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eleanorfenyxwrites · 1 year ago

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The Thing You're Dealing

The Waves are Rising and Rising Extra Scene #1

Good news for anyone here interested in getting back into this universe: @little-smartass and I are making good progress on the extras and we're ready to start posting what we've finished 🥰 This one is a very important pre-fic conversation, enjoy!

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The climate in Lanling is relatively mild this time of year, which is a single small mercy for Wen Qing’s situation - her situation being, ultimately, destitution and homelessness.

Her uncle had called for her to treat him in the final weeks of the war, so she had left her brother and family behind in (what she’d believed to be) the relative safety of their small village and ventured into Nightless City, settled in the caldera of a dormant volcano; the heat and heart of Qishan. She’d managed to slip away from the Palace when the Sunshot forces had arrived, suspecting - correctly, as it turned out - that the tide was going to turn in the favour of people who would not be particularly sympathetic to what she had been forced to do to survive.

She’d returned to her village and found it razed to the ground, Wen Ning and the rest of her family gone. The one tiny glimmer of hope that had stopped her from dropping to her knees and sobbing was that she’d found signs of a struggle, but no bodies. They must have either escaped (unlikely, Wen Ning was the only combat-capable person among them) or been taken prisoner.

Thinking about the situation in terms of cold facts made it easier to push down the terror; with the Jiang forces decimated in the attack on Lotus Pier, the Nie warriors having been greatly reduced in the attack on their stronghold, and Cloud Recesses having been burnt down, it would make sense for prisoners to be kept by the far more stable Jin clan.

And so Wen Qing had immediately turned all her focus on travelling to Lanling. On her way she’d sold her golden hairpiece to a merchant who’d been willing to turn a blind eye to her red Wen robes, trading it for food and a nondescript brown cloak and directions. She’d made it to Lanling and found it a sprawling city, loud and bustling and unfriendly to outsiders with no coin. She’d sold and traded what she could for room and board - spending each night listening intently to rumours and gossip and praying desperately to hear word of her family - and when that had run out, she’d been forced to huddle in alleyways like a stray dog, searching for shelter and whatever scraps she could find.

It was hard not to let herself drown in despair. Travelling to Lanling had been a fool’s errand, but what else could she possibly do? She could not give up on her family, her honour and pride and soul would not allow her.

But… what could she possibly do now?

It is during her third week of sleeping on the streets that the man in the cloak approaches her. She is suspicious at first (a drunken man had approached her on her second night, leering and leaning a little too close, admiring her large eyes and heart-shaped face, and after she had scared him off, she’d begun wearing her hood up at all times to avoid that kind of attention), but when he crouches and she’s able to see his features beneath his hood, she’s shocked to realise she recognises him.

Last time the two had met, they’d both been trapped inside the dome of Wei Wuxian’s protective ward, and the boy had wailed and clutched at Jiang Wanyin’s sleeve as the fierce corpses had closed in on them. Before that, she’d seen him around Cloud Recesses, at the lectures, cheerful and talkative with a mischievous glint in his eyes. He was Nie Huaisang, younger brother of the wrathful Chifeng-zun, and friend of the Jiangs.

“Wen-daifu,” he says quietly, offering her a smile that is probably meant to be reassuring. “May I speak with you?”

Despite everything, the use of daifu to address her warms her to him; the time she has spent destitute and alone has been a miserable blow to the remains of her pride. Still, she does not trust him. He is a Nie. All Nies hate Wens. What could the sect heir possibly have to say to her? Her throat is sore and aching and her voice would likely fail her, so she settles instead for shooting him her best glare.

He flinches (she has had many years of experience in intimidating little brothers) but rallies. “I mean you no harm, I promise - I am interested in your professional medical opinion, that’s all. And I’ll pay you well for it!”

She is… intrigued. How can she not be? Even if she weren’t, the money would be a good incentive.

“If you come with me to the inn on the next street, we can share a meal whilst I ask my questions. I’ll even pay you upfront if you want. How does that sound?”

Wen Qing licks her dry, cracked lips. It sounds good. Her stomach gurgles on cue, and Nie Huaisang’s awkward smile turns into a grin. Wen Qing lifts her chin with a scowl at his amusement, but does eventually climb to her feet and follow him around the corner to the inn. Nie Huaisang pays for a small private side room for them to dine in, and when they enter, carefully presses a privacy talisman to the back of the door.

Nie Huaisang attempts to make smalltalk, but Wen Qing sits in stony silence until the pot of tea arrives. She does her best not to glug it down with the true desperation she feels, though it is only after three cups that she can bring herself to pause and take a breath.

She is warm. She has quenched her thirst. There is a comfortable cushion beneath her and the promise of food on its way - and more importantly, a purse of money sitting beside her on the table that will help her continue her desperate search for her family.

For the first time in quite a long while, she lets herself relax a little. She places her cup down and levels her gaze evenly at Nie Huaisang across the table. “Ask your questions, Nie-gongzi.”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes flicker towards the privacy talisman on the door, before flicking back to her. “I am asking these questions in strict secrecy.”

Wen Qing snorts, raising an eyebrow, “I am not exactly active in jianghu society nowadays. I do not have anyone to tell your secrets.”

“I need you to help my brother,” Nie Huaisang admits. “Since the war, things have gotten… considerably worse.”

“Gongzi,” Wen Qing says, unable to hold back her incredulity, “your brother hates my family. He is famous for it. What makes you think he will be interested in my help? Does Qinghe not have its own doctors?”

Nie Huaisang leans in, eyes suddenly burning with a serious conviction she has never seen on his face before. “He will take your help because none of our doctors have been able to do anything for him. You are his last resort. He will take your help or he will die.”

Wen Qing sighs, biting the inside of her cheek and rubbing at her forehead wearily. “I assumed that he would consider death preferable than being treated by a Wen,” she mutters.

“Perhaps,” Nie Huaisang says fiercely, “but I do not. I will not let him succumb to qi deviation without at least looking for a solution.”

Gods above. Save us from the ridiculous stubborn loyalty of baby brothers, Wen Qing thinks, barely refraining from rolling her eyes. She sighs again instead. “Gongzi, I am flattered you have such faith in my medical abilities, but if every Nie doctor in the history of your sect has been unable to find a solution to your… family illness, what makes you think that I will be able to?”

Nie Huaisang avoids her eyes for a few moments in a way that immediately raises Wen Qing’s suspicion.

“You and I have a mutual friend,” he says guardedly, “who told me that you have a fair amount of practical experience with golden cores.”

A cold bolt of horror shoots through Wen Qing. She stares at him, desperately trying to keep her expression neutral. “What did Wei Wuxian tell you?”

Surely that fool wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell his friend about the golden core transfer. No - surely he wouldn’t - surely he wouldn’t put Jiang Wanyin’s reputation at such risk, surely he wouldn’t put her in such danger- when they’d parted Wei Wuxian had given every indication that he wanted to take the whole event to his grave -

“I went to visit him a few weeks ago, and when I mentioned that my brother was… struggling, he brought up that your treatment of Wen Ruohan - and his unstable qi from cultivating with the Yin Iron - had given you a greater insight into golden cores than any other doctor. And that when the Core Melting Hand crushed Jiang-xiong's core, you helped stabilise him until Baoshan Sanren could fix it.”

Thank the gods, Wei Wuxian had the good sense to lie; though even the lie is an incredibly dangerous thing to be spreading around if anyone thinks to question it any further. Wen Qing is fairly certain it is not the kind of information he would give up ordinarily.

“Did you get him drunk?” She demands.

“He is drunk more often than not nowadays,” Nie Huaisang says sadly, twisting his fan around in his hands. “Was, uh, was he not supposed to tell me about that?”

Wen Qing exhales slowly through her nose, pushing down the irritation, but also pushing down the deep ache of sadness at what Wei Wuxian has become post-war. He chose to give Jiang Wanyin his core, and he chose to pursue demonic cultivation, but… what a waste of a genuinely kind, brilliant man. She sincerely hopes he will find a way to recover.

“The treatment was strictly confidential,” she says through her teeth. “But, gongzi, what I did for them was completely different to your brother’s condition. I cannot honestly give you any good advice on the kind of treatment he would need, I’m sorry.”

“Then come with me to Qinghe!” Nie Huaisang blurts, leaning back over the table again, “If you examine him and help us figure out a course of action, I will make sure you get paid, and find you somewhere to live! Lots of villages would love to have a competent doctor and wouldn’t be picky about her family name.”

An idea stirs in her mind. She rejects it instinctively - she cannot truly trust Nie Huaisang, and even if she could, there’s an even slimmer chance that she can trust Nie Mingjue. What if she goes all the way north to Qinghe, cannot help Nie Mingjue, and is just executed for her family name, there and then?

Are you really achieving anything more than that just living destitute on the Lanling streets? Is it not worth the risk? There is nothing more you can do here on your own.

“I don’t care about money,” she says, eventually. “I just want my family.”

“Then you can bring them with you.”

She clenches her fists under the table, “I cannot. They were taken prisoner by the Sunshot forces.”

Nie Huaisang hums thoughtfully, twirling his fan in his hand then tapping it against his chin, “Hmm, that does make things a little more complicated. Do you know where they are?”

Abruptly, every terrible thing from the last month bubbles up from inside her and spills out in pure anguish. She digs her nails into the side of the table and cries, though the lump in her throat, “No! No I do not! I found our village razed to the ground and all of them gone! All I know-“ she hiccups, trying to force back her tears, “all I know is that my brother is gone!”

Nie Huaisang stares at her, eyes wide. They sit in mortifying silence for several moments, and when Nie Huaisang speaks again, his tone is completely changed, “That can be our deal, then.”

“What are you talking about?” She hisses, out of patience.

“A brother for a brother,” he fixes her with a shrewd, sharp stare. “If you save my brother, I will find your brother.”

He has so abruptly shifted his approach that Wen Qing finds herself feeling a fool for ever believing the cheerful, eager, slightly ridiculous little fop act was real.

…Although, Meng Yao was this boy’s keeper at the Nie sect, was he not? Meng Yao who had been every inch the conscientious, loyal, devoted second-in-command to Wen Ruohan - right up until the moment he killed him in cold blood.

Wen Qing runs her tongue over her lips, “What if I cannot save your brother?”

Unspoken are the words: what will happen to my brother?

Nie Huaisang tilts his head with an irreverent shrug. “I will be taking a risk bringing a wanted woman to Bujing Shi. You will be taking a risk as to whether your medical skills are up to the task.”

Before Wen Qing has a chance to bristle at the implied insult, Nie Huaisang is continuing, “If you don’t think you can do it and you don't want to take the risk, that’s alright. Just say, and I’ll pay for our meal and leave you here.”

As if on cue, a knock sounds at the door, and the servants arrive to deliver the food. Her mouth waters at the smell, but she forces herself to concentrate on the offer.

Is it worth the risk? But, really, what kind of risk is it, in the end? She has no resources here in Lanling, realistically she’s not going to get anywhere without the help of someone in one of the Great Sects - she’s not going to do better alone, is she? So her choices are certain failure (barring some kind of miracle) and… marginally less likely failure. And it really is only marginally; if generations of Nie doctors have been unable to find a solution to the inevitable conclusion of saber cultivation, what hope does she have?

No one had ever done a successful non-fatal golden core transplant before you tried, though, had they? What’s the bet that those generations of Nie doctors were all just hidebound, tradition-fixated cowards, and the real answer has been lying right under their noses this whole time?

Wen Qing looks at the steaming bowls of food sat on the table, licking her lips unconsciously. Maybe it’s arrogance, but given she has literally nothing else left now to try and save her family with besides her medical genius, she thinks that perhaps a little arrogance might be warranted.

Across the table, Nie Huaisang fills his bowl with slices of pork, seemingly unconcerned with what her decision may be, though the way his free hand fidgets with his fan in his lap belies his calm.

“I’ll do it,” Wen Qing says. “You save my brother, Nie-gongzi, and I’ll save yours.”

#the untamed fanfic #Wen Qing #Nie Huaisang #The Waves are Rising and Rising #Extra Scene

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the-l-spacer · 1 year ago

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Hello asimov fandom here's my humble contribution to the fic pile (and obviously its about the mule)

He’d read once, in a book-film in the corner of an old shop on a backwater planet, that power corrupted. That absolute power corrupted — absolutely.

He had long since forgotten the name of the book-film and the planet on which he had read it; all discarded along with the memories of his earlier life, filled with nothing but degradation and misery. Yet, the lone sentiment remained, and Magnifico — The Mule — could not find it in himself to agree.

How could I? , he thought, as his long fingers moved deftly across the Visi-Sonor, adjusting the multitude of contacts comprehensible solely to the one who played it. For power does not corrupt, it frees.

His audience of Foundationers, dressed in their best in preparation for the fifth opening of the Time Vault, barely saw him, now. Barely saw the pathetic figure he cut on stage before them, in his colourful and ill-fitting costume, his awkward limbs and too-long nose. No — when he performed, they saw only what he wanted them to see. Thr Visi-Sonor conjured flashes of colour that exploded before their eyes and resolved into grand visions of gleaming kingdoms amid never-ending fields of stars, glimpsed in an instant and destroyed with the slightest turn of a knob, then rebuilt into something far greater.

Beneath their base reactions, he could sense their minds, too, the emotions that fell sway to him as surely as the notes cascaded from his instrument, making them gasp and sigh and weep upon his command. He revelled in it; after so long spent at the mercy of others, the power, the control was dizzying, and he had yet to tire of the feeling in the time since the discovery of his abilities. For the duration of this performance, they were but playthings, his playthings, and soon— it would be soon, for he knew that his ships were nearing Terminus by the minute — the rest of the planet would follow suit.

It was a delicate balance he struck, being on this stage, having been commissioned by the imbecile in mayoral garb to compose a Visi-Sonor concerto in honour of the great Hari Seldon. The piece was to rally the despondent citizens of Terminus as the shadow of the Mule hung heavy over them, to inspire renewed confidence in the far-off promise of the second and greater Galactic Empire, helmed by the Foundation itself. And so it did! He flicked his wrist decisively, and trumpets and booming drums sounded forth, exclaiming, Victory!

Yet, the performance had to be laced with an undercurrent of doubt, for that was why he was here on Terminus. Here, the minds of military leaders and politicians and citizens were his to alter as he wished, with almost no effort from his part – for only a civilization of fools would have absolute confidence in the calculations and projections of a man who had been dead for centuries. And as much as the galaxy had to say about the Foundationers, no one called them fools. All he had to do was find the fractures in their fervent beliefs, the unspoken: but how could psychohistory possibly predict this? , and widen them just so, until eventually, eventually , their psyches broke under the burden.

It was easier with the Visi-Sonor, and for that he was grateful. The sound of a single discordant pitch, too brief to take notice of but there all the same, an image of a seemingly-immaculate marble bust – with a small, hairline crack running through its centre. This and more he made real in the audience’s minds’ eye, and as they sat, rapt at attention, he almost let a wry smile slip across his face. Almost.

If only they knew that what they most feared, the one factor the great Hari Seldon could not predict, was there among them, an invited guest!

He let the final, tremulous note linger in the air, until it faded into the background hum of atomic energy.

Applause; some polite and others fervent, admiring, and all eyes were on him. One mistake, one wrong move.. and he would be at their mercy.

A good thing, then, that assuming the position of the fool came as easily to him as breathing — too easily. He let himself shrink back, let his body curl into that whipped-dog position he’d taken up so many times throughout his youth, more a defence mechanism than anything.

How simple it was – to look and act a fool, and have everyone’s assumptions do the rest of the work for him. All while his ships inched ever-closer, ready and waiting to turn their guns and atomic field-depressors to the Foundation at his signal.

I will beat you, and the rest of the thrice-damned Galaxy will fall into place , he thought, allowing his knees to shake, his eyes to widen in fear at the onslaught of attention. He took a step back, and another.

Then –

“Magnifico, you played wonderfully!”

And then, there was Bayta Darell.

Her hand was in his, as they followed Toran to their assigned seats around the Time Vault. He clutched to it, her palm small and plump, a stark contrast to his knobbly knuckles and stick-thin fingers.

Their seats were far from grand – the three would certainly not be graced with Indbur’s view of the hologram front and centre – but they would suffice. As Bayta turned to an acquaintance she knew in university, now an important someone-or-other in Foundation politics, the Mule slid his hand out from her grasp with a murmured, “A thousand pardons, my lady,” and drifted among the gathered crowd of the Terminus’ greatest – with the exception of his humble self, of course.

He had work to do, Foundationers to edge into despair and hopelessness. And while he set about his task, he let his own mind wander to Bayta.

She was someone he did not, could not understand, and it maddened him. Keen and assertive, yet unquestionably kind. Why did she, of all people, look upon him as a person, as a friend , when all everyone else could see was an object of ridicule? What made her seek his company, clear the clutter in her and Toran’s guest bedroom for his Visi-Sonor?

The Mule was not naïve. Too much had happened over the course of his life for him to simply place his trust in someone, as if it was something to be given freely. He knew that she seeked to uncover the Mule’s identity, to stop his rapid conquest that threatened the home she so dearly loved; and Magnifico was the Mule’s clown, the closest thing they had to a lead.

At first, he’d dismissed her genuine fondness of him – and even at the thought, a gentle shudder racked his slight frame – as a byproduct of that need for information. Treat the Mule’s servant well, and out would spill that despot’s secrets and weaknesses; a logical enough exchange in theory. But as time went on, and Bayta and Toran and Pritcher and Ebling Mis deemed his mind too addled with fear to ever produce anything of use, she still insisted that he stay.

Perhaps, then, it was her desire for someone to take care of, in the absence of a child. Toran had jokingly pointed out as much on several occasions. But even if this was maternal affection, the Mule could not recognise it, for he had never known his mother, nor any figure who could have substituted as one in his long adolescence. All he knew were cold figures of authority who met the needs of that strange, mutant freak – barely – out of obligation, and turned him out as soon as they could. Then, the streets, the twisting sewers and alleyways of his home planet, spaceports and travelling fairs, the cargo holds of transport ships taking him to planets in unknown sectors, before the discovery of his power led him here.

And Bayta, with her dark, tired eyes and soft hands, wanted him to stay.

He did not have a place he could readily call ‘home’, he mused idly as the lights around the Time Vault dimmed, and he returned to his seat, drew into himself. Yes, he derived some small amount of amusement from having his pawns spread rumours of his origin, so that the Mule could have come from the Sayshell Union, or from Trantor, or from the Foundation itself; even from that elusive ‘Earth’, the planet from which legends claimed all life in the galaxy stemmed. But in truth, even he had forgotten the name of the planet he’d been born on, for all civilizations with technology barely advanced enough for interstellar travel seemed the same to him.

The closest place that came to it was the back of a rusty spaceship, where he’d spent some time as part of a theatre troupe travelling in the Ariminum sector. He found no camaraderie there, and certainly nothing approaching affection, but he had been left alone, and after a lifetime of jeers and whispers, that was a novelty in itself. Over his time with them, he had taught himself the Visi-Sonor, and picked up the delicate, lilting phrasing of the Central Sectors after months of observation.

It was in this learned dialect that he spoke, as Bayta turned her attention to him. “Do you suppose, my lady, that all these great ones were in the audience, perhaps, when I… when I played the Visi-Sonor?”

The day he mastered the instrument he held at his chest was one of the few moments of his unhappy life when he truly felt joy . It had taken months and months of constant practice for him to make any sense of the knobs and switches that comprised its unwieldy body, and even more until he could shape a piece to his liking.

And it was only after the fact, when he realised that humans were much the same as the dials of the instrument; a minute adjustment, a semitonal shift and their tunes could be transformed entirely. Anger could be moulded to placidity, derision to respect, and contempt to… to an emotion he dared not name.

Bayta had undergone no such change, and yet, she replied with a gentle patience that made him want to lash out, to break down and scream 'do you know who I am?’ . He did none of those things, however, as she reassured him that yes, the great minds of the Foundation had heard his performance, and thought him the greatest musician in the Galaxy, and he might as well act the part and straighten himself out.

He knew that he was better than her, better than them all, and he let a modicum of that confidence seep into his posture.

In response, Bayta grinned, squeezed his shoulder, and almost instinctively, the Mule reached out to her mind with the tendrils of his.

Ah. It is pity, then, that motivates her.

It should have chafed, knowing that she condescended to him – knowing he was three years her senior, knowing who, what he was. Instead, his breath hitched, and he felt a thrill run through him.

Could he take it? Could he accept whatever she had to give him, and stay?

No — no! With only a slight twitch of his shoulders to betray him, he banished the thought, and turned to focus on the matter at hand. What truly mattered.

The lights dimmed further in the room, until all everyone could see was the empty glass cubicle at its centre.

The Mule took it all in; the excitement of the gathered crowd, their nervous anticipation, and of course, the seeds of doubt and dread so carefully sown over his weeks on Terminus. It would all be over soon… he only had to wait for the right time.

And just then, the hologram of Hari Seldon materialised.

With everyone’s anxious eyes turned to the old psychohistorian, the Mule finally allowed himself to smile. A small, hard smile that cracked the odd planes of his face, making it all the more grotesque – it was a mercy that the room had been plunged into darkness.

Let the true performance begin.

In the end, it was easy. A well-timed swell of despair that he made ripple through the crowd, to the city beyond. An army – his army – that waited patiently at the gates for the sign to strike. A pulse from the ultra-wave sender he kept in his jester’s cap, activated when it became obvious that the old mathematician had gotten his predictions glaringly, disastrously wrong.

And just like that, the Foundation crumbled.

The Foundation was his.

The hologram in the Time Vault had long flickered out – whether due to the work of the Mule’s atomic disruptor, or the cannons from his warships, or simply because Hari Seldon had finished with what he had to say – no one knew, and no one cared. Not when the sound of warning sirens pealed all around them, when the Mule’s great black ships bombarded the harsh soils of Terminus.

The crowd of once-respectable citizens surged around them, swarming for the exit (not that there was anywhere they could escape to, for the Mule’s territory encompassed all their neighbouring planets). For a time, Bayta and Toran had done nothing but sit there, stock-still among them all, as if in the eye of a hurricane.

The Mule, too, allowed himself a moment to be still, to relish in that feeling of satisfaction, of utter superiority that came when he knew he had won.

At least, he had tried to. For there was something, now, that dampened that sense of victory ever-so-slightly.

There was someone…

He whipped his head around madly, until his brown eyes landed on Bayta.

Bayta – rooted to her seat in terror, fighting to keep a single tear from escaping her wide, hopeless eyes.

Despite himself, despite everything, a single, startling thought crossed his mind – ironically, making him freeze in horror from a source wholly different from the panicked crowds around him.

Galaxy, what have I done?

It was Ebling Mis, that mad psychologist, who snapped them out of it. He hauled Bayta and Toran from their seats, and by the time his focus shifted to the Mule, he had slipped effortlessly back into character.

“The Mule is coming for me!”

Bayta tried to lay a hand on Magnifico’s shoulder, as she had done frequently in the past, but he batted it aside. That was a necessity, for he was sure that if she touched him, his resolve would shatter completely.

Then, a resounding blow from Toran, and he let himself go limp.

Through the chaos that surrounded them, both on the streets and in the atmosphere above them, Bayta and Toran managed to reach their apartment. Panting, they slammed the door shut, and locked it behind them. It wouldn’t help, not against the Mule (they both knew that), but that afternoon, they found themselves willing to accept even the smallest semblance of safety and control over the alternative.

In the darkened house, Toran remained a flurry of motion. He shifted Magnifico off his shoulders, making his way to their study.

The instant his feet touched the floor, Magnifico practically hurled himself into his favoured armchair by the couch, a trembling, huddled mass of bony limbs. Neither Toran nor Bayta seemed to pay him any mind.

“We’ll need passports, credits, if we want to leave here by ship, try our luck on other planets in the system,” Toran muttered, rummaging through their drawers.

“Torie.” Bayta said faintly. She was still standing at the threshold of their living room.

“I have to get word out to my dad on Haven, too,” he continued. “The Traders need to know that the Foundation is under siege by the Mule, and to expect the worst.”

Slowly, feeling as if she was moving through water, Bayta made her way to his side.

“Don’t know if our tight beam transmitter works, but we may have a backup generator in the basement.“

“Torie, let me help,” she said. “You go see if you can get the power back up, I’ll get our things ready for if — when we have to leave.”

He turned to her, and finally registered her presence, or lack thereof; for in that moment, the woman who stood before him seemed to bear little resemblance to that self-assured, intelligent Bayta he’d first fallen in love with. “No, no, none of that,” he said, softening. “You stay right here, with Magnifico. Make sure he doesn’t dash off to get caught by the Mule’s men. And… make sure that you’re alright, too.”

She began to protest, but the words died on her lips when Toran brought a single hand up to brush her dry cheek, her eyes glassy with unshed tears.

Toran was right — that oppressive weight of terror and dread held her down, still. She needed to rest, to breathe, or she’d be of no help to anyone.

With a sigh, she fell against him in an exhausted embrace, murmuring a quiet, “Thank you,” into his curly hair.

Toran tightened his arms around her in wordless response. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and left.

In his absence, the walls of their home seemed to expand impossibly around her, and Bayta could not help but feel utterly alone in the middle of it all. Alone, but for —

She slumped into the couch. Next to her, Magnifico perched on an armrest, as though ready and waiting to take flight at the slightest provocation. “Now don’t you go running off on me too,” she feebly joked. “Two men in a minute might set a record.”

As has become habit, The Mule had kept one eye on the couple, his mind alert for any sign that either of their suspicions regarding his true identity had been aroused. Always the guarded onlooker; observing others’ interactions through an invisible, impenetrable barrier.

“Nay, my lady; for though the raging tempest I fear most has arrived at our shores, snapping at our very heels… I confess that I feel safer here , coward that I am. I – I will not run.”

Magnifico’s fingers worried relentlessly at the threads of his ruffled collar, and Bayta caught them with her own, gently moving them to his lap.

“Magnifico, I’m — I’m afraid, too,” she admitted, looking mortified as she heard herself say the words aloud. “My home is under siege. I don’t know how the Mule breached our atomic shields, but he’s here, now. Seldon, psychohistory… all of us had it wrong.”

The oddest impulse came over the Mule. A sudden, nearly overwhelming urge to stretch out a hand, and put it around her shoulders, echoing the gesture she’d shown so freely to him in the course of their acquaintance.

Ridiculous. It was he who was the source of her misery, and yet —

His hands twitched at his sides. He said nothing, frozen in indecision, until Bayta closed her eyes, took a shaky breath in, and let it out, slowly.

That smile made its reappearance. Small and unsure, but there nevertheless. She shook her head slightly, and said, “But what am I saying… you have as much a reason to fear him as I do. More so, after everything he did to you. Are — are you well, Magnifico?”

Was he well? He did not recall the last time anyone had asked him that question, if at all. Still, he had to respond.

“My knees tremble and my heart hammers so against my poor chest, my lady, but…” He raised his eyes to meet hers, tried to mirror her smile with an upward twitch of his lips. “But as long as I am by your side, I feel sure that I will not come to harm.”

And while you are with me, nothing and no one will touch you, he did not say.

Bayta took his hand, and the Mule became aware of a strange sensation — a stabbing warmth in his chest.

“That’s right. We’ll keep you safe, Toran and I. It’ll…” she hesitated, and her pinched expression relaxed, by just a touch. “It’ll be alright,” she said, almost more to herself than to him. “We’ll be alright.”

He gave in. Allowed himself to lean tentatively, questioningly against Bayta, and she rested her head on his shoulder in answer.

Again, that squeezing of his ribcage.

And again, that dreadful, unwanted thought.

What have I done?

He dared not move, or speak; in that instant, he found himself unable to look at her at all.

And it was there, against his thin shoulder, curled up on the couch, where Bayta eventually fell asleep.

In the darkened living room, lit only by the occasional flashes of laser-fire from the warring ships overhead, he remained still against her. But the Mule’s mind — his mind raced.

Why, why that sudden moment of fear, of doubt? In the years after his mastery of the Visi-Sonor, and the art of manipulation of human emotion, he’d sworn not to regret a single atrocity he committed in vengeance against the galaxy.

He closed his eyes against the onslaught of unwanted emotion. They were his puppets, his living dials, and he was master of them all. After twenty-two years of torment and isolation, with not a soul coming to his aid, wasn’t that justice? His power, a great cosmic compensation for his shortcomings – physical and otherwise?

Yes, power freed, and it addicted. For all his life, he’d been starved of it, and now, he had all that he would ever need. All of the Galaxy at his fingertips.

And yet –

Playful hands tussling his hair. Kind eyes, open in admiration as he plucked wild notes and dancing lights from the air. A weight and a warmth, asleep next to him.

Was there something else, something more that he had missed?

He wanted to growl in frustration, but reined himself in. Self-control, patience; if he had no redeeming qualities at all, at least he had these.

It would have been better if I hadn’t approached them at all; better to have disregarded that couple on the beach entirely, and let Han Pritcher lead me to the Foundation instead.

Even with his power, he could not change the past. But while psychohistorian he was not, at least his great mind could map out the near future with clarity.

On the eve of the Foundation’s surrender, there on the couch of the young, married couple, the Mule planned out his next steps – in accordance with Bayta’s wishes, he would stay on Terminus for now. To keep the Foundationers’ eyes off him; in case anyone suspected that there was more to the Mule’s clown, whose arrival heralded their civilization’s downfall. To uncover and destroy any plans for rebellion. To ensure that the atmosphere of despair he created remained absolute.

To… to remain close to the Darells.

To her.

For all his life, he’d been aware of the gaping hole in his being. He knew that something essential had been scooped out of him, and this – this difference , was what separated him from humanity. He’d attempted to fill it once, with music and performance in an attempt to make the crowds laugh with , not at, to gaze at him with respect instead of mockery. When that was not enough, and when he finally became aware of the power that set him apart, he turned to conquest.

When all the Galaxy was united under his rule, when humans learned to respect his name so that he had nothing to fear from them ever again – then and only then would it be enough to fill that gaping pit inside of him.

A single hand ghosted lightly over Bayta’s troubled face, not quite touching her cheek, where a stray lock of hair had fallen loose.

No, he thought, firmly. He had to purge the thought of her; that counterpoint impossible to adapt to, that confusing, frustrating improvised melody he was unable to underscore, the puppet that cut its strings entirely.

He knew what he had to do. And he knew that it would be enough.

It had to be.

#foundation #isaac asimov #asimov #Okay so I posted this a couple days ago but realised that i REALLY wanted to add a missing scene between bayta and the mule #so here's the new shiny version #if you saw me post this previously no you didnt <3

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unioncolours · 2 years ago

Text

I posted 349 times in 2022

19 posts created (5%)

330 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@backgroundcharacterno5

@yeoboseyokyu

@thespookymoth

@bakapandy

@blackkatmagic

I tagged 60 of my posts in 2022

#majsasaurus - 18 posts

#shikatema - 3 posts

#shikajin - 3 posts

#shikadai x inojin - 3 posts

#shikatema fanfic - 2 posts

#temari - 2 posts

#shikadai nara - 2 posts

#inojin yamanaka - 2 posts

#i am shikadai - 2 posts

#just how much are the parents hiding - 1 post

Longest Tag: 72 characters

#this is an illustration of every spicedgold nara fam fic in existence 😆

Keep reading to see my Top Posts of 2022 <3 Thank you everyone for being here for me.

My Top Posts in 2022:

FIC: no one cries for unknown soldiers - BEHIND THE SCENES

Hi!

If you choose to see more, you’ve most likely finished my fic no one cries for unknown soldiers, my Shikatema WWII fanfiction, or you’re too curious, haha!

A fic about World War II demands a lot of research and thinking to make sense for an audience of 2022. I wanted it also to be as realistic as I possibly could write, hence a lot of planning went into the end result. Beneath the cut, here are ideas I had which didn’t fit into the finished product, plus what my first ending would be! Read on your own risk for spoilers. Thank you, everyone.

⬇❤❤

I am a person who lets my ideas simmer for a long while before I commit to them and write them from beginning to end.

The first seeds of this WWII were born early summer 2021. The very first idea was a one shot, with Temari and Shikamaru on the same side on a battlefield, and the fic would end with them charging into combat.

Now, that didn’t go anywhere and I let the idea of a WWII au die. Who wants to step on that landmine and write such a fic anyway?

Apparently this fool.

I let the idea of a WWII au fic rest for the entire autumn of 2021. It wasn’t until late 2021 I, actually out of spite, decided that it’s now or never, I will write this fic. That was of course before war and suffering broke out in Europe again in late February 2022. I might have never written this fic if the war had broken out earlier, yet here it is.

I always knew I would place the setting in Finland, since - well - it’s much easier to write about the part of history which you know the best. If someone didn’t pick it up, yes, I’m Finnish. Moving on! From scouting the WWII tag on AO3, it seemed most writers, from all kinds of animanga fandoms, either wanted to make the characters Japanese (to honour the origin of the franscise), British during the Blitz, or SS officers (probably for added angst). However, I felt like I couldn’t make it real or have proof my facts are correct if I wrote solely about another country’s army and culture.

I always knew Shikamaru would be a Finn in the story, but to play with canon Temari had to be from another country.

My very first idea was that Temari would be a German soldier dispatched in Finland solely for the war - especially in Lapland thousand of German soldiers were dispatched to protect mines and fight alongside Finns. The main plot would be the Finns (among them - Shikamaru) deporting the Germans, and it would base itself on allies to lovers to enemies, or something along those lines, but in the name of honesty I didn’t know if I could make it feel real(istic). And, I would have had to study double the more of the Lapland war against Germany, since I don’t know as much about it as about the Continuation War. That meant that Soviet would be framed as the ‘enemy’ instead of Germany.

I played with the idea of having the Sand Sib family Russian, so they would have that extra predicament of being ‘traitors’ to both countries, but I don’t know how realistic it would end up being.

Finally I settled for German-born but raised in Finland version of Temari, and I’m super proud of the development. I think it added a perfect bittersweet, lighter version of geopolitical angst.

Things I thought about writing in, but in the end didn’t:

Rasa was going to die. At first I had scheduled it into the 4th chapter, with Rasa also being out in the field, but I never did it. I think the fact that he survived brought in even more possibilities to the story.

The Russian prisoner of war Kiba killed was going to be Omoi, but I honestly forgot to write in the hints of his identity and remembered it after the chapter was published haha.

Kiba’s death was originally going to be much more brutal. At first I was going to have him commit a war crime brutal enough to be court martialled (war trial) and was going to be executed by shooting behind a sauna. Temari and Shikamaru were going to be the executioners, as a punishment for going out their way as they did in chapter 7. It was hinted with Temari saying “We should shoot men like him” in chapter 5, with her later shooting him. Executing the own soldiers in tries to raise moral was a thing. I discussed it with my beta reader, who was of the opinion it wouldn’t make sense to write in such a crime for Kiba, so I scratched that idea before I wrote it. Him suffering an SCI and then ending his own life instead of Temari doing it was brutal in it’s own right.

Originally Lee was going to die instead of Sai in the end, but given the impact Sai had on the characters (and probably readers) it was more powerful to kill him. Lee’s death would have been heartbreaking, but not powerful, in my head.

The reason I was so hesitant with killing off Sai was because the original ending was going to feature Inojin and Shikadai on the first day of their obligatory military service (which would take part in the later 60s) and kinda tie together the idea that the experience of serving in the army is (in Finland) passed down generations as part of a heritage and culture, to always be ready to protect the country from an assault. That meant I would have to have Sai alive.

However, in March 2022 I read an article where they interviewed one of the first women who joined the army in the 90s (now way over 40 years old) and inspired by that, I decided that *that* would be my ending, that Temari sees the army open for women be passed on to future generations instead. That way I could kill finally kill Sai.

I wanted to have a cool scene of Ino coming by skiis to them with more rifles, I had this super cool vision in my head, but no matter how I tried, I could not justify that such a thing would realistically happen in war. It’s my big sorrow I couldn’t get Ino in more scenes.

I was going to have a scene of Temari bonding with the W*ehrmacht soldiers that were sent to the Finnish-Soviet front that Kankuro spoke of in chapter 10. She would enjoy their company and become their friends. I never managed to squeeze in this scene in the already very long chapter 11.

Yes, Shikamaru’s partner who died before Temari joined his platoon was supposed to be interpeted as Asuma.

I wanted a scene with the German word “panzar” (tank). I just think that is such a beautiful word and thought of having a fun little scene when Shikamaru wonder how the name of the antitank weapon “panzarschreck” was supposed to be pronounced and Temari has some lighthearted fun. I never got around to write it in.

Things playing a bit with canon

The fact that Gaara is the one who has to take over the family’s belongings because he is the only one with Finnish citizenship was a definitive nod to him being Kazekage after his father, and Karura’s love giving him his powers = giving him the power over his family in this version.

Rasa’s brother who died in a trench in WWI and whose body was never found was a nod to the 3rd Kazekage.

Shikaku’s death in an air-strike was a nod from the Tailed Beast bomb in the 4th Ninja War.

See the full post

9 notes - Posted April 27, 2022

Happy Pride for Shikajin!

As usual, my version of bisexual Inojin Yamanaka and gay Shikadai Nara 💖

15 notes - Posted June 1, 2022

Gift to @sandcatart ! 🤍

ShikaTema as grandparents 🥰

(my twitter name is majsasaurus)

17 notes - Posted August 20, 2022

I know this is random, but do you have headcanons for Saiino before they got married? Like, how do you think they try to make the relationship work? Because I don't think it will be easy for them to understand each other at the beginning of their relationship.

Hii! Thank you so much for your ask.

I think love where one learns to love the other one over time is underrated! I think Saiino is an example of a couple that learned to love each other over some time, and that is not a bad thing.

Ino - however hot headed she could and can be - is also an understanding person and not stupid either; she knows Sai's background and the rocky road he has had to get where he is in Boruto. We see that she shows compassion for him in Shikamaru's story, and I can't believe she finds it too hard to continue with the same patience.

Sai is goal driven - he has an end goal after he caught feelings/interest for Ino - and thus he makes certain decisions and imitate certain behaviors to gain her interest back.

Dating ensues!

But we all know romance isn’t a single track and there must’ve for sure been times Ino is frustrated at Sai for not getting certain clues or Sai beats himself up for not understanding the situation.

However, what makes Ino stay is when she knows Sai is trying, and he is trying for her. That is what will make her swoon over him over and over again, after a life time of competition and whatnot, and here is a man who tries his best for her and only for her. And I think knowing that is what Ino needs. She needs to not have to compete for once in her life, the least in her romance and she grows to love him back, deeply.

This is only cemented harder when she gets to be a motif for his artwork, to know she is the apple of his eye, to have his eyes on her. “Paint me like one of your French Girls”, anyone?? The intimacy that comes with portrait painting, y’all. Underrated.

So, whenever they had an argument where they miscommunicate, I’d assume Ino would rant to Shikamaru, who from a logical sense can calmly let her know what he thinks is Sai’s POV and what he fails to tell her, and Ino would calm down and they’d talk it out. Oh god, I can see them talk a lot, not only because Ino knows talking and opening up is healthy, but also because Sai genuinely wants and needs to know what went wrong and how they can fix it. Deep talks during starry nights, over tea, in bed, in every mundane life situation.

NSFW! He’s probably also very good at sex because this man studies and reads up on the anatomy of the female body and orgasms ensue. To be physically connected in a way sex allows one to be is something he cherish a lot, hence why he makes sure Ino comes, over and over again. Man’s a keeper.

These were my incoherent rambles, which were maybe more of an analysis than headcanons, but I hope, anon, that you got a peek into my brain and small headcanons of them 🥰

Thank you for asking, and asks are open!

22 notes - Posted August 22, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Not the Witcher AU I expected to create, but the one you get

Chocho: “Did you really have to take your bard with you, Shikadai?”

Shikadai: ....... yes

Can be read as Shikajin 🥰

22 notes - Posted March 10, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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the-slasher-files · 3 years ago

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THE INNOCENT - ANDREI

Hello friends, I am extremely nervous to post this but I have been putting this together for a while now and I just wanted to showcase Andrei's feelings about the war. I knew that when this began I had to put this character away for a while because it never seemed right at all. First of all, I 100% support Ukraine, I am Ukrainian myself and I have donation links at the end of this so if you can even spare a dollar the links are there. Andrei is fictional, obviously but this weighed heavy on me to think about what Andrei would do. This is open-ended and I want you to decide what happens at the end, I also want the conversation to be open if you're comfortable. People are in the middle of this war and it is not an easy topic so if you can read it, I am very glad but if not, I completely understand as well. Hopefully, this makes Andrei more of a character with more depth and hopefully you enjoy🔪💕 My asks are always open if you would like to chat about this fic or my others

The air was heavy and he saw it coming for months. Prideful leaders rule from iron thrones with fool's gold crowns, trying to play life as if it were an insignificant board game to conquer one's territories. He had seen this many times before and saw it firsthand how his motherland ruined so many, and all for what? Money? Pride? Loyalty? Honour?

Thousands of lives had been within the crossfire not knowing if the streets were safe or if a missile would be launched into their home or if a husband could flee the country with his 6-month-old child; Wrapped in blankets made from his grandmother's fabrics, rosy cheeks that became red from a cold breeze and crying, not sure when the next meal was coming. They were the innocent. Lost and scared, holding onto hope when the rest of the world turned its back, and that he could relate. A lone wolf outcast among frozen lands on which he fought for, protected and served.

The old farmhouse door creaked open - white paint cracked and chipped as the old screen mesh was torn from left down and flapped on the winter wind - slamming back to the frame as he didn't care, the sound seemed to be muted behind all the thoughts that circled his dangerous brain. A danger to itself, but also a danger to others and that was something he had proved time and time again, just ask the bodies that were left covered in muddied puddles of water, tread by the Russian tanks that invaded unfamiliar towns full of the unaware. This dangerous brain was only a threat to the host at the moment as the other side was turned off, a response to the memories that flooded back like tsunamis in this time of war yet again. This time, it was so different. The soldier was no longer within his squad, they were all gone now, and he had a family, a pack that accepted him and tried to help when he was at his worst. Something he still could never get used to.

Black combat boots stalked along the weathered wooden porch, his steps were not commanding as they usually were, they were softer and almost like he did not want to disturb the quiet that was his land; A baren abandoned town that was built to serve the war efforts, making ammunitions as the people tried to make it home even through tyrannical leaders and horrific conditions, but in the end, people left it. Leaving the ghosts of family members behind with the most gentle reminders of the humans that stayed there, like children's toys and family photos framed on cracked walls. This place had seemingly met its match when the wolf stumbled into town looking for refuge. Seeking a home. Ironic for what he did... back then. Everyone deserves a home, however, those were never thoughts that crossed his mind as he was the man behind the gun.

The wolf's body was slumped. Not standing to his full confident height that screamed of his dominance but he displayed a weak form, one wounded and struck. Andrei knew he couldn't do anything this time, he would be executed the moment he stepped foot on the battleground and his side was undetermined. Russian loyalty, honour, strength and courage ran through his veins where being a coward was worse than death, but what did he have to lose now? He fled from his own death, turned his back on his blood, was bisexual and killed his brothers in arms. Coward. It was practically branded into his porcelain skin as he lived each day hiding and protecting his family. And that was just it, to add to the turmoil in his head, he had a family now, they were his life and he was helpless.

Andrei pulled the carton of white Winston cigarettes from his beige military jacket, specks of rust-coloured stains could not be removed from the rough fabric as much as he tried. Learning to live with the bloodstains was just another daily occurrence as the soldier kept the screams of the dead down on most days but now it seemed deafening. Worn hards lit the cigarette once it was placed between Andrei's pale pink lips, inhaling the strong bittersweet taste of his favourite generational addiction.

Taking a few steps forward and down a stair of the porch, the wolf sat with a groan. His body felt heavy, muscles ached from pure tension he couldn't release as he used to. A raw desire laid quietly between his bones and seeped from old scars was somehow dulled when it should be at its peak. Only a numbness overcame him as Andrei's ice blue eyes watched the heavy snowflakes fall in a dull wind. He remembered the flakes of ash from the burning homes falling on the bodies as his country laughed, he laughed with them riding on the tanks.

Muted footsteps carefully came from behind and a warm body sat next to him as he smoked the toxic tobacco. A new sweet smell overcame him as he turned his head slowly to see the woman he was absolutely enamoured with. Xaviera Lah-Mo, now Xaviera Kulokova, or that's at least what he called her never being able to officially sign papers.

"The babies are down for a nap and I made you some tea, my wolf" She softly spoke, handing him the grey coffee mug into his large hand from her small one, knowing everything going on was affecting the love of her life more than words could ever say. Xavi felt it.

Andrei simply nodded, turning his head to the right, pulling the cigarette that hung loosely from his lips to exhale the thick white smoke away from her. Hot ash fell onto the snow, making it melt beside his boot and blue, tired eyes gazed out into the vastness of his land, he was so far from here within his head. Xaviera sighed seeing the great wolf torn open and nothing but a bleeding, exhausted shell of himself. Her dreamy soft blue eyes examined the tension in his body, taking the burning cigarette that was becoming all but just a stump and throwing it in the snow, not wanting Andrei to burn himself as he was lost.

"Andrei..." She tested, seeing a small flinch reaction in the muscle.

Drawing his attention towards her, the Russian only glanced in her all-knowing eyes before looking at how the wind tangled between her long white hair. This was submission, he couldn't face what was on his mind, for her to know. He could hear them crying out, all the souls wasted.

"Want to talk about it?" Xaviera's voice was peaceful and like whispers in the wind.

She never pressured him no matter what he did and Andrei couldn't say just how much he was grateful for her. This woman was his life, truly the only one that could tame him in rough times, but this was beyond the depths even she could reach. He never knew his life could change so much for a partner and for the better. Knowing that, Andrei tried desperately to hold her and give Xavi the life she needed and deserved every day, however, the thought always lingered of 'is this enough?'. Meeting on the frozen mountains and wanting to kill her to having twins and calling himself a husband wasn't his life plan, and no one would ever think it was, they even told him.

With a deep breath, his eyes finally met and held hers. Heavy bags lay beneath the red dull orbs. Andrei parted his lips as to speak, but no words would come except a cracked sigh. The beautiful woman before him almost seemed like a daydream between the nightmares because of everything she did for him. He couldn't leave... Yet, he needed to go.

Delicate fingers brushed the ashy brown hair away that rested on his brow bone, she could feel torture more than ever since this war started. He wouldn't sleep, wouldn't eat and he wasn't the same man but the little snow leopard never even thought about leaving his side for a second and that's what hurt the most. Giving Andrei a few moments to feel the skin on skin he reached up to hold her hand in his; Twice the size, broken and scarred compared to the soft, gentle beauty were worlds apart.

"Xav..." He took a sharp inhale as his rough thumb ran over her knuckles "I don't-- I don't know what to do"

Andrei admitted in a whisper, closing his eyes and turning his head not to break. The frustration and shame of all of his emotions and thoughts began to bubble up, making the solider rise from the porch and walk off the steps leaving the hot mug and her hand behind, now just standing in the snow and looking at the ground then to the grey sky in hope for an answer.

"There is noth-" She began to speak but he quickly snapped towards her.

"Don't say that!" Andrei tensed his jaw, he never meant to sound so rough and cold with her, it just made him more frustrated within the helplessness "...Fuck... sorry" he whispered and leaned on the front of his old black range rover slipping his destructive hands into the pockets for his black cargo pants.

"Just-"

"I know, I'm sorry too," She too placed her mug on the old floorboards and got up to stand in front of the towering wolf with broken eyes. "I shouldn't have said that. My wolf, I never meant that"

Xaviera lifted up her ever warm hands to cup Andrei's stubbled cheeks, fingers grazing over pink, shiny scars and their gaze met again. There was indecision, fear, helplessness and the sense of needed freedom etched into his features and she tensed. A wash of strength found him and she swallowed, knowing what was about to come. The wolf had the face of a warrior once more for something he was so uneasy about and was not sure he was with his country anymore but only time would tell. All he knew was to go fight, that was what the wolf of the north was built for, but Andrei remembered his father; He left the life of war for him, for love, to raise and protect a family despite what others had said.

Blue eyes became cold with drips of guilt, and when he speaks, it's quiet, so much unlike the usual dominating growl of the wolf:

"I... I gotta go"

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

WAYS TO DONATE TO UKRAINE:

- The Red Cross

- International Medical corps

- 736 project

- Project Hope

- UNICEF

- World Central Kitchen

- International Humane Society

#might delete this #just very very unsure rn #my writing #andrei kulokova #oc

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write-ur-wrongs · 4 years ago

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Be Your Man

A/N: I know I say it every time, but seriously, thank you SO MUCH for your requests, anon or otherwise. It means the world to me that you trust me with your visions. Here’s a requested fic inspired by the song “Be Your Man” by Rhys Lewis! It’s angsty and has the slightest hint of smut if you look really hard. As always, there are no physical descriptions of the reader! I hope you like it - I cried at the end lmao.

It’s not proof-read so I apologize in advance!! I really hope you like it.

_______________________________________________________

Being with the bard was, in a word, comfortable.

His connections ensured you always had a soft bed in a warm inn waiting for you at the end of the day. His reputation and acclaim afforded you a higher status among villagers, scholars, and even knights. Everyone loved his music and adored his visits. With him, you were always welcome.

With him, every day was a gift and every evening a celebration. With him, you never found yourself in harm’s way. Never felt the gnawing pull of hunger or the ache of thirst. He never left your side and you had no reason to leave his. And he loved you, he really did. He showed you everyday, through his songs, his words, his touch.

You were his sun and you were, for lack of a kinder word, comfortable.

That isn’t something you were used to, being comfortable. Your life had been tumultuous from the start and you had hardened yourself accordingly. Everything you had you’d earned as a journeying blacksmith; working whatever you could to make a sale. Now though, having access to any workshop, material, or tradesman the continent could offer, you were at the height of your craft.

But still, nothing could ever compare to the blade you forged for Geralt.

It was stunning, perfectly balanced, crafted from your best steel and iron Geralt had been gifted from the mines of Mahakam. The ornate curve of the hilt took you days to perfect and the faceted garnet you’d set within the pommel shone brilliantly with a clarity that royal houses across the continent would envy.

“It’s exceptional,” he murmured, completely in awe, while examining your work, “how you manage to make your blades look so intricate without sacrificing quality, I’ll never understand.”

You bit your smile to keep yourself from gushing as you watched him wield the sword as if it was an extension of him. And it should be, as you crafted it with him in mind.

“Whoever buys this will be one lucky bastard,” he said as he came out of a mock-parry and pirouette.

“Oh, I’m not selling it!” you said, shaking your head at him as he sheathed the weapon.

“What? Y/N this could get you four maybe five hundred Novigrad crowns! Did someone commission you for it?”

“No, no, it’s a gift.”

“Y/N you are far too generous.” He admonished, attempting to hand the sword back to you.

“Hush, it’s for you.” You say, laying your hands over his, your eyes sparkling.

Gods the way he looked at you then. The way his face softened when you laid your hands over his, how his breath hitched when you took a step towards him. Your bodies so close, eyes flitting from his hooded lids to his lips, and when you finally –

“We’re just about there, darling!” Jaskier sang, pulling you out of your reverie just as the familiar ache began pulling at your lower belly.

“Ah! Y-yes! Wonderful!”

“Well look at you, you’re blushing! Are you remembering the last time we were here?” He teased flirtatiously, giving your thigh a squeeze.

“Mm you know me well,” you lied, quickly taking his hand in yours to get it off your thigh. “How much farther, would you say? I’m starving.”

“Not too long, darling.” He said softly, glad that you were watching the forest with rapt attention, and praying the sting of your deflection wouldn’t be too obvious should you turn to meet his eyes. You didn’t turn to look at him though, and that filled the bard with both relief and immense sadness.

Jaskier wasn’t a fool, he recognized your guilt, sensed the way your heart longed for another. But every now and then, when it was just the two of you, he was sure he saw joy in your eyes. You loved him, maybe not quite as he loved you, but he was certain you loved him.

She just loves him more. He smiled at you sadly, rubbing his thumb along the back of your hand in silent resignation.

“God, I fucking love these beds!” you sighed blissfully, rolling onto your back. The pair of you had meant to get your room and then head out into the village to find work but you hadn’t been able to ignore the fire the earlier memories had ignited.

“Careful my sweet, or I’ll start to think you’re only with me for the fine accommodations.” Jaskier chanced, hoping you’d finally say the three words he so desperately wanted to hear you say, and see that you meant it.

“Ha! Shut up, Jask.” You laughed lightly, snuggling into his arms where you couldn’t catch the disappointment in his eyes, and where he couldn’t see the sadness in yours. Don’t go there, Y/N, you thought, Jask is Jask, and he loves you just fine.

“Why don’t you let me,” you whisper, peppering his neck and jaw with kisses between words, desperate to get your mind off your witcher, “show you how much I love you?”

“Aa-euhm…” Jaskier let out a breathless squeal as your hand creeped between his thighs and he let himself be lost in your touch. Maybe, he thought, good enough could be enough.

You’d given up on the idea to go out to find work long before the sun had set on the village, but that surely didn’t keep work from finding you. The pair of you had barely settled yourselves at the table when you were recognized and showered in contracts.

“Please, madam, I know it’s not the priceless blades you normally work with, but my pots and pans are in desperate need to be replaced –”

“Of course, miss Eldridge,” you interrupted the inn’s owner gently, placing a light hand over hers to calm her nerves, “it would be a pleasure to help you. I’ve recently been working with new casting molds, and it would be an honour to sell you my first.”

“Oh, my! Thank you, Y/N, thank you!”

“No, thank you – this stew is easily the best we’ve ever had! It would be a crime if you weren’t able to keep serving.”

“Oh, you’re too kind!” she laughed humbly, giving your arm a squeeze in thanks before walking back to the kitchen.

You were beaming as you watched the woman practically skip back behind the heavy wooden door.

“What? Why are you staring?” you asked Jaskier, bringing your beer up for a long sip.

“I love watching you work; you shine like the stars on a winter’s night.” He said, reaching over to hold your hand in his.

“Ugh, Jask,” you groaned, wrinkling your nose at his poetics. “You’re such a cheeseball,” you teased him lightly, as you’d done many times before, but this time something flashed in his eyes.

“Hey! I know you were never showered in compliments when you were with Geralt, but-”

“What?!” you interrupted, practically spitting out your last sip.

Jaskier merely leaned back in his seat and gave you a one-shouldered shrug. You could tell he was trying to be aloof but in the six months you’d been together, the topic of Geralt had been a like a landmine. Someone always got hurt, actually, you both ended up hurt.

“What do you mean, ‘what’? I’m not wrong here, love.”

“Look, I didn’t mean to hurt you, Jask. It was a beautiful sentiment, really! I’m just – y-you know how I am with this kind of stuff.”

“I know, dear” he said quietly, keeping his eyes on his drink.

“I adore your work,” you added, your nerves heightened by his apparent sense of calm, “I’m just not… always comfortable being the subject.”

“My expressions of love make you uncomfortable now?” he scoffed, looking up at you with big, sad eyes.

“No! No, Jask. T-that’s not what I meant!” you put your drink down and scooted closer to him to take both his hands in yours. “Jaskier, please… I love you. This is how I love, it-it’s who I am, it’s how I am. Please, I’m sorry. I’ll be your star.”

Jaskier only shook his head slowly as he looked into your eyes. “I’ve seen you in love, Y/N. I believe you love me,” he said, giving your hands a squeeze, “but you’re not in love with me.”

“That isn’t true, Jask.” You whispered, blinking back heavy tears. You held his hands so tightly now, as if afraid he’d just disappear into thin air before you.

“It is though, and that’s okay.”

“Jaskier…”

“You know, you always use my name,” he said, nodding slightly as he thought, “not always my full name, but alas.”

You opened your mouth to disagree but couldn’t bring yourself to use a pet name, and so your mouth opened and closed silently like a fish. The bard looked at you knowingly with his large, knowing eyes, full of love but still heavy with sadness.

“Jaskier,” you finally conceded, feeling yourself crumble under his heavy gaze, “what’s happening?” you asked, your voice coming out of you like a strangled whisper.

“What do you want to happen?”

“I can’t lose you too.”

“‘Too’.” He repeated flatly.

You wanted to comfort him, to correct him, but nothing was coming to you. He wasn’t wrong, and you couldn’t bring yourself to lie to him now.

“Why are we doing this now, Jask? I thought we were doing okay. I thought we were happy,” you finally managed to ask, your voice shaky.

“Look, I’m,” he tried, his own voice breaking despite himself, “I know I can’t compare with him.” He waited a beat to see if you’d interrupt him with a correction and when you didn’t, he rested his elbows on the table and leaned closer to you and took a deep breath before continuing.

“I know how you feel. How you’ve… been feeling. Y/N, Geralt is here. He walked in not long ago, and he’s sitting at the back the of bar.”

Everything went blurry. You could tell he was still talking to you it was like your ears were stuffed with cotton – everything was muffled but too loud. You were going to pass out. Or throw up. Or both. Every inch of you was screaming to turn around and look for him, but you were frozen in place like a deer who’d spotted the archer and heard the bow snap but just stood stock-still and let the arrow hit.

“Y/N,” Jaskier pulled your hands closer to him, pulling you back to reality along with them, “I made the decision that I’m okay being your second choice,” he swallowed thickly before continuing, “but now I need you to make a choice.”

You felt as though you’d just been struck. He was looking at you with too much kindness, too much understanding, too much compassion. Holding his gaze made you feel as though a knife was being twisted into your chest, but you were so afraid that if you looked away, he’d leave you.

“My dove,” he says softly as if reading your mind, “I love you and no matter what you chose I’ll be there for you, always. I just want you to be truly happy.”

You squeezed your eyes shut to keep more tears from falling, but upon feeling him get up to leave the table, your eyes shot open and you let the tears fall.

Very softy, Jaskier cradled your face in his hand and gave your forehead a lingering kiss before pulling away.

“I’m going to head upstairs… I’ll see you up there?” he whispered hopefully.

You nodded up at him wordlessly and let the tears fall as you watched him head up the stairs.

Left alone, you wrapped your arms around yourself and bit your cheek until you tasted blood to keep yourself from openly sobbing. The bustle of the inn allowed you some sense of privacy, which you appreciated, but it also exacerbated your loneliness. Letting out a shaky breath, you poured the rest of your drink into your mouth and swished it around to wash away the blood before swallowing.

Jaskier knew. All these months you thought you were the only one hurting, the only one who felt the weight of the witcher’s memory, but you were wrong. Gods were you ever wrong.

You felt terrible, and far too sober. You quickly swiped at your tear-soaked face, picked up your empty stein and turned to make your way to the bar.

But then you saw him.

He was alone, as always, wearing the thick wool cape you loved. The hood wasn’t up so you could see that his snow-white hair was a mess of knots. His eyes were fixed on his drink, so you were saved from meeting his gaze. Gods, you’ve missed him, and fuck he looked good. And tired. Your heart broke at the sight of him.

Then he looked up at you and your breath caught in your throat. His rich, golden eyes were looking straight at you… and they were vacant. He was looking through you, not at you; he didn’t remember you or care to, and your already broken heart shattered once more.

I am nothing to him, you thought somberly, exchanging your empty mug for a full one. You took a deep, shaky breath and downed your beer in one go, slamming the stein back down decisively. But I’m everything to him, maybe that will be enough.

Before heading up the stairs to where you knew the bard was waiting, you allowed yourself one last look at Geralt, only to find he wasn’t at his table anymore. Seems the fates had decided for you, your thought, letting a hollow laugh escape your lips.

The staircase wasn’t especially long, but the trip up felt unending. You took every step slowly, allowing yourself these brief moments of grief over the official loss of your witcher before you committed yourself fully to Jaskier. No more daydreams, no more longing, no more imagining his large, strong arms around you while the bard’s sinewy frame enveloped you.

You had just about convinced yourself that you’d made the right decision when you spotted him, leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs.

“G-Geralt,” you breathed, feeling yourself smile despite yourself.

“Y/N.”

“What, um, how – uh, hi,” you stuttered, needing to look up at the ceiling to keep yourself from completely melting under the burn of his gaze.

“Hm,” he hummed, taking a hesitant step towards you, “still the wordsmith I see.”

“Hilarious,” you retorted, falling effortlessly back into your habits. “I’m happy to see you’ve still got my blade,” you said, nodding to the sword behind his back.

“Of course,” he breathed, now dangerously close to you. “I take you with me everywhere.”

“You mean my blade?” you scoffed with a roll of your eyes.

“No.” he said, his eyes boring into you, sparking the flame you’d spent so long trying to tamp out. “Are you here with him?” he asked with a tilt of his head.

“You know I am.” You replied defensively, irrationally angry to hear him bring up the bard.

“How is he?”

“He’s fine,” you spat, but seeing the way Geralt’s eyes softened knowingly at you, you couldn’t help but to backpedal your aggression. “He’s Jaskier, you know? All silver linings and sunshine.”

“I’m sure,” he murmured, casting his eyes downward as he remembered his friend’s almost insufferable positively. “And you? Are you happy?”

“Geralt…” you practically groaned, crossing your arms to keep the heat radiating off of him from taking over you.

“Are you?” he insisted, reaching over to let his warm, calloused fingers ghost over your forearm. The feeling lit your body on fire and left an obvious layer of goosebumps in their wake.

He was standing so close to you know, you could smell the leather, cedar, and smoke emanating off of him, just like it always had. You could feel his breath on your face. Despite yourself, you looked up at him through your lashes. His proximity was intoxicating, inexplicably comforting.

“This is cruel… you’re being cruel…” you whispered, wiping stubborn tears away but not taking a step in any direction, unable to risk his leaving if you were to move.

“Y/N…”

“He loves me, Geralt, so much.” You insisted, almost like a mantra.

“But are you happy?” Now he was whispering. He sounded sad, his deep gravelly voice melting over you like sunlight after a frozen night.

“Geralt –” you warned, shaking your head.

“Answer me.”

“No. I-I’m not.”

“You’re not going to answer me?”

“I’m not happy.” You conceded, the truth of the statement washing over you as you heard yourself say it.

“Me either.”

You looked up at Geralt then, letting yourself take in the sight of him in full; his eyes, big and sad and fierce as ever, his brows furrowed, creating that deep crease you so desperately wanted to reach up and soothe, his mouth, his lips. You were barely inches from each other now, all you had to do was tip your chin, stand a little straighter…

He closed the gap between you then, his lips crashing into yours hungrily. You fully surrendered yourself to him, reveling in the feeling of his body against yours and you let yourself be happy, insanely, deliriously happy, for the first time in months.

***

Jaskier sat on the edge of the bed, his head in both hands, and sobbed. His broken breath echoed around the empty room, sporadically drowning out the sound of his best friend kissing the love of his life on the other side of the door.

She was never mine, he thought as sobs broke through him.

She was never mine.

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destielharlequinchallenge · 5 years ago

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The Destiel Harlequin Challenge Master Post: 2020 Mega Bang

Participants in the 2020 Destiel Harlequin Challenge completed an amazing 20 fics and 3 sets of artwork! You can learn all about those here!

Spectre (fic by a_dusky_gold, art by aceriee)

This whole thing… this was supposed to be a fucking farce. A way to keep Nicholas Vaught occupied until the deadline he’d given Dean would run out, and he’d still get the money to send Dad to the Town Hall rehabilitation for alcoholism, because that was the goddamned deal.

There were no such things as ghosts or magic or a Book of Life. Dean knows, okay? He wasn’t the Army’s goddamned Mystery Raider for nothin’; he knows history, he knows artifacts, and he knows that the Book of Life is an ancient myth that is about as real as werewolves or vampires.

And yet.

“The Book of Life,” the man had said. Dean can’t even remember his name.

Shit, shit, shit.

Dangerous Ground by Amethystaris

Special Agents for the Department of Diplomatic Security, Castiel Novak and Dean Winchester have been partners and best friends for three years, but everything changed the night Cas admitted the truth about his feelings for Dean. And when Cas was shot a few hours later, Dean felt his reluctance to get involved was vindicated.

Can a camping trip in the High Sierras save their partnership?

Honour Undressed by andimeantittosting

Among his friends, Castiel, Lord Milton is everyone’s confidant and, along with his trusted valet, the fixer of problems. But there is one secret Castiel has never shared: he is in love with his valet and has been for years.

Born in the gutters, Dean Winchester was assigned as Castiel’s batman in the war, and when Castiel travelled home to take up his title, Dean followed him as his valet. To assist Castiel, Dean is not above a little burglary or blackmail. But the one thing he wants for himself is Castiel’s heart.

When Castiel’s closest friends become the target of a blackmailer, certain truths come out. But while Dean determines to seduce Castiel, Castiel is adamant that he must resist, for if there is one rule a gentleman must follow, it is never to dally with his servant.

Havenport by BlueMasquerade

Castiel cleared space on his desk by the expedience of sweeping the previous contents to the side. He set the bundle down in the center of the surface and studied the knots in the rope before expertly untying them.

The book was old, its leather bindings cracked and crumbling. He carefully opened the cover to reveal the pages within, each hand cut, the edges beautifully deckled, the text written in pen and ink.

“This is written in ancient Enochian.” Castiel looked up, gaze narrowed. “Where did you obtain a book written in ancient Enochian?”

“Is that what it is? All I could tell is that it sure as hell isn’t English.” Mr. Winchester grinned, a dimple flashing in his cheek.

an aching in my heart by contemplativepancakes

When Dean’s best friend dies, leaving behind her daughter, Dean knows he has what it takes to give Claire the life she deserves. The problem is, they’re not related by blood, and Claire’s long lost uncle gets called to take her in. Castiel Novak was bad news when he was in highschool with Dean, and judging by his blue hair and tattoo sleeves, nothing’s changed. Castiel ran out on his family once before, and there’s no way Dean’s going to let that happen to Claire without putting up a fight.

Fools and Fate by Danica_Dust

Castiel Novak fled his coven to escape the rigid, predetermined Fate laid out for him within its confines. Desperate and alone, he took shelter in the city of Sacriloga, forsaking all magic and living off whatever he could steal. There, witches like Cas are hunted. They are feared. And they are burned.

When Jack, a young witch also on the run from his own coven, seeks out Cas’ aid, however, Cas finds that he cannot reject the boy, leaving him to his sure destruction. Especially after the newest visitor to Sacriloga makes his presence known: the legendary Hunter, Dean Winchester, who has been following Jack’s trail.

Sworn to the Men of Letters, Hunters live by one principle: thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Dean’s path was never meant to cross with Cas', but a desperate stunt and a single mistake forces them into an impossible union—holy matrimony.

The war between the witches and the Men of Letters is an ancient one and Cas' most dangerous enemies bring a Fate worse than fire. Unable to ignore his growing feelings, yet powerless to change what he is, a choice must be made.

A suffocating Fate on one hand. A precarious freedom on the other. And in between, the kind of love that makes fools of us all.

Ozone by Deancebra

A young magic user who wants desperately to live. A jaded recluse who has forgotten what living means. They’re each other’s only chance.

Dean’s wild magic is killing him. The mage guilds have given up on him, and it’s only a matter of time before he dies in a spectacular, catastrophic bang. His only hope is an exiled wizard who lives in seclusion—and is rumored to have lost his mind.

The years alone on his hilltop estate have not been good for Castiel Novak. After the magical accident that disfigured him and nearly destroyed the village, he drifts through his days, a wraith trapped in memories and depression. Until a stricken young man collapses on his driveway, one who claims Castiel is his last chance. For the first time in fifteen years, Castiel must make a choice—leave this wild mage to his fate or take him in and try to teach him, which may kill them both. The old Castiel, brash and commanding, wouldn’t have hesitated. Castiel the exile isn’t sure he can find the energy to try.

A Demon Like Him by EllenOfOz

Dean Winchester doesn’t want to be a warlock. The idea of working in a lab, channeling demonic magic into enchanted batteries is not what he wants to do with his life, but it’s a dangerous opinion to have—his father was a powerful and well-connected warlock, and Dean is expected to follow the family tradition.

His only way out is to fail the demon summoning class—failure means expulsion from the Warlock College. Despite Dean’s best efforts to fumble the summoning, it works. Although not the way anyone expects.

Dean’s demon, Castiel, is an incubus, but also a powerful mage on a mission to rebalance the magic that is being stripped from Demonside by warlocks.

Dean must choose: fail out of his final exam and turn his back on becoming a warlock, or help Castiel and graduate. But he doesn’t count on how hot the incubus is, or how close they have become in just a few days.

A Working Relationship by fangirlingtodeath513

The homes that Castiel Novak designs for Angelic Houses are to die for. They’re pristine, perfectly designed and organized, and they’ve caused more than a few bidding wars. It’s the perfect job—he’s organized, good with math, and he’s able to pick up on design trends relatively quickly. The only thing that isn’t perfect? His obnoxious older brother, Luke. Castiel’s been vying for a position on a flipping team for years now, but Luke has never even considered it. When a lecherous gossip reporter overhears an argument, they receive an offer they can’t refuse.

They’re invited to compete on Flip Off, a competition where two people flip houses and compete for the highest profit. Castiel wants the leverage a win would bring him, but he also wants to prove himself. Enter Dean Winchester, a contractor with his own team and one that’s blissfully unconnected to Angelic Houses, allowing Castiel to prove himself without any help from the family company.

The undeniable attraction between them certainly doesn’t help matters, but Castiel is resolute in his decision to make a move only after they’ve finished working together. At least, that had been his plan until Dean made him an offer he simply couldn’t refuse.

Crashing In by followyourenergy

Castiel Novak is convinced he’s the last unwillingly single person in Lupine Cove. Even Gabriel, his perpetual bachelor brother, has found love. It’s probably because Cas leads the most boring life in existence. He’s a gay man living in a rented, one-room cottage in the same small coastal town he grew up in, just getting by as the owner of the same convenience store he was practically raised in. The most excitement he gets is chatting with the locals or maybe, if he’s unlucky, oversleeping and rushing to work. So when a baby is left at the Safe Haven drop-off at the local fire station, he takes the opportunity to step in for the child temporarily, at least until suitable parents, plural, can be found.

Life certainly gets more interesting.

And it gets even more interesting when a handsome man comes crashing—literally—into his life.

Make Me Believe by GhoulsnHalos

Ten years ago, Castiel Novak’s stepfather disowned him, taking from him his place as hereditary heir to the head of the Hunter and Warrior Guild. Now, he’s a self-made, and celebrated, master gem and metal smith. Castiel doesn’t believe that the God’s decide your soulmate. Until he designs what can only be a gift fit for his soul mate, who in contradiction to the etiquette, if not the laws of Neffroen, must be a man.

Dean Winchester is convinced that he is a lowly, dumbass, no magic hunter who couldn’t possibly be on the same social scale as a Novak. So, why is it when he spots the jewelled torc in Castiel’s shop, Dean develops an obsession over the neckpiece and its creator? It can't be anything to do with the will of the Gods, no matter what anyone says, because that's baloney and Dean's not into men.

When Castiel’s long-lost brother turns up and suggests he ought to challenge their stepfather and that Dean is destined to help Castiel rule the clan, Castiel takes some convincing. The real problem is Dean. Can Castiel with the help of family and friends convince Dean of his place by Castiel’s side? Can Dean play the part everyone expects of him to help Castiel regain his rightful place in society?

Shielded Heart by JuniperJones

Arthos, the Infinite City, is a place of alien wonders and indescribable beauty—and, most importantly for Dean, it’s also halfway across the universe from his abusive ex-fiancé. He came to the city desperate for a fresh start, but he finds himself downtrodden on a world of aloof alien beings with little hope of finding his place—and a good chance of being kidnapped or killed before he can even settle in.

At least until he is saved by an irresistible alien with piercing eyes and a seductive smile.

Castiel is the living embodiment of temptation, and he makes no effort to disguise his desire for Dean. But when his past threatens to drag Dean into a dangerous underworld, Dean discovers Castiel isn’t who he claims to be. After enduring so much suffering, can Dean bear to take a leap of faith with this mysterious alien? Can he trust Castiel with not only his life, but his heart?

Stumble and Fall by Kitmistry

Castiel was raised to do one thing: serve his country, whether that was fighting a war or becoming an expert spy. But when his lover is charged with treason and executed Castiel defects. He has evidence that can destroy the KGB’s entire spy ring in New Mexico, he has names of scientists involved with atomic weapons who send information to the Soviets, and he won’t stop until he has revenge.

Putting all his trust in the Americans, Castiel finds himself under the protection of U.S. Marshal Dean Winchester, who is too cocky and attractive for his own good, but at least seems to know what he’s doing.

When a routine transfer to a safehouse goes horribly wrong, Castiel and Dean narrowly escape with their lives. With the Marshals compromised and Castiel being framed for murder, he and Dean are on the run from KGB and law enforcement alike. They have no one to trust except each other, and nowhere to go that their enemies can’t reach.

The Shots We Don’t Take by MandalaRose

Still nursing the tatters of a broken heart and trying desperately to stave off the terror of his impending graduation, college senior Cas Novak decides it’s time to blow off a little steam. Not just any hook-up will do, however. The last thing Cas needs right now is a distraction. On the lookout for someone he can enjoy a steamy night of passion with before leaving them behind entirely, Cas thinks he’s found exactly what he needs in cocky university hockey star and well-known playboy Dean Winchester.

Dean is gorgeous, doesn’t date, and is the singular most infuriating person Cas has ever met. He’s the perfect one night stand...that is, until Dean decides he wants an instant replay of what was supposed to be a one-time event. Will Cas’ offer of friends, sans benefits, convince the arrogant love ’em and leave ’em hockey defenseman to find an easier score? Or will Dean wear down Cas’ defenses and lure the sexy nerd in the dorky trenchcoat back to his bed?

Bullets Over the Bayou (fic by mattzerella_sticks, art by dontbelasagnax)

Everyone wants Castiel Novak to quit the force, including Castiel. But he stays on despite the toxic work environment he’s surrounded by. Still believing he can do some good despite the many lines of red tape impeding him. Luckily, a pair of scissors by the name of Dean Winchester drops into his hands, and he finally feels like he can do some good.

Dean Winchester thought he would be in New Orleans for a day or two. Identify the body of his deadbeat father and then move on. No one knows he’s here. His mother and brother are blissfully unaware of the danger his father roped him into. With a parting gift of a journal, delivered to him the same day he received word about his father, Dean has become the target of a group of people who want him dead. The same people who killed his father.

Racing against the clock, can Dean and Castiel figure out what is so important about John Winchester’s journal that someone would kill for it?

Masquerade by noxsoulmate

It had begun as such a good plan; one that benefitted them both. And masquerading as Castiel Krushnic's boyfriend during the weeks of balls, galas, and charity events certainly was no hardship. With the impending end of their arrangement, though, Dean Winchester must admit that behind the mask of an aloof CEO lies a man he could fall in love with. Or maybe, he already has…

The Medium by raths_kitten

Detective Dean Winchester hates it when his Chief sends a medium to consult on his cases. But this time, the murder is closely linked to Castiel’s world and they both need to work together to solve it.

Any Semblance of Touch (fic by saltnhalo, art by c-kaeru)

1925, New York.

Dean Winchester’s life’s work is protecting the world from the supernatural relics that could destroy it. When an amulet with the power to control the tides is shipped to New York, he must intercept it before it can be used to devastating effects. This time, in order to succeed, he needs a powerful psychometric… and the only one available has sworn off the magical world altogether.

Castiel Novak’s gift comes with great risk. To protect himself, he’s become a recluse, redirecting his magic into museum research. But with the city’s fate hanging in the balance, and faced with the power of Dean’s charm and persuasion…

He can’t force himself to say no.

The Love of a Righteous Man by SargentMom573

Five years ago, Captain Dean Winchester defied his father, Senator John Winchester. With his brother Sam, and his spaceship Impala, Dean found his place among a ragtag fleet of pirates and smugglers. Their latest mission left him with a price on his head and a scar on his heart. When a surprise attack separated him from Sam and revealed a Sith weapon, he would do whatever it took to bring his brother back – even sacrifice his own happiness.

After Emperor Michael’s death broke the psychic link between them, Emperor’s Hand Castiel Novak spent years drowning his sorrows at the bottom of a barrel. Mostly sober, three years ago he found a new purpose as the Impala’s Chief Medical Officer, and Sam Winchester’s guide in the Force. And a good friend in the Impala’s gruff but kind Captain.

Dean and Castiel must work together to bring Sam home alive. But when Castiel’s last mission is exposed, will Castiel complete it and destroy any hopes Dean had for a family? Will Dean forgive Cas’ horrific purpose before it is too late? And give them both what they really want — the love of a righteous man.

SKID by spnsmile

Dean Winchester swore off love after getting dumped and fired from his job the same day. Badly drunk, he ended up balcony-hopping until a pair of hands snatched him inside a darkened room. But it's no hero, it's someone with deep voice whispering threats with a gun pointed at his back. Dean’s too drunk to deal with life but one good look at his hot assailant plus enough beer sold him to his accursed fate. The next morning, he found himself engaged to the most notorious leader of a powerful clan, Castiel Novak.

Married life in the compound for a month was not as blissful so when he could, Dean fought for that freedom. Castiel relented and as Dean tried to put the pieces of his normal life together, getting a bike messenger job and dealing with pain in the ass clients, he now also needs to deal with the dangerous presence of his very jealous and very protective husband watching over him.

Is his life ever going to get back to normal?

#2020 masterpost #destielharlequinchallenge #destiel harlequin challenge #destiel fanart #destiel fanfic #destiel

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bookstantrash · 4 years ago

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A/N: Shoutout for @perseusannabeth for requesting a wedding prompt regarding my Queen inspired fic “Somebody to Love” (you can check here Part one and Part two)

I was very inspired, so I hope it reached your expectations!! I also started to draft the next chapter for In which She Makes a Friend, so we may be getting Part Five before the year is over.

And I wish a happy belated Christmas/Holiday/Friday to y’all ❤️

Prompt: Elain and Azriel come clean about their plotting during the wedding day speech

Stupid Cupids

Everything was perfect.

The ceremony had been a private thing — Nesta was known for being a reserved person, even more now that her book was on New York’s Best Selling List for three months since its release, and Cassian preferred to leave the extravagance to the reception, which was being held at one of Rhysand’s hotels, a wedding gift from both him and Feyre.

Cassian was not going to lie, he had been tempted to thrown everything to the wind and just run away to Vegas to marry Nesta and be done with it. He had half jokingly told her that, only to receive a murderous glare from the three Archeron sisters plus Emerie, all who had been planning the wedding non stop since his proposal at the karaoke bar. He was smart to not bring it up again, even as a joke.

Then, after one year being engaged, Cassian was now Cassian Archeron, married to the one and only Nesta Archeron herself, all of their family and friends there to testify it.

The Archerons and Emerie had been Nesta’s maids of honour, while Rhysand and Azriel were Cassian’s best men. The Archerons’ father had passed away years ago, so Nesta had asked Lucien to walk her down the aisle. They had met at therapy group shortly after the Archeron patriarch had died, and had bonded over their shared messed up life — Lucien was trying to come around the fact that his father was not the man his mother had been married to, which she had finally divorced after years of abuse, having remarried with Lucien’s biological father.

They had all gone to Rhysand’s hotel for the party and by now, all were a little bit tipsy. Cassian and his brothers had done a Dancing Queen number— Cassian declaring that ABBA would have been proud of their moves — while Nesta and the girls had danced to Beyoncé’s Run the World (Girls) — which had been just as memorable.

And now it was time for the speeches. Emerie had been the first, being surprisingly followed by Azriel, who, although quite shy, had overcome it for Cassian.

“Well, here we are. Who would have thought that Nesta would finally take pity on Cassian and accept his proposal?” Azriel said with a grin.

That earned laughs from the guests and a ‘Fuck you!’ from Cassian, who was seated by Nesta’s side, his tie and blazer long discarded.

“Honestly, if I had to describe their relationship, it would be that of an enemies to lovers book plot worthy of the bride’s writing” that made Nesta laugh and blow Azriel a kiss “They had their share of hardships along the way, that’s for sure. But you won’t find a couple as in love with each other as Cassian and Nesta are”.

“Did you hear that Rhysand? ‘No couple as in love with each other as us’!” Cassian teased, making Nesta roll her eyes.

“There’s still time to annul the wedding sister- in-law!” Rhysand said back.

“However, we wouldn’t be standing here were it not for an intervention from fate. Cauldron knows how headstrong those two are” Azriel smirked “So, I would like to ask for Elain Archeron to come here and help me tell the tale of how Cassian’s proposal came to be”

The crowd murmured in confusion, the newlyweds just as lost as them.

Elain rose from her sit, and made her way to the small stage where Azriel was making his speech, receiving another microphone from the staff.

“ Thank you Azriel, for sharing the stage with me” Elain was Azriel’s counterpart in every way, all bright smiles and easiness to talk, with a pale pink dress and hair lovingly arranged with flowers, while Azriel stood by her side in all black except for his dark blue cuff links and dress shirt “Cassian is hardworking, kind, loyal, deeply generous and an excellent cook. I could not hope for a more perfect husband for my dear older sister”

Nesta smiled sweetly at her said husband, interlacing their fingers. Yes, he was everything she could have hoped for and more.

“But, he sure is as stubborn as my sister too, as Azriel has already said” Elain’s light brown eyes sparkled with mischief “Those two fools would never have talked properly after their latest quarrel had it not been for indeed Fate’s intervention, with Fate having two people working for him: me and Azriel”

“Feyre, we would like to apologise for having you take the blame and Nesta’ scolding, but it was actually Elain who told me where you girls were headed that day” Azriel said, bowing his head in apology.

“Betrayed by my own sister” Feyre sighed, trying to appear angry but failing miserably.

“I messaged Azriel to ask if he knew the reason for why my sister looked as if she wanted to commit murder,” Nesta groaned and hid her face in Cassian’ shoulder in embarrassment “ but he knew as little as me.”

“We got to the conclusion that it would be impossible to get anything out of those two buttheads, and decided to take matters in our own hands” Azriel grabbed a remote control from inside his pocket and pointed it at the projector behind him “We wanted to force those two to have a talk like grown ups, but ended up with something even better: Cassian’s own public declaration of love to Nesta”

“Oh no, you didn’t!” Cassian exclaimed, watching as the big screen showed his little singing act to Nesta at the karaoke bar.

“This video is courtesy of Rhysand” Azriel explained, failing to hide his smile.

The screen proceeded to show Cassian singing — “Why didn’t you do something like that when you proposed?” Viviane Neige said to her husband, Kalias, gazing at the screen in awe at Cassian’s romantic act — and his declaration of love, which raised ‘oohs’ and ‘awwws’ from the female guests.

“In conclusion, we would like to say that it’s thanks to no other than us that we could all be here today and enjoy such good food. A toast to the groom and to the bride!” Azriel declared, raising his glass.

“To their ever lasting happiness!!” Elain added.

All the guests joined the toast and drank their glasses, clapping loudly at Azriel’s and Elain’s speech.

“You are not mad, are you?” Cassian whispered in Nesta’s ear, afraid she’d feel betrayed due to having been made a fool.

“I got you in the end, didn’t I?” she replied, kissing their interlaced fingers “Besides, I had a proposal worthy of a Hollywood cliché”

“Oh, the things I do for love” Cassian murmured, kissing his wife “Do remind me to thank those stupid cupids later”

“As you wish husband” Nesta whispered.

After that revelation, both cupids received a very generous ‘Thank you’ basket from the newlyweds, becoming famous matchmakers among their friends.

•

Tags: @sayosdreams @thewayshedreamed @sjm-things @perseusannabeth @arin1030 @caotica-e-quieta @vidalinav @swankii-art-teacher @ireallyshouldsleeprn @duskandstarlight @greerlunna @thegoddessaltenia @dayanna-hatter @verypaleninja @awesomelena555 @courtofjurdan @allilal @sensitiveillyrian @moe8 @illyrianwitchling13

{Please let me know if you’d like to be added to my tag list}

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #sjm books #sjm fanfic #nessian #cassian x nesta #nesta archeron #cassian

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thestraggletag · 4 years ago

Text

The Game, a Rumbelle Chess AU

Summary: Inspired by The Queen’s Gambit. When Arran Gold first lost a chess game against Belle French, he thought that nothing would feel better than wining against her. But the more he lost, the less he minded, and more eager he was for their next game.

AN: Look, it’s a bad summary but a good fic, I promise. Also both games described in the fic are real games that can be played. Here, for example, is their last game.

Rating: Explicit.

He couldn’t recall exactly when the tradition had begun. Long ago, when he had only owned about half the town and had yet to adopt his more refined image. A tenant, a once-wealthy businessman who had once had “old money” and had wasted it away in reckless business ventures, had challenged him to a game of chess in lieu of the rent. He had likely thought that Mr Gold, a lowborn Scotsman with a thick brogue and brusque manners, was unlikely to even know the rules of chess. He had trounced the fool in less than twenty minutes, and only because he had toyed with him first.

Chess, after all, was something he knew well. His aunties had taught him as a child, but it hadn’t been till university that he had gotten to love the game, after finding out there was a veritable underground circuit of contests and tournaments that could pay his way through law school. He had developed an irreverent yet aggressive style, completely unpolished but completely brutal. In spite of his quickly-gained reputation he had never lacked opponents. There were always posh idiots who were sure their sophisticated gameplay could beat his street smarts. They were never correct. He had developed a nickname, over the years, given to him in honour of his savage style of play and his ruthless approach to the game: Beast. He considered quite a compliment.

He had thought about going pro, entering formal tournaments and acquiring a ranking, but the life of a chess player, and even that of a grandmaster, wasn’t particularly profitable compared to practicing law or going into business and he aimed to accumulate wealth and power as much of it and as fast as possible. He had kept up with his secret hobby, though, sometimes catching televised tournaments or reading about them later, enjoying the process of dissecting a game, sometimes thinking of how he would have won against a particular opponent. But it had never occurred to him to play against anyone in Storybrooke till the challenge came. It had attracted lots of attention at the time and people had turned up at the library that Sunday to watch them play.

Though he won, other people sought to challenge him, to the point where he had decided to establish an event of sorts. A chess day, once a year, in which anyone could challenge him. If they won he would forgive their rent for an entire year. There was no penalty for losing, at least none outright, but the shame of defeat meant most people challenged him only once. Besides it kept everyone from complaining during rent day for the rest of the year. And, he had to admit, he enjoyed it. Enjoyed playing cat and mouse with people, exerting power over them, watching as people’s confidence shrunk down and melted away.

He always looked forward to chess day, though that year perhaps less so. Storybrooke had acquired a new librarian around eight months before and, in spite of all of his efforts, she did not think ill of him. Belle French was, apparently, immune to the gossip of the town about him and his own brusque manner and dark humour. She even seemed to enjoy the later, which made him uneasy and… nervous. A strange, unsettling form of nervous.

It didn’t help that she was insultingly kind, surprisingly sarcastic and delightfully witty. The sort of person that could spar with words and make it look effortless. And smart enough to know that though he pretended to hate it, he loved it. She was also, regrettably, gorgeous. Smaller than him, with reddish brown hair and electric-blue eyes. An accent that wrapped around his name like a lover and an actual sense of fashion, which was almost unheard of in Storybrooke and the only thing most people seemed to hold against her, the town matrons disapproving of her short skirts and high heels. There was also a disarming quirkiness about her, a sense that she was somewhat otherworldly, like she belonged half to the mortal plain and half to the realm of stories and fantasies. He had seen her more than once walk around town lost in a book, dreamy-eyed and clearly miles away from the little town. He was always fascinated by how dreamlike she looked, how otherworldly.

Though he had tried to make her hate him for the first few months of their acquaintance, he had grown used to failing, and admitted to himself that it felt nice to have someone who would smile genuinely at the sight of him, who would treat him with kindness, who would be eager for his company and did not consider talking to him to be a chore. So he wasn’t looking forward to Miss French being exposed to angry tenants who called him names when he beat them, and wasn't really looking forward to her seeing him dash people’s hopes ruthlessly.

It couldn’t be helped, though. And perhaps it was for the best, to have her see what everyone else saw. There was no point in delaying the inevitable. So he washed and shaved carefully that day and had a hearty breakfast- chess day tended to take up all of his morning and most of the afternoon, and he did not like having to take a break to eat, knowing that his stamina added to the image of him as some larger-than-life monster. He dressed with care, picking his favourite purple striped shirt and matching paisley tie. He added his sleeve garters and square cufflinks, though he was not expecting those to be visible at any point during the day. It still felt nice, empowering, to be impeccably dressed.

By the time he reached the library there was already a crowd there, as well as the customary barren table, awaiting his chess set. He always played with the same set, an ebony and boxwood one from House of Staunton. It had the classical Staunton look and the hand carved pieces had a nice heft to them. He had bought it years ago, one of his first purchases after beginning to make serious money, costing him well over a thousand pounds back in the day. Not by any means among the more costly of chess sets, but the price spoke of its fine quality.

He set the board down and opened the box with his pieces, arranging the whites on the side of the board furthest from him and setting the blacks on his side, careful to properly align the knights and position the pawns at the centre of their squares. He took out his clock next, which he had cleaned and serviced the day before, and sat down on his customary, throne-like bergère, the one that usually was the focal point of the Ancient History’s reading nook. In contrast the chair opposite him was one of the plain, serviceable ones that populated the study room at the library. He hoped, for his own amusement, that whoever had set up the place had picked the wobbly one.

It wasn’t long after he settled that a crowd formed around him, but it took almost half an hour for the first challenger to present themselves. It was, surprisingly enough, Dr Whale. The good doctor was one of the few people in town that made a nice, tidy six-figure income, mostly from his private practice. Whale, whoever, did like to live above his means, and it seemed it had finally caught up with him. Though he did not rent a house from him, he did rent his private office from him. It was large and well-located, and likely to detract quite a bit from his overall profit.

The doctor looked cocky, in spite of Mr Gold’s infamous reputation around town as a chess player. And he didn’t even have to speculate as to why. Victor Whale was the prototypical Ivy-league alumnus, likely played chess for Dartmouth, his undergraduate alma mater, or Brown, where he had acquired his MD. He may perhaps once been ranked, if his smug grin was any indication. He took pains to hide his own savage smile, not willing to give his prey any hint of the carnage to come.

He drew it out, both for the audience and for the sheer pleasure of watching all of the doctor’s confidence and arrogance melt away, leaving an increasingly obfuscated and delightfully sweaty mess behind. And once he knew that he had pushed him as far as he could go he had gone in for the jugular, watching in delight as his opponent toppled his king. The crow murmured, unhappy. When he dragged a game out sometimes people got the idea that he might be struggling, that his challenger might actually have a chance. He enjoyed dashing that hope every single time.

As he rearranged the pieces back to their starting positions he caught a glimpse of a tweed flare skirt swishing about a familiar set of tight-clad legs. Miss French, as always, was impeccably dressed, the black sheer floral blouse a bit daring, perhaps, but carefully hidden by the demure cardigan she had over it. Her hair was in a French braid, the end tied together with a lovely silk ribbon in the same muted plum colour as her cardigan. He wondered at her clothes, which he recognised as high quality, likely expensive as hell. It cemented his idea that she came from money, and likely worked out of a genuine passion for books rather than necessity. Just as he studied her earrings-lovely gold studs in the shape of blooming roses, she turned her head, catching his eyes. He saw interest and curiosity, but no fear or disgust. Perhaps Whale was too unlikeable a victim to elicit sympathy from her.

Frederick Knight was next, playing not for a reprieve from his own rent- his teacher’s salary might not be impressive, but his wife pulled some major money working from home for a law firm in Boston- but for the pet shelter he volunteered out. Briefly he wondered how it all worked, how he could volunteer at the shelter run by his wife’s ex-husband, who had cheated on her with one of Knight’s own colleagues, causing the divorce that would eventually leave her free and available for them to meet and fall in love. Gold thought it was all rather unseemly.

The lad was smart, he would give him that. All that strategizing for baseball clearly carried on to chess, to a certain extent. Mr Knight clearly saw at least a few moves ahead, even if he did not have the skill to plan and anticipate more than that. In the end, because he was a decent enough bloke, Gold put him out of his misery quickly. It felt bad to drag it out unnecessarily. The man was gracious about defeat as well, something that was rare, offering his hand for a quick, firm shake, before leaving the board, no doubt to sink into the welcoming arms of Ms Midas. Though married, she had chosen to keep her last name, after the hassle it had been to change it back after the divorce. And yet there was no doubt that she loved her new husband more than she tolerated her ex, which even the strictest traditionalist in Storybrooke had to acknowledge.

More people challenged him, as was the norm. Out of all of them only Mr Prentice put much of a fight. Gold could tell he was a man of some talent, and an old hand at the game, but too by-the-book to beat him. He implemented moves and strategies well, but did not have a creative bone in his body. A pity, really. He was the only one after Mr Knight to be mature in defeat, sadly. By the time four o’clock rolled around three people had upended the board after they had lost and at least one had made a move as if to punch him in the face.

He reset the board with little expectation of playing again. It was late, the crowd was thinning, and people’s enthusiasm had died down considerably. He excused himself to go to the restroom, enjoying the brief walk after hours of sitting down. When he went back to the board, however, he froze up. Sitting on the challenger’s chair was the librarian herself, carefully unbinding her hair as she half-listened to something Miss Lucas was telling her.

He hadn’t foreseen this, the notion that the librarian might wish to challenge him. He had become resigned to having her smiles dimmed when they were directed at him, but nothing more. Certainly not this.

“Miss French, I didn’t know you played.”

His voice was, by some miracle, even. The librarian smiled, shaking her hair out and wrapping the now unused ribbon around her fingers.

“I used to, some time ago. Still do, sometimes. In my head.”

She said that last part quietly, only for his ears.

“Well, what are the stakes going to be? Rent forgiven from the library for a year?”

“Oh, not, that would be too much. And I’m not sure that would be good for the library. That much money would surely go to what the mayor considers more… lucrative pursuits. But I thought, perhaps, that you could lower the rent of the library by a certain percentage, enough to cover for my apartment. I could use the extra money to refurbish the children’s section, and replace some stock. I could do without another brawl about who gets the last copy of The Polar Express come Christmastime.”

He smiled in spite of the cold spreading across his chest, constricting his lungs. He would be quick, he decided, better to have it over as soon as possible, so that afterwards perhaps Miss Lucas could coax Miss French into a consolatory drink or a slice of apple pie, her favourite. It wouldn’t be too bad, he convinced himself, and it would endear her to the other townspeople, that she braved the beast in pursuit of better reading experiences for their children.

He started her watch, a bit surprised when she moved right away, dragging a pretty white pawn to e4. He counted with his opposing pawn, and in his next move he captured his first piece, another pawn she had likely moved unsuspectingly into the line of his attacking one. She took out her knight then, and later a bishop, but he played more conservatively, using mainly his pawns, waiting for the moment where he could unfurl some of his more devastating attacks. He was startled by her castling her king. It gave him a firm idea that she was no amateur, and he adjusted to this new insight accordingly. He advanced his pawns further, seeing little overall sense and reason to her movements. She had her queen out, as well as a bishop, but had taken her knight back in and her pawns were scattered about, presenting little challenge.

And then she moved her bishop, lightning fast, and suddenly he was in check and the game did not look as it had a second before. He studied the board more carefully, instincts telling him there was danger in there. What once had looked devoid of logic now seemed elegant and strangely coordinated.

Like a dance, he thought. And somehow familiar.

He moved his king, and noticed people suddenly paying attention. She took her bishop away, looking amused, and he pressed on with his queen’s pawn, losing his first piece one move later. Feeling his hackles rising he took one of his bishops out, losing another pawn a second later after she took one of her knights out again. He disposed of it in the next move, thinking he had finally seen her make a mistake, but her rook advanced, threatening his king and bishop. He moved the former, thinking he was sure to lose the other piece, but surprisingly she moved her queen instead. Far from putting him at ease it was that move that made him aware that he was in front of a person that could likely beat him. And, almost against his will, the thought rose the competitive beast in him.

He went savage, increasing the aggressiveness of his moves to an obscene degree. A chance look at Miss French, however, let him know that she found it amusing. She leaned over the board with interest, head tilted to a side and the fingers of her non-dominant hand tangled in her hair ribbon. Her eyes, barely visible from beneath her thick lashes from the way her face was tilted towards the board, sparkled, letting him know she was enjoying herself. Thoroughly.

He, on the other hand, felt strangely angry. Defensive. Exhilarated. He watched her as she made her bishops dance across the board, forcing him into another check and into a few defensive moves with his rooks, before her queen made her presence known once again, sliding across the board with both elegance and devastation. He took off his jacket, feeling too hot, and looked at the board again.

It was all so familiar. The style of play, he had seen it before. Like a dance, spontaneous yet choreographed, forcing him to respond in a certain way, backing him into a corner. He took one of her bishops and then a rook, when it came sliding into his side of the board, but it only made him feel more anxious, more like a creature trapped. Soon he was without his rooks and both his queen and his one remaining knight were in peril. But as he focused on them he missed the slow advance of a white pawn along the side of the board, flanked by the white queen and the remaining white rook. He sent his own queen out, trying to regain some semblance of control, but there wasn’t much the piece could do. In the end it was the queen, aided by the unassuming pawn, that forced his king into a checkmate.

“I believe the game is over, Mr Gold.”

The librarian’s accent softened the blow of those words. She looked up at him, happiness and excitement written across her face, as if she had gone through some marvelous experience. But it wasn’t the smile of a winner, but rather the smile of a conspirator.

“I believe the game was over ten moves ago, Miss French.”

He could admit that now, even as people cheered around him, rubbing salt on the newly-opened wound. He watched as Miss Lucas briefly enveloped the librarian in a side-hug before turning her attention to other people celebrating. Miss French, however, didn’t seem to want to join. She simply stared at the board and then at him as if this was their own private thing, their shared, secret joy.

It felt too intimate, and it made him even more angry, that she seemed to think that he had somehow enjoyed getting his arse thoroughly kicked by her. Brusquely he stood up, putting his jacket and coat on quickly before a well-placed snarl opened a way out from the mass of people gathered around the chessboard. He would go home and lick his wounds and figure out a way to repair the damage to his reputation after he reached the bottom of his half-drunk bottle of Balvenie Tun 1509.

It wasn’t until he was well and truly hungover that he realised, with a shock, that he had left his chess set behind. He left a message in Dove’s phone to have him call him back on Monday, so that he could instruct him to retrieve it for him. No need to go into the library for a few days. Or weeks. Might as well not step foot in it for the rest of the year, really. And no need to ever again think about the game, ever.

But after a couple of Tylenol and a lot of water, he found himself rethinking that last decision. There was something nagging at him about that game, and it would not let go of him. He knew he had seen that style of play before, but he could not recall where. He pulled up his collection of saved games, recreated from tournaments and world cups, and began analysing each of them, trying to find the same dreamlike, flowing style of play, like dancing. It wasn’t in the latest World Cup, or the one before, or in any of the recent tournaments. Not in the London Classic, or the Sinquefield Cup, or the Tata Steel. Not in any of the major American or European tournaments, so he branched out, looking at the Asian championships, the ACF Grand Prix and-

Something about the ACF gave him pause, so he went back through the tournaments he had saved, year after year. It wasn’t until he hit the 2006 Grand Prix that he saw it, a match where the blacks moved like in a ballet. He saw the name of the player, I. Avon, and did not recognise it at first. Then he searched for the recorded video of the match and realised why: I. Avon was Isabelle Avon, and she was usually known in internet circles by her nickname, Beauty. And the 2006 ACF Grand Prix had been her last major tournament. She had disappeared shortly after, and had caused a bit of a stir, specially amongst Australian chess enthusiasts, who thought she had the makings of a Grandmaster and even a top five world player.

And yet, somehow, she had ended up as a librarian in a small town in the middle of nowhere, Maine, living under a different name, for some fucking reason.

He wouldn’t let it go once he knew, trying to piece the puzzle together. He had never seen pictures of Beauty, there were no headshots to be had, likely because she had been an up-and-coming player at the time and a minor for most of her active years. He had seen videos of her playing, but her hair tended to obscure her face in most of them. She had not won her nickname on account of her looks- though how painfully fitting it was, considering how attractive she was- but because of her playing. People praised her for her beautiful moves, how she built this gorgeous ballet of a strategy that was as effective as it was enchanting.

She had been described, in the few articles that talked about her personality, as quirky. Odd. A calm player, given to the occasional smile and never able to lift her eyes off the board, a dreamy look on her face. Quite unsettling, some people had said.

She had dropped off the face of the chess world at age twenty, in 2006, and no one had heard from her again. Some people claimed to have played against her in an online tournament, but there was never a way to know for sure. He was sure now that at least some of these people were likely right. He delved more into whatever he could find about Isabelle Avon, but there wasn’t much. Though she had been at the time considered a chess prodigy she had been sheltered from press scrutiny likely by her parents, and had not given many interviews nor posed for many photographs. The few that circulated on the internet were of her as a very young teen, likely fifteen, when she had made her debut. He recognised her electric-blue eyes immediately, but the librarian’s fine bone structure was hidden behind layers of baby fat still not ready to peel off and her hair was a few shades lighter than it was now. Her mother was always with her in the pictures, as good-looking as elegant as her daughter had grown up to be, but her father was only in one of the pictures, a rather portly man that was rendered striking rather than dumpy by his height, which was considerable.

He found nothing to explain her retirement from chess, at least nothing official. He did find, however, a funeral notice in The Australian for a Colette Avon, neé French, dated December 2006. He felt sure that he had stumbled across the reason for Beauty’s fall from the chess circuit, and the origin of her new name. Why she had felt the need to create a completely new identity was, however, still unexplained.

And it bothered him, he found out soon enough. The more games of hers he saw the more he could appreciate her artistry, her craftsmanship. He could not conceive anyone having such talent, such passion for the game, and quitting, even over a personal tragedy like the loss of a beloved parent. He remembered how she had looked when she had played him, alive and excited, her pleasure obvious, and it cemented the idea that there was something he was missing. And he didn’t much care for it.

That’s how he found himself in the library weeks after his defeat, confronting the librarian. She was wearing a pretty burgundy shirtdress, prim and proper if not a wee bit short, and her hair tumbled down her back in a mess of curls, which was to be expected, since the library hours had ended twenty minutes ago. She wasn’t surprised to see him, nor did she appear hostile or otherwise on edge. Quite the contrary.

“Mr Gold, I’ve been expecting you.” She smiled up at him, and it felt a bit different from her previous smiles. Those had been lovely but this one felt more… personal. Intimate, somehow. Like they shared a secret. He supposed, in a way, they did. “You left your lovely chess set here. I’ve been holding onto it for you, keeping it safe. It’s in my office, do you want me to go get it for you?”

“Why did you change your name?”

He didn’t mean to blurt it out. He meant to build up to it. But there was something about her that utterly unsettled him, made him anxious in a way that wasn’t wholly unpleasant. Her smile turned somewhat cautious and sad, and he hated himself for provoking that reaction out of her.

“That’s a rather personal question.”

“You owe me.” He tried to stop himself, but he found he somehow couldn’t. “You played against me under false pretences. You owe me at least an explanation as to why.”

Miss French raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed at his emotional outburst or the questionable logic of his assessment. A moment later, however, she tilted her head to a side, biting her lip and narrowing her eyes, as if considering something.

“It’s a rather big secret. Would you play me for it?”

That sounded very much like a deal, and it made him feel more comfortable with the situation, more in control. Deals were his specialty, after all.

“And what would you wish for if you win, Miss French?”

She smiled, the picture of innocence.

“A secret for a secret sounds fair. Let’s say… your name.”

Nobody knew his first name. He appeared in all legal documents as “A. Gold”, which caused all manner of speculation around town. His name would be a high price, indeed.

“Oh, I wouldn’t tell others, just as I trust you would not tell others what I told you if I lost. I just want it for myself.”

Her words sent a frisson of something down his spine, leaving him tingling and on edge.

“That sounds acceptable. Do fetch my set, if you please, and I’ll get the board.”

They had the board set and ready in no time, flipping a coin to decide who would be whites. Miss French, having won, started the game, and from the beginning he read her moves differently from before, knowing they were those of a chess prodigy. He moved aggressively, trying to create too much chaos to allow her to build her beautiful moves, but soon began to second-guess himself, struggling between being too bold and playing it safe. He lasted longer, forcing her to pause and consider her next move once or twice, which she had not done during their first game. He took in those few seconds of uncertain contemplation with eager interest, watching as she bit her lip and furrowed her brow, the apple of her cheeks red with an enticing blush.

In the end, however, her rooks trapped his king too soon, forcing him to topple the piece. She smiled at him, offering her hand for him to shake. He did so, marveling at how delicate it was. And cold. The whole building was cold, he realised. Apparently the mayor demanded the heat be turned off the library the moment it closed, to save on the heating bill.

“We can do this again sometime, if you still wish to know, Mr Gold.”

He nodded, leaning on his cane in order to rise from the chair, making no move to gather his chess pieces.

“I’ll take you up on that, Miss French. And the name’s Arran.”

He returned a week later, with a tin of oolong tea to keep the cold of the library at bay. Though the librarian seemed to have been expecting him, with the board and chess set already laid out at the customary table, she did not seem to be in the mood to play right away, inviting him instead to her office so she could prepare and pour them both a cup of tea in the adjoining kitchenette. Though she did not seem to want to speak of whatever had happened to her in 2006 she did not seem reluctant to talk about her chess career in general. She told him about learning the game at six from her mother, and playing in the park against adults as a ten-year-old, shortly before entering her first tournament, for children. She would soon outgrow those, reluctantly.

“Children are more creative players, I find, and I missed that in professional adult tournaments. It’s what I like about your playing.”

He told her in turn about his own chess experience, so vastly different from hers. It was a part of his life he had not shared with anyone before, and it felt nice to do so, especially with someone who could understand chess like he did, could see the beauty and the sense of it.

By the time their tea was finished over an hour had passed, and it was getting almost too late for a game. This one lasted a bit longer, and felt more… playful. Though he lost, he enjoyed himself more than he should have. He could make more sense of her playing style now, and it made him respond in kind, to soften his moves a tad, make them less savage and more complimentary to hers. It was the first time in years he altered his playing style, but it gave him more of a fighting chance and it seemed to amuse and thrill her to no end. In the end when he lost she asked about his aunts, and he told her about how in love they were, even though the times were different and they could not express that love in the open like people could now. As he talked he realised how much he missed them and how nice it felt to share a bit of their memory with someone else.

Though he left the library defeated, it was difficult to conjure any negative feelings about the evening.

At some point, he realised he had stopped playing to win. Well, not necessarily. He still played with the intention of seeing her king toppled and extracting the secret of her retirement from her, but it was about more than that now. Perhaps it was their now customary tea break right before the game, which lasted up to an hour and now included cookies and several cups per person. It was a strangely-relaxing ritual and led them to talking about things that he would usually not discuss with anyone else, things that felt too personal. She shared in kind, with the exception of talking about her father, which he understood tacitly was a no-go subject. To be fair so was his, and she took pains to never ask him anything about him.

Playing her, he had to admit, had become exhilarating. Once the sour taste of defeat had been taken out of the equation- it didn’t feel like losing anymore, or at least not the way losing usually felt to him, cloying and humiliating- all that was left was the thrill of the game, the excitement of thinking on one’s feet and seeing long strategies come to fruition on the board. He caught her chewing on her bottom lip more and more as he learned to thwart her moves and bring a sort of organised chaos to the board that she found difficult to navigate around.

He got so used to losing, and so comfortable in it, in the notion that losing only meant he got to return to the library, have tea and spend a few pleasant hours with someone who was interesting and treated him with kindness, that he did not consider the fact that he might win at some point. And when it happened, one evening he saw it, checkmate in two moves with his remaining knight and one of his rooks, plain to see. He had been working at leaving her king adrift, too exposed and with her queen distracted enough to not be able to stop the attack. She saw it too, he realised, and there was a bittersweet smile when she toppled her king. The sound the small piece made was deafening in the sudden silence of the library and he stared at the board for the longest time, as if he had been struck dumb by his win. In reality he was trying to process how disappointed he suddenly felt, how utterly unhappy he was about having won. It made no sense.

“As you perhaps know my mother died in 2006.”

“Miss French, please, you don’t have to-”

“Belle, please. I’d like to believe we’ve transcended such formalities. Especially considering what I’m about to do.”

She paused, letting the silence stretch between them. Though she seemed determined to tell her tale, whatever it may entail, she did not seem to know where to start, or even where to look. He thought about getting up and downright refusing to listen to her, anything to take away the sudden air of vulnerability about her, but stopped himself. She was a grown woman who would not appreciate him trying to decide things for her.

“You must know my mother died in 2006. It was very sudden, a stroke, and was very hard to accept. We were very close, especially because my chess career kept me from socialising much with my peers. I was sad for a long time after her passing, kept recreating some of our favourite matches on the chessboard she had given me for my twelfth birthday. I didn’t want to eat, or go out much, and I guess… My dad grew worried. We had always struggled to communicate, never had much in common. He didn’t get chess or me, so he didn’t know how to reach me, or talk to me, or even understand what I was going through.”

She paused, picking up a white pawn and staring intently at it. He itched to reach out to her, though he was not very good at comforting people.

“He thought I needed professional help. And he was right, I did need to speak to someone. But he thought it best to-” Another pause, where Belle looked like she was trying to find the words to explain, or excuse, what came next. “He had me hospitalised.” He did not need to ask what kind of hospital she was referring to. “It was a nice place, on spacious, green grass and under the supervision of an order of nuns. I’ve read that other places can be more… unpleasant, and less safe. Still, I don’t remember much of it. I was drugged most of the time, they were pretty liberal when it came to medication, and I hated it. Took me a while to figure out how to behave in a way that was considered normal, how to grieve within the bounds of acceptable behaviour.”

He was surprised by the white-hot rage that took over him. He tightened his grip around the handle of his cane, eager to hurt someone with it. Belle’s father seemed like a prime candidate, or any of the doctors involved in her care, who could not see that what they had in front of them was a woman trying to grieve in her own way. He ached to do harm, to hurt, in a way that unsettled him, that spoke about primitive instincts he had spent years mastering, or at least trying to. He tried to calm himself, focusing instead intently on her, watching her walk the pawn across the board and exchange it for the white queen after it reached the other side.

“Once I was out I changed my name and applied for university in the US. My chess career and my mother’s care of my finances gave me financial freedom, so I went to school, then did my masters at Columbia, and took on as librarian here when the position opened. And I never participated in a tournament again. At first it was because being active in professional chess circles left me exposed, made it so my father would likely know where I was, but later on I discovered I just did not have the temperament for big tournaments anymore. Crowds of strange people looking at me make me nervous, and playing chess in public makes me feel… unsafe, I suppose.”

Her fingers closed over the white queen, as if testing the strength of the piece.

“I still love it, though. Used to play at Bryant Park when I was a college student, though never in tournaments. And I still play online, sometimes for money, because it’s safe. But it’s been nice, playing face to face against someone again. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.”

She put the white queen back with the rest of the pieces inside its box, closing the lid securely before offering the set to him. Instead of taking it he stood up, taking a few steps backward to make sure she knew he had no intention of taking his chess set home.

“I thank you for your candor. I will keep what you have told me in confidence, of course. Same time this Saturday?”

She looked up at him, confused for a second before a wide smile spread across her face.

“It’s a date.”

Though he had made the journey to the library dozens of times in the past couple of months it felt different that day. Instead of the customary tea he brought he clutched a tote bag with an unopened bottle of Highland Park 18 and two crystal tumblers. It was a particularly cold afternoon, which he told himself called for something more bracing than a strong cup of tea.

Belle did not seem against the whisky, though she did warn him that she had no affinity for it and would not know good scotch from bad.

“You’re calling it scotch, so that’s a good start.”

She seemed more intrigued about the tumblers, running the pad of her thumb across the designs on the glass.

“Thistles.”

“I’m nothing if not a walking stereotype.”

She laughed, telling him to pour while she set the board. By the time they sat down to play it was dark out, and Belle had turned off the zooming fluorescent tubes, leaving instead the soft, warm light fixtures in the reading room on. It was a cosy, relaxed setting, and yet the air felt strangely electrified, like something was going to happen, something big. His nerves felt raw, exposed, but the feeling wasn’t exactly unpleasant.

“So, what should we play for tonight?”

He startled, the tumbler halfway to his lips. She was right, there were no preconceived stakes anymore. Before he had wanted to know something about her, something valuable, so they established an arrangement whereby whoever won could ask a question of the other. That arrangement no longer applied. A sudden flare of panic travelled down his spine. What if he couldn’t think of anything? What if they both discovered that, without stakes, there was no sense in playing again at all? What if-

“I have an idea. It’s… a bit unorthodox. Always wanted to try it, but never got the chance to.”

The librarian looked intently at her glass of whisky, running a finger across the edge, but there was a sort of mischievous air about her. Playful.

Flirtatious, almost.

“Do tell.”

“Well, I’ve read about strip chess. Obviously I never actually played strip chess before because for most of my years playing chess in front of people I was a minor. But I always thought it sounded… fun.”

She chanced a look at him from beneath her eyelashes, biting her lower lip the tiniest bit. He must have looked rather stupid to her, sitting ranmrod straight and wide-eyed, with the look of a rabbit that has just spotted a wolf nearby. A man a few years shy of fifty looking stupidly terrified of a woman more than ten years his junior.

“What would be the rules?”

“A piece of clothing for every captured piece. Something small for pawns is allowed, but bigger pieces merit more important sacrifices. Things in pairs are to be removed in pairs. Jewellery and such are considered pieces of clothing. We play until either someone wins, or someone is completely naked.”

He took a gulp of scotch, hiding a grimace as the liquid burned a path down his throat. He took a quick stock of the librarian, taking in her few pieces of jewellery- earrings, a ring, and a simple necklace-, and her clothing. A skirt, no belt, a shirt tucked into it, a cardigan, stockings and a pair of booties. He imagined all of it on the floor at his feet and his blood simmered.

“That sounds… acceptable. You got the coin?”

He was glad he sounded unbothered by the new arrangement they had just entered into, nonchalant. He lost the coin toss, so it was Belle who opened, moving the queen’s pawn two places. He moved more conservatively, a pawn to c6, and a couple of moves later she took her first pawn, leaving the piece to be taken by another pawn of his.

“My earrings for your cufflinks?”

It was a fair exchange, so they paused to relieve themselves of their pieces of jewellery. Belle’s next move gave him a chance to capture another pawn and he discovered that he had to physically restrain himself from making the move, reminding himself that he was supposed to be playing for win. It added something extra to the game, the tension between what the best move was according to whatever strategy he was struggling to make, and what could get him more pieces. It made the game tense, as they both considered their moves and braced themselves for the possible occurrence of another piece taken.

When it finally happened, a white pawn taking the place of a black one, he surrendered both his shoes, but not before using one of his knights to take the place of the newly-moved white pawn. Belle bent down to unlace her booties, removing them and placing them to the side with care, letting him know that she did have a thing for shoes, as he had always suspected.

Nothing else happened for the longest time, the game unfolding without much action. They both moved their bishops and castled their king, pretending for a while that there wasn’t a likelihood that one of them would end up naked before the night was out. He kept the scotch nearby, refilling the drinks every now and then to give himself something to do other than think about all the exposed white pieces. Finally, when he thought he was going to crawl out of his skin if he didn’t do it, he took a white pawn with his knight.

“Wondered when you were going to do that.”

He watched her as she shimmied out of her cardigan, letting him see more of the blouse she was wearing. It was slightly sheer, letting him know she was wearing a black bra. He wondered if he would get to see it.

“It’s a pity about your knight, though.”

She moved one of her own knights to take his, making it the first major piece to be taken. She held it in her hand for a while, studying it.

“I’ll accept your jacket and tie, if you have no objections.”

He reached automatically towards his neck, tugging on the silken knot around his throat. He must have drunk more than he realised, because his fingers felt clumsy, uncoordinated. After a few ineffectual tugs and some choice expletives muttered under his breath Belle rose from her chair, gently pushing his hands away and untying the tie herself. She tugged on it until it was off and tossed it on the back of his chair. She then wordlessly prompted him to remove his jacket, hanging it on the back of his chair as well.

“That’s a lovely colour on you.”

She ghosted her fingers across the silk of his shirt. It was one of his favourites, a deep navy blue silk jacquard with a contrasting pattern of leaves. He had worn it because he had noticed she tended to favour blue, which had felt stupid at the time. Now it felt inspired. Emboldened by the touch and the compliment he dragged his bishop across the board, knocking her knight off its place.

“I’ll take your necklace and stockings, if you please.”

His voice was rough, with little of the cultured diction he usually employed, but between the alcohol and the simmering sexual tension there was little he could do to change that. She took her necklace off without much protest, making sure to fasten it close before she looked at him right in the eye, smiling innocently and extending a leg till her silk-stockinged foot found his knee.

“Help me?”

It was embarrassing how fast he dragged a hand across her leg, pausing only to notice the quality of the material, and reached beneath her skirt, till his fingers came across the scratchy lace of the top of the stocking. With slow, steady precision he peeled the stocking off her leg, letting the tips of his fingers slide across the soft underside of her thigh and calf, trying to memorise how soft and warm her skin felt, so he could replay it over and over again each night. He repeated the process with the other stocking, delighting in the goosebumps the dim light of the room revealed in Belle’s skin. After it was done he folded the stockings neatly and presented them to her.

She moved her bishop next in a direct challenge to his castled king, meaning he had no other choice but to take it. He did it with shaky hands, trying not to look as eager as he felt.

“Shirt or skirt, I suppose. May I choose?”

Her voice was soft, playful, undeniably coquettish. He nodded, following her movements as she stood up, unzipped her skirt and let it fall open around her legs. Her shirt was long enough to cover anything but the barest hint of her underwear, something black and lacy and the slightest bit sheer that had him reaching for his glass. A second later she sat down, dragging her queen to take his bishop.

“Quid pro quo?”

With all the grace he could muster he stood up, refusing to show even a hint of apprehension or shyness as he undid his belt and pushed his trousers down, carefully stepping out of them before sitting down and reaching for the scotch bottle, filling up their glasses again. He took a long, fortifying sip and moved his knight to take her remaining one.

“That lovely blouse is gonna have to go, dearie.”

Belle smiled, looking bold and strangely pleased, and made sure to look at him square in the eye as she plucked every little button free of its hole. It was an invitation to watch, and he accepted it greedily, leaning forward and holding tightly onto his cane to keep himself from doing something stupid like try and touch every new bit of soft, pale skin that was slowly revealed to him. When she reached the last button she shimmied out of the shirt and carelessly tossed it at him. He caught it one handed and tried to not notice how the fabric retained the warmth from her body and the scent of her skin.

“Don’t get too comfortable, we’re about to get even.”

She moved her queen to take his knight and leaned back on her seat, one hand cradling her tumbler of scotch and an expectant look on her face. He reached up and unfastened the buttons of his shirt with practiced nonchalance, trying to keep the shaking in his hands from being too obvious. When that was done he paused for a second, trying to gather up his courage, before shrugging out of the shirt. With a gallant little gesture he handed it to her.

The next few rounds were intense, but no pieces taken. Arran was having a hard time concentrating on the board and not on the way Belle’s fingers caressed the silk of his shirt, tracing the pattern of leaves absentmindedly. It was a safer bet than focusing on her balconette bra, a delicate, impractical little thing made almost entirely out of leavers lace, with dark flowers woven into the pattern to keep him from seeing the rose pink of her nipples. He wondered if she had worn the set with their game in mind, if she had selected it just so he could see it.

At some point he took his queen out, and she did the same with one of her rooks, both of them seemingly in agreement that the status quo was not to be borne. It wasn’t until her rook put pressure on his king, forcing him to set his queen in the middle, that he began to feel cornered. When her bishop got too close he had no other option but to take out her rook. Though from a strategic point of view that was a desperate last-ditch effort, he could not help but feel strangely ecstatic over it.

“Oh, dear.”

Belle moved her hands towards her back, seeming to struggle with the fastenings of her bra.

“I think one of the hooks is snagged on the lace. Will you help me?”

He narrowly avoided biting his tongue. He managed a croaked, barely-intelligible “aye” before she stood up and turned around. He tried not to look down, but it was almost impossible, taking into account the panties she was wearing were made almost entirely of sheer black lace- leavers as well, clearly she was wearing a matching set-. With hands that felt clumsier than usual he felt around the clasp of the bra, delicately pulling the offending hook from the lace before unclasping the bra altogether. Slowly he lowered the straps from her shoulders, noticing the red indents they left behind on her skin. Then she was turning around, bra safely in her hands and her glorious breasts bared. He hoped that she wasn’t expecting him not to look, because it felt impossible to avert his eyes. As he had imagined- and he had not realised how often until then- her nipples were the perfect shade of dusty pink, framed perfectly by pale skin a shade lighter than the rest of her.

“I know I’ve lost on the board, but right now I feel like a winner. Like the luckiest bastard on Earth.”

His accent was shot to hell, thick and incomprehensible, as if he had never left the dodgy part of Glasgow. But it did not seem to be a problem for Belle, who kissed his cheek, tugged on his hair a bit, called him a “sweet boy”, and thanked him for the compliment.

“Let’s finish this, Arran.”

Her Australian lilt turned his name, which he always thought rather charmless and rough, into a soft caress. He sat down, something considerably uncomfortable to do all of a sudden, taking into account his painful state of arousal, and struggled to focus in the game. He was done for, he knew it, but he owed it to her to try. To lose with as much dignity as possible. Or so he thought, till her queen took his in one simple move.

“I’m afraid your underwear must go.”

The silk boxers were doing a pisspoor job of hiding his raging erection in any case, but it still felt uncomfortable to peel them off and be naked in front of another human being for the first time in years. Well, nude, technically, since he still had his navy socks on.

“Let’s finish this, then.”

He took his rook out, forcing her queen to retreat and then getting his other rook to cover for his king. For the next few moves they danced around each other on the board, with Belle trying to close her trap and Arran fighting tooth and nail to remain standing. His moves weren’t elegant at all, more like the savage swipes of a cornered beast, but they were effective. He managed to snag a rook, which gave him the pleasure of sitting down and staring intently as Belle shimmied out of her useless little panties. She flashed her watch at him to remind her she was not completely naked as per the rules of the game and continued to press him. She had only her queen and a few pawns, but the board was laid out in her favour all the same. Still he gave her a run for her money, and it took her twelve more moves to checkmate his king. Feeling irrationally expectant he toppled the piece, watching it roll around the board for a few seconds before coming to a stop.

“That was exciting. Though I’m afraid we forgot to agree on what the winner got. Quite an oversight on our part.”

He watched her as she reclined on her chair and stared at the board, a rosy tinge on her skin that he realised travelled past her neck and to the tops of her breasts. She looked at ease, comfortable in her own skin, and surprisingly he noticed that he did not much care about his own nudity either. In the low, almost romantic light of the library his skin acquired a golden colour that he thought rather becoming. He was tanned for a man who spent most of his time indoors, a direct consequence of his propensity to laze about in the sun whenever possible in the privacy of his backyard or his cabin. And in such a light his wrinkles were less obvious, his scars less visible. He felt anxious, yes, tense, but it was not an unpleasant sort of tension.

“What is it you want, Miss French?”

He affected the persona of the devious dealmaker, noticing the spark of heat in the librarian’s eyes when he called her by her last name. She made a show of thinking about it, though he had the distinct feeling she had thought about something ages ago.

“How about a kiss?”

He took her left hand, kissing the back of it.

“Like this?”

When she shook her head he reached further, kidding the underside of her elbow.

“Higher, Arran.”

He tugged her closer, trying to disregard the rapid beating of his heart, and softly kissed her shoulder. Her skin was soft and smelt faintly of something citrusy, something that somehow managed to tug both at his heart and his groin.

“Higher, please.”

She took his head in her hands, tilting it upwards till their lips met. It was a soft, tentative press of the lips at first, unhurried and unassuming, but it grew firmer and more insistent. When he pressed her she opened her mouth to him readily, letting him curl his tongue around hers with a moan of approval. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders at some point, fingers sinking into his hair to pull him closer till he was flush against her, skin against skin. His hands roamed her back, tracing the ridges of her spine, pleased at the way it made her shiver.

Reluctantly he let go of her lips, pressing his mouth against her sharp jawline, down her long neck until he was tracing her collarbone with his tongue and dipping down further into the swell of her breasts. He felt her fingers dig into his scalp, pressing him closer, tugging on his hair to guide him towards a puckered nipple. He accepted the unspoken invitation gladly, closing his lips around her flesh and sucking with embarrassing enthusiasm. His hands roamed the rest of her, one caressing her back while the other pressed against a soft, round thigh, aching to move just a few inches and cup her sex.

When she stepped backwards, out of his arms and the reach of his mouth, he felt a flare of panic that she was having second thoughts, or he had done something wrong. It was on the tip of his tongue to apologise- for fucking whatever, he didn’t care- when she tugged on his arm, urging him a little ways across the room to a reading nook next to the folklore session. There was a faded divan in there, usually full of pillows and throw blankets meant for readers to take to their seats if they were uncomfortable or chilly. It was old and likely uncomfortable, the type of couch that looked like it had lost most, if not all, of its padding and most of its support capabilities a long time ago. At the moment, however, it looked to Arran like the most luxurious of beds. He let her push him onto it, glad when the springs beneath him groaned but held steady. A second later she was on top of him and all thoughts of structural stability fled from his mind as he kissed him thoroughly, asserting a dominance he was more than happy to submit to.

He had to struggle to concentrate between the kissing and the groping to understand her when she asked about protection, muttering that she was clean and on the pill but she had condoms just in case, from the sex-ed talks Miss Blanchard gave every now and then. Briefly he contemplated the notion of using one of those condoms, thinking of Miss Blanchard’s absolutely scandalised look if she ever found out, but the idea of being bare inside Belle was too good to pass. He told her he was clean in as clear a voice as he could muster that he was clean too- he recalled his last annual check-up, which he drove to Boston for, since he would rather die than let Dr Whale anywhere near any part of him- before she was straddling him, grabbing his stiff, aching cock with one hand and guiding it to her entrance. He could barely register the sudden wet heat on the tip of him before his entire member was engulfed in it. He sunk his blunt nails on Belle’s back, trying to call forth every last shred of self-control he possessed not to come then and there. Thankfully Belle didn’t move, looking overwhelmed and in need of a moment to adjust.

“You’re big.”

“Fuck, sweetheart, you can’t tell me something like that if you want me to last.”

It was taking everything he had not to come like a fucking schoolboy. Later, much later, he might me in the right frame of mind to replay her involuntary compliment. Over and over. He tried to recall the names of all the subs of the Celtics, in fucking alphabetical order, till he somehow felt more in control. Slowly, lovingly, he captured her lips with his own for a long, lazy kiss, feeling as her own tension melted away, leaving only a simmering sort of excitement. Tentatively she began to rock, trying to find a comfortable angle and motion in the restrictive confined of the divan. He tried to help her as much as possible, holding onto her hips and trying to thrust up as much as he could, given his precarious perch on the furniture and his lame ankle. Slowly but steadily they found something that worked, a rhythm that had him hitting a sport deep inside her that he could tell was, blessedly, the right one, given how Belle sunk her nails on his shoulders and tried to muffle her cries against the side of his neck. He tried to talk, to tell her how gorgeous she was, how wet and warm and perfect she felt around him but it all came out as unintelligible grunts and low, feral moans.

When he felt himself near the edge he gritted his teeth and gathered all of his remaining willpower, dragging his right hand down her stomach to the small nest of curls that framed her dripping cunt, delving inside till he found a spot that made her gasp when he touched it.

“Come for me, sweet girl.” He didn’t know whether she could understand him over the thick mess of his accent, but he hoped at least the cadence would convene his meaning. She keened in response before he felt her flutter around his cock, the rest of her tensing with the force of her release. When he muffled her scream against the side of his neck he let go, his own orgasm almost uncomfortable at first, too much at once. He clutched her close, hoping against hope he would not send them both toppling to the floor, feeling like he was walking a fine line between pleasure and pain. Pleasure won out in the end, sizzling on his veins before slowly fading into a pleasant simmer. Tiredly he wrapped his arms around a barely-awake Belle, feeling the cooling sweat on her back and grunting in protest. He looked around, spotting a throw on the floor in his reach. He grabbed it quickly, managing to wrap it snug around both of them. Later, much later, when he could remember his name or how to walk, he would insist on them finding some better place to sleep, for her sake. At the moment, however, that seemed beyond him, a faraway concern to be dealt with at a later time. He was loath to give up his queen too soon into the game, in any case.

#rumbelle #rumbelle fic #The Game #thestraggletag fanfiction

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mattsmithinawig · 2 months ago

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robb, rana, jaime

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mattsmithinanewwig · 24 days ago

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my bolton oc fic has been released known as honour among fools on ao3!! if anybody is at all interested in a house bolton oc or a jaime x oc slow burn story please give it a read, this author would really really appreciate it ❤️

#fic: honour among fools

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 5 years ago

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tapestry 👑 V

Warnings: eventual dark elements (tags to be added as fic continues)

This is dark!(king)Steve and explicit. 18+ only.

Summary: King Steven had a wandering eye but you never thought it would fall upon you.

This Chapter: The court celebrates the harvest.

Note: I’m a goddamn liar and ended up writing this after work and staying up past midnight because I have a problem people. I need help but until then I’m gonna keep posting so here ya go, my lovelies.

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 Let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply! Love ya!

The week of the harvest celebration had come, though time seemed to stand still. Each day dragged on dreading the next. Anxious of what the king should do next, of how the court should roil once more, of your own part in the brewing mess. Even as the waters calmed it did not comfort you. Peace only assured you that chaos was on the horizon.

Rose continued to stew in her anger. You dared to think it was jealousy. While the king persisted in his prolonged stares during rehearsals, your partner did not ease matters as he passed along his master’s messages. Each added to the weight on your shoulders, the guilt that stabbed you each time you looked at the queen. Though you did not encourage it, you felt your part in it just as grievous.

And your father. When you met again, he did not spare a word. His disappointment, his frustration, his anger all spent upon you. Your disobedience had nearly cost him. Never mind that it kept your reputation in tact, that it gave hope to a future betrothal. He didn’t want an earl’s wife, he wanted a king’s mistress. The baubles you refused to accept, the promise of a title greater than his own father’s. You factored little in his desires outside your ability to fulfill them.

The saffron brocade was stiff across your chest, cut much lower than your usual gowns. Each woman was to wear a different shade of autumn for the performance. The king and queen would lead in goldenrod yellow as satins and silks of auburns, scarlets, and moss would swirl in. In imitation of a rush of leaves falling from the barren trees, heralding the change of seasons.

A seamstress knelt at your feet and pinned the skirts. The queen ran a finger along her throat as she considered you. It was the final fitting before the banquet; you were the last of the women to attend their measurements.

You could barely look Eleanor in the eye. Hearsay was rife as it always was but did she believe the whispers. Did she think the king truly enamoured by you? Did she know of the letters? The gifts he sent along with them? The ones you would not open, that were sent back untouched.

If she did, she did not betray herself. She smiled as she neared and touched the golden border along the top of the bodice. “Tighter around the waist,” She suggested to the tailor. “A half inch lower here.”

You looked down at your chest. You blinked. You really didn’t need less fabric there. As it was, your cleavage was more than noticeable. You bit your lip but did not protest.

“The colour is marvelous,” The queen looked you in the face. “Are you well, my lady?”

“I am but…” You hesitated as the seamstress pinned the bodice. “There are matters we should speak of, your highness.”

“Yes, I think there are,” She nodded and gestured to the seamstress. “If you would excuse us a moment.”

The other woman acquiesced with a bow and quickly retreated. The door closed behind her and left you alone with Eleanor. She smiled and swept away from you to sit on a cushioned bench as the pins in her ashy blonde hair caught the light. She patted the cushion next to her.

“Sit, let us talk of what worries you so.” She cooed.

“Your highness,” You approached reluctantly. “I do not think myself fit for this. I am a poor dancer.”

“You are not so bad,” She said as you sat beside her. “Heavy-footed but not entirely hopeless.”

“Hopeless enough.” You grumbled. “Especially in a place such as this.”

“I know you shall do just fine.” She smiled. “But you do not refer to only the performance, do you, lady?”

“No, no, I do not,” You looked at your lap. “Surely, you’ve heard.”

“There are no secrets at court,” She returned. “I know my husband’s attention has strayed again. I hear Lady Rose and her detest, her complaints of her neglect. And it makes me most happy.”

“But the king…”

“The king does as he wishes. I cannot stop him but I can abide it so long as I am not met with nonchalance and scorn.” She held her head high. “I can stand any mistress but none who would shame me so openly.”

“I...I have refused the king. Every time. I do not wish to involve myself in your marriage. Your highness, I admire you too much. I would never--”

“You’re a smart girl. I trust you are able enough but this court is perilous. Allies are rare but should be welcomed,” She pulled a loose string from the tail of your hood. “So long as you are...covert, I would have no reason to mind the dalliance.”

“P-pardon? Your highness, I don’t understand--”

“Do with my husband as you please. I know you, my lady. You are loyal and you will not so blatantly degrade me. If I must bear this marriage, I shall bear it with a mite of dignity.”

“I please none of it and yet he does not relent. If you are truly my ally, can you not stop him?”

“He will not relent. He never has and I’ve never been able to stop him. No one has.” She sighed and her long lashes flicked. “I do prefer you to Rose. Oh, I do very much.”

“You…” For a moment you gasped for air. The realization struck you in the chest. “You have maneuvered me thus, haven’t you? Because you knew the king would never tolerate your mistreatment of his mistress and so you thrust me before him.”

“I did not thrust you, my lady,” She smiled. “You were merely well-positioned at a most opportune moment.”

Your mouth was bitter with betrayal. The queen had seemed the only genuine character at court but in a moment, she revealed herself to be just as vile as the rest. Perhaps it was easy to pity a scorned woman but it was little excuse for the disgrace of another. You could not forgive her crime on the grounds of another done to her. You clenched your hands together as you tried not to scowl.

“And you expect me to appease him? To forfeit my virtue to him?” You stared at your skirts.

“I expect you to do as you think necessary,” She said, “But my husband gives little heed to what is necessary. To what it proper. He will take as he pleases, not as you please.”

You looked up at her. Terrified. “And you would not stop him?”

“Cannot.” She shrugged and a glimmer of regret flashed her in eyes. She pitied you. “It is not so bad. You will be taken care of after. A husband will be found, or if that does not please you, a household all your own. I swear it on my honour.”

“Your honour?” You scoffed. “You bartered me to your own husband.”

“A barter you could only dream of,” Her green eyes sharpened. “You don’t know, cannot know, what is like. To be ridiculed daily. To be tied to a man who can never love you, a court that will never accept you as their own.” She shook her head. “I did mislead you, I admit it, but only because I know you to be honest. To be without presumption. You would not bring me further shame because you fear it yourself.”

“Do you not realize that you’ve already brought shame upon me?” You stood and crossed the room. You couldn’t stand to be near her. “You are not a friend to me, my queen. I am...alone.”

Silence. You heard the rustle of her skirts but she did not near you. You turned as she reached the door. She adjusted a pin in her hair as she reached for the handle. She exhaled softly.

“You will change so that the dress may be altered and you will go. And you will never speak to me as you have again. I am still your queen.”

👑

The day of the harvest arrived. The feast hall was draped in golden and bronze silks as the court gathered along the trestles. The benches did not overflow as dancers hid beneath the canopy just beyond the doors, awaiting their grand entrance to the plucking of lutes and trill of flutes.

You stood quietly, head down, hands clamped together as you recited the steps in your head. You weren’t prepared. No matter how often the master led you through the steps, you’d never be ready. You weren’t a dancer and you were too distracted to retain the simple choreography.

A shiver went up your spine as a familiar voice met your ears. The space was tight and the performers were close. Steven’s laughter boomed in the small space and you looked up. The king and queen were at the front of the procession, several pairs between you. He was drawn by your movement and grinned at you before you shied away. The queen batted her lashes and took her husband’s hand. Her response was not heard.

“You should not be so nervous,” Lord Barnes intoned. You’d forgotten his presence beside you. “You are not so tragic as you think.”

“Ever gracious but a poor liar, Lord Barnes.” You huffed. “I have noticed how you’ve padded your boots.”

He chuckled. “Of the dozen pairs among us, do you think we would stick out so sorely?”

“I hope not,” You said. “Thought I apologize if I should make fools of both of us.”

“You are much too cynical.” He stepped closer. “You deny yourself even the slightest error. How can one find any pleasure in life with such suffocating restraint?”

“As a lord who would never face consequence for his lack of, I doubt you could understand the caution of a lady.” You returned.

“Surely not. I could never be so pious. So...boring.” He mused.

You bristled and turned your face away from him. You looked around at the other dancers as they chattered and fidgeted in their impatience. Rose snarled as she caught your eye and shrugged off Lord Alan. You blanched and tucked your chin to your chest.

“I was teasing, my lady,” Barnes leaned in. “You needn’t take it so heavily.”

“I am aware, my lord. I can understand humour, as poorly as it may be presented.” You looked to him pointedly. “I may be plain but I am not simple.”

He laughed again. He glanced around and you followed his gaze to the door. The king peered between the bodies and watched intently. You stiffened and returned your attention to your partner.

“So I’ve noticed.” Barnes said. “As has he.”

“And you, his infiltrator?” You arched a brow. “Do you recount our every word?”

“I might be a loyal companion to the crown but I am no informant. What we speak of remains between us, I swear it.” He assured you. “But I might tell you something...most intimate.”

“So you would?” You prodded.

“I’ve known Steven since we were children. I know him better than any. I know him beyond the courtly disguise he wears.” Barnes faced you and took your hand. He drew you close. “As I stand near to you, he watches, he seethes, because he is quite taken by you.” His voice was low. “And the more you refuse him, the more taken he shall be.” He raised your hand to his lips and kissed it softly. “And he has rarely been refused in his life...he will not stand for it long.”

“Is this a warning or another message?” He dropped your hand and stepped back.

The queen’s voice rose above the babble and she clapped her hands. “Lords, Ladies, we are due. Positions, please.”

She turned and the king raised his hand for her to take. Each couple mirrored them and you took Barnes hand as he stood side by side with you. He looked to his feet and pretended to kick the dust from his toe as he spoke under his breath.

“It is both, my lady,” He whispered. “A king’s requests quickly become commands.”

👑

“May I?” Barnes was beside you before you could flee.

You’d hoped to cling to the wall until you could manage to sneak away. As late, you’d grown much too conspicuous for that. You turned back to him, caught in your retreat, and sighed. He was not the only to note your attempted escape. Your father sneered from his seat and the king raised his head above the queen’s as they spun along the boards.

“I wouldn’t pain you or your toes further, my lord.” You replied.

“I can bear it,” He assured you. “And there is no other partner I wish. They’re all rather dull.”

“Dull of foot might be more painful than dull of wit.” You returned and he grinned.

“The wit does outweigh the foot, my lady,” He offered his hand. “Come on.”

Your eyes were drawn back to your father. He tilted his head dangerously. You couldn’t tell if it were to deter you from dancing or from leaving. You forced a smile and took Barnes’ hand. He guided you onto the floor lithely. His feet were swift and kept clear of your own.

“Did I mention how wonderful you look, tonight?” He marveled as you turned in time with the room. “The cut of that dress is quite complimentary.”

You kept your head high and did your best to follow the steps. “Thank you, my lord. That is kind of you to say.”

“Not so drab as that habit you wore before,” He japed. “Was it the queen who recommended the brocade?”

You stared at him. You struggled to piece together the puzzle. Did he operate upon his own resolve? Upon the kings? Or perhaps he was just as much the pet of the queen? Your lips pressed together as you peeked again across the room. Both king and queen watched you as they moved their bodies gracefully to the music.

“The queen did,” You answered evenly. “She was certain to see that all her ladies were attired fittingly for the event.”

You avoided his gaze as he watched you. As you tried to decipher him, he did the same to you. Your foot came down on his but he did not flinch as he smoothly guided you along the floor. The music swirled around you with your skirts as you were led in the jig. Your head spun with the candlelight and crowd of satin and silk. He squeezed your hand and you looked to him. He smirked as the music eased to the next tune and he bowed to you.

“My lady,” He said as he led you by your hand.

As he turned you, you found the king waiting. You searched through the crowd, the queen was already swept up by Lord Samuel. She paid no heed to her husband’s ploy. You wondered if she were not a party to it. Lord Barnes released you and nodded to his king. “Your highness.”

“Would you allow me a dance, my lady?” The king coaxed.

You fought not to dissemble. You glanced around and found your father still watching. He leaned forward as he nodded. His hand was in a fist on the table. You didn’t dare resist. You took the king’s hand and let him lead you to the melody.

“My lady, you are more beautiful than I’ve ever seen you,” He said breathily. His eyes did not meet yours as they wandered to the top of your bodice. “I’ve found it most difficult to think of anything but you this night ...truly every night.”

“You flatter me, your highness.”

“I am honest. I bear myself to you.” He said. “And you still refuse my gifts? Still refuse me?”

“You know I cannot--”

“I know you are afraid but you haven’t reason to be. I shall protect you; from the queen, from the court. You shall be mine and I shall make certain you are kept well.” His blue eyes burned down at you. “I only long to give you everything. To give you all of me, all I ask in return is you.”

“You are married--”

“But not in love.”

“You are king and I am an earl’s daughter. Unwed and without betrothal.”

“As king, I can see to your future. I can give you title, a castle, lands…”

“So I shall lower myself to courtesan for you?”

“No, no, never. I shall raise you, my lady. Hold you in the highest esteem.”

“You shall ruin my reputation.”

“Can you not see how I suffer? My lady, you torment me so.”

“Your highness,” You stopped short and he nearly stumbled. “It cannot be. To prolong it will not change the circumstance that divides us. I do not seek infamy, I do not seek controversy, nor will I lower myself to be your mistress.”

“Lower…? I do not ask you--”

“You do. For what shall people say? What do they already whisper?” You rescinded your hand. “Your highness, you have not considered fully what you ask of me. You have not considered me.”

“I--”

“Excuse me, your highness,” You touched your stomach as it knotted. “I think I am unwell.”

He blinked, stunned. He bowed his head and you backed away from him. You readied yourself for his pursuit. For him to stop you. He did not and when he was hidden by the crowd, you turned and scurried to the door.

You didn’t slow until you reached an alcove just along the corridor. You were shaky as you leaned against the stone and caught your breath. Would the king be upset? Surely your father would but you could face his wrath as you had your entire life. You recalled Barnes’ words. Would the king cease to merely ask?

And who could save you? The king had a dozen allies and you had not one. The queen would not stop him, nor would his leal friend. Your father, surely, would find a way to assist him. Your own blood would sell you into scandal. You were so very alone.

A sole scuffed upon the stone and drew you from your reverie. A shadow loomed just around the corner and you tucked yourself into the alcove. You flattened your skirts with your hands and held your breath. The footsteps neared and you didn’t dare to move.

The king’s tall silhouette appeared before you. He walked past the alcove as he looked around. He sighed softly and hung his head. He tapped his toe as he stopped and hooked his thumbs in his belt. You watched, paralysed.

He let out a disappointed grumble and turned back. The toe of his boot caught the hem of your skirt as it splayed out from your hiding spot and he stopped. He looked over and his eyes met yours in the dim of the lanterns. They pierced you through the shadows and his lips curved.

“My lady,” He greeted, “Why do you run from me?” He stepped forward. “Hide from me?” He lowered himself to his knees as he reached for your hands. “Can’t you see how desperate I am? How I am completely at your mercy?”

“Your highness, please,” You begged as he gripped your hands tightly. “Please, this is indecent.”

“My lady,” He brought your hands to his lips and laid a dozen kisses upon them. “I cannot wait. I’ve never waited so long and it pains me deeply. Every second I am away from you, I cannot think. I cannot live.”

“Your highness,” Your voice was coarse as you tried to escape his hold. “You would tarnish me.”

He released your hands and you tried to brush past him. He caught you around the waist and pulled you against him. He pressed his face to your stomach and kissed the taut brocade. He nuzzled into you and raised his chin to look up at you over your bosom. You caught his shoulders as you struggled with him.

“Please, please…” You could barely speak. You were terrified at his strength, at how easily he held you there. He walked forward on his knees as he pushed you back into the alcove until you met the wall. “Please…”

He dropped his arms and you felt your skirts lift and you sobbed. He lowered his head as he tugged at your skirts and you felt the cool air on your ankles. He bent and you pressed yourself to the wall. You could barely breathe as you watched him. He lowered himself until his lips met your slippers. He kissed both and sat back on his heels.

“Can’t you see, my lady?” He peered up at you. “You have me on my knees?” He bent to kiss them again. “I am yours.” He declared as he sat up once more. “Entirely yours.”

You clasped your hands before your chest. You were trembling. You could not speak as you stared down at him. He let your skirt fall back into place as he stood. His shadow enshrined you as he reached out to touch your cheek.

“Are you afraid, my lady?”

You nodded and turned away from his touch.

“You needn’t be for I shall find a way for us to be together. A proper way.” His fingers trailed down and he dragged his thumb along your lower lip. “I promise you, I will.”

For a moment, he held your face. His hand firmly cradled your chin and he leaned in until his breath was upon your lips. His thumb traced your lips and he closed his eyes. He let out a long sigh and pulled away from you suddenly.

“I will wait,” He said, though he spoke more to himself than you. “I will wait.” He opened his eyes and bowed to you. “My lady.”

You watched him back away, too stunned to move as his shadow faded down the hall and his footsteps softened to silence. You cowered in the stone alcove until you were certain he was gone. At last, you found your strength and stepped into the amber light of the lanterns.

Lord Barnes’ foreboding rang in your head; ‘A king’s requests quickly become commands.’

#tapestry #king!steve #Steve Rogers #steve rogers x reader #dark!steve rogers #dark!steve rogers x reader #dark steve rogers #dark steve rogers x reader #mcu #marvel #fic #series #au #medieval au #captain america #dark fic #dark!fic #bucky barnes x reader #Bucky Barnes

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wallwriterstuff · 5 years ago

Text

The Necessity of Love

So inspired by this post from @lord-diavolo-is-watching

Okay imagine this : the brothers had a hard time to adjust to the Devildom, so for their first night they all slept together in the living room and the brothers (everyone but Luci, Satan and maybe Mammon) asked if they shouldn't pray because that's what they usually do before going to sleep and Lucifer simply told them:

"Starting from today we don't pray anymore. Father has forsaken us."

Have a fic that literally no one but @ikemen-lover159 asked for :)

Summary: On their first night in the House of Lamentation, Lucifer gives it it’s namesake by lamenting on all the sins that brought them to the Devildom, trying to pinpoint where it all went wrong.

Warnings: Angsty as hell because we don’t know what fluff is here, Satan being somewhat cruel, the boys in distress, questioning the problem of evil.

Words: 2722 because I couldn’t stop once I started please forgive me

I would like to note that for any religious folk reading this, I mean no offence by posing the problem of evil as a way to question God. I followed what seemed like a logical thought process for Lucifer in a time of great grief and pain for all the brothers. In no way is it meant to belittle beliefs of any nature but this fic’s intention is to show how belief might be questioned. I have tried to handle the topic sensitively and apologise if anyone feels it was handled wrong.

Since their very creation they had been taught to love. They had been taught to be patient, to be kind and to be devout. They had been taught the importance of purity, of chastity and charity. They were supposed to embody the traits that humanity would strive for in their quest for virtue, and they had worked for centuries to become all that He had intended them to be. Among the ranks of angels, there were few higher than them thanks to their devotion and adoration to Him and His cause.

The hypocrisy was stifling.

Lucifer had been created first, famed for his beauty and grace as he diligently served Him. He knew nothing other than the blind loyalty to the man who had breathed life into his lungs and raw power into his soul, not until he was taught compassion and love and everything good. He had been good. He’d been the best at being good! He had been chaste and pure and kind and ensured that his brothers were to. They shared no blood, but they were brothers none the less, created one by one and entrusted to one another to be guided down a virtuous path. They had all been good…hadn’t they?

It had been Him who had asked them to watch humanity, to give the lesser beings something to strive for as they grew into the world gifted to them. His adoration for them was clear so the Celestial Realm had followed suit. Lucifer had devoted himself whole heartedly to learning to love the strange little creatures far below, reaching up their hands as though virtue and grace was something they could snatch from the heavens. He had taught his brothers to do the same and they had spent endless stretches of time watching over the little ones when even He had seemed to grow bored of his creation. Belphegor and Lilith had taken his teachings to heart the most - Lilith perhaps a little too literally.

Lilith.

The agony her name brought was almost unbearable and his fist clenched of its own accord, nails scratching through the delicate fabric of the chair he had sat himself in by the fire. Her love for humanity had been so great it had led her to temptation. The rules were clear, to alter her lover’s lifespan was not an option but his sister was young and as it often did, youth had given way to impetuousness. Lucifer was no fool. He knew the likelihood of their love being accepted amongst the ranks of already sceptical angels, lesser and disobedient angles, was slim. He had thought he had more time to make Him and everyone else see reason, to craft an argument so well made it could be unshattered by any attempts to counter it. He had vetted the man, knew he was virtuous and good and deserving of the love of an angel. If only she hadn’t been so rash in attempting to save his life…

Lilith.

He hissed, the sting in his chest to real to subdue and file away. There was not a moments peace from the grief and the pain he and he alone had to shoulder now. Her only crime had been to love another too much. How could obliteration be the fate she deserved for following His teachings? His crime was worse, he had known it the moment he had suggested it to his brothers, but again it had come from a place of love. He had loved Lilith so deeply the desire to save her had become a maddening need. His own survival had seemingly depended on it, or so it felt like. His brothers had loved him enough to walk right behind him, standing tall as they leapt into the fray. When He had declared that they were all guilty of a grievous sin it had enraged him because…he’d never intended that. His love for his sister had driven him to a rebellion that placed his beloved brothers in just as much danger as she was in.

In the strangely still aftermath of it all he’d come to the conclusion it was his fault, lying on a cold, dirty floor as he waited for something to come and end his misery. When Lilith had began to fall he’d dived with her, his brothers continuing the fight in his stead as he plunged in a desperate attempt to save her. It was all he had ever wanted to do and things had spiralled so far beyond his control it was laughable. Only as she lay dying, his heartfelt goodbye pouring from him as he committed one last act of betrayal out of love for her, did he finally understand exactly how this would end. He had intended to take the blame, to suffer whatever punishment he must in exchange for the lives of his brothers, whose only real crime was to follow a flawed and imperfect angel like him. He still hadn’t seen it even then, the flaws in His Father so many humans were starting to see as they bickered about how best to honour Him.

He hadn’t expected to fly right into the middle of their execution.

He had returned to find them restrained but struggling, fire in their eyes and hope in their hearts. For him to return without Lilith crushed them. Beelzebub, the gentle giant beloved by every angel he had ever met, had gone limp so suddenly that those restraining him sagged to the floor under his sudden dead weight. Dazed at the loss of their sister the six of them had been entirely ready to accept punishment, to join her in returning to the nothingness they’d been created from. He knew differently, he knew she was alive and well now, and as an all-knowing Father Lucifer was sure that the powerful man before him knew it to. Watching Michael’s sword come swinging towards Mammon’s neck, the brother he had known and loved longest, had cleaved his heart in two – quite literally at that.

The bitter anger and betrayal he’d felt, the desperate need for vengeance, it swelled and burst out of him in a great shaft of light that flittered about angrily, the malevolence in it quite obvious. Once its humanoid figure had formed and the light had dimmed, the howl of rage the embodiment of his wrath let loose had shook his very bones. It had taken a lot to restrain Satan when he was first born, and Lucifer knew he had only made things worse by creating him. He honestly hadn’t meant to, but the rage had been too much. Mammon being put to death, his brother calmly taking it as though he deserved to pay for Lucifer’s crimes…it had been too much, and yet not enough. Not enough for their Father, who knew the grief was a greater punishment than death could ever be.

So, with one mighty shove He had pushed them all away.

The fall itself replayed in his head still and he doubted he would ever be granted peace from the memory. Shattering the barrier between the Celestial Realm and the human world had felt like crashing through ice, the shards cold and sharp as they sliced through his skin and the stinging wind did little to soothe the wounds. The cold had quickly become fire, Celestial grace unable to leave the Celestial Realm being dragged up and out through every pore in his body until it combusted and set ablaze the wings so many had fawned over. His brothers screams echoing in his ears, his bones popping like firecrackers as his entire form was diminished. Landing in the Devildom had quite honestly been painless compared to the rest of it all. The slap of cold, hard dirt on his back, stealing his air, was actually a welcome relief, since it meant he no longer had to Fall.

He wasn’t sure what had happened to the others or if they’d tell him their experience, given time to heal, but as his body slowly put itself back together he had been greeted by the animal that would become his familiar. The peacock had strutted regally towards him and pecked at the remaining feather and bone the impact hadn’t quite shed him of. He had stared aimlessly at the sky, letting the peacock preen him as new wings grew in. He had lay there thinking of all that had led him to this moment and reached the conclusion that something had to be flawed. So what was it? Was love flawed? Was humanity? Was it both?

It had been a few days since that moment and he still wasn’t sure of the answer. His brothers were all finally awake, Diavolo granting them power and healing their injuries like an old friend, welcoming them to the Devildom as though they were always meant to have fallen into the depths of its depravity. Their new home was lavish beyond anything they could have imagined and yet…it was too much. To spend all the millennia from the dawn of creation up until now revering the simple things, refuting greed and luxury, made it difficult to be thrust into a world where an opulent lifestyle was not only expected but required. They embodied different virtues now. Pride, greed, envy, wrath, gluttony and sloth. They had been warned of these seven deadly sins and tried their best to aid humans in avoiding them, and now…now they were them. It was all his fault.

Belphegor would happily blame humanity from now till the end of time he was sure, but their predicament to him seemed to stem from love. Lilith had loved a human, and he had loved Lilith, so he started a rebellion and their love for him meant his brothers had joined him on a one-way ride down to the Devildom. He had tried to use that same love since, praying for the forgiveness of his brothers. His Father had quite diligently ignored his pleas and though Lucifer was still undecided if it was love, humanity or both that was a flawed concept, he had reached a conclusion that was equally as harrowing as it was satisfying.

God did not love.

An all-loving Father would have offered a chance at forgiveness, wouldn’t he? An all-loving Father would not have been so cruel as to condemn them to a fate where they would have to endure their grief in a place too unfamiliar still to call home. Death would have been a mercy, so an all-loving Father would have granted them that surely? They were here because they had loved one another too much, and their Father had not loved them enough. It was decided then. Love was a flawed concept. His Father had been wrong to place such high value on such a tempting sin.

“Dammit all!” Leviathan’s howl of irritation and pain had his eyes lifting from the fire crackling in the hearth. Tears pricked at vivid orange eyes, his fingers desperately scratching at the scales that now coated various patches of skin. The digits came back bloody and Mammon’s eyes widened.

“Hey, hey! Stop it Levi, here, here let me see.” He gently forced his brother’s trembling hand away from the self-inflicted wounds. “Hang on, let me get something.” Mammon left in a hurry and Lucifer looked over each of his brothers in turn. The rooms were too lavish, and they weren’t used to sleeping so far apart from one another, so a compromise had been made and plush duvets had been bought down to the living room. Belphegor had yet to wake, his sleeping patterns completely irregular now his body was adjusting to the sloth in him. Satan was engrossed in a book about Devildom history, the only one who was seemingly keen to be down here. Asmodeus had turned his back on them all, huddled in his duvet and staring aimlessly at the bookshelf before him.

When Mammon returned with a bowl of water and a cloth, Levi couldn’t help the quiet sniffle that left him.

“Th-thanks.” He mumbled, trying desperately to keep it together. Beelzebub wasn’t even trying. Protectively wrapped around Belphegor as the latter snored softly, the grief and torment in his eyes was obvious as he watched his older brother hurting.

“The scales are really dry, maybe you should take a bath.” Mammon suggested quietly. His loud, boisterous personality was gone, replaced instead by something horribly timid. Lucifer felt another pang of guilt and anger. He had done this to them all.

“Maybe…maybe we should pray?” Asmodeus’s voice was equally as quiet, weak and uncertain. Lucifer clicked his tongue, his eyes moving back to the flames. He heard the rustle of Amso moving but couldn’t bring himself to look at him. He didn’t want to see any of them if he was honest, the brothers he’d failed. Satan’s quiet snort didn’t go unnoticed.

“Asmo-“

“We usually do before we go to sleep so what’s the harm?” Beelzebub demanded. He had had little patience for Satan since his appearance, convinced that he was the reason they had been tipped into the Devildom and stripped of any chance of re-joining his beloved sister, the final piece to the puzzle that was Beelzebub, Belphegor and Lilith.

“In case you haven’t noticed, he seems to be done listening to you.” Satan sneered.

“Like you would know, you weren’t even an angel! You don’t understand any of it!” Asmodeus protested, “Right Lucifer?” Lucifer couldn’t bring himself to answer. He had tried. He had prayed and prayed and prayed only to be ignored time and again. Their Father didn’t love them, he had abandoned them to this place. He had taught them all to love and gone back on his own word. Lucifer clenched his fist once more, the anger and grief roiling in his gut and making him feel oh so sick.

“All I’m saying is if your blessed Father was all-knowing he would have foreseen this happening, wouldn’t he? So, if he knew it was coming, and is all-loving, why wouldn’t he correct your course? Why not help you avoid this truly terrible fate?” the way he drawled each word really gave it time to sink in and the answering silence spoke volumes.

“He’s…got a point.” Mammon muttered uncomfortably.

“Of course I do, the sooner you accept it the faster you can start adjusting to life here. It might not be all bad. Did you know the Devildom has over 300 types of demon inhabit it?” Satan stated matter of factly.

“And now we do.” Beelzebub said softly. The silence that rang in his ears made Lucifer’s head spin. He pushed up from his chair, levelling each of his broken, beaten brothers with his calmest stare. They all knew better than to question the tears in his eyes or the slight waver in his voice.

"Starting from today we don't pray anymore. Father has forsaken us."

He quickly buried himself in his own bedding after that so they wouldn’t see how much it truly pained him to say it. He pretended not to hear Asmodeus cry himself to sleep. He pretended he couldn’t hear Mammon trying to calm a pained Levi begging him to take the scales away and give him his wings back. He pretended not to hear Beelzebub’s quite goodnight to Lilith, his solemn vow to look after Belphegor woven into the tender words that carried through the air. He pretended to ignore it all even though every bit of pain his brother’s oozed was soaked up by him like a sponge, adding to his own torment. He pretended not to feel Mammon’s hand on his shoulder to as he passed him to settle down to sleep to.

“Have we really been forsaken?” he asked him quietly. Lucifer swallowed thickly.

“Father has forsaken us…but we will not forsake each other.” It was all he could think to say to comfort his younger brother. He would forsake none of them. He would make them whole again as best he could. He hadn’t made a deal with Diavolo for nothing. Even if the world around them changed, even if he himself became unrecognisable to the people that once loved him, everything he would do from then on would always be in the name of family.

#obey me #obey me mammon #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me lucifer #obey me diavolo #the fall #angst #demon brothers

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