#between the devil and the sea chapter 7

[the-kr8tor]

In Deep Water

Pairing: Pirate! Hobie Brown x fem! Reader

Word count: 8.7k

Tags: Use of Y/N sparsely, no specific physical description of the reader, CW vomit mention, CW Inaccurate medical procedures, CW injury, TW blood, CW violence, TW death, CW guns.

Between the Devil and the Sea Masterlist

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CHAPTER 7 >>> CHAPTER 8

The laughter gets louder as the source of it shows itself aboard the black hellion, the fog makes way like a curtain opening to start a performance.

Hobie's grip is tight, fingers weaved around your arm, bruisingly strong. Your nails dig into his flesh as the uniformed man tilts his head to look at you, his toothy yellowing grin thrown in your direction. His powdered white wig flutters in the breeze, medals glinting off the single lamp on the bow, hands resting on the pommel of his pristine sword. The angelic figure head is a stark contrast to the devil sneering down.

The blackened wood of his ship groans as it continues to break a part of the revenge. The sails unfurled behind him, blue wings fluttering in the wind.

The angel of death has come.

“Look at what we have here.” He clicks his tongue, eyes boring a hole through your skulls, he narrows them into slits, and like a snake, he slithers as close as he can, tethering close to the edge. There's a flash of emotion in his eyes, snarling, the navy man chuckles, the mere sound makes you want to cower. “Hello little birdy, now how far did you fly to get where you are now?”

Hobie clenches his jaw, stepping over to hide you from his view. His hand never leaves yours, the dull ache from his hold says that this isn't just a nightmare.

You want to wake up even if it means losing his hold on you.

“Oh where are my manners? Mummy would whip me if she ever knew I didn't introduce myself to a lady.”

Hobie shifts his weight, ready to pounce if need be. You grab his shirt, making sure he doesn't do anything drastic. Subtly flicking your eyes to the side, you see the crew do the same. They look at you with fear in their eyes, the hunter’s gazes illuminating their contorted faces.

You can't help but let out a shuddering breath, the sound echoing around the open waters, hoping to get your cry for help to somebody who can do something, anything to get you and everyone out to safety.

“My name's Captain Mathias Bradshaw.” He drawls, thin lips curling into a smirk. “This here is my little merry band of sailors who has a bone to pick with—” pointing at Hobie with his thick finger, white cosmetic smeared on his palms. “Him. The red hydra. I forgot to greet you yet, long time no see you rapscallion.”

You hear Hobie's shallow breathing. Grey eyes thundering, a storm brewing, lightning flowing through his veins. The only reason why he doesn't let himself loose on Mathias is your touch.

“You see here, sweetheart,” The man addresses you and you only. “For the past three years your so-called captain and I have had a bit of a tiff.” He chuckles coldly. “A rivalry of sorts.” He pauses, looking over his shoulder. “Is it still a rivalry if you're leagues above your rival?”

“No, sir.” A gruff voice says, hidden behind the mist.

Mathias turns back around. “Well, we got our answer then.”

Hobie sneakily murmurs to you. “Hide—”

“I'm not done talking!” The sudden outburst makes you jump in your skin.

“You should've been done with your senseless dialogue a long time ago.” Hobie straightens his posture, head held high, a picture of a pirate captain. “Come down here and fight like a fuckin' man, show me your flames and I'll show mine.”

The man scoffs, amusement in his green eyes. “Flames? Yours is barely a spark.”

Hobie scoffs. “Let's be done with it then. Get the closure we both want, fight me in single combat.” Mathias knits his brows, Hobie smirks. “No? Thought you were a gentleman, where's your fuckin' honour?”

A booming laugh replaces Mathias’ scowl. “I guess it died with your little red hair—”

Hobie lets go of you, drawing his gun, pointing it directly at the monster's head. The crew takes this as their cue, doing the same, pointing their weapons towards the men surrounding them.

There's hunger in his eyes, beneath the swirling grey there's a hunger waiting to be fed.

The enemy ships don't even aim their cannons at the revenge, instead they float still in the water, unmoving, the men aboard their ships smirk in your direction like you're being served to them on a silver platter. It's then you notice the sons of the sea’s ship is no more. They took the brunt of the hellion’s collision.

No longer their sails fly, their crow's nest and pieces of wood lay floating in dark waters.

Left behind, slowly drowning in the depths.

You feel droplets sliding on your cheeks, for a second you thought it's your tears. And then more and more of it comes pouring down, splashing on the wooden floorboards.

Thunder booms from a distance, lightning flashes in the sky, lighting everyone's scornful faces.

A few of Karl's men stand with Hobie, clutching their injuries. You don't see Robbie, his lack of presence makes you glare at the sneering men.

“Say her fuckin’ name.” Hobie says through gritted teeth. “After what you did— Say her name.”

“Eh.” Mathias shrugs, “I forgot.” the laughter of his men echoes in the mist.

“You fucker—!” Hobie's hand shakes despite this, he draws the golden gun, aiming it at the navy man whose smirk gets wider.

“I recognize that little blunderbuss.” He chuckles, wiggling his pointing finger, “She pointed that at my head too, you'll be unsuccessful just like she was.”

It takes every fiber inside Hobie to not just shoot and face the consequences later. But he's surrounded, his crew is surrounded, they have no chance of escaping death if he shoots. The only option he has is through single combat and to appeal to the man's ego. He's hoping the idea works.

One look over his shoulder, one glance at your trembling face and he's back to that day, the day MJ was lost. He prays that this day doesn't end the same way three years ago.

“Little dove,” Mathias’ devilish eyes roam over your trembling body. “Look at you,” he chuckles lowly, “I'd say dear ol' Hobie here got an upgrade just because this one's got her head still glued on her neck!”

Hobie almost shoots him until someone from his crew screams, their voice full of malice, venom dripping with every utterance.

“Fuck you!” Gwen exclaims, “Don't you have any honour? She's dead and you're still spitting on her watery grave! After everything you've put her through!”

“Ah! Gwen Stacy, the ballerina turned pirate. How you doin', miss Stacy? I heard your father's still down in the stables, trying to repay his debt to the crown.” he rags her on, scoffing.

“You're still defending her? She's a traitor, a navy spy. The greatest one we've ever had in fact. Her only downfall is loving a bunch of…” he sucks in his teeth, trying to find the word. “Thieves like you. Love got her head cut off and love will be your ruin too.” Flicking his eyes to you, he observes everyone's faces after his tirade.

Hobie steps between Gwen and Mathias, his guns still raised, eyes brimming with the anger of a forsaken God. Yet he remains calm, clearing his throat, standing tall.

“Mathias Bradshaw, I challenge you to single combat, a duel. I win, you let us go. You win and you get to take us all back to the capital.” Hobie's voice booms louder than the thunder above. Lightning strikes near, the water sizzles at the contact. “I know a man of your stature can't say no.”

The man in the uniform guffaws loudly, broad shoulders shaking. “Oh that's hilarious, you think you'd win against me, little pirate? Hmm?”

“Yes.” Hobie doesn't miss a beat.

Mathias smiles, “I guess this one's less messy than what I was planning. Name your terms.”

“Guns only, five bullets. You get shot three times you lose.”

“I'll add a tiny thing to your wager.” The navy man looks over to your direction, pointing his crooked finger at you. “Same terms but I get to keep your little bird.”

Hobie turns to you, wide eyes staring back at you. “No—” He's already shaking his head before you speak up.

“Deal!” You roar above the thunder storm, deciding your own fate. The rain is getting heavier, drenching your terrified self. “The captain will take your terms as long as you honour it.” Nodding to Hobie, he holsters his weapon away from you.

Mathias cackles in the background.

Gently holding on to your arm, you already know what he'll say.

“Don't. Do you know what you just agreed to?”

“I do,” you stare at his raging eyes but they're tender when he looks at you. “I know you can take him, I trust you.” Taking his hand away from your arm, you squeeze him once before pulling him towards you. “Don't play fair, because he won't.” you whisper. “Fucking obliterate him, for MJ.”

Hobie takes you in like it's the last thing he'll ever do. He imprints your touch in his mind, wanting to remember the softness of it when the bullets get too much for him to bear.

He nods slowly, still unsure of your decision. If you trust him enough to sell your soul then he'll fight to the death so you don't have to.

With one last look at you, he turns around, facing up to the man he loathes the most, wanting to just strangle him with his bare hands. Maybe he'll do just that.

For the crew.

Mathias takes his blue coat off, grinning the entire time.

For MJ.

He grabs on to a rope, rappelling off the black hellion, landing in a thunderous impact on the deck.

For you.

Now that he's leveled with your gaze, he's a lot smaller down on the deck, stout with a round belly, face painted with white lead that's currently melting in the downpour. Hobie's taller and slimmer but he makes up for it in his agility and speed. You've seen him fight but Mathias' form could be compared to Finn's build, all muscle and strength hidden behind his uniform.

You're glad this was a duel of pistols if it was any other fight Hobie could be in trouble.

A few of his men do the same, jumping off the hellion while the ones on the smaller ships stay on board but keeping their eyes peeled.

Surrounding the bloodsail pirates, the hands of Mathias' men never leave the pommels of their rapiers. Hobie clenches his jaw, now standing before the king's flame, he can't help but gaze behind the man, back to you and his crew.

Gwen goes to your side, lacing her trembling fingers through yours, Pav sidles behind you, clutching the back of your vest. Miles stands next to Gwen, holding her other hand. You see them look at eachother with a knowing glance and glimmering eyes.

Your eyes meet Hobie's, you give him a nod, eyes full of fury, and trembling lips. You mouth a ‘Bleed him dry’.

The simple act of Hobie smiling at you, makes you tear up. It's the same one he gives you after you patch him up, it's the same one when he handed you the hot chocolate. It's the same smile that makes your heart flutter in your chest.

You're afraid as you part with the crowd to the side of the duelists, lest you get caught in the crossfire. As the one in front, you get a good look at the enemy on the other side, all lined up perfectly like the obedient soldier men that they are. You roam your eyes to their faces, wondering how they could obey a man like Mathias.

You assume the uniformed man walking towards the duelists is Mathias' right hand man. Left eye covered in an eye patch, his hazel eyes observe you. He's carrying a large wooden box, pristine and smooth at the edges with golden locks and embellishments. He opens it with a creak, rain water landing on the wood and soaking the velvet inside.

“You're the challenger, you get the first pick.” Mathias gestures towards Hobie, all smiles like he's not about to meet the end of a bullet.

You stand on your tippy toes to take a peek inside. There are two dueling pistols, flintlocks. One white as fresh snow, one is black like the hellion.

Hobie takes his pick, pocketing what you assume is the five bullets. The black gun in his hand shines when a lightning strikes the mast of the hellion. You hear splintering wood in the distance.

He steps back in place, measuring the metal’s weight in his hand.

“Good choice.” Mathias eyes down the gun. “Death has touched that one.”

Hobie glares, baring his teeth. If only that was enough to kill the man before him.

Mathias takes the remaining gun, wiggling it in his hand. “You ready, little pirate?”

Hobie doesn't show an ounce of fear. “You're going to die today.”

“How confident, confidence alone won't help you aim straight.”

Your entire body shakes whilst they stand back to back, guns raised on their sides. They walk slowly, counting their steps.

The pouring rain doesn't help, raindrops obscuring your vision, the cold mixing in with the ice in your veins.

With every step Hobie takes,

Five

with every hit of his boots on the floorboards,

Four

your heart tries to escape,

Three

pulse hammering,

Two

threatening to give out. Afraid of what's to come. No one else dares to make a sound.

One

Standing end to end on the dock, they turn around swiftly.

After a beat, the man with the box yells. “Fire!”

Bang!

The sound echoes out in the dark, above all the rain and thunder.

Hobie hits his mark, Mathias groans, clutching his dominant shoulder. Smoke bellows out of their guns, dissolving into the rain.

Your words are repeating in Hobie's head ‘Don't play fair’ you say, then he won't play fair.

He notices his bleeding arm, looking down he sees the bullet nicked his skin, leaving an angry gash in its wake. The wood behind him gets the brunt of the bullet, the metal embedding inside, splintering a gaping hole.

You jump when Mathias laughs along the thunder. More and more lightning pierces the sky. You can taste iron in your mouth, not realizing the pain from biting the inside of your cheeks.

They reload, Mathias’ man observing with his watchful eye, making sure they both adhere to the rules; but you highly doubt he's doing it for fairness sake.

Metallic clanking, gunpowder clinking against steel, Mathias' voice enters the fray to your dismay.

“You know, you were too easy to fool.” He starts, finishing up his reload. “You never asked why I left my lieutenant in your hands and why was it so damn easy for you to get my travel documents.” Smiling, the lead on his face melts further, dripping on the floorboards, the white paint mixing in with his blood. “Just like I said, love will be your downfall.”

Hobie doesn't have enough time to squabble, instead he would let his aim talk for him.

“Twenty paces!” The eye patch man yells again.

Hobie and Mathias move forwards, getting closer and closer to each other. You want to put a stop to the duel, but you have to trust Hobie that he'll make it, that he'll win. He has to.

You dare not blink.

“Fire!”

Bang!

Hobie almost keels over, his shoulder heavily bleeds, trembling hand holding his flesh together. You see him smile underneath the pain, following his gaze, Mathias clutches his shooting hand, groaning and hissing. It looks like Hobie shot a hole right in the man's hand. The white gun lays on the bloodied floor, discarded.

Gwen's hold on you tightens, you can hear Pavitr sob quietly.

You catch Hobie's eyes. There's hope in the swirling grey, nodding, you encourage him, mouthing an ‘end it’. He seems to understand, straightening his stance, he reloads the gun as best as he can with an injured shoulder.

Mathias wheezes out a strained laugh. “I gotta hand it to you, your aim is pretty good.” He stands, grabbing his gun on the way up with his uninjured hand. “No matter how amazing your aim is, you're still bloody blind!” He screams, spit flying out of his mouth.

“My two bullets that's in you say otherwise.” Hobie tilts his head mockingly.

“No, no, no.” Mathias clicks his tongue, waving the gun wildly. “You still don't get it do you? You're not asking questions, letting everything fall into your lap, thinking God's on your side on your little revenge quest. But he's not,” he chuckles. “Sacrificing my lieutenant was the best decision I've ever made, especially knowing the fucker can absolutely sing. Loose lips sink ships, little pirate. Do remember that. Especially since you didn't seem to learn from it last time.”

Hobie's face falls, dread filling his chest.

“Bribing the governor to plant my travel documents and telling him to go unwind in a brothel for a couple of days was well worth my coin.” Mathias stretches his shoulder, reloading his pistol with bloodied hands.

He continues. “The two idiots at the gates were…well idiots, I barely had to do anything to them. The lock was a false security to make you sweat a little bit.” The king's flame proves himself. “You're blind. You've focused so much on taking me down that you didn't notice the little details. It's either that or you're also deaf, preferring not to hear your crew's concerns.”

“Not a very good attribute for a supposed captain.” he shrugs, he says his words mockingly.

“Fuck you!” Hobie aims directly at his rival's head.

It's all his fault, everything that led up to this point is his fault.

The gun trembles in his hold. Mathias looks pleased, smiling at Hobie.

“You know the rules.” Mathias sucks in his teeth. “Don't fire until lieutenant Dubois says so or I win and I get your little bird.” he looks over at you. “Oh we're gonna have so much fun together, every night, every day.” His laughter makes you want to grab the nearest knife and shove it down his throat.

You don't back down from his disgusting gaze. “If he doesn't kill you, I will.” Pavitr tries to hold you back. “And it won't be quick.” your voice shakes from sheer anger.

“I look forward to it, duchess.” Mathias spares you one last glance.

You don't notice how Hobie looks angrier than he did, he's clearly holding back. His glare alone could burn a hole through Mathias' skull. Yet he stands tall, getting a second wind; he's gonna shoot a hole in his skull instead.

His head goes a hundred knots per hour, thinking of all the what ifs. What if he just listened, what if he didn't let her stay, what if, what if, what if, the words are tattooed in his mind, clawing and biting at his psyche.

“Ten paces!”

They walk in sync, closer to each other more than ever. Pausing in place, they stare each other down, Mathias' smile never leaving his lips. Hobie's scowl gets deeper with every second that passes.

“Fire—!”

“Fuck this.” Mathias lunges in surprise, grappling Hobie.

Hobie doesn't get a chance to dodge, his gun clattering on the floor as the heavier man tackles him to the ground. The wet floors make it hard for Hobie to find leverage against Mathias who's currently choking him with his large arm.

Chaos ensues, everyone breaks the line, unsheathing their weapons, fighting, steel and skin clashing. Pistols going off left and right, but your main focus is on the two men writhing on the floor.

You hear Hobie choke so you run faster, taking a fallen dagger from a corpse, you quickly dodge people, determined to save Hobie.

“This is what happens when you let your feelings decide for you!” Mathias yells above the mayhem.

Finally making it close to them, in one swift movement, you stab Mathias on his back, crimson ebbs on his white shirt like spiderwebs. He screams, letting go of Hobie.

You don't spare him a glance as you take Hobie by his arm, dragging him below deck. Shutting the doors closed, Mathias bids you farewell with one last cackling.

Guiding him through the corridors, you hope the winding hallways help make it harder for the enemies to find you.

“Y/N.” He wheezes out.

“Don't fucking talk.” Your feet brings you to the galley. Sitting him down, he plops like a fish on the chair, head lolling to the side.

Slapping his cheek, he wakes back up with a groan. “Actually, keep talking. Stay awake, please.”

Hobie nods, “I need to go back up, I can't leave them there.” He tries to stand but your hands stop him, making him sit back down.

“You can't help in this state. Let me treat you then you can go and help.” You look in his pained eyes. “Please, at least let me help with your shoulder.” your other hand fumbles to his back, searching for an exit wound. You already know the answer when you feel the hot crimson weeping out from the puncture left behind.

You plead with your eyes.

“Alright, do what you have to do. Make it quick.” he nods, you leave his side to light a fire in the hearth, laying a metal poker on top of the hot coals. “Can I tell you a story?”

“Whatever keeps you awake.” Taking out the first aid kit from your bag, you notice your hands tremble. They never shake when you're treating someone, with your back turned away from him, you swallow down a sob.

“There was this girl, she had red hair like one of those…” he sighs, injuries aching, throat throbbing. “Apples.”

You reach his side once again, trembling fingers dipping into the wound ointment. “You have a way with words.”

He grabs your shaking hands in his, “Are you alright?”

You pause in your frantic movements, blinking rapidly. “Y-you’re the one who's bleeding right now.”

“You're shaking.”

You twist your wrists away from his touch. “I'm alright, worry about yourself and your crew.”

“You're a part of my crew”

“Shut– just…” you exhale. “Continue your story.”

Hobie nods, eyes drooping. “She just one day showed up on the docks, asking for a place.” He inhales sharply. “I needed to fill the second ship so I agreed, I let her in. I shouldn't have done it.” His eyes well up but no tears fall. “I should've turned her away but she was determined, she had the skills to stay— can you give me somethin’ for the pain? A fuckin' rum or wine, anythin’”

“No alcohol, if you want to bleed out be my guest.” You hold a cloth above his wound, pressing down to stop the bleeding as much as you can.

“Fucker!” He stomps his foot, “you can be such a little shit sometimes you know?”

You can hear the struggle upstairs. Weirdly enough, there's no sound of cannons firing.

“I know—” the ship tilts suddenly, flinging you and Hobie brutally to the side. You do your best to shield his injured self, taking the brunt of the impact, back stinging from the wall.

He lands on top of you, arms on your side, face hidden on the crook of your neck. You can feel his staggered breathing on your skin.

Bottles and pans fly towards you two. Pushing him away, you guide each other to the corner of the room, huddled together, protected by the hearth.

“Shit!” Hobie protects your head with his hand when a pot flies towards you. The ship keeps turning and tossing the both of you until it finally straightens out, you can feel how fast its going by how wild the utensils are swinging.

“Someone got hold of the helm.” He whispers, his cool hand on your tender shoulder. “We're running.” Hobie doesn't say it with pride or dejection, he utters it with embarrassment.

“That's good,” you stand up, giving him a helping hand. “We can get out—”

The unmistakable sound of a cannonball whizzes past and the ship lunges harshly on the side again. You can hear frantic yells from above.

Hobie takes your hand, “I need to get up there.”

Helping him up, you nod. “And you will, let me close that wound off and give you something for the pain and we'll go back up there.”

“Y/N, you can't—”

“We will go up there.” the fire in your eyes makes him obey. “Sit down, I'll make this quick but not painless.”

He flops down, masking the pain with a grimace. Inhaling, he continues. “I let MJ in.”

You pause for a second before taking the metal poker. “Even after seeing all the bloody signs.” He sighs. “Maybe I am blind.”

You hold his face tenderly. “You were, but you still have a chance to change that. You can still help your crew. Make it right for their sake.”

He holds the back of your neck, kneading the skin with his bloodied fingers. “I don't regret letting you stay.”

You look at him apologetically. “You will after this.” Shoving the leather pot holder in his mouth, moving aside his clothes. “Inhale” you place the hot poker directly on his bullet wound, cauterizing the gaping hole.

It sizzles, Hobie holds on to your sides tightly, bunching up the fabric in his hands. Muffled screams eaten up by the leather in his mouth.

You move the rod away once it's done. Hobie's eyes roll in the back of his head. Slapping him lightly, he wakes back up.

“Stay awake, hey. Look at me.” He stares at you through half-lidded eyes. “There you are, captain.” You smile to reassure him. He gives you a tired nod. “Now for the exit wound.”

Hobie inhales, more than ready this time around. His skin is clammy, eyes red from the brimming tears. He clenches his entire body, determined to get it over with. Twisting around in his seat, he hopes the ship doesn't rock as you push the searing metal poker on the back of his shoulder.

With a muffled yell from him, you take the tool away, letting it cool down. Moving his head with your hand, you look at him apologetically.

“I'm sorry, if I warned you first you would've flinched.”

Hobie spits the leather out of his mouth, patting your cheek with his sweaty hand, he leaves it there, stroking your skin.

“I wouldn't have flinched.” He chuckles through the searing pain.

“Of course you wouldn't.” You hold his hand that's on top of your cheek. “You did good.”

He laughs, hand leaving your skin to hold your hand instead. “Not the first time I've felt fire.”

You smile, without thinking, you lay your forehead on his as more cannonballs fly around the revenge.

“You did good too.” He whispers. Eyes closed, he leans away. “Now get me something for the pain and let's get the bastard.”

You smile, nodding to him. Taking a bottle from your bag, you rub mint oil on his upper lip, igniting his nerves, keeping him awake.

“That's the only thing I have that could help. I can't give you alcohol.”

Hobie tentatively stands up, “Maybe after this then.” He groans, slightly limping. “���m gonna need an entire crate of ‘em.” he thinks adrenaline is enough to keep him on his feet.

He faces you, a ghost of a smile on his pained face. Hobie bends at the waist, you scramble to help him but he refuses with his hand raising to stop you. Taking something from inside his boot, he grabs a shiny and slender thing.

“Here.” Hobie hands a silver dagger to you, intricate carvings of a turtle and a sea snake looping around the glimmering handle. “Somethin’ to defend yourself.”

“Are you sure? It looks—”

“I don't mind givin’ it to you.” He closes your hand around the hilt. “Make sure this one hits his neck this time.”

“I will.” Your eyes fill with determination, adrenaline still coursing through you.

He wobbles towards the door, sparing you a smile on the way.

“Hobie,” you call after him. “Continue your story after this?”

“Only if you tell me yours.” He looks over his shoulder, giving you the same smile he always has.

You scoff with a small smile, “Maybe I will.”

“Let's fuckin’ go and be pirates then.”

—

Getting up the deck was tedious work with all the rocking and shifting from the ship and the wild waves, add that with all the cannon balls whizzing past, it was like riding an angry bull. Meeting halfway with Karl on the way there made it easier, filling your chest with hope.

“Where's Robbie?!” He frantically yells, forehead bleeding, hands gripping Hobie's vest.

“I-I don't know.” Karl's face falls. “But we'll find him, I know he got out.”

“Got out from what?” His voice trembles, “what happened, Hobie?”

Hobie holds his friend’s wrist, “I'm sorry.” Karl weeps. “Go find Robbie and your crew.” He shakes his head. “And get the hell out of here, he's after me not you.”

Karl's eyes fill with tears, flicking towards you who look on with sad eyes. “What about you and the others?”

“We'll find a way out. We always do, remember?” Hobie reassures him with a smile. “Take one of my dinghies, and row the hell out of here.” he takes Karl's hands away from his vest. “We'll see you back at the old place, yeah?”

“You fucking better, Hobart or I'll drown you myself.” Karl takes your hand briefly, nodding. “I hope I see you again, doc.”

“Me too, captain. Find Robbie.”

You part ways with Karl, praying that he finds Robbie and what remains of his men.

“Ready, trouble?” Hobie gets your attention by brushing his pinky against the back of your hand.

“I'm right behind you.”

—

It's war.

The moment Hobie opened the door to the deck you smell petrichor and blood in the air.

You get a glimpse of the battle before he could shut the doors. Bodies, both pirates and navy alike lay motionless on the floor. The sound of thunder mixes in with the pained yells, flashes of lightning illuminates the night sky and you see the faces of the dead clearly.

Two-fingers lay face first on the deck, arms bent at an angle, blood pooling from his head. Through the smoke and splintered wood, Foul screams when a sword plunges through his heart, silencing him immediately. Danny takes a bullet for Finn who promptly avenges him with his cutlass, swiftly separating the man's head from his body.

One face you were hoping was among the dead was missing. Mathias isn't on board.

Something flashes in his eyes when he looks at you. Grabbing your arm, he leans in, your heart stops.

Hobie moves past your head to press his forehead on your shoulder. Bathing in your presence, hand squeezing your skin

“Hobie?”

He smiles, moving his hand up to cup your jaw. Chuckling, he cleans his dried blood off your cheek with his thumb. “Do me a favour, Scuttlebutt?”

“What is it? We need to get up there!”

Hobie ignores you, leaning away. “Survive for me would you? Live, find your family. Promise me.” He sniffs, eyes glinting.

“What?”

“Just promise me, trouble.” He shakes you.

“Alright I promise. Can we—”

“I'm sorry.”

“What—?” Hobie pushes you hard, you fall off the steps, landing on your behind, he exits without looking back, shutting the doors closed. “What the fuck?!”

You rattle the doorknob but it's no use, he locked it on the outside. Frustrated, you try to kick in the door, hurting yourself from the hard wood.

“Fuck! Hobie!” You bang the door, peeking through the keyhole you see carnage as Hobie makes quick work of the remaining men. “Let me help!”

The sound of cannon balls going off almost deafens your eardrums. If only you had your lockpick you could open it.

Your lockpick.

It's a stretch but you still run towards your cabin, feet thudding loudly, echoing around the hallways that you've memorized.

You feel relieved after seeing your door. Shouldering it open, you frantically search for the metal on the shelves. The tip of it scratches your hand but you don't care, already bolting off towards the exit. Running off with your bag tied around you, hoping the medical kit inside is enough to treat the wounded, you hold the lockpick in your hand while you run.

Your hope dwindles with every cannon hitting the ship.

Doors whizz past, ankle stinging, the sounds of screams and gunfire makes you sprint faster.

You don't notice the blood soaked hulking man leaving Hobie's cabin.

Running into him, you stagger, tumbling down, heart falling into your stomach as he looks down at you through his nose.

“Hello there.”

Scrambling to get to your feet, you slide under his legs, stabbing his achilles heel with your lockpick. The man screams in agony, you take the opportunity to sprint like you've never ran before. You'd take running away from O’hara any day.

Your lungs scream for you to stop, but you go on as you hear thundering stomping behind you.

There's no exit and you can't run forever.

The metallic click rings behind you, rounding the corner, you barely dodge the bullet aimed at you, nicking your hip.

“Shit!” You almost fall yet you continue on, entering the library, you shut the doors behind you, locking it swiftly.

Lifting your hand away, the sight of your own blood turns your fear into fury. With your trembling hands, you unsheathe the dagger from your belt.

You have a promise to keep, and you never break a promise.

Hiding behind the armchair you always sat on, you crouch down, gripping the dagger, ready to strike like a viper in the sand.

You look back on what she taught you, “Strike fast and hit hard. Don't give them a chance to get back up.” her voice whispers it to you and you intend to follow it.

The door bursts open, splintering the wood to a thousand pieces.

“The captain wants you alive, little birdy. This doesn't have to hurt if you just come with me, eh?” You hear him chuckle lowly, blatantly lying to you.

His heavy footsteps thud closer.

You use the shadows as your guide, the oil lamp left open on the corner table does the work. For once you thank Gwen for forgetting to close the light.

“I can help with your wound. Glue your wings back together again” he whistles. “The red hydra can't help you with that but I can. I'm a surgeon you see.” Getting closer and closer, you time your strike right.

You come out of your hiding place with a battle cry. Still crouches down, “I highly doubt that!” Slicing his tendons in one quick movement. The second he falls to his knees, you stab him in the neck.

Stepping back, he chokes in his own blood. With wide eyes you flinch when he stands, seemingly unaffected but his shaking pupils say otherwise. With a garbled noise from your assailant, he reaches for you.

“What the fuck?!”

With a split second decision, you dodge his hands, moving backwards, throwing books from the shelves which bounce almost harmlessly on his head and body.

There's a loud thrumming sound outside, its warbling is almost mechanical but definitely something an animal could've made.

He heard it too, pausing in his movement for a second before he lunged towards you. With a scream, your back against the corner, he jumps you.

Your head hits the wall in an ugly crunch, seeing stars, sliding down the wall, landing on the floor, he chokes you with his bare hands. Indistinct noises escape from his mouth, your dagger nowhere to be found in his throat. His entire body hides anything in front of you, drowning your vision, filling it with your murderer. His blood drips down on your face, almost drowning you in it.

You know he's running on fumes but based on your vision fading, lungs gasping for air, you think you'd go out first before him.

Hands grazing something metallic on the floor next to you, you inch your fingers towards it. Finally finding your grip, you smack it on his head.

You've got a promise to keep after all.

He yells, the oil from the lamp spreading on his skin and clothes, engulfing him in flames.

You frantically roll away, killing the fire clinging to your clothes until there's nothing left but burned cloth.

The flames light up the entire room in orange and reds, the paper around him helps feed the fire as he tries to desperately put it out.

There's that thrumming again.

You watch on, holding your tender neck. Your face is flat, eyes reflecting the fire that's quickly eating at the man. Fabric burns on his flesh, flesh turns into charred muscle, the fire eats at that too until he falls, silence hanging in the room except for the fire cackling, ashes and flames surrounding his corpse.

You stand up, ratty shoes stepping over fire to grab the fallen dagger with a thick cloth from your bag.

For a second you stand amidst the fire.

The thrumming outside and the warmth wakes you up, flames licking at your clothes, it's heat scorching your skin, nose filling with smoke. Even with all the pain you still escape with your life, determined to keep your promise.

Running outside the former library, the cracking of splintering wood fills your ears, you instinctively dodge, backing away before the mast of the revenge falls on your head.

Shielding your face, you cower. The mast stills, sharp wood lay next to your feet. Tentatively opening your eyes, the sounds from above are clearer in your ears, all the screams and guns going off, you hear it loud and clear that you can decipher whose screams belong to whom.

The fog enters below deck through the gaping hole left by the broken mast. All the while, the smoke from the library rises up, replacing the mist.

Your exit.

You don't hesitate to climb up. Jagged edges of sharp wood rip amd snag your clothes, stabbing your skin. Finding leverage, you manage to prop yourself up on the deck, meeting face to face with a lifeless Ned.

The light in his eyes is gone, unsung music escaping from his open lips. Skin dirtied by flowing ichor.

You don't hear anything else other than skin meeting skin in a brutal dance.

“No.” You quickly jump up, leaving the fire behind you to consume, to devour what's left of the revenge. “Ned?”

Desperately feeling for a pulse, your heart wretches in your throat, saliva filling your mouth, bile rising up from your gut.

There's no pulse.

With a choked sob, you close his eyes for him. The sound of wet punching makes you turn to your side. Hobie's eyes are wild, vicious and desperate, bloodied knuckles pummeling the man under him. Skin broken, nose cracked, skull open for the world to see. Yet, Hobie doesn't stop even with the obvious signs of death. Fueled by rage, he paints the wooden floorboards with the man's brain.

It all feels sickenly real, your heart is still beating in sync with his punches but there's so much death around you that you feel like you're a part of the dead. Blood and smoke filling your senses, adrenaline slowly washed away like the tides.

You're sitting in a graveyard and nobody else has noticed.

“Hobie.”

His fists pound harshly through the man's head, splintered wood now embedded in his skin.

You apprehensively crawl towards him, your various injuries aching, blood seeping out from your hip. The chaos around you still continues on while he still doesn't stop.

“Hobie—” your fingers brush his arm, he flinches back, fist raised to knock you out. But he halts, knuckles kissing the tip of your nose, painting it with crimson.

With wide eyes, he heaves, muscles tensed, grief all over his expression. You shove your fear down, holding his raised knuckles, moving it away gently. You hold his face in your other hand, smearing the fresh ichor on his cheeks, staining your own skin.

“It's done, he's dead.” You nod, caressing his face, turning it away from the carnage below him. “Hobie,” you unclench his fist carefully, shattered bone and hair sticking to him. With a shallow breath, you let the tears flow on your cheeks. “He's dead.”

His face flashes with fury only to be triumphed over by misery. With a heavy heart, he nods.

Behind Hobie, a uniformed man raises his pistol, without a second thought, you take the golden blunderbuss from his waist, hastily aiming it directly at the man's head.

Your ears ring, the smoke from the gun blinds you for a second before you see your target fall dead with a bullet right between his eyes, blood splattering like fireworks from his head.

Hobie looks at you in surprise, taking his gun away from you carefully. Hands soft on your raised skin. He pats your cheek and you could only shake your head.

“We need to—” the ship collides with something, Hobie holds you close, covering you away from debris. With his embrace, he protects you. Scarred hand on the back of your head, face hiding in the crook of your neck. Leather, sea salt and blood invades your senses.

The hellion is once again looming over the revenge, its golden façade cracking under the damage made by Hobie's ship.

Mathias shows himself, looking worse for wear, he wobbles on two feet, clutching his injuries.

You hear footsteps around you, raising your head, eyes widening at what's left of the crew, they stand behind you and Hobie. Wiping blood off their faces, reloading their guns, sharpening their swords. The red sails of the people's revenge still fly above, more than ready to take what they're owed, no matter what it takes.

Gwen's blond hair is dipped in ruby red, hands tight around her blunderbuss. Miles wipes his face clean, stepping next to Gwen with clenched jaw. Pavitr stands directly behind you, face covered in what you hoped to be someone else's blood. He nods, reassuring you.

Yuri and James take one look at Ned, their expression alone could make you weep again. Finn, crouches down next to you, nodding wordlessly, blue eyes glossy.

Hobie exhales, with shaky legs he stands up, helping you back to your feet. Gripping your knife, you scowl at the man above.

“How cute. The power of friendship isn't enough to save you.” Mathias says through gritted teeth.

The rest of his crew arrives, there's less ships than before, proving how the bloodsail pirates is a force to be reckoned with. They have what Mathias doesn't have, giving them something worth fighting for.

Mathias nods, signaling his ship to turn their cannons towards you and your family.

You step in front of Hobie. “I have a proposition!” Yelling above the rain and metallic clanking, you push away Hobie's hand from your shoulder.

“What is it?” The man rolls his eyes, looking incredibly bored. “We can't be here all night.”

“Me,” the crew voices their concerns, Hobie takes your hand, face terrified.

You smile, “it's alright.” Whispering to him and the crew only. With tearful eyes, you turn back to the devil above. “You seem like you really want me, so fucking take me instead. Let them go.”

You feel the heat beneath your feet. The fire devours everything just a few feet below you.

They all yell your name behind you. Protests fill your ears but you choose to ignore them. You feel his calloused fingers squeeze your hand.

The man guffaws, “Holy shit! You like them that much?” He observes Hobie's contorted face.

“You like her that much?” He chuckles. “You know what? I don't even want you that much, sure, get on up here, birdy!”

There's that thrumming and warbling again. It's much clearer now that you're above, it seems like it's coming from beneath the ship.

“Come here and take me then!” The rain mixes in with your salty tears. Raising your arms, shoving everyone away, you taunt him. “But let them go or I'll plunge this dagger through your eye!”

“Christ, you're as insane as him. Perfect for eachother eh?” he sighs, gesturing for his cannons to cease. “I'm already satisfied even though a few of your men escaped from a dinghy but eh, I'm sure I'll get them soon enough. Just like how I'll get you one day, little pirate. I'm a very patient man, I'll wait three more years if I have to.”

Hobie's face is full of anguish when he swivels you around to look at him. “Don't fuckin' do this. He won't keep his word,” he flicks his eyes to Mathias, then back to you, grey eyes darker than before. “the moment you step foot on that ship he'll kill you.” his mind comes back to that fateful day.

He can't let that happen again, not to you.

You look at him softly. “I know, but I'll make it hard for him, that'll give you enough time to escape. Hobie, I have nothing else, just this.” swallowing the lump in your throat, there's heat under your eyes. Taking his hand, you squeeze it once. “Let me do this, for you and for them. You still have to get your revenge so let me do this. Don't let him win.”

“You promised.” His voice cracks.

“I don't think I can keep it now.” You flick your eyes behind him, the crew looks on with grief marring their eyes. “They're too young for this, Gwen, Pav and Miles, they deserve to live too.”

You hear the rope fall from the hellion's deck. “I'm glad I got stuck in that net even though you made me walk the plank.” chuckling through the tears, you give them your best smile to remember you by.

“Don't leave.” he pleads.

Sliding your hand away, you take one last look at them, making a sketch of their faces in your mind to remember when the inevitable happens.

“I have to go now or this won't work.”

The captain has no plan on how to fix it, how to fix everything, and he beats himself bloody for it.

Turning around, with every step you take feels heavier than the last. You make amends to her in your mind, praying that it reaches back home. You also thank her, but you don't regret running away that day.

You'll never know what lies for you up north or if there's someone there waiting for you. If there is someone, you apologize to them too.

You leave traces of yourself to the people behind you with the hope you live on through those pieces. That at least they won't forget your name.

The howling wind and rain whips at your drenched form, committing the feel of it to memory.

Grabbing the rope, you fight the urge to look behind.

“Hurry up, birdy!” Mathias cackles. “Come on then—!”

The thrumming is deafening, everything seems to freeze mid motion.

Giant mounds of flesh rise up from the water. Snake-like features curl above, rising to the heavens, cutting through the grey clouds.

You can't help but be mesmerized by the beauty of it. Iridescent scales glimmer against the lightning, cracked scales teeming in gold. the lightning bolts ricochet off their scaly skin, unharmed.

More serpents appear from the depths, towers of scaled flesh. They rain sea water from above, dripping from their massive bodies.

One curls just above the hellion, opening its eyes, revealing an entire ocean in its orbs.

You can't stop looking at it, petrified.

���Dragons.” You say in awe.

“Y/N!” Hobie races towards you. His hand brushes against your shirt, so close yet so far.

You get yanked up with the hellion, grip still frozen on the ropes. Holding on for life, the beast has curled around the ship, in your peripheral you see men jumping off, splashing down into the depths, taking their chances in the cold.

Facing the creature, they trill and thrum, crushing the hellion and the navy ships in their massive jaws and swirling flesh.

You wake up from the trance they had you in, almost losing your grip off the rope.

“No!” You screech, saving yourself, arm socket straining against your weight. Twirling the rope around your hand, you tie it just like how they taught you.

Palms burning on the hemp, looking down, you're hanging high above the revenge. You watch as the crew frantically unties a dinghy while Hobie and Finn stay behind, they're too far for you to make out what they're doing.

Your only chance is to jump in the water but you know that'll be the end of you.

Water parts for something swimming fast under the water, it moves towards the Revenge. You scream their names in an attempt to warn them.

“Gwen!” Your throat struggles from the screaming. “Brace yourselves!”

The serpent crashes on the starboard side, away from where the small boat hangs. Hobie clings to the remaining mast, knife in his hand. Heart pounding, you watch as Gwen runs towards Hobie, he yells, she shakes her head but in the end she bolts for the dinghy. You nod, hoping she saw that you forgave her.

The beast constricts around the helion, crashing the oak and its gilded carvings in its wrapped body.

You sway in the wind with the serpent’s movements, praying that the rope hangs on to the figure head. The figure head of an angel looks down at you, lifeless eyes observing your slow demise.

This is the end for you, you've never thought you'd be killed by a mythical being turned into reality but here you are, hanging on by a thread, waiting for death to come.

With one last glimpse at the revenge, you see the fire finally reaching above deck. Gwen and the others lower down on the dinghy while Hobie grabs onto a rope, cutting the knot off the steel rings, remembering James' teachings, if he keeps doing that he’ll get yanked up, and with the wild wind, it will surely be a disaster.

You yell his name in a futile attempt to stop his effort at saving you.

Finn raises something in his hands, heaving it over his shoulder.

You sharply turn your head when a snapping sound fills your ears. The hemp untangles, with the rope breaking in the middle, you close your eyes.

The sea serpent lets out a guttural scream, the sound alone sends shivers down your spine. It uncurls around the hellion and you get a glimpse of a sharp harpoon sticking out from its eye.

Falling with the hellion, the serpent's eyes turn from blue to a bloody red, bathing everything in its gaze in crimson. it's the last thing you see before you shut your eyes.

You feel a familiar arm around your middle, looking over your shoulder, you think you've already died.

“I've got you!” Hobie yells, with him carrying you and his hand grasping on the rising rope, he struggles to hold on.

So you help him, wrapping your arm behind him, you hold the rope in the other, face close to his as you two fly above the revenge, swinging and whipping uncontrollably in the storm.

The beast trills, jaw unhinging, its rows of shark like teeth in full display.

“Shit!” Hobie manipulates the rope to swing you two away from its sharp teeth.

It fails to catch you, instead it turns its attention to Finn on the deck.

“Finn! Run!” Your blood curdling scream gets his attention, yet he pays no heed.

But everyone already knows it's too late, with one last fight in him, he raises his harpoon, yelling, meeting the serpent's opened mouth halfway.

It swallows him whole.

You just stare at where Finn once stood, he leaves patches of his ichor on the floor.

The revenge sinks, fire and water engulfing Hobie's home, your home.

“Love!” The name rots in his mouth, it gets you out of your frozen state. “I—”

The last standing mast cracks and breaks apart. You lose your grip on Hobie.

And you fall once again. For a second you fly, eyes peering towards the clearing sky, with white clouds in your vision, you brace for impact.

“MJ!”

That's the last thing you hear as you fall in the depths in a harsh splash.

A/N: so sorry for the late update!! Hope you like it 🫶 (if i forgot to put any warnings on the tags please tell me)

[short-honey-badger]

Peppermint Tea 26 - Lavender 7

Okay. Another update! This chapter has been in the works for a bit. Working on it on and off when I can between other parts.

Shanks gets his turn with our lovely devil fruit user. This is filthy, and I introduce some kinks I've never written for.

Warnings! SMUT! SMUT! Shanks is kinda rough. A little mean? Spit kink. Face fucking. Alcohol. Cum eating

Masterlist

Two days after he calls the cottage, Shanks arrives at your island. He relaxes the moment his chocolate eyes land on the white beaches and the familiar mountains to the west. Benn rolls his eyes at his Captain but can't find it in himself to be too upset with the other man. The first mate enjoyed your island, too. Its peacefulness was unparalleled.

A smile curls his lips when Shanks spots a ship in the shape of a coffin moored at the end of the white sands. He knew that Mihawk would be here. The other man had been the one to answer his call the other day, after all. It wasn’t often that the three of them had the chance to spend time together. Mihawk, while aloof and sarcastic about it all, still had his duties as a warlord.

He had explained to Shanks that the position kept him in the know-how but still allowed him the freedom he desired. The redhead had shrugged and nodded, assuring Mihawk that it was a smart choice, but he wasn’t about to let something like the World Government get in his way if it became a problem. Dracule had blushed and spluttered that He did what he wanted, regardless of what those pigs said, and then stormed off to find you and soothe his irritation with the Emperor.

Shanks smirks at the memory, coming back to himself in time to help his crew unload before Benn waves him off, a fond look on the older man’s face. The redhead doesn’t need to be told twice and quickly disappears up the well-worn footpath, shoulders slumping, and an invisible weight lifting when your cottage comes into sight. A delighted laugh breaks from him when he catches sight of what greets him.

You and Mihawk are elbow-deep in the front garden, dirt staining both of their hands. Hank jumps up the moment he spots the redhead, running over to greet his second favorite human with a happy woof. Shanks pets the shaggy dog, greeting him with a little bit of baby talk and telling Hank how good of a boy he is. When Hank is happy, he flops back to the ground with a long sigh, and the Emperor continues to the garden.

Shanks is careful where he steps, not wanting to have both of his treasures on his ass if he were to trample the garden. You stand and greet him, smile wide and radiant, and Shanks doesn't waste any time in pulling you in for a kiss. Your lips welcome him, and the Emperor sags, invisible weight leaving his shoulders as you kiss him back.

Mihawk is next, facial hair scratching against the other man's for but a second before the bird pulls away far too soon. Shanks pouts a bit and gets flicked in the forehead for his troubles.

“Welcome home, trouble,” Mihawk murmurs, and despite his uninterested tone, Shanks can see the pleased look in the hawk’s golden eyes.

“How was your trip?” You chime in and press yourself into his side, and Shanks’ heart could explode from how adorable you look.

“Not bad. Good weather, and the sea must be in a pleasant mood,” He comments and looks down at you. He takes in your appearance, brows notching up when he realizes that you aren't as cold, and you have less on than usual. Actually, “Is that my shirt?”

“Yup. It's very breathable,” you pop the p, but your admission just makes him grin, greed shining in his eyes as he gently tugs you away to get a better look. His shirt swallows you, the front dripping low and giving Shanks an excellent view of your perky tits. You look different, but in a good way as if a light was shining from within. He glances at Mihawk, curious if the other man had noticed the change, and relaxes when the warlord comes to his side, reaching out to tuck a lock of hair behind your ear.

“She's been practicing like we said to. How did you explain it to me, Angel?” Mihawk says, and you blush at having both of their attention on you.

You tell Shanks about practicing your devil fruit and how you began to feel better once you started to use it more often. You explain how your body evened out, as you liked to put it, and Shanks could hear the excitement lining your voice. It makes him happy to know that you had practiced your powers and seemed to be better than ever.

“That’s great, sweetheart,” Shanks grins down at you, reaching out to slide his hand along your neck, gently cradling your jaw. His grin grows when you nuzzle into him, and he strokes his thumb over the line of your jaw, “How about you finish up here, and then you can show me what you can do?”

You nod, joy erupting inside of you at the suggestion, “It won’t take too long, we are almost done,” you assure him, and Shanks nods then carefully steps out of the garden to mosey inside the cottage.

It doesn't take long for Mihawk to join him in the house. He goes straight to the kitchen, washing his hands of any dirt before he puts the kettle on. Shanks steps into the kitchen, coming up behind the older man, reaching out to curl his hand around Dracule's hip. He molds himself along the warlord’s back, tucking his face in the crook of his neck.

“She really okay?” Shanks murmurs, and busies himself with pressing kisses to the back of Mihawk's neck while he waits.

Mihawk slowly relaxes against the other man, still getting used to being able to do this with the other man after so many years apart. His hand finds the one his hip, and he gently squeezes his wrist in reassurance, “She is. She's gotten stronger and would be formidable with real training.”

Shanks hums, disliking the thought of you having to fight. Dracule tightens his grip around his wrist, and Shanks knows that the warlord agrees with him. Mihawk sighs softly, head tilting back to rest against Shanks as he continues, “Mhm. I'd rather not, but if she wants to learn, then I won't hinder her progress.”

“You? A teacher?” Shanks teases gently and pinches his waist with a smirk, “Couldn't imagine it.”

Mihawk scoffs at the redhead, eyes rolling skyward, “Considering Roronoa is well on his way to being second to only, Me. I think that already proves that I can be one.”

Shanks snickers at the miffed pride that laces his treasures’ voice. Mihawk was always so fun to rile up. He gently turns the other man, he reaches up, tucking his knuckle under that perfect beard, and kisses the other man, a gentle push and pull that had Mihawk sighing and sliding one hand into Shanks’ hair.

He has missed the warlord. How had he allowed so much time to pass without finding the other man, Shanks didn't know, but now that he had him? Shanks would never let him go again.

Dracule rests his brow against the Emperor��s, breath mingling with the other man's. He licks his lips and catches the taste of sweet sake. He searches the other's dark eyes, and Shanks catches sight of the devious, smug look that swims in Mihawk's own.

“What's that look for, Baby?” Shanks murmurs curiously, brow ticking up at the other man.

Mihawk leans in, kissing the redhead again, and Shanks can feel the smirk that lingers on his lips. The redhead feels like he is missing something here, especially when you appear in the kitchen, a mischievous grin playing on your face. He watches you wash your hands and then takes the kettle from the stove when it begins to whistle, eyes following you even as he continues the kiss with his warlord.

And then Dracule is pulling away, and leaving Shanks standing there like a knot on a log as his treasures dither about, moving past one another with a close familiarity that the redhead silently envies. He does get the chance to pout about it, not when you step in front of him and grab his lonely hand, “Come sit, Shanks. Mihawk brought your favorite while he was out.”

Shanks allows himself to be pulled to the table, and he sits, eyebrows shooting up when you follow him, sitting on his lap and leaning into his chest. Mihawk comes around and places a steaming cup of sweet chamomile beside the shallow bowl full of sake. You help yourself to your tea and then sit back again, head pillowed against The redhead’s pecs.

“Alright you two. What is this about?” Shanks rumbles, and he reaches for his sake, sipping most of it down in one go, “I'm being left out here.”

Dracule shares a look with his angel, and you look so excited that he dips his head, and you say, softer with a voice so full of affection that it makes Mihawk blush.

“Mihawk and I had sex.”

Shanks looks at Dracule and now realizes why the man had looked so smug earlier. In fact. He looked even more so now, those beautiful ringed eyes glowing with it. A slow smile begins to form, sharp white teeth gleaming in the light of your kitchen. His sake dish is sat down with a click that seems to echo in the room, and Shanks curls his arm around your waist, pulling you closer to grind his already hardening dick into the soft cheeks of your ass.

He presses his face against yours, lips finding your cheek, and Mihawk speaks up, making the grin on the Emperor’s lips grow, “It's only fair you have your turn, Red.”

-------------

“Suck my cock, treasure, and I'll give you exactly what you want,” Shanks orders, voice rough and dangerous. He grabs your chin with two fingers, pulling your mouth open, “I'll even help you out, Sweetheart. Stick out your tongue for me.”

Mihawk watches from where he sits in his armchair in the corner of the room. He sips his red wine, the alcohol staining his lips. His golden gaze never once leaves his two angels, and despite his cock hard and aching in his pants, he does not touch it.

You are hesitant to do as ordered, cheeks darkening, but you see the expectation lingering in his dark gaze. You do as ordered, jaw clicking as you stick your tongue out for him. You blush furiously when Shanks leans closer and opens his mouth, pink muscle lolling out and dribbling an obscene amount of saliva onto your tongue, “Don't swallow that.”

You breathe heavily through your nose, tears gathering at the corners of your eyes, and focus on not gagging.

“Take my dick outta my pants, Baby,” Shanks instructs quietly and licks his lips, enjoying the way that you are struggling with his orders. Your hands are shaking when they land on his pants, you feel your way up to the elastic and then pull them down, whining when his cock slips out and smacks you in the cheek.

“Shanks,” Mihawk warns quietly from his corner. He had given his word that he wouldn't step in, but that wouldn't stop him from speaking up if he deemed the redhead being too rough.

“She's fine, Hawkeye. She can do it,” Shanks dismisses easily when he glances down to see a new light of determination in your eyes, “Right, sweetheart?”

Shanks moves your head down in a nod before tipping your face towards his length. He groans when you grab the base, and then you are leading his cock past your lips, tongue sliding wonderfully alongside the bottom of his shaft. You take him down to about halfway before you start to choke. Shanks is thicker than Mihawk, making your jaw ache already.

“Relax your throat, Angel,” Mihawk speaks up from his spot and you flick your eyes over to see him uncrossing his legs, and it gives you a good view of the tent in the seat of his pants.

You work to do as he says, glassy eyes closing as you concentrate on your task. Shanks slips another inch down, and then another until the tip of his cock slips past the muscles at the back of your mouth and into your throat. A muffled whine leaves you at the painful stretch and the ache in your jaw gets worse, but your free hand grabs the fabric of his pants to keep him from pulling away.

“Fuck, Treasure,” Shanks snarls lowly, and his hand find the back of your head, And he tangles his long fingers in your hair, “Doing so good for us, listening to Mihawk so well.”

The praise feels good, and you feel yourself growing wet, slick clinging to your exposed folds. You swallow around Shanks, sucking in a sharp break when he humps forward, pressing your face to his pelvis. You work your tongue along the bottom, and Shanks pulses in your mouth when you hollow your cheeks and suck as best you can being so stuffed full.

Spit and precum leak and bubble past your lips, and soon your tears mingle with the mess when the Emperor grows impatient with your slow pace. You can do nothing but relax your jaw and breathe through your nose as Shanks fucks your face. He moans and groans above you, the sounds that leave him are lewd, and listening to him has your cunt clenching longingly around nothing.

Dracule watches, golden eyes heavy lidded, and swirling with lust and want. He wants to step in. Wants to stand behind Shanks and wrap his hand around the base of his cock, and help the redhead paint you with his seed. His hands ache, and he occupies himself by playing with the stem of his wine glass.

Your eyes flutter, jaw on fire, and time seems lost to you. Shanks uses you for his own gain, seeking his pleasure until that coil snaps low in his stomach. The sound he makes is more animalistic than human, and you aren't expecting him to pull out so suddenly and angle your face up. You gasp when you feel the first splash of hot cum on your cheek, and quickly close your eyes when more rushes toward you.

Shanks never looks away, dark eyes full of adoration for you. You look beautiful like this, all painted up and dripping with his cum. He milks himself, not wanting any of it to go to waste. He presses the head of his cock to your lips, and you automatically open your mouth for him, “Clean me up, Sweetheart.”

You flush as you do as ordered, cleaning his softening member until nothing but your spit remains. Shanks watches with a smirk, and then glances over at Mihawk, expression turning greedy once more, and he crooks a finger at the other man, “Come clean her up, Baby I know you want to.”

Dracule licks his lips, tempted by the offer. He sets his glass aside and then stands to lope closer, taking in the delightful sight of you covered in the other man's semen. Mihawk leans down to help you stand, and then he takes your face in both hands, holding you still.

“Keep your eyes closed, Angel,” Mihawk murmurs, and then he is leaning in. The wet drag of his tongue makes you jump, and you hear the warlord hum at the taste of cooling cum. Dracule takes his time, hot tongue lapping at the cloudy fluid, until nothing remains. The act is lewd and intimate, and it's enough to have you whining and clutching at Dracule's loose shirt. When he is finished, Mihawk seals his lips to yours, and you moan at the taste of the wine and Shanks that still clings to his tongue.

Shanks moves behind you, hand sliding between your legs and fingertips finding your clit. He massages the sensitive nub, smirking when he hears a muffled moan leave you. He slides past your clit, calloused digits gliding through your folds and slicking them with your juices. He finds your entrance, and slides in one soaked finger to the knuckle.

“Can't believe that you let Mihawk fuck you without me here, Snowflake,” Shanks croons, tone full of disappointment, “Couldn't let me be here to watch him take you for the first time.

He slips another finger in beside the first, stroking and rubbing your velvety walls. Your hands tighten, nails digging into the thick muscles of Dracule's abdomen. Those skilled, sinful digits find your sweet spot, and Shanks proceeds to bully that spot, making you cry out and bow forward. The pleasure is immense, almost too much. His thumb catches your clit, and that heat winds and winds until it breaks and you gush all over his hand.

It's an embarrassing amount, but this isn't the first time that Shanks had shoved his fingers inside you this evening and ripped an orgasam from your body. Your body is overworked, cunt sore, and you are so glad that Mihawk is there to hold you up. His hands support you, and he pets your hair as he leans in to kiss the top of your head.

“Look at that. At least your body knows how to tell me how sorry it is for not letting me watch,” Shanks croons, tone still cruel, but the way he removes his fingers is nothing but gentle.

The Emperor gathers you close, and Mihawk steps away when he is sure that you are able to stand without help. Your legs still shake, tremors make your thighs gently jiggle, and it only gets worse when Shanks carefully leads you over to the bed and then bends you over the side of it. He shucks his pants off and kicks them to the side before draping himself over your sweat slick body.

“I'm going to fuck you now, okay, Sweetheart,” Shanks coos in your ear and nudges your legs apart, spreading you nicely for him. He takes his cock in hand, rubbing it though your puffy folds before he begins to push forward. You whine at the intrusion, walls stretching more than they are used to as Shanks presses in.

“Slower, Shanks,” Mihawk rumbles from his seat. His eyes track the way the other man's cock slips inside your heat.

For once, the redhead listens to the other man and slows to a crawl, Shanks doesn't want to hurt you, and he is thicker than the average man.

“She's like a vice, Mihawk,” Shanks grunts above you and sinks another two inches, and you feel like you're being split open for half a second before the pain bleeds into pleasure. The Emperor groans when he bottoms out, brow pressed to the middle of your back as he rocks back and forth. He is already so fucking close, having edged himself twice when you'd been on your knees, so Shanks knows that he isn't going to last long, but he will feel you come on his cock.

A shout tears out of your throat when your Emperor suddenly ruts forward, and pleasure zings up your spine at his brutal pace. His hand finds your hair, tangling in the stands and forcing your face down into the mattress.

“Gonna fill you up, baby,” Shanks snarls against your back, and his pace falters, going erratic. The tip of his cock drags against your sweet spot, and it sends you over once again, dragging Shanks with you.

Shanks swears as he comes, sinking his teeth into the meat of your shoulder blade, hips stuttering as he empties his load. He stays there for a long time, breathing in the scent of sweat and sex before he rises and carefully pulls out. You hiss at the feeling, feeling sticky and fucked out. You don't have the energy to say much of anything as Shanks lifts you the rest of the way onto the bed.

“You okay, baby?” Shanks murmurs, and you muster up enough willpower to nod before your turn to snuggle into the closest pillow. He smiles and gently strokes your hair, pushing it away from your face and admiring your tired beauty.

Mihawk stands, stepping behind Shanks and grabbing the edge of his loose gray shirt and pulling it up and off the other man. He pushes his redhead to the bed and then swiftly undresses himself. Now that Shanks had gotten his fill, Dracule was feeling just a little left out, and he intended to rectify that right now.

You open your eyes enough to see Mihawk pressing Shanks down, long fingers wrapped around the other man's tan throat. Interested, you roll to your side, grabbing the sheets and pulling them around you, a soft smile playing on your lips as you enjoy the show that your boys put on for you. You are noticed eventually and are dragged between them, but no one would ever find you complaining.

@writingmysanity @djbumblebee @goth-mami-writer @myradiaz @fluffybunnyu @bookandstar @foggyturtleknightangel @browneyedhufflepuff @anastasiyax @jaguarthecat

[agent-cupcake]

Flashbang

Chapter 6 - Howl

Spotify Playlist / All Chapters / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 /Chapter 7/ Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 pt.1 / Chapter 9 pt.2 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12

Pairing: One Piece Live Action Buggy x f! Reader

Synopsis: A night of several firsts.

Warnings: Explicit smut, violence/death, dub/noncon, consensual drug use

Word Count: 13.5k

Notes: What do you get when you cross a mentally ill reader with a society that abandons her and treats her like trash? I'll tell ya what you get! You get whatcha fuckin deserve [weird culty clown porn]

“Now I wait as love and fate Echo from your lungs Do you, do you, do you want me, babe?”

xxx

A blood red sun set upon the sea, shining a single golden spotlight across the water as pirates rallied for the Final Call. Not even the wind could cut through the kinetic mist of untapped aggression. The pirate ship was a powder keg of violent energy and artistic ego, pressure building and building for this very moment. The crew was ready and the tides were right and the prey was chosen. All they needed was for the curtain to raise.

When the bell finally rang, it would be a lit match into an oil drum. 

Not that you stayed around to appreciate any of it. You were safely stowed below long before the first cannon was fired. Like everything else on the ship, the brig had once been a neat, utilitarian holding cell. Time had worn the wood and metal, lending it a creepy, haunted atmosphere, the cramped space a graveyard of abandoned props. The scent of rust and aging wood and thick salty stale rot was borderline suffocating, the air holding you in a shivering cold vice. 

All you could do was pull your jacket closer, trying to get as comfortable as possible on top of one of the many prop chests. It was claustrophobically slotted between a barrel filled with batons and a drum that had a violent gash through the top, but it was one of the only places in the room where you couldn’t see your distorted reflection in the cracked funhouse mirror. 

Even though everyone assured you it would be an easy victory, even though you had seen Captain Buggy’s Devil Fruit ability, and even though you had witnessed the chaos of the assault on Barley Village, you worried for the crew. You didn’t know how to pray, or even what higher power might protect pirates, but you closed your eyes and hoped very fervently that your new friends and your captain would be fine.

Anything else was unthinkable.

After that, there wasn’t anything to do other than hunker down and endure the night. You thought that since you had seen the violence in Barley Village, that you wouldn’t be as affected by it now, especially since you couldn’t see anything. You thought that you were ready for the shockwave impact of cannons. You thought that it would be okay because you were stronger now. 

Maybe, on some level, that was true, but when you heard and felt that first boom your body responded with the unrestrained panic of a wild animal. If you hadn’t peed before you hid away, you would have pissed yourself in pure terror. All at once, your breathing became fast and shallow, your heart pounding in your chest, a cold sweat coating your body. Then there was another boom. And another BOOM and muscles you weren’t aware of until that moment began to tense and quiver, your lungs seizing as if in the throes of hysterical weeping, dragging in air only to regurgitate with a spasming violence. 

It was fine. It was nothing like that day. It was fine. Why would you even think of it now? It was fine. It was entirely different. It was fine.

It was fine and yet your body curled up into a ball with your arms around your head and chin tucked against your knees, your eye wide yet dry, your mouth gaping, opening and closing in a desperate attempt to suck in some air. Your brain was on fire and the only thing you could think was that you were going to die. It was as if your body didn’t belong to you, like it had a will of its own, feelings of its own, because you couldn’t understand the reaction, it didn’t make sense. 

As the assault above worked its way down, your lantern frantically swung back and forth in a smear of flame. The metal creaked unhappily, the ship complaining all around you like an unhappy beast. Part of the strategy, you knew, was to limit cannon fire. They didn’t want to destroy the ship they hoped to commandeer. But even after it seemed like all shots had been fired, your body refused to relax. Down here, you had no idea what was happening above. No idea if Captain Buggy was okay, or Crina, or Cabaji, or Pippa, or Marty. You wouldn’t know for a while. Possibly hours. 

If it weren’t for your state of hyperarousal, you might not have noticed the sound from above. A noise, and a scuffling, and then something that might have been footsteps. Was that the hatch opening? 

You held very still, listening intently. Those were footsteps. You weren’t alone. Why? It wouldn’t make sense for anybody to come down here. Not unless something happened. There were plenty of worst case scenarios that could bring somebody down here. 

Covering your face with your arm to stem the ragged gasp of your body trying to get air, you checked to make sure you had the knife Marty had given to you safely in your pocket. You didn’t know what you would do with it, but having a weapon was better than nothing.  

A man jumped down from the steep ladder with a grunt, landing hard. He stood in the shadows, making it hard to parse details, but you had a feeling. A very bad feeling. 

Then, in a moment of true and genuine surrealism, he called your name. Your real name, the one you hadn’t heard since you boarded the ship. He picked his way over to the brig’s holding cell, but the door was too rusty to close, and the inside was filled with more props. You could see him in the funhouse mirror, his image distorted into a creepy facsimile of a human being, his face stretched out and limbs grotesquely skinny. 

You didn’t move, half hoping you would be obscured by the amount of clutter that surrounded you. 

He stepped back, looking around until his eyes met yours. And still, you didn’t move, you could hardly believe it was real.  

“Easy now, I don’t wanna hurt you,” he said, stepping into the light with his hands up. “I’m looking for a girl. A hostage. Real short, one eye.” 

You didn’t say anything, didn’t move, just looked up at him. Your mind screamed run, but your limbs locked up.

The man squinted, leaning forward to get a better look. “Holy shit, it’s you, isn’t it?” 

A little spasm made your body jerk awkwardly, a burst of energy from the part of your mind that wanted to escape.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, holding up his hands to show that they were empty. “I’m here to save you from these freaks.” Your silence made him frown, some of the warmth fading from his voice. “We have to move fast, while they’re all distracted.” He came even closer, reaching out to grab you. 

“No!” you cried, recoiling. “I’m not… I’m not going with you. I don’t need to be rescued.” 

His eyes narrowed, you could practically hear the gears turning in his head. “You’re not their hostage, are you.” 

“No,” you said, once again checking your pocket for the knife, squeezing it so tight that the metal indented your skin. “I won’t go.” 

“Look,” he said, his voice hardening. “Your dad’s offering a lot of money for your safe return, so you’re going to come with me. Is that going to be a problem?” 

“You can’t make me go with you, I won’t,” you said, shrinking back. You were essentially cornered, but you were also closer to the ladder than he was. If you could scramble up and close the hatch, you could find a place to hide. 

“I want you to know that if it were up to me, I’d let it be,” he told you. “But you’ll have to figure that out with your dad.” 

With a burst of energy you didn’t know you had, you sprung up and practically fell off of the chest, scrambling towards the ladder. 

He swore, grabbing you by the arm to jerk you backwards before striking your face. With your momentum broken and then flipped, you couldn’t adjust, going down hard and hitting the floor without feeling much of anything, just the mindless, deafening fire burning up your entire face. You were blind, your right eye streaming, seeing nothing except dark. The man hauled you off of the floor, grabbing your arms to painfully twist them. Your left shoulder socket screamed with red hot pain. That soundly snuffed out any will you had to fight. 

“I’m going to… To wrap you up. Try not to hyperventilate,” he advised, his words muffled beneath the sharp ringing in your ears. You realized that you weren’t blind, you had crashed into the light and shattered it when you fell. The man did as promised, covering you with a sheath of coarse fabric. It smelled dusty and a little rotten, it was probably one of the prop curtains. You didn’t have time to struggle before he threw you onto his shoulder, knocking the wind out of you all over again. 

Blood rushed down into your pounding head, mixing with the potent disorientation of being struck. It pulsed against the burning flesh of your cheek, you could practically feel the swelling. You knew you needed to escape, but if he dropped you while climbing to the upper deck, you could seriously injure yourself. And what good would it do? There was no way you could escape, you would only invite more pain. Maybe some people got used to it. They could take beatings and bear the pain with their teeth grit, but that wasn’t you. Already your head hurt so bad you worried you were going to vomit, your face burned, your left shoulder screamed, and your breathing was dangerously unsteady, muffled and hot in the cocoon of dusty fabric. The pain you felt now was nothing compared to what it could be, you knew that profoundly, and you couldn’t handle that.  

Think. 

You had to think. 

When you gingerly raised your right arm to check, you found that your knife had stayed in your pocket through the ordeal. You couldn’t be stupid about using it. The blade wasn’t long enough to do much damage, the most you could hope for was that it’d give you a chance. 

Even muffled by the curtain and pierced by the sharp ringing in your ears, the sound of the battle was deafening when he reached the upper deck. Your final night in Barley Village had given you a hint of violence’s atonal song, but when the man carried you out of the hatch, it hit with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Screaming, shouting, clanging, popping shots, howling like animals. 

Your kidnapper’s grip on you tightened, although you were less inclined than ever to struggle, your body seizing up in response to the cacophony, withering in fear. You wanted it to stop, you wanted to get out of the noise, to escape to where it was quiet. Not outside quiet, but the inside kind. You could feel it creeping up with its anesthetic-like haze, your mind’s best attempt to protect you from the fear and the pain and the horror. 

No, you couldn’t withdraw. You had to be brave. You would not let him take you back to your dad. You could not let him take you away from Captain Buggy. 

Figuring out where you were was too difficult when there was so much noise and activity. He would be taking you to the Jolly Boats, wouldn’t he? That was the only way to escape. You needed to act while you were around people, where you could escape into the chaos. Better to take your chances amidst a brawl than let him get you onto that boat.

Slowly, you reached into your pocket and found the knife. Moving as little as possible, you worked your arm back down to hang forward. Fumbling blindly, you felt for the notch to flip the blade out, nearly dropping the weapon in the process. But you got it, readjusting the handle to hold it in your fist. Wrapped up like you were, there wasn’t much space for you to get good leverage or hit especially hard, but it was all you had. Biting into the loose fabric of your jacket to keep yourself from vomiting, you slammed your fist into your kidnapper’s back blade first. You imagined Buggy behind you, pulling your hand out to thrust it back in, helping you just like he had on that day. Once, twice, three times and then the man practically threw you off of him with some expletive that you were pretty sure ended in bitch. 

For a second you were falling blindly, wrapped in a suffocating shroud. Then the deck caught the bend of your spine, your momentum rolling you away into a painful sprawl. You fought wildly to free yourself of the fabric, your panicked limbs thrashing desperately. 

“You fucking—you stabbed me?” The man shouted incredulously. You shucked off the dusty cocoon finally, sour bile dribbling out of your mouth as your body finally relented to the stress. You choked and coughed it out, unable to do anything else with the massive jolt of sensory overload. You thought the fighting was loud and frightening from within your curtain cocoon, but it was nothing compared to finding yourself on the deck in the midst of a true hostile takeover. 

The man was right above you when he stopped in his tracks, something emerging from his chest. He looked down at it in surprise, but the blade pulled out just as quickly. He pressed his hand against the stab wound as blood began to gush out, looking more like ink than anything else. 

Before he could do anything, he was stabbed again, the sword sticking through his chest and out the back of his hand. When it pulled up and out, his body followed it. He hit the deck with a heavy thump, his body spasming as it tried to expel the blood in his lungs. Behind him stood your vengeful guardian angel. Cabaji lowered his sword, his expression unchanged as he stalked past your would-be kidnapper.

“Are you alright?” he asked when he was close enough for you to hear him. You stared up at him blankly, unable to comprehend the question. 

The man on deck in front of you wasn’t dead. Even as he choked on his own blood, he went for his weapon. Scowling, Cabaji pushed him down with his foot and finished him off, carving a bright red smile across his neck. The man dropped, his eyes open and empty. 

Cabaji sheathed his sword and offered you a hand. You took it and stood weightlessly, your head as light as a balloon. The world spun, blinking out of reality before it slammed back into you all over again, you were made of lead. Were you crying? Or just sobbing? You realized right then that your hands were shaking violently. The entire world shook and trembled. 

“You can’t stay up here,” Cabaji told you.

You nodded, agreeing because you knew you should.

“Stay close to me,” Cabaji told you. You nodded again, clinging to his back. Cabaji didn’t stop you from holding onto his scarf, practically burying your face in it, ignoring everything else as he guided you across the deck. Every muscle in your body strained with tension, the scent of blood and smoke and gunpowder choking you, the howling of men and explosions and steel only barely piercing past the ringing in your ears.

From what it looked like when you dared to look, the fight was very one-sided. The Buggy Pirates had overwhelmed the other ship with their noise and number. You passed beneath a screaming, thrashing woman who hung from the rigging, it looked like she had climbed up in an attempt to escape and gotten tangled up. Somebody had thrown one of the powder bombs at her, painting her in red. Richie the lion had joined the fray, looking every bit the beast you feared. Bodies littered the deck, their inky blood reflecting the colors flashing in the sky. And the pirates, people you knew, rejoiced in it, cackling and dancing and killing with a reckless joyousness you couldn’t fathom.

A surprise party. As in, the other ship must have been surprised by the vicious crowd of circus performers throwing a party on their ship. 

It was grotesque. Unnatural. You didn’t belong here, it didn’t make any sense that you were. It didn’t make sense. 

When Cabaji stopped at the quarterdeck hatch leading down the officer’s quarters, you nearly fell against him. He opened it up, stepping aside to usher you through. It was on unsteady feet that you stepped down onto the ladder, and with clumsier hands that fumbled. You hit the floor hard on your tailbone. There was no pain. Cabaji jumped down next to you, once again holding out a hand to hoist you back onto your feet. 

“Go into the captain’s cabin and lock the door.”

With the battle muffled, your deafening heartbeat took its place. You nodded, swallowing hard to pop your ears. “Yes,” you said. “Yes, sir.” 

Before he could ascend the ladder again, you grabbed his hand, looking him in the eye with a sudden, vivid flash of hyper reality, every detail of the ship and the man in front of you viscerally present.

“Thank you, Cabaji.”

Although his severe expression remained, you thought you felt him squeeze your hand in passing reassurance before swinging around to rejoin the chaos above. 

The trip back to the captain’s cabin was just that—a trip. After locking the door, you stumbled your way past the antechamber where you would normally wait and into Captain Buggy’s bedroom. For a long moment, you stood there looking at Buggy’s bed which you had neatly made earlier that day. His desk, littered with a familiar mess. 

This was real. All of it. 

Doubling over with a hard punch of nausea, you rushed to the bathroom, barely getting the lid up before you threw up everything in your stomach. Supper had been a while ago, there wasn’t much to expel other than acid, but your body violently convulsed in rounds as if to get rid of something more, something worse. Trying to rid itself of the sickness that nestled right into your bloody, corrupted insides, desperate to cleanse itself of the sticky rot that thickened your blood and made your head ache. 

But that relief never came. 

When you were so emptied out inside that your body couldn’t justify even dry heaving, you stood up and flushed the toilet. Moving slowly, lethargically, you grabbed the nearest liquid—a bottle of disinfecting alcohol Buggy used to wash his pierced ear—to rinse your mouth. It tasted foul and felt worse, but it removed the taste of vomit from your tongue. 

With slow, stumbling steps, you went into the bedroom and poured yourself a cup of water, drinking until you couldn’t take any more and then-

And then what? 

You stared at the worn down edge of his desk and even though you weren’t moving, couldn’t even feel yourself shaking anymore, the world was collapsing around you. It felt like that one time you fell out of one of the buildings northside, that hook like drag from behind your bellybutton as gravity got a hold of you, the terror that came moments before the agony of crashing onto the ground. 

Not knowing what else to do, you huddled in the corner. Not on the bed, but behind it. Hiding. 

You wanted to shut it all off, to retreat into the inside quiet like usual, to go where the world couldn’t touch you. There was too much pain and horror. Too many thoughts you couldn’t stop yourself from thinking. You did not belong here. You wanted to go home. 

That pathetic thought broke through the fragile composure you’d maintained and you curled up into yourself, crying openly. You didn’t want to be here anymore, it was scary and violent and loud. You wanted to go home.

Pressing a clammy, trembling hand to your cheek, you could almost feel your dad’s touch imprinted on the skin, burned there as surely as a brand. 

You closed your eye and it was as if you were in the familiar old sitting room with the overstuffed upholstery and fire that burned so brightly yet never seemed to put off any heat. That night, the last night before he left, dad called you to sit at his feet, appraising you with tired, bleary eyes. At the height of his fury, he looked more vicious god than man, towering above you with lightless pupils and a blank expression. Now he looked old and worn out. His days at sea had carved a million little creases into his face, the leathery flesh sagging off the bone from one too many emptied liquor bottles. 

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said as he stroked your cheek. “I don’t ever want to hurt you.”

“I know, daddy.”  

“My sweet little girl.” His words slurred together like they always did when he was in an affectionate mood. “You are, aren’t you?” 

“Yes, daddy.” 

“You’ll be good now, won’t you? You won’t misbehave while I’m gone?” 

What you wanted to remember was agreement. A bland ‘yes’ that you didn’t mean because of course you were going to run away. But that’s not what happened. That’s not what you said that night.

“Please don’t go,” you begged. That part of the memory was the most important because you understood it now. If he had stayed, you wouldn’t have left. You would have died in that house if he was there to keep you with him. Because you didn’t want to leave, not really. But you knew you couldn’t stay, either. You had to at least try to get out. But dad stroked your cheek and told you he would be back in a blink, that you wouldn’t have time to miss him. 

You saw him off the next morning, your shoulders heavy with the knowledge of what you were about to do. What you had to do. 

Destiny, fate, a bad joke—you didn’t know what to call it. Inevitability, maybe. Now you were here.

Your own hand dropped from your cheek, falling limp to the floor beside you as that memory fell away, replaced with another. 

“If he doesn’t kill you, your dad will. Do you really think you’ll ever be able to hide from him?” Randall said that right before you cut him—cut him a huge red smile—and he was right. That’s what this was. 

What happened tonight had been a deliberate attempt to kidnap you, to get away while everybody was distracted by the raid. Maybe your dad would be able to guess which merchant ships the Buggy Pirates would raid based on the stolen maps. Maybe he sent messages out to a few mercenary types, people who would be on board to protect the goods anyway, people who wouldn’t mind abandoning their crew for a bigger payout. Maybe this was just the most rotten confluence of bad luck and coincidence. 

The execution was overshadowed by the far more intimidating message of it all. He would never let you go, not you, not his sweet little girl. 

There was no quiet, not inside or out. The thrashing, raving thing within you screamed, and you did too. A ragged and terrible scream that ripped up the inside of your throat. It was pathetic and ugly. More than anything, it hurt.

Even if you went back to him, he would know what you had done. He would know that you weren’t his little girl anymore, that you were tarnished. One life burned for another you could never have. No matter what you thought or told yourself, you weren’t a pirate. You were a fake. A coward.

And there was nothing you could do. Not now, not anymore. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. 

For the first time since boarding the ship, you thought about what led you to this point. Really thought about it. The sneaking, the hiding, being strung up and threatened, the cage. Standing behind Randall with a stranger at your back, a knife in your hand, a blade to the neck of a man you had loved nearly all of your life, a man who never loved you. Screaming. Blood dripping down your wrist.

Murderer.

There were moments in your life that you thought were too much. You stopped crying, stopped shaking, stopped breathing, and knew, knew with absolute certainty, that you could not handle any more. Then time continued to march on, pulling you right along with it, and there was nothing other than your suffering, it was without end, and you wanted to die—more, you wanted to never have existed in the first place.

Those moments didn’t come when dad beat you, or when he screamed at you, or after losing mom, or because of what happened to your eye, or seeing Randall marry another girl. Pain and fear and sadness were immediate. Pain and fear and sadness, no matter how intolerable, made sense. At least you weren’t alone, at least you had a tether—even one that was barbed and electrified. 

True misery, the kind that made you want to claw your way out of your skin and rip out your still-beating heart, was a solitary experience. It came when the cellar door closed and you heard the lock turn. When your desperate pleas and apologies and cries were met with silence because nobody was close enough to hear them. Those dark hours you spent curled up on the stone floor shivering, listening to your wheezing breath shudder in and out of your lungs. When the quiet didn’t come and you realized the enormity of imprisonment. It wasn’t that you were trapped in the dark, dank cellar with rats, or in a house with your angry dad, or in a town where everybody thought you were a freak. Hell was realizing that you were trapped within yourself, with the monstrous creature who lived in your head, the one that hated you so bitterly. Was that you? You without any mask at all, exposed and plain and wretched and a murderer.  

It was too much. You could not handle it.

But there was nothing else. No one else. And you only had yourself to blame. 

There was something Randall used to tell you. He’d laugh good-naturedly and say you’ve really stepped in it now. You could hear him now, as clearly as if he were right next to you. 

You’ve really stepped in it now.

You heard the door unlock and open from the other room. The sound jolted you stiff, a gasp leaving your sore throat. 

“Honey, I’m hoooome,” Buggy called, shutting the door. Hearing that it was him made your shoulders relax a little. Did that mean the fighting was over? “Babydoll, are you here? Cabaji told me you were naughty and he had to put you in time out.”

“I’m back here,” you called on autopilot, your voice cracking.

You had no idea what happened now, or what you were meant to do. There was nothing you could do to hide the fact that you had been crying, no matter how much you wiped your face. Bracing yourself for anything, you got to your feet. Standing up so fast made you dizzy, and suddenly you felt quite aware of how ridiculous it all was. Pathetic. A pirate wouldn’t cower in the corner of a room crying like a child. A grown woman wouldn’t do that. 

You reached up to pull down your bandana, only to poke your left eye. It must have come undone sometime during the attempted kidnapping. You lost your knife too. That hurt worse than losing your bandana, nearly prompting you to start crying all over again. 

“Where oh where has my baby gone,” Buggy began to sing as he walked through the other room. “Oh, where, oh, where can she be? She whines so sweet, like a bitch in heat—” He reached the open doorway, smiling as soon as he saw you. “Oh, there you are. I didn’t wake you up, did I?” 

“No, sir,” you said, your head bowed to hide your splotchy red face.

“What were you doing?” 

You sniffled. “Nothing, sir.” 

“Aw, did the big scawy fight make you cwy?” Buggy asked. You shook your head fast, unwilling to trust that your voice wouldn’t break if you spoke. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s okay to be scared your first time. Even I was a little freaked out during my first big raid.” 

You dared to look up, your eyebrows furrowed. “Really?” 

“No,” he said, laughing as if the thought itself were too ridiculous to entertain. “Can you imagine me being scared?” 

He took his gloves off, tossing them aside. Buggy had lost his hat and coat and his clothes were splattered with blood and colorful powder and who knows what else, but he wasn’t wounded. He was fine, and he was in good spirits. That was good. 

“You know,” Buggy finally said to break the silence, “if you want me to keep you around, you’re gonna have to suck it up and put on your big girl pants. Nobody likes a crybaby.” 

“I know,” you said softly, self loathing making your chest swell, sitting heavily on your heart and lungs like a tumor. “I’m sorry, sir.”  

“God, you’re so… so pitiful,” Buggy said. “Yeah, no. That’s not gonna do it for me tonight. We’re drinking.”

You side-eyed his collection of bottles. The sweet liquor he had shared that first night was an outlier, most of what Buggy drank was much harder and more abrasive. Even the smell made your stomach turn, you had no idea how he could handle it. “I’m okay,” you said, wiping your eye again. 

“Oh, right. Poor little baby can’t handle her liquor. Don’t worry, Captain Buggy has just what you need. I scored this a month ago at a club owned by this Saydon guy.” He walked over to the armoire, shuffling around the clutter before finding a bottle. “He’s a thieving sack of shit without an original bone in his body, but I had a good time fleecing his stupid customers. This,” he held up the bottle as he turned and approached you, “is the good shit, straight from some rich guy’s personal stash. I was going to sell it, but I’m willing to sacrifice a few berry to cheer up my pathetic little charity case.”

You swallowed hard at the offer, looking from his smile to the bottle. Thick red glass and a real paper label, although the text was illegible. 

“Let me pour you some so we can skip to the part where you’re not making me miserable and we can celebrate my brave and triumphant victory.”

“Okay,” you said. It was fine, probably some type of opiate. Your dad had given you that sort of thing to help you stave off the hysteria before. It would be nicer than feeling like this, wrung out and hiccupping in the pitiful clutches of despair. 

“Gotta be careful not to overdo it. Hey, you wanna eyeball this for me?” Buggy asked, laughing as he measured out the tincture and added some water. Seeing your lack of smile as he handed you the cup, he sighed dramatically and grabbed one of the bottles from his desk. “A toast to the flawless victory won tonight by the most fearsome captain in all of the East Blue.”

“To Captain Buggy,” you said. Buggy drew back the bottle, giving you a sharp look. Sluggish as your brain was, it took an excruciatingly long few seconds to realize what he wanted. “To Captain Buggy, the future King of the Pirates... and-and the best man I’ve ever known,” you tried again.

“Eh… I’ll take it,” he allowed with a shrug, tapping his bottle to your cup.

The drink was as terrible as you expected, but the taste of bitter medicine was still better than hard liquor. Buggy clearly didn’t feel the same, downing a mouthful without even wincing before unceremoniously collapsing onto the end of his bed. You ran a hand over your face. Red, hot, and a little swollen. You knew you looked rough, probably about as bad as you felt. 

“You weren’t this weepy last time,” Buggy said. “You weren’t worried about me, were you?” 

“Of course I was,” you said, frowning. “I was worried about all of you. I… I don’t know what I would do without you, Captain Buggy. I’m sorry, I’m…” You shook your head, trying to clear it somewhat. “It’s silly.” 

“Yeah it is. Those idiots wouldn’t be able to hurt me even if I was doused in seawater and blindfolded,” Buggy said, rolling his eyes and leaning back on his elbows. “It was so easy, barely even worth bragging about. After I killed like ten of his men, the captain came out with this huge sword—clearly compensating for something. I let him get a good swing in right through the middle, and you should have seen his eyes when I put myself back together. His reaction was even better than yours. I’m pretty sure he shit himself.”

“And everyone else?” you asked.

“Yeah, they did fine too,” he said flippantly. “Frankly, it was boring. For me, at least. I could probably have taken them down all by myself.” He sighed dramatically. “But, hey, it was a good learning experience for my freaks.” 

You nodded, dropping down to your knees to take his boots like always.

Buggy capped the bottle and buried it in the sheets, pulling something out of his pants pocket. You glanced up to see him messing with something wrapped in thin foil wrapping before forcing yourself to focus on the nightly ritual of wrestling his boots off. They were splattered in blood, a fact you only realized when some of it smeared onto your hands.

“I found these in his office,” Buggy said after you got the first boot off. “Salted caramels. They’re a bitch to get out of your teeth, but-” Buggy popped one in his mouth, moaning loudly at the taste, “sooo good. Want one?” 

You were more concerned with the unabashedly vulgar moan than you were with the candy, it took you a second to remember the question. 

“Oh, um. Yes,” you finally said. “Yes, please.” 

“Okay, but don’t tell anyone that I’m playing favorites,” Buggy said as he unwrapped another, sitting up to hold it out. When you tried to take it, he pulled away. “Ah, ah, ah. Open wide, babydoll.” 

You frowned, realizing that he meant to feed it to you. “Why?” 

“Look at your hands! Have you got any idea how nasty blood is? Come on, say ahhh.” 

You sat up to take it with your mouth, he pulled it back at the last second, your lips closing around empty air. 

“Oh, you almost got it,” Buggy teased. “Try again.” 

Your eyebrows furrowed. “Captain Buggy, why…?”  

“I’m teaching you a valuable lesson. If you really want something, you have to work for it.” He held the chunk of caramel up again, within reach. Once again, you tried to eat it, but he pulled it away again. “So close,” he taunted. Every time you leaned closer, Buggy pulled it away, scooting further up the bed to keep it just out of reach, laughing the whole time. It forced you to crawl up, bracing yourself on the edge of the bed to chase the prize. Once you thought you really had it, uncomfortably hovering above him, he looked you in the eye and popped the candy into his mouth. “Guess you didn’t want it that bad,” Buggy said with a big grin, the words gummed up as he chewed. 

Flushing with embarrassment, you sat back onto your knees. 

“You know,” Buggy said, sitting up. “I had a dog once that did the exact same trick. It wasn’t as good as when you do it, although he was a lot better at actually getting the treat.” Foil crinkled and, this time, he pressed the caramel directly against your lips, pushing until you accepted it. You were too caught off guard by the way he’d put it into your mouth to do anything other than automatically chew and swallow, barely tasting anything. “See?” he asked. “Delicious, right?” 

“Yeah,” you belatedly agreed, the word coming out on autopilot.

“I can’t stand having sticky fingers,” Buggy said, tapping his tacky fingertips together with a frown. “Be a good little puppy and lick them clean for me.” 

You blinked, laughing dizzily in disbelief before you fully comprehended what he said. “What?”

“It’s what dogs do, isn’t it?” Buggy asked, wagging his fingers in front of your face. 

“You mean it?” you asked, hoping that he was just playing with you. 

“Yes, I do,” he said slowly, condescendingly. “It can’t be that much more embarrassing than doing tricks, right?” 

 So it was just another game. An embarrassing one. It felt dirty, like something you shouldn’t have been doing. But maybe that was in your head. Maybe Buggy didn’t see it that way. It was fine. Avoiding looking up, you opened your mouth for him. He said to lick them clean, but it was more practical to close your lips and suck until there were no more traces of caramel stickiness on his skin. 

“And Cabaji says you’re dead weight,” Buggy said, satisfied. Pulling his fingers out of your mouth with a slick pop, he leaned back again, grabbing the bottle from the sheets to take another drink. 

“Cabaji says that?” you asked, confused. You and Cabaji were, well, not friends. But he saved you. When you thanked him, he squeezed your hand. Hadn’t he? When you tried to think of it, the whole night floated somewhere distant, far beyond the warm bubble of this room, there was a chance you made that part up. 

“Are you ever gonna finish up down there?” Buggy asked as if he hadn’t heard you, raising his remaining boot. Somehow, you’d forgotten that removing his boots was the reason you were on the floor to begin with. Trying to shake your head clear, you braced yourself to get his boot off. It took more effort than it probably should have. Your limbs had loosened, your head light like a balloon. When it came free, you tipped backwards, thumping down on the floor. There was no pain. 

Buggy laughed. Surprised at first, then louder, a big belly laugh.  

You sat up, dazed and frowning. Your expression only made him laugh harder. When his amusement settled somewhat, he managed to speak. “You okay?”

“It’s not that funny,” you said.

“You know when you see a kid trying their little heart out to do something, but they keep failing because they’re so small and stupid? It’s like that,” Buggy said. “Watching you struggle with everything you try to do is half the reason I keep you around.”

Frowning with all of the indignant strength you could muster, you got your legs beneath yourself, using the edge of his desk to stand. Although it had probably been more of a gradual process you were simply unaware of—that would explain your lack of concern with his antics—it was only when you were upright that you fully realized the impact of the medicine. 

Woah. 

Breathing deeply, you followed the motions of getting a rag to clean up your hands, surprised at how lethargically you moved, how warm your skin felt. Annoyed, you pushed off your jacket, relaxing when its weight was gone from your shoulders. 

You mumbled an apology, something about the room being too warm, turning to look at Buggy. The air felt so nice brushing against your bare skin, like warm little whispers all over your arms and legs.

“Hey, kiddo, you’re lookin’ kinda flushed,” Buggy said. “I didn’t give you too much, did I?”

You blinked slowly, caught off guard by the way his pale skin glowed in the warm lamplight, the way it highlighted the shadows beneath his cheekbones. “What?”

“Come here,” he said, holding his hand out to you. 

It wasn’t a long distance, a few feet at most, but your legs weren’t steady at all. You let go of the desk and almost immediately tipped forward. 

“Sheesh,” Buggy said with a laugh, catching you before you fell. “I didn’t expect you to throw yourself at me.”

“Sorry,” you said distantly, trying to get your bearings. The melty lightheaded feeling had your head spinning, reality shifting on its axis before snapping back into place. 

“It’s not like it's the first time,” Buggy joked, grinning. Standing like this, your hands on his shoulders, you were so close. His breath smelled like whiskey and caramel and his makeup had faded and smeared after the fight. You wanted to be closer, to feel his bare skin against yours. That would be so nice, wouldn’t it? He was warm and solid and-

You looked around, overcome with the absurdity of the situation. How long had you been in here? The air was warm and too close, and your bandana was gone when you nervously tried to pull it down. 

“Sorry, um… What?” you asked with a confused smile, trying to focus your thoughts. “I… can’t think…” 

“It’s not like I keep you around for your brains,” Buggy told you. He sounded a little drunk, smiling that boyish grin you usually only saw in the morning. “Why don’t you sit down? We’re still celebrating.” 

“What about your… your makeup?” you asked, trying to find a familiar point to tether yourself with. 

“What about yours?” Buggy asked, running his thumb over your cheek. “It’s smeared all over your face. You look like a one-eyed racoon.” 

“Oh, I… I forgot,” you said, running a finger under your eye. It came away smeared with black makeup. “I’m sorry.” 

“I don’t mind it,” Buggy said, “Actually, you look kinda cute like this—all cried out and red and pathetic. I don’t know why, but there’s something about that sad look you get that really turns me on. Is that weird?”

A beat too late, your eye widened in surprise, your shoulders raising defensively. “You can’t say that.” 

“Why not?”  

“Because…” You floundered, searching for the right words. The other night when you were drunk, the alcohol made your thoughts scatter, difficult to interpret. This drug was different, it eased away the edges. Too many words and a very soft world in which to speak them. That was confusing, just for a different reason. “Because it’s not true,” you finally said, almost proud to have remembered what you meant to say. “You’re just trying to embarrass me.” 

Buggy laughed. “I don’t have to make shit up to embarrass you. Half the time you spare me the trouble and do it yourself.” 

You frowned, your eyebrows furrowing. 

“Don’t worry,” he said soothingly, “I’m into it.”

You looked at him for a second before laughing nervously, a little tremor working down your spine. “Captain Buggy, I, um…” 

“Don’t you trust me?” he cooed in an overly saccharine tone. 

“Yes, I do.” 

“You’re not afraid I’m trying to pressure you into something, are you? It’s not like there’s anything wrong with sitting together. I bet you sat on your dad’s lap all the time,” Buggy said as he pulled you towards him, scooting back to make more room for you to sit. 

“Not… like this,” you said, your nervous smile straining as you tried to twist sideways to sit with your legs across his lap because that was the normal, safe way. Sitting with your legs straddling his hips was entirely different and wrong. “Isn’t this… awkward for you?” 

“Not at all. Make yourself comfortable.” You tried to hold your weight off of him, one foot on the floor, but he reached around to hook a hand around your thigh, forcing you fully onto the bed and onto his lap. “Yeah, just like-” Buggy’s words cut off with a groan when you tilted forward, a sound that made you tense up, very, very aware of his hips between your thighs. 

“I’m sorry,” you said, trying to squirm away. “Did I hurt you? I can… move…”

“No, don’t,” Buggy said, his hold on your hips tightening. “It’s, uh…” He exhaled harshly. “Fuck. I swear I never even thought this sorta thing was hot before now… Like, sure, I guess it’s a little charming when girls get coy and act like they’re innocent, but, I don’t know, it’s so played out. But then the real deal comes around and suddenly I get the appeal. I really get it.” 

You giggled at that. It wasn’t funny, you weren’t sure why you would find it amusing. “Shhh,” you said as seriously as you could. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?” Buggy asked, raising his eyebrows. “Have you ever even kissed anybody?” 

Your eyebrows furrowed. “Yes, I have.”

“Riiiight, that shithead from the other day. But he abandoned you, didn’t he? Broke your poor little heart all because he couldn’t imagine looking at your busted eye while fucking you.” Buggy’s hand raised to cradle your head, his thumb tracing the scar beneath your left eye. “Well, personally, I think it’s hot that you’re just as damaged on the outside as you are on the inside.”

“No,” you told him, shaking your head with more vigor than was warranted when you weren’t sure what, exactly, you were protesting. 

“Between you and me,” Buggy continued, leaning even closer to speak in a conspiratorial tone, “last time I was jacking off, all I could think about was how adorable it is. Your eyes just scream ‘rape me’ which is weird because only one of them works, and believe me, it makes it pretty damn difficult when you spend so much time on your knees. God, would you even know what was going on if I popped a boner while you were down there? I’m chubbed up half the time and you don’t seem to get it.”

That crossed a line you hadn’t been aware of, and he said it so easily. So casually. The words dripped hot poison into your core, pulling a dark shiver down your spine and an unexpected sound from your mouth. You didn’t mean it, you never really did, but your mind was drifting above the clouds, leaving your body to try and sort out the feelings he so effortlessly dragged out of you. As soon as your reaction registered, you clasped both hands over your mouth with enough force to almost send you tumbling backwards, but Buggy pulled you back, laughing.  

“What was that?” 

“I… didn’t mean to,” you said, but he probably couldn’t hear through your hands.

“No, seriously. Do you practice these sounds ahead of time, or do they just happen?”

“I’m sorry,” you said, releasing your mouth. “I…” When you squirmed in discomfort, his hips rolled to meet it, grinding directly between your legs. You squeezed your eye shut, just trying to breathe. The drug made your body relax, but it relaxed too much, dragging you down with the heaviness of your flesh. A bubble of sound left you, something like a sob or a laugh or a hiccup. “Why are you doing this?” 

“Because it’s fun and, more importantly, because I want to,” Buggy said in a matter-of-fact way. “Do you want me to stop?”

You shook your head again, refusing to look at him as if that would buy you some time so you could find an answer. 

“Hey, your captain asked you a question.” 

“I… don’t know…” you told him, fleetingly meeting his eye in an attempt to convey your inner conflict, to make him understand what you felt.

Buggy made a harsh sound of frustration, his eyes rolling up to stare at the ceiling. “Yeah, that’s not really an answer. The last thing I need right now is you waking up tomorrow and crying molestation or some bullshit.”

“I wouldn’t,” you told him. “I don’t want you to-to stop, but… I-I don’t know what… or-or how, I…”

“Ah, I’m doing this all wrong, aren’t I?” he said in a softer tone, looking back down to meet your eye, smiling and petting your hair. “I mean what is the first rule of storytelling?” 

You frowned, your eyebrows furrowing in confusion. 

“Show,” Buggy answered for you, his hand sneaking around to hold the back of your head, “don’t tell.” 

It wasn’t a kiss, not at first. At first it was just hot and wet because you didn’t understand what was going on. You knew you were supposed to open your mouth, so you did, but you couldn’t comprehend anything other than the vulgar assault of tongue and teeth. He tasted like salt and caramel and liquor and greasepaint. It was strange to feel his nose pressing against your cheek and the drag of his stubble against your skin.

Then something clicked, your body taking over while your mind faltered behind. With the drug swimming in your system, everything felt at least a little good. The heaviness inside of you was also raw, stimulating warmth, a sort of buzzing wherever the two of you touched. Kissing Buggy felt even better. Being kissed, letting him guide you. It was filthy and messy and a little gross to feel his tongue in your mouth, but it was animalistically hot. 

When his hand pushed under your shirt, it tickled enough to make you laugh, squirming in his lap. He groaned hungrily right into your mouth, his hips grinding up against you. With one arm wrapped around you to keep your head in place, the other pushed your undershirt up and out of the way to palm your breasts. The limited exploration you had done with your body had given you the impression that you were indifferent to feeling anything other than disgust and shame, but the sensation of him rolling your nipple between two rough fingers zipped down your spine like electricity. 

Even muffled by his mouth, you couldn’t stop yourself from moaning and whimpering, from helplessly pressing yourself against him for more. He said you hadn’t noticed when he was hard before, but you were pretty sure that’s what you were feeling right then, that it was his erection hot and hard between your legs. 

Leaving both nipples hard and painfully sensitive, his hand slipped down to wiggle under the waistband of your shorts. Bad. Bad. Wrong. Very wrong. You pulled away with a harsh gasp, trying to squirm away from that hand. 

“Hey, no, it’s okay. I’m just gonna check real quick to see if you’re wet,” Buggy said to console you. His makeup was smeared from the kiss, and his eyes were round and excited. “It’s not weird, I’m just trying to figure out where we’re at with the whole consent thing, okay?” 

“Okay,” you mumbled, even if you had no idea what one had to do with the other. The angle was awkward, especially when he had to navigate beneath the confines of your shorts, but his searching fingers found your clothed pussy pretty quickly. His touch shocked you as physically as a jolt of electricity. Even through your panties, there was a foreign intensity to the pressure. More intense, maybe, was the look in his eyes. You expected amusement, but there was none. Stripped of the jokes and the teasing and the smile and the crass comments, he was somebody who wanted. Wanted you.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Buggy said, his fingers curling, pushing the fabric of your panties between your folds, and you choked back an embarrassing whimper, your hips unintentionally bucking forward.

“I don’t think this is… I’m really, really sorry, I…” you stammered out, stumbling over your excuses and apologies and anything at all that would get you out of this. “I mean, we shouldn’t, it’s probably not-”

“Shut up,” Buggy told you sharply. “Here I thought I should take things slow so you didn’t feel too bad about it afterwards, but you’re fuckin’ soaked.”

“No, it… ‘s not-”

“No?” he cut in, easily shutting you up with another curl of his fingers. “So what am I feeling right now. Did’ya piss yourself or something?” 

“I didn’t! It’s just…” Hard to think. Hard to talk. Hard to figure out what you wanted. Hard to know what was happening, what he expected. You laughed a little, hoping that he would too, and that this would be a joke, but he didn’t. You broke, shaking your head and whining. “It’s too… too embarrassing.” 

“For you, maybe. I mean, jeez, talk about desperate. You really want me, huh?”

“I… I don’t know if… I shouldn’t.”

“God, it’s like pulling teeth,” Buggy said, pulling his hand out from between your legs. “Wait, there’s an idea. Should I go get the pliers? Will that get me a straight answer out of you?”

You swallowed hard, trying to focus on anything other than the zapping memory of his hand down your shorts. If you didn’t want something, you already would have left, your body wouldn’t be singing and surging to get more of his touch. But you couldn’t say that you wanted to go further either because you could not imagine or conceptualize that happening. More than anything, you didn’t want to be alone. You didn’t want to disappoint him. The idea of being touched drove you wild, but there was a sickness in your stomach that was only getting worse. 

“Listen, babydoll,” Buggy told you, his voice lowering, steady like he was talking to a frightened animal. “I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do, but I’m really hard right now so I’m gonna come. You can either stay here and come with me or get the hell out of here.” As much as you could feel Buggy trying to maintain composure, it wasn’t working.

You closed your eye, trying to think, just to scrape together a single coherent thought that would help you figure out what to do, but instead you thought of the warehouse. The air stank of wet rot and ocean air and old metal. “New girl,” Buggy had called, snapping to beckon you closer. Randall knelt on the ground. Pathetic and powerless, groaning in pain. You obliged then, rushing to Buggy’s side, your feet crunching on the broken glass and chunks of old building. Buggy didn’t look angry, not like you feared he would. Instead, he smiled. It was a mean smile, a frightening one. But a smile all the same, a gruesome expression meant to set you at ease, and maybe to keep himself composed. “Are you ready for your big moment?”

“So, uh,” Buggy, the real one, the one sitting beneath you watching with expectant eyes, said, licking his lips, “which is it?”

There was only one answer, there had only ever been one. You didn’t know. These things, your choices, weren’t for you to make. So you didn’t know. Not then and not now. Instead, you took the knife he offered and asked for him to show you how. Instead, you pressed yourself closer to him, hoping that he would decide, desperate for him to choose for you. Buggy moaned, his hips rolling upward to meet yours. He caught himself quickly, practically growling in frustration. 

“Fuck… Stop,” Buggy told you in a rough voice, grabbing you by the back of the hair to force you still. “I need you to tell me what you want. Out loud. Right now, so it's on the record.”

“I want,” you told him in a weak voice, stopping there as you tried to find the right words.

“Yeah?” He prompted you.

“I want…” The words sounded so far away, like it wasn’t really you speaking them at all, as if you were trying to guess the right answer. “I want you, Captain Buggy. Anything you want, I’m yours.” 

“Finally!” Buggy said with a hoarse laugh, shaking you back and forth. “See how easy it is when you allow yourself to be honest?”

Easy. It was easy, of course it was easy, of course you wanted to give him whatever he wanted, especially if it was you. Anything, anything, everything. Buggy grabbed you by the hips to spin you around, dropping you onto the bed. You landed on your back and bounced twice, dizzy from the sudden shift. Buggy was already kneeling between your legs by the time you blinked your vision clear, roughly getting out of his pants. 

“Since we’re being honest now, I’ll tell you something too—I’m glad this is your first time,” Buggy told you, flinging off his shirt before getting you out of yours. He didn’t undress you with any grace, pulling your shirt and undershirt off in a twisted bundle of fabric, leaving you half naked to his manic, hungry eyes. “Opening night is special,” he continued, licking his lips. “It’s something that nobody has ever seen before. Sure, it lacks the polish of later shows, but there’s beauty in that. It’s real, it’s raw. This, right now, is your debut, babydoll. I wanna see you come. Once, maybe twice just to start because then I’m going to fuck you and that…” Buggy laughed, pulling off one boot and tossing it behind himself with a thump before taking the other. You sat up, trying to cover your chest, only to be knocked back down when he grabbed the waistband of your shorts and underwear to pull them down your thighs, curling your legs up to shake you out of them. “It might hurt, after all of this teasing I don’t think I’ll be able to hold myself back. But that’s good. You want it to hurt, it should hurt—pain is how good art is made.”

Before you could respond to that, he descended upon you. Not a kiss this time. At least, not a kiss on the lips. While his fingers trailed up your thigh, his mouth latched on your neck. The same moment he found your entrance, his teeth dug into your sensitive skin. When he began to suck, his fingers trailed upward to land on your clit.

You might have wailed, if only you had enough air in your lungs to do so. He only got a sharp, pathetic whine and more nervous giggling, your hips jumping up into his hand. Somewhere inside of your swimming mind, there was a thought. A spark of one, a bit of consciousness that had no real conclusion before it bubbled out of your mouth in a string of stuttered “I…I…I…”  while your hands gripped desperately at his shoulders. He kept rubbing your clit and you knew, logically, that it would feel better if you stayed still, but you couldn’t. 

Buggy pulled away from your neck with a slick pop. “Can you…fuckin’...can you settle down? I can’t do this with you trying to buck me off.” 

You meant to tell him that it wasn’t your fault, that you couldn’t keep still, but the only response your drugged brain could manage was a nervous smile and hiccup. Making a sound of frustration, Buggy sat up and grabbed you by the waist to pull you down, his forearm settling across your pelvis to keep your hips flat. With his weight pinning down one leg and your other shoved aside by a not so gentle slap, you couldn’t go anywhere. So you whined, giving up and covering your face with your hands instead. 

Buggy laughed. “Don’t act so pathetic, I know you love this. You're sooo sensitive," he said, lazily pushing a finger into your pussy before dragging it out. Letting his fingers glide between your folds with an agonizingly light touch, drawing little circles over your swollen clit. Again and again and again and- "I’m barely doing anything and you're practically having a seizure down there." 

You whimpered, squirming beneath him to no avail. He had your hips completely immobilized. Buggy laughed again, slowly sinking his fingers into your pussy. Two of them now. Two calloused fingers to press deep into you, to seek out the spongy spot as they curled and thrust in and out. Slow, painfully slow. There was nothing you could do about it. Push at his shoulders with shaking hands, arch your back to nowhere, shake your head back and forth like it mattered, like he cared. You tried to laugh like he did, needed to diffuse some of the scorching tension, but the sound was breathy and high pitched and it wasn’t funny, it was torture. 

Buggy’s fingers finally broke the slow pace to practically slam into you, and it sounded disgusting. Wet, harsh. You couldn’t stop shaking, and there wasn’t enough air, your lungs were being collapsed by the weight of the drug. Despite that, despite everything, your pussy squeezed his fingers, only getting wetter the rougher he got. The noises you made, the mewling and the whining and the moaning, were practically innocent compared to the loud squelching of each thrust.  

“It sounds like I’m plunging a fuckin’ toilet,” Buggy said, laughing.

You pressed your palms against your eyes as if that would hide you, caught between humiliation and need. “I’m s-ss-sorry,” you babbled. “It’s… gross… I’m sorry, please just… Stop, it’s—”

“Stop?” he repeated. “Is that what you just said? You’re giving me orders now?” He slowed down, only to add another finger. The frantic rise of tension had your heels digging into his bed, your hands unable to decide if you wanted to cover your face or claw at the sheets. 

“No! No, no no—” What were you even denying at this point? It was all incoherent anyway, and you knew you didn’t actually mean it.

“Do you know when I’m gonna stop?” Buggy asked. “After you come all over my hand. So quit yer yappin’ and hurry it up.”

Your whimper was barely audible, but it was one of resignation. He was right, the slick squelching sounds really did conjure the worst imagery. But, somehow, not even that killed your building orgasm. Neither did the musky smell, or the gross feeling of your sweat soaking into his bedding. It was all just sex and, right then, it was hot. You couldn’t focus on anything other than the tightening coil in your core, not even the man fucking you with three fingers, going hard enough to hurt, hooking and curling with each thrust to grind them against the spongy spot inside of you. The only thing that mattered was the pleasure that sat on the very tip of your tongue and how badly you needed it. To please him, to end this embarrassing torment, to stop inconveniencing him. You had no idea if it was what you wanted but, one way or another, your body would expel the foam in your head, the need in your belly. Come or throw up or scream. 

With a choked yelp, you came. Your back arched, your body fighting against Buggy’s hold. You had one hand across your face while the other desperately clawed at the sheets and you wanted to fuck yourself on his fingers, to meet them with each thrust, but you couldn’t move your hips. All you could do was take what you were given, endure the helplessness, the sticky waves of pleasure. 

And then it was over, just hot air and sweat.

There was a sense that you were not yourself, like you had been unbound from your existence as a person. But also one that stitched you into your hot, heavy skin so tightly that you knew you could not ever be somebody else. The lucidity of the feeling killed your desire, you needed a break. You needed to breathe. 

“No more,” you told him, trying to squirm away, to grab his hand. “Please, I… Please, no more.” 

“That was it? Seriously?” Buggy asked, incredulously amused. His fingers did slow down, stroking your g-spot in a way that made you twitch uncontrollably. “You just came?” 

“I’m sorry,” you said breathlessly, covering your face with your trembling hands.

Buggy laughed in delight. “No, it was,” he said, finally pulling his fingers out and taking his weight off of you, “weirdly adorable. I was just joking about the puppy thing earlier, but you’re kind of proving my point. Girls usually, you know, moan. Or scream or something, I don’t know. What is it, do you think? The daddy issues? Or is it ‘cause I’m the first guy to make you come? Don’t get me wrong, I liked it, it was fuckin’ hot, but now I’m curious. Do you think you can moan like a normal girl at all, or are you just gonna keep whining the whole time?”

“I, um… I-I don’t,” were the only words you could muster as you stared at him, completely still. For a couple of seconds you had fooled yourself into thinking you had escaped the red stained-glass fog of the drug, but the vulgarity drew you right back in, enveloping you in its humid dusk.  

Buggy grinned, a mad expression. “Guess we’ll find out.” 

When he pulled off his underwear, you didn’t know if it was okay for you to look or not, your eye flicking nervously from his smile to the pale expanse of his torso, following the trail of hair that led down, and down. His cock bobbed up the moment it was free. It was more intimidating of a sight than you thought it would be, giving you that uncanny sense of vertigo, like staring down a very high cliff into some unknown abyss. This was wrong. Buggy clearly had no such reservations, spitting into his hand to stroke his dick as he loomed above you. 

“You’ve got me in a romantic mood, you can stay just like that,” Buggy said as he crowded you further up the bed. You stared up at him, stiff and too nervous to move. He frowned. “Okay, well I didn’t mean literally just like that, you’re gonna have to make some room for me.” He gave you a second before huffing in irritation, rolling his eyes. “Fuckin’ virgins.”  

Buggy grabbed you, hauling you up the bed to drop you unceremoniously into the pillows. You squeaked, trying to hold onto him while he hiked your legs up his waist. Breathing was difficult, all of the air smelled like Buggy and sex and you were so, so aware of the way it pressed slowly out of your chest. He released your right leg to grab his cock, slicking it between your folds. That made you gasp sharply, your fingers digging into his back. 

“Are you trying to scratch me?” Buggy asked, amused but distracted as kept nudging his dick between your folds, his hips rolling forward when it caught on your entrance. 

“I… I’m… No-hh—I-I-” Any part of your mind that was still functioning was focused entirely on the pressure of his cock as he pushed forward again, pressing it a little deeper. 

“I don’t mind it,” Buggy told you, “but fair’s fair.” He punctuated that word with a harder thrust, pushing his cock past the initial resistance of your entrance. Your eye widened, a sound of surprise practically punched out of your body with the shock of it. His fingers had not at all prepared you for what it would feel like. The insistence. The weight. Buggy smiled, watching your face as his hips rolled forward. 

This time, you whined, squeezing your eye shut and digging your fingers into his back, your pussy unintentionally tightening around him which only made the discomfort that much worse, but you couldn’t force your body to relax and you honestly didn’t know if you were trying to push him out or pull him deeper.

“No, look—look at me,” Buggy demanded hoarsely, hiking your right leg back up his waist, not moving until you met his demand. You let out a shuddering breath and opened your eye, looking up at him through tear coated lashes. His eyes were familiar to you, but not like this. In the dim light, all that remained was their devious sparkle, his hunger, his all-consuming lust. You tried to keep your expression composed, to hide your embarrassing reactions, but it was all in vain. The leverage made it easier for him to rock his hips forward, his cock driving deeper, and your expression crumpled as you cried out, you couldn’t help yourself. 

The intimacy Buggy demanded of you while splitting you apart became intolerable. You tried to rear back, your back arching beneath him, but Buggy grabbed your jaw to keep you from looking away, to keep you from hiding. You tried to tell him that it was too much, too heavy, too big, too overwhelming, but you couldn’t find the words before he was already thrusting forward again, filling you more and more, his entire body covering yours, his eyes devouring your reactions. He watched with parted lips, his eyebrows raised in some sort of needful appeal. It felt so cruel, but Buggy didn’t look at you cruelly.

It was too much to bear, let alone understand. Giving up on begging him to slow down, you tried to push at his abdomen. Buggy wasn't bothered by it, or by the scrape of your nails along his back, it was like he didn’t even notice.

“Cap-tain,” you whined, the word broken in your mouth, squished from the grip he had on your jaw. When he moved, you could feel how you were shaking beneath him, around him, your heartbeat thumping hot blood between your legs. The pressure was intense, unfamiliar. You whimpered, your back restlessly arching, your free hand clawing at his shoulder. “I… It's… Too much…”

“Yeah?” Buggy asked, managing a smile before that became another moan. “You’re so fuckin’... Fuck.” 

It was impossible to not respond to the overt sound of his pleasure, your pussy clenching around him, soaking his cock. It sounded filthy. You opened your mouth to say something and, like he’d been waiting for it, Buggy released your jaw, his hand resting beneath your chin to push your face up so he could kiss you instead. His tongue in your mouth was just as invasive as his cock in your pussy, it felt more like he was trying to eat you, to devour you, leaving you no space to breathe or think or react. You could feel every grunt and groan, feel the way he reacted to every little sound you made. 

There was no refinement to it, no mercy, no thought given to anything other than animal instinct and need. Buggy was barely even pulling out, grinding himself into you as deep as possible over and over and over and it was maddening because he wasn’t slamming his cock into you the way he had with his fingers and that should have been easier to take, but there was no release, just more and again. 

When he pulled away from the kiss, giving you a few moments to catch your breath, you threw your head back to keep him from kissing you again, worried that you’d pass out from the lack of air. Buggy groaned in irritation, punishing you with a hard thrust. And then another, and another. Skin slapping and squelching and your confused yelps of pleasure or pain.

“I-I—I can’t, I…” Your nails dug into his back, his shoulders, not to make him stop or even slow down, but because you had no other way to express what you felt. “Too much, i’ss—”

Buggy grunted, grabbing your legs again to pull them back up, changing the angle. The surprise zip of pleasure struck hard, making you moan loudly and openly, your wide eye meeting his. Buggy’s lips twitched almost like a smile, a little look of victory at getting such an unabashedly slutty reaction from you. You couldn’t take it back, and he knew he had an advantage, exploiting it with every thrust. 

“Come on,” Buggy said, his voice labored and heavy. “Admit it… You love this. You wanted me to fuck you from… from the day we met. You’re a freak.”

“Captain… Buggy please,” you begged, whining his name desperately in a voice that sounded so unlike your own. None of you really felt familiar, not your voice or your body or the sensations. Maybe it was someone else and you were only along for the ride, that would explain why you lacked any and all control over your body, why you could feel the torturous build of pleasure in your core in spite of the discomfort or fear or uncertainty, why you had been driven to true delirium from the way his cock ground against your walls like his fingers had, another point of excess stimulation on top of the overwhelming fullness. You could feel your pussy squeeze around him, feel the fresh wave of slick arousal that coated his cock, spilling out around the seams. You had no control, there was nothing for you to do but hang on and accept what had become helplessness in its purest form.

Buggy laughed, a hoarse, mean sound that stuttered with each thrust before leveling into a moan. You couldn’t help but whimper in turn, your hips moving to meet each rocking thrust, your thighs trembling with how hard they were clamped around his waist. If you let go, you worried that you’d never stop falling, that you would be lost because there was nothing else. 

“Buggy,” you whined. “Buggy, I…”

He groaned low, grabbing your hand to hold it with your fingers entwined, pinning it by your head. By now you were chest to chest, both of you sweaty enough to be slick, your breathing dangerously unsteady, lungs puffing the sweltering air. He was kissing you, but every part of your functional mind that still worked was focused on coming. Buggy didn’t seem to mind your preoccupation, content to kiss your open mouth, content to swallow all of your moans. You didn’t think it was physically possible to be closer to another human being, you could feel his heart beating within your own heavy ribcage, feel the rush of his blood through your veins. There was nothing left of you without him.

So, then, you couldn’t do anything else, there was no choice, just that anxious need, some wild feeling that you’d scream if you couldn’t come. After teetering so close for a frightening few seconds, that was the thought that tipped you over the edge, your body tensing and seizing beneath him, disturbing your synchronization as your pussy spasmed around him, your hands holding onto his back in a death grip, pleasure rippling through you, stoked over and over again by the relentless weight of his cock. When you were done whimpering and whining and writhing your way through your orgasm, your body going limp beneath him, Buggy released you from the kiss. You saw a thick strand of saliva pop between you as he pulled away. 

“Did you just… come?” he asked breathlessly, incredulously.

You nodded, gasping for air, your glassy eye swirling with moving colors, your hazy mind unable to focus on anything while he was still inside you. 

“Guess that answers that question then,” Buggy muttered. Laughing as he began fucking you again, laughing and then moaning, his thrusts less targeted and more indulgent. All he had to do was get his hand on your jaw to remind you to look at his eyes. It made you choke, whimpering as the wake of your orgasm faded into overstimulation all over again. The intensity of too much combined with the trembling pleasure-pain, all of it twisted and hazy red, a world filtered and scattered, intangibly delicious but also anxious and frightening. 

Buggy fucked into you selfishly now, his hands digging bruises into your thighs, his thrusts jarringly rough and without any rhythm you understood. But the sounds he made, you liked those. They were almost pained, rising in pitch as he got closer. Lustful appetite in its most crude and feverish form. 

“Buggy,” you whined, scrambling to hold onto him, to mitigate the violence of his desire. “Buggy, please-” 

He moaned loudly, crushing you, claiming you with his open mouth on yours, all teeth and tongue and hunger. Using you, sparing you no soft affection when he came, burying his cock as deep as possible for those final few sporadic thrusts. 

You thought you could feel it, feel his cock twitch inside of you, but maybe it was just your imagination. How could you feel anything other than the steady throbbing between your legs? 

Buggy groaned, breathing hard. A second later, he pulled out and flopping onto his back beside you, either missing or ignoring your wince of pain. You covered your face with your hands, willing the world to fall away. You couldn’t understand it anyway, what was the point?

“I was thinking of a more appropriate title for your job,” Buggy said between ragged breaths. “I get worried that-that people might expect too much from you. So I was thinking something like Buggy the Clown’s Cocksleeve or—or the Flashy Fool’s Fucktoy. But just now, it came to me-” He snapped his fingers. “Captain Buggy’s Cock Puppet.” He turned his head to look at you, grinning. “Eh?” 

A hard shiver worked down your spine. “That’s gross,” you muttered.

He huffed, annoyed by your answer. “It’s pretty bold to act like a prude when you were creaming all over my dick a couple minutes ago.”

You groaned, covering your face again. 

“We’ll work on that,” Buggy said, sitting up. You opened your eye, watching him roll his neck and arms, his shoulders popping. His hair was a mess, a lot of it had come loose, he had to fight against the hair tie to get it out, swearing at it before the thing snapped and he threw it somewhere to the side. You were too sleepy and dazed to care that you were staring at him, admiring him. You did admire him, even if he said things you wished he wouldn’t, or did things you didn’t like. You admired him as your captain. And he was beautiful. 

Buggy rolled off the bed. He wore his nudity without a shred of shame. You watched as he poured himself a big cup of water from the jug, downing it all in a steady stream of gulps.  

“Thirsty?” he asked, shooting you a look over his shoulder. 

You pushed your hair off of your sweaty face, the world spinning spectacularly as you sat up, and nodded. He filled the cup again as you crawled to the edge of the bed, wincing at the sharp pain between your legs, the wet mess coating your thighs.

“Drink up, you were leaking pretty bad from both ends tonight,” Buggy joked as he helped hold the cup steady in your shaking hands. You hummed, not really caring about his words because the water was the best thing you had ever tasted in your entire life, and it felt even better on your dry tongue and throat. He took it when you were done and you wiped your mouth, an anxious question forming in your mind. You weren’t sure if you were supposed to leave or not.

But you weren’t sure if you could move, either. Maybe you would just stay there forever. That didn’t sound too bad.  

Buggy turned off the lights and threw himself onto the bed, uncaring that he was lying in the mess the two of you had made or that he was sweaty and grimy.

“What are you doing?” he asked. 

What were you doing? Why were you here? What had you done? “I… um-”

“Yeah, I don’t actually care,” Buggy said through a yawn. “It’s been a long day and I’m wiped. Get up here.”

It took a moment for you to follow the simple order, but you managed to crawl up the bed. Rather than suffer your nervous attempts to find a spot that wouldn’t disturb him, Buggy grabbed you, pulling you against him like a child with a toy. He was hot and sweaty and the amount of weight he put on you wasn’t exactly comfortable, but you didn’t dare move—you didn’t want to move. His skin smelled like greasepaint and musk and sweat and gunpowder and leather and you drank it in, accepting your discomfort because it was Buggy. 

In the swampish dark left behind in the red heat of passion, and especially in his arms, you thought about the affection you felt when you looked at him. It was only natural that you would love Buggy. Not as a lover, but as anybody would love their captain. To serve him as you had sworn, your love had to be absolute. But then you wondered what he felt for you. It would be too much and much too soon to ask for love, but surely there was something. 

You, with a shocking amount of clarity given the fogged state of your mind, decided that you would ask him and accept whatever answer he gave. Emboldened by that resolution, you looked at him. 

Buggy was already asleep.

[hahaifolded]

The Siren, the Cook, and the Sister (7)

Sanji x PirateHunter!FemReader (Masterlist) Chapter 7: Love and Envy (Previous) (Next) Summary: Wanting to move forward, you try to make peace with Sanji. Warning: None

"Dinner's ready!" Sanji called out from the kitchen door.

Despite such an eventful day, the Strawhats seemed unfazed by what had occurred. As they went on with their tasks, you sat under the main mast and just watched them. You found that the crew's dynamic was unlike any other you've had seen. It was endearing how they interacted like a family with no strict hierarchy. That must be nice... a big family.

A hoof gripped your hand, interrupting your thoughts. "Hurry! Before Luffy eats everything!" Chopper cried. He pulled you upstairs into the kitchen. He rushed in, leaving you at the doorway.

In front of you sat the entire crew, conversing, laughing, just existing among one another. You felt very out of place. However, before you had a chance to self-wallow, the friendly cyborg invited you over.

"Don't just stand there! Take a seat," he patted right next to him. I absolutely love this man. You took him up on his offer and sat between him and Robin who nudged you, humming.

"And dinner is served," announced Sanji as he set the last plate on the table. Your mouth watered by what laid in front of you. Hands immediately lunged towards the center as everyone tried to fill their plate. You stayed still, taking in the sight before you.

"Yo, aren't you going to eat?" asked Zoro. Everyone, but Luffy, looked at you. Even Sanji was surprised to see that you had made no effort to eat. Despite his distaste towards you, you still had to eat. Everyone has to eat.

You paused, unsure on how to respond. Thankfully, Robin came to your rescue. She shared your hesitancy in taking off your mask in front of everyone.

"Oh, don't fret. Not everyone is blessed with such clear skin as mine... wait I don't have any skin" assumed Brook with a mouthful of food. You couldn't help but laugh at his assumption.

You shook your head and then explained your mask and the fallacies of your devil fruit. "The Marines made me this mask to help me communicate since I don't have the best control of the volume of my voice. If I'm not careful, I can accidentally blow out someone's ear drums... or worse That's why I try not to eat with others so I'm not tempted to talk. But it's okay. I'll just eat later."

"What about when you're with your sister then?" asked Jimbei.

"She eats my cooking while I recount my adventures out on the sea. I'll eat once she goes to sleep," you shared, "it's better that way though because when we're together, we are talking up a storm. You really wouldn't want to be locked in a room with us, we'll never shut up." You couldn't help but smile under your mask as you thought about your sister.

Despite your robotic voice, Sanji could hear the clear adoration in your voice when you spoke about your sister. It stirred something in his chest. He always felt a little envious to see people get along with their siblings and here you were. He wondered if that could have been him and his siblings in another life.

"You should cook with Sanji!" mentioned Luffy. Sanji immediately choked on his food as his captain kept eating like he hadn't said something outrageous.

"Ummm... I'll think about it," you quickly replied. Still affected by his outburst from earlier, you didn't want to further get on the cook's bad side. You had to sail with him for a week so the least you can do it keep the peace.

As dinner continued, you couldn't help but feel excited for these next few days.

-- -- --

Three days have passed and you couldn't be happier. You quickly connected with Robin and Nami whose room you stayed in at night. It was nice being among other women.

And when you were not with them, the boys of the ship made sure to drag you into their own interests whether that was games, music, steering, tinkering, or training, you did it all.

After being alone for so long, it felt nice to be surrounded by so many characters and personalities.

However, there seemed to be only one thorn on this rose, and that was Sanji. Despite constantly cycling between one crew member to another, the cook never looked your way.

But, while he may have ignored you, you didn't ignore him.

When you first met the cook, you thought he was a machista cruel brute. But you came to realize that he was just a passionate, loyal caretaker. You noticed how he took care of each of his crew mates in his own way. Whether it was by reminding them to take a break or fueling them with a quick snack, the cook was always keeping an eye on his crew.

It was obvious that all he wanted to do was protect them from any danger, which understandably, included you. You gave him no reason to like you in the beginning and your subsequent actions only made things worse.

Now wanting to make peace, you made your way to the cook's domain, seeing if he wanted any help in preparing dinner.

As you walked in the kitchen, you found Sanji deep in the pantry, grabbing ingredients. Hearing the door open, he turned around and gasped as he saw a dark figure by the entrance.

"Sorry, sorry, just me," you excused yourself. Maybe I should borrow some clothes from the girls or something... this cloak keeps scaring people.

Standing up straight, he asked if you needed something. The cook felt awkward being alone with you. He noticed how easily you got along with the crew. Despite him wanting to apologize for his outburst, it just felt wrong to bring it up as you proved to be nothing but a good person. Bringing it up would just be a reminder of his unfounded distaste towards you.

"Not really...umm... just wondering if you'd like some help in cooking dinner tonight?"

Sanji couldn't believe it. Despite everything, you wanted to help him. Realizing this was his chance, he accepted your offer. Something now you weren't expecting.

After grabbing the necessary ingredients, Sanji and you got to work. He asked you to dice up the vegetables while he prepped the meat.

As you cut, the cook couldn't help but notice how sloppy your technique was. However, despite it being void of any professional training, it looked practiced, almost like you've done this for years. He wondered if your mother taught you that. And without even realizing it, the cook accidentally said some of his thoughts out loud.

Your mask let out a deep laugh as you heard his observations. "I know it's not the prettiest but it's gotten the job done. If you wanted to see real beauty in the kitchen, you should have seen my mom. She was a natural."

Seeing an opening, Sanji asked, "did she teach you how to cook?"

"Ha... no. I just watched her from afar as I wasn't allowed in her kitchen," you giggled, "she said just to watch her for now and once I got my own kitchen, she would teach me, but...," you paused. Sanji noticed how your shoulders sagged. "...she never got a chance too." Silence filled the kitchen.

I just had to ask a stupid question, thought Sanji as he thought he ruined the mood. But to his surprise, you started up again.

"So since then," you continued while chopping, "I've been trying to remember her moves and recipes. I haven't gotten there yet, but it's kept my sister fed so I can't complain too much, right?" It's been awhile since you thought about your mother. You tried not to bring her up to your sister as it pained her that she didn't have much of a memory of her. It was nice talking about your mother again, even if just to a stranger.

"I get that," began the cook. And to your surprise, Sanji shared his cooking journey. How his late mother inspired him to cook and how his 'dad' Chef Zeff taught him everything he knew. As you listened to his story, your chopping got slower and slower until it stopped completely.

Worried that he messed again, Sanji asked if he you were okay. You assured him everything was fine.

"It's just... a touching story," you said. He just hummed in agreement.

Letting curiosity get the best of you, you asked him where his dad was today.

"The old man is probably yelling up a storm in the East Blue." He laughed as he recalled the fiery personality that was Chef Zeff. So caught up on his own thoughts, Sanji asked, "And how about your dad?" He lightly gasped as soon as he finished asking.

"No, it's okay. Don't worry," you chuckled. You found it endearing how the cook was trying not to offend you. "My island was destroyed by some brutes when I was a kid. My sister and I managed to escape but my parents weren't so lucky," you said as you finished cutting up the last vegetables.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"It's okay... it's not like you did it."

A comfortable silence fell between the two of you as you both continued cooking. With the help of an extra pair of hands, dinner was done in no time.

As you set up the table, Sanji spoke up, “thank you for your help today. Honestly you didn’t have any reason to as I haven’t been the kindest to you. And for that I'm sorry." Wanting to makes things right, he decided to tell the you the one thing that couldn't be denied. "For what it’s worth, your sister is really lucky to have a brother like you.”

After days of tension, it seemed like you and the cook finally found peace with one another. Maybe this could be the start of a nice friendsh-- WAIT did he just say brother?

Word Count: 1668

Previous - Masterlist - Next

Author's Note: Y'all, I read my earlier chapters to see how far I come and y'all I ate... lol. Obviously I don't think it's like Pulitzer award winning but like it's a decent. It makes me proud. Makes me very excited for these next chapters.

Edit (08/05) - I edited this chapter as there were WAY TOO MANY grammar mistakes. So sorry for those who read this when I first posted it. Embarrassing that I was literally hyping myself up at the end and I gave yall that. Oof - lesson learned: Triple read before posting!

[adverbian]

My fanfiction over on AO3. All Good Omens (TV continuity), Aziraphale/Crowley. (Updated 17 Oct 2024)

(As always, check tags on AO3 for content notes!)

All Your Life (T, 2942 words, oneshot)

In which, sharing a cottage on the South Downs, they gradually find their way to themselves, and to each other. Soft and sweet and musical. A birthday gift for @gaiaseyes451 .

Horn of Plenty (E, 2931 words, oneshot) — co-written with @malachitegrey and @voluptatiscausa

Fluff and Crack. Crowley runs an ice cream parlor. Also he has horns. Also he and Aziraphale are in love. A birthday gift for MimiRay.

That Certain Night (E, 8670 words, 4/4 chapters)

Three nights together during wartime, and one night together after. Angst with a happy ending. 1941, 1967, Night at Crowley’s Flat, and a sweet, smutty South Downs epilogue. A birthday gift for @voluptatiscausa .

(More under the cut!)

This Most Balmy Time and Stay Me With Flagons (both E, each 100 words)

A pair of smutty birthday drabbles for @cemeteryangel725 .

Nothing Lasts Forever (G, 108 words)

A post-S2 meditation on narrative arcs, astronomy, and love — but make it a sonnet. (Written for a poetry game in the Good Omens After Dark Writers Guild. Prompt: “Starmaker”)

Gibraltar May Tumble (E, 8539 words)

A little first-time light bondage on a rainy South Downs afternoon, with feelings and tenderness and love. (A gift fic for @sapientmanbuncountrymare written as part of the Good Omens After Dark Pride Exchange)

Bear You on the Breath of Dawn (T, 100 words)

They’ve had an argument — their first since they moved into their cottage together. They’re still not very good at talking. But this time, they both stay. (A drabble.)

Da Pacem (M, 341 words)

A sestina about stopping the Second Coming with your secret lover, using the key words “night, time, glass, light, tide, stars.”

Is This Desire? (E, 15.5k words, 2/2 chapters)

A smutty, sex-pollened meditation on desire and consent. (Written for the High Pollen Count Good Omens Sex Pollen Event.)

Confiteor (M, 3k words, 1/1 chapter)

Aziraphale goes on a guilt trip. Crowley brings him back home. (Angst with a happy ending.)

Exsultet (E, 6k words, 3/3 chapters)

They’d won. But there were some things left to lose. (And there were some victories still to come.) (A gift fic for @crowleyslvt written as part of the Good Omens Song and Poetry Exchange)

In contenti e in allegria (E, 5k words, 2/2 chapters)

Completely shameless PWP, honeymoon in Paris edition. (A gift fic for @and-his-hands-were-24-crows in the Good Omens After Dark Valentine’s Exchange)

O You and Me at Last (E, 4k words, 1/1 chapters)

News of one of Aziraphale’s past admirers has Crowley feeling a little… possessive. (Written for the Good Omens After Dark Smut War)

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (E, 5k words, 3/3 chapters)

Crowley’s been giving Aziraphale space to adjust to being on his own, finally free of Heaven. Now, a gorgeous American philanthropist has started hanging around the bookshop. Has Crowley left things Too Late? (Spoiler alert: There’s a very happy resolution.) (Gift fic for IUsedToBeGifted177 in the Good Omens After Dark Christmas Exchange)

Small Things Like Reasons (M, 4k words, 7/7 chapters)

An exploration of six competing meta theories against the backdrop of the Rapture.

These, Thy Gifts (M, 100 words)

Crowley gives thanks for a feast. (A smutty Thanksgiving drabble.)

Revolver (T, 200 words)

Sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s, Crowley tried to introduce Aziraphale to the Beatles. It went about like you’d expect. (A double drabble with hands thirst.)

Series: Auprès de ma blonde

(Each item in the series can be read independently.)

General vibes: Ineffable Honeymoon. Everything is terribly sweet and romantic. Lots of Feelings. There are literary and musical allusions.

(Individual works in the series under the cut! Dorothy Sayers fans will instantly clock the first two titles. Yes, there are Wimsey vibes.)

one more river (and that’s the river of jordan) (E, 5k words, 3/3 chapters)

They are alone now — they are free. They are both nervous, but eager, newlyweds.

Auprès de ma blonde, qu’il fait bon dormir (E, 2k words, 1/1 chapters)

The morning after “one more river.”

What We Think About When We Think About Each Other (E, 4k words, 6/6 chapters)

Five times they swapped fantasies, and one time they started learning to share.

Songs and Sonnets (E, 2k words, 1/1 chapters)

A little bit of exploration that gets surprisingly emotional.

That the One Ought To Have of the Other (T, 1k words, 1/1 chapters)

Marriage vows considered as a formal contract, and negotiated with feelings.

Set Me as a Seal Upon Your Heart (E, 12k words, 4/4 chapters)

The Ineffable Husbands make it official. And formal contracts between supernatural entities have a way of becoming particularly real.

[the-dark-artifices-trees]

The importance of the number 7 in crescent city

Throughout the entirety of the crescent city series, the number 7 plays a huge role in both a symbolic and a literal way

⚠️ House of Flame and Shadow spoilers ⚠️

7 Asteri on Midgard

Rigelus (title- The Bright Hand)

Eosporos (title- The Morning Star)

Hesperus (title- The Evening Star)

Polaris (title- The North Star)

Octartis (title- The Southern Star)

Austrus (title- unknown)

Sirius (title- The Wolf Star)

7 Princes of Hel/ Circles of Hel

Hunt also mentions that “Type-Seven is only for the princes themselves, and given what this thing can do, I’d bet it’d be deemed a Six” in chapter 29 of HOEAB, when talking about the demons and princes of Hel

7 districts in crescent city/ city heads/ gates

7 “Made” objects *

Mask (made by Cauldron)

Crown (made by Cauldron)

Harp (made by Cauldron)

Horn (made by Cauldron)

Starsword (made by Cauldron)

Truth-Teller (made by Cauldron)

Ataraxia (made by Nesta)

*now while nesta did make another sword and dagger, we don’t know if they possess any magic and they don’t have any names either*

7 members of the Pack of Devils

Danika Fendyr (alpha)

Connor Holstrom (second)

Nathalie (third)

Bronson

Thorne

Zach

Zelda

7 courts in prythian

Night Court

Dawn Court

Day Court

Spring Court

Summer Court

Winter Court

Autumn Court

7 tog books (not including novella)

Throne of Glass

Crown of Midnight

Heir of Fire

Queen of Shadows

Empire of Storms

Tower of Dawn

Kingdom of Ash

Known starborn fae *

Fionn

Theia

Pelias

Helena

Silene

Bryce Quinlan

Ruhn Danaan

*The term Starborn describes the descendants of High King Fionn and High Queen Theia.

1. Also when bryce traded places so Danika would get into the Bone quarter, she said the vow (“I wish to trade my place.”) 7 times:

“She’d tossed a Death Mark into the Istros, payment to the Under-King—a coin of pure iron from an ancient, long-gone kingdom across the sea. Passage for a mortal on a boat.

And then she’d knelt on the crumbling stone steps, the river mere feet behind her, the arches of the bone gates above her, and waited.

The Under-King, veiled in black and silent as death, had appeared moments later.

It has been an age since a mortal dared set foot on my isle.

The voice had been old and young, male and female, kind and full of hatred. She’d never heard anything so hideous—and beckoning.

I wish to trade my place. (1)

I know why you are here, Bryce Quinlan. Whose passage you seek to barter. An amused pause. Do you not wish to one day dwell here among the honored dead? Your balance remains skewed toward acceptance—continue on your path, and you shall be welcomed when your time comes.

I wish to trade my place. For Danika Fendyr. (2)

Do this and know that no other Quiet Realms of Midgard shall be open to you. Not the Bone Quarter, not the Catacombs of the Eternal City, not the Summer Isles of the north. None, Bryce Quinlan. To barter your resting place here is to barter your place everywhere.

I wish to trade my place. (3)

You are young, and you are weighed with grief. Consider that your life may seem long, but it is a mere flutter of eternity.

I wish to trade my place. (4)

Are you so certain Danika Fendyr will be denied welcome? Have you so little faith in her actions and deeds that you must make this bargain?

I wish to trade my place. She’d sobbed the words. (5)

There is no undoing this.

I wish to trade my place. (6)

Then say it, Bryce Quinlan, and let the trade be done. Say it a seventh and final time, and let the gods and the dead and all those between hear your vow. Say it, and it shall be done.

She hadn’t hesitated, knowing this was the ancient rite. She’d looked it up in the gallery archives. Had stolen the Death Mark from there, too. It had been given to Jesiba by the Under-King himself, the sorceress had told her, when she’d sworn fealty to the House of Flame and Shadow.

I wish to trade my place. (7)

And so it had been done.”

- HOEAB, chapter 62

2. Hunt was in the Asteri dungeon’s for 7 years

“How long did they do that to you—after Mount Hermon?”

“Seven years.”

She closed her eyes as the weight of those words rippled through her.

Hunt said, “I lost track of time, too. The Asteri dungeons are so far beneath the earth, so lightless, that days are years and years are days and … When they let me out, I went right to the Archangel Ramuel. My first … handler. He continued the pattern for two years, got bored with it, and realized that I’d be more useful dispatching demons and doing his bidding than rotting away in his torture chambers.”

“Burning Solas, Hunt,” she whispered.” -HOEAB, chapter 35

“We need to get out of here,” Ruhn said, and nothing had ever sounded more stupid. Of course they needed to get out of here. For so many fucking reasons.

But Athalar cracked open an eye. Met his stare. Pain and rage and determination shone there, unbroken despite the halo and slave brand on his wrist. “Then talk to your … person.” Girlfriend, the angel didn’t say.

Ruhn ground his teeth, and his ravaged mouth gave a burst of pain. He’d rather die here than beg the Hind for help. “Another way.”

“I was in these dungeons … for seven years,” Hunt said. “No way out. Especially not with Pollux so invested in ripping us apart.” -HOFAS, Chapter 11

3. Apollion (7th prince of Hel) ate the Sirius (7th Asteri)

“No one would dare say his name, not after the Prince of the Pit became the first and only being to ever kill an Asteri. His butchering of the seventh holy star—Sirius, the Wolf Star—during the First Wars remained a favorite ballad around war-camp fires. And what he’d done to Sirius after slaying her had earned him that awful title: Star-Eater” -HOEAB, chapter 51

4. The slave tattoos has seven stars in it

“For there was also no hiding the second tattoo, stamped on their right wrists: SPQM.

It adorned every flag and letterhead of the Republic—the four letters encircled with seven stars—and adorned the wrist of every being owned by it.” -HOEAB, Chapter 6

“Ruhn spied their own solar system in the center of it all. Seven planets around a massive star. Seven Asteri—technically six now—to rule Midgard. Seven Princes of Hel to challenge them.

Seven Gates in this city through which Hel had tried to invade this spring.

Seven and seven and seven and seven—always that holy number. Always—” -HOSAB, Chapter 25

5. 7 is a holy number

“Seven—the holy number. Or unholy, depending on who was worshipping. Seven Asteri, seven hills in their Eternal City, seven neighborhoods and seven Gates in Crescent City; seven planets, and seven circles in Hel, with seven princes who ruled them, each darker than the last” - HOEAB, Chapter 19

“Micah had left the latter’s body up. Justinian would hang there for seven full days and then be pulled off the crucifix—and dumped into the Istros” -HOEAB, Chapter 69

6. Hypaxia and necromancy

“So this is it?” Ithan asked Hypaxia, gesturing with a hand to the seven candles she’d arranged on the ground. “Light the candles and wait?” -HOSAB, Chapter 61

“It took Hypaxia seven hours, seven minutes, and seven seconds to raise Sigrid.

Ithan barely moved from his stool the entire time Hypaxia stood over the corpse and chanted. Jesiba left, came back with her laptop, and worked for some of the time. She even offered Ithan some food, which he refused.

He had no appetite. If this didn’t work …” -HOFAS, Chapter 48

7. Sailings happen on the 7th day after the death

Don’t come to the Sailing tomorrow. You’re not welcome there.

She’d listened to it over and over, the first words to echo in her silent head.

Her mother hadn’t woken from the bed beside hers when Bryce had exited the hotel room on Fae-soft feet, taking the service elevator and leaving through the unwatched alley door. She hadn’t left that room for six days, just sat staring vacantly at the floral hotel wallpaper. And now, with the seventh dawning … Only for this would she leave. Would she remember how to move her body, how to speak.” -HOEAB, Chapter 7

8. Midgard geography

““Seven—the holy number. Or unholy, depending on who was worshipping. Seven Asteri, seven hills in their Eternal City, seven neighborhoods and seven Gates in Crescent City; seven planets, and seven circles in Hel, with seven princes who ruled them, each darker than the last.” -HOEAB, chapter 18

“Bryce didn’t wait for them before trailing the old male up the walkway as the seven planets aligned themselves perfectly, stars glittering in the far reaches of the room.” -HOSAB, chapter 38

“Bryce halted after a turn in the stairs and assessed the long hallway ahead. When it revealed no guards, she stepped into it.

There were no doors. Only this hall, perhaps seventy feet long and fifteen feet wide. Likely fourteen feet, to be a multiple of seven. The holy number.” -HOSAB, Chapter 71

“She’d studied Fury’s rough map of the palace layout. This area was seven levels below the throne room, where the Asteri sat on crystal thrones” -HOSAB, chapter 71

“They could fly no further. The massive black wall stretched for miles in either direction before curving northward, with wards protecting the airspace above it. Hunt knew from maps that the area the wall encircled was forty-nine miles in diameter—seven times seven, the holiest of numbers—and that at its center, somewhere in the barren, snow-blasted terrain, lay the Northern Rift, shrouded in mist. Barriers upon barriers protected Midgard from the Rift, and Hel beyond it.” -HOFAS, Chapter 70

9. Ithan & the number 7

“Sabine stared down at the seven shards the Fendyr sword had broken into, then lifted her furious gaze to Ithan.

Ithan shifted back into his humanoid body with a near-instant flash. “It’s just a piece of steel,” he said, panting, the metallic tang of the blade lingering in his mouth. “All those years you obsessed over it, resented Danika for having it … It’s just a piece of metal. - HOFAS, Chapter 74

“You have seven minutes” -HOFAS, Chapter 81 (when Ithan was talking to Connor)

[delirivmtr3mens]

BUGGY THE CLOWN: long fic recommendations

(in constant updating)

classifications:

🔞 nsfw

♀️Fem!Oc

♀️Fem!Reader

G!reader

✅ complete

🔛 En curso

The wicked witch of the East Blue — Eternalscreams

Summary: Fleur DeLys has been hunted all across the sea by pirates and marines who want to use her for her psyche-psyche devil fruit powers. What will happen when the Big Top raids the ship she’s currently held captive on?

♀️fem!OC

🔛 Chapters: 7/?

Freaks — TerribleMistake

Summary: After an unfortunate encounter, the Captain Buggy the Clown will make you an offer: join him, or suffer the consequences of your actions.

Navigating through grief and unclear emotions, you try to find your place in your new crew, for better or worse.

🔞 nsfw

G!Reader

🔛 Chapters: 3/?

Lessons in Showmanship — Vigilante_K

Summary: Kore joined Buggy's crew because he was her ticket to freedom. Buggy allowed it because he assumed she was a (bad) spy.

Kore uses few words, keeps to herself and generally doesn't mesh with the rest of the flashy crew - until she realizes that she'd become a burden on her captain.

That won't do.

In an effort to forge bonds with her comrades, Kore says a few things she perhaps shouldn't - and ends up pinned to her captain's bed. He gives her three lessons in showmanship - can Kore actually retain them while being fucked absolutely silly?

🔞nsfw

♀️fem!OC

✅ 2/2 chapters

the word was made flesh — plainsnake

Summary: For the simple crime of having a wedding the day the infamous Buggy the Clown decided to host a show, a woman is stolen from the altar and forced into a life amongst pirates, caught between the machinations of the frightening -- though regrettably attractive -- captain and her own desperate desire to be rescued.

🔞 nsfw

♀️ fem!OC

🔛 15/?

[talesofthedm]

Silence — Escape the Nautaloid

Woo, I finally got the chapter written and proofed. If anyone is interested, I will be writing out a combination of all 7 of my concurrent playthroughs (Tav + all the companions) and it is 100% a writing exercise and not because i have brain rot its both. By virtue of having those 7 playthroughs, it means I get to write out the romances between party members.

I'll be cross posting between here (summary and chapter below the line) and on AO3 as it goes. General tags/warnings will be applied to AO3, as well as I'll be doing chapter specific warnings in the notes section. Here will just get chapter specific ones. (Summary below the line).

Word Count: 6.8k

CW for this specific chapter includes: mentions of panic attacks, alien abduction, forced experimentation, graphic depictions of gore, body horror, implied stroke, and concussion.

Excerpt:

It felt as if her arm would be torn from her socket as she fought to pull herself up. Slender fingers curled around the clubbed tentacle, sticky and slick in the worst ways imaginable. Her mind screamed with a million thoughts—not all of them her own—and six lives that forced their way in. They did not supplant will as the mindflayers, but added to its strength; unified by the single desire to survive and live. The hallucinations took hold as dream and thought and reality collided along the Astral Sea. Hands scarred and beaten and broken and healed haphazardly in service to a loveless god. The delicate hands that had known no hard labor in his life despite carrying so much. Hands thrumming with wild energy that threatened to devour his very soul. Clawed hands of a deadly warrior dedicated to futile cause. Rough hands of a hero who would make every mistake again if asked. And burning hands betrayed and cursed by a devil. Their minds lurched as one with the ship as Freya ripped the last tenuous strand of life it had apart and suddenly gravity made sense again. Her body ripped from the crashing ship along with her new companions.

Summary: Freya lost her hunting partner two years ago. And then again three months later. And another a month later. Now she's pretty sure she's cursed. And being abducted her first day back in training really isn't helping that idea. Now she's trapped, it reeks of Avernus, something burrowed its way into her head, and she has to fight a small army! Even for someone who hunts the monsters roaming Baldur's Gate, this is a little much. Hopefully she can get back home and figure out what's going on before it gets any worse.

CH 1: Escape the Nautaloid

A large crack crawled along the edges of the glass as if it itself was alive, a parasite not unlike her own. Crawling, digging, tearing its way to ruin its host. She could still feel her own. Crawling. Burrowing. Itching. Settling somewhere between her optic nerve and pituitary gland.

The illithid didn’t even disarm her, the smoothed wood of her bow the only thing grounding her from another panic attack—not that it mattered even if they did.  All she knew was that horrible clicking at the base of her skull that caused her limbs to seize. Docile as a doll, trapped within her own body. She would have preferred a bed of hot nails or a pair of fangs at her throat. Hells, she would have preferred if they simply ripped her skull open with the horrible slurping she had only read of in books. But that wasn’t the case now.

She jammed the tip of her bow through the broken seal, trying with all her might to pry it just a bit more, to open it just a touch farther. To breathe something that wasn’t so sterile and soulless—even if that meant burning lungs and acrid smoke. What she didn’t expect was the stench of Avernus; sulfur and heat and blood. So much blood.

Freya collapsed onto the floor rather pathetically. The floor was a smooth, strange metal that provided no purchase or traction despite its design that reminded her more of carapace than anything she knew. The sole of her boot slid this way and that as she fought to stand, knees knocking like a newborn deer. She refused to be such easy prey.

But the violent jostling of the nautaloid certainly wasn’t helping.

The world slid and Freya braced herself as best she could. The contents of the central vat sloshed over the edges, burning groves into the leather soles of her boots. It was a creamy sort of color, thick and viscous like porridge. A shame, really. She used to like porridge.

There were people—innocents—trapped as she was. Trapped behind tinted glass held by scaled plates made of crisscrossing membrane and kept alive by things that were more tentacle than tube. Freya doubted the raised designs were simply that. Perhaps they were like veins—carrying within it the lifeblood of the machine.

Men, women, elves, humans, gnomes… She wasn’t even sure if they were alive. What was the rising of a chest and what was the pulsing of the machine?

Even among the roar of fire and the shouts of the blood war, Freya heard the creature’s claws dig their way into the metal of the ship. Crawling, scraping, desperate and dying, towards her. Her body seized; her mind went still. Consumed entirely by a single thought that was not her own.

Feed…

The dying gasp of a desperate animal—if she could even call it that. It was all the mindflayer could think out before a chunk of plating collapsed inward, crushing its skull with a sickening squish…

Do they have skulls? Freya half wondered, gazing at its now flattened head. It had burst, a particularly nasty boil that now oozed out the sides where its brain once throbbed with life. She watched pink slime trickle its way across the rapidly warming metal.

She had to get out of here before the hells melted the entire ship around her.

Freya didn’t want to think of the door, the way it twisted and churned her stomach. The way this ship was almost a mockery of something. Not wholly alien, the designs plagiarized and stripped from nature. It would be better if it was entirely new, entirely unknown. Instead, she was walking through the literal butthole of the ship. The ridiculousness of it all made it all seem worse.

Gods, I hope they aren’t all like that.

But the next room was better. Cleaner. The smell was still stale, purified in a way no air should ever be, but also dotted with sulfur and blood; two things she should never be grateful to have. But her lungs no longer screamed, her eyes no longer burned. Best of all, she knew the bodies were dead.

A goblin laid across the table—though, she more thought of it as an altar with the care and reverence the owner had left his tools. The skull had been torn open with such delicate care; the brain cavity now void of anything she could call as such. The stem had snapped, leaving the ball of grayish-pink tissue to roll about in a pool of its own liquids. A shame, really. It would have made something so perfect…

Freya shook away the thought, refusing to believe it was her own. Instead, she took stock. Even if it was rather… pitiful. A training bow. Blunted arrows. Even her armor was no more fit for hunting than her nightclothes. It was soft, pliable. Something designed for sparring. Yet, here she was, shaking and vision blurring. Fighting for her life.

Free Us.

A distant thought called at the edges of her mind. Not her own—but not a command, either. A part of her softened at the voice. Like a parent hearing a newborn laugh.

Save Us.

Her limbs moved automatically towards the platform and before she knew it, she was standing before a control panel. At least… that’s what she thinks it was. A single, pulsing orb the color of blood. Tentacles protruding from it, reaching for her. Freya reached for it, in turn. It was warm, smooth. A gentle rhythm not unlike a heartbeat. And then the platform moved.

It deposited her only one level up, surrounded by jars and vials and tubes that did nothing but house still-living organs. Hearts and stomachs and patches of skin and brains. So many brains… Samples? Experiments? Aquariums? Terrariums? Either way, there was a primal kind of fear rising up in her at the sight. Something that she was never designed to see—no one was designed to see—and it was put on display as one would a collection of insects. To be pretty and pinned and studied and cherished.

The worst of it all was the twitching form in the chair. Shirtless, scalpless. The only things left of the elf was a blood-spattered body and an echoing voice that in no way belonged to him. Here. We are here. If Freya wasn’t so close, if she hadn’t seen the floating tentacles and the rhythmic pulsing of his exposed brain, she might have mistaken him for a lord sitting atop a throne. A dark, spiked throne of chitin and spines. His head lolled back and forth as if to say ‘no,’ the echoes of his final words still playing on repeat even though no sound came out. No no no no no no no. His mind was gone, his body a husk on autopilot.

We are trapped.

Freya approached with caution; her footsteps as soft as she could make them despite the pounding in her head.

Yes! You came to save Us from this place, from this place you’ll free Us! Please, before they return.

They return, the voice echoed across her mind, consuming all thought and supplanting it with its own.

No brain should move. No brain should twitch, quivering in excitement and anticipation. Freya could not help but study it, the squishing mass of tissue that had swollen to fill the entirety of the cranium. The edges of it were darkened, misshapen and discolored from its beating against the skull that held it. Blood vessels spread out from the center, curling and reaching through to every crevice. It reminded her of trees or vines or winding rivers on a map. It was an image of life itself, now perverted into something slopping and disgusting.

“Why do you sound so afraid?”

The enemy! So many enemies. As if to invoke pity, tears streaked down the elf’s face. A constant, steady stream that washed away the bloody stains. Or worse, there was something left of the man. Left in a silent scream of pain and agony as his very will was ripped and torn by tiny claws.

“You’re past the point of saving,” she pleaded to the man, not the brain. “I can’t—”

The voices drove into her mind like an icepick; a hundred, a thousand, a million of them. Her father, her mother, the children she would hear running between the streets at dawn and dusk, her coworkers chatting it up in the tavern… her partner. Please! We are newborn. Remove us from this body.

Freya grit her teeth against the onslaught. The idea of manipulating her—using pity and memories that in no way belonged to anyone but her—was enough to drive her over the edge. She gripped the brain, digging scarred and callused hands between the squelching tissue and smooth walls of the interior skull. Clear liquid splotched out onto the ground at her feet as her fingers dug deeper, displacing whatever remaining spinal fluid still lingered underneath.

The newborn screamed, piercing and painful. Whether it was calling for help, or begging for mercy, she did not know but it only spurred her on. It, in turn, was clawing at her mind. Digging mental claws, tearing and biting at distant memories she would better preferred stayed buried and forgotten—anything to save itself.

She dug deeper still, slipping deft fingers into the furthest recesses of the skull as she searched blindly for the spot dead center—the dull, constant thud of the heart of a dying man pulsing its way through his arteries and into a brain that was no longer his. Freya tore through the circle of veins with ease, more blood than she always thought possible slopping onto the ground.

And then it was quiet. Sweet, sweet, silence as she tuned out the raging infernos and battle cries just beyond the walls.

Something had torn into the side of the ship long before she had awoken, exposing what could only be described as open bone and straining tendons to the searing heat of the hells. A strangely sweet scent on the air—sickeningly so—as the tissue shriveled and burned and died.

Freya made her way back to the platform, and from there the floor below. She had to get out of here, had to escape. Even if it meant traversing Avernus itself; she would sooner sell her soul willingly than have it forcibly taken.

Carapace-metal turned to squishing flesh. Her boots sunk into the new terrain, a welcome adjustment from having to constantly fight the frictionless surface. Especially as the rush of air nearly knocked her over, the great beating of wings as two red dragons rushed past in a torrent of fangs and claws and fire. They weaved through the air, dodging beams of psionic energy before tearing the canons away and tossing the scraps into the valley below. Even in the hells, surrounded by an ever-burning sky and flying over a river of lava, she could feel the heat of their breath. Her skin crawled at the heat, feeling the memory of her face puckering and scarring over again. A faint waft of oil and a bad memory.

Still, this was not what had Freya on edge. That kind of sixth-sense, the one where the edges of her hair stood on end and had her taking back alleys she normally avoided crawled its way up her spine. The sense of being watched; of being hunted.

Her bow was braced and primed before the Githyanki landed, the roar of yet another dragon soaring overhead. “Abomination. This is your end.” The sword was at Freya’s chest, mere centimeters from tearing through the leather and sinking into her flesh. At the same time, she was mere seconds from releasing the string and sending the arrow flying into the Gith’s eye.

They were at a stalemate, as far as she was concerned. Either run her through and die in the process, or disarm her and give her time to run. Even blunted, arrows could do damage if they were aimed well enough.

The two were on the ground before they could realize what was happening. The pounding, throbbing pain of memories flooding both their minds. Of dragon wings and tearing fangs, of silver swords and poisoned tipped arrows. Of each other as seen through the others eyes.

One tall, one short. One lean muscle and the other strong. The copper skin of a wood elf beside the green and black streaked skin of a Githyanki. Each under prepared, taken by surprise and held and used as nothing more than an incubator.

Both hunters in their own right.

“You are no thrall—Vlaakith blesses me this day! Together we might survive.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“First, we must exterminate the imps.” Freya looked over the Gith’s shoulder, finding the tiny creatures tearing away at the innards of a fresh carcass. “Then we find the helm and take control. We can address the matter of a cure once we reach the Material Plane.”

Lae’zel took off running before she could even respond, blade arching its way into the skull of the imp. It’s twin set of horns split, the curved bone all but shattering from the force. It gave a short cry, one no more suited for a babe, let alone a demonic creature. There was something almost… excited in her motions. A happiness Freya understood. Of not being stranded and alone in all this.

Freya stayed further back, allowing her new companion to take the brunt of the attacks for her if she was so insistent on charging into battle. The Gith had armor—she could take it. Bow in hand, the weight at least familiar if useless. She drew the string, knocking her arrow with it in one practiced, fluid motion and took aim between its ribs.

Her eyes blurred, limbs shaking, as that thing crawled around inside her. She could not aim, let alone target the weakest points of the imp as it danced around the sky. She doubted she could hit a simple target in her state… Freya shifted her attention, instead aiming for a much larger target than the tiny space between two equally tiny ribs.

The arrow pierced its leathery wing, tearing delicate veins that would leave more bruise than any deep wound. Even still, it collapsed to the ground, the force of the shot sent it tumbling off the edge and into the chasm below. No wings, no flight. And it being a million miles from the ground… The only thing she regretted was losing the arrow, making her already dismal supply even worse.

A beating of wings lost in the torrent of wind; she didn’t realize it was upon her until the blade bit into her shoulder. The curved edge of a scimitar—as long as the imp was tall—narrowly missing her ear. Freya swore, realizing the remaining flying pest was smarter than she would have liked. Her arm was useless in this state. She backed up, feet dragging against the metal so she would not trip and make her situation worse. At least, until she felt her heel teeter on the edge, nothing below but decrepit earth and endless war a million miles below.

It glided forward, beating of its wings matching Freya’s heart. Its eyes burned like fire, but held nothing but cold and pain and promises of a torturous eternity no matter if she lived or died. Closer and closer, perhaps wanting to inch her off the deck of the ship rather than sully its already blood-stained blade. Curved talons reached out, not to strike but to push her that last half-step into the chasm below.

Freya sidestepped the fiend the moment it came within reach, the creature only finding empty air. Horrible screeches of anger, one that made her ears bleed and resolve steel, left behind nothing but an empty promise as the elf drove a blunted arrow into the literal fire of its eye. The blaze turned to a single, fading cinder that could just as easily be snuffed out by a pair of fingers. Its body went slack, crumpling to the ground. If she hadn’t just killed it, she might have mistaken it for a prop or toy of some rich noble who pretended his life was worth more than it was.

“Ugh!” Lae’zel screamed, silvery blade slashing wildly through the air as the final remaining imp dodged between attacks. It taunted her, tongue out blowing raspberries and throwing rude gestures with every missed hit. The Gith was panting, seething, out of breath far sooner than she was used to.

At least Freya wasn’t the only one suffering any ill effects.

Her shoulder screamed with every motion, its tendons now nothing but thin strands trying desperately to hold her together. She knocked the arrow, drew back the string. She aimed, watching as the tip shook with each shuttering breath and the world blurred from a mixture of pain and tadpole. It—the fiend—danced and fluttered as gleefully as a child between each attack. She would never be able to hit it, not with the Gith swinging and the creature dancing… But she had to aim at something.

The arrow went loose, Freya shifting her weight and her aim at the last possible moment to account for herself and prayed to whatever god that could hear for it to miss its mark. The blunted tip veered off course almost immediately, striking the imp through the back instead of the glinting red gem of the Githyanki’s armor. It collapsed, dead.

“Tchk. Perhaps you are not as useless as I believed, after all.” Lae’zel kicked the fiend’s head, confirming its death.

Freya reached down and picked up the scimitar with her good arm, the weight of it unfamiliar and the rapidly heating metal causing blisters where it met her skin. It was another option, at least. And it would have to do—swinging wildly was a better chance to hurt something than her bow. She just had to pray it wasn’t herself.

Or Lae’zel.

The Gith took off running, leading the charge with an eagerness Freya only associated with the apprentices.

Webs of membrane spilled out over the ledges. Of course, she would have to climb in her state…

But the glowing mist of a machine beckoned her. Thousands of thin, strand-like feelers with bulbus tips, a strange blue fluid leaking from them. It smelled of fresh rain and sweet wine, brandy and herbs and the first peeling of a fresh orange. It smelled of her rest periods, the times between hunts when she had herself and silence and possibly her dad as he visited after his own work.

She stepped onto the platform, textured and shell-like and alien even compared to the rest of the ship in its organic nature. The mist surrounded her, the fluid dripping and evaporating on contact with a hiss. There was no pain, no itching, not even a numbness as her shoulder stitched itself together, layer by layer, fiber by fiber. Not even a scar, just fresh, healthy skin.

“Hurry up,” Lae’zel called from the top of the membrane rope. “The Ghaik do not wait, nor do the hells.”

The top was more chitin-metal, seemingly untouched by the heat and the blasts of devils and dragons. Another puckering door that gave way at the slightest intrusion, and beyond it a monolith of spines.

An elf and a human and a tiefling, not bound but held prisoner all the same, slept in some form of deep statis. Each one wearing the same clothes, baring the same crest that itched the back of her mind with its familiarity. A downward triangle, a front facing skull locked in a grimace, and a bloody handprint to cover it all.

Their energy was being sapped, stripped away by the altars they lied upon and fed into the monolith in the firm of twisting, red energy. The interior of it pulsed, spasmed as if it itself was living. Like a leech or vampire, feeding off of the hapless victims. Though it was not lifeblood it stole, but something equally as precious.

Freya just did not know what it was.

The control panel in front of it was comprised of more tentacles and wet tissue. Massive orbs she could only describe as tumors gave a soft glow about them, each one labeled with a strange word she could distantly remember in a book but otherwise ascribed no meaning. She was not sure what was button, what was lever, what was joystick, and what was merely design.

“You!” A panicked voice echoed behind tempered glass from across the room. “Get me out of this damn thing!” A woman with dark hair and silvered armor, bearing religious iconography across her entire being—eclipses and shadows.

“I’ll look around—there must be some way to get this damned thing open.” Freya craned her neck, looking at the pod and its construction. It was wrapped in a strange energy she had not seen before—red with flecks of a golden orange. There was no latch, no lever, not even a hinge to show it was capable of opening… she had pried hers off. Was she truly only alive because of another fluke?

“Tchk, we do not have time. We must reach the helm!”

Freya ignored her companion’s complaints. “The pod’s stuck fast. I’ll look around, there must be some way to get this thing open.”

“The contraption next to the pod! They did something to it when they sealed me in!”

The console was dormant, unlike the counterpart she had previously found. The life thrumming through it was minimal, possibly asleep or dying. Cancerous bulbs only gave a faint pulse in time with her breaths. Freya punched it, her fist digging half a foot into the fleshy gray matter-like tissue before her momentum slowed to a stop. She pulled back, a sticky strand of clear mucus trailing behind it. Ugh.

There had to be something, anything, to save someone. And then there was: an empty socket.

Now if only she knew what was supposed to go in it.

“It’s missing a piece! I’m going to look around, see if I can’t find something—”

“Please!” the woman cut her off. “Hurry!”

Perhaps the next room would have a key or a hatch or an escape. All Freya knew is she could not leave the girl with shadowy eyes. She could not save everyone, but she could save someone.

But, gods, she hated these damned doors.

She wasn’t sure what to call the chamber, a suspended platform above a cancerous mound of sticky flesh. An antechamber? An observation deck? The six thrones spoke of unequalled power and the central pod said nothing but voyeuristic torture. Even the architecture expressed only violence.

At first, Freya mistook the statues for wasps, with their long, curved thoraxes that tapered to an unsettling point. But the lack of legs, of wings, gave her pause. More larva than insect, with the piercing maw of a spider and the thousand legs of a centipede. She could feel it now, squirming and crawling and nestling deeper into her brain. The pointed stinger dragging, leaving trails of pooling blood that blurred her vision and numbed her limbs and confused her mind.

The room was a monument to all things absolute.

Absolute power.

Absolute control.

Absolute perfection.

The two of them stepped over a dead body, a human that looked stronger than either of them felt at the moment. Another escapee, another runaway. A failed one, at that. Clutched in her palm was a single key. Something she was desperate enough to die for… Freya took it, slipping it in her pocket.

Another pod stood front and center. Harsh lines, plated chitin, but it was not pulsating. The tubes that ran in and out were dead and dull, the once living prison now more like stone. The woman inside was trapped, too dazed to realize who she was, let alone the danger she was in.

But she was moving. She was moving and blinking and breathing and—“We have to find a way to open it. Get her out.”

“We will not! Our mission is the helm, not to waste our energy on every ishtik we come across.”

Freya whipped around, trying her hardest to ignore the way the world was suddenly doing summersaults. The woman was fidgeting, palms itching and shoulders pinched and teeth bared in such a way that it betrayed her thoughts. She itched to reach back, pull the gleaming longsword from its sheath and strike through Freya’s body in one swift motion.

But she didn’t.

Her palms itched not from impatience, but from beads of sweat that made Lae’zel too uncomfortable to be in her own skin. Her shoulders pinched not as an enraged animal, but as something cornered. She bared her teeth like fangs only because she had none.

She was afraid.

“One less captive, one less mindflayer. One less threat.”

Her new companion bounced impatiently. “Our mission is the helm. Not this,” she restated. But otherwise, Lae’zel made no motion to flee, or strike, or otherwise betray her.

There was another living module at the far end, riddled with cancerous tumors and sticky tentacles. Freya reached out, tentatively and sunk her hand into the very center of it. She had a vision of it—of reaching into the proverbial lion’s maw and hoping it did not bite back.

A voice, one so distant and indistinct that it could not be understood, echoed in both their minds. To be born, to perfect, to be changed…

The woman in the pod screamed. One that stole her breath and threatened to tear her throat with its intensity—but it was muffled. She beat desperately against the glass as every muscle in her body seized. Her neck strained, snapping violently to the side as her limbs jerked violently in the wrong directions. Her bones snapped, commanded by a higher will to destroy itself in order to be born anew. Violet tentacles tore their way through her throat and out her mouth, choking the last of her life away before consuming her in its entirety. A face, a brain, crawling its way outside a fleshy prison and into the light the way a hatching might break its egg. The woman’s body flipped inside out, destroying anything of her that might have been saved. And then there was a mindflayer.

Dampened behind tempered glass, the woman’s last acts of humanity had been to make sure that her “saviors” knew the pain and torment they had condemned her to. Freya wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse.

“Kaincha!” Lae’zel swore. Freya might have not been able to speak the language, but she understood all the same.

Fuck.

“We must be purified, or this may be our fate!”

“No arguments,” Freya responded. There was no fight left except that of survival.

The two ran back to the previous room as fast as they could manage and gave another cursory glance. To find explosive, acids, poisons, weapons of any kind that may help them survive the waking nightmare they were in.

The same woman from before continued to beat against the glass, desperate for escape as they were. Freya was about to leave her and save her own skin if it hadn’t been for the damned chest and Lae’zel.

The reliquary was odd in its normalcy. Something mundane, inanimate, yet resting atop a nautaloid table as if it belonged. A deep purple, obsidian or perhaps a rough amethyst, and wrapped in gold. And locked. Very very locked. The key clicked in place, turning with no resistance and revealing a meager contents. A few coins. A small gem.

An alien-looking slate.

It called to her; sang in that special way she had come to associate with everything nautaloid. Another key, this one begging to be placed back in it’s socket like the piece of a puzzle. Begging to be made whole once more.

There were no screams, thankfully, when Lae’zel pressed a hand against the button of the central control panel. The sleeping forms feeding the great machine spasmed, purple spikes of energy snapping through the air and piercing the very fabric of their minds. They collapsed in silence, died in silence, and now bleed out onto the ground in silence.

“What the hells?!”

“We dealt with ghaik your way. Now, we try mine.”

“They were not ghaik,” the word felt strange on her tongue, a series of sounds she was not used to stringing together in such an order. “They were people! They were—”

“They were nothing but tralls feeding the Grand Design. Your saving,” she spat the word. “Only invites death upon us.

Lae’zel stalked to the woman’s pod, prepared to continue her slaughter. “No! Please!”

Freya ran as fast as she could, shocking the Gith woman with her speed. She flung herself between her companion and the pod, arms out to protect from whatever attack she had planned. “No more death! No more loss!”

“Then you invite our own! A thrall cannot be shown mercy—”

“A thrall who’s begging to be let out? Afraid to become a monster?” Lae’zel stood speechless. “She is no more thrall than you or I, Lae’zel.”

“I would appreciate it if you did not debate my death while I’m standing right here!”

Freya ignored her, continuing. “She is conscious, and she is talking, and she is as much afraid as you or I.”

“Those worthy of Vlaakith do not know fear,” she spat, but otherwise did not refute the statement. The Gith leaned back on her feet. She did not concede ground but did not advance, either. Freya carefully stepped over to the dormant console, only turning her back to the Gith and the pod when she was forced to.

The slate slid in without effort, locking in place as alien muscles contracted and held it there. The same strange red and golden light emanated from the center of it, as if it had been infected by an equally alien disease. It pulsed, a dull thud that sounded in the back of her head as much as it did in front of her. It was not a mind, but a beating heart… what would happen if she killed it?

The parasite squirmed in Freya’s head as she reached towards the console. She could feel the web of veins in her brain strain and tear as the creature burrowed deeper, contented with the soft warmth of fleshy gray matter that gave way around it. Her vision blurred again, the side of her body suddenly feeling numb.

But then the sensation was gone, the discomfort fading into the dull ache of dehydration and sore muscles, and a new one flooded in. A familiarity of being held, of never quite being alone. An intimate connection that whispered power and belonging and control. Authority.

Freya clung to that feeling despite every cell in her body screaming otherwise. She was in control. Her will would supplant all others.

Even the nautaloid itself.

The pod would open.

She felt the command buzz across every synapse of the living ship at the speed of thought. Processing. Considering. Yeilding.

The pod shifted, the chitin plating parting as the glass slid away on unseen hinges. The woman stood on her own two feet, prepared to take her first steps to freedom.

Perhaps it was the sudden shift in pressure, of stale air being stolen from her lungs and flooding back in with the caustic smell of smoke and antiseptic. Perhaps it was the adrenaline crash, her body realizing that, for a brief moment, she was safe. Either way, eyes rolled back and her knees buckled. She collapsed onto the floor.

“Pathetic,” Lae’zel spat.

Freya ran over, sliding onto her knees in an instant to help the woman up.

“I—I thought that damn thing was going to be my coffin. Thank you—” both of them keeled over in pain, minds lurching into the familiar but unwelcomed dance. The barest glimpses of memory—distant and shadowed as the rest of her—and gratitude and wariness. No one helped without cause, and there was a Gith standing behind both of them.

“She’s an ally,” Freya responded to the question before it was even asked.

“We will take the helm. Escape and cure us of this infection.” As if it was a simple wound to be cleansed.

The woman nodded. “We’ll need all the help we can get. Let’s get off this thing together.” She stood on wobbly knees and took a few tentative steps before a moment of realization came over her. “One moment.” She turned, fetching a discarded pack from the floor of her pod. A red vial, a scroll, and a strange device that she seemed too keen on hiding from her new companion’s watchful gazes. “Lead the way.”

The helm had been right around the corner, a simple right instead of the straight path they had originally taken. “Follow my lead once we are inside,” Lae’zel commanded.

The door spiraled open onto a long interior, the chitin floor melted and burning under the hellish fires of Avernus. Literal devils slashed away at the tentacled freaks—mindflayers. One locked in a deadly conflict, blasts of psionic energy warping the very fabric of reality around them as the devil took stab after stab with a flaming sword. A second combatted his own further back before he was disarmed and forced to his knees.

The alien creature wrapped its tentacles around the devil’s face, forcing the moist appendages down its throat so the devil would choke. A horrible, shuttering noise came from the mindflayer, more akin to a drill bore than anything normal. Blood spirted in wide arches, decorating the alien in a veil of glory as it slurped the brain from its cavity and the devil fell down limp. Freya had never seen one feed before. And, based on her companions’ reactions, none of them had.

Imps crawled their way into the room from between cracks and open windows, like parasites themselves. One, two, three slashes across the Illithid’s body and face and arms. Its own blood intermingled with the devil’s. It did not matter what was what or whose was whose; they both collapsed beside one another in death.

A blast of psionic energy pushed the last remaining devil flat on its ass, buying the creature enough time to survey the destruction around it. The alien’s eyes met Freya’s and immediately formed a mental connection.

Thrall, connect the nerves of the transponder. We must escape. Now. Command. Authority. Pleading. Fear. Desperation. Impotence.

It could only pray she obeyed, its mind immediately dragged to more pressing matters as the Devil stood itself up and cleaved into its side.

“Heed its command,” Lae’zel said. “We will deal with the mindflayer once we are back in the material plane!”

Freya took off running without a second thought. She didn’t even notice the hellish creatures tearing through the corpses before her until the hellsboar took a swipe with its burning tusks. It gouged into her leg, cauterizing the wound the moment it was made. So, she kept running.

An imp erupted into golden flames before collapsing to the ground at a single wave of the shadowed-woman’s hands. Fuck, Freya swore to herself. How could she have forgotten? Maybe she wasn’t as useless in a fight as she thought.

Two more creatures collapsed around her as Lae’zel picked off imp after imp with her bow. Part of Freya hoped the Gith was providing proper cover and not just blindly aiming and praying that she missed enough in the right direction to be useful.

Freya left the cambion devil and the mindflayer in the dust, each step reverberating up her legs painfully with the force of pushing herself faster and farther than she was capable of in the moment.

The two struck at each other desperately, the mindflayer too dazed and weak to be useful anymore. The cambion, on the other hand, was deadlier than ever. Its ever-burning blade tearing through lilac flesh with all the diabolical grace Freya had come to associate with the Nine Hells. The battle was almost laughable—but she was more afraid in the moment of what would become of them if the ship fell before its time.

“Incante!” Freya screamed, a newly summoned hellsboar erupting in golden light before collapsing to the ground, a charred husk of an already charred husk.

She was so close. So, so, so, so, so close to the transponder. To the writhing tentacles that controlled the ship. To home.

With a final scream, the mindflayer fell; useless in death as it was in life. Freya did not have time to survey the scene, to find out who the Cambion would reach for next in its slaughter. She hardly had time to think, being so incredibly close to the end of it all.

The shadowed woman stumbled, the heavy armor she wore suddenly unfamiliar in its weight as the ship lurched. The final master now dead, the ship was dying. The Gith took an unaimed shot, desperate to distract the fiend long enough to buy time. It went wide, a mere nuisance in the way a particularly annoying fly might have been, and the cambion lifted its blade to strike a critical blow. One that would cleave the woman in two, leaving her bleeding out on the floor of the ship until the heated air dried it to flaking clots and empty breaths.

Freya gripped the tentacled arms of the transponder, delicate feelers reaching from the clubbed head. It latched on to her in turn; consuming, feeding on her very will. She grabbed a second one at random, forcing the two ends to meet in the middle. An endless loop, the ship feeding off of its own dying energy. The tentacles went taught as a string. And, like a string, she flicked it. A gentle hum reverberated throughout the ship and the surrounding air.

The ship lurched again more violently than before. The cambion lost his footing mid strike, sending him flying into a curved pane of glass, cracking it, as gravity suddenly had no reason. The blade spun through the air, having been lost in the fiend’s fall. Spinning, flipping one end over the other until it finally sunk with a final thud and though its wielder. Web-like designs crawled along the pane, cracking and breaking until, finally, it shattered and the cambion fell through to its death.

Lae’zel found herself suddenly on the ceiling and then again splayed across the floor. Her weapons scattered to the winds as her lungs protested the lack of air around her. A familiar pain, one she had grown used to in her travels between planes and across the Astral Sea. Her body willed itself to breathe, willing the very fabric of dreams to solidify into oxygen so she would not die. No, in Vlaakith’s name she would. Not. Die.

Freya clung desperately to the tentacles of the transponder, her own lungs burning and her limbs screaming with the strain of holding on in the violent tumble out of Avernus. Gravity ripped this way and that, no rhyme or reason as the ship drove at impossible speeds to worlds unknown. They had to go anywhere, anywhere, but here. Anywhere in the material plane—anywhere close to home.

It felt as if her arm would be torn from her socket as she fought to pull herself up. Slender fingers curled around the clubbed tentacle, sticky and slick in the worst ways imaginable. Her mind screamed with a million thoughts—not all of them her own—and six lives that forced their way in. They did not supplant will as the mindflayers, but added to its strength; unified by the single desire to survive and live. The hallucinations took hold as dream and thought and reality collided along the Astral Sea.

Hands scarred and beaten and broken and healed haphazardly in service to a loveless god.

The delicate hands that had known no hard labor in his life despite carrying so much.

Hands thrumming with wild energy that threatened to devour his very soul.

Clawed hands of a deadly warrior dedicated to futile cause.

Rough hands of a hero who would make every mistake again if asked.

And burning hands betrayed and cursed by a devil.

Their minds lurched as one with the ship as Freya ripped the last tenuous strand of life it had apart and suddenly gravity made sense again. Her body ripped from the crashing ship along with her new companions. She fell a hundred feet, a thousand feet, a million feet to the rapidly approaching beach below, fully conscious yet strangely calm in the face of her impending death. A searing pain in her skull as her brain collided with the interior of it.

[silvysartfulness]

writing pattern tag game

thank you to @ameliarating for tagging me!

Rules: List the first line of your last 10 posted fics and see if there’s a pattern.

1. It was still dark when he woke up, but this dark had stars in it. (Heaven Has A Road chapter 56)

2. It's a sad thing to die alone far from home, Xiao Xingchen had told the old villager earlier, because he knew it was. (Heaven Has A Road chapter 55)

3. Bleeding out, chopped up like some badly butchered animal, Xue Yang dies in the dirt. (Under The Wheel)

4. “It's not a ghost,” Xue Yang said, sounding bored. (Heaven Has A Road chapter 54)

5. It could almost have been amusing, the way Xue Yang's moods swung wildly between almost ingratiating friendliness one moment, to glaring sullen murder at him again the next. (Heaven Has A Road chapter 53)

6. He surfaced from sleep completely ensnared in a tangle of limbs, confused for several long moments until the memories of last night clicked into place, and a wave of aching fondness made his breath catch. (Heaven Has A Road chapter 52)

7. The day had gone from crazy to something beyond surreal, and it felt like his mind had just given up and shut down halfway through, unable to really keep up anymore. (Heaven Has A Road chapter 51)

8. It was funny, in a way that actually really wasn't, how much easier flirting up a willing stranger to burn off some excess energy had been before - younger, brighter, sporting ostentatious Jin gold.... Having two arms. (Heaven Has A Road chapter 50)

9. Even in half-sleep Xue Yang could tell that the day would be unpleasantly hot and humid, and he was still a bit sore after last night's Night Hunt, but Xiao Xingchen was a comfortable enough pillow and so everything was as it should be. (Heaven Has A Road chapter 49)

10. “Jiangzai is here to see you.” (Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea)

I really appreciate Amelia asking me to do this with chapters as well as fics! Many Heaven chapters are 10k+ long, so could almost count as fics in their own right length-wise if you squint? 🤔😭

I think a pattern for opening lines for me is instantly establishing a mood, often by juxtapositioning concepts or words that clash or contradict, or just give a bit of emotional slap!

Xiao Xingchen knows firsthand what it’s like to die far from home. Xue Yang talks about something as extraordinary as ghosts and sounds bored. Xue Yang talking about sexy flirting and bringing up his mutilated arm in a single sentence, Song Lan wearily finding Xue Yang being friendly vs. murderous almost ‘amusing’.

Also throwing in stark phrasing like “butchered” or "dies in the dirt" or “ensnared” or other loaded words or subjects to grab the reader’s attention! Though I also really like more quietly poetic phrasing like the “this dark had stars in it”. 💚

Apparently I also like opening on a Xue Yang pov? At least looking back at these, though I do try to make a conscious effort to mix it up a bit!

Thank you so much for tagging me! I’m asking @fromaliminalspace @ebonykain @heretherebebookdragons and anyone else who wants to to join in on the fun! And if you don’t have enough/any published fics, just go with your wips! 😁

[the-kr8tor]

Batten Down the Hatches

Pairing: Pirate! Hobie Brown x fem! Reader

Word count: 7.8k

Tags: use of Y/N sparsely, no specific physical description of the reader, TW panic attack, CW Injury, CW food mentions.

Between the Devil and the Sea Masterlist

Navigation

CHAPTER 6 >>> CHAPTER 7

With Pavitr’s arm slung over your shoulder and James handing you a glass that smells incredibly strong, your heart has never felt this content in years. You laugh as Yuri wins an arm wrestle round for the third time that day. Everyone cheers, Yuri flexes with a rare wide smile.

It's been a few hours since your daring jump, you can still feel Hobie's hands on yours and the crew clasping your shoulders happily once they finally lifted you up. With their warm welcome and after the whole debacle, Hobie insisted that there should be a celebration for a mission accomplished.

“Someone rum me up!” she yells and you immediately give her your untouched glass. “Oh hell yeah, thank you, wifey!” Yuri winks, already drunk.

“I'm not your wife, Yuri!” You happily yell above the noise.

She gasps dramatically, “oh you wound me!” You shake your head with a smile.

“Yeah, Yuri, she's already taken!” Pav pipes up from your side, shaking your shoulders.

You clasp your hand over his chattering mouth, the crowd guffaws, asking you numerous questions.

“Oi! Who's got you all smitten then?” Two fingers asks.

“Oh look at her smile!” Ned joins in with the teasing.

“Alright, who do I have to fight for your hand?” Yuri has her hands on her hips, a teasing smile on her painted lips.

“No one! Pav's being a little shit!” you wrangle Pav while he tries to wiggle out.

He manages to get out, acting like he's deprived of air. “Isn't it obvious, it's the ca–”

Finn huffs loudly, his large frame casting a shadow over the small table. You sigh, relieved that Finn unintentionally saved you from all the teasing.

Yuri looks him up and down, the alcohol in her veins inflates her ego. With a smug smile on her lips, she sits back down on the stool, laying her elbow down on the table, flexing her hand towards Finn, challenging him for a match.

Everyone quiets down, flicking their eyes between the two.

You never thought you'd see the day, Finn grins, sitting across Yuri. With a loud thump, he copies his opponent’s movement, his large hand dwarfing Yuri's.

A loud cheer erupts, overflowing cups sloshing out, some even jump for joy. You blame the alcohol.

Pav leaves your side, going around to collect bets. The crew coughs up coins, you watch, beaming, nodding along to the light strumming of Ned's well loved guitar.

Backing away from the crowd, you leave everyone to get some air. The throbbing ache in your ankle protests so you lean on the ship's bannister, watching the vast sea waving to you. The afternoon sun bearing down, its warmth a welcome one from the cool sea breeze.

A steaming cup suddenly appears, balancing on the wooden railing. A lithe hand pushes it towards you wordlessly.

“Another olive branch?” You tease, side eyeing Hobie.

“No, I figured you'd want something to drink when you didn't drink the rum.” With his back against the bannister, elbows propped over it, he leans casually, face upwards, basking in the sun. His silver piercings glint in the light, a familiar pendant around his neck.

“Were you watching me? You stalker” taking the cup, you raise it to your smiling lips. Turmeric, you surmise based on the taste. You let the herbal tea soothe your aching ankle.

“I was watching my crew.” Hobie faces you, muscles relaxed, content. “How's the injury?”

“Getting better,” you twist your foot around, testing the pain. There's a dull ache now, the ice from Nellie's helped. “How'd you know about turmeric?” looking at him, you watch as his smile turns into a grin.

“‘m full of surprises I guess.” he throws your own words at you.

You roll your eyes, “You're insufferable, captain.”

“And I, you.” His eyes are soft. Before you know it, Hobie's already walking away.

The roaring laughter gets your attention. Yuri stands on the rickety table, arms up in glee with a look that screams ‘I'm a winner!’ Meanwhile, Finn is standing next to her, visibly worried, holding onto a very drunk Yuri who keeps riling up the crowd with her triumphant yells.

You guess the rum has special properties if Yuri can beat the large Finn at his own game.

The crew parts for Hobie, you'd think he would put a stop to Yuri's rambunctious celebration. Instead, he hops up on the wobbly table, sharing the already small space with Yuri who guffaws loudly, clapping rhythmically.

“Scoundrels!” She yells at the top of her lungs, the crew cheers, matching her energy.

Gwen sidles up next to you wordlessly, shoving you lightly. Giving her a smile, you watch the carriage wreck in front of you.

“May I introduce, Hobie motherfuckin’ Brown!” Yuri drops backwards, making you flinch towards her general direction. Good thing Finn's got her in his strong arms.

Yep, she's properly drunk off her ass.

Hobie takes a glass from someone, raising it up, the crew quiets down. A hush fills the ship, the sound of wood rocking against waves can only be heard above the silence.

“Rapscallions” They urge him on. “ne'er-do-wells!” The cheering gets louder. “Fuckin’ rascals!” He paused, the yells are ear drum bursting. “We finally got the king's swine!” You hear glasses breaking.

Hobie continues, quieting down the entire ship with one clear of his throat. “With the papers we have we finally know where the son of a bitch is sailing to.” His voice shakes from sheer anger and determination. “This time we get the upper hand.” His men hoot and cheer. “We will fight until we get our hands on the bastard that cut half of our crew. This time we get our bloody revenge!”

He downs the entire glass of rum in one drink, swallowing it like water. Meanwhile the rest of the crew follow his lead, gulping their own drinks fervently.

The cheering got so loud your ears started ringing.

You really hope they get the navy captain so that you can find your family who may or may not be up north. Until then, you'll stay with the crew and hope for the best that there'll be minimal injuries incurred during the fight.

—

You can't seem to find sleep despite how tired you were of yesterday’s events. Tossing and rolling in your bed, with a huff, you fling away the blanket. Lacing up your well worn shoes, you open the creaking door quietly.

With only the moonlight as your guide, you walk the familiar hallways, feet carefully avoiding the noisy floorboards.

Entering the library, lighting the oil lamp left on the table, you roam the bookshelves. With the help of the lamp, it illuminates the old spines. But nothing has piqued your interest, finding the titles too dull to keep your attention or too engrossing that you might not fall asleep when you inevitably drown in its pages.

Yawning, you think of another way to help you sleep. Maybe a glass of water might help? Or better yet, a cup of warm tea and biscuits might satiate you.

So you traverse the hallways once again, passing by cabins. Careful not to make any noise or you might face the wrath of a sleep deprived pirate. You know what they say, it's better to tease a drunk pirate rather than wake one from their slumber.

With silent footfalls, you almost jump in your skin when you see the captain himself brewing a pot of something that smells incredibly sweet.

With his back turned away from the door, you're sure you can slink away without him noticing.

“Scuttlebutt,” he half chuckles as the floorboards under you creak while you try to escape. “Want some hot chocolate?”

You groan, defeated. Turning around, he greets you with a smug smile, his eyes showing how fatigued he is but the light is still there, saying otherwise.

“What the hell is hot chocolate?” crossing the space, you lean on the kitchen island, facing Hobie on the other side. “I thought chocolate was supposed to be cold.”

“You're in for a treat then. ‘m guessing you've never had chocolate before?” he takes a clean mug for you, laying it next to his.

“Nope,” you pop the letter p, trying your best not to wipe your heavy eyes. “Chocolate is a luxury few can afford.”

Hobie hums, pouring the hot liquid in each cup.

This is what ambrosia might've smelt like, you thought.

“It's chocolate melted down with hot water or milk. Lucky for you, we got a few bottles of ‘em from one of the families. But we need to consume it fast or it'll go bad quickly.”

He hands you the cup, taking it tentatively, you don't flinch back when he suddenly grabs your hand to hold it when he gets impatient from your apprehensiveness.

“Don't worry, I already gave Pav and the first shift their share so you can drink to your heart's content.”

You look into the swirling brown liquid, the warmth from the cup soothes your nerves. Taking a sip, Hobie watches with crinkling eyes and a smile hidden behind his own mug.

“Holy fuck! Sweet nectar of the Gods!” You say before you take a big gulp, the heat searing your tongue. “Ack!” Spluttering out, Hobie lets out a loud laugh.

“Be careful it's hot” he says in between laughs.

“I know, but it's so good though!” You exclaim, eyes twinkling with mirth.

Hobie chuckles, watching you swallow the liquid down to the last drop.

You sigh, full and happy. “If solid chocolates taste like this then I'm more than ready to raid a merchant ship carrying crates of it.”

Hobie shakes his head. “I've never thought chocolate could make someone a pirate.”

“Not a pirate.” You move to pour yourself a cup. Hobie beats you to it, the sweet drink sloshing inside, filling it to the brim.

“Hmm” he watches you through his lashes.

“You're thinking, that's bad.” You take your cup but Hobie holds it hostage with his hand over the ceramic.

“What are you really doing back here?”

“I couldn't sleep, I just wanted some water.” you move to try and take the mug from him but he moves it further from you.

“There's some outside.”

“Fuck off.” Your hips hit the corner of the kitchen counter harshly as you try to grab your cup sneakily. The mug of precious chocolate scrapes on the counter, making you glare at Hobie when a few drops of it spills. “What do you really mean by that, Hobie?”

He scoffs, “You being here is suspicious—”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I'm not navy.” You say with gritted teeth. You're not sure if he's just messing with you or he's truly being genuine.

“Not that. Not after O’Hara ran a bloody marathon for you, I know you're not one of ‘em. Or at least not anymore.”

You glare at him, getting angrier the second he uttered that name.

“Are you a deserter? Hmm? Are you his runaway bride? If so I don't blame you, I'd run away too.”

You grimace. “Fuck no, I'm neither of those things! Now can you please give me my chocolate?”

“No.” He blinks like he just got some revelation. “Fuck, are you his kid?”

“No! What? How'd you even get that conclusion? Do I look like—?”

“For all I know you could be an aristocrat.” He raises a brow.

“Oh come on!” You're properly annoyed. “I've been scrounging up food and coins for years. If I was a runaway noble lady then I would've come home to my mansion the second I was starving!”

“Why did the retired admiral run after you then? He looked like he wanted your bloody arse.”

“It's none of your business.” The fire in your eyes tries to convey your emotions. “I don't want to talk about him.” your voice turns shaky.

“It's my business because you're on my ship. If Miguel O'Hara's after you I need to know if the rest of my crew is in danger.” a few weeks ago his infuriated face would've scared you but now you're equally as mad as him.

You exhale, knuckles closed tightly on your side. “Fine, I'm here on your ship because you're heading north and I need to go north. You don't need to know about me and that man because I'm leaving when we get there. He won't come after the crew, I won't let him.”

His anger dissipates, eyes avoiding your own. “Here,” he stretches his arm, sliding the cup to you. Hobie winces from the movement, grabbing onto his chest instinctively.

“What is it?” You look at his pained expression. Walking around the counter, you step towards him, not too close but not too far that you wouldn't notice how his brows are knitted together, sweat dripping on his forehead.

Carefully reaching for him, you turn him gently towards you, not missing how hot his skin is under his shirt. “Hobie, look at me.” You say softly, hand squeezing his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.

After a beat he looks at you with his stormy eyes, rain clouds dancing around his vision. “‘m fine, just need to sit down.”

“Let me see please” He freezes in front of you. “I'm here to help, aren't I? Now can I?” With a nod, he unbuttons his shirt slowly. Now open, a bandage is taped across his chest, dark blood seeping through it, clearly needing to be changed. “Fuck.”

“That bad?” He rasps.

“Yes, sit down.” You guide him towards a chair, surprisingly, he lets you. “I need to take it off to see the wound.” Hobie nods.

You kneel down in front of him, he sucks in his teeth with every tug and pull you do. The wound looks almost infected because of the careless bandaging and half hearted cleaning.

“Stay here, I'll get the things I need.”

He stops you with his hand bracelet around your wrist. “Tell me why you need to head north. There's nothing there but pompous politicians and leeching royals.”

“I think–” you start but you have no idea how to continue. Hobie looks up at you, hand sliding down to fit your own. “I think my family's there.” Without sparing any detail, you slip your hand out, turning away to head towards the infirmary.

—

His skin is hot against your hands, too warm for your liking. Sitting in between his legs, cotton shirt fully opened to reveal his wound and scarred chest. His newly bandaged knuckles rested on his thighs, they didn't need much cleaning but the skin was still open so you still did it just in case. The bottles of herbs rattle as the boat rocks from side to side.

Hobie's legs bounce up and down, the silence and tension is thick enough that your needle couldn't even poke through it. The ointment you're gently rubbing on him makes him wince, trouser leg bundled up in his shaking knuckles.

“Sorry, if there's any consolation, I hate this stuff too.” you quietly say. The strong smell from the mixture makes your nose itch.

“Were you a clumsy kid?” Hobie says, sucking in his teeth.

“Mm-hmm, I was climbing everywhere.” Chuckling softly. “Up in trees, roofs, got into so much trouble that she–” You stop, swallowing thickly. “I got a few scars to prove it.”

“We could compare–” he winces again when you press a little too hard on his wound but not too hard for it to bleed again. “Fuck…”

You hide your smile with a clear of your throat. “Sorry.”

“Fuck off, I know you're not sorry.” He laughs while you stifle yours.

Packing the mixture on his wound to combat any further infection, you make your hands extra gentle with every press and swipe.

“You should've told me about this.” Chastising him, you feel his eyes burn into your skull. “I could've prevented this, you know.”

“I've been told ‘m a stubborn bastard.”

“Oh I know. You did a shitty job at cleaning it by the way.”

“That's why you're here now, right?” His idle hands play with a hanging thread by your sleeves. He's not tugging at it so you don't mind, anything to keep his mind off the pain.

“So how'd you know about the turmeric for swelling?” You don't answer his question.

His smile falters before a small fond smile appears. “From someone a long time ago.”

Finishing up with cleaning his gash, you take a clean bandage from the table to cover and protect it. “They must be good then. Not a lot of people know about it.”

“Yes, she was.”

You pause, staring directly at his sad eyes. Hobie continues, “She was like you, brazen and full of fire.” He stares off into the distance, “A bloody force to be reckoned with.”

“A jack of all trades, she was. Always tryin’ to learn shit she didn't have to know.” Hobie flicks his eyes to you. “She knew how to swim, so that's a plus.”

You chuckle as he stares at your soft smile.

“Yours?” He asks tentatively, hand twitching to get closer to you.

“Does she know about ginger and honey?” Like a switch flicking, you stand up abruptly. “It's gonna help with your fever.”

Hobie doesn't press you for any information, instead, he lays back on the chair, letting you pamper him while your hot chocolate gets cold on the counter.

Preparing his tea, you can't help but feel bad for Hobie. Without him ever saying her name you know it's her, and you know he cared about her so much that whatever happened to MJ drove him to this state; a constant agony and hunger for revenge that if not satiated might consume him. He doesn't deserve it you think, he might be a pirate but during the time you've known him you found kindness in his frozen heart that's just waiting to be thawed out the moment he gets his revenge.

For his sake and the crew, you hope he gets what he always wanted.

“Here,” handing him the hot concoction, you're careful not to spill a single drop on him.

Hobie takes it, calloused fingers brushing yours. Taking a whiff of it, he makes a face that makes you scoff with a smile.

“If you can drink an entire glass of rum without choking then you can handle a simple tea.”

He side eyes you, shaking his head like a petulant child rejecting his medicine.

“Down the hatch, Hobie.” Bringing your hand under the cup, you guide it towards his tightly closed mouth. “It's sweet!”

“Nuh-uh” he shuts his lips closed the second he says it before you could shove the tea down his gullet.

Laughing, you can't believe the big bad captain of the bloodsail pirates is refusing to drink a simple ginger tea. “Do you need me to plug your nose, you big baby?” You say in between giggles.

“No, fine, I'll bloody drink it. I don't want your grimey hands all over my face.”

“These grimey hands were all over your chest treating your wound, you absolute child.” You regret your words the second you realize.

“Oh you were all over me, huh?” He smirks. You're glad that he can still smile after everything.

“Fuck off, drink it or don't, I don't care. Go die in a corner or something” you shrug, playing him like a fiddle.

“You really do care about me, Scuttlebutt.” With a deep breath, Hobie drinks the contents without any fuss.

You pat yourself on the back mentally. He coughs, scrunching his nose.

“I need to check your wound and clean it every eight hours. Got it?” You face him directly, hand on the side of his chair, looking down at him sternly.

“So you're finally askin' me out then? Pav was right, you're smitten.” Hobie has the brightest smile of a feverish man you've ever seen.

“Shithead.” You say, snatching the empty cup from his hands.

“You really do care about me. You've even given me a nickname”

You shake your head, taking your cold chocolate, flipping him the bird on the way out of the door.

“Lookin' forward to my next doctor's appointment, Trouble!” Hobie yells after you, his loud guffaw can be heard echoing out in the hallways.

—

You fall back into a comfortable routine. Helping the crew with their tasks and learning their ways throughout the time spent. You finally learn that the murky bucket of water doesn't have lye in it after seeing James dunk his entire arm in it. It's safe to say that he was covered in soapy water from head to toe after almost giving you a heart attack.

Ned's been teaching you how to mend the sails when you're not in the galley with Finn. He tells you tales of the time he was a traveling bard before the war. His stories were very colourful and sometimes not for the faint of heart. Who knew he had so many fans?

You've never smelt like gunpowder before, finding the powder tucked into the cloth of your clothes and sticking to your skin. The main culprit of the almost daily gunpowder bath is no other than Yuri and two fingers who took it upon themselves to teach you how to load a cannon and a musket. Under all the flirting, Yuri's a great teacher, your aim could do some work but at least now a gun isn't worthless in your hands.

At night, Miles and Pavitr would teach you about the stars and how to read maps, using it to navigate just in case you get lost. Which you hope will never happen to you. It would be a great skill to master if only you three would stop gossiping and giggling throughout the night, bellies full of tea and biscuits that Finn hides in the galley.

You find Gwen reading in the library alone from time to time. At first, you kept your distance, reading further away from her. But after a while, you notice that her favourite chair gets closer to yours until you sit side by side with her, reading quietly under a single oil lamp.

There's never a dull moment on the ship, everyone does their share of the work, and everyone gets to eat and be left to their own devices during the night. It's great, you think. You don't worry about your next meal or where you need to sleep anymore.

Your mind has never been this quiet since you left home.

Surprisingly, Hobie's been diligent at keeping your regularly scheduled injury maintenance on time. Even if you forget, he would appear out of nowhere, clutching your bag of supplies in his hands with a shit eating grin that makes you want to rip his bandage off harshly.

The brightness of the sun filtering through the large window hinders your vision a bit as you carefully take Hobie's stitches off. Your brows are knitted together, eyes full of concentration as sweat drips on your forehead. You could've done this in the infirmary but Hobie had to do a bunch of work in his cabin so you're currently doing your best at managing while he walks around the large table sat in the middle of the room. You follow him with your sutures and scissors. The sight must have been hilarious because half of the crew were chuckling and stifling a laugh.

But the moment you were finished, you threw them the nastiest glare you could muster. Shutting them all up immediately, looking away from you nonchalantly. You pretend you don't see them hiding their smiles.

Sitting down on a free chair, huffing and with your arms aching, you twist your wrists around, massaging the tired muscles with your fingers.

Miles sits next to you, a piece of paper landing right on top of your hands. Your own face stares back at you, a pencil sketch of you, face full of concentration.

“Did you draw this?” You say, surprised and with a bright grin on your face.

“No, Hobie did.” He says sarcastically but you believed him for a second. “Of course I did, it was a bit hard when you were following Hobie around like a duckling.”

“That's a compliment, ducklings are cute, Miles.” He rolls his eyes, “this is amazing though, thank you. I haven't had my likeness drawn in…never actually.”

Miles smiles, taking out a small leather bound sketchbook from his back pocket. “Prepare to be surprised then.”

He flips through it, you get glimpses of drawings from far flung sceneries, animals that you don't know the names of and faces of the crew; some familiar, some are strangers to you. But you see more of Gwen's face amidst the pages. You fight the urge to tease him, maybe you'll do that when half of the crew isn't discussing battle plans in front of you. Their faces are serious and intense as Hobie lays out figures on a map.

“You're this bored, huh?” With your elbow resting on your thigh, you watch him stop on a page.

“Look at this one” he proudly says, eyes twinkling. Showing you the pages, his hand still holding it just in case you had the audacity to flip through it yourself.

You can't believe it's your own face staring back at you.

Your eyes smile in the drawing, the unmistakable shine of happiness in them. Face turned to side, clearly looking at something. Your lips are curled up into a grin like someone just told you the funniest joke ever. The shading is expertly done by Miles, *it's like staring into a mirror, you thought. You've never seen yourself this happy.

“I'm guessing I did a good job?” He smugly says, “you're staring at it way too long, narcissus is that you?” Miles jokes, but his smile fades when he sees your eyes glistening in the sun. “Oh shit, please don't cry. Hobie's gonna kill me if I made you cry.”

You sniff, casually hiding the heat behind your eyes. “It's really good.” Chuckling, you feel a pair of eyes on your form. “Thank you, I–” exhaling, you have no idea how to properly thank him. Settling on a fist bump on his arm, you awkwardly do just that. “Thanks, you made me look prettier.”

He laughs, sighing in relief. “Nah, it was no problem. Making you look good was the hardest part.”

“You ruined it,” you scrunch up your nose, feigning annoyance. Pushing the notebook, shoving it to his chest he laughs loudly, too loud apparently when someone from the room shushes you two.

Miles winces before turning back to you. “You know what helped though? In getting your expression right?”

“No?”

“Hobie,” he says with a quick gesture towards the man. A mischievous smirk on his face. “You were talking to Hobie while I was drawing this.” Lifting the page back up, “look how happy you were!” You close the book with his fingers still inside.

Yelping, he glares at you. “I made you a portrait and this is how you thank me?”

“Shut it” your eyes roam the room, looking for someone who's eavesdropping on the conversation. Thankfully no one is. “Don't act like Gwen isn't on every page of your book.” you whisper shout at him.

“Oh so you're saying that the same feelings I have for Gwen can be translated to your feelings towards Hobie?” He teases you right back, whispering quieter. “I owe Pav a coin.”

“You little–!” He rockets away from his seat, weaving through the crew. “Come back here, Miles!” Chasing him, careful not to shove anyone, your fast footsteps echo in the hallways.

Miles yells back, gaining speed ahead of you. “I have Hobie's version too if you'd like to see it!”

“No! Fuck you! I'll tell Gwen!”

He turns heel, now running after you. Cursing, you turn around, back to where you came from. Sprinting, you both pass by Hobie's cabin lightning fast. The crew's laughter echoes out while you try to escape Miles.

Hobie can't help but crack a smile even when the topic at hand is serious and dire.

—

With a book in front of you, hands smelling of ink and paper, you glance at Gwen who's leaning on your side comfortably, using you as her personal backrest. You don't mind it since she snuck in hot chocolate for you.

“I've been thinking—”

“That's dangerous, don't hurt yourself.” She murmurs.

“Funny, ha ha” you laugh sarcastically. She snorts, eyes still glued on the page. “Seriously though, what's on the bow of the ship? I've only seen mermaids and the occasional angel carved on it but I've never seen one like the one here. Where in the world did Hobie even get it?”

“It's a dragon.” Gwen says without looking back at you.

“A dragon? But it doesn't have any wings though?”

She sits up, gently laying the book on her lap, looking prim and proper. “A version of it, I guess? It's popular in the east.” You listen intently so she continues. “In their stories, the dragons symbolize luck and strength, which we need now more than ever.” stretching her neck, she continues. “And Hobie traded it in exchange for our boring old siren.”

You chuckle, “What's the difference between the ones in our mythology and theirs? Other than the lack of wings and looking way cooler.”

“They say they have the power to control the weather and are big enough to swallow the moon.” you whistle out, intrigued. “Maybe after the fight we can sail over there and show you around the place?” she asks, grinning.

“I'd love that.”

You should tell her that you're not staying after the fight, but you don't want to ruin the moment or her mood. You'll tell her when you get the chance, for now, you let them focus on what's coming.

“We named him Terrence by the way.”

You giggle. “I'll be sure to greet him every morning.”

—

The clean water splashed on your head is a nice reprieve from the searing heat. Being the so-called ‘doctor’ on the ship, Hobie thought it would be a great idea for you to also be their designated water girl to combat heat stroke. It's easy work, reminding them to drink water and also just dumping a splash of water on the crew's head using a soup ladle. You're having fun actually, just randomly (and sneakily) pouring water over their heads whenever they complain about the heat while toiling under the sun, watching them shriek and jump from the sudden gush of water. Now they rarely complain anymore, that just means you've done a good job at keeping them all alive under the heat.

But there's one person who you haven't dumped water on yet, which with the help of Finn and his strength, you're about to remedy that.

Hobie stands near the helm, observing Pavitr sailing the ship with ease. You and Finn carry the entire barrel of half full water, (it's mostly Finn doing the work) carefully sneaking behind Hobie to dump the entire contents on him.

Before you could signal Finn to pour it on Hobie, he turns around, hands placed on his hips and a face that says: I dare you.

You freeze mid step, darting your eyes towards your little helper. Finn shrugs, subtly pointing his head towards Hobie.

“Well—?” With one strong heave of the barrel, pointing it directly towards Hobie, the water hits him with a splash, completely drenching him.

The sound gets everyone's attention, seeing their captain wet as a freshly caught fish, the roaring laughter fills the ship, pointing, hollering and whistling at their captain.

The smile on your lips fades, eyes widening when you flick your eyes downward, you've never thought a harmless prank could make your heart beat faster and for heat to rise to your cheeks. And it's not the sun that's causing that or a symptom of heat exhaustion, no, it's Hobie and his unfortunate white cotton shirt that's completely soaked through, sticking to his skin, showing off his chiseled torso. You don't dare look further down, you might not recover from what you could possibly get a glimpse of.

Hobie splutters, wiping at his wet face, water dripping from his entire body. You swallow thickly, Finn notices your sudden silence. He looks at you with narrowed eyes, head tilted like he caught your hand in the cookie jar.

You blink rapidly, “W-what?” Side eyeing Finn. He raises a brow, “What? I may not like him but I still have eyes, you know.”

“Liar.” He says in a deep voice, making you do a double take.

“Did you just—?”

“Y/N,” Hobie addresses you, eyes telling you to run. “You better not let me catch you.”

You squeak, bolting immediately. The crew guffaws loudly like they're watching the best entertainment the sea could offer. Sprinting down the stairs, hearing footsteps behind you, your old injury flares up, almost tripping you.

Hobie catches you before you could fall flat on your face. His drenched arms around your middle, his clothes squelching on your back, the water seeping through your own clothes.

“Time to walk the plank again, Scuttlebutt!” He jokes but the way he carries you towards the plank has you wiggling out, hitting his arms.

“It was a joke!” You scream. He walks closer, “a jape!” Hobie stops near the edge. “A jest!”

His laugh reverberates, you feel his chest vibrating. He cranes his neck down, whispering close to the shell of your ear. “Did you really think I'll throw you overboard?” Goosebumps rise on your skin as he blows hot air. “I'll let Finn do it instead.”

Biting your lip, hands gripping his wrists, you decide to rag him on after knowing he won't actually throw you into the shark infested waters. “yeah? Why don't you do it yourself? Be a man, captain”

Behind you, the crew continues to cheer. Pav even lets out a ‘lets go!’

Hobie chuckles deeply, squeezing you once. “You cheeky—”

The alarm bells from the crow’s nest rings out, James yells from above. “Vessel approaching! Starboard!”

Hobie lets you go, taking a telescope from a serious looking Gwen.

The blood in your veins turn into ice, holding on to the railing, you grip it as you feel your knees give out.

You can't hear what anyone is saying with blood rushing in your ears, frantic voices indistinct, igniting your nerves. Your breathing turns shallow, you try to count backwards in your head but it's no use when your hands start shaking.

“Oi,” Hobie notices your distressed expression. Rushing to your side, his voice starts getting clearer when he places his hands on your cheeks, holding you gently like you're about to break from the slight pressure from his touch.

“Breathe, yeah?” He inhales and exhales, encouraging you to do the same. You copy him, staring only at Hobie. “There, good, just breathe.” His thumbs wipe at the tears you haven't noticed letting out.

After a beat of breathing in sync, Hobie nods. “It's alright, they're allies. You don't have to be scared.” He turns you around carefully, “see? They're waving.”

Pointing at a man clad in red, white and blue, Hobie squeezes your shoulder. “That's Captain Anarchy and right next to him is his first mate, Robbie Banner. They're here to help us win the fight.”

You calm down a little once you see the crew of the other ship smile and wave at you. Trusting Hobie, you look over your shoulder, his face too close to you, breath mixing in together. Flinching, you take a step back from his hold.

He lets you go, hands sliding away from your elbows, giving you space. You look uncharacteristically small in front of him, shoulders hunched, eyes looking down at your feet.

“You're alright, Y/N.” His reassuring and soft voice echoes amidst the rowdy crew behind him.

You could only nod.

—

It's been chaotic since the sons of the sea arrived. They have been welcoming and kind to you, too kind, in fact that you sometimes forget that they're pirates. Especially Robbie, he always goes out of his way to help your uneasiness. He once told you during dinner with the crew that he knows how it feels to be new; and for some reason he thought that you're Hobie's lover, saying that loving a pirate captain is pretty hard work. You shut down the conversation immediately.

Finally finding a time for yourself, you stretch your aching hands, gunpowder stuck in your nostrils. Hemp and pine tar sticking under your fingernails. You've never thought that you'd be preparing for war but here you are.

After the incident, you've made yourself scarce. With preparation and between meetings, you hadn't had a chance to speak with him. Or for Hobie to even try to approach you. His wounds have healed so you don't have any reason to keep seeing each other. But you find yourself holding on to two mugs of hot chocolate, trudging the cold hallways to his cabin.

The mugs are warm in your hands, the familiarity helping with your nerves. You have no idea what to say to him, maybe a simple thank you perhaps? You didn't intend to become that vulnerable in front of him, so maybe an apology? Whatever you end up saying to him, it all has to start with a simple knock on his door which you're currently standing stiffly in front of.

Juggling two mugs in one hand, you place your knuckles on the wood. Your ears perk up at the muffled voices inside. Against better judgment, you place your ear above the door, eavesdropping on the conversation.

“—She’s not her, Hobie. I've seen how you act around her, how you look at her.” You strain your ears to hear better. “It's the same with MJ.” You blink in surprise.

“Gwen,” Hobie sighs, there's rustling on his end. “I don't like what you're insinuating.”

“I'm not insinuating anything. I'm saying this as a friend to you and to her. Don't. Just…don't” there's footsteps, “She's good for the crew, Hobie. We can't lose her.”

“I know she is.”

Gwen scoffs. “You just proved my point.”

“She's not her, I get it. Can you please go back to preparin’?”

“No, not until you get it in your thick skull.” she pauses. “She's her own person. I see it too, the similarities in their personalities. But Y/N’s not MJ.”

You almost drop the mugs.

“I know she's not MJ. I don't fancy her, I tolerate her.”

“Are you sure? Because you keep–”

His voice shakes. “MJ is gone and Y/N is Y/N. I know she's not MJ.”

Backing away from the door, emotions swirling into a dangerous concoction, face flat and lips downturned. You slowly bend down to place the mug on the side of his cabin door.

You have no idea how to react or confront it, so you just walked away. Throwing the information in the back of your mind, hoping it doesn't seep into your bones. Hope that it doesn't rot and spoil inside.

—

The sky is heavy with dark clouds, thunder booming like drum beats, lightning peeking out in the night. A storm is coming, you can feel it in your tendons, the smell of petrichor looming overhead, temperature dropping significantly. The fog obscuring the way doesn't help with your icy nerves. The rest of the crew battens down the windows, preparing to weather out the storm. You're not even that close to the destination and yet the sky is already preventing the ship from going further.

The sea is unusually calm despite the storm brewing ahead. A possible omen to what's to come next. You pray that you're wrong.

Shutting your window, locking it in place, you take your medical bag that's hanging from the cabin's doorknob. Making sure the door is properly closed, you head over to the deck.

You almost collide into a body, their hands holding on to your elbows.

“Woah there!” He holds you at arm's length. “You alright, doc?” His genuine smile makes the day a tad brighter.

“Captain Anarchy, hello and please don't call me that. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not actually a doctor.” You chuckle lightly.

“I won't call you doc if you don't call me captain anarchy.”

“Alright, what should I call you then?”

“Karl's fine. I'm not your captain anyway so why bother calling me captain y’know?”

You nod, “Yeah, I get it. Are you lost? These are the cabins.”

“Shit, yeah.” He scratches his head. “I swear this place is built like a maze. I'm looking for the galley actually, Finn said I can borrow some ingredients. I'm planning on cooking for everyone tonight.”

“That's really nice of you, thanks. I'll show it to you if you want?”

“That would be fantastic, thank you!”

Gesturing behind him, you lead him while he laughs at his own blunder. “Wait, Finn talked to you?”

“Mm-hmm, I've known him for a while. The secret is to talk about produce and spices then you won't be able to get him to shut up.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” You chuckle, shaking your head. Deciding to make small talk while weaving around hallways, you ask him. “How long have you been a pirate?”

He sighs, “Too fucking long.”

“Looking to retire?” you look over your shoulder, his face says it all.

“Absolutely, we're all just saving up so we could settle comfortably somewhere. Unfortunately taxes are really fucking high these days thanks to the asshole in the big chair.”

“You got that right. All these wars and sponsoring explorations got the people's coffers dry and empty.”

“Exactly! Man, Hobie really knows how to pick them, huh?” He shakes your shoulder like you're old friends. You don't flinch away, in case you offend the only ally Hobie has.

“We're not together.” you say flatly.

“That right? Sorry. Well, he did pick the right crew member then.”

“More like he fished me out of the sea.”

He laughs, the sound reminding you of a bird chirping. Karl looks at your humorless face. “Wait, seriously.”

“Yep, that's a story for another day because we're here.” you open the doors for him, showing him the galley.

“Thanks, Y/N. I owe you one.” he shoots you a friendly wink.

“Of course, just give me extra portions later.” you joke.

He chortles, “I'll save the bigger bowl for you”

Before you leave, there's a question that's unfortunately gnawing in your head.

“Can I ask you something?”

He peeks over the counter, blue eyes staring back at you. “Shoot.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh, it just means go ahead.”

“Right, uh…Did you know Hobie three years ago?” You cross your arms on your chest.

“I've known him far longer than that.”

“How was he back then?”

Karl thinks for a moment. He smiles, “Best damn pirate I've ever seen, next to me of course. He was younger, wide eyed, hungry for adventure, more than ready to take down the crown itself. Safe to say he's ambitious, he still is but—” he shakes his head. “For a different reason now.”

“Do you not think he can take down Matthias?”

“I have faith that he can and he will eventually. But I'm afraid that I'll never see that wide eyed Hobie ever again. He's gotten used to the flames, feeding it, letting it consume him. I don't think he'll be able to fight that fire after he gets what he wants.”

You clench your jaw. “What happened to MJ?”

“I don't think I'm the right person to tell you that.”

Nodding, you wordlessly thank him with a small smile.

“Wait, Y/N.” he calls for you.

“Yeah?”

“Whatever happens, help him douse the fire? For everyone's sake.”

“I— I'll do my best.”

He gives you a tight-lipped smile. “Promise me, please. I owe MJ that much.”

You exhale shakily. “I promise.”

Turning to leave, you fight with yourself. How could you make that promise when you plan to leave after Hobie wins? How do you keep that promise when you can't even look him in the eye? How do you tell Gwen and the others when their hearts are set to you staying on board?

Will it be worth it for you to leave what you currently have for someone who may not even exist?

You pause in the middle of the barren hallway, hand clutching tightly at the straps of your bag. Breathing heavily, you feel it rearing its ugly head again.

Your thoughts get interrupted by the alarm bells ringing, this time instead of curling around yourself, you decide to face it head on despite the shaking in your legs. The crew needs you, and you need them.

Crash!

The ship lunges harshly to the side, flinging you to the wall, head pounding on the hardwood.

Your vision blurs, white dots dancing, ears ringing and your head stinging from the impact.

“Fuck…” you crawl, doing your best to get up on the deck.

“They need you. Get up, lazybones.”

Hearing her voice whisper into your ear, makes you laugh coldly. You're probably concussed.

With a groan, you lift yourself up, using the wall as leverage.

With every heavy step, you straighten up, ignoring the pain in the back of your head. Walking up the steps makes you dizzy but you continue on.

Holding on to the door frame triumphantly, you reach the deck.

The fog has reached the ship, covering the entire deck in its thick mist. You notice the quiet, and the lack of movement from the crew. They all just stand stiffly, spaced away from each other. holding their weapons in their hands in a tight grip, the only indication that they're alright.

You spot Hobie in the middle of the crowd, eyes staring into the sea.

“Hobie?” You softly say. Grabbing his arm, you jump when he takes your wrist without taking his eyes off from what he's staring at.

His hand shakes, you're afraid to look.

“Y/N,” he whispers, voice cracking. “I'm sorry.”

His apology makes you follow his gaze.

The thick fog makes way for a dozen ships sailing towards you at incredible speeds, they open the lamps on their bows one by one. Like a hunter's gaze, they petrify you.

With your heart trying to escape your chest, you turn starboard, hopeful for a way out. But the sight alone would make you weep.

A larger ship looms over the revenge, its bow crashed on the side of the now splintered wood of the ship. The navy ship is Gilded and pristine, decorated with carvings of asphodels. The crowned angel with her wings spread out on the bow looks down at you through her wooden eyes.

Hobie clutches on to you tighter, scowling, shaking in sheer anger.

A menacing laugh echoes into the eerie silence.

You're surrounded.

[larvasmoon]

Portrait of the pale elf(7)-Pygmalion's Affliction

Chapter Summary : Selene uncovers the truth about the "incident" that killed her creativity and clears the misunderstanding between her and Astarion.

Word Count: 9,1k

Trigger Warnings : Suicidal thoughts. Verbal and physical violence. Mentions of past abuse.

Author's note : This a bit of a lengthier chapter but it's such an important for Selene, I hope you'll like it as much as I loved writing it.

Here's my Ao3 darling

Chapter's song : Bat for lashes - The dream of Delphi

Selene aimlessly walked in a boundless void. 

All was black. All was silent, except for the sound of her steps on the dark and flooded floor. 

Like a sea of ink under the soles of her naked feet.

She wandered long enough to not know where she came from and where she was headed. Obscurity stretched endlessly in front of her eyes, velvety and bottomless, until she worried she’d lost her sight.

Terror clawed at her insides, as she wondered how in the hell she would ever manage to survive in a world devoid of colours and light. 

Trapped in the dark forevermore, and blind to any form of art whatsoever. 

If she had been asked to describe what kind of personal hell the devil himself would have tailored for her, it would have been something identical to this. 

Her hands, fumbling in search of a wall or a door, grew clammy. 

There had to be a way in and a way out, otherwise she wouldn’t have been there in the first place, right ? 

And yet, in whatever directions she ventured, no matter how many times she blinked, she was still adrift in the black. 

She listened to the silence long enough for it to talk back to her, in hushed voices and muffled whispers, both foreign and eerily familiar. She stared hard enough at the abyss for it to look back at her, its bleak eye wide-open and fixated on the back of her head. 

Panic-struck, she started to run as fast as she could. From the corner of her eyes, she thought she saw tall shadows move and chase after her. Their crooked hands skimmed against her arms and legs, but she managed to break away each time.

Even her screams were soundless in this hell, they all stayed trapped in her chest,  squeezed in between each of the hurried beats of her heart. She only tasted the salt of her tears as her mouth uselessly moved, silently begging to be let out times and times again. 

After long minutes, her treacherous legs gave out, her knees buckled, and Selene fell face flat on the wet floor. It seemed to welcome her in its disgusting embrace, melting and adjusting beneath her, before slimy cold hands crept behind her back. 

She drowned in the thick substance. It entered her mouth and her nose in nauseating waves, as she relentlessly fought back. Trapped in those deadly arms, her hands searched under the surface for something, anything, to tear herself out of them. 

And they did. Cold smooth metal under the pads of her trembling fingers. 

The shape was familiar, easy to grab and hold onto. A doorknob, she realised, dumb-founded.

All this time, the exit had been under her feet, not at hands reach.

How ironic. 

She fiercely seized it, and pushed it open. All at once, the floor disappeared from under her and she fell into yet another pit of depthless gloominess. 

Her other senses had completely been robbed from her, but somehow gravity still existed in this place, and she felt the sheer force of its attraction dragging her body away. 

In a long disarticulated fall, at the end of which she preferred to meet her end than to fall back into this desolated place.

Selene opened her eyes and suddenly, there was fire, specks of light dispersed all around her like rivers of stars in outer space. She brushed against their warmth and their flames licked at her skin, before she was propulsed further down, under their warm glow. 

Shortly after, her back finally met the floor. The violent impact took her breath away and she blacked out for a few seconds. Strangely, it didn’t hurt like she’d expected it would. She seemingly had no broken bones or sore spots, as she leaned on her arms and legs to straighten up.

Relief washed over her when she finally took in her new surroundings. 

They weren’t stars but thousands of lit candles, magically floating in the air, near some dark vaulted ceilings. Each time they flickered, they shed light on the intricate details of the room she was lying in : sculpted wooden beams, colourful frescos of crying angels on walls panelling, libraries full of dusty grimoires, countless brushes floating in bassins of turbid water, and lots of torn canvases.

The sight of the ripped fabric and splintered wood dug an unsettling fire in her belly. It reminded her of all the time her master had destroyed her work in front of her very eyes, hammering in her head that she “still had lots of progress to make”, and that such art wasn’t “worthy of his name”.

The air was pungent with turpentine’s noxious fumes. The same ones she inhaled each time she crushed pigments and mixed them with various oils. She would spend hours on end trying to create extravagant paint colours in her apartment, up until she started to feel queasy and unsteady on her feet. 

Breaking the silence and tearing her out of her reverie, a woman started to softly hum behind her. A sad and beautiful lullaby that she thought she might have heard before, long ago. Anguish flooded her heart at the sound of it, and blurred memories that she knew weren’t her own invaded her mind each time she sang it anew. 

Strangers’ faces she swore she’d never met before. 

Vast and magnificent palaces in far away cities she’d never visited. 

Passionate kisses and embraces she didn’t remember sharing.

And a lover’s farewell. His indifferent words, actually upsetting her as if she’d been on the receiving end of such heartless treatment. 

The mysterious lady was sitting with her back to her, in front of a canvas, carefully applying light strokes of black on it. Her long dark hair was terribly knotted, so messy and unruly that it probably hadn’t been combed in weeks. The long red velvet robes she was wearing were sophisticated and luxurious, but awfully stained, sullied with old and new smears of paint. 

“Where am I ?” she weakly asked, on the verge of tears without really knowing why.

The woman’s hand halted, suspended in the air, before she slowly turned around.

Selene recoiled at the sight of her appearance. 

What a blood-curdling thing the spectacle of her was… 

In place of her visage was a hole, pitch black darkness, as if she were a cut out picture in an old and decrepit children’s book. She had no face, no eyes, no nose, no eyebrows, just a frightening window into the void that Selene had just escaped. The edges of it were eerily torn, as if someone or something had ripped this part of her away.

“This is the gristmill I dwell in, the exile I was condemned to, and a fragment of your shattered mind” she answered, the end of her dressing gown trailing on the floor behind her. 

“Is this a dream ?” 

The lady tilted her head to the side, as though she were pondering her answer. “No, not exactly.” 

“Then why am I here ?”

“Because you seek knowledge” she breathed when she bent down to throw her brushes in yet another basin of water, “you wonder why things are not the way they were, why your art is no longer as it was. Ever since that day.”

She came back to squat down near Selene’s figure, leaning on her knees, and from up close, she was even more horrendous.

“And because you wish to capture that man’s splendour, to be able to do it justice, but you are terrified to do so.” 

A fleeting image of Astarion, asking her to leave that morning, flitted across her mind. She winced in pain, unsuccessfully trying to cast the memory away, and hide it in some dusty corner of her head once again. Would he even want her to come back and finish that portrait ? He did seem to regret their whole encounter as soon as the sun had been up. 

“What is it exactly that you know about me then ?” Selene asked, suspiciously eyeing the disfigured ghost of a woman. 

She laughed, a melodic tinkling, before stretching her long fingers in front of her, and waving them in the air. The walls behind her went up in smoke, disappearing to reveal yet another vast expanse of shadows. 

But this time, it moved and swirled, as though it was clay under the deft fingers of an experienced sculptor. Selene watched in awe when an image of herself slowly emerged out of thin air.

It was her silhouette, sitting in Damian’s painting room a few weeks ago, during what had turned out to be a life-altering afternoon. She was working on a canvas, a mirror on a little side table next to her in which she kept looking at her reflection, before going back to her sketch. 

That day, she was bored to death because Damian had left her all alone in this room with nothing to do. He’d run out in a hurry when Finn had announced that his friend Lord Pilian was waiting in the vestibule. Right when they’d been meaning to discuss the paintings that she’d ought to paint the following weeks. 

When she realised that he wouldn’t come back any time soon, she’d foolishly decided to paint an autoportrait of herself. Just a quick practice to keep herself entertained. 

“I know that intent is everything to someone like you,” she explained, standing near one of the wooden pillars behind Selene.

“Someone like me ?”

“That day, when you were painting yourself. Your hair. Your eyes. Your mouth. Your nose … You were overcome by a sudden wave of self-hatred, weren’t you ?” 

She watched her double’s image closely, the trembling of her hands, the sad glint in her wide black eyes, and she somehow remembered. 

Shamefully. Sullenly. 

How she’d been dwelling on the fact her entire life felt like a big waste of time. Years and years pathetically thrown away and spent living by procuration, through someone else. 

Someone undeserving of her devotion. Someone that she’d let abuse and destroy her, because he was all she’d ever had in this cruel world. 

And how she hated herself, just as much as him, for allowing it to happen.

“For one moment”, her voice broke slightly and she sighed before continuing, “you even longed for the cold embrace of death, didn’t you ? You wished you’d never been born in the first place.”

A few tears ran down Selene’s cheeks, but her gaze remained fixed on the scene unfolding in front of her eyes.

She already knew what she was about to witness, before it even happened. 

Too busy shading the folds of the sleeves she’d drawn, she had failed to notice what was happening right under her nose. The portrait imperceptibly moved beneath her hands. A disturbing lopsided smile settled on its lips, and the inky eyes she’d etched on the canvas hauntingly raised to look at her. They stared her down, so wickedly, so intensely, and she kept on drawing without paying attention.

This was the glare of some kind of wild feral beast, ready to tear its prey to shreds. A murderous look, plastered on her own familiar features, and terrifyingly twisting them into an unrecognisable grimace.

It was undeniably Selene, but a version of herself she’d never known.

“Is this the way I look down upon myself ?”, she wondered, thinking back to what she’d just said, “As though I am my own nemesis ?”

The spooky painter sighed deeply again, before sitting on the floor next to her. “You asked for it, and so did the paint answer your call.” 

As if she’d summoned them with her words, a pair of hands suddenly surged out of the canvas to grab her doppelgänger by the neck. They brutally strangled her, their claws digging into the flesh of her nape and tearing at her skin. Dark and grim, they stained the collar of her pristine shirt, like they were made of the same material as the charcoal stick in her hand. 

She groaned and moaned in pain, suffering through the dark screen the woman had projected her memory onto. The table next to her flipped over when she struggled, the small mirror shattered into thousands of pieces, and her palette splattered paint all over the waxed wooden floor. She glided down from the stool she’d been sitting on, kneeling on the carpet, her glazed over eyes staring in disbelief at the evil reflection she’d drawn with her own feeble hands.

The creation strived to destroy its creator.

Stars danced before her eyes, the room started to spin, and she felt herself slip away. 

Her own voice echoed in Damian’s study, full of desperation, howling through the canvas, like gusts of winds through an open window. 

Die, you coward ! Die if you don’t have the courage to fight for yourself and for what you want ! 

Gathering the last bits of strength she had left, she finally reached out and violently flipped the easel over. The phantom hands vanished in a cloud of ashes and soot, evaporating in the red glow of the declining sun that filtered through the windows. 

She stayed there for a long time, curled up on herself, shaking uncontrollably, with no one to soothe her. 

A mournful sob rattled her body. She looked so small in the wide and empty room, so vulnerable when huddled like this on the floor. Selene instinctively moved to enter the illusion and embrace her own trembling body, but the woman held her back and shook her head no. 

What was done was done. 

The portrait laid beside her on the carpeted floor. It had turned into a series of ragged and violent lines, dark repeated streaks on her face and neck as if she’d ruined it herself out of despair. The bottom of it was covered in a thick and black substance that could have as well been black paint mixed in bad proportions. 

Except she knew it wasn’t.

The bruises on her neck were all blue and bloody, but it hadn’t been enough to convince anyone that the whole “my painting just tried to kill me” thing was real. 

Nobody had believed her. Not even Finn. 

The butler had merely attributed the whole endeavour to her nerves, and Damian had argued that a “psychosis is not such a rare thing amongst artists”, and that he’d read in some book that “great minds don’t exist without a touch of madness”. 

She’d spent the night there, bed-ridden and plagued with a high fever. Finn had hurdled her into a carriage at dawn, bundled into warm blankets, to see a healer. Her master had wished for her wounds to be taken care of, and for someone to check whether she still had her head on her shoulders. Of what use would she be to him if she’d lost her mind, afterall ?

The old woman, however, hadn’t seemed very concerned with her state. Prescribing a concoction of calming herbs to brew each morning and night, and lots of rest, she’d sent her home without any further advice. 

Selene didn’t need anyone’s outlook though, she was no madwoman, she knew what she’d seen.

Everytime she stared at a blank canvas, she was reminded of it. Everytime she held a brush, her heart plummeted down her chest. Everytime she tried to paint, she trembled in fear. 

Until she’d met him, at least. 

He’d appeared to her like a magnificent touch of white and ruby red on the dull tapestry of her baldurian life.

The man behind whom the world disappeared in a blur of shapes and sounds, up until he was her sole focus.

The man she longed for in ways she could not precisely define.

He’d managed to reconcile the artist and the woman in her, and for the first time in her life, the object of her desires was also the subject of her art. She yearned to have him at the tips of her fingers, both on the stretched fabric of a canvas, and in the crumpled sheets of a bed.

She yearned to strip him down, softly, gently, with each stroke of her paintbrush, and unveil the naked truth of his being.

Yet, when Astarion started to appear in the dark swirls of smoke, Selene squeezed her eyes shut. Unable to endure the sight of his beauty.

“Enough, please”, she finally begged and with a flick of her wrist, the woman dissipated the vision.

The far off wall of the gristmill appeared once again, and through the window Selene could see golden fields of wheat, gentle hills of green, and waves of blue near the horizon.

She sauntered back towards her own canvas, and grabbed a clean brush to start working on it again. 

“What am I exactly then ? Cursed ?” Selene asked, wiping the tears that had fallen down her face. 

“Of course not,” she sniffed, “you are gifted, but such a gift is a double edged sword that you must learn to yield, like I once did.” 

Selene stood up to stand next to her, and see what it was exactly that she’d been hunched over since she’d fallen into this room.  

“Your power is still raw and untamed. You must learn to control it.”

Her blood ran cold in her veins. 

A displacer beast bared its teeth and growled, full of life inside her painting. It laid on a pile of bones and skulls, regal and dangerous, like a black stain on a bleeding red background. 

When Selene stumbled back, it grew agitated in the picture. The canvas trembled on its easel, and the monster suddenly crawled out of it. 

Materialising out of oils paint and charcoal to turn into men’s worst nightmare. 

It left a trail of dark pawprints on the floor in its wake as it drew closer to her. Wide golden eyes found her own, and the feline licked its lips, at the prospect of devouring her no doubt. She smelt the warm perfume of its fur, wild and musky, and almost cried out in fright when its hot breath fanned across her face. 

The painter sat on her stool once again, and the beast thankfully backed away to follow her. “I used to paint monsters as men and men as monsters, because that’s what they’ve always been to me.”

It curled at her feet, purring like a big cat, his three long tails undulating and brushing against her arm when she reached down to pet its head.

“They stretched out of my canvases endlessly, as I willed them to life again and again. Until  everyone called me “the painter of monsters”.”

It was all too much for Selene, and she didn’t know what to say or ask anymore. She seemed to understand it and with another sophisticated motion of her finger, the beast was no more.

It didn’t go back into the canvas, however. 

Much like it had happened to her autoportrait, the artwork was ruined. Torn and covered in a red and black matter. 

“You have a tremendous amount of power in you, child” she announced, taking Selene’s hands in her own, and the air trembled and burnt between their skin, right where they were touching each other, “just be wary of what it is you want when you paint, because it might turn out to have a breath of its own.” 

A strange thing started to happen again. The more she stared at her, the more Selene thought she saw her features reappear on her face. 

Subtle lines and shadows. 

“And be careful when you paint him”, her tone grew cold and sour, “the pale elf that you love.”

“Love” sounded like an insult in her mouth, a disgusting word that she’d hurriedly spat out.

“I don’t lo-” she started to say but the lady cut her off, once again. 

“For our talents and any form of adoration do not blend well together.”

She did not have time to dwell on what she meant by that. 

A door that had never been there before appeared at the other end of the room, thrown open by whatever force was on the other side of it. Intense blinding light shone through the threshold, and Selene was suddenly uncontrollably pulled towards it. 

“I guess it is time to say goodbye, you are being called upon.”

“Wait ! I haven’t even asked you your name!” Selene said in a fit of panic, staring at the door with furrowed brows.  

The gristmill’s painter hastily gripped her arm and her skin sizzled under her fingers, as though she had branded her with them. “You need not know my name for now. We will see each other again. Fear not.”

The last thing Selene saw before being dragged away was the strange strange symbols that she had been carved on the inside of her wrist. 

Runes of sorts.

“This is just so you know that all of this was real when you cross on the other side.” 

**

She jolted awake in an unknown bed, her body shivering and slick with sweat. 

The blue ceilings and ugly chandelier of her childhood bedroom at Damian’s manor slowly came into view.

The first thing she did was raise her arm and check whether the mark on her wrist was still there. And it was. Three strangely arranged lines that formed a crooked triangle.

She couldn’t really tell if she was happy or scared that it was still here, but at least it meant that she hadn’t grown completely mad.

Finn was leaning above her, holding a wet and fresh cloth to her neck and face. He sighed and smiled in relief when she stared back at him. 

“At last, miss. I was worried sick.”

Everything hurt, and her eyes had trouble adjusting to the brightness of the day.

“How did I end up here ?” she breathed as she straightened and emerged from under the heavy covers and blankets. 

She couldn’t remember what had happened after she’d left Astarion’s home in a hurry, leaving her easel and canvas there in the precipitation. 

“Sir Fallheel found you passed out on the floor of your apartment and brought you here. To have you healed” Finn explained, throwing the cloth in a bowl of clear water to adjust the pillows behind her, “you’ve slept for a whole day.” 

“Was he furious ?” she sheepishly asked.

“Oh very much so, and worried. Especially about … “ he gestured towards her bandaged neck, and she blushed. Her hand shot up to hide it, but she winced when her fingers hit the wound beneath.

A souvenir of the night she’d drown in his arms, that she’d forever keep as a scar. 

It reminded her of the look in his eyes when she’d woken up, disoriented and weak. 

The shame and the fear in his reds, the barely concealed remorses.

His words pierced through her heart, each time she remembered them. 

“I need you to leave, darling. I have much to do.”

Lowering her head down and staring at the patterns of the woollen blanket he’d wrapped around her, she spoke with a hoarse voice, “do you blame me too ?”

The old butler sighed before gently patting her head. He smiled a knowing smile, fatherly and gentle, and it soothed her more than all of the healing potions in the world. 

“When I first met you, you were but a little girl, miss. I know how you and that big heart of yours work. I know why you do the things you do, so how could I ever blame you ?” 

Finn’s words and the decor behind him, full of dusty teddy bears and disarticulated dolls, made her feel like she was eight again. Locked in her room because she had refused to paint with Damian, prefering to play with her toys instead. 

It felt claustrophobic, wrong, and suddenly she wished to leave. Even if it meant turning her back on the only person who had ever looked after her, in the same selfless and beautiful way as her parents would have, if they’d ever wanted her in the first place. 

She swiftly got on her feet, everything spinning a little bit around her, and she quickly started to get dressed again. 

Finn followed suit, agitated and concerned once again, “What are you doing, Selene ? You still have a slight fever, you shouldn’t be up yet!” 

When she was a child, every time the old man scolded her or tried to reason with her, he’d call Selene by her name instead of “miss”. It brought back fond memories of cold winter nights during which she adamantly refused to sleep, or afternoon spent begging for more sweets in the manor’s kitchen. 

And for a moment, she almost hesitated. 

She almost let him take care of her.

“Lay back in bed, by all the gods !” he pleaded, running outside of the room with her and screaming for all the manor to hear.

“I must go, I can’t stay here any longer.” 

“I must find Astarion, and talk to him. I must tell him that things don’t have to be like this ever again, if he doesn’t want it to be. I’ll paint him from afar, I’ll keep my end of the bargain, nothing more” she kept telling herself, again and again, and her body moved faster each time the thought crossed her mind.

A door upstairs opened violently, and she knew to the sound of his boots stomping down the corridor, that Damian was coming. She already had her mantle in hand and she was quickly sprinting down the stairs, with Finn trailing on her heel like a mother hen.

With a bit of luck she’d manage to get out of this cursed place without having to talk to him at all

She’d deal with his fury later, she’d pay the price of her “disobedience” on another day. 

“Stay right where you are, Selene !” Damian commanded but she continued to run towards the main door. 

Right when she was about to open it, her master’s hand appeared beside her and violently slammed it shut again.

He cornered her there, sneering and baring his teeth as he talked. “Did you not hear me properly or did the fever turn your brain into marmalade ?”

“I heard you just fine, I just don’t answer when you bark orders at me anymore. I’m no dog” she spat back at him, and she regretted not having a canvas at hand.

She’d have given him her taste of her “gift”, she would have breathed life into a displacer beast for his own entertainment. 

“Ah ! And is that why you went to that depraved vampire’s den and let him debase you ? To taunt me ?” he bit back, “He won’t even care about you anymore, now that he’s had you exactly where he wanted.”

I need you to leave, darling. I have much to do.

He reached for her bandages and painfully ripped them away. New blood trickled down her neck and onto the dirty shirt that she hadn’t changed since that night at Astarion’s.

Daman shook his head in exasperation, his golden eyes fixed on the exposed bite mark.

“You even let him drink almost all of your blood, you foolish child. He might as well have killed you !” 

“I’m no child and what happened between him and I is of no concern to you. So get off me !”, she pushed him with all her strength but he did not stumble back like she expected he would. 

Instead, he gripped her by the shoulders, and resorted to intimidation again. Unfortunately for him, those tricks had stopped working on Selene a while ago.

“You are mine” he growled, his pretty features horridly twisted by his anger, “you owe me everything, ever since that day I found you on the porch of the orphanage your parents have abandoned you on.” 

She laughed, wheezing in his grasp, and something in his hesitant look told her that he knew. 

That he’d already lost this game, that she had the upper hand. 

“Don’t you owe me too ?” she scoffed, almost feeling her own wrath burning in her veins,” All those paintings I gave to you, all that time I spent working in your place ?” 

His fingers tightened around her but she paid it no mind. She stood taller, held her chin up, and showed him that she was no longer the easily manipulated little girl she’d always been.

She was Selene, plain and simple. A grown woman that didn’t need his “support” anymore.

“You are nothing without me, no one will want to hire you. You have no name for yourself, no prospects-” he tried again, voice faltering but nostrils flaring.

It was exactly what she’d been wanting him to say. 

“And what are you without me, Damian ?” she cut him off, savouring the way his eyes grew wider and the corner of his mouth dropped slightly, “How long has it been since you’ve produced anything of worth ?”

The slap came in a flash, so quickly she had no time preparing herself for it. 

A hard blow that had her head slamming against the door behind her.

“Sir, please calm down” Finn intervened, standing between them with his arms open, looking like  a human shield.

It was the first time her master had ever raised a hand on her, in the seventeen years she’d known him. He’d insulted her, he’d played with her like a cat with a mouse, he’d coerced and punished her. 

But he’d never done anything like this. 

Damian knew what being beaten felt like. When he’d taken her in, his father Leandre Fallheel, was still alive and she regularly heard him hit Damian late at night, screaming at him that he was “the shame of the family”. She remembered seeing her master with swollen lips and black eyes a few times during those dark days.

He was pallid, ashen, when she looked up at him again. He kept staring at his trembling hand, as though he’d also realised that he’d crossed a line.

“If you want me to keep painting for you, to help you collect the money you need to pay back your debts, give me back my freedom” she whispered as she put her mantle on and opened the door once again, “That is all I’ve ever asked of you.” 

And with that she was gone into the streets, with a swollen cheek and a bleeding neck, but a few happy tears in her eyes. 

**

When she arrived at the door of her apartment, a letter was waiting for her on the other side. It’d been pushed under it in her absence. 

The writing on it had her hurriedly picking it up, with shaky hands and a pounding heart. 

“For Selene.” 

It was the same delicate and voluptuous one she’d seen in his measurements book back then.

She pressed her nose against the cold paper and even through the envelope she could smell his perfume.

Bergamot and rosemary. 

Her fingers eagerly tore it open, as she sat on one of the stools in her small kitchen.

“ Hello darling, 

I hope this letter finds you well and in good health. I have countless things I need to atone for, but first I’d like to apologise for the way I inelegantly put an end to the delicious moment we’ve shared the other night. It might have given the false impression that I hadn’t enjoyed it, but I did. Immensely so. 

On another note, the masquerade ball is in two days and I have finished your dress right on time. Would you mind coming to Carmine Red to try it on ? I could see if any adjustments need to be made before then. 

PS: I’d also love to see you wearing it before anyone else does. 

Yours, 

Astarion Ancunín” 

Selene wistfully looked out the window and understood that she would have to wait for a few hours before the sun went down. 

Before she could go and see him again.

In the meantime, she freshened up and changed her clothes to look somewhat decent. She hoped she didn’t look how she felt, because the last twenty hours had not been kind to her. Physically and mentally. 

When she stared at her reflection in the small mirror of her bathroom, the only thing she could see was the portrait she’d painted that day. She had never lingered in front of it since that incident, because the thing that had tried to kill her had worn her face. 

Her own ordinary and tired features were now associated with such a scary moment, that she couldn’t bear to look at them for long.

Thankfully, Damian’s slap hadn’t left any visible mark on her cheek. One less thing to worry about. 

When she finally went out to head towards the higher city, her heart felt heavy in her chest. She was scared to see him, more than she thought she would’ve been. 

Spending most of the walk overthinking the words he’d used in his letter, she found herself standing in front of Carmine much faster than expected. 

The candles in the vitrine and inside the shop were on. He was there, a few steps away, sewing in the back of the room, or welcoming a client. 

A slew of butterflies grazed the inside of her belly with their wings. There were many more of them since the last time she’d stood in front of his shop, thousands of blue morphos shimmering in the glooms of her anatomy. 

Quietly landing on her withered bones and on her tired heart, to make them glow with the pretty azure of their wings. 

Selene took a deep breath before opening the door and entering. Nothing had changed in there, but everything felt different. 

At the other side of the room, behind the burgundy curtains where she knew his workshop table was, she heard someone talk. 

“She’ll be here in two days, Astarion ! You love her more than you loved anyone else, I know it. Don’t be ridiculous, face her and talk things out” pleaded a man in there, and his words felt like another slap in Selene’s face. 

Inside her ribcage, the butterflies’ wings fluttered before they died. Falling at the bottom of her chest, to limply rest on the growing pile of her crushed hopes and dreams. 

Astarion loved someone else. Of course, he did. 

She should have known that someone as magnificent as him would already have someone waiting for him, out there, in the city or far beyond its gates. 

“Will you shut up !” Astarion yelled, and she’d never heard such animosity in his voice before, “I never asked for your advice on the matter. I don’t care about this anymore.” 

As if he’d heard her hushed steps on the carpets of his shop, she saw his shadow abruptly stand up and he strode towards the main room.

She took a few steps back, and almost ran out the door, before he ever appeared to greet her. 

“You have no right to be jealous or hurt” she thought to herself, “you did this to yourself, by making it out to be bigger than it actually was”. 

Astarion emerged from behind the drapes, with wide scared eyes and a heaving chest. He stared at her like this for a few seconds, his eyes quickly skimming across her figure and face.

How ridiculous she must have looked to him, in her dirty cloak and plain white shirt. 

She laughed uncomfortably, forcing a smile on her face, “I can come back tomorrow, the time is not exactly well chosen.”

She turned her heel, putting her hood on and resting her hand on the doorknob.

Ready to step out in the dark and find some place to bury herself. Maybe under some of the pretty oak trees in the higher city, the ones from which you could still see the sea. 

But in an instant, he was there, right behind her, his hand on her hers. 

Holding her back. 

“No no no, stay”, he begged in her ear, talking through the thick fabric of her coat, “please”.

His arm curled around her waist and he softly guided her to sit on the meridian. 

“My friend was just about to leave” he smiled down at her, before casting a dark look at the man that was now awkwardly standing near one of the dummies on which Astarion had started to pin the shape of a blue dress, “right Gale ?”

“Ah yes, it is running late and I’m an early bird. I really should get going !” he giggled before grabbing his own long coat. 

He walked towards her with an extended hand, ready to make introductions, but Astarion glared at him, his red eyes practically glowing with anger. 

For a minute, Selene thought he’d jump at his throat and tear him apart. 

“A good night to the both of you” Gale said, defeated, before heading out and disappearing into the streets.

Astarion sat next to her, angling his legs to face her, and his long fingers lowered her hood. Exposing her face to him. 

His eyes immediately found the wound on her neck, bandageless since her master had ripped it away. 

The tips of his fingers moved across its edges, caressing the swollen skin. All the while, he had a sad and sombre expression on his face.

“I’m sorry” he finally said, “I shouldn’t have-”, his scarlet eyes shining a little more than usual in the candlelights, like he was on the verge of tears.

Do you regret it that much ? The taste you’ve had of my blood and body. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for, I was the one who asked for it” Selene answered, taking his hand in her own, to caress his knuckles with gentle swipes of her thumb. 

“Darling, I-”

“Maybe it was premature, timing isn’t actually my forte as I’m sure you’ve already seen” her voice broke slightly, shattering on the edge of the words she unwillingly articulated, “ I did not wish for you to be uncomfortable in my company, it really was the last thing I wanted.”

This time, it was Astarion’s turn to grab her hand, cradle it in the soft of his palm.

“I’m not, it’s just that I’m- Well I’m not sure if I can be-” he stammered, and she patiently listened, waiting for him to find the right ways to say what he wanted to tell her. 

But, it never really came. It was the first time she saw him at loss of words, so vulnerable and so unguarded. 

“What do you need this to be ?” she softly inquired, surrendering herself entirely to his will and desires, ready to accept whatever fate he decided for her to have. 

He looked her in the eyes again, his sorrowful pout deepening, and for a second she thought she might cry too.

“I don’t know” he breathed, suddenly sounding so very tired.

Her mind drifted back to her plan to find a nice lot of soil in Baldur’s Gate, and dig herself a pretty hole to lie into. 

It didn’t sound so bad compared to the prospect of a life without him.

“Will you wait for me, darling ?” he added, full of wavering hope, “I know it’s selfish, but will you ?”

Always. Even if you never come to me. Even if you run back to someone else. 

I’ll be with you, in whatever ways you are willing to have me. 

She smiled, the corner of her lips trembling, her eyes filling with tears. Furiously nodding. 

“Of course I will,” she almost sobbed, “I’ll stay by your side, as a friend, as your personal painter, as your living dressmaker’s dummy, or as whatever you need me to be.” 

Astarion’s hand had tightened around her fingers when she’d said “friend”, as if he knew how stupid it was, how she’d always be unable to feel that way towards him. 

They didn’t speak for long minutes, sitting in a comfortable silence, listening to sounds of people talking and laughing outside. Still hand in hand. 

After some time, Astarion guided her in front of the mirror and disappeared to fetch a big scarlet box, adorned with an equally red bow. 

He carefully opened it to unveil the most beautiful corset she’d ever seen. It was made of red velvet, and covered in sewn shiny red stones and pearls. 

The dress itself was made of layers built on layers : ruffled sleeves to wear on top the corset, and long skirts to wear underneath. When he took the totality of the dress out, to lay it out on one of his baroque chairs, she marvelled at the way the drapery-parted opening of the skirt revealed an equally adorned petticoat. Ruby-like stones trickling down the precious fabric like drops of blood. 

“I have no words, Astarion. This sumptuous - Are those real precious stones ?” she excitedly asked, kneeling to get a closer look at them in the changing lights. 

“Of course they are, darling. Who do you take me for ? This is a first class establishment !” he cackled, falsy offended.

She’d carefully put on everything that she could on her own, behind the few drapes that worked as a fitting room in Carmine’s red. 

“Come out, love, I’ll lace your corset” he’d spoken right beside her on the other side, and she’d jumped slightly.

Hesitant to show him her naked and exposed back, she tried to do it herself, clumsily. 

When she took too long to answer, he opened the curtains, and found her with her hands tightly clutching the bodice in front of her chest. 

“Turn around” he softly commanded and she did, trembling like a leaf.

His fingers never once brushed against her skin, not even he pushed her hair to the side, or tightened each row of lace a little more. 

Up until it hollowed her waist and pushed her breast up, not too tight and not too loose. 

In the mirror, the skirt dilated her hips and flowed down elegantly to the floor. 

The curves of her body had never looked so lovely, and she struggled to even recognize herself in the mirror. 

Selene looked like a queen or a princess of a far far away kingdom like this. A floating presence, wrapped in pearls, rubies and velvet.

Astarion spent long minutes kneeling at her feet and pining the dress to stitch the hem at the right length. Folding the fabric against the top of her naked feet and unintentionally tickling her each time he moved. 

“Don’t steer so much, darling, I might sting you.”

“It tickles,” she giggled, and he looked up at her with a smile that reminded her of what she’d almost forgotten while playing dress up.

There was a comfortable domesticity in this moment, something that had her heart soaring with anguish. 

Will I be able to never want for more, if it comes to it ? Won’t it consume me ?

Finally, he’d shown her how to put on the black ribbon of lace that would act as her mask, made her try on a few rings to see which one fit with the pearl earrings and necklace he’d already chosen, and that was it. 

She’d removed everything with his help and got dressed in her usual sad attire.

“I’ll come and deliver it to you tomorrow, if that’s okay” he said as she put her cloak back on and stood near the door of his shop.

“ Thank you, it is beautiful. Beyond what I’d ever imagined.” 

“ I’m glad you like it, darling” his finger skimmed across her bruise once again, more persistently than earlier, and the sadness she saw earlier in his eyes turned into something new, something darker, “you should hide it, people will talk.”

“I don’t really care if they do” she muttered, and her body moved on its own, giving in to the all-encompassing urge to touch him one last time, and she pressed a firm kiss on his cheek.

Right on his pretty dimple, dangerously near the corner of his mouth.

His silky skin felt like sin under her lips, fragrant with all the incense he usually burnt in the shop.

He tensed under her touch. For a second she almost thought he’d turn around and reciprocate, but he didn’t.

“Goodnight Astarion” she whispered against him, before stepping away and opening the door in a gush of cold wind. 

His eyes shone a little brighter, a deep crimson colour in the street lights, and he smiled wistfully, “Goodnight Selene”

When she turned around before disappearing at the corner of the street, he was still looking at her.

Still and alone in front of the door of his shop.

**

Selene had taken a bath as soon as she’d been home to clear her head.

To forget the feeling of Astarion’s fingers on her bruise, tracing the curved bruise his teeth had left in the tender flesh of her neck. 

To not remember the way his soft cheek felt under her lips.

She’d put on one of the worn down shirts she used as a nightdress. She’d brushed her long and wet hair, and tied them in a messy braid. She’d made her bed again, and put fresh clean sheets on it. She’d blown all of the candles and snuggled under her blankets. 

She’d done everything she could to put herself to sleep and yet … she had never felt that awake before. Morpheus had clearly refused to embrace her and had gone to find other exhausted souls in the city. Selene wondered if he’d purposely eluded her home, when he’d realised that she secretly didn’t wish for him to come. 

She laid on her back, still but restless. 

Alert.

Wherever her eyes landed in her moonlit room, on its walls, on its ceilings, nothing distracted her from the thought that she hadn’t dared to put into words yet.

Not even in the sacred and unviolated secrecy of her own mind. 

Not even in the small and sheltered space of her skull, where her brain was daintily enclasped. 

Once she would have properly phrased it, there would be no way to escape it anymore…The terrible implications of such a thing, the fears it’d give birth to in her heart : she was not ready to face them yet.  

It was foolish, she knew it was. Silence couldn’t hold back the sheer force of a truth like this one for long, no matter how hard she tried to find shelter in it. 

Her body spoke in other tongues, more honest ones. It shuddered each time she turned to find the cooler side of her pillow, and the bite mark he’d left on her brushed against its fabric. It warmed up so terribly at the memory of his dulcet voice in her ear, that she pressed her legs together under the cover. It liquified when she remembered the way the corner of his lips had twitched under her mouth, the way his head had tilted towards her, right before she’d stepped away and left.

As though he wanted more.

Her hand travelled south, past her navel and her hips, to find the wetness that had trickled down her inner thighs. 

A quiet admission, that she couldn’t deny. 

It moved higher, hesitantly reaching between her legs, and all she could think about were his carmine eyes and his soft hands. The pads of her fingers sensually glided against the slope of herself, moist and slicked, and she moaned when they found her sweetest spot. 

But it wasn’t just a sound of pleasure. It was a name. 

“Astarion”

She scarcely did anything like this, and even rarely while thinking about someone else. Most of the time, it was only to satisfy her needs or to fall asleep faster. 

This desire, however, didn’t only swarm from her lower belly. It felt purer, prettier, like morning dew on the petals of a flower in bloom. 

She jolted and gripped the cool sheets of her bed when her hand started to move faster. Outrageous wet sounds and groans echoing in the silence of her bedroom. 

She would’ve been a sensual sight to anyone that would’ve stumbled upon her in that sweet state. Her black hair sprawled against the white of her pillowcase. The red of her cheeks and the blown pupils of her unfocused eyes. Her shirt hiked up on her thighs when she opened them wider, exposing herself to the cold midnight air. Her trembling digits descending once again, drawing tortuous circles, and his name falling out of her mouth again when she pushed them inside. 

Suddenly, she was collapsing, deeper and deeper into her mattress, with each thrust. Her eyes flew open, the telltale signs of her orgasm mixing with an encompassing sadness. 

Something was wrong. 

Something was amiss. 

He was missing. 

Every part of her body and mind yearned for him, scorched and alight, like a burnt match. With one last motion of her fingers, it finally plummeted down, free falling without his hands to catch her. 

Instead of moaning, Selene cried. 

She sobbed like a child, unconsolably, face buried in her pillow.  

“I love you. Gods I love you. I’m sorry, I love you.”

The ceiling seemed to fall down on her, the walls got closer, and she thought she would be crushed by the weight of it all.

She was awash in a sea of confusion and ache, floating like a piece of driftwood.

“I cannot afford to want you more than I already do,” she thought as she finally climbed out of her bed with unsteady legs, “Not when it’ll only make you uneasy.”

The painter of the gristmill had said as much too, that “any form of adoration” and her “gift” do not do well together. 

Yet, she needed to see him, just as much as she needed air, so she did what she’d spent her life doing.

She only knew one way to ease her pain and to silence her longing : painting. 

Selene washed her hands and her face, tied her hair once more, and lit each of the candles in her painting room. As many as she could. 

A blank canvas was already waiting for her, untouched since she’d placed it there a month ago. 

Be careful when you paint him, that pale elf that you love. 

A while ago, she’d found herself unable to remember the details of his face. That night, they were embedded in her mind, carved into every corner of it. 

She settled in front of it and for long hours she drew and painted him by memory.

She painted faster and better than she ever did before.

Her hands did not shake, her will did not falter, for she did not care if his reflection climbed out of her painting to destroy her. Selene would welcome him with open arms and a kiss, as it was all she could ever give to Astarion. 

In every possible shape. 

She carefully drew his sublime face and his bust, surrounded by countless red peonies. 

He had the same look as earlier in his shop, a fragile and hesitant kind of tenderness in his eyes, and she got so lost in them that she did not realise that the sun was slowly rising through her windows. 

While she was focused on the velvety texture of each flower’s petal, mixing different types of darker and brighter scarlets, the canvas unnoticeably trembled.

The first flower that bloomed out of the fabric brushed against her forehead, and Selene looked up just in time to see it expand and open in the early morning’s light. Hundreds of other flowers grew out of her canvas, in the same incredible way, until her atelier smelt like a lush garden in summer. Their roots pierced through the woven hemp and colonised the legs of her easel, dangling like jungle vines near her naked feet. 

Exactly at the moment Selene was about to get up, something else, or rather someone, emerged out of the oil painting. 

One of his hands reverently cupped her face, the other one disappeared in the thick of her curls, gently pulling until the pin that held them up fell on the floor. 

His curls and skin looked pearlescent in the daylight, and the only thing she could think about, when his face approached her own, was how much she wanted to commit this vision to memory. 

To never forget how angelic he’d look in the sun, if only he could stand under its light. To paint it for him one day, so he’d see it for himself.

Faintly, she felt the roots of the flower continue to grow until they curled around her ankles and legs. 

She waited for hurt to come, in whatever form, since the woman had deemed a portrait of the vampire ill-advised. 

Except her suffering never came.

Instead, his soft pliant lips magically pressed against her own. 

Selene nearly fell off her stool when she realised what was happening. Tingles travelled down her spine as she marvelled at the feel of him.

He kissed her long and slow, licking along her cupid’s bow and lower lip until she opened up to him. Blossoming under his touch like the peonies that had filled the room.

The paintbrush she was still holding slipped from her fingers and fell onto the floor, splattering speckles of red paint all over her toes.

His tongue entered her mouth eagerly, and even the taste of him was deceptively realistic and exactly how she’d imagined it’d be.

Tangy red wine, metallic blood, and the sweet inexplicable flavour of himself. Something she’d have no words to describe or compare to.

She fell forward, gripping the easel, when his hands travelled down her neck and felt for the scabs of her bruise, much like he had the previous night.

Deepening the kiss, he growled against her and gripped her hair tighter. The gesture felt so true-to-life that she whined in turn, dazed and aroused. 

Would you have kissed me the same way if I had stayed a little longer ?

He pulled away all too soon, dribbles of drool attached to their mouths when they separated. A deep and obscene kiss.

The kinds she imagined a sophisticated and suave man like Astarion would only give when his composure went up in flames.

And just like that, he was gone. 

Evaporating in a cloud of silver and nacre. 

The flowers withered and died, disintegrating into a shower of dark petals. The canvas oozed with a white and red liquid, stabbed and ripped in various places by what had been the sprouts of the flowers. 

Selene sat there long after, flushed and lovesick, like Pygmalion kneeling in front of Galatee’s statue. 

[chocolatepot]

The final chapter!

rating: T | words: 16,672 (total) | chapter: 7/7

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe, POV Stede Bonnet, POV Blackbeard | Edward Teach, things are going to get dark, Not too dark, you know how much I like harping on how much these two love each other, no beta we die like lucius DEFINITELY DIDN'T, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blackbeard | Edward Teach Loves Stede Bonnet, Stede Bonnet Loves Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Royal Privateering Academy for Wayward Seamen, Eventual Happy Ending

[prolestariwrites]

Fandom: Love Between Fairy and Devil

Tags: Romance, Comedy, Fate, Soul mates

Pairings: Dongfang Qingcang/Orchid (main), Shangque/Jieli

Characters: Dongfang Qingcang, Orchid/Xiyun, Shangque, Jieli, Changheng, Xunfeng

Rating: T: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: None

Summary: After Dongfang receives a warning for changing fate, he doesn't think much of it until he finds himself in a world where the Cangyan Sea and Shuiyutian are ruled by Xishan. Here, hellfire is just a long-forgotten legend, and as a royal Dongfang must submit to harsh treatment. His beloved Orchid is the goddess Xiyun, a ruler who is cold and unforgiving towards the Moon people.

Meanwhile, the Moon Supreme has changed into a Dongfang his family and friends do not recognize. Now timid and soft-spoken, Orchid and Shangque work together to find out what is behind the sudden change in his personality. It soon becomes clear he is Dongfang—but not their Dongfang.

As Orchid and Shangque attempt to find a way to bring their Dongfang back, they also need to keep the switch a secret: which also means passing off the gentle version as their bold and decisive king. At the same time, Dongfang wrestles with the drive to free his people and put Xishan in its place. But he also needs the goddess to get back home, something that may be impossible to get if he returns to his old self.

[lilacs-in-space]

1. How many works do you have on AO3?:

9

2. What's your total AO3 word count?:

87,894

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I only write for Star Trek these days. I muddle between all of them as I tend to write for small background characters I've developed unhealthy obsessions with.

Back in my fanfiction.net days I predominantly wrote Star Trek Enterprise and Stargate Atlantis but I took a 20 year hiatus (more or less) in writing fanfic. I only really started writing again about 6 months ago because Star Trek Picard made me simultaneously so happy and so angry that my creativity just exploded back to life.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Not Your Typical Disaster Scenario (Discworld - Terry Pratchett) 

Eight Down. Yellow Bird Who Goes 'Quack!' (Discworld) 

A Way With Wordes (Discworld) 

Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring. (Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek) 

Where the falling angel meets the rising ape (12 Monkeys (TV))

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Absolutely! Nothing makes my day like receiving a comment on a fic. I always make sure to leave them on fic I enjoy too.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I think my fav kinds of endings are bittersweet rather than angsty. A lot of the time they end with lovers parting, willingly or not. Love me a 'doomed by the narrative' type.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

A Way With Wordes - it ends with a wedding announcement!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, which given that I've written for an insanely unpopular ship once or twice, is actually a little surprising.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

My good man/woman/rogue, I only write smut these days. I used to live for fluffy friendship fics, and I like to think I still inject a lot of tenderness into my work, but I am more motivated by the idea of becoming a good erotica writer than anything else these days.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I don't. I thought about writing a 12 Monkeys/Picard crossover but never went through with it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes. I had a bunch of Spock/McCoy poems I wrote back in 2002 reappear over a decade later on AO3 under someone else's name. Not an archive, just some guy pretending he wrote them. I honestly didn't care. They were exactly the kind of mawkish tripe you'd expect a 12 year old to write.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Back in my day, sonny, we wrote fics round robin style through hotmail.com or on the yahoo message boards. (So yes, but we're talking like 20 years ago. I don't do it anymore because I'm in too weird of a niche these days!)

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Nebula class. Looks like a frog. I have a Nebula model on my desk that I replaced the decal of to make it the T'Kumbra!

OH, you mean like...OTP? Uh... I don't think I have one anymore? Back in the day I used to read a tremendous amount of McKay/Weir(SGA), Archer/T'Pol (Ent), and Jack/Sam (SG1) but these days I really enjoy reading about niche characters and ocs. Some of the best fics I've read this year have been oc/oc fics or obscure character(OC) and original character(oc) fics.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

You got me in between the devil and the deep blue sea - I was so taken with this idea when I started, then I got super sick and now whenever I think of working on it, I just feel tired again and don't. We'll see if I return to it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I feel like I'm really good at setting a mood and drawing a person in with all their senses. I get a lot of comments about that.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I don't use one word where many will do. My chapters are way. too. freakin'. long.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I do this a lot, but I always put in the translations. If it's a sentence, I will place the translation after the sentence. If it's just a word, I'll put in a glossary.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Ever? Star Trek TOS and it was a Spones fic. On AO3? Discworld and it was Vimes & Vetinari.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

I am obsessed with A Perfect Match. I love delving into Romulan and Vulcan culture and exposing the similarities and dichotomies of two arrogant characters like Letant and Solok.

However, I am also very proud of Not Your Typical Disaster Scenario which I wrote based on a piece of art I found super inspiring.

If you’re reading this and want to play, I hereby tag you with no pressure. 🥳

[the-drowning-of-saint-adjutor]

The Drowning of Saint Adjutor, Chapter 1: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. (Pages 7-10)

“Across a multitude of universes I find thee, forgiveness comes easier than a name I never cared to speak, and I swallow your sorrow like sharp stones used to break your bones, for our anonymous love could never be, and my isolated longing was swallow by the sea.” - a poem found written on graph paper with pen ink, contained in a glass soda bottle, recovered from the Abyssal Ocean, a non-existent plane within the story of The Drowning of Saint Adjutor

[irenadel]

And if the devil... 6/10

Making a banner for this finally for the grand finale coming soon. Excuse to rb. Credit for the Aemond screencap goes to the wonderful Liv @barbieaemond Smut, Aemond x Maid!Reader

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

Aemond had asked in the dark of the cave still, only to get his answer under the bright, open sky. He’d asked against the damp skin of your neck, still hungry for you, for your history as much as your body.

“Your braid… what victory does it stand for?”

And it pleases him to see how pleased you are, that he had gone looking for the knowledge to ask his question. Asked Grand Maester Mellos and been directed to an old dusty tome he’d found less than useful and then to an old, equally ramshackled sea captain who had told him enough stories of the Dothraki that he had known half of them must be outrageous lies.

But this one he had cherished. This one he had asked again, after rescuing you from a reprimand by the keep steward, for your untimely disappearance. He’d asked it in the wind of the sea cliffs again, because he’d seen it whip your pale, yellow braid behind you, stark like his own Valyrian white hair was stark, against the Targaryen black coat and trousers he had lent you for the occasion.

“I will show you khalakka,” you had said with that laughter he wishes never to stop hearing, as he’d urged you back on Vhagar. “Take me to the sky.”

And there you had shown him, counting the spikes on Vhagar’s neck as you had counted each step when climbing the rigging of a ship, so you would know your way back in spite of your poor eyesight. A braid because you had ridden the poison water, and led your little khalasar to safety. All eleven cousins and aunt and cranky, useless old uncle, safely delivered to their family across the Narrow Sea.

And he had shouted back at you, foolish, beautiful girl. Bold enough to get off a dragon’s saddle and climb her up and down like a sailing vessel. He’d watched your stance low, your knees following the rhythmic, oceanic flow of Vhagar’s powerful back, the way you had learnt to jump atop a horse’s back, atop a ship’s fore yard. Always sent aloft because you had never been afraid of heights you could not see. His own coat whipping behind you as you looked back at him, daring him to leave his post at the wheel of his great beast and come pursue you among the clouds.

He keeps the course steady for the both of you then, even though he almost feels the steady pressure of your strong hands, as Vhagar surely does when you soothe her gargantuan flanks and scratch her old scales off. No fear, no hesitation.

And so at night he lets himself reign free. Peeling his own clothes off your body, as ghostly white as his, like he is undressing himself, like they are his own hands reaching back to him, for once as tender to him as to anyone. He holds back your hands with a sharp smile, even as he longs for them on his own back, soothing his own nervous flanks. And when he lets you, he feels for the first time in years, like he is finally master of himself, of you. Even if you do test him almost as often as Vhagar does.

It matters little. Every fight ends as it should have always: with your skirts over your hips and your arse in the air and his hands between your legs making you swear to obey your prince. Sometimes it’s his cock too. Sometimes, when he’s so hard it hurts, when you’ve peaked twice already and are still arguing, when he knows if he fucks you he will be as good as gone, senseless to anything but the feel of your sweet, wet cunt… then he will go on his knees and bury his face between your thighs.

And he will not know who has won that round, as he hungrily devours your folds, tongue seeking your sweet insides, lips wrapped around your pearl, his hands cupping your arse as hard and covetously as he can, sometimes one of them slipping between his own two legs, making him feel almost ashamed that he cannot eat your cunt without palming himself through his breeches.

It’s only fair, he will think at the sound of your strangled moans, it’s only fair because he’s seen you do the same, when you’ve draped him over the big chair in his rooms and you are sucking him so greedily he can barely remember his own name, let alone what whores are or are not supposed to do.

But it is a much more dangerous affair by day.

When you both have places to be, and he feels tempted to excuse your absence in the kitchens or the laundries or even Princess Helaena’s rooms because your prince needs you and no, it cannot possibly wait. And no, no other chambermaid will do.

Years of sullen humors and his relentless command over his own face serve him well when he has to stand there and purposely not watch his mother the queen instruct you on the proper state of the rooms with your thighs still sticky with his release, with his own prick still wet from you, half-hard and growing harder at the thought that even the queen cannot command you like he does.

No one can.

He gets into a fight with his sister, the first and only in his life. Because Aemond tries to have you re-assigned to his rooms and finds resistance on both fronts. You, shooting him an angry glare in front of witnesses, one he should chastise you for instead of thinking he can lick the unhappy grimace off your lips. Later, he promises himself. Helaena looking so resigned and betrayed it makes the bottom fall from under him, makes him cling to every wound to his pride, every time he has had to fight for his place and the respect it should have garnered him, makes him reach for a viciousness he cannot keep up in the face of Helaena’s soft voice and lonesome reproach.

“She was my friend first.”

The result is worse, far more dangerous… but also so much sweeter it is fatally distracting. The result brings you to ruin and it is no wonder neither of you could have seen it coming, because you are yet to know, intimately and thoroughly, how no good deed goes unpunished.

Because you tell him that if it bothers him so bloody much, he can damn well show up at his sister’s now and again. Like there isn’t enough work to go around, with two little ones and a third one on the way and a useless wine-sop for a husband.

You needn’t sweeten the deal with jabs at Aegon.

Still it takes him three days to brave Helaena’s room and the nursery.

Still when he gets there he feels himself acutely an intruder.

The jealousy returns, twofold this time, because it is so much worse to discover that neither you nor his sister need him. And that if you did, you would have found him about as useless as Aegon. Angry and too proud and too used to a place where it had been only you and him and the language you had begun speaking in tandem.

He does not know this new tongue, and he is loath to admit incompetence.

But you do not accept the excuse of ignorance from him. You do not accept the gaping distance between Aemond and Helaena, so natural to them both, set long ago, by sex and duty and inclination. You hand him little Jaehaera when you must take her twin brother into your arms because the princess needs to lay down on the couch and cannot manage with a pregnant belly and a squirming little boy. His niece (his niece) looks at him, frankly unimpressed and still sucking her thumb, and he stares back at her, trying to find his straight nose, strong chin or domed forehead anywhere in this small, living creature that carries his blood. She has nothing of him except their shared Valyrian hair and eyes, and thankfully nothing of Aegon’s either. He fiercely hopes his brother’s heirs look all Helaena and nothing like their sire and would have found in himself even more goodwill for them if Jaehaera hadn’t immediately started crying.

You pay his panic no mind, because you’ve a little prince and pregnant princess to contend with and tell him to stop being a huge lump and scaring the wee girl by looking at her like he wants to slit her throat and maybe try rocking her a little. It does not work. But when he hangs her upside down that does garner a peel of interested laughter and more is to follow when he throws her (ever so gently, ever so carefully) into a nest of pillows at the foot of the princess’s couch.

And that is the beginning of the end for all of you. Because Aemond finds himself smiling, finds himself happy, perhaps for the first time in years. And happiness makes him careless.

Happiness makes him stay overlong in his sister’s rooms. Watching her teach you a court dance in spite of the babe inside her, longing to join because he does know the steps, half-remembers them from when those things used to matter to him. Reading to the both of you from the fanciful histories of Old Valyria, him reading because Helaena’s hands and eyes are busy preserving one of her insects in glass or needlepoint and because your poor eyesight and poorer coin have precluded you from learning how to read. And Aemond tries very hard not to feel childishly victorious over all imagined rivals because when you watch him read it’s like he’s doing magic. You watch him like you watch Vhagar as she breathes fire and climbs the sky with the beat of her mighty wings. And if Aemond chooses his reading material with more care, perhaps too many passages on Queen Visenya’s sword-slender figure and pale, braided hair… well, it’s only his sister Helaena, adding another red silk thread to her embroidery of a bloodied heart, who looks at him knowingly.

You, for your part, look at him like he strung the sun and stars on the heavens.

And he is drunk on that look. He is unwary of that look. Rejoices too much in it to see his royal mother and grandfather take note of it, or the way you raise your head like a hound on the scent whenever Prince Aemond passes near. Not a lovesick girl. A lovesick girl would have been less dangerous and easier to explain away. No, you look to your prince like a devoted soldier to his beloved general, tight and drawn like an arrow ready to be let loose.

You look at him like you would die for him, like you would kill for him. You look at him like the words are ready to spill from your mouth.

Blood of my blood.

It’s about Helaena that the queen approaches him first and perhaps because it is about her and decorum and the preservation of Aegon’s dignity, Prince Aemond finds it easy to dismiss her concerns. Why shouldn’t he mind the little family that his good-for-nothing brother has chosen to abandon?

After all, you had been right about that much. Helaena had needed the support and flourished under it. Unhappy and suspicious of his presence at first, as surprisingly jealous as he himself had felt, still she opens up to the smallest kindness like a flower to the sun. And why shouldn’t he offer her more of it? Now that he knew it was in his power, now that you had shown him he could, why should he be cautious of his affection for her? 

Why shouldn’t he hold his little niece as he studied High Valyrian? Why shouldn’t all four of you come trotting to watch his weapons training? Why shouldn’t he be allowed to carry his nephew to the yard, show him how to hold a practice sword in his chubby little fists and even let him get a good whack at him with it? (And if the princess gasps and you near-snigger at little Jaeheaerys’ good aim, who would notice your brazenness except everyone?)

It is his grandfather who puts his foot down at last, calling Aemond into the Tower of the Hand.

The queen escorts him, no doubt, to ease the news for him. The matter is addressed simply and succinctly: end it, or he would end it for him. And there was a rage in his breast woken by his Lord Hand’s order, that Aemond did not know he carried within himself. A moment where he could have laid hands on his mother’s blood, where he was ready to let loose all the recriminations he had never been allowed to even acknowledge. That he had only ever done what was asked of him. That it was the Valyrian blood in his veins that let his grandfather sit where he was and speak so acidly to him. His blood and his dragon and all the rest. He had never gone whoring, never shamed himself (never behaved like Aegon) and here he was, being told off like a badly behaved child, for the crime of not being miserable.

But he was his mother’s son as much as he was a prince and he held his tongue.

Otto Hightower didn’t look up from the scroll he was writing and had simply said, “It would have been easier for you if you had picked someone beautiful. Less offensive to your prospects. As it stands, you better end it quickly before anyone else takes notice.”

He was ready to commit parricide at that moment.

His mother must have seen it in his face. She hadn’t been quick enough to stop him unsheathing his dagger and burying it in his grandfather’s scrolls, but she was still gentle enough to pry his hand off the leather grip (the one you’d made for him! braided by your own hand, leather strips bought with your own coin, dyed in the Dothraki style) of his blade. She’d pulled him back from the edge of some unspeakable horror he’d been about to unleash. Fire and his own mouth fixed in a snarl, retribution for this and every other humiliation he had ever suffered. He’d been halfway down the steps of the tower, still panting angrily, before he’d noticed his grandfather hadn’t even looked up from his work. Before he’d noticed his mother’s arms were still around him, supporting him, taking him away from yet another fit of violence that he would never have been able to take back.

Like his eye.

“My dagger,” he’d said in a daze. “She made that for me. I need to—”

His mother wasn’t angry. Or contemptuous. She just placed a hand on his chest, to stop him from going back up the steps. She looked exhausted… disappointed. Like she couldn’t have this conversation again. Like she was talking to his brother.

“This needs to stop, Aemond. Your grandfather may be unkind but he isn’t wrong. For your sake, and your sister’s and that poor wretched girl’s… you have to stop.”

He’d held back the immediate violent recoiling of his body only because he was always painfully aware of how much smaller his mother was. How much more careful he needed to be. If it had been Ser Criston, his grandfather, even the king himself he might’ve…

“I’ve done nothing worse than Aegon!”

“You’ve done nothing better either!” His mother had hissed back, with a fierce viciousness he suddenly recognized as his own. “She isn’t a bed warmer, Aemond! Don’t treat me like I’m a fool. You carry on like this is a courtship. Everyone can see it! And you with not even the decency to hide it! Gods be good but I thought you were smarter than this!”

And that stung. It stung because he had not known until that moment that his mother had ever thought him smart. He was ten years old again, too stunned by duty and pain and the grief on his mother’s face to tell her just how deep his own ran.

Still he knew he must hold the course steady for the both of you.

“I’m not ashamed of her.”

“I’m ashamed of you!” And Aemond had choked back a wounded cry, gritted his teeth to trap the sound behind them, had even managed to keep his eye defiantly dry even as he knew he was a few words from begging. Pleading with his mother not to make him do this. “Have you considered her at all? That you could cost her her position! That you could get her with child!”

And he had barely a moment to think of the ruinous implications of that, the cold weight of foreboding in his belly, before his mother was plunging on.

“I’d hoped at least she would be discreet. She always was before.”

Time stopped.

His face frozen in a grimace of pain.

His mother realized her mistake almost immediately, still a moment too late to take it back, as a hundred little pieces fell in place, creating a picture he would sooner rip his other eye out than behold.

“Before?” He’d let out, suddenly looming over the small figure of his mother, suddenly putting the whole of his will in keeping his body from trembling in rage, in the need to know, know, what he had already guessed.

And it was the tired resignation in Queen Alicent’s face that let him know, that killed whatever brief, boyish hope there had been in him that this could not be true. “Did you think you were the only prince taking advantage of the maids?”