#Sun and moon could fix like

[hexcii]

Awgh

Idk my PTSD and survivors guilt have been killing me these past few weeks

Oh if only I had two robot jesters to hold me through it </33

[naffeclipse]

What if Eclipse from AP was a naga? And this took place in the deep jungle of the amazon, where photographer y/n is trying to take pictures of the wildlife?

I'm vibrating at the speed of sound over this ask while also nudging my naga au

Naga Eclipse from AP would have the tail of a Green Anaconda, with an olive green scaly color dotted with black, framed by burning-like flares of orange along the length of his slithery body. He's also decorated with orange-yellow striping on either side of his long, slipper form. His upper half is scaley with a lithe deadliness to his musculature and decorated by frills surrounding his head with brighter orange-yellow colors, almost hypnotic in their gradient hues. One eye is deep emerald green, and one is midnight blue.

Lucky you—you're out on a once-in-a-lifetime expedition to explore a jungle closed off to the public, funded by Fazco, and occupied by two researchers who will be your bunkmates for the next few weeks. You're itching to take photos of the large river, including swamps, marshes and streams, and whatever wildlife is out there.

The few locals you did meet before you left to hike the rest of the way to what would be your new, isolated home warned you of a dangerous snake—a large, mythical beast. You take note of the local folklore. You understand the truth is hidden in there somewhere, and you are well aware of the dangers and diseases you could be met with in such a harsh environment, but you're determined.

It doesn't take long for you to feel eyes watching you when you first venture out by yourself. You take beautiful pictures of freshwater fish, big and beautiful, unlike any you have ever seen. Of course, you have hundreds of snapshots of the local flora, the trees, the floating meadows, the thick vines that drape each branch and hang thickly about the ground. You almost forget that you eerily don't feel alone.

But you swear something moves in the water—the ripples stop as soon as you look. The stillness is suddenly stiff, lifeless. Even the birds have stopped chirping.

You lower your camera and carefully put it away. A trickle of fear slips into your heart. You turn away from the river's edge only to be met by a low hiss and a creature, unlike anything you witnessed in your travels, spooling itself neatly out of the water, blocking your path to the base. An incredible creature with long arms and a great, serpentine tail that seems to stretch for yards and yards. You can hardly breathe in his presence—he's otherworldly with his frills and scales and fangs.

His eyes contain a mesmerizing shine as if staring into a fire as it burns or watching the ocean as it laps up against the beach, drawing your attention, demanding you don't look away. You couldn't anyway. Half-frozen, you struggle to keep from collapsing. He beckons with a sharp talon. He hisses softly for you to come closer, mouse. He wants to see you. You try to beg no without revealing how terribly you tremble. He doesn't let you go. He insists. His eyes flash with an allure. You almost step close when he murmurs that you need to be good.

But then your sense of survival kicks adrenaline into your heart, and you turn to run—

He strikes faster than your eyes can follow. Two loops of his green and orange tail surrounded you in an instant. You're dragged to the ground, your arms pinned under his mass, and the back of your head cradled by his large palm as powerful muscles squeeze you in the slightest—a gentle rebuke for thinking you could get away. You're hyper-aware of the terrifying bulk of muscles as you lie trapped in his coils. One strong twist and your eyes could pop out of your skull, and every bone protecting your heart and lungs would crumble to shards. You gasp. An urge to kick your legs and struggle erupts in your panic; a sinking feeling tells you it would only make things worse.

He coos over you, hissing and humming in an ancient song of the jungle you have no name for. When you whimper, he shushes you and strokes your cheek. He tells you how lovely you'll be. When you talk back to him, somehow finding your tongue amid your horror, you find out his name. Eclipse. He moves you more upright, resting you on his tail so you're not petrified by how vulnerable you feel lying down, but he never loosens his scaly bindings. He hovers over you. You gaze into his stunning frills of yellow-orange and wonder how a being like him came to exist. He studies you as you study him. He grins at how you shiver when he traces your collarbone with a sharp fingertip.

You remind yourself that you can still breathe. He hasn't crushed you—yet—but you don't like how wide his smile is. Sometimes, his jaw stretches a little too long as if dislocating from his skull, ready to devour you. His eyes gleam with a ravenousness as scales twist around you, holding you close enough to smell the slick green water he had been in and deep musk.

He tells you that he'll see you again very soon—away from other humans, lest you bring him a fine gift for a meal. You can only flex your fingers, silently pleading in your heart that he won't unhook his jaw and eat you alive.

Then, he unravels himself from your limbs. But before he lets you go entirely, he leans in close, his serpentine tongue flickering close to your neck and by your hair, tasting the air around you as you muster all your strength to not scream. He inhales deeply, pleased, before he murmurs, "Sweet mouse. You are mine. Say it."

You don't understand, but you echo his command, and when he taps your chin once in what might have been a loving gesture, you force your jelly legs to solidify before you run and run, all the way back to base. You slam the door to your room behind you. You touch your ribs, your arms, still caught in the heavy sensation of his loops as if he were upon you right now.

The stories are true—there is a giant snake in this jungle, and he wants you. You're afraid to discover if Eclipse's intrigue with you is only an exotic way to satisfy his hunger.

[dulcebot]

DON'T GIVE ME IDEASSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and when hiraeth releases their final mini album before a year long hiatus or more so poppy can focus in her health + kaia can do her own things + yvan can do musicals and do whatever projects they want because in the dulceverse yvan will be glinda for wicked instead of ari bc i can do whatever i want this is my silly universe and i can do whatever but two months in and vivi's rent is due and the lights are flickering and the eviction notice is at the front door and none of the girls are answering her calls despite them being together at poppy's vacay home in lake como so she had ONE chance and ONE dream she had NO OTHER CHOICE so she got out a dusty and retired angel of the season project and got these three talented girls from diff companies that she's been eyeing to be hiraeths little sister unit and it's all fun and games until the new girlies don't do good because there will never be another hiraeth / another kaia poppy and yvan and they have a lot to carry on their shoulders even during predebut and there's a lot of self doubts and hesitance and insecurity and tension between vivi and even themselves and it becomes a really big problem where they don't stand each other or just refuse to understand each other and it will be a story of them slowly becoming and understanding that they are their own person, either alone or together as they try to carry on a legacy even when they are not hiraeth they are THEMSELVES!

LORE SPEAKING they were born / created by "mother" the exact day each seasonal angels broke their own loop by eating their forbidden fruit = giving into temptation and they are little angels who were born to parallel hiraeth as hiraeth weren't "pure" anymore but ffs the little sisters wanted to be like them wtf....... and then they were left behind in celestias castle or palace i don't remember what it was and they hold some kind of grudge because why did they leave and not us?! why did they not took us with them?! but eventually hiraeths doctrine cult like messages gets to them and they are not ready to break their loop but instead they start shaking things up in celestia's castle palace whatever and being a pain in the ass for "mother" because they are sharing to other angels that they could be and do more outside mothers doctrine and this even makes the little sisters realize that they are their own person/angel and they are not the seasonal aengels as much as mother wanted them to be and maybe they start their own "cult" and its not like "mother" can force them to leave celestia because they are perfect w no sins!

[saturnsentx]

my tarot cards keeping telling me i’m not taking care of myself and that mental blockages are causing my suffering like i’m not already in this bitch

[azureasterart]

GALEDION ALT REAL HAYHAHAGAGAGAGGA

Anyway. Absolutely cannot stand that =) face Gladion does here is an edited image I made that is 10x better I did NOT clean it up IDC.

[filmstarved]

i can fix him and fuck him.

18+ [logan x female!reader]

nobody can break through logan's walls with ease like you can. and he actually lets you, welcomes it even. he needs it to breathe and when he's ready to walk out of the gifted youngsters door, there you are again.

word count: 5,737

logan sulks. he’s so devoid of love and compassion that he sulks. he’s confused most days, too. unsure of who he is and what he even wants. the people who are somehow closest to him can’t even find their way past the fire breathing dragons that guard the drawbridge to his heart. (scott jokes that he doesn’t have a heart and that the adamantium replaced it and he’s fully pumping cold, hard metal).

logan is a man who answers to himself and doesn’t give people even the slightest chance to ask him a dumb fucking question because he’s not in the fucking mood. he’s never in the mood…unless you put him in one. usually a good one.

you earn a smile from logan as easy as the sun makes it seem to rise every morning and the moon to take its place at night. it leaves the team dumfounded. they believe if you weren’t here, logan would have left a long time ago. they’re right. logan used to search high and low for any excuse to leave. he never knew where he’d go, he’d just…go. but you didn’t dare let him out of your sight. not ever since the professor had brought you to what you call home a little over a year ago now.

deep down, he wanted reasons to stay. somewhere deep inside that metal frame…he wanted things to be right again. he’d find it tiring most days to carry around his grief and anger. but you gave him reasons to stay just one more day.

“so we’re working on that thing for charles together tomorrow right?” you asked on a wednesday, standing so cutely in the threshold of his door that it was almost annoying to him.

“so we’re catching that movie downtown with ororo and hank tomorrow right? it starts at 6!” you asked on a thursday.

“heeyyy, lo…do you possibly, maybe think you could sub for scott’s morning classes tomorrow? he has a dentist appointment…,” you shyly asked on a very late sunday night. (logan heard scott’s jokes about his heart so he made you ask. logan was the only one available.)

but behind his stoic stature and intimidating glare fixed on his face accompanied by knitted brows, he’d always say yes…to you. you were his reason for staying. he knew it but would never admit it. you knew it but played the oblivious part well. and the rest of the team would gossip about it when you two weren’t around. but as long as you were here, logan has nowhere else to be.

although as of late, you’ve been busy. much busier than usual. charles has you creating plans for a mission happening soon. when you’re not teaching mutant ethics 101 to freshmen, you’re hauled up in the lab or library; sometimes darting back and forth between the two multiple times a day leaving very little time to worry about logan.

tonight, you brought your work back to your dorm. as you cleaned up a rough draft of an exit strategy, rain began to tap lightly on the window. you had lit candles littered around the room as well as grouped on your table, a small desk lamp illuminated the surface further. as you reached up to stretch your aching back muscles, you were startled by the sound of a throat clearing.

your eyes shot to the sound at your door where logan stood, leaning against the frame; arms crossed and still like he had been glued to the spot. 

“hi lo,” you say. “y’scared me, heh.” you aren’t used to logan greeting you often, especially not this late. he’s over 150 years old, of course he’s grumpy and an early bird. you’re usually the one at his door with requests and invitations to social events he assumes can be nothing short of insufferable. he sighs, his stare dropping to burn holes in the ground. “logan, are you-“

“i think i’m gonna get out of here, bub.”

those words felt like an arrow hitting the bullseye in your chest and then another splitting the first one right through the center.

“wha-what do you mean?…you’re leaving?” you asked, confusion and frustration trembling in your voice.

“it’s too hard being here.”

with that, you stood up from your chair, beelining to him. “c’mere,” you say hushed, pulling on his leather clad arm, trying to unfold them and get him out of the door frame. he doesn’t budge and you pull “the look” that you know he can’t say no to. “come sit with me please, lo.”

he unfolds his arms which allows you to grab his hands to lead him to take a load off on your bed. your bare feet pat on the hardwood floor as you quickly go back to close the door.

you walked back over to him, assessing his body language. ever since he let you use your mutation to “read him” a few months ago, you told him you’d never do it again without his permission. one gaze into his eyes and a touch of his skin and you could feel everything wracking around in his head. anxiety, rage, hate but love, pain. it was hard to feel just for a moment and your heart cracked knowing he was riddled with those feelings constantly.

but right now you couldn’t help it, he was slouched on the edge of the bed, his head dropping to rest in his large hands, and apparently ready to walk right out of the door. your powers are amplified with a touch and even more when you can look into their eyes. from a distance, you could feel a sense of unease and something else… a pressure…built up in your stomach as you surveyed your friend. it didn’t feel bad though…it felt familiar. a good familiar. you stopped reading him and did your best to shrug off the aching stomach feeling and care for your disheveled logan.

he wasn’t emotional, like ever. he hid all that, only showing you what you wanted to see; what he believed you wished him to be — happy, whatever that was. but that couldn’t’ve been farther from the truth. sure, you want him to be happy but also just whatever he wanted to feel, you wouldn’t suppress it or try to change it to fit some ideal of who people on the outside want him to be. yes, he was one of the meanest motherfuckers you had ever met but he was your mean motherfucker. (whatever that means because nothing has ever really been clear between you two).

you walked closer to him, forcing yourself in his diabolical bubble. you stood between his legs, removing his hands from his face to wrap them around your waist. you scooped your hands under his scruffy chin, pulling up to get a look into his bloodshot eyes. oh, he’d been crying.

“lo…,” you muttered. “why were you crying, wolv?” you slide a thumb across his cheek where tears had stained the skin. “why do you want to leave?”

he pulled his face away, breaking his stare with you. he dropped his head forward to rest on your stomach, wrapping his arms around your legs so his hands rested on the back of your thighs. he began to slowly rub the exposed skin of them that your very short night shorts didn’t cover. he lifted the hem of your shirt slightly to press his hot face into the soft, cool skin underneath. he hummed into it, allowing you to feel the vibration.

“logan,” you softly moaned his name under your breath. his fingers press firmly, inching closer to the crease in the skin where your ass meets thigh.

“is this okay?” he asks lowly, when he looks up for confirmation to keep going, you’re already looking down at him nodding. “say it’s okay for me to touch you like this, bub.”

“yes, keep going, logan,” you said curtly. in your voice there is a hint of need. you hadn’t been touched like this since jean’s christmas party, tipsy off spiked egg nog in the garden with a guy whose mutation was a very wet, long tongue. flirting with him seemed intriguing in the moment, but five minutes later, it rendered itself utterly useless due to user error. the sexual tension between you and logan is so potent it usually clears out a room. aside from accidental brushes of hands and quick looks at each others lips mid conversation, neither one of you has acted on it.

his hums turn to growls and soft whimpers as your hands ran through and tugged his hair. your fingers found their way to his nape, splaying out to grip the hair there in your fist. he managed to place a single kiss on the skin right above the elastic of your shorts before you pulled his head back to scrutinize his face.

“you don’t have permission to read me,” he groaned. before you could ask how he even knew that’s what you were doing he said, “you get this serious, focused look in your eyes. i can feel you in my head.”

“logan, what are we doing?” you ask, releasing his hair and stepping out of his bubble. 

his hands drop from the absence of your thighs onto his lap and his sighs frustratingly. 

“what do you mean?” he asks, admiring your body in the dim light with a semi pressing on the denim of his jeans through his boxers.

“i’m…not doing this with you…if you’re just gonna disappear from my bed before the fuckin’ sun comes up. i’m not doing this,” you said, with your hands on your hips.

he pressed his hands into his knees to push himself up to tower over you. he took two big steps forward and stood in front of you. his hand raised up to brush the back of his fingers across your cheek to cup it and rub his thumb over the warm skin. 

he pressed his lips to yours, skillfully allowing his tongue access to it. you let him. “i give you permission,” he moaned in your mouth. “read me. feel how i feel about you…how i’ve always felt about you.”

he welcomed the hesitant slip of your hands past his jacket and under his shirt, shivering and chuckling “mm, cold” into your mouth. you rested your cool touch on his hips and with his mouth obsessed with yours, you read him. 

your head dizzied instantly and the hair on the back of your neck stood up. you had never felt anything as strong as this. you could almost taste the colors in logan’s head. your heart dropped to your stomach like you were on a rollercoaster, feeling sick from adrenaline in the best ways. and then, returned that good familiar feeling. this time buried even deeper in your stomach, moving it’s way lower…and lower until logan was swallowing the noises escaping you. before you literally passed out, you dropped your hands and took back ownership of your lips and tongue. breathing heavily, you moved away from him to collect yourself.

a beat of silence followed by a heavy sigh and a “well, say something” from logan passed and you opened your mouth to speak before shutting it again.

that…was the best thing you had ever felt. no drug could compare to the euphoria that a minute of kissing logan could bring. you could practically feel yourself lubricating and your upper thighs unconsciously squeezed together as you scrambled to find thoughts.

there were none. your mind already dumb and wanting more of him…more of the feeling. your fists planted firmly on both your hips as if you were grounding yourself to the floor to avoid buckling. you eyed the ground, looked back up at him and forwarded with another heated, taking-in-each-others-breath kiss. your hands found their way to the same place gripping the hair on his nape to which he praised the tug with a moan. he supported your balance as your whines got more whiney and needy and your hands held onto him like life support.

“lay down,” he said into your kiss. it wasn’t really a command, more of a warning because he tossed you on the bed like unfolded laundry.

he stood over you as you collected yourself, darting your tongue out to taste the spit he left behind. you propped yourself up on your elbows to get a look at the man casting a shadow over you. without the sounds of pleasure exclaiming in each others mouths, your ears absorbed the comforting sound of the battering rain. a tree branch smacked the window as thunder rumbled outside.

logan took a moment to admire your presence. starting at the top, he gazed upon your hair that he associates with vanilla and roses and the times he’d touch himself wondering how it’d feel being wrapped around his hand and pulled.

as he removed his leather jacket, he took his time mentally undressing you. feeling even more pressure build in your clit, you bore your hips down into the mattress, rolling them in circles to stimulate the swollen nub. he beheld your tits, flicking his tongue over his bottom lip at the sight of your hard buds under your very thin, white tank top. he threw his heavy jacket to the side, letting it thud in a ball on the ground.

“you look so beautiful, sweetheart,” he said, deeply enthralled by your scantily clad figure laid out in front of him. unable to stop staring, you could see the bulge in his pants get larger and it ridiculously turned you on. with you making eye contact with the crotch of his jeans, he effortlessly unfastened his belt buckle. the metallic buckle clanked to the floor as his jeans and boxers pooled around his ankles. 

he stroked himself while he looked upon you. it was like you could read his mind, because you began to touch yourself. the twitch of his lips and darkening of his eyes validated your teasing. letting yourself drop back on the bed, you caressed your body for him. one hand occupied by cupping your tit and pinching and twisting your nipple while the other is exploring the wet spot left on your panties. not being able to handle eye-fucking you any longer, he dropped to his knees on the edge of the bed between your legs. logan hooked his arms under your knees, pulling you close which in your intoxicatingly lustful brain you found funny, so you laughed.

logan spread your thighs open so he could fit in between them to leave wet, sloppy kisses all over your skin. he nibbled here and there, earning soft hisses and hums from your parted lips.

kiss kiss nibble hiss mmm kiss hum nibble nibble bite kiss suck

he spent about a minute just doing that, leaving warm welts in his mouths wake. “i need these off of you, princess.” once he had kissed his way up to the elastic of your shorts, he snapped it. you nodded and he did the honor of pulling them down and flinging them across the room like he was opening presents on christmas morning. 

he let out an amused scoff as he ran his trembling hand down his face, caught between ecstatic disbelief at the sight of your black lace panties with little black bows adorning the seams. you mentally thanked your past self for slacking on doing laundry and only having your “special occasion” panties left to wear.

“d’you know how pretty you are,” he said. his eyes traced over every inch of you in excitement like you were artwork he stole from the louvre and made out like a bandit with.

his hand disappeared to slickly stroke himself, his mouth watering in anticipation for your taste. his chest heaves as he takes in the sight of you, studying every curve prettily laid out before him; thinking about every position he wants to see you in and every way he wants to please you. without another groan inducing thought, he lunged forward to press a kiss to your lips, his tongue demanding attention. you drink his breath like liquor becoming completely intoxicated by him. he needed this, he needed you.

“need…to taste…you,” he breathed in between kisses. with this mouth obsessed with yours, his hands caress your tits, his thumbing circles on one of the nubs while he’s pinching and pulling on the other. your head falls back and your neck rolls at the sensation, earning profanities from your pretty, swollen lips. your tit misses the hand that he proceeds to run down and up your thigh to locate the spot in your panties you were playing with a moment before. as he parts from your kiss, he’s hooked two fingers under the elastic, pulling those off swiftly.

you yelp when he pushes your torso down. you stare up at the decorative ceiling as he savors you, kissing and massaging your thick thighs. he’s enjoying playing with you as much as possible before allowing himself any pleasure. he wants your juice to cover his face…his neck…his arm…the bed…the floor too when he gets you to pop like a water balloon.

“logan…please, please,” you beg, pawing at his hair. you lift your head to watch the man between your legs taking in the sight and smell of your pretty, wet pussy. even in the dim light, he could see how much you ached for him. he not so secretly got entertainment from watching you lightly buck your hips up to his face and he would’ve let it continue but your pheromones became overwhelming for him; engulfing his head in it’s enchanting aroma.

like fresh pie on a windowsill, he was drawn into you. logan opened wide to swipe one flat tongued lick up your slit. he had one goal — to knock all sense out of you, to fully engulf you in pleasure. he wants you dumb and begging for him to stay right where he is — at the mansion and also all over you. 

logan audibly sucked and popped your clit in and out of his mouth, teasing the most sensitive bit. he’d suck and pop and then lick up your slick, repeating the act. one of his big hands reached up to cup your tit, pinching and twisting and circling. from his hair to the tit he wasn’t playing with, you clawed at whatever would ground you. being eaten by logan felt like floating above the stratosphere.

your wet soaked his beard and it only made him more horny, his cock dripping and throbbing in his fist. tasting you, inhaling you, winning pretty sounds from you, knowing he’s the one making you buck up and fuck his nose only made his appetite for you insatiable. he let go of himself to push his pointer and middle fingers into your needing pussy. you hissed and cursed. the thrill of him devouring you began to reach its peak. his fingers pumped relentlessly into you, curling them to stimulate your g-spot. moans, curses, the gushing of your wet cunt, his sucking and popping and vibrating moans mixed with the rain and thunder grumbling outside filled the dorm like mozart’s symphony no. 25.

he wanted to kiss you, so he did. with his fingers still coaxing an orgasm out of you, he shared the sweet taste. he got back on the bed with you, sliding his free hand under your back to push you up to further to see the mess you were making on the sheets.

“look at how good you’re taking my fingers,” he groaned, inching closer to your ear so you could hear his dirty language loud and clear. “you can come for me, baby.” he peppered a few kisses to your forehead, removing his hand from behind you so he could press it into your stomach. this only heightened the overwhelming wash of pleasure coursing through you.

“lo…logan, i’m-“

“fuck my fingers, baby. use them…oh that’s it…that’s it…i feel that clenching, c’mon you can do it for me. go big baby, make me happy.” his dirty mouth and sporadic clit circling and pumping in and out of you with his tireless wrist pushed you over the edge. you cowered into his neck, pulling on his white tank top and biting the salty skin below his ear as your pussy obeyed, erupting with your juices. out of breath and fucking dumb already, you could feel the wet soak the sheets under your ass.

logan pulled his fingers out of you, landing a light smack on your pussy before licking you clean off of his digits. you fell back on the bed, your arms above your head as you heaved and saw stars.

“‘m not done with you, princess.” he slid off the bed, still delighted by your taste and engulfed in your aroma.

“fuuuck,” you groaned. the pulsing lightning feeling spread throughout both legs as an effect of your rocking orgasm. logan was wicked with his tongue, a devious magician with his fingers and you were his sole audience member wondering about his tricks for sleight of hand.

he quickly tossed his tank, that had tug marks from your attempt to ground yourself, to the side, his muscles flexing under his skin. as he let your post orgasm, cock-dumb brain fog clear, he spit in his hand to fuck his fist. his saliva mixed with the pre-cum leaking from the head, he groaned and sighed heavily at the feeling of giving his dick some sort of relief. you, needy for another hit of him, propped yourself up on your elbows to watch the most delectable creature pleasure himself.

just the sight of him illuminated by candles and flashes of lightning outside as he gets off to how fucked out and dumb you look was enough to have you open up again and play with yourself. the sensitivity from your swollen nub required a delicate touch but your pussy ached, clenching around nothing. his knitted brows relaxed, eyes darting from your pretty face, to your tits, to your fingers rubbing circles where his mouth resided moments ago back to look longingly into your eyes.

“you’re gonna stay,” you said. your hand reached your mouth, your tongue swiping a lick up your middle and ring fingers, wrapping your lips around them to coat them in your saliva. “tell me you’re going to stay for me,” you elaborated. your wet fingers found your aching center.

“there’s no where else i want to be,” he answered. he paced closer to the bed where you laid, his dick basically making eye contact with you as he stopped a few inches away. “you’re mine, you know that?” he noticed your hand slow, “keep going,” he commanded. logan reached out to cup your face, tilting his head to get a look at you obeying his every request. “your face…your mouth…,” his thumb swiped across your lips as he spoke. “your body…your cunt.” he leaned down to kiss your mouth, leaving a string of spit attached to your lower lip. “your laugh…your heart,” he said kindly, his hand massaging your scalp. moans earned from his praise escaped you. “you’re all mine. is that okay with you, baby?”

you’re so bewitched by his aura and his subtle touches make your heart race so fast that you can’t do anything but try to maintain his torrid eye contact and nod.

“use your words, honey.” his thumb returned to the softness of your parted lips.

“i’m yours, logan,” you said, taking his thumb in and closing your lips around it. “if you’ll stay with me, i’ll be yours forever,” you breathed around his thumb, speaking from a mix of eager lust and the terrifying need for him to not to be an asshole, just once.

“i’m not going anywhere…i promise,” he said matter of factly before leaning back down to hungrily devour your kiss. “i need to…fuck you…now,” he cursed in between swallowing moans. 

“do what you want…i’m yours,” you said just clearly audible over the storm rumbling outside. you two shared eye contact so intense that you noticed his dick twitch from your peripheral. you took his dick in your drooling mouth, reaching up to squeeze the base of him. it twitched from the warmth, pressure and tongue swiping rhythmically around his angry, red tip. you kept yourself enveloped around his length, bobbing your head to hit your gag reflex. the added lubrication drove him crazy, his abs twitching under the toned skin of his abdomen. you moaned around him purely from the enjoyment you got out of having him stretch the corners of your mouth, feeling the sting from it. 

logan reached down with both hands to hold your head steady while he sped up thrusting into your throat. your gags and gasps for air, his praise and the storm filled the room beautifully. 

“fuuuck, baby, keep that throat open for me please,” he begged. his hands left their position to find a new one — one supporting his thrusting hips, the other petting your head. “oh, you look so fuckin’ pretty with my cock down your throat…you’re taking me so good, sweetheart.”

he pulled his dick out of your mouth to smack it on your face, complimenting how gorgeous you look. he kissed and licked the mess off of your mouth.

“mm, baby i need to know how good you feel.” with that, he rounded the bed to lay down. “c’mere, baby.” you turned around, crawling on all fours to obey him. his cock in its usual place to be, in his fist, leaks pre-cum in anticipation for you to smother it with your warm, clenching pussy.

“lay down,” he said.

“damn, yes sir,” you say, jokingly annoyed with all of his demands. you lay down next to him, your knees instinctively parting slightly. he lays on his side, resting his hand on your stomach, rubbing his large hand in flat circles.

“d’you know how long i’ve thought about this moment with you?” he asked, leaning in to kiss and suck the skin in the crook of your neck. you lustfully sighed at the sensation of his hot breath. his hand finds its way between your legs again, tickling and tapping at your slit. “i want you to read me the whole time i’m inside…can you do that?”

“are you—“

“yes i’m sure, i feel so fucking good right now and i haven’t even felt you. i want you to feel that and more,” he explains, pulling your chin in to taste the desperation on you.

before he came just from your kiss and rutting against the sheets, he hovered above you. his lips stayed attached to your chest, kissing lower and lower to suck a tit into his mouth, flicking your nipple with his tongue then biting softly on the nub. his hand disappeared from the side of your head to grab hold of his shaft, flicking his tip against your clit. his head dropped as he watched and listened to your slick coating his cock. he quickly swiped up and down your pussy trying to savor every fold and feeling. his brows furrowed, not being able to resist your warmth, he lined himself up with your hole, using his hand to guide just the tip into it.

“oh…fuck,” he groaned in excitement. he pushed in just a little more which caused you to hiss. his head shot up and eyes scanned your face for any sign of regret or unsureness. “are you okay? d’you want to stop?”

“no, baby,” you giggled, lifting your arms rest around his neck, one hand always finding a way into his dark locks. “just been a while…keep going, i’m okay.”

with your permission, he pushed in a little more. he let out a deep groan at the feeling of you stretching to form perfectly around him. you gasped, pressing a hand into his chest, feeling a similar sting to the one you felt in the corners of your mouth earlier. against his want to start thrusting his whole length into you, his went slow, watching your demeanor for cues to keep going.

“you feel…fuck…like it was made for me,” he said which caused the butterflies in you to flutter their wings even faster. “are you okay?” his chest heaved and his breath fanned your face.

“fuck me…please logan,” you said. your hands reached his hips, pushing them down onto you. without wasting another minute, he did. 

he bent your knee more to press it into your chest as his hips repeatedly slammed down hard, his balls smacking your ass. with one hand giving him better access by positioning your leg higher, the other cupped and squeezed your bouncing tit.

“oh my…fucking god,” you moaned. you had let the walls of your mutation down, allowing yourself to be flooded by not only your pleasure…but the love logan feels for you plus the absolute sheer euphoria that he was experiencing deep inside of your pussy. it coursed through your body like a steam engine leaving the station. it had felt like you had been brought to five earth shattering orgasms before the one that was bound to shake you again soon.

“you know you feel so good, look at that fuckin’ fucked out smile. can you feel it? can you feel how good you make me feel, baby? don’t stop readin’ me, princess. it’s all for you,” he praised for you to hear every word.

“holy shit…mm fuckin’…ahh!” your hands couldn’t help but find their way above your head, subconsciously reaching for the bed post for something to ground you again.

“here, baby, hold onto me.” logan grabbed your wandering wrist with his free hand, slapping your hand on his chest which you pressed into as if you were pushing him away. before your cock drunk mind could register what happened, he had flipped the two of you so you were on top. 

logan looked so fucking pretty under you. you took a second to breathe and take in the view before bending your knees to put yourself in a squatting position on his cock. you placed your hands on his heaving chest for support as you started to bounce your ass on him. ‘oh this is so fun’, the thought making you giggle in elation as you drilled down your hips, rocking them back and forth to feel him stimulate the deepest parts of you. his thumb bored into your clit, drawing circles on it. 

as you kept bouncing your wet pussy on him just how he liked, logan lifted his knees up behind you and pushed you back onto them. he moved his hand away from your clit and picked his head up to watch his dick disappear deep inside you. then, he spit. his saliva landed on your pussy and stomach. he went back to stimulating you, fully realizing how much that turned you on from the tight clench around him and the extra juice running down his ass onto the sheets under you two.

he, still playing with your clit, summoned your face closer to his with the middle and ring fingers on the other hand. once closer, he grabbed your neck to kiss your fiercely. 

“you’re my good girl, huh?”

‘mhmm’ was all you could muster with his hand around your throat and his hips still ramming his cock into your stretched out hole.

“use those words for me, baby. are…mm, fuck…you my good girl?”

“ye…sss, baby i’m your…good…oh my fucking…girl!!”

“open your mouth.” he fucking spit in it. you moaned tasting him again and feeling it on your face. “good…fuckin’ girl,” he complimented, kissing you and then squeezing your cheeks to spit on your tongue again. 

your body started to go limp and your eyes were practically glued together. you could feel the searing hot orgasm burning up inside. you could feel logan in a way that you never thought possible. everything. 

his love, his passion, his longing, his fear, his anxiety, his lust, his heart…everything was yours in this moment. high on his feelings, you let your head fall back coming undone on top of him.

“oh you’re so pretty…that’s pretty, baby, keep…fuck…use me, it’s all for you.” his words took you further and further into ecstasy. it was a really good fucking trip that you never wanted to end. the pain of his cock fucking you out and his grip clutching your skin like he’d fall off earth without doing so made you moan so intensely that not even the thunder outside could compete.

he could tell you were a few fucks away from collapsing but so was he. 

“baby…you keep clenching around me like that…i’m gonna fuckin’ fill you,” he said. you kept bouncing on it, wanting him to even feel a fraction of how he just made you feel. he closed his eyes trying to last as long as possible in the heaven that he found in you. his thumbs bore into your hips as he used them to ground himself.

“i want it, baby…fill your good girl up.” you leaned down to speak into his ear and then carry on kissing his neck, letting him claim your moans as trophies. 

“fuuuuck…fuuuck,” he moaned as his thrusting became sloppy and you weren’t bouncing as much anymore. his abs twitched again along with his face. 

SNIKT!!

you hissed at the cool metal of his claws against your skin and the feel of him throbbing severely inside you as he let himself paint your walls. you thanked him in pleased moans before falling on his chest. still semi-hard inside, he kissed the top of your head to which you looked up and he gave you a proper kiss. he let himself twitch out a few more dribbles of cum inside you before pulling his claws back in to carefully rub your back.

a few beats of silence went by as you listened to each others hastened breaths and the rain tapping the glass. 

“…i love you, logan.”

“i think you know how much i love you, baby,” he said, smugly remembering how you looked coming on his dick, further escalated by his letting you read him.

you two snuggled naked under the covers and as you laid on his chest and listened to his light snoring, you read him again. 

ease and silence…and love.

[barbieaemond]

Religion

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x wife!reader

Warnings: mild angst, misogyny, banter, pregnancy, childbirth, oral sex, p in v, fingering, orgasm denial, dry humping, overstimulation, brief lactation kink, breeding kink, manipulation (to get some), some good ol' tying up, slandering of the Gods lol

Author's note: this is the third and final part following And I dream of a grave and A curse for a curse but can be read as a standalone. Just keep in mind that Aemond did not cheat on his wife while in Harrenhal. He used Alys only for her visions.

Word count: 13k. Ye have to suffer for your smut darlin'

MASTERLIST | English is not my first language.

taglist: @multyfangirl @ladystarksneedle @arcielee @darylandbethfanforever9 @zaldritzosrose @alphard-hydraes-blog

Her mother had come to King’s Landing three days after she gave birth. Peering through the door, the Princess didn’t know if the woman was more surprised to finally see a baby safely tucked between her daughter’s arms or to witness that she was still breathing. She had chosen to believe both.

Since she was a little girl, she had been instructed in what was coming, for her and all the girls like her: how to serve men, how to serve the Realm. She knew pregnancy could be a time of great distress, physical and otherwise, and for her, it turned out to be nothing more than that.

She spent the first moons plagued by sickness, glaring at the Maesters who told her that morning sickness was perfectly normal. It would've been, if only it had lasted the hours the sun was at its highest. Instead, she couldn’t keep down her breakfast, just like her lunch, or dinner. She had lost weight, she couldn’t stand any kind of smell with the risk of rushing to her pot and empty her stomach.

Then, on one fine morning, while she was walking the gardens with two of her maids, she had suddenly bent over, hissing with pain while clutching her maid’s arm, dreading the trickle running down her thighs.

The Maesters said occasional bleedings might happen, that she only needed to rest and take some tonic to strenghten her body. But that day signaled the end of her peace and the beginning of her confinement.

Because clearly, at the first sign of something going wrong, slipping out of his control, Aemond would panic, albeit showing none of it, standing as tall and stoic as ever and somehow more than he’d ever done now that the Conqueror’s Crown weighted on his head. But she knew better. She knew how to look through all his walls. She knew he was scared—for her, for the baby, for his sister, for his whole family. It was simply too much for a single person to carry all of that on their shoulders. And it was precisely for that reason that she didn’t object to any of his orders. After all, she couldn’t. He was the King now, even if he didn’t choose to style himself as such.

Thus, her chambers became her prison.

Cobwebs didn’t have time to grow because she was quick enough to point them out to the servants. She was aware of the slight drop in the stone tiles just behind the terrace, as of the strategic point where to linger to gain some cool breeze from the sea. She knew the baby liked to sleep upside down in the early afternoon, occasionally kicking hard as he, or she, settled comfortably in her womb.

Aemond had picked some books for her, mostly about history, having her yawning at the third page. She had tried needle work, putting all her good will into it for the sake of doing something, and she had deliberately chosen to believe she was undeniably good at it. But that was a very generous lie. 

“What is that supposed to be exactly?” Aemond asked one day, peeking over her shoulder as he reached her on the terrace.

She didn’t look up, keeping her eyes fixed on her embroidery tambour, working the needle in and out. “Isn’t it obvious?”

He leaned down until she felt the long silver strands tickling her head and even without turning, she could feel him grimacing. “A bird?”

At that, she had raised her head, reading all the disbelief on his face. “It is a dragon. For the cradle.”

Aemond had simply furrowed his brow, unable for the life of him to consider what he saw as something even remotely resembling a dragon. But he thought better than to anger his pregnant wife, given her late sour spirit, but especially in light of how fiercely she had started to stick the needle in, likely picturing to stick it into him instead. He had built the most fake pleasant smile he could master and said “Very well. Excellent work, my love.”

“Thank you, husband.”

The trouble was that, as time went by, she only became sourer. She grew more and more uncomfortable, too tight in her own skin. Her back hurt, her breasts hurt, and she was starting to believe she was carrying a real dragon, with fangs and all; she had no other explanation for how hot she constantly felt, forced to lie in a thin white chemise all the time, despite the winds carrying the winter.

But maybe there was another reason why her spirits were so low and sour. She had come to learn that pregnancy affected every aspect of her life, including the most pleasant one.

She would grow wet for a kiss. She would close her legs and rub them together upon seeing him rise from the bathtub. She would moan into his mouth if he so much as grazed her nipples with his knuckles. But as she grew bigger and bigger, along with the discomfort, kisses and some intimate brushing were all she would get from him. Aemond had grown distant, not only with his presence, due to all the duties he had to fulfill wearing the Crown, but even when he was there, in their chambers, sleeping next to her, she felt him leagues and leagues away.

“Pregnancy is a very hard time for a woman.” The Dowager Queen had said to her “It is overwhelming to think that you are never alone and yet...somehow you are.”

She’d never understood what her good mother meant until she was confined to her chambers, alone with her thoughts and her fears. She didn’t expect Aemond to do something, this was women’s business. And she knew his reluctance to lie with her rested solely on concern and love for her.

No matter how much he craved to take her, he had decided to put his husband’s rights away for the delicate final moons until the baby was born. He still felt guilty, for Harrenhal, for the witch, for forsaking her only to get drunk on visions and prophecies. Yet, those visions turned out to be true. He had shut that voice in his head and tried to make amends. But they didn’t have the time to mend themselves together, to knit all the distrust and suspicions into something good; the baby was coming, and it seemed he or she did nothing but grow them more apart. 

He saw how tired she was, how some days she couldn’t even get out of bed. And how useless he felt when he would catch her crying, like that night when he found her all alone on the terrace at the hour of the owl.

She was sitting on her chaise filled with cushions when Aemond walked around her. Given the state of his white shirt and hair, he had likely just awakened and hadn’t found her beside him.

“What are you doing out here? You will catch a cold.”

“I cannot sleep.” she had kept her eyes far, on the Black Water Bay, far from him. But he saw them anyway, her reddened eyes.

“You cannot stay here in your condition.” He said almost tiredly, but when she didn’t even blink at his words, he called her name, with the tone he used in the Throne Room.

“Aemond, please.” She whispered, turning her head. “I—” she bit her tongue, unwilling to put this on him, but she knew he wouldn’t let go until she was safely back in bed. So, she said “I don’t want to hear her.”

It took him less than a moment to understand what she meant. Helaena. Helaena who lost a child, who saw her flesh and blood horribly murdered before her eyes. Helaena who couldn’t stop wailing in the dead of night.

She had looked at him, seeing that torn thing, broken and raw like a split wound; shame and guilt and rage all at once. Then, he lowered himself onto his knees until he took her cold hands and squeezed them tight. His mouth opened, but she was faster. “Don’t say it.”

You cannot keep such a promise, you cannot keep us safe. No matter how many times you say it. But she wouldn’t take that solace away from him, not that plainly. The more he said it, the more he seemed to believe it. So be it.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked, and there was a beautiful, heartbreaking desperation in his hushed voice. “Tell me what to do.”

She had built a convincing smile, running her hand through his loose hair and pushing some strands back. “Go back to sleep. I’m fine.”

Her spirits during the day would slightly improve. And between the Council and some hearings in the Throne Room, he always saved some time to go visit her in their chambers. She didn’t seem to enjoy being watched like a toddler, but deep down she cherished his concern. She cherished the way his hands would gently hold her own, or caress her hair, her belly. She found it hard to believe those hands could bestow such reverence and violence at the same time. And even in his absence, he managed to ensure she always had anything she needed. Even blackberries in early autumn.

“Myra, where have you been?” She asked in a late afternoon, when one of her most loyal maids entered her chambers after disappearing for the whole day.

The young girl had an awful look. She seemed exhausted, as if she had walked the entirety of Flea Bottom, twice. “Apologies, my Princess. It took me quite a while to find blackberries.”

“Seven Hells, it is only a craving. You did not have to go all the way through King’s Landing to find me blackberries.”

"No, I-I ought to.”

The Princess paused, frowning at the young girl. “Did someone else tell you that you ought to?”

“Well…yes…” the maid said, sinking her gaze to the floor “The King—uhm Prince Regent.”

She sighed deeply, and with heavy steps, she walked towards the terrace; her maid was immediately at her side to help her. “What did he tell you?” the Princess asked as they reached the chair outside.

The girl waited for her to sit, slowly and awkwardly given her big belly; then, a little timidly, she said “He…ordered me to go look for blackberries and not to…bother coming back if I didn’t find them.”

The Princess rolled her eyes in quite an unlady-like manner, “How in the name of Seven did he know about it?” She asked, grimacing as she desperately tried to find a comfortable position. “I have barely seen him this morning.”

The young maid helped her, fixing some cushions behind her back and whispered “The White Cloak at the door…I suspect he reports everything to his Grace.”

The notion didn’t seem to strike her that much, or maybe she was too tired, too uncomfortable and too hot to comment on the matter, or even scoff at it.

She grabbed a fan from her maid’s hands and unceremoniously shook her shoes off, placing her swollen feet on the cool tiles. Closing her eyes, she basked in that small relief; the floor was cold, the sun was about to set, and the baby was sleeping.

According to the Maesters, her time was close. She was eager to meet this little person but in truth, she just wanted it to end. She hated having no control over her body, her spirits, her marriage. She missed being a wife and being treated as such, not just as the mother of his child. She had come to think that, deep down, any woman felt that way, but they were forced to hide everything behind a joyful smile while sinking to their knees to thank the Mother. Wasn’t that the sole purpose of any girl in the world? To bleed on a birthing bed? Wasn’t that the way men measured women’s value?

She swallowed hard as the question spun in her head. Am I finally worthy of you, Aemond?

She wouldn’t dare ask him. 

“What is it? Are you unwell?”

She was too lost in her thoughts to even hear his footsteps on the terrace. As her gaze flew up, she read the deep concern on his face, all lumped in the steep furrow between his eyebrows. He must’ve seen her grimacing, thinking she was in some pain. She was, but she was too much of a coward to tell him.

She resumed her fanning, averting her gaze and stretching her legs out further on the floor. “I feel like I’m boiling.”

“Yes, I can see that.” He deadpanned, raking his eye over her disheveled state; sprawled on that chair with her legs slightly open, her white chemise all crumpled and unbuttoned, and a bead of sweat on the forehead, in the crevice of her swollen breasts. He thought the times when a mere look at this woman would make him hard were gone once the novelty of having a wife, someone rightly and thoroughly his, had dissipated. He was wrong.

“I’m well aware of my lack of decency.” She replied, seeing how he was staring, the little inquiring curve in his eyebrow. “I’m afraid I care very little about decency at this moment. Blame it on your son.”

His lips curled up, watching her gather her loose hair with one hand while she kept fanning herself quickly with the other.

“Are you still inclined to believe for certain that it’s a boy?”

“I know it’s a boy. Only men can be this insufferable.”

That little smile on his lips lingered, deepened, and then he moved, going to stand behind her. “Let me.” He said, and took her hair between his hands. She couldn’t see what he was doing but got the gist as she felt his deft fingers moving and her neck free to get some air. When he walked around the chaise to sit beside her, she saw that his hair was loose. He had tied her hair with the black lace he always wore to prevent the silver strands from ending up in front of his eye.

She loved to see him like this: hair loose, eyepatch lost somewhere in a drawer, sitting next to her, even without saying a word. The sapphire seemed to match his eye, glowing a soft violet under the setting sun. She felt that familiar lump in her throat, as she stared at him, a restless thing flowing through her whole body, demanding to be released only to be trapped under her teeth, biting down her lower lip, starved and yearning.

“A little bird told me you put a hound on my trail.” she said at one point, shutting her little fan.

Aemond didn’t look surprised to acknowledge that she knew. He had actually ventured with himself about how long it would have taken her to realise he was spying on her every move.

“You are well aware of my duties now.” He said, turning his head to look at her. But not quite. His eye seemed to linger everywhere at once, fleeting, snatching a look here and there, her legs, her sweated neck, her belly…his own testament, as if she wasn’t one already.

You left your mark on her just as she did on you. Those were Alys’ words, at which he had ugly sneered. And she had laughed at the sight, eerily, as someone who owned the truth. I’m your spoil of war and yet, you speak to me ten paces away. What are you afraid of, Kinslayer? That your skin would burn like brimstone if you touched another woman?

“Besides,” he resumes “any lady would be flattered by her husband’s genuine concern.”

“You could flatter me in different ways.” was her prompt answer and she moved incredibly fast, given her impediment, getting close to him until she filled his nostrils. She smelled different since she was pregnant. A thick smell, musky. She tasted differently. Sweeter and somehow sourer. He swallowed at the mere memory. “We have talked about this.”

“And I’ve talked to the Maesters.”

His head spun around, forcing her to stifle a smile at his ever strictly reserved nature.

“They said there’s nothing wrong, or remotely dangerous, if we…engage in our conjugal duties.”

He tried to ignore her hand, her fingers traveling up his arm like a spider’s legs. “Did you need the Maesters to learn that?”

“No, but you do. You hang on their lips…I wish you hung on mine.”

Aemond heard her voice dropping a tone, and dropped his chin down, looking at her hand roving on his chest, shamelessly slipping beneath his dark green doublet, skin to skin. She glided on his planes slowly, making sure to trap one of his nipples in the little hollow between her index and middle.

“I don’t need them to know about my private matters.” He said mindlessly, trying to hold a grip on his thoughts.

“Seven Hells. It baffles me to witness how prudish you desperately want to appear while I perfectly know how debauched you really are, to the bone.”

“My debauchery is confined to these four walls.”

“Oh, is it? What about that time on our way to the Grand Sept?” She tilted her head, so she was talking almost in his ear. “Do you remember?”

Her hand on his chest was burning, or was it his own skin? His own flesh simmering wherever she touched him.

“Don’t do that.” She whispered when she saw his long legs cross. “Let me see. You have condemned me to do nothing else.”

His eye chased her hand as she grabbed his knee and pushed to uncross his legs, so that she could see, the outline of his cock through the breeches, see how he ached for her. “Do you remember what you did in the wheelhouse?” She asked again, looking at him; the sapphire was the only thing flashing violet now. His eye was pitch black.

“You put your hand beneath my gowns…” she said and her hand slid up against his thigh “you grabbed me, harshly.” And she did the same, forcing his mouth open and a shallow breath out of his throat. “And you grinned…because my garments were soaked.” he closed his eye for a moment, perhaps recalling, or maybe because her hand was moving, palming all his length through the breeches.

“And then you slipped your fingers underneath…” and again, she did just so, unbuckling his belt and sinking her hand in. He opened his eye, and basked in what he saw: that sort of silent, desperate plea in the little wrinkle between her eyebrows, in her heaving chest, in the way she was rubbing her legs together.

Thus, just when she was about to grab him, he grabbed her wrist instead and crashed his mouth against hers with a low growling sound. She could do nothing but moan, giving him open room to slip his tongue in and taste every corner, driving his body closer and closer, but not too much as to crush her.

She, on the other hand, felt free, finally, to roam, to rummage. Her hands grabbed and pulled everywhere, at his doublet, the collar, the buttons, the thin white shirt underneath it all, until everything was loose, and she was free to touch him, all the while making the sweetest wanton sounds, close to desperate whines. “Please, Aemond…” she begged freely, holding his face “just this once…please…”

He shushed her with another harsh kiss and with a free hand, he clutched her white nightgown into his fist, pulling up, enough to stick his arm between her legs. She spread them for him, panting with anticipation, and stopped breathing altogether when he cupped her core with the large palm of his hand. Aemond trapped her lower lip with his teeth, biting softly upon feeling how wet she was, dripping on his fingers, so much that he wished to fall on his knees and wipe it clean with his tongue.

“Please…” she breathed, barely rocking her hips to urge him to touch her.

“Hush.” he said, and curled his fingers, brushing his fingertips against her centre, gaining a delicious wince from her. “Tell me of the wheelhouse.”

She smiled breathlessly, her eyes hungry and heavy, full of lust. “It was the first time I wore green.” she started to tell. “We were still betrothed. I wanted to impress you.”

“Hmm. You certainly did.” He remarked, watching her closely while rubbing his index pad against her entrance, teasingly, making her squirm. “Go on.”

She felt like burning, her face hot for the sun, the baby, the ache in her lower belly, stirring and coiling. “You told the White Cloak to take another round…” she said, breathing with her mouth open. “You grabbed my waist and forced me on your lap.”

“And you pushed me away. Twice.” he’d laughed, flashing a grin that made her willing to shove him away, to pull him closer. “What a farse you put on.” he continued, leaving a chaste kiss on her neck that resulted in her writhing some more, pushing her pelvis against his hand. “I had to cover your mouth for your mewling. You were so fucking loud.”

It was then that he finally granted her some mercy, slipping one finger inside her drenched lips, spilling a long gasp from her.

“No. Not quite.” He observed cruelly and slid another finger, this time gaining a proper loud moan. “That’s more like it.”

His two fingers started to pump slowly, and yet she was making the lewdest sounds he’d ever spilled from her, arching her back as far as she could, scrunching her face almost in pain and pulling at his collar, twisting, as if he were torturing her instead of giving her pleasure. She made his cock stir painfully, his teeth grind for the ache, for the fact that she was coating his whole hand. “Easy now…” he warned her, his tone all husky. “You don’t want to come already, do you? ‘Tis the only thing you’ll get from me, sweetling…you better make it last.” 

She whined in annoyance, forcing another grin on his ruthless lips, and with that same ruthlessness, he slowed his ministrations, only to cup one of her breasts with his free hand, squeezing softly until the thin, silky fabric slipped down, revealing her pink, swollen nipple. “I must say…I’m relieved you will summon a wet nurse…so these will be all mine.”

She had to stifle a breathless laugh at that. “Being jealous of your child is a bit too much, even for you…”

“Oh, my love” he crooned, freeing the other breast “I am jealous of the clothes on your skin.”

Wasting no time, he wrapped his lips around her nipple, causing her to arch against him once more, one hand flying down his shoulder, fisting his doublet, twisting it as he swirled his tongue and hummed with delight dripping from his tone, as if he were tasting honey, and the sweetest ever made.

His fingers resumed their frantic rhythm, sinking deep inside and stretching, hitting that special spot that made her sight go black, reduced to a mess of sweat coating every inch of her skin and a string of moans growing hoarse and high-pitched.

“Are you close? Hmm?” he rasped “How about another? Can you take another for me?”

He slipped a third finger in, causing her to wince and cling to his shoulders with her mouth open in a silent scream. “Good girl.” He praised at the sight. He wished he could savor it for a little longer, he wished to keep doing that again and again, until the sun went down and rose again, until there was nothing but ruin around them.

But she was so close now, he could feel it in her tensed arms around his shoulders, in her clenching walls around his hand, and quite frankly, the ache in his breeches was unbearable, twitching at every moan and squelching sound of his fingers inside her flesh. 

She came loudly, curling her ankles on the ground and writhing in his hold as if in a delirium. He kept her still, his hand buried inside her, feeling the quick pulsing that rivaled the one in her heart. And he watched her, gasping for air and throwing her head back, utterly spent, hair all sticked to her forehead. In his eye she had never looked this beautiful.

He pulled his fingers out, making her wince slightly, and brought them to her mouth, smearing her spent desire on her own lips, like the final touch to a painting. And then he kissed her, humming at her bittersweet taste. He held her face gently, grabbing her jaw and angling her head to taste her better, eliciting a blissful sigh from the back of her throat that made his hardness throb. As if she had felt that, her hand had slipped between them with purpose, sinking past all his layers and taking hold of him.

She rejoiced in the little whimper he gave her, and started to work her hand up and down, making it impossible for him to kiss her any further, if not for a sloppy and panting mess of spit and teeth. 

Given the unbearable pressure building past his navel, he knew he wouldn’t last long. And she knew that too. But she didn’t want to have him this way. Awkwardly, she stood up and spread his legs to make herself some room, but as soon as Aemond, despite the lack of blood in his mind, caught her intentions, he stopped her, grabbing her arms firmly.

“No…” he croaked. “Not on your knees.”

She couldn’t help the little surprise on her face. Aemond had never been this considerate, especially in bed. He could be gentle in his own way, subtly. Little hidden things in the way he would run his fingers through her hair once she had reached her peak, the way he would regain air once he’d spilled inside her, breathing into her neck and running his lips lazily against her skin. But most of the times, he was very diligent, all focused in giving her and himself the pleasure they both craved; he was somehow harsh, ruthless, a mirror of who he was outside the bedroom, possessed by some kind of urgency that would break her in the most beautiful and cruel way and put her back together at once.

But then again, she imagined the promise of his heir living inside her was affecting even one of the most ruthless of men.

She sat down again and watched him stand up, his breath labored and open-mouthed as he looked down at her, working the few laces of his breeches still tied. She didn’t need an invitation, an order, a mere tilt of his chin to sit upright and put her hands alongside his snatched waist.

She looked up, and he found himself swallowing hard, cursing silently at the sight of her looking straight into his eye with his cock a breath away from her, all hard and glistening on the tip. Shamefully, he thought that would have done it for him.

A coarse grunt left his lips as soon as she wrapped her mouth around it, teasingly swirling her tongue on the slit without ever averting her gaze from him. He hissed painfully when her lips started to travel along his length, trying with all his might to hold back and not spill into her mouth so soon.

She, on the other hand, seemed eager to watch him come undone, just as he had done to her a few moments earlier. She started to suck him eagerly, like a starved creature, because on all those nights and days when he had taken her apart, learning every inch of her and how to bend it to his will, she had done just the same.

She knew how to make him wince and moan openly, while on her knees on their bedroom floor or on a fucking terrace during a late afternoon, with likely anyone to walk on them at any moment. With the Gods watching.

She didn't care. The Gods didn't care for them anyway. Let them see to whom she fell to her knees.

He couldn’t stop looking, how pretty she was like this, swallowing him whole, up to the hilt, hitting her throat with a gagging sound. So lecherous, so holy.

He was so close he had to bite his lip to restrain himself, letting out a string of curses until he felt the pressure growing stronger, and then, he thought, he might as well have it his way.

“Stop…” he croaked, grabbing her cheek but delicately, slipping out of her mouth and running his thumb over her sore jaw. She closed her slicked mouth, a drop of spit running down her chin and she looked at him, with such devotion he thought he had nothing to envy the Gods.

“Let me…” he pleaded, wiping her chin clean with his finger. “Let me fuck your mouth, sweetling. Would you?”

A question that needed no answer. Indeed, he wasted no time and grabbed the back of her head, tilting it slightly up for a better angle. He sheathed himself all the way in, gasping deeply at feeling the hot walls of her mouth, her cheeks hollowing.

His fingers curled into her hair, but never in a hurtful way, enough to keep her still as he started to move his hips against her face back and forth, his open mouth quivering as the pleasure began to build where it left off.

“Fuck—” he cursed once, and then twice, fucking her mouth faster to chase his peak, pulling ever so slightly at her scalp until he went still altogether, pushed his waist hard against her, and grunted loudly, in a pretty uncharacteristic way, as his cock twitched and spilled down her throat until the last drop.

Panting harshly, he pulled himself out and watched her close her mouth, eyes fixed on him, working her cheeks and making no mystery of the white essence on her tongue before swallowing it, thoroughly.

Aemond let himself fall on that chaise and she watched, she drank that sight: his hair all disheveled and damp with sweat, a shade of pink on his cutting cheekbones as he slowly pulled himself together, breathing through his open mouth while buckling his belt and breeches.

“I think I’m going to take a bath.” She said at one point, clumsily standing up. He had mumbled something in return, still caught in the throes of what they had done, but before she got back inside, she turned and said “Oh, just so you know…all of this was a ploy.”

She smiled cunningly at his frowning. “I never had any cravings. And I knew about the White Cloak at the door since the first day you put him there. You are not as subtle as you think you are, my love.”

A man of few words, but loud actions.

Her pains came during a peaceful afternoon.

In haste, nursemaids began their frantic rounds in and out of the Princess’ rooms like soldiers, carrying hot water and boiled rags. The Dowager Queen abandoned her perch beside Queen Helaena, or what was left of her, and went to assist the Princess. Having borne four children, she had quite a bit of advice to dispense, things she had learned on her own skin, things that any Master would never have told her because oblivious and convinced they knew what happened to a woman's body at such a delicate time based on how deep they had buried their nose in an old dusty tome.

Alicent helped the Princess rise from the bed, clutched her arm firmly and helped her walk. She said it was vital to walk, that it would ease her pain and help the baby come sooner. She told her to squat when the pain hit. She rubbed her back and wiped the sweat off her face as if she were her own daughter. It felt like that. Even though the Princess seemed to face it all with a stiff lip, Alicent could see that she was scared and in terrible pain, that she probably wished for her mother to be there. She had wished the same, no matter how many times she had faced it.

“Your Grace?” The Princess asked after another wave of pain had come and gone.

“Yes, child?”

“Do you think your son would forgive me If I said this one is both the first and the last?”

The Queen had smiled at that. “If the Gods bless you with more children, it will be easier, I can assure you. The first time is always rough. But it shouldn’t be long now.”

Well, her good mother turned out to be wrong. Because the pain plagued her for a full night, giving her no peace. At the hour of the nightingale, the nursemaids forced her to bed, and she gladly went. She was exhausted, she could no longer walk without hissing at every step, and by that time she was so used to the pain she no longer whined or anything, only scrunched her face and ground her teeth.

The servants stripped her bare and replaced her sweat-soaked nightgown with a fresh one. They dabbed her face with a wet cloth, but she could barely register anything, floating into unconsciousness only to be brought back to the present as another pain choked her breath.

“Perhaps some Milk of the Poppy?” One of the nurses said at one point.

“No.” the Maester said. “She may need to start pushing any moment now. We need her vigil.”

Her heavy-lidded eyes opened, wandering helplessly around the room. Useless research, for she knew he wouldn’t be there. She didn’t expect him to be. The birthing bed was no place for men, save for the Maesters, although she was starting to doubt their real usefulness when all they could do was pull her nightgown up, take a close look and shake their heads. They might as well let Aemond be there.

She imagined he must’ve been waiting outside, or in the Council, and yet she ached to see him. She closed her eyes and searched for him in her mind, clutching the sheets in her fist as if she could clutch his hand instead. And then she felt someone’s hand closing around her own, loosening her grip. Alicent, smiling down at her, and holding her hand tight.

It was holding her good mother’s hand that, at the first light of dawn, she gave birth to her child. A boy, healthy and all screeching as soon as he was out of her womb, clad in blood and grease.

Aemond had decided to name the child Aenar, if it was a boy, after the first Targaryen Lord, and she couldn’t quite believe her eyes or force her tears back when he was finally admitted to their chambers and took their son in his arms for the first time. 

Alicent was beaming at the sight, squeezing his arm. “Congratulations, my son.”

But Aemond didn’t seem to even register her mother’s words, or presence, utterly enraptured by his little creature. He cast a look at his wife, a secret little look that told her how proud he was of her, how relieving it was for both to have come this far after all that happened, to have this little thing, this little ounce of peace amidst all the chaos of war.

What she didn’t know at that time was that Aenar was not exactly a peaceful child.

She had believed there had finally come the time when she could be herself again. But from the earliest days, Aenar proved not to be an easy child to deal with. The newborn cried and cried for hours, plagued by belly aches, and seemingly able to calm down only when in his mother’s arms. They had obviously called on a wet nurse; highborn ladies did not feed their children themselves, let alone a Princess. But Aenar had categorically refused to latch onto his wet nurse’s breasts. Alicent had proposed to summon another one, but as they dawdled and wavered, the Princess felt her heart break into pieces each time she held her little baby in her arms, all red in the face, hungry and in pain, turning his head towards her cleavage, desperate for her milk. Thus, she had put aside ceremonial court and all of that and chose to feed him herself.

But it was a strenuous task. The Maesters had warned her it would be tiring, sleep depriving, but she really had no choice. She had to do it every three hours, sometimes less, because being latched onto her breast seemed the only thing that would prevent the baby from screaming at the top of his lungs all day long. The nursemaid had recommended fennel and chamomile for belly aches. And, instantly, Aemond had ordered an astounding amount of both to be delivered to the Red Keep’s kitchens.

Queen Alicent taught her to hold the baby on his stomach, to rock him, but not too fast. They told her to take several breaks during breastfeeding, to make the baby belch often and prevent air from his belly. In the first week after Aenar was born, her mind was all but a vessel of do this, do that. No, not this way. Don’t ever wake the baby when he’s sleeping. Try to sleep when he does. Don’t eat spicy dishes.

In the midst of all of this, Aemond turned more and more suffocating in all his well-hidden, self-consuming concern. A handful of white cloaks, the most trusted by Ser Criston, were constantly guarding the door, day and night. He had a secret passageway that led to his rooms walled up, and she could swear he slept with his dagger beneath the pillow. Evidently not at peace with such extreme measures, he had the cradle moved to his side of the bed, within his reach, so that every time she had to wake up because the baby was wailing, she had to walk around the bed and pray that she would not tumble to the floor in the dark.

However, she was at least grateful to have Aemond’s support, for the little he could do. If he wasn’t occupied with warfare or hearings, he spent all the time he had with her and their child. And in those moments, no matter how exhausted she was, she would always find the strength to smile at the view when he held their baby, tracing his long fingers over the velvety grizzled skin of Aenar’s small hands; even when he’d speak to him in Valyrian, at which she had frowned at first.

“You do realise he’s one week old?”

“”Tis never too soon.”

“Mh. What’s next? Bring him to the skies on dragonback?”

“I’ll have you know Vhagar is perfectly safe to—“

“Over my dead body.” 

He had smiled and stood up, going to place the baby in her arms. Aenar immediately began to fuss, whining and turning his head against her chest. She had started to unbutton her chemise but then stopped, looking up, where Aemond stood still like a sentry, and watching.

She raised an eyebrow. “Am I putting up a show?”

“Usually, you do.” He drawled. “Am I not allowed to watch? It seems my son and I already share a few interests.”

She looked away, smiling, and then she freed her left breast, watching as the baby immediately latched onto it. A moment later, Aemond took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. He stared at her, and she saw that familiar glint his eye.

He trailed his thumb over her lip, barely breaching inside. “Soon?” was all he asked.

“Soon.” Was all she answered.

The soreness and the bleeding were reducing, and she was back in her tight flesh.

But the Gods must have cursed them some more, because that “soon” never seemed to become “now”.

The sickness didn’t seem willing to leave the poor child alone, along with his parents and the entirety of the Red Keep who had to suffer through his heartbreaking cries day and night.

The Princess had started to feel hopeless and guilty, no matter how many times the nursemaids, and even Queen Alicent, told her it was not her fault, that it was natural. No matter how many times she tried to convince herself they were right. Her heart broke any time the baby cried, wriggling desperately in her arms, in Aemond’s, in the cradle. She would end up crying too as she tried to soothe him, caressing his back with her cheek resting on his timidly silver-haired head.

She was working herself up to exhaustion, often falling asleep with the baby still latched onto her breast. It was Aemond who would take the baby to the cradle, it was Aemond who would button her chemise and pull up the blankets.

She hit rock bottom two weeks after Aenar’s birth, when she realised she hadn’t bathed in four days. Even Aemond, she could swear, was starting to look a little ragged around the edges. You don’t want to be King and take decisions in the middle of a war only to come back to a screaming infant at night.

But then, like a curse lifting, the sickness stopped. Amidst all those days she had stopped counting or even being aware of which was which, Aenar stopped crying. She was ashamed to admit that the first night he slept peacefully in his cradle, she had gone to check on him five times, to see if he was still breathing. 

She began to gradually return to her former self, able to enjoy motherhood with a more rested mind, at least. Physically, she still felt worn out, given how much time she spent breastfeeding or rocking the baby to sleep. But now she was strong enough to take the baby out, walking the gardens with her maids and smiling proudly as the court ladies stopped to congratulate themselves and say how beautiful her baby was.

By doing this, though, she also became aware that she had lived in a bubble for so long that she had almost forgotten there was a war raging, there were battles being fought across the realm.

Reality hits her one day when Alicent goes to visit her and her grandson, bringing the news of a very important victory near the Honeywine, a large river flowing in the Reach, thanks to Prince Daeron Targaryen who had arrived all victorious on that very morning, riding his blue scaled dragon, Tessarion.

The news stuns her for a moment. She had no idea of it, partly because she had been too caught up with Aenar, but also because Aemond had not told her. Yet her family came from the Reach, they lived there, not very far from the Honeywine; her older brother fought for the Green Army. Still, not a word from Aemond.

Taking advantage of Aenar sleeping and the fact that Alicent offered to watch him, she leaves her chambers and heads for the Council. There’s a bustle of lords coming out of the door when she gets there, barely paying her any attention as they hastily babble about armies and supplies and men; always more men to be sent to slaughter.

She stops at the door, widening her eyes at the silver head crossing the threshold, one she hadn’t seen in a long time. “Prince Daeron.”

The youngest son of Queen Alicent and late King Viserys was nothing but a boy. But war had taken its toll on him too. He stood like a man, a Prince, and more than anything, a skilled dragon rider.

“Princess.” He says, tilting his chin down.

She curtsies and sees an immediate gentle smile softening his Valyrian features. “I believe some congratulations are in order.”

“Well, in all fairness, you shall be the most celebrated, my Prince. I’ve just heard of your recent victory.”

His gentle smile lingers, but loses its sparkle. “I must say I much prefer to celebrate life…rather than…the death of innocent men and women.”

There can’t be objections to such a statement; she just nods and casts a distracted glance inside the Council.

“Please…” the Prince says then, making room to let her pass “I won’t keep you away from my brother.”

She turns her head and smiles, tightly. “I’m afraid it is your brother who keeps himself away from me.”

“Heavy is the head that wears the Crown.”

“Indeed.”

The Prince bows to her and leaves.

Closing the door behind her, she glances at Aemond sitting at the head of the table, in the King’s chair, with such effortlessness that he seems to have been born exclusively for that purpose.

“I thought I heard you.” he says absent-mindedly, scribbling down a small piece of parchment. She slowly walks to the windows, casting a single furtive glance down, but she can’t possibly make out what he’s writing, or to whom.

“How’s—"

“Aenar is fine.” She cuts him off. “He’s with your mother, sleeping.”

He stops scribbling, glancing up for a moment. Her voice is tight, cutting. He knows that tone. It’s the same one she used in Harrenhal, as if he should have fallen to his knees and be grateful for the mere fact that she was speaking to him. But he doesn’t have time today to circle around her like a coiling snake, so he goes straight to the point. “Is something the matter?”

“You didn’t tell me of the Honeywine.” She says after a moment, gazing at the Bay.

Aemond sighes, a sign that he was expecting such a question. “You were looking after our son.”

“And?” she’s quick to rebut, quick to reach him at the table and stare down at him. “You didn’t deem it appropriate to inform me of a battle raging in my family lands?”

“I am your family.” He says, stoically, as if common law, and she has to stifle a bitter laugh. The nerve of him. “That is a very lovely concept. Strange how it got lost on you in Harrenhal.”

“Enough!” he barks, and the sudden harshness makes the quill pierce through parchment. “I thought I’d made myself clear.” He warns. “I don’t want to hear another word about the witch. Ever.”

She obediently looks down, regretting having said that, but not entirely. Perhaps she has spent so much time beside him that she, too, can’t let go of her grudges.

“I did not tell you, for I did not want to upset you.” He says, resuming his collected tone. “You were worn out by the baby, I didn’t want to put more weight on your shoulders.”

She knows he’s sincere. Still, her nod is stiff as she looks away, biting her cheek. She is just so sick of it all. Of being regarded as a cunt to be bred at first and now a weakling nailed to a cradle with an infant sucking the life out of her. She knows she’s not the first, and she won’t be the last.

Aemond leaves the quill and stands up, circling until he’s close to her. “Your family is fine.” He tells her, lingering behind her. “Daeron spoke to your brother this morning.”

She keeps nodding, keeping her gaze down on the table, all scattered with maps and little dragon-shaped tokens, some black, some green. She frowns, letting warfare soothe her petty spirits. “What is this?”

“Our next move. A defense plan…which happens to be an attack plan too.”

“A pincher?”

She turns just in time to see the little surprise on his face. “My brother talked of nothing else when we were children. He slept with warfare books as pillows.”

“Hmm.” He muses, and takes a step closer, slipping his arm around her waist and resting his chin on her collarbone. “Show me.”

She shudders at his sudden proximity, at his breath blowing on her neck. She shudders at anything these days. A hand on her back, his legs fumbling beneath the covers and casually brushing against hers. She’s tight as a fiddle string.

“A pincher is nothing else but a decoy.” She explains. “You let your enemy believe they have you trapped…” and in saying this, she grabs his hand and moves it across the map. “And then…at the right moment…” she makes him hold a green token between his fingers and brings it near a little division of black ones “you strike on both flanks.” And with a swift flick of her wrist, his hand scatters all the black tokens across the table. To do so, she must lean over the table, accidentally brushing her lower back against his bulge. He’s not hard, yet, but it thrills her to feel the lightning quick effect she has on him.

“Hmm. Good. Very good.” He praises next to her ear as she withdraws her hand; his voice is so low it makes her spine shiver. But she keeps herself grounded and asks “When will this happen?”

“Soon.” he whispers, placing his hand flat on her stomach. “There’s another Small Council shortly but Aegon wanted to be present. They went to fetch him.”

“Well, then I shall retire to my chambers. I feel a bit lightheaded from all the thinking.”

He ignores her jab and keeps her still by the arm when she tries to move. There’s a little sly smirk pulling at his lips. “I have some time to spare.”

“And how do you propose we spend it?”

“Enough with your pantomimes. I can feel your legs squirming.”

Curse him.

He slips the other hand straight into her corset, cupping her breast and humming with delight at how full she is, how it fills his large hand entirely. “Are you wet for me, my love?”

His teeth sink down her lobe, and at the same time, he pinches her nipple between his thumb and index, forcing an indecorous whine out of her. “My, my…” he laughs darkly, torturing her sensitive skin until he feels something wet on his fingertips, probably milk. “I could make you come just by doing this.”

Powerless, she yields, leaning completely against him, rubbing her lower back for some friction. “What if someone enters?”

“We’ll make it quick.”

“But I don’t want it to be quick.” She pants, grabbing his hand on her breast and squeezing; the other crawls behind her back to try to feel him through his breeches. 

Hissing, when she starts to palm him, he says “Then we let them watch. They get to see how pretty you look when you come on my fingers, or my cock. Which should it be?”

“Both. Anything.” She answers hastily, pulling at his collar to bring him close enough to kiss him. He hums contentedly when she does, twirling his tongue around hers. It soon gets messy, each of them fighting for dominance, winning and losing in turn, until he spins her around, so he can look at her and with both his hands, he seizes her gowns and pulls up, furiously rummaging through them.

“How many fucking layers have you on?”

“I’m not pregnant anymore.” she points out, unbuckling his belt.

“Pity. Perhaps I should fuck another one into you to keep you in your skimpy robes.”

“Don’t you dare, Aemond—” 

“Gods be good, brother! That eager to make another one?”

They both startle like little children caught doing something naughty, turning their heads towards the door, where two servants are carrying King Aegon on a chair. Aemond sighs annoyingly, letting go of her gowns as she does with his belt, trying to compose herself.

“My King.” She says, greeting her good brother with a tight little smile.

Aegon’s appearance has improved since Rook’s Rest, just as the burnings, but he carries with him the smell of Milk of the Poppy and rotting skin everywhere he goes. 

“Good-sister. What are you doing here? Apart from being ravished by my brother... should you not be breastfeeding?”

Aemond gives him a level stare and then looks at her, hoping she will not take the bait. Aegon and his wife never got along well, to say the least. Things had only escalated with time, to the point that whenever they found themselves in the same room, one of them would wisely leave, his wife most of the times, lest they start to hiss at each other like two cats fighting for territory.

“What if I intend to stay and attend the council?”

Aegon giggles, as the servants put down the chair, and after a quick glance below her neck he says “I’m afraid you would be a little distracting. And my brother is not one for sharing.”

Before she can ask what in the Seven he is blabbing about, Aemond takes her arm and makes her turn, shielding her from his brother and the Lords coming through the door.

“You should retire.” He curtly says.

“Are you taking his side again?” she asks, wriggling her arm to free herself from his hold.

“You’re leaking.” He informs her, flatly. 

At that, she frowns and dips her chin down, watching the front of her dress practically soaked in milk. “Oh.”

“I shall join you when I’m done here.” He tells her, and lets her out through the side doors.

Aemond did not join her.

The council lasted until the evening, a recurring thing when Aegon attended. Aemond was stern and concise in his decisions. Aegon liked to laze around, enjoying the wine in his cup, rattling his younger brother’s nerves. Deep down, she was convinced that Aegon did not really want to attend the Council because really interested in what to do, but only to remind his brother that he was still breathing and that the Conqueror's Crown on Aemond's head was a temporary measure.

But it didn’t matter. She would join him for the banquet in honor of Prince Daeron.

She was thrilled to go. It was not a proper feast. Since Helaena had fallen into grief, the atmosphere within the walls of the Keep had become rather austere. But a banquet still meant an occasion for conviviality, and after weeks and weeks spent locked up within four walls, the Princess was eager to spend some time outside her chambers. She had felt like a terrible mother at the mere thought. She loved Aenar, how could she not? But she also loved herself, her family, her marriage, Aemond. Especially Aemond.

Once she had put the baby to sleep, she had ordered her maid to prepare one of her favorite dresses, a green one, and to tie her hair in an elegant braided bun. When she had looked in the mirror, she had almost grunted. The scarce and troubled hours of sleep were all evident in the dark circles under her eyes, but it was nothing a little egg-white couldn't temper.

When she arrived at the banquet, Aemond was already there, standing in his usual soldierly stance, intent on talking to his mother. She approached them from the side, Aemond's blind side precisely, so that when she announced herself, he had to turn his shoulder to look at her. He cast a glance at her hair, ran his eye over her entire figure. She wasn’t expecting any kind of sappy words, and certainly not in front of his mother, nor did she desire them. She could feast on that look alone.

Queen Alicent excused herself to give order about the banquet, and they were left alone, while some musicians gathered in a corner of the hall.

“You said you would join me. I thought they abducted you.”

“More or less.”

“Ah. Yes, I'm sure it must have been so hard for you to listen to the lords snapping like little soldiers at your command.”

“It pains me to acknowledge how little you know me, when you think I'd rather talk war with those wimps who can't even hold a sword than fuck my wife till dawn.”

“That was your plan?”

“We have some unfinished business, don’t we? And don’t play dumb. You’re wearing green. You’re not as subtle as you think you are either.”

“Good. I’m sick of subtleties. So, are you going to ask me to dance?”

Aemond rolled his eye and gave her a stare that told her he’d preferred to walk barefoot on lava.

“Still not fond of dancing, eh?”

Prince Daeron suddenly appeared between them, with his cheerful manner and his head of silver curls, dressed in dark green just like his older brother. “Strange. You were the only one listening to the lessons when we were children.”

“Yes, because you and Aegon acted as court jesters the whole time.”

“I’ll have you know, brother, I have refined my dancing skills in Oldtown. So…may I dance with my good sister?”

Aemond gave him a simple nod, and Daeron bowed to her gallantly, raising his palm up.

She kindly accepted the invitation and placed her hand on his. “Don’t sulk too much.” She whispered to her husband before following his brother.

Aemond watched closely as they started to dance, stealing all the attention, and despite that little primitive tug at the sight of his woman dancing with another man, even though that was his brother and there was absolutely nothing malicious in his or her intentions, he was glad to see her like this, spinning and twisting around instead of lying still in the cold with dread eating her alive.

When the dance ended, Daeron escorted the Princess back to Aemond and took his leave. “Remind me again,” she asked as she watched the young Prince leave “How is it that your brother is still unmarried?”

Aemond sighed deeply and took her arm to escort her to the table. “I’d give you one week before you’d get bored of him.”

While they waited for dinner, the lords and ladies of the court were obviously very eager to hear Prince Daeron. Alicent in the first place, after so much despair, and after being separated from her youngest son for years, seemed to smile with her eyes every time she heard him speak.

“Hear, hear!” one of the lords cheered after listening to Prince Daeron’s retelling of the Battle of the Honeywine. “A brave soldier and a brave dragon rider! I propose a toast.”

At once, everybody stood up, raising their glasses. “To Prince Daeron, to House Targaryen!”

“And to House Hightower.” The Prince proudly stated, raising his glass towards his mother.

As they sat back, the Queen ordered the servants to serve the dinner. The table was gradually filled with a great variety of dishes, many of them Prince Daeron's favourites, specifically ordered by his mother to make him feel at home. It had been weeks and weeks since such a banquet had been seen at King's Landing. Prince Daeron seemed very pleased and grateful, as did all those present who watched the rich dishes crowd the table, and lastly, the huge tray of fresh fruit that a servant laid in the middle.

“I can’t quite believe my eyes. Blackberries? This far in the season?” said Lady Bracken.

“I’m afraid that is entirely my fault.” The Princess chirped, catching Aemond’s attention from across the table.

“I had a sudden craving, while I was carrying Aenar.”

“I had one too with my first.” Lady Redwyne joined in. “Plums, specifically.”

“Did you find them agreeable, Princess?”

“Oh, very much indeed.” She stated, casting an innocent glance around, but lingering for just a moment longer on her husband. “I devoured so many…I still feel the taste on my tongue.”

Devious woman, he thought, fighting back his cursed smirk. He had half a mind to excuse themselves and retire to their chambers, if he managed to endure it all the way and not take her in the middle of a hallway.

She seemed able to read his mind, judging by the way she was looking at him, unfurling a napkin on her lap. He knew her well enough to foresee when she was in a teasing spirit, and he was all in for it.

But then, just when they were about to start eating, her trusted maid came in, going straight to the Princess. “Apologies your Grace.” she said to her ear “but the Princeling is awake.”

Aemond saw the concern instantly widening her eyes and then a shadow passing over her face. “Yes…” she said, and stood up talking to all the present. “My apologies. I must retire.”

“See?” said Lady Bracken as Aemond watched his wife leave the hall. “This is why I refused to breastfeed. No matter how my second would scream…”

By the time she had done breastfeeding, her chest hurt so much that the maid had to place some rags soaked in cold water directly on her nipples; the instant relief had made the Princess close her eyes and almost moan. She had planned to go back to the banquet as soon as Aenar had had his fill but as she gained relief by pressing those wet rags to her breasts, she realised her son wouldn’t let her get away that easily.

As soon as the maid had taken him, trying to put him to sleep, he had begun to fuss and wriggle, whining in what she knew would soon turn into a high-pitched, deaf inducing crying.

Perhaps he’s cursed too. She had thought exhaustingly, promptly kissing his silver little head.

She gave up on her plan to go back to the banquet and rocked the baby herself, pacing before the windows while whispering sweet soothing words.

As soon as he had dozed off, she put him in his crib and absent-mindedly grabbed a book from Aemond's desk, lazily leafing through it while rocking the cradle with the other hand.

Aemond finds her like this when he opens the door on his way back from the banquet. She looks up from the page and sees him striding purposefully towards her, snatching the little book in her hands and throwing it on the bed.

She’s shocked, to say the least. One might say he treats books far better than his subjects.

“What—“ she tries to say but he takes her hand and pulls, forcing her to stand up and follow his steady gait.

“Aemond?” she asks down the corridor, a girlish grin climbing on her lips. “Where are you taking me?”

He doesn’t bother to answer but she doesn’t have to wait long to find out. They stop before a door down the corridor opposite to their chambers, Aemond pushes her inside without so much grace and shuts the door behind them. 

She looks around briefly; the room is warm, the fire in the hearth is lit, as the candles scattered all around. This is all familiar. “These are my old chambers…” she says with a little frown, turning to him.

“Quite the observer, wife.” He drawls, and takes a few steps. His stride is different now. Slow, contemplating, as his gaze raking over her, as if he in the first place doesn’t know why he brought her here and he’s assessing what to do. A war map, and he knows where all the faults lie.

“I thought we could spend some time together” he starts, walking past her to go sit near the fire “Alone.” he adds once he leisurely sits down, crossing his long legs and resting his hands on the armrests. “What better place than a vacant room? No one will come looking for us here.”

She tries as hard as she can to stop the little smirk at the corner of her lips; she walks closer, stopping right in front of him, staring down. “They might hear.” 

“Hmm. And that is much of a trouble for you, isn’t it?” he asks with the most fake genuine tone, taking a cup from the nearby table, and then “You sucked my cock on a terrace and begged me to fuck you in the Small Council…I thought I told you to quit your act.”

She smiles openly now, watching the wine pouring in the cup, his eye fixed on the liquid as his eyebrow shots up. “Besides, I know exactly what to do to muffle your noises.”

“You should be proud of my noises.”

“I am.” He says, taking a sip of wine, his eye piercing through her above the cup’s brim. “But for once, Aegon is right. I’m not one for sharing.”

His arm moves to put the wine aside but she takes it, only to feel his hand pulling the cup away from her. “You cannot drink.”

“Fine.” She concedes, leaning on him. “I’ll have it my way.”

She holds his face and with her left hand she glides her fingers on the left side of his face, delicately but with purpose, pushing the eyepatch off. And then she kisses him, eagerly, licking his lips and then breaching inside to taste the wine on his tongue, on the roof of his mouth.

She sighs deeply when he locks his tongue with hers, and feels his lips curling.

“Did you hear it?” He says breaking the kiss, breathing into her mouth. “That one is my favorite.”

“Your favorite what?” She asks mindlessly, chasing his lips but to no use, because he tilts his head back, his cursed smirk ghosting.

“Noise. It’s a little thing…” he tells her, locking one hand around her neck “in the back of your throat, close to a sigh but not quite…” his fingers trails against her throat, chasing her swallowing “It tells me you’re dying to.”

“To do what?”

“Fall on your knees for me. Be a supplicant.”

She grabs the back of his neck, driving his head close and looks down at his arched mouth “You cannot live without God, can you?” She looks up, her mouth open to breathe “Seven of them seem to have cursed me. I had to find my own.”

His eye widens at that. He looks straight into her eyes, so devoted, so raw. She’s right. The Gods would curse her some more if they saw she looks at him the way she should look at the Gods.

“Then do it.”

“What?”

“Flatteries don’t work on me, sweetling. You should know that.” With his hand on her neck, he slightly pushes her away, making some distance between them. “You will have to show me.”

“What would you have me do?”

His hands let go of her completely, resting on the armchair. The gemstone glints blue, and yet it’s nowhere near the bright cursed thing in his eye. “Get on your knees for me. Now.”

She should be ashamed of the pull in her bones, the muscles willing to move on their own accord and fall to the ground. But why, why does it have to be sin? Why can it not be religion?

When her knees hit the ground, she sees his chest rise, his long fingers spreading flat on the armchair. But her eyes fly back to his face as soon as he speaks, as soon as he commands. “Take off your dress.”

His eye sinks down, watching her hands work the corset, steadily. It’s the only sound in the room, this tugging, at the dress. But she tugs at his cock too. She tugs between her own legs.

When the dress is nothing but a pool of green on the ground, she goes to pull down her white chemise, but she suddenly stops. Aemond uncrosses his legs and the air hitches in her throat as his hands go straight to his belt, unbuckling it.

He revels in the little lump in her throat. Perhaps later he will let her have what she’s craving, but not so soon. “Give me your wrists.”

“My—”

“Don’t make me say it again.”

Swallowing, she keeps her eyes on him and raises her hands, like an offering. Aemond takes off his belt and leans forward, enough to take her hands and cross her wrists. She shudders at the sharp tug when he wraps the leather around, tying them tight.

“On your feet.”

And up she goes, testing her hands briefly but finding soon that she cannot move them, at all.

“Come.”

It takes one swift movement of his leg, bending the knee while the other rests loosely on the ground, for her to get the gist and walk closer, sitting on his knee, sideways.

“No. Like this.” Quite harshly, he grabs her hips and turns her so that she’s straddling his thigh. He can hear her little gasp when he pushes his thigh firmly against her core. He can feel her warmth through the fabric, stirring his cock. But he pays it no mind, for now.

“What now?” She asks, poised precariously on his thigh. 

Aemond tilts his head, and he just looks at her. In the spur of a moment, a boyish one that doesn’t sit well with how he’s built, he thinks he might be quite contented by merely looking at her. Because she’s beautiful and mine, mine, mine.

But his hands are burning, they might fray and wither if he doesn’t touch her. He unties her hair, running his fingers through them as they fall around her shoulders. The Maiden. The Mother. And yet something better, something worse. Because her eyes are hungry, her mouth is starving for air, for his flesh.

“You must toil to find God.” He says, and then he grins. A savage thing, full of promise. “Bring yourself to come.”

A flash of thrill lights up her face, darkens her eyes and Aemond tilts his head again, biding all the time in the world, for he knows she will.

Tentatively, she pushes her body down, against his thigh, feeling a timid shot of pleasure traveling up from her core, ending in a short, labored breath.

That noise, that might be his second favorite.

Soon, her hips start to move back and forth, each time trying to push herself down as hard as she can, making little breathless cries each time she fails to give herself the friction she needs. She has little balance due to her tied wrists, so she rests her palms on his chest to gain some leverage. And that seems to do the trick.

She tilts her head back, moving faster, doing little jumps on his thigh, panting harshly as sweat lumps on her forehead and pleasure coils in her belly.

Aemond hikes up her chemise, watches her cunt brushing back and forth against his leg, leaving a trail of wetness on the fabric of his breeches. He has to choke down a growl. “Gods, you’re soaking me…”

She looks down at him, her cheeks pink, her lips open in a little o. He can’t help himself. He sticks two fingers inside and how relishing it is that she waits for no invitation or order. She laps, twirls her tongue around his fingertips, sucks them.

“Look at you…” he croons, taking his fingers out, leaving a trail of saliva down her chin. “But you can’t, can you? Perhaps I should fuck you before a mirror, so you see. You see how pretty you are when you’re desperate for me.”

His hand travels down her neck, tossing her hair back and then grasping the strap of her chemise, pulling it down, revealing her swollen, turgid breast. He leans forward immediately, cupping it in his hand, and takes the nipple into his mouth, crooning contentedly and then some more when he feels her wince and cry out loud.

Her tied wrists writhe in their merciless hold and he stops her, gripping both her hands with one of his own, keeping her still, lapping and sucking at her nipple until he feels something wet and saccharine on his tongue, humming all the better. He grazes his teeth over the sensitive bud, and she cries out again, bucking violently against him, turning sloppy and frenzy as she feels the fall close.

He feels it too, feels her thighs trembling around him, and that’s when he takes her hips in a tight hold and forces her to stop altogether.

“Did you think I would make it so easy?” he asks spitefully, seeing her dazed expression. Wasting no time, he holds her firmly close to him and stands up. It takes him only two of his long steps to reach the bed and place her above. In a moment of illusive freedom, her tied wrists fly to his breeches, to his evident hardness, but he’s quick to stop her, bringing her arms above her head, keeping them there with a firm hold. “Stay still.”

“Aemond—“ she pleads.

“Hush. Spread your legs.”

She obliges, eager for him to do something, anything to stop the aching. Aemond wets his fingers on his tongue and brings them down, breaching inside her with two of them, watching her gasp, arch her back and twist her wrists in his hold, uselessly. “Easy…” he cruelly laughs “I have just started.”

But she hasn’t. She’s a few steps away from the precipice of her previous denied peak, it would take him so little to push her over the edge. Instead, his torture is so slow that the whole coiling in her belly falls apart and she must climb her peak again.

His two fingers slip in and out ever so easily, their wet sounds echoing through the room, mixed with her panted breaths and his own. He aches for her to touch him, he aches so much that his cock is pulsing, painfully, but this is just too thrilling. Now he knows exactly how she felt in Harrenhal, when she had him chained up to a chaise.

Her hips rock frantically against his hand, trying to speed him, to get there faster. Mumbling nonsense, her legs tense like iron, her cunt clenches and sucks his fingers in like a vice. “Yes…yes, please…Aemond…please don’t stop—‘m so close…”

And just like that, he slips his fingers out; a dark pleasure dances on his candle-lit features as she writhes and whines for the loss of his fingers, swinging her lower back and forth, desperate for the barest friction that would end her misery.

“Aemond, please…” she says, and even with only one eye, he can’t mistake the tears of frustration at the corners of her eyes.

“What, my love?”

“Plea—” she’s cut off by his hand, pushing his sticky fingers inside to make her clean up her mess.

“We said enough with subtleties, did we not? Speak. Tell me…what you need me to do?”

“Let me come please…please…”

At that, he finally lets her wrists go, and she almost winces in pain, for the time she had them tensed above her head. He stalls for a moment, unsure, running his eye over her whole body, sweating and feverish, and so beautifully plump because of motherhood. He unbuttons his doublet, and then his shirt, his breeches. He bares himself completely, catching her eyes following his deft hands everywhere, breathing heavily.

He kneels between her legs, spreading them. And it’s embarrassing, really, the way she tumbles as soon as he puts his tongue flat against her drenched folds. If only she cared.

It takes only a couple of twirls of his tongue around her lips, and she comes undone, shaking all over, canting her slit against his face. He helps her ride out her climax, by not stopping at all. Instead, he doubles his efforts like a man possessed, pushing his mouth open against her cunt as if he wished to devour it, sucking harshly until she whimpers hard, choking on a loud sob. “Aemond—wait—I can’t—”

She cannot take more so soon. But he’s utterly deaf to her complaints.

He feasts on her, lapping and dipping his tongue in, parting her folds to go as deep as he can, humming while drinking all of her; his voice reverberates through her flesh, it makes her bones rattle.

His long nose rubs against her bud and he looks up: she trashes about the sheets, cutting herself as the belt leather scratches her skin. She tries to push him away with her tied wrists, to no use. She clamps her legs around his head, in a desperate attempt to chase him away, sobbing for the unbearable stimulation. And yet…and yet her hips move on their own whim, bucking with sharp jolts until the wave starts to rise, higher and higher, and she drowns in it, letting go a high-pitched cry, clutching his scalp with both her tied hands, scraping, pushing him against her as she rides her peak against his face.  

He swallows everything, licking her clean, moaning softly at feeling her pulsing on his tongue.

“Enough…I—Aemond you have to stop…” she rasps breathlessly.  

“Why?” he asks, finally rising from where he had perched himself; he climbs on her, until he speaks to her face. “I am only making up to you. Wasn’t that what you wanted?”

She can smell herself on him, she can see herself, glistening on his mouth, chin, even his cheekbones.

“Answer me.” His hand grips her jaw “You said you wanted everything.”

She chokes down a whimper when he leans completely on her, feeling his cock against her cooling flesh, while he’s hot and hard and heavy.

“I will give you more.” He says, brushing a strand of her sweat-soaked hair from her temple. “I will give you another child. Keep you all aching and wet for me while you swell with my child. Do you think I don’t know? How you ached for me? D’you think I didn’t?” he presses himself down, so she can feel it thoroughly, furrowing her brow as her body already answers to his call.

 “I can feel you in our bed…” he keeps rasping “rubbing your legs together. And you know how much that bothers me. Your pleasure is mine to take…and to give.”

Her lips part, gasping roughly. She was so hung on his lips that she hadn’t even registered that he had taken hold of himself, bending her knee on his left hip, and guided himself in.

She arches against him while he slowly sheathes himself all the way in, moaning with long-awaited relief. He stays still for a moment, adjusting, but also because he takes her wrists and sets her hands free.

Thrilling as it was, he wants her hands on him, he craves her touch.

He wants her to cling to his shoulders as she always does, digging her nails down.

He wants her to clamp her fingers on the back of his neck, scraping and pulling his hair to keep him close enough to moan into his mouth.

He wants her hands on his back, sliding down, to push him even deeper while rutting inside her.

And she does all of that. She finds God.

[marsprincess889]

How women influenced by different planets act in one-on-one relationships

Platonic, familial and/or romantic. Based on my own observations and traditional associations💕 planetary influence is present when a native has one or more nakshatras ruled by that planet in their big three(moon, ascendant, sun). If that or any other planet is conjunct sun, moon or ascendant in the chart, then it also adds its influence, but to a much lesser degree. I'd advise to read for your moon, but as always, use discernment and and do not take this information at face value.

Sun women

Krittika, Uttara Phalguni, Uttara Ashadha

The women ruled by the Sun are often seen as confident, self-possesed, bright, expressive and measured.

The Sun is well-known to be a masculine planet, that does not make sun-ruled women any less worthy in their femininity.

Sun women might be surrounded by a lot of male energy in younger years. It could have been positive or negative but all in all, they're familiar and quite comfortable with it. I don't mean they were plagued by admirers, I moreso mean they had a father figure, uncles, brothers/male cousins(usually older), male friends around them. I might be wrong but I've seen this so much in real life and in art. If that's not the case, then they can fit in and hold their own in a group of men. It's true that they're not phased by trying to be more masculine themselves(like jupiter women do sometimes) or to completely lean into traditional femininity(like moon women). They usually get love and support from men that have doubted them at first.

That leaves sun girls with an abundance of masculine energy absorbed in themselves. In one-on-one relationships they enjoy a level of independence but they value loyalty immensely. They build relationships on certain rules that come from their personal values. They look for a partner in crime and an understanding confidante more than anything else.

That's why saturn-ruled people are best for them, along with other sun-ruled individuals. Ruled by the planet of dedication and longevity, Saturn dominants understand their detachment and fixed nature, and provide the cold, hard structure for their self-expression.

Their energy is not for abuse though. They are more vulnerable and sensitive than most realize. As they are women influenced by a very masculine planet, they might feel like they're giving too much sometimes, like they're being taken for granted. As Saturn is the planet that never takes anything for granted and works for its rewards, it is not going to discard Sun's warm and "life-giving" nature. Moreover, it is going to appreciate it, respect it and try to keep up with it as best as it can. Saturn's cool and careful nature is soothing to Sun women, making them feel safe to lean into their individuality with more confidence while prividing the essential balance for a full existence.

Moon women

Rohini, Hasta, Shravana

Moon women have a simplicity about them. Traditionally a feminine planet, moon is considered to be a soft, smooth and nurturing influence.

Moon women are easy to recognize. Moon is probably the most dependant planet. They are passive in their demeanor and easily absorb influence. They often have a group of people around them, if not a group, then at least or not two, just because. That can be explained by moon's receptive but also giving nature, that gives back the smoothed, mixed essence of what it has recieved that is easily digestible. But they don't have that energy within them. They can be very accomodating while not initiating anything at all. If they do initiate, it's something similar to what the other person has initiated.

So moon thrives on dependancy. They might enjoy groups, because that way their passivity and receptivity is not held against them, and they might feel like they contribute more that way. In one-on-one relationships, they are very easy and simple, but might become stressed and on edge. Moon rules masses and the subconcious, so they need an energetically abundant planet that does not mind being drained.

Moon is, in its essence, is vampiric, so they like Sun people. They might be quite comfortable around Jupiter people, and sometimes, with Venus people(the Shravana- Purva Ashadha pairing works particularly well).

Mercury women

Ashlesha, Jyeshta, Revati

Mercury is the planet of integration and manipulation, and women ruled by it are often multi-faceted, containing the potential for adapting and the willingness to to often do so.

Mercury can be described as the "hermaphrodite" sometimes, especially Revati nakshatra. Due to this highly analytical and adaptible nature, mercury women have the ability to morph themselves into different roles, depending on who they are interacting with. Their feminine energy is based on receiving and then skillfully using whatever is given to it. Mercury is the planet that is quite different in all three of its nakshatra stages. Ashlesha, Jyeshta and Revati all have different feminine qualities, due to the three stages that they wrap up being different from each other. Venus nakshatras are different from each other too, but to a lesser degree. What all mercury nakshatras do have in common is sensitivity and skill. They change and adapt to various envirmonments, and their resourcefulness is seemingly limitless.

In one-on-one relationships they need people who can handle that "manipulative" and "nervous" nature. All yoni consorts of mercury nakshatras(Punarvasu, Anuradha, Bharani) have a theme of passivity, they all want and need that "manipulative" energy. Similarly, Mercury women themselves can thrive with people who are energetically stable/abundant but want to move and adapt. Since Mercury women have a need for stimulation and variety, they maintain relationships with people who they don't find boring AND can provide loyalty. There is no single planetary energy that is generally compatible with Mercury people, but Venus and Mercury are traditionally friends, and Venus also heals Mercury. The best example of this is Revati and Bharani(elephant yonis), but other combinations can be compatible too(except Ashlesha and Purva Phalguni, due to them being enemy yonis).

Venus women

Bharani, Purva Phalguni, Purva Ashadha

Venus_ the planet of beauty, sensuality and love is a well-known feminine force that is almost synonymous with the word.

Venus women are, before anything, choosy and exclusive. Their taste is very specific and particular, and whatever is "theirs", is theirs completely. Despite the outward serenity and composure, their internal nature is very fierce and even ruthless. That discriminating nature extends to everything in their life, where they have to be clear about the dividing lines of everything that they deem worthy, and everything else that they don't. There is also an inner drive to attain what they want/need/desire/love.

Their views on one-on-one relationships are unique, and they have very high standards, along with an attentive and giving nature. A lot of those relationships might have left them dissapointed. They seek a balanced give and take in any 1-1 bond. They might even blame themselves for not choosing correctly, since they're already very careful. They mainly want loyalty and support. As always, those relationships have to fulfill their personal desires. Someone considerate, attentive, and skilled is best for them.

There is no single planet type that will fulfill all three Venus nakshatras and most of their natives, but generally, Mercury people have what it takes to impress and keep them. They share a discriminating nature, but while Venus women are energetically abundant, loving and often passive(on 1-1), Mercury is actively "manipulative" and morphing into whatever Venus desires. The best version of this is Bharani and Revati(elephant yonis). Purva Phalguni feels best with Magha(rat yonis) and most likely will not get along with Mercurial Ashlesha(enemy cat yoni). Purva Ashadha is best with Shravana(vanar yonis). All Venusian lunar mansions are best with their uniquely preffered nakshatras. Besides them, they might form friendships with Ketu, Sun, Jupiter or Saturn nakshatras (with the exlusion of Purva Ashadha- Krittika/Pushya, Bharani-P.Bhadrapada and Purva Phalguni-Punarvasu pairs).

Mars women

Mrigashira, Chitra, Dhanishta

Mars_ the warrior planet that grants protection has been a symbol of masculinity since ancient times. That coorelation, although undeniable, does not exactly encompass the whole essence of that force, especially while considering women influenced by it.

Mars rules the energetic output_ how we spend our energy and life force. In many ways, Mars women, being the passive/feminine vessels for that triggering energy, are expressive and engaging. But unlike Mercury, that expression is geared towards the physical body. Unlike Venus, they do not have any inner discriminatory preferences that might make them that choosy. Their expression is very outward and shown on the surface, so while they can be confrontational or agitating with how they behave, they do it for protection, because that it their only mechanism of doing so.

Their heated but inwardly quite gentle nature can make them susceptible to unnecessary drainage. That's why they're another planet type that needs a giving person in 1-1 relationships. With them, that person has to not only give, but have a true consideration of their sensitivity.

Jupiter people are famously best for these women. Jupiter natives can give their excess energy to them and ensure that their vulnerabilities are not abused. The two latter Mars nakshatras both have Jupiter nakshatras as yoni consorts and Mrigashira's yoni consort is Rohini_ a fixed but soft-natured nakshatra.

Jupiter women

Punarvasu, Vishakha, Purva Bhadrapada

Women ruled by the great benefic, the planet of greatness, plenty and godhood can be big personalities. Jupiter has seemingly infinite energy that wants to give without end, and often, they do.

Jupiter women have a very enthusiastic, almost aggressive niceness about them. They might have been surrounded and influenced by male energy since their early life like Sun women, but their true feminine power comes from being open while giving and receiving, especially when around individuals who they think need their "help" the most.

Jupiter women are the one planet type that feel the best in groups, even moreso than lunar women, and unlike them, since Jupiter wants to give to all, they might feel very uncomfortable in 1-1 relationships. That being said, they're not exactly opposed to the idea of it.

They will feel best with heated and draining planets, especially Mars. Mars can take Jupiter's abundant energy and use it to build and protect. They're famously a good pair, but other planet types can be just as compatible with Jupiter. Ketu people also have a desire to take Jupiter's energy but unlike Mars, they won't drain it to use it outwardly, instead, they'll absorb the energy completely and integrate it into their spiritual essence. The exception would be Punarvasu(Cat yoni) and Magha(Rat yoni), because of enmity between yoni animals.

Besides them, Punarvasu nakshatra in particular will get along with Ashleshas, a Mercury nakshatra, due to them being yoni consorts (cat yonis).

Saturn women

Pushya, Anuradha, Uttara Bhadrapada

The cold planet of control and restraint is a passive but tough and unbreakable force. Saturn women find their femininity in stillness and silent, but resilient passivity.

Their strength is tested and it gains more layers through time. This kind of energy might become impossible to intimidate, so many might feel that Saturn women are never phased by life in general. More reactive or moldable people might distance themselves from them, even though on paper Saturn women are easy to like.

They find too much flux and chaos unbearable. Saturn's femininity is all about limiting and crystalizing whatever it receives, so the more stable that energy, the better Saturn women might manage in binding it, even though they can restrain and control any type of energy, no matter how messy.

Saturn ruled women might have dealt with a harsh, limiting, authoritative feminine energy in their younger years. They have learned how to manage themselves in various complicated situations. What they seek in 1-1 relationships is trust and loyalty, not too unlike Sun women. Saturn people are best with Sun people. Sun's warm influence will give their structure a heart and a "purpose". Sun is the planet that seeks out the cold, restraining influence of Saturn that matches its own stability and self-possession.

Since these women are the feminine variation of Saturnian energy, they might be extremely passive and unwilling to start anything themselves, but after they have something to hold onto, they can become actively bossy.

The similarly cold but also adaptable and changeable nature of Mercury might also be an easy and natural match for Saturn women. This pairing might be best in platonic or familial relationships, but the Anuradha-Jyeshta pair(rabbit yonis) is perfect in romantic couples too.

Rahu women

Ardra, Swati, Shatabhisha.

The north node of the moon, the dragon's/serpent's head is a shadow planet and only one half of the opposition that makes up the destiny of a person. The nodes are dependant on each other, and both of them are dependant on the moon. Even this fact gives them a very different kind of quality and essence. So, women ruled by them are a distinctive and very draining group of force.

Rahu women are the personifications of the illusion. For them it is easy to see and identify, to box and to define and label. They are adaptable, responsive, cerebral. There is a certain numb neutrality about them. They are very aware of and immersed in the material world. They can often become bored or overwhelmed by it. It is not unknown that Rahu ruled individuals might be prone to nervousness and anxiety.

Rahu women are easily susceptible to all kinds of influences, just because they absorb and then project everything around them. They can adopt behaviors from other people without noticing, but unlike Moon women(who also do this) they do not give anything back to anyone in particular, they just take it into their illusion and show it to everyone.

That is why they can be quite comfortable within groups. With personal, 1-1 relationships, difficulties can arise. They need a very particular kind of person that can handle their tense and sometimes chaotic nature and can direct their "hyper" essence towards something stable.

Ketu is the other half of Rahu and the only planet that can calm it down. The immovable and hot nature of its opposite shadow planet can help Rahu get out of the head stop its often actively paranoid behavior. Ketu can provide the spiritual substance for Rahu's material manifestations and can match its cold, active and outwardly discharging energy with its own heated, passive and absorbing essence. Obviously, the two pairs of them are yoni consorts, with Ardra(dog yoni) and Shatabhisha(Horse yoni) having Mula and Ashwini as yoni consorts, respectively. Swati can also easily get along with Ketu people, but Ashwini(enemy yoni) might be the exception. For Swati, the best match is its own yoni consort(buffalo yoni)_ Hasta, a very earthy nakshatra.

Besides Ketu, Rahu people can be very drawn to Sun people. Mythologically, Rahu always seeks to eclipse the Sun_ another discharging and active planet, the one that it wants to imitate. If, for example, a Rahu person also has a Ketu influence, due to already having that Rahu-Ketu balance, they might prefer Sun individuals who emanate that warm light from within themselves. In platonic relationships, Rahu people might find kinship with Jupiter individuals with whom they share an adaptible and "airy" nature, but can give their abundant energy to draining and discharing Rahu.

Ketu women

Ashwini, Magha, Mula

The other half of the dragon, the tail/body of the serpent, the absorbing shadow that rules over the past of the person. Also a shadow planet that drains and depletes, Ketu is the "conquerer" that establishes the very essence of a person or a thing. It is where an individual can find their true power, but also where there is a potential for great danger.

Ketu women are a very raw example of femininity. Their basic nature and behavior is the representation of femininity in possibly its simplest light. They absorb everything around them and instead of doing anything at all, they integrate it into their internal selves. Their power is their passivity. Their energy resembles a black hole_ a seemingly endless void that never seems to be satisfied.

They too have a numbness in them, but unlike Rahu, Ketu women might become overwhelmed with their own stagnant and heavy energy, struggling to properly express or define what they are, feel and know. Rahu can become confused from too much information, Ketu can become confused from a lack of it. In the end, they both might feel like they are missing whatever the other is/has. There is also a blindness to both of them, where each sees only their opposite side. But Ketu knows what it knows, and unlike Rahu, it does have stability. The danger with them is stubbornness, the inability to be moved by the outside.

Ultimately, Rahu people are the best match for them. Ketu women can be overly passive* and unresponsive in most 1-1 relationships. They can "hide" and assimilate better in groups but with just one another person they can become extremely disinterested, if the other is not on par with them. Rahu can break its stagnancy and help Ketu women to push their energy outwards.

Besides Rahu individuals, Ketu women might be compatible with Jupiter people, since they have an abundance of excess energy that can give to Ketu's hungry and absorbing nature. Ketu also heals Jupiter. Another dynamic that is possibly compatible for them is with Mars-ruled individuals, due to Mars and Ketu being similar in nature, but this might work best in platonic relationships.

*the passivity of Ketu is not displayed in an obvious way, at least, not all the time. By passivity I meant that it's very hard for them look outside of what they know and have decided. Their behavior might actually look very expressive and reactive, especially Ashwini's and Mula's. Ketu is the conqueror because it simply goes and acts without thinking. It's pure instinct. What it lacks though is the rational mind and awareness. In real life natives, this can manifest as willful or unintentional "ignorance", or simply intense self-focus that does not really allow outside input. With Ashwini, getting their way is a matter of protection, existence and survival, and their "ignorance" is the most unintentional out of all Ketu nakshatras. With Magha, it's about their sense of self-worth and influence. With Mula, it's about their core beliefs and an establishment of the ultimate truth. I think Ashwinis are mostly unintentional, Maghas don't even care to even look at that, and Mulas are aware of their "ignorance" but recognize the necessity of self-focus for their own basic sanity.

[astrolook]

Your 7th House = The People You Attract (for Better or Worse)

Ever feel like your relationships follow the same frustrating pattern? That’s your 7th house at work—it rules partnerships, commitment, and open enemies (because love and war are basically the same thing). And if you have retrograde planets there? Your love life might feel like a time loop where you're always one step behind—or attracting partners who are.

But here’s the thing: retrograde planets aren’t a curse. They just make you a late bloomer in love. The universe is basically saying, "Do this at your own pace, not society’s timeline." You’re here to figure things out on your own terms, not follow the traditional dating manual.

Planets in the 7th House & Their Retrograde Shenanigans

☀️ Sun in the 7th (Leo energy)

You attract confident, charismatic partners who think they are the main character.

If afflicted: Your partners go through constant identity crises. One minute they want love, next minute they vanish to “find themselves.”

🌙 Moon in the 7th (Cancer energy)

Emotional, nurturing partners who need constant reassurance. Also, mood swings.

If afflicted: Attracts partners with deep childhood wounds. Bruh, you’re now their emotional support human.

🗣 Mercury in the 7th (Gemini/Virgo energy)

You attract talkers, over-thinkers, and people who text you 24/7… until they disappear.

Retrograde: Exes literally never go away. Your love life is a never-ending rerun.

💖 Venus in the 7th (Libra/Taurus energy)

Romantic, charming partners who love love… and maybe everyone else too.

Retrograde: Relationships that start backwards. You fall in love first, figure out compatibility later. Also, karmic exes everywhere.

🔥 Mars in the 7th (Aries/Scorpio energy)

Passionate, intense partners who love arguing as foreplay. You either fight for each other or with each other.

Retrograde: Lovers who hesitate, avoid confrontation, or take forever to make a move. Meanwhile, you're aging.

🌎 Jupiter in the 7th (Sagittarius/Pisces energy)

You attract big personalities—mentors, teachers, or people who won’t shut up about their travels.

Retrograde: Your partners always seem wise at first… until you realize you’re the one teaching them everything.

⏳ Saturn in the 7th (Capricorn/Aquarius energy)

Love feels like a job interview. You attract serious, older, or emotionally unavailable partners.

Retrograde: You get partners who promise everything but deliver nothing or you are that one. You maybe into older partners and maybe daddy issues. Unconventional partners - not a hard worker.

⚡ Uranus in the 7th (Aquarius energy)

You attract wildcards. They show up, change your life, and vanish like a bad Wi-Fi connection.

Retrograde: Off-and-on relationships that make no logical sense, yet you keep going back.

💭 Neptune in the 7th (Pisces energy)

You fall for dreamers, artists, or walking illusions. Love always feels like a fairytale… until reality hits.

Retrograde: Your relationships have a big “Wait, were they even real?” energy. You ignore red flags like it’s a sport.

☠ Pluto in the 7th (Scorpio energy)

Power struggles, obsession, and intensity. Your love life could be a psychological thriller.

Retrograde: Karmic, past-life lovers. Relationships that break you down and rebuild you from the ashes.

What About the 7th House Signs?

Aries 7H: Attracts bold, reckless lovers. Relationships move at 100mph and crash just as fast.

Taurus 7H: Wants stable, loyal love but ends up with stubborn partners who won’t change.

Gemini 7H: Love life = group chat drama. You attract talkative, indecisive partners.

Cancer 7H: You want deep emotional bonds but keep attracting clingy, unpredictable people.

Leo 7H: You attract confident, flashy lovers who love attention—but don’t always give it back.

Virgo 7H: Relationships feel like self-improvement projects. You date walking red flags and try to fix them.

Libra 7H: You want perfect harmony, but somehow attract the most dramatic partners.

Scorpio 7H: Love is intense, transformative, and sometimes… terrifying.

Sagittarius 7H: You want adventure, but keep attracting commitment-phobes who run faster than you do.

Capricorn 7H: You attract authoritarian energy—or just cold, emotionally unavailable people , basically your personal drill sergeant.

Aquarius 7H: Love feels unconventional, distant, or like a futuristic sci-fi plot.

Pisces 7H: You attract dreamers, artists, and people who need rescuing.

So, What’s the Lesson?

If you have retrograde planets, it’s not that you’re “bad” at relationships. It just means the universe is making you figure things out on your own, without blindly following traditions or societal pressure. You’re here to rewrite the rules—even if that means love takes longer, or you keep running into unfinished business.

Want to understand why you attract these people and how to shift the pattern?

DM me for a complete astrology reading!

[bitterrfruit]

clingfilm [1]

serial killer / detective ghoap x forensic pathologist reader cw: dubcon. free use. graphic depiction of a corpse. smut. 18+ only [masterlist]

The first body was discovered on the eighth of September, propped up at a bus stop in the outer suburbs of Whitfell. Found by a drunken teenager on his way home from the pub. 

You got the phone call from the detective inspector in the ultra-black hours of the morning. The time of night where not even the waxing moon hung in the sky, its habits as sibylline as any nightcrawler lurking red-eyed at that hour. Yourself included. 

Not alone, though. You had found yourself a lurker, one that would arrive unannounced in the pitch black and disappear before the sun broke over the low-rise city skyline. Exactly what you needed. If he were any more of a fixture in your life, you would have grown to loathe him. You were like that with everybody; you could handle people in doses — fixed, controlled, prescribed doses — and beyond that their very presence became as abrasive as sandpaper. Fork-on-plate grating enough to make your ears bleed. 

It was a defense mechanism. That’s what all the pseudo-analytical armchair psychologists would tell you, anyway. Something you could work to overcome, like it was a problem in the first place. That you just needed to become one with yourself, and the right person would slot into your life like a jigsaw piece. 

Tommy slotted in just fine, for now. 

A little wonky, one of those unsolvable pieces that you had to squish in, in itself an indication that it didn’t belong where you had put it — but it would suffice. Having the hole filled was satisfying enough. Looked more complete when you took a step back. 

He was uncanny, not quite all there. Offbeat in a way you were drawn to. 

There wasn’t much to him. He simply offered his cock to you when you wanted it, and he didn’t burden you with the social obligations of a well-adjusted man. No wine and dining, no meeting the parents, no cooking breakfast. He told you very little, and you liked that about him. 

You knew his name was Tommy, that he was from Manchester, and that he was a lorry driver for some packing or logistics company — you learned that when you first met him at the petrol station checkout. Knew that he’d be gone for weeks at a time driving up and down the island, only visiting Leeds for a quick fuck and a cigarette, and he’d be gone again. You knew he served in the special forces in his twenties and was discharged due to injury, and you only discovered that because you mindlessly asked him about a scar on his back. You knew his tattoos apparently didn’t mean anything and he got them to piss off his dad when he was eighteen. 

He arrived at your flat just after three in the morning. 

You had been growing roots into the sunken cushion of your sofa when he knocked on your door,  television playing a box set of Grey’s Anatomy with the volume two notches above mute. You knew it was him, he always knocked the same way — two hard knocks with the back of his knuckles, a third too much effort. Loud enough to startle you. Ever impatient. 

You opened your door with a twist of the handle (rarely bolted it, a careless habit). Greeted him in your oversized t-shirt, with no underwear on and your legs unshaven. You weren’t expecting him, but you knew he paid no mind. He’d sink his cock in showered or otherwise. Simple man. 

He stood cladded in his rough canvas work jacket, day-old sweat embedded in his stubbled cheeks, cropped wheaten hair scruffed up and pointy. Greasepaint creased in the wrinkles of his sockets, once said it prevented sun blindness during his long hours on the road. Pinched a lambent cigarette between his scarred lips, amber glow catching a glint in his brown eyes. 

Took up the whole doorframe, fucking behemoth that he was. The jacket made his goliath shoulders even bulkier, such a thing somehow possible.

“You smell good,” is all he said, as he pushed forward into your flat and swung the door shut behind him. Voice as hoarse as ever, the growl of an old dog, cords shrivelled by cigarettes and dragged raw over gravel.  

“You don’t,” you answered frankly, turning to sit back on the sofa. You had unfinished business with a rum and diet coke that you left dripping on the coffee table. “Smell like petrol.” 

He huffed, vaguely amused, hasn’t stopped you before remaining unspoken. He shucked off his jacket and dumped it on your cluttered kitchen counter, a grimy wifebeater the only layer underneath it. Came to sit next to you on the couch and landed in it with a grunt. The old springs sank deep under the weight of him and his sheer gravity pulled you in his direction. 

You got down one sip of your drink before he scooped you up — with two dinner-plate hands on either divot of your waist you were swiftly lodged in his lap, ass nestled against him as though you were made to fit. He had your legs hooked over his, thighs wedged open, and you got a little splash of spiked coke down your front in the motion. You leaned forward to set the drink down on the coffee table, before he reeled you back in. 

He was a taker, Tommy. Liked to pick you up and plonk you down as he wished, and didn’t like a fuss. He wasn’t rough about it, at least. He was a utilitarian, simply preferred convenience. 

Fine by you. You were a pedant in most facets of your life — needed a tight grip of everything, always, or else you’d implode like a dying star. Some might have called you a control freak, under their breath and behind the cover of your inattention. 

Not with sex, though. Sex was the only act wherein you could willingly relinquish all control. It was liberating, in a way — the ability to shut your brain off, cantankerous as it was, and for once let another person pull your bullied strings.

Tommy never checked, never asked. Sometimes he’d fuck you and leave without a word exchanged. 

A wide hand bunched up the bottom of your t-shirt, pulling it up to your belly, and the other bent up and over your shoulder — he hucked up a lump of saliva into his salty fingers, and smeared it against your spread pussy with little fanfare. He was generous with his fingers, sometimes, at least well practiced — began by pushing a thick middle finger inside you, hooking and raking it against your outward wall, kneading into the gummy flesh below your bladder because you told him once that it felt good that way. 

The rough heel of his palm grinded against your clitoris as his fingers coaxed your cunt to drool for him, a little harsher than would be most comfortable, but you would never say so. Telling him to do anything would defeat the purpose. 

Once he got you warmed up, it didn’t matter. When your clit blushed under his attention, pink and alert, he’d redirect his focus. Would drag his finger out of you, coated in your watery slick, and paint stripes with it over your pulsing bead. Up, down, up, down. Nothing fancy, but you liked consistency — he’d expose your clit from under its hood with every upward stroke, the calloused pad of his finger directly touching the raw nerves would make you twitch. His fingertip would travel back downward every odd moment, scooping up more of your syrup before returning to its job. 

Before long you were panting, sweat beading on the nape of your neck, and your head rocked back over his shoulder. The television was rendered nothing more than a lightshow in the dark sitting room, bouncing blue and white off the walls and ceiling. His iron-hard length pressed into your lower back, straining against the fly of his jeans, and he bucked his hips to make certain you could feel it. You could. 

You enjoyed it when he dragged it out. When he had nowhere to be, so took his time. It wasn’t uncommon for him to rush, to fuck you hard and hurried and leave before your pussy was even warm. Whenever he was gone for a long while, though, he’d savour every minute. The longer he was gone, the more you looked forward to his double-knock on your door. 

With the way he was indulging tonight, you’d have thought he had been gone for two months. 

You saw him last week. 

When you came on his fingers with a breathless whine, your thighs strained desperately to clamp shut around his hand, but he kept them jammed open — even readjusting his own legs to open you wider. Selfish. He candidly relished in the pained sobs you would let out when he persisted in vexing your sated clit, once the nerves in its peak were cloyed and inflamed. Sometimes he’d press it like a button, or pinch it tight between his fingers, just to hear you yelp in the shock. You felt his grin when he did it.

His turn, then. With a forearm hooked around your waist, cutting into your belly, he lifted you — reached underneath your bottom with a wet hand and tore down his fly, tugging out his cock and holding it upright like a sword, fist around the hilt. 

He gracelessly impaled you on him without warning, yanking you downward onto his lap and making you squeal like a cat with its tail stepped on. Far from the first time you had been speared on him, but you never grew accustomed to the size of it — it stretched you open and burrowed itself among your organs, taking up so much space you could hardly breathe around it, became an organ of your own. Even with your doctorate you failed to imagine how your bowels could rearrange themselves to fit him. 

With arms like boa constrictors coiled around your belly, fingers boring into the flesh of your waist, he raised you up and tugged you down again — it was as though you weighed nothing to him, he could lift you up and down like a doll without toil. Fucked you like he was jerking himself off with your body. 

“Only good cunt,” he grunted deeply into the back of your neck, where his teeth grazed your skin. So low that you felt it rattle in your chest, as though he thought you could not hear it. “No wonder.” 

The shit he said was always gibberish. Uttered as low as a secret, always referring to something he never made you privy to. You never bothered asking. You just liked the sound of his voice. 

“Wan’ another one?” He asked roughly, as a pair of fingers creeped over your mound and resituated themselves at the crux of your pussy. Almost gibberish, but you understood quite clearly this time. 

“Yes please,” you softly purred, a little breath. 

Hearing your obsequiousness aloud was always painfully shrill. Such a needy little sycophant the moment a cock was inside you. Embarrassment would settle heavy and thick later, once you were alone, and the thrumming heat twisted up in your core had unwinded. 

He touched you differently with his right hand — left-handed, you supposed — would smear circles over your clit with the palps of his fingers, lazy and imprecise. Used the rutting of his pelvis to guide his motion, as he hammered into your cervix with the thick head of his cock. You’d be sore later. 

As he sped himself up, blindly chasing the acme of his own pleasure like a dog after bone, and you chewed on your lip like meat— 

Your phone rang. 

Glowed bright white from where it sat on the couch beside you, the piercingly loud marimba of the ringtone as jarring as a smack to the cheek.  You blinked over your shoulder to look at it.

D.I. MacTavish. 

You never saved his contact, but you knew the number by heart. Could determine the caller the moment you saw the incoming call on your screen. Very rarely came with good news.

Expecting that Tommy would snap at you for being distracted by it, you shut your eyes again and turned away, focused on his busy fingers and the cock in your guts — but, to your shock, he slowed. 

“Better get that,” he grumbled. 

You groaned childishly, the back of your head knocking against his collarbone as you slumped back into him. “I don’t want to.” 

“Pick it up,” he said rigidly. 

Short-fused man that he was. Request better be followed by action in the first instance, or he’d ignite quicker than a match in petrol. Never got physical with you, at least. He’d just grit his teeth and leave in a huff. 

You all but mumbled fine as you leaned over to grab the phone from the cushion next to you, but with a tug he kept your hips riveted to his lap, and his cock skewered in you to the root. 

There was something deeply depraved about picking up the phone to speak to the detective while being fucked by another man, but you didn’t think too much of it in your come-drunk haze. You wanted to avoid the inevitable fit of rage that would erupt if you made a fuss. Hoped for a short conversation. 

“Hello?” 

You weren’t very good at phone calls. Not well versed in the formalities. You silently waited for him to elucidate the reason for his bothering you at such a ludicrous hour — but, given the shared nature of your professions, you could hazard a guess. Doubly inappropriate that you had a dick inside you, in that case. 

“Did I wake ye?” 

Been a while since you heard that voice. A month, at least. It made your chest a little warm to hear it, lilted and deep as it was, even through the tinny phone speaker. 

“No, I—” You hiccuped as Tommy moved his hips, and his cock raked pointedly against your constricting walls. You felt his hot breathing against the nape of your neck and tried to ignore it. “—I’m just watching telly. Something happen?” 

“A body’s been found in south Whitfell,” he said bluntly. 

Not a friendly call. You reached back and patted Tommy on the shoulder, implicitly telling him to stop moving as though you couldn’t feel him. You could keep it together if he stayed still and let you breathe steadily. 

“Do - do you need me there tonight?” You asked, voice stiff, struggling to sound at ease while you were stuffed full. 

“I’d love a visit,” he said, and you couldn’t tell whether any humour was webbed in his tone. “Need ye to take a look in situ.” 

As you opened your mouth to speak, Tommy brusquely bucked his hips, and his stone-hard cock pummelled into the plug of your womb brutally enough to force a piercing squeak from your throat. 

That was enough to make you angry. It flared hot in your belly and made your jaw clench up, and you twisted your spine to spitefully jab him below his collarbone, holding your breath when his cock mashed against your organs. 

He was smirking vindictively, pupils blown wide, ravenous as a shark. You hadn’t taken him for an exhibitionist, but with the context of the phone call painfully clear, you weren’t going to let him use this as the opportunity to explore it. 

You unhooked a leg to get yourself off of him, and his grin dropped from his face so abruptly it was as though you had flipped a switch. 

Cold dread needled down the back of your neck. 

His huge hands kept you bolted to his lap, cock grinding into you as if to spite you. 

It dawned on you then the precedent you had set — allowing him unfettered ingress to your body and not once disputing mid-act. He had the size and strength to keep you pinned to him for as long as he wished to; a fact that would normally excite you, that now only frightened you. 

Only when you scowled at him with enough ire to turn him to stone, smacked him on the chest and again attempted to get off, did he finally and reluctantly acquiesce. His glower was gelid, venomous, and his disdainful fingers clawed over your thighs as you stood yourself up. His slick cock tugged out of you and landed against his hirsute stomach, leaving a wet patch on the white cotton of his wife-beater. In any other situation you’d mourn the emptiness. 

You brought the phone back to your ear with a clear of your throat, as you timidly wandered away from the couch towards your bedroom. 

“Must get excited when a cadaver shows up, MacTavish,” you said coyly, flustered, wiping an errant hair from your forehead. “Gives you an excuse to see me.”

A beleaguered sigh grumbled through the phone. “That’s no’ funny.” 

Johnny’s gallows humour was a quirk of his you enjoyed, even though he routinely used it to get a rise out of you while you did the work they paid you for. So, his uncharacteristic severity made clear that there would be no such persiflage this time. You didn’t know how to act toward him when he was serious. It made your skin itch. 

“Sorry,” you said awkwardly into the phone, through teeth. Well rehearsed. He left a silence harsher than nails on a chalkboard before you brought yourself to speak again. “S’it look like a homicide?” 

“Body was sitting at a bus stop. Young lad spotted it,” he replied stiffly. It didn’t sound like him. “It’s — it’s wrapped in clingfilm.” 

“Oh,” you hummed. That was new. “Kid didn’t see anyone?” 

“Nobody,” he answered. “He hasn’t been much use, though. Lad was steamin’. ” 

You rummaged around in your chest-of-drawers as he spoke, phone wedged between your shoulder and cheek. Shoved your bare legs into your jeans once you found them, and stuffed some changes of clothes into your Nike gym bag. Homicides always necessitated an overnight stay. 

“Any decomp?” You asked clinically, “might have been dead a while. Soft tissue intact?”

“Dunno, Bones. I didnae look that close. That��s your job.” 

You always cringed a little when he called you that. He decided it was your nickname upon first meeting you, and persisted even after you told him that television’s beloved Bones was a forensic anthropologist and not a forensic pathologist. The difference was lost on him. Expressing any displeasure only made the name stick. 

Still, it was evident something had gotten under the detective’s skin. It made you viscerally uneasy, and he wasn’t even in the room with you to give you that toothy look of heavy-browed discomfort. 

The human mind was an enigma to you. A labyrinth of dark hallways and trapdoors. You always found yourself turning the wrong corner and hitting a dead end, or losing your footing and tumbling into a spike pit. Your own mind no exception. 

Bodies were much easier. You knew what there was to be found and exactly where to look for it. Skin, flesh, organs, bones, teeth. No constituent variance between one person and another, no discrepancies to account for. 

Saying the right thing was a more difficult undertaking than autopsying a corpse.

“Everything alright, detective?” You felt obliged to ask, when the silence stretched too long, and your ears began to ring. 

A long sigh. His muteness only endured, but he finally spoke after a pruritic pause. “Sorry. I’m — just — s’good to hear yer voice.” 

You bit down on nothing as you marched out of your room and towards the door to your flat, only to find it ajar and the sitting room utterly empty. Glancing around for a moment, you checked for Tommy — not in your bathroom, not in the kitchen — just gone. Must have stormed out in a temper. For the best. 

“Didn’t answer my question,” you said edgily, as you grabbed your keys from the table by the door. 

“I’m fine, bonnie,” he grunted. “When’re ye getting here?” 

You stuffed your feet into your boots, yanked your long black coat from the rack by the front door.

“I’m on the way,” you said. 

The drive to Whitfell would normally have taken around two hours, but you drove a steady five miles an hour over the limit, and got there ten minutes sooner. Cumbria Constabulary could just as well find a pathologist in their own region — you were sure there would be at least one — but they had an affinity for calling on you at wild hours, likely because you never refused. Not to mention the hardly vocational reasons their detective inspector had for liking you. 

The roads were dead empty that early in the morning, just after four. The asphalt was glossy with autumn dew and reflected the odd streetlight in stripes. Mostly empty motorway and rural hills between there and Leeds, but the pseudo-city you headed to had a decent population that was only expanding, and the sprawl of freshly built flat-pack condos proliferated beyond its borders every year. 

By the time you arrived at the scene it had been cordoned off with tape, the suburban street blocked by four flashing patrol vehicles, a CID van, and the mobile morgue. A few night-robed slipper-wearing bystanders hovered around the barricade, too sleepy to be a bother but curiosity compelling them to get out of bed and poke their noses around at the drama outside their houses. 

A plethora of crime scene investigators pottered about, taking photos and lifting prints and swabbing surfaces, the odd constable there to oversee it and write their aimless notes. Screens of grey canvas had been propped up around the scene, shielding the cadaver from your sight and that of the bystanders, but the floodlights within projected the shadows of every CI working behind it like a puppet show.

The detective spotted your car as you pulled in to park, immediately sauntering towards you and squinting in the glow of your headlights. Thick mohawk cresting his skull as scruffy and unprofessional as ever, he stood dead still with his hands in the pockets of his black duffle coat as you killed the engine. He wore his authority like a nice jacket, standing tall and brandishing it proudly, a fact you always found amusingly juxtaposed to his boyishly crude character. 

You flashed your warrant card at an approaching officer as you got out of the car, and they left you be without a word. 

“Got ‘ere quick,” he called to greet you, and you shoved your card back into your pocket as you walked over to him. 

“Sounded serious,” you answered bluntly, perplexed by his surprise. 

He nodded, lips in a line. “Sorry if I was a wee bit blunt,” he said grimly, wintry grey eyes as piercing as you remember, even under the dim orange glow of the streetlight above him. “Bit shaken up, I s’pose.”

“Doesn’t sound like you, Johnny,” you teased, quirk in your brow as you leaned slightly to the side to see past him. 

“I’m no’ made o’ stone,” he gibed, finally baring his pointed teeth with a grin, silver-capped canine glinting in the light of the street lamp. “It’s no’ nice to look at, I’ll tell ye that.”

“I’m sure,” you said. 

“Get on yer gear,” he told you. “Come take a look. Need yer noggin on this one.”

You gave him a nod and hurried around your car, popping open the boot and digging around the rubbish for the PPE kit that was a permanent fixture among your belongings. Climbed into disposable white coveralls and smoothed down the velcro-close front, tugged a pair of fresh teal latex gloves from their cardboard box and bullied your hands into the floppy rubber, plucking the band around your wrist to ensure a good seal. Three-ply mask, shoe covers, palm-sized notebook in tow. 

Returning to the detective, he flicked his head towards the scene, and you followed him at the heel like a duckling. Your heart fluttered high in your chest, buzzing a keen anticipation that always swelled inside you whenever a homicide was in question. Likely inappropriate. Not a secret you’d share. 

“There she is,” he grumbled, far more sombre now that the cadaver was in his immediate line of sight. He sniffed, held the back of his hand under his nose as if to stifle a retch. 

She indeed. A woman, quite clearly, sitting upright on the bench under the bus shelter, across the road from a quaint little play park. A double layer of clingfilm wrapped snugly around the body from head to toe — meticulously done, each limb individually swathed, the plastic corset-tight around the waist. Dark nipples were visible through the glossy film, breasts squished flat by the tautness of the plastic. The head was less visible, face only determinable up close — bandaged up by multiple layers of film, turned greenish in the thickness, nose and eyes smushed up underneath it.

“Jesus,” you muttered, and for the moment that was all you could muster. 

Johnny nodded. “Aye,” he agreed morosely. “No’ somethin’ ye see everyday.”

“Have any of the CIs touched the plastic?” You asked resolutely, focus already needle-pointed and honed in. “Taken any off, moved it at all?” 

“No’ that I know of,” he said. 

You grunted irefully. “Well, they better not have. You need to keep a better eye on them, detective. If they pissed around with—”

“They’re well trained, doc.” He said, more pointedly, and you sensed that he was gently chiding you for assuming their idiocy. The subsequent chagrin made you shrivel up like a prune. 

“How long since it was discovered?” You asked dispassionately, changing the subject.

“‘Bout two hours,” he answered. “Lad said he called triple one straight away once he found it.” 

“Mh,” you considered aloud, crouching down beside the bench. Clicked your pen and flipped open your notebook. 

Your eyes scoured every inch of the corpse — legs, knees, feet, genitals, stomach, ribs, arms, hands — anything that was visible without having to touch or shift it from its position, you made a note of. 

Contusions visible on: right hip, right shoulder, left side of neck, left clavicle. Blood (?) present on the inside of the clingfilm, around stomach and throat areas. Partial lividity (?) on outer left thigh and arm. Pocking/marbling (?) visible on: both thighs, lower stomach, chest, both arms, left foot. 

Positioning — sat upright, neutral positioning. Hands flat on thighs above knees. Head leaning slightly to the left, otherwise neck neutral. Legs spread at ~30°, feet flat on ground. No shoes. Evidently nude beneath clingfilm. Hair apparently intact, tied up. Eyes open. 

“You’ll have to get your team to analyse the clingfilm,” you muttered flatly, more a spoken thought than a directed statement. 

“Huh?” Johnny queried, right behind you. He liked to watch you while you worked. Surveyed like a hawk every anomaly you pointed at, every note you made in your book. Always overly curious about your movements. 

“The plastic,” you repeated, glancing up at him over your shoulder. “Get your team to look at it. The brand, or something — it just, it doesn’t look like the stuff you’d get from Tesco, does it?” 

“Don’t it?” 

“No, it’s — it’s thicker, see? It looks sturdier. Here, look.” 

Johnny pursed his lips. “Dinnae need to get any closer, hen.” 

A knit pulled in your brow. “You’re being weird,” you said, the irony of your comment not lost on you. “It’s just a body. You’ve probably seen more of them than I have.” 

“Callin’ me old?” He chided, an uneasy smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, dimpling his cheek. 

“No, I mean—” You quickly corrected yourself, panicked that you had insulted him. “From, you know. Being a soldier, or whatever.” 

“Ah,” he nodded. “I ken. This is hardly like that, though, eh? Dinnae see anything as fucken’ horrific as this out there. This is — ah. S’like a horror movie. I don’ like horror movies.” 

You smiled at that. “Little wuss,” you murmured impishly. 

“What d’ye think, then?” He asked. 

“Of horror movies?” 

“Of the fucken’ body, Bones, Jesus.” 

You nodded tightly. “Oh, uh—” you looked back at your notebook, “hard to say without taking off the wrapping. But it looks like it was taken from somewhere else and put here recently. Tonight.” 

“Mh,” he warily hummed. “How can ye tell?” 

“Um—” You bite your words, wrangling them into a comprehensible sentence opposed to unintelligible medical jargon. “There’s blood pooling, on the left side, which suggests it was initially on its side post-mortem. But it’s, it’s not fully settled. I’ll have to look more closely in the lab.” 

“Anythin’ else?” 

Your eyes raked over the cadaver in front of you, new notes buzzing in the air around you like insects. “It’s pretty intact. Hardly any decomposition. Doesn’t really smell, does it?” 

“Cannae say I’ve sniffed it.” 

You snorted. “Well, there’s — oh.” 

“What?” 

Stare hitched on something you hadn��t noticed while you were focusing on the flesh beneath the plastic — water. 

Little puddles underneath where the cadaver sat, pooled around its feet. Then you observed droplets, mostly evaporated but what was left trickled in rills down the thighs and chest, atop the plastic. 

“It’s wet.” 

Johnny chuffed, disquieted. “S’it leaking?”

“No—” You leaned closer, squinting, and laid the back of your gloved hand against the body’s belly. Frigid cold. “I think it’s freshly thawed.” 

“Shite,” he grunted, visibly perturbed. He was sharp, the detective, and the realisation of renewed urgency was quick to settle. “Alright, let’s rush ‘er to the fridge then.” 

You’d have liked more time to assess the body in situ, but MacTavish wasn’t wrong to want it in storage as soon as possible. The more quickly the body was able to thaw, the more posthumous changes might disturb the secrets it retained from its murder. You stepped back from the bench as the detective whistled over some hazmat-clad drones to bag and tag the cadaver and haul it into the mobile morgue. 

You began your shed — pulled off your mask, plucked off your gloves, took down the hood of your PPE suit and let it puddle around your neck. Let out a breath of relief once the most abrasive layers were peeled from you. 

“Y’want me to do the post tonight?” You asked impassively, when Johnny returned his attention to you. 

His eyes were solemn, overcast, and he stiffly shook his head. “Nae, hen. Save it for the morn, eh?’” 

“You sure?” You puzzled, frowning, “I should do it now. Now that it’s not frozen, it might—”

“Och, stop,” he dismissed. “Not havin’ ye look over a body like that if you’re knackered. Yer notes will all be gibberish.” 

A curl twisted in your lips. “I’ll be fine. I’ll just have a RedBull.” 

“No,” he said. “Tha’ one’s an order.” 

“You can’t order me to do anything, detective,” you jeered. “I’m not a cop.” 

He let loose a wide grin. “I can do what I damn well please.” 

You snickered, rubbing the heel of your palm into an eye — only after he mentioned it did your exhaustion make itself known. It pulled on you like sinking stones, made your legs heavy as lead. The sun was probably not far from rising, and you hadn’t yet slept a wink. Had been far from a relaxing night, in fact. 

“Fine,” you grumbled. “I’ll be at the lab in the morning. Or, y’know, in a couple hours.” 

He nodded, the buck of his head a salute. 

“Will ye crash at ma bit?” He asked, kept his hoarse voice low, as if a secret. 

Would be far from the first time you’d have stayed at his flat. He invited you every time you were forced to stay the night near the lab, though the first few offers you had modestly declined. 

When you finally capitulated it innocently started with you on his couch, but that only lasted a night. It was only a formality, really, to even pretend that you would sleep in his sitting room — by the next night he had skulked down the stairs and approached you in the dark, allowing you just enough time to squeak his name in shock, before he pulled you by the ankle and buried his mouth in your pussy through the loose leg of your little sleep shorts. 

For a while, it was something of a tradition. You’d park in his driveway, put on your pyjamas out of courtesy, dither about whether it was improper, before he inevitably had his cock in you and you were knocked out in his bed. Forced to comb it all out and appear unfrazzled when you arrived at the lab the following morning. 

In recent months, though, your visits became fewer and further between — MacTavish’s department had proved somehow too effective, and homicides had become atypically scarce. You could acknowledge the senselessness of bemoaning that the detective was too good at his job, but in some petulant way you held it against him. It meant your paths only crossed once a month, if that, when you were called in.

You had been withholding yourself from him, for the last few visits. Motivation eluded even yourself. Perhaps out of spite, or shame, or an inexplicably renewed concern about the appropriateness of the trysts while you were ostensibly in the city to investigate a murder. Maybe you just couldn’t get past the notion that you had been busy fucking another man, saddled with the certainty that he would not be pleased if you were to tell him, even if you couldn’t sympathise with the jealousy. 

“Not tonight,” you answered, and he looked like you had just kicked a puppy. 

“Why not?” He all but moaned, reaching his burly hand toward you and brushing your jaw with his thumb. You suddenly felt like people were watching. “We don’t have t’do anythin’, bonnie. We can just sleep.” 

You almost snickered at that, because you knew how vastly unlikely that would be. Instead you gave him a pleasant smile and a noncommittal shrug, hoping he’d leave it at that. 

He didn’t. “Are ye mad at me?” 

His hand was on your shoulder, then, at the crook of your neck. Johnny was like you, in that way — had to have his hands on you, craved the tangible like a carnivore craves meat, ever-chasing the succor of touch. 

“No, Johnny, I’m not mad at you,” you said mildly, through a placid smile.

“Y’sure?” He asked. “Y’been prickly, lately. Have I done somethin’ tae upset ye?”

“I’m always prickly,” you muttered, now defensive, broke your eyes away from his interrogative glare to look at the asphalt of the footpath beneath you. 

“Aye, ‘n ye ken I like yer prickles,” he said with a smirk.

“I’m sorry,” you huffed. “I’m just gonna get a room at the Travelodge.” 

“You’re avoidin’ me,” he said edgily, hooking his hands onto his hips.

Possessive brute he was. Yet another reason you’d avoid revealing your escapades to him, even though he had absolutely no right to claim you as his own nor to bemoan your sexual habits. 

“I’m not,” you said. “It’s not my fault we’re hardly ever in the same city.” 

“Got another fella, do ye?” 

Your brows pulled tight. “No. I don’t.” 

It wasn’t in your nature to lie, and you weren’t good at it. It didn’t help that the detective’s entire being was built to hunt for the truth, he could scent a lie like a bloodhound could a fugitive. His brows were low and hard and cast a shadow over his eyes, dimples deep in his carved cheeks as he chewed on your fib. 

“He do it for you?” He asked derisively, jealousy thick as tar lacquered every word. 

“Stop it, Johnny,” you sternly implored, shrinking into yourself like a snail. “I’m just here to do my job.” 

“Mh,” he mumbled, contempt in his throat. “Prefer the company of dead bodies, do ye?”

You pouted unwittingly. “Don’t be mean.” 

He let out a huff of potent disappointment, wiped down his cheeks with a wide, stiff hand. 

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” he said gingerly, hand returning to you with a brush of your cheek, a sweep of your hair behind your ear. You never begrudged his touchiness, it made your skin tingly. “I just miss ye, s’all.” 

You bristled when he said that, irrationally. He missed your cunt, that was what he meant. He missed you warming his bed. More likely, he didn’t miss you at all. He’d call you in more frequently if he did, wouldn’t he?

“I know,” you said, hands in your pockets. “I’ll see you tomorrow, though.” 

“Alright, hen,” he said with a nod, hand retreating. “See y’in the morn.” 

The snippy receptionist at the Travelodge managed to check you into a room on the first floor of the three-storey building, built in the eighties with those hideous chocolate-square bricks. The room itself was without frills, a double bed with teal and brown sheets, a little bench with a kettle on it and one wrinkly teabag remaining in the rack. The bathroom fixtures were all yellow-faded with specs of green mould stuck under the caulking at the edges. A nice view of the parking lot out your window, when you peeled back the sheer polyester curtains to have a look. 

It was a precarious decision to have a bath as sleepy as you were, but you were all sticky after a half-fuck and the excitement of a fresh homicide. You lay in the water for half an hour, made use of the little bottles of budget soap that sat in the shower caddy. 

Once you were done you dried yourself off with the provided towel and left it scrunched up over the rail, and you climbed into the crisply-made bed stark naked — you forsook pyjamas when you could, because they twisted up tight when you tossed and turned and you found it maddeningly overstimulating. Checked your phone before you went to sleep, and you had a text from Tommy; another number you hadn’t saved, but you hadn’t memorised that one yet. Only realised it was him when you opened the messages and saw the older one before it. 

23/08 02:21: Need some cunt. 

08/09 05:03: You gone? 

You didn’t reply. 

The sun had risen just before eight, and you woke up with it. A short and spasmodic sleep, more of a nap than a true slumber. You came awake on a gulp of air with sweat on your nape and your arm dead asleep. It was limp and heavy when you pulled yourself out of bed and got yourself ready for a day at the lab. 

You poured yourself a black coffee from the instant machine once you got there — a subterranean wing of Whitfell General Hospital, inconveniently situated a ten-minute drive from the police headquarters. Everything in there was rubbery, wrapped in linoleum and vinyl, crisp white or speckled teal. Far less flash than the crime labs you were used to in Leeds. Block fluorescents lined every corridor and the hum always made you twitchy, despite your years of experience underneath them. You always had earplugs in while you were working to escape it. 

The reek of rubbing alcohol and hospital-grade hand soap permeated every surface of the wing, and it made your nostrils flare. The smell of challenge. One that always had your heart fluttering with an admittedly twisted exhilaration — especially today, knowing how many secrets were wrapped up in that body, you were itching to read whatever stories it had to tell. 

You greeted Jenny, the lab assistant, as you elbowed through the swing door into the mortuary, and she waited for you by the unmanned reception. Wiry wee girl that she was, riddled with neuroses that even you found unreasonable. 

“Sleep in this morning, doctor?” She asked with a thin smile, and you wondered how long she had been waiting there for you. Her lime-green coffee mug was just about empty.

“Yep,” you grunted, sweeping the lanyard she had left for you off the reception counter and hanging it around your neck. “You made a start?” 

She shook her head as she gestured for you to follow her. “No, ‘course not. Not allowed to start without you.” 

“Mh.” You took a pacifying sip of coffee from your foam cup. 

“I have prepared everything, though,” she said curtly, marching ahead of you, scrubs billowing with her haste. “The tools are all laid out and I have the chiller on extra cold. I also requested some scissors specifically for the clingfilm.” 

“Fabulous,” you said wryly. 

The first door into the lab was something of an airlock, a vestibule with a window into the autopsy room, providing room to cover yourself in PPE from head to toe and take a deep breath before you made your way in. You wore casual clothes under the crunchy blue tyvek suit — same pair of jeans as yesterday, and a woolly sweater to keep yourself warm under the blisteringly cold aircon in the sealed laboratory. Layers on layers — two pairs of cloves on each hand, shoe covers, sleeved plastic apron atop the coveralls, N95 respirator, face shield, a cap to cover your hair. You were fastidious about it; every inch covered, protected, sealed up. 

You swallowed a breath as you entered the lab, anticipating the familiar stench of death and formaldehyde — hit instead with only bleach and the faint smell of raw meat. 

The plastic mummy lay flat on the steel dissection table in the centre of the room, gleaming under the blinding overhead lamps above it. 

Surreal to look at. 

You had seen and cut up many corpses in your profession and studies prior — never one presented like this, awaiting being opened like a gift at Christmas. It looked like a practice doll until you approached it, and the human parts became plainly visible through the shiny film. 

You had Jenny assist you in carefully slicing through the plastic wrap, peeling it back as gingerly as possible, exceedingly careful not to nick the skin. The plastic stuck firm to the epidermis, moist underneath, and it made a foul gooey noise as you peeled it away. Even once the seal was broken, the odour of decomposition was not nearly as fetid as you were used to; almost as if it were a fresh death, but your gut told you that it was far from. 

Unwrapping the head was a morbid ordeal. The face was milk pale, the bulb of its nose coal-black with frostbite, the skin both stodgy wet and shrivelled in texture. From her features you’d have guessed the woman was in her forties. 

What your eyes pinned to, though, was the perfectly round hole in the centre of the forehead. You could look through it and see straight down to the shiny steel underneath. Precise but not clean, skin and flesh feathered out from the orifice. 

Gunshot. FIred cleanly from the back of the head, you guessed, but you’d need to roll the body over to confirm. 

Once the plastic was finally removed entirely — which took almost two hours — the rest of the autopsy was fairly routine. With all of her quirks, one thing Jenny was exceptionally good at was taking note of everything you uttered aloud. You could say a single word and she could translate it into a meaningful report. You dictated everything as you found it. 

Interrupted lividity on left side. Cadaver was left on left side for <1 hours prior to freezing. More recent posterior lividity, consistent with storage positioning post-thawing. 

Severe cell damage from crystallisation, major damage (pocking, marbling on epidermis) consistent with being frozen >2 weeks. Digestive tract empty, suggestive of a lack of food intake for 24-48 hours prior to death. 

Major contusions on: ribs (left - blunt force damage to ribs 4, 5, 6, consistent with tip of shoe - possible kick to ribs), medial back (blunt force - crushing injury? Possible stomping, consistent with shoe sole size 12.5-13). 

Ligature marks on neck and throat, and both wrists (wide restraint - possibly tape/duct tape). Petechiae present around eyes, cheeks, mouth. Consistent with asphyxiation, non-lethal. 

No evidence of sexual activity or genital trauma ante-mortem. No evidence of defensive wounds. 

Gunshot wound centre cranium, external bevelling anterior. Significant internal bevelling posterior, consistent with weapon fired against back of head, suggestive of execution — “Yes, Jenny, write that down.” — bullet wound ~1cm in diameter, consistent 9mm semi-automatic pistol. GSR present in neural tissue, no bullet present. Clean entry/exit. 

Toxicology results pending. DNA analysis pending. 

Estimated PMI: <1 hours prior to freezing, 3 or more weeks since death. 

Cause of death: Gunshot wound to the head. 

Manner of death: Homicide. 

Jenny obsequiously aided you in suturing up the large Y-shaped incision you had made to open up the chest cavity, punctilious as she was. It was always a little disappointing to return a body to the fridge unidentified and with no next-of-kin. Nobody to relay the details to, no curiosity to assuage. 

You liked to do a final comb-over once the assistant had left the room to make copies of the preliminary autopsy report — Jane Doe, case number: 0187 — if only to quell the writhing inquisitiveness that permanently riddled you. 

You checked the hands, checked every crease and line, noted the colour of nail polish: berry-red, chipped at the free edge. The soles of the feet: clean, hardly calloused, no running through mud. No tattoos, only the earlobes pierced, no earrings. Teeth square-straight — braces as a teenager, no doubt — freshly cleaned aside from the discolouration of decay, likely a recent appointment at the dental hygienist before death. 

Only as you peered into the open mouth, squinting in focus, did you spot something abnormal — a scratch mark, on the inside of a molar, previously hidden by a fat grey tongue. The powdery ivory enamel was stark white where it had been carved into, clearly inscribed post-mortem. Maybe even moments before the body was dumped at the bus stop. 

You frantically scoured the lab for a mirror, anything reflective; came up short with a small steel tray, but it was smooth enough to see a blurry reflection. Furiously tore out your notebook, and immediately scribbled down what you saw when you tucked the tray behind the teeth and tilted it to the right angle.  

Mandibular teeth: #20 - R, #17 - O, #19 - U Maxillary teeth: #13 - S

The killer had left a message. 

Who for?

It took D.I. MacTavish less than seven minutes to get to the lab. You imagined he screamed through the traffic on his siren-bedecked motorbike many miles per hour over the limit. He came thundering down the corridor and you heard his approach before you saw it – you were disrobing in the antechamber, dumping all of your disposable PPE into the biohazard bins, washing your ungloved hands with antiseptic soap in the large steel sink. 

He bulldozed in through the push-door, panting like a dog, clad in a sweaty grey button-up with his black holsters around his shoulders, secured with a strap across his chest. Carried unease in his eyes and his blazer in a fist. 

“Show me,” was all he said, ragged and impolite. 

It was poor practice to re-enter the autopsy room without your PPE on — you made the detective put on some latex gloves and a respirator, at least, as you allowed him inside to look more closely at the body. He stuck an imprudent thumb behind the teeth on the lower jaw, hooking it open to widen the mouth as he peered within. 

“What the fuck,” he muttered, under breath, evidently disturbed by what he saw — you wanted to say told you so, but held your tongue. “R, U… what is that, O?”

“There are four,” you explained impersonally, “R, O, and U on the bottom, and S on the top.” 

“What,” he said, stopping to think. “Sour?” 

“Yeah, could be.” 

“Y’don’t think so.” 

“No,” you gritted, “can you get your finger out of there now?” 

He nodded, pulling his hand from the mouth and standing straight, gesturing for the two of you to leave the room. Lucky that Jenny wasn’t there to reprimand the both of you. You waited with your arms crossed, leaning against the double-glazed window into the lab, watching as Johnny plucked off his gloves and dumped them in the rubbish along with his mask. He raked up his sleeves with a grunt and began washing his hands in the sink. 

“We got more comin’, don’t we,” he said grimly, back to you. 

“More letters?” 

“Bodies, hen,” he clarified. 

You swallowed a shaky breath, the air suddenly harsher on your throat. “Yes,” you uttered cautiously. “I think so.” 

A mutter, “Christ.” 

“Yep,” you said. “I’ll grab you a copy of the report.” 

“Gimme the spark notes, please,” he grunted, already exasperated — he turned to face you, leaning on the sink, and he wore that worn-out look he always did at the end of a long day (eyes heavy, jaw tight), despite the fact it was only half-three in the afternoon. “I’ll read the lot with the team later.” 

You let out a tight breath as you considered which details to give him. 

“Well, the victim was a middle-aged woman,” you started, “I’d say late forties. Wealthy, too.” 

He nodded. “Cause and manner?”

“Definitely a homicide, but that wasn’t really in question,” you started. “She was shot in the back of the head, I reckon with a nine-millimetre. It — it seems like it was an execution. Like the killer had the victim face down and pressed the barrel against the skull before firing.”

“Clean freak?” 

“Maybe,” you shrugged. “Certainly would lend an explanation to the clingfilm and the freezing.” 

“Mh,” he thought aloud. “So he has ‘em in cold storage. Why’s he only dumpin’ them now?” 

“He?” You asked, a quirk in your brow, and he suddenly looked agitated. 

“Not a rogue assumption,” he argued. “S’always a man, with this shite.”

A smirk tugged at your lips. “S’pose so,” you admitted. “I’m guessing they — he — has something to say, right? Leaving messages in the teeth — that’s zodiac shit.” 

“Sour,” he repeated, lost in thought. “What else.” 

“The victim was asphyxiated, but the ligatures around the throat are pretty minor compared to the airway damage. My guess is suffocation with plastic, given our guy’s affinity for it. Victim was alive when she was shot, though — maybe he suffocated her to subdue her.” 

He was in front of you, now, hands hooked on his hips, tip of his thumb anxiously rubbing his brow. 

“Fuckin’ animal,” he huffed. 

“We’ve swabbed all over for DNA,” you said, some clinical effort to comfort him. “He’ll have left something behind.” 

“He better ‘ave,” he said, looking briefly at his shoes, and his unease radiated from him, made your mouth taste like metal. 

“You alright?” You asked, less gently than you had intended. 

“I’m fine,” he said, vaguely defensive. 

He eyed you for a moment, sharp silver rings with their pin-prick pupils inspecting your face as though analysing the minutia of your features. You shuffled uncomfortably, looking at your fingernails to evade them. 

“What’re ye doin’ for dinner?” He asked, more warmly, and the whiplash made you cock your head back in disbelief.

“What?” 

“Y’heard me,” he said. 

“I’m—” you stammered, bewildered. “I haven’t thought about it yet.” 

“Grab a bite with me,” he said with the sternness of an order. “We can sit down somewhere. Have a real chat.” 

“Johnny, that—” you groaned, “that doesn’t seem like a good idea.” 

“For fuck’s sake, bonnie,” he barked, and you flinched at his sudden intensity. Not quite aggression but certainly encroaching on it. 

“What?” You growled, recoiling, back pressed against the window behind you. 

“I’m sick of it. Y’been fucken’ cold to me, and I haven’t done nothin’ to deserve it.” 

“I’m not — I’ve not been cold.” 

“No?” He snapped, “y’wont even look me in the eye for more than a damn second! Last time y’didn’t even say good-bye when ye left.” 

Riled annoyance flushed high on your cheeks, thrummed in your temples as you curled your tongue in search of a retaliation. 

“We’re not — there’s nothing here, Johnny. I don’t owe you anything. You can’t — you can’t expect me to worship you.” 

“Worship me?” He asked incredulously, “I don’t need ye tae worship me, hen, Christ — yer just so fucken’ icy I can’t focus on anythin’ at all when yer here. Like i’m walkin’ on eggshells everywhere I go.” 

“If I’m that distracting then you should find another pathologist,” you spat. You didn’t have a bone of de-escalation in your body; made entirely of kindle that took far more energy to snuff out than to ignite. 

He wiped down his face with white-knuckled hands, eyes rolling into the back of his head in pure frustration. Sometimes you simply enjoyed riling him up, but this time you only sought to get him to leave you alone.

“Yer bein’ cruel,” he grumbled, and you could hear the swelling anger roiling in his throat. 

“I don’t know what you want from me,” you hissed. “If you need to let off some steam so badly go stick your dick in someone else.”

His eyes turned dark, you watched his pupils distend right before you. 

“Don’t want someone else,” he murmured coarsely. 

 You gritted your teeth. “That’s too b—”

Cut off by a gasp as his body suddenly rammed against you, he used his weight to smother your disputes as a needy hand grasped at the button of your jeans, tugging and wriggling it vigorously to break it loose. 

“Johnny—” You belted, throat plugging up in the shock. 

You swung back a hand and threw it viciously into his cheek with a bullet-loud slap — but aside from the white-hot handprint you left on his face, he was utterly unperturbed. He deftly seized your assailing hand by the wrist and grappled it tightly, wrangled the other one while you were distracted and pinned it to your chest with a fist.

You balked as he yanked your right hand towards him, planting his mouth in your palm; his breath was blistering hot, made your hand all clammy as he pressed his slovenly lips into the hollow. 

“Miss ye,” he grumbled into your skin, wetting your palm with his tongue, no doubt it tasted like latex and soap. Didn’t seem to faze him, as he slid the tip of his tongue between the valley of two fingers, before taking your pinky finger in his mouth. Wet, and warm, enveloped it hole — the rough texture of his taste buds on the pad of your finger made your hairs stand on end, needle-sharp tingles down trickled your spine. 

“God’s sake, Johnny,” you breathed, dyspneic; tried to wriggle free the hand he had riveted to your sternum, but he only secured his grip of you. “This is — n-not here.”

“Don’ care,” he muttered, after releasing your finger from his maw; dragged his mouth hastily down your wrist, then your forearm, catching in the knit of your sweater. Found purchase once it reached skin again, took your febrile neck between his teeth and suckled there, basely relishing in the saltiness of your sweat. 

“John — please,” you chirped, when he bit your thickest tendon, and you felt your scruples begin to melt like butter. “I’ll go to d-dinner with you, just — this is so—”

His messy lips were on your jaw, then, but he never made his way to kiss you; as if kissing you on the mouth was too intimate, too severe a violation to commit, more so than anywhere else on your body he could have planted his mouth. 

“After,” he mumbled into your cheek, and his hands sunk to the button of your jeans, undoing it with a pop. Kept you wedged against the window into the autopsy room with his hips against you, gargantuan mass nearly squeezing the air from your lungs in an effort to keep you still. 

“Made me wait too long, bonnie,” he slurred, mouth on your collarbone, most of your exposed skin now wet with the marks of his saliva — hardly kisses, tastes instead. “Look what y’done to me.”

“I wasn’t…” you faltered, breathless, as he dropped to his knees hard enough that you winced at the thought of his kneecaps hitting the solid floor. 

The sound of your fly being torn down was harsh, ear-piercing; you squeaked in panic when he took the undone waistband of your jeans in his fists and yanked gracelessly them down your hips, dexterously taking your underwear with them. 

Hadn’t even shimmied them to your thighs before he keeled forward and took your cunt in his mouth, lapping at the seam of you like a dog on water, planting mushy kisses at the top of your slit as though greeting a lost lover.

Your protests turned to liquor on your tongue, inebriating — your head spun with it, ceding every modicum of agency to his charge, the responsibility now his to orchestrate you, the onus on him to steer you. He knew you well, the detective, could read you like the pages of a book. Knew how rarely you’d give, only hoping he’d take. 

And take he did, fucking glutton that he was — ate you like an animal, hardly even trying to prevent his sharp teeth from grazing your labia as he sucked your clitoris into his mouth, laving it with the voraciousness of a hound starved — suckling down your slick and letting it run down his chin, smear over his mouth and cheeks, eager to drown himself in you — you could only sputter and mewl in surrender, skull donging against the hollow glass of the window behind you as your head rocked back from your shoulders. 

“Johnny—” You hiccupped, aimless, hurling his name into the overcrowded air of the stuffy vestibule as though hoping it would stick to something. Your hands clawed at the veneered sill of the interior window, scraping off the polyurethane, you could feel the shards under your fingernails. 

Your clit burned under his tongue, pebbled and swollen and throbbing like a heartbeat — slithering rapture coiled up tight in the base of you, made your vision blurry and your mouth wet — on a cry you came, it ricocheted out from your perfervid clit in shockwaves that turned your vision white, and you did your best to stifle your cloying noises with a fleshy palm between your teeth. 

Legs went weak with it, nearly buckling if not for the hands that held you up by the hips, and he finished his meal with a gentle swipe of your anguished clit, flat tongue. 

Not like Tommy, he didn’t mock you for your orgasm, didn’t chortle and torment you with pokes or pinches just to make you squeal. Johnny was grateful for it, reverent, took his time to breathe in the heat of your rapture directly from its source, exhaling cool air on your glowing pussy as if to comfort it.

“Ah, fucken’ needed that,” he vented, panting, forehead on your belly. “Ma perfect kitty, mh, couldn’t wait any longer, bonnie.” 

You thought he might bring himself to stand, pull up your trousers for you, perhaps apologise for the incursion in a place as depravedly inappropriate as this — but, he didn’t. He instead tore your jeans down your thighs with unhampered haste, past your knees, hoisting up your ankle to yank the pant leg from your foot. 

That was all he needed, evidently, once your legs were no longer tethered by your trousers; he stood up and had you by the thighs in an effortless ascent, adroitly hooking your legs around his waist and wedging you against the window. His fist tore at his belt, and it clinkled as he unbuckled it — followed the flick of a button, the zip of a fly. 

“You’re a degenerate, Johnny,” you puffed, with a whine, and he all but chuckled at you. 

“M’just a man,” he grunted, cock unsheathed in a blink, you felt it smear against your sodden pussy and saturate his shaft with your needy syrup. “Y’won’t let me take y’out, won’t let me call ye, won’t let me—”

Bitten off by a groan as he nestled the blunt head between your folds, broke through your entrance without pause — sunk deep as he fell against you, and you bleated as he split you open — he was thicker than Tommy, the girth a painful shock every time you let him in, and you didn’t believe your cunt could ever be inured to the stretch, it could only rip itself to fit him. 

“—Fuck ye,” he groused, low voice breaking as he sealed his lips to your neck. “Christ, bonnie—”

You only whimpered, turned stupid, as you hung your arms over his shoulders and clawed at his back, nails catching in the stiff straps of the holster that cladded his scapulae. Herculean shoulders worked facilely to hold you up, thick and straining against the thin cotton of his shirt. His thrusts were steady, hard, bounced you up and down against the glass — your sweater rode up with every rut, until your bare back smeared against the cold window, you felt it grow damp with the condensation of your sweat. 

“Feel tha’, hen?” He growled, the resonance of his ragged voice wracking through you like a quake. “Fucken’ made for me, eh? Perfect fit—” 

So greedy, insatiable, he fucked you with a simmering rage, one that had been bubbling under the surface and whose temperature had only risen with every visit you turned him down — one, two, three months since you last let him inside, figuratively and literally — and he let you know of his spite, fucked you with the ferocity of a man boiled over, you worried that he’d push you through the window and the shards would cut you to pieces. 

You bit down on little cries with each rut, the upward curve in his cock had his rigid head battering your bladder from inside you to the point of ache, and it turned you pudding soft — all defiance siphoned from you, pooling around the base of his cock until it went foamy in his bed of trimmed dark hair. 

He groaned, feverish and needy, and you knew what that sound portended. 

“Agh — fuck, can I—”

Come inside you went swallowed, because he was too close, and he wouldn’t have had time to pull out if you were to say no. 

His teeth chewed reverently at your shoulder and he moaned into your skin, bucking in, to the hilt, ruts turning erratic and volatile. His cock jolted hard within your constricting walls when he finally reached his climax — spurting scalding hot come into the depths of your cunt until you were glutted with it, filling you up to the fornices, and you could almost taste its brine on your tongue. 

A slow whimper leaked out from behind your teeth, perhaps a moan of relief, now that he was hopefully surfeited — he slumped into you with a puff of air, kissed your shoulder where he had bitten you, chased a final thrust to squeeze out every drop. 

“Been too long,” he purred, winded, humid with sweat. “Dinnae make me wait like that again, eh?”

“M’sorry,” you slurred, fucked drunk, brain knocked against your skull one too many times in the last twenty-four hours for it to make much sense of what had happened. 

You felt stuffy, filled up to the ears with come and confusion, and you wanted nothing more than to climb out of the corpse-ridden basement he had just fucked you in and take a breath of real air. 

He slipped his cock out of you once it had marginally softened, and a glub of come oozed out of your cunt and dribbled down your thigh. You groaned as you bent down to put your jeans back on — but to your surprise, he helped you. Took your foot (sneaker still on) and fed it through the leg of your underwear, then your trousers, pulled them up both your legs with a shimmy, fixed them over your hips. 

Even did your button back up for you, pulled up your zip fly as if he was undoing the damage he had done. 

“There, hen,” he said gently, petting your cheek as if to praise you. “All better.” 

In your stupor you could only be grateful. “Thank you.” 

“Will y’come get a bite with me, now?” 

You were dizzy. You needed to put Jane Doe back in the fridge. You needed to give him a copy of your pathology report. You needed to send the toxicology samples to the forensics lab. 

Maybe you could leave it all for Jenny. 

“Okay,” you said. 

[theskywithin]

Love Edition: The Love Your Sun Sign Wants Vs. The Love Your Moon Sign Needs

There’s the love you chase, the love that ignites something familiar within you, the love you want. And then there’s the love that unsettles you, the one you secretly need, the love that holds a mirror to your soul and dares you to receive it.

Your Sun sign reveals the love you desire, the one you crave like a habit. Your Moon sign uncovers the love that scares you, the one that could truly set you free.

Find your truth below.

Aries Sun: You want a love that strikes like lightning, that roars like a war drum, that meets you in battle with fire in its veins. A love that is fearless, reckless, a storm that never stills. You crave someone who chooses you with the force of an unshaken belief—who runs toward you, never away.

Aries Moon: You need a love that doesn't demand a fight to feel real. A love that holds you even when you are still, when you are silent, when you are unguarded. You need someone who doesn’t conquer you, but softens you, teaching you that love is not a war—it is the quiet after the storm.

Taurus Sun: You want a love that is steady as the earth beneath you, unshaken by time, untouched by uncertainty. A love that lingers in the scent of skin, the weight of a familiar touch, the promise of a thousand tomorrows. You crave a love that never leaves, that stays wrapped around you like warmth you can always return to.

Taurus Moon: You need a love that is not afraid of change. A love that whispers, "trust the unknown," that teaches you that permanence is an illusion and the only certainty is the present moment. You need someone who shows you that love is not possession, it is a river that never stops moving, and sometimes, to love fully, you must let go.

Gemini Sun: You want a love that dances in words, that spills across pages, that never stops shifting, growing, becoming something new. A love that keeps you guessing, keeps you chasing, keeps your mind alight with questions yet to be answered. You crave a love that feels like a conversation that never ends.

Gemini Moon: You need a love that does not need words to be felt. A love that stays in the silences, in the spaces between sentences, in the depths you often avoid. You need someone who does not ask you to explain yourself, but simply understands, someone who sees beyond your laughter, into the quiet parts of you that have never been held.

Cancer Sun: You want a love that feels like shelter, like coming home to open arms, like hands that memorize the shape of you. A love that lingers in old songs, in whispered confessions, in promises that taste like forever. You crave a love that wraps around you and never lets go.

Cancer Moon: You need a love that does not cage you inside of it. A love that does not promise forever but shows up in every moment. You need someone who does not complete you, but reminds you that you were never incomplete to begin with.

Leo Sun: You want a love that shines, one that makes you feel seen, adored, worshipped in the softest way. A love that celebrates you, that sets fire to the world just to warm your hands. You crave someone who loves you loudly, who never makes you question your worth.

Leo Moon: You need a love that stays even when the applause fades. A love that sees you in the quiet, in the shadows, in the moments where you do not feel like a sun but simply a flickering flame. You need someone who loves you not for how brightly you shine, but for who you are when no one is looking.

Virgo Sun: You want a love that is careful, intentional, built brick by brick with steady hands. A love that makes sense, that does not falter, that feels like something you can trust with your whole being. You crave a love that is earned, that is proven in the smallest, quietest ways.

Virgo Moon: You need a love that is messy, that is unplanned, that does not follow a blueprint. A love that teaches you that perfection is an illusion, that love is not something to be fixed, but something to be felt. You need someone who holds you even when you don’t have it all figured out.

Libra Sun: You want a love that is beautiful, effortless, untouched by conflict. A love that feels like poetry, that exists in balance, in harmony, in gentle whispers and soft hands. You crave a love that feels like a fairytale written just for you.

Libra Moon: You need a love that does not fear the truth. A love that is not always soft, but always real. You need someone who does not just love the polished version of you, but embraces the mess, the contradictions, the raw and unfiltered you.

Scorpio Sun: You want a love that consumes, that pulls you under, that binds two souls together in something darker, deeper, unbreakable. A love that is written in fate, in blood, in the stars. You crave a love that leaves a mark on your soul.

Scorpio Moon: You need a love that is light. A love that does not demand suffering to be real. You need someone who teaches you that love does not have to hurt to be profound. You need someone who stays, not because they are bound to you, but because they choose you every single day.

Sagittarius Sun: You want a love that feels like the open sky, limitless and wild, where no heart is tethered, and no dream is too far. A love that moves like wind through your fingertips, light enough to never weigh you down, yet strong enough to set your soul on fire. You crave someone who understands that love is an adventure, a journey, not a destination to settle in. Someone who runs beside you, never in front, never behind.

Sagittarius Moon: You need a love that stays when the world stops spinning. A love that does not feel like an escape, but a home you never want to leave. You need someone who shows you that love is not a road to be traveled, it is a place where you can rest. Someone who does not chase you, but waits, knowing you will always find your way back when love is steady enough to be trusted.

Capricorn Sun: You want a love that is not reckless, but intentional. One that is slow-burning, resilient, something that feels like destiny rather than chance. You crave someone who understands that love is not just words whispered in the dark, but actions repeated in the daylight. Someone who stays not because they have to, but because they have chosen you, over and over again.

Capricorn Moon: You need a love that is effortless, given freely, without conditions. You need someone who does not love you for your strength, but for your softness, the part of you the world rarely sees. Someone who reminds you that love is not something you must build with your bare hands, it is something you are already worthy of, without having to earn it.

Aquarius Sun: You want a love that feels like a secret universe, untouched by expectations, where two souls can exist in their own orbit. You crave someone who understands that love is not meant to be caged, that connection does not need labels to be real. A love that feels like discovery, like endless conversation, like a masterpiece only the two of you can understand.

Aquarius Moon: You need a love that does not just admire you from a distance, but steps closer, close enough to touch, close enough to stay. You need someone who reminds you that love is not just an idea, not just a philosophy, it is something you can hold in your hands. Someone who teaches you that real intimacy does not take away your freedom, it deepens it.

Pisces Sun: You want a love that feels like magic, like something written in the stars long before you arrived. A love that dissolves the boundaries between reality and dream, one that makes the ordinary world feel a little softer, a little more poetic. You crave someone who understands your longing for something deeper, something divine. A love that is not just felt but transcended, that lingers in every song, every sunset, every quiet moment when the world feels too heavy and you just need a hand to hold in the dark.

Pisces Moon: You need a love that is real. A love that does not disappear with the morning light, that does not fade when fantasy is no longer enough. You need someone who loves you with their feet on the ground, not just their head in the clouds. Someone who teaches you that love is not found in escaping the world, but in learning to stay within it. A love that does not just exist in your heart, but in the spaces where life is raw, imperfect, and beautifully real.

[moonstruckme]

Hi Mae! I hope you’re having a great weekend. You asked for whimsical reader and I feel like that would be an interesting dynamic with Spencer (if you’re willing to write it ofc) bc he’s typically more logical and analytical. Like she is talking to him about one of her interests or showing him something and it’s so not Him but he’s fascinated by her and how her mind works

Thanks lovely!

Spencer Reid x whimsical!reader ♡ 557 words

“I’m only saying that we can’t know for sure.” 

“We do know.” There’s no pique in Spencer’s tone. For anyone else there might be, but he can never bring himself to agitation around you. You have a presence that feels like rain in summer. It lulls Spencer without him realizing it’s happening. 

“Spencer.” You give him a look. Indulgent, fond. “How much of the ocean did you say humans have explored?” 

He frowns. “About five percent.” 

“And we evolved from fish, didn’t you say that?” 

“Yes, but—” 

“So we can’t say for sure that mermaids don’t exist,” you say, patiently. Going back to braiding together three dandelions still rooted in the ground. Joggers pass on the park trail nearby. “Humans have come from the ocean before, and we haven’t seen enough of it to know that some who stopped halfway through evolution aren’t down there somewhere.” 

Spencer exhales a laugh. Something you and he have in common is your insatiable curiosity. If there were suddenly a way to go to the bottom of the ocean and explore everything humans have never seen, Spencer would go in a heartbeat and he really believes that you would, too. His curiosity is scientifically-minded, though, based in evidence. You work differently. 

“They’re always discovering things they weren’t expecting down there,” you go on. “Like sea angels. Nobody could have come up with that.” 

Spencer watches you. Your careful fingers, your relaxed posture, the way the afternoon sun tangles in your hair. He’s not sure when looking at you became less about fascination and more about feeding the aching hunger in his chest. 

“You know, there’s some speculation that early human sightings of animals like manatees or dugongs might have inspired stories of mermaids.” You glance up at him, intrigued. Like Spencer around you, you never seem to get upset when he argues. You’re only inquisitive. “Ancient Assyrians believed that Atargatis, the goddess of water and the moon, dove into a lake to take the form of a fish. Because the gods wouldn’t allow her to give up her beauty, they forced her to keep half of her human form.”

Your expression is rapt. “So she was the first mermaid.” 

You phrase it like it’s more than myth. “That’s the oldest known belief of mermaids, yes.” 

“I hope it’s true.” You go back to braiding your flowers. “That’s such a cool story.” 

You say it so contentedly Spencer can’t bring himself to contradict you. It’s not about what you hope is true, an insistent voice in his head cries. But maybe it is. With you, you’re happy enough just to believe in what you hope is true. 

You seem to sense what Spencer is craving, scooting over in the grass so that you’re closer to him. You lay your head on his shoulder. He can feel the warmth of your cheek through his sleeve. 

You say in a placid tone, gaze fixed on some faraway cloud, “Maybe some humans evolved into butterflies, too.” 

Spencer smiles and turns his head, enjoying the tickle of your hair against his chin. “You won’t convince me fairies are real, sorry.” 

“How much of the sky have we explored, Spencer?” 

“I work for the government. If there were fairies, I would tell you.” 

“What makes you think the government would know? Fairies are very good at hiding.”

[foolinafable]

ordinary

Five Hargreeves x Fem!Reader Synopsis: A normal morning with Five Word Count: 1.2k Tags: Fluff, Season 4 fix it fic Note: wanted to write for five in my tipsy stupor and this was born. Also, send requests!

He wouldn’t change this for anything, six years with you had been as close to heaven as he could ever hope to get.

Five had done a lot of bad things in his life- he was sure he was as close to the devil as one could get but you had always been there, the sun to his moon, the smile to his frown, the Hera to his Zeus. All he had ever wanted was for time to stop, for him not to be worrying about his family and an upcoming apocalypse and that is all he had up until now. the complete freedom from that aspect of his life finally allowed him to have his retirement. Until he got bored and applied for the CIA.

Getting the job was something Diego may have envied but you fully supported it because while he may have the memories and mind of a much older man psychically he didn’t look any older than eighteen and neither did you thanks to his mess-up with the calculations a whole three apocalypses ago. He had spent twenty-six years by your side now and still didn’t seem long enough in his opinion.

Waking up by your side was a gift he hoped he never had to give up. Watching you sleep with a soft smile as he realised that this was his reality now- the world was safe, you were safe. He never needed to worry about something coming to take you and his family away again- it had been six years of peace and he can only look forward to even more. 

He hated waking you up in the morning but also knew that you would be sad if he left for work before you could give him a kiss goodbye, something he wouldn't admit to also missing if he ever dared to leave you asleep in bed. Luckily, today he had the day off as did you for it was little Grace's birthday a day the young girl was very excited for because her "favourite auntie and uncle" would make an appearance her voice echoing in his head from when you had called Lila for a chat yesterday and confirmed to very happy Grace Stanley Hargreeves that the two of you wouldn’t dare miss her birthday party after she had threatened that her father would come and kidnap the pair of you if you dared to miss her most special day. It was later on in the day in the afternoon as Lila had claimed annoyed that it couldn’t be too early as she needed time to not only get the twins ready but also set up the party as the kids club it was going to be located at so he got to watch you for the first time in whoever knows how long sleep in and not feel bad for not waking you up.

Eventually, he could feel the need for coffee overwhelm him knowing that if he didn't get some in his system he would soon become a ‘grumpy old man’ as you liked to say so he slowly unwrapped his hands from around you and gave a soft kiss to your forehead as he departed from the warm of your embrace and made his way towards the kitchen his main goal to make himself a cup of goddam coffee. 

You grumbled slightly at the feeling of his lips on your head trying to snuggle back into his neck when you noticed his removal from the haven of your warm bed causing you to groan at the loss of him.

Ever since saving the world more than once you found it hard to sleep without him the fear of living in a world without him haunts you on darker days and frightening nights so it was of no surprise to you when your eyes quickly blinked open at the loss of him in the bed luckily his side was still warm calming your brain as you slowly and annoyingly began to awaken a lot earlier than you would’ve wished for on your day off.

After a few minutes of rolling around in the bed hoping you could convince yourself to go back to sleep you deceitfully trudged yourself away leaving the safety of your covers in order to find your lover. Yawning as you made your way from your bedroom into the kitchen smelling the coffee from a mile away giving his location away easily you found him sitting at the breakfast table sipping coffee smiling softly as he saw you appear from the door you smiled back lazily as you dropped into the chair opposite his, head resting on your hands as he strokes your face with his thumb in an apology for waking you up you simply hummed in understanding- he can’t be awake too long without coffee otherwise he will become irritable and you couldn’t have that with Grace’s birthday party being at two o'clock.

Luther had called yesterday letting you know that he would be picking up Ben from prison as he was finally getting released today, he also mentioned that Victor was planning on making an appearance. A fact that left you and Five shocked barely hearing from the Hargreeves sibling since you had split off after Alison reset the timeline.

Five stopped stroking your face as he got up from his chair walking into the living room before quickly returning with the crossword puzzle book you had gifted him for his birthday, he made a point to do one puzzle every morning before he did anything else, except have his coffee that is, claiming that it made him feel ready for the day and feel as though you were with him on the days he set off for work before you had even awoken a fact that made you smile as you looked at the boy- a man as he now liked to claim as he looked down at his puzzle his eyebrows furrowed as he completed it with ease only meeting your gase once he had finished today crossword eyebrows raising as you smiled at him before reaching to tuck the hairs in front of his face behind his ears as they usually go in his eyes. Something that while it annoyed him he wouldn’t dare cut his hair any shorter especially after you had spoken of your fondness over this overgrown style. His hands grabbed at your wrists before you could pull away from him, using this as leverage he drew you closer to press a slow kiss to your lips smiling as you hummed in content at the contact of his lips on yours, his hands stroking at your wrists making butterflies erupt in your stomach as if he hadn’t been doing this for the past two decades. You smiled as you parted your hand coming to rest on his jaw where his dimple sat among his freckles, he smiled back at you his eyes not daring to leave yours.

You both were sure that while this day was going to be as ordinary as the others had these past six years it would be special just because you were here together. 

[scorpionickiss]

If any of these planets are rising at birth (basically the first planets after the asc) it can give you some of the following aspects corresponding to it:

Sun - light hair- brown or blonde; warm skin tone, big eyes; great vitality but this could lead to burnout if there are any afflictions related to the sun; very expressive; very bright and big smile; might prioritize their wants over others’.

Moon - soft or round face; soft hands; might have a calming effect on people; this person could be empathetic; this individual has eyes that have that certain welcoming warmth in them, green/hazel eyes; plump lips; pretty good health; can make someone seem as very approachable; soft smile;

Mars - strong build; striking eyes; intense stare, big forehead; uses a lot of gestures when speaking, if mars is in gemini may use hands a lot; may make a person very ambitious but if this planet is afflicted it may make the individual not focus easily on tasks.

Mercury - dark/blue eyes; big eyes; communicative individual; if unafflicted the individual could be very intelligent; somewhat strong arms; strong hands; might be a person that gets nervous easily; might be an anxious individual in general.

Venus - this person might often be considered beautiful; calm; forgiving; very protective of their resources, especially if 2H is in cancer; very loving; might have facial harmony; might have an artistic talent that they could use for their own good!

Saturn - very disciplined and encourages discipline; reserved; strong back; if afflicted the imdividual might have problem fixing their bad habits; might be a very sucessful leader; simple dressing style and might look intimidating to some.

Jupiter - depending on how it is situated in the chart, it might expand anything it touches; for example, an individual might have enlarged eyes or a big face; if it forms a trine or sextile to mars for example the person could have a very strong build; if it is in 1H it could make someome easily noticeable, etc

Uranus - unconventional dressing style; might impress through their make-up as well; very inventive; might have heterochromia; their eyes will stand out the most; might get attention through views that might be seen as unconventional in their society.

Neptune - their eyes might look deeply into your soul; sleepy-looking eyes; individual may be described as “dreamy” looking; and individual thay might daydream a lot; this individual could be a psychic; might dream events before they happen especially if moon is close to neptune.

Pluto - like mars and saturn, this person might seem intimidating; this person might be tall and have a commanding presence; very determined to conquer and have an impact where they go; might have an effect on anyone they come across

P.S: certain chart dynamics can change these. please note the entire chart.

readings

[draczrys]

Would you write something about Cregan Stark getting married to a reader of a house of your choice and thus sealing alliances and being fluffy?

WINTER ROSE. ❨ cregan stark x tyrell!reader ❩

since your birth, the third child and only daughter of highgarden’s lord, your fate had always been a marriage for political means. your elder brother would inherit the title, the other set for life as a knight of the seven kingdoms. you were a girl and your purpose was to marry well and secure a strong alliance for your family.

it didn’t take long to come to terms with what your life would look like. you would come of age and be sent away to the lord that would benefit you most. for your family, you would do it. but, every night, you would kneel by your pillow and pray that your husband would at least be kind —- it needn’t be true love, like the stories you often read. as long as he wasn’t cruel.

“cregan stark has been named the new lord of winterfell and is in need of a wife,” your father announced one morning, amidst the feasting hall. “i have sent a raven to offer your hand and he has accepted.”

your mother beamed, grasping your shoulders proudly. “my daughter, lady of winterfell.”

“we are in need of his banners and he needs our grain and cloths for the winter,” lord tyrell explains, shrugging as though it were simply a swap of goods and not the life of his daughter. “it is a fair exchange.”

by the next moon, you were departing the green and gold covered fields of highgarden and journeying north on the roseroad. the colder it became, the more you missed the sweet sun and elegant surroundings of your home. northerners were rough and unforgiving to outsiders, each one you met along the way adding to the dreaded image of your husband.

the first time you laid eyes on cregan stark was when you were taken along the path to the godswood. he was handsome, you couldn’t deny that. but his tall build, stoic features and steady gaze made you shiver —- even under the furs you’d been given. he had the look of a northerner, but did he have the heart of one too?

“by the old gods and the new, i name you man and wife,” the septon concluded the ceremony, unbinding the cloth wrapped around your hands. expectant eyes looked on, forcing a blush upon your face as you reached up and pressed a soft kiss to cregan’s cheek.

if you were to confess under the eyes of the godswood, you were afraid of cregan stark. his eyes were unwavering, lips fixed in a permanent frown. other than his vows of marriage, he hadn't said a word. neither of you were elated to be trapped into a marriage of convenience, but you knew you hadn't any choice in the matter. at the least, he could look like he was enduring it.

sat now at the top table in winterfell's great feast hall, your new husband at your side, the celebrations were growing louder the longer the wine was being poured. you sat quietly, barely sipping at your cup. only when the loud, booming voice of cregan's men rang out did you come back to the present.

"a toast, to the new lady of winterfell! may she be as beautiful under our lord as she is beside him."

the laughs that emulated from it made you grimace, so used to being treated as the perfect lady, protected from all things becoming to a man. you knew of sex, the people of the reach having always been open about their bodies and pleasures, but the northern aggression that came with it was foreign to you.

"to the bedding ceremony!"

the ladies at highgarden had warned you of the tradition that came at weddings, the entire party parading around the newlyweds as they stripped and consummated the bond. it was daunting enough to take your new husband to bed, but to be watched by tens of strangers? it had your heart suddenly hammering out of your chest, every muscle tensing in a cold shock.

"enough!" the commanding voice of the man by your side cut through the cheers, silencing the hall in an instant. it was the first time he had spoken since the ceremony, current volume making up for the silence. "there will be no bedding ceremony. anyone who protests will meet the sword at once."

whilst everyone else cowered under the threat, you felt yourself relax with a warm relief. cregan turns to meet your surprise, both his eyes and tongue turning soft as he speaks just to you now.

"you may retire, if you wish."

nodding gratefully, you follow the gentle hand of your lady-in-waiting out of the busy feast and along the strange halls of the cold castle. even your chambers are cold, the climate seeming to cling to the stone around the bed. the silk nightdresses you had brought with you do nothing to shield you from it, so once your lady departs you begin to forage through the chests for something to keep you warm. eventually finding a smaller set of furs amongst the others, you drape it around your shoulders and relish in the heat that comes with it.

"is everything to your liking?"

jumping in shock, you turn on your heels to find cregan stood at the doorway, just about filling the whole space. his eyes flicker down to the furs -- his furs, covering you and a small smirk pulls at the corner of his lips.

"i'm sorry," you stumble quickly. "it was cold and it was all i could find."

cregan's head shakes, dismissing your apologies. "it's alright. everything here is as much yours as it is mine, now."

you smile, head falling bashfully to glance at the floor. "i hadn't expected everything to be so... different here. it will take some time to adjust, i think."

nodding in understanding, cregan crosses the room to stand in front of you. you feel yourself shiver under his gaze, watching him study you amongst his territory. hesitantly, his hand slips from under his own furs to reach for your own. you let him, both of you treading new water as your learn each other's touch; the smoothness of your palms, the rough pads of his thumbs, the heat that encompassed your chilled knuckles. the sensation is wonderful, like two puzzle pieces slotting together.

"whatever you need to help you enjoy your new life here, no matter the extent, it will be my honour to find it for you," cregan tells you, the kindness in his voice a pleasant welcome. "you are my wife now, it is my duty to make you comfortable."

feeling your cheeks warm, rounding with the first genuine smile in days. your heart swells and the feeling that this marriage might just be okay fills you, so much so that you find yourself reaching up to kiss cregan's cheek once more. unlike the bonding of the vows, this one is genuine and of your own volition, expressing the gratitude you could not find words for.

"i can sleep elsewhere for the night, if you would wish..." cregan continues, clearing his throat to distract from the small blush that creeps past his skin.

"no, stay," you tell him, squeezing his hand. "perhaps we could talk, learn more about each other."

the suggestion eases you both. cregan agrees, using your hand to guide you towards the bed, only leaving for a moment to fetch you more furs for the night. he potters around, changing for sleep, and the domestic scene lets you relax into the pillows.

it wasn't a marriage for love - yet. but perhaps it could be, with time.

[hauntedtotem]

everyone thought Moon was the one fucking up those broken staffbots in dca's room but i always thought they were trying to fix them. especially after help wanted's release and Sun sounds upset/annoyed that they had to call someone in to fix the carousel because he didn't know how to fix it himself, and moon says to the technician "what makes you so special" as if he's salty the tech could fix it when they couldnt. i dont remember the specifics but i think there was a post a while ago saying that the broken glam bonnie had like, dca handprints on him or something? even tho we know dca had nothing to do with bonnie getting broken, he may have moved the body or smth afterwards, for some reason or other... + when glam freddy needs to get to parts and services, moon knocks him out and drags him there. (ik he's got the virus and all during that and is maybe just following vanny ig?) but i also think he legitimately does try to care for the other animatronics in some way- and was hoping to eventually repair the broken staffbots and possibly bonnie as well? i vaguely remember already making a post about this a while ago, but i dont think the "security rounds" moon does is actually for security, i think he's making sure the glams are "sleeping" at the charging stations and not going to power down in some random area of the pizzaplex later. (and hes not even after freddy because of gregory, hes after freddy because he's out of the chargers. Moon doesnt see gregory hiding through freddy so much as moon's just like. freddy why tf are u awake rn go to sleep >:c. oh hey the kid im supposed to be looking for is here too) so going off of the idea that he not only is "the caretaker" of the kids during the day, but he also has some sort of responsibility with taking care of the other animatronics at night, it's possible he has some sort of interest in repairing broken bots here and there when he can, too. Anyways i think the dca just likes tinkering and fixing things