#cw past medical trauma

[truths33k3r4]

(Warnings for this chapter are at the bottom of the page to keep from giving away spoilers.)

CHAPTER 9 - Dreams of the Haunted

Raphael watched as Lotus finally stilled in Leo’s arms, her stuttered breaths and sniffles slowly descending into silence. Her panicked words twisted and pulled at his mind, deepening his growing concern for her. Frustration began building in his heart as he watched someone so frail and scared fight a horrific, inner battle.

And all he could do was watch.

It brought him no comfort that he was the one that possibly sparked such awful memories in the frightened girl. How she looked at him… It was as if he was the ghost inhabiting all of her nightmares. As if it were him that caused her to flail out of bed in sporadic jolts, wearing beads of sweat on her trembling brow.

 The familiar, sticky tentacles of guilt quickly slithered around his heart, constricting the limited air in his lungs, and filling his mind with useless reprimands.

You shoulda just left her to Leo.

It’s your fault she’s afraid all the time.

She’s scared of you.

Raph shook his head in an attempt to focus back to the matter at hand.

The “matter” that now laid limp in his oldest brother’s arms, softly sighing and nustling into his plastron. The fiery brother watched in silent adoration as Leo stroked the young girl’s shell, successfully calming her enough to make her fall back to sleep. Raph remembered seeing Leo do the same calming motion when they were kids, using it to settle a frightened youngest brother surrounded by darkness, or steady a stressed nerd with too much homework, or simmer down a heated temper with nowhere to go but out.

Raph had used it once or twice as well. The faint memory passed through his mind like a soft breeze as he remembered Leo’s shuttering body hidden fully in his shell after another nightmare. However awkward that night had begun, Raph still recalled it with a warm endearment, remembering all of his brothers combining forces to bring comfort to their newly titled “leader”. Yeah, it was cramped and full of mushy feelings and tears; Three things Raph himself normally hated more than Math homework, but it was all worth it to be there for Leo. 

It was all worth it to bring comfort to their comforter.

As Lotus let out one final, heavy exhale, Leo skillfully weaved out of her embrace, laying her down gently onto the pillow and carefully draping the blanket over her. She didn’t stir the slightest, seemingly sinking deeper and deeper into the cushion of the mattress and the grounding weight of the blanket. Leo sighed as he looked down at her, his shoulders and body falling as if another weight had landed atop them. Tenderly, he reached out and wiped away the last of her tears speckling her cheeks. 

And he wonders why he was the best pick for Team Medic. Stinkin’ show off.

As Leo pushed himself off the floor with a winced grunt, he patted the dirt and grime off his knees and legs. Raph’s eyes involuntarily widened at the dark patches of dirt littering his oldest brother’s body. Normally the brothers kept their room a bit more tidy than that, but…

…a lot had happened. And some things carried more priority than household chores. 

“Raph, come on!” Leo shout-whispered, knocking the fiery brother’s train of thought clean off its tracks. “She’s asleep. Let’s go.” 

Raph gave a slight nod and followed his brother into the hallway, the two siblings being as silent and swift as wind sweeping across snow.

 They walked side by side in the hall, remaining quiet even after they were far past the brothers’ bedroom. Raph couldn’t help but subtly peer his eyes across to Leo, gauging what was going through the leader’s head. It wasn’t abnormal for the eldest to go silent, far from it in fact. Especially after something big happening, Leo would normally not speak as he contemplated the next best course of action. This had actually formed into a problem when they were younger, with Raph and Don’s impatience being stretched to their limits as they had to just wait for their leader to find a solution without a single conversation being had. That had sparked many unneeded forest fires of fury between the twins and their leader. 

Raph couldn’t help but snicker to himself as he remembered how ticked off Don had gotten, spouting off facts and insults in tandem when he wasn’t kept in the know-how. 

“Raph- What was that?” Leo asked suspiciously as he turned his gaze towards the fiery brother. “... Why… are you laughing??” He asked with a slight tint of incredulous confusion in his tone.

With Leo’s frosty irises now locked onto him, Raph found it a little hard to open his mouth and make words come out. 

“Uh… I was…”

Just speak, it ain’t that hard!!

“...Um…”

Leo’s Mom Glare™ suddenly shot up to a “should I be worried??” expression.

JUST. FRIGGIN. TALK.

Raph forcefully rolled his shoulders to release some of the energy building in his body.

“Heheh I was… rememberin’ how ticked off Don got when you went quiet on our missions. You remember the crazy insults he called you?”

Leo’s interrogative gaze flickered and dissipated as he turned his face to the ceiling and sighed with a smile.

“Ahhh yes…” The eldest huffed as his grin grew in nostalgic amusement. “Dad caught him swearing so many times so he just decided to make up new insults…Ah man, which one had you and me cracking up that one time?”

“Ooof, dude. How could ya pick? There’s too many good ones HA!”

“... Was it “Lint Licker”? Or maybe “Shiitake Mushroom head”, HAHA!!!”

Hearing the past substituted insults ignited a warm, soothing flame to ignite in Raph’s heart, leaving him clutching his stomach with how hard he was now laughing alongside his brother.

“WAIT WAIT- HAHAHEEE- Do you remember the time he called you a “Mother Clucker”?! BROOO I couldn’t even breathe I was laughin’ so hard!!!”

“OH DANG- HAHA!!! I can’t believe I forgot that one!!!” Leo was now clutching at his side too, leaning his shell against the wall of the hallway for support as he cackled and sniffed away tears from his eyes. “Don was so mad his face was as red as your mask!!!”

Now Raph could barely breathe with how hard he was laughing.

“Heee… He just sat there- HAHA- With his arms crossed holdin’ his breath- HAHAHA!!! You were afraid he was gonna pass out!!”

“He almost did!!! You had to catch him!!!” Leo’s voice cracked and broke with the laughter erupting out of his throat. Without meaning to, some of his words shot to an extremely high pitch, only worsening Raph’s guffaws to the point where he collapsed to the floor, splayed out and pressing down onto his torso.

There the two brothers were, one propped against a wall, the other laying flat on the ground, laughing.

Despite all that they had been through.

Here they were.

Laughing.

As their chuckles petered out to sniffs and snickers, Leo pushed himself off the wall and walked up to Raph’s prone body. The eldest reached out his hand with a big, real smile gracing every inch of his face. Raph couldn’t help but return Leo’s kindness with his own grin, gratefully accepting his big brother’s hand and allowing himself to be helped off the floor.

“Come on…” Leo laughed again, gasping for air, “Let’s go check on the Clean Up Crew.”

Raph nodded with a knowing smile as the two continued down to the living room.

“MIKEY!!! DON!!” Raph called out with his hand cupping the side of his face. “WHERE YOU GUYS AT??” 

After being answered with silence, Leo and Raph ventured into the kitchen. Walking past the doorway, the first thing Raph noticed was the “used” trash bin propped near the sink. The second thing he noticed, or rather was SMACKED ACROSS THE FACE WITH, was the pungent smell of lavender fumes filling up the entire room. Both his and Leo’s eyes immediately sprung up with more tears as they began to flap their arms to wave out some of the potent aroma. It didn’t do much, and unfortunately, living in the sewers, there were no windows to open and let out the powerful scent. So they just stood there for a bit, waving their arms, until finally both of them gave up in between hacks and coughs and simply retreated to the couch instead.

Comparatively, hacking and choking on fumes was apparently a much more effective way to beckon for their little brother instead of just casually calling to him. 

“What the shell happened to you guys??” Mikey yelled as he ran through the lair’s entrance into the living room. He was out of breath and wearing far-too-big gloves on his hands.

“Us?? *COUGH COUGH*- What- a-about you?? WHY were you *HACK* up top?!” Leo sputtered indignantly as he turned his head to look at his thirteen year old brother that was apparently alone in the big, scary world that towered above them.

Raph chuckled as he watched Mikey roll his eyes and tsk at the eldest’s obvious concern.

“Leooo I’m fineeee. I literally just took out the trash, CHILL.” Mikey grumbled as he pulled off the oversized gloves from his fingers.

“I will NOT CHILL.” Leo retorted right back, now wearing his patented Mom Glare™ and speaking as if he were Mikey’s parent rather than his oldest sibling, “You, young mutant, are thirteen. You aren’t allowed up top by yourself, you know that.”

“Yeah~ I’m fully aware, Mom-o-nardo. But Don was busy trying to hold in his lunch, so I took care of it.” Mikey sluggishly declared, his words dripping with nonconchalance. “You’re welcome~.” He flicked his hands with the dramatic flair of a magician, tossing the gloves onto a nearby side table, effectively making them ‘disappear’ from his person. 

Raph let out a silent “Ooooh~” as he turned to see how Leo would react. And as always, the eldest did not disappoint.

“Do I need to tell Master Splinter of your little solo errand?” Leo asked in a tone that was as cold and sharp as an icicle’s tip. 

The youngest’s face fell immediately as Leo played his highest card:

“I’M GONNA TELL DAD.”

Classic oldest sib move, Raph thought to himself. Game set match.

With an offended pout only a youngest sibling could pull off, Mikey growled and stomped his way into the kitchen.

 He quickly regretted his decision.

Raph and Leo couldn’t help the satisfied grins crawling up their faces as they heard Mikey begin to cough violently, clapping his hands over his snout and hightailing it back into the living room. He unceremoniously crumpled to the floor in a hacking heap.

Raph leaned further into the couch cushions and rested his head over his crossed arms, while he watched his little brother writhe dramatically on the floor. With a quick glance, he saw that Leo was subtly checking if Mikey was actually okay or if he was just being dramatic. He obviously came to the same conclusion Raph did as the two oldest siblings sat back and watched, the smiles on their faces never leaving for a second.

“Yeah… seems Don did one shell of a job “decontaminating” the trash bin, huh lil bro?”

Mikey’s head lifted from the ground long enough for him to spit out, “I BET ASTRONAUTS COULD SMELL THAT.”

Leo shook his head as he rolled his eyes, allowing a faint smile to grow on his face. Raph couldn’t help but ask himself how long it had been since so much laughter and smiles had graced the rooms of his home. 

In order to keep the bright composure he was carrying on his face, he pushed aside that thought and just sat as he watched his brothers just be kids again.

. . .

Images flashed past Raphael’s eyes as his body was forcefully shoved through a long, grey hallway. Echoes of horrified and pained screams blared into his skull. Shadows peeled from the walls and engulfed him, slithering their arms into tight bands around his biceps and ankles. Despite the fear penetrating every cell of his body, his mind remained completely hollow, as if he didn’t carry enough strength to create a simple thought. 

The only voice that could be heard in his mind wasn’t his own.

It promised safety and warmth; an easy way out of this trap. Its gravely whispers poked and scratched inside his head, trying to tangle and pull apart any chords of willpower he had left. He could sense the bristling flame of his determination and spirit continue to flicker into nothing. With each seductive, hushed word, a vital part of his identity was extinguished, replaced with an empty husk of compliance.

He wanted to scream, to run, to fight. He longed to beat the shell out of the siren that continued to whisper and enchant his body to bend to its will. 

His mouth stayed shut. 

His legs remained still.

His hands hung limp at his sides, bristling the tipped edges of his sais.

Now watching as if a spectator in his own body, Raph’s legs began to move. They pressed forward with an unnatural uniformity, pulling him closer to a pair of doors leading into a frighteningly familiar room. Raph watched as a pair of crimson-tipped fingers unlocked the door, beckoning him to continue on his way inside. No matter how much Raph’s spirit bit and snarled and yanked, his body complied with the voice’s wishes.

His form climbed into a cushioned chair surrounded by heavy machinery littering every surface. The haunting shine of scalpels and saws glistened on trays set up near his head. His wrists and ankles were slid into metal cuffs as his body unnaturally relaxed into the reclining chair. Lights began flashing as the machinery around him began to glow in a sickly neon green.

“LET ME GO!!!”

Raph’s spirit froze at the sound of the new voice screeching at the doorway. It was a voice he could never forget; A voice of someone who drove him crazy, and pushed him to always do his best in everything he ever did. A scratchy tone that would sometimes pop into a high-pitched crack, leaving him dying laughing on the floor and dodging random office supplies being hurled at him.

His best friend.

“I SAID LET ME GO!!! WHERE’S MY BROTHER?” Don snarled as he was dragged into the room by two hulking jerks, twisting and yanking at the freckled mutant’s chains. He winced as they threw him into the similar chair positioned beside Raph.

NO!! PLEASE NO!!!

Raph’s pleads and screams never left his body’s lips. He could only watch as his twin was forced down into the chair, the two men not being gentle in the slightest as they tugged Don’s limbs through the cuffs with a loud *CLANG*.

“RAPH!!” Don yelled to the hollow husk of his twin in both concern and relief at the same time,”RAPH WAKE UP!! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!!!”

The fiery brother couldn’t look away as Don’s face fell when his twin didn’t even acknowledge his existence, nevermind his words.

“...R-Raph?... What did they do to you?!- WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM!!!” Don ignited in a furious explosion of raw, protective instincts as masked doctors began filling the room.

Even with Don’s kicking and screaming, clawing and biting, and choice vocabulary that would send his father into a coma, the doctors still swiftly worked around him, preparing the machine that menacingly hovered above the two twins. Nurses began attaching small, metal nodes onto the sides of the brothers’ temples; Don’s on the left, and Raph’s on the right. The freckled brother didn’t stop squirming and fighting for one second, using all his energy to somehow escape his binds. But Raph remained still, his mind fully possessed by the siren that dwelled inside.

With a small *click* the machine began to operate. Raph watched as his twin began to scream, not in protest, but in pain. His body twisted and jolted as if he were being impaled by a lightning bolt. 

NO! 

Raphael’s spirit began to burn. 

NO…

His anger blazed in an uncontrollable pyre.

I… WILL NOT… 

His body’s hand twitched.

..LET…

His placid face began to sneer and snarl.

YOU…

His eyes burst open.

HURT HIM!!!!!

His spirit lunged through its prison, disintegrating the coils of control the siren once possessed. The chords of his identity and soul found their purchase in the core of his mind, planting themselves deeply, and never allowing such intrusion again. With the fury of a lion and the love of a protector he screamed,

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

Electricity sparked and stuttered through him in an instant, coursing through every muscle and fiber. It pulled his limbs taut, causing a deep ache to ignite in his bones. His skull rang with loud static, and his body twitched uncontrollably.

His body.

He fought against his binds, shattering the metal into pieces.

The lights on the machine flashed and popped, spraying the surrounding doctors with shards of glass. The panels of the contraption began to shake, as the device rapidly began to overload. 

The room was swallowed by the following explosion, bathed in an iridescent, blinding white.

Raphael and Donatello gasped simultaneously as they shot up, flinging their blankets off their chests.

Sweat beads trickled down Raph’s face as he shuddered and snatched onto his blanket. His fingers pressed deeply into the fibers, cushioning his nails instead of allowing them to penetrate skin. The thick, warm feel of the fabric pulled him back from fantasy, and planted him firmly in reality.

I’m home…

I’m safe…

I’m okay…

He chanted these words over and over in his mind until a cool, slurring voice broke his concentration.

“Raph?... You a’right, man?” Leo groggily whispered from his place on the spare mattress in the middle of the room. In the darkness the eldest’s frosty irises glowed as they locked onto Raph. 

Before the fiery brother could turn away from his sibling’s concerned gaze, Leo was already pulling away his sheets and blanket, tidily folding them over the edge of his bed, before silently crossing the room to Raph’s bedside.

CRUD CRUD CRUD-

NO- SHOO- GO AWAY- NOT NOW-

Raph immediately turned over, flopping to face the wall of his nook away from Leo.

“-I-I’m fine, Leo. Go back ta bed.” He subtly hissed through his fangs, hoping and praying that he was not about to get a big ol’ talk about feelings from the oldest. 

“Yeahhh, I’m not gonna buy that.” Leo yawned as he sat down on the floor beside Raph’s mattress. “A fighter you are. An actor you’re not. Now what’s going on?”

“I said I’m fine.” Raph curtly mumbled into his blanket.

“Still don’t believe you, try again.” Leo sighed as he rubbed at his eyes.

“I SAID I’M FINE.” Raph finally snapped a little too loudly, twisting his body to face his oldest brother. 

Leo winced at the volume of his brother’s expected outburst, then simply shook his head with an unimpressed frown. But before he could say another word, his expression changed as he noticed something about his fiery brother’s face. His mouth parted minisculely as he reached out his hand. 

Raph’s temper and pride demanded he swat it away, but his curiosity and love for his brother won out against his stubbornness. He remained still as Leo’s hand softly landed on the side of Raphael’s face, rubbing something wet off it.

Oh crap I’m crying.

DANG IT NOW HE’S NEVER GONNA LEAVE…

The concern over Leo’s face softened slightly, as he asked again, in a firmer “I am the oldest but I’m also your leader” tone, 

“What’s going on?”

Once again, Raph was completely trapped. Not by a psycho scientist, or by some evil, government organization, but by his perfectionistic, calm, and deeply concerned oldest brother.

There was no way he was going to get out of this one…

And that's it for this chapter! :) You all have been begging to see more of what happened to Don and Raph at the labs, so I present to you a nightmare~. This chapter was certainly tricky to figure out at first- with so many different scenes compiled together, it was hard to keep a steady flow for my reader, but I'm really happy with how it turned out! :) AAAAnd yes, I did say that I would only draw one panel for each chapter, but I COULDN'T HELP ITTTTTT!!!

Feel free to reblog and share this!

BIG THANK YOU to @poetique823 for helping me and encouraging me through this chapter!

@writer-in-wonder, @allyheart707, @oddartistl3, @risebabyx2, @joyjoygorl, @carrots-bear, @howtotrainyourdragonprince, @jasminegazer, @indieyuugure

If you want to be tagged in the next chapter, please comment down below! :)

To God be the glory!

~ Melissa

(CW- Nightmares, past medical trauma, being held down, and mind control!!)

MASTERPOST <- PRIOR CHAPTER NEXT CHAPTER ->

[juleteinthrum]

It's like.

Watching a movie. I was there for it to happen because i was in the theatre, but i actually lived it. And Dib only remembers it where i don't, because i was sick. I was very ill.

I found a moment through his memories where i was in hospital on a resisty ship, years after florpus. I wore a gown, one for patients. I was waking up, breathing normal into a device to help with it, so they removed it. And i was normal for a moment.

I sat up and was held, barely responsive but comforted, and Dib's hand came away wet. He touched my back, what was wet on his hand? A strange off color stain on the bed, and a vortian nurse came to press a towel on my open Pak hole(gods i wish i could remember the name for those bc ew) and it came away too wet. It was normal, except it was too much. Sometimes these things leaked, but not this much. Alarms were raised, then i was siezing hard. I writhed and gasped out and they didn't fully know what was happening.

Dib left the room while they helped me, visibly panicking to the staff who quickly came to consol him and ease his worries.

"He's in great care, best the galaxy can offer him right now." This strange feminine voice came from a translator that each passenger bore, so we could understand each other.

"How am i to trust that? I- i don't know any of you. How am i to understand on any context, given i wasn't raised out here."

You studied aliens since you were a kid, right? What was the matter?

I panicked. He replies to me in headspace. "I had minimal resources from the beginning and I was being slow at learning the ropes, understanding all the moving pieces."

Back to the hospital, and in the memory the stranger was beginning to get him soothed as they listed off reasons unremarkable now to my friend. He barely heard her, only nodded and held his head in stress as he paced. Then disastor. A guard or 2 from Moo-Ping 10 escorting a vortion tech down the hall, just across from where Dib stood, just barely managing his panic. He saw a tunnel, and red, and immediately jumped into fight or flight with the former leading his survival instinct. He raged, and he lunged.

He was stopped of course, and confusion errupted around us. He was sedated, and woke to a couple nurses pulling tubes off of him. He was monitered briefly, and told he could get up and see me when he was ready, but to walk slowly for fear of faintness. He barely listened, and made his way to my room within the minute. I was happy, waving at him and explaining that they found a rupture in one of my organs, due to the issues related to my Pak. He was in wonder, why i was so coherent after having such a bad response. Then i giggled and his eyebrows fell. I was slurry and laughing at nothing, explaining i was on a lot of heavy drugs after the repairs to my body. My antennae flopped around and laid back as i chuckled and snickered.

All was well, and after a few hours monitoring i went back to earth, escorted by my best friend, still loopy with a small container of meds to help in the coming days. An urge to contact them when needed. Respect all around and peace. Dib had a traumatic response to seeing the guards, assuming the worst and that they were there for me. In reality i was barely on their mind, only there for professional work at the hospice and the vortian had protection against the armada. Allies. A misunderstanding. I barely came to over a week later. Either loopy from shock, meds or excessive sleep. I asked what happened, and he told me very plainly that I'd fallen ill, and some aliens had helped out. It wouldn't be til ages later in my work with the Resisty that I'd find out about these endeavors and struggles. And i was greeted as a hero after Alder passed.

[pennycutenice]

Please read the tags for content warnings / trigger warnings. This is gonna be very personal.

So I find myself thinking again and again about what being excessively bullied has done to me on a creative level.

At seven years old I composed music on the pc. The next year I was making what later would be called amvs but with my favourite SpongeBob episodes and, no kidding, medieval folk rock. I would design complicated menus to navigate these works and burn them onto DVD. The year after I was learning piano, drums, and guitar, additionally to my recorder knowledge. I would also further improve my craft in editing videos by doing incredibly unfunny but technically impressive redubs of movies and started writing poems. I also loved knitting and singing my own lyrics to my own instrumentals. And I remember how I created incredibly elaborate marble runs not out of prebuilt parts but creating my own. Finally I was doing combinatorics and stochastics on the side, as a fun project on a math level not even taught at german schools. Doing all this there wasn't much time for consuming stuff like video games but that didn't matter. I had fun. And then I changed schools.

I was proud of what I did and showed it to people. Big mistake. I would be harassed for the next seven years on the daily for even having dared to do creative shit. Name calling, to taking away my shit and seldom even physical abuse. Often my bullies called me the aggressor and they would be believed by the school. Because yes, they could push me to my limit until I went violent. But as a small and weak boy that would only make them laugh more. Creating these situations was then kind of a goal: It was funny for them and speaking of physical violence I was the aggressor. Later I fled school regularly, walking home when it got too bad, got into big trouble for that and got threatened with calling the cops on me. I now know I probably was (and still am) neurodivergent and did not have the social skills to do something about all this. It was hell and I was helpless. Eventually I told myself I deserved it for creating such shameful things. Actually I was pure evil right down to the core and them destroying my life was just the righteous consequence of my misdeeds.

So what do? Well, I stopped. All of it. The single thing that remained was doing let's plays which was kinda acceptable to have as a hobby at the time and isn't really new ammunition to bullies anyway. Also I needed to do something after school since I had no real friends to do stuff with and I was too ashamed of myself to regularly meet with the few sympathetic people. At the time I thought I had some friends, today with true friends on my side I know I really didn't. To this day I struggle with friendships because of this; I simply did not really learn how to do them. I got incredibly lonely (and to this day still kinda am) and they took all the joy out of my creativity. I gained weight and an unhealthy relationship with food. I vividly remember how at one point I realized, I hadn't met or talked to anyone outside of school for a year. To that a coke and some chips, fellas! Asked out some guys to the cinema and they only agreed when I told them I'd pay for everything. I didn't enjoy it at all because I realized I needed to bribe people to spend time with me. Later on I started walking home from school - it was good for my health (and weight) and the lost time wouldn't be missed if you have nothing else to look forward to. Plus it was a good opportunity to get in some secret cry time. That is how I started playing video games - a then very hot new one called "mine craft" for example, maybe you've heard of it.

I developed some internet friendships but none of them would last. Most of them were let's play colleges and stopped interacting with me when I, the person with the most (like two thousand) subscribers, had no project to do with them. Also we were never really close. One I kicked out of my life at about fourteen because I realized an 18 y/o should not send me porn.

All this time school kind of forced me into some creative projects and I would always impress the teachers. There was a mandatory reading competition and I wasn't just the best at school, I was the best in the entire federal state. At that point I dropped out the competition because of sickness but I'm really curious about what could have been. I also was "diagnosed" as gifted because of my impressive mathematical skills and got special education opportunities. My teachers were confused about me choosing creative writing classes, but I excelled at that too and got praised at the final presentation of the entire group for my great understanding of words, wit and sarcasm. Also I was a great presenter. (Sadly the course was too far from my home so I saw none of them again and no friendship of peers could form.)

It was honestly weird. I could not do really creative stuff anymore but any time I had to and it was socially accepted, I was the best at it. Without ever doing it in my spare time I was better at programming than my first computer science teacher within a school year and impressed him by disagreeing with him regularly and being right in the end - good guy for realizing that by the way. But I still did not do anything with my "gifts," I couldn't! The fun I once had was taken from me daily on the schoolyard and classrooms and the closets they'd put me in like movie bullies. Yes, that actually happened once. I honestly confused my teachers. One said, I was by far the smartest and laziest student he ever taught. I also remember getting a pity grade on a great art project I did in class which I was so ashamed of I threw it away shortly before we were supposed to show the results to the teacher.

I tried to start a school newspaper, bought and read a whole book on the matter and in the end failed because I feared telling people about it. The few I trusted and seemed interested did not show up. Later on someone with actual social skills started one and I joined, being a primary author of the whole thing shortly, with video game reviews mainly - there was nothing else in my life left I could talk about.

Later on at the upper levels it got a bit better. People at my level realized they could use my skills for their mandatory projects and therefore open hostility stopped. Passive aggressiveness? Yeah sure. Did the other levels still bully me relentlessly? Of course they did. It once stopped for a while after I just turned around to one of them and decked him so hard he fell over, but in the end life was still hell.

Once my art class convinced my pretty cool teacher to watch some of my very rare non-lp creative projects I uploaded. I honestly could not tell you if they actually liked my stuff or if they wanted to humiliate me. So many people talked to me in this sarcastic or duplicitous tone I simply did not trust anyone to ever honestly praise my work. I left the classroom to shed a tear but at that time I was pretty much numb to all of it. Looking back on it it is really possible quite the share of people came around on me, maybe grew out of childish bullying and genuinely liked me. I couldn't tell you, I didn't really trust people anymore at that point and to this day have troubles doing so.

I got sick more and more often. Very sick. For weeks on end. Sick to the point of eating and drinking hurting. Badly. Sick to the point of losing myself and not really knowing who I really was anymore. It was the only time I was weak enough to cry later on in life. Also hunger does not hurt anymore after two days of not eating so I just stopped to end it all in a very painful way. Sadly, that was my opinion at the time and is not anymore, I always would eventually get better and feel hunger again. But physical pain was good in my mind. It was tangible. I knew why it was there and acute physical pain is usually stronger than chronic mental pain. So I started cutting myself. It is almost funny: I felt like a dramatic high school girl doing it for attention, even though I started wearing long sleeves and told not a single soul. But I liked that feeling. Would I have known what "transgender" means at the time my life could have been very different. It truly was the most fucked up gender euphoria and I didn't even know it was at the time. I was smart enough to not go so deep as to create visible scars and later changed to the thighs like a true pro. This didn't solve any of my problems so I really can't recommend it btw.

Anyway, at that point I had been at least passively suicidal for years and completely burned out of finding my own fun in creative projects. At the end of lessons I turned in "the most impressive" art project my teacher had ever gotten. Because of frequent illnesses it was too late; it wouldn't make an impact on my grade. And then soon after final exams I won my level's "biggest male bitch" award. Fuck you too. I didn't go to prom.

Studying computer science and not being forcefully surrounded by people who hated me was much better. I thought absence of hate would cure my mind in the long run. Nope. I didn't know I needed professional help to get better than a kinda sad kinda normal with monthly breakdowns and constant suicidal ideation. I tried to return to my previous creative output but I just couldn't. The youthful innocence and love of creating gone, everything had baggage now. I continued creating for a very toxic reason: To get approval from strangers on the internet via YouTube videos. I didn't know how else to get someone to like me. Content let me filter myself to be a lovable person and not the truly evil fuck I wrongly believed myself to be. Of course I wasn't a perfect person and I did do things I am not proud of and hurt people, but I wasn't nearly the irredeemable waste I thought.

I created incredible things on a technical level. It got me a contract for german state youth television. I was nominated for an award! (I didn't win it because I didn't upload enough videos. Okay?) But I created to feel loved and to overshadow my self hatred with the praise of strangers online. This runs dry. At some point the praise wasn't enough and I could not create anymore. Then I came out as trans and bi to myself and some close friends which made me find a loving community of cool queer people who actually love me. I even have enough friends to be able to choose to not spend time with someone if they're bad for me. In the end I even received depression medication and hormone replacement therapy! I'm working with a very nice neurologist who's trying to understand me better and believes I'm probably neurodivergent too and is gonna get me a therapist once he understands my needs better. My brain does not torture myself anymore and I'm working hard on breaking some self destructive patterns. I am well, comparatively.

But I haven't truly created in almost two years now. I am ashamed and don't even want to make music or write poems anymore or draw. I have no energy to edit videos. I am embarrassed of my maths and creative code solutions even though I am an A+ student with perfect grades that got a job in teaching and research because of these skills. I didn't even touch on me being a pretty good 2D animator (with given rigs, not really frame by frame)! But I cannot. The most progress I made is that in the last two years I started showing people what music I listen to - something I was especially shamed for in my youth - and with about four people on this planet I'm comfortable enough with to sing along to a song I like.

I feel like I loved creating but it was taken from me. And I don't know how to get it back. Or if I ever will. I will just have to do some healing. Some things are coming back. But I don't know what healing is to be done, how to do it and if I will ever get the opportunity to do so. I would love to be on top of my artistic game again, now that I'm happier personally. I don't know, man.

I see people around me doing amazing shit and I… am also there. Once able to do what they do. Being jealous of their joy of their own creative output and the output itself. The ones just a few years younger grew up with smartphones; having access to an accepting community at pretty much all times. Some just had people in their physical surroundings that liked, supported or even guided their creative endeavors. I do not want to say they had or have it "easy" or even think direct comparisons of suffering will result in anything except animosity. But looking at them now whatever they had could sustain their creative drive.

I didn't and still don't have it. And now that I'm able to be in touch with my emotions due to medication I'm just starting to realize and feel the scope of what I lost over a decade ago.

[fletcherwilbury]

@whumptober Day 23: Alt Prompt 12: Broken

Warning for Hospital setting, surgery, past medical trauma, dizziness, chest pain, vomiting, chronic pain, broken bones, past physical abuse

[astrcthesiai-archived]

📚 my muse’s past/childhood (for Chrome too in case it didn't send)

For another reason, it was a little harder to make Chrome's past/childhood.

Under the read-more is triggering content and ideation for one's death in character. It's something I feel Chrome would say.

I did not want to make it too bloody, so I went with the Tokyo ambulance picture and a generic picture of an accident. The stray cat she saved was a stray she passed by every day going to and going back from school. For my Chrome, it was a black cat with heterochromia, representing misfortune and omen. For other portrayals of Chrome, it could probably be a white cat with heterochromia, which also represents misfortune and omen, sometimes luck. She does not regret saving it. She felt a kinship for the cat she saved.

"I think I was the happiest in my life when I saved the cat. It was then I also knew I came to the end of [REDACTED] Nagi. It was not like my parents would miss me. They ignored my presence and continued with their careers. I knew my mother's answer the moment she was asked to donate one of her kidneys and a piece of her liver. And I was happy."

[ellecdc]

"still?" "always."

Finnick Odair x hijacked!reader who asks what's real or not real [2k words]

summary: a District Thirteen reunion story heavily inspired by the brilliant @ervotica's fic 'a life of our own' & @/ilguna's 'hijacked'! Reader was tortured much like Peeta was into fearing Finnick, finding her playing the game 'real or not real'

CW: fem!reader, discussion of past torture [not described], reader tortured into believing Finnick did abhorrent and disgusting things to her [not described], medical personnel acting as villains sort of, hurt/comfort, hopeful/open ending

Finnick drummed his fingers against the paperback book that he brought with him to your hospital room every day which acted as nothing more than a glorified prop. 

Routine was a word that came to dictate much of Finnick’s life recently; stability. Ritualized schedules were the norm in District Thirteen. But more importantly, routine, stability, and ritualized schedules were deemed necessary and important to your recovery. 

Thus, Finnick drummed his fingers against the paperback book - the same paperback book - that he brought with him to your hospital room every day - at the exact same time - which acted as nothing more than a glorified prop. 

He’d been following more or less the same routine ever since you’d been rescued from the Capitol a few weeks ago, though Finnick could admit visiting you felt slightly better now than it had in the beginning. 

The beginning had been nothing short of heartbreaking for him. The beginning had been nothing short of torturous for you. 

There’d been a hunch in place of hard evidence that the lot of you were being tortured in the Capitol, though to what extent no one knew. And absolutely no one was prepared for what awaited them by the time the three of you were safe in District Thirteen.

Peeta had promptly tried to off Katniss which was very off brand of him; Johanna’s head had been shaved, she was emaciated, and had a plethora of evidence of gruesome physical torture, and you…

You weren’t filled with the same loathing, hatred, and disgust that Peeta seemed to carry for Katniss. No, you were completely and utterly terrified. 

Medics had to sedate you when Finnick rushed into the room upon hearing of your arrival because you’d thrown yourself against the wall so violently you’d split your head open, then nearly ripped your nails clean off your fingers in your desperation to open a locked door in an attempt to escape from him. And if that hadn’t been devastating enough, the sounds of your guttural screams and desperate cries caused by him still haunted many of Finnick’s nightmares.

Finnick had been hesitant to return to you after that; he didn’t want to ever cause you that much distress again. 

Haymitch tried to reason with him; Finnick wasn’t the one causing you this much distress, it was the Capitol. The medics tried to reason with him; it was to be considered exposure therapy, they hoped that - over time - as you regained some familiarity and comfort with him and worked through your memories and trauma with the doctors that you’d start to remember.

He reluctantly agreed. So, he was horrified when, the first day he returned, you’d been strapped down to your bed in preparation for his meeting. 

“This is sick!” He’d shouted at the medics as he gestured at your current state. “This isn’t exposure therapy, this is torture!”

“Mr. Odair, the hope is that once she begins to realize there’s no need to fight or run, we’ll be able to take the restraints off.” One of them explained in a bored manner. 

“Fuck whatever you’re hoping for! You’re torturing her; she’s not going to feel any safer here than she did in the Capitol!” 

They’d tried calling after him, but he simply looked over at you and offered a pathetic “I’m sorry, honey” that you probably hadn’t heard over your own desperate wails before he fled.

The next day he returned, you hadn’t been strapped down, but you had been heavily medicated with some kind of sedative before his arrival. He swallowed around the bile in his throat as he took a seat in one of the chairs, pretended to read his book and tried his hardest to ignore the extremely wary and haunted gaze that stayed glued to his side for the entirety of his visit. 

The third visit went much the same, except about halfway through his scheduled ‘visit’, he noticed that your eyes seemed to fall extremely heavy. 

“Are you tired, sweetheart?” He murmured quietly, though you would have thought he’d screamed at you with the way you bodily flinched and your eyes snapped open. 

He just continued watching you as you fought to convince your heart to return to its normal tempo, slowly, cautiously nodding your head yes to his question when you seemed to realize he was earnest in his question. 

“Would you like me to leave so you can get some rest?” 

Your brows furrowed ever so subtly, eyes darting across his face as you searched for any hidden meaning or potential threat. 

You must not have found one. 

“Please.” You whispered, and - though it was still but a whisper -  it was the first time he had heard your voice since the Quarter Quell that wasn’t shrieking and sobbing in fear, causing a lump to form in his throat.

“Okay, honey, I’ll go.” He whispered back, smiling at you through tears as he stood and swiftly left the room, hardly closing the door fully behind him before he let out a sob. 

Over the weeks, you began finding your own routine and schedule outside of the time you spent working with doctors and medics. You were hardly ever seen without your journal on your person, and one of your doctors explained to Finnick that you were beginning to compile notes to differentiate between things you knew, things that you didn’t know, and what was real or not real. Many times, Finnick could find you working in your journal when he arrived, and though you still managed to keep a concerned eye on him at any given point and your body never fully relaxed while he was there, he was grateful you were becoming more or less accustomed to his company. 

And then one day he showed up to your room to find one wall completely transformed into a giant drawing board. The board was divided into two equal sides; one side was labelled REAL and one side was labelled NOT REAL. The only thing that had been written down so far was on the NOT REAL side, which read “Finnick did not set you up and leave you there to die.”

“She’s been struggling to sleep without the aid of sedatives; she wakes up quite violently from nightmares, struggling to differentiate between what is real and what is not, even when we’re standing right there in front of her.” One of the medics told him. “We tried once to have her look through her journal, but she threw it across the room and told us to get away from her. We thought maybe having a very large visualization in front of her in her own writing would be helpful to tether her to reality upon waking.” 

And that seemed all well in good, but Finnick found himself sick over some of the things the Capitol had convinced you he was guilty of more than once. 

But, if this is what you needed, if this was helping you, Finnick would stomach it, no questions asked. 

So, Finnick drummed his fingers against the paperback book that he brought with him to your hospital room every day which acted as nothing more than a glorified prop. 

He knocked twice gently on your door before stepping inside, watching as you stepped quickly away from the board and hid the marker and eraser behind your back as if you’d been caught doing something you weren’t supposed to, watching Finnick as though you were waiting for him to attack. 

“Hi, honey.” He greeted quietly, nodding politely at you before he pulled out his chair and took his place, flipping his book open to an arbitrary page as he pretended to read. 

You didn’t move; your feet seemed to be glued to the spot as you watched Finnick pretend to not be watching you. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he had missed your gaze, quite selfishly, and found that while the atmosphere wasn’t exactly relaxed, he was happy enough just to have your eyes on him again. 

Finnick wasn’t sure how much time had passed before you ended up breaking the silence.

“F…Finnick?” You asked, barely above a whisper; question so quiet that Finnick was sure if he hadn’t only been pretending to read, he would have missed it entirely.

You sounded as though you were trying his name out for size, just to see how it felt on your tongue. Finnick missed the days when you used to squeal his name in laughter, or groan his name in frustration, or call his name in excitement. But even though it came out cautious and stilted, he didn’t think he’d ever heard as pretty a sound as the sound of his name falling from your lips. 

“Yes, sweetheart?” He asked eagerly, fighting to keep his tone, face, and body language calm as he saved his ‘place’ with a finger and leaned forward in his chair, resting his knees on his elbows. 

You swallowed thickly and fiddled with the marker in your hands as you stole yourself to speak. “Can I ask you something?” 

He wanted to be an ass; he wanted to say ‘you just asked me two things’, he wanted to whoop and holler at finally having an actual conversation with you after weeks of finally having you back, yet not really having you back at all. 

Instead, all he said was “of course.”

You cleared your throat before gaining the courage to ask what he heard as “you love me; real, or not real?” 

Finnick wasn’t sure an answer had ever come to him so fast. “Real.”

You seemed somewhat surprised by his answer even though it was clearly the answer you’d been expecting. After a few moments, you simply nodded at him before turning back to your drawing board’s REAL side. 

Finnick loved me you wrote, adding bullet points underneath it...

He told me so

He acts like it

Gut feeling

...is what you cited as proof to this revelation. Finnick wanted to weep. A gut feeling; you were still in there, somewhere. There was still a version of you that knew deep down that Finnick loved you.

“It’s not quite right, honey.” He offered softly, fighting the urge to smile when you turned at his interruption, yet didn’t flinch at the sound of his voice as you often did. You simply looked at him in confusion. 

“Do you mind if I make a minor adjustment?” He asked as he carefully placed his book on your empty bed and slowly stood, holding his hands out in ask. 

You looked between him and the marker and eraser in your hands before holding them out for him; an invitation. 

Finnick smiled at you as he slowly walked towards you, hyper focused on remaining as unthreatening as possible as he gently took the items from you, careful not to touch you unnecessarily. 

He moved to the REAL side of the board, using the edge of the eraser to remove the d from the end of loved and replacing it with an s. The sentence now - properly - read Finnick loves me. 

“There, now it’s perfect.” He offered you with another smile as he held the items back out to you, gently placing them in your hands when you held them open for him before he turned back towards his chair, retrieved his book, and sat back down. 

Your eyes stayed glued on the correction he made to your board as the marker and eraser hovered uselessly midair; moments dragging on before your arms finally lowered to your sides. 

Finnick didn’t bother pretending to read, so when you turned to look at him - face full of confusion, curiosity, concern, and what looked to be devastation - you found him already looking at you. 

“Still?” You asked, voice cracking painfully as a heavy tear fell down your face. 

And if Finnick thought that no answer had ever come faster to him before, he was sorely mistaken. 

“Always.” He promised.

[moonstruckme]

hiiiii mae!! hope ur having a good day/night, i was wondering if you would do a emt!marauders (or just remus) fic with a reader who maybe has past medical trauma or something so she really hates going to the doctors and avoids unplanned visits at all costs and one day she gets hurt doing something and she tells herself she’s fine but she’s really not (maybe she has like a concussion or something) and she tries to tell the boys she’s okay and she doesn’t need to go to the hospital but they’re like “yes you do u literally don’t know what day it is” and she kinda starts freaking out and they comfort her????

so sorry if you’ve done something like this you’ve written a LOT of fics (which is amazing i love them all) and i haven’t gotten the chance to read them all yet! anyways hope you have a great day i love ur fics so much!!!!!!

Thank you for your request, love you <3

cw: concussion, hospital mention, implied medical fear/past trauma

emt!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 770 words

“This is supposed to be the sort of thing that only happens to old ladies,” Sirius mutters. “Look at James, dollface.” 

James’ smile is encouraging. “He knows he’s full of shit. We see people fall in showers all the time, it’s not an age thing. You don’t have to be geriatric for soap to be slippery.” 

You know, distantly, that they’re both trying to keep things light for your benefit, but their playacting isn’t helping you. You feel trapped, backed into a corner, and your lovely boyfriends who only want the best for you feel like your captors. 

Sirius clicks off the light he was shining in your eyes just as Remus comes back with your clothes. They exchange a look you don’t like. 

“Here, sweetheart, put this on.” Remus helps you get a sweatshirt over your head, extra careful to hold the collar away from the aching bump on the back of your head. 

You stand from the bed bemusedly as he starts putting your sweatpants on for you, too. You don’t love the vibe of all this coddling, either; the boys are usually only this delicate with you when they’re very concerned, very pitying, or both. 

“What’s going on?” you ask, though you already know. It’s not as if you would usually hang about in your towel all night after a shower, but they’re getting you dressed for a reason. 

James’ brows twitch together sympathetically. Sirius’ voice is gentle. “Baby, we need to go get your head looked at.” 

Your upset blooms fast and hot, tears choking you. “Why?” 

“You have a concussion, sweet girl. It seems fairly bad already, and it could get worse.” 

“But you’re…you always say hospitals can’t even do anything for those.” You know you sound childish, whiny and difficult, but you can’t help yourself. Your boyfriends don’t seem to hold it against you. James rubs your arm while Remus pulls your socks on with sweet, lingering touches. A tear squeezes out of your eye. “Why do I have to go?” 

“You’re right, there’s not much they can do,” says Remus. His voice is calm and even, a balm to your frazzled nerves. “But a concussion can be dangerous, and without tests we won’t know how dangerous it is or if there’s anything they can help with.” 

“That’s all we’re going for, angel,” James says lightly. “Just some tests. It won’t take terribly long, and we can stay with you most of the time.” 

You’re hardly hearing him, shaking your head despite the way it aches. More tears crest your cheeks, your breaths wet and quick. “Can’t we wait and go tomorrow?”

“Oh, sweetheart.” James takes your hand, squeezing your fingers. “We can’t, my love, but it’s going to be okay.” 

“I really can’t.” You pull your hand from his, wiping underneath your eyes. Your hair is still wet from the shower, cold seeping into your fresh sweatshirt. “I can’t do it. Please don’t make me.” Your voice chokes into a quiet squeak on the last few words. 

Remus coos and sits beside you on the bed, wrapping you up in a hug. You cry into his shoulder as he rocks you gently, murmuring against the side of your head. “Please,” you try again. 

He holds you closer. “I know, darling.” His voice is a low whisper. “I know it’s hard for you, and I know it’s scary, but we’ll be there with you. It’s not going to be as bad as you’re thinking. What we’re going for is really very simple, and Sirius can explain it to you on the way, hm? You’ll be alright.” 

When you calm some, he goes to warm the car, passing you off to Sirius and James to get your shoes on. 

“Nothing’s gonna happen to you, baby,” Sirius promises, kissing the shell of your ear as he walks you outside. His arm is heavy around your shoulders and James is quick to take your hand after locking the door behind you, bolstering you for what’s ahead. “You think we’re gonna let you get hurt? This is going to be the easiest hospital visit you ever had. We run this place, they’ll have us in and out.” 

“I wouldn’t say we run it,” Remus says drily as you three pile into the backseat. “More like we engage with it, in twelve hour shifts, four to five times a week.” 

“But we do have lots of friends,” James chips in. 

“Exactly.” Sirius busies himself with wiping the last of your tears while James gets your seatbelt on. “Like the radiographer at Bellevue. You’ll see, baby. We’ve got you covered.”

[moody-alcoholic]

On a Wing and a Prayer

Part 7 - Well This Is Awkward

CW: Angst, mention's of alcohol, mentions of panic attack's, mental health, mentions of injuries, mentions of death.

Did I mention I like medical dramas?

Previous parts - masterlist - next

Your therapist is nice. You’ve been going to her for the past 3 months, you were only supposed to go for a single session. Then the army insisted on more. Johnny was sent home on medical leave a few days after you left. He came to see you and stayed the night. 

The next morning you had to tell him to leave, it just wasn’t the same. 

‘I’ll be staying at the house if you want to visit?’ 

Shit, you forgot about the house. The place you all pitched in to buy, so you all had somewhere to stay when you were on leave. Everyone’s flats are too small to accommodate all 5 of you. Besides, flat hopping everyday across London was expensive. 

‘I’ll talk to John when he’s back.’ All you want back is the deposit. 

“Do you feel guilty?” She asks you. It snaps you out of your thoughts and you turn to look at her. 

“No.” You say, she hums. You hate it when she does that. You don’t know why it is a particularly tough session. You just want to go home. “They hurt me. I don't feel guilty about that.” 

“You left the unit though.” Bitch. “It’s okay to feel guilty about that.” 

“Okay fine. I feel guilty about leaving Johnny and Kyle.” You snap back. Anything to get her to sign you off so you can go. You look up at the clock, you still have at least 40 minutes left in this season. 

“Have you got your letter from the university yet?” She asks changing the subject. You nod. After a few weeks of crying on the bathroom floor and drowning yourself in bottles of vodka you decided to get your shit together. 

“That’s good, what's the plan going forward?” 

“I’ll be posted on a base somewhere where I can get hands-on experience in trauma care. With studying on the side.” You say without going too much into the complications. 

“So the army is actively helping you, that's good.”  

“Yeah I think they’re willing to do anything so long as I don’t sue them.” You scoff under your breath. She hums.

You don’t know how true that is, maybe it’s just something you tell yourself so you don’t feel so conflicted over how accommodating they’ve been. They’re paying your uni bills and even got you one some army teaching program aimed to fast track you through the ranks. 

“What about Kyle and Johnny? Have you heard from them since you spoke to them last?” Fucking bitch. You sigh, turning away from her. The last time you spoke to them was almost a month ago. They text you from time to time, try to call you. 

You’ve ignored them, so much that you feel like anything you say to them will just be meaningless. 

“Yeah, they’re deployed.” You lie. She smiles. You look back up at the clock. 

30 minutes to go.

______________________

Iraq is hot. That you expected but the hospital’s electricity is sketchy at best. You have to keep the air-con off to make sure the ventilators don’t cut out. The US built this place, you’re only supposed to be here for another week at least before you’ll move again. 

As soon as the electric is fixed it will be handed over to the UN to run, until then it was getting a dry run as a combat hospital. Lots of blown off limbs and bullets to pull out people. Lots of death. 

You told Johnny and Kyle where you were going when you got your placement. You’re trying to patch things up with them after basically leaving them on read for almost 3 months. Your therapist said it would be a good thing to do. 

The sun is setting, you're sitting outside watching as it touches the top of the distant mountains. The place is busy, friendly forces are still pretty much living here. It’s the only safe zone in this part of the desert, why the UN wanted a hospital out here you’ll never know. 

Something about re-urbanisation of previously controlled territories. You don’t care, you're here to pull bullets out of people and save lives. Other than your mentor-Dr. Sands-you’re the only other doctor on the base. Doctor is a loose term, you’re technically still a student, but you ace all your skills labs, and the army is begging for help apparently. 

You let out a breath, finishing the rest of your drink and getting up and pulling your white lab coat on. 

“Well, fancy seeing you ‘ere.” You hear a familiar thick accent behind you. You turn to see Johnny standing behind you. 

What the fuck.

You’re hugging him before you can stop yourself. You see Kyle, John and Simon stood behind him. They’re all geared up, weapons slung over their chest or back. 

You thought you would feel something when you saw them. Maybe you'd want to run, scream, cry, anything. You feel nothing, just numbness.

“What are you doing here?” You ask.

“Oh you know, Shepherd says jump, we say how high.” he says nudging you, it makes you smile and you shake your head. 

“Finally going for the MD?” He asks, pointing at the student doctor tag on your coat. 

“Yeah well, you like putting bullets in people. I like pulling them out.” 

“Oh yeah not even the occasional love tap?” He jokes, throwing his arm around your shoulders.

“Only the bad guys.” You reply. You look up at Kyle who’s smiling. Then John and Simon. 

“You look good.” John says. 

“Yeah well that’s what 6 months of therapy will do to you.” It’s bitter, harsher than you expected it to be. It’s the first time you’ve spoken to him in 6 maybe 7 months. He hasn’t changed a bit. He still smiles at you, his body language open, his hands on his hips. 

Simon stands with his arms crossed, his presence is looming, making hairs stand up on the back of your neck. 

“It’s good to see you again.” Kyle says, you nod at him. 

“Oh when we’re back we should catch a bite to eat.” Johnny says enthusiastically, moving away over to Kyle. 

“You can tell us what to avoid in the mess.” Kyle adds. You smile again. You go to open your mouth but your pager beeps. You look down at it. It’s the doctor. 

“Yeah, when you’re back, come find me.” You say turning into the building. 

“Stay safe!” Johnny calls.

“Yeah you too!” You call back pulling your radio off your hip. When you make it through the door you squeeze your eyes closed for a second and let out a long breath. 

Now you hate this hospital even more. 

______________________

It’s dark out now. You look over at the clock and it's almost midnight. You’re sat at the nurses station listening to them talk about whatever drama is going on in the next base. You still can’t believe you ended up in the same base as 141. 

They’ll be gone soon, even Johnny seemed surprised, maybe he thought you’d be gone by now. Now you have to eat with them at some point. Johnny and Kyle at least.

The doctor left an hour ago to go to another base for a surgery. You’re used to this taking the night shifts. Normally you just sleep and get woken up a few times for the nurses to ask for medication changes. You’ve only ever had one trauma come in at night and the doctor was there to help you with the limited night time staff. 

You tried to sleep but you couldn’t, you were restless trying to think about what they were doing here? Who were they after? How long would they be here? At least at the nurses station you can listen to the nurses and let their gossip distract you. 

The red trauma phone rings. For a second you think it’s a joke, it’s the normal phone. Nope, the red light is flashing on it. You stand up picking it up. 

“Trauma.” You say.

“Got one incoming, ETA 15 minutes. GSW to the chest, breathing unconscious. 30 year old male.” You hear an American voice say as you write it down. You don’t have time to worry or be nervous. This is what you live for, you let the adrenaline pump through you. It clears your mind as you take down the information. 

“Copy, what’s the name?” 

“Riley.” Your heart stops.

“Say again?”

“Riley, Simon Riley.”  

It feels like all the air has been sucked out of your lungs. You’re squeezing the phone in your hand, the pen has fallen to the floor. You look over at the nurses already pulling gowns on and getting into position in the resus bay. 

You don’t even register saying copy and putting the phone back. You turn away from the nurses braising yourself on a filing cabernet. 

Simon’s shot. All you can see is his face, his body covered in blood. He’s always so careful, he’s always the one dragging people out the field not getting shot. Something must have gone horribly wrong. 

You weren't there. He’s shot and you weren't there to save him. 

You suck in breaths of air, the adrenaline isn’t helping now. 

“Doctor?” You hear one of the nurses call. You turn to look at them, you have to keep it together. 

“Page the doctor.”

next

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[osamucide]

DAZAI HCS! ⊹

LAST UPDATE: DEC 19

cw: talk of mental illness and substance use/abuse, speculation about Dazai’s f’ed up past+trauma, Dazai-typical references to suicide, references to self harm, probably a lot of projection on the author’s part

reid: i feel like yapping about Dazai tonight so here’s a non-exhaustive list of general headcanons i have about him. no word count because i’ll probably update this periodically lol

he does not listen to music from this century. he just doesn’t. not that he goes out of his way not to, he’s just drawn to a certain sound that only older music seems to have—I think The Smiths, Blondie, Tears For Fears, The Smashing Pumpkins, King Crimson, and Led Zeppelin are among his favorite artists

I think he also really enjoys classic jazz/blues/bebop music—Charles Mingus, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, etc.

he’s anemic. I’m of the firm belief that Kunikida buys him a 100 ct bottle of iron tablets every 100 days which Dazai always graciously accepts. however, he only actually takes them when he gives enough of a shit to (which is not often) so the bottles are just accumulating on his bathroom sink/in the cupboard beneath

nail biter, cuticle picker, hair twirler, thigh bouncer, etc. I don’t think he really sits still unless it’s absolutely necessary

children love him, much to his dismay. they think he’s entertaining. he thinks they’re like puppies (and he canonically hates dogs). he won’t treat them badly, but he’s just not super interested in interacting with them. unwilling older brother vibe when faced with them. shithead kids can stoke his rage much faster than Chuuya ever could

he cannot take care of a fucking plant. has one succulent in his apartment. it’s surviving out of pure unadulterated spite. he hasn’t watered it in over a year

wearer of funky socks. his favorites are either the ones that say "I love my job ha ha just kidding" or the custom ones Yosano got him as a gag gift one year for white elephant at the office christmas party (they have Kunikida’s rage face on them)

really sad that, despite his criminal record being scrubbed clean, he is still banned from driving in the nation of Japan for the rest of his life because he wants a Ford Explorer so bad

PROFOUNDLY SOUND KNOWLEDGE OF MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY

he’s fluent in Japanese and English, proficient in French and Italian, and learning Russian

I think he also enjoys learning math/researching random shit/reading anything he can in his free time when he feels up to it. he never received a formal education and his IQ is through the roof—his yearning for academia is almost like an itch he has to scratch every once in a while. also, he just likes knowing things

he never learned how to ride a bike. wahhhh wahh

BPD king. look at him. my beautiful princess with a disorder. I doubt he’s diagnosed but he strongly suspects it seeing as he’s so self-aware; if not borderline, he just assumes he has severe PTSD. either way, he really won’t do anything other than what he already knows about how to manage it

along the same lines—he’s been a functional alcoholic since an alarmingly young age (I’m talking 16-17). I think it probably got a lot worse post-defection when he was underground, but he hardly had to function then anyway; he gets somewhat better after joining the Agency but still has a dependence, it’s just not severe enough to debilitate him

has a bin of art supplies in his apartment. he only ever pulls them out once every few months, but he rather enjoys painting and wouldn’t mind getting better at it

master at darts. don’t take him to a bar where there’s a dartboard. he will stand in front of it all night and obliterate everyone who challenges him

insatiable sweet tooth. he especially loves anything maple, butter pecan, or butterscotch he’s a grandpa

UPDATE.1

I love to headcanon that he has a glass eye!!! and that the bandages around his head in the dark era were some legitimate injury. he likes to pop it out as a party trick/to weird Kunikida out

he feeds the stray cats and kittens that linger around the ADA dorms. he probably spends some of his grocery money on the fancy wet canned food and leaves it out with a big plastic bowl of water. sometimes sits and watches them eat and likes to give them little scratches if they trust him enough to come rub up on his legs. they’re sort of to him as the orphans were to Odasaku, and it makes him feel closer to his deceased friend

on the note of grocery shopping—he only goes when Atsushi or Kunikida drag him along. keeps his list relatively the same from trip to trip: canned crab, cigarettes, bandages, a few cases of beer, sake, instant ramen, ice cream (particularly butter pecan), paper towels, and 3-in-1 shampoo when he needs it. Kunikida forces vegetables upon him (“put it in the ramen so you don’t die of heart disease”) but they almost always end up rotting to mush in his fridge. he steals his toilet paper from the ADA bathrooms/supply closets or bothers Atsushi and Kyoka for spare rolls when he’s out

religiously orders drinks from the cafe on his way in and out of work. on mornings he usually gets a latte with plenty of sugar and some sort of flavor; in the evenings he probably gets an iced flavored tea to mix or chase his sake with when he gets home

always has a pocket knife on him. probably one he got in his mafia days, or, it’s at least a habit/security he picked up from then

takes a lot of night walks. he doesn’t sleep well, so I think he probably wanders out tipsy with his pack of cigarettes in the wee hours of the morning and scuttles around to tire himself out

UPDATE.2

two words: medical trauma. I know some people get iffy when it comes to speculation about what Mori did/didn’t/may/may not have subjected him too as a young teenager (and believe me I have a lot of thoughts) but I definitely headcanon that Dazai was used as a little bit of a lab rat/sedated and coerced to some degree when it came to turning him into a killing machine. as a result, he’s got a fear of medical settings. after his surgery during the cannibalism arc? I know he got that phone back and was like “Tanizaki get me out of here right neow”

I think sweet little old ladies probably love him and he loves them too. always feels like he strikes up the best small talk with them. will help load groceries into their cars for them. he gets all smiley and stuff when they call him “sweetheart” “honey” “dear” or remark how handsome he is and about his hypothetical girlfriend must be so lucky

he can throw knives with pinpoint accuracy from a pretty impressive distance. he’s a little less accurate with his handgun at long range/with moving targets but HE’S GETTING BETTER

has like a 3.5 ft vertical jump at his best. like why are you a detective when the Lakers need a center

UPDATE.3

lowkey a god at shoulder massages? he’ll meander behind Kunikida at the office and rub his shoulders like a boxing coach trying to warm up his athlete mostly to try to piss him off but Kunikida totally just melts into it after smacking his hands away a couple times. does the same thing to Atsushi but Atsushi just starts fucking purring and almost passes out

I was talking about this with Kal a second ago—but I think he and Ranpo love acting so gay at the office also to piss Kunikida off. they also ask him if they can be allowed to go outside and play

cigarette of choice is a Marlboro Black. I think someone has said/alluded to this before but I can’t remember who. if you’re reading this you’re right

on top of his overflowing piles of iron supplements, I think he also has an unreasonable amount of reusable water bottles. reason being Kunikida again because I just know Dazai doesn’t drink enough water and Kunikida’s always buying him a fancy new cup to try to keep him enthusiastic about being hydrated. it doesn’t work but his favorite one to date is his orange hydroflask (sometimes he brings a vodka soda to work in it. Kunikida is thrilled until he realizes his partner is tipsy) (Kunikida wishes he could fire him)

on that note—other than sake, I think his liquor of choice is vodka. I do not think dark liquor agrees with him but ultimately he will drink whatever gets him drunk. and so ensue the Sunday scaries (and the every other day scaries)

[yandereunsolved]

Yandere Daryl Dixon taking care of traumatized reader—why can't everyone just go away? except you, you can stay. (cw(s): Daryl's trauma, talks of anxiety, ptsd, non-descriptive self-harm)

Yandere Daryl didn't think much of you at first. You're just another weaklin' that'll be gone in a few dawns. He shouldn't waste his time lookin' after people like that anyway.

You barely talked since he met ya. You refuse to make eye contact with anyone else in the group. You contribute, but it isn't much. Unlike him, you appear to be a sweet lil snack for the walkers: defenseless and skittish, a rabbit.

Still, like a leaf holdin' onto a sickly oak in a tornado, you stayed alive. From the quarry to the prison, you ambled along, not opening up to anyone. Well, maybe you opened up to him just a lil.

Yandere Daryl ends up being your safe place. He's someone who listens. He may not be good with feelings n' shit but he listens well. He lets you curl up next to him and tell him about anything. Sometimes it's nothing, and he appreciates that.

You both can sit in silence, and it's never awkward. It's like two kin souls meeting each other and simmering together.

Yandere Daryl grows closer to you. He doesn't want to think about it. He's always thinkin' about ya. There's always at least one eye on your figure.

He refuses to let you go on trips alone or without him. So naturally he gets somewhat aggressive when others talk down to ya. If someone raises their voice atcha, then he's ready to punch their teeth inward. He's proud of the sick and twisted thoughts that roll through his head of the things he wants to do to anything that threatens to hurt you.

He doesn't want to show you that side of him.

He's heard about your past and how the fall of the world affected you. He promised himself that he wouldn't ever be the reason you shut down or have a pstd flashback. He's workin' on being better than his mom and pop's relationship. Even the notion of possibly raising a hand against you makes his stomach churn, his head spin.

Yandere Daryl is always there to comfort you when something goes awry. He's still shitty at it, but he provides himself and hopes to whatever is out there, that's it's good enough. He tends to wrap one or both arms around you when you shut down/regress. He enjoys placing his chin over the top of your head and humming a sweet tune that he heard from the uppity church ladies that used to frequent his shitty neighborhood. 

He tries to say those nice things.

"Is alright."

"I'll protect ya."

"You're safe. The bad people can't hurt ya no more."

It helps heal his inner child as well. He gets to protect you, and it feels like he's protecting little Daryl Dixon as well. There's no screamin', hittin', broken booze bottles, or half-tapped-out cigarettes. There's only you and him. 

He'd murder anyone that got in the way of that, even Carol, even Rick.

He'll never admit it, but he likes it when you play with his hair, especially when you're stressed or overwhelmed. If you trace his scars, then he's in heaven.

Yandere Daryl always makes sure you have whatever health stuff you need. It could be meds, certain foods, prosthetics, or anything else. He'll do anything. He puts himself in the toughest situations just to make sure you are happy n' alive.

Have a medical condition? Meds are yours. He'll find substitutes if he can or learn medicinal remedies.

Allergies or food restrictions? No worries. He may be a shitty cook, but it's the end of the world. He's got plenty of time to practice so you can have a fully tummy and plenty of energy.

Hard of hearing or deaf? He learns sign language. He may be bad at it, but he'll learn! He doesn't mind repeating himself or repeating what others said for you. He'll do his best to find hearing aids or batteries if you used those before the world went to hell.

Partially or fully blind? He'll find you a cane or wittle you a walking stick. He'll be your guide.

Have a missing body part or limited mobility? He'll search high and low for a prosthetic. He'll carry you if he needs to. He'll help you in any way. He can't really find how practical wheelchairs are in the apocalypse, but he'll figure somethin' out.

Some other restriction or something rare he's never heard of? He'll go hell n' back to make sure you have whatever you need.

You just need space? Fine. He's still going to watch you from afar.

There are times when walker bites seem to pale in comparison to that innocently bright expression in your eyes. It's the look that he's always wanted to see from somebody. You look at him like he's some sort of protector, some hero. The first time he saw it, his initial reaction was to brush it off and call you stupid. He regretted that as soon as he saw you deflate and curl back within yourself. He mumbled a 'sorry' and made sure to never do it again.

Yandere Daryl almost breaks down the first time he notices your self-harming tendencies. It could be fresh cuts or starving yourself. It isn't good. He tries not to be harsh with you.

He tries.

It's just so hard because he's crying. He's trying to be quiet but he can't. He loves you so much that the thought of you not loving yourself makes him want to worship you until you do.

Why can't you see it? Why can't you see how special you are?

He wants to think you're selfish, but he knows you're not. It's your body. Is he being selfish? No. Yes? No.

He doesn't know.

All he knows is that he ends up on his knees with tears streaming down his face. He's begging. The words aren't intelligible, but he is.

This is what you do to him. This lil lamb just had to lay in his pasture.

Just stay alive. He'll do the rest for you.

Yandere Daryl just protects you. He hates groups but he knows they're important. You've made bonds, and so has he, unfortunately. He'll just keep you close. Maybe one day he'll be able to confess his undying reverence for you. Hopefully you won't figure out how many people he has killed for you. The things he has done... oh, they'd make the devil cry. As long as you sleep well at night knowing your Daryl Dixon is protectin' you. Well, he doesn't care about the so-called 'collateral damage' because of it.

[trippinsorrows]

looking through your eyes + one

authors note: hi! this is a complete rework from another roman story i wrote but needed to redo. it's a mafia au, so understandably super dark. a 'blink and you'll miss it' bit of a beauty and the beast retelling. not meant to be anything groundbreaking or unlike most mafia stories.

i've found that my writing is best when 2nd person pov, so i wanted to challenge myself to make this third person to better my writing, thus, bear with me, ya'll. :)

if any cw/tw's are missed, please let me know, and i will add them!

cw/tw: language, violence against women, mention of parental death, vague hinting at past sexual trauma

song inspo: 'looking through your eyes' by leann rimes

words: 5.2k

Through trial and error, mostly error, a lot of error, Solana Miller has learned and mastered most of the things that upset her father. 

Speaking out of turn. Meals not being ready on time. The house being a “mess.” The actual list is a living breathing thing that grows with each day and every unfortunate occurrence, but always at the very top of this list is lack of punctuality. 

There’s nothing Xavier Miller hates more than lateness. 

And that’s exactly what she is. 

Solana nearly faceplants into the three steps leading into the house with how fast she’s running. Her shaking hand and sweaty palm make it take longer than usual to unlock the front door, and the force in which she slams it shut behind her should be enough to knock the nearby family photo off the wall.

The photo that she is not included in, of course. 

She’s brushing off invisible lent as she rushes into her father’s office. “I’m sorry, there was an—” Her panting mouth snaps shut when she reaches the doorway, hand holding onto the frame of the door. “—accident.”

The minute Solana saw the flashing police lights and array of red brake lights was the moment she realized that she was in for a brutal punishment. She’d started to mentally prepare for such, trying to recall if she’s restocked the first aid kit kept in her bathroom and frequently retrieved. But, it’s not until she’s standing in the doorway of her father’s office, an office that’s filled with not only him and her brother, Wes, but other men that she realizes the ferocity of this punishment may be unlike any she’s received in some time.

Not only is she late, but she’s now interrupted some sort of meeting that he wanted her present for. 

Xavier’s eyes land on Solana with faux happiness that conceals flames she recognizes as a precursor for what’s to come. Naturally, like he’s not imagining all the cruel ways he can hurt her, in a way that only he can do, he slaps on a tight smile. “Ahh, there she is.”

Solana also realizes how almost everyone’s gaze is on her, and that doesn't make for a good response because she finds herself asking, “what’s going o—”

Xavier’s smile is very much unlike the ice in his voice. “Silence, child.” 

The sharpness of his command evokes an immediate response. Her shoulders slump and head drops. The displeasure just keeps growing. Solana can already feel the bruises forming, the sting of the ice on her busted lip. 

One of the men, an oversized, middle aged white man with a sharp gaze speaks. “I take it, this is your daughter?”

“It is,” her father confirms. If she didn’t know any better, Solana could almost swear she hears a hint of proudness. “Please forgive her lateness. She knows the importance of obedience.”

And the repercussions of obedience. Repercussions Solana knows await her once this meeting ends.

“I hope she does.” The same white man clears his throat. Solana hears the ruffling of papers but refuses to look up. Her gaze is better served focused on the ground, her silence and submissiveness certainly music to her father’s ears. “We received the requested medical report, and it appears you weren’t lying, Miller. The girl is still a virgin.”

That….that is the moment where it takes all willpower for Solana’s head not to snap up, eyes wide with both confusion and partial recognition. She’d wondered why her father asked her to schedule her yearly check-up with her GYN when she wasn’t due for another couple of months but knew better than to question, so she went ahead and did it. 

And she wondered why this checkup was so….different. Labs were taken, more questions asked, and a vaginal exam that had her leaving more uncomfortable than she’d ever been with Dr. Boyd. Not that seeing the woman was ever an enjoyable time in the first place. She's cold, stoic, an obvious doctor on the mafia payroll, but she's still a woman. 

Solana can't have a male GYN. She can't have a male doctor in any sort of specialty.

The confusion, however, comes into play at this man’s words.

“The girl is still a virgin.” 

That couldn’t be farthest from the truth.

“Her blood work also indicates she should have no problems conceiving a child.”

Emotions overpower reason as Solana breaks her silence and lifts her head. “What?” One furious glance from Xavier, and immediately, she knows that she’s fucked up.

She also realizes that she’s failed to notice one very important member whose sheer size takes up almost the entirety of her father’s onyx black loveseat.

Solana has heard the name Roman Reigns more times than she can keep track of over the years. It’s inescapable to live in this life and not know of the brutal ruler of the Bloodline, one of the most notorious mafia bosses in the underworld. But never in any of her 28 years has she seen him in person. Maybe somewhat in the same vicinity but never in close proximity, not like now where he’s sitting mere feet away from her.

He’s reclined back into the seat, thick legs spread, a blank expression on his handsome, bearded face. His features are sharp and predatory, yet there’s something about his eyes, a beautiful, light shade of brown that’s such a contrast to the cold blooded killer he is. Bulging, rippling muscles seem to be at battle with the plain black shirt he wears, and she notices his silky black hair is pulled back into a surprisingly neat bun of sorts. 

Solana knows that she shouldn't stare, but it’s hard not to. The man is objectively beautiful. He’s also staring directly at her. 

Panicked, her head drops down, eyes returning to continue counting the amount of beige swirls in her father’s persian rug. 

“Shut up…. ”Wes speaks from the other side of the room. He’s leaned up against the column near the bookshelf, lazily spinning around the pocketknife he never goes anywhere without. 

It’s the same knife that’s cut into her skin at least more than a couple of times over the years, drawing various amounts of blood depending on the extent of his anger.

Wes is always angry.

“I’m a man of my word, Mr. Heyman.” Solana doesn’t even need to be looking up to know her father has his hand over his chest, that faux sense of honor painting his harsh features. “I would never disrespect the Tribal Chief by wasting his time.” Solana’s throat goes tight. “My daughter is a worthy candidate.”

Candidate. Heir. Virgin.

It doesn’t take long with these major clues for Solana to piece together what they’re discussing, why her presence was required when never before has her father wanted her anywhere near one of his meetings.

Arranged marriage.

They’re discussing a possible arranged marriage between Solana and Roman Reigns. 

Her fingers flex and suddenly start to rub nervously against the soft material of her dress. Any appetite she had prior to entering the home is no longer present, vacated, replaced by a thick, heaping layer of anxiety.

Arranged marriages are far too common in this life. There’s not a week that’s gone by since she became of age that she doesn't hear about some union between two members of rivaling or partnering families. It's just how these things are done.

However, at 28, much past the typical timeline that daughters are married off, she’d accepted that that was not her fate. And she was okay with that, more than okay. Is okay with that.

Solana has a……complicated relationship with men, anyway. With people in general, but especially men.

The thought of her being paired off to Roman is so bad that it’s almost laughable. Their compatibility is in the negative range. He would never give her a second look, not even a first. A man like him needs someone who matches his prowess. She isn’t even on the radar.

And yet…..

And yet her father has somehow garnered interest, provided his counsel with her medical information “proving” her worthiness, and secured a meeting.

Circling back around to the medical report has her chest feeling tight and heavy. Lies. Her father has clearly paid off Dr. Boyd to write up whatever he believed needed to be said to increase his chances of locking in this deal.

She doesn’t know about the fertility portion, never really bothering or concerning herself with that part of her health. Someone has to have to have sex to conceive a child, and as far as Solana is concerned, that's never going to happen.

Not....not again.

But the virgin part is most definitely a lie. The physical exam certainly would have confirmed that.

And yet, the exact opposite was stated. 

Chills instantly move down her spine. Her father is perpetuating a fraud. Even more, he’s perpetuating fraud to a man who’s rumored to have a body count in the thousands. The same man he’s trying to pawn her off to.

This….this is not good.

It’s not good at all.

—----------

“She’s weak.”

That’s the first thing to leave Roman's mouth since they entered the Miller Manor, and it’s not announced until they're back in the SUV and on their way back to his estate.

Checking emails and clearing notifications that piled during the time his phone was tucked away, he continues. “Too young. Has no backbone. It’s embarrassing.” Roman’s tone, much like everything else about that pointless meeting, reeks of boredom. 

“Her father clearly has her on a tight leash,” Rikishi adds. He brings the handkerchief he keeps in his shirt pocket and swipes it across his forehead, dapping up the light sheen of sweat that’s already formed in the walk from the house to the SUV. “But, a very pretty girl.”

Roman cannot and will not disagree on that. She’s undeniably beautiful, but everything else about her is unappealing. And saying Miller has her on a tight leash is an understatement. She’s terrified of him. The brother too,  and Roman would take a solid guess that one of the two is responsible for the slightly faded but still visible bruise he noticed on Solana’s upper forearm. 

There’s some conflicted emotion present at that piece of information, though he mostly leans in one direction.

Women and children should be off limits. Specifically, women and children who aren’t already indoctrinated into the life to the point of training. Roman knows plenty of kids who completed their first kill while still in single digits and women who fight better than some of his men. For them, it’s free game. They’ve proven they can handle themselves.

Solana doesn’t fall in any of those categories, and he’d be shocked if she even knows how to hold a gun.

Thus, in his mind, she’s off-limits.

Nonetheless, his family is full of fighters, regardless of sex.

So there's the other part of him that can't understand her passivity, that believes she's just weak. 

The thought process generates a list of other, much more adequate options. “What about Belair?”

“Engaged to be married in the Montez family.” Roman rolls his eyes. That fucker is an irritating prick. Seems like a desperate match. 

“Cargill?”

“She….” It’s slightly comical for Roman, watching the older man work his hardest to explain what was inarguably a disrespectful rejection. “---is not interested.” 

A dark chuckle leaves his throat. “She said fuck off, didn’t she?”

“More or less.” 

Roman smiles. He would expect nothing less. Cargill is a beast of a woman, a sure fun time in the sheets if she would ever remove the stick from up her ass.

“If I may, my Tribal Chief….” When Roman remains quiet, he takes that as his cue to continue. “The girl may be young and docile, but that also makes her moldable. She will do whatever you want with no protest. Is that not a possible advantage?” Roman continues to look out the window, allowing Paul to add on, “and she will have no problem giving you an heir, which is inarguably the most important thing at this point in your life.”

“He brings up a good point, uce,” Rikishi chimes. “With your temper, it’s probably best for you to take a wife who is more passive than dominant.”

Logically, it makes sense, but the idea of a stuttering, stammering wife who can’t even maintain eye contact for more than a minute doesn’t appeal to him in the slightest. 

“And as far as age, she’s closer to 30 than anything. You go for any older, and you might run into fertility struggles. This is the perfect age.” Rikishi’s crooked smile is followed by a small chuckle. “You ain’t so young yourself anymore, uce. Gotta have an even balance.”

There’s a difference between a balance and a child. Roman is prepared to say as such when Jimmy speaks, deciding to add his two cents from the passenger's seat.

“Look, Big Dog. All you need is for her to give you a kid, and you heard Paul. She can do that. Ain’t no need in making this bigger than what it is.” His insertion and contribution to the conversation ends up being valid. Granted, if he was anyone else, the delivery would have resulted in a maiming. But, this is Jimmy. He’s like a brother to Roman. Him and Jey. Hence their privilege with speaking so bluntly. “Shit, and did you see that body? Mannn, I’d never pull out of that.”

Also a valid point. Her dress was fitted around the chest area, accentuating heavy breast he could most definitely see himself palming as he fucked her from behind. The rest of the dress wasn’t as contoured, but it flowed against her shape when she walked in, and he could make out the curves he was certain she preferred to keep hidden. It’d been a while since he’d taken a woman to bed with a body like hers, a preference, but also not as easy to find in his world of fit assassins and killers who spend more time in the gym than anywhere else.

His latest set of women were on the slimmer side, moderate thickness, nothing like this girl.

But sexual desirability aside, her passivity indicates she’d be….that kind of woman. The woman who expects words of affirmation and quality time. A “gentle” kind of woman who’d want him to be sweet and patient in the bedroom, to make love to her. Roman is neither and none of those things.

He fucks, and he fucks hard. Subsequently, his wife should be cut from the same cloth. 

“Just….think about it, my Tribal Chief, hmmm?” Paul’s voice is tentative, laced with that tone that indicates he believes the decision should be made sooner rather than later. Granted, he values his life and standing in the bloodline, so he opts to not implement time constraints. 

A wise decision. 

“The scars.” Roman counted eight of them total, the one most pronounced on her face, slashing across her right eye and into the top of her cheek. The type of scar that’s embedded into the skin. And the soul. With a few of his own, it’s one of the first things he noticed. “What’s the story there?”

Paul quickly pulls out the portfolio from his briefcase, hurriedly flipping through papers when he settles on the one he’s looking for. “Ahhh….” Paul clears his throat, a telltale sign that’s he uncomfortable with what he’s about to say. “2005. It was a hit. Her mother was killed in the attack. Knifing. Solana survived, clearly.”

Roman turns his attention from the passing cars to look at his Wise Man. For the first time since this whole interview process began, Roman is intrigued. “She was there?” Paul confirms as such and says something else, but Roman’s attention is out the window again, haphazardly watching the flow of traffic, assimilating and accommodating this new piece of information. 

This may be the one and only thing he can understand about this girl. Something…something he can relate to. 

Survival

One doesn’t go through something like that without coming out on top or letting it bury you. Unlike him, she’d clearly gone the latter route. Granted, just making it out alive, physically, he knows better than anyone, is a feat in and of itself.

“Give me her file.”

—-------------

Dear Mom,

I’m sorry I didn’t write yesterday. It was…..a day.

I’m not even sure where to begin, because I’m not sure what to even feel at this moment to be honest. Dad is trying to marry me off to a mafia head, which would be fine, except….except that head is Roman Reigns. He’s….he’s a monster, mama. Has no soul. Not that many men in this life do, but there’s something about him that’s even more terrifying than the others. To make matters worse, dad had Dr. Boyd lie in my medical report. She wrote that I’m still a virgin, I guess something about my hymen still being intact. Mama, that’s a lie. There’s no way that’s possible. 

Not.....with what they did to me.

I’m trying hard not to panic, because there’s no way Roman would go for me. He’s a monster, yes, but even Lucifer was God’s most beautiful angel. He’s a very handsome man. He would never want someone like me.

I don’t know any man who would.

“Solana.”

Solana quickly snaps her journal closed, using the pen in her hand to mark her spot. She’s met with the gentle smile of 73–year–old Meryl Jensen, a widow who’s worked at this library for almost forty years.

Solana still remembers the first day she met Mrs. Jensen. She was 6-years-old, and her mom was looking for a certain book she’d read about in the newspaper. A book that she hoped would further and better her English speaking skills. A native of Mexico, Nina Miller taught herself English by immersing herself into American literature, film, and music. 

Similarly, Nina taught her Solana Spanish by immersing her daughter in Spanish literature, film, and music. A secret among the two as an always hostile, paranoid Xavier “banned” Nina from teaching their daughter a language he couldn’t understand.

If he couldn’t control it, it was a no-go.

But it was when Mrs. Jensen was helping Nina locate her book, Solana noticed another book sitting near a kids display. Goodnight Moon.

If Solana tries hard enough, she can still remember the warm smile her mother gave her as she allowed her to check out the book, her very first "purchase" from the library. It started a love of books, aided by Mrs. Jensen who always provided appropriate recommendations to Solana and her mom.

Not that Solana tries to think too much about memories with her mother. They’re almost always ruined and replaced with the sounds of the butcher knife slicing into her mother’s body as Nina used the last of her strength to shield and protect her daughter from the violent assault that would end up taking her life.

Solana’s smile, however, does dim and her stomach drops when she realizes that Ms. Jensen isn’t alone. 

“This girl is always writing, I swear.” It’s only when the older woman refers to her book that Solana quickly closes up her journal, shoving it to the side.

Her eyes never leave Roman though.

And his certainly aren’t leaving her, even as Mrs. Jensen places a hand on his arm, laughing at her own joke.

Mrs. Jensen then squints her eyes and leans over the counter. “Child, did you fall again?” It takes a second for recognition to dawn. She’s then hit with the memory of her father backhanding her across the room, the force sending her to the floor after the dispersion of yesterday’s meeting. A truly pale punishment compared to some of his prior assaults. “My goodness.” Mrs. Meryl laughs, shaking her head. “An everyday klutz I tell you. I can’t think of one day she hasn’t come in here without some kind of mark from her clumsiness.”

Roman’s staring directly at Solana while acknowledging the older woman’s casual observation. “Interesting.” He then darts his eyes, offering a smile that, if one didn’t know any better, could be considered genuine. But Solana does know better. She knows much better. “Could you give us a moment?”

Of course, Mrs. Jensen obliges, saying something about hushing up some boisterous high school students on the first level before it’s just Solana and Roman. 

She has a million and one questions, starting with why the hell Roman Reigns is at her job. Whatever the reason, it can’t be good. A man like him only brings about chaos and mayhem.

And death.

Swallowing and powering through the onslaught of anxiety, she starts off in an unsurprisingly soft voice, “if you’re looking for my father, he’s—”

“If I wanted your father, I would be speaking to him right now.” Roman’s interruption is dangerously calm, but Solana detects a hint of irritation. “You’re the one I want.”

Oh.

What in the world this man could want with Solana is beyond her. To make matters worse, Solana catches his gaze on her bruised cheek again. Makeup could only do much, but she's really starting to wish she went for heavier coverage. She drops her head, focusing on the denim of her jeans to avoid his burning stare. “I—umm.”

Solana’s body registers before her head does that Roman is lifting his hand to touch her. She responds accordingly, jumping back and away from the interaction. He chuckles, darkly, lowering his hand to his side. “That was some fall.”

Solana unconsciously brings her hand to hover over her cheek. “I’m—clumsy.”

“No, you’re not.” It takes a second for Solana to register his blunt comment and another for her to digest that he’s calling her bluff. “But, you are a terrible liar.”

He’s not wrong on either note, but she’s unsure just how to respond. “What—what do you want from me?”

Roman straightens up, and just the sheer size of him makes her swallow in fear. He’s a beast of a man, more beast though than anything else. “To make sure you understand what this is. It’s obvious Miller didn’t inform you about the meeting, and I won’t go into anything with anyone unless they’re fully aware of what they’re signing up for.”

If he’s waiting for Solana to acknowledge the first part of his reason for showing up at her job, he does a poor job waiting because he goes straight into his disclaimer. 

“I have no desire to be with you or any other woman for anything more than a sexual release. We’ll ensure my bloodline continues, but that’s it. Financially, you’ll want for nothing, and I can assure you, your clumsiness won’t be an issue. But, I will never love you, never see you as anything more than a business arrangement because that’s what you are.” He’s studying her facial expressions, reading all of the emotions oscillating around. “Do you understand?”

There’s a couple of different thoughts racing through her mind at this moment, but the dominant thought is wondering just what in the hell would possess someone like him to ever even consider someone like her? He is the definition of brute strength in all areas. She is beyond broken. There can’t be anything appealing about that.

But then….maybe there is. Roman knows she will not cause him any trouble, can recognize this brokenness and sees it as an easy way to get what he needs while still having the freedom to do whatever, and whoever he wants. It’s a bit of a win-win. 

And as far as the love aspect…..

Solana learned a long time ago that all of the fairytales lied. There is no prince that rides in and saves the damsel in distress. No one to swoop in and save you from the monster. It’s either killed or be killed, and her death already occurred on August 7th, 2005.

As ironic and fucked up as it is, Solana recognizes this is the best deal she’ll ever get in her life. 

With quite literally nothing to lose, she acknowledges him.

“I understand.”

—---------

The minute Solana steps into the house, she’s immediately shoved into the freshly painted wall behind her. A strong hand is on her throat, restricting her breathing.

“What did you say to him!”

Fingers foolishly grasping at the hand suffocating her, Solana tries to speak even with knowing that it’s impossible when she can’t even breathe. This only pisses her brother off even more. He bangs her head into the wall, causing the nearby pictures to shake. “Answer me, you stupid bitch!”

“Let her go, Wes.”

Xavier’s command is followed with a delayed acquiescence. Solana falls to the floor, coughing and gasping violently. She brings her hand to the back of her head to check for any blood, but her gaze is soon on the black leather shoes her blurred version is able to make out.

Solana cries out when her father grips her hair, yanking her head back and forcing her to look at him.

“We know Reigns came to see you at your job today.”

At some point in her life, Solana would be stunned and partially disturbed this, by how her father is aware of this piece of information.  But, this is no longer that time in her life. That time when she was naive enough to think that she could ever escape this life, ever leave and never look back.

She’d tried once. Foolishly. And it landed her in the hospital for two weeks. 

Solana can still remember her father’s dry, cracked lips pressing an insincere kiss against her temple as he said in the calmest yet coldest voice. “You ever try to leave this place again, and I’ll make sure to finish the job.” 

That was the last time she ever fooled herself into believing better waited for her.

“Now, what did you say to him?”

“I—I—nothing.” It’s not a lie but not the entire truth. She didn’t say anything that should have pissed him off. Then again, with a man as temperamental as Roman, anything and everyone could piss him off. Look at her dad and brother. “What did he—”

A phone ringing possibly saves, or just delays, the next set of hits. And even better, it’s Xavier’s phone.

He pulls it out of the back pocket of his pants, eyes lighting up. With a mischievous smile, he taps the screen twice, answering, “my Tribal Chief.” Solana’s eyes widen. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“Cut the bullshit, Miller.” Roman’s deep, baritone voice is powerful and authoritative, even when he’s not even in the room. “You know why I’m calling.” And before her father can further upset him, Roman jumps straight to the point. “We have a deal.”

It’s been some time since Solana has been so thoroughly surprised by something she’s heard that she briefly loses awareness of where she is. But this….this is one of those moments. 

He can’t…..he can’t have said what she thinks he just said. Her acknowledging understanding was just a formality. She didn’t think he was actually considering marrying her.

Xavier’s smile is broad, signs of a man who just got exactly what he wanted. “Wonderful. We shall start planning.”

“Two weeks. The wedding will be two weeks from today.”

The tightening in her chest has returned. Solana is certain she’s about to start hyperventilating. This….this can’t be happening. 

Xavier and Wes share a look as he stammers with a response. “Uhh, yes, of course—whatever you wa—”

“Oh, and Miller?”

Irritation flashes in Xavier’s eyes, but he shoves it back for a polite acknowledgment. “Yes, my Tribal Chief?”

“You or your boy lay a single fucking finger on her again, and I’ll gut you both where there’s nothing left to bury.”

Solana is almost certain there’s not a single one of them that’s not taken back by Roman’s icy warning. However, she swallows when her father’s fire gaze lands on her. She knows immediately she’s in for a matching bruise on the other side of her face.

Xavier laughs quietly. “That girl has always been so clumsy. I assure you—”

“One.”

Xavier is understandably confused by Roman’s single-word response. “Pardon?”

“Everyone gets one chance to lie to me. You’ve just used yours.” For the briefest hint of a second, Solana believes she sees fear flash in her father’s eyes. “Consider yourself warned.”

The phone disconnects. 

Silence settles over the three of them, but it doesn’t last. 

“I–I don’t understand.” Solana finds her voice, unable to stay quiet in a moment that’s completely just changed the course of her life. “I–I can’t marry Roman.”

For a lot of reasons. Many reasons that she can list out and defend if given the chance.

Solana is consumed by her thoughts and pending mental breakdown, so much so that she misses when her brother stalks across the room. He throws her back up against the wall, and the minute her eyes land on the silver, she’s frozen in place.

His grin is predatory and satisfactory as he murmurs, floating the knife in front of her. “It seems you’ve finally made your existence have some type of purpose.” Solana has to close her eyes. Just seeing knives sometimes brings her back to that night, and having one pressed against her….

Wes knows exactly how agonizing that is to her, hence his favorite method of torture. 

Swallowing, she weakly protests, “you—you told them I’m a virgin.”

That’s a major reason why. Her father has made her out to be some chaste, pure woman when she’s anything but. And to lie to Roman, of all people, about something like that.

They’ve more or less signed her death decree.

“No. Dr. Boyd’s medical reports confirmed you’re still untouched, and you’ll go along with it for however long is necessary.” Xavier’s rebuttal is smooth and to the point, like he doesn’t see the issue with his actions.

He never does. 

“Don’t you understand?” Wes lazily slides the knife up and down her skin, smiling at the terror in her face. It’s his greatest motivation, witnessing the extent of her fear toward him. “We’d let Reigns and his entire bloodline fuck you if that’s what it took to get what we want.”

Solana has no shock value at his words. Wes stopped caring anything for her the minute she got their mother killed, and it’s not as if she can entirely blame him. 

Nina would still be alive if not for Solana. It’s something she accepted ages ago, an undeniable truth. 

However, she does have to ask in a pained voice, “what do you want?”

Xavier supplies, taking a hit of his cigar she didn’t realize he was holding this whole time. “We want and will have control of the bloodline.”

If not for her current situation, she’d laugh. Control of the bloodline. That’s….that’s not even a dream. That’s a delusion. Still, there’s an undertone to his voice and words that alarm her. In a quiet voice, she protests. “That’s—that’s impossible.”

Solana hisses as Wes presses the knife deeper into her throat, nicking her skin and drawing blood. “No, it isn’t, not anymore. Because we have a way in.”

And it’s with widened eyes and a constricted throat that Solana finally understands what’s happening, what they plan to have happen. 

Her voice is barely above a whisper. “No….”

Xavier answers with a cruel, wicked smile. “You’re going to kill Roman Reigns for us.”

[sapphiremusings]

THE GIFT OF VENGEANCE | aemond targaryen

summary: Aemond replayed this image on a loop, squirming in his seat every time he got to the part where her eyes popped out of her skull.

Two eyes for his one, and the eight years he went without his revenge.

8.5k

cw: female!lucerys velaryon, au-modern setting, explicit sexual content, dubcon, graphic depictions of violence, sadist!aemond, obsessive!aemond, dark!aemond, choking, p in v, oral sex (fem!receiving), blood kink, biting, mentions of childhood trauma, breeding kink, uncle/niece, kinda DD:DE? not that dead though… u might be able to eat…

He hears her first, that soft tittering which haunted his childhood, piercing straight into the marred socket of his left eye, down the monstrous scar she had left him with.

She sits behind him, planked between her brothers, the only daughter of his half-sister, and therefore the most beloved. Maybe Jacaerys had whispered a joke, his lips sticky against the shell of her ear, laughter bubbling up her throat at whatever inane quip he made. A part of him, the one that dominated his childhood, leaving him cowering along the sand and crying fat tears into his mothers skirts, thinks that maybe they’re whispering about him– their stoic, one-eyed uncle, whom they once taunted and teased as children. Her amusement echoes around the corners of his mind, running along every ridge of his spine and settling deep within him, into an endless pool of festering hatred.

It had been years since Aemond had seen his half-sister and her litter of bastards, but now that he has, he’s ready to never see them again. The rift between their families is slowly starting to mend, threads of green and black pulling together to stitch up the hole that was left after Laena’s funeral, and the taking of his eye. His mother, once reverent in her hatred for Rhaenyra, now holds onto her arm with a newfound longing, fingers rubbing circles along the long scar she had given her that same night, when she had demanded an eye for an eye. It was one of his fondest memories– Lucerys crying out in terror as Alicent rushed towards her holding a dagger, her darling face twisted in fear, hiding behind her mothers skirts. Even when his empty socket was throbbing with an intense pain that not even milk of the poppy could cure, he still relished in the sight.

His father had been slowly dying for years before he finally succumbed to his illness, something Aemond had anticipated every time he walked past his room, the sour stench of rot and sickness permeating through the shut doors, along with the constant beeping of medical machinery. The funeral had been just as droll as his last days, with Aegon slumped beside him, sunglasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, stinking of the bottle he had downed beforehand. Helaena was busy slouched over, peering down at the iridescent beetle that crawled around her fingers, muttering to herself, ignorant to the snorts Aegon would give and the shushing their mother hissed. And Daeron, the youngest of his siblings, was perched between mother and their grandfather, in which he had spent most of his childhood with, a good boy who listened steadfastly to the sermon. Behind him, the Velaryon siblings sat, from eldest to youngest, hands clasped together as they mourned in a way Aemond hadn’t.

Her presence seared into him, burning down to his bones, etching itself into the very marrow of him. The gods were feeling particularly cruel this day, and he listened to the sound of his niece’s sniffling, soft sobs leaving her lips in the place of the laughter he was once used to. He had wanted nothing more than to turn around, to peer upon her darling face, flushed a splotchy pink as tears streamed down her cheeks, the tip of her nose red and her brown eyes wide and watery, eyelashes clumped with tears. He imagined himself grabbing ahold of the chub of her cheeks, squashed beneath his fingers as he plunges his thumbs into her eye sockets, the white mush mixing with her crimson blood, a beautiful concoction made just for him. The thought dizzied him, and while speeches were given and prayers were sung, Aemond replayed this image on a loop, squirming in his seat every time he got to the part where her eyes popped out of her skull. Two eyes for his one, and the eight years he went without his revenge.

He remembers how those eyes, big and glimmering with a certain mischief, would peer at him with the curiosity of a doe, as if trying to figure out what made him tick. A brush of her fingers against the back of his hand, the warmth of her breath against his jaw, her gangly limbs stumbling over his own. These small tortures she’d inflict on him, only to turn and laugh in the wake of his trauma, when their older brothers would taunt and tease him incessantly. She’d trail after them, giggling at their antics with a small hand held over her mouth, the apples of her cheeks flushed red in mirth. He had hated her for it. Her ignorance hurt more than any push or shove Aegon or Jacaerys could bestow upon him.

“D’you think mum will notice if I leave?” Aegon slurs in his ear, spittle fanning across his jaw as he leans heavily against his shoulder, already in a drunken stupor. “She seems rather occupied, right?”

Aemond has to force himself not to sneer, eye twitching in annoyance as Aegon sways on his unsteady feet. His older brother has long been the family’s drunken embarrassment, but to see him act this way in front of their half-sister and her clan irritates him more than it usually would. Aegon’s beady eyes are glazed over, partly focused on their mother, who stands at Rhaenyra’s side like a leech, mouth twisted into a pitiful smile as she hangs onto every word that leaves the silver-haired bitch’s lips.

Aemond hums. “She’d notice eventually.”

He expects Aegon to stumble off, his clipped tone hinting to an end of the conversation, but instead, he chuckles. “Our little niece has grown into quite the woman, wouldn’t you say?”

The brothers watch as she chats with Daemon, their uncle and her stepfather, his towering figure dwarfing her smaller one. As Targaryen’s, hailed from Old Valyria and of an ancient bloodline, rumored to be connected to fantastical dragons, incestuous relations were once common within their family. After the turn of the century, their house which was once full of riches and immense power, halted in this practice. That is, until Rhaenyra whored herself out to her father’s brother at a young age. Despite this scandal, his half-sister steadily remained their father’s favorite, even after her marriage to Daemon and the birth of two sons.

“Come, brother. There’s no need to play shy,” Aegon snickers in Aemond’s silence, the alcoholic stench of his breath lingering under his nose. “We are Targaryen’s after all… surely you’ve thought about giving it to her. I know I have. Especially after the… incident.”

“I have no taste for such depravity.”

His brother groans, hand slipping off his shoulder as he wobbles off, unsatisfied with Aemond’s answer. Before he can leave, Aemond reaches out to stop him, leaning down to whisper in his ear. “You’re embarrassing us, lēkia.”

Aegon merely shrugs him off, stumbling over his feet as he walks out of the room, barely making it through the archway without tripping. The sight makes him grumble, jawbone tense as he grinds his teeth, returning his attention to the window, where a mess of dark curls now sits, face hidden from view. He has only glimpsed her once, when leaving the funeral, her eyes watery and nose tinted a shade of pink, tear tracks staining her cheeks. She had smiled at him. The image has been playing on a loop inside his head, a never ending reel of her pretty face and that ringing laugh, ever since he saw it.

Lucerys Velaryon has always been beautiful, he thinks. The features he has always hated in her brother– that stubby nose, the freckles along their cheeks, their dark hair and dark eyes– sneering down at him as he pushed him to the ground, were always devastating in her. As children, he had imagined she was the Maiden reincarnated, the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid eyes on, even when she’d laugh in his misery, carrying out her small tortures with every lingering look and every brush of her skin against his. After she took his eye, her face began to haunt him for different reasons, and his dreams of her becoming his bride turned into nightmares where her laugh would echo around his head while her blade cut into his flesh once again, this time taking his other eye as well. His hatred grew into a cruel thing, festering deep inside him until it started to rot through his bones, and every thought turned violent.

Rhaenyra would send their father pictures of her and her bastards, and he’d hang them around the house, in every hallway and on every fireplace mantle. Every year, they’d have a new picture, and as if to taunt him, Lucerys’ was always hung on the wall across from his bedroom door. He has always suspected Aegon of this pettiness, for his brother would often catch him glaring at the portrait from his doorway, eye tracing the curls of her hair and the curve of her jaw. Her eyes seemed to follow him as he walked, up until he would slam his door shut, locking her away from view. His hatred, still burning bright, had mixed with a different feeling that left a tight coil in his stomach, one which twisted more and more each time he saw that damned portrait.

Her face is etched along the inside of his eyelid, forced to see her every time he closes his eye. He has memorized every freckle, every curve and dip, even the milky scar that sits near her hairline from an accident when they were children, when Aegon had bumped into her, causing her to fall and hit her forehead against a jagged rock. The sight of her blood along the stones had nauseated him at the time, and so did her tears, fat as they dripped down her cheeks and into her wailing mouth. Now, he thinks he would quite like to see her blood again, to hear her cries as he inflicts the same pain she had once inflicted on him. His pants grow tighter at the thought, but he can’t find it in himself to be ashamed.

The air in the room grows thick, and he watches as Jacaerys stands above her, hand resting on the crown of her head, fingers slowly caressing the strands. She looks up with a small smile, eyes glowing in the midday sun that shines through the window next to her. His hands curl into fists, knuckles turning white as she laughs again, the sound ringing in his ears like a persistent bell. He quickly makes his way out of the stuffy room, shoulders tense as he passes by his mother and half-sister, neither of whom have looked away from one another since their reunion. The hallway is empty, and so is the looming staircase, which he climbs in stride, farther away from the center room and her lingering laugh. Beneath his eyepatch, his empty socket begins to throb, a searing pain shooting through the wound until his vision nearly goes white, and he’s left stumbling into his room, collapsing on the bed.

His curtains are still closed, shielding him away from the blazing sun, leaving his room dark with only slivers of light shining along the floor. He lays among rumpled sheets, tugging off the leather patch fastened around his head, bringing a shaky palm up to cover the aching hole. He is used to this pain, which plagues him more often than not, but within the presence of the one who created it, it seems to swell over him like a tidal wave. He barely hears the knock on his door, and when he doesn’t answer, a few seconds go by, until someone barges in.

Even in the dark he can still make out her wide eyes and the sheath of curls around her shoulders, her steps timid as she comes to a stop at the edge of his bed, fingers curled together in a nervous habit. “Are you alright, uncle?”

Her soft voice rouses him, his palm pressing deeper into his empty socket, while he looks up at her hovering figure. Her eyes dart over his face, lingering on his hand which covers his wound, and he wonders if she is remembering how he had covered his eye that night she had taken it, how he screamed and cried atop the sand, blood seeping through the cracks of his fingers, a perfect match to the blood dripping from the dagger in her small hands. When she quickly averts her gaze to a corner of his room, he feels a smug satisfaction rumbling in his chest.

“I… I’m sorry to bother you,” she murmurs, voice faltering slightly in his silence. “I was asked to come check on you.”

He hums. “By who?”

She’s quiet, eyes flicking back at him as if she is surprised by the sound of his voice. He merely stares back, palm growing sweaty in its position. Like a deer caught in headlights, her mouth opens and closes, before she finally speaks.

“Our mothers wish for our families to make amends. Given the death of Viserys.”

Aemond sits up at this, dropping his hand to his lap, stare hardening as her eyes dart to the now exposed scar, to the gaping hole where his eye once laid. She swallows, but makes no attempt to back away or close her eyes. Instead, Lucerys draws closer, head leaning over to get a better look at her work in the dim room. His stomach churns, fingers inching towards the eyepatch that sits beside him, yet he stops himself from grabbing it. No, he wants her to see what she did to him.

“You want to make amends?” he pushes, voice raspy from his dry throat. He sits up farther, leaning closer to her hovering frame. She nods. “And how do you plan on doing that, riñītsos?”

She looks at him in trepidation, lips tugging downwards and her brows furrowing above her dark eyes. The black dress she wears is short, hem stopping in the middle of her thighs, the material tight around her waist, and his eye snags on the motion of one of the straps falling off her shoulder, resting above a small freckle. She doesn’t seem to notice, or maybe she just doesn’t care, her stare not wavering as she makes no move to fix it. There’s a look in her eyes he’s never seen before, something gleaming and intoxicating, drawing him into a pool of soft velvet. He wants to hold them, those delicate globes, in his hands, feel the warm slime of them like two marbles.

In a quick motion, spurred on by his vivid imagination, he grabs ahold of her jaw, tugging her face close to his. “Will you take out your eye, hm? Give me what’s been owed all these years?”

Lucerys surprises him. Instead of falling back in fear, she merely smiles. It’s sardonic in nature, and he watches in trepidation as her eyes flicker down to rest upon his lips. So quick, he barely registers it, yet the action shocks a bolt of lightning down his spine, and his grip on her jaw tightens in a mix of dubiety and fury. Her smile only seems to grow wider at this, as if she is aware of every thought crossing his mind, nestling their way into the mush of his brain.

“Is that what you want, uncle? My eye?”

It is, he thinks. And so much more. He wasn’t lying when he told Aegon he has no taste for depravity, always the dutiful son despite what has befell him. Aemond tries hard to wash away his vengeful urges, the stirring of his cock when he imagines his little niece writhing in pain, covered in bruises and bleeding cuts, her eyes wide and tearful as she squeals like a piglet, under the might of his fists and his knife. His thoughts have only grown darker, crueler than he cared to admit, with flashes of his suckling on her open wounds like his mothers tit when he was a babe, warm blood resting along his tongue instead of milk. Nothing would taste as sweet, he was sure of it.

With a tug, Lucerys topples over him, her body plush against his own, and he quickly flips them over, his knees up against her ribcage. Her face is flushed from exertion, her hands scrambling against his chest and shoulders, legs kicking out from under him, though her efforts are in vain as Aemond merely tightens his grip around her. Stubbornly, her lips pursed into a sour smile, she stops her struggling and stares up at him in defiance.

“Go ahead then,” she goads, raising her chin and bringing her hands up to rest against his back, fingernails digging through his shirt and into his skin. He hopes they leave marks. “I won’t scream. I won’t fight. I refuse to give you the satisfaction of my pain, uncle.”

A deep, twisted rage sits within him, rising in plumes of smoke like the molten lava from an exploding volcano, and as he glares down at his sweet niece, the image of their homeland flashes across his vision. Their ancestors once lived on the island of Valyria, a prosperous place that had been home to the largest mount, which erupted and destroyed the land, as well as all those who resided there. A few Targaryen’s were lucky to escape just a few years before, and he thinks about this luck now, bringing a hand up to wrap around the width of Lucerys’ neck. She keeps her word; she doesn’t fight back, doesn’t try to scream, even as his fingers tighten enough to bruise, cutting off her air circulation. Tears gather at the corners of her eyes, and Aemond finds himself groaning, arousal splashing over him like ice water.

He removes his hand. Lucerys gasps for air, nails no longer digging into his skin, hands now limp around his waist. Her gaze looks down, chest heaving as she slightly tilts her head, focusing on Aemond’s lap. With a flush, he realizes she’s staring at his erection, which is pushing against his trousers, its heaviness resting against her abdomen. Her eyes glimmer at the sight, pink lips tugging upwards into another smug smile, hands inching towards his thighs that are still wrapped around her. When her fingers press against his thighs, he jolts back.

She sits up with a small laugh. “I thought you wanted to put out my eye, Aem.”

The nickname, one he hasn’t heard since they were children, running along the beach together, toes nestling along the sand, salty waves lapping against their ankles. It makes his chest twinge, an ache forming under his ribs, and he quickly turns away, resting his hands on the wooden surface of his desk. “Get out.”

It’s quiet, with only the sound of their families downstairs, chatting and laughing, which does nothing to help the tension of the room. He hears her sigh, short legs twisting beneath her as she climbs off his bed, shoes hitting the floor softly. She lingers at the door, hand resting on the doorknob while her eyes burn holes into his back, willing him to say something, but he doesn’t. He merely waits in silence, solemn in the dark corner of his room, among his books and journals. It’s only when he hears the door open and shut, and the sound of her footsteps retreating down the hallway and onto the stairs, does he sit back on his bed, lowering himself down to press his nose against the spot where she once laid, the scent of her still fresh on his sheets.

*

She’s taunting him, eyes avoiding his own one-eyed stare, dark hair fanning over her face every time she turns to speak to her brother, as if she’s hiding from him. As if she hadn’t smiled as he sat atop her, hands around her neck, a threat on the tip of his tongue. Now, she sits across from him, at the far end of the long dining table, nothing but wood and various dishes separating them.

Perhaps he should’ve taken her eye when he had the chance, he thinks. In the moment, he had doubted she wouldn’t have screamed. He knows the pain of losing an eye all too well, searing and bone-deep. Despite her promises, Lucerys Velaryon would’ve cried out the minute his blade touched her skin, and their families would have rushed into the room and stopped him in his act of revenge. No, if he was to take her eye, he needed to do so in a secluded place, where no one could interrupt him.

Helaena, sitting beside him, mumbles something, her hand feather-light against his own. He looks over at her, and she merely lifts out her other palm, showing him the fuzzy caterpillar that slowly moves along her skin. He can’t help but smile, though his sister doesn’t notice as she keeps her lilac gaze on the small critter she holds, moving her hand from him to run a finger gently down its spine. Next to her, Aegon snorts in his cup, taking another swig before leaning back in his chair, a slimy grin on his face.

“Have you given any more thought to what I said earlier, little brother?”

His words are slurred, and Aemond decides to ignore him, lifting his own cup to his lips and taking a sip. In the middle, his mother sits beside Rhaenyra, their heads bent towards one another, lips pulled into wistful smiles, as if they are old friends, or perhaps lovers. Daemon had gone home, taking their three youngest with him, as well as his twin daughters, leaving his niece-wife and her two eldest in the hands of the woman they both once despised.

Aegon, never one for taking hints, continues. “If you don’t want her, I’ll be happy to show our dear niece a good time. I have hopes she’ll be… pure.”

Clenching his jaw, Aemond finally looks over at his drunken brother, giving him the attention he seemingly craves. Aegon smirks, head tipped forward as he leans over Helaena, who is still too busy with her caterpillar. From the corner of his eye, he can see their mother looking over at her eldest son cautiously, though when Rhaenyra whispers something in her ear, she looks away.

Aemond opens his mouth to respond, but is interrupted by the sound of Lucerys’ laughter, and the breaking of glass. Him and Aegon advert their gazes to the opposite end of the table, where Jacaerys stands with reddened cheeks, holding the broken stem of a wine glass. Lucerys is hunched over, laughter bubbling out of her lips, tears dotting the corners of her eyes, reminding Aemond of when he had his hands around her throat only a few hours earlier. The thought makes him shift in his seat, a sliver of heat darting through his abdomen.

“Jace… oh my God,” she stutters out, still laughing, hand lifting up as she shows the table her palm, where a shard of glass sticks out, blood trickling down her wrist. Jace immediately darts forward, grabbing her arm, tilting her hand towards him so he can inspect the wound, eyebrows furrowed in worry. “It’s fine, brother. I’m okay!”

Rhaenyra also rounds the table, cradling her daughter's head against her chest, smoothing a hand down her curls. Lucerys continues to laugh, though it slowly starts to turn into giggles, which eventually die down until she’s left hiccupping, ruddy cheeks stained with tears from her outburst. His mother had run off, and now she returns, first aid kit in hand, which she gives to his half-sister, who puts her hand on Lucerys’ shoulder, pushing her to sit back in her chair. Aemond watches as her blood continues a path down her arm, before beginning to drip onto the surface of the table, leaving small dots of crimson.

She watches with watery eyes as her mother grabs a pair of tweezers, going for the glass jutting out her skin. “Shh, it’s okay, my darling girl.”

The shard is slowly pulled out, a bubbling of more blood rising to the surface, and Aemond watches with a hard cock. It’s placed on a napkin atop the table, next to the pool of blood that now seeps into the wood, yet no one moves to clean it up. Or maybe his mother does, her scabbed fingers wiping the liquid away with a cloth, always one for cleanliness. Aemond wouldn’t know, as his eye is trained on the cut along Lucerys’ palm, as her own mother tends to it. A wipe is swiped across, turning from white to red, and then comes the gauze, which is wrapped around continuously, until the blood ceases to seep through the material. The whole time, his little niece sits without flinching, eyes watching him as he watches her.

When she’s finished, the wound now covered, the room is quiet for just a moment, before a booming clap of thunder echoes against the walls, and the sound of pouring rain pings off the roof. Jace is on his knees beside his sister, hands holding her wrist, whispering apologies in her ear, ones which she doesn’t reply to as she continues to stare across the table. It isn’t until Jace follows her gaze that she replies, before picking up her fork and stabbing at a lone carrot that sits on her plate, bringing it up to her lips as she finally looks away, giving her older brother a smile.

Dinner continues as before, and by now, Aegon has slumped over his chair, fast asleep in his drunkenness. Their mother, surprisingly, pays him no mind, and neither does Helaena, who excuses herself to her room, eyes still focused on the crawling insect she holds. Rhaenyra continuously peeks over at Lucerys, face glossed in worry, but she merely listens to her brother talk, occasionally nodding her head or laughing softly at whatever it is he was droning on about. With nothing to distract him, Aemond is silent in his suffering as he watches her, eye flickering down to her wrapped palm every few minutes, as if willing it to peel off and show him that red slice once more.

The storm has gotten worse, lightning flashing through the closed windows nearly every second, the thunder becoming so loud that it interrupts his mother and half-sisters conversation, the both of them wondering aloud on whether it will pass or continue through the night. It is already dark out, the ticking clock reading nine o’clock, and it is his mother who proposes the idea.

“Please, Rhaenyra,” her fingers rub against her scar, eyes pleading. “Stay. It is too dangerous to leave now, in the dark while it’s storming so heavily. We have more than enough guest rooms for you, Luke, and Jace to stay in.”

His mothers use of Lucerys’ nickname jolts him. Beside him, Aegon lets out a snore.

Despite her wariness, Rhaenyra agrees to stay the night, and Aemond thinks he has never seen his mother so happy before. With a huff, he stands, and when his mother doesn’t even look at him, too busy staring at his whore half-sister with stars in her eyes, he takes that as his cue to leave. He glances over at Lucerys once more, both her and Jace now watching him, their matching eyes and noses making him want to sneer. Instead, he makes his way out of the dining room, his steps heavy as he trudges up the stairs, head throbbing in tune with the pattering rain.

*

He can barely sleep, his body restless as he tosses and turns among rumpled sheets, nose twitching against the scent of her that still lingers. Aemond swears he can feel her, even as she sleeps just down the hall, and his skin is slick with sweat, a pulse running through his swelling cock. He teases himself, brushing a hand between his thighs, coiling away when he only gets harder, silver hair sticking to his flushed face as he lays there with the heavy weight of shame bearing down on his chest. His only solace being the plip-plop of the rain against his window, the storm now passed, leaving only that soft sound in its wake, soothing along his headache.

Something wriggles beneath the skin of his chest, insistent as he sits up, looking around the dark room, a warning bell ringing within his ears. When he looks out the window, a flash of white crosses his vision, and for a moment, he thinks the storm has started again. It isn’t until he sees her curls, slightly damp and sticking to her shoulders, does he realize that it’s her, not the storm. She walks across the backyard, towards the small woods that sits behind their estate, clad in nothing but her nightgown. Without thinking, Aemond is slipping on a shirt and his shoes, his steps rushed as he sneaks down the stairs and out the backdoor, gaze trained on her retreating figure.

The rain is merely a drizzle now, yet it still dampens his clothes and hair, leaving raindrops along his skin, as he walks between trees, swiping at hanging branches and leaves, holding his breath as he stalks after her. She doesn’t seem to hear him, as she continues on, not faltering in her pace. The path she’s leading looks familiar to him, and he realizes that it’s the same path they used to trek as children. It leads to an old lake, full of tiny fish and swampy water, which they used to dare one another to jump in, all too afraid of what lurked below the muck. When they make it to the clearing, Lucerys doesn’t hesitate to walk up to the bank, standing along withered stones and tall weeds. The sight of the water stops Aemond in his tracks, a memory rushing to him like a vision.

It had been the hottest summer of their young lives that year, and they all spent it among the trees, lounging under the cool air the shade provided, playing trolls and goblins. When they had first discovered the lake, it was Aegon who pushed Aemond in. He had flailed within the dirty water, pale arms splashing through algae and brine as he gasped out for help, not yet knowing how to swim. Jace and Aegon had stood on the bank laughing, and to his horror, Lucerys had disappeared. It wasn’t until she rushed out from the trees, Uncle Daemon in tow, that Aemond was saved, laying along the grass and coughing up water and vomit, shivering under the stares of those around him, Daemon’s hand hard as it slapped his back. His mother had scolded Aegon, who swore he didn’t remember that his younger brother couldn’t swim, and he only became more cruel in his anger after she grounded him.

As he remembers the look on Lucerys’ young face, pinched in worry, cheeks flushed pink and bright eyes teary, he thinks perhaps he had just imagined that part. It was what he once dreamed most of; his niece caring for him. He knows this is far from the truth, as she spins around, arms held out in front of her, gaze locked on his lingering figure. Her lips curl into a sweet smile, and she wiggles her fingers, as if she is beckoning him over. Aemond finds that his rage has made another appearance, replacing his pondering with a rising fury as he makes his way towards her, swaying on her bare feet, her grin brighter than the full moon in the sky above them.

He reaches out for her, hands tight against her arms, and he watches with a curious gaze as her flesh pebbles beneath his touch, her damp skin dotted with raindrops and gooseflesh. Her head is heavy as she beams up at him, eyes hazy with sleep, her lashes fluttering under his stare. She whispers his name, lips plush around the word, dropping her head to rest against his thumping chest, nose nuzzling along the cotton of his shirt. For a moment, Aemond allows himself to revel in her warmth, his own nose resting within her hair, dark curls tickling his cheeks, and he inhales deeply, the smell of lavender and honey and rain intoxicating his senses. Lucerys presses herself closer, and as the minutes tick by, he realizes she has been sleepwalking.

Aemond has only heard tales about Lucerys’ supposed sleepwalking habit. Years ago, according to Rhaenyra, Lucerys had nearly walked out the top window in her room, her eyes open wide in an unwavering stare, bare feet pressed against the sill. It had taken Daemon picking her up and carrying her to her bed to get her to safety, and the next morning, when asked about what had happened the previous night, Lucerys hadn’t a clue what they were talking about. Daemon took to installing locks on all the windows around their home, and after that, Aemond hadn’t heard much else about his niece’s sleepwalking. He figured it was a thing of the past, something she has grown out of in the shedding of her adolescence.

Now, she stands slumped against his chest, breathing steady and her lips parted as soft sighs and snores escape her throat. The rain picks up, drizzling harder than before, and a rumbling of thunder is heard along the horizon, yet Lucerys looks peaceful in her slumber, even as Aemond’s grip on her becomes tighter. A twisted part of him thinks about how easy it would be to hurt her now, as she lays in the mercy of his hands, the same in which once easily wrapped around her throat and squeezed until her face was red. Another part of him, one much darker and persistent, wishes to slip the thin straps of her nightgown down her shoulders, to suckle on her pert nipples which press against the sheer satin, to dip a hand between her supple thighs and caress the hottest part of her.

Her neck is bare, and as he looks down, he realizes with sudden certainty that there is no one here to stop him. The moon is aglow, locusts buzzing within the grass, an occasional hoot from a lone owl, and they are in the middle of the woods, in a place unknown by anyone but them as children. She is pliant within his hold, lashes resting against her cheeks, heartbeat steady within her delicate chest. It is something he had once dreamed of, swathed in sweat-soaked sheets, cock spent along his taut stomach. And with a single dip of his chin, he is able to press his lips along the skin of her neck, right below her thrumming pulse.

She doesn’t stir, not even as his lips form a path down to her collarbones, the bones jutting out just enough for him to bite around, the feel of it between his teeth making him groan. His tongue slicks against the mark, dipping into each indent, before making its way up to her jaw, where he nibbles and sucks on the skin. His hands have moved to rest upon her hips, but as she starts to slip from his grasp, he wraps his arms around her waist, pressing her close to him once more, her breasts plush against his soaked shirt, nipples scratching between them.

He barely hears the gasp. “A-Aemond…?”

Her hands come up to his shoulders, pushing frantically as he bites down on the skin of her jaw, the sharp ache making her yelp. When he tastes blood, he finally softens, lips now wrapped around the skin, tongue lapping over the small wound. As Lucerys continues to squirm, fingernails now digging into his skin, he wrestles her to the ground, hands squelching in the mud beneath her as he holds himself above her, lips stained with a single drop of blood.

“Where are we? How did…” she trails off, realization clicking as she takes in the dark sky and the pajamas she still wears. Her eyes are glossy as she gazes up at him, the mark on her jaw shining like a beacon, encouraging him to press himself against her again. This time, she doesn’t struggle, still confused as she looks around the clearing, catching sight of the familiar lake.

His cock is pulsating as it rests between them, and he barely notices as he cants his hips to rub along her clothed cunt, white-hot pleasure shooting up his spine, making him close his eye and press his lips to her throat once again. Her breath hitches at his movements, her own legs unconsciously spreading wider, opening herself up for him to rut against her like a hound in heat. Shame twinges within his brain, yet Lucerys wraps an arm around his back, as if encouraging his ministrations, and he forces it to the back of his mind as he digs his fingers into the slick mud, hips rocking faster. She whines out, “Aem.”

In a frenzy, he brings a hand up to paw at her dress, tugging down the straps until he bares her breasts, mud staining the fabric and her skin. His lips are quick to wrap around them, going back and forth between the two, before slipping a pert nipple into his mouth, groaning at the taste of her. He imagines them swollen with milk, her stomach round with his child, her hands smoothing down his hair as he nurses from her, her sweet liquid warm as it pools in the pit of him. He grows harder at the thought, teeth nibbling at the bud, his body weight crashing atop her as he brings his other hand over to caress her other breast, fingers tweaking the lonely nipple. Her back seems to arch beneath him, her own hips matching the rhythm of his, her breath hot against his head.

“Please,” she whispers, tugging at the strands of his hair. When her pulling becomes harsher, he allows her to tug him up, her mouth agape as she tilts her chin, searching for his lips. She kisses him, wanton as she juts out her hips against his, hands frantic as they run down his shoulders and under his soaked shirt, nails scratching along his skin. Her tongue slips over his, and he thinks she tastes like the sweetest poison, of cherries and arsenic.

He pushes himself up once more, knees digging into the earth beneath him, and he doesn’t think as he rips off her dress, pulling it down her legs in one swipe. Her underwear is purple, a pretty shade of lilac that reminds him of his own eye, with a little rose in the middle, now stained with mud and grass as she writhes, trying to hide the patch of wetness that seeps through the dainty fabric. Aemond is quick to lean down, pressing his nose against her navel, the smell of rain and sleep tainting her flesh, and he gives her a small lick, from her belly button to the hem of her underwear. She whines, bare chest heaving as she looks down at him, eyes pleading underneath a cloud of wariness, brows furrowed as if she is fighting a battle within her mind. When he comes face to face with her clothed cunt, he doesn’t hesitate to press his tongue against the spot of her arousal, the cotton soft along his tongue as he laps at it, trying to taste her slickness.

“Iksan jāre naejot qogralbar ao,” he grits out over the rain, his cock aching as he lays flat against it, head still between her thighs. “Yn jaelan naejot sylutegon ao ēlī.” (I am going to fuck you. But I want to taste you first).

He doesn’t ponder over whether she knows High Valyrian, the language of their ancestors, but when she lets out a moan, her head nodding against the ground, a sense of pride settles within him. He pulls the last remaining piece of clothing off, bringing his hands to her thighs, which he pushes up so that her knees are pressed against her chest, leaving her wide open for him. A groan leaves him at the sight of her wet cunt, and when he lays his tongue flat against her pearl, he nearly creams his pajama pants at the pulsing of her and the taste of her arousal. Like a man starved, his tongue laps over the whole of her, licking and sucking as she writhes and moans, a flush starting from her chest to her hairline washing over her like a veil. His hips grind into the earth below him, his eye focused on her wet face, strands of her dark hair stuck to her cheeks and across her gaping lips. He thinks she might look even prettier like this than when she cries.

She’s wanton in her moans, head lolling back and forth, eyes squeezed shut as Aemond presses a finger into her wet cavern, his own eye fluttering shut at the tightness, a ring of soft muscles clenching down. His tongue focuses on her pearl, which throbs as he flicks and presses against it, engorged in its pleasure, and as he crooks a finger up inside her, her hips buck up in a spasm, though the grip he has on her legs, which still press up to her chest, stops her from moving. A loud whimper leaves her lips, and her peak comes quickly, her arousal gushing around his finger. When she finally calms down, going slack under him, he pulls his finger out and immediately licks her cream off it, before going back in to clean up her now sensitive cunt.

Her fingers tangle within his hair, tugging to pull him off her as she wriggles under his licks, and when he finally pulls away, her grip is strong as she whines before he gives in and rests his weight above her, lips hovering her own. Her tongue comes out to lap at them, small kitten licks that grow more greedy, until she’s slipping between them and pressing him close to her. She groans, perhaps at the taste of herself on his tongue, her hips already jutting back up against him, brushing over his aching cock, desperate for more like his own ravenous whore. His hands are quick as they push down his muddied pants, cock springing up against his soaked abdomen, bringing the head to rub along the seam of her. Lucerys seems to tense under him at the feeling, but he pays no mind as he presses the tip against her tight hole, still slick and warm even after her peak.

“Aem-“ she gasps out, hands against his shoulders, eyes wide in fear at the feeling of his cock pressing into her. “I…”

He slams his hips flush against her with a grunt, a yelp escaping her quivering mouth, fingernails digging deep into the cotton of his shirt. Tears immediately start to stream down her flushed cheeks in rivulets, soft sobs building up within her closed throat. Aemond has never felt such dizzying pleasure, white hot and shooting through every nerve in his body, until he feels like he’s aflame. He doesn’t falter as Lucerys cries, his pace fast and deep, pulling out until just the tip of him remains, before slamming back in, his sack slapping against her ass. When he looks down, he can see her blood on his cock, and the sight of it, as well as the confirmation of her virginity, makes him grow frenzier, tongue running along her salty cheeks, moaning at the taste of her tears. He wants to bite her, to draw blood, to taste the very marrow of her.

A growl leaves him as he bites down against her wet cheek, the chub of it soft between his teeth. Her hands are quick to shove at his chest, though her moans and the sounds of her slickness, sticky against him, makes him believe his sweet little niece likes it just as much as he does. When he pulls away, he revels in the sight of the marks he left, bright pink and sure to turn a purple-blue after. Her sobs slowly turn into hiccups, which turn into moans that she tries to hold back with a bite to her lips, but when Aemond wraps one hand around her throat, they turn into gasps. He squeezes hard, holding for just a few seconds, before slackening his grip, letting her breathe if only for a moment, hips digging painfully into the back of her thighs with every thrust.

“You’re h-hurting me, uncle,” Lucerys cries out, doe eyes red from her tears, peering up at his grunting face above her own flushed one. “Kostilus.” (Please).

“Mazemilā ziry hae se sȳz byka līve iksā,” he sneers, bringing his body down to rest against her shivering frame, arms wrapping around her back, slick along the mud. He presses her flush to him, and she is quick to hold onto him, legs curling below the crook of his arse. “Mirre ñuhon.” (You will take it like the good little whore you are. All mine).

Her moans are sticky against his neck, lips brushing along the damp skin every time she opens her mouth, the sounds ringing in his ears above the pittering of the rain and the grumbles of occasional thunder. His fingers scratch down her back, hips stuttering as her cunt squeezes around his cock, warm and slick and unwilling to let him go. When she pulls her head up from its spot against his neck, hands scrambling to rest along his jaw, bringing his face up to look at her, eyes zoning in on the empty socket where his left eye once sat, it is then that he realizes he didn’t put on his eyepatch. He nearly shrinks into himself, jerking his chin away from her grasp so he can sink his face back against her hair, but she doesn’t relent. Instead, her fingers trace along the jagged scar, lips open in awe as she admires the work of her own hand.

Lucerys presses her lips right below the gaping hole of his eye, tongue gentle as she licks up the length of his scar. With her mouth resting just above the dark cavern, she whispers the words he has always wanted to hear, “I’m sorry, Aem. Iksan vaoreznuni.” (I am sorry).

He pushes her down to the wet ground once more, head slamming into the slush below, and she lets out a squeal, hands scrambling to push herself up. His hips snap into hers, palms tight against her wrists as he holds her down, vision a red haze. It isn’t enough. Her apology means nothing to him now, all these years after. Years spent mourning the loss of his eye, ruminating in the humiliation and injustice of that night, listening to the whispers of his classmates as they pondered over what sight sat beneath his leather eyepatch. Years of sharp pain shooting through his empty socket, of headaches that never went away, of dreaming of the one who caused this agony, her pretty face and that ringing laughter. Nothing she can say will ever be enough.

Tears stream down her pink cheeks, repainting the tracks left previously, her moans now gasps of pain and pleasure. He sits on his knees, her ass across his thighs, hips lifted upwards as he fucks her pliant body, like his own little doll. Her hair is matted with a mix of rain and mud, lips quivering and her eyes squeezed shut, a flush of shame and arousal settling across her bare chest. She looks so beautiful, so much like that young girl who has haunted his dreams since they first met, when she was just a babe and he a little boy who couldn’t yet form a sentence.

One of his hands slides up her bruised wrist, to rest along the gauze-covered palm, drawn to the wound that will scar her. His fingers dig beneath the wrap, lifting it up until the cut is bared, and as he feels her clench around him again, a breathy moan leaving her lips as her release washes over her, he leans his head down to lick along the seam. Dried blood flakes away, and as he presses his wet muscle harder, the cut reopens, blood blossoming out of it like a stream of water, which he doesn’t hesitate to lap over. His own release hits him like a tidal wave, the taste of her blood intoxicating him as he presses into her with one final thrust, his other hand going to grab onto her waist, thumb brushing against the bulge of his cock in her abdomen. She lays motionless as he uses her, until only small dots of blood remain along the reopened wound, and his cock has softened inside her, his seed hot against her womb.

Aemond rolls off of her with a grunt, hissing as her spent cunt seems to grasp at him as he pulls out. Between her thighs is a mess of blood and semen, a mix of their essences wet along his cock, and he almost hardens at the sight. He brings his fingers up to gather the pooling of the liquid that seeps out from her hole, roughly pushing it back in with a groan, her whimper sending another wave of arousal down his spine. She twitches beneath him, and when he is confident that his seed has stuck, he removes himself from her, rolling over onto his back and gazing up at the full moon, no longer covered by storm clouds. Beside him, Lucerys is quiet, only an occasional sniffle, and it seems like they lay there for hours, not speaking, not moving. Just waiting, three eyes focused on the night sky above them.

When she finally gets up, he watches with a hazy eye as she pulls on what remains of her nightgown, now a tattered, muddied mess of silk. She starts to walk off on shaky legs, but she pauses, turning back to look down at him.

“It was an accident, you know,” her voice is raspy, throat sore from the moans and cries that left her lips that night. “We were kids… I thought you were gonna kill Jace. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry, Aemond.”

He doesn’t say anything. She waits a few more moments, before finally walking off, her figure disappearing among the trees, leaving him alone by the still lake. He brings his fingers up to his lips, still wet from their mixed concoction of semen and blood, and takes his time licking them off. The taste is enough to slowly fill the gaping cavern in his chest, one full of rage and violence, images of his niece's body beneath him, naked in the moonlight, flushed from head to toe, racing through his mind in a kaleidoscope of memories.

Perhaps it was enough. Her apology, those saccharine words that dripped from her tongue like honey. He thinks maybe he can forgive her.

An eye for her innocence, for the blood that stains his cock and teeth.

*

a/n: this is crossposted to ao3 (user finalgrls)! kinda the darkest thing i’ve written so far, but it’s definitely the work im proudest of. i’d LOVE any feedback, even if it’s negative <3 i hope u enjoyed!

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Lazarus (Ghost x Medic!Reader Pt. 2)

"According to tradition, Lazarus never smiled during the thirty years after his resurrection, worried by the sight of unredeemed souls he had seen during his stay in Hell..."

Word count: 5.7 k

Tags and warnings: Angst, fluff, soft smut 🔞. Slightly possessive!Ghost. Graphic depictions of past suicidal thoughts. Dating, kissing, cuddlefucks, emotions (the most daunting cw there is). Unfettered prose about a grown man's complex trauma. Reader is female and works as a medic at the base. Ghost POV.

Summary: You've just started dating Ghost. (This is a standalone sequel to Refugee)

She tastes round and sweet after the tang of blood and smoke and metal of the field. She feels like warm cascading water after the bleak, dead weight of a gun that leaves his hands throbbing with recoil. Her skin returns the memory of Paradise until it overrides everything else.

She's a soft blooming to the senses.

And his have been blown wide, torn apart, shot full of noise. There's an amputated, burnt stump where there should be a limb and some soft skin. But still, a blast that burns flesh from bones is not that different from her soft whisper that has the power to level him like a nuclear wind.

. . .

They're some kind of a secret, although he doesn't know why exactly.

Perhaps because she knows enough by now. She knows he's a dead man.

A ghost.

And women like her don't date apparitions. They deserve more than just bones and a haunting: they deserve flesh and blood and solid ground. She deserves far more than promises he has no power or right to give.

He has no mandate for life. His is a half-life, and stolen; he's living on borrowed time.

She doesn't only protect his phantom, she shields herself from talk and rumors. It's only understandable. He takes everything she gives him, which is more than he deserves.

He fucks her to ruin on the conference table people share in the meetings. He makes her leak all over his desk during quiet afternoon hours of his office; he makes her come on his tongue in the fucking hangar after a long day, just to get the taste of dry desert sand off his mouth.

She stops complaining about propriety after that. After all, she's the one who came there on his call and allowed him to rip her pants down when there was only settling dust to accompany them in the quiet hall.

It doesn't take long to see that the woman's not actually complaining at all. She fucking loves it when he barges in and simply takes her.

And he buries himself inside her like she's the base. His home after a mission, his destined location after deployment. She lets him fuck her practically anywhere except on the floor.

That's his place. And he has no problem with lying down there in the filth, especially if it means he gets to watch how she sits on his cock until that pretty little face distorts with pleasure that looks like pain.

His field pants and navy blues have cum stains after his visits while she cleans herself up in no time, fixes her hair and looks as innocent as ever. His mask smells of cunt when he's trying to concentrate on missions, and the scent of her juice makes him hard while he's supposed to be instilling brass into bodies. He smokes cigarettes just to drive the maddening taste of her from his tongue.

He's gonna get killed one of these days. The irony doesn't escape him: it's not a bullet or a grenade that will take him, but that sweet, hazy memory of her cunt.

She's an obsession. He injects himself full of her like the most pathetic addict.

Until one day, she says it can't continue like this. That it won't do to rut like animals until the smell of mad sex coats the room she's supposed to stitch and staple people in.

It causes a small panic till she asks him to visit her.

In her home.

It sounds serious: it sounds like she wants more than just his cock. And he's fucking terrified.

Women think about whether to wear this dress or that on a date: he thinks about whether to put on the mask or not – he meditates on it for two whole hours. Everything else is clean and in order; he looks like a human and not a soldier. But he can't rid himself of the skeleton.

There's a storm coming when he reaches her place. It electrifies the air until his spine is full of thunder.

She seems surprised – happily so – when she finds him at the door, decent as can be. He gets one of those innocent smiles which are pure sin beneath.

"You came."

"Sure."

She doesn't ask why he's always wearing a mask. She takes what he has to give, which is his all, which he fears will never be enough.

"There's food–"

She lets out a delightful little noise when he picks her up and carries her to what looks like the biggest and softest bed he has ever laid a woman on, ever laid himself on.

So, she likes luxury. Or at least, comfort.

Softness. Hugs… Support.

And kisses, apparently, because his mask is lifted without permission. Not that she needs one.

"Simon, I made you some dinner," she laughs in his mouth, and he's smiling – she's the only one who makes him fucking smile.

"Later," he rasps with a sore throat – he has become soft, too, and it's her fault. He has barked orders all day, but with her, his voice always comes out quiet and calm.

Where her domain at work consists of harsh lights and sterile frigidity, her home is dark and warm like a womb. His senses are filled with lemon and thyme – she has made something he's never tried before, something… Mediterranean, perhaps. A culinary ambrosia for someone who has lived on dog food and tried to thrive on it.

It's a pity that he's a barbarian, and here for dessert. As much as he likes the dainty little thing she has put on just for him, it's not cunning enough to stop him from ripping it to shreds.

She protests at first with a posh little gasp, but then she spreads her legs like it's open season and he's the VIP customer. The laced, pathetic little thing lays in wreckage around all that softness creaming just for him, and his mouth shoots full of water.

The feel of her is better than sinking a knife between two ribs. She's velvet on his scar and coarse stubble and for the first time in his life, he curses the mask. She moans all around him, tries to grab him by the hair still under the black fabric.

And it makes him want to rip it off and let her yank and tug to her heart's content, grab his hair and push his face as deep inside her cunt as it goes.

He tries to fit inside her apartment, a serene space filled with scented candles and clean carpets and frilly little curtains that shift in the restless night wind.

He tries to fit inside her.

The attempt always makes her moan and tremble and sigh. It's hard to focus on the task at hand when he wants to freeze the moment to where her lashes flutter and she stops breathing for a second – when she takes him in with grace and hunger.

"Oh fuck…"

She swears this time, watches with helplessness and an open mouth as his cock slowly disappears inside her. Then she looks up at him like…

Like she's missed him.

"You're a brute," she whispers, eyes shining.

"Thought you liked brutes."

"I made you dinner and you…Ah…"

He arrives home, heavy and loaded with yearning.

First things first.

It has been a week, and there's been no time to relieve the pain, nowhere to go and wank off the sickness that festers inside him every second they're apart. And she's the only one who can cure his disease. But he does feel like a brute for not letting her feed him. When was the last time anyone made him anything?

The sea is booming now, roaring behind the window she has left open. This time, they're not fucking at the base, in some corner of a room with a lock hurriedly latched on. He's fucking her amidst doused lights and a seaside breeze that enters their skin through an open window. He's at the beach, even when there's no sun. The sands are even more stunning with a gathering storm.

He fucks her like a dog, and she looks at him with weak love in her eyes. She's looking up at him with those big, wet eyes like he's the best leader there is - like she's counting on him. Like the people under his command, those who ask for his advice, ask for the next move.

It drives him fucking insane.

It's even better than a good round of sex: that unbound look of adoration. His mask is a poor shield against all that. She slips past it like she's the expert in clandestine warfare here. And suddenly he doesn't want any more secrets. There's a ton of them already; he carries the weight of them in his soul.

He's an underdog, always has been, but he's also a hound for claiming her as his that night.

After he's done fucking her to oblivion, he descends. She comes alive like a jolt of lighting in his arms as he kisses her, then sucks the tender skin of her neck. Everyone's going to see it, he makes sure of that by using the tiniest amount of teeth to finally mark her. She moans an equal amount as she does when she's clenching around his cock.

"Did you just give me a hickey?" She asks, breathless when he's done.

"High time, don't you think," he mutters. The woman will look glorious on the beach and highly improper at work.

Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas…

"You're unbelievable." She only laughs at his obsession. The woman’s not afraid at all, even when she’s face to face with a monster. The sunshine of her smile pairs well with the crackle of thunder outside.

"You want a beer?"

He's too drugged to answer with nothing else than a surprised, drowsy blink. She laughs again and takes it as a yes, which it is. He stares in awe as the woman walks to the fridge, all naked and lax from his treatment, takes out a bottle, opens it, and brings it to him. She takes none for herself; she only serves him like he's some kind of a king. When he takes a sip, she smiles again: lighting flashes somewhere in the distance and gives her an aureole of light, a halo of an angel for a second.

"I'm gonna go take a shower." The wink she gives him makes it perfectly clear that she wouldn't mind him joining her. But as she goes by the mirror, the vision of his claim stops her.

"Simon…"

He gets a scolding, and it only makes the corner of his mouth tug.

"No concealer is going to cover this."

"That's the point," he takes another sip while lying on her too-soft bed. She shakes her head before walking to the shower. The eye of the storm is above him, and everything's silent, like he's lounging on a dream.

The bottle in his hand sweats cold condense in his hand, and like always with her, he finds himself in the present moment. He drinks the beer in less than ten seconds, then takes the mask off and leaves it somewhere among the sweat and cum stained sheets.

It's the first time she has seen him without the shield, the first time she sees his body in full light. Every protrusion of white scar, every part of uneven skin, every marring of two and three stage burns is visible as if he is on a well-lit stage.

"Well. Pleased to meet you."

The smile that greets him, the veil of surprise that draws aside to reveal pure delight and marvel is more than worth the risk. She's frozen in time with a bottle of shower gel in her hands, too preoccupied with the trust he has decided to arm her with. She now has power over him, but he proceeds to do what he came here to do. Which is to make her sing a second time.

"For what do I owe this pleasure–"

The bottle falls on the tiles with a soft plunk as he steps between her legs and lifts her against the wall.

On that, she doesn't only kiss him; she takes the scar of his lip between hers and sucks. The warm water is nothing compared to her hands which sweep up and down his back and release years and years of tension. She whines when he only gives her shallow thrusts, then tries to claw his back to get more of his cock. It makes him chuckle.

"Needy," he comments on such delightful hunger, and she lets out the most annoyed, frustrated noise he has ever heard on her.

"Stop teasing, Riley…"

She tends to use his last name when she's fed up with him. It's supposed to create distance, but it only makes him latch himself onto her more fiercely.

He could torture her, delve deep, dig out even more frustrated sounds from her, but that's a quest for another time. He grants her wish along with his own and slides fully in. She kisses him through the whole fucking, and he feels like he's in boiling water, cooking until the raw meat grows tender and prepared.

And he realizes he's not actually fucking her: he's making love to her. He didn't even know he could do that.

When they've had their fill, the water takes away his gift. It feels wrong that something meant to be inside her leaks down some filthy drain. It's like a testimony, an illustration of his whole life: that his essence, his worth, belong in the sewers.

"You're a beautiful man," she whispers on his skin while caressing his back filled with past torture. His stomach churns, he feels like throwing up and falling asleep at the same time. An odd sensation.

She holds his mutilated corpse under the descending water and breathes life into him. The vomit never comes. He exhales history on her skin, inhales some peace in its stead.

In the morning the sound of thunder has been replaced by myriad birdsong.

. . .

He never meant to bring her here, but the wind on the beach is too harsh today and she's cold. It would be ungentlemanly not to get her a jacket from his apartment when it's only a few hundred meters away.

"To say that this place needs a woman's touch would be an understatement, Riley."

There's little else here but a tv and a fridge. He doesn't need either of them, but they're there to remind him what a home should look like. She takes the deafening silence and barren wasteland well, far better than he ever imagined she would.

"Y'can touch anything you want."

She turns and raises an eyebrow – he already knows that look. He's in for it now.

"Smooth... Very smooth." She walks to him and pushes him to the armchair. Not with force, because she doesn't need it. He falls to the sagged old thing like it's suddenly cloud nine rather than his old deathbed.

He waits for her to climb onto his lap and ride him until the chair breaks under the weight of their love. He could use a new chair anyway.

But she doesn't do that.

She gives her what this place has been missing.

A woman's touch.

Her mouth is hot as hell, wet like the gulfs that used to drown men in the sea centuries ago. She's a siren with her songs, but this time, she's quiet.

The room is not: the deathlike silence is suddenly filled with wet urgency and sloppy sounds of adoration. All his hauntings recede to the shadows like the blowjob is a whole exorcism.

His head falls back, and the first charred moan coats the air like it's been entombed for decades. And it has.

She is encouraged by the sound, and the tongue that sweeps the underside of his cock sends him jolting from his shallow grave.

Jesus fuckin'–

"Fuck…" He tries to blink back tears or death while looking at the crumbling paint on the ceiling. He feels equally worn out on her tongue: old and a lot of work, but a woman's touch is like magic.

"Mm–h." She dares to moan on his cock as if it's the best thing she's had in her mouth in decades, too. She even brushes her fingertips over his balls like they're some newfound treasure. They pull taut under her touch, stupefied by the sudden attention.

He can feel the upcoming blaze. It gathers at the base of his spine, his cock is brick-heavy in her mouth, and she won't stop – fuck, she goes even deeper…

"Fuckin' hell, pet…"

His thighs bunch and spread, a scorching groan erupts like he's a volcano and not a man. That's when she gives his cock a long, torturing suck, and he's gone, there’s no time and space other than her hot velvet mouth that surrounds him like the hot core of a star.

She adds a hand at the base of him, and he explodes so hard that he barely has brain cells left to worry about whether she will choke on it. But she doesn't even gag, even if the first spurts must be more than generous.

Fuck, this woman…

He melts in the chair while she finishes the rest of him, takes all he has to give, like she always does. They're an odd pair: an angel and a demon, and he feels like he's finally saved, resurrected – this room, this chair has never seen anything like this.

It's different with her, the emptiness that comes after. It's not filled with grief but deliverance.

He wants her to know what she’s just done, but he knows the things he's good at, and he knows the things he's not. Words are one of those things. She moans and begs and shatters and swells in his arms, she takes on a volcano and resurrects corpses long since dead, and he still doesn't know how to tell her. That he's hers, that he wants to make her feel as good as he bloody fucking can. He could be tortured for days and he still wouldn't know the right words. He tries to tell it to her in other ways and sees how she settles.

He would rather kill the whole human population on this earth than see her settle for anything.

So he forces the strange words out, fleshes them on his tongue and pushes them through teeth to haunt the stale air of his apartment that has never seen such love before.

"I missed you."

Of course it sounds so odd that she laughs. Bitter, too.

"You missed my tongue."

"No. I missed you."

She finally raises her eyes to his, doesn't try to blink back the watercolors. Those eyes are shining; they're beckoning.

"I missed you too," she says, then lays her head on his thigh like she's only a humble servant begging for mercy.

It's a farce. He's a skeleton, a ghoul of useless rubble while she's celestial; she's summer, a fucking empress.

It rips his chest to see her on her knees on the dirty floor, that she's comforting him in a chair that should've been his disposal site. The leather was supposed to be painted with shards of bone and puddles of pink-white brain; this room was supposed to echo with a single blast of a gunshot, not with roars of fragile love. He would've been found relatively soon, the neighbors wouldn't have had to complain about the smell: after all, the military takes care of their own. A lieutenant's absence wouldn't have gone unnoticed, even if everything else in him would never have been missed by anyone.

He brushes her hair, and she sighs, oblivious to his past hell. All nine circles of it, an inferno that would put poets to shame. And she doesn't know she has pulled him from the depths just by smiling.

. . .

"Promise to come back."

"Yeah I promise."

He can't promise that. Fuck, that he wants to.

Every bullet acquires sound, like that birdsong from her little window. They gain weight, they start to carry death. It used to be his power: to bring destruction. He was put on this earth to reap.

Now he's alive.

He's suddenly a man who can be killed.

Now everything's bright like he's a newborn trying to get used to a world full of pain. Light and sound and time and space; mortality.

Sharpened instincts have never been his friend. It used to be a simple dance: knife out, knife in. Drop 'em.

Line the sights and deal extinction. Walk like a ghost until the battering ram announces there's death coming.

It takes him a while to understand where the sorcery lies.

It's in the senses. She's sensuous.

"Simon–"

He hears her in the shaded crevice of rocks, catches phantom notes of vanilla from the dry desert air that tries to push through the filthy fabric of his mask. She’s with him just before the hatch opens, and for the first time in his life, he hesitates before the jump.

She tastes round and sweet after the tang of blood and smoke and metal of the field. She feels like warm, cascading water after the bleak, dead weight of a gun that leaves his hands throbbing with recoil. Her skin returns the memory of Paradise until it overrides everything else.

She's a soft blooming to the senses. And his have been blown wide, torn apart, shot full of noise. There's an amputated, burnt stump where there should be a limb and some soft skin. But still, a blast that burns flesh from bones is not that different from her soft whisper that has the power to level him like a nuclear wind.

He has to learn how to come back to his senses. It's a joke that makes him wish he could shed tears. Luckily, she's the best teacher he could ever have.

"Fuck, Simon…"

He tries to quit smoking just to be able to taste her better. A scorched tongue is a curse when a man can't get enough of cream and silk.

"I need you. Need you so much. You don't even know..."

He knows. He knows that the depth of his need surpasses hers; it always has and always will.

The last time he saw her wasn't at the base; it was when he woke up to the sight of her foraging for orange juice from the fridge with his sweatshirt on. She combined sultry lace and bare, smooth skin with an old, black hoodie.

And it swallowed her. All his darkness. She only looked sleepy and content while being smothered by all that dark cotton.

"I'm gonna make some breakfast," she announces upon seeing he's awake. "You like bacon and eggs?"

What the fuck did I do to deserve you.

She knows full well she could offer him a chest filled with gold, and it wouldn't be half as tempting as her little American breakfast.

"That'll do."

He was supposed to go to the shower but instead, his feet take him right back to her. She gives him a pleasant hum when his hands fall on her shoulders and start to rub some stress away. He knows it will make her moan, as it does now. She leans a little into him, surrenders to his treatment.

"Simon… Do you come here just for sex?"

The hiss of cooking bacon almost drowns the question. Just one syllable less, and the question would be as she originally meant it to be.

Does he come to her just for sex.

"No."

She turns to look at him with a shy little smile. It makes him want to crush her against that counter until those lips part with a helpless sound.

"I like your cooking."

"You…ass," she laughs, shoves him lightly.

He treats every day like it’s his last with her, waits patiently for her to realize he is not the man she thinks he is. Under the bones he wears there’s only more bones, nothing more. She can feed him all she wants, but it will only make him more hungry; and a day will come when she sees he’s not actually a man at all but a yawning, six feet grave.

The black cotton hugs her and makes it falsely look like this woman belongs to him. It’s another round of torture to see how she takes his shirt, takes his cock, plays with the only things he can give her for a while or two.

She has the sweater on as she gives him the softest farewell smile. She adds a few words, some more detail to her request. In truth, it's his new protocol.

"Promise to come back to me."

He doesn't ask for the sweatshirt back.

She's left with it and his promise.

. . .

"Poor lass's always sulking when you're on those solo missions."

He knows that Price might know about them by now. But if Soap knows, everyone knows.

He doesn't care: after all, the woman doesn't even try to conceal the seductive looks and dreamy smiles she gives him whether there are other people present or not. They're not a secret anymore. Perhaps that's the way she wants it to be.

But the information Soap gives him is new.

"She is?"

He goes straight to her after the plane lands. Doesn't give a single fuck about that smug look the boy gives him.

She looks slightly surprised as he simply walks in: she can see he's filthy. He has grime on his hands, on the fingerless gloves that make it easier to operate a gun when there's no threat of sweating. He smells of smoke and ruin, gasoline and tobacco – a lousy compensation for her, a ridiculous substitute to calming his nerves when he knows the mission is going to be tricky. It already pisses him off that her cream will be mixed with smoke and disease again. He knows his weaknesses, which aren't many. But with her, he has learned it's not about the quantity.

The sorrow is briefly disguised from him. It's admirable: the way she tries to hide even the plainest of things. He knows her by now, knows that the sun casts shadows too. She should know he's the one she can cast them safely with.

The throat between the shoulders burdened by work and worries looks fragile in his hands. A bird's neck he could wrench without breaking a sweat.

"Mmh. I love your hands."

"Just my hands?"

He shouldn't be touching her with his filth, but he can't help it anymore. If she loves it, who is he to argue back?

Love your hands too.

Fuck, I love your smile. Your tits, your lips. That little pout you got when you don't get what you want right away.

I love–

She sighs. Then she cranes that beautiful neck, clings to him with one, tiny hand. "Why are you here, Simon?"

"Heard you were sulking," he mutters in her hair.

"What…?" She laughs. She laughs, but she's not happy. "What on earth are you talking about?"

She's shy. Reserved. Hiding behind a wall of humor and sunshine and smiles. His darkness penetrates it all.

"Heard you're devastated when I'm gone," he tries even more softly.

She could take it as arrogance. One of his lousy jokes. But she knows better than that.

"I am," she finally says, angel-soft. When she turns, there's finally sorrow in her eyes. She looks up at him, up, up, again with that stare that says I am yours to command. On the brink of tears; tears he wants to battle to the abyss. But his muscles are no use here.

Her lip trembles, just a little, when he brushes his knuckles over her cheek.

"We can't have that."

"We can't?"

"No."

"Well what are you going to do about it?"

Her voice is soft, pleading. It's not a demanding question: the woman's simply out of it. She wants assistance, assurance.

What are your orders, sir?

She worries too much. Up until this point, he thought it’s just because she's dutiful, responsible, one of the best employees there is. But she's not tense from work.

It's not just the missed you's she whispers when his skin is at its most thin.

She fears losing him.

Stone-cold realism is required in his field of work; no sleight of hand magic can help him when he's facing the unavoidable. If the mission is impossible, he doesn’t take it. Because he can't change the unchangeable; he can't fight the inevitable. They both know he can't promise anything.

They both know he will do his best to come back. There was a time he would’ve considered it a blessing if he didn’t. Death used to be his only ticket to some peace.

She gives him an impossible mission, and he can't say no. Leadership is about taking care of people. His people. And she's more than just a subordinate.

He grabs her by the waist and raises her to the counter, relishes the way she gasps. She weighs nothing in his hands after cold, hefty cannons. It’s almost like she gains wings and flits to the tabletop designed for him to take her. It’s the perfect height for him to simply open his pants and alleviate her pain.

"Gonna fuck you until you cry."

She sighs. "You can't solve every problem with a gun or a cock, Riley."

The woman knows how to penetrate him, too. The stabbing doesn’t stop even when her thighs part slowly - she knows, just as much as he, that this is the best way to remind her just how alive he is. This is the only thing he can give her, and he is damn right going to deliver. His hand covers half of her thigh as he brushes a thumb over the sensitive inner side.

"You sure about that?"

That look of desperation makes him hard already. Her hands go about his neck in a perfect paradox with what she whispers next.

"Honey… Not here."

She calls him honey. As if this tar-black madness is only golden nectar to her.

"No?"

It’s not only sorcery, but necromancy: how she’s brought him back from the grave. No wonder such arts are considered dangerous. This is forbidden, and still, he cannot stop.

"Ya want me to stop?"

"...No."

He leaves most of her uniform on because he is in too much of a hurry to get between her legs. The woman molds herself against him the second his tip meets her folds.

"God, you feel good," she sighs as he slides in. It's like a prayer: both her words and his return back to the base. Alive.

"So fucking good…"

Fuckin' tell me about it.

She whimpers and clutches him like a little leech. Almost cries already.

"That's it. You just hold onto me."

If someone heard the way he's cooing in her ear, they would deem him soft in the head. He doesn't give a fuck.

Her moans chime inside his head like the softest, most beautiful opera. He has never been a man of high culture. The whole civilization could go to hell for all he cared. But she sings to him so beautifully that even a man like him can finally see the appeal. Legs wrap around him even tighter than those small hands until he doesn't know who's holding who here.

"That feel good..?"

"Yes… Don't stop, just don't stop."

She's almost limp in his arms. Good. He's managed to relieve that tension already.

He goes deeper, deeper, and a tiny hand that saves people instead of slaughtering them grabs him by the shirt, probably in an instinct to try and catch some skin. He can't see her face but the body against him trembles and shakes as he spreads her wide and pours love in her.

"No need to sulk, sweetheart. I got you."

She's crying, or laughing, or both. Of course she likes pet names paired with support. He adds it to the list of things the woman loves, the things he can give her. He hopes, half expects that she will shed some tears after shattering around his cock. She needs a good cry as much as she needs him. And nothing feels as good as this: being needed by her.

When she comes with an arched back and a scream he fears and hopes will reach every other officer here, he knows he can let go too. He's done his duty: now it's time to collect the reward. It's not transactional, she's not work, but she's still his responsibility. The woman's paycheck is fatter than anything he could ever get from his employer. He's inside her, but that doesn't mean she isn't inside him too. She's embedded in him in ways that threaten to swallow him and leave him on the shore like bleach-white bones on a beach. He stays inside her long after the waves have passed. She rests her head on his shoulder, and he doesn't dare to move.

"I still have your sweatshirt," she sighs while holding him.

"Good. Looks better on you."

"I sleep with it sometimes," she whispers and wraps herself around him so tight that he wishes he could be there every night to send her to sleep. Now she only has his memory as a company, some darkness far too big for her. "Sleep in it, actually."

His mind is like a wheel that turns around nothingness. There's nothing to hold on to; he's falling through starless space.

The eerie sound of gunshot echoes in his head, he thinks about the splatter of brain matter on the armchair; how there's at least one person in this world who would cry from hearing the news.

And not just any person, but her; a whole summer in one woman. A midsummer sun, missing some forgotten, weatherbeaten bones on a beach when there's plenty of flora and fauna to shine on.

"If you ever break your promise…"

She sniffs in his neck, and his embrace tightens instantly.

"Would rather die than break it."

His promise doesn't make any sense. Or perhaps it makes every sense. She finally cries like she's supposed to.

"Shh. I'm here now."

I'm not dead.

I'm not dead.

[xo-cod]

https://www.tumblr.com/xo-cod/729110250731520000/you-know-what-i-think-would-be-cute-if-one-of-the?source=share

will u expand on this pls?? esp w simon i love it it's SO CUTE🥰

thank you so much babe :") <33 i just did simon but i can def do the others if you'd like 🤍

continuation from here

cw: abusive past + fluff

"look daddy! that's like you and mum!" her soft laugh of happiness fills his ears and for a minute he just watches her, the shock plastered on his face and then he takes a glance at the tv again. the toys he was placing away in its rightful place was forgotten as he straightened his back, watching the disney characters. they seemed so happy, so in love.

he stood still for a minute, wondering if she was being genuine as he looks back to the little girl who was giggling at him. he didn't have a healthy childhood at home and even as he entered his adult life, nothing but blood, guns and wars surrounded him.

it took him by surprised that lieutenant ghost, the man who knew little to nothing about love and happiness and peace now had a wife and a baby who was growing up in the homes he always wished he could live in as a child.

the only romantic love he could see around him was the abuse his father put his mother through, watching the light dim from her eyes everyday was a sight simon didn't think he could ever forget.

there were some scars that were seared so deep, even after time had run its course the pain was still fresh as ever. he didn't think he would ever heal from the shackles that wrapped themselves so deeply around him, burdens that he had to carry day in and day out in his life all the time. even though being with you had significantly lessened them, there were still moments that made him question everything he ever knew.

so being a father was scary but so exciting. the nerves were bundled up deep inside him, utterly worried that he wouldn't be able to love the child like they deserved. he remembered the night he paced your hospital floor while you were sleeping, full of the medications they were giving. all he could do was helplessly look at you, his heart pounding at the bundle of joy soon to be arriving. could he love them? or did the trauma from his father run incredibly deep that he'd cower away and hide? they were irrational fears, he knew that much. but it didn't help either way, he wanted to be the possible father ever. but how could he do that when he was do broken from his own?

and then his baby was born and he almost gave out, trembling when he held her tiny tiny body in one arm as the hand of the other ever so gently caressed her head. he looked at you with shock, his big brown eyes tearing as he chuckles softly. that was a sight you'd never forget. a sight he could never either

"me an' mama huh?" he spoke softly, his gaze going from the tv to back to his daughter who nods eagerly at him. she's so happy, its enough to make him emotional. because of him, she was safe and loved. because of him, a man who thought he was too damaged beyond repair, had a child who completely adored him and was living happily

she would never know a life full of abuse and suffering, he would make sure of that

he would kill for her, die for her and everything in between yet even so the small niggling voice of doubt filled his head every damn day wondering if he was cut out to be a father. would he change tomorrow, become the abusive intoxicated asshole like the man raised him was? he grew up in a world full of pain and torture and guns, happy things were far and few between.

"you little munchkin, c'mere" he teased softly, holding her in his massive arms as they both cuddle close together. she shrieks in delight when he blows soft raspberries on her cheeks and kissing her forehead. and he only looks at his baby with a look of pure unconditional love, his smile widening at every happy sound she made. even if he never got the love he deserved as a child, the love he received from you and the baby you both created was enough for him.

it was times like this, moments that he cherished so close to his heart <33

[mysteria157]

Fic Masterlist

Pairing: Black Fem Reader x Hitman Toji Fushiguro

Genre: Hitman AU, Romance, Thriller (sort of? I'm not James Patterson...)

CW: Profanity, Alcohol Use, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Smut, Vaginal Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Oral Sex, Unprotected Sex, Breeding Kink, Creampie, Medical Emergencies, Betrayal, Family and Childhood Trauma, Violence (He's a hitman so...), I'll have more detailed CWs with each chapter, MINORS DNI

Summary:

“I’m only going to say this one more time, Toji. I don’t do situationships. I don’t do friends with benefits or the occasional hookup. You want more? I want you to try. Earn me.”

His hands are so bloody, that if you ever knew the source, you wouldn’t want someone like him to try. He shouldn't be here, taking up so much of your time, asking for more. But he's selfish.

-or; Toji, a notorious hitman, moves to America for more money and a better life for his son. He didnt expect to sleep with you, let alone want more. When his dangerous life catches up to him, he takes on one final lucrative hit, but realizes this target has unseen connections hitting closer to home. Now he must navigate a perilous job while desperately keeping his criminal double life hidden from you.

Authors Notes: Hello! After rewriting the plot, I'm finally comfortable enough to share this story. It's a continueation from Maneater, so while it is not necessary, reading Maneater as a prologue will definitely help set the tone for the story! This is my first attempt at writing something a little more heavy, so go easy on me.

As always: likes, reblogs, and comments are appreciated. Happy reading!

©mysteria157, all rights reserved. DO NOT copy, reupload or modify my work to other accounts and platforms. please ask before translating any of my works! If you find any of my work posted on other platforms besides ao3 and tumblr and it is NOT myself, please let me know.

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Dividers: @royallaesthetics @eloquentmoon

Header: made by myself with art from Pinterest

Chapters

Prologue: Maneater (One Shot) *Posted!*: A glimpse of how you and Toji meet for the first time. ~Plot that explores a little of reader's background and smut.~

Chapter One (Posted!): Despite the uncertainty of something new in your life, you say yes when Toji asks you out.

Chapter Two (Posted) Toji is cold and calculated with his hits, and beneath that hard exterior is a man with a dark past.

Chapter Three (Posted): Haunting dreams and a raging cold, you find solace in Toji's challenging and yet comforting presence.

Chapter Four (Coming soon): A day with Toji. A day of disappointments. A night of sweet relief.

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

[ram-bam-writes]

Wisdom Teeth [Jake Seresin x NB Reader]

A/N: Per my parents recounting, when I got my wisdom teeth removed a few days ago, I cried in my bed because they couldn’t get paramount to play on my tv in my room. I wanted to see Glen Powell so badly that my parents had to dig around to find a charger for my computer so they could put it on… Twenty minutes later I have my laptop flat on my face while humming along to the soundtrack as the TGM plays… Ehehe :>

Summary: Jake’s partner gets all four wisdom teeth removed… Chaos ensues…  Based on personal experiences and made up ones. You guess which are which :>

CW: Wisdom teeth extraction, mentions of medical fears, mentions of blood, reader is suffering, Jake is being a little shit, hurt/comfort, no beta we die like goose, etc [The first part is the actual incident, which goes over fears and hinted past medical trauma, but the rest is lovely (irritating) banter between Jake and his lover. Blue will be everything to do with the angst if you wanna skip past it]

Word Count: 3206

“Honey…” Jake purrs, gently patting your arm in the middle of the waiting room. “Take a breath.”

It’d been several grueling minutes of staring at the clock on the pale wall of the oral surgeon’s office, foot tapping impatiently on the floor as you wait in fear for the extraction. You didn’t want your wisdom teeth out — you’d heard horror stories online. But they caused plenty of migraines and ear pain, and you absolutely needed them out when the bottom teeth grew in with cavities.

That, you decided, wasn’t fair to you at all.

But, alas, it pushed you to get them out. And the dentists advised to get all four out at once, since the top ones were also impacted. So it only made sense to get it all done in one fast sweep.

“Honey.” Jake says a little more firmly, gently grasping your hands. You blink up at him, eyes widened. “Sorry…” “Talk to me, hun. What’s up? They’ve done this a thousand times.” He points at the office wall. “And this is where I got my teeth out. You’re gonna be okay. They’re amazing.” As you tap your feet on the floor, you try not to think of the story your older brother had told you. He’d gotten his ripped out in the Navy, and they had him on not enough local anesthetics and, unfortunately, felt them ripping out his teeth one by one. Your biggest fear became feeling the pain or waking up in the middle of the surgery. 

“I know, I know…” Your hand squeezes his. You didn’t want to be afraid, but you’d woken up before, and your brother certainly didn’t help. He’d tried to — that’s why he told you his story. He was trying to express that he only went through that because, well, Navy. You wouldn’t deal with it. But that didn’t help.

“I’ll be right here every step of the way…” He promises, offering a reassuring smile.

The door besides the office opens, a blond haired dental assistant leaning out of it. “Seresin?”

You inhale shakily, standing up. Your partner quickly follows you, ushering you inside. They both get you situated into the white room, a set of crazy equipment set up in the middle of the room. The dental assistant sits you in a chair, then proceeds to hook you up to an EKG.

“Mmm…” Jake lets out a low purr as your shirt is lifted to attach the stickers. “You look good…”

As much as you want to glare or blush, your nerves take over. The EKG begins to read your heart beat, following the pulses and patterns effortlessly. But that sound…

Warmth blooms on your thigh as Jake runs a hand across your skin. His green eyes swirl with concern, smiling weakly at you. “Breathe.”

After signing a few too many agreements to acknowledge that you’re aware that tons of shit can go wrong in the healing process and that it won’t be the dental office’s fault, you’re situated more comfortably in the chair.

More comfortably? Maybe less so, given they escort your partner out all too quickly. Jake gives you one last kiss to the forehead, just between your brows, and slips out of the room reluctantly. 

The actual oral surgeon walks into the room, his smile friendly. He begins to talk to you about what you do. School, work, both? As you answer each question, he sets up the IV, admittedly a little rough on your right arm. He apologizes, unable to get the IV set up properly, resulting in him going to the left arm. 

As you attempt to keep your wits about yourself, the room swirls around you. “It’s… fine… I’ve had it in my-my hand once…”

When you attempt to explain the story of your hand IV incident, several pairs of hands begin touching your body. One around your neck, two around your legs, and two on each arm. Something is pressed against your nose, something choking your throat. The EKG is loud as it beeps, signaling your tachycardic state.

So you thrash. You thrash and thrash — they wanted to hurt you. With wild eyes, you frantically search around the room for anyone you can recognize, but it’s just several masked medical personnel. It isn’t until the oral surgeon pulls down his blue mask that you see a slightly familiar face, finally easing your breathing.

“That’s it…” The oral surgeon praises. “You passed out on us for a second… but it’s okay… you’re doing fine… you’re okay now…”

“I’m-I’m sor-so-sorry…” Tears slip down your cheeks as the oral surgeon rubs your arm to ease your mind. You can feel the soft hands of a sweet, younger dental assistant running through your hair, smiling gently down at you behind her mask.

“Don’t be… you’re doing just fine. We’re gonna give you the anesthetics, and it’ll be over before you know it…”

A sob shakes your body. “Please don’t let me wake up.”

“I won’t let you. It’ll be the best nap of your life…”

———

“The denshist was sho cute…”

A soft laugh resonates around you, but you can’t quite make out where you’re at or who you’re with.

“Yeah?”

“Yeash... the denshist was shuper cute…”

“Okay, hun..."

"Sho cute."

"Hun."

———

“Javy, can you help me bring them in the house?”

You knew that name. You knew that voice! People!

“That’s my boyfrieeeend!” You suddenly shout, leaning against Javy, incapable of standing on your own. You beam a bloody smile at the blond pilot standing across you, his arms held out in case you tumble. “That’s myyyyy boyfriend!”

“Jayyyy thasss my boyfrienddd!”

“I know.”

“My boyfrieeeend!”

“Y-yes!” Javy holds you tight, attempting to not drop you while he cackles.

“Boyfriend!”

———

You blink up at your boyfriend in a daze, Jake’s sweet smile staring down at you. He hands you a black table bell, one you had gotten him a few months prior. It reads: “If you hear this bell, bring me a beer.”

“Here, hun. Ring this when you need something from Javy, okay?” He pats your head lovingly. “I need to pick up your meds from the Pharmacy.”

He should have known better. Objectively, he should have known. You’re drugged! How can you not ring the bell seventy-million times in a row the moment you’re handed it?

“Hun.” A bright grin spreads across his face, his laugh warm as it swirls around you. “Don’t make me take it away, darlin’.”

The ringing stops. 

“Thank you.” He kisses your forehead as you set the bell next to your bed, eyes glimmering as you stare at the oh-so-tempting piece of metal. 

———

There’s a warm glow from the curtains as the sun slowly lowers behind the horizon line. Wind blows from the open window, the breeze comforting against your cold, sore body. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was a normal morning after a good night with your partner.

And then the pain strikes. A thin set of lines in the four corners of your jaw are stinging. Jake, always a master of knowing your pain, rounds the corner to the open bedroom door.

“Ow…” You groan out, gauze stuffed in your cheeks. “Why…”

His calloused hands reach out and caress your neck. He doesn’t dare to touch your jaw, not in your current state. That’s a recipe for disaster he isn’t keen on making, actually. “Take it easy… you’re still pretty high on narcotics…”

“Ugh…” For some reason, your whole body aches something bad. It’s like you got hit by a truck. “Drugs…”

“Yes,” he laughs sweetly at you as he helps you sit up properly. “Yes, drugs. Good ones, too. Red caps, orange bottles. Good stuff.”

“Opioids…”

“Don’t talk much… the clots are still healing.” Jake gently wipes at the corner of your mouth with a wet cloth, removing the excess blood from your skin.

Is that why there’s so much gauze in your mouth?

“Let’s get you some new gauze, okay?” His strong arms help you stand upright as you lean most of your weight against him. An arm snakes around your waist, his lips pressing against the side of your head. “I’ve got ya…”

He leads you to the roomy kitchen, setting you onto the countertop. You instinctively spit out the gauze, something he laughs at. 

“Hun… unsanitary.” He earns himself a glare from you as he wanders to the sink. “I’ve got new gauze right here. Throw these ones in the trash, copy?”

“Floor.”

“Trash.”

“Floor.”

“Trash.“

“Floo-“He decides to interrupt you by pressing a rolled pad of gauze against your lips. Not hard, not at all. But enough to shut your drug-addled self up.

“Now bite down and quit bein’ a brat.”

You do as you’re told, mostly because your jaw is actually beginning to hurt from speaking so much. And when he hands you the good pills, the ones you know are gonna help fix most of those pains, you eagerly attempt to swallow them down with water.

“Babe-“ Jake inhales, immediately bursting out into laughter when the pill dissolves on your tongue, your mouth not quite working properly.

When your face twists in disgust as you try to swallow the dissolving pill, your partner’s fingers quickly grab the pill. He holds it in his palm, saving you from the horrendous taste. Down the length of your chin and neck is a long stream of wetness, none of the water that you had taken a sip of making it down the inside of your throat. 

“Alright, messy little thing, let’s try that again, hm?” He hands you a fresh pill this time, hand manually tilting your head back. “Once more, baby…”

———

Food.

You crave food.

Sustenance.

A soft knock echos on the door to your shared bedroom, Jake stepping inside with a paper bag. “I’ve got food!”

The speed at which you sit up is concurrent with the pure hunger your body feels. Jake can only laugh when your eyes, large and focused, stare at the bag of food, your nose working to figure out what food he has for you. Jake sits down on the bed next to you, gently pulling out small round containers of food. One large one, one small one.

“Doc says you can have mashed potatoes and gr-“ Maybe he should have expected you to snatch the container eagerly, drool slipping past your lips.

You were finally allowed to take out the bloody gauze pads, the clots beginning to heal. Not enough to eat normal foods again, but fuck if these potatoes didn’t smell like heaven.

“Just go slow, darlin’.” Jake helps pour the gravy into the mashed potato container and hands you a spoon. “Don’t want you poppin’ a stitch just yet.”

As you eagerly scoop up the first bite of savory mashed potatoes, you run into your first problem. 

You can’t open your mouth wide enough. To fit. The spoon.

The spoon clatters against your teeth, and Jake silently thanks the gods it was just a plastic spoon. And when you pout, letting out a strangled whine, he laughs so sweetly as he cups your jaw. 

“Struggling to fit that, darlin’?” He teases, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Here, let’s get you somethin’… smaller.”

He digs around the paper bag, this time pulling out a plastic fork. After scooping up some room-temperature mashed potatoes, he gently feeds it through the small gap between your jaws that you can manage. 

“Fuck…” You groan, the taste on your tongue pure bliss. Had mashed potatoes always tasted this good?

Jake laughs at your sounds. The way your eyes flutter and weakened smile forms has his heart thrumming right out of his chest. You’re his baby, and he loves every second of it.

“That’s it, hun. There’s plenty more where that came from.” He feeds you another spoonful. “Nice and easy. Swallow all of it, darlin’. No spitting.”

… Did he really just…?

You deadpan your lover, a bit of mashed taters still coating your lips which slightly dulls the intended effect.

Oh, the laugh he lets out is a boisterous one. Grabbing you a tissue and gently wiping your lips, he offers a cheeky smile. “Can’t help it darlin’. This is who you chose.”

“You’re so lucky you’re spoon feeding me.”

“Fork feeding.”

———

Day two of the recovery period goes a bit better. Since the mashed potatoes yesterday, you’ve been able to have really really mashed egg salad, cold ramen with cut up noodles, more mashed potatoes, and even room-temperature tofu. With the opioids you’re on, you can’t quite get the average hunger cues, which is probably in your best interest given the nutrients you’ve been living off of consist only of mashed potatoes, yogurt, and chicken broth.

Javy has come to visit, since Jake had a few errands to run and was never gonna let you stay by yourself. You’d known Javy probably longer than you knew Jake. He’s a close friend of yours, especially given that he’s the reason you and Jake got together. 

“Javy…” You whine out, leaning dramatically on his lap. “Will you please get me more food…? Jake’s killing me!”

The man in question pats your head, his eyes never leaving the TV in front of him. “Nope. Jake has you on the diet you need to be on.”

If it weren’t for him being your friend, you’d have smacked him a lot harder. But maybe, just maybe, you could complain long enough and get some pancakes out of him. The sweetness of syrup and carbs sounds so damn appealing that your stomach growls in need.

“I can’t take it anymore! Please! I just want pancakes!”

“Sorry, love.” Javy points over to the bowl of yogurt on the coffee table. “Not yet. You can have pancakes on day four.”

“Did he leave you a list?” “Of course he left me a list.” Javy offers you his phone, seeing the frantic, detailed texts from your partner. “Several.”

As mad as you want to be, your heart warms with how much your boyfriend does to keep you healthy and well. Without him, you’d probably have already popped several stitches.

“Oh, and, out of curiosity.” Javy tilts his head to look down at you, gently placing the bag of frozen corn on your cheek once more. “Do you remember anything about the oral surgeon?”

You blink.

“What?”

Javy grins. “The dentist that took out your teeth. Do you remember anything about him?”

“Um… he calmed me down when I freaked out.” You wrack your brain trying to think of anything else. “But… not really.”

“How cute is he?”

“WHAT?” You wince from the sudden shout, your stitches not very happy with you. “How-how what is he?”

Javy’s smirk turns into a full blown grin, his laugh echoing in the small living room. “You don’t remember? You wouldn’t shut up on the drive home how cute the dentist was! I think you told Jake like, eight times in ten minutes!”

Your cheeks burn, eyes wide as you swallow thickly. Had you really? 

“Jake was having a blast. You were so head over heels for the dentist you actually cried when we left. And then, as if the dentist never existed, the moment I pulled you out of Jake’s truck, you refused to shut up about him being your boyfriend.”

He pats your head affectionately. “You were hanging off of me and makin’ grabby hands at him. I’d never seen Jake so in love.”

Javy laughs when you hide your face with your hands, whining with embarrassment at the story.

“And that’s before the photo incident.”

“The w h a t?”

Maybe you shouldn’t ask.

“The photo incident, darlin’.” Jake’s voice carries across the room, shutting the screen door behind him with several bags in his hand. “I came back from the Pharmacy that day to find you layin’ flat on yer back with a photo of me n’ rooster stuck on yer face. Javy say’s you cried when I left, but a photo sufficed.”

He sets down the bags in the kitchen, leaning against the door to the living room with a lazy grin. “You okay there, sugartits?”

“No!” You hide your face once again. 

“Oh, don’t be that way.” Javy waves his hands. “Jakey here cried himself sick when he got his teeth out because his cat walked away to go eat.”

It’s your partner’s turn to becomes flustered, his golden cheeks tinting red. Jake points at his best friend, eyes narrowed. “To the grave. That was. To the grave.”

Your hands quickly fly up to press against your mouth, less to suppress you hysterical giggles and more to keep your mouth from stretching too much. Javy stands and gently moves you aside on the couch, grinning all to mischievously. 

“That’s my cue to leave-“ Javy gives the two of you finger guns, walking towards the door. “I’ll have the missus bring some shakes over later tonight, ‘kay?”

You sight, flopping back down onto the couch.

“Pancakes?”

Jake’s lips press right up against your forehead, his tone loving and affectionate. “No, little chipmunk.”

“I’m not that swollen!”

———

With day three rolling around all too slowly, Jake takes the time to cuddle you endlessly on the couch. He did his morning run, workout, and shower routine early, wanting to give you as much attention for the day as he can. 

While you pain is bearable, every few words you’d speak would be met with a sudden jolt of pain to your gums, right where the stitches had been. 

Thankfully, you had Jake to nuzzle into, his breathing light and easy as random movies play on the TV. His hands stroke your scalp, lovingly giving your waist squeezes every now and again. He’d gotten pretty good at recognizing your pain cues, especially the sudden sharp ones.

“Need some ice cream, hun?” Jake begins to sit up, but you tug him down.

“Mac. And. Cheese.”

He blinks. “W-what?”

“Macaroni. And cheese.”

“It’s… It’s not even ten…” 

Instead of responding, you let your eyes bore into his, the intensity and need for Mac and cheese shining through. 

“You’re like pregnant lady…” Jake shakes his head with a laugh, standing up and walking to the pantry. “You want the weirdest things…”

You flop against the couch once more when you hear the box of dried macaroni rattle in his hands, happy hums slipping past your lips. 

And then you hear it.

Crunch.

Your body immediately perks up, eyes narrowing in on the culprit and the crime. “What are you eating?”

“Chips.” Jake makes a show of shoving a large tortilla chip in his mouth, crunching on it loudly. “Wan’ some?”

You could punch the motherfucker for that.

He smirks as you stand up and round the kitchen counter. “Aw, wait, I just ‘membered…”

“You asshat!” You shout, giving him a good shove as you take the box of pasta out of his hands. “Go eat your chips in the garage.”

“Hun-“

“Nope! You’re being exiled! Exiled.” Jake laughs as you swat at him, raising his arms in mock defense. “Go! Get!”

This is gonna be one hell of a long, annoying, irritating recovery.

And you’re gonna hate love every second of it.

A/N pt2: Lemme know if you want another part as time goes along with my healing and how I imagine Jakey would deal with it as time goes on :>