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[wh0refornikolailantsov]

please consider...... angsty fic where Jesper is in a gunfight and actually gets shot for once. it might only be in the side but just the sudden panic he'd get of realising he's not invincible and Y/N did a whole freaking out and leaving before this could happen. Y/N being scared for good reason..... waking up with Y/N at his bedside????????

For One Last Good Night With You - Jesper Fahey

Content Warnings: Angst. Canon Compliant Violence, Threat And Injury. Explicit Language. Not Beta/Proof Read.

It was such a ridiculous fight. Jesper couldn't have been more convinced that there was nothing less worthy of arguing over than this. But argued about it you did. You had damn near lost your mind trying to make him understand and he just couldn't fathom it.

Did you doubt him? Because every ounce of concern you had, every fear you expressed, it sounded like you thought he couldn't handle himself. It sounded like a dismissal of his capabilities. He couldn't hear it. He couldn't even indulge it. Jesper Fahey, for all his gambling debt, and all the reasons to doubt the facts, might not consider himself lucky, but invincible? That he was sure of.

Jesper spent his days feeling like nothing could touch him, because nothing had. Every job with Kaz, he might have barely made it out of so many of them, but he made it out. He has been out gunned more times than he can count and he left without a thread of his jacket torn, while others did not have that courtesy of that.

Although your concern for him was moving at first, the way you were so clearly worried about him coming home, from what you considered an unnecessarily dangerous job, the amusement he had at it slipped away when he saw just how serious you were. You were worried. Worried so deep and so true that you tried your best to dissuade him from this job, and that should have told Jesper something. But what it told him was you doubted his ability to handle himself. It showed a lack of faith in him. That was so far from the truth, but Jesper wasn't able to see that. Not while you're telling him over and over that you cannot handle the idea of him not coming home. All he could wonder is when had he ever given you cause to doubt him? When had he ever not come back to you? Why did you doubt him?

You had wanted him to see the insanity in the plan, in the odds, not doubt himself. You had tried every type of reasoning you could think of to help Jesper see that you believed in him, but you were scared, and you had all the reasons in the world to be. Something felt wrong here, something felt off and miscalculated and you couldn't explain it, but you were scared for him, scared for him in a way you haven't been before. You wouldn't call yourself superstitious, but you felt it in your bones like a bad omen and you didn't know how to make him see. And the more you tried, the less he heard, the more he seemed determine to prove himself, determined to throw himself into the line of fire. So you walked out.

You walked out into The Barrel without another word because each word seemed to just make more problems than the last and you could not push him even further into this. You had to get out of that argument and that room before you completely broke down. You couldn't change his mind and all your trying seemed to make it worse, so you had to leave. You had to get far away from those words and that feeling, and you had to just hope, hope and saints maybe even pray that Jesper could be lucky this time. Even if luck was not something you believed in, that anyone in The Barrel really believed in. You just hoped that maybe it was enough.

He had been too distracted, and he had been too cocky and the mixture of both on his shoulders are a too dangerous mix for this evening, for this plan, for the eight men he counted as seven.

The bullet landed in the higher side of his left shoulder, and the pain is not remotely close to the shock that hits Jesper with the same force of the bullet. He actually let himself get hit, he hasn't gone that before. He has never felt the way the bullet tears through muscle upon entry and again on exit. The shot is clean and barely hits him low enough to do more than graze, but the blood dripping down on his ruffled shirt is very real and the pain is not something he can ignore.

"Jesper?" Comes Inej's voice from the dark, but his vision is swimming and blurred to the point where he cannot tell if Inej is being her shadow like self or if he is losing consciousness.

He cannot remember a time in his life when his breathing has been this shallow, this laboured, this difficult. He knows it's panic, at least a part of him knows it, but the bigger part of him right now is screaming inside his head. This cannot be how he dies. Not here. Not like this. Not leaving things the way he had with you.

"Jesper!" Inej's voice is louder now, and her hand grips his arm with such a suddenness that if Jesper was in his body he would've reacted so fiercely to. But Jesper is miles away, the pain throbbing, the panic squeezing his chest tighter with every breath, his mind with you.

Jesper thinks maybe Inej is trying to say more words but her voice is losing out against the heaviness of his breath and the sound in his head.

Not like this. Not now. Not like this.

"Please," the word falls from his lips as if every other part of his pleading had been said out loud. If Inej responds, if anyone does, Jesper doesn't hear them before he blacks out.

Fuck.

"Out of the woods? Out of the fucking woods? Brekker if I wasn't preoccupied I would ring your neck," you shout, across the slat. Nina is working her hardest on Jesper's shoulder but the pain lurches him awake. He goes to speak but Nina catches him and fixes him with a look.

"Not a word, luckshot," she tells him. "Not a damn word."

"You're assuming you could get that close to me," Kaz responds. Jesper hadn't been conscious for the Kaz the others had seen a few hours before, the Kaz who saw Jesper, no colour in his eyes, laid out and bleeding on the new rug. The Kaz who's voice wavered, who's attachments became all too clear as he nearly let his cane fall from his viper grip.

"Brekker if he died, nothing could have stopped me from ending you," you warned.

"It wasn't his fault," Inej tried, her knees pulled into her chest, head resting on them, arms wrapped tightly around them, holding herself still and together. She trusted Nina, but nearly seeing Jesper bleed out in an alleyway in The Barrel had taken it out of her. She saw Jesper as a brother, and she had already lost one of those. Kaz felt very much the same but tried to bury it under anger. Anger that fizzled out before it reached yours, it flickered in comparison to your rage.

"I told him, I told all of you," your words sound sore now, like your throat is giving way to them. Jesper knows that sound, even if he wishes he didn't. You'd been crying, and not a gentle cautious, keep yourself contained type of cry, no you had screamed your lungs raw.

He hadn't wanted to say goodbye, and you hadn't want to lose him, both the same. "Inej, Kaz, step outside please," Nina says. "I'm trying to work here and you're not helping."

Inej looks to Nina as if to ask what she had done to be sent away, but Nina just eyed back Kaz and Inej understood: she was being sent to keep Kaz calm, to not risk Kaz trying to get revenge before he'd thought everything through.

Jesper feels himself slipping again, the pain making him giveaway and he tries to speak your name before he succumbs to it, but nothing leaves his mouth, and it's just darkness again.

When Jesper wakes again, he can feel the bandage on his shoulder, he can feel how everything is back where it should be, blood staying inside his body, but it still hurts worse than any hangover. He tries to sit up but only then notices the weight on his chest. You're resting on him, you must've fallen asleep waiting for him to wake. You're exhausted, Jesper has no way to tell how long he had been out, and how long he had made you worry. A thousand different apologies climbed into his mind but not a single one would do, not a single one was good enough.

"Jes?" You mumble as you wake from the steady breathing in Jesper's chest changing to a faster pace.

"I'm awake," he tells you. You look at him and he can see that anger, the anger he had seen before he left for the job, the anger he heard you have when spitting venom at Kaz before, and it melts away.

"You scared me you asshole," you tell him, bundling the fabric of his shirt in your hands.

He places a hand delicately on the side of your face and then without the grace or cocky demeanor you're used to, he pulls you into a kiss. A kiss that tells you that he knows how close he came, how much he scared you, a kiss that tells you he is sorry and he never wants to put you through that again. "I'm sorry Ace," he whispers. A smile breaks on your lips, Ace, his lucky card, you'd always had mixed feelings on that nickname, as you did on anything he related back to gambling, but you'd never been so glad to hear it fall from his lips.

"I love you Jesper Fahey," you tell him plain. He looks back at you, and it's not that he ever doubted it, it's not that you'd never said it. It's just... Hearing it now, felt like the first time, felt like the beginning of something and the culmination of it the same.

"I love you," he says, pulling you in for another kiss, "and I'm sorry-"

"Don't be sorry, just be save... Be alive... Be here."

"Okay," he agrees. "Okay."

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

holy shit i love you

Thank you, happy to be of service

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

hey could you please do something for poly helnik and a grisha healer reader who has chronic pain and is having a bad day? (romantic relationship if your okay with it, nina and reader grew up together in the little palace)

As someone who is chronically ill and currently having a bad time with their flare up, this request couldnt be better timed, I need this

Bedside Manner Isn't My Strong Suit, But I'll Try For You - Nina Zenik, Matthias Helvar

Content Warnings: Poly!Helnik x Chronically Ill Healer Reader. Discussions Of Illness, Poor Health. This One Became Rather Self Indulgent And I Will Not Apologize For That. Probably Explicit Language Knowing What I Am Like. Not Beta/Proof Read.

It was the wince that gave you away, you really didn't mean to. The thing about being chronically ill, is that you are so used to what would normally be crippling amounts of pain for other people, that you start to drown out a lot of pain signals. When you are in pain every moment, pain becomes normal to you, it doesn't make it hurt less, but you can live with a lot of pain and discomfort if you have no other choice. And after a while you can become numb to your bodies warning signals, especially when you don't want to acknowledge it. So when you move and the jolt of pain is so noticeable, even by your own pain standards, even on top of all the daily pain that you've been long saddled with, you wince. And Nina doesn't miss a beat.

"Sit down," she says almost a little too fiercely, but her eyes are so filled with concern that you could forgive her any tone right now.

"Love, it's nothing," you try. But the pain swells around in your nerves and you lose your sight for a moment and before you can really argue your case anymore, Nina is helping you back into a sitting position.

"You've been doing too much," she tells you, her voice melodic and soothing as she pulls a blanket up from the bed and wraps it over the two of you. She learned long ago it's much easier to get you to let others care for you, if that care isn't distancing. So she curls up on the soft seat with you, and lets the blanket fall over her own shoulders.

"I've been doing as much as I normally do," you argue. Nina gives you a gentle tap on the tip of your nose.

"And sometimes the limit is different," she reminds you, "you and I both know that." You learned in the early years of knowing Nina, training side by side at The Little Palace, that it was no easy task to pull the wool over her eyes. She learned your tells and your mannerisms as closely as she knew how, and most days she was able to read your needs better than you. It didn't help you were prone to ignoring yours. You had argued over and over, that this world wasn't forgiving to those who let themselves fall behind, but Nina wouldn't have it, not then, not when you were just kids, and certainly not now.

"I do not want to waste the day," you try, but she shushes you with a gentle kiss to your forehead.

"Are you saying a day cosied up with me is a day wasted?" she quips. You give her a playful glare but she does not let up.

"No moment spent with you could ever be wasted," you tell her.

"Good, then we are not wasting a day, I am looking after you, and you are letting me," she tells you. You'd never had it in your heart to deny Nina anything, why would you start now?

You had often thought it a bitter irony that you were born a healer, that you had the ability to help others, take their pain away, ease their suffering, when you were bound to suffering yourself, with no way to help yourself. But you'd given up trying to reason with the saints about it years ago. It was a pointless and one sided argument, so you just decided it was better to focus on what you could. So you focused on your life, on Nina, on Matthias, on what you could control.

"You do not want to spend the day curled up with me," you realise how it sounds at it leaves your mouth but you don't let it deter you, "you have more interesting things to be doing, Nina, I am fine-,"

"I love you," she says.

"I know-,"

"I love you," she repeats.

"Nina," you sigh.

"I love you," she says again. She will say it over and over until you relent, she does not want to dismiss your feelings anymore than she wishes to hurt them, but she will not argue with you about taking care of you. She will not argue with you over what she is willing and wanting to do. She will not argue with you over this.

"I love you," you say in return.

"Even when I am injured," she says.

"Nina..." you try.

"Even when I am injured?" she asks.

"Even when you're injured," you tell her.

"Even when I am tired?" she asks.

"Even when you're tired."

"Even when I am grumpy?"

"Even when your hungry," you reply. Nina gives you a gentle jab in the shoulder, but she is smiling.

"I said grumpy," she says. You blink at her, faking confusion.

"That's the same word darling," you tell her. She leans in and presses a kiss to the tip of your nose.

"So why is it so hard to understand that I love you, and I want to be here with you?" she asks.

"I know you love me," you tell her, it may have taken convincing, it may take reminding, but after enough time she has managed to get that idea stuck inside your head in a way that it won't easily worm out. "I just mean there must be things you'd rather be doing than taking care of me."

"Not a one," she tells you, pulling you in to hold you closer. "Not a single one."

You're both half asleep when Matthias comes back. Your head resting on Nina's shoulder as she subconsciously draws loops across your skin with her fingers, trying her best to ease the pain she knows you're feeling. It barely touches the edges, but you feel it, and you know it is from love that she tries despite the futility, and you take a type of comfort in that. "Matthias," your voice comes out as a whisper.

"Been too strong today?" Matthias asks, knowing very well this trap of Nina's, the hug and blanket that is more of a mandatory bedrest than a subtle attempt to get you to rest.

"You wince one time," you say. If you're honest, if you're really honest, you feel bad, you feel all types of bad, your body feels brittle, every nerves either burns or aches and the throbbing pain won't go away, but you try to drown it out. It's nothing you've not felt before, and you will likely feel again.

Matthias leans down and presses a kiss to the top of your head, and then one to Nina's. "Rest," he tells you, a little gruff but his lips twitching into a smile.

"How am I supposed to sleep when my bones feel like they're snapping under the pressure of my skin?" you ask honestly.

"With a warm drink and a kiss?" he offers. You smile, it doesn't fix you, nothing can unburden the pain set deep in your bones, but they've never once tried to fix you. They've just sat with you in the storm, and waited it out with you. They never once tried to fix you, they just loved you anyway. They love you not in spite of but regardless. They cannot take the pain away, but being around them brings you a peace you had never known before and you never dreamed of having, and that is more than enough.

"I like the sound of that," you tell him. He smiles.

"Then that is exactly what you shall get."

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

“Please tell me you know how to defuse a bomb, not just make them.”

For Wylan x Reader?

Bestie and I are at war rn so heres another one

Fever Pitch - Wylan Van Eck

Content Warnings: Explicit Language. Canon Complaint Threat And Violence. Not Beta/Proof Read.

Wylan is wide-eyed, and it reminds you of the way Kaz had once said he looked like a silk-eared puppy in a room full of fighting dogs, you'd never really seen that until now.

"We don't have long, and if this goes wrong," Wylan presses his hands together, "things go really wrong."

There have been moments in your life when you've not been sure if you want to kiss Wylan or shake him by the shoulders and ask him what the fuck he thinks he is saying. In this moment, you feel yourself leaning towards the latter. "You know what you're doing?" You ask.

He tilts his head to the side and slightly raises his shoulders, as if to shrug at you, but he changes his mind part way through the gesture. "Wylan," you say, voice pleading. “Please tell me you know how to defuse a bomb, not just make them.”

"Theoretically," he starts, his speech picking up speed as his nerves get the better of him. "But I have never had a cause to test the theory. I know how this was put together and I know how to take it apart, but I have only ever done that when they're not active, and this is very much active and the chemicals are extremely volatile and although it's very much as science, sometimes this specific type of science can be unpredictable and if it's one of those times, or worse if someone has not constructed this right, I am basing my knowledge of someone being competent enough to put this together in the first place. Kaz seems to think I am the only acceptable option in the barrel, which does not fill me with confidence regarding the construction of this device, and then again we have no idea if it was even constructed by someone in The Barrel, or even in Ketterdam. This could have been imported, I mean it doesn't look like it was, but I am not an expert on foreign exports of demolitions, I am barely even a demolitions expert at all."

"Would you rather Kaz referred to you as a demolitions hobbyist?" you ask. The question is rhetorical but that in the stress of this situation seems to go straight over Wylan's head.

"Yes," Wylan says, "but really for my comfort I would rather Kaz didn't refer to me, at all, but that seems to be off the table, but what is on the table is a very active, very dangerous bomb and I do not feel equipped enough to handle this situation."

"How likely is it you're under selling yourself and your skills?" you ask. Wylan tilts his head again, this time from side to side as if rattling the question around in his brain.

"Possible but I am not really feeling up to rationalising right now," he admits. You nod, looking at the boy, those puppy eyes looking back at you. Your heart is racing faster than it has in days and you're not sure if it's proximity to Wylan or to the bomb that is making you so nervous.

"Right, what do we do, theoretically?" you ask, looking at what to you looks like a bunch of materials.

"We need to neutralise the heat source, if this is what I think it is," he says.

"How would we do that?" you ask. Wylan looks around.

"Anything cold, if we mess with the heat source it won't be able to ignite even if the chemicals interact, in theory."

"Okay, and what if you're wrong?" You ask, reaching for the metal bottle of water in your bag.

"Then we prematurely activate the explosion and all die," Wylan says. You nod.

"Okay, those seem like polar outcomes," you admit. Wylan looks at you and the scales swing back in the other direction. You want to kiss him, you definitely want to kiss him. And hells, if this goes wrong you're not sure you'll have another chance.

"Exactly," Wylan says.

"Hey Wylan," you say, eyeing the bomb. "We might die."

"We might," he admits.

"Is now the worst time to tell you I have been thinking about kissing you since Shu Han?" You ask, eyes on the bomb. He looks back at you, and he looks like he is smug, as smug as Wylan has ever gotten.

"Is now the worst time to tell you I have been thinking about kissing you since Fifth Harbour," he replies.

"You kept that one quiet," you say, stepping closer. "I am not normally good at quiet."

"I've had a lot of practice," he admits.

"I am going to kiss you now, if that's okay," you tell him. He laughs, leaning in to kiss you first. You tuck one hand against his neck, pulling him closer while you use the other to dump the cold water onto the bomb and hope.

Time slows to a still and Wylan kisses you, it lets you forget about the bomb, about the mission, about everything. You just want to stay right here.

"There is really not time for this," Kaz says from the doorway, "what part of defuse the bomb and get out went over your heads? Fuck it, I don't want to know."

Kaz's words separate the two of you in record time and Wylan gets a chance to look at your decision making. "It worked," Wylan says, staring at the now very useless bomb.

"I never doubted you," you say, eager to get away from the contraption no matter how defused it seems to be.

"You could have gotten us killed," Wylan says, "you kissed me as a distraction from nearly getting us killed."

"False, I kissed you because I thought it might get us killed, but I didn't want to get us killed and I trusted you and your knowledge."

Wylan looks like he wants to say much more, but he knows he doesn't have the time. "We are talking about this later," he says.

You crack a smile. "So there is a later?"

"Come on!" Kaz calls back.

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

Request: Y/N goes to watch Nina and Matthias' wedding but is in love with Matthias. No hate to Nina, just a kind of 'I wish I was as great as she is so you would have married me'. Saying congratulations and meaning it but their heart is breaking.

No Fault Of Hers - Matthias Helvar

Content Warnings: Hurt/No Comfort. Unrequited Love. Watching Love Of Your Life Marry Someone Else. Feelings Of Doubt, Insecurity And Loss. One Sided Pining. Contemplations On Not Being Good Enough. Explicit Language. Not Beta/Proof Read.

Nina Zenik looks stunning. You had never seen a moment when she has looked anything less than angelic, but now, in that beautiful dress, with her hair pinned back and her smile wide enough to make the whole room shine, you honestly can say she has never looked so beautiful. And you can feel it tearing you apart. Everyone is watching her, and you know why, you think it must be damn near impossible to lay your eyes on Nina, and then willingly look away. But you let yours stray from the sight of Nina, in that dress, that white fur cloak draped over her shoulders, to Matthias, who is watching her the way he always watches her: like she is the sun. Like she is the only light in the world, the only person to exist. Like if all he could do for the rest of time is look at her, even at this distance, he would be more than happy. He would thank any god that would listen for such a gift.

He looks at her the way most people crave to be looked at. He looks at her how you always wished he looked at you.

But you couldn't blame him, not even if you wanted to, not even if you could find the smallest thing to throw his way. How could you blame him for loving her? She is impossible not to love. Her laughter like wildflowers and her smile like dawn. She is everything you could hope for, everything you wish you were. She is the only thing you've ever wanted to be: his.

You've loved Matthias for longer than you can remember, and you never once for a second fooled yourself into thinking he might have those feelings in return. But you waited, you smiled and you shared in every moment you could with him, a slither of hope away from believing that if he loved you for long enough, he might fall in love with you. But that day didn't come. You don't count on the stars thinking it might have, had Nina never walked into his life. You think it's better to not entertain the thought, to not let it keep you up at night. There is no point in wondering, no point of walking down the paths of what might have been. Especially not now, here, watching the man you've loved, and will most likely always love, marry the woman who was made for him.

When Nina walked into Matthias's life you had no expected this, she was grisha, she was the antitheses of all Matthias had been raised to believe and yet she turned his life upside down and inside out with barely more than a smile, even if Matthias would never admit he was so far gone so quickly. He fought himself, hand to hand, mind to fist over and over about his feelings for Nina, but in the end, love won out, as it was always destined to do with Matthias. All the Fjerdan teaching, all the Drüskelle training in the land could not pull the love out of his heart. He was full of it, he always had been, and it was only a matter of time until his heart found someone to give it to. You knew when that time came he would give it all, and with Nina it did not come willingly, it clawed and fought it's way out of his chest but it fell at Nina's feet nonetheless.

He has never looked happier than the moment he pulls back from the embrace that makes Nina his wife, under the skies and the laws of every land they both know, under the gods and the saints they talk of, and before the eyes of the friends they have made, the family they built from orphans and wayward souls, and you, you who smiles for their happiness, despite the twisting thorns in your chest. You who has never wanted anything more than to see Matthias loved and in love in return. Even now, even when it means he cannot love you, that he does not love you in the way you love him. You cannot find it in your heart to be bitter.

When Nina smiles and pulls you into a hug, her arms engulf you, holding you close and you can smell the winter wildflowers in her hair. You hug her back able to keep yourself composed though your heart is breaking. "Nina, you look gorgeous," you tell her, not letting your voice waver.

"Of course I do," Nina says, she pinches your cheek and you feel like you might cry. Like you might lose yourself to it. Nina is so good, she is strong, she is fierce and yet still kind. You do not know how someone could suffer so much and come out the other side as forgiving and as gentle as Nina. "I'm so glad you're here."

You know she means it and that only makes your heart ache worse. You want nothing but happiness for her, you just quietly wish her happiness wasn't the one thing that you wanted for yourself. But you cannot blame her either. Matthias is all you've ever wanted, and you'd be a fool to think no one else would see him as you do. Love him as you do.

Matthias's eyes meeting yours, the moment you feared would be your breaking point, makes your feelings threaten to swallow you whole. "Congratulations," you tell him, not sure you can manage more words than that.

"Thank you," he says. You had not wondered if he had known, in all the years passed you had never once wondered if he knew how you felt about him, but you wonder now. For the most fleeting of moments, as you see something in his eyes you cannot pin, and nearly think it's pity.

"I wish you all the best," you turn to leave and he pulls you in, his hug not as demanding as Nina's, more willing to let you go if you decide to pull back. But you don't. Today isn't about you, you are not here for you. You're here for Nina and Matthias, your friend and the most important person in your life. You can hold it together for this, for a little while longer, for him. Because this is what he wants. Because he loves her and you know that and you would never ask for anything different. "Beautiful ceremony," you tell him as you pull back. He smiles, eyes finding Nina's across the people.

"I love you," Matthias says. Fuck. You look up, not expecting those words, or anything like them to fall from his mouth. "I do not think I tell you enough."

You know what he means, you know that he is filled with this happiness and his belonging that for a moment he wishes to appreciate all and everything that brought him here, that the love in this space is beyond that of the wedding, but that of family, of friends, of those who have seen us through to the moments we are now in. He could never with his eyes on Nina, tell the difference between his three words and yours. So you say them, because you haven't, and you did not think you ever would. Because you'll know he heard them even if he had no idea what you truly meant. You say them because he is here, and you can and you've got no reason not to. You say them because you've never been surer that the words are true, than you have been in this place, watching him start the beginning of the rest of his life with someone who isn't you, who you admire and adore and wish you could be. So you say them, and let him return to the woman he loves with a smile.

"I love you, Matthias."

"Come on," Nina's voice beckons over to you. You catch your breath, and bring yourself to smile.

"Anything for the bride."

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

Prompt: "Choose something, babe. I got nothing to believe, unless you're choosin' me."

Song: You're Losing Me - Taylor Swift

For Tolya x Reader??

Softer Words No Poet Spoke - Tolya Yul Bataar

Content Warnings: Contemplations of Desertion, Cowardice, Faith, Devotion and Loyalty. Explicit Language. Mentions of Canon Complaint Violence, War and Threat. Angst. "I Cannot Fight My Nature," "Cannot Or Will Not?". Hurt/No Comfort. I Am Going To Add Angst Again So We Are Clear. No Beta Reading.

Loving someone can be easy, so easy when you're on the same side, when you want the same things, when you believe the same things. It is not that you have ever stood directly against what Tolya stands for, you'd never have gotten so far if that was true. But his loyalty, his faith is so unwavering, and yours... the same could not be said. The only loyalty you've ever found yourself close to swearing to, is his. He is the only thing in all these years you've wanted to believe in. But with wars waging and the tides looking so far against being in your favour. You can feel the urge creeping into your mind, the twitch in your muscles as you try and bunker down for another night.

You want to do what you always do, you want to protect yourself. You want to run.

But there is Tolya.

By all the saints there is Tolya.

And therein lies the issue. You do not want to leave him, it is the only thing that has kept you here this long. You've survived by keeping moving, you've survived by instinct and trusting yourself. You've survived by avoiding the fights. Not for cowardice, you know how to hold your own, but for practicality, for survival, for the sake of one less scar.

But Tolya... Tolya's faith, his devotion, it's the loudest part of him, which for a man built like a tree, who has such a deep love of poetry, is to say a lot. In all the time you have known him, fought beside him, you've never once seen his motivation shift. He fights for his king because he believes in him, he fights for his faith because he believes in that too. His faith is unwavering. No matter the damage, or the danger or the risk, Tolya has faced it all with the same certainty. He does not fear the death that this war could so easily deliver him to, because he believes in what he is fighting for more than anything.

The only time you remember seeing Tolya feared at all, is when his sister was at risk, and even then his faith that she could make it out, that she was stronger than what the world was throwing at her.

He also has a faith in your that you never expected, an understanding of you that even you weren't convinced you had. What he sees in you, you do not often see in yourself, but he has a way of making you believe it is there.

You have very few reasons to stay, to fight, to pick a side that feels like it's losing, but he is almost every single one of them.

Yet, you had packed your bags and sat in this open window many a night, and never found it in you to leave, no matter how bad it has gotten. He has always been the reason to stay. So you chose him, over your senses, over your instinct, over everything else, time and time again.

But tonight you feel the call louder, the wind is behind you, pushing you out the window and off the ledge and into the darkness, instead of keeping you in, where it is warm, and comfortable, but far from safe.

"Going somewhere?" His voice reaches you before your foot can step off the stone and down onto the ledge, before you're more than a foot out of the door.

His voice is normally like honey in your afternoon tea, this sense of welcome and comfort that you can afford yourself, but feels like such a luxury no matter how many times you divulge. But now, it creeps into your ears and you feel a cold jolt right the way through your nerves. You've played this out in your head again and again. This cannot go well. This could never go well.

How else did you think this would end? You ask yourself. You fell in love with a man that loves only his books and his faith, and he trusted someone whose only guarantee in life is that they will run from danger. This could only end in someone getting hurt, and the most likely answer is no one leaves a burning building unscathed.

"Tolya," you sigh, and turn your head over shoulder. He is leaning in your doorframe, taking up every bit of exposed space, you don't remember leaving the door open, but that doesn't matter now. He is here, and you have to make the choice, the one you have been tittering on the edges of for so long now, and you cannot just run from this one.

His eyes look darker in this light, and you want nothing more than to watch them turn that gentle golden as he smiles, but you know that you cannot walk away from this, and you cannot lie to him, and that means this plays out one way. "You are leaving," he says, eyes glancing you over. You do not know if it is your expression, or your heartbeat, or simply the bag strung over shoulder that gives you away, but you do not care, all roads lead here.

"I am," you admit.

"Without saying goodbye?" he asks. Your mouth feels dryer than it did with the dust in your lungs from the tumble in Shu Han, and you've got no excuses now. Only your own guilt like a deadweight on your tongue. Your silence is screaming in your ears, but Tolya steps forward, trying to fill the space, trying to turn the room softer, trying to recognise any semblance of the person he has come to know in the ghostly figure of you before him. "How long were you planning on being gone?"

"Tolya, when I pass the gates, I am not looking back," you tell him honestly, and you fight the ache in your throat, and the sting in your eyes, determined to make it through this without leaving too much of yourself in this room, trapped forever in a memory.

"You're leaving..." Tolya looks so puzzled that you want to scream. He doesn't understand it all, he has seen nothing that would tell him how close you were to running. Because you're so good at playing a part, that even you had begun to believe it, so you cannot fault him for also falling for the trick. You had been falling for it too. Even if that had only meant falling for him, which you knew from the start would only hurt you.

"This fight Tolya, it's not one I think we can win, and I cannot wait around and be led like a lamb to slaughter, not when I have fought this hard to stay alive, I can't do it, I won't do it," you tell him.

"But you stayed all this time," his confusion is almost as painful as the act of leaving itself. Tolya feels endless in his knowledge, between his books and his heartrending, it feels like there are few things Tolya doesn't recognise in people, but this is something different. This feels like betrayal, and that's something he had never had cause to really feel until now.

"I cannot fight my nature, Tolya," you say. You want to explain you stayed for him, you did everything until now for him but you had to finally do this for you, but you know that would leave him with the question, the one you cannot answer: what changed?

"Cannot or will not?" he asks. You look at your feet, watching the shadow of the night swarming around you, welcoming you back into the darkness, calling you away from the light that you've only ever known stood next to Tolya. The light you would bask in forever, if things could be different. Tolya never had to love you, not like you love him, that didn't matter to you, not really. But all the things Tolya is willing to give up for his cause, himself... his life. Those are costs you are not willing to pay, and you cannot stand beside him as he pays them, because you know he will pay them.

"What does it matter in the end?" You ask. "It's all the same."

"I cannot ask you to stay," he says. You know that, you know he wouldn't which is part of the reason you wanted to leave before he realised, so you didn't have to know he was watching you go, and caring enough that he wouldn't ask you to stay knowing how badly you wanted to go.

"And I shouldn't ask you to come with me, to leave with me," you say, "because I know how much this all means to you." You lean back on your heels. "But you've always been the better of us."

Your name manages to slip past his lips before you get your courage up enough to say it, but you don't let him speak. "Please Tolya, please, if you care for me at all," you can feel your heart restrict and strain against your words, begging you not to, begging you to just try, but you ignore it, "Choose something, babe. I got nothing to believe, unless you're choosin' me."

Tolya cannot find the words. And you know them all anyway. "Tolya your faith is everything to you, and you will die for it, happily, but I cannot watch you die for it, I cannot watch you die for a cause I do not believe in, not when I love you as much as I do," you say, "I would rather disappear back into my darkness and cold existence and remember you like this, than stay and watch you fall in the name of a king and some saints who I have never thought of more than once. Tolya, you showed me a life I never knew could exist, and I know now that I cannot have it, and I am grateful to you, and in that gratefulness, in that friendship and comfort and hope, I fell in love with you, in ways I did not know I could, in ways I know you could never return and I would never ask you to. I tell you this only so you understand, so I know that you know... I am leaving because I cannot die for this and more than that I love you too much to watch you do exactly that."

You do not let him respond, knowing that if there is the smallest chance his words can change your mind, you cannot risk those odds. Tolya for all his doubts can put all his favoured poets to shame. So you do as you planned and you just step back and onto the outer ledge and before you can let the sound of your name reach you, you move forward into the darkness. Your hand wraps around the gate in no time, and like you promised, you keep your eyes on the dark ahead of you, not daring to look back.

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

Prompt every time I look at you I fall in love more

reader x Jesper

Sweat Bullets - Jesper Fahey

Content Warnings: Cursing. Canon Complaint Suggestions And Talk Of Gambling. Not Beta/Proof Read.

Jesper Taglist: @stray-kaz

This isn't the first time Jesper has tried to tell you, it wasn't the second time, he is sure it wasn't even the fifth time. Yet somehow every time he tried to bring the words to his lips they seemed to die on his tongue before he could get there. It wasn't for lack of trying. He was sure of that.

You smile and he is done for, his heart feels close to bursting out of his chest and this hands fidget against the guns in their holsters filled with so much energy he doesn't know where to put.

"Every time I look at you I fall in love more" the words come tumbling out in a hurried declaration before he has half a chance to think about how sudden they sound, how out of nowhere they might feel.

You pause what you're doing, and take a moment, trying to process exactly what just unfolded. You breathe in a deep breath and somehow find yourself sitting down. "Jesper... what?" You want the words to come out differently. You want some type of elegance or at least eloquence in the way you ask it but all your capability for words emptied from your mind the moment his words were said out loud.

"What I mean to say is, you're my friend, right, we are friends you and I? But sometimes, more often than sometimes really, I wish you were more than that, and I've been searching and trying time and time," he is scrambling, tripping over his words, his mind running too fast with all this thoughts that he simply cannot catch up with them.

"We're not just friends," you manage to say despite the sheer madness of the situation. "You know that."

But the way Jesper looks when his eyes meet yours, that unbridled longing, that desperation to be heard for what he is meaning to say with words that aren't carrying the depth of his feelings, you realise that he really doesn't know that. That regardless of how obvious you thought you had made your feelings, even when you thought he could never return, he had somehow not known. You realise that he must feel the same.

"Fuck it. I know I can be chaotic and I might be unreliable, I know it might seem like I'm saying this out of nowhere, but I promise you, if my promises mean anything that I would never say any of this to you if I wasn't sure, and I know I've bet on losing dogs my whole life but-,"

"Jesper, for once, just stop talking-," You step forward, taking his face between both hands and kissing him. It's brief but it shuts him up and you think for almost a full minute it's made everything clearer. But his expression turns quizzical and as his lips part to form confusion you don't know where you went wrong.

"Oh," Jesper says slowly.

"Oh?" You ask, not knowing how to not be offended by that.

"Oh," Jesper repeats. "I owe Nina, so much money."

You take a few seconds, trying to put the pieces together in the correct order. When it clicks you don't have it in you to be mad about it. "You bet against yourself?" You ask.

"I didn't like my odds," he admits. You stare at him, expression gormless.

"Jesper Fahey, you are truly the worst gambler I have ever met," you tell him.

"Just hit the jackpot though, didn't I?" That flirty glint is back in his eye and you can feel the heat in your cheeks.

"I don't know," you tell him, "you might have to kiss me about it."

"I think I can do that."

"Want to bet?"

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

I miss your Tolya fics 😭 i hope you’re doing alright

Hi, yes, sorry been having *gentle crisis* but I'm managing a little more now. Thank you.💕

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

Prompt: “As beautiful as always.”

Song: Never Let Me Go – Florence and the Machine

For Reader x Tolya please?

Sup, did you miss me? In all seriousness sorry for being gone so long, my depression hit me like a truck and Baldurs Gate took over my single brain cell. But I'm back now, I think. Not at my usual pace but hopefully more consistent than I have been.

I Know All The Steps, You Still Surprised Me - Tolya Yul Bataar

Content Warnings: Fluff. Canon Compliant Threat and Discussions of Violence. Not Beta/Proof Read.

This wasn't your idea of fun. You had avoided most of Nikolai's required events until now, managing to find all and any reason for not attending. But despite every effort, you could not weasel your way out of this one.

So instead you are stood by some marble carved pillar, watching a bunch of nobility, drink and dance and try not to be too loud with their idle gossip.

You catch a glimpse of Tamar, walking arm in arm with that pretty Squaller who's name seems to just escape your memory. Nadine... Naomi... Nadia, you're convinced it must be Nadia. Tamar looks happy, talking as much with her spare hand as with her words. Her gestures all grand and her smile wide, Nadia's adoring gaze never taking flight from Tamar's face as she talks.

You let yourself smile, sharing in that happiness, moments like this, quiet and observed from afar, when love doesn't realise you're watching it bloom, those are moments that make things like the grandeur of tonight tolerable. And as much as sharing in the joy of others can bring that swelling in your chest, there is that part of you that is searching the room for your own little corner of happiness to be found in the sea of poised expressions and far too well practiced steps.

Happiness finds its way to you, before you can properly search it out, walking up behind you, a plate in hand, and dressed in more material than you've really ever seen him in. "Squid?" Tolya asks, slipping into the untaken space at your side. You gently push the plate away with a shake of the head, trying to not give away that he startled you.

But you end up taking a double glance once you see him. "Tolya," you say feigning more surprise than necessary. "You have covered your arms." You brush a hand down the fabric across his forearm. You cannot remember a time when he has worn anything to cover them.

"Something about etiquette," Tolya shrugs, "not my choice."

"Wouldn't want to deprive the room," you joke. He rolls his eyes, but the softness is there, as it always it.

"Look at you," he says, giving a single handed gesture to your equally uncharacteristic outfit.

"I look like one of them, I look..." you try to search for a word that fits. Pompous. Pretentious. Aristocratic. Hypocritical. But nothing seems to be cutting it.

"You look," Tolya says, not letting you find the words. “As beautiful as always.”

You are not sure how to respond to that exactly, so you just give him a half smile and turn your eyes back to the crowds. "We are going to get in trouble with Nikolai for not mingling."

"Not in trouble," Tolya says, "but maybe he will be disappointed."

"Like a sad puppy," you add, sighing. "I don't like this. It feels... wrong."

"I understand, you're thinking about out there, while all this is going on in here, it feels wrong to be drinking and dancing while outside is a warzone, while he is still walking around doing as he pleased," Tolya need not utter a name for you to know exactly what he means.

"Well, I am not drinking, and I am not dancing," you inform Tolya. Tolya turns his head to look at you as one of the waiters approach with two thin glasses.

"From the prince," the waiter tells you offering you one each. You can feel Nikolai watching you without even bothering to try and find him in the crowd, so you take the drink and fake a smile.

"That... he has ears everywhere," you mutter taking a sip.

"I think he is more concerned with you having a little fun," Tamar says, dropping in on the conversation, arm still linked with the Squaller. "You two do know how to have fun, don't you?"

"We know how to have fun," you say, but you hear how unconvincing it sounds. "Tolya we know how to have fun, right?"

"I think our ideas of fun are just rather different to the majority," Tolya tries to reason.

"Just dance you two, it will keep him happy and Saints, you might even enjoy it," Tamar says before turning back to Nadia, "can I have this dance my sweet?"

"It would be an honour," Nadia replies, allowing Tamar to guide them to the floor.

"Maybe we should," Tolya admits, looking at them.

"If you can find someone willing to dance with me, and not make fun and willing to risk the injuries, then fine, I will dance," you laugh, finishing your drink.

"Dance with me," Tolya offers, like it was the easiest thing in the world. Like those words don't nearly still the beating of your heart in your chest.

You remind yourself to breathe. It's not like you've not danced with Tolya before. You've danced with Tolya more times than you've danced with anyone in your life. But the moments you spend dancing with Tolya, they don't feel like they exist in this life. They feel out of reality. Those quiet nights on the ships deck, following steps to a song that no music can play. Trying to keep in time when the only rhythm is the ocean waves. That feels untouchable when the sun is up, when the moon is cascading on anything except the two of you and the wood of the decking. You don't dance with Tolya in moments that feel real. If you did you would start to let yourself remember things as they are and not as ghosts of dreams and quiet whispers.

But he puts his plate down and holds out his hand anyway. "Would you do me the honour?" He asks giving the smallest of bows to pull a smile from your lips.

"Tolya I'll make an idiot of myself," you tell him.

"Then let's make ourselves both fools," he says in return. You don't know how to argue with him, and you don't truly want to. Nothing could make you feel like some fancy ball in some palace wing is a place you'd choose to be. But moments with Tolya make otherwise insufferable nights, things you cannot bring yourself to regret.

You walk with him, trying to teach your mind to stop drowning out the music and pay attention to the steps. Tolya pulls you in by the waist like he has a hundred times. But that was in the quiet. That was by moonlight. That was with no one but the ocean and the stars to bare witness.

This is here and now and real. This is with people and friends and audible music. And you feel your breath catch.

Even over the sounds, Tolya can still hear the thudding of your heartbeat. "When have I ever let you fall?" He asks.

But you're not scared of falling. Far too late for that.

He twirls you around, and it's clumsy, you're both moving to a music different to everyone else, a pace the two of you only know with a soundtrack only you both can hear. But you're laughing, and his hand is holding yours and for a brief set of moments you cannot think of anything outside of the bubble the two of you have created. The ocean in your mind is calm and his eyes are on you and you don't have it in you to be anywhere else but right here.

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence”

Tolya x Reader

I'll Love You Anyway - Tolya Yul Bataar

Content Warnings: Canon Compliant Threat And Violence. War. Contorted Views Of Duty In A Military Context. Explicit Language. No Beta/Proof Reading.

You didn't feel you were built for love. You were built for duty, for valor, to protect and defend the land that raised and loved you despite all the reasons it had the choice to do the opposite.

Then you met Tolya.

Tolya made you want for a life you'd never considered for yourself before. A life where there is someone who is for you, that you see in the darkness, that can read you better than yourself. Someone to come home to. What you have with Tolya is perhaps unconventional, and not what people would expect from two souls who truly belong to one another, but it makes sense for the two of you.

You never cared to love or be loved, and with Tolya all the parts you'd never considered come so easily. Everything that was wanted and expected of you falls to the wayside.

But for all the comfort it brings you, there is that gnawing feeling, that sickening depth in your stomach that screams that this cannot end well. How could it? You always knew your life would end messy and likely unmourned. You were comfortable with that, because the latter brought you safety. You would leave no one behind, but your life might pave way for the things you wanted for the land you love, for the country you love, for the cause you believe in.

But with Tolya it's different. Now you fear the all likely reality that one of you must go first, and you believe it more likely you than him, and all selfishness aside about your gratitude to not have to mourn, you're reminded in turn that pain becomes his to carry. That he would have to mourn you. That he would have to live with that pain and that scares you.

Explaing this to him felt like a crushing pain and the wildest of relief. He listened and he heard and he didn't once interrupt you. "I'm scared I'll hurt you," you say finally, "and I am also scared you'll hurt me. Not in the ways that most people do, but in the ways we cannot protect each other from."

He is quite for a moment more, and you can see all those thoughts arranging themselves into the right order behind his eyes, his expression is soft and you wonder if he heard you right, if he understood. But Tolya always understands.

“Of course I’ll hurt you," he says and that was not what you expected to hear. "Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”

The idea that one of you would have to spend days alone, feeling the others absense had filled every gap in your brain, it had blocked out sunlight and reason in equal measure. Life is a mix of the lovely and the excruciating, and you had always thought you didn't need the former and you were made for the latter. Buy Tolya is everything good you never knew you wanted, and he isn't scared to face the pain of this life, to keep the light of it beside him.

"I love you in ways I never knew how," you tell him.

"And I love you in the ways I know that matter."

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

I'll be uploading soon, just had a heck of a week

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

Could you write something really angsty for Nikolai or Tolya

… or Matthias. He needs more fics too

Angst if my first language so, sure can do.

So this is one of a few ones I will be writing to the same song, because Half Life is giving such big Grisha x Non-Grisha energy. The song screams Helnik and Zoyalai, that whole "you're grisha and you can do amazing things and I will offer up my pathetic human life in service to keeping you safe if that's what it takes," energy. So I'll do both.

Wars Were Waged For Less Honourable Things Than Love - Matthias Helvar

Content Warnings: Canon Compliant Threat, Violence, And Discussions Of Death. Prejudice. Fighting Rings. Sacrifice. Trading Places. Mentions Of Viewing Grisha And Prisoners As Property. Explicit Language. Canon Divergent Storyline. Not Beta/Proof Read.

Grisha!Reader

The wire that stands between the crowd of the cage match and the fighters feels like it's laced with acid as you curl your fingers around the loops. You're done looking for weakness, for broken links. You are the only broken link in this place.

You're waiting. You spend all your time waiting, for these agonising moments, the lead up to seeing him, and then the torment of watching, of seeing what comes next.

In the breaths before you see him again, you are forced to relive it over and over, those ruined and savoured memories before the cage, before the truth so brutally came to light.

Your bruises feel as fresh as the days you got them, even though they're long healed, you can see that look in his eyes as if he was standing in front of you, those eyes tearing into yours, the needing to know, the desperation to right the wrong.

Please, don’t ask me who hurt me. Please, don’t use those words.

You regret ever giving in, ever telling him, ever slipping up to begin with. It was one thing for Matthias to know what you are, what you do, and love you anyway. But standing against those who were raised on the same type of hatred but with looser laws and bigger capacities for hate towards Grisha. You were nothing more than a fighting dog to them, and when you escaped you had planned on never coming back. But Matthias' loyalty, his bonds, it's what made you think you could trust him to begin with, when Nina said you could you believed her, but you did more than that in the end. You fell in love with him.

And he fell in love with you. Something seeming even more unlikely.

And it landed him here. In this cage, taking your place as the prize fight dog. The crowd starts jeering and cheering in equal measure.

"They tried to take me back, I fought, they will keep coming back," you told him as he tended to your bruise.

"You need to leave," Inej stated, "while you can."

"I can't leave," you pointed out, eyes on Matthias, as he tried to not hurt you in cleaning you up.

"They need to learn that a wolf will not be a pet, no matter what you feed it," he stated, "and neither will you."

He had been so confident he could bring this whole thing down, and instead he just took your place, and you know, in the ways that make your chest hurt, he chose to do that. Better him that you. That thought was eating you from the inside out.

He is already injured before the fight starts. Never really getting what he needs to recover, never getting a real chance. They don't want to give him one, he is a winner, but they'd rather not the risk. Fjerdan makes him a risk. Crow makes him a risk. You make him a risk. Besides, they still want you, and until he falls, he is between you and them, and you and the cage.

You know he won't seek you out in the crowd, because a part of him, the part of him filled with pride and a need to protect hopes that you won't be there, watching, waiting. Because he doesn't want that for you. He doesn't want you to see him like this. But you're always there, and his eyes find yours in the crowd every time.

"Matthias," you whisper, knowing even if you screamed it your voice would not carry over the crowd.

You watch the fights, it is the hardest thing you ever do, but you watch them, as if taking your eyes off him might condemn him to failure, and failure here, like this could get him killed. It's harder than you ever found fighting to be.

Not that long ago, Matthias was on the other side of this battle, it was the Fjerdan fighting the Grisha, now it's the Fjerdan fighting for the Grisha. For those who changed him, for those who saved him, and for those who love him.

Nina places a hand on your shoulder and you flinch. "Come on, you shouldn't be here," she tells you, "you shouldn't be watching."

"Until your gangster finds a fix for this Nina, what else can I do?" you ask, the question makes your heart churn and stomach twist. You feel so sick and dizzied by it all.

"I want him out of here," Nina tells you, "you know I want him out, you know how I care for Matthias, how I have always cared for Matthias, you know that. I am doing everything I can, and so is Brekker."

"Not everything," you say.

"Matthias wouldn't allow it," she reminds you, and that only makes your heart ache more severe. Matthias, protecting you, making the others swear to do the same. Matthias. Matthias. Matthias.

"You didn't..." you inhale deeply and Nina guides you away from the crowd, despite your protest and how much you want to be there, at the fence, be with Matthias. "You weren't there, you didn't hear him."

"I can imagine the kind of thing he said," Nina assures you, but you are shaking your head before she even finishes her words.

"Not this," you tell her. "Not like this."

"Matthias?" You had asked, but you couldn't read him. You couldn't put it together, figure out what it was he was doing, what he was thinking.

"Can we go for a walk?" he had questioned. You agreed, you would have given him anything he had asked for, but you didn't realise what he it was he was trying to give you. Not until the words that ring over and over, rattling around in your mind like an endless echo.

"If this is the last time that we’ll еver borrow, I’ll give you my half life so you’ll see tomorrow."

You had known all too quickly and all too clearly exactly what that meant.

"He thinks his life is worth less than mine, how can he go so far in one direction that he is circling back on himself?" You ask. He had once thought you and Nina, all Grisha, were evil, not human. And now, his valuing you differently, as if you could mean more than him, be worth more than him.

"It's not because you are Grisha," Nina tells you, taking your hands in her own, "it's because you are you. That is what is worth more to him, you."

"I am not," you tell her. "I am not worth more than him, I am not worth anything without him."

"None of that," Nina says a little too sharply, only meaning to be stern. "None of that. We will fix this, we will, but I need you to not lose your head. You love him, don't you?"

Your eyes are burning when they meet hers. "Yes, Nina," you choke out, "I love him."

"And he loves you," Nina says, "so clearly, undeniably, unmistakably loves you, so I need you to hold onto that, okay?"

"There isn't anywhere that I wouldn't follow," you say more to yourself.

"Just focus on getting through till tomorrow," Nina says.

"I'm worried about him making it through till tomorrow," you say. You feel the threat to Matthias's life stronger than your own, his mortality feels more real than your own, more important than your own. You miss the irony of that.

"You two are truly cut from the same cloth," Nina whispers. "Let me take you home."

"I am not leaving him."

"You don't have much of a choice," she is trying to be gentle, she is trying so hard to get through to you but it isn't working. Your mind is overrun with all the pain and the worst case scenarios. You cannot listen to reason, you don't know how. You are walking away and shy of dragging you she doesn't know how to stop you.

You make it back to the fence, and the sight of the blood dripping down Matthias's arm makes you nauseated to the point you cannot tell if the blood is his or not. You're not sure which is really worse. His eyes meet yours and you feel everything stopping, time, sound, the beating of your heart in your chest.

"Go home," he mouths. Your heart comes back thumping so fast you're convinced it can be heard over the sounds of the crowd. You shake your head at him. "Go home," you hear his voice now, and it sounds stretched and deep, and you know how painful it must be for him to talk.

"Matt-,"

"Go," he says again before turning away. You feel your legs falling out from under you. Nina catches you, hands on your arms.

"Come on," she whispers.

"Is this is the last time that we'll ever borrow?" You whisper.

"Come on... I'll get you home, we can talk about it tomorrow."

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

Prompt: How can you say that you love someone you can't tell is dying?

Song: You're Losing Me - Taylor Swift

For Nikolai x Reader??

Twist The Knife (In Deeper) - Nikolai Lantsov

Content Warnings: You're Losing Me by Taylor Swift. Hurt/No Comfort. Explicit Language. Not Beta/Proof Read.

Grisha!Reader

Nikolai Taglist: @hauntedenthusiasttragedy , @writingmysanity

You hear the door creak and you look up from your reading. You're hoping to see Nikolai, but instead you're met with the cold apathetic eyes of General Zoya. Her stunning beauty even in her distain does little to soften the blow that it wasn't who you hoped it would be.

"Sulking still?" Zoya asks, pushing your legs from where they rest on the table.

"It is hard for me to let go of the simple and straight fact that I am inevitably going to outlive everyone else in my life," you state, "not something I thought I would have to consider."

"You are Grisha, this is a blessing, this is one of the few blessings you can truly have in this life," Zoya says, "stop being so childish about it."

"Zoya, how old were you when you found out you were Grisha?" you ask her, sitting up.

"I was young," she says.

"Well I am not," you point out. "I am not young, I have had quite the straight forward life, everything considered," she scoffs but lets you continue, "and now... now everything I built, it means nothing."

"Nothing, you think that being..." Zoya is irritated and more so than usual and she is doing a poor job at disguising it. "This is about him?" She sighs. "You are so... you're missing the bigger picture."

"Zoya, I don't give a shit about any bigger picture," you tell her honestly. "The biggest picture I had was that ship, and him, and the life we had, before..."

"Before you were Grisha and he was King?" she asks. You glare, but you know she is right. "Get over yourself, and get into something more suitable."

"I am not wearing a kefta," you tell her.

"Suit yourself."

Nikolai catches your eyes as you walk in, there's a smile in his eyes even if he doesn't let it appear on his lips. Even at this distance the vessels of your heart reach out for him. Your love for him is animated, it is autonomous, it's reckless and it reaches for him against every reason it shouldn't. Every reason he has stepped further and further from your reach. How can you stand here and not be losing your mind? How can you say that you love someone you can't tell is dying? How can you stop loving someone, knowing they are? How can you love someone this much, so much it knocks you senseless, and let the wall get this high?

You guessed you have no other choice. But right now, looking at him in that beige coat, across this room filled with people, you feel like you are just not fighting hard enough.

"You need to stop looking at him like that," Zoya tells you, "you know why we are here, you know what we are here to do."

"Zoya," you say through gritted teeth, "you are beautiful, you are intelligent, you are honestly pretty scary," you gently wrap your fingers over her arm, "but I am not afraid to start with you if you don't ease up with me."

"This is-,"

"I am in love, and I can't be and it's agonising," you tell her, voice cracking slightly, "it's not my fault that you do not seem to understand that."

"I understand it, but I understand just as well that there is nothing to be done, he is the King, he has a duty to Ravka, and that comes first, it comes so far before any feelings he may have ever had for you."

"Had for me?" You ask. Zoya sighs again, and as much as each exhale sounds like bells, and each breath reminds you of summer, her charm is wasted on you, and you tire of her presence and her attitude quickly enough.

"I cannot withstand this, two bloody children honestly."

It's the darkness of the early hours, the party long died down and the last of the honoured guests gently guided away to rooms when you finally find yourself alone and in Nikolai's company, something you thought could not be true at the same time.

"Zoya thinks it would be best if you were posted elsewhere," Nikolai says, the voice of a ruler, not of the man you know, the man you love.

"You want to send me away," you state.

"I cannot go on with this," he admits, "I cannot be living for the briefest of moments in the days where I glimpse you. I cannot spend each instant counting from one conversation to the next. I cannot spend all the time waiting."

"And you think sending me away will fix that?" You won't look at him, because he isn't himself to be looked at, and you want to remember Nikolai, your Nikolai, or rather your Sturmhond, as he was. You do not want to remember him like this. "You think there is somewhere far enough away that you could send me that the distance would keep me from your mind, your thoughts?"

"There will never be distance enough to keep you from my heart," he says, "but from my life there might be."

"If you want me to go, I will, just tell me and I will."

"This is me, telling you, I need you to go."

"Well," you drag in your breath and stare up at the darkness, star-less sky and hold the air in your lungs a moment too long, long enough for it to burn inside you, "since you seem to be long gone I suppose it is only right for me to follow."

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

“I know that you think that you’re on your own. But just know that I’m here, and I’ll lead you home if you let me.”

Tolya x Reader

Here is your semi regular check in with me, your insecure host, I hope I'm doing Tolya justice, not just in a balance between this man loves poetry but canonically could kill you, kind of way, easier a warrior heart of a poet and all, I think I have that down, more of representation level. Balancing my adoration for platonic love and aroace relationships. Just your local insecure ace checking in, ignore my insecurities and enjoy the content by all means xx

UnLost - Tolya Yul Bataar

Content Warnings: Hurt/Comfort. Insecurity Meets Reassurance. Not Beta/Proof Read.

Short And Fluffy

I get the vibe you all just want the shapely man to hug you and tell you everything is going to be okay. And you know what, fair.

The world isn't ending, it just feels like it is. You feel like there is no end to it, that it is an endless cycle and you are lost to the crushing, spinning eclipse. You feel frozen despite every fibre of your being screaming at you to run. You feel everything all at once, and nothing tangible. The world isn't ending, but it feels like it is. Your throat is made of sandpaper, each breath is filled with tiny shards of glass and you want to scream but you can't. You want to cry but you can't. And if you do, you don't know if you'll ever stop. The world isn't ending, but this feeling is so convincing. The world isn't ending, but your world is collapsing in on itself, and you cannot see a light, you cannot feel the warmth. You can only hear the endless drumming of the doomsday band.

His hand on your shoulder is the first real thing you recognise. He feels so far away but he is there, you can sense him, in all the catastrophism, for every moment of the waking nightmare, he is there and you can sense him, even behind the walls and the fear and the calamity. He feels out of reach, you feel unreachable, but he has bent your world into new shapes time and time again, and inside you is that small spark of belief that this time will be no different.

“I know that you think that you’re on your own. But just know that I’m here, and I’ll lead you home if you let me.”

Tolya, ever the guiding light. His voice brings you back from the depths and to safe harbour. You start to see him through the haze and you've never felt more like coming home as you do when his eyes meet yours. Tolya, the warrior poet. Tolya, the giant with the faith of an army. Tolya, your reason in the wickedness. The voice that brings you home.

"I got lost again," you whisper, your voice still feels harsh against your vocal chords and you do your best to pull words out to meet his.

"It happens from time to time, the path we walk is very winding," he says, wrapping his arms around you, "it's the labyrinth, this life."

"What if I keep getting lost?"

"I'll keep searching for you," you can feel the humdrum consistent beat of his heart against your chest, "will you keep finding your way back to me?"

"Over and over?" you ask, leaning back into him with all the strength you have, and looking up at him head resting against his shoulder as his arms hold you tight.

"Over and over."

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

Prompt

X: Y, how do I get revenge on my enemies?

Y: The best revenge in life is letting go and living well.

X: Z, how do I -

Z: Bomb.

I SEE YOU, buckle up for some Fluffy Flirty Appreciating Nina Content and crows.

Eat, Drink, And Be Merry, (For Tomorrow We Die) - Nina Zenik

Content Warnings: Canon Compliant Threat And Violence. Explosions/Demolition. Casual I Love You Confession. Explicit Language. Not Beta/Proof Read.

"I can’t look," Jesper is making a fuss, one of the blades nicked his jacket in the riot, but you are relatively sure it didn't even break skin, but that doesn't stop him being... loud about it. "Tell me honestly," he grabs a hold of Wylan's arm, glaring him down like he could be the culprit, "how bad is it?" Wylan moves to open his mouth, but before he gets the chance to say anything, Jesper clasps a hand over Wylan's mouth. "No wait, don’t tell me, I have changed my mind."

"You're not even bleeding," Nina tells him.

"Not me," Jesper says, "the coat." You stifle a laugh and Jesper eyes you. "It's my best coat."

"Then let me," Wylan says, tugging the coat off. You tune out Jesper asking Wylan where he got a degree in coat mending, and Wylan trying to ignore him and his worried buzzing as he locates a needle and thread.

"You'd think he was losing a limb," you say. Inej shrugs.

"Jesper is... Jesper," Inej says, "he can be like that."

You look around and Nina is gently walking rounds of the room, while Kaz watches the chaos outside through a small slatted window.

"This all feels very unnecessary," you point out. Nina grins and crosses her arms, eagerly awaiting Kaz's response.

"Inej, how do I get revenge on my enemies?" Kaz asks. Inej looks up from where she was cleaning her knife.

"The best revenge in life is letting go and living well," Inej says, which is what he knew she would say and gets the expected hand gesture of dismissal for the statement.

"Wylan, how do I-,"

"Bomb," Wylan says, keeping his eyes on the stitching.

"So you claim this mess, is your strategy for revenge?" You ask Kaz. A smirk curls up in the corner of his lips and then the sound hits, the shaking of the building follows immediately after, and you nearly lose your footing. "Fuck."

"Bomb," Wylan says again, looking up. Jesper grabs the coat the moment Wylan's eyes are off it.

"You’ve done quite enough stitching," Jesper says, smoothing the fabric down. "Quite enough."

"You are welcome," Wylan says, pointing the needle at him.

"We are brushing over the literal bomb that just went off?" You ask. In turn everyone except Kaz shrugs. "Was I the only one not clued in?"

"I had no idea," Nina says, "but you kind of expect that from him."

You move towards the door and Kaz looks like he is about to give you an order but Nina's glare fixes his mouth shut, even if he wouldn't admit it. Nina follows you out, a gentle breather in the hallway, but you look at her and you forget how to breathe. Even the chaos couldn't make you forget Nina, make you any less enamoured by her. She didn't ask you to be here, she didn't have to, she never has to, there is nothing that could get between you and helping Nina and her strange little eclectic band of thieves she has come to call family.

"Ready to run for it?" Nina asks, giving you the space to move around and exercise out your stress.

"Are you?" You ask. She just sighs. "I am not going anywhere."

"You've got no skin in this... fight," she points out.

"I've got you," you remind her. Her cheeks are already pink enough that the blush is nearly unnoticeable, but you miss nothing when it comes to Nina. "I mean I don't... I haven't got you, you know what I mean."

She leans in closer, letting her arm rest against yours. "I don't know, I guess you could say you've got me," she says, "for what it's worth."

"Hey Nina," you say, letting your head rest in her hand as she cups your cheek, "I think I might be sort of in love with you."

"Sort of?" Nina asks.

"Is that okay?"

"Yeah, I think that is okay."

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

Diminishing Returns - Kaz Brekker

Content Warnings: Canon Compliant Threat And Violence. Dangerous Attempts At Self Sacrifice. Explicit Language. Barrel Canon Compliant Trauma. Assassination Attempts. Poisoning. Angsty Vibes. Not Beta/Proof Read. Not My Best Writing.

Maybe I can write something not angsty after this one. Maybe.

Alkemi!Grisha!Reader.

"Someone wants you dead Brekker," you say, tracing the spider webs the bullets made in his glass window.

"What's new?" He asks. Kaz does not need help, or at least that's the illusion he has created for himself, the man is forever a skilful scalpel, cutting those precise lines so directed and meticulous that you don't always know he is doing it. You... you consider yourself more of an axe, or a fine cleaver, there's no subtlety to what you do, but it's definite, it's permanent. It's efficient.

"You need me," you start and the scowl you receive nearly shuts you up, but you don't let it, "stop that Brekker, you are not a one man army."

"I do not need you, I don't need-"

"Do not finish that sentence," you warn him.

Kaz doesn't know how to get you to leave, both lies and honestly he can only see ending poorly. If he tells you that he does not need your help, that you have nothing of value to offer, if he lies you will stay, and you will fight to protect him out of spite. If he tells the truth, if some how he can pull from the dark depths of his soul some shred of honesty to actually admit he is scared for you, that he does not want you hurt because of him, then you still stay because he gave you a reason.

"You are not playing this game with me Brekker," you tell him. "You don't get to play the you don't need me card. I am the best thing The Dregs never had, and you can use me, even if you don't need me."

Kaz moves the drink he has been not drinking across the surface on the table. It draws you attention, the fizzing, the frosted glass, the way it has been sitting there between the two of you this whole time. So glaringly obvious. So glaringly untouched. You pick it up and before Kaz can say anything, before he can show his hand you've already downed the drink.

"Someone tried to poison you," you tell him. He blinks, barely able to process what has happened.

"And now they've poisoned you," Kaz says, his hand curled in a gloved fist, that desperate reminder that he cannot reach for you. "You knew it was poisoned."

You falter slightly, and slip into a nearby seat. "Yeah, well, I suspected," you admit.

"And you drank it," Kaz says.

"It felt like a better point to make at the time," you smile. You can feel the poison rattling around in your body. You focus on it, knowing that when it comes down to it, poison is just complex compounds, and if you know enough about them, enough about chemicals within the body and toxins and poisons, you can make a balance out of nearly anything.

"You've-," Kaz cuts himself off, not willing to say the words. You give him a smirk. Did he really not know? Even after all this time? You were sure he had to have figured it out by now. You were certain of it. But the way he watches you, that look in those shark eyes of his, he thinks you're dying. You are, but you can fix that. "You're dying."

"Fixable," you say, focusing on your internal balances, the chemicals, the poison, focusing on breaking it down.

"You are sitting..." he pauses, and the flicker of disappointment on his face telling you exactly the moment it hits him. "Alkemi."

"Ding ding," you chuckle, filtering the poison through your system, breaking it down until it is no longer lethal, until it is barely even a nuisance. "Did you think the title I took was just aesthetical?"

"Monarch," he says. "As in the butterfly?"

"I'd be better of having this conversation with Wylan," you admit, knowing the feeling in your legs is about to return.

"The Monarch concentrates the toxins in its own body, consuming the toxin and converting it," Kaz says, and he notices your smile.

"More than a pretty face," you mumble. He gives you a scowl. You sit up straight and lean forward, resting your elbows on your knees. "Now we have all the pettiness out of the way are you going to let me help?"

"No," he says, "all you did is prove your foolishness," Kaz snaps, and you feel the anger but cannot tell where it is coming from, it seems to have spiked out of nowhere. You cannot figure why it is he is mad at you. "You are leaving."

"I am not... leaving," you say slowly, "and honestly? Fuck you for thinking I would."

"You don't owe me anything, and I am not asking-,"

"Brekker, we are friends, aren't we? That is what friends do-"

"No, we aren't friends, we have never been friends."

You stare at him, you know he is trying to get under your skin, trying to make you mad, upset, trying to make you leave. But you hate that it is working. "So what is this?" You ask. "A partnership?"

"An unwanted visit," Kaz says through tight lips. Too many missteps, too many people he never meant to care about, too much weakness. He cannot add you to the list, he cannot make you another chess piece, another casualty, another name in carved stone. Even if you seem half determined to jump right into the grave. "A low interest bet."

"You're being intentionally cruel Brekker, and I care not for it," you tell him.

"Then leave," he says. You want to dig in your heels, the more he protests, the move he pushes at you, you know he needs you, he is afraid to need you. You don't blame him. To need people is dangerous. Especially if you're like Brekker. Closed off. Caught in the cycle of revenge and wrath. But you can only fight him for so long.

"No," you say.

"I don't want you here," he states.

"Am I supposed to believe that, or to care?"

"Why are you trying to get yourself killed?" he asks. "There are simpler ways."

"But this way ruffles your feathers king of the crows," you say, keeping your lips as straight as you can, not breaking eye contact. He wants you to turn around, he wants you to walk out and leave and never see him again. He wants you to make it easier for him. But you won't do it. You won't. You know him better than he wants you to, which means you know him too well for that.

He looks at you, knowing you should run, knowing you should know better. Knowing that a reasonable person should have walked away from him by now, because they'd know they deserve better, they deserve to be treated with honesty and compassion. But you don't know better, or rather you do and are ignoring it anyway.

"Someone wants you dead Brekker," you state, "and I am not going anywhere while you're in danger."

[wh0refornikolailantsov]

Prompt: "Do something, babe, say something."

Song: You're Losing Me - Taylor Swift

For Tamar x Reader?

Heart To Heart - Tamar Kir Bataar

Content Warnings: You're Losing Me by Taylor Swift. Discussions Of Self Worth. Discussions Of Canon Compliant Violence, Threat And Death. No Happy Ending. Not Beta/Proof Read.

"You're mad at me," Tamar says, she's not exactly right of course, but you're acting strange and she doesn't know what other thing it could be.

"I'm not mad at you," you assure her, pressing your palms together in an act of steadying yourself.

"You're mad at the situation?" She asks, it's a question now. Your laugh is void of humour, but you try to give her a smile.

"I'm always mad at the situation," you remind her, "the situation keeps nearly getting you killed, I've earned the right to be mad at that."

"But you're not mad at me?" She asks, you can tell she is concerned that she has wronged you somewhere and that stings.

"I'm not mad, I'm relieved," you tell her, "I'm relieved that you're okay this time but... fuck... Tamar, I'm exhausted." The admission feels like a betrayal. "I'm exhausted by seeing you have to recover and heal and fight for your life over and over, and that's selfish I know. But... you're weirdly desensitized to your own suffering and how much your life is at risk... all the time. And I know that's about how you grew up and all the things between then and now, but I'm not... used to it. It scares me half to death every time. And that type of fear, that worry... it's exhausting."

"It's the life," Tamar says knowing better than to apologise, than to try and make empty promises.

"I know, and I'm not... I'm not asking you to be any different, I wouldn't want you to be any different, I just wish... I wish I was better equipment to... I wish I didn't find this too hard," you say.

"Too hard?" Her voice echoes.

"So hard," you say, an attempt to correct yourself but it's too late. You said what you said and she heard you.

"You said, too hard," Tamar tells you. You know that, she knows you know that, and your restraint, the paper thin wall between you and this tidal wave that you're not sure you could stop if it ever started cracks. You cannot find the words and she reaches for you, and you don't mean to, you wish you didn't the moment you do but you step back. "Do something, babe, say something."

Tamar steps back in return and that lost look in her eyes is worse than any punishment you could imagine. "T-," you feel yourself swaying as you cannot get your words straight or your breath steady. She sees the panic, the loss of balance and she reaches out for you again, this time for different intent, and you grab her, holding onto her for support.

She holds you up and you feel like you are being swallowed finally by the deep hole inside of you that this war has torn open. "You don't," Tamar pulls you in, holding you up with one arm around your waist, raising one of your shaking hands to her lips to press a kiss to your knuckles. "Don't think for even a moment, for a passing fleeting moment, that you have anything to prove, not to anyone but especially not to me," she says. "I love you, I love you exactly how you are, I love us, exactly as we are, I wouldn't change anything."

But you would, and your eyes say what your words daren't. You will never ask Tamar to step back from the fight, that would be asking her to go against who she is. You would never ask her to slow down or back out, or take any kind of decrease in responsibility. There is no mission, no fight, no order you would be able to ask her to reject. You wouldn't and you couldn't. Because you never want her to be anything that she isn't, and she is fierce and she is a warrior and her honour and her heart, her loyalty and her bravery are exactly what you fell in love with right from the start. You don't want to change her, you don't want to change what you have with her. But you wish she wasn't in danger every breath she took. She is used to it, she is desensitised to it, but you doubt you ever will be. "I love you," you tell her.

"But it's not enough?" she asks.

"I am not enough, I am not strong enough to be able to keep it together at the idea of losing you every moment, Tamar I love you, and I wouldn't ask you to do a single thing differently, because I love you exactly as you are, just the way you are. But I wasn't built for war and waiting, I was built for the quiet and soft moments, and you cannot walk away, and I cannot... I cannot handle that at any moment people are trying to kill you, and most days, a lot of days, they come really close to succeeding, and you can brush that off, but I... I can't."

Tamar is watching every tiny movement you make, every rise and fall of your chest as you breathe, every miniscule glance away, every twitch, every hitch, every tensed muscle, like if she paid close enough attention, she might be able to fix this. She looks at you, and that well of sadness in your eyes, tears threatening to stream down your face and she is reminded of what should have been the warning sign.

You had squeezed her arm so tightly as one of the healers had insisted on checking Tamar over, despite Tamar telling them she was fine She hadn't been fine, she had irregular stitching and wasn't healing at the pace she usually did, but Tamar didn't want a fuss. She didn't want to worry you, which was a pointless principle as you were worried anyway. "You need to stop being so..." you had searched for the word.

"Reckless?" Tamar offered. "Heroic? Sexy?"

"Brave," you had settled on in the end, "I am nearly out of tears from crying over you," you had laughed, knowing that you could always find room for more feelings, more strength when it came to Tamar, when it came to Tamar your love was endless, you were a well that went all the way down.

"Tired of crying over me?" she had asked, all humour, no bitterness, no way of knowing it was the beginning of the end.

"This is almost the... I have nearly had you die on me, more time than I can count. I don't want that," you had raised your pitch, playing it off with humour and a smile. But you meant it. This was the sixth time Tamar had nearly died in front of you, and you were starting to not be able to recatch your breath after her mortality had knocked it out of you.

"I am sorry, and I love you," you tell her. Her eyes flicker up to meet yours, and that golden gaze that has brought you so much comfort feels like the finishing blow. "But I am not strong enough."