#BOYS WHO HAVE COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIPS WITH DEATH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

randomdragonfires · 4 months ago

Text

Parallel Lines, Act II

Text Divider by @saradika-graphics

SUMMARY | He fears her proximity, and she fears his distance. As war looms, they’ll have to learn to make their marriage work to find comfort in each other. Or at least, try.

PAIRING | Aemond Targaryen x Wife!Reader

WARNINGS | 18+; SMUT; Angst; Complicated Relationship Themes; Emotional Negligence; Infidelity; Major Character Death; Gore and Graphic Depictions of Violence.

AUTHOR’S NOTE | Henlo! This was meant to be a duology, but the second part became too long so I ended up making it a trilogy instead. Hope it doesn't disappoint! :)

WORD COUNT | 13.9k

On a rare stormy night in King's Landing, the trees danced violently during a torrential downpour. A world-weary mother cloaked in the shadows of the flickering candlelight, whispered her gratitude to the Gods while on her knees - her sickly son had clung to life for yet another day. She thanked the Seven for their mercy upon her child and prayed with a fervent desperation.

"Gentle Mother, I beseech you. Mercy for my boy. He has suffered enough. Rid him of his pain, and give it to me if you can."

Her voice, trembling with exhaustion, echoed through the cold stone walls of the Sept. She turned, the weight of countless nights spent wanting, praying, and begging for her son's life pressing heavily upon her. As her whispered plea lingered in the air, a dark shadow crept through the halls of the Red Keep.

Back in the dimly lit chamber, her son laid fragile and fevered. The babe's suffering ended not by divine mercy but by a blade’s cruel bite, leaving a pool of crimson beneath the crib.

War had come to their doorstep, a brutal retribution for her husband's actions.

As the Princess crossed the threshold of the Sept’s grand doors, the candle flame she had lit in her son's name sputtered and died, extinguished by an unseen hand - that of the Gods, it must be.

The storm outside seemed to howl with discontent, and an eerie silence settled over the castle, broken only by the distant, mournful wail of the wind. The gods had not answered her prayers - only darkness had.

The funeral had taken place that morning, a bleak procession of mourning and regret. Aemond had stood like a statue, his heart a hollow void as Vhagar’s flames engulfed the little bundle at his command. He had not shed a tear, his grief and rage too immense to be expressed in such simple ways.

She hadn’t either.

Later, he had descended into the castle's black cells, taking Larys Strong with him. The rogue Gold Cloak who had murdered his son lay shackled to a stone slab, his eyes wide with terror.

Aemond approached the man, his eyes cold and dead. "You took my son," he whispered, his voice a venomous hiss. "Now, you will pay."

He began with the nails, gripping the rusty pliers with a hand that trembled not with fear but with a seething rage. One by one, he yanked the nails from the man's fingers, the sickening crack of breaking bone and the wet pop of tearing flesh echoing through the cell. The man's screams were shrill, a high-pitched wail that echoed through the stone walls, but Aemond felt no satisfaction.

"Please," the man gasped, his voice raw and broken. "Mercy..."

Aemond's lips curled into a snarl. "You showed my little son no mercy." He moved to the fingers next, taking a blade and slowly severing them, joint by joint. Blood spurted in thick, dark streams, pooling on the cold stone floor. The man's howls grew frantic, agony that only fueled Aemond's fury.

He grabbed a branding iron, heated until it glowed red-hot, and pressed it against the man's skin. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, acrid and suffocating. The man's screams turned to guttural roars, his body convulsing in torment. Aemond's own face twisted in a mask of hatred and pain, each act of brutality a futile attempt to fill the gaping void in his heart.

"Confess!" Aemond demanded, his voice a thunderous roar. "Confess your crime!"

"I did it!" the man wailed, his voice a ragged sob. "I killed the boy... He made me do it... please, stop… the Rogue Pri-"

But Aemond did not stop. He could not stop. He continued his relentless torture, burning, cutting, and breaking, each act more savage than the last. The man's pleas for mercy turned to incoherent babbling, his mind shattered by the unending pain.

Hours passed, the cell becoming a chamber of horrors. Blood stained the walls and floor, a macabre display of a grieving father’s wrath. Finally, when the man was nothing more than a broken, bleeding husk, Aemond stepped back, his chest heaving with exertion. The rage had not subsided. It never would. But he was too exhausted to continue.

He had been ready to slowly kill the other ratcatcher when found, but Aegon, much less patient, had ordered the hanging of every ratcatcher in the city as recompense for his nephew's life. The streets of King's Landing would run red with blood, a brutal reminder of the price of crossing the King that sits the Iron Throne.

As Aemond ascended from the depths of the castle, the echoes of the man's screams still ringing in his ears, he felt the weight of his failure pressing down on him, a crushing burden that threatened to consume him. He had failed his family, and no amount of blood or pain could ever atone for any of it. Each step he took felt like walking through quicksand, dragging him further into an abyss of guilt and despair.

Now, the greatest task awaited him: facing his wife. How could he? How could he look into her eyes, knowing very well that it may as well have been his own hand that had slain their child? How could he, when he had been out at a whorehouse while his only son was murdered in cold blood?

No matter how angry and fierce he had been moments ago, now he felt small and cowardly. The righteous fury that had fueled his brutal interrogation of the rogue Gold Cloak had dissipated, leaving behind a hollow shell of a man. His rage had been a mask, hiding the unbearable sorrow and guilt that now threatened to overwhelm him.

He paused outside the door to her chambers, his hand trembling as it rested on the fine wood. He took a deep breath, steeling himself, and pushed the door open. His wife sat on the floor, clutching Aerys' blanket to her chest, her eyes hollow and fixed on the bloodied crib. The sight of her, so broken and lost, pierced his heart more than anything else ever could.

He’d failed as a husband, father and protector.

The servants moved around her like phantoms, silently removing the stained mattress and the crib that had once held their precious boy. She did not give them a second glance, her body rigid and unyielding, as if she had turned to stone. The servants bowed to Aemond as they passed, their eyes lowered in sorrowful respect and fear. He watched them, his heart shattering with each step they took, carrying away the last remnants of his son.

Aemond's throat tightened, his breath coming in shallow gasps. How could he face her? How could he bear the weight of her grief and anger? He took another deep breath, forcing himself to move. Each step toward her felt like an eternity, the distance between them an insurmountable chasm of pain and regret.

He knelt beside her, reaching out to touch her shoulder. She did not flinch, did not acknowledge his presence. Her gaze remained fixed on the empty space where their son had once lain. If not for the faint rise and fall of her chest, he would have thought her dead.

“You were not there,” she said, her voice a hollow echo in the dim room. “You were not there when he was born. It’s only fitting that you weren’t there when he died as well.”

The words struck Aemond like a physical blow, each one a dagger to his already bleeding heart. Her tone, completely devoid of any emotion, sent a chill through him. The emptiness in her voice was far more terrifying than any rage or grief. It was the voice of someone who had been utterly broken, and it slowly killed him a little more with every passing moment.

His mind flashed back to that night, so long ago now, when Aerys had been born. He had been with the Madame, scared of losing his wife so much that he could not bear to stay - leaving her to bear their son alone. He had returned to find her pale and exhausted, cradling their newborn with a mixture of joy and exhaustion.

Her eyes, once filled with warmth and love for their boy, now held only a deep, hollow emptiness. “He needed you, Aemond. I needed you, I went out of my way and begged you to protect us. And you weren’t there. Not when he took his first breath, and not when he took his last.”

She turned away, clutching Aerys’ blanket tighter to her chest, her body shaking with silent sobs. “I watched him suffer every night,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I watched him cry out in pain from the fevers, and I couldn’t do anything to save him. I prayed, Aemond. I prayed so much, and the gods took him anyway. And how… how he must have suffered…”

“I don’t know how to live with this,” she continued, her voice cracking. “Everywhere I look, I see him. His toys, his clothes, his empty crib. And I see you, and I wonder how we’ll bear it. How can we live with ourselves, knowing very well that we’d failed him?”

Her choked sobs gave way to cries, piercing the silence of the room like a thousand daggers. Aemond turned to hold her close, desperate to offer any semblance of comfort. She pounded on his chest with her fists, weakly at first, then with growing strength as her grief overwhelmed her. She tried to push him away, but he held her closer with each blow, his arms a fortress around her fragile body. Her screams grew louder, echoing through the empty chambers, the corridors, the entire Keep.

“What do we do, Aemond? How do we go on?”

For what felt like hours, he held her as she struggled, his heart breaking anew with each of her sobs. She pushed him away again and again, but he pulled her back every time, refusing to let her go. He whispered words of solace, though he knew they were hollow, futile against her anguish. The warmth of her tears soaked through his tunic, mingling with his own as they wept together.

Gradually, her struggles weakened, her sobs quieting into shuddering breaths. Exhausted, she slumped against him, her head resting on his shoulder. He stroked her hair gently, his own tears falling into her tangled locks.

When she finally calmed, she lifted her head to look into his eyes. The depth of her pain was mirrored in his gaze, their shared torment powerful enough to get the Gods to bow down their heads n shame. "I see you," she said, her voice throaty, raw and trembling. "I see you, Aemond, and I see the reason our son is dead."

Her words cut through him like a blade, and he flinched, but she continued, her eyes never leaving his. "But I also see the only person who feels this loss as much as I do. I hate you, Aemond, for what you've done, for not being here, for all of it. But I cannot push you away. I don't have the strength to be alone. Not now. Not ever."

Her voice broke on the last word, and she buried her face in his chest again, clutching his tunic with trembling hands. "Do not leave me," she begged, her voice a whisper of desperation. "Please, Aemond, do not leave me today."

She cried against his chest once more, her tears soaking through the fabric. He could feel the rapid beat of her heart, a frantic rhythm that matched his own. The memory of their son lingered in the air, as they clung to each other - two broken souls, adrift.

Aemond and his wife grieved, their methods as different as night and day. He poured himself into the war, throwing himself into strategy and shadow plotting to escape the crushing weight of his anger, guilt and sorrow. Every victory that Criston wrote to him about was a fleeting distraction from the void left by their son's death. The fight, the anger, the bloodied lands had his heart become cold, and his mind was focused on the immediate need to conquer.

She, on the other hand, hid herself away in her apartments, crying until her tears ran dry, only to begin again as soon as the next wave of sorrow crashed over her. The chamber was an eerie tomb of memories, filled with the echoes of a child whose cries were now silenced. She clung to their son's bloodied blanket, refusing to let the maids take it away. It was the last tangible piece of him, the only thing she could still hold. Her grief was raw and unending, a torrent that left her exhausted and hollow.

He watched her more than once, standing silently in the doorway, his heart heavy at the sight of her frail form curled up on their son's blanket. She was a shadow of the woman she once was, a stranger that he shared his deepest failure with - not to mention the subsequent pain of it all. Her sobs were gut-wrenching, a mournful lullaby that haunted the silent halls. Each sob was a reminder of his failure to protect their child, to protect her.

On those nights, he would tentatively approach her, his steps hesitant and unsure. Sometimes she would receive him, allowing him to hold her as she wept, her tears soaking into his leathers. He would murmur soft, broken words, his hand gently stroking her hair in a futile attempt to offer comfort. Her pain was palpable, a living thing that wrapped around them both and squeezed until they could hardly breathe. He felt helpless, his warrior's strength, his proud lineage and dragonrider’s blood useless against the insidious enemy of grief, one that had thoroughly defeated her.

Other nights, she would blame him, her grief turning into fury as she screeched at him to never darken her door again. Her words were sharp, each one a poison-tipped arrow aimed at his heart. She accused him of failing them, of failing their son. He took her anger in silence, his eyes hollow and his heart heavy. Her words cut deep, but he could not refute them. He had failed, and he bore that failure like a scar across his soul. And when she was done screaming, she’d fall into his arms and cry once more - for who else did they have in their grief, apart from each other?

On those nights, the pain of her rejection would drive him to the Madame, seeking the comfort he could not find at home. The whorehouse was a stark contrast to his wife's chambers. It was filled with the scent of perfume and sweat, the air thick with the sounds of laughter and moans. He would lose himself in the warmth of another's body, the physical release a temporary balm for his wounded soul. She was experienced, her touches skilled and knowing. She took him without question, a vessel for his anger and sorrow. He sought solace in the intensity of their embraces, the roughness of their passion, and the desperate attempt to drown out his grief.

The relief was fleeting, and the guilt that followed only deepened his despair. He would leave the Madame's alcove, his body sated yet not, his heart heavy yet not. The walk back to the castle was a walk of shame, each step a reminder of his failure as a husband - what good was he if he could not protect or comfort?

In stark contrast, his time with his wife was chaste, almost delicate. He would sit beside her, his hand hovering with uncertainty before resting gently on her shoulder. She would not speak, but she would not push him away either. Aemond treated her like fragile glass, afraid that one wrong move would shatter her more than she already had been.

Today was not one such day. Today, he would fly Vhagar to war.

Rook’s Rest beckoned him; his call to glory. This would be the day that he began his legacy.

Aemond stood in his chambers, his fingers trembling as he repeatedly failed to secure his hair with a threadbare tie. His heart pounded with a potent mix of nerves and eagerness. Each time the tie slipped through his fingers, frustration mounted, his movements becoming more erratic.

The door creaked open, and he turned sharply, ready to lash out at whoever dared interrupt his solitary struggle with no warning. But it was not a servant. It was his wife.

She looked to be in good spirits. He knew better.

She entered the room with a quiet grace, her presence a stark contrast to her appearance these past few weeks. She looked every bit the regal princess she was - her posture poised, her expression serene. She held his riding leathers in her hands, a gesture that spoke volumes without a single word. “I… I thought I’d wish you well,” she said softly, her voice a hesitant murmur.

He didn’t know what to say, so he simply nodded, his throat tightening with a mix of emotions. The lump in his throat made it difficult to speak, and he watched her as she approached him, each step measured and deliberate.

His gaze lingered on her face, committing every detail to memory as he prepared to throw himself headfirst into the fighting. Her hair, cascading in soft waves, framed her delicate features. He noticed the way a few errant strands fell over her forehead, the way her ears peeked out from beneath the locks, adorned with earrings that his mother had gifted her upon the birth of their son.

There was a softness in her eyes, a vulnerability. He traveled the lines of her face with his eye, the gentle slope of her nose, the faint freckles that dusted her cheeks, barely visible but always there. His gaze settled on her lips, lips that he had not kissed since their wedding almost two years ago. They were slightly parted, as if she were about to say something, and he could see the subtle tremor in them. He remembered their first kiss, the way her lips had felt against his - cold and limp.

Her touch sent a jolt of warmth through him, and he found himself highly aware of every movement she made. She helped him into his clothes with a seemingly practiced ease, her fingers grazing his skin and leaving trails of heat in their wake. He stilled, his gaze locked onto her, and her alone.

She started with the undershirt, guiding his arms through the sleeves. Her hands were gentle yet firm, the fabric sliding over his skin. She moved to the leather jerkin then, her fingers deftly fastening the buckles and sending shivers down his spine. He could feel the heat of her hands through the cool leather.

Has she ever helped dress him before?

As she cinched the straps around his waist, her body pressed close to his, and he inhaled the scent of her - a mixture of lilacs and something uniquely her. Her fingers brushed against his neck, and he fought the urge to close his eyes and savor the sensation.

Once the leathers were secured, she stepped back, her eyes scanning his form to ensure everything was in place. "Do you need your hair braided?" she asked, her voice soft and hesitant.

He shook his head no, unable to find his voice. She walked behind him, her fingers threading through his silver strands. Her touch was soothing, and he felt a strange sense of calm wash over him. She gathered the top half of his hair, pulling it into a knot, while leaving the bottom half loose - just the way he preferred. Her movements were deliberate, almost reverent, as if she were committing every strand to memory.

Was she trying to remember him just as he did her?

When she finished, she stepped back to admire her work, her eyes meeting his functional one in the mirror. For a moment, they simply stood there, the weight of unspoken words hanging in the air. He turned to face her, his gaze never leaving hers.

She laid her hands on his back and began reciting a prayer to the Seven, her voice trembling. Her fingers traced the lines of his muscles, as if memorizing the feel of him, and when she finished, she nodded and smiled weakly - a weak upturn of her lips so full of fear, for him.

She walked away, each step heavy with reluctance, until she stopped midway and turned when he whispered her name. “Your favor.” His voice was steady, almost devoid of emotion, but she knew him too well. The slight upward curve of his lips, the brief twitch of his eyebrow before it settled back, revealed more than words ever could.

Her hand trembled as she reached into her neckline, pulling out a small satin square. He caught her wrist, his grip gentle but firm, and she felt the world narrow down to the space between them. As she handed him the token, she stepped closer until their foreheads met, their breaths mingling, becoming one.

They stood there, suspended in a moment that felt both fleeting and eternal, the possibilities and uncertainties pressing in on them. It was a fragile convergence, their desire to be together finally surfacing, only to be shadowed by the looming threat of separation. The cost of their union was too much - Aerys, was too much - a weight neither of them will ever be rid of.

Her head was nestled against his neck, hidden from the world by the veil of her loose hair. It fell around her like a curtain, hiding her from the chaos. She whispered, her voice barely more than a breath, “I need you to come back.” For me, she didn’t say.

Aemond felt her plea in every fiber of his being. He understood her without needing her to elaborate. As he held her close, he let her imprint his presence into her memory, knowing that she believed that this might be their last shared moment -he was sure of their victory, and he knew she was too. But she was a wife, and he supposed it was in her nature to worry.

I don’t have anyone else here.

Their foreheads met, a tender touch that spoke volumes. Her eyes searched his own, and he saw the reflection of his own yearning and fear. The intimacy of the moment was almost unbearable, a poignant reminder of what they had already lost, what they stood to lose. Her breath mingled with his, her scent enveloping him, and he memorized every detail - the softness of her skin, the warmth of her body, the depth of her woes.

Any closer, and he could kiss her. But he didn’t.

Later in the yard, the waiting wife watched her warring prince go, her heart heavy as he carried a piece of her with him into battle.

She didn't pray anymore.

The Gods had seen fit to snatch her son away, and their cruelty had hardened her heart to stone. Yet, as she stood on the battlements of the Keep, watching the wounded men stagger through the gates, she felt the faintest pull toward the Sept, an old, almost forgotten reflex. The soft murmurs of hymns, the flicker of candles, the scent of incense - all seemed like distant memories of a life now lost to endless war.

So many men. Sons, brothers, husbands, uncles…

The scene below was a scene of abject suffering, a picture of agony and despair. Soldiers limped and staggered, their bodies broken and burnt, some supported by their brothers in battle, others barely able to move. Blood stained their armor, their faces twisted in pain, their eyes hollow and vacant. The air was thick with the stench of blood, burnt flesh, and the acrid smoke from dragonfire, a vile miasma that clung to her senses. The cries of the wounded echoed in the courtyard, a chorus of despair that seemed to reverberate off the stone walls and pierce her heart.

Her gaze flitted over the faces, each one etched with pain and horror. She saw men clutching at wounds, their fingers slick with blood, their expressions a mixture of shock and resignation. There were those whose eyes stared unseeing, their bodies no longer vessels of life but remnants of what had once been vibrant souls. Young boys, barely old enough to be called men, uncharacteristically sobbed. Older men, who had seen countless battles, now faced the grim reality that this war may as well bring their end.

Then she saw him.

Barely alive, Aegon’s body was a ruin of burns and bandages, carried on a stretcher like a broken doll. His frame was now a pitiful sight, his breath shallow and labored. She’d never liked Aegon in all truth - but he was her King. If he died, would all this blood be for naught?

Her heart clenched as she tried to move closer, to see the extent of his injuries, but the soldiers turned him away, rushing him towards the Maester’s chambers with a sense of urgency that spoke volumes.

“Make way for the King!”

She felt the strength drain from her legs, her back sliding down the cold, unyielding stone of the castle wall. Shock and despair settled over her like a shroud, heavy and suffocating. How much more of this horror could she endure? How many more lives would be lost before this nightmare ended? The enormity of the suffering, the endless cycle of loss and pain, was almost too much to bear.

Criston Cole emerged from the chaos, looking as though he had walked through the depths of Hell. His armor was blackened, his face lined with exhaustion and grief, his eyes dull and haunted. When their eyes met, she saw a flicker of something she never expected - pity.

“Princess, you should not be here.”

“What happened? Please tell me, Ser Criston.”

“King Aegon valiantly slayed Rhaenys and the Red Queen,” he said, his voice raw and weary, barely more than a whisper - empty. “Led his men into battle with valor. And now he’s brought back in a damned box, fighting for his life.” In his voice was a heaviness she never thought she’d hear from him - but how else was he supposed to sound when he’d watched a boy he helped raise himself come back looking shriveled in burn wounds? Her throat tightened, and tears threatened to spill. The weight of his words crushed her, a stark reminder of the relentless cost of war.

And where was Aemond? Her thoughts turned to him, a fresh wave of dread washing over her, suffocating in its intensity.

“What of my husband?”

“With Vhagar at Blackwater Bay. I… May I suggest that you keep away from him for a time, Princess? Give the Prince time before you go to him. Anger and… one does not have control over their words or actions after having immediately come back from a battle. Especially one like this.” It seemed like he was concerned for her, but she detected a sneer in his tone, especially in his last words.

Since when was Ser Criston Cole’s anger meant for Aemond? What could have possibly happened?

Blackwater Bay stretched out beneath the setting sun, the waters shimmering with hues of gold and crimson. The sky had dark clouds mingling with the fading light. The scent of salt and smoke lingered in the air, mingling with the distant cries of seagulls and the echoes of the day's violence. The waves lapped gently against the shore, a stark contrast to the turmoil that had unfolded earlier.

Aemond stood beside Vhagar, the massive dragon that had been his companion through his latest victory at Rook’s Rest. Her scales, a mottled mix of bronze and green, glistened in the twilight. Vhagar's snout was as wide as a cart, and Aemond leaned against it, his forehead resting gently against her scales. He murmured softly in Valyrian, his voice a soothing melody that calmed the mighty beast. The dragon's breath, warm and steady, seemed to wash over him, ruffling his silver hair. Her massive chest rose and fell with each breath, a rhythm that mirrored the ocean's tides.

From a distance, she watched, her heart pounding in her chest. This was the closest she had ever been to Vhagar, the legendary dragon whose mere presence could instill fear in the bravest of men. She had seen Vhagar from afar many times, a distant silhouette in the sky or a menacing figure on the horizon, but never this close. She hesitated, unsure if she should approach. Would she be welcomed, or would Vhagar see her as an intruder?

Summoning her courage, she stepped forward, her feet sinking into the sand as she made her way toward them. The closer she got, the more details she noticed. Vhagar's scales were not just bronze and green but interspersed with streaks of darker hues. The dragon's claws, as long as swords and just as sharp, dug into the earth, leaving deep gouges in the sand.

Aemond lifted his head slightly, his keen senses alerting him to her presence. He turned, his gaze meeting hers, a mixture of surprise and something softer in his eyes. He didn't say anything, but his eye spoke volumes. With a slight nod, he acknowledged her approach, his silent permission for her to come closer.

She took another step, her breath catching in her throat as Vhagar's massive head turned toward her. The dragon's golden eyes locked onto her, and for a moment, she felt a wave of fear. But Vhagar didn't move, only watched with an inscrutable gaze.

Tentatively, she reached out a hand, stopping just short of touching the dragon's scales. The heat radiating from Vhagar's body was almost overwhelming, a reminder of the sheer power contained within. She glanced at Aemond, seeking reassurance, and he gave a small, encouraging nod.

Gathering her courage, she placed her hand on Vhagar's snout. The scales were surprisingly smooth, warm beneath her touch. She felt a tremor run through the dragon, a rumble that seemed to resonate deep within her own chest.

"She won't harm you," Aemond said softly, his voice barely above a whisper.

She took a deep breath, her voice trembling as she spoke. "Are you alright?" she asked, her eyes searching his face for any sign of the turmoil she sensed within him. The tempestuous energy that seemed to emanate from Vhagar mirrored the tension she felt in Aemond, a war-heavy restlessness that seemed to seep from the dragon into her husband.

Aemond's jaw tightened, and he looked away for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. "Hm," he replied, his tone clipped. The anger in his voice was barely contained, simmering just beneath the surface.

She took another step closer, her hand still resting on Vhagar's snout, the warmth grounding her. "I can feel it," she said softly, "...the fury. It's in Vhagar... and in you."

He met her gaze again, his eye hardening. "War does that to a man," he said bitterly. "It changes you."

She nodded slowly, her fingers tracing the smooth scales of the dragon. "It's not just the war, is it?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "There's something else."

For a moment, she expected him to speak of the men they had lost, the lives extinguished under his command. As their war general and First Sword, she thought he would be burdened by the weight of their deaths. But as his eye flashed with anger, her heart sank, a knot of dread forming in her stomach.

"Aegon," he spat, the name laced with venom. "That fool rode in on Sunfyre and stole the glory that was rightfully mine. I fought, I orchestrated this victory, and he swoops in at the last moment, drunk as a street lecher, to claim it as his own."

Her breath caught in her throat, the raw bitterness in his voice slicing through her. "Aemond," she said gently, "I know you wanted to prove yourself, to show your worth. But isn't it enough that you fought bravely, that you survived? Aegon is battling for his life, but you have come out unscathed!"

His eye narrowed, the fury in his gaze burning even hotter. "It's not about survival," he snapped. "It's about being remembered, about being recognized for my strength, my skill. And he took that from me."

The realization hit her like a blow. He was not mourning the fallen soldiers or the horrors of war. His rage was fixated on Aegon, on the stolen glory. The bloodshed, the loss of life, barely seemed to register in his mind.

"Aemond," she whispered, her voice trembling. "What about the men we lost? The lives that were sacrificed?"

He looked at her, his expression hardening further. "They were necessary," he said coldly. "A means to an end."

Her heart broke at his words, the chasm between them widening. The man she had married, the man she tried to love, was consumed by ambition and a thirst for recognition to the point of it being beyond inhumane. She glanced at Vhagar, the dragon's golden eyes reflecting her own despair.

"I thought..." she began, her voice faltering. "I thought you would care about them, about the lives we lost."

Aemond's eye softened slightly, a flicker of something like regret passing over his face. "I do care," he said quietly, "but not in the way you think. My duty is to win, to secure our place. Everything else is secondary."

As Aemond's words hung heavy in the air, she felt disillusionment settle upon her heart. She couldn't bear to look at him any longer, her gaze drifting to Vhagar whose golden eyes mirrored her own despair. The dragon, magnificent and fearsome, was a reflection of Aemond's ambition, a creature driven by instinct and power, heedless of the lives trampled beneath its might.

At that moment, she understood Criston's anger. She felt a wave of sympathy for him, for having to witness the transformation of the boy that he helped raise and taught, into a man driven by ruthless determination. Was this what Ser Criston feared? Was this the monster he saw lurking beneath Aemond's exterior, waiting to be unleashed by the brutality of war?

She didn't blame him for his anger. In fact, she shared it. She was angry at Aemond - for his callousness, for his disregard of the lives lost, for his single-minded pursuit of glory. But underneath all her anger, there lingered a deep, unsettling fear.

She feared that man he was becoming. What did it say about him that he cared so little for men that fought in his family’s name?

What did it say about her that she still yearned for him all the same?

Sleep eluded her that night.

How could it possibly come, after the horrors she had witnessed? And that too, only from the training yard! Aemond had been on the war ground, surely suffering even worse torments. She longed to seek him out, to offer the solace he might need, as she had done before. But how could she?

What of the men we lost? The lives sacrificed?

They were necessary... A means to an end.

He frightened her. War was transforming her husband into a monster—she knew he was bloodthirsty like every warrior who ever graced the earth, fiery with the dragon blood that coursed through his veins. But was he truly as callous as he seemed today?

A means to an end... Did he think of Aerys that way too?

Her son, her precious boy…

No.

The darkness of the night weighed heavy on her heart, each passing minute a relentless reminder of her fears. The once comforting silence of their chambers now felt oppressive, suffocating. The flicker of candlelight cast dark figures, transforming familiar surroundings into a space that she hated to remain in.

A means to an end... Was that all they were? Was that all their son was? The questions gnawed at her soul, each one a dagger of doubt and despair. She feared for Aemond, for their future, and most of all, for Aerys - the innocent caught in the maelstrom of her husband’s making.

Sleep eluded her that night, and with it, any semblance of comfort.

Her mind spiraled, a whirlwind of anguish and dread, each thought more tortuous than the last. She could no longer bear the torment alone, her heart ached with the weight of her fears. Driven by a desperate need for answers, she found herself rushing to Aemond’s chambers in nothing but a shift and her robe, her hair unkempt, the lack of sleep and stress etched into her face.

Bursting through the door without knocking, she stopped abruptly, her breath catching in her throat. Aemond stood before her in his dark green leathers, a cloak draped over his shoulders, the flicker of the torchlight illuminating his features. He froze at the sight of her, his eye piercing straight into her soul.

“Wife, you are not dressed.”

"And you are. It is late in the night, and you are dressed. Where are you going?" she asked, her voice trembling, barely a whisper.

His silence was deafening. The tension between them was palpable, a suffocating presence in the room. Her heart pounded in her chest, each beat echoing her growing despair.

"Where are you going?" she repeated, her voice breaking.

Still, he said nothing. His eyes, usually so full of fire and passion, were now cold and distant. She took a step forward, her hands trembling, reaching out to him as if trying to bridge the chasm that had grown between them.

The whorehouse. Was he going to the whorehouse again? Where else had he ever gone at this time of the night?

Her mind spiraled, a whirlwind of anguish and doubt. The thought of him seeking solace in another’s arms twisted the knife deeper into her heart. Tears welled in her eyes, her voice breaking as she spoke.

“You said the soldiers were a means to an end,” she choked out, her words trembling with emotion. “Is that all Aerys was to you too? Is that all I’ll ever be?”

Aemond’s jaw tightened, the muscles in his face hardening. ��Do not bring Aerys into this,” he said, his voice low and menacing.

She wounded him, but she couldn’t stop herself. “How can I not?” she cried, her tears flowing freely now. “You talk about sacrifices and means to an end. Is that what we are to you? Just another sacrifice?”

His eye flashed with a mixture of anger and pain, his body tensing as if ready to strike. “You know nothing of what I endure,” he growled, his voice a dangerous whisper. “Do not presume to understand.”

“Then help me understand,” she pleaded, her voice breaking. “Tell me why you leave me here, alone with my fears.”

“Do not ever suggest,” he hissed, his voice low and dangerous, “that you and our son are anything less than everything to me.”

Her body trembled, not from fear, but from the raw intensity of his emotions. Tears streamed down her face, her voice a broken sob. “I don’t know what to believe. You’re going back to the whorehouse, and I don’t know what to think. I thought we were doing well but—”

Aemond’s silence was like a chasm between them, widening with every passing moment. She could see the struggle in his eyes, the battle between his pride and his vulnerability. But still, he said nothing.

Her heart shattered at his refusal to speak, the weight of her doubts and fears pressing down on her. “Is it the whorehouse?” she whispered, the words barely audible. “Are you seeking comfort in another’s arms again?”

His face contorted with rage, and in a swift, violent motion, he grabbed her shoulders and slammed her against the wall. The force of the impact left her breathless, the pain a sharp reminder of the distance between them.

“How dare you,” he hissed, his face inches from hers.

She trembled beneath his grip, her tears falling like rain. “What am I supposed to think?” she sobbed. “You leave me night after night, and you won’t tell me where you go, or what you do. You insist that you are true to me in your heart, but that means nothing when the servants keep seeing you slip out of the Keep and into Silk Street. How am I supposed to believe in you, when you keep pushing me away?”

Aemond’s grip tightened, his eyes blazing with fury. “I fight for us,” he said, his voice raw with emotion. “Everything I do, I do for us. To protect you, to avenge our son. Do not question my loyalty.”

Her voice was a broken whisper, the pain in her heart almost unbearable. “Then why does it feel like you’re slipping away from me?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Why does it feel like I’m losing you?”

He silenced her with a kiss, fierce and desperate, pouring all his anger into that single act. His lips crashed onto hers with an intensity that took her breath away. It was not gentle, but raw and consuming, as if he were trying to convey every unsaid word, every buried emotion, through the touch of his mouth on hers. Her protests melted away, her body responding instinctively to his touch.

She felt his hands tremble as they cupped her face, his fingers threading through her hair, pulling her closer. The kiss deepened, his tongue seeking hers with a hunger that spoke of months of separation, of sleepless nights and lonely days. Her own hands reached up, clutching at his cloak, her fingers digging into the fabric as if she feared he might slip away again.

Their breaths mingled, warm and erratic, each exhale a whisper of longing and regret. She tasted the salt of her own tears on his lips, mingling with the unique taste of him - how could you miss something so much if you had very little of it to begin with?

His lips moved with a desperate urgency, as if he were trying to memorize every contour, every curve, and commit it to memory.

He was kissing her. He was kissing her. He was kissing h-

His lips on hers, her breath and his as one, their souls entwined. She felt the weight of his body pressing against hers, the solid, reassuring presence of him grounding her in the reality of the moment. The room around them faded away, leaving just the two of them, locked in a world where only their connection mattered.

Her heart pounded in her chest, the rhythm echoing the frantic beat of his. She could feel the heat of his body through the thin fabric of her shift, his warmth seeping into her skin, banishing the cold that had settled in her bones during his absence.

He broke the kiss only to rest his forehead against hers, their breaths mingling in the scant space between them. His eyes bore into hers, speaking volumes without a single word.

He had not kissed her since their wedding ceremony. This was the first in more than a year.

"Don't go," she whispered, her back pressed against the cold, unyielding stone of his chambers. His dark presence loomed over her, a shadow that both entrapped and intoxicated her. She was in no place to command, but this was a desperate plea, the truest command she had ever uttered. "I am.. I am a mother without a child, but tonight, let me be a wife to my husband. However you'll have me."

Her lips, soft as the brush of a feather, sought the hard line of his jaw, leaving a trail of tentative kisses. She held his head to hers, fingers tangling in his dark hair, lifting herself on tiptoes to reach him.

"Please, for once," she implored, her voice breaking. "I’m begging you, choose me."

His eyes flickered, emotions swirling within their depths. Intensity surged, a fierce storm, yet there was a hint of softness, a vulnerability that made her breath hitch. Then he laughed, a cruel, beautiful sound that sliced through her. She had always despised how his laughter made him even more captivating, even as it shattered her.

Humiliation washed over her, hot and sharp. She released him, feeling the sting of her own words. She had vowed never to beg for his love, yet here she was, laid bare and begging. And he laughed.

Her head bowed, eyes fixed on the floor, she tried to step away, her heart a heavy stone in her chest. But he was quicker, his hand shooting out to slam her back against the wall once more. The force of it rattled her, but she could not escape the vice-like grip of his fingers on her arms. His face was inches from hers, the ridges of his brow now visible to her in a way that it had never been before. His lips twitched, a predatory smile playing at the corners, and his fingers dug deeper into her flesh.

His nose brushed against hers, a tender gesture at odds with the roughness of his hold. She braced herself for more cruelty, but his words were unexpected.

"You once said you didn’t like begging for me. Shame," he murmured, his voice a deadly caress. "I quite like it when you do."

She was ensnared, caught in the dark web of his presence, and despite everything, she realized she didn't want to escape. His touch, his words, his very essence were chains she had willingly bound herself with. All she could do was surrender.

“I now find that I’m not above it if it brings me to you,” she whispered, her voice a fragile murmur lost to the wind.

He sensed her surrender, an unspoken truce formed between them. Was it exhaustion, or a sense of defeat from all they had endured? She couldn’t say. But at this moment, she knew where she stood. She needed him. She had no one else, and she needed him to be there for her, with her. Pathetic, really. The cost of them finally seeing eye to eye was too high, but she couldn't help but crave it all the same. She sought the same comfort he did. It felt heavy, but a bond forged by a loss as monumental as theirs had to be, surely?

His grip softened, the rigid tension in his body easing. Sensing his unspoken assent, she moved her hands to the clasp of his cloak, her fingers trembling as she unclipped it one by one. She nudged him forward as she pushed it off, watching the thick cloth fall to the floor with a soft thud.

In a swift, almost predatory movement, he pushed her onto the vanity near them, his lips crashing down onto hers with a fervent passion that stole her breath away. His kiss was searing, consuming, filled with a desperate urgency that came with not having each other as long as they hadn’t. He moved from her lips to her neck, his hands bunching up her shift with a roughness that sent shivers down her spine. He hauled her thighs forward, spreading her legs wide, and stood between them, his hardness pressing against her clothed cunt as she perched precariously on the edge of the table. His lips marked her skin, each bite and suckle sending jolts of pleasure and pain that mingled until she felt dizzy with desire.

She wrapped her arms around him, her fingers digging into the leather of his back, holding on as if he were her anchor in a storm. A moan escaped her lips when his thumb pressed against her damp smallclothes, a wicked smile curving his mouth in response. The smallclothes were swiftly discarded, his thumb tracing the slick line of her slit before he plunged a long finger into her warmth. She gasped at the sudden intrusion, her body arching into him. It had been so long since she’d felt him.

Her eyes fluttered closed, but his voice, rough and commanding, pulled her back. “Look at me,” he ordered, his tone a dark promise.

Her gaze locked onto his, the intensity of his stare holding her captive as his fingers pumped in and out of her. Each thrust sent waves of pleasure crashing through her, building until she thought she might shatter. Her world narrowed to the man before her, his touch, his presence, his power over her.

His fingers worked her expertly, his thumb circling her pearl as he added another finger, stretching her, filling her. She could feel the coil tightening in her core, the pressure mounting as he brought her closer and closer to the edge. Her breaths came in ragged gasps, her nails digging into his shoulders as she held on for dear life.

“Issa ābrazȳrys,” he growled. His voice a low rumble that sent a thrill through her. My wife.

He thrust harder, faster, his lips capturing hers in a bruising kiss as he drove her over the edge. Aemond tasted the copper tang of blood blooming from her lips from his attention and was certain he was going to lose all control. She came undone around his fingers, her body shattering in a blinding wave of pleasure. Her eyes never left his, her gaze locked onto his as she fell apart, her climax ripping through her with an intensity that left her trembling in its wake.

He held her through it, his fingers slowing but never stopping, prolonging her pleasure until she was spent, her body limp and sated in his arms. As the last tremors subsided, he pulled his fingers from her, bringing them to his lips and tasting her essence with a satisfied smirk.

She was his, utterly and completely, and in that moment, she knew she would never be free of him. Nor did she want to be. It scared her, but she could not help herself.

Her lord husband. Hers, hers, hers, h-

“Gevie.” Beautiful.

“What?” she asked, her voice breathless and filled with anticipation.

He responded with a firm squeeze of her hips, urging her to remove his jerkin and undershirt. Her fingers trembled with excitement and desire as she worked at the fastenings, feeling the heat radiating from his body. She wobbled slightly as he lowered her to stand, catching the smirk on his face as he steadied her. The look in his eye, dark and predatory, sent a thrill through her. His touch was both gentle and commanding, a stark contrast that made her knees weak.

Her robe and shift followed quickly, sliding from her shoulders in a soft whisper of fabric. She stood before him, exposed and vulnerable, watching his single eye darken with raw desire as her breasts spilled free. The intensity of his gaze made her shiver, a delicious anticipation coiling low in her belly.

This time, she was the one who initiated the kiss, her lips seeking him with a desperate hunger. She pressed herself against him, reveling in the sensation of his bare skin against hers, his muscles taut and unyielding beneath her fingers. His hands roamed her body with a possessive urgency, gripping and kneading her flesh as if he couldn’t get enough of her.

He guided her gently backwards, his movements controlled and purposeful. The back of her knees hit the edge of the bed, and she let out a soft gasp as he laid her down, the plush, satin-chased mattress cushioning her fall. She bounced slightly, her hair fanning out around her head, and looked up at him with wide, expectant eyes. Her gaze flickered to his eyepatch, a question forming in her mind, but she made no move to remove it.

His growl, low and primal, reverberated through her, sending a shiver down her spine. His hands moved to her thighs, spreading them wide, exposing her to his heated gaze. He lowered himself over her, his lips trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses along her neck and collarbone. She arched beneath him, her nails digging into his back, leaving red marks in their wake.

“Gevie,” he whispered against her ear, the word a rough caress that sent a jolt of desire straight to her core.

His fingers found her entrance, teasing and testing, before he thrust his hardened cock in her with a single, powerful stroke. She cried out, a mix of pleasure and pain, her body stretching to accommodate him. He set a relentless pace, each thrust driving her higher, pushing her closer to the edge of oblivion.

Her hands clung to him, nails scraping down his back, drawing blood. She bit down on his shoulder, sucking hard enough to bruise, marking him as hers. He responded with a harsh slap to her thigh, the sting adding to the heat between them. His hand then moved to her breast, squeezing and kneading, his mouth descending to capture a nipple.

“A mother without a child,” she had once said. He remembered those words as he let go of her leaking breast and thrust into her with renewed vigor. Her second climax came swiftly, his fingers working her to pleasure, rubbing in tight circles as he pounded into her. She shattered around him, her body convulsing, her cries filling the room.

Even as she came undone, he didn’t stop. He continued to thrust, using her body to chase his own release. She clung to him, her body spent, her mind a whirl of incoherent thoughts. He groaned, a deep, guttural sound, as he neared his peak. His movements became erratic, desperate.

“I’ll make your belly round with my heir again,” he murmured, his voice strained. “I want to see you dripping with my seed.”

She could only moan in response, the thought of another child not something she had entertained - not so soon after Aerys. But in that moment, with him inside her, it was all she could think about. He thrust one final time, burying himself deep inside her as he came, his release filling her, marking her as his.

Another child. Another child. Another-

The words echoed in her mind as she lay there, sated and spent before she fell asleep in his chambers for the very first time.

He was back at the Keep that fateful night, the acrid smell of blood thick in the air, mixed with the metallic tang of fear and sorrow. He pushed open the door to Aerys' room, his heart pounding in his chest. The once pristine nursery was a scene of unimaginable carnage.

Blood smeared the carpet in grotesque patterns, splattered as if by some violent, monstrous force. It pooled on the floor, thick and dark, congealing around the lifeless body of his son. Aerys' headless form lay cradled in the arms of his wife, her wails piercing the oppressive silence. Her face was one anguish, her eyes red and swollen from relentless tears.

She was screaming, but he couldn’t hear her - only the ringing in his ears.

Aemond's legs felt like lead as he stumbled forward, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “No,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “No, no, no…” His eyes were drawn to the small, severed head lying a few feet away, Aerys' lifeless eyes staring up at him with a silent accusation that pierced at him.

The scene shifted violently, and he was atop Vhagar, the ancient dragon roaring beneath him. They were in the skies, the cold wind and rain biting at his skin. Below, he saw the small figure of Lucerys Velaryon, desperately trying to evade him. The storm raged around them, but nothing could drown out the roar of Vhagar as she lunged, her massive jaws closing around the boy and his dragon.

“No, Vhagar! No!” Aemond screamed, though his voice was swallowed by the wind. He watched in horror as Vhagar's teeth tore through dragon and rider alike, the blood raining down upon the stormy sea. The boy's scream echoed in his mind, a sound that would haunt him forever.

The scene shifted again, and he was back at the Keep. This time, he saw Aegon, battered and broken, lying on the stone floor. Aemond’s chest tightened with a mixture of anger and regret. He had warned Aegon, advised him to stay put, to avoid the fight.

“Why didn’t you listen?” Aemond’s voice trembled with rage and sorrow. “I wouldn’t have had to burn you if you stayed home, brother. If you learnt to respect me, to fear me!”

In his nightmare, Aegon's eyes opened, filled with a pain that mirrored Aemond’s own. “This is your fault,” Aegon whispered, burnt beyond recognition, his voice a hollow echo. “All of it. You started it!”

The nightmare repeated in a relentless loop. Aerys' bloodied room, Vhagar's deadly bite, Aegon's broken body. The guilt and horror twisted inside him, a never-ending torment.

Suddenly, amidst the chaos, a warm sensation began to seep into his consciousness. It started faintly, then grew stronger, more insistent. A vision of his wife appeared before him, holding their son, Aerys, who was smiling and content. Her eyes, filled with love and concern - he has seen concern on her face, but she looks much more beautiful in love with him, he decided - reached out to him.

“I'm here, it's me. Just me, husband. Please, come back to me.”

Her words pierced through the fog of his nightmare, anchoring him. He kept hearing it, over and over, until he realized it wasn’t just a dream. The warmth he felt was real. Her touch, her voice, were pulling him back from the brink.

His wife had stayed to share his bed.

Aemond’s eyes snapped open, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He was disoriented, the remnants of his nightmare still clinging to him. He heard her voice again, soft and soothing, as she held him close.

“I'm here, it's me. Just me, husband. Please, come back to me.”

He felt her arms around him, her hand moving to his head, stroking his hair. He could still hear her voice, the same words repeated like a prayer, grounding him in reality. Aemond buried his face against her breast, his body trembling with the aftershocks of his nightmare. She rocked him gently, her touch a balm to his tormented mind.

After what seemed like hours, he began to calm down, his breathing evening out. She continued to hold him, kissing his head, her presence a constant reassurance. Aemond’s hand moved instinctively to her breast, seeking the comfort of her body. He wrapped his arm around her, clinging to her like a lifeline, squeezing her so tight like she’d slip through his fingers. When his weight became too much for her to bear, she gently lifted his head, making him look into her eyes. She kissed his forehead, her touch tender and reassuring.

This time, she reached up and unclasped his eyepatch with no hesitation.

Does she see what everyone sees? Does he terrify her?

She adjusted herself, crossing her legs to allow him to rest his head upon her thigh. She began to massage his scalp, her fingers working through his hair with a soothing rhythm.

No signs of terror. Or was she indifferent?

As he lay there, her touch grounding him, Aemond’s mind replayed the words he had uttered in his nightmare.

“I wouldn’t have had to burn you if you stayed home, brother.”

The realization hit him like a blow. In his delirium, he had revealed a truth he had kept hidden. Would she have him still?

She was worried. The entire night and everyday forward, she worried about the man her husband had become.

He’d attacked his own brother at Rook’s Rest.

And yet when he took her once more the same night, she didn’t want to push him away.

What’s a cold-blooded killer to a simple woman who only wants to be held in her husband’s arms?

“I forgive you.”

He stood by the windows, the moonlight spilling over his form, highlighting the sharp angles of his face. His hair, pale as starlight, shimmered in the dim light, and he seemed lost in thought, gazing out at the night sky.

She paused, taking a moment to observe him. Two days had passed since their night together, and in that brief span, something had shifted between them. It wasn’t love, no - but a deeper understanding, a mutual respect that had begun to root itself in their marriage. They were not affectionate, no tender kisses or whispered endearments passed between them. But there was a newfound ease in their interactions, a subtle partnership that had grown stronger in its quiet way.

He turned, sensing her presence, and their eyes met. She had come to understand his character, the motivations that drove him, and the burdens he carried. She wouldn’t ever justify any of it, not when the price was too steep. But it was a time of war, and she had to see everything around her differently now.

In her heart, she pondered their relationship, this delicate bond. They were equals, a balance of strengths and weaknesses, each compensating for the other. In Aemond, she saw a man driven by a relentless need to prove himself, to carve out a legacy that would be remembered. He was formidable, fierce, yet there was a loneliness to him, a void that no amount of ambition could fill.

They never addressed what he’d divulged to her in his nightmare-addled hours, how he’d treated his own brother as collateral damage. There was an unspoken understanding between them, a silent agreement to support his ambitions without question. It was this unvoiced pact that had solidified their marriage, making it stronger in its own peculiar way. She admired his cunning, his strategic mind, and in return, she offered her own strengths, her own form of loyalty that was unwavering.

What else was she to do? She couldn’t leave him for fear of her life, but she could choose to be useful to him in their time together. She could try.

Besides, is this not what she wanted?

No, she did not want a man who tried to bathe his own brother in dragonfire, she thought. But he has been good to her since Aerys’ death, so good…

As she looked at him now, she saw not just her husband, but her partner. They were two sides of the same coin, bound by a common goal, driven by a shared determination.

To survive, to thrive. They might never be lovers in the traditional sense, but they had forged something perhaps more enduring.

She tilted her head up in acknowledgement, but then she noticed what he held in his hands.

The iron and ruby crown of Aegon the Conqueror. His brother’s crown.

A quick and cutting reminder of what he’d done. A crown that his brother had been anointed with, now in her husband’s nimble fingers. He let the crown dangle from one hand as he reached out to her with the other, so she came to him, her steps uneasy but surer than ever.

He lifted the crown up to her bosom, gesturing for her to take it - so take it she did.

The weight of Aegon the Conqueror's crown was the first thing she noticed - it was heavier than she had imagined. As her fingers traced the intricate designs, she marveled at the craftsmanship that had gone into creating this legendary symbol of Targaryen rule.

The crown was a perfect mix of beauty and menace, reflecting the dual nature of its wearers. The metal was cool to the touch, smooth yet deceptively heavy. The rubies caught the firelight and seemed to burn with a fire of their own. The crown's inner band was lined with rich, black velvet, worn smooth by the many heads it had adorned. She ran her fingers along the lining, feeling the faint indentations left by those who had worn it before her, from Aegon himself to the rulers who had followed in his wake.

Now, her own husband was empowered by the power this crown symbolized.

With a steady breath, she stood on her toes, lifting the crown higher. Aemond lowered his head slightly, allowing her to place the crown upon his brow. The moment was charged with tension, the air thick. As she settled the crown onto his head, it fit as if it had been made for him, the rubies gleaming against his silver hair.

Her hands lingered for a moment, adjusting the crown until it sat perfectly. She stepped back, her eyes never leaving his as he turned to the mirror on his vanity. She stood right by his side, catching his gaze in their reflections.

Aemond straightened, the crown now firmly on his brow, and he looked every inch the king he aspired to be. The shadows in the room seemed to recede, and for a moment, the firelight cast a golden halo around him.

“Looks better on me than it ever did on him,” Aemond said, his voice low and edged with a bitter satisfaction, the statement hanging heavy in the air.

The shock of his words registered in a flicker of her eyes, a tightening of her lips, but it was there, palpable between them. Sensing her reaction, he squeezed her hip, his touch possessive, as if to anchor her to him.

“Do you not agree, wife?” he pressed, his tone challenging, almost playful but with an undercurrent of something darker. His words passed like heat through her ear as he bent down onto her shoulder to utter them, in heavy contrast to the coolness of the crown that now kissed her skin.

“You mustn’t say such things,” she replied, her voice a careful blend of caution and reprimand.

“‘Tis the truth, is it not?” he insisted, his gaze unwavering, boring into hers, seeking affirmation or defiance.

“I will not answer that question,” she said firmly, her tone brokering no argument.

Aemond’s eyes flashed, a flicker of irritation crossing his features. “I wear it better than the King,” he spat, the last word laden with contempt.

She met his eyes in the mirror, her reflection as resolute as her stance. “You are my lord husband, the Prince Regent. It is not my place to disagree,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, a clear indication of her refusal to partake in a conversation that bordered dangerously on treason.

“Perhaps I should commission a crown for you. A queen to stand by me,” he mused, a dangerous glint in his eye, his hand sliding from her hip to the small of her back, pulling her closer.

Her mind raced, a cold dread seeping into her thoughts. If they were to be the King and Queen, then half his family would have to be dead. Aemond was not above hurting Aegon - he’s already done it once. No, no, no—

In a sudden and decisive moment, she broke away from his grasp, her skirts swishing as she whirled around. The silk and velvet fabric rustled in the heavy silence. She reached up and took the crown from his head, her hands steady despite the tumult in her mind. She set it on the vanity with deliberate care, the metal clinking softly against the polished wood.

Aemond’s smirk deepened at her defiance, a spark of amusement in his eyes. He reached out, his fingers brushing a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, his touch lingering on her cheek. “You’ve never been a woman of growth then?” he challenged, his voice a low murmur, his breath warm against her skin.

“Only that which comes without bloodshed,” she retorted, her voice steady, though her heart pounded in her chest.

“Hm,” he hummed, his expression inscrutable as he took a step back, giving her space but never breaking eye contact.

The room was thick with tension, the crown now a silent witness to their exchange. As she looked at him, she saw not just the ambition that drove him but the danger that lurked beneath.

His ambition was a fire, one that could either warm him or consume him entirely.

In that moment, she knew that their survival depended not just on their unity but on her ability to temper his desires. She would stand by him, support him, but she would also be the voice of caution, the anchor that kept them from drifting into chaos.

The tension in the room ebbed. "When do you march to Harrenhal?" she asked softly, her fingers deftly working the fastenings of his tunic so she can undress him for bed.

"In a fortnight," Aemond replied, his voice steady. "Cole and I will amass the troops needed by then." He lifted his arms slightly, allowing her to pull the tunic over his head. The fabric rustled as it fell to the floor, leaving him bare from the waist up.

Her movements were precise and practiced as she helped him undress. She removed his eyepatch too, revealing the sapphire set in his empty socket. This act, once so charged with tension, had become almost inconsequential - their marriage has grown, she thought.

As she moved to unlace her own dress, Aemond stepped behind her, his fingers skillfully undoing the laces of her bodice. "My mother does not speak much to me anymore," he said quietly, his breath warm against the nape of her neck. "I believe she is jealous of my authority - power that she would have liked to wield in Aegon's stead, if the council hadn't chosen me."

She listened in silence, feeling the weight of his words as he undid the last lace. She shrugged off the dress, letting it pool around her feet before stepping out of it. "Your mother loves you," she said, her voice gentle yet firm. "But the burden of power is heavy, and it changes people."

Aemond’s hands lingered on her shoulders for a moment before he stepped back, allowing her to put on her shift. She moved to the vanity, removing the pins from her hair and letting it fall in loose waves around her shoulders. She caught his reflection in the mirror, already under the sheets, watching her with an intensity that made her heart quicken.

When she turned to join him in bed, the faint firelight cast a soft glow over their room. Aemond's gaze followed her every movement and she slipped under the covers, the warmth of his body a welcome contrast to the cool air of the chamber.

They lay facing each other, the silence between them comfortable. She reached out, her fingers tracing the contours of his face, feeling the roughness of his scar and the smoothness of his skin.

Aemond's hand moved to her forehead, brushing away a stray lock of hair before trailing down the side of her face, his touch light and deliberate. "The war progresses," he began, his fingers following a slow, deliberate path down her neck to her collarbone. "Our troops are amassing strength, and Vhagar has had her rest."

She gasped softly as his hand moved lower, his thumb brushing over her breast, lingering there as he spoke. "The Small Council debates strategy for Harrenhal," he continued, his voice a low rumble, "and I've been training harder than ever."

“Of course you have.”

His hand moved to the other breast, cupping it gently, his thumb circling the nipple until it hardened under his touch. She moaned softly, her breath catching as she watched his hand in her line of sight, mesmerized by his touch and his words.

"We will strike with precision and force," Aemond said, his hand sliding further down her body, grazing her ribs and stomach. "Cole believes we can take them by surprise."

His hand slipped under her shift, his fingers finding her wet and wanting. She gasped, her hips arching toward his touch, her need palpable. "Aemond," she breathed, her voice a mix of plea and desire.

He wasted no time, his body moving to hover over hers. His lips followed the path his hand had taken, leaving a trail of fiery hot kisses from her neck to her breasts, each kiss punctuated by his words. "We will defeat them," he murmured against her skin, his lips closing around a clothed nipple, sucking gently before continuing downward. "We will take Harrenhal."

Her hands gripped the sheets, her knuckles white with effort, but he took one hand and guided it to him. He moved lower, his kisses searing a path down her stomach as he pushed her shift up, his tongue dipping into her navel. "Husband, please," she moaned, her body trembling with anticipation.

He descended further, his lips finally reaching her cunt. He licked a long, slow line from her entrance to her pearl, his tongue swirling around the sensitive nub before sucking it gently. She cried out, her fingers tightening in his hair, her hips bucking against his mouth.

His tongue worked her with a practiced skill, flicking and swirling, his lips sucking and tugging. "So wet for me," he murmured between licks, his voice sending shivers down her spine.

She moaned louder, her body writhing under his touch, her need building with every flick of his tongue. "Aemond," she gasped, "I'm going to—”

"Sīr gevie." So beautiful.

His words pushed her over the edge, her body tensing as she came undone beneath him. She cried out, her fingers clutching his hair, her body shaking with the force of her peak. He lapped at her pleasure through her climax, drawing out every last wave of pleasure until she lay spent and trembling.

When she finally stilled, he kissed his way back up her body, his lips lingering on her breasts, his tongue flicking over her nipples one last time. He settled beside her, his head nestled between her breasts, his hand resting possessively on her hip.

She offered to return the favor, her hand trailing down his chest, but he stopped her gently. "Not tonight," he said softly, his voice a soothing balm as he buried himself into her chest as tightly as he could. His breath warm against her skin, he calmed down at the steady fall and rise of her chest. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him close.

The vision of the Conqueror’s crown on his desk - gleaming, taunting, terrifying - was the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes and let sleep take her.

Aemond found himself weighed down by emotions that he neither anticipated nor fully understood. This newfound closeness with his wife was a double-edged sword, cutting through his well-guarded defenses. The loss of their son had forged a bond between them, a shared grief that brought them closer in ways he couldn't have predicted. Yet, he felt an undercurrent of unease.

His mind, ever analytical and cautious, wrestled with the implications of their growing connection. The admission of his near-fratricidal thoughts should have been a cause for her to recoil, to distance herself from him. Instead, she had not only forgiven him but had also invited him into her bed, an act of trust that both warmed and unnerved him.

Why? Why? Why?

Aemond's wariness stemmed from the unfamiliarity of it all. Affections had always been something to grasp at. His life had been a series of calculated moves, a constant struggle for power and control. But now, he found himself speaking truths he had never intended to share, revealing parts of his soul he had long kept hidden. It annoyed him, this loss of control. It annoyed him how easily she could draw out his secrets, how her presence softened the edges of his guarded heart.

She’s never proven herself to be anything but faithful, his wife. Even when he was less than good to her, she did her duty like the Princess she married him to be.

Yet, beneath the irritation and paranoia, there was a deeper, more profound desire. He wanted this connection, this closeness that terrified him. He yearned for the comfort of her touch, the solace of her understanding. It was a maddening paradox: the need to protect himself clashing with the desire to surrender to her completely.

This was not like with Sylvi, whom he had not gone to see since his wife had willingly come to him that fateful night. Here, it was a partnership of equals. Neither of them knew where it was taking them, no experienced hand to guide them.

He’d begun fucking her each night too, and he wondered how long it’d be before her womb quickened with his child. They needed an heir, and he needed to give her a child again.

He’d wronged her the first time, he won’t do it again.

Aemond sat on a chair beside the hearth, with her sitting at his feet with her embroidery in a rare moment of undisturbed rest. His fingers dug into her scalp in a calming manner, though it was more an effort to calm himself than her.

Regency. The word lingered in Aemond's mind, a whisper of power and responsibility. He would approach it with an iron fist. He would not be made a fool of, not like Aegon. His thoughts of being better than his brother consumed him, a fire that burned with fierce determination. He would rule justly, with strength and decisiveness. No one would dare challenge his authority or question his decisions. He would be a leader worthy of his name, a ruler who commanded respect and fear in equal measure.

And he would have to do it all in his brother’s name.

He looked down at his wife, her presence grounding him in the reality of the moment. His fingers moved gently, tracing the contours of her scalp, feeling the softness of her hair. This simple act of touch was a rare comfort for him, a connection that soothed the tumultuous thoughts swirling in his mind.

“He has bastard children, you know?” he said abruptly, breaking the silence.

“Yes?” she replied softly, her eyes focused on her embroidery.

“He used to watch them fight.”

“Fight?” she echoed, her voice tinged with curiosity.

“Silver-haired baseborn babes, thrown into fighting pits to satiate the peculiar needs of the likes of him,” Aemond continued, his tone hardening with disgust. “I’ve had to pull him back to the castle many times after his outings to these places. It is depraved. He… is depraved and a fool. He dishonors Helaena and their children, and then he goes on to make a mockery of his mistakes by watching them scratch and bite at each other, sometimes even until death.”

She then looked up at him, her fingers hovering over his knee in patterns he could not see, her embroidery forgotten. Her eyes searched his, a quiet intensity in her gaze.

“Do you have any baseborn children?” she asked, her voice calm but probing.

“I would not sully myself as such,” he responded sharply, a flicker of anger igniting in his chest.

“You used to frequent the whorehouse too. It would not be completely out of the question.”

Her words stung, and he thought of how he’d always made Sylvi take moon tea after their trysts, how careful he had been. “None of them are worthy of a child born of Valyrian seed… of dragonfire.”

“And I was?” She referred to her time as a mother in the past tense, and it made him bristle.

“You are my wife. Would you be so stupid as to keep yourself on level with a commonborn whore?”

“They used to warm your bed the same way I do.”

“It was never the same,” he snapped, his voice cold and final. A long silence followed, the weight of their conversation hanging heavy in the air.

She then spoke again, her voice softer. “It’s good that you don’t have any illegitimate children. Say what you will about them, but they are simply babes. Born through no fault of their own. If anything, it is not the children that are illegitimate, but the fathers that seed them.”

If anything, it is not the children that are illegitimate, but the fathers that seed them. Her words echoed in his mind, striking a chord deep within him. He was taken aback by the weight of her statement, the truth that lay beneath her gentle rebuke.

“Are you calling the King illegitimate, wife?” he asked, his tone challenging.

“I will admit to no such thing,” she said, her voice steady and unwavering with a playful smile.

Minx.

She then stood, the movement breaking the tension that had settled between them. He watched her, waiting for her to help undress him for bed, but she stopped in front of him, her toes shuffling anxiously. He could see the uncertainty in her eyes, the hesitation that held her back.

“Out with it, wife,” he commanded, his voice softer now, a hint of concern creeping into his tone.

“I think I may be with child again. I am not sure, but my blood is late and… I simply feel it. It is too early. Anything could happen, but I did not want to keep it from you. Not now, not in a time of war when things are uncertain.”

The words hung in the air, and for a moment, Aemond felt the world pause. He stared at her, the implications of her revelation sinking in slowly, like a ship slipping beneath the waves. He was not visibly overjoyed, but he hoped she saw his calmness in the way he let his hand rest on her now-flat belly, in the way his eye crinkled and his jaw slackened.

Aerys, Aerys, Aerys.

The name echoed in his mind, a reminder of their shared loss, a shadow that still haunted them. He shared her caution, so he tried to not get his hopes up until she carried the child to term, birthed it, and then watched it grow. His heart thudded in his chest.

“Good,” he said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. “Mirrī zaldrīzes syt issa naejot gaomagon paktot ondoso.” A little dragon for me to do right by.

He let his hand linger on her belly. His mind wandered to the possibilities, the future they could have. A child, their child, born from both their strengths and their shared grief. He wanted to prove that he could be a better father, a better husband.

He wanted her to think better of him. It was a fragile thing, this warmth they had built – delicate and easily shattered, but it was there.

A few days later, she kept her eyes glued to him as he began his trip to Harrenhal. She only turned briefly to assess all that was happening around her as the troops readied themselves, and he wondered about how much of this was new to her; how much of the world she’d actually seen.

He then remembered Aerys, and that she’d spent most of their marriage in pain, heartache and horror.

Perhaps she’d seen enough.

MASTERLIST

NO TAG LIST. PLEASE FOLLOW AND TURN ON POST NOTIFS FOR @randomdragonfics for fic updates!

843 notes · View notes

mononijikayu · 1 month ago

Text

if the world was ending, i’d wanna be next to you — itadori yuji and ryomen sukuna.

“You’re scared, little one.” Sukuna observes, voice low and taunting. “Quite a face I’ve never seen in a long time.” Your heart pounds, every instinct screaming at you to run, to get away from him. But something roots you in place, the inexplicable connection between the face you loved and the one you now feared, pulling you in two directions at once. “How low you’ve come, little one.” he continues, his voice dripping with amusement. “Really? A green boy like him?” He leans in closer, his presence suffocating. “An insult to your standards, little one.”

GENRE: alternate universe - canon convergence;

WARNING/S: spoilers for jjk chapter 271, not safe for work, angst, fluff, one sided romance, eventual romance, conflicted feelings, hurt/comfort, reincarnation, happy ending, hurt, physical touch, character death, mourning, loneliness, pain, grief, afterlife, internal conflict, future, letting go, depiction of moving forward, depiction of one-sided relationship, depiction of rebirth, depiction of internal conflict, depiction of complicated relationship, depiction of character death, depiction of canon related violence, depiction of loneliness, mention of grief, mention of illness, mention of loneliness, depiction of happy end, true form! sukuna, itadori yuji, reincarnated concubine! reader;

WORD COUNT: 11k words

NOTE: this was highly requested, that concubine reader from the other woman has some closure and freedom and happiness in her next life. well, this is it. i feel like after having read chapter 271 completely, i feel like this was also a good sort of closure on sukuna's character. as ive said, i wasn't satisfied much, but i decided to write a path of my own here. and i hope you like it!!! i love you all <3

main masterlist

the other woman masterlist

if you want to, tip! <3

kayu's playlist, side 1500;

THE PAST WAS SOMETHING THAT INTRIGUED YOU. You used to wonder if you had a life before this one. The thought lingered like a shadow on quiet nights, gnawing at the edges of your consciousness. You were always curious: Was it a good life? Did you laugh often? Were you loved? And in the end, did you grow old surrounded by warmth, or did your story close abruptly, lost to the currents of time? These questions, though unspoken, echoed through your mind like the turning pages of an unfinished book.

Yet, it’s in moments like this—simple, undemanding, and unexpectedly tender—that those questions fall away. You realize that the answer doesn’t matter as much as you once thought. You and Itadori Yuji, sitting side by side, the air filled with the sound of his laughter, his energy contagious and effortless. It's not always what you do together, but how he has a way of making everything feel lighter, even when life is at its heaviest.

In these instances, where time seems to slow down and the weight of the past dissolves, you’re reminded that perhaps the life before—if it existed at all—was not as important as the one unfolding now. This is where the heart finds its peace. Being with Yuji, you feel that indescribable warmth. It’s the warmth of being cared for, the joy of connection, the quiet happiness of simply being. Moments like this feel like the reward of a life well-lived, even if the past is a mystery.

Maybe in another life, you were loved. Maybe you weren’t. But in this one, as you sit here with Yuji, you feel blessed in a way that transcends time, as if this companionship, this simplicity, is enough to fill whatever came before.

You glance over at Yuji, who’s still laughing, the corners of his eyes crinkled in that way that makes him look so carefree, so utterly at peace. It’s moments like this that make you forget about the world outside.

“You know, Yuji,” you say, leaning back a bit, “sometimes I wonder if I had a life before all of this. Like, did I have a good life? Was I happy? Did I do anything important?” Your voice trails off, unsure if you’re even making sense. It’s one of those thoughts that sounds bigger in your head, harder to explain aloud.

Yuji pauses, the smile still lingering on his lips but his eyes now softening as he looks at you. “I dunno about a past life,” he says, shrugging in that easy, nonchalant way of his, “but I think it doesn’t really matter, right? I mean, what’s important is now, right here. And… if you’re happy now, then that’s enough, isn’t it?”

You look at him, surprised by the simplicity of his words. Yuji always has a way of cutting through complicated feelings with such earnestness, and it hits you every time.

“Yeah, but what if I didn’t get that? What if I didn’t get the chance to be happy then?” you say, not sure why you're pushing the point. Maybe you want to hear more of his optimism, that unwavering belief in the present.

Yuji thinks for a second, rubbing the back of his neck. “Then… maybe that’s why you’re here now. To have those moments. To feel that happiness.” He grins suddenly, almost sheepish. “And hey, if that’s true, then I guess it’s my job to make sure you’re having a good time in this life.”

You smile, something warm settling in your chest. "You think so? That’s your job now?"

“Yep!” Yuji says with a bright nod. “And honestly? I think I’m doing pretty good at it, don’t you?” He nudges you playfully, and you can’t help but laugh.

“Yeah,” you admit, feeling lighter. “Yeah, you’re doing a pretty good job.”

Yuji leans back, satisfied. “See? No need to worry about the past. We’re making good memories right now. And who knows, maybe in the next life, we’ll be laughing about this one.”

You chuckle at the thought, realizing he’s right in a way. The present, with all its little joys, is more than enough. And with Yuji by your side, it feels like it always will be.

Itadori Yuji was your opposite—he was vibrant, bursting with energy, like the sun at its highest peak. Where you were quiet, thoughtful, perhaps a little reserved, Yuji was a whirlwind of light, so bright it was impossible not to be pulled into his orbit. He was the type of person who loved easily, fiercely, without hesitation. In the short time you had known him, it felt like he had illuminated parts of you that you didn’t even realize had been in shadow.

Six months. That’s how long he had been in your life, and in that brief window, Yuji became your biggest friend. He was the kind of friend who made you forget your worries, who could turn a mundane moment into something extraordinary just by being there.

You weren’t sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way, your feelings for him deepened into something more. You didn’t just care for him, you were falling for him. His smile, his laugh, the way he’d look at you with such unguarded sincerity—it all crept into your heart before you had a chance to stop it.

But then, as suddenly as he had entered your life, he was gone.

You mourned him in the rawest sense, the grief hitting you like a wave, unrelenting and suffocating. You had barely begun to process what he meant to you, and now you were left with nothing but memories. Memories that once brought joy now twisted into something painful, aching. The world felt dimmer without him, like someone had extinguished the light you had grown so accustomed to.

You grieved the moments you never had, the confessions that were never spoken. You grieved the time you lost and the love you never got to fully express. And in the quiet, lonely nights, you found yourself missing even the smallest things—his goofy grin, the way he’d always try to cheer you up, the warmth he carried with him wherever he went.

Itadori Yuji had changed your world in just six months, and now, with him gone, you didn’t know how to go back to how things were before him. Maybe you never would.

And now, you stand face to face with someone else. Someone you didn’t know—someone that terrified you. Ryomen Sukuna. The King of Curses, wearing Yuji’s face but twisted into something cold and malevolent. His presence was overwhelming, a suffocating aura that made your skin crawl, your heart race in dread. The Yuji you had known, the boy you had fallen for, was nowhere to be found in the dark, calculating red eyes that now gazed at you.

But as you meet Sukuna’s gaze, there’s something strange—something unsettling in its familiarity. Amidst the malice, the sadistic smirk, and the chilling sense of power, there’s a flicker of something that shouldn’t be there. Something… almost tender. A subtle glint of fondness that feels utterly out of place in someone like him.

Your breath catches in your throat. It doesn’t make sense. Sukuna should have no reason to look at you this way, no reason to show anything other than contempt or amusement. And yet, there it is—just beneath the surface, a strange warmth, a recognition.

He steps closer, and you instinctively take a step back, fear surging through you like ice in your veins. This wasn’t Yuji. This wasn’t the boy who made you feel safe, who filled your days with laughter and light. This was a monster. A curse. But the way Sukuna’s eyes linger on you, the way his lips curve in a slow, deliberate smirk—there’s something disturbingly familiar in it. A haunting echo of the person you lost.

“You’re scared, little one.” Sukuna observes, voice low and taunting. “Quite a face I’ve never seen in a long time.”

Your heart pounds, every instinct screaming at you to run, to get away from him. But something roots you in place, the inexplicable connection between the face you loved and the one you now feared, pulling you in two directions at once.

“How low you’ve come, little one.” he continues, his voice dripping with amusement. “Really? A green boy like him?” He leans in closer, his presence suffocating. “An insult to your standards, little one.”

You swallow, throat dry, unable to tear your eyes away from his. “You’re not Yuji.” you whisper, the words feeling like a betrayal, even though you know they’re true.

“No.” Sukuna agrees, a dark chuckle escaping his lips. “I’m not. I’d rather not be. But…” His eyes narrow, that strange fondness flashing again, almost as if he’s toying with something deeper. “It’s far better that it is I in front of you.”

Your chest tightens at his words, the weight of them sinking in. It’s impossible, and yet… something in Sukuna’s gaze—something about the way he looks at you—makes you feel like, in some twisted way, you’re still staring into the remnants of Yuji. Or perhaps the remnants of what could have been.

“Stay back!”

“How cruel, little one. When I was your life.” Sukuna says, almost thoughtfully. “You grieved for him. A brat. And yet, here I am, standing right in front of you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

His words feel like a cruel mockery, slicing through your defenses with the precision of a knife. Yet, amid the taunts and the darkness that envelops him, there’s an undercurrent of truth that stings—a painful reminder of everything you’ve lost. You find yourself grappling with an unsettling confusion, a whirlwind of emotions that makes your head spin.

This is a monster, you remind yourself. A malevolent being born of curses and chaos. You do not know him, no matter how he tries to push, no matter how his eyes—those dark, swirling eyes that resemble Yuji’s—seem to reach deep into your soul, searching for something buried within. You’re scared. Scared of the implications, scared of the truth that threatens to unravel everything you thought you understood.

You had wanted Yuji back—longed for him, missed him so much that it hurt. The ache in your heart was a constant companion, an echo of laughter and warmth that once filled your days. You had spent countless nights wishing for a miracle, hoping to see that familiar, infectious smile again. But now, faced with the twisted reality of what stood before you, you weren’t sure if you could handle the price of that wish.

Could this—this—be the cost? A piece of Yuji entangled in a form so horrifying, so devoid of the light he once radiated? The very thought makes you recoil. You want to reject it, to deny that any part of Yuji could reside within Sukuna. But the familiarity in Sukuna’s gaze, the hints of fondness mixed with malice, make it impossible to ignore.

You take a shaky breath, grounding yourself as you try to separate the remnants of your grief from the reality before you. “You’re not him, stop. Stop talking!” you say again, more forcefully this time, but it feels like a hollow declaration. Deep down, you know it’s not enough. The monster in front of you wears Yuji’s face, and it shakes you to your core.

Sukuna steps closer, his presence a dark shadow looming over you, and you can’t help but feel trapped in this moment. You wonder if you should flee, escape the suffocating tension that surrounds you, but something keeps you rooted. It’s as if a part of you is drawn to this interaction, compelled to understand, to confront the tangled web of loss and longing that you’ve been avoiding.

“Tell me, little one.” Sukuna murmurs, his voice low and almost teasing. “What is it you miss about him? The laughter? The heroism? Or is it simply the idea of what he represented—hope?”

His words pierce through the fog of confusion, and you find yourself grappling with the truth of them. What did you miss about Yuji? Was it just the memories of the boy who filled your life with laughter, or was it something deeper—a feeling of safety, a light in the darkness that made everything feel manageable? The longing you felt was so raw, so visceral, but now it felt tainted, complicated by the monstrous form before you.

“I don’t know…..I….” you admit, your voice cracking under the weight of your emotions. “I just know that I wanted him back. I wanted him to stay.” The admission slips out before you can stop it, a soft confession echoing in the heavy silence.

Sukuna watches you closely, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. “And yet here I am, standing in his place.” he says, his tone laced with dark amusement. “Perhaps you should reconsider what it is you truly prefer, little one.”

His words hang in the air, heavy with implications you’re not ready to confront. The dread creeps back in, entwined with that lingering curiosity. You realize, with a shiver, that this moment is a threshold—a chance to either run away from the painful truth or face it head-on. You don’t know what it means for you or what it might cost, but deep down, you understand that avoiding Sukuna will not bring Yuji back.

Caught in this whirlwind of emotions, you stand there, heart pounding, feeling the walls close in around you. The weight of grief and longing collides with fear, and you can’t shake the feeling that in this moment, every choice you make could lead to something irrevocable. The haunting question lingers: What if you truly do remember? And what would that mean for both Yuji and the monster that now embodies him?

Sukuna smiles, a slow, dangerous curve of his lips, and somehow, even through the fear, you feel it—the remnants of Yuji still flickering in the dark recesses of this cursed form. And it breaks your heart all over again.

You swallow hard, your heart pounding as you look into Sukuna’s eyes, those dark, unsettling orbs that seem to mock everything you once knew. But you force the words out anyway, your voice trembling but determined. “I don’t remember you.”

Sukuna snickers, his laughter low and taunting. It sends a chill down your spine, as if he’s amused by some private joke you’re not in on. He leans in slightly, tilting his head, his smirk widening into something more dangerous, more possessive. “Is that what you tell me after all this time, little one?”

The way he says it—so familiar, so intimate—makes your breath catch. It’s like he’s speaking of something only the two of you should know, something hidden beneath the surface of your shared history. But how? You’ve never met Sukuna before. And yet… something in his voice, in the way he calls you little one, stirs something deep inside you. A flicker of something you can’t quite place, something buried.

You take a step back, shaking your head, trying to keep your composure. “I don’t know you. You’re not Yuji, you’re not….” you say again, though this time it sounds more like a plea. A desperate attempt to hold onto the truth, to make sense of the chaos swirling around you.

Sukuna’s grin only deepens. He watches you with a look that’s far too knowing, as if he can see right through your confusion, right through your walls. “Oh, but you do, little one.” he purrs, his voice dripping with dark amusement. “Perhaps you just don’t want to remember.”

Your pulse quickens as his words settle over you, heavy with implications. His gaze feels like it’s piercing through you, dredging up memories you aren’t even sure exist. Could there be something you’re missing? Something you’ve forgotten, or worse—something you’ve buried?

“Look at you, little one. More fragile than what you had been.” Sukuna continues, his voice lowering to something almost dangerous. “Pretending you don’t know. But your eyes betray you. You know me. Maybe not in this life… but somewhere, deep down.” He lifts a hand, lazily gesturing to himself. “You’ve always known me.”

Your chest tightens at the weight of his words, at the way they seem to pull you into something far more complex than you can grasp. You feel torn, the familiar pull of Yuji clashing with the terrifying presence of Sukuna. There’s a part of you that wants to run, to escape whatever this is. But another part of you—the part that feels that flicker of recognition when he speaks, when he looks at you—keeps you frozen in place.

“I don’t…” you start, your voice faltering. “I don’t understand.”

Sukuna laughs again, that low, predatory sound that makes your stomach churn. “Of course you don’t. But you will, in time.” His eyes gleam with something dark and possessive. “I’m not going anywhere, little one. So you’ll have all the time in the world to remember.”

Your hands tremble at your sides, the fear still coursing through you, but now there’s something else. Something far more dangerous than fear—a curiosity, a pull you can’t explain. Even though you know you shouldn’t, you’re drawn to him, to the way his words tug at something deep inside you, something lost.

Sukuna takes another step closer, his presence overwhelming, his gaze never leaving yours. “And when you do remember,” he whispers, his voice dropping into something almost tender, “you’ll realize that it’s not this brat you mourn, little one.”

Your heart skips a beat, the words hitting you like a punch to the gut. You want to deny it, to push him away, to convince yourself that the darkness in Sukuna’s eyes holds no truth. But you can’t shake the unsettling feeling that maybe, just maybe, there’s a twisted truth in what he’s saying—something buried so deep inside you that it makes your skin prickle. And that terrifies you more than anything else at this moment.

“You have better memory than that.” His voice is smooth, a honeyed drawl that curls around you, laced with a sinister undertone. He steps closer, and you can feel the warmth radiating from his body, a heat that’s both inviting and suffocating. His breath brushes against your skin, sending a shiver down your spine, and you find yourself caught in his gaze—those scarlet eyes gleaming with an intensity that both captivates and horrifies you.

“Try to remember me.” he continues, the words dripping with a twisted sense of familiarity, a beckoning that both draws you in and repels you. There’s an almost playful cruelty in his tone, as if he knows the power he holds over you in this moment—knows that your heart is already torn, straddling the line between longing and fear.

You swallow hard, your throat dry as you grapple with the conflicting emotions swirling within you. The essence of Yuji—the boy who brought light and laughter into your life—now feels irreversibly entwined with the dark curse standing before you.

The memory of his warmth, his laughter, and his unwavering kindness feels like a distant dream, overshadowed by the reality of Sukuna’s presence. And yet, the way Sukuna looks at you, the way he carries himself, evokes echoes of the boy you loved. It’s confusing, maddening, and all-consuming.

“Don’t you want to know what’s buried inside you?” he taunts softly, leaning in even closer, as if sharing a secret only you can hear. “What really lies behind that grief? The truth of your feelings? Your past?”

You shudder at his words, feeling as though he’s reaching into the deepest corners of your mind, teasing out thoughts you’re not ready to confront. The idea of facing whatever remnants of Yuji’s essence are hidden within this creature, this manifestation of all your fears and sorrows, makes you want to flee. But the truth is, you’re caught in a web of curiosity and dread, tethered to the boy who once filled your heart.

“Stop it.” you whisper, your voice shaking. “You’re not him. You’re not Yuji.”

Sukuna chuckles, a low, rumbling sound that reverberates in the stillness around you. “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. I wear this brat’s face, little one. And I am here —whether you want to accept it or not.” His scarlet eyes bore into yours, a challenge lingering in the air. “And whether you like it or not, he’s a part of me too.”

The weight of his words settles heavily in your chest, a visceral truth that makes you want to scream. How could he say that? How could he twist the memory of Yuji into something so dark and cruel? But as you stand there, heart racing, you realize that he’s right in a way you’re terrified to explore. The grief you feel is a testament to the love you once shared, and now that love has taken on a new, twisted form.

As Sukuna’s presence looms over you, you feel the tension of this moment wrapping around you like a shroud. The air is thick with uncertainty, and you’re caught in a battle between wanting to retreat into safety and an insatiable desire to confront the truth lurking just beyond your grasp.

“Good night, little one.” he repeats, the command soothing and commanding all at once. “And when you wake, perhaps you’ll see things more clearly. I promise you, it will be… enlightening.”

With those final words, he steps back, allowing you to breathe again, but the weight of his gaze lingers. As he fades into the shadows, you’re left standing there, your heart pounding in your chest. The fear that grips you is palpable, but beneath it lies a flicker of curiosity—a yearning to understand what lies hidden within, to uncover the truths that connect you to both Yuji and Sukuna.

You know you should feel safe in your denial, but as you process everything, you realize that the only way forward is to confront this new reality. Whatever it takes, you have to know what Sukuna means, what truth lies within you, and what it might reveal about the love you lost and the monster that now stands in his place.

A THOUSAND YEARS HAD PASSED AND YET, HE THINKS A LOT ABOUT THAT LAST WISH. It was Ryomen Sukuna’s hope that you would not be reborn like this. After the years of misery he had put upon you, such loneliness and bitterness — this is not what you deserve. In the depths of his cursed heart, he had wished for you to have a better life—a life filled with warmth and love, a life free from the shadows that clung to him.

He had imagined a future where you would thrive, where your laughter would echo in the halls of a home filled with joy and not tied to the darkness he embodied. He wanted for your hope to come true, for you to carve out your own path, one that didn’t intertwine with his own cursed existence. So that you may be free from the cage of him, and fly away.

Yet, here you were, standing in the remnants of a life he had never wished for you. A life as a sorcerer, a role steeped in danger and darkness, where you faced the very curses he had once commanded. And most of all, you found yourself in adoration of his vessel, Itadori Yuji—the very embodiment of what Sukuna had wanted to keep separate from you.

Every day was a constant reminder of that bittersweet reality. You had grown to love the brat, the boy whose spirit shone brighter than anyone else’s, whose laughter brought light to the darkest corners of your heart. He had an infectious enthusiasm that made the world seem a little less heavy, a little less daunting. And now that he was alive, Ryomen Sukuna could only watch as you found the joy that he could not give you.

“Hey! Are you coming or what?” Yuji called out, his voice cutting through your thoughts. He stood a few paces ahead, hands on his hips, a bright smile lighting up his face. “I thought we were going to train today!”

You couldn’t help but smile back at him, your heart swelling at the sight of his excitement. “Yeah, I’m coming!” You jogged to catch up with him, the momentary rush of adrenaline distracting you from the weight of your thoughts.

As you fell into step beside him, you felt the warmth of his presence, the way he made the air around you feel lighter. “You really are too slow sometimes, you know?” he teased, nudging you playfully. “I mean, I know I’m faster, but you’ve gotta at least try to keep up!”

“Please!” you laughed, shaking your head. “You’ve been training longer than I have. I’m just trying not to trip over my own feet!” The banter flowed easily between you, but even in this moment of lightness, you couldn’t shake the nagging sense of Sukuna’s presence lurking just beneath the surface, a shadow that never quite left you.

“Speaking of tripping, you’re not going to freak out again when I show you that new move, are you?” Yuji’s expression turned mock-serious, eyebrows raised. “Because last time, I swear I thought you were going to lose your lunch!”

“Okay, that was one time! I told you I wasn’t ready for a backflip!” you protested, recalling the embarrassment of that training session where you’d ended up flat on your back. “Besides, you can’t just expect me to be a natural like you!”

Yuji laughed, the sound bubbling up from his chest and enveloping you like a warm embrace. “Hey, you’ve got potential! I mean, you did get back up after I knocked you down. That counts for something, right?”

His encouragement filled you with a warmth that momentarily pushed aside the darkness threatening to creep in. He was everything Sukuna had hoped you would find—kind, brave, and full of life. Itadori Yuji’s laughter echoed in your mind, a stark contrast to the chilling presence of the curse that loomed behind you, hidden yet always felt, a constant reminder of the complexities entangled in your heart.

Yet, in the depths of Sukuna’s being, a flicker of something unexpected stirred—a faint, bitter jealousy. He had often wondered if he had ever truly felt envy regarding the affection you held for that brat, as he so often referred to Yuji in his darker moments. A part of him questioned whether he was conscious of the pain he had caused you, the heartache that clung to your spirit like a shadow.

“Do you even understand what you’ve done to her?” he mused silently, as if you could hear him echoing in your mind.

There was an awareness in him, a recognition that you had somehow managed to love all of him, even the twisted, cursed side of his existence. Perhaps that was what stung the most—knowing that you had opened your heart to him and, in doing so, had become entwined in a relationship that was more chaotic than he had ever intended.

But even amid that jealousy, he had no regrets about his feelings for you. His love for Hiromi—the one who had filled his heart with warmth before darkness overtook him—remained unwavering.

That love had been pure and innocent, a light that could never be dimmed by the shadows he had embraced. He could not deny it, nor would he wish to. Yet now, watching from the sidelines, he felt an ache in his chest, a realization that he could never be the one to bring you that same joy.

In the quiet corners of his mind, he harbored a secret wish—a hope that he could have made you smile like this. So vibrantly, so free of grief. A happiness so clear that one could see it gleam in your eyes, untainted by the complexities of his existence. The laughter you shared with Yuji resonated in a way that he could only dream of, a melody of innocence that felt forever out of his reach.

“What would it take?” he pondered, the thought lingering like a ghost. Would he ever be able to evoke such joy? Or was he forever condemned to dwell in the shadows of what he could never be?

Sukuna’s thoughts spiraled, twisting through memories of moments shared with you—soft smiles, fleeting touches, and the warmth of your laughter that once danced around him like sunlight. The contrast was stark; he had only ever known how to wield darkness, to embrace fear and chaos, while Yuji seemed to thrive in the light. The way you looked at Yuji, filled with admiration and affection, was a dagger in his chest, a poignant reminder of the connection he could never replicate.

Yet, in that moment of reflection, a different feeling began to take root—a deep, abiding wish for your happiness. Perhaps the greatest act of love he could offer you now was to allow you to chase that joy, even if it meant stepping aside, relinquishing his hold on your heart. You deserve every ounce of happiness, unencumbered by his darkness.

As you stood there, laughing freely, the shadows that had haunted him felt a little less suffocating. He knew he could not change who he was, nor could he rewrite the past, but perhaps he could shift his focus from his own pain to the happiness that blossomed in front of him. He wanted to see you flourish, to break free from the chains of sorrow he had inadvertently wrapped around you.

“Thanks, Yuji. I really appreciate that.” you said, your voice softer, the sincerity in your tone catching his attention. Your face flustered and shy. It was a face Sukuna had never seen from you.

“Hey, you don’t have to thank me. We’re friends, right?” His eyes sparkled with genuine warmth, but beneath that, you could feel a hint of concern lurking. “You know, if something’s bothering you, you can tell me. We’re a team.”

You paused for a moment, the gravity of his words settling over you. Sukuna knew that you wanted to share your fears—he could see it in the way your lips parted but never released a sound, in the slight tremble of your hands as they hovered between reaching out and retreating. It was written all over your face, the tension in your furrowed brow, the flicker of uncertainty in your eyes. Sukuna knew you too well, after all the years you'd lived together. He understood every unspoken word, every hesitation, even when you couldn’t bring yourself to voice your thoughts.

But this time, things were different. You didn’t remember any of it—not the life he had spoken of, not the shared moments he swore existed. The memories he claimed you both cherished were nothing but a void to you, a distant fog where nothing came into focus. Sukuna knew that too. He wasn’t oblivious to the confusion in your expression whenever he spoke of the past you shared. You couldn’t recall the way your lives had intertwined so deeply, and that lack of recollection gnawed at you just as much as it pained him.

And yet, despite your lack of memory, despite the blank slate that your mind had become, Sukuna still knew you. He could sense the turmoil bubbling within you, the words that remained trapped in your throat.

They were right there, on the tip of your tongue, waiting to be released, but fear held you back. What if speaking those fears out loud made them real? What if your confusion, your lack of memories, created a rift between you that couldn’t be mended?

Sukuna’s gaze never wavered from you. His usual harshness softened, if only slightly, as if silently urging you to speak. He understood that what you were facing was beyond your control, but he wanted you to know that he was still there, that he would wait. No matter how long it took for you to find your voice, to trust him again—even if the memories never returned—Sukuna wasn’t going anywhere.

“I… I’m fine, Yu.” you finally replied, forcing a smile. “Just a lot on my mind, you know? Training always helps clear it up.”

“Alright, but I’ll be here if you need me,” he said, his tone earnest, making your heart ache at the kindness in his eyes. “We’ll figure it out together, I promise.”

As you walked alongside him, the weight of Sukuna’s presence felt more like a lingering shadow, a reminder of your complicated reality. That was very much obvious to him. The joy you found in the brat’s company was intoxicating, but it was intertwined with the fear of what Sukuna represented—a darkness that loomed over everything you cherished.

But in that moment, as the brat’s laughter filled the air, you resolved to focus on what you could control. You would embrace the light he brought into your life, even if it meant wrestling with the shadows of the past. For now, you would fight alongside him, a sorcerer in your own right, finding strength in your love for him and the hope that one day, the shadows would fade into something less consuming.

“Okay, enough talking! Let’s go!” Yuji said, breaking you from your thoughts as he took off, racing ahead. You couldn’t help but laugh, the sound spilling out of you, bright and free, as you chased after him, if only for a moment forgetting the weight of the curse that loomed over your life.

You had become a sorcerer not merely to fight curses, but to protect what you had come to cherish. It was a decision that had grown within you over time, shaped by your encounters and the people you had come to love. You weren’t driven by blind heroism or reckless ambition.

No, it was about preserving the bonds that had become precious to you, about standing your ground in a world where curses threatened the very fabric of those connections. But this choice—this path—you had taken wasn’t what Sukuna had ever wanted for you.

Sukuna never believed in foolish ideals like heroism or self-sacrifice. To him, they were weaknesses, things that would only lead you into harm's way. And that was what unsettled him most. He hadn’t fought for you, protected you, only to see you willingly step into danger for others. In your past life, things were different.

He had kept you safe, shielded you from the horrors that roamed the world. Under his watch, you didn't need to lift a finger. You were his to protect, a treasure he wouldn’t allow the world to tarnish.

But now, things had changed, and not in ways he could easily control. A part of him resented the world you had been pulled into—a world filled with curses, death, and peril. He especially resented the boy. Itadori Yuji.

Ryomen Sukuna had watched it happen—watched as Itadori had unknowingly nudged you towards the life of a sorcerer. It wasn’t malicious on Yuji’s part. The boy had only meant to encourage you, to bring out a strength he saw in you. But to Sukuna, that encouragement was nothing more than an invitation to danger. Yuji had no idea what he'd set in motion. And Sukuna couldn’t forgive him for that.

In your past life, Sukuna had made sure you were safe. There had been no need for you to risk yourself in battle or face the horrors of the world head-on. He had taken care of everything. You didn’t need to be strong; you didn’t need to fight. That was his role—to crush anyone who threatened you, to be the shield that protected you from harm. It was his way of keeping you close, of ensuring you never had to suffer.

But now, standing in this new life, all he could do was wonder—how could this brat, this boy, possibly take care of you? How could he, with his limited power and naive ideals, protect you the way Sukuna once had? It infuriated Sukuna to think that Yuji believed he could guide you in this treacherous world, when in reality, he was the one who had exposed you to its dangers in the first place.

Ryomen Sukuna clenched his fists, his thoughts simmering with frustration. You had been safe before, with him. But now, he feared that this world of curses you had chosen—this world where you now stood alongside Yuji and the others—would one day rip you away from him. And Sukuna wasn't sure he could bear that.

Sukuna felt a twisted sense of validation in the aftermath of Shibuya. It had been him—not Yuji, not any of your so-called allies—who had saved your life when everything went to hell. The moment the curses descended, the city had become a chaotic battlefield, one where even the strongest sorcerers struggled to hold their ground. But not him. Not Sukuna.

He had watched it unfold, his sharp gaze tracking the danger closing in on you, and in that split second, everything he had warned against crystallized. The fragility of your humanity, the danger you had willingly embraced—it all came to a head.

You had faced curses far beyond what you should have been dealing with. It was the recklessness, the vulnerability, the need to prove yourself as a sorcerer that had led you to the brink of death. And for what? To protect others? To fight alongside those who weren’t worthy of your devotion?

In that critical moment, when you had been on the verge of being overwhelmed, it wasn’t Yuji or any of the other sorcerers who had come to your aid. It was Sukuna. His power had surged through the chaos, his strength unmatched, obliterating the curse that had dared to lay its hand on you.

He had kept you from being crushed, from the fate that would have surely claimed you had he not intervened. The irony wasn’t lost on him—that in the midst of this world you had chosen, it was still his power that protected you, not the one you had turned to.

Sukuna could almost laugh at how right he had been. Your decision to become a sorcerer, your reliance on others to protect you—it had all crumbled in the face of reality.

In your past life, you had never needed to face this kind of danger, because he had kept you safe. It had been him who ensured your safety, him who made sure the world’s darkness never touched you. And now, in this life, despite everything that had changed, the outcome was still the same: you needed him to survive.

He hated to admit it, but a part of him reveled in the fact that you couldn’t escape his grasp. The boy, Yuji, had tried—tried to pull you into a world where you could stand on your own, where you didn’t need to rely on Ryomen Sukuna’s power.

But Shibuya had proven otherwise. The truth was undeniable: there was no escaping the fact that Sukuna was, and always would be, the one who kept you alive.

His crimson eyes lingered on you as you lay unconscious, the aftermath of the battle leaving you battered and bruised. He crouched beside you, his expression unreadable.

There was no warmth in his gaze, no affection—only a sense of possession. A sense of knowing that you were a part of him. Whether in this life or the last, it didn’t matter. The world could change, your memories could fade, but the fact remained: Sukuna had saved you, and he always would. No one else could protect you the way he could, and in the end, he was the only one who truly understood that.

"You see now, don’t you, little one?" he murmured, his voice low, almost to himself. "No matter how far you run, no matter what life you choose, you’ll always come back to this. To me."

There was a finality in his words, a certainty that rang through the empty streets of Shibuya. In his eyes, this moment only reinforced the bond between you, one forged not out of love, but out of necessity, out of survival. And though you may never remember the life you once shared, Sukuna knew that as long as you walked this path, you would always need him.

And then, in the stillness after the battle, Sukuna froze.

A pulse of cursed energy rippled through the air, faint but unmistakable. It was old, ancient even, yet familiar in a way that twisted something deep inside him. For the first time in a thousand years, Sukuna felt her presence. Hiromi.

Sukuna's mind recoiled from the realization, the pulse of cursed energy stirring something long-buried within him. The sensation clawed at him—ancient, familiar, undeniable.

Hiromi.

His heart, or what remained of it, twisted with an emotion he hadn't felt in centuries. He had thought it impossible.

But there it was, a presence like a faint echo that had finally resurfaced after a thousand years. His eyes narrowed, scanning the distance as if he could pinpoint the exact location of the cursed energy.

Without hesitation, his body moved on instinct, the need to chase after that familiar presence overwhelming him. He didn’t even spare a glance back at you. The urgency consumed him. You’ll be fine, he thought to himself. You were unconscious, battered but alive—safe, for now.

“Uraume.” His voice was cold and commanding, cutting through the still air. Almost immediately, Uraume appeared at his side, their faces calm and collected, as if they anticipated his order even before he had spoken it.

“Sukuna-sama.” Uraume bowed slightly, eyes flicking toward your limp form lying on the ground.

“Take care of them for me.” Sukuna instructed, his tone flat, devoid of emotion. It was an order, not a request. His eyes were already fixed on the horizon, his mind far from the present moment.

Uraume nodded without question. “Understood.”

With that, Sukuna turned his back on you, his form disappearing into the distance with terrifying speed. You were unconscious, vulnerable, but he left you without hesitation. Because even now, after everything, it wasn’t you that occupied his thoughts. Not fully. Not entirely.

As the wind whipped past him, his mind raced, trying to process the flood of emotions that came with sensing Hiromi’s energy after so long. It felt like an eternity since he had last known that presence—familiar yet distant, like a memory from another life. He clenched his fists, the anticipation mounting as he closed in on the source of the cursed energy.

But beneath the rush of adrenaline, Sukuna felt something else, something darker—guilt. It was fleeting, barely noticeable, but it was there, nagging at the edges of his mind. He knew he was a hypocrite.

He had kept you by his side, held you close, and claimed you as part of his world. You had become entangled in his existence, and yet, despite everything, despite the way he protected you, he could never love you. Not in the way you might have wanted. Not in the way that mattered.

Because love had always been reserved for someone else.

Hiromi.

The name echoed in his mind, sharp and clear. Hiromi had been everything to him in a way that transcended time. Even after a thousand years, Sukuna could feel it—that deep, consuming affection that had once tied him to Hiromi like a chain. He didn’t need to question it, didn’t need to doubt. Hiromi was the one he loved, the one he would always love. That had never changed.

And yet, as he chased after the familiar energy, a dark, bitter thought rose in his mind. He had kept you close for so long, but not out of love. It had been care, yes, concern even—but not love. You were valuable to him, a piece of his life that he refused to let the world destroy. But love? No, that was something you would never receive from him. That part of his heart had been taken long ago.

He didn’t regret it. Not for a second.

As he raced toward the source of Hiromi’s energy, Sukuna's lips curled into a slight, dangerous smile.

“Hiromi…” he whispered under his breath, a mixture of longing and hunger in his voice. “After all these years, you still haunt me.”

The urgency in his steps betrayed his growing anticipation, but beneath that, another feeling simmered. A strange unease. Sukuna knew what this meant—what it would mean for him, for you, for everything. He was a hypocrite, and he knew it all too well.

He had spent lifetimes keeping you close, ensuring your safety, binding you to him with his strength. He claimed you as his, possessed you in a way that transcended time and memory. He protected you, watched over you, but love? No, love had never been part of the equation.

Sukuna was no fool. He cared for you, yes. There was a connection, a bond that had grown stronger over time. But it wasn’t love, not in the way most would understand. He knew that. It had always been about control, about ensuring that you remained part of his world, tethered to him by the invisible threads of fate.

You had chosen a path filled with danger, and he had allowed it, begrudgingly, because he didn’t want to lose you. But he did not love you. Not in the way that mattered. Not in the way that consumed him.

That kind of love was reserved for someone else. Hiromi.

The name reverberated in his mind like an old song, the memory of a time long past. Hiromi had been the one he loved, truly loved. The one who had held his heart, back when he had one. The connection between them was something deeper, something far more potent than what he had with you. It was raw and ancient, a passion that transcended lifetimes.

Ryomen Hiromi had been his equal, the one who had understood him in ways no one else ever could. And now, after centuries, Hiromi’s cursed energy was stirring again, calling out to him across time.

Sukuna felt the sharp contrast between what he had with you and what he had once shared with Hiromi. You were his, yes—but in a way that was almost pragmatic, transactional. He cared for you, protected you because you were his responsibility, someone he would never let the world destroy. But it wasn’t the kind of love that set his soul ablaze. Not like Hiromi had.

And that truth didn’t bother him. He didn’t regret it. He didn’t regret holding you close while reserving his deepest, truest love for Hiromi. That was how it was meant to be. You and Hiromi occupied different places in his life, and that was something he had long accepted.

As he sped through the streets of Shibuya, his mind was a storm of thoughts. He knew he was leaving you behind, abandoning you without a second thought to chase the echo of someone he had lost long ago. And yet, he couldn’t stop himself. The pull was too strong, the memory of Hiromi too powerful to resist. You were safe. That’s all that mattered.

But Hiromi… Hiromi was everything.

Sukuna knew, with absolute certainty, that no matter what he had with you, it would never compare to what he had with Hiromi. And he didn’t need it to. He didn’t want it to. He had spent a thousand years in the shadow of that love, and now, with Hiromi’s cursed energy suddenly awakening, all he could think about was reclaiming what had been his—what had always been his.

As Sukuna moved through the city, his chest tightened with anticipation. He was a hypocrite, yes, but he had no regrets. He would protect you, care for you, but the fire that burned within him was for Hiromi alone. You were never meant to hold his heart—not the way Hiromi did. And for that, Sukuna was unapologetic.

This was who he was. This was who he had always been.

Meanwhile, Uraume knelt beside your unconscious form, their expression unreadable as they gently lifted you into their arms. They glanced in the direction Sukuna had disappeared, their lips tightening slightly.

"Always leaving." Uraume muttered quietly, more to themselves than to you. They knew better than anyone what Sukuna was chasing, and why he hadn’t hesitated to leave. "It’s never enough, is it?"

They looked down at you, a strange softness entering their gaze.

"You’re fortunate he cares for you as much as he does." Uraume added quietly, though the words felt hollow. Because they knew, just as you might someday come to realize—Sukuna’s heart belonged to someone else, someone from long ago.

And no one would ever replace that.

HE HAD NOT REMEMBERED WHAT HE THOUGHT THE FIRST TIME HE DIED. But this time around, he did. As Ryomen Sukuna lay on the ground, his once-imposing form crumbling, the weight of his own mortality pressing down on him for the first time in centuries, he felt something stir in the space around him. A soft, familiar presence, like a breeze carrying the scent of a life long forgotten. It was not a presence he had ever felt in a long time.

He opened his eyes, and there you were. Your past self, standing before him as though summoned by the final moments of his life. You were just as he remembered, yet different—there was a lightness in your eyes, a peace he hadn’t seen in so long. And as you approached, there was no anger, no bitterness, no pain. You smiled at him. A gentle, almost wistful smile, as though all the years of cruelty, all the darkness that had passed between you, had never existed.

“Sukuna–sama.” you greeted softly, your voice carrying an odd tenderness, as though you were greeting an old friend.

He stared at you, confused, his chest tight with an unfamiliar emotion. The weight of his sins, the centuries of violence, grief, pain and manipulation—all of it should have driven you away. And yet here you were, standing before him, smiling as if nothing had ever been wrong. As if he had never hurt you. As if you hadn’t hated him for it.

“You’re really here….little one.” Sukuna rasped, his voice rough, but there was a vulnerability in it he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in a thousand years. “After everything...you’re still here?”

You nodded, kneeling down beside him, your gaze soft but resolute. “I’m here, Sukuna–sama. But we both know this is the end, don’t we?”

He grunted, dark scarlet eyes flickering with both amusement and bitterness. “So it seems.” He paused, the weight of what was to come settling in. “And now what? What happens next? You’ve come to watch me die, little one?

You shook your head gently, your expression unchanged. “No. I came to say goodbye.”

A silence stretched between you both, heavy and profound. Ryomen Sukuna’s breath grew more labored, the energy draining from him faster now. His dark eyes never left yours, trying to read you, to understand what this moment meant. You were supposed to go wherever he was, you would follow. Words were wind and yet, your actions — they said other things.

“Goodbye, huh?” he muttered, his lips curling into a smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And what am I supposed to do with that? After everything…after all these years, little one?”

You hesitated, looking down at your hands before meeting his gaze once more. “I need you to let me go, Sukuna–sama.”

Sukuna’s eyes darkened. “Let you go? I’ve kept you for a reason, little one. You’ve been mine for longer than either of us can remember.”

You exhaled softly, shaking your head. “Not anymore. Not this time.I can’t love you like this, Sukuna–sama. Not like I did before. That love—it’s gone.”

His jaw tightened, a spark of anger flashing in his eyes. “And why is that? Because of him? Because of that brat?”

He didn’t need to say the name. You both knew who he meant.

You didn’t flinch. “Yes. I love Yuji now. I had…I had been reborn now, Sukuna–sama. He’s who I’ve chosen. He’s who I am in this life. And I want to be happy, Sukuna–sama. Truly happy.”

Sukuna scoffed, his lips curling into a bitter smile. “Happy, huh? That’s what you want?”

You nodded, your voice soft but firm. “You always said you wanted that for me, didn’t you? You kept me close because you said you wanted me safe. But I don’t want to live like this anymore. I don’t want to be bound to something that doesn’t exist—something that’s only pain and emptiness.”

Sukuna was silent for a long moment, his breath shallow, his eyes narrowing as he stared up at the sky. “So that’s it then? After everything, you’re just going to walk away?” His voice was laced with bitterness, but beneath it, there was something else—a resignation, an understanding that this was inevitable.

You reached out, gently taking his hand. The gesture surprised him, and for the first time in a long time, Sukuna didn’t pull away.

“I want to let you go, Sukuna–sama.” you said softly. “But I need you to let me go too. So we can both be free.”

His eyes flickered with something unspoken, a quiet turmoil that even he didn’t fully understand. For so long, he had kept you tethered to him, not out of love but possession, out of the need to control, to keep you as part of his world. And now, here you were, asking him to release you from the very chains he had forged. Asking to be separated from you, forever.

“You think it’s that easy?” Sukuna whispered, his voice hoarse. “After everything we’ve been through, after all the years…”

“No, no.” you replied gently, a small ghostly smile on your face. “It's not easy. I know that much. But it’s what needs to happen. We’ve both held on for too long. You and I—we’re not meant to be like this anymore.”

Ryomen Sukuna’s eyes searched yours, and for a moment, he saw something he had long since forgotten. The softness, the kindness in your gaze—the person you had once been before all of this. And he knew, deep down, that you were right.

He had kept you close out of fear. Fear of losing the one thing in his life that had ever mattered, the one of the very few people who had ever made him feel something beyond the void of his existence. But you were no longer his, and he was no longer yours. It was never meant to be. He knew that from the beginning.

With a deep, labored breath, Sukuna closed his eyes, his grip on your hand loosening. “Fine, little one.” he rasped. “Go. Be with him. Be happy. It’s what you want, right?”

A tear slipped down your cheek as you smiled at him, the sadness in your eyes mixed with a profound sense of peace. “Thank you, Sukuna–sama.”

For a moment, you both sat in silence, the weight of all those years of history between you. And then, quietly, you leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. He lets the warmth echo through his flesh. He didn’t want you to let go, he didn’t want you to leave him. And yet, he had to let you go.

“Goodbye, Sukuna–sama.” you whispered. “Be free. Choose your path too.”

With that, you stood up, turning away from the man who had once held your heart, leaving him to the twilight of his life. You didn’t look back as you walked away, knowing that this was the end of one chapter, and the beginning of another. You will never find each other again.

Ryomen Sukuna watched you go, his vision fading, a strange mix of regret and relief flooding through him. He had let you go, and in doing so, perhaps, for the first time in his long, twisted life, he had let himself go too.

IT WAS ODD, THIS PLACE. And it was where all souls go. At least that’s what his father used to say to him. Sukuna had not believed it then. But here is the proof. Here is the truth. The path of souls stretched endlessly before him, an ethereal twilight where time held no meaning and silence enveloped the realm.

Ryomen Sukuna’s hand held firmly to Uraume’s own, though Uraume’s presence beside him was faint, as if they too were fading into the beyond. Uraume, after all, was too young to understand it all yet.

And he didn’t want to distress them. His crimson eyes scanned the surreal landscape, not for the first time wondering what came next. Death had always been an abstract concept for someone like him—feared by others, but never himself. Yet here he was, on this path, somewhere between existence and oblivion.

He felt a pull, a presence just ahead, and as they walked, familiar figures began to emerge in the mist. Among them, Mahito lounges carelessly, his usual playful smile twisted with curiosity as he looks over at Sukuna.

“Well, well,” Mahito said with a chuckle, “It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Sukuna?”

Sukuna glanced at Mahito, but his eyes were drawn past him, pulled to a figure he hadn’t expected to see again in this realm. Hiromi.

Hiromi stood a few paces away, her form illuminated by the soft glow of the path. Her presence was calm, unwavering, as though the centuries of separation between them had not dulled the bond that once existed. She smiled at him—a small, knowing smile, one that held both understanding and a quiet challenge.

"It’s been a long time." you said, your voice cutting through the haze of memories that clouded his mind. You had appeared beside Mahito, your eyes softer now than when you last spoke to Sukuna.

It had been a lifetime ago—literally. But here, in the land between worlds, there was no more need for pretense. It had been so long since you both had been truly honest with one another.

Sukuna’s expression softened slightly, though his sharp edges remained. He wasn’t one for sentimentality, and yet, standing here, he felt something stir within him. He inclined his head to you, acknowledging your presence, but his gaze drifted back to Hiromi.

“Hiromi.” he said with a quiet intensity, his voice lower than usual, almost…reverent. Uraume, sensing the moment, quietly stepped back, releasing his hand.

Hiromi stepped forward, her dark eyes locked onto Sukuna’s. She looked just as she had the last time he had seen her, centuries ago. The weight of their shared past hung in the air between them, unspoken but ever-present.

“It’s been too long….Sukuna.” Hiromi said softly, her voice carrying a quiet warmth. She looked at him with that same measured calm, though there was something in her eyes, something that had been left unsaid for far too long.

Sukuna remained silent for a moment, taking in the sight of her. He had never been a man to reflect on his emotions, to consider the consequences of his actions beyond immediate gratification or power. But here, now, on the path of souls, stripped of the pretenses of life, there was a clarity he couldn’t ignore.

“What path will you walk, Sukuna?” Hiromi asked, her voice steady but soft, as though she already knew the answer.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Sukuna smiled—a small, almost imperceptible curve of his lips. It wasn’t the predatory grin he was known for, but something quieter, something…honest.

“A path with you.” he answered, his voice carrying the weight of every century that had passed. There was no hesitation in his words, no mask to hide behind. Here, in this liminal space, he could admit what had always been true. “Even if there will be nothing between us.”

Hiromi’s smile deepened, though her eyes were tinged with something bittersweet. “Even if there’s nothing?”

Sukuna held her gaze, his expression uncharacteristically vulnerable. “I was bound to you the moment I met you. You know that too well, don’t you?”

His words were simple, but they carried the weight of a lifetime—perhaps several lifetimes—of unspoken truths. He had never been one to voice such sentiments, not in life, not when there was always another battle, another conquest, another way to assert his dominance over the world. But here, stripped of all that power, all that ambition, there was only the truth.

Hiromi’s eyes softened, and she reached out, her hand brushing lightly against his. The touch was fleeting, but it was enough. She didn’t need to say anything; the silence between them spoke volumes.

Mahito chuckled softly behind them, amused by the display but wise enough not to interrupt. “So, Sukuna…..” he teased back. “Even a human curse has your attachments, huh?”

Sukuna shot him a glare, but there was no real malice in it. “And what of it?” he muttered, though his usual venom was absent.

Hiromi gave a small laugh, shaking her head at Mahito before returning her attention to Sukuna. “It’s not attachments that hold you down.” she said softly, her eyes reflecting the soft glow of the path around them. “It’s what you choose to carry.”

“And what are you carrying?” Sukuna asked, his voice quieter now, the question more personal than he’d intended.

Hiromi’s eyes held his, the connection between them clear and unbreakable, even in this world of shadows and souls. “Only what I choose. And now, I choose peace.”

She let her hand fall from his, the warmth of the touch lingering between them. The path stretched out before them, infinite and unknown, but somehow, less daunting with her beside him. It was just like back then. When they were together. Happy. At peace.

Sukuna nodded, a rare understanding passing between them. He had been many things in his life—cruel, selfish, a god of calamity—but here, now, there was only one thing that mattered.

“I’ll walk with you then.” he said, his voice firm. He looks at Uraume. “Both of us will.”

Hiromi smiled, the kind of smile that held centuries of history, of pain, of love, and of letting go. “Then let’s walk together.” she said simply.

And for the first time in a thousand years, Ryomen Sukuna felt something other than hunger, other than rage. He felt…whole.

epilogue

You and Yuji were crouched behind a row of bushes, peeking over the top like kids playing hide and seek. Except, instead of hiding from a grumpy neighbor, you were hiding from a low-grade curse that looked like a giant, angry turnip.

"Okay, so what’s the plan?" Yuji whispered, his face way too serious for someone talking about vegetable-based curses.

"I was thinking... you distract it, and I’ll sneak around and exorcise it fully." you replied, glancing at the turnip monster, which seemed to be getting more agitated by the second.

"Alright, alright. I got it." Yuji said with a determined nod. Then, after a beat of silence, he looked back at you, his usual playful grin sneaking onto his face. "You know, we make a pretty good team….They were right to assign us together for missions, hm?”

You chuckled softly, feeling your heart skip a beat despite the fact that this was the least romantic setting possible. "We do, don't we? Not many people can take on turnip monsters with such finesse."

Yuji grinned, then cleared his throat awkwardly. "Hey, uh, while we’re on the topic of being a good team, there's... there's something I’ve been wanting to say."

Your eyes widened a little, curiosity and nervousness stirring in your chest. "What is it?"

"Well, it's just... I like being around you. Genuinely…..It’s….I just….I like…I like spending time with you." Yuji said, rubbing the back of his neck, his cheeks turning a little pink. "Like, a lot. More than just the 'let's-fight-curses-together' way."

Your heart started racing, and you could feel your face getting warm. "I... I feel the same way." you admitted, trying to keep your voice steady even though your insides were doing cartwheels. "I’ve liked you for a while, actually."

Yuji blinked in surprise, then broke into the brightest, most ridiculous smile you’d ever seen. "Wait, really? Do you like me? Like, like me?"

You nodded, biting back a grin. "Yeah, I like you. A lot."

For a moment, the two of you just stared at each other, grinning like idiots, the turnip curse temporarily forgotten. Laughter echoes from Yuji and then you, and all at once, there was some harmony. The peace that you both had been craving to have. The joy that comes with being together.

"Man, I should’ve told you sooner!" Yuji said, looking like he was about to burst with happiness. "We could’ve been doing all this curse-fighting and dating at the same time!"

You laughed, your nerves fading as the warmth of the moment settled over you. "Better late than never, right?"

Yuji nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! And now that we’ve got that out of the way, I say we finish off this turnip monster and then—"

Suddenly, the turnip curse let out a loud, disgruntled roar, reminding you both that, yes, you were still on a mission.

"Right, curse first, dating later," Yuji said quickly, scrambling to his feet. "Let’s do this!"

In a blur of movement, Yuji launched himself at the turnip, giving you the perfect opening to come around the side. With a swift, precise strike, you exorcised the curse, watching it dissolve into nothing.

Yuji jogged back over to you, grinning. "See? Told you we’re a good team."

You smiled back, feeling a rush of affection for him. "Yeah, we are. And from now on, we’ll be a good team together—on missions and in life."

Yuji’s smile softened, his brown eyes locking with yours in a way that made your heart flutter. "I like the sound of that," he said, his voice a little quieter but full of warmth.

You reached out, taking his hand in yours. "Come what may, right?"

"Right." Yuji agreed, squeezing your hand gently. "No matter what happens, I want to be by your side. Happy. Together."

And with that, the two of you stood there, hand in hand, as the remnants of the curse faded into the wind, feeling lighter than ever—ready to face whatever came next, as long as it was together.

439 notes · View notes

bunnyhugs77 · 11 months ago

Text

Daddy Daycare

Pairing: Technician! Jungkook x Teacher's Assistant! Reader

Word Count: 7k

Part: 1, 2, 3

Series Content: daycare au, suggestive themes, love at first sight? dilf jk, mentions of antidepressants, mint jk and blonde jk, jk cant sleep, sexual themes, he's so whipped, toxic ex, minor baby mama drama, gold diggers, mentions of death, complicated family history, cute kid cameos, reader can't drive, jk is good with his hands, mentions of abusive relationships, so much fluff.

Other Series Content: soft dom! jk, muscle kink, pussy puts his ass to sleep, unprotected sex (just don't), oral sex (f! and m! receiving), brief choking, minor breeding kink, hickeys, brief dom! reader, reader makes him wait, intimate cuddling, praise.

"Ready for a new year, Y/n?"

Your nose was filled with the smell of fresh paint and scotch tape as you and your co-worker Vanessa who goes by Ms. Powell when the class is swarming with bright and bustling four-year-old's.

The loud sound of ripping tape rang through your ears as you pasted the pieces onto the back of the welcome sign. The sun was hardly out as the two of you arranged to arrive at your new classroom bright and early at 5 am to finish off the decorations for the classroom.

"I can't believe the summer is finished already." You say with a rejuvenated smile. "I can only imagine how fast the time flies when you're travelling Europe." She reminds you of your two-week-long travels across the south of Europe.

Standing to your feet for what feels like the first time ever after hours of crouching and kneeling to finish up the decorations. "I think that's the last of it," with a puff of air and a pair of hands on your hips you smile to yourself, satisfied with the lively environment the two of you managed to create.

"I think we're ready," Vanessa says, cracking open a fresh whiteboard marker to sign your names on the board in a warm welcome.

With a quick glance down to your watch. "-and just in time too,".

The sun had peaked over the horizon no more than thirty minutes ago which means that theatrical parents would be rolling in any minute now to send off their kids to what could possibly be their first day away from them.

You both took the last few minutes to run down the hall and get changed, making sure you both looked ready to take on 22 pre-schoolers. Although you weren't the head teacher, you still had just as much of a responsibility as Vanessa did and it wasn't always easy.

The scar on your upper arm which was victim to the shark-like teeth of an ambitious little boy last year can attest to that.

You smiled warmly to some parents who passed by you in the halls on your way back to the classroom. Some familiar faces, some new, although based on the direction they were walking, they weren't any kids in your class.

By the time you returned to yours, there were already two parents bidding their farewells with their energetic offspring who were already reaching for the crayons you'd left on each table.

You slowly made your way to the front with Vanessa as the two of you prepared to introduce yourselves to the large crowd of parents and students that situated themselves around the room.

The energy was high, you could practically feel some of the anxiety and excitement from the crowd.

"Hello everyone!" Vanessa starts, clasping her hands together, "On behalf of Sunshine Circles Daycare, we want to give you all a warm welcome to our class."

Vanessa introduces herself professionally before briefly gesturing to you, cueing your smile, "And this is Ms. Hill, she will be assisting both me and the students around the classroom. I wouldn't be able to do this without her." You nod along, preparing yourself to speak.

"Yes, so if ever Ms. Powell is unavailable, don't be afraid to share any questions or concerns with me that you have about the class or your child." Out of sight, somewhere in the crowd a pair shuffled through the large group of bodies and made their way to the front.

"We're looking forward to-" You paused, your eyes meeting the eyes of the man who just emerged from the crowd while holding the small hand of who you presumed was his son, he looked a little younger than the rest of the parents, and significantly buffer if you must add.

You could see peaks of his soft blue hair sticking out from underneath his black beanie that matched his black wife beater. He flashes you a coy smile, so innocent and handsome to the point he'd made you forget your train of thought and completely forget what you were in the middle of saying.

"I think what Ms. Hill was about to say was that we're looking forward to having a wonderful year full of learning and fun." Vanessa fills in your blanks and all you could utter was a small 'mhm!'.

With that said, the parents that'd been here since the very beginning had naturally begun to take their leave, not without a tight hug and reassuring kiss to their child's forehead of course.

"Sorry we're late," You turn around, and it's as if the air was sucked out of your lungs. The man was even more stunning up close, but that was something you vowed you would never acknowledge again. He's the guardian of one of your students, it would be unprofessional.

"That's no problem at all, life happens," you chirp, almost too happily. "Isn't that the truth, Ryan here couldn't seem to find his favourite shoes and refused to wear anything but." The man smiles, and wow, even his smile was attractive.

If you thought his smile was contagious you just couldn't stop yourself from beaming when you finally looked down to meet Ryan's big grin. "Look! It's lightning McQueen!" He shouts, stomping his feet at one hundred miles a minute, the base of his sneakers flashing red and white as he does so.

"Your shoes are awesome! I wish mine could do that." You return his big energy with a bit of a softer tone, oblivious to the way the man is watching you intently. All of a sudden Ryan was hopping up and down, tugging on his dad's arm, "Can I colour?!" He points to the table full of markers and blank papers.

"Well, you're going to have to ask Ms. Hill first, okay buddy?" The man looks at you with a damn near glow in his gaze, "Of course it's okay. Use as many colours as you'd like." Before you could even finish your sentence, Ryan was long gone, only the flashes of his sneakers were proof that he hadn't teleported.

"Have you been teaching here long?" He asks, prompting you to shake your head. "This is actually only my second year teaching here," subconsciously his plump bottom lip found itself victim between his teeth. "Ah," he sighs.

There was a brief pause in your conversation. As if it were planned, both of your gazes dropped down to analyze the other's left hand, looking for any signs of that metallic band wrapped around the ring finger.

Seems like you were both in the clear, for now.

Your conversation resumed as if the ring inspection never even happened and soon the both of you were finally making introductions. "The kids call me Ms. Hill, but you're more than welcome to call me Y/n." That lip ring was taunting you as it sat so comfortably in his plush pink lips that stretched into a soft smile.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Y/n, I'm Jungkook."

"Goddamn it." You mutter. Giving the projector another hard hit in the back as it flickered and failed to turn on. It had been giving you a hard time all week.

You're at least grateful it let you have a successful first week of the year but now it was acting up more than ever. Kids would be coming any minute and Vanessa was stuck in traffic, so you would somehow need to find a way to fix this and supervise all before--

"Good morning Ms. Hill," Never mind you think, giving the projector one last frustrated tap. Disregarding it as if it never happened and focusing on Jungkook and Ryan who just walked in.

Ryan shouts a cheery good morning of his own before getting his hands on the toy car he's grown fond of over the last week. Unspokenly declaring it as his own.

"I couldn't help but notice.. and hear your frustrations with the projector from down the hall. Something wrong?" He takes two confident strides towards the equipment with you trailing along.

"Yeah, it's been breaking down all week. I was hoping to show the kids a video today, but it seems I may have to improvise." He didn't respond with anything more than his warm smile as he laid his hand down on the top of the projector giving it a once over.

His brows furrow ever so slightly before he lets out a little laugh.

"What's so funny?" your arms cross instinctively, eyes never leaving his lean frame as he practically struts over to the outlet and properly plugs in the cord, the graphics now displaying perfectly on the screen.

"In all of my years working in tech, that may have been one of the hardest cases to solve." He teases and you subconsciously let your tongue poke the inside of your cheek, failing to hide an embarrassed smile.

You waved to the parents who were dropping off more students, "If you ever have any more technical issues, I'd be happy to help." He reaches into his back pocket and places one of his business cards in your hand. "I will, thank you."

You shook off whatever the hell it was that was bubbling in your stomach, and reminded yourself things were strictly professional and he was only offering to be nice, nothing more.

The weeks were flying by without you realizing it until Thanksgiving was mere weeks around the corner. Which meant today was show and tell. Vanessa instructed everyone to sit on the carpet in a big circle.

Yesterday you reminded parents to help their child to find something they loved at home so they could bring it to show and tell.

"Thanksgiving is a special day of the year where we-" Vanessa was in the middle of explaining from where she sat crisscrossed on the carpet in the circle while you picked up the abandoned crayons and papers on the desk.

"Eat lots of food," cute giggles filled the room from Carly's outburst. "Yes, that's right. We eat lots of food on Thanksgiving and it's a day to be grateful for everything you have. Can anyone tell me what it means to be grateful for something?"

The class had never been so quiet, full of scrunched brows and blank stares. "It means to be happy with what you have. How many of you have toys at home?" Almost all hands shot up at once, you were afraid someone would lose an eye.

"Do you like your toys,? The room filled with lots of loud and affirmative responses, "To be grateful for something like your toys means showing them extra love and saying thank you to your parents who bought them."

By the time you'd finished cleaning up and joined the circle, they were about halfway through the circle for show and tell, everyone getting a chance to say what they brought and why they loved it along with passing it around the circle.

"Thank you for sharing Ms. Cuddlepuff with us Riley."

"Ryan, what did you bring?" He practically lights up when his turn finally comes around. He introduced his favourite blue race car, and described it as fast and shiny, even holding it while he spun the wheels for us.

"What an amazing car! Do you want to pass it around?" He shakes his head. You tried to be gentle understanding why he wouldn't want to share, "Don't you want your friends to be able to see your amazing car too?" He shakes his head, hugging his toy close to his chest and scooting further back, removing himself from the circle.

"Ryan-" Vanessa tries to reason but he starts to yell, "I don't want to share! It's mine!" He stomps his feet, the lights on his shoes flashing red, a similar shade to his furious expression.

You looked over to Vanessa, the both of you deciding you weren't going to fight him on it.

"Okay Jamie, what did you bring today?" He shakes his head as if he is mimicking Ryan's behaviour. "I don't want to share either."

Oh boy.

Finding a way to get the rest of the class to share their objects had taken all of your willpower and the rest of the day, right until parents were walking in, ready for pick up.

"Hey," You smile as you watched Jungkook walk in wearing his typical white collared shirt with the top button open giving you only the slightest peak of the silver chain beneath that sat atop his honey-kissed skin--

"Daddy!" Ryan squeaked, running off to grab his coat and shoes.

"How was he today?" You tried to hide your regret but he noticed it, no matter how fast it flashed across your features. "What is it?" His voice was soft, welcoming any feedback.

"He had a bit of a hard time sharing during the show and tell. He didn't want his classmates to touch his car, which I understand but we try to encourage the students to be kind and share." Your heart was pounding, you always hated these kinds of talks.

You felt that it was just criticism, but in reality, it was just one rainy in comparison to one hundred sunny ones. Jungkook exhaled heavily. "I don't know what is with him and this car, he won't even let me hold it."

As if on cue, Ryan comes running back to his father with his jacket on and car in hand. His dad ruffles his hair playfully while the boy wraps his arms around his father's legs.

"I'm sorry about what happened. We're working on it, I promise." Nothing but sincerity rolled off his tongue as he looked down at the child who clung to his jeans.

"Come on buddy, let's go. Say bye to Ms. Hill."

"Bye, Ms. Hill!" He waves back to you before walking out the door.

As the clock rolled closer the 4:30, all the kids had gone home and it was just you and Vanessa going through the schedules for tomorrow.

"So how long are you gonna keep flirting with Ryan's dad." maybe you'd put on too much lotion earlier, it was pure coincidence that your pencil had immediately fallen from your hand.

She laughs as if something were hilarious. "I am so not flirting with him." She rolls her eyes, "Oh please, I have never seen you spend nearly half as much time talking to the other parents as much as you talk to him. Not to mention the hearts in your eyes."

You let your head fall into your hands out of sheer embarrassment, "I don't know what to do!" You almost shriek into your sweaty palms.

"A word of advice, save yourself the trouble and don't get involved. I don't believe that he's married but that doesn't mean there are no strings attached either. Believe me, I've been there, things can get messy and it's just not something you want."

Vanessa was bout seven years older than you, somewhere around 32 so you always took her advice to heart. "But didn't you end up marrying them, and then have two children?" She goes silent. "Yeah, well life is unpredictable."

You groan, letting your body fall back onto the carpet.

"Attention passengers, This is your driver speaking. I regret to inform you that we are currently experiencing a mechanical issue, and the bus has broken down. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

Your head rolled back and hit the wall behind you. This is fantastic. It was supposed to be a great day today. It's Friday today. Specifically the last day before your three-day long weekend before the long weekend with Thanksgiving falling on the Monday.

You checked the time, 7:45. You should be there in 10 minutes, and honestly, you considered getting off the bus and walking but there were about 4 inches of freshly fallen snow from last night covering the city and it was far too cold to embark on such a journey at this time of day.

You wouldn't be there until 9 at the earliest.

Meanwhile,

"Have a great day Ryno. Daddy loves you." Jungkook places a quick peck on Ryan's forehead watching him join his friends. He couldn't help himself from scanning the class for you, wondering where you were.

In the meantime he approached Vanessa, handing her a small gift box. "I know Ryan has such a big personality, so here's a little something to help you get through the day." He smiles, "Happy Thanksgiving."

She was shocked to be receiving a gift for Thanksgiving, she usually only expected them around the holidays. It was a $50 gift card to her favourite coffee shop, she has their signature cup of coffee on her desk every morning. "Thank you, Mr. Jeon, this is incredibly thoughtful, and Ryan is such a delight to teach."

"I also have something for Ms. Hill, but I haven't seen her. Is she away today?" Vanessa's brows scrunched, realizing that you would usually be there by now. Her phone begins to ring, "Oh- This is her calling now." Jungkook didn't know whether to stay and listen but he couldn't bring himself to walk away.

"Your bus broke down? Where?"

"East of Park Avenue? That's 30 minutes away." Jungkook's brain was doing summersaults around a mental map he was programming in his head trying to locate where you were based on the information he was hearing.

The conversation continued for a minute more until it ended with Vanessa reminding you to 'stay warm'. "God, that's terrible. It's freezing outside." Jungkook frets and Vanessa manages to contain her thoughts from expressing themselves on her face, suppressing the smirk and opting for a head nod instead.

No less than 5 minutes had passed when Jungkook found himself behind the wheel driving towards your location. The minutes passed like seconds when he spotted the bus sitting on the side of the road.

Parking right behind it, he stepped out of the car and walked along the sides of it trying to spot you, but you saw him first. At first, you couldn't believe it but once you saw that ring tucked into his bottom lip, all doubts were gone.

You grabbed your bag and stepped off the bus, meeting him there at the steps. Looking down at him as the snow gently fell on his beanie, neither of you spoke. Your eyes seemed to be doing all the talking.

"Er-hem." Someone cleared their throat behind you, letting you know that they also wanted to get off and you were blocking the way. Apologizing you stepped off and to the side.

"What are you doing here?"

"I heard about what had happened and I couldn't stand there and do nothing. It's freezing out here." You could hardly look at him, he was just too cute, his nose and cheeks were beginning to turn a little rosy from the cold breeze that swept the snow across the sky.

"You came all this way just to give me a ride?" There were puffs of condensation with every breath and he nodded slowly, a little afraid he was coming off as a creep. "Y-yeah, I hope that's alright with you."

"That's perfectly fine with me, let's go before I lose feeling in my fingers for good." he snickers as you practically run towards the car that he'd unlocked.

You were so relieved to be sitting in a warm car with heated seats.

It was no time before Jungkook pulled out and began the careful drive back to the daycare.

The silence was comfortable and it gave you time to focus on regaining feelings in your limbs.

"I never knew that you took the bus," Jungkook starts, turning your face away from the flurries that fall outside the window and landing on the side of his face as he feigns concentration on the road.

"It's my only option since I don't drive," Jungkook's jaw fell open. He tried to catch it in time but it was too late, "Yeah yeah I know. I'm 25 and I don't drive." He takes advantage of the red light to face you, "There's no shame in that. I didn't mean to come off as judgy I was just surprised."

"No, I know. I'm not mad, I'm actually used to it. " The silence resumes, "Is there a reason why you don't drive?" He immediately regretted asking, he felt like he was prying and didn't want to make you uncomfortable. You were already in his car for god's sake.

"You don't have to-"

"I was 19."

Never mind, he thinks. You seemed more than ready to share.

"I was coming home from school, I had just finished my first exam of many, the roads were dark and I was tired. I thought I saw something run across the street but I told myself I was seeing things. Suddenly there was a thud. My car rocked over and over again, so finally, I stopped. I got out and I was terrified to see the trail of blood that ran behind my wheel. There was a black cat that got caught on my tires and kept getting dragged and rolled around for 20 yards."

Jungkook's hand had somehow found its way cupped over his mouth throughout your story, nothing could have prepared him for a story like that.

"I'm a monster. I know. I've never driven since that day. It's best for the world If I simply don't drive." Now resuming his driving, he took one hand off the wheel to place on your shoulder. "Don't talk like that. You're not a monster. It's not your fault. It's not like you did it on purpose. I'm sure the cat forgives you."

You shake your head, "It doesn't change what I did."

Somehow the conversation had taken a brighter turn to the long weekend. "What are your plans for the weekend?" You ask him as he turns into the parking lot of the daycare.

"Same as always, Ryan and I will probably watch movies, cook and do some crafts." Your heart warmed at the engaged weekend he had ahead of him. "That sounds so sweet. I'm sure you guys have loads of fun." He nods, "How about you?"

You laugh sadly, "My parents decided to ditch the cold weather this year and headed to Florida a few weeks ago, so I'll be thankful for wool socks and gossip girl." he laughs.

"You know, It'd be a shame to spend the holidays on your own. You're more than welcome to join our festivities." you looked out the window, not in disinterest but so that he couldn't see the way your cheeks tinted pink.

He parks, "No I wouldn't want to impose on-"

"I insist. You wouldn't be doing anything of the sort. it would be nice to have you." You smile. "Okay, I'll be there,"

The hours flew by faster than you could even realize. Practically startled to see a parent walking into the classroom ready to pick up their child, and just like that, the day was over.

There were no more than a handful of kids left, but no more than the usual 5 or 6 whose parents had signed them up for aftercare due to their schedules, including Ryan who you just watched offer his crayons to his classmate Lia.

Vanessa was quick to acknowledge his kindness and gave him a sticker, you would have loved to have been part of the moment but unfortunately, you were just pulled into the hall by another teacher being asked to supervise another class while she used the bathroom.

By the time you returned, you saw Jungkook and Ryan packing up the last of their things getting ready to go, but he seemed almost relieved to see you.

"I never got the chance to give this to you earlier this morning," He hands you a small bag. You were stunned at what was inside. "In the spirit of thanksgiving, I wanted to show you my gratitude." He smiles.

You pry the bag open delicately moving over the tissue paper to see a hardcover novel. You knew the cover anywhere. "I've been trying to get my hands on this book for months! It's been sold out everywhere how did you get it?"

A sly grin slowly works its way across his features but he doesn't say. "How did you even know I wanted this?" You were trying your best to resist the urge to hug him. "I'd only seen you with the previous book laying on your desk wide open a dozen times, and all the sticky notes you'd have sticking out. It was a lucky guess that you were a fan of the series."

Stunned to silence, you let your smile speak for itself. "I love it. Thank you so much." His hand raises to his chest as a sign of relief but it is actually him trying to calm his racing heart. He was afraid you wouldn't like it; but what was there not to like?

How couldn't you like it?

Why couldn't you find anything you liked? Nearly half your closet was on your bed, quickly falling to the floor over time as you searched high and low for something to wear. This would be the first time Jungkook would see you outside of your workloads so you wanted to look good, but not too good of course.

You didn't want to seem like you were trying too hard. Being effortlessly flawless was the look you were trying to go for but you fear you've passed that point as you started to break a sweat a few minutes ago.

Unsure of how much time has passed, feeling stuck in the endless fashion time warp continuum. The pit in your stomach suddenly grew three times larger once you'd realized you had no more than 30 minutes to get ready if you wanted to catch your bus.

Begrudgingly, you finally picked something to wear. A minimalistic brown crew neck with your black Lulu leggings and beige wool socks that would match perfectly with your Uggs. You wanted to look cute but still put together, so you decided to slick your hair up into a neat bun.

Scrambling to grab your bag and your house keys before you paced your way down the street to the bus stop.

Watching the apartment buildings slowly become more narrow and shorter as you saw more and more modern condos. Only 20 minutes had passed on your commute until it was time to begin your 7-minute walk to your destination.

With one last sneak peek into your bag to make sure the desserts you'd brought were still in order and weren't dishevelled at some point during your journey.

Looking back up to the door, ringing the bell and waiting no more than 10 seconds before an over-eager Ryan swung the door open, out of sight but not out of earshot, you could still hear Jungkook's sweet voice scolding his son.

"Ryan, what did I tell you about opening the door?" Finally, he comes into sight from around a bend inside revealing an entirely new Jungkook.

He looked, good. Better than good. He looked hot.

Wearing an army green Essentials hoodie paired with beige cargos and a silver chain that hung around his neck.

Oh, and his hair was blonde.

Surprised that your eyes hadn't fallen out of their sockets at the sight of his freshly bleached locks with his naturally dark roots. God, he was so fine.

"Hey! Come in, come in. " He steps to the side and Ryan is gently nudged over by his dad's leg to make room for you and your things as you step inside.

Your senses are immediately welcomed by the scent of mahogany, carefully chosen as it mingles with the comforting aromas of a Thanksgiving feast in the making.

"Hi, Ms. Hill!" Ryan shouts, loud enough for you to hear from 50 feet away. He was just the cutest, "Hi, Ryan!"

Jungkook smiled, "I'm glad you could make it," instinctively reaching out to take the bag from your hands so you could focus on taking off your shoes and jacket. "I brought this for you guys." You say, prompting Jungkook to peek into the bad, grinning at the sight of the mini chocolate cupcakes.

"I can't guarantee these will make it to tomorrow."

Once your boots were off and sat neatly near the door, Jungkook offered to take your jacket from you, entrusting Ryan with the duty of holding the bag with the desserts and sending him off to place them somewhere in the kitchen.

"Your hair." You finally say, giving your neck a minor strain as you look up to the man as he leads you further into the house. Everything was styled so neatly.

The colour palette consists of soft whites and beige with a splash of greens and turquoise. The fireplace was lit, emanating a gentle warmth throughout the open concept. It gave the living room a cozy feel along with the brown fleece throw blanket that was placed carefully over his sectional couch.

"Yeah, I got pretty sick of the blue, I thought it was time for a change." With a mind of their own, his hands run through his hair before he gives it a shake. "Do you like it?" He knew the answer, you're sure he did.

It's like a demi-god asking if they were attractive, the answer was obvious. "It would be a lie if I said I didn't." You leaned onto the kitchen island, your line of sight landing on the four-year-old who busied himself with the pile of crayons and paper on the carpet.

You hated how easily the two of you fell into natural conversation almost forgetting that it was Thanksgiving if it weren't for the sudden waft of a delicious meal in the making hitting your nose. "Something smells delicious." Your nose twitched cutely as you sniffed; your curious brown eyes watching Jungkook as he rounded the island closer to you to check on the food in the oven.

"Hmmm... It'll be about another hour or so, I hope that's alright?" You'd decided to finally plant yourself down somewhere, inwardly unable to decide where since there were so many options, the big comfy couch, the table or the barstool chair that you finally decided to go with.

"In the meantime, do you want anything to drink? I have water, champagne, white wine, red wine, apple cider, coffee, milk- oh! and Apple juice." you can't help but giggle into your hand as he lists off what seems to be a never-ending list of beverages.

"Apple juice is fine, thanks." Or at least you thought it was the safe choice until you heard a loud objection bubble out of Ryan's throat. His voice was absolutely enraged. "No! That's mine!" His little steps quicken over to your feet, reaching for the juice box from your hand.

"Ryan. What did I tell you about sharing?" He doesn't listen, his face becoming more and more frustrated the longer he goes without your (his) juice box in his hands. His small hands reach out for you.

One could blame it on your background of teaching when you had an idea. Reaching for the child-sized cup on the counter as you popped open the juice box.

"Is it okay if we share it? You can have some and I can have some." He still didn't seem entirely convinced but he calmed down a little watching you squeeze half of the box into his cup before handing it down to him.

Holding the cup securely with his two hands he looks down into the cup with an inquisitive look, as if questioning your motives behind your generosity. "What do you say to Ms. Hill for being so nice and sharing?" He looks up at you, with no emotion on his face for an uncomforting amount of time, scanning you.

"Thank you, Ms. Hill!" He beams with a big smile and scuttles back to his drawing station, but Jungkook can't risk the little adventurer ruining his carpet and orders him to drink it in the kitchen. At least that way any spills can be wiped away from the tile.

Jungkook couldn't get over how patient you were, but he supposed it to be expected. You worked with dozens of kids every day for a living. You must be a saint. He's sure he would've lost it.

Jungkook groans, letting his head fall onto his arms as he leans onto the counter with a long sigh, one that lifts a bit of exhaustion from within him. "Everything alright?"

He nods, "'Jus' never thought being a single father would be this difficult. Every day it's eat sleep work repeat, on top of being a dad to a child who just can't seem to share with others, and it makes me wonder if it's my fault."

Maybe it was the hazy scented candles getting to your brain, the toasty fireplace nearby giving you warm fuzzies or maybe the apple juice had a little kick to it but you took a leap of boldness to place your hand on his shoulder.

Watching his eyes trail from your short manicured nails to your big brown eyes that looked at him with the utmost sincerity. Like a pool chocolate kindness. "He's a great kid, Jungkook. Every child goes through a rebellious stage at some point, it's practically inevitable. I've seen this over a thousand times, it doesn't take away from how special he is, just look at him."

The two of you observe the preschooler as he hums the tune to an incomprehensible song with his tongue slightly poking out as he coloured his papers passionately. "Thank you, Y/n." Your head whips around at the warm contact of his hand on yours, it didn't feel alarming at all, it was nice if anything.

"Wow. I don't think I could eat another bite, that may just be the best meal I've ever had." You groan, a limp hand on your stomach as you lean back in your chair, sitting across from Ryan whose placemat was covered in various foods and sauces that he was told to stop playing with half through dinner.

Jungkook grins from ear to ear, "Thanks, it's nice to hear." You sigh, "No seriously, where did you learn to cook like that? And more importantly, when can you teach me?" His head falls back as he laughs right from his chest. You couldn't help but think how much you were enjoying yourself.

"Funny you should say that," Jungkook picks up the empty plates from the table, putting them in the sink before walking out of view briefly leaving you with Ryan who stared at you with a grin.

"Where did your dad go?" His smile grew even wider if possible before bringing his gravy-covered index finger to his lips making a 'shush' noise. No more than 5 seconds passed before Jungkook returned with a pumpkin about the size of your head.

"Who wants to make pumpkin pie?" You laugh, unable to take him seriously.

"No I can't Jungkook- NO!" You shout, afraid you'd collapse from the lack of oxygen that was reaching your lungs from so much laughter as Jungkook was currently holding your hand trying to get you to scoop out some of the pumpkin seeds.

"You can do it, Ms. Hill!" Ryan cheers you on as your fingers make contact with the guts against your will. They were slimy, and soft, and triggered your sensory issues in every way imaginable. You gagged while Ryan laughed until his face was red.

Scooping out the last of them and placing them into the bag that Jungkook would dump into the compost later.

The three of you popped the pumpkin pie into the oven together and transitioned into your next set of activities. Soon the three of you made your own custom turkeys out of construction paper and googly eyes.

Which led you to now. The three of you snuggled up under the big brown blanket that was once just decoration but now provided warmth along with the crackling fireplace.

Now halfway into the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie, you looked into your side where Ryan had nestled himself comfortably, soft snores leaving his mouth with each breath.

"He's just the cutest." You say, moving one of his hairs out of his face, watching him while Jungkook watched you. Nothing is more appealing to him than watching you care for Ryan. "When did you know you wanted to start working with kids?" Jungkook asks, prompting you to think endlessly but you couldn't come to a conclusion.

"I don't know honestly. Maybe it's because I grew up in a pretty big family. Even though my immediate family is just me and my parents I was always the unspoken babysitter at family events, watching over all my younger cousins all the time."

"Well if no one has told you, let me be the first to say you're amazing." You turn to him, it was long past sunset, leaving the living room with a darker ambiance than when you'd first arrived but the warm glow of the flames on the side of Jungkook's face paired with that look in his eyes tempting you.

He leaned in ever so slightly but you looked towards the boy that was stirring uncomfortably in his sleep as if you were bothering him. With his still closed he flipped around to lay his head on the couch cushions instead.

It was impossible to contain your soft giggles at his sass even when he was sleeping. "You want something to drink?" Jungkook offers, "Please." you chuckle, unravelling yourself from the tangle of blankets and following him to the kitchen.

He poured you both a glass of wine, resuming your previous conversation from where you stood in the corner of the kitchen against the counter near the oven that radiated a glorious smell of pumpkin spice and cinnamon.

The tension could be cut with a knife. The way the two of you were looking at each other, practically stripping the other down with your eyes. Before you knew it, Jungkook was leaning into you and this time you definitely could blame it on the wine.

Placing your glass down on the counter behind you without thought and pulling his face to yours before finally pressing your lips against his own. Putting your heart into it before he pulled away, looking minorly dishevelled and flustered, "I-I was just reaching for my phone," He points weakly, his joints feeling as though they could fail him any second.

Your head rotates in horror to see his phone was in fact behind you and buzzing-- "Oh my god--" You held your red face in utter embarrassment, turning to walk away from him in shame but Jungkook would never allow that. Instantly grabbing you by the arm and pulling you back into him.

Your hips pressed flush against each other as he initiated a deep kiss, the kind you see at the end of a romance movie, nothing but passion and pent-up feelings. Feelings that he's held for you since the day he saw you.

He backed you up into the counter, your hands scrambling to brace yourself on his firm chest and he groaned softly into your mouth causing your knees to go weak. The kiss lasted longer than you thought you could hold your breath for, never wanting it to end.

"Wow-" you puff out a breath of air after the best kiss of your life. "A great cook and an even better kisser-- What can't you do?" For the first time, Jungkook's cheeks tint a rosy shade of pink but there's no time to respond as he hears Ryan complain.

"Daddy, I'm tired." You see his little head pop up from behind the couch with a bedhead of hair as he rubs his eye. "Yeah? You wanna get ready for bed little man? Come on let's go." Jungkook urges, turning to you with apologetic eyes, "I'll be right back, keep an eye on the pie for me?" You smile and nod.

Watching him disappear down the hall almost in a trace. A trance that was interrupted by the ceaseless buzzing of his phone. Buzz after Buzz after Buzz.

You shouldn't.

But the buzzing wouldn't stop.

What if it was an emergency?

You peeked at the screen.

Hana

-Where are you?

-I can't stop thinking about our night together.

-Pick up, I want to talk to you.

-When will I see you again? :(

Your stomach twisted, and you were certain it wasn't because of the wine. The oven timer goes off. How comedic. You shake it off, using the oven mitts to place the pie on the stove but ultimately deciding you wouldn't be able to stay any longer.

You didn't want to be the other woman, or the 'main' woman for that matter. You wanted nothing to do with someone who was possibly seeing two people at once.

Quietly you grabbed your things and made your way towards the door. Slipping into your Uggs and slinging your side bag over your shoulder when Jungkook sees you about to leave.

"Wait, Y/n. Where are you going? What's wrong?" Nothing but concern and confusion was written all over his face.

"I had a really great time tonight, Jungkook, Thank you. But I should really get going." Already twisting the door open and stepping through it, letting the frosty air nip at your cheeks and sweep by Jungkook's feet.

"it's dark and it's freezing outside, let me give you a ride." You object, "It's fine, it's only a 15-minute bus. I'll be fine. I'll see you tomorrow."

Like a whirlwind, you spun his world around and by the time he blinked you were gone.

Thanks for Reading!!

Let me know if you wanted to be added to the taglist <3

#jungkook smut #bts #jungkook #bts jungkook #jungkook fic recs #jeon jungkook #jungkook ff #bts one shot #jungkook x reader #btssmuts

2K notes · View notes

netherfeildren · 6 months ago

Text

FABLE OF THE DOG : 1. The Two Headed Calf

Series Masterlist;

Pairing: Joel Miller x FMC

Summary: Welcome home and buck up, cowgirl.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Cowboy/Heiress AU; Slowburn(ish); Original Characters; Alcohol & Drug Use; Discussions of Grief; Daddy Issues; Graphic Descriptions of Vomiting; Description of a Dead Body; Death of a Parent; Parental Neglect; Older Man/Younger Woman; Jealousy; Past Teenage Crush; Unrequited Pinning; Yearning and Longing Galore; Boss’s Daughter; Complicated Family Relationships; A Home is a Place but ALSO a Person!; Found Family

A/N: Disclaimer, I know nothing about Wyoming and it’s geography, ranching, or being a cowboy and just made all this up. Any and all misrepresentations are fallacy of my laziness.

The FMC tag was decided because she has a last name. It was just too difficult for me to speak in depth about her father without giving him a name, and thus her one too. After that decision was made, she kind of went away from me and devolved into her own person who I have come to be quite obsessed with. It’s still written in ‘you’ format, anyhow.

I’ve been having a whole lot of fun with this, I hope you do too.

Word Count: 10K

Read on AO3

1: The Two Headed Calf

“She’s been shut up in that house goin’ on three days now, Joel,” Tommy says as the two brothers make their way across the lawn.

The ride had been long and hard, and Joel is tired—he levels a dark look at him. “Just sayin’. Nothin’ you find in there’s gonna be pretty to look at.” He raises his hands in surrender at the brooding glare, that non-confrontational shrug that’s set Joel on edge since they were boys.

“One of you’s should’a gone in there. Made sure she’s okay.”

“The housekeepers’ve been keepin’ an eye. And Frank tried to go in there and check on her himself, but she’s angry as a barn cat. Hissin’ ‘nd yowlin’, and just bein’ downright scary as hell, to be honest. You should be prepared is all I’m tryin’ to say.”

“Her father just died, Tommy. I’m not expectin’ pretty sights right now,” Joel gruffs, trying to swallow the panic that flutters in his throat as they crest the final hill up to the big house.

The beautiful stone, oak, glass monstrosity that’s stood as monument to this place, this home that is not truly his, for over a decade now. The Kelly Ranch. The sky above is still a sultry, yawning blue, deep and tired, basking in the throes of dawn as the sun just now makes its way over the crest of the Tetons in the distance so that the house sits for just a moment longer in its pool of shadowed blues.

Joel pauses on the border of that somber darkness, afraid suddenly of what awaits him inside; boots glued to the ground with the gum of cowardice. He doesn’t want to see her broken. He doesn’t want to see her hurting. But there’s no other recourse, he knows this. The death of the estranged father she’d fought with all her life, the inheritance of this world that seems suddenly too big for just one orphaned girl, all alone now.

He’s afraid that he’ll walk into that house he’s always seen as other and home all wrapped into one—that Olympus that was so far removed and out of reach even when he walked through it’s halls to the man who’d given him sanctuary and salvation, to the man he knew mistreated her sometimes, didn’t love her enough—and not have the capacity to recognize her, this girl who’d always been familiar and stranger all in one also.

Joel Miller suddenly feels afraid of the memory she exists as in his mind, in the face of the woman he knows she is now.

When he lets himself in the back kitchen door, it’s still nighttime within. The cool dryness of the AC cranked up to inhuman temperatures makes him shiver once while sprouting a damp sweat along his nape. He should’ve showered before coming, should’ve washed the ride and the days of camp off his skin before walking into her presence, but all he’d managed were his hands and face. There’d been panic to make sure she was well, if not then alive, at least. But he should be more presentable for her.

Hell, he should’ve been here for her when she came home for the first time in two years to the house where her father had died. He should’ve been here when the man died.

But the herd had needed moving. He hadn’t thought it’d all happen so quickly, thought he had more time, that they all had more time. He’d hoped she wouldn’t return at all, if he was being honest. There was nothing here for her. Nothing except memories of a gilded and loveless, already motherless childhood. The reality of all she was set to inherit. The truth of an aloneness Joel didn’t know if she was prepared for.

He moves through the house slowly, afraid to disturb the ghosts and the silence. The interior, immaculate and beautiful and solemn. Something out of a movie picture or the gloss of a magazine. Something covered not in dust but in sadness. The stairs are silent as his spinning mind makes up for the creak, the boots she’d sent him on his last birthday hit the richly piled rug at the top, and the hallway to the bedrooms yawns long and frightening in front of him. Two grand a pop, the boots—Lucchese, he’d looked them up on the iPhone she’d sent him the year before. A gift giver, generous to a fault, kind to a detriment. She sent something to all the ranch hands that’d worked for her father since she was a girl. Something for the entire ranch at Christmas. And all he managed each time was a perfunctory thank you card, like he did every year because he remembered, years ago, in her little voice, polite people send thank you notes, Joel, my grandmother told me so. Last year he’d written that they were too much, that she shouldn’t have, that he was grateful. There wasn’t much else to say.

That was the extent of their communication, familiar and stranger in one, the far removed golden child of the Kelly. They’d all called him that, the Kelly, for as long as he’d known the man. As if he was some Scottish laird of old, ruling over his clan and half the world. Egotistical, was what it really was. He’d thought himself a god among men, in the face of his only child. Ridiculous was what Joel saw it all for, a put on play, a farce.

And wonder of wonders, she was entirely unlike him because of course she would be. Of course a man ruled by nothing more than ego and narcissism had been sent his polar opposite in the form of his only child. Kind hearted, was what she was—sending him a birthday gift every year. Remembering them all here always no matter how far she’d gone. He sent her a thank you note for each benevolence in return, a word of respectful gratitude for the fact that a person like her could ever remember a dog like him.

Sometimes, Joel had wanted to go to him, the old man, Oswald Kelly, and ask him where his daughter was, why he wasn’t looking for her, keeping her closer, caring for her. He wasn’t the sort of man that could’ve ever understood such callous behavior towards one’s child.

The last time she’d been here, over two years ago: less than forty eight hours that had ended in screaming so terrible they’d all heard it down from the barn, sitting in uncomfortable, swollen silence, the spinning of tires ringing as she yelled at her father that he was never going to see her again, the man’s echoing laugh as she’d fled him.

Joel hadn’t seen her on that visit, it’d been so quick and angry. Flying down on the jet from New Haven for her father’s seventieth birthday and not even making it long enough for the festivities. This was what her life was, as he’d observed it from a distance for all these years, the singular daughter of this great house, coming to her father, attempting joy and finding nothing but disappointment at the end of him.

She’d been right, a knowing streak running through her. Kelly had never seen her again, and Joel didn’t know if the old man had regretted it or not, the anger and the estrangement and the lack of love. But the last time he’d spoken to him, hours before setting off on their move, the herd always came before everything else, the ranch was all that mattered is what the man had always said, with death scratching at the window, his frail and withered body licked down to almost nothing from the austere and imposing figure Joel had always known him as, he’d asked for her. His only child. Do you think she’ll come, Joel? The dying man had asked him. My daughter, do you think she’ll come see me? Joel had lied a lie he hadn’t known was one, said she would, that he’d call her as soon as he was back.

In the end, he hadn’t even afforded her that decency, a personal call.

He comes to her open bedroom door now, pitch dark as grief within, and the stench of sorrow and liquor seeping from the living grave. He looks down the long and empty hall for a brief second, wishing it didn’t have to be him, that again, he didn't have to see her any way other than okay. And he realizes that there’s something about her, as she will exist now, that makes him cowardly. Something about this house without the man who’d granted him the absolution of a hiding place all those years ago, who’d understood and sheltered Joel in the midst of his own past grief, that makes him cowardly. The house feels wrong without Kelly within it, wrong with only her as its holder now.

Joel steps into her dark, and it’s a battleground—

—You are silent and motionless in the blue room.

Nothing of the gleaming splendor that dresses the rest of the home sleeps in here. There are clothes everywhere, an exploded suitcase lies open and massacred in the middle of the plush white rug, a turned over bottle of red wine bleeding into your clothes. Shredded pages with scratched on writing slashed across them, the dusted white mounds of crushed pills, as if you’d smashed each one individually beneath the thumb of your grief. The sight makes him more afraid, the scent of weed and cigarettes heavy in the air, as he takes the final step towards the wrecked bed, and a single small foot hangs limply from the edge.

He stares at it long and hard for a second, afraid, afraid again, still, of what he’ll find. He says your name once, short and gruff like a dog’s bark. It’s what he feels like. Animal, bestial, lacking any sort of cognizance amidst this minefield. His heart beats against his spine, and he thinks he should do something else, shake you, check for a pulse, his bones throb inside his skin. He needs to fucking move, but the smell of smoke is so cloying he’s choking on his own tongue.

Your ankle twitches.

And Joel sucks in a sigh of relieved air without panic, saying your name again. His voice is level now, maybe gentle, no more barking dog. His eyes move up the length of one pretty leg, and then quickly, he averts his gaze when he gets high up enough he’s met with soft-creased asscheek covered in silk. Swallowing his tongue, his eyes roll in their sockets, looking for anything else to look at besides the sight of panty clad ass. He steps closer again, gripping the edge of the sheet to pull it over your scantily clad body, eyes flitting to the silver spun clock on the nightstand, the warm glow of the hall light shows that they have two hours to get you sober and presentable before the funeral.

Joel should have been here. He does not feel that he is even here now. And the guilt eats at him like acid. The fear too.

“Darlin’, you’ve gotta get up now,” he says softly, taking hold of your shoulder, scalded by the feel of fragile skin, realizing with the suddenness of a gunshot that you’ll be the Kelly now. He gives you a gentle shake, “We’ve gotta get you ready,” and his heart pumps blood like a machine. The sight of the dry liquor bottle toppled on the nightstand, the shattered glass glittering the floor in crystal, the empty pill bottles, it all taunts him. His guilt is a cacophony in his mind. He knows he’s going to have to stick his fingers down your throat, make you spit it all up, that you’ll hate him for all of this afterwards, but when his gaze meets streaked rust, dark and shocking against the white sheets, he’s kicked into terrified action.

He turns you over, your head lolling sickeningly in unconscious stupor, hair a tangled mess strewn about your face so that he has to dig for your eyes, parting the curtains of your fringe to uncover you. He focuses on your closed eyes, the too long lashes clumped together, lips cracked and parched.

He should’ve fucking been here.

Smoothing his fingers along the lengths of your arms, he keeps his eyes on your face and averted from all the skin that keeps peeking out below, searching the divots and slopes of your arms for hurts. When he gets to your right hand, battleground of a long ago broken hurt, he finds the drying crust of blood, the ragged split in the soft, small palm, thankfully shallow.

His eyes smart, looking down at the broken glass, feeling the tear in you.

Gripping you gently below the elbows he pulls you into his arms, cradled like a child, light as loss. Your head lolls again, neck crooked at an unnatural angle as he carries you into the restroom, careful of your head, knocking the lights on and putting you down in front of the toilet bowl. He pulls your camisole to rights, making sure everything is covered, and gathers your mess of hair as carefully as he can, trying his best to not snag the fragile strands in his too rough hands, but gripping you firmly in position. And ignoring the sound of your awakening cry, he sticks two fingers into your slack jawed mouth and down your throat until he feels the hot rush of vomit.

Crouching behind you, his thighs bracket you, keeping your form from slumping over as you empty the poison from your belly, flushing the alcohol soaked bile as you struggle. He wipes his messy hand on the leg of his jeans and rubs soothing circles on your back, his fingers woven through the soft silk of your hair to keep your head in place and your face clear. His heart thumps in rhythm with your heaves, your too quick, panicked breathing. There seems to be not enough oxygen for the two of you and your grief in the too small room of the commode, and Joel gasps like a dying fish, trying to swallow calm breaths.

When you finally stop your heaving, you rest your arms at the edge of the gleaming porcelain, head hung low, defeated, wracked with shivers or silent sobs, he isn’t sure, a strange and horrible keening noise, so small he barely catches it, held in your throat. There’s the finest down of peach fuzz that covers the tender slope of your vulnerable nape, and it makes Joel feel suddenly, just as vulnerable, just as unprotected. At a complete loss for how to help you.

“Finally decided to show your face,” you croak, voice ragged with your sick.

His fingers tighten once around your shoulder, a panicked tick of reminder that he’s here now, that he’s him. “I was moving the herd. It had to be done. Your father, he—” he stutters, trying explain, tripping over his own guilt ridden words. “I didn’t think it’d happen now, so fast, that you’d get here so soon. I thought we had more time.”

We.

Your skin seems to cool by the second beneath his fingertips, and then you’re shrugging his touch away, huddling closer to the porcelain bowl, further away from him.

“Get out.”

“Let me explain. I—” And he’s begging now. He can hear the note of it in his voice. Begging for forgiveness. For a chance.

“I don’t want to see you.” You don’t say his name. “Get out.” It feels worse than anything.

“I’m here now. I didn’t know— I didn’t think.” He reaches to grab for you again, but you turn to face him suddenly. Wiping the back of your hand against your mouth, pushing your heels at his shins to kick him away. Your eyes are red rimmed, the hollows beneath bruised with lack of sleep. But fire spits from the deep color, all anger and hurt.

“Go deal with your fucking ranch,” you fling the words at him. “It’s all you care about anyways.” And they weren’t shivers, he sees now, they’re tears tracked as proof of all his guilt, all his lacking, along the slopes of your fine grained cheeks.

Your, you say. As if this place and anything in it has ever been his. He’s never wanted any of it like that, only ever seen a thing that needed taking care of, and him, with the ability to care for it.

“I needed you,” you whisper as if the thought comes along on a second wind of anger, a realization that sends your voice breaking, hitching, your chest caving in on itself as the tears come faster and faster now. “He’s dead, and I needed you.”

“I’m sorry,” he begs. “I’m so sorry.” His voice breaks now too. He thinks he’ll cry now too, for the man who he also lost, who despite it all meant something to him, as well. For you, who’s lost even more. For Joel’s own guilt.

But he doesn’t think you see any of that, not his apology, not his regret, not his own grief. You turn away from him again, laying your temple down again on your forearm. “Get out. I’ll be ready soon.”

And so he goes.

Your father is made small and withered in death.

One of the wealthiest men in the entire world. A stranger, a titan, a nightmare of a man.

It wasn’t something you’d ever considered, that a human body could look so colorless and frigid and not alive. Like a shock or a ringing bell, it’s a realization that you’re an orphan now. That you’re all alone.

You feel something like a memory of regret. Or something that’s like the idea that you should feel regret, that you should feel guilt for how it was between the two of you. But all that is overshadowed by the reality of what you weren’t. All you feel even more, or in actual reality, is the old loss of what you’d never been to each other. That, you realize, is the seed of your grief. That long ago wound, that child’s understanding that he wasn’t like all the other fathers, that he’d never care for you the way other children were cared for.

Looking down at the frozen face that looks nothing like the one he’d worn the last time you’d seen him, the wispy thatch of hair that hadn’t been so jarringly white before sickness had ravaged his body, you realize that this is no new loss, it is only a continuation, a reopening of a very old one.

The cavernous cathedral at your back is silent, vacated by the sea of people that had congregated here earlier. And with sickening curiosity, you uncoil an arm from where you’ve got it wrapped around yourself, reaching out to press a finger against the ice cold back of his hand. Shockingly not alive; he feels made of rubber.

Everyone that’d been here to bid farewell to this behemoth turned slip of a man, to catch a glimpse of you, packed like teeth into Jackson’s grandest cathedral; business men and heads of state from around the world, the oldest family names in the country, figures of the highest echelons of wealth and society, vipers circling the barrel—half the world here to see this person who was supposed to have been your father but was really only a stranger.

You take your hand back, and you don’t say goodbye as you turn away from his body. There’s no farewell to really tell.

And at the back of the church, hiding in a bright ream of sunlight, Joel stands propped against the face of a saint. Dark and silent and maybe even more far removed than your dead dad. Watching sentinel. Oswald Kelly’s hovering man—come to watch over him one last time.

The silk of your stockings slide against each other at the junction of your thighs, the hiss of your skirt around your calves as your reed thin heels click against the stone, and you pull your armor as tightly around yourself as you can. There’s a hollow echo inside of everywhere and everything, your mind like a gong, reverberating, and his gaze is so steady, hazel bright, deeply shaded by the lip of his dark hat, beckoning you towards him from beneath the brim.

Large and strong and steadfast, your heart gives a painful, longing thump—stupid, writhing thing—and you can only bear to look him in the eye for a second, and if you were to really think about saying goodbye to that father that never really was, lying behind you, slipping further and further away, you’d say it to the man that always stood as his shadow before the world, before you ever said it to the man himself.

The drive back home is cast in frigid silence and made all the more uncomfortable because you can practically hear Joel’s brain clicking and ticking away with worry.

He’d sent your car and driver away with a harsh word while you collected your final goodbyes and words of respect from the last smattering of people congregated and waiting for the newly birthed heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the world.

Hovering over your shoulder, he’d kept anyone from stepping too close or getting too friendly, so close you could feel the heat of his chest through the silk of your blouse, and then going suddenly full on aggressive when a reporter from the New York Times had approached, fishing for a quote on the future of the Kelly empire. Ushering you away with a hovering hand at the small of your back before the man could get half a question out, he’s opening the truck’s door for you as a haze descends over your eyes, the distant shutter and flash of cameras bursting in your peripherals, a latent hangover and sleep deprivation and not enough to eat in the last forty eight hours causing you to sag in his hold. Then it’s only his big fist wrapping around the span of your wrist as he lifts you into the truck, your eyes downcast and unable to take in sight or sound, vision all a blur. You murmur a barely there thank you with his hand fitting at the dip of your waist, big body blocking yours entirely from prying eyes trying to catch a glimpse or a stumble, and for a single second, your entire weight is suspended in his hold, allowing you to bypass the struggle of balancing your high heel on the step up, and then you’re sliding onto the leather of the seat, the whisper of your cashmere and silk rustling around you as he handles you like a child being spirited away from the scene of a crime.

The door shuts gently behind you, face turned away from the flashing lights, the watchful eyes of the whole world, and worst of all, the assessment of his concerned gaze. All you’re afforded are thirty seconds of privacy to let out a single gasping sob.

And now, an hour and a half of silent purgatory.

You slip your heels off, flexing your smarting toes against the damp of your stockings and tuck your folded legs beneath you on the seat. Paying the frantic energy of his anxiety and lodged words no mind, you consider instead: your new reality. The burden of it all means very little to you now. The last of your worries is being readied for entombing as the two of you speed down the eighty nine, zinging past the bright Wyoming green. The thrum of his truck drowns out your thoughts, brand new, probably over a hundred grand, only the best for your father’s right hand man, and the Kelly Ranch insignia emblazoned proudly on the sides. A brand for the whole world to see just who exactly is being whisked away to her old home turned brand spanking new grave.

You might be feeling a little bit dramatic. But then again— you’d just put your last remaining parent in an actual grave, surely that provides you some allowances.

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see his big paw gripping the leathered steering wheel in a death clutch, knuckles white with his frustration at the dilemma you pose, his own discomfort. You’re sure if he thought you wouldn’t catch him, he’d be squirming in his seat.

You do something to him sometimes, you know this. Not in any way you’d like, not in any interesting way, that of a woman affecting a man, but something respectfully harrowing. Maybe something a little bit like fear.

There has existed between the two of you, always, that strange intimacy of two people who’ve known each other for a very long time, and yet, have always remained at a far removed, arms length distance from one another.

A professional intimacy of sorts. Your father’s foreman, shadow, fixer. The man who guarded that treasure trove you’d inherit one day, today; the thing your father loved most in the world. Two people who’ve known each other a long time, and yet, don’t really know each other at all.

There has always been, however, the fact of the birthday.

The birthday. Your birthday.

The way you’d latched onto that small, immense, detail when you’d first discovered it at fourteen, when he’d newly arrived at the ranch and the true weight of your first real crush had really hit you, it was probably not entirely healthy. But you’d thought yourself in love with your father’s man, the first figure of the male species who’d ever drawn your attention in such a way.

He’d never paid you any mind; you were the boss's daughter, a figurehead or a responsibility, maybe a nuisance, although he’d never ever treated you as one. But the day someone had let slip it was his birthday, on the same day as yours, your teenage heart had swelled with the naive hope of fate. It was meant to be, the two of you were connected, so on and so forth, swallowed by girlish innocence and made buoyant by fantasy.

But you’d had something to share with someone, which was what really mattered. Something tangible, even if only in your inexperienced little mind, something to wield as comfort so that the first time your father had forgotten your special day, fifteen, and what a tender age it had been, you’d had something to cling to. That's when your gifts to him had started. It was your way of making sure there was at least one person in the whole world who’d remember that was your day too. That you were alive, that you mattered. A reminder of yourself. And as the years and birthdays passed, sometimes, when he sent those coldly gracious notes of his, you’d wished you could’ve written back with honesty. Said something like, I’m so lonely, wish you were here, wherever it was in the world you’d found yourself at the time.

And of course, he was gorgeous and older, strong and patient and capable, entirely unattainable. Impossible to forget. You’d gone so far, traveled wide, gotten yourself an overpriced education that would probably serve you for nothing, had lovers and parties and splendor, and always, you remembered your gifts for him, you remembered him. It was the single most important detail of your birthday every year.

The leather creaks beneath his fist again, chapped knuckles set to burst before he flexes his fingers out, long and straight. Thickly built hands, strong, made for working or hurting, on a man who you’ve never seen be anything but stoically patient.

He was strange in that way, neither wholly impulsive nor precisely intentional in his mannerisms. More so, it was that there was something extremely neutral about him, a middle buoyancy of personality. Strict with the cowboys, exacting, wielding his title as ranch foreman with an iron fist and your father’s blessing, and yet still, quiet, serious, with that patient gentleness about him. You’d seen it in the way he’d handled Ellie when she’d first come to the ranch, young and skinny with that hollow look of trauma kids who’d seen things they shouldn’t have shamed adults with. She’d been a little older than you, and with an air you’d not understood, a sort of lived past you’d been naive to the existence of, frightened when confronted by it, and yet inevitably, the two of you’d become fast friends eventually.

You’d even experienced it yourself, on two treasured occasions, that gentleness that you’d held onto for years. Nurturing the memory of him in your mind like a delusional bloom.

He stretches his hand again, wheel caught between his thumb and forefinger, cinching it there, back and forth. His nails are meticulously clean, cut to the quick, and you imagine he must spend a great deal of time cleaning himself up when he works so hard at getting himself so dirty most days.

You can see him sneaking glances at you, and he coughs once, a clearing of his nervous throat. Averting your gaze, you turn your face away so that you’ll be able to watch him through the reflection in the window. He monopolizes the space in the cabin of the truck, broad shoulders and hulking form, all the fine leather smell washed away in the scent of him. That bay rum aftershave he’s always worn, the one with the distinctive notes of bay leaf, cloves and citrus. An old fashioned scent, masculine and crisp.

You’d snuck into the bunk once with Ellie, before he’d moved into the foreman’s cabin, before Switzerland, when the two of you were still girls running rampant and free through the ranch, clutching desperately at the last vestiges of any sort of happy childhood you could scrounge up for one another. You’d peeked in his things, found a whole world of Joel shaped curiosities. The glass etched bottle of aftershave, a hole spotted t-shirt with a burnt orange longhorn across the front, Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories—something you found comforting, knowing he could read about the small, the freakish, real life; thinking that perhaps he was homesick for the comfort of the South, hungering for a taste of the life he’d had then, through books. And then, in a spine cracked copy of Suttree, the pages almost falling apart beneath your fingertips, dog eared and well loved, her picture tucked between the pages.

It had been the first time you’d done something you knew you shouldn’t have and actually regretted it, looking down at that green eyed photograph.

You’d run back to your room after that, ashamed and something a little bit like jealous, desperate to know who she was, desperate for someone to keep a picture of you like that—as if they loved you. And years later, you’d found the scent for yourself. The little molasses glass bottle you still have and pull out on occasion, when you’re feeling extra bad, extra lonesome, extra far away from the whole world, just for a reminding of home.

Beside you, he sighs again, coughs again, brings you back to himself and the present. Just spit it out already, you think exasperatedly, say something, anything else besides how sorry you are.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he starts, and you roll your eyes, scoffing quietly.

“You already said that.” Sullen. Mullish. You wish you were a child who could still throw a tantrum and get away with it. Letting your eyes go unfocused from his reflection in the window, you brood at the sight of everything that’s yours now as he turns off the highway, passing below the iron eave of the Kelly Ranch entrance. Eight hundred thousand acres of pristine Wyoming land nestled into the deep valley surrounded by the Grand Tetons mountain range.

“Well, I’m sayin’ it again.” He’s driving too fast, and you refuse to turn and look at his face. Your heart beats blood in your ears, and you screw your eyes shut to the dizzying blur of green legacy, not wanting to see any of it—him.

Your belly swoops, going slightly nauseous and gurgling.

“I didn’t think you’d get here so quick.” He swallows, “Hell, I didn’t think it’d all happen so damn fast.”

“I was already in New York,” you tell him, voice clipped with breathlessness. “I left Paris last week.”

“What? I didn’t know— I—”

“Why would you?”

“I would’ve called you. I would’ve gotten you out here quicker.”

“Ellie called. It’s better like this, Joel.” Finally letting yourself say his name out loud, it feels wrong and molten on your tongue, a heaviness being spit up from the depths of your stomach. “We don’t have to pretend anymore. He’s dead now.”

“There’s no pretending. He wanted to see you—”

“Please, stop.”

But he urges on unheeded: “He told me so before I left. Told me—”

“Stop,” you snap. Finally turning to look at him and hating him for it. For how gorgeous he is, for all the things he’s always made you feel for as long as you can remember what it was to feel something for a man, for all he did or did not have with your father when you had none of it or so much of an entirely different thing. “Stop. I don’t want to hear any of it. It doesn't matter anymore, Joel.”

“But you should know. You deserve to know that—”

“What?” Because that one hurts. “I deserve to know what?” That he actually had loved you but had just never been able to show it? That now it was too late? That the only person the great Oswald Kelly had ever been able to speak to of the supposed care he had for his only daughter was the hired help? You’d read once that one should never let their parents anywhere near their real humiliations. You’d tried your damndest to follow that as soon as you’d grown up. “It’s not your place,” you seethe with teeth bared, an animal shoved into a corner and made to fight for its life, deciding you won’t ever let Joel near them either.

He spits a cursing, growled sound of frustration, but doesn’t continue. The two of you find yourselves at an impasse, and you turn back to your windowed mirror of him, eyes pinching hot, filling with tears. One of the things your father disliked most about you, your easy tears, and a single salt marred inadequacy tracks down the slope of your cheek, dripping off the edge of your jaw into the bandaged cup of your palm, and you breathe slow and measured through your open mouth, watching the fog cloud grow and shrink against the glass obscuring your vision of him.

The last time you’d missed your mother, the one you’d never known, in any sort of real and true way, you’d been eighteen. Returning to an empty house after celebrating your high school graduation in a far off school, alone.

In the midst of your sophomore year, you’d been sent away to a Swiss boarding school. It had been something worse than devastating, losing your life in Wyoming, the only home you’d ever know, Ellie, the other people on the ranch… But it was far removed enough that you couldn’t bother, where you couldn’t ask for things like attention or consideration. The education had been excellent, the upbringing desperately lonely ending on a whimpering sigh despite your many accomplishments. You’d wanted her very badly then indeed, your mother. To have been there, to have helped you pick your dress, kissed your cheek after watching you walk across the stage. To have wiped your tears when she told you that your father wasn’t there because he was busy managing the whole world, but that he was proud of you, that he’d have been there if he could. You’d wished she could’ve been there to lie to you so that you wouldn’t have needed to lie to yourself.

Peering down from your balanced perch atop the deck’s bannister, you survey the deep bed of Lily of the Valley, destroyed beneath the vindictive soles of your bare feet. He’d planted them for her all around the house after she’d died, her favorite flower.

You’d always hated them.

And that was the thing of it all, which you’d learned when you grew old enough to recognize such things like disdain. He couldn't stand you because you reminded him of her. Clichéd and old and tired. An excuse for being a neglectful father. The daughter who was too much like her dead mother, and thus did not deserve to be loved.

You tip your head back, nursing at the lip of fine aged Macallan, and the sky is a glass mirror of blackened silver streaks. You’re almost positive that all the stars in the Milky Way are visible from right here at this very spot in the heart of Wyoming. The sight makes your broken heart feel full and falsely mended.

You’re certain you’re painting a pretty picture right now: tipsy on a bottle of your dead dad’s sacredly hoarded whiskey that probably cost as much as someone’s house, staring up at the stars in your newly inherited home with a whole unappreciated life full of possibilities ahead of you. Basking in the title of your newly minted— orphan-hood? Orphan-ness? A peer of the orphans.

You snort softly, sucking on the bottle again, letting the heat of it settle in your belly, smolder in your heart. Your head feels full of bubbles and sugar and sad.

There’s a part of you that feels a little ridiculous, despite the circumstances. You’re good at compartmentalizing, good at being objective of your realities. Obviously: sad because your father is now dead, and it’d been nine months and eleven days since you’d last spoken to him. Sad because he’d never given a shit about you. Sad because you’re alone, dumped by the stupid French jockey boyfriend who you’d not even liked very much, just a few days before this whole pathetic ordeal of acquiring your orphan-hood, yeah, that’s what you’re sticking with, had occurred. Not to mention the army of looming lawyers and financial advisors and various heads of business vying for your attention, waiting for the what next?

And Joel.

A one man army of looming Joel.

So you’re feeling morose, blue, maybe a little spoiled, but brought low and cut short. Depressed and unsatisfied with your life thus far.

Poor little rich girl. Poor little orphan. Poor little me.

What you want?

Someone to care.

Someone to love you.

Hard to come by. Impossible to buy.

The stars gleam purple silver, winking at you. The bracketing black so dark it swallows the eye. Another taste of the nutty bouquet of smoked apple oranges, and soon you’ll be tipsy enough you won’t be able to balance your butt on the bannister’s ledge anymore. Maybe you’ll go humpty dumpty over the edge and crack your skull against your mother’s valley of destroyed Lily’s.

You laugh again with sound now, not crazy, only an orphan, ha, but you think that it’s only that it feels shockingly as if you’ve fallen through the surface of your life. As if you are still falling with nothing and no one to grab on to, to help stabilize you. A really terrible, shit-out-of-luck feeling.

Your eyes continue their infernal leaking, and you blow your nose loudly on the inside of your sweater. You’ve given yourself three days to do whatever the hell you want, be as disgusting as you may. When the three days are up you’ll plan to get your act together, take responsibility and hold of your life and become the woman you should be.

Who that is? Still being decided.

You think that maybe you’ll buy another jet before that time’s up. Or an island. Something ridiculous. Maybe you’ll sell the goddamn ranch.

You eye the dark rolling hills of the valley with seething suspicion. Let’s see what Joel says about that. You, marching up to the highway entrance and spearing a For Sale sign in the dirt of the largest privately owned cattle ranch in the continental United States. Way more than that God forsaken surly frown is what you’d get.

So long, Joel, it’s been swell. I’m done with this place. It’s time to pack it up and find some new hunk of land to care about more than you care about me or anything else.

Maybe you’ll be real funny and put up a Craigslist ad.

And it isn’t that you don’t love this place, the only home you’ve ever known. You do. In a way that is passionate and consuming and irreconcilable. Everything about it, the serenity, the guarding mountains and the deep woods, the home you’d been born in, that both your parents had died in. You do love it in your way.

It’s only that every man you’ve ever loved—loved—had always cared more about the place than he’d ever cared about you.

For the longest time, most of your youth until you’d decided that you officially felt an adult, you’d thought you’d hated your father. There was just so much anger and resentment and the resound of his ever furious words and insults and endless disappointment. The echo of no mother ringing so loudly in your ears that the confounding feelings had all been mistaken for hatred. But with age and distance and life, you’d realized you didn't hate him. You never had. You thought, actually, and this was a very good and mature thought of yours, that you were the only person in the whole world that had ever seen him as only a man and not a god.

He was only a man, full of greed and grief and missing the mother of the child he’d probably never wanted. Nothing more or less.

Maybe it was that you felt sorry for him. Not in the way of pity, but in the way of one person feeling empathy for another in a clinical and helpless sort of manner. And a numb, detached sort of sadness. A longing for something that you’d never had and had always wanted but eventually learned to live without.

Ultimately, his disappointment had turned on him, and now it was all you felt you had for him at the end of it all.

But, for some reason, and an annoying one at that, you do think that, if you try very, very hard, you could bring yourself to hate Joel Miller. There’s satisfaction in that possibility, vindication—resentment that even now, as practically strangers, you know he’d be able to pull that sort of feeling out of you which could result in hatred. Something strong and overwhelming and not easily escaped.

Your stomach rumbles, and you smile blithely at all your inherited legacy, filling the hollow with more drink. Three days to behave very badly, as badly as you can. The whiskey is so good, and swishing it around in your mouth, you tip your head back further, gurgling it loudly at the back of your throat.

“What the hell are you doing?”

You jerk, scrambling to keep your balance, choking a little on smokey apples and your own spit. A trickle of the golden amber liquor drips out of the corner of your mouth as you find him hiding in the dark across the deck. Accustomed to drooling over him, you wipe it away with the back of your hand.

“Having a party. Would you like to join?”

“Are you drunk again?”

Tough crowd. Ugh. “Never mind. You’re not invited. Go away.”

“You need to go inside and go to bed.”

You tip your chin at him, putting on doe eyes. “Alright. And are you going to be my new daddy also?” You say in a baby voice.

Fucking Christ, you hear him whisper under his breath, turning away to run an exasperated palm over his mouth. Frustration seethes off of him like sulfur. He’s tired. Of you maybe. Of the whole circus this place has become in the past few days—and rightfully so.

“What do you want? I’m extremely busy, if you can’t tell.”

“Just thought I’d check on ya.” Courteous, always the gentleman, bullshit. You roll your eyes at him.

“I don’t need you to check on me.” And you, ever the child. One day you swear you’ll grow up.

But it can’t be said that you’re entirely selfish either. You have considered the fact of Joel’s own grief at the loss of your father. After all, they’d been much closer than you’d ever been to him for many years. And maybe, in his own cold and removed and superior way, your father had seen this man who you’ve thought yourself in love with since you were a teenager, as something like a son.

Probably, that’s just your own wishful thinking: that Oswald Kelly had ever been capable of such tender feelings.

Maybe the fact of Joel’s own grief is the thorn beneath your nail bed that’s making you so angry with him, so needing of his attention. Maybe it’s that he’d failed to fulfill your silly and girlish fantasy that upon receiving the news of your only remaining parents death, he’d have been here waiting for you, at this home he’d guarded for you for so long, ready to take you into his arms and console and care for you.

When instead, he’d been off doing what he’d always done for as long as you’d known him. Protecting your father’s interests, his legacy.

“Is this how it’s going to be?”

“How?”

“You, being difficult.” Driving me fuckin’ crazy— he adds again under his breath.

“I’m an orphan now, Joel.” You’re becoming quickly addicted to the word. “I think I should be afforded a tiny bit of leeway to drive people fuckin’ crazy,” you mock his Southern drawl. Enough of your time had been spent in Europe over the past two years, kissing Europeans, that you’d sloughed off the last of your American twang; something of a vaguely European lilt peppering your words every now and then that Ellie likes to tease you for whenever the two of you speak on occasion.

A muscle under his left eye twitches at the jab, and you take another deep swig of the bottle, provoking him with your gaze. Wishing you had whatever it is a woman needs to entice this man. Like the fucking vet. Fucking world renowned, brilliant, highly coveted, beautiful veterinarian. You know about her. You’re sure he thinks he’s been discreet over the years with their whatever they’ve had, Tess, but you know.

Maybe you’ll be insane and irrational and possessive, taking advantage of your three crazy days, and fire her with your new found power. See what he has to say about that. Ha.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Obviously not.

Despite your current hysteria, your goal is not to send the ranch head over heels into a tailspin.

But the imagining is soothing.

“Want some?” You hold the heavy crystal out towards him in a peace offering, held precariously between two sweaty knuckles. “It’s probably worth as much as your truck. Would be a waste for me to finish on my own.” You eye what’s left of it, about half, and give him a sheepish grin. It really is very good.

He looks at you for one long, solemn moment, always so silent and pensive, this strange enigma of a man. You get to watch in real time as he loses whatever fight it is he’s trying to fight against you, victorious when he shrugs and comes over slowly, resting his butt against the bannister—a carefully respectful distance away from you.

When he takes the bottle from your swinging clutch, gripped from the base, careful not to touch you in any way, you see the real sad in his eyes. The dim lights bleeding out through the big windows of the family room without a family shine on his face in strips and bursts. A shadow here, golden warmth there. He’s got more lines around his eyes than you remember from the last time you’d been this close to him. Smile lines made bright white in the center and gold burnished at the edges from too much sun. There’s little bursts of silver threaded at his temples now too, a gleam here and there in his dark beard. Forty four years old, he’d turned on your last birthday.

You dig your nails into the soft meat of your palms, and your belly smolders as he brings the bottle to his lips, tasting the exact place your own mouth had just been moments ago. You press your knees together as hard as you can, head a little woozy with the color of his eyes; the most gorgeous green, caramel hazel.

You’d graduated two years ago with a degree in art history and had done absolutely nothing with it since. It was just that everything appeared boring and pointless and shallow. Your whole life had one day suddenly seemed just a little silly. Useless, overpriced degree, nothing to be done with extensive knowledge in color theory when your world is expecting such different things from you now.

But you sure as hell can appreciate the color of his eyes in extensive and meticulous detail. There is that.

Watching the slow slide of the amber liquor down the bottle-neck, the long pull of his lush mouth, the ripple of his strong throat, and the way his eyes go a little wider, shocked at how good it is. You laugh soft: “I know, right.”

He takes another pull, another swallow. That’s what you want to be—swallowed just like that. “Damn, that’s good.” His mouth is a little wet, bottom lip shiny with thousands of dollars worth of your father’s favorite whiskey, and his eyes are sad.

You’d said you were going to be bad, but you don’t want to be bad to him. “I’m sorry,” you whisper.

He swallows again, tipping his head towards you, trying to catch your too soft words—he’s got a bad ear, you know why—and turns to peer at you from beneath his low pulled brow, the tip of his tongue peeking out to swipe at the drop of liquor you wish you could suck off his tongue.

“You’ve got nothin’ to be sorry for.”

The first time he’d shown you that gentleness of his: You’d fallen from your horse at school in your junior year. Something had frightened the beast, and she’d bucked you, sent you flying ten feet in the air, ragdoll-like, before you’d landed badly on your right arm, a comminuted fracture in your radius that you’d needed surgery to fix. At your insistence, and with only a few weeks left to spare, you’d been sent home for the remainder of the semester. Your father had been incensed but eventually allowed it. He’d been away from the ranch on business, after all, at no risk of being truly disturbed by you. But when you’d been readying to return to Switzerland at the end of the summer, arm healed, courage not, you’d not been able to get back on a horse no matter what you tried. Joel had helped you, before they’d shipped you off again. Trotted the corral with you for hours and hours before you’d finally been able to relax and sit on your own without tears and vertigo. No questions or admonishments, nothing but the quiet burr of his deep voice, guiding you and the mare along.

It had been a kindness unlike any you’d experienced in maybe your whole life.

“I’ve been bad.”

“Nah. You couldn’t ever be.”

The second time: “Did today make you think of Sarah?” Years after you’d found that green eyed photograph, he’d shared her with you.

His gaze turns suddenly sharp, but you’re not worried you’ve stepped in unbreachable territory. “Yeah.” The echo of her name rings around the two of you.

“In a bad way or a good way?” He takes another long swig, a low whistle through his teeth and a shake of his head before he’s handing the bottle back to you—again, carefully.

“Both.”

You take your own swallow, slicking your tongue all around where his just was, and you’re drunk for real now. Drunk on a man.

“Do you ever regret telling me about her?”

“Nah.” He tips his head back, looking up at the thick beams of the deck’s awning. He’s got the longest lashes you’ve ever seen on a man, thick and curling. The deepest voice you’ve ever heard too, sultry, a bedroom voice. A voice for fucking. Your belly swirls and dips, and you want so much you’re dizzy with it.

Heart beating like it’s about to burst, out of breath on the verge of hyperventilating, you can taste his mouth in your mouth, the imagination flavor of it. This is what it must feel like to die. This is what your father must have felt like three days ago, this agony.

His Adam’s apple bobs, and it’s so pronounced, the skin of his throat sun pebbled. There isn’t an inch of him that isn’t all rough-hewn man. “You needed to hear about her then, I s’pose.”

Yes. “You told me when I needed you to.” After that lonely graduation, the last time you’d missed her really very badly, longed for a mother. Alone, alone, alone little girl.

“You were missin’ your momma somethin’ fierce. Needed to know you weren’t the only one that felt like that sometimes.”

You laugh a not-laugh, butt scraping against the railing, slipping off your perch, socked-feet thudding beside his gifted boots. The pleasure you feel whenever you see him use one of the things you’ve given him is indescribable.

“Silly,” you say with barely any sound, his bad ear reaches for your voice again. “At the time it felt like I was the only person in the whole world that had ever felt like that.”

“We all feel like that at one point or another, I reckon.”

“Will you miss him a lot?” You ask looking up at him, the beautiful profile, the strong jaw. You’ve always wondered how he sees you. If he’s ever thought you were beautiful. Other men do, it’s a common thing, a nothing sort of thing. There are always men, there will always be men. But this singular man—this one is not like the rest.

“Maybe. Can’t tell yet, don’t think. But it felt wrong earlier, walking through his house without him in it.” His house, not yours.

“Do you wish he’d been your father?” And he turns to look down at you at that, gaze snapping, and you can tell you’ve shocked him with the question. But you’d always wondered.

“No. Never,” he says with such assuredness, an uncompromising shake of his head.

And the answer doesn't necessarily shock you in turn. You don't think anyone could have ever wanted a father like that. But it also doesn't help you understand what it was that lived between them either.

He sighs, perhaps reading the confusion in your gaze. “He helped me at a time when I needed it real bad. Gave me a place and a purpose and a thing to do and take care of. You get me? It was gratitude—maybe. He saved me in a way, after Sarah. Nothing more.” He thinks for a moment, and then, “Perhaps it was that we understood each other about certain things.”

You gaze across the sprawl of dark land as far as the eye reaches, that point of no return where the earth shoots up into the sky, purple blue behemoths in the shape of mountains.

From this spot, rooted to the deck of your family home, it seems like the whole world is yours to keep. Also, like you’ll never be able to touch any of it with fingers or taste or meaning.

Your love for this place is complicated—tied up in the people, the memories, the could’ves and should’ves, the whole dreamscape idea of the monument of childhood and all it’d really never been. The time away had felt eternal, like you’d never really been here to begin with, like the young girl who’d grown up on this land had never really existed. But you’d not forgotten them, this, despite your distance. Your home, the father that wouldn’t want you, Wyoming and all its splendor, the people you’d left behind, Joel and Ellie and shared birthdays that meant a secret world to you. Morsels of small happinesses interloped amidst a largely lonely and sad childhood. That’s what it was at its core.

“Would you be angry with me if I gave it all away?”

He thinks for a moment, maybe you’re making him sadder, but then finally says with a swallow, “No. It’s yours to do with as you please.”

You eye the quarter of whiskey left, but your belly isn’t hungry for its warmth anymore. You want something heavier now.

“Could you even do that—legally—sell it or somethin’?”

“Probably not. He probably tied it to my fucking life. Sell and die.” You mime your name in an imitation of your fathers deep voice, frowning at yourself the way he’d always frowned when he looked at you, but it pulls a laugh from him, and the painful memory is worth it. “But I have a billion dollars to spend now. More?” You tap your chin—you want to make him laugh again. “Gotta think of something interesting to do with it all.”

His mouth slides into an easy half grin. Like the moon—that beautiful. And he turns to face you fully. “You’re gonna be just fine. You know that, right?”

You turn to face him too, gripping the bannister for dear life. “What? Will you make sure of it?”

“That’s my plan.”

“How’re you gonna do that, d’you reckon?” The American twang bleeds back into your voice, and you’re all swollen lush on the inside, heart a beating fist in your chest.

“Haven’t gotten that far, if I’m bein’ honest with you.” God. His eyes, the strong bridge of his nose, his mouth. He’s so tall your head has to crook back to look up at him. “I’ll figure something out.” And after another pensive second, and still with that soft, sloped eye smile, he asks, and nicely, “Will you stop drinking now—for me?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” you say with the same sort of smile in return.

And then suddenly, like vomit again but maybe more humiliating this time: “Did you respect him?” Because you don’t know all the things about him that there are to know, but you do know that Joel Miller’s respect is a thing hard earned.

He clicks his tongue, and you hear the pop of his jaw as he shifts it like he’s chewing on an honesty. His eyes, his eyes, they’re serious, mercurial, warm and deep also. You worry he won’t answer, that he wouldn’t want to disappoint you or something, but then: “No,” said real simple like.

“Why not?”

And the way he looks down at you, you know already, and it makes that falling through the surface of your own life feeling rise up inside you again, makes your ears pop with embarrassment. Ah. “He never did a very good job of hiding the way he treated you, sweetheart. I couldn’t ever respect a man like that.”

This is reality right here, this is you falling through your life, this is the realization that it wasn’t only you imposing yourself, your existence, on someone with gifts they didn’t want or ask for. Joel had seen. Joel had understood.

Someone else had noticed that you exist, and it had been him.

What else had you ever wanted?

And in the blink of a desperate, yearning eye, drunk on a man still, you’re throwing yourself at him, pressing your mouth hot and heavy to his, kissing him full on the way you’d dreamt of since you knew to dream of such things.

Chapter 2; Sugar, Not so Sweet

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

Updates Blog

#fable of the dog fic #vic fic #joel miller fanfiction #Joel Miller x FMC #joel miller smut #Joel miller angst #the last of us AU

575 notes · View notes

bellsmess · 5 months ago

Text

Whenever someone calls Charles Rowland straight, an angel dies.

What straight guy tells his best friend who just confessed to him that there's no one else – no one – he would go to Hell for. And that they have forever to figure out what that means. You don’t get his repressed bisexuality like I do!

Even modern bisexuals (I may or may not be speaking from personal experience) are oblivious to the fact they're bi because heteronormative roles are so engraved in our minds. When you're attracted to other genders, it's easy to miss a same-sex crush, only then to realise that oh, it wasn’t just admiration, it was attraction.

Charles, having grown up at the height of the AIDS crisis, with an abusive and probably homophobic father, killed by racist bullies? That would make anyone repress any gay feelings. Especially if you experience crushes on people with a different sex to you.

Charles sees Crystal and takes his chance. He's enamoured with this smart, strong-willed, pretty girl who can see him not only in a physical sense, but pays attention to him. He longs to be loved. Then he says the infamous "That sounds alot like you, doesn't it? Maybe that's why I like her so much" line. What an icon. And he compares himself and his best friend to the greatest love story of all time, Orpheus and Euridyce's.

When Edwin confesses to him, he doesn't rule out the possibility of returning these feelings. He knows they're already devoted to each other. They've already had 30 years of companionship and solving cases together.

"As long as I have my best mate and a case to solve, I'm good."

Being with Edwin is simple. They solve cases, help others, run away from Death. It's a simple existance. Charles gave up eternity to be with Edwin, because he was kind to him when he was dying. Charles finds him fun, wants to protect him, knows that Edwin is a kind and good person. One that Charles wants to be.

"Bad guys don't worry about being bad guys. And you, Charles Rowland, are the best person I know."

Crystal's role is very important in changing the dynamic between Edwin and Charles. Not only because Charles falls for her, but because she opens them up. She digs out their repressed feelings and trauma. Charles finally deals with his dad's abuse, his happy-go-lucky mask falls. She points it out to Edwin. Charles kept it up so well because Edwin didn't press it, but Crystal does. And Charles finally lets himself process what happened to him, and how that affects his relationships.

Charles never saw genuine love between his parents, and that affects how he views relationships. It impacts how he forms them, too. But he's a loverboy, he longs to be loved, he falls easily. Why wouldn’t he fall for someone who stuck to his side for 30 years?

Crystal and Monty's roles mirror each other – they help the boys figure out their feelings and desires. Crystal makes Edwin jealous that there's someone else Charles cares about in the same sense he cares for Edwin. The Cat King helps Edwin discover desire, Monty – genuine love. As Charles' and Crystal's relationship kickstarts (albeit ends as quickly) and Monty persues Edwin, he discovers the depth of his feelings.

"These complicated feelings that you have? They're for Charles."

I would love to see their wants explored more in the future season(s, hopefully multiple). Charles giving into desire with Desire of the Endless' guidance? Yes please.

I simply cannot believe that anyone would doubt Painland/Payneland endgame. They're everything to each other. They're a constant presence, reassurance, and love. Platonic, romantic, it doesn't matter. Their bond is so deep and genuine that immortal beings see it and leave them be, in the afterlife they chose for each other. Their love is so deep it transcends planes: from mortal plane to Hell, it leads Charles to Edwin. Charles is not Orpheus, when he turns around to hear Edwin out on the staircase from Hell, he manages to get him out. And they have literally forever for each other.

#dead boy detectives #edwin payne #charles rowland #painland #payneland #my fav posts #i love overanalyzing charles

461 notes · View notes

midnight-in-town · 11 months ago

Text

Ao no Exorcist is a Shonen series written by a woman and it shows

Since the latest chapter, I've been thinking about how several usual Shonen tropes are written rather differently under Kato-sensei's pen. No judgement or anything, it's just cool to observe. Some examples :

1) Rin's mentor is a woman

2) Rin's secret, despite being the MC, was revealed in ch13 to the entire cast, meanwhile Shiemi, The Main Girl, who was introduced to be so helpless is only starting to be explained.

3) Also, the Mysterious plot-relevant Shonen Parent is actually the twins' mother. (Of course Shiro is super plot-relevant too, but Satan is still angsting over Yuri and she's a huge part of the reason why he's the big bad)

4) Rin also changed his view about his future throughout the story: from dropping out of school, passing by hoping to become the Order's Paladin (probably to cope with Shiro's death and also to antagonize Arthur), to finally showing way more interest and potential in the (less epic and heroic in appearance) field of talismanic cooking.

5) When it comes to arcs, mental illness is a valid reason to build a character arc around...

6) And so is making an arc about girls being "cursed" to basically "get married and have children before they hit 30, the age where their beauty fade thus they become useless" :

7) ANE is a story about women becoming traitors to protect their loved ones, like Mamushi

or becoming overwhelmed because men toyed with their feelings like Tamamo

8) Older women can be absolute badasses like Shiemi's grandma

or Lucy.

9) Complicated mother-daughter relationship and girl friendships are given as much focus as complicated father-son relationships and sweet bro friendships (like Bon and his dad during the Kyoto arc, as well as the complicated but deep bond between the Kyoto Trio)

10) And one of my favorites: full time single dad, asking for help to do the job as well as he can and finding his true purpose in life by doing so :D

Hmm and now that I think about it, the only other Shonen series written by a woman I've been as invested in is Kuroshitsuji, by Yana Toboso, and similar examples can be found in it too, namely:

1) If Ciel ever finally admits needing a mentor, his aunt Frances will probably play that role

2) Girls can be super strong & skilled (Elizabeth, Mey Rin) and clever (Sieglinde)

3) (one part of) the Big Bad is a woman (Queen Victoria)

4) maybe Ciel's entire revenge stems from a conflict between Queen Victoria and Ciel's maternal grandmother, Claudia.

5) the Undertaker has been a continuously freaking pain in the ass because he probably fell in love with that same maternal grandmother and couldn't mourn properly

TL;DR we love our boys and their spectacular growth and development under women's pens a.k.a shonen series written by ladies are hella fun to read. :D

883 notes · View notes

vechter · 5 months ago

Text

ao3 for dick grayson fics is such a trying experience, truly bc what do you mean there's not one, not two but an overwhelming abundance of fics where dick is a bad sibling and jason todd is the ideal, supportive, drops-everything-for-your-crisis sibling?

like i can understand the appeal of exploring the lesser of dick's choices and character traits and how those impact his relationships with the rest of the bats but you mean to tell me that any of them- damian, tim, cass- tim, especially- would willingly go to jason for help when they have the option of asking dick?

as much as red robin is a deeply rich, complex story about grief and morality, i'm afraid it did irreparable damage to dick's character, not to mention tim's (that boy does not have an egregiously high body count, comics would never gloss over that kind of mass death or be implicit about it in any way if that had actually happened)

dick's primary character thesis is being a safety net for people who fall- the way bruce and batman were for him after his parents died. it's one of his chief driving forces. there is no world where he doesn't help out a stranger, let alone his siblings if they come to him for help. and despite all of the bats being notoriously bad at asking for help and support, the number of instances where dick is an empathetic listener, doling out advice and emotional support and compassion (even when people are tight-lipped about needing any of those things) far outweighs the times he has been short-sighted or intentionally harsh. no character is perfect but to see how often jason is written favourably whilst simultaneously dragging dick is maddening fr

like, fine you like jason a lot. it can be fun and cathartic to write about him choosing to develop relationships outside of his grief/trauma/revenge with bruce (although i think that the most compelling thing about jason is how much of his character post-resurrection is driven by existing as a dead boy walking so to see him actually care about living and making healthy choices would probably require something beyond therapy with harley quinn lmao) but is it really necessary to do that while putting dick down? both tim and damian have seen dick while he is decidedly not at his best (reeling from the circus burning down in nw '96, grieving bruce, finding his footing as batman) and have come out the other side firm in their belief in him. cass, unfortunately is more removed from dick's immediate circle but that's a whole other tangent about how peripheral dick is to both of the batgirls that come after babs. steph, by virtue of having a parent who is alive, is lucky enough to be removed from more of the complicated dynamics all of them have with each other. and while dick is an ass in her initial batgirl days, he does warm up to her (but that again is a whole other post considering the legitimacy and nuances of characterizations in batgirl- tim never gets the same flak for his treatment of steph despite being much, much closer to her and actually knowing her beyond the second robin to die- and even then, when dick finds out about steph's death, the gist of initial reaction is to blame bruce, perhaps, rightfully so)

like you're falling for his act!!! as readers of a form of media like comics, we are lucky enough to get a glimpse into dick's inner neuroses and thought-processes while simultaneously seeing how he acts on them. ofc we see him make mistakes but a lot of the other characters don't!! and if/when they do, they don't see beyond the performance he delivers. even barring the fucked-up-ness of a high stakes job like vigilantism where trauma and death and adrenaline are linked together messily, no relationship between two people is perfect. people hurt each other, people lash out!! but the most compelling thing about dick is how often he reaches out, how often he swings back even after he has swung away!! that's what makes him such a source of light, hope and positivity for everybody he encounters

and this is not even touching n52 which seems like the most hasty kind of decision making and writing from editorial with no consideration for a lot of the characters' histories, lore and their core characterizations

#rant post #sorry im so annoyed I was just looking for a good tim and dick fic #and good fucking lord the no. of jason todd is a good sibling and dick grayson is a bad sibling tagged fics #dick grayson

315 notes · View notes

astonmartingf · 8 months ago

Text

VOODOO DOLL ; LH44

lewis hamilton x mercedes driver!reader

. . . hamilton is a penchant for opposing teammates, and after the previous one he somehow got stuck with another, but after years of dominance new emotions develop between the two.

amgf i am a sucker for yearning and fluff and this is exactly that, lewis the man that you are... also if the format is different from previous posts it's because i'm testing out formats

death of a bachelor ; masterlist

[2025]

“You called us for this?” Alonso raised his brows looking pitifully at you sharing the same expression as Nico from the left side. You groan in your palms, hiding your face from the two men.

“This is a big deal okay. Why are you invalidating my feelings?” Mumbling under your breath, you reason out hoping for a sliver of understanding. It’s been so long since you bottled your feelings, and as much as you hate to admit it, you might start-

“No one is invalidating your feelings other than yourself amor, otherwise why would you call us to convince you that you actually like-”

“Okay, okay, okay. Shut up will you, it’s like you want the whole world that I like…” You turn around, checking the surroundings. “Lewis.”

Nico pressed his lip into a thin, a short sigh leaving his mouth, “You’re in denial and in love.”

You shot Nico an incredulous look, a scoff escaping your lips, “I am not in love. Alo, tell him.”

The older Spaniard grimaced, shaking his head. “At this point, you may as well be- four years? He’s already moved to Ferrari for God’s sake and you have yet to make a move.”

You groan once more, reminding yourself of the signs and signals you missed or accidentally dropped towards Lewis. “I have made a few moves…” Your voice thinning as you feel two pairs of eyes staring right at you.

“And I’m embarrassed to say that they also flew over Lewis’ head. So no, don’t ask me what I said, or did- just ignore what I said.” You rest your head down on the table, sad and moping.

Nico laughs at you, “Look at the state of you, hung over a boy.”

“He’s not just any boy Nico, gosh you’re acting like you moved on quickly from him- this is Lewis we’re talking about. Heck that was a semi-platonic relationship you had going on there, how am I supposed to cope with actually knowing that I can’t be in a romantic relationship with him?”

A gasp left your lips, hands shaking as your cover over them. Avoiding Nico’s gaze who was still laughing at you, despite your jab at his relationship with Nico and Alonso who took a sip from his cup of tea.

“So you admit it…”

Alonso broke the silence leaving you nodding to yourself.

“I actually- Fuck.”

[2023]

Lewis sits in silence, watching Nico squint his eyes from the other side of the table. “When was this?”

Gulping, Lewis didn’t think this far. He was ranting first, and then eventually spilling in some white lies in between before Nico filled in and connected the dots. He should’ve known Nico would catch on- Lewis is being too obvious. At least that’s what he thinks.

Sighing, Lewis mulled over his thoughts gathering his words before speaking it out into existence. The three words he’s been replaying over his head for the last two years- When did things get complicated?

“Two years ago? I thought about it far longer than I’ll admit. But I’ve recently come into terms with it…” Lewis nods his head, sitting in silence with Nico.

“And what happened? What’s different?”

Smiling to himself at the thought of you, Lewis goes through all the times you’ve managed to tug the tiniest of his heartstrings causing him to malfunction like the current state of their engine. It was pitiful, not just the team, but the state of his heart.

“I don’t even understand… Which makes me even more furious! How could she do that to me? I think about her all the time, she’s not even racing anymore. She’s nowhere near me, yet she’s all I think about, it’s driving me insane. And don’t get me started on whenever she’s actually on the paddock- I see her what? Once a month, I go to the F1 Academy races to get a glimpse of her. I'm such a loser. And her face! How could I not stop by and greet her, she’s always enthusiastic whenever I’m there- Not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty good company, and we are friends but God I wish she’d take in the signs I’m putting down. I like YN- too much at this point, I can’t believe it. And you! You’re laughing at my misery.”

Lewis raises his head, far too into his thoughts only realizing that Nico has been laughing at him for the past minute. His back flushed into the seat, legs crossed with arms resting on the table.

“At least one of us is enjoying this, because I’m a suffering loser, who can’t get a grip. She’s actually doing things to my mind. I’m acting crazy because of her.”

Nico bursts into laughter, “You’re- you have a lot to say about YN.”

Lewis scoffs, giving his friend a pointed look, “That’s all you have to say? Wow, I miss talking to you, but this- this is a personal attack towards me.”

Shaking his head, Nico wheezes at Lewis, “No, no, no… Think about it- look at you. It’s just funny to me, I remember when you first talked about her. You said, and I quote, “I will never like her as a teammate.” and you also compared her to me. Look at you now. I think it’s funny.”

Lewis shakes his head, disappointed. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it.”

“No- you’re not taking all that back. Go on- tell me more.”

Lewis raises his brows suspiciously, “What? So you can tease me?”

Nico raises his hands in surrender, “Hey if not me who else would listen to you talk on and on about YN?”

“I know Seb would listen to me without judgment, and maybe Charles…” Lewis lists the few people in and out the grid who are aware about his feelings towards YN.

Nico raises his brows laughing to himself, “Oh Lewis, you truly are living in your own bubble- you’re too good for yourself. Guess how I know what you’ve been talking to Seb about? Right, he calls me to check on you.”

Lewis pales at the realization, how Nico is somehow always available, how he calls on the right time.

“And Charles, who calls Seb, who calls me. Right Lewis, there’s three of us- and you’ll always end up with me if you don’t get your act right.”

lewishamilton

liked by nicorosberg, charles_leclerc, and 21,582,953 others

lewishamilton me when my crush finally noticed me...

view 1,648,592 comments...

user1 EXCUSE NE? WHAT HAPPENED TO HELLO AND HI?

user2 am i seeing this right?

user3 the power of yn

user4 why would you assume it's yn?

user5 i mean who else could get lewis to post like this?

user6 bro got 21 million people watching this confession

nicorosberg this is what you got from our conversation two years ago? embarrassing, even i can do better than this

sebastianvettel5 he's trying, leave him be

charles_leclerc is this what we've been waiting for the last four years? the bar is actually low

user7 what do you mean 4 years?

user8 HELP, they're actually implying that this is for YN

user9 there goes the lewyn fans going crazy it could be anyone 🙄

user10 can't a girl have their fun, jeez leave people alone

user11 it's embarrasing

user12 they're actually eating lewis up with this

nicorosberg this is your plan?

lewishamilton yeah, it's working is it not?

nicorosberg i don't think so man

charles_leclerc is she even on instagram?

lewishamilton ...

sebastianvettel5 for someone who has a crush on this person for the last 4 years i might add this is actually embarrassing behavior

user13 what is happening?

user14 i love this too much what the heck

user15 i know they're grilling him in the messages

user16 another one for the history books 😤✍️🔥🔥🔥

user17 it's blow after blow for hamilton

user18 he's a loser in love actually, does it make you stupid?

lewishamilton i don't care if i look stupid i want her to see this

amgf ahahahahaha the end! uhm... enjoy 👍 this actually had me giggling and shit wtf, maybe it's lewis maybe it's the fluff but /sighs/ the lore i can add to this fic... just you wait 😤

#f1 smau #f1 x reader #f1 fluff #lewis hamilton smau #lewis hamilton x reader #lewis hamilton fluff

976 notes · View notes

honest-moth-of-silver-grove · 22 days ago

Note

hc for adrian having a girlfriend or s/o prior to his mother's death. they're human and maybe her apprentince or something. and the church takes her too, but before they can burn her at the stake, dracula shows up and rescues her because he knows lisa was fond of her. during adrians and draculas fight maybe she interbenes at a critical moments so drac doesnt kill him and alucard gets away but she's now a prisoner of dracula w/n his castle. and maybe she befriends the generals?

A/N: Aw, man. Sometimes I wonder if Lisa did have an apprentice, that maybe Dracula wouldn’t be as anti-human as he ended up being, or if she could start to turn him to see the error of his ways sometime before Alucard and Dracula end up in Adrian’s childhood bedroom.

Apologies for the delays in updates. But my brain went WILD with this request so it’s a long one, I hope that makes up for the less frequent posting. Anyway, I hope you enjoy these somewhat bittersweet (then depressing then bittersweet again) headcanons! (Also this is unbeta-ed and prob grammatically messy as hell, so read at your own expense lol.)

Word Count: 6.2k

TW: Canon Typical Descriptions of Graphic Violence; Brief Mentions of Sexual Violence; Canon Death; Descriptions of Torture (the church is high-key fucked up here) 

Adrian W/ A Human S/O Reader (Who’s Also Lisa’s Apprentice, Prior to Her Death):

━━━━━ ❂ ━━━━━

The Beginning:

Okay, so let’s get one thing straight… FIRST OF ALL, Lisa would adore you!!! Like, you make her baby boy happy and you’re smart??? What else is there to it? And then to top it all off, you’re super sweet and kind and interested in learning about medicine and the world around you!

Lisa meets you once over dinner and she’s already planning the wedding in her head.

Adrian is smitten, because of course he is, but in an adorable, somewhat restrained way. He doesn't have a lot (ahem, ANY) experience in this department, so he’s hesitant to take things forward with you, mainly because he doesn’t want to scare you off or make you suspicious about what he is. (It’s hard to make out with someone when you have two big vampire fangs in the front.)

Adrian is young, like you. So, on top of all the complications, he feels no need to rush things. Sure, he’s heard a few whispers here and there about Dracula having a son, a son who according to rumors and gossiping villagers is to rise as the antithesis of Dracula. It’s all silly superstition, but it does stay fixed in the back of his mind. What would this future legacy mean for his relationship with you? And, should it ever come to pass, would you even be a part of it?

That’s neither here nor there though, and in the meantime, the two of you simply enjoy the talking phase. You get to learn more about each other's interests, and beliefs, but mostly, you spend time in proximity to one another— you remain busy attending to his mother, learning all you can about healing while he, just a table over, spends his time rereading one of his many favorite tomes.

I honestly don’t see you meeting Dracula until you and Adrian are like a fully committed couple. I’m pretty sure you would have to have been Lisa’s apprentice for a while and/or lived with the Tepes in their Lupu cottage for months before Lisa finally breaks through Dracula’s protests and makes him officially meet you.

I don’t think that meeting would happen in Lupu either. No, I imagine it would have to take place at Dracula’s castle, just in case you were to freak out, you’d have no way of escaping and telling any others.

I can almost see your reaction being similar to Lisa’s upon first entering the castle, especially if Adrian is already at your side. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Dracula is terrifying, but there’s also a giant telescope in the next room calling your name so….

Much to Adrian’s relief, this newfound information doesn’t make you frightened of him at all, if anything, it simply reignites your fascination with him. You throw rapid-fire questions at him: If he's part vampire, how come you’ve seen him eating human food? Does he need both food and blood to satisfy each of his halves? If he needs blood, he could take some of yours you know…

Your penchant for learning softens Dracula a little. For a brief time, he wonders if, perhaps, it was as Lisa said, that the humans could change, that humanity was changing for the better.

He sits across from you at their grand dinner table, watching you intensely as you and Adrian talk about the recent literature you’ve read. You’d no doubt feel Dracula’s all-powerful gaze on you, making you turn to him and… Wait, did you just smile?!

You’ve got guts, Dracula will give you that.

Knowing the family secret, you can’t exactly break up with Adrian, nor do you have any desire to. I wonder if Dracula would have rings made for the two of you, maybe commission a new family portrait or two.

You stay with Lisa in Lupu during Dracula's travels. Adrian is around, although he's always off between the castle and their cottage, so you never feel entirely alone or vulnerable. Your life is perfect! It’s better than you could have ever imagined!

That is, until…

━━━━━ ● ━━━━━

The During:

When the Church comes to take Lisa, you beg them to see reason. You cry and scream, hell, you even try to fight your way out at one point, only for both you and Dr. Tepes to be overpowered by the Church’s henchman.

The two of you are taken, violently, to Targoviste, where you’re thrown into dark, damp cells with little to no light. Freezing, you huddle together for warmth, each trying your best to reassure the other, that all will turn out well. Adrian was still around, right? He’ll have to come home to find you missing, he’ll come and rescue you. And Dracula was due to return soon, correct? Surely, they’ll come. Surely, they’ll stop this madness.

It’s a few days later, after hours of interrogation and brutal torture that you realize with a heavy heart, that no one is coming to rescue you. And what’s worse, that these so-called men of the cloth cannot and will not listen to reason. You’re starved and beaten, your hair is sliced off so close to your skin, that they take bits of your scalp with it in some places. And despite initially being imprisoned with Lisa, you find yourself being separated from her for longer periods.

The men try everything to get you to turn on her. They tell you if you recant her wicked ways now, say she used her evil magic to trick you, your sentencing will be easier. You could still live— they dangle betrayal in front of you as a last lifeline. You don’t take it of course. You love Mrs. Tepes, and you know she’s no witch. You muster what little might you have left, spitting at the men as you tell them to go to hell. You swear she’s innocent, that she knows nothing. Hell, at one point, you find yourself confessing to having manipulated her! You don’t think they buy it though, if the poor doctor’s screams from down the hall are anything to go by.

The night they light the pyre, the night of Lisa’s murder, you’re sick on more than one occasion. You scream your throat raw, begging them to burn you first! That she was innocent! That you corrupted her! That it was all your doing! But to no avail.

In a scene that could only rival the Crucifixion of Christ himself, you look up through tear-soaked eyes to see Lisa, enshrouded in flames, begging Dracula to show mercy on her killers, to forgive them, that they know not what they do. “I know it's not your fault,” she cries out, “But, if you can hear me, they don't know what they're doing! Be better than them. Please!”

You sob and wail, watching as your would-be mother-in-law is burned alive. You scream out for someone, anyone! To please help you, save you! With Lisa’s last words echoing in your mind, you can’t help but fear Adrian’s and his Father’s reactions, should they find you both killed.

Oh, gods…

You don’t know what makes you feel sicker… The barbaric display you’re witnessing now or the hypothetical one that threatens to wipe out all living people in Wallachia once Dracula learns of what’s happened. You need not wait long for an answer.

In a fury of fire and grandeur, Dracula’s head appears, molded in flame, demanding to know what has happened to his wife. You cry out to him, apologizing profusely, saying you begged them to burn you first! You scream out how they refused to see reason, they killed her for helping! Injudiciously, in your indignant anger, you plead with Dracula to release his fury on the priests who did this, to send them to hell to be tortured for eternity for this unforgivable transgression!

With the silent fury of a gathering storm, Dracula’s fiery visage speaks calmly as his anger grows concertedly less. "I give you one year Wallachians,” he finally decides. “You have one year to make your peace and remove any marks you have made upon the land. One year, and I'll wipe all human life from the land of Wallachia. You took that which I love, so I will take from you everything you have and everything you have ever been. One year."

No sooner than he spits out the words, a coil of fire bursts from his image, winding itself around your body. The guards surrounding you gasp and flee, avoiding the coil’s tail as it whips back and forth, hoisting you into the air.

The fiery coil burns your skin, and the smell of even more burnt flesh makes you gag. If you had any bile left over at all, you’re certain it’d come up yet again. The pain is like a thousand stinging nettles and boiling water constricting your arms and midriff all at once. Your vision grows blurry as you feel your body move through the air, your nostrils taking in one last wretched breath of sulfur and smoke.

━━━━━ ◉ ━━━━━

The After — Part One:

When you awake you find yourself laid, practically bare, a heap on the floor within Dracula’s castle— the evil Lord himself only feet away, raging over his magic well— as shards of his magic mirror whip around him at incredible speeds. Your head is pounding, it feels as if it might explode, and your arms… Fuck.

Where the supernatural coil grabbed you, your skin was red and raw, small pockets of blisters already beginning to form. Your arms tremble uncontrollably as you try to move them, the pain that’s consuming your nerves is far too intense to hold them steady as you sit up into an upright position.

It doesn’t feel real; nothing feels real. It feels like a nightmare. It had all been perfect, everything was perfect— you all were happy! How did it turn into such horror so fast?

Shakily, you rise to your feet and clutch the remains of your clothes to your chest in an attempt to preserve your modesty, although it’s more of a subconscious act on your part. Everything feels like it’s moving in slow motion, yourself included. It’s like the air is heavier here somehow, its weight filling your lungs and weighing you down.

A loud noise shocks you back to the present, nearly making you stumble over in fright. At least you would have, had Adrian not used his superspeed to catch you before you fell. One of his gloved hands grasps your left arm directly over the burn, causing you to let out a hiss. His rectangular eyes look wider than you’ve ever seen as he releases his grip, looking over your battered form.

“(Y/N) ...” Adrian says, his voice serious and quiet, barely a whisper.

You shake your head furiously, unable to trust your ability to speak without breaking. Upon Adrian’s gentle insistence, you feel your mouth opening, and the words slipping out, scraping against the back of your reddened throat as they exit your frail body.

“They killed her, Adrian…” you whisper, your voice quivering. “I, we tried to stop them, they just wouldn’t listen!” Somehow, your eyes begin to water again, despite your earlier certainty that your body had no water nor tears left in it at all.

“Once she realized they wouldn't listen to reason, she lied and told them I was innocent. She told them she had manipulated me, that I was just a child, that I didn’t know what I was doing, that she never got the chance to teach me!” A feeling of guilt consumes you as you speak the words aloud, and soon enough, your body is once again plagued by uncontrollable sobs.

Adrian listens intently to your words, his brows furrowed. You watch through teary eyes as a range of emotions flash across his face: anger, hurt, pain, sorrow, and finally… acceptance. Your beloved hardens his gaze, choking down whatever grief he may be feeling. At the present, Adrian knows, there are more pressing matters at hand.

You follow Adrian’s steely gaze back, seeing his Father where he is bent over his summoning circle, cursing in a language that is foreign to you before he switches back to Romanian.

“One year! It will take me one year to summon an army from the guts of Hell itself!” Dracula proclaims, promising to enact vengeance for the death of his love.

“No.” Adrian counters, slipping out of your grasp.

“Adrian,” you whisper, warningly. “Don’t—”

“What do you mean, ‘no’? That woman was the only reason on Earth for me to tolerate human life!” Dracula retaliates, enraged his son could even conceive of such lenience.

“Then find the one who did the deed,” Alucard proposes. “If you set loose an army of the night on Wallachia, you cannot undo it, and many thousands of people just as innocent as her will suffer and die.”

“There are no innocents! Not anymore! Any one of them could have stood up and said, ‘No, we won't behave like animals anymore.’"

“(Y/N) did.” Adrian points out. “She tried to take all the blame, in an attempt to save Mother’s life.”

Dracula looks over at you with blood-red eyes, contempt clear on his face. “And yet,” he snarls, “Here she stands, and my Wife, your Mother does not!” He hisses the last word, livid that out of the two of you, you were the one who survived.

With large, fearful eyes, you watch as Adrian closes the gap between him and his Father.

“I won't let you do it. I grieve with you, but I won't let you commit genocide.”

“Adrian,” you warn again.

The next bit happened all so quickly.

Faster than you could blink, you watch, helpless, frozen in horror as Adrian charges his father, his longsword drawn. Despite their vampiric speed being unrecognizable to the untrained human eye, you swear you watch the scene unfold in slow motion. Adrian charges first, but Dracula, roaring in a fit of rage, counters faster— his Father’s elongated claws slash diagonally across Adrian’s chest, before his fist pauses, still embedded deep within your lover’s gut.

You don’t have time to think before you act. To you, Adrian has the abilities of a god, but to his Father… It was clear there’d be no match. You have no clue how you got your hands on it, no idea as to how you even managed a successful hit, but the next thing you know, a triangular shard of magic mirror is impaled in Great Lord Dracula’s back, put there by your very hand.

Too terrified to even breathe, the only sound you can hear beyond your racing pulse is a wet, gory squelch as Dracula retracts his claws from Adrian’s body. You hear the spray of blood before you see it, a rush of bright red blood gushes onto the marble floor between Dracula and his son.

Standing at his impressive full height, Dracula turns ever so slowly, ever so menacingly, to face you. His pupils are that of a blood moon, his sclera so bloodshot they practically look as black as night. In that second, you know you’ve fucked up.

You cower as Dracula raises one hand to you, instinctively shielding your neck from his nasty bloodied talons. With surprisingly repressed strength, Dracula backhands you, the force sending you flying backward, smashing into the base of one of the curved bookshelves lining the walls of his summoning room.

With his focus still on you, Dracula stalks toward you. Knowing it’s now or never, you scream at Adrian to flee. “Run!” The words rip out of your raw throat, sounding like an eleventh commandment.

You see Adrian, previously stunned by his Father’s disregard for his life, holding together the gaping wound across his chest. He has no time to even spare you, his beloved, a last look before evaporating into clouds, his cloud of bloodied mist bolting for the door, fleeing as fast as his injured state would allow him.

Dracula only turns to watch as his son, his very possibly fatally wounded son, flees the confines of his castle. For a moment it is silent— only the sound of both yours and Dracula’s heaving breaths echo across the chamber.

Clenching his clawed fingers into a fist, Dracula says nothing as he too makes his way to the castle doors, leaving your bruised and broken body alone in the dark.

━━━━━ ❍ ━━━━━

The After — Part Two:

Somehow, Christ only knows, you find your way to one of Lisa’s old labs and do a half-assed job of patching yourself up. You find your burns and dislocated shoulder to be the most painful of injuries.

Thankfully, Lisa had taught you enough about setting a patient’s shoulder that you managed to smash it into an adjacent wall, popping your joint back in yourself. The burns you wrap in honey and milk-soaked linen gauze, wincing every time the bandages brush against your skin. It’s awful work, slow work too, but you must have managed it alright because you find yourself patched up and passed out in one of the castle’s kitchens a few hours (or days? had it been days?) after that.

You eat raw vegetables and berries— nothing that requires cooking. Lord knows you couldn't prepare anything successfully now even if you were to try. Eating your foraged meal in silence you debate your next steps. Do you go back home? Would your family even welcome you home after your long and unexplained absence? And if they, along with all the humans in Wallachia were ultimately to be driven from the land, did it matter anyway?

‘Oh god,’ you think. You have to warn them, have to make them flee before a year is up. But where would you go? Where could you go? Greater Styria was a possibility, although it was not by any means an easy journey, and the climate there was much colder than your folks were used to here. You shakily rise to your feet and set out to find a map within one of the Castle’s many libraries.

After a good night’s rest, you find your mindset with a newfound determination: you will go home. You were going to get your family on the move and then… Then, you’d come back here.

You knew, in all likelihood, that returning to Dracula’s castle after the fact entailed certain death. But you also knew, things would get worse if he were to be left alone.

Dracula may not have ever loved you for a daughter-in-law. Hell, he may not have ever loved anyone aside from Mrs. Tepes, but you promised her while huddling together that first night in those dingy cells that no matter what happened, should either of you get out alive, you would not leave Adrian and Vlad. “They need humans, (Y/N),” Lisa coughed into your ear. “And most importantly, humanity needs them.”

Dracula would resent your company, he would want to be rid of you. But you could not be rid of him, not after what Lisa had asked of you.

‘Besides,’ you thought, ‘Nobody should have to grieve alone.’

The journey back home to your parents is majorly uneventful. Sure, it was touch and go for a while, your body was exhausted after the ordeal you endured, and your wounds had gotten infected once or twice. Thankfully, you had the mind to pack with you any potential treatments you might need.

It felt good to be home, to be amongst family again. You couldn’t stop crying and hugging everyone when you first arrived. You kept the details to a minimum but made it clear they needed to be the hell out of Wallachia before a year. You told them you had found an apprenticeship, that the woman was kind to you, but while in Targoviste, you saw the burning of a witch, and soon after the face of Satan himself appeared in flames, threatening the crowd. It caused a panic, you see, and you had gotten trampled in the process.

You didn’t bother to explain that the woman you were learning under was this so-called witch and that this Satanic figure was her husband. Nor did you tell them of your half-inhuman partner. You knew had you told the family the whole truth, they might have cast you out as a devil worshiper and a liar and choose not to heed your words.

Your warnings spread through your extended family like how ivy creeps up a stone wall. A fair part of your relatives in the country believed you enough to agree to uproot their lives and settle outside of Wallachia: some settled on Syria, others had decided on Greece, Egypt, or Rome. The more skeptical ones who hemmed and hawed over the validity of your claims agreed to move into the countryside, a decent distance from any major Wallachian city or village.

When you were certain they’d heed your words, you told them you could not stay with them, your Mother wept for three straight days and your Father could do little to console her. As much as it broke your family’s heart, you knew that your need to return to Castlevania was larger than yours. You weren't just doing it for your family, you were doing it for every family across the land. You couldn't be selfish. Mrs. Tepes was the most selfless woman you had met, and she taught you well. If you meant what you said to her when you first met, that you wanted to help people, you would need to buck up and accept the consequences of that.

Your journey back to the castle was much more melancholy than your journey home. You could almost feel the whispers of the tortured souls Dracula had slain before blowing cold air into your ears, begging you to turn back. Nevertheless, you continued. You entered Castlevania to find you were alone, however, that would not be the case for long.

Months later you had fallen into somewhat of a predictable routine within the castle and its new occupants. Dracula had recruited two humans to serve as his war planners— men by the names of Hector and Isaac, respectively. You appreciate the levity Hector, and his undead pets bring, and you admire the intelligence and loyalty Isaac has. You just wish they weren’t going along with Dracula’s plan.

You tread carefully as you find the time to express to each of his Generals that you wish they wouldn’t go through with this plan. You explain humans are not the kind of species to give in to subjugation, they will revolt eventually. You suggest the vampires come up with some sort of tit-for-tat system with the humans instead like, for example, promised blood servants would equal vampiric protection for that territory.

It’s safe to say no one is impressed with your centrist ideals, so eventually stop taking part in the conversation. You silently hang around Hector, and just listen with a sorrowful expression, satisfied with knowing that if you can’t change the Generals' minds, you can, at the very least, make them somewhat uncomfortable.

When Carmilla arrives, you’re immediately put off by her little display of insolence. Unlike yours, her dissent doesn’t seem to come from a place of concern. You make a mental note to keep an eye on her.

It’s during the General's next argument that you receive a ray of hope: “We are quite certain that Alucard sleeps at Gresit.”

You feel your body grow lighter.

“So, that means,” you speak aloud to yourself more so to anyone else, “Adrian is alive?”

You’re met with a handful of annoyed glares from the other vampires as Isaac continues: “And that there was recently a Belmont there.”

Upon hearing Carmilla berate the others for not sending night creatures to the ancestral Belmont home, your smile falls and your improved mood falters. These Belmonts were famous monster hunters, famous enough to frighten your current vampire company. That means, if there was a Belmont in Gresit, at the same time as Adrian, as Alucard, whatever the hell he’s going by these days, it could prove disastrous for your love. For all you know, he’s still recovering from the wounds dealt to him by his Father. And if this Belmont, this monster hunter strikes first and asks questions later, he may accidentally kill the only living vampire in existence who stands against the very nature of this war.

‘How ironic,’ you think solemnly. Just as fast as the universe gives you hope, it rips it away once more.

You excuse yourself, and make your way towards Hector’s forge, aiming to distract your distraught mind with some cute reanimated pets.

Shortly thereafter, Hector joins you. He asks if you truly did not know Dracula’s son was still alive. You shake your head ‘no’, telling him how you had prayed every past night to any God who would listen, that they would send their holy armies and angels to guard him, but no, you had mostly just feared he was dead.

You spend the rest of the night talking to Hector about Alucard, Adrian as you knew him. How smart he was, how much the two of you used to laugh, and how much he looked just like his Mother.

“Perhaps that’s why,” Hector supposes, “Dracula could no longer bear to see him.”

You say perchance he’s right, conveniently leaving out the part where the Father and Son duo almost fought to the death right in front of you.

The conversation with Hector reignites something within you. You feel as if you had been praying all this time for an answer, and this was it. Alucard was alive, and so was Belmont. You understand now what needs to be done.

Your lover must once again fight his Father, and this time, he must win.

Your silent observations allow you to learn of Carmilla’s scheme fairly early on, as well as Godbrand’s demise at the hands of Isaac, yet all that time, you say nothing. You keep your mouth shut and your eyes down. If Carmilla divides Dracula’s army and court, she will inevitably make it easier for Alucard and Belmont to destroy him.

The Generals, and even Dracula himself, believe you are mourning the loss of your love for the second time, as his demise will be inevitable the moment he meets his Father and his armies— or at least, that’s what they assume.

When Carmilla has Hector send special night creatures to the remains of the Belmont home, you attach a letter around one of the creature's necks, hoping your love will notice it, and if he doesn’t, you pray he instinctively outwits the traps that await for him within his Father’s castle.

━━━━━ ❂ ━━━━━

Beginning Again:

The night Dracula chooses to move the Castle to Braila, you manage to speak with him one last time.

You bring him some tea, even though you know he won’t drink it, and you tell him, for what must be the hundredth time, how sorry you are about all that’s happened. You apologize for not being able to do more to save his wife. You tell him that if you could do it all over again if you were given a choice between who they should burn first, you’d demand it be you.

Dracula turns away from the fire to look at you upon hearing those words.

“She was fond of you, you know.” He says, sounding far away as if lost in a distant memory. “She was overjoyed at the thought of gaining a daughter”

You nodded along a hurt smile on your face. “It was my honor.” Gathering your courage you continued: “Even though it didn’t work out, I want you to know I loved your wife very much… And,” you kept going. “I love your son very much.”

Dracula said nothing. He simply turned his attention back to the flames within his study’s fireplace.

“It’s not too late, you know,” you prod gently. “If Adrian is alive, he could still come back, we could still be a family-”

“No!” Dracula’s low growl sent shivers down your spine.

For a moment you feared he would rise to attack you or perhaps berate you further, but no such action came. Instead, the former Great Lord Dracula’s shoulders deflated back to their hunched position, as he fell silent once again.

Quietly, you made your way back to your room, shutting and locking the door behind you. If you had any tears left at all, you would have shed them throughout the night. Instead, you merely lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if there would even be a tomorrow to awaken to.

Pleased to still be alive at this point, but feeling increasingly suffocated by this overwhelming sense of doom, you spend the next day cooped up in your room, on your knees, the rosary in your hand, whispering prayers of safety for your loved one. You couldn't explain it, but at the time, you felt compelled to recite prayer after prayer and reveal all the fears and worries in your heart.

You speak out to Death, to God, to all the angels and saints, and beg them to grant Adrian safe passage as he completes his task of saving humanity— it’s something his Mother would have wanted after all.

Amidst your fervent prayers, you feel the Castle shake and creak, but you soon realize something is off: it keeps jerking from side to side, several times, way too many to be a case of a single relocation. Your heart races, and in the pit of your gut, you know this is it:

The Alucard has come.

Your love has come back for you.

You scramble behind the door, poised with a wooden stake in hand (just in case, you never know), and wait.

And wait.

Following a crescendo of metallic crashes and screaming, you hear more crashes, this time lesser in intensity and they’re accompanied by the distinct scent of fire, sulfur, and burnt flesh.

It terrifies you, bringing such horrible memories of your almost demise to the surface. You look down at the burn scars on your arms and feel physically ill. Every time you shut your eyes to blink, you see the corpse of Ms. Tepes, burning alive right before you as if no time has passed at all, as if you’re trapped in the permanent hell of that memory.

The overwhelming ornery atmosphere in the castle only grows, seeming to suddenly flood your nostrils and every pore.

You watch in shock and horror as thousands of soot-colored transparent ghouls burst through your doorway, the shock of the impact sending you reeling into the bed. Tortured faces of all shapes and sizes circle you menacingly, before bursting through your room’s glass window, vanishing just as fast as they came.

Within an instant you feel… lighter, freer almost. It’s as if something major has changed, but you don’t know what.

Timidly, stake still in hand, you make your way down the castle corridors. Unfortunately, you have to take several detours, your regular route being cut off by giant holes in the architecture. A good portion of the castle looks like it had been hit with cannon fire.

You sincerely hope that whatever caused that damage is no longer rampaging around these halls, lest you stumble upon them yourself.

By the time you reach the throne room, the sun is just peeking out from behind the horizon. The sight of it flowing freely into the castle interior lifts your spirits with hope. Sunlight means no vampires. No vampires means…

You follow the originating path of the sun’s beams, finding three figures illustrated against the sunrise. One of them is a burly-looking man, with a large frame and broad shoulders. Another is a woman, at least, you’re fairly certain they’re a woman, with curly hair, dressed in flowing blue robes. And the third is….

You don’t even need a second glance to know who the third person is.

Crying out his name, you run towards your long-lost lover, almost losing your footing over all the debris covering the floor. But just as he would before, and just as he always would, your lover, Adrian, catches you before you can fall.

The two of you cling to each other for dear life, just silently sobbing, feeling grateful to be in one another’s embrace. You’re not sure how long the two of you stay intertwined like that, you just know however long it was, it could never be enough to make up for how much you missed him this past year.

“Adrian,” you clutch his coat, “I thought you were dead! I thought he had killed you! I was so worried.”

“He almost did,” the strange broad-shoulder man reveals in a teasing fashion. You watch as the robed woman elbows him in the gut.

“Alucard,” Adrian says, regaining your attention as he grasps your hands in his. “I am Alucard now.”

You look into his golden eyes, sensing while this is still very much the body of the man you loved, this Alucard before you, is not the same person that your Adrian was. After all this time, it feels like quite the loss, and yet, you cannot fault him for it. You are unaware of the journey he’s been on, of the sacrifices he’s had to make. God knows your character must have changed as well, living amongst a vampire court and necromancers for just under a year.

You back away from your love, temporarily ignoring his concerned expression.

“Hello Alucard,” you say, extending a hand, “My name is (Y/N). And I’d very much like to share a drink with you if you’d let me.”

“Don’ know about Alucard,” the broad man mumbles, gripping his side in pain, “But I’d very much like a drink. Or five.”

“Trevor!” The robed woman scolds.

“What?”

You smile at the three of them, feeling beyond blessed that your love has found such wonderful new friends.

When you had first fallen for Adrian, you assumed your family would consist solely of him, his mother, and his father, that you’d spend the rest of your days learning medicine in a little cottage nestled in Lupu. That simple life was to be yours. But now, it’s all changed. And Alucard is all that remains of that family you once loved.

You gaze out into the forest beyond the castle grounds, closing your eyes and sighing as you feel the morning’s sun on your face.

Yes, it was true Mrs. and Mr. Tepes were gone.

It was true that the old Adrian could never come back.

But if you had to choose a new life, a life here amongst a gorgeous castle, with your former lover and his two new friends, well… you doubted you could pick a better one than that.

A/N 2.0: WHY DID THIS TAKE ME SO LOOOONG? Who knows? Anyway, it’s here now. And hey— did you pay close attention to the symbols in the dividers? Go ahead and look back if you didn’t, just a silly little fun symbolism storytelling. Oh, also, I will finally be updating The Queue List to reflect all the asks I’ve since answered and posted to not confuse people checking on the status of their ask/new readers.

If you liked reading this, please REBLOG! Likes are great but reblogs spread my work much further.

If you really, really liked reading this, Consider Buying Me a Coffee <3.

#adrian tepes x reader #alucard castlevania #alucard x reader #alucard x you #alucard imagine #adrian fahrenheit tepes #adrian tepes #alucard #castlevania imagine #castlevania x reader

193 notes · View notes