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bitterrfruit · 1 month ago

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iron tide [1]

fisherman price x reader cw: noncon undressing/bathing, dubcon touching. 11k words. 18+ mdni the crew aboard a deep-sea crabbing vessel rescue a woman adrift in the north sea. you wake up on a boat surrounded by men you don't know, with no memory of where you came from. or: john price rescues you from certain death and decides that you belong to him [masterlist]

Jonathan had long forsaken his godliness; but if he were to deify anything, it would be the Sea.

Great big blue, infinitely vast and infinitely deep. She was sweet when she was still, gentle, little ebbs like kisses against the barnacled hull — formidable when she was angry, titanic swells like mountains that crashed and shattered and sucked irreverent men down into the depths of her.

She took as much as she gave, demanded sacrifices for her gifts. Stole his father when he was a boy, swept off the deck of his ship by a rancorous wave and cast out into the expanse before she inevitably swallowed him. But what she purloined she returned in abundance — a cornucopia of life; fish, lobsters, molluscs — and enough crabs for John to make his living for the better part of his life once he retired from the Navy.

In more recent years, though, he had begun to lose faith in her, too.

The seas were violent and only getting rougher, warmer when they needed to be cold to let the crabs get meatier, colder when they needed to be warm so they could replenish their numbers.

A burgeoning resentment had rooted in his crew like a spreading cancer, minute at first but steadily swelling — every year they were paid a little less and damaged a little more, and who else was there to blame but their skipper?

Wrong spot, wrong depth, wrong time of year; he seemed to keep getting it wrong, despite decades and decades of seafare. As though the Sea was punishing him, as though he had taken too much — only a matter of time before it was his turn to give.

She made known her spite as he leaned over the paint-chipped railing of the deck-facing balcony, watching his crew haul in pot after pot from the raging ocean. Each cage more vacant than the last, the crabs smaller than he had come to expect from the once generous North Sea, soft brown shells where they should have been thick, ochre red, and thorny. Half of them too small to keep, so were begrudgingly tossed back into the deep.

The sun had set not ten minutes prior, hidden by black cloud and dense fog, the sea and sky smudged into a uniform shade of gloaming blue. The waves were tempestuous, whitecaps high and valleys low — the Iron Tide was a resilient girl, and she carved through the bulk of the swells, but even she could not avoid the plummets and climbs of an ocean this rough. He felt the mist of the cracking waves on his cheeks, the wind blistering cold and forcing him to squint.

As the Captain he had outgrown the need to get his hands dirty, he could stay in the comfort of the wheelhouse if he wished — but he still liked to venture down to the deck to pull ropes and haul pots when he could, if only to show his crew how it was properly done. He liked to ensure his callouses stayed thick and his mettle hadn’t turned soft.

“This’s a fucken’ suicide set, captain!” Roared Johnny from the deck, work-worn voice barely audible over the bellows of the waves on the hull. Lead deckhand with the attitude of a first mate.

The first mate himself, Simon, had begun ascending the rusty steel stairs with an uncharacteristic urgency, the hood of his fluorescent orange jacket around his shoulders, kept there by the wind.

“How many ‘ve we got?” John asked him, jaundiced, having to shout over the gale.

“Thirty-two,” Simon said rigidly, “from twenty pots.”

“Fuck’s sake,” John grunted, aggravated, smacking the rail with his palm. He cynically observed the next pot as it was hauled up, even emptier than the last one, and he made up his mind. “Alright, set ‘em back.”

“They’ve been soaking for twenty-four hours,” Simon disputed, but the pith of his irritation resided in the knowledge of how much labour had already been wasted. It was an inexorable fact, though — there was little point in retrieving them now, as empty as they were.

“It’s a waste of time to haul them all,” John barked. “What have we got, seventy to go? Set them back.”

Simon rubbed the bridge of his nose with a thumb, exasperated. “Alright.”

He echoed the Captain’s command in a roar down the stairs, deckhands looking up to listen before they obeyed — John watched, disenchanted, as they began launching the string of pots over the side of the deck one by one, throwing loops of yellow nylon rope and the bright red marker buoys out to follow them.

It was easy for John to fall into a sour mood, and after the abysmal stew Nikolai had thrown together for their supper, his fuse was cut even shorter. Seemed the Russian mechanic’s turn to cook always landed on the harshest nights, left everyone crotchety and indolent.

He needed nicotine.

He made his way back to the helm with a crease in his brow and his jaw in knots. The bolted windows spanning the length of the bridge were near impossible to see through, the battering of sea spray distorting the view of the dark ocean that extended unendingly past the bow. He glared out into the abyss for a beat, stoically watching the black waves, wondering what next the Sea would punish him with.

A blink of red pierced through the mist.

He almost ignored it, at first, rubbing his forehead as he twisted his spinning chair behind the helm — until it was there, again; a pin-prick of bright carmine, cutting through the blue sea fog and disappearing behind a wave.

Frowning as he leaned into the radar screen, his eyes scoured over the bright blue disk and immediately caught on a tiny yellow blip. Due north, twenty degrees west. It was faint, flickering every odd moment, and he stared at it vigilantly — a spot he would normally dismiss as sea clutter, if not for the blinking light he thought he saw on the horizon.

He reeled down the window by the seat and stuck his head out into the winds, squinting through the spray — at the top of a crest shone the little red light, blinking at half-second intervals, clear as day.

The realisation rinsed him colder than seawater.

A lifeboat.

He snatched the intercom radio from its hook by the wheel and held it to his lips.

“All hands—” He barked, “Secure the deck. Got a lifeboat up ahead. Prepare for rescue.”

Simon’s crackling voice quickly came back through the radio, from the call point on the deck. “D’you say a lifeboat?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Roger.”

John could hear the yelling on deck from the wheelhouse, all that fervour frothing up at the prospect of an emergency; a new challenge. He immediately spun the wheel to adjust the rudder, steering the boat in the direction of the blip on the radar. Gently pushed the throttle to catch up and felt the roaring engine quake through the boat, the sharp bow of his ship cut through the swells like a fist through a wall.

“See it,” Simon called through the intercom.

“What’ve we got?”

“Life raft.”

He tugged the throttle lever back to halt the boat on approach, aligning the vessel so that the lifeboat was portside, knuckles white on the wheel. He set the engine to hold station before marching out to the deck, bracing for the wind as he hurried across the steel balcony and down the ladder, knurled steel stairs clanging loudly with every thud of his boots.

“Any survivors onboard?” John shouted, joining his crew where they peered over the railing, as another wave cascaded over the gunwale, greenwater flooding the deck before gushing out of the scuppers.

There it was, neon orange and climbing up a steep swell. Hardly a lifeboat — an inflatable raft, little red light blinking atop a rounded corner. From the deck he could tell it was ancient, the bright skin of the raft peeling and blistering, exposing the ballooning black rubber within that kept it afloat. Modern regulations demanded modern lifeboats — fully enclosed boats with their own motors, search and rescue transponders equipped. He struggled to imagine the kind of vessel the raft had even come from; certainly not a cruise ship, or any legally operating fishing or passenger boat.

“Only one,” Alex answered, yelling over the roar of the ocean.

Nik let out a grunt, dismissing it all with a sweep of his hand. “That woman is dead.”

John squinted at the raft, and quickly determined that Nikolai wasn’t unreasonable for thinking so.

The woman aboard the raft lay face down in the orange bed, bare-footed, nothing on but a saturated ivory dress that clung to her skin like glue. Sodden hair webbed across her back, tresses floating in the inch of water that filled the basin of the boat.

Even if she were a corpse already, though, he wasn’t going to let the Sea digest her unchallenged.

“Alright,” he declared, chewing on his plan before he uttered it. “I’ll strap on the lifeline, jump in and grab her, then you lot can reel me back in.”

The disputes were quick to gush from his crew, all cursing and shaking heads.

“Get fucked,” Alex scoffed, appaled, “skipper jumping overboard? What world are you living in?”

“You gonna do it, then, Keller?” John retorted, lips in a line.

“I can,” Soap yelled, already shucking off his heavy jacket. Daredevil that he was.

John gritted his teeth. Wasn’t sold on the risk of losing his lead deckhand; but as he considered it, he would never be prepared to risk losing any of them.

“You sure?”

“Ah’m the best swimmer,” he boasted through a grin, now down to his thermals, shoulders raised in the cold and rubbing his hands together.

“Good man,” John nodded approvingly, and the crew quickly went to work strapping him in — hooked the harness over his shoulders and secured it in the front, fed the end of the long blue rope into the winch so he could be retrieved after the catch.

Came the thudding of boots on the deck, running towards the commotion; “Fuck’s going on? Why’s the engine idle?”

Kyle, the ship’s engineer, finally emerging from the engine room with a smudge of gear oil on his cheek. Must have had his earbuds in when the Captain issued the all hands directive.

John let out a huff, not prepared to give a long justification to the designated safety officer, conscientious as he was.

“Oh shit—” Gaz chirped, discovering on his own the gravity of the situation, as he glanced over the railing and spotted the raft. “Is she alive?”

“We’re about t’find out,” Soap said keenly, bouncing on the balls of his feet to warm himself up.

“You’re jumping in?” Gaz balked, “That’s — you’re fuckin’ mental.”

John let out a sharp huff. He didn’t disagree, but he thought it counterproductive to express any reluctance. “Got a better idea, lad?”

Gaz sighed anxiously as he clutched the guardrail, head hanging from his shoulders. He knew as well as John that this was the only option — it was that, or leave the woman adrift in the ocean to die, if she weren’t already.

John held fast to his pragmatism, but his morals were unyielding. Nobody gets left behind.

Men took turns giving Johnny good luck pats on the back as he climbed over the railing. He hung off the other side like a monkey with his fist around the bar, looking down into the furious ocean and taking an anticipatory breath.

The crew watched raptly and let loose a strident cheer as he launched off, diving into the waves with knife-pointed arms and sinking out of sight. Nik remained steadfast by the hydraulic winch, ready to set it off at any indication of either success or failure.

Soap reemerged from the water with a visible gasp ten-odd metres out, breaking through the white foam and powering ahead in a freestyle stroke. He reached the raft quickly, and climbed aboard like a wet dog, hauling himself up over the ballooning sides and almost pulling it under the water with him. He kneeled beside the woman once he was in, pulling her by the shoulder to assess her — he gave no indication to the crew as to her status before he hoisted her up and held her tight to his chest, arms hooked under hers so that she wore him like a backpack.

He pushed himself back into the water with an eager holler; “Got ‘er!”

Nik immediately pulled the lever on the winch and it zipped loudly as it began spinning, winding up the rope and hauling Johnny through the swelling sea. The crane arm of the davit extended far enough beyond the gunwale that he didn’t slam into the hull on his ascent, and he clung to the limp woman for dear life — John and his deckhands leaned as far over the railing as they could without toppling overboard, hooking the rope that suspended the swimmer and heaving he and his cargo onboard.

Soap coughed out a splatter of seawater as he gingerly lay the woman on her back, before rolling over and wiping down his face, dripping wet.

“Found yerself a mermaid, cap,” he sputtered, sniffing and shivering violently as he pushed himself to stand.

“Nicely fuckin’ done, Soap,” Alex lauded, smacking him on the back and earning a screech from the Scotsman.

“‘S too cold,” he bit, grabbing at his genitals through his sodden thermals. “Ma fucken’ balls are gone.”

“Go in and get dry,” the Captain barked, as he hurriedly crouched beside the woman, sweeping locks of drenched hair from where it stuck to her face.

“Jesus,” Gaz muttered concernedly.

Her skin was bitterly cold, but soft on her cheeks; some indication that resuscitation might have been possible, that her skin wasn’t as stiff and waxy as corpse skin would have been. Eyes were lightly shut, her thick lashes clumped together by seawater. He used a gentle thumb to lift up an eyelid, and her pupils were nice and black — blown out, but not clouded over. Laces of capillaries meshed through her white scleras. Blood still bright red.

“How’s she looking?” Alex asked, crouching beside John, pessimism in his throat.

“She’s frigid,” John said grimly.

“Could be hypothermic,” Gaz said from behind him, worry leaden in every word. “That water is barely higher than zero.”

“Mh,” John grunted in agreement, hastily pressing the palps of his fingers under her jaw into a spongy jugular, held there for a few seconds — no pulse. “We’ll worry about warmin’ her up once we get her breathing.”

He leaned back and interlaced his fingers, laying his hands knuckles down between her breasts. Pushed his weight into her sternum with a hard shove and her ribs sunk underneath him, bouncing back up when he released the pressure. Repeat. Over, and over, grunting with each desperate compression.

The heaving bodies of five men caging her kept the bulk of the angry waves from dousing her, the spray crashed over John’s back and dripped from him, beads landing on her body. Solemn silence hung heavy between them, as though fearful that expressing any hope would condemn her to certain death. Simon clutched John’s shoulder, grip encouraging.

He counted his compressions until he reached thirty, before he urgently keeled forward and pressed his mouth to her cold lips, pinching her nose and lifting her chin — pumped air from his lungs into hers with a forceful breath, then another, then another. Her chest rose as it filled up with his air, sunk again as he let it seep out from behind her teeth.

Returned to compressions. Push. Push. Push. He pressed so hard into her sternum that her ribs threatened to snap under the weight of him, but they were rubbery enough to withstand it.

Continued the next round until he reached twenty-one — when water began to rise up her throat, sloshing about in her open mouth and trickling out of its corners. He urgently halted his compressions to flip her onto her side and tip out the brine, hammering into the midline of her back with an open palm.

“C’mon, love,” John growled, teeth gritting. “Cough it up for me.”

As though she had heard him, a gurgle eked from her throat, torso retching as an eruption of water gushed out of her mouth and sprayed over the deck. A few weak coughs followed the first, and she shuddered — the men roared in shock and celebration as John returned her to her back.

Her eyes fluttered open for less than a second, shrinking pupils fixed on John for a heartbeat — wet, glittering under the beaming of the deck lights, carving straight through him and taking root in the marrow of his skull. Vacant and yet swollen, the glow of life anew, as though glaring right into the heavens — and with a little sigh, they feathered shut again.

He held a hand to her cheek, gave her head a soft shake; prepared to continue the chest compressions, but as he curled forward and held his ear to her lips, he felt her breathing, shaky and weak against the cartilage shell.

“She breathin’?” Simon asked bluntly, laden with apprehension.

“Yeah,” John huffed, relief potent as liquor flooded hot into his chest and made his temples throb.

“Good shit, cap’n,” Alex commended, releasing a puff of pent air, just as relieved as the lot of them.

John nodded dismissively, hands on his knees, before he pushed himself to stand. He stood over the girl and hoisted her up with his hands under her arms, before delicately draping her over his shoulder.

“Gaz, help me with her, will you?” He grunted, before marching toward the stairs up to the superstructure. “You three — fun’s over. Get back to setting the pots. I’ll send Soap back out once he’s in his dries.”

“Aye aye,” Alex said facetiously, shaking out his hands as he and the others returned to the stack they had just tied down.

“What’s the plan?” Kyle asked stiffly, in quick pursuit as John steamed up the stairs.

“Gotta get her warm,” John said.

“Yeah—” he agreed with a hesitant tone, “what d’you want me for?”

John’s eyes rolled into his skull. “You did a couple years of health science, didn’t you?”

“One year,” Kyle corrected.

John could have said that he wanted Gaz specifically because he was the ship’s assigned safety officer, or because he was the only man aboard with a university degree. But, in truth, he wanted him simply for the fact he was the least likely of all of his crewmen to make stripping the girl into something needlessly lascivious.

He carted her to the head in steady stride, passing Johnny through the narrow corridor as he dried himself off with a towel around his neck.

“She’s alive?” He asked hopefully.

“Uh-huh,” John rumbled.

Soap triple-smacked the veneer panel of the wall with a flat hand in excitement, all but bouncing off the ceiling with it. “Halle-fucken’-lujah! Need help warmin’ her up?”

“No. Get your skins on and head back out to deck, Johnny, y’got more pots to drop.”

Johnny groaned like a teenager, but he went off as he was told.

The head was small — enough room for a toilet, a shower, and a three-inch wide sink, not quite the floorspace to lay her down gracefully. John tore back the curtain and propped her up against the wall of the shower, nestling her into the corner so her head leaned against the perpendicular wall.

No sense in wasting time. He clinically peeled the sodden fabric of her white dress up her thighs, lifting her limp leg to tug the skirt out from under her.

“Christ—” Gaz grumbled, disquieted, he turned away.

“Will y’hold her arms up for me?” John monotonously requested, uninterested in the boy’s reservations.

Gaz sighed as he obeyed the order, taking her cold hands by the wrists and holding them above her head. John hiked up her dress without reservation, revealing the saturated bra and underwear she wore underneath, as he lifted it her arms up above her head.

“This’s fucked up,” Gaz mumbled.

“What is.”

“Taking her clothes off,” he said, reluctance poignant.

“You’d rather we let her freeze to death, eh?” John bit, not even dignifying the engineer’s aversion by turning to look at him.

He tugged her flaccid body towards him, and her head fell against his shoulder — he reached under her arm into the space between her back and the shower wall, unclasping her bra with a single hand.

“No,” Kyle acquiesced. “Do we really need to take off her underwear, though?”

“She’s not gonna get warm in wet knickers, is she,” John grumbled, frustration blossoming, releasing it in a sharp sigh. “Y’need to grow up, Garrick. Go and grab my jersey and a towel from the laundry, then.”

“Okay. Sure, yeah,” he agreed, marching out of the head like he might trip over in his haste.

John bit down on nothing as he pulled the straps of the girl’s bra down her arms, adding it to the pile atop her drenched dress. Didn’t help that she was a lovely thing — pudding-soft curves, pretty little face — might lend an explanation to the young engineer’s discomfort, couldn’t reconcile the attraction he felt to a near-dead woman while she was incognisant of her nudity.

John did not care, he had no qualms.

A pragmatist, through and through. He felt no shame for admiring her as he leaned her back against the laminate wall, nipples grey-purple and hard as pebbles by virtue of her palpable hypothermia. Soft lips were slack, not as blue as they had been when she was fished out of the ocean, now that her blood was pumping again.

He wasted no time ogling her, though, he was no reprobate. His only priority was getting her warm and awake. And that happened to involve hooking his fingers into the waistband of her knickers, saturated in seawater and cleaving fast to her skin.

He hooked an arm around her to lift her from the shower floor, used the other hand to tug her underwear over the swell of her bottom before he set her back down to reel them down her thighs.

Pretty cunt, too. Unshaven, how he liked them.

He reached up for the shower head, held it in a fist as he switched on the water. Already nice and warm, preheated by the engine-powered calorifiers. He held the stream of warm water over her chest, watching as it cascaded over her breasts and flooded between her thighs. Didn’t care if he got himself wet in so doing. Checked her pulse every odd moment with the pad of a finger on her wrist, ensured her chest continued to rise and fall.

Rubbed his free hand over her skin to scrub off all the salt; started modestly with her arms, shoulders, back — but was unhesitant in rinsing and scrubbing her armpits, down her belly, between her legs. Didn’t touch her pussy, though, even John felt that was a step too far. He simply rinsed it. Let the water run over her mons and channel down the cleft of her unaided.

He tilted her head back and ran the warm stream over her hairline, careful not to let too much water pour down her face. He combed thick fingers through the tresses, scrunching her hair into a ball to wring out the brine before rinsing it out again.

As he carded his fingers through her scalp, though, he felt a lump; just above her hairline, concealed by the locks. A squishy protrusion from the skull, with a frayed ridge through the centre of it. Only then did he see the diluted blood in the water that puddled at the bottom of the shower, originating from the ends of her saturated hair.

Add that to the list of ailments, he thought. Poor wee girl. They’d need to tend to that.

Kyle finally returned with a cautious knock on the door, a single knuckle.

“D’you fall overboard, Garrick?” John murmured — he had been gone far longer than it should have taken to find the items he requested.

“Sorry,” he said. “Couldn’t figure out which fleece was yours.”

John said nothing.

“She warming up yet?” Gaz asked tightly, likely not even looking in the direction of the shower, now that she was entirely nude.

The girl’s skin was now plush and pink under the heat of the water, and felt warm to the touch under the back of John’s hand; so with a satisfied nod he shut off the water and hooked the showerhead back into its fastening.

He reached backward with a gesturing hand, and Gaz handed him the crisp towel he had brought from the laundry without a word.

“Looks like she got hit in the head,” John commented, as he draped the towel over the girl's front, rubbing her down to get her dry. Arms, shoulders, armpits, thighs, feet. He was thorough.

“Shit,” Gaz said morosely, half-hearted. Soft young man, soft in a way John was almost envious of. Sometimes he wondered if he had grown too rough around the edges, too abrasive for his own good. “What the fuck happened to ‘er?”

“Not a clue,” John said. “Nothing good.”

“That life raft was — that was non-standard,” Gaz pondered aloud.

“Thought the same thing,” John replied, as he scrunched her hair in the towel, twisting it up to wring out the water. He was careful with the top of her head — dabbing her scalp gently, leaving dark red smears in the blue fibres.

“Ferry capsized, maybe?”

“We would’ve heard about a ship capsizing nearby,” John said. “‘Specially a passenger vessel. They’d have blasted the distress call out in every direction.”

“Mh,” Gaz agreed.

“She had no shoes on,” John remarked, tone sombre. “No gear, no jacket.”

“Running away from something?” asked Gaz, picking up what John might have been suggesting.

“Maybe,” John said, before hanging the towel around her back and hauling her up from the floor with an arm around her ribs.

He hung her floppy arms over his shoulder, kept her body tight to him, the towel just long enough to conceal her buttocks from Gaz, sensitive lad. He kept her up with a forearm under her rear, bounced her to adjust. She was impossibly easy to lift; John could have carried her one-handed, if he were less concerned about avoiding brandishing her nudity around the ship.

Gaz followed him out of the head, towards the galley.

“She had no belongings with her, eh?” Gaz asked, “no wallet, nothing?”

“No.”

Kyle let out a long sigh, worry oozing from his every pore. “Don’t wanna imagine how long she was drifting for.”

John nodded, as he sat her down on the bench seat of the dining table, the thin vinyl cushion squeaking underneath her. He dumped the towel, and grabbed his jersey from Gaz — one of his heavy Patagonia fleeces, fabric thick, plush like sheepskin, dark navy with a zip collar. He pulled it over her head, fed her arms through the long sleeves and adjusted it down her torso. It was long enough that it reached her mid-thighs, hands two-thirds of the way through the sleeves — big enough to conceal everything, and cozy enough to keep her warm. He pulled her hair out from inside the collar and lay it to one side over her shoulder.

“Grab me the first aid kit,” John ordered dryly, as he leaned her against the seat, holding her head upright with a hand at the back of her skull.

He fingered through her locks of damp hair, looking closely for the contusion that he felt ballooning out of her scalp — found it, eventually, dark purple and swollen, sticky burgundy blood coagulating around the open wound and gluing bits of hair together.

“Think she fell?” Gaz asked, as he returned with the red polyester pouch after rummaging through the galley cabinets, unzipping and unfurling it.

“S’there betadine in there?” John asked, before he had acknowledged the engineer’s question. “Hard to say, it looks rough.”

Kyle handed him the little brown dropper of iodine solution, popping off the cap for him. “You don’t think someone hit her.”

John’s jaw tightened. “If they did, they hit her bloody hard.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” Gaz grumbled, upset, watching with his arms crossed as John tipped over the little bottle. He squeezed out several rust-brown drops, they landed squarely in the wound in her scalp, emulsifying with the tissue. “This’s all — just wrong.”

“Least she’s alive,” John murmured, through a huff, as he put down the betadine. No use in attempting to bandage it, the laceration was small enough that it would heal on its own if left unbothered.

“Wonder where her home is,” Gaz mused, tone dismal.

“We’ll ‘ave to see what the bird says when she wakes up,” John said, laying the girl down on her side, tucking up her knees.

“What if she doesn’t?”

“She will,” John asserted as he stood, rapping an appreciative hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “Keep an eye on her, will you? I need to get back to the bridge.”

“Okay,” Gaz nodded tightly.

“And get her a blanket,” John ordered on his way to the ladder. “Call me if anything changes, yeah?”

“Will do, Captain.”

You tasted salt on your tongue.

It was dark, and your body was so heavy — your neurons fired off to raise an arm, and all they mustered was the twitch of a finger. Skin felt warm and viscid, lacquered in a tepid layer of tar as though fully submerged in gooey black pitch, too thick to move around in.

Your eyes perceived nothing but deep, liquid burgundy, and the sparking of white-and-red stars that encroached on the borders of your vision, writhing and swirling in the abyss of your blindness.

Still, salt on your tongue.

It was foul, overpowering, all consuming — that brackish grit in every corner of your mouth, between your teeth, crystallising in the back of your throat. It filled your nose, stung where it adhered to the delicate mucosa of your nostrils, every breath hurt to take in.

You could feel it in your lungs, too. Shards of salt embedded in your bronchioles, saline glutted alveoli, trachea plugged with viscous brine.

Your diaphragm spasmed beyond your control, body seizing as you erupted into a coughing fit — wet and phlegmy, salty fluid gurgling in your chest and hucking out of your mouth with every ragged splutter, you almost choked on it as you heaved in as much air as your lungs could imbibe.

Your eyes shot open, then, vision so blurry that you had to wrench them closed a few times before the membrane over your corneas began to dissipate.

A rubbery cushion under the side of your head, fuzzy fabric enveloping your arms and chest, something scratchy and heavy over your legs. Warm, sore — you ached everywhere, every joint stiff, every muscle burning, every organ twisting and floundering inside you.

Dizziness wracked through your head, brain swimming free within your skull, spinning around in circles and bouncing against the walls of its cavity as though you were being tipped forward and backward and forward again.

Nausea swelled up quickly, filled you up to the ears and made your stomach cramp and contort — bile rose up your throat and burned on its way up, you leaned over the surface you lay on and let it spill out from your teeth. Hardly any vomit, merely an oozing stream of chartreuse bile that dripped in strings from the corner of your mouth.

You heard a voice, a man’s voice, at first too disoriented to understand it.

“Shit — oh my god, you’re—”

A hoarse groan escaped your chest in response, not a noise you made on purpose, as you tried to roll onto your back.

“Are you okay?” He asked urgently, and suddenly you noticed a pair of knees under a table beside you, only as they shifted when the person stood. “Hey — you’re okay, you’re—”

You moaned again, squinting under the bright light above you, vision distorted by vertigo and brine. Tongue too fat to form any words yet.

“You’re okay, let me — let me get you some water.”

You heard the hurried thuds of boots away from you, and you rubbed your eyes with the heels of your palms, finally able to see properly once you opened your eyes again. Shakily pulled yourself upright with a hand on the table, muscles quivering so violently that they could barely hold you up — but fired adrenaline began to kick in, thumping out from your chest and buzzing in your fingertips as you glanced around the room, utterly alien to you.

“Where…” you croaked, soaking in your surroundings. Panelled walls of honey oak, an ugly veneered table in front of you, you sat on its bench seat. A small circular window sat above the table, bolted around its borders, and a single light bulb hung from the ceiling.

The room smelled like dish soap and body odour, fetid with the scent of an unwashed sponge and a hovering note of fish carcass. A small kitchen, as you turned your head around to check behind you — the man towered over a sink, you heard the hiss of running water.

“Where am I?” You finally asked, finding your words, but your voice was as frayed as if you had swallowed glass.

The man turned then, and you did not recognise him. Not at all. A complete stranger, with a furrow in his brow, and an awkward smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

You bolted up from the seat then, tossing aside the blanket that rested on your knees, fight-or-flight reigniting your muscles and setting your heart into overdrive — your head spun with it, and your balance was completely off kilter, you had to continually readjust your feet to keep yourself upright.

“Hey — hey, easy,” he said edgily, voice soft.

“Who the fuck are you?” You barked, immediately defensive, you tried to keep your eyes pinned to him while you made note of your peripheral surroundings.

“I’m — I’m sorry, I didn’t — I’m Gaz. Kyle. I’m Kyle.”

You scowled at him, panting, hackles raised high as you shuffled away from the table. “I don’t know anyone called Kyle,” you hissed. “Or anyone called Gaz.”

“We haven’t met before,” he said, body twisting to face you as you inched around him.

He put down the glass of water he held in his hand, and that only further enkindled your terror. Now his hands were free. He could tackle you, if he wanted to. Tall man that he was, muscular under his black jersey, his big doe-eyes did nothing to soften you to him.

“We found you in the water,” he tried to explain, “we thought you were dead. But we rescued you.”

“The fuck do you mean, found me?” You spat, now approaching the kitchen, your eyes scoured around for something to grab.

He could detect your scheming, inched closer to you on quiet feet, attempting to flank you.

So you dashed — bolted towards the small cooktop, where a magnetic strip mounted on the wall held an array of kitchen knives.

“Fuck—” He cursed, through teeth, failing to grab you in time before you snatched one by the handle, and held the blade in front of you with both hands.

You jabbed it at him as you backed out of his reach, arms so shaky you almost dropped it — but you kept it tight, holding onto it with vicious devotion, as though dropping it would be your death sentence.

He held up his hands, not in surrender, but as if he were attempting to settle a wild animal. “Okay, love, take it easy.”

“Stay away from me,” you shouted, trembling, backing away cautiously.

“Captain!” The man roared worriedly toward the ceiling, and you flinched. “Look, love, I’m not going to—”

“Fuck you,” you bit, before you spun on a heel and flew towards an archway.

“Shit.” He cursed as you escaped, but he had not yet pursued you.

You scurried down the narrow corridor, bare feet aching with every step, knife extended in front of you and prepared to slash at anything that got in your way. You were wobbling all over the place, as though the ground beneath you was rocking back and forth; you toppled into the wall on your right, yelping as you tried to get yourself upright again.

You reached a great big industrial door, painted blue and with a tiny circular porthole too high for you to see through. It had a wheel in the centre of it, connected to a series of bars that spanned it from top to bottom. Not a door you had ever seen before, but you inexplicably knew to twist the wheel — left, first go, and the bars shrunk away from the top and bottom, the steel door unsealing with a clank.

Now you heard the thuds of running boots, fast, growing louder, closer — you shouldered open the heavy door and leapt over the lip at the bottom, immediately blasted with an ice-cold wind that made you shrivel up and almost retreat back inside.

The sky was stark black, and you were blinded by floodlights. You stumbled towards the railing, hanging onto it for dear life as you almost slipped over on the frigid metal grating under your feet — it felt like barbed wire on your soles, and you whimpered with every step.

Your fierce desperation to escape trumped any pain, though, you burned hot as a boiler, thundering adrenaline keeping you aflame. You spun your head around to determine where you were; a pitch-dark abyss surrounded you on all sides — no sky, no ground, no lights on the horizon, nothing. You peered over the balustrade and realised then that you were on a ship, now seeing the building-tall waves that cascaded over the floor below, bedizened in ropes and grates and metal cages and buoys, populated with a few people in neon jackets.

“Hey—” Came a bark from behind you, and you shrieked — immediately scurrying towards a steep staircase, pole-narrow, almost toppling down it as you bounced to every second step.

The floor of the deck consisted of slippery water-logged wood, and the soles of your feet struggled to find any grip as you sprinted across it. You weren’t even sure where you were running, just away, from the man who had followed you — but it became quickly clear you had no escape, and the orange-jacketed men on the deck had turned their heads to spot you.

“Oh, fuck—” One barked.

Another erupted in bewildered laughter; “She breathes, alright!”

“Oi — girl—” Called one.

“C’mere, hen!” Shouted another, Scottish. “We don’t bite!”

You sobbed as you ran, ravaged by a fear so potent it made your heart shrivel up like a raisin — you were sprayed by a crashing wave, blinded by the salt, and your feet slipped out from under you. Collided into the hard ground with a slam, a bounce, you skidded across the wood and your knife tumbled out of your grip, sliding out of reach.

Only as you flopped around on the greasy floor did you realise your nudity under the sweater you were wearing, bare thighs slick with cold sea water, ass bitten by the arctic wind. You scrambled to get yourself back up, crawling on your hands and knees towards your only weapon — until a thick arm hooked under your belly, swiftly hoisting you up from the ground with yank, and you squealed.

“Easy, now, woman—” Gritted the man, the hoarse growl of an old dog, and he held you flat to his chest. “In such a hurry to go back overboard, eh?”

You wailed, attempted to buck yourself free from him while your feet dangled off the floor, but he only secured his grip with another mammoth arm. The other men on the deck approached hastily, concern and confusion etched in their cold-ruddy faces, looking between each other as though waiting for somebody to decide what to do with you.

“Let me go,” you sobbed, paltry voice broken by hiccups, you spluttered and cried and kicked when you could muster it. “Please, please—”

“Put her down, Nik, for fuck’s sake.” Came the roar of another man, approaching from further away, an authoritative fury that your captor swiftly obeyed.

You landed on your bare feet onto the wet floor with a squelch, and a sob, but he kept a firm grip of your shoulder to prevent you from fleeing. You wouldn’t have, though — now, it was clear to you — there was nowhere to run.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Yelled the evident commander, “All of you? Christ, look, you’ve scared the shit out of her.”

You saw him, then, as he stood in front of you — towering, heaving, you felt the vibrations of his heavy feet on the deck with each step. Broad shoulders cloaked in a rugged navy jacket, the hood pooled around his neck, a pair of roomy yellow overalls strapped over the waterproof layer. A black knitted beanie sat on the top of his head, folded just above his furrowed brows. His lips were in a snarl under his dense beard while he addressed the other men, but they softened into a neutral line when he looked at you.

There was something familiar about him, not that you could place it; a face you might have seen in a dream, or crossing the street once. A face you could imagine with a glowing light beaming from behind it, as though the moon eclipsing a sun. You had no memory to tie to it, and yet, it settled you slightly.

“Y’alright, love,” he said, voice honey-warm and thick with gravel, he held a hand in your direction and gestured to follow him. “Come back in, will you? Too cold for you out here, eh?”

You sipped a shaky breath, shivering in the bitter wind, glancing at the men surrounding you from under your brow. Returning to the man that gestured for you, you gave him a feeble nod, and waddled in his direction.

“Tha’s it, c’mon,” he said gently, hovering a hand at the small of your back. He turned over his shoulder to shout at the others; “You lot have more pots to set, don’t you? Get back to fuckin’ work.”

He guided you gingerly towards the stairs, close behind you to ensure you didn’t slip over on the way up. Opened the weathertight door to let you in, but walked in front of you down the same corridor you had escaped through. You held your arms tight around yourself, left soggy footprints along the vinyl floor.

“Got yourself all wet again,” he said, an edge of irritation in his tone.

“D’you get her?” Came a call from the kitchen you had awoken in, and the man — Kyle — appeared at the end of the hallway. You froze.

“Go finish your work, Gaz, y’still got an hour on the clock.” He ordered flatly, and Kyle looked at you past him.

“Yes, Captain,” he grunted disdainfully, shouldering past the man in front of you, and squeezing around you where you pressed yourself into the wall. “Hope you’re feeling okay,” he mumbled sheepishly, before disappearing down a flight of stairs.

The captain looked back at you, flicked his head in the direction of the kitchen. “C’mon, let's get you dry.”

The kitchen was much smaller than you remembered it being not a few minutes prior — cozy, much warmer than outside but still not quite warm.

“Siddown,” he said from the kitchen, not as forceful as a command but just as compulsory. You gingerly sat yourself on the same bench you had woken up on, watching him carefully, lips sealed.

He approached you with a tall cup of water, held by the rim with the tips of his fingers. “Drink it.”

You took the cup timidly, but once it was in your grip you did not hesitate; tipped it into your mouth and skulled it down desperately, a dribble escaping the corner of your mouth. You had no idea how thirsty you were until fresh water touched your lips — fresh, not salty — you panted like a dog when the cup was empty, half-quenched.

He took it from you, filled it back up at the sink before bringing it back, and you drank the second cupful just as quickly.

“Better?” He asked, and you nodded, wiped your mouth with your hand.

“Thank you,” you said quietly.

You watched as he grabbed a light blue towel from the tabletop, and for a moment you thought he might hand it to you — instead he crouched in front of you, and took your leg by the ankle.

You immediately chirped and attempted to tug your foot free on reflex, but his grip was firm; entire hand wrapped tight around your ankle, he gave you a tut.

“Settle down,” he snipped, resting the sole of your foot on his collarbone. “I’m only dryin’ you off.”

Said with such certainty that you began to doubt your instinct that it was inappropriate for him to put his hands on you — tempered by the feeling that he knew what he was doing, that he was only taking care of you.

He looked at you impatiently until your tensed muscles eased, before he nodded in satisfaction. He hooked your foot over his shoulder so that your ankle rested on his trapezius, before he bunched the towel up in a fist and ran it up the length of your leg.

You leaned on your arms behind you, heart in your throat, beating so fast that you could hear it buzzing in your ears.

He was focused, wiping the seawater and muck off your skin, up and down your thighs, down the underside of your leg.

“Took a tumble, did you?” He asked plainly, dabbing a fresh graze on your knee with the towel, making you flinch with the sting.

“Yeah,” you said meekly; you were sure it would bruise eventually, but it was largely painless for the time being.

He tutted you, but continued, wiped down your calf and dried off your foot last; he was fastidious about it, pushed the fibers of the towel between your toes, engulfed your foot in the cotton, scrubbed it along the sole of your foot and your toes curled with the tickle.

He set that leg down once he was done with it, and wordlessly demanded the other with a curl of his fingers.

Confounding yourself, you did as you were told, and offered him your other leg; he repeated the procedure, resting your foot on his shoulder and scrubbing your leg with the crunchy towel, unabashedly wiping up to the top of your thigh, between your legs, under your knees.

It didn’t escape your notice that you were naked underneath the jersey, and if he were to look a little higher his eyes would be square with your pussy. The thought made you tighten, and he gave you a disapproving glance when he felt it — but he finished with the other foot, and set your leg free again.

“Thank you,” you muttered, tight-lipped, dizzy with confusion.

“D’you want a new jersey?” He asked as he stood, swiping a hand over the sleeve shoulder, where seaspray had beaded on the outside of the fleece.

“I’m okay,” you said timidly, tucking your legs together.

He nodded, dropping the towel back on the table. “Alright, pet,” he said. “Let’s get you a cuppa, yeah?”

You were quiet, but he busied himself in the tiny kitchen anyway — followed the rumbling of a water boiler and the slosh of hot water, the opening and closing of cabinets and drawers, the tinking of a spoon in a teacup.

“Hope you take it with milk and sugar,” he said. “You’re getting it whether you like it or not.”

“That’s fine,” you croaked.

“Good girl,” he said, as he returned with a brown glass mug and set it down on the table in front of you. “Gotta get some sugar in you. You remember the last time you ate?”

You shook your head.

“Mh, well, let’s get you fed.”

“I’m not — I’m not hungry right now,” you said hesitantly, and when a divot pulled in his brows, you clarified; “don’t think I can keep much down yet.”

He nodded. “No problem, love,” he answered, with a pacifying grin. “How’s the head?”

“Where am I?” You asked pointedly, cutting to the chase, unwilling to take a sip of your tea out of lingering suspicion.

He sat down across from you, landing in the bench seat with a grunt, interlocking his fingers on the surface of the table. His glare was scrutinising, albeit gentle, as though checking rather than inspecting.

“You’re aboard the Iron Tide,” he said candidly. “We’re fishing for crabs in the North Sea.”

“Iron Tide?”

“That’s the name of the ship, love,” he answered, a little patronising. “I’m her skipper, I’m Jonathan. You met Gaz, he’s our engineer — he gave you a fright, I bet, but he’s a good lad.”

You nodded edgily, looking askance at him. “Okay… but, how did I get here?”

He smiled sombrely at that, crow’s feet pinching in the corners of his tired eyes. An oceanic blue, you noticed, little round seas reflecting the light that bounced off the table beneath him.

“Was hopin’ you could tell me that, pet,” he gibed, nodding at your mug. “Drink your tea.”

You took a sip, as you were told. Just cooled enough to sip with a slurp, blanketing your salty tongue, warm and saccharine, hot as it went down your throat. Earl grey. The taste made you feel tucked in, as though a blanket were over your legs, a pillow behind your head — but the murky memory was as fleeting as it was vague. You swallowed it with a sigh, and he looked pleased.

“So?”

“So what?” You asked, with a frown.

“How’d you end up on the high seas, hm?”

“I—” You cut yourself off, as you stared into the steaming surface of your tawny-coloured tea.

Words danced at the tip of your tongue, amorphous and flavourless, nothing you could place. Notions that, if you were to reach for them, would drift away, or turn to smoke.

You didn’t have an answer.

“I don’t know,” you said, voice shaky, glancing at him with worry knitting in your brows as though he might be able to remind you.

“You don’t remember?” He asked carefully.

A piteous heat swelled beneath your eyes, tears welling from their ducts and pooling in your eyes, your vision went blurry with it. You shook your head.

“S’alright, pet,” he said, fixing a hand to your wrist across the table. “It’ll come back to you. Do you remember anything at all? If you were on a boat, what country you’re from?”

Again you shook your head, sniffling, you wiped an errant tear with the soft sleeve of the oversized fleece you have no memory of putting on. “No.”

Concern cracked through his stoic expression, and it only made you more upset.

“Do you know your name, love?”

You vacuumed in a slow and trembling breath, eyes bouncing between your hands, as if they might hold the answer. You could think of names — Jessica, Lucy, Nina, Anna, Rebecca — but they were only that, random names floating about in the air around you, and you could not pin any of them as your own with any certainty.

“No,” you eked, followed swiftly by a sob, despite your effort to swallow it.

He exhaled, long and beleaguered, stroking the back of your hand with his colossal thumb. Hands as big as saucers, calloused and molten hot to the touch. Made your hand look like a pixie’s underneath it.

“Don’t fret, eh?” He said, failing to comfort you. “Y’got plenty of time to remember. Just finish your tea.”

“What do you mean?” You asked weakly, plenty of time comment making you uneasy. “Aren’t you going to take me to — back to land?”

He smiled, bemused, as he released your wrist with a pat and leaned back against the bench seat, hanging an arm insouciantly over the back.

“Not heading all the way back to port yet, love,” he said frankly. “We only left a couple days ago. Got a lot more crabs to catch.”

“I’m — I have to stay on this boat until you’re done fishing?” You asked, fighting back the tears that threatened another cascade.

He tilted his head. “This’s my job. If I don’t get crabs, I don’t get paid. Neither do the other lads, ‘n they won’t be letting that happen.”

You pouted, lip quivering and face scrunching, and he let out a huff.

“Look, sweetheart, what would I even do with you if I took you back now?” He asked, tone rigid. “Y’got no ID, no passport, no papers, nothing on you but that bloody frock. We don’t even know what country you belong to. You’d get snatched up by the authorities and tossed around immigration services until your head is on backwards.”

You sniffled, wiped your cheek with your sleeve. You had no argument, and even if you had the energy to muster one, you had no knowledge of how such a system worked, or where you would possibly go if they allowed you free movement. You’re sure you’d have a house somewhere, a family, someone out there must be looking for you…

The thought made you cry again, head falling from your shoulders and landing in your hands, you sobbed unremittingly into the dense fleece.

Jonathan sighed at that, evidently growing impatient, but he pushed himself to stand — he was suddenly next to you, planting himself on the bench with his thigh against yours, and he draped an arm around your shoulder.

“S’alright,” he crooned, voice as deep and rumbling as an engine, and you found yourself curling into him on instinct. Tucked up under his arm, head on his chest, a warm hand rested on the side of your head and smoothed down your hair. “We’ll sort it out.”

“I don’t even kn-know where my home is,” you blubbered into him, muffled by his jacket, still speckled with beads of sea mist. “Or if — if I’ve got a family, or a husband—”

“Y’look a little young for one o’ those,” he remarked, with a chortle.

“What if I don’t remember anything? Ever?” You cried, and he stroked the shell of your ear with his calloused thumb, fingers woven in your hair.

“None o’ that,” he grumbled, you couldn’t determine if he was rocking you or if it was simply the motions of the boat tipping over the waves. “No wallowing on my ship. Keep your chin up, and you’ll be fine.”

You whimpered, but nodded, and he petted your head like a cat.

“We got another nine or ten days at sea,” he said, comforting hand retreating from you, resting on his lap. Kept his heavy arm coiled around you, though, and you were daftly grateful for it. He patted you on the far shoulder with a stiff hand. “You’re a tough girl, yeah?”

“I dunno,” you sniffled, sitting yourself upright and reeling away from him. He released you, then, arms crossing over his chest instead.

“Well you survived God knows how long floating around in the North Sea, pet, I’d call that pretty tough.”

You attempted to compose yourself, sucking deep a breath and wiping down your face with your sleeves. Hoped that whoever’s fleece it was didn’t care about tears and snot being smeared over the cuffs.

“Is there somewhere for me to sleep?” You asked cautiously, in an attempt to come to terms with reality — nine or ten nights of sleeping on a fishing boat. It made you sick to think about.

He curled his lips as he thought for a moment. “You can sleep in my bed,” he said. “Skipper’s cabin is a lot nicer than the crew berths, I’ll tell you that.”

You blinked at him, uncertain — it was unsettlingly vague whether that meant he was offering you the bed to yourself.

“Or you can ask one of the lads to share a bunk with them, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

You shook your head hastily, and he cracked a grin. “No, thank you, skipper’s cabin sounds good, please.”

“Alrighty,” he concurred, with a nod, the deal done. “Sleepy already, eh?”

You nodded sheepishly — for the most part, you just wanted to be alone, somewhere quiet and enclosed, out of sight. But you were utterly drained, left ravaged by receding adrenaline, body battered and bruised. Curling up in a bed sounded luxurious, and heaven only knows how long it had been since you slept in one.

“Y’only been awake for twenty minutes,” he joked. “And you’ve hardly touched your tea.”

He flicked his head towards the mug, and his imperious expression made clear that he wanted you to finish it.

So, if only appease him, you clutched the mug and tipped it into your mouth, sucking down the now luke-warm tea in five hefty gulps. Licked your lips when you were done, and dumped the mug back on the table.

“Happy?”

He smiled wide, let out a haughty chuckle. “Nicely done,” he said. “Alright, then, let’s get you tucked in.”

He pushed himself to stand with a grunt, finally freeing you from behind the table, and you followed him.

“Y’sure you don’t want a bite?”

You shook your head. “Maybe in the morning, if that’s okay.”

He laughed as he made his way toward an upward staircase. “Morning’s fine, but I’m not having you starve yourself.”

“I won’t.”

As you climbed to the top of the stairs you reached the bridge — a large control station with many screens, all showing different radars and panels and numbers. The wheel was there, too, a spinning chair with a sweater thrown over the back of it tucked in front of it. Sea spray made pattering rain-like noises on the thick windows, but very little light came in from them. The air was thick with cigar smoke and terpenic air freshener, the everpresent ghost of saltwater lingering in between.

“Just through here,” he instructed, and you followed him around to the other side, through a door, and down a shorter staircase.

There you were met with a bedroom; it was intimate, stuffed full of bags and boxes and papers. A fold-out desk jutted out from an warm-wood wall, covered in maps weighed down by protractors and a drawing compass. Coats hung over hooks, boots lined up by the door.

A cot bolted to the wall, perhaps a king single, unmade — a thick duvet with a red-and-navy plaid blanket tossed overtop, heavy wool that you could ascertain would be itchy without needing to touch it. A single pillow in a navy pillowcase, cream-coloured fitted sheet likely toned off-white due to age or overuse.

It was rich with musk in there, the single porthole window not able to be opened, and the heady scent made you dizzy. You imagined it was only a marginally diluted version of the same scent you’d get pressing your nose into his armpit. It was only tempered by traces of toothpaste and cigarettes, and the potent smell of Imperial Leather bar soap. Daft that you remembered that, and little else.

“Not a five-star hotel, eh?” He gibed, nudging you with his elbow. You didn’t have a response, at first, and he chided you; “Don’t be a sourpuss. No room for being fussy here, love.”

“No — this is perfect, thank you, I’ll sleep anywhere.”

He smiled and crossed his arms, rocking on the balls of his feet. “Alright, well, you get yourself comfortable then,” he said. “Loo’s just through there, if you need it. Use my toothbrush if you like, just give it a wash after, eh?”

You almost grimaced at the thought of sharing his toothbrush, but the lingering bile and salt in your mouth had you looking forward to the taste of toothpaste.

“Need anything else, pet?” He asked, still gruff. “Paracetamol? I can get you something else to sleep in—”

“I’m okay, thank you,” you insisted, perhaps too plainly eager to get him out of the room.

“Alright, love,” he said. “G’night, then. I’ll just be up there, still got some steering to do.”

“Okay.”

With a firm nod, he turned around and headed out of the cabin, shutting the door behind him.

You let out a pent breath once you were alone, potent exhaustion suddenly crashing into you like a train. You stumbled into the tiny ensuite — a small toilet and a sink, the shower head jutting out from the wall above the commode — rinsed his frayed toothbrush under the tap and globbed on some colgate.

Brushing your teeth made you feel marginally human again, and you spent a good five minutes scrubbing out every crevice of your mouth. You washed it afterwards, like he said, and stuck it to the wall with the suction cup on the back of it.

There was no mirror, and you found yourself glad of it. You couldn’t yet confront the fact that you did not remember what you looked like, an existential dread that simmered in your belly, but too tired to churn up.

Only then, as you glanced at his bar of soap (it was Imperial Leather, as you had guessed), did you realise how clean you felt — you wondered if he had washed you, and now you were certain that he had changed you. The thought made you shiver, and you tried not to think about it.

His bed was squeaky underneath you, and the mattress so soft that you sunk deep into it; the weight of him permanently embedded in the springs, you settled into the divot like a cat, curled up towards the wall. It was bitterly cold in the cabin, much like the rest of the ship, so you tugged the blankets up your cheek, rubbing your icy feet together to warm them up.

The sheets reeked of him, of man and musk, the pillow smelt of scalp and salt. It was unusually comforting. Such a human smell, and as you tucked yourself under his layers of blankets it swirled around in the front of your head and made you dozy.

Sleep called to you, dark and ebbing, and you slipped willingly beneath the surface.

You were roused, only slightly, at the sound of a door handle.

Not alert enough to open your eyes, you still floated deep in slumber, soft and warm. Your consciousness ascended close enough to the shallows to acknowledge the opening of a door, the footsteps across a hollow floor, but the sounds conveyed no meaning to you.

Sleep pulled you downward but you floated languidly back up at each noise; the fizz of running water, the scrubbing of brushing teeth, the spit of toothpaste.

A zip being undone, velcro being ripped open, boot laces being untied. The clunk of a shutting door, a cough, a grunt, and you finally broke the surface.

Now entirely awake, you remained completely still — not out of fear, you didn’t think — perhaps in the hope that he would leave you alone to keep sleeping, absolutely not ready to get up yet. He made no effort to be quiet, as he dumped his boots by the door, rummaged around in his belongings for a moment, coughed again.

You kept your nose close to the wall, eyes barely open. He flicked off a light switch and the room was abruptly drowned in darkness.

The blanket was lifted from you, then, and you flinched — with the cold air nipping at your skin, you realised your long jersey had been hiked up in your sleep, and your bare bottom half was starkly exposed.

You froze, curled up, tongue in your teeth; until a sudden weight plummeted into the mattress, bouncing you up before sinking deep behind you, causing you to slide into the dip.

With a grunt and a huff the blanket was pulled back up over you, scratchy wool brushing your cheeks. A titanic arm hooked over your stomach, and you squeaked — he paid no mind, yanking you backwards until your back was flush with his chest, ass nestled into his lower belly, his thighs tucked up behind yours.

You held your breath, skittish, not yet daring to move; he let out a deep sigh into the back of your head, warm breath seeping through your hair and into your skull.

His entire body was a furnace, burning hot, and you felt yourself melting into him whether you liked it or not. A mammoth hot water bottle, wrapped around and behind you, keeping you soothingly warm.

His hand ventured nowhere untoward, arm only hanging listlessly over the divot of your waist, forearm tucked into your chest. He felt clothed against you, sweatpants and a thermal on.

There was something wrong about it — something off, a survival instinct that buzzed around you, humming like a mosquito, a ringing in your ear, annoying and persistent.

But his pyretic warmth made you lightheaded, so comfortable tucked into him that it felt like you were already dreaming.

With a heavy blink, and a deflating breath, you sunk deep into him and let slumber swallow you whole once again.

#cunty little beanie is here #john price x reader #captain price x reader #captain john price x reader #call of duty fanfic #cod fanfic #cod smut #bella-writes

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goldfades · 1 month ago

Note

Joe and reader taking Hayes to the beach for the first time

hope you enjoy, love!

The trip had been a long time coming.

For months, you and Joe had talked about taking Hayes to the beach, but between his football schedule, your own packed days, and the unpredictable chaos of parenting a toddler, it kept getting pushed back. There was always something—a game, a meeting, a stubborn cold Hayes had picked up from his cousins that left him sniffling and clinging to your hip for a week straight. And then, of course, there was the hesitation.

It wasn’t that you didn’t want to take him. If anything, you ached to—imagining him wide-eyed at the endless stretch of ocean, tiny hands gripping fistfuls of warm sand, the giddy shrieks that would no doubt burst from him when the waves kissed his feet. But the reality of it? Taking a barely-three-year-old to the beach was a task. The kind that required strategy, backup plans, and an ungodly amount of snacks.

But then Joe’s offseason finally rolled around, bringing with it the kind of slow, golden days that made you feel like you could breathe again. And when Hayes pointed at the TV one morning—at some cartoon crab dancing across a bright blue ocean��and asked, Can we go there, Mama? with those big, round eyes of his, you and Joe just looked at each other and knew.

It was time.

So now, after a flurry of packing (too many snacks, not enough patience) and a drive filled with excited little kicks against the back of Joe’s seat, you were here.

The ocean stretched before you, vast and shimmering under the afternoon sun. A salty breeze wrapped around you, tangling your hair, teasing the fabric of Joe’s t-shirt as he shifted Hayes higher on his hip. Your son, ever-curious, stared out at the water like it was something out of a dream, tiny fingers flexing against Joe’s shoulder.

And just like that, all the stress, all the second-guessing—none of it mattered anymore.

Because Hayes was about to see the ocean for the first time. And you? You were about to watch him fall in love with it.

Joe adjusted Hayes on his hip, the little boy still staring out at the waves like he couldn’t quite believe they were real. His small fingers dug into the fabric of Joe’s t-shirt, gripping tight, as if afraid the whole scene might disappear if he let go.

You reached over, brushing a few messy curls away from Hayes’ forehead. “Pretty cool, huh, baby?”

Hayes didn’t even look at you. His lips parted slightly, eyes big and round as he watched the water roll forward, then pull back, like it was playing some secret game only it understood. You had never seen him this quiet ever.

Joe chuckled, the sound low and warm. “Think he’s in shock.”

You smiled, watching the way the wind ruffled through Joe’s hair, how the sun caught on the sharp cut of his jaw. “Give him a second,” you murmured. “He’s taking it all in.”

Hayes finally blinked, shifting slightly against Joe’s chest. “It moves,” he whispered, like he couldn’t quite believe it.

You and Joe exchanged a look, amusement flickering between you.

“Yeah, bud,” Joe said, voice laced with laughter. “That’s kinda what the ocean does.”

Hayes’ little brows knitted together. “Why?”

You bit back a laugh. Of course that was his first real reaction—confusion over why the water wouldn’t just stay still.

“That’s how the waves work, baby,” you explained, resting a hand on his small back. “The water moves because of the wind, and the way the moon—” You stopped yourself, shaking your head. “It just does, sweetheart.”

Hayes seemed to consider this for a long moment before finally nodding, like he’d decided to accept it for now. His attention drifted back to the waves, his tiny fingers flexing against Joe’s shoulder. Then, suddenly, he turned his head, pressing his face against Joe’s shirt. “Don’t wanna go in.”

Joe raised a brow, tilting his head down to look at him. “What do you mean, don’t wanna go in?”

Hayes shook his head furiously, curls bouncing. “Too big.”

You exhaled softly, reaching over to rub slow circles on his back. The ocean was a lot—endless and loud, stretching farther than he could probably comprehend. It made sense that he’d be overwhelmed.

“We don’t have to go in, baby,” you reassured him. “Not until you’re ready.”

Joe nodded in agreement, shifting his grip on Hayes. “Yeah, bud. We can just sit in the sand for a bit, okay?”

That seemed to satisfy him. Hayes peeked up, considering the two of you for a moment before nodding. “Okay.”

You shot Joe a knowing look as you bent down to grab the beach bag. See? The key to handling a hesitant toddler was patience. You had to let them take things at their own pace.

Joe, to his credit, seemed to understand that too—at least when it came to Hayes.

The three of you made your way down toward the sand, and you took a deep breath, letting the salty air fill your lungs. There was something about the ocean—how it smelled, how the sound of the waves crashing against the shore seemed to wrap around you like a song. It had been too long since you’d been here.

You spread out a towel, and Joe crouched down, setting Hayes carefully in the center of it before plopping down beside him. You sat down as well, kicking off your sandals and stretching your legs out. The sand was warm beneath your fingers as you dug your hand into it, letting the grains slip between them.

Hayes watched you for a moment, then hesitantly copied you, pressing his palm against the sand. His little fingers curled, squeezing a handful, and he giggled as it slipped through his grip.

“Tickles,” he announced.

You smiled. “Yeah? Feels funny, huh?”

Hayes nodded, already grabbing another handful. He let it fall again, watching with fascination as the wind carried some of the finer grains away.

Joe leaned back on his hands, watching him with a small, amused smile. “Think he likes it.”

“I think so, too,” you murmured.

For a while, that was enough. Hayes sat between the two of you, utterly mesmerized by the sand, grabbing fistfuls of it and watching it slip through his fingers over and over again.

Then, slowly, his attention drifted back to the water. He glanced up at you, then at Joe. “Mama?”

You ran a hand over his curls. “Yeah, baby?”

“Maybe…” He hesitated, looking back toward the waves. “…Maybe touch it.”

Your heart squeezed at how cautious he was being about it, how he wasn’t scared necessarily, just careful.

Joe grinned, sitting up straight. “Oh yeah? You wanna put your toes in?”

Hayes nodded, a little more sure this time.

“Alright,” you said gently, standing up and holding out your hand. “Come on, lovebug.”

Hayes reached for you immediately, gripping your fingers in his tiny hand as you helped him up. Joe followed, standing to his full height, watching carefully as Hayes took small, deliberate steps toward the shore.

You could feel the slight tension in his grip as the waves inched closer, but he didn’t stop. He just squeezed your hand a little tighter.

Joe, walking beside him, reached out and placed a steadying hand on his back. “I got you, bud.”

Hayes looked up at him, then at you, and something about your presence—about the fact that he was between you, held steady and safe—seemed to reassure him.

The first wave rushed forward, just barely skimming his toes. Hayes inhaled sharply, eyes going huge, and for a split second, you braced for him to bolt.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he laughed.

A full, delighted, belly-deep giggle that made your heart swell and your chest ache with love.

He turned toward Joe, tugging at his fingers. “Again!”

Joe grinned. “You gotta wait for it, buddy.”

Hayes turned back toward the water, practically bouncing on his feet as he waited.

And as the next wave rushed forward—just enough to wet his feet and send a spray of water up his legs—he laughed again, the sound carrying over the beach, over the waves, over everything.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding, meeting Joe’s gaze over Hayes’ head.

He loves it.

Joe’s eyes were soft, full of something warm and unspoken. Of course he does.

And standing there, your feet in the water, your son laughing between you, the ocean stretching wide and endless before you—

You knew.

This was a memory that would last forever.

#sweet on you ˖ . ݁𝜗𝜚. ݁₊#joe burrow #joe burrow x reader

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sobbingscripter · 2 months ago

Text

Tags: [mlw][mdni][part 2 of this][fingering][edging][daddy kink][hair pulling][missionary][knees to the chest][passionate][begging][subtle breeding kink][whiny dick][doggy style][pussydrunk man>>][could see him as a girldad][not proofread]

"And— And— I saw a clownfish. Like, like Nemo. And I saw crabs. And— and I saw the big, big fish that's like—" Riot's tiny arms outstretch as far as they can, eyes wide and emphatic, "bigger than this."

He stands in the kitchen, sock-clad feet pittering after Alfred as he continues to break down each and every sighting of the aquarium. The older man stares down at him, grin stretching to no end because it reminds him of when Bruce was no taller than his knee, breaking down each thing he saw at galas and events in the late evening hours when he was supposed to be asleep.

"I thought you were going to the museum." Alfred hums. "Why the change of plans?"

And Riot hums, rocking back and forth on his feet. "We wanted to go, but someone took a painting so we didn't. So we went to see the fishies."

"And what was your favourite part?" Alfred hums softly, weathered eyes crinkling at the corners as he watched the way chubby fingers carefully grab different utensils from the different dish washer compartments, holding them out to for Alfred to pack away in the cupboards far too high.

"The touch tank!" Riot chirps, before letting out an excited gasp. "So many fishies. And—" Tubby hands flail excitedly. "And sharks."

Alfred hums almost thoughtfully.

"And did you get to touch the sharks?" Alfred questions, so animated and inquisitive and the giggle Riot lets out is the most heartwarming sound he's heard in a long while.

The sound of a child being simply what they are;

A child.

Not a vigilante, not a hero.

"No, silly Grampy." Chonky hands cover his mouth as he giggles. "The touch tank had the sea cucumbers, and the starfishies."

Alfred melts. Scooping Riot up in his arms, lithe muscles shifting beneath the flesh as he rests the boy on his hip before moving into the lounge, staring Bruce dead in the eye.

"I am 'Grampy', Master Bruce." Alfred gleams, the apples of his cheeks rising and Bruce simply scowls, before looking down at Riot who watches him with wide eyes. Head tilting before covering his hand with his mouth.

"Daddy?" Riot's voice is tiny as he holds his arms out to Bruce, making grabby hands as his eyes well up.

The room goes dead silent, Duke's hand moves to cover his mouth, eyes darting between Bruce, Riot and Dick. Because the tea is piping right now.

And you let out a snort, raising your glass to your lips. "You can't con these ones, baby, they have the money for DNA tests."

And Riot huffs, tiny fists wiping away fat tears before he hops down from Alfred's hip, giving the older man's hand a sweet, and affectionate squeeze before he moves towards you, soft footsteps carrying him towards you, and he stands between your thighs, hands bracing on your legs and you huff.

"Never let me have anything." You murmur under your breath, before one of your hands rest beneath Riot's chin, while you let him have a sip of your juice. Tiny hands clasp around the cool glass, although your hand remains on it to prevent a little accident.

And Dick's just so... Smitten.

Brilliant blue eyes locked on the way your thumb so carefully brushes away a stray droplet of juice, pretty eyes locked on the chubby features of your baby as he, undoubtedly, judges the Wayne household. All except Alfred, probably.

Dick brushes back long, muscular fingers through his hair, easing back against the backrest before extending his legs, crossing them at the ankles and his tongue runs over his teeth when he watches the way Riot plants himself next to you.

Looking at everyone.

Before zeroing in on Duke.

"Signal."

Riot's singular utter makes the room go silent. Dead silent, and shared glances are shared, before Duke lets out a laugh, elbows braced on his knees and he leans forward.

"What makes you think that, little man?" Duke hums, tone light and easy, despite the fact that his brain is moving at 1 000 000 miles a minute.

"I haven't seen a lot of black people in Gotham."

The words leave the little boy's lips and you nearly spit out your juice before looking at Riot, eyes wide and lips pursed to hide a laugh that you know might be distasteful.

"Riot, baby, no. Don't—you could've mentioned literally anything else. Like the slight glow, or the black and yellow shoes or anything else." You pinch the bridge of your nose when Riot lets out a giggle in response.

"But m'funnier."

ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ❄️་༘࿐

"You should've told me about him." Dick's voice is a quiet murmur and you simply let out a sigh, your fingers deftly folding a tiny pajamas set, as well as several pairs of underwear and socks, stuffing them into a Spiderman backpack.

It's something you've been hearing all day. In the quiet whispers of wind rustling the branches of the trees, the crunch of gravel beneath each of your footsteps as Dick would carry Riot on his hip, watching as the little boy points out the different breeds of dog that were scattered in the park.

Fuck, you even heard it in the bubbles let out by different fish as you walked past tanks because never in a million years, had the thought even crossed your mind, that Dick would be ecstatic to be a dad.

You didn't think of the way a smile would stretch so effortlessly on his stupidly perfect face whenever Riot would point out something, you didn't think of the way he'd be so happy to take pictures of his son in front of different tanks. You didn't think of the way his breath would visibly stutter when Riot would ask for his first family picture, and you didn't think of the way his eyes would meet yours as you both blew raspberries against the giggling and rosy cheeks of your baby.

"I don't know, Ri—" "Don't call me that, please." Dick breathes out softly, blue eyes softening as he looks down at you, taking the balled up socks from your hand and setting them back down, and his hands move to hold your hands. And Dick forces you to look at him, as he guides one of your hands to cup his cheek.

The warmth of his palm isn't something you've forgotten. Just like the length of his fingers. Musician's hands, if anything.

"Don't talk to me like you don't know me."

Dick's voice is soft as he tilts his head, pressing a kiss to your palm. "You know me. You knew me twice on your couch last night." Dick adds, the offhanded comment bringing a reluctant smile to your lips and he hums out a chuckle, before stepping closer to you, forcing you to crane your neck backwards. And Dick cups your face in his hands.

"Don't shut me out." He speaks so softly. "Not again."

The way Dick looks at you nearly makes you melt, all soft eyes and warm palms, cradling your face like you're the most precious thing to walk the Earth.

And Dick swallows.

Long lashes fluttering so prettily, before his tongue darts out, dragging across his pinkened bottom lip.

"Open up to me..." He breathes out, so sweetly. "Please, baby."

ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ❄️་༘࿐

"That's a good girl... There she is, open up for me more, pretty..."

"Dickie...."

Your voice is a hoarse whimper, legs tossed over Dick's broad thighs, your panties and pants abandoned across the surface of whatever furniture was the nearest as dextrous digits continue to push past your gummy walls.

Your nails dig into his thighs, lashes fluttering with each curl of his fingers and moans slip past your lips whenever his lips brush against the curve of your ear. Tracing the shell with his tongue, before pulling your lobe into his mouth, teeth brushing against the sensitive skin.

"Nobody's taken care of this pretty pussy since me, huh?" Dick coos softly, fingers pulling out of you only to give you those delightful, teasing smacks against your neglected clit, watching the way your thighs burn to close. And he does it again.

Light smacks that make your hole clench around nothing, whines slipping past your lips.

And you nod your head weakly, toes curling in your socks and Dick croons to you, so sweet as he presses a kiss against your pulse.

"Shhhh, it's okay, gorgeous. Daddy's home."

His fingers circle your clit so attentively, brilliant blue eyes darkened by lust and want, watching as your face screws up and your hips buck in his lap, pleasure nearly blinding and he's not even making you come yet.

Dick's prolonging it because well, you just look so pretty when slick oozes from you, puffy pussy glossy with your wetness, eyes teary and your bottom lip is wedged between your teeth.

Your face is flushed, rosy cheeks with beads of sweat gathering at your temples and Dick hums softly, pushing his middle finger into your needy cunt. All the way to the knuckle, before pulling out all the way, just to trace your gooey slit with the tips of his fingers.

And you whine.

"Dick, please." The sound of your voice so weak has Dick straining against his boxers, his lashes flutter and he lets himself breathe, just to get a hold of himself.

He's a bit of a people pleaser and God, does he wanna please you.

And Dick swallows, before nodding his head, shifting you off his lap and instead, guiding you to rest against the backrest, thighs spread obscenely wide and your feet resting on the seats on either side of you.

And Dick's head dips low, taking a deep breath of the scent of you. Your slick, your pussy, everything. It all just makes him so dizzy that he leans forward without a second's notice, tongue curling against your clit and Dick moans when your fingers find purchase in his hair.

Lovely digits curl around the thick locks and he hums, nodding his head.

"That's it, baby." He hums. "Pull my hair."

Dick's whimper is hypnotic when you tug on the raven strands, guiding his face back to your pussy where his lips wrap around the sensitive nub, suckling at it so earnestly.

And your hips buck and twitch, hands readjusting their grip and instead, grabbing the back of his head, moving him closer.

"That's it, pretty. Make yourself feel good— Come on my fucking tongue."

Your feet leave the surface of the sofa, knees nearly pulled up all the way and Dick's having the fucking time of his life when you tug him this way and that way by his hair.

Dick's tongue dips into your core, prodding around the gummy insides as the ball of his nose grinds against your clit and you're coming. Clenching around his tongue, tangling your fingers in his hair and wrapping your thighs around his neck.

The sounds you make are melodious, gasps, and breaths leaving you like you ran a marathon, all as he continues to lap at your slick cunt like a fucking animal in heat.

When Dick lifts his head, his pupils are dilated and the lower half of his face is glistening with a sheen that puts dewy makeup to shame.

Dick practically looks like he's glowing from the inside.

And he's definitely glowing when he brings your knees up to your chest, urging you to keep them there while he fumbles with his belt.

"Spread your pretty pussy for me, yeah?" Dick breathes out, eyes locked on where a peace sign has two of your digits tucked on either side of your folds, pushing your pussy lips apart and he groans at the sight of your hole.

Warm, inviting and so, so pretty.

"That's fucking perfect, baby. You're perfect." Dick's breathing heavy as he taps the flushed head of his cock against your clit, watching as your belly flexes and tightens, right before he sticks his tip in.

You're warm. You're gooey. And you're so fucking perfect, wrapping around his cock like the perfect pair of socks. And Dick whines when you squelch around him, each sinking inch making him so much more desperate to feel you come on his cock.

When Dick's balls rest against the curve of your ass, you get a feel of just how fucking heavy they are, muscular hands keep your knees anchored to your chest. And he swallows, panted breaths falling from his lips.

Dick pulls out halfway, and only halfway. Because it's damn near painful to be out of your wet heat and he's pushing back in, grinding against you each time your flesh meets his.

His head dips, long, tongue kisses pressed against your lips while his hips thrust into you, slow and meaningful, and so, sooooo fucking deep. His tongue moves against yours, the only sounds being Dick's breathy groans and the sound of skin hitting skin. Alongside the wet sounds of his tongue, wrapping around yours with the same kind of skill he eats pussy.

You can taste yourself on his tongue. But you're not too focused on that when his prettily curved cock is dragging against that spot that makes your toes curl and your eyes flutter shut, panted breaths leaving you.

"I w'na—... Mm-fuck, you're so tight, oh my god." Dick moans against your lips, pulling away to rest his forehead against yours, hot breaths fanning across your features as he looks down towards where you're split open on his fat cock. Glistening pussy taking him like you were made to.

"I wanna—" Dick swallows, a shaky breath leaving his broad chest before he pushes down on you, forcing you further into the cushions, "—wanna be a f-family."

Your breath stills in your lungs but you don't speak, simply nodding your head, urging Dick to continue as he fucks into you, feeling the way your walls flutter at the trembles that line his voice.

"I wanna— fuck, please." Dick's face presses into the curve of your neck, his arms instead coming to wrap around you, his hips beginning to snap rather quickly into you as he brings you closer. Your thighs remain against your torso, the sting in your hamstrings is apparent but not as apparent as the battering your cervix is taking.

"Please, please, please. Be with me."

Dick begs. His hips fucking into you at an almost inhuman pace, your toes curl and your vision becomes speckled and you whimper, a breathless gasp taking you over as you approach your second orgasm.

And fast.

Your mind hits a blank, your tongue threatening to loll out at the way Dick fucks you brainless, all while begging to be a family. Your belly is in knots and you're making a creamy ring at the base of him, a sight that would have Dick going crazy if he wasn't too busy hiding his rosy face in your neck.

And you nod mindlessly. "Uh huh..." You mumble weakly when you feel the sensation of Dick pulling his cock out of you, still wet with your slick and still so hard as he carefully guides you to instead, go on your hands and knees on the sofa.

Dick's knees dig into the cushions, his cock slowly sliding into you once again as the curve of your back deepens, a downright demonic arch that has him biting down a whimper at the sight alone.

His veiny hand travels down the curve, tracing the dip in your spine before grabbing the hair at the nape of your neck, fisting his fingers and tugging you just a bit back, enough for your head to lift from the cushions and your arch to deepen.

"Really?" Dick chirps so sweetly, his hips rocking into yours and his tip leaks copious amounts of precum that has him wondering if he already came.

And you nod weakly.

And you feel as Dick leans forward, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head before straightening back up, his hands moving to bracket your hips.

And with your bleary ass peripheral vision, you catch a glimpse of Dick steadying himself, planting one foot on the sofa for the stability he needs.

"Now, let's... Expand the family, huh?" Dick mumbles, his voice just a bit slurred from the pussydrunkenness.

"Give me a little girl this time, okay?"

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fairyysoup · 25 days ago

Text

eyes don't lie

pairing(s): timothy ratliff x fem!reader

summary: Your best friend's dad is hot, and you... you are on vacation.

words: 6.1k

cw: explicit, smut, unprotected piv sex, creampie, praise kink, exhibitionism, semi-public sex, older man/younger woman, reader’s age unspecified (over 21), best friend's dad, infidelity/cheating, alcohol consumption, reader is implied to be an alcoholic, pining, perv!reader, reader wants to fuck tim so bad it's making her evil, canon typical assholery by like all parties involved, (except chelsea), saxon being gross, some comedy, mention of morning after pills

a/n: on this week's episode of rose's newest hyperfixation, jason isaacs has got me in a chokehold and i'm making it everyone's problem. sprinted to write this so i could post it on white lotus day so no one say shit if it's bad i haven't written in months

ALL MY WORKS ARE 18+ MINORS DNI

Once upon a time, you really thought you were some kind of upstanding citizen. You really thought you were a good friend to Piper, who invited you on her stupidly rich family’s vacation at a resort-spa in Thailand, all expenses paid. You really thought you’d be there to support her while she finessed her way through convincing her family that she’ll be moving here after college, and have a few massages and sunset cocktails on the side.

But that was not in the cards for you, and now you’re faced with the glaring fact of your loose morals. The fact is sitting across from you at a round table on the promenade, poking at a plate of crab eggs benedict. The fact is wearing a yellow polo and looking like he hates his life right now, or maybe he just has a hangover.

You didn’t know Piper’s dad was going to be hot as shit. Piper didn’t know you’d find her dad hot as shit. Piper doesn’t know you’re a horrible, no good, very bad person, who is currently plotting ways to get her dad’s pants off in the quickest way possible.

Meanwhile, Timothy’s wife is sitting beside him in a bright purple kaftan, not exactly looking the best, herself. Something tells you she doesn’t even want to be on this plane of existence, or maybe it’s all the Lorazepam in her system. Victoria sniffs and smiles tightly at Piper.

“So, how’s the research coming, Piper?” Victoria draws out the word research like it’s an affront to her. You’re sure that it actually is, in some way.

“Good,” Piper says noncommittally around a bite of food. “The interview is on Friday, so I have some time to prepare.” Ah yes, the interview. The interview that actually is a meeting about her residency at the temple.

“Oh, so you set it up?” Timothy’s voice nearly shoots you out of your seat. You shift uncomfortably, the backs of your thighs sticking to the wicker chair beneath them.

“‘Course I did, dad,” Piper scoffs, “it’s not like I’m taking a shot in the dark here.”

You’re staring down at your plate of food like it’s the most riveting thing you’ve ever seen, because you don’t want to be giving that look to Timothy’s blue eyes instead. You’re afraid that if you lift your gaze, you will.

Your name comes oozing out of Saxon’s mouth coated in grime. “So what do you do?”

Piper’s older brother has just about gotten on your last nerve; he knows he’s hot, and it makes him the least charming person in the room. But he won’t stop trying to get in your pants long enough for you to get into his dad’s pants, and it’s throwing you off your groove in a bad way.

“Sorry?” You bat your eyelashes like you don’t know exactly what he’s getting at. You’ve known Saxon for a grand total of two days and everything that he says seems to have the same underlying meaning.

Saxon flashes you a falsely bright smile with nothing behind the eyes. “You know. What gets you going? What makes you all… weak in the knees?”

Lochlan chokes on his eggs. Victoria guffaws, and you try hard not to cringe at the bark of laughter. Piper hisses in disapproval at her older brother, who looks very self satisfied.

Timothy says nothing. He stares at you apprehensively, waiting for your reply.

You still can’t hold in the smirk that crosses your face when you look Saxon in the eye and say, “Older men.”

“Oh my god,” Piper snaps, giving you a glare she had up until now been reserving for her misbehaving family members. “Seriously?”

You shrug off her disdain just at the same time as Saxon grins at you, looking even more pleased. With a pointed look, he says, “I’m older than you.”

You fight the urge to roll your eyes. As if you didn’t know that. You swear that he’s purposefully obtuse.

You swirl your mimosa in your glass, and peer at him over the rim of your sunglasses coquettishly. “No, sweetheart. Older than you.”

You could hear a pin drop with the hush that falls over the table. As you take a long, cold drink of your mimosa, you finally hear Victoria snicker, and you think that you know which side of the family Saxon favors.

You flick your eyes over to Timothy and find him sitting back in his seat, regarding you with his full attention. Your heartrate kicks up, your skin burning with the heat of his stare. You’re glad that your sunglasses are dark enough to hide which way your gaze shifts. You turn your face a bit more towards the horizon, like you’re just admiring the view of the ocean, but you continue watching him with the animal instinct of a predator.

Timothy has gone crimson around the ears, despite his cool demeanor. His forefinger nervously taps at the tablecloth, and then he looks down at his phone, which starts ringing, albeit quietly.

“Dad,” Piper chastises, as she has been for the last two days. Timothy huffs a sigh through his nose, but he snatches up his phone and flicks his gaze from his phone, to you, and back.

“I… I have to…” Timothy sort of jerks his phone upwards, as if no one at the table quite knows what he means, and then he bolts without a word. Chair scraping, silverware clanking, heels scuffing the floor, his retreat is as subtle as a hippopotamus dancing the Nutcracker.

“He’s very jetlagged,” Victoria tells you, her way of trying to excuse her husband’s decorum. Her fluttering hand hits the table beside your mimosa, like you and she are old friends and she’s just reminding you of how silly her cute little family is. It’s a demeaning gesture, a dismissive one.

You hum. “So what’s Saxon’s excuse?”

“He was dropped on his head as a child,” Piper grumbles.

Saxon makes an ugly noise and throws his arms out in defiance. He doesn’t say anything snide back, though, and so the conversation ends there.

You, meanwhile, are still mulling over Timothy’s retreat, staring out at the horizon and only seeing his backside as he walks away.

Your day is spent hopping from massage to yoga to facial to poolside. There doesn’t seem to be a lack of things to do at the White Lotus, and you can almost forgive the hoity-toity atmosphere when you feel calmer than you have all year.

The evening in Thailand comes with the chittering of birds and monkeys in the trees, the rustle of the leaves in the wind and the cool ocean air kissing your overheated skin. Body oils scented with jasmine and lavender on your skin mingle with the natural earthy smell in the ionized air. You could stay here forever, you think, with your feet dangling in the meditation fountain and your hand wrapped around a champagne flute.

You should really stop drinking. But maybe after you get home from this little vacation.

Because you are on vacation, as opposed to Piper’s reason for being here. Meeting her was the best thing to happen to you in college; without her support and her rigid approach to her studies, you probably would have dropped out ages ago. You aren’t even in the same program, you just happened to share a class or two early in your respective college careers, and you’ve been best friends ever since.

Which is why you feel like the world’s worst person when you hear Timothy’s breathy “fuuuuuck me” over your shoulder, and your skin breaks out in the worst case of goosebumps you’ve had in a while.

“Better be careful,” you say richly, your voice thick with champagne, “or I may take you up on that.”

You absolutely should stop drinking.

Timothy’s face pops around a fence blocking the walkway from the courtyard. In the dim light through the windows of the main guest house, you can make out his brown hair, the shape of his jaw. His eyes twinkle at you like stars.

Timothy walks around the fence. “Sorry you had to hear that.”

“Oh, I love some expletives to complement the view. Nothing more serene.” You flash him a flirty smile and kick your feet, splashing water in an arc. “Is this a fountain or a pond?”

“I think it’s a fountain, what with all the pissing monkeys,” Timothy concludes as he trods down the steps and approaches you. He points at the water features, statues of monkeys crouched on balls spitting water into the pool. You think they’re supposed to be balloons, but you could be wrong.

You watch him come forward with interest. Is he planning to sit beside you? Or just stand awkwardly to the side with his hands in his pockets like a proper, dignified father figure? You really wish he’d go for the former.

To your dismay, he goes for an in-between of pulling one of the porch chairs toward you and sitting behind you. A bit to the left so that you don’t have to crane your neck to see him, but still. That distance is too formal. Too respectful.

You wish he wasn’t so respectful.

“Fountain, then,” you concede, and lean back on your hands so that the soft cotton of your bikini cover falls down your shoulder.

Contrary to the way you’ve been acting around Timothy since you met him, you aren’t much for seducing, or really for sleeping around in general. But something about him is making you act up, making you want to throw away all caution.

Maybe it’s the way he spreads his legs apart when he sits like a fucking slut and leans back in his chair like he owns the goddamn resort. He acts like he’s taking in the view, but you can feel his eyes on your back like you can feel the cool water against your skin. The air is hot and sticky, and you feel stifled even with what little you have on.

“You’re stressed,” you point out after a moment. You don’t say anything else. In the silence that follows, you start counting the boats on the horizon.

“That your clinical diagnosis?” Timothy asks after a moment.

“Just an observation,” you hum, lifting your champagne flute to your lips. “You’re clutching that phone like it personally insulted you. Trouble back home?”

“You have no idea.” He lets out a breath like it’s something he’s been holding in for hours. Considering you’ve heard him deny that anything is amiss to his family about a million times so far, you’re sure that it feels nice to admit it to someone. He gives a half-frantic laugh. “Y’know, I don’t think I’ve been this stressed in… probably my entire life.”

You try to reject the words before they come out of your mouth, but the alcohol wins out. “I know a way to fix that.”

“I’ve got about twenty people telling me to get a massage, and I’m not doing it.” He sounds petulant, like a child. Over your shoulder, his arms are crossed, his eyes focused on his feet, pouting. It makes you giggle a little.

“That’s not my preferred form of stress relief.” A pause. “Would you like a demonstration?”

You have an insatiable need to see what happens when you push his buttons. The thought of what he might do, how far you might need to push before he snaps, makes you squirm a bit. You cross your legs, the cool water dripping along your skin and causing ripples in the fountain below.

Timothy fixes you with a piercing blue stare, and you suddenly know where Saxon got his from. This one is more refined, more practiced. It’s not being played to an advantage, it’s simply calculating. Saxon tries to mirror his daddy, but he’ll never quite have the same amount of easy power Timothy holds with just a look.

The breeze picks up just a bit. The leaves rustle in the trees. There’s a heartbeat pounding between your legs, and you have to force yourself to keep looking into his eyes, and not down, not at his crotch, never at his crotch.

Timothy leans forward and you still, your breath practically hitching in your throat. You squeeze your thighs tight together to stave off the ache, and it only succeeds in making it worse, like acknowledging there’s an ache at all is enough to ramp it up.

He raises his hand, and with the slightest brush of his fingers, pulls the shoulder of your swimsuit cover back up over your collarbone. You blink. The gesture is so simple, so ineffectual, it takes you aback. Then, he plucks the champagne flute from your hand, and before you can protest, tosses the rest of it back in one gulp.

“You’ve had enough to drink tonight,” he mutters under his breath, sweet and sultry, and chucks you under the chin as he gets up, like a kid.

Your face is burning. Your body is on fire. You feel like an idiot, and what’s more, you feel like throwing a tantrum, which would only reaffirm what he just did to you.

You don’t say anything as you watch him walk away from you, again, because you know that you’d only embarrass yourself further, and possibly throw a fit while you’re at it. You don’t know what more you could do tonight, aside from stomp your feet and yell at him to let you suck his dick, which is less seductive and more desperate.

And you’re not desperate. You don’t think.

So, you let him leave. And once he disappears into the master bedroom, you leap up from your seat, splashing water, and snatch your champagne flute from the patio table. You stalk back to your room, ready to rub one out in the shower and pass out for the next fifteen hours.

You creep back into the room you share with Piper, trying not to make too much noise, but your drunken movements are not as subtle as you want to think they are. As you pad toward the bathroom, you hear Piper call your name softly from across the room.

You turn to find her looking at you over her shoulder, curled up in bed. She blinks at you, looking as soft as a kitten under the covers. “Don’t fuck my dad.”

“I’m not gonna fuck your dad,” you huff angrily, smacking the bathroom light. It seems enough to satisfy her. But, as you close the bathroom door, you catch your eye in the mirror, and the unspoken last word of that sentence dances tantalizingly on your tongue.

Yet.

Today is day three at the White Lotus, which means you have roughly five days left to fuck Timothy Ratliff. Which, you would have thought, is going to be a difficult undertaking. Except that he won’t stop looking at you.

All morning, at breakfast, his eyes focused on you from across the table. Your leg shook under the table, trying to keep from staring back at him. All the while, you could feel him trying to undress you with his eyes. It felt almost salacious, with Victoria sitting next to him, with Piper sitting next to you.

You won’t be getting into heaven anytime soon, you gather.

Then, there’s some hullabaloo about the family needing to give up all of their electronics for “spiritual serenity” or whatever the fuck, and you honestly could throw yourself into the ocean. Now you’re feeling just about as stressed as Timothy looks, and it was his fucking idea in the first place.

You spend the afternoon laying on the pool deck, sipping at vodka tonics and staring at the cerulean sky above you, wishing you were dead. Your mind won’t stop playing Timothy, Timothy, Timothy on a loop, just to torment you with what you don’t have. Timothy, on his back for you. Timothy, and his piercing fucking blue eyes staring up at you from between your legs. Timothy and his hips pressed up against yours, your back to his chest in the shower, warm water spilling over your–

Against your will, your entire body is turned on again. You shift in your seat, feeling wet between your legs, and it pisses you off even more. What are you supposed to do now, if you can’t fuck your best friend’s dad and you don’t have your phone?

“I’m suffering more than Jesus,” you bleat pathetically after a moment, jamming the heels of your palms into your eye sockets, like it’ll fix everything. You see stars behind your darkened eyelids.

“Amen to that,” says the girl in the chair beside you. You’ve seen her around; she’s beautiful, with big eyes and a smile that lights up the room. She has a boyfriend twice her age who always seems to be avoiding her.

You turn to look at her. She turns her head to smile at you, and you feel a little more relaxed just at the sight of it.

Shifting onto your side, you prop your head on your hand. “If you were gonna fuck your best friend’s dad, how would you go about it?”

The girl stares at you like Bambi, completely stunned by the question. “Um… I don’t know that I would?”

“Of course,” you grumble, flopping back down onto the pool lounger. The consensus is clear. “I’m a horrible person.”

“Hey, I’m not judging,” the girl says, her smooth British accent twinkling in the air. “But, I mean, if that’s your best friend, maybe it’s not the best idea to let a man cause a rift?”

“Sure,” you answer. Makes sense. “But he’s so hot. Like, I could die. But then I’d die never having fucked him, and it makes me sad to think… If I think too long, I’ll cry about it.”

The girl scoffs, and you turn your head to find her suppressing her laughter. She catches your eye, and tries to rein it in. “Are you always so dramatic?”

“All my life.” You settle back in your seat. The sun warms your legs, and you heave a sigh. “I mean, I propositioned him last night, and he was all dismissive about it. Like, he’s one of these good guys that’re all, ‘oh, but my wife…’ y’know, except that his wife is constantly fucking zonked out of her gourd on benzos, so I doubt she’d even notice if she walked in on him balls deep in some other piece of ass. And today he keeps giving me the eyes, you know, the ones that’re like, ‘I’m thinking about fucking you in my head right now.’ And my best friend, right, she’s all, ‘don’t you dare fuck my dad,’ but like, she’s going to become a buddhist monk at the temple on the hill for a year, so what will it matter to her that I fucked her dad when she’s pursuing spiritual enlightenment? I mean, it’s not like I’m trying to get spiritually enlightened, I just want to sit on his dick. And what if that is the key to my spiritual enlightenment, huh? What about my soul’s journey?”

The girl is nodding slowly, looking slightly horrified. “Your soul’s journey… is sitting on your best friend’s dad’s dick?”

“Maybe it is, I don’t know. Who’s to say? But would you begrudge me that if you were my best friend?”

She blows a raspberry of a laugh. “Sounds like a real pisser.”

“Yes, it is, thank you,” you agree, and snatch your vodka tonic from the patio table. You take a long, cooling drink, and sniff ruefully. “But how do I get him to see that, is the question.”

The girl hums, looking like she’s really mulling that one over. “I mean, if he’s giving you the eyes, maybe he’s already made up his mind?”

“Maybe.” You swirl the ice in your glass, ruminating. “Maybe I could shove my tits in his face or something.”

“You do have nice tits,” the girl says, pointedly looking at them. “That might work.”

“It has to work. He’s a guy.” You slurp the dregs of your drink and smile over at her. “This has been great. I’m so glad I talked with you about it, um…”

“Chelsea.”

“Chelsea!” You stand, a little wobbly on your feet. “So good to meet you. If I see you again I’ll let you know how it went.”

As you walk away from her, you hear her floaty voice saying, “Can’t wait.”

You look for him at the bar. You look for him on the promenade, in the lounge, in the gardens, at every possible pool. He’s nowhere, and you feel more and more frustrated by the second.

You run into Piper at one point, who tells you she’s turning in for the night. You make up some excuse about wanting to go for a night swim, but really, you just don’t want to have to crawl into bed in the same room as her and have hideously vivid wet dreams about her dad.

You end up back in the courtyard beside the “pissing monkey” fountain, lamenting life. You really shouldn’t be, and that’s what makes it suck that much worse. You’re in a gorgeous country, surrounded by beauty, and luxury, and fucking wellness, and all you can think about is that you don’t have him. You walked around so much that you don’t even feel the buzz from the alcohol anymore, so you just have your misery to contend with on this, frankly gorgeous, night.

After a few minutes of listening to the splashing of the fountain and staring at the stars, you hear a rustling. And that turns into clanking, which turns into cursing. You frown and get up to peer through the darkness, looking for the source of the noise. Then, the gate to the courtyard swings open, and Timothy charges in.

And he really charges, stomping like he’s on a mission from God, or something. He stops short of the fountain and stares at you, out of breath. His hair is disheveled. He looks positively livid.

“Timothy,” you say, a little shocked at the state of him. You look him over. “Rough night?”

He says nothing, at first. Then he comes towards you, and you startle, staggering backwards before he grabs you and plants a kiss on you. Your hands find his arms, fingers digging into his biceps, and the wind has been stolen from your lungs by the time he lets go.

“Sorry, I–” he chokes out, looking a little dazed. His eyes are a bit glazed over, but they rake over your face with a base amount of embarrassment. “I needed to do that before I changed my mind.”

Your hands move on their own, sweeping his hair away from his forehead in a gesture far more familiar than you ever have been with him. The creases in his brow relax, just a bit. You tilt your head and hum. Well, so much for subtlety. “Would you like to take me up on that demonstration now?”

He nods once, curtly. “It’s Tim.”

You frown. “Tim?”

“You called me Timothy,” he clarifies. His hand finds the side of your face, caressing your cheek like he’s not even paying attention to what he’s doing. You fight the urge to close your eyes and lean into the touch. “My friends call me Tim.”

You smile conspiratorially. “We’re not gonna be friends.”

“Oh, no?” There’s a little smile curling at his lips, like you amuse him. His accent comes out a little thicker when he says, “Tell me, what are we gonna be?”

You shake your head, your smile growing even as you reach up onto your toes to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. He turns his head, captures you in a deeper kiss like he’s not willing to play games. No, you guess that he’s not– he’s gripping your waist like he means business, hauling you against him, his thigh pressed between your legs to give you something sturdy to lean against.

You’re two seconds from feeling like your head’s on backwards when he sucks a sharp breath and pulls away.

“Wait–” he whispers. “Your room?”

You pause. “Piper’s in our room. Yours?”

“Victoria.”

“Shit,” you curse, looking frantically around the courtyard. Your back is to a dark alcove, surrounded by fencing and a hedge that shields it from prying eyes. Good enough. “Fuck it.”

You yank him by the collar, turning him so that he stumbles and collapses onto the patio lounger behind you. He grabs you by the hips and you come down hard onto his lap, eliciting a groan and a hiss from him as you straddle his waist.

“We’re gonna have to be quiet,” you whisper against his mouth as your hands work over his belt. “Think you can manage it?”

Timothy– Tim– pulls back and gives you a condescending look as you palm him, and he watches you bemusedly as your eyes go wide. “Can you?”

Shit. All your dirty thoughts over the past few days didn’t prepare you for the sheer size of him, the fact of which is now pressing against the front of his trousers. Your mouth fills with saliva, and you swallow before you grit out, “Guess we’ll just have to see, huh?”

His eyes linger on your lips for a second, and then he kisses you. Greedy hands squeeze your ass, making you gasp into his mouth, and his tongue licks in to taste you. Slowly, his hand slides up your back to the tie of your swimsuit top and tugs once to unravel it.

Your top slips from your chest and settles around your waist, allowing your oversensitive breasts to feel the slight breeze in the air. You moan into Tim’s mouth, your hands finding their place in his hair to pull, your hips rocking forwards as he squeezes your breast.

His thumb strokes over your nipple, and you shiver, trying hard not to squirm too much against him. But his hand pulls you flush against him, your hips slotted perfectly over his, and the contact is too precious not to. Your hips bear down, your teeth graze his lower lip, and Tim groans softly against you.

“Tim, fuck,” you gasp into his mouth. The kiss turns passionate, leaving you aching and starving for the feeling of his hands on your body.

“Thought you said we weren’t gonna be friends,” Tim murmurs, quirking an eyebrow at you while his thumb continues to circle your nipple.

Your head spins incessantly. “I’ll be whatever you want me to be, if you keep touching me like that.”

Tim chuckles, but doesn’t hazard a reply. Instead, he dips his head, and his lips become entranced by your collarbone, or so it seems. Heat blooms and spreads up your back, tickling the nape of your neck and making your head fall back with a sigh.

The throbbing in your core is maddening, coupled with the melting warmth of Tim’s lips making their way across your skin. You have to steel yourself not to whimper aloud, not to make too much noise. It’s harder than you thought it would be.

And then Tim’s hand makes its way between your legs to cup your cunt, and you nearly choke.

You whine, your fists tightening on his shirt. You’re impressed that you don’t manage to tear it with how hard you yank at him, and Tim shushes you with a severe look that steals all the noise from your throat.

His fingertips brush the waistband of your swimsuit, and you don’t know what to do with yourself. You grab fistfuls of his hair, shaking with all of your pent up anticipation. You’ve wanted this for days, and now you have him under you, with his hand right where you need it.

The feeling of his fingertip tracing over your clit is torturously blissful, and you die just a little bit. Your mouth falls open, but no sound comes out– you think you forget to breathe, altogether. Tim’s cool gaze is fixed on your face, watching you as he pumps two fingers into you, curls them with devastating precision.

“Darlin’,” Tim coos softly, just loud enough for you to hear it, when you rock your hips forward onto his palm. “That’s it, sweet girl.”

Your heart pounds in your chest as you feel him, ever so slowly, withdraw his hand. You watch dazedly as he lifts his two fingers and smells you on them, the evidence of your arousal glistening in the moonlight. His eyes flutter shut as he sucks his fingers into his mouth.

It’s written all over your face– he’s shocked you. And you thought you were the one being a pervert, but it seems you’ve met your match. As he pulls his fingers from his lips and meets your eye, you swat his hand away and crash your lips against his, licking into his mouth like you want to try to taste yourself on his tongue.

Your hands find their way back to his undone belt, and you finally reach in to grasp the length of him. Wonderfully thick and rigid in your palm, you stroke him, eliciting a groan that melts into your mouth.

It’s your turn to shush him as you pull his cock free, allowing your fingers to have their way with feeling him. Quick in his own movements, Tim twists the ties of your swimsuit bottoms between his fingers and pulls, tugging the fabric loose.

You take his cue for what it is. You toss your swimsuit bottoms over your shoulder to where, you’re sure, it falls into the fountain.

You push Tim back to recline on the patio lounger, lift your hips, and there, fifteen feet away from his family’s hotel rooms, you lower yourself onto his cock.

It feels good. It feels like you should have been doing this for fucking ever, but it’s hard not to think that when he’s stretching you out in the most wonderful way imaginable.

Tim groans far louder than he should, and you clap your hand over his mouth quickly. The ensuing slap sound echoes in the hollow of the courtyard, but you aren’t sure if it could be heard inside over the noise of the fountain. You turn your head, peering through the darkness at the curtained windows of the guest house, trying to see if there’s any movement.

Tim stays as still as you are, his staccato breath ghosting over your knuckles. Once you’re satisfied that you’re still in the clear, you pull your hand away from his mouth and bend over him. His grunt is softer this time.

Your lips graze his ear. “Quiet.” His huff of a laugh is all the answer you need.

You swirl your hips, pick yourself up and lower down. You start off slow, if anything to keep him from making too much more noise. Your name falls from his lips, so softly that you can barely hear it over the noise of the fountain.

Tim’s hands grasp your waist, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. Your pace quickens, the patio chair creaking with the force of your hips grinding down into his. Tim begins to guide you as he meets you with his own thrusts, hitting that perfect, elusive spot inside you each time.

He sits up, his chest connecting with yours as his nose brushes the shell of your ear. He pulls you down hard onto him, making you gasp. You throw your arms around his shoulders instinctively as his teeth find the soft joint of your shoulder.

“C’mon,” he growls into your ear. “You can do better than that.”

Your hair stands on end at his goading, his voice laced with condescension. You drop your head and bite down on his shoulder as you rock your hips into his. Lifting one hand, you slide it between your bodies to touch your clit.

“That’s right, good girl,” he hisses, his voice so impassioned that you feel like a coil ready to snap. “Make yourself come, I want to feel it.”

Tim jerks his hips up ungodly hard into yours, and you almost cry out. Almost. Instead, you bear down onto him, with your teeth and with your core, and you shatter. Your cunt pulses around him as he tugs you further onto him, and your free hand snatches at the back of his shirt to keep you steady.

The feeling of your orgasm only seems to spur him on. While you’re still in it, with waves of the aftershocks rolling through you, Tim somehow manages to maneuver you onto your back. The cushion gives under you, but you don’t have time to process the comfort before you have to clap your hand over your mouth.

Because Tim is now chasing his own high. And you should have known that Mr. Stressed-As-Fuck was going to be relentless.

He hitches your leg up and his hips surge forward into you, and you scramble to grab the side of the lounger. You think you hear it scrape against the cement, but you can barely comprehend anything when he’s stealing the thoughts from your mind, until you can think of nothing but him.

Eyes rolling back, one hand flung upward to keep your head from hitting the backrest, you think you hear him snarling something under his breath. His hips stutter, and he comes with short, quick gasps.

Your body hums, your limbs tingling. Tim’s arms steady him on either side of you, and he falls slack, his head resting against your bare stomach.

Your breath steadies, and you finally gather the courage to say, “Piper can’t know about this.”

“No one can know about this,” Tim commands, pushing himself up. You see him in your periphery, but you can’t bring yourself to move. You think he’s completely ruined your state of equilibrium. You assume that he’s putting himself to rights. He looks at you sternly, like you’ve somehow disappointed him. As if you aren’t spread-eagled on a pool chair, with the evidence of what you just did leaking out of you.

“No, I know that,” you snap, rolling your eyes. But you look imploringly at him. “I’m just saying. Piper can not know about this. It’ll kill her.”

“Yeah,” Tim nods after a moment. “Okay.”

You stare at the sky for a few moments. “So. Want to talk about it?”

Tim laughs. Not just a huff, but a full blown bark of laughter. “My life is already as fucked as it can get right now. I don’t think we should.”

You hum, pushing yourself up onto your elbows. “Fair enough. I’m good at keeping secrets.”

“Secrets,” Tim parrots. He looks you over, his eyes lingering for a moment between your legs. “Want a… a drink, or something?”

You smirk. Maybe you’re getting ahead of yourself, but you feel like if you go with him anywhere now, you’re bound to repeat this encounter. Probably several times.

“Actually,” you say, “I’m giving up drinking.”

“Oh,” Tim replies, his eyebrows shooting up. He looks impressed– maybe even proud. “Well. Good for you.”

“Give it two weeks,” you grumble. You swing your leg over the chair and sit parallel to him, untying your swimsuit top so that it’s not fastened around your waist anymore. You clutch the fabric in your hand, and look over your shoulder at him with a smile. “Have a good night, Tim.”

“Right.” As though he was just waiting for his cue to leave, he stands up and gives you a patronizing look. “Drink water.”

“Sure thing.”

You watch him leave. And even though you aren’t as frustrated as you had been last night, you wistfully still hope that, somehow, you’ll have him again.

Just, preferably in a bed next time.

You wake in the morning to something that feels like a cold fish slapping you in the face.

Yelping, you jolt up in bed. Tits out, completely naked save for the sheet on your bed, you catch the thing that had stuck to your face as it peels itself away and falls into your outstretched hands.

“Lochy found your bikini bottoms in the fountain,” Piper hisses. “What the fuck did you do last night?”

“I told you,” you grumble, wadding up the wet swimsuit bottoms and tossing them through the bathroom door, “I went night swimming.”

“Bottom-nude?” Piper looks entirely unconvinced. “Your top was in the shower this morning. What, did you just go around pantsless for my entire family to see?”

“No,” you object. Not the entire family, anyway. “I was just… I dunno. A little out of it.”

Piper wrinkles her nose at you. “You have got to stop drinking. You smell like a barroom floor.”

As she stomps into the bathroom, you flop back into bed and cover your eyes. Then, something occurs to you that you hadn’t thought about the night before.

“Hey, Piper?” you call, a little shrill as your anxiety spikes. “Do you think room service carries Plan B?”

and i oop. practice safe sex babes

#timothy ratliff #timothy ratliff x reader #timothy ratliff x fem!reader #the white lotus #white lotus #fanfic #roses*

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legendofmorons · 2 months ago

Text

Written in the stars (forever on loop) chapter one - we're not in Kansas anymore

Pairing: eventual poly! Chain x reader, platonic Wind & Reader

Rating: T (cursing)

Summary: You find yourself in a strange world with a familiar set of men that have some ridiculous names. You are left wondering why they are all so... straight towards you. Between a strange dream and the chain's own angst, there's a lot happening.

Warnings: cursing,

Other: I'm so excited to get this story rolling! If I missed anything, please let me know.

Series masterpost | next chapter

You come to awareness while a man hovers over you, which is pretty concerning since you were locking your front door.

Everything in your head feels weird, like it's coated in cotton candy.

You blinked, and then you were sprawled on the ground with a man hovering over you!

The man has dirty blond hair and a kind face.

He has pointed ears?!

Why does he have pointy ears?

They don't look clipped they look like natural elf ears.

You yelp, scrambling back in a horrible crab walk.

"What the fuck?!" You demand breathlessly.

Your heart is beating in your ears as you try to make sense of things. Your mind keeps focusing on the pointy ears.

"Easy, it's okay. You're safe." The man says, hands up so you can see he's not a threat. (His voice strains a little, but you don't really latch onto it.)

The gesture with his hands held up would work better if you knew where you were, and he didn't have a sword strapped to his back.

"Who are you?" You ask, hand landing on a small rock.

You grip the rock, deciding it can be a weapon if you need it to be. Hopefully.

"I'm Sky." The man introduces with a soft tone.

You stare at him, breathing slowly as you try to calm down. Finally, you ask, "Where am I?"

He gives a sympathetic smile. "We're not sure. You fell out of a portal not too long after we did."

"We?"

Sky gestures to the right.

You look, finding eight more males all looking armed to at least the waist if not the teeth.

"I'm dreaming." You decide out loud.

Sky chuckles, "I don't think you are."

"I really hope I am. Otherwise, I'm in trouble." You groan.

"Well, either way, how about we get some foo in you? Wild made some stew."

You sigh, letting go of the rock and getting to your feet. You brush yourself off as well.

"Thank you." You say.

He nods, "Of course. Come on, let's go introduce you to the others."

Sky leads you to the group he motioned to earlier. He moves with an earned confidence that seems out of place without a suit of armor, but that's not important.

You immediately feel uneasy.

It's not anything the group does it's just the fact that there are eight of them. (Nine including Sky.) They are all pretty well armed. There is one if you and you are- not well armed.

You are in a graphic t-shirt, and the closest thing to a weapon you have is your fists.

They all look a little familiar, but that isn't too important. Not now.

The youngest is actually kind of cute in a pirate gremlin kid way. Wavy blond hair and a blue shit (tunic?) And if course pointy ears.

You take in the rest of the group, noticing that they are all blond exceptions for one, and two of them have face markings. (Possibly face tattoos?)

Two have obvious armor and. A few more seem to have on chain mail.

Wow, okay.

Who needs chain mail in this day and age?

"Hey, good to see you awake!" The youngest grins at you.

"Thanks?" You manage.

He almost makes you think of Wind Waker Link.

Wait!

They all look like different Links!

Are you in Hyrule?!

Also, what are they all doing together?

What is going on?

"I made stew if you want some." Says the one that looks like Breath of the Wild Link. He isn't looking at you, actively staring into a pot instead.

You fix a polite smile in place. "Thank you."

"Are you okay? You fell out of the sky." The brown haired man that might be from the first two Zelda titles asks. He looks at you like you have two heads, but if you really fell from the sky... that makes sense. (Right?)

"I what?!" You gasp.

How could you fall out of the sky?

"Do you have a concussion?" Asks the man with the scarf cape thing. He looks at you with pinched brows.

"I hope not?"

Sky pats your shoulder. "I'm sure you're okay. The first portal is the most disorienting."

Someone hands you a bowl of stew.

"Thank you."

"Of course. I feel like you're probably stuck with us for a little bit since you fell through a portal." The most heavily armored says.

Is that... the Hero's Shade?

This is officially either some weird dream, a hallucination, or you are the least favorite of some deity somewhere.

"Well... Nice to meet you?" You say weakly before you introduce yourself.

At the sound of your name, the entire group goes still for a moment. Well, all of them but Wind, who smiles.

They look pained for a second, but they recover quickly. Though the one with a blue hat and no pants looks annoyed at everything.

"I'm Wind." The youngest offers first with a smile.

The shortest looks over next. "I'm Four."

"I'm Twilight." Says the man in the pelt.

The man with the scarf gives a charming and pained smile. "I'm Warriors."

"I'm Hyrule." The man with the brown hair says, looking away from you.

These are the most bizarre names you've heard in a while. Who names their kid Four? Or Warriors?

That just seems cruel.

"I'm Time." The tallest says, his gaze weighty as it lingers on your face.

"I'm Wild." The man with long hair says. He still won't look at you.

The last one, the man with the blue hat, sighs heavily, "Legend."

"Nice to meet you all?" You offer.

Silently, you promise yourself that if you're ever responsible for naming a child you won't stick them with a number or a job title as a name.

Sky smiles at you weakly. "You weren't prepared for an adventure were you?"

"No." You say.

Not prepared is a kind way to put it.

You just count yourself lucky you aren't in pajamas right now.

This is going to be a long day.

-------

Legend is ready to scream. He doesn't care if it's rational either. He deserves to be able to scream after literally everything he's gone through.

First of all, they watch someone fall out of a portal in the sky. Great. Perfect even.

Then, the person happens to look uncannily like the love of his life that died soon after his many adventures. (Soon after an argument where he had been so snappish with them.)

That's just his luck. Par for the course even.

But then, of course, you sound like the lost love.

You have the same name.

This is either a cruel trick or an uncanny coincidence.

Legend hopes it's the second one.

Knowing his luck, though, it's the first. This is almost certainly some cruel trick, because Hylia is a bitch.

He watches you the whole day, from his spot by the impromptu fire. They set up camp after meeting you to try to get you settled into the group.

You are... woefully unprepared.

He feels a little pity for you, everything else aside. He remembers the way that starting with nothing feels.

He remembers how disorienting it can be to get thrown to the deep end of adventure.

You sit by Sky, seemingly a little more comfortable with the man.

The chilly air has earned you one of Wild's extra cloaks, which had been a fight on it's own. You had to be talked into even accepting the damn thing.

It was a strange interaction since Wild wouldn't look at you.

Legend watches you, the way you try to make sense of things. It's familiar.

He looks away, turning instead to look at Warriors who's trying to get Wild and Wind to come down from the trees.

"What of your Hyrule?" Sky asks.

You frown, your voice drawing Legend's eyes.

"I'm not from Hyrule." You say, sounding like the notion is absurd.

Sky nods thoughtfully. "You must be from somewhere else, like me. Where are you from?"

You tell them, naming a place they've never heard of.

Legend dosen’t know where that is... but it sounds nice in your achingly familiar voice.

He's tempted to pretend that you are the reincarnation of his lover. He really is.

He won't, though. That's unfair to you and his lost lover both.

He can't help the glare he sends you. It isn't your fault, but the pain makes him want to glare.

Legend watches you in stilted moments. Wondering how you can so closely resemble his lost love and yet not be them?

If you were... If you were his lover, you would be here at his side, telling him sweet nothings instead of allowing stilted converstions with Sky and Wind.

Legend is sure this is a punishment.

What he wouldn't give to speak to his lover one last time. (To make up that argument to them. To hold them-)

He turns his gaze to Hyrule beside him, who is also watching you with knit brows and thin lips.

"Hyrule?" Legend asks.

Hyrule turns his eyes to his predecessor, gaze glassy with unshed tears. "They look just like my lover... Legend... You see it, right?"

The knowledge of a lover that reincarnates with every cycle of the triforce is taught to children. The part that isn't taught is that the lover never lives long enough.

Every hero is the same soul reincarnated. Every version of the lover is lost too soon.

Legend knows Wind hasn't lost his version of the lover because he isn't looking at you the way the others do.

"I see it." Legend says weakly.

Hyrule swallows. "When does it stop hurting?"

"Never." The veteran manages. "We never stop missing them."

"They look the same every time..."

"I know."

Hyrule takes a shaky breath. "Wind dosen’t know what he's in for... does he?"

Legend shakes his head. "No."

"Should... we tell him?"

"No. That will just ruin the time he has left with them.

Hyrule nods. "Okay."

Legend takes a slow breath. For all that the heroes share the same soul, they feel more like brothers to each other than copies of a person.

There are similarities.

To see any of his brothers hurt is a shot to Legend's heart.

To see Hyrule, his direct successor, hurt? It's cruel.

Hyrule gives a wet, shaking laugh as he leans against Legend. "I miss them, Legend. I miss them every day."

"I know... I miss them too."

Hyrule sighs softly. "I see them in my dreams."

"Me too."

"They'd be telling us we shouldn't live our lives missing them."

"Easier said, then done."

"Tell me about it."

Legend wraps an arm about Hyrule's shoulders. He pulls the traveler closer, silent in his comforting of the other.

Hyrule just leans into it.

They close their eyes, trying to focus on the evening air instead of you.

-------

You settle into the older bedroll you were given after convincing Wild to keep his new one and let you use the old one instead of the other way around. Your mind is loud and busy at the moment.

You are decidedly in Hyrule. You are in the world of the Legend of Zelda.

This is absolutely insane.

You would think this is all some weird dream, but it feels entirely too real.real.

The others have all gone to he'd except for Time, the oldest being on watch first tonight.

You lay near Sky for tonight, the least intimidated by him simply by virtue of having talked to him the most so far.

Sky has his back to you, curling up into a ball.

Time is by the fire, scanning over the group every so often.

You can see Wind sprawled across Wild and Twilight. It's a little funny. The sailor has a blanket thrown across him.

The fire crackles gently. A beacon to draw your attention over and over.

You can't make sense of any of this.

Meeting the character of a whole franchise you've always loved is... rather surreal.

You would even go so far as to say it's a dream come true? Maybe?

It's something you doubt you can ever forget at the very least.

Life will certainly never be the same.

You close your eyes with the intention to sleep.

-------

You're ready to scream. This is the fifth time Link has run off because of some hero bullshit without even saying bye.

You aren't mad he's doing his (unfair) job. You're mad he never lets you know!

The problem is that you never know when he will leave. You don't know if he's out to visit someone or if you should be waiting for him to return in a box.

Living like this is exhausting.

All you want is for him to do better about telling you. He could leave a note, and that would be enough!

Nights full of pacing and worry leave a lot to be desired.

You glance to the table, spotting the red carnations and sighing. The flowers you were given last week are wilting.

Link is still gone. It's been a week, and you haven't heard anything.

The door opens, and you turn, eyes landing on Link. His red tunic has certainly seen better days.

He looks- rough. Bruises, scrapes, dirt, mud, and who knows what else scatter across him.

For a moment, there is only relief.

"Link!" You gasp.

Link looks at you, eyes as beautiful as they are resigned. "Angel."

"Where have you been?! I was so worried!" You cry, crossing the room to check on him.

You move to cradle his face, running your thumbs over his cheek bones. His skin is cold in your hands.

"I've been doing hero shit." Link huffs, pushing your hands away. "Just- leave me alone."

You choke, stepping back. "You just got home."

"Yeah." Link says tightly.

"Can you at least tell me if you're okay? I've been worried sick!"

"You don't need to worry! Leave me alone!"

"I- What the hell Link? All I'm asking is if you're injured?!"

Link storms off with a growl.

You grit your teeth. You know he has bad days. Everyone does. You know he gets grumpy even towards you sometimes. But this is too much

You need some air. You need a walk.

You leave your home, rain pouring. It dosen’t matter. You just need to think.

Rain pours and thunder cracks with lightning.

Worries from the last several days loosen and tighten in quick secession.

Nothing matters.

You just need to focus on breathing.

Calmer heads and all that.

Link will calm down, you know this. He always calms down.

That dosen’t make it easier to deal with the way he snaps at you.

Honestly, you probably should have left him alone the first time he asked. He set a boundary, but in all honesty, your worry made it hard to see that.

You will have to apologize and work on doing better.

For now, though, you're going to focus on centering yourself and giving him the space he needs.

Hopefully, he forgives you.

You hear the monster before you see them. Low sounds.

Terror bolts up your spine -

-------

You jolt awake, breathless as you whip your head around. Blurry vision latching onto the low fire that is almost all embers.

You swallow hard.

Breathing. You need to do that.

Deep breath in.

Slow breath out.

You focus on slowing your breathing as you try to come back from whatever that dream was.

It's wild what brains can do.

It's strange you had a dream about Legend.

Weirder is that it feels... like a memory.

Nightmares can be so bizarre.

"Hey," Wind says from the fire.

You look over, blinking a few times. "Hi?"

"You okay?"

"Yeah... just- rough dreams." You say.

It's strange to admit that. It's strange to be asked anything by Wind.

Why is he even up?

Watch.

You remember now.

He's up for watch.

Wond nods, "That sucks. You gonna be okay to sleep?"

"I think so." You say without thinking about it.

There is no reason to possibly burden the kid.

Laying back down, you stare up at the stars and try to settle down enough to sleep. There's something in your mind saying you will need it.

-----

Next chapter

#misty writes #linked universe x reader #lu written in the stars au #lu written in the stars (forever on loop) au #written in the stars au

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revelboo · 7 months ago

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Everything is Alright pt 6

Starscream x Reader- angry

•What does it say about you that you’re starting to look forward to your daily conversations? Besides the screamingly obvious conclusion that you have a bad case of Stockholm’s, anyway. For a giant, probably evil, alien robot, Starscream isn’t exactly awful. Snarky, insecure, and narcissistic, but not awful. And honestly, those flustered, little wing fidgets or startled silences when you play along or agree with him are kind of adorable.

• You’re definitely losing it. The big mech has become a confusing tangle of emotions in your chest. He’s your captor. He’s funny and surprisingly almost kind when he wants to be. He’s dramatic. He’s… a friend? Because, yeah, maybe you are getting a bit protective of the giant alien keeping you prisoner and maybe your heart aches every time he’s surprised or thrown off kilter by a tiny bit of kindness or compassion. Like it’s something he rarely gets.

• So when the door to his quarters slides open, you stand with a genuine smile, hand lifting in greeting only to freeze. That’s not your giant alien. Breath locking in your lungs, you slowly back away to the far side of your enclosure as two robots remarkably similar except in color to your robot enter his space. Sure, you’d realized that there had to be others as terrifying as the thought was, but he kept you hidden away like a secret.

• “We shouldn’t be in here,” the blue one grumbles, optics scanning the room with what sounded like trepidation. Or guilt. “He’s been weird lately. Keeping to himself.” The purple and black one starts opening drawers to root through the contents while you pray that they don’t turn, because your stupid, clear cage is right at their eye level.

• You’re still backing away when you step on the edge of your blanket, the material sliding under your heel as you yelp and fall. No, no, no. Don’t look. Don’t- crap. Both of them turn at the same time and stare right at you.

• “Is that… a human?” Blue alien is frowning as the purple one shoulders past him to stare at you as you do an undignified crab walk to scoot away to the other side of your prison until your back hits the wall. The purple one is grinning now as he reaches to hook a servo over the top edge of your box and tilt it. You go sliding to thump against the hard surface, heart racing as he tilts the cube further until you’re looking almost straight down at the floor below. Does he realize a fall from the height will kill you? Does he care?

• You’ve seen that cruel, amused glint in Skywarp’s optics before. If he’d been human, he’d have been one of those boys merrily hunting down ants to incinerate with a magnifying glass. And now you’re the ant. “Cut it out, Skywarp,” the blue one growls, but he doesn’t move to intervene.

• Instead of stopping, Skywarp reaches his free hand in and you fling yourself back to try and avoid being snatched. That only makes him flatten you against the far wall hard enough your head smacks the surface, stunning you. And then he’s grabbing you in a much too tight grip, lifting your limp, unresisting body free.

• You wonder if he’ll crush you or drop you. Ribs screaming at how tight his grip is, you can’t get a clean breath. Maybe he is going to just crush you slowly. Behind him, the door opens and you catch a glimpse of red armor, relief nearly making you sob. Starscream.

• Freezing just inside his quarters, Starscream’s optics narrow on his trine before alarm jangles through him. Skywarp has the human, its face ruddy as it weakly struggles against his grip. Anger spills through him in a dark tide as he bares his denta. “You dare?”

• “What?” Skywarp demands, voice all cruel amusement as he tosses the human up to catch in his hand. You scream, the sharp sound choking off suddenly. “Why do you even care? It’s only human.”

• You’ve seen Starscream angry before. At least, you thought you had, but this? As he charges at Skywarp, his face twisted in savage fury, you don’t recognize him. He drives Skywarp back, one of his hands seizing the other mech’s wrist and squeezing until he yelps. His other hand prying you free from Skywarp’s grip. It’s not gentle when he snatches you and there’s going to be bruises, but you’re too shocked as he snacks the muzzle of the weapon on his forearm into Skywarp’s face in a very obvious threat.

• Then the other one is there, trying to calm them both down as Starscream presses you to his chassis. You can hear him venting, the rough sound ending on soft growls. You feel like you’re in a fog, aware of the three arguing, but unable to focus on the words. How hard had you hit your head when Skywarp had pinned you? Exhausted, you lay your cheek against Starscream, soaking in the warmth and trying to shut everything else out.

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#transformers #starscream x reader #idw starscream

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lukolathoughts · 2 months ago

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Is it a shark? Or an Anchovy?

Dearest gentle reader,

The ship's main cabin is cosy and intimate with an ornate fireplace, stimulating the crackling flames of a roaring fire illuminating the room with a toasty orange glow. Around a large round table sits my crew. We are laughing and merry. We discuss war stories, baby photos and battle scars. The ship rocks peacefully over gentle waves as the sun sets to darkness. Laughter echoes around the cabin and glasses clink as many a bottle is shared. The atmosphere is jovial. Jokes are told and raucous laughter erupts.

I glance towards the ships round porthole. We are below decks so I can see the deep darkness of the ocean. Occasionally, fish swim past in a swirling shoal. An occasional red jellyfish. A lone crusty crab scuttles by. I marvel at the wonder of the ocean and our great ship. The USS Lukola. Splendid in in's majesty. Last week's attack, practically forgotten. The USS Lutonia lurks somewhere near shore, cloaked in darkness.

In the midst of another great anecdote by a crew member, I glance again towards the porthole and a large shadow glides past it. I sit forward, frowning. My eyes narrow towards the porthole. Am I the only one who has noticed?

Show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I want to go to bed, I had a little drink about an hour ago, And it's gone right to my head, Wherever I may roam, On land or sea a-foam,

My crew member abruptly swings her leg on the table and pulls up her trouser leg, proudly showing us last June's battle scar. Now, long, red and nasty looking, but healed. I swing my head towards the porthole and the shadow darkens it again and swishes past. Is that a fin?

"Guys..." I sit forward, warily. My heart starts to beat, but my voice is drowned out by laughter and merriment. I stand and walk towards the porthole and press my nose against the thick, cold glass. I can only see the endless depth of the ocean and the deep blue of the sea.

"What are you looking at, ZG?" Number 2 asks. "I'm not sure..." I reply, quietly. I squint again as the laughter fades and I see it. A shadow blacker than night, has started to journey head on towards our ship. The shape gets gradually bigger and bigger. It becomes unmistakable in it's speed and ferocity.

Dum dum, dum dum, dum, dum, dum......

You're gonna need a bigger boat.

I brace for impact.

No there is no Jaws-esque crash through the porthole as it smashes into the ship. No thrusting of an air tank into the razor sharp teeth of a shark. No me getting my head chomped off.

Not a torpedo this time either. There are no holes in our ship, but it does take a beating. We once again lose some passengers. Even I, run up to the deck and put my leg over the side and cry. I peer down at the murky depths and I see the tiny little anchovy circling like the predator she is. Dressed cheaply in black, disguised as a great white. But more like a shrimp. My number two, drags me back over. She shakes me, puts me in timeout in the crew cabin and takes over cleaning up. She is the best. The crew rally around and I know we are ok.

Then we process.

Ok, guys enough with the fish analogies. Lets call Antonia out for what she is. The girl with the snake. I haven't forgotten. As for Luke, please if you are reading this know that we support you and we are sorry you have to pretend with this farce of publicity. Call me delulu if you want to. I know what a lot of people think of us 'hardcore' Lukola's. It really is not delulu now, it is critical thinking as I have discussed previously. I was just as upset on Sunday evening as everyone else. It is not the fact that I may be wrong in my tarot readings, I can admit that freely if I have to. It's my concern for Luke and examination of the evidence that gives me pause. Luke, blink twice if you need help.

If we go back to the world tour and watch Luke's behaviour and body language for the entire six month tour when around Nicola and the Bridgerton cast, we can see that his behaviour around Antonia the last two times we have seen him at the Boss event and last Sunday's GQ, is vastly different. It is like night and day. Light and darkness. We can go back further than Nicola, to see his behaviour with Jade. There are plenty of video evidence that Jade shared to prove this to be true.

Last Friday, high off endorphins from the Polin - heavy Bridgerton event, the fandom was overjoyed to see a relaxed looking Luke sans Antonia on Valentine's Day at a dinner. He happily greeted and spoke to fans outside and answered questions. Lukola's breathed a sigh of relief. He was alone on Valentine's Day. No rings, wearing black. Nicola was also wearing black at the IFTA's. Also no rings. Their soul - matism from different countries is poignant.

All is quiet on Saturday, but what we didn't know is that there is a hilarious joint birthday for Jake and his friend Becky 'Jecky'. A combined name quite similar to 'Jakola' don't you think?

Nicola, like the magic travelling person she is, is in attendance. Now this party seemed to go over the head's of the Jakola's on Sunday and I had to log out of twitter for a good week to escape the pure vitriol against Nicola. This is also classic British humour. It is what us Brits do, we take the piss. I do not mean to discriminate if you are not British, but some jokes seem to go over some people's heads. It is not fair for me to keep on about Jake's sexuality on public platforms, but Jakehole's I am speaking directly to you. Let this young lad be and let him be who was born to be. He was wearing a 'too old for Leo' badge because now he is 25, Leo will not date him anymore. The joke is Leonardo Dicaprio won't date anyone over the age of 25. (I'd say 19 these days, but whatever). So why would Jake wear a badge that says that? I'm telling you now no straight man in the UK would do it. Being gay even in 2025 in the UK is not funny. Is not something straight or gay men joke about. Homosexuality discrimination is very real.

"The UK, which once used to be one of Europe’s most welcoming places to be gay, has seen a 462% increase in sexual orientation hate crime reports since 2012." Metro, June 2024. Jake is from Nottingham which is up in the Midlands in the UK. The area is very working - class. A while back he shared an extract on his Instagram stories from Shuggie Bain by Douglas Scott. The book is about a young boy growing up on one of Glasgow's toughest council estates. The book is then followed up by Young Mungo, which is the story of a young gay relationship on the same council estate. In England, hate crimes against homosexuals rose to 2,591 per 1000,000 people in 2023/2024. My point is, Jake would have been extremely familiar with homophobia growing up in the midlands (Nottingham) in the 2010's onwards. He has had reported issues with his own father and acceptance of who he is. The article that accompanied the music video that Jake starred in, 'You me at Six - Mixed Emotions' states, "With Jake Dunn who played the protagonist in the video, we actually spoke a lot about toxic masculinity and his experiences within his sexuality and the impacts it has had on his relationship with his dad."

Jake has clearly been through a lot to get to this point. I google him and every article I can see is how he is in a relationship with Nicola Coughlan. I feel they have agreed to this in some shape or form, but I think now enough is enough. Denying a young person like this his sexuality, is extremely damaging. There was no shade towards Nicola on Saturday. It was shade for the sub-fandom of Jakehole's who refuse to see the truth. Jake is being as clear as he can with who he is. It is time people listen. The ship is gone. Red Jellyfish, I am talking to you.

Back to Luke, Sunday went from bad to worse for me. I will not stand for people disparaging Nicola publicly. I was upset over that and then here comes black widow Antonia clutching on to Luke like the barnacle she is. Ok, we're back to fish! Again, she had no coat, purse or phone and was dressed cheaply for the event. There is video footage of her walking way in front of Luke entering the event. He did not pose with her for official red carpet photos and then he made it damned obvious in my opinion that he left without her. Alone. Getting into the car alone. Antonia nowhere in sight.

Then comes his stories. He makes the whole thing look like he is single until the bed pasta. Luke knows that pasta is associated with Anchovy and traumatises his fans, so he also throws in Love Island which is Nicola's favourite tv show and fries/chips with various sauces, again Nicola coded. Then a text message to some bloke called Gary. Are my messages getting through Gary? (General audience) are you getting it yet!! I'm not so delulu to think that Antonia could very well be in the bed of pasta, but for someone so vapid as her, watching Love Island would equate to her mentally wishing she was on it. Prediction for a few years. Anchovy again doesn't post to her stories about the event. She does however post her 'Barely' knickers brand (don't get me started) and Luke obligatory likes it. Cue fandom eyeroll. There's a lot more I could say about the timing of Luke's 'forced' appearances with Anchovy and her 'barely' brand and dance video launches, but frankly my dear I don't give a damn. (My six year old would not wear knickers like that, let alone my wedding party).

What upset me most is watching Luke's aura and personality change when he is around Antonia. As an empath, it hurts me deeply and it's literally like watching him get cloaked in darkness. When I think of Anchovy this comes to mind:

"A succubus is a female demon or supernatural entity in folklores who appears in dreams to seduce men, mostly through sexual activity. Repeated sexual activity with a succubus will result in a bond being formed between the succubus and the person; and a succubus will drain or harm the man with whom she is having intercourse." Wikipedia. I am not calling Anchovy a demon, calm your jets. It is a metaphor for her influence over Luke whatever it may be.

Luke literally looks drained when he is around this girl. It seems to me, he can only stand it for short periods. It was rumoured he only stayed for forty minutes maximum at the Bafta after party on Sunday.

I have seen this before. I have watched painfully as Meghan Markle decimated Prince Harry to the literal shell of a man he is now. He is broken, isolated and the laughing stock of the world. I cannot and will not go through watching another yacht girl from Soho House destroy a man I care about in the media. That is why it has to be PR. It just has to be.

What I will say about the Sag awards is for everyone to remain calm and stay on the ship seated and buckled up. I did get some nice cards for Nicola yesterday of victory and success, so we shall see and we wish the Bridgerton cast the best. If Luke takes Antonia I will be shocked, because if he won't pay for her dress, hair and makeup for small events, I'm confused why he'd bankroll a costly LA trip. Also, is he planning on wrestling her phone out of her hands the entire trip? Anchovy ruined two Bridgerton premieres, so hopefully Luke will not be coerced into dragging her bony behind across the world. I still believe this is a massive PR distraction. Why hasn't Deux Moi posted about Luke and Antonia? Why the solo pap pics of Luke released on Tuesday, but no mention of Anchovy. What is going on? Stay tuned folks and pray.

#lukola #luke newton #nicola coughlan

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 5 months ago

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Cannibals [Chapter 3: Mist and Bricks]

Series summary: You are his sister, his lover, his betrothed despite everyone else’s protests; you have always belonged to Aemond and believe you always will. But on the night he returns from Storm’s End with horrifying news, the trajectories of your lives are irrevocably changed. Will the war of succession make your bond permanent, or destroy the twisted and fanatical love you share?

Chapter warnings: Language, a tiny bit of sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, dragons being weapons of mass destruction, King's Landing gets some visitors, Larys gets alarming news, Alicent gets an idea, Red gets a shock.

Word count: 7.2k

💙 All my writing can be found HERE! ❤️

Tagging: @themoonofthesun @chattylurker @moonfllowerr @ecstaticactus @mrs-starkgaryen, more in comments 🥰

🦇 Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🦇

There is a chilly steel-grey mist on Blackwater Bay, and another in your skull, your thoughts slow and muddled, the past bleeding into the present. It’s weeks later, the longest you’ve ever been away from Aemond, and the pebbles on the shore needle your shins through your velvet gown the color of cinnabar as you kneel to claw seashells from the muck. Helaena is here with you, and while you haven’t told her your plans for your next mosaic, she somehow knows what color shells to drop into your basket: dark green like Vhagar’s scales, shimmering white like Aemond’s hair. Sometimes there are still creatures hunkered inside, and Helaena can never bring herself to pry them out. She passes the doomed crabs and snails to you for a swift exhumation that you deliver with your bare hands, and then you wash the vacated shells in the surf. Mother and a flock of maids are playing with Jaehaera and Maelor farther down the beach. You can’t go near them, or Maelor will start screaming.

Grandsire comes plodding down the stone steps carved into the cliffside, carrying a plate laden with lemon cakes and slices of fresh bread slathered with butter and blackberry jam. “Helaena, you must eat,” he says.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Helaena, please.” And his voice is gentle in a way it has never been with you. “My gods, why are you wrist-deep in wet sand?”

“We’re collecting shells.”

Grandsire gives you a familiar look: disapproval, frustration. The he turns back to Helaena. “I can’t watch you disappear. You must eat something, I’m not leaving until you do.”

“You like blackberry jam,” you encourage her. But she flinches away when Grandsire offers her the plate, and suddenly you understand, you feel the thought as if it is your own. “It’s the color,” you tell him. “The jam, it’s like…” Like blood, like gore. Like the night Jaehaerys died.

“Oh.” Grandsire is quiet for a moment, remembering. “The lemon cakes, then.”

Helaena reluctantly rinses her hands in the seawater, takes a single lemon cake from the plate, and sits on a nearby rock to nibble on it, gazing blankly out over the inlet. You attended Jaehaerys’ funeral procession in her stead—an act of mercy, of penance, while Helaena spent that day sobbing in the Dragonpit, clinging to Dreamfyre, a pale blue century-old monster with infinite patience. The people of King’s Landing saw the dead prince, his head crudely stitched back onto his tiny body, and howled for vengeance. They burned white-haired effigies of Rhaenyra and Daemon. They gave rare autumn flowers to you and Mother. It’s always strange when you leave the Red Keep to interact with the smallfolk. They call you by your real name, something your family seldom does; they seem to believe you are righteous and wise. Perhaps they even pity you: no husband, no children, no dragon.

Mother has left Jaehaera and Maelor with the maids and is venturing closer. “Are there any new letters?” From Criston or Aemond, or even Daeron in the Reach. The Hightower army has been delayed there, cutting through the treasonous soldiers of House Rowan and House Caswell, Tessarion burning them alive in their armor.

“Ravens,” Helaena says thoughtfully from her rock, and no one knows why.

Grandsire shakes his head. No letters today. Butterwell, Stokeworth, and Rosby have bent the knee; the defiant lords of the Crownlands are being put to death. By now the Green forces will be marching on House Staunton at Rook’s Rest. When Aemond does write, you are not mentioned. With each passing day you find yourself thinking: Has he forgotten me? Does he truly love me? Perhaps this is not so irrational a question. Aemond has never used the word love to describe what you are to each other.

Grandsire frowns at you. You gaze mournfully back. He snaps: “And what’s wrong with you?”

Mother’s reply is hushed and sympathetic. “She’s lonely, Father.”

“Lonely?! She still has us here. Don’t we matter? No, I suppose not, she prefers arrogant fools who imperil the realm with their self-obsession. Perhaps she’d like us more if we wore silver wigs and eyepatches.”

Mother is distressed. “Father, please.”

He waves an irritated hand at you. “I better not find out you’ve been keeping the cats away from your chambers again.” Grandsire had a hundred cats brought to the Red Keep to do the tasks the dead ratcatchers left unattended.

“They scare my babies,” you say.

“Your vermin, you mean. Revolting creatures. Flying pestilence.”

You rise from the sand and pick up your basket, now full of shells. Your head is beginning to ache. Maester Orwyle removed your stitches this morning, but the wound in your chest still pains you more or less constantly, a gnawing sensation like an animal chewing on your ribcage.

“Where are you going?” Grandsire demands. You don’t answer him as you ascend the stone staircase, the waves growling behind you and gulls squawking in the foggy air.

In your chambers, you leave the basket of seashells on the floor and call for wine. The maids fetch it and you drink straight from the pitcher, staring at the little wooden figurines on your dresser until they turn blurry. Among them is Vermithor. You recall what Aegon said when he gave it to you years ago, when you were so stung by the dragon’s rejection: You might not have the real Bronze Fury, but you can keep this one.

Your bats are beginning to scrabble out of their roost and vanish through the window. As the sun sets and the room spins, you crawl into bed and lie there in the darkness clutching pillows, your pulse thudding just above your left eye. You doze in and out of consciousness. Aemond told you to think of him when you are here, and you do whether you want to or not: Aemond spilling red wine down your bare chest and then licking you clean; you straddling his lap and stroking him as he reads myths aloud to you in gloomy alcoves of the library, dust motes wheeling in the air, grinning victoriously when you make him lose his focus; the five game pieces racing around the wooden board, Aegon’s green snake, Helaena’s yellow butterfly, Aemond’s blue wolf, your red bat, Daeron’s purple shadowcat before he was sent away to Oldtown and the rest of you never played again.

Then something hits you, not like a vision but like knuckles that could crack teeth, and you are besieged by what Aemond is seeing in the Crownlands. There is flesh, horribly and ruinously burned, sheets of it sloughing off as Aemond peels away scraps of charred fabric, and the smell of it—like blackened pork, oily and stomach-turning—is in your nostrils, and you can feel the calamitous heat rising off the man who must be dying. You can feel Aemond’s terror, disbelief, desperation; you can feel his tears on the right side of your face.

Dragonfire??

The dreamscape abruptly disappears like a candle blown out. Your head throbs, your eyes are squeezed shut as you whimper into your pillows. Your fingertips go instinctively to the scar on your chest.

Who was burned? Criston? Gwayne?

But now the dire portents are here in your room, and they are real: the ringing of bells, smoke, shrieking, scorched flesh.

You open your eyes, and your bats are soaring back inside through the open window; but they have been turned to comets. They are on fire, squealing as their fur is singed off and the fragile membranes of their wings melted from their bones, herding around their roost as they try in vain to seek shelter inside. The dark blue velvet cover has been engulfed in flames.

“No!” you scream, bolting off the bed.

Your door is thrown open and Mother rushes in, dragging Jaehaera behind her. Helaena waits in the doorway holding little Maelor in her arms. He hasn’t seen you yet, but he is already wailing. The horror is back. When will it end?

“We have to go!” Mother shouts, grabbing your hand and pulling you away from your bats. You know you can’t save them, and yet you are compelled to. They are pieces of you, pieces of Aemond. They are burning to death in the house you built for them.

“What’s happening—?!” And then you hear the screeches of dragons, not Vhagar or Sunfyre or Dreamfyre or Tessarion. Through the window, you see an inferno bloom in the night sky. You get a firelit glimpse of a beast you do not recognize: dark, angular, very large and covered with jagged spines. People are screaming. Rooftops are ablaze.

A wild dragon? Claimed by who?

“We’ll go to the beach,” Mother says frantically. She’s thinking of the escape hatch in Aemond’s bedchamber, the only secret passageway in Maegor’s Holdfast. The king known as “the Cruel” wanted no spies or assassins in his walls. But one door was enough for Daemon’s executioners to kill Jaehaerys. “Helaena will try to get to Dreamfyre.”

But you won’t be able to fly away with the rest of them. Dreamfyre would sooner reduce you to ashes than let you touch her.

Mother knows this. She tells you, low and fierce, her coppery hair like glowing embers: “I won’t leave you. You and I will find another way out of King’s Landing.”

“You should escape on Dreamfyre if you have the chance.”

“Never,” she says. And then again: “Never.”

In the hallway, Grandsire has arrived, panicked and urging everyone towards Aemond’s bedchamber. He wheezes, breathless from his sprint through the castle: “I saw Syrax and Caraxes, and Vermax too I think, or maybe Moondancer, a small dragon…but who is the other one? It’s not Meleys. It’s a hideous creature, it looks deformed.”

“I don’t know,” Mother says. Hordes of yowling cats careen past your bare feet.

“Could Rhaenyra be finding new riders?” And Grandsire, a man who is afraid of very little, is petrified down to his bones by this.

I should have a dragon, you think, forlorn. I should be able to help fight this war. And instead I am worthless.

“I don’t know, Father,” Mother says again, and you follow her through the threshold and into Aemond’s abandoned bedchamber, illuminated only by the moonlight that streams in through the windows. You have not been in here since Jaehaerys died; the stone floor is still stained with his blood. Helaena begins sobbing, clutching Maelor closer to her chest. Downstairs, you can hear swords clanging and men groaning as they die.

You hurry to the hidden door and ram it with your shoulder, but as the passageway opens, you see red-orange torchlight approaching through the blackness like fire boiling up in the throat of a dragon. Rhaenyra’s soldiers are already here. You try to close the door, but now knights in armor are forcing their way inside the room. And Grandsire, who has never liked you, pulls you away from the breach and puts himself between you and the intruders.

“The hallway, back to the hallway!” he booms, giving you a shove, and that is the only place left to go. You, Mother, Jaehaera, Helaena, Maelor, and Grandsire flee from Aemond’s bloodstained bedchamber. But your captors have climbed the Grand Staircase—the place where you once waited for Aemond to return from Storm’s End, so convinced that he would not fail you—and now they are here.

Under the torches carried by her guards, Rhaenyra alternates between firelight and shadows. Daemon marches beside her, his face severe, his sword Dark Sister drawn. Mother pushes you, Jaehaera, and Helaena, still carrying Maelor, against the cold stone wall. Grandsire stands in front of Mother. Jace is walking behind Rhaenyra and Daemon, you notice, dressed in red and black, his cloak billowing behind him. The last time you saw Jace, you were smirking when Aemond shoved him off his feet at the last dinner King Viserys ever attended. Now you are trembling with thunderstruck terror.

Rhaenyra is supposed to be bedbound on Dragonstone. Daemon is supposed to be in the Riverlands.

Daemon points at you with the tip of his blade. “You should have that one executed,” he says to Rhaenyra. “Isn’t she Aemond’s whore?”

“They were never married,” Mother tells him, her dark eyes huge and reflecting the torchlight, her arm thrown in front of you.

“I didn’t say wife, I said whore.”

“Daemon,” Rhaenyra warns, and she studies you, Helaena, Grandsire, Mother. Her blue eyes are sharp like fractured glass, edges that glide effortlessly through arteries and veins; there is a queenlike composure in her face, but beneath that wrath, wrath, wrath. After a moment, she says to her guards: “Take the adults to the dungeons.”

Mother and Helaena are shouting and protesting, trying to stop the guards that rip Jaehaera and Maelor out of their grasps. Grandsire is attempting to negotiate. Rhaenyra and Daemon ignore them, continuing on down the hallway, taking possession of the rage-red castle where they first fell into their peculiar, destructive breed of love.

As he passes by, Jace glowers at you and you glare back, and when he reaches for the hilt of his sword you bare your teeth at him; but before Jace can draw his blade—to threaten you, to frighten you, to spill your blood the way Aemond spilled Luke’s—the guards have dragged you away.

~~~~~~~~~~

Your head is very bad now. The pain is almost impossible to think through; you are sick with it, retching into a wooden bucket until there is nothing left to expel. If Aemond was here, he would be holding you, murmuring to you in High Valyrian, pressing a cloth soaked with cold water to your forehead. But Mother is here instead, and she is doing the best she can.

It’s the next day, cold grey light tumbling in through cracks in the walls. You are imprisoned on the second level of the dungeons, reserved for highborn captives; you and Mother are in one cell, Helaena and Grandsire in another on the other side of the aisle. Helaena has been weeping constantly, worrying for her children. Grandsire and Mother try to console her as you lie pitifully on the floor, wishing the pain would knock you unconscious. You need Orwyle and his milk of the poppy. The guards have brought bread and water, but nothing else.

There is a creaking sound from several cells away, and then a slow shuffling accompanied by the tapping of a cane. Mother keeps one hand on your shoulder as she cranes her neck to see her visitor. Grandsire and Helaena move to the front of their cell, their fingers gripping the rusted iron bars.

Larys Strong appears, his hands resting on the handle his cane. Unlike Maegor’s Holdfast—the residence of the royal family—the other buildings of the Red Keep are rife with secret passageways, a latticework of corridors that one unfamiliar with their paths could get lost in forever. Surely Daemon and his confederates are in the process of searching them, but it is a task that could take a week.

“Lord Larys,” Mother says, relieved. “They have not found you.”

“Not yet, Your Grace,” he replies docilely. “Though I’m sure it will not take much longer.”

“Can you retrieve some milk of the poppy?” For you, she means.

“I will try.” Then he stalls, as if he does not wish to share what he has heard through his clandestine chain of whispers. “Something has happened at Rook’s Rest.”

Mother’s brow furrows. “Where?”

“The seat of House Staunton,” you tell her from where you lie on the floor, remembering it from the maps in Aemond’s bedchamber. He would tell you things, show you things, sometimes kindly, sometimes tauntingly, sometimes as he undressed you. He would quiz you and if you got an answer wrong, he would put your clothes back on.

“In the Crownlands?” Mother says to Larys, alarmed. “Is Aegon alright?”

Larys takes a moment to decide how to proceed. “The castle was captured without much difficulty, but a maester there must have gotten a raven out, because Dragonstone received word of the attack and was summoned to defend Rook’s Rest and retake it from the Greens. It is located very close to Dragonstone, and thus cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy.”

Larys pauses and looks at his audience. Grandsire asks: “So who answered the message?”

“It seems that Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Jacaerys were already preparing for an invasion of King’s Landing and were elsewhere,” Larys says. “The other dragon, the large brown one, is called Sheepstealer and is ridden by a peasant girl that Daemon found. There are rumors that he has grown somewhat…attached to her.”

Mother grimaces, tugging on the seven-pointed star necklace she never takes off. “He’s a beast.”

“The girl is a Targaryen bastard?” Grandsire says, confounded. “Whose? She’s not a child of Viserys, surely. Where the hell did she come from?”

Larys is apologetic. “I could not tell you, my lord. If I discover anything else concerning her origins, I shall share what I learn. She is known as Nettles.”

“Nettles?” Grandsire snorts.

Larys continues: “When the raven reached Dragonstone, Baela received the letter. It appears she was told that Sunfyre was the only dragon guarding Rook’s Rest at the time, and that Vhagar was away feeding. She must have thought she could best the king, or at least chase him away from the castle.”

“An understandable error,” Grandsire says, and you scowl at him between fruitless retches into your bucket. The thrumming in your skull is like blows from a hammer, rhythmic and disorienting. Your face is hot with fever; it radiates off of you in waves. Mother rubs your back—although somewhat cautiously, as if she is afraid that barbs might split through your skin to prick her—and offers you sips of water.

“Baela left Dragonstone, likely without permission. Rhaenys followed her on Meleys, but Moondancer was faster.”

“Meleys?” Mother says, startled. “Meleys was there too?”

Larys nods solemnly. “Aegon and Sunfyre attacked Moondancer and broke her neck high in the air. Baela perished when her dragon fell to the earth.”

“Daemon’s daughter,” Mother exhales, wondering what the retribution will be. “Jace’s betrothed.”

“And one of Rhaenys’ only two trueborn grandchildren,” Larys says. “When she arrived at Rook’s Rest and saw Moondancer’s carcass smoldering just outside the castle walls, she pursued the king before he could retreat. And Sunfyre…he was no match for a dragon as large as Meleys.”

“Aegon, he’s…?” Mother cannot bring herself to speak the words aloud. Tears gleam in her eyes. “Is he…is there no hope…?”

The ruined flesh, charred and raw, you remember from your horrifying glimpse into Aemond’s mind. It wasn’t Criston or Gwayne. It was Aegon.

“He was burned,” you whisper, and Mother stares at you.

“Aemond returned on Vhagar, and they slayed Rhaenys and her mount. But not before the king and his dragon were engulfed in Meleys’ flames.”

“He’s dead?” Grandsire says, emotion you’ve never heard before in his voice.

No, you think. Not yet.

“Aegon and Sunfyre are both gravely wounded,” Larys replies. “It is uncertain whether either will survive. The Blacks received the news just before their assault on King’s Landing.”

“Where is Aegon now?” Mother says.

“I’m not sure, Your Grace. He was still at Rook’s Rest last I heard, but they might move the king elsewhere to keep him hidden. I would imagine Aemond and Sir Criston Cole are requisitioning maesters from nearby houses to treat him.”

“Burns,” Mother sobs. “He must be suffering terribly, the pain…the disfigurement…”

Grandsire drums his fingers on the bars of his cell, his rings clinking against the rusted steel. His expression is remote, somber, resigned. “So we have two dragons capable of combat, one of which is young and small and pinned down by battles in the Reach, the other is on the far side of the Crownlands and trapped there while Aemond tries to keep our king alive. And Rhaenyra is here in the capital with Syrax, Caraxes, Vermax, and this new dragon Sheepstealer, larger than any of her others, and her faction seeks vengeance for not one but three royal deaths.”

In reply, Larys Strong only bows his head. Mother swipes tears from her cheeks and tucks your hair behind your ears as strands escape your braid.

“Well,” Grandsire sighs. “I believe we might be losing this war.”

There is the distant noise of a door’s hinges creaking, and Larys hobbles out of sight, retreating to the secret passageway he previously emerged from. A minute passes, and then footsteps echo down the corridor. Daemon strides into view, swinging Dark Sister in his right hand, and you are suddenly reminded so much of Aemond’s mannerisms that the absence of him guts you all over again, vital parts of you excavated like the organs of a slaughtered animal. Daemon is accompanied by several guards and a group of noblemen who you assume are members of Rhaenyra’s council. You recognize among them a tall man with short grey hair, Lord Bartimos Celtigar.

Daemon says: “Princess Helaena, the queen has taken your tiny, traitorous children to ward. Perhaps one day you will see them again. Perhaps not.” She gazes out from her cell vacantly, her face bloodless with shock and fear. Then Daemon turns to Grandsire. “Otto Hightower, you orchestrated an unlawful rebellion and therefore you will be put to death.”

Grandsire gapes at him. “What? When?”

“Oh, immediately.” Daemon steps back and the guards unlock the cell, seize Grandsire, knock him over and drag him wriggling on his belly into the corridor. Mother pleads for his life. Helaena shrieks and claws for him, trying to keep him with her. The guards fling her roughly away and slam the door of her cell shut before she can escape.

“No, no, do not mourn me!” Grandsire is bellowing as he is hauled away. “I am an old man, I have lived a good life, do not think of me, think of the living and what you can still do for them!”

“Father!” Mother wails, reaching through the bars of her cell though she knows she will never touch him again.

“I am ready to see your mother, Alicent,” Grandsire says; and then he is gone. The men of Rhaenyra’s council begin to file out of the dungeon.

“You followed us across the Narrow Sea, Lord Celtigar!” you shout after him, crawling across the floor and pressing your face against the bars of your cell. “House Targaryen saved you from the Doom, and now you rip it down from within by aiding a usurper. We will not forget your treason when the war is won. We will visit you on Claw Isle and bring with us fire and blood. And you will have no defenses. You are no dragonrider.”

“Neither are you, princess,” he says cooly, and leaves you in your prison.

Daemon is the only man still standing in the aisle. He peers down at you with shadowy deep-set eyes and twirls his Valyrian steel sword again. He grins, humorless, hungry, burning up inside with fury. “Perhaps I’ll be back soon.”

Mother yanks you away from the bars, and you can see what she’s thinking etched into the desperate lines of her face: How can I save her?

“I’m going to behead your father now,” Daemon tells Mother, then sweeps down the corridor. There is the sound of a heavy door closing when he reaches the end of the hall.

“Do not speak to them,” Mother hisses to you, and you are in too much pain to respond. Now you can hear men jeering out in the courtyard of the Red Keep. Daemon is listing Grandsire’s crimes. Crows are cawing.

He’s going to die too? you think dizzily. When does this end, how do we stop it?

The door at the end of the hallway opens again, and Mother stands and places herself in front of you; but it is not Daemon this time, relishing his chance to drag another Green to their death. It is Rhaenyra and Jace. The Blacks’ queen stops at your cell, her son a few paces behind her. He looks at you with heartbreak, with hatred, and of course he does; one of your brothers murdered Luke, the other killed Baela. And he does not believe you to be blameless like Helaena. You are a very different sort of woman.

“Alicent, your degenerate son’s insurrection is over,” Rhaenyra says. “I have taken the city and—”

“Jace needs to strengthen his claim,” Mother interrupts. Outside, men are cheering; Grandsire’s head has been struck from his shoulders. In her cell across the aisle, Helaena sinks to the floor and sobs quietly into her palms.

Rhaenyra studies Mother, incredulous. “What did you say?”

“There have always been people who doubted his parentage, as you well know,” Mother says, and you can see her hands are trembling; but her voice is steady. “And there are many who favor my line. They fear Daemon’s recklessness, and perhaps yours as well.”

“You speak so boldly for a woman who stands behind bars.”

Mother is unflinching. “Perhaps you imagine that you will kill every last Green, and all of our loyalists throughout the Seven Kingdoms, millions of people, and therefore you will have no use for bricks upon which to build a lasting peace. But I think that would be a mistake.”

“And you wish to help me?” Rhaenyra mocks.

“I wish to safeguard what is left of my family.”

The woman who calls herself queen considers this. Surely the same hope lives in her ribcage as well, the same catastrophic fear that it will prove impossible.

“One way or another, the war will be won,” Mother says. “And whichever side triumphs will have the other at their mercy.”

“I will have you at my mercy, yes.”

“Aemond and Vhagar are still out there. Underestimate them at your peril.”

“And what is your suggestion?” Rhaenyra demands. “To bolster Jace’s claim, to save your own skins?”

“Baela is gone and he is unspoken for. You once offered to unite our bloodlines by marrying Helaena to Jace. Perhaps if I had accepted that, I could have spared us this torment. I was wrong to dismiss your proposal so swiftly, Rhaenyra. I did not give you the respect you deserved. And I have reconsidered.”

Rhaenyra is puzzled. “Helaena is already married. Unless you have proof that Aegon is dead, which would be welcome.”

“No. I have another daughter.”

Both you and Jace begin to object at once; your mothers silence you with fearsome glares.

Rhaenyra is aghast; her sharp blue eyes dart to where you are slumped on the floor of your cell and then back to Mother. “This is a sickening insult.”

Mother seems calm, measured. It cannot be easy for her. “Willingly marrying my daughter to Jace is accepting his legitimacy. She is a Green, and very close in age to your son, and from what I have heard of Jace’s temperament I believe them to be well-matched.”

“I don’t,” Jace says.

Rhaenyra shakes her head in disbelief; but is there a ripple of uncertainty across her regal face? Yes, you think there is. “Aemond has already bedded her.”

“And who has said this?” Mother asks. “Daemon, who hates my family and has no mind for strategy or alliances? Rhaenys and the Sea Snake, who hungered for the Iron Throne all their lives and saw a chance for their descendants to possess it through Baela?”

Rhaenyra is looking at you again. “I’ve seen the way they watch each other. The way they move.” The dinner, she means. The night that Viserys died.

“She is a maiden,” Mother insists, but she gives you a transient sideways glance. Are you? “They had a flirtation, yes, as is so common for siblings of your foreign house, but nothing more. I would never have allowed fornication or the use of moon tea to disguise its consequences under my roof. They are grievous sins. You know me. You know my devotion to my faith.”

“She will submit to a maester’s examination to make sure?”

“Did you, Rhaenyra? Before you and Laenor Velaryon were wed?”

Rhaenyra raises an eyebrow. And you have the sense—vague and dreadful—that perhaps it is dawning upon her that taking something Aemond holds dear might have its advantages. “What do you want in return?”

“We have both lost innocent people,” Mother says. “There has been enough bloodshed. It must stop somewhere, or all the Targaryens will be dead and their dragons too, and this dynasty will vanish from the earth, and our ambitions will be for nothing. If you do indeed win the war, I want my surviving children and grandchildren spared. And my brother Gwayne, and Sir Criston Cole.”

“I cannot give you Aemond.”

“If you swear that you’ll pardon him, we shall do the same for Daemon if it is our armies that triumph.”

Now the hope is unmistakable on Rhaenyra’s face. “And my remaining sons will be allowed to live? All of them?” Even Daemon’s?

“Yes.”

She muses on this. “You make tempting promises, Alicent. But I don’t have any conviction that Aemond will heed you if Aegon dies and he is made regent until Maelor is grown. I don’t believe you can control him.”

“He’ll listen to his sister,” Mother swears. “He will not do anything that would bring her despair. And if she is married to Jace, she will come to love his family as her own. All the more so if they have children together.”

“She might not be trustworthy,” Rhaenyra says.

“She is of no threat to you. She is untrained with the sword, she rides no dragon. And you have her mother, sister, niece, and nephew held captive. She would not endanger us.”

“You have great confidence in her. Your hopes for survival are in her hands.”

“She is spirited, but she is clever, and she loves deeply and enduringly. She will do whatever is required to protect her own.” Now Mother’s voice breaks. “I want her sent away.”

“Mother, no—”

“Far from the war, far from Daemon,” she says, ignoring you.

Rhaenyra is nodding. “Somewhere secluded and peaceful…all the better for her to quickly give Jace an heir. The Riverlands, yes? Perhaps House Footly of Tumbleton.”

“No, not far enough. The Westerlands.”

“The North,” Rhaenyra counters.

“The Stormlands.”

“The Vale,” Rhaenyra says. “There will be no battles there, winter has already begun in the mountains and the roads are treacherous. She will be tucked away in obscurity until the war is won.”

“The Vale,” Mother agrees. She looks down at you and smiles, soft and sad and merciful. At last, after eighteen years, she has saved you.

Jace is whispering furiously to Rhaenyra, but she holds up a hand to stop him. He is exasperated. The supposed queen tells Alicent: “I shall think on this tonight.”

“She needs Maester Orwyle,” Mother says, kneeling beside you. “She is ill, she gets headaches. This place is bad for her. It’s the cold and the dampness. And the fear.”

“I’ll consider that,” Rhaenyra quips, and then she leaves, the hem of her black gown displacing dust on the floor of the aisle. Jace gives you one final glance—seething, appalled—and stalks after her. At the end of the hallway, he slams the heavy wooden door.

“I won’t do it,” you snarl, sick in body and soul. “I won’t, I won’t. I don’t care what you say.”

“We are in a fucking dungeon,” Mother says, grabbing and shaking you, and you’ve never heard her curse before. “Do you want to try to save your brothers’ lives? Or do you want to surrender to the destruction of our house? If you care for Aemond, as I know you do, you will give him a chance if he and Criston cannot win on the battlefield. You will earn Jace’s affection and convince him to spare us.”

You look at her, weak, stunned, at war with yourself. Jace can’t touch me. Only Aemond.

She asks you something; it takes great effort. “You are still…you haven’t…you’re a virgin, aren’t you?”

You hesitate. “In the literal sense.”

“In the…? Never mind, stop, I don’t want to hear any more.” Mother takes a deep breath. “Good. Then we haven’t lied to them. Jace might be able to tell. Sometimes there are…signs. Pain, blood.”

“He’s a bastard,” you hiss.

“He’s Rhaenyra’s son, and so he is a Targaryen and a dragonrider. And if Jace’s side wins, he will one day sit the Iron Throne. He can be proud, but no one says he is cruel. I don’t believe he would harm you. Your brothers are warriors, but you’ve never killed anyone.” Then she goes soft and hushed, and she cups your face with her gentle hands. “I know you’ve always thought you would marry Aemond.”

“Mother, I love him.”

“My darling, my brave girl, what you and Aemond have is…” She shakes her head, her large dark eyes grim and glistening. “It’s strange, and violent, and obsessive and profane and…and…unnatural.”

You are defiant. “If we had grown up in a true Targaryen court, we would have been expected to be this way. We would have married years ago, and no one would have condemned us for acting exactly like what we are. We aren’t First Men or Andals. We are the blood of the dragon.”

“It’s an affliction that brings nothing but sin and suffering.”

“You wed Aegon to Helaena!”

“And it has been a source of tremendous sorrow for them both,” Mother says, and now she is weeping again. “I should have stopped their marriage. But I was young, and I had already refused Rhaenyra’s offer of a match with Jace, and Viserys was so adamant, and I thought…maybe…maybe it’s not an offense to the gods. Maybe it’s just something I don’t understand. It was my husband’s custom, and so I deferred to him, as I had been taught to. But I was wrong. It’s too late for me to undo the pain I’ve caused Aegon and Helaena. It’s too late for me to mend Aemond’s eye or his soul. I can’t spare Daeron from the horrors of war. But I can still save you.”

“I belong with Aemond.” I belong to him.

“You don’t know better. You never had a choice.”

“I’m not you, Mother,” you say. “I’m not a Hightower or a Lannister or a Baratheon. I’m not like them, and I don’t want to be. I want to be Visenya.”

“You’re not going to be anyone if Daemon convinces Rhaenyra to have your head hacked off your shoulders.” Her vast eyes, dark like the mouth of a well, plead for you to understand. This is not a punishment; it is tenderness, it is compassion. “I would do anything to save you and Helaena and your brothers. Anything. You marrying Jace unites the realm. It provides a cornerstone around which to build a peaceful resolution. He will protect your kin. When the battles are past, we can negotiate a divided Westeros, or a line of succession, or exile to Essos or banishment to the Wall, or anything else that will preserve the lives of the people we love. And if Aemond can still win somehow…” She shrugs, and you know whatever affection she once had for Rhaenyra is dead now. “Then he can do whatever he wants with the Blacks who are left.”

I don’t want them to die. Aemond, Aegon, Criston, Daeron, Mother, Helaena, Jaehaera, Maelor.

Mother asks: “Will you do it?”

Aemond, Aemond, Aemond.

Again, desperately: “Will you do it?”

And you cannot look at her when you answer. “Yes.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Maester Orwyle appears an hour later to dose you with enough milk of the poppy to kill the pain in your skull, and when you sleep it is deep and dark and dreamless. Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Jace arrive at first light, dreary grey dawn trickling into the dungeon. You know what she has decided. Both Daemon and Jace are scowling, and you think, somehow knowing that it is true: The more they try to dissuade her, the more convinced she is. She feels the need to remind them that she alone was Viserys’ heir, that she is a queen in her own right.

“Just marry him to Rhaena!” Daemon is ranting.

“Rhaena brings nothing to our cause that we do not have already. And she will always feel second to Baela. She knows Jace loved her sister. It is perverse.” Then Rhaenyra collects herself and asks Mother: “She consents?”

“She does.”

Rhaenyra turns to Jace. His reply is toneless. “I will do as you bid me to, Your Grace.”

“She will be in the keeping of House Corbray until the war is over,” Rhaenyra says, nodding to you. “They are an honorable but old and modest house, and of little strategic importance. No one beyond who is absolutely necessary will know where she is, for her own safety and that of the children she bears. Jace will fly her to Heart’s Home.”

House Corbray. You remember their banner, Aemond once taught it to you: three black ravens, three red hearts. You have a memory of being in the library with his lips on your throat, his fingers skating up the inside of your thigh, whispering for you to keep quiet as maesters stock books on the other side of the shelf.

“She cannot ride a dragon,” Mother says.

“Sure she can, if he puts her on Vermax.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Mother insists. “Dragons hate her. She cannot go near them. They will attack her, they will kill her. She and Jace will have to travel by ship.”

Rhaenyra is taken aback by this. Daemon scoffs: “What the fuck kind of Targaryen repels dragons?”

“The kind that will never be able to fly to battle against us,” Rhaenyra mutters, and you think: She is angry with him. He has done something, he has displeased her somehow. And you wonder about the girl who rides Sheepstealer.

Your eyes drift to Jace, you cannot stop them. He stares back from beneath dark curls, his gaze hard like the cold stony earth of the Vale, his fingers tapping on the hilt of his sword.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s the very first time.

You are at your vanity, and you are supposed to be getting ready for dinner: choosing your earrings and bracelets, combing out your hair before you braid it, a silver river that shimmers like moonlight in the mirror’s reflection. You have bathed, and steam still clings warm and dewy on your skin. You wear a silk robe the color of ripe cherries and nothing underneath it. Candles flicker, cool evening air breathes in through the windows…and your mind is wandering.

For years, you have felt episodic pangs of longing, an indistinct need, a deep untouchable hunger, and you have never found a way to satisfy it. It waxes like a moon growing full and then wanes into nothingness, but it always reappears again, and tonight you are feeling restless, occasionally shifting on the cushion of your chair, seeking the pressure that gives you a taste—and only a morsel, a nibble, a drag of the tongue—of what fulfillment might feel like. Lately, when you are like this, you find yourself thinking of Aemond. He has never spoken of it directly, but you have noticed the way his eye catches on your chest and your hips, how his hands linger when he grabs or shoves or embraces you. You can’t stop wondering what it would taste like to kiss him. You can’t stop imagining which positions he would fuck you in, remembering the lustful figures on the tapestries that hang from the walls of Aegon’s bedchamber.

Your hand settles in your lap, and there—over the glossy blood-colored silk of your robe—presses down tentatively. You sigh, you writhe, you picture Aemond forcing your thighs apart and gazing transfixed at the rare pieces of you he’s never seen.

How do I satiate this craving, how do I make it go away?

Your bedchamber door opens and Aemond stands in the threshold, black leather and silver hair. “Are you ready yet—?” Then his eye drops to where you snatch your hand out of your lap, not quickly enough to escape him noticing. There is a stretch of silence that seems very long. Then Aemond’s scarred forehead furrows and he asks: “What were you doing?”

You consider lies; they dangle in front of you by the dozen, so many ways to deflect or deny or even to disparage him, those prickly games of wordplay. But when you speak, it is not just the truth. It is an invitation. “Thinking of you.”

And Aemond steps into your bedchamber and shuts the door behind him. He crosses the room, kneels in front of you, reaches beneath your robe to hook his arms under your thighs and yanks you halfway out of the chair. You yelp in exhilarated shock as he buries his face between your legs, and then your fingers knot in his hair, and then you are pushing him closer, shaking, awestruck.

Is he really here? Is this finally happening?

You cannot stay quiet when the pinpoint ecstasy opens, blooms, drags you to places you never knew existed. It is something too powerful to be found in the world of mortals. It is bloodmagic, it is shade of the evening, a poison so sweet you’d let it ruin you.

Afterwards—collapsed and gasping on the stone floor, your robe open and your body laid bare for him, flesh that he has claimed irrevocably, bones he owns like a dragon or a blade—you say: “What was that?”

“You had a climax,” Aemond murmurs. “It’s easier for a man, but they are possible for women too.” He smooths your hair back from your face; it is unbound and wild, spilling all around you. You think vaguely: He wants me even when I don’t look like Visenya? He ghosts his thumb across your lips and then kisses you, and it is nothing but warmth, desire, the shared minerals your blood is built of, undying affinity like the celestial kinship of stars in the same constellation. “You can always ask me to take care of you, and I’ll do it. I’m the only one who is allowed to. No one else, not ever.”

This is no sacrifice. You have never wanted another man, and now you know you never will. “Teach me how to satisfy you,” you say, smiling. “I want to see you helpless too.”

Before you dress and leave your bedchamber, you erase as much of the evidence as you can, washing your skin clean and taming your hair into a tidy braid; but still, Mother frowns worriedly at you and Aemond all through dinner.

#jace x you #jace x reader #jacaerys x reader #jacaerys velaryon #jacaerys x you #aemond targaryen fanfiction #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x you #aemond x reader #aemond targaryen

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shiny-jr · 2 years ago

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outlander

Warning: Yandere. Gender-neutral reader.

Characters: Riddle Rosehearts, Leona Kingscholar, Azul Ashengrotto, Kalim Al-Asim, Vil Schoenheit, Idia Shroud, Malleus Draconia.

Summary: In every land you travel to, there's a god with elemental powers. But why is it that in every nation you arrive to, the gods attempt to make you stay?

Note: Why has no one done a genshin x twst thing? This is more of a concept idea than anything else. I might do a series with it, or not, or just random posts. Feel free to ask about it or request stuff for it.

This must be a dream, either that or a never-ending nightmare.

Waking up alone on a sandy beach, as if washed ashore, was disorientating. There was nothing else on the shore save for shells and the occasional crab, no debris indicating a wreck and no scattered belongings. All you had on you were the clothes on your back, which were a pair of shorts and an oversized t-shirt, your pajamas.

In the center of your palms, was a marking you had never seen before, like a freshly painted tattoo in the shape of a tiny key. As curious as the strange new markings were and you wondered how they even got there, there was a larger question looming:

How did you get here?

GRIM

There was a cat on the beach. At least, it looked like a cat. A talking feline, with gray fur and the most impossible feature of blue fire lightly simmering in his ears.

It spoke, just like a human, with a grating high-pitched voice. It was a devilish little beast, with little fangs sharper than his comebacks that he supposed were funny.

The feline pridefully announced his name: Grim.

And when you told Grim your story of how you woke up by the water's edge with no recollection of how you got here and little to your name, the creature didn't appear to care. However, when he spoke of elements being used by people and names of nations and cruel living gods you never once heard of, only then was he very vaguely intrigued. Perhaps it was amusement, as he laughed and called you stupid for not even knowing of The Seven.

That's when you heard a growl, not from behind his fangs but from his stomach. If you looked at him from the right angle, he looked quite scrawny. The poor thing was hungry, you realized.

All it took was an offering of cans of tuna found in an empty cabin nearby, and you had him in your grasp. Following you around was only temporary, he insisted, he'd go along so long as there was food. While a talking cat was not the most conventional of guides, it was better than nothing, especially since he knew basic knowledge of each nation and where the nearest sign of civilization was located.

HEARTSLABYUL

Through the winding dark woods where mysterious creatures lurked in hollow trees and dead end paths, were meadows of flowers and peaceful grooves. However, don't let the tranquillity of nature fool you. In the distance were mountains– not actually mountains, but volcanoes and hot sprints along this land's border.

It's been said that the very millions of roses and other greenery in this land, was formed when ash rained down on dry barren earth for nearly a month. Ash from those very dormant volcanoes that were the backdrop to this perfect scenery, which came in huge black clouds thousands of years ago and blanketed the earth.

A god, an archon, the deity of law that rained hell on earth over thousands of years ago.

Long ago this land was a country of criminals ruled by a god of chaos that reveled in havoc and disorder. Among the mayhem, was a small deity of fire with mighty powers and a vision for a future he was determined to see. Riddle, is what the deity was called.

Riddle gained a number of followers to listen to his words, and he created order. A small feat compared to the many wicked still running about in a lawless land ruled by a god that valued anarchy. So, using newfound strength, the deity of fire drew forth molten lava from the mouths of the northern volcanos, burning all those in its path while the deadly plumes of smoke and ash suffocated those that remained. Atop the remains of the destroyed towns and cities, he built a new nation of order for his loyal followers.

Today, it is a thriving nation filled with flowers and greenery. However, there is one issue. The god of pyro, Riddle, is a tyrant. Every law is expected to be followed without question and without fail, beheadings have become nearly a daily occurrence with the criminals often being charged with mistakingly picking flowers on Wednesdays, drinking the wrong sort of tea post-meals, or playing croquet after five pm.

You were fortunate to be spared after your audience with the god of law, for breaking the rule: one must never bring a cat to a formal affair. Before he could burn you were you stood, you interjected, answering that your companion was no cat, so you had broken no rule.

Well, he promptly apologized for the misunderstanding and in turn, offered to make up for it by inviting you to a tea party. It would be best to except his invitation, afterall, he was the same deity that buried nearly an entire country in lava and ash, then built his kingdom atop their remains. He was a tyrant that beheaded and burned people on the daily. It was wise not to get on his bad side. Besides, he appears to have taken a fancy for you. Riddle implores that you tell him more of your world while you ignore the whispers of rebellion.

There is no leaving Heartslabyul, not without the explicit permission from the god of law. The borders with their volcanoes burn any would-be invaders, allowing passage only to merchants and travelers who have received the pyro deity's blessing. Why would Riddle ever give you his blessing to see you go?

SAVANACLAW

Across the volcanoes and hot springs of the borders, the mountains turn green with dense jungles. Across the river lies the savanna where the world's most wondrous creatures run free. Times have been turbulent, the shaking ground was evidence of troubles with this nation's divine beings, or rather, now single divine being.

Earthquakes have always been a sign of something occurring either for a purpose or unintentionally by someone else. The harsher the quake, the greater the importance of the event. And not too long ago, a ginormous tremor shook the entire globe. Something of major importance had happened.

A god, an archon, the deity of intellect was the new sovereign after tragedy befell his elder brother.

In the past the land was under the protection of the god of strength, a mighty god worshipped by his people. This god had a young heir who was also beloved by the people. However, most forgot or completely disliked the younger brother of the god of strength, a deity of ground, Leona, who had a burning hated for his brother.

Leona amassed followers of his own in secret. It came as no surprise that the common and the wealthy adored the exalted god of strength. However, the poor detested him, because he offered no help to them, no matter how much they prayed and offered what little they had to his alter. Instead, their prayers for mercy and for a change in luck, were answered by the deity of ground. The change of luck came from the death of the former god and his son, paving the way for a new sovereign.

Today, there is uncertainty in the street. Many of the former worshippers of the god of strength believe in one thing. The god of geo, Leona, is unfit to rule. The poor and mistreated have emerged from hiding places in the shadows, filled with newfound confidence for their was finally a god that answered their prayers. However, there remains a growing tension between both factions. Followers of the new god sing his praises, while followers who mourn for his brother believe that everything is falling into disarray.

You were promptly introduced to the god of intellect by his followers that wished to spread the good word. There was something wrong, you and your companion both agreed. How could a powerful god of strength and his young heir just perish without warning? Something was amiss.

This was just a new follower, at least in his eyes. So he brushed you off, allowing you to partake in the best food and drink only his followers had the privilege of receiving. Testing your luck, you decided you would ask him if he knew of a way home. For now you filled him in, explaining your origins and recent adventures. For such a conniving and arrogant leader, he was surprisingly lax. It even appeared as if he wasn't even listening to your words, just dozing off on some pillows. Your words were at least more interesting to him than the rumors of possible unrest.

Perhaps he does know a way for you to return home, but he doesn't want to tell you. It's as simple as that. He likes the new follower, you. Besides, you're not going. There is always the option of traveling further, but why do so when the geo deity has what you need? Leona greatly loathes betrayal from his own worshippers, so you wouldn't leave Savanaclaw to see another god, would you?

OCTAVINELLE

In the seas dwell creatures of unimaginable horrors living deep within the watery depths, across the ocean over turbulent waves there are islands of paradise. The chain of islands composed warm southern beaches and cold northern snowlands. This may be paradise, but a toll must be paid to even get near the islands.

A tax is applied to all arriving merchants wishing to trade and tourists wishing to step foot on the island. It doesn't make much sense, until you see their towns and cities bursting with trade. Business was booming, apparently. The water is clear and pristine, you could see the vibrant coral reefs and schools of fish swimming below.

A god, an archon, the deity of contracts once came from these very waters when there was no land.

Thousands of years ago there was nothing but ocean out this far away from the mainland. That is, until a deity of water appeared from the depths. He promised a new nation to traveling merchants, so long as they worshipped him. The deity introduced himself as Azul.

Azul had grown bored of the dull happenings under the sea, for he had achieved most things beneath the waves. The ocean could not satisfy his endless greed. He had his sights set on higher elevation, with the lofty goal of being just as powerful on land as he was in the ocean. He moved waves, creating tsunamis outward but revealing islands once hidden by water. The merchants took to land and fulfilled their end of the deal, worshipping him while creating a prosperous nation of deals.

In present day, hardly anyplace can compare to the thriving hub the nation has become. However, loyal followers have begun to see his greed. The god of hydro, Azul, is a charlatan. The ocean in all its vastness was not enough to satisfy his desires, it was why he took to land. For the promise of fulfilling prayers, something always must be given in turn or the worshippers must risk going on a quest. But, it is not always as it seems. One way or another, a prayer asking for something will end in the worshipper becoming in debt to him.

In exchange for an answer to the continued question of how to return home, you have nothing to offer for payment except for ideas. Home was modern, this world was not yet on par with the technology you knew. So you offer ideas of inventions, a device to capture an image in time, a mechanism like a box with wheels, a tool to contact someone miles away.

He believes you're quite bright, you think it false flattery to deceive you but you would be wrong. Your ideas are truly brilliant, and will no doubt earn him more millions and influence in other nations on the mainland! Best to take the compliment with a smile, or else this swindler may find a way to trap you in debt. Azul insists you tell him more of your home and your lucrative ideas. Here, a contract, where he shall sell your ideas as goods and you shall reap the rewards! Whatever hearsay you've heard painting him in a bad light, is defamation! Don't fall for it so easily.

Sailing away from Octavinelle would just be a fool's quest. Unless you can escape on a boat that can weather the harshest of sea storms, there is no stepping foot off the island without the risk of drowning. Don't you have more profitable ideas to share with the hydro deity? If not, just listening to your voice would make Azul content than all the gold in the world could.

SCARABIA

Rolling sand dunes stretch as far as the eye could see, and rocky canyons border a savanna. Sandstorms fill the skies like a dark cloud, covering the dry hot land in a new layer of sand once again. Struggle through the scorching days and blistering cold nights, and there will be an oasis in the center between large flowing rivers.

Life follows the flowing waters, and an enormous oasis is planted in the center of the desert. For miles and miles along the banks, are blooming cities and towns. A great contrast to the desert outside, these settlements are overflowing with water, with the greenest gardens and greatest crops.

A god, an archon, the deity of commerce that gave life to a once barren land.

Thousands of years ago, a terrible famine struck the land. All remaining oasis had shriveled up, leading to starvation. A kind-hearted deity of earth took pity on the people. So he decided to extend a helping hand. People would call the deity Kalim.

Kalim used his abilities to create a lush environment, a vast and incredibly rich oasis out of sand in the middle of the desert. When he walked, grass and flowers sprouted from the sand. In days, he managed to create a garden of tremendous size and design, where his new followers could live in peace and luxury by the rivers. Towns and cities were developed, giving way to a grand nation where he resided in comfort and extravagance, surrounded by people that adored him.

Now there is a grand metropolis where there is just as much gold in the markets as there are flowers. The god of dendro, Kalim, is naive. For thousands of years he has been sheltered and treasured by his people. He is oblivious and clumsy, but at the same time he is not foolish. He knows of the people that have attempted to use his abilities for sinister purposes. Although, no one could guess a conniving being plotting against him, resides in his very own palace.

Exciting adventures and thrilling tales, the god of commerce loves to hear your stories of the outside world! First time foreigners are welcomed with open arms, but you are treated as a rare guest with your unique origin. This might just be the most peaceful land you had ever traveled to.

Come, partake in the celebrations! It's easy to forget that such a laidback and cheerful personality belongs to that of a deity that gave life to this region of the desert. Dance, chat, he wishes to do it all with you! The brightness of the fireworks and lively atmosphere is nearly enough to drown out the presence in the shadows you see from the corner of your eyes. A figure with a piercing gaze, watching the jolly divine being with envy in their eyes. With a power as tempting as his, there would be those wishing to snatch it. Kalim distracts you, offering more food and drink with a smile sweeter than any flower.

Why would anyone ever wish to leave this garden that was Scarabia? The outside, the desert and canyons, were harsh and unforgiving. The god of commerce did not wish to see you risk traveling and getting hurt. The dendro deity invites you to stay in the city! Surely you could be happy here with Kalim, right?

POMEFIORE

On elevated lands, between mountains and hills, were endless forests in which travelers often vanished in or were discovered frozen. A winter wonderland, although this wasn't so delightful. It was beautiful, but a deadly kind of beautiful, where you risked being chased by mysterious beasts or becoming lost in blizzards.

The snow may be pure, it may look picturesque upon frozen lakes and lines of white trees, but looks are deceiving. This was once a serene land with a temperate climate, but it has only gotten colder and colder in more recent months until there was not a single spot of green to be seen.

A god, an archon, the deity of curses who was so bitter like the cold that he caused snow to fall all year round.

Stories have told that the land was once warm in springs and summers, only growing cold whenever the divine being was cross. They were frighteningly beautiful and terrifyingly powerful, regal as royalty but at times wrathful. Vil, is what the deity was referred to.

Vil became envious of an emerging figure, so he invoked powerful blizzards and storms. In recent generations, there have been a growing number of his people breaking off into a separate faction that worshipped a younger compassionate god of healing. Enraged by the betrayal of some followers and resentful with biting jealously, many knew that it was only a matter of time before he would snap. This frightening divine being would not accept being dethroned, he would not allow himself to be demoted in the people's hearts.

Civilization continued to thrive, even despite the never-ending snow. And yet, people cannot help but worry what may happen if the cold doesn't let up by spring. The god of cryo, Vil, was pretentious. Anyone who openly voices their distaste for him or a preference for the god of healing, can expect to be encased in ice and used as a display. No one dares to even utter the name of his rival, for fear of incurring his wrath.

Misfortune brought you before the god of curses' throne. Mistakingly his followers had believed you to be worshippers of the god of healing, which you insisted not to know of. You had simply been lost. Maybe it was your gawking at his ethereal appearance, or the compliment you murmured under your breath, but you were not frozen a punishment.

He decided to interrogate you himself, and through his stern questioning you found yourself a nervous mess as you answered honestly but blabbered far too much. Maybe this deity was amused, much like a king would find humor in a pathetic little jester. The divinity that froze nonbelievers into statues for his palace, found you quite endearing. Vil even once smiled at you when you spoke of inconsequential things, warming his heart to which the clouds carrying snow broke apart if for a moment, causing his followers to go into a frenzy fueled by hope.

When leaving Pomefiore is so much as even mentioned, all exits will be frozen shut by the god of curses. Why even venture outside the palace, when you have earned the favor of the cryo deity? Perhaps the land is warmer, but the neighboring nation is dangerous and he forbids the journey. Why would anyone leave after finally melting Vil's icy cold heart?

IGNIHYDE

A forest of dead trees serves as an ominous welcome, or perhaps it was an omen warning incoming travelers. Slopes gave way to valleys, and along the coasts was a heavy mist that painted the vision gray. Homes and buildings, magnificent temples and crumbling feats of architecture, appeared to be floating in white clouds, but in reality they were situated on cliffsides thick with fog.

In the center of the dying forest, there are ruins of a grand temple once belonging to a god that met a tragic end. However, its remnants are closely guarded by mysterious creatures of air that cannot be touched. Legends say the temple was once a place of worship for a fledgling god related to the main god the nation worships today.

A god, an archon, the deity of innovation that has never once shown his face to the public.

Thousands of years ago, a pair of divine beings appeared. They went largely unnoticed for many years, until their brilliant inventions brought awe to those around them, attracting worshippers and diminishing the power of other local gods. The one remaining brother from this pair, is a deity known as Idia.

Idia created wondrous inventions, unintentionally forming a nation of inventors in the process. Withdrawn, dark, and silent, he is quite the unconventional god and yet he begrudgingly rules nonetheless. As reserved as he may be, he is feared among divinity. All lesser gods aiming for his spot are quickly wiped out by his inventions, without him so much as lifting a finger and using his own abilities. They're reduced to mere memories, as nothing is left of them. In times of old, it was once believed that he was a harbinger of death.

On decent days, the sun may shine on the coast, but most days there are heavy clouds and fog. The god of anemo, Idia, is an enigma. Most think him a ghost, for never appearing and for his abilities. The highest families, the most brilliant inventors, even other divine beings may request an audience, but he will never show. No one has ever seen him, all that's known is he is a figure shrouded in black robes like a grim reaper. There are others who believe there are double, because two figures have been spotted once.

You become the first to see his face purely by accident. It seemed he was just as startled of you, as you were of him. Thankfully, you were not going to be blown off the face of the planet by hurricane-level winds. No other god would help, in fact, they wished to keep you here. So you had to turn to him for assistance in finding a way home.

It was only by promising that he could pet Grim, a deal to which the feline disagreed to, did the god reluctantly hear you out. After your explanation, he scoffed as if looking at a simple equation like 2 + 2. Of course he knew the answer, but he wouldn't give out the assistance you needed. The deal was to hear you out, not help you out. He'd become quite bold in the private conversation, a sharp contrast to his previous anxious demeanor. There was no arguing against he who could slaughter gods with a snap of his fingers. Although you aren't as intolerable as other mortals, this he admits.

Departing from Ignihyde is highly unlikely, given how dense the fog is. You cannot even see the ground you're walking on. While, yes, the anemo deity hasn't assisted you, he will, eventually, probably, maybe... You're the first mortal Idia has ever asked to stay, so why would you turn your back to him?

DIASOMNIA

A wall of impenetrable thorns stands in the way, magically opening and creating a clear-cut path through dense forbidding forests lively with critters. The thorn walls close, effectively trapping you. There was something different. It was unlike all the previous nations, the very air itself felt off. With every step deeper into these whimsical woods, it felt as if you were not alone.

Once upon a time, there was a dragon. No one knows how long the dragon has been alive, only that even the oldest tales say he was already ancient way back when. Valleys were shaped by his claws, the rivers from his tail, rare ore came from his fallen scales buried in the earth, the tallest mountains were but small hills to him.

A god, an archon, the deity of dreams is by far the most powerful and most ancient of all divinity in the world.

Peace was his personal preference, as he enjoyed new company which he never truly received due to his fearsome reputation. However, when other divinity sought out his destruction and his home, the deity of electricity raged. Destruction was left in his wake across the entire globe, and everyone came to know the name Malleus.

Malleus commanded thorns to be raised like walls protecting his home, and constant violent storms to ward off anyone threatening to cause trouble. For hundreds of years, no foreigner was allowed to step foot within the nation's boundaries. Anyone that tried would quickly be reduced to ash, and just a number added to the untold amount he's slayed in order to protect himself and his territory. Kind he may be to his own, but to foes he is merciless. With his black horns and piercing eyes, some refer to him as a devil incarnate.

A land unseen by outlanders, it's peaceful and magical in it's beauty. However, it seems that while your presence may be surprising, it is not a shock. You're taken by knights in gray and black, escorted away. The god of electro, Malleus, has invited you to his castle. There is astonishment and disbelief in people's eyes, a foreigner alive and well. Most like you would have been reduced to particles before they could even step foot past the thorns.

Much to your horror, or relief, once you're brought to the god of dreams, he seems delighted to have you here. It seems your presence was expected, as all he said was, "So you've finally come to see me, hm? I was beginning to grow concerned that perhaps I would have been left out of your list of destinations."

This was the last option, the only one you could turn to in finding a way home. Surely, the most ancient and powerful deity would hold the answer and assist you, since he had been so kind as to allow you inside his nation. Although as welcoming as he may be, you must remember that despite his fang-toothed smile and the twinkle in his eyes, this man– no, god, was archaic and all-powerful. He must have killed more people than you will ever know, wiped out whole armies and flattened entire nations. Malleus tilts his head at you, requesting that you recount your tale, with every minute detail.

This will be the end, there will be no escaping Diasomnia. Of course, you shall not know until later. For now, the god of dreams delights in your stories. You were the first guest he's had in thousands of years, and one of the few who did not wish to slay the legendary dragon that was the electro deity. Malleus knows what you desire, he has seen it in your dreams. However, he will not be kind and grant you what you sought. If he did, then what he desired would then vanish: you.

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humanpurposes · 9 months ago

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Can I Be Yours? - Nightblooms II

Aemond returns to the pleasure house after the battle of Rook's Rest // Main Masterlist

Aemond x unnamed female character

Warnings: 18+, smut, dub-con, angst, sex work, unresolved childhood trauma, implied underage and non-con (not explicitly depicted), mentions of war, violence and death, ambiguous ending

Words: 3k

Each day she arrives at the market shortly after sunrise. She has the coin to pay for the usual cheap cuts of meat, for fats and vegetables to make into something edible, but there is nothing to buy; most of the vendors have sold the last of their wares. Summer is at an end, there are less crops coming from the Reach and the sea is still cut off with no end in sight to the blockade.

King’s Landing has never been a place where she feels at ease but as the season shifts and the war goes on, families are starving and people are getting desperate, fighting over what they can get their hands on. They’ve all been reduced to dogs, clawing at each other over scraps while carts of livestock and fresh produce trundle through the streets towards the Red Keep, guarded by men in Hightower green.

She manages to buy some crabs and vegetables she’ll have to cut the mould from. They have a store of grain in the kitchens to make flatbread, though they have to use less and less each day, anticipating when they’ll be able to find more.

She eats less of her share so the younger girls won’t have to go hungry. Besides, she hasn’t had much of an appetite for days.

She had spent hours trying to rinse herself clean of the King and his companions after they’d had their way with her– after Aemond had left her to their mercy. That night she scrubbed at her skin with salt, then a cloth, then a bristled brush. That feeling was still there, like sweat sticking to her skin, like her body was not her own. She heard their voices and their cold laughter with the rush of water past her ears. She scrubbed harder and harder until she tinted the water pink with her blood.

One morning, one of the girls returns to the pleasure house, unsuccessful in finding a cure for her babe’s fever, but startled by something else.

The Hightower army has returned from a battle, dragging the head of a dragon on a cart through the city.

“It’s monstrous,” the girl says, trying to measure the scale of the head with her arms. “It had black blood, and gods, the smell, like charred meat!”

Sylvi hovers over her shoulder. “Slain by your favourite, I wonder?”

Favourite? Clearly she was not so favoured by Prince Aemond.

Men are led by their desires. That’s why, even as the city is starving, they find the money to come here and seek their pleasure. They are fickle, easily satiated and have no loyalties but to themselves, to their own preservation.

Sylvi huffs when she does not react to her teasing. “Seven above, do try to look less miserable, girl.”

She’s been trying for days, but she can’t force a pleasant demeanour when she feels so hollow.

The returning soldiers come to the Street of Silk that night, newly paid and come to bask in their victory. Her gown is a deep shade of blue and Sylvi has given her some of her jewellery, sapphire earrings and a heavy gold necklace that feels like a collar, to cover the bruises on her neck left by the King.

She catches the eye of a soldier in the main chamber. He takes her by the waist and drags her onto his thigh.

He moves clumsily, trying to drag her core against his leg or the bulge in his breeches, she cannot tell and she does not care.

Look less miserable, it’s only a motion of the body.

Look less miserable, men want a woman who is warm, who smiles.

Look less miserable, but has he noticed her fallen face and the empty look in her eyes? Likely not.

Her body feels numb again.

“Look at me,” the man demands.

She turns her head towards him but her eyes are down, elsewhere completely. She pictures candlelight, a veil around the edges of a bed so the bodies around her are like shadows. She feels a weight on her chest and stomach, limbs intertwined with hers, long, loose hair spilling over her bare skin. A voice is just out of reach.

Look at me, look at me, look at me–

“My Prince!”

Her senses come back to her as quickly as a match takes to flame. Her head darts to where the soldier is looking, to the man standing before them, dark leathers, silver hair, an eyepatch over his face and a sword hanging from his hip.

Aemond tilts his head, his one eye intent on her.

“Apologies, Prince Regent,” the soldier says, and shoves her off his lap so he can stand.

She stumbles but holds her ground. Her eyes are on the floor but imagining his face frowning in displeasure, the sight of his scar, the lines of his muscles under his skin. She cannot bear to truly look upon him, but he’s watching her.

Why come now? Why her, when she has already proved worthless to him?

“Come,” Aemond says without reaching for her, without waiting for her to match his gaze. She follows, if only to escape the wanton soldier.

Aemond takes her to the same chamber, standing at the foot of the same bed where they used to lay together.

She stands before him with her eyes lowered.

He towers over her and lifts her chin to match his gaze with a gloved hand. The leather against her skin is unnatural, cold, disturbing her very being like ripples through a peaceful surface of water. The sight of him only brings her pain, as does the separation from him. Fear and admiration twist together and writhe in her gut.

He reaches to remove the necklace first, letting it fall to the floor. “An ugly thing,” he mutters, “do not wear this again, I find it distracting.” It bares her bruises. He traces his gloved fingers over the flushes of red and purple in her skin.

Next he undoes her dress, another gown designed to fall away from one clasp. She does not remove the rest to bare herself, so he tugs the gown away himself, pulling her forward by her wrists to make her step away from where it pools on the floor.

Without any further preamble he surges into her, cupping her jaw with his hands and kissing her passionately. He demands reception with his lips, tongue and teeth, but she will not give it to him. She remains as steadfast as she can.

He pauses, kissing her again, then again.

“What’s the matter?” His voice is subtle and as soft as the edge of a knife. Gently, he takes a hold of her neck. It is tender, but not quite a comfort. Her pulse beats furiously against his fingers. “You are angry with me, is that it?”

Has he thought of her these last few days? Does he blame himself for the bruises on her neck?

She says nothing.

“I’ll not fuck an unwilling whore.”

“No,” it falls from her lips like a breath.

Aemond tuts and tilts his head. “No?”

She parts her lips but she cannot speak.

His one-eyed stare darkens. He will take her silence for defiance, and that is not what he pays for.

If all he seeks is carnal desire she will grant him this. She tears away the layers of him, his gloves, the buckles on his jerkin, her fingers fumbling in her determination.

Aemond grunts as she pushes the sleeves from his shoulders, the leather landing with a heavy thud on the floor. His face is perplexed but he does not resist.

She tugs at the strings of his undershirt and pulls it over his head. When his chest is bare she puts her hands on his shoulders and pulls herself in, crashing her lips into his. Everything becomes a single feeling, a fire in her chest, hurt and rage and— she’s not naive enough to call it love, but it’s an urge that spurns her to be close to him. Their teeth clash. She loses her focus and her lips graze over his cheek. She finds him again, drawing her tongue against his, dragging her teeth over his lip–

“Fuck!” Aemond hisses, snatching himself away from her. He dabs his fingertips to his lip, checking for blood that isn’t there.

His eye is wide but gleaming, excited at the challenge.

Her heart leaps when Aemond grasps her jaw. He drags her chin up, fingertips pressing into the bone. “I find your insolence tiresome,” he snarls.

The edge of his nose brushes against hers. She feels his breath, how his chest rises and falls against her body, how his heart beats as frantically as hers.

She shakes her head. “I am yours, my Prince.”

He lays her on the bed, pushing her thighs apart and holding them down as he kneels.

He sighs at the sight of her.

Each drag of his tongue is divine, circling and pressing at the places he has come to know will please her the most. She tries to chase the friction with her hips but he holds her firmly in place.

She reaches for his hair, slipping the eyepatch from his face so she can see all of him. He looks up at her as she does, his lips glistening with her arousal while his sapphire consumes the golden light of the candles.

Between the movements of his mouth he mutters to himself, words she has heard before but does not know the meaning to. His voice is heavy and breathless and she adores it.

Her peak comes suddenly, a wave of warmth and weightlessness that lingers after Aemond has drawn his mouth away from her.

He’s just out of her reach, standing over the bed and slowly pulling on the strings of his breeches.

She brings herself to sit, only to be thrown down again and roughly turned onto her front.

“Aemond?”

His hands pull her up by her hips. His thumb glides in circles over her entrance and she stutters into compliance. There’s a ruffle of fabric before he replaces his digit with the head of his cock. He teases her as he rocks back and forth. The pleasure is sparse, a delicious kind of torture. She grips at the linens and sinks her teeth into her lip.

On one motion of his hips, Aemond slips inside of her. She sighs at the stretch of it. He stills for a moment to let her adjust, pushing himself to the hilt and slowly drawing back. She feels how his fingertips dig into her flesh, marks that will stay for days. She can picture the look in his eye, his resolve melting away.

She props herself up on her hands, turning over her shoulder. He meets her, pressing his nose against her cheek, teasing his lips over her skin.

“Do you still find me insolent?” she whispers.

Aemond hums.

He draws back, only to snap his hips harshly into her rear. It knocks the breath from her lungs and he holds his arm around her to hold her close to him, his palm pressing into her stomach as he fucks her roughly and without reprieve.

This is the Prince she has only ever seen glimpses of. She’s heard the workings of his mind and his regrets, but she’s never seen him unleash himself, a dragonrider, a warrior, now a demanding lover.

Each kiss of his cock at her sweet spot aches and drives her towards bliss. She grasps at his hand, leaning her head into his. His sweat drips onto her brow. His moans fall upon the shell of her ear.

She feels another peak edging closer when Aemond pushes her torso down against the bed. He keeps his hands on her shoulders. Her own moans are muffled against the mattress and she cannot move. She can only take what she is given, fast fucking and brutal precision.

He comes with a unrestrained groan, spilling himself deep within her cunt. His weight falls against her back and he nestles his face into her neck, whispering some appraisal in an ancient language, gently fucking his seed deeper.

She whines as she catches her breath, letting herself settle with him on top of her. They stay like this for a time. Before he finally moves, Aemond presses a delicate kiss to her brow.

They lay amongst linen and silk, his head on her chest, his arms wrapped around her ribs, moving with her as she breathes.

He tells her of Rook’s Rest, of his plan to attack during the daylight and bait their enemy into sending a dragon, then he would lead Vhagar into an ambush. He had not expected Aegon to join the battle, and when the smoke cleared, only Aemond and Vhagar remained unscathed.

“Perhaps I should have been more forgiving, but he got in my way.”

What did you do? She wonders, but cannot bring herself to give a voice to her question.

That soldier had named Aemond as Regent. Not the title he wants, but it is a brutal reminder that only one life stands between him and the throne he pursues.

“And even when he is… incapacitated, my victory is named as his. It was meant to be mine.”

The dragon head was his doing after all.

Tears run freely down her cheeks, not that he will see.

He takes a breath and waits. She’s done this enough times by now to know he’s waiting for her to say something. He needs her to say something.

What loyalty has your brother ever shown you? He knows you were better suited to war, at least now he will not overestimate himself.

She does not wish to think of Aegon.

“You left me,” she utters.

Aemond tilts his head towards her. She meets his eye. When he sees the tears on her face his own expression softens.

“You left me to entertain those men. You didn’t even look back.”

Aemond swallows thickly, making a soft clicking sound with his tongue. “I had to.”

“Had to?”

“You would not understand.”

“I understand perfectly. You are a Prince. To you, I am nothing but a body to be used.”

“I’ve never said that.”

“You do not need to say it. It is the nature of the world we live in.”

He shifts himself to lay beside her, face-to-face. His thumb strokes over her cheek and at the corner of her mouth. “I’ve only ever admired you,” he says. “You came to me when I felt alone.”

Back when they were children, when she was innocent enough to think the gods favoured those who were kind, merciful, good.

“You looked lost. I was the same the first time…” the first time Sylvi brought her into a room with a strange man. When she sees girls of the same age, she wants to take them into her arms and shield them from strangers, from the people who promise to care for them and do not. “I knew how it felt to be used and then discarded, like none of it mattered. But it did. It mattered to me.”

Aemond’s eye shimmers like glass.

“I needed you, do you understand that? I needed your protection,” she says.

He blinks and a tear falls from his eye.

“You taunt me with this,” she says, wiping it away with her thumb.

He holds her hand against his jaw. “I’m not trying to taunt you,” he pleads. “You are the only one, the only one I can speak my mind to.”

She has seen his pride, his remorse, his shame, but she has never seen fear in Aemond. She does now. He clasps onto her hand like she’ll fade away.

“I try. I know my place in my family. I know what they need of me. I try, but I am not always strong enough.”

Jaehaerys, the little Prince who lost his head. He has a sister and a mother grieving his loss, what of them?

What of Aegon?

“I’ll protect you,” he says, kissing the heel of her palm, the inside of her wrist.

How will he do that? Before morning he will leave a purse of gold in her hand and return to his Keep. While he plots his war and demands taxes and tithes from the people of the Crownlands, she will endure in a city that is slowly starving to death.

And when the war of dragons comes to the skies over King’s Landing? Will he pick her out from the masses atop Vhagar? Will he find a way to spare her from the fire and the bloodshed?

It does not bear thinking about. She holds him and tries to forget anything other than this feeling, his weight and warmth, his hair between her fingertips, the points in his bones, his legs intertwined with hers. Everything about him that is cold and cruel. Everything about him that is quietly beautiful.

I've kinda given up on taglists <3

#my fics #aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen fanfiction #aemond targaryen fanfic #aemond targaryen oneshot #aemond targaryen smut #hotd fanfic #hotd fanfiction #house of the dragon fanfiction #house of the dragon fanfic #aemond x reader #aemond x you #aemond x y/n #aemond x oc #aemond x ofc

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