#from my head down to my bowels

[taffydragondraws]

Let's get ready to resiiiiiiiin

[annwrites]

⸻ a call to arms. part one.

· pairing: jacaerys velaryon x dragonseed!reader · type: part of a series · summary: desperate to provide aid to your starving family due to the blockade, you venture, along with a great many other lowborns, to dragonstone, in hopes of gaining something—anything—which you might bring back to them; something to fill your little sister's belly. things turn out quite the opposite as planned, as what you now believe to be a mad queen, locks all of you in her dragonpit, and you're forced to run, hide, & fend for your lives against two hungry dragons. in the end, only two individuals are left standing: hugh hammer, who has now claimed for himself vermithor...and you—chosen by silverwing. just when you believe things can't possibly get any worse, you then meet prince jacaerys. · word count: 1,674

He grinds his teeth together, filled with utter contempt—disgust—that whatever you are—bastards, lowborns, flea-ridden rats—are now, above all else, dragonriders.

And he is meant to share common spaces with you now? Such as the Great Hall? Meant to pass you in the halls and tolerate the sight of you?

To ride alongside you?

To treat you with...what? Kindness? Generosity for having 'come to his mother's aid'? He will most certainly not be treating, nor addressing you as an equal. Either of you.

To be a dragonrider...it is a sacred bond. And now he is meant to believe that even the lowest scum Flea Bottom has to offer has the same right as he to sail the skies, unleashing fire and blood upon the enemy?

Never.

He will never.

The rest of them got what they deserved for thinking they had any right to claim that which is meant only for those like him.

Queens and kings, princes and princesses, lords and ladies alike.

He is better than both of you.

Even if he is similar in ways he does not want to admit...

Boots echo against stone floors, dark curls falling over dark eyes, a brooding temperament within.

Jacaerys emerges into the Great Hall, Hugh promptly rising from his seat, bowing his head. "My Prince."

Jacaerys studies him for but a moment, briefly judging the plain-colored clothes he dons, before turning his sights across the room to you, who is seated between two stained-glass windows, arms wrapped around your bent knees, while you cast your attentions outward, instead of on him.

Your Prince.

Your superior.

He clenches his jaw at the sight of your long, silver hair that moonlight casts in an ethereal glow, making it appear as if it is sparkling. Cascading down your back like molten silver in soft waves.

"You there—girl—do you know how incredibly rude it is for you not to stand and curtsy when in the presence of royalty?"

You jolt—torn from tormented memories of but a couple days past; of people running, screaming for mercy. Dying choking on their own blood as dragonfire burns them alive.

None of you had anticipated—had imagined—that the very queen you were coming to, under the guise of offering your aid to in the war, would lock you in a room to be eaten by terrifying beasts.

Aegon deserves the throne in comparison to such a monster.

You have made a great mistake, mayhaps. Then again, becoming a dragonrider has already filled your belly, provided you with clean sheets to sleep upon, a guard outside your door, hot baths.

But it is not you who needs these things. You want them for your family.

There is no turning back now, however. You knew as much with certainty when that silver dragon laid her head at your feet before leaning forward, brushing her warm snout against your abdomen while you struggled to contain your bladder and bowels. While you sobbed hysterically, begging for mercy from a being that you do not so much as share a common language with.

You know not a word of High Valyrian, though you will now be expected to learn, you suppose.

Among many other things. Such as how to ride the animal...

Your stomach twists nervously at the thought.

You turn away from the window, slide off the ledge, then grab your skirts in either of your hands before tucking a foot behind your other ankle, bowing. "My Prince."

He scoffs, coming closer. "That was the worst curtsy I've ever seen."

You fold your hands in front of you, keeping your eyes downcast. "Forgive me, My Prince, it is...the first time I've attempted one."

He rolls his eyes, settling his arms behind his back before glancing over his shoulder to Hugh, jerking his head toward the hall he's just come from, and he quickly makes himself scarce.

He looks back to you.

"And what is your name?" He demands.

"Y/N," you state quietly.

A muscle in his jaw feathers. "You are to look at me while we're speaking. Do you understand?"

You nod, trailing your eyes upwards—over a red-and-black velvet tunic, the three-headed symbol of his house embroidered upon the breast—until they're looking into hues of chocolate-brown.

He clenches his hands into tight fists behind his back.

You've every trademark of a pure Targaryen: silver hair, lilac eyes—with flecks of violet—skin so fair it's near-translucent, delicate features.

He fucking loathes you for every asset which you possess and he does not.

He would never—will never—state it aloud, but you look far more Targaryen than he ever will.

He wishes one of the dragons had taken you down its gullet as well. That way, he would not be forced to suffer the nigh-daily sight of you now.

He looks you over, circling you like a dragon does its prey—desperate to find something he may use to mock you with; some imperfection—before standing tall before you again.

"You think wearing rags before your Queen's court appropriate?"

Your expression quickly settles into a scowl.

Good, he thinks. Give him an excuse to introduce you to the Queen's justice. He is silently begging you for as much within his malice-filled gaze.

Your small hands clench into fists at your slender sides. "My mother made this dress for me."

His jaw ticks. "From now on, you will wear more suitable clothing when outside your private chambers—which means conservative in nature; not whatever men found desirable upon the Street of Silk. You are a representative of our house now. A dragonrider. A soldier to our cause. You will look the part."

Tears sting your eyes as yours bore into his own hatefully.

"I am not a whore," you reply contemptuously.

There is a beat of silence, his brows furrowing slightly. Surely you are lying. You have the look—more than.

And then you continue.

"And with what coin, My Prince?" You sneer.

He takes a step closer, causing you to shuffle backward, catching yourself against the window-ledge, the stone digging into your palms as you grip it to steady yourself.

He leans in close—your faces mere inches apart. "I beg your pardon?"

You do not shrink away from him.

Gods, you already hate him with all that you are.

"I came here for coin. Desperate for—"

"So greed is what sent you? Not to aid us in winning back my mother's throne? Her rightful seat. You come to steal away a dragon, and then what?"

"My family is starving!" You finally shout, at the end of your rope from the last few sleepless nights that've been filled with nightmares instead of rest; your temper having reached its limit. "My mother and little sister both! How would you feel if it were you? If your loved-ones were suffering, while all you could do is sit back and watch them waste away before you? So, yes, I came. I claimed a dragon—even if my intentions had only been merely to host audience with a clement queen who would provide aid to her suffering subjects. Not burn them alive for coming to help her!"

He grits his teeth. "You will watch your tongue, you insolent little wench. My mother sent boat-fulls of food to King's Landing. She has provided—"

You begin to laugh, with a lack of humor behind it all, cutting him off. "Oh, yes, how very kind of her to give aid to the very subjects she is responsible for the suffering of in the first place. The blockade is all your all's fault! People were fighting like dogs in the streets—assaulting—killing each other for a small sack of grain! I risked mine own life for a peck of potatoes! That's it! Even then, I was forced to wrestle a full-grown man off myself to get it. I was fortunate to escape with my life—with any food to speak of for my struggles!"

You step forward, forcing his royal highness to take a step back, and he swallows thickly.

"You've never known hunger a day in your life, have you? Never known what is it to wear 'rags' while you don your silk and velvet, while you sleep on thousand-thread count sheets, while you flout your jewels, and your fancy titles, and your gilded castles while the rest of us bow and scrape before your feet for a mere morsel of respect! You are meant to take care of us!"

Once you've finished, your heart pounds in your ears, your shoulders rapidly rise and fall, and it's then that you notice Prince Jacaerys' hand is tightly gripping the pommel of his sword—his knuckles having now gone white from the force.

Your eyes flit back to his, tears filling your own. "And I am meant to one day call you king, given we are 'successful' in our endeavors to win your mother back her glorified chair," you say, spitting the final word at him.

The two of you stand tall before the other, refusing to be the first one to break—your chins held high, even if your stomach is now twisting painfully into knots while your bowels turn to water.

If he puts you to death for your unimaginable disobedience—your disrespect...who will help your family then?

Your little sister... Your little girl.

She became as much when your mother went away in herself after your father's passing. It did not matter that you were still a mere child yourself when it happened. She became your responsibility to look after and tend to from that day forward.

And now...you feel as if you have failed her.

"Go to your room," he orders lowly, his body shaking from anger, brief pauses between each word.

You curtsy one last time.

"My Prince," you mumble, brushing past him, wanting to break something.

He stalks off in the opposite direction, feeling much the same: wanting to burn something—or, rather, someone—alive.

[palajae]

wrong place, wrong time.

PAIRING... heeseung x doctor!reader | GENRE... fluff, romance, humor, mentions of hospitals, flirty heeseung | WC... 1kish

“oh my god. he has to be a model. there’s no way-“

“maybe he’s famous…”

“should we ask him for a picture?”

you roll your eyes at the excited chatter coming from the nurses down the hall. who knew what they were gossiping about this time? shoving your hands in your coat pockets, you’re quite literally stopped by the sight of everyone crowded by the front desk.

you frown, taking in their lovestruck expressions. “what’s going on?”

one of the nurses, giselle, quickly squeals and runs over to whisper in your ear. 

“you won’t believe it, doc. the finest man just walked in. his condition seems alright so we’re all trying to figure out what he came in for.”

of course. you let out an exasperated sigh, watching in amusement as everyone fights to be the one to escort him to a room. 

out of pure curiosity, you decide to take a quick glimpse. exactly how handsome could this guy really be?

apparently, very. much. so. 

lee heeseung. early twenties. looks like a member of a famous boy band. has got everyone in close proximity wrapped around his finger.

also, a huge flirt (obviously.) 

the nurses love him, getting any and every chance to bat their eyelashes and flirt back. 

you, on the other hand? 

you’re sure you’ve become a pro at rejecting his advances. 

the first time he came in was for bloodwork. the second time, x-rays. the third time he was “feeling under the weather.” 

honestly, you’re wondering why he visited so often. if anything, most people avoided hospitals.

“hi, dr. y/l/n.”

your lips press together in a thin line. your eyes remain focused on the clipboard in front of you. you weren’t counting but this was, what? 

his fourth time checking in? 

“heeseung. you’re back…again. may i ask why you seem to love the hospital?”

he smirks teasingly, “or maybe why the hospital seems to love me?”

you can’t help but roll your eyes indiscreetly. 

he did it every time. of course, he was friendly with everyone. but heeseung just seemed to go the extra mile around you. 

“i think i ate something bad.”

you quirk an eyebrow, “oh really?”

“i don’t know, maybe it was something the chef cooked?” he responds cheekily. 

you let out a huff of air, one long enough that blows the baby hairs out of your face. “…what did you eat last night?”

“oh, it was delicious,” his eyes bore into you as he continues to ramble on.

“any pain, discomfort, bowel movements?” you interrupt, clicking your pen incessantly. 

“no, just the ache in my heart when you ignore me,” he clutches his chest playfully.

you look up at him with pursed lips. 

“you know what? i think you’re fine and it’s time for you to go.”

you guide heeseung to the front desk to drop him off, about to leave him in the hands of the receptionist. as you’re about to leave, you feel a hand wrap around your wrist. it’s subtle—under the table so no one else can see. 

your body stiffens for a moment, examining his face that holds an unreadable expression. when neither of you utter a single word, you gently pull your arm from his grip when someone calls for you. 

winter’s mouth drops open. “you’re telling me he came back a fourth time? this must be a record.”

ningning nods excitedly, “i mean, there has to be a reason. who do you think he keeps coming back for?”

you almost choke on your water. “you’re saying-?”

she turns to you, eyebrows raised insistently. “there must be a certain someone that catches his eye here.”

“i wish it were me,” giselle sulks as her fork stabs into her food pathetically. 

winter frowns, “you know, he has been really clingy to you, doc.”

you swallow harshly. “huh?”

everyone begins to chime in accordance. 

“yeah, he always asks about you and what you’re doing.”

“he only gets check ups from you, too.”

you scoff, shaking your head slightly. “don’t remind me.”

the three of them pause for a short moment, before their expressions change. you feel fear and apprehension course through your veins. 

“do you not like him? is it because you think he’s so cute?”

“are you interested in him?” their wide eyes and questioning voices makes your mouth dry.

“now that i think about it… y/n’s the only one who doesn’t seem down bad for heeseung.”

you stammer, unable to form a response until your pager goes off. 

“ha-oh. well, that’s my cue!” 

you quickly make your escape in order to hide your flustered expression. 

after you finished your rounds later, you slump into your chair in the cafeteria. the sounds of the conversation from the table next to you drifts over to your ears. 

“do you think it’s because of me? i mean, he always greets me good morning with those dreamy eyes of his.”

your eye twitches. 

“don’t think you’re so special. heeseung waves goodbye to me every time.”

alright, enough of this. you stand up, chair clattering backwards quite loudly, and walk off. you’ve just made it to your office, opening the door, when you freeze.

“heeseung? what are you doing here?”

he immediately smiles from—your eyes narrow—your rolling chair. he rolls closer, a bit too close.

“why do you keep asking when you know the  answer already?”

for a moment, you keep your eyes locked. then you let your professional mode switch off. 

“you really need to stop coming, hee. people are getting ideas,” you chide gently with a ruffle of his hair.

he leans into your touch with a hum, “about you and me?”

you push his head away with a snort, “no. about you and them.” 

with a chuckle, he wraps his arms around your waist. “i’m sorry. i can’t help but miss my baby when you’re practically working all day.”

you soften, “i know. i’m sorry. but this is getting a little out of hand.”

suddenly heeseung gets up, moving closer towards you. “will a kiss make up for it?”

you pretend to think, tapping your foot thoughtfully, “maybe… depends on how good of a kiss.“

he quickly leans in, one arm snaking around your waist while the other cups your cheek. your eyes begin to close. as soon as you feel the ghost of his lips touch yours, the door slides open. 

“doc-“

you immediately push heeseung off of you, startled. and then proceed to shut the door in giselle’s face, quite literally. with panicked whispers, you manage to shove your boyfriend under the desk with a final shh!

about 0.3 seconds later, you slide the door open again. 

giselle stands there, gaping. 

“what was that?!”

“what was what?” you clear your throat nonchalantly, taking a look at your patient’s files. 

“you-he-“ she splutters, “heeseung!” 

“what are you talking about?”

“you’re the one heeseung keeps coming for?”

“doctor y/l/n?!”

you both freeze. the rest of the nurses look from you to giselle and back with shell shocked faces. 

you want to curl up into a ball. this is not how you wanted everyone to find out. given, you didn’t expect your loving boyfriend to visit out of the blue without any context. 

you smile sheepishly. “surprise?”

before you know it, a hand finds its way onto your shoulder. you almost jump before relaxing at the touch. 

“we-we thought- heeseung-“

you bite your lip, as heeseung chuckles. you wanted to keep your personal life and work life separate, but with your job getting so hectic the past couple weeks, you realized you had spent way more time at the hospital than at home. 

immediately, guilt runs through your body. heeseung had always been so sweet and understanding, and seeing him come visit your work really put things in perspective. 

how bad must’ve it been for him to have to go out of his way just to see you? while you kept brushing him off? 

you wrap an arm around his waist, hugging him closer. “guys, this is my boyfriend, heeseung—as most of you already know.”

he looks at you with surprise evident in his eyes. obviously, you weren’t the most open person. 

as everyone watches you two with jaws dropped, you squeeze his hand in hopes he understands. you’re lucky to have heeseung—the most empathetic person you know, because he presses a kiss to your temple. 

“i’m sorry,” you murmur, “no more running away and prioritizing work.”

everyone else in the room fades away as he truly looks you in the eye. 

“i know, baby. i know.”

as you both beam at each other, you’re assured in the love you feel together once more. 

a/n ▸ jae posting two days in a row? that’s crazy

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[waughymommy]

Description

Short, ABDL, POV Story where you’re a girl living with your flatmate, who used to be your babysitter, and you’ve just messed your pants and now she wants you to wear training pants. Waughymommy

Short Story: A Messy Accident

Waughymommy, Okay, so, I’m standing there, in front of my ex-babysitter now flatmate, and I can’t believe I’m actually contemplating this. I’m twenty-one, a grown woman, and she’s asking me to put on training pants! I glance down at the mess between my legs and the smell hits my nostrils, confirming the reality of the situation. There’s no point arguing. It’s obvious I can’t control my bowels right now.

“Just give me another try,” I beg, hoping she’ll relent. “One more chance?” She shakes her head, her expression a mixture of pity and disgust. “No, sweetie,” she says, “I don’t want to deal with you stinking up the place. And we don’t want to waste another pair of those good panties. Besides, you can wear your regular ones over the training pants. Just go get cleaned up and then put them on.”

The shame burns hot as I agree and retreat to the bathroom. I peel off the disgusting panties, trying to contain the stench as I hold them over the toilet, emptying their contents. My face is burning, I try to wipe away any remnants of the mess with the toilet paper before showering.

After the shower, I quickly towel off and enter my bedroom. In my room, I see the fresh pair of panties and the training pants, and I just want to scream. It’s like a bad dream. I pull the training pants on, the fabric feeling so foreign and humiliating. I can’t help but notice the little cartoon duck on the front. I feel a wave of nausea come over me. Then I quickly put on my regular panties over them and pull on a cute dress. I can’t bear the thought of anyone seeing me in these awful training pants at my age. Finally, I put some socks on and go downstairs, my steps slow and heavy.

Back downstairs, Sarah smiled at me, a knowing glint in her eyes. “Show me you’re wearing them,” she said, her voice laced with amusement. I felt my cheeks flush as I lifted my dress and pulled down my panties. The sight of the training pants peeking out from beneath my dress brought a new wave of humiliation. She just smiled and nodded, her eyes filled with amusement. “Good girl,” she said. My world felt smaller and smaller. My whole life had been reduced to a single, humiliating moment. It was just a small, temporary setback, but it felt like a giant, gaping hole in the fabric of my existence. I was sure this was going to be a story I told for years to come, the story of the day I wore training pants. The memory, the shame, it was going to stay with me forever.

Thanks For Reading 😘😘🥰💘🍼 Tomorrow is @waughymommy birthday...

[gigabyte-flare]

Insatiable (Part 1)

Summary: You are a researcher for D.S.O. who is responsible for studying Leon Kennedy as Las Plagas overtakes him, maybe even finding a cure. He starts to take a liking to you, too much of a liking to you.

Word Count: 2k

Pairing: yandere plagas!Leon Kennedy x fem!reader (afab)

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Actions depicted in this story are not condoned in real life. You are responsible for your own content consumption. If any of the following warnings trigger you, please read at your own risk. Minors do not interact, this story is 18+ only.

Warnings: Extreme violence and gore, biting, dubcon, forced breeding, gross las plagas-y things, death, mentions of un-aliving. DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT.

A/N: Heavily inspired by this artwork by @chanif-art on Tumblr along with Project Scorpion by @tagzpite. Literally could not get this idea out of my head until I wrote it down. Definitely going to be another series. We're also going to pretend D.S.O. was founded way sooner than 2011 k byeeeeee

“I fought a war and I learned how to win, but how do you fight when the enemy’s within?”

You step out of an elevator led by two armed D.S.O. operatives in tactical gear deep underground at HQ, your white lab coat flowing gently as you walk forward. Grasped in your right hand is a voice recorder. You and the operatives go through a series of heavy steel doors leading you into the bowels of the underground facility.

Is all this really necessary? you think to yourself as you’re led deeper into the abyss.

Finally, you’re brought to a single cell enclosed with clear polycarbonate panels with steel reinforcements. In this cell was a man sitting in a chair that was bolted into the floor, his hands chained behind his back and his legs chained to the legs of the chair. This man is Agent Leon S. Kennedy. You approach one of the panels closest to the steel door keeping him in. 

Switching the voice recorder on and bringing it to your mouth, you state your name before continuing, “The year is 2004. The subject is field agent Leon Scott Kennedy, currently 27 years old and exhibiting the late stages of Las Plagas infestation, his body is covered in dark, vein like marks. Subject is currently slumped over in the chair. He appears to be catatonic.”

Bringing the recorder away from your mouth, you motion to one of the operatives to guard the door. You input a passcode into a key panel next to the door. It lets out a hiss as it slowly swings open. As you step in, the door swings closed and locks.

You bring the recorder back to your mouth and continue, “Agent Kennedy?”

You watch as Leon slowly lifts his head, his face completely covered in the dark veins, his once blue eyes now have a slight red tinge to them, it makes your stomach twist in sorrow, he used to be such a handsome man.

“Subject appears to still have some cognitive ability left as he immediately recognized his name. We’re still trying to understand how he hasn’t broken down now that the alpha Plagas host, Osmund Saddler, has been destroyed--”

“I’m right here, you know,” Leon suddenly spoke, making you jump.

“Ag-Agent Kennedy!” you reply, eyes wide in shock that he’s able to speak. 

“Please, just call me Leon, sweetheart.”

His dark gaze seemed to pierce straight into your very soul. You collect yourself, clearing your throat.

“How are you feeling, Leon?”

Leon looks down at himself, tugging gently at his restraints before looking back up at you, “all things considered, I actually feel pretty damn good.”

“That’s… good, I guess,” you reply, your nervousness clear in your voice. 

You hadn’t prepared for this, every researcher that attempted to interact with him got absolutely nothing out of him, hence why they sent you down. You argued with them, not seeing the point but now you began to realize that the difference was they were all men, you were a woman. 

“Awww… there’s no need to be so nervous, sweetheart, it’s just me, Leon Kennedy. I promise I don’t bite,” he says, a small smirk appearing on his lips, “hard.”

“Do you know where you are and why you’re here, Leon?”

He lets out a chuckle, “yeah, I’m in D.S.O.’s research facility because I’m turning into a monster.”

“That’s putting it rather bluntly, but yes, that’s correct.”

“About time they sent someone cute down here to visit me, the rest were much too dull. If I wasn’t chained up, I’d ask you out to dinner and a movie.”

You feel yourself blushing, “that’s… very kind of you Leon, however that won’t be happening anytime soon, I’m afraid.”

“That’s a shame, because I’d love to take you to bed and make you scream my name,” he growls, a sinister grin overtaking him.

Your heart is pounding out of your chest as your eyes widen at him. This wasn’t like Leon at all, the parasite was clearly twisting his thoughts. You panic, turning around to motion the operatives to open the door and let you out. As soon as you’re out of the cell, you briskly walk away from the cell as fast as you can, not once looking back. You could have swore you heard Leon’s laugh echo after you. 

“I am not going back down there, are you insane?!”

“You’re the first person he has actually spoken to since he got back from Spain,” the lead researcher, Bryan said, setting your voice recorder down onto his desk. 

“So? Your point? I’m not doing it and that’s final!”

“Look, this recording gives us valuable data on him, it’s clear that the Plagas inside him is mutating into a more dominant strain. It must know it’s the last one left,” Bryan said, pleading with you.

“So we’re just going to poke and prod him like he’s some guinea pig? Leon wouldn’t have wanted that! Are you sure there’s no way we can cure him?”

“If we attempt to remove the parasite now, it will kill him--”

“Then let’s put him out of his misery, this isn’t right!”

The silence between you was deafening. After a few minutes, Bryan finally spoke.

“Judging by this recording, the Plagas has one thing on its mind.”

“Which is…?”

Bryan looked up at you, letting out a heavy sigh, “reproduction.”

“All the more reason I shouldn’t be going back down there!”

“He’ll be restrained and you’ll have at least two operatives with you at all times, you’ll be safe,” Bryan leans forward on his desk, folding his hands together, “the data you collect from Agent Kennedy is invaluable in finding out how the parasite works, just… go down and talk to him. I know yesterday was unnerving but there is one thing he said that is true, he’s just Leon Kennedy. He’s in there somewhere, even if the Plagas is influencing him.”

You cross your arms, staring at the floor, letting out a frustrated sigh before looking back up at Bryan, “fine. But I want hazard pay.”

“Consider it done, here’s your recorder back,” Bryan says, sliding the recorder across the desk towards you. 

You grab the recorder of the desk, turning on your heel to walk out of Bryan’s office.

“You are to report down there in an hour, you hear me?” Bryan calls after you just as you walk out the door.

You fight the urge to flip him off, thinking better of it. You walk down the hall into your office, getting your lab coat back on and sitting at your desk. You press play on the recorder, listening back on your interaction with Leon several times. There was one part where you repeated it several times, sending chills down your spine.

“That’s a shame, because I’d love to take you to bed and make you scream my name.”

How long had Leon been locked down here, chained to this chair? How many men in lab coats came and tried to talk to him? He knew he was a lost cause, why were they keeping him alive? How many times did he wish death would come and take him in his sleep?

But then you came, awakening something in him.

Your natural scent filled the cell completely, so many hours had gone by and he could still smell you and you smelled absolutely divine. He couldn’t stop thinking about you, the way your voice was so sweet yet filled with drive and intelligence. The way you blushed when he flirted with you. The way your heartbeat began to race at just the mere mention of taking you.

God you were so cute when you ran off, all flustered, he couldn’t help but laugh; he hadn’t felt alive like that in so long. His reminiscing was interrupted suddenly when he could hear footsteps coming down the hall. Lifting his head, he practically began to salivate when he saw you had returned.

You came back to me, baby, where you belong…

“The subject appears to be conscious and alert, he watched us as soon as we were in his line of sight,” you say as he watches you speak into the voice recorder. 

With a hiss, the door opens and you step inside. Leon breathed in deep, taking in the smell of you, you smelled even better than you had yesterday. He feels his cock twitch in his pants in excitement. He watches as the door behind you closes and locks, just like it had yesterday, trapping you in here with him.

Curse these fucking chains…

“You’re more lively today, Leon, care to tell me why?” you ask, your voice flat and void of any emotion.

“How about you tell me why you smell so nice,” Leon replies, grinning at you, drool running from his mouth down his chin.

He watches you shift uncomfortably before you continue, “I’m not answering that.”

Leon scoffs, shaking his head, “then I’m not going to talk to you, sweetheart.”

You take a deep breath, “if I’m going to be honest, I don’t know why I smell so nice to you, Leon.”

His red eyes scan up and down your form, imagining it without all those needless clothes. Imagining himself pinning you to the floor and fucking you stupid. A strange, clicking sound came out of him from the back of his throat as he pulled aggressively on the chains holding him to the chair. He watches as the two men with guns outside become alert. Leon lets out a low growl as he glares at them.

You turn to face the men, signaling to them to stand down. He watches them both relax before you return your attention to him. 

“The transformation appears to be progressing faster than expected,” you say into the recorder, “are you in any pain, Leon?”

Leon slowly shakes his head, “no, just unbelievably horny, doll.”

“We have reason to believe the subject is displaying an increased libido due to the fact that the parasite inside him knows it’s the last of its kind.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here, that’s awfully rude.”

“Fine,” you say, lowering the recorder away from your mouth, “what do you want to talk about, Leon?”

“You should ask those nice boys out there to take these chains off me,” Leon purrs, staring at you longingly.

“Absolutely not, Leon,” you reply, crossing your arms, “those chains are there for my safety as well as your own, at least until we can get the Plagas out of your body.” “I think I’m too far gone for that, don’t you think, sweetheart?”

You take a deep breath and exhale loudly, the sorrow clear in your eyes, “I am so sorry that this is what you have become, Leon.”

“I’m not,” Leon says as that sinister grin overtakes him again; he starts to chuckle.

“Leon,” you begin, stepping closer and kneeling down to be eye level with Leon, “I know the real you is in there, somewhere, you have to fight it.”

Your scent was almost enough to drive him crazy, you were delectable. He licks his lips, that clicking sound coming out from this throat again. His eyes are locked on you and he sees you glance down briefly before looking back into his eyes. He knew what you were looking at, you were looking at the noticeable bulge in his cargo pants.

“You’re so pretty, you know that?” Leon says, his body visibly trembling.

You don’t respond, you simply stare at him with that same sad look in your eyes. How could you not want him as much as he wanted you. His lips curl into a snarl.

“Let me FUCK YOU!” he growls, lunging forward, the bolts in the chair letting out a loud screech as they’re bent slightly.

You stumble back, falling backwards onto the floor as Leon continues to struggle violently. The two men with guns come rushing in, one of them grabbing you off the floor while the other shoots a tranquilizer dart into Leon’s thigh. Leon feels the effects almost instantly, his body becomes limp as he becomes sluggish, his mouth hanging agape as he watches you get led out of the room by the two men, the door shutting and locking behind them as you’re led away.

“Mine,” he whispers in his last moments of consciousness, “all mine.”

Part 2

[wittlesissyb4by]

You tried to fight it, you tried to block it out. The hypnotic music worming through your ears, a mixture of infantile lullabies, soothing voices, and even stern ones overlayed with each other. It was all so chaotic it made your head spin, like you were in a trance.

Even though you were blindfolded, you could swear you were seeing waves, spirals, stars. Was it just your imagination? Or was it something they put in your bottle? Maybe it was the sour liquid slowly seeping through the bulb of the pacifier in your mouth. Every time you suckled for air your mouth got a little more numb. Drool seeping from the sides of your lips.

You felt so claustrophobic. Any attempt at movement was haulted in some way, and every time you did, the diaper between your legs crinkled.

But the worst was the churning feeling in your bowels. A combination of bubbling and cramps that made you feel sick to your stomach. You knew what you had to do, what they wanted you to do, but you didn’t want to give this place that satisfaction.

You kicked and screamed and whimpered into your gag, but you couldn’t even hear yourself over the hypnotic music. No way they could hear you down the hall. More likely, they didn’t even care.

You got the feeling you weren’t the only one here. You’d heard the same whimpers and whines when they were escorting you down the hall. But that was just when you were in a straitjacket. What kind of sick ‘rehabilitation’ program was this??

The bubbling in your guts was unbearable. How long had you been holding it? You’d lost track of time long ago. You couldn’t even say how long you’d been here. Was it hours? Or days? Being in a blind, hypnotic haze really messes with perception of time.

You clenched, thrashed, tugged, did anything you could to try to make the cramps go away. But you knew there was only one way to end it. It had to happen eventually. You knew it did. They obviously weren’t letting you go any time soon. Or maybe they would once they got what they wanted?

The voices in your ears told you it was okay. That this was normal. Well…your “new” normal.

It’s what good girls do…

Mess your diaper…

Mary had a little lamb…

Be a baby…

You’re a slut!

Little lamb…litTLe lamb!

It’s not like you know how to be an adult…

You’ll never use the potty again!

It’s okay…

Everything will be fine…

Poop your diaper!

Let it out…

You don’t know if you made the decision yourself, or your fried brain just followed what the voices told you, but you gave one last, desperate clench, then relaxed…letting everything flow out of you.

All of your senses seemed to focus on the warm, icky sensation now present in your diaper. Even the music seemed to stop. As uncomfortable as you were before, that was increased 10 fold.

You tried to struggle more, to escape the messy muck somehow, but it only made it worse. The music kicked back in again, or maybe it never stopped? You couldn’t feel your mouth anymore, just the drool dripping down the sides of your cheeks. The spirals in your eyes intensified.

Maybe they would come change you now. Let you go. Release you from the confines of your mind.

But they were still hours away, or maybe days? There was no telling anymore. The music continued to play, the mixture of melodies numbing your brain.

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

This is my new site for wittlesissybaby! Follow me here, Subscribestar, or Allmylinks to stay updated!

Also, please take 2 seconds to go follow this other random blog @wittle5i55ybaby real fast. Just in case…

[xsublimelimex]

Her Sweet Girl

CW: Diaper play (including messing) & breastfeeding kink

Disclaimer: all characters depicted in this story are consenting adults over the age of 18. If you are NOT 18 or older, click away now!

It’s sometime in the middle of the night when I’m woken up by my sweet baby girl tugging on my lacy camisole. “Let mommy help you baby” but right as I reach out to help her my boob pops out and she’s latched on. She moans in delight as she sucks on my hardened nipple.

“So yummy mommy.” She mumbles with my nipple still in her warm wet mouth. I smile at her and caress her face as she drinks. The feel of her warm slick tongue on my nipple feels like heaven so I just lay back and enjoy the feeling of my baby girl suckling her mommy’s tit.

She slides her leg between mine and slowly rubs her wet diaper against my bare thigh. Her tummy rumbles and she whines out softly a small fart leaving her. I lower my hand and crease her diaper between her ass cheeks. I just hold my hand there since I can tell she’s gonna need to poop real soon and I wanna feel her heavy load come out.

I’ll be surprised if her diaper even holds it since I haven’t changed her diaper in so long so it’s soggy and full of her piss.

Her suckling intensifies as she grunts. She pops off my nipple, “ouchie mommy I need to make pushies.” She looks at me with tears in her eyes and my heart just about breaks for my sweet girl. “Oh sweetheart I know your tummy hurts so keep making pushies as much as you can and I promise once you empty your bowels you’ll feel all better.” I attempt to soothe her.

She nods and nuzzles my breast, I bring my other hand around and press down softly in her extended belly. She whines but doesn’t protest. Soon she’s starts grunting and whining as she pushes. She farts loudly and hides her face further into me. “There’s no reason to be embarrassed baby now keep pushing till your poopy is all out.” I pick up my breast and slip my nipple into her mouth with she eagerly accepts with a bright red face.

She keeps pushing making loud noises but I feel nothing drop into her diaper. She pops off my nipple one more time and begs me, “Ouchie ouchie mommy it can’t come out I need helps pwease.” She has tears in her eyes and I feel so bad. I brush her hair back, “shh sweetie it’s okay mommy will help, I have just the thing.”

I reach into my bedside drawer in the dark and feel around for her suppositories. I slip my hand into the back of her soaked diaper and feel around till I meet her hole. I tease her little bum hole as I begin to push the suppository in, she whines and clenches closed. “Baby you need to relax your hole for mommy, you want to be able to make pushies don’t you?” I question her softly, the suppository only partially inside her. She whines nuzzles my boob and nods. “Then relax that pretty pink hole for mama.” She suckles faster milk spilling from the corners of her mouth. She loosens up and I’m finally able to slip the suppository inside.

“Good girl, mommy is so very proud of you sweet girl. You did such a good job opening up your hole for me. Now your little tummy should feel better in no time okay?” I praise her and softly tapping on her tight little ass hole. “Otay mama tank you.” She murmurs quietly whilst licking at my hard nipple. Her hole flutters open around my finger and I slip the tip of my finger inside her warm hole just as she farts around my finger.

“See Baby It’s working already. Keep letting loose like that and your poppies will come out in no time.” She nods and pops off my boob and leans her head back and stares at me with her beautiful sleepy eyes. “I tired mama but my princess parts feel wet did I potty on accident?” She tells me around her yawn. Sweet naive little girl.

“No sweetie that just means you’re excited that Mama has her finger inside your little ass hole. It’s perfectly normal to feel that way. How about mama gives her sweet girl cummies before she poops herself? How does that sound baby?” I ask but before she can respond my fingers are already sliding between her soaked folds. “Ah mommy please.” She begs her eye lids closing as her mouth gapes open in pleasure. My finger dips into her wet hole and she’s so wet it’s making the most lewd noise as I finger fuck her. My thumb strokes her clit and she screams, “please please mommy please I need to make cummies please.” I rub her clits faster, “cum now baby cum for mommy like the good little girl you are.” She moans so loud and her hole clenches around my two fingers as she cums. Her forehead scrunching up in pure pleasure.

She relaxes and her hole loosens around my fingers and I slip the out but cup her in my hand and hold it there, without me even saying anything she knows what I want. She grunts quietly and I feel her warm piss soak my palm. “Good girl cumming and pissing in mommy’s hand, such a good piss slut. Mommy is so proud.” She moans and nuzzles my breast. “Thank you mommy.” I slip my hand out and grab my breast with my piss soaked hand and stroke my nipple getting it hard again and lean it against her wet lips. “Open up for mommy baby” she opens ger mouth and immediately takes my nipple inside her mouth and her eyes flutter closed as she drinks her mommy’s milk. “Such a good girl.”

I press my hand against her diapered butt and hold it there, waiting to feel her unload in it. After a few minutes she takes one particularly hard suck and grunts loudly. Almost immediately I feel the back of her diaper extend with her big load. The stinky smell perfuming the air. “Such a good girl. Mommy is a happy you went poopie.” Her mouth slips off my nipple and she giggles and wiggles around till she’s straddling my lap. She bounces on my lap squishing her diaper all around. Her tiny tits bouncing with her. “I went poopies I went poppies in my diaper I went poopies and I need to go poppies again!!” She sings loudly with a big smile on her face. I can’t help but laugh along with her.

She’s so very beautiful and I’m so lucky to call her mine.

[loveisanimaginarydagger3000]

Kinkmas (4)- Cookies And Cream

Wanda X Reader 18+

Summary:  Whilst attempting to bake festive cookies with Wanda, the two of you end up getting a little 'distracted.'

Word Count: 3.1k

Warnings/Tags: Fluff, Christmas Cookies, Baking, Smut, Dom Wanda/Sub Reader, Fingering, Magic Strap on, Spanking, Multiple Orgasms, Kitchen Sex, Hair-pulling, Brief Choking, Creampie, Dirty Talk, Rough Sex

Kinkmas Masterlist

---

A soft hum left your lips as your body subconsciously swayed to the tune of the Christmas music softly spilling from the speaker, your hands carefully placing the tray of cookies into the oven ready to bake, your smile stretching at the festive shapes of them. Your personal favourite was the Christmas tree shaped ones, your mind running wild with ideas of how to decorate them, hands instinctively opening the cupboards to grab the ingredients needed to decorate the various styles of sugar cookies.

Wanda had helped you use the range of cookie cutters, the two of you having fun with trying all of them out, the tray swiftly filling with bare snowmen, stars, Christmas trees, Santa hats and more, smiles engraved onto your faces the entire time you were together.

As you were opening the bag of icing sugar to make the various colours to decorate with, a pair of arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer to her body as her head rested against your shoulder, watching your hands measure out the appropriate amounts for each bowel.

"Hey Detka," Wanda murmurs after returning, having taken off her thick jumper which leaves her in a simple black tank top and the matching pair of pyjama pants you convinced her to wear, your gaze briefly wandering down to where her bare arms were snaked around you.

"Hey love," you whisper back, tilting your head to the side for a kiss, pecking her lips innocently before returning to the task at hand, silently relishing in the comfort her body provided. Her body stayed glued to yours as she watched you make the first bowl of vibrantly coloured icing, you relaxing against her embrace momentarily as her hands slid under your shirt, caressing the skin in an affectionate and tender manner, fingers gently drawing idle circles against your warm body.. "Does my sous chef want to help again?" you murmur after a while playfully, lolling your head back against her in demand of another kiss, craving another after all the 'hard' work you put in to make the dish filled with green icing.

She smiles and chuckles softly against your lips, her arms that were snaked around you slipping away as she moves to stand opposite you at the kitchen island, her eyes sparkling with mischief. You want to be disappointed at the lack of physical touch as she moves away, bringing with her the items needed to help you make the frosting for the cookies she was eagerly waiting to taste, but the look in her eyes distracts you.

"Sous chef?" she asks humorously, both of you knowing exactly who the true chef was between you. "Are you sure about that, Detka?" Her tone amused as she slides a spoon out of a drawer, ready to mix in the milk and vanilla extract into the powdered sugar, your smile engraved on your face as you can't help but stare at her adoringly.

You hum in response, biting down on your lower lip to try and suppress your smile, Wanda letting out another angelic laugh as she shakes her head at your antics.

The room is then encased in the festive spirit once again as the two of you work silently, enjoying the tranquil atmosphere as Christmas songs fill the air. Your eyes occasionally meet, her green softening at your loving gaze as you watch her make the bright red coloured portion of icing, the white gradually turning the desired colour as the colouring is swirled into it. Your gaze however swiftly flickers over to her arms as she stirs the spoon in the thick substance, forearms flexing slightly as she drags the spoon through it, the vein in her hand protruding slightly causing a series of sinful thoughts to briefly flicker across your mind. God her arms were sexy.

You managed to keep your thoughts at bay to a certain extent, the smirk playing on Wanda's lips implying she'd still heard them, but you didn't notice that as your gaze travelled higher up her toned arms, watching how the muscles moved subtly. Your attention was only diverted away when she moved to cross her arms over her chest, consequently pushing her breasts up, your gaze briefly flicking to them before meeting her gaze with a sheepish look, her brow raising at your red cheeks.

"Enjoying the show?" she teases, chuckling softly as you return to making another colour of icing by adding the orange food colouring for the snowmen's noses, acting coy.

"I always do," your tone soft as you meet her gaze again, the green enticing you in and luring you into staring at them forever. You'd always watch Wanda make the dinner for the two of you, usually sitting on the countertop as she explained the dish, occasionally teasing you about your lack of cooking skills to which you'd always laugh at.

The gaze lingers as you continue to get lost in the eyes you love so much, a wave of arousal flooding through you when you notice them darken, an idea entering your girlfriend's mind as your legs squeeze together as she looks like she wants to absolutely ruin you. When her mouth parts slightly, you expect her to tell you what to do, to order you onto your knees or bend over the island, but instead she merely teases you, wanting you to be desperate before giving into your fantasies.

You watch with lust filled eyes as she swipes her finger into some of the white icing left, the sweet treat slowly dripping down her finger as she raises it to her lips, effortlessly sliding it into her mouth and moaning softly at the taste. Her eyes stay trained on you as her cheeks hollow slightly, tongue swirling around her finger to lick it clean, your own mouth parting at the sinful sight of her.

"Mhmm delicious," she hums out innocently, swiping another bit of the icing and repeating the action, your legs squeezing together harder at her sultry look. "Although," she starts, smirking a little as she pushes herself away from her position at the island, walking around it at a leisurely pace, revelling in how you watch every movement, every sway of her hips in an mesmerised manner, "I know something else that tastes even better." Her arms wrap back around your body, her mouth purring the words into your ear making you groan at her suggestive words, a surprised noise leaving you when you feel the strap on now placed between her legs, red tendrils of magic dissipating into the air after she conjured it.

"Wanda," you sigh out, pushing your body back against her and the toy, a low groan escaping her, the noise going straight between your thighs. "Fuck, is it...?'' Your words trail off as she grinds her hips into you, softly moaning at the shell of your ear as she can feel everything through the toy, her powers enabling her.

"Yeah," she husks out, her hands sliding down your body, caressing the skin at your waist softly before pulling your body back against hers, your hands gripping onto the edge of the marble countertop for support. "I can't wait to fill you up Detka," she rasps out, kissing your neck lewdly as you give into her, the incessant throb between your legs too much to handle.

"Please," you sigh out, lolling your head back against her shoulders, eyes peering up into hers submissively, "I need you inside me." Her lips instantly pressed against yours at the way you practically whimpered your words, her resolve quickly crumbling as she was just as desperate as you were at this point, her firm hands squeezing your curves as her hips pushed harder against you, pinning your body between her and the countertop.

"You want me that bad Detka?" She chuckles out lowly, teeth scraping the side of your neck, warm mouth pressing against your skin, the touch sending arousal straight through you, your hips pushing back against her to emphasise your want for her. You can feel her lips pull into a smirk as your actions, one of her hands sliding up your body to rest against the underside of your jaw, guiding your head back so she could ghost her lips against yours. "Tell me what you want," her tone dropping an octave, accent wrapping around the words and adding a gentle rasp as her green are utterly consumed by lust and desire.

"Fuck me," you sigh out, "Please," eyes fluttering close as her lips brush over yours, not quite pressing hard enough to give you the satisfaction of feeling them passionately moving against yours. "Bend me over and show me I'm yours," your tone a mere whisper, her mouth crashing to yours as she swallows the soft whimper that escapes you at the intensity of the kiss, tongue sliding into your mouth while her hands move to your pyjama pants, effortlessly sliding them down your legs.

With every touch, you felt your body burn at the sensation, heat building swiftly at the pit of your lower abdomen as her fingers slid your panties to the side, wasting no time in thrusting a finger into you, wanting to stretch you out.

The moan that escapes you is nothing but sinful, the pathetic noise eagerly swallowed by her mouth as she works her digit inside you, curling it perfectly against your sweet spot and causing pleasure to spark through you, your mind struggling to focus on anything but her.

Your knuckles bleed white with how hard you were gripping the countertop for support, hips trying their best to rock against her hands as she groans into your mouth at the way you already clench around her desperately, your mouth parting, lips lingering against hers but not kissing as a groan is torn out of you, her smirking against you at the noise. Her lips trail along your jaw as you struggle to kiss her back, her thumb reaching around your body to circle your clit a few times, your hips bucking against her as your legs try to squeeze around her hand, her other one easily parting your legs.

"Please," you moan out when she slides in another finger, thrusting them together inside you a few times before her free hand moves to between your shoulder blades, pushing your body forwards against the countertop.

Her magic slides everything nearby on the table out of the way, the red fading in the air as you're bent over the marble island like you wanted, hands reaching across to the other end as you knew you were going to need to grip onto something.

"I hope you know that I'm not going to be gentle," her tone is soft as one of her hands gathers your hair into a makeshift ponytail, her eyes shamelessly raking over your body all ready for her.

"That better be a promise," you chuckle out, her hand tugging on your hair to drag your head backwards slightly, her other hands positioning the toy at your entrance.

A shaky breath leaves her as she feels how wet and aroused you were with the tip of the toy, the warmth and wetness fogging her mind as she teasingly grinds the toy against you another few times, waiting for you to plead with her.

"Wanda, please- Fuck," your words are cut short as she thrusts the toy into you with a powerful snap of her hips, a low groan escaping her at the feeling of you so tightly wrapped around her, her hips flush against yours as she savours the pleasurable feeling. A moan leaves you as she fills you up completely, fingers pressing hard against the countertop as she pulls her hips back until only the tip of the toy remains in you, a small, low curse leaving her lips before she thrusts it back in, both of you moaning once again.

The room quickly fills with the lewd sounds of your moans, pants and the sound of the toy repeatedly being drilled into you, her pace merciless and rough as promised, her hands gripping your waist tightly as she pounds into you in the middle of the kitchen.

"Shit," her tone low as her eyes can't tear away from the sight of her cock being swallowed by your cunt. "You're taking me so well Detka," she pants out, her hands guiding your hips into a slightly different position, the toy reaching even deeper inside you and hitting your sweet spot with every single thrust.

"Fuck," you practically scream, clenching around her hard and making her buck her hips into you roughly, a desperate noise being dragged out of her. "Just like that, shit, harder," you beg, her hand pulling on your hair harder as she somehow increases the force behind her thrusts, a broken noise escaping you at the pleasure that floods through your body.

Unable to stop herself, her free hand spanks you roughly, knowing just how you like it earning another loud noise to reverberate around the room, your eyes squeezed shut at the overwhelming feeling of pleasure consuming you.

"Please, again," you whimper, her hand roughly colliding with your other cheek, a red mark forming where her hand had just spanked, her dominance somehow making you even wetter at the mix of pain and pleasure.

The combination of her brutal thrusts and her harsh spanks clouds your mind, body acting on its own as you try to push your hips back in time with her movements, a string of moans and chants of her name spilling from your lips, your orgasm rapidly approaching.

"I'm so close," you pant out, another spank sounding around the room, your body jerking at the sensation, a whimper falling from your lips. "Please," her hips continue to snap into you, her hand still tugging on your hair, the other moving to hold onto your hips as she can tell you're struggling to support yourself, pleasure being the only thing your brain is comprehending.

"Come for me," she husks out, a guttural noise leaving you as you clench desperately around the toy, walls spasming around her as waves of pleasure and euphoria crash through your body. You fall over the edge into a powerful orgasm, body trembling in her grasp as she slows her thrusts down, a moan escaping her as she tries not to come in you just yet, her hips gently rolling into you. "Fuck," she curses, voice a mere pant as she feels you clench around her again, a small whine leaving you when she pulls out suddenly, hands moving your body.

A thrill is sent through your body when she manhandles you into a new position, having you sit on the edge of the countertop with your legs spread, eyes blown with lust as you watch her hungrily while she positions the toy back at your entrance.

"You feel so fucking good," she husks out against you, tilting her head to meet your lips messily, the kiss a clash of teeth and tongue as you passionately steal each other's breath away. You moan lewdly into her mouth as she thrusts her hips into you again, filling you up perfectly making your hands grip onto her shoulders, nails digging in. "All mine," she mutters, biting down on your lower lip and dragging it down, eventually releasing it before letting her tongue sooth over the dull pain, a whimper leaving you at the action and the feeling of the toy pumping in and out of you.

"Yours," you moan out, her lips relentless against yours, hips incessant as she chases her own release, driving you towards your second simultaneously. One of her hands goes to brace her body above yours, resting on the countertop, the other moves to your throat, fingers resting against the underside of your jaw as she directs you to look into her eyes, a new wave of arousal and heat flooding through you.

"You want me to fill you up, Detka?" She purrs, her rhythm starting to falter a little, speeding up as she nears her release, an affected sigh leaving you as the mere thought of her coming in you has your head spinning.

"Yes," you immediately reply, "Please do, please come in me," your tone laced with desperation and submission as she groans, crashing her lips to yours as your body nears your own release, ready to fall over the edge with her.

"Fuck, I'm coming," she groans, hips stuttering into you as thick spurts of cum fill you up, her hips pressing further into you as her body towers over you, pushing you harder against the island as a string of moans leave her. A moan spills from your lips at the euphoric feeling of her emptying inside you, thrusting gently into you as you follow her and crash into your orgasm, pleasure taking over all your senses as she hides her face at the crook of your neck, panting against your warm skin.

Ragged breaths take over the room as you relax against each other, one of your arms loosely wrapped around her shoulders while the other goes to her hair, fingers softly scratching her scalp, her lips tugging up into a small smile against your skin. Her arms have snaked around your body, pulling you close for a soft embrace as you both try to recover after your powerful orgasms, your head leaning against the side of hers as you remain locked in a state of bliss. Your eyes gradually flutter open, flickering away from the ruffled hair by your head to the clock on the wall, eyes instantly widening.

"Shit," your tone immediately grabbing Wanda's attention, head pulling away from the safety of your neck, "The cookies," the panic in your tone and wide eyes instantly causes Wanda to laugh softly, the angelic noise making your brows furrow as she simply kisses your forehead, chuckling as she lingers at the spot.

"I turned the oven off earlier Detka," she reassures, your eyes having missed the red tendril that ensured the cookies didn't burn while the two of you were preoccupied, relief flooding through you as you were rather excited to try them.

"Oh," you mumble a little shyly, her lips pecking your lips once more, the two of you inevitably smiling against each other, an idea popping into your mind as she still remains inside you, "Well..." You trail off, Wanda's brow raising at your tone, "As the oven is still off, we might as well have a round three."

Another chuckle leaves her as she shakes her head at your antics, kissing you softly and answering your question as she lifts you off the island, carrying you towards the sofa and pinning your body between her and the cushions.

"We might as well," she mumbles playfully, starting to thrust her hips back into you, moans filling the room once again as you lose yourself within each other once again.

The cookies were going to have to wait until later. 

[suppose-i-was-worm]

For Lack of a Burger

**finally I have written! Sorry for the long absence, folks- my cat is a needy little thing and I love her. Enjoy!**

“As blood son of Batman, it is only natural that I train here to become heir to the Bat.”

Dick- well, Nightwing right now- looked down at Robin, who was staring out over Gotham with his brow furrowed.

“And what of the league? I can’t imagine them letting the heir to the Demon’s Head run loose.”

Robin stiffened a fraction more than he already was- something that Nightwing wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t trained by Batman himself.

“I know only one thing for sure concerning the heirship of the league.”

“What is that?”

“Grandfather will not taste relief in death.”

Nightwing wasn’t sure what that meant, but Damian seemed so assured of the fact. He would have to tell Bruce- maybe Ra’s had discovered a better method of immortality than the pits?

An alert pinged on their communicators, and the two of them checked it before heading off to save the citizens.

~~~

“I miss real food, Clocky.”

“You are currently unable to process it.”

“I know. Ectoplasm just isn’t the same though.”

Danny sprawled on Clockwork’s floor, lazily filling out paperwork from ages ago and yesterday.

“It has been a very long time since you left humanity behind.”

“I wish there was a safe way to go back and get some food.”

His mentor paused briefly, and Danny looked up. Was that a gleam in Clockwork’s eye?

“There is a way.”

Danny shot up into a seated position, crossing his legs.

“Tell me!”

“You will face many hardships.”

“Clockwork, serious as a funeral, I would kill for a burger right now.”

Clockwork smiled enigmatically.

“You may have to.”

He flicked his fingers and Danny found himself pushed back. He allowed it- at this point in his existence, he could overpower Clockwork, but he’d asked for this.

The world went dark around him.

~~~

In the year since he’d come to live with Father, Damian had not said a word about his brother. He’d been told, before being unceremoniously bundled away from the only home he’d ever known, that he was to be the heir of the Bat and Daniel was to be the Demon’s Head.

His mother had told him that Father would try and steal Daniel away from the League- that Damian would yet again be the lesser son. After a few months with Father, Damian had stopped believing that. There was no thing as a ‘lesser’ child for Father.

And yet.

Grandfather was a powerful man, and Grandfather treasured Daniel more than he had ever cared for Damian.

Daniel al Ghul, second son of the Bat of Gotham, was brilliant. He kept his emotions in check, fought with practiced ease in any situation, and spoke circles around even mother. It never took him as long as it took Damian to learn a new skill, and most of the time he spent studying, even when they were both allowed a break.

Damian loved him, even as the younger child overtook the position Damian had striven for his entire life.

What was not to love? Damian had loved him ever since his tiny hand had curled around his finger in infancy.

He had always been fond of small, cute things.

But if Daniel left the League, Grandfather would come after him, and it would be unsafe.

Damian held his tongue and loved his baby brother from a distance, even though he might never see him again.

~~~

John “Hellblazer” Constantine needed a drink. Or several.

Bats had appeared on the Watchtower with yet another new Robin, and this one was probably the most concerning out of all of them.

No, it wasn’t the sword.

It was the massive fucking protection order from a powerful death god that radiated off his small form.

“Bats.”

“Hm.”

“I need to talk to you and the kid.”

Bats nodded, a gesture John took to mean ‘go ahead’.

John sighed.

“Not here, Bats. Too many ears.”

“Hrn.”

The Bat swept away, followed closely by his brightly colored companion. John followed as well. He was pretty good at speaking Bat, after all these years working together.

They made their way into the bowels of the Watchtower, into a sitting room John hadn’t known existed.

“What do you need, Constantine?”

John paused for a moment, assessing. Robin was watching him suspiciously, hand on his sword, and Batman was standing half in front of the little bird protectively.

“Did you know this one was friends with a death god?”

“What?”

The Bat and Robin spoke the same word at the same time, in the exact same tone. Did they practice that? Anyways.

“Yup. Little redbreast screams hands off.”

“I am not acquainted with any gods.”

John shrugged.

“Doesn’t mean you knew they were a god. To get to the bottom of this- has anyone ever sworn to protect you in some way?”

Robin went still and pale behind his mask, before darting a glance up at Batman.

Batman, who was looking down at his sidekick.

“Robin? Report.”

The boy stuck his chin out.

“It was many years ago, Batman. He- they couldn’t have been a god.”

“You don’t know that, kid. Where did you meet him?”

“He wasn’t a god!”

Robin had become defensive, sword halfway out of it’s sheath, glaring at John- presumably for the sin of being alive.

“If the League of Assassins has contact with a deity of death, we need to know, Robin.”

Snarling, Robin started out of the room.

“I will not discuss him with either of you. He is safe where he is.”

“Robin- chum. Who is he?”

Robin stopped in the door, not looking back. His voice wobbled a little as he spoke.

“My younger brother.”

John needed a drink, and fast.

~~~

Danny stood over Damian’s bed, watching his older brother breathe shallowly. Grandfather had beat him badly, and Danny was still unsure why.

Talia wouldn’t look him in the eye, and Grandfather had gone to soak in the pits.

“Daniel?”

“Damian!”

Danny bent over his brother, placing a hand over his pulse to check it.

“Why?”

Why had Grandfather beaten him? Why had he stood and let it happen? Why didn’t he run?

“He… wanted me… t’kill you.”

Danny felt rage swell up in his tiny seven-year-old body. What right did Ra’s al Ghul think he had, to beat a child almost to death for such a reason?

What right did that man have, to touch someone Danny had come to care for?

Closing his eyes briefly, Danny allowed himself to meditate for the few moments it would take to let his rage die down enough to comfort his brother.

Once it had, he opened his eyes again and pressed his forehead to Damian’s.

“I swear I will protect you, ahki. Ra’s al Ghul will not taste relief in death.”

The next day Danny watched invisibly as Talia dipped Damian in the Lazarus pits to heal him before putting him on a plane to Gotham.

~~~

“You have made me proud, Daniel.”

Ra’s watched as Daniel bowed, having taken out a squadron of elite ninja for his tenth birthday.

The ninja were still breathing- Ra’s was sure Daniel had spared them so as to not weaken the ranks of the League he was set to inherit.

It pleased him that his young grandson was so wise, despite his youth. His older brother had no such wisdom- rash and impatient, still full of emotional weakness. Ra’s would no longer claim that boy as his grandson once Daniel passed his newest test.

With a wave of his hand, several ninja brought forth a young man. They had managed to kidnap Richard Grayson from under the nose of the Bat, and now Daniel would kill the other.

“Grandfather?”

“This is your Father’s oldest ward. He is a usurper to a place that rightfully should be yours. Kill him.”

Daniel walked towards the bound man, and the ninja holding the captive backed away respectfully.

“May I ask him a question, Grandfather?”

Ra’s nodded. There was no harm in it.

The boy drew his sword and stepped around the man, holding the blade to his neck.

“Tell me, Grayson. Is Damian well?”

The lilt in his voice spelled danger for Damian, and Ra’s could barely contain his grin at Daniel’s ferocity.

“He is protected,” the kneeling man forced out. “You won’t harm a hair on his head.”

Daniel smiled, not unlike a shark.

“I know.”

Before Ra’s could blink, Richard Grayson’s bonds had fallen to the floor as if he had turned into a ghost, and Daniel’s sword was stabbed into the dirt between the Demon Head’s feet.

“We are leaving, Ra’s, and you will not stop us.”

The venom in his calm grandson’s voice when Daniel said his name made Ra’s pause, but only for a moment.

At a gesture, ninja poured out into the courtyard, intent on recapturing Nightwing and taking down the heir to the Demon.

Seconds before the ninja collided with the two, Daniel grinned, his eyes locked straight on Ra’s, grabbed Grayson’s hand, and the two vanished.

~~~

Dick was… Confused didn’t quite cut it. His day had been a disaster, and then this tiny meta who looked like a carbon copy of Damian appeared.

“So… You a clone?”

“No.”

“Oh. Uh. What are we doing, by the way?”

The boy smiled serenely at him, and then continued his work.

“Jacking a plane.”

“You’re like, eight.”

The boy shrugged.

“If you like.”

“Where are we going?”

“Gotham.”

“Who are you?”

The boy turned and put his hands on his hips, and Dick was starkly reminded of Bruce by the posture and facial expression.

“Look, Grayson, I get it, you’re confused. But if you don’t shut up and let me finish this wiring, we’ll never get you back to Gotham before the League catches up.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

The boy turned back around and continued his wiring.

“Call me Danny. Too many fruitloops call me Daniel.”

Dick expected a long flight ahead of them.

~~~

Damian was strapping on the last of his gear to go rescue Richard from the League of Assassins when the man himself strolled into the batcave, looking tired but no worse for wear.

“Dick!”

Batman- no, he took his cowl off- Father threw himself across the room to assess the health of his son.

Damian started unstrapping his gear.

“How did you get free?”

“We apparently had a man on the inside?”

“Had?”

“He blew his cover to save me.”

“Nightwing, report. Where is this man now?”

“I was landing the plane. Nice digs, dad.”

The cave fell silent, but for the ringing of the batarangs Damian dropped as he spun to face the newcomer.

“Not sure what I think of the ‘cave’ vibe you have going on, though.”

“Daniel?”

Daniel met Damian’s eyes, and a look Damian had never seen on his little brother broke out on the boy’s face.

A true, genuine, joyful smile.

“Akhi!”

Damian pulled out his sword and held it towards the stranger in his brother’s body.

“Who are you?”

The boy laughed.

“I’m a little weird now, right? It’s okay, Damian, it’s me.”

“What was the last thing you said to me.”

Damian felt that was a good question. No one but Daniel would know.

“I said I would protect you, and that Ra’s al Ghul would not experience a pleasant afterlife.”

“That-“

“Isn’t quite it, I know. Still true, though. I brought the Lazarus pits with me. Ra’s can’t use them anymore.”

Damian heard Father and Drake choke at Daniel’s words. This was Daniel, despite his complete personality change. No one had been with them when Daniel had made his promise.

“Since when were you a god of death?”

Daniel laughed.

“It’s a long story, Ahki.”

Damian sheathed his sword and held out a hand.

“Come then, habibi, tell me.”

“Can I have a burger to go with the story? I’m starving."

[wannabepoeticischiya]

in the wake of stars... there, we remain

Do you wish to know the horrible truth? When I close my eyes, her memory does not resurface. I cannot remember her laugh, or even tell apart her voice. All that remains is the waking thought that she was the only woman I ever loved—the only thing I ever wanted. And the Abyss took her away from me. The gods took her away from me! And all the time in the universe—all the power this world has to offer—couldn't fill the void she left behind.

ao3: in the wake of stars... there, we remain pairing: capitano x f! reader genre: angst, romance wc: 16k status: one shot art by: C50spicy

“Granny!”

“Freminet! Don’t call her that—”

A soft chuckle echoed in the closed room, halting the chastise the magician was about to bestow on his younger brother.

“It’s quite alright, Lyney. I’m sure little Freminet meant no harm.” A pair of blackened hands patted the young boys’ heads, the blue veins marring the skin contrasting with the oceans of blond threads.

Despite Freminet’s endearment of the woman, no sign of aging was visible on her youthful face. A stranger might even proclaim her as an older sister to the infamous Knave of the House of Hearth. But the only thing stopping them from doing so was the darkened skin tracing from under her left ear all the way to the horizons of her forehead.

“Can you tell us the story again? Please?” The little blond diver sat near the woman’s feet, looking up at her with big beady eyes—one which always proved difficult to refuse, even for their ‘Father’.

“Only if you promise not to call me an old lady again.” She playfully bargains with the child, although… [Name] wouldn’t really mind either way. “Now, gather around.” She ushers the children to move closer to her, for which they happily obliged.

A rhythmic song echoed in the bowels of her soul as she silently watched the children talk amongst one another, a joy she knew could only live here… in this home, in this time, with them, and nowhere else.

Once upon a time, in a kingdom under the golden sea, there lived a knight, brave, righteous, and kind as they could be. And this knight, he loved no one else but the woman who threw flowers at strangers with glee.

The citizens loved this knight, and everyone wanted to be acquainted with him. But this knight lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me…

“Haven’t I already told you to get lost?”

Cradled under a dome of a million stars, a noble lady stood far on the far side of the balcony, gazing down with fiery eyes at the knight looking up at her from below. Threads of [h/c] swayed by the eternal gale that rounded the kingdom every after-dark, ruffling the violet and golden garments she wore oh so devotedly—a striking contrast to him who wore clothes darker than the void itself.

“Ah, well—” his voice echoes in the silence of twilight, hopeful at best, painted as desperate for the woman on the loggia.

“My answer remains the same, Captain.”

Before the Captain could raise another protest, a plea for her to reconsider, the lady peered over the balustrade, angered at his stubbornness, “No.”

She could not wrap her head around his insistence, at first finding it admirable before it morphed to be unbearable. Many times had she told him off:

‘I must refuse your proposal, my lord’

‘I’m honored, really, but I cannot accept’

‘Surely, a maiden far fairer than me would most wholeheartedly embrace your affections’.

One would think that after three rejections, he would relent.

At one point, she believed him to have raised the white flag, given that he had ceased his advancement for a full fortnight.

That is until she ran into him at the plaza one fateful afternoon. Finding him surrounded by a sea of people both of highborn and low, militia and serpent knights, harboring him affection and regard.

The shadow of her presence was enough to stop their banters, the weight of her name parting the ocean of people, and before her… was a path that led right to him.

Snapping out of the memory, she is reminded that the object of her daydreams was still perched upon the street below her awaiting an acceptance that the lady swore would never come, even if he is a knight. “Now, if you will be so kind as to step aside—”

“My lady…”

A sharp stare silenced the Commander’s tongue, forcing him to freeze where he stands, burning the remnants of his thoughts. All that remained was the echo of her voice, the light reflecting off her eyes, the presence of her soul. He wouldn’t have minded staying rooted there for the rest of the evening, shackled to that post until the end of his time, so long as she would be near. A call away, just over the wall, looking at him from the panes of her windows.

“Please move out of the way, Capitano. I have more pressing matters to attend to.”

The Commander, as if time began to march slower, saw her marching towards the archway that would lead her indoors, and before he could detain his tongue—his thoughts had run past his better judgement.

“Throwing flowers at passersby hardly seems to be of urgency.”

[Name] let out a scoff of disbelief, swiping away her hand that held the doorknob and turned to march back towards the balcony, peering down at him with all the disdain in the cosmos. The nerve of this—this… “A lot more concerning than having you propose another time when my take on the matter will not change. Now, move out of the way before I throw a pot at you.”

“But why?”

The lady looked at him cynically, was he asking in accordance with his repeated rejection or for the threat of the pot? She would be happy to indulge in the latter, but [Name] knew that the ever-righteous Captain was not one to act like a fool… yet he continued to play the jester with her.

“Are we really going over this again?” She looks at him in exasperation, internally wondering how he rose to such power when he was stubborn as a mule. “Have you forgotten where you stand? I am a lady of the house [L/n], you are a Commander for the knights. Do you really dare have me be insulted by it all? Let me remind you again: from the moment we met all those years ago, when you had so brazenly declared to me that you would take arms and fight the heavens, your conceit and selfish disdain for the feelings of others made me realize that you will be the last man I’d ever be prevailed upon to marry. And I would rather dine on the scraps of field tillers and cross the seven seas with no leverage than be courted by the likes of you. Good day.”

Capitano stared at her retreating figure, counting that as the fifth attempt to court her that month. And the overall hundredth rejection for the last five, or was it seven, years? Every time she turned down his advancements it had him motivated to do more, to be more, become better.

Because in his eyes… there was no greater blessing, no greater honor than to love her.

[Name] who offered him cakes and cookies down by the gardens all those summers ago, the one who ran down the streets to welcome him back, the little lady who pushed the swing when he sat alone by the playground. [Name] who supported his dream of knighthood, the lady who dressed his wounds, who wiped his tears, parted his lips so he could breathe.

I’d be the last man she’d ever be prevailed upon to marry… she didn’t say she’d never marry me—just that I’m her last option.

Even if the same [Name] now sneers at all things related to him and his status as a commander.

A foolish smile carved its way onto his face, eyes as deep as the depths of the ocean shining in delight at the newfound hope.

There’s still a chance!

But love didn’t come easy for the knight, no matter the ardency of his feelings, the sincerity of his soul, nor the patience in his heart. The lady simply turned a blind eye to him—

“That’s awful! Mr. Knight must be very sad.” A little girl cried while her friend tried to console her by rubbing her back, the sight tugging at the seams of [Name]’s heart.

“Indeed, how cruel the lady must have been.” She agrees gently, curling a fistful of fabric under her touch, suppressing the urge to just run outside and comb the earth to make it all right. How cowardly was I to have shunned your affection for so long…

Not long after, one of the older kids spoke her piece, “If a knight as chivalrous as him had loved me, I would never let him go, not even for all the mora in the world.”

For a few arbitrary seconds, [Name] is left at a loss for words.

Perhaps it’s the curse taking effect or maybe it’s the regret clawing from the depths of her eroding soul. Still, it remained clear that the young lady’s words were something she wished she had lived by all those centuries ago.

“Nor I.” [Name] concedes, acknowledging the boldness—the genuineness—of the child’s declaration with a look of understanding.

But no matter how we wish to change our fate, to pave a way for a better tomorrow, a waking moment where we aren’t suffocated by the crushing weight of regret—that was all they could remain as: wishes.

It didn’t matter how ardently we pray for it to be true, how earnestly we chant so we could forge it into being… because when the dust settles and the moon is at rise, only then we’ll know…

“You see, children, to speak of love is an easy task, even the most vicious of people can do it. But to wait and prove that it’s true—even when there is no guarantee of getting loved in return, that is an act of faithfulness that cannot be accomplished by everyone. It takes merely a few seconds to profess love, but doing it takes more than a lifetime. And to find someone eager to spend that time with you… is a blessing that not everyone is fortunate enough to receive.”

…that some tales are not fated for a happy ending.

The children looked at her in amazement, no matter the blights of her curse on her skin—how it can easily depict her a monster—Lady [Name] is still one of the kindest people they have ever been lucky enough to meet.

Love didn’t come in all the shades of the rainbow as the lady had hoped. Love didn’t come dressed in willingness as the knight assumed.

Perhaps, in their hearts, they knew.

Sometimes, love can come painted like a summer night: dark as it comes but scattered with a hundred million stars. Sometimes, love is cloaked in hesitance: a gentle wave by the shores dyed with the warmth of a thousand suns.

And sometimes… love appears in forms we least expect it to take.

“You turned him down? The Captain? The Commander of the Serpent Knights? The Captain?”

A young woman paced around the room, struggling to accept the story her friend told her only moments prior.

“Yes, Peruveere, I did.”

[Name] rolled her eyes at the other person’s restless mumbling, continuously taking apart the petals from the flowers. And as if sensing the follow-up questions of her inquisitive friend, [Name] quickly attached the rest of her answers not a breath later, “Yes, the Captain. Yes, the Commander of the Serpent Knights. Yes, the Captain. And yes, Il-Capitano, the ever-righteous, strong and brave, nigh-invincible Captain. I turned him down just as I had the previous time he asked, and the time before that, as well as all the other advances he had made. And I will continue to do so if he keeps insisting. It will not change.”

She tore another petal away from the stem, not sparing a single glance at the other lady currently losing her marbles over the simple matter of [Name]’s rejection of matrimony.

“But why?”

[Name] tore her eyes away from the busy streets and looked over her shoulder to her friend with a stare of utter disbelief, as though she, herself, could not wrap her head around the question directed at her. [Name] could not choose which one of her inner turmoils would best fit the situation at hand: ‘You know why’, was one, and ‘I cannot, in my wildest dreams, believe that you would really ask me that’, was another. Though it seemed that no matter the choice, it still would not be enough to convey the entirety of her plight.

“I know that look, missy.” Peruveere narrowed her cross-marked eyes at [Name], drawing lines in the air as if it would raise the stakes of an imaginary court to accuse her further. “Your thoughts are all over your face! Peruveere, you’re a fool to ask me that—a lunatic to even ask why—I question to this day why I am friends with someone as empty-headed as you.”

The obsidian of her hair shone under the golden light of the artificial sun, casting away the shadows of the locks of her hair that were colored in ivory.

“Those are your words, my friend, not mine.” [Name] smirked, crossing her arms over her chest as she turned to face the fuming lady before her. “You know me, Peruveere, nothing in this world can persuade me into matrimony. If you wish to be tied to that man so very much, why don’t you marry him instead?” she offered, smiling faintly at the prospect of having to get rid of that persistent knight.

Peruveere scoffed at the idea, waving a hand in the air as though it would scatter her friend’s ridiculous suggestions.

Soon after, her expression morphed into something far too difficult for [Name] to interpret, “One day, [Name], you will wake up with your head in your hands and realize how wrong you were, and you will wish to have done things differently. You will wish that you loved him a little earlier so you could have loved him longer. And you will hear the echoes that my foresight was correct. The way I endeavored to inform you will come into light, and after all of that is said and done, only then will I trust that my earlier warning has been understood—"

[Name] let out a sound of alarm at the near cursing her friend was speaking, now it was her turn to wave her hands in the air as though it would rid of the baleful prescience. “Stop. Stop. Stop!”

Peruveere ignored [Name]’s superstitions and instead opted to convey her thoughts on all the privileges that [Name] would possess once she is married to the Commander.

“Every noble lady in the kingdom wants to be wed to Capitano! He’s got it all, you know, titles, wealth, power, influence—” Peruveere listed off his qualities from the tips of her fingers, explaining how each one of them would be beneficial to her and what it could mean for the years to come. Peruveere droned on and on until she finished at least ten laps on both hands, and [Name]’s ears were on the verge of caving in from how many times that brooding man’s name left the lips of her friend.

“And as your bestest, greatest, most fabulous, not to mention only friend, I have to root for you! I must! You two are practically born of the same soul! And to address your previous statement, no, I will not marry him on your behalf. Capitano is not what I look for in a man, he wears too much black, his friend on the other hand, oh my Dainsleif—hey! Where are you going?”

Peruveere quickly traced the steps of her departing friend, not quite finished with listing off the reasons why [Name] should accept the Commander’s proposal.

[Name] reckons Peruveere could never understand.

She wasn’t present at the time. She wasn’t even part of [Name]’s life when it all came crashing down. So how could Peruveere understand why rejecting Capitano hurts [Name] more than it did him? Especially when he was so persistent, so dedicated, treating her feelings as though being at the receiving end of it was an honor far higher than the heavens. Especially because he does all of that.

Capitano gave it all… and it was being wasted when she could not bring herself to return it despite every inch of her soul begging her to do so.

“A place where I won’t hear another mention of that man’s name—” [Name] saw Peruveere brace herself to question and quickly snuffed it out, “—or his accomplishments, his power, his oh-so-handsome visage, or anything even remotely related to him!” [Name] yelled, sick of all the iterating questions of why when she had already been so clear of her intentions. Peruveere, mother, even my sisters… all asking the same thing, and no matter my answer, they still won’t relent.

“[Name]…”

She snapped out of her thoughts, the consequence of her action hitting her with full force as she looked at the stupefied expression on her friend’s face. “Peruveere—I… I apologize, I did not mean to—”

Peruveere caught the hand that was reaching out to her, encasing them fully in warmth as she gazed at [Name] in a kind light. “No, I should be the one to apologize, [Name]. I shouldn’t have pushed you too far. If you don’t wish to speak about him or hear of his person, then I won’t tell of him at all.”

Peruveere’s patience ate at [Name]’s heart, flooding it with guilt. Words said on a whim that hurt her friend’s heart when all she ever wanted to do was ensure that [Name] could live with someone by her side.

Perhaps Peruveere did understand. Maybe she understood far more than [Name] could have.

“If only my family was as accepting as you.” [Name] could only smile at her kindness, squeezing the hand that held hers.

The two friends laughed at the thought knowing well that the heavens would fall before the great house of [L/n] weakens their immovable resolve. [Name]’s lineage wasn’t exactly known for being one of the friendly fellows of the kingdom, with their emotionless fronts, and closely guarded connections, it proved to be difficult to even just see one of their own walking down the streets as leniently as [Name] did. Their headstrong attitudes and unrelenting tendencies to stop at nothing to get what they wanted drove any and all coming acquaintances away.

It was a miracle that [Name] even had Peruveere for this long.

“I just… don’t wish to be unhappy all my life.” [Name] admits sadly, choosing to look at the dust littered on the cobblestone path.

“What do you mean?”

The chatters of everyday life seemed to blend in with all the colors of Khaenri'ah, until all that remained was the echo of the man loved by all… and yet loved only her.

She laughs and caught Peruveere’s stare with a net of fear—frightened of the uncertainty that came with a person like Il-Capitano. “I hear what people say about him, too, you know. The ever-righteous Captain, the nigh-invincible Captain, the brave and fearless Captain.”

“All good traits, are they not?”

[Name] gave her a pained stare, “When people put him in that light, he is. Yet all the same, it paints him in a different color… like he’s so far away. Don’t you fear that someone possessing such unprecedented righteousness is a latent danger? How… how could someone like that ever truly live? Will he ever truly confide? What if I am the embodiment of all that he detests—everything he cannot accept? Could he still bring himself to love me just as he proclaims?”

“You have yet to know that, [Name].” Peruveere shook her head, trying to coax her friend out of the spiralling doubt, “It isn’t fair to put assumptions on him when you haven’t given him the chance to act on how he really feels. He loves you. For eight long years he’s proven it, practically reformed the heavens so his adoration for you could be caged by the finiteness of this world!”

[Name] denied her friend’s suggestion, finding it too farfetched to be bled into reality.

How could she bring herself to believe his sentiments to be true when the prime of his promises to her had been broken from the moment he turned his back on her that fateful night?

I want to love you, I really do… but what would become of me if I gave it all to you once more? I know it’s tiring to love—to wait. I know I’m not the only one drowning in this ocean of grief when a thousand others were subjected to the same heartache.

But why does it feel like such a sin to love you now?

I don’t know how I’ll free myself from this fear—this soul-binding fear of leaving it all behind.

“Love is an illusion, Peruveere. We believe it because we haven’t seen what’s beyond that. That just as easily as you claim it to be true, it is just as easily gone—taken away before we know it.”

Because what if I did do it—leave everything behind? And what if beyond that, you will leave me, too?

Peruveere sighed in surrender. [Name] spoke words of fear, sentiments plunged in the depths of heartache, a great many things to project hostility but they all meant one thing: come and save me—if you truly love me, take me away from here. That much she understood, it was [Name] who was blinded by her shadows who remained cloaked in ignorance.

“But he might prove you wrong if you give him a chance.”

At her words, [Name] raised her head to look at her, and Peruveere took it as a sign to continue.

“Tell him of your grievances, what makes you happy, the things that upset you. Perchance you might find him a lot more flattering than he does you. He isn’t asking you for a thousand chances [Name], just one.”

‘Can I escort you to town, my lady?’

‘May I have the next dance, Lady [Name]?’

‘Please, do me the honor of accepting my hand.’

“And what if it doesn’t work?” She whispers, feeling the tears prickle at the back of her eyes.

Peruveere smiles, caressing the hills of her cheeks, “You’d be surprised at how often it does.”

The lady found herself tracing the paths of the past. How the pillars of her fear formed the walls that guard her frail heart. Underneath the mountains of rejection, blanketed by years' worth of injustice, numbed by the unrelenting march of time, there existed a version of her… who had once loved the knight more than there were stars in the sky.

“Are you so ugly that you have to hide behind a canvas of the evening sky?”

The masked squire pivoted on his heel, nearly swatting her head off clean with the wooden practice sword.

“Whoa—hey!”

A flock of birds flew away from the volume of her voice, shaking the foliage bordering the courtyard. A gentle breeze swayed between the falling leaves, scattering a palette of white and yellow petals in their wake, painting upon the once-green lands with their hue.

Domed by the artificial Khaenri'ahn sky, a young lady and a young boy stood face to face. One with a soul as radiant as the stars in the heavens crouching down to cover her head, and another dyed in the color of the midnight sun, entranced by her abrupt advent.

As if realizing the silence left by their strange encounter, the masked boy quickly got down on one knee and struggled to find the words to say, fearful that he might be offending a prominent figure in court. “I apologize, my lady. I did not mean to endanger you in any way.”

The young woman, as though struck by the reminder of their difference in status, quickly gathered herself: pulling her figure from the ground, patting away the micro spectacle of dust that had managed to touch her expensive dress.

“Ahem.” She cleared her throat, every bit of her mannerisms hinting that she was not used to interacting in such a formal fashion—as though she was not used to interacting at all! She took a peek at his still kneeling form, not finding him the least bit familiar, he must be new. She memorized the slouch in his shoulders, the hesitation in his movements, the threads of obsidian hair protruding from under his ridiculous helmet.

“You are pardoned, please rise.”

A younger version of [Name] stood before the young boy.

“You are most kind, my lady.”

The one who would soon be known as Capitano.

The lady, curious of his reasons for hiding his face, went by the gardens to pursue an answer. Unfailingly, for three full moons and a crescent, she sought out his company. Finding even the most mundane questions of everyday life directed at him, yet the prime interest she had was not answered until the first fall of the snow.

“I hope you like the cakes. The helpers in the kitchen always seem to make far too much of it,” the young lady walked around the edge of the winter wonders, watching as the young knight trained even under the descent of the cold. “And because no one wants to share them with me, I am left to enjoy them all.”

The young knight, ever so subtly, turned his head in her direction, a small gesture to let her know that despite his straining routines he would always make room for the things she had to share.

“I’m glad to be the one who shares them with you, my lady.”

[Name] caught herself smiling at the knight, feeling as the flames stemmed from her racing heart all the way to the horizons of her fingertips, casting fire to the hills of her cheeks, the bowels of her soul—the embers in her mind.

No words followed those fleeting sentences, only the breaths of a diligent knight, and a lady brimmed with adoration. The heavens falling to witness the waltz of two souls, dancing to the melody of a tune made to bind for all eternity.

The knight ceased his practice, drawing nearer to the lady waiting by the steps.

She could have watched him from the balcony, or not at all yet here… in this place shrouded with the harshness of winter, closer to where he was—there, she stayed.

He began to wonder, when did I begin to see like this? As though all of the heavens and the earth only came into being so they could hold you. What greatness did I do… that I am worthy to behold you? That I am so fortunate to have existed in a time—a place where I could love you as much as I desired?

Driven by the intensity of his emotions, the knight turned his back and began to walk away from her.

The lady, unsure of what to make of it all, snickered under her breath. [Name] found his behavior strangely endearing, to think one of the most skilled in knighthood could have been rendered flustered just by the thoughts running in his head was something not even the greatest of alchemists could conjure.

With a small laugh, [Name] stepped a foot into the snow followed by another, slowly tracing the footprints the knight in front of her had carved into the winter treasures.

The knight, who had initially only intended to break away for a few seconds, took notice of the way his lady had started to walk upon the path he made. With a smile of his own, he began to take wider steps, knowing that she would surely start to struggle.

[Name] had to leap in her step to continue her little fun, but the added distance in the interval of his steps along with the weight of her clothes had her stumbling a few moments later.

The young knight, ever so quick in his steps, turned with swift haste, catching her in his arms before she could hit the snowy ground.

A different object, however, had fallen into the snow.

“Oh,” Her breath was painted white from the cold, yet her eyes reflected the deep blues of the irises that looked to her with such ardent affection. “You aren’t ugly.”

But stars did not shine, they burned. And just as quickly did the snow thaw, the reality of their distant worlds had dawned on them. Lightning painted the canvas of their skies, ripping it open for the rain to fall—dousing the embers of their adoration for one another.

“Please… I beg you, do not go.” An older lady clung to the cloths of a man’s armor, hugged by the artificial lights of the Khaenri'ahn sky… the two lovers held onto one another as though it was their last day on this land.

The man touched the lady’s cheeks, ridding the mar of silver water racing down the canvas of her face. “I must, my dear. It is my duty.”

The Serpent Knights have been called to defend the borders of the kingdom from the ill-will of the abyss. A duty that was promised honor, gratitude, and legacy whether they emerged victorious or not—whether they returned breathing or not at all.

[Name]’s father was a knight bestowed the rank Captain, prestige that came with the comfort of wealth, and the oath of power. But for her mother, who loved her husband dearly, all it came with was the looming danger, the never-ending saga of fearing for his life.

And even if [Name] was still beyond the sense of maturity, she could piece apart that much.

Many words were exchanged by her mother and father, promises of eternity, a love to last a thousand lifetimes and a thousand more after that, that her mother only needed to wait—wait, and surely, her husband would return to her.

Yet as selfish as it sounds, even if oaths were broken and lives were lost, her mother didn’t want her father to go.

“It is also your duty to stay by your family’s side! We need you—I… I need you.”

“But the people need me more.”

[Name] who was watching from behind a towering pillar, looked at her father in disbelief, feeling as the little crevices in her heart began to rip its surface clean. Silently coming to terms with the truth that knights and all that they were associated with will always, unfailingly, put their duty above any other.

The real world was not like the stories her father had told her. Knights do not stay with the people they love when a kingdom is in threaten for ruin… they go out there and fight for the kingdom they had sworn to protect.

Even if it cost them their lives.

Even if the price paid for a momentary tranquility is the anguish of a broken heart, a wife’s grief for the loss of a husband, a daughter’s heart shattered to a million irreparable pieces at the loss of a father, a family torn apart so another could live completely.

And as if the universe wanted to play, [Name] found herself looking into the abyssal canvas of his face on the far side of the courtyard, almost as if she was asking him the same request as her mother did to her father.

‘Don’t go…’

But she knew that this righteous knight, the ever so brave recruit, the nigh-invincible young Capitano was the same as her honorable father.

Even if the price paid for a momentary equanimity was the silence of a lover, the heartache of a soul left alone in the world, a heart once entrusted to the hands of those who had sworn never to break it, shattered by the same hands.

Because that was the price you paid for loving a knight.

The weight of the years numbed the pain, and the tears had blurred the memories. Yet all the same, it proved that no matter how deep the valley that severed their ties, it could not hide the lingering affection littering the oceans of their skies.

"Oh, Il-Capitano~ Commander of the Royal Army."

“We have most patiently awaited your safe return.”

“What an honor it is to have someone like you in the kingdom’s service.”

Nobilities and common people alike gushed at the arrival of the esteemed commander. One enshrouded in the colors of the night, with what looked like the heaviest coat in all of mankind draped over his shoulders.

He marched through the gates of the kingdom perched atop his tall, midnight steed. And as if feeling her drilling stare, that faceless helmet turned to gaze in her direction. A simple gesture, one which a stranger could have passed as nothing but a meaningless movement, but to [Name]… she knew, that it meant more to the knight than the praises sung at his name.

Perhaps it was a trick of the light, or the sadness clawing its way out of her soul. [Name] would have taken any other explanation, any other reason, so long as it wasn’t the one forcing its way through her throat.

For a fleeting second, everything had crumbled away. In the place of that tall, imposing, broad-shouldered knight was a younger boy, one whose eyes looked far too hesitant to urge the stallion forward, his form was slouched, often kneeling before her, he who had promised the world.

Yet when she blinked, both figures were gone, one buried under the weight of time, and the other marching forward, once again turning his back on her.

No longer a young, naïve, lovestruck squire but a revered commander, righteous, brave, and powerful.

Rumors in the plaza spoke about how the Commander never smiled, or that there was nothing in his life other than his duty and the endless battles against the abyss. But the conversation that sparked about the most was the mystery behind his mask.

Others spoke that his face had been scarred by his countless conquests that he had no choice but to hide it from his enemies, while some say that he was born unfortunate in the department of looks therefore forcing him to wear such a thing to shield his deformed face from the eyes of the public.

But [Name] knew otherwise.

“Isn’t this exciting, [Name]?” Her friend, Peruveere, looks to her with eager eyes.

The young lady was a descendant of the previous dynasty, named Crimson Moon. Peruveere was the one who had so boldly claimed to be her friend after [Name] had thrown a fistful of flowers at her by accident.

[Name] shrugged and pretended to be indifferent to it all, forcing herself to look away as she felt his stares burn holes into her very being. "Eh, I've fallen witness to better."

That was a lie, of course.

The only one that could ever hope to best him in anything was himself, and [Name] was sure that the ever so charming Il-Capitano, Commander of the Royal Army, knew that for himself. But [Name] would rather eat all the snow in her courtyard than have to admit that to his face or anyone for that matter.

"The cats loitering the streets would hiss at you for saying that. Even they admire Capitano." Peruveere shook [Name] back and forth as she eagerly watched as the fleet of soldiers march back to the palace grounds.

[Name] tried to ignore the incessant beatings of her heart at the mention of his name. One which she hasn’t spoken in a long, long while.

"He looks far more miserable since the last I saw him." She unconsciously whispers, tracing the outlines of his shadows until his figure is nothing but a speck in the far-off distance.

Then again, how long has it been since I last saw you? Certainly not long enough!

"Perhaps it's because you keep declining him." Peruveere perks, smiling pointedly at [Name] who was still looking in the direction of the castle.

The lady let out a bitter chuckle, of course, I’d never marry him!

Capitano returned to her all those moons ago, nearly after three years, he returned.

But by then, her heart had come to realize the weight of his promises. That next to his duties, they meant absolutely nothing.

"Oh, woe. His poor soul." She emptily comments, finally tearing her gaze away from the reminder of his broken oaths.

"Please, [Name]. Miserable, yes. But poor he most certainly is not." Peruveere hooks an arm with [Name] and dragged her to descend the steps of her balcony.

"Do tell, Peruveere." [Name] rolls her eyes at her friend's antics, with half a mind listening to her ramble on and on about the oh-so-amazing Capitano, as they walked the now-empty streets to the plaza.

"All that power and wealth to his name and he commands half the Royal Army." Peruveere boasts as though speaking about that man made his achievements hers as well.

She really does hold that… man in high regard.

"The miserable half?" [Name] jests, leaving a fuming noble lady on the side of the street.

And so, tired of the longing glances and hearing the rhythm of two souls crying for one another, the heavens had moved to have it ceased…

Far into the depths of the night, when the trees slept and the lands were blanketed in silence, [Name] found herself standing by the steps that led to a courtyard.

Although this time, the space before her was covered with blades of grass and blossoming flora, the breeze was not sharp but rather a gentle lull in the ever-growing warmth of the season—a great contrast to a time when this place was riddled with cold, covered in his footsteps, thriving in the words he had no intention of keeping.

‘My lady,’ he whispers, drawing nearer to her. Close enough that his breath tangled with hers as the warmth of his hand draped over the hills of her reddened cheeks. ‘My heart calls your name, unfailingly, every night. My soul desires to see you—far too much that it has my gaze lingering in everything that reminds me of you. Each day, this feeling in me grows and I fear that the skies can no longer house them.’

‘I love you, [Name]… most ardently, please allow me the honor of staying by your side—’

“[Name].”

The sudden call broke the young lady from her daydreams. She turned hastily to meet the tired eyes looking straight at her.

“Mother.”

With the golden light of the chandelier seeping past the windowpanes, the scenery before her nearly resembled a painting of the heavens… except, the subject’s face was dyed in colors of loneliness—her mother’s heart died along with her father many, many years ago.

“You have a visitor.” She states plainly before tracing back her steps to enter the house once again.

[Name] furrowed her brows in confusion at who could be visiting her at this ungodly hour. Surely, Peruveere was sound asleep by now, and even if she wasn’t, her mother would never go as far as tell [Name] of her presence when she was already known by her entire family—she’s my only friend, it would be strange for them to do so.

As she stormed her brain for any other acquaintances who might be brave enough to knock on the gates of her home, the sounds of heavy footfalls and the clinking of metal chains flew past her ears.

Until a large body loomed over her fretting figure.

Even if she dared not to look, the stranger’s shadow—all broad-shouldered and imposing—already told her enough that this was no acquaintance.

Are you starving for another rejection? You really are thick-faced…

“Commander.” She greets coldly, curtsying for the sake of formality, rising once more to bravely look at the nothingness that shielded his face.

For a moment, Capitano did not know what to say, rendered speechless by the weight of reality that she really was standing in front of him. No longer crowds apart, no wall stopping him from seeing her, no meddling audience.

Just him and her, at last.

“You look well, my lady.” He smiles, although it was quickly wiped away by the steely expression still plastered on her face as well as the realization that she could not see him.

“I have no interest in making small talk with you, Commander.” [Name] looks away, turning her attention to any other thing that wasn’t the darkness in the place of his visage. “Speak of what you want and be done with it.”

A faint click resounded in the silent atmosphere followed by a small sound of something hitting the earth. Capitano decides then, that if [Name] was going to drive him away no matter his intentions, it was best to just be honest and let all this tangled mess unravel thread by thread, even if it cut and strangled him in the process.

“Your mother… desires our union.”

[Name] spun on her heels at the imprudent claim, raising a finger to point at him daringly, “By that you mean—you desire this union.”

The now unmasked knight gently shook his head in denial, taking a small piece of parchment from the insides of his cloak, one which was sealed in the sigil of her house.

In a hurried panic, the noble lady swiped the paper from his hand, and every bit of him burned at the faintest graze of her touch.

With unbattered patience, Capitano watched as her eyes traced the ink that was bled onto the paper. He was over the stars, yes, but above all else, he wanted to know… if she wished for this to come into reality.

“You schemed this.” [Name] looks to him in disbelief, a line of silver brimming the horizons of her eyes. She clutched the paper so tightly that the mountains of her knuckles had been painted white, and the parchment had nothing left to do but rip apart at the center from the intensity of her hold.

Capitano awaited her to draw nearer, pressing his lips together before he whispered, “I did not.”

“You did.” She insisted, stopping in her trails once she was close enough to look him straight in the eye. “Because why now, out of the many times I have been suave by some nobleman did my mother finally agree? To you, no less. And I mean that in every possible offense.”

His ocean eyes searched the contours of her face for any hints of remorse, traces of hesitation, creases of consideration—even the littlest of faults, he would have accepted. If she was hiding them, her true emotions, even just a speck of the love he once held in the palm of his hands, then he must let her know that she was doing a splendid job.

“Why do you detest me so?” He asks softly, unconsciously raising a hand to caress her face but before he could, [Name] had already turned away.

The lady let out a loud scoff and began to walk away from him, blatantly avoiding his questioning gaze.

Unable to hide his frustration, the knight gambled his chances. "Tell me then, that I am not wanted."

[Name] halted in her steps, still looking in the direction of the bordering trees. Desperately ignoring the echoes of a treasured memory formed once upon a time in the same place she stood upon now.

“Leave, Commander.” She says, in a tone so bitter she could almost taste it.

“Look me in the eye, My Lady.” He urges demandingly, softly— “Step forth and tell me that you no longer want me. Scream at me. Command me to step aside, show me that I am the last man in this world you could ever want to marry. Then, my heart is yours to break.”

Capitano was not one to relent, choosing to close the distance between them in a few calculated steps, standing in front of her way.

“Tell me, what I did to have warranted your aggression. I will make it right, and I swear to you that I will do no such thing to tarnish your honor or be the center of your unhappiness.”

And after many, many years, [Name] finally gathered the courage she stacked upon one another and looked him in the eyes. That same pair of irises, dyed in the colors of the ocean that haunted her every waking moment.

“You Serpent Knights and your promises. Cease them already! You know you will break them sooner or later—you always do, unfailingly. And you always will.” She seethes, hitting his chest as if doing so would make the pain in hers hurt less.

“I will not.” He counters, raising his arms to wrap around her frame.

“You will. Don’t lie to me!”

“I won’t, and I would never.”

[Name] clutched a fistful of his clothing, pulling him closer to her—far too near that one push would have his lips grazing hers. 

“Alright then, swear to me right now that you—that you will not die. That when we are wed, you will return to me no matter what—there will stand no mountain, no ocean, nor lifetimes between you and me. Swear it. Say it to me right now.”

Capitano stares at her silence, long gone was the frail young lady who adored pastries. Her eyes shone in a vibrant light, the walls around her heart falling brick by brick to allow him the honor of gazing at the years of anguish she had endured by his single mistake, the passion in her eyes burning straight through his will to speak. This was the most she had ever spoken to him.

“I… ” He whispers, desperately fighting off the urge to just draw nearer and end this agony. I love you.

“You can’t.”

[Name] laughs bitterly, freeing her hold on him and walking past his figure.

No matter the years that passed him by, Il-Capitano remains the same righteous, brave, and powerful Serpent Knight. [Name] was not about to succumb to the shackles of matrimony with the inkling thought that she be a widow once the threat of war arose. She will not go down a sinking boat. Be married to a dying man.

“That’s a big promise.” Capitano swallows the lump in his throat as he watches her walk about the garden, ever so close to walking away completely. And he had this inkling thought, if she were to leave his sight right now, he would never see her again.

‘You’re drawing the shorter end of the stick with me,’ those were her words all those years ago, when his attempts were nothing but a flickering flame. Naïve, in the kindest words; half meant, in the worst.

Still, the way she had so kindly given him a choice on the matter had him steel his resolve. How easy it must have been for her to say no, tell him off—that she wishes to never see his face again, be near his soul, or be reminded of his existence—but she didn’t.

Even if it slipped her thoughts, what she gave him all those moments ago… was a chance.

One chance. One take. One moment to make it all right.

And all of the heavens will be damned if he did not take it.

Capitano did not speak of love to her, rather he showed it with every atom of his being. In every breath he took, all the gazes he sent her way, in his lingering but persistent affection. There, right along with him… his love had existed.

[Name] remains in silence, trying to suppress the trembling of her voice. He was not one to relent, not then… and most certainly not now.

It was useless trying to get soldiers to choose their personal attachments over the good of the many. That’s why I dearly detest them. Why allow yourself to love, to make home in the heart of another… only to leave and never return?  

Capitano waited for her, even when there was no guarantee that she could love him in return.

If she would have him, he would have all the eternities to tell her he loves her.

But here, when she is not so accepting of him, he would not do it.

‘I would rather live my days as the most unfortunate man to ever come into being than to live a life where you do not know that I love you.’

And his sentiments had sought him in his every waking moment.

“But for you, anything.”

[Name]’s world came to a standstill.

Every star nestled in the depths of the cosmos had ceased their dance. Blackholes frozen mid-spin. Nebulas that scattered like clouds lulling at the echo of his words. It drifted from galaxy to galaxy, in different timelines, in every version of existence.

"I would have seized the stars for you if you asked." He continues, taking step after step to close the distance between them, a silent promise that once she allows him to be near—a place in her life where he could stay, he would never leave.

Capitano could never have fathomed the gravity of those words, pulling every world she built, the doubts, the longing, every molecule of eagerness... they collided, spun, condensed, and burst forth to resound his words for all the eternities to come.

"The stars?" She echoes.

Everything began spinning fast—too fast. The colors around her merged, blurring her surroundings until all she could see was him. 

"Taken every single one of them." He affirms, tucking a stray lock behind her ear. "I would tally the heartbeats of every single thing that has ever lived on this planet, count the grain of sands in the deserts, drain the oceans, freeze the skies—you will only ever need to ask… and I will make it so. This is how much I would love you, if you will have me. You only ever need to say one word. Speak my name, and I am yours... from now until you are sick of me, 'til the last of the embers burn out into oblivion, until life ceases to exist—even beyond the destruction of nothingness—I am yours."

She allowed him to cross the distance between them. Not raising a hand in protest when the expanse of his palm had covered the plains of her cheeks.

She didn’t utter a single rejection when he touched her forehead with his, not even when his nose brushed against hers.

"In your acceptance, and in your denial... I am yours. In death and life. In the wake of destruction and reform. In this soul—before and beyond. Yours... and no one else's."

She didn’t do anything, even when the softness of his lips had descended on the meadows of her hairline.

Capitano, her memory reminded. Oh, but how could she ever forget? Not when he was looking at her like that—like one word from her would send him to paradise. She should be the one looking at him like that.

Because as it stands, [Name] was already there—in paradise—as though his soul was the shadow that guards her everyday life, the scent of flowers that follows her like daylight… the love that soothes her heart, every time he was away.

And so, the woman set her heart free and granted the knight a chance.

The lady and the knight loved with a love that was more than love.

Affection that was far from perfect, but they were made perfect for each other.

And so… love was made perfect for us.

The sound of waves crashing against the rocky mountains filled their hearts with ease. Nothing but the serene symphonies of nature pooling within the depths of their ears.

A thousand wonders brought by autumn descended from the trees, now looking as if they were reaching for the vast, multi-painted sky above. The breeze carried the leaves dyed in shades of vermillion and gold, scattering them across the earth.

The lady’s sudden laugh broke apart the peaceful atmosphere, making his heart tremble in delight as his head ever so slightly looked to her direction.

The way the late afternoon breeze danced with the threads on her head, eyes reflecting that of the sun which sat on the hands of the seemingly never-ending ocean. Her face that looked as if a painter spilled a bucket of orange dye on it.

His deep-colored irises stared at her with wonder.

And Capitano thought to himself, how could anyone… be as lovely as her?

Feeling his gaze fall upon her, the lady tilted her head in confusion, a small yet playful smile resting upon her lips. "What are you looking at, man?"

Raising his bare hand, the knight gently rested it on her cheek, leaning in to touch her forehead with his before momentarily closing his eyes only to open them and whisper...

"I'm looking at you, woman."

The lady wondered then how she could have endured denying the knight for so long when the light of his love was something she now no longer knew how to live without. She asks the heavens for answers, and sometimes even herself if the reason she was born long ago was so she could live in this plane of existence… and be loved by him.

The day the heavens bestowed upon the land a gift so majestic and wonderful that the earth has marveled upon it ever since its descent from the gentle hands of the clouds was beginning to dawn upon them once more.

At least... to the knight who loved her dearly, it was his interpretation of the special occasion. Her birthday. He was always so dramatic, that one.

His ocean-dyed eyes stared lovingly at the lady who stood not too far from where he was currently leaning against the threshold,

The knight observed the woman from a distance. His heart free from wickedness.

Ever righteous, they spoke of him. But with her, Capitano was certain he would do unspeakable things to those who dared bring her harm. Brave, still… he feared her denial—that a day will come when she realizes she did not want him anymore. Powerful, so why did he feel no power when he stood next to her?

Why was he anything but their depictions when she was the one standing in front of him? [Name] could have seen him as anything… yet she chose to see him as he was, as Capitano. No more, and certainly no bit less.

He loved her so, even more than his own life. And his affection for her flourished like fresh spring flowers each and every single passing day.

There was just absolutely nothing about her that he couldn't adore. The little things like how she would swivel and sway with the leaves when she danced with the melody of the breeze, exclaiming that the years of arduous dance practices had finally been put to good use, or when she would hum a tune when the silence was too heavy to bear.

To the knight, everything she did represented grace and beauty in a different light. She was simply just... heavenly.

When the light of the crescent moon penetrated through the curtain of clouds, the knight knew that the awaited day has been gifted to both him and to the woman he loved.

The gentle rhythm of waves crashing against the shoreline filled the silence left by the cold evening.

As quiet and light as a feather, he approached her, draping a shawl over her shoulders before sitting right next to her on the bench.

The woman was not the least bit startled by her lover's stealthy advance, far used to it more than she would have liked to admit. In the place of caution was peace; his presence helped calm whatever disaster was brewing up within her.

And ever so subtly, his warm fingers interlaced with her own. The little touches had flames burning at the tips of their fingers, crawling their way to the caves of their hearts, bursting forth to drape them in a blanket of fiery warmth.

"My dear, the moon is beautiful, isn’t it?" The woman's gaze turned towards her lover the moment his endearment left his lips—a far wanted term than the ever-so-formal my lady.

"Indeed, it is..." A gentle smile replaced the previous dazed expression that had been painted upon her face.

Nothing more was said within the next few passing moments. No words in all the letters of the worlds could describe the way their souls seemed to long for the other's presence.

"Thank you, my love." She spoke in a gentle whisper, leaning her head to rest on the expanse of his shoulder.

The midnight-eyed knight craned his head to face the lady who was still staring at the moon, admiring the way the lights above reflected the colors of her face.

"What for?" He questioned, unconsciously rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb.

She gave his hand a subtle embrace of her own, smiling at him with such gentleness that he was afraid she'd break at the lightest of caresses. "For staying..."

For remaining by my side even if there was nothing for you but denial. For your persistence. For your affection. For everything and anything all at once. That you’ve loved me even if I was the least deserving of it. Because you didn’t surrender.

You had so many chances to give it all up—so many reasons to grow weary and leave, but you didn’t. You found reasons to stay.

Caught off guard, the knight could only stare at her. An unexplainable blend of emotions swirling within the pools of blue that tinted his irises.

I’m happy to be at the end of your adoration.

He chuckled at her sentimental declaration, indeed... everything she did was absolutely breathtaking.

"Come." He urged, tugging at their entangled limbs, prompting her to rise to her feet.

"Alright, alright..." she laughs, "so impatient."

And with the flick of his wrist, Capitano interlocked their hands once more. His bare hand found anchor on her waist, pulling her closer to him.

Resting his forehead against hers, he swayed her to a melody that was nothing but silence for the rest of the world and yet a string of sounds of the most wonderful tunes for the two of them.

Indeed, love does work in mysterious ways.

The commander unhooked his hands from hers, circling one around her back, while the other carded the threads settled upon her head.

"Happy birthday to you, my love." He whispers, his featherlight breath tickling the shell of her ear. "Make a wish."

Just as how he embraced her with utmost respect and adoration, she did the same for him: hugging him tighter as she muttered the words that made his heart almost leap out of his chest.

"Be mine."

Capitano tucked away the stubborn lock of hair behind her ear, gazing deeply into the depths of her irises, memorizing the lines etched on her pupils, the way her lashes would graze her cheeks in the stray moments where she blinked. I’m in love with you. He hung those reminders of her like stars, formed constellations in her glory so that he may be reminded that no matter where he went… a place exists—a time existed—where she and he lived under the same moon.

"Already yours."

But the angels, not half so happy in the stars, envied the love of the knight and the lady. And that was the reason as all men knew, had them move everything to have their love ceased…

Magnificent, that was what he was.

Rain clouds blotted the vast sky, casting shadows upon the face of the lady who stood by the loggia. Her feet freezing her to where she stood as her eyes settled on the dark gloom ahead. The once gentle gale of the season had turned sharp, as though they carried shards of broken glass along with their escape. She listened intently to the whispers of the people, carried by the trees who had lived long enough to tell the tale of a dynasty made strong by human hands.

Her vision, though still a bit hazy, had begun merging the two-layered images that had played out in front of her: the sun that was nearing the end of its time of the day—little twinkling dots that had scattered across the palette of colors that painted the sky, and him, the anchor amidst this hell-bound storm.

His words flew from one ear and out the other, all she saw was the crumbling castle, pillars that held every brick and structure made strong by humans be submerged into the depths of the waters below.

What a terrifying sight indeed, such treasures kept hidden from the cruelty of this world.

And ever so softly did she feel a gentle tug on her hand, a small affectionate gesture that had urged her to move forward in order to match the pace of the one in front of her. Slowly but surely, her sight had focused on a man whose back was turned against her, the gentle yet impactful approach of the frost wiping away the footprints he had imprinted as he had continued to lead her to his desired destination.

Up on that hill stood a tall gateway, towering pillars of nothingness standing on either side.

Embers descended from the sky like the first fall of snow, and the flames of the heavens shone brightly as though they were stars.

His feet carried him from the bloodied pavement and onto the grassy ground that had covered the small hill.

“Go.” He whispers, pushing her towards her escape.

It felt cruel to do this to her—to [Name]. To ask the only woman he loved… to let him go.

Their laughter resonated within the empty atmosphere of that scenery. Her smile, so bright it put even the setting sun to shame. But now, only the thought of reality remained, crushing them from its weight.

“No.” [Name] shook her head, latching onto his bloodied sleeve, preventing him from marching back to all that desolation. “Don’t go, please. I beg you… don’t—Capitano, please.” [Name] fell to her knees, the seams of her clothing dyed in the hue of life that stained his shoes.

“[Name]…” His hands blanketed hers, gently—desperately trying to pry her grip open.

“No. No, no… you—you swore to me. You promised me. You gave me your word.”

Her ears struggled to process what her Knight was saying. Everything sounded as if she was submerged in water and yet her eyes could see the knight tense and stagger as he fought to keep his own morals for her survival.

Capitano knelt before her, discarding the veil he put upon his head, just as he once did all those moons ago.

He knelt beside her and caged her face between his hands. Capitano took it all in, everything. From the way the threads laid upon her head shone under what little luminescence embraced them, her ears that pointed a little too sharply, the little dots that littered her skin, her eyes brimmed with silver, the rivers of water that raced down her rose-dyed cheeks, the tremble of her lips, ones that he had never got to taste—and he never will. He seized them all, plucked them one by one, and hung them like stars. He engraved them all in his darkened sky—swore to heaven and earth that he would look to them every night... because after this moment, he knew he would never see them again. “And I intend to keep it.”

Finally, as twilight settled upon the two lovers, the knight turned and faced the woman he loved so dearly—for the last time, the last time in a good long while.

"Wait for me, my love. Wait for me, and I'll come back to you."

Even with her silver-brimmed gaze, the magnificently terrifying sight of a giant wall frosting into creation had slowly seeped into the crevices of her being, serving as the cold that froze her heart.

Through the tears, she stared at his unmoving figure. This time, Capitano was facing the enemy.

“I hear what people say about him, too, you know. The ever-righteous Captain, the nigh-invincible Captain, the brave and fearless Captain.”

“All good traits, are they not?”

Il-Capitano.

“When people put him in that light, he is. Yet all the same, it paints him in a different color… like he’s so far away. Don’t you fear that someone possessing such unprecedented righteousness is a latent danger? How… how could someone like that ever truly live? Will he ever truly confide? What if I am the embodiment of all that he detests—everything he cannot accept? Could he still bring himself to love me just as he proclaims?”

The ever so righteous commander, the brave and fearless captain, the powerful captain.

“You have yet to know that, [Name]. It isn’t fair to put assumptions on him when you haven’t given him the chance to act on how he really feels. He loves you. For eight long years he’s proven it, practically reformed the heavens so his adoration for you could be caged by the finiteness of this world!”

But to her, he was simply just Capitano.

The commander she loved.

“I hope you like the cakes. The helpers in the kitchen always seem to make far too much of it, and because no one wants to share them with me, I am left to enjoy them all.”

“I’m glad to be the one who shares them with you, my lady.”

The kind and affectionate captain. My one love… Capitano.

“I love you.” She whispers to the wind.

It dawns on her then, that she never really said those to him. Capitano told it to her through a hundred thousand different actions yet she—she had never told him. Not even once.

“I love you…”

And now…

[Name] didn't fear if another war was to come, nor did she fear that he would turn his back on her and cast her away again—no.

What caused her heartbreak was the certainty that after this... nothing would follow.

She would be stuck in stagnancy; in an endless cycle of trying to figure out what she could've done better. How she could have changed his fate, free him from the holds of death. Wondering that if she did things differently then things wouldn't end up like this—that she wouldn't have to be forced to see him leave… when she wasn’t ready to let him go.

I just got you… don’t—don’t leave me so soon. Please…

Deep down, no matter how much she tried to deny, [Name] knew what would come once she opens her eyes.

“… thank you for the adventure.”

To my Captain—darling, dearest, dead.

   Many suns have risen. The lands are riddled with ruins of dynasties who once thought they would last for eternity. And the gods have been replaced… yet here, I remain. In this desolation, in the midst of destruction, cradled under a hundred thousand lights, I linger.

   The echo of your laughter haunts me—even if more than half a millennium has dawned. I have seen more than a myriad of faces, descendants of those who once believed they would parent no children… and every time I do, I am reminded of you.

   Of your ardent affection, and bold declarations. Your promises of eternity, and the dedication that came along with it—yet you were the first to fall, the first to stand against the ones who threatened our home.

   Your love will see me in forever. Just as you had sworn. You, however, will not.

   My Captain… my love, my darling… my dearest.

   When we crossed paths, my life began. As though the once monochromatic mundaneness of my every waking moment was dyed in thousands of shades of color by your dark, and brooding figure. I told you, didn’t I? That when I pictured my life beyond it all, it would not be with you. I spoke the words, ‘I would prefer to eat the remains of field tillers than be courted by the likes of you’, still, you did not relent. I once had thought that you were a madman, choosing me out of everyone else—when you could have had anyone, yet you declared your love was mine to hold. I told you that you were getting the short end of the stick with me… and you said the words, ‘I’d rather live as the most unfortunate man for all my days than to live a life where I cannot love you’. So dramatic, that you are. If you weren’t a commander, you could pass as an actor.

   Sometimes, love came as simple as staring at the moon—but sometimes, it was as arduous as forcing the heavens to align. Still, I loved doing both for you.

   My life began the moment you made yourself known to me. My Captain, my dearest… my one true love.

   I once had thought that the hardest thing in life was to find someone you couldn’t live without… but now it seems that it’s harder to live life without him—without you.

   My life began with you, so why is it that before long, yours had ended…?

   Your love was my haven, a paradise in this space riddled with chaos—comfort in a place destined to ruin.

   Oh, but how quickly did it all crumble. How hasty sunshine leaves when the rain clouds loom. And how the heavens cry when life is devoid of meaning… devoid of you.

   What would the gods ask me to do? Who will the abyss have me become? What more do I have to surrender to have you return to me?

   Tell me, and I’ll do it. I’d reform the universe if I must. I’ll make it so, if they would grant me another chance. Another life. Another universe. A next time—next life… to have even just a few more seconds with you. To have you tell me that you’ll be leaving—so I’ll be able to let you know… if I’m ready to let you go.

   But if fate is kind, if destiny permits, and you find the chance to come home to me—I’ll cherish our mortality, no matter how fleeting. Even if you return with a face blanketed in shadows, memories as fragmented as the skies above, a body crumbling from the cruelty of time... I would still know you. Your soul sings of love in gentle lullabies, whispers as warm as sun-kissed fire, tethered with hopes for another morrow. I would know you. Even if I am caged by darkness, drowned in silence, slipping from the threads of life… I will know you.

   And I will love you. I will love you all the same.

   My Captain. My darling… my love.

   In this space, in this life, how very fortunate was I to have loved and have been loved by you.

---

Domed by an endless blue sky, children of all ages slumbered for the welkin to shine upon. Stars drifted amidst the ether, sending all that lay within its path with promises of a home that differed in shape and size. Melodies of the late summer breeze echoed throughout the home of the hearth, swaying the curtains to the rhythm that it carried along.

[E/c] irises reflected all the hues the heavens had to offer, light that had traversed the bowels and lengths of the cosmos reached the ends of its journey when they drowned in the depths of her forlorn gaze.

“Thank you for accompanying the children, Lady [Name].”

Walking between the borders of dreams and reality, the Khaenri'ahn woman’s dazed figure snapped back to the present: eyes darting back and forth, left and right, desperately trying to search for the voice that rattled her solitude.

She has seen that face countless times, Arlecchino. The Knave. Wolf in sheep’s clothing, they call her. But to [Name], Arlecchino has always been kind. A little on the intimidating side yet remained kind either way.

Arlecchino was the one who took her from the Doctor’s hold and gave her a place to call home. She gave a stranger food and clothing, accepted her and let her be near the children.

Perhaps it’s that kindness that had her vision altering to picture someone else. The one who shares the same blood as that of a soul she knew so long ago.

It felt surreal—as though she was still stuck in that nightmare.

“[Name]…” A small voice called her from the side, before long, cold fingers clutched the hem of her sleeves.

The young woman turned her gaze to her friend, Peruveere. Her cross-marked eyes glistened with unshed tears, hands trembling from the weight of fear blossoming in her heart.

[Name] felt her heart drop at the vision before her. Blood stained her friend’s clothing, falling so freely down the concrete flooring. Part of her face had begun to be caged in frost, blinding her completely—yet she remained hesitant to freeze the one standing before her.

Fragments of her sanity had been lost… still, her heart remembered that the one in front of her was someone she would always love—even as the darkness threatened to swallow her whole.

Before [Name] could support the bleeding lady, a deafening sound shattered the earth, shaking the buildings, and marring the ground in deep valleys.

Peruveere looks to [Name]—an action she was surely going to miss, to see her beloved friend, her only friend, before the world ends—because she knew, seeing her won’t happen again for a long time.

What a great adventure it was… to have been friends with you. To be near close as sisters. Even when I was cast away by the rest, you remained. Even when you had nothing to gain from me, you remained.

“Run.” Peruveere gave her hand one last squeeze before she pushed her out of the balcony.

If fate allows, and destiny is kind… would you meet me in another life? Can I be born again… and take walks with you around the plaza? Throw flowers at strangers in another life? Talk behind other people’s backs in another life? Can we be friends again… in another life?

Can I have another chance… in another time… in another universe….

In another universe, in another time, another chance…

Lightning struck the place where [Name] once stood, then a blood-curling scream followed—Peruveere.

In the place of her ivory hair was a faceless entity, shrouded in obsidian and the colors of the sky. The hands that had once held hers so kindly had been covered by blades, claws in the place of fingers, a danger in the place of comfort.

“[NAME]!”

Thunder echoed in the skies, lightning broke apart the heavens, carving a way for the creatures of the abyss to swarm her home.

The woman had no strength to rise from where she had fallen, her eyes staring in shock at the way a wall of ice grew from the ground up—shielding her from the creature that overtook her friend.

Her only friend Peruveere…

Before long, the lady found herself looking into the void of someone’s face. Capitano.

Ringing in the depths of her eardrums was a rhythmic echo of stone crashing against the ground.

“My love.” She breathes, staring at him with hazed eyes as she looks to him and back over at the wall of frost. “Peruveere—something… I—I don’t—what is going on—she’s still out there, oh god—Peruveere.”

“[Name]—” Capitano caged her trembling hands in his, trying his best to rid of the blood that drenched the pads of her fingers.

“I—I’m never going to see her again.” She cries, gripping the hands that held her so tenderly. “She was my best friend, and I didn’t—I didn’t even hug her. I never even got to tell her that she was right. I’ll never get to tell her anything ever again—”

“—[e]? —[Name]? Lady [Name]?” The calls gradually faded into a dull echo, one tune called to her in a familiar way, warm, and kind… and the other was cold, and distant—the one that bled into reality.

[Name]’s search ended when she met a familiar cross-pupiled stare. A small, sorrowful smile carved its way onto her face.

“Ah, Peruveere… how nice of you to come back to life. Have you come to gloat on me and tell me of your fated premonitions.”

The Knave, far from the one called Peruveere, patiently corrected the immortal woman. “I apologize my lady, but I am not the person you speak of.”

Ah, I knew that.

“Oh. Are you certain? You look just like her, except your tongue is on a leash.” [Name] laughs softly, “Perhaps it’s better. I wouldn’t know if that fool could have stomached living for so long…”

More than anyone I know…

“Why is that?”

[Name] looks to Arlecchino with a playful smile, “Ah, are you sure you aren’t her? She used to ask me that countless of times. Always with the whys.” She laughs, caressing the side of her abyss-tainted face.

“I’ll tell you just this once, so listen closely… because she would have gone mad with grief—existing when all that she loves has gone.” She whispers softly, fighting back the tremble in her voice. No, she couldn’t burden this descendant with the memories of a friend lost in time.

But she took one look at her, the one they call Peruere, yet all she could see were the fragments of the one she called Peruveere.

If this was her way of telling [Name] the ‘I told you so’, she would take it.

Peruveere could gloat and gush and ramble on and on about the Knights of the Khaenri'ah and [Name] would be sure to listen.

“Though it would be nice to have walks with her again. And talk behind other people’s backs… throw flowers at pedestrians.”

They could take the longest way home, pick the food that would take hours to finish, watch the longest play at the theatre—anything, if it meant I’d get to be with you longer.

Arlecchino drew closer to where the Khaenri'ahn woman sat, shutting the windows close. “Maybe another time, my lady.” She offers kindly.

[Name] looks to the Harbinger with a small flickering hope. “Yes… another time, I’m afraid there exists no such thing as that for her.”

Her words had the white-haired woman stop in her wake, ‘I see’. “Then, perhaps, in another life.”

[Name] laughs bitterly, a droplet of stars falling from the eroding side of her face, “Another life… huh?”

"Can't you see?” She whispers, “That doesn’t exist. Not for me, or Peruveere. Not even for him who so valiantly declared his promises. There is no next time! There's no next life! There is no other universe. It's a nice sentiment, believe me, it is, but this is it. This is all we get. But god… what I wouldn't give to have a next time. A next life. To be given just another chance."

Another chance, and I’ll be true. Another life, and I’ll do you better. Another time, and I won’t waste a single second. Another universe… and I’ll love you right—far more than I could have here. Perhaps there, you can keep your vows, fulfill the promise you gave me.

I am here, my love… I’m still waiting.

I have faced many losing battles, the loss of my father, my dream, my heart shattered beyond repair. But in all of that, I had you. I had you and it was enough—enough for me to gather all my broken pieces and hope for another day.

Everything would be alright because I had you.

Everything would fall into place because you were there. And life would take on different forms, different meanings, different paths because I had you.

“I’m still here but where has he gone?” She asks.

But how would I find my way now?

Every ray of hope disappears before my eyes.

I'm not sure I even know what happiness means anymore.

My existence is no longer necessary in this world. The gift of life—the curse of immortality ever so potent, ever so meaningless when all else is gone.

“Tell me where to look—where to go, the promises I have to say, the gods I have to trick, what I must surrender. Only tell me the way… and I’ll do it. No matter the journey, no matter the hardship, no matter the cost.”’

My love, my dearest... my Captain, how I miss you so.

Arlecchino looks to the woman, unsure of what to say.

She has faced plenty of formidable enemies, even formidable allies… but not one as unconquerable as the grief that came with the curse of immortality. She knew only two others who hail from the same land the Lady [Name] had come from, but even they spoke none of the anguish that came with the price they paid.

How could she have stomached living for so long… when there was nothing left to live for?

“I’m still waiting… so he has to return. He has to come home. Come back to me. I’m still here…”

Maybe that was it.

She held onto this person’s promise of return. How cruel, to have been given hope by a dying man. To live in a world where another has gone is truly one of the greatest sorrows a soul can face.

“My colleague is from Khaenri'ah, my lady. They call him Pierro, perhaps he can be of service to you.”

In the wake of stars, the shadows of galaxies, and in forever... there, we remain.

Domed by the ether of the land of fire, a fragment of a soul exists. Clothed in the colors of the night with a face shielded by the void of his helmet that he wore so devotedly, unfailingly.  

Stillness blanketed his surroundings, only the songs of the seelies dancing in his midst and the faint droplets of water hitting stone echoed in the closed space.

It felt so long ago... that the embrace of the land was this mellow. The sensation was akin to receiving a hug from someone in the bleakness of winter: loving, comforting... warm.

It was just how he remembered it would feel like.

"You long for something." The Lord of the Night speaks, her voice sounding as though it came from everywhere and nowhere all at once. "Your heart screams at you to drop everything and look yet your mind shackles you to remain."

Capitano let the words settle—a statement, so it would seem—a question was its true form. No matter how the ancient being phrases her intentions, Capitano knew just as much that Yohualtecuhtin already holds the answers.

"Why do you hesitate, Outlander? Is she not all that you have ever wanted? Everything you have fought and lost to protect? The home you'll return to once the dust settles?"

The Harbinger let the ancient being’s words sink into the horizons of his shattered soul—a piece of what was once whole.

"She was."

Silence dyed the dust motes fluttering in the air. The Captain's answer seemingly weighing them down to stop their eternal waltz. Even the lullabies of the seelies floating the perimeter had dwindled to a whisper.

“Those blessed in sound will not know the turmoil of silence. A man raised in peace remains ignorant to the loss of war. And if the reason for my travels is my destination—I would have never left her side.” Should Capitano’s visage be free from the shadows of darkness, the reflection of an ocean of regret would be far too painful even for an entity as wise as the Night to witness.

“I returned to her, many times… but there was no one to return to.”

For years on end, that was something he struggled to accept. She doesn’t exist anymore. Not in all that ruin, not in the center of all this life.

But Capitano, in his grief, thought that anything could be brought to life.

He was free to dream, even the one he serves did not deprive him of that, but every fragment of hope he managed to stack upon one another was continuously knocked down by every passing sun that sought after him.

Capitano thought anything would be possible.

So, despite not believing in any deities, he prayed to every star, to every god that he knew that his beloved was alive. That [Name] was somewhere in this world, just waiting for him to return. Every meteor that grazed the sky and set alight the night in streaks of fire, he’d catch them all. Every aurora. All the full moons. Even for the slimmest of chances that he’d be heard—that his prayer would be answered.

He did not wish for a thousand things, not even a hundred, just one.

One wish for the heavens: to see her again.

Capitano did not need them to bring her back seven times, just once. Once and it would be enough. He would ask this of them, only this, and never again will he want anything more.

Only grant me this, and I will never ask anything of you ever again.  

Ignorantly he believed that if he wished for it eagerly and hopefully enough, the universe would move the stars to make it so.

But for many centuries, they ignored his prayer.

"Do you wish to know the horrible truth? When I close my eyes, her memory does not resurface. I cannot remember her laugh, or even tell apart her voice. All that remains is the waking thought that she was the only woman I ever loved—the only thing I ever wanted. And the Abyss took her away from me. The gods took her away from me! And all the time in the universe—all the power this world has to offer—couldn't fill the void she left behind."

Capitano's power fluctuates, threatening to burst from the nothingness festering inside him. He would have permitted it. Let the anger and sadness wreak havoc on the lands just as they did in their homeland. He would have done so—once.

All those moons ago when her image haunts his dreams, when her laughter echoes through the valleys, and her figure lingers in every turn. He would have let it all burn, bury everything in eternal frost so that they may see what it's like to exist when there was nothing left to live for.

Feel for themselves what life means when everything else is gone.

"So why do you linger?" The Lord of the Night asks patiently, calming… soothing, as though she knew the heaviness of the burden the Harbinger had been carrying for the past five centuries.

Why do I? Why am I the one permitted to live? Why are you the one trapped under the ruins of our home? Why?

"Because I am ashamed.” He admits.

“All humans fear death, Outlander. Even the bravest of warriors are afraid to fall.”

“No.” Capitano denies, clenching his fist to control his breathing, “To be wounded in battle is nothing to be feared—dying to defend your kingdom is an honor. But when I looked at her—when I looked at her as she watched me walk away when I swore to her that I was never going to do it again, all I felt was indignity.”

“When I fled and went forth with my escape, I saw her there. Waiting. Waiting just as I had told her to. I knew then, I would never see her again.”

Back then, Capitano should have frozen the entirety of the ruins of his home, blasted the debris inching closer to where she remained, subjugated the creatures of the abyss that threatened to hurt her—anything, anything to keep her alive.

But he didn’t.

“I am the only one left to remember her. The only one to speak her name. The sole monument that once upon a time, she, too, had existed. And when I think of her for the last time—when the echoes of her memory fade into eternity, only then will I know that I am worthy enough to meet her again."

The Commander of Khaenri'ah would have never spoken words plunged in the depths of cowardice. In the wake of the falling stars five hundred years ago, he would have done anything.

If she was taken to another world, Capitano would cut through the skies to find her. If she ceased to breathe in this space in time, he would transcend realities—search the bowels of the cosmos to see where she'd gone. If she were to ask to see him, even for the most fleeting of seconds, he would drop everything and come running.

He would have done anything.

And that was the part that riddled his heart in fear.

Because what if it wasn't enough?

Capitano was one of the most powerful people in the land. His name drove fear into the hearts of those who heard it, had them anticipating their deaths, finding their nights spent in restlessness at the thought that he’d take away their lives in the blink of an eye.

Crossing paths with the Captain was something you would not even wish on your enemies.

But this Captain—the one drowning in the oceans of his grief, chained down by his loneliness, awaiting the moments of his last breath... could care less for names and titles.

He reckons she would have reprimanded him for that. She'd even go as far as to demand him to take the matters of sovereignty and lordship a lot more seriously.

And he'd laugh at her, of course—a melody that could render even the most talkative of noble ladies to deafening silence. Always a stickler for the rules, that one.

At the end of the day, when the twilight settles, and the last rays of the sun slip under the blankets of the horizon, his mind would drift to the impossible and pathetic thought—one which he never fails to think about for every moon that rises, and all the suns that have gone—has she been reborn yet?

Having been serving under the majesty of the Tsarista, there was no way he would know for certain. Or at least, that's what he's been telling himself for the last few hundred years.

Capitano has seen the wonders of this world more times than he could count. He's met with a myriad of leaders and lords. Witnessed as the cultures of these mortal beings be brought to ruin and reform once more.

He closed his eyes for every reminder of her—thinking that it was better to live in ignorance of her presence than to have been led on only to be betrayed by his own heart, his own hope turned against him.

Capitano encased her memory in frost, put her in the deepest part of his mind where she could not haunt him. He forced himself to burn the desires of his soul—to see her, to hear her... to tell her that he loves her and that he would give anything and everything to change her fate. He numbed his heart to it all, compelled himself not to think about her.

For every venture beyond the walls of ice, past the snowy hills, and the frosty palace, Capitano felt her get further and further away.

And soon enough, her memory had altogether faded from his mind.

He'll wake in the dead of the night trying to piece together her image, guess the color of her eyes, remember what shade her hair was, what her smile looked like, the sound of his name when it was her who had said it.

He'd try desperately to replicate the scent that followed her like daylight, the clothing she adored, the sounds of her footfalls.

But nothing ever felt right.

He'd tell himself over and over again that he did not deserve to remember her—to miss her when he was the one who threw it all away. I miss you all the same. He'd whisper repeatedly that he was not allowed to hurt, that his heart had no right to break for all that he lost when he had the choice to keep her memory alive, but he didn’t. It hurts all the same.

Capitano would chant it like a mantra. A prayer for his punishment. But even as he tells himself that so long a time has passed—that he had no obligation to continue loving her, a ghost from a kingdom in ruins, a phantom in a land colored in life. I still love you... I love you all the same.

In the frozen wasteland of every passing second, the echoes of her joy would come rushing back to him. The warmth of her loving hold, and her fleeting touches saturated in adoration.

No matter what he did, where he went, who he met... Capitano always thought about her. Are you happy? Are you eating well? Do you get enough sleep? Have you fallen for another? Does he treat you right? Do you miss me? Are you looking for me? Do you—will you still love me?

Whenever he departed, Capitano went with the hopes that by some stroke of fate, he'd run into her. When he would turn the corner, she'd bump into him. Or perhaps walk past each other on the street. Go to the same tailor in town.

Or that I'd see you... even if it's from afar.

But it wasn't enough to just hope.

Yet that was exactly what he'd been doing for the last thousand suns that had passed him by.

He wonders, if he had only risen to protest—to deny the fate the heavens had set for her… would she still be here? Would he not feel this twisting sense of guilt knotting his stomach? Feel as the threads of his heart come undone at his powerlessness?

Capitano knew he should have done more. He could have tried, as soon as he was able—and he always was—as early as he attained power... he should have tried, to look for her, to get a glimpse of her shadow, just to put his heart at ease.

But he didn't do that.

Perhaps it's the gnawing fear of finding her soul nowhere in this world—that he'll finally see that he's left alone in this plane of existence, where she can only live in the memories he forced himself to shatter, fragments of it carried away by the zephyrs of grief.

“You speak of my longing, Yohualtecuhtin…” He spoke into the silence, his footsteps resonating in the hall of stones, “Surely, you would wish for the same. Wish to be closer to demise if it means you’d meet the one you love. To rid of it all so you’d reach the ends faster.”

Before he left, Capitano looked past his armor-clad shoulders to that big monument that housed the ancient spirit. He could almost feel the burning stare she was carving into his being.

“She alone has made me love the path to death.”

And only there, in the cradles of the infinite nothingness… will I be worthy enough to see you.

“Perhaps you should seek her for a final time. Not in the past where ruins lay, but within the warmth of a home, surrounded by the promises you spoke to her… maybe then, you and your beloved will find peace.”

Funny story, I almost lost this fic💀.

My laptop crashed coincidentally when I uhh ‘killed’ off Capitano from the reader’s perspective. Turns out my 1st drive also died along with it. The repairman told me he needed the 2nd drive (where this fanfic was stored) to get my laptop working again but I couldn’t do that (cuz it had this fanfic) because all my files is stored there. The panic I had was otherworldly—but I managed to create a solution.  

I came up with this idea as a form of revenge because of a post I saw on a page on Facebook saying Maviuka was Capitano’s TOTGA (I remember you Jhan, this is all your fault>:0). I didn’t read too much into it (cuz the update was like a day ago back then???) because at that time I hadn’t done the archon quest (and it was midterm week). I was so PISSED that I planned this fanfic in my dorm room instead of reviewing—so now uhmm… I think I might have gotten a little carried away ehe (BECAUSE EVEN I’M CRYING FROM THIS FIC) on another note, you’d think after I wrote a Khanrean kanreeyan Khanreyan STUPID FCKER prince Kaeya fanfic, I’d know how to spell kahnreeya khanrea— I don’t know how to spell it. I think I might have a thing for khaenriyan help ya know what, I take it back.

I hope you enjoyed it 💖

[upsidedownwithsteve]

A soulmate AU: Steve Harrington x fem!reader [5.9K]

THE TIMELINE

"Oh no, you know you know I'd be lying if I said I wasn't dying, For someone I could die for, someone I could try for Fall apart and cry for, go 'head, risk my life for."

-Someone I Could Die For by Lewis Capaldi

II. ROME, ITALY: 49 BC

The roar that came from the bowels of the Colosseum never became easier to hear. 

The noise seemed to make the city shake, the streets empty, the market stalls abandoned in favour of bloodshed. The games took place in the summer, when the skies were an endless blue and there were no clouds to tamper down the climbing heat. The sun bore down on the sandy pit of the enormous Amphitheatre and the seats were filled, the doors that had already been closed still surrounded by regretful stragglers who were forced to listen to the chaos from outside of the walls. 

Fourteen men had died already, three from the jaws of the lions, two from the bears and eleven from the swords of other imprisoned slaves. The cheering from the crowd made your stomach curl. The floor of the stage was covered in red, the sand streaked with spilled blood and the animals that were bullied back into their cages had their jaws tinted pink. 

It wasn’t a joyous occasion, no matter how many people celebrated in the name of their emperor. The leader of Rome was sitting mere seats away from you, dressed in ruby robes that were slung like a cloak over his white toga and his laurel crown glinted with golden beads that sat tucked into the olive wreaths. He was drunk on wine and violence, and your father sat next to him in the royal box, ever eager to please as he clinked his chalice against his kings. 

Being the daughter of Rome’s most beloved senator certainly had its positives. You were dressed just as finely as the royalty around you, the fabric that was made to fit your frame swept to the floor and only yesterday, the emperor’s cousin had gifted you a necklace made of the finest gold, inset with glittering emeralds, pretty enough for a princess. 

The same cousin smiled at you from across the row, each seat in the royal box made from plush velvet, the high backs ornate and cushioned, unlike the stone carved benches the rest of the civilians were sitting on. You smile back, uneasy but polite, and your father nodded approvingly. 

You were expected to marry, you knew that much. You were already considered too old to be unwed and you knew the rest of the court whispered about how you would now struggle to bear a child. But the man that was expected to be your husband wasn’t who you loved. He wasn’t unkind, he wasn’t cruel - not like you’d heard men could be. The girls in the kitchen would tell you stories of how their husband made demands. Shouting each night for their meals, their baths, how their shirts weren’t stitched right, how their beds would lay cold because their wives were too tired. 

Some men visited the bath houses, you knew that much. Seeking out a lupa for the night, the ladies that were called she-wolves, with their painted lips and robes that showed so much skin. Some men decided that they didn’t need to listen to their wives at all, you were once told, horror etched on your face. Some men took what they thought they owned. 

So no, the emperor’s cousin seemed kind enough. But you weren’t in love with him. You weren’t sure who you were in love with. A dream, perhaps. One that kept returning to you from a young, young age. A dream about a different town, one you’d never been to before. But in your sleep, it felt like home. White buildings and green gardens with tall, tall trees and pretty, ornate gazebos made of stone on the edges of shallow ponds. You were by the sea there, a blue-green ocean that seemed so calm. 

Sometimes monsters came, the marble statues that guarded the city came to life and turned your dream into a nightmare. There was always fire and fury, storm clouds and too big waves and a man with skin the colour of death would try and take your hand. But even when the dream turned bad, there was  always someone else.  

A man, with a blurry face and a mess of almost too long hair. It hid his eyes from you and you could never make out too many details but you burned when you looked at him, you could weep when he touched you. Sometimes he led you through the burning town, his hand clasping your own as you both tried to run and run and run. 

Other times, you lay in a bed with him, skin bare and your head on his chest as he murmured the sweetest poetry to you, words that made your heart race. Your dream was encased in white linen sheets, a hazy, soft light that always made it look like early morning and when the man’s lips met yours, you always woke up. 

Him. You loved him. 

You hadn’t been in love before, but whenever you dreamed of the stranger, you were sure that must have been what love felt like. 

“Have some grapes, darling,” your thoughts were interrupted by your father as he thrust a plate of fruit and cheese under your nose. 

But the fifteenth gladiator was being dragged through the gates by the armpits, a clawed hammer still sticking out from his chest and your insides turned over at the idea of eating such sweet treats as blood poured from the men in front of you. The emperor’s box was almost nauseatingly close to the fights. 

You shook your head before you remembered your manners, smiling politely and murmuring, “I’m quite alright, thank you.” You blew out a breath, shaky and faint. 

From your other side, one of the young girls who had been gifted to you on your sixteenth birthday waved a giant fan. A large peacock feather, a huge plume of colours that merely wafted the too warm air back and forth but you smiled your thanks at your lady in waiting, a pretty girl who’d turned into a prettier young woman. She was small and lithe, angular in the face with curls that came to her sharp jawbone and she smiled back. 

Nancy, as she’d introduced herself to you a week after she’d arrived at your fathers house, from the Wheeler family of Liguria. She didn’t like the gladiator fights anymore than you did, always murmuring about the rights of the animals and how inhumane it was later in the night as she drew you your bath. 

“—from Verona,” your father was saying with a mouth full of provolone. “One of their best, so they say, His Majesty simply had to have him.”

You blinked, frowning in confusion at your fathers words. You hadn’t been paying attention in the slightest and nothing you’d caught made any sense. “Sorry?” You grimaced apologetically and took a few pomegranate seeds from the plate of food in apology for your rudeness. “Who is from Verona?”

Your father rolled his eyes, a sure sign that you’d be lectured in his study later for your lack of respect. “The next gladiator, child.” He gestured to the stage where the soldiers were locking the gates to the tigers, each big cat growling with menace when the men came too close to the bars. “They say he’s unbeatable. Our Highness offered a more than generous helping of coin for his papers but Verona’s general didn’t seem to want to part with him.”    

You frowned again. The crowd seemed to be aware of this man and his presence, murmuring and shifting in their seats in anticipation. “If that is the case,” you prodded. “Then how is he here? If the gladiators… owner—” the word left a terribly bitter taste in your mouth and you felt heavy with guilt when Nancy’s fan brushed your shoulder. “If his owner didn’t want to sell him?”

Your father snorted, an unattractive sound that made Nancy wince beside you. “No one tells the emperor of Rome ‘no’, dearest.” Your father shrugged. “The gladiator cannot be owned, if his owner is dead.”

Bloodshed. Always bloodshed. 

A man came from the east side gates with chains around his ankles and wrists. You couldn’t quite see him for your seat, not yet, but the crowd above and around you roared, eager for the final fight to begin. The man already looked beaten and tired as soldiers stepped forward to unlock his manacles and you sat forward in your seat for the first time since you entered the Colosseum that day. 

He had messy hair, dark brown and hanging just past his chin. It was already damp looking, matted and dirty from being kept god knows where as the emperor's new toy. He was shirtless, his body lean but corded with muscle. He had wide shoulders and a lithe waist, powerful thighs and skin that was tanned from the sun, a sure sign he spent too much time outside, training hard in the Italian heat. 

As he moved closer to the middle of the stage, you saw the marks on his body, leftover scars and new slices in his flesh that still looked viciously red. The crowd got louder as a sword was thrown at his feet, a large, heavy looking thing with a bronze handle. Some cheered for the new warrior, hoping for some excitement, while others jeered and booed, already too attached to their darling reigning champion. 

The gladiator picked up his sword and the crowd became wilder still, but he gave them no mind. He didn’t put on a show like some of the others, he didn’t flex his muscles or raise his weapon like it was already a prize. His leather loincloth was a deep wine colour, the tan leather pleats looking far from newly made and the material was already streaked with blood and dirt before his first opponent arrived. 

Your heart felt heavy for him, as it did for all the others who were forced into the Colosseum - prisoners, slaves and animals alike. You watched the gladiator flex his wrist, testing the weight of his weapon just as the gates in the west cranked open. 

Rome’s current champion strode out from the shadows and into the bright sun, his bare chest glinting with sweat and Hargrove held his hands aloft, grinning as the crowds went insane. He beat his chest, his long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail and when he was handed his own sword, he wasted no time in running towards the new fighter, the steel blade glinting. 

You gasped, moving closer still to the edge of your seat and you couldn’t find it in you to bear much mind to the looks your father and Nancy shot you. It wasn’t like you to take such an interest in the sport, never mind be so heavily invested. You didn’t like to watch the wounded, preferring to close your eyes when the screams began, hiding cowardly behind Nancy’s fan when the blood turned the sandy stage pink and red. 

But this new gladiator, he was fast. 

He dove at the last second, dodging the tip of Hargrove’s blade and he rolled towards the section where you sat. Dust kicked up from the move, his sword tearing into the wreaths and sashes that hung from the Emperor’s box. You grasped the edge of the wooden frame, peering over the side and down to the stage, hoping to not see blood already. 

Instead you found the gladiator looking back up at you, his sword still in his grasp and when his eyes met yours, they widened. Something like recognition hurtled through you, a feeling that sucked the breath from your lungs and you felt dizzy, like lightning itself had struck you from the sky. You thought the man perhaps felt the same, a frown on his face telling you that he felt just as confused as you did. 

But before you could consider where on earth you could have possibly seen his face before, Hargrove attacked again, bringing his blade down to where the gladiator's shoulder should have been, if he hadn’t rolled once again. 

You were on your feet now, the stares of your father be damned. Your eyes were wide, your heart beating far too fast, like you yourself were on the stage, being hunted for sport. Wood splintered into the space under your nails as you watched the man run, his muscles pumping, his eyes narrowed. 

“Darling, are you quite alright?” Your father placed a hand on your arm, more confused than concerned. 

“Yes, I just— yes.” You cleared your throat and sat down again, albeit back to the edge of your chair. You could feel the rest of the royal party staring at you. “Where did you say the man was brought from? The new gladiator?”

“Harrington?” One of the Emperor’s councilmen interjected. He pointed a pudgy finger at the brown haired gladiator, who was now swinging his sword with as much power as Hargrove. “Steven Harrington of Verona, best of his breed I heard. His general didn’t take too kindly to the King’s offering and well— you know what happens when his Highness is made to feel upset.”

The metallic clink of the swords filled the arena as everyone held their breaths. Not many had lasted this long against Hargrove before. 

“Rumour has it that he didn’t take too kindly to his general being beheaded. Took six men to get him into the back of the cart, even more to make him train. He’s been refusing food all week.”

The idea of it made you feel unwell, a sickly, creeping kind of pain curling around each of your ribs and suddenly you were starving, just as much as you were sure the man would be. But still, I didn’t seem to make him move any slower, it didn’t hinder him in bringing his sword down any harder. 

But strangely, every time the new gladiator was struck, every time his knees hit the raw sand, every time he got close enough for you to see him suck in a gasping breath— you felt it too. 

It was a battle like you’d never seen before, more vicious than the others from that day, a showdown under the blazing heat of the high sun. No tiger seemed as powerful as Steven Harrington of Verona did. There was something animalistic in the way he moved, all power and lean muscle, a steely glint in his brown eyes that you didn’t dare look away from. He moved too quickly for Hargrove’s blade, dodging and diving as he flung up sand, blinding his opponent and slicing at his legs. Each move was a blur, the stage bleeding with fresh red, the blonde gladiator on his knees. 

But Hargrove was ruthless, grappling with the newcomer until they were both wrestling in the dust cloud and the crowd went insane, people chanted and stomped their feet, the amphitheatre shaking down to its very bones. The imperial box quaked with the energy, but truly, you weren’t present enough to feel it. 

Your eyes never left Steven’s fighting figure. 

The swords seemed to be forgotten, the steel blades rusted with blood, both fresh and new, and they lay in the sand. Fists flew, knees pressed to chests to keep the other down and it was brutal, it was harsh, it was deadly. 

You wanted to vomit. You feared you might. 

You wondered what would happen if you leapt from your chair, if you let your skirts get torn and bloodied in the mess of the stage, if you threw yourself down onto the sand and begged for Hargrove to take his hands away from the new gladiator's throat. 

Would you be punished? Beaten? Locked away? Killed?

You weren’t sure but somehow, all the options felt worth it. You couldn’t watch this man die before you. Not when it felt like you’d already witnessed his death before. 

But Steven wrestled himself out of Hargrove’s hold, twisting and tumbling whilst he gasped, one hand clutching at his reddened neck and the other grappling for his blade. He swung it through the air, arching wide, his wounded shoulder ripping with effort it took but the sword landed where the warrior intended it to. 

Silence settled over the colosseum, the air still enough for you to hear the surviving champion heave out gasping, heavy breaths. There was blood on his hands, his chest, his face. 

His right eye was already bruising, red and lilac coming to the surface of his skin like fresh blooms in spring. His shoulder was a mess, his right leg causing him to buckle slightly as he rose to his feet.  

The man turned, jaw slack, his sword falling limply to the ground once more, his opponent still and at his feet. His eyes found yours and time stilled, at least, to you. The crowd erupted, an explosion in its own right, the entirety of Rome cheering for their new champion. 

A man you were sure you already loved. 

By the time the fight had ended, you felt beaten and bruised. There were no marks on your skin, no blood seeping through your gown, but something inside of you hurt all the same. It felt like something was clawing at your heart, a memory that was banging on the front of your skull, screaming at you to remember. 

When the guards dragged the gladiator from Hargrove’s limp figure, he dropped his sword to the sand and spat a mouthful of blood towards the ground at the royal pit. The Emperor merely chuckled as others around you gasped and before you could even hear your fathers protests, you were on your feet. 

Steven Harrington was shackled once more, the metal chains clinking around his hands and feet. And as he was led away back into the arches, the gears of gates making an awful protesting noise, his eyes found yours once more. 

A burning gaze, too intense to look away from and you could’ve sworn on the gods, on the stars above, that something inside of you tugged sharply. Like the pull of a string, tied in a bow between your ribcage, urging you forward. 

Telling you to go. 

So you did. 

You gathered your skirts in your hands and made your way to the exit of the box, too focused to hear your fathers objections until the guards at the doorway halted you with their spears. The wooden stalks crossed themselves over your chest and you froze, the string tied to your heart pulling tighter and tighter and tighter— 

The Emperor was staring at you, with cold eyes and a smile that wasn’t really a smile. He spoke to your father, not you. “Where, my dear senator, is your lovely daughter running off to?” The king turned back to you, brows raised. “Doesn’t she know that more wine will be served soon? My cousin is looking forward to her company.”

Your father stared at you, a stricken expression on his aged face because everyone in the royal box could read between the lines of the Emperor. 

You cleared your throat, eyes still trained on the sharp metal points of the spears that were very much in your face. “Forgive me, father - your highness - I was merely hoping to get some fresh air.”

“The sight of all that blood makes her rather delicate,” your father agreed and the crowd of councilmen, generals and their wives tittered in their jewels. “She isn’t one for conflict.”

The Emperor stared at the side of your face, something you could feel despite bowing your head in his presence. You stared at the floor and waited, heart racing. 

The royal tsked. “What a pity,” he declared but he waved a hand, each finger heavy with golden rings, and his soldiers stepped aside. “Be back in time for the parade, child, you have company to entertain.”

The Emperor’s cousin leered at you, his wine glass empty, his lips stained ruby but none of it mattered right now, not when you were taking off once more, skirts dragging across the dust and sand, your chest heaving as you tried to navigate your way through the crowd that was already dispersing. 

More guards, heavily armoured and with their swords drawn, were too preoccupied with a fight that had broken out between the arches, two lower class men arguing over a coin they found on the ground. Taking your chance, you moved with your head down, your face hidden as you slipped through a door that was normally carefully watched. 

The heavy wood slammed shut behind you, the sunlight swallowed whole. Burning torches lit the narrow corridor, a maze of them leading you underneath the Colosseum. The hypogeum was almost damp as you tried to navigate its many walkways, a gasp leaving your throat as you took a wrong turn and ended up face to face with the iron bars that separated you from the animals. 

A huge tiger growled at you, bloodied teeth bared in a snarl, the stench of raw meat and faeces hanging in the cool air. You backed away, eyes flickering from cage to cage, each one filled with another poor creature. Lions, bears, a rhinoceros and its offspring, and beyond them, an even larger cell holding prisoners. They all stared at you, men and animals alike, but nothing was spoken. 

You backed away, unable to breath, turning on your heel and walking quickly enough to spot the familiar grey robes of the healers used after the battles. You followed, your steps light, and watched him enter a small room. Between the door opening and closing, you spotted the gladiator perched on a wooden table, his head bent low and his face hidden behind his damp hair. 

You weren’t sure what possessed you, but before you barged into the room too, both men staring at you from the table where the healer held a ragged cloth to the gladiator’s shoulder. 

“Miss, you have no need here,” the healer announced, his voice strict and cold. He narrowed his eyes as he gestured to the door. “This is no place for—”

“My father sent me.” It was a lie, of course. A bold and bare faced one at that. But you stood a little taller and lifted your chin, the emerald necklace at your throat shining in the low light that came from the small fireplace in the corner. “The senate has questions I’ve been asked to deliver. I shall not leave without the appropriate answers.”

On the mantle, beside bottles of acids and other medicinal vials, sat a small statue of the goddess Veratis. Her marble eyes seemed to judge you and your lies and you swallowed down the bitter taste it left on your tongue. But looking at the man - this stranger from Verona - the need to speak to him, to be alone with him, was overwhelming you to the point of senselessness.  

The trouble you could be in if you were to be caught in your lie… or worse, down in the hypogeum. This was no place for a woman of your standing, never mind to be alone with a gladiator, both of you unspoken for. You could feel your heartbeat in your throat. 

“If we may have some time alone?” You added with more authority than you should have held. “Unless you’d prefer that my father leave the Emperor’s side to ensure his orders are fulfilled?”

The healer sighed but placed down his tools. He flashed you a smile that was all crooked teeth, more bite than kindness, but he made his way to the door. “That won’t be necessary, My Lady,” he told you and he left, closing the wooden door behind him. 

The silence was a deafening thing. The crackle of the fire was still there, the distant roar of some poor, wounded animal, but whatever was held between the two of you took on a life of its own. It seemed to suck the rest of the world into it until there was nothing left but you and this man. He was staring at you still, brown eyes wide and so familiar, looking as confused as you felt as you stared right back. 

It felt too easy to take a step forward, but the warrior flinched. Your next was slower, softer, more cautious. Your hand found the rag that the healer had once held, what little water it had been soaked in was cold, the material harsh. It didn’t take you long to find a new cloth in one of the drawers of the apothecary table and you took your time to warm some fresh water over the hearth. 

Honestly, you didn’t know too much about medicine, only the basics that your father’s head servant had taught you as a young child. You found the small bottle of alcohol with ease, plucking it from the shelf and adding it to the warm water before soaking the new rag. 

You held it up in offering to the man, still far enough from you that his dirty hair hid most of his face. His tanned chest was streaked with sweat and dust, marred with old cuts and fresher wounds from Hargrove’s weapon, but for the most part, he seemed okay. 

“Can I?”

The gladiator lifted his head then, his hair falling away from his cheeks and you took in a sharp breath at the sight of his face. He was handsome, painstakingly so, but over and above all else, he was someone you were sure you knew. 

The man nodded, just once, lips pressed together and as you came closer, his nostrils flared and his large hands gripped the edge of the table. His eyes raced across your features, recognition coming to the surface and before he could ask the questions that were clawing at his throat, you lifted the cloth and pressed it to the cut on his shoulder. 

He hissed, teeth bared and you frowned, hushing him softly, apologies murmured just as quiet. “I’m sorry,” you told him and gods, he knew you meant it. “I need the alcohol to soak the wound.”

Your heart stuttered when he let you, shoulders tight and back ramrod straight, but his eyes were on your face the entire time you worked. “You’re not a healer,” he said. It wasn’t a question. 

His voice rung through you, a deep timber that was hoarse and scratchy, no doubt from refusing to speak since his capture. You hoped he’d been drinking enough water. 

You shook your head as you pulled away, dipping the bloodied cloth back into the bucket. “No, I’m not,” you confirmed. 

Another swipe at his skin had him jerking in response but the blood and dirt was finally clear of the cut. It would need stitches, you were almost sure of it, but your skills started and finished at the basics. 

“Then why are you here?” The gladiator’s eyes were trained on your necklace, a sure fire way to recognise nobility and you were overcome with the urge to rip it from your throat. “Why did you follow me?” He spoke like he already knew the answer. 

You were hesitant about it, but you couldn’t stop your hand from lifting to his neck, fingertips brushing two beauty marks on his skin. They felt electric under your touch and you were impossibly warmer now, despite the old cell lacking the heat from the summer above. 

“I feel like I know you,” you whispered. Your voice cracked with an emotion you didn’t quite know the name of. “I feel like I’ve mourned you.”  

The gladiator looked back at you from behind his damp hair, the long strands matted with his and his enemies blood. He didn’t look as concerned as he should have been at your strange words. In fact, he leaned into your touch, lashes fluttering at the sensation. 

“What an odd thing to say to someone who hasn’t died,” he answered quietly. But his gaze roamed over your features and something about being so close to him felt cosmic, it felt like a catastrophe waiting to happen. “I think I’ve met you before,” the gladiator whispered. He sounded reverent now, his own hand shaking as he brought it to your face. 

He cupped your jaw, your chin, his rough fingertips trailing over your soft skin and when his thumb dragged across your bottom lip, you gasped and pressed closer. 

“I think I meet you when I sleep,” he said and he frowned at his own words, at how confusing he must’ve sounded. “Every night, when I close my eyes. You’re in a garden and then you’re in my arms.”

Flashes of a bed came to mind, white linen sheets and too much bare skin. A man’s chest, tanned and muscled from hard labour, your hands that roamed the expanse of his back. You remembered how he kissed you in your dreams, with a longing so intense it could waken the gods. 

Like he had enough love for you that he could end the world. 

You could only nod. His thumb was still pushed to your bottom lip, your mouth parted as if you were waiting and his stare was so intense you felt warmer than you had in the stadium above. 

Who was this stranger?

And why did it feel like something inside of you was being stitched back together by the sheer sight of him? His touch felt healing, it felt like home. Like it was only made for you to feel. Like he was made only for you. 

Above, something boomed. Loud enough to be heard underneath the hypogeum, over the roars of the unsettled animals. If you had been outside, you would’ve witnessed the blue sky turning grey, shades of moody lavender and navy, storm clouds rolling across Rome from seemingly nowhere. 

Thunder rumbled,  threatening noise, something that made you and the man move closer to each other, like you both knew you were in danger. 

That you knew something bad was coming. 

“I don’t understand,” you said, eyes blurring. You weren’t sure why you were crying but Steve didn’t seem to question it. He merely swiped away the tears that slipped down your cheeks. “You’re a stranger— we’ve never— we’ve never met.”

Despite your words, the gladiator moved closer, standing from his seat on the wooden table to lean his forehead against your own. Your eyes slipped closed, nose bumping his. He smelled like metal, like blood and dirt and sweat but underneath there was something like fire there, like molten iron, like lavender fields and fresh cotton. Like a daydream, like something you weren’t sure was real. 

His bottom lip touched your top one, only just, only barely. A whisper of a kiss, a small insight of something that could’ve been, of something that maybe once was. 

Thunder rolled again, louder than before, as if it was right above you both. Even over the din of the crowds above, you could hear the heavy patter of rain that was now flooding the colosseum, the stage soaked. Another warning, something you’d seen before in a dream just before it turned to a nightmare. 

“I was meant to find you,” Steve murmured. He had your face cradled in his hands, an overwhelmingly gentle touch despite the dried blood under his fingernails. His voice grew in urgency then, like he knew something was coming. Someone. “I was meant to come here. I can feel it. I understand now.”

“Someone once told me you’d come back,” you suddenly remembered, your voice eager, your eyes wide at the memory. “I don’t know— was it you? From before? From—”

From another life, you wanted to say. 

How ridiculous those words were, how silly, how stupid. But there wasn’t any other way to explain. Logic didn’t seem to exist when everything you felt from this touch of this stranger led you to believe that somehow, someway, you’d spend a lifetime together. 

Like you were supposed to spend this one with him too. And it didn’t seem long enough, decades wouldn’t make up for the time you’d lost searching for him, for this stranger who only came to you in your sleep. But he was very real now, solid flesh and bone underneath your own hands, brown eyes that seemed warmer than the Italian summer. 

You didn’t want to let him go. 

“In here, my King,” a voice interrupted. The door was open and the healer had returned, a cold look on his already stern face. The Emperor was behind him, ruby robes collecting dirt from the old floor. Four soldiers flanked him. “I have every reason to believe the Lady sold me lies, Your Highness.”  

It happened too quick. Too fast. 

The Emperor studied you, Steve’s hands still on your face as you stood too close, ready to kiss, ready to fulfil something neither of you were sure of. It felt catalytic. 

“Seize him,” was all the Emperor said, one lazy flick of his wrist sending all four guards at you both. 

There was too much movement in the tiny room, bottles of medicinal wares clattering to the ground and smashing at your feet. The table groaned as Steve was shoved into it, his own reactions too slow from his injuries. He grunted and reached for you too late, his hand slipping from your own, fingers barely touching, as he was shoved at from either side. 

One soldier shoved the butt of his sword into Steve’s wounded soldier, the other bringing his armoured knee into his bare stomach. The gladiator doubled over, a gasp leaving his chest before he fell to his knees on the stone floor. 

“Stop this!” You yelled, urging forward, trying your best to throw yourself into the mix of it all but someone’s arms - another soldier - caught your round the middle. “Unhand him! Your Highness - please - he hasn’t done any wrong, please—”

The Emperor just looked at you blankly before he picked at the jewels around your neck. He tutted, as if it were a shame, a waste. You could hear the shackles being placed back on the man, the low groan he gave as the metal was tightened around his sore wrists. 

“He won,” you whispered, your voice low and choked. You were ready to beg. “Please, he won. He doesn’t deserve this—”

“I don’t like anyone else playing with my toys,” the Emperor interrupted. He said it like he was discussing what to have for lunch. “And my dear cousin doesn’t like anyone playing with his.” He motioned to the guards once more. “Take her back to her seat, where you make sure she stays. This isn’t any place for a Lady,” he told you mournfully.

You didn’t get to see what happened to the gladiator as you were escorted out of the room. But you did hear his yells when the door slammed shut, the dull thuds of impact that you were sure were on his already bruised and broken body. You hadn’t even told him your name, or that you dreamt of him too. That during your worst night terrors, he was the one that saved you. 

When you reached the imperial box once more, your skirts dirtied from the sand, your face tear stricken, you felt broken. Like you’d been snapped in half, like someone had found that wound Steve had stitched up and pulled it apart again the seams. Like someone had ripped something important from you, half of your heart, perhaps. 

You didn’t even notice that it had stopped raining. The skies were blue once more, the sun shining, the only evidence of the sudden storm were the drops of rain that had soaked into the pillow on your chair. 

Steve was gone and the thunder was too. 

[lipglossanon]

Day 20

Kink: Choking

Pairing: Zombie!Leon S. Kennedy x fem!reader

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, RE2R AU, choking (although it’s really not the focus in this fic 🫣), rough sex, noncon, vaginal fingering, unprotected sex, creampie

not proofread ✍️ this is the second version of this fic; I’ll post my original idea at a later date

You made it to the Raccoon City police station without having to fend off any of the shambling monsters loitering the streets. Sneaking around as a teenager really paid off for your older self.  It’s rainy and cold and fucking awful outside, but the eerie stillness pervading the interior of the station isn’t much better. 

Afraid to call out in case something inhuman answers, you slowly make your way around the lobby. Looking up in the goddess statues face, despair creeps into your mind. You have a pocket knife and a flashlight, nothing to really help you against anything except a dark room. 

Hours pass as you meander the halls; you’ve seen things scuttling across the ceilings in random hallways (the ones you leave as quietly as you came) and you think you’ve heard the sounds of gunshots and yells, but you’re honestly too terrified to check. 

You know someone else is here; doors that were locked now wide open and that odd ass pedestal in the lobby is slowly filling up with medallions. Waiting whoever it is out hasn’t worked so far, so you keep circling the same rooms, hoping they’ll run into you. 

The sound of rumbling gears has you turning back around to go to the lobby, but by the time you get there, it’s empty again. However, the mechanism that used those medallions has been activated and now there’s a new area unlocked. You tiptoe down the stairs and stop dead in your tracks. There’s a young police officer lying slumped against the desk. 

“H-hello?” You walk up to him and push his arm, making his head loll to the side where you can see some nasty bite mark. 

“Holy fuck,” you yank your hand away and quickly step back. 

His eyes flutter open and he locks his blue gaze onto you. 

“D’you have first aid?” He slurs out, wincing as he raises up. 

“No,” you suck your bottom lip into your mouth. “I don’t have anything, sorry.”

He squints and hisses in pain, “I think I dropped one out there,” he raises his hand and points to the open entryway behind you. “Would you mind?”

Nodding, you retrace your steps and sure enough, there’s a health spray lying on its side. Grabbing it up, you return and hand it over to the officer. He sprays himself and the bite looks better but doesn’t fully heal him. 

“It’ll be fine,” he waves off your concerned look. “The name’s Leon.”

You introduce yourself before gesturing to his uniform, “Do you know what happened?”

Slowly climbing to his feet, he sits on the edge of the desk with a tired groan. 

“No, it’s my first day. Everything was like this when I got here,” he runs the pads of his fingers over the marks in his neck. 

“Damn,” you sigh out, exhausted already. “Well, do you want to stick together?”

He nods, “It would be safer.”

So you team up with the rookie cop and you both descend deeper into the bowels of the RPD. A strange woman appears at the end of one of many metal walkways, gun jumping between you and the officer. 

“You two with me,” she orders. “Toss your weapons over the ledge.”

Having nothing to defend yourself with, you hold your hands up, casting your eyes over to Leon to see what he’ll do. The rookie eases his pistol from the holster and tosses it over the side, face grimacing as you all listen to it bounce and rattle its way down to the bottom. 

“Move it,” she waves her gun forward, making the pair of you walk first with her behind. 

She guides you further and further down, taking hidden paths and stairways until she leads you both into a lab room. Right before she ducks out and shuts the door, she injects Leon with something from a syringe. He hisses and slaps a hand over the spot. 

While he tries the door, you turn and take in the room itself. It hosts a bed in the center and a table on the side with one wall being a huge mirror (which you can safely bet is two way). 

“What do you want?” Leon calls out, hand cupping his neck. 

“To run an experiment of course,” her voice bleeds through a speaker above the door. “You’ll feel the effects rather quickly.”

You step a little further away from him, knees hitting the edge of the bed and knocking you off balance. Sitting down harshly, the bed shifts under your weight, frame squeaking lightly. 

“What’s going to happen?” Your voice shakes with nerves. 

“Copulation and its effects on a human’s changing nervous system,” she intones almost sounding bored. “I wouldn’t dawdle too long or you might not enjoy yourself at all.”

Fear spikes your heart rate and your gaze shoots over to Leon. He’s wincing in pain again with his bite mark reopened, blood dripping from the wound. 

“I don’t feel right,” he murmurs, lurching over to the bed. 

You go to move but he practically collapses on top of you, pinning you down onto the antiseptic smelling sheets. 

“Get off of me,” you grunt, trying to push at Leon’s shoulders but to no avail. 

“It’s hot,” he groans in your ear, rocking his hips down into yours. “So hungry.”

“One moment,” the woman’s voice crackles to life again right before she enters the room. 

She’s carrying a weird contraption in her hand and you realize it’s a muzzle of sorts as soon as she snaps it in place around Leon’s mouth. 

“That should help keep the experiment moving,” she nods to herself and quickly leaves. 

Still trying to push him off, Leon snarls down at you, hands coming up to grip your throat.

“Get off!” You rasp out, throat tightening under his hands. 

He growls and you see his eyes go milky right in front of you. 

“What’s—“

You cough violently and he squeezes your neck harder. 

“The virus should be in full effect now. It’s been modified for other purposes,” the woman supplies through the speaker. “It will be interesting to see what biological imperatives it chooses to follow.”

Tears stream from the corners of your eyes and down your temples, you claw and scratch and punch at any part of Leon you can reach. Your vision starts to tunnel and you have the epiphany that you’re going to die here under some asshole you don’t even know. 

It’s not until you’re groggily coming to that you realize you must have blacked out. The palm of a hand is roughly rubbing your clit, fingers sliding in and out of your drippy hole. 

“S-stop,” your teeth chatter, feeling cold at the same time you realize you’re completely nude. 

A growling sound from the rookie is your only reply, his fingers fucking into your cunt even harder. Your pussy feels used and puffy, like he’s been doing this for a lot longer than it seems. 

“You’re awake, excellent. The other subject has been prepping you for some time,” her monologue only confirms your suspicions. “Now, he’ll move along to the next phase.”

Having a good idea what that is, you’re still unable to really get your motor functions under control so Leon is easily able to cage in your body as he ruts his cock into your wet pussy. Hissing through your clenched teeth, pleasure and disgust make your walls flutter and grip onto his cock. 

“Chemistry seems very compatible. This should ensure positive results,” she says through the speaker, but it sounds more like she’s talking to herself.  

You glare up at Leon, hating that you’re so out of sorts you can’t even fend him off, body weak and tired. You also hate, with every fiber of your being, the arousal coating his thick cock as he humps your pussy feverishly. His tip brushes against the spongy spot at the front of your cunt and it has your body humming in pleasure. 

With every thrust, his pelvis presses and grinds against your swollen clit. It’s enough to make your toes curl, more slick gushing out around his pistoning cock. It also doesn’t help he’s been playing with your pussy as you were dead to the world, ramping up your arousal even further. You’re going to cum all over this undead cop’s dick and there’s nothing you can do about it. 

Despair wars with the need to climax, making your head ache more than it already does. Leon shifts his hips, rutting deeper than before and you’re moaning loudly. Your hips buck up into his, helping him fuck you harder and faster. His hands move up to squeeze your sore neck and you whimper, clit throbbing and pussy clenching around his cock. 

He squeezes your neck a bit rougher just as he grinds against your pudgy bud and it sets off fireworks in your brain. Eyes rolling back in your head, you cum all over his fat cock. He growls above you, but doesn’t stop thrusting into you. 

Your orgasm spins out into a second one as he keeps the same pace, cock bullying into your squelching cunt. He speeds up when your walls squeeze and pulse around his dick, snarling like a rabid dog until he hilts himself into your pussy. Hating how much you like it, Leon shoots his load into your soft fluttering walls, letting your hole milk rope after rope of his thick spend. 

This whole experience is like a bad dream you’d love to wake up from and never look back. 

“Excellent. That’s a promising start,” the woman interrupts your maudlin thoughts. 

“Please,” you turn your head to the mirrored wall. “Let me go.”

She scoffs, “Why? We’ve only just begun.”

[eldrith]

ғʀᴏᴍ ᴇᴅᴇɴ ; ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ.

ᴄʜɪᴠᴀʟʀʏ ғᴇʟʟ ᴏɴ ʜɪs sᴡᴏʀᴅ ;

words: 8.4k synopsis: jacaerys falls for a woman in aegon's garden. notes: happy halfway! we're only a few weeks from halloween & im getting excited that this story is at its midway point. i hope those who read this enjoy it. it's as always for my muses @useralba and @dipperscavern ... my co authors frong!! chapter warnings: active and willing denial on jace's part tbh. themes of corruption, spooky visions, smut; masturbation, dry humping, heavy petting, finger sucking, hint (?) of choking [v brief], sort-of under the influence activities so - dubious morals in this one [youll see]. eating as sexual imagery, sin/shameful thoughts, religious themes & symbolism, temperature play-ish?, blood & injury depictions, brief mentions of��consuming blood…lightttt manipulation[:D], angst, grief, discussion of death. & some fluff. this is so unedited series masterlist. main masterlist.

THE CHAMBERS OF MAESTER GERARDYS ARE TINGED WITH DRIED HERBS AND DAMP PARCHMENT.

It is a smell which rather permeates the air through the corridors of the castle on the more inclementing days – even when he was younger, Jacaerys found himself passing by the smell of feverfew and steamed stinging nettle on his way to lessons in the bowels of the stone drum. 

Thick tears of rain slide down a weathered pane. Jacaerys reclines in a small chair; In front of him, a poultice is mixed by steady hands.

His head pulses with a familiar ache; the one which has plagued him for days, rendered him rather restless and jumpy on the best of days, irascible and brusque on the others. There is a slow roll of thunder outside; it rattles the weakened pane beside him – faintly, he can nearly hear the call of some childish laughter warbled in the storm outside. 

There are no children left on the island now that his brothers are gone with Rhaena; with them, it seems, has gone the sun. The days have been plunged into dreary rolls of high clouds and low sheets barreling down with coughs of spitting sleet; The nights remain the only time the air is relatively clear of that wetting dark, and yet still clouds slink under silvery slivers of waxing moon. 

Agitated, Jace watches Maester Gerardys pour some oiled ointment, warming it between his palms; straightening his spine to a more respectable position, Jacaerys tilts his jaw for the man to begin to massage the ointment into his temples. 

A sigh of relief. “It’s only getting worse,” He murmurs, eyes fluttering shut at the sharp scent of peppermint. “-The head aches, the knots in my stomach.” 

Maester gerardys hums as he pulls away, returning to the poultice as he glances attentively at the prince – though he says nothing, and Jacaerys is prompted to fill the silence once more. 

“I suppose getting air has helped… Aegon’s Garden is not nearly as taxing to the senses as flying on dragonback these days.” He observes absently, watching another onslaught of rain slam against the window, “… and your oils, of course - though, they’re quite strong in the bath. I find the blooms to be rather pleasant now. I don’t know if you recall, Maester, but I was quite sensitive to plants when I was a babe.” 

Below on the grounds, a flicker of blue through hedges of green; Jacaerys jumps only slightly, blinking – and the figure is gone. He must be going mad. 

Though in a moment of odd silence, the grind of the mortar has stopped. 

Gerardys’ eyes flick up to his own, leaking with a flicker of wariness. “Yes, the…garden.” He repeats slowly, straightening his back. “My Prince, I’ve… noticed you’ve been spending quite some time there recently.” 

Jacaerys, not used to such suspicion from the man, bristles immediately. Some desire, perhaps, to protect the sanctity of the garden - to protect you. 

“And?” He wonders stiffly. 

Maester Gerardys sets the mortar to the table, voice cautious. “It is not my place to pry, but… we must be wary not to… become distracted in such times. The dragonseeds arrive late on the morrow, and the efforts of war demand the entire island’s attention.” 

Offense bristles through Jacaerys’ chest as he levels a sharp gaze at the man before him. Without hesitation, he rises from his previous seat, patience more than frayed. “Do you think me not focused?” 

At the following silence, his voice tightens. “I am not a boy, Gerardys. I know what is at stake - better even than you. And it will do you well to remember who it will be to lead the charge when the time comes.” 

Gerardys does not flinch at the sharpness of Jacaerys’ tone, but nods briefly. “Of course, my Prince. My apologies.” Jacaerys moves to make his exit, though Maester Gerardys’ voice stops him once more., “Though… It is my duty to keep you in good health. You’ve mentioned before a girl, in the garden - pardon me, but there has not-” 

“Enough!” Jacaers snaps, pushing off the table. His temper has flared - though tipped over the cliff by his words, it is not Maester Gerardys who aggravates him so; rather, a heavy impending doom has settled upon his stomach at the damning reminder of the dragonseeds which crawl their way from whatever villages or flea’s bottom they come from now to chance a life of riding a dragon. Of some inkling that, in some way, Gerardys’ words are right; and Jacaerys lashes, a cornered hound. 

“You forget yourself, Maester.” He exhales sharply through his nose, “You are here to help aid my ailments. That is all you need to do."

Gerardys bows his head, “Of course.” 

He is nearly to the threshold when Maester Gerardys’ voice carries - soft and unsettling as an owl’s stare in the pitch of night. “Just remember, my Prince. Sometimes, the things which ease the mind… might mislead the heart.” 

Jacaerys stops before the chamber door, hand clenching into a fist at his side; a nerve has been plucked, struck, ripped - some small growing doubt in the back of his own mind, one that festers and yearns to bloom with kindling of another’s words. Worry eases through him, though there is no time for that; more pressing matters loom. 

The dragonseeds arrive on the eve, it seems. 

He is gone from the chambers without another word, ignoring the fading needle sting of Maester Gerardys’ odd words as they dissolve into the large bow of day. 

IT IS OF LITTLE IMPORTANCE WHEN JACAERYS HAS HIS BATH DRUM MOVED.

Though it is a simple request, an innocent one - brought up while breaking fast one morning, watching with concealed fluster as three servants drag his bath drum towards the windowsill. Though it is indeed blameless and simple, he feels rather horrid for it. 

It is a twist of disgust that blossoms into some equally thrilling bloom in his chest. A transfixion, to keep gaze upon the expanse of a sea beyond his scope, of all that will one day be all his own to rule. To prove, perhaps in some twisted way, that it is he who will sit on the throne when his mother has finished her long reign; that those mules with silver hair and names of sand or snow do not come to delude themselves into making a claim of their own. 

To watch over the baileys below, to see the fishing villages, mere specks in the distant shoreline; to see ships smaller than fleas sail to and from, to see the rustle of wildgrass upon the pathway to the garden below. 

To watch Aegon’s Garden. 

It is not, he tells himself, in any off-chance that he might catch sight of those silky tresses, of that smooth and wintry skin, of your curling smile. Jacaerys simply enjoys the views of sky, sea, mountain - and if he were to catch a glimpse of your beautiful visage, whispering to the flowers and laughing as if the blooms could whisper back? Perhaps that would simply be a welcomed favor. 

The water in his bath steams; oils of rosemary and peppermint mix in a rather sharp smell upon his skin, though the tendrils of steam curl into his head and ease the sharpness of his mind’s ache. 

Reclining back, eyes half-lidded, Jacaerys sighs into the heat of the water. 

Lithe, tense muscles ache with the tension of the day - though it is morning, he knows he must rouse soon; but in the hour ahead that he has to bathe and break fast, he will allow himself to slip away from life, into the recesses of his mind - to where only you exist. 

You. 

Jacaerys allows for his fingertips to brush absently along the water’s surface - so similarly to how they’d traced the curve of your neck, tangled into your hair. It’s been far too long since he visited you last - two nights past since he was tugged through the hedges once more, hiding a grin, ducking under low-hanging vines, gasping into kisses stolen by your wanting lips.

There is no such flame that perhaps has ever burned hotter than the memory of your touch; an icy one, a chilling touch that sends the cold aches of the North to shame; though it burns so hot in his mind’s eye. 

You, a world apart from the suffocating smoke of war - an endearing, true girl; the way your smile tugs at the corner of your lips, some glint in your gaze that beckons him closer - deeper. 

Eyelashes kiss his cheeks when he shuts his lids, and mercifully he sees it - you, head tilted in the sunlight, shadows of the garden dancing along the stretch of your soft skin, the icy breath of shade a cool respite from the despotic sun.

And that heady, rich scent that clings to your skin - the figs, the juicy skin, the pinking bud of flesh inside, your lips so divine, wrapped around them, tasting, licking, biting- 

His breath hitches; without thinking - or perhaps, telling himself instead not to think - his palm slips beneath the water. 

Jacaerys’ groan is quiet into the empty chamber; but his calloused palm is softened by the warmth of the water, and his mind is hazy in the visions of you, staring at him, lips wrapped around that fruit. 

Its scent, the lingering taste of it upon your lips, so sweet - you, so sweet. 

And he did not try a taste then, but gods how he had wanted to; how he still wants to. A taste - of that flesh, dripping with sweet juice and marbled skin of ripe fruit - and of every inch of you, each breathless hitch of a moan, every whisper of his name from your lips. Pleasure curls down the base of his spine as he allows his fist to move; broad strokes, as languid as the slithering shift of your skirts around corners, as sharp as your gasped giggle when he makes you laugh. 

And it’s you; he nearly believes it is you, wrapped around his cock so snug - pleasure lapping at core, water kissing his chest as he stirs in the bath, stuttering breaths that leak a few spare whimpers into the quiet morning air. 

There is a breeze through the open window that sends Jacaerys’ bare chest to shiver against the steam of hot bath; A familiar chill, wrapping and curling around him like the winds of winter - settling at the nape of his neck, but dripping lower to pool at the very base of him, where his fist moves, desperate and seeking. 

And though he pretends it does not happen, he knows his fist curls and moves to the rhythm of your sighs in his memory, how you’re always so eager to press into him, to kiss him, to taste him; desperate and hungry.

Hunger – that glint, dangerous and unknown in your eyes; a flicker of a grin too wide-pulled, the sliding of a gaze that feels ancient. It’s not proper, he knows; but the pleasure mounts anyways – because of it, perhaps – and that sickly smile sends himself further to the edge, grip shaking as his hips buck against nothing. 

Water splashes from the basin. A bite on the plush of his lip as he suppresses a shuddering moan; his abdomen has tensed in such curling pleasure - an ice against the fire in his veins, intoxicating, arresting. 

The pressure always builds - not just this pleasurable kind, though his body insists to his mind he should be focusing on such things - and in the last few desperate days that he’s spent far from you, you who truly understands him - it is in these times when he seeks such salacious relief. 

It is your name whispered from his lips, breathless - too many times to admit in the past weeks of knowing your company. It is some distraction from the clawing talons of fate; when his palms are warm against his cock though he finds himself wishing to feel your own - that chilling touch which lures him so. 

His desperate, soiled lips - groaning your name, falling from his tongue as the whisper of a phantom, some half-formed prayer to gods long-forgotten, squeezed with the very last of air which lived in his lungs. Licking at his skin, curling into his blood like the shade under which you’d kissed him.

The phantom feeling grasps at him, pressing against the thrash of his heartbeat in his chest, bringing the sting of overwhelm to his lashline, coaxing gasps through his lips and tickling a flush to his cheeks. 

He can almost feel you when that same shivering peak leaves him panting, gasping as his ecstasy rolls through his entire body, his head lolling back against the tub basin as he whines your name into the empty chamber. 

And in those moments, just like now - as his chest heaves and knuckles turn white, as he spends himself - he can think of nothing else. 

It is only you.

Though when he steps from the bath and stretches his bare muscles into the bright of day, eyeing the line of constellated freckles which sprinkle over his pectorals and gather in pools upon his shoulders and bridge of nose, he feels the slow recovery of what had slipped so easily from his conscious - pain. 

And just as it disappeared, so it appears once more; with a sharp wince, Jacaerys jolts from his haze, gasping at the heavy ache which throbs in the back of his head. 

With flushed cheeks, he watches the garden below for any sign of life; It swirls with tantalizing greens, the scent of dahlias and gardenias blowing in even this high into the tower through the open casement. A sigh falls secret and unbidden from his lips as curls are raked back upon his head with a shaky palm. 

As always, the pull is there. 

The lull, some sweet melody that spins the strings of his heart, warming the blood pulsing in his chest and gathering below his abdomen; which soothes the ache of his mind and whispers his name in the soft breeze. 

It is melancholy, in the way life has been without Lucerys. Shadows swirl darker under the attention of morning sun – petals curl beneath the breath of frost, melting back into themselves in the first whispers of day. The blooms smile up at him, and he longs for the embrace of something he can never have. 

The garden breathes below. 

Across the bailey, the dragonseeds take up arms - measly children playing at a game they know nothing about; Jacaerys’ jaw clicks when he glimpses the regal posture of his own mother across the way, speaking with Maester Gerardys and Addam of Hull. The pierce of his mind’s ache is sharper - the garden’s breeze sends a breath of loneliness through him. 

He shuts the window without a second thought. 

IT IS ONLY SO MANY HOURS UNTIL HE FINDS HIMSELF IN THE GARDEN ONCE MORE. 

Misery flutters in Jacaerys’ mind with every ragged gasp he takes; a creeping nightmare, rousing him from sweaty sheets - clammy and with half a scream lodged in his throat, he’d stirred. 

Visions of white, some restless churning that’d grown from dirt of dreams and sprouted a blossoming nightmare - at the top of that ancient, towering wall of ice, the words falling from Cregan Stark’s lips. A fate worse than death. 

The loss of his brother; the face which echoed in so many ways his own. The end of a life - of a lifetime - and he still wakes up from restless slumber every night, gasping dry air, yearning for the days of sparring, of fixing wrinkled folds of rich doublets, of teaching lessons, of laughs concealed painfully at supper. 

Though tonight, after being roused from sleep by a scream that did not sound like his own, Jacaerys had stood from his mattress, slamming the empty chalice of water upon his table as he calmed his breaths, watching the hedges swirl and blow in the night’s breeze. He’s grown used to the figments of his sleep-hungry mind – young men running past statues, laughter bubbling far away. But tonight, he saw you in a flash of white dress and a rumble of ancient hunger, some need to be in arms which trust and do not quite question. 

And so, he ran. 

Still clad in his tunic and sleep-trousers, he stumbled past the iron gates, gripped in a chilling bout of tedious familiarity; how many times must he find himself here, searching for comfort - to be haunted by life, by loss? 

Why had he not, instead, sought out his mother? Baela? Lord Corlys is often awake at such ghastly hours these days, staring at the sea from upon his balcony… 

It is admittedly not the first time he has sought you out in such turmoil; indeed, in the weeks of knowing you, scarcely has past two days where he has not ventured into the gardens; where he has not sought your eerie quiet, your soft words, your gentle palms upon his glistening cheeks. 

There is in you perhaps that innocence so lost in people like him - people tainted by the burden of duty; and in your smiles, your whispers, your laughs, your tears - he has come to know you and to love you separately, to be transfixed by you and to crave you. 

He supposes it is indeed some rebellion of his own - any breath of you is swept behind by those he has known his whole life; his mother, with no bat of her eye over your name in passing, though if she had scarcely an idea of what he did with you when there was nothing but the swirling trees and falling petals… lips on soft lips, hands on plush curves... 

And Jacaerys knows, quite deep in his mind, why he could not speak with them. So often he finds words falling on deafened ears; those who do not understand, or who simply do not wish to. Unlike you – wise beyond your years. 

In the pitch dark of night, the statues grow warped - blackened by the hatred of weather and neglect of island; it is darker than he’s ever seen the Garden, with a nearly full moon concealed by thick clouds of dread. 

Blindly he stumbles into a statue - grasping once more unto the familiar young maiden’s thigh for balance; though the serpent which encircles her is coiled higher over her hips than he recalls. 

Fingertips trace over the scales of the snake, and with a distinct desire in his throat, he presses his forehead to the cool stone of the stone woman’s dress skirts; a momentary comfort upon the stone lap. 

It is only moments before his breathing calms; lips, pressing to the stone he rests upon - and that visage that watches down at him - stone and lifeless in the dark, eternally you. 

IT TAKES HIM NO TIME TO FIND YOU DEEPER IN THE GARDEN. 

It is odd, perhaps, that his feet find their way to you each time he seeks you out, as though they have a memory of their own - though he still feels lost in the ever distending garden itself.

Under the olive tree, as you lurk in the shadows, some ancient beastly predator awaits the hare; but you are no foe. 

He stands numbly, the loneliness that grips his chest and fosters growing insecurities and fears within his mind dissolving under your beaming smile. 

You’re against him in only a moment, pulling him by the wrists into your embrace; he feels odd, as though he floats when you tug him nearer.

 “Jacaerys,” You whisper, eyes wide - startled, perhaps, at his visit in such an unseemly hour; though you, too, are here in the garden. It is beyond him to wonder why you so choose to spend your nights here, when he lies so sleeplessly in his own chambers each night wishing for the embrace of the garden. 

The knot in his chest unfurls just under your touch - and you seize him in a shy kiss, leaning on tip-toes to seek his warmth. 

He gasps into it, overwhelmed by the cold of your lips against his own; but he melts into the intoxicating simplicity of being wanted - and wanted by you, gods - and kisses you back deeply. Soft tresses tickle his forearm as he slides his arms around your back, tugging you into him - as if he could perhaps drown himself in you; as if he could forget the weight of the night, of the troubles that always come when morning breaks. 

His hands find your waist as you pull away, though not too far - he keeps you close, to see the breath that falls from your lips and raises the goosepimples upon his neck, each flutter of every single eyelash. 

“You’ve returned,” And you speak the words breathlessly each time he visits, without fail; as if you truly fear that each time he leaves, it will be the last time. 

But your smile falls at the state of him, leaning closer to tuck your palm under his jaw. 

“What troubles you, my love?” You wonder softly, a cold breeze of your palm brushing away his curled tresses - and he tries not to keen into the touch, swallowing thickly at the concern, at the empathy that drips from your words. He does not recall when you began to levy him with such sweet words – gone is my prince, taken up with far more intimate, kind titles; And, in return, when he whispers such devoted titles into your ear, into the breath of the garden – you bloom, a small smile growing evergreen upon your visage.  

Your name is whispered from his lips with a shake of his head, the emotions crawling back to the forefront of his mind, dragging his weary bones down towards the earth. 

And, devoted as always, you go with him; sinking into the thick soil, running your fingers through his hair as he breathes heavily, using his best effort to resist the tears which brim in his vision. He feels a fool; though you would not ever hold him in such contempt. 

His voice is tight. “I wished to see you,” He admits, “I… saw you, from my chambers.” 

Your lips curl into a soft grin; your eyes are dark - knowing - in the concealed moonlight, and it stirs that same odd crazed feeling within his bones. And no matter how tight his grasp on your arm becomes, you do not wince; you instead pull him with a soft caress and practiced words, curled under the statue of the dying lovers. 

It is there he lies, head cushioned on the soft chill of your lap, blinking back syrupy eyelids as he spills his mind to you. 

His mother, the dragonseeds; heirs, bastards, the colour of the very locks your fingers card through so gently. 

His words whisper, curling up through your own hair and floating into the limbs of the tree behind you; your eyes are large as he confesses to you each and every thing that has infected him, has let fester within his mind for so long that now it rots and oozes from his lips with a bitter hatred. 

Your words whisper in return, dripping from honeyed lips and soothing the sore and bruised bones that lie so weary beneath skin so thick. 

It is in no effort to convince him of one thing nor another; Your words are for him, and that is it - your words are simple, kind, understanding. A balm over festering wounds of family, of fate.

“Jace?” You ask into the quiet of the night - and the tug on his heartstring of your delicate use of his sobriquet fosters a gentle, dreamy smile to his lips. He hums into the quiet garden, his fingers slipping through the tresses of your free hair, billowing around his head like a thick curtain; he leans up and steals a soft kiss from your parted lips, laughing gently at the blush that creeps over your countenance. 

Not a breath later, a pressure slides soft against Jacaerys’ face and he jumps slightly. Though you laugh at his misfortune, you straighten; the curtain is pulled, and Jace blinks in the moonlight to find the creature that’d slinked its way into your privacy. 

Jacaerys’ gut twists – the cat. 

A gasp of excitement from you. “Shadow, darling.” You purr affectionately - Jacaerys, wary and uneased, sits himself upright from his pillow in your lap, spine uncurling into regal posture once more. 

It bunts its small head against your palm and Jacaerys is claimed by a faint memory – Baela feeding Sȳndor a foraged fish; You sigh in disappointment, shaking your head down at the cat. “I have none with me this evening, I’m afraid.” 

The cat hisses; he feels his spine straighten even more, hair on end. 

“Jacaerys,” You hum; your hand is outstretched, and with a disoriented blink, he wonders when you’d risen to stand. He rises, hand in yours as you smile against the pitch-black of night. “I’ve something I would like to show you.” 

The deeper into the garden you lead Jacaerys, the longer the silvery shadows of statues cast; wrath, visages weathered and greened by spoiled coils of vines - they leap at him when he passes. Earth and dying leaves hang in the air; but in the rotting turns and bends in the far end of the garden, where he’s never been, they give way to something sweeter, richer. 

It’s a slow crawl - in a breeze, in a short laugh from you, in the sway of your loose tresses when you turn a corner too quickly for the prince to keep up. A cat-and-mouse game.  

Though it grows - a smell so intoxicating that when you finally arrive, Jacaerys is stopped dead in his tracks.

Bewilderment, some serious dip in his gut in alarm at the monstrous silhouette that just barely looms in the shadows of night. His neck has to crane to see them: Figs – plump, ripe, hanging heavy and dripping from gnarled branches easily the size of himself. 

It is a tree twice the size of the olive tree - a feat of its own - and possibly more; the fruits drip with nectar that shimmers as if caught in the light that does not find the rest of the Garden. 

Massive. 

The tree backs up and towers over the stone wall at the end of the garden, fog swirling in a small blanket that conceals the thick, rising roots emerging from the earth. 

And at first, Jacaerys believes the heat rising within him to be hunger; his stomach growls quietly, churning at the alluring scent of fruit - but with a glance at you, hand still in his - a different hunger claws at him. 

The heat spreads through his veins. 

It tightens his chest, mouth watering at the thought of a bite of that sweet fruit, its gentle juices as they slide over trembling, pure skin; his hunger grows, some famished beast clawing at his chest. And a taste of you - that intoxicating you, ever-present and sweet in his mind. 

Gods, this is ill done. He does not ask before tugging you gently with him towards the tree, the overwhelming scent pulling him deeper under its yawning canopy. 

His hand only slips from yours when he reaches the base of the tree; staring up at the sprawling web of branches above, he lets out an incredulous laugh that is deafened immediately in the sedated air around you. 

“It’s enormous,” Fingers brush against bark, ancient and rough, “Why haven't I seen it before? It feels…” He trails off, searching for the words; but he’s gone rather hot in sudden desire. You’re behind him - he feels your freezing breath trickle down his nape, your hand ghosting over his spine; though the shiver that follows is not just from your lips. “...Hidden.” He finishes absently. 

Jacaerys turns into your touch, but you are not behind him - you remain a few paces away, bending to feed the cat a fig you’ve plucked from a lower branch. 

The presence he’d felt behind him is gone; With a blink, unease churns in his gut. 

His question lingers - but too does the heat. That overwhelming scent, as the cat leaps to rip voraciously into the flesh of the fruit. He watches, torn between horror and captivation as the little beast tears at it, releasing some faint growl that sounds nearly like a purr. 

His own fingers reach up shakily to pluck a fruit laced in shadows – and in the moonlight, the flesh is nearly purple. 

“Perhaps the garden hides what it wishes to keep.” 

He startles only slightly – you’re in his ear now, voice laced in that way that stirs heat within him. His fingers clutch the fruit desperately, breathing heavy to regain whatever strength he has lost in the battle against desire. Your whisper sends curling arousal over the ridges of his spine, “The soil is rich here, you know. Fertile, in ways men think it shouldn’t be. The Dragonmont’s deposits do little to stop such delicious fruit from blossoming – it is foolish to think this land cursed.” 

Cursed, his mind whispers – and his brows furrow, your words stirring unease in the back of his mind; It is so difficult to think clearly at such a late hour, with the hunger stirring so deep, with the fruit and your hand so soft in his own.

Cursed – but you eat them; and as he gazes into your glinting eyes in the dark, your bare toes dug into the very soil upon which you stand – hunger gnaws at him, blinding his sight from whatever shadows curl in the dark. He doesn’t mind, he decides. 

Cursed, or blessed – it is often quite hard to tell the difference. 

And his hunger crescendos; with a small press of your lips to the sensitive patch of his neck, the grazing of teeth sharper than the blade forgotten in his chambers, his hand twitches; his thumb splits the seam of the fruit open. 

At the movement,  the pad of his finger slides into the flesh, its juices dripping into his palm; you let out a small whimper at this, your hands curling in a grasp around his arms – the noise sends heat through him, coiling at the base of him. 

Your eyes are alight with hunger – eyes wide, some shrouded smile growing upon hungry lips as he stares down between you and the fruit. 

He yearns for something; all his life, for something. To feel alive, a voice whispers - the Garden is alive, you are alive. You are. 

His hand drops the fruit. 

For just a moment, your face flickers – but he brings his thumb to hover over your cheek, the air thick with the smell of its juices. He is hungry; insatiable. Your breath stutters as you stare up at him, and he down at you, breaths puffing between parted lips, shaking with unspoked craving. 

“Gods,” he murmurs; and then, your tongue darts out – his throat tightens, goosepimples roving through him as you gently lick the pulp of the fig from his thumb, leaning further towards him. 

He leans; Gods, he can’t help himself – and then his lips are on yours, rapacious, greedy. 

You press with cold hands into him, and he stumbles back into the bark of the tree, thicker than himself three times round the trunk; your tongue prods his own, and he can’t help the groan that tears from the back of his throat – the taste, ambrosial. 

Some remnants of the fruit linger upon your lips, and he’s unable to quench himself of the desire that spins his head; that sinks him low once more into the soil, that tugs you daringly atop him. 

Jacaerys blinks back a bout of dizziness when his eyes adjust – reposed below the fig tree, temptations swirling around his mind as you slide into his lap coyly. 

How he got here, he cannot recall; but you’re real and touching him – an icy palm upon the juncture of his neck, your slender thumb slipping to curl over the base of his throat as he keens towards you, plush lips seeking the thrill of your skin against his mouth. 

Dress shifts; his tunic rustles, the leaves fall and the fruit lies in the earth, split open. Perhaps it is the hour - or it is the stare you give him; he is overwhelmed with the sense that you know every part of him; every fear, every weakness – and still you lie in his lap, eager and blushing as the day you first met. His mind flashes – in that numb way, as if he is on the precipice of some crucial understanding.

Your own lips sink into his, pressing away any melancholia, replacing it with a boiling hunger - an icy groan from him as you shift in his lap, his stirring arousal quick and heated with your sweet proximity. 

Your hips stir upon his own – it lights arousal through him, tensing each muscle in his body as he coaxes you to do it again, again, again; until he is numb but for the sensation of you, willing and hungry and his. 

His fingers clench; one palm, grounding himself with a grasp on the junction of your hip - the other, tracing the outline of a nearby root, feeling the thrumming heartbeat which seems to come tandem from both your flesh and its own. 

The kiss he pulls you into is careful, hungry, exploring – overwhelming, as your fingers slide into his curls and tug gently; a hiss of desire from him that arches his spine into your cool skin. 

He takes your sighs, your curves, the tremble of your hands as you palm at his own pliant body as if it’s a proof to himself – he is a man, he is alive – he, more than a playpiece in his mother’s endless efforts, more than a name which will be written leatherbound parchments of history to come. 

He is more than it all; because he is yours. 

“Jace–” Your voice is breathless, and it nearly kills him. 

In a short whimper, you shift your hips upon his own, driving yourself over the line of his hardened cock – and he hisses, biting hard into the plush of his lower lip. 

Near immediately, your tongue soothes over him; and a small noise of pleasure – nearly missed, though your eyes flash as you lean away from his mouth, a smattering of his own metallic blood upon your lip. 

Your eyes are blown wide; a chilling sight, reveling in the taste of his ichor – and your hand, cupping his jaw with that frosty command as you hum, eyes taking him apart, putting him back together. Staring through his soul. Gods, you’re divine. 

“Is this okay?” You whisper - your lips brush against his in a chilling shiver of pleasure; in which he nods enthusiastically, eyes wide and begging and willing. “Yes, please–” 

And he cannot finish, because he is soon letting a soft whimper fall desperately against your own lips; you stir with wandering fingers, undulating against him with a sweet pressure that nearly sends a choked moan past his lips. 

Fingers tangle in the strings of your loose hair, tugging you closer; your chest presses to his – a muddled awe when he feels your heartbeat switch and begin beating to the very same gallop as his own. 

His breath falls ragged as your lips press a blizzard of sultry kisses across his jaw; your gown’s hem curls and ruffles below him as trembling fingers trace it shyly, staving his insatiable hunger. 

Haziness leaks into his mind like the winds creep upon winter; perhaps from the cool, delicate skin so inviting underneath his palm, or perhaps the thick, heady scent of figs in the air. Completely at your mercy, craving everything you’re willing to give him – and as though you know it, there is an odd feeling, some shift under the thick limbs of tree above; it is a jarring realization that you’re smiling against his neck, teeth small needles upon his skin. 

His brow furrows - a groan slips from his lips as his fingers gently tug at your hair, coaxing your head up from his wanting skin. 

Your eyes, blown wide and hungry as his own; and in a hazy swallow, his voice thick with desire and disbelief breaks the quiet of the garden. “You’re divine,” He admits, shaking his head. You laugh at this; that very sharp thing that always seems too loud for your lungs – his mind blares for a moment, but it disappears with a kiss to his jaw. 

“You are, my Prince.” You insist. And in your words strikes him a jolt; Gods, this is ill done. He should have stopped when you led him to the tree – he should have turned back when your eyes lingered too long on his lips, when his hunger grew insatiable and unable to contain – when you slithered into his lap, when he tugged you closer and whispered such flowery words into your sweet ear; when he kissed your lips with blistering fervor and locked his arms so you could not slither away, even if you wished to. 

He is a prince, after all—honor bound, held to standards that now seem so absurdly distant; and indeed, as you move atop him, as your hands snake beneath his tunic and brush icicles over his burning bare skin, something snaps inside him. 

Your hips, and your sensual smile – torturous things, as you draw a slow rhythm that sends his mind spiraling deeper into the fog of lust; frantically, his hips cant upwards in chase of your own. 

Embarrassment is merely a wash of afterthought – because you whimper just as he does, shivering in his grasp at the ecstasy that builds between your frigid skin and his own, furnaced by the ancient blood coursing through his body. 

Ice and fire, his mind whispers – and he is struck with some deep-seeded pride, a knowledge that, more than carnally, he was meant to find you, to be with you; And that, perhaps, yours is the heart he will forever keep, as you keep his in your own eternally frigid grasp. 

He whimpers your name softly and you drink it up with devotion; a septa to a pointed-star; and with a scrambled grasp in your pleasure, your hand finds the fig, split and discarded in the earth-heavy soil beside him. 

It is with lidded eyes and puffing, parted lips that Jacaerys watches you, ravenous and ethereal. 

Your hair cascades, a curtain once more – keeping out any prying eyes from the middle of night, keeping in huffs of innocent desire as his fingers tighten their grasp upon you, dragging you once more over the straining length of him. 

Your fingers press into the wound of the fig and he is doused in a blaring hot ecstasy. 

He bucks at the angelic vision of you, pressing into his heated arousal – as if he might sheathe himself in you now and bring his warmth into your very soul - and you, swirling in a misty breeze of desire, pressing so hungrily against him, bucking your hips with a stuttering pleasure that shoots rapturous satisfaction up his spine. 

And then your fingers rise to those very lips he chases. 

Your eyes roll back in the moonlight – of which he scarcely notes there is enough to douse the tree and you in a silvery breath – and you moan his name when you taste the juice of the fruit. It is a groan, a low drawl that stirs a beast low in his gut. 

The scent is too enticing; abdomen clenching in restraint, his hips buck into yours and you hiss in pleasure, eyes returning to his own, pupils blown wide enough to swallow him. He wishes you would. 

And it is nearly too much for Jacaerys to bear; the sight of you, wrapped around him and breath puffing in shallow gasps, the fig’s juice staining your lips and glistening over your fingers as they swirl in the broken flesh once more. 

He lets out a shaky whimper, the pleasure mounting – his hands roam over your curves, frantic and trembling with the tension of wanting to hold you so close and wishing to ruin you completely. 

In a hazy gasp, he wonders what in the realms he is doing now, out in the open so salaciously; but the thought blanks when he feels your hand, freezing as it curls over his clenched jaw. 

His lips part for you easily, and your smile is hauntingly beautiful in silvered moonlight. 

Your fingers brush over his lips; in a shivered groan, Jacaerys’ eyes flutter shut and his tongue darts out, unable to resist. 

The thick, heady flavor sends heat through him, and he’s nearing that edge, that something - he groans, body arching underneath your epicurean touch as he lets your fingers slide past his lips, closing around them with hunger. 

The sensation hits him; heat, coursing through his veins so hot it turns icy, burns under his skin. And he bucks desperately, tugging you closer, a shudder running through him as he sucks the juice from your skin, overwhelmed with need. 

His body trembles underneath you; your touch, divine – otherworldly – and you hum, letting out a moan as your body stutters above him. Faintly, he is aware of your own peak rolling through you, of your moans, of the sickening smile that flashes above him – though the taste, the smell, the feeling of you slithering atop him – it’s too much. 

Jacaerys groans and your fingers slide from his lips, instead cupping his jaw, coaxing his mouth open for your own lips to find him. 

His groan becomes a gasp as he comes undone beneath you. 

His head falls back against the bark of the tree, feeling its breaths stutter with your own as you follow him, curled into his chest, stuttering your movements as he grasps you in pleasure. His trousers, spent – yet he notices not, whispering your name weakly as his body pulses in an unknown pleasure. Your lips trail ridges of ice over the sliver of exposed collarbone under his tunic. 

The juice of the fruit lingers in his mouth, pulsing oddly through his veins. And in a moment, the world shifts; his vision blurs, and as he blinks, the garden is different – bathed in golden sunlight, blooms wild and in full blood; and laughter, a girl and a boy’s, warbled and happy. His heart strikes; a calming unease, some familiar edge. Another boy’s laughter joins in, and his stomach douses in ice. 

He blinks, and the garden is dark again, the ancient branches of the fig tree curling overhead like gnarled, sinister fingers. 

He looks up at you, still dazed, his body spent but his mind whirling with the remnants of the pleasure and the strangeness that had gripped him so – and registers your stare, suddenly rigid and intent upon him. 

He watches as you lean forward, body pressing against his. A lazy kiss, one that spurs him to chase as you lean back, tasting of those sweet figs; slick with saliva and desire as you suddenly lift a palm between you, brushing his heaving chest. 

The sweetness hovers over his lips; he can nearly taste it, taste you – the scent is overwhelming, the presence of your body so close, so inviting; that hunger remains, even as his spend sticks to his trousers beneath you. 

His eyes trace the macerated fig in your palm, its flesh bleeding and willing, sweet and hungering. The fig. 

“Eat.” 

Your voice, a soft command – and your eyes, dark, intense as they bore into his own. The fig presses lightly against his mouth, and his tongue darts to lap at the juice which gathers upon his bottom lip hungrily. 

Pleasure blossoms at the taste, and in his heart swirls a yearning. 

Though something stops him; a sudden wave of dizziness, a strange sensation pulling him from some darkened haze. He hesitates, blinking at the fruit in your hand. 

“No.” He murmurs. 

He sees it in a flash of moonlight – your smile, faltering. 

It’s not disappointment, but something dark and fleeting – a deepened stare, a flash of malicious hunger; the sweetness of the garden suddenly gathers too thick, too heavy. 

You’ve stilled in his lap and he vaguely registers the rigidity of your expression, some familiarly shadowed stare. 

He’s not sure what he’s done wrong, but your lip trembles, and with a racing heart, he reaches for you. The look upon your visage stops him; a calculating flash in your gaze, the thin press of your lips. 

And for the first time the whole night, fear creeps into his chest. 

Something isn’t right. 

His hand slips away from your cold touch, trembling now for a new reason; and that fig which hovers in your palm suddenly smells sickening, filled with dread and longing all at once. The soil is rotten, he thinks hazily, it’s rotten…You’re–

“Come, why won't you try? Just a bite?” Your words curl in a taunt – and he nearly responds, but you’re leaning forward, lips brushing over his ear and sending shivers down his spine. His fist curls savagely against the bark of the tree as his heart begins to pound. 

“It’s only a fig, Jace.” You whisper, pressing your lips to the soft spot under his ear. 

You move to lean back, the curl of your smirk against his neck melting as you shift, only a sweet smile remaining when you turn to look at him. But the fear and the desire have mixed into some beastly conviction within him. 

And, in a moment of sharp courage, he catches your wrist in a firm, iron grip. 

You freeze under his grasp, your eyes glinting almost ominously in the silver moonlight. 

“Is it?” He snaps back, heart pounding in his chest as his jaw clicks. Somewhere in his heart, there is an unsettling air that chokes, stilling around you when you blink slowly at his question. 

Your stare is sharp, but there is a flash of something there he’s not yet seen before; something, he thinks, must be mirrored in his own gaze. 

Fear.  

A part of him expects for your jaw to unhinge – for a beast to emerge, to swallow him whole, to rip him open and feast upon his innards; but instead your gaze shifts, and your face is small, youthfully beautiful and dripping in purity – a girl no more than his age. 

And then, bone-chillingly, as though a petulant child would when denying a crime, you shake your head just lightly. 

No. 

A confirmation, one which sends a chill rather sharply down his spine. 

And from his lips a stuttered breath – he should run, should scream; but what does such a thing do in dreams? 

Yet as quickly as it came, the shadow over you vanishes. 

As if he blinks and wakes from the hazy dream – your face, returned to that familiar sweetness he so adores, the chilling smile you save only for him. You cup his cheek gently, and it is enough to pull him back from the edge of terror. 

Lilting and light once more, a touch of concern crossing your features as you tilt your head – “You look so troubled, my love. Where did you go?” 

He blinks, confused, alarmed. 

You press a kiss upon his lips, and he chases your touch. “Come back to me,” you whisper. 

He blinks once more, heart still hammering - but the fear dissolves with each ancient breath of the soil beneath him; and he gazes into your eyes through the dark of night – those same eyes that have always seen him. 

You understand him; and whatever that moment of dread had been— wherever he’d gone just now, into some visions conjured up by an exhausted mind – it is gone now, lost in the softness of the fig tree’s leaves, in the tenderness of your touch. 

“I’m sorry, I...” You shift as you murmur and it presses against his spent arousal, his breath hitching as his eyes fall upon your sweet lips, mind fogging. “I sometimes forget myself. You’re just…” 

His eyes hook upon your own, waiting; with bated breath, he waits for you. 

Your lips press together bashfully, fingers toying with curls of his hair, “Special. I’m quite fond of you.” You admit, nearly shy – and an affection blossoms within Jacaerys, a grin trickling upon his lips. “I’m quite fond of you too,” He breathes, pressing a chaste kiss to your cheek. 

Your eyes lose their sharp glint as the moon falls in the sky and his shoulders lose such tension that’d built in the moments past, replaced by the soothing touch of your palm; quiet whispers and gentle laughs that lull his mind into ease.  

And it is there, in the very edge of Aegon’s Garden, that you and he repose for the better hours of the ghost and wolf, whispering of lifetimes and fears and sneaking kisses between mumbled sentences. He forgets the fear he’d felt, that he’d seen in your eyes; soon, fog of morning creeps into the garden and tickles tendrils round his boots.

He is lulled into your lap again - his head rested upon the plush of a cool thigh, your dress gentle against his heated cheeks. 

And though he is unsure if the words that are murmured when his eyes become heavy are real or a part of his tricking mind, they fill him with that warm affection, that love that festers in his heart. 

“I wish I could stay here,” He whispers when he is half asleep from exhaustion. “With you.” 

There is a pause in your fingers for a moment. 

“And you can,” Your voice is laced with something he cannot see - for a moment, his mind conjures a flash of something rather wicked, the memory of your face when he’d denied the fig; though he throws away such absurdity. 

You’re so very soothing, trailing your nails along his temple. 

He drifts away. 

HE WAKES SOME TIME LATER. 

He no longer lies upon your lap; instead he is pressed against your very body, his chest shivering in the cold line of you, in the breath of icy air that threatens from the sky above. 

You stir beside him; the garden is impossibly darker now - and as you sit up, he unwinds the hand he’d placed upon your waist. Uncomely, he reminds himself - though, what does it matter? What does any of it matter? 

“You dreamt,” You murmur. 

Disoriented, Jacaerys blinks, trying to find your face in the dark; he’s merely met with the glinting of your wide eyes against the moonlight blinking owllishly. 

“I…” He frowns, uneased by your observation. “I did. It was…” He shakes his head as he tries to recall, watching your frame materialize under the dark blanket of night. “Odd. A battle - over the sea, I think. Statues – dying, crumbling into the water.” He shakes away the creeping frustration of slipping memories, however distant or unreal. “It didn’t make sense.” 

You hum, and there is some specific glint in your darkened face he nearly misses; the shining of pearls outstretched against plush lips - the flash of a dark grin, sinister in the moonlight, snuffed quick by the effort of a gentle nod. 

He grows even more uncomfortable in the quiet - it must be nearing the early wake of sun; his muscles yield surprisingly little soreness for sleeping upon the earth. 

“Did you dream?” He wonders, relaxing as his eyes adjust to find your visage calm and sweet, watching him with a soft interest. What odd tricks his mind plays in the dark. 

Your voice, ever distant: “I don’t dream.” 

He’s imbued with the slow tendrils of sleep, though he frowns. “Everyone dreams,” He murmurs. 

You huff smally, tilting your head in that doelike way, “I suppose I can never recall them.” 

He laughs, then – a hollow thing, though recovering some of the warmth gone after the loneliness settled in those moons ago. A strained sound, though it makes you mimic his laughter in that odd way you sometimes do – and with a smile, you watch him intently. 

“I enjoy hearing your laugh, Jacaerys. It’s comfortable… familiar.” 

And for some odd reason, perhaps in seek of his own comforting memory, Jacaerys pictures Luke – laughter bubbling over at the drawing table of his mother’s quarters, breaking fast as a family; and a deep melancholy settles over him, pulling him deep into the pit of grief that finds him in the night. 

His smile falls. “My brother used to laugh until he turned red.” He recalls, settled into that haze that begins to reclaim him, as if he’s drifting to sleep once more. “He’d lose breath sometimes – like he had to suck air out of every lung in the keep, just to keep himself from passing out. It would make him laugh harder.” 

You smile in his peripheral. 

His brows furrow. “He was just always so full of…light.” 

He’s not sure why he offers such information – it is near impossible these days for Jacaerys to utter Luke’s name aloud, let alone think such fond memories. 

Though something about the blanket of night and the gentle brush of your thigh against his own, brings a lull to his mind; as though he’s sipped too many cups of wine, or still rests in some odd state of slumber. The remainder of the fig’s juices slip past his tongue when he wettens his lip, and he’s coaxed into that state of hungry bliss – not fully satisfied, yet pleasant to repose. 

Your fingers pull at the many frays of your odd dressskirts; in the faint moonlight, the fabric looks as though it has stains. Deep, dark streaks that blossom just near your breast and stomach; they seem to spread with the breaths you take, your hands beginning to shake. He blinks rapidly to rid himself of such an uneasy sight.

A statue of a man and woman across the way has caught a streak of moonlight; He’d not noticed any statue in the fig tree’s courtyard hours ago, but now it sits, gruesomely pale in the scarce silver - and their faces are rather distraught.

A familiar statue, one so alike the marbled lovers near the olive tree. A man, wind-and-water-torn, with that same arrow protruding through his flesh; and the woman in his arms watching with a transfixed expression, grasping at his arms with lonely eyes. 

He tears his eyes away uneasily. 

“I know a boy like that, too.” You whisper quietly, though Jacaerys is hooked upon the odd bend of the arrow which sticks through the statue’s shoulder across the way. He’s not quite sure what you mean, and his brows furrow. 

“-Though,” You shrug with only one shoulder, as though mimicking the woman from the statue, “His laugh is more full of water.” 

Jacaerys freezes. 

His heart stops at your words, breath catching in his throat - the mention of such a thing sends a chill through him. “What—” He whispers, mind flashing back to the glimpse of curls, of that bouncing gait, of the blue that had flickered through these very hedges days ago. 

“What do you mean?” He chokes. 

You smile that soft smile – the one that haunts his mind, that leaves him uneasy in the flickering of moonlight. “I see him in the garden sometimes,” Your eyes flicker, gleam, “He comes here – to the fig tree – during rainstorms. He told me he used to enjoy the sound, but now he detests them.” 

Jacaerys is rooted to the ground, staring wide-eyed into the yawning chasm of night; its jaw spread wide, your face the shining beacon of fire at the base of its throat. 

The pain of a lost limb; of a lost soul entwined with his own, cut from the same womb, carved from the same stone. But your voice echoes drearily through the quiet silence. 

“And the boy…His laugh,” Your brows knit faintly, “It’s like yours, but…drowned.” 

Every hair on the nape of his neck is on end as he lets out a shaky breath. No. Lucerys is dead, he reminds himself. 

Your fingers brush his hand against the soil; cold as ice. 

The sensation jolts him, and he leaps to his feet, sleepclothes uncomfortable, his skin sticky from the sins of earlier. His cheeks flood with heat. 

It is wrong. Dread fills him, the leak of a moat into a basin of fear; there’s something wrong about this - because Lucerys is dead, his father is dead, Rhaenys is dead - all of them, dead. 

Life moves on, but the dead do not; and it is a burden he carries, and he carries alone - because the crown is too heavy to be marred by the blood of the ones you’ve loved, so Jacaerys must bear the weight for him and his mother. 

How could you have seen him? 

“-You know how.” 

Your voice comes sharp from the tree below, and it strikes him through the stomach - and before he can consider the unnerving murmur from your lips, how you’re always seeing into the words in his mind, the thread has snapped. 

It’s only a fig, Jace.

He staggers back a few steps, feet caught on the twisting gnarl of treeroot. “I’ve… I apologize, I must go.” He murmurs, swallowing thickly; and with a shaky breath, he resists the urge for his mind to spiral into that dark place, where grief and madness lie in wait. 

He turns away from the lulling ease of the tree above, nearly as large a shadow as the castle itself – and takes one, two, many steps towards the hedges, chest thundering. 

Perhaps you call after him. 

He thinks he hears your dress snagging on thorns and branches behind him as he tears through the bowels of the rotting garden; rounding a corner, he hears a feline’s hiss, a dark rumble of thunder. The garden is wrong – a putrid thing, in the dead light of nightingale’s earliest breaths. 

It is rotten soil, a voice mimics – though his heart still pounds your name into his ribs; he still misses the chilling press of your lips to his own, the sweet saccharin taste of the fruit upon your tongue. 

The soil is sick, it is too rich in his nostrils; and when he staggers past the maiden statue, he is terrified to see there is no snake upon her thigh – instead her visage stares down at him with a wicked, serpentlike grin. 

A shiver of fear as he blinks back terror. 

Morning glories are trampled underfoot, poppies beaten until their bloody leaves smash into the soles of his boots. 

Jacaerys’ eyes clench shut and he pretends not to hear the faint mix of joint laughter – warbled in the distance, a girl’s and a boy’s, bubbling over before dissolving, echoing into the crash of the icy ocean below. 

An agonizing gasp of unease from him as he finally bursts to the entryyard, the wilting flowers decaying in a sickly sweet scent. He nearly retches. 

When Jacaerys pushes past the gate and into the bailey’s courtyard, the breaking dawn is cloudless.

Early morningbirds chirp in the sky; waves crash down upon the shore, lit bloody with the waking sun. He is very alone.

taglist: @softspiderling @lukehughes43 @rhea-ripley @writtenapoiogy @fyrewept @oldtowrs @bryscorner @chloe-petrichors @jottositto @solavita @earth4angels @benjinotes @divinesolas @hxtd @astrxq @housetargaryenloyalist @bucksplum @v3lary0ns @princessvelaryon @princessbellecerise @still-jon-snow @elaena-aerrin @mckennah123 @smurfelle @alyssa-dayne @uhnanix @house-celtigar @ficlovegirlie @cregan-starks @manhandlememando @inkandarsenic @cuntlips42 @franzelt

[solar4seekstron]

Before and So Forth Chr. 2: Transformers One x Cybertronian!GN!reader

TransformersOne!Megatronus x Cybertronian!GN!Reader(Bit of Starscream x reader-kinda)

Chapter Two: Megatronus

Chapter One, Chapter Three, Chapter Four,

TW/Tags: 18+, Smut, HUGE Size differences, Reader gets hurt, Starscream is worried, Megatronus and Solus are fighting, Long aft chapter again.

Note: In the lore of transformers prime Solus is in a sort of Poly like relationship with the other primes and although she loves and cares for Megatronus as well she doesn’t seem to really pick him or the others if that makes sense. Thought it would be interesting to add that here and Megatronus choose he’ll court the reader. As for Starscream his feelings toawrds reader will become more and more clear as the story continues and eventually the reader will accept it after the primes deaths. There’ll be more at the end of the post to explain.

As always I hope you all enjoy and be sure to read the text after the story. Smut will be in purple in case you’re uncomfortable with the smut parts.

(Just like the first one this one will be as long as well.

You made your way to the lunch area with the other High Guards. Passing by some cone heads and seekers. You did your best to remain calm as you walked. As you continued, you thought about your mission. Where you’ll be going to the surface to keep an eye out for Quintessons. Something you offered to join in order to be a little more useful…

You were deep in your thoughts when you bumped into a chest. You looked up and see it’s Soundwave- “Soundwave! Sir. My apologies I uhh…-w-well you see I-“

“Have you eaten today?” You think for a moment putting a finger to your chin as you look down…”…….This morning?” ………….”Training….. keeping me busy?”

You could swear just by your own gut feeling Soundwave was frowning and before you knew it he was grabbing your cervo and dragging you to the lunch room. He and Shockwave along with Starscream had their own little area being one of the strongest members of the high guard. As you both got there Shockwave was staring at his energon bowel..…analyzing it? And starscream was eating as he saw Rumble and Frenzy messed around as they ate theirs like wild animals.

Ravage was eating out of a bowel right next to Shockwave. Shockwave looked over at her and slowly moves the arm that doesn’t have a cervo towards her. Rumble next to Ravage, on the other side notices and smacks Shockwaves arm. His one optic squinting down at him.

As you and Soundwave get there he sat you on his seat and puts a few energon cubes in front of you. “Eat.” “Soundwave-“ “Eat.” You sigh and start eating the cubes as he stares down at you.

Soundwave then sits across from you picking up Ravage like a kitten as her snout never leaves the bowel and sits down. Setting her on his lap. As you ate you can feel Starscreams eyes on you. Given that you did just disappear while he was training the others. You can also tell Soundwave was glaring at you . He was always so strict with you and a few other Guards about eating enough in order to do our job. Shockwave was side-eyeing Soundwave. Then looks at you then back at him. After he then looked down at his bowel and back at you then Soundwave.

Rumble sighs and was the first to speak. “Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Soundwave can we go on Y/Ns mission?” “No”

”Told you he’d say no.” Frenzy says. Laserbeak resting on his head sleeping. Rumble grumbles and finishes his energon cubes getting down and walking away. “Rumble Return at once.” “No!”

”Soundwave, we're just going to fly around in search for any Quintessons signal. Make sure they’re nowhere close to us, you know?” You try to say to Soundwave seeing Rumble’s upset. soundwave stares down at you. You finally finished your energon cubes.

Soundwave only stares at you and lets out what sounds like a sigh. Looking down at Ravage and Frenzy. Frenzy just shrugged and Ravage went back licking her paws. Shockwave slowly blinks his one optic as he finally finishes his energon soup. Soundwave sighs and comms Rumble “Mission with Y/N: Accepted” Rumbles cheers and Yes’s can be heard from his comm and not too afar from them as Soundwave stays still.

You chuckle a bit as rumble returns and jumps onto your lap. Ignoring the glares of Starscream, Shockwave, and Soundwave. He starts asking you about the mission. You check the time and see you leave in 10. You let Rumble know and you both make your way to the other seekers you’ll be joining. Rumble runs off ahead of you as you continue to walk.

You then feel a hand grab your arms and pull you back. You back hitting the chest of someone- still taller than you. You turn your head to look up. It was Starscream.

”You really think you can walk away without apologizing? We were suppose to train and another thing I-“ You just rolled your eyes and gently pulled your arms away from his grasp and look at him. “Screamer we train every morning and one of the Primes decided to have his training today. I can’t say no.”

Starscream stared at you and let out a bit of a growl and takes a step forward. “One, don’t call me screamer. Two, I don’t care you ditched me! And three! Which Prime?”

”Uhh……Megatronus.” You say with a small smile. Starscream only stared down at you as he then sighs and gently holds your hands as he continues to look at you. “I don’t like the way that Prime looks at you. Every time we fight we are able to escape. He seems to just stare at you with this look.”

Here you start to panic a bit as he speaks. Maybe you should tell him what Megatronus did. Maybe you can trust him? But as you looked up at him you can see the sadness in his eyes makes your spark almost feel pity.

”I may be just a part of the high guard but those Prime should know their place as well . He sets his hands on your waist and gently pulls you closer gripping a bit tightly as he speaks. You soon realize what was going on and you were quick to come up with something. You knew you had to stop him, not to mention you had to leave soon.

”Starscream I really must get going. Let’s talk later shall we?” You gently hug him, your chin on his shoulder. He kept his hands on your waist for a moment longer until you pulled away. “We can train together in the morning alright?” He stays quiet for a moment and then nods. Letting you go. You walk to catch up with rumble meeting up with him and the others. Starscream was still standing there as he looked down at his hands. Unaware of Sentinel watching from deeper in the halls.

Once you were there you chatted and apologized for being almost late. Then transformed. Rumble hopping on top and hanging on tightly to you. You and the other guards with you then fly up to the surface. As you flew, Megatronus from the room meeting with the other primes, watched you as you left. He was currently in a meeting with a few of the other primes. Solus is also there. She notices him watching the guards leaving and almost frowns. Megatronus then returned to the meeting. Taking his seat next to Solus.

———————————————————————————

After many hours since going into your little patrol the sun was slowly setting. You and the others keep flying as Rumbles' grip slowly gets loose. You make sure to remind rumble that he has to hang on tightly. It requires that you move fast in case of attack. After some time you and the others take a small break and hide in an abandon city. safely. Hidden you decide to look at the lost city for a bit. walking around it alongside some deer robots. Your mind starts to think as Rumble and the others stay together.

After some time your mind wondered. The rumor of Megatronus and Solus prime. How he must have implied that he wasn’t courting Solus but…. He…wanted to court you..Why? You and many others seen how she looks at him. But you were certain he must’ve had feelings for her at least once as well. Not to mention the whole situation with Starscream. You began to worry. Your spark only starting to rac because of your confusion and lost of what’ll happen.

But as you continue you would stop as you feel something poking and grabbing at your leg. you looked down and it’s- IT’S A QUINTISSON!!- but- smaller. Almost deformed in a way. You almost took sympathy at first as it whimpered and crawled closer to you. But then it launched at you, holding you back with your hands and arms. It keeps slashing at you. But then it gets a good scratch at you face. You screamed in pain as you finally get a chance to blast it away. Then you get to it and stab it repeatedly until it stopped moving. You were out of breath given you were caught of guard and had to think fast. You held you cheek feeling the energon and pain on your eye brow and cheek. That thing really got a good hit on you.

You made your way to the others as my talked and messed around. Rumble having a good time as the others laughed. You still kept your hand on your cheek and your other hand as a blaster as you ran to them.

”Weapons ready! Possible Quintessons!! The others hear you and get their weapons ready. You all searched around the city separated. As Rumble and another seeker stays with you. Rumble was able to patch and clean you up thanks to a medical kit the other seeker brought with them. After some time you all can confirm it was just the small one. Most likely being left behind. You all decide to continue your mission. You told Rumble you will handle explaining what happened. What’s important is he’s safe.

And so forth you and the other seekers continue to fly in the air, Rumble with you again as the sun finally sets. Once upon returning you knew you were in for it. Making it into the surface unfollowed you and the others landed at the front of the tower.

You all then walk in some other guards noticing you new scar. You made your way to the medical bay as Rumble says his byes and heads to Soundwave. As you spoke to the nurse after a few minutes you door bangs wide open showing Soundwave. He was beyond upset and told the nurse to leave. Once they were gone he really laid it into you. Not for Rumble possibly getting into danger. No. Because you weren’t more careful and now although not huge. You have. Scar on your eye brow and cheek. Your cheek wound being much deeper. When you thought of thinking of making a little snarky comment to lighten up the mood. He already knew and told you to not even try it. You looked down and just waited for him to finish.

You’d then feel a hand on your shoulder. As you looked up he was staring down at you. “Always close to the ones you trust Y/N otherwise your future will have consequences…Understood?” You slowly nodded.

He then left after that. You sighed exhausted and as you walked out and started heading to the training room. Something you did every night before heading to recharge, you didn’t expect to see starscream in there, training by himself. As you walked in you greeted him which surprised him as he was in the middle of a move.

“Sorry ‘bout that Starscream.” He groaned and once he stood up. When he saw you he dropped his weapon. Making his way to you and putting his cervos on your shoulder as he looked at your scar.

”What the hell happened to you?! Didn’t you say long ago you would always be careful?! You could’ve gotten hurt more you idiot!” You only look at him as he complained and just smiled. You soft smile you can only rarely do as he continues on. But once he sees your smile. “Starscream…I’m alive ain’t I?” He stays quiet for a moment as he takes in your words. He’d sigh and look away for a moment.

His eyes then close and his cervos on your shoulders tighten a bit. “Go recharge Y/N……”

”Starscream-“

”That’s an order…And we both will be training early tomorrow morning, understand?”

“….Yes sir.” You’d then turn and leave walking out of the room. Starscream stays in there as his cervos clenched out of anger. You were almost out of the building until you got an idea. Then as you thought, you walked to Megatronus' private quarters. The one place he must be at now….

Yes, your feelings towards Megatronus are true but so was with Starscream. Both in plain view, obviously it woul work. Starscream you’re not sure of. But for Megatronus to kiss you and Starscream showing even more affection than before!…..You are always on the job and…and…Megatronus..should be with someone of his rank. Not you. Starscream may seem as a possibility- but No! You have to discipline yourself. Not to be used by a Prime. You will speak to Megatronus and stand your ground. Even if it means you’re no longer part of the high guard. You must put yourself first.

———————————————————————————

As you got to his door you could hear voices from the other side. It was Megatronus and Solus arguing. As you get closer you’re able to hear them better. You continue to listen. The other Primes shouldn’t be back for another few cycles. You stay at the hall higher in up your Audio Sensors. Ok if they start doing it then you’ll leave but what if it has to do with the rumor. Maybe he lied and it was real?

”I have lost interest Solus you said it yourself! Not only was my courtship on hold for so long but you wish for me to just except your feelings for another for the millionth time? Am I to believe you can still have such feelings for me as you do for the others. I’ve waited. I’m Done!”

”If you really cared then you would’ve try harder-“

“Harder? HARDER!? You don’t even know what you want and you’re just dragging me and the others with you into your black whole! I’ve moved on. I don’t need this and I don’t need you!” Solus just stares up at him. Her face full off anger as he stares down at her.

”You’ll come back..you always do.” She then walks past him finally leaving the room. She walks the opposite direction from where you are. She can be heard crying a bit from afar and you just peek from the wall from the hall. You grow even more worried.

Has this been happening? Did he try courting her before? Wait- HAS SHE BEEN FRAGGING THE OTHER PRIMES!? You swear you almost feel nauseous at the thought of this just going on. Once it seemed the coast was clear you made your way to the door after it was shut. You’d then gently knock on his door. Pretty much regretting it as you grow nervous but you know you must do this.

Though what you didn’t know is on the other side of the door he was losing in on the other side of the door. After waiting and waiting for her. She still makes him wait as she flirts with the others. He then threw his berth up in the air, hitting the ceiling and throwing his data pads around.

You gulped and knocked again as you say in a whisper “Please don’t kill meee-“

”If you don’t leave I-“ He yelled as the door finally happened, only look at no one. He looks around. You had to clear your throat in order to grab his attention. He finally looks down more and sees you. You two stay quiet for a moment looking for each other. His optics were wide as he seemed almost out of breath because of his rage earlier. You finally speak.

”Can we talk..Megatronus?” You give a small smile. Hopefully to brighten his mood. At least a little bit as you keep looking at him. He calmed down, his optics no longer wide and his body stops tensing up. “It is good you are here Y/N.”

”Oh that is good to hear Megatro-“ He then grabs you with his one hand. It only going fully around your waist as he pulls you in. His door closes and he walks a bit deeper in his room and gently sets you down. “-nus…uhm. Why don’t we talk ‘bout- About! Today.” You corrected yourself as he sat on his berth.

“…..Go on.” You gulped. Oh boy you either die today or leave bruised or worse- fired but you must treat this like a grown up and handle the situation.

”Sir- Megatronus. Our relationship isn’t appropriate. Yes my feelings are reall but I’m nothing more but a guard who fights for you and the city from the Quintissons. I don’t know what’s going on between you and Solus Prime that created this rumor.” You lied

”But I’m sure a Prime like yourself and Solus can work out-“

He then grabs your arm bringing you closer to him as you stumble a bit trying to not fall. He then sets you on his lap. His hand on your back as he sets his other hand on his lap. “I could give less of a damn of you believe is proper or not. The reason we are keeping this secret and away form the others is for your safety. I am well aware of what I’m doin’… But I….Just years of these emotions inside me and knowing that Solus will just make me wait and wait and she runs off to the others possibly even more then more…I’m sick of it. I feel used! And It isn’t what I want and should even need!”

You could only stare up at him as he spoke and took in his words. He really was doing this because he believed you'll not treat him like Solus. You’re loyal, you’re suppose to be. “Megatronus did you ever think that it could be because she’s dealing with stress and trying to trains her own high guards just as the others-“ He slams his foot down. “If so then why must she make false promises and mess with me with the others in front!”

”…..Doesn’t she..do the same with you and isnt she known she’s affectionate?” He only looks down at you with an angry expression and slowly blinked. You gulped and looked down. “She’s poly isnt she?” Megatronus the growls more as he stands up. “OK OK lets calm down!” You backed up as he paced back and forth. “Megatronus please lets just-“

”I am done!” He stays quiet for a moment. You could only stare at him, then look down. He was really tired of all this. You feel sympathy. But maybe this could be a good thing? You can actually have your chance and he already admitted he- wait…..well wouldn’t hurt to ask. “Megatronus do you…have actual feelings for me? Like- Love even?” He pauses for a moment before slowly turning. He thought for a moment. Before sitting back down. He would then sighs and fixed his bed and sits back on it. “Years and years when not focused on Solus the whole time…I have could only notice you everytime.” Your Bravery, Loyalty, and Strength- It’s everything a warrior represents!…I….” He takes a knee after being silent for a moment before you.

Looking down at you with soft eyes. Something he rarely does.

His large hand gently grabbing hold of yours. “I do love you. And I hope you’ll continue to give me a chance to guide and be with you? Please…statues passed aside just..give us a chance. Me a chance?” In your head you knew. This is just straight up pity but at the same time not. You do care for him. Hell it took you a while to not blush around him.

You thought for a moment then remembering why you came here in the first place. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt. A relationship will barely stop you from doing your job. And Megatronus is a respectable leader. he’s about as serious as you are about the war……..Oh what the hell.

You look up at him. You only have took a second before finally answering and gently holding his larger ones with yours. “I’ll…let you court me Megatronus…and Hope our journey can continue forward on what lies upon us…” You’re sure he must be smiling under his mask. But then you thought and spoke when he moved his larger hands moved onto your waist.

”Maybe we should take it slow first? Why not take our ti-“ You see he’s just staring at this point. “Semi slow?” He nods letting out a “hm”. He then sits down and gently picked you up as he puts you on his lap. His other hand reaching to his mask. He’s about to take it off- HE’S ABOUT TO TAKE IT OFF….you start to panick as bit. You didn’t expect this to happen so soon.

You could only sit there as he removed his mask. He then reveals his face. It was grey a bit darker toned as he had a few scars on his lips and around his eyes. Most likely from a Quintissons. You just stare at him as he looked down at you. His face unemotional as his optics just narrowed. You realize you’re just staring and you should probably speak. “Wow I didn’t expect you’re so much more handsome then I expected.” He only let out a deep chuckle. At least my scars don’t seem to bother you. I believe scar are what makes show of a warriors worthiness. Such as like yours here.” One of his digits gently touches your scar on your cheek. Noticing it’s over your eyebrow as well.

”The scouting today had its surprises but at least I got it on a special day?” You tried your best to brighten up the mood even more. His other hand still on your back starts to pull you a bit closer as he sets his mask down. “Let me ask you have no other courting you at this moment Y/N.” You responded with a no. You didn’t really have anyone else. And Starscream has his own thing going on. It’s most likely not possible like how it would’ve been with megatronus.

”Good. Something for myself. Someone I can trust…” You slowly nodded. Your cervos resting on your own lap as one of his digits touches your chin and keeps it in place as he looks down at you. “Mean it…?”

”Y-yes Megatronus.”

He gently sets you on the berth with his cervos as he leaned down getting fully on the berth as he uses his arms a support and was basically over you once more. He then leaned closer both of you foreheads touching as he stared down at you. Your cervos gently holding his cheeks as you give him a small smile. You then closed your optics as you take in the moment. He then leaned forward a bit his lips touches your once more since earlier this day. You didn’t take some time after to return the kiss. Lightly turning your head to deepen it.

It was close to how it was earlier this day in thr training room. His cervos moving to your waist and gently rubbing at your chest. Putting a little pressure on you to keep you pinned on the bed. His lips are so gently against your small ones. You can only imagine what it’ll be like when you he finishes courting you. You could only hope he still be gentle even then. When you opened your optics a little bit, his optics were already closed. He seemed almost a peace. Something that wasn’t seen much earlier today.

You closed your optics once more as he moves his lips to your neck and shoulder as his other cervo that was against the bed now was behind your head. Supporting it as he brought you closer. Your cervos stayed on his cheek. Supporting him to continue as he continues to cover your shoulder with kisses. He then continues going lower and lower.

His cervo moving to under you making you lift up a little. Now you head to your waist only inches above the bed. He then kisses your chest taking his time as he then makes his way to your waist. Your chest and waist becoming covered with kisses.

Your cervos then rest on the top of his head. Both of his cervos staying in lace as he spends some time to continue covering your waist with kisses. You’d let out a few sighs as you take in the moment. That worry and stress you had moments before soon washing away. The same thing surely happening to Megatronus.

Before you know it his kisses have gone lower and just over your panel he sets a kiss in place for only a moment. Your legs spreading on their own for him as you let out a small gasp. He then gently licked the now sensitive panel making your legs flinch only a bit. You didn’t realized how sensitive your panel has grown. He then gave soft kisses and licks on your inner legs and panel once more. With the cervo supporting your head up. His thumb gently move to be over you lips. “Open for me my dear.”

”M-Megatronus isn’t this going too fast?” He only continues until he finally stops slowly lifting his head being a few more inches from you

He then so gently picked you up. He sits up on the berth as the has one of his cervos supporting you up by your lower half against his sheet. His back now resting against the wall as he looked at you. His optics still soft as he then used one of his digits to gently rub your bac as he then spoke. “Maybe so but at least let me have a taste. So that you may know what to expect after our courting.”

You gave into the thought for a couple seconds before you then descide to nod. Giving him your gentle smile once more as he continued to almost seem emotionless. Though before you knew it he let out a small smile as well. He then leaned forward once more as his lips touch your panel and since you agreed. Your panel opens.

Showing how wet your valve is. Practically soaking as you shiver a bit from the cold air. He’s then set a small and gentle kiss on your valve as you let out a few gasps softly as your head titled back.

He’d then stick out his glossa once more and this time gently pressed more pressure against you valve. Making your legs shake lightly as he continues and presses his head closer into your legs and more so against your valve. He would then continue. Although he had a much bigger mouth compared to the other primes. He was more so gentle when it comes to using it. And he made very sure of that with you.

He’d then gently job at you node as he spreads your legs using one of his digits with the cervo supporting you. You let out a moan not expecting him to make a move like this given his size.

You’d then turn your head and notice his own panel has been removed and his other cervo has been busy with his spike. His spike was long and rather girthy as it stood tall. The tip was already leaking precum as he held it tightly. Your cervos held onto his digits tightly as you let out a few more moans. Trying to have a good hold of your legs as they continue to shake. The side of your thighs rubbing against his cheeks as he continues trying to bring you closer to your orgasm. When it appears that you are getting louder and louder. He looks up at you. His optics are narrow. You notice and place a hand over your mouth as you moan into it. He closes his optics once more and continues.

You feel a knot growing in my stomach. The feeling only growing as you continue to moan into your cervo. He realizes this means you’re getting closer. He continues this action and licked harder against your entrance and node.

He was already moving his cervo up and down his spike. Squeezing tightly as he grows closer to his own release. He too then moaned lightly. Causing his glossa and lips to vibrate against your valve. Only causing even more pleasure for you.

And then soon you are undone. Finally getting your release as you let out one last moan. Your legs shaking and your cervos squeeze tightly on his digits. He continues his act as he licks at your valve cleaning you up. Making sure you’re all cleaned up and not a single drop falls.

You’re a mess as you were panting. Trying to catch your breath. He wasn’t far behind, finally receiving his own release. It landing on his lower waist as he too tried to catch his breath. He slowly opened his optics and looks at you. As you did the same. Your legs were shaking and he gently raised you high as he sat up. His hand still holding you as he tucks himself away. His panel closing. You’d then close your panel once you finally caught your breath.

You looked at him and you both stared at each other. Although silly you both had a smile on your lips. He brought you closer and both of your lips meet. Touching once more. He kisses you with both passion and hunger. Hoping you’d do the same. You gently set your cervos on his cheeks as you return the kiss. You then spend what felt like cycles as your lips touched. But as th seconds gon by the later it became at night.

You’ll be exhausted in the morning for your training.

He was the one to pull away. He looked at you and let out a small chuckle. “I should help you sneak out so no one sees you. Wouldn’t want you losing your job.” You let out a chuckle at his words. He’d then stand up fully nad think. Then looking at his chest as he sets his mask back on.

”I should have enough room in front of my cog. I can walk out and go where you wont be seen so you may make it home. No one will question if it’s me going out.”

”That’s…a pretty good plan.” He then opens his chest and there lied his cog. There does seem to be room but you’re still a bit too big. You then get an idea. transforming in his cervo he looks at you. He then tried his best to fit you into his chest and able to get you to fit at a certain angle.

After cleaning himself up more he walks out of his room. Luckily only the night guards out and they only bowed their heads to Megatronus as he passed them. He then walks outside, getting closer to one of the alleyways and once the coast was clear. He opened his chest and picked you out. Setting you on the floor. You’d then transform and stretch out your arms. You’d then look up at him as he kneels down.

”I’ll see you for training tomorrow in the afternoon. You shall join me in training to show the others how to grow stronger. Understood?”

”Yes..Megatronus.” He nodded. He appears to wanting to lean forward. To give you one last kiss but he knew he had to return. Holding back. He then… bowed his head to you. This took you by surprise. You’d walk forward and place your hand on his chest “Until tomorrow My Prime.” You two stay quiet for a moment until he stands up. Then turning the other way heading back to his quarters.

———————————————————————————

You made your way back to your home. Once you got in you leaned against the door once it closed. And slide down sitting on the floor. You and one of th primes…Oh boy..This job just got a lot more interesting..

Back with megatronus as he walked back he passes by Solus who was leaving from her training room. She was alone and tired. Having gone training to let her anger out. She’d then notice megatronus passing by to his own room

”Megatronus what are you- what were you doing?” Megatronus would stop and turn his head back a little. Only glancing a bit. But right away, he continues walking. As she spoke more trying to grab his attention. He just continues to ignore her. Finally going to his room to recharge. Leaving Solus alone.

Hell yeah Chapter 2! Only a few more chapters to go!! As always the chapters for this story will be every Tuesday so please be patient. More chapters are to come.

As the story continues I’m planning on letting it get to even the movie. But because I love giving myself more work I’ll make two different parts where you either get left behind and don’t know what actually happened. Sentinel takes you and lies. Making you his Conjunx until Megatron kills him and eventually takes you cause he yandere. And another will be you being there knowing what happened and staying with the trio. Idk if i should make it poly since the trio also have feelings for you so you guys let me know your opinion. lol.

Maybe I’ll do one where the reader will join the Autobots in a different ending so it’s not all high gaurds joining the decepticons lmao. That should be all with what I have planned. Hope you all have a good rest of you morning/evening/night.

[bigtedbear]

" 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧'𝐬 𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 "

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭: 𝐥𝐮𝐨𝐜𝐡𝐚 𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩

content warnings: gay relationship, descriptions of grevious bodily injury, implied self-mutilation/self-harm, male reader, monster x human relationship, hurt/comfort writing, hey this starts out really dark please take care of your mental health, arguments, misunderstood feelings, mermaid courtship, alternate universe where luocha is a traveling doctor who's studying biology and anatomy across the universe blah blah blah, luocha is pretty genuine in this even though i know he is in fact a snake let me idealize for a moment okay, luocha puts a ring on it without realizing he is literally putting a ring on it

full admittance you'll probably find parallels with @/havanilla's merventurine au at the start of this cause it was one of the last things I read on my old tumblr account before it died on me and i fear i DO have brainrot

to add to my earlier warning about this chapter beginning out dark, there will be a marker for the cuter, mermaid courtship section of the fic!! look for a marker like the one below VV

" welcome back caller 🪷! connecting your line as we speak! "

" new contact noted! caller luocha has been added to your phonebook - love, 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑡-19 “

A pained scream ripped through the air.  

It was a shame it couldn’t be distinguished from the sound of other yells and shouting from all over the deck.  In fact, it seemed the anguish was completely drowned out by the noise of an older man beginning to bark orders from the side of the fishing boat.  Gravelly with age and experience, sets and more sets of hands seemed to jump to action, rushing over to that specific side of the deck.  

In the crew’s haste, they didn’t seem to notice they had also woken up the residential cabin.  Things were more than hectic; the experienced crew themselves were in a frenzy.  There was something that demanded urgent attention and it seemed none of the regular passengers were privy to what exactly it was. 

Still, in the curious sea of civilian passengers renting their rooms in the bowels of the ship, a tall blonde head of hair peered over the crowd straight to the source of the fuss.  Over the sea of yellow rain jackets adorning the working fishermen, he caught sight of some kind of reflective surface… what many wrote off as an oversized fish, Luocha continued to strain his eyes at.

Should he have been anyone else, perhaps he wouldn’t have noticed.  But Luocha was a doctor, he was more than familiar with noises of distress; with the scent of blood.  Something in the very core of his body shook with each of the pained and weak motions of an equally pained, weak patient.  The vibrations crept up his spine from the wooden boards of the ship, whispering into his ears. 

Something was wrong. 

Something was terribly wrong. 

Despite the protests of one of the tour guides, urging him to go back to sleep, he rushed towards the scene.  The same pained screams; the sounds of the body on the deck; the reflection of the “oversized fish”, they became clearer and clearer the closer he closed in.

Before he could make it into the crowd of men at work, he was caught by one of their coworkers.  Clad in a yellow raincoat, shadow cast across his face in the rain, the obviously displeased grimace all over his face only further sent Luocha into a state of panic.  A tense grip on his elbow, the man spoke in a language he didn’t understand.  Even if he didn’t understand the words themselves, Luocha was more than smart enough to understand the message the worker was trying to convey.  Before he could be pulled away, he made one last attempt to see what exactly was going on. 

When he did manage to catch a glimpse, he froze. 

Perfect, round tears running down flushed, red cheeks. 

The skin was pulled taut in another scream.  Based on the shaking motion of the face, he could only really come to the conclusion the body was being jerked in every direction possible. 

“Stop… STOP!”  He yanked his elbow out of the man’s grasp, crashing directly into the back of another worker.  In his haste, he shoved the man out of the way only to find his path blocked by even more yellow raincoats.  “You’re only going to worsen the injuries! I’m a doctor!” 

Despite not considering himself to be very physically fit, something about the situation discarded that reality entirely.  An unknown strength washed over him as he forced his way through the clusterfuck of workers trying to wrestle the screamer into place. 

He didn’t understand, Luocha didn’t understand. 

There was an injured crew member on the deck, screaming–what kind of idiot would continue to pull and stress the skin around the wound? Was that why the team leader seemed to screaming with such vigor?  Was he equally concerned about one of his staff suddenly being sent into debilitating agony? 

But no, not even in the slightest.  

Through the crowd, a wet mop of hair thrashing against the backdrop of a barbed fishing net came into view.  The urgency only further sent Luocha wrestling through the crowd of men, all but screaming himself as he watched the injured man on the ground contort his facial muscles in abject horror.  

“Stop it, you’re hurting him!” 

 He could hear his own vocal chords start to tear as he shrieked for the poor victim.  With each passing moment, fear and anxiety seized the doctor in his entirety before he finally managed to part the crowd like the red sea. 

In the end,

he wasn’t faced with a crew member. 

...

A merman. 

Something he’d only heard of in the planet’s folklore. 

It seemed well-known the small surviving population hardly ever ventured out of protected waters for fear of predators. 

What was this one doing so far out…?

With the opportunity making itself known, the unknown merman continued to thrash but harder, lips curling upwards as another shrill cry of agony streaked the night air.  From up close, the doctor could only watch the formerly smooth, unmarred skin become tainted with red.  Washed with your own blood, you looked more similar to some kind of horror movie monster than a person. 

But even in the face of monstrosity, his inner doctor only saw the blown out pupils, the senseless aggression, the fear written all over his patient’s face in their own claret stain.

“You’ll end up killing him, stop, STOP!” 

He completely ignored his own pain as the barbs in the net ripped into the fabric of his pajamas, cutting open his knees when he threw his body on top of yours.  His hands flew around carelessly in an attempt to unlatch the hands that seemed determined to pull at you from every direction.  

At the loss of the hands all over your body, your screams died down into pitiful hyperventilation, curling in on yourself in an attempt to cover the wounds weeping crimson all over the formerly white net.  

Instead of relief, instead of some kind of graditude, it seemed he was only met with friction.

“Oy, blondie, paws off, do you understand how much money you’ve got your hands on right now?” 

The thick accent confused him at first, then the words themselves didn’t seem to compute. 

“Excuse me?” 

You yelped again when one of the men pulled at the net.   The cold metal tore sore flesh in chunks.

“Mermaid scales are priceless.  So are the pearls they cry, we caught the bastard fair and square so. Step. Off.” 

His mind scrambled to understand the sentence, thoughts muddling together in a blender of pain and panic.  “I- I-” 

“You?”  Another crew member chimed in, crossing his arms, “You’ll what, doctor?  You can either get off of him and wrap up your cuts yourself or we’ll drag you off and the barbs can teach you to keep your nose out of other people’s business.” 

“I-”  his breathing picked up drastically, suddenly confronted with such a terrible moral dilemma. 

When prying hands began to make grabby motions for the edges of the ropes, he choked out his final answer.

“I'll pay for him!"

“...”

“...”

“...”

He swept his rain-soaked bangs out of his face, his voice shaking, “You were planning on selling him, right?”  He fumbled with his sleeves, “I make good money, I swear, I-,” he swallowed, “I can afford it.  Just take as much as you want out of the account I used to pay for my cabin.”

“...” 

“...”

Things were a little bit awkward, to say the least. 

Despite an attempt being made to cooperate while you were awake, it seemed the pressure and the mounting stress of nearly dying made it unable for you to accept the fact that Luocha was not, in fact, going to hurt you. 

The attempt to deal with the various injuries littered all over formerly smooth, silky skin was unproductive at best.  In fact, it only created more problems.  Trying to operate while you were largely unreceptive to anything he was saying was by far the worst decision he could’ve made given the circumstances. 

Point blank, he needed to get the barbed hooks out of your skin.  If he didn’t, the wounds would be at increased risk of infection.  After all, based on the cruel treatment he’d seen on deck, he knew the metal was most likely unsanitized.  Doing this while you were awake was easily the worst decision he could've made.

Promising not to hurt you while continually yanking pieces of metal out of your tender flesh was not a good way to build trust. 

"..."

"..."

You poked at the “strange” bowl that’d been set in front of you.  It was some kind of clam-fish hybrid soup. I mean, Luocha was trying to be considerate of your regular diet.  Surely, since you were living out in open waters, you were pretty used to eating fish right?

He, however, failed to realize you weren’t exactly in a spot to ever enjoy the luxuries of cooked food… or soup.  He’d laid out some utensils for you to use on top of that; it was a shame you didn’t know how to use them. 

"..."

"..."

You realized pretty early on that he’d saved you from becoming a victim to death by blood loss.  After all, when you were dropped in a holding tank until the ship arrived at the port, the water went cloudy from the dirt, debris, and blood all over your body.  In your little waist-high tank, he’d done his best to make sure you’d actually survive through the night.

Despite your reservations about him, you did your best not to scream while you were confined to a glorified holding cell.  Nails digging into the glass, biting down hard enough on the towel to tear, you tried your best to stay still while he fished countless little hooks from your back, arms, and chest.  

Removing the large hook in your shoulder was the most painful part of the process for the both of you.  You, for obvious reasons.  The hook made a clean cut through the muscle--scraping up against the bone--by the time you were awake enough to realize you were wrapped up in a barbed net.  Luocha, on the other hand, was the one that had to deal with the struggle while trying to complete a very tricky operation.  

Eventually, the problem dealt with itself when you passed out.  Really, he should’ve sedated you to start with, and he cursed at himself for not thinking of it sooner.  After you went out, he did his best to stitch everything up–hell, he wrapped you up in enough bandages to look like a mummy. 

But, since the two of you actually arrived on the island, there wasn’t so much as a word shared from either party. 

You woke up in a little bathtub, in a little bathroom, feeling like your arms were falling off and you couldn’t breathe because of how tight all of the bandages were wrapped around you. Eventually the giant bandages changed to smaller ones attached with some medical tape.  The only bulky one left was the one wrapped around your shoulder. 

"..."

"..."

With some trepidation, you grabbed at one of the fishtails sticking out of the mystery liquid, digging a finger in between the meat and the ribs to peel it off the bone.  Carefully, you used one of your freshly trimmed nails to remove the thick, scaly skin, then biting off a chunk to chew and swallow.  

The longer you stared at the bowl, the more confused you became. 

Yes, you knew how to eat a fish. 

Yes, you knew how to eat a mussel. 

No, you didn’t know what to do with whatever else was in the bowl.  

You paused eating when the man sitting across from the bathtub cleared his throat.  He made a vague gesture towards your lap, “Would you…?”

‘...mind if I showed you how to eat a bowl of soup?’ 

Without much hesitation, you offered up your meal again, much more interested in the chunk of fish in your hand.  Biting off another piece, you drank in the pleasant familiarity in just having some tilapia for once.  

He picked up the spoon. Deciding not to embarrass you further, he decided to taste test the food himself instead of trying to feed you. He let the silver spoon clatter back into the bowl, passing it over to you again. Despite the clear demonstration he’d given you, you opted to pick at one of the mussels hiding underneath the broth. 

“...”

“...”

He cleared his throat again, seemingly averting eye contact as he stared at the tiled walls. 

You diverted your attention from your bowl back to the blonde doctor. 

“I don’t mean to be rude or pry in any way,” he swallowed, “but what exactly were you doing so far from protected waters?"

You didn’t seem surprised in the slightest by his question, grabbing at the other fish tail in the bowl, “Smuggling and poaching.”  

He tilted his head curiously.

“Protective waters have attendants to track general pod health, they have the authority to temporarily remove merfolk from the water to do routine health checks."  You finally wrapped your hand around the spoon awkwardly, bringing some broth up to your lips. "Smugglers get jobs as attendants cause only tagged mermaids are considered protected.” You wiggled one of your finned ears, your left ear. Notably, there was a small tear in one of the fins. “It only takes a couple minutes for an attendant to catch a mermaid, sedate them, get them into a vehicle, remove their tag and throw them out into the right spots for a couple grand.” 

“I see.” 

You hummed, finally bringing the soup up to your lips, “Speaking of, how much did you end up having to pay for me?”

"..."

"..."

“Excuse me?” Luocha’s hands rested in his lap. 

“How much did you end up paying for me?”  You picked up another mussel, “I’m pretty good about keeping up with the price of scales and pearls.  I know you bought me as some kind of pity project, but I'm pretty eager to go back out to open waters.  Just name your price and I can start trying to pay off the debt.” 

The doctor blinked a couple times. “Oh… oh my god, absolutely not!”  He shook his head, bringing his hands up in front of his chest defensively, “There is no need to pay me back in the slightest.  Please, just rest well and remain healthy.  That would be the best payment.”

“What’s this?” 

He rolled the small iridescent pearl between his gloved fingers. 

“It’s a pearl.” 

He cracked a smile at that. It was gone as quick as it arrived as he brought the little treasure to his face to take a closer look.  “Well yes, but where did you get this? Did you have it stashed on you somewhere?”

You twirled your finger in a circle on the surface of the water. “No,” absentmindedly you observed the little whirlpool it made, “I made it.” 

He blinked a couple of times, hand dropping back to his side. “Pardon?” 

You finally looked up from the surface of the water, “I made it.” 

He cocked his head to the side, “You… made a pearl?” 

You looked at him, bored, “Well, yeah, did you not know mermaids make pearls?”

He looked from you, to the pearl, and then back at you.  “No… I’m afraid I didn’t know.”  His palm closed into a fist around the pearl, “How?” 

“...hm?”

He gestured towards his closed hand, “How did you make it?” 

You gave a huff, “Well, you’ve seen me make them before.”  

He frowned, “I… have?”

‘-and I didn’t notice?’

You nodded, shifting around in the bathtub to try and stretch your long tail out a little bit.  "The night I got caught on the boat-" Your jaw tensed, a sudden pang of soreness shooting up from your extremities. "-they were all over the deck, there were a bunch in the little tank they had me in.” 

His frown only deepened as he did his best to recall, “I don’t think I remember seeing them…? Does your blood crystalize into them or something of the sort?” 

You rested your head on the porcelain of the tub, bringing your arms up to cushion your cranium.  “Tears,” you murmured, “Merfolk tears turn into pearls.” 

‘Ah… so that’s why you mentioned there being so many on the ship.’

But then it hit him. 

“Why were you crying?” 

You shrugged, “Most mermaids in protected waters can cry on command.  We get a lot of tourists that give us gifts, sometimes if we’re interested we’ll give them a pearl in return.” 

He nodded like he understood, but suddenly the beautiful gem felt heavy in his fist.  He opened his hand and offered it back, “As beautiful as it is, I don’t wish to see you shedding any tears while you’re under my care.” 

You pushed his outstretched hand away, “Well, I already made it.  There’s no use trying to return it.” 

“Still, I feel terrible receiving a gift with such painful origins,” he sat down on the stool that’d become his usual spot.  “I’m a doctor. My goal is to make sure you’re in the least amount of pain possible.” 

“You should feel honored, you’re really the first person I’ve ever given a pearl to,” you raised your head from its spot on your arms, “I usually only gave them to little kids that didn’t bring me gifts so I’d give them something.”  You sank further into the water in the shallow tub.

“My concern is why you believe you should be giving me gifts in the first place,” he crossed his left leg over his right, scooting in closer, “I’ve already told you that taking care of you has always been of my own volition.  It is quite literally my job.  If you’re giving this to me as a gift and not repayment, I might be more inclined to accept it.” 

You huffed,  “Well, I guess you caught me.” 

His brows furrowed, “So I was right, you’re trying to pay back a debt again.” 

“...”

“...”

“...”

This time, he sighed.  “I’ve already told you, your health and wellbeing are both priceless.  I would never ask a patient I forced into care to pay me any sum of money-”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” The water rippled when you sat up suddenly, “Why don’t you want to accept any kind of payment? I’m tired of talking to you as property and owner.  You bought ownership, legally I’m your property. I don’t want to be your property.” 

“You aren’t my property-” He quipped, expression growing displeased.

“But I am,” you cut him off.  “You signed paperwork, you exchanged a certain sum of money.  Even if you thought I couldn’t hear you doesn’t mean I didn’t.” You crossed your arms across your chest, “I still heard the captain of the ship talking about sale prices with you.  I know I was considered a higher quality product, I know I was expensive.”

The doctor opened his mouth; and closed it and opened it again.  He struggled to find the correct words to use. “I didn’t consider that an exchange for ownership of you, I considered that to be the price of your wellbeing.  I’ve never considered you to be anything but an equal to me.” 

You drew your lips into a tight line, “Well, if I was an equal, you’d let me contribute to the cost somehow.  You wouldn’t treat me like some helpless baby.”  You gestured to his closed palm, “The pearl in your hand is priceless, sealing a handful of them would recuperate the money you wasted-”

Luocha held up his hand, “Stop-”

But you insisted, “Hell, if I ripped a couple of scales out you could more than pay for me.  You’d have enough money to buy another sorry sack of shit to take care of-”

“Don’t EVER-” he cut you off aggressively, “EVER, suggest such ludacris things to me again.  I refuse to even think about it.” 

“..."

Luocha shook his head, getting his gloves wet when he reached into the water to hold your hands in his own, “I would never ask you to do something like that to yourself.  I would never ask you to hurt yourself to please me and I would never ask you to hurt yourself because you needed my help.”  He gave your palms a gentle squeeze, “You did not ask to be put in the position you’re in now,  I am the one that chose to do this and I will be the one to set the price on my help; that price-” he paused, making sure you were looking him in the eyes, “-will always be no price at all.”   He pushed the pearl back into your hands.  “Give this pearl to one of the children that visit the waters after you’ve healed up in my stead, yes?” 

“It’s not exactly how I remember it.” 

You squirmed against the sensation of the water, arms still looped around Luocha’s neck.  

“Any discomfort?” The doctor asked, “Tell me if anything hurts.”

“No, no, nothing like that,” You shuffled around to try and make yourself comfortable.  You did your best to find the familiar rhythm of the waves, but your tail felt as useless as it had the entire time you’d been confined to the bathtub.  “It’s… cold.” 

Luocha nodded... even though he couldn't quite understand.  “If you aren’t straining any of your injuries, you can hang on for as long as you need to.”

You mumbled, trying to draw your elbows closer to your chest, “I’m not.” 

“...”

“...”

It’d only been a week since the last time you’d tried to repay your imaginary debt to Luocha.  Things got… less tense between the two of you. 

You didn’t put up a fuss when he put some ointment on the scars that formed all over your skin.  You didn’t squirm when he unwrapped your shoulder bandage.  You’d usually bide your time silently in the bathtub.  Mostly, you’d nap.  But that got old quickly, especially since a bathtub isn’t the most convenient spot for sleeping. 

Luocha could tell you were bored out of your mind all on your lonesome. To satiate this, he’d usually sit with you in the bathroom and try to teach you things like how to play cards.  You were a little apprehensive with him, like you always were, but it seemed you opened up to him a lot more towards the end of your stay in his temporary residence.

You’d become a pretty competent blackjack player all things considered.

You opened up more and more about your life down below.  Usually, you’d be afraid to tell anyone about that information.  Smugglers often targeted specific pods if one of the products happened to be particularly pricy.  But Luocha wasn't at any risk, was he? 

“...”

“...”

Eventually, as the water started to feel more natural on your skin, you let your grip loosen from around his neck.  As the welcoming embrace of the ocean seemed to envelop more and more of your body, you could feel the former tension in your muscles start to melt away. 

You laid yourself horizontal to the surface of the water, tentatively starting to create your own ripples in the vast expanses of blue.  Maybe it didn’t feel exactly as you remembered, but the gentle pressure of the cool, cool sea against your skin felt like home. 

Your arms splayed out in the waves like an angel, basking in the familiarity of it all.  “You can let go now.” 

Slowly, surely, pale arms lowered you into the arms of the same waters you’d been in a little over two months ago.  You shocked yourself when you chased after his hands. Still, as slick as an eel, you slid away from him into the open ocean, finding a boyish glee in the pure ecstasy of true freedom.  

You took off like a little jet, head first into the deep end. 

Luocha could only really watch with a small smile while you explored the vast array of little treasures hidden beneath the horizon line.  

It felt like only fifteen minutes had passed when you re-emerged from beneath the ocean blue, but to your shock, the sun was starting to set and Luocha was off on dry land, wringing the water out of his hair.  

In all of your fun, it seemed you’d forgotten about that man who’d made all of this possible for you. 

“...”

You pursued him onto the sand, watching him characteristically tilt his head to the side to express his curiosity.  You pushed your own wet mop of hair out of your face with your hand, suddenly feeling a little less confident in your choices.  Despite your trepidation, you felt you at least owed him this much. 

That didn't make it any easier.

“I-” you swallowed, curling in on yourself, “What if I wanted to give you a gift? If it wasn’t some kind of repayment?” 

He smiled, flipping a soaked lock of hair over his shoulder, “As long as you aren’t lying to me about repayment, then I would gladly accept.”

You suddenly felt a new wave of confidence wash over you, your chest puffing up a little bit, “Well, I have a gift for you.” Even though you failed to notice your little finned ears wiggling in excitement, Luocha did not. 

You reached up to your right ear, unhooking the beautiful golden earring that’d you'd been wearing since you’d been thrown out of protective waters.

His eyes widened.   

“It-” You offered the hoop to him, “It was my mom’s.”

Luocha blinked a couple times, staring at the bangle before looking back up at your face instead.  

“Well?  You said you’d accept it if it was a gift.”  You pushed it into his face, feeling a red hot flush wash over your features, “This is a gift; from me to you, no strings attached.” 

He carefully took the thin gold loop in his fingers.  He noticed the signs of oxidation and the water damage. 

It was already far less valuable than the pearl you’d tried to offer him.

Yet its sentimental value was unrivaled. 

“...”

“...”

“Did... your mother like jewelry?”

You shrugged, looking away from him, “Yeah, she had a lot of it from my dad.” 

Luocha nodded.  “Well, did she have a favorite kind of jewelry?” 

At this, you paused.  “I mean… I guess she did.  She wore a lot of rings… why?” 

“Well, since this is a gift I won’t refuse it,- Luocha slid one of the golden bands wrapped around his fingers off,  “-but if you can’t have her earring anymore, then you can at least have a piece of jewelry your mother would’ve liked to wear.”

You felt your face transition from an embarrassed pink to a much deeper red.  “You… you know what you’re offering me, r-right?” 

He didn’t respond in the way you expected.  Instead of his usual confusion, he pushed the ring towards you again with one hand.  The other went to work, looping the clasp of the earring through a piercing that was just a little bit too close to closing.  

It felt like your brain was melting.

‘Is he… flirting with me?’ 

You took the golden ring between your fingers, watching him use his newly freed hand to further force the earring through the piercing hole. You could only feel the heat creep up your neck to your ears; fuck, it felt like you were going to burn alive on the sand. 

When he finally got it in, he flipped a chunk of wet hair over his shoulder.  He framed the golden hoop with his palm.  Playfully, he asked, “How does it look?” 

‘...’

‘He’s definitely flirting.’ 

You immediately ripped your gaze from his face to the ring that suddenly felt like a hundred pounds in your palm. 

‘...What fingers do humans usually put the ring on again?’

Shakily you slid the golden ring onto your left hand, examining the way it glinted in the light of the sunset.  

‘...holy shit, did I just get married?’ 

“[name]?” 

You blinked a couple times, suddenly ripping your gaze away from the shiny metal.  “Sorry, sorry.” 

He chuckled at your expense, enjoying the little fluttering of your ears everytime he seemed to catch your attention again.  “Thank you for the gift, I’ll cherish it dearly.” 

You nodded. 

“...”

“...”

The silence was interrupted with a quiet sniffle. 

“...[name]?”

You aggressively wiped the tear off your face, watching the consequent pearl roll across the grains of sand.  “H-Hey, you can’t just give me this ring and leave-” You took a deep breath, “-That’s not fair, that’s not fair at all.” 

He was a little taken aback at the sudden resurgence of emotion, “Would…” he paused.  He thought it over before tentatively putting a hand on your shoulder, “Would it help if I stayed a little longer?” 

You shook your head, putting your hand over the one on your shoulder to hold it between both of your own hands.  “You have to promise to visit me a lot.  It’s going to take me a long time to find my family, so if you don’t visit I’m going to be lonely.” 

He, once again caught off guard, nodded, “O-Of course!” His own cheeks tinted a pale pink. 

“You promise?” 

He nodded again, this time using his other hand to clasp your hand in both of his.  “I promise I’ll visit.”

a side note for this upcoming section: i did a lot of world-building for this fic behind the scenes, the current planet they're on is largely submerged beneath the waters and they live on a bunch of island nations. To link up with that idea, my idea of the mermaid smuggling industry is to do with the concept of foreigners coming in and destroying local ecosystems. (Colonization)

Long story short, the planet is loosely based on Polynesian Islands so I chose Māori names for our supporting cast but keep in mind I am FAR from an expert and I mean literally no disrespect at all to anyone at all. Only the names are Māori in nature because I feel like no matter how much research I do, I would be unable to capture the essence of the rich culture of New Zealand. I'm a little gay fanfic writer I have not done nearly enough research to claim I know ANYTHING, I just thought it'd be cool and help with world-building in case people want a part-two or something

“What’s got you so worked up?” 

“Shut the fuck up Iarere, this is like the seventh time in the same hour.” 

Your younger brother held his hands up defensively, “Well, things got boring around here without you!”  He let himself fall towards the ground next to the boulder you’d splayed out all the little pieces of gold you’d managed to scrounge up.  “You manage to make it back from outside of protective waters and instead of hating everything and everyone, you’re suddenly getting all buddy buddy with the tourists trying to get some trinkets.  I know you’re old but are you really getting that desperate?” 

You frowned, “I’m not that old.” 

Iarere rested his face on the cool surface of the rock, prodding at one of the particularly flashy necklaces.  “You’re old to me.”  

Your frown deepened. Not just because your brother was calling you old, but because Luocha’s weekly visit was coming up and you hadn’t managed to gather up nearly as much as you would’ve wanted.   For your kind, caring, doctor husband who was already well off, a few necklaces and a handful of rings and earrings wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to woo him.  “I guess I am getting towards the end of the usual age people get married at.” 

The younger man nodded, humming, “Yeah, so do you have anyone in mind?” 

You bit your lip.  

I mean, yes, you were married. 

But it felt inauthentic if you didn’t present your husband with some kind of dowry first. 

Yes, Luocha only presented you with one of his old rings, but he also paid a hefty sum to rescue you from certain doom.  He also nursed you back to good health, refused to take any payment for any of the medical treatments or the food that’d been wasted making sure you’d retain your strength throughout your recovery. 

In your mind, maybe human dowries were just a little bit different. 

Despite opening your mouth to voice your dissent, your little brother jumped up at the opportunity to tease you.  “So you do have someone you’re thinking about!” 

“I-” 

“What are they like?” Iarere gripped your shoulders, tearing your attention away from your inner dilemma.  “What do they look like? Do I know them?”  He gasped, shaking you back and forth and he demanded to know, “Did you meet them while you were outside?!” 

You gripped at his shoulders in return, “I didn’t say I had anyone in mind!” 

“...”

“...”

He pursed his lips, “Yeah, I’m not buying it.” 

You groaned, bringing your hands up to your face.

He only got more excited, leaning in way too close for comfort as he squealed, “So I was right?!” 

“Right about what?” 

Your eyes darted over to the side, watching one of the few friends you’d managed to retain at your grown age.  “Thank the gods, Akahata, get Iarere off me before he gives me whiplash.” 

He hummed, “Well, I’m more interested in what exactly you guys were talking about before.”  You watched as his eyes flitted from you and your brother to all the precious metal and gems you’d laid out.  “Actually don’t tell me, let me guess.”  He pointed at the rock, “You’re setting up a dowry, but you’re upset because you know no amount of jewelry would ever get anyone in the pod to consider settling down with your ugly mug.”

“HAH!” 

Your ears fluttered in irritation.  “That’s a horrible guess.” 

Akahata shrugged, “Well, I mean, your mug’s only ugly cause you frown all the time.  If you actually made an effort to smile more, you’d probably have a lot more people that’d be willing to accept you with no dowry.” 

Your frown tugged at the corners of your lips as you massaged your temples, “For your information, I’m making a dowry cause I already got married.” 

“...”

“...’

“...”

“You WHAT?!” 

Iarere’s fists clenched even tighter around your biceps, “You told me you lost mom’s earring, not that you got married-” 

“It’s a long story-” You started, 

“Not long enough to not tell either of us!” Your best friend screamed in abject horror.  “The moment Ngaio and I started courting each other I told you immediately-”  You grimaced when he pushed your brother out of the way to be the one to shake you back and forth, “-and you get married and you don’t tell me until afterwards?!” 

“It wasn’t planned! I didn’t even realize he was courting me until he gave me his ring-” You countered, face lighting up pink.

“So it’s a him…” Iarere mumbled, putting his hand to his chin.  His expression lit up as the pieces started clicking together in his head.  “Is that where you’re going tomorrow?!” 

“YOU’RE GOING TO MEET HIM TOMORROW?!” 

You were growing more overwhelmed by the minute, averting eye contact.  “Yeah, so what? We’ve been meeting up every week while I was looking for you guys.  Is it weird for husbands to spend time together?” 

Akahata abruptly let go of you, leaving red imprints of his hands on your arms.  “That’s not that problem, that problem-” he paused for dramatic effect, “-is that you’re planning on meeting up with him after returning and you’re not even telling us who he is!” 

Iarere put a hand over his heart, feigning his disappointment as he let himself sink into the sand below.  “I think I’m going to faint.” 

You sighed, “Well-”

Akahata jabbed an accusatory finger in your chest again, “Is he even good looking enough for you? Is he any good at providing? What was his dowry like?  What pod is he even from?!”

“He’s not from a pod-”

Your brother hummed, “So is he a lone wanderer out beyond the boundaries of protected waters saving pretty mermen he wants to marry?” 

Your face twisted into one of disgust, “Keep your fantasies to yourself.” 

Iarere huffed, “Well, what else am I supposed to think when you say he’s not from a pod?  He obviously has so be some kind of lone wolf, PLUS you got married before you made it back.” 

Akahata put a contemplative hand under his chin, “I mean he has a point.” 

You shook your head, “He’s a human.” 

“...” 

“...” 

“...”

“You’re joking.” 

“I’m not.” 

“You’re joking…” 

You held up your hand, gesturing towards the ring on your finger. 

“Oh my god, you’re not actually joking.” 

Your younger brother squealed, “Oh my god this is like something out of all those movies on the surface! Tell me all about it!” 

You frowned, pushing through both your peers to make it back to your makeshift table top.  “He’s… a doctor, but he was working as a trader on a big ship.   He was there the night I got caught and he ended up buying me off the boat and he patched me up and released me.” 

Your best friend sighed, “Only you can make a story that romantic sound like a business deal.” 

Iarere furrowed his brows, “Wait, wait, wait, when did he propose?” 

“Well-” You fumbled over your words, “I caught feelings and I thought I might as well start the courtship process-” 

“YOU made the first move?!” 

“Shut up!” You pushed your overly eager younger brother’s face away, “I didn’t know if he even knew about mermaid courting so if I was going to start courting him, I had to do it then.”

“...go on.”

You sighed, “I gave him mom’s old earring, but instead of just taking it, he gave me one of the rings he was wearing.” You covered your face, feeling another wave of crimson wash everywhere from your neck to the tips of your ears.  You still couldn’t get the memory of him showing off the earring out of your fucking head. “I mean- I- I even asked if he knew what offering me his ring meant and he just put it in my hand.” 

Your younger brother kicked around on the sand eagerly, waving his hands around excitedly.  “That is actually one of THE most romantic proposals I’ve ever heard of!” 

Akahata crossed his arms, “Damn, I feel like mine was lacking.” 

You huffed, “Well, Ngaio is still your wife.” 

“And whatever his face is still managed to wife you--of all people--up.”

“Touche.”

“Oh wow, you brought more than you usually do.” 

Luocha chuckled behind his hand, his own little bag of purchased trinkets hanging loosely at his side. 

You hummed, thumbing over the beautiful glistening stone of a diamond necklace you’d managed to get off of a rather infamous regular.  “You’re one to talk.” 

He gave a small grunt of exertion as he sat next to you on the sand, letting the bag fall to the side, “You’ve got me there.”  He couldn’t help the pleasant swell of warmth in his face as you gestured for him to turn around. 

I mean, maybe you weren’t the best at communicating what you were feeling or what you wanted from him, but you’d been getting better.  Instead of just grunting a yes or no to the questions he’d ask, you’d actually make time for some conversation with him.  Be it from your annoying younger brother to the changes in the pod since you’d returned, it seemed you shared what little woes you had with Luocha.  

You also seemed to share endless amounts of little golden treasures with him.  From old, worn gold, oxidized iron, anything really that you could find, you provided it to him and put it on him with the most delicate touch your rough, scarred hands could muster.  Maybe it was nothing, maybe it was something.  He couldn’t control the way his heart sped up whenever you leaned in to help him put on a new pair of earrings you’d gifted him.  He surmised gift giving was some kind of love language that was common among merfolk.  Perhaps you’d also enjoy it if he brought you gifts of equal value! 

Still, the pounding in his heart was not helped when you’d started smiling at him. 

Everytime he managed to catch one of the rare glimpses of your smile–even worse when you’d laugh–he almost felt like he was looking at something forbidden.  Something he wasn’t worthy of, right in front of him.  For someone who had been through so much, you really opened up to him remarkably quickly after you’d been released.  Perhaps before release you’d been scared of being sold off? The familiar feeling of the waters must’ve don wonders to make you relax this much. 

Even worse when the physical affection began.  It started as simple as reaching out to the side of his face to brush the hair away from his ear so you could catch sight of the golden hoop he’d taken to wearing.   It transitioned to taking his gloves off so you could look at the rings you ended up gifting him.   Before he could really process how quickly the two of you were moving, you were pressed up against him at every opportunity.  

He knew it was natural for merfolk to not wear clothing, but did you have to have such a muscular chest? 

Even now, as you fumbled with the clasp of the absolutely beautiful diamond necklace, you wrapped an equally muscular aquatic tail around his leg.  He didn’t exactly know if this was normal between merfamily-could he call them that?--, being overly affectionate.   Even if it felt like a little more than just normal bonding, he did his best to still the pounding of his heart when your fingers brushed his hair out of the way so you could make sure the gem was oriented correctly.  

Trying his hardest to quell the tide of warmth surging up to the tips of his ears, he put a hand over his erratic heartbeat.  He prayed to the Aeons above you couldn’t feel it as your chest pressed against his back.  

You wrapped your arms snug around his torso, pulling him further into your stomach.  Resting your chin on top of his blonde hair, you found the gloved hand resting over his heart to hold in your own.   The two of you let the silence hang in the air for a moment. 

“...”

“...”

You gave a quiet huff before you moved your chin from on top of his head to bury itself into the crook of his neck.  As his fingers interlocked with yours, he found himself looking at all the gold rings he’d adorned your fingers with.  Each and every one, he could put a time and day to. 

But then, his eyes landed on your ring finger. 

“Oh, you still wear that old thing?”

“...hm?”

You glanced down at your hand, raising a brow.  His finger was tracing over the ring he’d exchanged when he was releasing you back into the open water.

“You still wear the same earring I gave you,” you murmured, flicking it with your freehand.  “I’ve given you countless pairs of earrings since, yet even when you wear one stud, you’ll always wear the same one every time I see you.” 

His chest rumbled with a bout of laughter, “I suppose you’re right.”  He perked up suddenly, “Oh, that reminds me, speaking of this earring…” He reached towards the rather large bag of gifts he’d brought with him.  He threw a few of the boxes of gold ornaments he’d purchased before finally fishing the box he was looking for out of the bottom.  “I went shopping and when I saw this pair, I simply knew you’d love it.” 

You hummed, looking at the little navy blue box in his hand.

He made quick work of the bow wrapped around the holding case, nimble fingers peeling open the little box before he presented you with his gift on their signature velvet cushion. It looked like… 

…a replica of your mother’s earrings. 

He offered them up to you with a bashful smile, watching in silent amusement when your ears flicked back and forth in some kind of excitement. 

Delicately, gently, you picked up one of the hoops and twirled it around your fingers. 

“...”

“...”

“...Well? Do you like it?”

You didn’t respond, reaching up to your right ear to remove the little stud you’d chosen to wear to this outing.  Fidgeting with the clasp of the loop, you threaded it with a calculated ease through your piercing.   

“I like it.” 

He clasped his hands together, “Good, I’m more than glad.” 

“...”

“...”

“She would’ve loved to meet you.” 

“Hm?”

You paused, “My mother, I mean,” Your thumb fidgeted with the back of the earring.  “She always wanted to see her sons get married, but she passed before she could.” 

Luocha blinked.  

“Pardon?” 

You tilted your head to the side, “My mother; she would’ve loved to meet you.” 

“No, no,” Luocha could feel the deep claret paint his face a messy red as he scooted to face you, “What did you mean by seeing her sons get married?”

“...

…Did you not know?” 

Luocha blinked. 

“We’re married.” 

Another blink. 

“You… Is that why…?” He gestured towards the gifts strewn across the sand.  He looked back towards his own bag of gifts. 

‘Oh for crying out loud-’

“I-” he cleared his throat, “I apologize, I seem to have… entered this marriage under false pretenses.”  He put his hands on his temples, “How- Where- When exactly did this happen?”

You hummed, “When you let me back out into the water.  When I gifted you my mother’s earring, that was the signal I wanted to start courting you.  When you gift something back, that’s an officiation of marriage.” 

He coughed into his hand, trying to think through this situation logically. 

Okay, so he accidentally got married.

What the fuck. 

The train of thought seemed to end there. 

…

He was, however, plagued with another train of thought. 

‘Well, you have been making eyes at him for a few months now.’ 

…

Those thoughts were not helping.  

“...”

“...”

“If you want to end the marriage, it’s as simple as saying so,” you added, “I thought you knew what my intentions were-”

“NO!”

Luocha covered the bottom half of his mouth.  “I’m fine with the arrangement as is, but it appears human marriage and merfolk marriage are officiated in very different ways.” 

Your brows furrowed. 

“...”

“...”

“...Are you saying you want to officiate the marriage as humans would?”

The tips of Luocha’s ears burned with embarrassment.  “I-” 

You held one of his hands in yours, eyes seemingly boring holes into his face,  “Whatever it is, as long as you want to do it, I will do it to the best of my ability.” 

Any complaints were silenced when he was confronted with such sincerity.  “Well…”

You waited patiently, folding your hands in your lap.  

Finally, it seemed your “husband” made up his mind.  

“Close your eyes.” 

You paused, seemingly surprised, but nonetheless your eyes fluttered shut moments after. 

Luocha urged himself to breathe, flexing and unflexing his hands.  

He leaned forward, closing his eyes as he…

…planted an innocent peck on your lips.

there's a note on the side of the phone booth, read it?

" idk how to describe it but now being on the other side of this, i'm feeling something similar to post nut clarity "

first post since losing literally everything on my first account yay !!

yes guys, luocha and his mermaid husband were openly cuddling on the beach for months and he's wondering "is he into me or am i bro-zoned"

that being said, losing my tumblr has now forced me to realize how many people genuinely like my writing hey guys I went scrolling through user kamisatoelogy's blog to look for their modern ayato fic and i found out someone dedicated time and effort into archiving my works???? and you guys went looks for me????

i fr feel like getting on my hands and knees and thanking everyone for all their support and love over this process and apologizing for scaring you guys so bad

you guys are so sweet and so many of you have been so helpful in getting my blog back up and running again :((

i started drafting my fics in google docs to make sure it isn't all GONE if i get shit on again so this chapter is brought to you by font: unica one, it was 27 pages total (i am insane)

shout out to Chappell Roan cause she really put me in my tunnel vision work zone while i was writing this

if u guys r looking for a writing hack, i trained myself like a sleeper agent to start writing when i play songs on hour loop it puts me in a work rut

- love, operator t-19

[mcflymemes]

PORTAL 2 PROMPTS *  assorted dialogue from the 2011 video game, adjust as necessary

when life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade! make life take the lemons back! get mad! i don't want your damn lemons!

best case scenario, you might get some superpowers. worst case, some tumors.

science isn't about why. it's about why not.

the next test is very dangerous.

before the wright brothers invented the airplane, anyone wanting to fly everywhere was required to eat 200 pounds of helium.

to help you remain tranquil in the face of almost certain death, smooth jazz will be deployed in three... two... one.

please disregard any undeserved compliments.

all right, i've been thinking.

what am i supposed to do with these?

do you know who i am?

oh, i like this guy.

he says what we're all thinking.

you can head on back to your desk.

well, this is the part where he kills us.

hello. this is the part where i kill you.

i know you.

no! i'm not listening! i'm not listening!

you're lying!

you're not just a regular moron. you were designed to be a moron.

i am not! a moron!

now who's a moron?

could a moron do that?

i can't see it though. maybe it fell off.

do you want to go and have a quick look?

are you alive? that's important. should have asked that first.

i'm going to work on the assumption that you're still alive.

i'm just going to wait for you up ahead.

i'll wait one hour.

brilliant! go team!

i think we can put our differences behind us.

hi. so. how are you holding up?

good, that's still working.

here are the test results.

you are a horrible person.

i'm serious. that's what it says.

we weren't even testing for that.

don't be alarmed, all right?

good work getting this far.

i wish i could take it all back. i honestly do.

i'm in space.

if i were ever to see her again, do you know what i'd say? i'd say "i'm sorry." sincerely.

i am sorry. i was bossy and monstrous... and i'm genuinely sorry.

you made it through! well done!

okay, follow me. we've still got work to do.

what's happening?

okay... don't move.

so i've got an idea, but it is bloody dangerous. here we go.

they told me that if i ever turned this flashlight on, i would die.

they told me that about everything.

i don't even know why they bother giving me this stuff if they didn't want me to use it.

look at you, soaring through the air like an eagle.

i'm different!

prometheus was punished by the gods for giving the gift of knowledge to man. he was cast to the bowels of the earth and pecked by birds.

it won't be enough. the answer lies beneath us.

oh, it's dark down here, isn't it?

i'm proud of you.

now we are a family again.

that last test was seriously disappointing.

just work with me.

some of my best friends are actually orphans.

you look ugly in that jumpsuit.

that's not my opinion.

i'll be honest. we're throwing science at the wall here to see what sticks.

no idea what it'll do.

i knew someone was alive in here!

you'll know when the test starts.

oh thank god you're all right.

i thought you were my greatest enemy, when all along you were my best friend.

the best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one.

i'll be honest. killing you? is hard.

i had a pretty good life. and then you showed up.

you know what? you win. just go.

it's been fun. don't come back.

this sentence is false.

to be honest, i might have heard that one before.

you know, i'm not stupid.

i realize you don't want to put me back in charge.

i'm being serious. i think there's something really wrong with me.

we should get our stories straight.

no, we're not stopping!

don't make eye contact, whatever you do.

i feel awful about that surprise.

oh, that's sad. but impressive.

we're running out of time.

you've probably figured it out by now, but i don't need you anymore.

i'm afraid you're about to become the immediate past president of the being alive club.

the square root of rope is string.

okay, what you're doing there is jumping.

you know what? that's close enough.

you saved my bacon.

is this a jailbreak?

the next test is very dangerous.

it's been a long time. how have you been?

i've been really busy being dead. you know, after you murdered me.

you out having yourself a little adventure?

no, don't get up. i'll be right back.

you're unqualified!

what if this hurts? what if it really hurts? oh, i didn't think about that.

get your hands off me!

i can't see a thing! what just happened?

i don't have any bullets.

did you feel that?

you were busy back there.

that's funny. i don't feel corrupt.

i've got an idea! do what it says!

look how small you are down there!

do you have any idea how good this feels?

sorry, fellas. she's married. to science.

let me answer those questions with a question. who wants to make sixty dollars?

yes, all right, okay, this is getting tiresome.

well done. good. aren't you little miss clever. little miss smashy smash.

does it actually make you feel good when you do that?

it's not impressive.

what is this, like a hobby for you now?

i'm beginning to actually take it personally.

it's like an insult to me.

oh, there goes another one.

it's vandalism! it's pure vandalism!

it's just us talking like regular people.

are you going to open this door?

where'd you go? come back!