#Scent of a Warden | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yeyinde · 4 months ago

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STRAW HOUSE, STRAW DOG

Baby Trap + Soap x Fem!Reader : or, Johnny finds a wife in the woods and decides to take her home.

18+ | DEAD DOVE, DO NOT EAT: noncon, kidnapping, breeding/baby trapping. somnophilia. implied stalking. obsessive behaviour. forced reliance/dependency. non-con drug use (implied). vulnerable character (injured reader) being preyed upon by an opportunistic scavenger.

Somehow, getting hurt in the remote wilderness of Nahanni National Park without any immediate rescue is the least of your worries when a rugged man shows up and claims he's going to help. Out here, you've been told your biggest fear should be bears, steep canyons, and a swift death with fangs and claws.

But maybe you should have been more concerned about strange men with crowlike smiles and blistering eyes.

ADDITIONAL TAGS: descriptions of injury. implied head trauma. bearded Soap. smut. this is my love letter to NWT and a what not to do in a national park.

BABY TRAP MASTER LIST | AO3 LINK

It happens in an instant.

The trek up the fjord narrows suddenly. Chossy growing slick from rainfall the night prior. You pace yourself, stepping carefully on the wobbling slate, testing its resilience before you take another step. Climbing higher. Higher.

There's a storm brewing in the distance. Its burgeoning pace grows rapidly, nipping at your heels as cool winds whistle through the steep valley below.

The park wardens at the visitors centre warned you about it when you set out into the rugged wilderness of Nahanni this morning. Brows pinched, wary, when you'd come to them—all alone—and signed your name on the barren ledger collecting dust on the counter. A fact that drew your attention when you flipped through the empty pages.

Don't get too many visitors around here, the man murmured, eyes cresting in apprehension at your question. Not the most isolated or remote, no. That's probably higher up. Quttinirpaaq, maybe? Heard from some buddies up there that they had no visitors last year. We do pretty well. About one thousand a year? Usually filmmakers and the like. Adventurous types. Gets kinda lonely up here. Ain't no Banff, that's for sure.

They added that the weather was unpredictable this time of year. All year, really. Nahanni is known for sudden swells and white-outs, for weather that can turn in an instant, going from calm to cataclysmic within seconds.

(“Storms,” the man huffs, and you think the sigh was meant to be a laugh. One that falls flat when he takes in your hiking boots (too big, but the sales lady at the sporting goods warehouse assured you it was fine, that you would grow into them), and your cheap Lululemon knock-off tights. Your flimsy rucksack. The tinge of green around your ears; the stench of an overeager novice. “And, uh, it’s urban legends.”)

Valley of the Headless Men, he intones, squinting up at you when you ask about them. Adding: be careful out there when you turn to leave.

Dauntless, you still set out into the park, determined to at least make it to your campground before it set in. But the majesty surrounding you on all sides distracted you from your pace. Eyes caught on the Xanadu of an untempered wilderness slowing your trek to a crawl as you took in the steep, rolling batholiths reaching high into the aether, their sides sloping down in a dizzying, vertiginous drop to a lush valley below of scheele’s green below. It all looked so perfectly symmetrical from the high point in the valley where you stood, breathing in the scents that perfumed the air. With the rugged mountains cupped around a winding white line where the river sawed through.

A lone moose grazed at the bottom of a rolling fell. The sight of her stopping you in your tracks long enough that the plume of darkened clouds—all a terrifying burnt sage—had time to catch up to you, crackling overhead as thunder rumbled through the canyons.

Your campground is at the top of this ravine. Three nights spent inside a cabin with nothing but yourself and several paperbacks for company. Into the Wild amongst them—a morbid parting gift from a friend on what not to do—and its inspirational predecessor, On the Road.

You won't read it. You never do. But it sits, a humourous paperweight, in your rucksack as you clamber up the ravine. An anchoring comfort. A piece of home. Something that reminds you you're not completely alone even though you are.

The book, your friends, and the encroaching loneliness that you feel prickling behind your eyes, all weigh on your mind. Spooling out before you in loose, loop threads. You follow them eagerly, glad for something to abate the unnatural silence, and—

A sound.

It comes from the left, hidden in the thick tangle of furze. A click. It shatters through the eerie quiet of the sprawling boscage. An animal, maybe. Hopefully.

It must be, you think, heart hammering thunderously in your chest. There's a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. You hold your breath. Eyes glued on the thatch of green shrubs lining the base of the dense forest.

Nothing happens. You blink, shifting on your feet—

A red line pierces through the gap between the leaves, aimed straight at your ankle. It's thin, diaphanous. Slips over the scraggy rock like liquid.

It's so out of place here that it takes you a second to familiarise yourself with its unexpected presence. A laser—

An explosive boom fills the ravine the moment the thought connects. A rifle. Aimed right at you. It happens fast. The world turning over itself, spinning right off its axis. You fall against the ledge in a crumpled, heavy heap, legs so close to dangling off the precipice.

Gravity is a choking weight on your sternum, pushing you down, down, toward the jagged, rocky shoreline. A fall like that—

You curl into yourself instinctively.

“Ah, shite—” is all you hear amid the roar in your ears. “Y’alright? ah didnae see ye thare—”

In your tear-stained periphery, a man appears. He stands into the glare of the waning sun, limned in a halo of gold. There's a pinch between his dark, thick brows. A steep ravine. He's ragged. Wild. Tuffs of black hair hang loose past his ears and nape, curling slightly at the ends. It blends, almost seamlessly, into his thick, scraggly beard. He pushes a hand through the top, grabbing a fistful in his palm.

“Easn't expecting anybody oot 'ere. Nae this far intae th' woods.”

He seems to be speaking to himself more so than he's talking to you. There's anger writ in the fine lines of his face, but this ire isn't turned toward you. It's inward. Self-admonishment. His eyes darken when they flicker down to your ankle, as if reminding you of the hurt there when you'd been so focused on how out of place his accent is in the Northwest Territories.

The ache in your ankle brings you crashing back into reality. The pain seems to vibrate from within your marrow, riveting up your bones.

You chance a glance—

You swallow down the drum of panic. A trick of the light. It must be.

A dream. A nightmare.

But the man appears. His hand falls onto your knee, holding you steady.

“Ah will hae tae put oan a tourniquet. Will hurt a lot, doe.”

Absently, you nod. Keep nodding. Can't stop.

There's a hole cut through your ankle. Tore thro' yer Achilles, he's saying, words water in your ears. He instructs you to wiggle your toes.

"Ah know it hurts, but just dae it fer me, okay?"

You do. You—

Nausea buds in your guts, churning your stomach. The apple you ate earlier is choked out into the bushes dotting along the ravine. Insides purging themselves, replacing everything—food, water, coffee from earlier, bile—until nothing but shaky panic remains. It tastes like iron in the back of your throat.

“Ah know, doe,” he's saying, fingers knotting into your slick hiking trousers. Lululemon knockoffs from an outdoor warehouse in the city. A pocket knife follows, and cuts a seamless line inches below your hip.

Sad tae see ‘em go, he murmurs, accent thickening around the words. Saturating them in a drawl that's too liquid for your unpractised ears to catch. He makes a mournful sound when he slides the blade down your leg, adds, “hugged yer arse like a dream, doe.”

Another trick. The mountains do funny things to sound, you know. It must be all in your head. All—

“Don't worry,” he's shushing you now as he peels the fabric off your legs, groaning low in his throat. “Ah have ye. Ah will take care o'ye, tae, doe. Bonny thing, aren't ye? a' alone. Nae anymore, doe. Jus' me 'n' ye now. Jus' us —”

You always thought you'd have your wits about you in a traumatic situation. Be able to think clearly, rationally. Make appropriate decisions that befit the situation unfolding. Life saving ones. Practical.

To gear up for this trip, you watched survival videos on YouTube. How to make a fire. How to make drinking water. How to build a shelter. Tips on weathering down for a sudden storm. Tucked it all inside your head, and thought, I got this.

Had to, really, because everything you've read about Nahanni says it's unpredictable. Calm weather, gorgeous views one moment, and then a sudden deluge the next. Snow falling quicker than you keep up with. Animals blend in seamlessly with the landscape. Slips, falls. It's so easy to get lost, someone wrote.

But as he uses the scrap of your trousers to wrap around the wound on your broken, mangled ankle, you realise all that planning was for nothing. This was one of those moments when you discovered just how much you bit off. That panic made you mute, made you freeze up.

The pain is almost secondary to the surge of adrenaline. Fear.

You need to go home. You tell him this, slowly. Muttered through numb lips.

There's something almost like pity in his eyes when he glances up at you.

There was a mix-up, he says, slowly. Cautiously. You got yourself turned around in the opposite direction. There's no campground on the fjord above. All the lodges and cabins are in the opposite direction.

Y'got lost, he tells you. Turned the wrong way out. Ye'r in th' backcountry.

“I'll go back,” you press, urgent. Insistent. Panic is acidic in your throat. Corrosive. It burns when you swallow. “Please, just tell me which way to go, and I’ll—”

"Cannae dae tha'."

“Why?”

“Storm,” he points in the distance where a plume of cloud gathers. So dark, they're almost black. Ominous. “Gonnae skelp solid. Na choice but tae git oot."

“I don't have anywhere to go—”

He rakes his hand through his hair. “Ah kin take ye tae mines. Git a cabin in th' woods. Juist ootdoors o' Nahanni Butte.”

“No, I—”

His hand squeezes tight around your ankle. The pain makes itself known in a visceral, awful throb that travels up your leg, curdling at the base of your spine. Wrong, wrong. Something is wrong. Your body is trying to reject the agony. The breaking of your bone. It's foreign, it doesn't belong. But there's nowhere for it to go.

Pain pulses in tandem with your heartbeat.

You don't realise you're screaming until you hear the echoes of it rebound against the limestone walls. And then there's a whisper in your ear. You feel the scratch of his beard against your cheek.

"Shush, bonnie. Cannae let ye go oot oan yer own. Gonnae take ye home, yeah?"

Home. Home. You nod furiously, and it's only when the scraggly black curls covering his chin and jaw catch on damp skin do you realise you're crying.

He leans away from you, arm stretching toward the rucksack behind him.

The rifle leans against it. You feel sick all over again.

“Drink this,” he says, unscrewing the cap. “It'll make ye feel better.”

He presses the lip to your mouth, a hand slipping over the back of your head, tilting your chin up. “Drink,” he says again, and it's firmer this time. A command. “Ah promise ye'll feel better, doe.”

It tastes bitter. You swallow it down. Keep swallowing.

“Good,” he rasps, hand sliding down the length of your spine until it rests against your lower back. “Keep drinkin’, sweet thing.”

It pools in your belly, sloshing uncomfortably when you move, but it washes the bitterness from between your teeth. You keep drinking. Swallowing it down. You know you shouldn't, that you might get sick again, but it's a distraction from the mess that is your ankle—bloody, twisted, mangled—

Nausea swells. You choke it down until you can breathe without feeling as though you were going to be sick again.

“You'll be okay,” he's saying, moving around you with a practised efficiency for something so broad. It's almost graceful. Agile.

He patches you up as much as he can with the supplies he has, but you refuse to look again at your ankle. It's broken, that much is clear. You can feel your bones grinding, sliding against each other. The sensation is horrific. Wrong. You turn your head to the ledge you were standing on just to distract yourself from the agony of it all.

You're surprised you're not crying. Screaming. The urge is there, just beneath the surface. But for some odd, unfathomable reason you find you can't. Your chest feels heavy. Lungs sluggish. Slow.

It must be an adrenaline crash, you think. Why else would you feel so tired, so exhausted.

“I'm—” you start, but you feel dizzy. “‘m—”

“Shush, doe.” He mutters, and it sounds far away. Garbled. “You need yer rest. Had a traumatic accident. But don't worry. Ye can trust me. A wouldnae let anythin' ill happen tae ye ever again."

“Yeah,” you breathe, nodding. Nodding. You can't stop, can't—

“Lay back. Git some rest. A'm almost done, 'n' then ah will hae ye back home in no time—”

You come to on a groggy whimper, head buried in the messy locks curtained over his nape. There's a soft, pulsing thud in the back of your head when you try to lift it up. It feels heavier than it should. Leadened. You groan again, fighting against the currents dragging you back down to those soporific depths—

Your head is a slurried marsh. Thoughts ephemeral, broken. Fragmented. They slip through your fingers when you reach for them, diaphanous wisps you can't seem to catch.

“Don't worry, doe—” your world quivers when he speaks. Words vibrating through your chest, catching on the heavy rails of your ribs. The seismic vibrations rumble in your ear, coming to life as a mere echo in your head. “Ah will keep ye safe.”

It's comforting. A raft in squall, something to cling to as the waves make futile attempts to drag you under. Your arms, dangling loosely over his shoulders, sluggishly flatten to his chest, linking over his chest.

He grunts at your touch, palms slick on your skin.

“Thank you,” you slur, words thick in your throat. Sluggish. “Thank you for helpin’ me. Fer savin’ me—”

Your body shakes when he trembles. With your forehead against his nape, you hear his thick swallow. The air ghosting out of his lungs in a soundless whisper.

His hands flex around the backs of your knees. Squeezing tight. The man doesn't say anything for a moment. In the silence, the pursuing somnolence catches up to you. It digs heavy fingers into your eyes, dragging you back down into the sticky, thick tar.

Sleep finds you in an instant.

You try to read his words in the quiver of your bones when he speaks. Make sense of the tremble reverberating through the hollow gaps, tangling in the pulpy mess.

But there's a mistranslation somewhere. A missing decibel. A forgotten wavelength.

It almost sounds like he says—

“Wouldn't leave mah wife alone in th' woods like tha’.”

How funny, you think, and hide a giggle into the hardened ridge of his shoulder blade.

Cognisance is a transient flicker.

You're not sure how long he matches through the thicket with you on his back, navigating the unending chaparral with an ease that feels innate rather than practised. You stare down at the ground, world hazy around the edges, and think, suddenly, intrusively, that you ought to remember the steps. Every left, every right.

You get to seven lefts, three rights—a small ravine, a flattened coppice; a gnarled spruce sat alone in a valley of lush green and clumps of topaz podzol—before your eyes are too heavy to keep open. They slip shut. And you think, only for a moment. Just a second, I just need to rest my eyes, and then come to at the sound of a groggy engine growling to life.

The world morphs from a dense forest intercut with sheer cliffs looming, indomitable, in the grey distance, to the faded beige felt covering the ceiling of an old truck.

Your blink is a slow crawl, lashes weighed down by anchors dredging over the seafloor. Gritty, raw. It hurts, now, to hold them open. A furious throb jabs at your temple. It aches like a bruise. But it's nothing compared to the nauseating agony that floods your core each time your foot is jostled. Nerves being lit aflame in an endless throe of pain unlike you'd ever experienced before.

Your mouth feels sealed when you go to speak. Lips glued together. Sluggishly, you squeeze your tongue through the crack between your teeth, licking along the seam.

A plastic bottle appears in your periphery, nozzle tipped toward your mouth. A hand curls around the body of it. Fingers overlapping. It looks small in this big hand. Tiny. Long wisps of black hair cover their ruddy knuckles, spreading in a dense crop up their forearm, growing thicker at the wrist.

Their skin is pale, tinged slightly pink. Even through the brume, the lambent light of the sun catches on their skin. Illuminating small scars, cuts. Little scratches from the snagging furze.

Their hand shakes. The dark veins that branch off from the white-capped peaks of their bent knuckles pulse under the thin skin when they move.

“Drink, hen,” he murmurs, bringing the bottle to the jut of your lower lip. “Ye’ll need it.”

A plastic bottle is an odd choice to bring into the backcountry, but as you peer through the translucent skin, you find the water inside is cloudy. Chalky.

“Donnae worry—” he gives the bottle another shake, disturbing the sediment congealing at the bottom. “It's electrolytes, ken. Nothing fishy.”

Your teeth ache from the cold when he slips the rim between your lips, prying them apart. With your head already tilted back in the seat, the water slips in. A slow trickle. He feeds it to you, humming in appeasement when you swallow.

“Tha’s a good girl.”

It carves a jagged tunnel through the murk in your head. The praise slipping in, liquid, until it coats your burgeoning trepidation in a sudden swell of endorphins. With their unpractised, gauche hands, they paint a mockery of Sargent in the gaps of your synapses, stuffing the spaces between with oversaturated hues of teal, white, yellow, orange, and pink.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose.

But despite the shoddily crafted pastiche, it works.

Your eyes flutter, bones growing heavier, heavier, as they're forced to carry the weight of your liquified flesh. This molten heat in your chest turns your insides into putty.

Water dribbles down your chin. He sees it and coos.

“Ah, doe. Right mess ye are now. Ah will hae ye home in no time. Git ye a' cleaned up."

The idea of home melts you further. You sigh in the seat, soft and drawn out, and shake your head slowly when he wriggles the bottle in front of you again.

“Get some rest, doe,” his hand falls, heavy and warm, on your thigh. Thumb stroking along the curve of your leg, fingers curling into the seam, digging deep. Resting there.

It's too high to be appropriate. You know this. Went through lesson upon lesson in school of bad touches and what's considered friendly, polite. But when you try to open your mouth to say something about it, you catch the spread of his palm over your flesh. Wide, broad. Masculine. It catches in your throat, and gets tangled in the mush at the base.

It should be fine, you think, dizzy over the way his hand swallows you whole. He saved you, after all.

But it burrows. Digs deep. Some sense of wrongness permeates out from the firm grasp he has on you. It feels possessive. The sort of thing you might expect between people who are intimate with each other. A couple. You've known him for—

Hours, maybe?

Most of it was spent in a pain-induced hypnagogia.

It curdles in your stomach. Rotten, spoiled milk.

But—

He saved you.

You'll choke yourself on it if you keep thinking about it. So, you don't. You push it down. Cover it beneath the sediment, and bury it deep.

He's just a man.

Kind. Helpful.

As you dig a hole for this unease, he keeps his hand fixed on your thigh. The other is pressed against the steering wheel, the ball of his palm under the curve at the top of the wheel. Relaxed. Easy. You try to adopt his nonchalant disposition and glance out at the blurry world around you.

You feel exhausted. Unsettled. The sort of fatigue that comes with a raging fever. There's sand in your mouth. Your throat is dry.

You don't ask for water.

In the lull, he pitches the truck forward with a grave rumble. The silence is broken by the crunch of vegetation and gravel beneath the wheels as he ploughs forward.

There are public roads to get to Nahanni. The floatplane you entered into the park on was chartered by Parks Canada. And yet—

He commandeers the truck around a flatbed of rock and dirt. Muskeg dots the tops in some places, and he veers expertly to avoid them.

It's less of a traditional road and more so a forged desire path. You know the highway has to be close by, the link between Fort Liard and Fort Simpson, but as you peer out the window, the world around you looks overgrown. Wild. Alien.

Sloping hills in lush green stretch out into the distance, meeting with the dense montane forests dotted along the stretch of land. The grassy coppice under his wheels is matted down, and interspersed with clumps of brown, wet muskeg and crushed slate.

Over the grey peaks of the mountains in the distance, a thick, black cloud looms. The sky turns gunmetal, almost indistinguishable from the monoliths jutting beneath them.

At some points, he takes his hand off your thigh to navigate winding turns better, but it always ends up back on you. And always a little higher than it was before.

Your mouth is filled with lead. Tongue thick, malleable. Tensile like mercury. You can't speak. So you just ignore it. Dig your crown into the headrest, and breathe in the woodsy scent of him. Laurel, tree moss. Coumarin. Rotting pine. Sweet acacia. It tickles the back of your throat. Sticks there, glued in the syrupy mess.

You'd hoped it would get easier to ignore, but it stays there, a constant weight, even as the world outside fades into a hazy twilight.

In the hush of the cabin, he squeezes your thigh. “Cannae wait tae get ye home, doe.”

Against the staggering backdrop of a black, jagged mountain, a doe stands in the talus. Her fawn fur and tuffs of white spots stick out against the charcoal-coloured cliffs, and you watch, some distance away, as she bends down to fossick through the scree in search of food.

With the looming clouds of gunmetal and ash gathering around the craggy peaks, her presence here feels dangerously out of place. Jarring. She shouldn't be here. She doesn't belong.

But the beauty of this moment is breathtaking. Mesmerising. You stare in muted horror, awe, as she grazes in the rubble, slender neck bent in a graceful arch. The sloping handle of fine china. Her wet, black eyes are so open, so kind. Puddles of ignorance, naïvety, as she flicks her tongue out against the desolate rock, a fruitless search for grass in which to mull on.

Thunder crackles over the snow-capped ridges. Her ears flicker, but she doesn't run. You should warn her. Scare her away. But you can't move. Can't speak. You're a mute spectator, a piece of dross on the ground watching the approaching calamity without a mouth. Horror churns. You want so badly to tell the doe to run—

An impossibility, you know. It's much too late for her to do anything at all.

Around the doe’s leg is a shackle.

Your skin rips, tears, as you force your jaws apart, blood pooling in your mouth. If you can make a sound, she’ll—

A boom echoes through the canyon's cradle.

The scream gurgles in the back of your throat.

Agony rips through your leg—

—you wake with a gasp.

Sputtering, choking on the saliva pooled in your mouth. It tastes bitter, brackish. You feel something gritty between your teeth. It sticks to the backs, granular specks that dissolve, sour and chalky, on your tongue when you run it along the ridges of your gums.

You swallow it down, grimacing at the acidic taste.

“Awake, aye?” His voice chips through the dense fog. You blink the haze away, glancing sideways at him through bleary, heavy eyes.

His profile is lit by the harsh glare of high noon. The sharp jut of his ball cap. The curve of his nose set in the thick bushel of his scraggly beard and moustache. His broad chest concealed most of the view from the driver's side window. The lax bridge of his arm, knuckles loosely curled around the steering wheel.

He tilts his head toward you. “How're ye feelin’?”

Sluggish. Awful. There's sand in your eyes. Cotton in your head. You feel like you've been left out in the hot sun all day. Dizzy and sunburnt. Feverish. Heatsick. Your throat is dry, but you don't ask for water. You don't answer him at all. Can't. Your tongue is laden. Lips numb.

It takes you a moment to reorient yourself, squinting through the glare of the sun—

That reels you back. Breaks through the fog.

You know that the concept of day and night in the summer is different here. Twenty hours of daylight with twilight lasting all night. But even with the skewed perception of time and the heavy molasses thickening around the edges of your cognisance, you know that something is wrong.

When you left the park, it was close to five in the evening. It should be twilight, not—

Your gaze lists sluggishly to the clock on the dashboard. Through the haze, the unmistakable gleam of one-fifteen stares back at you.

It was the right time last night.

“Wha—?”

You're not sure what you're asking. It's not even really a word, but a garbled sound. A noise of distress, confusion, in the back of your throat.

He seems to understand it all the same.

“Park had a bad storm,” he answers, pitch far too light for the severity of your situation, of what you're feeling. It makes you frown, sharp and sudden. “Washed through th’ river. Where ye were—well. Wouldnae ‘ave made it out, ye see. Would’ve gotten all torn up in th’ storm—”

You read that storms in Nahanni are vicious, sudden. Weather can turn in an instant, going from moderate to devastating in a blink. But—

What he's saying doesn't make sense. You remember bits, pieces, from earlier. He said you got turned around. Wandered too far off the trail, lost in the deep wilderness of Nahanni’s sprawling valley.

“Where are we?”

“Nearly home.”

You push the wave of nausea down. “I need to go to a hospital.”

“Can't dae tha't'.”

“Why not?”

He doesn't answer for a beat, eyes fixed on the dirt path. Unblinking.

Finally, he mutters: “had tae leave th' park oan th' opposite side when th' storm came in. No roads take us tae town.”

“I have—” you're not sure where your bag is. You hope he had the wherewithal to snatch it up after you fell. Hope. “I have a satellite phone. I can just call—”

“Sorry, hen. Yer bag flew off th' ledge. Ah coudnae grab it 'n' ye. Ah dinnae hae a phone oot 'ere. Never needed one—”

Hopeless. Hopeless.

“How—how could you survive out here without one?”

“Nahanni Butte is a few hours awa'. Go intae town when th’ winter road is open. Inaccessible now. Th’ rivers flooded it. Cannae cross it. Can hunt, 'n' ah hae everything a'm needin' oot here.”

“So…” the reality of your situation is beginning to dawn on you. Helpless. Hopeless. “I'm stuck here until—winter?”

“Ah hae a friend flying oot fae Yellowknife. Comes tae drop off supplies 'n' th' lik'. He'll be 'ere in two months—”

“Two months?” This whole situation feels impossible. Wrong. You're so close to people—Fort Liard, Nahanni Butte, Fort Simpson. How could you be stuck here for two months? The idea of it is absurd. “You're not—you can't be serious.”

“Aye. I am.”

There's a pinch between his brow. You wonder if it's meant to convey the severity of the situation, but as it grows deeper, deeper, you have the sudden sense that it's not an emotional decree of his sincerity. That it's, instead, a sudden twist of anger.

It scares you.

“I want to go home.” You mean for it to be forceful, but it comes out in a whimper.

The man nods. The punch in his brow lessens. “Aye, me tae.”

“Where are you from?” You pry, needing the distraction from the endless trawl of green and slate and permafrost enclosing in on you. “You're not from around here, are you?” At the gentle raise of his brows, you add, hurried, rushed: “you just. Have an accent, and I—”

“Fae Scotland,” he answers, and there's a quick grin on his face. Roguish. Charming. The sight of it has your start thudding in an uneasy gallop. “Edinburgh."

“Oh. Far from home.”

“Aye—” the grin fades, twisting into something ugly. “Had an—accident,” he spits the word out, brows pinching once more. Anger is writ in the hard clench of his muscles, his jaw. His knuckles blanche around the steering wheel, and you think you should have just kept your mouth shut. “Sent me here.”

There's a multitude of questions you want to ask. Vying for the top is the most obvious—why did this happen? why isn't he letting you go?—but what comes out instead is, “why?”

Just that. Nothing else.

“Military.”

He adds nothing, either.

“Military?”

A nod. “Go’ hurt. Had rehab. Sent me here tae clear ma heid, and well—” his eyes flicker to you. You can't read his expression. “Got a fresh mission, dinnae I?”

“You don't—”

“I cannae leave ye. Both oo' us are stuck 'ere 'til someone comes tae pick us up, 'n' take us home.”

The idea that somehow he's just as trapped as you are hasn't occurred. Why would it when he has a rifle, a truck, freedom—

But what good is all of that when you're landlocked in a place known for winter roads. Permafrost. The forced shift in perspective doesn't quell the anxiety roiling in your guts, but it lessens it. Somewhat.

“Two months?”

He nods. “Aye.”

“And you have no cellphone? No satellite?”

“Ye can check it—” he makes a flippant motion toward the glove box in front of you. “Deader than ever.”

You hesitate only briefly. Long enough to level him with a searching look that yields no results before you reach for the compartment, gingerly pulling it open, and—

Sometimes, things get overlooked by their surroundings. Swallowed in the vacuum. Blending seamlessly into the muddle, the commotion.

This isn't like that.

It sits on top of a manila folder. Sleek black and cold silver. You're not terribly well-versed in guns—the extent of your knowledge stemming mostly from formulaic crime shows aired late at night; CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds—but you recognise this one instantly. Some sort of handgun. Police issued, you think. It's bigger than you'd expected. Looks heavier, too.

Your heart stutters. The air galloping out of your lungs in a stammering rush.

He makes a noise, soft and nonchalant, as if keeping handguns in the glove box of his old, burnt orange truck is perfectly normal.

“Fer protection,” he mumbles. You catch the jerk of his chin in your periphery. “Forgot I had it in here. Been usin’ th’ rifle fer huntin’ mostly. Or th’ shotgun.”

Three guns. You swallow. “Why—” your voice comes out in a brittle whisper. You clear your throat. “Why, um, why do you need three?”

“Not fae around here, are ye?” He echoes your words with a wry twist of his mouth, eyes slanting in the sunlight. “Tha’,” he takes his hand off your thigh to jab his finger at the handgun. “Is fer wolverines.” His index finger falls, his thumb juts out. He jerks it over his shoulder. “Tha’ is fer huntin’. The shotgun back home is fer bears.”

You try to move out of the way when his hand falls back to your thigh, but the pain radiating up your leg immobilizes you. There's not much you can do in this situation but endure.

Military. Wounded in action. Three guns. Touchy.

You're not sure what to think. It would be easier if you couldn't.

“What do you hunt?” You ask instead, glancing out the window to the barren landscape rolling out around you. There doesn't seem to be much in the jagged hills, and towering mountains.

“Gettin’ hungry? Donnae worry, doe. Go’ tha’ pesky hare I was tryin’ tae shoot oan th' ledge fer dinner tonight.”

It's not much of a comfort. The idea of being injured—by accident, he claims—to such an extent over a rabbit makes you feel a little sick.

“That's it?”

“I can make a mean steak oot o' anythin'. Stews fer tougher meat. Fish—whitefish, arctic grayling, and lake trout. Learned how tae make a nasty fishfry from th’ locals in Nahanni Butte. Bannock, too. Got berries ‘round ma cabin. Caribou, Moose. Taste better in tacos or burgers. Mountain goat, Dall’s sheep. Been eatin’ better ‘ere than ah did at home.”

“And you're—just allowed to hunt them?” The website advised about a permit through some special outfit needed to hunt when you requested your pass into the park. Said that only aboriginals were allowed to do so. “You're not—”

“Aye,” he cuts you off with a small nod. “No huntin’ in th’ park. But. We're nae in th' park anymore.”

“Where are we?” You ask again, firmer this time.

“I told ye. Nearly home.”

“And where is home?”

The way he sucks his teeth makes you recoil slightly. Wet. Irritated. As if he's tired of this conversation already.

“Close.”

You don't let his flat tone deter you. “Are we—are we still in the Northwest Territories?”

“Thereabouts.”

It's not an answer. It doesn't reassure you in the slightest.

You open your mouth to say so, words curling on your tongue when he jerks his chin toward the handgun, brow furrowed.

“Thought ye wanted tae check oan th' satellite phone.”

His tone is severe. A growl curdling the ends, pitching it down, down. Displeasure, irritation, blooms in the gnarled petals of witch hazel when he narrows them into slits.

You swallow, wrenching your gaze from the storm brewing over fields of wheat, and set your jaw. Masking your fear for annoyance. Confidence.

But your hand shakes when you reach for the black box shoved into the corner. Palms slick with sweat. You try not to touch the gun, doing your best to curve around it. It feels—

Real.

A real gun. In the real world. In a place you came to get away for a weekend, experience something you'd never had before. Freedom. Reliance on nobody but yourself. And now—

Somewhere in the Northwest Territories. Injured. Locked inside of a truck with a man who wavers between warmth—an unending heat, a furnace; a beacon of light—and severity like a swinging pendulum. You feel safe with him. You commit every turn to memory. He's in the military. He's going to take care of you. You think he's lying to you. He'll—

He'll let you go.

You're sick. You're paranoid. You're taking all of your grievances out on this poor man who is just as trapped as you are, turning him into a monster for no reason at all. At the end of this, when he drops you off at the airport in Yellowknife, you'll have to grovel on your knees for his forgiveness. Sorry I thought you were a bad man.

It could be worse, you suppose. He hasn't done anything untoward to you—touching your thigh like he's owed the right aside—and you shove it down. A problem to deal with later even though the suspicion tucks itself into your head, folded up against your skull. Metastatic. It eats all of his expressions, turning them over and over again for hidden clues.

If he does something, you'll run.

You'll—

“Almost there,” he murmurs, and you hear the rasp of exhaustion glued to the hinge of his jaw. You wonder how long he's been driving for. And why didn't he just go back to Nahanni Butte. Flooded he said. Too deep into the park. Never would have made it.

If that's the truth, you suppose you should thank him.

It sits in the back of your throat. You swallow around it, reaching for the phone instead.

There's a small thread of hope in your chest that it'll work. That he's wrong, doesn't know how to work it, and all you have to do is press a button and it'll crackle to life. Freedom within reach.

But when you press down on the button, the phone doesn't even whimper. Broke, as he said. Dead.

“Can you—can you charge it?”

“Tried. Must’ve blown somethin’ inside. Fried it.”

His words are a prison sentence carrying a punishment of two months. You knew this, of course. He said so himself. But the reality of it breaking over you is different from blind belief. The realisation of your predicament is a jagged knife cutting through tissue, letting corrosive panic entrench you as it spills out.

This is the sort of thing you’d only read about. Novels, and biographies. Memoirs. Movies. An extraordinary event that could never happen to you. Never.

And you're aware of it. Optimism bias. The not-me fallacy. But everything in your life thus far had been so unequivocally mundane that the possibility of it not happening seemed to eclipse any chance of it occurring at all.

The crux of the bias, you suppose. Though it does little to stem the disbelief surrounding it all. Even when you told your friends, and your family, that you were going on this trip, the most mordant of them said you'd get eaten by a bear or end up lost in the wilderness.

Injured, unable to walk, and stuck with a man you only marginally know (trust) seems like the plot of a lifetime movie.

But—

Two months.

You're sure in the meantime, someone will notice your absence. Raise the alarm. Call the police. They'll launch an investigation, and come searching for you. It's just a waiting game.

And—

(You glance at the man once more, his profile limned in a halo of gold. The rim of his hat casts shadows over his face, eyes concealed in the thickening tenebrous that enshrouds him down to his broad chest, dense with corded muscles. Athletic. Trim. Big.)

—staying alive.

Survival.

If only for just two months.

But the facts are cold, unforgiving. You are alone with a man you don't know. A man with three guns. Military. His experience in this wilderness vastly eclipses your own.

He's fine. Fine. Touchy, sure. But he hasn't asked for anything.

—his hand is on your thigh—

You'll be okay.

It hurts to swallow. “Thank you,” you murmur, hoping the conciliatory lilt eats the panic you feel. “For saving me.”

His gaze darts to you so sharply that the truck veers slightly to the left, tires crunching over thick beds of furze that line the forged road. The action is sudden—surprised, maybe, by your reedy gratitude. A deviation from the demeanour he'd shown you so far—calm friendliness. Affability. It jars you. Scares you. You grip the seat cushion tight in your fists as he mutters something sharp you can't discern under his breath.

It only takes him only seconds to correct, rippling his hand away from you to commandeer the truck back into the centre of the beaten path. Even keeled now. Almost as if nothing amiss had happened at all.

But it's undeniable. Congeals in the air, tense and unignorable. A vacuum that siphons the breath from your lungs. It sits in the whites of his knuckles, arsenic bones jutting from thin, rough skin, demanding to be seen; the terse set to his shoulders. To the grind of his jaw as he clenches his teeth.

You take him in with bated breath, swallowing whole each microcosm that buds to the surface of his demeanour. Wary. Watchful. Squeezing the satellite phone tight in your hands. But he doesn't meet your wide-eyed stare, choosing instead to keep his gaze fixed on the dirt road. Knuckles popping, brows furrowed. Silent.

But it's heavy. Oppressive. The same unrelenting chill as outside. You fight back a shiver in the blooming cold, wishing you'd packed more than just a pair of hiking tights (in tatters, now) and a thermal windbreaker for the trip.

The hum of the engine, and the cracking of rock and muskeg crushed under the wheel, are the only noise that fills the cabin. You stifle your breath. Hold it in your throat. Skewer your eyes to the landscape yawning out around you. The deep, thickening sense of unease grows in the pit of your stomach. Metastasizing.

Outside is a sprawling taiga forest. Emaciated spruce, balsam fir, jut out from the muskeg, dusted in a sparse layer of sphagnum. You can almost hear the trickle of a stream. The dirt road is wet under the tires now. A creek must be close by. A river. Flat River. South Nahanni. Further out might be Slave River. The Liard. Little Buffalo. Great Slave Lake, even.

Narrowing it down seems impossible when nearly the entire south corridor of the Northwest Territories is wet marsh and snaking bodies of water.

It both worries and reassures you at the same time. Getting to Nahanni alone was a challenge. With most of the surrounding area limited to a few year-round highways, there are not many places he could go without reaching dead-ends or winter roads closed for the season, inaccessible in the warmer summer months as the snow melts.

Though—these highways arch as high as they can. From Yellowknife to Tuktoyaktuk, right on the coast of the Arctic Ocean.

But he hasn't driven on any stretch of highway since you woke up. The road is unpaved, wild. You're confident you're still south, but the exact location eludes you. Northwest Territories. Yukon. Northern Alberta. It's overwhelming. Daunting.

You try to commit the geography to memory. Sifting through an endless trawl of nothing to find something familiar. A mountain range. A sign. Anything. Anything—

“Ye mean tha’?”

The sound of his voice draws your attention, raspy. Hoarse from disuse.

He swallows. There's something raw in his expression, fractured. Yearning, you think. For something. What that something is, however, you can't place.

It stays on as he slowly slides his tongue out, licking over the bristles of hair covering his lip.

You offer a shallow nod, unsure why this matters to him suddenly.

“Yeah, I'd be—”

You pause, words turning to smoke in your throat. Uninjured, is the first thought. Without him, your leg wouldn't be—

Whatever it is. Ankle broken. Achilles torn. A gunshot wound clean through tendon and tissue.

But at the same time—

All turned around, he said. Lost. He was hunting, too. You must have somehow wandered outside of the park limits. Must have because the sound of a rifle would have drawn attention from nearby wardens. They'd have come to investigate.

You swallow down the bloom of unbridled panic. The aftertaste is bitter in your mouth. The thought of being outside of the borders, all on your own—

“I’d be dead if it wasn't for you.”

The hush that falls is immediate. Your own mortality dangling by a thin thread. Happenstance keeping you alive.

He clears his throat again. Your fingers tighten around the metal until it hurts.

“Names Johnny.” He twists in his seat, facing you. “Johnny MacTavish.”

It's a bit late for introductions, but you take it in all the same. Johnny. Johnny.

(saviour—)

His eyes grow wide when you slowly, haltingly, breathe yours out. Letting it sit in the air where it dissolves into the silence, the weight of it somehow more damning than being alone in the woods. There's power in a name. In knowing it. Military. You're not sure why it matters, but it does.

You fight another shiver when he says it back after a beat, much too fond, adoring, for the sparse companionship you've barely begun to build.

“I'll keep ye safe,” he says your name again, accent curling in between the bridges of each letter. There's a heat in his eyes; pyretic. A sickness. “Don't hae tae worry aboot anything.”

He turns back slowly, angling the wheel around a sudden bend in the thicket. The path is clearer here, looking more like an established dirt road than a sparse coppice. It twists upward, cutting a meandering line through a dense cropping of spruce. The canopy above—as thick as it is—curls over the road, enclosing it in a bed of conifers branching overhead. Concealing it from view.

The sight fills you with a new bloom of unease. How quickly the wild swallows you whole, shielding you from prying eyes, prickles against the nape of your neck, dripping like hot oil down your spine.

“Where are we?” It comes out in a whisper.

He makes a noise in the back of his throat. In your periphery, you see him lift his hand off the wheel, but sit, paralyzed, when he brings it down to your thigh, giving what attempts to be a pacifying squeeze.

“Home,” he answers, making the turn.

A log cabin comes into view. It’s situated at the end of the clearing, covered by the same dense tangle of trees as the path. The forest seems to bend around the single-storey home, enclosing in a cradled embrace of intermixing wry jack pine, bold tamarack, dark spruce, and white birch. Trembling aspen peaks above the heads of the other trees, hiding the smoked black spruce roof from view above.

It might look homey under different circumstances, but the thick, stripped logs—made of varnished white spruce—jutting out half-crescents to form the walls seem brooding. Claustrophobic. It's small—just a storey and a half. A camper's cabin not meant for longtime use. It wears its age in wood rot and peeling varnish. The scent of wet wood clings to the air when he rolls the window down, coming to a stop a few paces away from the single step leading to the porch.

Firewood stacked high to the awning on both sides of the blue door, encased in metal to keep it dry. Moss-covered concrete foundations lift the house off of the ground, keeping it from melting the permafrost below. The remains of a snuffed, charred campfire is perched to the left of the winding path leading to the door. Felled lumber lays on its side, the top whittled down onto a seat. A wooden rack leans against a tree close by. The hide of an animal is stretched taut across the panels. Leather-making materials sit in a bucket beside it.

A metal box—bear-proof, you're sure—is half-buried in the soil. Storage, perhaps, for the unusable remains of the animals he hunts.

It's fairly standard for a cabin up north, you think. But something about this place makes you feel anxious. Trapped. You can't see anything at all through the dense cluster of trees, but you can hear the sound of running water. A river, maybe. A stream. It splashes against the rock, the current too quick for you to even think about swimming in it.

It only adds to your unease.

“This is home,” he says, jerking his chin toward the house.

Home is a cabin nestled somewhere in the unorganised wilderness of the Northwest Territories. Nahanni National Park is several hours in another direction. Too few communities exist on highway seven for you to even stumble onto them—

Assuming, of course, that you could walk there to begin with.

The lingering pain in your ankle, the heavy bandage wrapped around it—it's an immediate certainty that you can't walk. Broken, you know, from the glimpse you'd taken before. Milkwhite against raspberry red—

You don't think about that.

You don't think about much at all.

“Right.” You murmur. This place is the furthest thing from home you could imagine.

He moves in your periphery, reaching for you. You jerk back, driven by instincts. The need for distance, space—

The jostling of your foot makes you hiss in pain, and he offers a conciliatory hum.

“Ye’ll be alright, bonnie. Lets jus’ get ye inside now.”

The inside is made of varnished wood. A mix of black and white spruce. It's cosy, you suppose.

It opens up to a living room immediately upon walking in the door. A mat sits under your feet. A small closet to the right with the door slightly ajar. Along the length of the left wall is a doorway spilling into a small kitchen. From your vantage point, you make out a sink, and then another door to the right.

Along the back wall beside the arching doorway is a brick fireplace. Soft fur is spread out on the ground in front of it. An old, weathered couch is pushed against the left wall, a shawl tossed over the back.

There's no television. A stack of books and magazines sit above the couch—used more for an end table than entertainment, you note, spotting the glass of water resting on the pile. A pack of cigarettes beside it. An ashtray on the floor. Bottles of beer sit on the small table shoved under the window. One of the chairs is covered in clothes.

It's lived in, you note, but lifeless.

There are no pictures on the wall. No personal artefacts littered around. It's—

Perfunctory.

He comes home, shucks his boots off by the front door, and drinks warm beer on the couch until he falls asleep. An inference, of course; but as he carries you further into the house (his insistence—ye cannae walk oan tha’, doe, stop bein’ stubborn and lemme carry ye), your notion gains credence. It's sparse. Threadbare.

There's a single plate in the sink. The old stove, separated from the sink by a small countertop, is covered in a layer of dust. A fridge is pushed against the back wall.

The door you glimpsed in the kitchen leads to the washroom. It's tight. A shower, a sink, a toilet. No windows. A towel is hung over the curtain rail, still damp from his shower before. A single mat covers most of the tiled floor below. A tube of toothpaste sits in the porcelain basin of the sink.

Beside the washroom is the master bedroom. The bed is unmade. An untouched glass of water is left on the end table beside a worn leather book and a bible.

An open closet sits across from the bed. The window is open. The breeze flutters the old, jaundiced curtain.

He gives you his room and says he'll take the couch. Under normal circumstances, you might have fought it. Insisted that he sleep in his bed. You're a guest. You couldn't put him out like that. But the door has a lock.

“Thank you,” you murmur, and he seems to tremble at your words before nodding.

“O' coorse.”

Johnny places you on the bed before he sets to work rebandaging your ankle. You're all too aware of the fact that you need to know. You need to see what you're dealing with, and how bad the damage is, but the pain that cuts through you when he rests your ankle—as gingerly as he can—on top of an extra pillow makes you yowl in agony.

It's vicious. Whitehot. The pain rattles through your bones.

He shushes you as he unwraps the clumsy brace he put on in the park, murmuring incomprehensible things under his breath that you think must be Gaelic. Words of comfort, perhaps.

You feel none of it except an uneasy dread pooling in the empty pit of your stomach.

“How bad is it?”

He hums, brow pinching tight. “Th' hare took most o' th' damage,” he says, eyes tracing along the congealing blood on your ankle. Dark cherry red. You swallow down a gag. “Tore yer achilles, though. Clean. Doesn't seem tae be any fragments. Broke your ankle, though. But,” he taps your calf, just above the bend of your foot. It doesn’t hurt. “It’s a clean break. Maybe just a fracture. Shuid heal up in no time.”

“And what about infections?”

“Got some stuff oan hand if that happens,” he leans back, and gives you a wink. It feels out of place considering the severity of your predicament. Garish, almost. “But ah was a good nurse. Patched ye up nicely.”

You don't ask anything else, and silence trickles in as he refocuses his attention back to cleaning your wound and redressing it. The bed is soft under you. Giving. You lean back, staring up at the log ceiling, and will yourself not to think at all. Each slight jostle of the wet cloth running along your ankle feels like fire licking at your skin. If you had anything at all in your belly left, you might have thrown it up on the side of the bed.

This pain is consuming. Persistent.

Your fingers knot into the soft blankets below, gripping tight until your knuckles ache. A futile attempt to exchange this pain for a lesser one. Something you can ignore, forget.

Through the open window, you can hear the playful caws of a raven searching for food. You want it to distract you, to pull you away from the sickening sensation of your ankle separating from the heel, but it doesn't.

All you can think about is the fresh pain. Your flesh ripped apart. Torn achilles, he'd said. You feel it as he moves, washing away the dried blood, the viscera. The break in your tibia. It's a nauseating feeling. Visceral. It screams at you that something is wrong, reverberating through your bones.

The raven caws again.

“Gonnae ‘ave tae stitch yer heel up.”

You make a sound—a pathetic whimper choked in the back of your throat.

“Fine,” you rasp, tensing. “Just—”

Get it over with.

Johnny seems to understand, offering a consolatory pat on your shin. “Ye'll be fine. Ah know what am doin’.”

You glance back at him, avoiding whatever is happening below his elbows. Refusing to look.

He reaches up, fingers stained pink with your blood, and pulls the ballcap off his head, shaking the matted hair loose. His hair is thick, curling at the ends. Dark brown. Soft. You take in his expression, him, as he works, using it to churn your thoughts away from the prickling sensation of him pressing your torn skin back together, readying it for the needle.

He's intense, focused, as he works. Eyes lidded to half-mast. Long lashes fanning out over the dark circles beneath his eyelids. Bruises that speak of long, sleepless nights. The empty bottles of beer and the full ashtray within arm's reach make a little more sense as you see the extent of his fatigue.

It doesn't concern you. You rip your gaze away from the thin, twisting rivers of red that snake through the jaundiced whites of his eyes; the possibility of his vulnerability notches something inside your chest you don't want to think about. Can't.

Your saviour, you think again, veering sharply on the edge of too cruel—

“Might pinch a bit, doe,” he mutters low, soft. His thick, even brows pull together at the centre. You feel the prick of the needle pushing through your skin—

Down his brows. The oblique curve of his nose. Bottled to a point. The thick bed of hair beneath his nostrils. Thin, pink lips jutting from the thatch of black bristles. The wisps curl down the slope of his neck, thinning at the hollow below before thickening back into a dense crop on the scant patch of his skin visible from his unbuttoned shirt.

Another prick—

A thin, gold chain loops around his neck. Tucked against his sternum is a Latin cross. It's plain. Traditional. Solid gold, maybe. But not purely for decoration. Where the arms meet the body, the surface is smoothed down. Worn. In the reflection, you can see the thin, circular lines of a fingerprint.

The bible on his dresser makes sense. You glance over at it, taking in the folds and creases on the leather cover. Aged and well-loved. Used. Pages are dog-eared. Waterlogged. Scotch tape holds the spine together.

The Holy Bible gleams in faded gold lettering. Douay–Rheims is etched into the surface.

The sight of a worn-down book and thumbed cross shouldn't relax you, but it does. A good ol’ boy, then. You turn back to him, eyes caught on the gleaming gold flush against tanned skin. It's tight to his sternum. Hung delicately around his neck.

Seeing it now feels a touch voyeuristic. It wasn't intentionally bared to you. Wasn't offered up willingly for you to gawk at, mind looping around thou shalt not kill and do unto others as you yourself would want done unto you, and finding comfort in the ordered morality of its symbolism—however fickle that could end up being.

You know a man is not as moral as his religion demands of him, but he looks devout.

A good Catholic boy.

Still—

You peel your gaze away from his chest as the thread slides through. The sensation is uncomfortable. Ticklish. Forcing your attention back to him, well above the neckline. His nose. Nostrils flaring when your knee jerks. His hands close over your shin. Mouth parting slightly just to say, keep still, doe. Donnae want tae hurt ye.

His hair is slightly greasy near his scalp. Sweat from earlier dampens his locks, flattening it tongue head. It's longer at the top compared to the sides. An odd, asymmetrical hairstyle that doesn't feel like an aesthetic choice at all. Maybe he had a mullet. Or—

You see it when he tilts his head down, chin angled toward your foot.

A scar stretches from his temple back, thinning the hair that lines his scalp on the right. The flesh is jagged, uneven. Cratered. It forms a ravine. The canyon walls clumped scar tissue. The nullah in the centre is all pink and raw.

You think of a shooting star. Meteor showers in the indigo sky.

You think of his words from earlier—ah know what am doin’—and the depth of his medical knowledge. It stands out now. You suppose he would, wouldn't he?

The thought has shame dripping down your spine like hot, slick oil. Burning. Tarry. You remember what he said in the truck about being wounded in action, the misery in his words, the anger, and choke yourself on the regret that swarms your throat.

He looks up, then, catching whatever awful amalgamation of self-hatred, shame, and regret makes of your expression, and the words—sorry, I'm so sorry—tear through your throat until it's bloody and raw. Pulp. Unspeakable, now.

It dampens his brow, but there's no embarrassment in his eyes when he holds them to yours. Nothing except an intense, dizzying sense of curiosity. Of—

Intrigue.

It doesn't have a place here, and the sight of it is sobering.

Why is he looking at you like that when you're gawking at his injury? Confusion knots deep. Uncertainty coiling around your ribcage. Maybe he didn't notice. Doesn't care.

Is too used to it to worry about whatever conclusions you might draw from the jagged skin barely knitted back together. But his eyes flash. Understanding edging out the unfathomable greed lurking in hazel plains, nestled, restive, in the shade that falls over the sloping boscage.

You almost miss the shadow when it appears. Wrought with Leashed ghosts. Tempered anger. Wild, frenetic. The chains holding it at bay tremble. Shake—

And then it's gone.

Dissolve back into passive cordiality. All ire stayed behind a wall.

You want to apologize, but the words are ash in your throat. Unspeakable. Johnny doesn't address it. He dips his head down once more, silently refocusing his attention to your ankle, and offering no explanation for the scar on his head.

You don't ask. Don't pry. It's not your place. But your eyes are still glued to it.

It's a horrific injury. Survival from such a terrible wound seems like an impossibility. A gunshot, you're sure. Seeing the small chasm carved into skin, narrowly missing his eye socket, fills you with a blistering sense of pity for this man, and you quietly, quickly, peel your eyes away from the jagged surface, letting your gaze run across the room. A meagre sense of privacy, you're sure, but it lets you breathe a little easier when you can't see the way his temple split apart to make room for a bullet—

“Had a mohawk,” he says. “They cut it off when this happened.”

A mohawk. The asymmetry of his hair makes sense now, and you can almost picture it as you stare at him. The edges shorn, the top long. Unruly. His hair has a slight curl to the ends, but is mostly straight for the first few inches.

As wild as he looks now—untamed, rugged; the thick tangle of uncharted wilderness—the mohawk must have made him roguish. Boorish. With his broad shoulders, thick biceps, and piercing blue eyes, the mohawk would have added to the playful appeal. Boyishly charming with his cropped hair and puckish grin. The draw of a bad boy, a vandal.

But as you try and shape this around him, you catch the strain in his shoulders. The terse set to his jaw.

“You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.”

“Was shot.”

It's said without a preamble as if he was waiting for you to ask. But the words are spat out like they're something foul in his mouth; like he's ridding the taste of it between his teeth. The anger, the aggression cows you slightly, but you offer a small, warbling smile you hope is conciliatory. Apologetic.

“I'm sorry,” you offer around a stuttering exhale. You can't imagine what that must be like. Shot in the head. The idea is unthinkable. Improbable. And yet, the evidence slashes across his temple; a meteor shower carved into his flesh.

He lifts his chin, staring down at you from the bridge of his nose. “Wasnae yer fault, doe.”

“I know, I just—”

Johnny gives a nod in response, ending the bubble of words and apologies building up behind your teeth. It is what it is, he mutters when you blink at him, flummoxed. This sort of reveal seems like it should necessitate a bigger conversation, a deeper one. Questions buoy to the surface—from prying (how did it happen, how did you survive) to intrusive (what did it feel like, does it hurt still)—but you trample them until they sit, a building mass lodged in your throat.

He seems content, then, to continue with what he was doing, and says nothing more about it. And it's not your place to pry. To chisel into his trauma.

You let it pass. Let it moulder.

The raven caws once more. You lean back in his bed, staring through the fluttering curtains, mind reeling at this discovery.

Stupidly, you feel more at ease in his presence. As if this show of vulnerability somehow negated the distress of your predicament, and the infeasible nature of how you ended up here, in his home. Gazing through the thick canopy of green to the golden sky above. A whole world away from your home. Broken. Injured. But the cross, the thumbed-through bible, and his human fragility seem to curl along the vicious dread curling inside your guts, soothing over the distrust with gentle, sweeping brushes.

Quelling a frightened child after a nightmare.

How strange, you think, but let yourself relax in his presence all the same, breathing in the scent of stale smoke, sweat. Coumarin. Tree moss. Fresh pine. It smells like the valley. Soft, waning detergent. Masculine.

You pretend you're watching for the raven as you sneak small glances at him. Taking in everything with a new perspective. The broadness of his shoulders. The thickness of his waist. There's power in his arms, in his thighs. Sculpted musculature, honed and refined. Despite the thickness of his fingers, he has a delicate touch. Deft and sure, as if he's used to working his bulk around small parts.

He's unkempt. The ballcap hid most of his dishevelled state, but he's not sloven. It reminds you of the outdoorsy explorers. The hikers you met on your trip out. Roughhewn and unconcerned about their overgrown beards and their tousled hair.

There's something potently masculine about it, and you can't deny that even with the garish wound on his head, all mangled scar tissue, he's handsome. Rougish. The scar elevating it somehow—a testament, perhaps, to his resiliency.

He catches your stare on the next glance, holding it as he leans back with a quirk of his lips. It's not quite the grins he aimed at you before, but the shadow of it lingers.

“Now,” he utters, the severity in his tone makes you flinch. Sobering quickly under the weight of his solemnity. “Th' bad part.”

“Bad part?” You echo, confused. “What could be worse than that?”

He taps two fingers against your swollen ankle, urging you to look. You swallow and force yourself to glance at where he rests his fingers.

With your split heel stitched up and wrapped in bandages, the sight of your leg doesn't make you want to curl into the fetal position and cry. But it's still horrifying to look at.

A mass half the side of a baseball juts out from your skin.

“Ankles dislocated,” he murmurs, sliding his fingers over the mound. “Gotta pop it back into place.”

“That's not—” you shake your head. “That's impossible.”

“S’okay, doe. I gotcha.”

“That's not the point. That's not—”

“Look,” his pitch lowers dangerously, firm now. “Gotta do it or you'll have problems later on. Much worse than a bit o’pain.”

“But—”

He inhales sharply. “Can't let it go, doe. Gotta fix it.”

You understand the logic in that. Leaving a dislocated ankle will undoubtedly cause problems later on. But—

“Will it hurt?”

Your fear quiets the irritation brewing in steeled hazel. “Aye. I won't lie tae ye, doe. It will hurt.”

You swallow around a whimper.

“But,” he leans over, his hand sliding over your cheek. Cradling your face in the palm of his hand. “I'll do mah best tae be quick. Ah won't hurt ye, doe.”

It must be the way he carries himself that puts you at ease, so assured in his abilities; confident in what he can do without any sense of grandiosity.

“Fine.” The word is juttered out of your chest. “Just—”

His thumb catches the tears that spill over your lashline, swiping them away with a tenderness that makes you shiver.

“Ah’ll be quick.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out two chalky white pills. Tylenol, he mutters, catching the furrow of your brow. It abates the unease somewhat, and you let him drop the pills into the flat of your palm, rolling them over with your thumb as he grabs the water on the end table. They're circular with a slit down the middle.

“It'll take the pain away.” He says, holding the water up to you. “Ready?” It's uttered so severely, so seriously, that your breath hitches in your lungs. Mirth blooming between your teeth.

“As I'll ever be,” you rasp out before popping the pills into your mouth, cradling them on your tongue protectively as you reach for the glass he holds out. They're bitter.

You wash it down with a mouthful of stale water before leaning back on the bed, letting the scent of his sheets wash over you once more.

Outside, the raven trills.

The pain of popping your ankle back into place leaves you a weeping mess in his sheets, but Johnny doesn't seem to mind the shuddering sobs. He pets down your back, shushing you quietly under his breath as he mutters something in Gaelic that you're sure is meant to be soothing.

“Ye’ll be fine,” he says, tracing figure-eights down your spine until the Tylenol kicks in, and the agony tapers off into an aching throb. “Jus’ breathe. Ah’ll get ye somethin' tae eat.”

He leaves soon after. You let the numbed, drowsiness of the pain medication lull you into a doze, listening to Johnny move in the kitchen. The squealing slide of unvarnished wood rubbing against old metal. The thud of a knife. The scent of hot oil. Muttered curses. A playful raven's caw.

You're not sure how long you slip in and out of this dreamless state, but Johnny appears in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the frame. He watches you with hooded eyes, a small, secretive smile tugging on his lips.

Blearily, you yawn, somehow still exhausted despite how long you slept between yesterday evening and today. Trauma, you suppose, and say nothing at all about it when he helps you sit up in the bed.

Dinner consists of leftover bannock—the fried dough soft in your mouth, the flavour buttery; smokey—and hare stew. He pulls a chair from the living room into the bedroom, eating on the edge of the bed with you.

He's sloppy about it. Slurps all the meat and potatoes out of the bowl before sopping chunks of bannock into the gravy, shoveling it into his mouth with a grunt. It dribbles down his chin, and dirties his beard. This slovenly display might have churned your stomach before, but you're just as ravenous.

And it's good.

The bread leaves grease stains on your fingers, but the toes on your uninjured foot curl when you bite into the crispy surface, teeth sinking into the pillowy dough below.

“This is bannock, you said?” You ask, dabbing the napkin he offered with a wink when you finish. At his nod, you continue. “It's good.”

“Aye,” he grunts around a mouthful. “S’the best. Make it every mornin’ so ah go’ fresh bannock tae go.” He swipes the back of his hand over his mouth, slurring out: “s’good wit’ jam.”

“Did the locals teach you how to make it?”

He nods. “Scottish dish, originally. Made wit’ oats. Drier, too. But—fuck. S’good—nae. Better like this. Ol’ couple taught me when ah first came. Paler ‘n’ shite, they said. ‘n didnae ken a fuckin' thing about surviving oot ‘ere. Big man, Jim, taught me ‘ow tae hunt. Where tae fish. An’ ‘ow to cook it. Made this cabin, aye. He, ah, and his son. Offered ‘er up tae me when they realised ah didnae come wit’ shite all but a bad attitude.”

“That was nice of them.”

“Most folk up ‘ere are. Quiet, ken? People take care’a ‘emselves, most. Take care’a others, too.”

You mull over his words as he leans back in the chair with a satisfied groan, legs spread wide. His hands folded over his belly. The picture of ease. Contentment. This freedom of motion makes you slightly envious.

“An’ wha’ about ye?” His eyes are lidded, leonine, and fixed on you. The intensity is always on the side of too much. Too dizzying. Consuming.

You stamp it down, running your thumb along the inseam of his gingham throw. “What about me?”

“Why’d ye come here?”

His question throws you off balance. “It’s a pretty park,” you offer with a shallow laugh. “Who wouldn't come here?”

“Lots of pretty parks. Why this one?”

“Dunno. It was—”

“‘ave ye ever been tae any other parks? Anything like this?”

“I hiked a bit, and, um—”

He sucks out a piece of meat from between his teeth. “A bit, aye?”

“Yeah. A bit. Why—”

“Ye came all the way here fer what? A pretty park? With no experience at all? And alone?”

The shift in his posture reads as angry, irate. You blink, bewildered by this sudden change.

“Well. It was supposed to be an experience.”

“An experience, aye? Survival skills of a lemming.”

It's derisive, cutting. You bristle through the sting of humiliation, grappling through the slurry of fatigue to cobble together some form of defence against this lambasting of your—admittedly—ill-thought adventure, but he's already moving on. Fingers tapping an off-rhythm beat against his belly as he levels you with a sober look. More serious than you'd ever seen him before.

“An’ yer family? They just let ye come here oan yer own?”

The mention of your family makes guilt well to the surface, buoying above the indignant anger at his mocking words. Cowed, you shrug.

“Sure.”

Something cracks in the severe mein he carries; fracturing through the blatant disapproval. Cutting it like a knife.

He sighs through his nose before reaching up and scrubbing his hands over his face. “Shite. Ye really needed me, aye?”

You blink at the odd choice of words, brows drawing together in a tight knot. It's indefensible, of course. In many ways, he's right. If he hadn't found you—

Well.

You temper that thought before it forms. You're too out of it, spatially unaware and unmoored, to let yourself fall into an existential pit of despair when you know you won't be able to climb out. Thinking of your assured doom out there, all because of a misstep somewhere along the path, makes dread bloom in the pit of your stomach. Nauseous, roiling. It froths over the basin, ready to spill over and drag you under.

Swallowing around the surge of panic—mortality a fickle thing in a place like this—you offer a despondent shrug in response. Unable to scrape together any sense of a defence that won't make you sound childish and idiotic.

You ready yourself for more mockery, having become the very thing the park rangers tried to warn you about when you showed, alone, in hiking boots much too big for you.

But then he's shifting, expression clearing. The anger folded back behind a quick grin.

“Pretty here, isn't it?”

You're not sure what to make of his mercurial temperament; emotions cascading by, quicksilver and sudden. The flashes of anger, intensity, curiosity, and this, all happening within such a short period. It's overwhelming.

It unsettles you. But—

“Yeah,” you mutter, unable to stem the awe from leaking through.

The change in conversation is freeing. Sometimes it's just easier to let sleeping dogs lie, and that's exactly what you do. Tucking his odd behaviour behind a plexiglass of indifference, pretending it wasn't there, lurking just out of sight. Something to unravel later, when your heart wasn't on the verge of buckling under the strain of your anxiety. When your chest didn't feel like it was slowly being crushed. Your stomach is all twisted up in knots too tight to untie with your bare hands.

It's easy to let yourself heave through jittering lungs, and pretend you couldn't feel the rot festering on the sides of them. Eating holes through delicate tissue.

The majesty of this place hasn't quite worn off, and you use that as an excuse to drift. To close the doors on the overwhelming deluge of hysteria creeping up on you.

You still think of the jutting fjords instead. The steep ravines, the moose in the distance—her colours sharp against the green backdrop—and let the untempered sense of reverence split you down the middle.

It comes out in a flood, then—as if you've been biting back the words this whole time.

You tell him about the valley. The waterfall. The white river. The marmot you saw poking its head out. No bears, you sigh; the forlorn lilt to your tone seeped with a touch of relief, an aspect he pokes at with a crooked smirk until you huff, rolling your eyes to the ceiling at his gentle ribbing. Huffily, you admit that as much as you want to see a bear, you're not quite ready to face them in the wild.

Lots’a bears ‘round ‘ere, he taunts, rolling his knees out further as he sinks deeper into the chair.

He dodges your next question of where, exactly, is here with a silky grin and a need tae know rolling off his lips before they tug downward in a sudden frown.

You must be acclimating to the strange ebb and flow of his emotions because the lour grimace on his face doesn't deter you as much as it did moments ago. You pick up the slack when the conversation lulls, telling him about the places you've been and how they compare to Nahanni.

“They just—don’t.”

It's hard to encapsulate the scale of it all into simple words; digestible pieces someone else can swallow. The park isn't too far from Yellowknife, and yet it feels like a world on its own. The remoteness, the vastitude of it all, is hard to describe, but Johnny seems to understand.

He listens with a slight quirk to his lips. A smile you'd almost call fond. He gets it, you know. The words you can't say. The ones that feel too lacklustre when you do.

“That really why ye came?”

You hesitate for a moment, looping a loose thread around your finger. Contemplating. Mulling it over. You've never told anyone the reason for the trip outside of a new experience for yourself. Testing your mettle. But with Johnny—

There's a sense of kinship, you find. An understanding.

“It seemed so—” he waits for you to find the words. “Lonely, I guess.”

“Lonely,” the way he says the word is ruminative. Rolling it around between his teeth; testing the weight of it. “Ah suppose it is.”

“You don't think so?”

“It's—” he pauses, eyes listing to the side as he mulls over what he wants to convey.

He does this sometimes, you think. Gets lost. Loses himself. Retreats inward. You can't help but wonder if this is a manifestation of his trauma—a head injury such as this would be classified as a traumatic brain injury, wouldn't it? You're not well-versed in this area, and it feels a little mean, cruel, to have this thought, but it blooms as his eyes fog over. As he struggles, almost, to find the words he wants to say, to give voice to what he feels, thinks.

“Lonely, aye,” he grinds out after a beat, but he looks frustrated about it, and glares down at his lap, silently fuming. Annoyed. “Big.”

The word is ripped out from between his teeth, and you nod, hastily, to both quell the looming anger brimming in the terse set to his shoulders and to let him know you understand. Can read between the lines—if only just.

“Is that why you came?”

The shrug he offers is noncommittal but you can see the tension pooling in his brow despite your efforts to quash it. “Couldnae go home after this—” he lifts his hand, tapping his fingers against the scar tissue on his temple. “Wasn't safe. Had tae give up everything after. Maw. Da. Sisters. Cannae ever see them again.”

It doesn't make sense. None of it does. The innate understanding between you is shattered by the impossibility of this moment, and his half-formed words. What you gave up seems paltry in comparison to what he's confessing to. His family. His whole family—

“Might see them one day. Once that fuckin' prick is in th' ground, but 'til then—” he shrugs again, easy. As if the look on his face wasn't cataclysmic in its anger. It's rage. Sorrow. Hatred. You flinch back as if the blackhole of these awful emotions will eat you alive.

Johnny sees it, and reaches for you, making soothing noises under his breath as his hand wraps around your thigh. “Ah, doe, don’t worry. He wilnae find us—”

You're not sure what to say to that, but the grip he has on you is firm. Unyielding. There's a scowl etching over his lips, as if the mere thought of such a thing fills him with disgust, fury, and you shake your head slowly.

“I'm not—I’m not worried.” You don't know how to tell him that this phantom prick from his past isn't what made you reel back, but the intensity of his wrath. The sudden infliction of his ire. So you don't. You give in with what you hope is a conciliatory smile. “I, uh, I trust you.”

It's loose. Shaky. Your conviction wanes around the edges, falling flat and hollow when it trembles out. If Johnny notices the brittleness around it, he doesn't show it. If anything, he seems to take it as a sudden gospel.

“D’ye—” There's a crack in his voice. He swallows, then. Adam's apple bobbing harshly against the skin of his throat. You wonder if you've upset him. Angered him. But he's leaning down, eyes widening. Feverish. Blue lagoons. “Ye trust me.”

It's not a question, but he poses it as such. You nod slowly and unsure.

Johnny ducks his head, then. Lifts one hand to rub at the bristles around his chin and upper lip. Lost in thought, maybe—

It's when he reaches around, scrubbing at the nape of his neck, do you see the flush peeking out from beneath the thick bed of hair covering his cheeks. The sight is jarring. Unexpected.

You're not sure what to make of it. Of this strange reaction. But it passes almost as quickly as it started. The red is replaced by a wide, blinding grin. He squeezes your thigh.

“Hah, doe. Ye really know what tae say tae cheer me up—”

You haven't said anything at all, but this, too, goes unacknowledged. And before you can even try to draw attention to it, he breathes in deeply as he sits up in the chair.

“Ye finished?” He motions to the bowl and plate on the bed. You nod. “Alright. Ah'll put ‘em away. Get ye some tea.”

“Oh, I'm fine—”

“Nah, hen. Tea is good for ye. Will help ye heal.”

He leaves without another word, carrying away your dirty dishes. The unfinished conversation lingers in the air around you, but beneath the loose strands of everything unsaid, you feel something tangle inside your chest as you replay his words in the back of your head.

All alone in Nahanni, unable to see his family. You're sure the prick he's referring to is the one who gave him that horrific scar, nearly taking his life.

Somewhere in the loop, a knot of pity begins to take shape.

Johnny brings you Labrador tea—a speciality he learned how to make from Ethel and Jim, the couple from Wrigley who took him in. It's good. It tastes sweet, earthy. Honey and pine. You sip at it as he grabs sleep clothes from his dresser, watching him with a muted sense of listlessness.

You can't imagine the next sixty days that loom before you. Restlessness, claustrophobia—it coalesces into this strange, itchy feeling that sits, uncomfortably, atop your chest; an increasing pressure. You wish you could pick it off like a loose scab. Dig your nail under the hard clot and tug—

Peel it all off until just silken new skin remains.

Johnny looks antsy when you finish the tea. Eyes bright. Wide.

As you contemplate the surrealism of your predicament over Labrador tea, he grins like a shark and tells you he only has one toothbrush.

“Dinnae mind sharin’, doe,” he offers, too jovial, eager, for the notion of lending his toothbrush to a stranger he met less than twenty-four hours ago. Ah ‘ave good hygiene, he adds, as if that might make this any better.

Putting away the disgust, the idea of sharing a toothbrush feels much too intimate to you. Something befitting a long-term partner, or kin, before a man you know only the bare bones of.

But like most things lately, what choice do you have?

Johnny grins brightly at your acquiescence. All teeth. He hands you an old sweater—his favourite football team, he adds with a wink when you blink at it—and then moves toward you with a wicked gleam in his eyes you try to pretend is just overeager hospitality.

“Wait—” you start, jerking back instinctively as he looms over the bed. “What are you doing?”

A dip forms between his brows, and he cocks his head quizzically at you. “What're ye talkin’ ‘bout, doe? Need'tae brush yer teeth, don't ye?”

“I—I can walk—”

He snorts. “Oan yer broken ankle? Will only hurt yerself more.”

Despite the truth in this statement, the flippancy in his voice stings. Prickles under your skin. Your loss of mobility, of being wholly dependent on another person, is a bitter thing to try and swallow. Especially when you're here for the literal antithesis of it. To be free. Self-reliant.

Not needing anyone at all except the grit in your bones and the determination to see things through.

Having all of that ripped into pieces in front of you, by a man who says it with such nonchalant disregard—as if your efforts were meaningless, insubstantial for what it got it—is humiliating.

You can't remember the last time you needed someone for something so simple as walking to the washroom to brush your teeth, to wash up. The loss of this minute freedom makes you want to cry; to break down. Rage. Break things with your bare hands just to show the world you still can. To fight against these shackles locking around your ankles, and run—

Johnny's hand falls on your knee, thumb brushing the torn edge of your tights, grazing the skin beneath the loose threads with each pass.

“Don't worry. Ah'll take care 'o ye.”

That's the problem, you think, chest burning. This awful feeling inside is churning. Frothingly acidic, corrosive. You don't want him to. You don't want to need this man at all. Ever. For anything.

But—

“Thanks,” you choke out. It tastes like iron. Like defeat.

He carries you to the washroom, cooing the whole time about how ye ‘ave nothin’ tae be embarrassed ‘bout while you blister from mortification, from shame.

You came here to be self-reliant. To grind your mettle against the wilderness and come out on the other side victorious and better for it. But what you've accomplished so far is getting lost, getting hurt, imposing on a man you barely know—

One who has to sit down on the ledge of the bathtub with you cradled in his lap like a child, injured foot elevated on the lid of the toilet seat. He cups his hand under your mouth as you scrub at your teeth, trying to catch any of the foam from the toothpaste that spills from your mouth.

It's mortifying.

You've never felt so vulnerable in your whole life.

“Sorry,” you choke out around the brush—his brush—as he slowly commanders the weight of you around enough to spit in the sink.

He waves you off with a noise. “S’alright, doe. Ye can lean oan me all ye like.”

So he says. But you feel the rapid inhales behind you. The soft pants spilling from his lips, lungs expanding, broadening his chest into your back. Exertion, you think, slightly cowed and humiliated. Desperately trying to hold some of your weight on your uninjured foot.

“Nah, ah,” he breathes, arm slinking around your middle, tugging you firmly into his lap. “Ye jus’ worry about gettin’ ready tae go tae bed now. Ah got ye.”

He soothes his palm up and down the length of your arm as you finish up in a fruitless effort to calm your nerves, but it doesn't work. Can't. Because you know what's coming next.

“Can I, um—” your tongue is thick in your mouth. “I need to use the washroom to–to, uh, washup, and stuff—”

His thigh jerks beneath you. When he speaks, his voice is rougher than normal. “Okay.”

But he stays where he is.

“I think I can do it on my own—”

“And if ye step oan yer leg?” He tuts, arm tightening around you. “Only gonnae hurt yerself more, doe.”

“I'll be careful, but I really have to—”

“S’okay,” he coos. “S’only me.”

That's the problem, you think wildly. Hysterical. That's the whole problem, isn't it?

“No, you don't understand. I need to, um, go.” He makes another noise, soft. Agreeable. Fuck. “I need to pee.”

It comes out in a hiss. Feral, like a cat. Embarrassment turns you into more animal than man.

Again, he hums. “I know, doe. Donnae worry, ah’ll hold yer leg.”

“Can't I just keep it, um, on the ledge?”

“No, no. If ye put weight oan it, doe, ye’ll be in serious trouble. Dislocated. Broken. Jesus, ye cuid slip the bone out of place—”

No. No.

The idea of him holding your ankle as you piss is beyond any measure of shame you've ever felt before. You like your privacy. Crave it, sometimes. You don't think you've ever done this in front of someone since you were a child.

You need—

A moment.

Time. A pause.

But he doesn't give you a chance.

Johnny's other arm loops under your knees, and with a small huff he stands, holding you aloft with an arm anchored across your belly. It's quick. Mercilessly so. He steps back and lifts his foot to toe the lid off the toilet seat, unbothered by the loud clang it makes when it hits the tank.

“There we go,” he mutters, and sounds almost breathless for it. “Let's get ye ready.”

It should be awkward. Clumsy. But he moves with a surprising agility that belies the firmness of his muscles, the bulk. He lets your uninjured leg drop to the floor, murmuring for you to put some weight on it as he cradles your shin in his hands, careful not to let your foot move more than it needs to.

The strange dance ends with him holding your shin in his hands, stretching your thighs out more than they'd ever been before. An image that might have been comical under different circumstances but just makes you flounder at the suggestiveness of the pose. Added, in large part, by the firm hold he has on you. There's not an ounce of give. No threat of falling.

You gasp when he moves, shuffling backwards to pivot you around until the back of your shin meets the cold porcelain.

“Alright now, doe,” he motions toward the seat as he slowly bends down to a crouch on the floor, your foot still held in his grasp.

You follow him down until you meet the seat, trying to avoid his gaze as you clumsily paw at your tattered pants, slipping the down your thighs in a hurry. Your panties follow after a moment of hesitation.

When his breath catches, you say nothing at all. Pointedly avoid whatever face he might be making as you stare, fixed, at the panels on the wall behind his head. Wallpaper. Probably moisture-resistant. It's peeling in some places. Decades ago, it might have been a soft canary yellow.

His breathing is shallow. You ball your hands into fists and press the flat of your knuckles against your thighs.

It's hard to focus when you can feel the scorching heat of his body bleeding into your leg, your knee. Close enough that all he has to do is bend down a little more, and his face would be pressed against your thighs.

There's no room, no privacy.

You close your eyes and pretend you can't hear how his breath seems to fill the entirety of the small washroom, ghosting over your skin. Virginia Falls comes to mind—a roaring rush of water—but even in the solitude of your mind, you can't ignore the way his stare drills through your skin.

You swallow. You can't do it. Can't do this.

“Can you—” back off, go away. Stop breathing so heavily because you might get the wrong idea, like this whole thing excites him somehow—

His voice is rough when he speaks. Ragged. “Cannae ah what, doe?”

“Turn the tap on? I can't—I can't concentrate.”

“S’only me, bonnie girl,” he murmurs, but does what you ask. Leaning over you, broad torso swallowing you up entirely under his bulk. You can feel the soft give of his belly on your knee as he presses it into you, but it only lasts a second before you meet a wall of solid muscle beneath. He braces a warm, rough palm on your naked thigh, leaning in as he reaches over to the sink above.

It's barely a fraction of his weight but the drag of it makes you blink in surprise. His skin is burning. Redhot.

Opening your eyes brings you close to his chest, nose only a hair away from the tanned skin stretched over his collarbones. The metal chain gleams in the flushed light hanging overhead, sitting in a golden contrast to his sunkissed flesh. Its reflection casts beads of glittering lambency over the slope of his neck.

Pretty, you think, watching as it coruscates in a mesmerising dance each time he moves.

The faucet turns with a metallic squeak, breaking you from your reverie. Water gurgles up from the pipes, spitting into the basin with a hiss. You pull back, twisting your head to the side as heat floods your chest.

“Thanks,” you mutter, unable to meet his stare.

His fingers tighten around your flesh. His voice is raw when he mumbles, “anytime.”

The trickling rush of water reverberates around the room, and it's easy to close your eyes and pretend you're alone.

So that's exactly what you do.

His palm grows slick on your skin. Damp. But you ignore it, focusing on nothing but the urgency of getting this over with as quickly as you can. It works, marginally—

(Johnny makes another noise in the back of his throat.

That, too, you ignore.)

“Finished?” His voice is thick, wet. You nod slowly, peeking out from the sliver between your lashes to paw at the wall for the toilet paper roll. “Here, ah’ll help ye out of fer pants—”

Your head feels heavy. Limbs laden. The embarrassment crushes you into a fine powder; malleable, putty. You let Johnny take the lead after. Let him slip your tattered tights down your thighs, and say nothing at all when too much of his palm glides along your skin as he pulls. Needlessly, of course, when just two fingers would do.

But it's fine. Fine. Maybe he's never taken off tights before. Maybe the material is too thin and he's worried about it catching on the scrapes over your knees, the bandage wrapped up to mid-calf.

Your shirt, too. When he slips his fingers under the hem, splaying them wide over your belly before dragging them up until it bunches around his wrist. Tugging, tugging. Hands gliding over your skin, fitting along the contours of your body.

He keeps one hand moulded to your neck, fingers brushing your jaw, as he gingerly pulls the shirt over your head. The ragged pants in your ear, the soft groans when you slip into his old shirt—

It's exertion, really. Must be. He's tired from holding you up the whole time you brushed your teeth, washed your face in the sink. It's all fine. He's being gentle. Doesn't want to hurt you.

He's just being nice.

(And when you notice that your panties are missing from the pile of dirty clothes he shoves into the corner behind the door, that, too, you ignore.)

Exhaustion takes you soon after Johnny tucks you into bed, dragging you under once again. He tells you he'll be on the couch. To holler if you need anything. Sluggishly, you nod. Thank him when he places a glass of water on the bedside table for you.

(Bite your tongue when he brushes his fingers over your cheek as he bids you goodnight.)

Through the gossamer of sleep, you can hear the floorboards creak in the doorway, but when you look, there's nothing there. Just an empty kitchen. The soft flicker of the fireplace smouldering in the living room.

Nothing, you think. It's nothing at all—

There's a weight on your chest.

Warm, searing. It dampens your skin where it sits, heavy, on your breast, cold air ghosting along the sweat building up each time it moves.

You stir. The pressure takes shape. A hand. A man's hand. Rough, calloused, and hot. In his palm, he holds your breast, thumb brushing along the curve of it. Sliding, sliding—

You come awake with a gasp.

There's a twinge in your ankle when you move, and the pain grounds you, silences you. His thumb twitches on your nipple, but he, too, stills. Quietens. An impasse.

And you suppose this would be where you'd scream. Rage. Slap him across the face, rip his hand off your breast. Curse at him for being a creep, and a pervert, and nasty, disgusting man because there's nothing at all that could justify the reason for why the shirt he gave you to wear to bed is tucked up over your chest. The bruising press of something hard digging into your hip negates any excuse he might try to give. This is unmistakable. You should scream, cry, and—

Leave.

This is what glues your lips together. Keeps you from moving at all, from making a sound. Where would you go? How would you even get there to begin with?

It's this—the uncertainty, your vulnerability—that paralyzes you. Keeps you still, silent, as his hands brush over your skin, touching, fondling. His palms are rough, calloused. Pyretic. He squeezes, kneading your flesh in his sweat-slicked hand like he's owed the right to touch you. Like he's allowed.

He pants against your temple, breath warm, humid on your skin. Heaves like a dog in your ear, grunting low as he ruts his hips into your side, smearing something hot, tacky across your skin. Something you try not to think about, to inch away from. But he catches you quick, and stops your meagre protests before they form.

His thumb and forefinger close over your pebbled nipple, pinching softly at your budded flesh. The shock of pleasure is unwanted. Awful. It churns your stomach, and you fight the urge to weep—

He leans up, ragged exhales growing heavier as he moves until milk-warmed breath shudders over your bare breasts. His excitement throbs against your hip. You swallow down around the sudden wave of disgust, the sickness knotting itself together in your belly. It devours the lingering pity you'd felt earlier. The safety, the comfort, that brimmed inside of you for him.

(bleeding heart—

he gorges himself on it.)

Stay still, you think. And maybe he'll go away.

But he doesn't. Of course, he doesn't.

Johnny leans down, mouth closes over your nipple. It's all searing heat. Wet, soft. A sudden jolt of pleasure shoots down your spine when he sucks in tandem with the soft, rolling pinches he doles out on your tiger nipple, and you hate your treacherous body a little bit more for it. For how good it makes you feel when he flicks his tongue over your hardened peek, laving it sloppily. Messily. Drooling all over you—the big fucking dog—

You wonder how long he's been doing this. Touching you in your sleep. The thought sits like hot oil in your guts; sloshing against the soft lining of your stomach until it aches. Burns. You blame it on that when he grunts against your breast, the vibrations send a shiver down your spine. Have to, don't you? Because the alternative is to admit that you're slick, soft between your thighs already; folds soaked, inner thigh damp. Wet. Blame it on him, and the burden in your chest eases when you feel the stirrings of desire, lust, thicken in your lower belly. Bodily reaction becomes your clutch, your lifeline when he lays his upper body against you, the weight, the heft, of his bulk forcing the air from your lungs.

Johnny lifts his head suddenly, eyes drilling into yours before you can feign sleep to avoid looking at him. You don't want this. Your body thrums with reluctance, with fear, but you can't drag your gaze away from him. The rapturous look in his eyes, burning in the low simmer of a never-ending twilight, is paralyzing. Electric. You can't remember a time in your life when another person has ever looked at you with such raw want. Desire. Need. It's covetous. Ugly. Marbled with heady streams of hunger, of awe, as if he's not sure whether or not he wants to eat you alive or savour you for aeons. Taking bites, nibbles, when this urge becomes too burdensome to bear; when the ravenous chasm in his guts threatens to devour itself, bones and all, like a man-made black hole. Under this heavy, unrelenting stare you wither. Submit. Your head rolls until your cheek is pressed against the pillow, neck bared. Offered up to him.

(anything, you think, to run away from the naked want on his face. because with his mouth slack, lips slick, glistening with spit, he looks predatory like this. animal. bathed in gloam and flushed a deep roseate.)

He props himself up on his elbow, watching you. Feasting. Your quiet submission makes him moan; hips juttering at the slow reveal of your vulnerable neck. A paroxysm. As if he just can't help himself to hump against you like a beast in rut.

He swallows. You watch his throat work from the corner of your eye, Adam's apple bobbing up and down, up and down—

Then:

He lifts himself up higher, angling his body until it's bracketed over you. Sliding between your legs until your slit is pressed against the coarse hair that covers his thighs. He keeps his elbow propped on the pillow, sliding up, up, until his forearm comes to rest beside your face. It boxes you in completely under his weight, and the position forces your legs to spread open to accommodate him. Not given up freely, of course; but your compliance in this is inessential, it seems. He moulds you how he likes, mindful of your injured ankle the whole time. A kindness that makes something molten thicken in your throat, stifling the scream that claws its way up your esophagus.

You try not to stare when he clambers over you, chest bare against yours. Hips chiselling a gorge between your thighs wide enough for him to fit. To press his fattened length on the insides of your sticky thighs; groins drawing together. Your legs slung loosely around his tapered waist. A dreadful pastiche of lovemaking. Intimacy.

But even as a mockery—bastardised as it is—it’s embarrassing how easily you open up for him. Legs falling, spreading further apart. Hot, sticky at the apex of your thighs. Wanting.

Blame it on sleep, on this endless hypnagogia you've been feeling since he leaned over you on the cliff edge, and said, pretty thing, aren't ye? All alone. No’ anymore, doe. Jus’ me an’ ye, now. Jus’ us—

You swallow, fighting the urge to cry. Blinking rapidly against the tears that pebble against your lashline, but you're helpless to stop the flood even though the levee doesn't break, doesn't spill over. It just sits, a sorrowful lagoon with nowhere to go.

In your attempt to hold back the deluge, you let your gaze wander away from the piercing blue that drills into your face—seemingly unbothered by the tears in your eyes, the ones that clot over your irises, stinging and hot—and stare down at his broad chest. A mistake, maybe, because you catch sight of the gold cross dangling around his neck. Like a pendulum, it swings. The motion is mesmerising. Hypnotic.

It distracts you for a moment. Or maybe you've just grown accustomed to his touch, to the heat of his hand on your skin. Whatever the reason, it's enough to pull you away from the feverish trail his fingers leave as they make a steady drag downward. It's only when they dance over your belly button do you realise the muted tickle is Johnny, and by then—

“Shush, s’alright, doe,” he's cooing, warm breath ghosting over the plains of your face. It might be comforting if he didn't rest his weight on his elbow, freeing his other hand just to bring it over your mouth, thumb brushing under your eye. A warning maybe. Don't scream. “Ah go’ ye. Ah’ll make ye feel so good—”

There's a fever in his eyes. Wildfires spreading through the yawning boscage, burning everything in sight. The heat is hot enough to char bone; to blacken meat into a dessicated husk. Eating away at everything in its path.

You know, almost immediately, that Johnny's beyond reason. Or, rather—

He's gone, turned inward; delusional enough to think that this is something he has to do.

You'd seen all the warnings of the kindling fire before. Something you'd decided to ignore even as the hunger in his eyes surged; as the shape of it morphed into a frothing devotion that felt ill-fitting for two strangers stuck together like this.

Stupidly, you thought you could outrun it. That he was a good man beneath it all, and wouldn't succumb to touching you in your sleep, to lulling you into a false sense of security—

Except. He hadn't, had he?

He'd been blunt about it all since the beginning. My wife—

How silly, you thought.

But the humour fades when he teases over your hips, resting his palm over your mound, middle finger perched above your clit. Just holding. Touching. The possessiveness of the action is unmistakable, unignorable.

It shouldn't send a shiver down your spine when you'd rather he didn't touch you at all, but it does. There's something about him, you think. Electric. A lightning storm. It crackles in the air around you, humming low in the atmosphere; this unavoidable surge, natural phenomenon. Maybe that's what he is.

More storm than man. A force you can't outrun, but can only endure—

His eyes flash when he slides his fingers further down your slit and finds your skin soft, hot. Drenched. When he groans your name out, it sounds like a prayer. An orison.

“So wet, doe,” he's heaving out in a whisper, eyes nearly rolling back into his head as his touch grows bolder, more insistent. As if the softness of your flesh, the wetness that sticks to your inner thighs, is all the consent he needs. “So fuckin’ wet fer me, aye? Been waitin’ fer this, haven't ye?”

You want to shake your head no but it's futile. He drops his head to look down the chasm between your bodies, watching his hand slide along your skin. Legs spread around his waist, inviting. He curses foul under his breath when he sees how wet his fingers are from just a touch, words mangled in the back of his throat. They sound less coherent as he roams your body, parting your folds and stroking through the slick spilling out of you, dragging it up to your clit.

His voice is closer now. Lips bruising against the shell of your ear. Butchered English. Gaelic. An amalgamation of low whines, and rasping grunts. He sounds more animal than man. A booming thundercloud groaning above you, as if touching you is enough to please him, too. Siphoning it from your body as he presses his fingers against your clit, circling, stroking.

It’s good. So good. And that's the problem, you think. It's easy to give in like this when he pets your pussy like the feeling of your fluttering heat on his hand is enough to make him cum. No one has ever touched you like they were starving for it. Needed it as badly as you did.

The sensation is almost too much. The notion of it getting tangled in the back of your head, looping around the part of you still screaming to run. To go home. To push him away.

(your arms are laden. your tongue is a puddle of mercury in your mouth—)

But just as the pleasure blooming in your belly raises with each pass of his thumb, he pulls away. Slides down, down—

Circles your hole with the tips of his slick fingers, petting with the same desperation he showed your clit until he deems you soft enough for him. He slowly sinks his finger inside of you to the knuckle, stretching your walls around him as he moans into your ear about how good ye feel around him, all tight. Hot. So fuckin' wet, do. So wet fer me—

He pulls out just as slowly, shushing the soft gasp you make when the ridge of his palm catches on your clit.

“Ah told ye, didnae ah? Ah’ll take care’a ye.”

He presses two fingers inside of you as he peppers kisses over your cheek, cooing low about how badly you need him. Only him.

Johnny fucks you slowly on two fingers. Gently. Deeply. Sliding into the last knuckle, petting against your slick walls, like he's owed the privilege and not touching you in your sleep.

He brings you to the edge, takes you right there, and—

Pulls away. His fingers slide down as your hips flit, lifting to make them catch on your clit again. It's embarrassing how badly you want him to touch you. Shameful.

He leans up and catches your mouth in a messy kiss. It's all tongue, wet, no finesse. The wild, unkempt tangle of hair abrades your skin, rubbing it raw as he devours you. Scoops out your tongue with his own, enticing it into his mouth. His teeth close on the thick of it, lips pursing. Sucking on the tip.

His kisses are doglike and obscene. Leaves drool dribbling down your chin, soaking into your neck. He can't seem to decide what he wants to do, so he tries to do it all. Everything. Biting your lips, trying to choke you on his tongue. Slurping up the taste of you until his mouth is stained with it. Beard matted down, drenched.

Despite it all, he's a good kisser. His pace is fast, breakneck. You can't keep up, but you try. Struggling along as he seems hellbent on eating you alive. But it's sporadic. He pauses just long enough to settle into an easy rhythm that makes you arch into it, silently begging for more as he fucks you on his fingers. Nips your tongue as he slides in a third, swallowing the gasp you let out, savouring your moans between his teeth.

Johnny ruins you with just a kiss. Leaves you panting, unmoored. Mouth slack, open wide for him to do what he pleases because the taste of him is divine.

“C’mon,” he urges, spreading his fingers inside of your cunt until you keen, whining his name. “Suck my tongue, bonnie.”

It's disgusting. You do it, anyway.

Your quiet acquiescence makes him moan, hips rutting against you. The hard press of his cock into your skin is bruising. It aches. Your inner thighs are tacky with your slick and the smears of pre-cum he leaves behind as he humps against you.

He sounds mournful when he pulls away, mouth messy with spit, and whispers, “fuck, wish ah could taste ye again, doe—” You don't know what he means until his eyes drop down to his hand, working insistently between your thighs.

Your stomach drops. Plummets. You thought this started when he was touching your chest, when you woke up to his hand on your breast—

“Ye didnae wake when ah did it before,” he says, as if sounding mournful, sad, over the fact that you didn't wake up to him eating your pussy while you were asleep, was normal. “Must’a had too much tea—”

You wish, so suddenly, so viciously, that he'd stop talking. You can't hear this. Can't bear to listen to him confess to all the needling worries that bloomed in the back of your head, ones you stamped down with a heavy foot and a potent sense of guilt, shame, for condemning a man who was just trying to help.

It makes you want to cry.

“Oh, doe, don't cry—” he coos the words out, contrite and conciliatory, but you can feel the way his cock twitches against your thigh. The unmistakable heat mushrooming in his eyes as the sight of tears streaming down your face.

He seems to take it as misery over not feeling his mouth on your cunt, a plaintive assertion he whispers into your ear (poor thing, jus’ wannae feel ma mouth on you, aye? wannae feel me lick yer sweet pussy again?), and decides to rectify your sorrow by kissing his way down your body.

His fingers slip out when he moves, resting them on your knee as he kneels back on his haunches.

You spare a glance toward him, nervous with trepidation, and—

This whole time, his cock had been this phantom sensation against your skin, bruising and hot. Leaving wet smears over your thighs. Hidden from view. But like this, it's the first thing you see as it hangs, heavy and thick, from between his thighs.

The sight is—

Something.

You don't want to think about the heat in your belly. The nervous flit of your heartbeat.

A pearlescent strand dribbles down the weeping, slick head, dropping to the sheets below. The shaft of his cock is similarly drenched, smeared with what seems like a copious amount of precum. It gathers at the base, a startling contrast of thick, black hair and globs of milky white.

Something about it makes you recoil. Almost instinctively, primal.

Your flinch just makes his cock twitch, spitting more out.

The motion seems to unveil more of it to you, adding to the growing unease you feel because his cock is the furthest thing from pretty.

It's flushed a daunting vermillion and purpling like a bruise around the engorged glands. Thickening at the base. Streaked with dark veins that run the length of it, like rivers intersecting and jutting up from his skin. Blotches of red, pink, purple, and peach make up the colouring of it. Marbled like a black eye. A busted lip.

It bobs when he moves. Ugly, garish. You don't want it anywhere near you—

But Johnny’s wet hand on your knee keeps you from moving. Holds you in place as he bends down, resting on elbow to bring his face as close to your pussy as he can get.

Johnny stares—unabashedly—at your bare cunt when he finally settles between your thighs, widening them further to fit the broad stretch of his shoulders. Eyes lit with a heady greed, a hunger, that knocks the air from your lungs.

“Missed ma mouth, didnae ye?”

For a moment, you think he's talking to you. Confusion colours the panic you feel, dampening the dread down until it's flattened by sheer bewilderment when you realise his eyes haven't left your slit.

“Such a bonnie girl,” he purrs, breath ghosting over your cunt. “Been so lonely without me, aye? Poor thing.”

It heats you up from the inside out. The mesmerised, almost unfettered look of pure adoration shaded alongside the raw want on his face twists a sense of desire inside of you. Has anyone looked at you with such naked need on their face? As if the idea of not having a taste was somehow the most agonising thing they could experience? The way Johnny looks at you is enough to make you ache. And with anyone else, having him address your pussy instead of you would be awkward, humiliating, but somehow, him doing it makes you burn white-hot. Makes you want—

“Johnny,” you whisper, paper-thin, and his head shoots up, brows inching high on his brow. You're acutely aware that this is the first thing you've said since this started. Since you woke up to him groping you, touching you, in your sleep. And it's his name. Johnny.

Not no, don't. Stop. Please. Just—

“Johnny.”

It's not consent. You're not sure you're fully capable of doing so right now, if ever. But it's the closest you think you could come to saying yes. Admitting that you want his mouth on you, even though the situation leading up to this still makes something ugly and awful twist in your guts, is as much as you can give. He seems to see this. To know.

But Johnny takes it between his teeth as an unequivocal yes despite that, groaning low in his throat, midnight eyes rolling back into his head. The hands on you tremble. Shake.

He breathes in deeply through his nose, the sound whistling as a great plume of air is forced through small channels, filling his lungs. Perfuming them with the heady scent of you, of sex, clotting in the air.

“Fuck, doe. Gonnae give ye what ye need.”

And then he bends his head, eyes lidded still, half rolled, and without any preamble, glues his lips to your drenched slit, forcing it between your soft folds.

The first touch of his tongue is molten. Soft, tensile, he laves it over the whole of your slit from the sensitive skin beneath your hole, to the crest of your clit. Digs his tongue in, swirling it over and under your folds leaving no part of you untouched. Feasting. Devouring.

It makes you mewl. Your back arches off the sheets, ankle throbbing in a heady, pulsing pain at the sudden movement, adding to the shrill whine in your voice.

He notices, and pets your knee once before sliding his bicep under your leg, looping his hand around to secure your thigh in the crook of his below. Locked in tight. Immoveable. The other he pushes down with the flat of his palm, until your joints ache from the stretch. Your knee is almost flush with the mattress. Widening you further for his searing, eager mouth.

If his kisses are dogish—wet, messy; sloppy with drool—then the way he eats your cunt is foul. Slobbering down his chin, slurping up the mess he makes with a series of chewed-off moans and muffled whines. He paws at you as if he was denied the pleasure of drink for aeons, feasting like a man half-delirious and starved. There's no finesse. No skill to speak of. Just a desperate man lapping at you like a beast. Worshipping you.

He nuzzles his chin and cheeks against your cunt, drenching himself until his beard is matted to his skin. The feeling of his coarse hair grazing your sensitive flesh is overwhelming. Too much. Too ticklish. But—

It feels good.

The contrast of his fleshy tongue rolling over your clit, and the rough brush of his hair when he nuzzles you with the point of his chin, cooing softly about how pretty this little pussy is, getting him all wet, is cataclysmic. The heat floods your belly, and you clench around nothing. Achingly empty. Moaning at the feeling of him bringing you right there, right to the brink, with nothing by the hair on his cheek. It's unreal. Inescapable. Your head drops, mouth lax, open wide as you pant and whimper through the madness of Johnny MacTavish trying to find a way to suck your clit and fuck you with his tongue at the same time. An impossible goal, you know, but he doesn't seem to care about logic or reason with his head buried between your thighs, mouth never leaving you once. He merely nods his head up and down, refusing to pull away.

It's divine. It's worship. It's—

He pushes two of his fingers inside of you, lapping at your taut rim to stem the sting of his sudden intrusion, and you think, for a moment, that you see Nirvana behind your eyelids.

It's embarrassingly how quickly he brings to you the brink, slurping messily as he drills his fingers into your hole, petting against your walls in a mockery of what he'll do to you once he's had his fill. Satiated his hunger with the taste of your pussy.

Something he can't seem to get enough of.

Your thighs draw together, crushing him between your legs. Arching into his mouth, nearly smothering him as you rut clumsily against his face, moaning at the rough scrape of his beard against your skin. You're not normally so aggressive, but he loses himself in it, eyes rolling as he grabs your hips and pulls you closer to his wanting mouth, encouraging you to use his tongue, his lips, to meet your end as you see fit. Riding his face as much as you can with your leg locked tight between his shoulder and bicep.

And it's in between his loud grunts, his whines—almost caterwauling into your slit—where you shatter. The sound of his pleasure, the feeling of his mouth on you—it’s all too much. You break when he sucks your clit into his mouth, keening in the back of his throat as he works another finger into you. It feels good. Too good.

Johnny works you through it. Lets you take, and take as your muscles spasm with the force of your release. Fingers digging into his shoulders, fisting the sheets. He moans along with you, eagerly lapping at your cunt until you whine, begging him to stop. You've had enough. Can't take anymore—

He only pulls away when you melt into the sheets, shuddering with the aftershocks bubbling through your body. Leaning back on his haunches once more, the hair around his mouth slick and wet. The evidence of your pleasure dripping down his chin, droplets still clinging to his beard.

He crawls over you once more, eyes boring into yours. Pits of coal. An endless black hole.

In this strange space, liminal, you lose yourself. Shed pieces of who you were before when he slots his hips between your thighs, cock heavy in his hand, and presses it to your slit.

This is happening. He's going to fuck you.

You wish the thought didn't make your knees fall apart a little wider for him. Make your hips flit, lifting slightly into the air. Eager. Hungry for it. For him.

It's loneliness, you think. Desperation.

Madness is addictive. It feeds itself and infects those around it. Noxious. An all-consuming black hole that eats, and eats. It must have bitten you, too. Dug infectious teeth into your skin, severing flesh to imbed its jowls in your marrow. Clinging. Poisoning you from the inside out.

There's no other reason for why you reach for him, hands sliding over his sweat-slicked skin as he falls into the open brackets of your arms, grunting when the head of his cock catches on your rim. He's a wall of heat. Firm muscles. Your nails dig into the thick cords of his shoulders just to feel the reluctant give of his skin.

Nothing about this man is soft. His waist, his thighs, his chest, his arms, the hard ridge of his cock. It's all unyielding muscle. Burning. Searing into your skin when it drags against his.

“Gonnae fuck ye, doe,” he whispers, words pitching low. Damp wood, felled timber. Rough. You shiver from the heat of it. The warning, the plea; both extremes coalescing together to make truism more potent. Weighty. “Gonnae fuck this pretty pussy, and yer gonnae beg me fer it.”

Despite the surety in assertion, he doesn't wait for you to plead with him to split you apart, taking the initiative instead to sink the head of his cock into you. The stretch stings already, and only his glands have sunk in, a fact he grunts into your ear as he drives forward another inch. Another—

You don't think you've ever been this unmoored before. Rendered this docile. A mere domicile for him to burrow inside of; to carve a home from the sanctum of your walls wrapped tight around him. And carve he does. Splitting you apart as he grunts with the efforting of forcing his cock into you, feeding it further with blunt jerks of his hips, his hands feverish on your skin. Sweat slicked already even though he's barely halfway inside of you.

“Feels so good,” he slurs into your ear, face pinching. Twisting up as pleasure blooms over his brow. “So fuckin’ good, doe, fuck—”

It does. Beyond the blunt pressure of him forcing his cock inside of you, the sting of the stretch, there's an intense, dizzying pleasure in the fullness you feel. In the press of him notching against something inside that makes heat bloom in your belly, turns your bones liquid. It might be the previous climax rendering you oversensitive, but the feeling of him splitting you apart is euphoric.

It's aided by the moans he lets out as you take more and more of him, as if the sound of his pleasure is funnelled into yours. By the look on his face, eyes widened, feverish, as he darts his gaze between your face and your pussy, unable to decide if he wants to watch his cock disappear into you or watch your face, pinched up in pleasure, in flickering pain, as you take him fully.

This sort of bliss, this pleasure, is addicting. Narrowed down to the sharp nudge of his cock grazing places inside of you that light your nerves on fire, burn through your synapses until your thoughts are muddled, mush. No coherency, no logic—just the fat length of him bludgeoning into your walls; the tap of his heavy, full sack slapping against your ass as he finally, finally, roots deep.

He must feel it, too. This strange, overwhelming pleasure loops around your lower belly, twisting itself into knots because when he pushes the last few inches inside of you, he nearly collapses on top of you, his whole body shuddering. Trembling. Presses his damp face to your cheek, matted, slick hair tickling your skin, and groans from deep within his chest at the feeling of you wrapped around him. The noise shivers through you. His pleasure is enough to make you clench down, tightening up around him. Already on the verge and all he did was slide his cock inside of you.

A fact he seems to luxuriate in, huffing shakily into your ear as he quenches himself on the soft, fluttering pulses of your walls around him. Content to grind his hips into yours in shallow gyrations that make your eyes roll into the back of your head. The tension in your belly coiling tighter and tighter, the pleasure ameliorating the shame you'd felt before, burning it into cinders.

As long as he keeps his cock inside of you, as long as he keeps pushing the blunt head into that spot that makes your vision whiteout, you think could cum just like this. Right now—

He doesn't.

Johnny lifts himself off of your chest, elbow coming to rest beside your head, taking the brunt of his weight. His eyes are bright, burning. He stares down at you, and the look of sheer adoration on his face is daunting, overwhelming. It threatens to eat you alive. Devour you whole. Pure rapture. Devotion.

You flush, face stinging with embarrassment. Prickling with unease. No one has ever stared at you like this, so hungrily, and the fact that it's him makes your head spin. Looping endlessly in circles of disbelief and fear.

He might be omnipotent, you think, with the way his lips tug sharply downward, brow bunching together as if he can hear your thoughts, taste your disquiet in the air.

Johnny rolls his hips back slowly, inching out of you with a hum until just the tip remains. The loss has your hands scrambling down his chest, fingers tangling in the coarse, drenched hairs at the soft incline of his belly. The other sliding around the thick breadth of his ribs, nails digging into the slick skin covering his spine. Pressing. Biting.

More, you don't say. Please.

The knot in his brow dissipates. Eases into something almost playful, impish.

“Want ma cock, doe?” He whispers it waggishly, like a cloy secret, and you pretend the tease in his voice doesn't make your heart lurch in your chest. “Didnae anyone teach ye some manners? Gotta ask politely.”

You won't. You won't.

Your reluctance makes him sigh. The chain around his neck swinging when he moves. His hips pull back, and he reaches down with his free hand, and grabs his cock, pulling it out of you, and sliding it against your slit. The head bumps into your clit, and you nearly choke on the gasp that's ripped from your chest. The pleasure is too much, too—

He pulls away, denying you the euphoria of release.

“No, no, please,” you babble, resolve crumbling into ash. “Please, Johnny, please—”

“That’s more like it,” he coos, and lets his cock dip back inside of your fluttering hole, rim stretched taut around him once more. The sting is lessened now, but still there as the thick glands force you open for him. “Sound so pretty when yer desperate for ma cock.”

He leans down, catching your mouth in another sloppy kiss as he slams his cock back inside of you hard enough to bruise. To make you see stars. Cockhead bludgeoning into your cervix in a dizzying amalgamation of pleasure and pain that makes you whine, the whimper snatched up between his teeth as he burrows them into your lip with an echoing groan.

He fucks you hard, working his cock into you at a maddening pace. Bestial, now. All animal. The tenderness from before dissolves into an choppy desperation. An eagerness to seek his own end as you fall to pieces beneath him, shaking from the force of taking him over and over again, each piston, each hard thrust driving the thoughts from your head until all you have left is sensation. An absence of everything except the way he feels above you, inside of you.

Sweat builds up along your hairline, gathers at the base of your spine, and soaks the sheets below. You feel liquid under him. A ragdoll for him to sink his jowls into, to toss around as he likes.

Johnny is all sensation and a cacophony of sound.

He ruts into you clumsily, groaning in your ear. Moaning out how good you feel around him. Pretty pussy made just for him.

“Oh, fuck, doe—” he moans, arching into the next thrust. Drool dribbles down his chin when he curves his spine, dropping his forehead onto your temple. “Feels so good. Feels like my cock is meltin’ instead ye—”

The lewd squelch of his cock pistoning into you seems to echo through the room, louder somehow than the ragged moans that spill from his mouth.

“Been so long,” he shudders against you, rooting his cock deep. Burying himself inside of you as his cockhead bullies into your cervix. The flash of pain is whitehot, blinding, but the bloom of pleasure eats it whole before it can pollute the puddle of bliss pooling in your belly. “Been savin’ it all jus’ fer ye—”

His hand slides from your hip, burrowing between your bodies as rubs at your clit. It feels so good that it nips sharply into pain, into agony. Too much, too much—

But he doesn't relent. Fingers toying, circling your clit in time with each jarring thrust, tightening the coil inside of you until it whines from the tension, the pressure—

It snaps when he growls into your ear—cum fer me, doe; wannae feel this pussy squeezin’ ma cock—and releases in a flood, a deluge of molten heat. Back arching, toes curling. You're barely cognisant of the ache in your injured foot, the throbbing pain. It's swallowed by the surge of endorphins roaring through you, ringing in your ears. Blotting everything out except the way you pulse around the thick of him still lodged deep inside of you.

You barely have time to come down before he starts again, forcing you to take him as he thrusts in harder than before, mindlessly seeking his own end as you gush around him, nails raking across his flesh.

He's babbling above you, spitting words into your ear about how he's going to take care of you. All of you. Take you back to Scotland with him so you can raise your children—

It slices through the haze, ripping a hole through the fog clouding your mind.

“No,” you whimper, devastation flooding your chest alongside the vicious pleasure still rolling around inside of you. “No, please—”

Children, he breathes like you hadn't spoken at all. Lots. Lots of them. Brothers and sisters. Two, maybe three, of each. But he's not picky, bonnie, he'll take whatever you give him. And keep fucking you over and over again until he gets what he wants. A whole family to raise. To surround himself with. Been lonely, you think he says. Needed something to keep him busy.

You don't want this. Can't. But he doesn't stop, doesn't relent. He breathes life into the picture he paints with the soft flutter of your cunt clenching tight around him at words, once again betrayed by your own body.

Despite the nausea that bleeds to the surface at his words, your eyes roll back into your head once more, driven mad with the thunderous pleasure that rips through you as he forces every last inch of his cock into you.

Johnny grinds his hips against yours, moaning, loud and untethered, muscles jerking, twitching, as he cums deep inside of you.

The aftershocks of his pleasure make him tremble, body spasming as he drives himself tight against the seal of your womb. A new heat grows inside of you as Johnny slumps against you, panting in your ear.

“Ah’ll be so good tae ya,” he promises in a rasping growl, shoving his head into the crook of your neck. Gyves close around you as he nuzzles his mouth into your flesh, licking at the sweat that beads on your skin.

“All mine. All fuckin’ mine—” The confessional is tainted with the sickness that leaks from the craggy hole chiselled into the side of his head. Obsessive devotion hewing ruinous dogma into the fibrils of your head. Tenderised, softened, by the blunt, unyielding touch of his hand. A slurry that this polluted notion slips inside, tainting your resolve until it's thickened into his whim. His wants.

You sob into his chest as he wraps you up in his arms, shackled against the man who carved a place inside of you just wide enough for himself to fit. Who spat poison in the hollow crevasses, and called it absolution. Love.

All you can do is heave through corrupted lungs as he smothers you under the weight of his madness.

“No’ gonnae let anyone touch ye. Ah'll kill anyone who tries to tae take ye away from me, doe—”

The conviction in his tone is bound in steel. In feverish blue.

“Ah’ll take care’a ye,” he rasps, voice thick in his throat. “Donnae worry about a thing, doe.”

“Will you let me go?”

He doesn't answer at first. Just digs his nose into your hairline, breathing in deep until the wide breadth of his chest expands across your back. Mulling it over, maybe. Coming up with an excuse for his behaviour. Something to negotiate with on reasons why you shouldn't call the police the moment he does.

And for a moment, a startling, terrible moment, there's hope. The assurance wells on your tongue. Some unfathomable amalgamation of please and i’ll never tell. Maybe you were going to tell him he was an honest man who did something bad. That there was still good within him. All of those hideous clichès bubble up through the cracks—

But it's all dashed when his hand drops down from its perch beneath your bare breasts, sliding over your skin until it curls possessively over your lower belly.

He breathes out and the hope inside you is snuffed under the gale of delusion, his obsession. “Why would ah do a thing like that?” He prompts, and the genuine confusion in his voice makes you shiver, as if the idea of it is so outlandish, so absurd, it negates everything he'd done to get to this point. You feel hollow. But not—

Not empty.

As if he hears the thought thundering in the ruins of your mind, he presses a tender kiss to your temple that you think is meant to be soothing. Shushing you softly when you begin to shake. “After it took me this long to find ye, doe. Am no’ lettin’ ye go fer the world, ken. Yer mine. All mine.”

And then he closes his jowls around your throat.

Time feels artificial here.

You wake up several hours later, groggy and disoriented, but the sun doesn't seem like it moved from where it was perched last night at all. Fixed in place. Lost in some strange, eternal twilight zone where the sun is a warden, watching you tirelessly through the window.

Cardboard cutout hung amongst the stars.

Your ankle aches horribly—an agonising throb. You must have turned in your sleep, jostled it. You're further away from the spot you were last night, too. Rolled over in your sleep, maybe. The burn brings tears to your eyes that you swallow down with a groan.

As you awkwardly settle your leg in a way that hurts slightly less than it did before, you let cognisance slip back in to keep your mind off of the horrible ache that tremors through your bones. Your neck.

Between your thighs—

It's then that you hear Johnny.

He's whistling in the kitchen. You peer out through the crack in the door, catching the broad expanse of his naked back as he works over the stove. Flexing. Muscles bunching. He hums a tune you can't recognise as he scrapes the spatula over the cast iron pan.

His grey sweats sit low on his hips. The divots above the hem—dimples of Apollo, you recall—are stark against the hollow ravine of his spine. You can't help but stare. Gawk. Limned in the soft light of the morning sun that spills through the open window, he looks almost ethereal. Unreal. Like something out of a magazine and not the middle of nowhere in Canada where the sun doesn't set this time of year.

He feels surreal. A man too good to be true. All sculpted musculature that looks like it could just as well be handmade by an amalgamation of both David’s by Michelangelo and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. All sharp, angled lines; beautiful in their fluidity.

It's unfair, you think suddenly. To be stuck with a man you feel nauseous thinking about but can’t seem to take your eyes off of. Some paradoxical madness. Retribution for a time in a past life where you swindled fate and got away unscathed. All of your karmic sins pile down on top of you as the events last night flicker past, drenched in seafoam. Ghosts linger in the cracks; in memories.

The phantom weight of something slung over your waist, knotted tight between your breasts. Scorching heat glued to your spine. A heavy hand cradling your lower belly. Words whispered into your nape—

He turns, then. Catches your eye like he knew it was there the whole time. Stands there like the picture of ease, of a satiated man puttering around a small space while his sweetheart lounged in the bed, lazing the day away.

Like this wasn’t illegal. Immoral. He treats you like a lover even though you’d only met less than a day ago—

And already his cum was drying on your inner thighs, thick and sticky. His madness pooling in your head, words uttered into your ear about this cabin he has back home, back in Scotland. He’ll take you there, he said. It’s time he came home, he thinks. His head is on straight again, and he finally feels like he can breathe without shattering into a million pieces—

(He put your hands on his head last night, palm cradling the ugly scar on his temple, and whispered, fervent and insane, ye keep ma head together, doe. Ye make me feel whole again—)

Knows a man, he told you. A good bloke who’d help him get you home, too.

His smile is bright. Blinding.

“Mornin’, doe. Ah made breakfast.”

#johnny mctavish x reader #soap x reader #baby trap anthology #the kinks in this are just #wow #UM proceed with caution lmao

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entitled-fangirl · 4 months ago

Text

You’re a Stark now.

Cregan Stark x reader

Summary: Cregan and the reader take a trip to the market to spend time away from the Winterfell walls. One vendor gets too aggressive.

Warnings: extra protective Cregan, anger, talk of harsh punishments

Masterlist

…………………………………….

Cregan had woken his still newly-wedded wife to the question of if she would accompany him out of the Winterfell walls.

Any time with him was welcomed by her. He was very busy as the Warden that any moment was precious.

She quickly rose and began to get ready, biting her lip when she still couldn’t retrieve her Stark pin for her cloak. Now three days without, and she’d have to tell him.

But that’s a problem for later.

…

“This is lovely,” Lady Stark commented to the merchant as she neared the small table.

Cregan had disappeared to the blacksmith, trusting her under her guards gaze until he returned.

Her finger grazed over the top of one of the handmade arrows before the merchant’s voice chipped up, “careful.”

She jumped a bit, created the smallest of nicks on her finger, but it still oozed blood just the same.

The man huffed, “Can’t ya read the damn sign?”

She looked up with wide eyes to the sign that laid on one of the tables. Her eyes scanned it, but it made no sense to her. Now was not the time to admit to her people that she couldn’t read the common tongue. Her cheeks flushed red, “my sincerest apologies. I meant no harm.”

“Whatever, girl.” He huffed lightly.

She turned back to look at her guard, Ser Martin. He always stayed far enough for her to enjoy herself, but not too far as to not intervene when needed. But he hardly moved when words were said. Only when actions took place. She liked that about him.

She frowned slightly and moved to the merchant’s next table. Atop it laid a tool she had never seen before. A small mallet of some sort and a rather large spike. Multiples of them laid out for sale, and she couldn’t think of a reason to need such a thing. Fearing another scoff, she asked, “What are these exactly?”

The man felt the need to roll his eyes and he laughed mockingly, “What are these?! You can’t be serious!”

Her cheeks couldn’t be more red, “I… I am not Northern. I do not… I do not know much of it, I am afraid.”

The man sneered, “You stupid girl. I wager you’ll freeze your little arse off before winter even comes.”

She felt her eyes water but she held it back. She couldn’t stay there any longer.

She distracted herself at the booth a few down, where a young woman sold seeds and dried petals of various flowers. She chatted with the woman for a while, even making a friend of her.

She helped the Lady of Winterfell pick petals to scent her chambers with and seeds to grow said flowers in the window of her chambers, swearing that they lived through the cold.

She thanked the woman kindly before turning around, directly into a broad chest.

When she felt a familiar hand around her waist and chuckle, she relaxed into Cregan.

He bent down to her ear with a low voice, “have you enjoyed yourself?”

She looked to him and nodded lightly, “I… I have.”

He smirked just barely, “Ser Martin tells me you have made many friends.”

“I suppose I have,” she answers truthfully.

“I have finished my business at the smith. Are you ready to journey back, or is there still things you must see?” His hand began to trace up and down her back through the cloak.

“I am at your whim, Cregan.”

His other hand came up to her chin, “Let us lazily return then. I’m afraid I have not had the chance to make friends as you have.”

She nodded and pulled away, “I’d like that.”

The two journeyed back ever so slowly with interlinked arms, pointing to each table with their favorite oddities on it, even stopping at a few now that Cregan had become interested.

Cregan seemed entirely fixed chatting with a vendor about maces when her eyes wandered a bit up the road.

She pulled on his sleeve with a soft voice, “Cregan.”

He immediately gave his attention to her and bent down to her and spoke softly, “yes, my love?”

She furrowed her brows, “I was curious about something I saw earlier. Can… can you tell me what it is?”

His brows furrowed in turn, “I suppose I can. Where did you see it?”

She pointed up the road to a few tables down.

He nodded and looked back to her, “Go ahead and I’ll meet you there. Let me finish here, sweet girl.”

She let go of his sleeve and bowed her head lightly to the vendor in an apology of the interruption.

She quickly made her way up the road to the same vendor that had been so rude to her earlier, but she hoped Cregan’s eventual presence would help ease the tension. She wanted so desperately to understand the tool she had seen.

But the man’s eyes were already set on her.

He immediately moved out into the street to meet her halfway, “Go on, girl. Take your pretty fur coat and go on! I’ve no business for you here.”

She paused in confusion. She really hadn’t thought she’d angered him that awfully. “I-“

“-ya what?” He stepped closer to her and reached out to touch her shoulder. “I won’t have no silly girl that-“

“-Touching my bride like that is an act of war, Bolton.” She didn’t need to see Cregan to know exactly what was happening. He was behind her with a tightly clenched jaw and a hand on the sword still held in its sheath.

The man immediately stopped all words from his mouth and seemed to be in a daze.

Cregan gave a vicious smile, “I would suggest you remove your hand from her before I remove it entirely from your body.”

The words registered and the man moved away as if he’d been burned, “My deepest apologies, my lord. I… I didn’t know…. She had no sigil on her cloak.”

She didn’t have the heart to turn to Cregan and see his reaction to her loss of pin.

Cregan’s hand wrapped around her from behind and pushed her backwards as he stepped around her. He now stood in front of her protectively. “And here I believed you wanted Stark patronage.” He scoffed, “If that is not the case, say so, rather than turning your Lady of Winterfell away in the streets.”

Only then did she looked around and take in the fact that everyone in the street was staring.

But Cregan couldn’t have cared less.

The man held his hands out, “Lord Stark, I am honored to have your patronage. I… I simply did not know. She…” he pointed to the woman tucked away safely behind Cregan, “She was being reckless-“

“-Reckless? How so?”

The man paled but knew he had to continue what he’d started. “She disobeyed the signs and… and then did not know what an ice pick was-“

“I don’t care if your Lady of Winterfell asks for your left eye, I expect you to take it from your socket gladly!” Cregan’s voice raised angrily, “and you’ve made her feel like a fool in her own lands!” His gripped on his sword tightened in deep thought, “Perhaps I should take your hand as payment.”

Her hand shoots out to Cregan’s back, a silent plea to not take things too far. He reacts to it almost immediately, relaxing himself with a deep sigh.

The man becomes hysterical, “Please! Please, my lord! I will do anything!”

“Cregan-“ her voice finally broke out.

He growled under his breath in thought before finally speaking again, “Apologize.”

The man looked up, “m…my lord?”

Cregan grunted, “Apologize.”

Bolton nodded, “I am most sincere in my apologies, my lord. I was wrong. So painfully wrong-“

“Beg for it.” Cregan growled.

The vendor paused for a moment before he dropped to his knees shamefully, “I will do anything. I am sorry-“

“And not to me.” Cregan grunted again. His arm moved behind her to pull his bride from behind him to now directly in front of him. He pulled her tightly to him, her back against his firm chest. He bent his head down to the side of her head, his voice low and dangerous, “to her.”

She was at a complete loss for words. She knew Cregan was gruff and demanding, honorable and proud, but she had never seen him so angered. He looked like a wolf ready to devour anything that stepped too close.

And all for her.

The man pleaded and whined and begged for her forgiveness immediately and she nodded. Cregan gave a light “tsk” in her ear before speaking softly to her, “make him work for it.”

She turned her head to him in confusion.

He spoke again, “you’re accepting because you feel empathetic. What do you want him to do for you to truly earn your forgiveness?” When she doesn’t answer he chips in, “It’s hard to earn, and rightfully so. Especially from a sweet girl like you.”

“I don’t want anything,” she finally says.

Cregan’s smirk returns, “that’s why you’re mine.”

He straights up to address the man, “Your lady has forgiven you, and so has Winterfell now.” He looks to the crowd and back to the man with a light sneer, “and Bolton? Thank the gods tonight that she is so forgiving.”

He immediately pulls her along with him, not bothering to stop at anything else after the scene they had caused.

His anger was still too great to be out in society and he needed something to take it out on.

The horse ride back was tense and awkward. She knew he wasn’t angry with her, but she wasn’t sure what to say or how to fix it, and so she didn’t.

The two even separated once inside Winterfell. She went to their chambers and Cregan went immediately to the training yard.

She watched from the balcony for a while. He beat away at a dummy with a wooden sword, clearly in an unapproachable state.

…

Supper was equally quiet. The two stared at each other from across the table.

Finally, Cregan spoke, “How are you so easily pleased?”

She tilted her head, “I’m sorry?”

“Earlier. You forgave him so easily.”

“Well, he was sorry.”

“Not enough,” Cregan continued. “I would have made him do far worse”

“It was not worth-“

“-Do not tell me what it was worth, love!” He slammed his fist down. “If he had embarrassed me, I would have taken his tongue. But he didn’t. He did it to you.” His voice turned to iron, “I should have made him worship the ground you stand on.”

“Cregan, I hold no grudge over it.”

“There it is again,” he almost laughed in frustration. “You are too kind, my love.”

“The only frustration I hold over it now is towards you.”

His brows raise, “Me?”

She sat her glass down on the table, “You are the only one still in flames about it. I wanted to enjoy a day out of Winterfell with you.”

He took that like a hit. He clenched his jaw and sighed, calming himself. “You’re right. I’ve been too hard on you. On everyone. Let me try again today?”

She knew she could never hold a grudge against him, “of course.”

He smiled at her, “Thank you.”

The silence grew into a comfortable one now and she was the one to break it. “I have a confession.”

He looked up to her as he ate, “oh?”

“It is rather embarrassing and I do not wish for you to be upset with me.”

“I am never upset with you,” he quickly countered. “Out with it.”

She sat straighter in her chair, “I lost the sigil you gave me. The one for my cloak.”

Silence grew.

She tried to reason, “I’ve misplaced it. I promise I shall find it again. I shouldn’t have set it down and I am most sorry-“

She stopped when she heard his light chuckles from across the table. “What? Why do you mock me?”

He quickly held a hand out and collected himself, “I do not mock you, sweet girl. I’m simply surprised it took you so long to tell me.”

She stuttered, “I didn’t… I wasn’t…”

Cregan looked up to one of the servants, “Bring the new one for me, will you?”

The Lady of Winterfell simply stared in embarrassed confusion.

So, Cregan began to explain, “When I wedded you, beautiful, I did not have time to have a pin of your own crafted for your cloak, so I gave you one of mine temporarily.”

She nodded, trying to see where he was going with the story.

“That is why I was at the black smith today. They’ve created all my best ones and I only thought it fair that you deserve the best. I took the one you had been wearing to them to be replicated. They managed to finish it today and I retrieved it.”

“That is why we were out today?” She asked.

He smiled, “entirely. That and I suppose…” he tilted his head back and forth, “when the North manages to see the sun, I like to see you in it.”

She grew a smile.

The servant returned with a cloth in hand, setting it on the table next to Y/n.

The woman took it and unwrapped it, revealing the finely decorated pin for her cloak.

Her eyes widened and she smiled, “Cregan, this is quite beautiful, but I loved yours all the same.”

He chuckled, “I know that, pretty, but you deserve your own. You are a Stark now.”

Her eyes met his dark ones, “that I am.”

………………………………….

#cregan stark x female reader #cregan stark x y/n #cregan stark x you #cregan stark x reader #cregan stark #cregan x reader #fanfiction #game of thrones x y/n #game of thrones x reader #house of the dragon fanfiction #house of the dragon

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euthymiya · 5 months ago

Note

Poor wrio comes home to you after a long day, so you surprise him with new lingerie from chiori’s boutique because you’re a good, sweet girlfriend 🙂‍↔️ no this isn’t based on that one scene in your fic

surprise compensation ft. wriothesley

wriothesley is a hard worker. sometimes, when days are particularly long and rough, you have a surprise or two that makes things worth the troubles

contains: 3.2k word count ; fem reader ; adult content. no minors ; established relationship ; nipple play ; cunnilingus ; fingering ; unprotected vaginal sex ; creampie ; wriothesley is a serial clothes ripper ; one joke about his cuffs

Reforming criminals is tough work. Wriothesley is capable for the job, of course—he thinks the state of the fortress under him compared to past years is proof enough that he does the job better than anyone else has. But regardless, it’s tough work.

Sometimes they send him ruffians for inmates. They come to him pent up and aggressive. They don’t miss a beat at lunging at him once the cuffs come off, ready to pick a fight and blow steam off on the warden of the prison himself. Wriothesley’s capable though—both in administration and in a fist fight.

That doesn’t make him rub his jaw any less from the sore spot where a punch landed today. It’s rare to get a hit on him, but not entirely impossible. He walks into your bedroom, grumbling under his breath as he rubs into the tenseness of his jawline as you sit up straighter in bed at his arrival.

“M’back, sweetheart,” he mumbles, giving you a tired grin as he carefully lays himself over your body, groaning as his muscles relax for the first time all day on top of your forgiving body.

“Rough day?” You ask sympathetically, titling his head up to inspect the blossoming bruise along his skin.

“You have no idea.”

“New prisoners give you trouble?” You smile knowingly, rubbing a hand over his back, pressing the heel of your palm gently into the tight, punishing knots in his muscles as he grunts into your neck.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” he assures. “I put them in place.”

“Not before they set your jaw in place,” you snort, earning a huffed grumble under his breath from him.

“You should see the other guys.” His lips press a small kiss to your skin, sucking gently against your pulse point as he hums approvingly as he inhales your scent. “Rowdy bunch, but I’ll fix ‘em up.”

“Such a hard working duke,” you giggle, “they should compensate you more.”

“Hh?” He chuckles, lifting his head up as he grins at you, “you think so? Think I need deeper pockets for my efforts?”

You hum, leaning in and pressing a slow, but not heatless kiss against his chapped lips, running your hand along his collar until you find the first button, undoing it slightly to reveal more of his sturdy chest. He smiles against your lips, a bit excited, and a little more smug.

“I got you something,” you whisper, voice breathy. He can hear the smile between your words, quirking a brow as he waits for you to continue speaking. “I think you’ll really appreciate it.”

“Who needs better compensation when you’re always rewarding me,” he grins, toothy and charming as he nips at your lips before adding, “plan on showing me this little surprise?”

“Why don’t you unwrap it first,” you murmur, grabbing his hand and guiding it to the hem of your shirt.

His breath hitches—something more carnal, more desperate settles itself into his skin, flushing it a hot shade of crimson along his cheeks and chest, radiating heat along his fingertips that sear into your skin as he works them under your shirt, grazing along your body until they finds your breasts.

He feels the lace, and instantly, he can tell it’s not one he recognizes. It’s new. Something he hasn’t seen yet—it makes him let out a sound of impatience, deep and guttural from his chest as he says huskily, “well, if I must do the work, then so be it.”

He rips your shirt clean off with one tug. It’s his shirt, actually, but you claim it as your own—and you take it very personally, too, when it’s split in two from his impatience.

“Wriothesley!” You scold, gasping as the cool air meets your skin while he discards the torn shreds of fabric.

“There’s more where that came from,” he assures, clicking his teeth as he bites into your neck and says lowly, “let me unwrap my present in peace. I had a long day.”

You roll your eyes, huffing but complying quietly as he admires the dark gray sitting pretty and perfect against your skin, cupping the curves of your breasts beautifully. Wriothesley takes his time, so unlike the impatience he has just moments ago, as he rakes his eyes over your skin slowly. The icy shade of his irises land on the clasp at the front, darkening into a more intense, lust filled shade as they settle on it with interest.

“Like it?” You hum, “Chiori designed it just for me.”

“Did she now?” He raises an eyebrow, trailing a finger along the edge of the padding, tracing the skin of your breast as it spills over the bra, grinning as goosebumps rise where his touch lingers. “I really owe her a proper thank you, don’t I? This’ll make my job a lot easier.”

“It was my idea,” you say petulantly, “what about my thanks?”

“Oh, sweetheart. That’s coming real, real soon.”

You gasp when his hand suddenly undoes the clasp, spilling your tits to the open, cool air of your room as he groans at the sight of your bare chest. He leans down, pressing a kiss to a nipple while you shiver under him.

“All this for me?” he murmurs, hot breath fanning over your skin and contrasting the coolness lingering in the air. “Got a new little set made just for me?”

You nod through a bitten lip, shuddering as he chuckles against you. “Thought you deserved it,” you shiver.

“You shouldn’t have. I might get spoiled, you know.”

“You don’t want to be?” You tease, cutting off yourself slightly with a soft hitch of breath when his rough hand cups the other tit, palm rubbing against a pert nipple and making your eyes flutter closed.

“Oh, I definitely don’t mind,” he flashes you a smooth, toothy grin, one with all too much sharp teeth and all too little shame. “I just think it’ll be a bit of trouble for you to keep up if you get me too spoiled, is all.”

“I don’t think it’s so bad,” you say cheekily, “it’s not exactly a one sided transaction.”

“Oh, I’ll make it worth your while, alright,” he nods—and finally, he wraps his lips around a hardened nipple, grazing his teeth along the nub as his tongue swirls around it, pulling a sweet, helpless little cry from you that shoots straight between his legs where his cock is already half hard.

His rough thumb works the other, rubbing along and pinching teasingly as he whine into his mouth that traps yours into a needy kiss. “Wr-wrio—”

“Yeah baby?” He chuckles, “got something you need’ta say? I’m listening, sweetheart.”

He most certainly is not listening, you want to scowl, because he cuts your words off by pulling a sharp gasp from you as he pinches harder at your clit, making your back arch into the touch as he chuckles. His teeth nip at your jaw, kissing along the skin as your hand cups the back of his head and tangles weak fingers to grasp at his hair.

“You are so….”

“So what?”

“So smug,” you huff, voice strained between pants, “I’m never doing anything nice for you again.”

“Aw, don’t say that, sweetheart,” he pouts theatrically, “you might hurt my feelings. And I didn’t even get to say thank you yet.”

As it seems, Wriothesley’s way of saying thank you is yet again yanking fabric straight off of you, ripping your pants right off your lower half in an unrestrained moment of impatience.

You think you’ll really have to have a chat about his brutish habits one of these days.

“You can’t say thank you by ripping my whole wardrobe,” you gasp, glaring at him with sharp eyes.

“Why would it tear so easily if it wasn’t meant to?” He wriggles his brows, lips curled in a smug, amused little grin that has you melting against the sheets with heat pooling impossibly hotter between your legs at the sight.

Regardless of your irritation at yet another ruined pair of sweats. The conversation can wait until later, though, you think.

“I can’t with you,” you huff.

“Luckily, you don’t have to do much with me, anyway,” he murmurs, lowering his hands to trail over the lacy fabric of your matching gray panties. He marvels at the sight of you, eyes hazy and unfocused as they stay stuck at the dampened spot between your legs. “I-I…I’ll do most of the work,” he stutters.

“Don’t rip these, okay?” You grin, “they cost me a good sum. Surprises aren’t cheap, you know.”

He closes his eyes, exhaling shakily as he mumbles, “you’re trying to kill me, huh?”

You giggle, blinking up at him innocently as you reply, “I’m trying to do something nice for you. You don’t think it’s nice?”

“I think it’s wonderful,” he spreads your legs, hovering between them as he eyes the wet, darkened patch of lace against your dripping cunt even closer, “I just can’t promise I’ll survive long enough to properly appreciate it.”

With that, he presses a kiss against your clit, right through the fabric as you whimper at the minimal contact, twitching into his touch as he laughs.

“Maybe you won’t either,” he flashes a toothy grin, making you huff, unamused.

“Don’t tease,” you scold, “you should be nice to me.”

“You’re right,” he nods, wrenching your thighs apart as he pulls your panties off enough to expose your needy pussy, but not enough to let them past your plush thighs. He like them there, decorating your skin like that for him to see even as he brushes his nose against your clit and kisses at your entrance.

The slick pooling between your legs coats his lips, earning a hum of approval from him as he murmurs, “so sweet. I love this sweet little pussy—don’t you?”

“Wr-wrio—oh, f-fuck,” you arch into him, a surprised gasp leaving your lips, swollen from biting. His tongue is flat against your clit, flicking back and forth against it as his fingers tease your folds, collecting your essence before slowly pressing into your walls.

“Taste so sweet,” he groans, “we don’t have anything like this at the cafeteria.”

“Oh my god,” you whine, slapping his shoulder as he chuckles against your cunt, the vibrations and the hot flash of his breath making you shake against him. “You are so filthy.”

“Yeah? And you’re not having a good time by it?” He challenges, fingers smearing your slick that coats the digits along your inner thigh, grinning as he adds, “you seem like you’re thoroughly enjoying it.”

“Wriothesley,” you plead desperately, “stop teasing. I need you—please.”

“Fuck,” he swears. There’s a harsh twitch of his cock through his pants at the utterly broken sound of your voice—it makes him sink his fingers in instantly before his lips wrap around your clit. “You got me, baby,” he murmurs between sucking on the bundle of nerves, pressing hot, open mouthed kisses against the swollen nub.

“Oh—y-yeah, like that,” you praise, hands finding his hair as your fingers wrap around his strands and tug him impossibly closer. You think he might drown in you—he thinks he might not find a better way to go. “Feels…feels so good, baby.”

He groans into your folds, lapping away at them as his fingers are replaced by his tongue, tasting the sweet, dripping essence of you. His hips grind against the mattress slightly, chasing the slightest bit of friction to relieve the unforgiving throb of his cock.

“M’gonna cum,” you whisper, shaky and broken.

“Then cum,” he demands, “for me.”

You do—like his words command your pleasure. As soon as he tells you to, your cunt flutters with short spasms, pleasure forcing your body into a stiff, tense form as your mouth falls open and your eyes roll back. His tongue works you through your high, traveling between flattening against your clit and fucking into your hole until you’re whining from sensitivity, pulling him away by the hair.

He pulls away. Lips smeared with your slick. Eyes unfocused and dark. Cheeks flushed and red. Hair messed up and plastered to his sweaty forehead.

He looks more fucked out than you, almost. Like he’s just been utterly blissed out to the point of being wrecked just by tasting you.

You giggle, tugging him up to hover over you as you let him pull you into a slow, sensual kiss. You can taste yourself on him. You don’t mind—not when it tastes like his love for you.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, “did you know that?”

“I had a hunch,” you breathe, “you seem to be rather enraptured by me.”

“I’m obsessed with you,” he gives you lazy grin.

You don’t answer—not with words, anyway. Instead, you offer him your reply in the form of a hand sneaking between your bodies, carving space between the press of him against you. Your hand rubs him through his pants, earning a low groan from him as he stiffens over you.

“Your clothes are in the way,” you pout.

He huffs a breathy chuckle through his stifled groans, eyes closed as he mumbles, “that’s a problem, huh?”

“A big one.”

“I can fix that, I think,” he hums.

Watching Wriothesley strip himself of his clothes is intimate. Undressing his scars is like holding a magnifying glass to his past, like studying every dark and hurtful era of his life under a microscope.

It’s nice to know he trusts you like that. It’s even nicer to know he wants to trust you like that. Aches to trust you like that. Needs you to let him trust you like that.

Your fingers run along the scar on his chest, and he shivers at the gentle (something he’s never been used to) feel of you.

“I love you,” you murmur.

“Getting sentimental on me?”

“Yeah,” you grin, “don’t like it?”

“Love it,” he laughs. And then he leans down, nose brushing against yours as he kisses you softer than he has yet to kiss you for the night. So delicate, you’d think you’d break. Maybe he’d break. You’re not sure who he’s trying to keep together at this point. “I love you.”

“Then take me,” you whisper, “I want you.”

His breath hitches at that. Something about the way you look at him makes him decide that taking you isn’t enough. He need to give himself up—needs you to accept him.

“Yeah? And I always want you, sweetheart,” he grins smoothly. Tucked away underneath that smooth, boyish, rough and rugged charm, Wriothesley is gentle. Delicate. Vulnerable.

You can see it in the way his hands shake as they grab your hips to help line himself up with your entrance.

“M’ready, Wrio,” you murmur, pulling him into a soft, open mouthed kiss as he presses his cock against your dripping entrance.

He’s hard—painfully, achingly, and unbearably impatient to feel him around him. The curve of his length has always fit you perfectly, nudged against the right spots and dragged along the perfect ridges of your walls without trying. He sinks into you slowly, inch by inch. Like he’s scared the moment will end too quickly if he goes any faster.

“You feel that?” He groans, once he’s fully pressed into you, buried to the hilt. “Feel what you do to me? You’ll be the death of me one day.”

“They’d get tired of you,” you breathe, strained voice from the way he’s practically splitting you open. “In the afterlife. Send you right back to me.”

He laughs, head burying into your neck before he roughly pulls out just to slam back into you. Once. Twice. Again. Another time. Once more. Until a steady, unwavering rhythm is built and his body is practically one with hours.

“Fuck,” he groans, letting out whiny little pants against your ear that make you question if you’ll near the edge again simply from the sound of him alone. “Fuck, sweetheart—you…you’re so perfect. Take me so nice, make me feel so good.”

“How good?” You ask shakily, voice a strangled, choked version of itself as his thrusts make your words quiver with every snap of his hips.

“Good enough to buy out that damn boutique,” he grunts, “get you every color. Every fabric. Every style. And then I’ll fuck you in all of them to see which one looks best, yeah? You like the sound of that? Think you can handle it? I bet you’d enjoy it, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?”

“Y-yeah,” you nod, eyes tearing at the corners as his fat tip presses against the spongy, sensitive spot against your walls, balls clapping against your ass as his pre cum mixes with your slick and leaves a mess between your bodies.

You don’t mind it though. You like the mess. You like the proof of him taking you, making you his, having you until your mind can’t think straight.

“Gonna need more than that,” he says lowly, biting your shoulder and making you whimper. “Use your words, baby.”

“Yes—yes,” you sob, “I want it. Want it, want it so bad. Want you to take me right there in that fitting room.”

“Oh?” He breathes out a small chuckle, “that’s quite the fantasy. I’ll see what I can do, baby.”

His thumb reaches to find your clit, rubbing harsh circles in sync with his low, strained voice as he calls you baby. You break at that—hurdle into your second orgasm while his fucks into you with a sloppier pace.

“Oh—g-god, Wriothesley! C-cumming,” you gasp.

“That’s my girl,” he groans, “yeah, yeah. Let me feel you, princess. Fuck.”

His hips are frenzied now—like the height of your pleasure being achieved lets him free, lets him stop holding back as he chases his own orgasm desperately.

It doesn’t take long. One tug of his hair from you to pull him out of your neck and into a heated kiss makes him fall off the edge himself, cock twitching and pouring thick, hot ropes of cum into your abused cunt. The aching pleasure between both of your legs should be too much.

It’s never quite enough.

There’s no enough of Wriothesley. He’s not sure there’ll ever be enough you, either.

“Fuck, fuck—you’re so good to me, baby. So sweet. Can’t believe you’re my sweet little thing. Come home to that pretty face and this perfect pussy. What’d I do to deserve it?”

He’s babbling, words falling from his tongue in cracked syllables as he paints your walls white. Finally—finally, after what feels like an eternity of over sensitivity, he stills. Milked dry with the remnants of his sticky release coating your walls, the insides of your thighs, the base of his cock. He doesn’t even bother pulling out—just collapses over your body as he buries his nose between your breasts.

“You think she could make a set that matches my cuffs?” He asks, grinning into your skin.

You huff between labored breaths, slapping his shoulder as you mumble, “I’m not asking that. I have a sense of dignity.”

“You want me to ask?”

“Absolutely not.”

He pouts, looking up at you as he grumbles, “you’re no fun.”

Wow. Don’t ask me why I produced 3k words about lingerie. I just have lots to say on the matter I suppose

#writing tag #wriothesley x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #wriothesley x you #genshin x you #genshin impact x you #wriothesley smut #genshin smut #genshin impact smut

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sytoran · 5 months ago

Text

⁺‧ ₊ ཐི⋆ ♱ ❝GUILTY AS SIN?❞ ♱ w. maximoff !

pairing ★ older!nun!wanda x masc!fem!reverend!reader

synopsis ★ (based on this ask) a 1950s church au, set somewhere loosely in europe, in which a reverend and a nun serving at a cathedral harbour forbidden feelings for each other, where love intertwines with religion in a sacred romance.

warnings ★ explicit content (minors dni), pwp, reader has a cock, virgin!reader but not for long ;), you have a thing for older women, wanda is a tease, no daddy/mommy kink (sorry, it didn't really fit for wanda), but something else fit inside wanda (wink wink)

word count ★ 3.6k (serving) | main m.list

“The Lord be with you.”

“And with your spirit.”

Wanda stands for the final blessing, eyes shut in devout faithfulness. As the choral voices utter the hauntingly beautiful concluding hymn, she exhales softly, letting the singing resound around each panel of glass in the tall cathedral.

Harmonic minor chords echo from the organ, as the acolytes walk down the aisle. Voices rise in harmony. Little altar boys trip over their feet. The older wardens are grim with wrinkles set into aged skin.

And then there is you.

Illuminated by the tinted light is your set face, cloaked in your black vestments and as regal as ever. Wanda watches under her white veil, poised hands and craned neck.

Wanda was not oblivious that her want for you was forbidden. A deep sin, for the two of you were devout servers of the church. It went against everything she had been taught since she was a first year at Westview Catholic High, but then again, you were the fount of her desires, and it was as simple as that.

As you walk past her solemnly, Wanda catches your eye. She can see you stiffen under her stare ablaze, swallowing a lump in the back of your throat, and victory glints in Wanda’s lowered gaze.

She had to be patient.

Once the mass proceedings were over, you stood outside the cathedral, all gentle smiles and warm hands. It was no secret that you were a crowd favourite amongst the pent-up housewives of Westview and repressed nuns of the church.

How could they not, after all, with the way your dark garments hugged your stately figure, broad and wide and lined with unspoken strength. You were polite, and respectful, and far too innocent for your own good.

Wanda stands by the entrance of the church, watching you get swarmed by the ladies like a high school heartthrob.

It was okay, she was content with waiting.

“Reverend L/N,” A middle-aged lady calls, clutching onto your forearm. You smile kindly at her, recognising Pepper, the suburban mom down at 5th and Street. “Yes, Miss Potts, how was today’s service?”

“Absolutely splendid,” She gushes shamelessly, clasping your hands and stepping in far too close. “Your gospel was so moving.”

The overt affection is cloying to Wanda’s senses, only heightened by her distaste for Pepper’s dress. There was simply no reason why her Beatnik dress had to be so low-cut.

Your other arm is not safe from the clutches of Sister Agatha. She was the most experienced of the nuns and had basically claimed her stake on you since you were assigned to the church. Suddenly, hands caress the dip of your tricep to your bicep.

“Excuse me, Miss Potts,” Agatha says snidely. “Reverend L/N has to get back to her duties, if you’ll allow us.” You swallow at the way her perfume scent overtakes your senses, only magnifying the heat under your robes.

The mom is evidently put off by this, along with the other ladies of the church, some with babies on their hips and without their husbands.

You, on the other hand, stand awkwardly amongst the crowd of ladies, their eyes feasting upon you like a predator eagle.

Even then, Wanda could see the effect that it had on you, ever the innocent and inexperienced. With a pair of ample assets pressed up against your muscled forearm, and a feminine hand wrapped around your bicep, there was no hiding the flush in your face and the telltale tent in your robes.

“I- I have to go,” you say suddenly. You retract your arms, as if scorned, worry clouding your expression. You make your way through the crowd of women, embarrassed and ashamed, leaving many disappointed women in your wake.

A smile crawls up Wanda’s face as she watches you attempt to retreat back into your office.

She ducks behind the wall of the corridor. As your hurried footsteps approach, Wanda steps out, as if walking in the opposite direction from you.

“Oof!” The two of you collide comically (intentionally), as Wanda’s hands fly to your arms for support. She dramatically falls forward into your wide embrace, unnecessarily clumsy — but you don’t know any better, profusely apologising to Wanda.

“Sister Wanda!” You say breathlessly, gripping onto her hips unconsciously, unbeknownst to the effect it had on the older woman. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea you were just around the corner. Why, I seem to be out of sorts as of late.”

Wanda is more than content to run her gloved hands up your arms, shaking her head dutifully.

“I was looking for you, actually,” she says with a kind smile, noting the way your throat bobs as you hold her by her slim waist, entirely transfixed.

Sister Wanda was beautiful like the night, pale moonlight and soft silk. Dainty fingertips clutch the rosary beads, and you yearned to lift up her white veil to see the ethereality that lay beneath.

It seemed like an eternity before you snapped out of your trance, stepping back and coughing into your hand.

Wanda would think you were a fool if you believed she couldn’t see the issue in your pants, filling up quite a lot more space than it normally did. It excited Wanda to no end, as the fabric covering your body shifted across your planes of muscles as you moved back.

“Yes, I- uhm,” you clear your throat distractedly. “What queries did you have, again?”

“Ah,” Wanda says easily, tilting her head in amusement at your innocence. “Regarding mass, of course.”

Your brows furrow, terribly hiding your visible disappointment. Wanda could almost giggle at your dejectedness. It was no matter, that issue of yours would be remedied soon.

“I was wondering if I could visit your office tonight?” Wanda asks innocently. “I’ve been having these… thoughts, and I would like to share them with someone I trust.”

“Someone you trust,” you echo, folding your arms and feeling your heart rate pick up exponentially at the sentiment that Sister Wanda trusted you. “Of course, Sister. As a preacher and a friend, I would gladly aid you in any troubles.”

“Any?” Wanda asks, and you swear you see a twinkling sparkle of mischief behind that white veil. “I guess only time will tell. Until then, Reverend, goodbye.”

Sister Wanda disappears down the lane of grey concrete, losing you in the corner wall of red brick, leaving you with a lot more to comprehend than just your hummingbird-esque thrumming heart.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི ⋆ ♱ ⋆ ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

Ten o’clock strikes the clock tower at the Town Square, a dull and permeating sound that resurfaces you from your listless floating.

You hadn’t been able to focus on anything all day after your interaction with Wanda. Anticipation ate you up from the inside out, affecting the quality of your sermons, although your crowd of admirers never weaned.

There was only one woman you cared for, though.

“Reverend L/N?” A sweet voice asks from beyond the shut door, and you shoot up with vigour that could rival Elvis performing Hound Dog. (You’d seen a clip of it on the television the other day — that young man was a star in the making.)

When you finally manage to fumble open the door handle, all the breath gets stolen from your weeping heart, and you may as well be laying in your casket because it looks like it’s your funeral.

To your utter demise and beseeching joy, Wanda Maximoff stands before you looking like a Renaissance painting handcrafted by Michaelangelo himself. What with her white veil removed to expose the delicacy of her beautiful face you long to caress, and her hair let down to fall in soft curls, and a smile playing on her glossy lips — you’re gone, already, before she even steps inside.

Wanda lets herself in, brushes past you and leaves you dazed in her wake.

“So, shall we begin with an opening prayer?”

Regretfully, you’re unable to devote your entire concentration upon the given task. You’d say you weren’t totally at fault, though — Wanda looked different today, a good kind of different, one that made you feel lighter than you ever had.

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” Wanda recites, hands clasped as she looks down. “Amen,” you close off, placing your beaded rosary back into your drawer.

You look up to see the older woman regarding you with an unreadable expression, the reflection from your dim ceiling light flickering in her viridescent eyes. It lights a fire within you, a desire for something you can’t quite place.

The ticking of your Peter table-clock seems too loud, all of a sudden, and Wanda’s gaze overwhelms your very sentience. You get a premonition, somewhere in the back of your mind, that this scene is going to unfold in a way you wouldn’t be prepared for.

“It’s rather warm in here, isn’t it?” Wanda voices abruptly, breaking the tense silence that had settled above the two of you.

You shoot up too quickly, banging your knee on your desk, then clearing your throat. “Well, it is nearing summer, Sister,” you answer with a strained voice. You can feel Wanda’s eyes on you as you pace the room to switch on the ceiling fan.

When you turn back around after fumbling with the power switch, your jaw slackens at the sight of Wanda. Oh.

She’s undressing before your very eyes, mumbling something about the irritatingly warm weather your brain doesn’t even begin to process, because you could swear up and down you’d never seen such beauty before.

“Well, I should get into it before the night drags on,” Wanda speaks, her voice a thousand miles away. Hopeless devotion swirls in your wandering gaze, focusing upon the silk black negligee that is revealed from under her robes — you don’t stop to think about the practicality of such clothing, foolish as you are — and the matching black high-rise stockings of hers do you in.

“Reverend L/N?” Sister Wanda asks, snapping you out of your fantastical trance, sending a sharp jolt to your growing member. A toying smile plays on her lips, one you don’t notice out of sheer embarrassment, her tone husking with a velvet lilt.

“Y-yes, Sister,” you say, sitting back down firmly in your seat and wishing you could scare your growing shaft into mellowing down, because you were certain you were already staining your undergarments. “Excuse my, uh, carelessness. Please, continue.”

“I’ve been having these…… thoughts, as of late,” Wanda begins, sitting forward, unhelpfully pronouncing her cleavage. “Sleepless nights, dreams in the morning. Fantasy, but not quite. Yearning would be a more apt description, wouldn’t it, for something that you crave so dearly when you know it’s impossible to attain.”

You’re lost, a little hazy between the lines, caught somewhere between comprehending Wanda’s speech and staring wide-eyed at her chest.

“What do you mean?” you ask, suddenly breathless, choking under your stifling garments and feeling unbearably warm in the heat of your enclosed office.

Your big hands flex and release, toying with something, anything, to distract you, and the older nun is prone to gazing hungrily.

“Sex,” Wanda finally states unabashedly, and you choke on stilled air and the scent of old books.

Sex.

“S-sex?” You ask, heat rushing to your ears, praying that you’d misheard or something of the sort, but at the same time more alive than you’d ever been.

“Yes, Reverend L/N, sex. It’s dirty, and raw, and everything we’ve been taught not to pay heed to,” Wanda begins in a breathless rush of eagerness, and you’re swept along in her unstoppable hurricane, on the brink of something inexplicable.

“But oh, it feels so good, and I crave it more than anything. More than life itself, if that’s even possible, because this desire is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. And, mark my language and bless the Lord above, but Christ — I’ve never yearned for this object of my desires so deeply and intrinsically. Someone, to be specific.”

You listen with a distant look in your eyes, your brainwaves fusing somewhere between “dirty” and “raw”. Still, your heart lurches at the prospect of another competitor for your forbidden love.

“Someone?” you ask, leaning back into your armchair and folding your arms. Your faux composure juxtaposes your thundering heart, as you die in anticipation and perhaps something dirtier.

“Yes,” Wanda simply states. She tilts her head, furrows her brows as if contemplating something. Then she nods, self-assuredly, and before you can get another word out, the older nun seals your fate.

“That someone is you.”

You’d always been a believer, but in that moment your heart transcends the physical boundaries of life before death, and you ascend to heaven and see the pearly gates, before Lucifer strikes you down to an undeniable reality.

“You think of me…… indecently?” You ask, almost a whisper, as if fearful of waiting ears on this cathedral’s dead night.

“Once again, yes. Call me presumptuous, but I believe your rock-solid erection is telling of the mutual lust we share, Reverend.”

You splutter, just now realising your uncooperative dick is nearly at full-mast.

“But,” you try, licking your lips in an anxious motion that has the older nun intently more aroused. “I’m— I’m not too experienced in that prospect, Sister. Not that I’m declining your request, definitely not, I— I simply fear I’m no good at satiating your needs.”

“You could never disappoint me,” Wanda responds in a sweet tone, and your heart explodes in some unexplored liking for older women’s approval.

Wanda stands up, and your gaze follows your esteemed temptress. “Besides,” she adds, her voice carrying a lightness you’d never heard before. “Experimenting is half the fun, isn’t it?”

It feels as though no time passes before Wanda is standing before you, a light hand tilting your head up as you become still in your seat, her right thumb tracing the curve of your jaw.

“Well, Sister, I suppose you’re right as always,” you answer breathlessly, a hand going to cup the smooth curve of her waist.

Each breath feels like rarest air as your eyes flutter shut, waiting patiently for the slow dip of Wanda’s head, as she brings you into a fated, ceremonial sealing of warm lips.

Wanda moves in a controlled manner at first, clearly more experienced than you, methodically moving her lips in a rocking motion as you find your pace.

Gradually, as a simple kiss grows lacking in the face of your burning passion and Wanda’s tentativeness fades away, you deepen the kiss, slanting your mouth against the nun’s, almost like you’d done it a thousand times, like it was meant to be.

Two pairs of lips move in haunting remembrance, cascading like the ebb and flow of a wave, the tide that washes over you in saintly baptism, cloaking you with the gentleness of an angel’s wings.

“Oh,” Wanda murmurs against your lips, a tiny gasp slipping from her mouth as your hands eagerly slide over the curve of her ass, devotional, wanting.

She straddles your waist, comfortably sat in your lap. It takes Herculean self-restraint for you to not to moan at the expanse of soft skin pressed against your robes.

“You’re certainly eager, aren’t you,” Wanda quips with a satisfied sigh, hands running up and over your arms and torso, certainly soaking in the new closeness that propriety once prevented.

“I am,” you utter dazedly, hands desperately palming at every inch of Wanda you can find, trying to memorise every curve and blemish. This moment, right here, was a sacred happening you’d only fantasised on the dirtiest nights, in some hopeless damnation of your unrequited love.

Requited indeed it was, and you’d never been more receptive to being proved wrong, as Wanda leisurely grinds on the bulge in your robes, controlling your pleasure like the puppeteer of a marionette.

“Too many clothes,” she groans, as you helplessly begin bucking your hips into the rocking motions of her hips. Your acquiescence comes in the form of the frantic removal of your robes, Wanda nearly ripping off your pants underneath. It leaves you feeling awfully exposed in a tight-fitting white tee and grey boyshorts.

Uneven exhales resound in the space between the two of you,

“Don’t look at me like that,” you whisper, embarrassment tainting the tips of your ears and a flush that races down your neck.

“How could I not, my sweet,” Wanda answers in a sweet murmur, delicate lips trailing down the column of your neck as she shifts on your lap. “You’re perfect.”

Your eyes flutter shut as Wanda’s hand slips down the band of your boyshorts, pulling out your cock as it springs out of its confinement. It’s big, you know it is, and you watch in anticipation as Wanda’s eyes darken several shades.

“It’s alright?” You ask, albeit tentatively, gripping the base of your cock to stop yourself from climaxing right then and there. “I’ve never— you know.”

“More than alright, darling,” Wanda murmurs with crescented eyelids, tracing the winding vein on the left side, fingertips rubbing at your tip in some sort of wonderment.

The sheer size difference of her pale hand and your thick cock changes your brain on a chemical level, and you think that this is going to be embarrassingly quick.

“Wanda,” you pant into the open air, your voice hoarse and your gaze hungry. Her hand furiously jackhammers up and down the length of your thick shaft, from base to tip, spraying droplets of pre-cum all over the both of you.

You let out an almost-whine as you throw your head back, chasing that warm heat that’d only ever been a part of your most sinful dreams. Wanda must be an expert at this, you think, as her thumb rubs your sensitive tip with each hard thrust of her hand.

“I’m gonna— fuck, oh God,” you gasp, and Wanda quietens you by pulling you into a messy kiss. Tongues envelop one another, and it’s sloppy, and wet, but pleasure is coursing through your bloodstream, ferocious devotion in an excruciatingly fast hurdle to a preordained climax.

“Wanda, you have to stop, or I’m gonna—”

“Isn’t that the whole point, darling? Do it inside.”

Wanda lifts her hips, revealing her wet heat to your starry gaze. It looks like some delicate flower you’d find in a faraway field, except it was something you craved to feel, and suddenly the desire in your stomach is unbearable and you move with frantic urgency.

You groan as your tip brushes against her velvet wetness, finally, collecting trails of slick to make it even more damp than it was prior. Wanda sinks downward with a shaky exhale, and the soft heat that envelops your shaft is the holiest shrine you’d ever chanced upon.

“Wanda,” you say, swallowing, big hands moving to grip at her hips, slowly opening her up with each inch.

Eventually, the slow pace drives you to the edge of insanity, and you begin your freefall with an abrupt change of heart. All too soon, the atmosphere surrounding the two of you becomes hot, rough, dirty — just like how Wanda explained it, fulfilling the filthiest fantasies of two wandering minds.

“Y/N!” Wanda calls out, panting, locks of hair falling out of place as you roughly manhandle her hips up and down your thick length.

Her delightful moans are heaven to your ears, as your fingers dig into plush skin, a sweetness naught would remove from your reach.

"I'm close," she whines into your ear, the fabric of her negligee clinging to flushed skin, your boyshorts all damp with your bodily fluids.

She slides down and up at a lightning-fast pace, both of you desperately chasing down each other's pleasure. Her pussy constricts your thick shaft in a tight hold, and your hands are none the better, palming at her ass.

"Oh, God," the older nun whines, when you increase the pace in a last-ditch attempt, the sound of bare skin meeting enveloping the room in a heady, aroused mess.

Your eyes find the crucifix across the room just before you tip over that edge one would view in reverence, hurtling downwards like Lucifer with his tainted lips, calling out Wanda's name in a breathless cry—

And there is devotion in your shared sin, breathless cries spilling from tainted lips, where grace is found in a mismatched harmony, and two sinners turn away from repentance.

"Oh!" Wanda cries out, thighs wrapping around your torso, head thrown back in a picture of evangelical reverence.

You think Wanda is the only altar you’d ever need, prayerless faithfulness in devout worship, a lowly pilgrim knelt before a holy shrine. “Fuck,” you breathe, as Wanda collapses above you, soft pants gradually becoming steady again.

“I knew you’d be perfect,” Sister Wanda — no, just Wanda — whispers, still straddling your lap with her palms pressed to the sides of your face in a gentle cradle. “Thank the heavens I found you.”

“What happens next?” You ask. There is a tremble in your voice, a fear of the unknown. There were prying eyes of religious watchers, where critical judgement of the queer community was prevalent in this time, where bravery did not always triumph over prejudice.

“What happens to us?”

Wanda’s lips brush against your forehead, her gentleness lulling you into utopia. “Only God knows, my love,” she whispers back.

It is then that you realise it didn’t matter, anyways, wherever you’d end up, as long as it was with your sacred, sanctimonial love.

so... how was that in all of its religious and horny imagery?? haven't written for wanda in forever omg. can yall spot the ttpd lyrics lol (side note: ttpd has some of the most profound lyrics i’ve ever heard, i can only aspire to achieve that level of literary greatness.) reblog please literally getting down on my knees atp main m.list

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idkyetxoxo · 19 days ago

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Jacaerys Velaryon - Jealousy

Summary - In the icy halls of Winterfell, they harbour a secret love. When a moment of jealousy surfaces, it pushes them together, igniting a passionate encounter that deepens their bond and reveals the intensity of their feelings for one another.

Pairing - Jacaerys Velaryon x Stark reader

Warnings - Sexual content (smut!)

Word count - 2451

Masterlist for Jacaerys • House of the Dragon General Masterlist.

The prince of the realm had taken residence within the cold, ancient walls of Winterfell.

My brother, Cregan Stark, had spared no effort in making sure the prince felt not just welcomed, but bonded as a brother.

They had drank together under the vast northern skies, hunted through the wild woods side by side, sparred with blades that gleamed in the pale northern sun, and ultimately swore an oath of brotherhood, sealing it with blood—an oath that spoke of loyalty beyond titles and crowns.

By day, Cregan, the Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, saw to all the prince's needs, guiding him through the customs of our lands and offering the famed hospitality of our house.

But at night, those needs were met by another. The Lady of Winterfell, sister to the Warden of the North, saw to them.

And met them, too, with a fiery passion that words could scarcely convey.

I took a slow sip from my chalice, my fingers absently curling a lock of my hair as I half-listened to the idle conversation around the hearth.

My thoughts drifted like the northern winds, in and out of the present moment, while the fire crackled and the scent of pinewood filled the hall.

"And then we came upon a boar the size of a bloody horse," Cregan's voice boomed, drawing attention. "Prince Jacaerys managed to put an arrow between its eyes before it could charge!"

His words were met with cheers and raised cups from the men gathered around.

I lifted my eyes to Jace—Prince Jacaerys Velaryon—who was already watching me.

His gaze was steady, and a subtle, almost shy smirk curled his lips. I arched my brows ever so slightly, a silent gesture of congratulations, one that passed between us unnoticed by the others.

"You're awfully quiet tonight," a voice whispered in my ear, warm and teasing. I turned to find Robb, one of Cregan's closest friends, leaning in with a curious smile.

"Hunting doesn't exactly stir my passions," I replied, lowering my voice as though we shared some scandalous secret.

"One might think you've nothing of value to add, then," he quipped, taking a swig of his drink. I gasped and pinched his arm, drawing a groan from him.

"Hunting beasts isn't for me," I whispered back with a mischievous smile. "But hunting men... now that, perhaps, would catch my interest."

Robb chuckled, his finger playfully poking my cheek as I giggled along with him, the sound light and fleeting like a winter breeze.

"Sister. Robb," Cregan's voice cut through the laughter. I glanced over to see him watching us with a raised brow, his gaze expectant and slightly teasing.

"Care to share whatever riveting conversation you're keeping to yourselves?" he asked, leaning back in his chair, amusement clear on his face.

Before I could answer, Robb chimed in with a mischievous grin, "The Lady of Winterfell was just confessing her longing for my company."

I gasped in outrage, turning to slap him on the chest as laughter erupted around us.

"I was not!" I protested, watching Cregan's smile fade into something more serious—disapproval flickering in his eyes.

"There's no need to deny it, my lady," Robb continued with a grin. "We're all friends here. Your... improper desires are perfectly safe with me." His voice was filled with teasing.

"You're dead meat," I muttered, shoving him off his seat as he fell to the floor, laughing uncontrollably.

The hall filled with laughter—some of the men joining in to further tease Cregan about his sister's supposed affection. But as my gaze flitted to Jace, I noticed his expression had shifted.

His earlier amusement was gone, replaced by something hard, cold even.

His eyes bore into mine, the intensity of his gaze sending a shiver through me. His knuckles were white, fingers clenched tightly around the stem of his goblet.

The lighthearted atmosphere seemed to vanish in an instant as I met his stare.

"What?" I mouthed silently, my brows knitting in confusion. But Jace looked away, his eyes now fixed on the fire as if it held all the answers to his thoughts, ignoring me entirely.

Without a word, Jace abruptly stood, the legs of his chair scraping against the stone floor.

The lively atmosphere faltered for a moment as the men glanced at him, but the prince merely excused himself with a stiff nod, his face a mask of cold composure. He moved towards the exit, his movements quick and deliberate, his cloak trailing behind him like a shadow.

I felt the shift immediately—something unspoken but potent hanging in the air between us.

My chest tightened as I watched him disappear through the archway, my mind racing.

I didn't miss the concerned look Cregan gave me, nor the raised eyebrows from a few others, but I forced a smile, trying to keep my features neutral.

"I think I shall retire as well," I announced softly, pushing back my chair as I stood. "It's been a long day, and I find myself in need of rest."

Cregan gave me a curious glance but said nothing, only nodding his approval. Robb smirked, clearly about to say something cheeky, but a look from me stopped him short.

As I made my way out of the hall, my heart pounded with every step. I knew where Jace was headed—his chambers. I could still feel the burn of his jealousy from across the room, and now I needed to find him, to calm whatever storm was brewing within him.

The halls of Winterfell felt unusually long tonight, the echo of my footsteps unnervingly loud as I hurried after him.

By the time I reached his chambers, the heavy wooden door was already closed.

I hesitated for a moment, my hand hovering over the iron handle, before taking a deep breath and pushing it open.

Inside, the fire was low, casting a dim, flickering glow over the room. Jace stood with his back to me, facing the window that overlooked the snow-covered courtyard below. His posture was tense, his hands braced on the window ledge as he stared out into the night.

I closed the door softly behind me and stepped forward, my voice gentle. "Jace..."

He didn't turn, but I could see his shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath. His silence was louder than any words could have been.

"Jace," I repeated, more softly this time, moving closer until I stood just behind him. "Why did you leave like that?"

For a moment, he didn't answer, his jaw working as if he was wrestling with something unsaid.

Finally, he spoke, his voice low and strained. "I couldn't sit there any longer... listening to them laugh, watching him touch you. That—Robb—he..." His voice trailed off, but I could hear the frustration, the hurt, in every syllable.

I sighed softly, stepping forward to gently rest my hand on his arm. "It was simply a jest. Robb is like a brother to me, nothing more. You know that."

His muscles tensed under my touch, but he still didn't turn to face me. "I don't like seeing you with him. The way he looked at you, the way everyone laughed... It felt like they were mocking me."

"They weren't mocking you," I reassured him, moving to stand in front of him now, placing a hand on his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart.

His eyes met mine then, dark and stormy, filled with doubt.

"Jace," I said softly, my thumb brushing against the fabric of his tunic. "You have nothing to worry about. I don't want Robb. I don't want anyone else. I only have eyes for you."

His expression softened, but the tension in his jaw remained. "But you laughed with him. And the way he... spoke to you, as if he had some claim—"

I cut him off, my voice firm but tender. "He has no claim over me. No one does. You are the only one I care for. The only one I think of."

I cupped Jace's face in my hands, pulling him closer, forcing him to meet my eyes. His gaze was turbulent, clouded with doubt and jealousy.

My voice was firm yet soft, as I willed him to see the truth I held in my heart.

"You have my heart, Jacaerys Velaryon," I whispered, my words carrying the weight of a vow. "Nothing anyone says or does will ever change that."

For a long moment, he just stared at me, his eyes searching mine.

Slowly, the rigid tension in his body began to unravel, the hard lines of his face softening. His shoulders, once taut with anger and insecurity, eased as if my words had melted the fear that gripped him.

He exhaled a slow, heavy breath, and leaned down to press his lips to mine.

The kiss was gentle, hesitant at first, as though he needed to be sure this wasn't some fleeting comfort. But I immediately reciprocated, wrapping my arms around his neck, pulling him closer.

His kiss deepened, more certain now, his hands slipping around my waist.

Without effort, he lifted me, my legs instinctively wrapping around his waist as though this was where I belonged, where I had always belonged.

His steps were steady as he carried me toward his bed, laying me down gently as if I were something fragile, precious.

His hands, warm and eager, moved with purpose, unfastening the layers of heavy Northern clothing that separated us. His eyes never left mine, his gaze darkened with both love and desire.

"Lift your hips for me, love," he murmured his voice a low rasp that sent a shiver through me.

I obeyed, and he slid the last layers of fabric away, leaving me bare beneath him. The cold air of the room kissed my skin, but I felt only heat—his heat, his gaze, as he admired me.

He paused for a moment, his knuckles brushing softly against my cheek as if to reassure me, to remind me of the tenderness between us.

With his other hand, he began to pull off his own clothes, discarding them with far less care.

His body was soon exposed, every inch of him familiar yet breathtaking, and my breath caught in my throat as I watched him.

"Spread your legs for me," he whispered, his lips brushing the side of my neck, leaving a trail of burning kisses along my skin.

My pulse quickened, and though a blush warmed my cheeks, I obeyed, parting my thighs shyly under his gaze.

His hands slid down my body, parting my legs further as he positioned himself between them.

The anticipation was electric, every part of me yearning for him, but he took his time, teasing me with his touch, drawing out the moment. His fingers traced my slick folds before his body aligned with mine.

"I'm certain Robb could only wish he was in this position," Jace murmured, his lips curving into a playful, possessive smile as he dragged the head of his cock slowly along my entrance, teasing me.

A breathless laugh escaped my lips, mingled with soft gasps of pleasure as he pressed himself against me.

"He can only dream," I whispered back, my words breaking as he pushed into me, filling me with a slow, deliberate thrust.

My back arched, and I gripped the sheets beneath me, fisting the silken fabric as waves of pleasure rippled through me.

Jace paused for a moment, buried deep inside me, his breath heavy against my neck. His hand slid down to my thigh, gripping it possessively as he pulled me even closer.

The warmth of his body, the weight of him above me—it was everything I wanted, everything I craved.

And then he began to move.

His first thrust was slow, measured, as though he wanted to savor every second, but the heat between us grew too quickly to maintain restraint.

Each thrust after was deeper, more intense, and I could feel the growing hunger in every movement of his hips. He wasn't just making love to me—he was claiming me, showing me with every motion that I belonged to him and no one else.

Our bodies moved together in a rhythm that felt as natural as breathing, each stroke sending waves of pleasure through me.

My hands slid up his back, my nails digging into his skin as he found that perfect pace, his cock hitting deep inside me with every thrust.

Soft moans escaped my lips, mingling with the sound of our bodies moving together, the firelight casting flickering shadows on the walls around us.

"Jace..." I whispered his name, breathless, needing him to know just how much I wanted him, how much I needed this.

His hand slid from my thigh to the back of my neck, pulling me into a hungry kiss, his lips claiming mine with the same intensity he claimed my body.

The kiss was rough, desperate, as if he couldn't get enough of me.

His pace quickened, the measured thrusts becoming more urgent, more demanding.

My body responded to his every move, my legs wrapping tighter around his waist, pulling him deeper, urging him on.

Every inch of him inside me felt like fire, like I was burning with desire, every nerve alive with the sensation of him.

I broke the kiss, my head falling back against the pillows as my breath came in quick gasps, pleasure building inside me like a wave ready to crash.

Jace groaned against my skin, his lips pressing fevered kisses along my neck, his thrusts becoming harder, faster.

The tension in my body coiled tighter, my moans growing louder, my hands clutching at him as though I might fall apart if I let go.

His name left my lips again, a soft plea, and his hand slid between us, his fingers finding that sensitive spot that sent a jolt of pleasure straight through me.

My body arched beneath him, my nails dragging down his back as I came undone, the pleasure washing over me in waves, my release so powerful it left me trembling beneath him.

Jace followed soon after, his movements growing erratic as he lost himself in the pleasure, his grip on me tightening as he thrust into me one last time, spilling himself inside me with a low groan.

For a moment, we just lay there, our bodies tangled together, the only sound in the room our ragged breathing.

His forehead rested against mine, his eyes closed, and I felt the last remnants of jealousy and doubt melt away, leaving only the deep connection we shared.

"I told you," I whispered, my lips brushing against his as I smiled softly. "You have nothing to worry about."

Jace finally opened his eyes, his expression softened, his earlier jealousy replaced with something far deeper—love, trust, and the quiet promise that whatever happened, we would always have each other.

A/n - LYHFML page 317, chapter 55 (if ykyk x) we need to thank Aaron Warner for inspiring this one-shot 💋

#house of the dragon #house targaryen #hotd #hotd x reader #house of the dragon x reader #hotd one shot #hotd season 2 #house of the dragon fanfiction #hotd fanfic #jacaerys targaryen #jacaerys velaryon #jacaerys x reader #jacaerys velaryon x reader #team black #prince jacaerys #jace x reader #hotd jacaerys #jacaerys strong

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http-tokki · 6 months ago

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ʚ⁺˖ ↠ blue

ᰔ pairings: dabi/touya todoroki x fem!reader ᰔ content/tags: mha spoilers, childhood pov, abusive childhoods, childhood crush, blood, allusions to self harm/suicide, explicit language, smut, kinda not really, its smutty talk, angst, allusions to s/a, power dynamics, time jump to when touya is like 26, creative liberties have been taken with the original story, set in the century 2400 ᰔ wc: 10.5k ᰔ a/n: so there is a bit of a weird timeline with this one. instead of touya dying at 13, I've made it he dies at 16 and the subsequent events are a lil delayed, in the manga he is 24 atm but here i have him as 26, please suspend your disbelief for a sec cause the amount of work ive put into this so it makes sense, i almost went crazy

March 10th 2460 Touya: aged nine You: aged eight (and three-quarters)

Breakfast is at five, lunch at twelve, and dinner at seven.

The clock hands tick over the first five graduations and onto the sixth, meaning it is six minutes past seven and dinner is late.

Lateness is not tolerated by the Todoroki clan.

No reason, whether it be big or small, would be accepted nor understood by the head of the family, and punishment for being tardy ranged from groundings to lectures and in the most severe cases, a beating. However, those parameters do not extend to said head, who you think to be more akin to that of a prison warden than a father.

You watch the housekeeper slide the last of the food onto the table and take another look at the clock.

7:08.

The table had been set, food diligently prepared and presented, plates piled high with greens and dripping meat, three different kinds of fish, an array of soups, and other liquid foods. Mrs Todoroki often had trouble eating, so instead opted for warm broths and hot teas, and they were all going cold while you waited for Mr Todoroki to come in from Touya’s nightly training. Saliva coats your tongue as you breathe in the heavenly scents wafting from the mountains of food, your stomach growling in protest at not being filled with the delicious smells.

Ten minutes pass and just before the eleventh has a chance to be observed, the sliding doors to the dining room whoosh open. With the ease and casualness of someone who is above the law of the household, Enji Todoroki strolls in followed closely behind by the eldest sibling.

Touya trails behind his father, movements sluggish and slow, his frail body slumped in exhaustion and what you would only later realise as terror. You can almost see the muck that weighs on his body, dripping off sharp bones in big flat globs of swamp green mud, seeping into the reeds of the tatami mats below. Fresh wounds litter his arms, blooms of dark red blood pock the sterile bandages that were hastily wrapped around his limbs. The stark white began at his wrists and climbed up and up his arms until they disappeared beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt. You follow Touya, eyes lingering on his wounds as he sits down opposite you.

“Fuyumi. Is he-“ Your question is hushed, spoken from the corner of your mouth to avoid raising suspicion of the subject.

“He’s okay, we don’t talk about it.” Her answer comes in a rush, eyes darting towards her father like a prey animal watching their stalker. “Just eat.”

Fuyumi’s mouth pulls into a frown for a quick second before her attention moves to the food before her.

You nod, attention shifting from the boy across the table to the plate that had been prepared just for you. A small helping of meat and fish paired with a big serving of rice and vegetables, the nanny even going as far as to put it into a divider plate as though you were a toddler, but you thanked her regardless, smiling up at the haggard-looking woman as she nodded politely and moved onto tending to baby Shouto. The food only holds your attention for so long before you glance back up at Touya, watching as he cuts into his steak with the precision of a man far beyond his years. Each move slow and calculated; every shift of his arms or turn of his head deliberate and purposeful, small actions to avoid raising awareness of his person. Come to think of it, all the children, save for Shouto, moved like that. As if they were in constant apologetic states just for breathing, existing, and with their father you understand why, but it doesn’t stop you from staring at the boy before you.

"Stop looking. He doesn't like it when you stare." Fuyumi whispers, smacking her knee against yours.

"But it looks like it hurts." You whisper back, unable to look away from the red splotches on the white bandages.

You want to ask if he is okay. If he needs a doctor and who did that to him? Was it a bully at school? How was the school not getting involved if he was being bullied this bad?

"Fuyumi," Touya sneers from across the table. "Tell your friend to stop staring at me."

Unabashed hatred simmers in his blue eyes as his glare falls on you. Heat rises to your cheeks, stumbling out an apology, and vowing to never look at him again.

No one had ever looked at you like that. With such hatred and malice, you didn’t even know existed.

"He plays rough, always falling over at school," Mr. Todoroki’s voice booms throughout the room, so loud and sudden it is like a thunderclap on a clear day. "You've got to be more careful, Touya. What would people think if they saw you like this!"

The lack of care for his son’s well-being gives you pause mid-bite. The vegetables fall from your fork as goosebumps skitter along your skin.

What would people think if they saw you like this?

What would they think other than he had been in an accident? Is Touya’s broken body a regular occurrence that people would be so used to seeing that it would start to raise suspicion? Had he been hurt on purpose? Why would Mr. Todoroki say that? Did Mr. Todoroki do that to Touya?

Your attention is pulled outwardly as Natsuo starts to talk about his day, telling his mom and the housekeepers all about the latest games and toys at school, the newest edition of a card game you like captivates you and your thoughts are swept away from the strange boy across from you.

Dinner ended as it always did.

Mr. Todoroki called the housekeeper over to deal with the mess and children as he retired to his office and Mrs Todoroki took her evening walk around the grounds of the estate. You can’t stay the night despite it being a Friday, you’re never allowed to stay the night. Fuyumi had stayed at yours plenty of times, your parents never saying no to another friend but never you at hers. You thanked both her parents and waved bye to her brother before the youngest housekeeper walked you home. That’s how every Friday night ended.

That routine had become a staple in your life, going on two years, before there was a change to the way of things.

------

July 1st 2362 Touya: aged eleven You: aged ten

The shift was subtle and gradual, like the way a house is warmed by a fire on a winter’s eve. Slow and steady, seeping into all corners of the once-frozen house until all you know is warmth and you can’t remember how the cold felt. That’s how you would describe Touya’s presence in your life. From the arctic interactions each Friday night at the dinner table to someone you would call a friend.

The first thaw of the ice wall that had formed around your friend’s brother, was an accident.

Knee deep in the heat of summer, you had rushed over after summer school, swimmers in your backpack and a dream of jumping into the fresh cold heaven that was the local pool. You had come looking for Fuyumi, hell-bent on getting your poor friend out of the stuffy old house and somewhere she could have fun without the risk of her dad making her or her siblings cry.

You had come to hate Mr Todoroki.

He hadn’t done anything to you personally to deserve the contempt you held towards your friend's dad but you had heard enough from Fuyumi. She had told you all the times he made her mom cry. How there would be arguing and then the sounds of breaking plates followed by her mom’s cries. Mrs. Todoroki never said anything was wrong, never alluded to anything other than a mild argument but there had to be something more, right? Adults didn’t cry over nothing!

“ ‘Yumi, let's go to the pool!” you call down the hall. “I’ll buy ice cream this time.”

The housekeeper had let you in, instructing that your friend was in her room finishing up some school work but after you checked her room and found no sign of her, you went looking.

That is how you found Touya.

Walking into the bathroom under the assumption you would find Feyumi, you are greeted with a situation you are not old enough to understand the severity of.

Touya slouched on the bathroom floor, surrounded by bloodied towels, unspooled bandages, and uncapped ointment tubes. A piece of gauze caught between his teeth as he attempts to bandage his bleeding hand.

He shouts at you to leave, his command broken as he hiccups around the sobs falling from him. Scorched skin covering the majority of his arms, fingers red and blistering as they shake.

That image sears into your brain. Imprinting itself onto your eyelids so that each time you fall asleep, you see Touya; broken and bloody.

There isn’t much you remember from that afternoon, only flashes and stills that live in the recesses of your mind.

The feel of the cold tiles on your exposed legs as you knelt before the once terrifying older boy who had never had a single nice thing to say to you.

The smell of salt and metal of his fresh blood.

The sound of Touya’s cries as you peeled incorrectly placed bandages off raw and exposed skin.

The acidic taste of bile in the back of your throat upon first laying eyes on the scene before you.

It had been too much for little you to comprehend so you just forgot most of it. Thrown it into a locked drawer in your mind and lost the key.

That was the beginning of the thaw, a gruesome and bloody beginning to a friendship that spanned years and ended just as horribly.

------

September 23rd 2463 Touya: aged twelve You: aged eleven

“So it's this really old movie that my mum used to watch” you explain as you click on the familiar title screen. “It’s about a girl who gets transported to this weird world and she has to solve some weird riddle to get out.”

Touya looks at you like you had grown a second head but accepts your weird movie recommendation. You sit down next to him, popcorn bucket jiggling as the couch sinks under your frame.

The beginning animation of Spirited Away starts and the familiar tune wraps around you like a warm hug. This was the movie you liked to watch whenever you felt sad, and you noticed Touya was a little sadder than normal these days so you offered to have a movie night. His siblings had all said yes but upon discovering that the movie was one from decades ago, backed out. So with just the two of you left, you sit in silence and watch as the beautiful world comes to life.

It’s a nice moment between the two of you, sharing something so personal with someone you would have never considered a friend and here the two of you were, watching a movie. Like friends!

“I’m gonna call you Chihiro cause all she does is cry and that’s all you do too,” Touya announces as the credits begin to roll.

“I do not!” you retort, slapping his arm lightly. “I cry a normal amount for a girl my age!”

Touya rolls his eyes. “Whatever, Chihiro.”

------

February 14th 2464 Touya: aged thirteen You: aged twelve

Spring is only a month away yet it feels as if it were the middle of December.

The cold of winter had sunk its claws deep into the city and it seemed as if it did not have plans to let go of it anytime soon. Everyone in Tokyo bundled up against the frost that coated the wind but it wasn’t the cold that had your hands trembling as you gripped a single rose.

It was Valentine's Day and you were about to ask Touya to be yours.

The nerves that had built in your stomach had taken over your extremities. It was as if your entire body was a live wire that every so often touched an exposed pipe and jolted.

In the two years since the bathroom incident, you had grown closer to the oldest Todoroki, sparking a friendship that consisted of more than smiles and shy hellos across the dinner table. Phone calls and text messages were the daily, walking to school and home together was the new norm, all things that one would consider friendly but there was a part within your heart that was growing to like Touya a little more than a friend. You knew it was a crush, you weren’t a little kid anymore, but you also knew that he was unattainable for many reasons. One was that he was a sibling of a close friend and the other being that he was not someone who thought about life that way. There was no room for crushes in Touya’s world. There was only hero work. How to become a hero and then how to become the number one hero.

You had heard this speech a million times. His plans to surpass his father in the rank of heroes and become the ultimate symbol of peace. Heroes had no time for girlfriends, only villains.

But you had no plans of becoming a hero so there was no real reason you shouldn’t try, right? Your mom had bought you the flower this morning, picking up on the crush that you had developed on your friend and very excitedly pushed you to give Touya a gift.

“What do I do with this?” Touya asks, confused as he takes the flower from your hands.

You had stopped halfway through the walk home and turned to your friend, eyes wide with fear, and shoved the bloom into his hands. Originally the plan was to hand it to him as you said goodbye for the afternoon but you were swiftly running out of ways to regulate your breathing to counteract the anxiety wreaking havoc in your stomach.

“It's for you” you answer, eyes trained on your shoes.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Are you asking me to be your valentine?” There is a pause. “Do you like me?”

Yes.

“No!” you lie, shouting the word even though you didn’t mean to. “I felt bad that you hadn’t gotten anything, so I got you something and there you go, it doesn’t mean I like you.”

You hear footsteps, watching Touya’s shoes move closer to yours. “Just admit, you like me.” He teases.

“I do not!” balling your fists, you stomp your foot. “I already told you why I got them now shut up before I take them back!”

Another pause.

“Thank you,” Touya says gently. “Even if it's just cause you felt bad for me”

Spring had come early for Touya Todoroki.

------

June 28th 2466 Touya: aged fifteen You: aged fourteen

Romance had blossomed between the two of you, then wilted, then blossomed again, then wilted again.

Teenage hormones had been unleashing havoc on your friendship for the past year. One day you were fine and the next, barely speaking but it wasn’t anyone’s fault.

“You two just need some time apart and then you can talk about it, you guys will sort it out.” Your mother had cooed, stroking your hair back as you cried one afternoon after you and Touya had had a ruthless argument.

The topic of fighting was always the same. His insane need to overtake his father and prove him wrong. The need within him had turned insatiable. Morphing from a dream that would one day be achieved with dedication and hard work into something that was turning your best friend into a ravenous beast.

“You’re not listening to me. I need you to listen to me.” Touya shouts as you walk home together.

“I am. You’re just not making sense.” You roll your eyes at your friend, turning your attention away from the raving lunatic walking beside you.

“Why would your dad have it out for you? He’s your dad?”

Touya huffs and stops, hand wrapping around your wrist to pull you back.

“My dad isn’t like your dad. He doesn’t love me or any of us. He just wants us to be better than All Might.” His words are slow as if explaining something to a toddler. “He knows that I am more powerful than him and now he’s scared that I might beat him so he wants me to stop training.”

You groan out his name, annoyed at the constant conversation topic. “Your dad wants you to stop training because you keep hurting yourself. He has told you that a million times, he’s just trying to keep you safe.”

“If he wanted to keep me safe, he wouldn’t have let me train like this. This isn’t about me being safe, this is about me outranking my dad.”

“Touya-“

He continues his tirade. “Enji has realised that I am better than him and Shoto but he doesn’t want his loser son who can only use fire to become the number one hero. I don’t know why you’re on his side. Why can’t you be on my side for once?”

“I am on your side!” you shout, yanking your arm away from his grasp. “I’m always on your side, why do you always make it seem like everyone is against you!”

Touya’s mouth snaps shut at your sudden outburst.

“I can’t keep having this argument with you. I feel like you don’t even want to be my friend so you come up with this stupid stuff to push me away and if you want that, fine. Just tell me so I don’t have to listen to you anymore.” You huff and turn around, starting on your way home without your friend.

You don’t hear his footsteps follow you.

His apology comes in a text later that night.

I'm sorry, Chihiro. Can we still be friends?

------

October 19th 2466 Touya: aged fifteen You: aged fourteen “Can you promise me something?” Touya’s words become mist in the mid-autumn night.

“Depends.”

You turn to face your friend, feeling the dew-soaked grass squish beneath your shoulders. Hidden behind the garden wall, lost within the shrubbery the two of you hid from the housekeepers who had been tasked with wrangling the children in for dinner. Touya had run first, taking off down the hall the second he heard the call of his name and you followed, unaware as to what you were running from but you followed him everywhere so why wouldn’t you now?

“Please don’t forget me.”

“Forget you?” your brows crinkle in confusion. “Why would I forget you? Are you going somewhere?”

Touya is still on his back, attention rapt on the stars twinkling above him.

“Just when we get older and go to different schools and things change, you know.” He sighs. “Just don’t forget me.”

You sit up, concern overtaking your confusion. Why was he talking about this stuff now? Your friend turns to look at you, mouth pulled down in a frown as tears line his cerulean eyes.

“I won't.” You shake your head, scooting closer across the grass and grab his cold hand, interlocking your fingers together, you squeeze and swear an oath. “I promise, I won’t ever forget you.”

November 24th 2367 Touya: aged sixteen You: aged fifteen

Nights come quicker in winter.

Which means less time spent with Touya.

But at least there is a little extra time when he walks you home on an evening.

It is a little awkward. Walking so close together but not actually touching aside from the occasional brush of fingers that sent your heart into a sprint. There is something unspoken between the two of you, something that teeters on the edge of romance but not something that you are both ready to dive into. It’s not like you are kids anymore, if you are going to date, it will be different than if you just liked each other. You will have to act like a girlfriend and not his friend and you didn’t know how to be a girlfriend. Was it any different than how you acted now? Plus, kissing and hand-holding. God, you want to kiss him.

You both stop at the gate of your house. The lights in the living room are on which means your parents are up waiting for you.

Touya drops your backpack at your feet.

There is a beat of stillness between the two of you, the tension rising with every second. You had not spoken a single word to each other the entire walk home and you don’t think you will even say goodbye. Touya offers you a tight smile and steps back, confirming your suspicions of a silent goodbye.

"Hey, I need to tell you something." You blurt out the words, not wanting him to leave just yet.

"Yeah?"

"I…umm," you stammer, slipping your hands into your jacket pockets. "I know it's your birthday in a few weeks, so I wanted to know what you want as a present."

"That's a question, Chihiro” Touya's mouth lifts at the corners. “You said you needed to tell me something."

“I got mixed up." You amend.

"You sure? There isn't anything you need to tell me?" Touya pushes, taking a step to close the gap.

"I'm sure. I just got confused" You nod, affirming your choice of words. “What do you want as a gift?”

"Hmm,” He pauses and takes a few more steps closer, lips pursed as if deep in thought. “Well, I want some of those cookies your mom makes."

Touya stops a few feet from you, close enough for a hug but not close enough that it was weird.

You laugh. "Really? That's it? You don't want a proper present?"

He nods. "Wrap it up, and it'll be a proper present.”

“Okay, cookies it is” You mirror his nod and smile. Your palms start to sweat, cheeks and ears begin to burn as you look up at your best friend.

“Any more questions?”

You shake your head. “Nope, that’s all.”

“Okay, well I’m gonna go 'cause I should have been home ten minutes ago but you are such a slow walker” he teases, bouncing up on his toes.

“I-Um,” you stutter, unable to come up with a snappy comeback due to his proximity. “Go home before you get into trouble.”

“I’m gonna.”

He makes no move to go.

Silence fills the gap.

“Ahh, well I’m going to go since-“

You’re interrupted by a soft kiss against your cheek.

You still, unable to move at the realisation that Touya had just kissed you.

“Okay, I’m going.” He announces and takes a step back. “I’ll see you on Monday?”

You nod, raising a hand in goodbye as he starts back down the street.

“I hope you like me too, 'cause that kiss made me late and my dad’s gonna kill me!” he shouts back, already halfway down the street.

“I do…like you…back” you shout awkwardly, feeling every inch of blood your body had flood into your cheeks. “Good luck. Hope your dad doesn't kill you!”

------

November 30th 2467 Touya: aged sixteen You: aged fifteen

You speak at Touya’s funeral.

The third speaker of the ceremony, having been urged on by Fuyumi and Natsuo despite your protests, and the one to close off the day before his ashes were taken home. You tried not to cry, bottom lip wobbling all day and you would have made it had you not been shoved on stage, microphone held to your face as you unfolded the crumpled sheet you had stuffed into the pocket of your coat.

The rest of the day was a blur as was the week, then the month and only after six full months of grieving daily, crying god only knows how much, did you finally start to see the light at the top of the hole you had buried yourself in but unlike the times you and Touya would play together, his warm hand wasn’t there to help you back up.

------

January 4th 2477 Touya: aged sixteen You: aged twenty-five

You think about Touya Todoroki often.

How your best friend had been killed in some freak accident. How despite his father rushing into the flames to save his son, had come out unscathed yet all that was found was Touya’s jaw bone. It didn’t make sense and you had driven yourself crazy with theories surrounding his death. It was an accident, they had all said. Even if it was an accident, Enji Todoroki was not innocent.

You think about the kind of man Touya could have been if he had lived, what kind of hero he would have become. How he would save the day then turn and smile at his adoring fans, blue eyes blazing bright with pride. You often think about his eyes, remembering how they softened whenever he would smile at you, brighten as you offered half of whatever snack bar you had that day. You think about him enough that you think you’re going crazy when you look up into the eyes of a stranger and see Touya staring back at you.

"Touya?" you whisper as you stare at the strange man.

You had walked headfirst into their chest while crossing the dark street, ducking under awnings to avoid the winter rain. Hoping to cut ten minutes from your usual walk home, desperate to beat your roommate home and into the warm embrace of your apartment’s limited hot water, you took the risk of walking down the alley; what you weren’t hoping for was to bump into your best friend’s dead brother. There was no way it was him, maybe he was a distant Todoroki. Enji did seem like the type to spread it around so maybe a few illegitimate children were running around with the eyes of Endeavour.

His hand reaches out to grab your arm, nails digging into your exposed flesh. You want to wince, to cringe away from him but something within you is telling you to hold your ground. The stranger pulls you closer, all false bravado leaving you as you realise what’s about to happen. Your body tenses, hands uselessly curling into fists at your side.

"Who the fuck are you?" a harsh whisper cuts through the quiet patter of rain.

The hand your arm tightens when you take too long to respond.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.” Your answer whooshes from you, all air leaving your body in a single sentence.

The stranger ducks his head to get closer to yours and you turn your face away, afraid to look into the face of the man who had the eyes of a long-lost love. This had to be some sort of joke, right? You were not about to be assaulted by a guy who had Touya’s eyes, there was no way the universe was that cruel.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to I’m sorry, please.” Hot tears roll over your cheeks, your bottom lip quivering as you fight the frown wanting to form. You were not above begging despite knowing it wouldn’t do any good, if there was some way to get out of this situation alive and unscathed, you were going to try it.

“Hey,” the stranger calls to you, shaking you gently. “Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Great, he’s playing mind games now. You’ve seen enough true crime to know that there are no good people left in the world, especially the ones who lurk in alleyways.

A cold hand reaches out and grips your chin, lifting your face to his. The gesture is intimate, gentle and familiar.

“I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean anything by it. I'm sorry, I-“You’re sobbing now.

“Look at me” he interrupts, fingers tightening on your cheeks.

He repeats his order when your gaze doesn’t move.

You sniffle, blink back tears that refuse to stop coming, and focus your attention on the man before you.

“I’m not going to hurt you so stop crying,” his voice is soft.

The hand that was on your arm now cups your cheek, thumb brushing away the tears that coat your cheeks. His skin is rough and warm, but there is a bite of something cold on his palm. He holds you with such tenderness you feel a tug at your heart not for any feelings towards the stranger but because you had never been held like this before. That a complete stranger who was probably a crazy psycho villain was holding you with the care you hold a baby animal with.

“I need you to stop crying and answer me, can you do that?” he asks, nodding as his thumb continues to brush over your cheek.

You nod, taking in a shaky breath.

“Good girl.” Heat floods your cheeks. “Now, why is a pretty girl like you walking alone at night?” he asks softly.

You blink up at him, surprised at the switch in demeanour.

“I just finished work and this is shortcut.” you don’t have time to come up with an elaborate lie. “I’m really sorry about the whole name thing, you just look like a friend who died and I thought that maybe he wasn’t actually- I’m sorry” You feel the tears welling up again.

“Well, he’s not me.” He sighs, removing his hands from your face. You kind of miss the warmth they had. “I’m sorry you lost someone, but I don’t think accusing strangers of being dead people is a good idea.”

You nod wordlessly, too stunned at his shift in tone to formulate a response. The man reaches up for the hood of your raincoat, pulling it over your head tight to shield you from the rain.

“I need one more thing from you okay?” he asks, ducking his head to look into your eyes. “You gonna listen to me again?”

“Okay.” Your voice shakes.

“Don’t mention that name to anyone else, alright?”

He waits for your nod and then releases your hood. “You’re such a good listener” The fact he is praising you has your heart spinning. Wasn’t he ready to attack you a few minutes ago?

“Now go home” he nods his head to the exit of the alleyway. You follow his nod and look back at the light-filled street. “And don’t walk down backstreets anymore, you could get hurt.”

By the time you turn back to face him, he is already halfway down the alleyway arms raised in a farewell. You watch as he turns the corner and only when he is gone do you let yourself breathe. ------

March 6th 2477 Touya: aged sixteen You: aged twenty-five

"Let it go, dude," Natsuo sighs for the umpteenth time as he packs his books away. "You're lucky you didn't get hurt. He could have been a complete psycho."

Your friend is right and has been every other time you have brought up the strange man from the alley and you can tell by the way he shoves the textbooks into his backpack that his patience is running thin. Over the years, you had grown closer to Natsuo, looking at him like a little brother who you could force to hang out with and do things Fuyumi didn't want to. Unfortunately for him, he was the first person you called upon meeting the stranger (Knowing Fuyumi would have had a heart attack upon hearing about your encounter). Initially, Natsuo was concerned, terrified for your physical and mental wellbeing even going so far as to suggest letting his father know about the incident to launch a formal investigation but you were quick to shut that down. You hadn’t been hurt and the man didn’t seem to be skulking in alleyways to assault anyone so there is no reason you should get heroes involved.

"Dude, he looked so familiar! I know him," you press on, hands splayed on the library table as you lean in as if you were about to reveal a secret. "I think he was a childhood friend."

You had purposefully omitted the fact the stranger bore a striking resemblance to his dead brother or how his entire aura radiated familiarity and warmth something you only really felt from said brother.

Natsuo laughs and zips his bag closed. " 'Yumi was your only childhood friend."

"Fine, a neighbour, maybe I don't know, but I know him."

"Should I schedule you with my family psych, or will this fade by next month?" You frown at Natsu, sigh, and then give in to his pronounced lack of interest.

"I don't need to see anyone because I know I'm right," you start to pack up your things. "But, just for you, I won't mention it again."

------

May 17th 2477 Touya: aged sixteen You: aged twenty-five

You feel stupid.

Really fucking stupid.

So monumentally stupid with every single decision that has led you to this moment. Led you to stand before a thick metal door, the sliding peephole pulled back to allow the man guarding the entry a view as to who knocked like some girl scout. The box of cookies in your hands does nothing to evade that image.

“I have a meeting with…Dabi?” you look down at your phone, squinting at the blurry name on your screen then back to the man guarding whatever was in that building. “I think.”

You have no idea if you’re being set up. If the person you had been corresponding with was the infamous villain or just some poser but what you have deduced from your months long investigation is that you had in fact met Dabi in that alleyway so whether it was him or not you were about to meet, he is your only lead into finally figuring out what exactly happened to Touya

“You think?” You hear the smirk in his voice at the uncertainty in yours. “I think you might have the wrong door, sweetheart.”

It is the right door. The creepy encrypted message you received gave you this very location with the exact time to arrive. This was a giant risk on your behalf. Trusting strangers on the internet to give you accurate information as opposed to being lured into a trap for human trafficking but the need to know more about the mysterious man you had met weeks ago was gnawing at your insides so much that you were more need than person. The hunt had begun with a very broad search into Touya’s death and the records surrounding the tragedy before very quickly veering into villain records and archives. There was a small lead with a hospital admittance for an unidentified burn victim in a hospital a prefecture over from Tokyo but that went cold when the body of the patient was identified two weeks post mortem through dental records. You had all but given up when a weird email in your spam box caught your eye. It was from an unknown sender, hence the immediate spam allocation, and had nothing but a link to a chat site. There is no amount in the universe to quantify the stupidity in your subsequent actions from clicking the link to chatting with the stranger on the other side of the screen but they had the information you wanted and so you followed their instructions to a bookstore, then a bar and then finally an internet café where you logged into the already open discord chat that had the location of the final meeting point. You quickly snapped a picture of the chat before it disappeared and three days later, here you stand in a deserted alleyway surrounded by boarded-up doors and graffitied walls.

“This is the address I was given.” You explain, holding up the phone so the guy can get a look at the message. “I promise I'm not with the police or anything, I just have some questions for Dabi and I know that makes me sound like I’m a police officer but I’m not and I’ve been looking for him for weeks so please, let me in.”

Your mouth sets in a frown and despite wanting to look intimidating and rough, you know you look like a child pouting in an attempt to get more cake. “Please, I’ll give you some cookies if you want.” A shitty bribe but a bribe nonetheless.

The man snorts. “You really have cookies in that box?”

“Yes. Fresh and homemade made and some of them can be yours if you let me in” You wiggle the box.

There is a beat of silence then the sliding peephole slams shut.

Fuck.

You close your eyes, disappointed in the fact you had come so far only to be shut down by some guy behind a door. Maybe this was the universe stepping in and preventing you from getting killed or trafficked. Maybe you should let this whole thing go.

Just as the last of your hope leaves you, you hear the click of a lock and then the door is sliding open. The man who you had been speaking to not ten seconds ago stands before you, muscular tattooed arms crossed over his equally muscular chest.

“Choc chip?” he asks, eyes trained on the box in your hand.

You nod.

“Fine, come in” The man tilts his head in a gesture to welcome you in. “Leave some on the counter.”

You nod again, your pace quick as you enter the building beyond the door.

The hallway is dim and damp, filled with cardboard and wooden crates stacked along the walls. The ceilings are high with exposed piping and hanging fluorescent bars that would have once lit up the entire walkway. Light bleeds beneath the many doors that line the hall, muted sounds following the flashes of colour that leak from the closed-off rooms. The smell is unpleasant, with mildew and mould growing along every available surface but what did you expect a dirty unoccupied building to smell like?

“Where’s the?” you turn to ask about the counter, but the man has disappeared. The door slides shut caging you in from the outside world, from an escape if need be. “Hello?” you call out and take a step back, dried leaves crunching beneath your feet.

Fuck. Fuck.

You turn on your heels, heading for the door you had stepped through a few seconds ago but are stopped by a familiar voice.

“Did you really bring me cookies?”

You whirl, fingers tightening on the box between them. “Yes, but if you don’t want them, it’s okay. I just thought that I might-“

You watch as the man you had met weeks before steps into the dim light. Breath catches in your throat as you are met with the face of the villain that has filled your screen for weeks now.

Dabi.

He is taller than you remember. Towering a full foot over you, his intimidating figure looms in the dim light. Your eyes follow the line of his scarred skin over his cheeks, down his neck, over exposed collarbones before disappearing beneath the neck of his shirt. Heat fills your face at your wandering gaze and you’re thankful for the lack of lighting.

“Who says I don’t want cookies?” Dabi smirks, taking a step out of the shadows.

“No one.” your answer is a broken stammer, earning a bemused snicker from your companion.

You take in a breath and square your shoulders. “I just don’t want to accuse you of anything.” A better delivery.

The villain hums and takes another step closer. “So, it is you then.”

Another foot closer, and when you don’t back away, one more. His steps are careful; small and reserved as if trying not to frighten you anymore than you already are. The routine is repeated, a hesitant dance of pushing proximity limits until he is less than a foot away. Blue eyes narrowed on you, brows furrowed in intrigue. Same blue as before. Same blue eyes as Touya.

His apprehension and fascination leave as quickly as it came, and you're left staring at a man who looks as if he wants nothing more to do with you.

“So, pretty girl, what can I do for you?” tone casual, pet name rolling off his tongue effortlessly. “You’ve gone through all this trouble to what?”

The thought of lying did cross your mind on your way over but you had already jumped through enough loops to get this meeting, you aren’t in the mood to play games and risk his irritation.

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Dabi tilts his head to the side the way an animal does to hear better. There is something so unsettling about the he moves, something not entirely human.

“Talk about what, angel?” his eyes blaze blue as he notices the twitch in your lips at the byname. “About the league? About you? Me?”

“About you.”

Heat pools in your stomach at his affectionate pet name, embarrassment following suit. You should not be letting him get to you the way he is, but it could also be a good bargaining chip. If you couldn’t afford his services monetarily, physical payment would not be entirely painful.

“We can talk about me but first, I want to ask you something.”

“Sure.” The false confidence you had summoned before has not left you yet.

The insincerity of your act is palpable, but Dabi lets you go, lets you take this small win.

“How long did it take you to find me?” his question is genuine, interested in just how exclusive access to him is.

An exhausted sigh leaves your body at the mention of the time that you had put into locating him and his lips quirk at the gesture.

“Four months and 2 weeks, I think.”

An irrationally long time but there are questions that demanding answers.

“So, you’ve spent almost five months thinking about me?” he taunts.

Me. The emphasis on the pronoun doesn’t evade you but you don’t have time to dwell on his excitement.

“Yes. And now I’ve answered two of your questions, can I ask one?”

Dabi shrugs and reaches for the box in your hands. Rough fingers brush against the back of your hands, goosebumps skittering over your skin at the contact. He takes his time opening the small white box, bottom lip pulled between his teeth in contemplation at the contents before him and after a full minute of silent deliberation, does he pick one. Slender unscarred fingers dig into the box, fishing out the biggest and most chocolate filled treat.

“Did you make these?” Dabi holds up the choc chip cookie, inspecting the biscuit in the low light.

“That’s three questions now.” you announce as the unofficial score keeper. “and yes, I made them this morning.”

The making of the desserts had been a coping mechanism on your part. Too nervous to sit still but not so overstimulated you were willing to exercise to shake off the extra energy, you turned to an activity you hadn’t touched since university. The recipe was one you know by heart, having it gifted to you by your mother on your eighteenth birthday, you were free to think as your body worked through the motions. However, the purpose behind you baking said sweets was not entirely self-soothing.

Dabi nods and bites into the biscuit.

“I know you already said you don’t know the guy I mentioned when I first met you and I haven’t mentioned him to anyone again just like you asked me, and I figured with you being a villain, you might have connections that I don’t have and you can access more information as to what happened to him and I promise that I can pay. I’ll pay whatever you want but I don’t really have that much but I’ll pay in food, and that’s kinda why I brought some cookies to show that I can bake but that will only be a small amount because I’m good for a couple thousand-“ you reach into your back pocket to fish out your wallet. “I promise, I won't ever mention this to anyone, but I just really need your help, Dabi.” The juxtaposition of your pastel purple Kuromi wallet holding thousands of dollars as payment for a villain’s services almost makes you chuckle but the lack of recognition from your companion causes you to pocket the purse.

Dabi’s stare is unamused as he chews.

“Why is this guy so important to you?” he asks around a mouthful of chocolate. “You’re willing to blow thousands on some dead guy, not to mention you’ve risked your life coming here, so why is he so special?”

Your fingers curl into a fist, nails digging into your palm before you relax and answer.

“Because he died in a really weird way, and I need to know if there was anything I could have done to prevent it.”

“That’s a stupid reason.” Dabi spits out.

A frown tugs at your mouth.

“He’s dead. Who cares how he died and whether you could stop it or not.” He continues, rolling his eyes as your pout forms. “What’s the real reason you’re looking for answers? There’s something else.”

“It’s stupid.” You mutter, suddenly embarrassed at the reasoning for your investigation.

“Ohh, it can’t be that stupid if you’ve put all this effort in.” Dabi croons. “Come on, angel. You’ve gotta tell me why if I’m gonna do all this work looking for him.”

You take in a deep breath in hopes of smothering the tears that are threatening to spill but the lump sticking in your throat has other plans.

“Because he was my best friend and I loved him and I never got to say goodbye.” You sniff, nose starting to run as the tears build. “Please.”

Dabi stares at you.

“You made these?” the question comes out of left field.

You blink at the villain, unaware as to where he is taking the conversation but answer him nonetheless.

“Yes, I did. It’s stupid I know, bringing cookies as a bargaining chip but I-“

“Your mom’s cookies are better.” Dabi interrupts.

My what? My mom?

“What?”

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry but her cookies will always be the best.”

Your jaw slackens as you stare at the man before you.

“My mother?”

“Yes. Your mom made better cookies, and it’s not for lack of trying. Yours are really good, but they’ll never beat your mom's.”

Is he fucking with you? Is this some elaborate psychological warfare that he enacted on all his victims? Are you about to die? How does he know about your mother’s cookies?

“Aww, don’t get upset Chihiro. I'm just being honest.”

The nickname rattles your soul.

Touya.

Before you can even register that you are moving, you have crossed the space between your bodies and swung at the villain.

Your clenched fist collides with his jaw, surprising him out of his teasing. Arms wrap around your waist as you collapse against the villain. Your knees break the fall, bones scream out in pain as they slam into the concrete, and you brace for further impact but it never comes. There is a moment when you truly believe you are going to be killed, incinerated into nothing but ash for your assault but nothing happens and so you are left with no other choice but to get answers from the man under you. There is no clear choice as to why you chose violence, some primal part within you acting out of instinct. There isn’t enough time for you brain to catch up or even process that information that had been thrown at you. . In most high-pressure situations, you would retreat inwards and carefully unpack each and every detail of the occurrence like you were a kid under a Christmas tree; not a package left untouched, but you don’t have that luxury in the current moment.

Hot fat tears stream down your face as you grip Dabi’s cheeks in your hand, his skin rough beneath your fingers.

“You’ve been alive this whole time?” you cry, fingers digging into the gaunt flesh and when no answer comes you ask again, the palm of your hand connecting with his cheek in a sharp slap. “You left me to think you were dead, but you’ve been alive?”

Below you, the villain stares up in disbelief. Eyes wide at the mad woman above him, screeching like a banshee let loose. His thin shirt is scrunched tightly between your fingers, pulling the material taunt against his body. You have no control over your actions, feral and bowing to your emotions. You watch as your hand slips to his neck, pushing at the base of his throat.

Finger wraps around your wrist, pulling your weight off his windpipe and then the world shifts.

You are flipped over as easily as a leaf in the wind. Now on your back, the dust that had been kicked up from the floor sticks in your lungs and you cough as you cry.

Dabi hovers above you. Legs on either side of your hips, hands pinning yours above your head preventing you from causing any more harm to him. You try to kick, to wrench your hands from his grasp, throw him off you with your hips but nothing. You fight back against your opponent, teeth gnashing as you desperately try to find purchase on skin but he has done this too many times before to leave anything to chance. All points of access to an injury on his behalf are sealed up, held high above you and there is nothing you can do to reach.

Your cries are loud and deep and aching. Air leaves you with each heaving sob and you fear you may never breathe again. Spit and tears mix in a hot mess across your cheeks and you would wipe away the mess if not for your hands held above.

“I hate you so much.” You seethe, teeth clenched as you breathe in. “I fucking hate you.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” You hear Dabi apologising over and over again.

A hand brushes over your forehead, then your cheeks, then your jaw.

“You left me.” You wail. “You left me there, all alone.”

Your chest heaves, air being gulped down as if you had been held underwater to the point of drowning and it felt like you had been. You had been held under for so many years and now you were getting a moment of air, and your brain could not process it.

You take a few more breaths, calming the blood roaring in your ears and pounding heart and finally when your breathing returns to a semi-acceptable rhythm, do you finally acknowledge the man above you.

Dabi glides his palm along your jaw, thumb brushing over your cheekbone before resting his fingers along the side of your neck.

“I’m so sorry.”

A frown pulls at the corners of his mouth.

There is no longer a villain before you. Dabi does not exist. The boy above you is Touya. Your Touya.

You knew it. You knew it was him all along.

“Is it really you?” your voice is hoarse from crying.

“If I answer, you need to promise to keep it a secret,” he whispers, free hand curling in the ends of your hair that lay splayed out beneath you.

“Promise.” You nod and hold out your pinkie the way you did so many times as children.

Touya interlocks his pinkie with yours.

Fresh tears prick at your eyes.

“Hi, Touya,” you whisper.

“Hi.” He whispers back, hand pulling away from yours to glide over your jaw and slot into the hair at the nape of your neck. “I missed you.”

You wrap your arms around his waist and pull his body against yours in a bone-crushing hug. A laugh leaves your friend as he loops his arm around the back of your neck, holding you close. You pull back, face now centimetres from him and wait for him to make the next move. Your body follows his breaths, following his lead just the way you would follow him all those years ago. A lump forms in your throat and you know you look insane; hair mused, cheeks flushed and soaked in tears, eyes still red and crying.

Touya closes the distance, mouth hovering above yours and you think he is going to kiss you but nothing comes.

“Did you really love me?”

A sob leaves you involuntarily.

“I loved you so much, you have no idea.” The truth spills from you. “I love you so much.”

At the confession, Touya kisses you.

His mouth is soft on yours in the gentlest of kisses, almost as if he was afraid that you would fall apart if he pushed any harder. You part your lips to test the waters and when Touya follows your lead opening his mouth against yours, you grip onto the shirt bunched up around his waist. He lets you lead, lets you take control and set the pace for the first few minutes. Following your moves and pressure against your body to not push you any more than you already had been but as you whimper beneath him, his demeanour shifts.

Fingers tighten in your hair and the hand that had been holding himself up comes to rest on your waist, slipping beneath your body to pull you closer to him. Your mouth opens wider beneath his and you feel his tongue trace your bottom lip before flicking into your mouth. Menthol and chocolate fill your senses and you scramble for more, hands gripping his face as you desperately try to get your fill of him; of Touya. The steel of the staples bites into your palm but you don’t care, don’t care what form you have him in, you have your Touya back.

You’re being lifted off the floor, hoisted to sit on his lap, feeling the entirety of his body against yours.

You pull away to stare at him, not believing this is happening and that at any moment you are going to wake up or snap out of your delusion.

“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” Touya asks, eyes frantically searching for the reason you aren’t kissing him anymore.

Your chest constricts at his concern. The same sweet and caring boy you fell in love with all those years ago.

“I’m okay, I just-“You stroke his cheeks and he leans into your touch, inhaling a shaky breath. “I missed you so much. There was so much we didn’t get to do.”

He frowns and nuzzles further into your palm. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I don’t want you to apologise, I just want..” You can’t form the words. Can’t articulate the need within you for him. All these years you’ve held a torch for your deceased best friend. All these years you could have had him with you and now that you do, you aren’t letting go. “I just want you.”

Touya’s frown deepens. “Even now?” His thumbs stroke circles along your clothed skin.

You know he is referring to his crimes. All the bad he has done and probably will do. You do not care. You had long ago abandoned your hope in the heroes of society, having been granted a look into the past of the now top hero. There is nothing for you in that world, nothing on offer that could sway your feelings for the man below you.

“Even now, and tomorrow and the day after that and yesterday and the day before and the month before that” You smile, knowing you weren’t making sense but none of this made sense. “I never forgot about you.”

Touya’s eyebrows knit together in an expression you don’t know and for a moment you panic; worried you had crossed a line that you didn’t know existed. You want to apologise, take back the words that had so carelessly tumbled out but his grip on your body stops you.

“I never stopped thinking about you,” he sighs, hands sliding up to press into the small of your back.

“Really?” you beam, unable to stifle the excitement that grows in you at his confession.

You are no longer an adult woman sitting in a dirty and dusty warehouse; you are fifteen and hearing your crush confess words you had been so desperately wishing to be spoken.

Your best friend’s fingers trailing over your spine pull you back to the present.

“Never for a single second,” he tests the waters and slips one hand under the hem of your shirt. “I never wanted to forget you.”

When no protest on your behalf comes, Touya slips his other hand beneath the material and begins to trace shapes into your skin.

“What did you think about?” your question is breathless, head beginning to swim as you feel heat bloom in your stomach.

Touya hums in thought, fingers beginning to climb your ribs. “Good things. Great things actually.” hands splay over the band of your bra. “some bad things but that isn’t important.”

Your thighs slip further apart at the implication; weight now fully resting atop his hips. There is no doubt that he can feel the heat from between your legs, the warmth that had begun to pool in the seam of your panties.

“Bad things?” you ask the question without knowing what kind of answer you would get. “I was nothing but nice to you, what bad things could you be thinking of?”

You feel his cock twitch at your innocence. Perfect.

Your answer comes in the form of an action. Touya leans forward and captures your mouth in a searing kiss. All teeth and tongue as his fingers pressed hard into your spine, holding you against his body as if you are a buoy and he is lost at sea. Your own hands begin to wander, sliding from where they came to rest on his neck, into the hair at the nape of his neck and as he digs his teeth into your bottom, you pull at the strands between your digits.

Touya pulls away, breathless.

“I always kept an eye on you, you know.” he pants, pushing your body away only enough to ogle you freely. “And I’ve gotta say you grew up so well.”

There are two thoughts that cross your mind in that spilt second. One: to bring up the fact he has kept you within his sighs for years, has been in the shadows of you life and how there is a part of you, not that big but enough to plant a seed of betrayal, that you can’t forgive him for that. Two: to throw caution to the wind and give into the part of you that aches for him.

The latter wins out.

“I did always think that Dabi was really handsome” you admit, an air of nonchalance in your words.

“Oh yeah? Even with all the new mods?”

“New mods?” you laugh. “Why do you make it sound like you’ve upgraded a game or something?”

Touya laughs with you.

“I’m serious,” vulnerability swims in his eyes as he looks up at you waiting for praise. “Do you really think that I’m still handsome?”

You nod and duck your head closer to his. “I still think you’re so handsome and you will always be handsome, which is really unfair.”

His lips are pressed against yours in a soft kiss. It's gentle and sweet, with no hint of the darkness lurking just below.

“Even after all these years how do you manage to make me so weak?” Touya pulls away to admire you.”You, my pretty girl, are my weakness.”

He tucks your hair behind your ears, holding your cheeks in his cupped hands and pulls you back in for a kiss and you melt into his touch at the possessive compliment.

“All these years, I never thought I’d get to talk to you again let alone touch you.” His mouth moves to your neck, pressing sloppy open-mouthed kisses against your skin. “but, fuck, have I thought about it.”

Your skin flushes at his confession.

His teeth sink into your neck, hard enough to leave a mark but not enough to break the skin.

“Thought about kissing you like this” his words are slurred.

Slick begins to pool in your panties, the seam of your jeans dampening.

“Thought about having you in my lap, just the way you are and how good you’d feel on my cock.”

Your head swims at his words.

“When I saw you again for the first time a few years ago, it took everything in me to not walk up to you and kiss you right there and then.” He bites lower, nipping at your collarbone.

Rough hands make their way under your shirt, exploring the expanse of your back.

“Thought about holding you and kissing you and taking you home.” he bites again. “God, the amount of time I’ve spent imagining you under me or spread out just for me.” Breathing becomes hard. “All for me, just for me.” He chants your name as if it were a prayer.

You grind your hips over his, feeling his cock hard and aching beneath you. Touya groans against your throat, fingers digging into your skin. Hands begin to wander downwards until they find purchase on the buttons of his pants, stopping at the metal for approval from the man beneath you and when it comes in a rushed yes, please you flick open the clasp. Your movements are awkward and nervous, having never thought this would happen and you can tell Touya is just as jittery. His fingers dip under the waistband of your pants, toying with the soft elastic of the band. Your hands follow his and pull at the material, trying to pull it down but stop at the realisation there is no way you could do this and still look seductive.

“I’m trying really hard to make this hot, but I don’t think it’s gonna work.” You admit, giggling at the absurdity.

Touya shakes his head, removing his hands from your hips to hold your face again. “I don’t want to fuck you here.” He presses a kiss to your nose.

Before you can ask, he is answering.

“I’m not gonna have the first time I fuck you be on a dirty floor in a random building.” A kiss on your right cheek.

“But what if I want that?” you retort, hand reaching down between the two of you.

His breath catches as your fingers brush against his clothed cock.

“I know you want that,” he pulls your hand away and entwines your fingers. “and you know I do too,” A kiss to your left cheek. “But I had a plan back when we were younger,” he brings your hand to his lips. “and I’ve already had so much taken from us that I’m not letting our first time be taken too.”

Your heart squeezes. He really is the same boy you fell in love with.

“So as much as we both want it, please let me do this, okay?”

You pout, a habit you had formed long ago that usually got you what you wanted from him.

“Please, baby.” The pet name is a gut punch.

You nod and hold up your pinkie.

“You promise?”

Touya grins wider than you had ever seen and entwines his finger with yours.

“I promise.”

May 17th 2477 Touya: aged twenty-six You: aged twenty-five

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ᰔ a/n: NOT PROOFREAD! ohmygosh, this was a long haul. I wrote it and then rewrote it and then rewrote it and so on and so forth till I got here. tiny TINY smut cause i didn’t wanna write a whole ass thing so I might do a one shot of it later. this exhausted me holy- also shout out to billie eilish lmao her entire new album helped me write this mainly chihiro, the greatest and blue but also harry styles' as it was and madds buckley's brother

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ddarker-dreams · 5 months ago

Note

It's ovulation week I am begging you to give us more blade crumbs

I'M A BIT LATE BUT !!!!!!!!!! better late than never, ig ??? anyway... here's some not sfw jealous blade. warning for mentions of alcohol and it's implied reader let a dude flirt with her just to fuck around and find out .

(definitely not a bad idea or anything when your bf is an immortal killing machine haha... aha...)

despite your affection for your morose lover, you’ve harbored a secret regarding his eyes.

those wickedly beautiful vats of crimson can occasionally be too much to bear. staring back at them, you’re reminded of the carnage he’s inflicted. that for some, this was their final sight before they bled out a similar shade. to have those same eyes weighing you down inspired apprehension. not from the belief he’d harm you — simply that he could.

his gloved hands are cool against your feverish skin. they grope at your bare thighs, desperate and unforgiving. you’ve made his lap your throne. your panties are embarrassingly soaked against his clothed bulge, which you’re made to grind against by his inescapable grip. the friction is exhilarating, depriving your lungs of air and his mind of any coherent thought. he’s acting on base, animalistic instinct, his composure shattered beyond repair. yours isn’t any better. the night is young and he’s made an unapologetic mess of you.

faintly, you wonder if you should apologize. next comes determining what there even is to say.

i’m sorry i’m so hungry for attention.

i’m sorry that i laughed at his jokes.

i’m sory that i leaned in too close.

“come back to me,” blade demands. his dominant hand finds your jaw, tilting it up, forcing you to stare at your reckoning. “think of no one else.”

the meaning behind his words doesn’t immediately register. through the haze clouding your senses, a semblance of understanding pierces through. having your body isn’t enough. he wants your mind for himself as well. your most fearsome acolyte, who’d serve as its warden and worshiper.

his eyebrows pinch together, belying his own inner conflict.

why did you choose me?

when will you change your mind?

how do i get you to stay?

your lips find his. blade’s response is instantaneous, he ravishes you, his tongue likely tasting the cocktail you sipped an hour prior. a deep, guttural growl sounds from his throat. you whimper. his sounds of gratification do something to you, altering your chemistry, making your veins hot with lust. when you part, he chases after you, only stopping once he sees how desperately you need air.

he’s painfully hard against your cunt. a wet patch has formed from where your anatomies grind together, his precum seeping through the fabric. the constant stimulation to your clit has you breathless. you’re close — teetering on the precipice. he must be able to tell, for he maneuvers you like you weigh nothing, sparing you the physical overexertion. thighs trembling, you bury your face in his neck. his scent is a mix of anise, sweat, and blood. oddly, it makes you feel safe.

and then he urges you back to look him in the eye.

“did you want him to do this to you?” the question comes out like a snarl, scarcely human in its timbre.

you shake your head.

“would you—” he clenches his teeth, as he’s nearing his own end, “—would you have let him fuck you?”

this time, when you try shaking your head, he slows down.

“you have a voice, girl. use it.”

you swallow thickly.

“i wouldn’t have,” the words stumble out. “m’ sorry.”

the atmosphere is thick and oppressive. the low light has you squinting to better discern his countenance. as always, it gives little away. in an unexpectedly tender gesture, he brushes his lips against your forehead. he then tucks the hair sticking to your sweaty skin back. your throat feels tight. before you can try to make sense of it all, he returns to his previous ministrations. still sensitive, you gasp, throwing your head back.

the muscles in your body tighten, threatening to snap—

“i swear,” he murmurs against your ear, “it’s you who will be the death of me.”

—and at that, you come undone.

#blade x reader #honkai star rail x reader #blade brainrot #bf blade #not sfw #hsr x reader

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silkjade · 7 months ago

Text

OF GOSSAMER THREADS

wriothesley x reader ⤀ synopsis: all this for a new set of clothes, wriothesley never imagined he’d be this sensitive while having his measurements taken… and so you offer a way to help him relax ⤀ cw: fem!reader, pet names (princess + girl), blowjob / oral (m. receiving), deepthroating, little bit of dacryphilia + corruption — mdni || ꒰ 2.5k wc ꒱ ⤀ notes: finally the fic version of this little thing i posted, that has actually been in my drafts for months

“Don’t tell me the duke’s never had his measurements taken before.” Your eyes flicker up from beneath thick lashes, a brow raised at the peculiarity of the situation: Wriothesley, the infamous warden who just about radiates confidence, stiff at the prospect of a simple fitting.

“Unfortunately, there aren't many special occasions that call for your services here at Palais Meropide.”

You hum in agreement, nonchalantly giving him a sharp tap tap to his toned bicep, as you circle around him, ducking out of his line of sight. he's right of course; the fortress doesn't often call for the services of a seamstress such as yourself, but it seems even its great duke must adhere to the rules of society events, whenever his nation so demands.

“Arms up,” you instruct, when he fails to respond to your simple gesture.

From behind, he feels the bite of cold air run through his self for the first time in a long while, as he flinches from the way your fingers dance like ice at the bared nape of his neck. Your tape measure stretches down the length of his spine until a perfectly manicured nail marks a hatch into the fabric ruler, pressing just the slightest bit into the dip at his back. He arches away from your touch, all but jolting in response.

It isn't you, per say, nor is it the process itself, but rather that dangerous combination of both. How you're so casually intimate with your ministrations, walking the line between close and closer, with nowhere else to stray. Touching him in places he had never imagined would be sensitive, and doing so without ever batting an eye.

Of course, as an employee of Chioriya Boutique, it's nothing new to you — nor is it anything out of the ordinary to the men and women you dress over at the court of Fontaine. But you cannot help but find amusement in how this rugged wolf of a man squirms beneath the lightest of touches.

Wriothesley stretches, rolling his shoulders to alleviate the unfamiliar soreness in his arms. Boxing, fighting—all of that he can do, easily and proficiently—yet his arms have never felt heavier than they do now, as he holds them out, so as not to obstruct your path. A small smile tugs at the corner of your lips, but you refocus onto the matter at hand, trading your tape for a pen as you quickly jot down the length of his back. Cute, you think.

He almost breathes a sigh of relief when you finally allow him to rest his arms, that is, until he sees you down on your knees, near-hugging his frame in order to grasp the measure of his hips.

“I've always heard the duke was a skilled boxer — didn't think this little session would be enough to do you in,” you say, in an attempt to lighten the mood, because it'd be near impossible to get accurate measurements the way he's tensing up all his muscles.

You glance up to check his reaction when he doesn't respond. Not that he isn't listening, but it's difficult to focus, difficult to breathe, when the sweet scent of your perfume—marcotte, he notes—sends him into overdrive, his brain directing all his senses to congregate at his crotch.

“Hey, relax,” you remind him, but his mind as already decided to wander astray. How can it not when you look up at him with those eyes, large and wide, and how he'd like to see them brimming with tears, perhaps with his cock in your—

He forcibly drags the thought out of his head, setting an iron foot down as he shakes away the apnea, exhaling with a low puff to his breath, and a light tint to his cheeks. “It's a bit easier said than done.”

He laughs it off, yet despite his smart remarks, Wriothesley clears his throat as if his voice hadn't near cracked at how your knuckles had brushed against the inside of his thigh while you were garnering its circumference; your phantom touch sending shivers to his skin, even through the fibers of his clothes. You hear him swallow down a grunt, and from the corner of your eye, you see the real issue now.

“Would it be easier if I helped with... this?” Manicured nails graze across the fabric covering his crotch, cheekily avoiding the obvious outline of his cock.

Wriothesley lets out a small chuckle, wondering if he's perhaps hallucinating at this stroke of luck? Fate? Whatever it is, who was he to deny what's come knocking at his door, especially as you're already taking steps to smooth back any loose hair from your face. He backs into his own desk and sits at the edge before gesturing with a wave of his hand and a lilt to his voice.

“By all means... ” so you undo the buckles at his belt — his pants and briefs quickly following suit, as you tug both remaining garments down, one after the other, before greeting his bulbous tip with a quick kiss hello.

Your thumb glosses over his slit, collecting beads of pre, as you run long strokes up and down his shaft. Strained, Wriothesley exhales through gritted teeth; you can feel him pulsing in your hands, throbbing with need. Your touch is searing — it burns like ice, crawling up his veins until his scattered thoughts are frozen in place, stuck on the ever persisting need to buck forward.

“Easy there, Your Grace,” you tease, heat accompanying your tongue with every lave around the underside of his cock. From his thick base to his leaking tip, the flat of your tongue traverses a wet path along the upward curve, before finally, you take him in the warm engulf of your mouth.

Wriothesley stifles a breath, tossing his head back as he leans into his desk, exhaling a soft grunt at the way you suckle on just his tip, tongue swirling as you wrap the head in a sweet caress, and take him just a little deeper. From your peripherals, you easily catch on to how his grip tightens around the edge of his desk — a reluctant companion to the slight, yet ever present tremble in his hips, daring him to break at the growing pleasure between his legs.

Sucking in your cheeks, you hollow them in until there’s nothing left to feel except the angry pulse of his cock in the wet maw of your mouth. You drag your lips slowy—tantalizingly so—off his cock, as if imprinting the feel of his veins onto your tongue, savoring the taste of his arousal before suctioning off with a nasty pop.

The air is immediately striking, an onslaught of sudden cold that sends his wet cock twitching in impatience. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think you were toying with him, but a single glance down only confirms the duke’s suspicions in that you absolutely are. Because oh how you so sweetly bat your doe eyes, looking up at him with anything but innocence, as delicate strands of saliva still connect your lips to his leaking cockhead, snapping as you force yourself to hold back the haughty little smile threatening to appear at how you’ve left the man equally flushed in face and cock.

Carefully, you rub along his slit until your fingers are curled around his girth, pumping his fat cock in a mix of spit and pre, kissing down his length while your free hand presses against his sensitive hipbone, your breath tickling his skin, as you take one of his balls in your mouth, suckling as if it were the sweetest of confections.

He grunts, bucking into your fist. Duke Wriothesley who has never had his measurements taken. Duke Wriothesley who perhaps has never been teased as so. Duke Wriothesley whose hand snakes its way to your chin, and with a slight jerk, tilts your gaze to the ice in his half-hearted glare.

“Hey,” he chides, “enough of that.” But his air of authority is tainted by the rasp in his voice, undermined by his own traitorous eyes that drift to the residue surrounding your lips. Oh, how terribly he'd like to see such a pretty, pristine thing tainted and stained by his touch... and so he runs his thumb over your bottom lip, dipping into the wet heat of your mouth, and subconsciously guiding you back onto his cock.

Any resolve left in the duke crumbles as you part those sinful lips, throat opening as you attempt to swallow him whole, and he sucks in a sharp breath, head thrown back as his fist races to smother his groans, teeth clinging to the skin of his knuckles.

You nurse his cock just a little bit deeper with every bob of your head, your palms—still slick with spit—pumping the length of all you cannot fit. His impressive size no doubt adds to the weight, your jaw falling slack just to fit his girth, but you persist, tongue swirling and painting and lapping up sloppy strokes all around. He rocks his hips, irregular and shallow, but it nonetheless has tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. you quickly blink them away, opting to refocus on holding down your gag reflex, rubbing your thighs together as a distraction and nurturing your own wetness that accumulates in between.

A moan rises from the back of your throat, the vibrations pulsing and weaving around him like silk threads, cocooning him in a pleasure that you can so clearly feel from the way he throbs on your tongue, which so desperately tries to maneuver around his shaft until he caves to the tightness — too warm, too welcoming, for him to resist any further.

And so by no will of his own, his hips jerk.

The impact makes you choke, convulsing around him as the force of his thrust sneaks him a little further down your throat. Spittle leaks from the corners of your mouth while you do your best to swallow all you can, but the sting of tears immediately returns to haunt your visage, this time successfully leaving a number of streaky trails in its wake.

You send him a weak half-glare, but Wriothesley only stutters out a weak apology before his sharp eyes are drawn to the subtle movement of your hips and thighs, and of how your knees readjust in search of any friction that might serve as an alleviant to the cock knocking at the back of your throat. Even so, the whine vibrating around his cock begs for attention back to your pretty face.

Beneath gossamer lashes, your eyes glisten with the promise of more tears; playful embers now vaporized by the saturated lull of lust, that he hates to admit thrills him. You, who had arrived at the fortress like an overworld princess; so prim and pretty, with the heels of your shoes click-clacking throughout his metal abode. Your fashionable attire, so perfectly ironed and flouncing along with every step…

But where is your composure now, as you kneel before him, with his dick in your mouth?

He smoothes a hand along the top of your head before stopping at the crown. You can feel the tangible twitch of his cockhead, and you whimper in nervous anticipation, because you already know what's to come.

“You can take more than that,” he rasps, challenging you, all the while tilting your head down just a little further. “Almost there, princess... relax. Just a little more...”

His sweet words loosen your nerves, opening your throat to the realization that somehow, you must have relinquished control over to the duke, handing him the reigns as you let him pull you down, down over that last stretch of his length, bit by bit until the tip of your nose finally presses into the thatch of dark curls at his hilt. You flutter and squeeze around him, drool trickling down your chin as you splutter and gag.

And gracious as he is, Wriothesley grants you a moment to breathe, through your nose, of course, if the large hand still weighing atop your head was any indication. He stretches a thumb over, gently brushing away a piece of hair fallen loose onto your face.

You really are so pretty — resting parallel to his balls, looking up at him with dew on your lashes and water in your eyes, lips pooling with spit at where you’re stretched around his base. he pulls out a little, throbbing with the desire to fuck and ruin… but slowly, he grinds himself back in, tapping the back of your sputtering throat every time he runs a pass along the palate of your tongue.

Wriothesley throws his head back, groaning loud and raw through his teeth. You feel so good; so hot it makes his blood run cold, so tight it has him coming undone. and he’s so close. You can both feel it.

You moan again, despite the struggle to do so while his tip remains busy fucking your throat. Behind his thighs, you dig your fingers into his bare flesh, bobbing along, hugging him even closer because after all, it was you who had offered to help with his problem, and it’ll be you who sees him through to the end.

“Dirty girl,” he breathes, wholly impressed at how you take him like a sleeve, rolling along with his movements, and leaving him to shudder so close to completion. His face twists with pleasure, fingers tightening in your hair when he feels that pleasantly familiar barrage of tremors bubbling from your throat.

The wet sound of skin and spit rings in your ears. Dirty. Yes, that’s exactly what this was. To think you’ve never felt so sloppy and messy, gagging on cock, much less one like his… and yet… you think you love this. That, or you must be dizzy off delirium because his words have heat rushing to your cheeks and your cunt, stifling another choked moan that reverberates through the entirety of his shaft.

When he cums, he cums in your mouth, spilling in spurts with no restraint — and you swallow as best you can, as much as you can, really. Still, he continues to rock his softening cock 'til the end of this high, savoring the last remnants of your sweet lips before you slowly pull off.

That first breath of real air is sweet, even amidst the iron-tainted walls of Meropide, though you're apt to remember that even too harsh a breath would send your battered throat into a fit of coughs. You slump down to your heels, panting softly, entirely too aware of your current predicament, as you run a thumb across the tip of your chin, slimy with your combined fluids. It's sloppy, dirty, and oh how you're forced to swallow your own spit, when your clit pulses in rebellion.

Above you, Wriothesley chuckles, kneeling down to your level, yet still broad enough for his back to cover the dim light of his office, tall enough that he must tilt your head to catch those lovely eyes in his wolfish gaze again. He pulls a handkerchief from his breast pocket, wipes the mess from your lips until you're prim and pretty and perfect, ready to be unravelled once again.

“Shall I return the favor?”

notes2: my first (and probably last) time writing a blowjob so i hope it was ok lolz this is so embarrassing so i’m posting n fleeing anywayz tysm for reading as always, and reblogs+feedback are very much appreciated ♡

#— 𝓼𝓲𝓰𝓷𝓮𝓭 𝓙. ༯ #wriothesley x reader #wriothesley smut #wriothesley x reader smut #genshin x reader #genshin x reader smut #genshin impact x reader #genshin smut #genshin impact smut #genshin thirsts #wriothesley x you #genshin x you

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pavosnoctua · 3 months ago

Text

(un)holy

cw: non-con touching, mdni, minors dni, yandere, imprisonment, forced marriage, isolation, spanking mention, some physical and mental abuse mention, obsessive and possessive behaviors, whatever is going on with diluc, masturbation (m.receiving/doing). let me know if i missed a tag! afab!reader.

he hungers to corrupt you - but yet, to do so would mar you with sin.

Diluc is surprised when you don't fight against him as he gently lifts you up from the bed, where you'd been crying just moment before but he's glad that you don't. He's not sure his heart could handle another moment of having to spank you the way he did to get you to behave. You don't seem to understand that you are a danger to yourself and he's just trying to get you to understand that.

He tries to convince you that the room you stay in is not some ornate prison, but a place for you to get used to your new life, away from the rest of the stressors, and so he can make sure you won't do anything that could hurt you (and therefore, him).

You think he's crazy but say nothing - you know what happens when you try to challenge his reality. And it's better to not do that. The first few times were emotionally painful lessons, that soon became physical. A few strikes here and there, as if you were a disobedient child. Then he started to add a bit of fire to his open palm, and you learned faster.

The bath is warm, set to a temperature that you like and it is scented. And he stares at you with desperation and hunger, feasting his eyes upon your naked form as though you were a goddess. He touches you with reverence, as if he did not have you over his knee just ten minutes ago. His skin is rough in comparison to your own.

Soap is gently rubbed into your skin, shampoo in your hair - he must make sure you are clean of todays filth and sadness. It's not the smells you like, these are too strong, they burn your lungs and your nostrils.

He can't even look at you in the eye when his hands move along the curve of your breasts and how for a moment, they linger. And how, for a moment, you fear the beast inside of him will finally win out tonight. Diluc starts to work faster, ashamed of his growing arousal, uttering apologies and how good you are and pretty you are. This is how he tortures himself.

"Just - let me bathe myself, please." You beg, after a moment - unsure of what you're most afraid of.

"No." Diluc answers. "You - you may hurt yourself."

And you don't say much else to that, the soapy water is rinsed off, and he does his best to rinse out your hair before relenting and letting you dip under. He massages your scalp as he helps rinse the rest of the shampoo out, followed by putting in the conditioner.

He's too gentle for a man who took you and locked you up - too gentle for the man who easily bends you over his knees when you act up. The reverence he has in this moment, it's too jarring. You consider fighting against Diluc when he helps you out of the tub, helps dry you - the towel being ran along your body in a manner that makes you shiver.

Diluc pauses for a moment - he longs to touch you so intimately, but he cannot. He is a filthy man, and would rather keep you pure and away from his sin.

One dry, he kisses every bruise he has caused in various areas - mainly focusing on your bruised wrists because he doesn't dare go any lower. He had already applied a cream to help the burn. It is almost like a ritual - a devout follower kissing his goddess. That he has imprisoned. But you are not a goddess and he is not a man of worship. You are his human prisoner, and he, your warden. Your 'husband'.

Finally, once lavishing you with tender kisses as he had gotten away from himself, Diluc dresses you in a fine nightgown. It is made up of the finest of threads, it can so easily be ripped, and averts his gaze. It has a much lower cut than he thought it did - and you know it will be gone by tomorrow night.

Once in bed, he looks as if he's considering kissing you good night but when you turn away - you hear him let out a heavy sigh.

"Good night."

Your skin is always so soft and supple when he touches you, and guilt gnaws at him when he finally reaches his own room - the door shutting and locking behind him. He's clawing to get his pants and shirt off. You are too pure for him, and he wishes to corrupt you. But he cannot mar you with such sin - such a terribleness that is him.

Yet his hand goes around his already hard cock, barely making it to his bed in time, slowly pumping it and he groans. Diluc imagines what it would feel like to have your soft hands touching his cock, to have your pretty mouth wrapped around it. To feel you under him, moaning his name - your pretty eyes looking at him with lust and not fear.

His touch is erratic, pumping hard. He hates this part of the night, hates it so much - as pre-cum drips from the head of his cock. Diluc imagines you spread open for him, how warm you would feel around him, and how sweetly you'd moan his name. You'd look pretty plump and pregnant.

Diluc releases his seed over himself, cumming with a soft groan of your name as he grips at the blankets. His seed covers both himself and his blankets. He has to take a moment to catch his breath, to close his eyes before the guilt comes.

Tomorrow morning, he cannot look at you in the eyes.

#yandere diluc #yandere diluc x you #yandere diluc x y/n #yandere diluc x reader #yandere diluc imagines #yandere genshin #yandere genshin x reader #yandere genshin x you #genshin impact x reader #mine.txt #diluc.txt #noctua.txt

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da-birb-writes-sometimes · 1 year ago

Text

One of Us is Guilty; Chapter 3

Three are now dead, but the killer seems to be caught ... but this night is not over until the room is found.

Characters; Vil Schoenheit, Rook Hunt, Azul Ashengrotto, Jade Leech, Silver, Cater Diamond

Content; Unreliable narrators, murder mystery

Content Warning; Death, murder, blood, anxiety, kidnapping, overall dead dove content warnings

Word Count; 1.1 K

Find this content triggering but still want to participate? Link to the Google Form to vote!

As a reminder, do not put my work — or others for that matter — into AI as it steals. Link to Masterlist

The body count had risen to three; Dire Crowley, the Ramshackle Prefect (whose blood still stained the floor, the iron scent permeating the air), and now, Divus Crewel as well, the latest victim. One minute the professor was alive, shaking from anger that one of his students was killed on his watch and that he was the prime suspect of the killings. But now he was sprawled out on the ground, killed in an instant.

The remaining students — Vil, Rook, Azul, Jade, Silver, and Cater — were silent, processing what exactly had just happened. The lights had flickered only for a minute, and in that minute, the killer had struck. But the silence was broken by a deafening clap of thunder, lightning illuminating the windows, and bringing everyone back to the present, to their laughably horrible situation that they had found themselves in by sheer chance and bad luck and timing.

Silver sat down on the staircase, and put his head in between his legs, taking deep breaths. Despite his training, he did not consider that he would be witnessing death so soon. The small part of his brain that had a sliver of hope that his friend had survived their gruesome injury, but he was just lying to himself; no one could survive that.

Vil was pacing, hands clasped behind his back, and he was muttering to himself. He thought he could read people, what with being raised amongst the stars that hid behind too-sweet smiles that belied venomous words. What was there to gain from any of this?

Rook was cracking his knuckles, and then rubbing his eyes, trying to think of why this was happening. While he could appreciate the hunt, this was something entirely different. Yet, it also reminded him of several books; one being a murder mystery, and the other about the deadliest game, of hunting a fellow person.

Azul was shaking and biting his nails, his resolve long gone. Had he made himself the enemy of one of his peers? Was he going to be next? He was supposed to just be perfecting a potion recipe for the next test, yet he found himself way above his head.

Jade looked at Azul, taking in that his house warden and friend was shaking more than the leaves outside in the howling wind. He too was disturbed by the night's events, sick to his stomach even, but he couldn’t show weakness, especially if he wanted to see it through.

And Cater? He was paler than a ghost, a cold sweat glistening on his forehead, and he felt like his heart was going to leap out of his throat. His cheery smile had left long ago, and now panic was fully starting to take control. Why? Why? Whywhywhy? WHY?! Yet he stayed silent.

No one spoke, but they eyed each other with caution. Every time that they had went to the mirror and they voted through it, someone died. Was it the mirror? No… no, that didn’t make sense… None of this made any sense though.

“No more votin-” Silver whispered.

Cater cracked his head around, green eyes judging every move the underclassman made. “And why’s that, Silver?” His voice was shaky, but Cater wasn’t trusting him or anyone for that matter. “Afraid that-”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Vil barked, commanding everyone’s attention, eyes all on him. But he was used to eyes being on him, and he stayed cool, despite how this may damn him into being guilty in their eyes. He didn’t care at the moment though, all he cared about was no one else dying. “Look at what being suspicious of each other has brought us,” his eyes wandered to the dark clotted blood that had now gone cold. He swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat, keeping the calm mask up. “I agree with Silver though; voting through the mirror only ends up with someone… dead.”

“Then how do we proceed, Roi du Poison?” Rook asked, falling to his house warden’s side. His eyes looked over everyone, picking up their behaviours, emotions, and any tells.

Azul’s head snapped up. “The potion-” he started muttering to himself, before clearing his throat and gaining his composure again. “A truth potion, but one that shows the truth about the situation, we can use that to find the killer.”

Cater looked at Silver, and offered him his hand; a peace offering. Silver took it, and brought himself up on wobbly knees. A truce.

Jade placed his hand on Azul’s shoulder, offering him a bit of comfort that not everyone was out to get him. “Was that what you were working on?”

Azul nodded, and he started making his way towards the alchemy lab, where hopefully they could put an end to the killer’s little charade once and for all.

…

Vil helped Azul make the potion, and both students kept a keen eye on the other, but they made it without incident. And to show the others that they hadn’t tampered with it at all, they took it first, with the others shortly following suit.

“What about the room?” Silver asked.

“We can figure that out once we find the killer,” Jade countered.

Everyone looked at each other, taking in any minute details, but everyone was calm; the potion apparently did wonders to calm the nerves… but that in itself was a dangerous effect, since now everyone’s guards were down, making them easy targets.

Vil took in a breath and released it. “Who killed Dire Crowley? Why did you then kill the Prefect, and then Professor Crewel?”

But no one spoke up.

“It isn’t me,” Vil said confidently, hoping that his speaking up prompted the others to follow suit.

Cater was to his left, and he spoke next. “I didn’t do it.”

Then Silver, “Or me… I couldn’t do something like this…”

“I did not do it either,” Jade offered.

Azul’s eyes went wide, and he eyed the next person in line. “The killer isn’t me.”

All eyes fell on the last person left in their little circle; Rook. With all of them but him left, that only left him.

He let out a throaty, quiet, chuckle. “I suppose this game has run its course,” he tipped his hat to them, green eyes glinting dangerously in the dim light. “As for why? Hmmm,” he hummed, and the hairs on everyone’s necks stood on end. There was something off about Rook, this wasn’t Rook.

“You’ll find that out when you guess the room.”

What?

Everyone took a step closer to each other, away from Rook, and they whispered amongst each other, voting on what room Crowley’s murder took place in.

“Alchemy lab,” Cater spoke for the group, trying to keep his resolve as Rook seemed to stare into the very contents of his soul, like he was searching for something.

Rook stepped forward, still smiling. “Ah, désolé Monsieur Magicam,” the whites of his eyes started turning black, “but you would be wrong.” The lights flickered again, and in the seconds of darkness, Rook was gone, and so was Cater.

GOOGLE FORM (voting will end Wednesday, October 18th at 9pm EST)

SUSPECTS:

- Silver; the kindhearted knight with a mysterious past, is it just for show? (Plum) - Vil Schoenheit; the actor who is always pigeonholed into the role of a villain (Scarlet) - Divus Crewel; the alchemy teacher with a penchant for fashion, Crowley’s co-worker (Peacock) DECEASED - Rook Hunt; the enigmatic hunter who always has a hunch of what’s happening (Mustard) MURDERER - Azul Ashengrotto; the owner of The Mostro Lounge, a businessman with dubious morals (Green) - Reader; the ‘house-keeper’, a role that was imposed on them by the late Headmage (White) DECEASED - Jade Leech; a student enamored by fungi and seems to have a foreboding presence about him (Orchid) - Cater Diamond; the preppy beau of Heartslabyul, but his smile seems forced (Peach) MISSING

ROOMS:

- Main hall (eliminated in Chapter 2) - Teachers’ lounge - Cafeteria - Kitchens - Lecture theatre - Botanical garden - Alchemy lab (eliminated in Chapter 3) - Library - Crowley’s office (eliminated in Chapter 1)

WEAPON: MAGIC (found in Chapter 2)

…

To be continued

#dove does events #twst #twisted wonderland #twst murder mystery #vil schoenheit #rook hunt #azul ashengrotto #jade leech #twst silver #cater diamond #cw death #cw murder #cw blood #cw kidnapping #dead dove do not eat #oh you though it was going to be over once you found the killer? *evil laugh* oh my sweet readers no no it isn't #aka i remember the deadliest game plus i just watched the exorcist so yeah I'm tying those in #now if you don't mind me i'm going to cram those lessons in twst since i have 25 left until i can continue with the event

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velvetures · 1 year ago

Note

Simon is def the type of boyfriend/ husband to adopt a big dog for your anniversary present (even though it's so self serving, he just wants you to have extra protection). He even puts a little bow on the pups collar when he's presenting you with the new edition to the family. (I can see him with a Belgian/ German shepherd, doberman or even a pit mix breed)

Good Boy

Oh my god, there is no way Simon isn't insisting his S/O doesn't have a dog once you've become an established couple.

I think the only difference I have from your HC is that he'd already have the pup trained and nearly at full size when he brings it home for the first time.

Naturally, he's got plenty of experience after having Riley for years. And spent a lot of time sneaking some of your dirty clothes out of the house to put in the dog's kennel while it's being trained. Accustomating it with your scent and connecting your smell with something that isn't used in training unless it's a drill relating your scent to an object needing protection.

Simon isn't particularly attached to the dog emotionally in the way you're going to be. But he's adamant that other than himself, you're the only other person who will know how to command the dog. It's a safety measure that you're going to be a little resistant to at first, but once he explains that it's so you're always safe -even when he's away- you understand that it's for the best. Simon wants a loyal protector for you, and he's not risking you for anything.

In addition to that, Simon really understands and employs "scary dog privilege" tactics often. Even using himself as the warden who follows you around in public and keeps too many eyes from lingering. The dog he brings home is most certainly intimidating, yet impossibly patient and gentle with you. It's designed that way though. Simon trained the pup to think of you as mom essentially, and his only role is to always protect mom.

When he brought your cane corso home, Simon had nothing but pride for the stoic and well-trained guard dog.

The only problem with this is, you're too damn loving for your own good.

Where Simon won't let the dog on the couch, you put your foot down and demand it gets to sleep at the foot of the bed where you can tuck your feet under it to keep warm. He refuses to feed it anything other than its regimental diet, where you love making lick-mats and trialing a bunch of different dog-safe foods almost like your own little cooking show. Simon refuses to pet the dog all the time, but it's almost given he's going to come home and find you curled up with the massive beast on the couch. You -dead asleep- and the guard dog looming over your curled-up form and giving a low, malicious, growl.

Until it realizes Daddy has come home.

Then the big bastard won't leave Simon alone long enough to take his boots off without getting covered in drool and enough hair to make a fur coat.

These are the kinds of pictures you send Simon, utterly destroying his own mental image of the terrifying dog charged with keeping you safe. You're quite amused when he demands you stop making the dog look so pathetic.

#simon ghost riley #ghost x reader #cod #cod mwii #simon riley x reader #simon ghost x reader #velvetures writes #velvetures #simon bringing home a dog #domestic couple #squishy face cane corso #ghost is very dissapointed #anon <3

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cherryheairt · 2 months ago

Text

Dragon Dreamer pt. XIII

cw: Some blood, gore mentions? Wounds.

tags: @beebeechaos @emery-aka-emmy @r-3dlips @watermel0nsugarhigh @delaynew @thelastemzy @pedro-pascal-love @hueanhdang @purple-1995 @littleblackcatinwonderland @fall-winter-heart97 @mandeepandee1997 @reyndaisy @saintkittykat @theadharablack @alexandra-001 @itsaslaminak

Cregan spent much time with Daenys in her chambers, standing vigil in her desolate state. When he asked for a bowl of water and a maester, Cregan was surprised to see a young woman walk in with some supplies in her nimble hands.

The woman, who introduced herself as Alys, simply set her belongings on the nightstand next to the bed and took a seat next to Cregan. She wordlessly worked for a few minutes, feeling over Daenys for any breaks, dislocations, burns, and so on.

When the Maester had declared Daenys to be in fine physical health, she stood gracefully from her little stool. Hesitating, she lingered a hand over the burnt sleeve of Daenys' dress before taking her leave.

Cregan almost felt like he should have hidden such things from outsiders, but he deemed Alys to be a secretive and private woman. Hopefully, she would keep such a discovery to herself, if her loyalties truly lied with the Blacks.

Cregan was quick to scoot his chair forward, closer to the bed. Gently, he brushed blood-hardened strands of hair from his bethrothed's face. The color was monochrome in its covering, leaving only peeks of pale skin behind the blood. It left a hot, smokey scent behind on her, similar to the way Morningstar smelled after burning her prey. Except Daenys wasn't prey, she was as much predator as her dragon. Cregan knew this well, she had fought two mighty dragons and lived to tell the tell. She didn't look the part now, curled up on cream sheets, but he knew she was.

The water was still warm when he took the cloth in his hand and wrung it out. With the damp cloth, he carefully wiped at any exposed blood from her skin. Her hair would have to be washed in a bath basin, either by herself or her maid, Cregan couldn't do so in the confines of the bed.

While he worked, he hummed a tune that had become familiar to him over his time with Daenys. Whether she knew it or not, she often hummed the same song that he had caught her singing to her dragon. A High Valyrion song, with words unknown to him, but no less beautiful. On her horse, when she braided her hair, when she checked or set up traps: all were times that she unconsciously droned on to it. Cregan found it stuck in his mind, even when he was meant to be deep in focus. Writing letters, reading over bannermen's ravens, even meeting with the important councilmen and Castle Black's Commander. Every time, he found his mind drifting to the silver woman. The one he found a reason to fight for in.

After minutes passed with only his deep hums in the air and soft strokes of the Warden's gentle touch, he was able to be content with his work. "Daenys," he whispered, sitting the rag down and grabbing her hand. She was not sleeping, hadn't been the whole time judging by her breathing patterns.

"The blood will stain your hair. I'll have the maid draw a bath." He murmured into her ear, kissing her cheek before walking out of the room to summon the girl that had been taking care of the Princess.

Surprisingly, Cregan almost found himself flinching when he opened the doors to see the mousy young girl already standing in front of them. She did flinch, however, at the door's abrupt opening. She perked up, ready for the Lord's instruction.

"Bring some hot water in for a bath, please. She needs some good oils and soaps for her hair, it will be hard to wash out."

The maid nodded, bowing swiftly and scurrying off down the hall to boil water. If it were Winterfell, the process could be done much quicker with their pipes of hot spring water running directly through the walls of the Great Keep. He reminded himself to take her to the hot springs in the Wolfswood someday, where he was sure she would enjoy the scalding hot water more than he ever could.

Turning back to the bed, he sat beside her again as he waited. The maid worked quickly, dumping pales into the copper basin with the speed of a much more experienced laborer. When she left for the last one, Cregan moved to exit the room for the ladies to handle the bath.

A hand tugging at his sleeve prevented him from moving any further. Though the tug was faint, he still felt it enough to know Daenys wanted his attention. Leaning down, Cregan asked, "what is it, my Lady?"

She lifted her head, only enough to face Cregan instead of the pillows and blankets surrounding her. "Stay with me." Daenys muttered out.

Cregan glanced between her and the door, watching the maid come in and pour the last bit of hot water into the tub. She waited, hands clutching the bucket, for the Lord to leave. He shook his head, gesturing for the young woman to leave once more. "I will ensure she is taken care of." He told her.

Confused, the girl shifted on her feet for a moment before hesitantly nodding and walking to the door. "I will prepare a dress for the Princess." She told Cregan, who nodded in response. Finally, he crouched down next to Daenys, who still held his sleeve in a two-finger grasp.

He grabbed her hand in both of his, softly kissing it for a prolonged moment. Violet eyes stared up at him as he did, neither saying a word for a few moments.

"To stay with you, whilst you bathe?" He asked, needed confirmation. She nodded, still unexpressive but now in much better condition than he received her in. He nodded, digging him arms under her and lifting her in a princess-carry. He hesitated a moment, mentally battling between letting her into the basin fully clothed or helping her undress and get into the water. The former meant she would still have to be in her blood-covered burnt dress, while the ladder meant him dishonoring his intended before they wed. His first time seeing her bare was on complete accident. He wished for any time after to be her choice alone.

He shifted her in his arms briefly, allowing her head to rest on the crook of his neck. "Can I help you out of your dress?" He decided, leaving the shift on underneath would be cover for her privacy and relief for the heavier dress. Daenys hummed into his neck.

Carefully, he set her on the bed sitting up. He unlaced the back of her once light blue dress (taking an embarrassingly long time) and slipped it down to her torso, Daenys standing to aid him. The fabric pooled at her feet, leaving only the remaining shift on her person. Although she was standing, Cregan took it upon himself to pick her up into his arms again. A soft gasp left Daenys, not expecting to be lifted once more. He stifled a laugh at the sound, elated to see her reacting to her surroundings more.

Slowly, he dipped her into the scalding hot water. She had little response to it, which he dained to be the Targaryen resistance to heat. Perhaps all of her kin shared such a trait. A detail useless to the public, so it was unintentionally a secret.

The white shift floated around her like a cloud as she hugged her knees to her chest. Resting her chin on her knees, she allowed Cregan to pour cups of water over her head, softly guiding any water away from her face as he did. The soaps, which had been quietly brought in along with a new shift on the bed, were scrubbed just as gently into her hair, bringing it to its former state of silkiness. Around her, the hair stuck to her stick and floated on the water, seemingly a lot longer in its wet state than its dry one. When Cregan rinsed out the soap from her hair, he allowed it time to dry before he messaged a scented oil into her scalp and hair tips. He messaged her scalp with a tenderness he was unused to. When it came to his own hair, he had little care and used heavy hands to get the work done with speed and precision. There was little time to spare in the North, when his duties called him at the break of dawn til the late evening. The gentleness came easily with Daenys, however, and Cregan found himself thoughtlessly caring for the Princess every second she was near him.

With a soaped sponge in hand, he was able to scrub any ash and blood left on her. The bath water tinted pink with the remaining blood, though Daenys didn't seem to care. Only able to get whatever skin was left exposed by the shift, his work was done fast.

As soon as he finished, Daenys laid her head back to rest on the basin's rim. She met his eyes, which gleamed in the afternoon's light. A hand reached out to him, beckoning for his own to hold. He obliged, of course, easily. He laced their fingers together, leaning down to kiss the scar on her forearm. The raised bite marks tingled at the delicate touch.

"My grandmother is dead." She managed.

Cregan stilled, furrowing his straight brows. "The Princess Rhaenys?"

Daenys nodded. She looked to the window straight ahead, avoiding his worried gaze. "I saw Cole's army marching on Rook's Rest, last night. I knew a dragon would be sent by my mother to guard Ser Staunton's keep. It was an ambush."

He nodded thoughtfully, sitting up straight in his stool. "Who was sent?"

She scoffed out a bitter laugh. "Who else do they have to send but the kinslayer? Aegon, too, came with Sunfyre. We beat Aegon quickly, it was Vhagar who killed Rhaenys."

"They sent their King to fight in the war?" Cregan asked, bemused at the information. Kings rarely fought battles themselves, only overlooked from the safety of their castles. It was the smart option, to keep the figurehead of a cause alive and well.

"Mayhaps. Or he was drunk and thought himself righteous for teaming up against the Red Queen." She bit out. "Either way, he will not see battle again. His own brother...Aemond burned him and his dragon. I do not know if he is even alive."

For once, she prayed for Aegon's safety. If Aemond were to be named King in stead of his elder brother's death, Seven Hells would reign down on the entire realm.

Cregan wouldn't even fathom burning his own brother, no matter what bad blood got between them. For Aemond to do such a thing—after killing two members of his family already—showed how truly heartless the young man was. Though, undoubtedly the most dangerous enemy the Greens had. With Vhagar's formidability and Aemond's sharp mind for stategy, it would be hard to find weak spots within the false crown.

"I could have saved her." Her words interrupted his thinking, perking up. "I had Meleys in the grasp of Morningstar's claws. I reached out to her—but she wouldn't take my hand." Daenys murmured, still avoiding his eyes.

Cregan took her face gently in his free hand, facing her towards him again. "Daenys, you mustn't blame yourself for that. The Princess lived a long life. She went into that battle knowing she might not return. I'm sure she would be content knowing that her granddaughter is safe."

His words rang true in her heart. Of course, Rhaenys had lived upwards of sixty years during her life. Had children and grandchildren. A husband. Despite the prospect of being Queen being ripped from her unfairly, she still lived a good life. More than most Targaryens did.

"You have seen battle and won. As long as you live, it is a victory for the realm, for your mother. For me." He stated, reassuring her.

"I have seen battle and fled. We have lost our most experienced dragon, as well as the Queen's most loyal and trustworthy advisor. Rhaenys kept the peace in the Black Council. They hardly listen to Rhaenyra, though she is their queen. With Daemon gone, they think themselves worthy to hold the realm in their hands."

Cregan could sympathize greatly with Daenys, having been no stranger to undermining older men. "We will be there for Her Grace. Daemon and Rhaenys might be gone, but we will be there to stand in their place."

She nodded after a second of simply staring into his grey eyes. A million words lie on the tip of her tongue, almost breaching and spewing nonsensical ramblings just to keep his attention on her.

Daenys sighed heavily, bringing their interlocked hands to her face, resting her cheek upon Cregan's large hand. "I am sorry. For not coming to you this morning. I knew that you would have advised me not to, and perhaps I would have listened." The outcome wouldn't have changed whether she did or did not go, it seemed. Morningstar would be uninjured, and Daenys wouldn't have witnessed her grandmother's demise, but simply read about it in a raven's letter.

Cregan was quiet for a few beats, simply studying Daenys' face. He reminded the swell of anger and hurt in his chest that very morning, the same mixed feelings that tormented him for hours while Daenys was missing. He had no way of knowing where she was or if she was alive, only being told by Simon Strong and Davos fucking Blackwood of her asking about Rook's Rest. She had told this strange young man of her destination, but had not even said goodbye to her own bethrothed. He was hurt, and confused. All feelings of bitterness washed away when the sight of Morningstar came into view again, lower in the skies than she should be.

The red staining her scales had been his first cause of panic. It was not often that Cregan Stark lost his cool, as he had to be collected and steadfast in his position as Warden of the North. But this wretched day had caused him a panic like no other. Seeing Daenys, covered in blood, landing right in front of Harrenhall's gates had stirred Cregan to action. She looked dead slumped over the dragon saddle like that, but he knew if she truly was, then Morningstar would not have returned to Harrenhall.

"I will forgive you. If," He paused, sternly meeting her violet eyes. "You promise to leave this purgatory with me on the morrow."

Shocked at his ask, Daenys was lost for words. Was that it?

"We have stayed in this place long enough. We sit idle and vulnerable and out of touch with any recent news. I have entertained our stay here for you, but I cannot any longer." He told her.

Daenys swallowed, almost nervous at his tone. He commanded it like a true Stark, tired of feeling useless in the near-abandoned halls of Harrenhall. In truth, perhaps they were. Daenys had planned on making use of herself in median between Daemon and the Riverland lords, but had not truly done anything of note. Though Daemon was insufferable and inflicted by the torments of his own mind here, he was still getting his buisness done in his own time.

Another good reason to leave was to never see Daemon's face again. Perhaps he would be doomed to these halls, becoming another one of its ghosts. It was a fate unbecoming of him, but one he deserved for his treachery today. Daenys knew that if Caraxes had joined the fight at Rook's Rest, then Vhagar would be beat. Three dragons against one. The histories would call it unfair, but Daenys would call it justice.

Finally, she barely nodded. "We will leave to Dragonstone tomorrow." She promised Cregan.

He nodded firmly. "Good." His expression lightened from its intense conterance as he softly thumbed the apple of Daenys' cheek.

She shifted her position, sitting up in the now cold water. For a moment, her eyes lingered on his pink lips, debating her actions. She leaned in, eyes flickering between his lips and eyes. Cregan sat very still, allowing Daenys to choose what she would do. At the last moment, she turned slightly to place a lingering kiss on the corner of his mouth, feeling nerves fluttering in her stomach at the closeness.

The corner of his mouth perked up at the delicate kiss, Cregan using much of his refined willpower to not turn his head ever so slightly and meet her lips with his own. Instead, he allowed her to lean back in the basin, water swishing around her at the movement. They stared at one another for a long moment, basking in the comfort of each other. "Would you stay with me, tonight?" She asked him.

"I would uproot the Heart Tree from mine own Godswood before I refused you, my girl." Cregan said, kissing the spot between her brows briefly.

Daenys grinned, humming thoughtfully. "If that is so, then you wouldn't mind helping me out of this ice bath?"

Cregan felt the water, feeling it had only reached a lukewarm temperature, a pleasant condition for him. Snorting, he nodded at her dramatics and helped her out of the water, the sound of dripping water from her shift echoing across the room. Cregan nodded towards the dress and shift placed on the bed. "I will get you supper while you dress." He said.

It was only a few minutes that he was gone, the maid slipping back into Daenys' chambers to quickly tie her laces of the powder pink dress for her while the room was free. She did not question the view of the Princess in the bath with the honorable Lord Stark right next to her tub, simply hummed along idly as she nimbly tied the corset.

Daenys thanked her just as Cregan stepped in, holding two plates. The maid slipped out behind him, her job done for the day. The sight of Cregan, even still dressed up in his usual attire, bringing meals to her chambers felt awfully domestic to her. She oft took lunch and breakfast in her own chambers at Dragonstone, when she felt like eating or was even present in the castle. Dinners were shared most days between the entire family, a small tradition that she enjoyed because it guaranteed quality time with her loved ones.

Soon, Cregan would be the only one she had living with her in the North. They would share all meals together, or none if he were busy with Lordly duties. Daenys wasn't sure how she would fit into Winterfell's routine, especially since Cregan had been leading as its head completely alone for the past five years. Since he was six and ten years of age, he had led Winterfell with only his council to guide his decisions, and even then rarely leaned on them to show that he was capable. There was rarely a day when he was free of responsibility or worry. Daenys hoped that she could share his burdens at the very least and earn the people of Winterfell's grace at the most.

They sat together at the little table in her chambers, enjoying the hearty meal of potatoes, carrots, and a meat Daenys could not care to place. A warm silence dragged over the afternoon, no conversation needed between the Princess and lord.

When they finished eating, Daenys cleaned her hands in the water basin on her vanity. The rag lying next to it reminded her, "Cregan, how did Morningstar look when she landed?"

Cregan turned to her, wiping his own face down. "Red. I did not pay much attention to anything bit you, but her scales were stained red."

She nodded, biting the skin of her cheek and shifting on her feet. "I can not do anything for her without the dragon keepers, but I can clean Sunfrye's blood from her."

Cregan followed her from the chambers, carrying the basin for her. On the way, she asked for more rags to be brought outside to the entrance for her dragon. And buckets of water, while they were fetching the cloth. Outside, the sun was still high enough for plenty of daylight to work in. Caraxes and Daemon were next to Morningstar, where Daemon was assessing the white dragon. Immediately, Daenys seethed at the sight of her stepfather. How dare he show up now, hours after she needed him? After his aunt has died?

Daemon faced her when he heard the grass shifting behind him. Wrinkles formed on his forehead, brows both raised and furrowed in a mixture of emotions. "What has happened to Morningstar?" He asked, moving his hand off her scales. She was tempted to take Ice from Cregan's shoulder and slice the hand that dared to lie on her dragon.

"Exactly what I told you would happen if we did not fly together to Rook's Rest, Daemon." Daenys told him, clenching her jaw.

He straightened, placing a resting hand on Dark Sister. Realization settled onto his face, guilt overtaking his concern. "You were—What happened at Rook's Rest?" He fixed his words. She knew. She knew that he had thought her to be a mere hallucination, as he had called her when he held that steel sword to her throat.

She walked past him, in front of Morningstar, almost protectively. "You would know if you listened to me."

"Daughter—" He started, but was cut off by a sneer from Daenys.

"You've earned no right to call me that. Leave, like you've grown so adept with doing. You have important Kingly duties to attend to, with the Brackens."

Cregan stepped past the King consort to meet Daenys' side, earning a wayward glance from Daemon. "He is still here. Why has he not gone to Dragonstone yet?" He asked, speaking to Daenys as if Cregan were not in front of him.

"Lord Stark is to be my husband. He stays by my side." Daenys stated firmly. She felt Cregan's heavy stare on her, but willfully ignored it.

"By who's order? Rhaenyra did not send you to the North to bring back a husband, she sent you to bring back an army."

"It is none of your concern whom I return with. It is the Queen's." She turned away, refusing to humor his tantrums any longer. Morningstar rumbled, twisting her neck around to cover Cregan and Daenys from outsider's sight. When Daemon stepped forward, the dragoness gave a sharp warning growl. He paused, knowing that even his rapport with the dragon wouldn't get him any luck when Daenys had closed him off already. Huffed, he strided back to Caraxes, leaving quickly like he had originally intended. It was only another minute before the maid shouted for help at the entrance, refusing to test her own luck going anywhere near the bloodied beast. Cregan took the pail of water and rags from her gratefully, dismissing her afterwards.

Daenys dipped a rag into the pail, not squeezing any of the water out as she dragged it over Morningstar's snout. She earned only a cuff at the cold water, but no complaints as blood was cleaned from her nostrils and around her eyes and ear holes. It took good scrubbing since the blood had dried during the flight and hours since Daenys disappeared into the castle. Finally, Cregan and Daenys worked together to swiftly return Morningstar's face to its usual pristine color. The wound was next, something that Daenys had never dealt with before. It was the dragon keepers' job to feed and heal the dragons, and they had not needed healing for a long time.

Daenys turned to Cregan, "I cannot guarantee that she will not lash out in pain. Wait for me on the stairs." It was an order, though she did not wish it to sound like one. Dragon keepers were not even safe from a hostile dragon's wrath, though they had been trained generationally for the sole job. Cregan hesitated before he nodded.

"I will fetch you a tea while I'm gone." Before he left back inside.

Daenys wrung the new rag out carefully, assessing where the deepest and shallowest scratches were. Around the shallow ones first, she carefully wiped blood from around it. Then, after only receiving a glare from Morningstar, she moved on to the deeper ones. Even the area around it was irritated, the penetrated and lost scales a deep pain for the she-dragon. She whined and growled as Daenys worked around them, earning her soothing coos from the Targaryen.

Once her scales were cleaned, Daenys tipped the rest of the water over the wounds themselves. Morningstar grew restless, almost shaking Daenys away from her and nipping at the air around her. With all adrenaline gone, the dragon could feel all the pain that she had been able to ignore during battle. Once the bucket was empty, Daenys dropped it to her feet and moved to Morningstar's eyeline. She connected her forehead with the area in front of her slitted purple eye, murmuring apologies to her over and over. "Once we fly home, I will get you proper care, sweet Tubis." Morningstar trilled lowly in response, lifting her head once Cregan stopped behind them both.

Daenys turned to him, feeling Morningstar lift herself to stand and find herself a place to rest for the evening. "I brought you a tea. She said it was lavender and chamomile." He said, handing her a cup of darkened warm liquid.

Daenys thanked him, locking arms with him before being guided back inside. Alys waited for them at the top of the steps.

"Alys," Daenys smiled, greeting the witch pleasantly. Aly's striking blue eyes never left her, though a smile all the same graced her fine features.

"I hope you can find rest with the blend I made. It always helps me sleep better after a day like this." The woman told Daenys, holding a little brown owl on her arm. Daenys was surprised to see such an animal obeying her, but supposed that was hypocritical considering she had command of a dragon since birth.

"I think it will find me well. Thank you for making it." Daenys paused before she went past the woman. Alys turned, black hair flowing over her shoulder, an almost expecting look on her face.

"About Daemon," She started. "Have you spoken to him?"

"A few times, yes. When he is in need of council or sleep." Alys nodded.

Daenys hummed thoughtfully. "I see. Perhaps, if you are willing, you might provide some...encouraging words for the King Consort?" She glanced to the cup in her hand and then back to the blue eyes of Alys.

The older woman smirked, huffing a short laugh. "I see no trouble with it, Princess. Consider it done."

Daenys shared an understanding nod with the witchy woman, going on her way towards the chamber hallway with Cregan. She knew not the exact ways of witches, but knew that they always provided. She did not wish to tell Daemon of Rhaenys' death, but for him to experience it for himself. Perhaps then, he would see it reason enough to return to his place at Dragonstone.

"What was that about?" Cregan asked, glancing over his shoulder at the woman.

"Nothing important, just a favor." Daenys reassured, patting Cregan's arm. He nodded slowly, not quite catching on but trusting the Princess' choices.

They discreetly entered Daenys' room, though they had little reason to with Daemon gone and the rest of the residents of Harrenhall being wholely uninterested in risqué affairs. She finished off her tea with a heaviness to her eyelids, making a note to ask Alys of the blend's full recipe before going through her routine. They changed into night gowns quickly, settling down into Daenys' fresh sheets. The sun had set over the horizon, leaving the room only lit by the door's torches. In the dim light, Daenys could only make out Cregan's figure and whatever parts of his face the light touched. Though his back faced the doors, she was able to see most of it.

🗡

Daenys nosed her way to the crook of his neck, breathing in the familiar scent like it was the most comforting thing in the realm. Perhaps it was, in the moment. Cregan set his chin atop of her head, the baby hairs on top tickling his nose briefly before he adjusted. An arm laid firmly around the small of her waist, resting on her back and rubbing in small circles. They both fell asleep fast.

🗡

A whispering stirred her from sleep, lifting her head from Cregan's chest curiously. It was too faint to fully make out, coming from beyond her chamber doors. Slowly, to not wakr Cregan, she lifted the covers and stood from the bed.

"Daenys..." The voice whispered, louder this time. It was a young boy's voice, one that tugged at the back of her memory.

She pressed an ear to the door, hoping for sounds of shuffling feet or breathing. Nothing. Slowly, she creaked open the door to see a disappearing form walk behind the hallway wall. She followed after it despite her gut feeling telling her not to.

Fast walking, her shift flowed around her as if she were the ghost of Harrenhall herself. Only catching glimpses of the boy, she started to run after him. Finally, she met him outside in the Weirwood tree clearing. His back was toward her, and he doned a red tunic and black cape. Brown curls lay on top of his head, unruly and untamable. Stilling, she held her breath. Lucerys.

Lucerys turned to face her, and she flinched at the sight. Almost gagged in distress and horror, the sight unlike anything she had seen before. He was soaking wet, with blood covering nearly his entire body. His eye was missing as if it had been torn out with a jagged and rusted knife. An arm, too, torn from his body and the massive wound reaching toward his shoulder and torso. It was unclear as to which body parts had been taken, under his tunic and cape, but very clear that the boy had suffered great pain.

"Luke." She whispered, choking back a sob.

"You saw me." He said, voice cold and distant. "You saw Vhagar chase me down in the skies, and did not even come for me."

Daenys nodded quickly, admitting fully to her shame. "I know. It is my deepest regret. If I had known it was the truth, I wouldn't have spared a second to reach you, my boy." She stepped forward.

His brow only furrowed, sneering at his sister with a furious look in his brown eye. "He took my eye. Aemond took my eye in Lord Baratheon's hall, and still killed me after I repayed my debt." His voice was taut with both anger and pain.

Tears fell from Daenys' eyes, "I am sorry, Luke."

"You don't get to be sorry." He quipped.

"Did you see how I died?" Lucerys asked.

Daenys could only shake her head, not trusting her voice.

"I did not die immediately, but Arrax did. Vhagar bit his head off and my arm. I was stuck in her mouth—I dont know how long it was. It felt like forever. When she finally spat me out, it was the sea that took me, not her."

She shook her head, mumbling incoherent apologies to her little brother. "I did not mean for this."

He took a step foward, nodding back over his shoulder. Behind him, a few paces back, was Rhaenys and Jaehaerys. Their sight was equally as grusome. Rhaenys held the young Prince in her arms as he held his own head up on his neck. Jaggged cut marks marred his pale neck, and blood dripped down to his nightgown. Rhaenys, covered only in black ash and dragon blood, stood tall with her head held high the same way it did when she fell to her death. Daenys had to force herself to look at the three of them together.

"Maybe not. Maybe you couldn't have reached me." Luke admitted. "But you could have reached them. You were only a minute away from preventing Daemon from speaking to Blood. You held grandmother in Morningstar's claws!"

Daenys fell to her knees, covering her ears and shutting her eyes tight. "I know, I know..." She repeated over and over until her voice was nearly lost, dry and hoarse.

He stood menacingly above her, a complete contrast from the demeanor he held when alive. He was always the sweet child out of all of Rhaenyra's children. Jace was an image of their mother, steady and intelligent. Daenys was withdrawn and in the shadows. Joffrey was always at someone's feet, begging to play or see his dragon Tyraxes. Luke was effortlessly kind and compassionate, though perhaps the most wary of his bastard heritage. He hated eyes on him, much like his sister, and did not take criticism in stride like Jacaerys could.

Sweet, innocent Lucerys who died too young to even discover the world or make a name for himself like any Prince should. Now, the ghost of his soul had come to torment Daenys.

Would he have thought the same things this Lucerys did? Surely, he must. Otherwise, the words would not be said.

Rhaenys and Jaehaerys had stepped forward, circling Daenys in a whirring wind of shouts and cries. The sound of sawing. The sound of a great splat hitting hard floor. The sound of screams being drowned out by water. No matter how hard he hands pressed, Daenys could not prevent the sounds from reaching her ears.

Another voice joined the frey, a deeper and steadier one than the others. It was loud enough to drown them all out. Heavy hands were placed gently on her arm and back, rubbing soothing circles and steadying her to her feet. "It's alright, my girl. 'Tis but another dream."

Daenys dug her nails into her palms, facing Cregan with bleary eyes. "No. Not this time." She said weakly.

Though Cregan was left confused by the vague refusal, he still clutched the girl close to him and petted her hair down from its ruffled state. "Shall we go back to bed? It is chilly out." It was not, but the thought warmed her heart.

"Take me to our room." Far away from this clearing. After tomorrow, she would not return to Harrenhall unless absolutely necessary.

short 'between main events' chapter, I couldn't find any time to write this week was so so busy 🥲

Nonsexual intimacy is the shit

rip Targaryens, you would love purple shampoo

I debated leaving the blood to stain her hair for a cool ombre look, but I feel like I would forget about it and not describe it ever again after this chapter, so she returns to her silver hair 🙂‍↕️

Saw a tiktok comment on an Alys and Daemon edit that the reason Alys was crying randomly was because she knew what would be her fate after Daemon left her alone in Harrenhall. 😭 Don't know how accurate that theory is, but it does make a lot of sense. We must save Alys from Aemond at all costs.

Also, to clarify, Alys did not put anything in her tea it was simply tea. I see the sudden vision that she had, like Daemon had, to be a sleep-aid side effect that made Harrenhall get to her mind easier. Kind of like getting nightmares after taking melatonin or sleep paralysis after taking benedryl. Daemon's felt more targeted, like they were sent to him to guide him on the right path and guilt him for his shitty behavior.

#dragondreamer #cregan stark x reader #cregan x reader #hotd fanfic #cregan stark x oc #cregan stark #hotd #hotd season 2 #targaryen oc

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