#// and callously denied any love in his death

[b0kksu]

It's been so fun to come back to Satoru but not only that receiving such a welcoming embrace on his portrayal is just lovely. There's also been some deeply amusing moments when discussing how his emotional state is literally just, if I do not act silly or joke about this - I'm going to start screaming and idk when I'll stop.

[wh0reforcoriolanussnow]

Hi sweet angel, I have to admit that I'm new to your profile, but my obsession with your writing is almost as great as my obsession with snow, I have a request that changes the story a little bit.

Coryo is completely obsessed with the reader, but she thinks he is just an affectionate friend, both become mentors and instead of snow falling in love with lucy, it is the reader who falls in love with her tribute, and begins to move away from Snow, he can not accept this and manipulates the games, Not for lucy to win, but rather, to get rid of the reader's tribute. (Sorry for any mistake, English is not my mother tongue, so I use Google translator)

Slipping Through My Fingers || Young!Coriolanus Snow x reader

GIF by i forgot sorry :( divided by @firefly-graphics

A/n: this took me forever to finish idk why 😭 also this has to be the longest fic i've written so far.

Warnings: mention of blood, possessive coryo, mentions of death

Wc: 2,975

Coriolanus Snow Masterlist

"Can I see you tomorrow morning?" Coriolanus looks down at you with hope in his eyes, you open your mouth but close it before sighing. "I can't, sorry. My parents want me to be home when my grandparents are there," You lie through your teeth as he hums, nodding.

"That's fine, tomorrow afternoon then?" His hand touches your waist as you smile up at the boy. "Of course Coryo, I'll see you then?" You touch his hand that was at your waist as he nods. You give him one final smile before disappearing around the corner.

You felt bad for lying to him but you didn't know how he would take it if he found out that you were actually going to meet your tribute first thing when his train from the districts arrived in Panem. Your tribute, Dean, from district 8 intrigued you. You couldn't keep your eyes of the screen when he appeared. He caught your eye immediately.

Coryo couldn’t stop complaining all day about his tribute from district 12, Lucy Gray. Saying that she would not last a second in the game. Unlike him, you had faith in your tribute.

So here you were, standing on the platform waiting for the train to come to a halt as you tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. A smile on your face, dimples on display as the doors open revealing Dean. He was taller than you imagined, but nonetheless, he looked surreal. There was no denying that Dean was good looking, incredibly good looking which you would imagine would play a role in the amount of donations he would have.

"Dean. Y/n Y/l/n. I'll be your mentor." You extend your hand out in front of him as he looks you up and down before shaking your hand. His shake was firm, his fingers calloused. An indication that he was a hard worker.

"Are you supposed to be here? I don't see other people like you around here," He says as he looks around the train station. You notice Coriolanus' tribute, Lucy Gray walking by and staring at the two of you questioningly. You make eye contact with her before clearing your throat and looking back at Dean who hadn't kept his eyes off of you.

"No. I'm not supposed to be here." You confess, your hands fidgeting with the ends of your skirt as Dean raises an eyebrow at you. "Then.... what are you doing here?" You pause. What were you doing here? You could have waited like the others for tomorrow to meet him.

"I uh- I wanted to welcome you to the Capitol." You offer him a smile. Silence. "Can I be blunt with you Dean?" Your head slightly tilts, a habit of yours when you ask questions. "Sure," He shrugs. "I see potential in you," You hold his hands in between yours as he glances down at your intertwined hands with an expression you couldn't quite figure out.

"You can win this hunger games. And I will do everything in my power to make sure that you do. Such potential like you for a bright future shouldn't be wasted," You solemnly smile at him. Dean stays quiet for awhile, his hand still in yours before a peacekeeper roughly pulls him away from you.

"Hey!" You shout as you follow the two. "It's time for them to go Miss." The peacekeeper says as he throws Dean into the back of a van. Just as he walks away from your view to close the door, you jump into the van along with the rest of the tributes. "What are you doing!" Dean whispers yells at you as you stay hidden behind him.

You let out a sigh of relief once the doors close. "What's this? Is this your mentor, Dean?" A girl you recognised to be Carol asks with a sinister smile. You push past Dean and extend your hand out for her to shake. She looks at your face then your hand and lets out a laugh.

"Why would I shake hands with someone like you." She spat as a few others laugh alongside her. You notice Lucy Gray once more, sitting there silently. "Why do you get special treatment Dean, huh?" Carol pushes you backwards catching you off balance as Dean catches you.

"I could kill her right now," Carol chuckles like a maniac. Dean moves you behind him, "Leave her alone," He voices out, his tone screaming authority. Before Carol could respond, the van shook violently as you all lose your balance. You let out a groan as you felt your body slam against the van door before it flies open, causing you all to roll out onto hard rocks.

You let out a groan as you slowly lift up your head, squinting your eyes at your surrounding before you hear Dean's voice. "Y/n! Are you alright?" He asks worriedly as his grips your bicep, aiding you to stand up as you realise where you were. You were at the zoo cage.

You place a hand on your head as you let out a low groan. "Excuse me! Hello! Over there! Can they not hear me in there?" You hear a familiar voice belonging to Lucretius Flickerman. Dean takes a hold of your forearm, helping you keep balance as he whispers to you, "Own it." You look up at him with a small smile. He offers his arm to you as you link arms and walk towards the iron bars.

"Y/n Y/l/n, one of the mentors for the 10th hunger games." Lucretius says to the camera as he then directs his gaze towards you. "The game makers did tell you to jump into the cage with them," His tone was skeptical. Dean looks down at you as you glance at him before looking at Lucky.

"They didn't tell me not to. They just said it was a mentor's job to introduce our tributes to the citizens of Panem, and I thought well if Dean is brave enough to be here, then why shouldn't I be too?" You say with confidence, "For the record, I didn't have a choice," Dean butts in.

"What is Y/n doing there?" Arachne gasps as she ctaches the attention of Snow and the others as they look to the screen. There you were, linked arms with a tribute, looking awfully comfortable with him to add. Snow furrows his eyebrows at disbelief that you were there.

You told him that you were to be at home, but clearly not. Coriolanus watches with intent as you look at Dean when he spoke. His fists bawl up as Clemensia makes a comment. "You alright Coryo? You look.... bothered," Her hands rest on Snow's upper arm as he pries her touch off of him.

"I'm fine," He snaps as he leans forward on his seat. He was bothered. Very bothered seeing you so close with a tribute. "He's obviously not fine, he's bothered seeing Y/n so touchy with her tribute, isn't that right Snow?" Arachne teases as he slams his hand on the table causing her to shut up. "Shut it, Crane." Coriolanus says through gritted teeth as Arachne puts her hands up in surrender.

"They look really close. Can't blame Y/n honestly, she got a good looking one," He hears Clemensia quietly say before he had enough and stood up, storming off.

~

"Coryo," You call out as you catch up to him, adjusting your bag on your shoulder as you offer him a smile. He says nothing, his face stern as he continues to walk, not bothering to look at you. "Hey listen, I'm sorry I stood you yesterday, I just got super busy-" "Yeah I saw, busy with your tribute right?" He gives you a sarcastic smile as you scrunch your eyebrows.

You were all making your way to the enclosed cage to talk to your tributes. "What?" Snow rolls his eyes at you, finally stopping. "I saw your interview with Flickerman. Looked awfully close to your tribute," You let out small chuckle as his face shows no sign of amusement.

"Coryo, I was just introducing myself to him and getting to know him that's all. I have faith in him that he will win and I wanted him to know that. Wouldn't you do the same with your tribute if you had faith in her?" You touch his arm as he looks at your hand.

"Right?" You try and get a response from him as he sighs, "I guess," Is all he says before intertwining his hands with yours. You look down at your hands, a sweet gesture from him. When you both get closer to the tributes, you unclasp your hands with Snow and walk towards Dean who has already seen you and was making his way closer to you.

"Hey," You greet Dean as you look through your bag and find the half of your sandwich and cookie which you put away for him. You hand it to him as he thanks you, immediately taking bites as you watch him. He could feel your stares as you look away. Your eyes land on Coriolanus and Lucy.

He was talking to her about something as Lucy looks towards you and Dean. Snow finally looks at you, his expression cold as you gulp and look at Dean who was already looking at you. "He your boyfriend or something?" He asks as he takes another bite of the cookie. Your eyes widen. "Who? Coryo? No." You laugh as Dean stares at you.

"He's just a close friend of mine." You say as he nods, unbothered. "Do you? Do you- uh- have a-" "No." He deadpans as you slowly nod. From afar, Snow was watching the two of you interact the entire time. "Do you want to win Lucy Gray?" He turns his attention from you to his tribute.

"Do you think I can win?" She asks him as he thinks. "Honestly? no." He admits as Lucy scoffs. "But if you listen to what I say and do what I tell you to do, you will." His tone was stern as Lucy nods, her eyes following his eyeline which led to you and Dean. "That your girlfriend? That girl who was with us yesterday in the van."

"Her and Dean seem to be close, don't you think?" Lucy watches Coriolanus' face, his jaw clenching at the mention of the two. "They're not close, she just knows how to play the game," Coriolanus snaps before standing up and backing away from Lucy Gray.

~

You hadn't spoken much to Coriolanus the past couple of days. You were with Dean quite a lot, making up strategies and scenarios for when the games started. "I care about you, Dean. A lot." You take his hands in yours, the sound of his iron shackles making you cringe as you look him the eyes. Dean looks around the room before caressing your hand.

You and Dean have gotten very close over the past days. You both had faith in each other, trusted one another. Coriolanus narrows his eyes at the two of you, 2 desks away from him before his gaze settles on your touching hands.

He lets out a quiet scoff as Lucy Gray looks over to you and Dean. "Do you know him?" Snow asks her as he cocks his head towards Dean. Lucy shakes her head. "You want to win, don't you?" He leans in close to her.

Lucy hesitantly nods her head, "Yes. Yes you do Lucy." He answered for her, his gaze hard on her as she squirmed under his stare. "You need to kill Dean first. You need to before he kills you. He's a strong competitor, I can tell, that's why you need him out first. Then, it will be a piece of cake." He smirks as he leans back on his chair. "What do I need to do?"

~

“Y/n,” Coriolanus calls out as you turn your head to his direction, a small smile on his face as you beam at him. You run to him, throwing your arms around him as you hug him tightly. Coryo was caught off guard but eventually hugs you back.

“Good luck,” You say, although it was slightly muffled against his shirt. “You too,” He says back, his hand rubbing your back as you pull back, giving him your pearly white grin that only a few were able to see. Coriolanus felt a pull at his heart for he knew what was going to happen would break you.

Your other classmates arrive as you get settled for the 10th hunger games to start. Your eyes were trained on the screen as you watch Dean kill 2 people. You bite your fingernails as you continue to watch it play out infront of your eyes. Coriolanus offers his hand as you take it, squeezing it as you watch Dean.

A couple hours pass by and everyone sits up when they watch Coryo's tribute, Lucy Gray being corned by a few of the others, Dean included. In the corner of your eye, you watch Coryo come up to his screen and rapidly click.

Your eyes flicker back to the screen as drones of water come flying at the tributes, knocking them out as the room erupts in gasps. "These drones are not very good," Flickerman comments. "Hey! What are you doing?" Vipsania shouts as she stands up.

"You can't attack the tributes Coryo!" You snap at him. "I'm just sending water," He coolly says as you shake your head and scoff. Dean managed to dodge them luckily. You watch as Lucy Gray runs, Dean chasing after her as your leg bounces.

She manages to hide in one of the vent holes as you notice Snow let out a sigh of relief. Dean punches the vent in anger as he eventually leaves her. A few more hours pass by as you fell asleep, the sound of banging wakes you up. Coryo was nowhere to be found.

Your eyes focus on the screen as Dean and Coral stand underneath a vent pipe. Coral's pitchfork was reportingly stabbing at the vents above. Dean follows the noises, his gaze on the vent. "Coral. Coral she's right here," He whispers to her as she continues stabbing at the vent. Coriolanus then runs in, "Lucy Gray, is she okay?" He says out of breath.

"She wont be for long," Festus comments as everyone's eyes are trained on the screen. All of a sudden, Dean touches his nose as he looks confused. You immediately stand up on your feet, "Wait, what's wrong with Dean?" You move closer as he falls on his knee making your heart race.

"Did Coral do something to Dean?" You panic as Dean starts spazzing out on the floor. Coryo glances at you. Lucy Gray did what he told her to do. He had snuck her rat poison to use, if a small amount was to be inhaled, it would be deadly.

You cover your mouth as your eyes widen. Dean was laying on the ground, not moving at all. You flinch at the sound of a buzzer going off, indicating that he was in fact dead. Dean was dead. And you didn't even know how it happened. You storm out but before you could, Coryo grips your arm, "I'm sorry," He says as you furrow your eyebrows at what he meant before snatching your arm from his grip. "Dean is down. Good afternoon Miss Y/l/n," Flickerman calls out.

You storm out with rage. Dean was supposed to win. He was supposed to make it out alive. You even promised him he would come out alive and go back to his family. One moment he was perfectly fine, and then the next, he's on the floor spazzing out and then dead. Your mind drifts back to Coriolanus' words, I'm sorry. What did that even mean? You assumed he was just apologising that your tribute was dead.

~

Lucy Gray had managed to win. You were happy for Coryo of course. But Dean’s recent death still plagued your mind. “Y/n,” Coryo breathed out the moment you opened your door to him; he reached out for you, pulling you against his chest.

It caught you by slight surprise before you hugged him back. The pent up emotions finally releasing the moment he rubs your back affectionately. “Shh” He softly shushed you as waterfalls fall down your cheeks. Everything was chasing up to you.

“I-I don’t even know what happened to him,” You sob in his embrace as he traces shapes on your arm. You continued to rant to him as he brought you to your living room.

You rested your head against his chest as he listened, sometimes he would bite his tongue at the things you were saying about Dean. "He was just a tribute y/n-" "He was not just a tribute." You snapped, lifting your head up as you stared at his blue irises.

Coriolanus rolls his eyes the minute you turn your head back around. "He's human, just like you and I. He had dreams, he had a family to go back to Coryo, do not just sit there and tell me he was just a tribute. He's more than a tribute," Coriolanus listened to every single word that came out of your mouth.

He did not agree with most of the things you said but for the sake of it, he said nothing. When you spoke about Dean, it grew on Coriolanus that you infact liked him, alot. Perhaps even more than like. And that was why he felt the need to kill him. You were his, only his. And after all, he couldn't have some lowly district boy taking over your body and soul.

[ihopeinevergetsoberr]

— i’m in love with a dying man

rating: mature. or explicit? i’m not sure. angsty study on grief in unconventional forms. (mild) smut purely for poetic reasons

word count: 4,1k

pairing: viktor x gn!reader

cw: terminal illness. several mentions of death. everyone is horny in a heartbroken way, so grab a napkin—but not for the reasons you think. and yes, you may dox me for making you even sadder after whatever happened in ep 6.

—

He licks a tear off your cheek, and it seeps in between the bumps on his tongue, all prickly salt running down your face in two glossy trails of sorrow. Stinging, when his calloused thumb swipes over a puffy eyelid, only to inevitably fall to your lip and tug, nudging your mouth agape. His desperate grip softens when you oblige and arch, letting him grunt over the slope of your throat; wheezier than you remember, raw, rhotic and ravenous. The hard shift of his lungs is palpable under your hand, ruckling heavily in his sternum. It almost breaks down to a cough when he cants his hips into you, slanting one last slow, weak slam. Spilling all his pent-up frustration deep inside you through that bitter orgasm, leaving a clumsy mess of stickiness to dry on your inner thigh. Stilling for you to hold him through that collapse, grateful for the shaky hand that you firmly fist into his hair. Not receding until at least a few kisses are strewn upon your shoulder. 

It’s always like this now. Viktor clings to you, and you cling to him, nails digging into handfuls of him hard enough to draw blood, each embrace so tight your ribs might just break if he doesn’t retreat in time. And god does he wish to let it linger, to drag it out until eternity tumbles in—even if his eternity is reduced to a question of mere months at best, even if he must crawl out of a casket to have your touch back. 

The night you almost lost him still has you in shambles. You remember it all too well—hell, it’s almost like that acute smell of hospitals and doom still coats his skin, more slimline than it ever was, its once ivory shade fading to chalk-like disaster. The utter horror of crushing verdicts, endless heaps of bloodied handkerchiefs and palms so cold that even the heat of your breath fails to make the feeling of him any less chilling. 

The dark humor of sneaky death: she’s right around the corner, the cruelest of all mistresses. Ready to snatch him away whenever your fingers ghost over his spine, stroking a languid count over each prominent vertebrae. And no matter how tight you curl up beside him, she will supplant you, and her proximity can’t be measured in miles, feet, or inches. Because death is a termite—she gnaws at his very heart. And blooms metastases everywhere you still have him. She’s inside him. She’s merged with him into one.

At first, you denied it. Knuckles drummed against the wall in a frustrated fistfight, painting that scabrous canvas bright with your frustration. White and crimson—the speckled pattern of your hysteria. You recall how bad it stung, and how shame creeped up your spine—frightening and so, so sticky. Throttling, when he tended to that self-inflicted disaster, bandaging your smashed hand in motions sick to the core with gentleness. 

And it felt so ugly. Like you’ve grown to loathe everything around you: the doctors, for their disgusting prognosis; life itself, for being hardly fair. And even Viktor. Especially him—for slowly slipping out of your pale-knuckled grip. Well, red-knuckled, more like. That angry stunt did cost you a decent injury. White and crimson, remember? 

Naturally, grief doesn’t always progress by the book. However, denial always comes first. It’s an axiom, an invariable component, and you’re sitting on Viktor’s hospital cot, hand in trembling hand, eyes snapped wide and ferocious. Wrapped up in fear while the silence rings in your ears. 

His doctor addresses the quandary. It doesn’t feel vicious—at least, not yet. Flimsy, more like. Deceptive, too. Like if you just blink it away hard enough everything will snap right in place, and you’ll find yourself at home again—where that aseptic smell of medication can’t reach either of you. 

Well, of course, there’s always a possibility of postponing the inevitable. Winning over a year or, even, two—if Viktor’s lucky enough, that is. But you both know that he’s lacking in that department.

And yet, you grab your little hope by the throat: to look into later, when your comprehension is intact again. Surely, it’s just not plausible: so what if Viktor’s cough pulls you out of sleep every night, so what if every shirt he owns has tiny blood stains on it? Yes, he spends more time in bed than he does at the lab. He’s simply tired. He needs the rest. Not in peace. 

The retraction doesn’t linger, though. It survives a few more blood tests and a lengthy, dreadful discussion of his calamity—most strikingly frightening when the doctor talks him through each option. And not a single one manages to appease you. To stop your fury from retching out and causing an ugly scene. 

So you fling the door to his room ajar and leap inside with a bitter scowl, teeth gritting hard enough to crumble into powder. Arms a tight crisscross over your chest, step wide and listless—punctuated with a muffled clack of heels. Viktor’s eyes follow your tremulous circles—a lazy, sheenless flick of pupils, each widened into a bleak void from the rancid dose of painkillers. He lays supine, with his hair ineptly slicked back, umber waves awry, loose and sweat-damp. He’s almost mellow, tongue barely a glide over his chapped bottom lip—a martyr-like stiffness, the carrion of a man. 

But you don’t look at him. You pace, and pace, and pace—in that same tiring route, all around his creaky cot. Viktor rasps something indistinct—a muffled plea that tickles the back of his throat, rupturing yet another coughing fit. You silently hand him the speckled handkerchief. 

He looks up, eyes the saddest shade of buckwheat honey—dark with remorse; seeking comfort. But you don’t have any to give. You stare past him, gnawing at your tongue hard enough to draw fleshy copper. Dodging the kiss he tries to press to your wrist—pulling yourself back and out of his loving grip, igniting a staring competition full of glassy eye-daggering. Blink slow and borderline drowsy. 

“Milackú,” he pleads. Pulls at the corner of his mouth to wipe the bloody evidence of his withering. 

Your tear catches in your bottom lashes. 

“Milackú,” he rasps again, kicking the blanket aside. Stepping one bare foot on the cool tiles and reaching for you: arms, legs, and heart—all yours for the taking. If only you consider crawling under his minty sheets again. 

You don’t. 

“Why?” It’s so meek you barely recognize it as your own. Taut throat tightens even more, and, suddenly, you’re choking on a gasp. “Why did you turn down the treatment?” 

“Please, if you could just—“ He husks, but you can’t hear him through the ringing in your ears; the room already smudged into wattery, astigmatic lumps, Viktor’s face but a bunch of fuzzy dots you’re struggling to make out. All missing jigsaws, blurry little fractions. 

“What did I ever do to you?” You yell, shielding your eyes. Turning away from the arm he extends, his weak fist clenching to grab thin air, then tumbling as he stares at his palm in sheer dubiety, upper lip trembling. 

He winces. Ceases you by the hand and tugs as hard as it gets—frail enough for you to easily nudge him away—but you don’t bother this time. Your knees ungainly bend into shaky arcs, drifting apart when he clasps around you and pulls until you finally land on the sheets next to him, your tears mingling with his cold sweat—a salty fusion of mutual suffering.

Then comes a sequence of guttural, squealing whines and you stay twined with him for a while. Lithe fingers run through your hair, spreading to untangle an occasional knotted strand—up, and down, and over your shoulder in a caress. His lips purse on your temple, sucking an indistinct kiss. His heartbeat trails off under your fingertips the second you rake them over his thin hospital gown, growing frenetic again when you tug at the fabric, demanding closure.

“Please. Please don’t do this to me.” You exhale your choked up entreaty into his neck and it pours over his skin in a rigid breath, aftertasting of stinging desperation. His hand seeks your face, taking a forcefully gentle hold of one puffy cheek, drinking in your unsightly, woebegone rebuke. Looking at you like a repentant devotee, his timid eyes meeting your fierce ones.

“This is not about you,” he wheezes, too stern for your liking. Presses his forehead against yours and holds you through yet another shudder—and there’s no avoiding his pleading stare. “I’m not trying to get away from you. I merely want to escape my conundrum.” 

“These aren’t mutually exclusive, Viktor,” you hiss, voice simmering with betrayal. 

“Unfortunately.” 

“Unfortunately?! Is that all you have for me right now?” 

“I’m afraid so.” 

He sighs like he means it. His words keep slipping away from him, drowned in coughs and ambiguous humms. You get it, though. Your semantics became sparse the minute Viktor almost died in your arms. 

You melt into one-another in a teary, sniffling twine—simply breathing, trading tense silences. His stately stance collapses into a lifeless hunch, straightening a bit only when your fingers billow over his shoulder-blades—chiseled like ones of a famished dog. There are plenty of dog-like things about him now—the pleas lodged in his glances, the newfound hunger for your touch. Especially for the way you’re holding him; every embrace like a loving headlock—and the pressure soothes him. 

“I’m tired of taking risks,” he finally whispers against your temple. “All these… labored efforts for mere fractions of peace. Decaying steadily. Constantly hurting. I’m spent.” 

“Exactly. Which is why you need the treatment.” 

His lashes shudder against your cheek in a prickly tickle. They keep fluttering when he recedes, shaking his head with a bitter frown.

“But its success is… highly improbable.” 

“Yes, but there’s still hope—“

“It’s running thin as we speak. I shouldn’t squander it on… the imminent.” 

Viktor’s irksome choice of words had you springing backwards in glossy-eyed delirium. Staring in disbelief as if he’d requested something inexorable: which he did, inherently so. 

He curses when tears slice your face again—tends to them with the softness of a man most contrite of his omission, shaky hands already catching holds of your waist, using your temporary pliancy to swiftly nudge you into his cot. Curling up close enough to have your weeps reverberate in his sternum. 

“I’m sorry,” he repents with a deep rasp. “Please, don’t cry.” 

He held you in reticence again: this time horizontally. Offered you every solace his body could provide: your fingers in his hair, fumbling mindlessly (he put them there himself). Tangled legs. Apologetic neck-kisses. His head heavy on your shoulder, its weight a welcome tranquility. And only when your last tear soaks his pillow does he commence with his explanation. 

“I don’t want to spend what little time I have left miserable,” he tells you, drawing a breath. “Yes, the treatment might win me a year—a year I would spend bedridden, nauseous, and weary. A travesty of life. An illusive salvation. I’ve had enough of those.” 

Your hand stills in his hair, nestled within unkempt strands. You’ve run out of tears, so this bitter truth is met with nothing but a piteous sigh—the only thing you can still master after crying your heart out into his skin. Now you can only stare at the ceiling, chewing on your cheek in cruel denial. 

He’s right. He always is. 

Viktor sees the shift in your face—knits his eyebrows together in tender pity, tucking himself firmly against your face. Wincing, when he feels the aching tension in your temple. 

“I know I’m asking a lot of you. Too much, even.” He’s sincere when he says that, and you can sense the gratitude in his voice—for even allowing him to utter this excruciating of a thing, for attempting to understand. 

You simply nod. Yes. It is a lot. But you want to hear everything he has to say. 

So Viktor continues.

“I would hate for your last memories of me to be tainted with despair and hospitals only for all the struggle to go to waste when I inevitably pass away. I have no desire to postpone this torture at the expense of growing indifferent towards everything that makes me feel alive.” 

“But what if we manage to cure you?!”

“That’s too much of a ‘what if’ to risk dying a grim death for. I want to die…content. I want to enjoy myself before I do. Please. Don’t take that choice away from me.”

His eyes brim at you with every ounce of guilt he possesses, big tears wallowing in his eyes like an earnest plea—tacit, weary, earnest. Yes, it’s not like you have a word in his terrific decision, but Viktor wants your blessing. It’s only right that he includes you. Even if he’s intending to refuse the treatment regardless. As absurd  a bid as that is. 

You clasp his face like it’s about to vanish. Like you won’t be able to make it out when he’s gone if you fail to remember it right this instant, your gaze frantically jumping from one feature to another, seeking to embroider the image into your very eyeballs. Roaming over the artifically-white hospital light hallowing every streak of his hair. Indulging in a bittersweet smile when you note how prettily it spills over the pillow. Lingering on the patterns in his ochre irises—almost fully swallowed by his void-like pupils. Observing how they match the insomniac, mauve shades under his bottom lashes. Tracing every convex little thing—two lovely moles, thick eyebrows, the pointy mouth. Everything you’ve grown to love so dearly. Everything his illness keeps taking away from you. 

You wince, cradling his cheeks, your thumbs dipping into the hollows of them gently. Urging him to scoot closer—eye to eye, lips on lips. Breath over shuddering breath. 

“Are you sure?” You mouth the question on his skin, barely even uttering it. Hot pressure meanders into your head like a prickly impulse. It’s timid like motion sickness—borderline nauseating, too—all murky splashes of trippy lights under your closed eyelids. And the unease is diluted only when he finally kisses you—an approbatory, guilt-ridden thing. 

He’s certain. And for that, he’s so, so sorry. 

You try not to think of it, focusing on the feeling. No tongue, no teeth: just sheer tremor and so much rawness. A soft, soothing exhalation straight into your mouth like the gentlest of placebos—and yet, it works for you, slaps your pulse out of its frantic antics, and the stiffness slowly leaves your limbs under his touch. 

When it’s over, he winces at you in that sleepy, adoring way of his. Attempts a wry, sad smile. The cold light besieges his head into an even clearer halo—a foreshadowing of what is to come, an inconspicuous little thing. But everything about him is conspicuous to you. Loving Viktor has made you wary, and you wanted to hold onto that attention to the detail before it eventually slips away alongside him. 

 “Are you sure?” You repeat, tightening the inadvertent chokehold around his neck. The grip weakens only when he pulls away to clumsily clear his throat. 

“Yes.” And you know he means it when his face turns just as solemn as when he confesses his love to you. 

“I’ve had a nice life with you,” he adds, hoarsely. “I want it to feel nice when my time comes, too—whenever that might be. Sooner than later, I presume.” 

The figurative knife in your stomach twists anticlockwise. 

“Will you stay with me?” He dares to inquire. Meek, shaky hope tingling in his throat. “For however many months I have left?” 

And when you look up at him with a hurt frown, he’s reminded not to ask you rhetorical questions. 

— 

A few days later, Viktor is discharged from the hospital and insists that you both go back to normal. Well, to the new, tainted definition of it—where one spoiled napkin less is considered an ephemeral improvement and grief is a fixed variable by your side. 

Your slow-paced, quiet life that keeps turning even more timid in a frail attempt to savor what’s left of it. Faux preservation, but he allows it—savors it just as earnestly as you do, and your weeks weave into a darling, familiar routine. With some minor, necessary changes, no less: rest comes before the lab now, all deadlines fashionably late to accommodate this newfound tempo. Mandatory hourly breaks. Weekly check-ups. Four days off for every three he spends bent over the parchment. But this time, he doesn’t protest. His body demands it, inconveniently so.

You don’t tell anyone about your horrific arrangement—not yet, at the very least. It’s all you can think about, and the words threaten to slide out every time you speak—but you’re forced to swallow them with a smile so lopsided that everyone around you can only suspect the worst. A mantra of countless ‘What’s wrong’s irritating your ears with pure sincerity. 

What is wrong with you, indeed? You’re a spectator to death—not just any death, but the one you dreaded most. And not only are you witnessing it in the making, but this decision was never forced—you handed Viktor the choice and accepted whatever he went with so obediently that it felt absurd, and it had your skin crawling every time someone vaguely mentioned anything even remotely related to his condition.

But they—whoever that refers to—could never get it. They wouldn’t know what it’s like: to be stripped of your selfishness for the sake of Viktor’s peace. Defying your needs. Forcing yourself to find relief in demise. You might’ve failed to intimidate her into allowing you to keep him, but you could still accompany him into her arms and make it glorious. Here it is. Your new, appalling reason. It’s all that you want now.

Or is it? 

There’s plenty of nobility in being his chaperone—welcoming him into bed every night, painfully aware that it can become his death one. Treating every new invention of his like a soon-to-be postmortem legacy. Mourning the living. Anticipating the inexplicable. Marking every shared kiss the last, just in case. 

But then it came—unabashed and sudden. That blurry line where mourning merges into something dubious, a confusing paradox that leaves you full of filthy carry-over somewhere within your gut. The scorch his lips engrave into the column of your neck. The way it ignites a swell you can almost convince yourself is actually tangible, running your fingers over it recursively like a tactile little prayer. The gaze he throws at you across the lab ever so sneakily—a figurative punch that feels surprisingly close to a kiss. And you never resist turning it into one. Escalating. Claiming. Indulging those ambiguous, yet-to-be-defined things and having them wash over the remnants of your decorum. 

You try to fight it when it first happens, but it doesn’t last. There’s no place for restraint in grief—not when it turns into a beautiful desire to be all over him, to take everything life has to offer before he runs out of it. And Viktor doesn’t judge you. He encourages it. He craves it, just as bad—if not more—than you do. How many more undoings can he claim before the final one absorbs him? You’ve already lost that count. So much for having your love bleed on every inch of his skin.

Tonight you let it bleed mouth to mouth—a sweaty, heartfelt thing that commemorates your hunger for him in a kiss so dizzying that he has to lean back with a silent, breathless plea for brief interlude—foggy eyes staring up at you so devotedly. Shuddering, when your arms wander over his chest to feel the rasp, pointed lips bruised full of spit-slick swell. He’s a beauty—exquisite, albeit worn-down, his lines and angles blurring together into one eager, contourless essence, and you cage him in a firm straddle—your bare thighs over his clothed ones—grinding in a whiny attempt to reach him through his pants. 

“I’m sorry,” you mumble, leaning back to let him breathe. He’s sprawled out beneath you, tortuous hands already busy with tugging his tie off—impatient, clumsily nervous. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me,” you say at last, averting your gaze almost shyly. His fingers lurch to your hip, locking it in a gentle cradle, stilling above your backside in hesitation—asking for a laze caress, pushing your flimsy limits. As if forgetting that you never set those for him. Or, perhaps, he simply likes hearing your excited ‘yes’ every time. You can’t quite figure out which it is. 

He grabs a handful of you with reverence, and yet there’s something resilient about that grip—like he dreads that you might slip through his fingers if he doesn’t hold on possessively enough, staring up at you with his head thrown back in a curious, admiring droop. Aiming to dispose of your shirt in a nimble pull. Plotting a sequence of kisses from neck to collarbone. 

You expect it when he rises on his elbows, then grips the bedframe to shift beneath you in a silly leap. Inelegant, but he couldn’t care less, releasing his hips from the hedge of your legs to make you slide up his crotch instead—a most welcome, brusque change that you adapt to in a squealing instant. Your moaning mouth agape under his grin. His hips thrusting through restraining fabric. Shaky. Erotic. With your arms tumbling astride his shoulders. 

“Don’t apologize,” Viktor insists in a lulling whisper, switching to a cautionary nip on your ear. “I’ve missed you, too,” he confesses somewhere into your hair, brushing through it with a tip of his nose—breathing you in through a tender whiff.  

Your words get lost in a deep fluster, rolling back into your throat and lingering there in a suffocating lump. They have you stiffening, heavy eyelids squeezing shut—a voluntarily blindfold to help you explore him through touch only. An invitation to feel you where he pleases. And, well—it just so happens that your whims align with his—a cohesive, welcome collateral. 

Viktor starts at the slope of your shoulder. Pulls the shirt down and traces that lovely curve—fingers first. Throws a brief, askance glance at your face to make sure that your eyes are closed, and, when met with the flutter of your lashes, gets back to his lovely tease. Tender, warm lips taste your skin with delicious, savoring sounds. Getting wetter when his tongue makes a fickle appearance—leaves a slick, capricious lick in the dip of your collarbone, fluffy hair tickling your face when he bends to tend to your chest, too—and you shiver as he sucks a plum love-stain that you’ll proudly wear under your shirts. 

“See,” he cooes. “Whatever gets into you must be contagious.” 

You give in to a half-lidded peek and find him begging for your assistance—a sweet request that you understand in half-nod. Arms up in the air and over your clouded head when he unleashes your skin from the thin garment—throws it on the floor for you to find later in the morning. 

“But it feels wrong.” You sigh. “Ever since we found out…”

“I’d rather you quit talking about that in bed, please,” Viktor reproaches, eyes heady with want. His fingers slide into your underwear, contemplating its fate—should he make it join your shirt or pull it to the side in hasty fashion? Either approach had him shivering at the thought. 

But the sudden sorrow stops the rush, rendering your urge for consolation. It wraps you around him all over again, legs locking in a tangle around his waist, drooping hands combing through his hair in a brusque, fervent tug. Seeking succor. Heart to heart and thumping an anxious march. 

“I’m afraid,” you admit, but it’s not a revelation. All shuddering shoulders under his idolatrous caress, and you pang with guilt at that, too—it’s you who should be fondling him this delicately, warm reassurance seeping into his ears—not yours. But Viktor wants to be your comfort. If anything, it’s the only thing on his mind.

“What are you afraid of, beloved?” A little shiver at the unforeign endearment—a rare occasion. His thick brows still drawn together in a concerned arc. They relax only when you rake your fingers down his body—counting ribs, toying anxiously. The hurry is gone, there’s only caution now: his enamored eyes, waiting for you to find your slippery words. 

“Of losing you before I get to show you how much I love you.” You whisper, suddenly tasting teary salt in your mouth. His thumb comes to the rescue, swiftly flicking the wet trails. So you chuckle at the affection in a silly stagger to bump sweaty foreheads together.

“Nonsense,” he insists. “You’re showing me right now.”

“Indeed.” You shrug. “But… Is this the right way?” 

And when he puts your palm over his eager heartbeat, you’re reminded not to ask him rhetorical questions. 

—

tags: @zaunitearchives @blissfulip @nausicaaandhermouth @thehistoriangirl @vyshnevska

[nyctoaerah]

⋆♱⋆REGRETS

Content warnings: Angst, Death, Foul Language, Toxic behaviors, Unhealthy Relationships.

Pairings: Sanemi Shinazugawa x Fem! Reader

“Are you still thinking about her?”

Obanai questioned, leaning  into the oak tree with his hands behind his head as his heterochromic eyes dissected every flicker of emotion on the wind hashira’s face, searching for clues hidden beneath the mask of indifference that sanemi had.

Sanemi didn’t answer at first, opting to shred a blade of grass between his calloused fingers. The muscles in his jaw tensed as he chewed the inside of his cheek.

“No i’m not.”

He avoided Obanai's searching gaze, staring up into the leaves instead as they rustled gently in the breeze. 

Obanai gave him a look.

The serpent hashira knew how sanemi’s mind works. He was probably thinking about you again, and fuck was he right, Sanemi was thinking about you.

He was thinking of you like some lovesick idiot, he was thinking of your smile, the way you’d bark insults back at him whenever he’s in the mood to be grumpy.

The way you feel, and the sweet sighs you’d breathe into his skin.

He missed how well you knew him, able to read his moods with just a glance.

And damn, did he wonder what would happen if he didn’t acted on impulse back then?

What if instead of breaking up with you, and telling you to just leave the corps, he supported your decision?

Would things be different? Would the two of you still be together?

Would he be able to marry you like he had always wanted to?

“I know you’re thinking about her, Shinazugawa.” Obanai interrupted his wishful thinkings bluntly. Sanemi shot him an irritated glance but didn’t deny it.

There was no point in arguing — Obanai could see right through him anyways.

“Thinking of what could have been if you didn’t split up, yeah? Putting a ring on her finger?”

“Tch. Mind your own business,” he grunted.

“So what if i am thinking about her? It doesn’t matter.” sanemi answered bluntly, making obanai sigh.

“You should move on. it’s been a year and a half.” Obanai replied.

“It’s pathetic to still yearn for a girl. When you wwre the one who broke up with her in the first place.”

“I know it’s pathetic. You don’t have to remind me.”

Sanemi scowled.

He hated it—the reminder that he was the one who had broken your heart, the one who had walked away.

The mere mention of you was like a blade, pristine yet serrated; It was a very sensitive topic for sanemi.

Whenever you were the topic, Sanemi grew sensitive—He disliked discussing about you, because it hurts and left him feeling ashamed.

He loathed this conversation, this topic that dug into the wounds he thought had scabbed over, and he was ashamed that he was the one who broke your heart, when now he was the one pining and in pain. 

Why the fuck did the both of you have to be so stubborn?

All he wanted was to protect you—to shield you from the bloodshed and gore he faced daily as a demon slayer—yet your determination to join and spill demon guts for vengeance for your family was as immovable as a mountain.

Time and again he pleaded with you, begged you to reconsider, to choose another path, any path but that one. But you wouldn’t bend. 

It hurts him whenever he remembers that you and two had something special back then.

Every time he returned home injured from a mission, you would gently clean and dress his wounds with a tender touch, wanting nothing more than to ease his pain.

Your days were spent caring for the handful of stray dogs he had rescued from the streets, nursing them back to health alongside your own beloved pets and your relationship with him was basically all sunshines and rainbows.

But that was until a demon attacked and slaughtered your family.

Your gentleness turned hard as stone. Gone was the refuge you once shared; in its place grew thorns of bitterness, vengefulness, and distrust. All the love you had poured into caring for sanemi and your home seemed wasted and all you cared about was getting revenge. 

And your relationship became toxic, always arguing and all.

Though, one argument made him snap — when you said something hurtful about him.  He knew that he shouldn’t have risen to the bait, shouldn’t have let his temper get the best of him, but damn you just know how to push his buttons.

And before he knew what he was doing, the words were spewing from his mouth like vomit—words he could never take back, words meant to wound as deeply as you’d wounded him, and in the heat of the moment, he ended up storming out and dumping you on the spot, so that you’d quit the corps because he knew you wouldn’t want to see his face anymore or some shit like that.

Sanemi ran both hands roughly through his white hair in stress, tugging slightly in frustration as the events replayed in his mind. The hurtful words you had said were burned into his memory.

He let out a groan and leaned back against the tree, eyes closed as he tried to forget the look on your face when he left.

But no matter what he did, he just couldn’t escape the guilt.

And the fact that obanai just kept mentioning you was just adding salt into the wound.

 “If you miss her so bad, why don’t you just send her a letter and apologize?” Obanai asked casually, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Lower your pride a little. It wouldn’t kill you.” He added.

 “Trust me, I’ve always wanted to apologize.” Sanemi huffed out gruffly. 

“Damn it... I look like such a dramatic fool.” He grumbled to himself, cringing as he recalled his rash actions.

“Then why don’t you send her a letter? You know where to find her...” Obanai said with an arched brow, as if the solution was obvious.  

“I don’t wanna bother her.” Sanemi muttered, already dreading your possible reaction if he tried to reach out, he feared that you’d just tell him to fuck off.

But maybe Obanai was right... He really needed to apologize.

𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬, 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝.♡

©𝐍𝐲𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐚𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐡 || 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

𝐀/𝐍: i was listening to xxxx by loonie when i was writing this dawg, it fits the theme & atmosphere of this fic... Same ground by kitchie nadal fits this aswell.

(this is totally not inspired by my previous rs)

[honeykaes]

heart's loyalty

pairing: kazuha x femme!reader II 2.7k

warning: smut, 18+ content, minors do not interact, heavy angst, use of she/her pronouns and descriptions of afab!reader, based on feudal japan, arranged-marriage with scaramouche, reader is a foreigner, exhibitionism, public sex, praising, body-worship, fingering, creampie, character death, cheater!reader, can be read as yandere!scaramouche, unedited

synopsis: kazuha never thought that when he was assigned to protect daimyo kunikuzuishi’s wife his loyalty would shift from the shogun to you and when you asked to run away with him, he couldn’t deny you.

Early fall was one of Kazuha’s favorite times of the year. The heat from the summer was beginning to drift away as leaves would slowly float down from his favorite maple trees. He loved the garden in the small manor of the daimyo’s wife as it captured his favorite scene perfectly.

As he turned the corner of the manor, he saw your form. You were sitting on a large rock next to the tall maple tree, giving you shade. A solemn gaze had taken up your face as maple leafs slowly drifted down around you. You revealed your hands from the sleeves of your ornate yukata, picking at a small loaf of bread you threw a yard away towards the koi pond.

His autumn-tinted eyes softened, heart warming at the side of seeing you, yet a small sadness clawed at his heart seeing you so depressed. He couldn’t fault your emotions as if he was trapped in a loveless marriage, he couldn’t smile all the time either.

You were a foreigner picked to be the wife of Daimyo Kunikuzushi by the Shogunate, Raiden Ei. She wanted access to your country's military and weaponry that came from the West as a deterrent from anyone who sought to challenge her power. Therefore, you became a sacrificial pawn to a game of chess you had no means of playing, let alone winning.

He remembered the night you first came to the estate as he walked the quiet halls before hearing your sobs coming from the other side of the sliding door. He was merely randomly assigned to be your personal guard by the daimyo for his skills in sword fighting but his lack of heart to actually fight in conflicts unless necessary. 

When he slid the door open, seeing your shocked and tearful face turn in shock that night, he struggled to come up with the words to even greet your depressed form, not knowing what he could say to stop you from crying. He merely walked up and bowed, getting to his knees and lifted his head down, vowing both to you and to his heart to try to give you a better experience of the many years you had awaiting in the country of Inazuma.

As Kazuha walked closer to your form in the garden, your eyes flickered to him—light returning in your dull gaze. He sat besides you on the rock, looking up at the rings of light that managed to escape the maple leaves before placing his pale, calloused hand on yours and weaving his fingers.

A bond between the wife of the daimyo and the samurai guarded to protect her happened gradually but remained strong, leaving both of them longing to be with one another openly. But, when daimyo Kunikuzushi left to return to his larger mansion or to visit the Shogun, it was him that got to warm your bed every night, joined together in a secret but passionate union.

Kazuha was thankful that hardly any workers were at this estate before a small number. Here, they were free to pretend they were together. 

But it was only pretend; a reminder Kazuha so sadly acknowledged whenever the Daimyo would return to break that fantasy.

Kazuha felt you squeeze his hand tighter as he turned his head to your form. You stared out to the koi pond, watching the fish swim in circles in the small patch.

“My bird…you know the one I have in my room right?” you asked in a low voice. Kazuha nodded as you sighed, throwing another small chunk of bread to the pond. 

“..I let it fly free from its cage. When I went to feed it today, it was looking out to the sky. How could I not? A bird isn’t meant for a golden cage” you mumbled. You loved that bird with every fiber of your being, Kazuha knew letting go was harder for you than you let on. Kazuha lifted his intertwined hands with yours to his mouth, offering a tender kiss on the back of your hand.

“...I’d go with you in case you decide to follow that bird and leave your cage,” Kazuha replied. You briefly smile before lips curling downwards into a frown, throwing the remainder of the bread in the pond.

“No, you couldn’t Kazuha. Your loyalty was pledged to Shogunate Ei and Daimyo Kunikuzushi. You’d end up getting killed for treason if you decided to escape with you,” you whispered. Kazuha let his hand go from yours, bringing it up to caress your cheek. His thumb brushed against the skin, feeling the warmth from your cheeks.

“I am only loyal to those in my heart,” he murmured, closing the gap between you as his lips graciously captured your own. Your bodies eventually got closer as the samurai's hand refused to part from your cheek. You whispered out his name, wrapped your hands around his neck to kiss him deeper.

You gasped feeling his hips buck and grind at your thigh, parting his lips with heavy breaths.

“We can’t do this here…in the garden. Someone could see—” Kazuha briefly silenced you with his lips before leaning out, trailing his lips along your neck.

“I dismissed everyone to go to their courtier. Only you and me remain in this garden,” he whispered, nipping at your earlobe. You softly chuckled before leaning in to kiss the samurai once more as his hands began to paw at your clothed thighs. His hands snuck past the fabric of your yukata and their hadajuban, cupping their cunt eliciting a breathless sigh from you. His lips continued pecking along your neck, so delicate and quick as if a butterfly was landing on them.

Kazuha finger brushed against your clit as jolts of pleasure wavered throughout your body. You ground your core against his hand, desperate to get more friction from the pad of his thumb. He pressed against the bundle of nerves, offering quick circles to it. You whined once more, shifting from his touch.

“Always so lovely and soft for me, my lady,” he murmured, voice muffled as he pressed his mouth against your nape. Your arousal was beginning to drool out of your hole, coating his finger that was toying with your clit with the essence. As his ministrations went faster, two fingers prodded at your entrances—teetering back and forth—before finally allowing them to sink into your cunt. 

As you moaned out his name, you quickly covered your mouth, muffling the soft moans Kazuha so desperately wanted to hear from you. Your walls fluttered against his fingers slowly plunging themselves deeper inside of you. He soon curled them up as he pumped them, your body jolting as he finally found what he was looking for.

Your walls clamped down pulsating against his fingers curling and moving themselves inside of you to massage that spot. Your hips gyrated and grinded, nub from your clit beginning to slightly burn in pleasure.

“That’s right, my dove. Just let yourself fall into the pleasure,” he whispered deep in your ear as his free hand made way to your clothed breast. He gave it a squeeze, moaning lowly himself as if he could perfectly visualize the pair out as he did before. He shifted in his seat, rubbing his thighs together as his cock pressed firmly against the thin fabric of his fundoshi.

His tongue darted from his lips, planting a long stride against your neck, tasting the salty sweet mixture of your sweat and lotions on the skin. His mouth settled against your ear, his hot breath causing goosebumps to sprout throughout your body.

“Please don’t deprive me of your beautiful voice, dove. I need to hear how I am making you feel,” he moaned, lifting his hand away from your breast to the hand covering your mouth. As he gently moved it away, the corners of his lips curled in delight hearing the soft groans elicited from his fingering continuously pumping themselves inside of you.

“Kazuha..ha! I’m gonna…please! I’m gonna…!” you moaned out, voice beginning to rise in tone from Kazuha’s pace increasing. He quickly leaned forward, capturing your lips once more as you finally reached your high shivering in his touch, hips grinded against his hand.

As he leaned away, Kazuha’s gaze was half-lidded and darkened in lust. Both of your lips are glossy with a translucent string of saliva connected to the pair. His gaze softened once more, admiring your afterglow of your climax.

“You make me feel so drunk as if I was a fool. How easy you tempt me, my dove…” he whispered, sliding his fingers out of your cunt as you whined. His hands snaked through the fabrics once more, revealing the coated digits.

“Perhaps, I should have waited to have you in your chambers. You always taste so divine,” he hummed to himself, pressing his fingers against his mouth. His tongue curled around his fingers coated in your slick, cleaning them before rubbing the excess saliva against his yukata.

“As sweet as always but alas, I don’t think I can wait anymore,” Kazuha groaned. You soon found yourself up on your feet, pinned against the base of the tree as Kazuha’s eyes drank in your disheveled form. 

Kazuha quickly disrobed, pulling his trousers and fundoshi off and exposing his cock against the cool early fall breeze. His haori decorated in maple leaves fell along the gravel of the garden as well, leaving him completely bare as his cock lulled against his toned, pale lower stomach.

He tenderly wrapped his hand around his length before letting out a breath sigh, slowly jerking it as his cock pulsated in his grasp. His base soon shined in precum, now coated on his head that budded from his flushed tip. Kazuha’s gaze rises to yours curling his lips into an amused, and slightly mischievous smile, witnessing your eyes avoiding to look down at his length.

“This isn’t the first time I've had you like this. There’s no need to be embarrassed, although you are rarely cute like this, my dove,” he murmured, pressing a chaste kiss against your cheek. You gnaw on your bottom lip, feeling his heavy cock rest against your thigh.

“I-I know that! But we’re outside…,” you whined. Kazuha chuckled, kissing the other side of your cheek.

“Just as our ancestors before us and the animals that roam along these vary lands. There’s no need to be embarrassed, I promise it is just us here and no watchful eyes except my own,” he reassured. You shyly nod as Kazuha’s hand made its way to loosen the obi and grabbed onto the fabric of your kimono, revealing your breasts to him.

He leaned in once more, pressing a kiss against the valley of your breasts before lifting your leg to his hip, exposing your drooling cunt to his gaze. The tip of his cock nudged against your sensitive clit as you whined once more, gliding along your slit as he struggled to find your entrance. With a soft grunt, he finally finds it allowing him to finally sink into your warmth. His pace was slow and deliberate, grinding his pelvis against your entrance.  

You moaning out his name was his favorite melody as you wrapped your arms around his neck, allowing him to plunge deeper inside of you. The soft noises of nature around you were eventually drowned out by the snapping noises of skin coming to contact with one another and your breathless sighs of pleasure. 

It was overwhelming, feeling your walls desperate to pull him in deeper and fluttered against his sensitive cock. His other hand found it way to your covered ass, squeezing it tightly to push your bodies closer to one another.

“I always find myself spellbound and so captivated by your ethereal form…forgive me for losing myself, my dove,” he moaned, pressing his face against your nape. His pace soon grew faster.

“I will always be yours, no matter what,” Kazuha grunted, strokes becoming faster. Your body bounced at his relentless pace as weaker branches begin to shake and tremble from his pace. Kazuha’s blunt nails dug into the plush skin of your thighs futility trying to sink deeper inside of you, muffled whimpers of your name escaping from his lips. Snapping his eyes shut, Kazuha reached his peak as thick ropes of cum shot inside of you. His hips bucked—weakly thrusting—as he slowly came down, leaving a kiss on the nape of your neck.

“Ah…how could I let myself become undone before you…” he softly chuckled, lifting his hand away from the globe of your ass to toy with your throbbing clit to cease your whines. You squirmed in his grip, grinded against his cock still nestled deep inside of you plugging the cum that was threatening to leak out. He grinded his hips, feeling your walls slowly caved down, pressing tighter circles against your clit

“That’s it…you’re almost there…just a little more dove,” Kazuha hummed, flicking your overstimulated clit rapidly. Your back arched, leg shivering in pleasure as you finally reached your high. Kazuha peppered kisses against your nape.

“There you go…such a good, little dove,” he cooed. 

“Kadehara.”

Your eyes softened as you placed your hands against his flushed cheeks.

“Kaedehara Kazuha.”

Kazuha snapped his eyes open, looking down at the gravel—the pain of the rocks pressed against his legs kneeling down. His eyes felt heavy, skin much sweeter than usual as a pure white kimono clung onto him uncomfortably. When he went to move his arms, the tight rope burned against his wrist as they stayed in place bound behind him.

He finally leaned his head up, observing his surroundings. Familiar faces of his comrades were sat around a courtyard, varying faces of disgust, disappointment and anger on their faces.

“...You will be executed for treason against the Shogun,” a woman called out, with a decree in her hands. There his name was, written in kanji, penned by the all-powerful Raiden Ei,

“Ah.. that was right,” Kazuha slowly whispered to himself. He buried himself in a dream to forget the nightmare that was his reality.

He remembered that day, as your bodies were still joined together, you gently clasped his face and pleaded that you needed to run away, to be with him and happy. Just as he pledged before, Kazuha happily complied, cleaning the two of you before packing a small rations and cash to get on the next boat leaving Liyue.

He thought, together, they could make it. He was skilled enough to fight off against ronin or his old comrades.

What he didn’t expect was the skilled power Daimyo Kunikuzushi had. Kazuha knew him to always have others do his dirty work. It only took a half a day for him to find you two with ten men at his side. The servants must have reported the pair or he arrived at your manor earlier than you thought—you weren’t sure how and why he was able to know where you two were headed.

Pinned down against six samurai, all Kazuha could do was reach out to your crying and screaming form, desperately reaching out for his hand. It was as if the world had slowed watching your form slowly disappear from his sight as he was rushed to be arrested.

He knew you would be physically alright, but you’d be put into a smaller cage and under a more watchful eye by the Daimyo.

Him, however…

Kazuha’s eyes drifted up, feeling the weight of a hateful gaze glare down at him. Kunikuzushi stood behind him, a katana by his side.

One man he knew to be Heizou, solemnly got up from his seated position, walking over and behind him, covering Kazuha’s eyes with a white cloth. Kazuha sensed Heizou left to return back to his position—the samurai’s eyes waiting in hesitant anticipation for his death.

Hearing a katana unsheathe from its hilt, the corners of Kazuha’s mouth lifted into a smile before closing his eyes. His mind conjured your image once more; how he wished he could see your smiling face one more time. He’d sadly have to leave you lonely for now.

“Do you have any last words,” Daimyo Kunikuzushi seethed out. Kazuha could feel the twisted smile on the daimyo’s face, relishing that he was about to die by his hand.

”I followed her to this life and I will follow her to the next.”

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 10: Blame Everyone But Me For This Mess]

Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra’s wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook’s Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother’s life. Now you are in the liar of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting…

Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, references to sexual content (18+), Aemond-induced chaos, death and destruction, witchcraft! 🔮

Series title is a lyrics from: “7 Minutes In Heaven” by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “I’ve Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth” by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 6.2k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

Taglist (more in comments): @tinykryptonitewerewolf @lauraneedstochill @not-a-glad-gladiator @daenysx @babyblue711 @arcielee @at-a-rax-ia @bhanclegane @jvpit3rs @padfooteyes @marvelescvpe @travelingmypassion @darkenchantress @yeahright0h @poohxlove @trifoliumviridi @bloodyflowerrr @fan-goddess @devynsficrecs @flowerpotmage @thelittleswanao3 @seabasscevans @hiraethrhapsody @libroparaiso @echos-muses @st-eve-barnes @chattylurker @lm-txles @vagharnaur @moonlightfoxx @storiumemporium @insabecs @heliosscribbles @beautifulsweetschaos @namelesslosers @partnerincrime0 @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @yawneneytiri @marbles-posts @imsolence @maidmerrymint @backyardfolklore @nimaharchive @anxiousdaemon @under-the-aspen-tree @amiraisgoingthruit @dd122004dd @randomdragonfires @jetblack4real @joliettes

Only 3 chapters left! 🥰💜

“Aemond!” he roars into the cerulean midday sky, knowing it is useless, that fate has already spoken.

All his life, fate has proven Criston Cole wrong. He once believed he could not rise above being born to a steward in the Dornish Marches. He once feared he would never be permitted to join the Kingsguard. He once felt in his twisting, self-loathing guts that he would never love any woman but Rhaenyra. And Criston once knew—without reservation, without complexity—that Alicent’s eldest son would never amount to anything worthwhile, could never be courageous, self-sacrificial, competent, a true king. Each time, fate had a different ending in store.

All around him, Green soldiers are dying in what will be known to history as the Butcher’s Ball. They are being slit open, disemboweled, crushed beneath the hooves of warhorses, stabbed and clubbed and speared. The Northmen have scorpions with them as well, with massive bolts to bring down dragons; but they are unnecessary. There are no dragons on the battlefield today.

Criston pictures Aemond as a boy, always so sullen, always so dutiful. He read and he wrote and he sparred in the castle courtyard until the blisters on his palms burst and bled and then turned to callouses, knots of dead-nerved scar tissue that grew over his wounds but never cured them. Criston did not just believe in Aemond’s abilities, his honor; he was certain of these things, he carried them as interminably as the lines in his palms. Criston knew Aemond and Vhagar would be the saviors of the Greens in this war. He knew Aemond would be here.

But he’s not. He’s just not, and there’s nothing I can do to bring him.

Cregan Stark is cutting through the Greens’ men. He is not a soldier, he is a force of nature, he is a thunderstorm or a famine or a rogue wave, he is winter coming to rip the trees bare and bury the weak in frostbitten earth. Arrows are loosed by the Northmen’s archers, lethal hissing rain. One hits Criston in the shoulder of his sword arm. Another pierces him through the small of his back, severing his spinal cord and dropping him to his knees.

Through the fray, Cregan sees the Kingmaker. He wants him, he wants Criston’s blood on his blade, his hands, his face; and what the Warden of the North wants, he is never denied.

Alicent, Criston thinks, and he remembers her lying in bed after giving birth to Aegon. She was a girl, just a girl, pale, sick, in terrible and unspoken pain, never the same in body, forever darker in mind, alone in a room full of tapestries of her husband’s house as the court celebrated her newborn son. She knew she had been used. She knew this was her life and always would be, a wheel that goes around and around and crushes the same bones until they stop mending, until the misery and desperation becomes so much a part of you that you could almost forget it’s there. It’s your shadow, it’s your religion, it’s a sigil or a ring.

I suppose now I have something to live for, Alicent had said, and Criston sat on the edge of the bed took her small, cold hand in his own. He raised her knuckles to his lips and answered: I swear to you that I will always protect him. That I will never let him die.

Here in the Riverlands as Cregan Stark descends upon him, Criston looks up again and sunlight spills over his face, warm and kind and golden; but the sky is still empty.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the gardens of Dragonstone, on a bench carved out of gloom-grey basalt, you pull Aegon’s legs into your lap and roll up his loose cotton trousers to inspect them: scars that have knit shut the gashes bones once cut through, muscle mass that is slowly building itself back again, good circulation, able to carry him if only for short, hard-fought distances. You have bled twice since Aemond flew back to the Riverlands to seize Harrenhal. Here under flinty autumn skies and pine trees that sway in brisk wind that smells like saltwater and metal, you think that perhaps the earth is done giving things. This is the time for harvests, not blooms. This is the season of endings, long nights full of cold stars, firelight, reaping.

“Stop,” Aegon says gently. He’s clutching a thick wool blanket around his shoulders. He’s always cold now, pale and shivering. His silvery hair hangs in untamed waves around his face adored with only a single small braid that you weave for him each day. “I don’t want you to do it.”

No; he only wants the maesters to see his weakness, his suffering. “I like taking care of you. It’s the only thing I’m good at. It’s how we met, remember?”

“Oh, I remember.” Now he smiles. “I have no idea what you saw in me.”

“An exemplary cock, mostly. Better than any in my medical books.”

Aegon laughs, a sound you rarely get to hear anymore. Then he is grave again. His hair blows in the gales that roll in off the ocean; his eyes, a tumultuous blue like waves in a storm, are ringed by shadows. “Angel, listen to me.” He places a hand over yours where it rest on a knot of scar tissue just below his kneecap. “If I don’t…” He pauses, and you think as you look at him: He’s nothing but scars now, he’s nothing but pain that is calloused over but never forgotten. “If I’m not here when the war is over, I want you to know that you’ll still be protected. Aemond knows. Larys knows. You are to be provided for. You will reside only where and with whom you choose to.”

“Why wouldn’t you be here?”

Aegon shrugs, avoiding your gaze. “We should be realistic.”

“You’ll be here. You have to be.”

Aegon stares into a thicket of rose bushes, blood-red petals and twisted thorns. And he says faintly, like something a strong wind could carry away: “I’ll try.”

“We’re winning, Aemond and Criston and Daeron and the Greens’ armies. They might have won already and we’re just waiting to hear the words. Aemond will end the war and then we’ll all be together again in King’s Landing.”

Aegon gives you a wry smirk as you roll back down the legs of his trousers, concealing his roadmap of harm. “A man like Cregan Stark would not be such a disappointment. He would be able to ride into battle. He would not have compelled you to bloody your own hands. He would not be feeble and deformed.”

“It can’t be anyone but you.”

Overhead, half-shrouded in mist, there is an immense reptilian shadow and a rumbling like the earth splitting in two, cracked and forced apart by eruptions of steam, lava, trapped toxic heat. Gingerly, Aegon returns his boots to the earth, stony and barren. He winces and groans before he can bite it back to hide it from you.

“I’ll go,” you tell Aegon, skimming your fingers through his hair and touching your lips to his temple. His wave-blue eyes are watery, grateful. “Stay here. I’ll bring him to you.”

You hurry through corridors and down spiral staircases, watched by dragons of iron and stone with fire burning in their mouths. And of course, there is more than one reason why you want to greet Aemond by yourself. You don’t know what he will say to you; you don’t know if he’s still angry. But when he strides through the entranceway of the castle to meet you—his hair in one long white-blond braid, his black coat billowing around him in the sharp wind—he is not alone.

There is a woman with him.

“…Aemond?” you say, staring at her: hair like onyx, skin like snow. She grins at you beneath eyes that are pools of ink, dark and glassy and with hardly any whites. You do not believe she intends to unnerve you; still, there is a blade-cold shudder that tumbles down the rungs of your spine.

Aemond replies with pride that is hushed, pure: “This is my wife.”

“Your…?” You cannot look away from her. Her gown is black lace with long, dragging sleeves and a train that curls around her like a dragon’s tail. You can see glimpses of her starlight skin through the fabric, her forearms, her waist, her thigh. Isn’t she cold? You are wearing heavy velvet, pine green like Aegon’s banner, and still the impending winter needles at you. “Who…?”

Lord Larys Strong arrives, his cane tapping on the stone floor. When he sees the woman, he jolts to a halt and gawks. “Alys?”

“Hello, brother.” Her voice is deep, smooth, melodic. She speaks the language of ocean currents, roots in dark fertile soil, the revolving of the stars.

You turn to Larys. “Who is this?”

“A bastard daughter of my father,” Larys answers, slow and disbelieving. “Alys Rivers. She…she was at Harrenhal, last I saw her…years ago…”

“And now she is here with me,” Aemond says. “She is precisely where she belongs.”

Silence fills the room, the world, the space that has opened up between you and Aemond. Wife? Bastard? Harrenhal? At last, you manage shakily: “Aegon is in the gardens. He’s waiting for you.”

“Good,” Aemond says. He wears something you have never seen on him before: not just pride but serenity, consolation, contentment. “There is much to discuss.”

As slate-grey wind whistles through rose thorns and cranberry bushes, you and Larys step out into the gardens with your uninvited guests. Aegon’s eyes snag on Alys, widen, and then dart to you. He mouths: Who the fuck is that? You shrug, bewildered.

Aemond says: “Allow me to present my wife, Lady Alys Rivers of Harrenhal.”

“Your wife?!” Aegon exclaims, like he couldn’t possible have heard correctly. “Your wife?!”

“Yes.” Aemond’s arm snakes around Alys’ waist. She folds into him, palm to his chest, lips to his throat, something creeping and boneless like ivy or mist or smoke. “You’ve had two now. I’ve only just found mine.”

“Rivers,” Aegon echoes incredulously. “A bastard from the Riverlands.”

Larys notes: “One of my father’s natural children.”

“A Strong bastard?!” Aegon cackles and looks to Larys. “Where is Daeron presently? Can he be summoned here? He should see this.”

“It is no jest, Your Grace,” Aemond says calmly. “It is a true pairing of souls.”

“And you were not at liberty to give yours. You have to marry Borros Baratheon’s daughter. That was the deal, that’s why he has pledged his army to us.”

“Daeron can do it.”

“Daeron won’t be old enough to marry for years, and that’s not the point! This is a slight, an egregious slight, to reject a Baratheon noblewoman in favor of a…a…what was she, a serving wench? A wetnurse? What happened to your pathological obsession with self-righteous duty? And why aren’t you and Vhagar with Criston?! Is this what you’ve been doing for the past six weeks while I was trapped here, suffering and useless? You’ve been hiding in the crumbling towers of Harrenhal with your so-called wife? What was so fucking crucial that it kept you from the battlefield—?!”

“She carries my son,” Aemond says.

A gasp spills from you before you can silence it; Lord Larys covers his mouth with one hand. Aegon stares numbly at his brother, not warring with envy or spite but raw astonishment. This is an asset to the Greens, it is a detriment, it lifts a burden from his shoulders, it imperils all of you. “You have no way of knowing what it is yet.”

“I know. We know.”

“And why have you flown to Dragonstone?” Aegon demands. “To torment me with your disobedience, to illustrate so vividly how all that relentless, calculated striving has finally cracked your brain in half—?!”

“No.” Aemond glances to you. “Something has happened. And I wanted to be here in person to deliver the news and…express my condolences.”

“Condolences?” you say, fearful, alarmed.

“Lord Larys will not have received word yet,” Aemond continues. “It has only just transpired. But Alys has seen it.”

Aegon shakes his head. He doesn’t understand. “Seen it…?”

“She sees things. The future, the past. Not every detail, but some of them. She’s seen Mother in the Red Keep, a prisoner but still alive. She’s seen Jaehaera safe and well at Storm’s End. The child has a protector, though Alys isn’t sure who.”

“She’s a witch?” Aegon says flatly. “This bastard Strong woman that you have taken to wife is, among all her other deficiencies, a witch?”

And Alys answers in a voice like the night sky, dark but threaded with glimmers of stars, moonshine, comets: “I am a woman who lives between two worlds. Your Angel is much the same, I think.”

Aegon blinks at her, not entranced or awed but fighting the instinct to flinch away.

“There have been riots in King’s Landing,” Aemond says.

“Yes, obviously. Everyone is aware of that. I think the Wildlings north of the Wall have heard.”

Aemond ignores the jab. “The Master of Coin, Lord Bartimos Celtigar, was travelling through the city in a carriage when…” He trails off, uneasy. He glances at you again. His sole remaining eye—river-blue and without any malice—shimmers with grim compassion.

“What?” you say. “What happened?”

Aemond speaks to Aegon in words you cannot comprehend, swift ageless High Valyrian.

Aegon sighs testily. “Slower. Enunciate.”

Aemond tries again. Aegon repeats a certain word, unable to decipher it. Aemond offers him several others, what you can only assume are synonyms.

Aegon’s face goes even paler, the last of the blood draining out of his cheeks. Then he reaches out a hand to you. “Come here,” he beckons softly.

“Why?”

“Angel, come here now.”

“They killed him, didn’t they?” you ask Aemond. Your voice is trembling, icy, choked. He was an architect of Rhaenyra’s war effort, but he was your father first. He was a beast with blood on his hands, but now you are too. “The common people hate Rhaenyra and they hate my family. So they murdered him.”

Alys says: “They did not just murder him.” And she is not taunting you, though she grins like she might be; she has lost pieces of what it means to be human. She is no longer fluent in anything as trite as sympathy or decorum. Her obsidian eyes gleam, polished, glowing. Her long black hair blows in the wind. There are raven feathers in it, you notice now, and twigs, pine needles, earth, sand, ashes. “They bound and tortured him, they sliced off parts of him to keep as relics, they rode on horseback through the streets swinging his severed head and cock as they celebrated an end to all taxes—”

“Will you shut the fuck up?!” Aegon shouts at her. “Angel, please, come here.”

“Your brother was there too,” Aemond says solemnly.

Yes, of course he would be. He was always Father’s favorite. “Clement,” you whimper, pressing a palm to your chest. Your lungs burn as they drink down chill autumn air that cuts like a blade.

“No,” Aemond says. “The other one.”

“What?” No. No, that can’t be true.

“Not Clement,” Aemond insists. “It was the other brother. The burned man.”

No. No no no. I can’t believe it, I won’t believe it.

“Angel,” Aegon pleads, still reaching for you.

“Everett,” Alys says, dreamy, not knowing how cruel it feels, like splinters of glass beneath your skin instead of arteries and muscle, like shattered bones. “He was not difficult for them to catch. He could not run.”

Your words escape in a hoarse whisper. “I don’t believe you.”

Alys offers her hands. They are long, lithe, white like a skeleton’s. “Would you like to see?”

“No.”

“I can show you. Then you will trust what I say.”

“Alys, my love,” Aemond warns.

“No, you’re a liar,” you snarl at her. “You’re not a witch, you’re not some prophet, you’re just a liar and I don’t believe you—!”

And before you can flee she’s crossed the space between you, she’s gripped your wrist with those slender claw-like fingers, she’s pouring her magic into you like poison down a prisoner’s throat. The vision surges into your skull and fills it, sight and sound and scent: Everett screaming as he is dragged from the carriage, the hoard ripping at his clothes and his eyes, dull kitchen knives pulled from pockets, the coppery ether of blood in the air. You can feel the feverish heat of the crowd. You can feel their boiling-over animal rage. You can feel everything, but you can’t stop it.

Beyond the grisly mirage, you can hear yourself shrieking, muffled and distant; and you can hear someone else bellowing for Alys to let you go. Her hand is yanked off of your wrist and you are abruptly back in the gardens of Dragonstone surrounded by indomitable flora that warps and tangles and endures. You are kneeling on the cobblestones, tears flooding from your eyes. Aegon is on the ground with you, his arms circling around your waist. He is calling Alys a bitch, a monster, a demon. He is threatening to feed her to his dragon.

“Forgive me,” Alys says to you, peering down with a vague sort of regret etching lines into her brow. “I did not intend to cause any distress. I only meant to help you understand.”

Aegon seethes at Aemond: “Take your witch back to Harrenhal.”

“No,” you protest; and Aegon studies you, puzzled, as you gaze up at Alys, this half-human phantom that dwells between realms, something like a dark mirror image of an angel. “What else have you seen?” Tell me Aegon lives. Tell me the Greens win and we have a chance at a better world one day. Tell me this was all worth it.

“She has seen Daemon and Caraxes meeting me at the Gods Eye,” Aemond says. “She has seen me taking flight to join them in battle.”

Aegon is stunned. “When?”

“Soon. Three days from now.”

You sob, thinking of Everett; and Autumn too, wherever she is, who will reappear when the war is over searching for home but forever unable to find it. Aegon holds you and you pull yourself into him, arms slung around his neck. His silver hair brushes your face; his scarred right cheek is rough against yours. When you breathe in violent hitches, you inhale rose oil and wine and salt and warmth and misery, you taste the war that built him and now has returned to claim the debt.

“It’s Rhaenyra’s fault,” Aegon whispers, fierce and merciless. “We will kill Daemon and Cregan Stark. We will retake King’s Landing and capture Rhaenyra. And I swear to you that she will burn.”

Aemond is saying: “Do we have permission to stay the night or not? We’ve traveled a long way. My wife is tired, and so is Vhagar. Another flight so soon would tax her.”

“You can swim,” Aegon pitches back.

Lord Larys Strong—ever servile, ever composed—clears his throat, both hands resting on the handle of his cane. “Would anyone care for some soft-shelled crabs?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Mist hangs heavy over the castle the next morning, a cool metallic grey like steel; the sun is muted, only a wisp of itself, a memory that is swiftly fading. Alys Rivers stands in the surf fetching seashells and stones that she plinks into a basket. Locks of her long, wild hair dip into the roiling water and emerge sopping and heavy, sticking to her ink-black gown. Aegon is curled up with Sunfyre at the edge of the beach. The dragon breathes with rattling, labored heaves and Aegon pets his golden face, wishing the beast’s wings to knit themselves back together and his own legs to be strong again, murmuring to Sunfyre in some clumsy patchwork of High Valyrian and the Common Tongue to assure him that he’s served his king well.

You and Aemond walk down the windswept beach together, your boots sinking in wet sand and leaving imprints like bruises on flesh. Your gown is a deep, vibrant red like the sigil of the newly decimated House Celtigar; Aemond’s hair is wavy and damp and blows loose in the breeze. You are reminded of the night you shared with him six weeks ago, though you don’t want to be. Neither of you have mentioned that indiscretion. You believe you have silently agreed to forget it. You ask the prince regent: “How many people do you think you’ve burned in the Riverlands?”

“Why do you care? They’re not you. They’re not me.”

“Perhaps each life we take robs something from us as well. It carves a piece of the soul away and leaves it less than it was before.”

Aemond raises his eyebrow, intrigued.

“I am less than I once was,” you explain. “Acts of love feel like violence, violence is mistaken for love. Things that horrified me a year ago are now what give me solace when I dream of them. Vengeance, slaughter, fire and blood. Aegon grows more bitter, more ruthless. And so do you.”

“We will have the luxury of reforming ourselves when the war is won and Aegon is the undisputed king of the Seven Kingdoms.”

“If there’s any part of us that remembers who we were supposed to be.”

“I remember exactly who you were.” Aemond grins. “Fawning over Aegon, weaving braids into his hair. Scurrying around with your bandages and vinegar and honey. Always seeking to take his pain away. Always waging your own little war against the agony of mankind.”

“That feels like a different person,” you say, peering out over the ocean.

“We will build monuments to those we’ve lost,” Aemond promises. “Jaehaerys, Maelor, Otto. Your brother and my sister. You say you dream of fire and blood? I often find myself dreaming of Helaena.”

You turn to him, startled. And you recall the warnings her ghost gave Aegon before Baela and Moondancer arrived on Dragonstone: Don’t fall, don’t fall. “Does she say anything?”

“She keeps telling me I’ll lose my left eye.” Aemond smiles wistfully. “And I answer: Helaena, that’s happened already. But when I try to comfort her, when I try to embrace her, she turns away from me and says it’s too late. That I’ve ruined myself.” He walks with his hands linked behind his back, his face thoughtful but not brooding. “I still miss her,” he says. “And I still feel responsible. But things are easier now.”

You follow his eyeline to where Alys is plucking a starfish from the frothing waves and placing it in her basket. And doesn’t it make some strange bit of sense that Aemond’s match would be someone rare, bizarre, gifted in ways that are in equal parts mesmerizing and fearsome? “I’m glad you found someone who eases your burdens.”

“She has suffered tremendously. She knows what it is to be unloved and overlooked. She had to reinvent herself, just like I did. She had to shed her skin and step into a new one that she stitched together herself.”

“Perpetual Resurrection,” you say softly.

“Perpetual Resurrection,” Aemond agrees.

Now Alys is trekking up the beach to join you, her soaked hair whipping in the wind and her basket slung over one arm. From where he sits with Sunfyre, Aegon watches her with narrowed, disapproving eyes. “This belongs to the king,” Alys says to you, opening her hand. In her palm rests the ring of gold wings and jade eyes. “You should return it to him. He does not like me.”

You gasp and take the ring that you last saw before Aegon fell from the sky and shattered his legs, his spirit. “How did you find this?”

“It spoke to me. I spoke to it.” She smiles, more like a leer, though she does not mean it to be. Her eyes—onyx, jet, black moonstone—are bright with amusement. “See? You do not understand. Sometimes it is best not to ask.”

You slip the ring onto one of your fingers for safekeeping until you deliver it to Aegon. From the stone staircase that leads up to the castle’s main entrance, Larys waves Aemond over to him. Aemond kisses the woman he calls his wife farewell—a deep, burning kiss—and then departs. You say to Alys: “How did you become…like this?”

“I surrendered to it. Anyone can, if your life is hell and you are willing to burn it down to the foundations. You go deep into the swamp and then it goes into you. It grows through your skin and into your veins. It tangles up with you, vines climbing your ribcage and spine like ivy on a trellis. It changes you. It makes you greater than you were before. The victim becomes the victor. The weak turn watchful and wise.” She is gazing at where Aemond stands with Larys, exchanging theories and plots. Aemond shakes his head at something Larys says. “I always knew he would find me. The man whose fractured pieces fit with mine. Yet each time I thought I glimpsed him only to realize he wasn’t the one, I would think: How long must I wait? I have buried so many children. Will I ever have more? Will he come to me before it is too late? Is it too late already? But no, he flew to Harrenhal just as my hopes were giving out like a dry well. And Aemond was worth every second, minute, month, year. He was worth the beatings and the contempt, the rapes and the blood. He was worth all of it.”

Alys reaches out to touch your cheek and you recoil; but she is not giving you a revelation this time. She is merely tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear with a fond, maternal smile. There are mottled plumes of violet and indigo on the side of her throat, you notice only now. Alys catches you staring.

“Aemond can be rough, domineering,” she says with a sly smirk. “You know how he is.”

You know how he is. You know how he is. Horror strikes you like lightning; you imagine what other visions she has swimming in her changed blood. “It was a mistake. Aegon must never learn of it.”

“Of course not. That would kill him.” And you are gutted by a blade of cool serrated treason. Alys does not appear to be aware of it. “If I can ever be of service, please do not hesitate to summon me. I can appear and speak to you briefly, perhaps for five or ten minutes. I will be like a mirage, a ghost. Find a closed door and write my name upon it in blood. Then knock three times and open the door. I will be there.”

“A door? Which door?”

“Any door.”

You contemplate her. “Why would you believe that you owe me loyalty?”

“Because of Aemond,” Alys says simply, without any trace of resentment. “You mean something to him. So you mean something to me.”

He doesn’t crave me anymore. He has his own prize now. “I think you’re mistaken.”

“I never am.” Then Alys glides off to rejoin her husband.

Hours later as you are helping Aegon into bed—he must be carried up and down the castle steps by his guards in a litter, something he considers mortifying—you weave a new braid for him and then pour him a cup of milk of the poppy when his glazed eyes keep listing to the glass bottle of pearlescent relief, deadened nerves, liquid dreams. You crawl into bed beside him, curl up against his scarred chest, listen to the slowing thud of his heartbeat as his arms enfold you and draw you in ever-closer. His dragon ring glints on his hand, returned to its rightful place.

“Your legs?” you ask, kissing the gnarled scar tissue that has grown over his collarbones like climbing roses, like ivy. He can’t really feel your touch there, that’s not why you do it. You do it to show that you aren’t repulsed by his wounds and could never be, could never think of any part of him as something less than wondrous.

“That’s most of it,” Aegon murmurs drowsily. “I’ve started getting this ache in my back too. It won’t go away.”

“What?” You bolt upright in bed. “Show me where.”

He gestures: the curve of his spine, just above his hips. Panicked, you begin pressing lightly over where his kidneys are.

“Here? Aegon? Does that hurt?”

But now he’s realized how frantic you are, how upset. “Oh, no, never mind,” he says, clutching his pillow and feigning being too tired to speak on the subject for even a moment longer. He yawns dramatically. “It’s just a sprained muscle, I think. You know I’m always crawling around now like some kind of vermin. It’s nothing serious. It will heal in time.”

“Aegon—”

“I’m alright.” He grabs your hand and pulls you back down to him, buries his face in your hair, nuzzles and sighs contently as he whispers: “Shh. I’m alright. Stay, stay.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“You left him!” you hear Aegon yelling from his rooms, and you drop the book you had been reading in the castle library, an anthology of illnesses of the body, the mind, the soul. You sprint through the shadowy corridors towards the noise, the hem of your sapphire gown fluttering around your ankles. You are always dressed in jewel tones these days. You are anything but neutral.

In Aegon’s bedchamber, Larys has pressed himself to one stone wall like he wishes to disappear. Alys is observing with her strange, impassive, void-dark eyes. Aemond is being berated. He does not appear resentful or defiant; no, he is paralyzed. He is haunted, he is damned.

“You left him!” Aegon screams again, and hurls a full wine cup that strikes Aemond in the chest, spewing red through the air like blood spurting from slit veins. The king is standing, but with great effort; he is scrabbling through the drawers of his bedside table for things to throw at his brother. Yet the glass bottle of milk of the poppy remains untouched. “You abandoned him, you betrayed him, you fucking murdered him!”

“Aegon, what’s going on—?!”

“Almost a week ago, Cregan Stark’s army met Criston’s in the Riverlands,” he tells you. He is panting, red-faced, furious as he recounts Lord Larys Strong’s words, the news the Master of Whisperers only now received from one of his innumerable informants.

You stare at Aemond, horrified, already knowing what this means. “And Aemond wasn’t there.”

“He was at Harrenhal!” Aegon roars, tossing one of your medical books at Aemond, a volume on herbology. It strikes the prince in the nose, and blood gushes from his nostrils; ruby droplets freckle his hair. Aemond makes no attempt to defend himself. He is in shock, he is mourning. “He was fucking his witch while our men were being butchered!”

“Criston, he’s…he’s…?”

“He was slain in battle,” Larys informs you quietly.

Aegon staggers to his brother, shoves him roughly, receives no retaliation. “He was the closest thing you had to a father, he worshiped you, he loved you, and you left him to fend for himself after I told you over and over again that you and Vhagar needed to stay with him, and now he’s gone!” There are tears on Aegon’s face, crystalline tracks that bleed down his cheeks and jaw and throat. “You killed him, you killed him!”

“The Stark men?” you ask Larys, not wanting to know but needing to.

“Moderate losses. Now headed south towards Daeron and the Hightower army.”

“You fucking traitor,” Aegon hisses, sobbing, beating his palms against Aemond’s chest again. “Your whole life all you’ve wanted was responsibility and the second someone gives it to you, you throw it away! Why can’t I be the one with a body that works?! Why can’t my dragon be whole again?!”

And at last Aemond finds his voice. It is brittle and almost too hushed to hear. “I’ll make this right. When I defeat Daemon and Caraxes at the Gods Eye, it will be over.”

“It’s already over for Criston!” Aegon explodes. “It’s over for Helaena and Jaehaerys and Maelor, it’s over for Otto and Everett, it’s over for Sunfyre, we keep losing people and it’s all your fault! You started this war and you’re too much of a goddamn coward to end it!”

“He will end it,” Alys says in that deep placid voice like dusk, dawn, midnight.

“Don’t try that bullshit with me! I don’t want to hear about your delusions, I want him to do his goddamn job! I want him to act like the hero he’s been begging to be seen as since he was five years old! You know why no one wants to write books about him or carve his face into statues? Because he doesn’t fucking deserve it!”

“I’m sorry,” Aemond whispers, his mouth trembling.

“You should be!” Aegon hemorrhages, and then collapses to the floor, moaning with his face in his hands.

You go to him, try to soothe him, grab the wine cup from the floor and fill it with milk of the poppy, tilt it against Aegon’s lips. He gulps the numbness down with helpless, hated need. Aemond and Alys flee for the doorway.

Aegon says, suddenly more calm: “Aemond, wait.”

The prince regent stills and turns back, listening. Aegon, with great difficulty, begins to say something in High Valyrian. Aemond cuts him off. “No, that won’t happen—”

“Please,” Aegon rasps. “Listen to me.” Then he continues. And as he speaks, Aemond’s eye fills with tears, a glistening like ice over lakes in the winter, like gemstones in a crown. You look between them, searching for any clues you can read.

“I understand,” Aemond says at last.

“Good. Now get out.”

Aemond wipes his face with his sleeve and then disappears from the room. You tell Aegon as you rise to your feet: “I’ll be right back.”

Aemond is moving quickly; you don’t catch up with him until he’s passed through the castle entranceway. Down by the ocean waves beneath a blood-red sunset, Vhagar is already landing, leaving cataclysmic imprints in the sand with her claws, trenches and impact craters. From the edge of the beach, Sunfyre watches with dull, wounded interest. Alys is halfway down the staircase. Aemond stops when he hears your footsteps, waiting under the rising full moon and materializing constellations.

You demand: “What did he say to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Aemond.”

“He’s confused, he’s exhausted, he’s in pain. He doesn’t understand—”

“Aemond, what did he say?”

The prince regent sighs and looks at you. “He said he doesn’t think he’s going to get better this time.”

I can’t believe that. I can’t survive that. “Why did you have to do it?” Your voice splinters; your throat burns. “He’s right that you started this war. You’re the reason Rhaenyra will never negotiate. You’re the one who made this horror inevitable. Why did you have to kill Luke?”

The dusk is radiant on Aemond’s face like firelight. It is a long time before he speaks. “I never intended to.”

That doesn’t make any sense. “What?”

“I never gave Vhagar the order. She went after Arrax. I tried to stop her.”

It wasn’t murder. It was an accident. And you think of all the times people have told Aemond that everything that’s happened is his fault, and how he has never disagreed with them. “Who knows?”

“You. Alys.”

“No one else?”

“Who would believe me?” Aemond smiles faintly, profoundly sad. “And even if they did, would that make me so much more noble than a kinslayer? A Targaryen who can’t control his own dragon? A man who is reckless, ineffective, unworthy?”

Here in air the color of flames and gore, you tell him, perhaps more kindly than he deserves: “You’re worthy, Aemond.”

“I will end this. I will meet Daemon and Caraxes in battle. Alys saw it.”

“Did she see you win?”

“Are you worried about me?” Aemond teases, grinning crookedly. And he does something that he hasn’t tried in a long time. He swipes for your forearm and you snatch it out of the way just before his fingers can close around it, just before he can catch you. Aemond chuckles. “I don’t want you to worry. I’ll win the war for the Greens. We will return to King’s Landing, we will rebuild, Aegon will heal. He will live for a long, long time.”

“Yes,” you say, wanting so desperately to believe it.

“You know,” Aemond adds as it occurs to him. “If the king does happen to predecease you, in ten years or twenty or thirty…and you find yourself unincumbered…Aegon the Conqueror had two wives. Alys would always be first, but…”

“No, Aemond.”

“Fine,” he says, agreeably enough. He smiles down at you. “I will come back to let you know when it’s done. Then I will fly south to join Daeron in annihilating Cregan Stark’s army. And then we’ll all go home.”

Yes, yes, let that be true. “Good luck,” you tell him, soft like a whisper.

“I don’t need it.”

Aemond descends the staircase, climbs up the rope ladder into Vhagar’s saddle, takes flight with Alys into the late-autumn dusk; and you watch them vanish into the crimson horizon until the sky is empty.

[wangxianficrecs]

They Say by ChilianXianzi

They Say

by ChilianXianzi

T, 3k, Wangxian

Summary: "If anyone were to finish off the Yiling Patriarch once and for all, of course it would be Hanguang-Jun!" Lan Wangji's step stutters, halts. Perhaps on any other day, he would have ignored the stray jibe, when Wei Ying's presence is not so keenly missed after weeks of separation. On any other day, when it's not so close to the anniversary of Wei Ying's death, perhaps Lan Wangji would simply walk away. Brush off the outlandish hearsay like water off a duck's feather coat. But not today. Kay's comments: OK. So. Rumours and how they can lead to destruction are a core theme of MDZS, however, I never really thought about how rumours and their continued existence can be almost traumatic for certain characters? So this story really gave me something to think about, with Chief Cultivator Lan Wangji really suffering due to people still whispering about how he will conquer the Yiling Laozu. At the end of the days, Wangxian have each other, but even they cannot ignore the rest of the world completely. Great story, absolutely loved it! Excerpt: There were all manner or rumors as Lan Wangji weaved through the jianghu and the land, of the Yiling Patriarch's evil deeds, of his betrayal to his Sect, of the curse he left on the world upon his much-deserved death. Already, the memory of Wei Ying's voice was blurred in his mind, the curve of his smile smudged with time and Lan Wangji's own pain. He wanted to lash out, wanted to scream at the people who handled Wei Ying's name so callously, so cruelly, staining the last of his memories with careless hate. To be free from worldly matters. Perhaps it had been a prayer, his mother's fervent hope for her son's life to not be dictated so by the words and made-up stories of others. But in his avoidance of worldly opinions and the judgement of others, Lan Wangji thought that perhaps he had lived no life at all. Had circled neatly around the things that would have made him himself, until Wei Ying had challenged all of his caution and distance. And so Lan Wangji endured. Broke more of the rules etched in his heart by his Sect as he tried to do what he could for the people the Cultivation world ignored and neglected. He spoke his mind, showed his distaste of the corruption and greed of the Sects, stopped going to the lavish conferences his fellow Cultivators were so fond of. He tried to listen more to ones who were often unheard, to understand more why people did the things they did. Raised A-Yuan with the freedom and abundance of visible love he was denied in his own childhood.

pov lan wangji, post-canon, canon modao zu shi & the untamed combination, chief cultivator lan wangji, established relationship, married lan wangji/wei wuxian, rumours, implied/referenced character death, grief/mourning, fluff and angst, good parent lan wangji, lan family feels

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

[bountydroid]

Midnight Comforts Pt 2

pt 1

TW: NSFW, p in v, unsafe sex (wrap it before you tap it, folks), very soft and fluffy

Notes: This is my first time writing smut, so I am sorry in advance.

"John," you whispered as you pulled him impossibly closer. Your tears from seconds ago are long forgotten. "Say that again."

He chuckled at your request, "I love you." He whispered back with a giant smile plastered on his face.

You smiled back at him while you let your hands roam over his sides and up to his face before pulling him back down to kiss you.

"I've got things to do this morning, love." He says, knowing exactly what you want from him.

"More important things?" You ask, looking up at him with doe eyes.

He sucks in a breath, hesitating before he responds. "Sweet girl, no, they aren't more important than you."

"Good. I want you all to myself." You say before giggling.

Price kisses you deeply and crawls onto the bed beside you. His kisses feel like coming up for fresh air. You love how his beard scratches against your skin and the way his lips taste against yours. He is intoxicating. All the feelings you have been denying yourself started to bubble up again, and you could feel the tears returning.

"I really love you, John. You make me so happy." You said as you slowly started to crawl over him. You felt how he held his breath, his eyes never leaving your face as you settled on top of him. You bit your lip shyly as you looked down at the handsome man underneath you.

"Are you sure about this, angel?" He asked breathlessly.

"I've never been more sure in my life." You said, smiling, a blush apparent on your face.

Wasting no time, he pushed himself up to kiss you again while his hands grabbed your waist. You couldn't help the squeal from leaving your mouth at the sudden movement. Before long, you kissed him back, hands running up and down his biceps as he massaged your waist.

"At any time, say the word, and I'll stop." He said between kisses.

You couldn't help the smile as you thought about how considerate and sweet he was. You decided to answer by grinding down on his lap, relishing the deep moan he let out. Feeling emboldened, you moved your lips to his neck, nipping and kissing at the sensitive area.

"Bloody hell." He groaned out, tightening his grip. "You really are going to be the death of me. I mean it."

You giggled in response before stopping your movements to look into his eyes. "I sure hope not."

He let out a short huff before flipping you over so he was on top. As he settled between your legs, you let your hands roam under his shirt and up his hairy chest. This time, his lips found their way to your neck. It didn't take him long to find that perfect spot that caused you to let out a breathy moan beneath him.

"Take this off." You said as you tugged at his shirt. He immediately obliged before pulling at yours as well. You didn't hesitate to remove your shirt, leaving nothing on your top half.

His calloused palms immediately found your breasts, softly massaging as he kissed you deeply. "My love." He whispered against your lips.

You could feel how hard he was against your pelvis. You let out a soft moan. "I'm yours. Take what you need."

He groaned as his hands fell down to your hips as he slowly stripped your bottom half. By the time he was finished, you felt out of breath. He was torturing you with how slow he was going, and you could tell by the smirk on his face that he knew it. "Stop being mean." You pouted.

He smiled down at you, "Sorry, love."

You could feel his fingers slowly finding their way to your heat. You squeezed your eyes closed as he finally touched your little bundle of nerves. "John." You moaned.

"Such a good girl." He moaned out as he relished in how wet you were for him before sinking knuckle deep in you.

"We can do that another day." You pleaded desperately, "I need you inside me, John."

"I don't have a condom, love-" He started to say before you cut him off.

"I don't care." You pleaded again.

"Bloody hell." He breathed out as he got up while his hands went to pull his pants down, finally baring himself to you.

You couldn't take your eyes off of him. He was so beautiful. His eyes met yours again, and as he saw the look on your face, he smiled down at you playfully before finding his way back on top of you. Before he settled, you threw your arms around his shoulder and pulled him into a deep kiss. Your tongues danced against each other as you felt him start to enter you. "Fuck." You whispered out as you pulled your head back, moaning.

It felt so good, like this was where he belonged—a perfect fit.

"I love you so much." You said as he bottomed out, finally opening your eyes. As you made eye contact with him, you noticed immediately how blown his pupils were from lust, and you knew you looked just as desperate for him. It was cheesy how much you two kept stating your love for one another, but you couldn't get yourself to care. This moment was perfect.

When he started to move, it felt like heaven. You wrapped your legs around his waist and dug your nails into his back as he continued to piston in and out of you.

"You feel so tight, so good." He growled into your ear before he took your nipple into his mouth. A pornographic moan escaped your mouth from the onslaught of pleasure, which only encouraged him to pump into you faster and harder.

Your nails dug into his shoulders so hard you would leave marks, but that's all you could do while he had you pinned beneath him. The moans you both let out sounded like a symphony when coupled with the sound of skin slapping against skin. You slid one hand down between you and started to rub your clit gently.

"That's it, baby." He said as he watched you writhe beneath him.

You couldn't answer, too fucked out to respond. High on the feeling of him inside you. Before you knew it, you could feel the string in your abdomen tightening as you clenched around him, causing his hips to stutter. A couple more pumps into you, and it snapped. You moaned loudly as you came around him, body shuddering and convulsing under him.

"That's a good girl." He mumbled as he brought his lips to yours. He came not long after you, fucking you gently through both your orgasms.

"That was amazing." You said once you finally caught your breath.

He touched his forehead against yours. "Yea. It was." He said as he placed a small peck on your lips before pulling out of you and falling to his side.

You turned to him and smiled as you watched him catch his breath. You thought about how just earlier this morning, you were sure he would reject you. All those tears were wasted, because he loved you just as much as you loved him. You knew you both needed to get up and get to work, but for this moment you just happily basked in each other's presence.

Tag list: notmyideia

[wyst3r1a]

Graves//Reader: “My Girl.” |NSFW|

Notes: What it says on the label, baby. It’s 2AM, I wrote this in 15 minutes after binge reading every available piece of Graves smut on this site. @l0velylecter your content sustains me. Thank you for feeding into my little obsession for this silly little war criminal.

Warnings: Smut, smut, smut, mentions of choking, just a word vomit I don’t even remember what I wrote I have work in a couple hours I’m borderline delirious but it’s when I’m at my peak. AFAB reader. End me and make it quick, the neediness I have to please this man is ridiculous please anYONE.

-*-

Your pulse thrums under his fingertips.

He can feel it. The flutter of your heart as his fingers squeeze just so, almost a threat, bordering dangerous. He would never hurt you though. You, his most prized possession, despite being the CEO of an entire Private Army. No, you were far too valuable to him to even dare consider harming in any capacity.

But the control. Fuck, the control makes his head swim. Increases the burning pleasure that seers through his groin as he fucks in and out of you, tenfold. And you trust him wholeheartedly. Never waver, just whine and whimper and cry for more as he takes what he wants from your body and then some.

“Philip-!”

You’re going to be the death of him.

“I know, baby. I know,” he chases where his fingertips had been with his lips, feeling that same stutter in your pulse with his tongue and he groans, “I’m right there with you, doll.”

Your thighs squeeze his waist, tight, cunt a vice around the thick cock that’s making you feel stupid. The air is so thick with sweat and musk that you could choke on it (if his hands don’t get you there first) and you love it. Every second of it. Love how he commands authority in everything he does, right down to the way he wrings pleasure from every fibre that weaves the fabric of your body together. And fuck, the sounds he makes. That rumbling purr of pleasure just sends you spiralling faster and you gasp around the sensation buzzing at your navel.

“C-Can’t- Ohh, fuck, m’ gonna cum-“

He growls. Hips making obscene sounds as they connect with the backs of your thighs, forcing you to take every inch of him with no room for reprieve.

“Cum on my cock, baby,” he says, no, demands, sitting back up on his knees and putting a calloused hand back at your throat, “wanna fuckin’ watch.”

And who are you to deny the Commander anything but what he wants?

You’re beautiful as you come apart, he thinks. Always are, no matter the time of day or how put together you are. But this? Seeing you depraved, hanging off of every word he says, every jerk of his hips, every silent demand from his body? Shit, he’d throw in the towel on his life’s work for it if he were ever forced to choose. It had his hips stuttering, body shuddering as his dick pummels into you, harder, more desperate. And when he fills you up with his cum, he does it with a loud groan of your name, a death-grip on your body like it’s all that’s keeping him grounded to the moment.

It goes quiet after that, save for two pairs of lungs panting in greedy breaths of air. He stays inside you, keeping you stuffed and filled and the sensation has you wriggling with a whine.

“Easy, baby girl,” he shushes, “you did good, honey, so proud’a you.”

His accent is thick. Always is when he’s tired, but still, he hunches forward to catch your lips in a slow, deep kiss. The words that follow mumbled into the softness of your mouth.

“My girl.”

[dearspiritss]

“I’d Die for You.”

Mountain x Male Reader

Notes: You’d do anything for him, even if it meant leaving your whole life behind just to be with him. (3270 wc)

Warnings: Mentions of death, some vague gore if you could call it that?, blood mentions, nothing too saucy :)

read below the cut ml <3

The ministry was always a nice place to be in. Yeah, it was sometimes chaotic with all the ghouls running around, but it had its peaceful places. Like the library, your favorite place. It smelled of old books and pinewood, so comforting to your constantly racing mind. You’d grown up there, being a son of sin, but not just any son of sin. You were the priest's oldest son, meaning you had the most responsibility out of all. You were put in charge of almost everything -scheduling tours, guiding new siblings of sin, and shit ton of paperwork- your father pushing you as far as he could to make sure you’d be a good fit for the next priest. If you were being honest, you didn’t want the role at all. 

You found the job to be extremely boring. You despised the thought of sitting around in a cold office, doing nothing all day. You admired the ghoul’s lifestyle, you wished you could do what they did. They were free and got to have fun, while you were stuck in your boring and stressful lifestyle. The ghouls made sure you felt appreciated through it all though, you being the main reason they got to do what they did best. Sneaking you out of your room at night, being extremely careful not to be caught. They’d drag you to the ghouls wing, sitting you down on one of the many couches in the common room. They’d do whatever you wanted to. Want to watch a movie and relax? They’d have a list of movies and plenty of blankets ready. They adored you, but one particular ghoul always stuck out to you.

Mountain. He’d sneak into the library, going to your normal spot to check in on you. He knew that you were constantly stressed out, so he’d always find a way to make you feel better. Offering to help with the workload everyone dropped onto you, or to get you something to snack on while you worked. He took care of you. If you denied everything he offered, he’d sit with you until you were done. It didn’t matter if it was in the middle of the night, he would be right by your side. If he sensed you getting worked up or frustrated, he’d reassure you while rubbing your shoulders. Whispering sweet nothings into your ear, voice like honey soothing you almost instantly. 

You found yourself with a crush on the towering ghoul, getting goosebumps from everything he did. His low silvery voice bounced around in your head like a record on repeat. The gentle touch of his calloused palms sending shivers down your spine. The way he slowly blinked while watching you work, putting you in a trance. His beautiful long brown hair, loosely pulled into a knot made you stare. The ghoul had you wrapped around his finger without even trying, and he loved it. He loved the way you’d react when he lightly teased you. He found humans very interesting, and you were his test subject. 

“You’re still working, Love?” The sudden voice pulled you out of the book you had your nose stuck in. You looked up, spotting Mountain holding what you assumed to be a cup of tea. You nodded, rubbing your tired eyes. “I have to finish this stupid book before sunrise. My father is supposed to be testing me on it tomorrow and I can’t fail.” He hummed, making his way to sit in the chair beside you. “Why do you put up with all of this,” he spoke, a hand gesturing to the open book in front of you. You scoffed and leaned back into your chair. “It’s the only way I stay sheltered. If my father gets mad.. Well you know what’ll happen.” He gave a quiet “yep” before bringing his mug up to his lips.

“Did you need anything? I mean it’s like, three in the morning Mount.” His lips curled up into a small smile. “I came to check on you, and hopefully spend some time with you. You’ve been cooped up in here for a week now, we haven’t been able to get to you at all.” The small smile he wore slowly turned into a frown. You sighed, closing the book and pushing it aside. “I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been so caught up with everything for you guy’s next tour, it’s just taken up the little free time I've had.” He placed a hand on the side of your face, making you look at him. “There’s no need to apologize, we know you’re busy. We just wish we could help you out..”

You nodded, somewhat understanding what he said. “As soon as I’m done with this, I’ll find a way to spend time with you all..” You trailed off, a wave of exhaustion flooding over you resulting in a yawn. “How long has it been since the last time you slept, Love?” His voice was coated with worry. You thought to yourself for a moment. “I’ve been here since nine, but I woke up around five yesterday.” His eyes widened. “This won’t do, you need to sleep.” You shook your head, worried thoughts flooding your mind. “No, no. I need to finish this. I have a few pages left of this book and then I have to find the booth for the upcoming tour- I can’t Mountain.” He frowned, sitting down his tea. “Well then, I’ll help you. I can find the booth while you finish your book.”

He pulled away, taking out his phone. “Mountain- no- I won’t let you do my work. It’s not your job. I can’t, you can’t.” He shushed you. “And why not? You deserve to rest. Just tell me what to do.” You groaned, unable to deny his convincing tone. “Fine. You know the website, just tell me if you find a nice one in the price range.” You picked up your book as he flashed a fang filled smile in your direction. 

A few minutes passed and you finally finished, closing the book and putting it aside. You looked over to the ghoul beside you, his eyes fixated on his phone screen. You smiled slightly and leaned into his side. “Any luck so far?” He looked down at you and nodded. “Yeah! I found a really nice booth that would be perfect. I’m talking to the owner right now to see if it's open.” He tucked his phone away into his pocket, wrapping an arm around you. “You’ve done a lot for us, and we're so lucky to have you, but if you don’t get enough sleep we won’t have an amazing manager anymore.” Your face flushed from the sudden praise. You quickly pushed that aside and sighed. “You’re right. I guess I could rest while we’re waiting for an answer..”

You stood, grabbing the book to put it away. You felt a hand around your wrist, almost making you fall backwards. You regained your ground and turned to Mountain who was now standing. “If you thought you were gonna sleep by yourself, you’re sadly mistaken.” You tilted your head in confusion. Before you could speak, he picked you up and threw you over his shoulder. “W-Wait, Mountain!” You tried to intervene, but he wasn’t having any of it. He ignored your pleads and quickly made his way out of the library.

When he opened the door, you realized where he was taking you. “Mount, I’m not allowed in here!” He continued walking without saying a word. When you reached the ghouls wing common room, you spotted a familiar fire ghoul. “Mountain? What are you doing?” Dew’s voice came from one of the couches. “Bed time.” Was the only thing he said, not stopping his long strides down the hall. Before you knew it, you were already in his room. He gently sat you down on his bed before crawling in to lay next to you. His arms wrapped around you, pulling you closer to him. He pulled up the thick blanket that sat on his bed, making sure the two of you were covered. You felt his tail slither around your ankle, securing you in his tight hold.

You relaxed in his arms, realizing you weren’t getting out of the situation no matter what. He nuzzled his nose into your hair, deeply inhaling your scent. You sighed in relief, your mind finally clear after hours of constant worries. That's when you heard it. Those three little words that made you weak slipped out from between his lips. You sat up, looking him in the eyes. “What did you say?” He smiled and placed his hands on the sides of your face, cupping your cheeks gently. “I love you.” Your breath hitched, becoming shaky. “Don’t joke around, Mountain.” His eyes softened. “I’m not joking. I would never joke about something like that, Love.” You shook your head, pulling away.

“You can’t, we can’t. It’s strictly forbidden.” He pulled you back towards him, his hands firm on your waist. “We can figure it out, my love. I’ll figure it out, you don’t need to worry about anything. For now, you just need to sleep.” He pulled you back down, your head resting on his chest. A soft purr rose from his chest, luring you into a deep sleep.

The feeling of fingers threading through your hair woke you from your sleep. You slowly opened your eyes to see Mountain looking at his phone, a smile etched onto his lips. He looked down at you, eyes lighting up. “Good morning, my love. Did you sleep well?” You nodded sitting up, rubbing your eyes. “The booth owner replied-” He was cut off by a gasp escaping your lips. “Shit- I still have to get the fee’s together and call the buses-” He shushed you, shaking his head. “Relax, I took care of it. I submitted the total fees and called the tour buses. The date is set a week from now.” 

You just stared at him in disbelief. He laughed, putting his phone aside. Your face flushed a deep red as he opened up his arms. You accepted his embrace, wrapping your arms around his torso. “I wish I could come with you guys, but with the rules of the ministry it’s impossible.” He nodded, placing his hand on your head. “I know, but you’re the next priest. They need you here.” You scoffed, arms tightening around him. “The only thing they need me for is to do their work. Hell, I don’t even want to be a priest. I’ve always wanted to be in a band, kind’ve like you guys.” 

“I wish you could join us as well, I wish there was a way around this.” An idea popped into your head, not a good one, but it could work. “I have an idea that you, or really anyone, won’t like.” His head tilted to the side, obviously curious. “The only way I could escape the grip of the ministry, and my father, would be to die and be summoned back as a ghoul. It’s horrible, I know, but it would work. Just think about it.” His eyes widened in shock. “My love, dying and becoming a ghoul is a very painful process. Trust me, it's something you don’t want to ever experience.” 

He stopped, taking in a deep breath. “If you went through with this, you’d be giving up everything you know as a human. Everything will be different. The way you see and feel the world will change. Are you sure this is something you’d leave everything behind for?” You nodded, looking him in the eyes. “There’s nothing left for me as a human except stress and work. As a ghoul, I’d have everything. Freedom, the band, and you. I’d have you, Mountain. I’d die for you.” His face flushed as he nodded, giving you a small smile. “If that is what you wish, then I will help you as much as I possibly can.”

He leaned back into the pillows on his bed, gently stroking your head. “So how are you planning on doing this, dear?” You gave him a not so innocent smile. “I have to talk to Papa before anything is set in place. If he agrees, then we’ll be set. You’ll have to do some pretty convincing acting though.” He hummed, fully interested now. “Just know, I should be gone the night before you guys return from tour so that gives me about two weeks to do it. The clergy will send a message about what happened to me, but for now I’m going to keep that to myself. I don’t need you worrying about me while you’re on tour.” You reached a hand up to cup his cheek. He leaned into your touch, closing his eyes. 

“I’m always worried about you. There’s never a second when I’m not, love.” Blood rushed to your face, your cheeks turning bright red. You removed your hand from his face and covered your own. He opened his eyes and noticed this. He ran a teasing hand up your back, making you shiver. “I’ve got to say, you’re very easy to fluster. It’s quite cute.” You dug your head into his side, hiding the embarrassing look plastered across your face. He laughed and pulled you closer, placing a gentle kiss on your forehead. “You need to get going, don’t you have a test?” You quickly sat up, nodding. He escorted you out of the ghouls wing, stopping at the door.

“I’ll meet you in the library later, until then love.” He leaned down, placing a kiss on your cheek. He gave you a small smile before shutting the door. When he turned around he found all of the ghouls staring at him. “When were you gonna tell us the two of you were dating?” He shook his head, dismissing the multi ghouls' words. “Swiss- were not dating.. Yet.” A collection of laughs rose from a few ghouls, making Mountain's cheeks flush a bit. “Come on, tell us everything.” Cirrus invited him over, which he gladly accepted.

Over the next week the two of you met in the library, discussing the plan further every day. A day before they left for the week-long tour, you discussed everything with Copia. He was very against it at first, but after hearing the full plan he eventually agreed. He always knew about your dreams and was happy to help. It was the fifth day of their tour, the day you’d see your demise. You sent one final text as a human to Mountain, a simple “I love you.” You put your valuable belongings in his dresser drawer, ready for when you returned. You smiled to yourself as you walked to your fathers office, prepared on what you were about to do.

You knocked twice, hearing a stern and toneless voice inviting you in. You smiled, seeing your father staring daggers into you from his desk. “What do you need, child.” You were grinning from ear to ear. “I’m not a child. Dear Lucifer, I bet you don't even know my age.” His brows snapped together. “What did you just say to me?” You took a few steps forward, now standing in front of his desk. “You heard me.” He stood up, his chair flying backwards. He swiftly made his way in front of you, towering over you. “How dare you come in here and disrespect me, your father and priest.” You laughed in his face, pissing him off more.

“You're not my father, far from it actually. You’re just a filthy old man who knows nothing about me.” You stepped forward. “I bet you didn’t know that I wanted to be in a band. I bet you don’t know that I can play guitar perfectly. I bet you didn’t know that I don’t want to be a fucking priest like you.” He slammed a fist down onto his desk. “You’ve been around those nasty ghouls! No wonder you’ve been slacking! They’re making you filthy. You stay away from those dirty little-” Before he could say another word, your body moved on its own. A red hand mark formed on his face from the harsh slap you planted on it.

He grabbed the dagger he kept on his desk, and in one quick movement you’d done it. It pierced straight through your heart, making you fall to the ground. You sharply inhaled, the pain was overwhelming your senses. You looked up at him, a smile still on your face. The doors of the office swung open, two siblings of sin barging in. They gasped at the sight before them. Your father towering over your limp body, blood spilling across the floor. You looked at the ground, saying your final words. “See you in hell, father.” You took one last breath, death washing over you.

Mountain looked back at Copia, unsure. “I know you’re scared to see it, but we have to do this to make it look real.” He nodded, bracing himself. He swung open the doors to the office and saw two siblings of sin leaned over your lifeless body. He ran up to you, falling to his knees. His stomach dropped seeing the blood that was spilled everywhere. Tears formed in his eyes as he placed a hand over your cold face. “Dear Satanas..” He looked up the sister of sin who stood in front of him. “Who did this?” Anger and grief flowed through his breaking voice. The Sister backed away, scared. Copia rushed in, grabbing onto the ghouls arms. 

“I apologize dear sister for my ghouls behavior, I will be taking him back to the ghouls wing.” She nodded, shooing him away. Copia dragged the ghoul out of the room, closing the door behind them. He released Mountain, huffing. “That was a good performance, now we need to-” He turned back to see the ghoul wiping his eyes. “Oh dear.. Mountain, you must remember this. We’re bringing him back, you’re going to see him very soon.” The tall ghoul nodded, standing up. “We must go now, your ghoul is waiting for us.” Copia gave him a reassuring pat on the back and led him down to the summoning chamber.

The pentacle was already drawn on the cold ground of the chamber with candles surrounding it. Copia quickly lit the candles and started the ritual. Mountain anxiously waited, watching the ground as if his life depended on it. The pentacle lit up, fire shooting up from the circle. A hole opened up from the ground, a hand reaching out grabbing the edge. Mountain sped to the opening and locked onto the hand. He pulled the ghoul up and out of the portal. “Papa! He’s out!” He stopped chanting, the portal quickly closing. The fire from the ghouls' bubbling skin burned him, but he didn’t care. He held the trembling ghoul in his arms, running his hand gently through his hair. “You’re home, my love.” 

You opened your eyes, gasping. Your whole body felt as though it was on fire, and it was. The feeling of familiar arms around you and that soothing honey like voice brought you back fully. “Mountain?..” You looked up to see him with glossy eyes. “You’re back, you’re safe.” You quickly wrapped your arms around him, smiling weakly into his shoulder. “I told you I’d die for you, didn’t I?”

[rafent]

[ 𝐂𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐑 ] [ // joining the bandwagon ehehe ] It came out of nowhere, but maybe by now Lord Rafal had come to expect the unexpected from his erratic Hound. Maybe he noticed the flicker of devilish eyes when he tilted his head to rub soreness from his shoulder, exposing the shadow of muscle and the pulse of a life-giving artery beneath pale, paper-thin skin. Maybe he saw in the split second mischief turned ravenous that the next second would slam his back against the wall, wrists pinned beneath Griss' calloused palms, grinning fangs inches from his jaw.

His breath was warm, his voice a purr. "Let's give 'em something real to talk about."

He couldn't leave his mark last time, but this time the dragon wasn't getting away without it.

𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐒 — COPPER: sender bites receiver hard enough to draw blood cw: 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓀𝓎 (slightly gory) imagery

Griss, maestro of Excalibur and Nova, with all wicked authority over wind. For a single unclear heartbeat, Rafal thought his magic responsible for the breathlessness felt, only to realize that it were air being denied by impact. The product of maniacal eyes and familiar hunger with only seconds left to prepare. He grunted with discomfort at the unyielding surface crashed into, and designed to meet this development with heated protest, until closely his knight hovered. Warmly and very noticeably.

"Ever and always, your bizarre ideas of merit are beyond understanding. What purpose is there to inflating false rumors to new heights?" The column of his throat with every ounce of challenge angled to grant access nonetheless, pale new frontier unveiled in all ways. Bright gaze piercing. "It matters none to myself. I do not care for the eyes of others. I care for yours upon me."

'It matters none to myself.' But it did matter - it should matter. Gradlon run to extinction, they two among the last of their respective kinds, these facts were mercy for the god and follower deemed odd by any point of Fell view. What god would stomach the rebellion of his own tool pointed against him, what other tool might enjoy its brazen autonomy? Never in history had apostle sunk teeth into devil and adorned him with the stamps of his molars.

Never had that devil enjoyed it.

Pinch then pressure. Struggle was mere affectation, reality slumbered in the pleased low groan; the instinctive squirming between two grips. "Ah—you—" Snakelike hiss sizzled between his teeth at the cinch of pain—pleasure? pain? both?—pulsing hotly at his neck, aware that like this death even for the mightiest dragon was not far.

Visceral visions flashed unbidden, like prophecy, like daydream without control, like iced blood stirred to boil and age-old instinct melted from glacier. Should Griss advance his whims and choose to tear and maul, there would be no stopping it. Only Rafal's hand clapped with futility over the unceasing red geyser, only eyes shot wide with betrayal over his stolen pieces, two to three clambering steps traced backward before he met the end of his resistance. White and pink seen in new light; tender fleece mangled without recognition by so many wolflike teeth, throat turned inside out like all of Rafal's secrets stretched out for display. But that didn't happen. Did he want it to?

"That's enough!" He hadn't meant to shout, hadn't meant to shove, but he hadn't noticed doing so either. Fingers traced the 'innocent' raised welts of a love bite, feeling, sensing, confirming nothing amiss save for coppery slickness. Nothing inside on the outside. But Rafal chased his breath and dimmed his bizarre excitement, the over-loud drums of heartbeat pounding everywhere from temple to ears to chest to—

. . .the dragon swallowed hard. Curse this mortal coil.

[aetherialpiplup108]

How the Alchemy of Souls Season 1 Ending Perfectly Demonstrates Yeong's Guilt, Uk's Persistence, and the Beauty of their Bond

I should hate the ending of Alchemy of Souls season 1. Jin Mu's random contrived bells showing up and being used as a pivotal series-defining plot-point in the same episode drives me just as insane as it did Mu-deok. And it kills me to watch two characters who are defined by their ability to challenge the world and resist fate succumb to its pressures (note: I don't think this is a flaw in the series since it's simply a fraction of the overarching theme the story is trying to convey but boy did it hurt). I should have been so massively disappointed and yet the climax itself runs rent-free in my head a full year after I saw it for the first time.

First of all, we finally get sword-fighting Yeong again and in the absolute worst way possible. It creates this wonderful cognitive dissonance in your head where you're simultaneously crying in angst while cheering on Jung So-min as she puts on the performance we've been longing for the entire show.

Next, there's the behemoth stabbing scene itself. When Mu-deok regains consciousness in Uk's arms, there's a brief look of confusion in her eyes likely due to the gaps in her memory, the heaving of his voice, the desperate way his arms are wrapped around her, or maybe even the blood seeping between them. But the first thing she says even before processing everything is: "Jang Uk? ...Did I do this?"

Despite embracing the ruthless assassin lifestyle (a hard path she undertook due to the love she felt for her family and the immense grief felt in their loss), Yeong does care about other people. We know this through the way she slyly sneaks in affection towards Uk, helps Yul heal and let go of the guilt he's held onto since running into her as children, and offers Go-won an esoteric companionship they both come to value greatly. In season 2, through amnesiac!Yeong, we're given an even clearer glimpse at her intrinsic compassion through the unhidden empathy she shows to practically everyone she meets.

But the real Cho-Yeong spent years of isolation in Danhyanggok's cruel winters training, breathing, and living for revenge. Knowing only how to kill and draw blood, of course Yeong believed she'd end up hurting anyone stupid enough to come too close. It's why her first instinct is to shear off every potential bond she could make: to protect herself from any more loss and to protect others from her. When it became impossible to deny the love she and Uk shared, Yeong chose to wield it callously to avoid getting attached, to remind him and her that she wasn't round-faced Mu-deok who was free to earn and give affection. She was Naksu. Undeserving, dangerous, poisonous Naksu. We see this thought process and self-denial make a reoccurrence in season 2 when Yeong immediately distances herself from Uk the second she gets her memories back, even if it agonizes her, because she can't bear to hurt him again.

Rather than assigning blame to Jin Mu, she takes her sword through Uk's chest as mere confirmation of what she always believed: how could the ruthless shadow assassin that lives off revenge be allowed to love and be loved?

Yeong's guilt is especially ironic when paired with Jang Uk having no doubt in his mind that she's innocent. He gets stabbed and just pulls her close before he's even able to process what's going on because they'd been there before at Jeojingak when he had her hold a sword to his neck.

Jang Uk is the first and only person, really, to hold complete confidence not in Yeong's prowess as a mage but in her character and ability to care. And it means more because as her pupil, he's the person (aside from herself) that Yeong's been the harshest with. She continually put his life in danger whether through poison or overtraining or by inciting death matches, and hurts him again and again with words and actions (gambling the jade egg) meant to prod right at his insecurities. Yeong had thought this would be enough to keep him at bay, to force him into a transactional relationship where she wasn't afraid he'd run away too soon and yet wouldn't let herself build up hope that he'd actually stay when the terms of their initial agreement were met.

Except.

Uk had already seen glimpses of that lonely girl Yeong buried inside and actually tried to understand her, failing at times but doing his best to make sense of the way she thinks without judgement. In the process, he realized just how much Yeong values the people she loves, how much she wants to protect those who've shown her even the ounce of kindness she doesn't think she deserves. That's how he knows, instinctively, that she couldn't have stabbed him. It's how he knows she wouldn't even fight Dang-gu (although, I'm not sure if he was aware that she killed Cho-yeon's father before arriving in the forest). Because how could someone who's so grateful for the love they deem themselves undeserving of cast it aside so easily?

And finally, because somewhere along the way this post devolved from a loosely structured rant over one scene to a frantic gush over these two ridiculously endearing characters, the beauty of the climax is shown in the way Uk just watches helplessly as Yeong struggles and breaks down in a way so uncharacteristic of the stoic, emotion-swallowing woman who could only say "I like you" under copious amounts of alcohol. It's so unbelievably soft (idk, maybe I'm just a lunatic) when he slowly searches for her hand, using the last pieces of his strength and then some to lace their wounded fingers together, somehow managing to use his entire blood-soaked body in the last 2 minutes to show her that she has his entire heart, whether she deserved it or not, and there wasn't anything she could do that would make him leave.

of course, these are just my interpretations of the characters. Maybe I'm completely off or reading way too much into it.

tl;dr: I have a lot of criticism for certain aspects of Alchemy of Souls, but the relationship Jang Uk and Cho Yeong share is so powerful. Though tragic and shockingly reliant on plot-convenience, the finale of season 1 depicts their relationship beautifully by illustrating the depth of their trust and reliance on the other. Also, UkYeong has rooted itself thoroughly in my head. I've never been so invested in a ship, someone send help!!!!!

[mingiswow]

What is Like to Be Alive | Choi Jongho

Pairing: Jongho x afab!gender neutral!reader

Words: ~3.4k

Genre: smut, fluff, dystopian, porn with a little of plot

Content Warning: mentions of death and torture, mention of arranged marriage, reader has a vagina

Smut warning: nipple play, unprotected sex, piv, creampie (don’t be stupid, protect yourselves)

A/n: we’ve reached the end of the dystopian/Halazia series!! I hope you enjoy this one. I was much softer on the actual smut scene and much more inspired by the plot lol. As always feedback is always welcomed 🥰

⚠ If you’re under the age of 18 and/or don’t feel comfortable reading that type of content, I have a lot of other content here.

⚠ English is not my native language, so pardon me if there’s any mistake. And you can always tell me what’s wrong.

You entered the cold crater, chills running down your spine as you looked at the usually full place completely empty. The hardened and crystallized salt formations pointing dangerously downwards, as if they were ready to fall on you and kill you.

Ever since running away from your family, you’ve been wandering around the villages near Halazia. If anyone living there knew your origins, they’d kill you. The child of one of the highest positioned men in the capital running away from the perfect life?

You didn’t blame them, they had all the right to think lowly of you. Or your family. After all, you were the ones enslaving their people. You hated yourself the same amount, maybe even more than them. You hated everything that had to do with you or your family or your life.

When you discovered your family promised you as currency trade to one of their business’ partners you were furious. Sure, you knew that marriages in your world were purely political, yet you couldn’t help but get mad at the broken promise your mother made before dying. Love.

You shook your head unconsciously trying to take those painful thoughts away. Eyes closing. Not noticing the other presence in the room watching you intently. A hunter looking for its prey. A brown bear watching the unaware salmon swim and jump on the river.

The improvised stage where he usually stood empty and cold, the warmth of his words of hope and dreams long gone. The white salty ground waiting for the man to come back and say his sweet words that sometimes not even himself believed.

You failed to notice or listen to him approaching you, only making himself noticeable when the words left his mouth.

“What are you thinking ’bout?” You turned around, smiling when you saw it was him standing there.

“Life” you simply answered.

It wasn’t a lie. But not completely the truth.

Jongho nodded and walked to your side on the stage, grabbing your right hand and caressing the skin too soft to be from one of the villagers. His calloused ones tickled yours wherever the rough patch touched. You liked the feeling.

“You’ve been more quiet than usual lately” he stated, bringing your body into his, hugging it. “There’s something bothering you? Someone perhaps?” You denied with a shake of your head.

You didn’t answer for a solid minute, just enjoying the warmth of his body fighting against the cold of the place to keep you warm.

“Just thinking of the past” you finally answered, mouth suddenly dry.

“The one you ran away from?” You nodded.

Jongho was the first one of the villagers that welcomed and sheltered you. His kind expressions and words made you feel more at home than you ever felt. He offered you a place to stay, food to eat and more than that, he offered you his heart.

It’s not official, or not even a real relationship as the ones you’ve read in the books, but you’ve been together for the past weeks. You don’t even know if he likes you like you like him, if you make his heart beat faster like he does to you. Or get his mouth dry whenever you are together due to nervousness. All you knew at that point is that you wanted to be with him. That he was good to you.

“You never explained to me the reason you left or even where you come from” his words stopped your train of thoughts, a deep sigh coming from you.

“It’s… I- I’m ashamed of my past. Of myself”

“It’s because you are on of the capital children?” You left his embrace, looking at his face, examining his expressions in fear. But you couldn’t read him. You never did. He wasn’t easy to decipher. Only a shy sly smirk dancing on his lips showing that he indeed knew your secret.

You tried to leave his arms but he was stronger than you, holding you in place, very close to him. Alert! Alert! That was the only thing on your mind. Red sirens screaming for you to run again. You were in danger.

You heard about the capital citizens that came to the villagers and were executed in front of everyone. A public event of revenge. Eye for an eye. You heard some of the villagers tell tales of the times when they would chain the riches in the middle of the central square, arms open in a cross like a scarecrow and left to endure any type of torture those people wanted before being burned. Dead or dead. No mercy.

“What? You thought I didn’t know?” Jongho held your body flush against his again, his strong hands holding your arms back, unable to move. “I know everyone around here, yn” your real name, not the one you’ve lied about. The way the letters came out of his lips was almost like he was ready to spit on you. “You thought I wouldn’t notice your nice clothes and soft skin? Even your housekeepers have better clothes than us so you expect not to notice how soft and well made the fabrics are?” You looked at his eyes, they seemed angry. They were obviously angry. You lied to him.

The tears started to prickle at the corners of your eyes, falling silently down your cold cheeks. You were doomed. But you knew sooner or later that day would arrive. You assumed the risks of running away. Of coming to the village and interacting with them.

“I’m sorry” it wasn’t as loud as a whisper, you didn’t even know if he listened. But if so, he kept talking without acknowledging the apology.

“Don’t you think I would go after your life and your registers after you just appeared mysteriously out of nowhere? Anyone from any nearby village knowing you. Anyone from the piers and harbors nearby sawing you coming from the far away lands. You truly thought you could hide yourself from the search of your kind?” His words were like daggers. One by one hitting your chest. You didn’t know why, he was the one betrayed, yet you felt like you were the victim. The pain in your chest showing that you had developed something more than just feeling of safety, peace and home. “Yet…” his voice cracked and you felt his body leave yours, a rush of ice cold air hitting where his body was in contact with yours. “Yet I can’t seem to find the strength to do anything to you. To denounce you to the council”.

Jongho gave two steps back away from you and sighed, hands running through his dark brown hair. Defeated. That’s how he felt. Defeated by his own senses. His own heart. His heart ached anytime he thought about what the council could do to you. Would do to you. Just the thought made his chest sink to his back and his mouth get dry.

“I… I will hand myself over. I am… I am the criminal here” the words got stuck down your lumped throat.

“No! I-“ he protested faster and louder than he intended. “I don’t want to lose you” his words caught you off guard.

You analyzed the man in front of you looking for any sign of lie or trap. But of course you couldn’t read him. His emotionless face stared at you, eyes glued to yours. You looked for any sign of anything. But nothing. Yet, your instinct told you he was telling the truth. He couldn’t lose you. Not after he lost so much already.

Jongho was an orphan, raised by foster family after foster family until he reached the age enough to work for himself. He moved into his first shared dormitory at 15, living with other orphans and abandoned kids that worked at the same property as him. He worked in a farm first, taking care of the animals then moving to the corn fields. When he reached his 18th, he moved near the more city-like part of the village, soon joining the rebels, the Guerrillas, as they called themselves. His job was to hunt capital citizens around the villages, look for infiltrators and take them to their leader. Two years after that he became the head of the hunters and the spokesperson of hope. That was how you met him and some of the other rebels and joined them.

The man doesn’t remember the last time he was truly happy with something outside the Guerrillas. Sure, he loved his brothers and his found family, their nights drinking and celebrating and looking for lovers for a night was always fun. But he missed something. Craved. Something he couldn’t explain. A feeling that would fill the gap in his chest.

A gap you slowly filled with ease. A gap that your warm smile and even warmer embrace closed permanently with the strongest of the glues. Locked. Sealed. With your smile inside. It wasn’t an easy quest, many of the villagers have tried their way into the man’s heart either because he truly was a handsome and appealing man or because they wanted the perks of being with one of the heads of the rebels. You, however, being an outsider and not knowing anything about their traditions and quiet laws, just reached Jongho for liking who he was. Sure, it was as a thank you in the beginning, a silent acknowledgement of his kindness to you. But your company became more and more expected from him. He waited for you to go cuddle him after a tough day at the headquarters, for the warm baths with honey and lavender you’d prepare for him and gently wash his hair while massaging his scalp humming some tunes you’ve heard at the last party you went together. Party that none of the others had a chance of dancing or drinking with him because he was too busy in his own little world with you.

No, he could not lose you. Not when he knew what he felt for you. How he felt for you.

“Do the others know? About me” you asked.

“Some of them, yes, we captured a soldier from the capital a few days ago with a picture of you” you nodded. “I’ve talked to them,” he started as if he knew what you wanted to ask even before opening your mouth “they are willing to let you live if you prove yourself useful”

“How can I do that? And what if the others find out and want my execution?”

“We’ll figure it out” he took steps back to you, his hands grabbed your right one again and brought to his lips, leaving a soft promising kiss on your knuckles. “Right now I want to know if my feelings are reciprocated” you smiled, not only from his words but from the way his eyes sparkled with hope and expectations.

You got on the tip of your toes and planted a soft and rather quick kiss on his lips. Just a few seconds, enough to taste each other.

“Does that answer you?” You asked and noticed the sly smile back on his lips.

His hands planted themselves on your hips, bringing your body back against his, his left hand leaving its place to go around the back of your neck to hold your head in place, fingers tangled with the hairs on the nape.

“Not enough. I need more proof” he spoke before attacking your lips, rougher, stronger, needier.

Your lips danced against each other, a sensual tango of open and close, breath as erratic as the nights you’d dance until your feet would hurt. Your hands held the fabric of his shirt tight against your fingers, trying to bring his body as close as humanly possible.

You weren’t even thinking when his tongue protruded inside your mouth being more than welcome with a hug from your own. Kiss messy and wet, all the built up tension being left there, engulfed by each other's mouth, down your throats and straight down to your cores.

Jongho suddenly lowered himself and grabbed your legs, pulling you to jump and wrap them around your waist. Kiss only breaking for you to leave a tiny squeal before going back to its previous acts. He slowly started to bend down the ground with you, gently laying your back in the hardened salty stage.

You were completely drunk by him, by his smell of sweat and testosterone, by the smell of the salt all around you in the cave. He hovered carefully on top of you, finally breaking the kiss to breathe and look at you. Your lips red and swollen, noses also red from the movements. But you couldn’t care less. All you cared about in that moment was what Jongho was making you feel like your body could melt the salt around you.

“I love you” he whispered, foreheads touching as his eyes, black with desire, shiny with love, stared into your soul. You could swear you could feel his love emanating from his eyes to yours. To his body to yours.

“I love you too, Jongho” you smiled, genuinely. Your hands going up to caress the oily strands of his hair.

He closed his eyes, face burying on your neck, nose inhaling your smell. Sweat, dirt, desire and love. The most intoxicating smell his nostrils could scent and his brain could register.

“I promise I’ll take care of you, nothing will happen to you” you nodded even though he couldn’t see you.

“I trust you”.

He lifted himself back up again, and kissed you. Soft and full of sentiments. Lips melting and molding to perfection to fit against yours. Jongho kept kissing you, the speed increasing each minute. Bodies heating up again. The desire, passion, lust, even stronger after shared promises of love and care.

While his left hand held him steady on top of you, his right one snaked inside your shirt, skin shivering with the sudden touch of his cold rough fingers against the warmth of your stomach. You two never broke the kiss as his hand made its way to your chest, lifting your shirt on the way.

His calloused fingers felt weirdly heavenly against the soft skin of your chest, kneading the volume and squeezing it. Once in a while the pads of his fingertips would squeeze your nipple, earning a few low whimpers against his lips.

After a while playing with your chest, he finally broke the kiss and pulled your shirt over your head, torso fully naked to him. He could swear your skin was glowing, tiny little constellations against your body, contrasting colors. Beauty.

The man shifted positions, putting you startled on top of him, your core dangerously close to his own. Warmth coming from the parts and arousing you two even more.

His lips made their way down your jaw, to your neck, little nibbles being left behind. Shades of purple and blue formed instantly wherever he was moments prior. A mark of your devotion to each other. To his devotion to you. Until his soft plump lips found your soft mound, placing it on his mouth. He felt in heaven, sucking, licking, biting. You weren’t anywhere different from heaven yourself. It was instinctual. The way your bodies worked on each other. As if they knew the ways, the secret codes.

You couldn’t control, not when Jongho was making you feel so good with just his mouth on your chest, and started to move your hips on his lap. The hardened member under the layers of fabric responding and making the man moan against your boob and bite the nipple. A moan leaving your own mouth.

It was a sweet delicious torture. But you wanted more. You needed more. You gripped his hair and pulled his head back, a deep low grunt leaving his throat. He looked so delicious like that, with his head thrown back, eyes black rolled to the back of his skull with your act. You released his hair with another grunt of the man, this time of disapproval, and pulled his shirt out of his body.

You had already seen Jongho shirtless but it never amazes you how his body was built. His chest well built and hard, but his belly soft and welcoming for your head to lay there. But those thoughts were placed behind your mind for another day. Tonight all you wanted was to have that man inside of you, taking and loving you in the most intimate way possible.

“Yn…” your name sounded different this time he said it, no resent of your lies, just heated love and lust. “I need your consent before we keep going” his hands held your sides, the weight of his fingers burning against your skin, marking you.

“Please, Jongho. Make love to me” he smiled and nodded.

He pulled you flush against his chest and put your back against the salty ground, the roughness of it hugging your back. Jongho took the last remaining pieces of your clothes, both of you naked, bare to each other. You forgot you were at the cave, anyone that walked in could see you two. But none of you cared. All you wanted was him. And all he wanted was you. The best win-win.

Jongho aligned the tip of his hard member, pre cum leaking from the red angry tip, and he slowly entered you, taking care not to hurt you. You two were so eager that you jumped stages, no preparation, no foreplay, you two just needed to be as close as possible. And him fully entering his hard cock inside you was the best way.

He waited still until your pulsing walls got used to his size. You barely got time to think too much of his size but he was definitely big, thick. The bigger you’ve seen and have been with.

You signaled for him to move. His appendage slowly leaving inside of you, making you feel empty until he flushed his hips back and put everything inside again. A loud moan left your throat, eyes closing and back arching. You were pretty sure your skin was going to be scratched from the friction with the ground but, again, you couldn’t care less. The only thing in your mind being the delicious way Jongho was fucking you full of him. His cock out slowly and entering in deep and strong movements. You were seeing stars. Planets. The whole galaxy.

His name became a mantra in your lips as he kept fucking you mercilesly, increasing his speed by every second. Your fingers were deep into the skin of his back, nails leaving tiny crescent marks on his tanned skin.

Jongho could feel his climax arriving, he wouldn’t last longer with the way your walls were engulfing him. His hand managed to get between your bodies so he could play with your clit, the little button hard and engorged with pleasure. Your legs tried to close against his hips when he started to draw shapes against it. The pleasure increasing to double. You felt that knot in your stomach started to pull. The pleasure blanking your mind and whitening your vision until you came. The silent moan never left your throat.

Your walls squeezed him hard, making him cum just after you, his color painting your insides that milked him until his last drop. His body fell on top of you, the weight heavenly against your tired body.

God knows how long you two stayed like that, his body on top of you, his soft member still inside of you. But if there was a heaven that’s how you were sure it felt.

He finally moved, leaving your body, the cold air of the cave hit your skin like a vice, pores bristling and making you gif yourself. The man came back with some piece of fabric, the softest he could find and cleaned you. Just when he was helping with your clothes you noticed he was already dressed.

“Jongho…” you whined, body starting to ache. He helped you stand on your feet, legs still wobbly.

“I’ll take you home and make a bath for both of us” you smiled and nodded.

You circled your arms around his neck and gave a soft peck on his lips. Both of you smiling like teenagers in love. The act innocent and silly next to what you just did minutes prior. You felt your cheeks heat up with the memory.

“Jongho” you called him again, loving the way his name sounded rolling out of your tongue. He loved the way you called him as well. “Thank you for loving me”

“Thank you for allowing me to love you”.

Mastelist | Requests and feedback

[loneberry]

“If it is the fulfillment of man’s primordial dreams to be able to fly, travel with the fish, drill our way beneath the bodies of towering mountains, send messages with godlike speed, see the invisible and hear the distant speak, hear the voices of the dead, be miraculously cured while asleep, see with our own eyes how we will look twenty years after our death, learn in flickering nights thousands of things above and below this earth no one ever knew before; if light, warmth, power, pleasure, comforts, are man’s primordial dreams, then present-day research is not only science but sorcery, spells woven from the highest powers of heart and brain, forcing God to open one fold after another of his cloak; a religion whose dogma is permeated and sustained by the hard, courageous, flexible, razor-cold, razor-keen logic of mathematics.

“Of course there is no denying that all these primordial dreams appear, in the opinion of nonmathematicians, to have been suddenly realized in a form quite different from the original fantasy. Baron Münchhausen’s post horn was more beautiful than our canned music, the Seven-League Boots more beautiful than a car, Oberon’s kingdom lovelier than a railway tunnel, the magic root of the mandrake better than a telegraphed image, eating of one’s mother’s heart and then understanding birds more beautiful than an ethologic study of a bird’s vocalizing. We have gained reality and lost dream. No more lounging under a tree and peering at the sky between one’s big and second toes; there’s work to be done. To be efficient, one cannot be hungry and dreamy but must eat steak and keep moving. It is exactly as though the old, inefficient breed of humanity had fallen asleep on an anthill and found, when the new breed awoke, that the ants had crept into its bloodstream, making it move frantically ever since, unable to shake off that rotten feeling of antlike industry. There is really no need to belabor the point, since it is obvious to most of us these days that mathematics has taken possession, like a demon, of every aspect of our lives. Most of us may not believe in the story of a Devil to whom one can sell one’s soul, but those who must know something about the soul (considering that as clergymen, historians, and artists they draw a good income from it) all testify that the soul has been destroyed by mathematics and that mathematics is the source of an evil intelligence that while making man the lord of the earth has also made him the slave of his machines. The inner drought, the dreadful blend of acuity in matters of detail and indifference toward the whole, man’s monstrous abandonment in a desert of details, his restlessness, malice, unsurpassed callousness, money-grubbing, coldness, and violence, all so characteristic of our times, are by these accounts solely the consequence of damage done to the soul by keen logical thinking! Even back when Ulrich first turned to mathematics there were already those who predicted the collapse of European civilization because no human faith, no love, no simplicity, no goodness, dwelt any longer in man. These people had all, typically, been poor mathematicians as young people and at school. This later put them in a position to prove that mathematics, the mother of natural science and grandmother of technology, was also the primordial mother of the spirit that eventually gave rise to poison gas and warplanes.

“The only people who actually lived in ignorance of these dangers were the mathematicians themselves and their disciples the scientists, whose souls were as unaffected by all this as if they were racing cyclists pedaling away for dear life, blind to everything in the world except the back wheel of the rider ahead of them.”

—Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities

(Bold emphasis mine.)

Read this absolutely brutal Musil passage soon after joking to my lover: You mathematicians are the unacknowledged legislators of the world! (An obvious reference to Shelley’s 1821 dictum that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”) 

This passage is for all of you out there who are suffering from AI vertigo. They say generative AI will make humans more “efficient.” What is all this efficiency for? Technology has been evolving at breakneck speed since the industrial revolution and we are still working just as long and hard. Efficiency has become our bondage.

Also... What the fuck does "eating of one’s mother’s heart and then understanding birds" mean? Love it, especially after reading about heart eating in medieval literature...

[uummi]

Written for @dicktimweek 2023

Day 5: First Crush/Love | Dick learns Tim is his soulmate after Damian Gains Robin | BAMF Tim Drake

Words Count: 1649

Title: Black Dahlia

Pairing: Dick Grayson/Tim Drake

Warnings: Implied Character Death| Implied Reverse Robins AU| Implied Joker Junior AU

Dick was a naturally gifted master of performance

Perhaps the fact that he opened his eyes in a show where the led lamps illuminating the interior of the tent gave the feeling of the soft shadow of the moon and the noise of applause served as a lullaby was one of the reasons why he had this habit

Even when he was a baby bird that was too small to carry his parents in the sky with his own wings, he invited people to the show of their lives with his bright smile on his face, enjoyed the smell of excitement spreading around with pleasure

But every art had an inspiration, like that his father and mother had painted their canvas, before they met which was a blank piece of white brick, using the colors of the rainbow they had collected while floating

Dick, on the other hand, has his own in the blue eyes of an older boy he met by chance one day

A boy with a huge camera that looks big on tiny but obviously very painful calloused hands and a small but strong shining smile like a star

Timothy Drake...

It all started on a summer day when he turned 5 and it was going to be determined whether he would start accompanying his parents to their shows

That's why it wasn't a strange situation when everyone was running around with celebration supplies from a month ago, or talking about the childhood of the acrobat who made the sun jealous with their excited tones to each other

For Dick, on the other hand everything was a mess because he still hadn't figured out how to do his family's special move

Even if he felt his muscles crying with pain every day, he worked late into the night and even sometimes gave up sleeping and continued his training, nothing he did was working

He could see that his parents were looking at him with sadness so he was starting to get scared now

What if he fails and his parents start denying Dick's existence? What was he going to do then, he didn't have another family

He didn't want to be alone...

As a result, although he knew that everyone was waiting for him, he decamped through the caravans and started running towards the wooded area next to where the circus decided to stay

He had no strength left to endure this expectation any longer...

He also did not believe that anyone would try to find him, which is perhaps why the thin fingers touching his shoulder caused him to scream

Ice blue eyes that would melt with warmth nevertheless complement the body dressed in red clothes and looked at it with such sincerity that Dick believed for a moment that he was an extremely important person

'Why are you crying, are you hurt?'

He touched his hand to the point where his eyelids were, and when he felt the wetness, he made a surprised sound towards the air because he was not even aware that the tears had regained their freedom

The boy began to speak as if he had never removed the question he was asking from his thin lips while Dick was trying to wipe the wetness off his face, and the other was trying to ignore them after a caress with the hand he placed on his knee

Also Dick was having new thoughts about the beauty of the being in front of him every passing second

The more Timmy talked, I told you to call me Tim why are you already trying to find a nickname when I have one, Dick was starting to calm down a little more. Two of them even started bouncing stones in the lake opposite where they were sitting

At the end of about an hour, the younger boy began to explain what the situation that was bothering him was

In fact, he was just waiting for a conversation consisting of sentences indicating how upset they were or that such a thing would definitely not happen

It happened to everyone else like this

So the response he received in return was the last thing he expected

'Do you want me to teach you?'

In response to his incredulous looks, the teenager with straight black hair said that he really had a great teacher and that he was trying to learn all the movements that attracted his interest after his training with him

And even before his sentence was finished, he presented a perfect work of art

A special show for only certain people, like a bird flying at night

He was so lucky...

Timmy gave him tips to perfect the movement for a while, and Dick felt that after a long time he was really ready to fly

Dick wanted to give something on top of that, but what could it be?

For a few seconds, his eye was caught on the camera, which Tim did not let go of for a long time. With the idea that came to his mind, he tried to find a suitable angle by taking the machine left by the tree in his hand

When he got the position he wanted, he quickly sat Tim down and settled into his lap

'Smile Timmy!'

The young boy complied with the request and also joined their cheeks and planted a small kiss on Dick's one at a moment when he was sure that the machine had caught

After both sides got their photos in their hands, the sounds of footsteps began to approach before Dick had a chance to say anything else

'Timothy, if you're done, let's go now. Don't keep father waiting any longer'

After the sound heard from a grown man, Dick, who saw that the young boy had provided his head and slowly began to advance his body, shouted in alarm

He didn't want it to end, he didn't want to leave Timmy's side!

'Watch me before you go!'

Tim's eyebrows rose into the air with a pleasant curl, and although Dick knew even from this that his cheeks were starting to blush, he did not disturb his determined posture

Upon these words, he became possessed of that image that did not come out of his dreams. The normally air-stitched hair scattered by the summer breeze closed the ice-blue eyes for a moment, the hand that did not hold the camera threw a few tufts behind the ear, and an angelic smile that pinched the sides of his face decorated the pink lips

Ah... He didn't want him go because he had fallen in love

He forgot about the fingers touching the top of his head, the arm dragging him towards the tent or the other boy he saw just for a second who called Timmy, and he wasn't fully himself until he reached his parents' side or even presented the Grayson family's special move

If Tim is able to do the Quadruple Somersault, wouldn't that make him a Grayson?

He was awakened from his thoughts by the kiss that his mother placed on his cheeks and greeted them gently in response to the sounds of applause

'My little Robin... We always knew you would make us proud'

He could look into his mother's smiling eyes and feel that he was starting to laugh through his aching cheeks, or he could relive how full of confidence his father's peaceful embrace was

Turning his head, he turned to Tim, who was standing at the end of the tent door. The young boy was waiting like being the most beautiful being he had ever seen, and he was kind of sending his congratulations by raising his thumb to him

And then he was gone before Dick could talk to him again

So Dick squeezed the photo he put in his pocket with all his might

The one which Tim kissed him...

Would he ever see him again, he wonder

This question continued to haunt his brain until the death show of his family. Every year, he would examine the people inside the tent before going on stage and would give Tim his art along with every beautiful feeling from his heart

Now the top of his canvas was covered with blood, a storm had broken in the sky he was flying

He closed his eyes and tried to eliminate the pain, but he just didn't know what to do

And then Dick felt startled by the hand placed on his shoulder as he cried, knowing that his parents' broken wings would never heal again and that their bodies, captured by wild animals, would be buried in the ground

Nevertheless, he raised his head, ignoring the drops floating from the tears that filled the blues

Opposite him was a young man whose hair reached to his shoulders. Although the hood was tightly covered, the green wires decorating the ends could be noticed

But the really noticeable part was perhaps the scars that turned the sides of his mouth into a horror movie scene. It's like someone put a knife through the tip of his lip and went to the last point he could go

As if this situation would prevent Dick from recognizing him...

'Timmy?'

The blue-green eyes opened in surprise and the decayed hands buried in his hair paused for a few seconds

Then the head area moved towards the shoulder with a slight curve. As if he didn't know what he was talking about

Dick remembered a news story he had read in one of the newspapers called the Joker attack in Gotham and what happened as a result, and realized that the stones had fallen into place

So while he was even more upset that everyone he loved had to suffer, he cried once again for all of the childhood he had lost

He was cursed...

[randomfoggytiger]

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part VIII): Maggie Calls Mulder "Fox"

One Breath, Part 2.

Doctor Daly carefully starts the discussion of terminating life support, kindly laying out all the possibilities to the group; but he is truthful, confirming that death is the likeliest outcome for Scully. 

Maggie is wild-eyed, Mulder moves back and forth from the room to the door where he can see his partner, and Melissa perches, subdued, midway between the door (her sister) and her mother (a visual representation of her role as Scully’s advocate, post here.) 

“Is she below the criteria… established in her will?” Melissa asks. 

Mulder snaps at Doctor Daly’s “Yes,” spouting out alternate treatments in a scene eerily similar to another of Scully’s death beds (Redux II.) When Daly brushes off these theories, Mulder steps forward aggressively, ready to shut the doctor up with his fists. He cuts off the other man’s professional protests, arguing, “You’ve never provided an answer why she’s here and what’s wrong with her.” 

And because Mulder is still covering his pain and emotions with 'the work', he grinds out, “We need to study her.”

This angers Melissa. “She’s not a piece of evidence.” The careless callousness of Mulder’s request-- stifling his own loss by denying Scully her wishes and drawing out the inevitable-- is wrong to her; and she will fight to abide by Dana’s living will, protecting not only her sister's personal choices but her partner's as well.

Mulder turns his restrained wrath on Melissa. “She’s here because of unnatural circumstances.”

She cuts through all of the medical talk, having sensed that this battle is not bound up in medical cures or testing: “She’s dying.”

Sorrow wilts her anger temporarily; but it flames up as she emphasizes, “That’s perfectly natural.”  

Melissa has known from her first scene that Scully is actively choosing whether to stay or go. She keeps encouraging Mulder to be there to support her sister, to encourage her to stay back or give in as she needs.

Mulder, meanwhile, is refusing to let go of the little ounce of control he has because it would mean, to him, that he’d lose her. 

Maggie has kept silent during this exchange; but her daughter’s rebuttal splits through her defenses. She lowers her clasped hands, knowing what to do; and a tear collects in the corner of her eye as Melissa resumes speaking. 

“We hide people in these rooms because we don’t want to look at death.”

Here an interesting thing happens: Melissa pauses and ponders over a memory, seemingly recollecting a previous encounter with death. 

She continues, looking downward and away as she speaks from the heart: “We have machines that prolong a life that should… that should end.” 

On first glance, it would appear that Melissa’s New Age beliefs have clouded her judgments, blinding her partiality to what would be best for Scully; but the truth seems to be that her beliefs came about because of a previous brush with death, an unspecified loss of a loved one. Her falter, her tears, her “middle-distance” expression all convey a heart-rending personal experience she is speaking from, as Maggie and Maggie spoke from in Ascension (post here.) It’s powerful and disarming, making Mulder back off a little bit and destroying Maggie’s last bit of resistance. 

Melissa’s gaze turns inward again: “That’s a much more unnatural circumstance than any cause of her death.” 

Mulder huffs, caustically responding, “That’s very politically correct.”

Righteous anger roars to new heights as Melissa pins him with a furious Scully stare-- the same one her sister uses whenever Mulder puts the truth above the person: “It’s very human.”

Chastisement over, Melissa turns to Maggie, gentle, soothing, but unshakably firm: “I love her.” She pauses, gathering her words (while an off-screen phone rings, subtly acting as the technological antagonist to her arguments); then adds, “But this is right.”  

Maggie is left with no possible cure or prevention available to (for a short time) counteract Scully’s wishes. But more than that, she finally understands Melissa-- that she is not selfishly sacrificing her sister to worship at the altar of her own beliefs but instead speaking for and honoring her sister, even if it means losing her. This realization creates a healthier shift in their relationship that lasts until her second eldest’s untimely death. 

Swallowing loudly and avoiding Mulder’s eyes-- knowing this will gut him as much as herself-- she begins: “Dana…” she pauses, and starts again, bitterness lending a final quality to her voice, “...has made our decision.” She has not forgotten that Scully made a living will without telling her own mother; but tries to set that aside since she will never have an explanation why.

Mulder turns away, eaten up and enraged by this desertion.

Maggie sees it all and sharply calls out, “Fox,” the first time she has addressed him as anything other than Agent Mulder. It’s a mother’s command to turn immediately and listen; and he recognizes it, and does so. 

Mulder shifts around like a little boy ashamed he was caught nearly in tears; but forces himself to hear Maggie’s next words. 

“You and Dana,’ she says, voice quaking, “had a friendship built on respect.” Maggie takes another huge, bracing breath-- that’s not all they had; but then again, that’s all he and she and Melissa were left with: the scraps. She stands, holding her eyes down, “Now, in the last year I have lost my husband…” another pause as she wallows in the pain of that loss, and this loss; then she snaps her head up, fiercely wounded, desperate, but convinced, “--and God knows I don’t want to lose my baby girl.”

Mulder gazes, his heart as one with Maggie’s pain, only flicking his eyes down when she concludes, “But like you I have always respected her.”

Melissa looks up at Maggie like a little child, too, the mantle of adulthood falling away once her mother resumes the voice of authority. Her own tears spill over at the sight of her mother’s; but she waits, sensing there is something more to be said.

“Fox,” Maggie repeats, “this is a moment for the family. But you can join us if you want.” She is barely holding herself together; but, despite swaying back and forth against the door, Maggie bravely stands on her own, unashamed of her open grief (as in Ascension.) 

What happens next is incredibly important. 

This is a pivotal scene for Mulder’s relationship with the Scullys: Maggie has offered Mulder a place in the Scully family (“you can join us if you want”) here and now… if he wants. She’s already claimed a pseudo-motherly role by calling and commanding him with “Fox”; but it’s up to him if he wants the full breadth of that type of relationship she’s offering.

Mulder shakes his head no, beaten. 

It’s Mulder who denies a mother-son bond with Maggie, who keeps a distance between himself and Scully’s family, and who will continue that distance even though he and Maggie have formed a special bond and connection throughout this tragic mess (and future tragic messes.) It also explains why Maggie is so incredibly happy to have him around in Redux II: smiling at her like close family, kissing her daughter’s hand, cordially meeting and conversing with her son, etc. But, like here, Mulder puts up those walls once again when Scully is cured, separating himself from the family and sitting alone in the hallway with his mixed emotions of joy and sorrow.  

Seeing his rejection-- the small, repetitive head swivels back and forth-- Maggie tightens her mouth into a smile of acceptance, reading him with the same accuracy that his other important Scully does. Contemplating his reasons, she looks down (again);

then, with nothing further to say and only one thing to do, she signals to Dr. Daly and leads the way to her daughter’s bedside. 

Melissa gives Mulder one last, assessing look-- measuring how sure he is of his decision-- before rising also and joining the other two.  

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!