#blood bourne | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

qvrcll · 6 months ago

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summary: with your subsequent marriages, you assumed that whatever friendship, and within it, desire and longing, you had with aemond in childhood had long since dissolved. but a dragon rarely ever yields.

warnings: EXPLICIT CONTENT AHEAD, childhood friend, non-targ reader, young betrothals, forced marriage mentioned, targcest marriage (a/h), possessive themes, dark aemond, (kinda) exhibitionism, finger in p, p in v, breeding kink, infidelity, cursing, slight dub-con but not really, aegon is a sorta decent friend if not a present and worthy husband, no dance of dragons

wc: 6.2K

author’s note: just watched ep 5 and i still stand by my slightly psychotic, slightly convoluted, wholly ambitious princess, but he’s on thin ice – aegon has suffered enough! you’ve made your point as king regent. this lowkey came to me in a melatonin-induced dream so excuse the errors if there are any, i haven’t written for this man since 2022! also, i’m so sorry aegon lol but then again, there is nothing more than friendship between him and reader – it’s just the principle that stings. oops :,) / dividers by strangergraphics

Carriage rides were always a handful.

More-so now, that you were a mother, cupping the back of your child’s head and bouncing him eagerly on your lap to keep him from fright, whilst your husband sat beside you, sticking his finger between the ridge of the little boy’s top lip and nose in a manner of teasing.

Rhaekar was a name that both you and Aegon had agreed upon. A fine name for a fine baby boy.

Fresh out of the womb and nursed delicately against your breast, Aegon’s usually frivolous and disengaged habits had quelled at the low cries that left the tiny bundle of cloth at your breast. He had uncharacteristically poked his head up and down, trying to catch a glimpse of the little wrinkled flesh, slick with blood and fluid.

He is tinier than I expected, he had said in a hushed tone, his ringed finger delicately tracing the fat of the newborn’s cheek, as if afraid to hurt it.

Most babies are, if not smaller, you had smiled.

It really was no secret. Your marriage with Aegon was not bourne out of love, nor willingness. He had detested duty, and you had grown cold at the thought of a loveless marriage. Even as you stood at the Sept steps, clothed head to toe in white that mirrored the marble of fresh-tasting cream frosting, cloaked in the regal cream of the Targaryen colours, the two of you had been too young to absolve or deny such a proposition.

But the years passed to prove that friendship could sprout in the absence of love. Aegon did not love you in a way you had hoped to be loved by someone, anyone. But he loved his son, and the friendship you held with him was near enough.

“He’s going to drool all over you,” you fuss gently, watching as your son takes his father’s finger into his two hands and grasps it like rope. A laugh is pulled out of Aegon – adoration is clear in his light irises.

“Do not worry, my dear boy,” Aegon drawls, broad and toothy smile catching the lines on his face, “Your father doesn’t mind.”

“He has grown.”

The third voice is a surprise, if anything. Yet it strikes a deep cord within you, familiarity bubbling in your chest at the age-old smooth voice, curved syllables.

Aemond.

You had been mildly conscious of his presence, and with him, Helaena, sitting across from you in the carriage. It wasn’t customary to be lodged in a single carriage like so, but with the destination being the annual hunt and Rhaekar’s name day, the family would need to be close. Well-knit as they walked out of the carriage for appearances.

Yet, you cannot help but hold Aemond’s one-eyed gaze for one second too necessary, to notice how he watches the three of you like a hawk.

Aegon breathes in softly, clearly distracted by the little babbling boy as he hauls him out of your lap at the arms and takes to playing with him more efficiently. You’re left to answer his brother’s question with a simple smile.

“The Maesters say he is growing up strong and fast,” your hands come to lay across each other on your lap, the action not being missed by the younger Prince’s steely, unreadable gaze. You almost burn under it, but you chalk it up to the closed space.

He doesn’t respond, but simply tilts his head forward in a single nod. When you look back to Rhaekar upon Aegon’s lap, he rips his gaze from your face to the youngling’s.

In his mind, he is barely hanging on. Stuffed in a carriage with a brother he would rather wrangle than humour, a lady wife he is bound to duty alone and the sight of his childhood companion – love, friend, half of his heart, whatever that constitutes – wed and mothering a son with not only another man, but his own debauched brother. He would sooner die than stomach that.

But Aemond holds more restraint than most mortal men. At least, he thinks he does. His single eye traces over the soft of your son’s cheeks and the ovals of his eyes – all traces of Aegon. All traces of you. His hands clench against the thick leather of his pants, trying to seem indifferent, as his eye trains back to your face.

Your gaze floats back to his. Only the two of you understand that there is a tension floating between you, but you alone do not understand it. He is hard to read now, more than ever. The event at Drift-mark had shut you out from all his previous behaviours, his usual antics and juvenile tendencies. Now, a hardened and roughened man remained, whatever trace of friendship conjured in your childhood being a mere floating memory now.

At least, it seemed like it.

“Ah, here we are,” Aegon chimes blandly, pointing to the carriage window to ascertain which Lords were which, and which camps held best.

The moment breaks as the footman hurries to the door, and with it, you step outside beside Aegon and clutch Rhaekar at your chest with a smile. Beside you, Helaena and Aemond step awkwardly together. The sight of cheerful men and ardent cheers overwhelm you, and you push back the feeling arising in your chest with a lost sense of conviction.

The maids are gentle with your son, and it is all that you need to quell your thoughts and feeling heart.

You are able to catch a moment of reprieve amongst the tent that was erected for the likes of you and Aegon. Being the first born son, the tent served to reflect exactly that. It lay amongst the middle of the camp, green silks draped over wooden posts in different shades, like thick vines draping from the ceiling. Where there had been thick ground outside, had now been replaced by a verdant carpet, embroidered by gold all throughout. An extravagant faux-throne stood at a few steps to the right, and a swath of low cushions to your left – toys lay upon those cushions, with your son teething at a toy that a maid had gently placed at his feet.

Lords and Ladies flitted from here and there, passing like blurring bodies in your vision. A few stopped to greet you, and engage in conversation is pressing their advantage, though you were polite. There wasn’t much to look forward to – the small array of ladies gathered around chairs and carpets would surely do more to discomfort you than engage you in something meaningful.

At the back of the tent, a low serving table lay with refreshments. For all your knowledge, Aegon never really did reign in his inhibitions – there was already a pitcher half-full, and a goblet half-drunk on it. Aegon was somewhere, possibly entertaining some few of his many Lordly friends.

The ache of love could not be quelled by friendship.

You sip your wine slowly. In times like these, left alone to your own devices and given the option to drink, engage or settle with some ladies, your mind tended to wander instead. You tilt your cup to your lips, the sight of the fruitful wine giving way to a faint image in your mind.

It was his twelfth name day. You remember it so clearly – waking up before the maids and selecting your frilliest, prettiest gown for the occasion, frowning and whining when they insisted different colours and styles, fashioned with embroidery or gems.

You had wanted it to be special for Aemond.

Being one of his most beloved childhood companions, you wanted every intention to count. You knew it mattered when you stepped into the gardens, dressed in a delicate green gown, with red-dotted jewellery to dot your neck and fingers. He had been standing there, waiting anxiously, and nearly fell face front when he approached you.

You look… really pretty, he had stuttered.

Thank you, Aemond, you had giggled, enjoying the way his tongue had turned liquid in his mouth at the sight of you.

The plans had been made that day – whatever he wished for. When breaking fast, he couldn’t keep a hold of his tongue as he clutched your palm and led you hastily down the halls of the Red Keep. He knew that the day would entail later; extravagance and little time. Little time for you, and the thought soured his mind.

First, there was the clearing near the woods. He didn’t mind the presence of the knights trailing behind much, and neither did you. All he cared for was the feeling of perching his head nervously against your lap, fighting a smile as you braided flowers within his hair. It had been a sweet, long affair. Next, it had been the banquet dinner, and he had saved a space in the chair beside his own. His smiles never left you, his eyes always chasing your own, smiling bashfully when he did something worthy of impression to you.

And then, at the end of the day, past the pesky guards and the prying eyes of your parents – came the Dragon-pit escapade.

What if we get caught? Someone could see us, you voiced in worry, despite your eyes betraying the excitement broiling in your gut. Aemond had merely tugged at your wrist, boyish grip a little too tight for comfort, yet neither of you cared much.

No one will catch us, he smiled nervously, as though unsure of himself.

When the two of you tentatively descended the rocky steps of the massive crypt, you had held closer to him. Aemond tried to calm the jump in his pulse when your palm squeezed around his, or the way your shoulder bumped softly against the ridge of his back when the dark got too frightening.

Just stay close to me, he murmured. Though only a few centimetres taller than you, he was speaking with more confidence than what lay in him.

You had stayed close with a tight nod, your soft breath against his nape. He was scouring the darkness – the smell of Dragon-spit and smoke marred the air heavily, and the mechanical groans of a few of the pit’s creatures emboldened the darkness a little more. You clung to him even tighter, the silk of your dress pressing against his leathers. When the first dragon, however unrecognisable, had grown weary of your intrusion and lit its flame, you covered your eyes and ears. He had ducked you behind him, though he quivered just as much, and had covered you with both arms in an embrace.

Look, he had breathed.

And what a sight it had been.

Yellow climbed atop orange as dragon-fire spilled forth from a gargantuan throat of an unnamed dragon. It raised across the dark rock of the ceiling, lighting the space like a well-lit room, the heat bearing down against you like the summer season of the realm. Where there was fear, now there was also awe, as you and Aemond clung to one another. When the room dimmed, the two of you ran hand in hand above ground, falling atop each other in a hurry to rid of the pit’s darkness.

The added weight of you above him was barely registered, with your childish laughter filling the air in cacophonies, his hands a welcome weight against your hips. However that night ended, you do not remember. Did the two of you trek to the Red Keep in barely concealed laughter? Or did you peek at the stars when the guise of friendship had moved on to a tenderer feeling?

“My Lady?”

You blink like a fish out of water. Your wine is long gone, and you find yourself staring at the maid in front of you, who views you with the same sort of concentration, just a tinge of concern in her eyes.

It appears your thoughts might have drifted – Rhaekar had been fussing for you from the carpeted floor, barely able to sit still against the silk drapery and consoling maids.

“Forgive me—“ you begin, setting down your goblet and lifting yourself off the chair you had unknowingly seated yourself upon, approaching the child with a twinkling smile, “My sweet boy. Do you miss me?”

The boy babbles happily at your voice, recognising the soft tone of his mother’s voice. He clings to the collar of your blue silks, the embroidery against your collar being fisted in his little hands. You smile, entertaining the small boy as the maids watch with an affectionate smile.

From the corner of the room, Aemond watched. He always did – and he had been, especially now. His eye had lingered when you were day-dreaming. How twisted it was for an unreadable man of his station to desperately want to know the inner workings of another. He supposed he was this sort of man now – barred and unaffectionate, cruel by practice.

His duty to Helaena was just that. There wasn’t love, but a deep-seated admiration and bond with the quiet girl. He had been close with his sister, but he had never seen her as more – they had hardly sired heirs of their own. Targaryen customs had never repulsed him; he was no stranger to the much exercised practices of his house. But there was no deeper reason to feel more for her and the act of intimacy was hidden deep in his chest, unwilling to be made known to anyone but you. And she felt the very same with her own duty, seated in the far corner of the room, taken to her maid, who watches as she palms a spider carefully.

But you – God’s, you were different.

His childhood companion of when he was much too young to know of the atrocities of loss and shame, the one he chased with his eye alone and caught in a full room. He could abandon all feeling and you would still be in his chest, thudding place of his heart.

He could hardly tear his one, assessing eye off of you. Those silks, that draped off your form, curving against you in the places he wished he could memorise. Your hair wasn’t the silver of his Targaryen own, but a colour of your own – he had always admired it closely in childhood, perhaps another outlet of his devotion of you.

But now, watching you tend to your child, a child that he could easily confuse as his own, he felt something… in his gut.

He was that sort of man now – the sort of man who knew long ago of what he truly wanted.

“Trouble?” he asks smoothly, without much hesitation or emotion, as he crosses the room to stand beside you. His arms are folded behind his back, a habit he had developed with his roguishness, as he looks down at you.

You’re hardly surprised. You knew he would seek you out somehow – perhaps for conversation. It felt nice, for a moment, regarding him without looking into his eye and seeing the tension that lay within it, raw and confusing. You were forced to bury whatever you felt beneath lines of formality.

“He always is,” you smile at Aemond, dusting the front of your gown as you straighten to your full height, “Are you having a good time?”

“I suppose,” he hums. Brisk and short – you do not mind. You have grown used to that. But what makes your hair stand on edge is the look he gives you. Like he is studying you, trying to figure you out. His eye blinks towards the room, uncharacteristically relieved to find Aegon nowhere near, before he offers his arm.

“Walk with me.”

More demand than request, but his tone is not at all harsh and soft in his own way. Watered down and guarded but not forced, like it was nature to be with you so. Your heart flutters in your chest. There is no reason to deny.

“Lead the way,” you answer with a familiar smirk, which leaves a ghost of a smirk on his own lips. You leave the tent, arm warmly wrapped against Aemond’s own, after ensuring Rhaekar was satisfied with the stuffed renditions of dragons and the maids that coo at him when the drapery slides into place with your exit.

If the men assembled around the camp were surprised by your company, they made no show of it.

No protest rang as you and Aemond made for a thin path in the woods, mind anywhere but within the moment. The heat of your skin was warming his rib and arm, and the presence of him was making a familiarity dawn upon you.

Where there had been easy conversation in the past, there were silences and the light crunch of boot upon leaf. You didn’t blame him much – the change does not repulse you. He had always been a thoughtful boy in the past, and the silence had only grown. He tended to think more now, second guessing his words and choosing which words to best fit with you. He didn’t know where the two of you stood – was it fit to feel greedy even now?

The sounds of the creaking woods and crackling leaves are finally broken by his speech, “How are you?”

You look at him with mild surprise, a soft smile on your face as you regard him. His one eye is genuine as it looks upon you.

“Do you want the truth or something soft-sounding?” you jest, but he merely breathes softly.

“You know what I want,” he states with not so much as a smile, but his tone is light. Did you know what he truly wanted? Perhaps not. It would frighten you, surely.

“I am well. Rhaekar left me a little exhausted and sore, but the recovery has come along well,” you answer, “Truly, I am well.”

He pushes his luck, “And your marriage?”

It should surprise you, but it doesn’t. He’s always been eager at his hand, no matter how much restraint he had learnt over the years.

You sigh through your nose, “My duty, you mean. It is… not as horrible as it ought to be. Aegon is… well, Aegon. We perform what we must. He is a friend to me, in a way. No lover. But… it is good, I suppose.”

Something about the mention of a satisfactory marriage with his leech of a brother had his mind boiling with anger. He didn’t expect – much less hope – for you to be miserable. No, he was never that cruel to you. Perhaps to others, but not you. But the smell of friendship unnerved him. It was how he was taken to you – would Aegon follow that same path, find himself infatuated and easily claim your heart as it was already done legally through marriage? Would he standing by the sides when time would run out?

“Hm,” he repeats, monotone. He was clenching his fists, you notice, and visibly stiff against you. Something had angered him, and you wouldn’t just sit around to find out.

“What is it?” you ask, a frown on your face.

He takes note of it, almost wanting to press his index finger against the middle of your brows, to see the frown dissipate. But he held his hands back – that greed would get the better of him.

He steels himself, stopping by a large tree. It looms above the two of you, like a sledge-hammer, the roots taking place underneath your feet in bumps and ridges. The leaves are speckled across the vast amounts of branches, green and white in the cold sunlight. But the gaze he gives you is enough to warm your insides for good.

“It irks me,” he speaks truthfully for the first time in years, and for once, it feels freeing. His conscience is still heavy, “Your marriage with the… likes of him.”

You pause. This was traversing some grounds, this stupefying discovery and suspicion. Your vows and your duty flit through your head like the numerous scrolls in the Sept, the weight of the realm atop your shoulders. You had seen him in similar lights, but the truth almost made him vulnerable, angry. Fear griped at your chest, as you look at him like he was strange for saying such a thing.

“Well, it shouldn’t,” your voice is wary, a swallow diminishing the flurry in your belly, “We have a duty to uphold. Me, to Aegon. You to Helaena.”

He comes to a halt beneath one of the branches, disgruntled in a way that you cannot see. Aemond feels his tongue slacken in his mouth, the weight of another man’s anger resting in his body – or was it his? Hidden and barely known, even to himself? Was it the anger, the bitterness, that he held as young child, now refusing to be shown?

You notice his stiffness, but make no move to coax him out of him. He had to snap out of it.

“You have Helaena,” you repeat, softer if only it would soothe whatever line he was transgressing, “She is your lady wife.”

He scoffs. It is a sound that catches you off guard. In the past, he would have conceded and offered a hasty apology. Or perhaps in reluctance. But he was brash now, bolder. His shoulders squared, as his head moved an inch to look back at you, silver tresses spilling over the jerkin he wore.

“Helaena. She is my dear sister,” his voice is blank, “There was never any sort of love there. You know that.”

Your eyes widen. He was being truthful, more than usual. He was unravelling, surely, and the coldness of the forest sears away to be replaced with a warmth that nips at your heel. His eye only holds some light of anger and truth, never fear – but that is within him, refusing to be shown.

You look at your feet, distractedly picking your gown up from an edge of a root, “She is your wife, nonetheless.”

The words work more to anger him – you know this because a piece of his jaw sets in place, and he fully turns to face you. He had always been a head taller, but now, he was towering above you. Looming. The tree barely intimidated you as such – regal beauty closing in on you like Valyrian smoke.

“She is my wife,” he begins again, voice low. He approaches you, and you move backwards on cue. He stops upon notice, a sharp breath breaking the silence, “But you—“

“But me?” your voice is incredulous, “What about me? What am I to you but a friend from childhood—”

He moved closer, and you lose some semblance of control as he crowds your space. Your back presses against the bark of the large tree, uncomfortable and poking against the soft length of your gown. But you do not care, and neither does he. His fingers almost reach up to touch your arm, but he doesn’t dare. Not yet.

“Do not fool yourself,” he sneers, one eye looking down at you in a way that burns your skin once again, “You are more. You might have not known, but I did – you’ve always been more.”

His fingers finally concede, tracing the gooseflesh on your elbow as you twitch under him. Your eyes are wide and shocked, but you do not make a move to stop him, nor his words. He knows you are a proud lady by nature – you could easily make quick of this conversation and never return to him. But your eyes hold the truth. You’re half curious, as you are fearful and just as selfish as him, though you think of yourself better at hiding it. He smirks slightly.

“You should have been mine,” his eye searches your face, his finger trailing up to touch the side of your chin, a touch too soft.

If the bottom of your stomach hadn’t dropped before, it definitely had in this very moment. The leaves rustle softly as you feel your back scratch against the bark, your face warming where he touches you. The two of you are crossing a line, the both of you, because you make no move to leave. You lean into his touch ever so slightly, seeking for the warmth that lies there. Targaryens and their heat.

“We mustn’t,” your voice is weak, barely a deterrence, but you try anyhow. You know better than to give into the urges, the fears and hopes that belonged to a whole different time. A time where the two of you were much younger, and ignorant in a sweet sense, making light of the weight on your heart. But now, festering all throughout your adolescence, it had begun to take root, “We belong to others—“

Aemond makes a sound between a grunt and a scoff, as he traps you against the bark. His hands loop around your waist, the touch dangerous and a tell-tale warning of yourself and him, too, in a sense. But he doesn’t losen his hold, and you sigh shakily as he hauls you closer, chest to chest.

“We belonged to each other long before we belonged to others,” he manages in a ragged tone. In a tone that suggests that you knew better, just like he did, and that it was no better playing the fool. You supposed he was right – it was out in the open, and the two of you were chest to chest, like he’d tear your gown open and make love to you in the solace of the forest alone. Not much to hide now. Not much to disguise.

But still, you try. You pretended to not know better.

“That was in childhood—“ you struggle against his arms, heavy breaths stifling your lungs like sea-smoke as he comes so close, too close. His lips are at the corners of your own, his one eye so close as to depict the many different etches in his eyepatch, “I am your brother’s lady wife now.”

He tightens his hold around the small of your back, and you fail to ignore the warmth that builds all over. You are beginning to feel fuzzy, to let go of all your inhibitions, your restraint. And he was too.

“The laws of matrimony were forged by men,” he speaks smoothly against your lips, “They mean nothing to me—not when it comes to you.”

Your last ditch effort to deny crossing the line is futile – you sharply move your face away from him, the sight of his face ripping away from your line of vision. It proves to be a poor effort, because he merely grunts, grabbing your cheeks with his calloused digits and shifting it back to where it was before. It is almost violent in a way, if it weren’t for the tenderness in which he looked at you.

Every breath feels heavy, and your hands come to rest against his chest, not knowing whether to push or pull. Your restraint was slipping, and there was little to stop you now. You could barely deny yourself, let alone him.

“Look at me.”

The order is so simple and you curse at how your eyes float to his. It was such an easy thing – finding his eyes in the harrowing darkness of the Dragon-pit, peering into his good eye and trying to ignore the blood and gore that marred his other, trying to discern his thoughts with a look alone. You had looked so easily.

And he knew. God’s, Aemond knew it.

The truth lay in them, as they had all along. Even with one eye, he was left blinded. How could he have let the pretence of your duties hold him back, when you were there for the taking?

You knew it too – the lack of such a burn was abysmal in your own marriage. The presence of it now left you cloudy brained, hazy, and you couldn’t navigate the barest of thoughts. Before, caution would have been exercised. Now, there was an utter lack of it. A lack of patience, a lack of restraint, and a lack of all of which made you and Aemond.

With a slow pace, you let slide your hand against the nape of his neck, slowly trailing up and feeling the long strands that lay there, pale and silver against your fingers. You had once told him that it reminded you of star light. The truth stood now, even in the barely concealed brevity of your fingers. Not that you cared.

All restraint that the Prince had once retained in childhood snaps like a string and he surges forward. His lips are rough and a clatter of teeth, gum and tongue. He is not a patient man – so when he angles your head and licks against your lips, you keep your lips sealed for the thrill of it. Nevertheless, he wrenches your mouth open with his tongue alone, wrapping around your own like a muscle well-trained, noting every sigh and moan that escapes you.

His hands are all over you. There is surprise in the way it trails from your neck to your nape, to the back of your head and down your hip, his fingers thumbing your breast in the decline. You shudder against him, and he swallows your groan in earnest.

“So eager,” he drawls, though the need is thick in his voice, “I thought your vows meant more to you than this?”

“Fuck you,” you bite back, a strangled moan leaving you seconds later, as his fingers dive beneath your skirts and thumb your slit in a slow swipe. The words of retort die in your throat as you clutch fiercely to his shoulders, his pressing weight being the only source of support.

He smiled, tracing your bottom lip with his tongue, “You’ve always had a filthy mouth on you. A lady no less.”

No amount of breath could have braced you for the way in which his fingers dipped beneath the smooth fabric of your underwear, slipping past the pubic hair that lay there and catching your pearl in a tight-rounded flick. You moan in a way he hadn’t yet heard before, and his heart clenches uncomfortably. He had only ever felt such exhilaration when atop Vhagar, mapping the expanse of King’s Landing below. But he is greedy now – he knows that he can be.

He mouths a quiet ‘fuck’, as he positions his fingers in a way that breeches you so barely, before burying a long, lithe finger within you. He is not prepared for the way you buck against him, the broken syllables of his name leaving your lips – almost desperate. Did Aegon know that he was claiming his own wife so, with his fingers alone?

When his fingers ease you open enough, one too many to wrench just sighs out of you, he retreats his hand from your small-clothes. You whine at the loss of his warmth, the absence of the ball of his palm against your clit that warmed the wet flesh just right. He simply smiles, taking your earlobe into his mouth.

“Patience, ñuha jorrāeliarzy,” he purrs against the expanse of your throat. The odd, old language blends into his usual use of the common tongue, and you do not know how it excites you so. Perhaps the premise itself is so debauched – your childhood companion and the brother of your own husband dragging your own slick back and forth across your cunny, in the solace of a forest.

It only clicks after that he called you his love.

You can barely digest that thought when he barely steps back. His fingers hook against your small-clothes and yanks them down harshly, the fabric lying wet and soaked slightly between your legs. You feel no shame – you wish you did, because some clarity would do you some good. Instead, you hurriedly help him unlace the buckles of his leather, laces of his breeches. They lower enough to let his cock to spring free, sinful and dangerous as he presses the weight of him against you, dragging it across like a damn tease.

“Please,” you plead, breaths ragged and poor. He smirks, arms hooking under your shoulders to pull you closer against his chest.

“Your words, sweet girl,” he coos. The smirk that tears his face is devilish – you almost cower, if not for the lust clouding your system, the decade long affair boiling between you both.

“I need you to—“ you struggle at a swipe of his cock-head against your slick entrance, “I need you to—to fuck me.”

“Is that so?” he asks, amused, as he begins to press into you. So, so close, yet not enough.

You nod tearfully, “I need you—I’ve always needed you, and you’ve always known. I wish it was you. I wish we would have wed—“

The moan that rips through you is entirely his fault. The sharp way he breeches you, in one harsh moment – his fault. But who could blame him? The thought of you so desperate to change the course of fate, to be bound to him by matrimonial vows, makes his stomach burn. He knew he was a hypocrite – he had just sullied and mocked them, but if you were his by law, he would have made it count.

“Wanted you forever,” he grunts against your ear, cock spearing through you and splitting you in half against the bark of the tree. The bark bites into your back, and your hips begin to burn. He smells of Dragon-scale and fire. He must have ridden Vhagar sometime this week – it makes you clench tightly around him, as he stutters, pushing in deeper, “I would’ve wed you in a heartbeat, if not for those fucking duties.”

You aren’t faring any better than him, moaning and whining as he ploughs into you, holding you up with his strength alone as he batters you endlessly. He speaks again, pleasured at the sight of you so wordless, “Don’t care much for that. You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. My insolent brother would do good to remember that—fuck.”

You clench against him again, “Aemond—“

“Could spill my come in you now,” he pants, angling your hips to reach further into you, like he was taking the good parts of you and sullying them, just so he could lay his claim on you, “That fool would never know—you’d be round and swollen with my babe and he’d never fucking know—”

Excitement and fear gripes at your heart, as you look up at him in slight alarm. But you cannot help but entertain the thought – the mere thought of him laying claim on you so viciously, a formidable dragon in his own right, not caring for whatever that kept you apart. Gone was the boy that feared overstepping, that feared distance. Here was a man that would make space if he wished for it, lay claim on you because he craved you so.

With a strangled call of his name, you bite his shoulder firmly – not enough to cause hurt, but enough to have him grunt – as you near your release. A creamy ring forms around the base of his cock when he looks below, and he knows the sight is his undoing. He is close – so close.

“You’d like that wouldn’t you?” he taunts, yet spears in harder, “You’d like that so much.”

You can only nod helplessly, lost to the sensations swimming in your veins. He grunts through a wrangled moan, aroused by the way you let him.

It isn’t a surprise when you come first. It is a goal of his – as a man, to bring you ecstasy, before his own. But when he does come, it is deep within, a warmth that fills your body as he spills his seed deep inside your cunny. The two of you struggle against each other with ragged breaths, and his hand settles against the small of your back again, the touch leaving an impression.

“You’re insatiable,” you groan, though playfully, as you watch the product of his come drip from beneath you. He barely gives you any words, as his fingers collect the slick and quickly stuff the escaping wetness back in, ignoring the way your hips twitch away from him. Sensitivity. It makes him smile cruelly.

“Don’t you waste a bit of it,” he speaks, voice a drawl, thick with want. The weight of the truth lay between you two, but there was no need to navigate such a thing. You had known long, long before, even buried it underneath lays of flesh and bone.

He helps you dress again, and then himself, quick and expertly, your small-clothes containing the eager spill of his seed between your thighs. You do not miss the way his one eye glitters with some dangerous sense of pride, how he kisses your neck only so slightly. You smile, laughing softly, as he curls into the side of you, claiming a part of you and aiming for more – until you smell of nothing but Dragon-smoke and sweat.

“Let’s head back, before the others grow suspicious. For good reason,” you tug at his arm, your smile a balm against the ruined convictions of his past.

He offers a rare smile, letting himself be led away by you, just like in childhood, “Let’s.”

There was no need to fret the words – the two of you have always known, in some sense. Perhaps you’ll figure the future out sooner than you had before, with the added weight of him against your body.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen drabble #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen x female reader #aemond targaryen fic #hotd fic

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thewriterwithnoplan · 11 months ago

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THE TRAITOR'S SOULMATE (2/2)

Summary: Humans once had four legs, four arms, two heads, and two hearts. For humanity's hubris, Zeus struck them in two. You and Luke Castellan are determined to find your way back to each other, but before that can happen, there are things the two of you need to do.

[Part 2 to The Hero's Soulmate]

Soulmate AU: You meet the future version of your soulmate.

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader

Word Count: 7378

Warnings: Canon typical warnings, swearing, I use the spelling 'mom' because the series is American but I - and I cannot stress this enough - am not American, she a long one.

A/N: I've loved reading your comments, thank you so much for all the support in part one. I hope you enjoy, because we all deserve a little Luke Castellan every now and then!

Masterlist

Amphitrite had been gifted a premonition and the world was all the worse for it. The dream had come from Apollo or perhaps the Oneiroi or whatever great heart pumped blood and Gods and monsters out into the world.

It did not matter to the Goddess from whom the vision came, for in this dream Amphitrite had watched her husband fall in love and sire a child to a mortal paramour. A precious boy that Poseidon might even one day love, with a taste for the colour blue and a heroism that would grow to rival his namesake. And for the Queen of the Seas, that simply would not do.

It would not be the child’s nor his mortal mother’s fault – she was not Hera after all – and so she would have to punish her husband for the blame would be his. But how was one to punish a King among Gods before his crime even came to be? Why to beat him at his own game, of course.

So, Amphitrite set out to sire her own demigod with the mortal man her husband would hate most. A devout catholic.

Amphitrite stayed with her mortal lover and their half-blood daughter until the girl was all but five. Far longer than the greater Gods were wont to spend with their offspring. But what a precious babe she had bourn and what a traitorous husband she had back home.

But fate and prophecies and soulmates were such funny things. Inciting chaos. Inviting paradox. Introducing dangers untold.

It took Amphitrite all those years – though seemingly short in her immortality – to realise her fatal error. She had been the one to leave Poseidon. She had been the one to sire a child. She had been the one to drive her husband to the surface and his mortal. And so, the blame was hers to shoulder.

Amphitrite decided that she would be a self-fulfilling prophecy no longer. It was time to venture back below the surface.

In a last fit of guilt, she bestowed her first and final act of mercy unto her mortal lover. She told him everything.

When finally, she had gone back to the sea to reconcile with her husband, the catholic man took his turn to bestow his first and final act of mercy unto his young demigod child.

Against all the teachings of his faith. He abandoned his young daughter at Half-Blood Hill. And let the devil-spawn keep her life.

The Spirit of the Hudson River never did learn to like you. You with your greedy hands, snatching debris from its murky waters. You and your strange sea creature friends who would not dare brave such pollution were it not for your presence. Your pile of war spoils tossed aside like children’s toys. Your strange little bubble of air on the sandy floor of the river, where you stowed your treasures and slept bracketed by water. Were it not for the pollution that slopped against the edge of the river as if it were trying to escape you, the Hudson River Spirit might have chased you and your sea friends and your collection of trinkets out of his waters. But as it were, you made a strangely amicable tenant for a demigod. So, as long as you paid your dues the spirit let you keep your little underwater oasis.

For your first years living there, you made your way in New York City by selling lost things dredged from your river home. Bikes and old weaponry and tarnished jewellery and buckets of coins from across the world. You were careful and you coveted your few precious belongings, but with the rivers bounty, you rarely went hungry.

By the time you were fourteen, you found you could venture further into the city without as many questions. You had met an odd assortment of people whilst selling the lost and unloved things of the river; all who knew someone, who knew someone, who needed another set of hands and so you offered yours. You babysat and cleaned, worked in delis and sandwich shops, helped old women with their groceries and young families mend their clothes. A retired teacher gifted you packets of schoolwork and with little else to fill your hours under the river you took to learning. Your numbers came easier than letters and reading always gave you a hard time but the activities she gave you each time you tended to her balcony garden gave you something to do when the sounds of the city kept you up at night.

All the while you followed Percy Jackson from the recesses of the Hudson. Shuffling your little bubble and its blessedly dry treasures up and then back down the river as he was bounced listlessly from school to school. Watching over him as the mythosphere tried desperately to barge into his little mortal life. Feral harpies that tried to snatch him into the air, great snakes that tried to sneak through air vents and all manner of underworld-born sea creatures that sought to pull him below. You had wrestled and dismembered and slayed them all. Adding their feathers and scales and great weapons to your dragons-hoard.

You were sixteen when you finally knocked on Sally Jackson’s door to introduce yourself. You had spent weeks working yourself up to it, planning your outfit and then fussing over each piece. All your clothes had been gifts and were often a size too big or printed with some generic tagline like Spread peace not hate!; or made entirely from yarn that the old woman whose meals you prepped at the start of each week had gifted you after she had taught you how to crochet; or like the dress you wore now, were sown together from thrifted fabric scraps and embellished with pretty shells and baroque pearls. You had planned the time you would arrive down to the minute so that her oppressive husband would be out, but the hour would not be so late as to make an unexpected visit threatening. You had planned to keep Percy safe while you were away from him by entrusting your friends Clarence the Crab and Emily the Squid to supervise him for the evening.

What you had not planned for was the possibility that Sally Jackson would be the most lovely woman you had ever met. You had been struck dumb by it the moment she opened her door and greeted you with a kind smile. Couldn’t your mother have chosen a mortal as gentle as she to be your parent? Alas, the Gods had never done a thing for you.

“Can I help you, lovely?”

You tried not to burst into tears as you asked, “Mrs. Jackson?”

“Are you alright?” She opened the door wider, leant out and scanned the corridor behind you. “Is there something you need?”

“No ma’am. I’m here about your son, Percy. His father sent me.” A good ambiguous statement that would pique her curiosity but let on nothing about the Gods. Allowing you to spin your tale – that you were Percy’s long-lost step-sister, come to reconnect.

“Poseidon?” Alas, the Gods had truly never done a thing for you. “Is something wrong? Is Percy, okay?”

“He’s fine Mrs. Jackson, I’ve been keeping him safe.”

She scanned the hall behind you once more, “You best come in.”

Over a cup of tea, you told Sally Jackson everything.

You liked your home under the river. For lack of a better term, it allowed you to remain liquid. You could follow Percy wherever trouble took him. You could stay up until the city grew quiet for that brief moment before dawn. You could train with the Hudson River Spirit, even if he only entertained you because he enjoyed winning.

You liked your bed made out of stacked wood pallets and a mountain of blankets. You liked your wooden chest of draws stuffed full of trinkets and weapons and the precious few items you owned. You liked this place that you had carved out with your own two hands.

But you also liked your home in the Jackson household. Where there was always music playing. Where it was always warm and dry. Where there would always be some blue-ified food in the oven or blue candy in the mason jars by the sink.

It became your job in the summers to babysit Percy, to keep him away from Gabe and from danger while entertaining his endless need for motion. You took him to art galleries (which he hated) and aquariums (which he loved), to craft fairs (which he tolerated because he liked the things you made) and swimming pools (which he only liked when he won your swimming races).

“What even is a soulmate?” Percy had asked you one day at the park.

“The person with the other half of your soul,” You scrunched your nose up, “Or well, that's what people say.”

“You’re saying I’ve been walking around with half a soul?”

“I didn’t say I believed them,” You rattled your water bottle in front of his face until he took it. “Stay hydrated.”

He frowned at you, “You don’t believe in soulmates?”

“Of course I do, but it's a little more complicated than that, kid.” You took the water bottle back and played with the cap for a moment while you thought. “Think of it like this. You can have two different puzzles that are cut the same way, right? So all the pieces from one will fit with all the pieces from the other. But that doesn’t mean they belong together, the picture doesn’t come out quite right because even though the pieces fit, they don’t necessarily belong to the same puzzle. Maybe that’s what it was like for your mom, like she couldn’t find the pieces that made up her picture and so she went with the ones that fit at the time.”

“You don’t think my mom and dad were soulmates?”

“I never met your father.”

“But he’s your dad too.”

“He’s my mom’s husband. Maybe my mom and dad are soulmates.” Percy didn’t seem to like that answer. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe your mom and my mom each have pieces that fit into your dad's puzzle but neither match his picture, or both. Maybe his picture is a year with your mom and a lifetime with mine and having you. Maybe he needs to collect all those little pieces at the right time when they’re the right shape or he’ll end up with a completely different picture at the end.”

“I kind of understand.” But he gave you a look that said he probably didn’t. “What picture are you making?”

You hid your smile behind the lip of your water bottle, “My soulmates about yay-high, pretty as a magazine cover with dimples and all. I’m collecting my puzzle pieces with you and your mom and this city so that I’ll have half of his picture.”

“If you know who he is, why don’t you just go find him now?”

“Still looking for some pieces, I guess.” You kicked a rock with the toe of your boot. “Souls are fragile. If you go rushing in and trying to jam the pieces in when they’re not shaped right just yet you could damage them.”

“What happens if you do that?”

“It’s probably harder to find each other in the next life. You’ll chip pieces away and your souls won’t fit right.” You shoved your hands into the pockets of your cardigan and pulled out a sandwich, you gave Percy the bigger half.

“Who taught you all this?”

“My mom used to tell me and well, I've thought about it a lot.” You tugged Percy by the back of his shirt so he didn't go stomping through a puddle, he glared. “But anyway, some people think it’s just fate. That you find your soulmate no matter what and it’s a perfect fit either way.”

“It would be easier that way.”

“Sometimes that’s just not how the story goes, kid.”

Percy thought that was the most important thing anyone had ever taught him, but he figured some of the other stuff you taught him came in handy too. You taught him the tricks you learned to work around your dyslexia. You taught him to skip stones and to not throw rocks at seagulls. You taught him to flip off the Empire State Building but only when his mom wasn’t around. You taught him to knit and do a cartwheel and make a good cup of tea to take his mother in the morning. You taught him to chew with his mouth shut and to sword fight with wrapping paper rolls. You taught him to braid hair and throw a punch and say all the swears in Ancient Greek.

And then one day, a Satyr came for Percy Jackson, and there was nothing left for you to teach.

You wrote Sally a brief letter of warning, picked your way through seven years’ worth of belongings and collapsed your life into a backpack. You said goodbye to Clarence and Emily with a brief promise to visit, pushed a final wave of pollution from the waters and thanked the Hudson River Spirit for his hospitality. He gifted you sixteen perfect round pearls and insisted that he never wanted to see you again. You spent the bus ride to Long Island threading them into a necklace made of fishing wire, tying off each pearl with your teeth.

It was a tentative tradition between demigod soulmates to exchange gifts upon their first meeting. So few and far between were the possessions of a half-blood that even the smallest bauble would likely mean the world. The practice had died out some over the centuries as the Gods received fewer offerings from mortals and turned to their children for sacrifices. Gift-giving to your soulmate as a demigod became all but synonymous with spitting at the feet of the divine and loudly proclaiming you would make offerings to your soulmate instead. A pearl necklace would be an excellent final addition to the collection of small gifts you had assembled over the years. Let the Gods weep at your feet and beg for scraps if they needed them so much, you would ignore them just as they had ignored you.

You arrived at Camp far sooner than you might have liked, a few hours past mid-day when hopefully the rest of your ilk would be occupied with meaneal chores and activities. You considered waiting at the crest of the hill for someone to notice you only to find a pine tree planted firmly at its peak where you might have stood. Instead, you make the alarmingly easy trek down to the Big House.

“Chiron!” He had always been your favourite of the two men, currently sat on the porch drinking juice and playing cards.

“Yes, my girl?” He barely spared you a glance as he shuffled his cards between his weathered hands. He stilled for a moment and then tossed his head back in the way a horse might toss its mane. “My dear!”

You raised a hand, halfway between a salute and a wave, “Nice to know I haven’t been totally forgotten.”

“Au contraire.” Mr. D stuck his nose up at you. “Which one are you again?”

“The little one that went missing some seven years ago,” Chiron stood as you climbed the stairs onto the porch. “How are you, my dear? Where have you been?”

“Shouldn’t you be at Yancy Academy?”

Mr. D’s eyes turned sharp in the way that had once made your friends whisper that some days, he was more maniac than man , “And how do you know about that little girl?”

“Percy Jackson is at Yancy,” You smiled at him, all teeth, “How did you think he survived long enough for your baby satyr to find him?”

“You have been protecting young demi-gods?” Chiron asked wearily.

“Percy Jackson is a full-time job, I’m afraid,” You tugged at the strap of your backpack, praying you could keep control of the conversation. You had a lot of time under the river to think and this was one of many things you had spent countless hours mulling over. Weighing and considering what story you would tell them – to tell the truth of both your parentage and put Percy in harm's way or to lie and balance your life on its sharp edge. “I found him in Manhattan, he was like a magnet for mythological activity. By the time I’d had enough of rebelling and wanted to come back to camp, I was protecting him from attacks every other week. He wouldn’t have lasted a month. I came back as soon as I could.”

No matter how many times you played it out in your head, the lies won every time.

“Kids.” Mr. D threw back the last of his juice.

“Perhaps you should settle back into the Hermes Cabin, dear.” Chiron smiled down at you, the corners of his eyes pinched, “You’ve given myself and Mr. D much to talk about. We’ll settle the issue of your paperwork tomorrow.”

“Of course.” You rustled through your bag, digging up a palm sized statuette that you set onto the table. “Before I forget, I brought you a gift Mr. D.”

“A toy,” He snatched it up. “Oh joy.”

“It’s you, as the mortals’ see you. It’s from the gift shop at the Met.”

“How kind of you, my dear.” Chiron softened, and you watched as even Mr. D’s temper seemed to ease, his hands gentle around the gift as he admired it.

An unseeing piece of plastic for the God who served as no more than a silent observer over the affairs of the camp. Let him choke on his ego, you thought as you left the pair to their discussion.

Cabin 11 was blessedly empty when you entered, but your old bunk was not. A pile of clothes was thrown haphazardly across the bedspread. You snatched a sleeping bag and a lumpy pillow from the storage closet and threw them down with your bag. If you could not have the bunk that had been yours at twelve, you would claim the corner that had been yours at five. As you shook out the sleeping bag and pulled out your belongings, you tried not to think of your bed of blankets under the river or Sally Jackson’s couch.

Instead you turned your mind to the Big House and the conversation that was no doubt happening within.

You had constructed a perfect image, if you did say so yourself. Grown in ways Mr. D could not have predicted but Chiron would insist he had foreseen. Still a rebellious young woman in the mortal sense, with your scuffed leather boots and ripped jeans. But the parts that had screamed ‘insubordination’ to the Gods were neatly tucked away. Your twin knives strapped to your forearms under the billowing sleeves of your crocheted top, your vicious tongue caged behind a sweet grin, your once sharp stare softened at the edges.

Once you had fashioned yourself so that the Gods could not paint you as a hero, now you fashioned yourself so that they might forget you were an enemy.

Let Chiron think you were a misunderstood wayward girl scout come home from her self-imposed quest. Let Mr. D think you were a stupid girl who had seen the world beyond the Gods’ protection and finally accepted that you needed them. Let them all think wrong. You had left to protect your brother and returned for one reason only.

“You’re here.”

You turned, and there he was, “Luke Castellan.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it, limbs jerking slightly as if he wasn’t sure whether to move toward you or stay put. He was almost certain you could hear the way his pulse was racing, his heartbeat clanging wildly in his chest as he searched desperately for a suave reply, but everything else seemed lack lustre when you said his name like that.

Your face twisted into something like anger and for a moment he thought he’d messed it all up before your lips curled and you practically spat, “I do like your scar.”

And then he was laughing at you, wild and bewildered and not the least bit contained. Before long you were laughing too, neither of you quite sure what was funny, just so wholly relieved as your chests were flooded with wonder and warmth.

It felt like fireworks and popping candy. Just as he had promised all those years ago. You resisted the urge to throw up on his Converse.

You might have been crying and he might been too but you weren’t exactly sure because one moment you were both laughing at nothing and the next he was on the floor with you. He held you like he had never held a single thing in his life, like he was lost at sea and you were the only solid thing for miles. He tucked your head under his chin and sucked in great forced breaths that you could feel beneath your cheek. Because he was warm and there and real. And that meant the last seven years, the better part of your life, hadn’t been for nothing.

You and Luke make your way to dinner side by side. You had spent the afternoon rambling about your lives, about your meetings with your future selves, about your home under the river, about his responsibilities as a camp counsellor and yours as your brother’s keeper. He told you about Annabeth and Thalia and the rest of his siblings, you told him about your parents and Sally Jackson and your sea friends. You gave him his necklace which he lets you fix in place at the base of his throat – you do not spend a moment too long running your hand up the back of his neck and through his curls.

He had been almost bashful when he gifted you a watch that matched his, inlaid with twin fragments of mother of pearl taken from the same shell – kind of like your soul had been, he had said. You swear you’ve never owned anything as precious. You let him strap it to your wrist as he tells you about spending a summer diving for it in the lake. And then softly, tentatively, he tells you about his quest.

Luke could have cried from the way you were looking at him alone, so very gently, like you could cradle him with your gaze alone. At a loss for words, you simply whispered, “I am so proud of you.”

His grip is iron-clad and you tell your next story with your face pressed into the side of his neck, pretending you can’t feel him shaking softly.

When you make your way to dinner you’re both glowing with the soft exhaustion of emotion. You all but lean against one another as you collect your goblets and fill your plates.

The other campers steer clear of you, content to leave Luke to chauffeuring the new kid around. You count yourself lucky, it was only a matter of time until one of the older campers recognised you.

You were almost to the end of the Hermes table – that perfect spot at the end where you might just have a chance of holding a private conversation after dinner – when Chiron interrupted you.

“Mr. Castellan, I see you’ve acquainted yourself with our newly returned camper.”

“That’s my job, sir.” You tried not to stare at the crooked smile he flashed the centaur.

“Perhaps you ought to show her how to make an offering,” Chiron says pointedly, “She’s been away for a long time, and it’s your responsibility to treat her as you would any other incoming Camper.”

Luke turned to you, his boyish grin still charming but the mirth leaking out of his eyes, “Of course. Do you remember how it’s done?”

“I do. Just not a lot of food to be spared in the mortal world.”

You squinted, the corners of your mouth pulled up in what Chiron would likely mistake for sheepishness. But Luke could see it in your eyes. How your anger had made you pointy in all the places someone your age ought to be soft. He wondered how all the jagged edges of you would feel against all the jagged edges of him. He thought maybe if the two of you were careful, you could make something smooth as sea glass and twice as pretty, together.

You dump a clump of mashed potatoes into the fire with an unconcerned flick of your fork. Luke lops part of his own meal on top of yours, you glare enviously at the reasonable portion he had left on his plate. You hoped the food would burn at the bottom of the braiser.

“Sorry, sir.” You mocked Luke. He stuck his tongue at you once Chiron had turned his back.

You hurried to snag the seat at the end of his table, sliding into place across from each other. You flounder for a moment, wondering whether to draw your legs as far under your seat as they will go or bask in the gentle brush of his knee against his leg. You settle for the latter and try not to evaporate under his gaze, as he stares at you even as you start eating.

Luke realised he’d spent too long staring when you all but groaned, “Don’t tell me I have to sacrifice my dinner to you too.”

He flashed you a grin, then tried to say as nonchalantly as possible,“Is that why you left? So you could enjoy a proper meal every once and a while?”

You stared at him for a long while, “You, future you, told me to leave, to find my brother.”

“Why would I do that? If you had stayed at Camp–”

“That’s almost exactly what I said to you.” You pushed your food around as you stared at a point just beyond his head, he thought for a moment that he could see the neurons firing behind your eyes, like a hundred tiny zaps of lightning, “But I’ve had plenty of time to think about it. And I think you were right to send me away.”

“I don’t think I’ll be hearing that very often.” He dodged the pea you fling at him with a grin.

“I think maybe if I don’t leave, I won’t become this me or do the things I’ve done and maybe that’s important for us or our future or some past you rewrote by telling me to leave.”

“Seems overly complicated.”

“I think it’s supposed to be complicated,” You couldn’t help but admire the quiet skill with which he wielded his cutlery, “If it were easy, we would find each other in every universe.”

He paused, knife aloft, “You don’t want to find each other in every universe?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” You speared a leaf of spinach onto your fork to hide your scowl behind as you said, “The Gods have made it this way to keep us separated.”

“We’re together now.”

“Which means they lost.”

Luke watched you for a drawn out heartbeat, then leaned over to transfer the perfect squares of meat he’d been cutting onto your plate.

You took a long moment to chew before you said, “So, your plan to send me after Percy worked.”

“I thought it was your plan.”

“I forgot to ask you whose plan it was.”

“I say it’s your plan.” He took a long pull from his goblet that left his lips tinted red.

“It doesn’t matter what you think.” You passed him a napkin before he could ask, “It’s what you will think.”

“Sure, Precious.” He smothers a laugh into the napkin at the way you scrunch your nose at him, “You know, because you're so protective of your food. Like Gollum with the ring.”

“That’s the stupidest explanation for a pet name I’ve ever heard.” But you’re damn near head down on the table as you laughed. “I definitely got the smarter half of our soul.”

“Then it was definitely your plan.”

You’ve still got a hand pressed to your face to conceal your smile when you say, “What about when I meet you? Any words of wisdom?”

“Try not to fall for me. I can tell you’re pretty charmed but it’s really not appropriate. I’m seventeen, and you’re what? Twenty-four?”

You launched your bread roll at him. You’re twice as incensed when he catches it whilst looking directly at you, “Asshole.”

“Smartass. See, two can play that game.”

Luke can’t help but think you’re just as pretty sneering as you are smiling, like no expression no matter how ugly could detract from your beauty. Maybe you’re like him, he scarcely dared to hope. Maybe you’re something better, another part of him whispered. The way you talk about the Gods and turn your nose up at them, and play their game only when it suits you.

You weren’t vengeful in the way he was. You weren’t the spitting vicious thing the Camp had liked to pretend you were when you weren’t around to prove otherwise. You were worse and better and everything he needed. You were a storm on the horizon, a snake coiled tight. You were better than just angry. You were disillusioned. Not a product of juvenile resentment but true wrath born of awareness. Not the wild foaming-at-the-mouth kind that he had imagined when he had first heard your name. But the dark carefully contained kind he had seen in the face you would grow into.

This, Luke thought, you were the start of everything.

It’s some weeks later when you stick your hands through the grating of the bunk above Luke as leverage to lean over him and croon, “Up and at ‘em, Pretty Boy.”

He pushed his face out of his pillow, curls sticking up at odd angles as he looked at you half-asleep, “What?”

“Remember? Training?”

“No,” He scrubbed sleep from his eyes, “What did you call me?”

“Sickly.”

“I don’t think that was it.” He propped his head up on a fist as he smiled at you sleepily.

It was so disgustingly cute that you had to turn your back when you said, “Just meet me there.”

Luke’s freshly showered and holding an apple core when he deigns to join you in the forest. He tossed the apple at you and you caught it without thinking. You fake gag at him as you throw it further into the forest.

You wiped your hands against his shoulder as you say, “I’m not sure if an apple core counts but that was dangerously close to an Ancient Greek proposal, Castellan.”

“I got hungry.” He shrugged. You squared off across the clearing, stretching as you warmed yourselves up for the ensuing sparring match.

“You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Is this you rejecting me?” He landed an open hand on his chest and staggered backward. “You wound me, Precious!”

“Was that you proposing? Because I’m,” You wiped your hand again for good measure, scrunching your nose up, “Disgusted.”

“You would be honoured if I had just proposed to you.”

“You should be nicer to me.”

“And go easy on you just because you’re my soulmate? Unlikely.”

“Because, asshole, I’m the one who got you out of chores this morning, or have you forgotten already. You seemed rather grateful for your little sleep-in.”

He unsheathed his sword and twirled it round in his hand, “You’re a bad influence.”

“Like you weren’t ready to worship the ground I walk on when I told Chiron you needed to get my training up to speed.”

“Do you want me to tell you, you’re brilliant?” He pointed his sword toward you with that grin that made you want to hold him down just so you could admire it longer. “You’re brilliant.”

“You’re stalling.” You pull your knives out, one from your boot, the other from your belt. You miss your old clothes with their pretty sleeves and their personality, your camp shirt seems a poor trade in comparison.

“Stalling? Me?” Luke scoffed. “Never!”

“Don’t you have a counsellor meeting at half-past?”

“I do, so please don’t feel bad when you lose. I only have half an hour to wrap this up. You understand.”

“Who’s fault is that Mr. Just-five-more-minutes?”

He gasped in mock offence and lunged forward, his sword swinging at you in a great arch. You leapt back, out of his range, then ducked low and rushed toward him. Luke was quick, in a viciously smooth move he swept his sword at you again. You brought your knives together, bracing as the impact ricocheted up your arms. Admittedly, you were at a great disadvantage given that you were reluctant to throw a knife at Luke’s head – even though he’d demonstrated an impressive ability to swipe your wayward throws out of the air – and that he had an additional several feet of reach on you.

Luke feigned to the right, you lashed out at his left side and narrowly avoided his sword as it came down at you. He whistled slowly as both of you backed up to circle each other for a moment.

“You’ve got moves, I’ll give you that.”

And so the dance went on. Luke struck, you parried or slipped out of his blade's path with a flourish. You struck, Luke swung his sword and slipped around your blows. Finally, you found the chink in his precious armour. He fell back to his right foot when he deflected a blow. You jerked forward. You jabbed the knife clutched in your left hand toward him as you moved in with the right. Just as you hooked a foot around the back of his leg, Luke’s sword made contact with your left shoulder slicing through sleeve and skin. Luke fell backward with a sharp hiss, his sword flying to the side.

In the end you had laid him out flat in twenty minutes. Luke Castellan had spent the last seven years fighting to win. You had spent them fighting to survive. You supposed it didn’t hurt that the greatest swordsman to enter Camp Half-Blood in nearly three centuries was reluctant to let anything sharp or pointed anywhere near you. You secretly thought he might have been going easy on you for being his soulmate after all. You collapsed on the forest floor beside him, your chest heaving to draw in oxygen.

“I’m sorry about your shirt,” Luke huffed.

“Orange isn’t really my colour.”

He turned to you with a wink, “Oh but it is.”

You wave your hand through the air.

“I’ve gotten very good at putting broken things back together over the years.” He tried not to look at the line of stitching that ran from the ankle of your jeans to the rips at your knee. You tried not to look at his cheek. Instead you reached out and trailed your hands across his necklace where the pearls sat snuggly at the base of his throat.

“You’re wonderful.” He brushed his knuckles down your shoulder and they came away red. “Even covered in blood you’re the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.”

You groaned, “Sweetness, you can’t just say–”

“You call me Sweetness when you visit me.” He whispered it like it was his greatest secret. You traced up his throat to his cheek and pressed your thumb into his dimpled cheek. “You’re still being wonderful. I can’t think when you’re–”

“Wonderful?”

“Okay, Smartass.” He sighed up at the sky, then pulled the both of you to your feet, “Enough lounging, we need to get that cut checked.”

You let him dust the dirt from you and resheath your knives, one in your boot, the other in your belt. Silently revelling in the gentle way he tugs you this way and that. You were well on your way to the infirmary, shoulders bumping and fingers just barely brushing, before he spoke again.

“Where does it come from? The nickname.”

“Sweetness?”

He looked away from you and squinted off into the distance, as if you were suddenly too bright to look at, “Yeah.”

“My mom used to tell me this story about meeting her soulmate. She probably meant Poseidon, but at the time I thought it was about my dad,” The back of Luke’s hand bumped into yours again, his fingers catching yours, his gaze resolutely ahead but you were definitely holding hands. “She said it felt like swallowing lightning and gorging yourself on popping candy. Like sweetness.”

“You like popping candy?”

“It’s my favourite.” You gave him a queer look as if to say, it’s not yours, you utter heathen?

Luke laughed at you all the way to the Apollo Cabin as he listed all the reasons it was the sub-par candy option. Nonetheless, when you emerge from the infirmary, he unloads a fistful of little packets he’d pinched from the candy bowl when the Apollo kids’ hadn’t been looking.

“Who has sub-par candy options now, Sweetness?” You teased, your mouth crackling merrily.

“Keep calling me that and you can have all the terrible candy you want.”

“Try some,” You shoved a packet toward him, because if he kept saying silly things like that and looking at you the way he was you were liable to do or say something equally as stupid. “You’ve got half my soul, maybe it’s our favourite.”

“I don’t think they had popping candy when we had one soul,” He flicks the packet held between your fingers. “And aren’t you the one who says we’re puzzle pieces not halves?”

“You have been listening to me!”

“Hard not to.”

“Asshole.” You flashed your teeth at him.

“Smartass.” He said, but the bite wasn’t there. He was watching you again, in that way he did sometimes before he said something stupid that made you want to throw yourself in the lake or run back to Manhattan or do something equally as stupid, like kiss him. “You–”

You twisted your hand in the front of his shirt and jerked him toward you, the little sachet crinkling in your fist. For a heartbeat, you were both silent, an inch away and staring as if you could will the other to be the one to press forward. But then he closed his eyes and Luke Castellan was kissing you. Like lightning and popping candy. With all the elegance of two lovestruck teenage fools and all the heat of two people who knew they had all the time in the world but still couldn’t bear to waste a second of it. His hand held you by the chin and then splayed lightly across your cheek and tucked hair softly behind your ear. You were only just reaching for the mess of curls at the back of his head when someone wolf whistles.

“My favourite.” Luke grinned, licked his lips and then turned. Hands stuffed in his pockets and a big stupid grin stretched across his face, as he shouted at you, “Stay out of trouble.”

You flip off the Aphrodite kid who’d whistled at you, and hurried back to the Apollo Cabin. You and Luke Castellan were going to need a lot more popping candy.

You’re in the lake, encased in an air bubble, sprawled out side by side with your backs against the sand, when Luke tells you what he’s done. That mere weeks before your arrival he had done the unthinkable. He had robbed the King of the Gods blind and betrayed half the Pantheon in doing so. You weren't sure whether to laugh or cry.

You had simply laid there, silently, for what had felt like aeons to Luke but maybe that had only been because he had to keep reminding himself not to hold his breath. He wasn’t drowning. You weren’t going to turn him in. He hadn’t just blown his whole plan and his life with his soulmate in one fell swoop. He just had to keep breathing and wait for you to say something. He thinks that maybe your mother had passed on some divine knack for diplomacy as Queen of the Sea with the way you seem to turn the issue of his betrayal over and over in your head.

After a while, you reach your arm toward the bubble and the sky. For a brief, terrifying moment, Luke thinks you’re going to pull the lake down on him. When you don’t Luke spends another infinite second wondering whether he would just let you do it.

He tosses the thought aside and focuses on the coin weaving between your knuckles. Like magic, it appears and disappears around the bends of your fingers but it wasn't real magic, just you fidgeting. He pressed his lips together and tried not to think about you at the bottom of the Hudson River, flipping your coin and turning over the issue of your soulmate and your brother and the camp you’d left behind. What is it you had said? You’d had plenty of time to think about those things.

Maybe that's what you need now – time. He’s about to offer it to you, offer to swim his way back to shore so you can think, even if he'd probably drown on the way. He’d give you all the time in the world if he had it.

But then you finally speak, the golden drachma rolling between your fingers, “If you hurt my brother, soulmate or not, I will kill you.”

“I am your soulmate.” He insisted as the implication made his skin itch.

“You are.” Your smile was so gentle it almost felt sad. “So you understand that my love for him comes before my hatred of the Gods. If you have put him in danger wit–”

“We get married.” He blurted. “We have a future. I woke you, when you visited me. That must mean I win.”

“It means, if that’s the path we’re even on, if those people are even the versions of us that we become… maybe you don’t hurt Percy.”

“I won’t.” He swore and you weren’t sure how to ignore the half of your soul that lies so sweetly. “I wouldn’t.”

“Maybe.” You swallowed like you’d been chewing glass your whole life, and someone had finally offered you something substantial to sink your teeth into. “Maybe if we leave now, there’s a world in which I don’t have to pick between my blood and my soul.”

Luke was quiet for a long moment, “We could recruit him. You said it yourself, he’ll be more powerful than any of us.”

“He’s twelve.”

“He’s the son of Poseidon.”

“He’s twelve.”

“You were twelve when you left to protect him.”

“And look how that turned out,” Your grin was brittle, but he swore you were still the loveliest creature he’d ever laid eyes on. “I’m sat here planning to betray everything I was raised to follow.”

“You’re going to follow me?”

Your eyes traced the shape of his jaw, his nose, his scar. You looked pained, “I fear I would follow you into much worse, Luke Castellan.”

“I’m trying to lead you to something better.” He reached for your hand, took the drachma from your fingers, and pressed a slow, soft kiss to your palm. He smiled and there were dimples in his cheeks and tears in his eyes as he whispered, “We can try for better.”

“Leave Percy.” You pressed your fingers to his cheek, “Let him come to camp, let him join us when he’s ready.”

“You’re sure he’ll join us?”

“He will, I know it. We just need to let him see the Gods’ apathy for himself.” And you sighed. Luke wondered how many lifetimes your souls had seen, how many times you had searched for each other, how many times you had been torn apart. You sound ancient when you say, “You and I have seen more than enough.”

He turned his head and whispered in the scarce distance between you, “What do you propose?”

“We leave. As soon as anyone catches on, we take anyone who agrees with us and flee.” You brought his hand to your mouth and pressed your lips to his knuckles firmly, “We can plot your revenge and plan my new world on the way.”

Luke feels ancient when he promises, “Okay, on the way then.”

But he swears, as you lean forward and kiss him, that no matter how many times you do it this lifetime or in all the lifetimes until this story – of you and Luke Castellan – became ancient, it would still never stop feeling like the first time.

Like lightning and popping candy.

Tag List:

@emelia07 @star611 @7s3ven @kissingyourgrl @myxticmoon @shermanno @moonsficrec @soleilgrec

#luke castellan x reader #soulmate au #luke castellan #pjo luke #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo series #pjo show #percy jackson show #pjo #percy jackson #luke castellan fanfic #luke castellan pjo #luke castellan fic #luke castellan fanfiction

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chronophotographic-gun · 7 months ago

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Run Lola Run (1998)

Franka Potente: I’ve drowned in The Bourne Supremacy and I’ve been lobotomised in American Horror Story, but watching myself being shot in Run Lola Run beats those. It’s one of the great perks of being an actor, though my dad didn’t enjoy the scene at all. I was recently bullied into showing the film to my daughters, who are seven and nine. They loved it, but were disappointed there wasn’t more blood when the explosive taped to mum’s chest goes off.

#run lola run #run lola run 1998 #lola rennt #tom tykwer #franka potente #moritz bleibtreu #1990s #1998 #filmedit #film #cinema #movies #seeing this in the theater tmrw im so fucking pumped

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my-castles-crumbling · 11 months ago

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Kiss - @wolfstarmicrofic - word count: 175

“If you had to kiss a bloke, who would it be?”

It was an innocent question, bourne from a drunken game of truth-or-dare, falling from Sirius’s mouth like it was just an offhanded question.

But Remus’s heart was beating wildly in his chest, his blood pumping so loud he was sure everyone else could hear it.

The answer was obvious: Sirius, himself.

Remus was unsure how anyone would have a different answer. Sirius was…he was everything. Confident and cool, beautiful and intelligent, a smile that made Remus want to throw himself off the Astronomy Tower because fuck, there was no way that smile meant what he wanted it to, but if only it did…

“Erm. David Bowie,” Remus murmured into the waiting silence, eyes flickering towards Sirius, hoping the other boy didn’t figure out what he was thinking.

And he must have done a very convincing job. Sirius didn’t seem suspicious at all.

But why did he seem…disappointed?

Ah, well. There was no way he was.

It must have been a trick of the light.

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luxthestrange · 2 years ago

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RoR Incorrect quotes#85 Mama Bear

Now All...Imagen that In the fight between Zeus and Adam was switched last minute to you and Zeus

Zeus: It’s useless to win!*Manages to throw a punch to your face*

As you create a magic barrier to lessen the blow you still fly off to have your body smack against the arena walls, As Eve tries to hold Adam back...Eve watches in horror as your body lays on the ground coughing blood

Eve*Pupils dilate like an ACTIVATED JASON BOURNE and she hears “KILL BILL” music in her head as your eyes managed to look at hers*Myyyyy…. Sweeeeet…. BaaabBBBYY! Hermes*Spotting her from the other side of the ring* She seems agitated?-

Eve jumps into the arena, grabs the back of Zeus' head SLAMS them to the ground...SHOCKING EVERYONE in the arena...EVEN CAIN AND ABEL...Minus Adam who is clapping in support at his wife, A random God who was put to take out anyone who interferes with the fight goes to Eve- MinorGod: Do not defy me-*Is impaled in the chest by Eve's hand as he feels his heart being ripped by her* Eve: I AM EVE- MOTHER OF HUMANITY! LOOK UPON ME IN FEARRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!*bounces the heart into her purse and swings her colorful purse around like a gunslinger*

More of the minor gods of the Greek pantheon charge her and SHE RIPS INTO THEM! She DECAPITATES them and goes ON AN ALL-OUT RAMPAGE- She charges at a TERRIFIED Zeus. She makes fighting grunts and growls as she beats the SNOT of them, But Zeus was about to turn around to run-

Zeus*Feels Eve grabbed his legs and swung him around till she throws him towards the gods*No! She’s grown too powerful! Please! PLEASE! AUGHHHHHHHHH!- She slices and Dices thru the gods! She jumps on another god and slices their face causing blood to spray onto her UNBLINKING FACE She jumps on another AND RIDES THEM LIKE A HOVERBOARD! As she HOLDS A “BLEEDING” HEAD OF A GOD RIGHT AT CAMERA Eve: YeeeAAARRGHHHH!!!!*flies about the air, slicing warrior gods in half left and right! A splatter of blood hits You, Cain, and Abel as Adam hugs you three like a bloodstain from a horror movie, You and Humanity+Valkyries watch your mother in still fear Zeus: NO! The reckoning is at hand!

youtube

...Adam WAS the first to witness...how Eve threw under all her sweetness and wholesomeness...lies a bear NO ONE should poke if she senses her babies are in danger...He ALMOST pity's the gods...

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upontherisers · 2 months ago

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mods are asleep (surprise 12 hour work day, not the writing time i thought i'd have). post undead eugene roe snippet (inspired by @leftenantjopson)

Eugenie Antoinette Delacourt Verrett is one in a long line of trateurs that neither begins nor ends with her — it’s simply du sang, as her mere sat down and explained to her. Inevitable, for better or worse. Some have bourne their blood as a gift from God; some try to excise the miracle from their bodies, for relief or wealth; some hide it; some kill, believing they were born repented; and some wield their hands like the flaming sword of Eden, seeing themselves as dire and terrible portents. There is a price to all this, some say, and you best be ready to pay it before you raise your hands to a body. Eugenie’s grandson is cursed. She’s known since he came out purple as a bruise, still and sticky, and as they unwrapped the cord from his neck, her daughter weeping and trembling, he breathed in with a wet rattle and stretched a hand toward the sky. A miracle, the room agreed, a gift from God. Eugenie was grateful her mere was long in the ground, eyes covered with a white bandage to keep her from seeing the shame of the living. The babe gurgled and cooed, no crying, no wriggling, no sign that he’d been far from the land of the living not moments ago. “Eugene,” her daughter said, tracing his ruddy red cheek with awe, “my little Eugene.”

#sansa thank you for this forever and ever your brain is so big #eugene roe #my writing

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worlds-worst-ships · 3 months ago

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Do you ship it? (No? You mean yes, right? edition)

I don't know who's watched Romantic Killer, but I fucking despise Riri with all my heart. Their human form is insanely adorable, but their entire personality and presence in the show makes my blood boil. Like, the protagonist has explicitly and very clearly said she IS NOT INTERESTED in dating, yet Riri has made it their civic duty to force her into a relationship.

And I get it, because thats exactly how people react when they hear me say I cba with dating anymore. They become Jason fucking Bourne, and go on a mission to try and force me to change my mind. Like, fuck off, I'm broke and past my sell by, I don't need it.

Anyway, good pairing for Wilbur for that reason, because neither understand that no means no.

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jobrookekarev · 3 months ago

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You're Never Alone With Me

Chapter: One of One.

Words: 3,634

Summary: 20x05 But with Jolex instead. Jo and Alex have a pregnancy scare and go through all the emotions before finding out that they might actually be having another baby.

Fandom: Grey’s Anatomy.

Relationship: Alex Karev/Jo Wilson,

Characters: Alex Karev, Jo Wilson, Carina DeLuca, Eden Karev, and Luna Wilson.

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences.

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Romance, Humor, Family, Love, Kissing, Light-Hearted, One Shot, Happy Ending, Drama, Domestic, Blood Draw, Parenthood, Pregnancy, Children.

Read at AO3

Read at FFN

AN: I'm on vacation this week so I edited this by the pool while semi-drunk, so there are probably some mistakes, but enjoy!

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“How was your day?” Alex asked her as Jo gave him a smile.

He met her in the hallway as she wrapped her arms around him, and avoided his question with a long kiss. Alex smiled and melted into her lips as they reunited, letting their lips greet each other with passion and eager romance. His tongue begged for hers as she moaned. He wondered if she would let him pull her into an on-call room before they picked up the kids. However, Jo pulled away before his tongue could dance in her mouth.

“My day was long. I had six laboring moms and three C-sections and ER consults in between that. I was running around all day. How about you?”

“It wasn't so bad, I did my first couple of surgeries and then mostly rounded and helped out the interns. Are you ready for tonight though?” Alex said with a smile as they walked towards the door. “I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse.”

Jo looked at him with her eyebrows raised. “What?”

“It's movie night,” Alex said as Jo shook her head.

Friday movie night was a long standing tradition in the Karev household, dating back to when they first started dating. Jo usually loved movie nights but these days she was too tired to stay up late with him.

“I’m on call, we should just sleep,” Jo said, she wanted to close her eyes right now, but she had to amp herself up for the energy of their toddlers. Once they got to the car, she could take a quick nap on the fifteen minute drive home.

“How come you're only tired on my movie nights?” Alex asked, giving her a look that was a half-hearted joke.

Jo rolled her eyes. “That's not true, I sat through that one wrestling movie you picked out the other week.”

“That was like a month and a half ago, Jo,” Alex said as he chuckled at her and they approached the desk to check out the girls.

“No it wasn't, it was like 4 weeks ago or something,” Jo said with a shake of her head as he logged into the tablet.

“No, that was six weeks ago. Remember because we watched your cheesy rom-com. Then we let the girls stay up and watch the Barbie movie, then I chose Jason Bourne and then you wanted to watch Scream. We watched Trolls with the girls last week, so it's my turn again, 6 weeks.”

Alex casually smiled at her, but Jo’s heart stopped. He was right, it had been six weeks.

Her movie had been this Western romantic drama. She clearly remembered because she had been on her period and Alex had helped her relieve some pain with a couple of orgasms. Then two weeks after that, they watched his Jason Bourne movie and had sex on the couch, which would have been when she was ovulating.

“I'm late,” Jo said, staring at him as he looked up at her.

“No, we're right on time,” Alex said as he checked the girls out and set the tablet back down.

“No Alex,” Jo whispered to him. “My period is late.”

“Are you saying you could be pregnant again?” Alex asked, his jaw dropping open as he stared at her.

Before Jo could respond though her phone beeped and she looked down at her notification. “I’m being paged, it's the ER.”

“Shit, is it urgent?” Alex said as Jo just glared at him telling him it was. “Should I get the girls or do you want me to follow you?”

“Stay with the girls, but check them back in and have dinner with them, then you can go get something to eat and I'll text you when I'm done. Then we can take a test together,” Jo said, sure of her plan as she turned to leave, but Alex grabbed her hand.

He pulled her in, giving her a quick hug, and kissed her forehead before he let her go. When she looked back up at him, he had the biggest smile across his face. “Hey, we'll be okay, regardless of the results.”

She knew he was giddy at the prospect of potentially knocking her up. When they found out she was pregnant with Eden, he was so happy that he walked on air for weeks. Everyone knew before they told them, and he told everyone how excited he was. However, she didn't return his smile and just nodded. Jo loved Eden and she loved being pregnant with her, but the first trimester was rough and Jo labored for hours. She wasn't sure she was ready for that again.

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Nearly half an hour later Jo finally paged him to come to meet her in the ER’s stock room. He wasn't sure how Jo was feeling but had settled into the idea of having another baby. He had gotten time to think about it but he had also gotten time to analyze Jo’s expression. Her eyebrows were timorously married and her lips were parted in a frown. He wasn't sure if she would want this baby. Although he had gotten excited and browsed online for baby onesies. Still, he waited to purchase one until she had taken a test, then they would know for sure.

“Hey, did you find one?” Alex asked as he found her rifling through the packages, trying to find a pregnancy test.

“Not yet,” Jo said, her shoulders tense as she went to another shelf and ransacked the supplies. “This is the worst possible time to be having a baby! You're working all the time as the co-chef with Bailey, Meredith and I have our Mini-Liver final publishing paper due. My oral exams are coming up, Luna is starting preschool, and Eden is going to be moving up to the two-year-old room. We’ll have three kids in diapers. Oh my God, Alex the diapers. It’s like seven diapers per kid every day, that's like a thousand diapers a week.”

“Your math isn’t quite right on that one,” Alex said, shaking his head as he chuckled.

Jo turned around to glare at him and he schooled his features and crossed his arms. “Okay, but Luna’s going to do great in preschool and Eden is doing amazing too. You're going to ace your exams and you love writing papers, plus you can get the interns to help you write it! And I can step down from the chief position for a while until things get easier, but let's try not to panic until you take the test.”

“How could this happen?” Jo was still going on with her rant as she moved to another section. “I'm an OBGYN, half of my job is to not get women pregnant and we've only had like one pregnancy scare before, but then again, it only took us one try to get pregnant with Eden. Oh my God, here it is!”

Jo grabbed the pregnancy test and turned around, staring at it with wide eyes. Alex took in a breath as he felt his heart beat faster and sweat beads on his neck. He knew could feel the butterflies in his stomach. He glanced at Jo to see that she was just as tense and was rubbing the package with her fingers as if it was covered in a dust, he knew was not there.

“Jo take a breath, you’re spiraling,” Alex said, stepping up to her and putting his hands on her shoulders.

“How are you not?!” Jo said as her wild eyes stared back at him.

“Because I've had time to sit with this and you haven't,” Alex said, taking a breath as he reached up to hold her face and rub her cheek with his thumb. “Whatever happens, we can't handle it. And we’re lucky enough to live in a state where you can get an abortion if you want. I know that we're married and you’ve been pregnant before, but you said you didn't want another baby and I respect that.”

“If I'm pregnant with another baby, I think I want to keep it,” Jo said, letting out a breath as she stared at him.

Yet, she closed her eyes as a few tears appeared in the corner of her eyes. She leaned in to kiss him before she pulled away. Then her phone rang and she pulled it out.

“It's another patient in the ER with abdominal pain,” Jo said, handing him the pregnancy test and walking away.”

“You know I can't take this for you, right?” Alex asked, holding up the test, although she had already left the room.

Alex looked down at the test and smiled again, then he pulled up the onesie on his phone and added it to the cart. He wouldn't buy it just yet, but the second it was positive, he would buy it. Alex had always wanted a house full of kids and he hoped that dream would come true.

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It was another hour before Jo called him, saying that she was in the fourth floor bathroom. By then Alex said caught up on all his paperwork and done some more online shopping. Although he would never admit to it, he had started a registry and had saved some baby clothes he liked.

He also thought about how they would turn the playroom/second bedroom into another nursery. They had always planned on only having two kids, Luna and Eden. But they had a three bedroom house, and the two girls shared a room for now. They hated to be separated and would refuse to sleep without each other. The plan was for them to eventually have their own bedrooms when they wanted.

He had also done the calculations on how many diapers it would be. When the girls were newborns, they would go through diapers like crazy, so it would probably mean about an extra pack a week. They had done cloth diapering with Eden and Luna and they could do that with the new baby as well, which would cut down on the cost. Also, he was pretty sure he could get Eden potty trained by the time the new baby got here. By then she would be almost three and she was already eagerly sitting on the potty with a few successes here and there.

He thought about all of this as he approached the fourth floor bathroom. However, he was brought back to reality when he was faced with the door to the woman's bathroom. He knocked on the door but didn't get a reply right away.

“Jo it's me,” Alex called out to her, but he didn't hear anything and knocked again, wiggling the lock.

“I'll be out in a second,” Jo said as he heard the sound of the toilet flushing.

A few minutes later, Jo came out of the bathroom and handed him the test. “I took it 5 minutes ago, but I can't look at it.”

He knew she needed a moment of comfort and brought her in for a hug. He held her close as she melted into him and kissed her forehead. However, when he breathed in, Jo's hair smelled. He sniffed her hair and pulled back looking at her.

“Have you thrown up?” Alex asked her, studying her for a glimpse of sickness in her face.

“It's been very stressful!” Jo said as she huffed and wiped her mouth.

“Or maybe it's just morning sickness,” Alex said with a half-hearted smile.

“Just look at the test!” Jo demanded as she huffed and pulled away from him and she leaned against the wall.

Alex smiled as he took a breath and flipped over the stick. Staring at it he almost cried, his voice a shaky whisper. “It's negative.”

Jo let out a breath and buried her face in his shoulder. She hugged his waist with a tight grip and he felt his shirt get wet. Alex was surprised, as she didn't react the way he thought she would.

“Are you relieved?”

“I don't know.”

Jo sighed as she pulled back a bit but still held him looking up at him with watery eyes. “I thought I would be, I kind of am, and it's just been so overwhelming I just want to cry. But a part of me wanted another baby.”

“I know, and I did the math. It would be like 120 diapers a week give or take a blowout or two. Plus I think I could get Eden potty trained before the baby arrived.”

“There's no baby, but it'd still be good to potty train her though,” Jo said in agreement.

“Jo, I love being a dad and I would love to do it all over again with you anytime you want, besides you know I love getting you pregnant,” Alex said, grabbing her hips and pulling her into him as he kissed her.

Jo giggled, but she pulled away from him. “But being a parent is so hard especially when they're babies.”

“I know, so if you say you didn't want a baby, then I don't want one either. You know I would have a million babies with you, but realistically I love you and I love our two girls and the three of you are enough for me.”

Jo smiled as she leaned in to kiss him again, before he gave the test to her as Jo's eyes widened. “Alex! It’s not negative!”

“What do you mean it's not negative? There's nothing there!” Alex said, staring at the test.

“It's not positive either, Alex it's a dud!” Jo said, shoving his chest. “One line is negative, two 2 lines is positive.”

“What does that mean?” Alex asked with wide eyes. “Should we just get another test, maybe we should do a blood test? They're more accurate anyway?”

“We are not doing anything. I am the one getting stabbed and having to pee on sticks and…” Jo put a hand over her mouth before she ran for the toilet again and this time he followed her in.

Alex locked the door behind them as she kneeled in front of the toilet and threw up. She heaved several times more as Alex kneeled next to her. Once she stopped he wiped her lips and they sat back together. Then, Jo had a burst of emotion and started to cry as Alex instantly wrapped his arms around her.

“I want another baby.”

Alex nodded and just held her. “I know, so we’ll call Carina and then she can tell us for sure if you're pregnant and if not we can start trying again.”

Jo nodded her tears drying up as she did and he leaned in to give her a quick kiss. The gentle reassurance was enough for him as he kissed her back. He pulled her up off the floor and wrapped an arm around her, Jo gave him another quick kiss before she sighed and let him pull her over to Carina's office.

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“Ow,” Jo winced and looked away as Carina put the needle in her arm.

“I'm sorry, Bambina,” Carina said as she released the tourniquet and drew her blood into two vials.

“I told you not to look,” Alex said as he held her hand pulling it up to kiss her knuckles.

“No, nobody else can know about this,” Jo glared at him as she flinched again when Carina withdrew and put a cotton swab over her wound.

“I still think we should do an exam,” Carina said, giving her a knowing look as Jo huffed.

“Fine,” Jo said as Carina just smiled and handed her a gown and a paper blanket before she went to the door.

“I'll be back in a few minutes with the results,” Carina said as she left with the blood.

Jo hopped off the table and handed the gown and paper blanket to Alex before she started to undress.

“We should have just done a blood draw the first time around,” Jo complained as she slipped out of her jeans and tore off her shirt quickly. Then she turned around and reached for her bra clasp. “Can you get it?”

Alex easily hooked the latch and Jo handed her clothes to him in exchange for the gown but found his eyes were not exactly following hers.

“Alex!” Jo said, turning around and forcefully taking the gown from him.

“I don't know Jo, your boobs are huge,” Alex said, a little smirk as he stared at them.

Jo huffed and pushed him away forcefully, turning him around as she got dressed again. She finally hopped up on the table and put the paper blanket over her knees before she cleared her throat. When he turned around again, he still had that stupid smirk on his face but he sat down in the chair next to her and grabbed her hands.

“Isn't it normal for pregnancy tests to malfunction when there's too much HCG levels?” Alex asks as Jo thought about it for a second.

“I don't remember, I think so,” Jo said as she shrugged. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, what if you're pregnant with twins, Jo?” Alex whispered to her his smile even wider.

“I would probably kill you, Alexander,” Jo said as she scowled, Alex chuckled, but his smile dropped when she continued to glare at him.

“Well we can talk about it when we get the results back then,” Alex nodded as she dropped her eyes and picked at the seam of her gown before he took her hands again and gave them a squeeze.

There was a knock at the door as Carina came back in. “There is a back up at the lab due to a trauma in the ER. The results will take several hours. So we're going to find out the old fashioned way.”

Jo took a deep breath as she laid back, putting her feet in the strips as Carina sat in front of her and put a hand on her leg.

“Okay Jo you're going to feel my fingers enter,” Carina said as she gently pressed inside of her.

Jo squeezed Alex’s hands and tried to relax her muscles but she remained tense. Carina reached up to feel the top of her uterus and pushed in a few places, holding her womb before she smiled.

“How long ago did you say your period was?” Carina asked as Jo floundered, knowing what Carina was feeling inside her.

“I don't know?”

“Six weeks ago,” Alex answered for her.

“I'd say you're more like eight weeks along, so you must’ve had some implantation bleeding. You've definitely got a baby in there, Jo,” Carina said with a small smile.

Jo took in a breath as she looked over at Alex. He had a smile but he quickly bit his lip as he looked over at her giving her hand a squeeze. He held his breath, but then Jo smiled too.

“We're having a baby!”

“Yeah, we are yeah we are!” Alex said as he smiled and leaned down to kiss her. She cried happy tears that fell down her cheeks to her ears, but she smiled.

“Well I suppose, we should confirm it with an ultrasound?” Carina asked as she pulled back, smiling at them both.

“Yes,” they said together as they both nodded. A few minutes later they were looking at their new baby on the screen. There was just one, Jo made Carina double check, but they were ecstatic nonetheless. Jo hasn't stopped crying and even Alex shed a few tears as they stared at their baby.

“They're so beautiful,” Alex said in awe, his eyes never leaving the screen.

“They're already measuring big too,” Jo said, finger tracing her fingers along the femur bone. “I think our original estimate of six weeks is correct.”

Carina nodded as she agreed with them. “Well keep an eye on it, but as you said, Karev babies tend to be on the bigger size, so I'm not worried.”

She finished up the ultrasound and gave Jo some paper towels to clean off, then left her to get dressed again. But not before pulling Jo into a hug. “Congratulations, Bambina.”

“Thank you,” Jo said, hugging her back tightly.

Alex smiled as she got dressed but when she pulled her shirt on, he pulled it back up and leaned down to kiss her belly, before looking back up at her.

“Hi baby,” Alex said as he stared at her belly.

“What are we going to do with you?” Jo asked as she pulled him up and put her hand over his, intertwining their fingers.

But Alex just smiled and said, “We are going to have an amazing family, you are going to be a great Mom, again.”

Jo smiled as she leaned in and pulled him down to kiss him again. Alex gave her several kisses as they lingered on each other's lips. There was such joy and happiness between them it felt like fireworks on her tongue.

Then they pulled back and looked down at their baby, hidden under their hands. Alex hugged her shoulders and kissed her head as they smiled sharing a giggle between them. Despite how nervous she had been, Jo couldn't wait for this new baby to join their family.

#jo wilson #alex karev #jolex #grey's anatomy #greys anatomy #otp: home and heart #jo karev #my work #my writing #my fanfiction #grey's anatomy fanfic #carina deluca #luna wilson

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