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hikarimiyanaga · 4 months ago

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Her biggest regret

Warnings : Cheating. Angst.

A one-shot I needed to get out of myself as I try to navigate my life-work-games balance. Lmao. Chapter 4 of the Queen's Bride should be released within the month.

You freeze as you see them kiss. The wind in your lungs taken away by the sight.

You knew it.

You knew from the way she looked at him. From the way she spoke of him. The way she touched his arm.

Because all the things she did to him were once yours.

She used to look at you like you make the sun go up.

She used to speak like you were the only thing that mattered besides her children.

She used to touch you every night and revere you.

You let out a strangled noise and they both look at you.

You step inside and get your bracelet. What once held her promise of forever. But now it just burned you. Burned your heart.

"I'm giving this back." You say as you take it off your wrist and you see pain cross her eyes. "My apologies on disturbing you, Your grace." You quickly slip away after that. You run and run as you get to your tent. So much so that you don't hear her call your name. You don't hear her reject Jon's touch as she watched you run. You don't hear her anguish scream as she held the bracelet that once promised what you wanted.

You spent your days training. This was your life. This should just be it. You shouldn't have fallen for her. For the queen that you served. But here you are anyways.

You pant as Grey Worm looks at something behind you with silent anger in his eyes. He's always been a big brother to you. Always there and always guiding. There was a reason you are the only woman in the unsullied. Too strong to become a slave so you became a soldier instead.

You don't dare look behind for you knew whom his silent anger is for. You can feel it though. Her burning stare. You cover his eyes.

"Stop looking at her like that. You won't be marching in front if everyone thinks you want to kill her." You whisper then drink water.

"But she-"

"No buts, Grey Worm. She's still our queen." You can see the defeat in his eyes. The gratitude winning over the want to protect you.

"Go run. So she can't see you. That is the one thing I will refuse her of." You chuckle at the vindication in his voice.

"Thank you." You say then you slip away from his presence.

You've been avoiding her.

Daenerys could tell. What once was your spot was always given to different people each day.

What once was your voice greeting her as she checked on her army was always replaced with Grey Worm's.

And she knew of it. But there was nothing she can do. She betrayed you. She didn't keep her promise.

She stared at the bracelet she gave you. The one you gave back to her.

She can still see it, the pain in your eyes. The unshed tears as you took it off. The way you always ran away from her whenever she wanted to find you.

She can't help the sob that escaped her as she held it.

She wished she could take it back.

She wished she never felt attracted to him. Because that once fleeting attraction only made it worse when she saw the hurt in your eyes.

"Your grace." Jon calls out as he slips inside her office. The one thing that you always did whenever it was this time of the day. She longed to see you do it again. To come get her whenever it got too late. To bring her food once you knew that she skipped dinner in order to work more.

"You should eat, your grace." Jon further opens the door and she sees the servants he brought with him.

"Do not let them in." She says and the dothraki who was stationed to her quickly made a cross with their spears as to not let the servants in. And she marveled at how you always did that even if she never said it. How you were so attuned to what she wanted that even if she never voices them out, you always just know and you always do it. "Lord Commander. This is my office. No servant is allowed to enter here even if you came with good intentions."

"My apologies. Then I can-"

"No. I will get out of here myself. I do not trust your servants to not poison me." And it seemed paranoid but she had too many assassination attempts made by so-called servants to not consider such thing.

"My apologies again. Then I will leave you to it." She watches as the dothraki close the door and go back to their original position.

'What a stark difference.' She thinks to herself. 'She never once did that. Not even made others help her when she always brought me food.' And she also remembered the bandages on your hands as you held the food. And the confession from Grey Worm that you learned how to cook just so you can give her food when she overworked herself.

"I'm such an idiot." She cried once again as she gently held the bracelet.

It was a silent night, you realize as you got stationed in front of her chambers. Grey Worm figured that it's been two months since then and you also insisted on the position. Besides, you were only here as she slept, so you figured that you won't even see her.

"Y/N." You flinch as you hear Missandei.

"My lady." You call out and she slaps your arm.

"I thought I told you to stop calling me that already."

"You did but-"

"No buts." You groan as you silently curse your brother. What a loudmouth.

"My apologies then. Missandei." She grins then takes your arm.

"Come."

"What! But my station."

"I can cover, Y/N." You glare at your comrade as Missandei pulls you to another room.

"Grey Worm might be my brother but he can get jealous too, you know?" You speak as Missandei stripped you of your uniform.

"Shut it." You chuckle as she gets annoyed.

"What are you trying-" You stop as she shoves some clothes onto you.

"Wear those."

"What-"

"Wear them." That was the final thing she says as she slips out of the room.

You look at the trousers and pants. It was a fancy version of what you usually wore.

'What could it be for?' You think but you wear them anyways. You know how Missandei can be if she isn't obeyed. Besides, you just know that Grey Worm will give you spartan training if you even thought about disobeying your essentially sister-in-law.

You arrive at her office and look at the basket and jar of wine in your hands.

Apparently, Daenerys have been missing all her meals for the past few days. Only opting for the bread to munch on as she toured and saw progress in her plans.

"She's punishing herself." Missandei says to you as she drags you. "Her guard always say that she cries at least once while she held your bracelet."

"It's not my bracelet anymore." You say with such pain in your voice that Missandei hugs you.

"It's yours. Even if you don't want it to be anymore." You sob into her shoulder as she comforts you. It's been months but you still haven't moved on. You never will, you knew that. Your fragile and broken heart will always be hers even if her heart wasn't yours anymore. "Just bring dinner to her, please. How will any of us see her ascend to her throne if she starves herself in the process?"

And so here you are. A bundle of nerves, just anxious.

"Get in, give her food then get out. Easy enough, right? It should be! Damn it!"

"Just get in." You look at Tyrion and frown.

"Even you?"

"I know what she did is unforgivable but you should-"

"I know what lies beyond. I know their atrocities." You say in resolution and open the door. The two dothrakis on her station sees you and slips out of the office as Daenerys continues working.

"Missandei? Can you just give me a glass of wine? One that can fi-"

"You should eat properly." You speak and you see as her hand stops writing. As she slowly looks at you. You smile sadly at her as you walk up to her desk. "Here." You clear her desk of her documents, bringing them over to the table in her office then bring out the contents of your basket. The ones you cooked with your own hands. She silently watches as you do all these. You don't forget to give her a glass of wine then smile at her. "Eat."

She looks at the food and wine then she tears up. Gods, how she missed this. How she missed you.

"Is this a dream?" You can hear the yearning in her voice for this to be her reality. And you know it is, the hurt and pain in your heart right now is the proof.

"It's not." You say as you pour yourself a glass of wine. You never liked the thing, always sobering through celebrations and such. And so, dream you will never drink this, you and her know that so you drink the glass in one go. You grunt as you put the glass down. You never liked it's effects before until now. The alcohol in you seemingly giving you courage to face her. "It really isn't. So eat, please." Daenerys nods and begins to help herself to the food. She watches as you pour yourself another glass.

"Do you-" She tries to stop you but you didn't want to remember this night. You didn't want this pain anymore.

You were drunk by the time Daenerys finishes her food. The entire jug of wine was almost emptied by you if she didn't stop you by your sixth glass.

"You know." You begin as you felt yourself get dizzy. "I knew there was a reason why I don't like wine. My self-control is slipping out of me. I can feel it." You giggle and laugh.

"Y/N-"

"And you! The love of my life!" You smile as you look at her and Daenerys felt like she travelled to the past where you looked at her like she was a goddess walking on the ground.

"Such a tragedy. I knew you would find someone better. I knew it in my head but I just- I still gambled my heart." You sigh wistfully as the pain squeezed her heart. "And I never got it back." She stares at you as you walk to her.

"Tell me, your grace." She felt another squeeze at the unfamiliar address. You stopped calling her that when the two of you made love for the first time.

"Was it fun?" She froze at that. "Was it good when you kissed him? Or when you fucked him?" You refuse to believe that any sane man would be able to resist her charm. Hell, even you couldn't resist it.

"Did it feel good when you broke my heart?" You couldn't stop the tears now as they flowed freely onto her lap. She looks as you give her a defeated smile. The same one she always sees when you decide to sacrifice yourself for a comrade, but this time, combined with your tears, was more painful than every other defeated smile you ever gave. Because after those defeated smiles. After the battle is over, you always walk over to her and give her the brightest grin and the most gentle kiss. But now, she knows she won't have that anymore. "Did you laugh when you heard it shatter? Was it- was it worth it?" You sob as you kneel. You can't think anymore. If you were sober, none of this would be spoken to her. None of this would ever known to anyone. You are an unsullied. Bottling your feelings and not showing any emotions was what you were trained for. But alcohol brought everything out. Your every self-deprecating thought, every pain and every sorrow. Because as much as you were known for your smile, no one knows how you looked when you are in grief. No one until Daenerys came. She can only watch as you sobbed until you fall asleep. She can only shed silent tears as she whispered her apologies to you.

You wake with a massive headache. One that makes you groan as you sit on the familiar yet unfamiliar bed. You haven't been here in a while.

"Fuck. I'm never drinking alcohol again." You grunt as the pain hits you again.

"That would be for the best." You freeze as you hear her voice. You hear her shuffle around then a cup appears in your vision. "Drink up. The maester said this would help with the pain." You shakily accepts the cup and drink it one go. The pain now concentrated at your tounge as the hot tea travels through your body. You look at her face and you can't help but voice out the first word that gets in your head.

"Dilaw." Daenerys tilts her head and you blush as you facepalm for yourself.

"Di- what?" She asks and you cover your face.

"Literally, it means yellow. But another meaning means happiness. Or source of it." Daenerys blushes as she hears your explanation. In any other day, you would grin then kiss and hug her but instead pain grips your heart instead. "I should go." You stand and avoid touching her. "Thank you for letting me sleep here. Farewell, your grace." Daenerys stops you before you can even open the door.

"I'm sorry." She says as tears flow through her face. "I'm so sorry. I took you for granted. I took everything we ever had for granted. But please, Y/N. Please give me another chance. Give me the chance to make everything right. Give me the chance to pick up your heart's broken pieces. Give me the chance to make it whole again."

"Your grace." The title makes her grip tighter on your wrist. "I have no more right. No more fight. And no more courage in me. You have taken all of those away." You shake as you finally let everything out. "You have always owned the heart you broke with your own hands. I never got it back."

"Then let me earn your trust again. Let me by your side again. I'm begging you, Y/N. Without you, everything feels wrong. Everything I'm fighting for felt empty. Every promise and plans I make felt futile."

"I can't. Not yet, at least. Please give me more time. More moments to myself. Then maybe, I can ease myself into your side again."

"Then I'll wait for that day." She finally lets go and you look at her. Look at her tear-stricken and wipe her tears away.

"Thank you, Dany." The familiar address gives her hope in her heart even as you slip away from her room.

You don't run anymore. You walk as you go outside the castle.

You knew that eventually, the inevitable will happen. That you will be hers again. Because your heart that you always protected was now guarded and owned by a dragon.

PS.

I will hit myself if I don't get chapter 4 out. I swear.

I need more hours in the day, to be honest. I hate working 9 am to 6 pm 😭😭.

#daenerys targaryen x reader #game of thrones x reader #daenerys stormborn #daenerys targaryen

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mxtantrights · 9 months ago

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where you go, I go

a/n: okay so while I'm writing this whole series for azriel just know that I had this other recurring dream about a plot like this. I couldn't really make it a fully fleshed out story with a happy ending so I decided to type it all out and make it a one-shot with angst and not a lot of comfort (this is your warning, this doesn't end happily) anyways with all of that said, if you decide to read this please enjoy and tell me what you think! <333 also happy valentines day <333

azriel x assassin!fem!reader

5.1k words

The day court was home to many things. Vibrant colors, warm waters, ancient books and of course the very ancient and magical day blade. It's your job to know where that this is at all times.

You can't possibly understand why the shadow singer would try to steal it. Try being the operative word here. While you did sense him enter your court and break into the room where the blade was, it wouldn't have mattered.

Seeing as it is your job to protect the blade at all costs, it never leaves your sight. But that didn't mean you couldn't have fun with those who wanted so badly to get it.

In your pocket you feel a piece of paper appearing suddenly. You reach inside and unfold it. It's Helion. He's requesting your presence. You smile to yourself, this would be fun.

You leave your hiding place, the palace had many hidden rooms and hallways, and walk over to Helion's day room. As you approach from the hallway you can hear multiple conversations being had.

The door is closed so you open it slightly.

"There she is! Come in and greet my guests!" he says happily.

You make sure you face is kept neutral. You had an image to upkeep in this court.

The people respect you and fear you in the same breath. You don't go around killing people but you do often get justice in ways that aren't in the parameters of the law. Whether that be stringing up robbers and looters from their pants, or burning down the houses of dirty criminals.

You keep your eyes straight, not looking any of his guests in the eye. You walk until you are standing behind Helion who sits in his usual seat.

"I was just telling Feyre that I enjoy the new company. This is the inner circle." he says to you.

You nod once.

"She doesn't talk?" Nesta asks.

You know all of them. It's your duty to know The Who's who of the courts. The inner circle of the night court. High Lord Rhysand and High Lady Feyre-Curse breaker. Her sisters Elaine and Nesta. Rhysand's brothers Cassian and Azriel. Morrigan, past fiancee of Eris Vanserra. Amren, a mythical creature of serious power.

Helion laughs at Nesta's question. He knows you talk. He knows you very well, seeing as he practically raised you. But that information isn't public knowledge.

"She does, but not when theres something wrong." Helion answers.

You look at all of them now. How the girl closest to the shadow singer, Elaine, looks worried. And it's quick, you almost don't catch it, but you're so good at your job at this point.

"Trouble in the day court?" Rhysand says.

You lean over and whisper into Helion's ear about the blade. How the shadow singer came here to steal it, on a mission from his high lord. How he thinks he got away with it.

The room goes quiet as you pull back and Helion sits back in his chair. He loves the dramatics you pull off every single time someone tries to take the blade. The last person you caught was really delighted to be drowned in glitter, confetti and manure.

"Is there something you're forgetting?" Helion asks.

Rhysand looks at his inner circle with an incredulous smile. Then he looks to you, no doubt trying to read your mind. You can't imagine this will go over well either.

You can't feel it. The daemati powers that certain fae have don't work on you. You're not really sure why. Might have something to do with your unknown lineage. Or your overall hardheadedness-so Helion says.

Rhysand cocks his head to the side at your unmoving posture. He's still looking at you. You however are taking in the shadow singer. He's sitting there, not bothering to look at anyone. He must really think he got the blade.

"What would that be?" Feyre asks this time.

"Well, when you want something that another has you usually ask." Helion says.

At that everyone at the table grows grim. Caught red handed is what it seems like. You still manage to hide you smile though.

"Helion..." Rhysand starts.

"If you were anyone else I would have you locked up already. But lucky for me my security system is top notch." Helion smiles and grabs his glass for another sip of what could only be wine.

At his words the shadow singer now looks at the high lord. Your high lord. His face bares no emotion, like he can't afford to give a way a secret or smile.

You've heard about his reputation. But at this point that's all it is. He couldn't even steal from you correctly. This has to be the most interesting thing that's happened this year. You don't get around to much outsider business, you tend to stay out of it.

"I don't think it is." the shadow singer says.

Helion stifles a laugh. But you can hear it. And you know if you can hear it they all can. The room is big but not big enough that guests at a table can't hear things.

"Care to relieve them of their misery?" he looks up to you and asks.

You didn't really want to. But then again you'd have to play nice with them. Helion seems to like this group. Or most likely, his son is friends with this group and he wants to be friends with his son.

You sigh, "Take out the blade."

You watch in amusement as everyone at the table looks at each other. As if they all don't know what they really came here for. The shadow singer though, he's different. He's looking right at you.

His shadows materialize the blade right on the table for everyone to see. Cassian, gives him a look. But Azriel doesn't seem to see it or care.

"That's not the blade." Helion quips.

You call the blade to you with your powers. Being gifted with the ability to control sun made objects is fun most of the time. Most living things are sun made in a sense. So really you could control all things, to a certain extent.

The blade comes flying into your hand. As soon as it makes contact with your skin it transforms. The metal of the blade turns into a vibrant green stem. And the helm turns into the face of a sunflower.

Azriel seems to go through a range of emotions. First confusion. Then understanding. And then the last one, well you can't actually pin down the last one. You've gotten good at reading people but he's harder than others.

"The blade is safe in the day court, where it will remain until you ask for it." Helion says.

Rhysand lets of a breath, "I am sorry about lying, but we're short on time."

"And I thought our alliance was stronger than that. I am sorry too." Helion replies.

Helion stands from his seat, causing the others to match his actions. The sound of chairs on marble floors reaches your ears. You take a step back and cross your hands behind your back.

"We need the blade for a mission." Feyre speaks.

"It could be a simple mission or the end of the world. The fact that you have no respect to ask me tells me everything I need to know." Helion says casually.

You know that he is hurt by their lying. It's not deep, but it's there. He thought he could trust them. He thought because they had good relations with him before that they were better than the actions they are displaying right now.

Of course you know of the good bond between them. Which is why you don't understand why they didn't just ask. Unless there is a well justified reason. Why not ask the high lord for the blade unless he was implicated somehow.

How could Helion be implicated in a mission from the night court. He doesn't know anything, or he would have offered them the blade himself. No this is something he's not at the center of. But it still concerns him.

Lucien. You look at the guests around the room. He is no where to be found. True he's not part of the inner circle. He's an emissary. But if it was something the inner circle could simply ask Helion for, why not butter him up with his son?

Lucien may or may not know what going on.

"Where's Lucien?" you ask.

At you question all of the heads move to you. Right, you hadn't spoken to them this whole time. Well you weren't going to give them a smile and greet them kindly.

"What business do you have with him?" Nesta asks.

"He's in Spring. Managing relations." Rhysand answers.

You nod your head. Spring. If that answer can even be trusted. Let's say you do trust it for the moment.

The inner circle needs the day blade. They didn't want to ask for it. They didn't let Lucien come.

"Were you planning on returning it?" you ask again.

Nesta, rolls her eyes at your question. You can't help the giddiness you feel of getting under her skin. You hardly did anything to warrant it. But it felt kind of good.

"As soon as we were done." Azriel answers this time.

You don't ignore the stress he puts not he word soon. You also don't ignore the way his eyes seem to never leave yours.

"That blade is our most powerful weapon. We don't just give it out to anyone." Helion chimes in.

He maneuvers around his chair and stands behind you. When he grips both of your shoulders with his hands, you can tell he's smiling even if you can't see him.

"But I will let you use it," Helion continues, "on one condition."

"Go ahead." Rhysand says.

"Wherever the blade goes, she goes." Helion says.

"That won't be necessary." Nesta says.

At the same time Cassian says, "That's odd."

Helion shrugs his shoulders and lets go of you. He leans into your ear to whisper his next words very carefully. When you understand him and what he wants, you nod your head only once.

He grabs the sunflower from your hands as you uncross them from behind you. Helion stands next to you now. You watch as Helion brings the flower up to his nose and gives it a sniff.

"We agree to those terms." Azriel speaks up.

"Woah hold on-" Rhysand tries to cut in.

"Great. I think this will be beneficial to both courts." your high lord agrees.

You turn to face him now, your back towards the guests. Helion was looking at you with a very faint smile. You heard every word he whispered to you. And you understand the reason why: Family.

What you don't get it is why he won't just speak to Lucien himself. Why play nice with a high lord that knows his son when he can just reach out to him? Invite him to the day court or send him a letter.

Everyone in this room knows Lucien is Helion's son, except Lucien. And now your mission is to tell him so that he might finally have a true place to call home.

Helion wouldn't so easily agree to lending out the blade like this if it weren't for Lucien. And the night court wouldn't try to steal it if Lucien did know, because he could just ask on their behalf.

Your shoulders sag at the thought. You had no interactions with Lucien. You only ever heard of him from Helion and he only started referring to him as his son a couple of months ago.

It'll be you. You'll be the one to see him, come eye to eye to him, and tell him the truth.

You can see it in his eyes. The sadness. You'd do anything for him. He's a father figure to you. And you'll see this through, for his sake and Lucien's too.

"Promise me you'll smile a little bit during your trip." Helion says.

"The Sun Wraith doesn't smile." you answer.

"You're the Sun Wraith?" Cassian's voice asks.

You turn around and face the general. It's all over his face. The look of shock. It wasn't hard to become something of a legend in this court and the ones surrounding it.

"Even people in the night court are scared of you." Nesta says.

On her face seems to be another emotion. Not fear. Not shock. Something lighter amongst the surface. Admiration maybe? You aren't too sure.

"I'll grab my things." you say to no one in particular.

"And the blade." Azriel's voice sounds.

"I never go anywhere without it." you say, reaching behind you.

Grabbing the flaps of your yellow vest you flip it over and your hand wraps around the hilt of the blade. You pull it out for all of them to see.

"Best security in all of the courts." Helion jokes.

THREE WEEKS LATER

The mission has barely begun and you hate it here. You hate it in the night court. The days are shorter and you feel pale without even looking into a mirror most days. Nothing beats the sun of the day court on your skin.

Amren had told you it would get better. After your first meeting she had taken a liking to you. You were told by several members in the inner court that it was no easy feat. She talked to you the most out of everyone.

Second to her, came Nesta who was just curious about the things you allegedly did or did not do. You held off on telling her anything too juicy. It was funny toying with her with the details. She also likes your fighting style. Morrigan too.

Azriel talks to you. Sometimes. He's friendly to a point. Cassian is more friendlier than him but you're starting to understand it's just in his nature. Feyre and Rhysand are cordial. Elaine is, well you've been told that she's nice but you haven't really seen it. She greets you but that's it.

The inner circle didn't get on your nerves. But you also had your own mission. Deliver the news to Lucien that Beron isn't his father, Helion is.

Which is why though this whirlwind of a mission you're laying down on path of grass outside of the House of Wind. Weird. What was even weirder was the fact that Velaris, a secret city inside of the night court, has existed for so long with no one none the wiser.

You squeeze your eyes shut. Trying to turn your brain off. It wasn't working. The sun wasn't the same, it does't feel the same. You can't call off this mission either.

"Is this what you do in the day court?"

You'd know that voice anywhere. Which is weird to say as you've known the male for a couple of weeks now. But it's true. Azriel's voice was distinguishable from others. A bit low, but still soft. Clear.

"Yes." you answer.

"Is that all the explanation you can give me?"

"Yes."

You think he'll go away. He plays nice because you have the blade. He needs the blade, which means he needs you. Once he no loner needs the blade he won't need you.

When you hear the sound of him getting closer you want so badly to open your eyes. But you don't. You keep them closed. As much as you want to open them and see what he's doing.

The sound of him laying down beside you on the grass is one you weren't expecting. Also the feeling of soft cold tendrils nipping at your arm.

"It feels...nice. A bit cold." he speaks.

Of course he'd complain about he cold. Nesta had told you that Illyrians were whiny babies. You'd seen it personally when Cassian couldn't get a certain dish because there were no more potatoes for the day.

And now here his brother is. Complaining.

You hold up your left hand, the one close to him.

"Give me your hand." you command.

You half expect him to decline. To maybe even get up and leave. Or maybe say that he doesn't mind the cold. The other half of you expects him to just listen you-to see where it goes.

He takes your hand. You focus on letting the additional warmth you normally feel from the sun flow from your hand and into his.

Out of all the things you half expect and do expect, his laugh is something you don't plan for. It's deep. It comes from his core. It's gentle too. Which you wouldn't get just from looking at him.

"It's warm." he says.

"That's how the sun feels in the day court." you answer.

"I think you just spoke more than three words to me."

You scoff, "Don't get used to it."

"That was four words."

"Shut up."

"Two. We're regressing."

"Azriel."

"I'll be quiet now."

This is how you spend your time. If you are not training with Morrigan, Amren and Nesta. Or not eating with Cassian in the kitchen. You are laying out on the grass with Azriel in the sun.

It happens more times than you care to admit as the mission goes on.

ONE MONTH LATER

This place, Velaris, was starting to grow on you. You didn't want to admit that out loud, or in your letters to Helion. Or how well you were gettign on with Azriel. The trips into the city, the lingering glances and words with hidden layers.

You letters should only have on subject, Lucien.

He has been back from the spring court for two weeks now. You've taken that time to get to know him. You couldn't fathom unleashing the truth on him as a stranger. You don't need to be his friend. But he needs to at least trust the words coming out of your mouth when you say them.

Family dinner they called it. Even though only three of them were related to each other. But you guess that what makes their family unique. They choose each other, every day.

This meal was special. Seeing as you had finished the mission that Helion sent you on to protect the blade. There was a fae that needed to be tracked down and would only come out of hiding if he could see the sun blade.

Of course you didn't let him, but you did convince him that the fake blade you passed onto him was the real thing. When he found it wasn't after he revealed his intentions with it he got angry.

Angry enough to rain hellfire down on both you and Azriel. If it weren't for your fast thinking and powers you both wouldn't have made it out in one piece.

Now you're sat with the inner circle to celebrate your feat.

Someone clears their throat. This drags your gaze from the redheaded male to the dark haired one. The both of them were sitting in front of you.

How the mother is cruel and precious at the same time. One male is your mission which you planned for. The other male you didn't plan for, and yet...

"Az was asking if you miss home." Morrigan says from your side.

"Dearly. But its not bad here." You speak, not quite realizing what you just did.

You watch as Azriel's smile grows and grows on is lips. It hits you then.

"Wipe that smile off your face before I take it back." you say to him.

"No I don't think I will." he jokes.

You shake your head with a light laugh. You can pick up on his laugh too from across the table.

"Well if it means anything, you fit in well here." Amren speaks up.

Everyone at the table quiets down at that. You look over at her, peering around Morrigan. You nod once at the sentiment.

"You need to tell him." Elaine says suddenly.

You look to her sharply. She's gotten better about speaking to you. More than a greeting but still less than a conversation. It does weird you out some times but you let it go for the most part.

"Oh?" you ask rhetorically.

"Elaine I don't think we should discuss this here." Feyre starts.

"He needs to know." Elaine says again.

It upsets you. She is his mate. She is the one connected to him. She has known this secret longer than you. But you'll be the one to tell him? She doesn't want to get her hands dirty. None of them do.

"What do I need to know?" Lucien asks all of a sudden.

You look to him. Hoping nothin is being given away by your face. When no one answers him he scoffs lightly to himself and looks around at the table.

This is happening now.

"It's obviously about me, none of you can look me in the eye except for her." Lucien continues.

"I can tell you, in private." you offer.

He nods his head and gets up from his seat. You follow his lead and get up too. The two of you walk out of the dining room and onto the balcony. You pull the door close behind you.

"Before you say anything, do they all know about this?" he asks.

He can't be asking about Elaine. She's the whole reason you're having this conversation right now. No, he's talking about Feyre. His friend. Or who he thought was his friend.

What can be left of a friendship after a lie like this?

"Yes." you answer simply.

Lucien shakes his head, "Okay, you can tell me now."

You take him in. The tense shoulders. The bowed head. His hair is perfectly combed behind his back. In this light, he looks like Helion. Not too much, but just enough.

How do you up end someone's life?

"Lucien do you ever think about what it felt like growing up with Beron as your father?" you ask.

Lucien looks at you sharply, "It was unspeakable. I wouldn't wish that life on anyone."

"And it shouldn't have been yours either." you reply.

His brows furrow. Right in the middle like they want to meet so badly. You wonder if he's felt like an outsider before. If he's ever felt it amongst his brothers. The black sheep.

"When my mission is over here, do you think you could come back with me to the day court?" you ask softly.

His face goes from confusion to somewhat understanding. But you haven't told him enough for him to completely get what you're saying, what you're asking of him.

"A couple of times Eris tried to make me visit the day court." Lucien admits.

You nod your head at that. Of course. Ever the perfect actor. You knew him for a little slice of time in your life. A period in which you won't ever forget. He was your first kiss. You were young and kids, trying to figure out your own way in life.

Kissing Eris, the treacherous fox of the autumn court, was every bit exciting at your age. You gossiped, and word got around. But he didn't deny it. For all the lies and manipulation he pulled you thought he might say you were delusional, that you had made it all up. But he backed you claim.

Eris knew Lucien wasn't Beron's son. Eris probably protected him as best he could. In his own, Eris way. Whatever that means.

"You can invite him too." you say.

Lucien looks past you. No doubt at the inner circle lingering inside. If you were in his position you wouldn't even go back in there. You'd never talk to any of them again.

"I'll take my leave now, but thank you. For being honest." he says.

You give him a small smile, "To be clear I was to tell you the news in a gentle manner. What just happened was out of my hands."

"I get it. I'll see you around." he says.

You bid him goodbye. Then he's walking past you. You hear the door open and how voices inside seem to call his name. You don't hear him respond to any of them. You hear the front door slam.

With a breath you turn around and head back inside too. When you do everyone is looking right at you. It unnerves you. You hate it.

"I've done your dirty work now. I think I'll call it a night." you speak.

"He didn't deserve to find out like that." Feyre says.

"You're right, he deserved honesty from his friends." you retort.

"You were sent here to tell him the truth. Am I wrong?" Rhysand asks.

You turn to face him clearly. You can't believe he just said that. You cannot believe he formed the words with his mouth to say that to you.

Without saying another word you walk right out of the dinning room. You ignore Nesta and Amren calling out to you. And you ignore the shadow that walks with you right out of the room and into he hallway.

As soon as you get inside of your guest room the shadow disappears.

SUNRISE, THE NEXT DAY

You're skip training and packing for home instead. You wish you could pack faster but that isn’t possible. You don’t want to be here for another second. Not in this court, not among the inner circle.

When you throw in your last few shirts into the luggage a knock raps on the door. You don’t know who it is, but if it is Rhysand or Elaine you won’t open the door.

“Who is it?” You ask.

“It's me, can you open up?”

You go over to the door and open it. Standing there on the threshold is Azriel.

“I’ll be leaving soon.” You say.

His eyes seem to widen at that. You watch as he peers over you and takes in the bareness of the room, and the packed luggage. He straightens himself out.

“Why so soon? It feels like you just got here.” He replies.

Based on his words alone he doesn’t want you to leave. You can feel it too. How it’s only been a month or so but the two of you are comfortable around each other.

You sigh, “The mission is over.”

“And we’re back to this? Four word sentences?” He asks.

“Azriel.”

He looks down both sides of the hallway. His head turning left then right. Then he’s turning back to you. He looks nervous. Antsy. He doesn’t normally look that way. He’s usually so composed.

He takes you by surprise. He side steps into the room and closes the door behind him. At that you know your eyes go wide. He holds up his hands in defense.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry for that but I just—are you mad at me?” He asks.

You scoff, “Yes I am.”

“Okay I knew that, but I was also confused because on that mission you saved my life.”

“Hardly.” You answer simply.

He groans at your one word answer, “You made sure those arrows didn’t plant themselves in my wings. You made sure I was safe.”

“It was nothing.”

“No it was something.”

You’re catching on now to how tense he is. Tense or nervous you can’t tell. His eyes are frantic. His breathing is also uneven. And his shadows are fully out on display now.

You do the one thing you can think of. You reach out for his hand. He doesn’t even seem to notice it. When you make contact he looks you in the eye. “Please calm down.” You whisper.

He bows his head, his hair covering his face now. All of a sudden he sinks to his knees. The action catches you completely off guard.

“I’m sorry.” He says again.

You focus on sending him warmth from your hand. In a second you can see his shoulders begin to shake. From this angle you can’t tell just yet if it’s what you think it is.

So you bring your free hand to the side of his face. You feel it. In the palm of your hand you feel his wet cheek. He’s crying. Azriel the shadow singer is crying, on his knees in front of you.

“I could have died and for the first time in a very long time I felt this deep regret in the bottom of my belly.” He chokes out.

What would he have to regret?

Slowly you drag you hand down his cheek. You place your pointer finger under his chin. Titling his head up, you meet his eyes. From this close you hadn’t realize how many shades of brown they hold.

“Azriel, you’re okay. I promise you you’re okay.” You whisper.

He shuts his eyes, more tears flowing down his face now.

“I don’t think I will be.” He admits.

“Why?” You ask.

He opens his eyes again.

“Because you hate us now, you’ll never come back here.” He answers.

In a sense he was right. Not totally. You didn’t hate the inner circle. You just couldn’t stand what they did last night. How they acted, how none of them would fess up. Even though some of them had known Lucien for a long time.

But you didn’t hate them. You didn’t hate him.

“I don’t hate you.” You reply.

“I could see it on your face last night. And now, you’re leaving so quickly. You want nothing to do with us.” He adds on.

There’s silence between the two of you. The emotions Azriel is feeling right now feel heavy. Way too heavy for someone he’s only spent about two months with.

You had heard many rumors about him. But him being like this, wearing his heart on his sleeve like this? You don’t think you could have ever imagined it.

Remembering that he’s waiting for you to answer, you remember to speak.

“Yes I’m upset and I want to go home. But that doesn’t mean I never want to see you again. Azriel I really enjoyed my time with you.” You speak.

You don’t realize it but your hand is stroking his now.

He gives you a look you can’t figure out, “Why does it feel like that time is over already? Like I’ll never see you again?”

He reaches up and places your hand on his cheek again. You don’t emit the warmth from there but he nuzzles into your hand like you are. His thumb rubs back and forth on the back of your hand there.

“You talk like everything is set in stone. Like there is only one path.” You say.

“I can just, sense it.” He explains barely.

You shake you head, “Azriel I was always going to leave.”

“Not like this. Last night changed everything.” He says, but it comes out more like a whisper.

“Get up.”

He looks at you, a bit of shock. You watch as he follows your command and gets back on his feet. He keeps your hand pressed to his face the whole time. Your other hand falls to your side.

“You can come visit me.” You say.

He’s silent. Silent but he nods his head at your words. You’re not sure if he believes you fully. But it’s enough. He wipes the tears from his face. His wings perk up, off the floor now.

You wrap your arms around his body before you can think against it. Instantly you feel his arms around you. Pulling you closer. He rests his head on top of yours. It feels right. It feels natural. No, it feels like something else too.

It feels the exact same way the sunlight in the day court feels on your skin. Like it is meant to be.

part two here!

#azriel x reader #azriel imagine #azriel fic #azriel one shot #acotar x reader #acotar imagine #acotar fic #acotar one shot

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artists-ally · 4 months ago

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{Train Wreck} Cassian!sister x Azriel AU {Pt. 1}

Man it feels good to be back with this series again. If you're wondering why the title feels familiar, you might have read this before. I decided I wanted to pick it back up again, but I needed to make a few changes. So, here is the revised version of Train Wreck!! Feel free to re-read, there are some new things here and there, so it's definitely worth it!! Anyway, enjoy my loves! Part 2 will be up soon!! Title and series inspired by this song!

Word Count: 8,587

Warnings: angst, language, traumatized characters (will come into play later in the series, you've been warned now), abandonment,

Tagging: @thelov3lybookworm @needylilgal022 @librafairy @cyrygher @lees-chaotic-brain @sarawritestories @claireswritingcorner @dawneternal @ninthcircleofprythian @blessthepizzaman @lady-of-tearshed @pit-and-the-pen

Summary: After six years, this is the first time Ira and her brother Cassian have been in the same room. Under less than ideal circumstances, they're forced to meet again. Will Ira be able to forgive Cassian for the way he left things? Will she be able to trust the new friends she makes? Will she ever be able to open up to her brothers hot-shot best friend?

~~~~~

“He’s going to say no.” No response from the peanut gallery in the front seat. “Seriously, he’s not going to be okay with this. You might as well let me out of the car now.”

“Will you just be quiet?” Arthur snapped, eyes locking with mine from the rearview mirror. “Need I remind you that this is your fault. You’ve left us with no other option.”

“I told you, it wasn’t me. That was–” “Cal, I remember the story. And that’s all that it is. A story, a fabrication that Arthur and I are no longer going to be entangled in. You may be able to fool the police with that lie, but you can’t fool us, Ira,” Dana snapped, whirling around to shoot me some daggers. She couldn’t look intimidating if she tried; her face was like a bunny, and every time she frowned it just looked like she smelled something rotten.

I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms. There was no way he was going to take me. We hadn’t spoken in almost six years, I didn’t even know he was alive until three months ago when I heard about his engagement.

Fourteen years of growing up together meant nothing to him, I guess.

The big, riverside house came into view at the end of an equally impressive driveway. A shame for whoever had to go and collect the mail every morning.

“Stay here, in the car,” Arthur barked.

I opened the door and got out of the car, kicking a few stones. Man this place was flashy; a big fountain in the circular driveway, a line of cars over by a garage. Not to mention the very obvious multi-million dollar mansion that never seemed to end.

“Lord, give me the strength to not strangle this child,” Arthur sighed, marching to the front door. I snickered, he was always so uptight.

“Not a child, Arthur,” I countered. “I’m fucking twenty years old.”

“Give it a rest, Ira. We’re trying to help you since you clearly don’t understand the basic human morals of being a functioning member of society,” Dana said, opening the trunk, catching a bag as it tumbled from the stack.

“Sorry that I don’t like to conform to the idealistic fantasy that is modern society.”

Turns out it’s hard to get a job with a criminal record. ‘We can’t hire a liability’ this and ‘we won’t have delinquents running our business’ that. So, I had to get creative with my… places of employment. It had been a fantastic plan. Brilliant even. Just something simple to save a few bucks so I could move out of this god forsaken place. But it got fucked up. Bad. And ended up with me in handcuffs.

This was my punishment. Instead of serving six months in county jail, I’m instead being dumped at this doorstep. Just what I always wanted. Knowing if I ever go back to the shithole I called home I’ll be arrested with a warrant.

I’ll never go in on a deal with someone ever again.

“Get your stuff,” Dana dropped a few things to the ground.

I came around the side of the car and heard the door open, and that lovely voice of his ring through my head.

Great. This is going to go fantastic.

“Arthur? W-What are you doing here?” he said, a hiccup to his voice.

“Cassian, good to see you,” the old man grinned, extending his hand. I watched through the windows of the van, saw Cassian stare at Arthurs hand and do nothing with it. “We uhh… we have something for you.”

“I don’t understand. How’d you find me?”

I could hear the crunch of gravel and I knew what was about to happen. Any second now I was about to come face to face with the douchebag I was dreading. I won’t lie, some small, juvenile part of me wished for him to be happy to see me. But I know it’s not gonna happen.

“Dana? What the fuck is going on? Why are you here? How did you-”

“She’s not the surprise, Cass,” Arthur clapped him on the shoulder and walked to the back of the car. I didn’t miss the way he shuddered.

There was a sharp yank on my elbow and I was pulled from the safety of my hiding spot. I jerked away from his grip, fixing the sleeve on my favorite jacket. Then I looked up. Fuck he’s…

“Ira…” He blinked several times, as if he could ever mistake me for someone else. Then I watched the color drain from his face. “It’s uhh… it’s been a while.” “Don’t give me that shit,” I couldn’t be bothered to be pleasant. Nothing about this would be fucking pleasant.

Cassian looked from Arthur to Dana, then back to me. And to the duffle bag that I was holding on to. I could see him connecting the dots inside his thick-ass skull. “No. No no no–”

“Cassian, she needs someone to look after her,” Dana expressed, chasing after him when he turned around.

“You cannot just plop her on my doorstep like some stray dog,” Cass shouted, throwing his arms in the air and all around.

“She’s your sister, for fucks sake,” Arthur joined. “She needs you to look after her. Since you left, Ira has done nothing but cause me headaches and gray hairs.”

“I’m right here, you know,” I walked over, throwing the bag down. “And I’d appreciate if you talked about me like a fucking human being, not some gag gift that is always shuffled around Christmas because no one wants it.”

“This is fucking ridiculus. I cannot take you in, Ira. I have too much going on.”

“Some things never change,” I huffed. “See, I told you he wouldn’t give me the time of day. You’re still the same selfish, self-centered asshole you’ve always been.”

“Don’t talk like that to your goddamn brother,” Arthor yelled, spit flying onto my cheek. It took every ounce of self restraint to not rip his fucking throat out. Do not stoop to his level, Ira. Calm the fuck down.

“Cass? What’s going on?” Someone called

Cassian scrunched his face, and my eyes went to the door. A pretty woman was standing there with her arms folded. She had a scowl on her face and narrow eyes. Her long brown hair was braided over her shoulder.

He heaved a sigh, rubbing his eyes. “Nothing, these people were just leaving.”

“Who’s here?” Another voice, a man, asked next. He was tall, had black hair and really deep blue eyes. They actually looked violet in the light. He was just as tall as Cassian when he came next to his side. The woman, with the most terrifying gaze I’ve ever seen, stood on his other side.

Cassian muttered something under his breath and rubbed his forehead. “This is Arthur and Dana. My foster parents from years ago. And this… this is my sister.”

“Your sister?” Both of them exclaimed at the same time.

He didn’t even tell them about me…

I stand there, shocked to my core. God I knew he was an asshole, but he never once mentioned me? What a fucking–

“They were just–” “Come in come in,” the man stepped down and shook Arthur's hand. “I am Rhysand, call me Rhys. Welcome, we are so pleased to have you. Cassian never mentioned having visitors today.”

“It wasn’t planned,” Dana let out the fakest laugh I’ve ever heard. She was one of those people who, when nervous, laughed after every sentence. I’ve come to despise the sound.

“No, Rhys,” Cassian shook his head. “They are not welcome. Take your fucking shit, take your goddamn bags, and go. You’re not allowed back here.”

At least that’s something we could both agree on. Neither side of this party wanted to be here. The feeling was mutual.

“Welp, you heard the man,” I clapped my hands together. “Sorry to disrupt your whole life, to remind you that I still exist but we’ll go now. We all know that you don’t want the responsibility anyway. You didn’t want it six years ago, so why would that change today?”

“You know goddamn well that if I had a choice I would’ve–”

“Okay, okay can we cool it a couple degrees here? Someone better start explaining what is going on,” the man, Rhys, said. He put an arm between Cassian and I. I wasn’t sure when I got in his face, but he might want to remove the barrier before it gets ripped off.

There were a couple too many silent heart beats, but both of us backed down. Cassian glanced at Arthur and Dana, taking a deep breath. I watched his chest rise and fall.

In for four, out for four. In for five, out for five…

A lump rose in my throat.

I could practically hear the conversation between Cassian and Rhys. This silent exchange of glances and body language I’m sure I’d never understand. But then Cassian backed down. Literally, he took a step back, hands on his hips.

“Would you guys like to stay for dinner?” Rhys asked Arthur and Dana.

Dinner? Dinner? Oh fuuuuck no. The four of us haven’t been in a room together for six years, and this crackhead just asked if we wanted to have dinner?

“We would be delighted,” Dana accepted, shooting me a look from head to toe. “Since it’s still midday, would you mind showing us around the property? It looks gorgeous.”

“Certainly,” Rhys says, offering his elbow. Dana latches on like a lost duckling, Arthur trailing after her.

And then there were two.

I looked up at the clouds, finding no discernible shapes amongst them. Welp. Here fucking goes nothing.

“Lovely weather we’re having.”

“Do not,” he pointed at me. “You are not staying here, whenever this little tour is over, you’re gone with them.”

“Gladly.”

“How the fuck did you guys find me anyway?” His eyes were full of rage. Full of hate. Full of resentment.

“It's amazing the things you can find with twenty bucks and a library computer.”

“You hacked into a library system and stalked me?” Cassian was dumbfounded.

I just smirked. “It wasn’t that hard, don’t give yourself too much credit. Kinda hard to hide somewhere when your face is plastered all over your website. ‘Velaris Hotel and Casino’ has a catchy ring to it, come up with it yourself?”

“I swear to god if I ever see you set foot in my hotel or my casino you’re gonna regret it. I cannot believe you hunted me down.”

“And I cannot believe you abandoned me,” I screamed. Years and years of pent up aggression. Years and years of shower thoughts and late nights wondering what I’d say to him when this moment came. And every single thing I’ve thought of has flown out the fucking window.

Cassian had the gull to roll his eyes. I almost smacked him across the face.

“Yo, are you coming inside or what?” A third voice sounded. God, how many people live in this fucking house?

A petite, blonde girl was in the doorway, her eyes bouncing between us.

“Well? You gonna invite me in or is that privilege only reserved for Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumb?” I asked, rocking back and forth on my heels.

He looked me head to toe, and I got that same feeling as when Dana did it. Just raw disgust.

“Break anything and I’ll murder you.”

“I’m thinking you’re gonna murder me regardless but eye-eye-captain,” I nodded, following behind his solid frame.

The house was absolutely massive. I thought shit like this only existed in movies, not… wherever the fuck we were. Certainly not my normal run-down streets I was used to, and certainly not somewhere I ever thought Cassian was going to end up.

There were cabinets filled with fine dishes and a chandelier hanging in the front entrance. There was a massive living room with the biggest TV and couch I’ve ever seen. Same with the kitchen and the dining room, which was being prepped by maids. Legit, actual maids. For fucks sake could this get any stranger?

Cassian took a left and went up a set of stairs. Classic Cass, running away at any chance he gets. My phone buzzed in my pocket.

Cal: your a piece of shit I hope you know that

Me: You’re* but it’s fine.

Cal: i cannot believe you fucking left me

Me: Whoops. Sorry bud, I couldn’t stick around. You dicked me over so… guess that karma’s a bitch.

Cal: you know im bad with names

Me: WE USED EACH OTHERS MOTHER FUCKER. HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO FORGET MY NAME

Cal: hopefully pretty fucking easy because i don’t ever want to fucking see you ever again fuck you ira

Me: Right back atcha, asshole.

The only person that I had remotely trusted was out of my life. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure I’ve ever had someone to trust. There were plenty of things I never told Cal. Plenty of things I kept hidden for my own safety. It was a strictly need-to-know partnership. I always got a little weary when he started asking too many questions.

And I learned pretty fucking quick you can’t trust your own blood either.

Lesson learned. Always. Trust. Your. Gut.

I trailed behind Dana and Arthur, always five steps behind, close enough to hear, but far enough to make an escape should I need to.

“Oh, and this is my wife Feyre. My darling, this is Arthur, Dana, and Ira, Cassian’s foster parents and his sister,” Rhys spared me a glance and I scrunched my face. Had Cassian really never bothered to tell them about me?

“Wow,” she had a small smile on her pretty face. Why was everyone here so pretty? “You look just like him. You both have the same eyes. And the same hair.”

“Great, what I’ve always wanted to be. Cassian's clone.” I couldn’t stop the eye roll.

“Ira,” Dana hissed. “Some manners?”

“Thank you, your Royal Highness.”

Dana smacked her forehead, mumbling something about gray hairs and a headache again. I chuckled. I thought it was funny. Especially the curtsy.

“They are staying for dinner, I’ll let them know to set a few extra plates,” Rhys said.

“Good, I wouldn’t mind getting to know some of Cassian’s family,” Feyre nodded, that small smile still on her lips. We had all meandered outside to look at their yard, at the fountain in the front of the house.

To no one's surprise, there was a matching one in the back by the pool.

We all went inside after seeing the yard, but Cassian lingered at the back of the pack. While Rhys took Dana and Arthur around to the kitchen, Cassian yanked me–why was everyone throwing me around?–into a room off to the side.

“What the fuck did you do this time?” Off to a great start.

“Wow, Cassie-”

“Do not call me that.”

He used to hate it when I called him Cassie. Especially around his friends because they would make fun of him for days after.

“No hi, how are you? No ‘it's good to see that my sister is alive and doing well?’” “Clearly not well enough since they dragged you all the way out here.” Cassian’s eyes were full of fire. Looks like he still had that canyon of a line between his bushy-ass-eyebrows when he was upset.

“You don’t know anything of what I’ve had to endure the last six fucking years without you.”

“What. Did. You. Do?”

I swallowed, I hated when he scolded me. “It wasn’t even that bad. They just gave me community service.” I lied out of my ass.

“Jesus Christ, Ira. What did they want to give you?” Cassian shouted for the whole house to hear.

“Doesn’t matter, I got myself out of it. Like I always do, without your fucking help. I am capable of taking care of myself without you.”

“Yeah you seem to be doing a swell job,” Cassian looked me up and down, clearly judging my tangled hair and ripped up jeans that I’ve probably had since middle school. “I thought all of this was behind you, Ira. When I left you were-”

“Abandoned. You didn’t leave, you abandoned me.”

Cassian relaxed his shoulders. “You know if I could’ve taken you with me I would’ve.”

“No you wouldn’t have.” I was waiting for him to argue, to deny that fact. But he didn’t, and his haunting silence was enough of an answer. I scoffed, a hard, bitter noise. “You know I don’t blame you, no one would want to take a juvenile delinquent anywhere, especially somewhere like this place.”

“Ira-” “Save you’re fucking breath, Cass. You don’t have to pretend around me, you’ve never had to. Just play along with it for one night and I’ll be gone by the morning. Then I won’t have to be your liability to shoulder ever again.”

I didn’t wait around to see his response. Somewhere deep inside I was actually excited to see him. To meet the person my scrawny, gangly brother had turned into. Now he was… a man. Like a real man. I never thought I’d see him with long hair, but here we are.

He looked healthy. He looked happy. For fucks sake he was engaged. Albeit to the most terrifying looking woman I’ve ever seen, but they looked like they somehow worked.

I found Dana and Arthur with glasses of wine around a large table, two other women that I hadn’t met yet.

“Ahh, this is her,” Rhys stood up, putting his hands on my shoulders. I immediately shrugged them off. “This is Ira, Cassian’s sister.”

“After all this time,” the pretty blonde woman spoke, looking at me from head to toe. “Who knew Cassian could keep you a secret.”

“You look just like him,” a girl who looked similarly to Feyre said, eyes wide. “I’m Elain. And that’s Morrigan.”

“Mor is fine, dear,” Mor smiled, coming over to me and Rhys. “Would you like to see the rest of the house?”

“Not really,” I grimace, but she linked her elbow with mine anyway, dragging me away. “I know that look. You’re overwhelmed. Follow me.”

I thought I was doing a good job at masking it. “You don’t know the fucking half of it.”

“I know Elain said this already, but fuck you look like Cassian,” she laughed, opening a room and revealing a giant bed with a balcony on the other side of some french doors.

“It gets really fucking annoying,” I rolled my eyes.

“Understood,” she nodded, not pushing it. “This is my room, you can go out on the balcony if you need some fresh air. Or the bathroom, whatever you want.”

This entire room was as big as the trailer I grew up in. I’ve never seen such a big bed, or a big closet. Jesus, she could have the entirety of Macy’s in there.

She must’ve caught me staring at it cause she walked over and flipped on the light. “Wanna take a look?”

I snapped back to her, shaking my head. I shoved my hands in my pockets, digging my nails into my palms. Everything in here was so pristine, and I was so… not. I didn’t wanna step anywhere but the hardwood floor.

“I like your jacket, those are some really cool patches,” she smiled, taking a closer look. She reached out and touched one, the blue plaid square fraying at the edges.

It was a cut out of Cassian’s flannel he left behind…

“Thanks,” I nodded, ignoring the lump in my throat. “I’ve spent a lot of time making them.”

“That's so cool, I have zero creative ability,” Mor sighed as she flopped back on the bed.

“Neither do I, just something to pass the time, I guess?” I took my hands out of my pockets, digging some grime out from under my nails.

I could feel her eyes on me. That tension. Knowing she’s about to say something.

“Look, I know it’s not my place to ask, but–”

“Then don’t ask. Cause I’m not saying shit,” I said bluntly. “Sorry if that's rude but I don’t know you and you clearly don’t know me so… I don’t need the whole ‘I know what you’re going through’ speech. You don’t. No one does. Not even myself.”

Mor nodded, sitting up, propping her arms behind her back. “I’m a little pissed at Cassian too.”

My eyes snapped to hers. “Why?”

“Because he has never once mentioned you? I know some of where he came from, of bouncing around the foster system, about ‘siblings’ but… he never went into detail. I just assumed they were all other kids in the system, you know? If he would’ve mentioned something about you, trust me, we would have not waited this long to be introduced.”

That… makes me feel slightly better.

“There's not much to know about me. I’m a fucking nuisance to basically everyone. Especially to Cassian, Arthur, and Dana apparently.”

“What the fuck is their problem?” Mor scoffs, folding her arms over her chest.

“I don’t know. Well– of course I know, it’s me. I’m their fucking problem and they’re trying to get rid of me. I made a dumb fucking decision, but I already did my fucking time. I don’t want anything to do with Cassian so I’m not sure why they’re dragging him into this mess.”

Mor just looked at me sorrowfully. Fuck, why did I say that? I don’t want her pity. I can’t pretend she cares about me.

She got off the bed and stood in front of me. She was shorter than I was, but not by a whole lot.

“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like. I know it’s fucking awful what they’re making you do, so I don’t blame you for wanting to hide. Help yourself to anything you need.”

And then she was gone. Blonde hair bobbing with her steps.

This isn’t fucking happening. I’m not in some strange girls room, alone nonetheless, in a different city hundreds of miles away from my familiar streets. I was not about to be abandoned here by Arthur and Dana because they couldn’t stand to take care of me anymore. Not the first, not the second, but the third time I’ve been abandoned.

Man this is some fucking bullshit.

I just looked around, envying all of this. It was all hers. All this space, all these things. All these clothes and dresses and jewelry boxes… Why can’t I have these things?

I swallow my tears. I’m so fucking pathetic, why am I about to cry? This is so stupid. Everything about this is stupid.

I head to the bathroom and splash some cold water on my face.

A plan flickers to life in my brain. I know for a fact they’re going to sneak out and leave me and all my shit here. But, I’ll just leave in the middle of the night. Who the fuck is gonna stop me? No one. Who cares if I leave? Also no one.

I won’t make the same mistake that Cassian did. When I disappear, no one will be able to find me.

I took a long look at myself in the mirror. My tired eyes, my tangled, ratty hair. But I could see it… the resemblance between him and I. The same eyes. Same nose. Same hair. I’ll never be able to unsee it now.

Okay, Ira. just a few more hours and you're done. Done for good. You can change your name and move to Puerto Rico or something. Paris. Wherever you want to go. Well, you don’t know how to speak Spanish or French, which might be important but… that's why they have translating apps, right? You’ll be fine. You always are.

When I got back downstairs, there was a light chatter in the air. But it stopped the second I walked in the room.

My hood was quick to go over my head. No one spoke as I sat down and poured some water from the pitcher into my glass.

Thankfully conversation between Rhys, Feyre, and Dana resumed and the silence wasn’t eating me alive. I took out my phone and scrolled through instagram, posting a picture of a lake I had taken on the drive up here. Just like all the other posts, it wouldn’t get any likes.

“How do all of you know each other?” Arthur asked.

“Well I met Cassian when we were in high school, as well as our other friend Azriel,” Rhys started. “We made a deal with each other that when we graduate, we would do everything in our power to become the most powerful business owners we could. As you can see, that little pact is working quite well.” “How long have you lived here?” Dana asked next, clearly eyeing up Rhys.

“For about three years now?” Mor answered, Rhys nodded. “We kind of all found each other on the same paths and stuck together. We sort of own and share everything around here.”

“That is lovely,” Dana smiled. “And what do you do?”

“I own a casino and a neighboring hotel,” Rhys smiled. The moment I had learned about this hotel and casino, alarm bells rang in my ears. The devil's playground, and it was calling my name. Maybe I’d hit up for a few poker hands. “Cassian runs the whole thing, and Azriel kind of has his own thing.”

“Who’s Azriel?” Arthur unfolded the napkin and laid it across his lap.

“He is our other friend,” Cassian butted in, lips pressed in that line that I remembered. “He’ll be by later.”

“Great,” I rolled my eyes. “More people.”

“Will you please be polite for once in your life?” Dana whisper-yelled, clearly not being discrete enough since everyone looked at us.

I just shut my mouth, grinding my teeth. It’s not worth it, it's not worth it, I told myself. A few moments later, a large tray with some type of bird on it came out. It was too big to be a chicken, but too small to be a turkey? Duck maybe? I don’t know, it didn’t matter. It was food.

Everyone around me took their time while I ate like a heathen. Putting a little bit of everything on my plate and scarfing it down like someone was going to take it away from me. Guess I’m taking on the stray dog title pretty well.

“So, Ira. What do you like to do?” Mor asked me.

I don't know what part of my hood being pulled over my head gave off ‘I want to be a part of this conversation’, but here we go I guess.

“I have many hobbies.” I could see Cassian’s eyes narrow from across the table.

“Like?” Rhys stuck a green bean in his mouth.

“Uhh, f-fashion. And I’m very good at handling money. Other people's money. As well as picking locks and hotwiring cars-”

“She’s joking,” Cassian gave the fakest laugh– besides Dana’s– that I’ve ever heard. “We used to play cops and robbers when we were little, she always wanted to be the robber.”

“Did I?”

“Yes,” he practically growled. “You did.”

This was crazy. This was actually crazy to be doing this right now. If I had any particular feeling about the things I did, guilty and ashamed were not some of them. Who gave a fuck if I stole from Walmart or faked being a waitress to make a few extra bucks? If anything they should be thanking me for the extra set of hands. Which they didn’t have to pay for.

It wasn’t like I stole the Mona Lisa for fucks sake.

“I guess I did.”

“What was Cassian like growing up? I can only imagine some of the stories you have,” Nesta chimed in from next to Cassian.

“I have a few. One time, Cassian was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich-”

“Do not-”

“And he thought that the peanut butter was in the fridge for some reason. Turns out he grabbed a bottle of dijon mustard and used that instead. He took one bite and threw up everywhere. It took Dana a week to get the smell out of the kitchen.”

Everyone grimaced, poking fun at Cassian for making a jelly-mustard sandwich. “I guess that explains the nausea every time I make one.”

“You still can’t stomach even the smell?” My eyes were a little wide. That had to have been from when we were still in elementary school.

“Nope,” Cassian’s tone was harsh, fork forceful as it went into his mouth.

“What is everyone laughing about?” A new voice said from over my shoulder. When I turned to look… holy mother of Jesus fucking–

“Azriel,” Rhys, still in a fit of laughter. “Listen to this: Ira, Cassian’s sister, told us why he runs for the hills every time he sees peanut butter.”

“S-Sister?”

I could not have ignored the exchange between Cass and Azriel if I tried. Those alarm bells from earlier? They were deafening now. Much like Cassian and Rhys earlier, their eyes and body gestures were like a language in and of itself. Impossible to understand, but something was said.

“Azriel, this is my sister. Ira,” Cassian gestured to me without looking. “This is Azriel. And my foster parents, Arthur and Dana.”

I held Azriel’s gaze for a second. I couldn’t quite figure out what his problem was, but he better not have one with me. I challenged his gaze, but he refused to back down.

Azriel gave a not-so-subtle look at me, but didn’t say anything as he moved to sit with us. A sharp kick to my shin had me wincing. When I looked up, Cassian met my heated gaze.

Don’t even think about it, he mouthed, glare set so deep in his eyes I wasn't sure his eye lids would peel off his face.

One raise of my eyebrow told him I was up for the challenge. I could see his jaw clench, and that only made me want to push his buttons.

I managed to break my vice hold on Cassian and look at Azriel from across the table. He had these lighter colored eyes, hazel I think. And a dark mess of hair. He wore a fitted black athletic tee, and black sweats with a Nike swoosh on the hip. I think I stared a little too long, cause when I looked back up at his face, he sent me a wink.

I damn near gagged. He wishes.

“And you’re engaged? That’s wonderful, Cassian. I am so happy for you,” Dana gushed while looking at Nesta’s ring. “Congratulations, you two. Do you have a date picked out?”

“No,” Nesta said sternly. “We are just going to wait things out. Until both of us feel ready.”

Cassian nodded, not offering up any words.

“What would you guys like for dessert?” Rhys asked, listing off a few options. I stopped paying attention after chocolate cake because who would want to hear anything else?

“I’m afraid we better get on the road, it is a long drive back to our home. Thank you for dinner, it was delicious,” Arthur stood up from the table, shaking Rhys’s hand. “Cassian, a word, please?”

With a deep breath, Cassian stood up and followed the old man out of the room.

“Okay, now that he’s gone, can we all agree that there is something wrong with him? I’ve never seen him so… so rigid in my life,” Mor blew out air from her lips, shaking her head.

I offered a tad bit of insight. “Dana and Arthur are kind of fed up with me so they’re just gonna take off. And leave me here. But don’t worry, I’m just gonna find a bus stop in the morning and be gone before any of you wake up. No biggie.”

The room was silent except for my fork scratching on the plate. When I looked up, everyone was looking at me funny.

“Ira, what? They’re gonna leave you here?” Mor gasped.

“It is a long story. And they think I need a role model to get my life together. Why Cassian is that role model I’ll never understand because the last I knew of him he was just as irresponsible as I was.”

Rhys took a sip of wine, “How long has it been since you’ve seen each other?”

“Six years. But I mean you all probably know him better than I ever did so, might wanna ask that prick why he abandoned me.” I took a big piece of this chocolate cake into my mouth. “Fuck, this is good.”

“What happened?” Feyre prodded.

“We are lightyears away from you being able to ask that,” I laughed. “No offense but, it’s none of your fucking business.”

Again, the room was silent, except for a small snort at the end of the table. It wasn’t Elain because she was so red she looked like she was gonna pass out. And the only other one was Azriel.

“Hint taken,” Rhys pressed his lips in a flat line. “Well, you are Cassian’s family, so you are always welcome in our home.”

“Trust me, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me to be. I’ll figure it out, I always have. It’ll be like I was never here,” I took another forkful and shoved it in. Damn, I was gonna miss this cake. “So, Rhys, you own a casino and a hotel. What do the rest of you do?”

I’ll pretend like I care for my own amusement.

“Well, Cassian runs the casino and hotel,” Rhys pointed out again. “Azriel owns and runs the adjacent club. We basically have our own empire here.”

“Sounds riveting,” I rolled my eyes. “What about you Mor.”

“I am the best fucking bartender this place has seen,” she grinned. “And I model here and there.” “Wonderful.” So she’s a princess. Got it.

“I have an art studio. I teach classes and do some workshops,” Feyre said. “But most of the time I am at home with our son Nyx. He is… he’s a handful. A spoiled handful.”

“Hey,” Mor said, “to be fair, he is the first kid in our group, what did you expect?”

“He’s barely two, he doesn’t need designer clothes that he won’t fit into after a few months anyway. It's a waste of money.”

“Feyre, darling, I don’t know if you’ve looked around, but we kind of have a lot of money. It could use some wasting,” Rhys patted her thigh under the table.

I can only hope to have enough financial security to be able to say sentences like that. They could probably retire right now, all of them, and never make a dent in their fortune. Lucky bastards.

“What is it that you do, Ira?” Azriel poked his head from around Mor.

“Oh,” I sputtered. What the hell was I supposed to say? Certainly the fact that I commit petty crimes won’t go over well. “I’ve had a lot of jobs. I don’t have a set career yet.”

“So hot-wiring cars is just a hobby then?”

A stream of water shot out of Mor’s mouth and onto the table. How did he even hear that?

“It’s a skill. Don’t come crying to me when your battery dies and you don’t wanna pay a hundred and fifty dollars for AAA to come and pick up your ass,” I deflected. Another skill I had built up over the years.

“And the locks?” Wow, he was kind of an asshole with supersonic hearing. I could see why he and Cassian hung around together.

“I was a locksmith,” I mustered up my best smile and scooted my chair so I was sitting at an angle.

“Ah, so it wasn’t just the ‘cops and robbers’ you and Cassie used to play growing up. Good to know,” Azriel wiped the corners of his mouth with his napkin. He stood up, saying something about having to leave because he had to open up.

Just as he was walking by, I stuck my toe into the walkway and he tripped over me. Azriel all but went through the wall, Cassian coming around at the last second and catching his arm.

“You alright?” He asked as Azriel straightened himself out.

“Yup. Fine.” The glare he gave me sent a smirk curling at my lips. Two can play that game, mother fucker.

I, very gracefully, scratched the corner of my nose with my middle finger. He got the message. But so did Cassian.

“Your stuff is in the driveway. Go get it and meet me upstairs.” Cassian looked so pissed off. His shoulders were pinned to his ears again as he stalked away, that silence settling back in the room.

“Guess that’s my cue to get a move on. Thank you everyone, a pleasure to meet you all,” I said with a genuine tone. They were all cool.

The three duffle bags and backpack were not light as I carried them up the stairs, trying not to knock over all the decorations and pictures on the wall. One of them didn’t survive. It crashed all the way down and shattered on the hardwood floor. Cassian cursed from somewhere.

With a thud, I let go of all the bags in some random room at the end of the hall. It was barely big enough to call a hobbit hole. There wasn’t a window or a real bed, just some cot with a pillow and a blanket. “Glamourous.”

“It’s the best that I could do,” Cassian all but rolled his eyes.

“A couch would’ve been better,” I plopped down on the taught fabric, bouncing a little. “Sorry about the frame.” “It’s fine,” he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Ira I’m sorry about how I left you.” “Yeah well apologies don’t mean a fucking thing to me unless you fix it, Cassian,” I folded my arms over my chest. “And for the record, I would’ve understood if you would’ve just fucking told me what was going on. Instead, not only did you not tell me, you ghosted me.” I just blinked up at him, waiting for an explanation. “Well?”

Nothing. Not even a strangled breath. “I just had to.”

“That’s the best you can do? Are you seriously still that fucking thick in the head?” “I didn’t have a choice, Ira,” he shouted.

“Yes,” I nodded. “You absolutely had a choice. You could’ve at least left me a fucking note with a number on it so I could talk to you. You were all I had, Cass. All I fucking had and you just disappeared. What did you expect me to do?”

Cassian shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I-I don’t know. I thought you’d get yourself together and make it out too. Build your own empire, like the one we have here.”

“In case you forgot, I didn’t get to finish school like you did.”

“Well that’s not my fault.”

The fucking nerve. I stood up, barely coming to his chest, and smacked him across the face. His head jerked to the side, and his mouth fell open. I shoved him into the wall on the other side of the hallway and he fell into it.

“You are a piece of fucking shit Cassian.”

“Ira–” “Did you really think that I would end up alright without you there? Could you really be that fucking stupid?”

“I didn’t think that–”

“Of course you didn’t. You never have. You’ve only ever thought about yourself and what would benefit you. You never gave a shit about me, I was just a burden you couldn’t get rid of.” “That’s not true,” he gritted his teeth.

“Tell me that I am not a constant reminder of dad. Or mom. Tell me.” I waited for a response. When nothing came, I felt the nausea roll through my body. “You are one sorry son of a bitch Cassian.”

“Jesus Ira you think I wanted to abandon you?” “You haven’t given me one other reason to believe anything different,” I was screaming now. I didn’t care if anyone else heard. “The last memory I have of you is seeing you packing a fucking bag and climbing out your window, what else am I supposed to believe about you?”

A door clicked open, and Azriel emerged. He looked at us with raised eyebrows. “Everything alright?”

No, you fucking prick.

“Just re-kindling our sibling rivalry,” I gave a mocking look, staring down Azriel. “Mind your own damn business. This doesn’t concern you.”

“Ira,” Cassian said, somewhat appalled.

“Just fuck off, Cassian,” I waved my hand at him. “Like I said, I’ll be gone in the morning and you don’t ever have to worry about making it up to me again because you won’t be able to. Hope you are happy living in your perfect little bubble with your perfectly little circle. Hope they’re all more important to you than I ever was.”

I slammed the door shut quicker than he could get a response out, leaning against it. I hadn’t ever realized that I was shaking.

Whatever. Fuck him too. I don’t need Cassian. I haven’t needed him for the past six years. God, has it really been that long?

There was no use in unpacking so I just piled the bags in the corner of the room. And there was also nothing to do besides lay down simply because there wasn’t enough room to do anything else.

Maybe when everyone has gone to sleep, or home, I’ll go sneak around. Take something just to piss him off. Nothing too valuable, but something really inconvenient like all the salt and pepper shakers or all the spoons.

Or one of the Corvettes in the driveway.

My mind was racing with thoughts, but eventually I had fallen asleep because the sun was peeking through the crack under my door. I stirred and sat up, sighing loudly.

I changed into a hoodie and some other jeans, slipping my jacket on knowing it'll be chilly.

With far more precision, I made it downstairs to the front door. It unlocked easily, thankfully no alarm system went off. The crisp morning greeted me and I slipped out silently.

Fuck, this driveway was long. Couldn’t they be normal and have a normal fucking sized driveway? It was so unnecessary.

And of course there was nothing at the end of it. Just the road and nothing else. Not another house or anything. Who knows how far it could be until a bus station. Hopefully this place wasn’t filled with a bunch of weirdos and I wouldn’t get kidnapped.

The thought of carrying all these bags for miles would tear up my back and shoulders. I didn’t have that much but… I needed all of it.

“Ira!”

I whirled around and saw a Cassian shaped silhouette coming down the driveway. Oh great.

“Come to demand I pay for the broken frame?” “Stay.”

What? “What?”

Cassian breathed heavily, “Stay. I-I am so sorry for what I said. And you’re right, I don’t ever think of anyone other than myself. And I’m sorry I never told you where I was going. I want to fix it, but I can’t if you don’t at least let me try.”

I dropped the bags, totally not believing what I was hearing. “And what if I don’t give a flying fuck if you want to or not?”

Cassian completely deflated. “Please, Ira. I made a promise to mom and dad that I would look after you. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by where I don’t feel like a piece of shit for what I did. I miss you.”

So what if he made a promise to mom and dad? He made a promise to me. To always stick together. To always be there. He hung me out to dry before I even had a chance to notice. His apology means nothing. His desperation means nothing.

I fucking hated Cassian. More than anything right now I wanted to watch him be boiled alive. Could he really even help me anyway? What was the fucking point of any of this? I was already humiliated, and dragging innocent people into my bullshit surely didn’t help.

I sucked in a big breath, hiking my bag up on my shoulder, ready to bolt. “Why should I?”

“Because what other option do you realistically have?”

“That is not fair,” I flare my nostrils. “You have no right to waltz back into my life and pretend you give a shit about me.”

“You were the one who was dropped on my doorstep,” Cassian pointed out, making my stomach drop.

“You know, you’re doing a shit job at showing that you legitimately want me to stay, asshole.” I was getting a little angry. Good things did not happen when I felt betrayed. “And for the record, I tried to talk them out of bringing me here, but they went around me and got a fucking court order. So, whether you want to believe it or not, it was not my choice to be here. I can’t even go back with Dana and Arthur because there will be a warrant out for my arrest.”

“Shit…” Cassian dragged a hand over his face. “Ira I’m-”

“Sorry? I know. But you lost the privilege of my forgiveness long ago. It is gonna take a hell of a lot more than ‘I’m sorry’ to fix what you’ve done to me.”

“I know, I know,” Cassian softened his eyes and his voice, standing tall in front of me. “Just… give me something. Anything, and I will never betray you ever again.”

Should I believe him? I have no fucking idea what to do. All my senses are telling me to run and don’t look back, but that gaping pit in my stomach that formed when he left seems a little less… gaping.

This was gonna be a rough fucking time. Nothing about this is going to be easy, but… he was right. I didn’t have another option. Prison, if I really was desperate, but I didn’t quite feel like losing all my basic human rights.

If he wanted me to stay, there were going to have to be some sacrifices on his end.

Maybe a little room for petty behavior.

“I want a real fucking room.” I demanded

“Any one in the house.”

“I want yours.”

“Absolutely not,” Cassian furrowed his brow. “Plus, I don’t even live here anymore. Just Rhys, Feyre and Nyx. Nesta, Azriel and I live in the next town.”

“So what, you all just visit together and pretend to be a big happy family?” I scoffed, kicking a stone.

“We don’t pretend, Ira,” he didn’t say it rudely, but more matter of fact-ly. And he looked at me like I had never known what a family was. I guess he forgot that when he left it kind of ruined me. Or again maybe he just didn’t care what it would do to me back then.

Cassian looked sad. Not depressed or upset, just sad.

“Your room or I’m gonna walk away right now.” There was no room for negotiating in my voice. I could see the conflict in his eyes, but with a sigh he gave in.

“Fine, you can have my room,” Cassian rolled his eyes dramatically.

“Was that so hard?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “Actually it was. I spent weeks designing that room. All for it to go to fucking waste.”

“Sucks to suck I guess,” I smirked, shouldering two of my bags. I took a long, non-rage-filled look at my brother. Man… he looked so different. Six years is a long time to not see someone.

I gotta make this work. “I’m gonna work hard, you know. I’m tired of always being in the fucking mud.”

“Yup. Me too.” Nice, asshole. “You’re going to have to follow some rules and check in. This isn’t going to be a free-for-all, you’re gonna have a curfew.”

“A curfew? What am I, thirteen?”

“Until you can prove to me that you’re not gonna go and rob a bank, yes, you’ll have a curfew,” Cassian picked up my other bags and started walking back to the house. “We’re gonna find you a job because I will not be funding your operation.”

“What happened to ‘we have a lot of money. It could use some wasting’?”

“Rhys wasn’t wrong,” Cassian said. “But just because we have it doesn’t mean you get access to it.”

“Jeez, sorry I brought it up, grumpy pants. And what kind of rules anyway?”

“We’ll talk about it later. Some of us like to get a full eight hours of sleep every day so I am going back to bed. You’re not allowed to leave the house until I say so, so find something to do.”

“Or someone,” I whispered to myself. But Cassian heard. “A joke.”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you eye fucking Azriel,” Cassian practically gagged. “That is one of your rules. You are not allowed to be engaged with him in any type of way. The last thing he needs right now is you.”

“Right to the heart. And please, I could do better.” That part was debatable for sure.

“I mean it, he’s been through a lot the past year and a half. It took him a long time to get to where he is and I won’t let you ruin it for him,” Cassian said possessively. “He, along with everyone else, is my family. Fuck with them and you’re dealing with me.” “News flash, buddy, so am I. We share the same DNA, and hair and eyes according to everyone else on the fucking planet.”

“Ira, I’m serious. If you fuck around with Azriel and I find out I sweat to–”

“Jesus, calm down Vengeance. Gotham is safe from the Joker,” I followed him inside, clicking the door shut behind me. “I won’t get involved with Azriel.”

“Good.”

He carried the bags to his car, telling me we’d make it to his house sometime in the afternoon. After that? I just… wandered. I looked in the kitchen, grabbing an orange and a few granola bars from the pantry. I slipped out the back door to the pool and sat on one of the lounge chairs.

The sunrise was full of oranges and golds. Much different from the other sunrises I’m used to up on the roof. The soft wind blew the water in the pool, making gentle lapping noises. I closed my eyes. Stretched my legs.

I’ve gotta be careful or I might get used to this.

I know the ending of this book. Read these pages, seen the titles. It’s gonna be no fucking different. I’ll give it the good ol’ college try, but it’s never gonna fucking work. I’ll do something stupid, piss off the wrong person and Cassian will kick me to the curb. Just a waiting game.

Nothing I can do about it, so I might as well see where fate takes me.

#ally writes #acotar #acotar fanfiction #acotar fanfic #azriel #azriel shadowsinger #azriel fanfic #azriel x oc #azriel acotar #azriel x ofc #azriel spymaster #acotar fandom #acotar fic

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gigi-loveless · 10 months ago

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uuuuuu you know what i just thought???? party scene w/ hazel and then them going home together n gettin nasty if u know what i mean….. and maybe some fluff at the end like hazel taking drunk!reader’s makeup off cause it was running…… anyways!!!!! 🪙

y’all are TOO GOOD

the beat of XXX by kim petras pulses through your body, consuming you as you attempt to take, what was it, your fifth shot? or the sixth? whatever. all you knew was that it felt good, but what felt even better was your girlfriends slender arm thrown over your shoulder, pulling you closer to her on the couch, whilst she takes a swig of beer. you’ve been aching for her to dance with you all night, but let’s be real, hazel isn’t really a show-off type. she’s more of the type at parties to be the smoke sesh leader, but you absolutely don’t mind since that means you get to watch her veiny hands work on joints all night.

finally, after what seems like eons, your best friends finally show up. before you even know it, you’re being peeled from hazels touch by brittany and isabel and out onto the makeshift dance floor on the patio, her rugged voice calling out for you.

“come on, haze! it’ll be fun!”

assuming the girl stayed with her stoned friends, the three of you groove to the music, laughing and trading your vapes.

“miss me?”

two very familiar hands snake around your waist from behind you, and the grin that spreads onto your face is absolutely wicked.

“seems like you’re the one who missed me.”

ass up against her crotch, you grind into her provocatively. i mean, of course you know what this leads to, but you’re far too drunk to process anything beyond her sharp breath on your neck, hands still anchored on your hips. lord knows the poor girl can’t dance, but you don’t mind taking the lead as long as it means you can be close to her. clouds of smoke trickle in from behind you as hazel takes another drag from her joint, blowing it just past your ear. a groan erupts from the poor girl, and you can tell the zipper of her jeans is creating a little friction.

“maybe…let’s get out of here. yeah?”

your hand in hers, she escorts you out of the sea of intoxicated students and back to your house, making sure to keep her arm tucked safely around you in the uber home (she knows how scared you are of them, especially when not sober).

as soon as the door shuts, her muscles flare as she pins you up against the door, pawing at your skirt.

“you are so damn naughty.”

“i know. whatcha gonna do about it?”

you know exactly what she was going to do about it. her cherry red strap comes out, and quickly you’re sucking her off, while she groans from the bullet vibrator pinned to her clit by the tight harness. tears stream down your face, mascara running, but no thoughts are occurring in your head, only the beauty that is hazel callahan. the quivering girl turns pale and bucks up one last time into your throat as she reaches her climax. all that drool you left on the strap is quickly being thrust into your cunt, hazels grumbles and mewls giving you all the motivation to finish all over her precious strap on.

“hey…you okay?” she ponders as she puts the strap down and scurries towards you. “fuck…did i do that?”

“mm…? mhm….” drunkenly murmuring to her.

“ohmygodimsosorry ohmygod…uhm. okay. wait here, okay?” she disappears behind your doorway, and the sounds of cabinets opening and closing are faint.

“okay, first let’s get this makeup off.” her hands are so tender, making sure to gently scrub every last inch of your makeup off for you. she knows just how important your skincare routine is for you, and hell, if you can’t do it, she certainly won’t say no to taking 10 minutes touching and staring at your face.

“haze…”

“yeah? is something wrong?”

“no…” you giggle as she pumps your serum into her hand and mixes it up with your moisturizer, emulating what she’s seen you do dozens of times.

“you know babe, you looked really, really gorgeous tonight…i-i mean every night…but right now, i think you look the prettiest.”

cheeks red, you turn from your girlfriend and shake your head no, and she pulls your chin back to face her.

“yes.”

after she’s done applying your skincare, she notices you shivering, and surrenders her hoodie to you with a smile on her face, knowing that when she gets it back two months later it’ll smell like you. cuddling up to you in bed, she spoons you, her body heat radiating. with a sweet kiss to your temple, your body submits to its surroundings, melting into her touch.

“love you haze.”

“love you most.”

#THESE GAYS ARE TRYING TO MURDER ME #hazel callahan blurb #hazel callahan brainrot #hazel callahan headcanons #hazel callahan fanfiction #hazel callahan smut #hazel callahan x you #hazel callahan imagine #hazel callahan x reader #hazel callahan #hazel bottoms

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08melancholie · 15 days ago

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Hi! First of all: love your writings! Somehow you manage to give me exactly what I want. I have read the lessen your stress one, amazing. Thank you. Lots of loves from the other side of the screen.

Now, I would like to request a one shot Micah/F!Reader (or GN reader if you want) where a really sweet and kind Reader likes Micah and actually wants to sleep with him but is a virgin and kind of shy, in contrast with the rough, brute Micah we all know, who will obviously want to sleep with reader too (either bc he likes them back or simply bc he’s desperate and wants sex, you decide, just please don’t miss characterize him too much, I like my Micah as the asshole he is :’) <3

Thank you very much and I really appreciate your work! <3 have a good day!

thank you sm for the compliments <33 and dw because i like to also keep my men just as scummy at times🙏

Some aspects might be similar to 'Untouched' here (still attached to that fic like a leech chat..) but i'll make sure it still sounds new!

Lose Some; Gain Some. — Micah Bell/Reader

tags: Smut, Porn, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Micah Bell Is His Own Warning, Virginity, Loss of Virginity, Vaginal Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Sex, Orgasm, Multiple Orgasms, Rough Sex, but just a bit at the end, its micah he doesnt know how to be gentle sorry guys, Not Beta Read, no beta we die like micah bell

summary: You would rather take over doing everyone's chores in camp forever, than ask the question thats currently been plaguing your mind; one of your lowest lows, probably. You were told that a woman's virginity is a precious thing, how you had to lose it to the right person. This, however, you found to be total bullshit. And you wanted nothing more than the man who was Micah Bell to do it for you.

a/n: first ask yippiee!! i am so busy with exams oh lord i barely made time for this😭 i hope its to your liking!!! second ao3 post today im on a roll actually🙏🙏

words: 3,201 | AO3 LINK

Still being a virgin at this age is almost laughable. Well, it is; the girls haven't stopped teasing you since you told them during a game Mary-Beth told everyone about. You had to answer the question asked by Karen—about your sex life—or drink. You answered that you were still a virgin, and a few of them laughed; haven't stopped making jabs at you since. It's almost irritating.

And, your irritation made you slip up—by saying you'd lose your virginity tonight.

"What!? Tonight? With who?" Karen immediately snapped her head in your direction and away from the fresh laundry she and you were folding. There go the consequences of your actions. Who the hell do you even say?

You put down your own laundry back into your lap. "Well," You'll either have to lie your ass off, or go for the truth; but you sure as hell were not going for the latter. "guy I met in the saloon while we were still in Valentine, we've been writing." Not too bad.

Karen chuckled, thankfully buying into your lie. "Well, ain't I happy for you! It's about damn time, anyway." She goes back to the chore, like yourself, and continues your previous conversation.

Let's think logically—or, as logically as you could—about this; you don't exactly trust finding a random man in a bar to do this with, so who is going to eagerly take your virginity? Who would you ask that wouldn't tell anyone in camp about it, keep it between you two for the exchange of taking it from you? Who would you want to take your virginity?

You thought about how sweet Arthur would be; how he'd probably understand and treat you right, talk you through everything while praising you for following his instructions so well. Or maybe Charles; A gentle giant that would worship you as should be, show you how everything is done while talking in that deep tone you love to hear.

And then your mind went completely south of the previous two. You thought about how greedy he'd be, touching and moving his hands all over your body, wanting to feel every crevice under his rough fingertips. How he'd see taking your virginity as a precious thing, how you were told growing up, something you wanted him to have—and also as the biggest ego boost ever. He'd probably be a complete tease, too, nor would he talk you through the process like the other two. He'd probably just go for it, no instructions as you scrambled for what you had to do while he—

Jesus Christ, that's the last person you should be even 'just considering'.

Micah Bell is NOT an option here; forget it. Even if the heat between your legs didn't agree with these terms, you would not give your first time to that bastard. He was just an egotistical, rude, mouthy degenerate. Why the hell was the thought of how poorly he'd treat the situation getting you so worked up? You're practically soaking your garments over this bastard; and that's a problem.

Oh, but it's so tempting; this, unfortunately, wasn't the first time you've caught yourself thinking of him, imagining him in bed—which is reasonably worse than the former. Could you refuse yourself this small want? When you think about it, he might be one of the only people here who'd jump to get intimate without question, seeing how he catcalls and flirts with most of camp; including yourself a few times. God, were you really going to do this? How would you even bring it up?

This was something you needed to think of on the way, because it was nearing nighttime and you'd probably lose him to the darkness in the outskirts of camp, where he's usually found. As soon as you finished folding the laundry, you excused yourself from Karen and went to find Micah, thinking over what you would say to him. You had a whole dialogue figured out by the time you spotted him smoking by Baylock, probably having gotten done tending to the horse after the job he went on today. You really had to just brace yourself and follow your little plan, while hoping it'll turn out how you envisioned it to.

He noticed you approaching while you were a few steps away, the nervousness in your body language not hard to make out; hands clasped together, eyes focusing everywhere but on his own, your steps almost reluctant. He raised an eyebrow at you while taking a drag from the cigarette. "Look who it is; worried I'mma bite 'ya?"

You were barely able to give a reaction to his words, your nerves making you go almost silent. "Hah, no.. no, I'm..." Come on! We practiced this six times already! As soon as your eyes darted to his own greyish-blues, you lost your goddamn ability to speak. For the love of God; get your shit together. "Listen; this is very hard for me to even say out loud." Well, it's a good start.

Micah's eyebrows furrow slightly, your sudden shyness compared to the usual quips you could muster up back to his flirting or teasing very abnormal. But, he doesn't comment on it, wanting to hear you out before he teased you further. "Go on then, girl." He speaks, tossing his cigarette elsewhere.

The embarrassment this will leave you in will be history. "Okay.. so, uh.. I need your help with something—let's say." Your words just make him more confused; speaking to him in these absurd riddles. "Would you just.. hear me out?"

The blonde man nods after a moment, folding his arms over his chest while leaning back on the tree. Okay, you can get the words out, trust yourself.

"Would you.. and it's just a one-time thing, may I add." You start, a blush creeping up your neck and to your cheeks as you tried to think of what you were saying; you were about to ask Micah to get intimate with you. Yeah, you don't think this low can be matched. Nonetheless, no giving up now. "Would you take.. take my uh.. virginity?" As soon as the words leave your mouth, you have to hold back from fleeing the scene. "Listen—I lied to the girls and I just.. fuck, it's you."

Micah's had a small smirk on his face, mostly directed towards your nervous and shy state, until the sentence finally left your mouth. His smile dropped and he assumed he heard you wrong. "What'd you say.? Would I take.. your virginity?" He repeats back to you, definitely sure he's heard you wrong. But as you slowly nod your head, unable to open your mouth any longer, his eyes slowly widen a little more, rubbing his chin in thought. "Well, goddamn. You're one bold 'lil thing, ain'tcha?" Here comes the teasing you envisioned.

You roll your eyes to the comment. "I don't need your comments, Micah. You in or not? I'll gladly find someone else." You threaten, biting your cheek. Don't make me find someone else.

He perks up at your empty threat. "Hey—no, don't threaten me now, doll," He leans off the tree and gets right in your personal space, hands on his gun belt. "you know I love to help a lady in need out." He purrs at you, looking down almost menacingly.

"Good," You murmur, the closer he got the more nervous it made you. "then.. it's settled." It's only when he stands right before you, hands running up from your outer thighs to your sides, that you start processing what you've gotten yourself into.

His hands glide over your waist, feeling you up through your shirt. "Surprised yer still untouched, many would love a little body like this in their hands." His words and the small squeeze to your sides send butterflies straight to your stomach; you could practically lose it right then and there. "But it's only little ole me that gets it, huh?" His claim is followed by a darkish chuckle, ringing in your ears. He stops his hands over your ribs and the underside of your chest, looking down shamelessly at the little cleavage your shirt provides. "Well then; my tent?"

It took him barely a few seconds to get you through the flaps of his tent, tying the canvas shut and making sure you've got the bit of privacy camp life can offer. It takes him even less time to shove you down to his cot, seating yourself on the mattress and looking up at him settling atop you, knees around your outer thighs. "Don't you look pretty under me like this." His hands cup around the underside of your jawline, thumbs running up and down the outline of your face. "So, ever kissed a feller?"

You raise an eyebrow at the question. "Not that much of a prude." Your quick response gets a gruff chuckle out of him for a brief moment, before he'd leaned down and captured your lips with his, setting a nice and quick pace for the kiss. You return it with just as much swiftness, hand reaching for his belt buckle and gripping it, earning an appreciative sound out of Micah. "Good girl," His tongue swipes over your bottom lip, trying to enter your mouth rather quickly; but you don't complain, quickly complying. He gets himself an immediate taste of you, tongue swirling around in your mouth as if mapping out the contour of the body part. He goes back to exploring the rest of your body with his hands, moving them all around your sides and waist before stopping at the hem of your shirt and breaking away from your mouth briefly. "Let me see what I'm workin' with, doll." You breathe in the air that the kiss knocked out of you for a moment before wordlessly nodding, lifting your arms up for him to slide the shirt off, peeling it away from your torso and arms as you're sat almost bare from the stomach up now, only covered by your bra. Your shirt is tossed elsewhere, and he goes back to appreciating the view in front of him—or well, under him.

"Oh, you're perfect, little lady." He doesn't hesitate to reach his hands to your chest almost immediately, cupping you through the bra while running his thumbs on the upper flesh that was exposed. His fingers are as calloused as you envisioned, as if moulding your soft flesh with every swipe of his digits on your skin. He knows his way around your body, probably from the experience you lack. One hand stops groping you and moves to your back again, fiddling with your bra before unclasping it. Why is it that your shyness is only hitting you now? As soon as he starts moving your bra straps down to reveal your bare chest to him, you finally process that he's about to see you nude, and you definitely show some signs of reluctance. He notices your sudden demeanour change and looks from your chest to your eyes. "Come on, I don't judge, princess. Bet you're realll purty under here." His finger slips between your cleavage and hooks to the middle of your bra that connects the two pieces as he tugs at the material, slowly moving it away from your bare chest. It slips off your shoulders and arms, and you feel like a prey being inspected by it's hunter under that dark gaze Micah's blues hold. "Like I said.. damn beautiful."

Your shyness and nerves don't pass him by, and he doesn't want you to feel uneasy while he gets what he wants, so he decides to try and ease you up with another kiss, leaning up and snaking one hand to the back of your head to pull you in while the other went to your jean button, undoing it before moving to the zipper. The kiss definitely helped calm you a bit, your hands on his shoulders now as you clung to his shirt, kissing back with a small hum in your throat. He works your zipper down and hooks his fingers into your waistband, breaking the kiss again. "Lift your hips real quick," When you comply, he pulls your jeans down and you help him by kicking them off when they reach your ankles. His hand finds itself right between your legs, swiping at your still-clothed and warm entrance to find you just as aroused as he was. "damn, lookat'chu. Surprised a lady sweet as you'd be this wet over fuckin' a bastard like me." You almost moan at his comment, your garments definitely as damp as you felt them between your legs, drawing your shyness and embarrassment to a whole new level.

He leans away from you to strip his jeans off, first unclasping his gun belt and placing it over to where your shirt was, slowly moving into unzipping and undoing any other restraint that stopped him from getting naked. He looks to you—just watching him strip his pants off—and chuckles briefly. "Well? Get them panties off, sweetheart. Ain't need experience for that." You snap your eyes away from the small peek of a happy trail on his stomach that you, shamelessly at that, were staring at and stand up momentarily to slip your undergarments off, tossing them just shy of the other articles of clothing. "Mm, good, good.." He hums, letting his jeans drop before wasting no time with his drawls, slipping them off and freeing the leaky, visibly throbbing erection that was hidden in it. Your eyes scan over the length; it doesn't look too big, you can probably take it...

But where many assume Micah lacks in length—he makes up for in thickness.

He positions you to turn and bend over the cot slightly, hands on the mattress and back slightly arched. He's moving you around like a doll, positioning you to his liking. He lets out a small whistle when he's got you exactly how he wants you. "Ain't often I get a chance to do this type of thing... Almost feels like an early birthday gift." He chuckles while running one hand down your spine and moving to your hip, stroking himself with the other. He swipes two fingers over your entrance—earning himself a small moan—and uses it, mixed with some of his precum, to moisten his member up. "Now, might hurt a bit, ain't gonna lie to 'ya." You knew that much, mostly why you were adamant to the idea of sex for a while, but it can't be that bad, can it? "But we'll try to keep calm, eh girl?" He punctuates his last sentence with a squeeze to your hip before his tip slides between your warm folds, slickening himself up some more while he rubs his cock just shy of your entrance—unable to help himself from teasing you some. You let out a plethora of meek moans and huffs, your cunt itching for him to just ease it in. After a moment, he stops his tip at your entrance, ready to slide in. "I'mma go slow, try to make it.. durable for 'ya."

There's definitely a small stretch mixed into the overwhelming feeling of your walls being filled by Micah's thick shaft, clenching around him as you sigh and gasp to every inch filling you. "Shh, you're alright.. look," He reaches one hand over around you, two fingers pressing to your clit and making slow circles on it. Your sighs turn into small moans again. "Yeah.. good, focus on ma' hand, baby." He hums, slowly starting to bottom out into your pussy. His hips meet your rear as he continued to rub over your nub, giving you a brief moment to adjust before he pulls out to the tip—then slides right back in. The pain isn't as bad as people made it out to be, but some have a higher pain tolerance either way. You do your best to focus on the sensation Micah's rough fingers are playing on your clit, more than the way his cock slams into you and creates an almost echo-ey sound of skin-on-skin slapping, filling the tent with the suggestive melody.

The repetitive motion of his dick brushing your gummy walls has you on cloud-nine; you're gasping and moaning, letting his name slip past your lips in a pitched tone, grasping fistfuls of the sheets underneath you as his pace slowly gets faster per thrust. "Don't think it's smart I cum inside," He chuckles, punctuating himself with another slam of his hips into your ass, followed by your sweet little whine, almost like a protest. "you want me to?" He asks curiously due to your whine, and his grin gets so much wider when you nod your head, and his pace turns relentless. He starts fucking into you how he likes, trying to get himself to cum while rubbing you faster to get you there with him. "Can't wait to feel you clench this pretty cunt around me," He purrs with a small kiss to the nape of your neck before his focus is back on fucking his throbbing cock into you, getting himself closer by the moment.

You feel your own orgasm start to approach, your legs slightly jittery from the upcoming feeling. Micah takes quick note of this change and rubs your clit faster, drawing more whiny moans out of you that get muffled by the action of burying your head into the mattress; last thing you need is someone hearing you moaning Micah's name. Your whines are breathless and abrupt, getting cut off by each of Micah's quick thrusts into your cunt, all until you finally feel yourself tip over the edge and you cum, the clench of your pussy around Micah enough to get him there just a moment after you. He buries his cock deep into you, holding you up from collapsing into the bed by the hips as his chest makes contact with your back, the side of his head on the very top of your torso as he gasps breathlessly. "Ah.. there we go.." You can feel him empty himself inside you, your shaky legs barely supporting you with Micah doing most of the work.

He gives himself a moment before pulling out and placing you down to lay on the cot. "Let me tell you somethin', darlin';" He gets his underwear and jeans off the floor, slipping into both before leaning over you to whisper into your ear. "This definitely ain't 'gon be a one-time thing—not with how addicting that cunt is, or with how 'ya love to scream my name." He purrs lowly while clasping his gun belt back up, running a hand down your spine and stopping at your ass with a firm squeeze before moving you to lay more comfortably on his bed. "Well, get comfortable, think I'm up for a smoke.." He lazily tosses a random blanket in his tent over you—it's the thought that counts, apparently—before leaving you in his tent to rest up.

And you agree; he's addicting, and you will be fucking again.

Kudos on AO3 very appreciated!! we love the micah smut where hes still an ass to us <3

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heliads · 1 year ago

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Hey! I love your writing sm

could you pls do an f1 soulmate au with charles x carlos?

maybe whatever a person writes on themselves shows up on their soulmate so they write each other cute 'good luck' notes or jokes before races and maybe they realize they're soulmates when one of them gets a podium and the other person sees their drawings :)

i understand that you wanted this to be cute. however have you considered that they could be insane instead. have you considered that there could be mind games, bestie. think about the mental warfare (i am)

masterlist

Carlos Sainz believes that his secrets come out the fastest when he’s drinking. Doesn’t even have to be alcohol, his favorite ruiner of silence– he’s let out contract details and personal opinions just as freely with isotonic water after a race as with a shot someone hands him two hours into a post-race celebration. It’s easy to let your guard down when you think you’re with a friend, when the stakes don’t seem high, when he knows better but doesn’t want to admit it.

That’s why he feels a rippling wave of panic when he sees Charles walking across the Ferrari hospitality, two cups of coffee in his hands. Charles sits down at an empty table for two, places one cup in front of himself and one at the empty chair, and looks pointedly at Carlos. Carlos thinks to himself, this can’t be good, and mentally reminds himself to book an appointment with PR sooner rather than later.

He takes the seat. Some things, you can’t fight. Charles still smiles anyway, pleased, and says, “I got you coffee.”

Carlos had noticed this, surprisingly. It was difficult to ignore. “You’re being nice,” he remarks, blowing into the hole on the lid to cool down the liquid inside.

“I am nice,” Charles protests. His accent comes out more when he’s unhappy, it makes the syllables bunch up together like pleats of fabric.

Carlos arches a brow, and takes a sip of his coffee instead of answering. Scuderia Ferrari loves to claim that they adore the art of coffee just as much as their mother country, but every time Carlos gets coffee from hospitality it’s either flavorless or burnt, depending on who serves it. Charles’ attempt isn’t terrible, but he doubts Charles did anything more to prepare it than just put in an order. It’s a nice gesture, though. Just like Charles said.

When he looks up and the steam properly clears from his vision, Charles is still pouting at him. Carlos shakes his head, smiling to himself. He makes it so easy sometimes, to mess with his head. It’s kind of fun. Poker, but with a far prettier deck of cards.

“Alright, fine,” he relents, grinning so Charles knows he’s in on the joke, “I’m just teasing. No need to get mad, cabrón.”

“I’m not mad,” Charles says, a hint of a smile on his face although he stubbornly tries to shake it, “just interested in defending my honor.”

“Your honor?” Carlos asks, laughing in earnest. “So lord-esque, that is what I have been telling you. Of course Lord Perceval would defend his honor.”

Charles rolls his eyes. “You can deal with my honor, mate. I got you coffee.”

“And I am grateful for it every time you bring it up,” Carlos says, and takes a sip to prove it.

Charles does the same, but his eyes remain on Carlos the whole time. “So? Is it true what they’re saying?”

Carlos wants more than coffee for a conversation that starts out like this. “Who’s saying what?”

Charles gestures vaguely towards his phone. “Everybody. They say you’re going to leave Ferrari when your contract expires.”

Ah. That. “People love rumors,” he says absentmindedly, “I never thought you’d pay attention to them.”

“I don’t usually, but I was interested in this one,” Charles admits. “You’d tell me if you were leaving, right?”

“I’m not leaving,” Carlos says.

Charles sets down his cup. “But you’d tell me, right?”

“I would,” Carlos says. Pauses. Starts again. “What’s gotten into you, man? I never took you for someone to fall for theories like this.”

Charles shakes his head a little too quickly. “I’m not. They just seemed to believe it.”

Carlos shrugs. “They believe a lot. My contract doesn’t expire until next year. They won’t worry about me for a while.”

“Should I?” Charles asks. “Worry about you, I mean.”

Carlos looks at him, really looks at him. The tense grip of his teammate’s hands around his coffee, even despite the heat still emanating through the cup. The furtive glances he keeps sneaking towards Carlos, then abruptly looking at the cup again when he gets caught.

“I’m not going,” Carlos says gently. More gently than he’d answer any interviewer, anyway.

Charles nods quickly, his head bobbing like a doll on a string. “Of course. Besides, I have too much interest for you to leave yet. Not until we figure out your, ah–” A pause. Delicate, but not at all from a polite inclination, no matter how it might seem to any outsider.

Carlos groans, exasperated. “My soulmate? My God, Charles, you have to give this up at some point.”

If it were not enough to have an overly inquisitive teammate, one that’s rather good at using his eyes and smile to get what he wanted, Carlos has been cursed with a racing partner that’s unnaturally interested in his missing other half. Carlos himself wants to figure out who his soulmate is, obviously, but at this point he thinks Charles is even more invested.

They all have soulmates. Supposedly. There’s probably at least a couple people out there who skipped that universal drawing of lots, but Carlos knows for certain that he is not one of them because his soulmate contacts him almost every day. Some people go weeks or even months without finding so much as a scribble appearing out of thin air on their skin, but Carlos blinks and there’s a new sentence on his forearm, bruising his knuckles, curling around his ankle. Whoever his soulmate is, they don’t care much for being ignored.

Neither does his teammate. Charles huffs out an exasperated breath. “If you will not be curious, I will be curious for you. You’re always so cagey about it, anyway. I know they write to you. Don’t you want to know?”

“Of course I want to know who they are,” Carlos scoffs. “What I don’t get is why you want to know. Why don’t you focus on your own other half for a change?”

Charles just leans back in his chair, grinning coolly. Ah, yes. Carlos has suspected for some time that Charles already has an idea as to who his soulmate is, but for some reason Carlos has never seen her around the paddock. It could be that Charles is just keeping their relationship private, but he doubts it. Charles likes his trophies visible and his games extensive. More likely than not, Charles has his soulmate engaged in some kind of cat-and-mouse game so they figure it out without too much help on his end. It’s hellishly manipulative, but he’s charming enough that they all let it slide.

Even Carlos, although he at least tries to put up a fight. Sometimes, he thinks Charles is amusingly aware of that, and doubles down on his efforts to get Carlos to cave until both of them are locked in some sort of affectionate stalemate.

“You shouldn’t worry so much,” Charles hums, pleased that he’s got the other hand. “I mean,” he says, leaning forward abruptly to seize Carlos’ hand in his own, “Don’t you want to know about yours? Aren’t you curious?”

Whoever sat at their table before them left a Sharpie behind by accident; Charles picks it up now, uncapping it with the same hand without letting go of Carlos. “You could just ask them right now, who they are,” Charles muses. The tip of the Sharpie hovers millimeters above the curve of Carlos’ palm, waiting.

Carlos stares at the black ink. It’s easier to focus on the skin when he mumbles, “They wouldn’t answer.”

You’re not supposed to. Unspoken rules. He’s never liked that sort of thing, and neither has Charles, who knows this and smiles unkindly anyway. “You don’t know that.”

“Don’t I?” Carlos asks, mostly to himself. Charles doesn’t appear to hear him. The Sharpie dips lower until it touches Carlos’ skin. Immediately, the black ink flowers into his palm. Carlos waits for Charles to keep writing, to scrawl a question like who are you or can I fly you to a Grand Prix paddock, asap but instead Charles flinches, slams the palm of his own hand down towards the table, and covers up the pen again.

“Maybe you should do it yourself,” Charles mutters by way of explanation.

“Maybe,” Carlos says. He’s not sure if he’s agreeing or not. It would be easier, he thinks, to have Charles take the wheel again. It would also hurt more. Carlos caps the pen when it becomes obvious that Charles will not. “Drink your coffee,” he says. “It’ll get cold.”

Charles does as told, which is sort of surprising. Usually, he likes pushing the envelope until someone tells him to quit it. It appears to Carlos, though, that they have reached an unspoken limit, a line drawn out in black Sharpie on tanned skin that will not be crossed again.

A few minutes pass. They’re both quiet. Charles whispers into the condensation of his cup, “You’re not leaving, though, right?”

Carlos smiles. “I’m not.” Contracts change, obviously, but he’ll try to fight it. They all try.

They leave not long afterwards, race week means that they don’t have a lot of time to sit around. There’s always something to be filmed for media duties, an interview to conduct, checks to run through with engineers. Still, Carlos is somehow calmer than he was before, even despite the additional caffeine.

Charles, by contrast, seems jumpier than usual as they head towards the exit.

“Did you enjoy your coffee?” Carlos asks pointedly.

Charles glances quickly over both shoulders, then groans when he’s sure that no one can overhear him. “No, God. It’s terrible.”

Carlos chuckles. “But you went to so much trouble to get it. Surely you can pretend it’s more than just terrible. You drank, like, all of it.”

Charles gives him an appraising look. “It’s better with someone else.”

It occurs to Carlos, as he walks back to his driver’s room, that they may not just have been talking about coffee after all. He’s stopped by one of his PR advisors on the way back– apparently there’s a new TikTok trend that would be just great for him to do– and although he doesn’t feel that shaken, he must look it, because they only get halfway through a discussion of trending sounds before the agent asks if everything is alright.

Carlos scoffs. “Of course I’m alright.”

The agent arches a brow. “Are you sure? You look a little unsettled. Don’t tell me you were talking to George about track times again, he has that effect on everyone before qualis.”

Carlos shakes his head. “No, I didn’t see him. I was speaking with Charles, though, about nothing in particular. Just coffee and soulmates and stuff.” Unable to stop himself, he leans a little closer, drops his voice until it’s more of a whisper. “He’s found his soulmate, hasn’t he? She’s got to be around here somewhere.”

His PR agent, surprisingly, shakes their head. “No, he’s said nothing about it to us, and we’ve asked loads of times. Are you certain that they’re a she, though? That wasn’t the impression I got.”

Carlos stands utterly still. He thinks his blood may have cooled in his veins, congealing into a solid. He is not sure he could move if he tried. “Charles told you that?”

“Once,” the agent says offhandedly. “He got sick of us asking about his mystery woman. I don’t think he meant to let it slip, but you know how he is with secrets.”

They’re laughing at that. Carlos tries to chuckle along with him, but he can’t really do more than nod, because now he’s thinking about Charles’ soulmate being a man. It’s the driver in him, he supposes, the dreamer, that if he can imagine any scenario he would also imagine himself in it, and so it follows that now Carlos cannot stop thinking about the man on the other side of Charles’ heart being him, being Carlos. The picture fits a little too well.

Carlos had never pictured his soulmate and thought of a man, but sometimes he’ll be up on the podium with Charles, champagne high and bright in the air, and he thinks maybe– maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing, not having a girl like that. He already knows what it’s like, anyway, to be at the top of the world and have another man standing there with him. If God did not intend for us to be with someone of the same sex, then why would He make it feel so natural?

Carlos somehow manages to end the conversation, to slip back into the relative safety of his driver’s room and lean his entire body weight against the door. He stares up at the ceiling, hands fisting the red fabric of his Ferrari jacket at his sides, and he lets himself, for the first time, wonder if his soulmate might not be a man as well. Anything Charles can do, Carlos can too, or so the commentators have started to say. Anyone Charles could love, Carlos could too. Anything his would be theirs.

It is a risky thought. Pessimists will tell you that soulmates are good for nothing but getting your hopes up. Carlos does not know who his soulmate is nor, odds are, will he ever. It does no good to think about what he wants until he already has it.

Later that day, Carlos tells his soulmate in non-descript block letters, All things must end. He caps the pen and covers his hand for the rest of the day. He sees Charles some hours later, looking pale and frightened. Carlos cannot, will not, imagine why.

He tries to push it from his mind. They are not hiding in Ferrari hospitality for the thrill of it, after all, but to prepare for the race ahead. Qualifying comes and goes, nothing to write home about but at least they should be decently in the points. One of them might be able to make it to a podium if they can give Lando Norris the slip. The best case scenario is that Checo will bin it so they could get a 1-2, but who knows if they’ll have any semblance of luck today.

Carlos qualified one position ahead of Charles. Fred Vasseur is already starting to eye him like a lamb to the slaughter, and Carlos makes a mental reminder to continually ask his engineer for Charles’ times during the race. He has a feeling that team orders might be given.

Strangely enough, it doesn’t make Carlos angry towards Charles as much as he thinks it should. He is irritated by Ferrari, of course, for picking one driver over another, but that’s expected in any given scenario in which the cars are swapped. Usually, though, that sort of thing happens enough times that you start directing your ire towards the other driver, but Carlos cannot manage that. In fact, he never has. Hating Charles is unthinkable. It would be easier to hate himself. Right?

Getting ready in his driver’s room before the race that Sunday, Carlos is struck by a sudden, unthinkable idea. He rummages around in his belongings for a while before coming up with a pen. Dark, thick, the kind you use for autographs when the hapless fan forgets to bring a writing implement of their own. Carlos uncaps it, stares at his skin, then starts to scribble. Words, underlined, circled. Do well. Good luck. Please.

He doesn’t know if– but he could, maybe, if he saw. Carlos loses himself in a frenzy, then snaps out of it just as quickly when his palms get covered in writing. The sound of footsteps outside his door makes him flinch, and he tugs on his gloves as fast as he can, smearing the ink even more than before. It doesn’t matter. Odds are nothing will come of this anyway.

The race goes as expected. Checo does not crash, much to the chagrin of all other teams, and Carlos gets stuck behind him long enough that they start talking about switching him with Charles, which happens around lap forty. When the checkered flag waves, Charles is third, Carlos fourth. He parks quickly and hurries over to the front. By the time he gets there, Charles has already withdrawn inside the cooldown room but Carlos can shoulder in with the other Ferrari crew and shout and slap each other on the back and that’s good, too, it really is.

He will tell himself that it is. Carlos, by now, has gone to a lot of teams and learned about a lot of strategy choices. He knows how to convince himself that something is fine, that the decisions of the team are ones he agrees with. He can idle with the crew and stare up at the podium with a fixed smile on his face, because Carlos is a Good Teammate and Good Teammates show up for each other. They accept team orders when they come their way. They do not stand in the shade of someone else’s idol and think, this isn’t fair.

Of course it isn’t fair, it’s motorsport. Charles is the one they love the most, even when he’s erratic and crashes every other race. Charles is the pretty boy, the golden one, Il Predestinato. Carlos is merely his father’ son.

Charles, who figured out the whole game of soulmates months before. He guessed, at least. Told that to Carlos one night, grinning, drunk, spiraling after another lost podium. Charles had waited with wide eyes and a frozen smile as if waiting for Carlos to put something together, but the other shoe never dropped and eventually the moment ended, both of them pulled apart by other friends, downing other drinks, pretending they never existed.

Carlos thinks of it now. He watches Charles emerge from the shadows of the space behind the podium to stand in the blinding sunlight, waving down at all of them. One of the mechanics is elbowing him in the side, speaking in that low voice they all get when they do the boy’s club talk, you know, someone’s soulmate likes him well enough, obviously, and Carlos has no idea what he’s talking about until he looks up and sees. Sees Charles, his palms dark with ink. From up here, it’s too small to see what is written. The Catholic boy in him thinks stigmata which is wrong, obviously, because there is no great divine mystery here, not when Carlos knows what happened.

Not when Carlos was the one to write all of it earlier that day. He’d almost forgotten during the course of the race, but it all comes flooding back now. That’s his ink on Charles’ hands, and that means– That means Charles is his soulmate. Always has been. Always will be.

Carlos stares up at him. Charles looks down, and although he’s been grinning with victory this whole time, the smile that slides onto his face upon seeing his teammate is different than before, it’s knowing. Charles knows that Carlos has figured it out at last. He’s been waiting for him to do it all this time.

It’s almost obscene, how close Charles must have come to telling him about a thousand times. Who would risk it like that? No one. Charles would. Carlos pictures him with the Sharpie earlier that week, black tip poised above his skin. How he’d caught himself before giving himself up. Perfect timing, a driver’s reflexes. Like managing to right yourself right before sending your car into the wall. Or, better, like doing it anyway. Like accelerating before you go. Like leaving your hands on the wheel so your wrists can break, too, not just your heart.

Yes, Charles would. Charles Leclerc would. Charles, so impatient for his first championship that he’d give up his current chance by overshooting every corner, by doing too much until he ends up in the wall time and time again. This is the man who would expose his soulmate like a throat to a knife, and Carlos has known this about him for years.

The Ferrari section of the paddock is insane after getting a podium, so no one notices when Carlos fights his way through the crowds to let himself into Charles’ driver’s room. It’s empty when he arrives, Charles must have many more people to get through, so he paces relentlessly back and forth until Charles shows up.

Charles bursts through the door, still talking to someone down the hall. His exuberance crashes to a halt the second he sees Carlos waiting, and he hurriedly tells whoever is there not to wait up. Charles carefully closes the door behind him, locks it too, and then it’s just the two of them and this great and all encompassing secret for company.

Charles swallows. “You know.”

Of course he does. Friends show up at each other’s driver’s rooms all the time, but this isn’t just on the order of congratulations for a good race result. They would not be hovering on the edge of this great precipice if it was just that.

“You knew earlier,” Carlos challenges.

Charles ducks his head in a nod. “I did.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” Carlos asks.

Charles’ gaze is shifty, it flicks from ceiling to floor to walls, anywhere but Carlos himself. Charles has always been a daredevil for the risks, but he’s never had the stomach for what becomes of them. The consequences are always a thousand times worse than the actions.

“I didn’t think you would want it. Want me,” he corrects, almost whispering.

This is so absurd that Carlos almost wants to laugh. Almost, because the look on Charles’ face is so pitiful that he can’t even smile. “Why wouldn’t I?” Carlos asks.

Charles blinks in surprise. “Because you were never even that interested in finding out who your soulmate was, mate. Always said it would just be some girl you didn’t know. I didn’t want to see your face when you realized you didn’t even get some girl but me.”

“I didn’t want to look too much into my soulmate because I was afraid it wouldn’t be you,” Carlos says in a rush, and as he admits it he knows it’s true.

How could it be anything but that? Carlos could have picked any team, but he went here. A hardheaded (formerly red) bull chasing not just the scarlet flag but the matador himself. Charles, all along.

Charles’ eyes are wide, lashes darker even than the ink still staining his palms. “So you’re not mad, then?” He asks cautiously.

“Not mad and not leaving,” Carlos reiterates.

A ghost of a smile flickers over Charles’ lips. “You cannot blame me for wanting to be sure, I didn’t want you to go until I managed to tell you.”

“You certainly took your time about it,” Carlos comments.

Charles rolls his eyes. “Just because we are racers does not mean we have to do everything fast, Carlos. Be patient.”

Carlos arches a brow. “You are telling me that?”

Charles has the grace to look at least a little ashamed. “Yes. Well. I can be patient now.”

Of course he can. They both can. Most people spend their entire lives searching for the answer to a question that is no longer a mystery to either of them. Time is all they have, time and sweet-sticky champagne and the sensation of being at the top of the world. Nothing will change them. Everything will. For once, though, the change does not scare him. It’s not bad, all of the time.

Sometimes, it brings him Charles. Sometimes, it brings him this. No, not bad in the slightest.

f1 tag list: @j-brielmalfoy, @juphey

also: @quill-of-a-sparrow

all tags list: @wordsarelife

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iwriteloveletters · 6 months ago

Text

Manmade Weapons (Karl Heisenberg x Reader One shot)

TW- BODILY INJURY, NOT PROOFREAD

Words- 608

You ran as fast as you could through the cold forest, the snow wetting your skirt and causing your ankles to go numb.

“You can run but you can’t hide.” the old man's voice boomed throughout the forest.

You heard whacking and metal hitting trees follow you behind you, he was launching whatever metal scraps and screws he had on hand to try and get you. It felt as though your zig-zag movements are what saved you from being impaled with no regard of where it’s going to hit you. You couldn’t tell if he wanted you dead or alive.

You don’t know what he wanted from you, you were afraid of what he wanted from you or what he wanted to do to you. He was one of the lords afterall, everyone in the village was afraid of them and what they were capable of.

But you, why were you the one he targeted? The one he bullied in the freezing woods.

“I’m not aiming at you for a reason, I'm actually enjoying the chase.” He said, the man otherwise known as Lord Karl Heisenberg was not too far from you but luckily you weren’t in his reach.

“Why are you doing this to me?!” You cried out, you felt like a helpless animal on the run from the predator, the much stronger and larger predator behind you.

He said nothing in response to that, he wasn’t at all obligated to answer your question.

All you knew was that you were going to die now.

You kept running, you kept fighting, you wanted to live and not become whatever monster he wanted to turn you into. No one fully knew what came out of his factory but everyone knew it wasn’t good.

You were now outside of the village based on how long you’ve been running for your life.

All you could hear behind you was the man-made monster laughing and talking about how it was good for him to get away from that dreadful place every once in a while.

“Leave me alone! Please, I’m begging you!” You yelled in between breaths, you weren’t anything compared to him. You were human, you were ordinary. Your stamina was nowhere near his, it felt like he could run to the ends of the Earth for you and you were thirty more feet away from collapsing into the snow. Letting him carry you off, hoping wherever he takes you gives you a few seconds of warmth before you perish.

“Why would I do that?” He said as he sent a screw right through your calf. He laughed, he enjoyed this more than he should have been.

You let out a guttural scream as you landed in the snow, you were so far from the village it’d be impossible to be saved or have anyone intervene. You highly doubt anyone would have helped you against Lord Heisenberg himself. You were the defeated prey.

His footsteps inch closer to you by the minute and eventually the second.

“Aren’t you a pretty one?” He crouches down to get a better look at you.

The state he left you in prevented you from being snarky in response to him talking to you like an animal.

The screw he shot you with went right through you, this was his makeshift bullet. He has no need for a gun when he himself is the gun. You were being hunted by him.

“You know, I’ve never been one for a chase but this was fun.” He says as he gets closer to your ear, “maybe when I fix you up we can do this again.”

Again?

Hello hello!! This is my first time writing for a character that isn't Eren but don't worry I still have plenty of love for him, I'm hoping to update soon teehee or put anything new out!! Anyways I hope you enjoy - Cherub

#yandere #tw yandere #self shipping #self insert #self insert x canon #canon x self insert #karl heisenberg they could never make me hate you #karl heisenberg #karl heisenberg x reader #karl heisenburg fanart #karl heisenburg x reader #re8 village #resident evil village #re village

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wanderersbell · 2 years ago

Note

If requests are still open , how about the reader inviting Scara to their teapot (could be traveling companion reader who also owns a teapot, but do whatever you want, i love your ideas!!!) and the reader furnished an entire room for him? it's suited to his likes too :o tysm!!

a realm for him

wanderer x gn! reader

genre: fluff

warnings: none

word count: 2528

a/n: okay listen i may have gotten a bit carried away with this and made it way longer and sappier than i was intending, but i spent forever decking out my whole teapot for him so i loved this idea sooo much (❁´◡`❁) tysm for the wonderful request, enjoy!

getting the state of your teapot to be as lively as it is now was no small feat.

day by day for weeks on end, you’ve slowly worked at filling each empty corner with little towns and lush scenery, all of which are based off of your traveling companions favorite spots in sumeru. one island is reminiscent of a small fishing village, fenced off and framed by local shrubbery and flora, as well as some small crop gardens already growing with tiny seedlings. the second island is decorated as a beautiful scenic forest, with trees and plants and gazebos and fountains all connected by a subtle stone path that lead through to the third island.

and the third island, after much contemplation, is decorated as a tiny inazuman shrine, bordered with towering cherry blossom trees and eye catching blue glowing flowers that create an almost mystical ambiance. you weren’t sure if reminding him of the place where he came from was a good idea, but figured having a small piece of home away from home might be the one way he can actually enjoy the view of inazuma. the sights here are much different from what he saw in tatarasuna, much more welcoming, so you figured it was worth a shot and swore to yourself that you would take it down immediately if he doesn’t like it.

and, your personal favorite part is the main building decorated as a tea shop on the inside, with a tasteful mix of interior inspiration from every region you’ve visited thus far, all mushed together to create an eclectic little space for him to come and enjoy the different teas you’ve started collecting in secret.

in fact, all of this was a secret. the wanderer had yet to catch on to the actual reason behind your insistence to collect extra materials while you travel together, and the time you spent in your teapot was time he spent off running errands and assisting lesser lord kusanali, so nothing was out of the ordinary as far as he was concerned.

but, after a few finishing touches like street lamps and wildlife to make everything feel less lonely, you were finally done. it was finished. every square inch of your teapot fully furnished with things you couldn’t wait to show the one you had in mind when doing it all.

when the time comes for you to finally bring him there, you’re way more nervous than you were expecting to be. what if he doesn’t like? hates it, even? what if your design choices are wrong and the vibes are off and-

“well,” the wanderer’s voice drags you out if your thoughts, smooth and grounding. “are we going in or what? how does this thing even work?”

right, it’s too late to turn back anyways. the golden teapot hovers in the air between you from where you stand on a riverbank together, and the man next to you has his arms crossed with an unimpressed frown as he waits for you to respond. it’s cloudier than usual today, the sky a soft shade of gray in the background, and you shiver a bit both because of nerves and the lack of sunlight before clearing your throat.

“it uh- transports me in as soon as i open the lid. just…” you trail off, contemplating whether or not you want to say anything before you bring him in. “just grab onto my hand so we’ll both go together.” you blurt out instead. it would take you both in regardless, but this was the first excuse out of your mouth, and you want to curl up and become invisible at the odd look he gives you. he can tell you’re up to something, but hasn’t figured out what quite yet.

“okay.” he agrees easily, slotting his hand against yours. his skin is cool to the touch and his grip firm, and you’re reaching out to rip the lid off of the teapot before you can start thinking too much about the way it makes your heart jump into your throat. the both of you are transported to the inside of the device in the blink of an eye, arriving right before the main building where tubby dozes away inside of her own pot.

his first thought it that it’s… big. bigger than he was expecting. his eyes automatically go to the structure behind him and he wordlessly goes to grab the handle of the door but you’re quick to tug the back of his shirt to stop him, shaking your head softly when he turns to give you a questioning look.

“we’ll do this last, let’s go take a walk first.”

his eyes follow yours in the direction of the other islands that are just visible in the distance. he can’t make out any details yet, much to your relief.

“what’s out there?” he asks with poorly concealed interest while following you down the steps of the building and towards the first island. you give him a sly smile that you hope masks the way you’re freaking out on the inside.

“you’ll see.”

he raises a brow at this but stays silent. this island is the small fishing village, based off of the one you both visit regularly, the one where you first met the mysterious wanderer and your journey with him began. he feels a sense of familiarity as you lead him over to the straw hut in the middle, noticing the crop gardens off to the side and giving an approving hum at the sight.

you watch him closely the entire time, zeroing in on every minuscule change in his expression and feeling your chest swell with pride at the way his eyes soften. he can’t help but to remember the day he met you, the way you would flat out ignore him every time he tried making a dig at you then turn around and be as sweet as ever to the local kids at the village, and he has to bite back a fond smile at the memories.

“well?” you peer up at him hesitantly. it’s more than obvious that he likes it as he looks around like he’s already trying to familiarize himself with where everything is, but still, you want to hear him say it.

“well?” he parrots, meeting your expectant eyes. he pretends to think for a moment, just to leave you hanging for a bit longer, and then, “it’s nice, but there’s no fish.”

you instinctively frown and open your mouth to tell him to stop being so picky but pause just as the first word dies on your lips. with a sinking feeling of realization, you look around you and confirm that yes, there is indeed no body of water, therefore no fish.

“oh.” you say dumbly, and the stumped look on your face has a laugh bubbling up in his chest. you can’t fight back the smile that creeps up on you even though he’s laughing at your expense and give him a lighthearted shove before leading him away to the next island.

“how did you manage to forget the most crucial part of a fishing village?” the wanderer teases, catching up to you in a few long strides.

“i didn’t forget, that’s just not a furnishing option in here.” you explain.

when you reach the second island, you remain quiet again and wait for him to take it all in and make a comment himself. his eyes widen a fraction in awe as you both step underneath the canopy of trees and wildlife, the bright colors of flora and fauna and the blue accents on the towering gazebos on each side all working together to make a botanical haven that he can’t tear his attention away from.

within only moments of being in there he’s already spotted a handful of his favorite plants and flowers, ones with meanings that stuck with him throughout his life, ones that you held onto and remembered and planted here.

you watch with baited breath as he absentmindedly reaches a hand out to brush his fingers against the low hanging leaves beside him, eyes flitting from place to place and noticing something different each time. there’s a look akin to childlike wonder on his face, and when his attention finally falls back to you there’s a tiny genuine smile playing at his lips that makes you ache to reach out and hold him.

he’s so, so beautiful standing underneath of the lush trees and flowers, and unbeknownst to you, as he holds your gaze, he’s thinking the same thing in return. your excitement to bring him here and show him this leaves him with a warm feeling blooming in his chest, an appreciation for you that he fears he’ll never be able to properly express.

“ready to keep going?” you ask softly, as if speaking too loudly will ruin the peaceful atmosphere.

“there’s more?” the look of surprise on his face has you chuckling breathlessly while you continue the path forward.

this is the part you’ve been looking forward to and anticipating the most, and as the final island comes into view, you can feel him stiffen beside you. the giant cherry blossom trees are visible even from the distance, but his step doesn’t falter and he keeps up next to you so you take it as a sign to keep going.

his presence beside you stays strong as you approach the shrine and step into the field of glowing flowers, and you watch out of the corner of your eye as he takes in the familiar pink trees and red painted wood with a complicated emotion swirling around in his irises. he doesn’t look angry though, so you finally feel your shoulders relax and allow yourself to enjoy the scenery as you walk along the path.

in his own head, the wanderer is… puzzled. this island is so out of place inside of your sumeru themed teapot, and yet, the care and effort you put into it makes the other ones small in comparison. the shrine is grand, sleek, and high quality. the trees are placed perfectly so that the breeze carries soft pink petals down with it, dancing around you two in a beautiful airborne waltz.

the flowers, the same ones that grow in chinju forest, cast everything in a gentle azure glow, one that when he looks at you is reflecting an ethereal light over your features. somewhere deep down inside of him, he feels a bit of sorrow clinging onto him, bringing with it the memories of a place he left behind long ago.

but next to that is the all consuming feeling of happiness that he tries so hard to convince himself he doesn’t feel when he’s with you. in this special place of yours, filled with your hard work and thoughtfulness, he can no longer deny himself the truth of how wholeheartedly he cares for you. you, who’s staring back at him with a kindness he’s never known as you give him new memories to associate with the sights of his homeland.

you still can’t decipher the emotions on his face, but you can tell they’re good ones and that he’s contemplating something deeply, so you let the silence hang comfortably in the air as you walk side by side all the way back to the entrance and to the main building, the part you’ve been saving for last. he says nothing the whole way back, granting you the chance to appreciate the comfort something as simple as walking with him brings you.

when you finally make it to the main island and ascend the steps of the building, he snaps out of his reverie and raises a brow at you questioningly. “what’s inside?”

“it’s nothing much,” you lie with a mischievous smile adorning your face. when you open the door and let him in he realizes he really, truly has fallen hopelessly for you.

it’s a tea shop. for him.

there’s no denying it, there’s no other explanation he can give himself because he knows you don’t care much for tea. that means-

this whole teapot, every single island, was for him.

you watch with a huge grin on your face as the wanderer splutters and blushes when it all finally hits him. nobody has ever done this much for him, not without a price at least, but you never ask for anything in return from him so he’s almost literally short circuiting while trying to figure out the proper response.

“why did you- what…” he takes a grounding breath before trying again. “why do all of this?”

you smile softly and shrug. “because i wanted to.”

he opens his mouth to say something else, likely to prod you for a legitimate reason as to why, but you cut him off before he gets the chance. “look around first, i want to know what you think.”

he wants to argue, but bites his tongue at the clear eagerness on your face and clicks his tongue in fake annoyance as he takes in the contents of the room. he walks around for a few minutes, observing the things on the walls and shelves, scrutinizing the chinaware, poking the souvenirs you’ve collected from other regions, until finally he stops at the cabinet that houses the tea collection.

“open it.” you say hurriedly. he gives you a fake suspicious raise of his brow but complies and tugs the door of the cabinet open, a sharp intake of air following immediately afterwards as he instantly recognizes the labels.

“this is…” he trails off in disbelief.

“the tea from the shop you keep staring after longingly in sumeru city? yep, sure is.” you confirm mirthfully, skipping over to stand next to him and watch him take a container down to turn around in his hands. he’s struggling to process this, to accept this much kindness from you when he knows he doesn’t deserve it, not in the slightest, but the proud gleam in your eyes doesn’t get lost to him and he knows you’re anxiously awaiting his response.

“i don’t know why you would bother with this, and go through all of this effort,” he starts tentatively, placing the tea back in the cupboard so he can turn to fully look at you. “but i can acknowledge the work you put in and promise i will put it to good use.”

your expression falls slightly at his formal tone of speech. “and?”

he frowns hesitantly and averts his eyes. “and… i like it. or whatever. it’s really nice.”

your triumphant grin is almost blinding when he meets your gaze again and he shakes his head in silent exasperation. though he doesn’t know how, or when it’ll happen, he swears to himself that somehow, someway, he’ll repay you for this. he’ll find a way to show you how much it really means to him, how much you really mean to him.

but for now, sitting together in your shared realm with some freshly steeped tea, for the first time in centuries, he feels at home.

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #wanderer #wanderer x reader #scaramouche #scaramouche x reader #kunikuzushi #kunikuzushi x reader #my writing #requests! ପ(๑•ᴗ•๑)ଓ ♡

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isa-beenme · 1 year ago

Note

For the Acotar Bingo could you do Pregnancy with Azriel?

You thought you were going to be free from me? NEVER MUAHAHAHAHA I promised to do all of the requests and I WILL

See? I'm not capable to do a one-shot without giving their whole story before. Not that any of you mind I guess 😎😎

I don't know if it's something you like but hey! Let's give this poor author a try, alright?

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this 🥰🥰

Never Knew I Needed

You always knew Azriel would be the greatest male that ever got into your life. From the moment you saw those eyes looking at you from the other side of the room until the scene going on in front of you, you decided that this male would be forever cursed with your presence in his life. You doubted he would mind tho.

It all started when your friend got you an extra invitation to the High Lord's starfall party in one second she was guiding you through the food table and in the other she found another friend of hers and simply disappeared. Easy like that you stayed a good part of the night eating every single different appetizer you could find. This kept going for a long time until he saw you looking like a fish out of the water and smiled at you from across the room.

And, oh my, wasn't he ravishing? The most beautiful male you ever encountered in your life. And yes, you were counting those funny-looking shadows that kept flying around him as part of his charm.

You didn't smile back through, too shocked with his looks to make your brain work properly. He raised an eyebrow and made a wave with his hand, signalizing for you to approach. Not that you did, your first reaction was to put another deliciously fried cheese thing inside your mouth and look around to search for who he was talking to. It couldn't possibly be you… right?

As you were ready to take another cheese ball a shadow appeared in front of the bowl, after circling your wrist and tugging the sleeve of your dress you finally looked back at the male, he was definitely trying to contain a smile that threatened to form in his mouth. Damn it, you wanted to see that full-mouth laugh he was trying to hold back.

That's when you finally realized he was waving at you. Oh, gods, everything made sense now, he was one of the High Lord's men and he discovered you were nothing but a mere citizen and that you were not part of the High High Fae, but a Low High Fae. By the Mother, you could just jump out of the building and hope for a quick death if he was going to take you to the dungeon and torture you. Could you possibly give away your friend for sneaking you there? You decided that no, however the torture method you were going to face you would never EVER give away your friend. Even if she deserved it for abandoning you there.

You quickly popped another ball into your mouth before following the shadows that looked so happy to guide you through the crowd. When you made it to the male you were already finished chewing that delicious food, hoping it wasn't the last proper food you were going to taste before being only fed with old bread and dirty water for the next few days.

- Oh well, hello there - He said, his voice causing reactions in your body that you didn't think were possible.

- Hm, hi? I guess - To say you were scared was ridiculous, you were ready to pretend to have a heart attack and get away from there - Look, I'm sorry if I'm not on my best behavior. I'm just a little nervous that my friend disappeared from my view and she was kind of my guide here, so, yeah, I'm sorry that I'm eating the whole buffet. But you need to understand, it's my first time here, and, I kinda figured out you already know that I'm not part of a rich family or even deserve to be here, I mean, my parents are bakers! How could I possibly get an invitation, right? That's what you were going to ask! So, this friend that I was talking about, Stella, she got me an invitation, it was supposed to be her sister but she got sick last week and told me to come to her place. Yes, I know, fake identity is a crime, but hey, having fun for one night is not! I swear I'm not going to do this ever again, if, and only if, you promise to not take me to the dungeons to only feed me bread and let the rats ruin this beautiful dress, because, you know, this is not even mine! I borrowed it from Stella! Please mister scary and strangely handsome winged muscular attractive male, don't kill me! I swear I'm usually a good person, I had a good education too, you know? I don't know what happened to me tonight, but I promised I'll be better from now on!

You could only watch as his face morphed from a shocked expression to the most amused one. The laugh he seemed to be holding now made music to your ears, and you wondered if you actually had jumped out of the mountain and were now in that heaven with milk honey or something like that people always talked about.

- What? - He laughed even harder as you tried to catch your breath.

- You are not one of the High Lord's men?

- Well, that I am - He said as the laughs slowly turned into small giggles.

- But you are not going to arrest me? - His eyes sparkled as he took you in, his smile now permanent on his face.

- Why would I do that to such a beautiful female? - You felt your face heat up at his question, mischief covering his expression as he realized the effect he had on you.

- You called me here for what, then? - One of his shadows slowly made its way to your arm, resting on your shoulder as if trying to warm itself.

- Can't a male try his luck with a pretty girl at his brother's party? It's Starfall, after all, I was kinda hoping you could give me the gift of your night - That made you dumbfounded, you weren't going to lie to yourself.

- You are quite shameless, huh? - His eyes traveled through every part of you before stopping at your face again.

- I'm not the one giving away my best friend Stella for inviting me to a party - Your eyes surely were popping out of your head as you realized what you said only minutes ago - But I promise I won't tell Rhysand if you give me the pleasure of your company for this night, my lady - He offered you his hand, a shining stone glowing in the back of it - And maybe I can personally invite you for the next Starfall and you won't have to commit a crime again.

You gave him your hand as you felt a smile appear on your mouth, making his expression light up from the simple view of your happiness.

That was basically how, thirty years later, you were now caressing the shadowsinger's hair as he sang for the little baby inside your belly, making yours and his heart calm as the smooth voice of your husband filled the place around you and he finished the song and kissed you belly one more time before pushing himself up until he met your lips with his.

- What that big mind of yours was thinking, hm? - He knew you too well, thirty years of sharing your lives and you learned that you could never hide anything from him.

- Just remembering the day we met - He slightly chuckled before wrapping you in his arms, keeping a hand on your stomach to make sure his future son would stay calm and finally let his mother sleep - Weird to think I was hoping to not get arrested and ended up caged to you. Now I'm carrying your child and you sing to him when he kicks too much while I admire that pretty face of yours and imagine how in this universe I got you to fall in love with me.

- You never asked, actually - At your confused look he kissed lips quickly before explaining - Why I fell in love with you. I know that you took your time but I knew that you would be my wife the moment you begged me to not let the rats eat Stella's dress in the dungeon. You're the best thing I never knew I needed, even if I always searched for.

- You're the best thing I never knew I needed too, Az. Thank you for loving me, for giving me the life I have right now - You joined your hand with his on top of your belly, feeling your son kick lightly as if to say he agreed with you - I love you more than life itself.

- I should be the one thanking you. You changed my life for best and showed me so many different ways of living - He kissed you, deeply now, taking his time with you, tasting all the love you had to give, and answering with the same amount - I love you more than life itself.

#azriel × reader #azriel #azriel shadowsinger #azriel/reader #spotify #azriel x reader #azriel x female!reader #acotar

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changingplumbob · 4 months ago

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Behind The Screen - Big Bad Wolf

Okay Glenn, time to shine Give a man a minute, who said I had to wear all this make up You got a problem with men in make up? No, of course not, just me. Is this fake dirt? I hope you know if you got demands I get demands That's not really how it works... Anyway, are you ready yet? Ready? I was born ready!

See how it went below the cut... prompt by @cawthorntales, final pictures can be found here

No What do you mean no Where is the shirt I have abs. You don't need a shirt if you have abs. Plus this is my compromise. I wear this stuff on my face and... I get to send Grayson a shirtless pic No Why not Because we want him to like you Who doesn't like abs? I bet you like abs!

Also you're meant to look menacing... But I don't want to look menacing, I want to look charming and breathtaking Glenn! This is to get you a little intro boost. Don't you want a little intro boost? You want an intro boost do you? I got it Wait, what are you doing Boosting "boosting" looks an awful lot like taking the jacket off Obviously, he has to get some shots of my tattoo and birth marks

Lord save me from self assured sims You don't think I'll do bad do you If you strike a pose you're doing fine That's not what I meant. In the contest... Oh, right I mean... I know over confidence can come across as stupid, and sure I've used that before to throw people off the whole magic thing but I don't want him to think I'm some himbo just because I like looking good. Then you have the whole "dude is obsessed with plants" thing and what if the other contestants make fun of my green hair? How will I woo him with my plant knowledge if the others are laughing at me I mean there will probably be stuff that is tough to do but remember why you wanted me to put you up for it Because I want to find a love of my life Exactly. And hey, I bet every other contestant will be just as nervous, Grayson even more so. You have to try win over one guy he has to make a good impression on at least six Right, good point. Okay... I'll take those menacing ones now And put the jacket back on? It's either that or take the pants off GLENN! We were having a moment I'm just saying, under my pants is impressive to. Oh and after this I have to show you my lily plant because that's just started flowering and the apple tree looks like it'll have lots this season. Oh we should make apple pie! I can take him pie... No, I better stick with taking him flowers. Because if you make pie you'll eat it on the way there? Yep. Best let him find out I'm a glutton gradually

#sims 4 #the sims #the sims 4 #simblr #my sims #active simblr #behind the screen #ts4

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fruitbasketball · 3 months ago

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wnba recap 8/15

y’all can go ahead and put on tupac back for this one bc WE BAAAAAAAACKKKK BABY

lemme not waste anybody’s time let’s jump right in ‼️

minnesota lynx vs. washington mystics

we’re gonna start off real cutesy real demure w this one bc the other games tonight were… something…

YO SLIM’S BACK??? OH HEYYYYY KIRA OKAY YEAH MYSTICS UP

except not because they lost but we’re getting there! still spectacularly ass fgp and 3pfg WOW!! paige bueckers, YOU are a washington mystic 🤩🤩🤩

a warm welcome back to miss alanna smith and miss napheesa collier from the 2024 paris olympics 🥰 (guys i’m trying to use more emojis are we fw it??) anyway great production from the lynx starting five except miss bridget carleton. girl… let’s get more than 4 if we’re gonna be on the floor for a full 29… goddd bless

phoenix mercury vs. chicago sky

it’s always some shit with that chennedy carter huh?? LORD 💀💀💀 lemme not speak on it too much but sometimes we don’t need to be yapping on the internet!! sometimes we js needa hoop!! and that’s okay 😭😭😭

double double miss angel reese thank you! also side note: those 2k scores… y’all just lazy!! come on caitlin clark and angel reese cannot BOTH be a 90. THREE rookies cannot be tied at an 80 y’all need to start being fr oh my LORD!! i am TIRED!!! put in the work when you speak on women’s sports or don’t speak on them at ALL!!!

ANYWAY

4-19 from 3… 🤨🤨🤨 aight bro if you say so

fuckin crazy work from 3 tonight man EVERYBODY get back in the gym maybe tupac not back 😭

NVM KAH 30 PIECEEEE 🗣️🗣️🗣️ THAT’S 29 FROM KAHLEAH COPPER ICE PHILLY THANKKKKK YOU

real talk the mercury absolutely dominated on efficiency here; both fgp and 3pfg above 50%, taking smart shots, moving the ball assisting on 26 of 33 shots - merc look good y’all i can’t lie 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

welcome back to our olympians of course: dee, bg, kah - we missed youuu 🤭

new york liberty vs los angeles sparks

y’all need to be so for real.

just say you want another blonde bitch in LA. JUST SAY YOU WANT ANOTHER FUCKIN BLONDE BITCH IN LA

you got blown out. by 35 POINTS???

THIS is cali hoops now???? mannnn someone call lisa tell her what they’re doing to her team over in socal 😃 bc what the fuck

also when tf did crystal sign to the sparks bro what… always some shit going on w this team bruh stfg

point here is the liberty dominated in every possible aspect of the game - they shot smarter, shot better, rebounded more off the defensive glass, protected the ball, forced more turnovers, pushed the pace, destroyed in the paint, didn’t let the sparks pick up a lead even ONCE

complete game from the liberty tonight - this was a playoff performance

stewie heard some mfker talking crazy on her name ig

i mean this is just complete domination like… i’d be embarrassed

anyway more to come 🙏🏽 thank y’all for tuning in imma call it a night

#wbb #wnba #women’s basketball #minnesota lynx #washington mystics #phoenix mercury #chicago sky #new york liberty #los angeles sparks #breanna stewart #angel reese #wnba recap by mina

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happypotato48 · 6 months ago

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We Are EP 5 Unhinged?? Tangent Thoughts

Yeah, i think my We Are tangent touhghts are less unhinged and more like normal incoherent thoughts cause of the nature of this show. but hey, it's all about the branding baby!

I just had root canal and the anesthetic shot is starting to wear off. so let's fucking go with Gay Vibes the show ep 5, the not so special loy krathong episode.

Ok fine! phum and peem were cute this episode. phum still needs a good smack or two but he was extra sweet on the not-date loy krathong and he gave peem that Super duper cute buffalo stuffy which is an automatic win in my book, sue me, i just loved when people use stuffed animals as love language (btw, there like no way a normal balloon darts booth in a temple fair would have that kind of detailed looking merch thing irl.) i liked that it's phuwin who get to kissed pond first this time around. i know that the "นายเอก" characters are supposed to be stand in for all the girlies but in the year of not my lord 2567, just let the bottoms be BOLD and Horny! more of this plz.

I think aou is one of the best gmmtv boys in term of acting skill and difinitely the storngest with comedy in my opinion. i loved him even when the script was kinda meh as the slimy senior in Enchante. and i absolutely adored him in Be My favorite. the tangfang loy kratong confession scene in this episode was mesmerizing to watch, the chemistry was oozing and its was delicious. although i've been gushing non stop only about aou since this show started, boom definitely is a perfect casting choice for fang. we haven't got a lot of scene with fang but i 100% understand why tan is in love with him. this man is so cool and aloof that it make sense that someone hyper like tan would falls head over heels for.

Toey contiuned to be cute as heck and such a delighful little cupid for peem and phum. and Satang got to sings my favorite BL opening i truly had been blessed.

So chain is a manwhore who would have thought. ok, i might be delulu here and just want to make excuse for my man chain but from the interactions he had with those girls i think he just like taking care of other people. maybe he dated every person who confessed to him and rolls with it because he care too much not to hurts their feelings. anyways this man doesn't need a girlfriend he need a puppy and well well he happened to have the most puppy personification person alive by his side :3

Lastly i want to talk about loy krathong. so i myself never vibe with valentine day, growing up i felt it's too commercialized, too pink, too heartsy, and definitely too hetero. so in my opinion valentine just fail miserably as a day about love. and here come loy krathong although it's not originally a holiday celebrating love it did what valentine couldn't for me. floating those krathongs with my family, friends, and maybe one day someone special *cry in single* are to me a more fitting act of cerebrating love of all kinds than going on a date and giving chocolate on a day some dead priest who probably hated queer people died (i have no knowledge about the actual lore of this day and i also doesn't care. 😗) what i want to say is that loy krathong in thai BLs = Yay! valentine in thai BLs = Boo!

#we are the series #thai bl #bl drama #dumb boy unhinged thoughts

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silviakundera · 2 years ago

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Kinnporsche fic I won't write:

the one where we can flesh out the ep 3-5 timeline, as Kinn's escorts all start getting a crush on Porsche, who is hot and sweet.

After Big outs Kinn and Porsche tells him off, he gets a little protective

does that asshole fuck with you? Decides he will take home all of Kinn's boys and Show An Interest.

He asks about their job and let's them pick the music and stops for street food & beers on the way driving them home, gossiping about shitty, entitled customers and why there isn't more of a retail to serial killer pipeline. It's not unlike a really charming first date, which is why they start shooting their shot. and, well, he's been so lonely & is used to getting laid on the job. They're pretty and friendly and smell like sex.

soon Porsche is making out with each escort at drop-off while the car idles at the curb. Just soft, slow kisses as he rubs his thumb behind the guy's ear, making him shiver into it. Everyone's Favorite Bartender Porsche walks each one to the door every time and ruffles their hair goodbye, and he's just SO. MUCH.

a repeat buisness escort starts gossiping w Kinn one night about Porsche's everything "did u know what he did THEN???? and that chain around this neck..., his skin there is SO SOFT. FUCK."

Kinn is like laughing mad about it for about 10 seconds but then just incredibly relieved that finally he can vent about his crush and they break out the good shit, getting increasingly hammered on top shelf whiskey and sharing the equivalent of thirst posts about Porsche's laugh, tits, waist, ass, and attractively terrible winking that would make kpop stans proud.

(the only escort who's ever stayed the night)

(because he was passed out on the floor, head under an end table and cuddling a jumbo bag of shrimp-flavored chips)

but then after The Auction Incident, Porsche takes home the flavor of the day and the boy is like CONCERNED. what is wrong w Porsche?? who broke him?! Bangkok sex worker phone tree engaged.

Kinm gets petulant looks behind his back, lazy handies, and passive aggressively awful blowjobs. It's not just that Kinn is pining, he's getting objectively bad service and is too distracted to notice.

instead of Kinn following advice from Pete on how to stop screwing up with Porsche he finally just breaks and asks his escort in THE MOST AWKWARD moment. They're like mid-fuck and Kinn just pulls back, still breathing hard and resting his weight on his hands. ahh! stop. I gotta ask you something. ... You've made out with Porsche, right? Sober? "... yes?" Explain how u made that happen. In detail.

kinn takes actual! notes! he's gonna get his man. and so he never visits Porsche on his break but when Porsche comes back to the compound Kinn is downstairs in like 5 min flat, he's RUSHING. It's super embarrassing, because he's obviously excited-anxious and a lil flustered and Big very much wants to die. (no, Big! in this more sexy universe u LIVE) (anyway) Kinn strolls up with serious buisness face and Porsche immediately gets defensive but then, like, confused. because Kinn wants him to drive them around to run?? errands?? all day??

and Kinn keeps trying to make small talk? and ask about what being a mafia bodyguard is actually like and which super nutritious meal disgusts you the most. Kinn is trying so hard to be chill and relateable and not a weirdo rich crime lord. It's totally not working at all, except Porsche is reluctantly charmed by how bad Kinn's taste in music is and how confidently he says ridiculous things and how he smiles to himself out the window when he thinks Porsche isn't looking.

he has them stop to get food and then cheap beers. puts a hand on Porsche's thigh and looks very expectant.

it clicks for Porsche, OMG. he is actually running the post-job make-outs playbook. starts laughing in Kinn's face, naturally, but then the patented awwww noooo come 'ere and coaxing Kinn's stern face to tilt back to him and accepting a sharp, petulant kiss that Porsche breaks off from to laugh more. ❤

#fics i will never write #kinnporsche #kpts #kinnporsche the series #i actually am writing 2 fic for kp #but idk if ill finish them #cause i havent been able to finish a fic in like 9 years lol #i have several concepts i def wont write tho #helpppp

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blackswaneuroparedux · 1 year ago

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‘Pimpernel of the Hellenes’, ‘Major Paddy’, ‘Enchanted maniac’: Will the real Paddy Leigh Fermor please stand up?

Paradox reconciles all contradictions. - Patrick Leigh Fermor

So one evening I was baby sitting my nephews and nieces here in our family chalet in Verbier, high up in the Swiss Alps. It was my turn to baby sit as the rest of my family enjoyed the fantastic classical music concerts and events showcased at the two week long Verbier 30th Festival. The little scamps had gone to bed and my father and I watched an old British war movie on DVD, ‘Ill Met By Moonlight’ (1957). It was filmed by the legendary team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger based on the 1950 book ‘Ill Met by Moonlight: The Abduction of General Kreipe’ by W. Stanley Moss.

I’ve seen the film a couple of times before, but until now never really paid attention to where the title came from. My father said it was from Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream’ And so it was. In the play, Oberon, the king of the fairies and the Queen are having a fairly bitter drawn-out fight over custody of a changeling Indian child, and this is how the pissed off king greets the queen when they run into each other, “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania”. Oberon is basically saying "Oh Lord, it's you..." and Titania's response is basically a flippant middle finger. One of the best modern reasons to read Shakespeare: to throw playful erudite shade at others.

Anyway, the historical background of the film is the German invasion of Crete in May 1941. After an intense ten-day battle, Allied troops were driven back across the island, and many were evacuated from beaches along the southern coast. Some Cretans and British officers took to the mountains to organise resistance against the occupying forces. The German occupation that followed was especially brutal. Dreadful reprisals followed every act of resistance. The German commander, General Müller, insisted on taking 50 Cretan lives for every German soldier killed; he became known as ‘The Butcher of Crete’.

As a Classicist side note, there had been a close association between Britain and Crete since the early 20th century, when archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans had uncovered the sensational remains of a Minoan palace at Knossos. The headquarters of the British archaeological school in Crete was a large villa alongside the site, known as Villa Ariadne. Several archaeologists, who knew the island and its people well, went underground after the German occupation to aid the Cretan resistance. Continuing in this tradition, scholar and travel-writer Patrick Leigh Fermor, who had got to know Greece in the 1930s, joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

During the German occupation, Major Paddy Leigh Fermor travelled to Crete three times to help organise local resistance against the hated German occupation. On the third occasion, in February 1944, he was parachuted in with a specific mission to kidnap German commander General Müller, to boost morale on Crete along with his erstwhile SOE comrade Capt. W. Stanley Moss MC (aka Billy Moss) of the Coldstream Guards. However, just after they parachute in, General Müller was replaced by General Heinrich Kreipe, who transferred from the Russian Front. Thinking that capturing one general was as good as another, Fermor merrily go ahead with the daring kidnap operation.

It’s at this point that the narrative of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s ‘Ill Met by Moonlight’ (1957) picks up. Dirk Bogarde plays Paddy Leigh Fermor, David Oxley plays Moss, and Marius Goring plays the taciturn German paratroop general. Blink and you’ll miss the late great Christopher Lee making a cameo appearance as a German officer in the dentist’s room scene.

The film naturally takes some liberty with the facts but it’s a cracking yarn of high adventure and drama. Xan Fielding, a close friend of Leigh Fermor from the SOE in Cairo, was taken on as technical adviser. The fact the film was shot in in the Alpes-Maritimes in France and Italy, and on the Côte d'Azur in France, far away from the craggy valleys and mountains of Crete itself. The director Michael Powell spent some time walking in Crete to get to know the island, but decided that, with the confused and volatile state of Greek politics, it was not suitable to film there.

Looking back years after he had directed it Powell didn’t think much of his own film. By contrast, Paddy Leigh Fermor, who was on set throughout the film shoot, was very happy with Bogarde’s portrayal of him with Byronic glamour. Watching the movie again ‘Ill Met by Moonlight’ remains a classic and stands out from many British war films of the 1950s because of its realism. The British SOE men and the Cretan guerrillas look absolutely right for their parts. It is dramatic and full of suspense while filled with much boyish humour.

I was disappointed with one notable omission in the film that did happen in real life. According to Patrick Leigh Fermor, at dawn one day during the journey across the mountains, General Kreipe was looking at the mist rising from Mount Ida and began to recite, in Latin, the opening lines of Horace’s ninth ode:

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte nec iam sustineant onus silvae laborantes geluque flumina constiterint acuto?

Behold yon Mountains hoary height, Made higher with new Mounts of Snow; Again behold the Winters weight Oppress the lab’ring Woods below: And Streams, with Icy fetters bound, Benum’d and crampt to solid Ground

(John Dryden 1685)

Leigh Fermor picked up on the General, and recited the remaining stanzas of the Ode. ‘Ach so, Herr Major,’ said Kreipe when Leigh Fermor had finished. Both men were amazed to realise they shared a classical education and a love of ancient Latin poetry.

Leigh Fermor later wrote that it was as though the war had ceased to exist for a moment, as ‘We had both drunk from the same fountains before.’ It brought captor and captive together with a strange bond. The scene was not reproduced in the film, as Powell and Pressburger probably thought it would make the men sound too academic for a popular cinema audience.

Leigh Fermor and Kreipe met again in the early 1970s, on a Greek television show, and got on famously together. The General said Leigh Fermor had treated him chivalrously as a captive. They remained friends until Kreipe’s death.

After sharing a late night drink with my father after the film, I began to muse on the figure of Paddy Leigh Fermor, a family friend and someone I met along with his wife, Joan, as a little girl. My grandparents, and especially my grandmother, knew Paddy briefly from their days during and after the Second World War.

My father shared a few stories about him when he and my mother visited his beautiful home in Greece, where even at his advanced age he remained the most generous of hosts and the most outrageous flirt.

One of my memories was getting into his battered old Peugeot in the drive way and trying to drive it when my feet could barely touch the pedals. It wouldn’t have mattered in any case as the brakes didn’t work as he cheerfully said later as we careened around a dirt road to go around the mountains for a drive.

Many years later in April 2022, I tried to visit the home of the late Patrick and Joan Leigh Fermor - a sort of pristine shrine to their memory that one can also stay in any of the rooms as a vacation rental - in the coastal fishing village of Kadarmyli in the Peloponnese, as part of a hiking and mountaineering sojourn around Greece with ex-Army friends. We couldn’t stay there as it was already rented out to other guests, and so we stayed higher up the mountain in a villa, but we swam in front of the Fermor’s home which was on the water’s edge.

You could never put your finger on Paddy Leigh Fermor. He hid behind his gift for telling yarns, and pulling Ancient Greek verses out of the thin air, as well as boisterously singing local Greek songs with a drink in his hand.

Even after his death in 2011, the question keeps nagging as to who was Paddy Leigh Fermor?

The Dirk Bogarde film too seems to ask, who exactly is the ‘real’ Patrick Leigh Fermor - or the real anyone? Taking its title from a Shakespearian play concerned with dreams and disguises, magic and power, ‘Ill Met By Moonlight’ is all about questions of identity.

Under the film credits, we see Dirk Bogarde in uniform; then, unexpectedly, we see him in the flamboyant outfit of a Cretan hill-bandit. A title informs us that Major Leigh Fermor was also known by the Greek code-name “Philidem.” In other words, there are two of him (at least), and on one level the adventure the film is about to unfold reflects a conflict in his personality. It’s a conflict shared, unknowingly, by his Nazi opposite number, the fierce, arrogant General Kreipe (an unlikely “proud Titania,” but it’s true that he “with a monster is in love” – the monster of Nazism). Kreipe’s human side is so rigorously repressed by the demands of war and “glory” that he is genuinely unaware of it; ironically, this humanness, which constitutes the true manhood of this Teuton warrior, is revealed by a boy (equivalent to Shakespeare’s Indian Prince?) - who, in turn, is the most grown up person in the movie.

If “Philidem” appears under the credits, caped and open-shirted, a romantic dream-figure out of an operetta or a storybook, he is first seen in the film proper as a coarser, more down-to-earth version of the same thing – an ordinary Cretan peasant in a shabby suit, waiting for a bus. When he makes contact with the Resistance, his personality fragments further.

To some, he is the mystical Philidem, Pimpernel of the Hellenes and righter of wrongs. To others he is “Major Paddy,” the happy-go-lucky Englishman of popular movie myth conducting war as if it were a branch of amateur theatricals, a gentleman adventurer relying on breeding to get him through and making fun of the whole business. To Bill Moss (David Oxley), the newly arrived junior officer sent to assist him, he is the cool, fast-thinking professional soldier. And to himself? In his quietly passionate defence of Cretan life and culture, he seems someone else again: a scholar and aesthete outraged by the barbarism and folly of war, and by the moronic arrogance shown by his captive toward the Cretan people.

Whatever his persona, Leigh Fermor is a chameleon who never seems to change very radically in himself. Perhaps because he has this quality of seeming all things to all men – and being those things - he remains unfazed by the monolithic might of the German military machine. Fluent in Greek, he can also speak German like a German and is easily able to assume another disguise, that of a faceless Nazi officer. Although he and Moss make fun of themselves - “If only I had a monocle!” muses Moss when Leigh Fermor tells him he “looks like an Englishman dressed like a German, leaning against the Ritz bar” - they are able to effect the kidnapping with an ease that seems appropriately Puckish. General Kreipe is ignominiously thrust onto the floor of his own limousine, gagged, and sat upon by a couple of the peasants he so despises. Kreipe’s rage is compounded by his firm conviction that he has been snatched by “amateurs” - a belief Leigh Fermor and Moss slyly make no objection to, knowing how it will gnaw at his already shaky Master Race self-confidence.

Patrick Leigh Fermor, aka Major Paddy, aka Philidem, in the film’s closing moments, is far from being self-assured intellectual or dashing amateur adventurer or legendary outlaw of the hills. He’s just a tired man who wants to go home and rest up. “How do you feel?” asks Moss. “Flat” is the reply. “You look flat!” says Moss. “I know how I’d like to look …” murmurs Leigh-Fermor wistfully. Moss knows what he’s going to say, and joins in the litany: “Like an Englishman dressed like an Englishman – and leaning against the Ritz bar!” It’s easy to imagine them ordering drinks at that renowned watering-hole with all the suavity required by this little fantasy.

Still, the film’s last images of Crete receding in the distance, until all we can see is the sea, suggests that maybe Major Paddy’s heart is really back in those hills in the “fair and fertile” land that has become as much a Powellian landscape of the mind for us as the studio-built Himalayan convent of ‘Black Narcissus’ or the monochrome Heaven of ‘A Matter of Life and Death’. And, as the film POV closing shots departs both Crete and this film, I began to think that being “dressed like an Englishman and leaning against the Ritz bar” would, for Patrick Leigh Fermor constitute yet another disguise. After all, he said he was of Irish aristocratic stock.

Traveller and writer Paddy Leigh Fermor is best known for two events. He’s known for leading the commando group in occupied Crete to kidnap General Kreipe. But he is also known for the boy who, at a mere 18 years old, set off with little money and a lot of nerve in 1933 to walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople.

Patrick Leigh Fermor was, in the words of one of his obituaries, a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene. Self-reliance and derring-do were lessons learnt from the cradle. When Fermor’s geologist father was posted to India, he and his wife left the infant with family in Northamptonshire and did not return until his fourth birthday. In retrospect, he took great delight in being sent to a school for difficult children and getting himself expelled from the King’s School, Canterbury, when he was caught holding hands with a greengrocer’s daughter eight years his senior. His school report infamously judged him ‘a dangerous mix of sophistication and recklessness’.

Sharing a flat in Shepherd’s Market, one of Mayfair’s seedier corners, Leigh Fermor schooled himself in literature, history, Latin and Greek.

He honed his character with the company of extraordinary people and the words of great writers - he had a prodigious memory for prose as well as poetry. He befriended literary lions such as Sacheverell Sitwell, Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford. His travels began aged ‘eighteen-and-three-quarters’ when he rejected Sandhurst Royal Military College in order to walk the length of Europe from Hook of Holland to Constantinople. He took with him Horace’s Odes and the Oxford Book of Verse though Leigh Fermor could recite Shakespeare soliloquies, Marlowe speeches, Keats’s Odes and as he modestly put it ‘the usual pieces of Tennyson, Browning and Coleridge’ from memory.

Leigh Fermor was then a self-made man in the most literal sense.

Setting off from England in 1933, Fermor resolved to traverse Europe living like a hermit; sleeping in bars and begging for food. But his manly charms and boyish good looks found him being passed like a favourite godson from Schloss to palace by European nobility and he developed a lifelong penchant for aristocratic company. I his own words, ‘In Hungary, I borrowed a horse, then plunged into Transylvania; from Romania on into Bulgaria’. Having reached Constantinople in January 1935, Fermor continued to explore Greece where he fought on the royalist side in Macedonia quelling a republican revolution. In Athens Leigh Fermor met Balasha Cantacuzene, a Romanian countess with whom he fell in love. They were living together in a Moldovan castle when World War Two was declared.

Fluent in Greek, Leigh Fermor was posted as a liaison officer in Albania. Recruited as a Special Operations Executive (SOE), he was shipped from Cairo to German-occupied Crete where he lived disguised as a shepherd in the mountains for two years. On his third expedition to Crete in 1944, Leigh Fermor was parachuted alone onto the island and made connections in the Cretan resistance movement. While waiting for his compatriot Captain Bill Stanley Moss to land by water from Cairo, Leigh Fermor hatched a plot to kidnap German Commander General Heinrich Krieple. He liaised comfortably with Cretan partisans and bandits to pull off one of the war’s greatest coups de théâtre.

Disguised as German soldiers, Leigh Fermor and Moss stopped Krieple’s car at an improvised check point en route back to Nazi HQ in Knossos. Abandoning the General’s car after a two-hour drive, Leigh Fermor left a note indicating that the kidnappers were British so that there wouldn’t be reprisals against Cretan nationals. When the abduction of the unpopular commander was discovered, a German officer in Heraklion allegedly said ‘well, gentlemen, I think this calls for champagne’. It turns out that General Kreipe was despised by his own soldiers because, amongst other things, he objected to the stopping of his own vehicle for checking in compliance with his commands concerning approved travel orders. It’s why for instance the German troops, both in the film and in real life, dare not stop the General’s car as it drove through the check points at Heraklion.

Krieple was evacuated and taken to Cairo and Leigh Fermor entered the annals of World War Two’s most devil-may-care heroes. With characteristic panache, when he was demobbed Leigh Fermor moved into an attic room at the Ritz paying half a guinea a night. But his first travel book, ‘The Traveller’s Tree’, was not about the European odyssey or the Cretan escapades and centred on Leigh Fermor’s adventures in the Carribbean. Published in 1950, ‘The Traveller’s Tree’ was an inspiration for Ian Fleming’s second James Bond novel ‘Live and Let Die’ (1954).

As a host and house guest, Paddy Leigh Fermor was much sought-after. At one of his parties in Cairo, he counted nine crowned heads. He was a confirmed two-gin-and-tonics before lunch man and smoked eighty to 100 cigarettes a day. His party pieces included singing ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ in Hindustani and reciting ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ backwards. In Cyprus while staying with Laurence Durrell, Leigh Fermor apparently stunned crowds in Bella Pais into silence by singing folk songs in perfect Cretan dialect. As Durrell wrote in ‘Bitter Lemons’ (1957), ‘it is as if they want to embrace Paddy wherever he goes’.

He struck up a partiuclar friendship with the famous Mitford sisters, especially Deborah Mitford, later ‘Debo’, the Duchess of Devonshire. It was at the Devonshires’ Irish estate Lismore Castle that ‘Darling Debo’ and ‘Darling Pad’ met and began to correspond. A characteristic letter from the Duchess in 1962 reads ‘The dear old President (JFK) phoned the other day. First question was ‘Who’ve you got with you, Paddy?” He’s got you on the brain’ to which Fermor replies of a broken wrist ‘Balinese dancing’s out, for a start; so, should I ever succeed to a throne, is holding an orb. The other drawbacks will surface with time’.

After the war he travelled widely but was always drawn back to Greece. He built a house on the Mani peninsula - which had been, significantly, the only part of Magna Graecia to resist Ottoman colonisation since the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Before his death in 2011 at the age of 96, he wrote some of the most acclaimed travel books of the 20th century.

His books contain some of the finest prose writing of the past century and disprove Wilde's maxim that "it is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating".

Charm, self-taught knowledge and enthusiasm made up for the lack of a university degree or a private income. His teenage walk across Europe and subsequent romantic sojourn in Baleni, Romania, with Princess Balasha Cantacuzene are proof enough of that. But the difficulty of capturing such an unconventional and glamorous life is made harder by the certainty that Fermor was an unreliable narrator.

He was also an infuriatingly slow writer. Driven by a life-long passion for words yet hampered by anxiety about his abilities, Leigh Fermor published eight books over 41 years.

‘The Traveller's Tree’ describes his postwar journey through the Caribbean; ‘Mani‘ and ‘Roumeli’ (1958 and 1966) draw on his experiences in Greece, where he would live for much of the latter part of his life. But it is the books that came out of his trans-Europe walk that reveal both the brilliance and the flaws. ‘A Time of Gifts’ was published in 1977, 44 years after he set out on the journey. ‘Between the Woods and the Water’ appeared nine years later. Both describe a world of privilege and poverty, communism and the rising tide of Nazism, and end with the unequivocal words, "To be continued". Yet the third volume hung like an albatross around the author's neck. As the years passed, Fermor found it impossible to shape the last part of his story in the way he wanted.

Leigh Fermor was that rarest of men: a man determined to live on his own terms, if not his own means, and who mostly - and mostly magnificently - succeeded. Always popping off on a journey when he should have been writing about the last one, always ready to party, he was forever chasing beautiful, fascinating or powerful women, even when with his wife, Joan Raynor. She was the great facilitator who funded his passion for travel and writing, as well as women, from her trust fund. His love affairs were discreet but legendary.

Leigh Fermor was happiest among the rogues. Over a lifetime on the road, he sought them, and in turn they responded to his charm, nose for adventure, and his famous wit. He was a keenly-anticipated dinner guest - once outshining Richard Burton at a London society soirée, who he cut-off midway through a recital of ‘Hamlet’. As Richard Burton stormed out, the pleading society hostess said, “But Paddy’s a war hero!” to which Burton grouchily replied, “I don’t give a damn who he is!”

His partnership with and then marriage to Joan Raynor was an open relationship, at least on Leigh Fermor’s side. Paddy saw in Joan his kindred spirit. Like him, she spent much of her youth travelling to where she pleased; largely in France, where the photographer and literary critic Cyril Connolly became besotted by her. Joan was the daughter of Sir Bolton and Lady Eyres Monsell of Dumbleton Hall, Worcestershire. She was not only stunningly pretty but also 'a beautiful ideal, with the perfect bathing dress, the most lovely face, the most elaborate evening dress', as the Eton educated Connolly described her. Joan also stood out from the upper-class beauties of her day in that she supplemented her mean rich father's allowance by earning her living as a decent photographer.

In 1946, she met Leigh Fermor in Athens, while he was deputy director of the British Institute. Joan met him at a time when he was then in a relationship with a French woman called Denise, who was pregnant with his child, which she aborted. The pair would travel to the Caribbean together under the invitation of Greek photographer Costas, falling madly in love.

She was the only woman that - after decades of sexual scandals - matched his own erratic behaviour. Stories of how they dined fully-clothed in the Mediterranean, dragging a table into the sea, as well as their myriad cats and olive groves, paint a restless couple, who, when not out articulating the peoples of their adopted homeland, kept themselves very busy.

The attraction between Paddy and Joan was instant. So many love affairs that Paddy indulged in seemed about as brief as the flame from a burning envelope and you expected this one with Joan to be too. But somehow, miraculously, it lasts.

The two were apart a great deal, but in their case, absence did make the heart grow fonder. While Paddy was staying in a monastery in Normandy, supposed to be thinking monk-like thoughts that he would eventually put into his masterpiece A Time To Keep Silence, he was also writing sexy letters to Joan: 'At this distance you seem about as nearly perfect a human being as can be, my darling little wretch, so it's about time I was brought to my senses.' And: 'Don't run away with anyone or I'll come and cut your bloody throat.'

She tantalised him with descriptions of Cyril Connolly making passes at her; but she, like Denise, sounded a rather desperate note when she wrote: 'I got the curse so late this month I began to hope I was having a baby and that you would have to make it a legitimate little Fermor. All hopes ruined this morning.'

Fiercely independent - a trait that must have enamoured Paddy - they were best imagined as two pillars of a Greek temple, beside one-another but capable of holding up the roof of the world that they had built for themselves through the lens of ancient history and Hellenic culture. Indeed, it was said that they had a special ‘pact of liberty’. It is this unconquerable aura that led poet laureate John Betjeman to declare his love for her (he called her ‘Dotty’ and remarked that her eyes were as large as tennis balls). For Cyril Connolly, the photographer she shadowed, and with whom she had a scandalised affair during her first marriage, she was a “lovely boy-girl” and Laurence Durrell named her the ‘Corn Goddess’ because of her slender figure and short hair. But of all of these worthy candidates, it was the warrior-poet Patrick Leigh Fermor who finally won her heart.

To Joan, who described herself as a ‘lifelong loner’ in her diaries, her companionship with the uncomplicated Paddy was a relief. They had no children, nor did they want any - or so Paddy claimed. But those who knew Joan suspected she did want children but it never came to pass; and so she became a devoted aunt or dotted on other friends’ children. For both of them their dozens of cats gave them the next best thing to paternal satisfaction. Still, her morbid fascination with photographing cemeteries painted a much darker side.

Joan Raynor’s inheritance subsidised his peripatetic life at least until the enormous success of ‘A Time of Gifts’ in the late 1970s, which in turn created a new market for his previous volumes about Greece, ‘Mani’ and ‘Roumeli’.

With Joan’s tacit consent, Paddy enjoyed amorous flings, discrete sexual affairs with high society women and sampled the low delights of the brothel. This activity rarely made it into his private letters, but the exceptions could be piquant. Writing in 1958 from Cameroon, where he was on the set of a John Huston movie, he told a (male) friend: “ Errol Flynn and I . . . sally forth into dark lanes of the town together on guilty excursions that remind me rather of old Greek days with you.” In a 1961 letter to the film director John Huston’s wife, Ricki, with whom Leigh Fermor had been having sex with (and would die in a car crash in 1969). “I say,” the passage begins, “what gloomy tidings about the CRABS! Could it be me?” Riffing on pubic lice and their crafty ways, he conjectures that, during a recent romp with an “old pal” in Paris, a force “must have landed” on him “and then lain up, seeing me merely as a stepping stone or a springboard to better things” - to Mrs. Huston, that is. As comic apologies for venereal infection go, the passage is surely a classic.

Like most high flying lives, it was far from blameless. Wounded women were littered in his wake. Some British visitors to Athens were less than impressed by this Englishman who posed as “more Greek than the Greeks”.

Some Greeks shared their disdain. Revisionist historians criticised his role in wartime Crete, and warned their fellow Hellenes that for all his fluency and charm, Leigh Fermor was no latter day Byron. His unoccupied car was blown up outside his Mani house, probably by members of the Greek Communist Party which he had vocally opposed. The accidental fatal shooting of a partisan in Crete led to a long blood feud which made it difficult for Leigh Fermor to re-enter the island until the 1970s, and possibly explains why he chose to settle in the Peloponnese rather than among the hills and harbours of his dreams.

His own books had already eclipsed those incidents, not only among readers of English but also in Greece, where in 2007 the government of his adopted land made him a Commander of the Order of the Phoenix for services to literature.

Travel writers such as the great Jan Morris have described Leigh Fermor as the master of their trade and its greatest exponent in the 20th century.

When ‘A Time of Gifts’ was published in 1977, Frederick Raphael wrote: “One feels he could not cross Oxford Street in less than two volumes; but then what volumes they would be!”

They are not for everyone. Leigh Fermor wrote that written English is a language whose Latinates need pegging down with simple Anglo-Saxonisms, and some feel that he personally could have made more and better use of the mallet. His exuberance is either captivating or florid. It is certainly unique among English prose styles.

Artemis Cooper, his patient and careful biographer wrote that “Paddy had found a way of writing that could deploy a lifetime’s reading and experience, while never losing sight of his ebullient, well-meaning and occasionally clumsy 18-year-old self … this was a wonderful way of disarming his readers, who would then be willing to follow him into the wildest fantasies and digressions”.

Those fantasies and digressions took decades to express. ‘A Time of Gifts’ had arguably been 40 years in the making when it was published in 1977. Its sequel, ‘Between the Woods and the Water’, did not appear until 1986. The third and final volume has been awaited ever since. Following Leigh Fermor’s death, a foot-high manuscript was apparently found on his desk.

Once he knuckled down to it, Leigh Fermor loved playing around with words. He was one of our greatest stylists and he was devoted to producing un-improvable books. But writing did not come easily to him, at least partly because it was something of a distraction from the main event, which was living an un-improvable life of unrepentant gaiety and fun.

For forty odd years, a legion of friends and admirers would beat a path to Paddy and Joan’s door. Artists, poets, royalty and writers came, all taking inspiration from their erudite hosts. A visit was an act of communion, a sharing of ideas and stories.

Leigh Fermor influenced a generation of British travel writers, including Bruce Chatwin, Colin Thubron, Philip Marsden, Nicholas Crane, Rory Stewart, and William Dalrymple. Indeed when Bruce Chatwin died, it was Paddy who scattered Chatwin’s ashes near a church in the mountains in Kardamyli.

When I was there in April 2022, I went to that same church to pay my respects.

But some of Paddy’s life energy was sucked out of him when Joan died in Kardamyli in June 2003, aged 91. It was related that Joan said to her friend Olivia Stewart, who was visiting: 'I really would like to die but who'd look after Paddy?' Olivia said that she would. A few minutes later, Joan fell, hit her head - and died instantly of a brain haemorrhage. Joan had often quoted Rilke: 'The good marriage is one in which each appoints the other as guardian of his solitude.' Now Paddy Leigh Fermor was all alone.

Leigh Fermor was knighted in 2004, the day of his birthday which he delighted in like a giggling schoolboy. But he missed Joan terribly.

For the last few months of his life Leigh Fermor suffered from a cancerous tumour, and in early June 2011 he underwent a tracheotomy in Greece. As death was close, according to local Greek friends, he expressed a wish to visit England to bid goodbye to his friends, and then return to die in Kardamyli, though it is also stated that he actually wished to die in England and be buried next to his wife, Joan, in Dumbleton, Gloucestershire. He stayed on at Kardamyli until the 9th June 2011, when he left Greece for the last time. He died in England the following day, 10th June 2011, aged 96. It was reported that he had dined in full black tie on the evening of his death. Paddy had style even unto the end.

A Guard of Honour was formed by the Intelligence Corps and a bugler from his former regiment, the Irish Guards, delivered the ‘Last Post’ at Paddy’s funeral. As had been his wish, he was buried beside Joan. On his gravestone in Dumbleton cemetery is an inscription in Greek, a quote from Constantine Cavafy: “In addition, he was that best of all things, Hellenic.”

Although Joan had passed away at the age of ninety-one, after suffering a fall in the Mani. Her body was repatriated to Dumbleton, the place of her birth - ironic that her dream was to be as far as she could possibly go from the rolling humdrum Worcestershire hills. But perhaps she intended to return all along. When Paddy was buried beside her it seemed that the ‘pact of liberty’ that these two lonely souls had forged themselves could be tested in the great elsewhere. Joan was more than his muse (as many of her obituaries were at pains to declare) but his greatest adventure.

To come around full circle from the movie ‘Ill Met By Moonlight’ (1957) that I saw that night in Verbier, my father told me that rather poignantly, General Kreipe, the German commander Leigh Fermor had captured - once an enemy, and later a friend - left behind notes and photographs from across his life. On one of those notes, it was discovered, the following was scribbled from a brief visit to Greece: “Somewhere, amidst all the disarray, was the story of Joan and Paddy, and” it concluded, “…of their lives together.”

His life with Joan and all that she meant to him was one part of the mosaic of who Paddy Leigh Fermor was. But it’s incomplete.

Paddy didn’t like the idea of a biography, and neither did Joan when she was alive. But friends had persuaded them that unless Paddy appointed someone to write his life, he might find himself the subject of a book whether he liked it or not. In Artemis Cooper they couldn’t have chosen a better writer to chronicle Paddy’s life as a man of action and letters. Cooper, was the daughter of another accomplished diplomat and historian, John Julius Norwich, and grand-daughter of Duff and Diana Cooper. As the wife of the historian Antony Beevor, she became a trusted friend of the Leigh Fermors. Cooper was too good of a historian to let her friendship lead her astray from being a faithful but serious biographer. Knowing this, she was told she could go ahead, but she had to promise not to publish anything until after they were both dead.

Paddy did not like being interviewed, and would keep her questions at bay with a torrent of dazzling conversation. He was the master at deflecting discussions away from himself.

He was also very unwilling to let Cooper see many of his papers, though the refusal always couched in excuses. ‘Oh dear, the Diary…’ It was the only surviving one from his great walk across Europe, and I was aching to read it. ‘Well it’s in constant use, you see, as I plug away at Vol III,’ he would say. Or, ‘My mother’s letters? Ah yes, why not. But it’s too awful, I simply cannot remember where they’ve got to…’ It was quite obvious that he and Joan, while being unfailingly generous, welcoming and hospitable, were determined to reveal as little as possible of their private lives.

While they were more than happy to talk about books, travels, friends, Crete, Greece, the war, anything - they would not tell her any more than they would have told the average journalist. But she persisted and got closer than most. He showed particularly gallantry in not talking about his romantic entanglements. But she soon twigged that anytime he described a woman as ‘an old pal’ it was a sure bet that he had an affair with her.

Intriguingly, Paddy liked to claim he was descended from Counts of the Holy Roman Empire, who came to Austria from Sligo. Paddy could recite ‘The Dead at Clomacnoise’ (in translation) and perhaps did so during a handful of flying visits to Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s, partying hard at Luggala House or Lismore Castle, or making friends with Patrick Kavanagh and Sean O’Faolain in Dublin pubs. He once provoked a massive brawl at the Kildare Hunt Ball, and was rescued from a true pounding by Ricki Huston, a beautiful Italian-American dancer, John Huston’s fourth wife and Paddy’s lover not long afterwards.

And yet, a note of caution about Paddy’s Irish roots is sounded by his biographer, Artemis Cooper, who also co-edited ‘The Broken Road’, the final, posthumously published instalment of the trilogy. “I’m not a great believer in his Irish roots,” she said of Leigh Fermor in an interview, “His mother, who was a compulsive fantasist, liked to think that her family was related to the Viscount Taaffes, of Ballymote. Her father was apparently born in County Cork. But she was never what you might call a reliable witness. She was an extraordinary person, though. Imaginative, impulsive, impossible - just the way the Irish are supposed to be, come to think of it. She was also one of those sad women, who grew up at the turn of the last century, who never found an outlet for their talents and energies, nor the right man, come to that. All she had was Paddy, and she didn’t get much of him.”

And I think that’s the point, no one really got much of Paddy Leigh Fermor even as he only gave a crumb of himself to others but still most felt grateful that it was enough to fill one’s belly and still feel overfed by him.

Paddy never tried to get to the bottom of his Irish ancestry, afraid, no doubt, of disturbing the bloom that had grown on history and his past, a recurring trait. “His memory was extraordinary,” Artemis Cooper noted, “but it lay dangerously close to his imagination and it was a very porous border.”

Within the Greek imagination many Greeks saw in Paddy Leigh Fermor as the second coming of Lord Byron. It’s not a bad comparison.

Lord Byron claimed that swimming the Hellespont was his greatest achievement. 174 years or so later, another English writer, Patrick Leigh Fermor - also, like Byron, revered by many Greeks for his part in a war of liberation - repeated the feat. Leigh Fermor, however, was 69 when he did it and continued to do it into his 80s. Byron was a mere 22 years old lad. The Hellespont swim, with its mix of literature, adventure, travel, bravery, eccentricity and romance, is an apt metaphor for Leigh Fermor’s life. Paddy Leigh Fermor was the Byron of his time. Both men had an idealised vision of Greece, were scholars and men of action, could endure harsh conditions, fought for Greek freedom, were recklessly courageous, liked to dress up and displayed a panache that impressed their Greek comrades. Like a good magician it was also a way to misdirect and conceal one’s true self.

What or who was the true Paddy Leigh Fermor?

Like Byron, Leigh Fermor appeared as a charismatic and assured figure. He was a sightseer, consuming travel, culture, and history for pleasure. He was an aristocrat moving in the social circles of his time. He was a gifted amateur scholar, speculating on literary and historical sources. Leigh Fermor, Byron’s own identity, is subject to textual distortion; it emerges from a piece of occasional prose in his books and is shaped by the claims of correspondence on a peculiarly fluid consciousness.

There is no hard and fast distinction to be drawn here between real and imagined, only a continuity of relative fictions that lie between memory and imagination as his biographer asserted. If there is a will to assert identity here, to disentangle fact and fiction, to give things as they really are and nail down the real Leigh Fermor then it is somewhere between the two. This is where we will find Paddy.

For many his death marked the passing of an extraordinary man: soldier, writer, adventurer, a charmer, a gallant romantic. As a writer he discovered a knack for drawing people out and for stringing history, language, and observation into narrative, and his timing was perfect. Paddy often indulged in florid displays of classical erudition. His learned digressions and serpentine style, his mannered mandarin gestures, even baroque prose, which Lawrence Durrell called truffled and dense with plumage, were influenced by the work of Charles Doughty and T.E. Lawrence. But one can’t compare him. I agree with the acclaimed writer Colin Thurbon who said, “There is, in the end, nobody like him. A famous raconteur and polymath. Generous, life-loving and good-hearted to a fault. Enormously good company, but touched by well-camouflaged insecurities. I would rank him very highly. ‘The finest travel writer of his generation’ is a fair assessment.”

As a child I didn’t really know who Paddy Leigh Fermor was other than this very cheerful and charismatic old man was kind, attentive, and took a boyish delight in everything you were doing. Only later on in adulthood was it clear to that Paddy was not only among the outstanding writers of his time but one of its most remarkable characters, a perfect hybrid of the man of action and the man of letters. Equally comfortable with princes and peasants, in caves or châteaux, he had amassed an enviable rich experience of places and people. “Quite the most enchanting maniac I’ve ever met,” pronounced Lawrence Durrell, and nearly everyone who’d crossed paths with him had, it seemed, come away similarly dazzled.

I am equally dazzled - more smitten in retrospect - for alas they don’t make men like Paddy any more. But every time I dip back into his books I think I discover a little bit more of who Paddy Leigh Fermor was because I find him some where between my memory and my imagination.

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