#(no one but her and a few officials knew of that being the real reason she attacked that country and not just a lust for power)

[yamumsyadadd]

Las Blancas v Barca

teresa abelleira x barca!leon reader

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It wasn’t supposed to be a secret, or to come crashing down in the way it did. 

Tere wasn’t that much older than you, just four years. It was less than AMC and Mapi’s age gap but to your big sister, Tere was ancient. 

You officially met Tere when you were called up to the Spanish squad after the Las 15, at barely 18 years old it felt like a huge responsibility, and it was. Mapi had resigned from the team, as had fourteen other players. It look a lot of difficult conversations with Mapi, your parents, and Irene before you accepted. Even though Mapi had she she didn’t want to hold you back or hinder your career in anyway, you could tell there was a part of her that was disappointed. Not in you, but in the RFEF. 

It was the beginning of the rift between the two of you and that’s why your relationship with the Las Blancas player was kept a secret. From everyone. 

“Hi! I’m Tere, you’re Mapi’s little sister right?” 

“Yeah, y/n. Nice to officially meet you.” We shook hands in the lobby of the RFEF accommodation quarters. 

“Vilda asked me to show you around.” You walked around for a while, Tere showing you the lounge area, the cafeteria and the kitchen room. “It’ll be good to get to know you when we aren’t battling against each other on the field!” She laughed and you knew then you were in trouble. 

Ever since that first day at camp, you were in deep. The curly haired, freckled face girl forced her way into your heart. No matter how hard you tried, she was always in your head, even when you were back in Barcelona and she was in Madrid. 

It was in Australia after the World Cup final when all the feelings came out. 

“Tere! We are world champions! World fucking champions!” The alcohol was coursing through your veins at the point, slightly aware of what you were thinking but the ability to stop yourself wasn’t there. 

“We are! And there’s no one else I’d rather do it with.” The skin under her hands made you tingle.

“You’re so beautiful.” It was meant to be a whisper but it was the complete opposite. 

Her lips came crashing down onto yours. It took a few seconds for your mind to register that this was a real thing and not just one of your many frequent dreams. Those few seconds was all it took for Tere to pull back, looking slightly horrified. 

“Oh my god. I’m so sor-“ it was your lips that shut her up. The only way you could describe the feeling of kissing her was like coming home. You both got carried away before she gently stopped. 

“Go on a date with me?” You agreed embarrassing fast. 

The dates were hard to navigate once you were back in Spain but you made it work and now, almost a year later, you were happy in your relationship even if it was a secret. 

It was the first camp back after the disappointing loss that followed the Olympics. Spains first, and potentially last. Finishing fourth and losing the bronze medal game was heartbreaking, for all those involved. There were photos that showed you and Tere looking a little more than teammates but not enough for anyone to truly say anything. But that didn’t apply to Jenni. 

As much as you loved her, she irritated you more than anyone else. Her reasoning was that she was just as much your sister as Mapi was and since Mapi wasn’t there to give you shit, she did it on her behalf. 

It was meant to be just gentle teasing, all in good nature. But after a while it got to you. Instead of being mature and actually discussing it with your girlfriend, you just completely ignored her. 

“Y/n!” Her footsteps were getting closer so you started walking faster, “amor!” She caught up to you easily, grabbing your wrist to spin you around, “why are you ignoring me? What’s wrong?” 

“I can’t deal with it anymore!” 

“With what?” 

“The-the teasing, the jokes, everything! At first it was whatever but now? Now they kept saying how much Mapi would hate it, ‘Barça v Real on the field but lovers in the bedroom’, not everything is about fucking sex.” 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I can ask Jenni to stop?”

“No, god no. Then she’ll know it’s true.” Tere dropped your hand, a look of hurt flashing across her face. 

“Is that really so bad? People knowing that you’re my girlfriend?” 

“Tere we both agreed, we wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Are you ashamed of me? Is that it? I know that Barça and Real have a huge rivalry but I didn’t realise you would be so ashamed to be seen with me.” 

“Tere wait!” It was no use, she was already gone, “that wasn’t even what I meant.” 

Begrudgingly, you decided to join the dinosaurs in the rec room. Jenni and Misa were playing pool and Alexia and Irene were on the couch. You forced yourself between your two captains, head following onto Alexia’s shoulder. 

“You okay nena?” Irene poked your cheek. 

“No I messed things up.” Both girls gave you a curious look, encouraging you to carry on, “I may have said something that I shouldn’t have to someone and it hurt their feelings but my feelings were hurt first and now they are mad at me.” 

“Is this person someone who is important to you?” 

“Very. I love her, so much and I want everyone to know how much but it’s hard.” 

“There’s a difference between private and a secret. Which one does this girl fall under?” 

“A secret.” You mumbled out, knowing that chastising you were going to receive. 

“I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark here and say that you and this mystery girl agreed to keep your relationship a secret during the World Cup but now she wants to tell people?” Irene gave you a knowing smile, all you could do is nod your head. 

“I think you’re overdue for a proper conversation with Tere.” Your head shot up at Alexia’s words, eyes wide as if you’d been caught with your hand in the cookie jar, “she’s a good person. I would say great but she plays for Real. Go talk to her.” 

You shot up on your feet, quickly hugging and kissing both their cheeks and then you were off. It took a lot of grovelling and the promise to slowly start telling people. 

There was a plan in place, it had been throughly discussed and agreed upon but that all turned to shit as soon as you entered the locker room after the first El Classico game of the season. 

Everyone was extremely happy, as usual. Standing there, at the door way, you just blurted it out. 

“I’m in love with Teresa Abelleria and we have been dating for a year.” The entire room fell silent, everyone slowly turning to look at you, but all you could do was stand there like a deer in headlights. That was definitely not the plan. 

“What?” It was your sister’s voice that cut through the silence. 

“I, um-“ 

“A year? An entire fucking year and you kept this from me?” Mapi had started to make her way towards you, fury filled her face. 

“I was planning on telling you. I was. But I needed time to figure it out myself and not have anyone butt in with their unwanted opinions.” 

“My opinion doesn’t matter to you? That’s a bit rough. Your opinion matters to me, y/n.”

“Mapi that’s not what I meant and you know that!” 

“Then what did you mean! Use your fucking words!” She yelled. Everyone in the locker room was just watching it unfold. 

“Ever since I got called up to the senior team you’ve been disappointed in me! After every single game you always tell me what I need to do better, never once have you said ‘you played well today’ it’s always critical! So I’m sorry that I didn’t want to give you something else to criticise me for.” You turned and slammed the door open. 

After mindless walking, you found the Real Madrid locker room, you knocked before you entered, not wanting to walk in on anyone naked or worse, a useless pep talk. Tere noticed the dry tears straight away, pulling you into her chest and whispering reassurances in your ear. It took a while before you calmed down. 

“Talk to her amor. Listen to her and talk to her. I’ll see you tomorrow yeah?” She kissed your cheek and squeezed your hand before leaving. 

The bus ride was tense. Mapi and Ingrid were talking in hushed voices, occasionally glancing over towards you but you never noticed, too far in your own head. 

“Y/n can we please talk?” Mapi asked nervously after you’d all gotten off the bus. 

“I guess.” You shrugged your shoulders, following her line of sight to see Alexia and Ingrid looking over. 

“I was mad at you for keeping a secret but that wasn’t fair of me. You have every right to keep your relationships private and not tell me.” 

“Okay, good night.” 

“No! Wait! You said, you said I have been disappointed in you since you were called up but that’s not true. Absolutely not true, I am so proud. I’m just scared, scared that they will treat you like they treated me and the others.” She took a deep breath before continuing, “you have always been the biggest light. You are so pure, so full of sunshine and I didn’t want them to take it away from you but in being scared, I didn’t realise I would be the reason that you lost your light. So I’m sorry, so incredibly sorry and I’ll spend everyday making it up to you.” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“Yeah. Tomorrow Tere and I are going out for breakfast. Do you and Ingrid want to come?” 

“YES!” Mapi shouted, jumping onto you and wrapping her limbs around. 

Breakfast the following morning was tense. Mapi looked angry, Ingrid just ignored her and continued to ask Tere questions to get to know her, actually caring about her answers. 

“Mapi, I need to apologise to you.” Tere said nervously. 

“What?” Mapi looked taken aback. 

“Throughout the whole Las 15 issues I didn’t stand by you. I did things and said things that I regret. I am so sorry for that, if I could I would go back and change everything. Stand by all of you from day one. The club- they wouldn’t let us. It was them or you and I didn’t want to lose my position on the team.” You gave her hand a squeeze for reassurance. It was a conversation that you had both many times. 

“Thanks for apologising. It hurt to know that my own national teammates didn’t have my back. Truly, I wish you all the best but I will never return. I hope you’re looking after my little sister when she’s there.” 

“Of course!” 

“Good because if you hurt her, I will ruin you.” She said it with a big smile on her face and Tere audibly gulped. 

“Maria!” 

It definitely took some time for Mapi to see you as a grown up in a relationship and there were some arguments about the age difference but all in all everything went smoothly. On camp, Mapi made the dinosaurs watch over the both of you. Never allowed to have time alone with Tere. The dinosaurs took her under their wing, just like they had with you. 

[ganondoodle]

Kinda in regards to the Empress & BodyGuard 2-

Is Zaphira (sorry if I spelled her name wrong) an elf or do humans have pointed ears in your universe? If no elves, how do the pointed ears happen? Are there different length of ears and if so do they mean somethin?

Love your art & use of colours!

Thank you! and thank you for asking! (this sketch took me way too long .. and the colors still look washed out on my desktop screen but im not editing a third time ..)

Zaphira is human, there are no elves, as such, in this world, though humans tend to live longer than IRL and have differently shaped ears-

the shapes are rather diverse (example above) and culturally (so far) they have no significance, they are merely a trait just like different nose shapes or fantasy hair colors

the worldbuilding reason is that these are extremely diluted demonic influences- in the past demons were frequently in the human world, though largely in secret/disguised, and long time exposure to demonic presences can have varying effects, the most immediate and common being a longer life or wounds healing faster than normal; there might have been other long time effects but the only trait that stayed even after their disappearance is the ear shapes

(there was a mass extinction event of demons that wiped out all above a certain age, since demons generally dont die of natural causes their life neither depends nor revolves around reproduction so there were extremely few left and those were too young to keep most of their knowledge and culture alive, as they rarely wrote anything down; Shargon is of the current oldest generation and witnessed it happen, just like most now adult demons, Thor and Eadrya are both a bit older than him and thus the oldest living demons, which doesnt mean much considering the technically endless lifespans of them)

and to explain me including Shargon in a human appearance- hes the only demon that spends as much time in the human world as at home, largely to escape the others since they are not interested in going there and would otherwise attack him any chance they get (the human world is rather uncomfortable for demons to be in and they have better things to do than to chase him that far), while hes generally very weak compared to them, something he is very good at is shape shifting, mainly the speed of which, being able to shift between full demon and the smaller more humanoid form extremely quickly, or even mid forms that are a mix of both - even in motion! while for the others it takes them quite a bit and forces them to stop which is the main reason he keeps escaping them not able to keep up with his rapid shape shifting (though it does take its toll .. also a reason hes so skinny)

he is the first (only?) one that at some point will learn how to shift into a much more human looking one (depicted in the sketch) too, but its rather dangerous since it involves supressing and compressing his demon heart and system... which is what keeps demons alive (its somewhat like holding your breath for way too long) so the only time he would make use of it is in extreme situations, like avoiding detection by maschines that can pick up demonic energy or escaping shackles made of celestial silver (which drains their energy and can scar/hurt them permanently, like silver to vampires(?werewolfs?) in a way)

....the point is that if he shifts into a human form he has very long ears, meaning that is basically the extreme form that doesnt occur in humans and hints at the origins for those ear shapes being demonic exposure in the past

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

My take on stalker!Tim:

Robin!Jason gets distracted during a patrol and doesn’t meet up with Batman, who panics is mildly concerned. Jason doesn’t want to reveal the real reason he got distracted (could be something he was working on for Bruce or just him being a cute baby nerd) so he makes something up the spot. A kid! He saw a kid. It was definitely child shaped. And. Uh. Photography! That’s right, he saw a kid taking photos and made sure he got home safe.

Batman: Photography?

Robin!Jason: Yeah, uh, nighttime photography.

Batman: At midnight?

Robin: I mean, it’s not a school night.

Batman: What were they taking pictures of?

Robin, panicking and going to the first thing he can think of ch just so happens to be last Sunday when Dick called Bruce an emotionally repressed furry: Uh, wildlife?

Bruce is skeptical but honestly he’s seen weirder things even tonight so as long as the kid got home safe…

Jason proceeds to use this same excuse a few more times.

Batman: Don’t tell me, it was the kid again.

Robin!Jason: You just missed him.

Batman, who isn’t feeling strong parental feelings at all: Hrn.

Okay so then fast forward a few years. Jason is on his little murder training gap year and Tim has shown up to the manor trying to fix the disaster that is currently Bruce Batman Wayne. Dick, trying to bond with the kid now that it’s apparent he’s not going anywhere, asks what Tim’s interests are.

Tim: Well, I like photography, and…

Dick, putting two and two together and getting forty-seven: Ohmygosh you’re the kid.

Tim: The what now?

Dick: The kid with the wildlife photography.

Tim, thinking about that one competition he entered a year ago: Uh, I guess?

Dick thinks that’s how Tim figured out all their identities. He thinks he has it all figured out. He does not. Bruce now thinks he has it figured out too. He does not. Tim is unaware there was something to be figured out. Jason is off learning the finer points of poisoning or something idk.

So skip forward some more and Jason is back, minus some murder attempts or whatever because this is crack, and Dick is now trying to get his two brothers comfortable with each other. It is not working. Finally, Dick remembers they’ve definitely met before.

Dick: So, do you remember meeting Tim before?

Jason, whose memory resembles Swiss cheese but is fairly certain he never met Tim before now: Uh…

Dick: He’s the kid! The one with the wildlife photography!

Jason, suddenly remembering the excuse he used several times as Robin: The what now?

Tim, knowing full well that Jason was very dead at the time he submitted anything in a wildlife category: The what now?

Jason pulls Tim into a hall closet to interrogate him about this.

Tim: There’s like five rooms right here that no one has stepped in in a month. Why are we in a closet?

Jason: What, exactly, did Dick mean by you were the one with the wildlife photography, because I’m pretty sure that was just an excuse I made up but now I don’t know.

They figure it out. They also agree to just let that belief be. Jason doesn’t want to admit he made that all up. Tim doesn’t want to admit he thought Dick had gone to his art competition thing before they even officially met. Tim also doesn’t want to explain how he actually figured out their identities because this sounds way cooler. So they decide to just roll with it.

Damian shows up and tries to hunt down Tim’s early photos of Batman. Tim and Jason get really into making it look like he just keeps missing it. Barbara knew about all of this the entire time but no one asked her so she didn’t bother to fill them in.

Everyone else that joins the family after that point and hears the story of Jason and Tim supposedly meeting while Jason was Robin has the exact same response: “Oh, ‘cause Batman’s a furry. Right.”

[flowerandblood]

The Lost Haven (16/16)

[ modern mafia • Aemond x niece •female ]

[ warnings: incest obviously, sex content, dirty talk, smut, the angst, murder, character death, miscarriage and the trauma associated with it, panic attack, mafia stuff, brutal violence, uncomfortable conversations, bad, bad things ]

[ description: The vacation from eight years ago still haunts his memories and doesn’t let him forget what happened between him and his niece, the daughter of his sister and Harwin Strong. Their paths separate and he immerses himself in his father’s mafia world until the day she calls him for the first time since those events. Sexual tension, dark, dangerous, withdrawn, thirsty Aemond. ]

Author’s note: As promised, this is another, this time official modern version of The Fall from the Heavens. In this version, Daemon is not related to the family, but is simply Rhaenyra’s husband and the leader of the second gang, Alys and Larys are also not related to each other, but Larys is Harwin’s brother. I will partly refer to the original series, hiding some easter eggs, and some will be a completely new, fresh plot. As in every universe, only Aemond calls her Rhaenys and this is not her real name (she is unnamed character and the others also do not know that he calls her that). There will be a lot more brutality and angst in this version, so watch out. You can read this as a standalone story.

Series & Characters Moodboard Aemond & Rhaenys Moodboard

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

_____

She was pregnant.

Although, according to all moral and social norms, she should have been crying in despair, she was happy: touching her belly with her hand, she felt nothing but love for this little being that was slowly growing inside her.

The fruit of their warm, deep, sincere affection.

The knowledge that she was not alone helped her when it was time for her to meet the staff for whom she was to be responsible from now on. Aemond insisted on being with her, fearing for some reason for her and the baby, she, however, knew that this was something she had to do alone.

Their stares when she walked into the VIP room in which she had ordered the meeting told her everything – grown men and women who looked as if they had seen far too much in their lives watched her in disbelief.

She knew they thought with disapproval that she was just a little girl, a whore who had been given this place as a gift by their boss that she wouldn't know what to do with, pestering them with her stupid bullshit.

She sat down in one of the empty armchairs, a few people lit cigarettes and grunted, other than that, complete silence all around her.

"I know what you're thinking and you're right. The fact that I have taken over these premises is a form of security for me. In true, not only for me, but also for you. Aemond will stop the flow of drugs through these and two other places that used to belong to my father. I have no intention of changing managers or leadership, quite the contrary – I want to talk to you about what you need. I want this to be a clean, legitimate business that is profitable. No drastic changes." She said, looking at them expectantly, feeling her heart pounding like crazy.

A few people twisted in their seats, others looked at each other.

Silence.

Obviously they didn't trust her.

"Think whatever you want about me. It doesn't matter. Know, however, that my stepfather no longer threatens you, and Aemond will still protect this place. All I ask for is loyalty. If there is a problem with something, come to me with it, not to my uncle, or he will be furious. Now get back to work, I want to stay with the manager." She said calmly.

All but one man who could easily be her father got up from their seats and walked out, leaving them alone.

"This is not a toy you can just pick up and have." He said finally, firing up the lighter, leaning over the flame with his cigarette.

"I don't see it as a toy. We can all gain something if we accept each other. Would you rather keep wallowing in this shit and selling ecstasy to young kids? Don't you have children of your own?" She asked coolly, and the man snorted under his breath, the corner of his mouth twitching in a smirk.

"I do. Three. Two sons and a daughter. Each of them works here. The sons as security guards and the daughter behind the bar." He said dryly and she swallowed hard, feeling the cold sweat on her back.

Fuck.

Had she just insulted him?

"You let your own kids do drugs? Do you want them to be arrested with you if the police come by here, as part of family integration?" She asked, and he sighed heavily, taking a loud drag on his cigarette.

"I didn't say that." He replied, letting the smoke out through his mouth.

"And I don't want that either. Help me protect you." She insisted, and he looked at her finally, as if he had made up his mind.

"You're just like your father."

She exhaled loudly, in an involuntary reflex she'd been holding back for the last few hours touching her lower abdomen as soon as the car door closed behind her.

"And how was it? Everything okay?" Her uncle asked, immediately grasping her hand in his, looking at her expectantly, tense.

"They are difficult people. Difficult, but tired. They don't want problems. They get used to it." She said quietly, exhausted and sleepy.

She looked at him, a worry in his eyes but also a tenderness from which she felt warm in her heart.

"Take me home."

The road to the sea was getting terribly long, perhaps because once in a while she felt an unpleasant twinge in her stomach, indicative of what was about to happen.

"– no – no, stop the car, stop the car –" She muttered, and he immediately pulled over to the side of the road – she only managed to open the door before she vomited on the grass, panting heavily.

"– oh, baby – why don't you lie down in the back seat? – you'll be more comfortable –" She heard his voice, his broad hand stroking her back.

Ever since they'd found out they were going to be parents he'd been so tender, so good, so sweet.

Exactly like he had been back then.

"– okay –" She mumbled and swallowed hard, wiping her mouth with her handkerchief. She unbuckled her seatbelt, climbed out and opened the door in the back, laying down on both passenger seats, closing her eyes.

"– sleep, little one – I'll drive slowly – we're not in any hurry –" He said, looking at her in the rear view mirror, and she nodded.

She flinched when she felt the car finally stop – she heard someone open the door, the fresh air and his familiar hands enveloped her, lifting her up, and she clung to him like a small child. He carried her into the house, to a room that belonged to him, where they had set up their makeshift bedroom for the time of renovation.

She felt him lay her gently on the bed, taking his place beside her a moment later, embracing her from behind.

"– you're tiring your mummy terribly –" He whispered, stroking her belly with lazy, calm motions of his hand. "– you need to let her rest –"

She smiled, allowing herself to fall asleep again, this time in his embrace. Her uncle often addressed their child as if the baby could already understand him – he was making a connection this way, realising that he was really going to become a father.

He was involved in everything about preparing for the arrival of their child into the world – they decided to dedicate the room she slept in that summer holiday to their future offspring and repainted it together, sticking cute glow-in-the-dark stickers on the walls in the shape of various planets and stars.

With some things, they had to wait because they didn't know if the baby was going to be a boy or a girl.

"It cost me a lot of money, but I made it. I have written permission from the Archbishop. Rhaenys, we can marry." He said to her one morning, holding a piece of paper in front of him that was to change their lives.

A dispensation for a church wedding.

"We need witnesses." She muttered, gripping his hand in hers. Her uncle nodded, as if he knew she'd said it.

"I know, Helaena agreed. I didn't want to decide about another person for you." He said, and she smiled, feeling grateful.

He became more open, more affectionate, always thinking of her and her needs too.

She knew who she wanted by her side.

"I know I'm asking a lot and that I'm not entitled to it. I know your father will be furious if you say yes, but… you have always been close to my heart. You didn't judge me. I wish I had you with me on this day." She mouthed in a breaking voice, standing alone in the bathroom with her phone pressed to her ear, wiping her face wet with tears.

She heard Baela swallow hard, shocked by her words.

For a long moment, they were both silent.

"– I – God – I've always felt you were in pain – only now I know why and I'm sorry you've been alone with this for so long – I don't want you to not have your bridesmaid on your wedding day – just tell me when and where –" She muttered and she burst out into a quiet sob, feeling relieved.

"– forgive me – forgive me for being such a disgusting person –" She choked out, whooping, feeling that she had finally described herself truly.

She had fucked her own uncle and was going to have a baby with him.

She was sick.

Baela drew in a loud breath.

"– stop – if he was your own birth brother, it would be much, much worse – on the positive side, he's actually only half your uncle –" She said, and for some reason she burst out laughing.

God.

"– right – it's a good thing I didn't choose Jace –" She mumbled, and Baela snorted.

"– exactly – let's stick to that –" She said.

"– it would be funny if the police burst into the church and arrested us –" She sneered, fiddling with the soft towel hanging on the rack, imagining commandos with guns ordering them to fall to the ground.

"– for what? – for drug dealing or for incest? –" Baela scoffed, and she giggled under her breath.

"– for everything – the list of crimes is long –" She said with a smile, for some reason feeling lighter.

It was the first time she had ever talked to someone about it completely honestly.

She shuddered when she heard a loud knock on the door.

"Rhaenys? Are you all right?" She heard his concerned voice.

Ever since he had found her in the bath then, he had been afraid if she stayed in the bathroom too long.

"Yes. I'm talking to Baela. She agreed." She called out to him.

"That's great." He said with sincere relief, as if he was afraid she would suffer another disappointment and rejection from her family.

They hadn't planned to invite any guests to the event, have a dinner together or anything of the sort – they knew that most of their family felt there was nothing to celebrate, and for them, as it wasn't a state wedding, it only had symbolic significance.

Helaena helped her choose the right dress – she wanted to look special that day, because even though their nuptials were going to be bittersweet, she was, in the eyes of God, going to be his wife.

"– oh – look – this one is lovely –" Helaena hummed, taking from the rack a long, white gown with a cut-out back and lace at the neckline and the ends of the delicate, long sleeves.

"– you're right – it would match the flowers in my hair –" She said, in her perfect image of herself that day wishing she had daisies woven into her curls.

Helaena dropped her off in the car at a shop near their house and they said their goodbyes – she needed nothing so much as a walk and some fresh air, however, she wanted to cook them dinner too, knowing that her fiancé would be back late.

Since he had started telling her about his affairs, what he needed to do and where he needed to go, she felt calmer and his absence no longer frightened her so much.

Besides, he wasn't leaving her alone anymore, she thought, touching her stomach happily, looking curiously at the shelves full of different kinds of pasta, searching for the perfect one for spaghetti.

She shuddered, having the feeling that someone had rubbed against her by accident, but then she felt that person holding something against her back.

"Be quiet and leave the shop slowly." She heard a cold, unfamiliar voice behind her and froze, feeling her heart leap up into her throat, a cold sweat on her back.

She looked to the side, wondering if she should scream, if anyone would help her, not knowing if this man held a gun or a knife against her body.

"Don't try anything or I'll butcher you like a pig." He said, as if he was reading her mind, and she swallowed hard, feeling burning tears of terror under her eyelids, her body involuntarily began to tremble.

She simply moved towards the exit, and the man she was afraid to look at put his arm around her like he was her boyfriend, clamping his hand firmly on her waist to make sure she didn't try to escape.

As soon as they left she sprang up to throw herself into a run, but the man grabbed her waist and clamped his hand over her mouth – she bit him with a loud squeal, but he only hissed, not letting her go, hiding behind the wall of the shop, two other men got out of the car.

One of them, a blond man with a beard and blue eyes had a scars on his left cheek.

"– come on, what the fuck are you waiting for – faster –" Tyland Lannister growled, and the man who was clearly his bodyguard forced her to bow her head and forcibly shoved her into the back seat, closing the door behind her.

She burst out crying, curling up as Tyland sat down next to her and the two men took their seats in front, driving away with a squeal of tyres.

"– shut the fuck up – be a good girl and no harm will come to you – I need to clear up a few things with your uncle –" He said lightly – only when she looked at him did she notice that he held in his hand a gun pointed towards her.

She pressed her body against the car door, looking at him with big eyes and shook her head.

"– please – please let me out, I'm pregnant – I –" She mumbled out and squealed, leaning forward, feeling a sudden, penetrating pain in her lower abdomen, and then another and another.

She began to pant loudly in terror, and wailed as Tyland slapped the back of her head with an open palm.

"– stop pretending – I told you to fucking calm down, I won't do anything to you – I won't –" He muttered and fell silent, looking with her at the drop of blood that ran down her thigh from under her dress.

She covered her mouth with her hands and screamed loudly, falling into sheer hysteria, the man in front cursed, telling her to shut up, and Tyland just stared at her, his mouth wide open.

"– stop –" He muttered. "– fuck, God, stop, stop, stop –"

"– here? – boss, we're in the middle of a country road –"

"– STOP, I SAID –"

The car stopped at the side of the road with a screech of tyres in a way that made her hit her head on the seat in front of her – Tyland opened the door, grabbed her ankle and dragged her out of the car like an animal, leaving her on the grass, then got back inside.

The car drove off.

She just breathed, whooping with tears, looking at the grass around her and the tree trunks, feeling a horrible warm stickiness between her thighs, twitching all over, not having the strength or the will to get up.

After a while some other car stopped beside her, the people inside screamed in terror and got out, a woman who could have been her mother ran up to her and covered her mouth with her hand.

"Good God, I think they raped her."

No, she thought.

They took something much more precious from me.

She heard his loud, frightened breath as she lay in the hospital bed, the policemen standing beside her grunted at the sight of him.

"Are you her family?" Asked one of them.

"Y-yes, I'm her uncle. Good God, what happened?" He mumbled in a breaking voice.

"Your niece was found by a woman on a country road, thrown out of some car. She immediately informed us, suspecting that a rape had taken place, however, the cause of the bleeding was a sudden stress-induced miscarriage. The victim does not speak and does not want to say who did this to her. Could you please…"

The man did not finish as she heard him burst into a loud, mournful sob, felt the touch of his hands on her body, his face pressed into her hair, his broken, heavy breath.

Her eyebrows arched in pain, a single, lonely tear ran down her face.

Daemon had warned her.

The hours, the voices, the smells merged into one for her – she heard her uncle's voice, her mother's voice, she smelled their scent and touch, she heard their weeping and despair, but she herself felt like she was dreaming awake, feeling and experiencing nothing.

She felt herself awake when she heard another familiar voice.

"Did she say something?"

"No. She's silent. There's no contact with her. She's in shock." Her mother muttered, and Daemon embraced her, looking her straight in the eyes.

She felt something – she felt her heart hit harder in her chest, her eyebrows arched in misery, her breath caught in her throat.

"– baby – baby, please, say something to me –" She heard her uncle's whisper and only after a moment did she realise that he had been lying next to her on the bed all this time, that he had been stroking her head, that he had been looking at her, that he had been crying like a little baby.

"– get out for a while – leave us alone –" Daemon said – her uncle opened his mouth, furious, but she spoke up before he could say anything.

"– I want to talk to my dad –"

Everyone around her fell silent – Rhaenyra walked over to her brother and took his hand, explaining to him in a whisper that they would be back soon, that she was no longer in danger, that everything would be all right.

She felt herself quivering all over when Daemon took the chair and sat down beside her bed exactly as he had done then, after she had tried to take her own life.

She looked at him, into his bright, piercing eyes, and thought that this was what he was trying to protect her from.

"I wanted this child, dad. Very, very much." She muttered and closed her eyes, feeling the blissful emptiness she had surrounded herself with begin to crack, the pain that pierced her body, her heart so strong that she sobbed.

"I know." He replied.

"Is the baby��is the baby still inside me?" She choked out with difficulty, whooping with her own tears, feeling like she couldn't catch her breath.

"No. I'm very sorry, but no. It was too early, the baby was not yet formed. Nothing could be done." He said and she clamped her hands on her lower abdomen, thinking she felt like ripping out her uterus and other entrails because they were useless.

She was full and suddenly empty again.

She felt her father's hand on her arm, his fingers strong, his embrace giving her a sense of security.

"I have abandoned you. I chose my own pride. I knew he would want to take revenge on him. If I had given you my protection, it would never have happened. Forgive me." He said, and she closed her eyes, thinking that she wanted to become nothingness and disappear.

Despite Daemon continuing to speak to her, she fell into a state of half-sleep again, unable to think about it – her mind was repressing everything that had happened and waiting, although she didn't know what for.

What was she actually waiting for?

For her baby, she thought.

Little girl or little boy will be born in a few months.

No, she realised.

Not any more.

Tears ran down her face, but no sound came out of her mouth.

She saw him – her uncle stood in the doorway of her hospital room drenched in tears, trembling like a small child, just like she had been when she came into his room then, terrified of the darkness.

Darkness surrounded him, and he was frightened.

She didn't want him to be afraid.

He cried out loudly when she reached out her hand to him – she realised it was already dark around him when his body snuggled against hers, when he embraced her and kissed her cheek, when his face snuggled into her skin.

They lay, just breathing, holding hands – there was something comforting about that – in his silence. The fact that he knew there were no words of comfort, of justification, of absolution for them.

What did exist, however, were their bodies, warm and familiar, clinging to each other to find shelter.

She fell asleep, wrapped in his scent.

"I know you think this is my fault. That you will never forgive me." She heard his voice as if from a distance – she blinked, surprised to see that it was already daylight all around her, that her uncle was sitting beside her in a chair, looking at his hands.

Days flew by between her fingers.

How long had it been since that incident?

Since when had she been empty?

She pressed her lips together, feeling nothing but rage.

"I want Tyland Lannister." She hissed in a cold, shaking voice, and he looked at her in shock.

They stared at each other for a moment – his lower lip twitched when he suddenly realised what had happened, something in his gaze that had always frightened her, but now pleased her.

Aemond

Emptiness.

It seemed to him that he had simply gone through all the phases of grief – from despair, through denial, to a state of complete indifference.

His child, whom he had so desperately wanted, was no longer there.

He thought it would help to give the baby a funeral, even though they had nothing to bury – that's why they put the glowing stickers they had stuck on the walls of the room that was to belong to their child in a small box and buried it under a tree in the garden of their house.

She wanted the thing that would remind her of their loss to be close by, so that she could look at it every morning from her window.

It was an ordeal they lived through together, and although they suffered, they found relief in each other's arms.

She let him take her for the first time two weeks after it happened.

Lying in front of him in his embrace, she took his hand in hers and slowly guided it down under the material of her panties – she surprised him with this, because he was convinced that the vision of him touching her like this would be something disgusting to her – she, however, was wet.

He couldn't hide how much he missed her, and after a moment they were both naked from the waist down, fucking each other like animals with loud smacks of their hips, wanting nothing more than to feel fulfilled and relieved – the release he felt when he finally came inside her was like a revelation, her body hot and sweaty in his embrace, her little cunt pulsing on his erection, sucking his seed.

I'll give you another baby, he thought tenderly, kissing her long neck, not saying it out loud though, not wanting her to think he had already reconciled himself to their loss.

I will give you another baby, and then another and another.

We will be a big, happy family.

If he could say that anything good had come out of this awfully sad situation, it was that their families had begun to talk to each other again – Otto and Daemon couldn't forgive the murder of their grandchild, and Alicent, Rhaenyra, Jace and Baela had watched over his niece in his absence, looking after her.

Even Aegon asked him for a meeting, which was strange and downright comical. His brother put a hand on his shoulder and looked at him in a way from which he felt a squeeze in his throat.

"We're going to catch that son of a bitch."

The only person who was afraid to meet them was Helaena, blaming herself for what had happened despite the fact that neither he nor his Rhaenys resented her.

"She said she wanted to go shopping. Your house and the beach was across the street. I-I had the security guards go and take her dress to your house. She wanted to take a walk, she insisted. I…"

"Stop. You are not the one who did this to her. No one is blaming you." He said calmly, staring dully ahead, sitting in his car, feeling that his heart, his skin, his body, his breath were cold.

I want Tyland Lannister.

He licked his lower lip when he spotted his silhouette in the distance, coming out of one of the clubs surrounded by a few of his thugs, surely for protection.

Jason helped his brother move to another city, hoping they would never find him.

But he was wrong.

"I have to go." He said and hung up, starting the engine, dialing another number.

He never thought that he'd talk to him of his own free will.

And yet.

"He just left."

He followed him for a few streets, driving a few cars behind him, feeling strangely calm and patient – he had the impression that there were no more tears he could cry or screams he could shout.

His persona had come full circle, becoming again exactly who he had been before she had called him that evening for the first time in eight years.

He smiled, seeing that they had realised that someone was following them, trying to change direction suddenly – as he had predicted, they had fallen straight into their trap, and hundreds of loud gunshots rang out around the corner.

He pulled over to the side of the road and stepped out of the car, watching as Daemon's men slaughtered Tyland's men one by one, surprised by the manhunt from both sides, unprepared for such a sudden, merciless attack.

"– please –" Tyland mumbled, crawling on the ground at Daemon's feet – his sister's husband held a baseball bat in his hand, all dirty from his blood.

He thought with amusement that Lannister's face looked like a squashed tomato.

Together with Daemon, he dragged him, moaning and crying, to the boot of his car, locking him in there, and together they set off without exchanging a word.

By the time they reached the house by the sea there was only an hour left until dawn – Tyland had passed out in the boot from a lack of oxygen, and a strong kick to the liver revived him, making him draw in air loudly and cough, spitting up blood.

"– no – no, no, no, no, please, no –" He whined as they began dragging him along the ground towards the door, leaving a trail of his blood on the ground behind them.

When they walked into the house they threw him to his knees in front of her – his Rhaenys looked at his hunched, pathetic figure sitting in front of him on the couch in a white dress he was seeing for the first time, a knife in her hand.

Was this supposed to be her wedding gown?

I have taken away your purity and innocence, he thought with pain, looking at her with adoration.

Kora was no longer there.

Only Persephone was left.

His Queen of the Hades.

He longed to lie down at her feet and simply abide.

"– I lost someting because of you –" She said and raised herself up, touching her lower abdomen. "– my baby didn't even manage to take their first breath –"

He closed his eyes, feeling the squeeze in his throat, the pain he felt in his heart unbearable.

"– I didn't know – I didn't know, I'm sorry, I didn't know –" Tyland mumbled, because of how swollen his face was his words were indistinct and difficult to understand.

Standing over him, in her white dress, with a knife in her hand and with her beautiful hair loose, she looked like a ghost.

Like Death.

"– you threw me out of the car like an animal – you left me to die and drove away –" She whispered, tears one after another rolling down her beautiful, tired, pale face.

She had waited so long for this.

For relief.

For justice.

But no more.

"– please – please –" He begged, and she took a step towards him and knelt before him, looking straight into his eyes.

"– let me, Rhaenys –" He muttered, not wanting her to burden herself with this, to dream nightmares like him, to suffer like him because of what she had done.

"– no – I want to feel the life drain out of him – as it did out of me, then –" She said, and the knife she held in her hand stabbed into his side like butter.

Tyland wailed, grabbing the hilt, but Daemon held him down, preventing him from moving – he saw her slide the blade out, a huge bloodstain spilling down his shirt, dripping down his leg straight onto the foil-lined floor.

"That's enough. I'll take care of the rest. Take a bath and burn everything." Daemon instructed, laying Tyland's barely alive body on the ground, his breathing shallow until his eyes went blank.

His soul had left his body.

"Come." He said to her, taking the knife from her palm, placing it on the floor. He nodded at Daemon and grabbed her hand, leading her upstairs to the bathroom where the bathtub was.

Her entire dress and hands were in blood.

"Come here, little one. Come, let's wash it all off. It's okay, honey." He whispered, hugging her close, sinking his hands into her soft, smooth curls, and she reciprocated the embrace, sighing, closing her eyes as if relieved.

"Thank you."

Again she lay in the bath red with blood, again she was pale, however this time he felt that the life was not escaping from her, but returning to her – with each passing minute her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide as if her mind had returned to reality.

"Is he dead?" She muttered, and he swallowed hard, washing away with his hands any trace of what they had done from her beautiful, innocent body.

"He's no longer here. He's disappeared. He was just a monster from the wardrobe, nothing more, my love." He said quietly and she sighed, her hand touching his face.

"Do you still love me?" She asked in a trembling voice, and he looked at her, shocked.

"You are the love of my life. You need to rest. You are very tired. You haven't slept well in a long time. You're daydreaming." He replied, taking an unruly strand of hair from her face, her gaze warm and tender, meant only for him.

"Are you not disgusted with me? I've done something monstrous. I think I killed someone." She whispered, her eyes full of tears.

"– shhh –" He hushed her, pressing his forehead against hers, stroking her hair as if she were a small child. "– I forbid you to say such things – it will be our secret – mine, yours and your dad's – only we will know about it –"

"– about the monster from the wardrobe? –" She mumbled, and he nodded.

"– yes –"

Rhaenys

"– I'm scared, mummy – can I have my little lamp lit today too? –" Aemma muttered, but before she could answer her anything, she heard a voice from the bed above them, belonging to Visenya.

"– no, I can't sleep then –" Her older sister hissed, looking down at them, the bright curls she had inherited from her father in disarray.

"– I'm afraid of the monster from the television – the one from the horror movie that Aegon was watching –" Her daugther said in a breaking voice, and she furrowed her brow, shaking her head.

"– I told you this is not a film for small children –" She said sternly, and Aemma lowered her gaze on the verge of crying.

Vinseya groaned in frustration and climbed down the ladder, lying down under the duvet next to her little sister.

"– move along, coward – I'll kill any monster that disturbs my sleep –" Her daughter muttered, and she smiled and stood up, turning off the lamp.

"– good night –" She hummed and left, closing the door behind her.

She sighed, seeing the light on in his office, and moved lazily in that direction, finding him bent over documents. He glanced at her, then at the silhouette of her naked body hidden only beneath a soft silk bathrobe, and licked his lower lip with his tongue.

"– I'll come soon – give me a moment longer –"

"– talk to Aegon tomorrow – he mustn't let Aemma watch horror movies with himself because she is afraid afterwards – she's too little –" She said.

He shook his head, signing a few things.

"– I'll try, but you know him – he'll find a thousand excuses and explanations –" He grunted, and she laughed under her breath.

"– he resembles your brother –" She said amused, leaning her hip against the doorframe, and he snorted under his breath, the corner of his mouth lifted upwards.

"– indeed –" He said and looked up at her, his gaze again escaping down to her breasts and then even lower.

"Come here. Sit on the desk." He said, leaning back in his chair, and she obeyed his command with a smile, walking closer with a lazy step.

He stood up as soon as her buttocks touched the tabletop, spreading her thighs apart, making her have to reach back with her hand to catch her balance.

"– ah –" She gasped as his fingertips sank into her fleshy, warm womanhood, collecting her sticky wetness.

"– since when are you in this state? – hm? –" He hummed, pushing her closer to him with an impatient tug of his hand on her ass, the other digging warningly into her delicate skin, trailing it around her swollen clit.

"– since this morning – since I saw you come out wet and naked from the bathroom in our bedroom – I've needed you, and you haven't touched me –" She mewled regretfully, feeling her walls clench greedily around nothing, craving him inside her.

What he heard was enough for all his foreplay, and with her help he quickly undid the belt of his trousers, his breath heavy and hitched.

"– after all, I fucked you last night – I had to drive Aegon and Visenya to training – you could have joined me in the shower –" He exhaled, impatiently releasing his long, hard erection from his boxers.

She sighed and tilted her head back as, without even waiting for her response, he directed the head of his cock against her slit, opening her wide on his fat length, filling her with himself with one, lazy thrust.

"– uncle – o-oh, fuck, uncle, yes, yes, yes –" She cried out, resting her hands behind her back, letting the material of her bathrobe slide off her shoulders, revealing her breasts full of milk, bouncing each time his hips pounded against her buttocks.

"– God, be quiet – shhh, be good or I won't let you come – is that what you want? –" He breathed out and she bit her bottom lip with her teeth, looking up at him pleadingly, something in her gaze from which he began to slam into her like mad, himself struggling to restrain himself not to moan.

"– that's what I thought – you come to me – ah – begging with those big eyes for my cock – and then you can't even fucking behave –" He growled and sighed, feeling her struggling to stifle a sob of pleasure when another thrust against that same sweet spot made her fall apart in front of him, panting heavily along with him, the next few loud, sticky slaps of their bodies were enough for him to cum with a sigh of relief.

They knew each other's bodies all too well by now and, with amusement, found more and more that they had trouble holding back from coming too early.

It was just too pleasant.

"– I'm pregnant –" She whispered, and he blinked and looked at her, as if he needed a moment to start thinking soberly after such intense fulfilment.

"– what? – but –" He exhaled.

"– I'm sure – I went to the doctor today –"

"– you lied to me –" He said with irritation in his voice.

"– Criston drove me there – I told you I would go shopping with him and we did after the appointment – no lies –" She said with a smile, touching her belly affectionately.

Her husband sighed, placing his hand on hers, the expression on his face calm and gentle again.

"– it's the sixth – what a big family indeed –" He hummed, and she laughed, nodding her head.

"– yes, my love – another child to drive to training –" She said amused, and he kissed her forehead with tenderness, from which a pleasant warmth spread over her heart.

"– don't sit here too long –" She sighed, jumping off his desk as soon as he slid out of her.

"– I won't –"

On her way to their bedroom, she walked into their youngest child's room and smiled, covering her little son more tightly with the duvet. Aemon's leg immediately pushed the bedclothes off him with his mutter of displeasure, so she gave up and left him alone.

She froze, spotting a silhouette in the corner of the room, thinking it was a man, with bright eyes, blonde hair and a beard, but was relieved when, after a moment, she noticed that it was the only shadow cast by the wardrobe standing nearby.

When she walked into their bedroom, she immediately turned on the lamp by their bed and waited patiently for him to return.

She knew she wouldn't fall asleep anyway.

When she was alone in bed, she saw his face and her hands sticky with blood.

When she heard her uncle's footsteps, when his warm body finally lay down beside her and his lips placed a soft, sticky kiss on her neck, she turned off the light, his whisper next to her ear like the calm hum of the wind.

"– now I will let you moan as much as you wish –"

"– Aegon – don't let her swim out into the deep water – Daeron, Visenya keep an eye on her, after all you can see she can't swim well yet –" He shouted to their children the next day, lying in front of her on a towel on the beach, little Aemon, sitting next to them, was building a sandcastle, the hot sun burning their skin.

"– okay, Dad! –" She heard Daeron voice behind her, lying on her stomach in her black one-piece bathing suit with her back cut out, reading a book, her husband's doctoral thesis on an excavation he had run with her in one of the cities the year before.

"– what do you think? – it's the last time for corrections – I've read it hundreds of times and it already makes me want to vomit when I look at it –" He said disapprovingly, turning his gaze towards the sea again.

"– it's the best doctoral thesis I've ever read – really –" She said softly, turning the page, amazed at how effortlessly her husband wrote.

"– look, mummy – it's a fortress, and here's the moat – and there's a dragon on top –" Mumbled Aemon, forcing the Mighty Vhagar figurine that had once belonged to his father onto the top of the tower.

"– beautiful, darling – it looks like the real thing –" She said with warm approval, and Aemon smiled broadly, satisfied, busying himself with creating a bridge over the moat from sticks.

"– Aemma, don't swim so far away – how many times do I have to tell you? –" Her uncle called out, raising himself angrily on his elbow, and she sighed heavily, throwing him a look full of pity.

"– she has swimming sleeves that are full of air that will float her even if she stops moving her arms and legs – she won't drown –" She said, and her husband sighed heavily, looking anxiously towards their children playing in the water.

"– I prefer to be sure –" He muttered.

She looked at him tenderly for a moment, feeling nothing but warmth in her heart.

He was such a good father.

Such a good husband.

She knew that one day they would have to explain to their children why they only had a church wedding and were not married before the state.

But not yet.

"So let's make sure. We should swim with them." She said, extending her hand to him, and he looked at her, apparently recalling their conversation in his car then, many years ago, when he had described his fantasy to her.

He licked his lips with his tongue and grinned in a way she loved.

"Come."

______

Author's note: The child that Rhaenys lost was Viserys: I decided that this story, because it is so dark, could not end differently, and the decisions of the characters had to lead to tragedy sooner or later. Something dies in Rhaenys, but thanks to this she can finally fully join her husband in their Hades, crossing the border of innocence and naivety, maturing in a kind of cruel way. However, the rest of their children, who appeared in the original series, are born. After losing Viserys (in this version they did not know that it would be a boy), they decided that they wanted to have as many children as God would give them, since he took one away from them (in their eyes one too many). Visenya and Aegon will definitely become mafia bosses in the future, just like their father, lol. Their children have the same characters and looks like in the original series, which you can see here.

[hemlock-dreams]

I love MJ. Peter must have really been devastated by her being affected when he was outed as Spider-Man. I have a few questions! You mentioned in the original universe she had a relapse — was it just the same universe changes that made Peter a criminal that caused there to be an MJ that was an addict? Would the venom have caused her to die in a while like most people, or no because Peter became her supplier and had presumably good control? Wouldn’t she have known the reasons he had hesitated to kiss long eventually, since he had to tell her everything to help with the venom thing? And does his venom just… come out automatically after a bit with anything, or is it possible for him to have situations where it’s not involved at all for a time? I’m sure he misses her and usually MJ and Peter are friends before they get together in many canons, so I’m really happy that he’s able to be her friend in the new universe and didn’t lose her entirely 🥺 even if he basically had to reform the relationship from scratch. (Also if Peter and Marko were such good friends, why was he willing to put him and his loved ones in danger by telling everyone?) all of this is very cool and fun ty for sharing.

So OG-MJ was an addict before she ever knew Peter(and before everything with the knock off venom.) She had been sober for two years at that point, and continued to stay sober for a few years after she and Peter officially got together.

However, Peter was always gone, flaking on all their special dates/anniversaries etc. He'd make plans and then never show up, or cancel at the last minute. And despite being super affectionate with his words, was always really physically distant. All of this left MJ feeling really alone and angry, as she was dealing with her own abandonment issues (foster care).

Eventually, everything was just a perfect storm of frustration (struggling with her boss, Peter flaking on another date, a new job opportunity not coming through) that she ended up reconnecting with some old friends who convinced her to try 'this sick new upper'.

The issue with manufactured venom (gonna call it Aurora) is that in it's impurity, it had extremely degenerative effects at lower doses. Peter's venom, while just as bad, was 'cleaner'. He can secrete it at will, but his body starts automatically pumping it when he gets excited (not to mention his fangs do not retract!!!) (They are very sharp!!!)

As for Marko, he'd been Sandman for a while before he revealed Spiderman's identity. Not only was he mentally very unstable, but he'd been very bitter over Peter going 'straight'. They were supposed to be ride or die, but Peter kept drifting away and eventually cut ties with him when it was obvious that Marko was never going to leave the lifestyle.

Then one day, during a fight with Spiderman Marko just...recognized the body language, the words, just...something clicked, then broke. Because not only did Peter leave Marko, the guy who had his back all those years in prison, his supposed 'ride or die' was also fucking Spiderman. The guy who had been actively fucking up Marko's life for years. The enemy.

Payback was an easy decision for a guy who held tight to grudges.

And for the kicker, he didn't even sell the information, just gave it to JJ for free-- that's how much he wanted to hurt Peter. Later, he would really regret it, but it would be too late at that point.

After Marko threw Peter's life into the fire, he and MJ had a blowout fight. At the height of it, MJ told Peter to 'prove he loved her' and used her own addiction as a way to control his time and attention after being starved for so long (kind of holding herself hostage).

Yeah...it all kind of went to real shit after Lmaoo

Once again, thank you SO much for the support and all these amazing asks!! <3 <3

[bluexiao]

#his secret lover 

— just a series where you are their secret lover… but you didn’t know because you weren’t from teyvat after all! (until you have memories of him and you every time you two touch) 

CHARACTERS. self aware! Isekai! gn! Reader; Al-Haitham, Heizou, Tighnari, Scaramouche / Wanderer

THEMES. light sagau (self aware genshin au), isekai, fluff/crack, questionable but real established relationship, suggestive (light and in a few of them…), domestic (kind of inspired by several manhwas lmao), light angst on Tighnari’s?? 

NOTES. I planned for this to be a series so yep if there is anyone else you want me to cover, just hmu. 

SCARAMOUCHE / WANDERER

You have to give him all the props, he had hidden you quite well. 

Even as he was a Fatui Harbinger of a high enough ranking–for others, he was able to keep your identity a secret. Thus, the moment you opened your eyes and found yourself in the land of Teyvat without even knowing, you didn’t know about this. 

Being transported to Inazuma was one thing that did take you a whileto notice until you came face to face with the tracks to Mt. Yougou and officially got to know a Yae Miko��an individual everyone seemed to have great respect for and the fox ears and tail were ones you have never seen in a person ever–at least not one that looked so real and looked exactly like a character in a game you’ve played in! 

What Yae Miko and you talked about came in a blur because you were too much in your head, thinking about how everything suddenly made sense but didn’t at the same time. Yet you did uncover something in your identity in such a small conversation–it was that she knew you. Very well, that is. You felt that it was weird for her to suddenly come up and talk to you all of a sudden, all the more when she asked how you and your lover were–you almost let out a “Who in the world is my lover-Wait, I have one?!” but you managed to shut yourself up and said that you two were doing alright. Biggest mistake of your life. 

The moment you saw Scaramouche, you didn’t even recognize him. He wore such different clothes that you barely had the time to stare and get a grip, not until he was right in front of you–actually, he marched right in front of you. 

“Wash that stupid look on your face, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

For a moment, you were dumbfounded over the fact that he looked exactly like Scaramouche but not at all–was it the clothes? Or was it the soft look on his face that he kept on for a few seconds until he wipes it off—and you didn’t even have much time to respond before he adds on. 

“And that fox is acting weirdly, did you say anything to her? Don’t tell me you slipped up and told her that you’re seeing me,” he sends you a look and your mind goes in spirals all the more. 

You’re seeing who now?! 

Seeing as you haven’t answered him yet and you were merely staring at him, this time, a different expression comes across his face, disappearing as fast as it had appeared. 

“What in the world has gotten into you?” his voice turns softer this time, “is something wrong?” 

He will actually end up pulling you aside and interrogating you for what had happened. That is! Until you remembered everything! The moment he held your hand, every single memory you have had with him came rushing in and you became dizzy that he will suddenly decide to just take you home. 

You now came to recall everything that had occurred and everything fell into place, only now, you had memories of your memories in your real life–or was it really real??—back on Earth whilst having memories of your life in Teyvat. You remember receiving secret letters from Scaramouche and hearing all about his plans, and it momentarily stopped only to receive one yesterday, stating that he would come back home finally. 

You still weren’t sure if you would tell him this is a game… but what is the use though? You haven’t gone through this timeline as well…

“Kuni… I lived two lives.” For some reason, it didn’t sit well for you to keep anything from him–it seems so wrong, so…weird. A month ago, he was just a character in a game you were playing for quite some time and now, he was here, right in front of you. 

His lips were on your cheek as he takes a breath and the air hits your skin, tickling you ever so slightly. 

“Is that so?” you couldn’t tell if he was taking you seriously or not, even more so when you felt him encircle his hands on your waist and pull you closer to his face, where you could meet his eyes that narrowed and the corners of his lips quirk up, “then have you kissed someone else in your other life? Other than me?” 

You heard the slight pause in between his questions and felt him lean closer to you. “Do they kiss you as good as I do?” 

Actually, he meant to ask if you loved someone else other than him or not, but no, he can’t let you think of someone else when you have him right beside you. And besides… if you had another life, then that means he has nothing to worry about in this life… right? 

That thought haunts him every night. 

AL-HAITHAM

Being in a relationship with The Scribe is a big thing already. And all the more so with a person like him. 

After all, it is not so much of a secret that he does bear a good appearance, albeit his personality, he was someone who was particularly popular to ladies and men alike. Maybe for different reasons but most were the same. 

For you, one look at him and you could tell that everyone was right–he really was attractive, but no one would have the guts to come near him with his presence alone. You were only getting used to being transported into this world when you came across the Akademiya and he so suddenly passed by you. You couldn’t stop yourself from admitting that eye contact with him sent shivers down your spine and made you momentarily freeze in place. Even more so when he oh-so conveniently greeted you with a small smirk. 

“Good morning, Y/n,” it was a ghost of a smile–it almost seemed like it was just a sight only for you. 

Only, it was the truth, and you found out about it when you opened the door to your “home” and saw the face of the person that almost made you have a heart attack just moments ago. 

“Oh-I mean, hi! Uhm-” you struggled to formulate anything else from your mouth that you wanted the ground to swallow you whole. You wanted to ask him why he was at your door when he chuckled right at you. When you openly stared at him, however, you could see his brow suddenly raise in confusion. 

“Y/n… as far as I like the attention and seeing your flustered face, I am not that much interested in holding a staring contest against you at the door to our home,” he clearly was caught off guard as he clears his throat and looks away, “your home… pardon me for forgetting.” 

He will definitely feel like something had happened to make you act quite weirdly, but he would not come up with a conclusion so suddenly, however, as he is beginning to gather up his observations, you eventually return back to “normal”, where you don’t freeze up whenever he shows up in front of you, or whenever he tries to lean in for a kiss, or any other physical intimacy that you seem to stutter about. 

Actually, for him, it did feel like you were back in your past self–easily getting flustered or embarrassed. For you, though, the memories that the “Teyvat You” had accumulated slowly but surely came to you each day you spent with Al-Haitham, almost too calculative that you felt like everything that had happened seemed to be much more real than the “Earth You”. 

And because of this, you begin to open up to your lover about your experience and decided to ask for his opinion. With all the time you had spent with him, you became much more comfortable with having to talk to him without stuttering and enough for you to tell the truth of your identity–but not enough to tell him that this world is merely inside a game. Fortunately, he would not be able to figure this out as this is something very unpresidential. 

“Are you saying that another soul… but it’s still you… entered this body, and now you have memories of you here, as well as you back in your world,” he did not seem to end it in a question, more like a demand for you to tell him more or for you to explain it to him clearly without having a hard time to do so yourself–he could not really blame you… it is not such a “normal” occurrence that even he wouldn’t be able to explain himself if it had happened to him, not that he would be as inaccurate as you are. 

He does try to help you uncover the truth and adjust well! After all, he is quite thirsty for knowledge (as much as you were to hi-) and there would be no things left unturned, especially considering that it was about you. 

He does find it odd whenever you do a couple of things that you did not use to do—such as say a couple of words that are not in Teyvat’s vocabulary, from what he knows of—but he eventually grows accustomed to them, just as quick as you become accustomed to this “new life”—or it wasn’t really. 

He does ask you a couple of questions (a LOT) about how your life was in the other world. You tell him of all the technologies and inventions you came to know and well you should not be that much surprised if he ends up covering them for his research or whatever. So do make sure to keep some of that knowledge to yourself! 

TIGHNARI

The moment you wake, you found yourself lying in the middle of the forest, all alone, yet surrounded by mushrooms that you knew for sure you had never seen before. 

They had brighter shades, compared to the ones you normally eat, which means-

“Are they poisonous? Or worse…” you mutter to yourself, horrified as you look at each of the mushrooms. Then everything turns black. 

When you wake again, you were greeted by a different view–a hut, precisely… or it seems like it. You had a familiar feeling set in once you looked around you, however, but as soon as you heard the slightest bit of movement, you instinctively closed your eyes, pretending to be asleep. 

“No point trying to act like you’re still unconscious, Y/n, you may open your eyes.” 

The voice—it felt too familiar that even if you wanted to pretend a little bit more, you couldn’t help but be curious–why was it even familiar when-

Your jaw fell and your mouth hang open as soon as you came face to face with him–a man with long ears (fox ears? What are they-A fennec? Why does he look like… someone…) and his sense of fashion being… quite an eh- 

“Huh? What is it? Is there something on my face?” 

Now that you had heard his voice again, you came to realize that he does sound like the same person he looks very much alike to–Tighnari from that game you’ve played. 

What in the- 

“I must be dreaming right now, aren’t I?”

He sends a look at you and with crossed arms, says, “If you were, I can say I’m quite flattered to have you dream about me, but you are not dreaming so my gratitude is rather useless.” 

And as he casually tries to check your temperature and your vitals, his touch makes you jump with a sudden “memory” that you two apparently had… of the times he took care of you after you appear to have been either injured or came across some weird mushrooms–which also seems to be the case this time around. 

“What is it? Did it hurt when I touched you?” He does notice this and does not hesitate to ask you, but with all that was happening, you failed to notice the concerned look in his eyes but it did not stop the pressure that was building in your chest—so you lied. “No… I’m fine, just a bit jumpy… ‘s all.” 

He may raise a brow at this but he brushes it off, and in the end, you might not be able to say the truth to him because… well, you didn’t have a chance! Every time you try to do so, it’s either he holds your hand or you hold his and a memory pops up and everything in your plan gets messed up! 

He’s sort of a physical lover. You wouldn’t be able to believe it either, especially since you didn’t really know much about him until you came here and realized that it actually makes a lot of sense for him to be so. 

He initiates a lot of it too! So much so that whenever you feel his tail wrap around your arm or your waist or him trying to request of you to pet his ears… you feel a little guilty somehow. 

In the end, you were keeping something from him… and you still haven’t told it yet. 

HEIZOU

You had just woken up and minutes later, you were stuck in a rather… awkward conversation. 

“Are you saying… I’m in Teyvat?! And you’re Heizou?!” 

The boy in front of you has a furrowed brow as he crosses his arms over your chest, “Hm? Where else should you be except for here? Right beside me?” he grins at the momentary victory of having to come up with a way to try and fluster you, but apparently, this time, it wasn’t working. 

He, above most of the others, would figure it out immediately–well, not the entire story, no. He will be able to deduce that you must hae forgotten a piece or two (or maybe even all) of your memory and in turn, makes you very confused as to where you were and who is he–I mean, how could you even forget who he is? He courted you for so long and now he will have to go through that all over again? 

You don’t remember everything as fast as his interrogation skills, however, and he will begin to question you before you even get to have your “memories” back, and when you do, you were already finished telling him of your life back in Earth and it seems you might have slipped that Teyvat is inside a game called Genshin Impact, which is how Heizou came into the conclusion of the truth. 

You really wouldn’t be able to hide anything from this man because he knows his way around interrogation that even if you try to lie, it will only be for your demise. Well, it does seem like he wasn’t taking you seriously, but hey, at least he wasn’t being awkward about it now… or maybe he’s just REALLY not taking you seriously. 

Anyway, it was a kiss that eventually makes you remember—not everything, but at least something. 

“This is not gonna do… you act, speak, and look exactly like Y/n, and yet-“

“But my name is really Y/n! And… I think I remember something.” 

“So you were able to recall something after our lips touched,” he brings a hand on his chin, contemplating, as you feel your face heat up. 

“If you put it that way…” 

“Then should we do it more? Kissing, I mean.” 

“Sure, I-wait… what?”

comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated!<3

taglist on the reblogs!

[baldursgate3tempobsessed]

Hiii!

I love your writing, especially Mirror, Mirror! Are you still taking request? I‘ve been thinking about Ascended Astarion and female Tav/Reader attending a ball for the politicians and nobles of Baldur’s Gate, getting all dressed up and socializing, dancing and Astarion flirting with her all night long. Astarion obviously wouldn’t waste a chance to be alone with Tav/Reader, takes her on a romantic stroll in the gardens and has his wicked way with her somewhere in a dark corner 👀

I can not make Ascnedant Astarion not dark I am SORRY but I can't help myself. The intro to this is sad bad, but honestly it gets pretty fun later down the line. Gotta set up that Stockholm syndrome. You gots it here.

Tw: Murder, Violence, not much but it is there, graphic smut, 18+ sweet dark fluff. I do consider this Stockholm on your end. Very inspired by the in-game quote of locking you away for a decade. Also, never write shit only in tumblr post editor, I lost half of this right before I was going to post last and it almost killed me

~

Astarion was.... aware that you'd been having a hard time as of late. If anyone could empathize with the complications of being a vampire spawn, it was certainly him. Even though his circumstance were obviously much, much worse than yours ever could be.

He was no Cazador. Astarion was different, he loved you. He knew what was best for you. All that needed to happen now was for you to accept it.

And in your defense, you were trying. It had taken a long time for you to finally come to terms with the full extent of power he had over you as his spawn. He would always know where you were through sensation alone. Always ready and willing to drag you back home if need be. He could compel you to his side at any moment, though he did have a bad habit of going out to find you during your little tantrums. It seemed to work better to put you in your place, especially since he had very little self-control when it came to who you associated with. Many a possible friend had died at his hand, in front of your eyes. A waste, really, one that wouldn't be necessary if you would just listen.

But the demonstrations had been useful. Slowly but surely you were learning that the option of secrets between the two of you had died the second he sunk his fangs into your wrist. He had personally put an official stop to all of your extracurricular activities. The things you used to do in your spare time were silly and dangerous, always going out of your way to help the undeserving. But now he had the control to stop you, to sequester you at the estate where you were safe.

You had nowhere to be besides his side and you were finally starting to understand that. Things were so much easier when you gave in and listened, happier and more fun.

Lately, it had almost felt like another honeymoon phase, with your sudden predilection for extreme loyalty. It helped that he could still see into your mind through the new connection, fully aware that your love remained real and pure, if not a bit melancholic. It was silly really, the guilt you felt towards him for letting him ascend. Never mind the thousands he sacrificed, you were too concerned with how power had chanced him.

It was cute. Stupid, but cute. Because obviously it had changed him for the better. How else would he be where he was now? With his hands already in nearly every major part of Baldur's Gate's governance? He had made wide, sweeping moves to gain control in the past year, banking on your dual hero status to deflect from his more... unsavory attributes. But it was working, and in a few years time this city would belong to him. Then the two of you would be on to the next major conquest. A future that you were just now coming to terms with.

And Astarion wanted to reward you for that acceptance. He had been a bit paranoid of late, paranoid enough to not let you out of the house for a solid fortnight. But for good reason. The last of the Gur had come out of the woodwork recently, looking for revenge for their children and fallen comrades. With a specific interest in you. It had made sense, in a way. You were his greatest weakness after all. So of course he had to take it upon himself to personally hunt the last of them down to tear them limb from limb.

But now they were officially gone, and he was finally feeling comfortable with letting you out into the world again. Just not out of his sight. And tonight was the perfect opportunity. He had a mandatory soirée to attend, populated by neighboring nobles and a few powerful foreigners. One that would be so much more entertaining with you willingly by his side. Or forced, if need be. Depending on if you decided to be in one of your moods, though they were a rarity nowadays.

But no, you turned out to be too excited at the prospect of leaving the house to even attempt being a brat. Astarion watched you with a smile as you appeared at the top of the staircase, dressed to the nines. He whistled as he watched you descend, beyond pleased with how you looked. He met you at the bottom of the landing, easily wrapping an arm around your waist before setting a quick kiss to your temple, "You look beautiful pet. Absolutely stunning."

You truly did. A navy satin gown that matched your skin tone perfectly, fitted with delicate straps and a low bodice. Perhaps the slit in the leg was a little high, revealing too much of your perfect thigh for the rest of the world. But you looked too good for him to complain.

You really were so gorgeous, could he be blamed for wanting to dress you up?

You rolled your eyes, but Astarion didn't miss the tiny smile dancing on your lips, "You're the one who picked it out."

"And you wear it perfectly," Astarion praised, already leading you out the door. He kept you close to his side during the short journey, his eyes darting around your surroundings every few moments. His paranoia had been quelled, but it hadn't completely died out. But he had already made the decision that he was going to be on his best behavior tonight, and that included not indulging in his protective nature. You deserved nothing less.

But that didn't stop Astarion from taking some mental notes on those who stared at you too brazenly when you arrived. Part of him couldn't blame them, not when he could understand your thrall better than any one else. But the other, more fun part of himself was too busy imagining ripping them apart for the audacious, lustful stares.

But he didn't drag the two of you out for strictly fun, a fact that he was quickly reminded of when you were approached by the main host, "Lord Ancunín! I'm so pleased that you could make it."

Astarion vaguely remembered who he was, though he was much more interested in his friends than the man himself. The man turned his attention toward you, brow raised, "And who is this beautiful creature?"

Astarion could feel his brow twitch at the insolence. How dare he not know who you were? The Hero of Baldur's Gate, his consort, the love of his life, how could someone of his breeding be so ignorant? You had to many titles to choose from for introductions, so Astarion decided on the most important, "This is the future Lady Ancunín, my fiancé."

He could feel you tense at his side, staring up at him with wide eyes like what he said was surprising. Which was odd. He had been extremely clear about his intentions since the day he ascended, marriage was the obvious next step for the two of you.

"Well it's lovely to meet you," The noble said with a smile, his attention going straight back to Astarion, "Now if you'll excuse us, I have a few matters to discuss with your future husband."

Astarion was startlingly close to hurting this man. What on earth made him feel as though he had the right to dismiss you? He tightened the arm he had around your waist, sneering at him, "There is nothing that you can say that she won't eventually know. Don't waste our time."

Then he proceeded to do just that, wasting Astarion's time with useless information and worthless attempts at allyships. It seemed to be an unfortunate trend as the night progressed, just reinforcing how utterly useless the gentry could really be. Not to mention their constant passive dismissal of you. He really was going to need to start letting you out more often, though he had to wonder if they were even worthy of your presence. He would have been a bit more forceful regarding his own displeasure at their arrogance if you weren’t so distracting.

It was hard to hold onto his own indignation when you seemed so content. You were leaning into him the whole night, smiling softly through all of his inane conversations. Never failing to be adorably pleased at your introduction. It made Astarion want to fawn over you, alternating between whispering sweet nothings in your ear and sweeping you onto the dance floor. All of your pleased laughs and giggles music to his ears.

He kept you close all evening, never allowing you to wander past his sight. His arm stayed firmly around your waist, never quite shaken off after your first waltz together. But you didn't seem to mind. If anything you were glowing under the attention, happy in a way he hadn't seen for a long time. Too long. Beautiful enough for him to have the overly romantic thought that he never wanted the night to end.

Even after he had done his rounds, engaged with all whom he had planned on, he wasn't quite ready to leave. They had all been dreadfully dull, but at least a few conversations would prove useful in the future at the very least.

He started to steer you towards the back garden doors, whispering in your ear, "Take a walk with me?"

You followed him easily, happy to leave the bustle of the ballroom and step into the coolness of the night. You both started walking, hand and hand in a comfortable silence. It was a pretty enough garden, hedges and ivy lining the walkways, a white slightly weathered gazebo placed in the center.

"You know," You said eventually, as the two of you went up the gazebo steps. You leaned against the railing, looking at him with a coy smile, "I don't recall you ever proposing."

Astarion barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes as he crowded around you. It was an unnecessary question, considering how you would have no choice in the matter. But he was playing nice tonight. Astarion grinned at you, bracing his hands on the railing to cage you in his arms, "If you want a proposal, I'm more than happy to oblige."

"I do," You were playing with the lapel of his jacket, looking up at him through your lashes, "Sooner than later if you don't mind."

"Your wish is my command," Astarion murmured, shameless as he started to kiss along the line of your throat, "I'm proud of you pet. You've been an angel all night."

"You haven't given me much to complain about," You said with a small laugh, your breath hitching when his fangs scraped against your delicate skin, hard enough to make pinpricks of blood bubble to the surface.

"You know..." Astarion started, pulling back to look you in the eye. His voice gentle but serious, "It could always be like this. If you let it."

"I... I know," You admitted, biting on your lower lip as you struggled for the words, "I-I want that. I want you. Even if... it's like this."

Astarion would take offense at the subtle dig if it was anyone else. But with you? He was just happy that you were finally coming around, at long last willing to accept the fate he'd set for you.

"You have it," Astarion promised, tilting your chin up to press a light kiss to your lips, "For as long as I breathe my love, you're mine. And I'm yours-"

You kissed him before he could finish, wrapping your arms around his neck, forceful in a way that he had desperately missed. But you were pulling back too soon, your mouth swollen and your lipstick slightly smeared, smiling at him like the precious thing you were.

How could he resist?

"I think you deserve a reward for tonight my pet," Astarion said, leaning in to softly kiss along your jaw, "For being such a sweetheart."

His hands were wandering, already moving to pluck at the delicate straps of your dress, slowly teasing them to drop down your shoulders.

You made no moves to stop him as your eyes darted around the empty space, "H-Here? But what if someone sees?"

"Then I'll tear their eyes out and feed them back to anyone who stumbles on us," Astarion said simply, smiling at the way it made you laugh softly.

"Violence isn't always the answer you know," You said, your breath hitching as he lightly bit your neck. Your dress still slinking down all the while, "I thought we talked about that?"

"Perhaps," Astarion murmured, "But it seems to usually work in my favor."

He had already managed to slip the straps down enough to ease the way, brazenly tugging the fabric until your breasts spilled from the top. He leaned back in, taking the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth as you gasped; mewling when he began touching you, shamelessly pinching your nipples just to hear you whine.

He adored all your little noises, so easy to coax out of your mouth. He could feel his own cock pulsing in the confines of his trousers, the feeling getting worse and worse as you started to whimper.

Astarion let one of his hands travel further down, right through the slit in your gown. He traced the seam of your pussy through delicate lace, smiling into the kiss from how the simple touch had your hips pitching forward. He could feel you getting wet, already seeping through the fabric of your panties, your needy cunt already begging for his touch. And Astarion was more than happy to oblige.

He tore them from your hips, letting the tattered pieces fall unceremoniously to the ground before he started to rub his palm against your clit, more slick gushing out as you moaned.

You were clutching at his shoulders, panting into his mouth as he played with you. Your thighs tightened around his hand, your cunt wet enough to fill the air with messy, indecent sounds.

Whatever trepidation you had before was quickly dissolving, a small chant escaping your lips as you two kissed, Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.

Astarion was more than happy to oblige.

"Hold onto me darling," Astarion ordered, giving you a split second to tighten your grip around his neck before he was lifting you in the air, settling you on top of the thick railing with your legs spread wide. He made quick work of taking his weeping cock out, rubbing it along the seam of your cunt as you moaned. And then he was pushing inside, the slide soaked and easy.

You felt so tight around him, tight and sopping wet as he started to fuck into you. He bent his head down, popping one of your hard nipples into your mouth as you cried out, your nails clawing into his shoulders. You wrapped your legs around his hips, trying to pull him in even closer, despite the fact that he was pressed deeply inside of you. Hitting all of your sensitive places.

He could tell that you were close, your whining getting more and more high-pitched by the second, your sweet cunt pulsing around his cock. Astarion started to rub at your clit again, at the perfect angle to make you tense up and cry out. And just like that you were squirting against his hand, breathing heavy as your orgasm ravaged through you.

Astarion grinned, popping off your breast to kiss your slack mouth. Naughty thing that you were, making a mess all over your fancy dress. He pulled back to look at you, debauched and panting, your pupils dilated at you stared up at him. You looked gorgeous, fucked out and perfect.

He started to fuck you harder, the erotic image was too much for his mind to handle. You where whining with each thrust, no doubt oversensitive as he roughly slammed into you. But you were a good girl, taking it without a single complaint as you held on for dear life, tears springing to the corners of your eyes. But lucky enough for you, you didn't have to wait long.

Astarion spilled inside of you with a drawn out moan, grinding circles into your cunt as you quivered. You pulled him in for another kiss, messily sliding your lips together as he filled you up. The two of you stayed like that for awhile, lazily kissing as he softened inside of you. It felt good, it felt right, the perfect end to a great night.

Astarion pulled out slowly, cooing at you as you gasped at the feeling. Your legs were still trembling as he set you back on the ground, bad enough for Astarion to wonder if he should just pick you up before you crumpled on the floor.

But first...

Astarion dropped to his knees, ignoring your surprised gasp as he spread your legs back apart.

"Hush darling," Astarion ordered as he pushed your dress back up, "Let me have a look at you."

Astarion was aware that he had gotten a little rough near the end there. It wouldn't be the first time he made you bleed during sex, nor the last. But he would hate to do so accidently. But no, your pussy looked perfectly healthy, if not a little swollen. Flushed and pink, your hole still twitching the slightest bit. The sight of your pussy all slick and red was nearly enough to make his mouth water.

"Spread your legs a little further pet," Astarion murmured, looking just to look. He gently added pressure to your shaking thighs until you complied, "That's it. Good girl."

His cum was already starting to leak out of you, the smallest bit of white making it's first appearance amongst your wet folds. No doubt it would be sliding down your legs soon enough. He could do something about that. But then again... the alternative sounded like too much fun.

Astarion stood back up with a smile, patting your pussy once before letting your dress fall back down, "Try to hold it in darling. We wouldn't want to make another mess, would we?"

You nodded slowly, still looking half out of it. A sweet, hazy look still plastered onto your face. You were already leaning in for another kiss, naturally desperate for more contact. Contact that Astarion was more than happy to give. He pulled you closer, kissing you deeply; your fingers tangling in his hair to pull him even closer. He wrapped his arms around your back, dipping his tongue between your lips as you dreamily sighed.

You pulled away first, to his displeasure, but you didn't go far. You rested your forehead against his, smiling softly with loving eyes, "Hi."

Astarion couldn't help but smile back, taking the time to tuck a wild piece of hair behind your ear, "Hello my treasure. Did you have fun tonight?"

"I think you know the answer to that," You giggled softly, "I'm not even sure I can walk."

That he did. And there would be many more nights like it. Though for now, he'd prefer to get you home. He felt a bit reluctant to parade you back out there for the masses eyes, so obviously debauched by his hands. No, the sight of you happy and flushed was for his eyes only. Your night would be ending here.

You squeaked as he swept you up in his arms, already muttering the magic for a portal under his breath. And just like that the two of you were gone, completely uncaring to give any good byes.

The two of you popped right into the entry hall of the estate, sudden enough to nearly scare a maid half to death. Astarion paid them no mind, too busy with carrying you upstairs to the sanctuary of your quarters.

You cuddled into his chest, looking up at him with a nervous look, "Did... Did I do good tonight?"

"Of course you did," Astarion cooed as he kicked the door to the bedroom open, trying to softly drop you on the bed, "Perfect creature that you are, what else could have possibly happened?"

But you didn't let go when he tried to pull back, clinging hard enough for Astarion to simply follow you. But he didn't mind, no he preferred you like this. Needy, wanting, and his. He twisted the two of your around, settling only when he had you laying on top of him. He would set a bath for the two of you later, but for now he was more than happy to lay here, watching as your tired to stay conscious. You always got so tired after sex, just one more silly thing that he was endeared by.

"I love you," You mumbled, your eyes falling closed, "Thank you for taking me tonight. For trusting me. I... thank you."

"I love you too darling," Astarion murmured back, kissing your forehead, "You get better by the day. I really am proud of you."

It was true. You were learning, adjusting. Give him a decade and you'd be completely immersed in your new life, all thoughts of useless things like "freedom" forgotten.

You were his. Until the end of time, you'd be together.

He'd make sure of that.

[neiptune]

you can feel it on the way home

cw: 1k wc, female reader, childhood friends to lovers, atsumu is so lovesick it'll make you gag, just fluff fluff fluff. sponsored by @mangostarjam, thank you so so much for trusting me and contributing to @ficsforgaza!

Summers in Hyogo are hot, humid, made of sleepless nights and the quiet buzz of fans blowing air that is always too warm. They get sweeter, whenever Atsumu visits.

On his very first official trip as a member of the MSBY black jackals, you remember thinking Osaka didn’t know how lucky it was about to get. You also remember his blinding grin at the airport, the way he took off his black cap to push it on your head right as your bottom lip quivered, how he proudly showed off his good luck charm. You couldn’t believe he still had the stupid bracelet you made him when you were 10. ‘Samu got one too, because back then no one could befriend a Miya without necessarily befriending the other, but Atsumu’s bracelet had one extra clay charm and faux pearl beads that were colorful.

You’ve known each other your whole lives. You were 8 when your parents moved into a bigger residential neighborhood, their mom was the first one to ring the doorbell with a tray of freshly baked cookies. Two little boys standing on either side of her long skirt, pretty much identical, differentiated only by the snot still drying underneath the nose of the one with reddened eyes. Despite his miserable state (stemming from Osamu tripping him and deliberately making him face plant on a pile of dirt) the little boy still mustered the courage to ask for your name and whether you knew how to play hopscotch.   

Before they became the iconic freak duo, the twins were simply the biggest chunk of your childhood afternoons. While you did everything together, from going to the beach to consuming the slide at the playground a few blocks away from your house, ‘Tsumu was always the one to stay whenever Osamu would decide it was too hot or he was too bored and just wanted to go home. You could tell it felt weird for them to split up but Atsumu would forget his brother as soon as you offered to push him on the swing.

Then came high school and he no longer was the little crybaby you’d grown so fond of, the kid who’d refuse to let go of your hand while stomping around the nanko sports park at the sunflower festival his mother dragged the three of you to. Atsumu convinced himself he didn’t care anymore whether people liked him or not (whatever helped him sleep at night) and that you, along with his teammates, were the only friends he needed anyway. Neither of you cared that Aran, Rintaro and at some point even Osamu were convinced you were secretly dating, an assumption only the two of you knew wasn’t completely groundless.

At the age of 13, you decided you wanted to be each other’s first kiss. It was a perfect agreement: no chance of the memory ever being ruined, as you were going to stay best friends for life. Neither of you anticipated the second time you kissed him, right after he announced he was asked to attend the Ajinomoto youth training camp. Just a friendly peck before an even friendlier hug, to celebrate.

But there was nothing to celebrate after the game with Karasuno, was it? The Inarizaki High volleyball team members were the only ones not really enjoying the party thrown just for them, so you and a few others took it upon yourselves to make sure they did. Atsumu was already wasted before you could playfully suggest he’d drown his sorrows in a disgustingly sugary drink, glassy eyes set on your lips as you listed all the reasons why he should’ve been proud of himself, why you were so proud anyway and absolutely certain his star was soon going to shine the brightest not only in Tokyo but for the entire country to see. And then he just pulled you close, arms wrapping possessively around your waist, captured your lips in a real kiss that knocked the wind out of your lungs, made your legs unsteady.

Atsumu is away more than he is home but when he is back, Hyogo seems to glow. It’s 1 am and you stroll by streets that are dazzling, his presence alone enough to light up the neighborhood you grew up in, your fingers are interlaced with his rough ones and everything in the world feels right.

“You’re not listening” he lightly flicks your forehead and you flinch, snapping back to reality. The bench you’re sitting on next to each other is the same one you’d kill time on as teenagers, when neither of you wanted the night to end too soon.

“Sorry, I was just thinking...”

“That’s new”

“Shut up” you attempt to land a smack on his chest but he catches your hand and brings the knuckles to his lips with an infatuated smile.

“Just kiddin’, sugar. Penny for your thoughts?”

You fix him with a falsely annoyed stare.

“I just... never asked. When did you know? That you liked me, I mean”

Atsumu hums, pensively strokes his chin as he peers at the starry sky above. Always so theatrical.

“Right away. Ya looked so cute in those dungarees, hiding behind your dad, too scared to even say hello. I was sick of ‘Samu at that point and I really wanted a new friend” he smiles when you snort “always the kindest, smartest kid in every room. Scraped knees to prove ya could keep up with the boys, making sure no one ever felt left out. Grew up to be as beautiful as your heart is. You’re my best friend” he’s far from being a crybaby anymore but Atsumu still gets teary eyed fairly easily and it makes your heart flutter knowing that, sometimes, you get to be the reason.

“That’s sweet” you cup his cheek to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye, he takes advantage of the proximity to gently grab your chin and keep you there, presses his lips to yours in a chaste kiss that lingers a moment too long. Atsumu could get drunk on the way you smile, chase him as he pulls back to steal two more pecks.

“When did you know?” he asks, lips still grazing yours, big hands now holding your face and a thumb lazily tracing the curve of your cheek.

“Hmm... I had my suspicions when I felt more and more inclined to leave you the last bite of my mom’s cherry pie. I was sure when you started going out with that Kobayashi during freshman year and I tried to convince myself that I could like ‘Samu to make up for, well, you” he snorts out a laugh, half outraged, half amused. ‘Samu? Hilarious. As if.

“I was already in love when you left for Tokyo” you gently nudge the tip of his nose with yours.

“So was I. But it’s just” he shrugs “I never could tell for sure. Sunarin used to call me an idiot but I just never really knew”

“What? All those years, you really didn’t notice that I was falling in love with you?”

“Didn’t think I was your type”

You laugh at that, then melt into his embrace, rest your head on his shoulder when a strong arm is wrapped around you.

“Well, you’re my best friend” you murmur into his neck.

[eatmeandbirthmeagain]

This request is kinda angsty, but I was wondering if you'd be willing to write something about Baldwin assisting his wife when she faints from heatstroke on a particularly hot day? She is prone to headaches as it is, and the heat does her no good. Basically something sweet about Baldwing reacting to his wife fainting and helping her recover, if it's not too much trouble... 👉🏻👈🏻

♧ I've Got You - King Baldwin x Reader ♧

♧ Angst ♧

A/N: Hello Anon, thank you for your request. I like this one a lot and enjoyed making it, I hope it's what you had in mind! As always, this is based on the film Kingdom Of Heaven, not the real historical figures. Enjoy!

TW: Fainting, Mentions of Dysautonomia, Leprosy

Summer in Jerusalem was always brutal.

Many were used to the heat, leaving them mostly unaffected. However for y/n, the heat was much more than she could take.

Unbeknownst to individuals of the time, with their lack of medical knowledge, the young queen suffered from dysautonomia, induced from trauma during her childhood.

This meant that severe heat caused her to experience extreme headaches, difficulty breathing, and on occasion, fainting. She was already prone to terrible headaches as it was, so the heat did nothing to help that either.

--------------

On a particularly hot day, Baldwin was scheduled to address his subjects and y/n was supposed to be joining him, as usal.

The king knew of his wife’s sensitivity to the heat and insisted that she remain inside the castle, but y/n promised that she would be perfectly fine and that as long as she stood in the shade, nothing would happen.

This did nothing to ease his nerves. But still he agreed, telling her that if she felt even the slightest bit ill that she was more than permitted to enter the castle to lay down.

------------ 

When the hour of the address came, the people gathered in the castle entrance yard to hear their king speak of updates regarding the safety of their land.

Baldwin stood on the royal balcony of the castle and y/n stood behind him, with the rest of the royal officials.

About five minutes had passed after he started speaking when the queen began to feel slightly ill. She thought nothing of it and concentrated on keeping herself standing. The heat worsened her small headache to a migraine, her vision was blurry, and she was having trouble breathing.

Still, she told herself that there was only a few minutes left and that she could wait it out.

It was Tiberias who noticed her sickly appearance first. He was stood with the rest of the royal officials and was also aware of the queen's medical condition.

It was for this reason that he had been keeping a close eye on y/n and was also the first to notice her legs give out from underneath her.

He rushed forward to catch her, just before she hit the ground.

Tibarias called for a guard to take her inside. Amongst the small commotion, Baldwin did not see what happened but was quick to turn when he heard a guard being called.

Seeing his wife unconscious in the arms of a guard sickened him to his core. He gestured for somebody to conclude the address as he followed inside, not caring what others in the crowd thought.

“What happened? Is she alright?” he asked Tibarias frantically, his heart rate quickening.

“She is alright my lord” Tibarias replied quickly, “it's the heat, she just blacked out as you were speaking. She will be just alright” his words only calmed Baldwin’s panic slightly.

He felt ill, the bandages covering his body suddenly feeling too tight. The mask restricted his breathing even more than it usually did.

The guard placed y/n on the couples shared bed in the royal chambers.

Baldwin ordered him to fetch the physicians quickly, moving to the queen's bedside to look at her properly.

She was very pale, but her eyes were shut peacefully. Her breathing was soft and inaudible, if it wasn't for the slight rise and fall of her chest, one would assume her dead from the sickly pale color of her skin.

Noticing the king's look of utter defeat, Tibarias offered a few words of comfort, but they did nothing to ease his worried heart. “It's my fault” Baldwin uttered softly, “I should have told her to stay inside. I knew that this would happen. Oh lord, why did I allow her to stay outside for so long in this awful heat”. He sighed, sitting down on the edge of the large bed and putting his head in his bandaged hands.

“It is not your fault my lord. You weren't to know that something like this would happen. She insisted she would be alright, she would not have assumed something like this to happen either” Tibarias replied, placing a hand on the king's shoulder just as the physicians entered the room. 

---------------

It was late at night by the time y/n’s eyes snapped open. With a gasp, she went to sit up, but a gentle hand pressed her back down. “Easy my lady, everything is alright” a voice soothed her.

As her vision cleared, she began to make out the form of Tibarias, standing beside her. He wiped her forehead with a cool, wet cloth gently.

“What- what happened?” the young queen asked, struggling to form words with her still dazed mind trying to regain consciousness. “You blacked out from the heat, but you're alright now”. As he said that, the memories began to flood her mind.

Her mind suddenly went to her husband, why wasn't he here? “Baldwin, where is he? Is he alright? I know how worried he gets” she began to panic again, a thousand scenarios flooding her mind about what could have happened while she was unconscious.

A small smile crossed the royal official's face as he gestured to her side with his eyes.

Turning her head slowly, y/n was suddenly aware of a gentle weight on her shoulder. Her mind was instantly put at ease when Baldwin's mess of blonde curls tucked under her chin came into view as well as his arm draped over her stomach. His mask was removed and placed on the side table closest to her. His warmth was pleasant, especially without the cold of the iron mask against her skin.

“He fell asleep at your bedside earlier this evening after remaining beside you all day,” Tibarias explained. “He was so worried about you. He felt awful for having you out there in the heat”.

Y/n smiled softly. She loved him so much and the fact that he was so worried about her and her health constantly, despite his disease, made her love him even more.

Gently, she lifted up her arm and placed it around her husband's back. “Thank you Tibarias. I can assure you that I am fine now. You are welcome to go get some rest” she offered through half lidded eyes and a weak smile.

“Thank you my lady, have a pleasant rest” 

“To you as well”.

Once Tibarias left the room, she turned her attention to Baldwin.

“I’m sorry for scaring you my love” she whispered to his sleeping form, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Thank you for taking care of me” she said before closing her eyes, finally allowing the pleasant breeze coming through the open balcony doors and her husband's soft breath against her chest to lull her into sleep.

[piratefishmama]

Finders Givers | Part 3

To call them out of place would be an understatement.

Neither of the two in the lobby looked like they belonged there. Eddie in his ratty, torn at the knee jeans, rings, chains, band tee, and leather jacket, and Chrissy… well, Chrissy could probably look like she belonged if she’d dressed up a little, but she’d pulled her cosiest sweater over her head, a comfortable, cream coloured, crocheted sweater, a house warming gift from Mrs Jablonski next door when they’d moved in during a real cold snap a few winters back, and she’d wiggled her butt into a pair of Eddie’s old jeans.

The ones with the paint on them from when they’d painted Eddie’s room against Carl’s wishes.

Their reasoning was that Carl would never know. No matter how many times his greasy ass hinted at coming in for ‘coffee’, he was never invited in.

Her last pair of jeans were in the dirty laundry pile. She’d been meaning to force Eddie into helping her do laundry that day but alas, they were now not doing that. She didn’t think he knew he’d gotten himself out doing of laundry, but somehow it was still funny that he’d managed it again.

But it didn’t matter, there was nobody really there besides the secretary and she’d offered them coffee and pastries. Rather than looking at them strangely she’d offered hospitality and kindness, so now they had coffee and pastries, because Eddie was not about to turn down fancy free food from a kindly mother type.

It’d been twenty minutes already. Their pastries and coffees were done and gone.

Eddie was about to call it and leave, loud in his objection of being ignored by the high ups, when Chrissy sat up straighter, her eyes zeroing in on what would undoubtedly be a mini-boss in a video game.

Or maybe the ‘sudden Latin choir’ version of the main boss, and she walked through the double doors, both swinging open like Aragon shoving his way through the doors at Helms Deep and Chrissy was so very unprepared to witness her very own Aragon that early after student night shots.

Woman’s cheekbones alone could probably kill them both.

Eddie said nothing, he just gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder, he figured she’d appreciate that. She reached up and patted the hand he’d left there in support. She appreciated it.

“Mr and… Mrs—?”

“Ew no.”

And the hand atop his own was gone, pulled away, Chrissy’s awed expression replaced with one that read ‘I’m offended’ better than any angry white suburban mother of four with her minivan, concave cut, and bad dye job could possibly verbalise. “That was quick.”

“I’m gay what do you want from me?” Eddie looked up at the boss lady with what he hoped to be a disarming grin “Eddie Munson, this is Chrissy, Chrissy Cunningham, my single best friend, and platonic life partner.” He slipped that single in there so smoothly, gave himself a mental pat on the back for it, so smooth. He was gonna ignore Chrissy glaring at him. Boss lady just smiled, stormy eyes flicking between them as he introduced her. She seemed nice, a little mysterious. “We’re uhm, we’re here about thee uh—”

Eddie Immediately wanted to turn her into an NPC, or an actual boss. Maybe a powerful, kindly mage. An ancient druid or—

“The apartment block, right? Claudia gave us the heads up. My name is Robin Buckley I’m uh… well… I don’t really have an official title, but you can probably just call me Mr Harrington’s business partner I guess.” It was an apt title, ‘boss man’s best friend’, or ‘partner in crime’ didn’t seem nearly as professional. “Why don’t you both come with me to my office, and I can try and answer any questions you might have.” Professional yet welcoming.

Almost felt like she’d worked in customer service before.

They both rose to their feet and Robin turned back toward the door, nodding in greeting to the secretary as she walked by, both Chrissy and Eddie copying her as they hurried on through after her, through corridor after corridor, then one quick zip up the elevator and they were there, Robin once again opening both doors as she entered her office.

It was clearly a personal preference to be as dramatic as possible, it was working for her.

“Please, take a seat” They both quickly took the only two chairs on the ‘guest’ side of the desk, while Robin rounded it and took the larger chair behind it. The office was. Large. Large and full of knick-knacks. Framed pictures of actual people instead of vague ‘hotel-esque’ art, trophies, several book shelves filled with folders and thick books, a filing cabinet or two, a few plants, and huge floor to ceiling windows behind her that showed pretty much the entire city skyline. So this was how the other half lived. “Okay, I’m sure you have several questions, so… go ahead, I’ll answer what I can.”

Eddie shared a look with Chrissy, silently communicating that they probably should have come prepared with a list of things to ask but honestly neither believed they’d get this far.

They both kind of assumed they’d be told they’ve had all the information they’re getting and to just wait for more. Having a private meeting with… what was essentially the second in command of this entire company well…

“When are these renovations supposed to start and end?” Eddie asked first

“What can we expect from them?” Chrissy added

“And do we really just… not pay rent for the whole period? That’s okay?” Eddie finished. Basics, they had the basics memorized at least. The important questions.

“Ooh-ooh, will rent be the same after the renovations!? Or will this be like, a getting rid of the poor people situation?”

“Good question, Chriss”

“Thank you, I read this thing online the other day about the gentrification of poorer city spaces and—” Chrissy paused, her eyes shooting to Robin’s expectant face and then back to Eddie again “it’s not important.” She finished, she finished before she could start rambling and embarrass herself.

“Oh it’s super important to know about these things” Robin spoke up with a toothy smile, earning both Chrissy’s bashful smile and Eddie’s respect. She was subtly supportive of Chrissy’s rambling. Eddie liked her. “Not many people do, it’s a concept that only gets brought up when it’s happened and not when it’s happening right under your feet, and it’s rare people get the other side of the story, y’know the one from the people who’ve been displaced? That’s not what’s happening here though, I’ve not seen anything that’d suggest Mr Harrington’s intentions are to raise the existing costs.” She’d seen him blatantly say he hadn’t really thought about making them pay again.

“Do you think that could become his intention though?” Eddie pressed

“Nope. He has a personal interest in the building is all, the only thing I know for sure is that we’re looking to remove the negative presence from the building, it doesn’t have the best reputation, we’re aware of at least three drug dealers operating from within it.” Oh nooo, his weed, couldn’t all be sunshine and roses then. “We’re looking to remove them as soon as possible as they have blatantly broken the law and the terms of their rental agreements by engaging in illegal behaviour from within their apartments, so that will free up a few of those apartments for better tenants to move in.”

“Better tenants?”

“Law abiding ones.” Sort of. Argyle would have a cooler tenancy agreement.

“…What about ones that have history with the law?”

“We’re not here to be discriminatory, Mr Munson, this company… we believe in second chances.” Munson… Munson… where did she know that name from? She knew that name, and he did look… familiar. She shook her head, not important. “If you’ve had criminal charges in the past then you’ve had criminal charges in the past, that’s the past, it’s history, it doesn’t affect the now. But to put your mind at ease, you’re not on our list of offenders, or you’d have been served an eviction notice by now.”

Chrissy sat up straighter, as if a lightbulb went off in her head. “Everyone on the second floor is okay, right? We know Mick an Dottie in seven are a little sketchy but—”

“Second floor is okay, we’re not evicting anyone from the second floor, it’s mainly the fourth floor we’re concerned about.” She was so lucky she’d memorized half the shit she’d received that morning. Got just enough in the old brain to appear confident in what she was saying. “As for your other questions, we don’t… actually know when the renovations are due to begin, we’re in negotiations with a few contractors right now to get the work started, once we confirm that, we’ll have a more solid timeline to communicate with you, it’ll be full renovations, kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, electrics, plumbing, the whole shebang. But yeah, no, we don’t expect you to pay any rent for the whole period.”

“…I feel like that’s a trap.” Eddie finally spoke up, a small frown on his face that robin mirrored “shit like that just doesn’t happen, man. It doesn’t. Big companies like this, they don’t just forgive the little guys debts, they hold em over your head until you’re drowning, then they tie cement to your feet to hold you there in the deep end.”

At least she looked sympathetic, her expression softening, she wasn’t taking offense. It almost felt like she understood his hesitation. “I was a little stumped myself, it’s… not the best business decision. I’m gonna be honest with you, I advised against the rent forgiveness, it’s a lot of money to just throw away” And they were just throwing it away “—given we don’t know how long these renovations are going to take, but… it’s the one thing Steve stuck to. Wouldn’t budge on it. Said we were disrupting your lives so you should at least be able to treat yourselves during the chaos” Nancy’s words maybe, but Steve agreed with them “and unfortunately for our bank balance… the decision is ultimately Steve’s to make, his office is above mine.”

She could sass him all she liked, Steve was in charge. If he wanted to make decisions and mistakes based on a depressing wallet and a crush well, that was Steve’s choice, his was the name on the company logo.

“And the rent will stay the same at $595 after the renovations?”

“Ye—”

“Absolutely!” And the doors burst open, startling all three people within the office, revealing probably the most beautiful human being Eddie had ever seen in his life dressed in clothes that'd probably cost more than they'd ever paid in rent combined. Could have sworn he’d seen him before though. One does not just forget a face that pretty.

“Steve, I thought I told you to knock!”

“I own the building, I can do what I want. Hello! I’m—” frozen, he was frozen, eyes wide as they took in the two other occupants in the room. The two guests from the apartment block. It could have been anyone, anyone in that block. “… Steve Harrington.” But it was him. “It’s uhm… it’s nice to meet you” said directly to Eddie, and then as if he remembered Chrissy was there, quickly added “both. Nice to meet you both, hello, hi.” Robin’s palm met her forehead in an echoing splat. “What was I saying?”

Her head met the desk. It all becoming painfully clear. Eddie Munson, Edward Munson, Thee Edward Joseph Munson. Owner of the most depressing wallet in the history of wallets.

Part 5

[herejusttosufferalong]

So did N post the Brazil restaurant pics and talk about it in an interview (a bit randomly) because she knew a lot of people were taking pics of them, and she wanted to control the narrative? Play it down and hush rumours? I don't recall her posting any other dinner photos during the tour?

Given the precise timing, I suspect the new photos/video that were released today may have been taken by staff who were under a 90-day NDA (from Part 1 release). I know of other photos that were posted in real time of L and N at the hotel restaurant. For some reason, they were not restricted to post? Maybe just a casual diner or guest? It just occurred to me that the two photos of them (on different nights) taken from a distance may have been screenshots from a video, as the quality is so poor? That's an interesting thought.

Then there's the NY Premiere videos. Why were some released in real time while others were released precisely 90 days after the release of part 1? Why would NDAs apply to some people but not others? Unless the videos posted today were purely by influencers via their official accounts and the other videos posted in real time were from random guests and anonymously leaked?

I'm confused as to why NDAs would be in place? Is it just a safeguard in case anything scandalous happened that would effect viewership numbers? And in the case of the Brazil hotel, just a general privacy thing? But why would it be limited to 90 days if that's the case? Unless they thought something would happen at the hotel that could effect viewership numbers?

Idk. I'm so confused about today. Particularly when you pair it with the week of posting from N. No surprises she posted something social awareness related today (all eyes on her) either because she anticipated today's events OR she had a look at her socials and saw that things had been posted and wanted to make the most of public interest. But still, why the lead up with her own cryptic and love-struck posts? And radio silence from L and all adjacents since he posted the Bridgerton bloopers?

Here are my key takeaways from today (and this week):

They spent a shit ton of time together in Brazil, and didn't get sick of each other. Even going to two separate restaurants in the hotel on one night. They had at least two outings together, without their teams in earshot, across two nights.

He enjoys grabbing her hand unnecessarily just as much as she enjoys grabbing his. Their level of physical affection is unsettling to me, even when certain adjacents are around.

Certain adjacents are just hanging around, whether they know they're being filmed or not. Where is the affection or physical comfort?

A few days before the Premiere, N posts a song about waiting for someone, asking them to give her 'a look again' to get things going. Then in the week leading up to the end of a 90-day period from Part 1 release (and possible NDA expiration), she proceeds to post about someone giving her a call after not hearing from them in a while, and admitting their love for one another (the caller expressing their feelings first). She then posts a song about getting it on with a person where there's no pretending, who knows her so well. Someone who makes her want to dress up and go dancing. Makes me think of that song she posted after S3 filming (I think) and possibly again during tour? - "we should kiss like real people do". What's this whole theme about pretending vs. reality? Being real/yourself vs. fake? What's this in relation to? I mean, I have a few theories...

I can feel it in my loins that the next few days are going to be enlightening, and could literally go in any direction. But did any of us predict this turn of events in what was suppose to be the 'dry period' before s4 filming begins??? This is honestly the best show I've ever watched.

.

[sadceline]

THE ENHYPEN HOST || 1

|| Reverse harem || ft. TXT, Minggyu (Seventeen) & BTS

PAIRING: FEM OC X ENHYPEN

WARNINGS: foul language, explicit content, group sex, humiliation, sex in public, threesome, foursoome, rough sex, red flags, immoral acts, unprotected sex, morbid jealousy, comedy, parody, possessiveness, violent quarrels, arguments, betrayals, lies, femdom sometimes.

GENTRE: +18, reverse harem, comedy, enemy to lovers, friends to lovers

SUMMARY: You moved to Seoul to start over after a bad experience, and everything seems to be going well, you even manage to work for HYBE. You discover, however, that you owe them almost a billion won, money you don't have and don't know how to recover: but don't worry because Hybe itself offers you a solution.

Your body in exchange for paying off your debt.

Do you accept?

Okay, follow me for a moment!

A little context is needed to understand the dire situation in witch I find myself.

I'm a graphic designer, I was born in Campania, Italy, but I moved very early to Bologna, still in Italy but in another region, with mom and dad who are now little more than acquaintances to me, where I spent my existence until my 22nd birthday, when I moreover found out that my idiot boyfriend was cheating on me, with his cousin.

I didn't have time to feel bad about it, because I was pretty disgusted in general. However, it wasn't that I was in love with him, I simply found myself a bit lost - with the only known relatives inhabitants of small remote little cities in the Campania hinterland, who haven't seen me in at least ten years, and a failed career as an advertising graphic designer.

Unable to maintain the hectic pace of business, not to mention the harassment and constant mansplaining I was suffering, I retreated into freelancing. By being able to manage my schedule, I could also manage me, and think about the future.

For several months I contemplated going to Spain but then one of the few friends I had left at the time, after hosting me in her house for some strange reason in Sorrento (in Campania!), always kept secret from her, proposed me to leave with her for Seoul.

It was the fashion of the moment, I had heard about it, but I was too focused on self-pity to be interested in such frivolities - as a matter of fact, while we had been planning the trip for months, I got a little obsessed myself.

She likes BTS, for me too overblown, too famous. I used to focus more on the up-and-comers, there was one band in particular, it consisted of one guy who was better looking than the other, however, not being a kpop senior yet I sometimes confused them, I couldn't even pronounce their name.

So you can imagine my excitement when, just two months after moving to Seoul, I was contacted by a Hybe agent who, after looking at my portfolio found on a website, said he was pleasantly impressed and would like something in my style, for the cover of ENYPHEN's next album, that's how he pronounced it!

After I heard him say those words over the phone I was silent, not because I was thinking about it - of course I was speechless.

It had to be some scam, it had to be! There can be no such coincidence in real life.

The man emailed me his calling card, so I could look up the information on the Internet, and a place to meet.

At Hybe's headquarters.

Are you kidding me? Ester said thus. "Do you think I would let you go alone? What if he is a maniac?"

I didn't speak Korean at the time, but I knew English pretty well, so, yes, I was able to get the job, but in the end, for some reason, my illustration was used for the SIDE B of the album, completely different, official but not primary concept version. I was quite hurt at first, but then I realized that it was already absurd to be able to work with them, I really had no complaints.

Of course, we never met either BTS or ENHYPEN, although once I went alone (I couldn't always go with Ester), I saw Beomgyu from TXT who I have a very heavy crush on, although he always gave me very strange vibes. I obviously didn't even get close to him and looked at him from a distance, however, he was in a hurry anyway, so it's not certain that he would stop.

Okay, let's move on!

After the collaboration was over, I pocketed good money, we ate takeout for at least two weeks in a row, we went in clubs all the time, while every now and then I had flashbacks of my ex-boyfriend, for whom I had begun to feel a strange empathy, as if he were mentally ill. It wasn't the cousin thing as the fact that he had no need to look for a lover - we pretty much did it all the time! It was one of the few things I did well and fucking gladly!

But maybe, I wasn't good enough?

Months passed, Ester taught me Korean, which she had taught herself, and while she was having fun with a lot of guys, I had entered a new state of paralysis. After working with Hybe I expected many requests, many contacts, would come, but instead nothing. Small jobs for small activities with small monetary and psychological rewards.

I didn't do the same as Ester not because I was demure - that adjective was never a part of me - as much as because I still couldn't understand let alone speak Korean, and not everyone knew English, so sometimes it happened that I felt uncomfortable, out of place. I managed to use the time of work paralysis to engage in study, I had to have a social life too! Independently of Ester!

Eventually I decided that for ten hours a day Ester and I could communicate only in Korean, she agreed without thinking and began the experiment. After three months I was able to speak Korean almost fluently, to the point that sometimes we did not even return to speaking Italian.

I was ready to embark on enterprising and exciting multi-ethnic relationships, socializing, and trying to understand South Korea better!

I discovered that it was a terrible place.

Not so much from the foreigner's point of view, but for the Koreans themselves, all very rigid with each other and with themselves, always competing, but also misogynistic, macho, not to mention the jokes about foreign women I heard! Terrible.

Tired of South Korea, after only a year, I talked to Ester about going back-it came out as a hypothetical, after all, I was going to do what she wanted anyway. I didn't want to be alone, and she seemed happy to live with me.

She convinced me to stay a little longer, she wanted to introduce me to her official boyfriend, a good one, really, not interested exclusively in sex! Yes, they are all like that, I had experienced it myself.

Just before I could meet him, however, the two broke up. Sad for Ester who looked devastated, but underneath happy, maybe to be able to go back to Sorrento, to breathe clean air, I consoled her for a whole night, we stayed up drinking and laughing, or crying.

Before I went to bed, in the early hours of dawn, I looked at my cell phone as usual and noticed that Hybe had texted me, again!

Sleep disappeared, I went back to Ester, who had fallen asleep on the floor in the living room, and woke her up to tell her the fantastic news, fuck, I was so excited! Who was I going to work for this time? TXT? BTS? Seventeen?

Copyright violation: that was the subject line, and oddly enough, the entire email was written completely and exclusively in Korean. I was being sued on behalf of Hybe for infringing the copyright of a Pakistan artist who had in turn sued Hybe, because of my design, and won!

What great news! I had gotten incredibly good at Korean.

"Ama, are you okay? Oh, Ama? You look pale!" Ester had said, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me.

"Hybe wants compensation of eight hundred million won," I had said, under my breath, incredulously, "that's like five hundred thousand euros."

"But you don't have it!"

"I know I don't have it."

"Then you can't give it to them, sue them!"

Yes, it would have been nice and easy but I had no idea how the law worked in Korea, and anyway I couldn't sue them because the contract I had signed had exactly one copyright clause in it. If I had in any way caused damage to the agency's image, through copyright infringement, I would have been called upon to compensate them one billion won, which however had been generously raised to eight hundred million, to make it easier for me, understand?

I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. Reach Mexico? Return to Italy? Apply for a loan? And would they grant it to me? Ester advised me to talk to them directly and look for a reasonable solution, offered to accompany me, but when we arranged to meet, they told me to show up alone, or with my lawyer, although this was not necessary because we would talk about it cordially.

I knew Korean quite well now, and inside Hybe practically everyone spoke English. I'll go alone.

I met the CEO himself, a man with round glasses and a kind, smiling, serene face, Park Jiwon. He told me to make myself comfortable and congratulated me for going without a lawyer, since what he was going to propose was best heard only by me.

"Changing the illustration from SIDE A to SIDE B, that was your greatest good fortune, wasn't it?" He had said, smiling in that gentle way that was now chilling.

"I am deeply sorry Mr. Park, I have never seen-"

"I know you can't pay - he had politely interrupted me, getting up from his desk and motioning his secretary to leave. - I'm here to offer you something beneficial, in which you'll always be safe and won't have to worry about, however, it's up to you to decide whether you'd rather return the money or not."

It's called the Jyp method.

Are you curious? This is a funny story.

Korean idols, whether male or female, are people of extreme beauty. It's unthinkable that they won't touch or let anyone touch them for years on end, but that's exactly what the fans want - who feel they are in complete control of their bodies.

Creepy, I realize, but it is quite normal in some parts of Asia.

So how can these poor boys "let off steam"?

The males are given a girl to live with them, together they can have as much fun as they want but within the limits of the host's safety and preferences.

For females it is a bit different but he still wanted to explain it to me, in fact for them multiple partners are needed and these partners do not live with them, but they can make appointments, as if they were gigolos working only for them.

The reason why this is used is because of scandals, any outside relationship cannot really be monitored by the agency. If girls and boys do not need to look for a stable partner and can simply take out their sexual desires on someone, the risk of scandal decreases significantly and their popularity is safe, as are the earnings on them.

In contrast to male guests, female guests tend to be a bit more problematic, which is why only one is usually chosen.

He makes it clear up front that it is forbidden to have relationships with idols, both parties must behave respectfully, and for any complaints from the guest, the agency will take appropriate action, so it is a completely safe situation, understand?

It is called the Jyp method because it was the CEO of the music label of the same name who invented it.

What do you care, you should do it! That's what I thought too, I mean - the band in question was really Enyphen! That way you won't have to pay for it anymore and you'll be hanging out with a lot of pretty boys! That's what you're thinking, it's obvious, really - I thought it first.

Yet to say yes, just offhand, I didn't feel like it.

Mr. Park told me to think about it calmly, giving me two days.

I talked to Ester about it; she did not give me any advice.

She just told me to read the contract well, this time, in case I wanted to accept it, but still she would not judge me, and then I could present them to her - even though I still knew nothing about how the matter was going to unfold.

Clearly I agreed, it was obvious, wasn't it? Otherwise we wouldn't be here.

NEXT CHAPTER:

[alittlebitofloveliness]

Johnny Cade fic

Sometimes, keeping secrets is necessary.

For all the gang is close, close as brothers- sometimes closer than that if Soda and Steve’s weird dynamic is anything to judge by- Johnny knows that some things are best kept between two people, three in some situations, or guarded closely to oneself when a secret is more shame than anything more. It’s why he and Dally patch each other up so often and leave the others out of it, Dally with his warlike ways and gritty survival, him with his stupid broken heart and the bruises it earns him. It’s easier he thinks, to keep that sort of sharing and vulnerability for two people instead of seven, just like it’s easier for Darry to only ever truly talk to Two-bit, and for Soda to haul Steve out for a drag race when he shows up on the Curtis’ front porch with cold eyes and yet another bloody lip. Not everyone needs to know everything. Some things are best kept between a few folks, and if those things are named secrets, well, so be it. It would do more harm than good for Darry to find out what Pony says when he’s ranting to Johnny, and Dal never needed to know half the things Johnny and Darry did to get him out of scrapes he never even realized he’d gotten himself into. 

Another thing Johnny knows about secrets: some are more important than others. Knowing the nickname Steve’s mom used to call him is a far less important secret than the real reason Dal left New York, but Johnny keeps any and every secret entrusted to him locked up tight behind layers of stubbornness that could rival Pony in even his most pigheaded moods. He learned a long time ago that loose lips sink ships- and he couldn’t live with himself if something he knew and let slip ever ended with one of the gang getting hurt. Hell, he can hardly stand to live with himself now.

“Stupid grease,” For a second Johnny thinks the insult is being tossed at him, but when he looks up the soc- some asshole with the dumbest fucking haircut Johnny’s ever seen- doesn’t appear to have even noticed he’s rounded the corner as he grumbles to the rest of his buddies all dressed in letterman jackets and combover hairdos, “can’t believe some greaseball kid thinks he can work with my girl.”

“Least the kid is smart,” a guy with a yellow madras shirt Johnny recognizes from his own C level english class says. Johnny had thought he was dumb as a post before he’d been sat next to the guy. Compared to goldie he was fucking Einstein himself, “I got stuck with Rosie. Dumb bitch wouldn't recognize her own face in a mirror.”

Look who’s talking, Johnny thinks, fully intending to keep minding his own business. Socs pissed off and planning to jump a greaser kid was nothing new in the halls of Tulsa high, and he wasn’t planning to stick around and find out which unlucky guy was gonna be the latest target of the football team. Maybe they’d be stupid enough to go after Curly Shepard again and get their asses handed to him. Johnny fucking hates Curly shepard, but even he has to admit the guy is a straight up beast in a fight. Real tuff.

“Doesn’t mean I’m gonna let some freshman grease named after a damn horse chat up my girl.” The soc with the ugly haircut sneers, “we’re gonna teach that kid a lesson. Lawson says the kid’s on the track team, so we’ll catch him when he’s done practice so the coach don’t go looking.”

The soc keeps talking, joking with his buddies, probably describing in vivid detail how he’s planning on beating up Johnny’s best friend- his thirteen year old best friend- into a pulp. Johnny can’t hear it anyway- not over the roaring in his ears.

Steve is cursing and fighting with his combination lock when Johnny finds him just outside the science wing, his carefully gelled hair a stark contrast to his grease stained t-shirt. For all the dark cloud of his mood is nearly visible, Johnny still can't help but feel bad for him. Soda had officially dropped out just over a month ago and Steve was still taking it mighty hard. He kind of understood- Steve didn’t have a ton of friends besides the gang, and with Evie skipping half the week and Soda working full time, Steve's social circle at school had shrunk to near zero. 

“We got a problem,” Johnny tells him without preamble, and there’s a grim determination in Steve’s eyes when he turns to him, nodding and following him down the hallway without a word. Besides his gruff but unflinching loyalty, one thing about Steve that Johnny appreciates is that, like him, Steve feels no need for meaningless pleasantries. 

As they stalk through the halls, no doubt looking like they mean business if the way socy girls and a few fresh men give them a wide berth is anything to judge by, Steve doesn’t ask questions, no doubt knowing that Johnny will explain everything as soon as they track down Two-bit. 

“Two,” Steve barks as soon as they spot him, flirting with a pretty blonde who’s rolling her eyes but moving closer to him just the same, “let’s go. We got a problem.”

He must be able to tell he’s serious because he gives the blonde a final leer and joins them immediately.

“What’s goin’ on? I’d nearly talked her into lettin’ me take her to the Dingo on Saturday.”

“There’ll be other girls for you to disappoint sexually,” Steve rolls his eyes, “but Johnny says we got a problem right now.”

He turns to Johnny expectantly.

“I overheard some socs earlier talkin’ ‘bout Ponyboy,” Johnny starts. Both older boy’s eyes darken, comprehension dawning. This isn’t the first time one of them overheard some soc planning to give Pony a good jumping and Johnny doubts it’ll be the last, just like he knows it won’t be the last time he, Steve, and Two will fight them off before they can so much as breathe wrong in pony’s direction. Of all the secrets he keeps Johnny thinks this might be the most important, and he thinks Two and Steve feel the same way. Darry and Soda worry about Pony enough as it is, they hardly need to be terrified about him getting beat up at school too; and Pony would never forgive them fighting his battles for him. Hell, if he ever found out he’d probably pick a fight with a soc on purpose just to prove he’s tough. He still don’t get it, that he’s tough enough already for all he likes his books and movies and stuff. Not many folks can go through what Pony’s gone through and not lose a piece of themselves that Pony has kept spectacularly, miraculously, intact.

 “Said they were plannin’ on jumpin’ him after track practice,” Johnny continues, “it was some guy with a dumb haircut, and that guy I sat with in english last year. Mark somethin’?”

“Bradshaw, I think,” Steve spits, “Sounds like him and Ian Cosegrove. They were in my history class last year, and they’d probably be in Pony’s english class now he’s been moved up. One of them has that real dumb haircut?”

“That’s them.”

Two bit cracks his knuckles,  “Let’s go.”

It’s not hard to track the socs down from where they’re hanging out on the hood of some flashy mustang Johnny wished he could steal. It also isn’t hard to beat the two of them to a pulp, and their buddy who joined in too, because for all they’re football player they aren’t greasers, and they aren’t filled with the sort of fiery rage that’s coursing through Johnny’s veins, and Two-bit and Steve’s too.

Sure, no one was allowed to mess with anyone in the gang, but that went double for Ponyboy. None of them would ever be right again if anything happened to the kid, and they all knew Darry probably couldn’t survive it. Hell, Soda couldn’t either, 

Later that day, after Steve has waited around an hour to drive he and Ponyboy home just in case, Johnny hides his swollen knuckles in his jacket pockets and tucks this latest fight close to his chest, another secret best kept to himself.

He’d never have it any other way. Steve and Two wouldn’t either. The Curtis’ looked out for them all- it was only right they return the favour whenever and however they could.

Johnny listens to Pony and Steve argue, watches Two light up a cigarette, and smiles.

It’s no secret it’s tough sometimes to be a grease. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

The stranger the better

A belated fill for Day 6 of @painlandweek. I wanted to write a meet cute for the free day, so I decided to write something set in the same AU as When the bones are good, set about three years before that fic. You can either read the first chapter below or here on AO3.

Prompt: Free Day

Word count: 3K

Rating: M

Warnings: none

Summary: After transferring to the London office of the Ministry of Supernatural Investigations, Charles meets his new partner, the famously brilliant—and infamously difficult—Agent Edwin Payne. Edwin is less excited to find himself with a new partner, especially one who’s so distractingly smiley.

***

“Difficult. Impetuous. Cheerfully disobedient.” Director Asa Nurse of the Ministry of Supernatural Investigations’ London office gazes at Charles from across her desk, reminding him more than a little of the terrifying babysitter his parents used to leave him with when he was a kid. “Director Buchanan over at the Birmingham office had quite a bit to say about you, Agent Rowland.”

“At least I’m cheerful?” Charles flashes what he knows for a fact is a winning smile.

She’s unaffected, as he expected she would be. You don’t get to be in Director Nurse’s position by being easily won over by smiles. “Six months in the MSI and you’ve already wracked up four official reprimands. That’s quite a feat.”

“At least one of those was bull… nonsense.”

“Oh? The Maggie Ramirez case, I assume?” Director Nurse has a way of speaking so every word lands like a slap. He wonders what it would be like to get an official reprimand from her and decides that he doesn’t want to know.

“Wasn’t going to kill a ten year old girl, was I? Not even if she was possessed by a demon. And now she’s alive and home with her parents, the demon’s back in Hell where it belongs, and everyone except Director Buchanan is happy. I’d say I made the right call.”

“Two of your fellow agents were injured in the fight.”

“They survived. She wouldn’t have if I’d followed orders. To me, a dead little kid is a worse result than a few broken bones. Most of my fellow agents would agree.”

He thinks that the lines around her mouth soften a bit. She’s as inscrutable as she was two years ago when she walked into the Tesco where he was working and asked him if he believed in the supernatural. He’s pretty sure she’s even wearing the same brown pantsuit, her red hair in the same twists that almost look like devil’s horns. He’s hoping that the fact that she recruited him herself will endear him to her. Otherwise, there’s a good chance that she’ll show him the door and it’s not like he can go back to Birmingham.

“However.” Director Nurse glances at her computer screen. “Your former partner, Douglas O’Connor, says that you’re bright, quick on your feet, compassionate, and one of the most promising young agents he’s ever worked with. He thinks you have the potential to be a real asset to the MSI.”

“Dougie was a good partner.” And the reason Charles held out at the Birmingham office as long as he did, to be honest. He only applied for the transfer after O’Connor told him he was retiring to go be closer to his daughter and grandkids in Cornwall. Otherwise, he would have at least stuck it out for a year. He's not a quitter.

Director Nurse sits back in her chair, regarding Charles like he’s an interesting lab rat. “Director Buchanan and I worked together for many years until he transferred to Birmingham. We didn’t always see eye to eye.”

Charles bites back a reply. To say he and Buchanan don’t “see eye to eye” would be a wild understatement. His former director is a burly man with a mustache who likes to yell and slam doors. The first time he lost his temper and slammed his fist into Charles’s desk, only inches from his hand, Charles knew Birmingham wasn’t going to work for him. But it’s not like he can tell Nurse that he hates Buchanan because he reminds him too much of his cunt of a father, not without sounding like a petulant teenager.

“Would you say you’re good with people, Agent Rowland?”

Charles blinks, surprised by the change of topic. “Yeah, I’m aces with people. Just not Buchanan.”

She hums, gaze still focused on him. It’s starting to become eerie; he’s not sure if she’s even blinked since he walked into this office. “Agent O’Connor mentioned in his letter of reference that you have a way of putting witnesses, victims, and even suspects at ease.”

Charles nods in agreement.

“He also said that you saved his life twice, once by taking a potentially fatal curse meant for him.”

“Wouldn’t have killed me,” Charles says with more confidence than he feels. If there hadn’t been a witch on hand to immediately administer the countercurse, he’s been told his heart probably would have stopped within a minute. But there hadn’t been time to calculate his own chance of survival versus Dougie’s; he had just acted.

Nurse hums in a way he can’t quite parse. “According to your instructors, you proved to be adequate at spellwork during training. You don’t have the focus required to have true talent. Disappointing, but not everyone has the gift.”

Charles coughs to hide his wince. He honestly can’t tell how this meeting is going.

“Yet, you proved yourself exceptional at hand-to-hand combat.”

“It’s all the cricket,” Charles says, because he can’t think of a single other bloody thing to say. Director Nurse was intimidating when he was a directionless, scared kid barely making ends meet and desperate to find a purpose in life besides scanning groceries. Now, she’s somehow even more so. “Good at… swinging things.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Her eyebrow inches higher, as if to ask “really?” “Based on your work history, however brief, and your letter of recommendation from Agent O’Connor, I do think you’ll have a place here in London. So long as you learn how to adjust your attitude and follow orders .”

He knows that the only words out of his mouth should be, “Yes, thank you, ma’am,” but he’s never been good at biting his tongue. “As long as you don’t order me to kill a little kid, I’ll do my best.”

Her lips purse. “You don’t make things easy for yourself, do you, Agent Rowland?”

Charles tries for another smile. “Have I mentioned how happy I am to be here?”

She blows out a breath. “You know, I think I might have the perfect partner in mind for you.”

***

“In shocking news, the cause of death seems to be the giant fucking crater in his skull,” Dr. Jenny Green says.

Edwin gazes down at the corpse spread out on the autopsy table. Miles Foster, age thirty-two, approximately five foot ten, with chin-length blond hair, a snub nose, and a neatly trimmed beard to hide the faint acne scars on his cheek. He appears to be a specimen of excellent physical health, save for an ingrown toenail on his left foot and the aforementioned crater.

“Do you have any idea what caused it?” he asks.

“Well, it sure wasn’t natural causes,” Dr. Green says. “Too big to be a gunshot. No burns, so not a bomb. No claw marks or broken bones, so probably not a demon tearing its way out of him. Could have been blunt force trauma, but that usually results in the skull caving in, not exploding out.”

Edwin hums, leaning closer to examine the wound that ended Miles Foster’s life, a gaping hole where his forehead used to be. A messy way to die, but at least it was surely quick. Though having had his own skull cracked open on multiple occasions, Edwin cannot recommend it.

“What of his clothes?”

“They weren’t your style.”

Edwin sighs and pointedly stays silent. He finds Dr. Green to be more bearable company than many of his colleagues at the MSI, but he is in no mood for banter today, especially not now that he’s been reminded of what it’s like to look down at his hands and find his own brain matter there. He suppresses the urge to cover his head with his arms, as if that ever did him any good.

She rolls her eyes, but continues. “I’ve sent them to the lab, but mostly they were covered in exactly what you’d expect from clothes worn by someone whose brain exploded out of his face. It was a nice surprise before lunch.”

Before Edwin can point out that she’s been the MSI’s medical examiner for long enough that she should no longer be put off her food by viscera, the doors open and someone calls, “Hello?”

As one, Edwin and Dr. Green turn to stare at the young man standing in the doorway. He’s a few years younger than Edwin, probably in his early twenties, about six feet tall, with curly dark hair, golden brown skin, elfin features, and dark eyes. He must be an MSI agent if he’s strolled into the morgue—unless he’s a walking corpse, Edwin supposes—but nothing about him strikes Edwin as agent-like. Unlike the navy, gray, and black suits most of the ministry favors, his is a vibrant red. He even has an earring dangling from his left ear and a gold chain around his neck, which cannot be regulation. Most bizarrely, he has colorful badges pinned to the lapels of his suit jacket.

“Hi.” He gives a little wave. “Director Nurse sent me down here.”

“Did she,” Dr. Green says flatly. “I hope your skull’s not about to explode too? If it is, stand farther away from my coffee.”

“I don’t think so.” The newcomer smiles, eyes crinkling with mirth. “But I guess that’s not the kind of thing anyone sees coming, yeah?”

“And you are?” Edwin asks.

“Oh, sorry, mate.” The man closes the distance between them, holding out his hand to Dr. Green, only withdrawing it when he sees she’s wearing latex gloves covered in gore. Instead, he waves. “Charles Rowland. I just transferred from Birmingham.”

“Dr. Jenny Green.” She doesn’t return his wave. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

He looks a bit taken aback. “Just got here today.”

“And how long were you in Birmingham?”

“Six months,” he says with a small, barely there grimace.

“New.” She says it like an accusation. “Try not to get your rookie optimism all over my fucking lab.”

Far from being offended, Agent Rowland lets out a delighted peal of laughter. Dr. Green and Edwin exchange sidelong looks. Rookie optimism, indeed.

As Agent Rowland turns away from Dr. Green, Edwin reluctantly takes his hand to shake. He doesn’t care for touching strangers, but it can’t be helped. The man has slim, almost delicate fingers, not when Edwin would expect from a MSI agent. “Agent Edwin Payne. A pleasure.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of you, mate.” Agent Rowland pumps his hand with far too much enthusiasm.

Ah, of course. Edwin tries not to flinch. He knows that his case has a certain amount of notoriety in the MSI. A sixteen year old boy who went missing in 1916 and reappeared in the basement of his old school nearly a century later, unaged and unchanged, except for his story of being subject to decades of torture, is the kind of case that not even the MSI gets often. The fact that no leads were ever found about where he went or what kind of entity took him makes it one of the MSI’s most interesting unsolved cases. Edwin believes they discuss it during training.

“You’re the one who closed the Ripper case, right?”

Edwin blinks. That wasn’t what he was expecting. The case of a vampire with an unfortunate fascination with London’s most notorious serial killer had gone unsolved for decades, with dozens of dead women to show for it. Edwin tracked down the killer after only a few months at the ministry. In retrospect, he wonders if that’s why so many of his fellow agents have disliked him from the start.

“I remember hearing about it in training,” Charles says. “Bloody brilliant, mate.”

Edwin searches his face for any sign of contempt or mockery, but his smile seems genuine, his brown eyes warm. “I got lucky, truly. He was arrogant and it made him careless.”

“Thirty years and no one else got lucky, did they?”

“I suppose not.”

Someone clears their throat pointedly and Edwin jumps. Under Agent Rowland’s warm brown eyes, he quite forgot about Dr. Green’s presence.

“Would you two like to keep chit-chatting?” Dr. Green asks acidly. “I can put the autopsy on hold, if you’d like. Give you two time to make friendship bracelets.”

Edwin feels his face flush with embarrassment. “No, please continue, Dr. Green.”

“Sorry, mate, didn’t mean to interrupt.” Agent Rowland turns his attention to the autopsy table.  “So, what happened to this poor bloke?”

Edwin would like to know what interest Agent Rowland, fresh from Birmingham, has in his case, but he is trying not to alienate his colleagues quite so much. Plus, he would rather make small talk about a dead man instead of polite chit-chat about the weather and how Agent Rowland is finding London so far.

“Miles Foster,” he says. “He was a yoga instructor and online influencer. This morning, he was filming a… live stream when his head exploded on camera, right in front of the tens of thousands of people watching.”

“And who says yoga is calming?” Agent Rowland flashes that beaming smile again and Edwin quite loses his train of thought for an instant.

Edwin clears his throat and tugs on his bow tie. “He was filming from his home, with only his girlfriend at home with him. When she heard him screaming, she went to see what the matter was and found him already dead. She claims no one else was in the house and there are no signs of a break in, nor a struggle.”

Agent Rowland is quiet for a moment, contemplating the corpse. “Once saw a demon rip a bloke’s head off from the inside and crawl out.”

“There are no obvious signs of demonic possession,” Edwin says. “Plus, he was on camera. I imagine one of his viewers would have noticed a demon crawling out of his skull.” He glances at Dr. Green. “It does make me think of the dandelion sprites we encountered two years ago.”

“Dandelion sprites?” Agent Rowland asks.

“Tiny gods that feed on adoration and attention. When they get their fill, they explode out of their victim and find a new host. One of our analysts had a run in with a pair of them. She now keeps them in a jar on her desk.”

Agent Rowland’s eyes go wide. “Alive?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Last time I saw a corpse that was killed by dandelion sprites, the inside of his skull was covered in that colorful goo,” Dr. Green says. “All that’s in this poor sucker’s skull is the scrambled remains of his gray matter.”

“Perhaps something related, then?” Edwin will have to rewatch the tape to see if he can see any small figures leaping out of Miles Foster’s skull at the moment of the explosion.

Agent Rowland must be thinking along similar lines. “Should take another look at those tapes, shouldn’t we? See if we see something besides brains come out of his head.”

“Yes, I will certainly do so,” Edwin says, annoyed. He’s been with the MSI in some capacity or another for a decade; he does not need this bright-eyed rookie telling him how to conduct his case. Even if the bright-eyed rookie does have one of the most magnetic smiles Edwin has ever seen, the kind of smile that makes him want to earn another one. “But I’m sure you have your own case to see to, Agent Rowland. I won’t keep you.”

“You’re not keeping me from anything. This is our case, isn’t it?” At Edwin’s uncomprehending look, Agent Rowland’s smile turns sheepish. “Sorry, mate, I thought Director Nurse would have told you already. I’ve been assigned to be your new partner.”

***

“There has been some sort of mistake.”

“She told me you’d say that.” Charles has to break into a light jog to keep up with Edwin Payne’s long, purposeful strides. They’re about the same height, but his new partner seems to be all legs.

“Director Nurse is a very busy woman. She may have gotten me mixed up with someone else.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.” Even if Director Nurse did seem like the absentminded sort, he can’t imagine anyone ever mistaking Edwin for someone else. There’s something a little strange about him, something that Charles can’t quite put his finger on. It intrigues him.

Edwin stops so abruptly that Charles nearly runs into him, turning to face him. “This isn’t personal, Agent Rowland—”

“Call me Charles, mate.”

“—But I simply do not work well with a partner,” Edwin continues, ignoring him entirely. “This is not the first time that Director Nurse has attempted to pair me up with someone, and it always goes poorly, I’m afraid.”

Charles shrugs. He can work well with just about anyone, so he can’t really relate, but he knew some partners who weren’t a good match for each other in Birmingham. It wasn’t a fun situation for anyone. “Sounds like you just haven’t found the right match, then.”

“There is no right match for me. I’m not good with people. I never was, not even before—” He breaks off with a wince. “Suffice to say, it’s best that we get this sorted out as soon as possible. There are plenty of perfectly capable agents in this office who I’m sure will be delighted to be partnered with you. I am not one of them.”

Before Charles can retort, Edwin is barreling ahead again, rounding the corner. “Director Nurse!”

Charles follows him around the corner and finds Edwin hurrying towards Director Nurse, who is coming towards him, flanked by her two assistants. When she sees Edwin, she rolls her eyes at the ceiling.

“For goodness’s sake,” she says. “Not this again, Agent Payne. I am on my way to a meeting and I do not have the time.”

“This will only take a moment, Director.” Edwin stops in front of her, fists pressed tightly together. He’s replaced the latex gloves he wore in the morgue with brown leather ones, like Charles’s grandfather used to wear whenever he went for a drive. Between the gloves and his slightly askew bow tie, he has the peculiar air of someone who stepped out of time. “I believe there has been a mix up.”

“There are no mix ups here,” Director Nurse says severely. “As you well know. Agent Rowland is your new partner.”

“I do not need a partner.”

“That isn’t for you to decide.”

“I am not the only agent without a partner here.” Something like a whine creeps into Edwin’s voice. “Agents Palace and King—”

“Are both more than capable of defending themselves, plus Agent Palace has her psychic abilities and Agent King has his shapeshifting.”

“He turns into a bloody tabby cat!”

She raises one unimpressed eyebrow. “Are you going to start carrying a weapon? Or finally agree to take remedial combat training?”

To Charles’s surprise, Edwin’s cheeks flush. “I don’t need combat training or a weapon. Any deficiency I may have with combat, I make up for with my spellwork.”

“Ah, so Agents Palace, King, Kahn, and Black didn’t have to retrieve you from a Fae court only last month? Saving you from being executed, I might add?”

“That was an isolated incident.”

“One of dozens of isolated incidents, ” she says. “I have sent enough agents to rescue you from towers and train tracks, Agent Payne. No, we are quite finished with that. If you want to continue working in the field, it needs to either be with the basic knowledge of how to defend yourself or a partner who is skilled enough in combat for the both of you.”

 Edwin turns to look at Charles with a raised eyebrow. “And he is?”

“Oi.” Charles is trying not to take any of this personally, because it seems that Edwin would object to any partner, not just him, but it’s hard not to take that personally. “Top of my class, actually. You don’t need to be built like a brick shithouse to know how to throw a punch.”

Edwin’s eyes flick over Charles, so quickly he thinks he might imagine it, before he turns back to Director Nurse. “I do not work well with people.”

“Then it’s about time you learn, isn’t it?” She smiles sweetly, though her eyes are ice cold. “Or I’ll have to reconsider if you even belong in the field.”

Edwin’s already impeccable posture somehow becomes even straighter and stiffer.  “I would be wasted behind a desk.”

“And you’ll be wasted if you end up dead in a ditch because you’re too stubborn to learn to defend yourself!”

“How about this?” Charles steps forward to stand next to Edwin, hoping to diffuse things before Edwin says something that gets him an official reprimand. “One case. We work the Miles Foster case together and if it’s a bloody mess, we go our separate ways. But if it’s aces, and it’s going to be aces, we stick together, yeah? Then no one’s wasted behind a desk or ends up dead in a ditch.”

“I am not going to end up dead in a ditch,” Edwin grumbles.

Director Nurse ignores him, looking between Edwin and Charles thoughtfully. “One case,” she agrees. “But, Agent Payne, know that if this case is a bloody mess, as Agent Rowland puts it, we will have to discuss your future at the MSI. As things stand now, you are a liability in the field, and I do not tolerate liabilities at my ministry. And now, I have a meeting that I’m now quite late to.”

With that, she stalks by them, her assistants on her heels. One of them shoots Charles a sympathetic grimace, which he returns with a smile.

“Well, then,” Charles says once they’ve disappeared from sight. “Looks like we have a case to solve, doesn’t it?”

Edwin is still staring straight ahead, gloved fists pressed tightly together and posture so stiff it looks like he may snap. “This will most likely be a bloody mess, just so you’re aware.”

“Nah, mate.” Charles claps him on the shoulder, withdrawing his hand quickly when Edwin grows even more tense under his hand. Doesn’t like touch, got it. “This is going to be aces.”

*** 

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider leaving comments or kudos on AO3. The next two chapters will be posted over there.

[oneforthemunny]

love drunk |bouncer!eddie munson x bartender!reader|

​​prompt: you and eddie work valentine's day at the hideout.

contains: 18+. alcohol, creepy old guys at the bar, mentions of road head, jealous!eddie, dacrphilia, mean!eddie, oral fem rec, spanking, hair pulling, degrading, p in v sex, aftercare. minors dni.

The Hideout was buzzing, filled with an unusual crowd of unlikely people, but what else did you expect on Valentine's Day?

Broken hearted men washing away their bitterness with beer and whisky, next to galentines celebrating their own freedom and singleness with shots and bad karaoke. The usual boys who were prowling the crowds for women desperate enough to go home with them, spewing horrible pick up lines that usually left the girls cringing and retreating the other way. Then there were the couples, some regulars and some not. They came to celebrate at the high top tables, people watch and enjoy their time together.

You'd been busy since you clocked in a little after four. You knew you'd be here well past last call, but that was alright, because Eddie was here. He was working the door with Tony, both in all black, leaned up at the entrance checking IDs and taking covers. Before your shift, Eddie had picked you up in his van, a dozen roses in the passenger seat.

You'd blushed, gushing to him about how sweet the gesture was. Eddie was sweet, so sweet. You'd never met a guy sweeter. He'd shrugged when you kissed him, smiley and gooey insides. "Anything for my best girl."

The two of you had only been together a few weeks, barely breaking the title of being official. You hadn't expected the gesture really, especially because you both worked. You figured you'd fuck after you got back to his place, you had wore your matching pink set for that reason, but the flowers were an extra effort that had your head swirling.

You sucked him off while he drove you to work as a thank you.

Now, you were pouring shots, mixing drinks, opening beers, collecting tips, slipping the wadded fives even some bigger bills into your bra with a wink and a dazzling smile. You knew the crowd would be big, and the tippers even bigger- the holidays always made people more generous when you were pouring drinks down their throats- so you wore your tightest, lowest top.

Eddie had noticed.

His eyes would catch yours from the door, rolling his bottom lip between his teeth when you bent over, shorts riding up over the nylon stockings you had underneath.

"C'mon, man." Tony laughed, shoving Eddie's shoulder.

Eddie smirked, nodding to the desperate girl at the door, who batted her eyes at him, eyes attempting at what he could only guess was sultry or sexy. He didn't care. They never worked on him anymore.

You poured another shot of whisky, sliding the glasses to the men in front of you. "Hey, sweetheart, take a shot with us." The old man slurred, tie loose and around his neck.

You smirked, adding their drinks to his tab. "Sorry, I'm on the clock." You said with an exaggerated pout. "My manager will get real mad at me."

The men sounded off their displeasure, smacking the bar with open palms so their glasses rattled. "Who, Mickey? I know Mickey, baby, he-he won't get ya in trouble. Not a pretty thing like you."

You knew these guys were big tippers which is the only reason you hadn't had them cut off and removed. They had been whistling, cat calling, and spewing every lewd, vulgar thing that came to their drunken, filthy minds and you and Tasha all night. You both would just look at each other, roll your eyes, and go back to the middle-aged women divorcees who were much nicer and sweeter to you.

"Just one little shot, baby. Hell, I'll pay for it." Jack Harrington, Steve's dad, slurred, grinning at you with a predatory smile. No wonder Steve hated the guy so much.

"I'll do you one better," They guy next to him, Marco- you think, boasted, pulling out his wallet. He slid a crisp one hundred dollar bill out, slapping it on the table. "One hundred dollars and I'll buy the shot. Make it top shelf, sweetheart." He winked, the other guys whooping and hollering with him.

Eddie had looked over at the commotion, dark eyes narrowed on the rowdy group of men. He despised when they came in. Regulars and assholes at that, always hurling objectifying, nasty comments to the bartenders there. Getting so drunk they could barely drive home. They were especially rowdy tonight after dinner with their wives and mistresses, who they hated, before coming here.

Eddie was waiting, just waiting for you or Tasha to give him the sign. Give him the signal that they needed to be gone. He'd take complete joy in tossing them out, making sure they hit the pavement on their way out.

"I tell you what," You started, placing your hands on your hips. You nudged Tasha who watched you carefully, pouring her ale into a glass. "Make it a hundred a piece for me and Tasha, I'll pick the shot, and," You paused, smirking at the way their eyes lit up. "You gotta go sing me a song." You nodded towards the stage.

The men howled in laughter as Marco pulled out another hundred, sliding it next to yours. "Deal, angel." He said smugly. "Any requests?"

You grabbed the money, sliding Tasha her's then sliding yours in your bra. You pulled out a shot glasses, lining them up Patron and a bowl of limes. "Something romantic." You smiled. "It's Valentine's Day after all." 

You pressed your glass against theirs, downing the harsh liquid with a grimace while they cheered you on, celebrating each other obnoxiously. Eddie's jaw clenched from the door, yanking the cover cash from a college aged kid a little too harshly. He knew it was your job, you were just trying to make enough money to pay your rent just like he was, but it didn't make it any less hard when you'd flirt like this.

You made your rounds, pouring, swiping, smiling, and maneuvering expertly around the bar. Stacking glasses, cutting limes and oranges, wiping away spills, chatting with patrons. You even filled up two glasses of water, light ice and extra lemon- the way Eddie liked it- bringing them to the door for Tony and him.

Eddie smiled when you brought it over, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Thanks, baby," Eddie muttered, stabbing his straw on the table in front of him, wadding up the wrapper.

"You need anything else?" You asked, looking at Tony then Eddie.

"Nah, do you? Those guys still bothering you and Tasha?" Tony asked, nodding to the group of men from before.

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head. "No, they're jackasses. Total dicks, but we're fine." You smiled, placing a hand on Eddie's shoulder, squeezing it gently. You didn't miss the way he was tight, tense against your touch.

He tensed even more when Marco got up on stage, sloppily serenading you to ACDC's 'Shook Me All Night Long' with added vulgar dance moves while he pointed at you, adding your name into the chorus lyrics. Eddie was fuming.

Closing time couldn't come soon enough. The love birds and broken hearted left as easily as they came, the miracle of holidays. You and Tasha finished your closing duties, laughing and scoffing while you exchanged stories from the night. Eddie and Tony helped you, tidying up the place, but Eddie didn't have his usual charm. He wasn't cracking jokes, flexing his muscles and exaggeratedly saying 'what he woulda done if he wasn't on the clock'. He was distant, quiet, even with you.

By the time the two of you walked out, your arms looped around his leather clad arm, his mind was reeling. "...I made a lot of tips tonight." You grinned excitedly to him. "It was a pretty good night actually. I thought we'd be dead on Valentine's Day, but I've got enough in tips tonight to pay my rent for the month!"

Eddie huffed, furiously starting the engine to the van. "Yeah, that's great." He muttered. "With how you were actin' tonight, 'm not surprised."

You faltered, eyes furrowing a bit. "Ed, what're you talking about?" You asked. He shook you off, peeling out of the parking lot furiously. "Hey, look at me, are you," You squinted, studying his features. "Are you jealous?"

You couldn't help the little grin that formed on your lips when you asked, eyes lighting up mischievously. Eddie huffed. "'M not jealous." He snapped. "Just fuckin' hate it when you entertain those douchebag guys." He snarled.

You snorted, smugly crossing your arms. "You're jealous." You declared. "Honestly, Eddie, do you really think I give a shit about those guys?"

"You sure act like you do." Eddie bit, eyes flashing over to you. "Takin' shots and talkin' all sweet to 'em. No wonder he sang that shit to you, and you were laughing-"

"-Because he looked like an idiot." You laughed. "Tasha and I we're making fun of him. Everyone was laughing at him." Eddie huffed, a pouty, childish huff that left you grinning.

"They're complete and utter assholes that are good tippers, Eddie. I am repulsed by them, honestly. They're so gross and creepy, and I'm actually a little insulted that you would think they're my type." You snipped, eyeing him carefully.

Eddie's lips pressed together, not necessarily mad but thinking. You leaned closer to him, arms wrapping around his torso, pressing kisses to the exposed, ink skin of his biceps. "Baby, please, you can't seriously think I'd be into them." You said, looking up at him with rounded eyes.

"Just don't like it 's all." Eddie muttered. "Don't like it when they say that kinda shit to you." His fists clenched on the wheel, knuckles whitening. Your heart fluttered.

You hummed, pushing a stray hair behind his ear, tucking it and trailing your finger lightly down his jaw. "Don't be upset, please?" You asked. "It's Valentine's Day."

"That was technically yesterday." Eddie grumbled looking at the clock on his dash, the time read 3:02 a.m.

You sighed dramatically, pulling back so you sat in your seat. "Oh, guess I wore this for nothing then." You said, with a small shrug, looking out the window.

You felt Eddie's eyes on you. "Wore your work uniform?" Eddie snorted.

Your eyes flashed at him, biting back a smile. "No-o," You sing-song, batting your eyes at him. "What's under it, silly." You teased.

You'd been more than happy to show Eddie once you got back to his trailer, his mood lightening severely with the reveal. You'd kneeled on the edge of his bed, pink hearts smattering the see through material of the bra and panties, leaving very little the imagination.

Eddie dropped to his knees when he saw you, hands roaming all over your waist, legs, hips, squeezing and grabbing at anything he could, eyes wide and mouth watering. You looked like an angel, an angel he was about to ruin.

He didn't taken your panties off the whole night. He licked you right through the thin material until they were completely soaked from you and him. He'd pulled your bra down under your tits, so they were pushed up and presented for him while he sucked bruises into the delicate skin, marking you completely.

When he did fuck you, after you were writing and begging under his touch, he was relentless. Pounding you into the sheets until you couldn't even utter a sound, moans and gasps caught in your throat, tears streaming down your face.

"Yeah? You like that, don't you?" Eddie asked, hand cracking down on your upturned ass, gripping the skin as he pounded into you. "Like being fucked like the little slut you are, don't you?"

You drooled into the sheets, tears and saliva mixing into the pool beneath you. Eddie was fucking you with vigor, much more than you expected after a late night, busy shift. Your legs shook, clamping around him again with a small whine.

"Aw, you gonna cum, baby? Gonna cum all over my cock, huh?" Eddie cooed mockingly towards you.

Your eyes rolled back, crying when you came, then gasping when he yanked your hair back, pulling you up so you were flush against him, one arm around your torso, the other tweaking your sensitive nipples.

"God, I've wanted to fuck you all night." Eddie growled in your ear. "You wore those short little shorts didn't you? Had to wear them tonight, didn't you, you little slut?"

You cried, tears leaking down your cheeks, gripping onto his wrist. You were so sensitive, every thrust of his cock felt like a jab into your belly, a blow that sent you spiraling into your white hot abyss.

"Fuck, look at you, so pathetic." Eddie sneered, gripping your jaw harshly. "Wish those guys could see you now, huh? See you crying' like this. And over what, huh? Over my dick?"

You whimpered, lip wobbling as you clenched around him. Eddie groaned, tilting his own head back. You loved it when he was mean, when he fucked you like he owned you. Eddie let you fall forward into the mattress face first, gripping your hips as he snapped his hips into yours rough and purposeful.

You gripped the sheets, clenching hard around him as he muttered behind you, bringing his hand down twice on your cheeks before cumming, buried deep into your sopping pussy.

Eddie bent at the waist, falling on top of you gently, sweaty bangs pressed to your back, pressing kisses up and down your spine. "Holy shit," Eddie breathed out, deep and slow, eyes still closed.

You whimpered when he pulled out of you, leaving you aching and empty. You cheeks were sticky with tears and smeared makeup, legs still shaking even as Eddie went to the bathroom to grab a rag and clean you.

He took his time with you after, cleaning you up slowly, pressing kisses into you cheeks, neck, down your sternum, on your legs. He wiped himself off before throwing the rag into the hamper, climbing into the bed next to you. You were pressed up into his sheets, legs over his torso, arms tangled together, sharing the assorted chocolate that Mickey had given everyone- a thank you for working the holiday.

"You like the fruit ones?" You asked, nose twisting up in disgust.

Eddie shrugged, popping the orange cream filled chocolate into his mouth. "Yeah, 's pretty good. You don't?"

You shook your head, burying yourself into his inked skin, lids heavy as he stroked your hair. "I liked the caramel ones, or the toffee."

Eddie scoffed. "Lame. Everybody likes those."

You giggled, vibrations rocking from your chest to his making him smile. Eddie looked down at you, your fingers wrapped around his sheets, lashes fluttering to fight against the sleep tugging at your eyes.

"Thank you for the roses." You yawned, looking up at him. "No ones ever got those for me before." You admitted.

"Really?" Eddie asked, you shook your head. "That's a damn shame. Glad I'm the first." He grinned, pressing a kiss to your head.

"Happy Valentine's Day, baby."  He whispered, feeling your body sink into his, heavy on his chest. "Maybe next year we'll get the night off, hm?"

[onceuponaoneshotfanfic]

We’ll Always Have Chelsea

I'm Bright Baby Blue, Falling Into You

Chelsea!Roy Kent x Coach's Daughter!Reader

1.7k words

Warnings: Language, lying/sneaking around, no Ted Lasso characters except for Roy, extremely protective father, angst, maybe some slut-shaming

A/N: Thank you for all the love you've shown this story! Let's consider this a "mid-season finale" of sorts. I'm currently working on the second half of this story, and once it's complete I'll resume posting it. Feel free to send asks and questions about the Chelsea!Roy universe in the meantime; it seriously keeps me motivated!

(And thank you to @kissykissymouth for the chapter title!)

“Let’s go, Roy-o!” you shrieked from your seat as the announcers called his name in those booming voices that echoed through the stadium.

Katie rolled her eyes playfully as she clapped along with the roaring crowd. “You are the most obvious human being I’ve ever met, you know that?”

“I can afford to be obvious now,” you said with a smile. When Katie quirked a curious eyebrow at you, you leaned in close. “He asked me to make things official last night.” You sounded like a silly little teenage girl, all giddy and delighted over a boy, and you didn’t care one bit. “To be his girlfriend. To stay together even after I’m back at uni. That whole thing.”

Her smile was soft and genuine. “Oh, that’s so great!” she gushed as she grabbed your hand. “Now we can plan some real double dates. Go out on the town, all four of us.” Her glee faded as she studied you for a moment. “But what about your-”

“We’re telling him after the match.” For the first time since Roy climbed back out your window in the early hours of the morning, you felt confident in the idea of telling your dad. This wasn’t just a summer fling anymore; it was something real, something that would hopefully last.

And your dad was going to have to figure out how to deal with it.

Katie let out a low whistle. “Well, good luck with that,” she hummed, giving your hand a squeeze. “Let me know if you need help planning Kent’s funeral.”

You gave her a friendly shove and turned your attention back to the pitch, not bothering to hide the way you couldn’t keep your eyes off of Roy. In a few hours, your dad would know, and there would be no reason to keep anything a secret from anyone. You’d be able to come to every match and proudly wear Roy's name on your back, the way all the wives and girlfriends did, and wrap your arms around him when he emerged fresh from the showers. He could take you to post-match celebrations and charity events and any of the fabulous places a fella like him would take his girl. And you’d be able to bring him home, have him spend time with your family, properly introduce him to your mates.

As long as your dad didn’t kill Roy first.

~

After the match- a flawless 4-0 Chelsea victory, much to your relief- you lingered by Katie’s side to wait for the men to come out of the changing room. When was the last time your palms were this sweaty or your heart raced this fast? Every time a player walked out the door, your mouth went dry, wondering when it would be Roy. Somehow, you just knew that his sparkling brown eyes would be enough to calm all your nerves.

Jules emerged with a smirk on his face. After kissing his wife, he quirked an eyebrow at you. “Kent’s pretty jealous.”

“What makes you say that?” you huffed, pretending you weren’t utterly pleased at the mere mention of Roy's name.

Jules tugged on the sleeve of your kit playfully. “Apparently he doesn’t like that you wore my kit instead of his today.” He quirked his eyebrow. “Mumbled something about his girlfriend being unsupportive already.” His eyes shifted to a grinning Katie before returning to you. “Want to explain to me why the hell Kent’s calling you his girlfriend, princess?”

“Because she fucking is.” Roy smirked down at you, his fingertips twitching as he shot you a wink. “And at our next match, there better be a six on your back, gorgeous.”

You beamed up at him. “You were great today, Kent.” Fuck, you wished you could grab him and kiss that smirk. Next time, you promised yourself as the two of you batted your eyes at each other, probably making the married couple roll their own eyes. Next time you’d be wearing his kit, and you’d be able to greet him with a girlish squeal and a kiss. You’d get to finally be Roy Kent’s girl.

All you had to do was break the news to your dad.

“Your dad’s already in his press conference,” Roy murmured with raised eyebrows. “Should we… go wait in his office?”

There was that dryness in your throat again. “Yeah,” you managed, blinking rapidly. “Guess we should.” You offered Katie and Jules a tight smile. “We’ll see you guys later.”

“Good luck,” Katie called in a sing-song voice as you and Roy turned to walk down to the coaching offices.

Sure enough, your dad’s office was empty and dark. You flipped on the light and turned on his television, greeted by his face as he sat in front of the crowd of reporters. His normally stern expression was relaxed as he answered questions about the match, clearly glowing from such a great win. If there was ever a day to tell him that you were dating his completely off-limits star midfielder, it was today.

Roy leaned against the edge of your dad’s desk, next to the framed photo of you and your brother that sat by your dad’s computer. Roy took your hand and tugged you to stand close to him, pressing the tiniest kiss to your temple as his thumb stroked the back of your hand.

“It’s gonna be fine,” he whispered.

You gulped and nodded, keeping your eyes trained on your dad’s face. “I know.”

“-performed very well today,” your dad was saying as he picked up the water bottle that sat beside a microphone. “For goodness’ sake, the man scored two goals today. Don’t know what all this is about a slump. I hope all the fellas fall into this kind of a slump.” He chuckled good-naturedly and pointed off-camera. “Next question.”

“Moving on from today’s match,” a cautious voice called out. “Coach, what d’you have to say about those photos of Roy Kent and…” The reporter cleared his throat. “… your daughter?”

For a moment, your father’s face was bright red as he set down the unopened water bottle. “I’m sorry?”

Your blood ran cold while the reporter continued. “There are photos of them at a casino. They were with, uh, Jules and his wife.” He cleared his throat again. “They were quite cozy.”

“Fuck.” Roy squeezed your hand and tore his eyes away from the television. “I-”

“I don’t comment on my players’ private lives.” Your dad’s jaw was tight as he sat up at his full height. “Especially Roy Kent.” His laugh rang hollow in your ears. “If I commented on every rumor about that kid’s love life, I’d never have time to manage this team.” He moved to stand, not quite looking at the camera. “Now, if there’s no more football-related questions, I think we’re done here.”

Roy let out a low growl and switched the telly off. “Well, fuck.”

“You should leave,” you murmured, looking into Roy’s panicked eyes. “Seriously, Roy. This is so much worse than we thought. It might be better if you go.”

He shook his head. “Fuck no.” He let go of your hand in favor of wrapping his arm around your waist. “We said we’re doing this together,” he said slowly. “So, we’re doing this together. I’m not going to be the kind of prick who runs away when things get hard.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “And this is going to be so fucking hard.”

The two of you flinched when you heard doors slam and feet stomping. Instinctively, Roy removed his hand from your hip, but he stayed close enough for you to feel his warmth. A smart move, you had to admit. A smarter move would be for him to run away from Stamford Bridge altogether, to never speak to you again, but you were glad he stayed. Something besides fear swelled in your heart when you realized that Roy was sticking by your side, even in the face of your father.

Your father, whose raised voice you could hear down the hall. “Where the hell is my kid? And where the fuck is Kent?”

Your entire body trembled as his footsteps came closer, finally stopping in front of the open door of his office. His eyes widened when he took in the sight of you, standing far too close to Roy Kent in the office that held framed photos of your childhood and crayon drawings from over a decade ago. He stormed in, ignoring you in favor of grabbing Roy by his t-shirt.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Kent?” he barked. “All the fucking models and actresses in London, and you decide to shag my daughter?”

Roy shook his head frantically, hands up in defense. “Coach, it’s not like that-”

“Get the fuck out, Kent.” He released Roy and pointed to the door. “Before I take a real good look at your contract.”

You found your voice. “Daddy,” you said shakily. “Roy’s not going anywhere.” You reached down and intertwined your fingers with Roy's, ignoring the player's wide eyes. “We’re dating, Dad. Me and Roy.” You gave Roy’s hand a squeeze. “We-”

“One rule.” Your dad’s voice was low, filled with anger. “I had one rule for you hanging around here. No. Footballers.” He pointed at Roy. “Especially that one.” He shook his head at you. “What were you thinking?"

“I’m thinking I care about Roy and he cares about me.” You gripped Roy’s hand like it was a lifesaver. “And I’m thinking I’m an adult. You can’t tell me who I can and can’t date. I’m not sixteen anymore.”

Your dad’s eyes were full of rage and pain as he stared at you, looking at you like you were a complete stranger. “You’re sure acting sixteen, sneaking around behind my back.” He shook his head, eyeing Roy with disgust. “But you’re right. You’re apparently all grown up now. Do what the fuck you want.” He grabbed his bag from behind his desk and made his way to the door. “Besides, you’ll be back at school soon enough.” His gaze was steely, lacking any of the usual affection he sent your way. “And Kent’ll be back to his normal self. Once you're gone, he'll be right back to his models. Maybe then you’ll realize I was right about him all along.”

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