the bittersweet, stilted understanding that ties your heart to his own.

There is that lingering feeling – that knowledge that, should last night have gone peacefully instead and you’d woken to Elina with comb in hand, Jacaerys would not be here; But still, he’d still have such warm, open eyes – such pouted lips, such a face carved by worry and patience. A change, rung through the effort made to be by your side; You scrub the thought from your mind and clear your throat.

“I often start with a blessing,” you whisper into the air before you, “These days, it’s been for the realm.” At this, he says nothing; harboring a rather absent stare into the flickering candles.

His hand drifts to the light; and soon, it wavers with the flickering flame of an incense stick. His hand suspends, hovering in apprehension, but then his voice comes in a quieted whisper. “For the realm,” he echoes your words.

You do not dare glance at him; though in the corner of your vision sits his profile, softened by the gentle glow of flame and backlit in the torrential gray leaking from outside. Vulnerability drips from plush lips as he moulds over the words he endeavors to speak; and a moment of silence yourself as you shift, the emptiness in your chest warmed by the presence of his heat.

He whispers his prayer quietly, and you do not wish to impose; you remain beside him, blinking hard against the rising guilt that crawls up your throat, that reminds you of soft girlish smiles and gentle boyish laughs.

You do not hear his words, but you feel the gentle rumble of them from his chest to your own as you begin a silent whisper of prayer, Elina’s name falling from your lips.

And then comes the song of your voices, hushed and solemn in the Sept; it is in its way just as similar, just as reverent to choruses sung by your lips shared in the past – though for instances much different than now.

“–For those I’ve failed,” his voice washes into your consciousness, head bowed low and words whispered for none other to hear. Your eyes open at this; pulled from the depths of your own swirling grief, your head bowed in a beat of regret and vision flashing with a blue lamb, submerged in the cold sea.

Palms, damp and shaky, press to the stone altar. Your eyes find his, open and wettened with memory; it strikes your heart. “Now, I’d pray for the future,” Your voice, so quiet, faint. “That it might be more… kind than the past.”

His swallow is silent, but you see his chest expand with a breath. The air, so heavy in the weight of shared grief. “For the future,” he echoes once more; and his gaze, though still fixed on the flickering candles, seems distant – seeking out a vision only he can see.

His tongue swipes over his parted lips, brows furrowed in a soft emotion; you cast your gaze to the candles burning before you. He hesitates, his voice faltering before it firms again, quiet still in the empty Sept. “That I might be worthy of it. Of the realm, and–” His voice tapers off only momentarily. “ –And of those who are beside me.”

It is in the breath that his small confession catches your breath almost imperceptibly; your chest tightens at his struggling tension of jaw, of that countenance so often set with the sternness of duty.

There is a softening in his glance to the side, not nearly reaching you, but perhaps trying – something so close to vulnerability that it makes your heart lurch.

His gaze meets yours after a final moment, and in them you see your own reflection, your own yearning heart that beats against the restraints of awkwardness, of regret, of grief and of disdain.

His gaze is yours, and it feels like it has been for some time.

“That’s–” Your voice comes choked, uneven; you take a moment to gather yourself once more, cheeks flaring as you hold his stare. “A noble thing to wish for.”

The tension between you hums into the heavy silence of the Sept. You should look away — ought to, even — but you don’t; for it is a miraculous thing, to gaze into one’s eyes and feel yourself stare back.

Perhaps his hands fall first, but yours fall just after – and in the silence, your heart slams in your throat, mind hazy with the feeling of being seen and known. A furrow, gentle and longing, of his brow as he watches you; a ghost of his hand upon your arm, trailing along the cloak’s embroidered sleeve.

Perhaps you lean first, or perhaps he does.

It is not until your breath brushes his lips and his warms your own that you give in to the ache in your breast; And it is clumsy when your mouth finds his own. A kiss born not of passion but of some grief, some shared loss, some unbearable weight of what cannot be undone and what looms in the weight of crowns upon your heads and a war of fire and blood upon the weeping horizon.

There is some hesitancy that, if ever before, has grown between you; a soft caress of his neck with your quaking palm, a warm presence of his hand upon your hip, turning you towards his kiss. Your hands grasp without thought, without purpose – a search for life in a crumbling plane of ruin.

Salt upon your tongue, your nose slides upon his own; a fragile solace, this connection is.

But the haze of such vulnerable intimacy is dissolved in a breath: Jacaerys stills completely, and his warmth is gone from you in the very next moment.

“Jace,” You murmur as he shakes his head gently; a wet gaze between you, though you’re unsure whose it is. Perhaps both. “No,” His voice is strained in that quiet, pained way you recall – from early days finally released from your cell below the castle, from nights when the agony persisted in heated glares and serpent tongues.

He does not look at you before he rises, movements slow, deliberate – and you take the moment to gather your own mind, to swallow down the rush of surrealism that has fallen into lead upon your stomach. Seven stony faces watch you as you rise beside your betrothed at the altar, a slump in your shoulders that mirrors his own.

“I shouldn’t have,” He admits, shaking his head as his hand tentatively grasps your own; his palm is moistened with the tremble of regret, and you swallow down whatever stab of guilt rushes up your throat. A squeeze in return; a flush of embarrassment upon your cheeks as the remnants of his lips linger upon your own in some dizzying breath.

You shake your head as you brush nonexistent dust from your nightdress. “I shouldn’t have, I-”

“Please,” He murmurs; a plea, true and genuine – and he tugs your hand just so. “I am sorry.”

It is surprising to see such earnesty from him, though his words bring about a warmth to your chest. It goes unspoken, as so often things between you do – now is not a time for such recklessness; and though Jacaerys might perhaps be a sole comfort while the world weeps, you know now is not the time to escape in such securities.

Your nod is gentle, as is the kiss you deliver to his warm cheeks. They grow even more red in the absence of your lips.

“It's alright,” You agree, clearing your throat at the sudden memory of his lips, plump and warm, against your own.

Though with his words dissolves any distraction you’ve sought in the previous moments: “There is something else,” He explains, “I come with word from the Queen and Daemon.”

Despite his hand in yours, dread welcomes you once more into its embrace.

“They’ve found her?” You wonder; and there once more crashes a bout of anxiety into your ribs. His eyes swim – pity, perhaps, hiding in the folds of gold, of reverence, of verity.

He nods only slightly, eyes searching between your own.

“Yes.”

A breath catches in your throat – some odd angst of mourning for your adversary, then; to the girl she perhaps was before your grandsire wrapped his talons tight around her. Jacaerys lifts his hand, and soon your hair is brushed behind your shoulder.

“You do not need to go.” He promises, “I can have the dragons readied, or tea sent to the library. Or I could have a bath drawn–”

Kind suggestions; though you shake your head sharply, glancing to the Father and then meeting Jace’s stare. “No,” You protest, hand dropping his own to gather yourself. “But will you–” A cleared throat, biting your lip at the pain that echoes through the empty caverns of your chest. The words do not come commonly; an odd thought, some secret in front of the gods - and so you whisper in that tongue you both share. “Kessa ao māzigon lēda nyke?”

Will you come with me?

His lashes tangle in a slow blink, though he acquiesces immediately to your request. “Of course. Hēnkirī.”

Together. Your swallow is thick, and the pit of your stomach eats at you. It is a slow march to prepare your leave; the beating of a heart not your own, faced upon the gates of some shadowy fate – but the hand in yours warm and guiding, and his voice is slow and quiet.

Bells ring in the near distance, and in their warbled way, they sound of wedding bells. Some part of you blossoms reborn, a bud at the first breath of spring after years of winter; Jacaerys sends you a smile, and it is soon mirrored upon your own visage.

Fate is a peculiar thing, yes - but you are relieved that Jacaerys is the name of yours.

And even when you and your betrothed pull up each other's hoods in preparation for the rainfall, you do not realize that you’ve just risen from below the watching shadow of the Stranger. You do not realize that the shrouded figure has watched over your every prayer; and when you turn, you do not notice as its shadow follows the train of your dress.

You do not notice the snuff of the two candles, blown in the wake of your leave - and you do not feel as the Stranger watches you leave the Sept, arm in arm with Jacaerys.

taglist; it has been so long, pls message me to remain on the taglist otherwise you will be removed to avoid unwanted tags: @annedub @feyres-fireheart @reyndaisy @glennussy @ladyofvelaryon @paasrin @kookjipao @miksde @falcvns @still-jon-snow @kitdjarin1 @bitchydragonparadisee @lukehughes43 @rhea-ripley @chloe-petrichors @jottositto @uhnanix @knight-of-flowerss @lenadoerrer @saccharineseas @greenvita @honk4emoboyz @uniquelyabnormallyoriginal @darylspersonalwhore @taestrwbrry @withjinkoo @realporcelainkat @burningwitchobject @meowmeowmauve @bigolidioot @eleana-aerrin @miraakswhore @kenna-the-cosmic @softspiderling (hi elle i love u) @fluorescentadolescent1 @withlovenessie

#a golden cage ; series #holy hell #jacaerys velaryon x reader #jacaerys x reader smut #jacaerys velaryon x you #jacaerys velaryon x reader smut #jacaerys velaryon x targ!reader #<- is this ok for filtering unwanted fics yall #jace x reader #jace smut #hotd x reader #hotd smut

238 notes · View notes