#fic: A Bond Forged With Steel

[swordgrace]

𝐀𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐘.

༺ aemond targaryen x fem!reader.

SYNOPSIS: in the aftermath of rook’s rest, you seek aemond out to inquire about his wellbeing. instead, you find him somewhere else — somewhere unexpected. (set after S2 EP4).

༺ FORMAT: one-shot — not requested.

༺ WORD COUNT: 5.2K.

༺ WARNINGS: SMUT (mdni) , spoilers for s2 ep4, public sex / risk of getting caught, knifeplay, imbalance of power, rough sex, darkish!aemond, dom!aemond, p in v sex (unprotected), oral (f!receiving), fingering, brief tiddy sucking, groping, biting / marking, hair pulling, choking, fucking right in front of the iron throne, inaccurate high valyrian, brief dirty talk, lots of aemond’s inner thoughts, breeding kink if you squint, aemond is extremely possessive of the reader to an unhealthy degree.

༺ AUTHOR’S NOTE: to preface, I am working on requests, this just happened to make its way out of my brain before anything else did. This was inspired by the single shot of Aemond standing in front of the Iron Throne in the S2 EP5 trailer, you can tell how desperate I got as soon as I saw it. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy! There will be a Jace fic dropping tomorrow, too! ❤️

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐑𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐄 — a seat of power constructed by Aegon the Conqueror in the aftermath of a bloodied war, forged from thousands of surrendered swords.

In the days of Aegon the Conqueror, it was said that the Throne was sometimes too high to climb, a jagged labyrinth of blades melded by dragon’s fire, a throne fit for any ruler. Men impaled themselves upon one another’s blades for it, turned against one another, endless betrayals and treacheries ensued all for the sake of the endgame, to see themselves upon the Throne.

Brother turned against brother — you didn’t expect anything less from Aemond, whose desire to exact revenge boiled just beneath the surface. The Battle at Rook’s Rest had proved a slaughter on all fronts, between the decimation of both Cole’s armies and the castle they laid siege upon, to the death of the Princess Rhaenys and her dragon, Melys.

Whispers spread through the Red Keep in regards to King Aegon’s condition, bones crushed beneath the weight of Sunfyre, who plummeted from the skies in a ball of fire. His flesh was scorched, half of his body melded to the Valyrian Steel armor he wore, burnt beyond recognition.

If they were to be believed, King Aegon was gravely wounded — and if a fatality ensued, who would then bear the mantle of King?

A restless dusk gripped King’s Landing as the surviving soldiers from Cole’s armies arrived at the city gates, King Aegon amongst the wounded. In what you considered to be a mass panic and hysteria, Maesters rushed to diligently attend to their King, who seemed to be meeting a simmering grave inside of his armor — it would be his tomb if they weren’t careful.

Merely a handmaiden and servant to nobility, the antics of your masters didn’t interest you — you were wholly preoccupied with your own survival and self-preservation, amongst other things. It was said that Aemond and Vhagar had swarmed the battlefield and come to King Aegon’s defense, but by the time they had, Aegon had been swallowed by dragonfire.

Part of you had difficulty believing that Aemond truly attempted to save his elder brother, given Aemond’s embittered sentiments. Your relationship with the Prince had transcended all bonds of propriety — and if anyone were to find out, they would likely have your head for sullying his virtue.

Nevertheless, as chaos swarmed around you, you knew exactly who to seek out. Queen Alicent had little desire to be hounded by handmaidens while her eldest son struggled to hang onto his own life, something you could understand. Instead, you made for Aemond’s chambers, the route embedded into your mind.

You sought him — all of him. His lilac hue, a maelstrom of forlorn emotions, and his silvery tresses, like cascading silk, embedded themselves into your mind. His cunning countenance and beguiled expression were like hot-iron brands cast onto your thoughts, tormenting you with each waking moment.

As you stepped closer to the Throne Room, no longer guarded by Kingsguard, you saw the great door ajar — no King atop the throne. You wondered if he would live, Aegon — a drunken, broken man who preferred his cups and whores over ruling — or if he would perish.

You knew who would sit the Iron Throne, should Aegon fall.

A heavy darkness had befallen the throne room, fitting for the many tragedies, like the gloom of a shadow haunting all who dared to enter. Curiosity gripped you as you stepped inside, a place well above your station, yet you wondered if there was anyone inside.

The doors remained shut, save for the one you slipped through, the gap slim. Flickering braziers provided some illumination to such a grandeur hall, but it seemed so dour and lifeless without the presence of the day, without subjects fluttering in and out. Instead, it provided an ominous sense of dread, as if luring those inside with dark omens and false promises.

A familiar crown of silvery tresses stood at the very center, before the throne — he didn’t need to turn around for you to know who it was. He seemed entirely unscathed by the battle at Rook’s Rest, hands carefully folded behind his back, posture poised and dignified.

Aegon’s dagger flashed within his right hand, clutched tightly at his side. You wondered how he had acquired the blade so swiftly after a tragedy — but you knew. You had always known of Aemond’s nature, of his restrained resentment towards his brother, the King of the Seven Kingdoms.

“Aemond.” Your voice reverberated throughout the throne room, carrying a fair distance as you closed the door behind you. The studded mahogany groaned in protest, yet bent to your will as it closed with a noisy thud. Admittedly, you were surprised to see him here, and not in the comfort of his chambers.

He didn’t move, rigid and still as you quietly approached, dresses sweeping across the smooth stone beneath you. His violet hues remained transfixed upon the Iron Throne, a throne that would soon be his, if fate favored him. So many swords, so much strife and conflict that forged such a chair — so much bloodshed.

Aemond often wondered what the weight of the crown would feel like upon his brow — and even then, he knew he would wear it better than Aegon ever could. He had stood by the wayside for far too long, learned in his studies and a talented swordsman, wondering if it would all have some reward, some payoff.

Now, his opportunity was swiftly approaching.

Whatever anger he’d often kept leashed, it had struck out, like the bite of a poisonous viper, sinking into its prey with all its bitter viciousness. It was the same tempestuous rage that had lashed at Lucerys Velaryon, and now it had struck his brother, Aegon the Magnanimous.

A stupid sobriquet for a stupid man — a drunken fool. Aemond would simply pass it off as an unfortunate accident, with Aegon carelessly stepping into the line of fire whilst tangling with the Queen Who Never Was. Swift decisions had to be made on his part, his brother a victim of such action.

Any silver-tongued words that would placate his Mother, he was prepared to let them fly. Aemond knew enough to know that the consequences would be slim, and those of true action and cruel intentions would take Aegon’s place — men like himself.

Soft footfalls fell across black stone, and you called his name again, like a siren’s song luring the sailor into deeper waters. “Aemond.” It was saccharine, dripping with genuine warmth that the Prince was simply unaccustomed to.

The unexpected lull of your voice broke his fixation, and he looked to you with a gaze full of desire. It was a farcry from the frustrated, despondent man you’d encountered days prior following the incident at the brothel. There was a newfound fire within his eyes, a confidence restored — a sense of triumph.

Admittedly, you were rather perplexed by this invigorated side to Aemond — that wild gleam within his lilac eye only seemed to grow in intensity as you approached him. “I heard the news of what happened to your brother,” You began, pondering his reaction. “You have my deepest sympathies.”

The admiration he had for you only seemed to blossom, knowing that you were simply keeping up appearances for his sake. Aemond’s mouth tilted into the ghost of a smirk, feigning melancholy despite the truth of his own actions. “It was a horrible thing, what happened to the King,” He uttered, glancing toward the throne. “I wish for his swift recovery.”

A facade was a mere understatement — you could almost taste the smug bemusement that rested within Aemond’s tone. The slight quirk of his mouth, the manner in which he spoke — his sympathies for Aegon were nonexistent.

“As any good brother would.” You replied, stepping closer until you stood before the Iron Throne, gaze falling upon the thousands of swords swarming the seat, blades of many shapes and sizes. You wondered about the people behind each sword — who swung it, what their lives must’ve been like.

A brief hum escaped Aemond, who observed you hawkishly as you approached, violet hue greedily drinking you in as he had many times before. You had stood so faithfully by his side, never admonished him for the brash actions taken against his family, never deemed him pathetic for what happened at the brothel.

He cared little for your station, little for your status as a lowborn — if he sat the Iron Throne, he could have whatever he wanted. It didn’t matter if you were a commoner, Aemond could envision you as his wife, a Queen — no longer bowing to the whims of greater men and women who cared little for you.

“Did my Mother dismiss you this evening?” Aemond questioned, digits tense around the pommel of Aegon’s knife — now his. Seeing as he was no longer fit to carry the weapon, it was only just that it pass to his brother, his next of kin.

“She did,” A gentle exhale escaped you, one that allowed you to maintain your composure. Being in Aemond’s presence seemed to make you dizzy with desire with each passing moment — not a new sentiment, but an intoxicating one. “I was coming to find you, to see if you were well after the battle.”

Shamelessly, Aemond became quite aroused at the thought of you wandering about the Red Keep with the single-minded desire to see him. His blood ran hot after the battle — the surge of adrenaline did not lessen in your presence.

His jaw tensed slightly as he appraised you, taking a step closer, brazenly closing the distance between you both. He could smell your perfume, the warm bouquet of flowers and a touch of honey. “How thoughtful.” His voice dropped to a low purr, dripping with the first inklings of lust.

Your breath hitched, words turning to ash upon your tongue as your fingers curled into your dress. Aemond enticed you in ways that no man had before — and he saw you, a woman beneath the gowns of a servant. The hammering of your heart within your chest had stirred something powerful — your want for him consumed you like a tidal wave.

Before you could utter his name, he descended like a starving wolf to kiss you, open-mouthed and bleeding lust. You shivered, wanting to coax him into returning to his chambers before things became heated. His hand dropped to seize your hip, hauling you closer to him until no space was left between your bodies.

You reciprocated his kiss, able to hear a faint growl of approval building up within his throat. It was fiery and hot, with little concern of who might see you. Aemond was growing emboldened, brazen knowing the power he now held within his grasp.

“We should return to your quarters,” You whispered, a strained whimper tearing past your lips as Aemond kissed your jaw, sucking at the flesh of your neck. “Aemond, we can’t — not here.” Your breathy pleas fell upon deaf ears — what better place to claim you than before his new throne?

“We can,” Aemond murmured, pushing your tresses aside as he claimed your throat, laying waste to your flesh in his rabid kisses and hungry bites. “The rest of the Keep is preoccupied.” His reassurance was threadbare at best, but you were beginning to slip off of the deep end, fingers clawing at his tunic.

“What if someone sees?” Fear trickled into your voice, a subtle fright that Aemond found to be enticing. You worried for your own skin — he could understand that. A moan escaped you as Aemond nipped at your jugular, squeezing at your hips.

You failed to comprehend that he would protect you, shield you if needed. He did not need to justify his obsession for you, just as Aegon never offered any justification for his nightly whore hunts. Aemond seemed quick to soothe your worry, hand clasping at the nape of your neck.

“Then I will have their head,” His delectable purr dropped an octave, scratching the itch within your head. “You needn’t worry, ñuha dōna. I can do whatever I wish.” Aemond assured you, a great fire burning within his lilac hue. The leather of his eyepatch concealed the listless sapphire beneath.

He only needed to serve himself — his family cared little for him, and the world was often against him. He looked forward to facing Daemon whenever the time came, should he be bold enough to challenge him. Aemond dismissed it all — Aegon, his mother, Criston Cole — the only thing that mattered were the both of you.

Aemond’s streak of possessiveness had grown into something uncontrollable, a festering desire to keep you close, spiraling into obsession. You were many things to him, many things he coveted for himself.

After a moment of hesitation, you decided to make things tempting for Aemond, loosening the bodice of your dress. His breath hitched, the noise subtle if one wasn’t observant enough. He seized the back of your head once more, hungrily pressing his lips to yours, consuming you in another heated kiss.

A dour portrait of dusk hovers around the Red Keep, its shadowy tendrils slinking into the throne room. Only moonlight and dying braziers are your guide, and Aemond is at his prettiest whenever he’s touched by the silvery rays. It strikes his narrow visage, paints his silky tresses in pale light.

He is closer to a god now than he is a man — fortunately, you were willing to return to religion if it meant that Aemond was who you worshiped. As much as you liked to believe it was the foundation of your relationship, he thought of it alternatively, the roles reversed.

Your digits slip beneath the overcoat he wore, marred by speckled dirt and brimstone. His broad, sinewy shoulders are concealed by his tunic, and he seems vastly overdressed compared to you, still wearing your servant’s clothes. Aemond had gotten you a dress to wear with him before — you never wore it otherwise.

There is a certain intensity in the way he kisses you, as if each embrace might be your last. In the aftermath of a battle, you understand such sentiments, given the fate of the King and the Princess Rhaenys.

A growl reverberates within the depths of his throat as he pries his mouth away from you, gesturing toward the flight of obsidian steps that ascend toward the Iron Throne. “There,” He uttered, more of a command than a suggestion. “Lay down.”

A shudder rolls down the length of your spine, followed by an onslaught of goosebumps that snake across your flesh like a fever. Your stomach churned with anticipation, filling with the sensation of sloshing heat, burning brighter as each moment passed.

Without question, you step toward the throne, noticing the sharpness of some blades, the dullness of others. You find your footing upon the last step, feeling Aemond stalk closer. The rustling of his belt makes you shiver, only to find the steely chill of the Conqueror’s knife pressed against the dip between your shoulder and neck.

Aemond closes in behind you, caging you against his chest, like a predator swarming hapless prey. His narrow nose brushed along your soft tresses as he dragged the tip of the knife from your shoulder to ribcage. “Shall I cut this from you?” He uttered, digging the Valyrian steel into the fabric of your dress.

Swallowing the growing lump within your throat, you brace yourself for the bite of the knife, for the unruly tear of fabric, but it never comes. Instead, Aemond’s mouth pressed vigorous kisses against your neck, hand seizing you by the throat.

“Ao sytilībagon naejot nyke.” Aemond purred, feeling you turn within his grasp. Desire oozed between you both, an onslaught of carnality soon to follow. His lilac hue flickered over your countenance, drinking in your beauty with unrestrained rapture. You belong to me.

From what little High Valyrian you’d learned in the time you’ve been with Aemond, you strung enough of the sentence together to know what he meant. “Iksan aōhon.” A soft whimper emerged from between your parted lips, noticing the way his pupil dilated with amorous intent.

I am yours.

A flame of obsession roared within his gaze, enough to burn you alive where you stood. Aemond reveled in your submission to him, drank in your devotion — a devotion that would prove fruitful, should he ascend the throne. The tip of the knife prodded into your sternum, and you absentmindedly leaned forward.

Aemond captured your mouth once more, laying claim to you — his paramour. There was nothing sweeter than your desperate mewls and reciprocated passion, the succor of your mouth, the saccharine scent of your perfume.

The both of you descended to the floor, icy and stony as it prodded into your back. He knelt between your legs, gaze momentarily flickering between the shadow of the Iron Throne and your mesmerized visage. Aemond kissed you again, nipping at your lower lip before rucking up your skirts, pushing them toward your hips.

With one knee, he bullied his way in between your thighs, breaths heavier, wrought with anticipation as he lowered his mouth to your collarbone. In one smooth tug, he loosened your bodice, wrestling with the coarse material as he buried his face into your silky skin.

The throes of passion filled the air — short gasps and labored pants accompanied by the constant shuffling of fabric. “Aemond,” You moaned, watching as he bit the leather of his glove, removing the garment in one jerk of his head. Flesh to flesh, he moved to drag his digits along your weeping slit. “Aemond.” Urgency crept into your voice, strung-out by need.

“Hm,” His cajoling hum sent shivers down your spine, heat sloshing around within your stomach. Arousal pooled between your thighs, nectar sticky and gathering swiftly. “What a delicious gift you’ve given me.” Aemond uttered, slender digits continuing to stroke at your cunt, his pace agonizingly slow.

Lifting his fingers to his lips, he let them rest upon his tongue, gathering your juices to taste. A satisfied grunt of approval escaped him, one that made you meld into the floor. It was an uncomfortable surface, yet any thought of discomfort dissipated the moment Aemond’s lips pressed against the inside of your knee.

Instinctively, your hands flew toward his crown of silken tresses, digging in with an ironclad hold. Aemond released a low hiss of satisfaction, pressing hot kisses along the inside of your thigh. He dipped lower, breath fanning across your cunt.

His tongue raked hot embers across your aching core, delivering a series of deliberate strokes that were sure to make you squirm. Aemond preferred to savor you, consuming every drop of your nectar as if it were the finest of wines.

“Aemond!” Your voice rose above the cacophony of lewd noises ensuing below, noisy enough to reverberate throughout the throne room. It worried you, the potential of someone finding you with the Prince-Regent between your legs, but pleasure began to outweigh logic.

His name felt sweet from your mouth — if Aemond had it his way, he would make you say it a thousand times over. The sharp bridge of his nose buried itself into your mound, cock twitching within the leather of his breeches.

Another breathy moan left you, stomach pooling with a rush of molten heat. It oozed between your legs as your arousal fell upon the Prince’s tongue, much to his delight. He did not waste a drop, mouth traveling wherever he pleased, lapping at every inch of your cunt.

The Iron Throne overshadowed the both of you, a jagged mess of swords surrounded by dusk. Slats of moonlight trickled in from the stained glass above, falling across his visage, violet hue sparkling with lust. His lips greedily kissed at your clit, causing your hips to lurch forward.

“Look at me.” A pointed demand spoken from an edged tongue, one that commanded your attention without wavering. With a strangled moan, you turned your head to him, furthering the fire within your belly. Your doe-eyed stare locked onto him, lips falling apart.

As your eyes flickered over his poised features, your hand tightened within his tresses, coaxing him closer toward the apex of your thighs. Aemond wasn’t sly at suppressing the delight he felt in that moment, greedily lapping at your cunt.

You watched, enthralled by the ministrations of his mouth, the flick of his tongue, the tantalizing efforts made to draw you back in. His features were carved like marble, by the steady hand of a sculptor — godly, in the best way possible.

Aemond hoped that your blissful cries would alert the guards — perhaps, all could bear witness to his carnal delights, know that you belonged to him and him alone. His lips crawled to a sluggish pace, made only to torment you as he peppered feather-light kisses against your clit. The lack of pressure nearly made you wretch, digits curling into a fist.

Every fiber of your being felt as if it had been set ablaze, washed within the fires of his affection. He knew your body well, as well as he knew his own, tongue dipping to have a taste of your core as it lightly jutted against your entrance. You whimpered, the noise pathetic and pitiful, yet overwhelmingly eager.

“Please,” You moaned, breathy and clawing for some shred of release, canting your hips forward. Aemond retreated, just enough to leave you writing upon the steps before a sly chuckle reverberated between your thighs. His torture of you was playful and intimate, intended to make you beg. “Please, Aemond!”

How could he deny you when you sounded so sweet?

With a soft hum, Aemond returned to devour your cunt, drink from the nectar that oozed between your legs. His hands situated themselves against your thighs, nails digging in enough to leave behind traces of angered crescent marks.

The heat between your legs intensified, arousal stinging your bones, body bent underneath Aemond’s will as he lapped at your core. His lips were accompanied by his spindly digits as two fingers prodded at your entrance, feeling the crescendo of your whimpers before sinking themselves into your tight cunt.

Squelching intermingled with that of brazen pants and your myriad of moans, a cacophony of lust that permeated the throne room. It felt sinful, to defile the steps of a seat of power, but that shame swiftly contorted into bliss — it felt good.

It felt good to be desired, for Aemond to feel not an ounce of regret or remorse for being with you or for the carnage his actions wrought. The darkness that festered within his eye only grew, once a flickering shade, now growing into something sprawling.

At last, his lips pursed around your clit, stimulating that sensitive clutch of nerves. Your back arched from the stone, thighs rattling like falling leaves as he brought about your ruin. His digits viciously pumped in and out of your cunt, preparing you for the act that was to follow.

His tongue lashed across his lower lip, not wasting a drop of what sweetness you provided him with. Aemond’s mouth hastily abandoned your cunt, yet the curling of his fingers seemed to make up for the loss of pleasure. You felt his wet lips purse around the pebbled peak of your breast, suckling like a greedy babe.

Aemond’s senses drowned in desire, cock throbbing within his trousers, desperate to be inside of you. It wouldn’t be much longer now as he bit and kissed your chest, letting the work manifest as love bites, evidence of his carnal want for you.

“I need you, Aemond. I need you inside of me.” The suddenness of your words left him reeling, a snarl stirring within his chest as his teeth gnashed into the soft flesh between your breasts. You longed to feel his cock lay waste to your cunt, for him to fuck away his anger, his frustration.

Hastily, his hand flew to the ties of his breeches, loosening the threads of leather. You grabbed the front of his tunic, enough to effectively grab his attention as you pulled him in for a hot kiss. Passion bled through, and you could taste yourself upon his tongue as it danced with yours.

The warmth of his cockhead prodded against your folds, already slick with your cum and his own. It was messy, an entanglement born of desire, of the will to possess one another — a claim eternal. Aemond’s hand snaked toward your hip, the other keeping himself afloat before he snapped forward.

His cock invaded your cunt without any sluggishness to it, the deliberation gone entirely. A wild shimmer glistened within his eye, a domineering edge that seemed to wrestle with itself. Aemond wanted to submit to you, but in the wake of Rook’s Rest, adrenaline and a desire for power simply wouldn’t allow it.

As he fucked you like a hound, as Aegon had colorfully put it, Aemond could see you seated beside him, a crown upon your brow, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. A commoner, crawled from dirt and from nothing, into his arms — into a seat of power that none would dare challenge.

Fantasy consumed him, making him mad with lust. He wanted to crawl beneath your flesh, reside there, hear your heart hammering within your breast. He seemed pleasantly surprised when you claimed his mouth, your tongue advancing past his parted lips.

With your skirts having fallen to the swell of your hips, you hitched one leg around him, hand clawing at his back, between his shoulders. “Aemond,” You moaned, overwhelmed by his barrage of erratic thrusts. His stamina was something to witness as he kept a rather vigorous pace. “My King.”

A low growl stirred within his throat, a stark warning not to continue with your current line of thought. Aemond bit at your lower lip, prompting you to moan into his mouth, but you surprised him again when you reciprocated. Things were intense, far more fiery than they ever had been before.

Battle made him hot — such a sensation wasn’t aided by your presence, intensified tenfold. With Aegon wasting away inside of his chambers, steel melting into his flesh, swarmed by flocks of Maesters, Aemond felt no remorse — none at all as he fucked you before the Iron Throne.

He felt no remorse when he ordered Vhagar to burn his brother, he felt no remorse when he brought you into his bed — and he would feel no remorse when he ascended the throne and made you his Queen.

His cock furiously battered away at your cunt, the lewdness of flesh and intermingled breaths being the only sounds that mattered. That lilac hue of his studied your countenance, the devotion and rapture that rest upon it, your complete and utter joy. Aemond had been blessed with the loveliest creature — you.

The stretch you felt as Aemond invaded your nethers was a pleasant one, your walls tight around his length as he continued to fuck you. Face to face, chest to chest — there was no room left for deception, nowhere left to turn to. With a groan, Aemond kissed you yet again.

“Kesan mazverdagon ao ñuha dāria.” I will make you my Queen; he growled into your ear, biting at the shell, the act enough to make you whimper. He filled your cunt with his cock, the only one that it would ever take. In the heat of the moment, he bit at your neck, hand gripping your thigh so hard that it was bound to leave bruises.

Darkness swallowed the hallowed halls — braziers flickering out completely, leaving only moonlight. Even through the silvery haze, Aemond’s face remained a picture of living perfection, his brow creased with concentration.

The fervor of his pace began to slow, cock throbbing with an onslaught of arousal, one that flooded his body with waves of bliss. He wasn’t neglectful of your needs, swiftly placing a hand between your bodies, thumb rubbing circles around your clit.

Heavy footfalls of guardsmen resonated from outside of the sealed doors, a nightly patrol, prompting you to shiver from worry, but Aemond did not stop — and he wouldn’t. His blazing eye bared down upon you, glistening with the sheen of lust, of obsession, a man starved of the love and devotion he so desperately chased.

Your lips felt swollen, a byproduct of Aemond’s biting, of the many shared kisses that had turned into hunger. You were ravenous for him in ways that you had little knowledge of, scraping the surface of what desire truly meant.

Silky, pale tresses fell through your digits as you threaded them within his hair, gripping it in fistfuls as you continued to kiss him until every wisp of air was stolen from your lungs. Aemond did not relent, continuing to adopt a rhythmic pace of fucking you, cock halfway out before he thrust forward again and again.

As the both of you approached the precipice, falling into a white-hot abyss, you could hear him murmuring something in High Valyrian, strings of sweet praises and compliments. His thumb continued to circle your clit even after you had your release, milking his cock with an onslaught of your nectar.

Aemond grunted, forehead nudging against yours as he snapped forward one final time, cock sheathed inside of you as he found a warm place to spill his seed. The recklessness of it was of little consequence to him — an herbal tea could remedy it, yet the thought of filling you with an heir became tantalizing.

Not yet — not now.

If his seed were to take, it would sow discord across his house, and there was enough of that already. Aemond huffed, gathering his composure as your whimpers dwindled into soft pants. His claws sank so deep into you, talons wrenched into your heart, your body, everything.

He placed a kiss upon your brow, a subtle gesture that reminded you of his lingering duality. Aemond pulled himself out of you with an onslaught of stickiness, a mess that would only be remedied by a long soak in the bath — something he would need you for.

Your chest felt tight, both from exhilaration and the intensity of it all. As you adjusted your skirts back into place, Aemond gently coaxed you to your feet, pressed close against you as he stared at the throne. “Perhaps, once I ascend, we will have to make use of the throne.” His salacious purr made you shudder.

“There is no law forbidding us from acting upon that now,” You challenged, and Aemond had to restrain himself from acting upon such a lascivious impulse. For as coy as you could be, you were just as lustful as he was at times, a quality that he greatly adored. “Your Grace.”

As much as the teasing title seemed to provoke him, Aemond grabbed your hips, lips twitching into his familiar smirk, a near-permanent expression. “Aemond,” He corrected, pressing a kiss against your jaw. “For now, I will need assistance with drawing a bath.”

The Throne’s harrowing shape cast its shadow as the both of you abandoned the dark halls and into the light of Aemond’s chambers.

copyright @ swordgrace ; please do not attempt to steal or translate my works onto other platforms or claim it as your own.

[violetasteracademic]

Minor Azriel BC Re-Writes

My lovely Elriel's! I have slowed a bit on my in depth posts and fic writing. I'm not sure I'll be able to get back to my usual pace any time soon, but I got hit with a midday burst of swirling thoughts and creative energy. It began by reflecting on how differently everyone is interpreting the bonus chapter, and I realized I could only put it into words by quite literally putting it into words. So if I were to have read Azriel's bonus chapter and unequivocally believe it was foreshadowing that G/wyn and Azriel are actually mates, here is what I would have liked to see, and I'll go into why:

Adjustment:

Azriel landed in the ring a few feet from where G/wyn practiced in the chill night, her sword glimmering like ice in the moonlight. Sweat beaded on her brow, a faint sheen delicately scenting the air around her. Morning mist and the mixture of steel and flames from a forge. A unique combination. Azriel had always thought so. It wasn't until he saw her again in Valkyrie training that he recalled that unique scent.

Why am I making this adjustment? Because scent is one of the earliest, most prominent indicators SJM uses to indicate mate behavior long before a mate reveal. And yes, even just in a bonus chapter. Cassian has a very intense experience with Nesta's scent in their bonus chapter:

Now, one might argue that bringing up G/wyn's scent would have made it too obvious, and maybe SJM wanted to leave a little mystery. However, scent is not always related to mates. Scenting can occur platonically, as Feyre is the first to notice and describe Azriel's scent. It can occur between family. Feyre, again, experiences and describes the scent of both of her sisters first. In fact, before she is even Fae, experiences Tamlin's rain and earthen scent. So one could argue that scent is not explicitly mate related, but it is connected to closeness, trust, and yes, often sexuality and romance even if it isn't endgame. But it is always relevant in endgame couples, no matter what.

There is no indicator that, after knowing her for years, after finding her in Sangravah, and spending every day training with her, G/wyn smells like anything at all to him. The word scent was not included in the G/wyn and Azriel section of the BC, but it was repeated in Elain's portion, both in terms of him experiencing her scent, him worrying she'd be able to scent his feelings and arousal, and his describing the scent of Elain and L/ucien's mating bond being too much:

So for me personally, I would have loved for Az to have noticed or comment on G/wyn's scent. Even if it was done in a way that could have been interpreted as romantic or platonic to make for a really interesting conversation. Especially in a setting where there is sweat and exercise, areas we know SJM loves to make sexy and scent the air.

Moving on to the next alteration I would have liked to see a little more from:

Adjustment:

He nodded, silence falling. For a heartbeat, their gazes met. He blocked out the bloody memory that flashed, so at odds with the G/wyn he saw before him now. He tamped down the rage at that memory. Tried to push back that cold, unrelenting violence that had taken over him when he saw G/wyn lying there. Azriel had been instructed to keep some of the soldiers alive for questioning. He had never broken those orders before. He tried not to linger on the memory, or question why he had lost control that day.

Mostly I see this as an argument from G/wynriel's- that Azriel showed mate behavior when he slaughtered every soldier in the room ready to SA her. While I don't agree, and I think anyone would have done the same, the reality of the situation is that we already have Azriel's POV reflecting on that moment. Right there. And he didn't think much, if anything, of it. Even one single sentence alluding to some sort of emotion regarding what happened to her, or a small note that he was glad he slaughtered all of those men, and would gladly do it again, though perhaps now G/wyn could handle herself and would not need Azriel to save her today (again, touching on G/wynriel ideas here) would have been nice. But nope. No thoughts at all about that day. No rage or anger, no recollection of feelings he had that day. No indicator that he was supposed to keep some soldiers alive but didn't. Nothing at all to suggest he had a unique or out of character experience that day. It would have been very easy to add something small here without making it too much.

Sarah also loves to use terms like "tried not to think about why" or "didn't ask herself/himself why" ect. to indicate there are obvious feelings or thoughts happening, but the MC simply isn't ready to face them yet.

And again, we have this moment with Nesta and Cassian where Cassian goes into a near feral mate rage at the thought of Nesta being harmed by another man in the past in a bonus chapter years before their book came out:

Cassian knows something happened to her because of the shift in her scent. The death that Cassian's eyes promised was so intense, Nesta wouldn't give up Thomas's name, even thought he assaulted her. She thought no one deserved what Cassian would do. As he later clarified, hunt him down and shatter every bone in his body.

Again, we see this repeatedly with mates. If their mate is in danger, if their mate has been harmed, the men cannot contain their rage. Rhys is happy to let Feyre make her own choice to be with Tamlin, until he realizes she is withering away. Until he realizes she is unhappy. And if she were ever taken against her will, he would tear the world apart to find her.

These two small changes would have made a world of difference in terms of me really questioning Elriel and whether or not their book is next.

In general, I find it so interesting what people do and no not see as chemistry. Obviously I think Azriel being ready to beg on his knees for a taste of Elain, his eyes nearly rolling in the back of his head at her scent (both things that happened in Nessian's bonus chapter) is chemistry. Them being so astronomically down bad for each other that they don't care that their horny scents are filling up the whole house when her mate is literally steps away is chemistry. I think them buying secret presents for each other, and their hands shaking as they exchange them in the dead of night when everyone else is asleep is chemistry. I think them wanting to touch each other, even just the once, because they literally cannot stop themselves around each other is chemistry. I think them facing war and blood duels and the loss of allies because they don't understand why they are not mates is chemistry.

I am not going to spend time assessing whether or not G/wyn and Azriel's banter is romantic chemistry or not, because that is clearly personal and up for interpretation. What I will say is it read the exact same to me as Azriel teaching Feyre how to fly, which was also fun, respectful, full of banter and genuine enjoyment of each others company and Azriel's secret snarky sense of humor. So if SJM wanted to differentiate Feyre and Azriel's flying lessons from G/wyn and Azriel's ribbon cutting lessons, those are the minor adjustments I would have liked to see.

As it stands, Azriel and Elain want each other like no ones business, which is why I want them to be together and anticipate they will carry the next story with all of the stakes and established plot surrounding all of the things that could happen if Elain and Azriel tried to be together. If Azriel and G/wyn are going to be revealed to be mates, I'll need SJM to do a lot of explaining as to why Azriel did not experience anything mate like towards her and also understand why their plot is more powerful and interesting than Elriel's, which as of now simply isn't able to be compared because it doesn't exist yet. Why he continued to lose sleep and stare at a gift from another woman every night for a year when he saw his mate every single day. When he saved his mate, and apparently feels nothing about it now, but who still gets flashes of anger and rage in this very same book when he thinks about Elain being kidnapped.

Regardless of how you feel about his shadows hearing G/wyn's silent music and dancing with it (I'll be doing a post on his shadows later, especially after some bombs dropped in HOFAS, though I can't promise when), whether or not you noticed all of the parallels between Nesta and G/wyn and Azriel and G/wyn (the seven pm bell chime for the evening priestess service, the sense of calm around G/wyn, the hearing a silent song that seems to come from her and calling explicitly to them, the glow surrounding G/wyn's imagery, their powers interacting, feeling a desire to caw about her or see her smile for whatever reason) I simply don't see how Azriel could be years into knowing G/wyn, seeing her and training with her every single day, seeing her harmed and in distress, seeing her kidnapped, and still he has no emotions over the things that have happened to her. No feral male rage. No awareness of her scent. No indicator he is acting in a special way towards her that he doesn't do towards other females.

I could go on, but this seems like a good place to wrap up!

I don't cross tag, and would appreciate sticking to pro elriel tags should you reblog, which I highly encourage and always appreciate! As always, my work is for Elriel's and not intended to start a fight on the internet with strangers who think differently than I do! I don't think any minds will be changed until the book announcement. I will certainly respect whatever direction SJM decides to go, but some directions certainly require a LOT more work than others based on how everything has read to me.

[thegnomelord]

Hi, I want to start off by asking how you are doing, and that I loved the monster task force 141 × reader fic and the cyber-punk sagau headcanon’s.

Ok, now into the ask. Can you do a smut fic with Childe where the reader is a sub top and Childe is a dom bottom where Childe whorships cyber-punk readers body running his hands all over readers joints which are bonded so reader can’t touch him while overstimulating and orgasm denying (is reader able to be overstimulated and have orgasm's... if not then forget about those 2 kinks.

Sorry for the long ask.

Kink list to make it clear:

- Body whorship

- Bondage

- Overstimulation?

- Orgasm denial?

Heck yeah my peep, I'm doing better, and it's great that you liked my other stuff, sorry it took this long, med school is a bitch. Hope ya like it:DD

P.S: ya'll are always free to ask me/give me ideas of what to write, i'm gonna be trying to write more from now on.

Pious Worship

CW: NSFW, body worship, bondage, overstimulation, orgasm denial, mild electro play?, SAGAU au! Cyberpunk reader!, Sub Top reader, Dom Bottom Childe, riding, Dom/Sub dynamics, Worshipper Childe, Bondage. NOT proof read lol.

It had taken you a long while to convince him to do this. For all of his devotion he had been... hesitant; To please you was the highest form of reward anyone could dream of receiving, but what you had asked of him felt wrong — the thought of binding you like the heathens who'd fallen for pretty lies made him physically sick, the thought of chaining you, his guide, his light, his Steel Forged God...he couldn't even come up with the proper words to describe the sickening disgust he'd felt in his very bones.

But you are his light, his guide, his merciful creator, so how could he possibly refuse?

Childe is insatiable.

He rides you with wild abandon like a beast in heat, too caught up in the desperate chase for release and the need to please you to care about the strain in his muscles or his burning thighs. He slams his entire body weight down on your cock, moaning and babbling about how perfectly you stretch him out, how you fill him up so perfectly he can feel you in his throat, how happy he is to be the one who pleases you like this.

His heart flutters as you watch him, drawing pleasure from his pleasure rather than from how tightly his body grips you, your arms tied above your head with the finest silk. The corp remade you for warfare, not pleasure. Steel is unfeeling, it can survive more than living flesh, and with your enhancements you barely feel anything besides the hot tightness of his body.

He drinks up the little rumbles of your synthetic voice box he manages to pull when he takes you fully, driving his body to bounce faster on you, racing towards his second release while you are nowhere near your first. He moans whorishly, his fingers dig into your shoulder joints, cock twitching as sperm and electro shoot from his body.

A strangled sound leaves your lips before your body shuts down without notice, voice box giving a mechanical screech as it glitches, every artificial muscle in your frame contracting from the sudden flood of electricity.

"My Grace! Are you- no, no, no, no- please don't be-”

You hear his worried whimpers when your audio receptors finally come back online, your optics shuttering open yet barely able to see anything with the sea of blinking warning screens in your view. You feel his calloused hands on your cheeks, the usually dull sensation now making you shudder as your combatting systems had turned every synthetic sensor up to 11.

“My Grace, please tell me you’re okay, please, I couldn’t have- I didn’t mean to- I-, I-, I-”

He hiccups, and you manage a glitched warble from your frazzled voice box as you assess your internal diagnostics— his electro delusion had shocked you enough to lock your joints in place without damaging the vital life support systems in your core. You should be able to move again when the electricity wears off, your body geared to survive stronger EMP bombs. You tell him such, reaffirming that he hadn't harmed you.

"Oh, my Grace, I am so sorry, please, forgive me!"

He says, tears prickling his eyes as he rises off your cock, pulling a surprised gasp from you when that small sensation nearly makes you cum on the spot, your cock — your whole body — sensitive to the smallest touch.

And Childe gets...giddy.

Not like a child with a new toy, but like Dottore when an experiment is successful.

Childe hung on every sound leaving you, eyes growing wide; Had you thought of this? Had you prepared just for this to happen? For his electro to make it easier to feel, to make it easier for him to worship you? Yes, that must be it!

“My Grace, you are beautiful like this. Thank you, thank you, thank you-”

His voice was a hoarse whisper as he slunk down your body, carefully holding up your leg with steady calloused hands. His lips are dry as he places reverent kisses the metal surrounding your exposed ankle joint. Your metal parts taste no different than the tips of his arrows, like blood and war, but the soft sounds you make from the odd sensation has him wanting to give more.

He doesn't even notice when he cuts his lip on a sharp edge, but aren't you proud of him? Who else would bleed for you like him? His tongue delves into tight little cracks between your pistons and wires where only the smallest of ripperdock tools had ever come. His tongue isn't as small, nor as precise, but the sheer eagerness in his movement has him touching and pressing on the sensitive sensors all the same.

You jolt, or you would if you could, overcome with sensations your body isn't built to process. More warning screens flash in your sight, static pleasure/pain buzzing along faux synapses. His heart all but leaps from his chest as he listens to the sounds you make.

So he redoubles his effort, clever little tongue licking at sensitive sensor arrays, mouthing and sucking on cables until soft frazzled sounds leave your glitched voice box. He can taste coolant on his tongue, his lips tingling with electricity, blood and spit mixing together in his mouth and making your metal parts glisten in the light. He polishes your ankle joint until it shines, before moving up towards your knee, tracing the edge where metal plates meet faux skin.

You're internal cooling system has started at this point, body shaking as best it can. Your sensors don't know how to interpret the sensations, corp augs having been geared for warfare and not worship, so the processors don't even try to categorize the new sensations into neat boxes. Instead you're hit with the full force of it, the feelings flooding your mind, zapping through every neural cell and artificial link.

He's at your hips now, eagerly sucking you off as his clever fingers busy themselves worming and rubbing delicate hardware and artificial ligaments beneath inside your hip joints. You feel like you're on the edge, your release so close you can feel it burning at the base of your cock.

But something is wrong, like a knot or a rock inside your stomach, something that's keeping you from cumming, forcing you to experience these overwhelming sensations. You sob, barely able to think, and his heart soars at making you feel this way, making you feel this pleasure.

He's quick to finish polishing your cock and even quicker to climb up and sink down again. But that only makes the maddening heat burning in your loins worse, every nerve in your augmented body feeling like it's on fire with no sight of release. You can barely see him through the cracks between different warning screens, sensor arrays screaming at you with information your body can't interpret any other way than pure sensation.

"Please, let me do this your Grace."

You watch — you can do nothing but watch — as he takes one of your limp arms. His muscles bulge beneath his skin as he has to work hard to move your arm now that your motors and pistons are momentarily inactive. He smiles at you, mouth opening wide before he puts your fingers in his mouth. Little jolts of sensation run through your body every time his tongue flicks between different joints, teeth scraping along faux skin and metal plates.

He continues to bounce on your cock, unaware of what blissful Hell he's making for you when he pulls your spit shined fingers from his mouth, urgently but carefully pawing at the plates which cover your hidden weaponry in your forearms.

"Your Grace, I'm a fool to demand this of you, but please, let me see them, let me worship you like you're supposed to be worshiped."

He says, eyes wide and pleading, laying desperate kisses at your wrist joint, lips almost burning from how hot your metal parts are becoming. He needs to worship you, all of you, especially the part you usually keep reserved for the battle field and nowhere else.

Your voice box is back online to the point where you can talk, and you know that if you told him, he would happily continue bouncing on your dick until you were finally able to cum, with all notions of his own need forgotten.

But you don't.

For as much as your systems may be screaming at you. For as much as your cooling systems struggle to keep you from overheating. For as much as you desire to cum... you want to please him — the first character you ever wished for, the first you ever mained, your favorite.

The look on his face when you manage to get your weaponry unlocked melts your heart despite the lustful heat in your chest. Your combat systems are blissfully unaware of your true intentions as they power on the pistons and gears in your weapons, making them extend to their proper configuration.

"Thank you, thank you your Grace!"

He breathes, immediately reaching out to trace the sharp points of your weapons with his tongue before he latches on the first joint that connects your weapon with your arm. It makes sensation, neither pain nor pleasure but pure feeling, rush from your arms right down to your dick still balls deep inside him.

Your vocal box glitches a second time, your head moving just an inch as you're subjected to his torturous worship again, and you can only pray that your body is able to move again before you loose your mind to the pure sensations.

[ghostandsoap]

The Battle of Coming Home

John Price x Fem! "Peach" Reader Tags: Angst. Anxiety. Anxious John. Worried Peach. Domestic fic if you squint. Word Count: 2.4k "But we both see the same things."

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There's a lot of things that people don't tell you when you sign up to protect the world from all the evil that's in it.

They don't tell you about the silence that engulfs you when the gunfire ceases, or the way your heart pounds in the stillness. They don't tell you about the late nights when you're in an unfamiliar place, your home feeling like a distant memory.

They don't tell you about the friendships that you make, forged in conflict and bonds stronger than steel. Friendships built on mutual respect and relatability. They definitely don't tell you about the pain of losing one of those friends.

They don't tell you about the weight of the uniform, not the physical weight, but the weight of the responsibility, the expectations, the legacy of those who came before you.

No, they don't tell you any of that until you experience it for yourself. As a matter of fact, most of the things that John had learned about his career choice only came when he was knee deep in the middle of it all.

And there was one thing that he wasn't prepared for, and it was the one thing he still struggled with.

Going home.

They certainly didn't tell him about the transition back to civilian life, the struggle to fit back into a world that hadn't seen what he had seen...hadn't felt what he had felt.

They didn't tell him about the battle that begins when the war ends. The battle to find his place and peace.

Frankly, he was pretty sure the only reason no one had told him about this was because no one wanted to admit that they struggled with it too.

Going home after a long time away wasn't as easy as it sounded.

Oddly enough, he had gotten much better as he grew older. When he was younger, he was a shell of himself for days on end. Now at least, he could semi-function.

The first few days home were always the worst. He felt like a stranger in his own house...he felt different and changed from the raging world outside.

John found himself in an unfamiliar battlefield...his own home.

The echoes of war still rang in his ears, the adrenaline still coursed through his veins, but the battleground had changed.

The familiar walls of his home felt alien. The silence of peace deafening after the constant cacophony of gunfire and explosions.

Everything felt foreign to him. The softness of his couch, the warmth of his bed, the aroma of an actual decent meal -- and worst of all, and the one that hurt him the most, was that she felt unfamiliar to him in his home...in their home.

John was always impressed at how easily she was able to settle into domestic life...for however long they had the opportunity to live it. She could adjust so quickly and efficiently that no one would even know that she had just returned from seeing the absolute worst that the world had to offer.

He was nearly crawling out of his skin and she was floating around like she was used to this life of domesticated bliss. He loved seeing her so comfortable and at ease, but he wished he could match her serenity.

Peach noticed from the very first time they returned home together that going home wasn't easy on him. He was stressed, completely and utterly nearing a breakdown over the sudden change of pace.

She watched him poke at his meals, when he usually had the appetite of a horse. She watched him move through the halls like a ghost. She heard him toss and turn through the night, restless and going through turmoil.

She knew he was molded by the harsh realities of war. This domestic tranquility that she embraced was a world he struggled to comprehend.

He was sitting on the sofa, sitting up perfectly straight and rigid. He was clad in sweats and a t-shirt, but to him it felt like wearing a block of lead. The TV was on, but whatever was on might as well have been in some foreign language to him because he didn't have the slightest clue as to what was happening on the screen.

"John, do you want a cup of coffee, honey?" She called to him from the kitchen, breaking him out of his trance that he had been lost in for the last several minutes.

"No, darling. I'm alright," He said, not even comprehending his response. "Come sit."

That was his way of saying he needed her to be near him.

Another telltale sign that John was being challenged with being home was how clingy he became. He didn't want to be left alone for more than a few minutes...he couldn't be left alone or he would absolutely lose his mind or convince himself that he wasn't safe here.

As long as she was close, his hands were on her in some form or another. He was kissing her, holding her, talking to her -- whatever he could to physically know she was there and he wasn't alone.

She made him a cup of coffee anyway because he would end up taking "just one sip" of hers and then drink half of it. He didn't know this, but she usually made him decaf when they were home. He was so jittery and uptight as it was, so caffeine was definitely not a good idea.

She entered the living room with the two mugs of coffee, also clad in at-home loungewear. She set the mugs on the table in front of the couch before taking a seat. He looked worse today than he had the last two days. John always said that day three was the worst.

He didn't try to hide it. He could never get anything past her. He did try the first time she came home with him, but she sniffed him out within a day and he admitted that this was the usual routine.

"Oh, John..." She sighed sympathetically at the man who was sitting rigidly on the couch, every muscle tense and stressed. "Try to relax, babe."

John reached for his cup of coffee, taking a slow first sip. She didn't comment on the slight shake that he had in his hands.

"I'm alright," He said, clearly lying and feeling like he was going to jump out of his skin. "Thanks, Peaches."

He cradled that cup like it would explode if it let go. He didn't care that it was borderline burning his hands.

"You're so anxious," She rested a hand on his shoulder, caressing him gently. "I don't know what else to do to make you comfortable."

She had already done so much -- which he had reminded her of already. She home cooked every meal, did the laundry, fluffed and re-fluffed pillows, ran his showers, showered with him when he didn't want to be alone, changed the sheets, cleaned the house -- just about anything you could name, she had done to make the house feel like home for him.

She understood that it was an internal conflict he was having, but she thought that if the external environment felt good, then maybe it would brighten him up.

He shook his head, staring at the pool of black coffee in that bright red mug until it looked distorted.

"I'll be better tomorrow. Third day's always the worst," He exhaled a long breath, attempting a genuine smile. "Don't get all worked up over me."

"Can't help it," She said. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I quite like you a lot."

"Yeah?" He said, a sarcastic tone in his voice. "I never knew."

They shared a small laugh, the most progress that John had made in days. There was a stretch of silence, other than the background chatter of whatever was playing on the TV.

She watched him like she had been the last few days. She watched him stare at his drink, his tired eyes growing more and more exhausted by the minute.

"It amazes me how fast you adjust," He sighed. "I don't know how you do it."

"I don't have the same responsibilities that you do," She pointed out. "You have a lot more pressure on you."

"But we both see the same things." He held back a shiver from shuddering down his back when he raised his head to look at her.

"I guess...maybe you just feel things differently than I do," She said. "Nothin' wrong with that."

She meant that. He could see that she did.

She wasn't angry with him for being so down during their first few days off together. She wasn't impatient with him and wishing he would just get over the shock of being home already.

She was totally present and there for him for whatever he might've needed.

He loved her for being so caring and taking care of him when he should've been used to it by now...he loved her.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She asked.

Peach had asked that question about a dozen times in the last few days. When things got too quiet and he was wrapped up in his head, she would ask. She knew what it was, she understood what it was -- but it would never hurt him to talk about it again.

"No, my love. I'm good." He reached to set his cup on the table.

"You sure?" She asked again.

"Yeah," He nodded. "I'm alright."

When he was ready or felt like he needed to, he would talk to her. It was the same old things they had talked about before, but he would if the time came. For now, he wanted to change the subject and try to focus on something else.

"What's that new show you've been watching?" He said, waving his hand to get his question across. "The one about the crazy rich American ladies."

"The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?" She asked, a slight sparkle appearing in her eyes at the mention of her new favorite reality show.

Peach loved all kinds of TV shows. John was more of a nightly news kind of guy, but every once in a while he would take an interest in one of her shows and they would watch it together.

Price rested his hand on her thigh, gently massaging as a way of grounding himself and showing affection to her.

"That's the one," He nodded. "Can you tell me about it?"

"I don't think that'll be all that interesting to you." She laughed, her gentle giggle bringing a flood of warmth to John's chest.

"I want to hear about it," He sighed heavily, trying to take any kind of tension off of his chest that he could. "Please, darling."

She knew he needed something to distract him, and she could talk about her trashy TV shows all day long.

"Alright. Well..." She began. "Kyle and Camille don't get along because Camille accused Kyle of calling her insecure -- Kyle and Kim are having a hard time because Kim is goin' through a divorce."

"And Kyle is Kim's brother?" John asked, earning a brow furrow from her.

"No, honey bun. Kyle is a woman," She explained. "Kyle and Kim are sisters."

John's brows raised in surprise, his lips turning into a small smile as she carried on.

"So then Adrienne and Lisa are the oldest of the wives, and usually Adrienne is the voice of reason," She said. "Taylor is kinda just there, but sometimes she's in on the drama too."

John was following along as best he could, but honestly some of this stuff just went right over his head.

"So what do they do for a living? How do they make their money?" He asked.

"They're housewives, babe. They don't work." She explained, amused at how this was all too baffling for him.

"I thought they were filthy rich?" He asked.

"They are. Their husbands make the money or they come from an already wealthy family," She said. "That's the whole appeal. They're rich women who don't do much of anything except shop, go to lunch, and get into catfights. Total TV drama and petty arguments."

She went on and on spilling all the ins and outs of it all, pretty much running him through the entire first season. The big parties that they host for no reason, the money, the drama -- and of course, the dramatic confrontations.

"Do you...want to watch the next episode with me? I just started season 2. I can catch you up as we go." She asked, holding back a grin so he wouldn't feel obligated to say yes.

But with her, it was always an easy yes.

"Sure, baby."

She sprang into action then, locating the TV remote and draping a blanket over the two of them. She flicked over to the right streaming service (John often made fun of her for having so many subscriptions) and wasted no time getting the show started.

He felt himself relax just a tiny bit when she snuggled up to him, his arm keeping her close to him as he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.

Holding her close was all he needed to be able to sit still for a bit. He could get through the next few episodes as long as he had her there for company.

"This okay?" She asked once she was comfortable, craning her head to look up at him.

He pressed a kiss to her nose, something that never failed to earn a small laugh from her.

"Mmhm," He hummed. "I'm good."

As the TV blared the theme song and all the Beverly Hills glitz and glamor was paraded on the screen, John felt her settle in and begin walking him through it.

He was more than happy to listen, and he was doing his best to take advantage of the time he had to spend with her alone.

John knew that soon enough, their job would come calling, and they would be shipped off to the next mission.

John was a fighter. He would make it through this just as he had every time before. It was a new mission in and of itself every time he came home...and even if he didn't feel like it, each time it became easier and easier.

He knew he had a support system to fall back on...a support system that he also loved so endlessly. She didn't even realize that just being there with him was a tremendous help.

Her just being her was helpful. Her making him cups of coffee, making his meals, and yes -- even rambling on and on about a bunch of rich wives out in California.

Maybe he did struggle to find his place in a world that had moved on without him, but with her -- he always felt at home.

[strangesoulmates]

Fanfic asks for the new year, 2, 5, 8!

2.Will you participate in any fandom exchanges or fic challenges, etc?

Yes, absolutely! I am currently signed up for a fix-it fic challenge that I'm working on, but that has to stay pretty hush-hush for now. But like, I am so excited to try and get more involved in the Alex Rider Fandom. There's so many different challenges that run and I'm psyched to get involved in as many as I can that are running this year. I started getting involved (quietly) in the AR fandom right around when Secret Santa signups started, but I couldn't quite trust my muse enough to go ahead and put my name in, and I was a little hesitant about doing so when I hadn't written anything for the fandom which felt a little unfair to my recipient.  But afterwards, I wished I had.  And I love participating in events in general!  So, yeah, basically as many as I can get my hands on that are running this year lol

5. Which WIP is first on your list to complete this year? Will you post a snippet?

WIP that's first on my list is for the aforementioned hush-hush challenge, assuming I can finish it in time.  But the next one is def the soulmate AU!  So, have a snippet from that

He should have been terrified. After all, he *knew* Yassen now. Down to the core of him, made of steel, forged and reforged in the fires of more tragedy and betray than any person should ever have to deal with. Yassen was all sharpness and jagged edges, the broken pieces of Yasha forged into a weapon. Dangerous. A killer. But at the very core of him had been an empty place. An aching one, where loyalty and love had curled up and waited, nearly withered away. A place Yassen had numbed himself to, deep inside his walls. It was this place he had tucked Alex into, their soulbond anchored in the very core of him, those formidable walls and sharp edges closing up around him. Yassen, Alex knew, would never hurt him. Would protect him, no matter the cost. There were many things about this situation to be afraid of, but Yassen wasn't one of them. A sense of awed, fond agreement crept across the bond, warm and sticky like syrup (like blood), and Alex knew Yassen had sensed his train of thought through the bond, new as it was.

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you’ve never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

I mean, I don't know?  Like, I at least tend to try my ideas out so that I can get them out of my head a little bit.  Most of the ones I'm not sure will ever see the light of day are the ones that are just like, pure filth. And it's been a lot time since I wrote smut, so I'm out of practice. But maybe some of them!

[nedcanquen]

A Bond Forged With Steel (Hetalia Rare Pair Exchange 2017) - Part 1

Hi @realmzenith! Here is Part 1 of your Secret Santa Gift! (I am currently typing Part 2 like crazy but I will post it by Jan 17th!) I’m sorry it has taken me so long, I started and restarted this fic three times! I hope you like your gift (multi-chapter fic!).

For the rest of my readers - have a GerMerica break from the usual programming :P for the Hetalia Rare Pair Secret Santa Exchange. Thanks for organizing @aphsecretsanta! (And I will post Part 2 very soon!)

Pairing: Germany/America

Rating: Teen

Tags: Fantasy AU

Image from Pexels

For as long as he can remember, Ludwig has known exactly what he was going to do with his life – he was going to follow his family's craft and be a Beilschmidt Blacksmith. Beilschmidt blades and works were famous across the lands of the Kingdom of Hetalia, ruled over by the now mostly retired warrior-king Roma. Roma however, had set an example for most of his citizens by going on many quests as a much younger man. Now everyone wanted to be some kind of a hero.

For the most part, the Kingdom's inhabitants got along – humans, elves, dwarves, dragons, and many many others. They knew how to keep to themselves or trade when needed. But once in a while, someone always decided to make trouble, and when that happened – the dragon with serious anger management issues, the overly condescending elf magician who started enchanting and enslaving the humans next door, the serial killer beserkers – well, Roma used to take care of them. Now that Roma was older and dedicated his time to art and music, the many others he had inspired kept the peace for him. Hefty bounties were awarded to successful peacekeepers and in such a place, well, the blacksmith family that was known to produce the best weapons were kept very comfortable indeed.

Ludwig first met the Albion family when he was a boy – just old enough to be allowed to help out at the main forge, but too young to officially start work as an apprentice. Of course, blacksmithing was not only the art of the forge, his brothers and grandfather made sure that he learned about the other aspects of their business – how to do sums and manage the accounting, how to gauge customers and manage them when they came in. There were some customers that the Beilschmidts would not take on, no matter how good their coin was.

Arthur Albion took his name from the forests he had grown up in – the Albion woods lay far in the north, usually covered in fog and rain. It was home to many fae and was strong in magic. There were times when Arthur Albion clearly betrayed his mixed fae-human heritage, with his bright-green eyes, and barely suppressed magical energy. He was a regular customer to their forge, and they especially liked him because he did not always want swords. Most of Arthur's requests were customized and very specialized, with very specific metallic component requirements – his requests were a challenge and worth good coin. Ludwig also wasn't very clear on this, but he had heard one of his brothers say that the human side of Arthur was distant kin to the Beilschmidts.

So on this day, when Ludwig had met Alfred and Matthew Albion for the first time, he remembers the energy and positive humming from Gilbert, singing to himself as he checks their stocks and supplies. “The tankard I last made for Arthur! He used it to bind a spell that helped capture Morgossa the Malevolent –  who comes up with these stupid names?! Anyway, fancy that? A sleeping tankard to get rid of a necomancer. Wonder what it'll be next?!”

Ludwig was especially close to Gilbert so he smiled and followed his brother around in the supply room. “Maybe a bracelet that binds?”

Gilbert shrugged. “Eh...that's been done.”

“Brother, that doesn't mean that it cannot be made again or used again.”

They hear the door opening and their grandfather's familiar gravelly voice greeting Arthur, sounding slightly surprised. When Ludwig and Gilbert arrive in the main hall, they see why – Arthur is holding two children, brothers from the look of them, and around Ludwig's own age. One is clutching to Arthur's hand, the one with curlier hair, while the other is straining to be released from Arthur's hand.

“WOW This IS SO GREAT!”

“Alfred, be still!” Arthur snaps but Alfred ignores him.

“Look Arthur come on! We're standing where the Blue Sword was made! The Azzuri! That was the sword that basically made this kingdom! Oh WOW – is this actually the Snakehaired Princess herself? You know the story right Mattie? King Roma reflected her curse back at her with the sword and she turned to stone! And then he gave Germania Beilschmidt the statue as a 'thank you!'”

There is a lot of coughing in the room suddenly – Gilbert trying his best not to obviously laugh, and his grandfather, well. He is calm and stony, maybe his jaw clenched but that was all. Ludwig admired that, in many ways, he wanted to be like his grandfather – controlled, never letting his emotions best him. His grandfather had once adventured and fought at the King’s side, now he was content to stay at the forge.

“That is enough Alfred!” Arthur sighs. “Now settle down, I need to discuss business with the Beilschmidts.”

It became clear that Alfred was not going to settle down, so finally in a fit of desperation, Arthur stared almost pleadingly at his grandfather.

Gilbert laughed some more before placing a hand on Ludwig's shoulder. “Lud, why don't you show Alfred and Matthew around?”

Ludwig wasn't sure about that, he was shy around strangers and preferred having one of his brothers or something clear as a subject to talk about. Then Gilbert whispered to him “Don't worry, that kid will do all the talking, just ask him which sword or story is his favorite.”

Well, he did have a point.

“Besides, if you can't play with a kid your own age now, how will you talk product specs and price when him later?”

Now that Ludwig understood this was also part of his training, he leaped into the new task with vigor. “I will give you both a tour!” He declared as professionally as he could. He knows the official visit areas – the showroom where they show off gifts and samples of their work, the little museum they have set up to explain their family history and where they source their metals. He's seen his brothers do it countless of times. He can do it! “Come with me!”

Surprisingly, they follow quickly, without a word of protest.

-

“...and this is Wangguo Steel – very rare, we ship it from the far East and have a special agreement with the Dragon Emperor. This is what the Sword of Infinity was forged from – we keep this ore in our museum to-”

“I'm gonna need a sword of...I dunno yet but it's going to have a cool name!” Alfred declares, face pressed against the harmless magical forcefield to stare at the shimmering ore. “Matthew's going to need one too! Isn't that right brother? We'll be going on adventures too!” He looks at Ludwig. “What do you think your first adventure will be? Taming a Skaya Eagle? Saving a town from the appetites of the Pontianak vampires? Defeating a Dragon at chess?!”

“No!” Ludwig looks at Alfred in shock. “My first adventure will be making my first real sword for  questors! Not children who want to get themselves killed. Aren't you supposed to start small and work your way up? Take care of a naughty gremlin or two first?”

Alfred's face falls. “But they’re not really harmful harmful! I mean there’s actual harmful that people need help from, and pests that they could take care of if they weren’t actually lazy.”

Ludwig considers this logic for a moment. “But people are busy. Wouldn’t you be a hero too if you freed up a senior hero to actually go fight a necromancer, rather than waste their time on gremlins?”

Something lights up in Alfred’s face but Matthew looks upwards with a long-suffering sigh. Before the boys leave, they promise that they will write, and make Ludwig promise that he will write back.

Three months later, Ludwig reads that Alfred has been clearing the Albion home (and basically every area his seven-year-old legs could run himself to) of Gremlins.

NINE YEARS LATER

Ludwig bears up with the travelling like any other hardship he endures, but he still misses home.

“You won’t always have all the tools and comforts of home available when we’re contracted to do our jobs!” Gilbert lectures as he and Ludwig walk beside the horses pulling their travelling forge. Gilbert has always been a hard taskmaster, but it has only intensified over the years. This journey is a test of sorts - if Ludwig can produce all manner of tools, weapons, armor, and whatever objects or tasks he’s challenged to with this traveling forge he’s built himself...well...he’s ready to join the rest of the family. He’ll be a full blacksmith.

“Why is Francis suddenly so adamant to have a blacksmith on-site?” Ludwig should have asked this sooner but he was so focused on building the forge, and making sure his materials were all accounted for and packed. Purchasing the services of an on-site blacksmith would already be astronomical in cost, yet Francis, Duke of Bonnefoy and one of the King’s many grandsons, had purchased a contract with the Beilschmidts in particular. Gilbert was the main blacksmith, as Francis’ friend as well, but Ludwig had to go along to complete his apprenticeship. Gilbert was to be his final reviewer of everything he made though, and Gilbert had an exacting eye for quality.

“A new project, a new charge to irritate Arthur Albion. But I kinda agree, and it wasn’t just Francis who purchased our services.”

“Who else?”

Gilbert laughs. “You haven’t heard from your penpals in a while have you? Arthur’s charges.”

Ludwig shakes his head. “I think we all had more important things to do. Trades to master.” The past few years would be the most intense for any apprentice. “I last heard that the boys did not manifest magical abilities, so they are training to become warriors.”

“As expected.” Gilbert shrugs.

When they finally arrive at Duke Francis’ estate, Ludwig feels a little bad that he has to mar the perfect green grass with the forge’s wheels, but this is where he is told to put it, so that he does. Eventually, he will explore the grounds for himself to better understand where the forge can be kept so that it is both conveniently placed and not marring the prettiness of the place. He’s making sure nothing has been damaged by the long journey (even though he had checked the forge consistently, three times a day, since they had begun) when Francis’ arrival is announced.

“You finally made it Gilbert!” Francis laughs. There was a part of Ludwig that had often admired his brother’s friend’s sense of art, aesthetics, and daring.

“Finally? You travel on foot carrying a forge with you, you spoiled brat! Now where’s the student?!”

Student? Another student? Ludwig’s curiosity burns enough to turn him from the forge.

“Right here. Alfred! You remember Gilbert of course, he is the best swordsman I know, he will teach you.”

Alfred? Ludwig jogs up to where the group is speaking and stares. It IS Alfred Albion. Alfred notices him too, and for a moment, their eyes lock. Has so much time passed? How is Alfred as tall as him now? What has...

“OKAY LISTEN UP!” Gilbert yells and that’s enough to make Alfred pay attention to him instead. “I’m gonna have two students at the same time so Ludwig, Alfred, listen carefully. Alfred, you’ve paid for me to be your swordsmaster for six months - that’s enough for me to get you grounded on BASICS! But once you have that strong foundation in basics…”

Ludwig didn’t hear the rest of the lecture but HOW? How did Alfred afford this?!

“And Ludwig! While I’m training Alfred, you have to watch - watch how he moves, watch what he needs, this is part of your training and your test - I’ll be quizzing you on how you customize body armour, tools, and weapons for Alfred, specific to his needs, how you’d make him the best warrior he can be. You’ll outfit Alfred and if I’m satisfied, your apprenticeship is over, if not, you’ll melt them down and if I’m pleased with Alfred, I’ll build his suit. And YOU…”

Alfred snaps back at attention.

“You’re going to have to earn it. My brother can make you the best armor and weapons in the known world, but only if you’re worthy of it. I have no qualms melting down our products rather than letting them be soiled by unworthiness. Both of you, is that clear?”

“Clear!” Ludwig yells out of habit. Francis however, has to nudge Alfred before he nervously stands at attention and yells the same.

[ninjnerd-anaklusmos]

mary's song -mammon

Hey, thanks for the ask! I hope you enjoy this fic!

Mary's Song:

No one could have predicted the outcome of two very different souls meeting at such a young age, but whatever the case was, something truly magical had transpired between the children, a bond forged in iron and steel, truth and love. Unbreakable and unchangeable, a force to be reckoned with. Nothing could stop the eventual outcome from drawing closer and closer, nothing could drive a wedge between the bond. They were inseparable and whole with one another, as if Destiny themself had proclaimed them to be one. It was something unexplainable and intangible, but something that existed all the same.

Even if the rest of the world could never understand it, they did. They would always remember and hold the memories close to their heart, the bond shared between souls stronger than could ever be described by mere words. It was terrifying and beautiful.

***

Jumping the fence, the little boy cackled as his brother yelled at him to slow down. He could feel the rush of running, the quickness of his feet as they pounded across grassy yards as he dashed through his neighborhood, laughing delightedly. Nothing in the world would ever be as amazing as being free to run, arms and legs pumping to keep up the momentum, the wind ripping against him as he ran and ran. He had no destination; and he didn’t seek to find one. He just wanted to feel the wind, hear the thumps of his bare feet on grass, taste the delight that stuck to his lips as he smiled wider and wider the longer he ran.

He only slowed when he was struggling to catch his breath, collapsing onto the ground, laughter bubbling out of him as he looked up at the sky above, blue eyes tracking the movement of the clouds. They were very slow in their pace, leisurely drifting along without a care in the world. He narrowed his eyes when something shadowed him, causing him to look away from the clouds, locking eyes with another kid. They were about his age by looks, and they were looking at him funny. Nervous but unwilling to show it, the little boy sat up, crossing his arms. “What?”

The other child shrugged, plopping down in the grass next to him. They smiled at him, pointing up at the sky. “I like to watch clouds too.”

Blinking, he ducked his head, eyes watching the wind gently wave the grass beside his knee. “Ya do?”

He heard the kid laugh brightly, “I do! I’m MC, what’s your name?”

Puffing his chest out, he grinned in what he hoped was a roguish way. “Mammon!”

MC giggled at him, “Mammon. Okay, let’s watch clouds!”

Mammon huffed at the other child giggling at him, but he did lay back on the grass when they did, both children watching the sky above.

***

The truck was idling in the drive, headlights off when they jumped inside, closing the door. “Go!”

The truck’s driver shifted gears, tossing an arm over the back of the seat, blue eyes scanning the drive behind him as he pulled the truck out onto the road. When they hit the asphalt, he shifted gears again, pressing his foot against the gas as the truck sped up down the stretch of road. Laughing, MC threw their hands up. “We did it!”

Their companion flashed them a toothy grin, “A’course we did!”

MC shifted in their seat, taking Mammon’s hand off of the gear shift and twining their fingers together instead. They grinned at the dusting of pink on the boy’s face. “Thanks for hanging out with me tonight. I needed it.”

Mammon shrugged lightly, eyes on the road. “Yeah, me too. Kinda lonely on Friday night with nobody to hang with.”

MC grinned cheekily at him, “Like me?”

The tan boy nodded, pulling up to a red light, taking their clasped hands and pressing a kiss to the back of MC’s hand. “You exactly.”

MC couldn’t stop the flush that spread across their face in response, “When did you get bold?”

Mammon flashed a teasing smile at them as the light flashed green. “I’m a man of many secrets!”

MC chuckled at that, “You aren’t a man yet.”

Mammon squawked indignantly, “I will have you know that sixteen is plenty old enough to be a man! Hell, I’ve been a man since fourteen, if ya go by Spartan times!”

More laughter escaped them at that, making them wheeze for breath. “We aren’t Spartans!”

“Thank fuck for that!”

MC cackled as Mammon continued to drive, no destination in mind, just two teens on a wild ride.

***

MC winced when the keys were tossed to the ground at their feet, “I didn’t-”

Mammon looked upset, tears shimmering in his blue eyes. “I know! I know ya didn’t-”

They weren’t sure what to do, nervously reaching for him as he seemed to get further and further away. MC pursed their lips, uncertain on what to say. “I wasn’t playing with your feelings.”

Mammon scrubbed at his eyes, turning away to try and hide the fact that he was crying. “I know! I know ya ain’t like that...”

MC slowly crept closer, placing their hand on his shoulder, “I didn’t know he’d be there. We aren’t dating, he just saw a moment and took advantage of it. Please believe me.”

Mammon sniffled, not looking at them. “It’s fine if ya ain’t- If ya don’t wanna date me. I wouldn’t either.”

MC inhaled sharply, “No! No, Mammon, no.” They gently cupped his cheek, lifting his face so they could lock eyes. “I do want to date you. I really do.”

Mammon shook his head slowly, “Yer pityin’ me.”

“No I’m not.” MC placed their hands on his cheeks, “I like you, a lot.”

Mammon swallowed; their heads close. “I- Yeah. Me too.”

MC laughed softly, brushing a stray tear off of the boy’s face. “Good.”

When their lips met, it was suddenly an answer to a question neither of them had ever known existed. There was a reason for this, constantly feeling like they were going nowhere at all, when in reality, they were going after each other the entire time. The destination hadn’t been a place, but rather a person.

***

Mammon sighed as he closed the door behind him, leaning against it for a moment. “I’m sorry about... everything.”

MC laughed, kissing his lips gently. “No, your family was charming.”

Mammon scoffed, “They were memorable. Our poor photographer.”

MC giggled as they sat down, taking their shoes off. “She was compensated for your brothers... er, photo-bombings.”

Mammon huffed as he plopped down beside them, leaning against them and feeling the tension leave him in droves. “I’mma make a collage of their idiocy and make it the Christmas card.”

MC burst into laughter, taking Mammon’s hand in theirs, gold flashing as their rings caught the light. “That sounds perfect.”

Mammon pressed their lips together, barely whispering, “It does.”

MC hummed against his lips, and suddenly Mammon was in the air, yelping. “MC!”

His partner only laughed at him, “Let me show my lovely groom just how much I love him, since he’s mine forever now.”

Mammon groaned, burying his face into MC’s shoulder, but the thought was a nice one. Together, forever. It was a very wonderful notion to think of.

Curious to what this is? Please click this post!

[quendis]

(writing this as its own post and tagging @ibrithir-was-here instead of sending an ask because this got way too long)

I’m supposed to be studying for finals right now, which naturally means that the Numenor version of the Ring Babies AU is all I can think about. More specifically, I keep thinking about how the fall of Numenor would’ve happened in this universe. So I accidentally outlined a fic?

Annatar still has no particular love for the Valar in this ‘verse, but neither does he particularly want to get back on their bad side. Still, when weighing the pros and cons of manipulating Ar Pharazon into attacking Valinor… he probably still does it. It’s not like he’d be successful, after all. Pharazon attacks Valinor, the Valar squash him and his fleet like a bug, and suddenly the Numenorian problem is solved. Easy peasy.

...At least until, in the later stages of Annatar’s pitch and Ar Pharazon’s preparations for war, the king of Numenor states his intention to bring Narya with him on the flagship. As an honored guest, of course. (He’s not completely stupid, after all.)

Mairon panics. In all his machinations, somehow he hadn’t planned for this. He dissembles, at first — argues that Narya is neither warrior nor sailor, that he would be of far more use to the king if left on the island to aid in the forging of weapons and the administration of the war effort. Ar Pharazon is unswayed.

So what’s a Maia to do?

He breaks character, for the first time since his capture. This is an alternate version of the scenario in this post, where Mairon goes apeshit is pushed over the line and reveals himself as Sauron, revealing in the process that the idea of storming Valinor was entirely a plot to get Ar Pharazon killed. Even though he expected some amount of treachery, Ar Pharazon is livid. He gives Mairon an ultimatum: either surrender the true secret to eternal life, or watch as Ar Pharazon sends a war party to Valinor anyway — with Narya on board — to die.

Mairon doesn’t have the secret to eternal life. During his time as Morgoth’s lieutenant he learned how to extend life, and how to distort it, but to truly take away the Gift of Men is beyond his power. Still, there’s an idea that sparked in the back of his mind, back when they first began creating the Rings, back before he had wholly thrown his lot in with Tyelpe…

He tells Ar Pharazon of nine rings (non-sentient, unlike the later Three) designed for Men, and distributed as gifts among them. He tells him of how they might be altered, to extend the lives of their bearers near the point of eternity. He vows to collect them, and to make them into fountains of youth for Ar Pharazon and his most loyal followers.

(There are a few things he doesn’t mention. He doesn’t mention that, in order to create this facsimile of eternal life, he would bind the bearers of the rings to his will. He doesn’t mention that, although some of the rings are on the mainland as he mentioned, three are already on this island. And he doesn’t mention that one, a plain, unassuming steel band, rests even now on the finger of Tar Miriel, the rightful successor of that ring’s initial recipient.)

And so Annatar is sent beyond the blockade to find and steal the rings for Pharazon’s use, accompanied by a guard of several of the king’s strongest warriors, and with Narya left behind on Numenor, still, as an “honored guest.” He supposes it would’ve been too much to hope for that Narya would be sent with him, and that they could find some way to escape together. All he can do now is stall for time while he tries to think of a better way to escape — with Narya — upon his return to the island. And how to explain his past to his son, who he was never given a chance to speak with after that final confrontation.

Meanwhile on the Isle of Numenor, Narya is conflicted, to say the least. But he also doesn’t have much time to think about his father’s identity, since between “audiences” with the king and his generals, he and Miriel have found themselves roped into the Faithful’s rebellion. With dwindling power in court and no military force to match Pharazon’s, I think it’s at this point in the AU that they start preparing to “abandon ship”, as it were: gathering provisions and any refugees they can reach, building or stealing boats to ferry them to the mainland, and saving any relics of the kingdom they can get their hands on — including stealing Nimloth’s fruit, which is how Narya first meets Isildur and starts spying for the Faithful.

Annatar, at this point, is playing out the world’s shittiest heist movie — sent from kingdom to kingdom among the mainland’s realms of men, disguised and collecting in secret the rings that he and his husband had given as gifts not so long ago, and all the while watched by Ar Pharazon’s men with the threat of harm to Narya looming over his shoulder should they catch him trying any more tricks. Narya, who he feels he failed. Who he almost got killed, who could be killed in truth if Pharazon discovers this plot-

He tries not to think about it. But he also keeps an eye out for any friendly faces on the road. He’s in survival mode right now, and survival mode for Mairon usually coincides with the hard-learned lesson of relying on himself, and himself alone. But he isn’t just Mairon anymore; he’s Annatar, and Annatar has friends, a family, and a loving husband who he would trust with more than his life. Maybe if he can get a message out to Tyelpe in secret, he might be able to do something.

Tyelpe is not able to do something. Or rather, he doesn’t know what to do. Since Annatar and Narya were captured — nearly half a century ago at this point — he, Vilya, and Nenya have been trying in vain to find a way through the Numenorian blockade to rescue their family. And between comforting his remaining children don’t phrase it like that, he still has three children, Narya has to be alive and he will not consider any alternatives, his own stress at losing his husband and son, and trying to both run and defend the city on his own, Tyelpe is… not doing especially well.

After he hears word of the sinking of Numenor, he’s doing even worse.

See, Ar Pharazon is willing to wait and see how Annatar’s new proposal pans out, but he also doesn’t intend to leave all of his eggs in one basket. He starts trying other methods. Maybe he sends scouts towards Valinor anyway. Maybe he begins making human sacrifices, as in canon. Either way, he manages to piss Eru off magnificently. And as in canon, Eru changes the shape of the world, and Numenor is drowned, Pharazon along with it.

What Tyelpe doesn’t know is that Annatar is already on the mainland. What neither of them know is that Narya, along with his new friends Miriel and Isildur, had boarded one of the last ships to escape the island, and is currently safe on the coast of what will one day be known as Gondor.

Annatar kills his Numenorian watchers. With Narya dead, there’s no point in playing Pharazon’s games any longer. He can’t bear the thought of returning to Ost-in-Edhil and facing his husband and children, after he killed his son failed. He starts to wander, and for the first time in his very long life, wishes he were an elf. At least an elf can fade.

Tyelpe had always heard that elves would feel something, when their marriage bond broke, when their partner died. That the sundering of a love strong enough to bond souls would take part of the survivor with it. He doesn’t know what it means, that he feels nothing. Maybe it’s some quirk of the unique bond between elf and maia. Maybe it’s his punishment, for not loving Annatar enough to drop everything and ride out of Ost-in-Edhil in a glorious charge (and a less glorious boat ride, he supposes) to save him. It’s what Fingon did. It’s what Luthien did. Why couldn’t he?

Tyelpe can’t save his husband, and he can’t save his son. But there are already reports of bodies washing ashore, and if he can’t save them, he can at least grant them rest. He gathers his other children, leaves the city in the care of one of his most trusted advisors (what he should have done, he thinks, half a century ago), and rides out to bury his husband and son.

Since this AU wasn’t dramatic enough already, naturally all three parties (Narya and the Faithful; Celebrimbor, Vilya, and Nenya; and Annatar on his own) meet at the same time. I’m sure there’s a lot of questions, a lot of shouting, a lot of crying. There are probably some difficult conversations, as Annatar and Narya address their fraught parting, and as Annatar comes clean to his children about his past. But that can all wait for another time, and another tale. Right now the Ringmakers and the Rings are together again and holding each other for the first time in fifty-seven years, and for a moment, at least, that’s all that matters.

[goldafterglow]

hold me in the meadows

Summary: You are Ezra’s dreamcatcher and he is your burrow.

Request: “The sleepy prompts!! Lovely! Can you do “I have had nightmares every night for the past three weeks and now they’re gone because of you, how did you do that?” with (can you guess??) EZRA” - the love of my life, @opheliaelysia

Pairing: Ezra (Prospect) x Reader

Word Count: 4.6k+

Tags: angst?, fluff, more metaphors that don’t mean anything, weird touching lol idk what the fuck this fic is, this is also not beta read so send the flood send the flu

Author’s Note: If you left a like or comment or reblog on Dissolve Me I’m telling you with as little shame as is humanly possible that I definitely reread it at least 3 times. Feedback means the word to me! also this was supposed to be a 500 word drabble and now it’s over 4.5k words if that tells you anything about me. I apologize in advance I think I’ve really outdone myself w/ my bullshit this time

Gif Credit: @pascvl; Also shout out to @pascalplease sorry I spammed you for nothing dsfgdsg

Ezra is staring at you.

He’d met you on one of those toxic moons, one of those deceitfully picturesque mirages where the dust glitters like lily petals but the air would kill you before you could think to appreciate it. You were a floater; a nomad with no place to call home, but you figured you liked it that way. Homes were permanent. They set lives and futures in cobblestone and trapped spirits in gated properties, keeping just about anything and everything tethered under the farce of security. Homes make paraffin casings around dragonfly wings and turn footprints to concrete. So you never had one, and you never wanted one. Ezra had found you amusing. You had found him to be better company than just yourself. So with great reluctance, you established a partnership. Not one forged in steel or bronze but something still fleeting, its true meaning always escaping your lips like a forgotten thought. It’s too much work to try and think about it anyway.

You had let him invite you to reside in his tent. It took coaxing, required copious amounts of golden honey spilling from Ezra’s tongue to get you to tenaciously stick to him, but you were no match for his silver tongue. He did everything he could to assure that this wasn’t a habitat, but merely a shelter - a thing that could be taken down and built back up somewhere else, anywhere you wanted. So you had obliged. He let you take the cot closest to the zipper door; you liked being closer to the exit, just a rotation away from being back on your feet. He tries to let you truly feel like if you wanted to escape, wanted to elope with liberty and run away from the loose bonds of the canopy, you could.

Three weeks of sleeping adjacent to him and you still don’t want to.

Ezra is used to temporary relationships. He has done his fair share of companion hopping, although he wasn’t really making an effort to do so. It scares him a little - why can’t he make anyone stay, make anything last? Partners passed him by, either to traverse on their lonesome or to stay with that greedy man in the eternal sky. Teams disbanded around him like glass castles shattering in his wake. Ezra, whether he liked it or not, was accustomed to transience.

He is not, however, accustomed to fearing that sharp brevity. Ezra is constantly on his toes around you, frequently wondering if he’s pushing you away or pulling you closer. You aren’t skittish, don’t constantly question everything he says or get offended by the sound of his voice, but he’s still scared of losing you. Every time he looks into your eyes he sees wonder, a certain fascination with life that he tries so hard to match because he wants to find things as beautiful as you do. As beautiful as you are. He wants to mis-quote your favorite novels that you force him to read so that you’ll scold him so affectionately and tell him that perhaps he had garnered a little brain damage from his previous escapades. He wants to trip over tree roots that have herniated through the soil so you can laugh at him, maybe lay there on the grass with him for a little bit. Just a little bit.

In your own mind, you are guarded. You try your very best not to get too personal, too deep, too much. Because you don’t like it when people can see your flushed, bloody insides. You just know that the moment you open your chest, someone will steal your heart right out of your rib cage and like the pass of a hummingbird, all of your secrets will be free to float in the breeze like the ashes of your lost quintessence; it’ll all be gone and then you’ll really be empty.  So how could you ever know what you mean to Ezra?

He knows what a truly locked up person looks like. He’s spent hundreds of cycles with people that don’t make a noise. He’s sat in bustling pods of people and felt like the only man in the room, like solitary confinement for his mind. No, you are not some warning-covered steel box, padlocked and duct-taped and glued shut so that even if he’s sitting right next to you, he’ll have nothing more than his own voice bounce to off of your walls and fly right back to him. You’re a music box, a gold-trimmed heart-shaped sound bottle, and he learns that if he winds you up the right way, you’ll sing so pretty for him.

He has spent so long talking, nonsensically making those arbitrary noises burst out of his throat until they lose all meaning, but finally, for the first time in so fucking long, Ezra gets to listen.

He listens to you tell him you think his hair is stupid and that sometimes he smells bad. He listens to you lament about barren dig-sites and wasted time, about how it’s so fucking hot in your suit. He listens to you fantasize about touching the trees, burying your face in your flowers and squeezing the moss in your hands. About drowning in the river so that your body is filled with the water and then rolling in the sand so that it all sticks to you and you have to dive back in to clean off. About feeling something.

Sometimes, Ezra just wants to hear something other than his own voice. And you’re the cold towel to his inflamed skin, refreshing and addictive. You’re much braver than you think, so much stronger than you give yourself credit for, because for once, Ezra can talk into the forest and know that there’s someone to listen besides the leaves. He doesn’t feel alone.

Every night, when the moon has turned its back on the narcissistic Sun and opened its arms to the thousands of other stars, each just a prick of light but understanding of their place in the tapestry of the darkness, the two of you retire to that tent. You both redress into comfortable clothes, backs turned on each other under the guise of respect, and climb into your respective cots. Ezra would turn off that shitty lantern that illuminated the enclosure, and your shadows would dissipate into the darkness.

Except Ezra’s shadows don’t disappear; they hide. They blend into the black and mold into one man-engulfing untamable beast to possess Ezra’s throat. And they manifest again in his mind. They poison that movie that plays once you slip consciousness, instills fear into his bone marrow until he doesn’t feel safe in his own body, his own thoughts.

These slumber illusions haunt Ezra. His right arm waves at him in his sleep, the souls to which he was the conduit bridging life and death haunt his diaphragm with toothy grins to mock him, screeching into his cavities. They remind him that he was never really alone because he has the suffocating embrace of those spirits that are sewn so tight to his eyelids. Every night he somehow manages to pull himself from the darkness only for his own demons to pull him back by the throat. He is always oscillating between consciousness and unconsciousness, being tossed around like a helpless rag with no hope of liberation. Nothing scares him more than his own thoughts.

And you know. You know all of it. How could you not? You were born a tumbleweed, wandering across desolation, so of course you’re a light sleeper. And you can hear Ezra’s choked cries, his tossing and turning as he drains himself of any sense of safety. But this man is a stranger to you. He is just a person you reside with, talk to all the time, nudge gently and tease and smile with. He is just the person that you wake up wanting to see, whose attention you always crave. A stranger.

So every night you turn your body to face the zipper of the tent and pretend that you can’t hear him cry. Pretend that you don’t sometimes cry with him. A pretty lavender lie that smells sweet, tastes sweeter.

You, in your cowardice, let him destroy himself. Watch as the bags under his eyes get bigger and greyer and the strings holding his shoulders up lose their tension.

Ezra, in his flawed cratered embodiment, is only human. And he had gone so long without holding anyone, without being held. He knows what he wants, knows who he wants. But he also knows how jittery you are, how fluttery your heart is, and he doesn’t want to approach it too fast lest he startle you and you fly off into the stars. But he can’t keep doing this, can’t live with himself when he knows he’s not the one in control but those horned, slimy creatures that claw at his maxilla with their venomous grins.

The lights are out in the tent per usual, so Ezra can’t really see you. His careful eyes can trace the outline of the curves of your body - or is it that his delusional eyes are envisioning some arbitrary glow around you, convincing him that what he’s seeing is real? Reality is a concept with which he is no longer familiar.

You, laying in your cot, decide that you just can’t take it anymore. You can’t stand to let this intruder of your life break you down the way he is without even trying. How dare he look into you, how dare he listen to you without passing judgement, how fucking dare he make you feel like a flower in bloom?

Ezra hears your breaths - they’re uneven. You haven’t gone to sleep. What are you waiting for?

“Ezra?” you practically squeak into the void. His ears perk up immediately; your cotton candy voice is enticing to him, flossing its way through his veins.

“What are you doing up, birdie?” Ezra asks softly, the air of his lungs floating on top of his words. He doesn’t mean to keep you awake, but he isn’t mad that you are. It’s stimulating his nerves enough to keep himself awake, and that’s something he probably won’t ever be able to repay you for.

“I-um….” Shit. You hadn’t expected to get this far. What would you say to him? How could you tell him that you wanted to help cleanse him, that you wanted to grovel in lime-coated thumb tacks with him and absorb his pain into your tissue paper skin? “I can’t sleep.”

Not a lie. Ezra knows you mean it. He just doesn’t know why.

“Well that won’t suffice,” he decides, outstretching his left arm blindly off the edge of his cot until his fingers brush against what he’s looking for: that goddamn lantern. With a little more fumbling, a weak but good enough orange glow is emitted on the floor between the two of you. You both catch each other’s pitiful gaze. You want to take care of each other, want to shield each other from the red sprites that nip angrily at each other’s hearts. Ezra holds his left arm out to you, tentatively. He’s never been more unsure in his life. He watches you glance at his arm, and then quickly to the side. You’re trying to decide if you’ll let him add another tether to you. If you’ll let him become something sewed so tight to your bleeding skin that to leave would rip you apart.

You slowly get up and walk over to his cot.

Ezra lets out a soft breath and his lips turn to a soft smile. He’s soft.

“C’mere, dandelion” he mumbles to you, and he hasn’t missed his right arm so much as in this moment. He wants to hold you properly, wants to keep you as close to him as possible. You’re hesitant, and he can tell. You’ve never been this close to him before, and you want to savor it. When your head finally touches his shoulder, it’s like a catalyst ignites underneath the two of you. You mold into each other the way the gods intended, like lake water seeping into the smallest of crevices of an empty river bed. Like the opposing poles of two magnets, like a key penetrating a lock. Like you were made for each other. Your arms immediately wrap around him, his neck now a fixture of your body, and his arm leads you to lay down on the cot. Without words, without that candid discourse that Ezra was so fond of, his face is buried into the warmth of your chest and he feels like you’ve cast an ethereal shield around him.

Ezra doesn’t need to hold you tight because you’re holding him tighter, like you’re trying to cling to something invisible and foreign before it can even think to leave you. Before it realizes that it doesn’t want you. Don’t leave. He can feel you breathe him in, face smashed against his wild hair, and he can’t blame you because he’s breathing you in too.

“Sweetheart-” he breathes, fanning against your skin in a way that sends a deep shiver down your spine and shakes your shoulders.

“Shh.” And for once in his cursed life, he’s speechless. There’s so much, too much that he wants to say to you, but his mind is shouting all of it at him at once and he doesn’t even know where to start. So he shuts the fuck up. He feels you. He feels your heat melt him until he can barely control his own muscles because they’ve gone limp, unable to perform a single contraction because his fibers are relaxed, are at peace.

He doesn’t know when he falls asleep.

When Ezra wakes, you’re still sweet and motionless around him. The lamp was still on, still shining pathetically on the ground. He doesn’t feel the need to look around or squeeze his lids closed in an attempt to wring the bad rest out of him.

Rest?

He thinks fucking hard. When had he woken up last night? When had his banshees infiltrated his thoughts and cried into the void of his packed mind? All he can recall are caramel dreams, whipped cream clouds and berry trampolines for him to jump high into the cotton candy sky. He thinks he might like it that way. Maybe every night can be like that, every morning can feel this transcendent.

He hears you moan quietly as you stir not long after him, breaths shuddering on their way out of your nose as you slowly come to your senses.

“Good morning, birdie,” Ezra finally says. He doesn’t know what to say to you, what he can say to you, without making you flip a switch and realize that it’s all a mistake, that he is a mistake. His eardrums smile as your sleepy whining settles.

“Morning, Ezra,” you whisper, throat not ready to talk yet. It’s okay; you’d rather hear him talk to you anyway.

“Did you…were you able to achieve some sort of comfort?” Ezra asks. For a second you’re confused until you remember what you’d told him last night, and you realize that you’re holding him the same way you were when you’d gone to sleep. He hadn’t woken up.

“Yeah, Ezra,” you finally say after letting yourself simmer in the silence for a second. “Thank you.”

He smiles wide against your skin, the blunt tip of his excitement the battering ram that beats against his racing heart. He’s given you something worthy of your gratefulness, and the feeling of being worthy light his chest with blue flames.

“It’s not my intention to blow you away, dandelion,” Ezra says, his nerves manifesting into his characteristic breathy laughs, “but I can’t deny how direly I want to just touch you.” You feel the air get knocked out of you as your diaphragm begins to spasm; what is he asking? You’ve thought about it before; god, of course you’ve thought about it before. To lay back as you let him study you, memorize you and then let you do the same. Analyze the sculpted marble of his body to remind yourself why you love it so much.

“Please.”

It’s barely a whisper, a secret told to the wind, but Ezra hears you. Ezra always hears you.

So Ezra’s fingers begin to wander along your skin. He wants to map out the scars on your body, wants to learn the shape of you so intimately that he could remodel you if he wanted to. He wants to know your body the way he knows when you’re disappointed or frustrated or amazed or confused. He wants to just know.

You feel the calloused pads of Ezra’s fingers put a little pressure onto that dip of your thoracic vertebrae, draw circles above your hip right under the fabric of your sweatshirt, caress your shoulder. He’s slowly exposing your skin to the humid chill of the dank enclosure, carefully making your top cover less and less of you, but you’ve never felt warmer.

As Ezra’s mind begins to really warm up and the cogs begin to grease themselves, his words begin to flow out the way you’re used to. The way you’ve learned to love.

“Sweetheart, I have had nightmares every night for the past three weeks and now they’re gone,” he blurts. Fuck. His hand stutters against the small of your back. He’s done it now, he’s really gone and blown it, because now you know he’s fucking broken and you’re smart enough to know when to avoid damaged goods. You have to know that if you were to take your hands and try and feel him you’d just get bumps and ridges and cracks. But Ezra is selfish, can’t help himself or his thoughts, so he keeps rambling. “It is not my intention to come off as presumptuous, but I just know it’s because of you. How did you do that, birdie? You never told me you were sent to me as a dreamcatcher.”

You can’t help but smile into his scalp a little at his words. You didn’t mind taking all of his bad dreams and refracting them far away into the space between the stars for him. A light, breathy laugh rolls off your tongue like a huff, because fuck, if you were going to be embroidered to something it might as well be him.

Your breath hitches again as the back of his hand runs flat along your stomach. It travels back around and up to the nape of your neck, tracing your shoulders and then over to your clavicles, paying close attention to the dips. You can’t help but wonder if this means as much to him as it does to you; it means everything to you.

“You’re right. I’ve been holding out on you all this time,” you say, and he can hear you smile through the roses of your words. He slowly and with purpose lifts his head from your embrace so that he can look up at you, maybe even catch a glimpse of that pretty grin of yours and burn it onto his lenses.

“I’m not confident that you’ll ever know how fortuitous I was the day I met you.” Ezra’s voice is low as he speaks, his drawl stretching and fraying the ends of his words, and you soak in every last syllable. You soak in the meaning of his words. He feels lucky to have you.

You look down at him, bringing a hand to run through his hair. That stupid blonde streak snatches your attention for a moment and you thumb at the strands. You want to tease him about it, mock him a little, but you don’t. The moon marine in your arms holds so much unbridled beauty, and it’s all yours to look at.

Ezra is all yours to look at.

Ezra’s hand travels up to your face, cupping your cheek while his thumb toys with the corner of your mouth in a way that makes you bite your lip through a smile. Throwing all caution to the wind, you turn your head and press a shy kiss to the heel of his palm. Ezra’s skin burns where you’ve sanctified him. His hand begins to crave your touch in other ways, he is craving something more from you, but he knows he does far too much taking. He’s already taken so much from you, has already stolen so many moments from you out of sheer gluttony, but it’s not always his fault because you’re so giving. He knows you were a little hollow from the start, knows you were a little frayed in the first place, but still you share your thoughts and companionship with him because whether you know it or not, you’re a little taken by this space mutineer. If you fled this little thing you’ve built with him, you’d be leaving the prettiest parts of yourself behind for him to keep taking care of the way a mother makes her son’s bed after he leaves for college because what if you want to come back?

But you haven’t left, haven’t abandoned him and in turn, yourself. You’re right here, letting him bask in your reverent lavender radiation, and as he looks at how you’re giving off your own intrinsic glow because the shitty orange light on the ground isn’t enough, he knows he hasn’t earned it. He doesn’t think this is a very fair transaction at all, but he’s too selfish to stop you from paying a little extra. You’ll let him keep the change.

Ezra wordlessly lifts his head, nosing at your wrist so that you’ll bring it lower and let him kiss the delicate skin there. He looks up at you with wide, eager eyes of adoration. His feelings for you are beginning to bubble underneath the surface of his silk-lined thoughts and he is willing them to stay at that low simmer because he doesn’t want to think about anything except how fucking gorgeous you look in the lamplight.

“I’m growing rather fond of the way you feel against me,” Ezra finally says. Everything is so foreign now, so new, so he tries to do the one thing you both know, the one routine you can both dance without needing to think about it: talking.

“I like it too Ezra,” you giggle. Not a long, flittery one, but a pass of air with a note under it. You’re a little nervous too.

“I reckon I could get accustomed to this,” he whispers. Your lip betrays you, curling itself to reveal your reply before you even say it. Your teeth capture your lower lip for the act of treason, but it’s too late. “But I’d just hate it if I made you feel like you’re bearing my baggage.”

“Ezra, you don’t have crippling baggage,” you insist. What is this man talking about? You were the one with issues. You were the one that had to be convinced to stay with him, you were the one that insisted on the right cot, you were the real coward here. You were broken. “Everyone has their demons. There is so much more inside of you. You’re so full.”

Ezra’s eyes go a little wide at your words. You didn’t think he was half a man? Some incomplete mosaic that would never find his missing pieces?

“You flatter me,” he chuckles; no, he giggles.

“Well…I just figured there’s no way a broken man could handle his broken partner the way you deal with me.” His expression melts into something more than pity and less than ignorance - confusion. The tap in Ezra’s tongue pops loose and his words begin to cascade from his lips like some majestic phenomenon, like holy water spraying the filth off of your brow.

“I need you to look at me, firefly.” His voice is more stern now, his words more articulate as he shifts up the bed slightly so that he’s eye level with you. He’s still on his side, his left hand is still gripping the flesh at your hip. “I don’t think you’ll ever truly comprehend how much you’ve done for me these past cycles, but this life is quiet and toilsome. You’re capable of recognizing beauty in things I wouldn’t have even taken note of in the first place, and I hang onto your every utterance whether you’re aware or not. It’s easy for me to sit here and tell you how bad I always want you because you fill my thoughts, pretty dandelion. And if someone came here and regurgitated your exact words to me, it still wouldn’t hold a candle to the way you sing when you wonder out loud. I don’t need to ‘deal’ with you, sweet rose. I want you.”

Your lip quivers a little; you know Ezra likes talking to you, he’s told you before. But you couldn’t help but assume Ezra just likes talking, period. That he liked having you around about as much as he’d enjoy the company of any other talker. To think that someone wants you, your passions and afterthoughts and pondering notions, meant more than anything you could articulate.

“Ezra-” you start, but you cut yourself off. You want to let his words turn into condensation on your skin, to form little rain clouds above your head so that they pour back down on you in delicate drops. You want to let him linger, to sit and hang above you like the sky hangs above the ocean.

You look straight at him, deep into his inquiring brown eyes as you both begin to breathe the same air, scents mingling between you like the heat between two stars. His nose is right up against yours and you can feel his lashes caress your cheekbone. He’s so close, but you want him closer, need him to move his hand or blink his eyes or do something, because you can’t take the nothingness anymore when you’ve got everything pressed right up against your face.

Ezra decides he wants one last thing from you.

“My rose, I don’t want to ask too much of you, but I suppose if that were true I wouldn’t have invited you to stay with me anyway. In the tent, of course. Not the cot.” Fuck, what was he saying? He lets out a soft laugh as he tries to reorganize his thoughts, a blushing mess under your gaze because he’s so used to knowing exactly how to get what he wants, but he’s really pushing your boundaries and bending your fence posts now. You’re turning him into a man who fumbles, a man who doesn’t always have to know what he’s about to say, and he doesn’t mind being a little less talk around you and a lot more touch.

Suddenly, he’s reminded of what he wanted to ask you.

“Sweet creature, could I kiss you?”

You don’t miss a beat in this soft ballad you’re playing with him, letting out a gentle “yeah, Ezra.”

You don’t like homes, don’t like to be told that you’re forever nailed to walls and wood. But maybe, as Ezra’s scruffy chin leans up to slot his lips against yours, you could build a tent in him. Maybe this leaky soul was your permanent, your unyielding, your perpetual.

As Ezra tilts his head towards you with a soft moan so he can kiss you the way you deserve, speak to you through the blinding sensation of his mouth telling you how he wants you, needs you, loves you, without using a single word, he is confident that his hollow cavities are beginning to be filled by your amber essence. He can tell you’re letting yourself finally take root in him, clearing out the wretched foliage so that you can curl up in the meadow of his soul and rest your bones within him.

Yeah.

You’re home.

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[leiawritesstories]

Burden

One of the first fics I ever wrote. Inspired by the Evanescence song “My Immortal.”

Nexta x Cassian, canonverse. Written waaaaaaay before ACOSF came along, so ignore canon divergence. 

TW: mentions of sexual assault

She is tired. Tired of the work, the long hours, the demanding pricks she must placate, the front she must show, tired of the façade she puts up, and so, so tired of locking away her heart. 

But locking away her heart is the only way to protect herself.

Never again can she let anyone, anyone, know the storm of emotion that rages within her soul. Never again can she allow herself to forge one-sided trust. Never again can she bare her inmost self, lest she be left cold, broken, and utterly alone. Never again can she watch the only person she thought  loved her dash her heart against the rocks of rejection. Never again. No one.

Not even him.

Him, the first male in this place to look at her like she was more than the silent, haughty, closed-off bitch the others considered her. Him, the only male to genuinely offer her what she needed during those horrible days after that bastard shoved her into his Cauldron-from-the- hells and cursed her with immortality: an outlet for her rage. Him, the male tied to her soul. Him, the male she cannot allow herself to love, no matter what her traitorous heart screams. 

Cassian.

The brash, cocky, fearless Illyrian. The only male in the world who sees her as she is and does not balk. The only person she knows who can face the raging inferno that is her and stand completely unfazed. 

Her mate.

A fact she must squelch. Never let it come to light. Never allow it to escape the steel cage around her volatile heart. 

No matter that every time her mate’s eyes fall upon hers, she reads his unspoken question.

Please. 

And no matter that every time she reads his heart written in his gaze, her own repressed heart leaps in response. Damn her heart for always feeling so deeply, so wholly. Damn her for not learning to rein in her emotions earlier. Damn her for turning into a pillar of steel, ice, and heartlessness when anyone so much as asks her a polite question. And damn her for being so godsdamn terrified of letting anyone even an infinitesimal step into her heart. 

Her warrior’s heart.

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

He watches her every moment she is present. And every moment, the pull on his soul grows stronger, ever stronger, drawing him towards the pillar of steel, flame, and unflinching willpower that is Nesta Archeron. He knows she feels the bond. He knows she refuses to let anyone know about the bond. He sees the faint flicker of fear in those glorious eyes of hers every time he speaks to her. A fear, not of him, but of what connects her soul to his. 

What horror happened to her to make her fear having a mate?

Not that he will ever know. But he wants to. Oh, how he wants to. How he longs for her to trust him, or if not him, then at least her sisters. He can sense that whatever she hides in her soul weighs heavily upon her, can see the burden she bears in the ramrod-straight line of her spine. And how he yearns to take some of that weight off of her shoulders. 

Every time he speaks to her, she pushes away his efforts to make her smile. He wonders if she has forgotten joy.

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

She has not.

She has merely forgotten that her life can be joyful. She cannot see past the string of terrible events that made up the last months of her human life. And she cannot bring herself to share the pain that shattered her heart mere months before life went straight to hell. 

Not with anyone.

No matter how much her brain, her heart, her soul push her towards spilling the entire story to her mate. Months in the Illyrian Mountains spent by his side, learning Illyrian combat tactics, dissolved the hatred she once felt for everyone in the Night Court, save her sisters. During those months, she discovered what lay under the Commander’s armor: his impossibly soft, warm heart. During those months, she came the closest she had ever come to revealing the scars that mottled her heart. He’d already seen the ones on her forearms, exposed during training; why, then, should she hide the mental ones, the emotional ones? 

Because he would never understand, she thinks to herself. 

“Nesta.”

She jumps, not realizing that while she was lost in her thoughts, he crossed over to her.

“What.” A statement, not a question. 

“I…” To her shock, he trails off, self-consciously twisting the Siphons on the back of his hands. 

“Bryaxis got your tongue?”

He jerks. A ghost of a smirk flits across her face. Which he notices. “By the Mother, Nesta Archeron. Did you just…joke?”

“Maybe.” That smirk returns.

He gazes at her, his eyes scanning her face as if trying to peer into her soul. “Why the long face?”

“Memories. From before. Most of them best forgotten.” Despite her iron resolve, a flicker of pain crosses her face. 

“Nesta, please.” The word emerges a broken plea. “Locking away whatever your terrors are will only make them worse. Please. Tell someone. It doesn’t have to be me. It—”

“What if you’re the only one who will actually listen?”

He freezes. “What?”

Her eyes, silver collecting in the corners, stare directly into his. “What if you’re the only one I trust to listen, fully and completely?”

Red light flares, and she finds herself—and Cassian—in his familiar wood-paneled cabin at the edge of the Illyrian woods. “Then speak.”

She does.

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

Not quite three months before Hybern kidnapped her and Elain, Nesta met a young man, new to the village. His parents were merchants, he said, and he had come to start a shop in an area where their commerce did not yet reach. He was passably handsome, and a sweeter talker than all the lecherous bastards in town. He also “happened to be around” whenever Nesta ventured into town. After his appearances became too frequent to be “chance,” Nesta allowed him to flirt with her, and despite her better sense, allowed herself to flirt back. Allowed herself to share her secrets, her hopes, her dreams.

A month after meeting him, he finally asked her to dinner, and she accepted. He came to her house that evening and charmed the hell out of her father, acting the perfect gentleman, even asking his assistance as a bookkeeper, considering his knowledge and experience as a trader. It was a pleasant enough dinner and conversation, a pleasant enough evening.

Until he escorted her home.

Or, more accurately, he escorted her into a secluded alley and pressed her against the wall. And clamped one greasy hand over her mouth. And ripped her skirt straight down the seam. Frozen with shock, all Nesta registered was his heavy breath, reeking of alcohol, and the lust-crazed sheen of his eyes. For one interminable moment, she could neither move nor think beyond the nasty, oily feeling of his other hand crawling up her thigh. 

The moment passed. Nesta bit down on his hand as hard as she could, earning a strangled grunt as he jerked back. Before he could manhandle her again, she drove her elbow into his ribs once, twice, thrice, and was rewarded with a satisfying crack and him doubling over. Then, she turned and fled into the night. 

She reached home in moments, burst through the side door, and barred it. Elain, who had come into the kitchen for some reason, gasped. 

“Nesta! Your dress! What happened?”

Nesta could only shake her head, the horror of the encounter crashing into her full force. Elain, seeing her sister’s obvious state of shock, helped her upstairs, into a bath, and into bed. When Nesta appeared the next day, bruising on her face from where she had been gripped, her sister again asked about the night before. Nesta refused to answer. She spent years stuffing the memory of that night as far back into her memory as she could. 

But the effects lasted. To this day, she fears opening her heart to any man, no matter how good, how sweet, how outwardly perfect he may seem. The scars from nearly being forcibly raped linger. And despite the years between then and now, there is simply too much that time cannot erase. Some scars run too deep. 

His name was Tomas Mandray.

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

In the silence following her story, Nesta realizes that she has slumped onto the worn wooden floor, unable to support herself against the flood of her memory. She realizes that the warmth on her face is her tears, falling freely. 

And that the one thing keeping her tethered to the earth is Cassian’s hand around hers. 

She lifts her head, drawing in a shaky breath, her heart…lighter. 

Ever so hesitantly, his thumb brushes her cheek, wiping away the tears tracked there. He feels her tense, and then, incredibly, she relaxes, allowing him to brush the tears from her face as if he could erase the pain she feels. 

Deep in a buried corner of her mind, a thread of golden light pierces the shadows. 

Thank you, Cassian.

Always, my Nesta.

[mccoyyy]

continuing on in the positivity chain started by @carllisle and @notquitetwilight cause they both seem to be intent on making me cry tonight and I want to level out the playing field a bit

@carllisle is an honest to god gift. one of my favourite things about her is how genuine and warm she is, like when we first had a group chat together and just kinda getting to know each other it felt like I'd known her for ages already, she's just like that. she's also gorgeous and utterly hilarious (and just as cursed in real life) and incredibly kind and absolutley nothing can keep her down I swear to god. even when she was literally in hospital with rona she was consistently putting us into utter hysterics. she said that I'm witty but it is nothing compared to her. she's also an utter genius, unbelievably creative and such a talented writer. whether it's her carlesme fics or when she's writing about carlesme fucking on a table and killing someone w a pizza slicer at the same time you can literally see the level of talent she has. it's a true honour to be your token straight/passenger in the back of your clown car 💕

I was following @notquitetwilight before and I always thought that she was one of the funniest blogs on this site and now that we're actually friends I can confirm that she's honest to god hilarious. she's also stunning? like a real life Rosalie Hale but with an added incredibly sexy accent. we're feck the English buddies and that Celtic bond has been forged out of steel - I love her the way Nicola sturgeon loves the Irish declaration of independence. she's also incredibly smart, so kind and again, such a talented writer. her and Ellie are literally writing solid gold with the cullanos and it's an honest to god honour getting to know not one but two of the brains behind that operation (and occasionally getting access to never before seen info 👀). she is so supportive and welcoming and it's an honour for her to consider me her virtual younger sister 💕 (honestly I almost cried when she said that)

how can I even describe @stregoni-benefici. she was the first ever mutual I actually had on here, she's funny, sweet, unbelievably intelligent and unbelievably beautiful (seriously all three of these girls are stunning you have no idea). I have spent hours upon hours talking to her late into the night about headcanons and fic ideas and adored every single one of those conversations. she's got the most beautiful ideas and we can spitball against each other so well. she's also been so understanding when I've put my foot in it before and I love her so much for it. I genuinely cannot emphasise how kind she is too like she is always there for you and makes you feel so valued and cared for, she's got the best advice and she's someone I feel like I could turn to in any situation. I value her friendship so much and without her I don't think I would still be active on here and I definitely wouldn't be as vocal or know the people I do now. love ya streg 💕

honestly who would have thought that me creating a blog about twilight around 10 months ago would have let to this (but I'm so glad it did)

[chelsfic]

Just for this moment - Protective!Donald Pierce x Tracker!Reader - Logan/X-Men fanfic

Reading order (this is part of a series of one-shots that can all be read on their own if you want) :

Hunted [prequel]

Words, Spoken and Unspoken [1]

Just for this moment [2]

Loving Mourners Be (one shot) [3]

Magic Words[4]

A/N: All my fics come from show tunes apparently. I just wanted to write something about how the physical/romantic relationship between Donnie and his tracker first gets started.

Summary: How things start between Donnie and his tracker mutant. (Protective!Donnie!!)

Warnings: Stockholm Syndrome, sexual assault, angst, questionable everything

---

The SUV kicks up a cloud of dust as Donald flies into the parking lot, squealing to a halt in front of the abandoned, rusted out gas station with a triumphant grin on his face. 

“This is a new record, baby. You’re gonna be out on live missions before you know it,” his proud tone warms your bones even as the implication of his words sends a spike of fear through your heart. They’re making you into a mutant hunter. Just like him.

You chase away that thought with a sarcastic comment, “You know...you could have just told me where they were hiding. Would’ve saved me the headache.”

Donald smirks and leans over the center console, taking your face in his hands and conking your foreheads together affectionately. Your tension and stress fade away at his touch. 

“I won’t always know the answers, darlin’,” he whispers, his breath ghosting over your lips. “Some day soon it’ll be more than just practice. And you’ll be expected to be a help, not a hindrance. Can you do that, baby? Are you gonna be my good girl when we’re out in the field together?”

The internal conflict is written clearly on your face. You don’t want to hunt down other mutants, capturing them and subjecting them to the same medical torture and dehumanization that you’ve endured. But when Donald’s impossible blue eyes bore into yours, when his voice rumbles deep in his chest and his fingers touch your skin...you’ll do anything for him.

You nod your head. It’s been about a month since your capture. And in that time the only break from pain and isolation has been your training sessions with Donald. When he enters your cell with that macho swagger and smug grin, you feel relief. A day of training with him is a day you don’t have to go into the exam rooms and be tested, sampled and studied. It’s a day you get to feel fresh air on your skin and the sun’s warmth. And Donald. You get to be with Donald. He’s like a splash of paint on an empty canvas.

He heads inside the gas station to check in with the handler and mutant subject hidden inside. He leaves you behind with barely a second thought, simply locking eyes with you as he gets out of the vehicle and sternly saying, “Be good.”

You watch in disbelief as he strides away, his tall frame and broad shoulders sending a stupid thrill through your body. You’ve got to stop being attracted to him. Once he’s inside the building you look down to your lap as if to confirm what you already know to be true: no manacles. He’s left you here unbound and free to run. Your hand goes to the door handle automatically, just resting there as your mind races. You can’t deny that Donald has forged a strange bond with you in the time you’ve trained with him. You feel tied to him, compelled to please him and craving his approval. But is he so confident in his own power to think that you won’t seize the chance at freedom?

Your fingers are just flexing to pull on the handle when you see him emerge from the building, arching an elegant eyebrow at you as he crosses in front of the vehicle. He climbs inside, glancing over at you and looking pointedly at the door handle. Your hand falls away guiltily and you duck your head to avoid his gaze.

“That’s my girl,” he smiles with a hint of meanness. He likes that he’s got you trained. He likes that heady mix of attraction and fear in your eyes when you think he can’t see you watching him. His smugness fills the car like bad cologne and you want to cry. You’re disappointed with yourself. But mostly...mostly you just can’t stomach the thought of going back inside those cruel, sterile walls. Especially not tonight.

As you get nearer and nearer to the facility Donald senses your tension. Your heart is racing, your palms are sweaty and you feel dizzy. It’s Wednesday, Nurse Parker’s night shift. He’ll come to your cell again. He’ll hurt you, hold the syringe to your neck while he forces you to your knees. You can’t do it again. Not after this bitter, half-taste of freedom.

“What is it, baby?” Donald asks, catching your eye for a second before turning back to the road. 

You swallow, shaking your head and feeling tears finally slip free, “I can’t go back, Donnie. Don’t take me back...I don’t want to…”

It’s the first time you’ve called him Donnie and he finds himself unexpectedly pleased. He wants you to be familiar with him. He wants you to be...his. The thought sends him reeling. In all of his years working for Transigen he’s never...sullied himself with the mutant prisoners. They’re beneath him. Dirty. Wrong. But you…

He shakes his head, dismissing the thoughts and letting out an aggravated sigh at your words, “Darlin’, I’m disappointed. You think you’re the first mutie who’s tried to appeal to me to let them go? It’s never worked, baby. I thought you knew better.”

You seal your lips shut, shifting your body away from him and staring out the window, watching other cars go by and imagining that you’re one of those people. Out for a drive. Free. Not being taken to your doom.

By the time he pulls into a parking space in the underground garage you’re hugging yourself and trembling. He turns off the ignition and watches you for a long moment, a muscle jumping in his jaw. This assignment...actually working with a mutant...it’s messing with his mind. He doesn’t care about you. You’re less than dirt to him, like every other mutie in this place. He should not care that there are tear stains on your cheeks or that you won’t meet his eyes. But he thinks about the way you seem to melt into his touch when he praises you after a job well done...about the way your eyes linger on him sometimes...how you’ve even started to greet him with a smile when he retrieves you from your cell. He tells himself it’s only proof of his convictions: that you’re lesser and eager to serve your superiors. But… all he really wants is to make you smile again. He wants to make you feel safe.

“Is someone hurting you?” his voice is a dangerous growl, startling you into looking up at him. His eyes bore into yours, intense and terrifying. A stray lock of hair hangs over his forehead and he licks his dry lips as he waits for your reply.

You shake your head. Not denying it. Not lying to him--you can’t lie to Donald, can you? But simply refusing to answer. Nurse Parker’s words come back to you, If you tell anyone there’ll be a little accident. Mutants are put down every day in this place. No one would question it…

Donnie cups your cheek in his warm hand. His touch is gentle even if his words are reinforced with steel, “Answer me, little girl.”

You shut your eyes, fat tears escaping and running down your cheeks as you reply, “Everyone, Donald. You’re all hurting me.”

He lets a sigh escape him and turns away, ignoring the foreign stab of guilt in his gut.

---

Something doesn’t feel right. Donald stalks through the quiet corridors of Transigen that night. He should have left by now but he keeps feeling the tug of conscience keeping him from doing so. He sees your face, tear stained and hopeless, telling him that he’s hurting you. But you weren’t telling him everything. He opens the security feeds on his phone, telling himself he’s only checking to ensure the continued usefulness of his asset. Nothing more.

But he can’t deny the panic that grips his heart when he opens your cell’s feed to find it turned off. He punches in his security clearance, manually overriding the camera and watching in fury as the image resolves on his screen. 

---

The door to your cell slams open and Nurse Parker rips away from you, leaving you kneeling on the floor and gasping for air between sobs as he turns to face the intruder. The nurse’s eyes widen in fear and he drops the syringe from his hand, the one he’s used to threaten you into compliance. 

“Hey, man…” he stutters, backing up into a wall as Donald stalks forward with murder in his eyes, “This-this one’s taken.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Donald grabs the man by the throat, lifting him off the floor and throttling him into the cinder block wall. He gets up close, spitting in the man’s face as he hisses, “Yeah, she is.”

Nurse Parker is choking for air and thrashing his limbs uselessly against his attacker. Donnie drops him to his feet long enough to aim a vicious punch to the side of his head that sends him crashing to the floor.

You tuck yourself into a corner by your bed to avoid being caught in the violence. The movement catches the nurse’s eyes and he glares at you with disgust as he spits blood.

“FUCK!” he moans, looking up at Donald, “She’s just a fuckin’ mutant!”

Donald’s body goes still. You can see every muscle in his back standing out against the tight t-shirt he’s wearing. He crouches down over his victim. His voice goes soft and menacing and you recall the mind-numbing fear he can instill with just that voice.

“She’s. My. Fucking. Mutant.”

He turns to you then, a gentle smile on his lips as if he’s trying to sooth a wounded animal, “Why don’t you wait for me out in the hallway, baby. I won’t be a minute.”

---

Donald finds you crouched on the floor looking utterly gutted. Your face is stained with tear tracks and your lip is split and bruised from where Nurse Parker had forced you to…

He suppresses a wild growl and leans down to help you stand.

“You’re okay, baby,” he whispers as he escorts you down the hall and away from the blood spattered cell. “You’re okay now.”

He takes you to his apartment. Donald’s not allowing himself to think anything through right now, he just acts on instinct. He won’t leave you alone tonight. He logs it like he does any other training session and simply walks out with you. If you could think past the lingering fear and trauma then you’d marvel at how easy it could be. He could just take you away. If he wanted.

Donald lives forty minutes away in a high-rise. The apartment is massive with a wide open living area and kitchen, big windows looking out to the night sky and a bedroom and bath tucked away in the back. He takes you into the bedroom, sitting you down on the edge of his king-sized bed before walking into the bathroom. You hear the tap running as you cast your eyes around the room, taking in the simple luxury of his living space with awe. Your fingers sink into the plush down comforter on his bed and you honestly might cry from the decadence compared to your pitiful mattress.

He emerges from the bathroom with a glass of water and pushes it toward you.

“Drink somethin’, baby. You’re pale,” his voice is quieter than you’ve ever heard it. You look up at him. Really looking for the first time since he stormed into your cell. He has dark circles under his eyes and blood smeared over his face. He holds himself without any of his usual cocky self-assurance. You take the glass from him and sip from it. 

“Thank you,” you whisper, your voice is broken and ragged from stress. “This is...where you live?”

The answer is obvious but the real question behind your words--why did you bring me here?--can’t be asked.

“Mmhmm,” Donnie hums in response, turning to his nightstand and casually twisting the robotic hand on the end of his arm until the entire prosthetic comes off. He lets it clunk onto the table as you watch with fascination. 

Then he’s sitting beside you on the bed, taking the empty glass from your hands and setting it down next to the prosthetic. His fingers brush over yours as he does so and you feel the familiar shiver that comes whenever he touches you. Donnie sees it, too. He knows how you respond to him. Most days it fills him with a sense of righteous pleasure to know his little mutant enjoys his touch. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he questions you. The anger in his voice causes you to draw back instinctively. He doesn’t let you go far, though, grasping your hand and holding it between you on the bed. “Answer me.”

“He said he would kill me,” you reply, not meeting his eyes, “if I told anyone.”

Donald’s fingers tighten around yours and you finally look up at him, sinking into his intense gaze. Something inside those eyes flickers as he answers you with a deep rumble, “No one but I can kill you, baby.”

He keeps eye contact with you as he says the words, leaning closer and ducking down so he can press his forehead against yours like he always does. There’s something about the gesture that feels intimate and... special. You can’t look away from him and you feel your body gravitating closer even as you huff a bemused laugh at his words.

“Is that supposed to comfort me?”

But...strangely...it does. He may be your captor...your jailer...but he won’t let anyone else hurt you. And after seeing the ferocity of his violence tonight...you believe him.

Donnie doesn’t answer you with his words. His mind is buzzing with accusations and warnings, but he ignores them all. He pushes back against the memory of that fucking nurse’s voice scoffing, She’s just a mutant. Instead he leans forward, bridging the final gap between you and pressing his soft, full lips against yours. His lips are impossibly soft but the kiss is all urgency and yearning. He cups his hand around the back of your neck, holding you in place as he ravages your mouth. Not that you want to pull away. No, you’re pressing yourself up against his chest, your hands running through his hair and trailing down to his shoulders as he deepens the kiss. It feels like every touch, every word exchanged over the last month has been leading you both to this place. 

The kiss goes on and on. It’s savage and gentle and sad and urgent all at once. You’re both reluctant to pull away for even one second because if you do then the spell will be broken and you’ll have to go back to being captor and captive. So you don’t pull away. You don’t end it. You sink into Donnie’s warm body and let him engulf your tiny form. You let him claim you and capture you all over again. You cling to this moment with all your strength. Because already--already you’re grieving it. You’re grieving the moment it ends and he takes you back to that place. And Donnie must feel it too because he growls into your lips and his fingers tighten on the back of your neck as if he’s raging against the reality that won’t ever let the two of you go from its grip.

Afterwards you’re both breathless and flushed. He lies beside you on the bed, running his fingers through your hair and humming soothing words to you as your eyes flutter shut. 

“I got you, baby,” he whispers, “You’re alright.”

And, for now, you are.

Tags:

@nothing-but-a-comedy @ionlyjoinedforboydholbrook @theplumsoldier @meri47 @lackofhonor

[kylorengarbagedump]

Little Bird: Chapter 21

Read on AO3. Part 20 here. Part 22 here.

Summary: You might not be the best spy on the planet, but you're trying, and that counts for something--right?

Words: 3200

Warnings: Handmaid AU

Characters: Kylo Ren x Handmaid!Reader

A/N: Does this count as a cliffhanger? Am I, as the kids say, back on my bullshit? Big big thanks to @pnw-escapism for this chapter's primary mechanic. I swear to god, y'all, she and @faestae are basically out here writing my fics for me.

Love all of y'all so much! ❤

“Blessed be the fruit.”

Ofarmitage stumbled, blinking at you in disbelief--only a moment of hesitation, but enough for you to glean that your face was unexpected. She recovered and moved forward, head straight, shoulders squared. “May the Lord open.”

Head down, you trailed her.

Following your lesson--if it could be called such, as the only marks you’d received were purple and along your collar--you’d plopped into bed, mind mesmerized with memories of Ren’s mouth, his words, his eyes. Your chest had seized in want for him to lie there with you, to curl around you as he’d done before, a want you’d liked have to suffocated with your pillow. You wondered now if he’d had the same feelings about you after fucking you so goddamn thoroughly, if he’d laid next to Johana, imagining your body instead, if his brain had swum with regrets and hopes and dreams. It didn’t feel foolish now, to wonder such things. 

After all--he was you.

A light, airy breath entered your lungs--and you recognized a distinct lack of anvils on your chest, a burden you’d been carrying since you’d stepped in the van with Rey. It was only now, in the relief of Ofarmitage’s company, that you realized she was the one person--perhaps on the entire planet, at this moment--whose presence didn’t inspire guilt when it came to your feelings about Kylo Ren. It was an unintentional bond, forged in the fires of shame, recast now in desperation--a need for someone, anyone to know the sick, frustrated desires of your heart. 

Her words--I’m scared I’d miss him--seemed more tangible to you now than ever. 

“How do you do it?” Your voice seemed strange to you in its softness. 

“Uh.” She cleared her throat. “Do what?”

“Live with yourself.”

“Uh, excuse me?”

You shook your head. “No, sorry,” you said. “Not like that. I just…” You snuck a glance beyond your wings, trying to meet her eyes--but she refused to look in your direction. “I want him. I can’t stop wanting him.”

Silence--she inhaled slowly through her nose. “Yeah,” she said. “It sucks.”

The acknowledgement alone sent your heart soaring. God, it did suck, didn’t it, to exist for your womb, to be teased with trailers of affection but never provided the feature film, to be starved of love and humanity and have only a single man you wanted to receive it from--the very same man who’d determined you weren’t worthy of it. Ofarmitage had known the other Ofkylos, had been with her Commander at least a year. A year of suffering in the hell you’d made home. You hoped for some guidance, some pardon from a person who wasn’t in your own head.  

“How do I forgive myself for it?” 

“Just accept it,” she said. “Take whatever he’s willing to give. Be grateful for it.”

The words fell like deflated balloons on your brain. “Oh.” 

A long moment of silence hung between you as you approached the Guardian checkpoint, produced your passes, and moved forward. Even if you hadn’t decided to help the Resistance, you weren’t sure how long you could pretend your feelings were anywhere in the realm of acceptability. 

You imagined telling Rey and Finn you’d begged for Ren to fuck you after he’d stuffed you full of the barrel of his gun--and that you’d meant it, too. You imagined telling them that, even with the knowledge that you were his Handmaid, you’d pined for his arms, willed a world to exist where you hadn’t ever known the word Gilead. You imagined telling them the doubt that wiggled in the back of your bestial brain, causing you to question whether you should even try to fight for your freedom.  

You weren’t sure if you were capable of being grateful for that.

Ofarmitage shrugged. “That’s what I do, anyway.” 

“You like the way this is set up?” you asked. “A version of life where you’re his slave?”

Her brow furrowed, lips twisting as she tried to avoid a scowl. “I don’t know,” she said. “I try not to think about it.”

You balked. “How can you not?” It was an effort to temper the steel in your tone. “Don’t you want…” You searched for the words--you remembered what you’d told Johana. “Didn’t you imagine yourself being loved?”

“How do you know he doesn’t love me?” she snapped. “You’ve never met Armitage.” Her voice fell, softened. “I’m waiting for him.”

“What, exactly, are you waiting for?” The words leaving your mouth were harsher, drier than you’d expected, like familiar knives on your tongue, knives you’d already dug into your own flesh.  “You know that you can’t ever be with--”

“You know what,” she said through clenched teeth, “I thought the Resistance got rid of you!” 

You swallowed--and she was silent. Boots scuffed the ground in a moment of empty, wordless  apology. Neither of you needed to speak into life the reasons you’d weaponized your own misery.

She cleared her throat. “Uh, I thought the Resistance had picked you up two days ago.”

“They did.”

“Then why are you back?”

Sighing, you glanced at your feet. “Things got complicated.”

“What happened?”

“So…” 

Unwanted recollections--the women in tears at the base, Poe’s murder, your own damnation in Ren’s hands. And those same hands, gentle as they’d stroked your hair, and his arms securing you to his broad chest, and his gaze, a vortex of wanton and vulnerable need. And you were conspiring to bring him to retribution. And he deserved it. And… and... You bit your lip, unsure if you should reveal your mission. Yet, the only person who could understand the reality of your hesitation to complete it was right next to you.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re asking me to spy on him. To turn him over.”

Ofarmitage gasped, a noise she silenced in her throat. “You can’t do that.”

“What?” You hadn’t expected outright discouragement. “Why not?”

She glanced between you and the upcoming market, a herd of white-capped red funnels swarming the entrance, like a barrel of shuttlecocks had been spilled in front of the store. Guardians would be there, too. She spoke between tight lips, spitting the words like curses.

“Ren’s second-in-command,” she said. “If you bring him down, Armitage might go with him.” Her chest heaved with anxious breath. “You can’t do that yet. I’m not ready. Give me more time with him. Just a few more days, at least let me--”

“Hey!” you hissed. “Relax. I haven’t done anything yet--”

“But you’re going to--”

“Just…” You both were close, now. “I’ll let you know before anything happens. Okay?”

She sucked in a sigh. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

You shook your head. Were your only two choices between pitiable submission and condemnation? You’d been foolish in your wish that Ofarmitage, tangled in the knots of her own self-hatred, could deliver you from yours.

In the market, you broke from her and slipped into the cold, lifeless aisles of food, aching to escape your Ghost of Gilead Yet to Come. There was something comforting about being surrounded by bottled, jarred produce in comparison--a simple existence, a simple purpose. Ren’s words echoed: Liberation is found in the realization of your purpose. You snorted. He was right. It was just unfortunate you were having to make decisions about yours.

Another body sidled up beside you. “It’s me,” they whispered.

Despite the re-assurance, you still flinched, meeting your stranger’s eyes in fear. It was Rey, in her Handmaid uniform again. You sighed, the dread of addressing your assignment sinking onto your shoulders. It would’ve been nice if you’d gotten a second to prepare to meet her. Doubt was a busted record, blaring in the gramophone of your mind.

“We won’t always meet like this,” she said, “but I needed to make sure you were okay.”

You swallowed, throat tight. “I’m fine.” A memory: Pop. “But Poe--”

“Don’t.” Her voice was a whisper. “Don’t apologize.” She reached over you, grabbing a canister of sugar from the shelves, taking the opportunity to meet your gaze. “Any of us can die at any time. Including me. Including you. We’re dealing with…” She took a breath, and plopped the sugar in her bag. “We’re dealing with Poe’s death. And we can make sure it wasn’t in vain.” Pulling away, she walked with you. “What have you found out?”

You nearly choked, blood rushing your face. Found out? You hadn’t realized you’d needed to be doing work already. You weren’t even sure what you needed to be looking for. Unless the Resistance was interested in a report about the feeling of Ren’s beautiful mouth eating your pussy like it dripped ambrosia. You could compose an entire presentation on that, actually. And the addendum, too, which would consist of a detailed run-down of getting reamed out on his desk.

“Hey.” It was Rey, jerking you back to the market. “Anything yet?”

You cleared your throat. You could tell her about these things--could mention the nature of your relationship with Ren, how highly illegal and hypocritical it was, how his prescribed duty of re-education seemed intent on educating you about little else outside of his cock. A verifiable source reporting this--that would be enough to prompt an investigation. An investigation that almost assuredly would not end in his favor.

But for some reason, all you could do was shake your head and respond, “No. Nothing.”

A slight grimace twisted her lips. “Damn.” She spun to the left, looking through the selection of spices before turning back to you. “That’s okay. Here’s what you can do.” A pair of Handmaids passed you, and she dipped into another aisle. You followed. “Commanders usually have records around the formation of Gilead. See if you can find anything about his role under Commander Snoke. That’ll be a good start.” 

“Okay,” you said, feeling distinctly not okay with any of that. “Got it.” Just find some records that may exist somewhere in the annals of Ren’s massive home and identify anything pertinent enough to steal or copy or hand over. So simple. 

“Good luck,” Rey said. “We’ll see you soon.” She washed into the sea of red, a crimson ghost.

“See you soon,” you mumbled to yourself, a promise you weren’t ready to fulfill.

The walk back to your home was silent. Ofarmitage’s hands wrung the life from her bag--but she refused to say anything more than what you both had already discussed. Not as if there was much else to say, regardless. As you turned into the garden, you searched for Ren’s Audi--but no sign of it in the driveway.

You entered the house to the sounds of bustle in the kitchen--Emma and Rose, preparing dinner, you supposed, but it was barely past noon. Carrying your load of groceries, you peered into the kitchen, observing the two Marthas tearing through cabinets and slamming ingredients into containers, measuring out spices and counting out vegetables. You swallowed, holding up your contribution.

“Um. Did you need this?”

“Oh, thank God,” Emma said, darting to grab it from you. 

Rose was on her heels, ripping the bag from her grip and scrutinizing its contents. “Did you--” She paused, lifting some of the produce to the side. “Yes. Okay. Yes.” She eyed you with hesitation. “Good. Thank you.”

“You’re… welcome?” You swallowed. “What’s going on?”

“Johana left the house trying to meet with the other Wives to get them and their husbands over for a dinner party tonight,” she said. “She’s trying to end the Commander’s suspension.”

You blinked. “Oh.” 

Rose grimaced. “Yep. Whatever you did sure pissed her off--”

“Rose.” Emma’s cheeks were pinker than usual. “Just try and stay out of the way, tonight.” She paused. “But also be prepared to be questioned by the other Commanders. Just in case.”

An iron fist seized your chest. “Questioned?”

“You, well, ran,” said Emma. “They’ll want to make sure you aren’t. Y’know. Conspiring, or anything.”

You swallowed. “Right.” You. Conspiring. What a thought. “Um. Anyway. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll… leave you guys alone?”

Emma nodded. Rose glanced at you, offered a shrug--probably one of the warmer things you’d seen her do. You bowed out, leaning into the wall as you attempted to still the orchestral percussion set that had become your heart. Not only were there going to be a bevy of Commanders and Wives in the home tonight, they might even ask to see you, to speak with you, to watch you perform your loyalty to a script you’d burned months ago.

You needed to do that reconnaissance. And with both Ren and Johana out of the house for the foreseeable future, you needed to do it now.

Sighing, you wracked your brain, trying to make yourself into someone who was capable of priding herself on her cunning intuition. If you were valuable information, where would you be? The den being the--to you--obvious answer, you snuck there first, and sifted through the organizers and drawers of Ren’s desk. You rifled through folders and pulled out loose paper, seeking out clues that might point you in the direction of anything interesting, but it was full of religious babble, copies of prepared speeches by other Commanders, lists of shopping notations. Nothing worth rustling through. 

You groaned--this seemed hopeless. The 6 bedrooms (yours included), 5 bathrooms, parlour, kitchen, formal dining room, drawing room, piano room, and laundry room all seemed equally as unlikely to harbour anything of importance. As you stood to leave, you caught sight of a pen tossed against the wall, a fatality of your furious fuck. Face red, you shuffled over to it, picking it up to replace it, and realized it wasn’t against the wall--it was lodged underneath the wall.

Swallowing, you remembered the hidden rooms in the Resistance home, and examined the wallpaper, gliding your fingers over it--edges of one sheet dipped into a divot. A seam. Up until this point in your life, you’d thought secret chambers in homes were myths. But Gilead seemed to inspire this sort of deception. Heart in your throat, you wiggled your digits into the junction, tugged--and the wall depressed forward, a wheel and pulley system built into the ceiling whirring while you eased the panel to the side.

In front of you was what you could only describe as a modified closet--built-in shelves housed stacks of folders, binders, and books, metal cabinets underneath all meticulously labeled in familiar handwriting. You glanced to the opposite wall, heart skipping--a computer sat on a small wooden desk next to a silver shoebox cassette player and an organizer of tapes--those too notated in sweeping cursive. Like a parched straggler in the desert, you scrambled forward, eyes leaping over the tags, pleading internally that your dumb luck had managed to score you something big.

The tapes were labeled only in dates: April 23, 1985--only a few weeks before you’d arrived. You considered plucking it from the slot, but remembered Rey had mentioned something about around the time of the formation of Gilead. You chewed your lip, eyes following as your fingers tapped each tape, as if to figuratively absolve them of responsibility. The earliest tape caught your eye--November 18, 1979--that was only a couple months before the first attacks. Hands trembling, you extracted the tape from the casing and popped it into the player. You glanced behind you twice, twirling the volume wheel to low before hitting play.

Click. 

Ambient chatter, a myriad of male voices, indistinguishable. The sound of a door closing, rustling. Silence, for a brief moment.

“You’re recording?” 

Your throat dried, closed up--that voice belonged to Kylo Ren, but far more anxious than you’d ever known him to sound. Another male spoke, much older sounding, his voice creaking in his throat like a rusty spoon.

“Of course. You’ll receive a copy, too. We’ll always have the exact same information.” A pause, papers shuffling. “It’s important to document conversations like this, Ben. When we write the history books, we want it to be accurate.”

Face screwing in confusion, you hit rewind. What had he called him?

“--document conversations like this, Ben.”

Pause. He’d definitely said Ben, not Ren. What the hell? Palms sweating, you pressed play again.

“When we write the history books, we want it to be accurate.”

“Yes.” More silence, more shuffling. “The revolution is coming soon.”

“You’re right. It’s not long, now. Weeks. Maybe months,” said the other man. “I couldn’t be happier that we have our most skilled soldier preparing our militia.”

“Thank you, sir, but it’s only due to your--”

“Nonsense. Your skill, your aptitude is inherent to you. You are a true warrior.” Pages flipped and rustled. “This is your formal offer. You will play an important role in the formation of our new order.”

Ren audibly cleared his throat. “It would be an honor.”

“You feel you’re ready?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure about that.” Silence--the sound of scribbling, paper flickering. “You’ve expressed doubt before, criticism, even. About our mission. Our creed…”

“I understand, sir. I’ve resolved those doubts.” A sniffle--and then more scrapes of a pen. “I’m prepared. Nothing will stand in our way.”

Your head spun. Ren had doubts about Gilead. Doubts he apparently still had failed to resolve. You wondered how much of his life he’d spent lying to himself. 

“Excellent,” said the other man. “You won’t be disappointed. Under my guidance, you will have everything you ever wanted. We both will.” More papers rustling. Scribbling. “That’s all that needs signing today.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is your formal acceptance into the future endeavours of the Sons of Jacob.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Excellent,” the other man said again. “I’m proud of you.”

Ren cleared his throat again. “I’ll take my leave.”

Silence, then rustling. A chair groaned, then steps, moving further from the receiver. Squeaking of a door--

“You’ve truly grown from the young, uncertain boy I met all those years ago, Ben Solo.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Fumbling with the recorder, you hit rewind again, turning the volume up. There was no way you’d heard what you thought you’d heard.

“--those years ago, Ben Solo.”

Rewind. Volume louder.

“--those years ago, Ben Solo.”

Rewind, sound screaming.

“--Ben Solo.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Your heart slammed into your sternum. Who the fucking shit was Ben Solo?

If other recordings held the answer, you’d never get to find out--behind you, the den door opened. You whirled, pointlessly hitting pause on the player, as if that would prevent the discovery of what you’d been doing, praying that Emma or Rose would be on the other side of the room.

But your prayers went unanswered.

Kylo Ren locked with your eyes, huge frame filling the room as he eased the door shut behind him. Breath bailed from your lungs, muscles locking as if he’d paralyzed you with his mind. Sweat sopped in every crevice of your body, and you swallowed, forcing a smile.

“Um. Good… afternoon, Commander.”

He stood, staring. He was silent.

[drwcn]

yunmeng trio short fic: { and then there was one }

三毒 sandu | 四谛 sidi | 五蕴 wuyun

Sandu was never supposed to be alone. 

Once, there had been three of them. Forged together by the same careful, weathered hands of a seasoned blacksmith, they took form in the cooling womb of Yunmeng’s water. 

Wuyun emerged first, his sister whose spirit was gentle, but whose core was steel. Sidi went next, pulled from the water gleaming and sharp and ready to be wielded. Sandu settled a little slower, but he was curious and excited for the world that awaited him. 

Nothing about life was what he expected.

Wuyun’s service had been bright and short, and ended before it even began. In her last days, his sister withdrew into the cocoon of her sheath, her spirit dampened and left untethered by the sudden exhaustion of her mistress’s golden core. There she remained for almost twenty years. Yet back then, even in her sheath, she would still respond to pulses from him and Sidi - rebelliously renamed Suibian soon after he’d been claimed - but now...now his sister has gone forever silent and rests along side her mistress, buried deep in Lanling’s catacombs. Spirit swords do not die unless broken, and they certainly do not fade; but Wuyun is lost to him, and Sandu is confronted by her silence every time his master goes to pay respect to her mistress.

He wonders if she blames him, though he’s not quite sure what for... 

Then there is Sidi - Suibian - who went missing for sixteen years. 

When he returned, Sandu did not recognize him. Suibian was changed, confused, untethered like Wuyun had been untethered but different, because Suibian obeyed Sandu’s master and no one else. Others were befuddled, but Sandu understood. 

The first time Suibian’s master’s golden core reached out to him, Sandu had known. He’d felt the tearing pain of separation from his master’s core, a pain entirely unattenuated by time and distance. He wondered if this was what Wuyun felt before she was sheathed for eternity. The kind of bond between a spirit sword such as themselves and their first golden core, spurring to life inside the innocent heart of a child...they could never forget. 

So of course, Sandu knew, but for his Master’s sake, Sandu yielded and accepted this new core that so desperately called out to him. Sandu was not his brother; he knew when a fight shouldn’t be picked, he knew when a cause was lost. Suibian may have been been a free-spirit, but he was a damn stubborn one. It shouldn’t make sense, and yet it did. Perfectly. 

These days Suibian lay in his own sheath, propped up and resting on an altar in a room at Lotus Pier no one goes into anymore. The room is not locked, though it had been for many years when its occupant had been a single black flute. 

Chenqing, his name was. And boy, was he a character.  

Suibian speaks very little nowadays, no matter how many times Sandu coaxes and prods. His brother, like his sister, has gone somewhere far away, leaving him in their wake. Maybe Suibian is waiting, waiting for the day when he’d be picked up again. His master has a new core now, weak and dim but it’s a core nonetheless. Maybe someday, the brother Sandu knew will return.

Until then, Sandu serves, and he serves alone. 

[katcadecascade]

New Qrow fic WIP

It’s a bit of a character study but mostly RWBY/JNOR/more doing shenanigans.

The only problem, I can’t think of a name for this fic.

Anyway here, Chapter One/Round One: Throwing Down the Gauntlet

Blake will admit, she’s a sucker for romance.

How could she not be?

In a world where morbid emotions attract monsters, where injustice breeds from hatred of culture and birth traits, something as simple and layered as love is beautiful and strong and can power people through their darkest moments but also bring them to their knees.

She should say she just learned this all from her books but honestly in the last year or so, Blake has certainly lived through some crazy shit.

But let’s not get into that right now.

Sure her tale begins with her people’s suffering, her parent’s pacifism, a poor boy’s spite, and her own frightful shadows. She could go write to great lengths on how the journey gained her treasured friends, bonds forged through fire, and how it lead them to the coldest place of the north.

That’s where this game begins.

Yes a game indeed or maybe a war by the sharpness in the Valkyrie’s eyes or the telltale song notes of glyphs charging up.

It began with a series of events that piqued the interest of the eight (and later on more) charges under the wings of Qrow Branwen.

The first thing they noticed took place on their very first night in Atlas, where one General James Ironwood hugged the scythe master. The two thought they were alone but the nieces back tracked to get their uncle.

While they made the wise decision to leave the men alone, the girls immediately blurted their findings to the rest of their friends.

Their reactions were of surprise and cooing but it only trigger their radars to look out for more of these moments. None of them could recall ever seeing Qrow be so vulnerable with anyone else. Granted they didn’t spend the most time with him but even Yang and Ruby were caught off guard.

This was their uncle so ultimately this was under Yang’s and Ruby’s discretion or wonderment.

That didn’t stop the rest of them from being curious to see what else will happen between Qrow and Ironwood.

Small and subtle were the ways of the General, lingering eyes or the quietly inviting the huntsman into his office. Ruby’s sniper skills were used for observations like these. Her skills in stealth could’ve been better to muffle her cooing.

Things were going steady, slowly seeing the man underneath the steel. Maybe then the kids could decide to trust him with the truth from the Lamp. Not that Qrow’s compromised in anyway, but seeing this spark between them certainly helps the kids trust the general a little bit more.

James Ironwood appeared to be able to offer up his heart to Qrow.

So imagine their surprise when Clover Ebi entered the game.

There’s that word again: game.

It’s a little immature to describe it as so but Blake couldn’t think of any other word.

Blake and the others keep noticing certain events focused on Qrow, usually engaged by one man or the other.

Small side glances, a brushing of hands, coffee treats and many more that can be listed as intimate or thoughtful or purposeful. Although, Clover’s flirting are rather forward. Most importantly, Qrow’s happiness is the growing outcome.

And pray tell what game is this? Where two men woo a common thread that is slowly becoming enamored by these actions?

A courting game.

Hands slam down on the kitchen table. “Everyone, place your bets!”

“We are so not betting on this!” Weiss crossed her arms, perfectly poised and unmoved.

“Come on,” Nora whined, “There’s nothing else to do here.”

“Aside from doing our jobs and brainstorming how to save the world?”

“All I’m saying is that we need a break from all the seriousness and focus on Team Dad.”

On the couches, only Blake noticed the resident nieces share a glance. They don’t argue against their uncle’s title, instead they quirk their lips in a knowing look.

(Blake later understands their silent exchanges when a game changer occurs)

“Nora’s right,” Jaune agreed, “and I usually never want to say that.”

“Hey!”

“You’re the one who broke the coffee machine by trying to fix it,” Oscar pointed out. Behind him said device has a despairing groan.

Ruby follows up, “And then got the rest of us blaming each other for it.”

“Enough, enough,” the redhead shouted, “We’re getting off track!”

“We are not conspiring on Qrow’s love life!” Weiss proclaimed.

“She’s right,” Ren said with the composure of a sage, highlighted as he sipped his tea, “There’s no need to.”

Yang raised an eyebrow, both curious and surprised, “What do you mean?”

Everyone waited for their resident ninja to finish another long drink, for dramatic effect Blake must note.

Then simply enough, he answers, “Qrow would fall for the General.”

That was clearly not the answer Nora wanted.

She’s a sputtering mess while next to her, Weiss holds her head high.

“Thank you, someone else sees my point,” the ex-heiress nods.

Sharpness in Jaune’s voice catches her off guard, “Your point? You think Ironwood’s gonna get with Qrow?”

“Is it not obvious?”

Nora butts in, a strange tension in her shoulders, “Sure yeah but look at Clover!”

Her team leader listed off, “They’re mission partners but also hanging around each off in their downtime.”

“Yes,” Nora nods enthusiastically, “Just like Jaune with Marrow.”

“H-hey wait-“

“You haven’t seen Qrow with James alone though.”

Again, everyone is quiet as they stare down their resident cute wizard boy.

Oscar squirms a little under the attention, backtracking, “Oh, um, I only mean um I would see them right before James tutors me? And Qrow would sometimes be there too and,” he sighs heavily, “honestly it’s like my aunt’s romance novels.”

Blake immediately guesses the classic tropes of longing, quiet vulnerability, trust and intimacy. She doesn’t voice her thoughts. No need since Weiss happily regales her own findings.

“Winter says that she’s never seen Ironwood so relaxed before. Sure she’s a little teed that it was Qrow’s doing but the results are still good.”

“But what about Qrow’s ‘results’ when he’s with Clover,” Nora argued.

Ruby does her little head shake, musing over her thoughts, “He is a lot calmer or relaxed.”

Nora cackles at the fuming Weiss, affronted at her girlfriend not on her side.

That’s rectified as Ruby taps her chin, scholarly and not noticing Weiss’ heat, “Although he is a lot more teasing around Ironwood.”

“See!” Weiss grins as if this is victory. Her current rival is unbothered.

“He’s the same with Clover,” Nora counters and honestly Weiss can’t possibly argue with that.

Too many times have the kids witness Qrow becoming a bumbling, blushing mess when Clover compliments him. There’s so much bi/gay tension there to even think of denying.

“Qrow must be taking his time then,” Blake voiced. “With both Ironwood and Clover, maybe he’s a bit overwhelmed.”

Next to her, Yang sighs, “Knowing him, he might not realize what’s going on unless someone tells him.”

“Or he’s aware of all of this happening and dismisses it as something that can’t actually happen to him,” Jaune painfully accurately describes as what is probably going on.

This type of denial of happiness, this consuming pit of numbness and pain, people who loved and lost and felt guilty for even loving and losing need to be told they’re deserving of love.

Maybe Jaune’s speaking for himself or maybe Blake’s interpreting for her own experiences.

But one shared glance with the knight confirms her thoughts. Qrow must have talked to him too about this type of grief.

The blame and the guilt and the responsibility of losing someone, be it person of goodness or of spite, it’s a heavy feeling that Blake, Jaune, Qrow and possible the others too have carry.

So while the huntsman tries to assure the two kids of their grievances, there hasn’t been an opportune time to ask how he’s coping. As the young adults under his care, they all worry about him, especially his nieces. At first he was the mysteriously cool uncle as proclaimed by Ruby and later on the secretive and paranoid uncle explained by Yang but in their shared time together, each kid gotten to know the crow by their own definitions.

It’s like that little thing Blake does, associate a word with a person.

She told Sun about her girls, Earnest, Defiance, and Strength.

Then there’s team JNPR, Tenacity for Jaune, Zestful for Nora, Ascendancy for Pyrrha and Acuity for Ren. It took some time but eventually Oscar became Perseverance.

As for Qrow, well, she jokingly thought Mother Hen but now she’s satisfied to call him Memory.

It’s mostly because of all the Muninn parallels but there is just so much history behind Qrow Branwen. Carried in the creak in his bones, dips in his scars, the grey of his feathery hair, the surprise in his laughs, like he’s relearning how it is to walk with ghosts and angels.

So yeah, Blake sometimes worries about him and then she and Weiss worry about Ruby and Yang getting worried too.

But maybe there’s no need to.

From the soft gazes he sets on James and Clover, maybe they’re the ones making sure their Team Dad/Uncle is doing okay.

Now if only Qrow’s love life can move to the next stage.

Their conversation during breakfast was more than enough as food for thought, analyzing everything they know of Qrow Branwen and how he interacts with two men in particular.

Early mission meetings are obviously designated Clover Flirting Time as they get to their seats.

“I wouldn’t mind having another match with you,” Clover said casually as if it didn’t take weeks of near begging for a one on one fight.

“Really? You enjoy falling on your ass that much, lucky charm?”

“Sure do,” Clover slides close, letting his hip press against Qrow’s. “But I like seeing you down on the mats just as much.”

That flirt was meant to be whispered, low and teasing and it definitely sends a blush down Qrow’s neck. It’s a real shame that Blake has an extra set of ears to hear this.

Then from the sight of Marrow almost choking on his coffee, he probably heard it too.

The dog faunus and the cat faunus exchange silent misery.

“Ooh, another match?” Nora, being her glorious self, pops right at Qrow’s side and the two men nearly jump. “Hah, that’s a bit boring by now.”

Clover raises a brow, slightly wary and challenged, “Boring?”

Nora nods her head as Ren-like as possible, “Yep, I mean, training doesn’t have to be combat does it?”

Qrow blinks at her, and so does her teammates because hey, this is Nora complaining about combat training. “Nora, you got something else in mind?”

This encouragement, openness and trust, Blake wouldn’t have noticed it before but Qrow has been putting a lot more faith in them since Argus. It’s really nice to have an adult take them seriously. Then again this is Qrow. He encouraged Yang and Jaune to start a prank war.

Their resident lightning in a bottle had a million volt grin, “Parkour and freerunning! We all saw the Ops jumping around in the mines and that time Qrow and Winter destroyed the campus.”

“Miss Valkyrie,” hissed the ice queen, “I advise you to refrain from telling that anecdote.”

“What, feeling sore since you lost?” Qrow grinned.

“I did not lose, Qrow,” she glared, “it was clearly a stalemate.”

“Wow, now I’m really curious,” Clover said.

“I’ll tell you all about it then,” Qrow winked, “like how I clearly would’ve won.”

Next to Nora, Jaune added in, “There was a recording of it going around campus, like from the moment Qrow bushed back his bangs to the end where the General stopped the fight.”

To Blake, it’s a little odd to see Jaune gush about this since majority of them choose to ignore the usually mushiness of Clover Flirting Time. But then she notice the way Jaune subtly elbowed his teammate.

“Brush your bangs?” Clover’s focus on that little detail had him reach over to do said action, “Huh, you don’t look that intimidating like this.”

Like this, as they all observe, is Qrow blushing madly at the close contact and gentle action, the way Clover’s fingers glided through his dark hair like water.

Oblivious to the two men, everyone else in the room saw Jaune and Nora fist bump each other. They don’t even hide their smugness. No they toss it over at Weiss and Ren.

Ren is slightly alarmed.

Their resident ice princess on the other hand is silently fuming.

Like Blake mentioned before, this is a game.

It may be petty, invasive, and a tad immoral.

And yet it has begun.

-

So yeah, I need fic title suggestions and ideas

pls

[paladinquen]

Part 2 of my GerAme fic.

A Bond Forged With Steel (Hetalia Rare Pair Exchange) Part 2

Hi @realmzenith, so I lied, your gift will have three parts! Here is Part 2 (and Part 3 will have to wait at least a day). And yes, I definitely put in Gilbert being both their mentors in on purpose :D

Pairing: Germany/America

Tag: Fantasy AU

Rating: Teen

Image from Pexels

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