#burning through but not enough to be done before march as a man who works full time

[2189114reads]

February might be a flop month tbh I only finished 1 book and am nowhere near finishing the 3 I’m reading rn

[hisfavegirl]

Dangerous Affairs - Mafia!Aemond Targaryen x Girlfriend!Reader.

Summary : You had become his obsession, his everything, even in the chaotic, blood-soaked world they all lived in. Aemond had always been the cold, calculating son of the Targaryen family, but when it came to you, the mask he had worn so carefully began to crack. You, the only person who saw past the facades, the only one who loved him without asking for anything in return. And now, someone had dared to take you from him.

Aemond Masterlist.

Aemond paced back and forth in his lavish office, the dim lighting casting long shadows on the walls. His eyes burned with rage, and his sharp features were twisted into a menacing scowl. The video on his screen looped endlessly: you, bound to a chair in some dimly lit room, your face bruised and bloodied.

"Who did this?" he snarled, his voice cold as steel. "Who dares touch what is mine?"

His men stood silently, heads bowed, knowing better than to meet his gaze when he was in this state. Aemond's fury was a storm, and they were in its direct path.

One of his lieutenants, a man named Rykker, stepped forward hesitantly. "We're working on tracking the location, boss. The video was sent anonymously, but we've identified-"

"Not fast enough!" Aemond roared, sweeping his arm across the table and sending papers, a lamp, and a glass of whiskey crashing to the floor. He turned back to the video, fists clenching at his sides.

Your eyes in the video were filled with fear but also defiance, even as blood trickled down your temple. The sight of your pain made his chest tighten.

"Find them," Aemond hissed, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "I don't care what it takes. I want names, locations, and every single one of them brought to me alive. They'll wish for death before l'm done." Rykker nodded, retreating quickly to relay the orders.

Aemond leaned against the desk, taking a deep breath to compose himself. He couldn't lose control now. You needed him. Whoever had taken you would pay dearly for their mistake.

He stared at the frozen frame of your face on the screen, his jaw tightening. "Hold on," he muttered. "I'm coming for you."

Without another word, he grabbed his coat, his gun strapped to his side, and marched out of the office. If his men weren't fast enough, he'd hunt them down himself.

The sharp sting on your cheek forced you back into the harsh reality of your situation. Your head throbbed, and your wrists burned where the ropes bit into your skin. Slowly opening your eyes, you were met with darkness once again, the dim light in the room barely illuminating the outline of the cold, damp walls.

You whimpered softly, your voice barely above a whisper as you pleaded, “Please… whoever you are… let me go…”

But your words were met with the same suffocating silence as before. The only sounds in the room were your uneven breathing and the faint dripping of water in the distance.

You tried to move, but every shift of your body sent sharp pain through your limbs. Your captors had been rough, leaving bruises and cuts that now throbbed with every heartbeat.

Tears pricked your eyes, but you refused to let them fall. Whoever had done this to you wanted to see you break, to see you crumble. You wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

The sound of footsteps suddenly echoed in the distance, growing louder as they approached the room where you were held. Your heart raced, fear and hope warring within you.

The door creaked open, and a shadowy figure stepped inside. “You’re awake,” they said coldly, their voice devoid of any emotion.

You turned your head toward the sound, your voice trembling as you asked, “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”

The figure chuckled darkly, stepping closer until you could see the glint of a knife in their hand. “It’s not about what I want,” they said, their tone mocking. “It’s about sending a message. To him.”

Your stomach dropped. You didn’t need to ask who “him” was. You knew they were talking about Aemond.

“You think he’ll just let this go?” you whispered, anger mixing with your fear. “You’ve made a mistake.”

The figure smirked, crouching down to meet your gaze. ��That’s the point,” they said, their grin cruel. “Let him come. We’re counting on it.”

Aegon leaned against the doorframe, watching as Aemond unleashed his fury on the room. Glass shattered as the goblet struck the wall, narrowly missing one of Aemond's trembling subordinates. His younger brother's icy composure had melted into a blaze of rage, the usually sharp, calculating man now consumed by raw emotion.

"You're all useless!" Aemond roared, his voice echoing through the room. "How could you let this happen? How could she be taken right under your noses?"

The men cowered, their heads bowed in silence, none daring to speak or defend themselves.

"Aemond," Aegon called, stepping into the room with his arms crossed. "That's enough." Aemond turned to him, his eye ablaze.

"Don't you dare tell me what's enough, Aegon," he snapped. "They lost her! She's out there-alone, scared-because of their incompetence!"

"And yelling at them, throwing things, and losing your mind isn't going to bring her back!" Aegon shot back, his voice firm but not without understanding.

Aemond's chest heaved, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. Aegon stepped closer, lowering his voice. "I get it, brother. You're angry. You're scared. But losing your temper won't help us find her. What we need is a plan, not chaos."

Aemond ran a trembling hand through his hair, his jaw clenched as he tried to rein in his emotions. "They're using her to get to me," he said, his voice quieter but laced with venom.

"They want me to come for her. And I will."

Aegon nodded. "And you will," he agreed. "But not like this. If you let your anger cloud your judgment, you'll be walking straight into their trap. You know that."

Aemond turned his back to the room, staring out the window. The city sprawled before him, but his mind was consumed by thoughts of you-your face, your voice, the way you always seemed to calm the storm inside him.

"I'll kill them," he said quietly, his voice a promise. "Every last one of them. But first, I'll bring her back."

Aegon placed a hand on his shoulder. "And you will," he repeated. "But let's do this right. For her."

Your sobs echoed in the dimly lit room as the woman's fingers tightened in your hair, pulling your head back sharply. Tears blurred your vision, but you forced yourself to look at her.

Her cold green eyes bore into yours, a sharp contrast to the dim glow of the single lamp hanging above.

"You don't recognize me, do you?" she said, her voice calm but laced with venom.

You shook your head weakly, your breathing uneven. There was something unsettlingly familiar about those eyes, but you couldn't place them.

"Please," you whispered, your voice cracking.

"Let me go... I don't know who you are or what you want."

The woman scoffed, tilting her head as she studied your tear-streaked face. "Oh, you know me," she replied, her tone dripping with bitterness. "You just don't remember."

Her grip on your hair tightened, making you wince. The pain was sharp, but it wasn't as terrifying as the realization dawning in your mind. Those eyes-they reminded you of someone. Someone from Aemond's past, someone with a grudge, someone dangerous.

"You're his weakness," she hissed, leaning closer. "The reason he's untouchable. But now, I have you."

Your heart sank. She wasn't here for you; she was here for him.

"I don't care about your fight with him," you pleaded, trying to remain calm despite the panic surging within you. "Please, don't hurt me. Whatever he's done to you, I-"

Her sharp laugh cut you off. "Oh, it's not about what he's done. It's about what l've lost because of him."

Her grip loosened slightly, but her gaze didn't soften. Instead, it grew colder, more calculating.

"You're going to help me send him a message," she said. "And if you don't..." Her hand moved to your chin, forcing you to look directly at her.

"Well, let's just say I have no problem making him suffer by breaking you, piece by piece."

A chill ran down your spine, but you steeled yourself. Even through your fear, a small spark of defiance flickered within you. You wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing you crumble.

You hit the cold, hard floor with a thud, a sharp pain radiating through your side. The woman stood over you, her cruel smirk illuminated by the dim light. Her presence filled the room with a suffocating sense of dread.

“Keep her here,” she ordered the shadowy figures behind her. “No food, no water. Let her feel just a fraction of the suffering I’ve endured.”

Her green eyes flicked back to you, glinting with malice. She crouched down, her face close enough for you to feel her breath.

“You think you’re strong because he loves you,” she hissed, her voice low and venomous. “But love is a weakness, and I will make sure he regrets ever letting you into his heart.”

Tears welled in your eyes, but you refused to let them fall. You wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

“You won’t win,” you whispered, your voice trembling but defiant.

She laughed—a cold, heartless sound that sent chills down your spine. “Oh, sweet girl, I already have.”

Standing, she brushed off her hands as if touching you had tainted her. With a flick of her wrist, she signaled to her men before stepping out of the room.

“Let her rot,” she said over her shoulder. “Until he comes crawling.”

The door slammed shut, the sound echoing through the room. You were left alone in the suffocating silence, your body aching and your heart pounding. For a moment, despair threatened to overwhelm you, but then you thought of Aemond—his determination, his fury.

You knew he would come for you. You just had to hold on.

Aemond paced the room, his jaw clenched, and his fists balled tightly at his sides. The idea of a party while you were missing was incomprehensible to him. His anger simmered just below the surface, threatening to erupt.

“You can’t be serious,” he growled, fixing Alicent with a glare that could cut steel. “She’s out there—alone, terrified—and you want to throw a party?”

Alicent remained calm, her hands clasped in front of her. “This isn’t about celebrating, Aemond. It’s a strategy. A public event like this will draw out whoever’s responsible. They can’t resist the opportunity to mock us or taunt you further.”

Aemond’s eye narrowed, suspicion evident in his expression. “You’re using her as bait.”

“No,” Alicent said firmly, stepping closer. “I’m using their arrogance against them. This isn’t just about finding her—it’s about ensuring no one dares to cross our family again. You know as well as I do that they’ll want to gloat, to flaunt their power. This party will bring them out of the shadows.”

He turned away, running a hand through his hair. The idea made his blood boil, but there was a cruel logic to it.

“And what happens if they don’t take the bait?” he asked, his voice tight.

Alicent placed a hand on his arm, her voice softening. “Then we continue searching. But we have to try everything, Aemond. She would want us to do whatever it takes to bring her home.”

Her words hit their mark. Aemond closed his eye, taking a deep breath to steady himself. The thought of you, somewhere out there, hurt and scared, made his chest ache.

“Fine,” he said reluctantly. “But if anything goes wrong, this is on you.”

“It won’t,” Alicent assured him. “We’ll get her back.”

Aemond’s resolve hardened. “We’d better. Because if we don’t, there won’t be a single soul left to celebrate anything.”

The grand estate sparkled with opulence, golden chandeliers casting warm light over ruby draperies and intricate floral arrangements. Servants bustled about, ensuring every detail of the so-called celebration was flawless. Guests began to trickle in, their laughter and chatter filling the vast halls, oblivious to the dark undertones of the evening.

Aemond stood near one of the towering windows, his tall frame tense, his eye fixed on the distant horizon. The finery and elegance around him were a mockery of his torment. He clenched his jaw, his hands tucked into his pockets to disguise the tremors of barely contained rage.

“Aemond,” came a soft voice behind him. He turned to see Alicent, her expression poised yet concerned. She gently placed a hand on his arm. “You need to remain composed. They’re watching you closely, hoping for a crack in your armor.”

He pulled away, his frustration evident. “Composed? Mother, she’s out there. Alone. Scared. And we’re here, pretending as though this—” He gestured to the opulence around him. “—is more important than finding her.”

“This isn’t a celebration,” Alicent reminded him firmly, her voice low but sharp. “It’s a trap. And you need to play your part.”

Aemond exhaled sharply, his fingers raking through his silver hair. He cast another glance out the window, hoping—praying—for a sign, for anything that would lead him to you.

Nearby, Aegon appeared with a drink in hand, his demeanor far too casual for the occasion. “You’ll scare the guests if you keep glaring like that, little brother,” he said with a smirk.

Aemond shot him a warning look. “You’d better hope this plan of hers works, or I’ll tear apart this city brick by brick to find her.”

Aegon’s smirk faltered slightly, and he raised his hands in mock surrender. “Relax. We’ll find her.”

But Aemond couldn’t relax. Not when every passing moment meant you were still out there, trapped, and in danger. He turned back to the window, his fingers twitching as he resisted the urge to storm out and search for you himself.

Somewhere in the crowd, someone knew something. And Aemond vowed he would uncover the truth, no matter the cost.

You flinched as her cold fingers gripped your face, her nails digging into your skin. Her smile was cruel, her emerald eyes glinting with malice. “Oh, darling,” she cooed mockingly, tilting her head as if she were comforting you. “Did you hear? Your dear Aemond is hosting a party tonight. Such a grand affair—gold and red everywhere. He’s moved on quite splendidly without you.”

Your tears spilled over, silent sobs shaking your body as her words cut deep. You shook your head weakly, trying to hold onto your faith in Aemond. He wouldn’t forget you. He couldn’t.

“Ah, look at you,” she sneered, her grip tightening. “So pathetic. Crying for a man who probably isn’t even thinking about you anymore. But don’t worry, love. I’ll be there tonight.” Her voice turned venomous, her lips curling into a sinister grin. “I’ll make sure he forgets all about you. Permanently.”

She let go of your face, and you collapsed forward, gasping for air. The sound of her laughter echoed in the cold, empty room as she stood and straightened her dress.

“Don’t wait up,” she added, her tone dripping with mockery as she sauntered toward the door. “Oh, and if you’re wondering—no one’s coming for you. You’ll rot here, alone, while I take everything that was yours.”

The door slammed shut behind her, leaving you in suffocating silence. Your heart ached, not just from the physical pain but from the cruel possibility she had planted in your mind. Could it be true?

But deep down, you knew Aemond. His love for you burned like wildfire, unyielding and all-consuming. If he was hosting a party, it wasn’t to move on—it was to draw her out.

You closed your eyes, clutching the faint hope that he was still searching for you, still fighting to bring you back.

Aemond’s jaw tightened, his single eye narrowing as he locked onto Alys Rivers across the room. She stood there with an air of confidence, a delicate goblet in her hand and a coy smile playing on her lips. Her emerald-green gown shimmered under the golden light, its color mocking the Targaryen black and red he so often adorned.

She raised her glass ever so slightly in a silent toast, her eyes meeting his with a spark of challenge. Aemond’s fists clenched at his sides. The audacity. To show her face here—at his family’s estate—after what she had done.

Aegon approached him from the side, a goblet in hand. “Little brother,” he muttered, his tone low and cautious. “What is it?”

Aemond didn’t respond, his gaze fixed on Alys. Aegon followed his line of sight and cursed under his breath. “You think she—”

“She knows something,” Aemond hissed, cutting him off. He began to move toward her, his long strides purposeful and threatening.

As he approached, the crowd seemed to sense his simmering rage, parting instinctively to let him through. Alys’s smile widened, and she tilted her head, feigning innocence.

“Aemond,” she greeted, her voice smooth and melodic. “You look troubled. I hope the festivities haven’t been too dull for you.”

Aemond stopped just a breath away from her, his towering presence overshadowing her dainty form. “Where is she?” he demanded, his voice low and venomous.

Alys took a slow sip from her goblet, her eyes never leaving his. “I don’t know what you mean, love,” she replied, her tone dripping with feigned ignorance.

“Don’t play games with me,” he snapped, his voice rising enough to draw the attention of nearby guests. His eye burned with fury, and his fingers itched to draw his blade.

Alys leaned in closer, her voice a whisper meant only for him. “Careful, Aemond. We wouldn’t want to ruin your lovely party, would we?”

Aemond’s patience was razor-thin, and he grabbed her wrist, his grip firm. “Tell me where she is,” he growled.

Alys’s smile faltered for the briefest moment, but then she leaned in, her lips brushing his ear. “You’re so predictable, Aemond,” she murmured. “She’s waiting for you. If you can find her in time.”

Before he could react, she slipped free of his grasp, melting into the crowd as if she had never been there. Aemond stood frozen, his fury boiling over. He turned to Aegon, his voice like thunder.

“Seal the exits,” he ordered. “No one leaves until I have answers.”

Aemond stormed toward the estate’s gates, his long strides purposeful as his sharp gaze locked onto the taillights of Alys’ car disappearing into the distance. His frustration mounted, the realization sinking in that she had eluded him once again.

“Follow her!” he barked at his men, his voice cutting through the cold night air. Several black vehicles screeched to life, tires spinning as they sped after Alys.

Aegon caught up to him, slightly out of breath. “She’s playing you,” he warned, his tone laced with concern. “We don’t know what she’s planning—”

“I don’t care what she’s planning,” Aemond snapped, his jaw clenched. “She has her hands in this, Aegon. I can feel it. If she knows where she is, I’ll make her talk.”

Aegon sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re going to lose your head over this, brother.”

“I already lost something far more precious,” Aemond growled, his voice low but heavy with meaning.

The cars sped out of sight, but Aemond didn’t retreat to the safety of the estate. Instead, he lingered at the gate, his mind racing. Alys had made it personal, and her actions were no longer just a game to him. She was the key to finding you, and he wasn’t going to let her slip through his grasp again.

“Aemond,” Aegon said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find her. But you need to stay sharp. You rushing in blind won’t help her or you.”

Aemond shook off his brother’s hand, his eye narrowing. “You’re either with me or in my way,” he spat, turning on his heel. “She doesn’t have time for us to play it safe.”

As the night stretched on, Aemond prepared for the confrontation he knew was coming. Alys wouldn’t give up your location easily, but he was willing to do whatever it took to bring you home—even if it meant unleashing the darkest parts of himself.

Aemond paced the length of the room like a caged predator, his fists clenched and jaw tight. The air around him felt suffocating, heavy with his barely contained rage. His men stood at the edges of the room, heads bowed, too afraid to meet his piercing gaze.

“You lost her?” His voice was sharp, cutting through the tense silence like a blade. He grabbed the nearest table and flipped it, sending papers and glasses crashing to the floor. “She was right there! And you lost her!”

“Aemond,” Aegon called, stepping into the room cautiously. “This isn’t helping. Losing control won’t bring her back.”

Aemond whipped around, his lone eye blazing with fury. “You think I don’t know that?” he hissed, his voice trembling with uncharacteristic emotion. “Alys isn’t just anyone. She’s calculating, manipulative, and she always stays three steps ahead. If we don’t catch her soon—” He stopped, his voice breaking slightly. “If we don’t find her, I don’t know what she’ll do to her.”

Aegon’s face softened at his brother’s rare display of vulnerability. He had never seen Aemond like this before—so undone, so human.

“She’s strong, Aemond,” Aegon said, his tone steady. “Stronger than you give her credit for. And you’re going to find her. But you need to focus. Letting Alys get into your head won’t help her.”

Aemond ran a hand through his hair, his frustration palpable. He had always prided himself on being composed, always in control. But now, the fear gnawed at him, an unfamiliar and unwelcome sensation. Alys Rivers wasn’t a typical adversary—she knew how to exploit weaknesses, and Aemond was terrified she’d use you against him in ways he couldn’t anticipate.

“I can’t lose her, Aegon,” Aemond finally admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “Not her.”

Aegon nodded, placing a reassuring hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Then let’s make sure you don’t.”

With a renewed sense of determination, Aemond turned to his men. “Double the search efforts. Sweep every safe house, every hidden route Alys has ever used. If she so much as breathes near this city, I want to know about it.”

His men nodded and hurried out, leaving Aemond standing in the wreckage of his rage. For the first time, he felt the weight of helplessness. But beneath it, there was a spark of resolve—he would find you, no matter what it took.

You winced as her sharp nails dug into your cheeks, her voice dripping with venom as she leaned closer. “What does he see in you?” Alys hissed, her emerald eyes blazing with fury. “You’re nothing but a frail little thing. Aemond could’ve had me—should’ve had me. But no, he chose you.”

Her grip tightened, forcing your head to the side as you tried to avoid her piercing gaze. You felt the car jolt as it hit a bump in the road, your bound wrists aching from the tight restraints.

“I gave him everything,” Alys continued, her voice trembling with anger. “Power, knowledge, loyalty. And he discarded me like I was nothing. All for you.” She leaned back, her laugh sharp and bitter. “It’s pathetic, really.”

You swallowed hard, trying to push back the tears threatening to fall. You knew showing weakness would only fuel her anger further. Instead, you whispered hoarsely, “If he chose me, then maybe it’s because you never truly meant anything to him.”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously, and her hand shot out, striking you across the face. The sting was sharp, and your head snapped to the side. “You dare?” she snarled. “You think you’re better than me? You think you’ll survive me?”

Your breathing grew ragged, but you refused to give her the satisfaction of a reaction. Instead, you met her gaze with as much defiance as you could muster.

Alys smirked, clearly enjoying the game of dominance. “Oh, don’t worry, darling,” she said, her tone almost sing-song. “We’re going to have so much fun together. I’ll make sure Aemond gets to see just how fragile his little treasure really is.”

The car came to a sudden stop, and the door on your side was flung open. Alys gestured for her men to pull you out, and you were dragged onto your feet. The cool night air hit your skin, and you glanced around, trying to make sense of your surroundings.

You were in the middle of nowhere—a secluded area surrounded by dense trees and darkness. The only light came from the car’s headlights, casting eerie shadows across the gravel road.

Alys approached you slowly, her heels clicking against the ground. “This is where your little fairy tale ends,” she said, her voice dripping with mockery. “Let’s see if Aemond will still love you when you’re broken beyond repair.”

Fear gripped your heart as you realized just how far she was willing to go.

Aemond’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white as he sped through the dark streets. His heart pounded in his chest, his mind racing with every possible scenario. He couldn’t lose you—not to Alys, not to anyone.

The memory of your face, bruised and frightened in that cursed video, haunted him. He slammed his foot on the accelerator, the engine roaring as he pushed the car to its limits.

Behind him, the headlights of Aegon’s car appeared in the rearview mirror. Aegon was bringing reinforcements, but Aemond wasn’t about to wait. He was done waiting.

The coordinates from his men led him down a winding road surrounded by thick trees. His sharp eyes caught sight of tire tracks leading off into a secluded path. Without hesitation, he veered off the main road, the gravel crunching under his tires as he followed the trail.

As he neared a clearing, he saw the faint glow of headlights in the distance. His heart sank at the sight of figures moving near the car. One of them was unmistakably Alys, standing tall and commanding as her men dragged your limp form toward the shadows.

Aemond slammed the brakes, throwing the car into park before stepping out with a gun in hand. His one good eye was blazing with fury, his jaw clenched as he stalked toward the scene.

“Alys!” he bellowed, his voice cutting through the night like a blade.

The woman turned, a slow, malicious smile spreading across her face. “Ah, there he is,” she purred. “The mighty Aemond Targaryen, coming to save his damsel in distress.”

Aemond ignored her words, his gaze fixed on you. “Let her go,” he demanded, his voice low and dangerous.

Alys chuckled, gesturing for her men to stop. “And what will you give me in return, my love? You left me for her—betrayed me. Do you think I’ll let that go so easily?”

Aemond’s grip on the gun tightened. “You’re already a dead woman, Alys. The only choice you have is how painful it’ll be.”

Alys raised an eyebrow, her amusement fading. “You wouldn’t,” she said, though her voice wavered slightly.

“Try me,” Aemond growled, taking a step closer.

Before she could respond, the sound of approaching vehicles echoed through the woods. Aegon’s reinforcements had arrived, their headlights flooding the clearing.

Alys cursed under her breath, realizing her advantage was slipping away. With a snap of her fingers, her men raised their weapons, pointing them at Aemond and the approaching cars.

“Stop them!” she barked, but her voice was edged with desperation.

In the chaos that followed, Aemond saw his opening. He lunged forward, dodging a bullet as he fired at the man holding you. The shot was precise, and the man fell, releasing you from his grip.

You crumpled to the ground, weak and terrified, but relief flooded you as Aemond dropped his gun and scooped you into his arms.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered fiercely, his voice trembling with emotion. “You’re safe now. I swear it.”

Alys screamed in rage as Aegon’s men closed in, overwhelming her forces. But Aemond didn’t spare her another glance. His only concern was you, holding you tightly as he carried you toward his car, desperate to get you as far away from this nightmare as possible.

Aemond froze, his arms still securely wrapped around you. He could feel your trembling body against his chest, and the sound of your shallow, frightened breaths only fueled his rage. His sharp gaze locked onto Alys, who now had a pistol aimed directly at you.

"Aemond," Alys drawled, her voice venomous yet steady, "put her down and step back. Or I swear, I'll put a bullet in her before you can blink."

"Alys," Aemond growled, his voice low and deadly, "don't do this."

Alys tilted her head, her green eyes glinting with malice. "You've already chosen her over me, haven't you? Well then, let's see how much she's worth to you."

Aegon, standing a few feet behind Aemond, gestured subtly to his men to prepare for a move, but they hesitated, knowing one wrong move could end with you dead.

"I'm not letting her go," Aemond said, his voice unwavering despite the situation. "If you want to hurt her, you'll have to go through me first."

Alys let out a bitter laugh. "How noble. But your gallantry means nothing to me, Aemond." Her grip on the pistol tightened. "Last chance. Put her down and walk away, or I'll paint the ground with her blood."

Your weak voice broke through the tension.

"Aemond... please," you whispered, barely audible, your tears soaking into his shirt.

Aemond's jaw clenched, his mind racing. He couldn't let you get hurt, but surrendering you to Alys wasn't an option.

He took a deep breath, his one good eye blazing with determination. "Alys," he said, his tone calmer but no less threatening, "you're not walking out of here alive. Let her go, and I might make it quick for you."

Alys's smile faltered, just for a moment. It was enough.

Suddenly, a single gunshot rang out, shattering the tense silence. Alys stumbled, her expression one of shock as she dropped her pistol, clutching her shoulder where blood began to bloom.

Aemond turned to see Aegon lowering his gun, his expression grim. "Didn't think l'd let her get the upper hand, did you?" Aegon muttered, stepping forward with his men to secure the scene.

Alys fell to her knees, her face twisted in pain and rage. "This isn't over," she spat, glaring at Aemond.

Aemond didn't respond. Instead, he tightened his hold on you and carried you to the car, his every step deliberate and resolute. "It's over for you," he muttered under his breath, his voice cold.

As Aegon's men subdued Alys and her remaining lackeys, Aemond focused only on you, placing you gently in the passenger seat of his car. His hand brushed your tear-streaked face, his expression softening as he whispered, "You're safe now. I've got you."

But deep inside, Aemond's fury burned hotter than ever. This wasn't just about saving you-it was about making sure no one would ever dare to take you from him again.

Tag list : @danytar @hangmanscoming @julessworldd @yazzzmints @zaldritzosrose @giirlinblack @callsignwidow

[sugarmeowe]

nsft ✰ mdni!

older bf! john price who catches his naive little girlfriend innocently and shamelessly talking to his soldiers on the day that he takes you to the base, privates that are in the same age group as you, clearly more appropriate for a sweet lady like you instead of the nasty old man you chose to be with instead

older bf! john price who’s eyes widen and patience finally snaps when he watches you sweetly feel one of his recruit’s biceps, after the young boy had instructed you to, finally having enough of the display as your man marches over to you and silently drags you away from the group by your arm, his firm, large hand fully wrapping around the naturally tiny limb of yours by comparison as he pulls you to his office

older bf! john price who isn’t having it at all, who’s already decided on your punishment(s) as soon as the door slams shut in the private room, immediately delivering a firm slap over your cheek when you confusedly try to reason with him by calling out his name— instead only reminding you that it’s “sir” or “captain” with him and nothing else when you’ve fucked up, during times like these

-

older bf! john price who has you bent over his work desk in the middle of the room with your trousers and panties bunched around your ankles, face down, pressed into the hard wooden surface covered with various paperwork and files scattered around as you begin to sob, while he lectures you with a firm hand pushed against your spine, on how a stupid little girl like you needs to know better next time, to not let his men take advantage of you like that, to not behave like a whore for hire in front of them and especially not in front of him (you genuinely did not know any better! •ᴖ•)

older bf! john price who decides to spank your bare, plush little ass still bent over his desk, maybe 20 or 30 times (depending on how much steam he still needs to blow after his lecture), using his belt, ordering you to cry out a meek little “thank you sir” even through the mess of tears and snot on your face after each hit, to ease you into your discipline for the evening, while he decides what else to do with you afterwards

older bf! john price who notices how much you’re sobbing and practically screaming by the time he reaches the final five blows, your plump behind shaking uncontrollably and so, sinfully reddened with little strips of purple bruises and welts already starting to form :( so once he’s done he coos and picks up your limp, trembling body effortlessly and pulls you into his lap while he sits down by his work desk, shushing you and even occasionally chuckling at your cries while he runs a big, warm hand down your back, your face buried into his neck as you continue to weep and even begin to weakly apologise

older bf! john price who stays like that, rocking you back and forth on his lap for a few minutes and letting his big, warm hands roam over your back and bare behind, trying to calm down the burn of his thick, leather belt and it’s blows as he shushes you and reassures you that it’s almost over. you’re doing so well <3

older bf! john price who was planning on fucking you senselessly after your spanking with your face pressed down into his desk, but decides to take it easy on you and have a little bit of mercy after seeing how sad and weepy you’re being, as well as how much you’ve even genuinely apologised for it all :( it’s not your fault that a naive, pretty thing like you was being approached and taken advantage of by his men! any soldier would have done the same to a girl who they had no clue already belonged to their captain

older bf! john price who instead gently lifts you off of his lap after a while, wiping your tears away with his calloused thumbs before softly pushing you down to your knees, making you kneel on the very same ass he’d just bruised and spanked senselessly as he spreads his legs a little further on his chair and begins to unzip his trousers — he wanted to take it easy on you, he truly did, but he’d also grown painfully hard after giving you that little spanking with his belt and now he still needed you to help relieve him, surely you’d understand!

[upon-a-starry-night]

While We Dream Pt.6

Kylo Ren x Fem! Reader

Star Wars Masterlist Series Masterlist

Word Count: 1.5k

Summary: As Kylo sleeps he finds himself mysteriously transported to your modern world, while you sleep you find yourself following alongside Kylo as he goes about his duties as “supreme leader?” who even was this guy? And why does he keep talking about ‘The Force?'

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

You don’t know which feeling consumes you first, relief at being home, or frustration at being ripped away right when you were about to get some answers. One thing you do take notice of, however, is the fact that your body still feels well-rested even after the rollercoaster of emotions you went through in that…dream?

Still, you don't want to find yourself back there anytime soon despite your curiosity about the man who lives there. You lie awake on the couch for several minutes trying to find an explanation and only let yourself get up when you conclude that your brain must have subconsciously created a sci-fi scenario due to the movies you fell asleep watching and replaced the main love interest with the man who saved you.

It’s a questionable solution at best but you don't think you’d be able to get through the rest of your day if you don’t force yourself to believe it. 

You must have slept through the entire night on that couch because the soft light of the sunrise is peeking through your windows as you stretch your limbs. Your body is still used to the early morning work schedule and even if you were tired enough to go back to sleep (which you aren't), you wouldn’t want to go back into whatever that place was so you roll with the punches and march to the kitchen to start on breakfast. 

Toast is ecstatic that you’ve finally woken up and can now feed him his breakfast and maybe if he’s lucky he’ll get a tiny piece of bacon from yours as well. 

At the kitchen island, you eat your food as you look over a flyer you got from the grocery store yesterday, it reads:

“Thinking of Becoming a Gym Instructor? Come Try Our 7-Day Trial and See if You Have What It Takes!!”

There’s an address and a phone number at the bottom as well. It’s not your first pick for a job, but it’s also something you’ve never considered before either. There’s a chance it could be fun, and if it turns out it's not your thing, at least you’ll get some exercise. 

After you finish eating, you shower and get ready for the day, putting on some gym clothes and doing some light stretching as you try to prepare yourself. The gym should be open by now so you grab your car keys, pet your cat goodbye, and head out the door with a pep in your step.

~~~~~~~

You were absolutely not returning for the remaining 6 days of the trial. By the time you were done with training, you were pretty sure you sweat out the entire 60% of water that was inside of your body. Your lungs burn like a wildfire you can’t put out and to make matters worse the person instructing you barely looks fazed. 

The pep you had when you first started was gone in the first ten minutes of the session and now here you are slugging your once light bag over your shoulder and making an internal promise to yourself to never come back to this gym. If that was day one you dread to think about what the rest of the week would’ve looked like. 

In your car you spend a good few minutes slumped against your steering wheel before you remember you ran out of cat food and should probably go buy more so your cat doesn’t eat you in your sleep. Not that he can reach your bed yet but animals are capable of crazy things when hungry.

You stop for lunch after the pet store when you realize it’s already noon and you need to replenish your energy if you were to get anything done the rest of the day. You’re scribbling “gym instructor” off of your list of potential jobs when you walk through the door. 

The first thing you notice is not the man on your couch, it’s the fact that your cat is stuck on top of your tall bookshelf and you wonder how he even got himself up there before your head double takes to the couch and the sack of cat food drops to the floor.

The corner of it splits and cat food spills out onto the floor, that seems to be enough to motivate Toast to jump down the entire height of your bookshelf and dig in before you start cleaning up but cleaning is the last thing on your mind.

Sitting there on the couch in the middle of your living room is the man from your dreams. 

You shake your head- or the man who saved you who keeps appearing in your dreams. Either way, there’s a man on your couch who’s definitely not supposed to be there. 

What’s even worse is he’s sitting on your couch like he owns it which makes you angry for some unknown reason.

You take note of the fact that he’s not wearing his helmet which- of course he’s not wearing it. That was just something that existed in your dream world, this was the real guy…or was he?

Immediately you turn tail and run back out of the house, for a split second you think you see him reach out his hand in that weird gesture he keeps doing but you’re out of the house before you can see more. You book it to your neighbor's house across the street and immediately ring the doorbell. Fear spikes when you see the man in your doorway. He stops, however, when your neighbors open the door, surprise on their face.

“Y/n! It’s so good to see you! How…are you?” Their surprise morphs into concern as they take in your sweaty shaken figure. You waste no time as you point to your open doorway where the man still stands, watching your every move.

“Do you see that?” You ask them hurriedly, desperate to see if he is real or if you are going crazy. They squint as they stare over to your house before their eyebrows shoot up and you think you’re about to be invited inside to call 9-11 when they say;

“What’s Toast doing outside?” 

“What?” You turn in confusion and to your surprise, spot Toast on your front porch hissing at the doorway. The man is still standing there looking like he’s having a stand-off with your cat and the sight would be funny if you weren’t actively hallucinating it. “So you don’t see…” 

You let your sentence trail off as your neighbor looks at you with questioning eyes like they're debating calling a nurse hotline to check on you. Honestly, you’re a little tempted to let them but your precious kitten is currently protecting your house from a 6-foot ghost and you aren’t going to let him fight that battle alone.

In order to not retain a reputation as the neighborhood crazy lady you turn to your neighbor with a sheepish kind of smile and wave it off, thinking of a quick excuse. “Sorry, there was a stray dog near my house but it looks like it ran away. Sorry to bother you!” 

Your explanation is enough to ease whatever worries your neighbor had about you as they wave you off and tell you not to worry about it. You say your goodbyes and then turn to go grab your cat before he runs away. The man’s gaze only shifts from your cat for a split second as he notices you approach but ultimately he seems fixated on the small creature you pick up into your arms.

You’re 90% sure your neighbors are watching you through their window so you square your shoulders and prepare to shove your way past the wall of black blocking your doorway. Much to your surprise, however, he tilts ever so slightly to let you pass by- although you have a suspicion it was more for the benefit of you not touching him. If you even could. 

When you habitually shut the door you almost flinch as you wait for the sound of it hitting his body. You don’t know whether to be happy or terrified when it passes straight through him and slams shut. On one hand, it didn’t hit him but on the other hand…it didn't hit him.

Now at least your neighbors can’t watch you have a manic episode. Which is what you were on the verge of because what the fuck? This was definitely not a dream but you had no way to explain what was happening.

The man seems just as confused as you as he looks down at his hands in a similar way to you in your dream world. He attempts to grab the doorknob but his hand passes right through it.

As quietly as you can, you shakily put down your cat and pull out your phone. You open the camera app and aim it at the man but nothing shows up on the screen.

“Oh my God.” You whisper as you lift a hand to cover your mouth in shock.

You don’t know whether to call a paranormal investigator or a doctor. Probably both. Just in case.

What were the chances you were just suffering from heat stroke?

Pt.7

A/n: Sorry for the unannounced hiatus! life got crazy but i'm back!~Starry

-----Taglist------

@cheeseburgercasserole @isy1994namjoon @phobobobophobia @froggygal @marii-ren @haileyofmischief @mmontgomeryb @ssnapsaurus

[thebibutterflyao3]

Day Twenty-Three - Prompt: Cropped @rosekiller-microfic

March Daily Series - 972 words

<<<Previous Part OR Start Here

Barty allowed himself a full thirty-six hours of recovery before returning to The Ink Spot. He was sore, but mobile. That was enough.

When he stepped in the door, Emmeline loudly snorted and promptly covered her mouth to stifle her laughter. She knew what he was doing, as did anyone else that cared to pay attention. Every time someone else worked on him, Evan became a little more unhinged. He was possessive as fuck over his clients and Barty was counting on that playing in his favour.

“What now?” Evan grumbled. His stall was the first one past the waiting room, so he had a front row seat to Barty’s nonsense.

“Morning, Em,” Barty said cheerfully. He flashed a bright smile at her and she winked conspiratorially. It was unlikely that she knew the details of any of this, she simply enjoyed the game at Evan’s expense. “Anyone available?”

“Fuck.”

Emmeline hummed an amused little tune as she scanned her list. “If you’re willing to wait about an hour? I can squeeze you in.”

“For fuck’s sake, Emmeline. Just tell him ‘no’ for once,” Evan hissed.

She ignored him and gestured at the chairs. “Settle in.”

Barty moved carefully through the maze of outstretched legs and eased into a chair near the front window. He would be on his best behaviour today. That was sure to drive Evan mad. If he couldn’t hear him, he’d be more likely to check on him, which meant that he would spend the entire hour thinking about him. It was a sound plan.

Unless he decides to strangle me. Very possible alternative.

This would probably have been counterproductive with anyone else, but with Evan, stubborn determination tended to pay off. Not always, but often enough.

He focused on the second half of his plan. This part required more finesse, which was not his forte. Barty typed his message, deleted the first half, typed it again, then deleted it entirely. He leaned forward and rubbed his forehead.

How can I make things right with Pandora without addressing Regulus first? And how do I do that?

This was the part of his plan that he was least confident in. Evan probably wouldn’t really take him back unless he made amends, but Barty had burned those bridges with a fucking flamethrower.

There has to be a way. I have to find a way before Evan moves on.

Barty wracked his brain for ideas. Nothing seemed to go far enough to make up for cheating on Reg. At least not when he was trying to avoid the appearance of pursuing him. That would be a dangerous proposition. He wasn’t a moron. Evan would murder him if Pandora and Dorcas didn’t get the job done first.

While scrolling Instagram for inspiration, he landed on Sirius’s profile. Among the lot of them, Sirius was the only one who hadn’t blocked him yet. Although, that was likely because he’d never interacted with Sirius online before. If he tried it, chances were good he’d be blocked by him too.

Idly, he flipped through Sirius’s photos. There were several of a tall bloke, a redhead, and a brawny man with glasses, but few of the people Barty recognised. Pandora was in one and Regulus was in two. Then, he landed on one with the brawny man and Regulus together.

Hold on, I know him. He’s friends with Peter.

Barty searched Sirius’s profile for the short, heavyset bloke with close-cropped hair that he’d run into at the club in Scotland. He hadn’t connected Peter to Sirius at the time, but it couldn’t be a coincidence that this Latino fellow was friends with both and for one not to know the other. Peter was friendly enough and asked if he had any weed to sell, so he’d sold it to him. The shorter bloke had chattered like a magpie the entire time, but the brawny man just loomed behind him like a security guard.

“There you are,” he muttered to himself. “Peter. Peter, hmm. How are you connected, mate?”

After a few minutes of deliberation, Barty opened Peter’s profile. He was some sort of business lackey. No wonder he needed the weed. His profile wasn’t extensive, but his DMs were open. Barty decided to give it a go. The worst that could happen is that Peter told him to piss off.

Met you at the club in Edinburgh a few weeks back and realised we know the same people. I fucked things up with a friend or two and want to apologise. Mind offering some advice? I’d make it worth your while.

-Barty (grass distributor extraordinaire)

Within minutes, he had a response:

Vaguely remember you, but your weed was top quality. Who are we talking about?

Barty hurriedly responded:

Regulus and Pandora. We used to be close, but I fucked it up and I’m trying to make amends.

There was a longer pause this time, but eventually Peter replied:

Are you the one who showed up in Wales?

Fuck. If Peter knew about his dust-up with Pandora in Wales, it was unlikely that he’d help now. Barty considered lying, but figured the truth was easier to defend.

Yeah, I was off it. Part of what I want to apologise for, actually.

Peter responded with a curt dismissal that Barty absolutely deserved:

Sounds like a you problem.

Well, fuck.”

Barty knew it was a long shot, but he had to try. The reality was harder to swallow, but easier to accept. He’d promised not to approach Pandora or Regulus directly, and he didn’t even know how to contact Dorcas, so that left Evan. Somehow, he had to win Evan back without fixing things. That should blow up in his face in approximately three days.

Next Part>>>

[rayan12sworld]

💜🧡Baby, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

By:TriviasFolly

Summary:

For thirteen years, Wei Wuxian had been cautious. He hadn't done anything that could risk his new identify as Mo Xuanyu. He'd distanced himself from anything that had to do with the Clans he grew up with. Only for one coworker's sick kid to cause his past to come hurtling back at him.

His past, of course, is named Lan Wangji. And this time, he won't let Wei Wuxian go.

Chapter:19/?

Words:111,721

Status:ongoing

Tumbler :@triviasfolly

Drunk lan jingyi....so cute 😭😭

“So confusing,” Lan Jingyi muttered. His eyes following Wei Wuxian in a way Lan Wangji wasn’t particularly fond of. “Confusing?” Lan Wangji prodded.  “He’s so,” Lan Jingyi flushed red. “Pretty.”  “Pretty,” Lan Wangji’s teeth began to itch.  “Like a mom.”  ~~~

Nice,” Lan Sizhui yawned from where he was nestled against Wei Wuxian’s side.  “Mn,” Lan Jingyi yawned against Lan Wangji’s chest. “Like a real family.”  Lan Wangji nearly jolted as the words pulled a pleased pur from Wei Wuxian’s chest. He smiled as he caught a hint of red in Wei Wuxian’s face before it was nuzzling into Lan Wangji’s neck. The boys were out before the halfway point of the movie, victims to the nest. Lan Wangji wasn’t sure either of them ever remembered being in one.  It was amazing how Wei Wuxian could fix things Lan Wangji didn’t even realize were broken. Lan Wangji kept his words soft as he murmured them into the crown of Wei Wuxian’s head.  I love you.

~~~

It was Lan Xichen’s time to growl. “If you wish to challenge-” “Maybe I will,” Lan Wangji hissed through his teeth. It earned him the satisfaction of seeing Lan Xichen’s eyes widen in surprise. “Because I know I would have the backing, because of my mate. Something you’d know if you looked past his skirt. Instead, you’ve no doubt been arming your friends with the knowledge you find my mate a slut.”  “I would neve-”  “Do not lie to me,” Lan Wangji cut him off. The words were falling from his mouth in a torrent, years of remaining silent rushing from his lips. “It is not the first time you have confided in them, or did you think I do not know the rumors?”  “I don’t know wh-”  “The only person who I told I loved Wei Wuxian was you,” Lan Wangji barreled over him. “No one saw me leave with him, no one else knew I’d mated him. You were the only one I trusted.” The words made Lan Xichen flinch, as if Lan Wangji had slapped him in the face. “I put up with the rumors back then, but this time your words do not just affect me. They affect my mate and my son.”  “Sizhui-”  “Loves him,” Lan Wangji didn’t care what protest his brother would supply. “Sizhui reached out and connected with him on his own. Now, SIzhui is trying to fight the rumors that call the man he calls mama every omega insult under the sun.” He took a breath to level a glare at his brother. “My son, who I must remind you is an omega.” The first flash of shame went across Lan Xichen’s face. “Think about that the next time you disparage my mate and throw the word omega slut around.”  Without waiting for his brother’s reply. Lan Wangji marched out. ~~~good , lan xichen needed it, does he have to disappoint lan wangji like this 😒😒

Lan furen ,” Lan Wangji smeared the title across Wei Wuxian’s neck along with blood. The buttons of his shirt popped and skittered across the floor as Lan Zhan tore it open. The golden eyes burned as he peered up at Wei Wuxian. “ Furen .” “Furen,” Wei Wuxian repeated. He gasped as Lan Wangji decided licking wasn’t enough, his teeth sinking. “You like that?” He tried to tease, but he was too off-kilter for it to have his usual teasing oomph. The rumbling purr from Lan Wangji was more than enough answer. “Here I thought being your little wife was enough.” “Never enough,” The smallest furrow formed in Lan Wangji’s brow. “O-” The word was knocked from Wei Wuxian’s lips as his back hit the wall. “Oh?” “You are mine,” Lan Wangji’s eyes smoldered . “Until the whole world knows, I will never be happy.”

~~

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji soothed him with a kiss. “He made you furen.” “I was there,” Wei Wuxian huffed. “If I fuck up one thing he’s going to have my head.” Ge, why does mama live away from everyone else? It just happens sometimes, A-Zhan. The important thing is we can still see her right? And bring her flowers! The memories hit Lan Wangji like a freight truck. Fear seeped in as cold as the snow he remembered seeping in through the knees of his pants. How could he forget the only Lan Furen he and his brother knew? He felt his jaw tighten. Was that his brother’s play? Make it seem like he was accepting Wei Wuxian only to write him up for something minor and have him exiled? “I’m glad we have an understanding,” Wei Wuxian sighed, having misread Lan Wangji’s internal monologue. “We’ll just table all of it.” “No,” Lan Wangji felt a fire light bright within. If Lan Xichen wanted to play this game, he’d picked the wrong opponent. Did he really think Lan Wangji would sit back and watch him give Wei Wuxian the same treatment their mother did? Maybe if it was the first time they bonded, Lan Wangji might have accepted it. He would have seen it as the atonement for saving Wei Wuxian. But now? Now he had the taste of a life with Wei Wuxian. He wasn’t going to settle for anything less. “We do all of it.” “Lan Zhan-” “He made you furen because it no longer benefits him to keep you out,” Lan Wangji explained. “You’ve become popular with the family, to the point where he’s worried I might bid to take his place. He sees this as appeasing me.”

"I’ll be here for you the whole way.” Lan Wangji murmured, pulling him close.

~~~ good 👍 👌 👏, I really like this Lan Wangji, it's good that he won't settle for nothing His decision cemented in his mind as their heartbeats matched. Wei Wuxian wouldn't loose this life, he wouldn't be exiled. Lan Wangji would make sure of it. Even if it meant disposing of his own brother.

~~~wow I have nothing to say😭😭 he is really amazing

[thecandywrites]

Monster March 2023 Day 11- Spirit- Part 4

The Talisman- Part 4- Capture and A Proposal

Udwar has two tasks, both of them almost equally daunting. The first, finally capture the wearer of the second talisman. The second convince her to go with him to return the talismans to their rightful home. Because it can only be done if both parties are willing. So he must make a deal and offer a proposal she will not want to refuse. Much easier said than done.

As always, thanks to @borealwrites for their Monster March 2023 prompt list. I'm having a blast, even though my personal life feels like that gif of a dumpster on fire- while floating down a flood. But this is, getting me through it. So thank you, you have no idea how much I've needed this.

Enjoy.

Part 4

Capture and A Proposal

The next morning you woke up, having slept for the first time in a long time- all you needed. You felt refreshed and invigorated and were happy to simply stretch and take a moment to marvel at your own arms and the tattoos on them as you could see writing in a language you did not know but looked beautiful to the eye as there was a name on your forearm in large letters. But you could only look at it and wonder what it said and what it meant. 

You got up and made yourself breakfast before you moved on, seemingly letting Fili pick any direction that she wanted to go before she found a small trail that led from the burned village to another that was still standing and that still had it’s citizens before a messenger came and called everyone together and had a declaration to be read out. 

“Hear me! I am a messenger of Udwar the Conquerer. He has taken Ustas and is holding it as ransome until Lady Shioban Von Drake is returned safely to it. And until she is found and returned to the city, a citizen of Ustas will be executed every hour until she does. The men of course will be first, and then once every man is executed, then the women and lastly the children will be executed until she is returned, safe and sound to Ustas. And any who can capture Lady Shioban Von Drake will have their weight in gold given to them.” He said before he came and nailed the declaration to a tree where many other announcements were nailed into it. 

You could only gasp softly as the others did the same.

“So? Is any among you unknown to you?” The messenger asked before nearly everyone around you pointed to you as you nearly choked on your spit and looked around only to see everyone else pointed at you too. 

“I…” You stuttered and could not think of a lie fast enough. 

“You! You are unknown to us!” The villagers said before you were seized by the messenger, as he grabbed you up by the arm.

“Who are you?” The messenger demanded. 

“You will be taken to Udwar then.” He said before the other villagers seized you and helped him bind your hands together before he put you on Filli and tied you to the saddle and took Fillie’s lead and led you back to Ustas. And while it took much longer to get there. You could only hope that Udwar would at least wait for the messengers to come back before he slaughtered the citizens of Ustas. 

But what you could not understand was how Udwar of all people would know who you really were and what your true name really was. 

“Why does Udwar the Conquerer seek Lady Shioban Von Drake?” You asked, trying make your voice sound deeper but it didn’t quite work. 

“She is the heiress to a great fortune. He was assigned by the gods to reunite her with it.” He answered. 

“And for this, he’s willing to kill off an entire city?” You asked skeptically. 

“Yes.” The messenger said. 

“So I take it, he would like to lay claim to her inheritance with her?” You surmised. 

“Yes.” He grinned. 

“So Bonbon huh?” He asked he looked over to you. 

“She is a great Lady, of course she would like bonbon chocolates.” You decided to reply. 

“I’ve never had them.” He admitted. 

“Neither have I. Always way too rich for my blood.” You remarked. 

“I see. But in saying Bonbon, I was referring to the name Bonbon- since that’s what I’ve been told she goes by instead of her name. Bon or Bonbon.” He offered. 

 “It would make sense if her full first name is Shioban, that Bon or Bonbon would be a nickname.” You answered. 

“So how long have you been serving Udwar?” You asked him. 

“We grew up together. I’m one of his best scouts. Sampsion.” He answered. 

“But you are not orc.” You noted. 

“No, peoples of all kinds follow Udwar, not just orcs.” He answered. 

“Is Udwar’s lust for power and lands so great that he would set his eyes on Ustas and even Lady Vond Drake’s inheritance too? Even as meager as I’m sure they are in comparison to his other conquests?” You asked. 

“You’ll see when you meet him your Ladyship.” He offered which got you to frown. 

“I’m not…” You tried to argue. 

“Bon. Your ears raise every time I say that name because you’ve spent a lifetime being a servant when you should have been raised a Great Lady. I know it’s you.” Sampsion insisted. 

“Why does Udwar want me and my pitiful inheritance?” You asked irritably. 

“It’s not pitiful. If anything, it’s impressive.” He offered. 

“No it’s not.” You shook your head no. 

“Only because you don’t understand or know all of it.” Sampsion offered. 

“How’d you get out of Ustas anyway?” He asked. But you bit your lips to keep from saying anything. 

“Dressed as a Yoeman, smart. Your hair cut short, smart. Taking a little pony, also smart. Going to another village, stupid.” He offered which got you to snort derisively at him but you looked away while your cheeks flushed guiltily. 

“That veil of plainness is pretty good too.” He offered which only got you to frown even deeper at him. 

“What are you talking about?” You asked him. 

“I know that you wear a totem. That must cover part or all of your body in tattoos. It’s why you’ve always been modest. The totem grants you a veil of plainness as a protection. But underneath it, you know you’re prettier than you appear and are smarter than you look. I’ve been told you are quiet, always watching and listening and working hard and are happy to blend in with a crowd. And honestly, if those villagers hadn’t pointed you out to save themselves, then I’m sure I would have looked you over too.” He admitted. 

“Damn it.” You cursed under your breath but he still caught it and grinned smugly. 

“Should we run the horses back to keep Udwar from slaughtering innocent men, women and children?” You asked. 

“Nope. He wasn’t going to start that until after all of us got back with whoever we found along the way who looked out of place.” He offered. 

“All of this for a measly 100 acres and a stupid title and a house no bigger than the largest house in Ustas.” You groused. 

“But at least you’ll get your gold right?” You instigated. 

“Yes. And he won’t hurt anyone or anything. 

“Not right away, but eventually yes.” He answered.

“So if I give Udwar the totem, will he leave Ustas alone?” You asked. 

“Why is it so important to him that I lay claim to what is technically mine through a father who never loved me and who never loved my mother?” You asked. 

“It’s a great wrong that he wants to right. And he’ll explain it to you better than I can.” He offered. 

“Great.” You sarcastically sighed tiredly. 

“If you promise not to run, I’ll untie you.” He offered. 

“For the children and their parents of Ustas, fine.” You agreed before you held out your bound hands over to him before he stopped his horse which stopped your pony, so he wouldn’t accidentally cut you and cut the rope that held your hands together before he got off the horse and untied where he had tied you to Filli and her saddle before the two of you met back up with the others, who all also had other prisoners. Who were all begging and pleading for their lives. 

But you kept silent, except for a thanks when lunch was offered to you by Sampsion before he told a lie about how you too were a Yoeman that he found that also claimed you were not Lady Shioban but that he was bringing you back anyway, and that the reason you were unbound and not arguing was because you simply didn’t wish for any to be harmed or killed on your behalf. So that you were coming willinging. 

Sampsion took you away from the group so you could at least relieve yourself with the dignity of privacy and you made it back to Ustas by nightfall. 

But you and the other messengers and other scouts had their captors bond and practically chained. As they were invited to bring their captors before Udwar in the Great Hall. Udwar looked irritated as he sat there as his talisman told him that every person he saw, was not who he came all this way to see. 

"Save your breath on any whimpering cries. I know you are who you say you are, dismissed." He said to each one as they brought them in as they practically just walked in one door before they were walked out again, never stopping. 

"Why aren't we going in first? Save this spectacle?" You all but hissed at Sampsion.

"I like to save the best for last." Sampsion answered as you rolled your eyes before he and all the others were ordered to come in- in one big group as you looked out from behind the others to look at the man that the very ground you stood on tried to save you from. As you could feel a tunnel getting into place right under your feet. 

So it seemed, the very ground that this talisman had a connection to was ready to do your bidding as Udwar immediately jumped to his feet and looked among the others, seeming to search for you. 

"How many have you killed looking for me?" You asked as you stepped behind a group of others who found they could not move because the very tiled floors seemed to suddenly encase their feet. 

"None." Udwar answered as he tried to look through the forest of people to see you and while his talisman said that you were right before him, yours still hid you from his sight. 

"And how many more would you have killed to find me?" You asked as it seemed the talisman even made your voice leave your mouth but then travel to all around the room so that no one could find where the source of your voice was. 

"No more. Because I know that is not what you want." Udwar answered as a grin bloomed on his face to finally hear your voice. 

"Then leave this place. Leave these people alone. They've done nothing wrong. If your quest is for what I have, leave them and theirs alone." You insisted. 

"Done." Udwar readily agreed. 

"Then tell everyone else to leave. Let's settle this just between us." You suggested. 

"You heard her. Everyone else, leave." Udwar commanded before everyone else was finally free to move as they quickly left. Leaving only you, Udwar, and his men. 

"I said, everyone." You repeated before Udwar walked right past you as you kept your head down and your hood up- while he was happy to practically push everyone out of the room. 

And when he turned around after bolting the doors. Did he turn around to finally see you standing there with your hood drawn before you pushed it back to reveal yourself, your hair, long since unbraided and as your veil of plainness dropped so that he could slowly start to see you, and really see the real you. You looked up at him as he slowly walked towards you. Now that he could see you, he wouldn't take his eyes off of you. 

"So why would you bring an army of tens and most likely hundreds of thousands of men all the way to Ustas to reunite me with an inheritance I don’t even want?” You asked. 

“I don’t think you realize what your inheritance really is.” Udwar managed to say. His talisman was right, you were beautiful, and while most women in your position could cower and take a submissive posture. You held him in your sights as an equal. Which was good. 

“It’s barely a hundred acres, with a village no bigger than the ones you’ve undoubtedly already destroyed. My father was having an affair with my own nanny. I’m sure in the 23 years I’ve been absent from his life, he’s married her and given her children the rights to whatever he may possess. I don’t want anything to do with him. Or anyone else. The only person I have ever cared about is dead. I was fine. I was content to live in obscurity and anonymity.” You challenged with a frown as you held his gaze. 

“That’s not the inheritance I’m referring to.” He began before he reached into his shirt to pull the talisman out and the moment you saw it, your own lit up through your clothes before you grabbed the leather tie it was tied to take it off. 

“If this is what you came all this way for, fine, take it.” You urged him as you tried to take it off but the talisman practically glued itself to your chest before you grabbed it with both hands and tried to pull even harder and as much as it hurt, you kept yanking. 

“Oh for fuck’s sakes. Get off of me!” You growled at it as you took off your cloak and loosened the ties of your shirt to try to grab it and peel it off of your skin, but it wouldn’t come off for anything as Udwar soon came over. 

“It’s never done this before.” You said as your cheeks got even more flushed from trying to remove this thing. 

“Why is it doing this?” You asked before he moved his own and only when he came to stand directly in front of you and moved his talisman closer to yours did it come off, only for it’s back to glue itself to the back of his own but the talisman soon grew a white metal chain and it snaked around your neck like a vine before the leather fell away. 

“Because we’re each wearing one half of it.” He finally answered. 

“Well now you have both, you can keep them both.” You insisted as you tried to take the chain off but all it did was grow more and more chains around your neck and even around your body and his. 

“Stop, stop fighting it. Just relax.” Udwar insisted before you stopped and the chains simply braided themselves into a gorgeous filgerie around your neck before your skin started to itch and in trying to scratch it, you pulled your sleeves up to reveal how your tattoos changed and once he put his arm next to yours, you both noticed how you both seemed to wear one half of one larger picture. 

“What is this?” You breathed as you saw it. 

“Where did your mother get this?” Udwar asked before he dropped his arms and the talismans finally let go of each other before he took a step back. 

“My mother grew up in the village on the other side of the mountains that are behind the castle. She said, that when she was a child, she found an old woman in the forest when she was hunting for mushrooms. She was…she had lost her mind. And had lost many things. But she felt she was being hunted and chased. My mother brought her home. And they tried to nurse her back to health. But she didn’t make it, but that it was the talisman that helped her escape who was pursuing her. For years to come, no one came. Then my mother was married off the lord simply because she was beautiful. He kept her from learning anything more than what she knew, which was- to barely read or write or do simple math. And then when my mother bore me and he betrothed me at birth to a man who was, apparently already a grown man, my mother escaped and dug up the talisman and it helped her escape my father. It hid us. And brought us here. All I know to say how to work it is…” You began before he said the phrase, the way it was meant to be said. 

“Yes. That. What language is that?” You asked him. 

“Nenani.” He answered. 

“It’s the same language that’s written on your skin. I can teach it to you if you’d like.” Udwar offered. 

“So how did you get the other one?” You asked him. 

“Passed down in my family. This was created by my grandfather’s soul mate- who is the very same woman your mother encountered. He made a mistake. She punished him by leaving him, she was a Neveahan. And their native language is Nenani. He spent the rest of his life trying to find her again. And when she died, he died at the same moment. This totem serves as thier wedding vows, binding the two together, forever and beyond the grave. And now that your mother and my father wore it, he tried to come to reunite the two halves. But by the time he got to your mother’s home town, she was already gone and your father had given up looking for you and simply thought that she and you were eaten by some predator in the mountains. He did move on with another woman and had another family. But my father got to find the grave site and while he could pay respects to the grave. Because the totem was no longer there, but gone, he failed and simply went home. And then when you took it from your mother three years ago when she died, so did my father. I took on the totem, trying to save him from it, but it was too late. They were fated to die together.” He admitted. 

“So now you and I wear them. We’re fated to what? Get married?” You asked as you crossed your arms over your bosom as you fixed him with a look. 

“No. Not unless you really want to. No. But the only way to lift the curse, is we have to go back to where the two halves of the totem were created and put them back where they came from- which was an alter of a god on Neveah.” He answered. 

“I’ve never heard of it.” 

“Well, that’s because Neveahans have paid very highly to keep it that way. It’s the supersphere’s unknown superpower.” He appraised. 

“Where is it?” You asked. 

“There.” He said as he pointed with the toe of his foot. 

“Here.” He said as he took out a map and began to unfold it as was immediately evident that it was a map of the entire supersphere.

“Hold this corner.” He requested before you touched it and held it up as it then touched the ground. 

“How the hell did she get all the way here from there?” You asked. 

“And where are we?” You asked.

“Here.” He said as he pointed to where you currently were on the map. 

“She flew. On her dragon. Neveahans are dragon keepers.” He answered. 

“Oh.” You nodded. 

“That threat to kill everyone here, that was a bluff wasn’t it?” You asked. 

“Yup. But it worked.” He confirmed as he let you stare at the map and just shake your head. You knew the supersphere was huge. You had no idea it was this big though. 

“How long will it take to get there?” You asked. 

“Because I would have been slaughtered the moment I touched the shores of this continent if I was by myself and therefore, would have endangered you. The army is there to keep us both safe and get us there safely.” He answered before you had finished looking at the map and simply gave him the other corner so he could fold it all back up again. 

“At least six months.” He answered.

“Why do you have so many people with you. If this business is just between you and me. Why do you have an army bigger than any other?” You asked. 

“How are you paying for all them?” You asked. 

“It’s a promise of payment. The place in which these talismans were made, was on the island my grandfather and his soul mate shared near the mainland of Neveah. It was a dragon horde on an island. They had equal rights to it.” He answered. 

“Let me guess, your grandfather fell in love with the dragon’s horde more than he did his soul mate and that’s why she left?” You ventured. 

“Correct.” He nodded. 

“So now, because of this, does that mean half of that horde is now…mine? And the other half is yours?” You asked. 

“Yes.” He answered. 

“Oh for the god’s sake. Just take all of it then. I want no part of any more of this. I’ll help you and your army get to this island. And you and your army can help yourselves to the horde but then take it and be gone. And if the island is at all nice. Just leave me there once you’re done. No more conquering. Leave Neveah as a whole alone. Take the gold from the horde and buy whatever lands or kingdoms or whatever you want. But I don’t want to be a great lady or a queen or any of that. I just want to live my life in peace. That’s all I want.” You insisted. 

“I figured you’d might say that. And if that’s how you feel , then I will respect your wishes. I’ll give my men the better part of the week to rest and recuperate, and then we’ll head to Neveah. I’ll teach you Nenani along the way. And when we get there, you can take ownership of the island. I’ll take the horde and once we return the talismans, we can go our separate ways.” He offered. 

“Sounds like a plan to me.” You nodded. 

“Good.” He smiled. 

“Hungry?” He asked. 

“Very.” You admitted. 

“Good. You have some friends who are wanting to be reunited with you. Particularly, the other laundresses and their families. I can have them brought to the dining hall and you can eat your meals with them in there.” He offered. 

“I would like that.” You smiled which got him to mirror the same expression. 

Once the other laundresses and their kids came back in, they got to see the veil of plainness you always wore lower then disappear as you were then seated at the feasting table. And while Udwar was content to sit at the other end of the long table, he was still happy to at least finally look up and finally, really see you there at the other end. Your smile, your laugh, your expressions and your voice- finally soothing an ache, three generations in the making. 

“In the meantime, feel free to stay in any of the other rooms near the Lord and Lady’s rooms.” He invited.

“Ok.” You nodded. 

But having you sleep in only a single room away had Udwar lying in bed and facing the direction you were laying in- in the bedroom next to his. 

[ophelia-jones]

Willow Hayes was on her horse, a young roan mare with a capricious temperament, whom she had taken to calling Dixie. She was making her way back from the open range to the Peltier ranch after sweeping the area for any signs of trouble. Trouble could mean anything from mountain lions to cattle rustlers around here - but Willow hadn't found anything too concerning. 

She was the foreman for Carol Pelitier, the widow who owned and ran the ranch. She'd been in charge since Ed had died after falling from his horse while he was full of rye whiskey. She had done well for herself, and this was in no small thanks to Willow's know-how with the day-to-day operations; Carol was one hell of a businesswoman but Willow knew how to do the dirty work. 

The cowboys who worked for Miss Carol had been surprised when she had made Willow the foreman, but it hadn't taken them long to get used to it. Now they would do whatever she asked without hesitation, and the operation was running smoothly.  They forgot having a young woman for a point man might be considered unusual, most days.

Today, most of the ranch hands were planning on going into New Hope to blow off a little steam, and Willow just wanted to be sure everything was safe before releasing them for the night. Once they were set loose they would be no good to her, they'd be on the prod for drink, women, or cards. 

It was near dusk when she saw a group of horses hitched up to the scrub pines near one of the ponds in the backfield. She knew right away they didn't belong to the ranch; the big black stallion in particular caught her eye. He was a beauty. She eased Dixie slowly down that way, one hand on the reins, the other on the shotgun across her lap.

She could hear men's voices as she approached and decided to dismount and approach on foot for the sake of stealth. She slowly drew up to a small copse of scrub trees and peered around to see three men in various states of undress, washing in the pond. 

She was considering what to do about the trespassers when she saw the fourth man wade out of the pond as naked as the day he was born; a man she knew and would recognize in the pitch black of a moonless night. 

Her heart began to beat an odd sort of syncopated rhythm and her breathing grew shallow as she watched him push the long, wet hair out of his face; the way his shoulders moved as he waded through the duckweed made her skin flush hot and she didn't even realize she was stretching and angling to get a better view of his muscular ass and thighs (and other bits which piqued her curiosity) until she heard a branch snap under someone's foot just behind her.

Willow spun and readied her shotgun, aiming it at the source of the sound, but let out a relieved breath when she saw a friendly face.  Paul, one of the other cowboys (whom the other ranch hands had nicknamed Jesus, because of his long hair and angelic features) was standing close enough to peer over her shoulder at the men.

"Jesus, I could've shot you! What the hell?" she hissed, not wanting to alert the bathing men to her presence.

"Willow Hayes, my stars and garters!" Jesus teased, "Are you spying on the Dixon brothers in their altogether?" 

"No!" she replied, her cheeks burning. "I saw strange horses and came to see who it was…" she stammered a bit as she tried to explain, but Paul just grinned more and more the harder she tried to convince him she was not sneaking a peek at the naked men.  Finally, she gave up trying and marched back to her horse.    "Aren't you going to go tell them to get off the property?" Jesus teased, following close behind. 

"Carol lets them use her land, and Daryl traps and hunts coyotes and mountain lions for us. It's a good arrangement," she told him sullenly. 

"And you have no strong feelings either way in regards to the younger Dixon brother," Jesus pressed the issue. "you know, the one whose hind end had you hypnotized." 

"I was just looking to see who it was, is all!" she told him, exasperated. 

Jesus, still clearly amused at her discomfort at being caught admiring what he himself considered to be a beautiful example of a man, tried to contain his amusement. He had some concerns about the men in question.

"They're up to no good, you realize?" he asked quietly. 

"Merle is a cad, but they're just drifters. They aren't dangerous criminals." Willow told her fellow cowboy as she mounted her horse. She was not willing to discuss the Dixons or the men they associated with any further.  "Let the others know they can head out if they're planning on going. I need you all back by Sunday morning." 

With that the young woman rode away, leaving Jesus standing beside his mount staring after her silently. He didn't know what it was about Daryl Dixon that inspired such loyalty in both Carol and Willow.

Willow rode back to the stables and brushed and fed her mare, her mind lost in memories.  Most of the ranch hands stayed in the bunkhouse, but she couldn't for obvious reasons, live amongst a group of bachelors. It wasn't as if she were looking to make a match and hoping to marry, but she did have some sense of propriety. 

So, she had made her home in the tack room here in the stables and was quite content with it most of the time. It was a far better life than the one she had almost lived but which she had avoided, thanks to Daryl. 

When she was 17, being raised by her widowed father, her whole world crumbled when he lost everything at the poker table.  One day they had a successful ranch and a decent life and the next they were homeless and penniless.

When her father had begged the man to whom he had lost the ranch for a chance to win it back, there had been an argument that ended in a shootout - her father had lost.  So she had been cast out on her own, alone - her only skills were useless to her if no one was unwilling to hire her because of her age and gender.

So she had found herself at Madam Blackburn's cathouse, dressed like a peacock and nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Her mother had died when she was young, and Willow had been allowed to wear dungarees and britches on the ranch while she worked; when she did don dresses for church they were far simpler than this get-up with the ruffles and the senseless bustle in the back.

She was not a tiny, graceful woman - she was full-busted and wide in the hips, more muscular than soft as she felt a woman was meant to be. She was a wildflower trying to pass as a rose.

Lena had been kind to her, and patient, but she knew she had to bite the bullet and do what needed to be done to survive and so she told Lena to entertain offers for a private audience.

"You've had one particularly generous offer, and one modest one, which - if you are open to my advice, you should entertain," Lena told her. 

"Why would I take the small offer? If I'm to surrender any hope of a respectable future by spending the night with a stranger, shouldn't I fetch a fair price?" she had asked, genuinely confused by the suggestion. Lena had smiled gently and taken her hands, clasping them as she looked Willow over.

"First, this man, I believe, is no stranger to you. He worked for your daddy once or twice. But what's important is that he is gentle. He's kind and will not hurt you." she had told Willow gently.

"And the other will hurt me?" Willow's heart, already racing, began to pound, her palms sweating. Lena had reached out to fix Willows's sandy blonde hair at this point and added, "Also - the most generous offer came from the man who killed your daddy, and I have no desire to spit on his grave. Your father was a decent man."

"Negan?!" Willow was taken aback. How dare that man! She wished desperately that she had a firearm secreted somewhere with which she could blow the smarmy grin off that man's face.

"Go with Daryl, dear," Lena advised.

"Daryl Dixon?" Willow asked, a sense of relief rushing through her, soothing her anxiety more than a little. He was not refined and had no social graces to speak of but the young man with the sky-blue eyes had never shown an ounce of malice toward herself or any of the livestock when he'd worked for her family. She remembered him going out of his way to find one of the herding dogs who'd gotten lost one winter. 

"Send Daryl up to my room, I'll meet him there," Lena had agreed, nervously chewing on her lower lip. 

Once in her room, Lena realized she had no idea what she was meant to be doing with herself. Should she be undressing? She had heard the other girls talking about dipping a sponge in lemon juice and putting it… inside themselves… to protect them from getting pregnant. She wished she were better prepared, and was eyeing the window wondering if she could climb out of it in this ridiculous dress.

There was a quiet knock at the door and she began to tremble a bit, there was no going back now. She opened the door to find the tall, shy man standing there, his eyes down and his hat in his hands.

She stepped back and he entered silently. They remained silent for so long, Willow couldn't stand it. She reached out to touch him, not knowing where to start.

"You don't have to do that," Daryl said, his voice low and deep. It felt the same to her as hearing distant thunder. 

"What?" she'd asked, her brows furrowed together in genuine confusion.

"I just want to talk, if you'll listen," he told her, moving to sit in one of the red velvet upholstered chairs. 

"Ok," Willow said, trying not to sound too relieved. 

"You don't gotta do this," he said, looking her in the eye for the first time all night. "You're the finest horsewoman I know, and I've seen you handle branding, castrating steer, birthing calves - all the things that most gals would faint if they witnessed. You didn't bat an eye. You don't belong here, you're as natural born a cowgirl as I can imagine."

"I appreciate that - but no one wants to take on a gal. Most ranchers just look at me and laugh," she told him sadly.

"I've been helping out at the Pelitier ranch, and Carol could use someone like you there. She wouldn't laugh." She watched the way he shifted awkwardly in his seat, cracking his knuckles and chewing at a hangnail as he spoke. He was almost more nervous than she was about being here in this room alone. 

"Do you truly think so?" she asked hopefully. She missed the sound of a ranch; the cattle lowing and the horses snorting, hell, she missed the prairie tenor of coyote howling at the moon. 

"Yeah, I do," Daryl smiled at her for the first time and she couldn't believe how it transformed his face. She smiled back nervously. She'd never noticed before just how sweet his smile was. Never looked close enough to be charmed by the mole over his lip or the way he kept his eyes narrowed even in the dimly lit rooms of a bordello. He may not be refined, but that did not mean he wasn't charming.

"So, what now? You've paid for my company already." She said, sitting in another of the ridiculous gold and red Louis the fourteenth chairs which were so out of place in the wilderness of Wyoming. 

"I dunno," he shrugged, chewing at his thumbnail again.

"I have some dime novels from the newsagent. I could read for you. Oh, I have a deck of cards! Do you know how to play draw the well dry?" she went to the bedside table and withdrew the deck of cards and began to shuffle. Daryl chuckled and nodded. It was a popular children's card game, simple enough to play. 

"Yeah, that sounds good," he agreed, his smile going from a small upturn at one corner of his mouth to a full smile that even reached his eyes. They spent the rest of that evening playing every card game Willow knew and exchanging stories about cattle drives Daryl had been on and things Willow hoped to see one day. That had been seven or eight years ago, but it was still one of her most pleasant memories. 

So whatever others like Jesus may think of Daryl, she knew the man had a good heart and wouldn't believe for a moment the rumors which were circulating about him.

"Willow?" she jumped when she heard his voice at the stable entrance. When she turned to see him silhouetted in the doorway, her face flushed and her mind would not let go of the image of his broad shoulders and muscular back she'd gotten a glimpse of earlier. In fact, her whole body flushed hot and she started to sweat as he stepped inside, rubbing one of the horse's soft muzzles and murmuring to it.

"Daryl Dixon," she declared. She wasn't sure why, but she had developed the habit of saying his whole name whenever she thought of him. It had almost become one word. "You looking for work or come to check your traps?" she asked as casually as she could.

"Neither," he told her, moving deeper into the stables to stand face-to-face with her. His hat was off, his hair still damp and the image of his naked behind was in the forefront of her thoughts. She turned to pat her horse's muzzle so he couldn't see the guilty look in her eyes.

"I need to ask you a favor, and I can't answer any questions about it," he told her, pulling at his fingers absently to crack his knuckles as he spoke.

"Ok, what is it?" she asked, risking a glance at him. He had a week's growth of scruffy beard which changed his face - hid the mole which held such a strange fascination for her. Still, he was a handsome man.

Daryl withdrew something from his pocket, something small that he held concealed in the palm of his hand.

"I need you to get this back to the woman it belongs to, but you can't tell her where you got it," he said, dropping a beautiful gold locket with a broken chain into the palm of Willow's hand. 

It was a simple enough request, but something about it made Willow's mouth go dry. She pushed all of the questions it raised out of her thoughts and closed her hand around the jewelry. 

"Who does it belong to?" Willow asked, opening it and seeing there was a lock of ebony hair enclosed in it. This was very special to someone.

"The Barber's daughter," Daryl told her gruffly. He really didn't want to talk about it, but she needed to know whom she was returning the locket to.

"The midwife? I know Izzy. I can return it her tomorrow when I go into town for supplies," Willow replied. "I didn't realize she'd returned."

"Just tell her you found it in the street or whatever," Daryl muttered awkwardly as he turned to go. Willow repressed the urge to ask him just what he had gotten himself into. Daryl was a private man, prying into business he didn't want to share would only drive him away.

[gallusrostromegalus]

Nnoitra Gilga thinks Tousen is pathetic, weak, and a coward.

He also thinks, though he'd never say it out loud, that Grimmjow is maybe kinda sorta half-right about him having teeth somewhere in there and that the shinigami is a looming menace.

Nnoitra is great at holding mutually exclusive opinions because the amount of thought he gives them begins and ends with if the words he's saying will give him an advantage in whatever argument he's having.

Nnoitra can't take the guy seriously- he's even shorter than Ulquiorra, an arrancar Nnoitra is reasonably sure he could stuff into a suitcase if needed. He looks like a bug from where Nnoitra towers over him.

...On the other hand, Tousen is 5'3" and a Captain. Nnoitra's seen just enough of what they can do to know that while someone might be able to GET the job by dumb luck or nepotism, KEEPING it is a matter of strength and brutality. He's also seen the hole Barragan tries to hide with his crown and the way Nel used to politely defer to his decisions, even when she didn't have to. To be able to pull off feats like that and command that kind of respect as his size? Tousen MUST have the power to back it up.

Really rude of the universe to give someone that short that much ass-kinking ability. Offensive, even.

Then again, Tousen is kind of a wimp- he's constantly panting like he's just run a marathon, or lying down for naps in the weirdest places (and Damn both Nel and Hallibel for somehow always hanging around nearby any time he spotted the shinigami in his latest Nap Hole). Tousen doesn't eat, and barely sleeps. He's a weak and sickly creature that should have been put out of his misery ages ago.

...and yet, he's still here. It's obvious that something is terribly wrong with Tousen's body- it's practically falling apart under him and somehow, he isn't dead yet. He doesn't seem to notice pain anymore. Tesra says that an adjuchas, he watched Tousen pick up a red-hot bolt that had fallen from where someone was welding on the scaffholds above during the Dome's construction and held it for a solid ten seconds before he seemed to notice it was burning him, and causally deposited it in a bucket of water. All without interruption to his delivery of Aizen's marching orders. Does he not feel pain?

Or worse, does he not care?

Can't be that, Tousen is as nauseatingly gentle and kind as they come, to Nnoitra's eye. He lets that idiot Wonderweiss and that brat Lilynette hang around him all the time, and even seems to enjoy their company? Who likes being around KIDS? What a dipshit. Then there's how he treats that ugly bitch Charlotte like she's an actual female- At first, Nnoitra thought it was because the poor bastard couldn't see what that freak looked like and it was HILARIOUS. ...But when Nnoitra decided to drop Tousen a hint just to see how disgusted he'd be, the shinigami just Smirked and said "I'm aware, Mr. Gilga. She and I have that in common." A truly baffling thing to say that Nnoitra lost more than a few nights trying to work out to no avail. Wierdo.

...but Nnoitra still has nightmares about the time Tousen came back from a trip to the desert and nearly flayed him alive for what he'd done to Nel. It wasn't a secret- he'd positively bragged about (most of) the battle to Aizen to explain why he should be promoted to third Espada in her place. ...But somehow Tousen knew that Nel had regressed to infancy instead of dying and he SNAPPED. Later when Paramia and Rudbourne were sewing him back together, Halibel told him that they only found enough of his body to sew back together was because she was able to follow the scent of still-fresh blood through the carnage.

"What was that old saying 'beware the wrath of a gentle man'?" she asked between bites of the dozen 'spare' arms Nnoitra had lost and regrown before Aizen intervened and finally stopped him with a dozen high-level bakudo spells.

Dude was SCARY when angry.

---

The truth is that Nnoitra isn't capable about thinking about anyone besides himself. Everything he admires in Tousen- the power, the stoicism, the terror he could inflict- is something he wishes he had himself. Everything he despises in Tousen- the vulnerability, the humor, the lack of dignity in his appearance- is something he despises about himself.

It's no wonder that the closest thing Nnoitra has a to a friend is Aizen, a man whose ability is confusing people with hyperaggressive self-reflection. Nnoitra needs all the help he can get.

AEIWAM Question: What do the various Espada Think of Tousen? Follow-up question, will they, the bunch of dumbasses that they are (because Aizen made them for loyalty, not thinking), declare him their unquestioned leader once Aizen, Gin and Urloquia fork off to see the cosmic taffy pull (also presuming that Barrigan winds up face down in a ditch per canon)?

Bless you for asking this, I needed something to chew on. I'm going to answer these one at a time because the post would be insanely long, and how the thought of him Before the Battle of Karakura Probably:

---

Aaroniero and Arruruerie are SURE they've met before, and that they owes the man a debt of gratitude.

It's possible, they suppose. They have consumed and absorbed the memories of so many hollows that maybe they remember the face from a hollow he killed.

At least, that's what they hope is going on.

But they have Nightmares. Not of being pursued by Shinigami but of being the Shinigami in hot pursuit. Dreams of walking through a city, surrounded by humans that adore them. Names and Faces- Rukia and her dipshit older brother, Jushiro with the nice couch they sometimes pass out on after long nights- if Jushiro's husband wasn't already there. ...Memories, of meeting each other, and falling in love. How it felt as natural to look up to her as it was to gaze at the moon. How waking up to him felt as natural as the dawn. Memories of being married by Captain Ukitake, after Tousen had done them the inexplicable favor of organizing the whole party and acquiring wedding rings. He loves organizing things for people. Ukitake had smiled. Especially weddings. I just hope it's not guilt from the one he didn't get to. His husband had frowned.

That's impossible, of course. They know who they are, how they arose from the vile muck in the shadowy pits of Hueco Mundo. They never stood in the sun one late afternoon, to marry, not with how it burns.

...and yet.

There's no harm in being polite, right? They don't mind locking Glottineria in it's scabbard with an audible click when he comes into the room, to affirm lack of hostilities. Or giving him the cup of tea Aizen gives everyone at his insufferable meetings afterwards- it's not like they can drink it! ...And if sometimes, when they've been working late in the lab studying the effects and causes of Hollowfication, when Tousen gets tired and starts to call them "Kaien" and "Miyako"-

-Well, what's the harm in answering in the voices he expects to hear?

[suncthynuts]

And you’ve got a smile that can light up this whole town

Chapter 1

a scenario wherein you meet an awfully cheerful captain of the oh so famous straw hat pirates

note;;; ngl i procrastinated on this sm cries

wc. 800+

A drink in hand, circling the rim of the whiskey-filled glass, and cigarette on the other, you sit on the nearly empty counter of the bar you decided to visit for the evening. Your brother was supposed to be joining you but after a heated argument about him not allowing you to join his crew and becoming a pirate, you left and found yourself here, drinking away the frustrations brought by people’s constant undermining of your strength and abilities. You swallow a sob as you down another sip of your drink, groaning as you feel the slight burn of the alcohol against your throat, you had asked for a spicy whiskey.

‘It’s kind of sweet,’ you thought. It helped ease your thoughts a bit, as gloomy as you felt it was peaceful for a moment. The bard who was seemingly speaking nonsense, as well as the few drunkards listening, became a relaxing enough background music. After a few more rounds, your sight starts getting blurry and you feel a sense of euphoria brought by the alcohol starting to work itself into your system.

“OIIII, BARTENDER MAN, CAN I GET A GLASS OF BEER???”

You’re snapped out of your daze by the obnoxiously loud voice beside you. Turning your head, you see a young man with black hair and eyes, his mouth morphed into a wide grin, waving at the bartender to bring him some ale. You were a bit tipsy and wasn’t in the mood to deal with the noisy stranger, so you decided to leave after downing the last of your drink.

You reached out for your pocket to leave the bill on the table, before you felt a heavy hand on your shoulder, “Hello!! Do you know where the closest restaurant is? Oh! And I’m Luffy btw!”

‘!!!’

‘THE LUFFY??’ You whipped your head up, looking at the very well-known pirate, whose hand is still on your shoulder. After you get over the initial shock, you saw the opportunity to finally board a ship and become a pirate. At that point, you did not care whose ship it was. You smile at him and told him about the best-serving restaurant in the area.

“I can take you there if you want, my treat!” You hold his hand with both of yours, your eyes glistening as if you’ve discovered a mountain of treasure. He tilted his head to the side before grinning again and then gulping down the whole glass of bear before dragging you along with him outside the bar. You let out a yelp as you tried to keep up without getting thrashed around the streets after you give him the directions.

You two passed through several alleys to a hidden diner that you frequently went to. So much so that you and the employees there had become familiar with each other. After entering through the doors, it was your turn to drag Luffy into one of the four tables that they squeezed into the small space of the diner. It was an old house that was altered into a small diner serving home-cooked meals, specialties exclusive to this region because some of the ingredients cannot be sourced anywhere else.

You both were given menus and after giving some suggestions to Luffy, you called for the waiter to take your order after seeing that Luffy was done scanning through the menus and opting to order everything he thought sounded good.

"So Luffy, what brought you to this island?"

"Oh! We actually just ended up here by accident"

'By accident? huh, that's weird...' you were still curious, but the food just arrived and Luffy immediately started gobbling down all of the food. You joined him in eating, and while you ate much slower than him, with the amount of food he ordered you two finished at the same time.

The two of you sat a bit after all of the food you'd eaten. That was until you heard someone shout-

"LUFFY!!"

You turn around and see Nami at the doorway, fuming. She marched towards Luffy and grabbed him on the collar and dragged him out of the diner, you were about to follow them but were stopped by the waiter.

"Y/n!!! Don't you dare not pay your bill again!"

"W-wait! I'll pay it, I swear. I just have to go follow them first-"

"Nope, pay up now"

After you finished paying for the meal, the two seemingly disappeared. You were beyond devastated that you'd let the two escape. Your hope of joining the crew was crushed, you head home.

...that was until a small sailboat caught your attention. What if you just...? You had always wanted to join a crew so the thought of traveling alone never came to your mind, but with everything that had happened today. You were desperate.

Without thinking twice, you hurried home, sneaked out a bag of food and essentials, and then you were on the boat. You were taking this opportunity, you are fairly confident with your skills, and with your experience, you could definitely survive alone.

So, you sailed, in the dead of the night, and you left your home island to traverse the world.

[looooooooomis]

F I N A L  G I R L |  S E V E N

You were his final girl. And there was no chance in hell that anyone or anything was going to mess that up.

p a r t   s e v e n |  b l o o d

masterlist here

pairing: Billy Loomis x f!reader word count: 6k warnings: s m u t (18 +!!!!!) lets just say this gif is a teaser as to what takes place in this chapter. major blood kink in this chapter. period play?? lmao sorry about it.

There was a shift after that weekend at Billy’s cabin, and you knew he felt it too.

It was never really that casual between you and Billy, that much you knew, but there was something that changed when the two of you got back to Woodsboro. There was something to be said about being able to openly show affection to the person you loved, to hold them and kiss them in public and you’d gotten that treatment in that little lakeside town. You felt like Billy’s actual girlfriend, not his plaything, not the bitch who was backstabbing her own best friend for a fucking boy, you were it.

And while Billy had always said that you were his girl, you hadn’t truly felt like you were until now.

Which was precisely what made tonight so fucking awkward.

Not only had you been coerced into going to the movies with the gang but, unbeknownst to you, Sid had taken it upon herself to fix you up on a blind date with one of Randy’s annoying friends from the video store.

Why had you agreed to this? You were a cold, calculating bitch behind the scenes when it came to fucking your best friend boyfriend and yet saying ‘no thanks, I’m not up for it tonight’ was beyond you? Were you just plain stupid or a closet masochist that thrived on dicey situations?

Either way, you’d never wanted to throw yourself into oncoming traffic more than you did tonight because not only were you trapped into an uncomfortable blind date with a guy you were fairly sure was frothing at the mouth at the idea of getting you alone in the car after all of this was said and done but you just so happened to be seated directly next to Billy.

You were smack dab in the middle of hell. Between a man you were fucking, a man you were disgustingly in love with and had just spent a weekend away with and a man you’d just met today but couldn’t stop playing handsy on your lap whenever he thought the others weren’t looking.

But Billy was always looking.

You knew that better than anyone. He had this innate sense of finding you in a crowded room. You could feel the weight of his brown eyes on you nearly every second of the day, soaking you up, taking every inch of you in, no matter who was around and tonight, as your ‘date’ smacked on his popcorn all the while feeling your thigh up any chance he could, Billy’s dept stare was tuned in and you knew it.

This had to have been karma. Karma for going away and having a beautiful weekend away with the guy you loved so wholly. The one whose girlfriend was on the other side of him with her pretty head on his stupid shoulder as you suffered in silence at just how fucking laughable this entire situation was.

“See that actress?” Your date, Anthony, whispered into your hear. He smelled like movie theatre butter. You wanted to scream. “Have you seen any of her other stuff?”

You were watching The Crucible and the actress in question was Winona Ryder. Everyone and their left nut had seen Winona Ryder in at least a dozen movies. Frowning, you blinked across at the man and blinked. “Yeah. I’m familiar with her work.”

Focusing ahead on the movie, you tried your damnedest to focus on what was going on but when you felt his slithery palm slide up your thigh, you were this close to pouring your Coke on his lap. Why the fuck had you agreed to this?

Pushing the man’s hand away as subtly as you could to avoid any unwanted attention from your friends, you bit down on the side of your mouth and heaved a quiet sigh. You deserved this. This was your punishment.

“She’s hot.” Your lovely date quipped, squeezing the area of your thigh just above your knee. “In that goth-girl next door kind of way.”

Was he getting off to Winona Ryder all the while coming on to you? Was he picturing Winona as he squeezed your thigh? You truly didn’t want to find out. Once again, you pushed his hand away and, this time, crossed your legs and leaned into the arm rest you were sharing with Billy.

The move was subtle, and you were barely even touching Billy but you needed to create a distance between yourself and Butter Fingers if it was the last thing you did.

With a subtle nudge to your arm, Billy’s eyes flickered towards you as his brows furrowed in question. The muscle in his jaw was pulsing in his cheek, that you could see even in the darkness of the movie theatre, and there was murder in his eyes as he sized up the man just over your shoulder. It was as though you could feel his blood pressure spike just looking at the guy and, as you held your breath, silently pleading with him not to make a scene that would undoubtedly give the two of you up, those brown eyes slowly found yours.

There was anger in his eyes, a palpable rage, but it was the look of pure despondency in his stare that made your own heart break. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He wasn’t supposed to be holding hands with Sid and you weren’t meant to be dealing with the idiot to your right.

How it felt up at the cabin, the freedom of loving each other and holding each other and kissing each other in broad daylight was how it was supposed to be. How love was supposed to feel.

Not this.

You were both hiding in plain sight. Putting on a façade to your friends, to each other whilst in public, and it was in that moment, in the middle of a crowded theatre, looking at each other knowing there wasn’t a damn thing either of you could do about it, that you felt that pain so intensely that it was hard to breathe.

Tears burned behind your eyes and you hated yourself for it.

You weren’t going to cry. You refused to cry over a situation you were willingly putting yourself in. This entire thing could have been avoided had you had a stronger backbone here. You weren’t the victim in this scenario. That was Sid. Sid was the one completely getting fucked over in this situation, not you. You had no damn right to feel this shitty because you were doing it to yourself.

This was just the high of the weekend wearing off and reality settling in. Until circumstances changed, this was your norm.

Swallowing back your nerves, it was all you could do to give Billy a small, barely-there smile before focusing ahead on the movie.

“I’m going to grab us another Coke,” you heard Billy say to Sidney. “Anyone want anything?”

“More popcorn,” Stu waggled his empty bag. “Maybe some Milk Duds, man.”

“Candy.” Tatum mumbled, not taking her eyes off of the screen. “Surprise me, I don’t care what kind.”

Billy nodded and took Stu’s money before he gently nudged you. “You want anything?”

You opened your mouth to speak but was cut off but Anthony. “You mind keeping it down, buddy?” He popped another handful of popcorn in his mouth. “We’re at the movies, not here for snacks.”

It was as though Billy’s wrath was physical as his dark eyes scraped over Anthony’s face. His mouth was pulled into a thin, hard line as Anthony’s pompousness sank in. Why couldn’t it be Randy beside you? Why had that dipshit agreed to take this asshole’s shift in order for you to go on a blind date with him? This entire fiasco could have been avoided had it been Randy.

“Yeah, I could use a drink.” You slinked out of your seat. “I’ll help you carry everything back.”

You didn’t wait for Billy as you marched down the aisle but, as you walked down the stairs and out of the theatre, you weren’t at all surprised to see him broody and annoyed as he followed you out.

“If anyone should be looking like that, it’s me,” you groused, falling in to step beside him as you made your way to the snack bar. “I’m stuck on a date with that asshole.”

“Don’t get me started on that,” he grumbled, grabbing his wallet out of his back pocket. “I told Sid to leave well enough alone, but she insisted.”

You hummed and lined up at the concession. “Lucky me.”

Again, you felt his stare before you actually lulled your head to the side to face him. Intense, searching eyes sweeping over your features in both concern and possible envy. “One word,” he muttered, stepping closer towards you. Too close. Not because you didn’t want him that close but because you were in public. Sid and Tatum and Stu and fucking Anthony were a stone’s throw away. “One word from you, baby, and I’ll take you home. Fuck that guy.”

You glowered across at him as though he’d grown a second head. “While I appreciate the sentiment, shit for brains, we’re in public right now. Your girlfriend could walk out any second and see or hear you.”

He seemed to mull over your words for a second but didn’t bother moving away from you. “Maybe I don’t care.”

“You do,” you rhymed off, shuffling closer to the front of the snack bar.

He ignored that. “Also, you’re my girlfriend. Stop calling her that.”

This was not a conversation the two of you should have been having in the middle of a fucking movie theatre. Looking across at him, you raised your brows and blew out a puff of air through your lips. Trying to keep up with Billy’s rationale of staying with Sid to ensure he doesn’t hurt her any further after her mother’s death all the while being with you was giving you whiplash. You knew he loved you and, begrudgingly, you loved him right back. And, a part of you knew, that he was struggling with being back in the real world just as much as you were since coming home from the cabin.

But this was not how he should have been handling it. Not out in the open like this. Especially while you were on a triple date with your friends in a theatre down the hall.

“Billy,” you muttered quietly, ensuring no one was listening in, “please let’s talk about this later. Not here. Not now. Let’s just get the fucking concessions and go, okay?”

He licked his lips and you watched his brown eyes flitter down your face before briefly looking at your own lips. He wanted to kiss you and fuck, did you want to be kissed by him.

But that wasn’t the deal.

So, instead, you watched as he took a hesitant step away from you before nodding his head once. “Yeah, okay,” he agreed, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked down at his shoes. “Tonight.”

“Sure,” you smirked, “I mean, if I’m not with Anthony, that is.” You almost laughed at how wide his eyes got as you uttered those words. But, when he saw the playfulness in your stare, he visibly relaxed and rolled his eyes as you continued. “The way he’s been mowing down on his popcorn all night has me wet as hell, so I might be busy with him later.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled with a shake of his head. Then, he turned to you and gave you a crooked smile. One that almost made this horrific ordeal worth it. “You’re a real bitch when you want to be, you know that?”

“Yeah,” you laughed, nudging him with your elbow. “I’ve been told.”

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

True to his word, Billy slipped in through your unlocked window a little after midnight that evening with a bag of stale licorice and a drink he’d swiped from the gas station on the way over to your house.

“We didn’t get our movie date.” Was his explanation as he popped The Lost Boys into your VCR and all but hopped in bed beside you. When you’d remained standing by your dresser, eyeing him with both curiosity and sheer happiness radiating off of your face, all you got was a confused look out of Billy before he patted your mattress. “You going to get that ass over here or what?”

So, naturally, you’d joined him.

And it took all of thirty-two minutes of watching the film for the two of you to end up pawing at one another as the tension of the day slowly peeled off of you with every layer of clothing the two of you tore off one another.

In no time, you were both stark naked on your bed as The Lost Boys played on without an audience. All Billy cared about watching was you. Watching you writhe and moan. He could watch you do just about anything, but it was that dreamy look you got on your face whenever he touched you that he had imprinted into his skull. It didn’t even have to be sexual. You just had a certain look whenever the two of you connected, one that he felt but managed to keep stowed away inside of him, but one you expressed. It was happiness.

Pure, unadulterated, bliss.

He knew you. Knew your body in and out, knew how to get you to come undone, knew what made you tick, what made you squirm.

You were muscle memory to him, at this point.

He knew you better than he knew himself.

Which is why, when you subtly stopped him from slipping his fingers inside of you, that Billy’s focus went to your ass. The only time you pushed his hand away after he’d spent minutes sucking and biting and focusing on those perfect tits, was when you were on your period.

So, he didn’t push it.

The two of you had fucked a few times whilst you were on it but you were deadest on limiting that to the lighter days. The very beginning or the end. Never in the middle. But god, did he want to experience the middle days.

You were so fucking horny when you were on your period and why you thought he’d give a shit about how much blood came out of you as the two of you fucked was beyond him.

So, he’d focus on your ass. Something that drove you to the brink of insanity and something that made him harder than anything.

But tonight, it wasn’t enough.

He needed all of you.

Ever since the cabin, he’d needed more of you in his life. It had become nearly impossible for him to show any iota of affection for Sid now that he’d had a taste of what life felt like with you at his side. You were his Final Girl. His everything, if he was being completely honest. And, while he knew he couldn’t open himself up to you to that extent, not yet, he needed you to feel that raging darkness inside of him. Not too much of it, but just enough to gauge your reaction.

If you could handle a shred of it, maybe he could share more of himself with you.

The darker parts.

His hands stilled as they trailed down your body and, as he hovered over you, he bit his lip and slowly drew tiny circles into your hips. “You’re on your period, right?”

You nodded, your lips swollen from the amount of kissing having gone on since popping the movie in. “Yeah, but it’s not a light day.”

He nodded in understanding as he bit his lip. “You think we could try it, anyway?”

Your eyebrows raised in mild amusement. “By not a light day, I mean its kind of heavy, Billy. It’d look like a crime scene in here.”

Billy made sure to keep his face stoic, but the idea of the two of you fucking whilst covered in blood was nearly enough to make him come on the spot.

“Aren’t you curious?” He asked, dipping his head down to lick your painfully hard nipple. “It’s got to feel so fucking good, right?”

You ran your fingers through his hair and sighed in contentment when he began to suck your tit again. “It’s messy, though.”

“Lucky for you,” he released your nipple and kissed the sensitive flesh of your breast. “I like messy.”

Your head flopped back against the pillow as you thought over his request. I did feel good, but did you want Billy to have to witness you cleaning up a fucking homicide scene once he was through with you?

Blowing out a quiet raspberry, you eyed him with mock suspicion before he gave you those goddamn puppy dog eyes. “Ugh,” you groaned with a laugh, “fine. Let me take this fucking tampon out and I’ll grab a towel to put underneath me because it is heavy, and you will be grossed out.”

Billy’s cock twitched as he watched you roll out of bed before disappearing in the bathroom. Within a few moments, he heard the toilet flush and the sink run before you re-emerged with a towel in hand.

He could watch you parade around like that all day. Naked, eyes hooded from desire, nipples and lips red from where his mouth had staked its claim.

You were perfect.

A vision.

You were fucking everything.

“I’ve been wanting to try this with you for a while.” He admitted, watching you carefully roll the towel onto the bed before perching your ass directly on top of it so as to avoid any potential leakage onto your sheets.

“I wish I could say I was shocked.” You teased, laying back down. Spreading your legs, he watched you slip a finger through your folds to tease your clit.  

He swallowed as he watched you finger yourself. But then your words sank in and a panic settled in his chest as he swept his eyes up your body to meet your amused stare. “What’s that mean?”

You shrugged so casually as you continued the tirade on your own pussy. “All the scary movies we watch and stuff. You get hard as a rock if there’s a scene with a pretty girl and some blood.”

Billy froze. This was only supposed to be a peek inside of his darkness, not a full-blown window. But you didn’t seem all too fazed by it either, which confused him endlessly.

Rather than deny it, Billy hesitantly reached for your cunt to replace your fingers with his own. He didn’t delve inside of your pussy just yet, just circled your clit the way you’d been doing seconds prior. “And that doesn’t bother you?” He whispered, placing a kiss to the side of your neck.

“Nah,” you hummed, “we’ve all got our kinks, I guess.”

You released a quiet moan as he pinched your clit, but his eyes never left your face. He knew you were talking about blood in respect to the movies, but your casual tone still caught him off guard. There was no shame in it, no doubt. Just an honest to god shrug as he circled your clit with his middle finger.

Testing the waters, Billy slipped his fingers down your pussy so that his thumb coaxed your clit as he slipped two fingers inside of you. At first, it simply felt like you were soaked on account of all of the teasing and, maybe you were, but as he glanced down at the base of his fingers as he pulled them out of you, Billy nearly moaned.

Blood.

Your blood.

All over his fingers, pooling along the top of his palm.

Billy was fascinated. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt blood between his fingers, but not like this. When he’d killed Maureen Prescott, there was so much fucking blood that he’d been sick afterwards. He hadn’t expected that level of destruction but, after puking a few blocks away, he didn’t exactly shy away from it. He thought about it often, thought of the carnage that had surrounded him once he’d finished with Sidney’s mother, thought of the way the blood felt between his fingers, splayed and smattered across every inch of his body.

But this was euphoric.

Because he didn’t have to hurt anybody to feel that warmth on his palm. In fact, as he slowly slipped his fingers inside of your hot cunt, he was doing anything but. You were gyrating into his hand, unknowingly spreading your blood further and it was killing him. He was so fucking hard, too fucking hard, but he didn’t want to rush a damned thing.

He’d thought about this far too often for it to be over so soon.

“Fuck,” he whispered, slipping his hand out of your pussy just long enough to slowly spread your blood down your inner thigh. It left a fine red trail that he had every intention of lapping up in a few seconds if you were to allow it. “You feel so good, baby.”

He’d half expected you to make a comment about making a bigger mess than what your piddly little towel would allow but, as he slowly found your hooded eyes through the dim light of your bedroom, only hunger marred your pretty face.

Desire.

Intrigue.

Leaning in, Billy placed a small kiss to the apple of your cheek as his fingers continued to fuck you. “Does this feel good?”

“So good,” you rasped out, leaning your forehead against his as you bit your lip to swallow back a moan. Between your arousal and the blood, the natural lubrication that coated your pussy as he slowly pumped his fingers inside of you all the while rubbing your clit was killing you. “So fucking good, Billy.”

He smirked and quickened his pace on your clit just enough to drive you to madness as he bit down on your earlobe. His breath was hot against your cheek. “I want to taste you tonight.”

Though the promise of his tongue replacing his thumb enticed you, the fact that you were on day two and a half of your period was not a good plan. So why were you intrigued? A part of you wanted to see if he’d put his money where his mouth was but a much larger part of you wanted to see how feral Billy could get where you were concerned.

Torn, you pulled back and searched his eyes. “It’s going to be…messy, Billy.”

His dark chuckle was velvet against your skin. “I already told you,” he curled his fingers inside of you and admired the way your entire body twitched. “I like messy.”

He began to kiss his way down your body. You tried not to get lost in the feeling of his tongue swirling across every inch of your skin on his way down or the way his teeth nipped and bit at your stomach and hips as he positioned himself between your thighs. But mainly, you tried not to focus on how fucking bloody it was between your thighs because you knew that Billy wouldn’t be down there long on account of it.

“You don’t have to do this tonight, Billy,” you tried to reason, chest heaving in anticipation as he settled between your legs.

Something flashed across his face as he held your stare. For a second, you were almost sure he was going to back out and leave well enough alone, but then you watched as the bastard leaned into your pussy and raked his tongue from the base of your pussy right up to your bloodied mound.

He held your stare the entire time.

“I want you like this,” he assured you, yanking you further down the bed so that you were right at the edge. His voice was hoarse and breathy and as you chanced a look down at him through a pair of hooded, drowsy eyes, you watched him pump his cock with his free hand as he licked his lips. “I love you like this.”

You opened your mouth to respond but the words died in your throat when he buried his face between your thighs. You gasped at the contact but didn’t shy away from his touch for a single second as he slowly lapped at your core. With the one hand still gripping your hips, holding you firmly against his tongue, you knew there would be bruises where his fingers carved into your flesh, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. He was desperate to get you closer into his face and you were desperate to feel that perfect fucking tongue on your pussy.

It was as though he’d been possessed in those few moments. Billy couldn’t get enough of you on a good day but tasting you like this was enough to make Billy wild. Your pussy, the blood mixed with your slick, tasted so fucking good on his tongue. Burying his face further into your folds, he nuzzled at your clit and, now forgetting about his own pulsing cock, pulled you even closer.

Throwing your legs over his shoulders, Billy moaned into your pussy and bit down on your clit just enough to entice a moan that was probably a little too loud for your parents being home. But, he didn’t care. He refused to care in that instance.

All he wanted, all he cared about, was tasting as much of you as humanly possible before making you come on his tongue.

His name tore out of your throat as you gripped his hair between your fingers and pulled. You were being rougher than normal, and he fucking loved it. You were pulling on his hair and bucking into his mouth with such hunger that he could barely breathe but fuck he didn’t care. If this was how he was taken out, so be it.

“Baby,” you whined, voice low. “Fuck, I’m going to come.”

Your grip on his hair was vice-like as the veins in your neck swelled. With wild, laboured breaths, you found yourself bucking into his mouth as a white-hot orgasm rippled through your entire body. You moaned and groaned and cursed into the bed, but Billy’s mouth was relentless.

It wasn’t until he was absolutely sure you couldn’t take another second of torture, that he pulled away and allowed you to collapse back onto the bed. Your cheeks were flushed, and your lips were parted as you attempted to catch your breath. With a quiet chuckle, he kissed his way up your body, grinning against your skin as your legs continued to twitch.

He could feel your blood all over his chin and nose and as he licked it off, using his fingers to swipe at the areas his tongue couldn’t quite reach, Billy was coasting on a high that only you could provide.

“Oh, god,” you buried your face into the pillow with a quiet laugh as you moved to get off the bed. “Hang on, I’ll grab you a towel for your face.”

“No,” Billy shook his head and grabbed for your wrist. “I want to see it.”

You blinked and scraped your eyes along his bloodied face. Your nipples were still rock hard and your cunt was still pulsing on account of his tongue, but it was the look of pure ecstasy on his face that made you clench.

He was being serious.

“Come with me,” he hummed, slipping off of the bed to head towards the small bathroom attached to your room. His fingers threaded through yours as you both walked across your bedroom before flicking the light on.

The vision that he was met with made his cock twitch.

Your blood coated almost everything from his nose down his chin and as you stood beside him, looking at him through the mirror, still fully naked and still housing bloody handprints left behind from his busy hands coating the lower half of your body, Billy had never wanted to bury himself inside of you any more than he did right then and there.

He found your curious stare through the mirror. Your pretty eyes swept over the mess of blood left behind on account of you and as you turned to face him, he found himself hypnotized as you reached out to sweep his hair back and away from his forehead.

“Blood suits you,” you teased with a small smile. “Horrifically enough.”

He said nothing as those brown eyes soaked you in but as he stepped into you, cornering you against the sink counter, the look on his face said everything. He didn’t kiss you though. He seemed to hesitate, as though gauging if you’d kiss him whilst covered in your own menstrual blood. “Is this okay?”

“I don’t know.” You admitted almost sheepishly.

He nuzzled your neck and slipped his knee between your thighs to allow himself better access to your pussy. With his hand wrapped securely around his cock, he slipped the head of his dick along your folds and swallowed hard as he watched your blood coat the head of it. “Fuck,” he whispered as his forehead fell against your own. “You’re going to make me come before I’m even inside of you.”

You were watching his face as he once again slipped the head of his cock through your folds so it teased your clit. His eyes were so dark and there was so much desire in those warm eyes that it almost caught you off guard.

“You’re really into this,” you remarked quietly. When his eyes found yours, you could see blind panic cross over his face as he instinctually took a step away from you. You stopped him before he could think of stopping himself. “Hey,” you cooed, reaching out for his face. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing, relax.”

You felt the tension in his shoulders disperse as you played with the curls at the nape of his neck. “You’re too good for me,” he muttered, cradling your face. “You know that?”

“Oh, yeah,” you goaded with a smile. “I know.”

He barked out a quiet laugh and ground his hips into yours. “A smartass, too.”

You hummed as his hands slid down your body to hold you against the counter. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything.” Billy nipped at your neck.

You leaned back to allow him full access to your neck. “How did I taste?” Your words seemed to make him still as he slowly pulled back to search your eyes. “With the blood. How did it taste?”

The look on Billy’s face was primal as his grip on your hips tightened. Leaning in, he nudged your nose so that your lips were perfectly aligned with his. “Kiss me and find out.”

You weren’t sure at first, but as he closed the distance between you, you found yourself leaning into the kiss both curious and slightly mortified by the taste of your blood on his lips. It was strange and you weren’t sure if you liked it at first, if you were being honest. It was coppery and a little sticky and yet as he walked the two of you out of the bathroom and back towards your bed, you found yourself hungry for more.

With your fingers tangled through his hair you gave it a tug, garnering a low growl that rumbled in his throat as he continued on with the bruising kiss. When the back of his knees hit your bed, the two of you fell into a jumbled mess on your mattress, never once breaking for air as your tongues battled for dominance.

Expertly, knowing the way your body moved better than anyone, Billy moved you in such a way that he was sitting up in the middle of your bed as you straddled his lap. And as you lowered yourself onto his pulsing cock, the gruff low moan that tore out of his lips was enough to kill you.

His large hands splayed out across your back, guiding you further into his hungry mouth as your bleeding cunt teased him beyond belief. You were so wet and with every twist of your hips and every gentle moan, he was finding it harder and harder to concentrate on anything else besides just how fucking good you felt.

Digging your nails into his shoulders, blood slowly pooled in the wake of your crescent moon shaped nail markings. He hissed at the sensation and squeezed your tits rather roughly as he tried to stop himself from coming right then and there.

But then you lowered your lips onto his shoulders and he felt your hot tongue trace over every last cut and he almost lost it. There you were, with dried blood all over your chin and parts of your cheeks from having kissed him after going down on you, licking the blood that gathered along his shoulders.

He was in a state of euphoria.

“You are so fucking gorgeous.” He pushed out, revelling in the feel of how warm and wet your pussy felt.

Rather than say a word, all you did was bite down on the reddened area of his shoulder as you quickened your pace on his dick.

Drawing more blood.

Licking up more of his blood.

Something in him snapped to life in that instance. An almost ancient need bubbled to the surface as he held you there against him. Your tits bounced as you writhed on top of him and as he began to meet you halfway with violent, earth shattering thrusts, the outside world ceased to exist.

The sound of his balls hitting your sopping pussy combined with the sound of your wetness, both slick and blood, squelching all around the two of you was all that surrounded you as you whined out his name. You could barely breathe as he pounded into you, barely function.

“Billy, fuck, I—”

His mouth buried your words with another hungry kiss. You were both breathless and desperate to be as close to the other as humanly possible as you sat on your bed, fucking each other raw. His tongue slid along your bottom lip, gently tugging at it as his forehead fell against your own.

There was a shift after the cabin that you’d both felt inside of you, but there was a shift in the air tonight, as well. An unspoken trust, of sorts, that went beyond anything the two of you were prepared for.  

His hips bucked into yours one final time before he came undone inside of you. A flood of warmth settled in your belly as he came and as his thumb continued to circle your clit, rubbing and pinching at it every step of the way, you soon followed suit.

With one last shaky pump, Billy held you there as he slowly pulled out of you. He kissed your lips, your cheek, down your neck, and along your shoulder before his eyes found yours once again.

His thumb skirted across the apple of your cheek. “You’re my girl,” he whispered, revelling in just how fucking gorgeous you looked in that instance. “You know that?”

“I do,” you affirmed, kissing him softly. “You’re helping me clean my fucking bedsheets in the morning,” you muttered, “do you know that?”

Despite everything, Billy found himself smiling across at you before glancing down at the bloody mess of your sheets. “Yeah,” he chuckled, “I do.”

“Good,” you gently smacked his cheek and crawled off of your bed towards the bathroom.

“Where you going?” He asked, watching your naked body pad out of the room.

“Shower,” you merely said before popping your head around the corner. “Care to join me?”

Billy was at your side within the blink of an eye.

hehehehehehehe let me know if yall like it 

[divinejudge]

The relief come evening was almost enough to lull him on his feet. For a large guy in armour the scorching heat of the day damn near cooked him on that first day — not that it could have possibly been his first day in existence, he was hardly a swaddled newborn.

Though Alexander couldn't recall a time before it. Try as he might, wandering the sands was his very first memory. Like he simply blinked his eyes open and began life half-buried in rich, red sand and soil. The thrum of an unusual rock had been the sound that pulled him from his deep slumber.

He didn't much care for the red glow of it. Something akin to anxiety swelled in his chest at the mere sight, and so he did the most logical thing in that moment. He forced himself to rise up and began a slow and trudging journey for anywhere else. Eventually he had more than rock as his landmark, an unusual metal sculpture decorated a distant hill. He angled his feet towards it and decided to try his luck there.

What coloured him more, he wasn't certain. The red soil of the landscape or the merciless sun beating down on him. He burned and blistered on that agonising trek, though more strange structures formed, and then a bridge, and something like buildings. The hope of finding a settlement that had not been abandoned kept him going, one foot in front of the other, marching ever onward.

Not that he could think back on that first day with a great amount of pride. Truth be told, he collapsed before he ever found his answers. The glinting off his metal armour had caught the attention of a curious Planetologist, as he was told, who just so happened to adjust their scope at just the right angle to spy him out there in the arid landscape. They sent a guard to see if he was alright. Said guard had to trek back for reinforcements — unfortunately for them, he was very much alive, and moving his otherwise dead weight was quite a pain in the arse.

Ever since, Alexander had been attempting to settle his debt. He had been taken in. Given treatment and medicines. A bed. Meals. There was no shortness of kindness from folk, especially when it came to light that the strange metal man didn't remember anything. Not a damned thing.

'Alexander' had been finely detailed upon his sword's scabbard. He wasn't even certain if that was his name, or that of his weapon. It had a familiarity to it, and so he didn't mind borrowing the name until he could be certain. If that day ever came.

Talking hadn't helped. Guided meditation wasn't for him. Then the suggestions about an upcoming ceremony started to filter in. The Rivers of Light helped to guide the people of Cosmo Canyon. Sure would be nice.

Admittedly he didn't have a lot of faith in it all. People were well-meaning. They wanted to help, for him to be well. He appreciated everything they had done for him — but it felt like a lot of wishful thinking. Not that he was about to burst anyone's bubble. He kept his head down. Smiled politely. Spent his day helping around the community, which was a lot of hauling heavy items up and down the wooden platforms which he didn't mind. It was nice busy-work that made him feel more useful. And before he knew it, the night of the ceremony had arrived.

Alexander contemplated missing it entirely, but it was impossible. Folk around here could talk of nothing else and he voiced no complaints when he was inevitably urged to go on and find his place in attendance.

Naturally he stood at the back of the forming circle, though it was for more reason than his height. He didn't want to be pulled into the ceremony too much. After all, he had no idea what to expect, or what might be expected of him, so it was better to stand back and watch on...

From that vantage point, he eventually brushed gazes with another. Though he didn't hurry to look away, or acknowledge her with a smile or a nod. He locked gazes with her and felt a strange... gravity. He stood a little straighter and arms slowly uncrossed. The speaker's voice echoed through the canyon but he didn't hear their words. Then he made his slow advance, eyes still locked on her, picking his way around the fringes of the circle. Part of him didn't want to interrupt, while another, louder part of him wanted to walk right through the middle. He had enough self-restraint to not walk through fire to sate his curiousity.

There were a few brushes and bumps with others, he apologised, but kept moving until he finally reached where she stood in the crowd. He was likely blocking the view for a few others now but that was far flung from his mind.

"Excuse me." he spoke, working his throat with a swallow as someone nearby hushed in his direction. When he spoke again, it was in a whisper. "Have we met?"

@divinejudge found the Siren

The first time Melissa heard of that ceremony was back at her job - it was not uncommon for the singer to be approached at the end of her shifts by an appreciative patron who wanted to convey a particular word of praise or gratitude for her talents, as ignored as they could be over the chatter of excited conversation and fine dining.

But that man had a peculiar expression on his face - as if he had been moved to tears or close to it by her singing alone. The same individual mentioned to Melissa that her voice had reminded him of something unique - a sense of belonging that he couldn't describe. The only other time he felt such a connection, he said, had been in Cosmo Canyon. Away from the city lights, the noise and pollution of the biggest towns like Midgar and with darkness breached by moonlight and starlight only.

Cosmo Canyon became some sort of objective for Melissa then. It was not as if she was missing something - in fact, being close to the sea and able to pay the bills with her performances during dinner time at the piano lounges had been more than a dream. As a slum girl like many others from the underplate of Midgar, the woman had been lucky to get out - and to afford a decent life, even if lacking in material comforts and the luxury one would otherwise expect when looking at her. But the songstress presented to the patrons was a persona - the dresses were loaned, the make-up belonged to the hotel and she had nothing of her own except a gifted mezzo-soprano range.

Little by little, the woman saved enough for a trip there - gil for air tickets, modest lodgings and food to visit that part of the planet that had such a different history. No mako reactors in sight, no corporation with their claws around - and it didn't take long for Melissa to realize that even if the ocean was very far away from her, it felt strangely welcoming to be surrounded by the local canyons and crisp air.

The woman did everything she could on that first day - attended a seminar or two, perused the wares of the local artisans and listened to their stories, had some native food and even a quick tour of the sights on a chocobo ride. All that was left on that day was to shower and prepare for the most well-known festival of the place: the Rivers of Light. Melissa had read enough about it and seen pictures of the moments where lanterns were released and something magical happened, but the songstress looked forward to watching it in person.

The brunette took the lift to the lower area with many other guests, then followed directions to get her own lantern prepared before heading towards the bonfire that was not yet fully lit. Local scholars and representatives held torches and a speech or two were expected, so Melissa quietly looked for a good spot to stand while waiting for everything to begin. Step by step, she was taken towards the opposite side where the lift had landed, giving her a perfect angle of the fire that would grow larger at the end of the ceremony...

...As well as of one of the tallest individuals in attendance. At first, the songstress thought it was his height that had drawn her eye given how uniquely he stood out, but after a while she was not so sure. Even discounting the man's size, there was something that kept Melissa's gaze firmly locked onto him, almost to the point of impolite curiosity. With the orange glow of the flickering flames casting his profile in an inviting warmth, the brunette found her breathing catching on the throat and the hands tightening their hold of the lantern just for a bit.

Looking at him - that man - felt strangely familiar. Almost like fate, and she had no idea why.

[jekacatrina]

Dressed for battle

This is a small one shot I wrote to keep my mind of some fucked up things happening in my life right now. This is my take on how Bakugou managed to look like this:

Katsuki finishes buttoning up his shirt perfectly for once, and scowls at his reflection. He looks stiff and uncomfortable, and that's because he fucking is.

He sighs, bunching up the tie he holds in his hand, and marches out of his room. He glances briefly at Kirishima's door, and tosses aside the obvious option. Katsuki feels too much to deal with him at the moment.

He stomps his way to the room exactly above his, and punches the door until an inexpressive face meets his.

"Bakugou?" The only reaction he gets from Todoroki is a slight raise of eyebrows.

Katsuki checks the hallway for nosey fuckers, then plants a hand firmly on IcyHot's chest and pushes him back into the barely decorated space.

"Is there something wrong?" he asks, as Katsuki firmly closes the door behind.

Just everything about this situation, Katsuki thinks, mind traveling to a certain idiot with self sacrificial tendencies and a grip on Katsuki that he was never able to shake off. He no longer wants to, so he's glad for it, even if he wants to beat some sense into Deku's thick skull.

"Do my tie, dumbass," Katsuki holds up the red offending item in front of Todoroki's face. A direct command is the closest thing he can get to a request, to asking for a favor. Katsuki would rather avoid putting himself in any scenario where he is in a vulnerable position, but what they're about to do, ambush the Number One hero and demand help, requires him to be on his best behavior. 

He's not doing this for him, this is for Deku. 

Where Kirishima would have probably teared up and had a heart attack, IcyHot just gives him a slow blink.

"Oh, okay," Todoroki carefully takes the tie from him, handling it with ease, unlike Katsuki, who was holding it like it was a venomous snake. "I didn't think you owned one." His tone is even, calm, like Katsuki is not breaking some walls between them. IcyHot is so weird, he makes everything seem normal, and that's something Katsuki needs right now.

"Fuck off," he scoffs, lifting the collar of his shirt so Todoroki doesn't get any ideas of touching him more than what's strictly necessary. "It's Shitty Hair's spare one," he confesses for some reason. Katsuki scowls inwardly, but figures that he can be straight with IcyHot after all that has happened. 

Again, Todoroki barely reacts and that makes Katsuki feel less on edge.

"I'm stepping closer," he warns him, acting as if Katsuki is a wild animal. He appreciates the gesture, even though he rolls his eyes.

Todoroki throws the tie behind his neck and lays the two ends across his chest.  Katsuki tenses, but forces himself to relax, letting the idiot work through the process.

He's not paying attention to IcyHot, it's not like he'll start wearing his tie outside of this occasion, so Katsuki is looking at some point over his shoulder when Todoroki speaks up.

"Midoriya is going to be okay," he doesn't know whether he's trying to convince himself or Katsuki.

"I know that," he spats, frowning. "We just have to drag his stupid ass back here," he clenches his hands into fists, remembering the letter and how furious he felt as he read it. Deku has a lot of explaining to do. Katsuki hasn't stopped thinking about some parts, and that makes him get even angrier.

"He's not going to make it easy, is he?" Todoroki asks, undoing an almost finished knot, and starting over. Katsuki doesn't call him out on it, letting him say his piece is the least he can do.

"We can handle him, Half and half," Katsuki states, ignoring the bandages wrapped around his stomach, and how the shirt stretches over the ones on his left arm.  With his half healed burns, Todoroki is not better than him. His evil and very not dead older brother was a second wind away from leaving him well done instead of medium rare. Still, Katsuki believes they are enough.

Deep down, he knows Deku is not someone they have to handle, he's someone they have to reach. The entire class is a good start, but Katsuki plans to finish everything himself.

Todoroki hums appeased, tightening the knot, and Katsuki bats his hands away. He can do this part alone. IcyHot steps back, lowering his mismatched eyes to his shoes.

With nothing else to say, Katsuki turns on his heels and opens the door. 

"Bakugou?" 

"What?" Katsuki glances at him over his shoulder.

"Thanks for rallying us," he's giving him that small smile that gets on his nerves. Though, less than before. Huh, he must be getting soft.

"Tch! Make sure to chew your old man a new one," Katsuki says, ignoring the misplaced gratitude. He has his own reasons to step in; he has never been one to stay put and let things happen. If the others want to join in, fine by him. "I'll take over when I see fit." He's about to leave, when he grips the tie and studies it. "This doesn't suck," he comments, trusting Todoroki not to be as dense as to misunderstand what he means, but can't say.

"Thank you," IcyHot says for him.

"See ya, Half and Half."

Katsuki walks back to his room, dressed for battle and prepared for victory, as usual.

----

I just have so many feelings about that tie, guys, and those two being friends? Amazing ✨

[the-broken-truth]

The dimitrescus, Donna and Mother Miranda x 👨 reader. Reaction when reader is working out shirtless? (Love your works by the way, can't stop reading all of it!💕)

Broken Truth (Looks at Ask): This is interesting...LET'S GO!!!

- Alcina Dimitrescu -

Alcina was walking around the castle, looking for her lover.

When she woke up - he was not in bed.

When she went to the kitchen - he was not there either.

She searched the garden (He loved tending to the flowers), the library (He would read there with Bela), the armory (Daniela loved showing her father figure all the weapons she had), and the study (He would pat with Cassandra) - he was not in any of those places and none of the girls had seen him.

Then she remembered that her lover had been having a hard time lately when Mother Miranda commented that he didn't look like much and wasn't worthy of being by Alcina's Side.

He spent most of his money on him - none of Alcina's - to purchase metal contraptions to 'become worthy of his wife'.

He had been in that room for hours on end for about 5 months now.

'He might be in there.' Alcina wondered as continued down the hall to her Husband's Workout Room.

The closer she got to the room - the door was open and the light was on the room - the sound of grunting and metal clanking together got louder and louder.

She ducked her head a bit and walked into the room - holding her hat to make sure it didn't fall off - and rose to her full height. She opened her mouth the speak but once her sight was no longer obscured by the brim of her hat, her jaw dropped, her face began to warm up, and her body tingled.

Before her - her husband stood: his back was to her and he was wearing nothing except his boxers - his very tight boxes; she would see his defined butt and it was amazing.

In his hands were large weights that he lifted and flexed his muscles - Alcina could see every muscle flex.

His skin was shining with sweat and the smell of his musk was driving Alcina crazy - she wanted to jump his bones. So very bad.

What she didn't know was that her beloved had developed a sense to detect her and knew she was watching him...so he decided to tease his Lady and Mistress.

He dropped the weights in his hands and raised one of them opened palmed to the sky before summer suiting forward and landing on that hand to where his feet were pointing to the ceiling before beginning his set of one-handed push-ups. This time - facing her.

Alcina's eyes widened at her lover's chiseled body - the drops of sweat flowing through the cracks of his abs and biceps...then she made the mistake of looking up and saw the large bulge in his tight underwear.

That's it - she had enough.

"Beloved." She called out, making the man look at her with a smirk - her face was bright red and she was biting her bottom lip.

"Alcina, My Love. When did you arrive?" He asked faking confusion.

"That doesn't matter. I need you to accompany me to our bed chambers. Now."

"Our Bed Chambers?" The man asked as he flipped him to stand upright. "It is breakfast time, is it not?" He raised an eyebrow as he walked closer to the tall woman - his scent flooding her nose.

"Well..." Her eyes glowed dangerously, "I'm having Blood Sausage for breakfast."

She grabbed his wrist and marched to their room with him in tow, locking the door, and refused to leave that room until she was pregnant with the Latest Dimitrescu Spawn.

- Bela Dimitrescu -

Bela was bored and in need of some cuddles so she went looking for her lover - the only man-thing her mother and sisters approved of.

She looked at the grandfather clock and saw it as around 9:45 - her lover would be in his workout room to burn off any extra energy before showering and going to bed.

She floated down the hall to her husband's workout room and walked into the room without knocking - it was her man and she could do whatever she wanted regarding him.

What she wasn't prepared for was the sight on the other side of that door.

Her Husband was boxing with the sandbag.

In nothing but his boxers.

She could see everything - from the singular drops of sweat that ran down his sculpted body to every single flex of muscle with every move he made.

If the sight didn't have her done it - it was his smell.

The room was filled with the smell of musk that he was giving off and it was intoxicating - it radiated power and it was making her hungry.

"Darling?" His deep voice returned her from her fantasies of all the ways she wanted him to rock her world but the fact she could see his imprint from his shorts sent her mind back into the gutter. "Bela, is there something wrong?"

"Do you always...working out like this at night?" She questioned as she walked slowly to her man.

"Yes, it's hard to move in clothes; I keep my boxers on just make sure I don't scar any maids."

"Scar Them?" Bela tilted her head with a dangerous gleam in her eyes. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well...the one time I worked out naked, a maid came in without knocking and she looked like she saw a ghost."

Bela was pissed.

"A maid saw you naked?!" She hissed. "Where is that harlot?!"

"Your Mother turned her into wine 3 nights ago."

'Good, I won't have to kill her myself. As for you..."

"NGH!" He clenched his teeth as Bela's hand wrapped around his throbbing manhood.

"You're going to learn to lock your door when in this room...and punishment for failing to inform me about that whore."

The Next Morning - Bela & [Y/N] weren't at breakfast.

- Cassandra Dimitrescu -

Cassandra would already be with her beloved because they were each others' sparring partners.

Cassandra would be doing push-ups while her beloved would be jumping rope.

She would look at him and smirk - she loved the way his body moved during intense workouts and the smell he gave off was perfect; it made her hungrier and hungrier with each passing moment.

When it would be time for the spar - her lover would use one arm to test himself more than he needs to for he wanted to be worthy of dating a Dimitrescu Daughter.

While sparring - Cassandra would try to pin him and have her ay with him - whether that would be drinking his blood or having him devour her like a full course meal.

This time - it was different.

She threw a punch at him but it was grabbed by his free arm and used against her to wrap around her neck, once he was behind her, he used his knees to the back of hers to make her fall to them and then lay on the mat.

Once his other hand was free, it snaked around her body and into her shirt, where it grabbed and twisted one of her nipples - making the girl squirm under him.

"D...Darling? What are you...?" She began but was cut off when his teeth locked into her neck.

"Every time we train, you make me submit to you. This time - you're mine, Cassandra Dimitrescu."

And his was exactly what he made her.

Daniela walked down the hall looking for her sister when she heard moaning coming from behind the door leading to the training room - she leaned in to listen and went to find her mother.

"Mother?"

"Yes, Dear?" Alcina asked as she looked up from the book she was reading.

"Why didn't you tell us Daddy was coming to visit & he brought presents?"

"Darling, you don't have a father."

"Then why did I hear Cassandra saying "More, Daddy! More!" in the training room?"

Alcina went wide-eyed as the glass in her hand shattered and the one thing she thought was...

'I'm too young for grandkids...'

- Daniela Dimitrescu -

CHOMP!!

"OW!!!"

She smelled something delicious and followed that smell to her lover's training room and found him completely naked with the exception of his undergarments, shadow boxing himself.

He looked like a full snack with the sweat making his body glaze and his muscles looking like beefcakes - he was just begging to be bitten and that's exactly what she did.

"Daniela? What was that for?" He asked her as he looked over his shoulder at his wife - who was clinging to his back like a koala with her fangs in his shoulder blade.

"I couldn't help it, love. Your scent was driving me crazy and I was in the mood for a snack." Daniela tried to say but her fangs were still in his skin.

"Dani, I was training, and as much as I would move to be your mid-morning meal; I need to get back at it if I want to keep the form you love so much."

"I love you for who you are - the body is just a plus. I don't want you to train, I want you to take me to bed and cuddle me."

"But..."

"Do you love me?" Dani asked.

"Yes, without a doubt." He answered.

"Would you do anything for me?" She asked again.

"Without question." He said.

"Then I want you to stop training and take me to our bedroom so that we can cuddle and make little vamp-babies."

"...Okay."

- Donna Beneviento -

Donna would be walking around Beneviento Manor - looking for the man who stole her heart. Who accepted her and her dolls and loved them all equally.

He wasn't in his normal spots but she did remember that he recently got interested in getting in better shape and asked her if there was anywhere in Beneviento Manor she would be alright with him making it into a workout room - she gave him one of the rooms on one of the floors under the house floor.

Donna walked down the hall without Angie as she followed the sounds of something grunting in effort echoing down the hall's walls.

She reached the opened room but didn't want to just walk in and disturb her love so she peeked around the corner and her eye widened while she let a gaspy moan escape her lips,

Her lover was laying on the weight bench with a long metal bar in his large hands - giant iron circles on each end.

She looked closer at the circles - 500 Pounds. That made her shiver - she knew he was strong but to be able to bench that much was...alluring.

She looked at his shining skin.

Listening to her man's grunts with each lift of the bar.

The define lines in his muscles with each movement he made.

It made her hot. She rubbed her legs together before she hid behind the wall completely and pressed her forehead against the cold wall.

She needed to get a hold of herself - she was like she had no control of herself but when she was around him, it was like she forgot all she was and wanted nothing more than her man.

She was so focused on keeping herself from relieving herself right then and there that she didn't notice she was no longer alone until a familiar weight pressed against her back and she was completely pressed against the wall.

"It looks like you have a very serious itch, My Love." his voice growled as his hand moved closer and closer to her throbbing organ.

"I...I can explain..." She blushed in her weak, gasping voice; she was embarrassed but having her lover so close with his body radiating power made her weak.

"Let me...help you with that, My Lady." He growled before one hand reached the buttons on the top of her dress and the other was cupping her womanhood while she bit her lip in hopes of being silent.

A few moments later - he had her on that same bench that was still drenched in his sweat and scent, her hands gripping the metal poles that held the long rod over her head' sweat dripping from her body as she was stretched apart.

She was pleading for him to continue to Beneviento Bloodline with her.

Begging him to make her family's bloodline stronger than it ever was before.

Crying for him to make her a mother.

Who was he to deny his lady what she wished?

- Mother Miranda -

Miranda stood n her lab, looking at the results from the latest experiment and possible host for Eva but once again - it wasn't good enough and it makes her angry.

Once again - so close but so far away.

"Miranda? Love?" A familiar male voice called out to her.

She looked up at was met with the shirtless, bare-chested, sweaty body that was the man she entrusted her heart to.

He stood there in the doorway with a towel around his neck while one hand used an edge of the towel to wipe the sweat from his face.

The Village Leader blushed but then looked away from him to keep from looking upon her face.

"[Y/N]. Darling. I thought we talked about you walking around the lair like that. It's rather...distracting." She said.

"I do hope you'll forgive me but I sensed that something was bothering you and I wanted to make sure you were alright." The man said as he walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her stomach and pulling her back into his bare chest.

"Your...concern for me is welcomed, Darling, but I must return to work. Please, do prepare yourself for dinner; I shall be down in a moment." Miranda said as she reached for a book, only to her lover's hand to stop her.

"Miranda." He turned her to face him - worry and compassion in his eyes. "You've been working on this for over a week straight; you haven't taken any time for yourself...or for me." He was sad - afraid his lover had forgotten about him.

"My Love, I'm sorry I have made you feel this way but...I'm so close, Darling. I can return her to us and...MPH!" She was cut off by a deep kiss. She melted into it before he pulled away from her.

"Enough of this for one night, My Love. Let me take care of you...and make you see you don't need to Cadou for a child. Just...me" He kissed her again and she wrapped her arms around him; submitting to his command and desire.

It would be a year later that Miranda would invite the Lords to meet Eva and Ethan Winters arrived in the village - only for his wife and child to be given back to him and escorted out of the village; never to be seen again.

[reciprocityfic]

#5 for amylaurie

5. that emotional moment that you can't find a plot for.

He’d never had a particularly happy life.

From the beginning, it had been marked with tragedy. He adored his mother, from what he can remember. But his memories, unfortunately, are few and far between. He tried to keep her smile, her laugh, the feel of her hugs and her hand wrapped around his tiny one locked away in his brain and his heart, but over the years, they inevitably began to fade. Before he knew it, he couldn’t quite get the tenor of her voice right, couldn’t remember the sweet words she used to whisper in his ear. She was like a beautifully painted picture, rather than a human being.

If there was someone who adored his mother more than he had, it was his father.

His father took her death the hardest. He tried to find a salve for his broken heart in all the wrong places, began gambling too often and drinking too much, frequently leaving his son alone late into the night to go out and drown his pain in whatever way he could. When his father was home, he could hardly stand to be around him. Everything about Laurie reminded him of her - his eyes, his hair, his nose, his smile. He reached his breaking point eventually, and then he sent Laurie away.

School had never been particularly hard for him. He was smart, he supposed, and he didn’t mind the company of his tutor. Boarding school was different, though. He never quite found a way to fit in. He was too quiet, not quite as rich, and Italian, which mattered in a way he didn’t understand. He always found himself at the center of negative gossip, the butt of too many jokes. He hated it, so he stopped trying to assimilate and let himself fade away into the peripheries of his peers.

When his father died, it was almost a relief; at least the man wouldn’t suffer any longer. But again, it threw him into a world of uncertainty and unfamiliar territory. It sent him to America, into the hands of a grandfather he had never met. As he grew older, he’d come to subtly resent his extended family for disowning him and his parents, and wondered if this grandfather would resent him back.

He didn’t. But his grandfather also wasn’t warm, a product of living so many years alone, Laurie supposes. He knows Mr. Laurence has experienced his share of heartbreak as well; there’s a beautiful piano that sits untouched, that the servants tell him belonged to the old man’s late granddaughter. The few times he tried to play it he’d catch his grandfather looking at him in a way that wasn’t particularly pleasant, so he stopped.

John Brooke - his new tutor - was pleasant enough, earnest and determined to please his grandfather by giving him the privilege of an excellent education. They often butted heads when Mr. Brooke tried to teach him; he couldn’t find him in himself to care much about learning anymore. Couldn’t find it in himself to care about much of anything.

Then, he met Jo March.

His grandfather had noticed his melancholy and sent him to a party to try to lift his spirits. He doubted it would work - how exciting could a party in Concord, Massachusetts possibly be, after all - and quickly found an empty side room to disappear in for a while until he’d spent enough time there that he could plausibly tell his grandfather he’d made an effort to be sociable.

It was there that Jo literally stumbled into him, and changed his life forever.

He’d never in his life met a girl like Jo March, one that was so boisterous and bright and unapologetically herself. In his world, every girl was trained from an early age to be prim and proper and polite, so that someday she might make a good wife and a fine young woman. Jo was anything but, and when he met the rest of the March family, he learned that they all were, in their own way - whether it be Meg and her unabashed love for dramatics and pretty things, or Beth sitting at her piano, playing until her fingers ached.

Or Amy, marching around in a pair of fairy wings and declaring that one day, she would be the best painter in the entire world.

His childhood memories of the Marches were all Jo, her fire and harsh edges and iron will, but Amy was always there at the edges, making herself known. She always seemed to be at odds with her older sister, but he thought that was because the two of them were the most alike in a way, like two opposite ends of the same string. He would always take Jo’s side when she recounted their latest feud, of course, but he couldn’t help his amusement at some of Amy’s antics. He remembers, when Jo told him that Amy had burned her novel, how his sympathy for Jo had existed right alongside of his wild amusement that little Amy March had the gall to even come up with such a thing, let alone follow it through.

But even though Amy was there, along with Meg and Beth, Jo was undoubtedly the main attraction, the sun at the center of his universe. His world was filled with her, with her smiles and laughs and hair and voice, with her words and her thoughts and ideas, and soon his heart was, too. He didn’t know much about love, but he knew he loved her. He knew he wanted her to be a part of his life always.

So, he’d asked her to marry him. It was the only thing to do, wasn’t it?

When she turned him down, he almost hadn’t been surprised. A part of him almost expected it; he hadn’t been particularly excited to ask her, after all. Rather, he’d dreaded it, dreaded the moment that the delicate balance they had built would have to tip one way or the other. He’d always known there was a chance she’d reject him.

That didn’t mean it hurt any less, though. He thinks it hurt even more when she left; he’d always known Jo to dive into every challenge head-first, but then she ran away to New York. She ran away from him. So he followed her lead, as he had learned to do so well over those years with her.

Heading back to Europe was much more bitter than it was sweet, and even the grandeur of cities like London, Paris, and Rome couldn’t stop the vibrancy from slowly bleeding out of his life. What had become a kaleidoscope of colors was now just grays and blacks and whites.

So he drank, and smoked, and gambled, and fucked his way through life, and in a macabre way, never felt closer to his father. Except he wasn’t heartbroken, not anymore - he realized more and more that he never expected her to say yes, not really. That she was right, as she usually was - it would have never worked.

He just felt lost. Unmoored, with nothing to anchor him. And he started to believe that maybe he was simply supposed to live his life this way, alone and adrift and apathetic.

Then, Amy March came barreling back into his life.

She was different, of course - namely, she was no longer little. She had traded her fairy wings and braids for beautiful gowns and carefully coiffed updos, and all her lofty childhood wishes had been replaced with a stoic, resigned realism. It would have worried him, that the world had taken her and hardened her, but he knew that the woman that threw her arms around him and happily shouted his name on that Parisian street, the world around her momentarily forgotten, was the Amy he had always known and cared for, however proper she might be now.

And she was proper, but he found it didn’t bother him like he thought it would. Instead, he admired her for it, that she had managed to grow up so gracefully. She was lovely, he decided. Lovely and refined and determined, so much so that it got him in trouble with her, sometimes. She was constantly after him to be better, to stop his drinking and laziness and make something of his life.

She wanted him to respect himself. He’d never really done that; all his life, he’d known himself to be a bother or problem, a thorn in someone’s side. He didn’t really know how to respect himself, but for her, he wanted to try.

The problem was, it was getting harder and harder to leave her side. She painted in his life with strokes that were insistent, but soft, and he found that her world was just as colorful as her sister’s. It was her own, of course; if Jo had been a red flame, then Amy was a golden glow, like sunshine. But he found that he didn’t mind the differences, that he maybe even preferred Amy’s version. It made him warmer than anything he’d known before.

He doesn’t know exactly when he fell for Amy. It happened slowly, gently, and before he could stop it, she’d taken up all the emptiness in his heart, filled it with light and life and love. Not that he would’ve wanted to stop it; he found he was quite content belonging to her. Even when she rejected him that first time, he didn’t try to remove her. He didn’t resent her, as he had temporarily resented Jo. He knew it was futile, that he was irreparably hers, and he decided that if he couldn’t be with her, he would at least make himself someone she could be proud of. He wanted to be someone she could respect, if he couldn’t be someone she loved.

But then, God had smiled upon him - for perhaps the first time - and she’d changed her mind. She loved him, she wanted him, she loved him. And when he kissed her that first time, she ignited something in him that no woman ever had before. He loved her, he wanted her, her and her only, he loved her, he loved her, he loved her.

His heart sang for her with its every beat. Every breath she took gave him purpose, every smile gave him joy, every kiss and moan and tug on his hair made his blood run hot through his veins. He was so full inside, wanted for nothing. He felt like all his life he’d been trying to shove himself into places where he didn’t fit, whether it be at school or with his father. With Jo. But there was a spot beside Amy, one in which he fit perfectly, like it was created with him in mind. And as long as Amy was beside him, he could do anything, be anything, survive anything.

One of the things that he loves most about her is her beauty. He can’t help it; he is only human. A weak one when it comes to Amy. When she hugged him that first time in France, he’d noticed how the autumn sun had caught the strands of her blonde hair, her cheeks flushed from the way she ran to him. He first let himself realize it in her studio, when she went off to meet Fred Vaughn. There was something about the way her cream-colored blouse laid against her pale skin, the way the blue accents brought out her eyes. How her pinned-up hair showed off her neck. He could do nothing but smile shyly at her, any coherent words suddenly caught in his throat. And every time he saw her, he noticed something else that added to her beauty, whether it be the delicate way she sipped her tea, her lips a pretty pink against the white china, or the way she blushed when he complimented her. Eventually, in a room full of women, she was the only one he could see, as captured as he was by her.

Almost three years later, nothing has changed.

He wakes up in the middle of the night to find her side of the bed empty. He’s almost positive he knows where she is, and almost rolls over and closes his eyes. But he can’t get her out of his head, so he gets up and throws on his robe. The moon shines bright enough that he doesn’t need a candle, and he leaves their bedroom, creeping to the next door down the hall. It’s ajar just slightly, and he slips inside.

And there she is, just where he thought she would be. Standing at the window, staring out into the night. She’s barefoot, dressed in a white nightgown, long hair cascading down her back. The moonlight illuminates her hair and skin. She’s breathtaking. More beautiful than any painting he’d ever seen.

Cradled in her arms is their newborn baby girl.

He doesn’t want to startle her, so he knocks gently against the door. She looks over her shoulder and smiles at him, but quickly goes back to gazing at the newest addition to their family.

He walks over to the two of them, placing a kiss on the top of her head before wrapping his arm around her shoulder and embracing her. There are a multitude of reasons why she might be in here - the baby could’ve been crying, it could’ve been time for a change or a feeding, or Amy simply could’ve missed her, could’ve wanted to hold her and watch her breathe. He suspects it’s the last one, but he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to disturb the peaceful scene in front of him.

He reaches a finger down to their baby, taps at her hand, until she opens her fist and wraps all of her tiny fingers around that one of his. Amy turns her face and nuzzles his shoulder, relaxing against him.

He’d never had a particularly happy life.

But standing here now, both his wife and his daughter in his arms, he knows nothing but.

send me a number and a pairing (preferably laurie x amy) and i'll write you a mini fic!

[noforkingclue]

Your ask box is gonna be my death one day, but I'm a shameless sinner, so here we go again. Been thinking about a prequel to the Butcher prompt you did for me. How the doc joined their team. Or anything else sprinkled with Billy h/c/whump, because it's a drug and my brain needs it so desperately. 🙈

Honestly, I'm seriously beginning to fall in love with this duo.

And I don't know why I always end up with a love-hate, enemies to lovers trope for Butcher x reader fics...

Title: A Bad Second Meeting

The Boys tag list: @captainofmybigwetdream, @scraftskhu35

Everything tag list: @greenrevolutionary, @imjustassaneasyou

You took a big swig of your whiskey and slammed the glass back on the counter. You winced as the liquid burned down your throat and you signalled to the bartender for another. Another glass was swiftly handed to you and as you raised the glass a hand placed itself over the top of it and lowered it back down. You glared at the man who was standing next to you out of the corner of your eye.

“Fuck off.” You said

“Now then love,” he said, “Is that any way to treat an old friend.”

“Please fuck off.”

“After all I’ve done for you and you still treat me like this.”

“All you’ve done for me,” you turned so you were facing him and jabbed him in the chest, “You got me fired. You got me struck off. I can’t work as a doctor anymore because I decided to be a good person and save your life. I think that way I’m treating you is fairly fucking nicely after everything you’ve put me through.”

Butcher grabbed your wrist and gave it a warning squeeze. You tried to pull free but when Butcher’s grip tightened you stopped struggling. He grabbed your whiskey and pulled you to a quiet area of the bar. He pushed you into a booth and sat down opposite you.

“I saved you,” he said after he took a sip of your drink, “From Vought.”

“Oh yes,” you said dryly, “Thank you so much. Now tell me how I’m going to pay my bills, rent, food and everything else? Vought are a bunch of cunts but at least they paid me a decent wage.”

“Enough to make you turn a blind eye to what they’re doing.”

“Maybe I’m not as good a person as you think I am.”

“Then why didn’t you let me die.”

“Professionalism,” you said quickly, “And the fact that I didn’t know who you were until after I saved you.”

“You’re a good doctor but a shit liar,” Butcher leant closer, “You were looking for a way out because you have a conscience but you were too afraid to leave on your own.”

“Oh yes,” you spat, “I wanted to be branded as an enemy and have Homelander threaten me. That was on the top of my bucket list. I wanted to peaceful life where I could help people.”

“Then why join Vought.”

“Because,” you slumped back in your seat, “Sometimes money triumphs over morals.”

“Well,” Butcher drained your drink, “Good thing is I know someone who is looking for a person like you.”

“A job?”

“Sort of.”

“Huh?”

“I’m need people like you,” he pointed a finger at you, “Who hate Vought and wants to see them get brought down.”

“You want me to join your little team?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a team.”

“No,” you stood up, “I hate Vought and I despise you. If I ever see you again it’ll be too soon.”

You snatched your glass from him and drained it in one gulp. You slammed it back on the table and gave Butcher one last glare before you marched out of the bar. Butcher just ran a hand over his face and smirked. Maybe he had underestimated you.