#Throe Garden
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nugothrhythms · 1 year ago
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"Absence of Salvation" by Detroit, Michigan-based dark punk and deathrock act Throe Garden off of their 2020 debut demo
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h-didanart · 3 months ago
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GUYS—
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GUYS HELP—
ITS TAKING OVER—
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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Anyways—
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So I’ve been listening to the Circe Saga in Epic the Musical for a while, I actually got the idea of giving Bloody and Harvest magic out of it, but that wasn’t enough, I had to go further
So now they are the God of Sorcery or something, look I’m just having fun here—
K, so they have an island to themselves, and they have a lot of magic and are cool, and they look after nymphs and stuff, and they turn anyone who tries bothering them into pigs. I think the Ancient Greek setting would change their backstory a bit but not by much, they probably wouldn’t almost die, but y’know, they’ve still had to deal with shitty stuff, which would actually lead to even more motivation on their end to protect those they care for. They have flower tattoos around their legs because I kinda just felt like drawing flowers and I’m pretty sure that that flower in specific represents strength and healing, and it also helps with insomnia I think. As for the scorpion imagery I chose it because of a kinda joke that’s supposed to be in the au where they choose to have a different day as their birthday and Bloody wants to be a Scorpio because scorpions are cool, and I looked up the symbolism and there’s some rebirth and life//death and change stuff which I think fits them (I am actively choosing to ignore the other potential symbolism, please don’t look it up I’m so sorry my boys 😭) And I like to think they’d use shadow and ice magic because of 1) conquer your fears /literal and 2) as a treatment for their overheating problem
I really like this silly variant, they’re cool
Oh and, uh, about ‘There are other ways’, uhm
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Yeah that’s how they were gonna deal with that, cool
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mimicmimikyuwrites · 10 months ago
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The First "I Love You" - Adam (Hazbin Hotel) x Fem!Reader SMUT
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Summary: You tell Adam that you love him for the first time, the first of any of his wives to tell him that. Your confession of love leads to Adam showing you just how much he loves you back.
Contents/Possible Warnings: P in V sex, unprotected sex, breeding kink, cream pie, Adam being his usual insufferable self, SMUT, MDNI
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The world outside of Eden's garden was a dangerous one, but your husband never failed to keep you safe. Adam had told you stories of the garden and how he lived there with Eve, years before your creation as his third wife. His tales of the place he described as Earth's own heavenly paradise where your every need was met always enamored you; for you too wished you could experience it with him by your side.
The possibility of that happening was long gone as soon as Eve bit into the forbidden apple, but without the actions of your predecessors, you wouldn't have come to be. In a way that even you admitted was a little fucked up, you were grateful that things happened the way they did, and you were grateful you got to meet the love of your life.
Adam was an asshole with an ego that was far too big, but at the end of it all, he was the same man who kept you safe during the day, and who held you at night, keeping you warm despite the cold night, just as he was in the present moment.
You snuggled up to him, your head laying on his chest while his hand absentmindedly combed through your hair; the two of you attempting to get some sleep, gazing up at the stars in the night sky. You certainly weren't in the Garden of Eden, but being with him was like your own personal paradise.
You looked up at him. His eyes were half-lidded and threatening to close from his quickly growing need for sleep. He yawned, pulling you closer, an action that earned a gentle smile from you. You leaned up, kissing him softly.
"Fuck was that for?" He questioned. "You tryin' to fuck, babe? Usually, I'd be thrilled, but I'm exhausted as shit right now."
You shook your head. "I just wanted to kiss you, is all." You replied, smiling at him warmly. He gave you a curious look, unfamiliar with the concept of a kiss that was more chaste in nature. Whenever he kissed you, or his previous wives, in the past it was in the throes of a lustful exchange.
"...Why? Do you want something else, or...?" Confusion filled his voice in a rare moment where he wasn't his usual confident, boisterous self. You shook your head. "I wanted to do it because I love you, Adam." Those last four words played on repeat in his head. "I love you, Adam."
The phrase "I love you," had been uttered by a human before; he had said it to Lilith, and then Eve, but never to you. Yet here you were, the first one to say it to him, all of your volition. The feeling in his heart was indescribable to him, something he never felt before, and it felt better than anything else. Knowing that the one he loved felt the same for the first time ever made him feel almost euphoric, and he was determined to get as much out of that feeling as possible.
His lips crashed against yours in a passionate kiss. He climbed on top of you, moving his lips down to your neck where he sloppily kissed and nibbled, earning a light moan from you; one of his favorite noises.
"Let me show you just how much I love you back," he said, voice low, his hands moving to your thighs. "You want that, don't you? Tell me just how much you want that, sweetheart." Your legs spread instinctively as he loomed over you, the pale moonlight of the night reflecting off of him and giving him an alluring glow.
"Adam, please," you breathed out, pulling him down, your faces nearly touching. "I want you so much. Make love to me, fill me up, do whatever you want to me—" He silenced you with another kiss, pushing into you slowly. You moaned into him, your arms wrapping around him in an attempt to get as close to him as you possibly could, savoring the intimacy of it all.
His thrusts were slow, yet deep, and the pace had you feeling every single inch of his cock inside of you. It was a welcome contrast to the usual way he fucked you; with quick, rough movements and an eagerness to reach only his climax and not yours. It seemed for once he was fully enjoying the pleasure shared between you, and in no real rush.
"Say it again," He told you, burying his face into the crook of your neck as his speed increased just slightly. "Say you love me, baby." With your mind clouded with pleasure you barely heard him, your only focus being on the way his cock fucked into your pussy. Unsatisfied with your response, he grabbed you by the chin, forcing you to look into his eyes filled with arousal, love, and a twinge of desperation.
"Say. It." He growled, each word followed with a sharp thrust that hit your sweet spot head-on.
"I love you—fuck! Adam!—" You threw your head back, arching your back as he rewarded you by speeding up, thick cock stretching you out perfectly with each movement. "Love you—fuck, yes!" You let out a loud moan as his fingers found your clit, rubbing it in a circular motion.
"Gonna fill you up," He groaned, the sound of his hips smacking against yours filling the air. "'I'm gonna get you pregnant, have you do what those other unfaithful bitches couldn't do for me. You probably want that more than anything, to be my perfect little wife who only loves me."
You only nodded at his words, practically drunk off of the feeling of his cock fucking into you so deliciously, your mind clouded with pleasure. Your nails dug into his back as you attempted to ground yourself, your orgasm barreling towards you; its arrival sure to be at any moment.
"Gonna cum—" He warned, moaning out your name in a way that made you even wetter than you already were. "Y-You gonna let me fill you up? Let me–oh shit—" He moaned again as you wrapped your legs around his waist, burying him in deeper and locking him in place at the same time. There was no pulling out now, not like he was going to anyways.
"Loveyouloveyouloveyou—Ah! Fuuuuck!" He growled, his hips stilling, warm cum spilling deep into you. The feeling of him filling you to the brim sent you over the edge, your climax consuming you.
You two remained in silence for a long couple of moments, looking into each other's eyes in a shared adoration before he pulled out, laying next to you. You closed your eyes, satisfied, yet tired.
"Come here," He said, voice gentle, pulling you closer and wrapping an arm around your waist. "Let's do that shit you always want to do after I fuck your brains out."
You furrowed your brows in a slight confusion before quickly realizing what he meant. You let out a giggle. "You mean cuddle, Adam? You usually just go to sleep afterward. What changed?"
He rolled his eyes in response to your question, trying to hold back the smile sneaking its way onto his face. "Trust me, I'm going to sleep, babe. Might as well hold onto you so you don't sneak off or some shit like all fucking women seem to do."
You ignored the implications of his comment, snuggling up to him. "I love you, Adam. I mean it. I'm not going anywhere."
He closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth in his heart from your words. "Love ya, too. Now go to sleep, the man needs to get his rest."
You closed your eyes, the feeling of him tracing imaginary patterns into your back lulling you to sleep. You loved him, and he loved you, even if he was still struggling to fully accept it.
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desireangel · 4 months ago
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Dark Cherry [2] | Aemond Targaryen
Part Two
Summary: after months of a marriage that hardly harbours the passion that you'd dreamed about, you stumble across the reason for your husband's indifference and decide enough is enough. Aemond will learn just exactly what he's been missing out on.
Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x fem!reader and also some Aemond x some random girly pop ;o
Word Count: (I'm... sorry?) 7.1k
Warnings: smut - mdni 18+!!! UNEDITED!! infidelity, kinda angsty? second-hand smut? power struggle both in bed and out, reader is a cheeky voyeur, oral (f receiving), thigh riding, degradation, Aemond is a fucking asshole but he's sexy, talk of masturbation. as always, let me know if I have missed anything!
Author's note: Entirely unedited because here I am posting this at 2:30AM having just finished writing this bad boy even though I have to be up for work at 7:30. yay :/. Anyways, thank you all so much for the love on this series so far! I'm thinking there could potentially be some more to come. Reader ain't done with her revenge so soon. I will reblog with the taglist tomorrow! or today I guess--after I've had some sleep! I would also love to hear your thoughts!! So pls hmu in my inbox to chat abt things xoxo kisses!!!! <3
Masterlist!
Part One
Distancing yourself from Aemond was not a difficult task. You’d barely see much of him aside from the meals you shared and your occasional stroll through the gardens anyway. It still felt odd, knowing that you were avoiding him when only days ago you had been grasping at whatever crumb of his attention you could reach. 
His existence was ghostly. Always talked about but never seen and it made it remarkably easy to ignore him. You spent most days between your chambers and Helaena’s, idly passing time with embroidery and small talk. But you were distracted - your mind foggy and your usual grace and poise replaced by clumsiness and a constant flustered jumpiness.
It was always on your mind. Always. 
Your mind was a problem of its own and as soon as you lay down amongst your sheets for a night of sleep, it took you back to the memory of your name lewdly falling from Aemond’s lips. As days had passed, you could have convinced yourself it was a hallucination - an odd dream of some sort.  
And while it had become muscle memory for your hand to find your soaked sex at the midnight hour, the scene of your alluring husband in the throes of pleasure bringing you to a quick peak, the first two nights had been marred with silent tears of humiliation, hurt, betrayal–jealousy and anger. 
Maybe it was for the best that you had not seen the face of the whore in his private chambers. If you had any idea of who she was, you would have had half a mind to have sought her out and suffocated her yourself.
You had to remind yourself that if she were, in fact, a whore then you could hardly let yourself seriously consider choking a woman out for simply doing her job. 
Frustration was an understatement. No matter how hard you tried, there was nothing that you could do which would calm the mix of emotions inside you. You considered declaring Aemond’s infidelity at dinner–or even at the small feast that was held two nights ago. But it wouldn’t be enough and it was too early to show your hand. 
If you had come out and made it known to all at Court, nothing would happen. At all. 
Most husbands take on whores and mistresses. And despite the pain and hurt of it that the wives suffer, it’s simply accepted as the way things are. Men are innately animals and so they must fuck like it too. So nobody would bat an eyelid at Aemond. Instead, you knew that they’d turn it on you in one way or another. 
On the sixth day, you were surprised when Ser Tunsley knocked on your door to announce your husband’s presence. When Aemond took a seat at the small table where you usually shared your breakfast, he barely spared you more than an inquisitive look before telling your handmaid to bring your breakfasts promptly. 
Aemond leaned back, letting his legs rest comfortable but still maintained his effortlessly flawless posture. He reached for the book that lay forgotten on the side-table, holding it open with one hand and his other arm stretching over the back of the seat beside him, where you sat all tense and surprised. A barely-there frown crossed your face at the foreign gesture and you willed yourself not to think much of it.
You would have fumbled to snatch the book from his hands, if this had been a week earlier. But it wasn’t, and with a curious and conniving sense of calm, you let him read the first page of a story riddled with obscenity and romance. The first couple chapters were perfectly appropriate.
The prince looked at you with a gentle tilt of his head, unmoving aside from . “You have been withdrawn.”
Silence. You were sitting beside him, unable to meet his eye as you usually would, scoffing so softly at his words that he almost mistook it for a cough. 
Aemond, who was far more observant of you than he knew you believed him to be, found that he was bothered by it. Whether it was because of the loss of the devotion that he had always seen in your doe-eyed gaze, or the flippant shift in your attitude, he did not want to know. 
“Have I done something that has bothered you, dear wife?” His eye returned to the book and moved from one side of the page to the other as he read. 
Aemond clearly did not see you watching them on that night. The fact that you had faced no repercussions for sneaking up on him and eavesdropping on such a moment was enough confirmation of that. 
But Aemond’s presence re-ignited the red hot resentment you had for his actions and the hurt that you felt because of him. How any man could seek out the company of his wife for the first time in a week, sit beside her and pretend so shamelessly as if he cared for the repercussions of his own vile actions was beyond you. 
Nonetheless, you forced a polite smile onto your lips and turned slightly to face him better. You let his question linger in the air between you as the maid returned, placing a plate of cheeses, fruits and an assortment of breads on the table in front of you. 
Thanking her, you reached to pour yourself a cup of the sweet vanilla and rose tea that had become your favourite part of your mornings in the Keep. When you answered his question, it was purposefully less than what Aemond was seeking. 
“I have been ill, lord husband,” you murmured. When you rested against the back of the seat, you tensed at the feeling of Aemond’s arm grazing your shoulder. You had forgotten it was there. 
Your reaction to his proximity and while you had initially been shy around him–not so much since you had started your little performance–, you never flinched away from his touch. 
Aemond placed the book down beside him and hummed in thought. He reached over you, to take a piece of fresh bread for his plate and to put some fruit on your plate, his chest pressing against your shoulder and his hair brushing past your nose. 
If you had moved, just an inch, your lips would be against the milky skin of his throat. Despite your disdain for your husband, you could hear the thrum of your heartbeat in your ears and stopped yourself from dragging your fingers through his hair and tracing your lips across his jaw. 
There was an unfamiliar sense of purpose behind what he was doing. It dawned on you that he knew what he was doing. The bread was already on his plate but the son of a bitch placed the fruits piece by piece on your plate, his movements lazy. 
He smelled like lavender, leather and dragon smoke. Like an intoxicating drug that overwhelmed your mind until piety and sin were indiscernible. It was far too easy for you to see Aemond as more godly than just a mere man, to feel the need to worship him in the most sinful ways you could imagine. 
No man in any realms was as strong, as beautiful, as terrifying, as educated as the prince who breathed fire onto your skin. And he was your prince. 
A drop in your stomach was the least of your problems when the image of Aemond enjoying another woman’s passion invaded your thoughts. You wondered if his scent drove her just as mad as it made you and you had the urge to drive a knife through Aemond’s hand for you knew he’d have let her indulge in him. 
But when he looked at you, his violet eye a mask of indifference yet still failing to hide something that you couldn’t for the life of you put into words, you hated that your desire for him burned just as strong as your rage. 
Aemond’s eye met yours, humming in thought as he brought a cherry to his lips and glancing down at your own. He took a bite out of it first and then brought it to your mouth, dragging the open side across your bottom lip. The soft fruit dripped delicately onto your chin and left a stain on your perfect lips. The sight of you with reddened lips, gazing up at him with blown out pupils, shining with an uncorrupted devotion and a pure desire sent his blood rushing. 
The cherry was sweet and chilled, a stark contrast to the darkened, heated want that Aemond watched you with. And again, you had an urge to ignore everything and take what it was that you had been hoping Aemond would give you. You obediently took the cherry into your mouth, holding his gaze, chewing the flesh of the fruit and rolling the pip on your tongue. 
When you looked hard enough into Aemond’s eye, you could see the reflection of yourself morph into a reflection of the unnamed woman and you turned from him, turning away to drop the pip of the cherry onto a napkin. 
Aemond’s hand fell softly to rest on your knee and he only moved back a nudge. You refused to meet his eye but you could feel his warm breath on your cheek as he spoke, his voice slightly strained yet still calm and smooth. “I’ll send for a maester.” 
“Thank you,” you pushed the words out of your mouth and nodded towards the food. “You should eat your breakfast, my prince.”
Aemond raised an eyebrow as you rolled your eyes at him and slid back into his previous posture, sitting against the backrest of his own seat. An infuriating grin played on his lips. “Don’t worry about my breakfast. Why did you roll your eyes at me?”
You rolled your eyes again. “As if I cannot call for a maester myself.”
It crossed your mind that you could have told him right now of what you had seen. And the urge to scream at him became so strong you almost did. 
But what would come of it? Not enough. Aemond would only offer you an apology if you were lucky and carry on as if nothing was amiss. Because that is just how it is for husbands–they could cheat and lie all they please to no consequence. And you wanted him to regret the moment he chose to disrespect you. 
You wanted him to suffer for it. To feel as insulted, as embarrassed and as inferior as you have.
So he would suffer. But you had to be patient if you were to make it hurt. 
A thought crossed your mind as Aemond said something you didn’t quite hear, with that unbothered expression he had mastered years ago. 
He didn’t linger long after that. You ate your breakfast in silence, while Aemond, much to your distaste, finished the first chapter of your book. And when he finally left, he took it with him, giving you a knowing smirk as he tucked it under his arm. 
One punch. Surely, you would be entitled to that. 
Initially, the idea of seducing Jason Lannister was a gruesome one. But upon hearing of his prolonged and unbusy presence at King’s Landing, you recognised an opportunity as it presented itself to you. Simply because of pride and ego, there were few men who enjoyed the idea of his wife turning to another man for what they could not provide. 
Alas, if there was any part of Aemond that made him weak, it was his pride and his arrogance. 
And so here you were, enjoying your afternoon tea with the Lannister twin, listening to stories of his life at Casterly Rock. You made sure the house staff had known of Lannister’s presence and that the Kingsguard were well aware of the pot of tea you shared in the Courtyard. Easily within sight of where you knew Aemond was training with Ser Cole and some other men you had no interest in knowing.
For the past thirty minutes, you could feel him watching you. But when you lifted your head to look, pretending to the man across from you that you were interested in watching your husband train, Aemond would turn away. Yet he finally seemed to have finally had enough and you could see him walking over from behind Jason, his shoulders stiffer than usual with a sour expression. 
“This tea,” you covered your mouth gently, letting out the remnants of a laugh that had been pulled from you. If you were being honest, Jason Lannister was turning out to be surprisingly fun company and the smile you had expected to fake ended up being real. Not bothering to look at Aemond, who was much closer now, you held your teacup towards the Lord Lannister with a pretty, sultry smile. “It is incredible–I’ve loved it so much, t’is the only tea I will drink. Have a taste of mine, I insist.”
With a look of blatant excitement, Jason leaned into where you held the cup, fingers grazing yours as he held the cup but never took it out of your hold and took a sip. It was slightly awkward, the way his eyes held onto yours, but you brightened your smile nonetheless. 
Aemond visibly inhaled a sharp breath and cleared his throat, covering the both of you in a dark shade. The prince was looming over Lannister, who never looked away from you even as you peeled your eyes away from him with exaggerated difficulty to meet Aemond’s eye. You dropped your smile so slightly that only Aemond could notice. 
There was a tense, awkward silence that lingered. Lannister’s head tilted ever so slightly and a wave of annoyance ran through you at the cocky tilt of his head regardless of the fact that it was exactly what you needed him to do. The two men stared at each other, Aemond’s typical dark repose and Lannister’s challenging chagrin at the disruption. 
“How nice of you to join us, my prince,” you beamed. “Lord Lannister has been sharing this pot of tea with me. It’s lovely to enjoy some company for once.”
You took pleasure in the way he squared his shoulders at your remark. Lannister snickered but was quick to cover it up with a cough at Aemond’s narrowed eye. 
“Yes, I’m sure it is,” Aemond’s voice was sharp. “I happen to have some time on my hands before I take Vhagar to flight, lady wife. Perhaps you would care to join me for a stroll through the gardens?”
Aemond was behind you in a blink, tugging your chair back gently into himself and holding a hand out to help you stand. The air around you became soft lavender and leather and something very Aemond. And despite the slight flutter of your eyelids, you straightened and held strong. 
Weakness would get you nowhere. You were out here for a reason and no matter how strong the pull was, your lust to hurt him back was much stronger. 
You shook your head gently, looking at Jason who seemed to stiffen under the prince’s eye. “What kind of host would I be if I were to abandon Lord Lannister? Considering it was I who invited him to tea. We can enjoy the gardens another time, my prince.”
The fire in Aemond’s eye rivalled Vhagar’s. It gave you a sense of satisfaction that was much unlike yourself and you wondered how he’d burn with rage if you decided to take Jason to your bed. You’d lose everything you had to your name but you knew it would not be difficult to convince yourself that it’d be worth it.
Jason Lannister was no fool. He understood the wrath of the Targaryen prince but he knew that you would never be subjected to the extent of it. As much as Prince Aemond pretended he did not care, the Lords and counsellors of the Red Keep knew that he had his weaknesses. At the end of the day, Aemond would not dishonour himself by tarnishing the image of his pious, kind wife who was loved by all. 
Lannister also had his doubts about you. Again, he was no fool to fall for whatever game you were playing. An honourable, devoted Lady such as yourself would never actually be so easy to adulterate. Whatever it was, Jason was not against indulging himself in some fun here and there. 
But he did prefer to keep his limbs and so he shook his head gently and stood from his seat. 
“You have my thanks,” he took your hand in his and placed a kiss on your knuckles. A bold move from a man who could so strongly feel the Prince’s pointed glare. Jason turned and bowed his head gently towards Aemond. “But I fear I have some business to attend to, so do not stay back on my regard. It was lovely to sit with you, my Lady.”
Aemond scoffed loudly as the Lord took his leave. He waited for you to take his hand to help you out of your seat before dropping it to your waist. 
“My prince-”
“If you are so starved of company, dear wife,” he drawled, looking straight ahead with a tightened jaw as he led you in the direction of the gardens. It was a habit now, whenever Aemond had you on his arm, to walk that route. Not surprising seeing how it was the only place where you two would see each other apart from your chambers. “I would expect you to call upon me rather than some toady Lord who would certainly misjudge your intentions. I am your husband, am I not?”
The thought of keeping a list of the times he spoke as if he were faithful crossed your mind for barely a second. Aemond was infuriating. 
You offered him half of a smile and pulled him back slightly as you came to a stop. “You are. But your mind is never with me and I am well aware your time is far more precious to you than I am.”
If Aemond’s composure was not so ingrained into his existence, he may have spluttered and gawked at you. Instead, he barely frowned. 
There was little he could do about the unemotional, unkind man that he had become perceived as. Aemond understood that it was his own actions that meant people viewed him as little less than a monster. And truly, it was how he tried to be perceived. 
So why did it disturb Aemond that his own wife thought him so uncaring? He knew he had only himself to blame for it. 
“I am afraid a stroll in the gardens will have to wait,” you continued in his silence. Being alone with Aemond was not how you intended to spend the afternoon. The risk that you’d lose your composure and tell him all that you had seen of him was still high. “I am still feeling fairly unwell. It may be better for me to rest in my chambers with a book.”
Aemond knew that you were retracting into yourself, pulling away from him where you would have been at his beck and call only a week ago. He hummed. “Tomorrow then.” 
And with that, Aemond escorted you to your chambers in silence. It was hardly two hours that you had spent in the Courtyard with Lord Lannister but it had been tiring nonetheless. The peace and quiet that came with your reprieve from the man that had set your nerves into a frenzy just at the knowledge of his presence while you pressed at his patience was welcome. 
A few hours passed slowly in your own company. Dinner was brought to your room at your request. The mere thought of sitting beside your husband and putting on a display for his family exhausted you. 
The sounds of footsteps and conversation outside your door pulled your attention from the embroidery you had forced yourself to practise. Your chambers were fairly secluded compared to the rest and so it wasn’t often that anyone wandered this area. Expecting the Queen or your husband to be the source of the noise, you were hastily at the door, a sudden flush of anxiety shooting straight to your gut. 
You waited barely five seconds for Ser Tunsley to knock on your door but your impatience pushed you to step out first. There was nobody there. You could see Ser Tunsley stalking away from the direction of the private chambers. You didn’t question it, assuming he was probably stepping away for a brief break, given that his position hadn’t been replaced. 
Footsteps. Again. 
Curiously turning your head in the direction of the sound, you saw a flash of brunette hair and a dark grey dress. Fuck. 
It was impossible not to recognise her. Even as she walked away from you and clearly in the direction of Prince Aemond’s chambers, you knew who she was. 
So with one final glance back into your room you followed her, thankful that you were barefoot so that your own footsteps couldn’t be heard.  Even though your body was running hot with a mixture of heartache and rage, there was an icy stiffness that had spread from the back of your neck to your shoulders as you rounded a single corner after her and helplessly watched her enter Aemond’s chambers. 
You held back tears. She had left the door open. Again. It did little to ease the knot in your throat when you realised that while she may be good enough for Aemond with her mouth, she was not the smartest.
Unable to move, you stood planted in that one spot a few feet away for what must have been ten minutes before you heard the same shuffling and muffled voices. You could hear her more clearly this time and it took you another two minutes to build the courage to see, once again, how Aemond dishonoured you. 
If the circumstances were different, it may have been one of the sexiest sights you had ever laid your eyes upon. But it struck you in a way you couldn’t have expected and it took all of your willpower to stay standing. 
But what else had you expected?
This time, the woman was sprawled out, her head hanging off of the bed and if her eyes weren’t screwed shut in bliss then she would have been looking directly at you. Her left hand gripped the sheets and the other was tangled amongst Aemond’s silver hair, her thighs on either side of his head. 
Gods, you had never known anything like it. 
Aemond was devouring her like he had been starved of her for weeks (you knew he hadn’t), the obscene sounds of his mouth against her sex striking you with distress. He held her down as she writhed against him, a strong, clothed arm keeping her in place at her waist. 
You had hardly been watching them for thirty seconds and you didn’t even have time to consider turning around and walking away to save yourself the misery. 
Because Aemond’s eye opened and he gazed straight through his lashes, lifting his head so he was looking directly at you. A piercing violet eye accompanied by a glimmering sapphire that watched you dangerously, as if he had seen you standing there the entire time and this was all entertaining to him. 
For what may well have been the tenth time that night, you couldn’t move. You stood at the door, chest heaving and jaw slack as you felt a tightness in your throat. How could you feel so powerless in a game you managed to believe you had the upperhand in? 
Aemond still held your eyes with his own, pulling away from the whore he was toying with, and fucking smirked.  
Like things were going exactly how he had planned. 
Red. And a loud gasp and then panic and a flash of arousal and all of a sudden you were running back to your chambers, falling to your knees over your empty bathtub and dry heaving. It was all too much. 
The shock, the fear, the jealousy, the fear. 
And it dawned on you as you tried desperately to catch your breath. Ignoring your arousal–you cursed your body for reacting faster than your mind once again–panic continued to flood your veins like an ice-cold burn. 
Aemond had definitely seen you watching. But had he known all along? 
It made no sense. Did he see you that night when he moaned your name instead of that damned woman’s? 
You couldn’t even be sure how long Aemond had stared at you from his spot, his attention diverted entirely from the nameless woman, who whined and stirred incessantly at his distraction, to you. Caught like a thief in the act, wide-eyed and dazed.
Aemond knew. And he must have known the entire time. With the way he looked directly to you, as if he were waiting for you. As if Aemond knew exactly where you stood the first night. As if he had finally caught you in his trap.  
He wanted you to see. 
Aemond had already bested you at your own game with even more cleverness than you. Before you had even started to play. 
Sleep did not come easy that night. 
 
You were dressed and ready far earlier than usual the next morning. Even though you dreaded the worst - that Aemond had convened to have you punished for watching as you had, you let your scheme motivate you to take back the control you had lost. If you had ever had it in the first place. 
The dress you wore was hardly decent and it left you bare from your chest up, a wide slit running through the skirts. It was a deep green that had a shine to it and clung to your skin, making it clear that you had foregone your smallclothes for the day. 
For the sake of decency within the hallway, and because you detested the idea of either of the Cloaks at your doors seeing your attire, you donned a heavy cloak over top. It was Aemond’s; he had left it behind after breakfast once.
Aemond was still asleep when you had talked your way past the guard at his door and pushed through the doors to his chambers. You stood at the foot of his bed, tracing the place where that woman lay with your eyes. Quietly, you dropped the cloak to the floor.
It was your first time in Aemond’s private chambers. And would things have been different, you would have taken the time to observe all the things that made this space his. Instead, your eyes scanned every centimetre of every part of his chambers for any trace of that wretched woman. 
There was none. Not a single strand of hair. 
You sat at the edge of his plush bed, taking a moment to get your head straight before you stood and walked around to the side of the bed where he lay. The scent of him was overwhelming as you stood above him. 
“Well,” Aemond barely moved aside from his lips as he spoke. His eye remained shut. “Look who finally figured it out. Why are you here?”
You let out a drawn out sigh, shivering gently. “I would like to talk.”
Aemond sat up lazily and you noticed he was naked save for the sheet that covered his lap. From the way he was sitting, you stood in between his legs and his head was slightly tilted as he looked at you over the swell of your breasts. His hands found a resting place on your hips and you were hyper-aware of his touch, which felt heavier than boulders and hotter than lava. 
He looked at you as if he were ready to devour you. As if Aemond were a man starved of air and you were his only chance at breathing. 
The prince let out a hum. “Dressed like this?”
“Since you seem to prefer a whore over your own wife, I figured I would dress akin to one,” you kept your voice stern and stepped further into him so that his chin almost had to rest in the valley of your breasts if he wished to keep his gaze on yours. “If this is what it will take to have your attention.”
Not once did Aemond’s heated stare falter. “I think you are well aware of where my attention lies. What with your childish attempts at seduction.”
“I did not think you cared to take note.”
“Oh, I noticed,” Aemond said, dragging a finger up and down the side of your waist. He enjoyed the soft feel of the fabric and the way your nipples perked through the dress at his touch had him resisting a primal urge to bite. His patience had been astounding thus far but it was wearing thin. “I would have expected that kind of behaviour from a common whore, not a lady such as yourself. You are a princess, after all.”
Trying your best not to squirm under his touch, you held firm in your hardened gaze. “You seem to enjoy whores.”
“I do not.”
You scoffed. “So you have been fucking her just to spite me? Or have you fallen in love?”
“Such filthy language from such a well behaved girl,” he mused. Aemond’s cursed smirk had you holding back from both cutting him and kissing him. “I never would have guessed that my wife is so full of surprises. It seems I do not know you as well as I believed.”
“Answer my question, Aemond.”
“I never fucked her properly, since you insist–”
“As if it makes a difference whether you fucked her cunt or her mouth,” you spat. He was maddening. “You are my husband. I should be the only woman you have in your bed.”
The grip on your hips tightened almost painfully before he brought one hand up to caress your jaw. Aemond didn’t hide the longing he felt, pulling you closer and admiring every inch of your skin tenderly. “If only you had been good and asked me nicely for what you need. Instead of acting like a desperate slut every time we were in the same space. Things could have been so much easier for you, my love.”
Aemond had always spoken to you with respect. And yet here he was, speaking to you as if he already knew exactly what sent your cunt wild with need. He harshly held your chin, forcing you to look up at the roof as he straightened, pressing his nose into the crevice of your neck. The tickle of his hot breath on your skin made you gasp and you felt the velvet of his lips smirking against your throat. 
“The whole time,” you panted, bringing your hands to his shoulders and digging your nails into his skin. “You knew. It was-”
“Hm. It was for you.” Aemond let his teeth graze against the dip of your jaw. 
There was a fire alight on your skin. You could barely make sense of his words but you forced yourself to hold it together. “You are insane.”
“I was only playing the game that you started,” Aemond chuckled. “Only, I have played it far better than you. Perhaps we are lucky that you did not present more of a challenge, considering I was not above taking her on your bed instead.”
Fuck that. You despised him and loved him and lusted for him all at the same time. 
The control you had was slight to begin with but whatever little there was, it was slipping through your fingers. You threaded your fingers through Aemond’s hair–which was silkier than you had expected–and pulled him away from your neck. 
When you saw the hunger for you in his eye, the slight pink flush of his cheeks, a warm flood of invigorating energy made it’s way through your veins. You fought the urge to run your hands down his shoulders, his chest, his bicep–any part of him you could reach. 
You swallowed thickly. “You should have. I need only one more reason to cut her.”
“I shall have her hanged if that is what you wish.” 
For a moment, you thought you might scratch the smug expression off of Aemond’s face. You groaned, pursing your lips at his indifference and squeezing your thighs together at the passion in his eye. “Fuck you, Aemond.”
“I’m going to give you another chance. Ask me nicely to fuck you until all those doubts you have are replaced by the empty space I will fill your pretty little head with,” He pulled at your hips, so that there was no empty space between you, your torso flush to his chest. Aemond felt deathly tense yet strangely relaxed at the feel of you gasping against him. “And we can put an end to this contest. I do regret that I have left you, my wife, unsatisfied but I want you begging first.”
You watched him closely, challenged him with your gaze. There was no chance you would beg and let him win. The air between you was charged with energy, hissing and stinging. It became heavy and despite the way both of you were breathing so heavily, chests rising and falling dramatically, you couldn’t get enough oxygen to fill your lungs. 
The thickness in the air only became heavier as you gripped his wrists, and moved slowly so that you straddled his right thigh. Aemond fisted the thin fabric of your dress and when you lightly pressed your leg against the hardness at his crotch, you felt his steady breath against your lips which lingered above his own. The skirts of your dress rode up to your hips. 
Lavender, leather and him. 
“You want me to ask you nicely, my prince?” You purred, relishing in the way Aemond’s jaw clenched when he felt your bare cunt press against his thigh. It sends a wave of pleasure straight through your body. “You want me to beg you to tear this dress off of me? To fuck me until I can no longer think of any word other than your name? To make me yours properly? Beg you to fuck me how you should have every night since our wedding?”
Aemond’s hands were grasping at the flesh all over your body, pulling at the fabric of your pathetic excuse of a gown until it ripped. There was a weight on his chest that only grew at the sight of your perfect skin through the torn fabric, your nipples slipping into his view. 
His voice was low and guttural. “The final chance. Be good and beg.”
“If you wish for me to be good,” you whispered into his ear, moving hastily to grip the back of his neck with one hand and the other holding his chin tightly as he had held yours minutes ago. He let out a strained sound through his teeth as you shifted against his cock, pretending to get comfortable.  “You should not have indulged in that whore.”
Aemond scowled at you. And he could have thrown you off of him but his hands continued to scorch the skin on your hips.
You realised you had never been so close to Aemond as you pressed a trail of tender kisses to his jaw. You were infinitely closer to him than all the times you had held onto him while walking the gardes or while he had bedded you with feigned disinterest. And you were aching with want and desire just as he was, your wetness seeping onto Aemond’s thigh. 
It was nothing in comparison to the rage that you had pent up. With a gasp you ground down on the strong muscle of his thigh, eyes fluttering at the sensation. Holding back a moan, you rested your forehead against Aemond’s and rocked your hips against him. 
You tightened your legs, well aware that Aemond could overpower you and have you under him in seconds. He was allowing you to have your moment and you pulled your hand from his jaw only for it to stay tightly locked as his fingers dug into your hips.
There would be bruises left on your skin for weeks but you couldn’t bring yourself to care, almost groaning out loud when Aemond took control of your movements, pushing and pulling your hips so that your clit rubbed against him perfectly. “Prince Aemond Targaryen. You think you can just do as you like and that there would be no consequences. That I would come crawling back to you so easily?”
A moan slipped from your lips when Aemond shifted his leg. You knew you were getting carried away, that the power you had over him was getting to your head but fuck. It didn’t matter. 
You dropped your hand to where Aemond’s cock pressed against one of your thighs, touching him gently over the sheet that covered him. It still surprised you just how perfectly big Aemond was, thick and hard in your palm. And then you held him firmly, rocking your weeping cunt against his thigh even harder when he groaned. It sent shock after shock straight through your core.
“Did you think I would be on my knees for you so easily just like she was?” You spat, whining at the pleasure that was incomparable to the way you had been touching yourself. Aemond hissed as you slid your hand up and then back down so slowly. “After those shows you put on for me, there is not a chance.” 
Countermoves. Aemond was good at them, even when struggling to even out his breath and regain his composure. “Tell me, which part did you enjoy the most? Was it when I fucked my seed into her throat? Or when was calling your name?” 
You gripped the back of his neck so hard, pushing your soaked pussy harder onto his leg. “Do not-”
Aemond hummed, his grip tightening painfully on your hips as he moved his leg in motion against you. He smirked when you shuddered, caressing your cheek with his nose as he spoke lowly into your ear once again. “I think I know. It was last night, when I had her on my tongue and thought only of how perfect your desperate little cunt would taste instead.”
“Aemond,” you couldn’t help but moan as he rolled your hips deliciously on his thigh. He let out a small, deep laugh at the way you trembled in his hands but you could hear that he was losing himself just as much as you were. “Gods.”
“I wish to know, princess. How many times have you touched yourself since that night, wishing you were in her place?”
You sucked in a breath, rutting against Aemond violently and he only pulled you in harder when you refused to answer his questions. Another moan. “Be quiet, Aemond.”
“Hm,” Aemond nipped at your earlobe. “Do you really want me to stop talking? You know that I can feel how wet it makes your perfect cunt. Desperate little slut.”
Whining and cursing him under your breath, you let yourself really look at him. Aemond’s sapphire eye shone under the early morning light that spilled in from the windows, his eye dark with lust and his jaw clenching as he watched you fall apart on his lap. 
Hips buckling as he continued to pull you back and forth on his thigh, spreading your wetness on the soft expanse of his skin, your legs failed to hold your weight and you had clearly resigned to letting Aemond take control of your pleasure. 
You were right at the edge and just as you started to ride out your orgasm, Aemond spoke.
“If you do not beg me,” he threatened. “I shall stop.”
“Gods, no–do not sto-”
Aemond held you still in response and no matter how you writhed against his grip, you couldn’t move. He was keeping you at the tipping point, smirking at the way you were gasping for air and squirming on his lap. But he was in no calmer state himself and you could tell his resolve was about to shatter. 
“Stand up. I want you on the bed,” He demanded. And when you didn’t move, he let go of your hip to lay a stiff smack to your backside. “Now.”
“No.” 
It was almost too easy and you snatched his wrist before he could return it to your hip, moving your hips and rubbing yourself against his leg again now that he only had one hand to try and control you.   
Aemond’s leg was slick and your clit was sliding deliciously across his skin. Fingernails dug into the flesh of your hips and you could feel Aemond’s frustration as he yanked his hand out of yours. But you blindly grasped at it again, shockwaves of white hot pleasure striking you suddenly as you came undone, your forehead falling forward to rest on Aemond’s as you let out a loud, drawn out moan. 
You shook through your orgasm, holding Aemond tightly. His cock throbbed against your thigh and you almost felt bad. 
“You should understand, my prince, if you continue to bring that whore to your bed then I am not above bringing another man to mine.” You struggled to catch your breath and your legs were still trembling as you stood, stepping away to pick up the coat you had dropped to the floor. 
Aemond glowered at you, his glare strong enough to have made you crumble before him were you not so high on adrenaline. 
“You would not dare,” he all but growled. 
“Have I not surprised you enough already, Lord Husband?” 
Aemond stood, the sheet falling to the floor, entirely naked and stiff against his stomach as he watched you don his coat. The anger in his voice only served to spur you on. “You will not leave. You would not dare to leave.”
“I am a princess, after all,” you looked at him over your shoulder, lip caught between your teeth at the sight of him bare, hard and infuriated. There was disbelief written all over his expression. “You will need to work much harder than that if you want me to give in.”
There was something new in the way Aemond looked at you. As if he was impressed. Admiring you, even through his frustration. And without giving yourself the chance for second thoughts, you walked right out Aemond’s chambers with a triumphant smile. 
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laurorne · 6 months ago
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༊*·˚ CRAVING YOUR WARMTH | aegon ii targaryen x targaryen bastard sister!reader
summary: two dragons who seek to move closer for warmth during their grief must remain apart, as they can only hurt one another with their sharp teeth and barely contained flames. though they both share the intentions of a close relationship, they're unable, for reasons they cannot avoid.
content: targaryen incest, angst, allusion of self-mutilation/harm, bastardphobia in westeros, night after intimacy suggested, self-hatred, blood, wonky metaphors and personification, no beta we die like vizzy t, badly written angst, that damn necklace
word count: 1.5k
a/n: let me tell you that i struggle writing angst, but god do i love reading it. i'm like my own self entertaining paradoxical concept and it astounds me
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A gentle hand smoothing over his back is what stirs him from the throes of sleep, nails skating along his marked skin softly enough to tickle. He shifts as the hand moves from the expanse of his back up to his hair, rubbing circles into the crown of his head. Twirling bits of hair between deft fingers as she presses a kiss to the slope of his shoulder.
He hums, limbs stretching out clumsily as he rolls onto his side, fingers weak as his hand dances along the goose-down duvet until it reaches her. Her, and her softness, and her warmth.
“Wife.” He’s barely awake, even with the exasperated sigh that comes from his older sister.
“We are not wed, Aegon.” A gentle reminder from soft lips, her eyes taking in his tired demeanour, the curve of his brow.
She brushes the strand of choppy hair from his face, thumb dragging along the apple of his cheek.
He doesn’t speak for a moment, lids finally fluttering open as he stares up at her with those watery eyes. The ones he knew made her weak to suggestion. He lets his hand creep up her calf –where he can still feel the divets of scars from their childhood running through the gardens– until it finds home on the hand she has in her lap, he threads his fingers with hers. The number of rings adorning her fingers was thanks to him: he and his obsession with keeping his older sister glamoured. 
Imported Dornish rings that gleamed with the heat of the sun, Essosi ornate cloth and dresses that were far from the modesty of Court, hair pins adorned with pearls from the Summer Isles, and an intricate necklace crafted from the smelted metal of a Valyrian sword, inlaid with gemstones he had pulled from the Red Keeps vaults.
She was wearing it now, the stones gleaming under the sun that spotted through the lace curtains of her room. The engraved details scatter the few beams of light they catch like dew drops upon spider silk. The stones dangle between the valley her breasts create, the smallest of them twirls some intricate dance as she shifts. Like molten silver, it fits her without any of the stiffness metal should have. 
“We should be.” He glances down at his hand intertwined with hers and watches her thumb rub over his —in the way she always has ever since childhood— it makes him all the more rueful.
He’s hopeful, far beyond it. His bones ache and his head throbs from a swelling hangover, and he feels his throat ache something terrible at its use. His eyes trail from their hands to her face, he wants anything aside from sorrow to be there.
It’s worse. 
Her brows are furrowed as she stares down at him with pity, oh how he wishes it wasn’t pity.
“Oh, sweet boy.” She pulls her hand from his grasp and holds his face in her gentle hands with all the care he needs. “Some things, they just can’t be.”
His lip curls, a pathetic smile covering his visage as he cups the backs of her hands in his own. “But they could. Helaena would not care, she loathes our marriage. As do I. We could take Valyrian vows on Dragonstone. Just as our sister and uncle have. We could leave.”
“Aegon.” A wistful breath of his name, pained and twisted with grief of things that never were and never will.
“We don’t need to stay. Just you and I, riding atop Sunfyre. Across the Narrow Sea.” He moves onto his knees, staring into her wet doe-like eyes as he speaks. He doesn’t leave her an opportunity to doubt him. Doesn’t allow her to pull away as he keeps her hands on his jaw.
Her lips twitch and so do her fingers against his. “Aegon, don’t be foolish.”
“You mustn’t know what you mean to m-”
“Aegon, please.” She tries to pull away now, but he winds his hand into the hair at the nape of her neck and presses forward. Wine-stained lips crushing against the curve of her nose, fluttering across her brow like the gentle wings of a cotton moth as it devours silks and linen allied— devourer of all things beautiful and plain. 
He drags his lips to hers finally, soaking her up in a way only someone as depraved as he could. It’s like stretching out upon a rock after not feeling the son for years, like stripping yourself of shackles you’ve worn since birth. Her lips are chapped, a split in her lips from all the worrying she does to the poor thing scratches along his upper. He surges forward, pulling her so fully against him that it fills some empty part of him, like a puzzle piece that’s never been slotted into place. But oh —how it has— and how it always disappears just as quickly as it comes to him. He licks at her bottom lip, sucks it into his mouth and shudders out a breath as she reciprocates. Her lashes fluttering against his cheeks as they finally shut, as she cups his neck and presses her butterfly kisses onto him, licks into his mouth as she breathes hotly across his face in a way only Aegon can enjoy.
He nips at her tongue accidentally, overexcited and eager as he is. And that seems to bring her back from whatever hole he had dragged her into. But he persists, hand drifting down to the smooth metal of her necklace as he thumbs at a jewel. He tries to savour her presence even as her face scrunches and her fingers fist the hairs behind his ears. It nearly pains Aegon, with the way his head tilts away from her just slightly, Adams apple jumping against pale skin as he stares oh-so adoringly, heady breaths stinking of wine fanning her bruised lips.
“We could start a family in Essos. As many children as you want.” He desperately reaches for her again.
“Aegon.” 
“A home in Braavos, on the beach. Where we could lo-”
A hiccuped sob that withers in her throat is what stops him, punches the wind from his lungs.
Her lips are pursed and her hands have loosed upon his hair and move to cup his ruddy cheeks. Nails pressing into the flesh of his face hazardously. His eyes are dark and his lips part as he stares up at her, he sees the tears edging along her waterline. That deep frown she has when she’s trying not to cry, whether it's about something he had done or when she’s ordered by their Grandsire to stop her hysterics.
“Aegon,” It’s a sullen whisper as she lets his face go entirely, fingers slipping down his chest before they land in her lap again. “I am not a trueborn daughter. I will never be. I am not right in the mind. I will birth lunatics and monsters and wailing death. You can’t love me.”
He doesn’t know what to say, for once he has no sharp-tongued quip or comment. He pushed her from a height, just when she had finally reached the top of her spire. He retracts, fingers loosening from the grip he had on her pale hair, and lets her fall back onto the plush of her bed as she stares up at him like he’s burnt her. Like he’s dragged a dagger across the soft of her flesh and told her he never loved her. She pushes herself away, curling in on herself as tears cut through the flush of her cheeks. A wobbly exhale, and another as he drags a hand through her hair.
Her fingers dance down her neck and across the skin of her arms where they find home on the pale scars marring the upper parts of her arms. He can see her fingertips quivering with the urge to dig. To pull at chords of muscle beneath her skin and scratch at her bones. She had told him about things she saw. Things that hunted at the edge of her vision and scattered when she went looking. Dreams that came to the waking world with her. A pale man with the stench of darkness seeping from his pores.
“I love yo-” He leans forward to comfort her. 
“You don’t.”
“I know that I love you.”
“You know nothing, Aegon.” She pulls herself to the edge of the bed and drags herself to stand, the silk bedsheets slip away and her goosebumps raise upon her bruise-marred skin, she’s as bare as the day she was born. Her throat is too tight and her necklace feels heavy as she stumbles to the secret passage, she slips from the room unbidden and leaves a smudge of blood on the wooden grain of the bookcase as Aegon sits in her bed. Salty tears of his own roll down his face as he clenches and unclenches his fists.
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ecc-poetry · 1 month ago
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ghazal for nol collective, december 2023 elisa chavez
When I want to be a new woman, I try new clothes. They're a charm against sorrow. A passport, new clothes,
they're a sealskin that lets me slip out of a man's grasp, or a nation's. I wish, and my browser brews clothes.
Women long ago learned to hide stories in cloth. Think the tignon. Think occupied Paris. A used thobe,
in the right artist's hands, can smuggle history over borders. A miracle, like a few loaves.
Facing arrest, I slipped into my grandmother's  jacket. I sang to the cops. No gun–I drew clothes.
The recipe calls for herbs I can't find. "Mulled wine: Gather star anise, orange zest, and whole stewed cloves."
In the aisle, I see the olive grove I googled– a woman's face, sobbing. She's frozen in new throes
of grief, embracing one ragged trunk like a child. Like a girl dragged on back of a bike to–who knows?
When speaking burns your fingers, you learn to forget. You blanch. That's how my family lost our true clothes.
Threads imply hands not so different than mine. I hold the seashell to my ear: Who are you, clothes?
After the village, its image persists in thread. It symbols, it banners. What can we do? Sow.
"Elisa, when the bombs fell, you bought new clothes?" I heart-garden. I carry. My blood warms new clothes.
Want to support Gaza weavers in their fight to preserve traditional textile techniques? You can do that at Nol Collective's GoFundMe for a workshop in Cairo. If you can't contribute, please consider signal-boosting.
About Nol Collective: Nol Collective is a conscious fashion collective that produces clothes, goods, and accessories rooted in traditional Palestinian crafts. "the hope is that our garments read like visual manuscripts, humanizing and narrating the collective labor of love behind a garment and the triumph of creativity and heritage in the face of struggle."
Shop at nolcollective.com/ 
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rosielefay · 5 months ago
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England Headcannon ʚɞ
England is very gentle. All his canon hobbies are homely: baking, embroidery, gardening, literature. He's said to be really soft around children, and if you consider all his related nations, he's very much a family man.
Imagine him quietly tutoring Sealand, reading him bedtime stories of folklore and Celtic myth. Baking cakes for birthdays and celebrations, hand-piped messages for every occasion. Gifting nations embroidered pillowcases and crocheted placemats. He's so lovely and sweet, a source of home and refuge for so many people.
But England is also someone who is brutal and clever and unafraid. He's a conqueror, a man most comfortable in the throes of war.
And in some ways these two aspects of him overlap. The smell of his cooking, the fresh flowers in the garden, the new quilt on the sofa - his domesticity is dominating. His affection for his family cannot be separated from his obsession with legacy and succession and power. Everyone gets together at his house for the family picture, and for a moment there is tenderness and nostalgia and humanity, and then everyone leaves and its just a terrible looming portrait, suffocating in the empty halls of the manner.
I think it would massively colour his relationships with other nations. Yes he represents home and family, but his dominating colonial history cannot be erased. And its sad too, because its not his intention; he's trying to love them but he's choking them. He makes them feel safe, and as a very sad consequence, he makes them feel small. Small like a child, small like a new found colony.
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targ-shelby-stark · 6 months ago
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⋆ ˚。⋆୨ ʚ 𝖎 𝖈𝖍𝖔𝖔𝖘𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖒𝖊, 𝖗𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌𝖎𝖔𝖚𝖘𝖑𝖞 ɞ ୧⋆ ˚。⋆
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. ༘˚⋆𐙚。 𝐚𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐞𝐧 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 ⋆𖦹.✧˚
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⤷ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ; language, FLUFF.
⤷ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀꜱ; Aegon Targaryen, Original Female Character, Alicent Hightower (mention), Rhaenyra Targaryen (mention), Viserys Targaryen (mention).
⤷ ɪᴍᴘᴏʀᴛᴀɴᴛ; this is all work of fiction. in no way am i prompting the acts in this fictional story nor am i encouraging acts done or words said in this piece of writing. i heavily recommend only those who can stomach this universe proceed as the heavy themes are not the most suitable for a most audiences.
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Aegon found himself in the throes of an unbearable headache. The cause remained a mystery to him— was it the remnants of last night's wine, or the ceaseless prattle of the Small Council on matters that held no interest for him? Yet, above all, it was his Mother's incessant nagging that grated on his nerves. Her unsolicited critiques and condescending remarks had left him feeling hollow, devoid of joy.
For two decades, he endured the relentless torment of inner conflict, torn between his true identity and the expectations placed upon him. Despite being named after a great conqueror, he harbored no ambition for political power. Though hailed as the kingdom's beacon of hope and the King's heir, he would willingly submit to Rhaenyra if it meant finding relief from the torment that consumed him.
He sought solace only in the peculiar wines and the depths of brothels. However, they were no longer sufficient. He was weary of the alcohol-induced headaches and the constricting pain in his chest after waking up next to a woman who was only there for payment. His pride was crumbling, and he could finally concede to the world's judgment of him; Aegon II Targaryen was indeed pathetic.
Aegon yearned for unspoiled air, free from the breath of others. He sought refuge in solitude, fearing that his inner turmoil would drive him to drastic action. The gardens offered a temporary reprieve, their natural beauty calming his troubled mind. Yet, it was not the flowers that brought him peace, but rather her comforting presence. It was she who soothed his troubled soul.
Perhaps it was the knowledge that she chose to stand by his side willingly. He was accustomed to women being in his presence out of obligation or for their own gain due to his royal status, but he could discern that she was there out of genuine desire. Despite her naivety as a foreigner in the court, she seemed genuinely sincere when she expressed her admiration for him. Or maybe she was not naive. She was smart; he dare say smarter than him in a lot of topics, but no amount of smart helped him understand why she wanted him.
"Your Majesty," she curtsies gracefully as she catches sight of him approaching. Aegon shook his head, "Simply fucking not. I am here to escape from all of that," he required no reminder of his identity. He longed for a few moments to simply be Aegon— not the King, not the man bearing the name of the great Targaryen conqueror, not the man embroiled in war. He despised that persona. He despised himself when he was himself. Yet, he could endure his own company when he was with her, and that was more affection than he had ever felt for himself.
He gazed upon her as she chuckled at his severity, the melodic sound reverberating within him. She remained unfazed by his inadvertent hostility. Was she aware that this was a result of his upbringing? Endless reprimands were all he received as a child, it was all he knew how to express.
She delicately toyed with her exquisite golden rings; oh, how he could admire her endlessly. His sole desire was to etch into his mind every one of her subtle mannerisms, to decipher her emotions with just a glance, to interpret the unspoken signals that revealed her innermost feelings. "What troubles you?" she softly murmured, her head tilted in genuine worry. Worry for him.
"Absolutely everything," Aegon exhaled deeply, wandering aimlessly in front of her, "I feel as though I could stand before Sunfyre and embrace her flames," he watched as her eyes widened slightly. She huffed out, "Please refrain from saying such things," her tone filled with dread. He smiled and casually remarked, "I have vowed to speak only the truth with you. And that, my dear, is the truth."
He observed her closely while she pondered her response. Each word carefully selected, not out of insincerity, but out of a genuine desire to provide him solace. She had once advised him to consider his words before speaking, she inspired him to follow suit as she spoke up, "What can I do to make you feel better?" she inquired.
He indeed considered the counsel and pondered his response. Aegon II Targaryen would retort with a clear desire for wine and the companionship of whores to alleviate his emptiness. But what words would Aegon choose? What would truly bring solace to Aegon? He remained uncertain. He had never looked beyond those trivial matters. Those basic indulgences that he had been taught were the sole source of a man's contentment.
Was he truly acquainted with his own being? By the Seven Hells, she provoked such profound contemplation within him. Yet, he understood the value in it. It was her influence that guided him towards self-awareness, allowing him to delve deeper into his thoughts. What could bring solace to Aegon? After much deliberation, he concluded, "Peace."
"Peace?" she inquired with curiosity, seeking further elucidation, yearning to delve deeper into his thoughts. Aegon pondered for a moment before responding, "I crave tranquility. I yearn to be free from the burdens of duty and the weight of responsibility," he paused, collecting his thoughts. With a resolute tone, he continued, "No. That is not entirely accurate. I do desire responsibility, but not in this form. I have no desire to wear the crown, for I am not fit for such a role. I am better suited for the responsibilities my Father neglected."
“What do you mean?”
"I intend," he murmured softly, "to outshine him, but not as a monarch. Rather, as a father," he chuckled softly. The image materialized before him, a daydream of a serene existence where he could slumber undisturbed until a child with his own hair and eyes rudely awakened him with a plea. Occupying himself throughout the day with the babbling, disorder, and vexation of children—yet, by the deities, it was an exasperation he would never wish to dispel. The unending juvenile needs, the perpetual reliance on him, and the nerve-wracking moments at feasts while they scampered off to play.
Following his duties diligently, he would eventually retreat to his private chambers. Ensuring everyone was settled for the night with a reassuring word of meeting again in the following morn. Upon entering his chambers, a heavy sigh would escape his lips as he sank into a luxurious bath, losing track of time. With damp hair cascading and hovering over his shoulders, he would leisurely make his way to his opulent bed, where the familiar chuckle he cherished would resonate as the mattress welcomed his presence.
Subsequently, he would raise his gaze. He would lift his eyes and with mesmerizing violet eyes, he would behold her. He would behold her all the time; as he looked upon his children and he would behold her when he desires to, referring to her as his beloved spouse. His wife. This was the aspiration of Aegon. This was what would elevate Aegon to a higher state of being.
"Aegon?" Her voice interrupted his reverie, yet the tenderness with which she uttered his name mirrored the way she did in his dreams. Aegon dismissed her with a shake of his head, "Let it go. Dreams are not meant for rulers," he chuckled, aware of the ambiguity in his words. Drawing closer to him, she insisted, "But they are. Kings possess the power to obtain anything they desire. That is the essence of royalty— turning fantasies into reality," her voice carried a sense of urgency, imploring him to fulfill the desires of a King for Aegon.
He was immediately persuaded. He entwined his fingers in her luscious dark locks and shut his eyes, savoring the flavor of her lips reminiscent of the sweetness described in the romantic High Valeryan poetry. As he gazed into her eyes after pulling away, he made a firm decision.
Aegon made the bold choice to embrace both roles. Despite the hardships that came with being King, he knew it was the only path to winning her heart. To having her be his.
And Aegon II Targaryen might get burnt for this, the Septa might judge him and the Gods might haunt him but he will be damned if he did not choose her when she was right there.
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tetzoro · 25 days ago
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⟡ ݁₊ . 𓂃 caught in the throes of roses in the garden, the lamb surrenders to the wolf’s possessive jaws that teeth and bloom with a fervent hunger.
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writtenfangirl · 2 years ago
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The Light
In which Benedict Bridgerton counts the ways he loves you.
I've had this idea for a while and this draft has been sitting in my draft folders for lord knows how long but I finally decided to publish it! After initially reading the Bridgerton books, I want the world to know that Benedict has always been my favorite Bridgerton brother because I relate to him the most.
Epilogue
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I. In the quiet moments
Saturday morning was always quiet in Aubrey Hall, Benedict’s childhood home. With Aubrey Hall in the throes of summer, that meant the Y/L/N’s stayed with them. Her mother’s dearest friend had always been Y/M/N, having debut in society together. They had made it their tradition to visit one another during the summer and where Y/M/N, it usually meant Y/N followed. Y/N, who was Y/M/N’s only child with her husband, Y/F/N. She was two years younger than Benedict but they had always been close. 
He was always the first one up, and as the cook and the maids prepare breakfast, he would often sneak away towards Y/N’s room. He knew propriety dictates that such an action was uncouth but he was a child and Y/N was his best friend and so he snuck in anyway. 
He knocked first. That secret knock they devised just last summer so the person on the other side knew that it was them. 
Knock. Knock-knock. Knock.
The door swung open, as if already expecting him. Y/N was already awake and dressed, her hair tied up in a ribbon, her dress clean and pressed. Though Y/N only came to visit Aubrey Hall during the summers, the times that she did were some of Benedict’s favorites and they had their routine down to a tee. 
“What are we doing today, Benedict?” Y/N asked, as she did every morning. 
“We can go visit the lake and see how many animals we can see in the clouds in the sky!”
“Okay!” Y/N said with a childish giggle. 
Benedict gripped her hand, leading Y/N out of her room, past the gardens and towards the lake that bordered their estate. 
They spent the morning watching the sky, their backs pressed against the grass, giggles emanating from the duo as they argued about whether that cloud looked like a frog or a bunny. Their hands were still tightly held within each other’s grasp and they didn’t let go until they were called to breakfast and Benedict dared Y/N to race him back to the manor. 
He knew then that he loved her. She was his best friend and best friends loved each other no matter what.
II. In the loud moments
Benedict’s family was considerably large and though he loved his siblings dearly, he knew that there was never any quiet when it came with them. 
They were loud. And boisterous. Unless they had guests, dinners with the Bridgertons usually ended with dinner being flung across the table. Y/N’s mother had arrived sick with a head cold and had requested to have dinner in her room alone, leaving Y/N to have dinner with the Bridgertons all and on her own. And though Y/N was not a Bridgerton, Benedict knew how much the Bridgertons loved her, especially because she was privy to their chaos. 
Chaos, most especially seen in Aubrey Hall, where 10 year old Anthony had begun sending their father, Edmund, mischievous looks.
Violet, as if sensing the impending doom, had a warning tone already ready. “Anthony Bridgerton, don’t you dare.”
But Anthony paid his mother no heed. Instead, a mischievous smirk stretched across his face before he jumped on the table and loudly screamed, “FOOD FIGHT!” before proceeding to ham fist the mash potatoes, flinging it towards Colin’s open mouth.
Chaos irrupted from the table as everyone, including Benedict’s parents took their own food, flinging it across the other side. Benedict’s mother was laughing in glee despite her previous protestations and Edmund had declared himself Violet’s knight in shining armor, shielding her from the onslaught of lamb stew that Colin threw their way.
Almost instinctively, Benedict felt Y/N’s hand grip his own, pulling him down towards her before Daphne, who was but two and couldn’t possibly understand what was going on but could understand that fun was being had, could hit him with the mashed peas on her plate. 
Then and there, Benedict knew he loved Y/N. It would be difficult not to love her when she would willingly sacrifice her favorite dress to spare Benedict the green stains of mashed peas.
III. In the moments you do not share
He missed Y/N, terribly so. Being away to Eton meant he didn’t see Y/N nearly as much as he wanted to and though they wrote each other letters, it just did not suffice. 
She had been a constant in his life and her sudden absence felt like a rock wedged between his ribs where his heart should be. 
He enjoyed his time at Eton, he truly did. They were schoolboys and youth was their elixir of joy. It meant living life free of inhibitions, gambling and drinking and finding women to fill their beds. But none of his friends could ever hope to replace Y/N’s presence. With Y/N there was no bravado, no explanation. Just unhurried conversation and fun he could remember tomorrow. 
He couldn’t wait to see her and his much needed vacation in a week was enough to give Benedict a spring in his step. 
Today also happened to be mail day and though he knew he was going to see his best friend in a week, he still anticipated her weekly letter. 
With the letter slipped into his dorm at the end of the day, he quickly sliced through the wax that bore Y/N’s family crest, reading through its content. 
My dearest, Benedict,
I suspect that by the time you receive this letter, the time between us seeing each other will have considerably shortened. I miss you terribly. Summers in Aubrey Hall are simply not the same without you. Colin has turned whiny waiting for his two older brothers to come home and spend the summer with him. Daphne is growing taller by the day and Eloise has begun to learn how to read. She and Francesca are joined by the hip everyday. Your mother and father are as splendid as always and I suspect a Bridgerton whose name begins with G will soon join us.
I am quite alright though I am shamed to admit how terribly I’ve missed my greatest friend. My mother and father are also splendid as is the rest of my family. Do come home in one piece. I’m afraid I may go slowly mad with Colin pestering me everyday. 
The Light of Your Life, Y/N Y/L/N
Y/N’s words brought him all the comfort he needed. He loved his time in Eton but he could not deny it’s loneliness. His friends couldn’t understand how it is he could possibly miss his family but theirs was a strange existence. His parents valued love above all else and he had grown up alongside his siblings in a home full of love and laughter. 
And he knew then that he loved Y/N for her ability to assure him, to lull him into a calm that could keep his mood afloat for days.
IV. In the moments you do share
Oh how he missed her. He missed the way Y/N’s H/C hair whips through the wind, carrying with her heady scent. He missed her twinkling laughter, her teasing smile. He especially missed the feel of her hand grasped around his. 
They were growing up and though Benedict knew that their youth would still be with them, there was a certain kind of melancholy that came with the realization that things will not always be as they were. Y/N had informed him that with her debut to society next year, she would not be able to spend the summers with him. He couldn’t imagine Y/N married to anyone, let alone married to anyone unworthy of her and he had been insistent that he spent next year’s summer with her.
“Y/N, light of my life,” he said, his tone serious but his eyes lit with jest. He’d begun calling her that after he heard his father call his mother the light of his life and he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Y/N was the light of his life. He pulled them to a stop, Aubrey Hall looming in front of them despite being a great distance away.
“Yes, Benedict, light of my life?” She said demurely. 
“Do you think you can make me a promise?”
“What promise is that?”
“You won’t marry someone unworthy of you.”
At that, she laughed. “If I have any say about it I shan’t marry at all. But I’ve held it off as long as I can. I’m twenty one now and mother is at her wits end.” But her eyes grew serious and somber, her laughter slipping from her lips. She looked at him as though she knew deeply, truly, what was inside Benedict’s heart. He reached for her, felt the silky lock of hair that fell from her chignon, her breath that feathered across his wrist as he tucked the strand of hair behind her ear. His eyes were fully trained on her face, at the way her lashes swept across her cheeks, the red flush that crept up her neck that Benedict knew would take him weeks to shade match. He wouldn’t deign call her cheeks rosy. She would hate him for comparing her to something so common.
If Benedict were to paint her at this moment, he’d call it Summer’s Embrace. It captured her beauty, the ephemerality of today.
He could feel the heat of her and it was as if that very heat burrowed itself within him, finding a home in his heart. When she spoke again, her words were but a whisper, the spoken promise of planets swearing fealty to their stars. “I swear to you, Benedict. I will not marry someone who is not worthy of me.”
And with her promise, it was as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He could feel the rush of air in his lungs mixed with her heady scent, the scent of childhood and misty early mornings. He felt her hand squeeze his own in earnest and Benedict knew that she would keep her promise forever if she could. He loved her then, for that promise. How could he not love the way she loved herself? Fiercely and with a protectiveness that Benedict knew was reserved for him and only him.
V. In the soft moments
There were no nights as special as rainy nights and none were as special as the ones he got to share with Y/N.
Knock. Knock-knock. Knock. 
The door flung open, revealing Y/N. Her E/C were shiny with excitement, her face positively glowing. 
She was wearing her simplest dress, covered only by a black frock that Benedict had leant her once that she refused to return. Her feet was clad in her finest riding boots and Benedict nearly had to clamp his own mouth shut to keep from rejoicing. 
“It’s raining,” Benedict noted with a grin. 
“I gathered as much,” Y/N said with a grin as equally mischievous as his. 
“It would be the responsible thing to stay indoors. You are to leave for London tomorrow and I imagine that such a long journey may end in you getting a head cold.“
“Benedict, light of my life, when have we ever been responsible?” She looked at up at him, grinning like the devil. 
And before the both of them lost their nerve, Benedict grabbed Y/N’s hand, sneaking them down the stairs and past the gardens, letting the rain wash over them. 
Oh he adored the rain’s ability to wash away everything. And he knew how much Y/N loved the rain too. How she adored letting it fall on her skin as she jumped over puddles and danced on the wet grass.
Her long hair stuck to her forehead, giving her the appearance of a drowned cat but her wide smile more than made up for it. Even in the darkness that smile could light up a thousand lanterns and Benedict never found her more beautiful than she looked now. 
A sudden feeling seized him and before cowardice could choke it down, he was already pulling her to him. “Y/N, I must tell you something,” Benedict yelled over the din of the rain, catching her chin between his fingers. Drops of rain were caught between her lashes, her breath coming out in pants between her lips. 
Goddess Divine. That’s what he’d call this painting of her. 
“What is it, Benedict?”
He swallowed. An invisible force had consumed him, wrenching the words from his lips before he could stop them. “I love you.”
Her eyes widened, her mouth falling open in surprise. “W-what?”
“I love you,” he repeated, courage surging within him, his previous hesitancy evaporating like steam. His hand reached for hers almost instinctively. He felt her warmth, the way the heat of her hand seemed to jolt through his body like static. “Most ardently. In every way a man could love a woman, I love you. You are truly the light of my life and without you, I am pitched in darkness. You are the cracks in my heart but also balm soothes that it. I love you, Y/N. I have spent years of my life loving you in secret and I can bear it no more. I love you.”
He could see it in her eyes, the love she bore for him. It was the same love he felt for her, a garden in full bloom. But the words that followed her were not the words he thought he’d hear. “Benedict, I have been promised to someone else.”
VI. In the hard moments
“What?”
“I have no choice,” Y/N’s voice was cracking as hard as his heart. “My father has promised my hand to another. My debut, it is a farce, meant only to assuage his guilt for selling his only daughter. I am to be married to the Duke of Albany before the season ends and then he will ship me away to the colonies. He sold me to the Duke to pay off his debts. I have no dowry, no money. I thought to spend my last summer with the people who loved me, truly loved me. The Bridgertons have treated me as their own family. You have treated me as your own. Benedict, please I am so sorry.” She was rambling now, that much he could see. She always did that whenever she was close to crying, as if the fast words would somehow catch her tears before they fell.
He should say something, he knew he should but the words stuck to his throat like honey. It was all too much in too little time. Married? Shipped to the colonies? Benedict thought he had more time. More time to charm her parents and offer himself as a candidate for her hand in marriage. He’d already had every intention of marrying her but now his plans had turned to ash in front of his eyes. 
“This was a mistake,” Y/N muttered pulling her hand away his. “I never should’ve come. I should’ve left like my father had suggested. He was right. This is all too hard.“
Thunder clashed like rolling drums in the sky. What has once been a pleasant pitter-patter of rain had turned into a torrential downpour, soaking Benedict to the bone. Any warmth he had felt had dissipated, leaving him shivering. 
Before Benedict could stop her, Y/N was already racing towards Aubrey Hall, leaving Benedict with the bitter taste of heartbreak in his tongue.
VII. In the moments they shared with others
He was a fool. A right bloody fool who didn’t deserve her.
How could he have let her slipped free so easily? When Benedict had finally come to his senses, Y/N had already fled Aubrey Hall, taking her carriage and lady’s maid with her. Before Benedict could hope to give chase, Anthony had stopped him, citing that the heavy rain had made the roads treacherous. 
“All the more reason to chase after her!” Benedict bellowed, his insides twisted in worry. He was still dripping wet from the rain, the roaring fire doing nothing to dry him off. “If something were to happen to her, I could never forgive myself.”
“Dearest, you must calm yourself,” Violet said in a soothing voice. “Y/N is strong. She is more than capable of taking care of herself.”
“You don’t understand, Mama,” Benedict said clearly still agitated. “She is to marry!”
“It is her first season and she hasn’t even debuted yet,” Anthony said with a furrowed brow. 
“She is engaged to be married to the Duke of Albany. He means to live in the colonies and take her with him. He’s going to take away my Y/N. Mama, Anthony, please we must make haste and stop them.” He was begging now but he didn’t care. He’d beg on the very streets of London if it meant stopping Y/N’s wedding.
“The Duke of Albany’s 30 years her senior!” Anthony protested. “Her father couldn’t possible mean to marry her off to that odious man!”
“Hush, my darling,” Violet said as she pulled Benedict into hug despite their large height difference and how wet he was. “When the rain abates, I will join you myself in stopping their wedding.”
“Mama, I love her. I cannot. I—“
“I know,” Violet soothed. “It will be alright, Benedict. You shall see.”
But he couldn’t see. If Y/N reaches London, he knew in his heart of hearts that she would marry the Duke and sail off to the colonies without saying good bye. He knew it to be true because it is what Y/N would believe to be the best for them. If she left for the colonies, Benedict would never see her again and this would ease the heartbreak. At least, this is what she was likely telling herself to assuage her guilt. 
But Y/N didn’t know how much affection Benedict carried in his heart for her. He could never love another woman so long as she breathed and even if she were to pass before him, she would hold his heart in her bones forever. 
“I have to go get her.” Benedict declared, ripping himself away from his mother’s embrace. 
Ignoring his brother’s cries, Benedict ran from the sitting room, towards the stables. Grim determination had consumed him, his thoughts focused on Y/N and only Y/N.
He’d go on horseback. It will be faster and he was a decent rider, he could catch up to her. He had to. 
“My lord,” the stablehand stammered upon seeing him. The smell of horses permeated his nose though it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. 
“Help me, please. Our fastest horse.” Benedict panted, his breath winded from his short run. 
“But, my lord, it is pouring. I can prepare the carriage—“
“No, I’ll be faster on horseback. Please do as I ask.”
The stablehand simply nodded and ran through the notions of preparing their fastest horse.
He heard his brother first before he saw him. 
“Benedict, do not be rash.” Anthony was now as wet as he was from the rain.
“I am going and you cannot hope to stop me.” Benedict barely spared his brother a glance. “A little rain never hurt anyone.”
“Then I shall go with you,” Anthony motioned to the stablehand to prepare another horse. 
“Follow after me if you’d like but as soon as my horse is finished, I will ride.”
The stablehand moved quickly, cinching belts and hoops in record time and it wasn’t long before Benedict was on the saddle, the stable doors banging open as his horse leapt through them.
The horse felt fast beneath him despite the rain and moved with the same urgency its rider felt. He would not be deterred. If he had to stop the wedding at the altar, then he will do so. He cared not for dowries or money and properties and his family was wealthy enough for both of them. All he cared about was her. 
It wasn’t long before he saw carriage lamps up ahead and he knew that it was Y/N. The carriage was moving at a languid pace, no doubt the driver was worried about a potential accident caused by the torrential downpour. 
It only served to spur Benedict on. 
“Stop!” Benedict yelled at the carriage.
It was as if God Himself was on his side. By some miracle, the driver heard him over the loud din of the rainfall. Benedict kicked at his heels as the carriage slowed, letting his horse ride just a little bit further than the four horses that pulled the carriage.
“Master Bridgerton,” The driver said, his eyes wide in surprise but Benedict paid him no mind. He dismounted from his horse before circling towards the door of the carriage. And then he knocked that secret knock they shared as children.
Knock. Knock-knock. Knock.
“Go away, Benedict.” Her voice was muffled through the door. The window’s curtain was drawn but he could see her vague silhouette as well as the silhouette of her maid. 
“You do not have to say anything. You do not even have to answer me. But I implore you to listen.”
When Y/N didn’t say anything further, he continued.
“I wish to marry you,” Benedict said, his voice strong despite his pounding heart. For once in his life, he spoke to Y/N from his heart, let the words drip from his tongue like honey. He didn’t care that they had an audience, that Anthony was approaching from his own horse, that Y/N’s maid was in the carriage with her and that her driver was looking at him as though he’d grown two heads. Right now, all he saw was her. “Do you understand me, Y/N? I wish to marry you. I care not for your dowry or your money, I care only for you. If you wish to never look at me again, say so at once and I shall depart and I will never share in your presence until the day I pass from this world. I will endure the pain and the heartbreak because I love you and I wish only for your happiness. You need only tell me that you do not feel the same for me.
“But if you find that you cannot live without me the way I cannot live without you, tell me so. Let us end our own miseries and be happy. You, who deserve happiness more than anyone else in this earth.”
Despite the loud din of the rain, Benedict’s world grew silent, focused. His attention was on the carriage and the carriage alone. He knew that if Y/N told him to leave, he would do so without a moment’s hesitation. He will ride on his horse and turn his back away from her and he will never see her again. 
But then, the knob turned slowly then all at once. The carriage door opened so fast, Benedict barely had time to jump out of the way before the door could hit him. 
Y/N’s face was illuminated by the carriage’s lamps. She was still wet, wearing the same simple dress snd frock she had been wearing, having left Aubrey Hall in such a rush that a puddle had pooled at her feet, one that her lady’s maid desperately tried to wipe away. 
But neither of them cared about that right now. An asteroid could crash from the heavens and obliterate the earth but their dust would stay in an embrace for the rest of eternity if they could. 
She made her way out of the carriage, ignoring her maid’s protestations and making her way in front of Benedict. Whatever parts of her body that dried by her time in the carriage was immediately soaked by the rain once again.
She looked up at him, her eyes almost twinkling. 
Venus on Earth would be the name of the next painting. Of that, Benedict was certain.
“I love you too,” Y/N whispered before grabbing his lapel and pulling him down to a kiss.
In front of all these witnesses no less!
Y/N’s lady’s maid gasped in surprise while the carriage driver and Anthony averted their eyes but Benedict didn’t care. He leaned into the kiss, relishing the taste of her. She tasted like rain, like misty mornings and the sweetness of youth. And their kiss was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He’s kissed plenty of girls before but nothing and no one would ever compare to Y/N.
And when they pulled away, Y/N’s grin could only be described as incandescent.
“Now you two truly must marry,” Anthony said but there was no displeasure in his voice, only keen triumph, “lest Y/N’s father wants his daughter’s reputation in tatters. I will write to him tomorrow. Tonight I will write to the Archbishop of Canterbury for a special license and you two can wed before the week is out.”
“Thank you, brother,” Benedict said, finally feeling able to breathe.
He looked at Y/N, saw the triumph in her eyes. Y/N was one of the smartest people Benedict knew and though she knew kissing him would bring scandal nipping her heels, it would also force her father’s hand. The Duke of Albany wouldn’t want to marry Y/N if her reputation had been compromised.
It was no matter. To Benedict she was perfection and he wouldn’t have her any other way, tattered reputation or no.
“You are a bloody idiot, Benedict Bridgerton,” Y/N said but there was no malice in her voice. Just pure sprightly joy. “It took you this long to realize you loved me?”
He grinned, the kind of grin a man has when he knew his place in the world and his was beside her. “In truth, I fell in love with your fire long ago. Cowardice just seized me every time I felt the urge to tell you my feelings. But I do well and truly love you.”
“I love you, too.”
VIII. In their moments alone
Knock. Knock-knock. Knock.
Y/N’s door opened quickly, a strained smile on her face as she ushered Benedict in. Propriety dictated that their actions could only be deemed scandalous but Benedict didn’t care. He was marrying her tomorrow anyway. There was nothing and no one that could stop them.
It had been two days since the carriage incident and Y/N’s father had arrived on horseback to Aubrey Hall as soon as he’d received the missive.
“I have promised you to the Duke of Albany!” Her father had roared as soon as he managed to push his way through the butler, storming towards the sitting room where the Bridgerton family was having tea. Violet had the younger children ushered away from the confrontation, leaving only Y/N, Benedict, Anthony, and Colin.
“Who is older than even you, Father.” Y/N had said, the picture of serenity and calm. She was sitting on the chair closest to the window, the sun’s glow settling against her skin. She looked sublime. 
Ethereal Grace would be a befitting title for this painting.
“He is a Duke and 18th in line to inherit the British Crown! He is being sent to the colonies to govern. With his money, you will live a life even better than I could have ever provided for you as a baron!”
“I care not for his money, Father,” her voice had some heat to it now, “You sold me. Like some brood mare whose only purpose is to breed and pay off your debts!”
“I did not!” He sputtered. But shame coated him, his eyes nervously looking at the Bridgertons. While women in society were often betrothed without their consent, notions of selling were generally frowned upon. If word ever got out that Y/N’s father married her off for money, he would be ostracized by society. Even worse, if such word ever reached the King or Queen, he could be stripped of his peerage, becoming even more destitute than before. 
“I will be wed tomorrow to Benedict,” Y/N’s voice was hard now, all conviction and fire, “You cannot stop us. Anthony has acquired the special license and the Archbishop of Canterbury himself has agreed to marry us as a favor to Violet. You have come in vain.”
At that, Y/N’s father’s face turned thunderous. He took a menacing step towards her, one that had Benedict standing at attention, turning him into a protective shield. Her father eyed him distastefully and Benedict returned his venom. 
“You are making a terrible mistake. She has no dowry,” Her father hissed at him. “She has nothing.”
“She has me,” Benedict replied, his voice calm despite the rage simmering beneath his skin. If Y/N, despite all the pain and heartbreak wrought by this man, could continue to remain calm, then he shall do the same. “That is enough. She is enough.”
This time it was Anthony who spoke, his voice as hard as steel. “You will find, sir, that we care not for Y/N’s dowry, only of her happiness. Perhaps it is time you depart, before you do something you will regret. Colin, get the door.”
Y/N’s father’s fists turned white but just as Benedict thought he would swing, he turned and walked away. 
But before he could cross the threshold, Y/N called out to him, “Our wedding will be at noon tomorrow, Father. If you and mother would like to bear witness, it would bring me great joy.”
But Y/N’s father simply continued walking. 
It had broken Y/N’s heart, which is why Benedict came to her room that evening. 
He pulled her close, letting her sob for the first time since seeing her father. He knew that tomorrow will be the happiest day of their lives but for now, for tonight, Y/N was allowed to grieve. 
“I love you. I have never been prouder of you than when you stood up to your father,” Benedict said, tucking her head beneath his chin and pressing a chaste kiss on her head. “Everything will be alright, you’ll see.”
“Do you mind staying with me tonight?” Y/N asked with a sniffle, her voice hopeful.
Any other time, the word yes would have fallen from his lips like the water of a fountain. But if there was ever a time for Benedict to try and make her feel better, it was now. So rather than a simple yes, different words flew from his lips, teasing and accompanied with an affronted gasp b“Ms. Y/L/N, do you mean to compromise me? I am a gentleman! Unhand me, at once, you cur!”
Y/N gave him that look, the same look she always gave him when they were children and she knew Benedict was trying his best to cheer him up but, nevertheless, Y/N’s once somber expression lifted into her own mocking look of surprise as she wiped away her tears. “I will have you know, Mr. Bridgerton, that I am a lady! Your insinuations are greatly unfounded. Leave my room at once before you leave me with a sordid reputation.”
But Benedict did not leave. Instead, he took her hand and pulled her towards the bed, letting her body mould against his like he was a sculptor and she was wet clay. 
“My mother and father kept one bedroom, did you know that?” Benedict said as Y/N settled against him. He let his fingers roam, letting it comb through her hair before journeying down her neck, down her arms before resting on her hand.
“Oh?”
It was unusual for members of the aristocracy to like their spouses let alone love them as most marriages were arranged based on factors such as dowries and wealth. Spouses tended to keep separate bedrooms, choosing to spend an evening with the other only if there was a need to but Benedict’s parents were a true love match. They stayed in one bedroom until the day his father died and even then, his mother refused to leave. Better a love lost than a love never found were words Violet often used as an explanation. 
“Is that something you’d like for us?” Y/N asked, peering up at him through her lashes. “A single bedroom?”
“I intend to stay with you tonight and every night after we are married. It would be quite a challenge to do so in separate beds.”
“Alright then,” she said with a giggle, “a single bedroom it is.” 
“What about you? Any requests for our future home?”
“A sunroom would be quite nice. With many shelves filled with books that I can read. The light would be heavenly and you could paint while I read. It would be beautiful to have tea there rather than have a sitting room.“
“Your wish is my command, Y/N, light of my life.”
“Oh and, several bedrooms. I think I’d like to return the favor and host the Bridgertons every summer. And several more rooms for our future children, whenever we are ready to have them.”
“Of course,” Benedict said with a nod and smile. 
“And a garden. Large and beautiful. Full of flowers of all shapes and sizes.”
“We will fill it with all of your favorites.”
She paused and then she frowned. “What if my father was right and we are making a terrible mistake?”
He squeezed her tightly, letting his enveloping his fingers around Y/N’s hands. “Then we will make this mistake together and we shall have no regrets. I cannot see the future, my love, but I greatly remember our past. I know that whatever troubles may find us, we will face it together and so long as we are together, we can face anything.”
He watched her brow smoothened as another smile entered her sweet face. 
“Now, what else would you like for our future home, Mrs. Bridgerton?”
And as they planned their future home, their future lives, Benedict couldn’t help but think just how lucky he was in that moment they were alone. Perhaps he was being too idealistic. He had lived a life of splendor most people could only wish for, with no real adversaries besides the problem he’d encountered with his love life. Perhaps saying that they could face anything together only proved to tempt destiny into hurdling them towards trouble. But he did mean every word he said. He could face anything, be anything so long as Y/N was by his side. Y/N, who would always help him look past the darkness and see the light. Because that was what she was. The light of his life. And he wouldn’t have it any other way. 
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ohsohoney · 1 month ago
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When it comes to love you're just as blinded.
Part Fifteen
Eminem x Musician
Summary: It starts with a drunk embarrassing video, it spirals into something a whole lot more.
Note: Sorry sorry sorry for how long it's taken for me to update!! Had a lot on and then I got real sick. Hope this is an alright update though:) Continues on from the last scene where they were at the cinema!
Enjoy seeing the articles I tried to make too lmao, they're there not too far down after the first couple paragraphs. Idk what I was thinking w that one, but it felt necessary after the long wait!
| Set in 2014, just after the release of LP 2
taglist: @thelastemzy @helloitsme1223 @geekchic48
Masterlist
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It was Saturday, and Saturday typically meant that the weekend had finally come. And both of those things had yet to occur whilst I’d been staying in Detroit. Which, in truth, wasn’t the only thing to throw me completely off my game this morning.
Although honestly, it was a really big change.
Rosie wasn’t around yet. Apparently Saturday’s were sacred days within the Mathers household, seeing as the pre-teen liked to sleep in on the mornings she had off from school, which also meant that Marshall got to finally have a lie-in. Or, at least it seemed that way when I’d decided to venture from the confines of my room around about nine, after having had a brief breakdown over everything I’d woken up to.
The media was in meltdown mode.
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Every news outlet from here to Beijing was talking about the pictures that had been captured last night in the car park to the theatre, as well as the one’s I’d taken with that particular girl outside of the women’s bathroom. It seemed that other fans had connected all the dots in the time between my head hitting the pillow and now. 
I had zero idea as to what I was meant to do about it all. My phone was blowing up with notifications from every account that I held, as well as friends and even some family members I hadn’t spoken to since I’d told them where they could shove it the last time they’d come sniffing round looking for a payout. 
It was the most nauseating feeling, believing that you’d lost complete control over a situation.
But it was just as I’d gathered up the courage to go knock on Em’s bedroom door that my phone rang once again. Only this time, it was one of the names I’d been hoping to see. 
“Elia, you there?”
A shaky breath escaped me as I pressed my phone closer to my ear, hastily turning on my heel to head down the stairs. 
“Mila.” I exhaled, but even I could hear the anxiety that lined my voice and it wasn’t because Mila and I had barely spoken since the whole argument we’d had over Lottie. No, this was down to me knowing that things had to be really fucked up because my manager had shared that same wavering tone. “I don’t know what to do. Everything– it’s all just blown up in my face.”
There was a long pause which followed my clumsy reply, I used it to slip out of the back garden door to escape the sudden confining feel the house had started to give me. Which seemed so stupid in hindsight, what with how big it was, but that thought alone allowed me to take another deep breath. 
I shivered at the cold that overwhelmed Detroit in the early throes of winter but didn’t care enough to head back inside to grab a cardigan or even a pair of shoes. My mind honed in on the way my life seemed to be crumbling piece by piece, first with Lottie and her dad, then that whole back and forth thing with Marshall, and now this.
“It’s not as bad as you think.”
Rolling my eyes at the answer Mila gave, I could only huff out a mirthless laugh, stressed beyond belief. 
“Yeah, it’s not like my face is plastered over every gossip rag across the world– oh wait, it is.” I sniped back, “And they’re all painting me out to be Marshall’s next big fling, and if not that, then some fucking groupie. Like I’m not a nominated artist too, as though all I am is someone to mooch off of his fame.”
Mila sighed softly, even after my heated retort, and I could hear it clearly over the rustle of leaves as well the birds that seemed to be chirping in the distance. I tried to let them ground me. “I didn’t mean it like that. It probably does look pretty bad from your end–”
I cut her off with a scoff– so much for trying for a bit of calm. “Bad? Mila, bad would have been me spotted leaving Detroit and people conspiring over why I was here in the first place. Not this.” I dragged a tense hand through my hair, “Em is gonna flip his shit when he sees everything.”
She sighed, again, and I could only rub tiredly at my eyes. “Babe, listen to me. You’ve not ever really had any publicity like this,” Mila started, and before I could think to lash back at that remark, she was already beating me to the punch, “And no, before you say anything, not like that. I know that you don’t want anything out of this whole fiasco, believe me the amount of times I’ve had to suffer through just because your ego wouldn’t let you take anything for free is insufferable. But anyway, I simply meant in the way that you’ve not really had many big knocks or hits like this throughout the press. Sure, your family and your background’s been brought up a lot, but babe, those are just conversation starters for you now, it sort of was back then too. This is all just scarier to you because it’s new.”
I had to take a second to really hear Mila’s words, for them to sink and settle before I could analyse them. In a way, she wasn’t completely wrong. I could at least admit that. Didn't mean that I hadn’t faced my fair share of backlash though, just maybe not on this level? And not over someone I was supposedly dating either, my brain unhelpfully supplied.
I closed my eyes, silently wishing for a cigarette I didn’t have, and then unclenched my jaw.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” I confessed to her quietly, then shivered when another harsh wind blew through the garden. I wrapped an arm around myself, to shelter me from the cold air or how exposed I felt, I didn’t know.
Mila stayed silent too, until I heard a large intake of breath and the sound of a door closing on the other side. “Here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re going to talk to Marshall, you’re going to figure out what it is you want, not just him or his team.” She added as a forethought, knowing me far too well. “Then the pair of you, you and him, can decide how and where you want to take this.”
I exhaled slowly and watched as my breath clouded the air, it made me wonder how cold it might have been over in London. “Right.”
Mila continued on, her familiar lilt taking back the weariness which had homed it minutes earlier, “I mean it’s not like anything’s actually happened, if you want to you two can just ignore it easy, wait for this all to blow over. It’s just gossip.”
My eyes widened and I stilled at her words.
But I must’ve been quiet far too long though, because Mila called my name and suddenly I was forcing myself to blink as I attempted to swallow back the memories of that kiss, of him holding my hand with all the care in the world. 
“Right,” I repeated again, then cursed the way my voice cracked on the vowel.
Mila caught it right away and I felt rather than heard her internalise exactly what that could possibly mean, “You haven’t done anything– right?”
My mouth worked over words that wouldn’t quite come out and then winced when I heard my manager drop the phone to curse heatedly in Spanish.
It took a long minute before Mila had seemingly calmed herself enough to return to the call, time in which I spent worrying my knuckle between my teeth and wondering if everything that had happened with Em was even worth mentioning. If it mattered enough to him for me to voice it now. 
“How long have I been telling you that you need to get back out there, to meet somebody and have some fun? I’m glad you took my advice, really, but I didn’t quite mean wrangle the biggest old-school rapper into your bed whilst holidaying in his mansion!”
I let my head fall into the hand not holding my phone and pinched at the bridge of my nose. I didn’t want to regret it, the things that had happened with Marshall, but Mila was sort of right. What had I really expected to happen between the two of us? He was a Dad, more famous than anyone could hope to be, and a tad bit older… Okay, a fair bit older– a decade, sue me. Hollywood had seen worse.
That wasn’t even it though, how had I yet to consider what the media, the press, the fans would think of it all? I supposed I’d pretty much found out.
“I didn’t sleep with him.”
Mila made an odd sort of noise at my admission which sounded tinny through the speaker, “Don’t lie to me now! Those photos don’t offer much, I’ll give you that, but babe, there was some sort of connection there.”
I fish mouthed again. 
Mila didn’t seem to note the silence, “People are in actual awe over the look one picture managed to capture on his face! There’s no way you haven’t got that man wrapped around your finger.”
Blinking, I tried to recall what image she could possibly be talking about. I hadn’t seen anything of the sort. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Mils. Nothing like that has happened. It was just–” My mouth felt dry, the sort of dry you’d experience after being lost in a desert for days or just swallowed a spoonful of flour.
“Just what?” Mila prodded.
And I forced myself to finish my sentence, stare caught on the dampness that clung to the soles of my feet, “A kiss.”
I had a list now. 
Of tasks to complete, one of which warned me to stay off all social media for my own good. Mila’s orders, not my own. But still, I couldn’t quite part with my phone even as I stepped back through the garden door into the kitchen, shivering at the rapid change in temperature and the sick feeling of anxiety that welled inside of me. 
Even with that though, I noticed how the house now seemed to buzz, in a way which had me figuring that I was no longer the only occupant awake. So I swallowed back the lump of worry that sat heavy in my throat and made to trail my way further inside, ignoring the slight chill of tile that followed my feet. 
I found him stood at the very top of the stairs with Rosie hanging off his hip, the silliest of grins plastered across her face which only appeared to brighten upon seeing me. “El!” She called out in excitement before she turned to fix her father with a ‘told you so’ glare, “See, she is awake!”
Marshall rolled his eyes at the rebuttal, but did evidently blow out a huffed chuckle in turn, choosing to let his daughter slip down his side and out of the captive hold he’d had her in for my supposed sake. He shook his head at her before he then turned to me, the exasperated look he’d gifted her disappeared the moment he saw my face. “You good?” He asked me, brow furrowing as Z peered between the pair of us.
“Where’s your phone?” Is all I answered him with.
His expression deepened at the nonanswer, but he scratched his head in thought before he recalled, “Chargin’ downstairs, I think. Died when we got home.”
Home, home, home.
I realised, not for the first time, that I’d taken to thinking of it that way too. Calling it London and not home each time it got brought up.
Swallowing once more, I felt another wave of nausea overwhelm me. Rosie’s head tilted in confusion as she quietly made her way down the staircase, hand sliding over the wooden rail. “I–” I tried, but fumbled for the right words to say. If there even were any. I let go of another breath, “You should go take a look.”
Marshall greeted my words with a look of reservation but did move to step down off the landing, making it to the bottom just as Rosie crowded me, her smaller figure slotting into my side with ease. I allowed a hand to come up and cradle the top of her head, hoping that whatever transpired from this wouldn’t sour things enough to send me back to London early.
And why was that my only hope? Instead of the way this could all impact me and my career, or the people around Marshall?
I didn’t move to follow Em as he made his way into the kitchen, socked feet padding over the tiled floor, much preferring the warmth that radiated from Z as I fought not to worry at my knuckles once more. I didn’t know whether or not I wanted to bear witness to his reaction. 
“You’re freezing.” 
The words caught me by surprise and so I blinked away from where I’d just been staring off into the distance, then peered down at the girl whose arms were wound around me. Rosie had her head tilted back, chin resting on the curve of my arm as she waited for an explanation. 
“Sorry, just stepped outside for a minute,” I apologised to her whilst simultaneously answering the unasked question. It was subconscious, the action to rub a gentle hand up and down her arm in hopes to warm the pair of us up a tad, and Z countered her previous words by burrowing in closer. 
“Are you leaving then?” 
That next question immediately had me frowning, wiping away all the previous doubts that had just been running rampant through my mind. 
“No, not yet.” I assured her softly, peering down at her once again. Her face was half-hidden, blonde hair mussed by sleep, and in that moment she looked so much younger to me. “Why you asking, hoping to get rid of me?” I teased sweetly, hoping that the method wouldn’t send her skittering into her shell and instead give me something of an honest answer.
The girl shook her head against my arm, then shrugged, “Just, you looked sad.”
A sad smile slowly eased over my features at that and I couldn’t help the way I squeezed her tighter. “Busy morning, I think.” I said in comfort, then thought about my next words, “But even if I was sad, doesn’t mean I’d just pack up and leave. Me and you, we’ve bonded, gonna have a hard time getting rid, okay?”
I pinched her side playfully with that, a move that had her squeaking and tripping over her feet to get away from my attack whilst still staying plastered to my side. “Don’t! You’re actually the worst!”
Laughing as she dissolved into giggles too, I relented on the tickling. And it was just as I went to reply that a sound had my head snapping up and over towards the kitchen doorway, heart stilling in my chest at the sight of Marshall stood there, phone in hand, his face void of any emotion.
“We need to talk.”
Rosie appeared to be all too aware of the sudden tension that dragged between us then, as well as the coil of nerves which straightened my spine, because she let her arms slip from my waist and took her hand in mine, squeezing ever so as she turned to look up at me. Obviously confused, she had no words to offer but the sentiment was clear anyway, she cared enough to stand against her Dad without even knowing what was going on.
It threw me completely.
Marshall seemed to catch on to the silent protest too, his blank expression flickering with evident surprise before he managed to unclench his hand from around his phone and drag it over the top of his head. He slumped, the ridgid stress he’d just been wearing melting ever so slightly. “We just gone talk, Z. She ain’t goin’ nowhere, I swear it’s work stuff. Something happened and now we gotta work out how we gone fix it, baby. That’s all.”
Z stared long and hard back at Marshall and the man met her eyes dead on, showing her he only meant the truth. His words seemed to appease some part of her, I deemed, enough to have her tightening her hold on my hand once more before she reluctantly pulled away. 
I only wished that they’d had the same effect on me.
“That mean we’re not having pancakes then?” She wondered as she trailed across the hallway to head towards the kitchen, Em’s shoulders dropped slightly when she approached and he moved to run a hand through her hair.
“Promise is a promise. Jus’ have to wait a little longer, cool?” He answered, gazing down at her before he finally allowed her to slip by after she’d given him a nod. It was with that in which he turned to face me again and I had no idea what was going to go down, let alone how he was going to react. So when he silently gestured his head off to the side, I could only force my feet into following behind him.
We ended up in a small office just off of the living room, one I hadn’t really been in before now and that was decorated sparsely enough to ensure that no one else did either, at least not often.
Marshall took perch at the desk in there, large and mahogany, and leaned across it to start up the computer monitor stationed on its top. I found myself trailing after him, shuffling awkwardly on a dark rug for a second over where to sit before I just rolled my eyes at myself and moved around the desk to sit on its corner, uncaring for the way Marshall’s brows lifted in slight surprise. Because honestly, if we were going to do this then I wanted to see what the fuck the media was rioting over too, and how was I meant to do exactly that from the upholstered cushion sat on the desks opposing side?
He didn’t comment on it, though his eyes did trail over me for a split second before the screen flickered through the usual start up and login. I watched him type in his password, noting how he didn’t much seem to mind me peeking, before my eyes flitted back down to his face, taking in the way the monitor's light flickered over his skin and how his tongue darted out to wet his lower lip.
I wrung my fingers together in a way that would occupy my mind, mouth pursing at the sight of the slightly reddened knuckles I’d abused earlier. My stare must have caught Marshall’s attention too because I startled a tad when he reached out to pause my fidgeting, gaze lingering on the raised skin before the pad of his thumb moved to soothe it. 
Suddenly my tongue felt too big for my mouth and all I could do was stare before his startled gaze flickered up to meet me. It almost appeared as though he hadn’t even realised he’d done it. 
“Z’s okay, right?” I found myself asking him as I cleared my throat after he’d withdrawn his hand.
His sniff filled the silence as his arm jumped over to grab the mouse, now focused on the screen. “She um,” He coughed lightly, the click of the keys filling his tense pause, “She gets a little weary about shit like that, I guess. People leaving. Had a lot of ‘em come in and out of her life, figure it fucked with her a bit.” Marshall admitted gruffly, purposely paying attention to the computer now instead of meeting my eye. 
I continued to watch him though, content to wait. My patience earned me a little more.
“Thought she’d grown outta it though, you know? Used to cry for her mom when she’d drop her off, or when I took her to school. Shit was always worse when I had to tour. Couple years back, she even got upset when Maria, our cleaning lady, moved States. Didn’t come outta her room for days.” He shrugged lightly as he recalled it, acting as though it didn’t much bother him anymore, but I could tell that it was eating away at him still, how much he blamed himself for Rosie’s struggle. “Figure she likes you enough that it’s sort of– I dunno.” He sighed, then waved it all off, desperate to move on it seemed, “You know what, don’t worry about it. I’ll figure it out.”
I wanted to sigh then too, because how could he think that I’d allow that to just slide?
“I’m here for her too, you know.” I heard myself say after a second or two had passed and kept myself from looking over at him to garner his reaction to that particular statement. This was meant to be work. I was just here to work. Though, that reminder had long since grown old. “I get it, being scared to attach yourself to new people in fear that they'll hurt you by leaving too. And Rosie, she’s not messed up for feeling that way, it’s just a coping mechanism. One a lot of kids experience–”
Em scoffed at that and my eyes instantly snapped over to find him shaking his head at me.
I narrowed my eyes a tad, but not unkindly or in defence, just a little perplexed. 
“It’s true. Sure, they might not all have had a childhood like hers or mine, or even yours.” I acquiesced, “But even the kids who have that apple pie type life and grow up with cookie cut families can still be scared about those they love leaving. Like because their Dad works abroad a lot so they don’t see much of him, or how someone forgot to pick them up this one time and made them wait so now they’re fucked up forever.” 
I smiled at the small laugh that escaped from Marshall at that, probably thinking over how normal that had probably been for him as a kid. I got it. “Mind’s weird, man. Kids are adaptable, but they get just as scuffed up as the rest of us. Z’s the same, but she’ll figure it out.”
“Or, jus’ do what you did and hold onto it so tight that people have to fight their way into her life.” Em countered easily, earning an audible gasp from me before he was smirking away and reaching out to poke a finger into my knee, assuring me that it was all in jest, “And don’t call me man, that shit’s weird.”
“Why not? What’s wrong with man?” I protested, grinning now as I started to pester him, “We’re homies, aren’t we? Buddies? Brothers?”
I cackled when he reached up to crowd a hand over my mouth, shaking his head all the while, even as I shimmied to try and escape his onslaught.
“What about bud?” I asked him from over the top of his hand the second I could, trying to steer my head away as I swatted him with my foot in retaliation, “Or dude? Hey, how about bro? Bro’s a good one!”
“Elia.” Marshall warned in a low tone once he finally caught my wrists in his hands, stilling me completely. Though I could see the tiny beginnings of his smile.
My eyes flashed upwards to meet his when he stood up from the desk’s chair, “Yeah?” I only continued to push, hoping that it would get me somewhere. Where though? I had no idea.
“You talk too much.”
My smile was far too smug.
“First time I've ever been told that.” I rebuffed, letting myself lean a little further into his hold.
“Somehow I don’t believe that.”
Humming, my eyes flickered between his own. “What do you want me to call you then?”
Marshall stared back at me unblinkingly for a long second, before his gaze dropped to my mouth then away again. “Guess that’s jus’ another thing we can go ahead and figure out.”
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nugothrhythms · 1 year ago
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"Master's Eye" by Detroit, Michigan-based dark punk and deathrock act Throe Garden off of their 2020 debut demo
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anjelicawrites · 3 months ago
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Could you PLEASEEEEEEE write Osferth X professor!reader with religious kink and corruption if not that’s okay ily
Hi nonnie! Your lovely ask evolved into a full fledged fanfic! I hope you'll enjoy it!!!
Warning: religious kink, corruption, self-harm, whipping, description of self-inflicted wounds, a dash of obsession, p in v sex, sex in a church, overstimulation.
You can't sleep.
The pouring rain should lull you into slumber, yet you have been tossing and turning in bed ever since you closed your eyes; you know why you're so restless, and have been for months, desperate to ignore the root of your issues, until even your dreams aren't a safe refuge anymore.
NSFW and 18+ only please!
With a huff you leave the warmth of your bed and throw your dressing gown over your night gown. You ignore the Loeb volume on your desk, deciding to head out, your mind is nowhere near translating archaic Greek.
When you were hired by the Catholic University you still work at, you were a bit anxious at having to live on campus, in the small apartment your employer rent you at a ridiculously low price, compared to the city. You were afraid that you wouldn't be able to have friends over and to have to live like the monks and priest working and studying here, and not like a layperson. You heart had soared when you saw that the building was dedicated to the laypeople personnel of the University, although still connected to the maze of ancient corridors and tunnels that formed the veining of the University town.
It comes handy now that you want to go to the small Chapel built at furthest corner of the north border of the grounds.
You're not a religious person. You don't consider yourself to be an atheist, simply someone open to a spirituality that encompasses all organized religions. When you go to the Chapel, your goal is to help your mind slow down and focus, not because you want to pray.
Tonight, more than any other time in your life, you need to reach that part of your inner self that's calm, collected. And not in the throes of a passion that's forbidden, not only one sided.
You walk as close as possible to the ancient walls, the storm is so violent that the rain is pouring through the columns of the portico, wetting the part of the flooring that's the closest to the inner garden.
Trembling, the cold being so biting not even your flannel nightgown, nor the thick dressing gown protect you fully from it, you reach the side entrance of the Chapel, the one that opens to the right side of the altar.
You stand, rooted under the old lintel, like a salt statue, like Lot's wife during the fall of Sodom, your eyes drawn to the kneeling figure of the man that's haunting your dreams.
The lights are off, only the votive candles on both sides of the nave barely illuminate the, otherwise, pitch black Chapel.
In the darkness you can't see what he's doing, only when lightning explodes outside, you realize he's not praying, no, he's whipping himself, blood pouring down his long back and splattering on the stone floor when he lifts the scourge to hurt himself again.
Over the squelching sound of leather against flesh, over the rain pattering the stained-glass windows, you now hear his voice, broken by moans of pain, reciting prayers after prayers, begging his God to forgive him.
You don't know for how long you stood there, watching him hurting himself, the horror and the surprise rooting your feet to the ground, choking your voice.
"Osferth!"
He looks like he's a the end of his tether, his torso falling forward inch by inch with each lashing he's giving himself.
Your eyes, having adjusted to the dim lights of the candles, now see the rivulets of sweat traveling down the naked skin of his front, mixing with the blood pouring from his open wounds, ending where he's bunched the upper part of his cassock around his slim waist.
He can't focus his sight on the blurry image emerging from the shadows, sweat and tears blind him, so is the hunger clenching his stomach painfully: he's been starving himself to punish both his traitorous mind and body, now he feels so weak he can barely keep himself upright, the pain of his torn flesh stabbing him with every breath he takes.
His strength abandons him, he almost faints with his head against your shoulder. When he feels the soft material of your dressing gown, he starts crying, inconsolable, like a lost child.
For the longest moment he doesn't recognize you, the white of your nightgown and azure of the dressing gown deceive his tired mind: all he sees his the statue of the Virgin Mary advancing towards him, her arms open for a sinner like himself, her smile serene as she looks at him with a Mother's love.
He only realizes his mistake when your soft palm caresses his cheek.
It's not the Heavenly Mother who's come to his rescue, you were simply standing in front of the statue.
You don't know what to do, you're afraid of hugging him, only to hurt his mangled back. You didn't expect the object of your dreams and sinful desires to be in the Chapel with the sole goal of obtaining forgiveness, for what sins? You're the one who has been having those all too real dreams, where he would come to your office, and not to clarify any doubts one of your lessons might have left him with.
What sins has this pure soul committed, that warranted such harsh punishment?
Your hands shake violently when you put one on his side, and the other in the sweaty mess of his hair. You're unsure of what you've walked upon and want to calm his desperate wailing, scared he might truly faint, or worse.
Gently you caress his hair while you call his name, slowly helping him back into himself, ordering him to breathe slowly, following the even movements of your chest. Whatever this is, it is your duty as his professor to help him solve his issues: you can't abandon him.
Against yours, his body still shakes with torment and affliction, yet he manages to lift his head to look at you with the saddest eyes you've ever seen.
"I can't live like this anymore." He says with a broken voice. "I can't."
His hands, the very hands you fantasized about in the wee hours of the night, grab your shoulders with desperation, forcing a wail out of your lips.
This is the moment when you understand that you haven't been alone in your impure thoughts.
You never wanted to, consciously, tempt him, yet you would always open as many buttons of your blouse as you could, when you knew you'd be teaching his class. You would wear the tightest slack the dress regulations of the University allowed you to and you would get in Osferth's personal space more than you would any other student, whenever he stayed after class to ask you questions.
You wanted him, though.
From the moment the monk had walked in your advanced Classic literature course, you had felt the know of desire tighten in your belly. You had wailed his name with your hand between your legs, only to force yourself to ignore your actions as soon as you reached your orgasm. You had tried to gauge the shape of his lean body, under the bulky cassock he would always wear, only to chastise yourself afterwards.
As bad as you knew your desires were, you never truly tried to stop them, you simply hid them under the rug, in the vain hope they would die there. And never stopped tempting him.
Even with the bleeding man in your arms, a part of yourself hopes he would reciprocate. Even with the proof of the pain you've cause him, you can't help yourself but needing him like you need air.
"Shh, Osferth. Shh." You murmur, your forehead against his. "Shh. All is well. Shh."
His lets his head slide down the curve of your shoulder, where he can smell you, until his heart stops beating madly in his chest.
With your head still stroking his hair and tonsure, you tell him you need to get the first aid kit in the small room behind the altar.
In your arms, Osferth wails in distress again, until you promise him you'll come back in five minutes, you simply need the time to grab the box standing under the defibrillator.
You help Osferth lay on his front on the soft fleece of your dressing gown, then you rush to the office, almost falling in your haste.
When you come back you can't see him breathing. Scared you kneel by his side and pull his unresponsive body on your folded legs, your haste movements jostle his body painfully, causing Osferth to wail in your embrace.
Even though the Chapel is rarely used, the University had to install a first aid response point, due to the fact that the University grounds are enormous: if someone were to need first aid help, the closest, used, building, would still be too far away.
As you grab the heavy box, you thank the regulations of the University: you're not sure Osferth is any shape to walk anywhere. On top of that, the storm is still raging outside; with those open wounds on his back, he wouldn't be able to wear anything to shield himself from the biting cold.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" You tell him, your voice high pitched. "I'm so sorry, Osferth!"
What are you sorry for? Your desires? Having elicit his own fantasies? The raw wounds marring his skin? For causing even more torment just now?
With a groan Osferth turns his head, open eye focused on the shadows hiding your beautiful face.
"Don't leave me, please!" He begs, feeling fresh tears welling in his eyes. "Don't abandon me!"
The way you two are positioned puts the statue of the Virgin Mary in his line of sight, since you're partially covering it with your torso. You wonder if he's talking to you, or to Her.
"You need to lay on the gown again. Your wounds need to be disinfected." You murmur. "I'm not going anywhere."
With what little strength he has left, Osferth moves his body off your legs and on the soft fleece. On purpose he turns his head, knowing fully that he can't face you, and the Holy Mother behind you.
Even on Sacred ground, even after praying desperately, starving himself and flogging his traitorous body, all his thoughts towards you are sinful: he doesn't see the fear and affliction in your eyes, your worry for his health, all he can focus are your breasts and the nipples poking against the material of your nightgown. Your touch, albeit gentle, inflames his loins anew, as if the pain each breath brings him doesn't exist. He doesn't truly hear your words, he only knows he wants to kiss you until your taste is all he can feel.
His wounds look horrific: there isn't an inch of his back that's not torn, raw skin; he has managed to strip the outer layer, and kept going until he had bled.
He winches when you start cleaning his back, begging him for forgiveness with every pass of the sterile gauze, until you can start applying layers and layers of antiseptic cream and plaster, covering the wide expanse of his ruined back.
Once you're done, you can't make yourself lift your hands from the dressing; even under those circumstances, you want to feel him.
"Why did you do this to yourself?"
You know the answer: the same malady plaguing your mind has invaded his yet, in the dazed state you're in, you want to hear the confession spilling from his lips.
Heartbeats as long as centuries pass, before Osferth finds the strength, and the courage, to lift his abused body to kneel in front of you. Only then he looks at you with haunted eyes.
"Because I am a sinner. Every breathe I take, every thought coursing through my brain makes me one. I think about you during every waking hour. You come in my dreams, taking my willpower away from me. I no longer want to live for my vocation, I want to live for you."
"When I pray, it's you I see behind my closed eyes." He barks, forcing your body closer to his. "I can't study, I can't focus on anything but the lust I feel. I keep wondering about your taste, the texture of your skin. How you'd sound under me. Even when I was punishing my flesh, all I could think about was you."
His voice raises with every words he says, until he's feverishly screaming in the silent Chapel.
Before you can answer, his hands grab your shoulders again in a painfully tight grip that surprises you.
On instinct you put your hands on his naked chest, unsure if you want to push him away or drag him closer to you.
"Osferth..."
His warmth liquefies your strength and stuns any good purpose you might have.
"I can't live like this anymore." His voice has taken a begging note, his hands shake your body. "I can't free myself if you don't tell me you don't want me. Please, I can't..."
Osferth bends his head again, overwhelmed with tears and shame.
You weren't acting as yourself, you will repeat in front of the mirror in the morning, you didn't know what you were doing, you'll lie to yourself, waiting for night, and him, to come.
All his life he had desired the safe haven of the monastery. To leave the world behind and follow his Calling.
Or so he thought.
With you so close, supple skin and enticing smell, he doesn't know what it's right and what is wrong anymore, what he truly wants for his life.
Possessed his hands strip the flannel off your body, until he frees your breasts, his hands cupping the warm skin as he sighs in the kiss.
You are absolutely aware of your actions. Of cupping Osferth's tear streaked cheek with your hand, until you could stare in his eyes.
When you slant your lips on his, you know you have opened the gates for a flood neither of you will ever be able to control.
You link your hands behind his nape, pulling him over you, the dressing gown your only protection against the unforgiving stones of the nave.
His kiss is hurried and inexperienced, so are his hands on your body, pinching, touching, caressing every inch of skin he can find.
When his fingers meet the wetness between your legs, he stares at you, surprised.
"Osferth, please!" You beg, lifting your hips to bunch the flannel around your waist. "I need you."
He's on you again, kissing and biting, scratching as if possessed.
Hungry you help him remove the cassock and boxer briefs, until he's naked, and hard.
You don't know if this is his first time, it doesn't matter when he breaches you with a shout, and keeps pushing and pushing, deaf to the sounds of pain and pleasure that spill from your lips: all he can focus now is your warmth, and the way your muscles pull him in, mercilessly, until his hips are flush against yours.
"I... I... Oh God!" He screams when your hand curls around his massive erection to stroke the fluids weeping from his head, all over his hardness.
"Now, Osferth! Now!"
Only then he stops moving and pulls his torso up to look at you.
In the half - light he can see the blessed out expression on your face and the way your breasts heave with every breathe you take. You're so beautiful this can't be sin.
Hastily you plant your feet on the ground and grab his buttocks, pushing upwards against his body, fucking yourself on his cock until he lets his weight be carried by his forearams.
You scream when he pounds recklessly inside of you.
He fucks you like an animal, no finesse, no technique, his cock rams against your walls, opens you up with squelching sounds when your wetness starts dripping from your hole.
You can't match his hunger and let him sweep you away, your legs curling around his trim waist, nails puncturing the meat of his ass.
Blindly he fucks against your G spot until you arch and come under him.
He doesn't stop.
The tighter you curl around him, the faster he goes. He brutalizes your insides, he bites the soft skin of your neck to snuff his own moans of pleasure, the pain of his back forgotten.
On instinct he pulls out and turns you around, only to enter you again, marveling at how deeper he can reach now.
He's possessed by lust you, under him, can only grab the fleece and scream your orgasm, unable to even beg for mercy.
You're a trembling mess under him, your combined honeys drip from your hole and have formed a white ring around his base; inside of you, he's still hard.
Relentless he fucks your hole, your muscles pull and curl around him, his balls, impossibly full, slap against your naked skin. He grinds against your cervix when you whine in pain and tightens his hold on your hips when you come around him.
He can't stop.
His erection is pure torture. His brain is screaming that he needs to come, he stubbornly tries to push his own end away: he doesn't want the coupling to stop, he doesn't want to leave the sanctity of your wet cunt, even now that you're begging and crying, he can't stop, not when you come again and curl impossibly tight around him.
Desperate for a sliver of control, he pulls out and turns you on your back.
You're so beautiful with your teary eyes and weeping pussy, the skin of your breasts marked by the stones under your entwined bodies: you are the image of lust and desire, with your lips bitten raw and your splayed legs.
Unconsciously his cock strains for your hole, for its warmth and hunger; he chokes on his own saliva when he sees the way your cunt clenches, still needy for him.
You're so sore, oh God so sore! No one had ever given you such a pounding, you're sure you'll not be able to walk tomorrow.
You don't deny him when he enters you again, moaning, his head whipping back to expose the cords of his neck, your hole so wet he bottoms out easily.
Mesmerized he stares at the junction of your bodies: how will he be able to live without this? Without your warmth?
He lays on you, his weight partially carried by his forearms, his pubic bone delicious against your pearl.
Your words unleash his lust again. Like a man possessed he fucks you, barely leaving your hole, grinding against your body, reveling in the way you moan and whine, your hole clenching tighter and tighter, the pressure mounting at the base of his spine until he comes, copious in your pussy and you follow him, blinded by the strength of your orgasm.
"Osferth, I can't..."
"Please!"
"Come with me, Osferth! Please!"
He's still laying on you as his cock softens in your hole. He almost purrs when he feels your hand caress the solid muscles of his arse; no, this isn't sinning, not when it's you.
Dazed you two help one another with your clothes, his hands and yours tremble, your eyes don't meet. That's why you notice the cilice sitting on the first pew.
With shaking fingers you take it in your hands, finally staring at him.
His hands are so big, yet careful to remove the vile instrument from your grasp.
"Were you going to wear this?" Your voice shakes with pity and fear.
"Not anymore."
"Do you regret..." Your hands gesture to the floor. "This? The Dean can have my resignation letter first thing in the morning."
Before you can start to fear his response, he grabs your arms again, shaking you.
"No! Never!" He shows the cilice right in front of your face. "Wearing this for the rest of my life would hurt less than not being with you again! Flogging myself until no skin remains would hurt less! I don't want this to be a once only!"
The vehemence of his words, the desperation you can see in his eyes, they both surprise you, so is the fact that he is confessing all of this on Sacred Ground: you thought his calling was the only thing that mattered to him, that he would deem your coupling a mistake.
Despite the weariness he feels in his body and the pain now biting his back, he stands to his full height, grabbing your hands with his own to help you on your feet.
"I can't fathom not having you inside of me again and again, Osferth."
"I'll never leave you."
Outside the storms still rages, as if the Heavens are screaming at the sins you two are committing by promising absolute faith to one another in front of the Altar, a blasphemous matrimony.
"I am yours, and you are mine." He says with a firm voice. "That is the only important thing."
"Yes." You cup his cheek. "I'm yours and yours only."
It doesn't matter. Nothing matters but you two and the bond now binding your souls.
No one will ever separate you two.
No one.
Osferth taglist: @fan-goddess
Ewanverse taglist: @vhagar-balerion-meraxes @zaldritzosrose @thought--bubble
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phoenix--quill · 2 months ago
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Prompt 29: Dirty Talk
Pairing: Tywin Lannister/reader
Rating: E (minors DNI)
Warnings: dirty talk, voice kink, penetrative sex, creampie, mentions of pregnancy
Length: ~800 words
Summery: A bored Tywin is a dangerous thing, especially at a garden party
Notes: okay but hear me out: if that man ever found out you were actually attracted to him, you would never hear the end of it. And as someone who values his own mind as much as he does, he would be insufferable if he found out that his words were enough to drive you over the edge. (yes I have given this too much thought)
AO3
“How do you think all these lords and ladies would react if they knew I had you screaming my name in pleasure last night?” Your lord husband’s voice was barely more than a rumble in your ear and yet he had you furiously looking around, making sure no one could neither hear him nor notice the deep blush that stained your cheeks.
You knew it had been a mistake the moment the words had left your mouth and now, still a week later, he continued to torment you. It had been in the heat of the moment – or rather the throes of passion – when he had commented how good your body squeezed around him and you had mindlessly moaned and pleaded him to keep talking to you.
His movements had slowed and he bent down so he could talk directly in your ear, “I’m going to fill you with my seed until you can’t walk and keep you in my bed as you swell, carrying my son in your belly.” You had already been close to your climax but hearing his deep voice so close and the images they conjured up, had sent you head first into one of the strongest orgasms you had experienced. You had clawed at his chest, your back arched and your cunt had clamped down on him so hard he had no choice but to follow you, spilling his seed deep inside of you.
“Well, that’s certainly information worthy of keeping in mind,” he had said, slightly out of breath but with a dangerous glint in his eyes.
He had wandered away from you, allowing some lesser noble to talk his ear off about this or that trading deal, and you attempted to draw your focus away from the strong back of your husband and onto the party going on around you. It was a beautiful day and the gardens of King’s Landing was filled with noble men and women from all over the continent – and probably beyond. You had to hand it to the Tyrell’s: they knew how to throw a lavish but tasteful party.
You passed a group of minstrels gently plucking at their instruments as you made your way to a table ladled with all manner of sliced fruit, presented in artistic swirls according to their colour. A young man – you assumed from one of the southern houses, based on the cut of his tunic – greeted you with a smile and offered you one of the small silver plates from the table. You thanked him and started to make your selection, commenting on the favourable weather as you scooped up a few pieces of what you assumed to be some kind of melon.
You looked up and saw the young man about to speak when something over your shoulder made his eyes widen and he hastily made his excuses. You were about to turn around when the unmistakable arm of your husband reached around you, plucking a piece of fruit from your plate.
“Still not as sweet as when I have you sit on my face.” He said it like he was commenting on the weather, his face betraying nothing safe for the slight smirk when he saw the blush return to your cheeks.
“Tywin, please, not here; people will hear,” you whispered hurriedly and once again checked your surroundings.
Beside you Tywin merely scoffed and moved around you, stealing another piece from your plate. “No one listens to anything anybody else have to say at things like these. All of them,” he nodded discreetly at the nobles milling around you, “are mere peacocks, prancing in the garden.”
You couldn’t help but laugh at his grumblings. “Not enjoying the party, my lord?”
“No,” he answered firmly, rounding you completely and looked you dead in the eyes. “There are about a hundred letters on my desk that need answering and about a hundred more that needs to be drawn up.” He moved closer to you and for the first time you saw him actually make sure you were alone before he ducked down to whisper in your ear: “I would rather be at my desk – or better yet, have you on my desk – than spend another minute in the company of these insipid fools.”
You were sure your face was about as red as your husband’s coat of arms and yet you couldn’t help but reach up and discreetly play with one of the many buttons lining his expensive coat. Your eyes swept over the crowd behind him, all of them laughing, some even dancing despite the early hour, and none of them seem to pay any attention to the two of you. Finally your gaze met his and with small smile you said, “better take me home then, husband.”
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redvexillum · 2 months ago
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Dear @crackrodent, You are lucky you're in the Voxtek Server, otherwise I would have never even contemplated even doing any of your crack-ass request. I still have like three or four just...STARING at me. Anyways, just know, I fucking love you - that's why I wrote... whatever...this...is...LOL 💖🤣
TAGS/WARNINGS: m/m, an♡l s♡x, val and adam is a shitty person, this whole s♡x scene is just dripping with egotistical/selfish energy
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The room was thick with the scent of lust, sweet and heavy, mixing with the low rumble of some B-class actor’s baritone grunts as the sounds of ecstasy filled the air. Valentino watched the scene, his eyes half-lidded with wariness, while the curling pink smoke lazily drifted from his pipe. He reclined in his lavish chair, legs casually crossed, looking every bit the kingpin of indulgence, though his thoughts were far from mere indulgence.  
To the masses, his films were nothing more than a means to an end – titillation, pleasure without thought. They saw breasts, ass, or a cock, and they were content to let their hands do the work.  
But to Valentino, it was more than just base gratification. He prided himself on the art of seduction, on the way his camera captured more than the mere act – it captured the hunger, the raw, primal allure that only comes when the soul plunges into depravity. It wasn’t about a cock thrusting into some disposable body; no, it was about the allure, the sensuality that teased the darkest corners of desire.  
It was visceral.  
It was untamed.  
It was...art.  
Hell had a way of putting things in perspective, he mused, his red eyes narrowing as he listened to the rhythmic slap of skin on skin echoing from the scene before him. Angel, his star, was caught in the throes of a double penetration, his body trembling as two hound sinners took him from both ends.  
Valentino’s cock twitched at the sight, though a hint of boredom tugged at his mind. He had seen it all before – each performance blending into the next, the same screams, the same positions, the same predictable rhythms.  
His tastes had evolved, elevated even. Valentino no longer craved the mundane. He was hunting for something more – a masterpiece, something so provocative, so unique, it would etch his name into Hell’s lore forever.  
Rumours whispered of a new sinner in Hell, a figure of legend. Adam, the first man, now among the damned. The possibilities danced in Valentino’s mind, his fingers absently stroking the sharp angle of his chin as he schemed.  
Adam.  
The original sinner.  
His mere presence in Hell was an opportunity. Valentino had filmed countless renditions of Adam and Eve in the Garden, but none of them ever quite captured the essence. The actors never looked quite right, never felt as human as he wanted them to be.  
But Adam – the Adam – was still strikingly human despite the horns curling from his forehead, a fallen figure, and one that could bring Valentino the fame and recognition he craved.  
A slow, satisfied grin stretched across Valentino’s face. If he could secure Adam as his star before anyone else, it would be the scandal, the sensation, the art that Hell needed. His fame would soar, his reputation cemented.  
More than that – it would be a film that redefined what it meant to push the boundaries of Hell’s darkest pleasures. The thought made his pulse quicken, a wicked excitement pooling low in his gut.  
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It didn’t take much to strike a deal with Adam, much to Valentino’s amusement. The former first man had spiralled into debauchery, spending his days in strip clubs, guzzling alcohol like it was his lifeblood, and sinking into a haze of orgies that numbed him to his fall.  
Valentino approached him with an offer – a lifetime of booze, pussies, and endless pleasures at Val’s clubs – all for the price of filming one pornographic movie with him.  
Adam, still swaying slightly from the buzz of liquor, looked him up and down with a lazy grin. The former first man took his time, his gaze dragging over Valentino’s tailored suit, over his angular frame. “I’ll do it,” Adam said, his voice thick with amusement, “but on one condition. You’ll be the one getting fucked, and you’re gonna call me the Dick Master while I’m deep inside you.” 
Val’s sharp smile faltered for a split second, the words hanging awkwardly in the air. It was a ridiculous title, at first, something laughable – but then Adam continued, explaining in his slurred tone that as the original man, the first, all man descended from him, and therefore, all dicks too. That every cock had its origin in his.  
The logic was so absurd that Valentino found himself nodding. It made a twisted sort of sense in the ridiculousness that was Hell.  
“Fine,” Valentino agreed, his voice smooth, hiding his distaste behind a mask of professional composure. It was a deal, after all, and if getting Adam on camera meant this ridiculous stipulation, then so be it.  
Val chuckled to himself. He probably could’ve gotten away with offering the drunken fool a week’s worth of indulgence, and Adam still would have signed the deal. But now, Valentino had him, and soon, he’d have his next masterpiece.  
This wasn’t just about capturing flesh; it was about capturing the very essence of sin – the fall, the lust, the corruption of the first man.  
And that, Valentino thought as his grin widened, was art.  
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The studio was lit, bright spotlights casting a glow over the bed, the set already prepped for what should have been a masterpiece. But as Adam stood there, naked, scratching his hairy belly and letting out a loud belch that echoed in the studio, Valentino’s eye twitched. He hadn’t expected this.  
The man in front of him was far from the statuesque figure he had imagined. Instead, Adam was a thick, pear-shaped figure with a pelt of dark hair covering his chest, belly, and ass.  
Val’s lips curled in disdain as he took in the sight. He had pictured something more – refined. Perhaps like Angel Dust, with his graceful, slender frame and seductive charm. But this...this was far from the sensual art he had envisioned. Adam had bulk, hair, and an unimpressive aura that radiated laziness.  
His eyes drifted lower, to the man’s tight-fitting white underwear, which clung awkwardly to his hips and had a tear at the waistband. Val sighed. Perhaps he’d been cheated in this deal instead, his dreams of an artistic masterpiece slipping further away. The whole setup reeked of disappointment. He could already feel this film relegating itself to the bargain bin. 
“Well,” Val said, his voice dripping with reluctant acceptance, “a deal’s a deal.” He stripped out of his suit, letting the fabric fall from his lanky frame. His skin glistened under the harsh lights; every angle of his slender body sharply defined as he stood bare before Adam. His eyes were calculating, already planning to edit every unsexy moment of this disaster. “Alright, Dick Master,” he drawled, sarcasm oozing from his tone, “time to fulfill your end of the bargain.” 
Adam grinned, wide and shameless, as he dropped his torn underwear, kicking it off lazily before standing there, completely nude. “You’re not exactly my type,” he commented, his eyes roving over Val’s body with a shrug, “but hey, free booze and sex for eternity? Can’t say no to that.” 
Val raised an eyebrow, his gaze flickering to Adam’s cock, which was now hanging heavy between his legs, still flaccid but sizable enough to warrant some attention. Perhaps there was some redeeming factor here after all. He bit back the retort that this bumbling idiot wasn’t his type either. The sooner they get this over with, the better. Val’s eyes drifted back down to Adam’s cock – the only potential upside to this wasteful exchange.  
Adam stepped closer, his presence larger than life as he loomed over Val, their bodies almost touching. “You ready for my huge, fat cock?” Adam taunted, his voice a low growl as he stroked himself lazily, the thick shaft hardening and curving upward as it grew longer and thicker in his grip. “Gonna make your ass my little bitch.” 
Valentino let out a small, unimpressed sigh, rolling his eyes at the bravado. He reached for the lube, slicking it over his hands. “Right,” he muttered dryly, “let’s get this over with.” His mind was already distancing itself, calculating every angle, every edit he’d need to make to salvage something remotely watchable from this.  
His lips twitched into a smirk, despite himself, as Adam’s cock finally stood fully erect. At least that was impressive. Val’s own cock gave a faint twitch of approval, anticipation coiling low in his belly.  
“So,” Adam began, his tone casual as his thick fingers stroked his cock, now hard and throbbing. “You just need me to fuck you till I cum, yeah?” 
Val nodded, lifting his arms in mock enthusiasm, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he mimed air quotes. “That’s right. And I will, of course, refer to you as Dick Master throughout the entire ordeal.” His words came out sharp, biting with humour and disdain, but his body was responding to the heat of Adam’s presence, the sheer size of him towering over his lithe form.  
It wasn’t the art Valentino had envisioned, but for now, it was enough.  
Adam’s cock stood hard and ready, twitching with eagerness. “That’s right, don’t forget it,” he sneered, his voice rough with anticipation. The space between them seemed to shrink instantly as he moved closer, his presence overwhelming. Before Val could even call “action,” Adam had his hands on him, dragging him toward the bed with a strength that startled him.  
For a fallen angel stripped of his power, Adam’s force was unexpected. Valentino grunted, his body twisting as Adam shoved him onto the plush mattress, his hands sinking into the soft cover as his knees dropped low. The shift was sudden, and the moment he tried to retort, he felt it – the hot, throbbing tip of Adam’s cock pressing insistently against his entrance.  
No foreplay. Typical, Val thought bitterly. He barely suppressed a growl, his voice sharp as he barked, “Get me the fucking lube!” One of the crew tossed a bottle onto the bed, and Val grabbed it, glaring over his shoulder at Adam. “Here. Dick Master, the lube,” he spat, holding it out.  
Adam, with a smug grin, tilted his head, the light catching his curling horns. His dark eyes gleamed with amusement, enjoying Val’s irritation. “Say please,” Adam teased, his voice dripping with mock superiority, his fat tip nudging harder against Valentino’s tight ass. “And maybe I’ll consider it.” 
The burn of Adam’s cock pushing at him without any preparation sent a flash of pain through Valentino. His fingers dug into the mattress as he considered for a split second snapping this fool’s neck, but he resisted.  
Adam might be a fallen man, a drunk, but Valentino had witnessed his power. Better not to test him now – especially like this. His jaw clenched behind his smile. “Please,” he forced out, his voice edged with venom, his eyes flashing behind his pink sunglasses.  
The sharp click of the lube opening made Val’s breath hitch. Finally. But instead of applying it properly, Adam unceremoniously dumped the cold gel over Valentino’s ass, the slick liquid trailing between his cheeks in a way that made him flinch. Before he could protest, Adam surged forward, and the thick length of him was buried deep in Valentino in one brutal thrust.  
Valentino’s breath left him in a harsh gasp, his body tensing as he tried to adjust to the size of him. He hadn’t expected this. The stretch, the heat – it was overwhelming. “Oh, fuck,” he moaned, his head dropping low, instinctively raising his hips higher to take more.  
Adam huffed from above, his breath ragged with exertion. “Shit, look at how tight your fucking ass is,” he growled, his hips snapping forward again, slamming into Valentino without mercy. His balls slapped against Valentino’s; the sound obscene in the otherwise quiet room. “Come on, call my name,” he demanded, each thrust deeper and more relentless than the last.  
The force of the fucking pushed Valentino’s body down into the mattress, his face pressed into the sheets, his mouth open in shock and pleasure. Every stroke hit him perfectly, driving into his prostate with precision. He had no choice but to submit, his body overwhelmed by pleasure. “Oh fuck, Dick Master,” he moaned, his voice muffled as his ass clenched around Adam’s cock, drawing him in deeper. His second pair of arms reached back, spreading his cheeks wide in surrender. “Fucking dump your hot cum in me, Dick Master!” 
Valentino couldn’t believe it. This man, who had one been grand, reduced to a drunken, debauched sinner, was fucking him with a raw, feral intensity. Valentino’s own cock was dripping, leaking pre-cum onto the sheets as his body began to tremble, the orgasm building inside him. He was so close, so fucking close, his cock twitching uncontrollably with every rough thrust.  
“Oh fuck, yea, tighten that ass for me,” Adam groaned, his hands pried Valentino's finger off his ass before his large hand smacked Valentino’s ass hard, sending a burst of heat and pain through him. The sharp sting only added to the pleasure, his cheeks burning under Adam’s touch.  
Had Adam been anyone else, Valentino would have killed him by now, the indignity too great to suffer. But here he was, moaning like a common whore, his body betraying him as his hips bucked back, asking for more.  
He reached down with one hand, desperate, jerking his own cock in time with Adam’s brutal pace. The need for release consumed him, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps as Adam continued to pound into him, his body on fire with the sheer intensity of it all.  
Adam’s rough hand came down again, a sharp smack echoing in the room as he slapped Valentino’s ass hard, sending a burst of heat through his skin. “Fucking call my name, bitch.” Adam growled, his hips driving forward with reckless abandon, his heavy balls slapping against Valentino’s own with every thrust.  
Valentino was a mess of sensations, his voice strained as he moaned loudly, the pleasure coiling tighter and tighter in his core. “Oh, fuck, fuck,” he panted, his hands working frantically over his own cock, chasing that edge, his release just unreachable. “Dick Master, Dick Master,” he chanted, the words spilling from his lips in between gasps. The sound of their bodies slamming together filled the room, wet and messy as the intensity grew, Adam’s cock throbbing deep inside him.  
Valentino could feel it – the way Adam’s cock pulsed within his walls, the heat of his skin against Valentino’s own. Adam’s strong, meaty hands gripped Valentino’s waist, nearly bruising as he yanked him back, his growl animalistic, primal.  
With a final, powerful thrust, Adam slammed into Val, his hips crashing against him as he came, hot spurts of cum flooding Valentino’s insides. The sensation sent Valentino over the edge, and with a low, guttural moan, his own orgasm hit, thick ropes of cum splashing across the sheets in waves of release.  
As Adam pulled out, Valentino’s body quivered, his muscles slack and trembling. A gush of thick cum spilled from his ass, leaking onto the bed, mixing with the mess of his own release. He was panting; his cock still throbbed, the haze of his orgasm lingering in the warmth of his body. 
Flipping onto his back, Valentino let his eyes flutter closed for a moment, basking in the aftermath of it all. His lips curled into a grin as he looked up at Adam, mischief and hunger still lingering in his gaze. “Oh, Dick Master,” Val purred, his voice low and teasing. “How about a second round?” 
But Adam, now limp, simply sniffed dismissively. His cock hung loose, semen still dripping from the tip, as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Sorry, dude,” he said with a shrug, barely looking down at Val. “But I’m more of a tits and ass man myself, and you’re lacking in all that department.” 
Val’s eyes widened, shock overtaking his features. He stared up at Adam, his body still buzzing from the aftermath of their encounter, his ass still twitching from being thoroughly fucked. Did this man – just reject me? Valentino?
Adam, oblivious to the tension, barked out toward the studio, his voice loud and demanding. “Now, where’s the free booze and sexy ladies over here!”  
Val lay frozen on the bed, his muscles stiffening as the reality of what just happened sank in.  
Adam, the first man.  
Adam, the Dick Master.  
Adam, the first sinner in all of Hell to reject Valentino.  
“Enjoy your drinks while you can, Dick Master,” Valentino muttered under his breath, his lips curling into a sinister smile. His fury simmered into a dark, twisted resolve. He would make Adam pay – oh, he’d get his revenge. But it wouldn’t be quick, nor would it be simple.  
Valentino was an artist, after all.  
Adam may have been the first man to reject him, but Valentino would make sure that he would be the last.  
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idle-daydreams · 11 months ago
Text
Demon King - Part 2
Shutendoji!Chuuya x Reader
Continuation of this.
Tw: Yandere, dub-con, mentions of blood, cannibalism and violence
[A.N: This got way too long, and isn't very yandere-y, imo. But its been in my head for a while, and I hope you guys like it!]
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In a certain way, being the wife of the Drunken Demon wasn’t all that bad.
You’d reached this conclusion on a silent night like this one, padding through the corridors by yourself. Chuuya’s – Manor? Castle? You weren’t quite sure – was far bigger than the quarters to which you were confined, quarters that were nevertheless larger than your entire home back in your village. They were a picture of comfort: there was a massive canopied bed, piled high with the softest pillows for you to sleep on; magical lamps illuminated the place, neither dimming nor burning out no matter how long they were kept lit. A roaring fire kept you warm in the winters, and hidden vents that kept you cool in the summer. There was always food and water, fresh and clean and delicious. You had your own bath, with more running water than you could have ever used in your entire life, heated or cooled to your body temperature. Chuuya brought you books to read, parchment to paint, any manner of things to pass the time, things that you couldn’t ever have imagined owning. He’d even allowed you a garden, though you weren’t to go there in his absence. He loved to spoil you, giving you everything you could possibly ask for; he was kind, and patient, indulging your idlest whim and your most irrational desires.
The only thing he denied you was your freedom.
You sighed, sinking down upon your bed. At one time, the loneliness had frightened you. Stories of the Drunken Demon had consumed your mind, and you’d spent countless hours curled up in a corner, crying and shaking and throwing up from the sheer terror of what he would do to you. Now, you relished these moments of solitude, times when Chuuya wasn’t clinging to your waist or brushing your hair or fucking you senseless wherever he could. The bruises and love-bites littering your skin, proof of his demented love, delighted him to a frenzy. Your cheeks still burned at the memory of hours the two of you had spent locked in a tangle of limbs, lost in the throes of pleasure, worlds removed from the puritanical teachings of your wifely duties drilled into your head during your early years. As with everything else, you’d gotten used to it – that part of your ‘marriage’ had been shamefully easy to get used to – but you knew what inevitably lay next. Either Chuuya would grow tired of you... or he would impregnate you. You’d never liked the idea of children, but the thought of raising half-demon offspring filled you with dread.
How long has it been? you wondered. Weeks? Months? A year? Despite the massive windows – always shut for your safety, of course, but still allowing you a view of the walled gardens – it was difficult to gauge the passage of time, since the path of the sun and moon didn’t seem to be that consistent in the demon world. You couldn’t help but wonder: did your family miss you, or did they think you dead? If Chuuya had truly bought you from them – and despite your adamant refusals to his face, you had to admit your family would have easily sold you off – then what tale had he spun to them? What exactly had they thought of Chuuya himself?
The thought of your ‘husband’ still sent shivers down your spine. It was difficult to wrap your head around the idea of being the wife of Shuten Doji, a demon so terrifying that people had trembled at the very sound of his name. Even though Chuuya wasn’t that Shuten Doji, he was still insanely powerful: on the rare occasion that Chuuya had taken you out in public, arm wrapped firmly around your waist, you’d been awed by the sight of great and dreadful demons sinking to their knees before him, not even daring to look upon his face. You’d seen him fight, tearing apart beasts and monsters twice his size with his bare hands, a maniacal grin on his face, red marks dancing upon his skin, reminders of his power. It had been incredible to witness and terrifying to comprehend.
The sound of the door opening jolted you from your thoughts. You tensed as a pair of muscular arms wrapped around you, Chuuya’s now-familiar from pressing against your back.
“Hey, [Y/N],” he murmured in your ear. “I’m back. Did you miss me?”
 “Good evening, Chuuya.” You reached up to caress his cheek. “Yes, I missed you very much.”
“Good. I missed you too.” He pressed kisses upon the side of your neck. “So, what were you doing all day? You haven’t finished that watercolor you were working on. I thought you liked that stuff.”
“I… was thinking of you.” You closed your eyes as his hands began to wander. “I guess I lost track of time.”
“Aw, that’s sweet.” Chuuya molded himself to you even tighter. “I know the feeling. I can’t get you out of my head either, you know that? I love you so much, miss you so much, it’s almost annoying sometimes. Sometimes I wish I could carry you around with me, you know? Put you in my pocket so that I can look at you wherever I go. Wouldn’t you like that, [Y/N]?”
“It would be nice.” You shifted slightly, trying to put some distance between the two of you as surreptitiously as you could. He was just so close: his hands were splayed upon your belly, chest flush against your back, chin resting in the crook of your neck. Chuuya responded with a small growl, nipping at your ear.
“Stop it,” he murmured. “I haven’t seen you since this morning. You want to be with me, don’t you?”
“Of course,” you said quickly. “But, I just, um—” Your eye fell upon the gourd of sake sitting in the corner— “I just thought you might like a drink.”
“Hm? Why not?” To your relief, Chuuya loosened his grip on you, leaning back to recline lazily on the bed. His eyes, however, followed your every movement, his gaze hungry.
“Come here,” he said as you proffered the sake to him. “You know I don’t like drinkin’ alone.”
You pursed your lips. You didn’t like the demon lord’s wine; while Chuuya claimed it wasn’t made from human blood, he also wouldn’t tell you exactly where it came from. Nevertheless, you settled into his embrace once again, allowing him to wrap an arm around you. Chuuya began playing with the sash of your kimono.
“You seem distracted tonight, [Y/N],” he said, playing with the sash of your kimono. “Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing’s wrong.”
“You’re usually way more sarcastic than you’re being right now. Did anything happen? Are you unhappy? Do you want something?”
“No.” You bit your lip as the silken fabric gave way all too easily under his sharp nails, allowing his hands to brush against your breast. “I’m happy to be with you. I don’t want anything right now.”
“Then drink.” He held the sake to your lips invitingly. It was rich and dark and far too potent for your liking, making your head spin with a single sip. You grabbed his wrist to stop him, making him laugh.
“Still so weak,” he said. “But you should drink more. It’ll make you feel better.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s what you always say. I’m starting to feel like that’s code for something.”
He set aside the gourd, lowering his head to your breasts. Slowly, with agonizing tenderness, he began suckling on the pebbled flesh, drawing a keening moan from your lips.
“C-Chuuya,” you said. “Please.”
“Please what? You want me to stop?”
“No, but—” Your breath hitched as Chuuya returned to his ministrations, fist tightening in his hair. He was good, so good, that it was almost frightening. His hands wandered your body, sending sparks dancing in their wake. You arced your back, forgetting your hesitations as your mind sank deeper into a pleasurable haze. As you let out another moan, Chuuya hummed in approval.
“I want you, [Y/N],” he mumbled against your skin. “I want you so much it hurts sometimes. You’re so beautiful, so kind, so perfect in every way. I’ve seen my fair share of princesses and noble women, but none of ‘em hold a candle to you, you know that?”
“T—Thank you.” You looked away, embarrassed by his praise. Even after the level of intimacy between the two of you, it was still difficult to talk to him. There was a wide gulf between the two of you, a gulf you didn’t think you could ever cross.
Chuuya raised himself on his forearms to look at you. Your eyes flitted to his bare chest and his well-sculpted body, a being that once had been only a dream. Heat flooded your face, pleasure and panic tangling in your chest, and his smile widened.
“You like me too, don’t you?” he purred. “Course you do. I still remember the first time I brought you here. You were so scared then, such a shy little mouse. Now you’re not so scared, are you? Now you love me.”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I love you.”
He chuckled delightedly, swooping to press his forehead against yours. “I love you too,” he whispered against your lips. “I’ll give you anything and everything you want. A slip of moonlight? A bed of gold? The heads of every man in the world laid out at your feet? All you have to do is ask.”
You gazed upon him, into his guileless, grey-blue eyes. “I want to go home,” you whispered.
Chuuya paused, sitting up. Your heart sank, and you braced yourself for the incoming onslaught of begging and accusations.
“Home,” he said flatly. “You want to go… to your human home.”
“Not because I don’t love you,” you said quickly. “But – I am a human, Chuuya. I’m not a demon like you. I can’t live locked up forever like this.”
“Neither can demons.” He reached out to trace patterns along your shoulders, his tone oddly flat. “A demon’s world is far bigger than that of any human. I could show you things, places, people you couldn’t even imagine. You know the only reason I keep you locked up is because you continue to resist me.”
“I don’t resist you,” you pointed out hopelessly. “I live with you; I sleep with you. I call myself your wife! What more do you want?”
“There is more.” Chuuya leaned in closer, a strange light in his eyes.” There is a ritual – a proper ritual to join the two of us for all of eternity. If you’d only agree to that, then we’d be mates for the rest of our lives.”
“A ritual?” You stared at him. “You mean you want to turn me into a demon?”
“Its not as bad as the humans believe.”
“I believe that too!” You pulled away, filled with a sickening dread. Some part of you had realized this, but it was horrifying to hear it from his lips nevertheless. “I’m not going to turn into a demon, Chuuya! You can’t do that to me.”
“Why not?” He laughed bitterly. “You think you’re still purely a human?”
“I’m not… changed.” Your eyes filled with tears as you met his gaze. “I may have been with you, but I’m still me.”
“And you think that’s all you’ve done?” He loomed over you suddenly, the room seeming to fill with shadows. Flickers of red ran up his face and down his chest and arms, reflecting the red in his eyes. “You’ve eaten demon food, taken a demon’s seed inside you.” He raised his arm, showing you a thin scar that ran along its length. “You’ve drank my blood.”
Your blood ran cold at the sight. “No,” you said hoarsely. “Even then, I—I’m not a demon.”
Chuuya’s mouth tightened. You shrank back, terrified, only for him to pull away abruptly. “Fine,” he said, getting off the bed. “If you want to go home so bad, then let’s go home.”
“Wait, I’m sorry!” You sat up, alarmed. “Wait, please, I–I—"
“What?” He turned to you. “I thought you wanted to see your family.”
“I do, but…”
“I’m not going to hurt them, [Y/N].” He smiled, a rictus snarl. “I promise. Now come here.”
Something in his words made your hair stand on end “Yes, m—my lord,” you said, hurrying towards him.
“I’ve told you, [Y/N].” He wrapped his arms around you, pressing a hand over your eyes. “Call me Chuuya.”
The air changed. It grew cold. The wind rustled your hair, making you blink. As Chuuya pulled his hand away, you looked around, eyes smarting from the chill in the air.
You were standing on a hill overlooking a glittering city.
“Where are we?” you asked, voice trembling.
“Don’t you recognize it?” Chuuya waved a hand at the town laid out below. “Your village.”
“But—” You took a step forward, peering down at the twinkling network of lights. “No, it’s not. My village was pretty small. That is some great city.”
“That is a small place compared to the cities of today. But maybe you need more convincing.” He grasped your hand again, and in the blink of an eye you were standing in front of a shrine. Your village’s shrine.
But it was changed. Lichen covered the gates, moss creeping through the cracks in the ground. But more than that was the tall light that stood just outside the gate, a little flat plate just beneath it. 
“It – those lights,” you said. “Those are the lights from your palace.”
“They’re called electric lights, and they’re not exclusive to my palace.” Chuuya crossed his arms. “The world has moved on, [Y/N]. It’s been a couple of hundred years since I took you, give or take a decade.”
“No!” You turned to him, aghast. “No, it – you’re lying!”
“Well, you’re welcome to go down into town and ask people, if you don’t believe me. Or read that plaque over there. Or even wander the world if that’s what you want. But you’ll find that I’m tellin’ the truth. You’ve been my wife for over two hundred years now.”
“No!” You turned a full circle, scanning the scene for someone, something, to prove him wrong. Your eyes met Chuuya’s, and the pain and resignation in them made you pause. “You’re… not lying,” you said blankly.
“No.” He shook his head with a small smile. “I wouldn’t lie to you, [Y/N], it’s not my style. I’d have told you outright if your family was around – I’m not afraid of any of them, no one will ever keep you from me. But they’re not there anymore.”
“But – why?” You sank to the leaf-strewn ground, shaking, your vision blurry with tears. “Why would you do to me?”
“Because you are not listening to me.” Chuuya sank to his knees beside you, embracing you. “You’re mine. You belong to me. You were always meant to be with me. You just needed to lose everything to understand that.”
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