#THREAD - WHEN SNOW FALLS ON THE RUINS ONCE MORE | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

i-did-not-mean-to · 10 months ago

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All good things must pass...

This is a treat fic for @samayla for the 2023 @whiteoliphaunt.

Pairing: Thorin x Bilbo

Words: 1 335

Warnings: None

Prompts: Snowed in, gift giving, sharing traditions

“Maybe, we could…” Thorin II, generally called “Oakenshield”, scratched his beard pensively as he looked out on the endless blanket of snow that made it patently impossible to discern the single path leading down from the hidden cave.

“Dear,” Bilbo sighed, his nose twitching in dismay. He opened his mouth to remind his friend and lover of the fact that, despite being an esteemed king and a fierce warrior, Thorin had a pesky tendency to lose his way even at the best of times.

Indeed, the brave Hobbit was far from eager to tumble off a rocky ledge or fall down a ravine that was treacherously obscured by the snow in a ludicrous but eminently tragic accident.

Nevertheless, Thorin seemed so tense and unhappy already that his heart misgave him, and he swallowed his confession of doubt and fear in favour of a more selfless argument.

“I do not doubt that you, your dwarven instincts, and your sturdy boots could find a way down, but I beg you to remember that I am at a distinct disadvantage,” he commented in a soft, pleading voice, motioning at his furry, bare toes.

Of course, this was at least partially disingenuous; Bilbo’s feet were inured to both icy sludge and searing heat, but he could not feel all too guilty for fibbing when he saw Thorin’s eyes light up with relief and tenderness.

“It was such a nice idea to come here,” the Hobbit went on, willing his jaw to relax and suppressing the full-body shivers threatening to ruin his nonchalant delivery of those much-needed, reassuring words of love and support. “I do not mind staying a little longer. Surely, there are more things you can show me in your favourite grotto?”

The smile pulling at the corners of his mouth now was as sunny and genuine as it would have been had they comfortably stood in front of the Great Hall’s roaring fires.

Growing up, Bilbo—as was the wont of his kind—had himself favoured certain flowers, fruits, and trees, and he had never doubted the legitimacy of those instinctive preferences.

Thus, it made perfect sense to him that Thorin—who had only recently returned to his ancestral home—would have treasured places he had not seen for many decades.

It filled Bilbo’s heart with tingling warmth to know that his beloved did not only yearn to spend his future with so unlikely a consort, but that he was also recovered enough from the ordeal of the quest and his almost fatal bout of Dragonsickness to grant Bilbo a glimpse into a long-lost past.

“Did you come here often?” he prompted, threading his stiff fingers into the warm fur of Thorin’s collar and tugging gently to distract the King from his morose musings.

“Not as often as I would have liked,” Thorin admitted. “I was the heir, and my duties lay elsewhere.”

“Shame, it’s so pretty.”

Despite the howling wind and the blistering cold, the small cavern, nestled into the flank of a forlorn part of the Lonely Mountain’s foothills, held a singular, enchanting charm. Even in the chiaroscuro caused by the thick veil of heavily falling snow that was blocking out the daylight, age-old crystals glimmered faintly from the vaulted roof, and Bilbo couldn’t help being reminded of the intricate chandelier he had once seen in the Thain’s house as a fauntling.

“What would you do when you came here then?” His teeth were clacking miserably by now, but he was unwilling to let the conversation die.

With a jolt, Thorin seemed to abruptly snap out of his self-recriminatory reverie and firmly slung his arms around the smaller frame of the one he had chosen to be his partner in all things.

“I am so sorry,” he mumbled under his breath. “I have failed you again! Come here, let me warm you up!”

Opening his heavy coat, he wrapped Bilbo into a cocoon of warmth before settling his bearded chin atop the mop of messy, honey-golden curls with another deep, tremulous sigh.

“I am still waiting for an answer. Did you do frivolous, unprincely things?” Bilbo teased, feeling perfectly at ease now that he was sheltered from the biting cold by the fragrant, comforting bubble Thorin had created for him.

He knew not what expectations the overly serious King entertained within that stubborn, laughably haughty mind of his, but Bilbo himself could not imagine a better place to be during a snowstorm than in Thorin’s arms.

Having lived a solitary life before embarking on his Great Adventure, he was not fazed by the idea of being cut off and isolated—he even sometimes preferred being left alone, and, after the bustling activity of Erebor’s reconstruction and repair, he was profoundly grateful to get a moment of intimacy to simply talk to his husband.

“I…I could show you,” Thorin finally replied haltingly. “Sit over there.”

Shrugging out of his coat, the dwarven king draped it around his cherished consort’s shoulders and padded cautiously to the mouth of the cave.

“It is silly,” he admitted when he returned to where Bilbo sat, huddled against the far wall, and set down a heap of powdery, pristine snow.

Again, the Hobbit pressed his lips together to keep himself from saying something imprudent that would upset or discourage Thorin.

The gleam of pure hope and fond reminiscence in those bright blue eyes was so rare and precious a sight that it didn’t even truly matter if the puerile pastime Thorin was about to share turned out to be truly anodyne or vapid indeed.

Wordless, Bilbo watched as Thorin busied himself around the cave, collecting pieces of fallen crystal and small, iridescent stones to build a miniature of the throne room such as it had been before Smaug had laid waste to his beloved kingdom.

“It’s so beautiful,” Bilbo breathed, as ever fascinated and humbled by the craftiness and skill of the many-layered miracle that was Thorin.

Once upon a time, he had met a disgruntled, distrustful king in exile, and it never failed to awe him when he unearthed pieces of the young dwarf Thorin had necessarily been before everything had been taken from him and his family.

“Funny that you’d escape your princely duties only to recreate the very room you’ve fled,” he added in a light voice.

“Wait…” Thorin cautioned him. “May I ask for one of your cherished handkerchiefs as a sacrifice?”

Without hesitation, Bilbo handed over the worn cloth square, too curious to discover what the other had in mind.

“It’s a poor gift,” Thorin whispered as he extricated a piece of flint from his pocket and set the fabric alight, “because it doesn’t last, but…”

“Hush,” Bilbo interrupted, mesmerised by the dancing shadows and the kaleidoscope of colours the small flame cast upon the domed walls of their little sanctuary. “This is absolutely stunning. I understand why you loved coming here!”

Blushing furiously, Thorin looked up at him from where he knelt on the floor.

“Thank you,” Bilbo croaked, tears of emotion and depthless adoration turning his voice raspier than usual. “We Hobbits love ephemeral beauty; after all, even the most gorgeous flowers die and the most glorious of summers must end.”

Sliding to the floor beside Thorin to hug him to his clenching chest, Bilbo allowed his starry eyes to overflow, trusting that even his tears would be well-guarded and safe in Thorin’s mighty hands.

“You’ve graciously gifted me a fleeting flash of colour and heat to counterbalance the deadly white of this storm,” he breathed into a reddened ear, framed elegantly by silver beads and dark hair, “and you’ve granted me a glimpse of your precious soul’s eternity.”

“The storm has finally abated,” Thorin mumbled sheepishly. “Should we dare the descent?”

“Not yet,” Bilbo replied softly, spreading out the coat he’d been cowering under on the floor. “Let’s stay a while yet and watch the lights dance as if we were alone in the world. We are safe, Thorin. Let’s savour that! Together!”

I hope you'll enjoy this <3

Lots of love from me!

#og post #Fanfiction #writing #IDNMT writes #jrrt #Tolkien fanfiction #WO2023 #WhiteOliphaunt 2023 #Bagginshield #Thilbo #Thorin #Bilbo #Thorin x Bilbo #Snowed in #Gift giving #sharing traditions

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athenasdragon · 4 months ago

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In Death, Sacrifice

Read on AO3

Alistair/f!Cousland, established relationship, ghosts, the gothic, Duncan, and returning to Ostagar

Words: 1,407

Gwen Cousland and her companions have made camp in the now-cleared ruins of Ostagar when Alistair spots a fire in the distance. It seems the past still lingers in the dark corners of the battlefield.

Even after being cleared of its remaining darkspawn, the late autumn landscape of Ostagar still cut a threatening backdrop for camp. Snow bent the few stubborn trees at unnatural angles and a biting wind whistled through the ruins.

The company was somber after Cailan’s pyre. Even Morrigan, who Gwen knew had no great respect for the royal line, seemed uneasy so close to the Wilds. Only Zevran piped up during supper to complain of the cold.

At last, with bellies full for once of the rations they had scavenged from the battlefield, everyone made an uneasy retreat to their tents.

“I’ll keep first watch,” Morrigan announced brusquely.

Gwen knew her well enough by now to know that it was a statement, not an offer, so she nodded her thanks and turned to look for Alistair. The two of them had shared a tent more and more frequently recently. While she enjoyed their more athletic evenings together, it was just as nice to fall asleep in the arms of someone kind and comforting—and warm.

To her surprise, Alistair was standing by himself at the very edge of the firelight, his gaze turned towards the main ruins. His armor glinted cold and severe when it caught the flames.

Gwen shivered as she joined him. They had chosen their camping place because an old wall broke the wind, but even a short walk brought her out into the reality of the night temperature.

“Are you all right?” she asked softly. “I know it was a hard day.”

Alistair turned halfway towards her and raised an eyebrow. “It was, but that’s not the issue at hand.” He jutted his chin towards the ruins. “Look.”

Following his gaze, Gwen sucked a surprised breath through her teeth. The unmistakable glow of a fire reflected up an arch. It was near where her Joining had taken place—where she had found the silver chalice today that was wrapped in her bedroll still, secret. Perhaps a gift for Alistair, who wished for anything to connect him to Duncan, and perhaps her own memento of the brief thread which connected her life in Highever to her life now.

From the light, it looked like a large fire, but a crumbling wall blocked their view.

“Chasind?” she asked. “I haven’t sensed any darkspawn since we cleared out the battlefield this afternoon.”

“Me neither,” Alistair agreed. “I would be surprised if it was Chasind. Everyone has fled this part of the Wilds. No one could know yet that it’s safe to return. Who would want to?”

“…I don’t know,” Gwen answered slowly. “We should take a look.”

Alistair immediately struck off, never looking away from the distant fire.

“Wait! We should tell Morrigan where we’re going.”

Either he did not hear her or did not care. Gwen watched him walk through the snow as if in a trance, his long strides breaking tracks. She bit her lip and glanced back towards their own fire before following. Secret nighttime missions were a bad idea, but so was letting Alistair go alone. He had seemed so detached the last few days. Returning to this place was bad for all of them.

Despite the near-total darkness, Gwen was able to follow his tracks without much difficulty. The landscape was eerily silent except for the occasional groaning of the trees.

At last she caught up with him. He was crouched behind the low remains of a wall, the firelight reflecting on his awestruck expression and the tears which ran down his face.

“What is it?” Gwen whispered, apprehension gripping her, as she knelt beside him.

Alistair did not answer—but he did not need to.

He was looking at the fire where Duncan had kept watch. They had lingered by the site earlier in daylight, commenting despairingly at how the darkspawn had scattered the pyre and defiled the space with their presence.

But now, the fire stood tall and proud as it had months before. Pale flames licked the sky as they devoured their unseen fuel. Before the fire paced a smudged and translucent figure, one hand resting on the hilt of its sword and the other swinging in a piercingly familiar gesture.

“Duncan,” Gwen whispered hoarsely.

Alistair seemed to choke on a sob. “Is he really there? Is it a trick?”

She didn’t know. The Chantry taught that there was no such thing as ghosts, but had they not seen strange things where the veil was thin or the lyrium strong? Had she not spoken to her own father, or something like him, in the Temple of Sacred Ashes?

While she turned her answer over in her mouth, Alistair had half-stood and crept behind her and around the wall. She tried to catch at his arm but he shrugged her off.

“Duncan?” he called to the shape. “Is that you?”

The figure halted its pacing and rounded to face Alistair. Its features were still indistinguishable from this distance, but Gwen thought she could almost make out a beard.

Alistair was walking bent half-forward as if bowing, hands held placatingly in front of him and shaking visibly. It was the posture of someone who might be walking towards fatal danger but was compelled forward nonetheless. There was no noise from the ghostly fire. The figure before it did not speak. Only Alistair’s steps crunched on the un-melted snow.

Gwen felt frozen in place. Her gloveless hands were starting to lose feeling where they rested on the stones. Her breath fogged the air before her, coming rapidly now. The specter itself was not fearsome, yet something about this scene out of time sent ice down her spine.

Even the figure’s stillness was uncanny as Alistair finally reached speaking distance. “Duncan?” she heard him ask again. “Is that really you?”

The figure responded in what was clearly Duncan’s voice, though Gwen could not make out the words.

“Yes! Yes, we made it.” Alistair straightened somewhat, his shoulders going slack with relief. “Maker, Duncan. I’m so sorry.” His voice broke on the last word.

Again a low reply from the Duncan-shaped thing. This time it stepped forward and placed a hand on Alistair’s shoulder, prompting a shudder.

Alistair’s voice was too low to hear when he replied. Gwen watched as a few more words were exchanged, stiffening when the specter gestured towards her—she didn’t know it was aware of her presence.

At last Alistair nodded and wiped his face.

The figure seemed to smile, then began to fade.

“No!” Alistair exclaimed, reaching out with both hands to clutch at it but finding it as impossible to grasp as smoke.

As the specter disappeared, so did the fire, leaving the two wardens in the complete darkness of the cold night.

“Alistair?” Gwen whispered. She gently swept her foot in the snow until she could feel his tracks. “Alistair!” She crept around the wall and towards the sound of crying. Though her hands were outstretched, it was her shin that contacted him where he was crouched on the ground.

“He’s gone,” Alistair muttered thickly. “He’s gone again.”

“I know. I know.” She felt blindly for his head and stroked his hair. “We need to get back to camp. I can only barely see the fire.”

Alistair made no effort to move.

“My love,” Gwen said more firmly, true panic beginning to take root alongside the aching cold that seeped through the soles of her boots, “we’ll freeze out here. We have to walk.”

Alistair only stood when she tugged insistently at his shoulder. She wrapped an arm around his waist and began the same shuffling step back, feeling in front of her before each step to find their tracks. Now and then the light from their camp glimmered distantly between the trees. It seemed farther away than it should.

“What did he say?” Gwen asked when the silence seemed too heavy to bear.

She heard rather than saw Alistair wipe at his face again. “He said to do our best.”

“Do you… do you think it was really him?” When she got no reply, she added, “I hear there are things in the wilds that try and lead you off the path.”

“I don’t know,” Alistair said wearily. “I just want to sleep.”

So did Gwen, but she did not protest at his slow pace. Onward between the trees, one slow step at a time, she guided them both towards the light in the distance.

#athena fic tag #gwen cousland #dragon age #dragon age fic #dragon age origins #return to ostagar

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sculptorofcrimson · 11 months ago

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Pavilion of Golden Flowers

A Warhammer retelling of the Drunken Concubine.

Synopsis: Valdor waits for his master

“Love and hate breeds a trice

Couple like the moon with sun

Love and hate are vast

Ask, do kings love?” - Drunken Concubine

~~~

Terra no longer snowed. The white flakes that once cascaded and tumbled before Terra’s slow ruin, the pale frost that had blanketed the Himalayas and chilled golden armor to divine bone, had departed for scorching spring, never to arise once more. There was no more water to freeze, not a single drop of natural moisture upon Terra to fall from its plump heavy clouds. No more bitter frost to wrap the world underneath its wintery embrace. Even the Imperial Palace’s pools and lascivious decor held no natural born water of Terra’s oceans, not eden wealth could restore the lost, for Poseidon had long since abandoned humanity to its fate.

The skies no longer wept in sorrow. They had no more tears to shed. It would be winter, if not for the fact Terra’s climate was nearly as dead as its oceans, and the Imperial Palace was insulated against such natural wonders. There would be no natural ice upon Terra’s surface, for now and forevermore. The only weak flicker of nature’s dying grasp was the slowly spreading moonlight, hovering with marked fickleness as an icy moon rose above the palace. Before it’s single-eyed gaze, the world sharpened and illuminated itself, the ghostly light painting it silver in all its ancient splendor.

It was through this nostalgic haze did the concubine toss back another cup, wineglass crinkling underneath gene-enhanced fingers that could have crushed a man’s throat. The hulking behemoth of a man would have looked intimidating under any other circumstance, even when draped in nothing but silken regalia and stripped of his weapons and armor. Not so long ago, his stern features had been set in an unsmiling glower as the serfs had massaged and groomed and dressed him for his lord, the Emperor's favorite concubine barely resisting as they draped him in silk and threaded scarves around his muscled frame. He hadn’t struggled when they had pulled on jewelry pretentious enough to bankrupt an entire star sector and veiled him in such golden extravagance it was nearly ostentatious. He would have protested against such attire(it was not practical, it was not even easy to move around in, how was he supposed to defend his lord in such ridiculousness?), but the serfs were already tugging the much larger Custodian towards his appointment. Their movements had been harried in their scampering as they had ushered him before a feast fit for an emperor, the Custodian now perfectly prepared to magnificence as if he had been any other item now artfully arranged for their Emperor’s amusement.

Yet still as majestic as ever even when draped in silks instead of auramite, Constantin Valdor was as resplendent as ever as he helped himself to another drink, the liquid searing his throat as his Custodian biology attempted to make sense of what he was drinking. His gene-enhanced form shuddered slightly as the liquid seared his insides, flesh and cells unable to comprehend what foreign substance could be strong enough to bypass his innate resilience.

Such indulgence would out of character for the Captain-General, but the hour of restraint had long since passed, such reservations simply ceased to matter when the clock ticked on and on and on yet, whereas the hands turned and the sand slipped through the hourglass, his lord and master had never even appeared. It was possible that such a thing had simply slipped His mind, however impervious as it was, and left Valdor sitting there, alone, half-slumped over his...seventeenth? Eighteenth? bottle of the finest wine within the Imperium.

At this point, they might as well give him the entire Imperial Palace's cellar.

The serfs and servants and servitors still scurried for the aborted appointment, and the Captain-General watched them with the dull impartiality of cold detachment, the alcohol wrought haze having thankfully having numbed the cold humiliation of the Emperor’s abandonment to muteness.

Still holding the wineglass in a crushing grip, Valdor idly wondered who could sharing the Emperor’s bed as of this moment. Who had been the lucky concubine chosen instead of him? Ra, for his humanity? Kadai? Saturnalia? Perhaps even Diocletian, as feisty as he was? Perhaps tonight the Emperor wanted a challenge instead of Valdor’s mute obedience.

The Captain-General let his gaze linger upon the wineglass, now slowly being refilled by the hand of a Lucifer Black. Briefly, their eyes met, and the guardsman flinched when he noted Valdor’s piercing glare upon his, however dulled by wine that gaze was. The Lucifer Black dropped his eyes, and his hands shook, spilling a neat drop of red liquid along the side of the glass. Neither of them comments. Valdor only made a noncommittal noise as he dismissed the guardsman, gaze travelling onto the serfs still hurriedly running through their preparations as if they truly expected the Emperor to ever arrive. Valdor took a sip of the wine. And then another. Because why not? He long since knew the bitter truth the servants didn’t.

The Emperor would not arrive today. Valdor knew that even as he accompanied them and waited for a master that would never return. The Emperor would never be here now, not in one hour, not in two, not when He had already chosen another concubine over him.

Such indulgence would be impossible to fathom under other circumstances. Yet Valdor found no reason to refuse as he beckoned for the guardsman to approach again, waiting for a refill with endless patience and a serenity that tasted bitter.

The Emperor had taken the emotions of jealousy and envy and carved them out of his chest years ago. In fact, He had even taken the memories of desire itself and torn them out of His perfect creation, had drained away as much of his humanity and conscience as He pleased. Even now, lost in drunken reflection, Valdor found it impossible to even feel a twinge of loss or sympathy for his condition, had found it so unspeakably strange and incomprehensible. Such programming was wired into his literal bones, singed into the very fabric of his soul and shackled into the chains of his mind. There was no greater pleasure than serving his master, if only because he could feel nothing else otherwise. Of course, when pain and absence of pain were all you could feel, you too would gravitate against feeling nothing at all.

The Lucifer Black seemed no longer frightened of Valdor’s presence, although the short glances he gave the Custodian were now full of wariness and guarded observation. Valdor ignored him, more out of the fact he knew the guardsman wanted to talk to him no more than he desired to initiate a conversation. Instead, they both watched the wine refill in a wineglass that would soon crack from Valdor’s grip upon it, and when it was full, the Lucifer Black stepped back without a word.

The wine was supposed to be the finest in the Imperium, yet acting as a connoisseur of wine was the last thing upon his half-dazed mind as Valdor mused upon the hollow ache upon his chest, the strange withdrawal he felt upon his master’s abandonment. It was the unpleasant sensation of betrayal, a deep-seated ache in the absence of his normally iron-clad duty. The liquid was searing as he downed another cup of the Imperium’s finest spirits.

His master wasn’t here. And the Emperor most likely would not appear tonight, or even tomorrow. Right as of this moment, He was most likely enjoying His time with another Custodian, perhaps humoring Ra, perhaps listening to Diocletian, perhaps even doing both in their company.

The thought was no consolation. The fact that his brothers were accompanying the Emperor while Valdor tried not to rip the sheer silken attire surrounding his muscled form did nothing to aid the Captain-General. While Valdor was no longer capable of jealousy, he was not yet quite ready to let go of the closest thing he had for pain in the face of this coldly blunt rejection. He was not yet ready to… forgive? Forgive, perhaps? Was that the word? Was he still capable of such an action, stripped of humanity as he was?No, Valdor believed not. To forgive would be to imply the Emperor had done wrong. To forgive would be to imply that there was a sin that needed forgiving. And the Custodian found himself unable to hold the Emperor to His sins, to His great mistakes and misconceptions. It was simply beyond him, quite literally unable to summon the hatred required for even such a small action.

The Emperor had carved out his ability to feel such poisoned luxuries long ago.

And thus, you cannot forgive someone you could not even blame in the first place.

There was no scapegoat, no one else to blame as Valdor raised the cup to his lips and drank from the finest wines in the Imperium. The Captain-General hung draped in the finest silks of Terra, and lounging within the finest Palace to have ever been graced by Mankind, and yet nursing the dull pain who refused to drown beneath endless drinks and the finest of liquor the Imperium had to offer. The liquid was searing yet numbing upon his tongue, yet he had accustomed himself to its taste with surprising efficiency.

Such human revelations were not supposed to be part of his duty, and would not be part of his duty. He was to serve in all regards, and so be it. So be it if the Emperor has another concubine in His mind, it was not his duty to intervene after all. This had, of course, happened multiple times in the past, and doubtlessly would continue in the future.

But if that was the case, why was he so rankled over his master’s absence? Why would he desire Him so?

Valdor’s grip tightens once more upon the wineglass at the echoing of his own thoughts, unable to completely drown out sorrows long since assumed lost to him.

Sorrow. What an ugly word.

Thanks to the Emperor he no longer held the capacity to feel in any defined form anymore, and if he could, it would be better to leave him to the illusion that he couldn’t. The wineglass cracks underneath his force, finally giving away, shards of glass normally unable to pierce Custodian flesh suddenly driven into skin and muscle by the sheer strength of Valdor’s grip.

The Lucifer Black that had been preparing to refill the glass utters a sharp cry of surprise at the shattering, flinching at the Custodian’s sudden motion.

“And so be it.” Valdor growled aloud, his words surprisingly clear and sharp despite the inebriation that had overtaken him. The guardsman flinched and looked up in surprise, partially due to the fact Valdor had seemed to speak to him, partially due to the fact the Custodian’s piercing gaze was fixated on…something. Something not quite within the room with them right as of this moment, something he himself possibly could not name. Valdor’s cold gaze settles upon him for a moment and the guardsman’s hand trembles slightly upon his pitcher, but does not falter. He only watches the Custodian with a mixture of caution, surprise, and carefully guarded curiosity at the strange, somehow dark expression which briefly flitted across the much larger Custodian's features, before it was gone once more.

Valdor finally drops his gaze as he turned away, expression listless and unreadable, the shards of glass of what had once been a fine wineglass now piercing through his skin and the silken fabric. With surprising calmness, he sets down the broken glass, silently savoring - or as much as a being like him could savor - in few sensations he was yet capable of feeling: the bitter sting of pain, if only for a few moments before it was gone. Almost intangible once more in an eternity of unending invulnerability. Instead, he only draws back in silent almost-disappointment, watching the guardsman move to sweep up the broken pieces, soft footsteps rustling against lavish carpets as the pale-faced Lucifer Black busied himself with the task. When it came to the ranks of the golden, the still-living immortalized dead, silence was a virtue, and it was one they could easily afford.

He does not acknowledge the Lucifer Black, and offered him not even a single word as he turns and strides out of the room, his gait slightly lacking the usual eerie grace with which the Captain-General usually displaced himself with, an uncharacteristic alcohol-bourne clumsiness gracing his every step. The truth of his destination, he was not yet certain of, even though he knew he must find somewhere else to go. Somewhere further away, somewhere where his master wouldn’t be able to look upon him with disappointment and rebuke.

The Lucifer Black only watches him leave, the closest to vulnerable the Custodian would ever be, titanic form casting shadows against the silverware and the shattered glass. It was only when Valdor’s hulking silhouette was gone did the guardsman release a soft, exhausted sigh of worried relief.

Even alone, Valdor could not find it in himself to regret. His steps beat a hollow rhythm, the sound echoing off the walls, a soft, frozen heartbeat of entombed steel. He should have accepted what he had always known. It would be for the best, yes. He was nothing more than a tool of the Emperor’s, His loyal servant and Captain-General, created to please His every whim. Nothing more. Nothing less. Who was he to disagree?

He had no more tears to shed in the face of this, no more sorrow to feel. Such emotions had been ripped from him long ago. He was Valdor, the Captain-General of the Custodes. He was Valdor, the Emperor’s favorite, or he should have been. He was Valdor, and as he spasmodically leaned against a gaping doorway, trying to rationalize how he wasn’t drunk, how he wasn’t actually drunkenly leaning against a frame never meant to support his weight, he coldly explained away how the Emperor’s absence tonight should have been no surprise. He was busy, of course He was. He had other matters greater than a single Custodian to attend to, it would have been thoughtless of him to assume otherwise. And of course, His eye strayed from him to Ra. Or Diocletian. Or Khorarinn. There were ten thousand of them, it would have been arrogance on his part to assume otherwise. How foolish of him.

Shaking his head, hearing the decorative bangles wound into his neural implants jangle, the Captain-General’s gaze aimlessly wandered to the full moon still shining through the gaps of the Imperial Palace’s view. It was a single, baleful eye glaring down upon him, casting its silver gaze upon the emptied floor, upon the pillars and murals half-shrouded in shadows. Its languid light was almost a mockery to the hollow ache in his bones, an empty cry, an emperor’s fickle favor made grand and hollow in the taunting moonlight.

Slumping against the wall when he heard the door’s hinges begin to creak from his sustained weight, the Custodian’s sharp gaze wanders from the pool of liquid moonlight to the sight of the Palace’s gardens, in full bloom, yet so artificially sickly sweet even the Emperor’s gene-wonders could not have removed their deviance. A stray finger catches onto one of the golden bangles, and Valdor’s cold expression never falters as he grasps onto one of its latches and harshly tugs downwards. His gaze never even flickers in intensity, glaring back at the moon with enough frost to rival even the abyss of space itself as the bangle was forcibly wrenched from delicate neural implants, the sharp sting of pain drowned out without even a flinch. Valdor grasps the removed bangle, the pinpricks of Custodian blood already fading as his regeneration takes hold, the Captain-General quietly glaring back at the soulless moon that would never offer solace. The way it came to him, bubbling out just from under the surface like some entombed corpse from beneath the grave, the revelation itself was almost cruel. And made all the more taunting by the fickle light of a hollow night. Yet, it was not particularly surprising. No, not at all.

What is the meaning of glory, what is the purpose of prosperity? What of pride, what of greatness, what of even loyalty itself, when he could not even fathom betrayal itself? His hand tenses and relaxes as if in sync with his rapid thoughts, crushing the gold of the bangle now and imprinting the soft metal with his clawed grip.

It was hard to imagine a time before then, a time before when he still felt memories of avarice, of greed, of loathing, of joy itself, reduced to half-snuffed candles flickering in a dream.

The bangle snaps under the force of his grip. Uncaringly, he tosses it aside. It clatters as it falls.

Of course, His eye had strayed from him to Ra.

Of course.

Transfixed, utterly inebriated, and watching the stars that were never truly humanity’s birthright, the first Custodian tried to pretend that his Emperor’s cold dismissal wasn’t so terrible, so visceral, that even immortals knew pain.

~~~

"Love and hate are vast

Ask, will king re-love

Chrysanths Terrace reflects moon

Who knows how lonely my heart

Drunken in king's arms

dreaming of love” - Drunken Concubine

#concubine custodes #constantin valdor #emperor of mankind #warhammer 40k #warhammer 30k #wh40k #sculptor of crimson #sculptor writes #opera #space opera #can custodes get drunk?#plot reasons demand yes #This fox condones dropkicking Valdor out of a third story window #sculptor is a very evil fox #no proofreading we die like ferrus

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runner-owen · 2 years ago

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Domestication (male vampire reader x transman detective oc)

Part 1 of ?

CW: slavery, sexual implications, blood

Owen Rosedown, age 19. A detective for hire in the crystal lit city of Theria. A bastard child of human and vampire, feral as a mortal can be. He has caused your kind great difficulty, and now, your old friend and mentor has fallen, thanks to him. Something must be done. There's only one thing that can be done. And as you are one of the best trainers and tamers of humans, you are the best one for the job...

Obsession is an addiction sweeter than any cultivated blood. Running down your throat like the thickest of honey, seeping between the cracks of the locket within every vampire's chest. Sweet desire sticking to the fangs, haunting the mind. Restless, aching obsession. It corrupts. It ruins.

You knew that. Who didn't know that?

And yet. And yet. And yet still, it takes.

He was, he is, your dearest friend, your beloved mentor, the Scarred Man. Lord Priest of the gods, merciful executioner of their will. He who would make the world bow to his will and be grateful for it.

And now his eyes are closed, and his fair skin is thinned of color. Oh yes, he breathes. Oh yes, he will heal. But not any time soon. Not in this year. Not in this stretch of mortal life.

All you can do is kneel by his beside and pray.

Well, all you can do for him.

There is a welcome ache in your knees as you stand. A pleasant reminder, the little sufferings you endure in your true life. Humans could not understand, lesser beings that they were.

What did the Scarred Man see in them? In him?

His journal is still in your pocket, with all the treasured information within. Careful effort to record every scrap he discovered about his prey. It is this information that guides you from the Scarred Man's castle - your castle, now - to the streets of the human city.

Theria glitters with crystal lamps and fallen snow. Many landmarks that once stood have been taken down, the stone used to create monuments to the naivety of humanity. Ugly things, restless people, all humans lost without their collars and cages.

You alone cannot change the fate of a species, but you can most certainly change the life of one single man.

The scent is just like your old friend wrote. Powerful will, potent flesh. Magic in the veins, keeping the body alive. You open your mouth, breathe in, and the scent rushes over your fangs. There, yes, you smell it too. Bastard child of human and vampire, abandoned by both and let loose in the tangled threads of human society.

No wonder Owen Rosedown turned feral.

And he knows you're following him, from the pace he sets up ahead. He has not looked over his shoulder but there is a tension you can see in his stiff shoulders and back. His pace quickens. The fingers curl into fists against his palms before his arms wrap around his body.

Cold? you think, watching him. You will be warm enough in my bed, when the time comes.

There is an awful little anticipation in this. Though he meant it not, Owen Rosedown is responsible for the fall of your dear friend. It matters not that the Scarred Man will return, revitalized and powerful, in the future. In the now, he is gone. It's just you now. You and Runner Owen.

As he passes under the shadow of a human cathedral, you strike.

He doesn't even cry out. Owen grunts as you press him against the stone wall. Your hands pin his wrists on either side of his head. You slip your knee between his legs.

He sucks in the cold air. His eyes focus on your face behind his glasses, and in them, you see his fear, bright as the moons overhead.

"Hello, Runner," you say.

He doesn't answer, as if his throat is sealed by ice. You smile.

"I thought you'd be more of a challenge to catch," you say. "But my old friend only spoke of your morals, not your skills."

You see his neck flex as he swallows. His gray-green eyes narrow. There it is, you think, pleased. That's the defiance the Scarred Man had spoken of.

"Do you know who I am?" You ask.

The Runner's gaze shifts, examines your face.

"You're a feral tamer," he says. "Aren't you?"

"Smart boy," you say. "Too smart, maybe? It won't matter, you won't be breeding with any humans, but it does explain your behavior."

He shudders against you.

"I will not submit to you," he says.

"Of course not," you say, smiling. "Not with that brilliant mind of yours. But when I am through with you, I'll have harnessed that brilliance into far more appropriate directions."

Rosedown writhes, but a hint of pressure between his legs from your knee stops him dead.

"I…" Owen begins. "I am not so easily domesticated."

"Oh, certainly not," you say. You press your knee up harder into his soft flesh, and he sucks in a breath. "I expect you to be my greatest challenge yet. But also my greatest achievement. To claim you for my kind after the trouble you've given my dear old friend…"

Your lips press against the pale brown of his throat. Owen grunts, squeezing his eyes shut.

"We will be remembered for centuries, you and I," you say. "Long after humanity has reclaimed her shackles, they will remember the beauty of us."

Your tongue glides along the soft skin. He tastes of sweat and clean water. Owen groans in protest.

"I would tell you not to be afraid," you whisper into his ear, "but that's part of the process. So fear me, Owen Rosedown. Be afraid, and then let go."

He opens his mouth but your fangs brush against his skin. You feel his fists clench, his body brace. You lap your tongue against the spot you have chosen, and again, he shudders. As if giving him a kiss, you press your lips against his flesh.

Your fangs sink in.

Owen Rosedown moans.

It's a small noise, half protest, but undeniable. Holy like the bells of the cathedral you're pressing him against. You hold him closer, tighter, releasing his wrists to press him against your body. He is paralyzed by your invasion, his hands grip your arms as he sucks in desperate breath after breath.

He is yours, you know it, though he will fight like the wild creature he is to escape. He is yours and no one will save him from you.

You drink.

No taste is sweeter than victory, not even obsession. But it's not difficult to see where the Scarred Man fell astray, and why. The Runner is a feast for each of the senses. When he collapses at your feet, panting and exhausted, his lips dripping saliva and his eyes full of tears, you do in fact, understand, oh yes, you understand very well.

His blurry eyes look up at you behind his glasses and dark sweaty hair.

You tip your hat to him.

"When I want you," you say, "I will take you. But there is much preparation to do before then. Good eve, Runner Owen. You'll satisfy mine and my kind just fine."

The snow crunches under your boots. You do not look back at the fallen figure, but you see him so clear in your mind. The defeat on his face. The mess of clothing and hair suggesting a different kind of encounter. The blood giving away the truth of the moment. It is beautiful. So beautiful indeed.

You do not see Owen Rosedown raise his head, and glare at your retreating form with all his defiance.

#vampire fiction #vampire reader #reader pov #male reader #vampire mlm #mlm fantasy #reader x oc #slavery tw #blood tw #runner owen series #dark fantasy #gothic fiction #vampire aesthetic

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ricardian-werewolf · 6 months ago

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Chapter 14: True Faith

Summary:

With the Darkling dead, and a snow storm setting in, Alina and Nikolai make a beeline for the Great Palace. This helps set their major referendums in motion. Nikolai ties up some loose threads, and ensures that old debts are *finally* repaid.

Notes:

Severe TW: Mentions of the Apparat's abuse and a brutal, if somewhat justified murder. I can barely believe this is the second to last chapter of the fic, holy hells!

Word count; 5.4k

Chapter below the cut.

When Alina woke, she found herself in a familiar carriage of Lantsov blue and tacky gold accents.

Looking up at the ceiling embroidered with the double-headed eagle, she scowled. She’d no idea what had happened after stabbing the Darkling with the knife that had killed her, and he’d died. The aftermath was decidedly hazy. She didn’t even know if Nikolai had been washed free of the volcra within him.

“Sunshine?”

Alina’s head jerked up to find Nikolai seated across from her, clutching a tin cup of tea in his mittened hands. The scarf around his neck was unwound. Alina’s eyes widened at the blizzard whipping through the air outside. She felt… confused.

Since when has it been winter?

“I’m.. okay.” She said shakily. The memories of the past few years were stuck deep in her mind and suddenly, she felt incredibly conscious of all the lives she’d taken and the men she’d killed. The bodies and the names began totalling up in her mind like a ledger book, all red lines.

Nikolai must’ve known the feeling, for he surged across the carriage’s seat to sit beside her. She could only watch as he took her trembling hands in his own, and squeezed tight. The jolt of pressure helped level her, but not all the way. Slowly, she turned her head to look at him with wide eyes. There was a strange buzzing in her ears.

“Alina.” He murmured. “Come back. You’re safe. I’m here. Just focus on the sound of my voice.”

Shaking her head, Alina shuddered. She suddenly felt not here at all. The churches she’d seen on her progress loomed large in her mind, the names scrawled across their walls in places of memorials. The ruins of Novokirbirsk. The ashen grounds of Kermazin, the long lines of refugees fleeing the war. The weight of it all, her sainthood, once more, threatened to crush her.

You are strong enough to survive the fall.

Alina’s head rose and she sniffled, then began to sob. She almost expected Nikolai to pull back, but was reminded of the night he’d found her in the spinning wheel. She didn’t even protest as he pulled her into his lap and ran his hands through her long curls once more.

“The explosion didn’t restore the color. Oh, and look.” Nikolai mussed up his hair and held up a clump of it. A whole streak of his hair had turned the same white as hers. Alina’s lip wobbled. “Hopefully it’ll make you look more handsome. As I said, it’s all the rage underground.”

The joke didn’t fall flat, and Nikolai hummed appreciatively. “Apparently, it’s all the rage amongst the Third Army.”

“Third?” Alina blinked, looking confused. She sniffled and blinked.

“I amalgamated First and Second remnants into Third Army while you were asleep and had Dominik take control. It’s a temporary measure.”

“Make it permanent.” She said softly, her voice firm.

“But…”

“Dominik’s been both a Grisha and Otkazat’sya soldier. He, you, and I, we’ve seen action in both First and Second Armies. He’d be perfect. We can ensure that testing of Grisha is fully consensual and give them options on how they serve the state beyond the military, since we need to keep the civil service running. Our governments can’t run simply on Lantsov power alone.”

Nikolai blinked, then opened his mouth.

“Saints… I think that you being knocked unconscious and then roused through the powers of smelling salts needs to be an ongoing phenomenon.”

“Don’t make it permanent.” Alina clipped, but a grin split her face and she interlocked her fingers with Nikolai’s, bringing her lips to his. The kiss they shared was surprisingly heated, and Alina felt her cheeks flush with a girlish rouge.

She broke back, then surged forward once more. The two of them tumbled off the seat and onto the floor, hungering for one another. The power within Alina surged to give her skin a glowing exoskeleton. Nikolai barked a laugh.

“Saints.”

“Shh.” Alina murmured, glancing out of the glass window to the swirling snow. They were moving at a steady clip, which confused her further. The heated moment faded into something softer, more gentle. She looked down at him from where she sat, straddling him. The panels of her kefta pooled at her calves, spread around her in a circle of emerald green and gold. Nikolai had traded his armor for a soft green sweater of merino wool and black riding pants. He wore soft boots of calves leather that were formed to his feet. His hair, with the bold white streak, was mussed and glittered in the candlelight from outside the carriage.

Alina reached up to tug the curtains down, but paused.

“Where are we headed?”

“Os Alta.” Nikolai sat up on his elbows and reached for a satchel from where he’d sat. Pulling the buckles up, he rooted around and gave a cry of delight at the sight of a scroll. He unfurled it, effortlessly pulled himself out from under her, and sat fiddling with a pencil and a protractor. His long legs became his temporary desk.

“What’s that?”

“A design of something for you.” He explained evasively, grinning at her scowl. “For the wedding.”

“The wedding-” In all of this, Alina had forgotten that the two of them were still set into a political marriage. All of this hell, war and pain had burned the practicalities of such things to ash. What remained was a bond stronger than the collar around her neck. Speaking of that, Alina reached up to touch it. She fiddled with the rim for a moment, feeling the weight around her collar. The bones were fusing again, and she winced.

“Can…” She began, pausing. “Can you break a fabrikated amplifier?”

“Yes. It takes a lot of strength.” He looked up at her, and his expression softened. “You want it off, don’t you? Made into something that represents you.”

She blinked. All of this time, and she’d forgotten how good he was at reading people. She didn’t trust herself to speak, and instead nodded. Nikolai set pencil, scroll and protractor aside, and shifted over to her. Lifting her hair - which he’d undone while she’d been unconscious - his eyes focused on the invisible seam that had been David’s work. He pressed his thumb to the sliver of the seam, feeling instinctively for the crack that had been sanded over.

The antlers fell apart with a crack. Alina stared down at her hands in shock. The antlers, silvered and glowing with a faint luminance, were so… simple now. She felt suddenly weaker, devoid of them. Nikolai’s fingers moved to touch her wounds, and she winced, hissing.

“Hold still.” His thumb ran over the rotting cuts and they sealed themselves with only a faint sting. She blinked. “You can heal?”

“Like calls to like, Alina. Are we not all things? The idea of Grisha, especially Materalki, being confined to our orders, makes no sense. The body is made up of metals and chemicals. We become what we learn, no? If I can heal you by changing the metallic compounds in your body, can you not summon all forms of light?”

She blinked at him.

“Are you quoting Morozova to me?” She snorted.

He nodded, grinning.

Rolling her eyes as was custom for Alina Starkov in the presence of her to-be husband, she settled her gaze back upon the antlers. Turning them in her hands, she twisted her body and held them out to Nikolai. She wondered what his mind was conceiving of them doing with the pieces.

She soon had an answer.

Nikolai placed them onto the crown of her head, and with a flick of his hands, had set them back together. However, they shrank down into the size of a laurel wreath and nestled neatly into the gold piece in her hair.

The familiar thrum of power returned to her body, and she felt her soul settle once more. He fished around in his pockets and held up a small looking glass. Alina blinked at her visage. The antlers curled up from behind her head to form a living halo. Unlike the collar, these felt like hers, glorious and saintly.

Never again, would she be anyone’s prisoner. Rusalye, the very thing she’d hunted under the Darkling, had been her freedom. The blasted sea-whip had been the pendulum that had brought her to Nikolai, and in a way, unlocked what her powers could truly be.

The stag’s antlers had once formed a sun. Now, she had taken on the beast’s iconography, and it suited her. She knew that in the realm of christianity, she looked to be a christ-like bastardization. Shrugging her shoulders, Alina turned her head from side to side.

“Does it look good?”

“Fetching. The antlers don’t poke out as much as I feared.” Nikolai reached up to fiddle with a strand of her hair. Alina’s cheeks flamed with a blush, and she ducked her head, pressing her cheek to Nikolai’s palm.

The two of them were like lovable teenagers, such a stark departure from how it had been in the carriage the first time around. She’d barely been able to look him in the eye without hating him. Her wanting of Mal had been… misguided.

Did she doubt stabbing him at the orphanage? Yes. But not in the way anyone writing a history of her life would assume. She doubted herself for the fact that he’d been so cruel to her, and she had been so blind to herself for not seeing this cruelty before. The way he’d continuously demeaned her, feared her… all of it stank of rejection.

Of hatred.

Shrugging, she tried to return to the present. But the idea of that felt wholly impossible. What was even possible in this day and age?

“Alina?”

Alina’s head snapped up and she blinked. “Sorry.”

“I just wanted to let you know-” Nikolai cut himself off as the carriage bumped and rattled its way across the bridge separating Lower Os Alta from the upper city. “We’re here.”

Glancing out the window, Alina noted the fact that all of the homes, even the poorer ones, were boarded tight. The snow hadn’t fallen as heavily as the storm that she’d seen a few hours earlier, and she blinked in exhaustion.

“The storm’s being held at bay by squallers. We’ve turned the Great Palace into a refugee space for the town and surrounding villages. This snow storm is set to be the worst in memory. As soon as we’re in my chambers, the Squallers will drop their powers and go underground. There’s the tunnels, as you know-” Nikolai ceased his rambling as the double-headed eagle gates swung open.

There was a sense of palpable unease in the air as the blizzard roiled above their heads, and the light snow falling about Alina’s hair made her twitch. It felt too much like ash.

“The entire third Army is in Poliznaya, which is good, since it’s largely built for the winter. Other villages have fled to the safety of any noble houses in their respective regions.”

The carriage’s door swung open, and Nikolai stepped out. The snow he stepped into was 4 feet deep, powder soft, and he sank down to his knees. “Let me carry you in. We’re not far.”

Alina, too tired to fight him, fell practically into his waiting arms. Nikolai held her close, wrapped the fur-lined cloak she wore tighter around her, and trudged towards the massive double doors. Two guards saluted as he passed, and followed them inside.

The major receiving rooms of the palace had become dormitories. The sounds of children playing made Alina stir. She was pleased at the sight of the Queen’s old rooms being made into a space for ladies, while the hunting room stacked high with antlers and guns became a place for Nikolai’s advisors to take stock.

“The Crows have probably broken into the royal treasury already. As long as they pay for what they steal, I can live with it.” Nikolai raised his voice as indeed, Jesper and Wylan came racing past, their hands fisted around a pair of interlocking gold belts studded with precious jewels. The carvings on said belts looked vaguely celtic or viking.

“H-how long have I been asleep for?” Alina yawned. She was so tired already, she wanted nothing more than to sleep off the night and maybe the entire winter. Hibernation sounded lovely.

“Only a few hours. It’s just past twelve bells…” Nikolai pulled out his watch, flipped up the lid with the click of the button, and studied it carefully. “I’m going to leave you with Linnea, and Genya - who I pardoned along with David - and then I need to have a long talk with the Apparat.”

Instantly, Alina was more awake. She looked up at Nikolai in wide-eyed shock.

“The Apparat?”

“The very same. We have an old score… to settle, as you know. No court would convict him of his crimes, so it’s high time that I… take back what was mine.”

Nikolai carried her past the ornate throne room, where Alina swore she heard David arguing with Dominik on Lumiya as a heat source, up the long, winding marble great palace stairs, and into what could only be the private apartments. Nikolai’s, as the second born son, were not as ornate as Vasily’s. Even the spinning wheel’s rooms had been more than this.

A simple, powder blue upholstered bed met her tired eyes. The walls were edged in white-washed wood and plaster. It looked all very much like a Wedgewood set. Yawning, Alina tumbled into the bed and let Nikolai swaddle her in arctic fox fur pelts and his green satin bathrobe. With a nod to Linnea and Genya, who waited by the doorway to his solar, Nikolai paused and looked down at Alina’s sleeping form.

To Linnea he looked once more, and held out his hand. She knew instantly what he needed, and slid a rosary chain of silver and emerald into his palm. Nikolai’s fingers closed around the rosary, and he sighed deeply.

Outside, the snow fell down with the speed and weight of an avalanche. Nikolai indicated for the maidservant to close the curtains, dim the lamps, and then stepped out once more into the hall. The Great Palace was full of ghosts. It would never be his. The Spinning wheel would be rebuilt in time. That would be his home, his eagle’s nest. Where he could shelter Alina and Dominik in his shadowy wings and let the world pass them by.

Would Dominik want to come?

Gnawing at the inside of his cheek, Nikolai considered this as he passed staterooms and visiting spaces. He tapped a guard’s arm.

“Take in as many refugees as you can find. We’re barely an eighth full. I want this entire palace filled with those in need of a room.” He spoke softly, but the kingly edge was fully in place. He watched the guard’s nod, and his salute.

Passing through the apartments that had once been his mothers’s, Nikolai paused again.

“Genya?”

“Here, Moi Tsar,” Genya scurried over to him, her eyepatch emblazoned with the sunburst. He looked down at her grimly, then his face split into a small smile. “I’d like you to have my mother’s old rooms. This whole place is full of ghosts. I think cheer sounds much more… lively.”

“Are you certain?” Genya fidgeted with the cuffs of her kefta, nervously stroking the deep blue embroidery.

Nikolai nodded once, then shrugged his shoulders. “I know… that this place is not one of kindness or warmth for you, Miss Safin, but I want you to have a home here. I want this palace to be a place of new beginnings, where Grisha and Otkazat’sya can live in harmony. Let the place be filled with light, hope and maybe even love. True love.”

Genya blinked again, and twisted a strand of her glorious red hair back behind her ear. She seemed to remember her place, and then curtsied deeply. “I shall do my best, Moi Tsar.” Suddenly, a thought occurred to her.

“May I change the colors of the wallpaper?”

Nikolai smiled, his eyes gleaming in the gas-light above them. “Of course. You have a much better eye for color than my mother ever did. Please, change whatever you wish. Knock down as many walls as you please, just… don’t make it boring.”

This response garnered him a much more cheery curtsy, and Genya swished off in a flurry of Tailor kefta to start badgering David into producing ideas. Nikolai smiled again and moved down the steps of the palace to the main hall once more. He watched children playing with one another, the smells of peasant cooking. Over it all, came the sounds of the rebels who’d revolted against their overlords talking in loud tones. Nikolai moved toward an ante-chamber his fathers’s ministers had once preferred, following the sounds of men shouting.

“What’s the meaning of this?” He asked, pushing the double doors inwards. The chatter stopped, and he caught sight of Dominik and Pensky discussing something with Vladim. The revolutionary pamphlets were scattered about the table, along with ledger books. Evidently, someone had gone into the stewards’s rooms and was airing the debts.

Nikolai gritted his teeth and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“The revolutionaries want full reclamation of their lands.” Pensky wrung his hands. “They’ve demanded more than we can offer.”

“Give what we can to them.” Nikolai replied instantly. He balanced the threat of a gathering revolt in his mind with the ideas of a popular rule backed not with fear, but understanding of their plight.

He looked to Dominik, whose fingers were edging towards one of those pamphlets. “You told me once of the revolutionary Andrei Zhirov. That this country gets us in the end. But what if it doesn’t? What if it only has, because no one has been about to change the status quo present here?”

Dominik and Pensky blinked at him.

“I want my reign to be different.” Nikolai leaned over the table - maplewood, glossy with some sheen, and edged in gold rim set in a grecian style - and placed his elbows onto the wood. No one could tell him off. He was the bloody Tsar.

“By supporting the peasants, what would you gain?” Penksy questioned, scratching at the grain with a grubby fingernail. Nikolai’s eyes cut to him. All he could think, for even though Pensky was a good man and soldier, he’d been raised living off the backs of others. But so had Nikolai! The blood, sweat, tears and toil of all of Ravka’s peasantry made him the man he was.

But he wanted things to change. However, he had to allow alternate perspectives to breathe. Not allowing them would turn the people testy, make him seem dictatorial. He sighed, messing his already tousled and windswept hair.

“Their support. Once spring comes and I am crowned alongside Alina, I want us to undergo a royal progress. We don’t need to invest in anything. I just want the people to see us together. To see that Ravka has survived, and that the new king isn’t a man to sit about on a throne and rot.”

His gaze locked on Dominik. He leaned forward again. “Dom, I need a general for the Third Army. Alina has requested you to lead. You’re the only one here who has experience as both a soldier of each army.” He raised a brow in inquiry. Dominik’s eyes widened and he bowed stiffly.

“As you wish, Moi Tsar. I would be most honored.”

Nikolai smiled grimly, pushing himself back from his post at the table. He fiddled with the beads of the rosary discreetly so that only Dominik saw. He pushed them down into the depths of his tunic’s pocket, and stepped towards the door, watching both men bow to him.

“Pensky?” He paused, turning from where he stood with his handle on the door. Pensky looked up out of his soft brown lashes. Nikolai’s face hardened. He would deal with the corrupt leadership of the First Army after he’d struck the poison from the well that was this fetid country.

“Ensure the peasant revolutionaries are well fed and their families tended to. Scrounge up the medics if you have to. I don’t want to come back to my dear mother’s sitting room becoming a bonfire from which they discuss the merits of the Communist Manifesto.”

Leaving Pensky open mouthed and Dominik extremely bewildered, Nikolai pulled the double doors shut behind him. He chewed on one end of the rosary as he crossed the marble entrance hall and turned down a set of winding hallways to a disguised and disused cellar door somewhere in the lower level.

Pushing the worn wooden door inwards, Nikolai struck a match and walked down a set of worn brick steps to a long tunnel. The gaping maw of darkness had used to bring terror to him every week when the Apparat had made use of him. He moved along the passage now with the familiarity of boyhood, and felt his inner child whimper. His free hand crept to the space where his heart pounded inside his chest.

“We’ll be ok, malenchlisa,” He whispered. “The Apparat can’t hurt us anymore. We’re much too old, too powerful for him. I know you’re scared. I am too. But we can do this. We have to. If not for us, for Alina, and Dominik. They need us.”

But can we kill him? Can we kill a man as harmless as him? The voice of self doubt wormed its way into Nikolai’s mind. He drowned it by remembering actively the feeling of the Apparat’s hands on his arms, pulling him down. Drowning him in pain and verses of prayer that defined Nikolai as soulless and in need of redemption. His bastardy had been his own failing. In order to be a pure prince, what was sinful needed purging.

Except what was sinful was his entire body, and appearance. So, the Apparat had broken the boy who’d loved to build ships and be a child. In turn, he’d given to the world a silent, perfectly behaved automaton who would ask questions of history and politics with all the deportment of a boy far matured beyond his years. The boy inside him would still be screaming.

Always hungry to be let out. Dominik had been the first to break the seal. Sturmhond had been the lever.

Nikolai shook the match out as he ascended the familiar winding stone spiral staircase that led to the royal cathedral’s main doorway. The door here was set into an illuminated mosaic of the first Lantsov kings being bestowed their crowns by winged angels. He emerged in the expansive robes of one of his ancestors. Pausing once to cross himself, Nikolai’s fingers reached for the handle of one of Sturmhond’s revolvers.

Pulling aside the barrel, Nikolai fed the rosary chain into his fist, and clenched the fingers of his hand tight. The rosary shrank down to become a bullet edged with a singular, glimmering emerald. He stuck it into the barrel, and clicked the piece shut.

Crossing the marble floor of the chapel, Nikolai glared up at the high altar, its gilded gold screen of the thirteen saints, and made a crude sign of the cross with his fingers. Then, he crossed himself again and knelt. The revolver was tight in his hand. One click back on the hammer, a twitch of his finger, and this would all be over.

“Ah, the little prince.” The Apparat’s oily voice oozed out from some chapel - probably the one of Sankt Gerasim, of the misunderstood. How a smile longed to crack Nikolai’s stoic face. But he restrained himself. He must be calm. Must not be presently revealing his hand.

“Your Holiness.” Nikolai replied. His fingers tightened on the pew he’d been kneeling beside. With a jolt of horror, he sensed it to be the one he’d sat in as a child. Cursing himself internally for this strategic blunder, Nikolai rose to his feet and shook out his cuffs behind his back. The cape at his throat made him appear all the more menacing.

Good. let the Apparat cower in the shadow he cast. Maybe christening the cathedral with the blood of a true heretic would invite change. Nikolai rubbed a hand across his cheek. The Apparat’s feet tapped a static sound on the marble floor - a sound Nikolai always hated with a vengeance.

“What brings you back now of all times, my boy?”

My Boy. Nikolai’s stomach did a triple somersault. He gritted his teeth, feeling that tide rise within him. He forced it to recede, to be calm. The pain of such little things would lead to greater cracks soon enough.

“A desire to connect with a feeling of home. The years away have been… hard.”

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

“Of course. The strains of war wear upon even a prince, do they not?” The Apparat’s face turned solemn. Nikolai could only think of the screams of the dying and wounded. The stench of trench mud. He bid that memory recede also. Faith had been an anchor once.

Please let it be now.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

The long poem that Wilfred Owen had written now wormed its way into Nikolai’s mind. He clung to it with all the hopes of a boy lost in the darkness, and adjusted his cape once more out of instinct. Let the Apparat try his old tricks.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

Nikolai’s fingers closed around the revolver’s hammer. He pulled it back with an audible click.

“Tell me, oh Father. Did you ever regret your actions? Or did the Saints absolve you?” He glared down into the man’s sour face. The Apparat spluttered, shook his head. “I did no wrong, my boy. Never!”

Never?! You Sinned and no one CARED.

The rage writhing within Nikolai nearly rose to the surface, almost making him shoot the Apparat where he stood, but he stayed his hand. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life. The pain of waiting was killing Nikolai worse than any bullet.

“Did you?” Nikolai growled. “I seem to remember a long series of prayer sessions culminating in your hands on me.” He spoke the words softly, leaning down to whisper in the Apparat’s wrinkled ear. The blazing fire in his hazel eyes would not be quelled. Not this time or ever again.

“We all have our desires. And the saints forgive a man for his earthly transgressions, to be rewarded in paradise.” The Apparat spread his hands helplessly. The fact he was verbatim quoting dogma at Nikolai sat poorly with him. Nikolai almost rolled his eyes heavenwards.

Instead, he sighed.

“Indeed, they do.”

I’m going to drive the butt of this revolver into his skull and let the blood soak the altar. How fitting. Maybe I should leave him here for some hapless pilgrim to find? It’s not like they revere him anyways.

“Pray with me?” Nikolai murmured, stashing the revolver secretly back in its holster. The Apparat’s face broke out in a charming smile. If he wasn’t so repulsively evil, Nikolai might just have considered sparing him. Instead, he slipped the second revolver’s safety off. That one had a bullet, in case the symbolic rosary-binding bullet didn’t kill the bastard.

This one would deliver him to his blessed saints with a one way ticket with no returns or call collect. Long distance single usage only. He almost grinned at the hilarity of his own joke. He’d tell Alina later, after he got her used to how a telephone worked. Oh, the joys of introducing Ravka to the technology of this blessed decade of 1920! He almost giddily jumped up the length of the aisle at the thought.

Kneeling on the cold marble, Nikolai clasped his hands in supplication, running his fingers over his own set of prayer beads. The nanny who’d given him them, along with his childhood fox plush and the cookies, had believed him capable of greatness when no one else would.

Ana Kuya, they called her. Retired to become the matron at an orphanage in Kermazin. Home to a woman named Alina Starkov. Nikolai folded his hands and bowed his head. He silently murmured the sailors' prayer to the Saints inside his head, feeling that old holiness stir within him. Praying on the Volkvolny had been different. It was communal. The Saints felt tangible. Alive.

Here, they were little more than imagery. An answer for the world’s problems. A metaphorical punching bag to unload one’s grievances and find a shred of hope in the darkness. Nikolai instead composed a prayer to Alina.

Beside him, he smelt the Apparat’s pungent stench, and heard him murmuring the old prayers to the Saints of glory and virtue. Something inside Nikolai snapped at such blatant hersey. Pressing his lips to the prayer beads, he rocked back on the balls of his feet, and stuffed the beads away. Pulling out his revolver, he pressed it to the back of the Apparat’s head, and stopped.

“This is what some would call, a sin.” He murmured. “I see it as divine intervention. You seem to have forgotten, old man, what your blessed Sun Saint has brought forth. There was always a second part to her prophecy.”

The Apparat spluttered, spitting uproariously. “That text is sacred! You dare defile it with your uninformed claims, Boy?!”

“I am a Tsar, Your holiness. I may wish for whatever reading of the holy books I desire.” Nikolai’s calmness came from someplace deep within him. A wellspring of hope and hunger for good and change.

“Sacrilege!”

“A new interpretation is good, sometimes, no? Allows for texts to be re-examined in a better light. Old evils brought to the fore.” Nikolai pressed the barrel harder into the old priest’s head. He barely even blinked. Killing, for him, had become something of an art form. Not that he enjoyed it - he hated it. Despised it.

The Apparat’s composure shattered and he wept openly and violently. Throwing himself down, he wailed. “Spare me for my sins! I wish to go to the Saints cleaned of mine!”

“No such chance!” Nikolai snapped. The volcra within him snarled angrily. It would let the Apparat burn in hell for all eternity. “I was never given a chance to wash free my sin, and now shall you!”

The Apparat’s screaming sounded more like a bleeding pig than a man, and Nikolai smashed the butt of the pistol down onto the man’s temple. “That was for making a boy feel unclean.” He flipped the priest over with barely a grunt of effort, and shoved the pistol barrel between his beady eyes.

“This is for the boy you broke into pieces, destroying him with your rotten touch. I will kill in his name, and I will find a sense of benediction in it.” Nikolai’s face was level with the Apparat’s. He glared down at him, and pulled back on the trigger.

The gold screen of the Saints was splattered red with blood. Nikolai whistled an off-key tune, wiped his revolver barrel on the hem of his tunic, and walked backwards up the aisle. Pausing to bow theatrically to the blood-soaked scene he cupped his hands around his mouth and let out a wild, warbling shriek.

That echo carried up into the rafters, disturbing the nesting pigeons, and causing a flurry of avian life. With a sharp whoop of childish joy, Nikolai stuffed his revolver away, and ran out into a blinding snowstorm.

The Appart’s lies would go to the grave. Nikolai wanted it so, and he would demand it. Now, his path to marrying Alina and Dominik was cleared of obstacles. With the monster dead, now, the healing of himself as a person and a man, could begin.

He had been strong enough to survive the fall.

#wyn rambles #fic: I will follow you into the dark #nikolai lantsov #shadow and bone #alina starkov #fanfic #my fic #pain and suffering

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anankelotus · 2 years ago

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HOUSEKEEPING (JANUARY 1ST)

ACTIVE THREADS (WAITING ON PARTNER):

WHEN SNOW FALLS ON THE RUINS ONCE MORE (SHIGURE)

BASEMENT CRAWLERS (SERRA)

THE ONES WHO’LL HELP YOU FIND YOUR WAY (SELIPH) (SWORD +1)

A WONDER LASTS BUT NINE DAYS (RHEA) (AXE +1)

FINGER STRING (RANDAL) (LANCE +1)

HEAVY ARMOUR UNDER A HEAVIER SUN (VALTER) (HEAVY ARMOUR +1)

GARLANDS FOR MIKOTO (SAKURA)

WHAT IF WE MET IN THE CHAIR STORAGE CLOSET AND WE WERE BOTH NOT HUMAN (EPHIDEL) (HEAVY ARMOUR +1)

NIGHTMARES (HUBERT) (FAITH +1)

BLOOD RED TAR OF THE BROKEN HEART (JULIUS)

FINISHED THREADS:

DISASTER’S PORTENT (JULIUS, ELINCIA, CAEDA, AND LILINA)

NANOMACHINES, SON (JULIUS, ELINCIA, CAEDA, AND LILINA)

SIR, YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO LICK THE OIL PAINTINGS (JULIUS, ELINCIA, CAEDA, AND LILINA)

IMMORTAL SOLDIERS FIND THEIR WAY HOME, BUT NONE WILL HEAR THEIR STORY (JULIUS, ELINCIA, CAEDA, AND LILINA)

NO DARKNESS, NO SEASON CAN LAST FOREVER (JULIUS, ELINCIA, CAEDA, AND LILINA)

ABYSSWALKER (THARJA)

DROPPED THREADS:

N/A

#OOC: I DO NOT KNOW MYSELF ANYMORE #OOC #HOUSEKEEPING: WAS IT ALWAYS THIS DUSTY #HOUSEKEEPING #HOUSEKEEPING: JANUARY 1ST

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onsunnyside · 3 years ago

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❧ 𝐒𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬

𝗣𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 | soft!dark Steve Rogers x naive!reader, soft!dark Ransom Drysdale x naive!reader (past, unofficial)

𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 | soft!DARK - minors DNI, fluff (?), pining - angst, steve has tattoos, rings and an earring, innocent/clueless reader, sheltered/naive reader, manipulation, sneaky guys plotting, panty stealing, jealousy, obsessive/possessive behaviour

𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 | Ransom sees you with someone new.

𝗪/𝗖 | 3.3K

𝗔/𝗡 | I was feeling sad, so I wrote this and it ended up being not as sad as I thought it would be. This was supposed to be super angsty since it was inspired by drivers license by Olivia Rodrigo, but it turned out like this. My emotions are unstable, besties. Can you do a book report on a play? I don’t know, this is a fanfic, anything is possible. Gifs are not mine. Not proofread, all mistakes are my own.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 & 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲: @𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲

˗ˏˋ𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭ˎˊ˗ ☾ 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Ransom’s feet carry him swiftly through the doors, the icy concrete almost makes him slip before he steps through the sliding doors. Not even bothering to shake off the snow from his shoulders, he beelines for the bookshelves, dodging the employee who warns him about the slippery floor and that it was almost closing time.

You aren’t in the fiction, non-fiction, or biography sections. He follows your spirit that lies in your snowy footprints, and it brings him to arts and letters. Your back is facing him, loose threads of your white trench coat hang down your sleeves to your wrists. Over your hands are beige mittens, a little hole on your thumbs with your nails peeking out.

Ransom smiles, vaguely remembering when you would complain about cold thumbs, but never buy new gloves.

You sigh loudly, observing the array of novels of different colours and sizes, all by one author. You reach for another, and one in your hand slips, falling to the ground face-down and open. You let out a gasp, dreading the creased pages of a novel you didn’t buy yet—you didn’t even know if you wanted it.

Ransom quickly steps towards you, bending down, “I got it.”

Startled and nervous, you don’t look at him, “Oh, it’s fine—” Your voice trails off as he stands upright, your bright eyes gleaming in the dim store lights, it illuminates your features—yet your smile easily outshines them. “Ransom, oh my, hi!”

His heart sings when you squeeze him tightly, digging your nose into his chest. His hand lands on your back, rubbing up and down your spine, “Hi, sugar, it’s been a while—”

“Doll?” A voice sounds from the other end of the aisle, the Brooklyn accent makes Ransom grimace. He tries to hide the disappointment when you pull away, and take your sweet smell and warmth in mere seconds. It’s like he’s outside in the brutal Manhattan winter again.

You whip around, a grin blooming on your face immediately, “Look who it is!” You squeal loudly before covering your mouth, shrinking as the blond man comes closer and his heavy footsteps get louder. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell.”

He’s wearing a thick leather jacket, white sweater underneath and dark jeans on his long legs. A chain hangs around his neck, and a single silver hoop dangles from his ear.

The man stops before you, chuckling and cupping your cheeks, his rings against your skin. He kisses your forehead, once then twice, as if Ransom isn’t there. Finally, his blue eyes land on the playboy, trailing from his shiny shoes to his ironed slacks and brown trench coat. A smirk appears on his lips as he notices the dreadful—in his opinion—piece of fabric missing from around the brunet’s neck. “Ransom, it’s good to see you.”

“Likewise.” His smile is more of a scowl and Steve mirrors him but both faux grins turn genuine when you start fussing over the ruined novel in his hands.

Your voice flows over the soft music playing from the speakers, reminding Ransom of those drives you used to take in the city—well, he drove while you sat in the passenger seat, “I’m learning through watching, I promise I’ll get my license someday! Then, you won’t have to be my chauffeur.”

“You know I wouldn’t mind driving you around for the rest of my life, sugar.” Ransom would say, looking over as you hide your face, always shy whenever you were complimented.

The two of you were never official, but it felt that way. Stemming from the semi-meet-cute that could have been a disaster. In a busy parking lot, you tripped in front of his car, causing him to slam on the breaks and fearfully get out. He thought he killed you, or at least hit you, which would lead to a lawsuit. Of course, he has the best lawyers money can buy, he was more concerned about his car—fucking blood on the bumper of his beamer.

Who knew that mishap would lead to the purest connection Ransom has ever had. You exposed him to a world of kindness, sincerity and compassion. Baking him sweet treats and complimenting him, not to get in his pants or his wallet, but because you truly thought he deserved it.

The two of you did it all, teetering on the edge of romance, but without the intimacy. Scheduled dates, mid-day spontaneous trips around the city, leading to late nights in the comfort of your shared apartment, he can count on both hands how many times he’s kissed you, but he can count on one how many times he’s kissed your lips.

Looking at you now, after regretfully taking a trip back home, he wishes he never left. He knew something would happen without him here to protect you, and something did—it was utterly terrible and downright sickening.

Your neighbour, Steve, the mass looming over to you, is what happened. If looks could kill, that asshole would be lying in a heap on the ground. A mess of blood and meat, and revolting cologne. He’s just as tall as Ransom, perhaps a little broader, and dare he even say—not unattractive.

Ransom wants to show you the world, and the best this man can do is show you his stupid sketchbook that he always left in your apartment, only to drop by whenever Ransom was over.

“Oh, I didn’t know you had company.” Steve stands by the door, paint splatters all over his grey sweatpants and tight white tank top. “I just realized I forgot my sketchbook here, babe.”

Your mind goes blank for a moment, bright eyes locked on his tattoos and lingering on the ink crawling up his collarbone, you clear your throat, “Oh! It’s okay, Ransom and I were just about to eat.”

I didn't know you had company—as if Ransom's 1972 BMW isn't parked outside.

From the table, the brunet kisses his teeth. The surface was currently set up with a homemade dinner—by the brunet himself. He found a recipe he thought you’d love, brought over groceries and cooked while you were at work since he has the keys to your place. This wasn’t the first time, before he met you, he never cooked for anyone, ever.

“It smells good, did you make all that, doll?” Steve leisurely steps in.

You, on the other hand, start searching through your cluttered coffee table and bookshelf. Bent over in your tiny silk shorts, giving the men a shameless view of your ass. “Not me, Ransom made dinner—he’s such a good cook!”

Steve bites his lip, unabashedly adjusting himself in his pants, Ransom would hate him if he didn’t do the same.

“Seems like it. This is far better than the frozen pizza I was going to make.”

You stand up again, not noticing their eyes are drawn to your chest, the material of your sweater a little too sheer. In the right lighting, they can see the white lace of your bra. “Join us! Ransom made so much, I don’t have enough room in my fridge after he bought groceries too.”

He finally speaks up, “sugar, I don’t think—”

“—thank you, babe,” Steve cuts him off, sweeping you into his burly arms. You squeak as he envelopes you firmly. Blue meets blue over your head, identical colours with twin devilish flames. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

You giggle, snug in his hold. “Probably survive off frozen dinners and protein shakes.”

Steve’s hand drops to your lower back, his fingers barely grazing your behind. He gives you a little pat, “you’re being funny today, huh?” He reluctantly pulls away, “I’ll just change into something a little more dressed up then come back.”

“Don’t come back.” Ransom frowns.

“You don’t have to change. Look at what I’m wearing, we can have a sleepover!” You twirl as they lewdly perv on you.

“I’ve never heard of someone sleeping in a suit.” Steve gestures to the playboy.

Unimpressed, Ransom shrugs. “I sleep naked.”

He adored seeing you get all flustered and sheepish, he didn’t doubt that images of his nude body were plastered on the walls of your mind.

That was his opportunity to act on his desires. At long last, get a taste of the sweetness of your soul. He would have taken the chance if Steve hadn’t lingered like a fungus. Sitting on your other side on the couch, murmuring jokes during the movie, brazenly flirting with you and placing his hand on your thigh when he laughed.

Steve even took a step further to cook everyone breakfast in your kitchen, with the groceries that Ransom bought.

As if cockblocking was his job, the interruptive piece of shit is the reason why Ransom is feet away from you instead of pressed against your back, listening to you talk about how small the world is.

“You’re right, doll. A small world indeed, or just a small neighbourhood.” Steve smiles, holding out a hand politely, but there’s heat behind his blue eyes. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

Ransom begrudgingly shakes his hand, glare unwavering as the blond squeezes harshly, he counteracts by doing the same, harder and more brutal. It was a wonder how you couldn’t feel the suffocating tension as they released each other, silently loathing.

You take the book from Ransom, sighing in relief as the pages remain uncreased. “You don’t expect to see a lot of people at the bookstore this late.”

“Why are you here?” He asks.

“I forgot to get a book for a report—”

“—that’s due in three days. She’s been so focussed on redecorating in the living room so we can have a party on New Year.” Steve finishes, a chime in his voice.

Ransom stiffens, eyebrows knitting, “Do you two live together?”

“No, no,” You murmur nervously, “Steve just stays over all the time.”

“Sweetheart, I haven’t slept at my apartment in weeks.” He swings an arm around you. “Are you cold?”

You shake your head, burying your nose in the scarf around your neck. “Not since you bought me this, it’s so cozy.”

Ransom bites the inside of his cheek, the snide remark on his tongue, what happened to the scarf I gave you?

A voice blares above your heads, announcing the store is closing and to take all purchases to the checkout. Ransom despises whoever that is. A clock ticks in the back of his mind, counting down the seconds until he’ll see you again—he doesn’t want you to leave with Steve, he doesn’t want you to leave at all.

Deep inside, he knows it’s his fault that you fell into the blond’s arms.

You look down at your hands, gaze flickering between each of the book covers. “Oh, I don’t know which one to get…”

“A Midsummer Night's Dream.”

“Hamlet.”

Steve and Ransom look at each other, then at you as you study the novels.

“You’ve read this one already.”

“Not all the way through.” Ransom corrects, pointing to the one in your left hand. “It would be easier since you’re already familiar with it, sugar.”

Steve opens his mouth to protest, but you silence him by setting Hamlet on the shelf again. You turn to Ransom, blinking and he knows what you want.

He grins, “That’s a good girl.” He ignores the blond rolling his eyes behind you, Ransom is too busy admiring you preen under the simple praise.

Unbeknownst to you, Ransom loves you. With every bit of his cold heart and equally filthy and tender mind. He first noticed he loved you when you had surprised him at midnight with a homemade cake. Happy Birthday, Ransom! was carefully written in blue icing, little pink and red flowers around the border of the heart-shaped dessert.

He hated to tell you that his birthday was actually the next day—but you, as gentle and loving as a bee to a flower, had spun his celebration to last two full days. Growing up with a silver spoon in his mouth, Ransom has been bathing in luxury and money since he could breathe, but those two days with you could never be recreated or bought.

“Oh! Will you come to the party, please? I would’ve texted you but my phone broke.”

He cocks a brow, “how did it break?”

You peer down at your boots, the leftover snow melting and creating a small puddle below your feet. “Steve accidentally dropped it off the balcony on my birthday, we had a little too much to drink—well, I did…Steve doesn’t get drunk, it’s so strange.”

Ransom hums lowly, narrowing his eyes, “he’s oddly uncoordinated for an artist, isn’t he always working with his hands?”

A huff sounds behind you as you chortle. “Yeah, he’s never clumsy. I don’t really remember what happened that night, anyway.”

Unamused, Ransom hums. He knows what happened, and he knows why your phone is broken because he would have done the same thing. If there was a possibility that the girl he wanted could potentially slip through his fingers, he’d stop at nothing to secure her in his grasp. Unfortunately, he didn’t succeed.

Your birthday was the night he called nonstop, sending text after text, even confessing he wanted to be more than friends in a voicemail.

Perhaps he and Steve have more in common than either think—after all, why would any sane man intentionally break a phone out of jealousy?

The short answer, they wouldn't. But, yet again unknown to you, the two men interested in you were not like any sane man.

Beasts disguised as saintly and righteous shepherds, caring for you, tending to your needs and passions. Hiding their shiny fangs and claws behind smiles, blue eyes and charm. You, the sweet naive lamb, had wandered straight into their hands, awakening something dark inside them. Something neither knew existed within their soul, creating grim and ruthless ideas and conceptions.

Ransom licks his lips, hungry eyes trailing down your figure. You’re completely covered but he can still outline your body, the dips and curves that have kept him up at night.

Suddenly, his collection of your underwear is far less than what he wishes it to be.

In contrast, Steve’s assemblage has never been better—with all the time he spends at your place, he snatches one every chance he gets, meaning your panty drawer has been getting significantly emptier. Steve would bet that you weren’t even wearing any right now, not because you wanted to, but because you had no choice.

Ransom looks at him and the blond is already staring. Light eyebrows drawn low, he flashes a crooked smirk, as if to say—you gotta do what you gotta do.

Ransom agrees. He would’ve shattered the device to pieces. At least Steve played it cool and just dropped it off the balcony, he was clever, Ransom would give him that.

He didn’t want to spend your birthday a state away, he had planned activities and trips that stretched into a week but work came up. Ransom has never regretted working for his mother more. She was his boss and knew exactly how to push his buttons, locking him in with the same recycled words—I didn’t have to give you this job, the least you could do is show up or after everything I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me?

It’s understandable that Ransom turned out as he did.

He latched onto any light he saw, meaning he was never going to let you go. That cocky artist is nothing compared to him and Ransom refuses to let him steal his angel from above.

You even delayed your birthday celebration for him. Hoping to do it when he came back to the city, and now that he was, he hates what he’s been greeted with.

Your neighbour who had swooped in when Ransom was gone, was kissing your cheeks noisily as you giggle and squirm.

Maybe it was the universe getting even with him—after throwing away all the bouquets Steve left at your door, whenever Ransom saw it and you weren’t home, he’d toss them straight in the trash. It could also be revenge for all the men he’s threatened to stay away from you, all except one.

Steve snatched you from under Ransom’s nose like a vulture, feasting on your divinity like a demon. Again, there was clearly more than what the artist was letting on, you couldn’t see it, but Ransom could.

Evil recognizes evil.

He doesn’t realize that Steve has left, and you’re at the end of the aisle, A Midsummer Night's Dream between your gloved hands. Even with the distance, he can feel the nerves radiating from you.

You quickly look to the side before meeting his gaze again. “So, will you come? I miss you so much…”

“Of course, sugar. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He promises, and you light up adorably, more precious than the Earth’s rarest gems and treasures.

Steve was wicked, draped in pale skin and thick muscles, soft blond hair and bright blue eyes, and you were—in Ransom’s opinion, wrongly—happily safe and content in his grasp.

Ransom heard from mutual friends that Steve took you to dinner and a drive-in movie with his truck, there were blankets, pillows and snacks—somehow, he was entirely prepared for plans he just sprung up on you. Later in the night, you both ended up on your balcony with a bottle of wine.

You didn’t like wine. You didn’t like alcohol in general, your sheltered parents kept you away from all things classified as wrong, even daring to call it a fall from grace if you ever uttered a curse. When he tried to convince you to at least sip a cocktail, you said no.

So, why did you drink with Steve?

He probably charmed you, and you were gullible and unaware. That’s why Ransom is where he is, helplessly and dangerously in-love with you while you belong to another—for now anyway.

After giving Ransom your new number, you checkout then leave the store. As you exit, you look over your shoulder, waving cutely with a little ‘call me’ motion.

The glass doors slide shut and like a movie, Steve grabs your chin, dipping down. He kisses you in the snowfall, the New York street lights beaming down on you, winter brushing your cheeks.

Utterly terrible, and downright sickening, the words echo in Ransom’s mind.

As the blond pulls away, he presses your foreheads together and says something.

Ransom can imagine your eyelashes fluttering as you do that little breathless sigh, which is what you did whenever he kissed you.

The deep red ache in his chest erupts bright green, pure envy coursing through his veins as Steve’s gaze pierces through the glass door. The corner of his pink lips quirks before his eye drops in a sly wink.

As the two of you disappear down the street and into the night, an employee tells Ransom the store is closing. With his glare still set on the exit, he grabs the other book—what would Steve think about Ransom giving you the novel that he wanted you to get?—it’d definitely bruise that ego of his, especially if Ransom can squeeze in a little praise for you. It was almost too easy.

Foolish, foolish man, as Shakespeare once said, “Lord, what fools these mortals be” and to quote Socrates, “all humans are mortal.”

Perhaps Steve, the skyscraper of muscle, may be the biggest fool on the planet.

A fool who has more tricks up his sleeve than a jester.

Ransom goes straight for the checkout counter, picking up another pair of soft lilac mittens on the way and reminds himself to search for a new trench coat for you. Oh, and ask around about your favourite wine.

If he was attending your New Year party, he wasn’t going empty-handed—his mother taught him better than that. Although she's stern and short-tempered, she has said to never show up to someone’s house without gifts for the host, and since Steve lived with you now, Ransom will buy something extravagant for him too.

He was going to show up bursting with presents and he wasn’t leaving empty-handed either.

Game on Steve Rogers.

𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: this is unedited and not proofread !! my mind is telling me to make this into a series and fully dive into the soft!dark of these fellas. I still don’t know how drivers license inspired this. Soft dark twist on the album sour or any love songs in general… Mhm I’d love to write from Steve’s perspective and the sleepover incident. I hope you all enjoyed this !

This one shot is now a part of a series: Feast for Two Masterpost

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback !! <3

I don’t do taglists anymore. ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 & 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲: @𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲

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korebringerofded · 3 years ago

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Married Life- A Preview Fic

Okay so I am a huge Geralt simp so enjoy this married life Geralt x Reader smut with also fluff. I have a full fic planed with this like domestic Geralt so if you like lmk and I will make it a more official project!

Warnings- Smut, Geralt being adorable and hot, sex pollen because of course??

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT PLS

Words-1479

Summary- Geralt x wife reader lots of cute. Sex pollen monster, horny Geralt. Yall know.

The smell of herbs encapsulated you as the spring air gently pushed and pulled against the tall green grass that shimmered when the light hit it just right. You and Geralt have been married a whole month and had fallen into a comfortable routine of worshipping one another from dusk till dawn as well as the mundane farm life you both were growing to love. You spent most evenings with drool pooling in the corners of your mouth as your husband and his sweat gleaming biceps chop plenty of wood to keep you nice and warm at night. He knew how much you despised the cold. You had to pull yourself away from your brooding witcher, he had to go into town to get some supplies and was definitely gone longer than you would have liked. You adjusted yourself and fanned your neck softly to help with the heat that now formed in the pit of your stomach and traveled between your plush thighs.

You finished collecting the herbs you needed for dinner and dusted off your thin skirt before grabbing your basket that you weaved yourself with a grin. Geralt was definitely resistant to learning how to weave but you insisted to teach him. He of course agreed with a grumble.

He couldn’t have hidden his smile even if he tried.

His thick hands clumsily threaded the reeds into each other. You were a pretty good teacher and once Geralt actually gave it a chance his eyebrows would furrow together in concentration and soon he had skillfully connected the reeds together to make a some-what perfect basket. He smiled toothily and showed you his work proudly.

It honestly made you fall over from laughing, eyes wide in surprise at his uncharacteristic dedication to something so mundane.

He blinked, looking hurt for a second before tossing his basket aside and grabbing your waist pulling you close to him as he peppers kisses down your neck with a grumble.

—-

As lovely as married life was for the two of you there was always the fear of danger from beasts or thieves. Geralt was still a witcher and still had a duty to fulfill. There were many occasions you would be left alone while he helped nearby or on some unfortunate occasions he would be taken far away from you. Those days were always the hardest.

It was in the middle of winter, Geralt had been gone for a few weeks and there was a particularly nasty storm. Your farmhouse was stable and safe but you shivered and trembled as the home shook against the cold heavy snowfall. Your fingers and hands were frozen despite the fire and many many blankets that you had wrapped yourself in.

You remembered that evening well as it took you several hours to fall into a deep sleep that was ruined when the front door flew open with a loud BANG! You screamed so loud that your voice broke, snow flying all around the home as a large figure covered in snow made swift movements towards you. You had only a moment to react before the white-haired witcher had you pinned to the pile of furs and blankets that was now underneath you.

His contorted face was half illuminated by the fire and the other half covered in snow and ice. His face was slightly red and covered in sweat.

“G-Geralt?” You croaked, eyes wide from shock. He wasn’t supposed to be back for a few more days at the very least. “Are you-” You bit your lip as you examined his face.

“Got bit by…something/” He breathed, his voice making chills run down your spine. His eyes never left you as his thick cold hands palmed at your hips as he hovered over you before trailing his hands over your breasts, his touch was so soft and gentle you weren’t sure if he was touching you at all and yet the cold nipped at your breasts until your nipples became hard and firm, Geralt let out a heavy breath as he watched your body like a hawk watching its prey. You were his prey. “I’m fine I just. I took care of it and I had to see you. I was….in the mountains…came home as fast as I could.”

How far had he ridden in one night? The thought passed your mind for a moment before disappearing entirely.

His hands slowly moved up your trembling breasts, watching them bounce softly against his fingers before he wrapped a thick hand that suddenly was hot to the touch around the back of your neck, pulling your lips against his in an almost hungry way. He consumed your kiss, taking your thin nightgown in a tight grip, and in one movement ripped it in half. His eyes glanced down at your mound and you could see drool pooling beneath his canines deep in his jaw.

The cold suddenly didn't seem to bother you, Geralt’s hot touch over your entire body mixed with the fireplace making it feel like a sauna. Your heart echoed in your chest as your husband placed rough wet kisses against your neck, nibbling your ear softly before sinking his teeth into the soft part of your neck making you let out a soft moan, hands instinctively tangling in his white locks, mouth hanging agape.

“You can be louder than that, kitten.” He growled, trailing down your collarbone kissing each part of your skin as he trails down, his tongue trailing over your breasts before collecting your hard nipple in his mouth, sucking and drooling against your skin as his hands continue trailing down your body before pressing his thumb against your clit with a hum. That's when you notice his hard member pressing against your thigh as Geralt sucks your breasts mercilessly.

“G-Geralt.” You shoved his hands away weakly before he took one hand and pinned your arms down above your head as he pulled his belt off with the other hand and looped it around your thin wrists. You watched with wide eyes, pulling against your new restraints in confusion. You could easily remove them. He was always so gentle even when he was in a state like this.

He tugged off his clothes, his body coated in sweat as his dick bounced against his thigh. In one quick movement, he was on top of you again pressing wet rough kisses down your body, quickly moving down this time, his thick fingers gripping your thighs tightly.

“Fuck…Your mine.” his jaw clenched as his yellow eyes watched you as your chest rose and fell quickly, wide eyes still locked with his as he slowly lowered his head between your thighs, licking slow strips against your mound as you squirmed, eyes rolling into the back of your head with a moan before he pinned your hips to the pile of furs and his mouth wrapped around your clit, sucking and rolling his tongue over you repeatedly. You became a sopping mess, coming embarrassingly fast. He didn’t stop after your first, after you recovered for a moment he pulled you to where you were sitting on your knees. He lowered himself under you and you felt your heart drop when he opened his mouth.

“Sit,” he growled, you felt a blush creep up over your face. Your mouth was slightly agape. You immediately complied, knowing this wasn’t a time to argue with your wolf.

Once you were where he wanted you he groaned loudly against you, working his tongue in and out of you in sloppy strips. You threw your head back in shock at the sensation. You came almost immediately and Geralt gripped your hips, rocking you back and forth on his face, his stubble slightly rubbing against your clit and thighs. Your slick coated Geralt's chin and mouth as he rocked you back and forth on his tongue until your head started to spin.

“Thnk you can cum one more time for me, princess?” He pressed soft kisses to your neck before moving on top of you, holding your thighs gently as cum dripped from your soaking entrance. You nodded weakly before he pressed the tip of his dick against you, he groaned softly before pushing into you entirely, your breath hitching loudly as he pressed against your walls, his dick spreading you out as the room is filled with loud wet noises as he quickly starts to pound into you, his fingers twitching against your skin. You hadn’t ever seen him so worked up before but soon his pace became a bit more erratic and aggressive before you tightened around him, feeling him spill into you as his eyes watched you closely as you rode out your cum. Both of your chests were rising and falling rapidly as he rolled to hold you tightly.

You both slept rather well that night.

#geralt #Witcher #Geralt x reader #lemon #smut #geralt x reader smut #geralt of rivia x you #geralt x yn #x reader #x reader smut #selfship #self insert x canon

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writermask-0807 · 2 years ago

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Warmth in the white of Winter - (Emotionless) Smaug x reader

A/n: yeah I'm backkkk. So I've been planning this fic for a long time and here it is! It still sucks tho... Anyways, don't kill me but this actually sounds a lot like the smaug fiction from another writer, so I'm suffering from imposter syndrome rn.

Warnings: Almost dying reader, cringe and cliche stuff ig??

YOU couldn't help the slow shudder that trickled down your spine like droplets of frozen water cascading across fragile porcelain, goosebumps erupting along the now sallow flesh of your skin.

You sat tucked away in some small corner of your Master's vast treasure hold, soft, labored whimpers falling from your lips as you desperately held your knees up to your chest, hoping to shelter yourself from the great gusts of howling winds that blowed inside the cavern, biting into your delicate skin like the prickle of a thousand needles being buried underneath.

The frigid Winter air was accompanied by a soft flurry of snow, crystallized flakes of white descending from the darkened heavens as though they were angels of death marching down to claim more poor souls lost to the cruel Winter that ravaged Laketown and the mountain, and they were not merciful. The sky darkened with a brewing storm, and gray clouds swirled into an inky darkness that carpeted the vast skies, breaking violently into the mountain through the broken cobblestone archway that had once been a gate.

The harsh wintry winds ravaged the treasury, and snaked around your bare, dainty feet that were now numb from the cold, strangling you with invisible, gaunt fingers. Each kiss of ice against your bare skin felt like the edge of a sharp blade being pressed into your flesh, shattering the porcelain of your pale, fragile skin, each shrill whistle of the cruel winds against your flesh numbing you and yet somehow making you feel intense, agonizing pain at the same time, making you shrivel under the sheer intensity of its power, your limbs powerless and weak.

White-hot tears boiled in your large e/c orbs, hot, salty droplets trickling down your ivory skin, and eventually feeling icy against your cracked cheeks, making you wipe them away with nimble fingers that shook as you did so. Your petite, crumpled up form trembled with uncontrollable tremors, each one sparking chills that rattled you to the very core.

The harsh Winter was once upon you again, and each time it came, it wrought ruin and marched down in great armies that arrested the lands in an icy grip. You despised the bleak white slopes and fresh bed of white that tucked the rich earth and decaying leaves beneath its starkly clean, pristine white layer, you hated the very aspect of Winter itself, loathed it with every pore of your very existence.

Winter was an accursed season that had forever plagued Laketown when you had been housed within its walls, and Winter had brought you to your near death when you had been ousted out of it and had been offered to the Dragon as a sacrifice. And now, Winter was here again to rob you of everything else, not that you had much else to offer to satiate its ravenous hunger.

You gripped your clothes tighter, but it offered no real solace nor any warmth from the cold. You were clad in a shallow, worn-out dress, translucent and see-through, stopping just below your knees that were buckled under the weight of your fatigue, merely a soft cloud of thin cloth that veiled your slender, bare body, and not enough to draw comfort from. It was the dress you had been forced to wear on the day of your sacrificial, crafted of the richest of silks and satins, threaded with thick strings of gossamer that wove delicate flowers around the hem, slipping delicately through your fingers as you held a fistful of it in your weakening grasp, or at least, the richest Laketown could offer to you; to one of the many lost souls it had birthed. But it was a somewhat meager comfort that assured you that at least your nudity was not entirely visible to your nonchalant charge.

You had been sacrificed to the Dragon - to the great and terrible beast that had threatened to fulfill the heavy promise of ruination and fire to Laketown if not offered an object of one his greatest desires: a human girl, a maiden fair of grace and elegance, the freshest and purest of all the flowers in a barren, unpromising meadow. Whether to be devoured or disposed for other more morbid uses, the townsfolk had not the courage to question the creature, for the ripe promise of death was laid heavily upon their hunched shoulders that sagged with defeat.

And, unsurpringly, you had fit the demands of the Dragon. While you did bear the precious gift of kindness that was rare in these miserable times, and possessed an uncommon grace, you and your mother had been accused of Witchcraft, and thus, they were all too eager to be rid of you. You still could not stamp out the bitterness that rose at the back of your throat and the tightening of your chest whenever your thoughts took on the darker side and took a brief trip down the memory lane. Even your own mother had not done anything to save you, and for that you would forever be embittered of. But perhaps, it was a somewhat bittersweet fate you had been destined with, for your charge was not nearly as horrible as he portrayed himself to be, at least not to you.

Your master; Smaug, had never been particularly hostile nor hospitable towards you, and treated you rather like his treasure hoard, precious and to be guarded at all times, and treated you nothing short of royalty, though he took his begrudgingly sweet and stubborn time to treat you as an equal and not another piece of his stolen treasure.

However, there was still one thing he couldn’t resolve, no matter how many times he tried. Despite being an ancient creature of fire that had roamed these lands long before man and elf, he had trouble understanding your most crucial needs, such as appropriate clothing, which led to your current predicament. You suspected it was because he thought it to be trivial then, and that he did not consider the possibility of you stealing a place in his heart, (though his constantly swelling ego and pride would never let him admit it).

Speaking of your (partially deranged) Master, where was he?

He had brought an unnatural heat along in his wake, the very stones that built the foundation of the hold radiating the warmth of the cool, breezy summers and the burning rays of sun, radiating the warmth of raw, flickering tongues of fire that danced within a kindling hearth, like burning embers of crackling flames, drenched in a white-hot intensity within a furnace, for the heart that was cradled deep within his armored chest was one crafted of boiling, churning, liquid fire and harsh obsidian and black stone.

In his absence, the heat had receded and the treasury had become unbearably cold. Lately, he had been venturing out of the mountain more frequently, and often did not return at hours on a time. It was odd, questionably so, since he had barely set foot outside the threshold of his mountain, deciding to spend his days sleeping about. Another dark feeling had accompanied the barrage of questions but you did not dwell upon it in fear unearthing old pain from where you had buried it deep within your heart. So when you had awoken in the misty morning, you were not surprised that he was already gone. But you were unhinged by the fact that he had never bothered to inform you of his destination or current whereabouts. It had been troubling, at the very least, but when the hours had bled by and Winter's freezing breath had begun to smother the atmosphere, you had lost the ability to worry or even think rationally.

The cold was slowly beginning to become painstakingly numbing, the uncomfortable sensation of the biting cold that cut into your sallow flesh overwhelming you like the feeling of a thousand blades being buried underneath your skin simultaneously, poking and prodding around your innards, was now replaced by a glacial numbness, something akin to an unhealed wound cracked and caked with dry blood that hindered one's movements with intense pain. But somehow, it made you feel intense, agonizingly excruciating pain at the same time.

Your hands had lost all feeling, and fell limply at your sides, allowing the fresh, glacial wind to lick your bare, exposed skin, and you collapsed against a broken pillar. Your vision was becoming blurry, spinning and hazy because of exhaustion. You could see black dots in the corners of your eyes, speckled spots of darkness that threatened to consume you whole, fragments of the endless, shapeless oblivion that loomed over you like death, your consciousness slowly slipping away from you and into the depths of the abyss.

You knew death was near, you could feel it's presence, could feel and taste the weight of its growing impatience on your tongue as it waited for the power of your will to waver and wane, for you to succumb to the deep slumber that the darkness coaxed you to give in, to cut the torment short, to give into the tempting offer and slip from one world of nightmares to another.

But you held on, you latched onto a shred of hope that your Master would arrive soon, and that the torture would be over, with a wild desperation to live lancing through your veins. You knew that before long, your soul would be reaped as well, another number added to the growing masses. You wished you could see Smaug again, but you were not stupid, though a part of you silently begged and pleaded for him to come soon, and perhaps, that was a selfish reason for you linger seamlessly in the fabric between worlds, slipping in and out of consciousness.

Almost as if answering your prayers, the stones beneath your petite, limp form became warmer, signaling the return of your Master, though you did not notice in your thoughtless reverie.

"Where are you, Y/N, dearest?"

You were vaguely aware that he had called out for you, and hearing his voice made more tears pool in your eyes, a witch’s brew of emotions glimmering in your eyes as the last light within your lustrous e/c orbs made them swirl with a kaleidoscope of vivid colors, not unlike the gentle opals that lay scattered in the mountains of treasure in the hold. Your eyes slowly fluttered shut, your senses focusing on his voice for possibly the last time, and you were very aware of it. You attempted to savor the sound, relish the feel of his voice against your skin, richer than the silk and velvet that veiled your pale skin, warm as the red-hot liquid fire that coursed through his veins, impossibly deep, moon-stone smooth and dripping with honey, though venomous, chasing away the almost liquid moist of frost that swirled within the air.

If only you had more time…

You could feel it now, the touch of skeletal, bony digits against your flesh, could feel the air part and tear with the force of something sharp slicing the clouds of dusted ice, could feel the thin, biting steel blade of a scythe before it even touched you. It hovered above you, inches away from your chest where it would rest, but it lingered in the air like the flecks of frost, and you heard the sound of air being sucked.

The jaws of Death opened for you, a vortex between worlds opened into the earthly domain, ripping and tearing the fabric of reality and situating itself above you, a gaping black void with swirling tendrils of darkness, a bottled, deep sea of shadows that would drown you slowly, brimming with thousands of lost souls, Hell's maw opened wide to swallow you whole.

And then, sharp canines met with your flesh, but it didn't hurt, lifting your petite form into the air with ease, but it was not Death. You could tell by the gentle manner he held you within his jaws, that it was your Master. The portal had disappeared just as quick as it appeared, vanished into thin air, and he was in its place.

Relief flooded your senses as you felt the cool brush and stroke of Winter fade on the marble canvas of your skin, and you felt a bit light-headed, but whether it was from the sudden movement or the relief, you didn't know. You couldn’t help the choked gasp that escaped your parted, cracked lips. You felt free, felt the release of what seemed the world perched upon your slumped shoulders, which you didn't know had been burdening you. You inhaled great gulps of air, ragged, short pants bubbling from your burning throat, almost desperately as if to assure yourself if you were truly alive, and not hallucinating as you teetered precariously over the brink of death.

The cold, fresh air of Winter filled your lungs with crackling frost and the damp mist of snow, putting a halt to the raw burning in your clamped throat and streaming eyes, and assuring you that you indeed were very much alive, and that your Master was with you. Yes, your Master was here, here with you, and he had shielded you of death and the cold.

Your pounding heart slowly returned to a much more steady pace, and your taut muscles relaxed slowly, easing with the knowledge that you were now safe from whatever that threatened you with danger.

You let your heavy head rest against the side of his jaw, your eyes slowly fluttering open to the world once more, and your skin warmed at the touch of his scales, which you knew were flickering scarlet and crimson and gold, the color of vibrant sunsets, a myriad of vivid colors painted across the canvas of his scales as a faint light bounced on them. Warmth pooled in your stomach, and feeling slowly returned to your limp limbs, and it was almost as if Winter had carved path for Summer, the beams of sun bathing your small form, enveloping you in a cocoon of heat and warmth.

He settled down on a mountain of gold, movements careful and cautious so as not to harm you further, as though he were cradling glass, as if he feared you would shatter at the slightest of touches like the porcelain doll you appeared to be.

He put you down, as gently as a behemoth of a creature such as himself could, and as soon as your feet came in contact with the cold of the precious metals, they threatened to buckle underneath your weight. It felt foreign to stand unsteadily on your feet that wavered and trembled weakly. Fortunately, his arm was situated beneath you to break your fall.

You slumped onto his arm with a soft thud (well, practically threw yourself on him,) your exhausted body resting on his arm, and heat seeped into the pores of your flesh as your skin met his. Making yourself comfortable, you snuggled closer to him, burying your face into his broad armored chest, welcoming the warmth that peppered your skin with sunlit kisses, and you listened to his soothing heartbeat that sang melodiously, each beat a steady note of music, pumping liquid fire through his veins, raw and whole and alive, caressing your eardrums.

Without much thought, you threw a weak arm around him, taking in as much of him as you could, so that you could lock him in a somewhat awkward yet tender, meaningful embrace, and he obliged to your wish wordlessly, allowing you to hug him when he normally would have pulled away from your touch as if it scorched him. You breathed in his scent - the fragrance of rich earth and the fresh flow of a youthful river, and the ambrosial aroma of old books overwhelmed you, restoring your heartbeat back to normal, and the unhealthy alabaster of your skin faded into the normal, creamy peach hue.

Despite your recent encounter with near death, you felt somehow whole and content; safe. His presence itself was enough to ward off the memory of it; for Death was no longer looming above you like a constant shadow, waiting to darken your life, the vacuum of a portal had vanished and the last dregs of Winter had been erased from your body. You felt secure in his embrace, safe from all the dangers of the world because you knew he would protect you. Your Master was here and he was not going to leave you.

The reminder brought peace to your heart, making it warm at the comforting thought.

However, despite the warm atmosphere, you felt that something was amiss. It was subtle, the change almost unnoticeable, but you realized with a start that Smaug had not spoken to you since his arrival, the only mention he had addressed you with being the call of your name when he had returned to the hall. He was quiet, too quiet. You could immediately tell that there was something bothering him, but you did not know exactly what. His silence was palpable, and a thick tension clouded the atmosphere, the very pores of his existence oozing a foreign, ancient emotion that you hadn't seen in him, and couldn't quite decipher. You could taste it in the air before he even spoke, the weight of the bitterness emanating from him thick and heavy and sour on your tongue, and when he did speak, it was a deep and rich timbre that rumbled within his chest like a low roll of summer thunder, tickling your skin with slight goosebumps.

"I…"

Your breath was stolen from your lungs, your eyes widening at the suspense of his answer.

"Apologize."

He said, and for an abruptly painful moment, your heart halted within your ribcage, before regaining its steady pace. In his entire existence, Smaug the great, Smaug the stupendous, Smaug the magnificent, had never, ever apologized for anything, and you knew this.

You rolled over to your back, finally meeting his eyes for the first time since he returned (from wherever the hell he was languishing about), and as your gazes collided, you noticed there was something different about his eyes.

They were still speckled the lustrous color of waning dawn and blossoming dusk, colored the same shade of the sandy dunes of the endless deserts of time, richer than the treasure scattered about him, and glistening with a sort of bewitching light that lured you into its spell, but now, they were glimmering and swirling with an ancient, foreign emotion you had unknowingly stirred within his eons dead, withering and dark heart.

The rich hickory and stain of molten gold of his eyes softened into a look of sincerity, of heavy worry, raw regret and pure, unadulterated, tender love, a nebulous swirl of abstract emotion, all held simultaneously his gaze as his deep beds of luminous, glazed caramel rested your small, petite form, and all of them reserved for you, and you only.

You suddenly understood what he meant. You could feel the sheer power of his emotions within the air, swirling with the current of the winds, weighing the air down with its weight that was both light and unbearably heavy at the same time. Your heart burst with a kaleidoscope of emotions as realization dawned on you, your stomach pooling with the brushing, translucent wings of butterflies.

You rested your dainty palms against the hard scales of his chest, clambering onto your trembling knees, and you gazed directly into his beautiful, luminous orbs that seemed to contain the sun within their deep, lustrous depths.

You knew how heavy the weight of regret was, having felt it many times before.

" It wasn't your fault," You spoke softly, dragging each syllable and letter so that you could drill it into his thick skull, because you meant every word you said. Smaug did not respond, and instead chose to look away from your gaze as if meeting your eyes doused his soul in the same iron-hot liquid that traversed through his veins.

" I was not there to protect you. " He stated, and though his voice was as quiet and calm as the frozen waters beyond the threshold of the mountain, he held a deeper meaning to his words that he himself could not understand. He knew that he was not supposed to feel anything but the burning, overwhelming sensations of hatred and jealousy and greed that had been shaped by the white-hot intensity of man's desire, but he felt something more, something that resonated deep within the boiling, dark waters of his soul. He could not explain it, for the concept of emotion itself was foreign to him, but whenever you were around him, he felt sort of a… a warmth bloom within his chest, warmth that your delicately petite form did not provide, but rather, your presence did. On the rare occasions he had to venture out of his hold and into the world beyond, your absence had become plaguing… And it was always too cold without you. And now, seeing that you almost died when he had been gone loitering about, his chest ached and writhed in fresh, raw, unadulterated emotion, somewhat similar to the remnants of a scar searing into his flesh, or like a festering wound that had not been treated and had manifested into something more… Ominous.

You could see it now. Within those rich orbs that flickered with darkening embers of a crackling fire, the emotions that your Master struggled with were visible, crystal clear to you, for you had felt them too many times ("I was so worried about you, Mother! Are you injured?! Did they attack you again?!" Here your eyes softened with an infectious, melancholic sadness at the bitter memory) to be unfamiliar with their burdening weight. The frustration rolled off of him in a sudden burst of heat, great waves of roiling warmth, translucent wisps of steam that curled around the gaps between your fingers and licked your bare skin, invisible tongues of fire that threatened to burn you to the very core. You brought a gentle palm to his snout, not at all afraid of this display of power (and apparent distress), bringing him back to reality, momentarily placing a halt to his dilemma.

" It's not your fault. Besides, I'm here right now, with you, and it's all because of you. If you hadn't arrived when you did, I wouldn’t have been here right now. So please… Don't blame yourself for something that you couldn't control."

You said gently, and your normally quiet voice was dropped into an unnaturally soft whisper, barely audible, though you knew he had heard what you had said. You hoped it would assure him, because it was normally Smaug that had bestowed you with the precious and wise words of advice and caution, it had always been him who had assured your safety.

Perhaps your words weren't enough to convince him, but he leaned into your soft touch anyway, nuzzling his snout into your hand, and his lustrous scales felt rough against your more supple skin, though you didn't mind. You stroked the armored plates of his skin affectionately, and savored the heat that radiated from them, draping over your skin luxuriously in a blanket of warmth. You soaked in the peace and tranquility of the moment, relishing this rare side of your Master, wishing that moments like these would last for eternity.

A low purr erupted at the back of his throat, rumbling throughout his chest like the steady crackle of flames dance within a hearth, and you couldn't help the slight giggle that breezed traitorously past your parted lips, and the fond smile that shaped your cupid bow lips, thinking that the resemblance between him and a cat was almost too strikingly similar. Grumpy most of the time, almost always begging for your attention, and perhaps too sleepy and lazy at times.

However, curiosity got the best of you, and you couldn't help blurt the question that had been bothering you. " Where did you go, though?" You pulled your hand away from his sharp jaw, slapping it over your mouth in an exasperated manner, your cheeks burning with an embarrassed flush as you averted your gaze from his, ashamed, muttering a nervous apology. You hadn't meant to pry, really, but you simply couldn't help yourself.

There was a pregnant pause, where the air thickened again, and then - " I…" His voice was thick, colored with what you thought was embarrassment, and when you lifted your head to meet his eyes, his gaze, too directed elsewhere, strictly avoiding yours. If you were someone else, you would have feared that you had incurred his wrath, but you knew him better than that.

Is he being… Bashful?

Then he nudged you with his snout, edging you to roll off of him, which you complied to, albeit a bit hesitantly. Once you landed on the gold underneath, he stood up, and the precious metals shifted under his weight, the reflection of the fake galaxy and constellations mirrored on the roof of the cavern morphing into a different, vibrant cosmos that depicted another tale as he moved.

Once he was up on his feet, he glided gracefully above the sloping mountains of treasure, somehow managing to maintain the delicate balance of the mounds of gold, despite being as massive as he was, and not even a single coin of the hoard went sliding down underfoot.

He turned his head, beckoning you to follow him and his amber orbs met yours for a brief moment, and you thought you spied a hint of embarrassment within them. However, you couldn't quite read everything that was written upon his sharp, reptilian features, as he had looked away too quickly, but you knew that you would be getting answers very soon.

Unfortunately, you did not possess your Master's elegance, and however try as you may, the coins still slid under your bare (and still trembling) feet. After all, you had always been a bit of a klutz. However, at that moment, you did not dwell on this flaw of yours, unable to contain your curiosity. Smaug had never been a secretive person, *ahem* Dragon, per se, but you had never inquired about his frequent visits beyond the mountain, worried that you would be invading his privacy if you did so, and he had never bothered to tell you of his own accord.

You scrambled up to your still wobbling legs, leaving a path of destruction in your wake as you followed your charge, unable to keep up with his long strides. The cold did not hit you as hard as it did in his absence, but it still made shivers erupt along your skin and chills to crawl down your still rigid spine, and you hugged your arms to your chest as you scurried along.

He lumbered into an adjoining chamber that was secluded from the treasury through a wide, stone archway. Your eyes inspected this chamber critically, as you had never had any knowledge of its existence, let alone entered it. Dark gray bricks were neatly stacked upon one another, creating an impossibly smooth, wet surface that surrounded you bleakly from all sides. The air inside was damp, moist with crackling frost saturated within the air, and for some unfathomable reason, it brought a dreadful sense of impending doom and gloom.

You cracked open your lips to ask him, but then you saw it.

What…?

In the middle of the room, nestled into a bundle of fabric were what appeared to be clothes. They immediately stood out against the bleak surroundings, a splatter of ardent colors against the gray background of a canvas, various vivid and vibrant shades of lavish fabrics resting upon one another. You realized with a start that they were woven from the softest of furs, embroidered from thick strings of gossamer, threaded from the richest of silks and velvets, impossibly soft and satin-smooth to touch. Despite being crafted from the most luxurious of fabrics, they were also incredibly suited for the harsh weather as well, the clothes heavy and comforting against your skin as your nimble fingers traced the golden embroidery.

Is this what he was trying to get all these days?

Your eyes welled up with the pearlescent liquid you had grown familiar with your entire life, but this time, these tears were not of anguish or pained despair or even of the bitter sorrow that had continued to plague you. These tears were of happiness, of relief.

Your lower lip quivered with a sob that threatened to tear through your throat, and you clutched a handful of the clothes, holding them up to your chest in a trembling fist.

To an untrained eye, perhaps, you had no reason to shed your tears for such a trivial matter, but to you, it meant the entire world. From a young age, you had been reprimanded and rumored to be the daughter of a Witch, and so you had been avoided by the other children and townsfolk alike at all costs. You had grown up alone all your life, with no-one but your mother for support and love. Your mother, in question, was no more of a Witch than you were, but you supposed that when one brushed greetings with Death, one must be feared enough to stand out in a crowd, hence the reason you and your mother had been avoided like the plague.

But you could not help but be heartbroken when she, who had been your entire world, had decided to betray you and throw you into another unfamiliar, harsh plane of existence. But perhaps you were pitied by the Gods as you were blessed with a kind charge, whom you had lost your heart to. So when Smaug had begun to venture out into the world beyond, the familiar satanic whispers of doubt had crept into your mind, and you had worried that he too, would be leaving you if you had lost your worth in his eyes.

You had tried to ignore these dark thoughts that continued to badger you like the growing Winter, but in all honesty, fear and doubt had begun to crawl into your senses subtly, as the sinister voices had woken from their deep slumber, and perhaps, though you didn't want to admit it to even yourself, you might have lost yourself to not know Death but to these fears as well if he had not arrived in time.

This realization made more of the crystallized droplets of hot, salty tears to crawl down your porcelain cheeks, and you turned to your Master, a fresh sensation of belonging and love and relief blooming deep within the gardens of your soul. He was still determinedly avoiding your eyes, his head set firmy towards one of the walls, as if keenly studying every particle of moss and lichen that grew on the cobblestone bricks.

If he were human, you would have been able to spy the faintest hint of scarlet coating his cheeks, but he was not, and you knew him better, much better than he would have liked to admit. You threw your weight against him in a bone-crushing hug that would have been deadly to humans, your thin arms grabbing whatever part of him you could, and you clutched him with a desperate want lancing violently through your veins, your cheek resting against the ever-bright, armored plates of his scales. The tears began to flow in more abundance, stubbornly carving new paths down your cheeks as you whispered softly against him, your voice thick with emotion. " I'm so glad. " And though your voice came out muffled, you knew he could hear you clearly.

"What for?" He asked, and you had an unccany feeling that he already knew the reason as his snout came to rest gently atop your head, to reciprocate the embrace in the awkward fashion that only a colossal creature such as himself could. " I… I was worried… That I became of no use to you anymore, that you no longer loved me." You finally confessed, the weight of the burden you had been carrying plummeting to the ground. Plumes of smoke curled from his nostrils, his warm breath tickling the shell of your ear and tousling a few rich locks of your hair as he spoke. " You truly are an insufferable idiot. My heart belongs to you, and you alone, and it will forever remain with you. "

You smiled through your tears, your plump lips shaping in the form of a soft, brilliant beam as you spoke. " And mine remains with you, until the end of time."

#reader x smaug #smaug x reader #cliche #fluff #idk how to tag this shi #the hobbit

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miqojak · 2 years ago

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FFXIV Write Prompt #10: Channel

(( Let's consider this backdated to Jak's time prowling the ruins of Garlemald, hunting down basically anyone of Garlean nationality out in the ruins, earlier this year. That would be around the time of Rise, Fall, and Rise Again, and Cold Comfort! She believes in an eye for an eye, after all - she learned quite a lot from the Garleans during her captivity, and having no mercy was part of that. There's a reason I always side-eye Zenos' nihilistic commentary/outlook, because Jak sounds a lot like him at times! But as much as she hates to admit it, her ideology does sound a lot like theirs, at the end of the day: the strong rule the weak/The world is dog-eat-dog. Some days she rises above it! ...but not today. Violence ahead! ))

"I won't let you -"

"I haven't needed a three-eyed freak's permission in years."

It was exceedingly rare that she chose to engage in banter, during combat - it was, more often than not, a waste of breath better utilized in staying level-headed and ahead of one's opponent. She'd rather have the next three moves planned, than fire off a snappy retort; those came before violence, anyways... like foreplay.

This was a rare occasion, however. It was closure. How many people survived what she had, and got the chance to deliver it back to their tormentors tenfold? She would suffer the bitter, aching fucking cold, if it meant taking her pound of flesh. If it meant delivering unto their people what had been done to hers.

"They need me - and they're all I have left!"

Her heart skipped a beat, and the dark knight's vision swam red - she could taste the bile - but she couldn't stop what came next.

She had, some... years ago, now, been pushed past prior limits, by Ketsuchi. Her fear, his levin... she'd managed to... channel a new ability from her soul crystal with naught but raw fear and determination left to her. In the face of that which she most feared... she'd spit in the face of it, and found just how much her emotions could manipulate the stone's abilities, and she'd begun experimenting with trying to craft new abilities, or will them; she was an artist, after all... why couldn't she let her imagination and emotions run wild?

The subsequent eruption, and evisceration, of the other young woman upon a veritable forest of inky black... spikes? Thorns? Fangs? had been unintentional, however. The girl had to die, yes, but this - this slowed the Beast down. Gave her pause.

Hate is a forest of knives.

The diminutive woman, bundled in her armor of black and red, stood - a chill wind tugging at her cloak for a quiet moment - eyeing the sanguine threads that began to thread through the spikes... before they seemingly melted back into the snow, themselves.

As if they'd never been at all.

Jak had thought she wanted a battle, not...

A slaughter? Isn't that what we're here for?

Or are you reminded of someone else?

The Miqo'te in the hood and faceless mask continued on, stepping over the broken shell of a woman who hadn't known when to stop.

"No one needs you."

Further, on and into the cave, the Beast made her way - stronger by half, at least.

Perhaps it had been a kindness, despite the twisted irony of using the fallen's own aether against her kin - but now the other wouldn't have to watch the rest perish.

As a girl called J'Kesri once had.

It was a kindness a Garlean would not have extended.

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bellshazes · 2 years ago

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putting theme for ennio moricone not only once, but twice on the kingmaker playlist is such an impassioned decision and i would love to hear ur thought process behind it

also ive been listening to this playlist nonstop for like three weeks and now my current top genre on spotify is stomp and holler LMAO

MBD's restaurant, Pizza Lupo, features western posters on its walls; the love for Morricone, father of spaghetti western music, is so genuine and it shows in every note. Theme (for Ennio Morricone) conjures visions of a cowboy looking out over a landscape as the sun is just dipping below the horizon. It is a brief two minutes and forty nine seconds before something precipitous, that moment at the cliff's edge, a stillness that is gathering momentum. The guitar leads and 22 seconds later the cello joins, smoother and slow, bolstering, gathering resolve and momentum. It dangles and the cello falls like a leaf in the wind until the guitar returns with the swelling percussion, the cello now confident and going somewhere. Together, with the higher cry of the trumpet, it builds up and onward into a steady syncopated symphony of something just shy of triumph, a march that recalls the melodies and rhythms of Morricone's Chapel Shootout or other moments before shots fired and lives lost. It ends there, just shy of suddenly, the twanging guitar and sonorous cello and exhaling trumpet fading out in moments.

However. The bonus track extended version from Fuego contains within it the entirety of the original. The guitar, the cello opening; but at 49 seconds, the cello's solo has softer strumming, it draws out a repetition of phrases, it wallows in that low, low space of contemplation before beginning to rise. The guitar still returns with the mounting percussive march, but the second cello line catches on an upward tone, straining more and more from 1:30 all the way until 2:05 where the guitar and percussion cut out again, leaving a solitary lone, deep, cello to wallow for the briefest moment before the chorus of instruments come together like woven threads, the trumpet stretching out alongside it, overlaying a hope that can't be reached until the full march commences again at 2:49. The trumpet comes in and out, still weaving, and the march repeats and tries and tries and tries to come to the denouement but it ends as it had before.

Theme for Ennio Morricone (Extended Version) is still that cowboy looking out at the setting sun from the edge of something higher, but he resists; he struggles. There is a coiling in the gut that writhes and fights before being born again in the low, lonely pit of despair into something glorious and final and doomed. It is seeing the bleak future and resolving to go out blazing anyway. It is paralleled only in emotional journey by certain delicate, intricate, trembling pieces of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D but while they both dance toward and away from a realization there is no shy love here, only an inevitability you can either regret or embrace.

In the playlist, the first version separates the story of chasing down and finding and losing in The Other Shore redux that leads to rebirth and attempted change of identity of 52 Ford/Spring Break 1899 from the wild forward momentum of Steal Away, Rambin', Riders, Ball and Chain. The extended version guides us back to the bittersweet Raw Deal, the post-death, the mourning of Ghost Fields, Everything Must Rest, and leaves us in the embrace of the gutterseason, of being low down and still going before the cycle repeats because, well, there's still time to start again. The two moments captured in the Morricone tributes, extended and not, make me feel the same way I do when I think of Bdubs on the ruined snow fort tower insisting he's loved and dying because he embraced the possibility he might go out guns a-blazing too fiercely.

#long post #peter answers #if you have seen my two cowboys side a side b extended universe mixtape you'll also comprehend.#thank you so much for giving me an excuse to wax wildly poetic about some of my favorite instrumentals of All Time.#ALSO. stomp and holler LMAO i would not particularly characterize any of MBD as that tho it is adjacent. silly algorithms

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halfelven · 3 years ago

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firelight, moonlight

Thranduil/Elrond, m

It is almost dawn. Thranduil stops outside Elrond’s doorway on his way in from a night wandering the woods. The snow was bright beneath the moon, and all the trees empty, the snow shaken from their branches by the now quieted winds.

Thranduil taps once on the door before he enters. He does not need to wait for an answer.

Elrond sits on his bed. He does not turn to Thranduil. He stares out the window. The sky is deeply blue, and the moon hangs crescent beside the mountains.

Thranduil shuts the door behind him. Elrond closes his eyes at the click.

Elrond, Elrond. Little Elwing’s little child. Black haired and grey eyed, staring at Thranduil on the shores of Sirion like Lúthien reborn. Thranduil held his hand so he would not fall on the sea-wet stones. Like he had held Lúthien’s hand in the forests of Doriath, helping her cross a stream on stepping stones he had picked. They were both children then. He did not love her the way he would Elrond.

Elrond is not Lúthien. Thranduil has always known this, though there are others who met her before the fall of Doriath (once, twice) who only saw Lúthien when they looked at Elrond and saw his flashing grey eyes and hair that flew without the wind.

Little Elrond sits on the bed, his blankets pushed to one side beside him, shaped into the form of a person, pressed here where Elrond’s arm would be. Pressed there would his leg be. There is a pillow at the top of the blankets, where a head could be tucked beneath his chin.

Elrond is so alone. He is dressed in white: a shirt that reaches to mid-thigh. It is open over his chest, and there are red marks on his skin, a thread from his nails. Two necklaces hang around his neck, the chains twisted together. His feet are bare. One touches the blankets, half hidden beneath them, but no other part of him is covered.

Thranduil crosses the space between them in a moment. Elrond cries the moment that Thranduil touches him. Tears fall down his face and fall heavy onto his bare arms, his bare leg.

He cries out too, very softly, almost a cry of fright, but more a cry of fear at pain. He looks up at Thranduil with wide grey eyes. He is asking why are there such things? And he means the terrible things that they both know, that no one should know.

The things that they cannot speak about except with each other, so as not to ruin the innocence of others, even some thousands of years old. Horrible things. Things of greed and lust and torture.

Thranduil knows without Elrond saying anything more than his wordless cry. He lets Elrond slide forward into his arms. He holds him.

Elrond clutches at him like he’s afraid of falling, of being swept off and lost at sea.

Thranduil slips onto the bed beside Elrond and moves him over gently so that Elrond is pressed against the blankets and then he pulls the blankets over both of them. He tucks Elrond close, head beneath his chin, pressing him down onto the mattress, arms about him, one long leg over him, keeping him in place. Keeping him safe.

As safe as he can.

He grips Elrond close, settling his weight on him in a familiar way. He knows Elrond’s body, and Elrond knows his. This is warm and safe and close.

Elrond does not say anything. Thranduil can feel Elrond’s breath now in his own body. He feels his heartbeat. His breath is tight and ragged. Elrond is breathing through a restricted chest. He cannotspeak with his throat closed, his heart aching. He would cry more. Maybe he does not want to. Maybe he does. But that is his choice, not Thranduil’s, so Thranduil does not press him.

He holds him close and strokes his body and head, everywhere, everywhere. Each place that Elrond presses to him in how he turns for comfort.

It’s just this. Lying beneath the carved ceiling of stars in moonlight. Seeing the warm light from the fire bounce off the wooden walls. See the cold light from the moon slip over the blankets, Elrond’s skin, his hair.

It’s to press a kiss against his cheek, against his lips, against the hard curve of his temple and the soft plane of his cheek.

The wind is singing outside. The wind is always singing in the mountains. Sometimes the song is gentle, but more often it is a song of rage.

Of rage and crashing, wind against stone. Wind against almost bare tree.

Manwë is angry in the mountains. Or maybe it is for joy of strength. Thranduil does not ask. He cannot, does not, speak to the Valar.

But he speaks to little Elrond. Descendent of Melian, once his queen. The embodied Maia who loved his king for a few hundred years, maybe more. She was strange, and he loved her. But not the same way that he loves Elrond, although he loves the same things that he sees in Elrond—the wildness, the darkness, the spell that he has. That he may have cast on Thranduil, but Thranduil would not mind it if he has.

He loves even the darkest parts of Elrond’s heart. He knows them all. The parts that he cannot speak of to anyone else.

He holds Elrond close and kisses him—his dark hair, his bright eyes, the spark of light that flickers over his skin when he smiles.

‘I love you, I love you,’ he says with each kiss because the words themselves are beautiful, because he does not know if Elrond heard ‘I love you,’ enough.

And he must now.

He must always. He must hear it a thousand times in one night. This night. Another night.

Every night after that they spend together, beneath the disarrayed blankets, on the disarrayed sheets.

He kisses Elrond’s mouth until he can feel the warmth of his heart spread through his own body. He lies on top of him, tangled with him. And Elrond holds onto him, his hands in his hair.

There are only Thranduil’s words.

Elrond does not speak. He does not have to. He can’t. He lies still, with Thranduil on him, and keeps his arms around him or over his head.

He trembles in Thranduil’s arms, and Thranduil kisses every falling tear, takes his every trembling breath. He presses down on Elrond, and Elrond cries out again, another wordless sound that means more than an entire book.

‘I love you,’ Thranduil whispers against Elrond’s neck, his ear. He kisses and strokes his skin, and Elrond lets him lift his shirt off. He lies naked beneath him, and Thranduil slips off his own clothes and lies naked on him. He kisses his mouth, his cheek, the curve of his shoulder. He lifts his hand and kisses his fingers, his palm, his fire-scarred wrist.

He presses down on him. Elrond presses up against him, eyes closed, hands tangled in Thranduil’s golden hair.

Their hair—black and gold—falls around them, falls across the tousled sheets. It is caught in the warm light of the fire, the cold light of the moon.

Thranduil drags himself higher on Elrond’s body, finding a place on his stomach to press his now aching cock.

And Elrond finally speaks. Saying, ‘No, please.’ He presses on Thranduil’s shoulder, and Thranduil slips lower on his body.

He enters him, and Elrond kisses him desperately, crying. Crying with want. Crying with love. Crying half in pain.

Thranduil moves in him. He lets the blankets fall off them. They are both sweating.

Elrond grips Thranduil’s hair, close to his scalp. He drags his head down and kisses him, still desperate, still wanting.

Thranduil moves, not thinking any longer. There’s firelight and moonlight and his gasping breaths, and Elrond’s shuddering breaths, and the scent of cold that remained in his hair, and the scent of warmth that is their skin, and Elrond’s body beneath him, and Elrond’s hands on his back, on his legs, grabbing his ass, grabbing his shoulder.

Elrond’s leg around his waist, pulling him closer. Elrond’s lips against his ear. Elrond’s hair tangled and damp with sweat against his skin.

The pain of fingernails biting his skin. The pull on his hair as Elrond drags his head down again. Kissing hard. Pressed tight. Elrond’s cock against his body. A slip on the sheets. Balancing. Pausing. Catching his breath against Elrond’s neck. Kissing him. Holding him. Teeth grazing his skin.

He holds Elrond’s hands down by the wrist. He moves his hips, focusing only on the sensation building in his body with the rhythm of his movements. The way there feels a movement through his whole body, finding its way to the centre. How he holds it for long moments, delaying the release, until he can’t anymore, and it all comes at once, deep and fast, a pulse through him, now out of him.

There are stars in his vision. He stares into Elrond’s eyes. He kisses him again, and Elrond smiles.

‘I love you,’ Thranduil says. ‘I love you.’

Elrond pulls his face close to kiss him again. His hands are gentle now. He runs his fingers again and again through Thranduil’s hair.

‘I love you,’ he says back. The softest promise. Thranduil pulls the blankets back over them. He kisses Elrond, strokes his hair, easing out the tangles that they made. Thranduil holds Elrond close in his arms. It is dawn.

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hope-to-hell · 3 years ago

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My entry for @nashibirne ‘s stripper challenge. Underneath. August Walker x Reader. Smut, scars, mention of prior injury, fingering. In his way, he keeps you close to him.

Strip, he says, and his hands are lost in darkness; he could be holding anything because his face betrays nothing. It could be a gun or a rope or a pretty little piece of chain; maybe it’ll be like the time he bound you naked in his study, splayed open and dripping, ruining the carpet with your juices every time he eased into the room to fuck you one more time.

Slower. Do I need to show you? Whatever he’s holding disappears behind the desk and he rises. He rises and rises and rises and he is towering in his boring stupid suit; he should really be in linen, in leather, in silk; he should be dressed in fabrics that tantalize and tease; he should ornament himself like a king but here he is in his beige-and-brown. Like this. And his hands are on your buttons, opening them one by one; he is slow, deliberate, his breath warm as he instructs you.

One. Two. There’s that delicate tremble, the telltale vibration of fingers broken and rebroken. Three. He steps back and tilts his head so his scars catch the light. And you continue with a delicate sway, with the oceanic roar of blood in your ears; he could pull you to the depths and all you’d say is I will follow.

Watch me now, he doesn’t say, because he knows you will; he sees you with his one remaining eye (one blue and keen and burning, the other milky-white and cold but don’t you know that’s the eye that sees beyond). He lays his coat aside and opens his own shirt with deliberation; inch by inch he emerges and all his many scars are brought to light. His body is a map: splashes of burns that drip down his neck, the twist of a knife between his ribs; he is stories upon stories that raise him up as a legend, or drag him to hell as an infamous beast. What do you see?

I see a man. One who’s still wearing far too much. And there’s that little smile, that twist of the lips, the one that makes the silver threads in his mustache catch the light. And maybe his fine control is damaged, but he’s so goddamned strong. He carries days and months of little movements, stretches, rubbing-downs; already he fills rooms with his presence once more. Already he fills you.

Fuck. He grips and tears his way through the rest of your clothes until he can back you up against the wall, until he can hitch an arm under your thigh and press inside. It’s just like the first time with the stretch that smooths out into slick motion, with the tidal roll of his hips. If a fuck could be a word, that word would be mine.

Not much of a striptease, was it? The words punch out from your throat with every thrust; he snorts and there’s a sudden rogue-wave snap of his hips. This close he still smells faintly of snow and fuel, cordite and moss; laid over it all is vetiver and orange and something deep and dark.

Hush, pet. Enjoy being under my hands.

Under him and over him and any position he decides to put you in: August is the architect of this scene. When he moves you off the wall there’s a sudden breathless feeling but he won’t let you fall— never that— if his body is a tool, yours is a precious thing to be protected. And when he sets you on the desk there’s a moment when he stops to look with his unmatched eyes and sees you at a depth beyond the physical; his crows’ feet deepen as he takes you in.

There you are. I have something for you. And he reaches, still inside you; he slides up your body and even deeper inside as he reaches for the top drawer. When he withdraws his hand he holds a fine chain; caught in the links is a silver circle.

Beautiful.

You’ll have to close the clasp, I can’t. But pet. You are mine because you consent to be mine. Do you understand? Of course, of course; pain and death are in him deep and yet somewhere beyond there’s him, the August who takes his coffee strong and sweet, the August who called from the deep dark underground and whispered did you miss me, pet, the August who came back somehow both less and more than he was before. And he moves in you slowly now, unhurried; he lays the silver chain across your throat and whispers feel the weight of me.

The weight of him, yes: then and now and all the moments in between, the future yet unwritten and the past an endless map of what might have happened. And when he comes it’s with a sigh and the brush or his curls across your skin as he bows his head. His hands are broad and scarred and trembling when he moves to pull you after; he does it for himself as much as you, perhaps to prove that he still can. Perhaps it’s to spit in the face of pain, perhaps it’s to enjoy the grinding ache of bone. Perhaps he wants to feel you warm around him with every twinge of pain long after, a little light to guide him through the dark.

#cavillrystripperchallenge #my fic #Henry cavill #august walker #august walker fic #august walker smut #august walker x reader #august walker x you #mission impossible: fallout #mission: impossible fallout smut #mission: impossible fallout fic

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anayaahwrites · 3 years ago

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KOT ficlet #6 (Kudou Chika/Houzuki Satowa)

(Events based after the most recent update that had me screaming into oblivion.)

Needle in a thread

His first thought is, not them.

He recalls his horror when they took away the one person who had loved him, the one that lit fireworks in his darkness.

But before he had time to mourn, the torch had been passed—like some sort of metaphorical relay race—into fresh, affectionate, and welcoming hands. They cared, nurtured, and gave purpose to his existence.

The child hated by a parent, the child of calamity.

Of disaster.

And now that he’s built a home, a hideaway to rush back to whenever things seemed too rough, like hell he’d let the demons of his past have it their way.

He drops down carefully, one knee after another, placing folded hands in front of the head tucked in between his legs.

Because Chika is desperate and he has no pride to protect to begin with, so pleading before them to let him just live outweighed any sense of shame he’d feel.

But he’s naive to think Uzuki cares.

There was something bizzare about the boy since he’d met him, how he changed based on what the situation called for—like a snake shedding layers of its skin.

The light at the end of the tunnel vanishes, but Chika pushes on, pouring the deepest parts of his soul in front of the people that ruined him once before.

Because Chika refused to let his torch dim, the flame protected by so many, he couldn’t be any more grateful.

Uzuki snickers, instructing Abiko and taking a blow to the face.

“I’ll tell everyone you did this to me.” He smiles.

Chika’s light is bright.

But his darkness is all-consuming. It wraps him like a blanket of thorns, clawing to tear chunks of his soul away. In the end, who could he save?

Who could save him?

“I’m tired of all of this!”

He snaps his head, facing the voice, breathing life into his own.

Houzuki stands with her back to him, confronting the men with such ferocity, they stutter for a second.

“To hell with your ‘ruin his life’ nonsense,” she huffs, swinging her hair like a whip. “I’m taking him home!”

He had so many questions.

Houzuki grumbles under her breath all the way out, twisting and turning from one street to the other, tugging him behind her like a four-year-old.

Why was she here to begin with?

Usually, he’d shrug her away. He’d tease the ever loving crap out of her and watch Houzuki turn a brighter shade of crimson every time while subtly keeping his distance from the intense urge to hold her close.

But today, when he looks at her, Chika sees more than just Satowa.

He sees a woman with the will of a stallion, dulling her blade in front of no one, however intimidating they might be.

He sees the hand of a woman he could not help but admire.

Couldn’t help but love.

He stops walking, looking at the fingers wrapped delicately around his wrist as if Chika realised for the first time that he was holding the hand of the woman he fell in love with a long time ago.

“Are you tired?” comes her tender voice filled with concern, as she looks around, “Do you want to sit for a while?”

He looks into her worried eyes and quickly drops his gaze, to the hand she wouldn’t leave. On any normal day, by now Satowa would let go, a shade of bright pink spreading down her arm to her toes.

Today she holds his hand, firm and gentle, both at once, neither shaking nor blushing at the contact that was progressively setting his nerves on fire.

And admitting his feelings was easy. It was easy for him to look at every minute he’d spent with her—in sorrow, in joy—that Chika was irrevocably in love with her.

He’d give the Sun if she demanded it, the moon adorned as an elegant crescent ring around her finger. He’s so in love that he forgets his past, that he could endanger Houzuki and her entire family.

But it looms around him like a constant-present shadow. So he sharpens his facade to protect her.

“You shouldn’t follow me to places like this,” he swallows, maintaining his composure as best as he can. “It’s dangerous. Are you stupid? Don't pull a stunt like this again.”

He steals a glimpse at her, pushing strands of loose hair behind her ear with not an ounce of regret or fear of her actions.

“If anything, you’re the stupid one,” she replies, ebony eyes staring straight into his as he raises an eyebrow in question.

“For thinking you’d need to face this alone.”

He stills, feeling her thumb stroke his bruised knuckles, eyes steadily turning a shade lighter.

“I understand,” she says, “I understand you’ve been fighting your battles by yourself all these years. You feel responsible for everything—like you deserve divine punishment for sins you didn’t commit to begin with,”

“But for once, point the blame to those that deserve it.” her grip tightens. “Tell them to,” she sucks in a sharp breath.

“Eat shit for all I care.”

Her gaze softens as he peers into her eyes; for solace, for the comfort he’s never had. That he’s never asked for.

“You’re only human, Kudou, and humans make mistakes. We all do. Does that mean we need to be crucified for it?”

He shakes his head from one side to another in an unspoken response.

“The past won’t change, no matter how hard we try. But the future.....” she grimaces, “Our circumstances are different now. No one helped you then—no one stood for you,”

Satowa’s smile is melancholy, like rain and snow at once, as she cups his cheek with her free hand.

“But you have me now,” she whispers, lacing her fingers into the groove between his. He peers into those abysmal eyes and sees a promise.

“The only day I’ll let go of this hand will be the day I die.”

In a flash, Chika breaks.

He shatters like smashed glass, scattering across the ground in shards of built up agony. He feels the tears forming in his eyes as he looks into hers, chin wobbling uncontrollably. His heart squeezes in his chest as everything sinks in—Dad, Mom, Grandpa, everyone he’s loved and lost.

And she stays there throughout, rubbing warm circles into his much bigger palm, a distant sorrow in her eyes.

This woman, this beautiful, wonderful woman, had saved him on more occasions than he could count.

She was the white to his black, yin to his yang painting his life with every colour in the spectrum between them.

The Sun sets not far behind, fiery orange encircling her like a golden halo. And that’s all it takes—the gleaming sky behind her, the tears in her eyes, the ones in his.

He pulls her forward gently, letting Satowa fall against him as every type of warmth rushes through his veins.

She stills for a moment, leaning against him, not a hair on her head moving. Chika gives her time, space enough to let go if this isn’t what she wants. God knows he doesn’t want to force her.

When she leaves his hand, Chika thinks it’s all over. And that’s okay.

He’s okay with that.

Instead, Satowa throws her arms around his neck, face sinking into the groove of his chest, nuzzling the space where his heart beats erratically.

He takes a moment to register, but when realisation sets in, Chika pulls her tighter to himself, fingers working through the strands of her hair, chin resting comfortably above her head.

In those small arms, Chika feels the affection she holds radiating with every fibre of her being. She stands on her toes, reaching higher to lay her head on his shoulder. He draws her up by the waist, anchoring her safely to his chest.

“You’re not alone,” she whispers into his collarbone, the touch of her lips, a second of pure bliss for him. He shivers at the contact, holding his breath to stop his thoughts from escalating.

“You’re not alone,” Satowa repeats, chin resting against his chest as she stares into his eyes, lowering one hand to trace his jaw in short, quiet strokes.

“You have me forever.”

When Chika kisses Satowa, he feels everything all at once. The rustling of the leaves dull, his heartbeat overpowering every sound in existence.

When she kisses him back, realisation sinks in that this woman, this beautiful wonderful woman, would give him the world too.

Chika stands in the centre of their universe, two supernovae colliding against the speed of the world, her breath against his skin like warm sunlight streaming in through a window.

When Chika looks into her eyes, he sees himself in them, trapped in a circle of warm ebony. He watches her smile brighten when she raises herself just enough to wipe the tears he doesn’t remember crying.

Today, when he looks at Satowa, Chika sees salvation. He sees his world.

“Forever,” he sighs as they walk back side by side, fingers intertwined, like needle and thread. She gazes at him, instinctively moving closer.

For once, Chika would let himself be protected. Because Satowa was a force to reckon with. She’s fierce and brave and he’s safe in her arms.

Chika really smiles then, one so wide his eyes crinkle and vision narrows to the one person who matters more than any other.

The world has to allow him this one moment of greed.

“Forever isn’t long enough.”

Yay! I wanted to write something for so long! This idea came to me after randomly listening to "Safe and Sound" by Taylor Swift.

Thank you for reading, and being patient with me. I love y'all so much <<3

#kono oto tomare!#kotedit #kudou chika #houzuki satowa #kot #dailykot #ao3 #fanfic #kono oto #kot fanart

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coldflame96 · 3 years ago

Text

Wrapped up in you

Summary: Sharing a scarf with your girl when you don’t like things around your neck is something that can be so personal..

Rating: T

Also found on AO3 and FF.net

Based off that picture in the very last scene with Kyoru sharing a scarf <3

“Wow!" He heard her gasp. "It's snowing!" But then she furrowed her brow. "But it was so mild this morning."

Neither of them had brought coats with them, but Tohru brought her scarf with the pom poms. She really loved that thing and it was cute.

"Kyo-kun," she grabbed his hand. "Are you cold?"

He didn't think he could ever truly be cold as long as she was around.

But he did shiver a bit. "A little. The temperature really dropped."

"Well here!" She took her scarf off, handing it to him. "Maybe this will help."

He knocked her head gently. "Then you'll get cold, dummy."

"I'll be okay!" She waved her arms. "I don't want you to get sick!"

He could tell this was gonna go nowhere fast. He rolled his eyes fondly and grabbed the scarf. She looked at him expectantly and he got an idea. It was cheesy, but knowing her, she'd probably love it.

He pulled her in closer, wrapping one end of the scarf around her neck, and the other end very loosely around his own.

"There." He said triumphantly, breath visible, "now neither of us have to be cold." He punctuated with a gentle whack with one of the poms and she giggled. He paused and then whacked her again. "Huh, this is kinda fun."

He was met with a whack on his own cheek with his girlfriend grinning impishly. "You're right, it is."

He gently whacked her again, this time pressing the pom right on top of her nose, shaking it as she tried to bat it away.

She tried to do a little twirl but the scarf wasnt quite long enough for that so she just did an awkward twist. The temperature was dropping by a lot and her nose was starting to turn red.

He leaned over to kiss it and she gave a questioning look.

He shrugged. "It looked cold."

She grabbed his hand, peeking at him from under her lashes. "I think my lips are cold too."

Subtle. He cradled her face and kissed her gently. "Better?"

"Still feels pretty cold."

He hummed, kissing her again. It was something he never really got tired of doing. She fisted her hands in his uniform jacket as he just kissed her slowly, careful to keep it chaste.

"Oi, lovebirds," he jumped when he felt a hand slap his back and saw Uotani to his side. She smirked. "When you're done being gross, you might wanna actually head home before you turn into snowmen." She put her arm over her head like a visor. "It's supposed to snow all night."

"Oh really?" Tohru asked. "I had work tonight."

She grunted. "So did I. But I called off. You should too."

She frowned. "I wouldn't wanna trouble them-"

He'd heard enough. "You're not walking to work in a blizzard. If you don't wanna call off, then just have Momiji do it for you. His dad owns the place."

She bit her lip. "I suppose…"

"Momiji Sohma is quite fond of you," Hanajima came out of nowhere. "I would imagine he wouldn't expect you to risk yourself in such weather."

"C'mon, we should go." Uotani said, wrapping an arm around Tohru's neck. "It's already cold and it’s only supposed to get worse."

She relented and he followed behind her closely, the scarf still hanging off his neck.

"Apparently we're supposed to get 15 cm," he heard Uotani say vaguely.

Tohru clapped her hands in excitement. "Really? Wow. We could play in the snow!"

"We could have a snowball fight." And then Uotani smirked. "Betcha I could beat Kyon."

He rolled his eyes. "Don't start a fight you can't finish, Yankee."

She snorted. "Yeah okay. You know your ‘bad boy’ image is ruined with that scarf around your neck."

He shrugged. It wasn't like he had anything to be embarrassed about.

Tohru was talking to Hanajima now about something, her face lit up. He smiled softly. She was happy and that's all he cared about.

The wind was really picking up and everyone in the group did a full-body shudder. It really was getting freezing and the snow was sinking into his clothes uncomfortably. Tohru was trying to hide it, but she was shivering. How did she manage to wear skirts in this kind of weather?

They parted ways with Uotani and Hanajima and no sooner than they rounded the corner, he wrapped his arms around Tohru's waist from behind.

"Are you cold?" He whispered.

She nodded. "Only a little."

He kissed her temple. "C'mon, let's get home."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the time they got into the doorway, her teeth were chattering and he rubbed her arms to try and warm her up.

"My, my, my," he heard Shigure say from the kitchen door and he looked up to see him standing there, looking way too amused. "I understand you kids are in love, but there is a time and place."

"Piss off," he snapped. "It's snowing and freezing outside."

"Well, that's why coats exist." He said smugly. "Honestly, Kyo-kun, do you not ever check the weather forecasts?

He was gonna punch this asshole. He felt a light tug on his shirt and he brought his attention back to his currently shivering girlfriend.

"D-do y-you m-m-m-mind if I shower first? I...c-can w-wait if you w-want to."

He pushed her back gently towards the bathroom. "Go shower before you get sick."

"O-okay."

It was once he heard the bathwater running that Shigure turned back to him, smirking. "Nice scarf." He gave him a flat look in response, which he took as a cue to continue talking. "Tsk, tsk, you made a rookie mistake just now."

"What are you talking about?" He asked on impulse, and then came to the conclusion that maybe he shouldn't have.

Shigure's grin only grew wider. "When a beautiful woman you're with is going to the shower, it's only natural you offer to join her."

Kyo grabbed him by the collar, growling, "Don’t talk about her like that, you fucking creep. I’ll kill you!”

"Scary~" And then something else seemed to come to him. "Where's Yuki-kun? Don't tell me you left him out there."

"How should I know? He was never even with us."

And that was when the phone rang. Shigure waved, saying "I'll let you handle that” and then went back to his own room, hopefully to die.

He scoffed. He didn't usually answer the phone but he had a good idea who it was.

"Hello?" He sighed out.

"Kyo?" Yuki's voice came through the speaker. He sounded surprised, which was fair.

"Yeah?"

"Where’s Honda-san?"

"In the shower.

"I see. when she gets out, tell her not to save me any dinner. The weather's getting bad so I went home with Kakeru."

"Fine. That it?"

"Yeah."

"Great. See ya."

"Wait."

"What?"

"You and Honda-san are alone...don't do anything stupid."

His face heated up. "Shigure's here, you jackass." He gritted. And probably eavesdropping. "And that's none of your business."

"Oh, he's actually home?"

"Yeah."

"My condolences."

"Whatever. Anything else?"

"No. You can hang up now."

And he was about to do just that but something paused him. "Oi."

"What?"

"You too," he mumbled through gritted teeth because he really didn't wanna think about Yuki doing anything like that. "Don’t do anything stupid."

A pause and then a "Thanks" before the line went dead.

"Oh, was that Yuki-kun?" He heard Tohru behind him, her skin flushed from the steam and her hair still damp. “Is he alright?”

He grunted in affirmation, trying not to look at how a stray water droplet ran down her neck. "He's fine. He's at Manabe's, so don't wait up for him on dinner."

She made to hug him, but then reeled back. "Kyo-kun, you need to get out of those wet clothes! You'll get sick."

If it were just them, he would suggest she help him with that, but Shigure was here and he was not gonna give him the satisfaction of that.

He patted her head. "I'm going."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Without work to go to, her and Kyo-kun took the night in. She had already changed into her sleepwear (which consisted of one of his shirts that was way too big on her and a pair of flannel pants).

He had changed too, in a loose long-sleeve and a pair of sweatpants.

With Shigure-san here, they couldn't exactly do anything more than kiss, so they'd just ended up watching a movie.

He'd fallen asleep halfway through and was currently clinging to her, head on her chest.

She could really admire him without being questioned when he was asleep, how his nose wasn’t set completely straight, the smattering of light freckles on the bridge that were more pronounced in the summer.

She lightly stroked his strong jawline and his arms tightened around her waist.

She smiled to herself. He was such a cute sleeper. She lightly threaded her fingers through his fiery hair, noting how it curled around his ears now.

It's getting so long..

She heard her phone vibrate from the nightstand and strained to reach it without disturbing her sleeping boyfriend.

She saw the message was from Uo-chan and then shot up in alarm at the attachment.

She heard a light groan and saw Kyo-kun blearily blinking his eyes open and she felt a little guilty.

"Wha's goin' on?" He mumbled.

"Uo-chan just sent me something."

He hummed. "'Splains why you woke me up."

She was pretty sure he was being sarcastic based off the grumpy look on his face but paired with the messy hair, it didn't have much of an effect.

"Look at this." She shoved the phone under his nose and watched him squint as he put his own hand over hers.

It was a picture of them, sharing the scarf with snow falling around them. Neither of them were looking at the camera but she was chatting with Hana-chan, though the angle of the photo cut her poor friend off, and Kyo-kun just watched her, looking content.

He normally hated getting pictures taken so it was rare to see him so relaxed in one.

"Was this from today?" He asked.

"Yep! Uo-chan took it." Then she cocked her head. "I wonder how she managed to do it without us noticing."

He stretched, his shirt riding above his waist, which she attempted to steadfastly ignore for her own sanity.

"Probably because I wasn't looking at her."

He always said things like that so easily and it was a marvel each time.

"I know you hate pictures," she started hesitantly, "but do you mind if I keep this one?"

"I don't mind pictures," he said softly. "Not with you, anyway."

She blushed, smiling to herself. "Right." She put one foot down on the carpet. "I'll go ask Shigure-san if I can borrow his printer."

A warm hand grabbed her wrist. "Do it tomorrow," he said. "It's late." And then he slumped on top of her. "I want my pillow back."

He was actually pouting and it was quite possibly one of the most adorable things she’d ever seen.

She just stared at the picture of them, smiling softly, Kyo-kun’s chin on her shoulder.

"You look cute," he murmured.

"I look the same as always, don't I?"

"Yeah."

He was warm. Like a steady heater on her back. It made her feel sleepy.

At some point, she’d been gently coaxed on her back again, eyes heavy and her boyfriend a comforting weight on her chest. She managed to text Uo-chan a 'Thank you' through bleary eyes before letting sleep take her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, she bought a frame and added the picture to her shelf next to her mother and Kyo-kun’s beads.

“You’re such a sap,” he’d said when he walked in and saw it.

But he couldn’t hide how his eyes kept softening when they landed on it.

Not from her.

#kyoru #fruits basket #kyo sohma #tohru honda

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