#chapter 36 promises | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

you-know-honey · 2 months ago

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A Strange Guy

Viktor x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 5k

Chapter Summary: Jayce needs to go to Undercity for certain materials if he wants to continue his secret project. Which ends up taking him to the only crazy person who take risks to take him. You. Even if it ends up getting you into more serious problems than street fights.

Series: The Path to Zaun

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N/A: English is not my first language, feel free to correct me in the comments and I'll update it. Remember share if you liked it.

Knock…Knock…Knock

The knocking on the door started softly, like the sound of a drop on wood, almost imperceptible to your ears. The cold air of Piltover came through the window, clean air, so pure that even after so many years your lungs were still not used to it. In undercity you were used to the heavy, dry air, the damp, sticky streets, but above all, dark, where the sun was barely a mirage and everything was ruled by shadows. In the great city of progress everything was full of unusual energy, each piece destined to move with millimetric precision, full of light even at night.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

The knocking became louder, making the beams of your very humble bedroom at the academy vibrate. It was not how you had thought you would end up. A small apartment, so old that you thought maybe Professor Heirmerdinger himself lived there when it was just new, but you couldn't expect anything less, without a last name to bear or a sponsor watching your back it was all you had, and still it was better than having nothing like in undercity.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

You woke up with a start, your back creaking as you stood up from the chair and stretched. Some of your notes were stuck to your face and the ink had been ruined by your drool. You were a complete mess right now, but who would come to your room at this hour? The clock read 2:36 AM. You ran your hands over your face trying to help you wake up and tear the papers off your face.

You walked as best you could to the door, tripping over everything in your way. You swung the door open, through the shadows of the night and your irritated eyes, you focused on a tall, burly man standing in front of you.

“What do you want?” you asked. You weren’t in the mood for whatever that guy needed, besides only one person in the world had the right to visit you in the middle of the night and it definitely wasn’t him.

“Are you Y/N?” he seemed quite nervous, playing with his fingers and avoiding eye contact with you.

You refrained from answering for a moment, if this was some kind of joke from your classmates they would pay dearly for waking you up at this hour. “Who’s asking?”

The boy didn’t seem to expect that answer but he answered as quickly as he could, as if he was holding back from spitting out a wave of words.

“Jayce Talis”

I think the raised eyebrow on your face gave him the message that you had no idea who the hell he was, maybe that’s why he seemed embarrassed.

“Mhmm, and what is Jayce Talis doing knocking on my door?” You leaned back against the door with your arms crossed. “I don’t think you’re coming here just to introduce yourself.”

The boy cleared his throat, as if he was gaining courage to be more firm in his way of speaking.

“You’re from undercity, right?”

“You got it, congratulations.” I joked, giving him a sarcastic, slow applause.

You snapped your fingers in front of him when you caught him looking behind you. “What do you need?”

The academy was very clear about where they wanted to invest the funds they received. The biology faculty was one of the last places on their priority list. It had been years since any of the projects proposed by their students had borne fruit or even been promising. This was the reason why you fell asleep on your desk that night, working on your own project.

“I need you to take me there.”

Your eyes widened before bursting into a loud laugh.

“You? In undercity? Are you crazy?” You’ll be eaten alive.” You tried to stop laughing when the boy’s brow furrowed in disgust, but you couldn’t imagine a guy like him, so well dressed in a place like your home.

The light of a flashlight at the end of the hallway caught both of your attention, your laughter had attracted a police officer who was making rounds in the academy.

“I don’t think you should be here, Jayce Talis” you smiled, ready to close the door and have someone else take care of him.

The man clenched his jaw and clenched his fists, he was annoyed, not at all pleased with you playing with him, the police officer’s increasingly closer steps left them little time to act.

“Hey!” you shouted when the man pushed you aside and snuck into your room, closing the door behind him.

You didn’t say anything when the police officer’s flashlight stopped in front of your door a few seconds before continuing his rounds. The academy was very strict about students in the hallways, their strategy had been foolish and risky. You could scream, alert the police about him…but you wouldn’t, because then you would bear the brunt of the possible punishment.

“What is all this?” he asked, moving from the door to walk curiously around the small living room.

Behind your back, what you had tried to hide from him, was your small private laboratory. The desk was overflowing without space, filled with papers and notebooks in total disarray, one of the walls was completely covered with terrariums, large ones with flowers that possibly no one in Piltover had ever seen before. A sight for someone so curious to Jayce.

“It’s none of your business” you replied, there was no way to excuse the sight, it was just what it seemed. You let yourself fall on the couch reluctantly.

He smiled maliciously “Maybe not, but I bet Professor Heimerdinger did”

Your body rose as if a spring from the couch had lifted it, you grabbed one of the books on the nightstand, the thickest one and threw it in his direction, with such good luck that you managed to hit him directly in the forehead.

“If you say anything I’ll kill you!” you screamed while trying to keep your composure and relax your agitated breathing.

He didn’t scream in pain, although you were sure he would have if it weren’t for the fact that the policeman would have surely heard him and well…it was the female student wing “Crazy…” he sighed while touching his forehead with his fingers, luckily there was no blood. He took the chair from your desk and turned it to sit in front of you, with a grimace you dropped back down onto the couch. “Let’s make a deal.”

You had no other choice so you just nodded.

“Take me to undercity and Heimerdinger will never know about… whatever you do here.” he said as he pointed at the terrariums.

“They’re toxin purifiers…” you muttered under your breath. You weren’t happy that they treated your job like a simple child’s game.

“What?”

“They’re plants that purify the air and earth of toxins, I’m trying to make them work on a large scale.”

“I’ve never seen that kind of plants,” he exclaimed, and it made sense, they were rare and it had been extremely difficult for you to find them, they glowed in the dark, some with leaves that seemed to move like tentacles, others gave the image of a skull.

You let out a small, egotistical and proud smile. “Of course not. They are plants from undercity”

“How did you get them?” he asked, standing up and bringing his hand closer to the glass of one of the terrariums.

“What do you think?” you walked towards him as soon as you saw him approach the terrarium, you had been working on this project for years and you weren’t going to let any of his imprudences ruin it.

He rolled his eyes, you weren’t being easy to deal with, not that you wanted to be. He let out a small growl before turning around to glare at you.

“Are you always this charming?”

“Only with those who enter my room without permission.” You forced a smile.

He sighed again, massaging his temples in frustration.

“Let’s stop playing games, take me to undercity tonight and no one will know about your research. Period.” He crossed his arms, seeming very determined to continue with this crazy idea.

You thought of some way to dissuade him from that, but he seemed too sure and perhaps too desperate for you to convince him. There weren't many undercity students in the academy, you could count them on the fingers of one hand and you would have fingers left over, but you supposed that no one was crazy enough to go down again after all the comforts that the academy offered.

“Why do you want to go?” You asked, giving up, after all if it was something simple you could do it, otherwise you would hit his head with something and leave him in the main hallway so it would seem like it was just a bad dream.

“It's none of your business” he replied, almost in the same tone that you spoke to him.

“You already stuck your nose in my business, it's only fair that I do the same.” He also sighed and sat back down in the chair.

Both of you were realizing that their pride would only lead them to an ego fight until dawn and neither of them were comfortable with something like that.

“I need some machinery parts…” he said, obviously not wanting to reveal too much and biting his tongue to avoid accidentally saying anything too much.

“Machinery parts? You could get that at any market here.” you snorted, finding it ridiculous that he wanted to go down for something he could get in much better condition in Piltover.

“They are specific parts, I couldn’t get them here without raising suspicions” he mentioned, taking a notebook out of his vest.

You hadn’t noticed that he had something inside his clothes, it made your hair stand on end to think that it could have been a weapon and you hadn’t noticed. You swept those paranoid thoughts from your mind to continue listening to him.

“Show me and I’ll tell you where to get it” you walked slowly behind him, leaning an elbow to rest your face on his shoulder, he winced but you didn’t care.

He opened the book to one of the bookmarks, very clever of him, so you wouldn't take a quick look at the rest, on the page there were very specific tools and materials, and you knew that things like that wouldn't be easy to get in the (in your opinion) very basic markets of Piltover, if he said to make them on his own, it would attract the attention of the teaching staff and since this boy had sought you out, that was probably the last thing he wanted.

You looked at the notebook for a moment, hoping to see something that would give you a clue about what he was up to. “You sign every page? A bit of an egotistical on your part.” He just rolled his eyes, but you noticed that he tried to cover his name on the page with his thumb. “Do you have money to pay for something like that? Things aren’t cheap downstairs,” you mentioned, letting your face fall on his shoulder.

“Will this be enough?” he asked, leaving in the coffe table a bag of considerable size with gold coins.

You let out a small giggle. “If you’re not easy to scam, I suppose this is enough.”

“So, do you accept?” He turned his head in surprise, getting too close to yours, both of you moving away from each other as if you were leprosy.

You thought about it for a few minutes, it seemed like something not too difficult to do, go get some gadgets and come back, it didn’t seem that difficult. It would be easy.

“Okay, deal.” You extended your hand to him, who didn’t hesitate to close the deal with a smile.

“So… are we going now?” he asked, like an excited child going on a trip for the first time.

You looked him up and down very critically, everything screamed Piltover boy.

“Not with those clothes.”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?” he asked, looking at himself for any wardrobe flaws.

“Do you want to be stripped? If you come there’s dressing like that, forget about getting anything.” You crossed your arms, thinking of something that might work, you didn’t think he had a change of clothes in his vest.

“Do you have any ideas?”

An invisible lightbulb lit up above your head, accompanied by a mischievous smile that chilled his blood. “I think so…”

“I hate you.” Jayce exclaimed. If looks could kill your body would be unrecognizable.

“Who goes on an undercity with gold details on their clothes?” you quickly replied with a murmur. It wouldn’t be wise for any police to see them right now.

“Couldn’t you get something better?” he stretched the tight collar of the shirt that clearly wasn’t his size.

“The janitor’s clothes are fine, don’t complain.” You poked your head out of one of the alleys. “A cop is coming. Against the wall.”

For once he heard you, it was funny to see him stick to the wall, a little more force and he would go through it. You did the same, clearly with more class than him. It had been a long time since you had worn those clothes, you had buried them in the back of your closet in the hopes of never wearing them again but somehow it was the most comfortable you had been in a long time.

In Jayce’s case you couldn’t say the same, he looked like a cake in the wrong mold, the poor janitor’s uniform barely fit him, the buttons were trying their best not to jump out of the buttonholes of the shirt, you didn’t even try with the shoes, they were too small so you just limited yourself to putting tape on the gold details and making him step in every mud puddle on the way to the bridge.

When the policeman walked away, far enough so that he wouldn’t hear you, you motioned for him to follow you, both of you successfully sneaking to the end.

“This place isn’t so bad” he said as you walked through the streets of the surface.

“This isn’t undercity” you mentioned, giving him a quick glance before quickening your pace and tightening your grip on the backpack on your shoulders.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, as if he didn’t expect that answer from you. Somehow that irritated you.

Going back to that place simply awakened a huge irritation inside you, you couldn't control it, it was the part of you that kept you alive all that time. Both arrived in front of an old establishment in ruins, next to a dark precipice.

“Do you want the easy way or the interesting way?” you adjusted your backpack and began to stretch all the dormant muscles in your body.

“Which is the interesting one?” He asked, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets when you pointed with your head to the precipice “The easy one, definitely the easy one” he quickly said.

You sighed, you had definitely liked the idea of jumping on roofs and sliding down pipes with the minimum of safety.

“As you wish princess” without warning you entered the place, at the back was the elevator “ I was thinking of giving you the panoramic view tour”

Jayce ran after you, as soon as he set foot inside you turned on the elevator and with the sound of old mechanism working you warned them that they were descending.

The sight in front of Jayce left him with his mouth open. The view only gave an industrial and decaying place, in the darkness the only touch of light were the saturated neon signs of some stores, he was surprised how they were still standing, above them rose buildings more similar to the architecture of Piltover, only a few could afford that luxury, as they went down the air became heavier and more humid with different smells that he preferred not to think about too much, he knew that the path would not be easy when you hid a knife in your pocket.

“Just in case” you told him. It's not like he would be of support if they found themselves in crossfire but at least it would be enough to keep away a few addicts and minor criminals.

The elevator soon filled with people and Jayce felt you press your back against his body to make him crash into the wall, you didn't look at him, nor did you apologize, it was what you were used to doing and he seemed to understand it well.

Each inhabitant had a unique style, crazy and anti-gravity hairstyles, old clothes or with patches everywhere, some with prosthetics made to make them look more intimidating than to take care of their health.

Going down you took his hand and pushed him through all the people in the elevator, you received some insults but you wisely ignored them.

Returning gave you back the feeling of hopelessness you used to live with, remembering all the time you were fighting to survive at all costs. Every inhabitant of undercity was resilient, refusing to let themselves die, clinging to life and the dream of something better with nails and teeth.

You shook your head to clear away that fog of thoughts, you weren't here to go back to the streets, you were here for work. Both of you walked in silence a few more blocks, loud and noisy music could be heard coming from most of the premises.

“Keep your eyes forward” you told him when you caught him looking at a modified weapon in the hands of a thug with an unfriendly face.

He listened to you, like a punished puppy he looked at the ground and let himself be guided to a small and lonely alley where they barely change.

“Why are we stopping?” he asked, he seemed somewhat worried. Sure two academy students caught trying to buy contraband in undercity deserved a considerable punishment if they were caught, but to be honest it was the least of the problems they could face right now.

“Show me what you need to finish this quickly.” He quickly pulled out his notebook in the correct bookmark, it was definitely things he could get here. You examined the sheets for a few moments before rushing over and tearing one of them off.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” he yelled at you, pulling the notebook away from you and putting it back. You didn’t need to see his face to know he was very upset about it, the way his voice sounded and the heaving movement of his chest made it very clear to you.

“I’ll give it back to you later, don’t yell, we can’t go together or we’ll attract trouble.” After all, you were the expert here. “See the beech store?” you pointed with your index finger, there was a white-haired boy cleaning the glass of the entrance.

“The one that says Benzo’s?” Jayce asked, you just nodded.

“Go to that store and look for the rest of the stuff, it’s like a premium junk store.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked as he saw you putting on some goggles that were previously hanging from your backpack.

“I going to get the rest. I'll give you 30 minutes, if you're not out of the store by then you'll be back upstairs alone.” You pulled up your shirt collar to cover your nose. “Don't let them rip you off.” Giving him a friendly punch on the shoulder you ran off until you were lost among the people.

“Wait, you don't have any money!” Jayce shouted your name but the sound was swallowed up by the noise of the people, he had no choice but to trust that you would come back. Resigned, he walked as fast as possible to the store you had indicated, as soon as he entered he was already amazed.

He was greeted by a small child with white hair, who watched him from the counter, following him with his eyes wherever he went.

“Can I touch something?” Jayce asked, in other cases he would have expected the arrival of an adult but his minutes were numbered.

“Only the ones you plan to buy.” The child answered suspiciously while playing with a wrench on the counter. He was almost sure he used the same tone of voice that you used with him all this time.

“Okay…” Jayce shrugged as he looked at all the artifacts carefully to know which one to take “It’s all stolen?” he said to himself.

“Stolen is a very big word, let’s say they were bought without permission” The boy appeared at his side as if by magic “Buy something or leave” the boy crossed his arms in front of him.

Jayce sighed and began to take things and put them on the counter, at first with some laziness and before he knew it he already had a considerable mountain of things and was going for more.

“Why do you need so many things sir?” the boy asked as he noticed how the mountain of things grew and grew.

“I’m going to do something revolutionary” Jayce said proudly, if everything went well it would change everyone’s lives forever.

The boy nodded curiously, he was willing to ask more questions until his curiosity was satisfied but the bag of gold coins caught his eye the instant it was placed on the counter.

“How much would everything cost?” asked Jayce.

The smile on the boy's face was big and malicious. "This would be enough." He quickly grabbed the bag of money and put it under the counter before his naive buyer could complain or change his mind. Jayce was more than satisfied with everything he had acquired, his mind was already plotting how he would put it all to work. He looked at the old and strange clock on the wall of the store. He still had a few minutes of free time before you arrived.

"Waiting for someone, sir?" the boy asked, playing with a gold coin between his fingers.

"Yes," Jayce replied, his gaze fixed on the door, waiting for you to enter at any second.

"What's all that noise?" Jayce asked as he heard screams and moans of pain from outside the store, as well as a huge commotion among the people walking by.

"Some idiot caused a fight." The boy seemed too used to situations like that. He got off the counter stool and approached the door, ready to put up the closed sign.

His hand only stretched a little before returning to his body at a surprising speed. The door ended up swung wide open, cracking glass and wood alike, a hooded figure dropped to the ground, trying to catch his breath.

“Put… everything in the bag… we have to go… Now!” you got up from the ground, taking off your goggles.

“There’s the idiot.” the boy calmly returned behind the counter.

“What the fuck did you do?” Jayce asked as you carelessly threw all of his recent purchases into the backpack and threw it into his arms. “What do I do with this?” your adrenaline began to spread to him, you didn’t have to say anything to him as he adjusted his backpack himself.

“I pissed off the wrong people, we have to get out of here” He grabbed your hand tightly, something that made you scream in pain, you didn’t have enough adrenaline to not feel that your wrist was really hurt. Both of you left the store and ran, you could still hear them shouting your name, it seemed impossible to lose them.

“How are we going to get out of here?” Jayce pushed you into a small alley, both of you too exhausted to take another step, but your pursuers didn’t seem tired at all and they were getting closer and closer.

“You’re getting out of here. Wait for me at the end of the bridge, I’ll lose them.” You let go of his hand before he could stop you. With shouts and exaggerated gestures you managed to get them to follow you. “Hey! Finn! You’re falling behind!” you shouted and said goodbye to Jayce with a wink.

It wasn’t hard to lose them alone, yes of course, they were thugs with guns but you knew Finn well, the last thing he would want is for a bullet to go through his former ‘treasure’. You had run into him while you were walking through the market, taking some things from here and there, just what you thought Jayce might need, you can confess, you got distracted in the food area but who could judge you? It's been years since you tried something homemade. You ended up wandering until you reached the limit between the market and the red light district, there was your limit but there was also him. His eyes were fixed on you like arrows, you tried to calm down as he approached to greet you, you weren't friends, not even good acquaintances, if it were up to you you would erase him from your mind forever. When he got closer, that's when you punched him in the golden jaw and ran away, obviously it didn't take long for him to send his bitches after you.

Getting into that kind of trouble wasn't in your plans, you cursed yourself for having let yourself be guided by nostalgia and curiosity, that shouldn't happen again.

“Come on Y/N, is this how you treat an old client?” Finn’s voice echoed in the desolate street, his thugs had disappeared from your sight but they had to be close, never too far from their master.

You remained silent, it would be foolish to answer him and give away your location while you looked for a way out of there, the cliff you had mentioned to Jayce was close, if you managed to jump over it you could use one of the huge pipes to get out of there and knowing Finn he was too cowardly to follow you there.

You came out of your hiding place with the objective you plain in your mind. A huge hand grabbed you by the hair and slammed you against the wall, your thoughts scrambled a little from the blow, you were dropped to the ground full of broken glass. You tried to stand up as best you could but the small glass stuck in your skin and small rivers of blood dripped from your fingers.

“Aren’t you saying hello to an old friend?” Finn asked, placing his gun under his jaw, as if he were talking to a pet, forcing you to stand up.

“You're not my friend,” you spat the words in his face, he didn't seem to like it very much.

“You’re right…I was much more than that for you” his hands grabbed your thighs and forced you to hug his hips with your legs . “You still remember” He dropped the gun to the ground and quickly caught your wrists with his hand.

The feeling of having his body close to yours was too unpleasant. He made a gesture with his face and his thugs left, you rolled your eyes, hitting your head against the wall, but this time you felt higher than just the wall. You surreptitiously looked up, some rusty fire escapes were above you like a blessing.

A smile settled on your “perfect” face, you let your legs climb up Finn’s body until his face was between your legs and although your hands were trapped you managed to stretch enough to hold the first bar surreptitiously.

“Honey…you know I don’t do that” Finn replied with that stupid and pitiful tone that imitated flirting.

“But I do.”

Before the idiot realized it, your feet were on his shoulders, staining his expensive shirt with dirt, using him to push yourself up and make you touch the last bar of the emergency staircase, getting him to let go of your hands wasn’t difficult, you just hit them against the rusty metal, with the brief moment of freedom you used a bar to balance yourself and push yourself to a more comfortable position until you climbed up and reached the top. Finn tried to follow you but with a couple of kicks the ladder basically crumbled, creating an ideal distance between the two of you.

“Bye Finn” you didn’t stay to hear the answer, you ran as fast as you could before they found a way to follow you.

You ran in the darkness with blind faith that you wouldn’t fall, a dim light indicated that you were approaching the precipice and the sound of pipes greeted you, without hesitating for a second you jumped. It was easy to land on them, they were giants, while you ran back to Piltover you managed to see Finn and his thugs on the edge of the cliff, he wasn't happy at all but that wasn't your problem.

When you got to Jayce he seemed totally nervous and worried, he had dodged a few guards and was afraid that they would have caught you.

“Did you lose them?” He asked just to confirm.

You just raised your thumb, giving a long sigh “Job done”

Jayce sighed just like a worried mother would and both began to walk, this time calmer, without haste and better yet without pursuers.

“So… this is your house?” You asked when both stopped in front of a nice apartment complex in the academic district.

“Yes… umm, thanks for tonight. Without you I wouldn't have been able to get any of this” Jayce shook his backpack a little “I'll give it back to you tomorrow”

“Don't worry…” you turned to leave but a mischievous smile crossed your face “I promise that next time we go I won't get into trouble”

Jayce let out a genuine laugh “Prove it”

Your response was to laugh with him, while you let yourself be absorbed by the early morning mist until you finally disappeared from sight.

That morning, before going to the academy, Jayce opened the door to his balcony while sipping his morning coffee, only to find a small ribbon of stars and beneath it the page you had torn out of his notebook.

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dreamwritesimagines · 1 year ago

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The Eye of the Hurricane Masterlist

Summary: Sometimes love and power become entwined with each other.

Tropes: Mob!Au, enemies to lovers, idiots to lovers, pining, slow burn.

Warnings: Mentions of violence, death, underworld, dysfunctional relationships and explicit language. (Separate and specific warnings will be included in each chapter)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Prologue

Chapter 1 : A night out with an old friend can lead to surprises.

Chapter 2 : Gifts can make good apologies.

Chapter 3 : Guests shouldn't overstay their welcome.

Chapter 4 : A quiet night on the rooftop holds new promises.

Chapter 5 : Certain arguments can't wait.

Chapter 6 : Rumors can spread fast.

Chapter 7 : New enemies can complicate everything.

Chapter 8 : Some decisions require late night visits.

Chapter 9 : A marriage decision leads to an honest conversation about expectations.

Chapter 10 : Happy news can make a dinner so much better.

Chapter 11 : Engagement period is supposed to be romantic.

Chapter 12 : Some car rides aren't relaxing.

Chapter 13 : There are many ways to plan a wedding.

Chapter 14 : A wedding can be a good place for clarity.

Chapter 15 : The first day of marriage can be relaxing.

Chapter 16 : Some meetings cause rumors.

Chapter 17 : Petty fights can start out of nowhere.

Chapter 18 : Family dinner can get tense.

Chapter 19 : A therapy session can be enlightening.

Chapter 20 : Business deals are open to negotiation.

Chapter 21 : Calmness is a facade.

Chapter 22 : New deals mean new players.

Chapter 23 : Relatives tend to pry.

Chapter 24 : Couples can have different opinions on many things.

Chapter 25 : Some plans require patience.

Chapter 26 : Fighting for the crown comes with decisions.

Chapter 27 : Some arguments have more tension than others.

Chapter 28 : An heir has many responsibilities.

Chapter 29 : It’s important to have a plan in mind before certain meetings.

Chapter 30 : A promising heir is a daring one.

Chapter 31 : Keeping secrets from business partners can lead to issues.

Chapter 32 : Business partners don’t have to be friendly.

Chapter 33 : Making deals with ex boyfriends can cause tension.

Chapter 34 : Lack of honesty can cause resentment.

Chapter 35 : A nightclub can be a good place for confessions.

Chapter 36 : Proving oneself can be dangerous.

Chapter 37 : Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Chapter 38 : The heir becomes the boss.

#the eye of the hurricane #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #mob!au

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golden-cherry · 6 months ago

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deal - cl16 (36/?)

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x Reader

Series Summary: Your whole life has gone to shit. Your boyfriend broke up with you, you just lost your job and the Monegasque, who suddenly stands in your doorway, claims that it’s his apartment.

Chapter Summary: Lets get drunk part two - with new opportunities.

Warnings: fluff, alcohol consumption

Word Count: 3.2k

series masterlist

previous part

A/N: hah. you thought you'd seen the last of me. feedback is appreciated!

"Okay," says Charles and sits back down next to you on the sun bed. He sets the basket down between you, with the necks of various bottles sticking out of it. "Are you more of a vodka girl or a tequila girl?" He pulls out two bottles and holds them out to you.

You examine the bottles before raising your hands. "Neither, to be honest." You carefully pull the basket towards you and take a look inside. Your hands turn the containers slowly so you can read the labels better, and when a bottle catches your eye, you grin at your roommate. "Here."

Charles takes the bottle you hold out to him. "Peach?" He looks at you and raises an eyebrow. "Quite summery."

You shrug your shoulders. "You promised to take me with you next summer so I could go swimming in the sea. I just want to prepare myself properly."

A smile spreads across his face. "Touché. All right." He reaches into the basket and fishes out two small shot glasses. He places them at the head of the sun bed to fill them with the peach liqueur. "You'll love it here during the summer. The sun is blazing, the sea is cold and the days are long." He carefully slides a glass over to you so that the contents don't spill over the rim. "It's like paradise."

You nod gratefully at him. "So now you definitely don't have a choice."

He looks at you, confused. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well," you sit up straight and pick up the shot glass. "You talked me up about the boat and summer at sea so much that you definitely have to bring me here next year." You grin at him. "So you have no choice but to take me with you."

"Oh no." He rolls his eyes in mock annoyance and reaches for his glass as well. "So I guess I can't get rid of you at all, huh?"

You shake your head excessively. "No fucking way. You definitely won't get me off this boat in the summer. And the deal about us sharing the apartment is on anyway." You tilt your head. "Even if you really tried, you wouldn't get rid of me that easily." You hold out your arm so he can clink glasses with you.

He looks you in the eye. There's a sparkle in his green ones as he knocks his glass against yours. "Thank God."

The peach liqueur tastes indescribably good and the longer you lie on the sun bed looking at the glowing Monaco in front of you, the more you drink of it. The stars above you twinkle and although it's getting colder, you're nice and warm. Whether it's the alcohol or Charles' laughter, you don't know.

"You've met Arthur yourself," he says as you have to press your face into the pillow to stop your laughter echoing across the ocean. "I swear, his April Fool's jokes are the worst! And you never see them coming!"

You giggle into your pillow. "Tell me you didn't fall for it." Hesitantly, you peek over the hem of the pillow to see Charles' blushing face. You quickly push it back into your face and laugh. "Oh, Charles!"

Your roommate grabs his own pillow and hits yours with it. "Don't laugh at me! You'll be affected soon enough! And then I'm not going to be the one to rescue you."

As you slowly calm down and wipe the tears from the corners of your eyes, you put the pillow back behind your head and look at him. "Trust me - by then Arthur will like me enough that we'll form an alliance. Then he certainly won't play any tricks on me."

Charles looks at you, dumbfounded. "Excuse me? I thought you and I were friends! You're supposed to stand on my side!" With a shake of his head, he reaches for the peach liqueur and refills your glasses.

You grin at him. "I don't form alliances with people who fall for stupid pranks like that."

He pushes your glass over to you. "All traitors." He shakes his head again. "I thought at least I had you on my side."

You raise your glass to your lips. "I'm always on your side, Charles. You're my best friend," you assure him, although the sentence leaves a nasty taste in your mouth. You wash it down with the liqueur. "But I'm not going to let Arthur take the piss just to make you feel better."

"You're a great best friend," he says and pours the liqueur into his mouth. "Just you wait and see. I won't save you if my brother does decide to play an April Fool's joke on you."

"You wouldn't dare," you reply with a grin. "Your mom would give you hell if she knew you were abandoning me." You grab the liqueur and fill your glasses again. "After all, she likes me better than you."

Charles watches you fill his glass to the brim. He presses his tongue into your cheek before licking his teeth. "I wish you were wrong." He holds out his arm for you to clink glasses with him. "Here's to my family liking you better than me."

You try to suppress your grin. "Don't worry, Charlie. I like you all the more for it," the alcohol speaks out of you and when you hear what you're saying, the blood rushes to your face. You quickly clink your glass against his and drink the liqueur so you don't have to look at the Monegasque in front of you.

As he puts his empty glass down, he grins at you. "'Charlie'? You're really going to give me a nickname?"

You roll your eyes and run your fingers through your hair so he doesn't notice your nervousness. "Don't worry," you try to play it down. Thank goodness he can't hear your rapid heartbeat. "I only use it when it's just us."

When you look at Charles again, he smiles at you softly. "I like the name," he assures you. "And if it stays your little secret and mine, I like it even more. It belongs only to you. Only you can call me that."

You smile at him before leaning back into your pillow and looking up at the stars. The night is clear, there isn't a single cloud in the night sky and the sea breeze on your face cools your alcohol-warmed skin pleasantly. You feel Charles lie down as well.

"Do you want to spend the night at my mother's tomorrow?" he asks quietly. When you turn your head in his direction, he's already looking at you. "I usually spend the night there. Maman always gets delicious wine and when we all get together, the evening gets pretty long." When you raise an eyebrow with a smile, he continues. "And there are plenty of rooms in the house. You're welcome to choose one of them. I'd hate to go back home for Christmas," he adds. "Especially because my mom would be alone and -"

"Charlie," you interrupt him. "We can spend the night at your mom's. There's nothing wrong with that." You wink at him. "Besides, I want to have a drink with Arthur and then I definitely can't go home."

He exhales with relief. "Very good." He turns his head forward and looks up at the stars too. "It's going to be a nice evening. My maman cooks delicious food and then we always play something. It's usually Uno or charades. You've heard how Monopoly turns out for us."

You have to giggle. "I would really like to play Monopoly with you," you admit quietly. "And I would never steal money from the bank either."

Charles exhales. "I'll take your word for that. But Arthur is more cunning than you think. He would steal money from the bank and make it look like it was you. You definitely don't want to play Monopoly with him."

You shrug your shoulders. "Then again, maybe I'm smarter than you give me credit for." You look up at the night sky again. "Maybe I can outsmart Arthur and win."

Your roommate laughs out loud. "Then you'd have to get past me first. And I'm certainly not going to let you win just like that. Not after you said you'd team up with my brother and not stand by me when he pulls his April Fool's pranks."

Offended, you reach behind your head for your pillow to smash it into his face, but Charles is quicker and snatches the pillow out of your hand before you can hit him with it. "You suck, Charlie."

"You love me. Just admit it," he grins and hesitantly gives you your pillow back, risking being exposed to your attack again.

But you merely wrap your arms around the pillow and hug it to your chest. Even through the feathers inside, you can feel how fast your heart is beating.

"Of course," you try to play down the swirling feelings inside you and hope that he doesn't notice the trembling in your voice. Or the truth in your words. "I'll still try to beat you at Monopoly. Or Uno. Or charades." Offended, you lie back on your pillow and cross your arms in front of your chest.

Charles sits up again and refills your shot glasses. He pushes it towards you like a peace offering. "Maybe I'll let you win," he smiles as you look at him. "After all, Christmas is the festival of love and I -" he continues, but is interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone.

You look at him in confusion. You'd love to know how he would have finished the sentence. "You have reception out here?" you ask him as he pulls his cell phone out of his pocket.

The Monegasque shakes his head and shows you his phone screen. "I had set an alarm clock."

You raise an eyebrow. "For what?"

He points to the time with his finger. It's midnight and therefore officially Christmas. He looks at you with a grin. "I have a Christmas present for you."

As he gets up from the sun bed and staggers onto the wood of the deck, you look at him indignantly. "No way," you reply, annoyed. "If I can't give you a present, then you can't give me one either."

"Calm down, mon ami," he says, swaying slightly from left to right as he circles you. The alcohol seems to have hit him hard too. "I'll be right back." Without another word, he disappears into the interior of the yacht, leaving you on the sun bed.

Annoyed, you sit up.

The fact that you're not allowed to give him a present has almost ruined your friendship. Just the memory of his words that he wants nothing from you but your friendship sends a cold shiver down your spine. You would love to tell him that you want more from him than friendship, that you desire him, that you want him for yourself - that you love him - but no amount of money in the world would make you reveal your feelings to him. If he actually knew how you felt about him, you would certainly lose the only good thing in your life. And you wouldn't risk that under any circumstances.

You run your fingers nervously through your hair. What could he possibly give you? You've never mentioned anything to him that he could possibly buy. And there's no way he'd change his mind in a day and confess his love for you. You'd have to be incredibly naive to believe that.

It's not his fault that he doesn't feel the same way about you as you do about him. It's not his fault that his words have torn your heart apart. And it's not his fault that he can't take your feelings into consideration if you don't tell him about them.

You take a deep breath and smile at him as he rejoins you. In his hand, he holds a brown envelope, which he hands to you as he drops back onto the sun bed next to you. When you look at him uncertainly, he nods at you. "Merry Christmas, mon ami."

Hesitantly, you open the envelope and pull out several pages of paper, held together at the top left corner by a paper clip. You immediately recognize your name on the first page, with Charles written underneath. The rest is written in French, which is why you look at your roommate even more confused than before. "What's this?"

Irritated, he takes the pages from your hand and lets his eyes wander over the letters for a moment before he hits his forehead a little too hard with the palm of his hand. "Shit. I thought they'd printed it out in English," he says, handing the papers back to you. I'm really sorry."

You raise an eyebrow. "And what's this?" Your eyes wander over the paper, trying to identify any of the words, until you unsuccessfully put the papers down in front of you.

"This, mon ami, is an employment contract," he explains with a smile and leans back a little.

"An employment contract?"

" Mh-hmm." He licks his lips once. "Remember when Joris mentioned that he had a new job?"

You nod. Of course you remember.

After you'd been to the place where Charles had been with his father in the past, you both went to Joris' and had lunch there. Joris had told you that he was starting a new job and when you had been there to burn Annika's things, he had talked about it too.

"Well," Charles says hesitantly. "Joris was my personal photographer. And now that he can no longer work for me and accompany me around the world because of his new job, I thought - well - maybe you'd like to be my new photographer. You - um - you don't have a job at the moment and - well - I thought it would be cool if you and I worked together," he babbles in one breath, blood rushing to his cheeks. "You'd travel with me to the Formula 1 races and take photos there, but of course you'd also spend a lot of time with me in private. Which would be a good fit, as you and I live together anyway and the fans loved the photo you took of me at the lookout point. And the one you just took of me turned out great too."

Your breath is stuck in your lungs.

Charles wants you to work for him? That you photograph him so he can post the pictures on Instagram? That you fly around the world with him?

You'd love to throw your arms around his neck with joy, but you just grin at him. "Are you serious?" When he nods, you squeal with excitement. "You're really serious, Charlie? You really want me to work for you?"

"Of course," he admits openly and smiles at you. "You and I are best friends. Why would I want to work with someone else when I have the perfect and best photographer literally sitting right in front of me? I'd be pretty stupid to ask anyone else."

Carefully and with shaky hands, you put the documents back in the envelope. "I - thank you. I don't even know what to say."

"Just say yes." He leans a little to the side so that he can push your full shot glass over to you. "You'll travel around the world with me, get paid incredibly well and spend a lot of time with me. I'll cover the travel expenses, of course. All you have to do is take good photos of me."

You look at him in amazement. "I'm getting paid and you're still covering the travel costs?"

Your flatmate laughs out loud. "Of course! What do you think? Whether I give you more salary so you can pay for your flights and everything yourself, or whether I pay you everything, it's the same in the end."

Heat shoots into your face. "Then at least let me give you money for the rent. Now that I have a job again."

He shakes his head vehemently. "Absolutely not. The money is yours, you can do anything you want with it."

"Except pay the rent," you reply and get his pillow thrown in your face.

"Exactly. Everything except pay the rent," he assures you. "So, what do you say, mon ami? Do you fancy exploring the world with me?"

You nod with a grin. "Definitely." You raise your shot glass. "Thank you, Charlie. That's the best Christmas present I've ever been given."

A blush creeps into his cheeks as he scratches the back of his neck nervously. "Really?"

You nod with a smile. "Definitely. I can't thank you enough for that."

The thought of being permanently close to Charles scares you as much as it makes you happy. As his best friend, you're looking forward to spending every minute with him, traveling the world and discovering the most beautiful places. And getting paid for it too.

As the woman who loves him, you're a little worried about what will happen if he meets someone he falls in love with while you're traveling. You don't want to imagine the pain if he gets into a committed relationship with someone and all you can do is stand on the sidelines and watch him be happy. There's no question that he deserves to be happy - but the thought that the person he's falling in love with isn't you makes you feel sick.

You try to suppress the thought and smile bravely at him. "It's absolutely the best present. Thank you so much, Charlie. No one's ever done anything like this for me before."

There is a loving sparkle in his eyes. "I'd do anything for you." Before he picks up his glass as well, he pulls out his cell phone again and taps on it. "Can I post it like this?" he asks you and holds his phone out to you. His screen shows the picture you just took, with a simple caption.

You shrug your shoulders. "I think so. But do you think it's a good idea to post something when you've had so much alcohol?" you ask him with a grin.

"Oh nonsense," he grins at you and taps his phone one last time before activating the keypad lock and putting it back in his pocket. "I only have good ideas when I'm drunk." He reaches for his shot glass and holds it out to you so you can clink glasses. "I'm glad you said yes. I can hardly wait."

"Me neither," you reply with a smile.

He takes a deep breath before his eyes search yours. He would love to put the glasses aside, pull you onto his lap and kiss you until you can't breathe, until the sun rises, until the world ends. But that's just the alcohol whispering to him, he thinks.

He knocks his glass against yours. "Here's to us."

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ekkkkey · 4 days ago

Text

there will be games! (chapter II)

summary: Cassandra, a quiet and loyal wife to the much older Senator Tiberius, accidentally attracts the unsettling attention of Emperor Caracalla at a lavish feast hosted by Senator Thraex...

warnings: 18+ minors dni, noncon, dub-con, non-consensual drug use, when the emperor is a bit insane, mommy issues, daddy issues, every kind of issues—this little shit has them all (he’s so cute)

word count: 5k words

chapter I

«No woman could feel safe if her beauty or name aroused the emperor's curiosity.»

-Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars (Caligula, Chapter 36)

⋆ ⋆ ☼ ⋆ ⋆

She didn't want to get out of bed, didn't want to leave their room, all she wanted was to go home. Not to their new villa in Rome, not even to her husband's old house. Cassandra longed for her childhood home, with her father and sisters, where she could always be the little girl.

"You're an early bird today," Tiberius said, waking and stretching towards her.

Her heart skipped, her palms sweaty with worry.

"Those who apologize properly deserve forgiveness, don't they, little bird?" - another voice, deceptively tender but promising nothing good, echoed in her mind.

Cassandra wrapped herself tighter in the sheet, licking her lips, hiding her body from her husband, not wanting his touch.

"I slept poorly. And I don't feel well. When will we return home?"

Tiberius got up, his brief morning tenderness replaced by his usual sour mood.

"When the games end. Not before. I've got business."

Normally gentle and shy, she never argued with him, but this time, she tossed the sheet aside and jumped up, chasing after him, desperate to talk face-to-face. Her hands shook. She pictured herself – pale, nervous, dark circles under her eyes, hair a mess, more like a madwoman than a loving wife. Ashamed of her sudden anger, Cassandra covered up again.

"I feel awful, I'm nauseous, could it be a child, Tiberius?" she tried to elicit some sympathy, pressing her hand to her stomach.

She couldn't stand another moment in the palace.

"Tell me, wife, what troubles you so much?" - he took a step forward. She had never truly feared him, but suddenly realized that after yesterday, both he disgusted her and she feared him. It was his fault! Everything that happened to her was his fault!

"I'm really not well."

"And where better than the emperor's palace to find a good physician?"

Realizing her words were futile, she slumped back on the bed's edge, and Tiberius knelt in front of her, resting his cheek against her leg.

"The emperor," he began, "Emperor Caracalla, he's ill. His mind is rotting, just like his body, so you won't find better physicians here. Should I call someone for you?"

Cassandra couldn't breathe, pulling away from her husband, standing up in a daze, not caring about her nudity. Even when servants walked in, she didn't cover up, lost in dark thoughts.

Emperor Caracalla's mind was afflicted by a disease? What kind of disease? She knew nothing about medicine and couldn't even guess. Did this make him more dangerous, or was his nature already cruel and violent? His smirking face flashed in her mind, his mood swings, his smile turning to a sneer...

Cassandra flinched when someone touched her from behind. She quickly scolded herself.

"Stop, he won't burst into your chambers while you're with your husband!" - she repeated, but she didn't believe it, if he wanted, he'd take her right in front of Tiberius, and no one would stop him.

She spent the entire morning trying to comfort herself, but her anxiety only grew. First, Tiberius noticed the purple bite on her skin. She managed to excuse it, saying he'd had too much wine and hadn't been gentle with her in bed. He believed her.

She was horrified again when the slave girls began to dress her.

"This isn't my clothing!" - the fabrics were too vivid and fine, and they...they smelled of aromatic oils and powder.

"Not yours, true, but we'll be here for some time, and until your clothes arrive from the villa, you need something to wear, don't you?" her husband murmured, looking at her like a piece of art. "You can't just walk around naked, can you?"

She would have preferred to parade through the palace entirely naked rather than willingly wear the clothes and jewels Caracalla had sent her, fully aware of how pleased he would be. Yet, the problem was, her nude debut would have left him equally pleased.

The stands were louder than ever, and only when they entered the imperial box did she understand why. The Colosseum was flooded!

They were late due to her distraction and sluggishness; if she had her way, they wouldn't have come at all, but there she was, seated behind Lucilla once again.

Despite the excitement of the ship battles, the clanging of metal, her eyes kept falling on the red-haired head before her.

Neither emperor acknowledged their arrival, too absorbed in the spectacle, and while Geta later gave her husband a nod of recognition, Caracalla didn't even turn around. Anger simmered in her chest. For him, last night was nothing, but for her...For her, it had haunted her all night and morning. All her thoughts were trapped in those wretched, humiliating moments.

Why did he seem to have forgotten while she, cursedly, remembered every touch? Remembered his hands were soft and hot, his scent sweet, almost intoxicating... And, of course, she remembered the bitter humiliation from his words, from how he touched her, and that Emperor Geta had watched it all.

Cassandra pressed hard on her palm where the wound was healing, trying to push away the memories. She wouldn't let him occupy her mind as well.

Yet, she couldn't relax, pandemonium broke out in the box when the ships came too close and an arrow hit the column between the emperors' chairs. The last thing she heard before Tiberius pulled her out was Emperor Geta's piercing scream.

The palace was buzzing with unbearable noise, the feast meant for evening had transitioned into the day, though the servants were not fully prepared.

Cassandra stood by a column, wine cup in hand. Her husband had left her again, off with General Acacius. The emperors were nowhere to be seen, nor were most of the Senate.

"How many do you think will be executed today?" she heard a quiet female whisper.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the emperor ordered all the gladiators on the field to be gutted," another voice answered, "you know how he is, insatiable!" A burst of giggling followed, and Cassandra stopped listening, embarrassed by the direction of their conversation.

She understood that for many, winning the emperors’ favor was a dream. But for her? She was a married woman who had spent her youth cultivating a sense of duty, loyalty, and responsibility. Why, then, had the gods abandoned her? Faithful and devoted as she was, they had thrown her to their earthly incarnations to be torn apart.

"More wine, domina?" a slave girl dutifully refilled her goblet.

The girl was young, dark-skinned, and beautiful, with large, intelligent eyes. Cassandra noticed the gilded collar around her slender neck and suddenly felt an invisible, soft, and hot hand squeezing her own throat. In a rush, she took a large gulp, wincing at the bitter taste, then handed the cup back.

"No more, thank you," she said, licking her lips nervously, knowing she wouldn't find peace in this cacophony.

"Are you not well, domina?" the girl asked, worry in her voice.

"I just...I need some time alone," she muttered quickly, stepping away from the column, only to stagger and clutch her head. What was happening to her?

"Do you want me to take you somewhere quiet, domina? You can rest and come back later," the girl didn't wait for an answer, guiding her by the elbow out of the room. Such audacity from a slave was unheard of, but Cassandra was too rattled and her head was spinning.

"Where are we going?"

They navigated past the throne room into a small, almost secretive chamber. The ceiling wasn't as high, the columns much less grand, the lighting dim and gloomy, and in the center stood a white altar, adorned with gold. In her parents' home, next to her room, there was a similar one, much more modest, of course, but dear to her heart, where she had prayed to her late mother.

"Wait outside," the words were both a sentence for her and an order for the slave.

She wanted to scream. Of course, he was here. No one was to be trusted, even the slave's kindness was a trap—cruel and painful. Was she truly nothing more than a prisoner here, a powerless plaything to entertain the young emperor?

Every time she saw him, he seemed like a different person. He was dressed in black and gold, with a golden laurel crown and an earring. Gold, gold, gold! She despised its gleam, for in it, she saw him.

Huddled against the wall, she stood frozen, afraid to move. The emperor did seem different this time—melancholic and contemplative. His pale eyes were unusually clear and sober as they met hers.

"What did you tell your husband?" His voice was different too: calm, measured. That made it all the more terrifying. Cassandra couldn’t read his mood from his face.

"Nothing, Caesar," she whispered, afraid to speak louder, as if his calm depended on it.

Caracalla turned to the altar, studying it as if seeing it for the first time. She held her breath, watching the golden laurel shimmer in the torchlight.

"Come closer."

His tone was pensive, his light brows furrowed, his lips pressed into a thin line. The moment she stepped closer, the emperor’s gaze shifted to her. It slid from her neck, lower, along the colorful tunic she wore.

"My mother used to wear this," he said. To her surprise, his right hand was bare of rings as he brushed the fabric over her chest lightly, almost tenderly. His eyes stayed locked on hers.

Though still afraid, it felt different from yesterday. Worse.

Why had he forced her to come here? Why had he dressed her in the clothes of his dead mother? Cassandra cast a desperate glance at the door, but he noticed immediately. The corner of his mouth twitched.

"She often came here," he continued, "prayed to the gods," his words were vague, her thoughts growing heavier, "do you pray often?"

"Yes, Emperor," she replied, though her mind was growing heavier, duller, as though lulled into a haze that numbed her fear.

"When was the last time?"

The conversation was bizarre, so unlike what had happened the night before. Feeling almost drunk, she answered without thinking, and that's when everything started to spiral.

"Today, when that arrow almost hit you," she said, breathing heavily, it was hot, like under the midday sun, "I prayed for the next one to hit."

Her tormented mind knew he would kill her now. That Caracalla would carry out his threats, destroy her and her family. But instead, he laughed.

Grinning, he patted her shoulder as if she’d told an excellent joke. Then the sharp pain of his hand striking her cheek brought her back to reality. He had slapped her! Tears welled in her eyes, her lips trembling, but she didn’t have time to cry. The emperor grabbed her face, squeezing her jaw painfully.

"You did drink it, didn't you? That wine they brought you?" Caracalla whispered, his voice low as he leaned closer, still holding her face. "Oh, you did! I can see it. Your dilated pupils, that empty stare, struggling to think straight, hard to control your tongue? I get it," in a mock tender gesture, he caressed the cheek he'd just slapped, "for those words, your pretty head should be on a spike outside the palace, shouldn't it? But you know the rules, if you apologize properly, I forgive."

With his thumb, he drew circles on her reddened cheek, moved to her lips, tracing their outline, forcing her to open her mouth by pressing down.

"You understand now, don’t you? The aphrodisiac in the wine you drank," he pushed his finger inside, making her lips encircle it, "I wanted to play differently, but..." his face twisted with anger, "everything went terribly wrong."

Her already rapid heartbeat quickened further, she whimpered helplessly, wanting to cry. He had made her take the drug and was now exploiting her helplessness, shamelessly tormenting her mouth.

"You should say thank you, shouldn’t you? Or did you enjoy last night more? Shall I call my brother?" he chuckled, once again reverting to his usual self.

Caracalla released her face but immediately pinned her against the altar, tilting his head up and gazing at her from beneath his lowered lashes, as if admiring her, smiling.

The torchlight reflected in his eyes, his tongue flicked between his red lips in anticipation. His hand caressed her shoulder, then he removed the pin holding the fabric.

"Did the old senator fail to notice that his dear little wife isn't really his anymore?" he sneered, his fingers trailing down to the mark he'd bitten into her skin the night before, pressing down, aiming to cause as much discomfort as possible. Caracalla's breath grew heavier, his eyes followed every flicker of emotion on her face, every slight movement she made.

"I told him it was his fault... that he drank too much..." The confession fell from her lips without thought, her mind too clouded to hold it back.

"Ah! How unfortunate, and once again, the Senate takes credit for the emperor's work! But you'll comfort me, won't you?" His lips were so close, she felt his hot, uneven breath, saw his pupils, as black as hers, the smeared shadows making his eyes feverishly gleam with madness. Her gaze only darted down to his lips for a moment... and he pressed against her, pulling her into a kiss.

His hands seize her waist, gripping and tormenting, not just her body but her very soul. If she could cry, she would, but there's no energy left, only his greedy, hot mouth. To her, a kiss was something far more intimate, far more sacred than carnal union, promising tenderness and love...And even that he steals from her, kissing her shamelessly, wetly, pressing so hard she feels his hardness against her thigh.

"Let's continue our lovely conversation," he pulls back, his mouth trailing down to her neck, kissing and biting, "tell me, did Tiberius ever get you this wet?" His hand slides between her legs, rubbing through the fabric. "Even once?"

"No," she whimpers, trying to close her legs.

"Keep acting innocent, and I'll call the Praetorians to keep your legs spread wide, is that what you want?" his rough whisper burns her ear, his earring brushing her lips.

Cassandra shook her head, public humiliation was something she couldn't handle.

"Good. Obedient and well-behaved, just as a respectable matron should be," he purrs, his hand lazily caressing, more relishing her embarrassment than her body, "if you want, you can call me your husband!"

His sharp laugh slices through the narrow room.

"Undress," he commanded, his laughter gone, "I'm not going to fuck you in my mother's clothes, am I?"

She thought after all the pain, the threats, the violence, he couldn't hurt her more, but each time, it still cuts deep. With trembling hands, she hurriedly sheds her tunic, then her undergarments, laying them out as treasures, while he watches. His gaze is fixed, nostrils flaring, Cassandra sees him stroking himself under his tunic. Her cheeks burn, her clouded mind finally grasps it - he's going to take her right here, in this holy place, before ancestors and gods. Her soul will be damned, even in death!

"Touch yourself, feel how wet you are," his voice is husky, breathless, "you should be grateful to me for that, shouldn't you? That's what I've been talking about."

Head bowed, she slides her fingers between her legs, horror dawning as she realizes he's right. But why? The drug? The notion that he aroused her with his aggressive kisses, his sharp bites, his lewd whispers, she dismisses in disgust. She didn't want him, she hated him!

Seeing her shock, Caracalla broke into a smile, fully aware of her thoughts. Abandoning his arousal, the emperor circled her nipple with his thumb, watching it harden under his touch.

"It's not surprising your husband doesn't stir your passions, look at yourself," his hand traces down her body, over her breasts, stomach, to her mound, pausing again between her legs, "you're more his daughter than his wife!"

His fingers gather her moisture, rubbing, making her despise her body's response.

"So, will you take your emperor?" he asks, not for permission but to keep the game going.

She can only nod, there's no other choice.

"Say it out loud," Caracalla whispers raggedly, pushing his fingers deep inside her. Now she understands why he took off his rings.

"Yes, Caesar, I'll take whatever you give me," with those words, the last vestiges of her pride are smashed, her genuine compassion and naivety destroyed.

He takes her with a sudden, harsh thrust, only to slow down to a lazy, almost indulgent rhythm. The air is stifling, hot; sweat drips down her thighs. The only sounds are the crackle of the torch, his ragged breathing, and the vulgar, wet slaps of skin meeting skin.

As if to disgrace her further, he grips the back of her neck, forcing her to look into his eyes as he picks up the pace again. Here he is—the protector and father of his people—bestowing his gifts. He's still clothed, no need to undress; the chain around his neck jingles with each movement, his crown slipping forward.

"Doesn’t this feel good, sweetling? Don’t you feel good?"

"Cassandra," she whispers, "my name is Cassandra."

He stops, looking at her with surprise, as if seeing her for the first time.

"Is it really that important for me to know your name, Cassandra?" he teases, playfully biting her earlobe. "Has the little wife fallen in love?"

How could he think that? Anger surges within her. Her attempt to claim some dignity crumbles! But her thoughts vanish as he thrusts into her sharply, fully, making her gasp and dig her nails into his shoulders. It’s the first time she’s touched him willingly. Her simple gesture spurred him on even more, forcing a quiet whimper from her as she buried her face in his shoulder.

"Next time your senator fucks you, think of me, little bird, understand?" his whisper turns into a moan. She's mesmerized by his parted red lips, his light lashes fluttering, his chest heaving. A few rough thrusts later, his grip on her waist loosens, and his seed floods within her.

He lets her go, adjusting his clothes, his breathing still heavy, but his gaze has changed. Having gotten what he wanted, Caracalla loses interest.

"If you're lucky, my seed will take root, and you'll give your husband an heir!" he chuckles, playfully flicking her nose as if she were a pet. "The wench will help you dress, don't forget, there’s a feast to attend!"

Caracalla leaves her, trembling, bare, and shattered. Tears finally come, and without strength, she slides down the wall, hugging herself. The worst is the sticky feeling between her thighs he left behind. If she were to conceive...

"Domina, you shouldn't sit like this, please stand, I'll help you," the slave girl who brought her here shows no emotion, no trace of sympathy in her eyes.

"Leave me!"

"Staying here is not an option, one must respect the dead," the girl nods at the inscription on the altar.

"Lucius Septimius Severus"

He had defiled her beside his father's ashes! Now, she lets her sobs escape freely.

⋆ ⋆ ☼ ⋆ ⋆

Hey! Thank you so much for the sweet feedback on the last chapter, I didn’t expect so many people to like my work, I’m really grateful! 💋 I promise the next chapter will be up faster (but it also depends on how this one does, your feedback means a lot to me and really inspires me).

#emperor caracalla #caracalla #caracalla x reader #caracalla x oc #gladiator ii #gladiator 2 #emperor caracalla x reader #emperor caracalla x oc #gladiator #emperor geta #emperor geta x reader #emperor geta x oc #gladiator 2 smut #gladiator 2 fanfic #caracalla x reader smut #caracalla x oc smut #geta and caracalla #commodus #geta

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kamiversee · 11 months ago

Text

➶-͙˚ ༘✶ 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙁*𝘾𝙆 𝙇𝙄𝙎𝙏

✧.* CHAPTER 36 || The Holiday Surprises

[ { SYPNOSIS } ] ➤ A tale in which Gojo Satoru blackmails you into seducing a list of people to clear his debt. Sounds easy enough, right?

[ { CHAPTER CONTENT } ] ➤ language & hella fluff.

[ { WORD COUNT } ] ➤ 4.4k

[ { PAIRINGS } ] ➤ jjk men x f!reader. gojo x f!reader. geto x f!reader. toji x f!reader. choso x f!reader. sukuna x f!reader. nanami x f!reader.

[ [ chapters mlist } ]

——DURING THE BREAK, you spent every day with Shoko just as you promised to before Christmas week. You went to see movies with her, went on a lovely shopping spree, and even got to meet one of her other friends, Utahime.

It was a wonderful week. You actually got to know Utahime very well and Shoko told you that she disliked Gojo just as much as you did, which is exactly what you and Utahime bonded over. It was girl's night after girl's night, an unstressful time spent with people you were fond of.

The whole thing was perfect and you loved it, cherishing every giggle, smile, and hug dearly within your heart. What more could you have wanted? Both women made your life feel at peace and you nearly forgot what it was like to have a female to conversate with.

You’d spent the semester distracted by Gojo and all the other guys that you forgot this feeling-- that warm fuzziness you get when they understand your troubles and support your silly delusions. You even told them about Choso, to which they both encouraged you to try speaking to him during the break.

Even Shoko, who is definitely rooting moreso for you and Gojo, was adamant on getting you to contact Choso. Utahime was a bit more skeptical about it, telling you that maybe you shouldn’t contact him if you’re not sure what you want.

Either way, you loved the fact that you had them to help you sort through your thoughts. Of course, you didn’t actually contact Choso but, talking to them about him felt like taking a weight off your shoulders.

Part of you wanted to tell them about Gojo and how he’s confessed to you but, you knew Shoko would be hellbent on convincing you to pick him over Choso. Or at least, that’s how she would’ve been before Christmas. After that day, you’re pretty sure the woman was just as conflicted about who you should choose as you.

However, she still doesn’t know that Gojo’s blackmailing you, which is something you have to keep reminding yourself about every time you weigh the pros and cons of each man.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆ .　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

Christmas week.

You went home to your family as scheduled and freed your mind of all (almost) all stress. Of course, your parents gave you their usual hell about not coming home often enough and not calling enough and etcetera. Even so, you still felt at peace at home.

Sometimes you Facetimed Shoko in your free time but most of your time at home was spent in tranquility.

You loved every second of it and it was full of joyful events that led up to Christmas day.

After a night of last-minute gift wrapping, you had woken up early in the morning and received a few expensive gifts from various family members. Most of it was gift cards, perfume, and from some people just straight cash. All of it was gratefully accepted and cherished though and you had a smile plastered all over your face the entire day.

In the afternoon, you decided to head home to Shoko, parting ways with your family with lots of don’t forget to call and make good choices being thrown at you before you left.

Before you knew it, you were right back in your apartment but Shoko wasn’t there. You stopped there to change your clothes as Shoko had earlier texted you and said that she was at Geto and Gojo’s place. So, once you were all dressed in comfortable sweats, you made your way there.

You don’t know why but, you were nervous about it. This would be your first time hanging out with the trio. You’d spent time with each of them individually of course but, never all three at the same time. This made you nervous for some reason.

Shoko doesn’t know about the list and you don’t want her to find out about it either. What happens if Gojo or Geto open their mouths about it? What happens if Geto brings up the fact that you had sex with him? Would Shoko view you as a slut for sleeping with both men at one point?

Would she not want to be your friend anymore? Would sh-

You huff out a heavy sigh and shake your thoughts away. It was Christmas day, there was no need to be overthinking like this. You were standing outside of the men’s apartment, holding a small, last-minute bag filled with a few gifts. After a gentle knock, the door swung open, and standing in front of you was Geto Suguru.

His dark locks of hair were loose, flowing down past his shoulders messily over the big sweater he wore. He looked really snug in his clothes. A sly smile spread across his handsome face as he took in your appearance, “Hey gorgeous, Merry Christmas.” He purred out in that soothing voice of his.

You couldn’t help but smile at the nickname never dropping, stepping into the apartment and moving to give him a hug, “Merry Christmas, Sugu.”

His arms wrap around your body in a tight hug and as the two of you part from each other, the smell of cookies fills your nose. When you turn around, Gojo’s standing not too far away, clearly not privy to you joining them for Christmas.

The two of you are frozen for a moment, simply staring at one another before a push is made to your lower back. You turn back to Geto for a split second, sending him a glare as you stumble toward Gojo. The raven-haired male chuckles and then turns to head toward his kitchen, leaving you and Gojo alone.

You look up at the tall man, his hair a fluffy mess almost as if he’d been lying down, and his eyes refusing to leave yours. After a slight sigh, you shuffle your feet closer to him before you’re barely an inch away from him.

Gojo’s breath hitches when your arms go up and around his neck as you hug him tenderly. His brain stutters to render the fact that you’re hugging him and it took him a second to wrap his arms around your waist. His face drops to the crook of your neck and he squeezes you in his arms.

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” Gojo whispers.

You’re smiling like crazy, his loving tone giving you butterflies, “Merry Christmas, Satoru.”

He pulls away, only slightly, turning his head to meet your eyes. The two of you were so close that to another person, it’d appear as though you were about to kiss. “I didn’t know you were coming.” He tells you.

You chuckle, “Maybe Shoko wanted to surprise you.”

“Best surprise ever.” Gojo comments, “You’re so beautiful…”

Heat rushes to your face and you ease your arms down from around his neck, “Thank you-”

The sound of your name being called by Shoko makes both of you flinch as if you were caught doing something you had no business doing. Both of you shuffle off of each other and try to act inconspicuous.

Shoko bursts out laughing dramatically, having seen the entire thing and finding it hilarious how the two of you try to act like you weren’t a few inches away from making out. “You guys are so cute, I can’t.” Shoko giggles.

She then approaches the two of you and in the blink of your eye, Gojo is shoved out of the way, stumbling into a nearby wall. Shoko’s arms go out and up a little and you smile at her before jumping into her arms dramatically.

She hugs you tighter and harder than either of the guys did, even going as far as lifting you and spinning you around-- all of which is done because she’s happy to see you again after a week of separation. The two of you are laughing and giggling in each other’s arms and Gojo has a frown on his face at the way he got shoved to the side.

When the two of you stop, Shoko moves to grab your hands as she speaks to you, “Merry Christmas roomie! I got you the best gift!”

You chuckle at her enthusiasm, she’s usually more relaxed than this so it’s nice to see her express so much emotion. “Merry Christmas,” Your smile widens, “What’d you get me?”

“You’ll see in a few minutes,” She says releasing your hands and nodding her head toward the living room, “We already opened a few but there’s still more.”

“Did you guys wait for me?” You ask as you begin following behind her.

Both of you continue your small talk, completely forgetting about Gojo who's shocked you’re even here. He grumbles to himself at the fact that Shoko came and stole you from him so swiftly.

The three of you end up in the living room, Geto is heard in the kitchen baking away as he hums to whatever Christmas songs were playing. You and Shoko are talking and giggling about the things she’s gotten so far and she complains about how Geto bought her a pack of cigarettes.

You laugh with her, knowing that she’s definitely grateful for the gift based on the unwavering smile plastered on her face the entire time she catches you up on what’s happened while you weren’t there.

“Oh, and I also know what the albino got you,” Shoko exclaims, a bigger smile growing on her face as she speaks about it.

Your eyebrows raise and you glance over to Gojo, who is sitting on one of the nearby couches scrolling through his phone, “What’d he get me?” You ask, turning your head back to Shoko.

She leans closer to you to whisper, “He got you a-”

“Shoko if you tell her, I’m cutting your hair off and flushing all your cigs’.” Gojo interrupts as a pillow goes flying across the room, landing right into the woman’s face.

She fumes, jokingly, and snatches the pillow up before launching it back to the man, “I dare you,” She shouts at the man, making him laugh as the pillow smacks him in the face.

The two start bickering back and forth and you’re laughing at the display of them partaking in a quick pillow war, instead of a pillow fight-- launching and smacking each other with any nearby pillows. As they do that, you take that as your chance to slip out and check on Geto.

Making your way out of the living room, you quickly head to the kitchen and catch the man pulling cookies out of the oven with a silly apron on. You’ve got a bag in your hands that holds his gift, seeing now as a perfect time to give it to him since Shoko told you there’s no set time on when gifts needed to be exchanged.

Geto notices you as he places the tray of cookies on the counter, flashing you a smile as you approach him, “Sounds like they’re destroying the living room again,” He comments.

You chuckle, “Again?”

“They had a play fight last night over gift wrap,” Geto hums, moving to rid his hands of the oven mitts he wore.

“Why am I not surprised?” You laugh, coming to a stop beside the male, your eyes scanning over the mouth-watering sugar cookies lying on a decorative tray, “Ouu these look good.”

“They should be,” Geto hums, turning his head to look at you instead of the cookies. His eyes drop to the bag in your hands, “S’that for me?”

You turn and look at him, smiling, “Yeah but, it’s more like a last-minute gift. It’s nothing amazing, just something silly.”

He appears to be intrigued, “Silly? My best friend is Gojo Satoru, I’m used to these kinda’ gifts.” Geto says with a casual shrug.

The bag in your hands is extended out to the man and he takes it from you gratefully, quickly moving to open it. Your smile grows and grows, mischief embedded into your eyes as you watch him take out what you got for him.

As the item comes out of the box, Geto stares in disbelief for a second and then laughs. “Oh hell no. If you think I’m putting this on, you’re going to be very disappointed.”

“Oh c’monnnnn Suguruuu, you have long hair.” You say, trying to convince him, “Just wear one? For me? Pleeease?”

“No.” Geto declines, dropping the item back into the bag.

You pout, “That’s not nice, Sugu. I went out of my way to pick that out just for you.”

He looks up from the bag and to your pleading eyes, “Did you?”

“Yes,” You sigh, moving to reach into the bag and drag the item out, “I can even put it on for you.”

Geto scoffs, “Yeah, no.”

The man then tries turning away from you but you extend a handout and grab ahold of his sweater, tugging him back toward you.

“Pretty please?” You beg, making him sigh loudly.

His back is to you now but he peers down at you over his shoulder, “I don’t like you.”

You beam, “Is that a yes?!”

“You’re just as annoying as Satoru, y’know that right?” Geto groans, turning his head to face forward, “Fine.”

Your eyes light up and the man hands a hair tie back to you. You giggle as you take it from him and then raise your hands up to do his hair. Slowly, you both walk a bit out of the kitchen and then you continue your actions.

Tying half of his hair up, like he usually does, instead of putting it into a bun, you leave it loose and then place your gift into his hair. The man grits his teeth as he feels you do so, already disliking his agreeance to this.

“Aaaand, done. It’s so pretty, Suguru!” You say happily.

“I’m taking it out in an hour.” He says grumpily.

“You didn’t even see how it looks yet!” You happily point out as you move to get a picture of the sight with your phone. His back is still to you and he doesn’t actually care if you take a picture.

He rolls his eyes, “You put a pink bow in my hair, I think I can picture what it looks like just fine.”

His words make you laugh excessively. You love how grumpy he sounds about it, “This is what you get for stealing my things.”

Geto pouts, “I was gonna give them back…”

“Yeah? When?” You ask, not believing him in the slightest.

“Today,” He tells you.

Your expression sinks, “Don’t tell me that was my Christmas gift…”

The man smirks, “It was.”

“You are such a pervert.”

“Howww?” He starts laughing, “I’m returning your things. Don’t worry, it’s all clean.”

“Y’know what, just for that,” Your hands go to his shoulders and you force him to turn around, pushing him toward the living room, “Everyone’s gonna see the pretty bow I just put in your hair.”

“Holy shit,” He chuckles and tries resisting your pushing, “W-Wait I-”

The man’s face goes bright red as he’s shoved into the living room. Shoko and Gojo were mid-pillow attacks when they both froze and looked over to the raven-haired male. For only a second, everyone’s still and quiet.

“G-God damnit,” Geto mutters, bringing a hand to his face and turning to the side.

Shoko bursts out in laughter, chuckling so hard that she falls over and has to hold her stomach to catch her breath.

Gojo’s snickering as he looks at his friend, “Suguru… Is…” He chuckles, “Is that a bow in your hair?”

“I hate all of you.” Geto groans, rolling his eyes at Shoko and Gojo’s obnoxious laughter filling the air.

Then there’s you giggling behind him, “It’s cute!”

“Shut up.” The male muttered before dragging his feet toward a nearby couch to plop down.

You join him and the other two, all of you beginning to tease Geto about the pretty pink bow in his hair. The man is so embarrassed about it but at some point he smiles, giving in to the humor in it all.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆ .　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

As the laughter died down, all four of you chatted for a while-- giggling and smiling about some more silly gifts that were exchanged.

Shoko got Gojo this huge Christmas hat and then teased him about being Santa’s long-lost brother or something. Aside from that, the rest of the gifts were pretty normal but the four of you still had fun through it all.

You got Shoko a gift card, which she cherished as if it was the best thing she received all day. The woman hugged you and snuggled up into your body for a while, telling you how you were the best roommate she could’ve ever asked for. You gushed at her words and the two of you would laugh and laugh-- the men feeling left out as they watched you both.

They’d even dramatically roll their eyes at the display of affection but truthfully, Gojo adored seeing you so happy and Geto loved having his friends all in one place like this. Everything was so perfect.

And it only got better.

Because later on, after Geto privately found a moment to give you your gift, the four of you were still in the living room and all of you had eaten cookies and watched a Christmas movie together.

Gojo saved his gift for you until the movie was over and by that time, it was slowly fading into nighttime.

With a slight huff, Gojo stood up from the couch and headed to his room for a moment. Shoko was resting her head on your shoulder, her eyes blindly staring at whatever auto-played on the TV ahead. Meanwhile, Geto picked up his phone and began to scroll through it.

After a few minutes, Gojo returns to the three of you and you and him make eye contact. He’s got a bag in his hand and is careful to make his way toward you.

When he does, he doesn’t realize he’s standing in front of Shoko until she says something, “Dude, you’re not made of glass.” She hums, ignoring the fact that he was clearly only standing there for you.

You chuckle and angle your head up a bit, seeing that Gojo doesn’t budge and instead holds the bag out for you to take. You shake your head at how he ignores Shoko and then sit up, causing her to slip off your shoulder.

The woman groans and then shifts to sit herself up properly, “You’re both annoying,” She says harmlessly before moving to her feet and going to sit on another couch.

Gojo smiles victoriously and then plops down right where Shoko had been, “Got somethin’ for ya’, sweetheart.” He says to you.

You carefully take the bag from his hands, trying not to smile already even though you don’t know what it is. “What is it?” You ask.

“Open it and find out,” Gojo hums.

He shifts so that his body is facing yours, bringing one leg up onto the couch and then moving his arm to the back of the couch so that he can rest his head against his knuckles. With a sigh, you place the bag in your lap and then reach into it.

You weren’t sure what to expect. He said he didn’t even know you were coming so he couldn’t have gotten you anything too thoughtful, right? It’s probably some cash or something along that line…

Geto had placed his phone down and turned his head to the two of you, somewhat excited to see your reaction. And, you didn’t know it but, Shoko was also watching with just as much excitement.

Out of the box, you pulled a pretty red jewelry box out. A hand quickly came up to your mouth as you gasped. It was a rather large box and it was so obvious that there was a necklace inside.

“Satoru… You didn’t…” You whisper in shock.

He smirks, his eyes all over you, “I did. C’mon, open it already, love.”

Your heart skipped a beat due to the nickname and you took a deep breath before opening the jewelry box. Revealed to you was a simple yet dazzling necklace.

Your jaw dropped a little as you looked at the item. There was a pretty white silver chain that led to a small, clearly diamond-encrusted pendant that had a slight sparkle under the lighting. It wasn’t too extravagant or anything but the gift itself struck your heart just right.

You were tearing up for some unknown reason as you stared at it, “I… S-Satoru is this real?” You whispered in disbelief, slowly turning to the man.

Gojo looked at ease, nodding his head slightly, “Of course it’s real.”

“This is…” You turn and look back down at the item, almost too scared to touch it.

He leans closer to you, only a little, “Want’ me to put it on for you?” He offers thoughtfully.

Too stunned to speak, you just nod your head. Gojo moved carefully as he reached for the necklace and you moved around to turn your back to him once he had it. As you did so, you found yourself facing Geto who watched the two of you contently.

You felt Gojo’s fingers against your hair, slipping your hair out of the way, if any, and then shifting the jewelry around you. The slight coldness of the metal hitting your skin made you flinch slightly but as you felt Gojo’s fingertips graze your neck, your nerves steadily died down.

He then shamelessly leaned forward and placed a kiss on the nape of your neck as the piece of jewelry was clasped around you.

Geto winks at you, “It looks good on you,” He compliments.

You’re smiling nonstop, “Thank you.”

Gojo pulls away from your neck and hums out a simple, “Done.”

You turn your body around to face him and see Shoko smiling in the corner of your eye. She was going to say something but she stopped herself as she watched the way your arms flew around Gojo’s neck as you hugged him.

The embrace was so strong and forward that Gojo fell back onto the couch with you landing right on top of him. Your body lay against his muscular one, his legs spread as yours positioned in between them. Even though he fell, you didn’t care, squeezing onto the man tightly as a thanks.

Gojo chuckled and you could feel his heart pounding against his chest as he wrapped his arms around your waist.

“Thank you, Satoru,” You whisper, unconsciously nuzzling into the man, “It’s beautiful, I love it.”

He swallows hard at your words, his heart fluttering in his chest as he chuckles. “I’m glad you like it, sweets.” Gojo hums, shifting his head so that he can whisper in your ear, “I love you.”

The words make your eyes widen and you suddenly move to lift yourself up. You don’t get off of him, simply placing your hands at the side of his head and hovering over the male. His face is completely red at the sight of you over him and you see his breathing grow a bit heavier.

Both of you glance down at each other’s lips at the same time and you both are actually about to kiss, regardless of Shoko or Geto being right there in the room with the two of you. You never wanted to kiss Gojo so bad. There was this sudden desire to just plaster his face with kisses as a thank you for the beautiful piece of jewelry he’d gifted you with.

Getting lost in the moment, you even started to lean down to the man and he looked like he had no plans on stopping you.

Unfortunately, the sudden buzzing of your phone in your pocket stopped you and the two of you finched out of your little daze. You blinked out of your ridiculous thoughts and pushed yourself all the way up, moving off of Gojo and giving him space. You sat back on your heels and he sat up, raising a brow at what it was that ruined the moment.

You stuff your hand into your pocket to find out, pulling your cell out and glancing at the screen. Your eyes went completely wide and your jaw dropped for a second time that night.

You slap a hand over your mouth, “Oh my god.” You murmured, moving to shoot up to your feet.

Geto raised a brow, Gojo batted his eyelashes at you, and Shoko sent you a confused look.

You only made eye contact with Shoko, “It’s him.” You whispered in disbelief.

Her eyes light up and she sits up a little from her slouched position, “Him, as in…?” She raised a brow, sending you a you know who look.

You nodded frantically, your hand shaking a little. You then glanced down at Gojo, who surprisingly had a smile on his face.

The man nudged your leg, “Go on, go talk to him, sweetheart.” Gojo encouraged.

With another shocked bat of your eyelashes, you nod briefly and then rush out of the living room while raising your phone to your ear. Your heart was pounding, throbbing even as you shakily held up the phone.

“H-Hello?” You stammered as you walked into the kitchen.

You could hear everything. The parting of those plush lips of his, the sharp inhale he takes, and even the faint shake in his deep voice as he spoke.

“Merry Christmas, baby,” Choso uttered with that sweet voice of his.

Folded. In half. Literally. You had to bring another hand over your mouth to cover the way his voice, the nickname, and the entire interaction made you all giggly and flustered in a matter of seconds.

Crouching down slightly, you almost didn’t reply as you replayed his voice in your mind over and over. God you missed it more than you realized you did.

“F-Fuck,” You curse softly, chuckling afterward, “Merry Christmas, Cho.”

You couldn’t see it but, he smiled happily at the sound of your voice-- the two of you having an equal effect on each other. He too had to cover his mouth for a second, as if that would stop the gushing smile on his face.

“Shit,” Choso hums, “I uh…” His brain stammers to figure out what to say, “A-Are uhm… Are you free right now by any chance?”

You just barely glance over toward the direction of the living room, “Not exactly but, t-that can probably change. Why?”

The man bites his lower lip for a moment in thought. Choso releases his lip and then holds back his smile as he voices his next words calmly, “I wanna see you.”

GOJO SATORU ✔︎ 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘦 𝘋𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘺: 𝙀𝙖𝙨𝙮

GETO SUGURU ✔︎ 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘦 𝘋𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘺: 𝙀𝙖𝙨𝙮

TOJI FUSHIGURO ✔︎ 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘦 𝘋𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘺: 𝙈𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙪𝙢

KAMO CHOSO ✔︎ 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘦 𝘋𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘺: 𝙎𝙚𝙢𝙞-𝙈𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙪𝙢 / 𝙀𝙖𝙨𝙮

ZEN'IN NAOYA ✔︎ 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘦 𝘋𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘺: 𝙀𝙭𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙀𝙖𝙨𝙮

ITADORI SUKUNA ✔︎ 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘦 𝘋𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘺: 𝙎𝙚𝙢𝙞-𝙀𝙖𝙨𝙮???

NANAMI KENTO ☐ 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘦 𝘋𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘺: 𝙃𝙖𝙧𝙙

mlist || previous chapt || next chpt

614 notes · View notes

minas-linkverse · 6 months ago

Text

Hi everybody, I've been meaning to make this post for a while, but just havent found the right brainspace... 😞

◇ This comic is on HITAUS ◇

I'm really sorry for such sucky news, you've all been so supportive and kind so it pains me to disappoint you. However I also know most of you wouldn't want me forcing myself to draw against my will.

Don't get me wrong, I love this comic and hope to return to it again one day. I've put my whole heart into it and in return many of my comic artist dreams have come true (Thanks to all of you!) I treasure what we have here deeply.

However I have many interests and goals, and they've shifted away from this comic as time has gone by.

For example: I promised myself to finish the third draft of my book this year, and before I knew it half the year has gone by... I know I can do this, but I've only finished 15 out of 36 chapters so the pressure is on!!

Also although the Zelda franchise will always be close to my heart, my fellow special interest havers know as well as I that these things tend to come in phases. We'll see when that fire ignites again. 🤔 I want to create only when my heart is in it.

If you still want to support me as an artist and see what I get up to, you can check my art blog @minart-was-taken ✌I'd be happy to see you all there.

And another sorry and thank you to you all. I'll keep checking on this blog so don't think of it as abandoned, just... quiet.

See you 💛💛

#Info

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yanderecrazysie · 11 months ago

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Twisted Zoo Chapter Seven

This is based on the stories of a keeper reader with the octotrio by @ashensgrotto and @merakiui .

Also @twistedcece @cenatour @ursinaw @xiaopleasecomehome @bearshideout @koebishrimpuwu @vash-yuu @help-whatdoimakemyusername @secret-potion @magmdnv @sunshine-for-serotonin @mel-star636 @silkkorchid @thatpersonuouknow @the-ace-reader @pamv11 @coffee-or-hot-cocoa @hrhqueenfox @goseew @luxthestrange @juno-of-wonderland @who-mst @despairingy-obsessed @lanxianschoenheit @ceramic-raven @sirenetheblogger @a13x15a5133p @abcdontbotherme @m0063576 @kimdourden @rammylog @starshiningsirius @im-here-for-the-fun-of-it @the-monochrome-jester @leleunderscore06 @tinymonke @lonelybluesworld and @thisisafish123 wanted to be tagged! Let me know if anyone else wants to be tagged for future chapters. If you no longer want to be tagged, please tell me! (Some of the tags might not have worked, and I’m sorry if so!)

Summary: You’re a brand new zookeeper at The Halfling Zoo- a place where half-animals live in captivity. Your job is simple- feed them and study them. Your main worry is that one of the more dangerous halflings might kill you.

Unfortunately, that may become the least of your worries.

WARNINGS: none

Previous Part: Chapter Six

Next Part: Chapter Eight

Note: All characters are aged up, since there will be mature themes in future parts.

Also, I can’t promise I’ll finish this. I suck at finishing stories.

—-------------------------------------------------------

You balanced the boxes of donuts in one hand while you pulled open the door to the savannah exhibit open. Then, you slid inside, happily carrying the boxes through the heated exhibit. The heat was already causing beads of sweat to appear on your brow, so you made sure to hurry.

The hyenas were where they were the other day, by the waterfront, chatting animatedly between each other. At least, they were until Ruggie yelled “Hey!” and, in a storm of dust, raced over to meet you.

Ruggie stood in front of you, eyes gleaming, no signs of being afraid of you anymore, “You brought donuts!”

“Yes, I did promise you that I would!” you said with a laugh.

Ruggie wrapped his arms around you and placed his head on your stomach in a strange hug. You couldn’t really hug back with the donuts in your arms, but it made you smile all the same.

“What kind do you want?” you asked, opening the top box. Ruggie snatched up a chocolate frosted donut with rainbow sprinkles and plopped himself down on the dry grass below, chowing down on the donut without leaving time to breathe between bites.

“Slow down, Ruggie, you’re gonna choke,” you laughed, motioning for him to calm down. Ruggie looked up at you with a mouth full of donut and he looked so innocent you couldn’t help but melt a little.

He tried to say something, but it was muffled by the chocolate in his mouth. He seemed to realize you couldn’t understand him, so he chewed, swallowed, and said, “All for me?”

“Nooo, everyone gets a donut,” you laughed, “You are not eating 36 donuts on your own.”

Ruggie pouted and continued to chomp on the rest of his donut. The other hyenas came up and each took their own donut. Once they were all finished, you picked up another chocolate sprinkled donut and handed it to Ruggie, “One for the road, hon.”

“Road? Hon?” Ruggie was confused, tilting his head at you as he tried to understand.

“It’s a phrase and a nickname,” you said, patting Ruggie’s fluffy hair gently, “Don’t worry about it.”

Ruggie leaned into your touch as he scarfed down the new donut. You waved goodbye to the hyenas, who all hesitantly gave you a little wave back, before heading across the savannah to the far end, where the lions laid.

“Hey guys!” you yelled, “Who wants donuts?”

No response. Oh well, you were used to that.

“Hey Leona, which donut would you like?” you asked the king of the savannah.

“I eat meat, not sweets,” he replied coldly.

“Have you ever had one before?” you asked coyly, “Or are you just trying to avoid me?”

Leona’s jaw hardened and, after a moment of glaring at you, he held out one hand with claws extended, “Give me a donut.”

“You have to pick which kind,” you explained, “There’s too many flavors.”

Leona growled, but he allowed you to open the box and show off its contents to him. Leona reached for a powder sugar donut and gasped in surprise when he saw his fingertips, “This donut! Its white covering sticks to your paws!”

You tried not to laugh, “Yeah, powder sugar gets everywhere, but it’s really good.”

Leona raised the donut to his mouth hesitantly. You smiled encouragingly and he tentatively took a bite. His eyes fluttered closed at the sweetness and he let out a pleased hum.

“Still don’t like sweets?” you teased.

“You were right, herbivore,” Leona conceded.

The lion halfling sat up on the rock and called out to the other lions, “Take one donut each! Do not be tempted to take more just because of their sweet flavor.”

“Thanks, Leona” you said, turning the box so the other lions could see. One by one, they each took a donut.

You watched them eat (and Leona lick powdered sugar off of his claws) for a while before you realized the sun was starting to go down. You bid them goodbye, not realizing that Leona’s eyes followed you until you were out of sight, licking his lips both from the powdered sugar and the predatory instincts he felt around you.

You finally left the hot savannah and headed for the wolf exhibit. A little girl came up to you and asked if she could have a donut. “Of course you can!” you said cheerfully, letting her pick from the leftovers.

From his perch not far away, Leona’s eyes narrowed, one thought going through his head until you disappeared into the wolf exhibit. You would make a good mother.

Unaware of Leona’s dark thoughts, you walked through the wolf exhibit. You barely made it a few feet when the wolves popped out from their places behind the trees.

“What do you want with us?” one of the wolves snarled, “You keep returning!”

“I’m a researcher,” you explained calmly, “I have to come back, that’s my job.”

“What’s that you’ve got there?” another wolf demanded to know.

“Donuts!” you said happily, opening up the box and showing it to the halflings. Disgusted, they backed away into the shadows without another word. You sat down on a tree stump, disappointed by their reaction.

“Donuts,” a gruff voice said. You instantly brightened when you realized Jack had stuck around.

“Yes, would you like one?” you asked. He nodded and sat down in the grass next to you, taking a random donut from the box without really looking. His eyes lit up at the flavor and he began devouring it like a man starved.

Pretty soon the both of you decided to split the remaining dozen. You both chowed down and, by the time it was over, you felt like your stomach may burst. Even so, you and Jack smiled at each other.

“Frosting,” Jack said, shyly reaching out his thumb to brush away some crumbs on your lips. He leaned in close and, for a moment, you thought he was about to kiss you. Instead, he nuzzled your cheek affectionately. You wondered if he could feel the heat radiating from it.

Jack placed a gentle kiss on your temple and your face grew even warmer. “I… um… I should probably get going.”

It wasn’t just an excuse- it really was getting dark outside. Jack backed away with a nod and escorted you to the exhibit door. You gave him a pat on the head and he melted into the action, sighing softly at the feeling of your hand on his white hair.

Then, without further ado, you headed on home to write your notes out. A special about lions was playing on TV.

“When a female is in heat, she will mate with a male from any pride, and they will stay together for three or four days. During this time, they will mate every 20–30 minutes, with up to 50 copulations per 24 hours.”

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered, “That’s crazy. I’m glad I’m not a lion.”

#yandere #yandere x reader #twisted wonderland #yandere twisted wonderland

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thepixelelf · 2 years ago

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Oh Baby, You - svt smau

The birth of your son three years ago was what caused your breakup with Wonwoo, your longtime (and at that point, long distance) partner. Now, you're getting concerned that Orion is starting to look a lot like his dad, but that's not your only problem. Wonwoo is back… and he's living across the hall.

Genres: smau, romance, drama, comedy, angst, single parent au

Pairing: jeon wonwoo x afab they/she reader x mystery member(s)

Warnings: coarse language, conversations about sex, mentions of pregnancy, mama/mom/mother is used to refer to reader's parental status sometimes, infidelity, light alcoholism, miscommunication as a plot device, some of the teenies are not so nice at times, slut shaming, angst, everything is unrealistically dramatic because this is basically a kdrama in text/twitter form. warnings may be updated as they come, but I will label chapters properly if it's anything major

Note: unfortunately, I did have to make the mc for this series have female reproductive organs because, well... that's the plot. I couldn't find a good way around it :( if anyone reading this is discouraged, please know that pretty much every other fic I've ever posted is gender neutral. So, if you think you might've liked this smau, please check out my masterlist! hopefully there will be something you like there :) ALSO! if anyone makes fun of Orion's name just know that it's the name of a precious baby cousin of mine and if you bully smau Orion you are bullying irl Orion!! do not touch him!!!

(new!) Updates will post when I have the time and motivation

The taglist is full! Leave a comment under the post linked here if you're not on the main taglist to be notified when Oh Baby, You is completed.

Profiles I: Orion's Prettyboy(gn) Posse

Profiles II: Wonwoo's Famous Friend and the Other Guys

Profiles III: Gyu and the Rise of Capitalism

1. Everybody Loves Vernon

2. Tens Among Tens

3. Grown Ass Men

4. I Hate This FUcking Family

5. The Ones Keeping Secrets

6. A LITTLE Curious

7. You Go Girl Get His Ass

8. The Calm

9. The Storm

10. It's Been a While

11. Fucked Up Coincidences

12. Not... a BAD Guy

13. Still So Affected

14. Just My Type

15. Nothing to Hide

16. Fists Up

17. Act Natural

18. Girl, They Blocked You

19. Plot Relevance

20. Actually it is a Date

21. It's All Pretty Confusing

22. Scripted

23. All it Takes is a Smile

24. Yoon Jeonghan is Watching

25. Completely Surrounded

26. No Such Thing

27. What Does That Mean

28. A Name I've Heard Recently

29. Can't Risk It

30. Errand Day

31. One Day at a Time

32. Confrontation

33. Not Looking to be a Parent Any Time Soon

34. What if I

35. For This Little Guy

36. Get Blocked

37. I'll Take Care of You

38. Messed Up, Stupid, and Jaded

39. You Fucked Up

40. That's For You to Figure Out

41. Need to Try Something

42. Recovery Mission?

43. Your Everything

44. You're Cute When You're Like This

45. Not Sponsored

46. This is Nothing

47. Promise? Promise

48. Hhrk

49. A Busy Afternoon

50. Cherry

51. Don't Freak Out

52. Bad Guys

53. Everything is Fine

chapters loading...

54. Hope Yet

55. Barely an Answer

OBY Ask the Characters Game

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thebestofoneshots · 2 years ago

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SERIES MASTERLIST

Gilded Constellations | (wolfstar x reader)

Summary: You meet Sirius and Regulus at a family vacation in the Caribbean, but things don't go as planned and you end up losing contact once the trip is over. Years later your family moves to England and you get accepted at Hogwarts where you finally meet Sirius once again, along with all of his friends. One of them with a mysterious secret, that you'll uncover as you embark on your own Hogwarts adventure. Mostly canon-compliant. This IS a wolfstar x reader fic, but it's incredibly slow burn. They won't start all dating each other until we're very deep into the story, but I promise the long wait will be worth it.

Read Gilded Constellations on AO3

Read the French Translation by @nagareboshi-chiyo

Paring: Sirius Black x Reader / Remus Lupin x reader / Wolfstar x reader

Chapter average: 5k - 6.5 k

Content: Smut in later chapters, Poly!Marauders, throuple, graphic descriptions of violence, MAJOR and minor character death (this is The Marauders Era guys, you know), jealousy, angst, pining, love triangle, LGBTQ+ themes, The Wizarding war 1.0, implied child abuse, possible proofreading errors, mental health struggles, hurt no comfort, hurt with comfort, period typical attitude, first war with Voldemort, canonical character's death, fluff, Requited Love, F/M/M, mostly canon-compliant.

Status: Ongoing (Weekly updates)

♡ Indicates SMUT

PLAYLIST

01 | Summer Breeze

02 | Escape

03 | Bitter Sweet Symphony

04 | Rainy Days and Mondays

05 | Good times

06 | Crazy Little Thing Called Love

07 | Peaceful Easy Feeling

08 I Fooled Around and Fell in Love

09 | The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke

10 | Black Dog

11 | Do Ya

12 | You really got me

13 | Rebel, Rebel

14 | Maybe I’m Amazed

15 | No One Like You

Interlude (Q&A Event)

16 | Boogie Wonderland

17 | Tonight’s What It Means To Be Young

18 | Friends will be Friends

19 | Silver Bird

20 | Bad Moon Rising

21 | Fox on the Run

22 | Long Long Way From Home

23 | Hungry Eyes

24 | Peace of Mind

25 | I’ll get Even With You

26 | Hooked on a Feeling

27 | Can’t Take My Eyes Off You

28 | If You Want BIood, (You’ve Got It)

29 | With a Little Help From My Friends

30 | Bridge Over Troubled Water

31 | Strange Magic

32 | Come a Little Bit Closer

33 | More Than a Feeling

34 | You Belong to Me

35 | Chill of Desire

36 | Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy

37 | Gimme, Gimme, Gimme

38 | Let the Good Times Roll

39 | Running With the Pack

40 | Hot Stuff

41 | Urban Adventure

42 | Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

43 | Sympathy for the Devil

44 | No One But You

45 | Hold The Line

46 | Comfortably Numb

47 | Let Me Take You Home Tonight

48 | Dust in the Wind

49 | High Hopes

50 | Love the One You're With ♡

51 | Some Guys Have All The Luck ♡

52 | Twentieth Century Fox

53 | Too Much Love Will KiII You

54 | Sail Away Sweet Sister

55 | Noone Together

56 | Who Wants To Live Forever

57 | Play the Game

58 | Staying Power

59 | Break on Through

60 | Stone in Love

61 | Mr. Blue Sky

62 | Born to be Wild

63 | Something About You

64 | Put Out The Fire

65 | Spell Binder

66 | Hot Love

67 | What's On My Mind

68 | Mysteries and Mayhem

69 | Livin' Thing

70 | Back Talk

71 | We've Only Just Begun

72 |

73 |

74 |

75 |

BONUS TRACKS:

Your Theories, The Note, The Costumes, Sirius and the Chimney, Sirius and Vix after the bad moon, Evans and Vixen, Remus and Vixen at the infirmary, Remus holding Sirius at DADA, Remus and Sirius’ height difference, the FOXSTAR picture, Art by @nineloseteeth, We're going French,

Leave a comment telling me if you want to join the tag list

A/N: Most Poly!Marauders fics are oneshots, where the relationship between characters is already established, and they're all happy and pleased with it. No issues, no drama, but I WANTED the drama. Couldn't find it, so I set myself up to write the story behind the stablished relationship. I wanted to know how they started dating each other, the jealousy, the will they won't they, because getting into a poly relationship can't be an easy task, and I wanted to explore that story. If you're interested: Welcome to Gilded Constellations!

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justagalwhowrites · 5 months ago

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The Savage and the Sanctuary - Ch. 2: Teenagers

You and Joel adjust to each other as you struggle with Ellie. A continuation of The Savage and the Sanctuary, a no outbreak TLOU story, from the prologue through chapter 1 found on Tumblr here.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

CW: Mild suicidal ideation. Mention of grief and child loss. Mention of parent loss. No use of Y/N. Whole fic will be explicit so minors DNI, 18+ only.

Length: 13.4k

A/N: For some reference because I haven't explicitly stated their ages, Joel is turning 42 in this chapter and was about to turn 37 in the flashback at the start of this chapter. Reader is 36 (meaning they were the same ages when their kids were born.)

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

“Dad, please!”

Joel sighed, leaning against his counter and sipping his coffee, his 16-year-old daughter standing in front of him with wide, pleading eyes.

“It’s a school night, baby girl,” he said. “We both gotta be up early tomorrow and…”

“And we could play hooky!” She said. “Celebrate your birthday, go to Waffle House…”

“I don’t like waffles.”

“Those are for my benefit,” she replied. “You can get your smothered hash browns and see if they’ll put candles in them so you can celebrate being an old man.”

“I can’t just call into work because it’s my birthday tomorrow, kiddo,” he said. “And your friend should have her party on the weekend…”

“But her birthday’s today!” She said. “It’s sweet 16, please! Everyone’s going, basically no one is going to be at school on Thursday because of it, please Dad!”

He sighed again, Sarah still looking so hopeful in front of him.

And then, her face shifted.

“We could go see the new Curtis and Viper tomorrow,” she smirked, brows raised conspiratorially. “We’ll probably have the theater to ourselves so we can make fun of it.”

Joel clenched his jaw to keep from smiling.

“Come on, Dad,” she said. “You worked so late on your birthday last year that we didn’t get to do anything. Please?”

He sighed.

“What would you miss at school tomorrow?”

“Basically nothing!” She said quickly, eyes lighting up. “I have exam review but I got As on all my homework in that class so I don’t need it and…”

“Jesus, you’re a bad influence,” he muttered, taking a sip of coffee. Sarah squealed, slamming into him, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Thank you thank you thank you!” She said, her voice muffled by his shirt before she pulled back at looked up at him, practically beaming. “We’re going to have so much fun tomorrow!”

“Somethin’ tells me you’re more excited about having fun tonight than hanging out with me tomorrow,” he shook his head but smiled all the same. “Who all’s goin’ to this thing tonight? There gonna be boys and drinking and shit?”

“Dad,” she gave him a look.

“You can act all grown up all you want, baby girl, but you’re still a kid,” he said. “Want you to have fun but don’t want you doing anything too dangerous…”

“My friends don’t drink…”

“You say that now,” he muttered.

“…and Brit’s parents will be there so while there will be boys, nothing’s going to happen with the boys.”

“Alright,” he sighed. “But you gotta promise me you’re gonna be safe, no gettin’ in the car with someone who’s been drinking. Even just one beer is too much and you call me if you don’t have another way home, I’ll come get you, you won’t be in trouble and…”

“I know, Dad,” she rolled her eyes but smiled a little. “Don’t worry so much. I don’t plan on getting drunk anytime soon. Maybe inject heroin under my fingernails but…”

“Your fingernails, huh?” Joel teased.

“Well yeah,” she said. “Gotta hide the track marks.”

There was a honk from the driveway and Sarah grabbed what was left of her coffee - more creamer than actual coffee but Joel still liked to humor her - and chugged it.

“That’s Emma,” she said, rinsing out her favorite mug, the chipped one with the owl on it that she’d been drinking hot cocoa out of since she was so small that it was more like room temperature cocoa, and setting it beside the sink. “I’m going to go to her place after school to get ready for the party since you’ll probably be at work, anyway.”

“Yeah, should stay late and try and wrap up as much as I can since apparently I’m not workin’ tomorrow,” he smirked. “Home by midnight, OK baby girl?”

“Yup!” She said, giving him a quick hug. He gave her a squeeze, pressing a kiss to her temple. “See you tonight!”

“Be safe!” He called after her as she grabbed her backpack and headed for the front door.

When she looked back over her shoulder to wave goodbye, he didn’t know it would be the last time he’d ever see her smile.

***

Thursday, September 26, 2024

It was still dark outside.

Joel wasn’t sure what time it was but it was still dark outside so it was OK. He didn’t need to be aware of things like time or hunger or your safety when it was still dark and he was in his daughter’s room.

He jerked awake not too long after midnight, just like he’d done every year on his birthday ever since Sarah died. He wasn’t sure why he even bothered trying to sleep in his own bed, as though anything would be different. Why would it be different? The only thing that mattered was gone, it couldn’t be different.

He stared at his ceiling for a while, waiting to see if he’d be able to fall asleep again, if he could shake the feeling of phantom blood on his skin in the red glow of his alarm clock but he couldn’t. So he did what he always did on the morning of his birthday: he went to his daughter’s room.

Joel rarely went to Sarah’s room now. Maria, his sister in law, probably spent more time in there than he did, coming by every few months while he was on a job to dust and run the vacuum so it didn’t fall to ruin. She was careful to not disturb things when she did, the t-shirt Sarah had worn to sleep in still draped over the back of her desk chair and the book she’d been reading still face down on the page she’d stopped at on her nightstand. He turned on the lamp and sank onto the bed - still unmade, like she’d left it that morning - staring at the poster-covered walls.

The posters were old now, the sun fading them in the five years that had passed since his daughter had left him behind. It made the room seem like a relic, as though this space was a museum and not a place where someone had lived once, and it set Joel on edge.

Five years. Half a decade without the most important person there’d ever been or ever would be. She’d only been 16 when she died and five years had passed so quickly. Soon, she’d have been gone as long as she’d been here. Soon, to the sun-bleached posters and peeling soccer trophies, it would be like she’d never been here at all.

He found himself looking at the poster of you more than he remembered doing before when he’d been in this room before. It was strange, knowing you existed outside of this liminal space now. You were real, corporeal, a human being with thoughts and feelings and not some imagined thing with an almost disturbingly perfect face someone had invented and put on paper.

It had been a three days since Joel had seen you last, spending 11 days working with three days off in between. Tommy had been hesitant to schedule him back on duty today of all days but Joel had all but insisted on it. He needed the distraction. More than that, he needed to keep out of trouble. He needed something to keep him from trying to find the person responsible for his daughter’s death and killing them himself. Protecting you was a good enough distraction.

Yours was the first contract like this Joel had taken on, one that was longer and more involved. Typically, people who needed someone on hand 24/7 didn’t live in Austin, Texas. They passed through and Joel’s job was done in a week, two at most. You were more complicated.

Part of that was the nature of the job, of course. Working in such close proximity and in such risky situations made shit complicated.

He’d had to establish rules with you that first day after dropping Ellie off at school. He ground his teeth as you went by a small local coffee shop on your way home, you giving a fake name at the counter as the barista all but stared at you.

“I’m so sorry,” the girl smiled sheepishly. “But has anyone told you that you look just like…”

“Oh yeah,” you waved her off. “I get that all the time. Not sure why, I think she’s way prettier.”

Joel resisted the urge to snap at you until the two of you were back to the car, you still refusing to let him drive as you sipped your overpriced coffee with a contented sigh.

“Can I help you?” You asked him, brows raised, as you watched him over the rim of your cup.

“You tryin’ to get yourself killed?” He said.

“Didn’t realize the coffee shop was so dangerous…”

“You know what I mean,” he snapped. “You’re bein’ reckless.”

“I get coffee all the time back home and -”

“And you got yourself a fucking stalker, didn’t you?” He cut you off. “S’why you’re stuck with me, spent too much time runnin’ around doing whatever the fuck you wanted and now you’re payin’ the price.”

“No, I’m paying the price because the studio is overreacting,” you said, condescension dripping from your voice. “Pretty sure I’d still be sitting in my car sipping a coffee if you were off promising to take a bullet for someone else.”

You held his gaze as you took a drink, as if to make a point.

“I don’t know why this is fuckin’ news to you, but you’re one of the most famous people on the goddamn planet,” he snapped. “That shit comes with problems. If you didn’t want to deal with those problems, maybe you shouldn’t have become fuckin’ famous.”

You looked at him, like you were trying to hold back a laugh, eyebrows raised so high they almost disappeared into your hairline.

“You think I chose to become famous?” You asked. “You think I wanted this?”

“Ain’t that why people become actresses,” he said more than asked.

You just looked at him for a moment, like you were examining him.

“You don’t have many friends, do you?” You said after a moment.

He ground his teeth.

“Got as many as I need,” he said. “Let’s get you home before I have to take a damn bullet because you’re stubborn.”

“Yes, I’m sure the woman driving that minivan is packing,” you said wryly but putting the car in drive all the same. “Very dangerous.”

“It’s Texas,” he said, voice flat. “She probably is.”

But instead of going home, you drove to Whole Foods. Fucking Whole Foods.

Joel was almost positive it was to piss him off but you completely ignored him as you went up and down the aisles, filling up your cart as he tried to watch for whatever threats might be at a goddamn grocery store while you acted like your goddamn baseball cap made you invisible to whoever might be looking for you.

“I know you got people for this,” he muttered under his breath, putting his body between you and as much of the rest of the store as he could as you meticulously selected an apple. “Should fuckin’ carry you out of here…”

“Yes but that would cause a scene, wouldn’t it?” You said, smug. “And that’s even MORE dangerous, right?”

He narrowed his eyes at you and moved to respond but cut him off.

“What do you think of this apple?” You thrust it under his nose. “It smells good, right?”

“It’s a goddamn apple.”

“Yes, but I need to try to get a teenager to eat it,” you sighed, impatient. “I need it to be appealing. Would you eat it if you were a teenager?”

“If I tell you yes, will you shut the fuck up and get out of here?”

“Maybe.”

“Then yeah, I’d eat the goddamn apple, let’s go.”

You smiled a little, satisfied, and got several apples and added them to the cart before taking your sweet time going through the rest of the store.

Eventually, you finished your shopping trip and actually got ready to go home. The only person who seemed to recognize you at the store was the cashier, who gaped at you as much as one person could gape at another while they rang up their items.

“That will be $267.48,” she said and you went to put your credit card but then she jumped. “Oh, wait! I can put in my discount…”

“You don’t need to do that,” you laughed. “But you’re sweet to offer!”

“But…”

“How about you put that discount in for someone else who comes through your line today,” you smiled.

“OK,” she smiled a little hesitantly. “Sorry, I’ve just never had someone famous come through my line before.”

“First time for everything,” you winked, putting your card in the machine.

The cashier kept staring at you.

“No one is going to believe I met you,” she said eventually. “I wish I had my phone so I could take a selfie…”

“Want an autograph?” You asked as the machine chimed. “Don’t need a phone for that.”

Instead of answering, she scrambled to get some blank receipt paper and a pen and Joel could tell you were trying not to laugh. You wrote on the paper quickly and handed it back before giving the cashier a smile.

“You have a great day, Mina,” you said.

She looked up from the paper with wide eyes.

“How’d you know my name?”

You smiled a little bigger and nodded to her name badge.

“See you next time,” you said and she beamed.

“Shit like that is stopping,” Joel said once the two of you were safely back in your house, behind the gate and fence that surrounded your property. “You got no damn reason to take risks like that…”

“Yes I do,” you said, defiant, arms crossed.

“What,” he demanded. “What’s your damn reason.”

“I want to take care of my kid,” you stuck your chin out. “That means going to the grocery store sometimes. I’m sure that’s a new concept for you since I’m sure you subsist exclusively off fast food and have never thought about looking after anyone but yourself…”

Joel tightened his jaw, trying to keep the sharp stab of loss from showing on his face.

“You don’t need to go yourself,” he snapped. “Send someone.”

You stepped closer to him, close enough that he could smell your skin, sweet and soft and he resented it.

“I want to take care of her,” you said. “Me. She lost her mother, the person who used to do shit like make her dinner and pick out her snacks. I want to do that for her. Me, not someone I pay. So you just need to accept the fact that I’m going to go to the store because I’m not stopping.”

“Fine,” he snapped, not about to admit that what you said tugged at him a bit. He remembered going to the store, looking for things that he thought Sarah might like. Things to put in her backpack so she had a snack for school when she got hungry between her afternoon classes or to have waiting for her when she got home. He remembered her favorite foods and how she lit up when he made burgers the way she liked or brought home her favorite cereal. He remembered how lucky he felt to be the person who got to know her in this way, to know her favorite things and be the one to get them for her. “But we’re doin’ it on my terms. This will be a whole lot easier on both of us as soon as you get with the program because I’m not letting you get us both killed because you’re stubborn. Got it?”

He laid out the rules: You were to never leave the house without him or whoever was filling in for him on his days off. You needed to run your proposed schedule for the week by him so he could make necessary changes - varying your comings and goings as much as possible so you would be unpredictable. You needed to give him full access to your property and any existing security infrastructure so he could check for possible weaknesses. And you needed a code name, one that would be used for the whole team so when there was a handoff or a situation that required additional security, communication was short and easily understood.

“That seems like overkill,” you rolled your eyes. “It’s not like I’m the fucking president…”

“When it’s a shit situation and we need to know who has you, we need it,” he said, harsher than he needed to. He was hard pressed to care, though. “We don’t need people stumbling over your name, not knowing if we’re using your first or last, and we really don’t need ��em announcing your damn name where the wrong person could hear it and learn where you are.”

“Fine,” you said. “What are the rules for picking a code name then.”

“There aren’t any,” Joel said. “Yours is Siren.”

“Siren,” you looked at him, incredulous. “Seriously? I don’t get any say in this at all?”

“No,” he lied. “We pick for you and it’s Siren.” Your jaw twitched and Joel fought the urge to smirk. “What, don’t like it?”

You squared yourself, defiant.

“No, it’s perfect,” you said. “Derivative and dull, just what I’d expect from you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have real work to do.”

And with that, you stalked off to some far away corner of your massive fucking house, leaving the woman who’d answered the door for him that morning to show him around.

Joel tried to hide the almost spiteful sense of pride he got from getting under your skin. Because, fuck, if he had live with the reminder of that goddamn show then you had to, too.

He’d Googled you after he’d met you the day before, his chest tight the whole time. He saw your more recent film history and learned that you were older than he’d realized - you must have been in your 20s when you were playing a teenager on TV. He also learned that you didn’t talk much about the show that Sarah had loved so much and had made you a household name. He wondered if you loathed it as much as he did, if you got the same stomach churning feeling inside yourself when something made you think of it, the same one he got whenever he looked at your disturbingly perfect face.

Siren was the name of that goddamn show and the almost mocking nickname the male lead of the show had given your character, both of your characters fighting to make it as musicians in some bullshit story that was dramatized to hell and back. Joel recognized the guy, too - he was some fucking country star now, the kind who played bullshit instead of real country music - and he could feel, when he picked that name, that you’d hate it.

Normally, the person he was protecting got to pick their code name. But you didn’t know that and he needed to feel some sense of power over you. You loomed too large over him. He needed you to feel the way he did, a little helpless, a little out of control.

And you, stalking off in a huff over that damn name, made him feel better than it should.

Over the next week and a half, he was keenly aware that none of this, really, was your fault. It wasn’t your fault that you were tied so closely with his dead daughter. It wasn’t your fault that being around you was like living with an open wound, something tender and aching on him that he couldn’t seem to heal because you were near. It wasn’t your fault that he had gone through so much of the last five years numb to everything and now was almost shockingly aware of the constant pain that had been lingering below the surface.

But you were there and you were so much easier to blame than himself. He knew that, too. But it didn’t make him stop doing it, almost like he was watching himself make your life difficult without having any control over it.

He had to stay in your home to be available at all hours so he started getting up early to take your keys before you had a chance to make it downstairs in the morning so he could drive when taking Ellie to school. He made a habit of finishing the coffee when Esmo was busy elsewhere in the house and he knew you’d be coming back for another cup. He never accepted any kindness you offered, taking disconcerting pleasure in saying no lattes when you insisted on stopping for a coffee and telling you he didn’t want whatever food you offered him, choosing instead to eat frozen dinners alone in another part of the house away from you and Ellie and Esmo, too. He found a strange satisfaction in these small harms, as though they were earned in some way. You, embedded so deeply in the trappings of wealth and fame, surely deserved some inconvenience in your life. After all the pain you’d inadvertently caused him, it seemed like it was owed to him. He tried to ignore the fact that he didn’t like being the kind of person who took pleasure in hurting someone else who didn’t deserve it, even if it was only small hurts. He tried not to think about what Sarah would say if she could see what he was doing now.

Being away from you, though, made him more aware of it. The strange poison of wanting to make your life harder was further away when he was home and it was easier to see through it. You were probably dreading his return as much as he was dreading returning. He didn’t like who he became when he was near you and here he was, going back to the sphere of your influence to let it swallow him and turn him into a worse version of himself again.

Joel should tell Tommy to take him off this job. He knew that but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was never supposed to be this way with him and his brother. Joel was the older one, Joel was the one who had practically raised Tommy when their parents were gone. Tommy was never supposed to be the one to take care of him. He was never supposed to be the one to give him a fucking job or make sure he didn’t lose his house in the months after the death of his daughter. He owed his brother so much now. How could he tell him “Sorry, this simple job is just too much for me, find someone else.” Tommy asked Joel to protect you so he would.

Even if he hated it.

Dawn was just starting on the horizon when Joel decided to indulge himself for a minute, lying down gently on his daughter’s bed. He was careful to not disturb the blankets, he didn’t adjust the pillow. He let himself sink into the softness of her lavender sheets and twin-sized mattress, to be in the exact place she was the last morning of her life. He stared at the side of her nightstand - stickers she’d placed there starting to peel - and let himself remember what it was like to have someone as good as her love him.

He stayed there until her room as filled not with the artificial glow of streetlights but the unflinching light of day and got up as carefully as he lay down, going to the door and taking a last look at his daughter’s room on the morning of his fifth birthday since he’d stopped being a father, closing the door softly behind him.

The drive to your house went by too quickly for his liking and he pulled into the driveway at the same time you did, Seth - the guard who’d filled in for him while he had a few days off - laughing about something with you as the two of you got out of the car.

“Joel, good to see you man,” he said, still smiling as the two of you met Joel near your front door. “Ready to take over?”

“Don’t think I got much choice,” Joel said wryly.

“Good morning, Joel,” you said, your tone oddly cool. He just gave you a nod as Seth put the call in to dispatch.

“This is Cook,” Seth said. “Transferring custody of Siren to Big Miller.”

“Big Miller?” Your eyebrows shot up, looking between Seth and Joel. Seth covered the receiver on the phone.

“We got two Millers, he’s the older one,” he said, before going back to the call. “That’s correct…”

“Big Miller,” you smirked at Joel. “Oh there’s so much I can do with that…”

“Jesus,” Joel muttered as Seth handed him the phone. He confirmed he was taking over and ground his teeth as Seth hugged you goodbye like the pair of you were old fucking friends.

“Don’t let this asshole push you around too much,” Seth winked at you. “Deep down, he’s a big softie.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s a big something,” you said. Seth laughed. Joel glared. “See you next time.”

You watched Seth leave before heading into your house without another word. Joel followed you inside, trailing behind you as you otherwise ignored his presence, going to the kitchen to get a bottle of water before heading out back.

“Hey,” he called after you and you stopped at the edge of your pool, slowly turning to face him, brows raised. “The hell you goin’? I need your itinerary for the week, you know the drill.”

“No you don’t,” you said. “I decided I’d rather talk with someone who isn’t a huge fucking child so I gave it to Seth. Get it from him, Big Miller.”

You kept going, toward the pool house and Joel ground his teeth, jogging to catch up with you.

“Look,” he snapped but you rounded on him.

“You lied to me,” you said. “I could have picked my own stupid name, you just had to get the one up on me for whatever reason and now I have to deal with being called that stupid, goddamn…”

“If you and Seth are so cozy why didn’t you get him to change it for you, hm?” He cut you off.

“Because I’d rather not look like a fucking idiot to your entire company, thanks though,” you snapped. “If you hate me so much, why didn’t you just ask someone else to do this job?”

“If you hate havin’ me around, why didn’t you ask someone else to take over?” He countered. “Looked cozy enough with fuckin’ Seth!”

You laughed.

“Oh I’d never dream of giving you that satisfaction,” you said. “You want to torment me? Fine, two can play at that game. Just wait, you ain’t seen nothing yet, Big Miller.”

You stalked off toward the pool house again before turning back to face him.

“We’re leaving at noon,” you said. “If you want to know where to, better call fucking Seth and find out since you don’t have the people skills to get your charge to cooperate.”

He grit his teeth as you went inside and he stared at the door you’d disappeared through for a moment, half expecting you to come back out and rip into him again. But you didn’t and he went inside, finding Esmo in the kitchen cleaning up from breakfast.

“She’s in a fuckin’ mood,” Joel muttered, going to help himself to a cup of coffee.

“It was not an easy morning,” she said, holding a plate with a biscuit out to him. He took it with a frown. “Ellie’s a teenaged girl but even so…”

“What happened?” He asked, settling in at the breakfast bar.

“Not sure what set her off,” she sighed, putting the last pan in the drying rack before crossing her arms and leaning back against the counter, watching Joel. She reminded him of his mother, he realized, something grounding and sure about her. “But before they left, Ellie yelled that she wasn’t her mother. She didn’t say anything back but I could tell it hurt.”

Joel flinched, looking out the window at the back of the kitchen, toward the pool and pool house. Toward you. He and Sarah had rarely clashed, especially that badly, but she was still a teenaged girl who grew up without a mother. She still lashed out about it and he was still the one who had to weather her rage. He knew her pain was misdirected but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

“I know you two don’t…” She paused, like she was searching for the words. “Get along. But she is just as human as you or I, Mr. Miller. Go easy on her today.”

“Told you, you can just call me Joel,” he said, dodging the rest of what she said. “I ain’t your boss, not gonna make you call me Mr. Miller…”

Esmo barked a laugh as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

“What?” He frowned.

“Do you think she makes me call her ma’am?” She asked. “Mr. Miller, she is my employer. I am not going to call her by her first name, regardless of what she asks. Right now, the same goes for you.”

He looked toward the pool house again. He’d assumed you’d told Esmo to call you ma’am, that you’d insisted on bullshit that put you on a different level than everyone else. Apparently, he was wrong.

That didn’t mean he had to like you, though.

Still, he almost felt bad for you as he got settled back into the room at your house that had become his. You’d been thrown into parenthood head first, none of the gradual build up that raising a child from birth provided. Instead, you were given a fully-fledged teenager with a chip on her shoulder. Anyone would struggle with that, even spoiled movie stars.

His patience wore thin, though, as noon came and went and you still hadn’t come in from the damn pool house. He wondered if you’d told him noon just to piss him off, to make him feel like he had to spend his morning biding his time until it was wasted only to do nothing but sit at home until the time came to pick up Ellie from school.

Eventually, he got tired of waiting for you and he stalked to the pool house, damn near ripping the door off its hinges as he went to find you, his eyes widening in surprise when he did.

Joel wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find there but it certainly wasn’t this. You were there, back to the door, headphones covering your ears as you swung again and again at a punching bag hanging from the ceiling.

“Hey!” He called but you either ignored him or couldn’t hear them, continuing your clumsy barrage on the bag. You clearly knew fuck all about fighting, your form rough and disjointed. Any punch you landed would be ineffectual at best, damaging to you at worst. It’d be comical if it wasn’t happening to someone whose safety he was responsible for.

“Hey!” He tried again. Nothing. He clenched his jaw and stalked over to you, hand closing around the band of your headphones to pull them off your head and you spun, breathless and shocked, to face him.

“What the fuck?” You reached to snatch the headphones back but he held them behind his back, out of reach. “Gimme those!”

“You actually got some place to fuckin’ be this afternoon or not?” He snapped. “Because I’m tired of waiting for you to get your act together…”

You stopped reaching for the headphones, still breathless, and checked your smart watch.

“Shit,” you panted, drooping a little. “I lost track of time… Give me 15 minutes, then we’ll go.”

He held the headphones out to you and you snatched them back roughly and Joel watched you stomp off toward the main house, sweat dripping down the nape of your neck and he tried loathe the way your leggings hugged every curve and arch of your legs and ass as you did.

You were ready to go in just 15 minutes, though, and still more beautiful than Joel was comfortable with you being. You smelled fresh, clean, some floral fucking body wash on your skin that was covered by more skin-tight athletic wear that revealed your shape to him, all the places that - were you any other woman - he’d want to sink his fingers into to pull you close. He clenched his jaw and he went to the driver’s seat but you stopped in front of him, staring him down.

“Not sure where you think you’re going,” you said.

“I’m driving,” he said. “You know the drill.”

“Oh, so you called Seth?” You asked, brows raised. “Know where we’re headed?”

He narrowed his eyes and you smirked.

“Didn’t think so,” you said. “Step aside, Big Miller. Maybe you can drive home.”

Joel considered, for a moment, fighting you on it. But, today of all days, he didn’t have the energy. He just stalked around to the passenger side of the car, trying his damndest to ignore the little smirk you got when he did.

He stared determinedly out the window as you drove, the odd, raw feeling he got in his chest when he looked at you a little too sharp today. He focused on the cars around him, watching for any kind of pattern, anything unusual, trying to lose himself in the work of keeping you alive. At least, then, he was still good at something. At least, then, there was still some purpose for him being here. Even if he didn’t want to be. The scar that had been at his temple for nearly five years itched.

He was so lost in it that he was almost surprised when you pulled up in front of not some insufferable coffee shop or unnecessary grocery store but an overpriced looking nursing home. You reached between Joel’s legs without a word and got your worn baseball cap from the glove box, tugging it down low over your face before grabbing your keys out of your bag and dropping them on Joel’s lap.

“Get comfy,” you said. “I’ll be at least an hour, probably two.”

“Hold on,” he said, but you ignored him, getting out of the car and heading toward the door. He caught you quickly, grabbing your arm and pulling you around go face him.

“What is your problem?” You snapped. “You’re always an asshole but Jesus you’re worse than usual today…”

“You really think I’m just gonna let you go do some photo-op alone?” He asked. “Not about to just wait in the car…”

“It’s not a photo-op,” you snapped. “It’s private, you don’t need to be involved…”

“The hell I don’t,” he snapped back. “Your ass dies and it ain’t private anymore. I’m going. Deal with that shit now.”

“Too bad for you,” you said, trying to pull your arm back from him but he held firm. Your clumsy little fight moves from the pool house earlier hadn’t done you any favors.

“You can either listen to me or I’ll put you over my shoulder and make you listen,” he said. “I don’t much care which it is.”

You stared him down, almost like you thought he wouldn’t do it. He was about to prove you wrong when you apparently decided instead, huffing indignantly.

“Fine,” you snapped. “You can sit in the lobby.”

“Fine,” he snapped back before following you inside.

A woman rushed to meet you at the door, speaking to you in hushed tones that even Joel, standing so close to you, had a hard time making out. She directed Joel to a comfortable looking room that reminded him of his grandmother’s living room as a child, the one that no one was allowed in to “keep the furniture nice.” There were no such concerns here, the arm chairs and couches looking comfortable and inviting if overly ornate, neat stacks of magazines on the antique coffee table in the middle of them. He ground his teeth, watching as the woman led you away.

You’d be out of sight. That made him uncomfortable. And he couldn’t trust you to actually call for help if you needed it. That made him more uncomfortable.

But… this wasn’t an especially public place. There was security keeping people out and the residents in. Chances were, there wasn’t anything that could really get to you in here. And if this wasn’t some bullshit media thing, it was probably fine to leave you to your own devices. At least for a little while.

So he settled on the couch, keeping an eye on the front doors while he absently picked up a magazine, some kind of trashy tabloid that Sarah used to flip through at the grocery store. It used to make him roll his eyes and tell her that she was rotting her brain and now he’d give anything to go back in time and buy out every newsstand he passed if it meant he got another 20 minutes waiting in line for to pay for groceries with her.

He wasn’t paying close enough attention to the magazine he picked up, though, and then bam, there you were yet again. Your picture was blurry and you were wearing sunglasses that were a little too big for your face and there was an iced coffee cup dangling from your hand.

Bombshell breakup the headline under your picture said. Hollywood’s brightest star back on the market!

Joel looked at the date, from almost a year ago now, and flipped to the pages about you. There were pictures of you walking with a woman who looked something like an older, red-headed version of Ellie and he realized he was looking at her mother. Your arms were crossed tightly over your stomach and your face was drawn, Ellie’s mother’s face concerned. It was strangely intimate, seeing you like this. It wasn’t like other paparazzi pictures of you he’d seen, the ones that looked somewhat staged or like you’d at least known you were being photographed. This seemed like an intrusion, something he wasn’t supposed to be seeing.

He looked at the pictures of you and Ellie’s mother for a while. He wasn’t sure how long, not really able to look away, when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

“Yeah,” he said gruffly when he answered.

“Hello Mr. Miller,” Esmo said, her tone still uncomfortably formal. “I apologize for just reaching out like this but I know she’s visiting her mother right now so her phone is off and we just got a call from the school…”

“Wait, what?” Joel cut her off. Your mother? That couldn’t be right.

“Yes,” she said, sounding impatient. “The school, apparently Ellie was in a fight and she needs to be picked up, can you please tell her and take care of things?”

“She OK?” Joel asked, trying not to overthink the sharp little stab of fear in his chest at the thought of Ellie in a fight. He tried not to think about getting his hands on whatever little teenaged prick decided to fight her, either.

“She’s fine,” Esmo said. “At least, that’s what the school said. She just needs to be picked up. Can you go get her?”

“Yeah,” he said after a second. “Course, I got it.”

“Thank you,” she said, relieved. “I appreciate it.”

Joel’s jaw tightened as he dropped that old magazine on the coffee table before stalking off in the direction he’d watched you go before.

It didn’t take him long to find you, tucked away in a small and private visitation room, deck of cards sitting on the table between you and a woman who looked a lot like you, some of the cards fanned out in your hand.

“Do you have any fives?” The woman - your mother - asked.

“You asked me that before,” you said, an oddly tense but gentle edge to your voice. “Why don’t you ask about another one?”

“Oh,” she frowned at her hand. “How about… tens?”

“Damn,” you said, handing her a card. She smiled.

“You shouldn’t curse, you know,” she said. “It makes you sound dumb.”

“I’ve heard that,” you said, arranging the cards in your hand. “Any eights?”

She paused for a moment, examining her cards.

“What was that again?” She said after a moment.

“Eights,” you repeated.

“Go fish,” she said and you got a card from the top of the pile. “You know, you remind me of my daughter…”

“Do I?” You said, your tone oddly even.

“She’s an actress,” she nodded. “She’s only a teenager though, a lot younger than you. She’s pretty like you, though.”

“An actress, hm?” You said. “Does she like it?”

“I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “But she’s good at it. Not sure she can handle the hard parts, though.”

“You’re probably right,” you said. “She can’t.”

“Hello,” your mother said, looking up at Joel and lowering her cards. “Are you here to play, too?”

You noticed him then, your back going stiff, shifting uncomfortably in your chair when you did.

“Fraid not,” Joel said. “Just need to talk to… my friend here.”

You looked back at him then, frowning but he just jerked his head toward the door. You, at least, didn’t question it, just setting the cards face down on the table and joining him.

“Can I help you?” You asked, brows raised expectantly.

“Now, I already asked and she’s fine,” he said, which made your eyes go wide but he held up a hand. “Ellie got in a fight at school, we gotta go pick her up…”

“Shit,” you swore, fishing your phone from some hidden pocket in your leggings at the small of your back and turning it on. It took a moment but you groaned. “Fuck, I have six missed calls…”

You stashed the phone again and went back to the table, your mother frowning at you as you gathered up the cards.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am, but I have to go,” you said. “They’ll have someone come bring you back in a minute.”

“It’s very rude to just take off on someone, you know,” she said sternly.

“Been told that, too,” you said. “You have a good day.”

She grunted, crossing her arms and turning away from you. You didn’t take the bait, just going for the door and quickly leading the way back to the car. But, for a change, you went for the passenger side.

“What?” You said. “You do know the way to the school, don’t you?”

“I know it,” he muttered, getting behind the wheel.

“Good,” you said, buckling in. “Then drive.”

You checked your phone, shaking your head, before just staring out the window.

“So,” Joel said eventually. “That’s your mom.”

“In the most technical sense,” you said, not looking at him. He nodded slowly anyway. “I don’t really think of her that way.”

“Why’s she in there?” Joel asked.

“Why do you care?” You said, incredulous, finally looking at him. He glanced at you and then shrugged and you sighed, the sound heavy. “Early onset Alzheimers. She’s 67 now, it started about five years back. I try to see her once a month or so.”

“Don’t you got the money to get her a nurse or some shit so she could stay with you?” He frowned.

“It’s really not any of your fucking business, is it?” you snapped before sighing, pinching the bridge of your nose and wincing as Joel pulled into the parking lot of the school. “Please don’t mention of this to Ellie. She doesn’t know anything about my mother and I’d like it to stay that way.”

You didn’t give him a chance to say anything else, all but leaping out of the car the second he put it into park and going quickly for the front door of the school. Joel had to run to catch up with you, barely catching you as the two of you were buzzed into the building where the headmistress met you.

She greeted you the same way Esmo did and Joel could tell, now that he knew you didn’t like it, that it put you on edge. It made him stiffen at your back, narrowing his eyes at the prim and proper woman in front of him, assessing her differently now than the last time you’d met. She was a threat now, she’d upset you, she’d opposed Ellie and he was oddly comforted that he knew he could easily overpower her if he needed to.

He frowned ever so slightly.

Why would he need to? She was a fucking teacher. And why should he care so much that she pissed you off?

“Ms. Stark,” you said, giving her a firm nod. “Where’s Ellie?”

“In my office,” she said. “Please, follow me.”

She led the way, setting a brisk pace, her back ramrod straight, but you kept your head high as you kept pace alongside her.

“What happened?” You asked. “This is very out of character for Ellie.”

“I’m not so sure it is,” the headmistress said and Joel could have sworn he saw the hint of a self-righteous smile on her lips and he clenched his jaw. “She’s… aggressive…”

“She’s strong,” you said sharply. “But she wouldn’t pick a fight without a reason.”

“Well, she has yet to tell us a reason,” she said, smug. “Maybe you can find one. This behavior may have been accepted at other institutions but we hold our students to a higher standard here…”

“I’ll talk to her,” you said. “I’m sure we can figure this out.”

Joel was half expecting you to make him wait outside the office like you had at the nursing home but you didn’t and he followed you, the principal’s office looking disturbingly more like a luxury hotel than a school.

Ellie was sitting on one end of a small row of chairs in the office waiting room, her arms crossed and her jaw set tight. A boy - about her age and far larger than her - sat at the other end, an ice pack clutched to his lower lip and blood dripping from his nose.

“Ellie,” you said, all but running for her, kneeling in front of her and brushing her hair back from her face. “Are you OK?”

She jerked away from you.

“Fine,” she muttered. “I just want to go home.”

“OK,” you nodded slowly. “Can you tell me what happened?”

She just looked to the side, tightening her arms around herself. You stood and sighed, still watching her but Joel looked to the boy sitting at the other end of the row. He was determinedly staring straight ahead but his eyes kept darting over to you, a deep blush rising in his cheeks. Joel’s eyes narrowed.

“We can’t just permit students to attack other students,” the headmistress said. “Especially not unprovoked…”

“It wasn’t unprovoked!” Ellie snapped, her head whipping around to look at the boy. “He knows what he did.”

“Miss Williams,” the headmistress said sharply. “You nearly broke a fellow student’s nose.”

“Well, he’s a pussy!” Ellie yelled. “Not my fault he got his ass handed to him by a girl!”

“Ellie!” You scolded.

“What! It’s true,” she said, calming. “Lucky I didn’t do more…”

The headmistress looked at you, a small, self-satisfied smile on her face.

“Because this is her first offense, she’s suspended for a week,” she said. “But if it happens again, we will have to expel her.”

“We’ll take care of it,” you said before turning your attention back to Ellie. “C’mon, troublemaker, let’s go.”

She shoved herself out of the chair and grabbed her backpack sharply from the floor. The boy at the other end of the chairs watched her and she lunged in his direction before pulling back, making him jump.

“Yeah, better be fuckin’ scared,” she snapped.

“Alright,” you said sharply, putting your hands on her shoulders and steering her out of the room. “That’s enough, let’s go.”

Joel gave the kid a final look, one that was apparently enough to make him stare straight ahead again, shrinking in his seat as he did. Satisfied, Joel followed you and Ellie to the car, the girl throwing her backpack in with a little too much force.

Mercifully, you just went for the passenger seat, saving Joel the fight about driving. You immediately turned to face the disgruntled teenager behind you.

“Want to tell me what the fuck that was?” You asked.

“That was a fight,” Ellie said, the sass in her voice thick. “One I won, by the way.”

“Yeah, no shit,” you said. “Kid, you can’t just do stuff like that for no reason! What were you thinking?”

“It wasn’t no reason!” She replied.

“OK then what was the reason?” You said. “I’m dying for you to enlighten me because there had better be some kind of reason why you’d go after a classmate like that!”

“Why do I need to tell you the fucking reason?” She demanded. “You don’t need to know the reason, you just need to trust me when I say I had one!”

“I do trust you!” You said. “But that school doesn’t! They don’t know you yet! They don’t know how smart and kind and funny you are, all they know is that you refused to follow the dress code on day one and now that you beat people up when you don’t get your way!”

“I didn’t hit him because I didn’t get my way!” She yelled. “I did it because…”

Her voice trailed off, seeming to realize what she was about to say just as she said it. You gave her a minute to say it, anyway, but she didn’t.

“Tell me a reason, Ellie,” you said gently. “Because there has to be a reason. God, I sure hope there is because I’d rather not have to donate a library to some stuffy school every time you decide to throw a tantrum…”

“Oh, yeah, because you’ll just use your fucking money to fix everything,” Ellie snapped. “But you didn’t use it to save my mom! No, you just let her die.”

Joel caught a glimpse of your face at that, looking less like you’d been yelled at by a teenager and more like someone had slapped you.

“I tried, honey,” you said gently. “I tried so hard to save your mom, I helped get her the best doctors, I helped get her into the best facilities but sometimes it’s just beyond what we can do as people.”

“Whatever,” Ellie snapped as Joel pulled into the driveway. She jumped out of the car, slamming the door behind her and you followed after her.

“Is that what this is about?” You asked. “Is it because you miss your mom? Because I get that, I miss her too, so much that sometimes I want to burn something down, but…”

“But she was your friend!” She rounded on you. “And she was my fucking mom, stop acting like you know how I feel because you don’t know how I fucking feel!”

“Ellie,” you said gently. “I know it’s hard, and…”

“No, you don’t know!” She snapped. “Stop it! Just leave me alone!”

She started stomping off to her room but you stayed close behind.

“We can talk about…”

“I don’t want to talk to you!” She yelled. “I don’t want to look at you or talk to you or do anything with you! I wish it was you who died instead of her!”

You froze where you stood and Ellie took advantage of your stillness to stomp off back to her bedroom, the door slamming in her corner of the house.

“Yeah, me too,” you said, so quietly that Joel doubted that you knew he could hear you.

He was quiet for a moment, staring where Ellie had gone, hoping she’d come back for both your sakes. But she didn’t.

“Teenagers are hard,” Joel said eventually. “Sure she didn’t mean that…”

“Oh please, I know you’re just loving this,” you said harshly. “I don’t need your fake pity, Joel. I have interviews, stay out of my office.”

You left without another word, the click of your door much quieter than Ellie’s had been.

“That went well,” Esmo sighed, catching Joel off guard.

“Sure it’ll pass,” Joel said gruffly. He wasn’t sure why his chest got tight as he looked toward your office. He didn’t care about you beyond needing to keep you alive and he only needed do that because of everything he owed his brother. Besides, you were just some spoiled, pampered celebrity. Surely you could use something pushing back on you for a change.

“Dinner tonight is roast chicken,” Esmo said, heading toward the kitchen.

Joel frowned.

“Why are…”

“I know why you don’t usually eat with us, Mr. Miller,” she said, looking back over her shoulder at him, her eyes narrowed. “She won’t be joining us, her calendar is full until after 10. Don’t pretend that you enjoy those freezer burnt blocks of garbage you call food more than a home cooked meal, I don’t like liars.”

She disappeared to the kitchen, the rattle of pots and pans following not long after and Joel sighed, settling in on the couch to kill time instead of disappearing to his room on the other side of the house.

But, to his surprise, Ellie emerged just an hour later, in jeans a t-shirt instead of her uniform now, creeping into the living room like she was expecting someone to jump out at her.

“She ain’t here,” Joel said, making her jump. “Sorry, kiddo, wasn’t tryin’ to scare you.”

“It’s fine,” she sighed, coming in and flopping on the loveseat. “Where is she?”

“Doin’ interviews in her office, I guess,” Joel said. She nodded slowly, staring determinedly at the coffee table.

The two of them sat quietly for a moment before this strange tug at the center of him to take care of her - something that was so foreign now but still so familiar - made him clear his throat and break the silence.

“Want… want to talk about anything?” He asked.

“Like?” She asked, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Like why you decided to beat up some boy at school,” he shrugged. “Or why you decided to say something that mean to one of the only people who really cares about you. Because that didn’t seem much like you.”

She scoffed.

“What do you know?”

He shrugged.

“Enough to know that you act tough but that you ain’t an asshole.”

“Ain’t isn’t a word,” she said.

Joel just shrugged again, going back to his phone.

Eventually, Ellie sighed heavily.

“That fucking boy,” she spat the word as though it were curse word, not the f-bomb she’d dropped a second earlier. “Figured out who she was. Saw her dropping me off at school earlier this week and started talking about shit like ‘your mom is so hot, why aren’t you’ and when that didn’t really bother me started saying shit like ‘I’ve seen your mom’s tits’ and called her a whore and I just… he fucking deserved it, OK? And I’m not about to apologize to that fucker just because the fucking school….”

“Alright,” Joel said gently, cutting her off. “I agree. He’s a jackass. You probably did the right thing.”

She looked surprised for a moment but it passed quickly.

“That’s why I couldn’t tell her what happened,” Ellie said. “Because do you know how fucking creepy it is, knowing that every guy in your stupid school has probably jerked it to your aunt? It’s fucking gross. I don’t want to talk about that shit with her.”

Joel nodded slowly.

“So, what, you decided to take it out on your aunt when you got home?” He asked.

“No,” she said, defensive. “I just… I know she loves my mom… Loved my mom… So why didn’t she… I don’t know, just… why didn’t she fix it? She has all this fucking money and knows all these fucking people, why didn’t she fix it? She can do everything else, why couldn’t she do that one thing?”

“You really think she didn’t try?” Joel asked gently. “Look, I don’t really know her but I can tell she loves you something fierce and I’m guessin’ that’s because she loved your mama something fierce, too. Just… sometimes, there’s shit that money can’t fix.” Without meaning to, he remembered holding his daughter as she bled out in his arms. He remembered begging whatever god might be listening to do anything to fix it. That he’d give anything, do anything, to fix it. It hadn’t made a damn difference. “Trust me. Sometimes power and money just don’t mean shit.”

She shrugged and picked at some unseen thing on the couch.

“Not my business,” Joel shrugged. “Just seems like you’re making her miserable because someone else is bein’ an asshole.”

“Think she’s mad at me?” Ellie asked quietly, looking over at him, her dark eyes soft.

“If she is, she’s not actually mad,” he said. “Just hurt. You said some shitty stuff, kid.”

“Yeah, I know,” she sighed, looking toward the hall that led to your office. “I fucked up.”

Joel shrugged again.

“Everyone does.”

She looked at him, her eyes narrowed.

“What are you doing out here, anyway?” She asked. “Don’t you usually hide in your room when you’re not following us around?”

He didn’t want to admit to hiding from the visions of his daughter that so often plagued him on his birthday, so he just shrugged instead.

“Well, I got this new video game while you were off,” she said. “Want to kill some zombies and shit with me?”

“Don’t you got homework or something?” He asked, brows raised.

“I’m suspended, remember?” She said.

“You really think either of them are gonna let that stand?” Joel asked. “Between your aunt and Esmo, you’re gonna be back in that school before you know it.”

She snorted.

“Probably right,” she said. “Still. Wanna play?”

He examined her for a moment, the hopeful look in her eyes as she watched him in return.

It had been so long since anyone had wanted something like this with him, some kind of connection, some kind of approval, some kind of emotional investment. It made his chest get tight and his first instinct was to tell her no, to stalk off to his bedroom and close the door and keep himself far away from anything like that… but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not when she so clearly needed it.

“Yeah, alright,” he said. “Gotta get all that shit set up, though, don’t exactly play a bunch of video games…”

She scoffed.

“I’m sure you don’t, old man.”

Ellie gave him a controller and, as the two of them ran through some virtual desert to collect supplies and shoot zombies, he had the fleeting thought that making her smile made this the best birthday he’d had in more than five years.

***

“Thank you for having me!” You smiled brightly, hoping it still reached your eyes after faking your way through this for hours. Fuck, your Oscar should be for this shit, not your film roles. “It’s been so fun. Hope to see you at the movies!”

“See you there!” The spunky entertainment reporter on the other end of the connection said before the stream cut off. You let the smile slip the moment you knew no one but Quinn was left on the screen, grabbing your water bottle from just out of sight and chugging half of it.

“You did great,” she said, looking at notes on her end. “Hit all the big talking points, great lead in for the main junket kicking off soon.”

“Can’t wait,” you said wryly. Quinn gave you a look and you just shrugged. “What? I don’t get paid to act like I enjoy this shit with you, just with all the reporters.”

“Well, it looks like you won’t be flying solo on at least the LA portion of this junket,” she said and you frowned. Quinn answered the question before you had a chance to ask it. “Looks like Chris Reese will be with you…”

You groaned.

“Seriously?” You asked. “I have to be in LA and I have to deal with that jackass?”

“Have worse chemistry with him and then you won’t have to do shit like press with him,” she said. You glared at her. “What? I get paid to spin shit for the reporters, not for you.”

“Ha ha,” you said and she smirked.

“It’s not so bad,” she said. “Just two days of interviews. And they want you to do a few of TikTok trends for promos…” you groaned again. “Going to pretend like I didn’t hear that and just say that you’re looking forward to reconnecting with your costar.”

“Oh yeah, can’t wait,” you rolled your eyes.

“Also,” Quinn said, steadfastly ignoring you. “I just emailed you part of the script for Savage Starlight, they want you to do some chemistry reads while you’re out that way. They think they have a casting choice for the young version of yourself and you’ll have one dream sequence scene with her that’s going to be pretty important to the story, I guess… fuck if I know. They want to make sure the two of you fit well. They’re also looking at a few guys for your love interest… couple unknowns, Ryan Smythe and Chris Pine are all in the mix.”

You nodded slowly.

“Ryan’s not bad,” you said. “I haven’t worked with him but we’ve met a few times and I like his work. Surprised he’s drawn to a project like this…”

“I’m surprised you’re drawn to a project like this,” Quinn said.

You shot her a glare.

“…But I wouldn’t mind working with him,” you continued like she hadn’t spoken at all. “Pine is a shock, I think he’d have gotten enough of playing second fiddle to a woman superhero after Wonder Woman.”

Quinn shrugged.

“Maybe he’s just in his big time feminist era, not arguing with that. Plus, he’s good.”

“Oh, he’s great,” you said. “The best of the Chrises. Unlike Reese…”

“Oh, suck it up,” she rolled her eyes. “He’s not that bad.”

“He’s obnoxious,” you said. “You don’t have to deal with him like I do.”

“No, but I have to deal with his manager,” she replied. “I’ll trade you. At least Reese is nice to look at.”

“Yeah, he knows it, too,” you said.

“When you’re out here, we’ll have to have to have lunch,” she said “You’re my favorite client, I miss you.”

“You say that to all your clients.”

“Yes, but I lie when I say it to the rest them,” she smiled a little. “OK I’m going to let you go get some sleep. I’ll send you an itinerary for your trip out here and I’ll share it with the security outfit, too. Speaking of which, tell that bodyguard of yours happy birthday.”

You frowned.

“It’s his birthday?” You asked. “Wait, how’d you know that?”

“Come on,” she scoffed. “You know I ran a full investigation on the man I knew would be protecting you. I’m not stupid. Anyway, tell him happy birthday for me and take care of yourself, OK?”

“Will do. And you, too,” you said, hanging up and letting your forehead droop to your desk with a groan.

You were exhausted. Even before the Ellie shit you’d been exhausted and all you’d wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep all day.

Of course, you didn’t get to do that. Instead, you listened to the most important person in your life tell you that she wished you were dead before you had to go give the same goddamn interview to a dozen different broadcast outlets.

You’d closed yourself in your office and let yourself cry for a while before you forced yourself to stop long enough to do your hair and makeup and make sure you looked at least somewhat presentable before the first interview. And then you faked a smile for hours, talking about the last movie you made before your best friend died, trying not to think about leaving set every day to go see Anna in hospice, always afraid that it would be the last time you’d get to see her.

Esmo had sent you texts while you were stuck in interview hell, telling you when Ellie had eaten, done her homework and gone to bed. She’d also reached out to the school to discuss bringing her back sooner and said she would tell you what she’d gotten out of them the next day.

You weren’t sure what you’d done to deserve her but, in that moment, you felt like you owed her your life. Because someone needed to look out for Ellie, even when she wouldn’t let you do it yourself.

At least, now that it was late, the main part of the house should be empty. Esmo had gone home, Ellie was asleep, Joel liked to avoid every part of the house where he might run into people unless he absolutely had to be there. The last thing you felt like doing was getting into it with your niece or faking a smile for Esmo or putting up with Joel’s shit.

Your bodyguard exhausted you. He’d seemed to make it his own, personal mission to get under your skin. Sure, maybe you hadn’t given him the warmest welcome - you still weren’t thrilled about having to have a bodyguard in the first place - but that hardly seemed to warrant the degree to which he’d been poking and prodding at you in the two weeks he’d been working for you.

Joel had figured out quickly that he had a lot of power over you, somehow keenly aware that you weren’t about to complain to his boss about him or try to get him kicked off the job. What you didn’t get was why he seemed to be so fucking miserable to be assigned to you to begin with.

It’s not like he’d never been a bodyguard before, it’s not like this was new fucking territory for him. He just seemed to hate you personally.

You’d tried to change that for the first week or so. Yes, you’d gotten off on the wrong foot and you could take the blame for that. You were willing to give him some time to get it out of his system. You tried to reach out, to see what food he liked so you could update the dinner menus to his liking or to buy him coffee when you insisted on stopping to get one - much to his chagrin. You tried to even go along with some of his demands so his job was a little easier - things that wouldn’t have you losing as much of your autonomy, at least - but he didn’t seem to appreciate any of it. And then Seth, the other guard, was with you and you realized just how much Joel must absolutely loathe you.

Seth was much easier going. He let you drive without argument. He had dinner with you, Ellie and Esmo every night. He smiled and laughed and mentioned that he was surprised you picked Siren of the name options for you. You’d managed to hide your surprise at that, not wanting to give away just how much his coworker seemed to enjoy humiliating you.

Of course Joel had to come back on what had quickly devolved into the worst day you’d had since Anna died. Of course he’d seen just what Ellie said, of course he had some new way to make you feel like shit. Happy fucking birthday to him.

The pinch of tears had returned to the back of your throat but you swallowed them. You needed to eat something. You needed to go take off all this fucking makeup. You needed to actually sleep in your own damn bed because sleeping anywhere else would be strange and you couldn’t give Joel more ammunition to use against you or give Ellie any reason to feel worse.

So you forced yourself to go to the kitchen to get the plate Esmo had made for you out of the fridge, your feet heavy, the house dark. The light was on in the pool, the reflection from the water casting lines over the ceiling of your living room and you considered, for a moment, just how easy it’d be to go outside, jump into the water and let it swallow you. But you couldn’t do that. Ellie needed you, whether she liked it or not, and there was a whole staff of people who relied on you for their livelihood. Giving up wasn’t an option. Not for you. So you kept going, like you always did.

The kitchen was dark, too, but the smell of coffee was fresh and strong as you opened the fridge, the light oddly bright compared to the darkness of your house. You found the plate Esmo had left you, a chicken thigh and roasted broccoli piled high. You pulled the plastic wrap back, bumping the fridge closed with your hip as you did.

“Should pay more attention.”

You yelped, jumping and looking around before you realized that, at the end of your breakfast bar, was the hulking figure of your bodyguard, sitting in the dark.

“Jesus Christ,” you said, heart pounding. You set the plate on the counter and stalked to turn on the lights before rounding on him. “What the fuck are you doing, sitting here in the dark? Just lurking to try to fuck with me in some new way or what?”

“No,” he said and there was something so honest in his voice that you couldn’t help but believe him. “Didn’t feel like sleepin’, so…”

He shrugged and you just nodded, going to put your dinner in the microwave.

“Well, you can have the kitchen to yourself again in a minute,” you said, leaning against the counter and facing Joel, your arms crossed over your stomach.

The frustrating thing was, if he wasn’t such an asshole, Joel would be an attractive man. He was handsome, unquestionably so, in a way that would be sculpted out of marble in a bygone time. He was handsome and tall and broad and there was something about his presence - no matter how antagonistic he seemed to get - that made you feel safe. It was something that you thought went past the fact that he was paid to protect you, something in you that said that, while he was here with you alone, while he could easily overpower you, you didn’t need to be afraid of him. He was safe.

Of course, maybe it was better if he was a dick. If he was kinder, you’d probably end up half in love with him, a recipe for disaster since he was your bodyguard.

“S’your house,” Joel shrugged. “I can go if you want space.”

“I don’t mind,” you said.

He just nodded, twisting his coffee mug in his hands.

“You alright?” He asked after a moment of quiet with nothing but the hum of the microwave between you. You raised your brows at him. “Just… you know… whole Ellie thing.”

You watched him for a moment, head cocked. Was he asking because he actually cared? Was he asking to try to find some new way to make you miserable? You weren’t sure.

“She’s a good kid,” he said when you’d been quiet a bit too long. “She didn’t… I know she didn’t mean what she said, she’s just bein’ a teenager, and…”

“How do you know?”

He frowned.

“Know what?”

“That she didn’t mean it,” you said. “How do you know?”

The microwave beeped and you got out your food. Joel, much to your surprise, pulled out the chair next to his at the breakfast bar before gripping his mug again, his fingers tight and strained against the ceramic. You took the seat, grabbing a fork and knife from the silverware drawer on the way.

“I talked to her a bit,” he said once you settled in next to him. He wasn’t looking at you, staring straight ahead instead. “She was… she was upset about other shit and took it out on you. Don’t make it right but… at least explains it.”

“What was she upset about?” You asked, cutting into the chicken and taking a bite. Even reheated it was delicious. God bless Esmo. “Was it the fight at school? Because she was in a mood this morning, too, and…”

“Yeah, think that fight’s been simmerin’ for a few days,” Joel said, taking a sip of coffee before glancing your way quickly.

“What was it?” You frowned. “Did she tell you? If it was a good reason, then…”

“She told me,” he cut you off, actually looking at you now. “Look… I’ll tell you, but I think it’s best if you keep it to yourself. I get why she’s pissed.”

You frowned.

“OK…”

“That fuckin’ kid she beat up,” he said, like he was choosing his words carefully. “Well… guess he recognized you…”

“Shit,” you sighed, dropping your fork to your plate to press the palm of your hand to your eye. Of course you were the root of this problem, too.

“Sounds like he thought you’re her mom,” he said. “Started askin’ her why she’s not as good looking as you and, when that didn’t get enough of a rise out of ‘er, started saying… other shit.”

You gave him a second to continue on his own but he didn’t.

“Other shit like what?” You asked. He flinched and looked down at his coffee cup. “Other shit like what, Joel.”

He sighed.

“Other shit like he’d seen your… chest,” he said, his cheeks getting red. “And he called you… well, somethin’ you don’t call a lady.”

“Jesus,” you slumped down in your seat. “Well, at least that explains why she was begging me to not be the one to drive her to school in the mornings anymore…”

“Sorry,” Joel said, his voice rough.

“I don’t blame her for taking the bait,” you sighed. “Lord knows I would have in her shoes… God, it must be embarrassing for her…”

“Like I said, she’s a good kid,” he said. “Don’t take one blow up too personally. Teenagers are… well, they’re teenagers.”

You watched him for a moment.

“Why do you know this stuff?”

His jaw tightened for a moment.

“Just do,” he said.

Something told you that wasn’t all there was to it but you didn’t pry. Instead, you ate your dinner in silence next to him, trying to think of ways to talk to the school to get Ellie back in without bringing up what she’d told Joel. You liked that she had an adult she apparently felt like she could talk to. She needed that, desperately, in her life. You’d prefer it was you - it had been you, once upon a time, back when you weren’t responsible for her - but you’d take what you could get.

“Can I ask what that punching bag out back did to piss you off?” He asked eventually.

You laughed a little.

“Nothing much,” you replied. “Wait… you sighed an NDA for this job, right?”

“Yeah,” he frowned, looking at you again. “Why?”

“Because this isn’t public yet,” you said. “But… Well, I’m trying to prep for a role.”

“A role,” he said. “What role?”

“You ever heard of the comic series Savage Starlight?” You asked. He nodded. “Well… I’m Starlight. Or, I will be. They’re going to officially announce it in a few months, once the rest of the main cast is settled. They’re starting me with a trainer to learn fight choreography in six weeks but I’ve never had a role with fight scenes like this one, I’m trying to make it so I’m not starting from scratch so I don’t look like a total idiot.”

“That don’t…” Joel paused. “Doesn’t seem like your kind of movie.”

“It’s not,” you said. “But Ellie loves the comics. They’re her favorite thing and… well, if I’m her favorite super hero, I can’t be all bad, right? So I just… I want to get it right.”

“Well, you’re doin’ it wrong,” Joel said. You narrowed your eyes, about to argue with him on it, but he cut you off. “Not trying to be mean. Your form was just… I can tell you haven’t really thrown a punch before. Nothin’ wrong with that. Or, well, there isn’t until you need to start fighting. You just need to be careful is all, otherwise you’re just gonna hurt yourself.”

You laughed a little.

“Of course,” you said wryly. “It only makes sense that I’m shit at that, too.”

“Not shit,” he said. You raised your eyebrows. “What? You’re not. Just not trained. I… I can help. If you wanted.”

“Really,” you asked, incredulous. “You’d help me train to fight.”

“Sure,” he shrugged. “Not like I don’t got the time. Besides, figure my job just gets harder if you’re in a damn cast because you busted your wrist throwin’ a bad punch.”

“Fair enough,” you said. “Thank you.”

“Sure,” he said, the two of you falling silent again. You picked at the chicken, not much of an appetite.

“Do you think,” you said, trailing off for a moment before looking at him again. “Do you think you could take Ellie to school when she starts back? I’m going to talk to the school again tomorrow, try to get her back in next week, but I don’t want to cause her more problems and…”

“Sure,” he said. “I… I don’t mind. She’s a good kid.”

“She is,” you agreed.

You finished what you could of your dinner and slid off the seat before cleaning up your dish, Joel frowning and watching as you did.

“What?” You asked. “You’re looking at me like I’m… I dunno, an alien or something.”

“Don’t you have people who do shit like clean up after you?” He asked. “Ain’t that part of Esmo’s job?”

“I mean, yeah,” you shrugged. “But I’m not about to leave my dirty dishes sitting out overnight for her to deal with when she gets here in the morning. I’m not an asshole.”

He seemed to process that as you loaded the dishwasher and chugged a final glass of water before putting the glass in the dishwasher, too.

“Well, I’m going to bed,” you said. “Been a hell of a day. Want me to turn the light off so you can sit in the dark with your coffee again?”

Joel just shrugged.

“Don’t really matter,” he said. “Good night.”

“Night,” you said, turning to go before you remembered what Quinn had told you. “Hey, actually, why didn’t you mention that today was your birthday?”

He flinched, the movement so fleeting you almost thought you imagined it, and you had the strangest desire to comfort him somehow. You just didn’t know why.

“Don’t like my birthday,” he said after a moment. “Not a lot of reasons to celebrate so I just don’t. Besides, don’t really like being the center of attention.”

You laughed a little at that.

“Yeah, I know the feeling. But… well, happy birthday, anyway. Thanks for looking after Ellie.”

He nodded slowly.

“Thanks,” he said. “It… it was nice.”

You wanted to say something else but you couldn’t think of what so instead, you turned out the light and left him there, drinking coffee from your favorite mug alone in the dark.

Next Chapter

A/N: So sorry for the eternity between chapters. I've just not been able to keep up with things lately. I hope you enjoyed it, anyway.

I'm really enjoying their dynamic! Some active antagonism based in misunderstanding of motives, some mutual attraction, a lot of similar life experiences that they don't fully grasp yet. I just really love these two and I'm so excited to share where they're headed! Thanks for being here.

Love you!

Taglist: @christinamadsen @eff4freddie @brittmb115 @copperhalfcent @r3dheadedwitch @pedropascalsbbg @lovelyjess69 @yopossum @moel-jiller @picketniffler @lilyevanstan1325 @reluctanthalfwayoptimism @wintersquirrel

#fanfic #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x oc #The Savage and the Sanctuary

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runningquill-art · 3 months ago

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“The sun was setting. The stars glittered their lovely awakening.

As they had been in this very garden so many months ago, they were, once again, only a man and a woman amongst green boughs and a rustling breeze.

Only, this time, the violent polarities that had kept them apart drew them together. After all, fire loves her darkness. After all, the sinner loves his angel. Autumn, laughing, dances her leaves into the high skies of her winter. The moon spins in gyre after gyre, chasing his beloved sun.

Only, this time, the terrible incompatibilities had grown irrelevant – fallen away – mattered for naught. They were two souls who had come near enough to to feel the other’s glow, but now, at last, they met, touched, tangled.

He slipped the ring onto her finger. He had removed all of the thresholds. She would feel everything. The rings connected. He felt the surge of her heart and she, with a gasp, felt his.

He held her to him, lifted her, and spun her, laughing, amongst swirling nebulae of snowflakes catching the sun.

She was his and he was utterly hers.

In snow-felted twilight, under spilling skies and starshine and a sun standing still, they kissed, they promised, they loved. What cared they about universes colliding? Let them collide. Let their joined heartbeats cleave constellations and startle the eternal stars.” - Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love, Chapter 36: Journeys End in Lovers Meeting, by @isthisselfcare

DMATMOOBIL art 40/40

#dramione #draco malfoy #hermione granger #draco x hermione #dmatmoobil #my art #fanart #illustration #dhr #isthisselfcare #draco malfoy and the mortifying ordeal of being in love #dramione fanfiction

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clarisse0o · 15 days ago

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The Mayor - Chapter 1

Lucy Bronze x Ona Batlle

Alternate Universe: Mayor and Archiect

Words : 500

Masterlist

———————————————————————

Overwhelmed by the plans spread out on my desk in my downtown apartment, I decided to pour myself a glass of white wine. Sipping it on my balcony, I watched the sunset.

My name is Ona, and I’m passionate about my work: interior architect. After years of countless hours, I finally managed, with my associate Alexia, whom I met back in college, to open our own interior architecture firm. It’s a real achievement, but the work doesn’t let up. We’re beginning to build a solid reputation in the region. Alexia specializes more in minimalist and modern styles, while I lean toward a mix of old and modern. Working with her is a real joy; we have an incredible trust in each other. We’re both hardworking and enjoy going out on weekends with our friends. Especially me, since my breakup with Alessia, with whom I was in a five-year relationship. It was a mutual breakup, though still difficult. Our respective careers had pulled us apart—she’s a surgeon. It’s not uncommon for us to fall back into each other’s arms for a night, without any expectations.

I finished my glass of wine and motivated myself to complete the last plan I had been working on for three hours.

Monday morning, as usual, I headed to our office, located a 15-minute walk from my place. It was time for our daily meeting with Alexia and the two interns who were working with us. This morning, Alexia came straight into my office, an unusual smile on her face...

"Hello, gorgeous!"

"Hello, you! What’s that beautiful smile for?"

"Hmmm, I have something to tell you... So, I found out yesterday that I’m pregnant! We didn’t think the IVF would work with Olga ! But I am pregnant!"

Pregnant? Alexia? I couldn’t believe it—we had only just opened less than a year ago!

« But what about the office?" I managed to ask.

"Ona, I know… But I’m 36, I’m pregnant—it’s good news! We’ll reorganize for a short time! I’ll leave in my seventh month and come back soon, I promise—unless it’s triplets!"

I immediately laughed, feeling guilty for worrying only about the office.

"I’m so off-topic sometimes... Congratulations! I’m so happy for you, really! How far along are you?"

"Three and a half months!"

Alexia continued, "Alright, I’ll handle all the projects that wrap up within the next four months, but you know there’s one file you’ll need to take over..."

Oh yes, I knew... It was the Mayor’s file. She was renovating rooms in a house she had recently bought with her husband. Since he’s a corporate lawyer, money wasn’t an issue. The problem was that I had participated in the municipal elections on the opposing list… Not in a prominent position, but I was sure she’d remember. Besides, I found her rather arrogant: she was tall, with piercing green eyes and dark hair.

"Hmm, Alexia, I think the Mayor is going to hate this idea; you know I was on the opposition list in the last election. And from what you’ve told me, she’s redoing everything in a super-minimalist style—not my cup of tea!"

"You know very well that you adapt to any situation; everyone says so! As for the rest, just be pleasant! I’ll arrange a three-way meeting for us this week, okay? You need to take over the project quickly; she’ll understand!"

I wasn’t entirely convinced. Still, resigned, I replied, "Alright, but you know, I’m not sure where this is going to lead..."

#woso #lucy bronze #woso community #ona batlle #barca femeni #woso soccer #lionesses #sefutbol fem #ona batlle x lucy bronze #alexia putellas

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flowerandblood · 8 months ago

Text

The Fall from the Heavens (36)

[ canon • Aemond x Strong • niece female ]

[ warnings: hard sexual abuse, torture and starvation, angst, swearing, description of the murders ]

[ description: A cool distance turns into friendship and more when two children see that they can find refuge and understanding in each other. However, naïve dreams collide with the reality in which every event has consequences and what once could have been love becomes a dark, newly painful obsession. Angst, sexual tension, obsession, violence, madness, very dark Aemond. ]

The story in this series is an alternate reality from the oneshot Stay and love, leave and die, in which Aemond reads the letters his niece has sent to him over the years. They are the same characters and it shows what would have happened between them − I have changed the background story from their childhood slightly for the sake of the plot.

Characters & Series Moodboard

Lady Strong Moodboard

Aemond & Lady Strong Moodboard

Aemond & Lady Strong Childhood

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

_____

After Prince Aemond and his wife flew off on their dragons into the skies to meet their destiny in the Eyrie, Alys knew what awaited her; Larys paid her a visit shortly after they left the fortress. Despite his light, dreamy smile, her brother's blank, dark gaze expressed everything he had to convey to her.

He was not pleased.

"I'm disappointed. I thought we had made an agreement." He hummed, walking slowly over to the table she sat at, watching him vigilantly, his hand reaching for one of the vessels in which she kept her herbs.

"Worthless objects are usually…thrown away. Do you agree with me, sister?" He asked calmly and smiled gently at her, as if he had just said something comforting. Her expression and grin did not change, although a cold, unpleasant shiver ran along her spine.

She knew what awaited her.

She had seen it in her dream.

The strange, drunken men, guards and servants who could use her body as much as they liked in the darkness of her cell.

She didn't pose or look at them – she just tried to think of something else. She imagined then her unborn child, her mother's face, the soft smile of the little girl who might already be dead, betrayed by her husband.

She tried not to exist, pretended to herself that this was not her body.

The only man who did not take the opportunity to humiliate her was the guard who had been her lover for years, the same one who had watched over her chambers.

She felt a kind of emotion when Ser Erwin came to her in the morning, before his service began, covering her bared, bruised body with a sheet, always bringing her a piece of bread, letting her drink the wine that soothed her pain.

She would not eat or drink anything Larys's servants brought her, knowing that she would die in agony afterwards.

"Forgive me. If I defy him, he will hurt my wife and my children." He muttered, pressing his lips together, his bearded, broad, masculine face contorted in a grimace of pain, his eyes red from tears of grief.

He really pitied her.

She touched his arm and he placed his wide, rough hand on hers.

"I know. Protect your family. I will survive this. I'm grateful to you for what you're doing for me and I'll never forget it."

The man nodded.

"There is something else." She whispered. Ser Erwin looked at her, surprised.

The same dream repeated itself again and again every night: a white deer in a sea of blood and a man standing over it, whose silhouette she knew very well.

"I saw a wounded white deer in the darkness. I saw you standing over him. Promise me that when Prince Aemond arrives here, you will watch over him and his wife." She said.

He stared at her as if considering her words, then nodded again and stood up, leaving her alone in her prison.

And then there was silence.

The men ceased to visit her, and there was an uneasy, dark emptiness in the fortress.

The next day he arrived.

She knew it would happen.

She knew he would come, seeking answers.

In his armour, he looked older and more mature – looking at him from afar, she thought with amusement that, indeed, he was a handsome man and, were it not for his sweet wife, she would have loved to play with him, if only for her own amusement.

So helpless, hiding behind the walls of his pride, filled with complexes and fears, like a little child craving only someone's warm word and praise.

"Why did you lie? I could have your head for this." He hissed, angry and tense, standing at a good distance from the bars as if he feared he might otherwise fall under the influence of her charms.

She laughed weakly at his words.

"If there were no capacity for treachery in you, my words would not frighten you, Your Grace. But it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve stabbed her in the back, would it?" She sneered, saying exactly what she was thinking, thus bringing him completely off balance.

"Why?" He growled, pale as if he was about to faint.

She couldn't believe how frightened he was.

Did he consider that his will as a man was so weak?

That he wouldn't control his members and would just fuck her?

"My brother reckoned that after what was going to happen in the Eyrie she would try to take her own life again. I don’t consider myself a good person, but I’m not heartless. I wanted you to be horrified by my words and get her as far away from here as possible." She said.

"How dare you manipulate me and my wife." He hissed, enraged.

"I didn’t manipulate her. There was no need for that. You. Your pride wouldn’t allow you to listen to the advice of a bastard woman, on top of the Strong line. A witch’s prophecy that could give birth to your bastard child would be a different matter. Wouldn’t it?’" She asked mockingly and noticed how something changed in the look in his eye, his brow arching in pain.

He was suffering.

But why?

After a moment, however, the expression on his face changed, replaced by fury.

"Whose fucking side are you on, you insolent whore?" He growled through clenched teeth, as if he felt like spitting on her.

She realised then that it wasn't himself he was afraid of, but her.

She liked that.

"I am on my side. But my cold heart supports your wife. She has broken deep into it and refuses to leave it. I’m certain you understand me. Such a sweet girl." She hummed, wanting to bring him out of his daze, and the effect she provoked was even stronger than she had anticipated.

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!" He shouted low, hatred and madness in his eye, his jaw clenched as tightly as if it was going to burst – he took one step towards her cell as if he wanted to tear her apart but stopped, panting heavily.

Gods.

He was jealous of his little wife.

He was afraid she would take her away from him.

His rage and fear were indeed great, for it seemed to her that he really wanted her to die of hunger and thirst. It was only a few days later that the guards whom she did not know and who had probably travelled with him from King's Landing opened her cell, ordering her to rise.

She did so with difficulty, sore, hungry and thirsty, and moved slowly with them through the familiar corridors of the fortress of Harrenhal. She pressed her lips together as she noticed out of the corner of her eye a fair-haired man watching her vigilantly, one of her brother's spies.

What was he doing here?

Why hadn't the prince sent him away?

Only then did she realise that he certainly had claimed to be a completely different person, putting his guards' vigilance to sleep.

"I need to speak to the Prince." She muttered, sitting down on her bed without strength. The guard placed a plate of bread and a jug of apple juice on her table.

"Be silent, witch. Be thankful to the gods that you are still alive." Said the man through clenched teeth, looking at her with disgust and left, closing the door. She heard the sound of the key turning in the lock and sighed heavily, burying her face in her hands.

She thought that Larys would certainly not poison the prince, but would be watching him with the help of this boy.

Indeed, the man brought her food and drink several times. She sniffed the juice he brought her and then split an apple lying on a tray in half and poured the contents of her cup over it. She snorted under her breath as the apple instantly turned black and began to break into pieces.

The Last Breath.

A poison created from a decoction of several herbs that could only be found locally in the region of Riverlands, slowing the heart rate and making breathing difficult, in large quantities suffocating the victim, in small quantities causing slow agony.

For reasons she understood, Prince Aemond did not visit her throughout his stay in Harrenhal, thus earning her respect and affection – she recognised that since he wanted to catch her brother he felt guilty and wanted to reward his wife for his moment of hesitation.

One night she dreamt of a great stone fortress reaching up to the sky surrounded by clouds, around which she seemed to hear the sea. She looked down upon it, flying on a dragon she had never seen before.

She opened her eyes and swallowed hard, wondering what she had actually seen and what it meant.

The dragon she saw belonged to neither Prince Aemond nor his wife.

So to whom?

That she did not know, but she knew for a fact that she would be leaving Harrenhal soon.

And then she appeared in the doorway of her chamber.

She felt a pleasant warmth in her stomach at the sight of her, her heart pounding faster in the hope that perhaps this girl would forgive her for what she had done, understand that she wanted her good.

She swallowed hard noticing in her eyes sadness so deep and infinite that she felt a squeeze in her throat.

"You predicted my husband would give birth to your bastard child." She said in a trembling, breaking voice, betrayed, humiliated, distraught.

"I lied. I saw nothing of the sort neither in my dreams nor in the fire." She said calmly, looking her straight in the eye. The prince's wife pressed her lips together at her words and furrowed her brow, anger and frustration in her gaze that startled her.

"How dare you lie to my husband, and your Prince?" She asked dryly, standing up for her husband to her astonishment.

How dare you manipulate me and my wife.

She saw that her hand was stroking her lower abdomen in a gesture of nervousness, something she had not done before.

Two streams of blood finally merging into one.

"You are expecting his child." She whispered, but the girl didn't answer her.

Alys sighed heavily.

"My brother had plans for you. He ordered me to seduce the Prince. He wanted you to step aside and try to take your own life again. He knew that your husband would then fall into complete darkness."

Her eyebrows arched in pain, as if some part of her really wanted to believe her.

She was so innocent.

"You didn't tell me about this."

"No."

"You and my husband. You are identical."

She smiled sadly at her words, understanding perfectly what she meant.

They were both a dancing, aggressive fire that burned everything around them, lonely stars in the sky that could only devour each other.

"Yes. Yes, we are."

Her eyebrows arched in pain, her pretty, bright eyes shone with tears of disappointment.

"I believed you."

"I regret not telling you. I didn't want to destroy your already strained trust in him." She whispered, lowering her gaze to the stone floor, recognising, however, that there was nothing more she could do now.

It was already too late.

"Did you make an attempt?"

She blinked, snapped out of her reverie and looked at her, not understanding her question.

"Your Grace?"

"Did you try to seduce him?"

"No. I didn't go near him."

"Why?"

"Because he would have killed me. I just wanted your husband to make the right decision. For him to be scared of what might happen, to try to change the future. For him to tell you about what's happening here."

"I believed you. I opened my heart to you." She muttered in a breaking voice, from which she felt a cold sweat on her neck.

"I know."

The girl pressed her lips together – even though she was clearly trying to remain calm a single, lonely tear ran down her cheek.

"− there are still people in this fortress who will want to kill you − especially beware of the young, fair-haired man − don't eat or drink anything he serves you −" She said finally, wanting her to understand that hurting her was never her purpose or desire.

Like her husband, she could not express her feelings or affection other than through actions, even if they remained incomprehensible to her.

"− why didn't you tell my husband about this? −" She muttered in disbelief.

"− I saw this boy when I was moved back to my chamber − the Prince didn't want to see me anymore then − this servant brought me poisoned food several times, a gift from my brother −"

An uncomfortable, long silence fell between them − her gaze expressed horror, shock and disbelief, her small figure trembling all over in fear. She finally swallowed loudly and lifted her chin higher, trying to control herself and calm down.

"My husband gave Harrenhal to me to rule. That means I will decide what happens to the people who serve here, including you."

Alys didn't even flinch at her words, thinking only with her admiration that her husband did indeed have a great deal of remorse for what he had never actually done.

She thought that perhaps she had inadvertently contributed to something that helped them both.

Her husband had opened up to her, shown her his weakness and helplessness, and she hadn't pushed him away despite her disappointment.

"I saw it in a dream. A stone castle reaching to the skies. That's where you'll send me away." She said softly, and she nodded as if it was indeed as she had said.

"I will not forget what you have done for me, that you warned me. As an expression of my gratitude you will be given gold, and by my order all your belongings will be moved to the Eyrie. My cousin, after spies were discovered in his fortress, is indebted to my family and will receive you with honours. I will introduce you in my letter as a valuable medic who should work alongside the maester. You will not lack anything there."

The Eyrie?

She remained silent, wondering if there was a sea or river somewhere near this fortress, but she wasn't sure.

She decided it didn't matter.

And then what she had feared happened.

The boy had tried to poison her.

She wondered if Prince Aemond would come to her chamber and kill her too, but he didn't.

She heard the guards speaking with each other, saying that he had ordered the servants to try the poisoned wine, and they died one by one in agony in front of his eyes.

They said that looking at them the Prince was grinning broadly.

She swallowed hard at the thought and closed her eyes, already understanding why her brother cared so much about ending her life.

Larys was willing to sacrifice all these people just to get rid of this little girl once and for all and regain his power over her husband.

In keeping with his wife's wishes, she prepared to leave − she did not resent her for wanting to send her away, in fact feeling a peace in her soul at the thought that perhaps her life would now be better than it had been, and she would not have to worry about her welfare.

She looked towards her door, surprised when she heard someone turn the key in the lock. After a moment, it opened, and a young man with beautiful dark curls and bright eyes entered her chamber. She blinked, thinking he reminded her of someone, but she wasn't sure who.

Who was he that he could walk in here?

"My Lady." He said softly and bowed, as if she were a lady of great lineage and not a bastard. She smiled indulgently at the thought, folding one of her gowns, placing it in her trunk alongside the other things she wanted to take with her.

"My Lord." She replied, eager to hear what the young man was coming to her with.

The boy seemed ashamed and uncertain, as if he himself did not know what he was actually doing in her quarters. He began to look around her room, looking at the jars and vessels full of herbs, roots, liquids and other objects she used in her craft.

"I heard you're a witch. Is that true?" He asked casually, a light, wry smile on his lips, as if the thought amused him. She smirked involuntarily at his words, tucking her books into her trunk.

"So they say, my Lord." She hummed and sighed quietly, wondering whether or not a book on philosophy would be of use to her in the Eyrie.

"Did you know my father?" He asked finally, and she looked at him surprised, finally understanding who was standing before her.

He was her brother.

Yes, she thought.

They were so similar.

"Yes." She replied calmly, reaching for more books from her shelf. The boy shifted from foot to foot and swallowed hard, tense.

"Was he a good man? A man of honour?" He asked proudly, however his voice trembled, as if he feared her answer. She froze in mid-motion and thought for a moment.

"He was a compassionate man with a sharp tongue. He was cordial. He laughed a lot. He always treated me with dignity, and his father was proud of him." She finally replied, involuntarily remembering his face.

"Wasn't that your father too?" He asked uncertainly, and she smiled involuntarily.

"Indeed, but only formally. He put his seed inside my poor mother, nothing more." She said.

A long silence fell between them.

"I am also a bastard." He said finally and drew in the air loudly, as if the words were leaving his throat with difficulty. "And I regret that I came into this world."

She turned towards him, curious, wondering if he was looking for her support and advice. She cocked her head and hummed, running her fingers along the table top in front of her.

"From what I understand, you have become heir to Dragonstone. Would you rather be a bastard king? People don't forget someone's origins, even less so when that person rules a kingdom."

She saw that he lifted the gaze of his bright eyes to her, in his expression something similar to what she had seen in the face of Prince Aemond's wife.

They were both sensitive, warm, compassionate, empathetic and assertive at the same time, but what in her case as a woman was an asset, in his case was clearly the cause of his complexes and misery.

He felt too fragile, too weak, unable to be the kind of man that was expected of him − cold, brutal, threatening, mocking, ironic.

It was impossible to change his nature and he felt humiliated.

She thought she understood him.

"You also have a beautiful betrothed. I saw her arrive with your sister through that window." She said calmly, walking around her table and past him, reaching for one of the jars that stood on a bookcase against the wall. When she turned, he was looking at her in a way from which she stopped in half a step.

"I don't love her. And she doesn't love me."

She blinked and swallowed quietly, not taking her eyes off him. He gave up and lowered his head, his cheeks red with shame.

"Marriages are rarely created on the basis of true passionate, sincere affection." She replied, not intending to judge or rebuke him.

"However, my sister does not see the world beyond my uncle, and he spends every night with her." He muttered angrily and regretfully, like a small child who envied others for being able to play with better toys. She sighed quietly at his words and shook her head.

"Their affection was a gift to them from the gods." She said, walking back to her trunk, putting the jar of herbs inside.

"Are you leaving Harrenhal?" He asked suddenly, as if understanding that she was packing her belongings to set off on her journey.

"Your sister is sending me to your cousin in the Eyrie to serve him as a medic." She said calmly. Her nephew stepped closer to her, furrowing his brow.

"Why?"

Curious little thing.

"They don't want anyone associated with Larys Strong to remain in the fortress." She lied. "Thanks to her, Prince Aemond spared my life."

"When are you leaving?" He asked uncertainly, and she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

"In a few days. I am to be accompanied by your uncle's troops and I must wait for his order."

The boy nodded, tense.

"May I also visit you tomorrow? To speak with you." He asked without looking at her, filled with shame, and she nodded.

Her nephew said a polite goodbye and left her chamber, leaving her in a state of confusion.

Indeed, he came to see her the next day and every day after, clearly in a better mood.

He walked around her chamber, asking her many questions.

"Have you ever seen a dragon up close?"

"No, my Prince."

"You don't have to call me that. You are my aunt."

Her lips twitched in a mocking smile at his words.

"Very well."

"Why have you never married anyone?"

"A bastard-wife is a burden. Unless it's your sister." She replied with amusement, and he gave her a drawn-out look.

Something in her words made him uncomfortable.

"You think you're going to be a burden to your betrothed? I don't think she pays attention to that sort of thing. She seems to be a strong woman." She said softly, and he swallowed hard, looking down at his feet.

"She is. She has an overwhelmingly strong character. I'm not able to…keep up. I get tired of how fast she lives, how many things she wants." He confessed with shame, once again exposing his oversensitive, fragile nature to her.

"Sometimes people just don't fit together."

He looked at her and furrowed his brow, as if he didn't understand what she had said.

"What do you mean?"

She sighed heavily, looking away, spreading herself comfortably in the chair. She smiled involuntarily when she noticed that, despite his efforts, his gaze escaped for a moment to her full, soft breasts, hidden only beneath the material of her thin gown.

"It is impossible to change human nature. Not at its core. You can be different, but marriage, it seems to me, is about complementing each other."

He lifted his gaze back to her eyes, his lips parted as if he had run out of words. He nodded his head and grunted, walking uncertainly over to the table, sitting down in one of the chairs. He began to play with his fingers, as if he was fighting with himself.

"I don't know what I could do to change. To be what everyone expects me to be.’

"Stop killing yourself."

He looked at her and she shook her head, furrowing her brow.

"What?"

"You're killing your sensitivity. Your calmness, your thoughtfulness. Your warm nature, which is the reason for your shame. You want to be like your uncle, but you're not. Maturity is about taking responsibility for your decisions, and you are running away from it. You become a man when you confront your desires."

Prince Jacaerys seemed completely surprised by her words, simultaneously distressed and filled with hope. He lowered his gaze, looking down at his fingers, silent for a long moment.

"Fly with me to Dragonstone."

She looked at him in disbelief, for a moment not knowing what to say, shocked.

This boy completely lost his mind.

"I don't follow." She confessed.

Her nephew looked at her with a gleam in his eye, from which she felt a squeeze in her lower abdomen.

"Fly with me to Dragonstone. You are my blood. I do not want you to be the servant of a lord who will be able to use you and…" He did not finish, his cheeks red with shame.

Something in his words, in the fact that he was concerned about her fate and welfare, touched her.

She thought this boy had a really good heart.

"Your sister has ordered me to set out for the Eyrie."

"My sister wishes you to disappear from Harrenhal. I desire you to accompany me on my journey back to Dragonstone."

She laughed at his words.

"Who will I be there? Your whore?"

The boy furrowed his brow, looking at her in shock.

"My aunt."

Her smile vanished from her face, her brow furrowed in anger.

"Truly you are still a little child."

"I want this."

"You don't know what you want. Who I am."

"You are just like me. Abandoned. Alone. Marked. Without purpose, without a chance to have the dignity you deserve. I seem to have finally understood my sister. What she and my uncle have in common. I felt something immediately when I saw you for the first time. I'm not speaking of lust − I'm speaking of a feeling that I've never before met a person who could accept me as I am. Some part of me believes that I was destined to meet you."

He whispered, as if he was referring to something he was ashamed of, desperate and embarrassed, his bright eyes full of hot emotion that frightened her, overwhelmed her and moved her at the same time.

Only then did she understand.

A stone fortress reaching up to the sky, with the sound of water all around it.

The dragon on whose back she flew, which she had never seen before.

Her destiny had come for her.

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