#NOT tagging a fandom because this is a hot take i will be raked over the coals for

[shayberri789]

Once, just once, I would love for a show or series to have an aspec character and:

A) have it be confirmed in text

B) the fandom fucking respects it

[chickensarentcheap]

In a Heartbeat: Chapter Two

FANDOM: EXTRACTION

PAIRING: TYLER RAKE AND ESME DRUMMOND (ESTABLISHED OFC)

WARNINGS: angst. Big time angst.

SUMMARY:  Dhaka nearly ended everything before it even began.  In it’s aftermath and with Tyler’s life teetering on the threshold between life and death, Esme is about to realize just how strong she can be.  And that love happens when it happens. There’s no rules. No rhyme or reason. No timeline.  

Link to Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48691714/chapters/125445052

Tagging: @tragiclyhip @youflickedtooharddamnit @secretaryunpaid @munstysmind @karimac @kmc1989 @thebewingedjewelcat @ninjasawakenedmystar @residentdormouse @asirensrage @arrthurpendragon @ocappreciationtag @themaradwrites @occommunity @timbradfordsboot

My tag list is OPEN. Please let me know if you'd like to be added :)

******

Chapter Text

“Nik found us a little place,” Esme announces, as she tends to his beard; using a pocket comb to make her way through the wiry hair. “In Austria. Just on the outskirts of Gmunden. It looks really pretty; it’s right on the edge of a lake and it’s surrounded by trees and you can look out at the mountains.”

Reaching for a pair of cuticle scissors that rest on his chest, she chews on her bottom lip as she focuses on snipping the wiry hair. The gray is more noticeable now that his beard is longer and thicker, and she momentarily pauses her work and carefully studies his face and hair; enjoying how the strands of silver sparkle in the sunlight that streams into the room. They’re a sign of wisdom and experience; testaments to life often lived on the edge that take up residence at his temples, the nape of his neck, and throughout the wild top tresses.

“You know…” She uses the comb to sweep his bangs off his forehead and away from his eyes. “…I’m really digging this older guy vibe you’ve got going on. It’s kinda sexy; all the gray hair you’ve sprouted over the past five months. Once you hit fifty? You are going to be one hell of a hot silver fox. I’m going to have to beat the women off with a stick. And probably a few men.”

Returning to the task at hand, she carefully trims the hair above his top lip; mindful of the combination of breathing and feeding tubes that have been keeping him alive and nourished. When it became apparent that she was going to continue to ‘stand off’ against them, the doctors had -albeit reluctantly- switched their course of care; ordering the nurses to teach Esme the basics in case they’re ever short-staffed and other patients need to be of higher priority. She knows their excuses are bullshit; that they’re simply tired of her constant presence and her refusal to spare them the work of looking after someone they’ve already written off as a loss. And she’s also aware that they’re just biding their time until legal paperwork is drawn up and processed; licking their lips in anticipation of when they can serve her with a court order to have him removed from the machines.

Yet their pressure -both passive and actively aggressive- doesn’t sway her. Despite being both physically and mentally exhausted, she is staying the course; digging her heels in even deeper and willingly and readily accepting any ‘task’ they want to assign her.

“I am NOT very good at this,” Esme laments, as she returns to trimming his beard. “I am definitely not cut out to be a hair stylist, that’s for sure. You know what we’re going to do as soon as you’re out of here? Get you to a good barber. Because you’re starting to look homeless and unloved and I don’t need some bleeding heart picking you up off the street like you’re a stray.”

She hums as she works; upbeat show tunes and Beatles medleys that help keep her spirits up. They’ve been waning lately; the darkness she’d successfully fought off for so long now a near-constant presence. In two weeks it will be six months since he was declared ‘clinically dead’ and placed on the respirator. Half a year since she’d last seen him open his eyes and heard his voice; vividly able to recall those last few minutes that they’d spent together in Dhaka. Tucked away in that litter-strewn alley as dawn broke around them, unabashedly crying when he broke the news that he was going to send her off with Saju and Ovi. There was a better chance she’d make it there -and successfully get across the bridge- if they split up; he’d act as a decoy by creating chaos within the heart of town and drawing the enormous police and military presence away from the checkpoints. He’d admitted he wouldn’t be able to focus if she was with him; afraid he’d become so obsessed with her safety and well-being that he’d make simple, stupid mistakes. And in turn, cause BOTH of their demises.

On her part, there’d been anger. Confusion. Heartache. She’d initially lashed out at him and accused him of lying to her over the course of the last five days; none of the softer and adoring words had been true, and neither had been the hopes for a future or their plans to travel together. And when she’d seen the hurt that darkened his eyes and furrowed his brow and tensed his shoulders, she had changed her tactic; begging and pleading with him to change his mind. She’d be able to handle herself. Promising that she’d stick tight to him and wouldn’t be a burden or a distraction; he’d be able to focus on the job at hand. After all, he was the first person that had ever made her feel safe and secure. Protected. And it absolutely terrified her to have that suddenly snatched away.

It had felt like hours had passed since their initial goodbye; still feeling the callouses on his skin as he gently cradled her cheek in his palm, her lips still tingling from that long, shockingly tender kiss. And those words…spoken just before they parted…still echoing in her ears.

“I’ll see you when I see you.”

It was the second time he’d said it. In less than thirty-six hours. Just that very morning he’d unexpectedly dropped it upon; a genuinely tender and hopeful moment as they parted ways at the extraction point. The drive there had been spent in silence; Tyler making the quick and effortless transition from the soft-spoken and attentive man she’d been intimate and shared secrets with to ruthless and calculated mercenary.

Yet it hadn’t frightened her. His mere presence and his smell and the glances and reassuring smiles he’d cast in her direction made sure of that. He may have become ‘all business’, but the other Tyler was just lingering just at the surface; the one that had shared his deepest and darkest confessions with her and who’d cried when talking about his son and his fight with cancer and the horrible decision he’d made prior to his death. And who’d shown every end of the sexual spectrum during their times behind closed doors; rough and aggressive and domineering one moment, slow and tender and worshipping the next.

She had never met anyone like him. In more ways than one.

And it was right before she began her trek through the forest and towards the river when it became abundantly clear that every kiss they’d shared, every secret spilled, every tear they’d shed, had all been real. He had meant the words he’d said; the excitement he’d shown at the idea of travelling together and of even seeing her birthplace and meeting her family. And the optimism he’d shown when talking about the possibility of a future…a REAL future…together.

Although a simple moment, it had seemed so deeply personal and intimate; the way he’d pulled that bulletproof vest over her head and made sure it was tightly and securely fastened. Already so protective; forgetting about her own background in the military and her years spent on the job in his quest and desire to keep her safe and sound. No one had ever made her feel that way before; nurturing and adoring and caring instead of being indifferent or malicious in both their words and their actions.

While Mark and all his cruel words and taunts, beatings and sexual assaults had stripped her of every ounce of trust in men, it had taken Tyler less than a week to restore not only her faith in others, but the most primal of needs and urges. Sex had never been a priority; it’s hard to find yourself THAT attracted to someone when you’d spent years having the most basic and most vile and degrading acts forced upon you. But with Tyler, it had been near instantaneous. An attraction that she’d felt the moment of their introduction in the outback; when one of those enormous, calloused and scarred hands had practically swallowed one of her own. The stories alone should have left her intimidated; the scores of incredibly dangerous missions he’d been involved in and the trails of blood and rotting corpses he left behind.

It was his eyes. Brilliant yet soulful blue; a humanity and a tenderness that he kept buried just under the surface. He wasn’t as broken or as soulless as he perceived himself to be; not truly the empty shell that he saw when he looked at himself in the mirror. He hadn’t turned to stone despite the hardships of the life he’d been living; instead his grief, guilt, and heartache so enormous and overwhelming that they left him numb and jaded to anything beyond his four walls. His addictions were proof that he was still very much alive; a troubled, lonely, touch-starved man that sought out unhealthy ways to ease both his physical and mental suffering.

She’d been privy to those sides he’d long buried. In the same way she had so blindly and wholly trusted him, he had done the same with her. Speaking openly and honestly about his son and the cancer that had not only robbed him of his life, but his father’s comforting and loving presence in those final moments. He spoke about his alcoholism and his addiction to pain meds; how he’d tried to stop on many occasions but found the suffering just too difficult to bear. And he confessed to the death wish he’d been carrying around since he’d abandoned his child; not really wanting a sniper’s bullet to cut him down in the middle of the job, but wholeheartedly believing he deserved it.

While he’d wanted to change and continued to desperately cling to any semblance of life, he didn’t quite know how to tackle his demons or fix the issues that surrounded him. He’d never been taught healthy coping mechanisms; not allowed to mourn the loss of his mother or to even show some glimmer of emotion during her funeral or those long days and nights of grieving that followed. It was a sign of weakness, after all. A real man didn’t react from the heart, let alone speak from it. And his father would simply not allow a ‘fragile and pathetic’ man to live under his roof.

And then one day, after years of beatings and cruelty, that abused and tormented child transformed into a deeply troubled man. Saddled with decades of trauma and toxic masculinity that his father had so viciously beat into him.

“I’ll see you when I see you.”

He’d spoken those words after making sure every piece of velcro on her vest was attached ‘just right’, then grabbed hold of the shoulder straps and pulled her into a kiss. It had been long and languid and heartbreakingly tender; nowhere near as intense and hungry and desperate as those they’d shared over the course of five days, but incredible in its own right. A kiss that held so much promise and a tinge of worry. A potent mixture of hope, optimism, and fear. The best-case scenario would be that the job went according to plan; he’d successfully rescue Ovi and return to the extraction point in less than two hours’ time. Unscathed. After that they’d be free; they’d get to safety, collect their money, and make good on all the plans they’d made. The worst-case scenario was the mission being an epic failure. And their parting words -ones made with the best intentions- would turn out to be a permanent goodbye.

********

It feels like a lifetime ago. Mahajan’s double-crossing, the brutal and untimely deaths of their team members, Saju’s relentless hunt in a desperate bid to save his own family. So many things had gone wrong in such a short period of time; a struggle to survive in litter-strewn alleys and sewers filled with feces, garbage, and rats. They hadn’t had a chance to relax; unable to catch their breath before the next disaster came charging full speed ahead. And it was out of desperation that Tyler had played the one card he still had up his sleeve; someone he’d known for years and had always been able to trust. After all, he’d saved the man’s life on more than one occasion. If that wasn’t deserving of even the tiniest bit of help, what was?

Neither could have known - as they lay in a mess of tangled sheets and naked limbs in the bed of Gaspar’s guest room, that the worst was yet to come. Holding onto a semblance of hope that they’d walked through the fires of hell and somehow lived to tell about it. Believing they’d simply lie low for a couple of days and then be on their way; wait for the pandemonium to settle and then move about somewhat freely and easily.

Only friends are sometimes your worst enemies. Gaspar’s allegiance with Asif and his subsequent betrayal had led to disaster; an attempt to kill Tyler in order to get his hands on her and Ovi and the ten million dollar ‘prize’ that he’d be rewarded with. And in the end, it had been the fifteen-year-old that had pulled the trigger; saving all of their lives yet setting the stage for what would be the most difficult hour of their entire lives.

Crossing the bridge.

It’s still so vivid. The wails of the injured and the dying. The smell of fire, gunpowder and spilt gasoline. The pollution wafting off the filthy water. The blistering sun and the suffocating humidity. The taste of her own sweat as it dripped from her nose and gathered along her top lip. And the blood. So much blood. Covering her hands and staining her clothes. The scent of copper as it hung heavily in the air. And the fear and panic in Tyler’s eyes as he straddled the threshold between life and death. His body impossibly heavy as it lay across her lap; his battered and bloodied hands desperately clutching the front of her shirt as he gasped for breath.

She briefly closes her eyes; pushing back the flood of tears and the painful, traumatic memories. Still unable to think about those moments before help had finally arrived; how minutes had seemed hours as she sat -a filthy, sobbing, terrified mess- with her fingers shoved in the bullet wound in order to staunch his heavy bleeding. Wondering if perhaps her efforts would be all for nothing; Asif’s remaining men making their way to the bridge and discovering them there. Alive Tyler would immediately be killed; they would have made sure she watched as they put a bullet -or several- into his already beaten and broken body. Her fate would have been so much worse; likely kept captive -for days, weeks, even MONTHS- and abused in every possible way. All she would have been able to do was suffer through it; unable to fight back against the strength and the power -and the amount- of her attackers. She’d never been a praying person; she didn’t necessarily believe or not believe when it came to a higher power. But during moments of solitude, she would have begged and pleaded to anyone…anything…to permanently end her torment.

Gathering her composure, she shoves all thoughts of Dhaka aside and returns to the task at hand; slowly and carefully trimming his beard, mindful of the hairs that crowd close to the ventilation and feeding tubes. She misses his face; the one that wasn’t taken over by life-saving measures. It’s been so long since she’s seen it; whether it be that slow, boyish smile or that sly, almost mischievous smirk or the intensity that narrows his eyes and furrows his brow. And his eyes; a brilliant, captivating blue that can quickly transform to dark and stormy. She’d been privy to so many things during those five days in Dhaka; body language and facial expressions and sides to him that he’d never allowed anyone else to see.

And she’s not ready to give any one of them up.

“So about this place. In Austria…” She moves to the bedside table and opens the top drawer; placing the comb and scissors inside and then picking up a pair of nail clippers. “…I think it’s perfect for us. It’s in the middle of nowhere; surrounded by trees and mountains and it’s right on the water. It’s got two bedrooms and one and a half baths and the cutest open-concept living room and kitchen combo. It’s not luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but it IS comfortable. Quaint. And I don’t think we need much more than that, do you?”

Picking up his right hand, she patiently and gently tends to his nails. “I mean, I know it’s going to be pretty damn cold in the winter. And there’s going to be a lot of snow. But I’m used to it. I grew up in Colorado, remember? I know it’ll be a hard adjustment for an Aussie; you’re used to sun and sand and surf. But I think you’ll do alright. Actually, I KNOW you’ll do alright.”

When the conversation runs dry, she once more returns to humming as she works; finishing the rest of his nails before applying a hospital-provided moisturizer to both hands. Concentrating on the callouses on his palms and the one on the tip of his trigger finger; working the coconut-scened lotion into rough, thickened skin.

“I bet you haven’t been pampered like this in a long time,” she says, as she firmly massages his wrists, fingers, and thumbs. Diligently working at loosening the ligaments and tendons that have tightened over the course of the last six months. “If EVER. And I don’t mean to make it sound like I hate doing this, but buddy, you owe me one hell of a back rub when we finally get the hell out of here.”

It helps. Talking about the ‘when’ instead of the ‘if’. It’s the one thing that has kept her grounded and sane for half of a year; the plans they’d made and her determination to see them through. As long as she holds onto that little bit of hope, she hasn’t lost complete control of the situation; managing to keep death lingering at a comfortable distance while she navigates the grey and the gloom between here and there. If she allows herself to use the word ‘maybe’, she’s written him off; handed him the same death sentence that all the doctors and even Nik and Yaz have burdened him with. She refuses to give up; taking every flinch and flicker of his eyelids and twitch of his fingers or toes as a sign that he’s still fighting.

And nowhere close to surrendering.

She takes care of his hair next; spritzing it down with mandarin-scented detangler before making her way through with both brush and comb. Slipping a hand between him and the bed and gently lifting his head from the pillow; apologizing profusely when she feels as if she’s yanked a little too hard at the knots. And as exhausted as she is, she finds herself somewhat enjoying the tasks that she’s been given; a natural-born caretaker who’d been neglected and touch starved most of her life and in turn, wanted to make sure no one else experienced the same things. A mother hen so to speak; badly longing to protect and nurture another human being but never getting the opportunity to do so.

Until now.

“Pretty shitty circumstances though,” she says aloud, and drops the hair care tools into the top drawer of the nightstand. “I think I’d take the worst possible case of man flu over this any day of the week.”

Guilt immediately sets in. Worried that IF he truly can hear her and understand what’s being said, he’ll assume she feels he’s a burden. That the blame lies solely upon him in terms of her emotional and physical exhaustion and that she’s simply stuck by his side out of a feeling of misplaced servitude. He had saved her life in Dhaka, after all. Surely that must make her feel as if she owes him. That waiting on him hand and foot and perhaps even feeding him and cleaning his ass for the rest of his life is merely payback.

“I don’t really mean that you know.” She’s quick to apologize; using her hip to close the drawer on the nightstand and then leaning against the railing of the bed. And she chews nervously on her bottom lip as two fingertips swipe his bangs off his forehead and away from his eyes. “Not in the way it probably sounded. I don’t mind doing all this stuff. I WANT to do it. And I know you’d probably do the same for me. I just meant that it’s shitty circumstances that got us here. I’m sure you’d rather be anywhere else.”

Removing a tube of chapstick from the pocket of her hoodie, she snaps off the cap and leans over the bed railing. “You’re totally drying out here,” she laments, mindful of the breathing and feeding tube as she glides the bubblegum-flavoured concoction over his top lip, followed by the bottom. “I’m sorry it’s not the strawberry one you got used to in Dhaka. Remember how you always used to mention it? Every time you kissed me? About liking the taste of it? I ran out. And this cherry one was the closest thing I could find to it in the pharmacy here. There…” She uses a fingertip to clear excess from his lips. “…totally kissable now. Not that I wouldn’t kiss you before, but…” Pressing a kiss to each corner of his mouth. “…it makes it a little better.”

Pocketing the balm, she reaches for the lever on the bedrail and sets it into the down position. Gently straightening and smoothing out his blankets, she fluffs both the pillow behind his head and the one that supports his back before taking a seat on the edge of the mattress.

“Tyler…” She takes one of his hands in both her own. “…we need to have a little chat. I know it’s kind of unfair right now; you can’t exactly give an opinion or argue with me. And I promise that once you’re out here and back to normal, I MAY let you get a word in edge-wise from time to time. But for now, there’s some things I need to say. That I’d rather you hear now than never hear them at all, you know? Because…”

Sighing, she anxiously yanks the elastic out of her ponytail; shaking her long, dark tresses for before simply gathering them up and putting them back once again. “Look, you’ve been amazing, okay? You’ve done everything I’ve asked you to do; when it comes to giving me little signs that you’re making your way back to me. And I’m so proud of you; I know you’re tired and you’re healing but you’re still trying to help me out. That’s why it kills me that I have to do this. That I have to ask for more.”

She turns his palm up to face her and commences drawing slow, smooth patterns on it with the tip of her finger. Her eyes riveted on the beside monitor; a smile spreading across her face when his heart rate escalates.

“I keep telling them. That you ALWAYS respond to that. And that you’ve been responding to other things, too. I told them you’ll wiggle your toes or your fingers when I ask and how sometimes your eyelashes will flutter and other times you try and put your hand on top of mine. They don’t believe me; they think it’s all in my head. They keep saying that you’d do for them and the nurses if it was intentional. And you know what I said? I said ‘maybe he just doesn’t give a shit about any of you’.”

Sighing, she reaches up to tuck wayward strands of hair behind her ears.

“Tyler, I know I’ve asked a lot. And that you’ve worked really hard to give me what I asked. I know you’re tired; you’re trying to build up your strength so you can wake up and get the hell out of here. But we’re running out of time, babe. I told them I’d shut things off at the start of the sixth month; that’s only a couple of weeks away. I don’t want to do it, believe me. I want to keep you on these machines for as long as I can; until you’re a hundred percent ready to come off them. But if I don’t do what I promised, they’re going to take me to court. And they’ll get an order to override me and do what they want. I don’t want it coming to that. You deserve so much better than THAT. So this is where I need your help. AGAIN. I need you to do more, okay? I need a bigger sign. One that the doctors can’t brush off. I need something that says you’re almost ready; you’re stronger and you’re healthier and you’re almost at the finish line. I don’t want to say that I’m desperate, but I am. I really need this. I really need YOU. Because I’m starting to get really scared and you’re the only person that’s ever made me feel safe and protected and…” She valiantly struggles to hold back a flood of tears. “…and I never knew I even needed to feel those things. So please? Just do something. Anything. That shows them they’re wrong. Please.”

She waits for a sign. Another increase in heart rate. A flicker of his eyes. The wiggle of fingers and toes. And she’s crestfallen when nothing happens.

“You’re probably sleeping,” she laments, then slaps a hand against her forehead. “God I am so fucking stupid. Of COURSE you’re sleeping. You’re in a coma for Christ’s sake. I’m starting to lose it. I really am. I’m even talking to myself lately. Out loud. You can’t tell me THAT’S normal. And there’s one more thing…” She laces her fingers through his. “Now is going to be harder than I thought. To say what I need to. I don’t even know what I’m so scared of; it’s not you’re awake and you can laugh at me or act disgusted or just totally shoot me down. But I need to get it off my chest. Because if something does go wrong and something bad DOES happen, I’d never forgive myself for not telling you. So here it goes…”

Sighing heavily, she steels herself.

“I love you, Tyler. And I know what you’re probably thinking; about how it’s way too soon and that there’s no way you can love someone so quickly. Believe me, I never thought it was possible either. Until it happened. I don’t expect you to feel the same way; it’s not like you’ve spent the last five months like I have. Dhaka probably seems like just yesterday in your mind. I don’t expect you to wake up and say it back; not unless you FEEL it. And maybe you never will. I don’t know. Maybe those five days were as good as things were going to get. But I HAD to tell you. And to be honest, I needed to admit it to myself, too.”

For several minutes she sits in silence; tightly clasping his hand and watching his face for any change. The curl of a lip or the flutter of eyelashes or the swell of a cheek with an attempt of a smile. He’d been showing remarkable progress within the last few days alone; voluntary movements of his hands and feet and a slight grimace of pain when the night nurse had to change IV sites. But today he’s motionless; not even the smallest of flinches. Peacefully at rest; his beard and nails trimmed, his hair combed, and his skin warm to the touch.

“I’m going to go and do my stuff,” she says, and lifts his hand to her face; pressing a kiss to each battered knuckle and at the base of his wrist. “Do some yoga, take a shower, go down the hall to the kitchen and get something to eat. So I’m gonna just let you rest and…”

The moment she slips off the edge of the bed, his hand tightens around hers. Not with the strength of a man who’d been declared clinically dead and was relying on machines to keep him alive, but the strength of someone still very much alive. And fighting like hell.

“I knew it.” She allows the tears to come; cradling his cheek in her palm as she leans over the bed and rests her forehead against his. “I KNEW it.”

*****

Although running behind, she sticks to her morning schedule; simple ‘luxuries’ that she’s clung to to keep what’s remaining of her sanity. A lengthy and rejuvenating yoga routine that helps centre and ground; the furniture moved aside in the sitting area of Tyler’s private room to make space for herself and her mat. A long shower in one of the many ‘for family use only’ bathrooms; the pounding water working out the kinks in her neck and soothing the aches in her back and hips. Finished off with that first tea of the day and a quick and quiet breakfast. Steaming hot perfection combined with a bowl of yogurt, granola, and fresh fruit; always at the same table -and seat right next to the window- in the ICU’s small yet fully stocked and manned cafeteria.

It makes her feel human again. To focus on herself. But it’s fleeting and soon taken over by feelings of selfishness and guilt; ashamed that she’d allowed herself those moments of peace and clarity while Tyler continued to exist in that void between life and death.

But today is different. His response to her request for a more significant and more obvious sign and her profession of love has rejuvenated her; her confidence has returned to her step and her optimism and hope are both stronger than ever. She knows they’ll try and convince her it’s all in her head; gaslighting her into believing that she’s so desperate for a miracle that she’s become ‘delusional’ and is ‘highly imaginative’. But she knows for sure that his squeeze of the hand was the real deal; it was strong and assuring and sending a clear, unwavering message that he’d not only heard her pleas and requests, but was doing his best to acknowledge AND answer them. And now only one real challenge remains. Getting him to show the nurses and the doctors the same responses when they speak to him.

“This place is getting busy again,” Esme announces as she re-enters his room, her soiled yoga shorts and tank in hand; stuffing the latter into a near overflowing she’s been promising to take down the laundry room for over a week. “Remember how I was talking about all those rooms opening up? People getting shipped up to normal wards? Well, they’re full again.” Sighing, she gathers her damp hair in both hands and styles it into a haphazard bun; securing it with the elastic she keeps around one wrist. “A lot of pretty young people, too. I don’t what’s going on and how they’re getting so sick or so hurt, but…”

A barely audible grunt from across the room interrupts her mid-sentence. The anxiety is immediate; her stomach clenching and her jaw tightening as she tries to digest the never heard before sound. Any change of the ’norm’ brings about near panic; a fear that something different automatically means disaster. And her brows are knit together and her eyes are narrowed as she apprehensively glances over her shoulder.

His eyes open. Barely. The gaze is groggy. Confused. But steadily fixed upon her.

“Tyler?”

Another grunt. His eyes briefly closing before he raises a hand; trembling furiously as it reaches for the breathing tube.

“No! No! No!” Dropping her remaining belongings on the floor, she rushes to his bedside; fingers curling around his wrist. “Don’t touch that. You’ll yank it out. Hurt yourself. The nurse needs to do it for you. Can you see me? Hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying? Blink if you do.”

He obliges her request.

“What are you doing awake? What…?” Her words are cut off by a choked sob; one of pure shock and disbelief. And she wraps both arms around his neck and presses a kiss to his temple; tears spilling down her cheeks as she rests her head upon his shoulder. “You prick! Leave it to you to wait until I was out of the room!”

It takes tremendous effort and strength, but his hand comes to rest in the middle of her back; rubbing it in slow, smooth circles in an attempt to console her.

“You know how long I waited for this moment?” Pulling away, she lovingly ruffles his hair. “Almost six months! A half a year! I’ve thought about it every day. What it would be like when it happened. And what do you do? You go ahead and totally ruin it for me!”

He attempts a sorry. Words unable to get passed the tubes shoved down his throat.

“I’m just teasing you. Just giving you a hard time. Don’t try and talk, okay? Not until they get those things out of you. Do you know where you are?”

A small nod.

“Do you remember what happened? Do you know why you’re here?”

Another. Followed by heavy-lidded eyes surveying the room; brow furrowing at the sight of the various bedside machines and the wires attached to various parts of his body. And when he looks back at her there’s a mixture of emotions written on his face; a heavy dose of fear and concern.

“I know it’s a hell of a thing to wake up to. Being here. And I know you’re probably really confused right now. Your mind is probably all fuzzy. Nothing much is making sense, huh? You’re probably scared, too. I would be too.”

He raises a hand; knuckles brushing against her cheek before his arm once more falls heavily onto the bed.

“I’m okay,” she assures him, as she sinks down onto the edge of the bed and takes his hand in both of hers. “And so is Ovi. Nik’s had people with him ever since he got home. They follow him everywhere; keep a close eye on him. Just in case.”

His brow furrows as he regards her intently.

“I’m fine,” she stresses. “I was a bit banged up. Nothing serious. I’ve had a hell of a lot worse, believe me. I didn’t even need to spend the night here. Not as a patient, anyway. You did what you promised. You got Ovi out of there. You got him home. Safe and sound. It’s over. It’s all over. It’s been over for months now.”

Sighing, he looks up at the ceiling. Tears sparkling in his eyes.

“I know you’re probably really confused. You’ve probably got a lot of questions. But you’ve been here for six months. So have I. I wanted to make sure that you were taken care of. That no one would give up on you. And I knew this was going to happen. I knew you were going to fight your way back. That you weren’t ready to give up. You weren’t ready to leave.”

He shakes his head.

“The conceited part of me wants to say it’s all because of me. That I’m the reason you’re still here. That you made your way back just for me. But…”

His eyes find hers once more; hand squeezing hers as tight as his weakened body will allow.

“Sweet talker,” she chides, and leans in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “You try and rest, okay? I’m just going to go and call your nurse and she can contact your doctor or come and check you herself. Whatever she needs to do. I just…”

His grip tightens on her as she slips off the bed. The fear once more returning to his eyes.

“I’m not leaving, I just need to get your call button. It’s on the other side of the bed. I need to use it to get your nurse in here. Don’t worry…” Pushing a hand through his hair, she places her lips against his brow. “I’m not going anywhere. Not now. Not EVER.”

*****

It seems so different now.

So foreign.

Almost uncomfortable.

It’s so quiet. All the bedside machines unplugged; dark and silent and shoved into a corner of the room. She had gotten so used to it; the hiss and the hums, the beeps and the clicks. The noises quickly becoming a part of her new existence; blending in with the chatter of the staff as they wandered the halls and the rattle of gurneys as they passed by the room. And she almost misses them; unaware of how familiar and routine they’d gotten until they suddenly ceased to exist. They had been a security blanket almost; something steady and constant that had signified life and hope and had kept her going at even her darkest and most difficult of moments.

He sleeps soundly; aided by powerful painkillers given through an IV line and fed to him through a programmed pump. She’d insisted on it; reminding them of the addiction issues that had been previously addressed and admitting -painfully- that he couldn’t be trusted to administer to himself. They’re hard things to accept; the powerful and all-consuming ties he has to both alcohol and Oxycontin. In Dhaka they’d briefly talked about it; he’d confessed to his addictions and admitted that he wanted to break free of their clutches. Getting clean was a priority now that he had someone in his life; he wanted to be rid of the worst of his vices, no matter how difficult it would be to walk away from them.

“You make me want to be a better man,” he’d announced, the sincerity in both his voice and his eyes had making her choke up. No one had ever given her a more beautiful compliment. Such honest and heartfelt words coming from someone like him; a phenomenally strong, seemingly fearless man weighed down by the enormity of his mistakes. Carrying around the burdens of guilt and grief and regret.

Not of that exists right now. He’s temporarily at peace; free of the monsters and the demons that have plagued him for years. His unassisted breathing slow and deep and rhythmic; his weakened and battered body trying to build whatever strength it can in order to begin the long, arduous road of healing. His skin is pale and the circles under his eyes dark and haunting; she’s already promised to get him out into the sunshine as soon as the doctors feel he’s up to it. He sleeps with his face turned towards her; unruly hair splayed out across his pillow and looking shades darker against the crisp white sheets. And there’s a slight smile curving his lips; perhaps feeling the tremendous relief that comes with walking through the darkest and deepest recesses of hell and living to tell about them.

Despite there still being a long and arduous road ahead, she feels as if a tremendous weight has been lifted off her shoulders; no longer concerned with deadlines and ultimatums and feeling an immense satisfaction at the doctors being proven wrong. And it had taken everything she had not to gloat when the primary care physician finally showed up to asses Tyler’s current physical and mental state and remove him from the machines. Feeling an immense sense of pride in him when he was able to answer -using nods or shakes of the head- basic questions regarding both his and her identity. Showing no signs of coma-induced amnesia; knowing her name and not only how they met, but how he ended up in the hospital in the first place. The line of questioning had been short and simple, but had immensely irritated him; the darkness in his eyes as he glared at the doctor gave a clear cut message: the interrogation was pointless, he wasn’t stupid, and he was simply tired of the other man’s shit.

The extubation hadn’t gone as smoothly as staff had hoped. What should have been simple and routine became a three ring circus when she was asked to leave the room; Tyler immediately panicking at the mere thought and his heart rate and blood pressure spiking to near dangerous levels as his fight or flight response kicked into high gear. Shockingly angry and strong for someone who’d been in a coma for half a year and only minutes before had appeared weak and docile. And with that the arguing and the threatening had began; Esme insisting that it was in his best interest if she was allowed to remain in the room where he could keep his eyes on her at the very least.

“He’s scared,” she’d informed them. “He’s scared and he’s confused. And I’m the one thing that’s been constant for the last six months. I’ve ALWAYS been here. He’s gotten used to that. What harm is it going to do if I hang around? It’ll help, if anything.”

For several minutes the bickering back and forth had continued. As had Tyler’s kicking and thrashing about in bed and the threats of “sedating him for everyone else’s safety.” She refused to let that happen; there was no need to drug him up when simply letting her stay by his side and hold his hand and talk him through it would more than suffice.

Her tenacity and stubbornness had been the victors in the end. And she’d held his hand in one of her own; her lips pressed against his ear as she talked him through the entire process and whispered words of comfort and reassurance. Telling him she wasn’t going ANYWHERE; there was nothing and no one that could possibly tear her away. Not now. Not ever.

******

Exhaustion sets in, coming on strong and fast. It’s aided by her newfound optimism and the fears she’s been able to shed, and she welcomes the chance to rest with open arms. Carefully prying open his fingers in order to slip her hand out of his; his grip surprisingly strong and fuelled by his fear that if he stops touching her, she’ll simply disappear. But he’s sleeping soundly and neither movement nor absence of touch disturbs him; not offering up a single flinch as he continues to alternate between lightly snoring and murmuring in his sleep. And kicking off her slippers, she leans back in her chair; drawing her oversized hoodie tighter around her body and then stretching out her legs and placing her feet on the mattress. Giving him just enough contact that if he does wake, he won’t immediately panic; her toes tucked securely underneath the back of his left thigh.

When she wakes, the sun has shifted position in the sky; beams streaming through the courtyard’s glass roof and casting shadows upon the lobby’s walls and floor. For what seems like several long, tedious minutes she fights disorientation; her weary brain struggling to identify and make sense of the sights and sounds that had been part of her life for half a year. Yawning loudly, she presses the heels of her palms into her blurry eyes; keeping them closed as her hands move to her shoulders and she massages at the tight, aching muscles.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

She gives a small start; eyes rapidly flicking open and falling on the nurse that busies herself on the opposite side of the bed.

The younger woman gives a sheepish, apologetic smile. “I tried to be as quiet as possible. Sorry.”

“No need to be. It wasn’t you. I think my neck was crying out for mercy. I didn’t even realize you were here.” Esme frowns as concern sets in. She hates how quickly it can grab hold of her; the panic that comes with the fear of losing the one thing…the one person…that you truly DO love. Her life had changed half a year ago. Meeting someone who was just as damaged and tarnished as she was.

It could have gone so horribly wrong; two hurt and lonely people only making each other worse.

“Is he alright?” She attempts to keep her anxiety under control; the mere thought of him having a setback and ending up worse than before just too much to bear. While all her spoken and unspoken pleas and promises had been both accepted and answered, it’s been a nagging worry; a quick and sudden regression that sentences him to a life in a near -or full- vegetative state.

Even then, she'd stick by his side. Put her entire life on hold in an effort to improve his. And provide whatever care he needed. No matter how 'hands on'. “He’s doing just fine. Breathing well on his own; his numbers never drop below ninety-five percent.”

“And that’s good, right? Especially considering how long he needed that machine for? To already have numbers that high…”

“It’s excellent. Far better than anyone expected.”

“No one expected much from him, did they? And they sure as hell wouldn’t listen to me. I told them; that he was responding to my voice and when I tickled his palm and sometimes when I combed his hair. I knew what I was talking about. It wasn’t all in my head. I wasn’t hysterical or crazy like they said.”

“No. You most certainly weren’t.”

“You were the only that believed me. That didn’t think I was nuts.”

“You fought with too much passion and too much conviction to be anything BUT truthful. I could tell in your voice and in your eyes; you truly believed what you were saying.”

“I may not have known Tyler very long, but I know that he wouldn’t give up without a fight. Maybe before he met me, he would have. But we talked about the future. OUR future. There was no way he was giving up on them. On me. On US.”

“I wish all of the patients here at someone like you in their corner. I like to think that if they did, they’d heal a lot faster; knowing that someone is fighting for them and making sure they get nothing but the best. Do you know how many have no one? Whose families have just given up and stopped coming altogether?”

“I can’t even imagine being that way. Just abandoning someone. Especially someone I love. How do you live with yourself? How do you sleep at night? Pretending as if they don’t even exist anymore?”

“I don’t understand it myself.”

“It’s just so sad. The thought of them being all alone. No one caring about them. I know it’s not easy; seeing someone at their worst and not knowing if they’re going to make it or not. It’s hard; to lose someone you care about. But ignoring them and pretending they don’t exist doesn’t make it all go away.”

“And the guilt afterwards? The regret? If they DO die?”

“I couldn’t live with myself. I wasn’t going to do that to Tyler; just leave him here and go on with my life. I didn’t want him to be alone. He deserves so much better than that. And if he was going to die, I was going to make sure he had someone here with him.”

“I assumed you’d been with him for a long time. Considering how hard you fought. How you wouldn’t back down.”

“I know it doesn’t make sense. The way I am. So soon after meeting someone. But I know how I feel. About him. And I know it isn’t wrong. Because nothing wrong could ever feel this right.”

“There’s no rules. No time limit. Whether it’s weeks, months or years that you’ve known someone. And don’t let anyone tell you any different.”

“They don’t even try anymore,” Esme laughs, and leans back in her chair. “They know it’s a lost cause. My family gave up a long time ago.”

For several minutes they go co-exist in silence; Esme watching as the nurse tends to replacing IV and catheter bags, resetting the timer on the pain pump, and using an iPad to jot down the various numbers in regard to his vitals. And she’s beginning to doze off once more when the younger woman’s voice captures her attention; her head snapping up and her eyes flickering open.

“He’s got quite the hold on you there,” the nurse nods down at the bed; Tyler’s hand covering one of Esme’s feet in a surprisingly strong grip.

She wonders when he’d done it. If it was a subconscious moment while he was sleeping or if he’d woken up briefly and intentionally took hold of her. “He’s protective. Even while he’s like this. Just wants to keep an eye on me. Make sure nothing bad happens. Or I don’t get away.”

“I don’t think he has to worry about that. Especially that last part. You know, if you want to get out of here for a bit, I don’t mind sticking around. This was my last patient for these rounds. So if you want to go grab a tea or something to eat or eve get some fresh air…”

“I don’t want to leave him alone. If he wakes up and I’m not here, he might freak out. He might…”

“He won’t be alone. I’ll be right here. Sitting with him. I don’t mind spending my break here. You need some time to yourself. Even if it’s just to wander around a bit. Feel the sun on your face. The worst is over; he’s done his time in hell and come out the other side. You can breathe again.”

She chews on her bottom lip; considering the opportunity that’s been presented to her. And sighing, she turns her teary eyes towards the younger woman. “Please take care of him.”

“Of course. He’s in good hands.”

Giving a nod of approval and a smile of appreciation, she stands; pushing her chair away before approaching the side of the bed. Running her fingers through her hair before holding it back off his forehead; lips meeting warm, smooth skin.

“I’ll be right back,” she promises, a fingertip lightly trailing down the scar that inhabits the left side of his brow. “There’s nothing to worry about, okay? I won’t be gone long. I’m not leaving. You don’t EVER have to worry about that.”

[ruiniel]

Cursed, blessed

Fandom: Castlevania series (2017-2021)

Pairing: Alucard x fem!Reader

Rating: Explicit / 🔞

Count: 0.8k words

Summary: In which one becomes acquainted with jealousy. It lingers like a bleeding bite, even now.

Tags: oneshot, Alucard POV, possessiveness, jealousy, rough sex, vaginal sex

Your splayed fingers grab and twist the crumpled sheets, your panting smothered into the bed in a cadence with his movements.

He has you pinned beneath him, his long, hard body layered over yours, his muscles cording against your sweaty back as he thrusts into you, driven, holding you as close as humanly possible. 

It feels amazing. You feel amazing, his friend, his lover his heart, his, his, his; you moan at a deeper thrust, your voice hoarse and needy, your legs close together, pressed beneath his.

“... Does it hurt?” he asks, slowing down, his own mind dazed by a fog of angry, blinding, dominating lust; a part of him wants it to; a part of him hates that it would. 

“... a… a little,” you whimper, his hips gyrating to feel every soft, tight, hot inch inside as you turn your head to meet another ravenous kiss, “but I like it—” you cry out at another merciless thrust and Adrian keeps to his rhythm but eases some of the pressure; he doesn’t actually seek to harm you, never could. He wants you to enjoy him as he does you, to want more, to stay his, to trust him as you do. 

A shard of thought intrudes here and there, of the look that guard gave you today in the village as you were out in the market; how his eyes raked over you, measured you from head to toe, how you laughed at something he said just as Adrian was returning from the tailor’s to take you home. 

He’s felt nothing like it before: the pure, gutting anger weaved with agony and fear of loss; the crippling jealousy crushing his chest like an iron maw. 

He can’t blame you, of course, he would not dare. He should be better with this, he should try.

“Adrian…”

You’re sweet and so mindful of his feelings, his occasional odd moods and quirks, his fear of abandonment; always so tender, so kind, even when he doesn’t deserve it.

“ADRIAN!”

He’d gone too fast, too deep again, overwhelming you; he slows down, turning his head to find your mouth, to kiss you again, “I’m sorry,” he chokes, body trembling all over, hips pressing yours into the bed as he pauses, sheathed inside you. 

“But don’t… stop…” you whine, mouth open for him like a soft flower to nibble on, and so he does because no one else should have you, if Adrian were to give in to that ruthless voice inside plaguing him he’d make certain no one ever would, none would even dare glance your way with the spark that random idiot had today, that sickening lusty glaze that had him gritting his teeth and yearning to claw it off his face. 

He pumps into you, steady, steady, slower, harder, a hand grasping your chin and he's swallowing your moans, thirsty for more; a song he’ll never tire of, a warmth all his own. “You’re mine, aren’t you?”

“... always,” you groan as he releases your chin and your forehead comes pressed against the sheets, “I… can’t… can’t fathom it otherwise… Adrian…” you sigh his name, a chant of beatific longing; the muscles of his rear tense as he thrusts faster in an erratic crescendo. 

“Say it,” he begs. “Please.”

"I'm yours-all yours-only yours!"

He feels a low thrill, ecstatic at your words of reassurance. No matter how often you say so, he always wants to, needs to hear them; a gauze to that deplorable inadequacy that makes him feel so selfishly voracious, the gaping wound at his core burned black, bleeding green poison.

He’s cursed or blessed, or maybe it’s twofold— it doesn’t matter, not when you’re so close, twined and blazing with pleasure; Adrian shivers, a hand reaching beneath you, lower, fingers tender as he touches you, guiding you to oblivion first before he follows, despoiled of reason and petty fears; beyond the realm of sanity and thought, drowning in you as your body tenses against him, as you cry delight into his lonely sheets, as he bites into your shoulder when he comes; licking the red off your skin like a coveted elixir.  

You’re breathing together; kissing lazily as you both come down from your high, bodies slipping against each other’s drenched skin. 

“That was… a change from other times.”

“Oh?” Has he gone too far? His body softens against yours. He props his weight on his forearms so you can breathe. 

You turn your head to look at him. “... Yes, and… whatever it is,” you smile, drunkenly, and it’s so alluring in its ravishment, he nearly loses his mind. “... I want more of it this way.”

A short, strangled laugh escapes him, full of desperate relief. Adrian leans down to kiss you again, long and deep, tasting the warmth of your life. “Anything,” he slurs, turning you over and hugging you to him, his silver words failing against the playful curl of your tongue. “Anything...”

And does he ever mean it. 

[peachy-panic]

“Look at me.”

Hi there. I’m new here, but also very much not, which is to say you’ve probably seen me pop up a few dozen (hundred) times in your notifications with likes and comments and the occasional ask when I’m feeling brave, sliding under the radar from the safety of my obscure fandom-turned-main account.

POINT IS, I’m no stranger to the wonderful works of this community, and CERTAINLY no stranger to whump appreciation, even if I haven’t always had a word for it. And because I’ve been so inspired by all the talented writers here, I’ve decided to finally cut loose and throw my own work into the ring, and the whole @whumpmasinjuly thing seemed like an opportune time to pop up.

I’ve aggressively lurked on so many of your pages in the last year so I’m sure I’m leaving someone out, but I did want to tag a few of the writers who have really motivated me to start this page just by reading their writing:

@ashintheairlikesnow @orchidscript @deluxewhump @whump-tr0pes @evermetnotforgotten @card-games-and-pain

And if you’ve made it this far into the post, we’ve arrived at the actual content. This snippet is from a project I started writing before I knew about the existence of the BBU, but I’ve slowly started molding it into something that fits more-or-less within the bounds of that collective universe. Some things may take slightly different turns to the rules established there, but it’s the same general concept.

Without further ado.

PROMPT: “Look at me.”

WARNINGS: General BBU-esque warnings, human trafficking, slavery, non-con (fade-to-black ish but the lead up is… Not Great). Let me know if I missed anything!

He knows something is off right away when Mr. Torley calls to him from the end of the long hallway on the other side of the house. 

When the children are home, Jaime is confined to the main common areas: the living room that spills into the large open-concept kitchen, the guest bathroom, the laundry room (where he has already spent most of his time working), the boys’ toy room (where he has only gone to clean up after them), and of course, the small room he has been given to sleep in, which he is sure once served as some sort of storage area. 

At the mouth of the living room is a corridor that leads to Mr. Torley’s study, and across from that, his bedroom. So he is told. Jaime was given instructions never to go into that wing of the house unless explicitly invited. He has been in his new home assignment for three days now and has never once been asked to cross those bounds. 

Until now. 

Carefully, Jaime places the mug he had been diligently scrubbing in the basin of the sink and shuts off the tap. He looks around for the hand towel and, remembering he had thrown it in with the last load of laundry, dries his hands on his t-shirt instead.

There’s a shift in the air, something thick and weighty and terrible as he steps into the opening of the hallway, but he doesn’t allow himself a moment to hesitate. He pads near-silently forward, toward the only open door, all the way at the end. 

In the threshold between the hall and the master bedroom, Jaime’s toes brush against where pristine hardwood meets soft carpet. It feels good against his bare feet after days of standing on an unforgiving surface without the allowance of shoes or socks, but not nearly good enough to settle the uneasiness building in the pit of his stomach. Mr. Torley sits on the edge of the bed, a long, deep-colored robe covering most of his body, save for the deep strip of exposed skin down his chest where a few patches of thick, dark hair peek through. Jaime forces his eyes up to his.

“You called for me, Sir?” His voice low and steady, even as his eyes draw unwittingly to the lamp on the bedside table, which has been dimmed to an orange glow that makes the room feel small and suffocatingly warm. 

“Come here,” his Keeper beckons, and Jaime’s muscles operate by the hand of some unseen force, pushing him forward. He only makes it half a step in before Mr. Torley raises a hand, gesturing to where the light of the hallway spills in around his silhouette. “Close the door behind you.”

Jaime’s limbs feel very heavy all of a sudden, but he moves anyway, a phantom sting buzzing beneath his skin at even the briefest thought of hesitation. Never make your Keeper wait. Never let your Keeper ask twice. 

The hallway is plain and sterile, much like the rest of the Torley house, but Jaime stares longingly out at it as he pulls the door shut, wishing he were out there instead.

When the door clicks shut, he can feel a pair of eyes rake down his back like cold fingertips. It raises the hair on the back of his neck, his skin breaking out in an unpleasant chill, but he forces perfect neutrality into his expression before he turns around. He zeroes in on the sensation of soft carpet under his soles instead of the prickling dread under his skin as he makes his way toward the bed, coming to a stop a couple feet away.

Mr. Torley chuckles under his breath, a low, amused sound that Jaime is already getting used to hearing. He seems to reserve it for Jaime alone and it always serves to make him feel like there is some sort of private joke he’s not been let in on. Or, more accurately, that he is the joke, and he can’t quite stifle the lingering sense of shame that comes with that. 

“I said, come here.” It’s a direct order, but paired with a hint of amusement and something darker swimming behind his eyes. He rubs a hand invitingly, pointedly, over the comforter next to him and Jaime swallows back a lump in his throat that feels a lot like bile.

He isn’t stupid. Despite everything that’s been told to him, he’s not. But in that moment he wishes maybe he was, and then ignorance could be bliss for just a few more seconds. He knows where this is headed, and he knows that it’s wrong. It is against the policies, against the rules, he knows it is, but he isn’t surprised, either. It hadn’t taken long at the training facility to discover that the system on paper looks a whole lot different than the system in practice. 

“‘We uphold a zero-tolerance policy for the sexual exploitation and abuse of Domestic workers,’” a cruel, mocking voice recites in his head, alongside the memory of a leather-gloved thumb sliding between his lips, his wide, tearful eyes glued to the tiny, black remote in his handler’s fist. 

The skin beneath his collar burns at the memory, and he raises his fingers absently to touch there, half expecting to feel the heavy weight of the electric clip attached. He doesn’t, of course, and the only electricity he feels now is of a different nature, coming off his Keeper in waves as he waits, a bit more impatiently with every second, for Jaime to sit. 

So he does. 

Mr. Torley crowds his space immediately, and his instinctive response to pull away is smothered by a heavy arm draping over his shoulders and a droning voice inside his head. You must make yourself available at all times. You may not refuse any order or request that does not directly interfere with the wellbeing of another person. Jaime allows himself to wonder, for the briefest moment, if his wellbeing counts for anything. He knows it doesn’t. They had just spent the past three months teaching him, in every way imaginable, that he was not, in fact, a person at all.

All the offhand remarks from the trainers, the lewd sneers, the heavy-lidded glances and roaming hands… they had all painted him a picture of what to expect. He had just tricked himself into thinking that maybe, hopefully, if there ever really was a god in this universe that loved him like he was sure he once believed, that he was wrong. In the three days since he had stepped foot into his newest post, Jaime had managed to convince himself that maybe, possibly, he had gotten one of the good ones. 

Mr. Torley is all too happy to shatter the illusion as his finger and thumb find Jaime’s earlobe, rubbing it between them and then ghosting down the side of his neck. 

“Take off your shirt,” he whispers.

Jaime’s blood runs cold. 

You may not refuse any order or request. He can’t conceal the trembling in his fingers as they curl around the hem of his standard-issue grey t-shirt. You may not refuse any order or request. The warm ambience of the room feels startlingly cold against his naked torso as he pulls the fabric over his head, letting it fall in a soft whisper onto the carpet. You may not refuse any order or request. His arm is back around his shoulders instantly, hot and cold assaulting his skin all at once and he feels so exposed and he doesn’t want to be here he doesn’t want to do this. 

Mr. Torley places a heavy palm against his chest, running it slowly downward, and Jaime can picture what it looks like without even looking; calloused pads scraping over soft skin, all thick fingers and subtly unkempt nails, the beginnings of age spots and wrinkles and small dustings of black hair across the knuckles. He thinks his keeper must be able to feel the way his heart is pounding through his ribs, and he feels a surge of embarrassment that he was sure the training should have beaten out of him.

It’s because you weren’t trained for this, the panicked voice in the back of his head screams as the hand trails lower, grazing the thin patch of hair below his navel. This isn’t supposed to happen. This is against policy. You weren’t made for this. His skin feels static in every place Mr. Torley’s fingers brush, and he wishes he could dissolve under them.

“You’re shaking, baby.” Jaime winces at the unexpected term of endearment. So far, it has only been boy, curt and abrasive when thrown in his direction, usually followed by a direct order. “Have you never had a man touch you like this?”

His mind supplies a horror show of memories, flashes of images behind closed eyelids -  leather-gloved hands and concrete rooms of the training facility - and he realizes he doesn’t know how to answer that. He wants to cry. Can’t cry. Isn’t allowed to cry. Then there are fingers on his chin, on his jaw, softer than any of his touches have ever been; soft like the word baby on his lips, soft like the half-lidded eyes that he is forced to meet. 

“I asked you a question.”

“I haven’t. Sir.” His voice shakes, barely a whisper. 

It is mostly true, probably in the way Mr. Torley really meant it, and unfortunately seems to be exactly the answer he was looking for. Dread splits Jaime in two. One part, the part of him that’s hazy and pliant and good tells him he has done a good job, that he has pleased his Keeper, he has said the right thing. His keeper’s needs are his needs, if his Keeper is happy, he is happy. 

The other part just keeps screaming. And screaming. And screaming.

He doesn’t want this.

It doesn’t matter what he wants, he’s not supposed to have wants.

But this isn’t allowed.

His Keeper is happy.

Please, please stop touching me.

He can’t say no, no is forbidden to him.

Please don’t make me do this.

His keeper is smiling.

“You’re very lucky,” Mr. Torley says, dragging the thumb that was holding his jaw over he’s lower lip. “They could have given you to any one of your bidders, and trust me… there are some messed up people out there who invest in the services of Domestic Companions. But I can be good to you.”

Somehow, he doesn’t feel very lucky at all.

“Yes, sir,” he says, a bit breathless as fingers trace up and down his spine. His own fingers curl into the bedsheets on the opposite side of his thigh where Mr. Torley can’t see the outward signals of his distress, though from the naked delight in his eyes as he watches him, he doesn’t think he minds. 

There are lips on his before he can even process what is happening, and he feels his whole body go rigid in his Keeper’s hold. He’s never been kissed before and the cold wetness against his mouth is nothing like the movies make it out to be. It’s hard to wrap his head around the overwhelming sensation, but the one thing he knows for sure, immediately, is that he hates it. 

He hates his first kiss unlike anything he’s hated before. Terror and humiliation seize him in equal stride as he realizes he doesn’t really know what to do. He is frozen, for a moment, his own pulse beating wildly in his ears as slimy lips move against his own. When Mr. Torley cups a hand around the back of his neck, pulling him closer to lean into the kiss, his mouth opens instinctively, submitting to the insistence of the movement, and this seems to be exactly what he was looking for. A low, throaty hum vibrates against his mouth and Jaime clamps his eyes shut tight. He feels like he might die. For a moment, he kind of wishes he would.

He doesn’t register the pressure of the hand against his chest until his back is already pressed into the duvet. Mr. Torley sits up then, breaking the kiss, then stands. Jaime doesn’t look at him - he can’t bring himself to - but he can feel his eyes on him anyway. Thick fingers hook into the elastic of the thin, gray pants he had been given three days prior, and his breathing goes flat. Please don’t please don’t please don’t, his brain lights up with panic, every nerve ending in his body on high alert. But he doesn’t move, other than to close his trembling fingers around the material on either side of him, curling the soft fibers of the duvet into his fists. He wants to close his eyes, but he can feel them burning, then swimming with moisture, and he knows if he clamps his eyelids shut, the tears will spill over and he doesn’t want to cry in front of Mr. Torley.

Instead, he stares up at the ceiling fan, focusing on the long, thin blades of wood instead of the feeling of cool air against his lower half as the material is pulled away from him. He hears the rustle of cloth as his pants join the discarded shirt on the carpet at his feet, and then another sound of the same, this time heavier, but he doesn’t dare look away from the grey clump of dust dangling from one of the fan blades above him.

Worse than the chill of the exposure is the heat that follows in the form of skin on skin, an immovable weight settling over his body. His throat jerks in another attempt at a sob, a plea that can’t let free. He swallows it down and tells himself that if he just keeps staring at that one spot of dust, he isn’t really here, that his keeper is not on top of him, that this isn’t about to happen to him. 

But he is. It is. There’s no stopping it now. There never was.

“Look at me.” 

For the first time, he allows his eyes to slip shut in a quiet moment of defeat - just a singular moment of hesitation before he follows the command. He feels the moisture slipping out at the corners but he can’t do anything to stop them even if his hands weren’t being slowly pressed above his head and into the mattress. When he opens his eyes, he looks up into the cold expression hovering over him, fully eclipsing the spot of his previous focus. It’s just him now. It’s all him, every one of his senses besieged by the one person whose life he is supposed to center himself around now. In that context, perhaps this should feel exactly right. 

Somehow, it doesn’t. Not at all.

[rangergurlgleek1211]

Title: why does it always happen to tk???

Fandom: 9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)

Relationships: Carlos Reyes/TK Strand, Tk Strand & Tommy Vega TK Strand & Original Character(s)

Characters: TK Strand,Carlos Reyes (9-1-1 Lone Star),Judd Ryder (9-1-1 Lone Star),Paul Strickland (9-1-1 Lone Star),Owen Strand,Tommy Vega (9-1-1 Lone Star),Original Male Character(s)

Additional Tags: Protective Firehouse 126 Crew,Hurt/Comfort,Protective Carlos Reyes (9-1-1 Lone Star),Hurt TK Strand,TK Strand Needs A Hug

Summary:

After a rough shift, all Tk wanted to do was chill out with his 126 family and spend some quality time with Carlos at their local bar. But his danger magnet had other plans.

Or

Tk needs saving once again, but who will save him when Carlos and the 126 family dont even realise Tk is in trouble.

Find here on A03

After a rough shift TK was enjoying his evening with his 126 family at their local honky-tonk bar. Laughing and drinking his mineral water. It had been a hard day and TK couldn't wait for Carlos to join them. He was looking forward to just being in Carlos arms.

Tk started thinking about his wonderful boyfriend , Picturing him in his hot Austin Police uniform from that very morning. Thinking about Carlos running his hands down his body, grabbing his backside and lifting him up, throwing him on to their bed. Before ravishing him from head to toe, making them both 5 minutes late for their shifts.

Oh it still feels weird to be thinking about their home. After the fire they were lucky to find a new place to live so quickly. After staying with his dad. He and Carlos agreed to start looking for a new home straight away. Mainly because his dad was being a nightmare to live with, always fretting over them both. They were lucky to find a lovely condo not too far away from both the firehouse and police station.

“TK, Hey bud you in there” Judd waved his hand in front of Tk face to get his attention.

“Huh.. sorry what were you saying” Tk replied looking at his audience, who burst out laughing at his face of confusion.

“Loverboy’s here, you can stop daydreaming now” TK shoved Judd, smiling before getting up to walk towards the bar. “Hey Baby” TK threw his arms around Carlos who pulled him close, Kissing his forehead. “Hey Tiger, how was your Day?” Carlos asked, taking his beer, putting his arm around TK and walking towards the rest of the 126 fire fam Table.

Judd Slapping a hand on Carlos' back replied before Tk had a chance too. “ Hey Man, Your boy here has had a rough day, worse than usual. Being the danger magnet he is”. Carlos looked over Tk with Concern, Raking his eyes over his Accident prone boyfriend's body. Now noticing the Bandages going up his left arm and the small laceration on his forehead.

“Baby what happened?, Why didn’t you call me?” Carlos pulled back, making sure he wasn't hurting TK more.

“Babe, Its nothing, Cap needed a Medic to come in on a warehouse call. Me being my usual self didn't watch where i was going. Tripped over some debris near the patient and fell. It’s just a few minor scratches and bruises” Tk tried to ease Carlos worries.

“That head wound doesn’t look minor Babe” Carlos carefully ran his fingers over Tk’s forehead.

“Dude you Blacked out for 2 minutes” Paul shouted over the music.

“Don’t Dude me, really you had to mention that” Glaring at Paul without any heat behind it.

“Baby you blacked out, have you been to the hospital?, you really should have called me!”.

“I said i was fine, tommy looked me over, she said I was lucky it wasn’t a concussion so i didn't go to the hospital, i hate that place.”

Carlos looked over to where tommy was standing with Owen who nodded her head after listening into Tk’s re telling of the days events.

“Kids gonna give me greys hairs” Tommy replied tapping Tk on his good shoulder as she walked by heading towards the bar.

Carlos turned back towards TK “Next time tiger, Text me or call me to let me know what happened, or better yet” Turning to The 126 Family “Will one of you make sure he calls me when something happens or better yet one of you if he doesn't. The heads up would be fantastic” Carlos shakes his head, frustrated with his accident prone boyfriend.

“Really, I’m going to get another drink” groans Tk before walking away and over to the bar.

“Can I get a mineral water please” Tk asks the bar tender. Getting a Curt nod before walking down the other end of the bar.

Tk turns around looking out into the packed bar. Watching his family smiling and laughing interacting with Carlos and a few other people who have just joined them from Carlos precinct. Tk smiled turning back to the bar paying and taking his water. “Thank you”.

Tk just pushed himself away from the bar when someone walked straight in front of him blocking his path. Shocked Tk stopped just before he walked into the man in front of him.

“Sorry have we met before, I feel like I’ve seen you before, the names Matt”

Shaking of the shock of almost colliding with the stranger in front of him. Tk realized the man was holding his hand out in front of him. Took his hand and shook it.

“It’s okay and I’m sorry I don’t think we have met before Matt. You might have seen me around Austin. I’m a paramedic and a firefighter.” Tk gave Matt a polite smile.

Tk looked at the man in front of him feeling self conscious under his gaze. Tk fidgeted with the bottle in his hand before glancing over to his table noticing everyone still chatting, not sensing Tk unease.

Tk not noticing matt undressing him with his eyes stepped a little closer into Tk's space. Matt had been watching Tk from a table near the door seeing him walk into the bar with his friends and noticing the man he was attached to at the bar when he arrived. Matt watched Tk interacting and when he saw him walk over to the bar alone thought now was his chance.

Not hearing Matt Talking to him, Tk interrupts “Sorry Matt, but I really need to get back to my table my boyfriends waiting for me”. Looking a little shocked at matts closeness Tk took a step back. Realising the predicament he’s now in, Tk tried to look for any kind of escape. Watching everyone around them having a good time, TK realised he needed to sort this out by himself, so TK moved around Matt to walk away from him.

Before TK could get very far though, Matt reached out and grabbed him by the wrist pulling him back. TK let out a yelp, surprised at the contact. Matt whispered into TK ear.

“Not so fast cutie, I wasn’t finished. Lets go for a walk!!!”

“I’m not going anywhere with you Arsehole!!”

“Now let me go!!!”

Matt started laughing, pulling TK ‘s arm, slowly moving them towards the bar door. TK looked around panicked as he struggled to get out of Matts grip. TK was losing hope the closer he got to the open door. Pulling back as hard as he could TK shouted again over the music.

“Let go of me, Get your Hands off me!!!” TK words suddenly became muffled as Matt covered his mouth with his other hand. Oh god this is it, I'm gonna die TK thought, not seeing a way out of this situation. Why isn't anyone helping me. A packed bar should see I'm in trouble. But no everyone keeps looking away from us as matt pulls me further towards the open door.

Just as Matt was about to pull TK out into the open air. People started walking through the open door, stopping matt in his tracks. Matt removed his hand from Tk face trying not to bring anymore attention to the new arrivals

Unbeknown to Matt, Tommy had walked through the door with the crowd of new arrivals probably needing some fresh air. Tommy assessed the situation in front of her before looking behind them. Waving at someone behind tk.

Tk knew that wave, it was a signal for help. Tk released the breath he was holding realising someone had finally noticed the trouble he was once again in. He was never gonna live this one down.

“ hey babe you okay?” Tommy spoke, startling Matt, not expecting someone to stop them. Matt in his shock gripped Tk’s wrist tighter. Electing a small gasp from TK.

“Everythings fine Darling, we were just going for a little walk. My friend here has had too much to drink”

Tommy raised her eyebrows at that lame excuse. Tk just looked at matt in shock, surprised at the stupidity.

Looking back over at Tommy she was starting to get angry, seeing her protective instincts kick in. Nobody messes with her family.

“ Let me rephrase that. Darling i suggest you let my dear friend here go”

“You and what army lady, i don't see anyone else coming to his rescue!!!”

“NOW THATS WHERE YOUR WRONG!!!!”

Matt froze on the spot at the sound behind him, loosening his hold on TK’s wrist.

“Now I suggest you let him go, before one of us does it for you!!”

Tk was relieved to hear a familiar voice, thankful that someone had come to his rescue.

Matt turned around to see Carlos, along with the rest of the 126 standing their ground. Arms crossed, but ready to fight if the need arose. Matt knew he was beat. Raising his hands in the air, releasing TK’s wrist. Matt stepped back towards the door, to make his escape, bolting before Carlos could even say his next word.

Carlos was so angry, without thinking he took a step forward about to follow the jerk who dared to lay hands on what was his. But Tk put his shaking hands on Carlos chest to stop him. Carlos took a deep breath coming out of his haze, looking down at TK who was slightly shaking after the ordeal. Carlos brought Tk to his chest giving him the comfort he knew he needed. And just like that the damn burst and Tk was sobbing into Carlos chest.

“Shhhhh baby, I've got you. Your safe. No one’s going to hurt you.”

“I was so scared, i tried to get out of his grip, he was just too strong, why does it always happen to me” Tk looked at his feet feeling ashamed.

“I just want to go home” Tk sounded defeated and Carlos hated how he sounded. So small and unsure of himself.

Carlos lifted TK chin with his fingers, looking Tk in the eye.

“You are the strongest person I know, even in a situation like that I knew you would find a way to get free eventually. Sometimes though you just need a little help” Carlos tried to reassure Tk as best he could.

“Let Tommy give you a look over and then Lets get you home” TK nodded letting Carlos pull him closer. Carlos arms making him feel safe and calm for the first time all day.

Tommy gave Tk a once over, informing them that he was fine, but to take it easy and get some rest after the day he has had. Tk’s eyes dropped shut for a few seconds before Carlos took him back into his arms to steady him. The events of the day finally caught up to him.

“Let's get you home babe” Carlos spoke softly, turning to wish everyone a good night. As he walked past, Owen Laid a hand on Carlos' shoulder. “Carlos look after my boy”

Tk could hear his father in the background, as Carlos nodded his head in acknowledgement. “Always” Carlos faintly said as he walked out the bar with Tk tucked into his arms. Taking an uber straight home. To the safety of their bedroom and each other's arms.

[hope-to-hell]

This is a little bit of a retelling of the collaboration I did with @brandycranby earlier, available here, in which sad!Walter calls a phone sex hotline. Sad and Lonely Boys. Unbelievably, no smut in this one. A little angst, a little mild peril, but mostly a sort of meet-cute.

Tagging @iwillmakeyoucraveme @its--fandom--darling @emyearns @indigosaurus @raspberrydreamclouds @summersong69 @wonderlandfandomkingdom @imneonpanda @october505 @seriouslygoodlookinggents @feralrunaway @hell1129-blog @takemeback-toparadise @ashleyskywalker @cavillryarchive @critfailroll @luclittlepond @devterra @eldarwen333 @davidbuddbg @sparklesmolwarriorprincess @brandycranby @littlewrenofrivia @infinite-shite @gissica

This isn’t a romance, not really. And it isn’t an adventure story, or a mystery. This is a story about lonely people. This is a story about you, and about Walter, and his voice in your ear.

This is a story about the job you took last spring, the one you can work from home, the one where you slip on your headset and take your mind someplace far away while your mouth lets out the most indecent moans, while you ask lonely men hey there, hot stuff. Can you guess what I’m wearing?

And it’s easy, it pays well and no one seems to care if you mean it, until this one guy. This fuckin guy. This Walter— although he doesn’t tell you his name at first, not til way down the line at the station, but that’s for later. At first he’s just a voice, the kind of accent that makes you sit up and take notice, rich and smooth and maybe just a little south of sober. He sounds like whiskey and low light, like smoke, like the dirty thoughts you shouldn't be having about him. He's a client, it'd be weird. It'd kinda be like your waiter sitting down to table with you. So you're definitely absolutely not touching yourself while you listen to him talk.

You get guys like him sometimes, lonely men who just want to hear a friendly voice. Guys who, for whatever reason, can't or won't go out to meet in person. And they're harmless, mostly. They just want to talk, to lay their troubles at your feet and hear you murmur soft encouragements at just the right moments. You could be anyone and they wouldn't care, as long as you were listening. But Walter-- Walter's a little different. He wants to hear you talk, for one. He speaks, hesitant at first, cutting off your steamy warmup spiel. No, nothing like that. I just. Can you just talk for a while? About anything. Tell me about what movies you like, what you had for breakfast. His voice is thick when you first pick up, like maybe he's close to tears. But he listens, and when he speaks next it's a little steadier.

Thanks. Take care of yourself.

It happens again, and again. Same day, same time, for weeks. You'll pick up the call and there he'll be, sometimes a little slurred and sometimes not, always sounding dark and smoky like sex on legs. And you've imagined what he might look like, but it's always changing. And he doesn't talk about himself much, but there are little bits and pieces here and there. He works a lot of nights, drinks too much coffee. You think about him holding you, think about more til you have to clamp down on those thoughts. He's a client. You'll never even meet the guy. Besides, it's unprofessional.

This is a story about Walter, who you haven't met yet. This is a story about you in the blue glow of your laptop, waiting for him to call. This is about that creep in the van across the street. You know, the guy who's been staring through your open curtains for an hour. No? You don't know? Well. Better hurry up and see him, because he's got a roll of duct tape on the passenger seat and a whole lot of tarps in back.

This is Walter's voice in your ear, Hey, it's good to hear-- wait. Something's wrong. Talk to me.

Someone outside, some guy. I'm scared.

Where are you? And it's probably stupid to keep talking; you should be calling the cops. But instead you're talking to phone guy, giving him your fucking address, and all the while he's low and soothing in your ear. It's okay. It's okay. Stay with me. Someone is coming to help. And someone does come. Lights and sirens roll down the block, and the creep in the van drives away in a hurry.

He's gone, thank god. He drove off and-- shit, hang on. Someone's at the door. I think it's the cops. And for a while it's statements and someone making tea in your kitchen, and at the end of it all someone leaves a card and says

Come by the precinct tomorrow. We'll talk a little more then, get a sketch of the guy if we can. Someone will be outside til morning. And when they're gone, so is phone guy, the absence of his voice a surprising ache.

This is a story about the next day, about you sitting in a hard plastic chair, half-hearing the murmur of voices through closed doors. Then the door opens and your heart is in your fucking throat because that's it, that's him. Phone guy. You'd know that voice anywhere, tight and strained. He's arguing with someone, arms crossed, and he is gorgeous, tall and thick and hairy, like an angry bear or-- or a guard dog. Something fierce and protective. Whatever you'd imagined, it wasn't this. This is better.

This is terrifying. And god, he sees it, doesn't he, that panicked expression, and his shoulders go up as his head goes down, trying to be small because-- oh god, no, no, it isn't you, it's just-- and now he knows. Now he's heard you, and he's backing away, turning, leaving. This is you and him, and the incipient bad idea that has you chasing after him, that has you crying please, stop, talk to me. For christ's sake talk to me. I don't even know your name.

This is some guy in a rumpled suit going don't mind Walter. He's been so tetchy today. God knows why.

This is you, at work, again. This is night after night of sad and lonely men, horny bastards, sweet things with love to spare. This is that little twinge of dissatisfaction every time it's not him, even though you know it never will be. Not now. Not that you know each other's faces. This is the sound of a call coming in, of a familiar voice down the line. This is him, awkward and strange, trying to apologize. And this is a choice you make, a leap you make off a ledge you didn't realize you were running toward.

Hey. You know I'd talk to you for free. Why don't you come on over and see me?

This is the longest pause in the history of long pauses, a moment stretching out into infinity while you wait for him to stammer out an excuse, or for the line to simply go dead.

And then.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Does now work for you? Does it ever.

Five minutes ago would work even better and that draws a little laugh, a breathy can't-believe-it chuckle, and then there's rustling, clinking, the sound of an engine; he's on the line and talking for once, low and breathless with a smile hidden somewhere in his voice.

This could be the part where he cuts off mid-sentence with a curse and a crunching sound and screams somewhere close by. It could be the part where you call his name over and over down the line, waiting to hear something, anything, from him. This could be a newspaper article about a homicide detective hurt or worse in a crash. It could be, but it isn't, because this is not that kind of story.

This is the kind of story with an ending that's really a beginning. It's the kind of story where Walter shows up on your doorstep with the phone still to his ear, hair wild like he's been raking a hand through it. And his soft, deep hey echoes and doubles through phone and headset and your naked ear; the sound is rich and rolling and you tell him please. Come in. This is the kind of story where you sit at the kitchen table and talk for hours, til the sky's growing light. This is about you and Walter, and the way your fingers brush when he lays his hand down next to yours.

[philliamwrites]

sunkissed

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Pairing: Albedo / Aether

Tags: #kissing, #morning softness, #fluff

Words: 1.6k

Summary: “Don’t,” Aether laughed, rising his shoulders to hide his skin from Albedo’s hungry mouth. “I’m stinky after yesterday’s battle.”

“No.” The tip of Albedo’s nose grazed his sensitive skin. “You smell like the sun. Always warm. As if the sun loves you. As if it wants to cling to you as long as possible.”

Notes: A birthday present for my lovely friend. This pairing just butters my biscuits, fam.

Also I'm still taking commissions for anyone interested! Just write me a dm!

Masterlist

sunkissed

»’cause you’re so lovely, you’re so lovely, i can’t help but fall for you, love when you love me, it’s so lovely loving you

    When Aether awoke, he was all alone.

    He opened his eyes in a sleepy daze, and as his hand reached out to his left, he found the crumbled sleeping roll empty and cold. Immediately, he startled fully awake as if struck by lightning, his mind clearing from sleep and dreams that tasted like ashes on his tongue.

    “Lumine?” he said out loud—the first name he remembered ever speaking, and the last he wanted to be his dying breath. But when usually his sister would come to his aid, trained to respond to the sound of his voice from childhood, to rise from bed when Aether cried, to run to help him when he fell down, now he was all alone inside the tiny tent.

    No. Not quite alone.

    It’s his first day in Teyvat all over again after he’d regained consciousness and called out for her, and had found Paimon in her stead, drifting in the ocean stretching before Starsnatch Cliff. Now, her little snores filled the suffocating quiet and coated his throbbing heart in a soothing balm labelled companionship.

    Aether thought that with time, missing Lumine would become easier to bear. That he’d simply grow dull and time numbed his feelings. Clearly, he was wrong, and Father Time was not that kind.

    He crawled outside the tent, quietly so he wouldn’t disturb Paimon, and emerged into the early sunlight winking through the tree crowns. Their little campfire from yesterday night had lost its battle and died hours ago, and Aether shuddered when a light breeze stirred its ashes into the air.

    That was when he spotted Albedo sitting at the top of a slope. He hadn’t noticed Aether waking up, his eyes fixed on the horizon where clouds had gathered in the east, and the rising sun lit them in brilliant shades of reds and corals and violets. His hand, holding a fine brush, danced across a canvas, trying to capture that ephemeral beauty with lithe fingers Aether knew were capable of much more than painting. His chest tightened when he thought of yesterday night. Their quiet voices and hushed whispers as they tried not to wake up Paimon even though all Aether had wanted to do was scream Albedo’s name when he finally came as Albedo’s rough thumb had grazed the tip of his member. Thankfully, Albedo was kind enough to swallow all of Aether’s moans and gasps, leaving his mind completely fogged and drunk on his kisses.

    Aether tried not to think too much of it as he went up the slope where Albedo sat, overlooking the vast valley stretching out under them.

    “Why didn’t you wake me up?” Aether asked. He stretched in the morning’s light, delighted by the early warmth and slight breeze on his skin. “I wanted to see the sunrise with you.”

    Albedo’s eyes drew lazily from his canvas to Aether’s waist, watching how his shirt rode up and revealed more of his skin without allowing his hand to stop once as the brush mixed reds and blues. “I tried. But you just drooled.”

    “That’s a lie.”

    A smile crept up Albedo’s face. “True. But you looked too lovely to wake up. Like you had a good dream,” he said so seriously, Aether felt heat rise to his cheeks. His arms dropped back to his side. He couldn’t handle Albedo’s honesty first thing in the morning.

    Albedo rose an eyebrow. “Am I wrong?”

    Aether did have a dream. A dream about Mondstadt’s Windblume Festival where all his friends had gathered around a table in Angel’s Share, and in the centre, like the sun holding its own universe, sat Lumine, beaming at him.

    “Happy birthday, brother,” she’d said, intertwining their fingers just like on the day they were born.

    “Happy birthday, sister,” he’d said, touching his forehead to hers just like during their days spent inside their mother’s womb.

    How much he longed to be with her again.

    Aether exhaled. He hadn’t realised he’d been holding his breath until that moment. Albedo must have heard him, for he raised his head and his gaze met Aether’s, and he wondered how much of the endless black hole that his grief cut into his heart Albedo could see.

    The corner of his mouth pulled up into a rueful smile. “No, you’re right,” Aether said. “I had a dream. A good dream, indeed.”

    Albedo stopped painting. His eyes were the colour of the ocean after a storm, clear and bright and deep enough for Aether to drown in them. He wanted it. Aether wanted to be swallowed whole. Become tiny, pocket-sized, perfectly fitting in Albedos’ palm and be devoured. Be completely consumed until nothing was left, and all of him belonged to Albedo only. What a wonderful mess that would be.

    Quickly turning his eyes away before he dropped to his knees and begged Albedo to take him right here and now in the open, Aether tried to douse his desire by gazing out at the sublime scenery. A flock of birds took flight from a nearby tree, their song echoing through the valley. Clouds drifted over their heads on their lazy journey over fields and rivers, taking unrecognisable shapes as they told stories about every place they’d seen. Aether envied them.

    “You know, in the world where I’m from, it’s always night,” he said. “Sure, it’s beautiful, we have so many more stars than you guys. And moons. But it’s the same. Wherever I looked, it was always the same. But this—” He waved his hand at the sky above them. “Your sky changes every day. It’s always different, the colours, the clouds. Dawn, dusk. I didn’t know words like that existed when I first came here. It’s beautiful.”

    Albedo followed Aether’s gaze, considering the landscape in front of them. But his eyes—suddenly ablaze, a roaring fire—drew back on Aether as he said, “It truly is beautiful.”

    Aether didn’t feel beautiful. He’s pretty sure his bed-hair was still sticking to all sides and his clothes were rumpled. But Albedo never failed in making him feel wanted, desired. Be that in the early morning hours without having his face washed or teeth brushed, or on the battle field with blood and grime spattered all over him.

    Just like now, Albedo was able to make Aether come undone with a single gaze of those piercing, ocean eyes.

    “Let’s go back before Paimon wakes up and throws a fit because she thinks we’ve left her,” he said and turned around before this would turn into an unholy, filthy ceremony out in the open not even the Archons should witness.

    Aether didn’t come very far. Halfway down, Albedo caught up to him and in a flash, seized Aether’s wrist. He pulled him to a nearby tree, and a second later, Aether felt rough bark against his back. Albedo closed the distance between them in one step. His hands cupped the back of Aether’s head, his mouth slanting down over his, hot and sweet as tea with honey. Aether ran his teeth lightly across Albedo’s bottom lip, and he made a guttural sound that raised the hairs along Aether’s arms. He pressed his body hard against Aether’s, lowering his head to kiss his throat, to lick and suck at the pulse point where he could feel the beating of his heart.

    “Don’t,” Aether laughed, rising his shoulders to hide his skin from Albedo’s hungry mouth. “I’m stinky after yesterday’s battle.”

    “No.” The tip of Albedo’s nose grazed his sensitive skin. “You smell like the sun. Always warm. As if the sun loves you. As if it wants to cling to you as long as possible.”

    Aether’s knees buckled. How could simple words like that make him forget his own name. In Albedo’s hands, he turned to clay, left at Albedo’s mercy for he was the potter and Aether would become anything to please him. Albedo’s fingers traced his curves, the dips and hollows of his body as if he were describing a painting in gilt and ivory with each rush of his hands. Aether raked his hands over Albedo’s body, trying to find purchase before he completely turned into a puddle and dissolved between Albedo’s fingers. His hands caught on the belt strung across Albedo’s chest, and they both halted for a second as they waited for a heartbeat that didn’t come.

    Albedo exhaled softly as he lowered his forehead to Aether’s. “If I had a heart, it would hurt for your burden.”

    “It’s fine,” Aether said. He took Albedo’s hand and put it over his own heart. “Mine is enough for both of us.”

    Albedo smiled. He pressed Aether’s knuckles to his lips, and murmured against his skin, “And what a magnificent heart it is.”

    Aether held onto Albedo so much, just a little more and they’d become one. It felt like they were the only two people on this earth, just the two of them off to see the world and all its wonders. Aether wouldn’t mind. He wouldn’t mind if tomorrow came and all of Teyvat’s people fell into an endless slumber, and eventually completely disappear. Until recently, Aether hadn’t know it was possible to love someone this much. That if the world were to end tomorrow—if Aether were to have just one wish before it would all end in darkness, it’d be to wake up to Albedo’s sunkissed face in a quiet place they called home, built with their own hands. If that wasn’t love in its truest form, then every fairy tale Lumine used to tell him was a lie, and it was up to Aether to write his own story in which he’d make sure to burn so bright by Albedo’s side that even stars envied them whenever they come together to create a whole new universe.

__________________________________________________

please drop by my ko-fi if you enjoyed my writing!

[anonymous0writer]

Lovesick II JJ Maybank

Author: @anonymous0writer​

Request: Yes! By the lovely @drew-starkey​

“i need some soft jj in my life. basically like jj had a fight with his dad and he comes to your house (you are john b's sister) and you just cuddle and lazily makeout and then john b walks in and is like eww i don't want to see my best friend and sister making out and you like throw a pillow at him to like get out and he just leaves chuckling cause he's happy for you guys. (im sorry this is long and boring and hard to understand, there's no rush. i love you mags)“

Warnings: nothing at all. maybe a swear word? SOFT JJ

A/N: Thank you ari!!! I love soft!jj with my whole heart omg. i need a soft jj in my life. what i really need is a bf but whatever im never gonna find love sjsjs anyways, this was fun!!

Tags: @jayjaymaebank @rudys-pankow @maaybanks@everydayimfangirling @outrbank @thelocalpogue @decap-quadrant @ahhireallydontknow @never-ever-too-many-fandoms@kylosleftbuttcheek @insanitysparkles @divcrdown @youfookendonut @dpaccione​ @outerbanksbro​  @jjs-housekeeping​ @teenwaywardasgardian​ @traumaflavouredjuulpod @magnuolia @sarapage89 @emsma11 @bxbyyyjocelyn​ @teamnick​ @jjmbanks​ @thesurfingsnail @lulubutton34​ @obxsummer​ @katiaw2​ @poguecollins​ @notaninstagrammodel​ @danicarosaline​ @timmyswrld​ @gmwlover100​ @koufaxx @bellaguarneri​ @diverrdown​ @drewswannabegirl​ @lordsagittarius​ @drew-starkey​ @mahleeyuh​ @starkeymarkey​ @mcarignan @copper-boom​ @jessica-112​ @alternativehp​ @obxmxybxnk​ @fangirlvoice​

(if your user is striked, that means i can’t tag you, message me and we can try to fix it!)

You mindlessly fiddle with the edge of the blanket, eyes watching the screen lazily. You huff, getting bored of the show flashing on the TV screen. You stand, stretching out, back cracking. You yawn, moving towards the small kitchen of your house. 

The fridge cracks open, sending a cool wave of chilled air over you. You shiver, only dressed in cut off and a shirt of your brothers. It’s one of John B.’s only non button ups and you claimed it for yourself. Normally, you’d wear one of your boyfriends, but he’d just gotten back your hoard of ones. 

You searched the fridge or a drink or food- anything. You spied a six pack of beer, and was tempted to grab one, but a sticky note stopped you. It was a bright yellow one stuck to the pack, hard to miss. And on it was your brother’s messy script. 

These are for tonight. Don’t even think about it

You huffed, and turned away, deciding to pick a different TV show. You flop on the couch, settling against the cushions. A creak and the sound of bones against wood stops you. You look up and meet the cobalt eyes of your boyfriend. 

“Oh my god JJ!” You whispered, you breath stolen from your lungs as you surveyed the boy before you.

JJ stood in front of you, his figure taking up the width of the doorway. His blue eyes were sad and angry. The boy’s lips were quirked into a frown, a cut slicing across his lip. Your boyfriend also supports nasty black eye. There is no doubt more damage lays beneath the surface, hidden but just as painful. You frown deeply, your insides twisting at the thought of your boyfriend getting beaten on.

“Come ‘er, baby.” You whisper, hand reaching for the boy as he moves toward you. JJ’s face contorts into a wince as he takes too big of a breath. Your heart wrenches, but you keep your face calm. He falls into your arms, and you hold him close. He lays his head on your chest, eyes closed and listening to your steady heart beat. JJ curls in your grip and grabs your hands, eyes trained on your fingers as he starts playing with yours. You giggle softly at the feeling but kiss his hair. You shift, getting more comfortable as you whisper sweet nothings in his ear. 

“You’re gonna be okay, yeah?” You reassure, pressing a kiss to his messy blonde hair, pulling your hands out of his grip to smooth his hair. 

JJ nods against your chest and then looks up at you. You grin at the sight. His blue eyes locked on your under the blanket of his lashes. A soft smile playing on his lips. Your heart swells at the sight of JJ’s sadness wiped away. He leans up to kiss your lips, a soft and welcome kiss. The surfer shifts so his face is buried in your neck. You raked your hands through his hair and mumbled sweet words to him, comforting him.

Soon enough, both of you are staring at the TV, sinking into the show. And somehow, the shows better with JJ on top of you. JJ leans over the edge of the couch, hands snatching the remote. He snuggles against you as he flips mindlessly through show options. You either hum in agreement or grunt in disapproval at the shows he glides over. The boy glances up at you, blue eyes soft. 

“What?” You giggle, a soft smile dancing across your lips.

“Nothin’.” He smirks and leans up to capture you in a kiss. 

You kiss back, desperate for the taste of his saccharine lips. JJ’s tongue glides over your lips as he crawls over you. He cages you in, making you smile against his lips. JJ rests his body against yours, pressing you to the couch as you make out. You moan slightly as his hands slide over your torso, slipping under your shirt to meet the hot skin of your stomach. Your hands grip his hair tightly, and JJ grunt against your lips. You breath his name as his face dips to the crook of your neck, allowing JJ to explore your skin with his lips. 

“Oh my god, JJ.” The words fall from your lips in a breathless moan as he sucks on your sweet spot. You fingers tighten in his hair.

But JJ doesn’t further his search, instead reattaching your lips. You kiss, soft moans and pants in between the needy kisses. You want to take the make out session to the bedroom, but you can’t bring yourself to move. Plus, lazily making out with your boyfriend isn’t bad at all. Especially when his lips are puffy and his eyes are lust blown and he’s whiny when you start to kiss his neck.

“Hey, Y/N- Oh my god!” 

A voice cuts through the heated kissing, and you pull away from JJ’s neck. JJ jumps and falls to the ground, a soft grunt and “fuck” emitting from his lips. 

“My god, John B.!” You roll your eyes at you brother how is holding groceries in his hands in the doorway. “Jesus, knock would you?!” 

“It’s my house, mind you,” The boy grins and gives you a pointed look. “But yeah, I’ll give you a ten minutes heads up because I do not want to see that.” He grumbles, fake gagging.

You scoff and chuck a pillow at your brother and it smacks him in the face. You flip him off when he glares at you. You turn toward your boyfriend, whos still on the floor. 

“You okay, J?” 

“Yep. Might’ve broke my butt, but yep, good.” His arm is thrown over his eyes so he uses the other to give you a thumbs up. 

You help the boy up, “You can’t break your butt, JJ. It’s called your tailbone.”

“Yeah, well, whatever it is, hurts.” He pouts. 

“That’s what you get for macking my sister in secret for a month!” John B. calls from the kitchen.

You roll your eyes again and snuggle to the boy next to you. You cup his face and pull his lips down to meet yours. JJ kisses you back fiercely, hands dropping to grip your hips. You moan lightly into his mouth as he pulls you onto his lap. 

“Ah, jesus guys!” John B. whines as he spots you two kissing again. “Can you go one second without making out?” He sits on the edge of the couch, “Just one fucking second.” He mutters.

“Fuck off!” You and JJ yell at the same time. 

However, your brother ignores your attempts to get him to leave you alone. He just settles into the couch next to you and looks at the TV. 

“What are we watching?” 

You shake your head and lean against JJ. You’ll get a moment alone later tonight.

[consumedkings-archive]

THE LAND OF GODS AND DEVILS, a sequel.

—part i.

word count: 6k

rating: m for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop, tags will be updated accordingly.

warnings: naughty language, massively canon-divergent, roman gets his own tag because he's a fucking nutso, canon-typical violence, established relationship that might not be the healthiest, age gap, domestic murder family. for this chapter in specific, roman likes to take things to the Extreme (i.e., "i'm going to fucking kms if you say this word one more time") but if you're here i imagine you know exactly what he's about.

notes: it's here! i know that most of my followers and friends on here are my friends through my far cry 5 content, but my return to the fic-writing world was inspired by my first longfic in a decade after watching birds of prey. you could say, perhaps, that i have a Type(TM), given that roman sionis lives rent free in my head forever and always. this is the sequel to my work carry your throne, though i like to think it's fairy user-friendly, especially once we really get into the thick of it.

special thank you goes to my beta and the loml, @starcrier; the first person to ever truly recognize varya for the wretched little beast that she is and love her anyway. thank you for being my beta and for loving my girl!

and, of course, another special thanks goes to @shallow-gravy, @vasiktomis, @faithchel, @tomexraider, and @belorage for being so supportive of my foray out of the far cry fandom and back into one that, in a way, brought me here in the first place!

summary: —by dread things, compelled.

roman sionis is the closest he has ever been to having everything that he wants; a perfect wife, a perfect family, a perfect international black-market arms dealing business signed over to him in its entirety. unfortunately for him, there are people in the world who would prefer to see him without, and that has never been a thing that roman has accepted for himself: being without.

(or: a fic wherein the devil spends his time rebuking sin.)

“If one more person says the word ‘chandelier’ in my presence,” Roman announced, drawing all eyes to him, “I'm going to blow my fucking brains out. Got it?”

There was a brief moment of silence that lapsed before the murmured acquiescence of the workers marked their return to their work. Blowing hot air from his mouth, Roman raked his fingers through his hair and turned back around to where Zsasz was watching him expectantly.

“What?” He demanded. “It’s my wife’s birthday.” Emphasis on the my, not the wife; it was not a favor Roman was doing for Varya, it was something he was doing for himself.

“V told them she wanted it.” Zsasz gestured to the offensive piece of lighting, which continued to haunt Roman’s waking and dreaming hours with its garish crystalline drippings and expensive bulbs. Ever since Varya had found out his fluctuating approval of the chandelier, it had been in and out of the Black Mask Club more times than he could count. Not that he needed to; he could very well put in or rip out a stupid fucking light fixture as many times as he wanted.

“Well.” Roman pulled a glass out from behind the bar, setting it on the top and dropping an ice cube into it. “She does so love to torture me.”

“It's just a—”

“Do you want my fucking guts on the floor, Zsasz? I mean it. Say the word and I’ll do it.”

The blonde regarded him drily. “No, boss.”

“Blood and guts everywhere.” Roman gestured widely with his free hand. “All over the floor. The bar top. You’ll have to clean it up. Maybe wipe down some of the bottles.”

“I won’t say it.”

“I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to get blood out of the carpet.”

Zsasz’s mouth quirked up in a smile. It said, without saying anything at all, no, you don’t. More agreeably, and with the flash of pearly whites and the capped tooth: “Sure.”

Roman poured well over what would have been considered the polite amount of expensive scotch into his glass, capping the bottle and setting it aside. It had been exactly twenty-four hours of making sure the club was perfectly polished and styled for Varya's birthday; though she was shrewd, she was so preoccupied with the twins and the lawyers and overseas business associates that she barely seemed to notice whatever was coming in and out of the Black Mask Club. He didn’t think she’d had a baby nor a phone out of her hands in over two days, and truthfully, it was starting to become tedious. Now that the twins were a little over a year old, they were supposed to be scheduling their honeymoon.

The delay of it hadn’t been a big deal, at the start. But everyday with you feels like my honeymoon, Varya had demurred months before the twins’ arrival, fluttering her lashes and gliding her fingers along the lapel of his jacket—and not even an hour after she’d curtly informed him that any more chatter, while she was nursing a headache, would be met with a swift and efficient extraction of his vocal cords by her own hands. Motherhood was supposed to have domesticated her, Roman thought, and had done the exact opposite; now, she was more assured of her status and power than ever.

So, yes; Varya had been busy, and he was almost certain she’d forgotten her own birthday. Never mind that everything had to be perfect. Never mind that it had to be immaculate. Never mind that Varya had deigned to order a brand new fucking chandelier from the same place they’d gotten one last time, knowing full well that he had made the executive decision to gut the fucking thing and get it out of his club.

“Tell you what, Zsasz,” Roman muttered, taking a swallow of the amber liquid in his glass, “don’t ever get fucking married. You want someone knowing all the shit that pushes your buttons all the time?”

“Maybe you just got a button pusher for a wife.”

Roman grimaced and took another swallow. It was true. “Fuck off.”

The blonde opened his mouth to say something else—and hadn’t he gotten confident in himself too, since Varya had become such a permanent fixture in their life, constantly goading and coercing him to voice his opinion on things, things that normally he would just defer to Roman on—when the doors to the stairwell and the elevator opened.

Eclipsing the doorway was Armazd, Varya’s hand-picked-from-the-batch-of-Russians-left-over-guard. Armazd had to be easily cresting six-foot-five, his dark beard neatly trimmed and peppered with silver, a scar breaking the color of his top lip. Roman had only ever seen the man swathed in dark clothes, like a fucking mourner on parade. His wife had been the one picked to be the twins' nanny, despite the fact that Roman felt like she barely did anything.

Also hand-picked. Thoroughly vetted. Interrogated for hours. No stone left unturned, when it came to Yuli and Ro.

“What are you doing down here?” Roman barked, coming around the side of the bar to make his way across the room. “You’re supposed to be going up and keeping—”

“She is coming down,” Armazd clarified. “In the elevator. Irina called to tell me.”

“Instead of stopping her?”

“She was—”

The elevator dinged in the hallway, and Roman quickly ducked around Armazd and closed the door into the club behind him. As soon as the doors slid open, he planted a smile on his face and closed the distance between himself and his wife.

Nobody would know, looking at Varya, that she not only barely utilized the nanny that they had furiously vetted and now paid handsomely, but that on top of juggling their twins she was actively in the process of getting a massive, international gun-running business signed over in his name. There was not a single hair out of place, not a single crease or rumple in the sapphire-blue silk of her blouse or skirt; the scent of her preferred jasmine perfume followed her like a cloud. She looked as put-together as the day he’d first seen her standing in his club.

And now, he desperately needed her to stay out of it.

“Kitten,” he greeted warmly, his hands—though gloved—immediately scratching the itch by reaching for her; they captured hers to carefully still her procession to the club’s main room. “What are you doing down here? I thought you’d be busy for hours.”

“Yuliana has been fussing nonstop,” Varya replied, her voice light despite what could only have been an expression of frustration quickly following, “all while I listen to grown men fussing nonstop at me on the phone.”

Roman feigned a sympathetic noise, bringing her hands up to his mouth to kiss them. “We have a nanny, V.”

“You know better than anyone else,” the brunette murmured, brushing her nose against his as their hands dropped, “that she is inconsolable without you.”

He tried not to look too pleased. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Don’t be modest, Romy.”

“Well, I’ll come up, of course.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “And console our princess.” Another kiss, to the other corner. “So that you can continue letting grown men fuss at you.”

She beamed at him prettily, and finally they met in the middle for a real kiss—nothing coy, nothing demure, but lingering warm and just between the two of them.

“I love you,” she purred. “Go on, then.”

And then Varya pulled away, as though to go around him and into the club, and Roman blinked rapidly. He had only just caught her around the waist before she could walk in and pulled her in a full one-eighty until she was facing the elevator again.

“What are you doing?” she asked, a laugh bubbling out of her. “I was just going to make myself a drink.”

“Encouraging productivity,” Roman replied, hitting the button for the elevator doors to open again. “Ready for all this paperwork to be done, aren’t you? It’s been over a year.”

A year of wading through mafia-esque bureaucracy. A year of listening to Varya say, these things take time. A busy year, to be sure, jam-packed full of things—the biggest wedding in Gotham since its founding, the twins.

A funeral.

Roman tried more and more every day not to think about his (now) brother-in-law’s funeral, the double burial of the only man that might have stood a chance at being loved by Varya more than Roman himself and the only man who had ever been anything like a father figure to her. Family is tedious, he’d wanted to say, brothers and fathers and mothers, the whole lot of them, cut them loose why don’t you? Why should anyone matter to you outside of the twins and I?

Varya glanced at him over her shoulder. “These things take time.”

He rolled his eyes. “Mhm.”

“Not to mention, we were a little busy,” she added, eyes narrowing playfully as he nudged her into the elevator, “you know—having children.”

“And what beautiful children they are.” Roman hit the button without looking, the doors sliding shut behind him.

“Well, how am I supposed to suffer through those phone calls without a stiff drink?”

He quirked a brow upward. “I’ll make you a stiff drink, Mrs. Sionis.”

The brunette propped herself up against the back rail of the elevator as it whirred into motion. The corner of her mouth, painted ruby, curved and her head tilted inquisitively. “Oh?”

“Of course,” he demurred, sidling forward and boxing her in against the wall. “I’ll make you a stiff drink—”

He dropped his head to the slope of her jaw to plant a kiss there.

“—you’ll finish up with the lawyers, and put on the dress I bought you—”

Varya hummed and sighed sweetly.

“—we’ll go out to dinner for your birthday—”

He dropped his hands to her hips, planting a kiss on her temple so that he could rumble, “And we can get to work on baby number three, hm?”

A sweet laugh billowed out of her just as the elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open to bring to Roman the oh-so-sweet sounds of a caterwauling infant. Over the distressed crying was Irina’s voice, shushing and cooing dulcet words in Russian; he could see her swaying to and fro with a swathe of fabric bundled in her arms.

“I almost forgot about my birthday,” Varya said thoughtfully, completely unrattled by the sound of their daughter’s distress. She stepped out from between him and the elevator wall; Roman fell into step beside her easily, the sound of her heels clipping against the floor enough to draw Irina’s eyes to them.

Roman said, “I know you did,” and did not bother to hide his smugness as he held out his arms for the shrieking baby in Irina’s arms. The redhead regarded him with a sort of weary amusement before she acquiesced; with Yuliana safely in his arms, he watched Varya cross the room to turn the automatic rocker that held their son back on to a slow, lulling pace. The freckled infant babbled happily—ever the quieter of the twins—and as Varya said something to Irina in Russian that inspired the woman to depart to the kitchen, she absently picked up a baby blanket from the couch and wandered over to him.

“Yuli,” she murmured, waving her finger at the already-content infant, tucking the blanket around her “is that all you wanted, hm? Just for your papa to hold you?”

“What else could she want for?” he replied confidently. Soothing Yuliana’s fury had become old-hat for him at this point. And, certainly, it pleased him to know that sometimes, the only thing that would make his daughter stop screaming was being held by him. Not even Varya—who had taken to motherhood like a fish to water—bothered when she was in a fit.

Still, the brunette sighed dreamily, her finger captured by their daughter’s tiny hand before she said, “What a perfect little gem.”

Roman hummed his agreement. “Finishing that call with the lawyers?”

“Perhaps tomorrow,” Varya replied. “They’re in a mood today.”

“They’re in a mood every day.” Russians, he thought venomously.

“Yes.” She smiled, flashing pearly teeth at him. “But only today is my birthday.”

She had him there. Still, he was itching for the whole thing to be done—Ilarion had dragged his feet through the process of even drawing up the original contract, which had only been a spit in his face (“You are the only person who gets to fuck Varya Astakhova, that is as exclusive as it gets”) and by the time all of that nasty business had been wrapped up, Ilarion was dead.

Ilarion, and Nikita—leaving only a single living soul to be in charge of the Astakhov empire: Varya herself.

Which, she had expressed time and time again, she had no desire for; not in the public way that her father had done it, and Ilarion after them. She much preferred the clerical work of it all. Paperwork and public relations. Let the men do men’s work, she’d demurred one night, tangled up in their sheets, when he’d asked her what she was going to do with it. I don’t mind. They like me better as their madonna, anyway.

“You know,” she continued, breaking him out of his thoughts as she made her way to the bar cart, pouring herself a drink, “they will like you more if it’s you they’re talking to.”

“I don’t give a fuck if they like me or not,” Roman replied, lifting Yuliana with both of his hands so that he could look at her. “Isn’t that right, princess? Mommy gets to do all the paperwork so that your papa can spend all of his time with you, instead of listening to some dumbfucks bitch and moan on the phone.” He glanced at her. “Well, anyway, since it’s your birthday we can let it slide.”

“Very generous of you.”

“Get dressed, won’t you?” he prompted, depositing his now-content daughter in the mobile swing with her brother. “The table’s been ready for us since noon.”

Varya watched him, dark eyes glittering amusedly. “And why, my darling, did you make the reservation for noon? It’s nearly six now.”

“Because,” he replied, “I wanted to make sure they held it, regardless of how long it took us to get there.”

“Ah.” She lifted her chin a little, lashes fluttering with contentment when he reached up and brushed the hair from her face. “Or else?”

Roman flashed her a grin.

“Or else.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

They held the table.

“Good for them,” Roman said as they followed the server out onto the balcony. The table had clearly been refreshed—a new candle, a new vase, a new bucket of ice and bottle of champagne. He’d heard the waitstaff whispering furiously among themselves as they idled in the lobby to be taken to their table; now, settled across from the birthday girl, Roman was content with the way they had squirmed.

“Quicker than the two-hour wait last time,” Varya noted by way of agreement, smoothing her hand along the edge of the tablecloth.

He scoffed. The only reason they had waited in the lobby for two hours was because Varya had asked him to stay for the table she wanted. If it had been his way, they would have left with a bloody warning and gone somewhere else. “I can’t believe I finally convinced you to leave the twins home for a night and we got stuck sitting in that fucking lobby because they gave our table away.”

“In my defense, they are good babies, Romy. Hardly ever cry. Certainly not too much trouble.”

“But there’s two of them,” he replied, “and toting two babies around is a lot of work. All I’m saying is, what’s the point of paying her that much fucking money if we’re just going to—”

The waiter came by the table, clearly a little stressed; the lines of concern on his face were clear as he cleared his throat and said, “Should I come back?”

Varya, perusing the menu: “No, my darling, you may stay. You were saying, Romy?”

“I just don’t know why we’re shoveling money into her bank account for her to be a glorified accent chair in our house rather than a nanny.” Roman gestured to the champagne bottle expectantly. “Open it.”

The waiter did as he asked, having been standing there uncomfortably for a moment during their exchange. As he worked to carefully open the champagne bottle, Roman turned his attention back to Varya; her eyes remained on the menu, absently twisting the engagement and wedding band on her finger back and forth.

There was no way, he thought, that she was putting off getting the business signed over to him on purpose. Surely, there was no way; even when Ilarion was alive, even when she had anticipated no further problems, it had always been, if you’re going to be my romantic partner, it seems only right you’d be my partner in business too, don’t you think? And yet—

And yet, Roman could not push down the strange, hazy doubt that occasionally flickered through his mind. He had always wanted Varya, had always found himself wanting and wanting and wanting more and more often, and Varya had always seemed content to indulge him. There was, it seemed, nothing she enjoyed more than indulging him. One more kiss, one more minute in bed, one more lingering glance across the room. She was the absolute pinacle of his hedonism, in every sense of the word, and had proven time and time again that she would give him anything that he wanted.

The business had always been for her and Ilarion. He wanted it, and told her he did, and she said, you can have it, if you like, but like in all things, there was a slyness about his wife—a cruelty—that he found endearing and dangerous. Dangerous, because it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d been on the other end of her cruel nature, playfully poking and unwinding and tugging the thread loose until she had pushed him to the limit.

Something echoed in his head, and he realized that the waiter was asking him what he wanted to eat. Varya had handed the menu over and steepled her fingers, watching him with dark, curious eyes and red painted lips, sooty lashes fluttering. A pretty, painted little snake.

“I’ll take whatever she’s having,” Roman said after a moment, setting his menu aside and returning his attention to the brunette across from him. “Something interesting, kitten?”

“Can I not just appreciate my husband?” Varya demurred. “You’re wearing the suit I like best, after all.”

“It is your birthday. What greater gift is there than me?”

She laughed, delighted by him—as she always was—and took a sip of her champagne. “You were away from me, for a moment.”

He watched her, gauging her carefully. Even I know not to drop my pants when a viper opens its mouth, Bianchi had said, just before Varya had unloaded six rounds into his face and chest less than two feet away from him.

“Just thinking,” is what Roman said finally.

“Hm. A dangerous past time.”

His expression flattened, deadpan. “It’s taken a significant chunk of time to secure your father’s business in my name.”

Something flickered across Varya’s expression. at the word father. “To secure my business,” Varya replied, her voice abrupt and cutting, her eyes narrowed, “in your name.” Absently, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She looked to be composing herself, like she’d spoken on a knee-jerk reaction rather than with thinking.

Then, glossy and silken again: “You know your patience means the world to me, Romy.”

There was nothing that he loved more than watching her pull back her venom for him. Drumming his fingers against the top of the table, Roman bridled his own irritation to say, mildly, “I’d do anything for you. Even wait...” He made a thoughtful noise. “Over a year to finally take on the responsiblities you wanted handed over to me.”

“Of course.” Varya smiled prettily, absently straightening out her silverware. “And we will speak no more of my father on my birthday, or any day after this.”

He knew what that meant. She phrased it pretty, wrapped it up in silk and velvet and presented it to him as unassuming as a doe, but he knew what that meant. There is my button, she was saying, there is my trip wire. Don’t push it, Roman. The name Nikita had all but been banned in their household, even when funeral arrangements were being made; any time he’d heard one of the lawyers mention her father’s name, there had been a sharp rebuke. Not in my presence, she would tell him later, I do not want to hear that fucking name in my presence.

“At any rate, there is nothing that I want more than for this whole process to be done,” she continued lightly, reaching across the table to take his hand. “It was always what I wanted, you know. Ilya was better suited to be a functional piece of the business; he was the face because he had to be, not because he wanted to be, and I am better suited for the nitpicking and the details. Being the overseer is much more in your circle of talents, Romy.”

Her words assauged something unsettled and prickly in him, the sweep of the pad of her thumb across the back of his hand returning that doubtful monster in his mind back to its slumber. He sighed.

“You’re right,” he acquiesced after a moment, “it is more in my circle of talents.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“I always got the impression Ilarion wasn’t happy with it,” he added. “Though you two certainly enjoyed making work of me that first night, didn’t you?”

Varya smiled demurely. “It was never meant to make work of you, only to make a good impression.”

“Hm,” he replied, eyes narrowing playfully, “but you enjoy pushing me, V.”

She looked pleased. She always did, when he remarked on something that felt like he was really seeing her, beneath the glossy veneer. His girl did so love being seen.

“Only,” V demurred, “because you so enjoy reining me in.”

“Guilty as charged.”

Roman brought her hand to his mouth, kissing the back of it before relinquishing it and glancing around. He would just have to exercise patience, of which he had the most; patience, modesty, and humility, all excellent qualities that he could participate in at will, at any given time. Without any restraint.

“Did the men get the chandelier installed?” Varya idled, snapping his attention back to her. He narrowed his eyes.

“I told you I didn’t want a chandelier anymore.”

She looked at him across the table, dark doe eyes wide and innocent. “I thought you liked how polished they make the club.”

“No, you little viper,” Roman replied, clicking his tongue, “Paolo has a chandelier in his club, and there’s no fucking way I’m going to have people comparing it.”

“Ah,” she murmured, “the drama of the chandelier goes on.”

“And while we’re at it, might as well gut that one from the estate, too.”

“There’s more than one chandelier in there.”

“Then the men will be busy, won’t they?” He tsked his tongue. “I know you dream about watching me blow my top, V, but I’m making an executive decision on gaudy light fixtures.”

A smile flashed across her expression, pearly teeth and delighted eyes. She sighed, almost dreamily, like there was nothing more that she liked than to be doing this exact thing, and with him.

“Oh, Romy,” the brunette said sweetly, “you are the only thing I dream about.” And then, almost as an after thought: “Gaudy light fixture terrorism included.” She waved her hand to dismiss any protest or rebuttal he might have given her and said, “Now, since it’s my birthday, tell me all of the things you love the most about me.”

Roman sucked his teeth, eyeing her for a moment as he leaned back in the chair. Wicked little thing, waiting to preen and glow under his attention, a feline seeking him out. Her little bout of cruelty before was already forgiven. He said, “We’re going to be here for a while, if I do that.”

“They held the table for over six hours,” Varya demurred, “I’m sure they’ll hold it for as many more as you need.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

By the time they got to the club, Varya was acting as though nothing had happened.

Truthfully, Roman preferred it that way. It just also left a lot of room to wonder—his wife was a talented actress, adept at smoothing his ruffled feathers out and not divulging her own feelings on the matter. And he wouldn’t ask, of course. If Varya wanted to express herself, she would, and had, quite openly in the past.

“I am so happy to be home,” she announced, gliding past the door to the club once Roman had opened it for her. “Do you think the babies are asleep, yet? I always miss putting them...”

Her voice trailed off, pausing a little as she seemed to realize that the club was cloaked in inky darkness, freezing just a few steps past the threshold. Roman let the door swing shut behind him, nudging her forward with a hand at the small of her back. He was met with some resistance; she steeled, stiffening against his insistence, before taking a few steps forward.

He said, barely keeping the delight out of his voice, “You’re holding up the line, V.”

“Roman,” Varya said, her voice pitched oddly soft and tight, “why—?”

The lights flashed on to a loud, unified cheer of Happy Birthday!; the club had been packed with vases of flowers, the tables donned with food and drink, and everyone worth their salt within a fifty-mile radius had made their way there. Not a single thing was out of place—everything exactly where he had instructed it be placed, and not a fucking chandelier in sight.

Roman came around in front of the brunette, grinning. “Happy—”

He stopped. Varya’s expression was not happy, or even surprised; it was something else, something that he couldn’t read, the pupils of her hot-whiskey eyes blown wide and the normally Renaissance-soft lines of her face sharpened and hardened into an expression that was more vicious.

“V?” he asked. Her eyes snapped to him, and for a second she looked the same way she had that night in the loft, her hands drenched in blood and the kitchen knife clutched in her fist with bodies at her feet: like she didn’t recognize him.

It took a heartbeat, but her expression smoothed out and she smiled, almost sheepish—like she’d been caught doing something naughty, instead of being caught being somewhere else. Someone else, more the wolf than the girl.

“The lights,” she explained, hands resting on his chest, “they startled me, is all.”

A frown creased his expression. He brought his hands up to hold her wrists, thumb pressed against her pulse point. It fluttered unsteadily. Unconvinced, Roman pressed, “The lights?”

“Just the lights,” Varya assured him. She tilted her head up and kissed him, one hand departing his jacket to go to the back of his neck—and when she kissed him, he could feel that strange little flicker of energy, like she’d been stamping something out before it could catch, but it still vibrated under her skin.

He opened his mouth to say something else, but she disentangled from him and swept around to the crowd of people waiting, beaming prettily and playing at bashfulness, as though she did not enjoy their eyes on her and did not soak their attention up like a flower did sunlight. Whatever had been plaguing her in that moment was now gone, and she was awash with attention and love, thanking people profusely and accepting each hug and cheek-kiss directed her way.

Roman brushed off the odd feeling that she wasn’t being as forthcoming with him as he would have preferred—no secrets anymore, isn’t that what they’d agreed on?—and instead waded into the crowd. Music kicked on overhead; chatter picked up to a warm humming around them; there was nothing else to think about except letting his girl enjoy her birthday celebration.

By the time Varya had made a suitable number of rounds (which tended to verge much higher than one, much to Roman’s chagrin—what tedious work, to share her with everyone else), she had barely sipped the glass of champagne someone had planted in her hand. She circled back to him eventually; like always, there was that pinprick tugging in the cavity of his chest, like they were bound by a single thread that kept them from parting too much and too quickly, and when she drew closer to him again it oozed relief, warm and vibrant, through his ribs.

“Sufficiently loved on?” he asked as she neared, hand reaching up to slide around her waist.

“By them? Certainly.” The brunette’s hand smoothed along his shoulder, the pad of her thumb gliding across the velvet of his jacket. “By you, though, not hardly. Not ever.”

“You are insatiable,” Roman agreed in a rumble. He splayed his fingers against the small of her back, tugging her in closer and brushing their noses together.

“Just for you,” Varya murmured, and the words brushed their lips together just a little—but everything with Varya, like this, felt like almost-kissing, enough to push him to some kind of edge where his stomach twisted and wrenched with want when she added, “And only for you.”

“You know I can’t resist you when you talk like that.”

She laughed, leaning in to set her glass to the side and curl her fingers into his shirt for a kiss; everything for a second felt normal, and good, and right again, the strange way she’d gone-away back in the doorway having disappeared, the dark cloud over her having cleared, her wretchedness from dinner dissipated.

And Roman kissed her, with the sound of the party chatter ringing in his ears, and kissed her with the faint taste of champagne flooding his senses when she parted her lips against his, and kissed her while his hand fisted the fabric of her dress and he managed out in a voice rough with want, “So you’re trying to rile me up.”

“I always,” Varya murmured against his mouth silkily, “want you riled, Romy.”

“Varya?”

A stranger’s voice filtered through the haze—the rose-colored one that usually accompanied Varya saying anything like she wanted him riled up—and Roman felt the irritation spike straight through it. He turned to look at the interruption at the same time that Varya did, only to find a young, handsome blonde standing just a foot away.

Varya said, sounding faint, “Maxim?”

“It has been a while,” the blonde said, and he sounded sheepish. “I called Armazd, asking after you—”

“Sorry,” Roman interjected briskly, fingers still curled—now possessively—into the fabric of Varya’s dress against the dip of her spine, “but who are you?”

His wife started to say, “Romy, this is—” at the same time that the man began, “I am sorry, my name—” and they both stopped at the same time, a strange little silence stretching between them.

“Maxim,” Varya said after a second, turning to look at Roman now. “This is Maxim. He is Artyem’s son.”

Roman stared at her, more to buy himself time than anything; she said the name like he was supposed to know who that was. Artyem, but it didn’t sound familiar. Almost any Russian name sounded like gibberish to him, and if Varya had said it to him, it had been in passing, an afterthought, nothing but a whisper of information passed between them before it was gone again.

Until it did. Until he remembered that the person Varya had thought was her father had actually been Artyem, that she’d poisoned him, let him bleed to death on the carpet while she had mentally checked out of the moment. That she had watched him die, but she had been somewhere else—someplace else, the way Ilarion had described it, very far away where she couldn’t even enjoy what she’d done fully.

And Maxim—golden, and polished, and clean-shaven—looked awfully pleasant for someone whose farther had choked to death on his own blood because of Varya.

“I see,” Roman said, even though he didn’t. His gaze turned to Maxim. “And you’ve—shown up without calling ahead?”

“I have been in Turkey,” Maxim explained, “finishing up some business, and I did not know how to get in touch—”

“Well, you spoke with Armazd, didn’t you?” Roman’s head tilted. “The man practically sleeps in our bed, I imagine he would have been happy to get you in contact with us.”

“Admittedly,” Maxim said, “I wanted it to be a surprise—”

No, Roman thought absently, venomously, that won’t do at all.

“—Varya’s birthday���”

“So you slunk in,” Roman elaborated tartly, “like a little street dog, hm?”

“Maxi,” Varya interjected, fingers absently tracing the stitching on Roman’s jacket, “why don’t you go get a drink and acquaint yourself with our friends? Armazd is just there—you see?”

Maxim’s eyes darted between her and Roman for a minute. He shifted on his feet, tilting and giving a little smile that might have liked abashed if Roman didn’t think he saw a little squirm of self-satisfaction in his gaze. Fucker.

“Of course,” the blonde replied after a moment. “C dnyom razhdyenyem, Varushka.” He took a step forward, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

Varya’s thumbnail dug into the lapel of Roman’s jacket. “Thank you, Maxi.”

Once the blonde had departed, linking up with Armazd in the crowd to get introduced, Roman straightened up from the bar. It was impossible not to stare at this newcomer—he glowed with an easy charisma, flashed bright smiles that were all teeth. Roman hated him already.

“Maxi?” he asked her, eyes narrowed, and Varya sighed. He waited for her to elaborate. Perhaps she’d say they had dated once, perhaps they were literally nothing. That would be ideal, after all. Ships passing in the night.

She said, “We grew up together.”

Even worse. Roman twisted a loose, dark curl of hers around his finger. “And you killed his father.”

“Well—” She paused, mouth pressing into a thin line. “He does not know.”

“He doesn’t—” The notion that she was keeping secrets, and not from him, coiled high and happy in his throat. He tried not to sound too delighted when he said, “V, surely he knows.”

“Surely he does not, that I did it. Only that it happened. And I will keep it that way,” she added firmly, picking up her champagne glass from the bar top. “Maxim was incredibly loyal to my father because Artyem was, but more than that—he was mine and Ilya’s friend. I’m sure he is missing Ilya almost as much as I am.”

“As we all are,” Roman agreed sagely, planting a kiss on her temple in spite of the dry look she gave him. It was hard to tell, to get a read on this Maxim. What was it he’d dragged himself out of the trenches for? Just to fly halfway across the world to wish Varya a happy birthday? Above all things, Roman understood that his wife was a desirable thing, and knowing that he kept her out of the reach of others was part of her appeal—but that much? Could someone who was just a friend want that much?

He continued, “So what is it that Maxim offers to the business, hm?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Varya demurred, which didn’t sound at all like the truth. “Artyem was the one who sent him out on jobs. My father kept things tight around the top, you know. If anyone would know what it was Maxim was up to in Turkey who wasn’t my father or Artyem, it would have been Ilarion.”

“I find it hard to believe you have no idea what your father was using someone for.”

The sound of delighted commentary drew both of their eyes away; Irina had come down, both dark-haired infants in her arms, and was walking them toward Varya and Roman. Murmured remarks on what could only be their cuteness passed throughout the crowd of party-goers.

“I am putting them down for bed,” Irina announced as she approached, “and I know you like to say goodnight.”

“Oh, you are an angel,” Varya murmured, glass set aside once again. She leaned in, pressing a kiss to baby Ro’s cheek. Yuliana babbled, and she sighed dreamily, “Have you ever seen more perfect babies, Roman?”

Perfect babies, a perfect wife; soon, he would even have the perfect grip on Gotham’s neck, throttling it until it was nothing but dust and ash. Soon, but not soon enough; he’d be content when it was just done and settled, when there was nothing else standing between him and everything that he wanted. Varya, and the guns—what an odd thing, to know that a year ago he’d set out for this and it was just falling into his lap.

“Romy?”

“Never,” Roman replied, smiling and glancing back at his wife, reaching and cradling the back of Yuli’s head. “I’ve never seen more perfect babies, V.”

Across the room, Maxim watched them. There was something about it that Roman didn’t like—the way his eyes flickered, the way he looked between the children and Varya, the way their eyes met and he didn’t deflect away. Like he didn’t mind getting caught. Where had he come from? What little shithole had he crawled out of, over a year after Nikita’s death and Ilarion’s death—longer, still, since his father’s death? Hadn’t he wondered what had happened to his father?

What are you doing here, he thought venomously, that you think you can just come in here like nothing? Like I won’t root you out like the little rat you are?

Maxim smiled. It was a polite smile, unassuming kind of smile.

Roman picked up his drink from the counter, taking a heavy swallow. Suddenly, the evening seemed to stretch out endlessly in front of him, no finish line in sight.

Nothing else standing between me and everything I want.

And he was going to keep it that way.

[firelxdykatara]

not gonna lie I would love to hear more about the drama and infighting that went on in The Vampire Diaries fandom if you have the time (and also want to use that time to give your experience with the fandom, which from the snippets you've told sounds Not Fun so I get it if you don't want to lol)

oh god, there was like, SO MUCH, i just

i really feel like tvd is one of those fandoms that is so hard to describe without a lot of ‘you’d have to have been there’, but it really felt like this huge and all-consuming beast for about five years until the show finally imploded and the fandom basically turned on it en masse. (you ever see that post going around that’s like ‘if you ever want to know what true regret feels like, ask someone who once called tvd their favorite show’? still a mood, all these years later. basically the entire fandom thought the show should have just bowed out with whatever shreds of dignity it had left at the end of season 6, and became more of a hatedom than a fandom for the last two seasons. when you have an entire fandom cheering news of your show’s cancellation, i think that’s a sign you done fucked up, julie.)

first and most infamous, of course, are the ship wars. which are pretty much inevitable in any teen-centered drama, and i really think the CW fucking thrives on them, but it was particularly egregious in TVD’s case because not only was the base premise of the show a love triangle, but the two main romantic leads were brothers that the show constantly pit against one another--in pursuit of elena’s affections, but also because it kept up this insistence on the ‘good brother/bad brother’ dichotomy which stopped making sense after about season 2 (by which time we have found out that the good brother was never as good as he appeared, and the bad brother has been growing and isn’t nearly as bad as he pretends to be)--and the question of which brother ‘deserved’ elena (and no, what elena wanted very rarely factored into these discussions, especially in the team stefan camp because they turned on her when what she wanted was no longer The Good Brother, but i’ll get to that in a bit) was hotly contested.

i’m not kidding when i say the shipping wars were vicious. i started watching tvd shortly after it began to air, which was late 2009, and kept up with it fairly sporadically over the years. i didn’t come onto tumblr until 2011/2012, and by then, the fandom was already pretty much a garbagefire. there were anti ship and anti character blogs, any time something bad happened for one ship the rival ship would invade the tags to gloat about it (seasons 3 and 4 were especially rough, and i’m not gonna pretend delena fans weren’t just as bad about tag invasion and shit, but as that was my side of the road i saw a lot more of the stelena shippers being assholes, which soured my opinion on the ship a long time before i started rewatching and realized the red flags were there from the start), confessions blogs were popular also toxic as fuck (so much fighting happened in the notes of those posts, good gods), and this was right around when twitter’s popularity was on the rise and the line between Celebrity and Fan was thinning, so the fandom was absolutely atrocious to much of the tvd cast and crew.

(some of them deserved a lot of the later backlash, but in the early years a lot of it was ‘how dare you write the story in a way i dont like, you terrible fucking person’, and gods don’t get me started on the dobsley vs nian Thing)

i think what really encapsulates my feelings on the tvd fandom as a whole, though, is the way they (to this DAY) treated elena gilbert, which can be summed up in one meme that gained a lot of traction around season 3 if i remember right: that gif of pam from true blood, with the text altered to read “i’m so OVER elena and her precious doppelganger vagina!”

i swear at one time i had over half the active tvd fan accounts on tumblr blocked, because i got to a point where i would no longer tolerate elena hate, and she was (and still is, in what remains of the fandom; you’ll see a lot of ‘elena was one of the worst things about the show’ takes from ex-fans, too) one of the most widely despised characters in the entire fandom. because she -checks smudged writing on hand- was a traumatized teenage girl who -reads off a crumpled notecard- couldn’t always perfectly sort out her own feelings and -squints at the ceiling- sometimes made mistakes or bad decisions. (except a lot of the fandom also insisted that she was a mary sue who had no character traits or flaws or faults and it was like....make up your fucking minds???? is she a calculating conniving bitch whose somehow manipulating these centuries old vampires to tie them around her little finger or is she a boring flat character with no depth and no flaws??? jfc)

there was this massive double standard, too--like, stefan and damon could fuck whoever they wanted and that was fine, but elena was constantly raked over the coals for the crime of developing romantic feelings for the two men who had become constants in her life and whom she cared for deeply, and oh my GOD the slut shaming that happened when elena slept with damon was fucking wild. (and also happened in canon lmfao. like the show had one of elena’s best friends basically call her diseased on screen for falling in love with someone other than stefan. it was gross and ridiculous and the friend in question was also being a giant hypocrite at the time since she was happily flirting with someone who was directly responsible for the deaths of like four of elena’s loved ones and her own boyfriend’s mother but that’s beside the point) but like elena was called a slut and a bitch and a whore for ‘cheating’ on stefan (she hadn’t, and she had in fact broken up with him on screen the episode earlier) and ‘immediately’ jumping into bed with damon, even though none of them said fucking boo when stefan had one night stands or damon had fuckbuddies or whatever.

shit, caroline didn’t get any of this treatment when she started falling for tyler while dating matt! which isn’t to say i think she should have, just that i think it’s fucking ridiculous that elena was absolutely demonized by the fandom for daring to have feelings for two guys at once and eventually acting on them--despite the fact that the entire premise of the show was a love triangle. it’s not a love triangle if both sides don’t eventually get explored, and the crew had been pretty explicit about the fact that delena was going to happen at some point--but when it did, a huge chunk of the fandom absolutely threw a fit.

and a lot of these elena haters were alleged stelena stans, and i say alleged because they hated her so much for not wanting stefan’s dick anymore that it was clear they were really stefan stans and only wanted stelena to be endgame because they wanted stefan to ‘win’ at the end of the day, because ‘he’s the good brother’ so he deserved elena more.

it was all very gross and very misogynistic and very sex shaming (apparently delena was a ‘shallow’ and ‘superficial’ relationship because they had sex after two years of unrequited feelings slowly becoming requited and then pining for ages on both sides, and because they had a lot of on screen chemistry that the show capitalized on for years so of course they did a lot of making out and shit but it’s not like stelena didn’t have its fair share of making out and sex scenes, stefan was just too much of a coward to let elena top i’d apologize for that joke but i’m really not sorry because it’s true), and when i say it was egged on by the crew, that’s because they refused to let the love triangle die back in season 4 when it should have.

they insisted on stringing stelena fans along, dropping little bread crumbs to keep them invested, like dreams of a future where they were married and revealing that stefan was also a doppelganger and he and elena were descended from a pair of star-crossed lovers (a plot that ultimately went nowhere, to no one’s great surprise), and then fucking like. julie plec turned around and threw nina under the bus after she chose not to extend her contract and pretended that stelena might have happened again if she hadn’t left the show, which....i mean frankly i wouldn’t put it past her, but it would have been shitty writing. then again, she thought having a vampire pregnancy where a uterus was magically transplanted from a witch into a vampire that could somehow......carry the babies to term.... made sense and was a good way to accomodate candice’s RL pregnancy rather than like literally ANYTHING else, soooooo. but anyway julie saying that around like, end of s6 sparked off a new wave of nina hate and elena hate and ship wars bc they SEers took it as ‘confirmation’ that stelena was REALLY meant to be endgame and it was all just a hot fucking mess

another thing is that, while tvd was in its prime before the anti/purity culture shit started picking up any real steam, there was still this pervasive attitude throughout the fandom that if you liked Damon, you were A Bad Person. liking damon was apparently grounds for insults and harassment, and apparently he was The Worst Person on the Show even though literally nothing he does on screen is any worse than shit we know stefan has done (and frankly every other vampire too, but i mention stefan specifically because he was always held up--in the show but especially in the fandom--as the Good Brother while damon was the Bad One, and if you liked damon more then that had to mean your morals were dodgy and you clearly couldn’t appreciate what a heroic and saintly figure dear stefan was and....oops, i’m sorry, my salt keeps leaking -cough-).

meanwhile klaus quickly became a fandom darling despite not even really having much of a redemption arc (on tvd anyway, he just became more ‘affably evil’ as the show went on and more inclined to work with the main characters rather than try to kill them; i have no idea what went on over on his show, though), and like i can 100% appreciate liking villains and not caring that they do dodgy villainous shit, even just liking them bc they’re hot and wanting them to kiss a main character bc they have insanely good chemistry (yes i ship klaroline, no i won’t apologize for it, they could have been Really Great), it’s just really the double standard that gets me.

and all of this, incidentally, required ignoring some truly gross shit stefan was responsible for wrt his relationship with elena, that frankly it has always bothered me never really got addressed in the show. i get why elena herself would never be able to actually call him on it, but the fact is that he stalked her for months after he first saw her and thought she was katherine (meanwhile it only took damon .5 seconds to realize she was someone else entirely, but that’s another topic entirely), and then he deliberately inserted himself into her life because, in his words, ‘i have to know her’. he never gave a thought to how his presence in her life might affect her (or rather, he did, and tormented himself about it in his internal monologue, but never let this actually dissuade him from disrupting her life), and elena would wind up blaming herself for every tragedy that befell her friends and loved ones as a result of getting mixed up in vampire bullshit even though none of it was her fault--she literally blamed herself for existing but most of the fandom didn’t give a fuck about that lmfao--and stefan did shit like find out that she was adopted and then withhold this information from her until she got pissed about another secret he was keeping (her resemblence to katherine) and drop it on her to try and distract her from her very reasonable anger, and like... i should stop before this becomes a whole rant about how much i hate stefan fucking salvatore, but the point is, he did a lot of really sketchy shit he never answered for and elena never really took him to task for, and the fandom just kept eating up his insistence that he was the Good Brother and therefore he deserved to have elena, and if she didn’t want him anymore it was because she was a heinous bitch who didn’t deserve him.

uh.....i think i got off track there. and there’s probably a lot of shit i missed, like i think i was incandescent with rage for most of seasons 5 and 6 so i missed a lot of the interfandom shit cause i was too busy being increasingly pissed off at the show itself, but if nothing else this should give you an idea of how much of a goddamn cesspit the fandom was while the show as in its prime. there’s a reason both the show and the fandom have such a lousy reputation lmfao.

[ikevamp-shrine]

To Love A Van Gogh: Chapter 1

Author: @ikevamp-shrine

Fandom: Ikemen Vampire

Pairing: Theo x MC (Juliet)

Tags: Sex, dirty talk, nudity, mentions of throw up, mentions of possible pregnancy, swearing

Word Count: 2040

Editors: @stardust-dreamer13 and @littlecinnamonroll (thank you two so much)

Preview:

        The wet slapping of skin resonated through the morning air, mixing with the soft moans slipping past her red, swollen lips. Their bodies were caught in a lustful dance of passion; their hands tracing the curves and dips of the others’ skin, memorizing each detail. Firm lips planted searing hot, opened mouth kisses along the thick tendon of her neck; her face turning away to allow her lover more space to paint his colors in the form of fiery love bites.

      Quick puffs of air floated over Theo’s shoulder as his arms wound around her slick torso. The trembling of her legs against the straining muscles of his thighs brought a shaky smirk to his lips. Shifting his knees further under her rear, Theo whimpered at the heat gripping his cock. Her walls clenched around his member as he thrusted in and out; each movement causing a lewd squelch to sound. His voice was deep and thick with overwhelming pleasure, “mijn schatje…."

        The wet slapping of skin resonated through the morning air, mixing with the soft moans slipping past her red, swollen lips. Their bodies were caught in a lustful dance of passion; their hands tracing the curves and dips of the others’ skin, memorizing each detail. Firm lips planted searing hot, opened mouth kisses along the thick tendon of her neck; her face turning away to allow her lover more space to paint his colors in the form of fiery love bites.

        Quick puffs of air floated over Theo’s shoulder as his arms wound around her slick torso. The trembling of her legs against the straining muscles of his thighs brought a shaky smirk to his lips. Shifting his knees further under her rear, Theo whimpered at the heat gripping his cock. Her walls clenched around his member as he thrusted in and out; each movement causing a lewd squelch to sound. His voice was deep and thick with overwhelming pleasure, “mijn schatje…."

        He groaned into her open mouth, their tongues fighting for dominance. Their teeth clashing as her nails raked down the flexing planes of his back.

        “Damn it- you’re going to… drive me insane.”

        A shiver slid over Juliet's body. Electricity shot over her scalp, tumbling over the curve of her spine, splashing in waves down her legs, firing like lightning strikes from her curling toes.

        Theo’s hips snapped wildly against her plush skin, his breath quickening at the almost feral moans and yelps of pleasure slithering into his ear as the woman wrapped tightly in his embrace tiptoed the edge of ecstasy. His back stung, his manhood throbbing with so much pressure it felt as if his skin would split. Theo could still taste the sweet delicacy of her cum on his tongue, his fangs drawing patterns along the junction of her neck, forcing a mewl from the shivering woman. Theo felt as if he was burning from the inside out; thumping sounded as his forceful thrusts shook the bed.

        “Come on- come for me, show me how well I fuck you- show me how good I make you feel,” growled Theo, the sound of his husky voice swollen with a grating rasp made her dig her nails into his hips, imprinting crescent moons into his flushed flesh. His lips parted as his jaw went slack, shuddering breaths escaping the warm caverns of his mouth.

        “Theo,” she panted. A clench, a shaky moan, the fluttering of lashes, and she dived deep into the merciless sea of pleasure. The waves crashed over her writhing form as her soft breasts bounced. The vampire once again whimpered at the heat engulfing his form as his head snapped back, her fingers tugging insistently at the caramel tuffs of his hair. She gripped his cock with determination, the thick appendage disappearing deep within her walls as stormy blue eyes rolled shut, his jaw tensing with each rough thrust.

        Theo’s chest pressed firmly against his lover’s, the rubbing of their nipples adding to the sensation; his stomach coiled, showcasing every ripple of muscle as he followed the path she drew, pointing straight towards the sea he willingly threw himself into.

        Collapsing on his side, the vampire drew in his dazed lover, her body molding into the ridges of his own as he planted quick kisses along her forehead. A breathless chuckle escaped his lips, “That was a wonderful way to wake me up, hondje.”

        Juliet matched his laugh, remembering the sleepy moans that emitted from the man when she had slipped his cock into her warmth as he slept a few moments before. He had shot up, wrapping her in his arms and flipping their positions to where he could thrust deeply into her as she clawed wildly at his back once she had started to reach a climax.

        “I think we need to take a bath,” she continued, rubbing a soothing hand over his shoulders and red marked back.

        “Such a greedy little hondje.”

        His teases tickled her ear. Theo, wrapping Juliet in the comforter and tugging some pants on, slipped his arms under her body; the familiar weight and warmth of her limbs relaxing in his protective hold.

….

        The water was warm and fragrant, resembling the earthy freshness of roses and lavender; the scent brought a calming aura that surrounded the couple slowly floating in the steaming liquid. Theo’s fingers slipped through her long hair, the conditioner he had lathered onto the strands ridding her of any tangles. His chest was smooth against her back, his knees surprisingly comfortable as he supported her weight. While her mind was still spinning from their escapades, her heart beat with nervousness.

        She swallowed thickly, “Theo?”

        He hummed in response, his fingers lightly massaging her shoulders. He had always been so caring after he made her scream his name during passionate moments of lust, which had confused Juliet at the beginning, but now she found solace in his gentle touches and delicate kisses. Juliet opened her mouth only to shut it quickly and bite her lip.

        “What is it hondje? Are you hungry for some kibble?” Theo murmured, his nose tracing the curve of her neck. Her stomach growled in response drawing a huff from the female and a reverberating, content chuckle from the male.

        “Did you ever have children?”

        Theo froze at Juliet’s wavering tone, the euphoric emotions he had been feeling slowly dripping away, only to be replaced with something resembling regret, before answering in a controlled voice, “I had a son.”

        “Will you tell me about him?”

        He pulled away from his lover, sending a bittersweet pang through her heart at his actions. His brow was furrowed, lips pulled taut, stormy blue eyes finding purchase in the gentle lapping of waves against the marble flooring of the bath. Theo’s jaw clenched as he struggled to find his next words, “I couldn’t really tell you all that much about him. I had put more time into my work than I did into my relationship with my wife and son.” Juliet’s heart throbbed painfully as he continued. “He was a good boy- I know that much; had my work ethic too. He wasn’t all that interested in art, but he did enjoy architecture.”

        Theo sighed, glancing back at Juliet who had eyes so much like the stars, so full of wonder and beauty it made Theo swallow a lump in his throat.

        Theo growled with frustration, “I would be able to tell you more if I wasn’t such a shitty father and husband back then." Roughly running a hand through his damp caramel tresses, Theo turned around, placing his elbows down on the floor, resting a heavy head in his hands. He couldn’t look at her; he felt as if he didn't deserve to look at the woman he fell so hopelessly in love with. Regret and shame ran rampant through Theo, even if his outward appearance remained even-tempered.

        Staring at the pinkish, puckered scar on the Dutch man’s back, Juliet sighed, sliding her arms around Theo’s waist and placing a kiss between his tense shoulder blades. She didn't know what to say. 

        Theo’s voice startled her out of her tranquility, “why are you asking?”

        Her question was muffled by his skin, “if you had the chance to try again, would you take it?”

        Theo turned around once more, pushing Juliet away gently so his hands could rest on her shoulders. His chest squeezed at the tears brimming in her eyes, his brows pulling together as he observed his lover under trained eyes. He studied her nervous fidgeting and worried - slightly hopeless - expression like he would a piece of art waiting to be appraised. His heart beat wildly as he considered her thoughts.

        “I’m only going to ask you this once, so listen very close hondje… are you asking because you’re being nosy or because you're pregnant?” A tear slipped down her cheek, dripping off her chin and into the water.

        Theo wiped away the wet trail left by the salty substance. His lungs felt like they were in the grasp of a vengeful hand, the digits ridding the art dealer of the ability to take in oxygen. He stared at the way Juliet’s jaw clenched, her chin twitching with emotion, her lashes fluttering. She glanced off to the side, her voice tight with worry and nervousness, “I think- I don’t know. I haven’t had my period in a while, and I’ve thrown up in the morning three days in a row, and I keep having headaches, and weird cravings, and my boobs are sore, and-.”

        Theo interrupted her rapid ramblings, his own voice slightly frustrated, “you’ve thrown up? Why didn’t you tell me? You do realize I’m supposed to take care of you, correct? After all, you are still a pup.”

        “Are you serious? I’m telling you I think I’m pregnant and you’re still making dog comments- great, that’s just great.”

        A boisterous laugh echoed around the room as Theo tugged a squirming Juliet back into his arms.

        “Let me go!”

        “Hondje,” called Theo, his voice so soft it honestly shocked Juliet to the bone, “look at me.”

        She continued to struggle, her stubbornness being her only motivator, until her body went limp in his arms and her tear-filled eyes reluctantly met his own tender colored orbs. His palms were warm against the sticky skin of her cheek.

        “We will be okay. We’re not sure if you are pregnant yet, so stop worrying about something that might not happen,” Theo continued deeply, his voice sending shivers down her spine, the ending syllables rolling like thunder clouds before a storm: tranquil, low, and mystifying.

        “You’re one to talk.”

        “Haha- whatever. I will schedule an appointment with the local doctor in town and we can go together. Will you stop being so pathetic now?”

        Though his words were harsh and slightly sarcastic, Juliet knew he didn’t mean it. She nodded, curling into his tight embrace as he once more supported her weight.

        “You didn’t answer my question,” she mumbled, her hand smoothing over the curve of his chest to feel his heart thump beneath the muscle.

        “Which one?”

        “If you had the chance to try again would you? I’m asking if you want children, you dimwit.”

        “Careful now Hondje, I will still punish you.”

        Her lips were soft against his own as Theo traced a promise filled kiss on her mouth, his hands sliding up her spine to bring her body closer, their foreheads touching gently as he whispered, “it would be my greatest honor to have a family with you."

        Giddiness bubbled inside of Theo as the mental image of a babbling baby, so similar to the woman wrapped tightly in his arms, squealing and kicking at the air in excitement slithered through his mind. He thought of how Juliet would look with a full belly, her skin flushed with a glowing blush, her cheeks plump with healthy weight from pregnancy. He continued, a soft smile slowly tugging at his lips, "to see our little pups running around, causing havoc, and pissing off the other residents would honestly be hilarious. Stop with this unnecessary fretting.”

        Juliet huffed, letting her head fall heavy against his warm, wet chest as Theo stared at the top of her scalp, his deep breaths calming her racing heart. She had been worried- terrified even, that he would have turned away and closed himself off from her. As to why was a question she couldn’t have spoken the answer, for she had no solid reasoning for her uncertainty. If there was one thing Theo had proven was his loyalty to those he held close to his heart. He had always been there for her in the form of letters of ‘good mornings’ and ‘be dressed in a few hours- I’m taking you out’, as well as the golden bracelet now shining brightly on her wrist under the natural lighting of the bath. Even when he, himself, was miles away, Theo was always close to her. With her mind settled and pulse lulled in a gentle beating, Juliet smiled at the warmth her van Gogh emitted as he supported not only her body, but mind, heart, passions, and future.

SHOTS MATERLISTS

MASTERLIST

ABCs SMUT MASTERLIST

[merryfortune]

Beneath the Weather

Written for 100ships on Dreamwidth

Prompt 66: Grey

Ship: Respectfulshipping | Ryoken/Spectre

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

Word Count: 1,794

Rating: T

Warnings: No Warnings Apply

Tags: Fluff, Whump, Sickfic

   In this sort of grey and dreary weather, it was easy to feel beneath it.

   But Spectre was not going to allow himself to feel anything more than inch outside of his usual self. He had a fussy personality, he didn’t mind nurturing his hobbies or his beloved. Actually, if anything, he thoroughly enjoyed micromanaging his plants and, of course, Ryoken too but he hated to be taken care of. It elicited a vulnerability that made him extremely uncomfortable. After all, the only kindness and affection that he had ever felt genuinely had been robbed of him very early as a child.

   Thus, he would very much prefer to toil through his bout of under the weatherness. He wasn’t even going to entertain it by calling it some sickness or illness. Even if it was a day off from activities as a cyber criminal operating with the Knights of Hanoi, he still had a long list of chores and other things to do. 

   He wasn’t going to let the gloomy weather outside stop him nor his little sniffles that were bothering him. It was barely anything at all. So long as he kept rugged up, perhaps a little more than usual, he ought to be fine. He would simply sweat it out tending to his indoor plants, the outdoor ones would be fine in the vague precipitation, so long it didn’t turn foul and tumultuous. It would all be perfectly fine.

   And yet, despite having the utmost conviction, Spectre still succumbed to whatever it was which was dredging up the worst tiredness inside of him.

   He stirred, irritated that he had fallen asleep at all, and he realised something. There was a soft blanket laid over him and the more confused he became, the more confusing things he realised. He was propped up on his side; he usually slept on his back. Now that he thought about it, he did not recall putting himself to sleep and this pillow that he was using was very peculiar as well. For lack of a better word, it was bony but not necessarily uncomfortable.

   “Welcome back to the land of the living.” Ryoken teased him.

   All grogginess that Spectre felt evaporated immediately. His eyes went wide and his face went bright red. He had been asleep. In Ryoken’s lap. And for goodness knows how long. The humiliation was instantaneous and more than enough to bring upon another dizzy spell. Spectre’s head spun and he collapsed back down into Ryoken’s lap.

   “Oh, you poor thing, try not to move too much.” Ryoken murmured, looking up from his book and lazily putting it away with just one hand.

   He pet the top of Spectre’s head and Spectre’s eyes squeezed shut. On one hand, he very much did not want this but on the other, he very much did. His compromise was to pretend that neither of them existed but that did little to quell the undeniable - and soothing - sensation of having Ryoken play with his hair. His fingers were very gentle, deftly raking through the thick strands of Spectre’s grey hair, all clumped together with sweat.

   Spectre moaned to himself and then feebly asked, “What happened? I don’t remember the last… half an hour or so at all.”

   “I would imagine so,” Ryoken agreed, “you’ve been out cold for at least two hours.”

   “Two hours?!” Spectre exclaimed, only to sound like he was running out of air to breathe, his voice twisting and murmuring.

   “Yes, two hours.” Ryoken confirmed. “You were passing through from the kitchen, perhaps on your way to your bedroom, perhaps not when you stumbled and luckily, I noticed. I was able to catch you before you fell, mid-faint, and drag you to the lounge where we’ve been ever since. It’s been pleasant. You're cute when you snore.”

   “I do not snore.” Spectre denied, red hot.

   “It made for very nice white noise as I read. I managed to get through half of my novel.” Ryoken made small talk.

   He paused and his hand roved down to the side of Spectre’s face. Spectre recoiled, Ryoken’s hands were freezing to him but it was nice. Cooling. Ryoken then checked Spectre’s forehead. He hummed thoughtfully.

   “You're still burning up…” he mused.

   “I - I feel awful.” Spectre murmured. 

   He took a deep breath and tried to get up. Ryoken allowed it, rescinding his hand from Spectre’s head, but he was worried for Spectre as he was entirely ungraceful as he propped himself up to sit up straight. Or at least, straight-ish. He sat somewhat slumped and slanted. Exhaustion dripped off him no differently than sweat. He breathed heavily, raggedly.

   “Do you want some help?” Ryoken asked quietly.

   “Not particularly,” Spectre admitted, “but… in this case. I could use some assistance.”

   Internally, Spectre fumed. He was not the one who was supposed to need assistance. He was the one who provided it. Day in, day out: he provided for Ryoken in all sorts of ways. He was very much the glue that kept their routines and schedules together. He was very much not used to leaning on others for support, mostly because he felt as though he couldn’t or had no one to, but Ryoken was very much not no one. He was rather special to Spectre.

   Ryoken smiled tenderly. He got up and he offered his hand to Spectre. Spectre gingerly accepted it so Ryoken held onto him tightly. Spectre’s grip was weak and how he hobbled along, even with Ryoken’s aide, was even worse. He ambled along like a newborn fawn, determined not to fall but if he was, he was absolutely going to take Ryoken down with him.

   Thankfully, Spectre’s room was on the ground floor of the mansion so with enough patience, they were able to get in and Ryoken put Spectre to bed. Ryoken tossed Spectre a bed shirt that he could wear that was probably more loose than the button-up shirt that he was already wearing. Spectre wanted to insist that he was fine but he knew that would be a battle that he would lose, so he didn’t bother fighting it. Whilst he got changed siting down in his bed, Ryoken drew his curtains across. The sudden darkness in the already dim room was a load off, Spectre had to admit. When he was changed, he handed his shirt back to Ryoken who put in the nearby laundry basket and turned his gaze, soft, back onto Spectre.

   “Do you need anything?” Ryoken asked. “Aside from painkillers and water, I’ll bring you some in a sec but is there anything else you might like?”

   Spectre hesitated, “I’m kind of hungry…” he murmured.

   “I know, I’ll warm you up some of yesterday’s tomato soup and bring it as well.”

   “That’s an awful lot to carry.” Spectre worriedly pointed out.

   “I’ll be fine.” Ryoken said. “Besides, I know you would go above and beyond for me so this is the least I can do.”

   “Then can I be selfish and ask for a heat pack too? It's weird, I’m hot and cold at the same time.” Spectre added on. He shivered for emphasis but it wasn’t on purpose, he looked too clammy and pale for it to have been on purpose.

   “Absolutely. You're not being selfish at all.” Ryoken said.

   With that, Ryoken left to go and raid the kitchen for the various supplies and comforts that Spectre needed. He smiled to himself and finally in his own bed, Spectre did feel more obliged to try to recover but even so, he didn’t feel able to relax. He had this terrible headache and more, he just wanted to escape from it all, even if it was momentarily. He receded down into his sheets and doona, pulling them up and over himself and whilst he enjoyed the comfort of his cocoon, his whole body still felt like he was in agony. 

   The pain that he felt was amorphous and moving. Vague, just blobs of hurt, inside of him and yet, it was enough to rate incredibly high on his pain scale. His stomach growled. Tomato soup was sounding very nice right about now and he strained his ears. He could hear the microwave buzzing and whirring, and Ryoken’s footsteps. It shouldn’t be long at all now and against his will, Spectre’s eyelids fluttered, getting very heavy and he drifted off to sleep for a moment, or at least something akin.

   That was, until, his door opened and disturbed him. Spectre roused from his nap and Ryoken looked sorry for it. He stepped inside slowly and made his way back to Spectre, giving him plenty of time to wriggle back up and rearrange his pillows so he could sit up.

   “Here, drink this and take these first, hopefully they’ll help.” Ryoken said.

   Spectre’s fingers were shakier than he thought they would be but he managed to accept the glass of water regardless. He took a sip and then Ryoken gave him the pills to take. He swallowed them without issue then set aside his glass on his bedside table. Ryoken lowered the tray so Spectre wouldn’t burn either himself or his doona with the hot bottom of the bowl of tomato soup.

   “Thank you, Ryoken…” Spectre murmured.

   Ryoken smiled, “I know you're just having lunch now so its probably too early to think about dinner but well, do you want me to order takeout later? Your favourite, of course, or whatever you want.”

   “That sounds rather nice, actually.” Spectre replied as he stirred his soup before blowing on a spoonful.

   “Great,” Ryoken said, “well, I’ll leave you be. You probably want some peace and quiet.” He wasn’t quite mumbling but he was close.

   “I don’t mind but thank you.” Spectre said. He drank a spoonful of his soup and rather demurely, his gaze flicked back to Ryoken and he managed to utter out, “I love you, I appreciate your doting.”

   “I love you, too,” Ryoken told him, drawing in closer, unable to resist, and he pecked the middle of Spectre’s warm, damp forehead, “get well soon.”

   “I promise.” Spectre murmured, his heart raced in his chest and he could feel himself getting dizzy again but he suspected that this instance was unrelated to his previous instances.

   With that, Ryoken gave him some more privacy with the promise to drop in on him later so he could pick up the used bowl and cutlery. Spectre didn’t mind so long as he was quiet. Though, quiet was something of a misnomer. The vague precipitation that had clouded and meandered with the grey of the poor weather had finally become something else. A gentle rain that tapped on his window as he ate and rested, feeling entirely loved and doted upon.

[idreamofplaid]

Christmas Present

Square Filled: Standing Sex

Characters: Dean x Reader; Rowena; Linda (OFC)

Rating: Mature

Tags: Voyeurism

Summary: Dean has reached a point in his life where something has to change.

Word Count: 1568

Created for @spnkinkbingo

A/N: This is Part 2 of Dean’s Christmas Carol. Read Part 1 Christmas Past.

The smell of brewing coffee filled the bunker’s kitchen while Dean rummaged through the refrigerator searching for something he could make for breakfast. With any luck, there would still be some bacon. He deserved some bright spot in his Christmas morning. After last night, he needed it even more than usual. 

Dean was not a stranger to troubling dreams, but last night’s dream brought things back to his mind that he had been careful to lock away. Allowing himself too many feelings would hinder his ability to do what his job required of him. Once, when he was young, he had played with the idea that maybe he could have more than a shotgun filled with salt rounds and an EMF meter. Sam had done it, he’d claimed a life for himself by leaving it all behind. That wasn’t in Dean. He knew hunting was deeply entrenched in his blood; it was just part of him, but maybe he could balance it with a life outside of hunting somehow.

Y/N had represented that life, but he had been naive to think that was possible. The first monster that came sniffing around seeking revenge made it unquestionably clear to Dean that Y/N was in danger as long as he was near her, so he left. He had made some lame excuse about his “job” being so demanding on his time that he couldn’t give her what she deserved. That much was true at least. The life he could have given her was in no way what she deserved.

He resumed his search for bacon and tried to push the thoughts of her away again. Yahtzee! There it was, hiding behind a pile of Sam’s salad vegetables. At least there would be something redeeming about this morning. Fortune must be smiling on him today because there were eggs too.

Dean set about cooking his Christmas breakfast. He cracked two eggs in a pan and started to stir them around then poured himself a cup of coffee while he waited for the eggs to firm up.Once they did, he added a couple strips of bacon to the pan. The satisfying sizzle of the bacon was a comforting sound to Dean’s ears. It was a familiar constant in his life. 

With eggs and bacon piled on his plate, Dean turned to make his way to the table. He was never the kind of person to scare easily, and at this point it was almost impossible to startle him; but the sight of Rowena sitting at his table came close. He finished chewing his bite of bacon and swallowed it. “Where’s Sam?”

Rowena brought her well manicured hand to her face and leaned on it. “Oh, he’s still in bed I would imagine.” She smiled knowingly. “Dear boy needs his rest.” 

Dean waved his hand. “Alright. Enough. I don’t need the details.” He sat down across from her with his breakfast. “Why are you here? Don’t you want to spend Christmas with Sam?” Dean was still growing accustomed to their relationship, but he thought he was doing a pretty admirable job of accepting it. Hell, he’d even be happy for Sam if this was what he wanted and Rowena could give it to him. 

Rowena lowered her hand and sat back. “Always so subtle.” She smiled and slowly blinked her eyes with a flip of her lashes. “I’ll get back to Sam soon enough. There’s just a little bit of business I need to take care of first.”

“That business is here?” Rowena gave Dean an affirmative dip of her head. “Go on. I’m listening.”

“Well, it seems you’re doing your best to try and dismiss your journey last night.”  Dean felt a stab of uncertainty shoot through him, and he focused on keeping his feelings out of his expression; but that didn’t work with Rowena. Damn witch powers. “Oh, it was real alright. You went to the past.”

Dean couldn’t even say that was impossible. His experience had taught him that basically everything was possible. That meant Bobby had really been here, or at least his ghost or whatever had been. He looked back to Rowena. He wanted answers, and maybe she had them. “What do you know about that?”

She glanced down nonchalantly at her fingertip running over the surface of the tabletop. “It seems you’re at a crossroads in your life, Dean.” She looked up to meet his eyes. “Not a literal one, of course, you’ve done enough of that. You’ve reached a place where you must make a decision, and I’ve been called upon to help you do it.”

Dean scoffed at that idea. “Yeah, right. And who’s going to call on you? I doubt God would have called on you even before he was a dick.” Dean remembered he was talking to his brother’s girlfriend and quickly settled down. “No offense.”

“None taken darling.” Rowena stood; her gaze was locked on Dean. “The universe has mysteries none of us understand yet, and something did indeed call upon me; thus here I am. I have been charged with showing you your life...as it is now.” She walked around the table and extended her hand to Dean. “Take it.” Dean put his hand in hers, and the bunker once again disappeared. 

This time he stood outside a rundown motel with Rowena. The door was a burnt orange color that hadn’t been fashionable since the seventies and the gold numbers on it read 117. Dean knew this place and time. It was last week, and this was where he’d brought the redhead from the bar. 

Rowena made a move toward the door and put a hand on the knob. Dean lunged for her, and put his hand on her arm. “What are you doing?”

Rowena rolled her eyes in her exaggerated way then smiled sweetly at Dean. “Going inside of course.”

He stammered, “But...but…” 

She laughed, amusement evident in her voice. “Have you gotten shy all of a sudden, Dean?”

He pulled his hand back. His expression was one of indignant confusion.  “No.”

Rowena tossed her head and turned the knob. “Good. Now come inside.”

Dean stepped through the door straight into a porno, and he was the star. The girl, Linda? Lisa? Laura? He couldn’t remember. She was against the wall; Dean’s mouth was on her neck, and the sounds she was making were loud enough that Dean wondered how he hadn’t heard them outside. 

Linda, he was going to call her that for convenience, was tearing off his jacket and his shirts. She raked her nails down his chest, and Dean watched himself lift his head. “You’re a fiery one. I like.”

Rowena cut her eyes to Dean. “Really?”

Dean didn’t respond. He was too distracted, and it wasn’t in an arousing way. The memory of last night was still fresh in his mind. He remembered the way Y/N had sounded, and it was nothing like this. The way she had said his name made his stomach draw tight and flutter with the anticipation of something better than good sex. This girl probably didn’t know his name, the same way he didn’t know hers.

Under different circumstances, watching a hot woman wrap her legs around him while he pounded her against the wall would have turned him on; but he wanted to hear Y/N, wanted to taste her, feel her, only her. This just made it perfectly and painfully clear he’d lost her. 

“Fuck!” Bar girl Linda screamed when she came. Dean watched himself rut up into her until he filled the condom he was wearing. Then he watched himself take it off and dump it into the trash can while she took off her clothes. They met at the bed and climbed on to start round two.

Dean said nothing, but Rowena wasn’t so quiet. “Ah, Dean. You’re very talented it seems.” She tried unsuccessfully to suppress a smirk. “Must run in the family.”

Dean turned away from what he was seeing and glared at Rowena. “Okay. That’s enough. Can we just go please?”

Rowena feigned innocence. “What’s the matter, dear? Didn’t you enjoy yourself? Certainly looks like you’re having a good time.”

Dean gritted his teeth. “It was fine. Time to leave.”

Rowena looked at Dean, her eyes penetrating to the heart of him. “Not fulfilling then?” She tapped his arm with her finger. “That’s the real problem isn’t it? This isn’t enough for you anymore. Your liasons have lost their sparkle.” She closed her arm around his. “Come along then.”

Dean closed his eyes, and when he opened them he was back in the bunker. Rowena was straightening her dress; the carton of eggs was still on the counter where he’d left them. Everything seemed normal, but there was nothing normal about this. A pain had been resurrected in his heart that he’d buried a long time ago. “Are you alright, darlin’?” 

Dean walked to the table, scooped up his uneaten breakfast, and took it to the sink.  “I don’t want to talk about it.” 

Rowena lifted her chin and smoothed her hair. “Very well then. It’s time I returned to Samuel.” Dean heard her, but everything sounded hollow. He stared at the plate in his hands and put it down on the counter. “Heed what’s happened, Dean.” Without another word she disappeared, leaving Dean with his cold bacon and eggs.

Everything Forever: @gambitwinchester @princessmisery666 @onethirstyunicorn @peridottea91 @logical-princey @emilyshurley @beenlovingromansincedayoneish @fangirlxwritesx67 @waywardbaby @atc74 @ledzeppelinsbonzo @shaniquacynthia @mariekoukie6661 @tumbler-tidbits @67-chevy-baby @fandom-princess-forevermore @terrarium-jpeg @emoryhemsworth @crashdevlin @heycasbutt @jules-1999 @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester @cosicas-cuquis @sammyimpala-67 @queenoftheunderdark @dean-winchesters-bacon @mrs-meghan-winchester @sweetness47 @timelordy-fangirl2 @hobby27 @awesomesusiebstuff @kickingitwithkirk @gh0stgurl @becs-bunker @sandlee44 @supernaturalgrandma @lonewolf471 @sea040561​ @dawnie1988​ @maddiepants​ @volleyballer519​ @outcastedangel​ @iknowwheremytowelis​ @kdfrqqg​ @lizette50​ @daisymoder72​ @sorenmarie87​ @oldfreakything​

Dean/Jensen Love: @deansyahtzee​ @flamencodiva​ @deanwinchesterswitch​ @waywardrose13​ @feelmyroarrrr​ @winchesterxfamilybusiness​ @focusonspn​ @akshi8278​ @ladywinchester1967​ @sgarrett49​ @wingedcatninja​ @coffee-obsessed-writer​ @adoptdontshoppets​ @team-free-will-you-idjiot​ @ellewritesfix05​ 

Dean’s Christmas Carol: @moron225​

[tsarisfanfiction]

For A Brother

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Angst/Hurt/Comfort Characters: Virgil, Scott, Kayo, John

When it came to protecting family, there were no limits. (Companion piece to Divided, United, although hopefully written so that knowledge of that fic isn’t required.)

Another @badthingshappenbingo​​​ this time with the square “Arm in a Sling” - featuring Virgil (as requested by @fictivekaleidoscope​).

I’m still taking prompts for non-Scott TAG characters for the other squares!  I have at least one character per prompt for most of them now, but I’m always up for adding more (sometimes it’s that addition that gives me the spark I need!)

Virgil whistled a merry little tune – something of his own composition, and maybe he’d tease it out on a piano later – as he jogged down the sidewalk, dodging various other pedestrians with coffee in his hands and a bag of apple Danish buns to go with them, because they’d been right there and he knew Scott wouldn’t complain.  Far from it, with the day he’d been having. His biggest brother always despised these meetings, hated anything to do with slimy investors, but it was those slimy investors that kept Tracy Industries going, and without that, they wouldn’t earn enough to throw into IR.  A necessary evil, but that didn’t mean Virgil couldn’t make it a little bit better with his brother’s favourite pastries.

The coffee shop wasn’t far from the office.  Virgil stood out quite a bit in the district, wearing flannel and jeans while everyone else wore suits, but under the shadow of Tracy Industries, Scott was unmistakable and everyone would be intercepting him, whether it be to try and arrange a meeting or for an autograph session.  Virgil, for all his casual appearance, flew under the radar far more easily.

He got the feeling something was wrong when he rounded the corner away from the main thoroughfare onto the street that would take him to their little private space and realised the security that should have been there – that he’d had a ten second exchange with when leaving not ten minutes earlier – was gone.  Instantly alert, he picked up the pace and called Kayo.

“TI security’s disappeared from around the back,” he told her, forgoing greetings.

“Get inside the building. I’m on my way,” she responded instantly, but he shook his head.

“Scott’s in the courtyard.”

“Virgil-”  The courtyard came into view and anything she was saying was immediately drowned out by the sight of five masked individuals all attacking his brother.  Virgil didn’t hesitate, coffee and pastries discarded and forgotten instantly as he dived to his brother’s aid, pushing, kicking and jabbing at the assailants.

They had guns, and like Scott behind him, Virgil focused on dealing with those.  Kayo, Gordon and even Scott himself had trained them all in disarming people of volatile weapons, but there were five of them and Virgil-

Virgil messed up.

One of them had two guns; they drew the second with shaking hands the moment Virgil knocked the first one away, and he was too slow to recover, too slow to knock the second gun away before there was the click of the trigger pulling back and the bang of the gunpowder igniting.

The gun wasn’t even facing Virgil, but Virgil had long since made it a habit to clock where Scott was, his big brother’s presence unmistakable even when he couldn’t see him, and the gun wasn’t facing Virgil but it was facing Scott and Scott’s back was turned. His body was moving even before he finished processing the information, instincts slamming him into Scott, knocking him to the ground but out of the path of the bullet.

It tore through his shoulder, white hot and agonising, and Virgil was no stranger to pain but this hurt and his body refused to respond, collapsing down onto the ground beside Scott.  Blood was everywhere, an overpowering stench in his nose and metallic taste in the air. He couldn’t move, couldn’t even shift his hand to try and stem the flow as his vision darkened and blurred.  It hurt, it burned and Scott he had to help Scott but he couldn’t move.

He barely heard the scuffle next to him, but he heard the words that chilled him to the bone.

“Target acquired.”

Scott!  With a scream of pain, he clawed himself up on his elbows, head heavy and the world spinning, just enough to see the limp form of his brother roughly thrown over one of their attackers’ shoulders.  No!

“What about the other one?”

A boot slammed into his shoulder, and white-hot pain lanced through him, his vision going a blinding white as he screamed again and crumpled back to the ground.

“We don’t need him.”

Footsteps walked away, and his vision blinked into focus just long enough to see the back of Scott’s head, limp and lolling with the walking motion of the one carrying him, before the world swirled and went black.

His eyes snapped open and he launched himself upright, crying, “Scott!”

There was no answer. He blinked a couple of times, slowly gathering his senses, and realised that he was in a whitewashed room – hospital – with his arm strapped up in a sling and flannel jacket nowhere in sight.  Scott nowhere in sight.

Kayo was there, half concealed in the shadows but jaw set and eyes flashing dangerously.  His sister looked nothing short of furious, bloodstains on her uniform adding to the image, and Virgil didn’t need to be told.

Scott was missing.

“Why are you here?” It wasn’t supposed to come out like an accusation, but it did anyway.  Why was she here, watching him sleep when Scott had been taken right out from under their noses?  Why wasn’t she hunting him down, that broiling fury behind her eyes channelled into making whoever attacked them, whoever took Scott, pay?

She pushed away from the wall and approached him, her movements soft despite the steel threaded through her and the inferno in her eyes.  “Doing my job.”

“So where’s Scott?” He winced even as he said it, aware that his sister would be taking the slip in security very, very personally.

“John’s tracking him,” she said, perching on the edge of the bed and raking him over with eyes briefly shuttered with an overlay of concern, pushing back the fury for a moment.  “We have a location and the GDF are mobilising.”

Already?  Virgil wasn’t complaining but it felt too easy.  Unless… “How long was I out?”

“You called me just under two hours ago,” Kayo told him.  “Either they’re sloppy or it’s a trap, but the locator signal from Scott’s comm is still broadcasting.”  That screamed trap to Virgil, and he agreed that he’d rather the GDF walk into that than Kayo.  They’d already lost Scott; Virgil refused to lose any more family.

Still, he couldn’t sit here and do nothing.  His left arm was in a sling, strapped up to immobilise his shoulder, and he was definitely on painkillers because the fiery burn of being shot was more or less gone.  He’d pulled off rescues in worse condition.

Kayo’s hand on his good shoulder was the only thing that stopped him storming out of the room immediately. She might not be able to physically restrain him, but she had other ways of getting her way and Virgil knew it would waste both their time if he pushed her.

“The location,” he demanded, and Kayo’s eyes flashed with supressed irritation.

“John won’t tell me.” Virgil gaped.  John hadn’t-?  Kayo was their head of security.  If anyone had a right to that information then it was Kayo.  What was his brother doing?

It was a question he didn’t need to ask.  John was being Scott, was pulling on the mantle of overprotective big brother in Scott’s absence.  If Kayo didn’t know then she couldn’t jump into danger and would have to stay with Virgil, fulfilling her role as his security.  If Kayo knew, her responsibilities would be torn – or Virgil would go with her, invited or not.

Well, if John was going to shut off that avenue, Virgil would find another.  “What do they want?  How much?” The problem with being rich was that people wanted their money and would resort to underhanded tactics to get it. All of them had been thoroughly drilled in ransoms and how to handle them since the Tracy name became a household one.  There would be clues there.  Virgil and Kayo could-

“We haven’t received a ransom.”

His brain screeched to a halt.  “What?”

Kayo huffed, and the fire in her eyes leapt higher, burned hotter.  “We haven’t received any communications at all.  No demands for money, technology or anything else.”  His sister was furious but there was an undercurrent of fear fuelling the ire.  Virgil understood.  If it wasn’t money, it was something else, and Scott knew a lot of things.  More than Virgil did, and he’d heard them say we don’t need him.

If it was money, they’d have been better suited targeting someone else – him – to force Scott, the one with the most money, to pay up.  If it was something less materialistic…

Virgil remembered Bereznik, the all-consuming dread that they’d lost yet another member of their family and the state Scott had been in when he’d finally, finally come home.

No.  Not again.

“How long until the GDF move in?” he asked.

“Two hours.”  Pretty quick, for the GDF to get involved in a kidnapping case.  Virgil assumed Colonel Casey was directly involved and cracking the whip.  Their godmother was viciously protective of all of them, but thanks to her position could rarely act on those feelings.  A Tracy issue rather than International Rescue, however, and she could definitely crank up the pressure.

Still, another two hours of sitting around and waiting to know if Scott was with his comm, not knowing what condition he was in, what his captors were doing…  Virgil didn’t like that.  Not one bit.  From her tone and the stormy eyes, nor did Kayo.  Virgil cursed John’s overprotectiveness, but was well aware that he’d have done exactly the same if it was Gordon or Alan.

But he trusted John. John wouldn’t do anything to increase the risk of something happening to Scott, even if that meant begrudgingly drawing his younger brothers into the firing line.

“So what are we going to do?” he asked Kayo, who immediately focused on his shoulder and the sling immobilising it.  She was conflicted, torn between his safety and her screaming instincts to find Scott. He could see it in the way she fiddled with her comm, not quite calling John to demand more information but clearly tempted, while eyeing his obvious injury.

John suddenly appeared, even though Virgil hadn’t seen her put through a call.  From the blink of surprise, she hadn’t.  That meant…

“Virgil!  Good to see you awake.”  His brother managed a smile, relief settling over his features in a way that was totally at odds with the situation.  “How’s the shoulder?”

“Fine,” Virgil grunted. “Scott?”

“Good news and bad news,” John told them both.  “We’re dealing with idiots.”

“How so?” Virgil asked, but Kayo got in before him.

“You’ve verified Scott’s at the location?”

“Better.”  There was a twisted look on his face that might have been a smile if he didn’t also look so worried.  “Scott’s comm is still working.  I’m on the line with him right now.”

That… that was too good to be true.  Far too good to be true.

“How is he?”  Virgil didn’t remember if he’d taken any injuries in the fight, didn’t know how they’d taken him down in the end.  “Can you put us through?”  He needed to see him, needed to hear his voice and know he was alright.

John shook his head.  “Too risky.  It’s dangerous enough having the line open at all without adding to it.” That made sense, but that didn’t mean Virgil had to like it.

“His condition?” he pressed, and John gave a shrug that could have meant anything.

“He says they haven’t touched him.”  Well, that was something at least.  “But he is restrained, and if I know Scott he’s been trying to get out of them.  I’ve told him there’s an extraction in process and that he might need to run, so hopefully he’ll avoid doing anything that would negatively impact that, but-”

He broke off suddenly, eyes wide, before the call cut.

“John?”  Kayo pounced on her comm, calling Thunderbird Five back immediately as Virgil swung his legs over the side of the bed.  Having one arm out of commission was not going to keep him out of this.  “John!”

“John is currently occupied.”  EOS’ childish tones came through the device, her distinctive ring of lights appearing. “There has been an unexpected development.”

That didn’t sound good at all.  Had Scott’s captors realised he had a link to Thunderbird Five?  Were they being hacked- no, EOS would be driving off the invasion. Had something happened to Scott?

“What development?” Kayo demanded, her voice sharp.  Virgil heard the same concerns running through her voice, well disguised but there.  “EOS-”

“This appeared on a part of the internet used for underground and illegal movements,” EOS interrupted, her ring of lights disappearing.  In their place was a stream of what looked like a website page.  It was an old design, but that barely registered after Virgil realised what he was seeing.  The other side of the hologram, Kayo’s inhaled sharply.

A picture of Scott dominated the page, a photograph depicting him from the shoulders up. Even if John hadn’t said as much, the awkward tension in his shoulders – still suited – told Virgil his hands were bound, but that barely registered.  A metal contraption, something like a ring with metal branches, was shoved in his brother’s mouth, secured with a sturdy strap so that even through the photograph Virgil could tell his brother couldn’t dislodge it at all, but even that wasn’t what really caught Virgil’s attention.  Scott was glaring at the camera, blue eyes bright and vibrant even as he faced his photographer – and the online audience – with a fierce look that declared he wouldn’t be cowed.

Virgil wished he couldn’t see through the façade.  The glare was strong, his eyes somehow standing out from what was otherwise a reasonably murky picture, but Scott’s eyes were filled with fear.  His brother was afraid, and the realisation doused Virgil unpleasantly.  He’d seen Scott afraid, but only ever for others – for his brothers, for the people they were trying to save.  Never for himself.

He lost himself in those pools of defiance and fear for several moments, broken out of it only by Kayo’s unintelligible noise of sheer incense.  If he’d thought she was furious earlier, it didn’t have a patch on now, and as he managed to take in the rest of the page, his own temper bubbled up.

Immediately below the picture was an ever-changing, ever-increasing number.  Currently six digits, although as Virgil watched it ticked over to seven, he didn’t need the words Current Bid to tell him what it meant.

He was on his feet and striding for the door in a single moment, shot shoulder be damned.  Scott needed him now, and nothing – not a bullet wound, not his family, not the whole damn universe – was getting in his way. “Location, EOS.”  He yanked the door open and stormed out of the room, Kayo hot on his heels.  She wasn’t even trying to stop him, and the unfortunate hospital orderly that tried to intercept them and send him back to bed was brushed aside in a way Virgil would never normally do.

The AI was quiet for a moment, presumably conversing with John, but as they stormed through corridors – uniformed nurses and visitors in civilian clothes alike parting for them like the red sea – her voice piped up again.  “His communicator signal is emitting from a warehouse in the downtown district.”  A holographic map appeared above Kayo’s wrist and Virgil glanced at it.  A familiar blue symbol in what looked like a storeroom caught his attention and his heart clenched.  Scott.

“We can be there in fifteen minutes,” Kayo said firmly.  Virgil was pleased that he was being included, but then again, Kayo was no fool. She knew nothing would stop him.

“There are another twelve life signs in the immediate vicinity,” EOS continued, and the red heart symbols appeared accordingly.  Two of them were close to Scott, although moving away.  Otherwise, his brother seemed to be alone.

They left the hospital, leaving a wake of confused and mildly terrified staff behind them, and Kayo directed him towards a sleek, black car.  SCT1 marked it as Scott’s, but Kayo slid straight into the driver’s seat with an ease that belied who really drove it regularly.  Virgil all but threw himself into the shotgun seat, ignoring the stench of blood coming from the backseats.

“Plan?” he asked Kayo as she yanked the poor car into drive and hurtled it down the main streets. More than a few speed limits were ignored, but they’d cough up the fine money later as Kayo tore around corners and breezed past the packed mass transit and occasional other car that dared to be in front of them.

“According to latest inventory, SCT1 has enough explosives stored in the trunk to penetrate the wall of the warehouse,” EOS intervened before Kayo could answer.  “John has asked me to tell you to plant the explosives at this location” – an orange dot appeared on the building schematics.  It was close to Scott – guaranteed to blow out at least part of the room.  “A hand held laser will be required to free Scott.”

“What happened to waiting for the GDF?” Virgil asked, not that he was complaining.  Some illegal property destruction was worth it to save Scott, just like the speeding fines Kayo was collecting as she hurtled them down a side street at over double the speed limit.

“Colonel Casey has authorised International Rescue’s presence.  John informed her of the change of circumstances.”

Sometimes it was terrifying how many strings John could pull so quickly.  Not this time.  This time, it made perfect sense because Scott needed them and they were answering. Family first.  Family always came first.  It was well known that Scott would move mountains for any of them. The reverse was equally true.

“What’s John doing now?” Virgil wondered.  He no longer had any issues with EOS, but it was very unusual to be debriefed by her rather than his brother, especially when things were so personal.  All he could think of was that he was tracking down the bastards bidding over Scott, but that was something EOS could have done.

“John is currently educating Scott on quasars.”

Virgil hadn’t thought anything would feel worse than seeing that photo of his brother, but EOS proved him wrong with a single sentence.  John was the best of all of them at prioritising during an emergency.  He dealt with so much data, so many people simultaneously, that identifying the highest priority task was as subconscious as breathing by now.  Virgil admired that about him, and had a healthy appreciation for the fact that his most anti-social brother was the best at managing multiple conversations simultaneously.

If John had decided that educating Scott on quasars was the most important thing for him to be doing right then, to the point of leaving all other communications and even the rescue itself in someone else’s hands – or processors – then that meant only one thing. Scott needed distracting.

Scott wasn’t afraid, he was terrified.

From the white-knuckle grip Kayo had on the steering wheel and the flinty steel in her eyes, Virgil wasn’t the only one to reach that conclusion.  They accelerated again.

They didn’t slow down until they were on the final approach, and Virgil knew that was only so their screaming engine didn’t give them away.

“Colonel Casey will arrive in five minutes,” EOS informed them as they rolled to a silent stop and gathered the explosive charges.  Why Scott’s car had explosives in it, Virgil didn’t know, but that didn’t matter because they needed them.

Kayo handled most of the work, Virgil’s sling hindering him, but that didn’t stop him from retrieving two hand lasers to store in the fabric – it made a convenient carry case, for all that slings weren’t supposed to be used that way and he’d chew out anyone else that tried it – or scooping up as many explosives as he could carry, as well as their detonator.  EOS directed them via hologram to the place they needed to blow up, and Virgil glowered at the bricks as he took control of laying the explosives.  One arm out of commission or not, he was the explosives expert and the last thing he wanted to do was risk hurting Scott.

Scott, who was tied up, shackled in place and terrified enough to need all of John’s considerable attention to keep him calm.

He set the timer and ushered Kayo back, away from the blast radius.  Her comm crackled to life again, but it wasn’t EOS this time.

“Thirty seconds,” John said, unnecessarily.  Virgil had set those timers, knew exactly how long it would take for them to ignite. But it was John, and John never did anything unnecessary.  John was also supposed to be distracting Scott.  “Scott, curl up as much as you can and protect your head.”

He’d linked them together, but no matter how much Virgil strained his ears he couldn’t hear any reply from his eldest brother.  The photo flashed up in his mind again, the ugly, intimidating metal contraption in Scott’s mouth.   A gag.

“Ten seconds.”  Virgil’s heartbeat counted down out of sync, but John’s voice was calm, steady, every inch the rescuer, the Voice Who Answers. “Five… four… three… two… one…”

The explosion was painfully loud in the quiet warehouse district, and Virgil grabbed one of the hand lasers.  That would have drawn attention; speed was the priority.  Medical attention or anything that didn’t directly affect Scott’s ability to escape would have to wait until they were back to the car.

Kayo charged through the still-dissipating smoke and Virgil lurched forwards, right on her heels. Navigating the rubble that was all that remained of the wall with only one hand to keep his balance was difficult, but that observation paled in the face of his eldest brother, face streaked with dust, curled up uncomfortably in the corner of what was once a room.

“Target located,” Kayo said, presumably informing John and the GDF.  Virgil didn’t care, pushing past her and heading straight for his brother. Scott’s eyes were wide, but the fear that had been so prevalent in the photograph was gone, replaced with a deep-set relief – and concern.  Virgil didn’t miss the way blue eyes homed in on his wrapped-up shoulder, arm decidedly useless in its sling and numbed with painkillers.

They didn’t have time to debate whether or not he was fit to be there.  Already, voices were approaching, raised in panic and fury.  Virgil knelt by his brother, assessing his condition as the hand laser made short work of the chain linking Scott’s ankle to the wall. The gag was still firmly in place, and electrical cords wrapped around bloodied wrists, but while Virgil’s heart insisted he get rid of those then and there, neither would negatively impact their escape enough to risk hanging around long enough to remove them.

Scott’s ankle was of a larger concern.  While Virgil doubted Scott had intentionally damaged it, especially after making contact with John, it bore all the signs of a struggle to escape.  It was sprained at least, and Virgil grimaced as he pulled his brother to his feet.  “No time for the rest,” he apologised, hoping he wasn’t doing any damage to Scott’s shoulder by pulling him up by the bicep.  “We’ve got to move.”

Ordinarily, if faced with a rescuee with Scott’s injuries, Virgil would pick them up and carry them to safety.  Instincts screamed at him to do the same again here – Scott’s ankle would not benefit from the run – but unlike his siblings, Virgil knew his limits.  Scott was tall and weighed more than he could lift with only a single working arm.  Attempting to pick him up would only end up with both of them sprawled on the ground, at the mercy of the rapidly approaching enemies, so he made sure his grip on Scott wouldn’t falter and then ran, all but dragging his brother out of the small, dark room back into the outside world.

Kayo stayed behind them, a barrier between the pair of injured brothers and the people that wanted to hurt them further, and Virgil winced as Scott rasped and choked his way through the pace he set – not quite a flat out run, but hardly slow.  It shouldn’t have been a challenge for Scott at all, his brother going on challenging runs around the island for fun, but the ankle – definitely sprained at the minimum – hobbled him and the gag was doing something to mess with his breathing.

Still, it wasn’t far to the car, and as soon as they were there, they should be home free.  The GDF were on their way to deal with the organisation and handle general clean-up.  Virgil picked up the pace, Scott stumbling but just about staying on his feet, but then there was a gun and a short person – masked, like the ones that had attacked them what felt like weeks ago despite not being even three hours prior – between them and SCT1.

The gun was pointed at Scott’s chest, his brother still heaving and choking for air.  He was trembling; Virgil could feel it under his palm, where he still had hold of him, although he didn’t take his eyes off of the person with the gun.

“I won’t let you go!” they shrieked, the gun wavering noticeably in their grip.  Scott flinched.  “You’re mine!  Mine!” They sounded uncomfortably like a deranged fan or stalker, and Virgil tugged at Scott, determined to put himself between the two of them.

Scott didn’t step back, was taking a step forwards by the time Virgil’s muscles got the message from his brain, and then there was a gunshot.

For the second time that day, Virgil moved, shoving his brother with far more force than necessary – and likely injuring him even more – away from the flailing gun and the person brandishing it.

It seemed decidedly unfair that the second bullet hurt more than the first, a feat Virgil hadn’t really thought possible until the agony erupted in his hip and he crumpled.  His vision whited out entirely, and a second spike of pain forced a restrained groan from his lips.  Somewhere above him, there was a strangled scream, a roar of frustration forced out, and he instantly recognised it as Scott’s voice.  Scott, who had a gag and could barely breathe properly.  Scott, who he was supposed to be saving.

“Virgil!  Stay awake!”  An insistent tapping bothered his cheek, unyielding and certainly unsympathetic.  It had to be Kayo, but he couldn’t tell.  Not really.

“I’m awake,” he protested, although the noise that actually left his lips barely resembled the words. “Scott?”

There were some sounds, pained and muffled beyond all comprehension, before Kayo’s voice cut in, smooth and crisp as always.  “You’re worse.  Scott will be okay.”  She kept on talking but Virgil stopped listening.  Scott will be okay.

It was a promise. Kayo wouldn’t let anything else happen to Scott; Scott would be safe, Scott would heal.  Scott will be okay.  The world darkened to the sound of his sister’s voice.

When he woke up, Scott was there.  Hair almost wild, skin red and raw at the corners of his mouth, and eyes full of worry, but there.  Laid down in a hospital bed – for the second time that day, if it was indeed still the same day – he couldn’t properly see his brother to assess his condition, taking note of his left arm in a sling, but Scott was there and just as Kayo had promised, he seemed okay.  Worried, but when wasn’t he when a younger brother was in hospital?

“Virgil!”  Worry turned to relief as Scott realised he’d regained consciousness, and his brother leaned forwards.  “How are you feeling?”

Not bad, but that was probably painkillers.  There was a hazy feeling in the back of his mind, and Virgil distinctly remembered being in agony before passing out.

“Been better,” he allowed. “You?”

“I’m not the one that got shot.  Twice.” Classic Scott evasion, deflecting the attention back away from himself and onto a younger brother.

Speaking of younger brothers, Gordon and Alan were hovering protectively either side of the chair Scott was sat in.  Behind them was a bed, sheets crumpled but currently vacated, and Virgil surveyed his older brother again.  Gordon helped.

“You’re still going to be grounded,” his younger brother pointed out, hand clamping down on Scott’s apparently uninjured shoulder and ignoring the glare sent his way by their eldest brother. “A fractured ankle takes weeks to heal, and don’t forget the dislocated shoulder.  Never mind the-”

“Thank you, Gordon,” Scott cut in.  “It’s nothing serious.  I’m fine.”

Virgil didn’t agree with Scott’s assessment at all, but let it slide for the moment if only because his brother would just deflect the attention back at him all the time.  He did, however, try to sit up so he could take a better look.

He didn’t get far, Scott’s hand shooting out to rest on his shoulder – the one without a bullet wound – to stop him.

“You’ll re-open the wound if you move too much,” his brother cautioned, but Virgil wasn’t really listening as his own hand clamped around Scott’s arm, preventing him from retracting it.  “Virgil?”

Virgil observed the bandages around Scott’s wrist closely, ignoring his brother’s feeble attempts to retrieve his arm.  Scott wouldn’t tug too hard, not while Virgil was injured.  The presence of the bandages was disturbing; Virgil recalled seeing blood on Scott’s hands and wrists while they were still bound with the electric cables, but the idea that they’d done enough damage to warrant bandages was concerning.

“Virgil, I’m fine,” Scott protested, clearly realising what Virgil was doing.  Virgil responded by letting go, only to probe gently at the arm in a sling instead.  Scott drew back, out of his reach, but not before Virgil confirmed that there were bandages on that wrist, too.

“You’re not,” he retorted, but didn’t elaborate.  He didn’t know what they’d told Gordon and Alan, and the youngest two certainly wouldn’t be finding out about the bidding and Scott’s well-hidden but there terror from him.  Hell, he didn’t even know that Scott knew there had been a bidding war to buy him, or that a photograph of him bound and gagged had been up on the internet for all to see.

He assumed John or EOS had long since removed it by now.

“Scott, get back to bed.” Virgil jumped, having not noticed Kayo standing by the door.  “Someone’s coming.”  Scott wasn’t supposed to be out of bed?  What a surprise.  Virgil scowled disapprovingly at his protesting brother, but with one arm in a sling and an ankle out of use, Scott was no match for Gordon and Alan manhandling him back to the abandoned bed.

Kayo slipped away from the door just as it opened, revealing Colonel Casey.  The woman looked as stern as usual, but Virgil noticed her gaze soften as it landed first on Scott, and then on himself.

“Good to see you awake, Virgil,” she said warmly.  He gave her a grin he hoped wasn’t too weak.  “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” he assured her.  “What brings you here?”

Her eyes glanced over at Scott, who was looking mulish at being forced back into bed.  “The GDF have finished assessing the warehouse district in question, so I thought I’d come see you boys before returning to base.” She took a few steps further into the room, eyeing Scott with something like resigned disapproval, and Virgil realised she wasn’t fooled at all by the dash to get him back into bed.  “You’re looking better now, Scott.”

“Colonel Casey arrived just after you passed out,” Kayo informed Virgil in an undertone.  He nodded his thanks as Scott acknowledged the woman’s words.

“I feel a lot better.”

Virgil’s internal Scott’s Lying Detector instantly went off and he surveyed his brother more closely, trying to figure out what was bothering him without an outright confrontation.  Of course, the fractured ankle would have him frustrated, because that meant he was grounded, alongside the dislocated shoulder, and Scott despised being grounded – a family trait they all shared, to be fair to him.  The bandaged wrists and the rawness by his mouth should be minor inconveniences at best now that he was no longer restrained.

He was missing something, and if it wasn’t physical, that suggested it was mental.  Then again, with Scott wasn’t that always the case?  His eldest brother had the infuriating tendency to supress anything that was bothering him until it exploded out later, usually at an inopportune moment.  With his kidnapping, as brief as it had been, there was no doubt at least one thing being bottled up right now.

Virgil didn’t get a chance to talk to Scott about it until the evening, long after Colonel Casey left, when the hospital staff gently but firmly insisted that visitor hours were over and ushered their younger siblings out the room, to loud promises from both brothers to see them bright and early the next morning.  He hoped they’d at least be quiet and stick with early bird Scott until a reasonable hour.

“How are you really, Scott?” he asked once they’d all vanished.  Even John had flickered away, although that was more likely to give them some privacy than because he was sleeping, himself.  More likely, he was tracking down everyone that had joined the bidding war for his brother.

“I should be asking you that,” Scott deflected.  “You’re the one that got shot.”  He was still in his bed, too many people moving in and out of the room after Colonel Casey’s arrival for him to sneak back out again.  Virgil was glad; Scott needed the rest, even if he refused to acknowledge it.

“Getting shot is not the same as being kidnapped,” he pointed out.  He’d let Scott deflect away earlier, keeping Gordon and Alan hopefully ignorant about what exactly had happened, but now they were alone, he had no intentions of letting Scott bottle this up, too.  “I’ll heal before you do.”

“You shouldn’t be hurt in the first place,” Scott snapped, head jerking around to face him and giving Virgil a clear view of sharp, frustrated blue eyes.

Oh hell.

Virgil knew that look. He’d seen it before, after the Zero-X, when they’d gone to the aurora generator, whenever the topic of the Zero-X was breached.

Scott was blaming himself. Somehow, he’d twisted the events around in his head until they were all his fault.

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he said quietly, firmly.  Scott went rigid.

“Virg-”

“To protect you?  To protect my family?  Always,” he continued, overriding whatever protests his brother was about to use.

“But-”

“If our positions were reversed, you’d have done the exact same thing.”

That silenced Scott for a few, blessed seconds.  But Scott was Scott, and he could never let a little brother have the last word.

“You shouldn’t have done it.”

His brother was in his stubborn, refuse-to-listen-to-reason mode.  Why did that not surprise him?

“Why?  So you could get shot instead?  Not happening, Scott.  You got kidnapped.  Would they even have bothered to patch you up if you’d been shot?”  Virgil hadn’t even considered what would have happened if the bullet had hit Scott until that moment.  Was it specifically Scott they were after, or would they have taken him instead of Scott was injured?

“I’m supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around!” Scott exploded, and there it was.  Scott’s overprotective nature coming out and tying him up in knots as it always did.

“No,” he disagreed, pulling himself up into a sitting position and ignoring the twinge near his hip.

“Virg-”

“That’s not how this works,” he steamrollered.  “Just because you’re the eldest doesn’t mean our wellbeing is your responsibility.”

“Virgil-”

“We’re a family and that means we look out for each other.  It’s not a one-way street.  We can protect you just as much as you protect us.”  Except he hadn’t protected Scott, had he? Fighting, getting shot, it hadn’t changed anything.  They’d still taken Scott.

“Virgil!” Scott screamed, his voice sounding just this side of hoarse. “Lie back down right now or I’ll make you.”  His eyes were sharp with a mixture of determination and frantic concern; Virgil didn’t doubt for one second that his brother would find a way to hobble over to him and force him back into bed, even with a fractured ankle and one arm in a sling.

He compromised and leaned back against the head of the bed, reclining as gracefully as he could.  Scott glowered at him, which Virgil ignored.

“Did you listen to a word I said?” he asked instead.  Scott’s eyes narrowed, a challenge rolled in with the same worry and smattering of guilt.  “Scott-”

“Virgil, stop blaming yourself.”  It was Virgil’s turn to find himself silenced.  Scott sighed, and ran a hand through his hair, destroying whatever might have once been left of his style.  Dark brown strands flopped down across his face.  “There was nothing more you could have done.”

“But-”  Control of the conversation had been lost and against Scott that was not a good thing.

“No buts, Virgil.  You got shot trying to stop them.  I-” he paused, an uncharacteristic stutter that kept Virgil silenced far more effectively than anything else Scott could have said or done.  “I thought they’d killed you.”

“It was only my shoulder,” Virgil pointed out.  “Why would that be fatal?”

“I didn’t know it was only your shoulder,” Scott ground out, head in hand. “They wouldn’t tell me where you were, just that they’d only needed one – me – so that meant you were expendable to them.”  He took a deep breath, one that Virgil could hear shuddering from where he was.  “When John told me you were going to be fine, I was so relieved.”

Virgil cursed the distance between them, wishing he could put his hand on Scott’s shoulder and reassure him that everything was okay – that they were okay.

“And then you went and got shot again,” Scott continued.  “And I couldn’t do anything.  I couldn’t take them down, I couldn’t even talk, and the whole thing could have been avoided if I hadn’t stepped forwards.”

“They were going to pull the trigger whatever we did,” Virgil corrected. “Nothing you could have done would have changed that.”

“You got shot,” Scott hissed violently.  “Again.  For me.”

“I did,” Virgil agreed.  “Like I said, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.  You’re my brother, Scott.  What was I supposed to do?  Let them shoot you?”

“Yes!”  Scott’s voice cracked.

Virgil froze.  “You don’t mean that.”  Except he did, because he was Scott, and Scott was determined to protect them, whatever it took.  Whatever it cost him.

“I can’t lose you, Virgil,” Scott confessed, voice quiet and not quite stable. “Any of you.”

That was it.  Injuries be damned, Virgil heaved himself upright, swinging his legs around and stumbling out of bed.  His right leg buckled, hip most displeased at the action, and he caught himself on the chair Scott had been sat in earlier.

“Virgil, no!”

It was only a few feet between their beds.  Dragging the chair along with him as a crutch, he limped his way over to his brother, who was fighting his own blankets – clearly Kayo or Gordon had decided to tie him to his bed with them – and all but collapsed on his bed.

“We can’t lose you, Scott.”

“Virgil-”  He moved to put a hand over Scott’s mouth, only to catch sight of the rawness at both corners and remember the vicious gag.  His hand landed on Scott’s non-dislocated shoulder instead.

“Scott, we need you.  We all do, just like you need us.  We’re a team, a family.”  He was leaning over Scott, holding up most of his weight with the hand pressed to Scott’s shoulder.  His brother didn’t make a single noise of complaint.  “We’ve already lost Mom, and Dad.  Don’t-”  It was his turn to stutter, seeking out the wide blue eyes of his brother and holding them with his own.  “Don’t ever tell me to stand aside and let someone shoot you again.”

“Virgil…”  Scott’s voice was soft, shocked and more than a little disbelieving.  Virgil squeezed the muscle under his hand.

“Promise, Scott,” he insisted.  He was shaking, his arm could hardly hold him up and the other one was still immobile in a sling.  He couldn’t move it if he tried.  “Promise you’ll never say that again.”

“But-”

“Promise.”

Scott met his gaze and Virgil watched the emotions flash through them.  Guilt, pain, grief.

“I promise.”

Acceptance.

A hand found his own uninjured shoulder, gripping it tightly.  “But that goes both ways, Virgil.  Don’t ever expect me to stand back and let anyone hurt you.”

Virgil choked out something that could have been a laugh.  “You’ve never done that in my life.  Not even when I was in first grade and that kid pushed me into a puddle.”

There was something that vaguely resembled the start of a smile on Scott’s lips.

“Exactly.  I’ve been looking out for you your whole life.  All of you.  That’s not changing.  Not now, not ever.”  Definitely a smile.

Silence hung between them, but this time it was a natural one.  A pause at the end of a conversation, where everything that needed to be said at that moment had been, and some sort of resolution had been reached.

“Well,” Virgil said, trying for a more light-hearted tone now that the guilt had mostly ebbed away from Scott’s eyes.  “I should probably get back to my own bed.”  He tried to push himself up, off of Scott, but his arm buckled and he found himself instead landing bodily on Scott’s chest.

An arm wrapped around him, pinning him in place.  Virgil could feel the rough texture of bandages around his brother’s wrist, a reminder of what he’d been through.

“You’d never make it,” Scott said, matter-of-factly.  Virgil bristled but Scott didn’t relent, even going as far as closing his eyes.  “I just told you I’ll always be looking out for you.  That includes not letting you walk when you’re recovering from a bullet in the hip.”

He was right, as annoying as that was.  Getting over to Scott’s bed had taken all of his strength.  Returning was beyond him.

“When I get in trouble, I’m telling them I was stopping you from being an idiot,” he grumbled, shifting slightly to get more comfortable.

Scott laughed, a sound that should have felt out of place after their previous conversation but somehow soothed Virgil instead.

“You do that, little brother.”

Virgil let out a growl at the form of address, usually reserved for the actual youngest members of the family, but Scott was warm and safe, and after the mess that day had ended up being Virgil was tired.  Sleep came quickly.

[scarletaire]

homeland (Chapter 1)

A/N: Welcome to my very first multi-chaptered fic! Would love to know what you think ❤️

Fandom: The Folk of the Air

Genre/s: Contains Fluff, Slight Hurt/Comfort, Slight Angst, Smut

Rating: Explicit

Tags: Post-QON, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Protective!Cardan, Bewildered!Jude, Jude and Cardan discuss the Undersea, but they get a little Distracted

Description: 

Cardan’s eyes flash open.

“Why?” he repeats, and Jude feels the power shift between them. “Don’t you remember, wife?” he croons. “It was the Undersea who stole you away from me.” 

And Jude has only enough time to think, danger, before he lunges at her.

or:

Cardan and Jude work on removing their armor. Taking off this particularly stubborn piece happens in varying states of undress.

Links: Masterlist | AO3 

Jude wakes at the brush of Cardan’s tail against the back of her knee. 

It tickles more than anything, and it’s this that shoves her into wakefulness. Growing up as a human in Faerie has not afforded Jude the luxury of graceful sleep. She comes into consciousness like a soldier, eyes open wide and trying to make sense of her surroundings. 

Cardan watches her from the far side of the bed. 

Jude furrows her brows. The sun is low in the sky, and it casts their room into burnished amber. It lines the angles of Cardan’s face with gold and shadow, and with the length of his body reposed before her, he is unearthly. Untouchable. She thinks she could still be dreaming right now.

Until she notices the distant look in his eyes.

She peers past the drowsy haze of sunset, taking in the way his tail lashes low and distracted across his body. He probably hadn’t meant to wake her from the looks of it. His tail often moves with a mind of its own. 

She stretches out a hand across the space between them, the sheets of their bed cool and empty against the backs of her fingers. “Cardan?” 

They had gone to sleep as they usually did, curled together and limbs tangled. It was the common way things were after they began sharing their marriage bed in earnest months ago. 

This is new. 

“Jude,” he says in reply, and in his voice, she hears something she doesn’t understand. 

It strikes in her an unfamiliar urge to soothe. It’s a human thing, one that she hasn’t had reason to attend to while being raised in a redcap’s stronghold. She’s not quite sure what caused it, what it was in the way he whispered her name. All she knows is that it makes her want to shift closer. 

Cardan has an unnerving ability to bring out the human in her, despite her best efforts, despite her being High Queen of Elfhame. 

She reaches out a hand, and he – unearthly, untouchable – lets her brush a knuckle across his cheek. She waits. 

He says nothing. 

Undeterred, she tries to brush a curl of ink black hair away from his eyes. They burn. 

She pauses. 

He is holding himself preternaturally quiet, and still. So still, the way only fae can. An animal sort of stillness, she thinks. 

Within the next heartbeat, Jude understands that gentle is not what Cardan needs right now. 

Alright. This she knows how to do. 

Her fingers, previously resting at his temple, move to tangle in his hair. She pulls hard enough to make him hiss. “What is it?” She tightens her hold. “What happened?” 

His black gem eyes go clear with pain – and something else. Something darker. “A nightmare,” he breathes, finally.

She narrows her eyes, thinking about the tense line of his shoulders.

When he doesn’t elaborate, she slips a little bit closer. For better leverage. He tracks her movement across the bed. 

From this distance, her nails rake a path down his temple and the side of his face. She digs her fingers in when she reaches his jawline, feels the way he clenches it in response. “Tell me.” 

Something cruel pulls the corner of his mouth upward. “You shall like very little of it.” 

He smiles when he’s nervous, Jude reminds herself. 

She leans in close enough to see how the skin of his jaw is going white against the half-moons of her nails. “Tell me anyway.” 

His eyes close. She thinks she sees a little of defeat in the way he leans into the rough grip of her fingers. “I dreamt,” he whispers into the waiting air, “of the Undersea.” And even in the warmth of the bed they share together, something cold slithers up Jude’s spine. 

“Why?” she demands, before she can think better of it.

They haven’t talked much about her kidnapping. He’d almost forsaken his kingdom in exchange for her, and that was more than her heart, then so unsure and betrayed by her exile, could understand. 

But now, there is space to wonder. 

(“When you were gone—truly gone beneath the waves—I hated myself as I never have before.”)

Cardan’s eyes flash open. “Why?” he repeats, and Jude feels the power shift between them. “Don’t you remember, wife?” he croons. “It was the Undersea that stole you away from me.” 

And Jude has only enough time to think, danger, before he – 

– lunges at her – 

Jude’s back hits the bed with a thud, and Cardan leans on his elbows over her, the unforgiving weight of him pressing her into the mattress. This time, it is his hand that grips her chin, the raw emotion in his dark eyes at odds with the careful way he tilts her face up to his. “They hid you away for weeks.”

“I clawed my way out of there,” she says, a little breathlessly. “I didn’t let them keep me.” 

The slant of his mouth grows crueller. “Darling, I had to forge a treaty for you.” 

Indignation sparks in her, at the reminder of her weakness. “I didn’t ask you to – ”

Cardan swoops in, and Jude holds her breath as his lips come perilously close to hers. “Do not mishear me, Jude Duarte Greenbriar,” he says softly, so softly. “I would have done anything to get you back.” 

Jude sucks in another breath, because Cardan has suddenly dropped his mouth to the tender skin of her neck. 

“Anything,” he says, and his lips ghost the words behind her ear as he speaks. “Everything.” 

It’s instinct that has her spreading her legs, letting the weight of him make a home in the cradle of her thighs. He settles against her body like he belongs there. 

“Do you understand that, Jude?” he asks. “Can you?” 

He presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss at the base of her throat, and Jude wonders at how something so small can be felt all the way down to her toes. 

Still, his words have dredged up memories she thought were long past. They are vivid in her mind now: the dampness of the dark cell, the ache of her exhausted body, the cold brush of Balekin’s lips – 

“They did all that they could,” she says, because suddenly it’s like she has something to prove, “but I did not let them break me.” 

Cardan tenses, his forehead resting on the softness of her cheek. 

“Don’t you remember?” she asks him now. “I came for you the very same night they released me.” 

Something passes over the length of his body, and pressed against him so closely like this, Jude can recognize it for what it is: a shudder.

“Oh, Jude,” he breathes into the line of her jaw. “I dreamt that you didn’t.” 

What had he said? A nightmare. 

“There was nothing left of you to ransom for,” he continues, face hidden in the crook of her neck. “Nothing but salt and seafoam.” And there, in their ridiculously large bed with the cobweb canopy billowing in a sunset breeze, the High King of Elfhame begins to tremble.

Jude is frozen underneath him. “Cardan,” she whispers, because there is nothing else she can say. No one that she can remember has ever cared for her like this before. 

Another shudder passes through him at the sound of his name. And suddenly, he is moving closer, something like desperation igniting the insistent press of his body over hers as he tries to burrow his face deeper into her collarbone. 

“I dove into the water,” he says, and she feels every word dance on the sensitive skin of her neck, “and it was cold and it was dark, but I swam and I searched, and I couldn’t find you.” His hands fist into the gossamer skirts of her nightgown. 

Jude grits her teeth. She is powerless in the wake of his heartache. She doesn’t know what to do. This is an enemy she has never faced before. 

“I would have done everything,” he repeats, lost. She gets the feeling that he isn’t speaking entirely just to her anymore. 

In this liminal space between waking and dreaming, Cardan duels with the imaginary horrors of his nightmare, and Jude holds on as tight as she can. 

The rocking starts with the intention to soothe. Jude thinks of Oriana, calming a restless Oak in the cradle of her arms. She thinks of her mother, wrapping her in an embrace that swept her back and forth. She thinks of Cardan’s mother, Lady Asha, and how she most likely never held her son the way mothers do. 

So Jude begins to sway, as best as she can with the weight of him all along the front of her body. There is so much of him to hold, almost too much because he is so much bigger than her, but she will hold him. She will hold all of him until he no longer needs her. 

A different kind of tremor passes through Cardan’s body when he feels her moving under him. She runs a hand through the hair at the base of his neck, gently scraping with the tips of her nails. Cardan seems to melt into her more, a long, faint breath easing out of him. 

Soon, he starts to sway with her. Just a simple accompaniment of his body with hers. Against hers. Beat and tempo are but second language to the king of Faerie and his many revels.

He continues to murmur in her ear, as if the words are a refrain he cannot get out of his head. “Everything,” he is saying. “My everything, Jude.” The words are both vow and reassurance all at once. She feels them seep into her bones. 

Cardan moves over her, trembling no longer. The mattress dips under their combined weight. 

There’s a certain whiplash to all of this. She’s supposed to be the one comforting him, and yet now it is he who is whispering sweetly into the quickly heating skin of her neck. It is he who guides their bodies into an altogether different kind of rhythm. 

Jude’s fingers clench into his bare shoulders. His habit of wearing nothing to bed has carried over into their marriage. She feels the overwhelming warmth of him all over her, the wisps of her nightgown a paltry barrier. 

Their hips press flush, and Jude knows it wasn’t intentional, but he’s right there between her thighs, and the way he’s rolling against her is now wickedly familiar. 

Or maybe he had meant it. Maybe this is how she can give him the comfort he needs –

There is no mistaking the rocking of their bodies now.

They are similar in this regard, in this need for something to fight with, to move against.  She will be the sentinel at his back as he wrestles with the phantom of his dreams.

Cardan surfaces from the crook of her neck like he is surfacing from cold water. She brings him down to her, until they are nose to nose, until she can see the last dregs of his nightmare swirling in the depths of his eyes. 

The words spill from him like a confession. “In the darkest shadows of my heart,” he tells her, hushed against the backdrop of the dying sun, “I wondered if I should ever see you again.”

And Jude thinks of the many, long months of her exile. Of how he had fought to keep her when Madoc stole her back as Taryn. She remembers the way he had clutched her to him after she beheaded the cursed snake. This isn’t just about the Undersea. 

“I came for you,” she reminds him. “I came back for you.” And then she rolls her hips up to meet his. 

Cardan groans. 

All traces of innocence evaporate. 

He descends upon her with a new vigor. She rises up under him with purpose simmering in her blood. Their bodies collide, and collide again, and he grasps her by the waist to hike her up higher. She wraps her legs around his hips, feels the length of him through the insubstantial fabric of her underwear. 

He dances, she fights, and in this, they move together. 

But first, she needs him to understand something. 

Jude pulls on his hair again, now a mess of black curls from her fingers. She wants the pain to remind him just who exactly he has pinned beneath him. His Queen, his wife, his equal. “I’m not going anywhere,” she promises harshly, and then takes her teeth to the base of his throat. 

His assent is a broken moan against her forehead. He spreads her knees wider, and grinds down in retaliation. He hits that spot between her legs, and Jude chokes back a whimper. 

“I want you with me for always.” His breathing is ragged. His pace is ceaseless. “Do you believe me?” 

Her body is hot all over, and he feels so good right there, she rocks her hips up because she wants him to do it again, more – 

She can feel his cock now, hard and hot against the quickly dampening fabric between her thighs. It’s blessed friction, but it’s not enough. 

“Do you believe me?” he says again. When she doesn’t answer right away, he digs into her again, running the length his cock up and down the seam of her underwear. The tip of it rubs against her clit, not quite hard enough, with every pass. 

Something like a whine escapes her lips. She can almost feel the beginnings of an orgasm curling low in her body, if only he would just – 

“Say yes, Jude.” It’s almost a plea, sealed with a strategic roll of his hips that has her arching up from the bed. And there, in his need for her confirmation, for her validation, Jude feels another piece of armor fall away between them. “Say yes.”

He’s crushing her, with the sheer weight of him all down the length of her hypersensitive body, with the magnitude of the meaning behind his words. 

She is surrounded by him, his chest pressed against hers. He is all she sees when she opens her eyes, not realizing that she had closed them in the first place. His eyes scorch as he looks down at her, dark with desire – and the need for her to believe. 

A small wildness charges the air between them. He knows her body so well now, knows exactly how to angle the next flex of his hips – 

“Yes,” Jude gasps. 

Cardan grins, slow and full of wicked intent. 

He bends down low again, ready to whisper another naughty pledge, ready to press a kiss to her wanting lips, ready to finally take that sinful mouth and those clever fingers and finish what he started – 

Three knocks, rapid like gunfire, ricochet through the room.  

_____________

End Note: 

😈

Look out for the next chapter hopefully within the next couple of weeks! The King and Queen need to address their little interruption, and Jude still has her own confession to make.

This fic started because Jude and Cardan needed to talk about the Undersea, and the repercussions of Jude’s kidnapping. I like to think that they both have their own hangups about what happened, and this is my humble exploration into how they possibly worked it out between them post-canon.

With added sexytimes, of course.

My inbox is open, so feel free to come shout about fic and fandom with me on my tumblr!

[unforth]

Ko-fi Commission: Bewinged and Beloved

Fandom: Supernatural

Ship: Destiel

Rating: Explicit

Tags: Canon divergence, wing fic, surprise Dean grows wings, so a little body horror, but mostly pwp wing kink, idek

Words: 1627

Read it now on AO3 or read more...

A horrible tearing pain seared through Dean’s back. Choking back an agonized scream, he fell to his knees, reaching instinctually for the source of the pain.

“Dean?” Cas exclaimed, dropping to his knees at Dean’s side. “What’s happened?” A strong hand supported Dean’s front and kept him from writhing on the ground. Dean tried to answer, but another burst of pain, like claws raking flesh, like knives buried in organs, like Alastair grinning and asking what he wanted next, reduced him to sobs. 

“Dean...I...I’m here, Dean…I’m…” Tracking what Cas did was difficult over the sudden, inexplicable assault on Dean’s senses, but he thought Cas embraced him - thought Cas wrapped arms around his back - thought Cas looked everywhere but at him - thought--

Fingers brushed over Dean’s rent back, and he tensed, a scream caught in his throat as a high-pitched whine...but there wasn’t any pain. The agony lessened, and Dean was able to support himself, to lean back, to look up and try to interpret the wondering look on Cas’ face.

“The fuck is going on, Cas?” croaked Dean.

“Wings,” Cas replied. Cas’ hands drew away from him and a wave of nausea pitched Dean forward again. Cas caught him easily, one hand cradling his back and easing the pain once more, and brought the other forward so Dean could see.

Cas’ fingers were coated with blood...and feathers.

“I heard it was possible,” murmured Cas, thumbs kneading at Dean’s back...at his gashes...at his wings??? 

“What was possible?” Dean arched his back into Cas’ touch. He wasn’t sure if Cas’ massaging hands felt good objectively, or solely in comparison to the excruciating rending feeling when Cas wasn’t touching him, but he had no desire to suggest Cas stop so he could find out.

“Um...I mean...I never really believed, but…” 

“Talk, dude!”

“Supposedly…” Taking a deep breath, Cas rubbed, and through his touch Dean felt how his body had changed: clothes shredded, blood smeared, appendages sprouted...he almost thought he could flex them, if he tried. He wasn’t ready to try...but maybe soon? 

“Theoretically, if a mortal is infused with enough angelic grace, they can manifest nephilic features. Halos. Glowing eyes. Spontaneous Enochian literacy. That kind of thing.”

“And wings?”

“Yes.” There was something in Cas’ tone that Dean couldn’t place; in their years together, he’d thought he’d heard the full range of emotions in Cas’ raspy, expressive voice, but this one eluded Dean. “And wings.”

“How the fuck much grace have you been using to heal me all this time?” Dean demanded. Now that the waves of pain had passed, he actually felt...kind of good? Cas’ fingers trailed over his wounds, presumably healing them with grace, and brushed through his feathers - holy shit, like literally h.o.l.y. shit, I have feathers...I wonder what color they are...fuck, what’s Sam going to say? how is this even real? - and Dean’s stomach swooped as pleasure dissipated his lingering discomfort.

“It, uh...it wasn’t caused by healing,” Cas mumbled. Disgruntled, Dean leaned up and glared at him. Just talk to me, asshole, he tried to communicate with a look. Cas replied with a sheepish shrug and a smirk. “You’re the one who insisted we bareback. You said it would feel better...and you weren’t wrong, it felt - feels - incredible - but it does tend to cause my self-control to slip.”

“Wait, wait...what?” Dean tried to sit up so he could glare harder - his snuggling up to Cas’ chest and leaning into Cas’ touch like a cat being pet really wouldn’t communicate the full extent of his irritation - but the moment Cas’ touch shifted from Dean’s injuries, his pain intensified again. Surrendering, Dean instead tried to imbue all of his what-the-fuck-ness into his voice. 

“Lemme get this straight. You’ve dumped so much come into my ass that I’ve angelfied?”

“It does appear that way,” replied Cas’ solemnly...but he seemed to be fighting down laughter.

Easy for him to laugh about this, fucking asshole...he wasn’t the one who’d suddenly sprouted goddamn wings.

“And you didn’t think to fucking warn me that this was a risk?” Damn, now Dean sounded shrill, and maybe slightly hysterical.

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

He hated feeling out of control.

“I truly didn’t think it was actually possible; the only stories I’ve heard of it happening are apocryphal.”

He hated the incapacitating pain that had left them curled up on the floor together in a seedy motel room.

“However, if you turn around so I can better access the affected area, I promise I’ll get through this. Please?”

He hated the uncertainties of his life.

“...fuckin’...fine, Cas...do your thing...but we’re not done talking about this!”

But oddly, as Cas helped Dean turn, as Cas settled Dean between Cas’ legs, and stripped away the tatters of Dean’s clothes, and used grace to heal and clean and soothe...

“Of course not.”

...Dean entertained the possibility that he didn’t hate his wings.

Was randomly growing wings because he’d spent umpteen years soaking up Cas’ come fucking bizarre?

Yes.

Was it the worst thing that had happened to him this week?

Maybe? There were a couple runners up though.

Was it the worst thing to happen to him ever?

Not. even. close.

“Here - lean on this,” Cas suggested, producing a pillow as though from thin air and passing it to Dean. Tucking the pillow over his crossed legs, Dean leaned forward and let it support his weight, closed his eyes, and felt.

Cas’ fingers trailed over sensitive, sensitized skin. With the pain gone, the growth of his wings was clear and rapid: they sprouted from his back, emerging inch by inch, and as they extended, Cas worked.

He righted feathers, and ease tingled down Dean’s spine.

He cleansed blood, and pleasure warmed Dean’s gut.

He stretched strained bones, and Dean got hard.

God, this is hot…

...and God fucking damn it, why am I like this?

The wings were so new, so fresh, that every touch was electric, and Cas seemed to know exactly how to touch. 

“You’re doing fine.” Cas sounded affected too, with a lilt of his earlier inexplicable tone mingled with his increasingly obvious arousal. “You’re doing great, Dean.” Lips ghosted a kiss over the top of Dean’s spine as Cas rubbed over the top arch of Dean’s new wings, as Cas’ thumbs preened Dean’s feathers, as Cas’ erection pressed at the base of Dean’s spine.

It was fucking surreal.

It was fucking incredible.

Cas’ hands shifted away for a moment, and a whimper escaped Dean. There was more what-the-fuckery going on than he could process, but he knew he needed Cas to keep touching him, needed Cas to keep caring for his wings.

“Shh,” whispered Cas soothingly. “I’ll be right back, I swear, I just gotta…”

There was a flash of light - of grace - and a wash of cold air over sensitive skin, and a surge of pleasure, and Dean groaned. 

“...Cas...wha…?”

“Best way to treat the pain and help your body adjust is more grace,” Cas said. Dean groaned again; he knew exactly what that meant, and despite the surreality of the past few minutes, he couldn’t wait. Cas’ fingers returned, working at the base of Dean’s wings, and Dean tried to remember the times he’d played with Cas’ wings, tried to imagine what Cas must be doing based on things Dean had done in the past. Cas’ feathers were sensitive...Cas’ skin was soft...and at the bottom of his wings, there were glands…

“Oh, fuck,” Dean moaned. Bliss radiated outward from where Cas touched. Dean had known, from Cas’ reactions, that being touched there must felt good, but he’d had no fucking clue how good.

If this is what it’s like to have wings, sign me the fuck up.

“I know,” said Cas. “And Dean…” He groaned, stopped massaging to loop his arms beneath Dean’s shoulders and hoist Dean into a position that pressed rock-hard exposed cock against Dean’s crack. “...know you couldn’t have wanted this...know it’s a shock...I shouldn’t say…” Unable to stop himself, Dean rocked back, desperate for more pleasure and more touch and more contact, and Cas bit back a gasp. “...but that you get to feel this...that I get to do this for you...I’m so sorry, Dean, but I’m so happy…”

So am I. “Fuck me, Cas.” That’s a fuckton to unpack...but truly, so am I. “Please...please...please…”

Oil skimmed over Dean’s hole, the icy-hot feeling of it familiar, except now it was Dean’s oil, not Cas’, and that was somehow even sexier. With shocking ease, Cas lined himself up and slid into Dean’s body, and Dean trembled, filled, eager to milk Cas dry, desperate to bask in glorious sensation, eager to soak up every bit of grace he could, urgently in need of more.

“Please,” whispered Dean, rocking back to take more dick, but it wasn’t enough - something was missing - something--

Cas’ hands left Dean’s hips; his arms wrapped around Dean’s new wings, his fingers nestled amidst Dean’s feathers, and bliss rocketed through Dean so intensely he wasn’t sure he hadn’t come.

“I’ve got you,” Cas breathed into Dean’s spine, sultry breath shifting feathers gloriously. 

With a strained sob, Dean eased up and slammed himself back down. His vision whited out, need overcoming thought.

“Take what you need.”

And yeah, Dean growing wings was fucked, but as he fucked himself, up and down, up and down, Dean realized…

“...take such good care of you…”

...he’d never been fucked so good in his whole life…

“...my angel…”

...and he couldn’t wait to feel just how incredible coupling with his angel could be.

“...my Dean.”