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fadedncity · 3 months ago

Text

(blood)thirst (teaser)

wc: 1.6k (teaser)

pairing: jeno x fem!reader

cw: supernatural!au, werewolf(lycan)!jeno, vampire!reader, natural enemies to lovers/forbidden love type of situation, injuries, blood, full fic tags: smut, angst, mention of death and family loss, flirting, sexual tension, teasing, pet names, oral sex, multiple orgasms, unprotected sex, way more plot than i expected, plus more

a/n: hey yall so i finished this fic a while ago and it’s just been sitting in my drafts and then i was kinda unsure whether i wanted to post it but i still might. so lmk what you think!

full fic out now

TUESDAY [3:31 AM]

Rain pours in sheets, pelting against your skin. Your footsteps are silent as you sprint through the underbrush, hot on the heels of the Lycan ahead of you.

Even with his head start, it took you no time to catch up to the him. Your pace matched his as you zeroed in on his steady breathing and rhythmic drum of his footfalls. Lycans are fast, and he hadn't even shifted forms yet. But still, you had no trouble keeping up with him.

All the while you closely trail the Lycan, you're cautious of your surroundings, keeping your ears peeled for any sign of a presence accompanying you both in these woods.

Just as you were about to fall in line with him, an unexpected sound sliced through the night—a whistle, followed by the unmistakable twang of a bowstring.

An arrow whizzed past your head, embedding itself in a tree trunk to your left. Stopping in your tracks, you tilt your head, seeing sparks and smoke emitting from the arrowhead now embedded into the old pine tree. But you aren't given any more time to investigate as you're tackled to the ground by the Lycan.

Before you could push him off, his body shields you from the explosion of blinding light so bright you could've sworn it was day for a split second.

He just saved you.

"Are you okay?" Jeno asks, rain dripping from the ends of his hair as he stands from the dirt.

"Yeah," you nod, hesitantly taking the hand he offers. "Thanks," you say, looking at the tree bark melting off the trunk.

The humans have UV explosives. Great.

Both you and Jeno hear the sound of cars approaching from the nearby road and take off running again. Without a word, you plunge deeper into the forest, your movements synchronized with Jeno's by necessity.

"How did they even find us?" Jeno asks, looking over his shoulder, his voice barely audible over the rain.

"I was just going to ask you the same thing."

The hunters were relentless, their shouts echoing in the distance, along with the pounding of their boots. You moved swiftly, navigating the maze of branches and roots with an ease born from decades of practice. The forest seemed to close in around you, the trees pressing in like silent sentinels bearing witness to your flight.

Then shots start firing off, the sharp cracks of bullets cutting through the air. It sounds like they were coming from every direction, the rain making it harder for both you and Jeno to locate where the hunters are.

A bullet soars past you and stops whistling in your ears when it hits flesh, tearing through skin and muscle. Jeno beside you roars out in pain and begins to slow down as the metallic taste of blood enters the air around you. You shoot him a look of concern over your shoulder.

"I'll be fine," he says. But when you see his hand pressed to his shoulder, blood seeping from an injury that should've already started healing, you know he's far from okay. "We need to get out of these woods," Jeno winces as he applies pressure to the gunshot wound.

"I know a place not too far from here," you tell him.

[6:37 AM]

The moon's silver glow was waning, giving way to the first light of dawn. The storm had passed, leaving the forest dank and muddy. Urgency rose as you were closing in on daybreak. You and Jeno raced through the forest, the scent of his blood and sweat mingling in the damp morning air.

Jeno's breath was labored, each step accompanied by a pained grunt as he pushed himself forward. The wound on his shoulder, though not fatal, was slowing him down.

"The sun's gonna be up soon," Jeno pants, his voice weary.

"I know," you raise your eyes to the sky, "But we're almost there."

As you ascend the mountain, you spot the entrance behind a thick curtain of ivy and moss. The camouflaged door was almost invisible against the rocky face.

The two of you approach the fortified door. But not before you start to feel the uncomfortable sensation of pins and needles all over your body, a warning of the daylight's deadly approach.

The air grows warmer with the first rays of sunlight piercing through the treetops, casting long shadows stretching like skeletal fingers across the ground, leaving you exposed. You scream out in pain just before you can reach the door, feeling the severe burns blistering across your body under the sun's relentless gaze.

Without hesitation, Jeno quickly removes his jacket and throws it around you, shielding you as best as he can from the searing sunlight.

You reach the door with trembling hands and enter the security code to unlock it. You hear the mechanism click and attempt to push the door open, but it remains stubbornly shut. The hinges, unused for so long, now rusted, obstruct your entry.

"It's stuck," panic edges your voice.

Using his good shoulder, Jeno presses his weight into the door, helping you push it open. The thick metal gives way with a heavy creak, welcoming you inside. The moment you both are through, Jeno slams the door shut behind him, enveloping you in the safety of darkness.

The flickering emergency lights cast long shadows across the walls, the only source of illumination along the steps down to the bunker. You can hear the sounds of the forest growing distant, muted, and distorted through the layers of earth and stone as you descend further down.

With the adrenaline from the chase already simmered down, the reality of your situation sets in. Here you are, a vampire, with Jeno, a lycan, forced into hiding together by humans hunting you both. The silence stretches between you, heavy with unspoken words only filled by the sounds of Jeno's steps behind you.

Your burns are already beginning to heal now that you're out of the sunlight. The cool, dim interior of the bunker feels like a sanctuary, the pain in your skin subsiding by the time you lead Jeno into a high-ceiling room.

"Thanks, again," you break the silence, returning his jacket. Even in the shadows, you can see Jeno's eyes examining your burns. "I'll heal," you assure him. "You, on the other hand, aren't for some reason."

"I'm fine," Jeno lies.

"You're not. You're still bleeding out. I can smell it."

Jeno stays silent, knowing there's no use in arguing with you.

"I'll go see if I can find the generator and a med kit or something," you say.

The underground facility is large enough to house an entire clan and well-equipped for emergencies. Or at least it had been once. The walls, thick and impenetrable, provide a sense of security, but the darkness within was oppressive, the silence deafening.

You move through the narrow corridors, blindly navigating yourself through the place. The emergency lights give off a faint glow, barely enough to see by. The bunker has an air of abandonment from years of sitting unused here. Cobwebs clung to the corners, and dust motes danced in the faint light.

You quickly locate the electrical room and, after a few tries, manage to get the generator running. The lights flicker on, and the air kicked on, ventilating the compound. As you make your way back down the corridor, you pass the uniform lockers, and just with your luck, you find a med kit sitting at the bottom of the cubby. You grab it and hurry back to where Jeno's waiting.

You find Jeno right where you left him; leaning against the wall, face pale and drawn, sweat glistening on his brow, damp clothes clinging to his defined muscles. From where he stands, the light casts deep shadows across his face, highlighting the strain etched into his features.

"Sit," you say, opening the case of medical supplies on the table.

"I can do it myself," Jeno mutters, though his voice lacks conviction as he weakly pushes himself away from the wall.

"You look like you can barely stand on your own. Just let me patch you up so you can at least stop bleeding all over the place," your words are punctuated by the snap of latex gloves you slip on.

Jeno has no energy to protest. He drops his jacket onto a chair and peels off his shirt, sitting on the table in front of you.

You don't have much time to ogle over the Lycan's chiseled physique as your eyes are drawn to the skin turning black and blue around the bullet's entry point. In all your years of existence, you've seen some pretty bad shit. But even this sight—Jeno's bloodied and seemingly infected shoulder, is enough to make even you wince.

"There's no exit, which is probably why you're not healing. Whatever specialized bullet hit you is still in there," you observe, examining the injury closely.

"Great," Jeno groans, throwing his head back. "Think you can get it out?"

"Sure, but it's not gonna be fun," you tell him.

"Let's just get it over with."

a/n: please lmk what you think! if i do post the full fic it is 11k so be weary 😭 thank you for reading! <33 feedback is appreciated!!

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saradika · 10 months ago

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— beneath the mask

din djarin x f!reader

rated t - 1.3k

tags: medieval!au, light angst, anxiety, arranged marriage, soulmate au, reader has a mother & father

prompt: "I wanted it to be you, I wanted it to be you so badly” from the writing challenge hosted by the amazing and lovely @moonlight-prose 💖

when a mysterious stranger wins your hand at the tournament, you can't help but wonder about his intentions

With each step down the aisle, your legs threaten to give out.

A clicking of your teeth as you tremble, before you're gritting your jaw, biting your anxiety back. You have a reputation to uphold, even if you're only the daughter of a lord from a lesser house.

You're still a lady.

And this marriage would ensure a home for you. Protection. More than, if this man is what he says he is.

But a part of you desperately wishes that it was someone else at the end of the aisle.

You'd searched for a long time. For the glimpses that flash in your dreams at night. Knowing that he was out there - the one you had begun to think of as yours.

Your soulmate.

Never managing to meet the same eyes that reflect back at you in the darkness, just before you wake. Not once in the hundreds, thousands of people you’ve looked at, throughout your years.

And when none were found, you slowly gave up. Knowing the world was too large and you were too small, too poor, to seek them out.

Eventually agreeing to the match that your mother and father arranged.

If you could not have him, then you did not want anyone.

And now - the figure that waits for you stands tall.

Encased in gleaming armor, showing none of the nerves that wrack you. Making you wonder if you should have protested. Taken the path of the unwed, even if there was hardship in your future.

The stranger had won your favor, in the tournament. That is how the story will be told, passed on by your father.

Looking back, you remember very little from it. Knowing deep down that the winner would be the one to have your hand, whether you liked it or not. So much of it had turned to haze, as you had sat frozen there.

All but too nervous to watch, as weapons clashed, shields splintering.

Men you had known and grown up with falling beneath the sword of the mysterious man, clad in silver armor.

A Mandalorian, it was rumored.

Something from stories, you didn't know they still existed. An ancient clan of knights and warriors, honoring weapons and myths over sworn deities. Never revealing their faces to outsiders, and sometimes even to their own.

He had never killed any of them, and there was some comfort in that.

But that didn't mean he did not wound.

That he wasn't vicious, ferocious on the battlefield. Driven by an unseen force. Unrelenting, even when blood was drawn - splattering a bright crimson against his armor.

Showing just how he came to earn his station. The leader of his tribe, from the whispers you heard. Traveling far - slipping into the last few open brackets in the tournament, just as the first morning was starting.

Ripping through them all, in the days that followed.

You were given as the prize, in the end.

Even before the day ends, you would belong to him - ferried off to a new life tomorrow.

And this is what also slows your feet.

Wondering why such a man would come for you.

At the end of the aisle, you halt. The clergymany is speaking, but it's all white noise. Your own eyes wide and face solemn as you stare at your betrothed - your features reflected back at you in the tinted glass of his visor.

Acutely aware that you haven't seen his face. Not knowing what your husband was to look like.

Was he younger than you? Or older... older than your father?

Was his face kind, or was it as sharp as his movements? Was it all snarling teeth, beneath?

Were his eyes blue, or green, or just maybe... brown? Like his?

You don't know. You think not. Leaving you to wonder how you will bear it - to spend each day staring into their eyes while dreaming of anothers.

It's only when a voice raises that you're snapped from your thoughts. Realizing that the ceremony is waiting for you.

Managing, with a stammer, to repeat the words. To pledge yourself - your life and love - to this stranger.

The words repeated after, a low voice layering with metal. The shaking of your hands is still visible when they reach out to meet his, the tips of yours resting against wide, steady palms.

Covered in gloves but solid, like the rest of him.

Only the peek of tanned skin visible when he peels the glove from his hand. A small comfort coming in the warmth of his hand, as you slip the ring on his finger, settling it just above a scarred knuckle.

The careful brush of his fingers - a calming stroke against your skin, when he slips a matching one on yours.

Gentle, after everything.

Not him.

But perhaps, not a monster.

The celebrations swirl past you. There's music you don't remember. A meal that sits heavy in your stomach, from the meager amounts you managed to swallow.

A smile plastered on - assuring your excitement to family and friends - all while you worry about the hours to come.

Will he be as gentle as he was during the ceremony?

Or will it be more like the battlefield?

These thoughts linger, as the hours pass. Until the sun dips below the horizon, until the stars blanket the sky.

And then, you're alone.

Waiting in the finest room prepared for him in the guest wing. The pretty, ivory gown stripped from you, replaced with something thin and fine and silver - hand-sewn and intended to please him.

Pacing, until you hear the heavy steps approaching - as he returns from a meeting with your father, your dowry and your life handed over.

Leaving you frozen in place, as the door opens. Where he lingers, filling the space.

A different man than before, you think.

There had not been a slope to his shoulders, the way he moves as if afraid to frighten you.

His voice is different too - soft now, coaxing.

"I wish our meeting had been under more pleasant circumstances." Your husband tells you, as the door slowly shuts behind him.

Trapping you, now. The iron latch heavy, as it locks into place.

"But I could not bear to stand by." He continues, that hard edge creeping into his voice again, "You must understand."

"I don't." You manage - your brow pinched, shifting the smallest step backwards as he moves forward.

He goes still, at your retreat.

"Do you not, ner kar’ta?" His head tilts, "Do you not know why I have come?"

The shake of your head is small. Not understanding the name he calls you, his intentions.

He hesitates then, for a second. Before his hands are reaching - grasping the edge of his helmet. Slipping it from his head, as his head dips.

His hair is dark, beneath. Messy and curling, greying at the temples, down to the scruff that lines his jaw beneath plush lips and the curve of his nose.

And his eyes. That pretty shade of brown, the dark fan of his eyelashes.

You know them. Though you've never seen them, yourself.

For a moment, you can't breathe. Frozen for an entirely new reason - starting back at the eyes that you've seen so often.

"It's you," You manage. The words are no more than a soft gasp.

He lets you touch him, then. Fingertips tracing his jaw, those eyes slipping shut when your fingers brush the nape of his neck. Somehow knowing how the curls would feel against your fingers, already knowing each detail of his face.

Hidden deep down, revealed bit by bit in your sleep.

Only now, do you see all of him.

And only now, do you lean in. Your head tipping towards him, just as his forehead presses against yours. And it's now that you understand the warmth of his touch - the way it seems to soak into your skin. A lost piece of you, now becoming complete.

You hadn’t been able to find him - so he had found you, instead.

Unable to help the smile, as the dark pit in your stomach blooms into spring.

I wanted it to be you, you think - as your heart finally starts to beat again. I wanted it to be you so badly.

There's a hitch in his breath, with your touch. Fingers that stretch out and then curl, until you're taking them yourself, slipping yours between them.

"Now do you know?" Your husband murmurs, in the voice that you know as well as his eyes.

And you do - the answer coming easily, as you nod, "Because you're mine."

"Yes," He smiles.

"Yours."

i cant stop writing soft!soulmate din 💖 thank you for reading!!

ner kar’ta - my heart

#so sorry I am late my love #I have been thinking about this so much - such an great prompt and event!! 💖#din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x f!reader #writing challenge #din djarin imagine #din djarin

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amywritesthings · 2 months ago

Note

Hii, I saw you are working on hallo sleepover and I wanted to send one! Is this the right place to ask for that? I hope it is😭 soo, I checked the promp lists and got really interested in autumn leaves/masquerade ball for levi ackerman x female reader or female oc, whichever you are comfortable with writing <3 I'm really craving for some levi royalty fic these days! Thank you!

hallo-sleepover '24!

...so this was supposed to be a drabble. it definitely isn't. i lowkey went a little insane with this one and wrote it in about two hours. hope u like xo

answers to callings.

pairing: levi ackerman x reader word count: 2.4k tags: medieval au, adult language, prince!levi, reader!knight, childhood friends turned unresolved tension, yearning and pining, first kisses, masquerade ball, dancing credit: dividers by @saradika-graphics

You know better.

When Prince Levi invites you to a masquerade ball, it shouldn’t be taken as an invitation to stride on his arm. Protecting the crown is your sworn oath. He’s obligated to ask you, his royal guard, to attend the Autumn Masquerade Ball for his safety.

And when he suggests to dress for the occasion (as you see fit, added hastily within the margins of his quill) it strikes you as odd. Not because of the lack of instruction, no: the prince has not once tried to dictate what you wear in his presence, a rare feat for a man standing in front of a woman.

He sees you in the image of the little girl who grew up beside him, the rambunctious friend, the formidable ally who never saw him as a burden with a golden crown.

You should know better than to ever presume it’s a true opportunity for courtship, as knights are sworn to bow to their dutiful crown.

Although he was your best friend many moons ago, the only man you could have ever seen yourself standing beside on an altar in a white dress—

Seasons have changed.

Years have passed.

He is the kingdom’s prince, not yours.

But why else would he have requested for you to dress for the occasion, as if your metallic exoskeleton protecting your true feelings and heart could be forgotten for the evening?

(You won’t receive an answer until you take the leap of faith.)

As opposed to greeting him at the door of his bed chambers in chainmail, you fidget with your fingers tucked under long, olive green sleeves. Velvet adorns your body, softening your silhouette as the skirt drags along the stone floors.

When Prince Levi opens his door — dressed head to toe in the family emeralds, the family brooch set upon his heart — he stops dead in his tracks at the sight of you. His stormy gray eyes fall without once looking at your face.

Oh.

Perhaps he only meant the scribbled afterthought as a jest.

You take a step back, the click of your shoe echoing against the large expanse of the corridor.

“There’s still time for me to change into my—”

“You wore the crown’s colors,” he observes in monotone, cutting off your worried rant.

His colors, more precisely.

Your face burns as you nod. “I thought it would be fitting. My armor holds the crest, and if a dress cannot do the same, then its fabric must bear its color.”

You can’t remember the last time you wore a dress around the prince. At the very least, you were both small and still so naive.

His father and yours, king and kingsguard all the same, allowed you both the luxury of spending what little youth you had as explorers, adventurers, in a life where Levi would never need to wear a crown and you would never lose him.

When you grew older and realized how little you’d see of him as a kingsguard’s daughter, you chose knighthood: pledging allegiance to a friend, your only friend, for the rest of your mortal days and beyond.

“So it was done out of obligation?” he asks flatly, brow disappearing under the black fringe of his hair as it rises to question you.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Of mockery, then.”

“My lord—”

“Because if you had worn your armor, then it would have presented me an opportunity to offer a change myself so that we could appear to the royal court in our battle wear, further pissing off my father, and therefore shortening this ball altogether.”

The corner of his lip ticks.

Oh.

He’s joking.

(Although little humor can be found by the crown, that rebellious boy with the insatiable fire is still in there somewhere. You just haven’t seen him in a while.)

“...oh, so now you mock me,” you joke in return.

He steps through the threshold of his bed chambers to meet you, toe to toe.

“I wouldn’t.”

In a rare moment of levity, you roll your eyes. It actually elicits a snort from the prince as he sweeps his cape behind his back, before his arm rises in a hook-like gesture.

“Let’s go,” Levi adds, lifting his elbow once towards you. “Before the blood-sucking suitors sniff me out from all the way over here.”

Right.

His potential spouses.

Because he’d been putting off the whole marriage nonsense altogether, citing peace talks among Eldia and Marley as his priority above all else.

“You know if they did, I’d never let them get within an inch of you,” you remind him as you loop through his arm, mindful of your proximity.

“I know,” he promises under his breath. “Above all else, I know.”

Within seconds your footsteps align, a harmonious click to scuffle with your heels and his boots, filling the firelit corridor with the announcement of the prince’s arrival. In unison, you lift your masquerade masks to situate them behind your ears and over the bridges of your noses.

By the time you reach the ballroom, the floor is already adorned with dancing couples from the kingdom and across the pond. Marleyean royalty dazzle and twirl to the quarter playing in the corner. The Eldians are a bit more subdued, discussing gossip and politics as the wine flows and the food is served.

Dozens upon dozens turn at the knowledge of the prince’s arrival and bow deeply, causing your stomach to churn.

You’re his first knight. You’re not meant to be on his arm.

You know it.

Those who know you also know it.

But as several eager suitors begin to curl around the ballroom floor, you feel Levi push not towards the throne-like chair awaiting his arrival — the very chair he’s sulked upon for most of these parties, wishing he were anywhere but —

Forward.

Down the stairs, towards the dance floor.

“What are you doing?” you whisper to the prince, brows knit under the planes of the mask.

“Saving us both.”

“With what?”

“Just trust me,” he whispers before detaching from you.

The significance of the moment hits you only a second too slowly, until suddenly you feel a warm hand run along your waist to secure behind your back.

His other hand seeks out yours, curling his fingertips around your palm. Yours hangs limply at your side, not quite understanding what he’s doing until there are some gasps of surprise and confusion.

“His Royal Highness, Prince Levi Ackerman, has chosen his first dance suitor.”

No.

Oh — you were not supposed to be here.

When you whip your attention around to the eyes on you, you feel Levi’s hand leave your waist to grab your free hand. They both lift until your palm rests on the emerald sash decorating his shoulder.

“Eyes on me.”

Obeying without another thought, your eyes meet.

“Don’t think.”

Before you can think, the music begins.

He pushes forward and you nearly stumble backward, but his fingers flex along the small of your back. The prince pushes you closer, his eyes boring into yours.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the steps from the aggravating dance lessons.”

“From when we were ten?” you ask bluntly, breaking your stoic character.

The answer only brings that smirk back. “They taught us this godforsaken box of a dance. So damn mind-numbing. Yet I was left to suffer through more classes alone while you were off preparing for knighthood.”

“Is that how you recall it?”

“Do you call your prince a liar?”

He’s still being playful.

Around this time of night, he’s moody and disconnected. He’d much rather pull teeth than waltz around the dancefloor with the chosen (see: chosen for him) suitor that begs for his hand, but it’s what he’s required to do.

Except, on this night, he ran straight to the ballroom floor.

No formalities. No attempts of escaping.

He twirls you, and suddenly you’re that much closer to his body when you turn back around.

“You’re meant to choose a suitor for this dance, my lord,” you murmur, mindful of your steps the longer you’re both forced to take it.

“I didn’t want to.”

“That’s seen as disrespectful.”

“I disrespect, then.”

Prince Levi focuses on memorizing your features, as if compelled to look at you and only you. You watch him, counting the steps in your head for this dance.

“And don’t do that.”

“Do what, my lord?”

“That,” he states. “You are on my arm tonight. So it is not lord, not prince.”

Twirling one final time as the music swells to a close, your hand lands on the crook of his neck where your fingertip manages to catch skin. The prince’s eyes flutter, as if captivated by the way it feels on his bare flesh.

“Then what?” you whisper as you stand there, basking in the final step.

“Levi,” he answers. “As it was before.”

Levi.

You haven’t called him that in such a long time.

Your lips part to speak, but the ballroom erupts into applause for their prince.

Quickly your mouth shuts, unwilling to compete with the crowd.

Levi’s brows are knit, staring down at your lips as if expecting something — only to deflate when he realizes you aren’t going to say anything.

An opportunity, lost.

“Would you accompany me to the gardens?” he asks instead, filling the white noise with his velvet-smooth voice. Your conjoined hand gets a squeeze to bring you back to solid ground.

“If that is what you command,” you weakly state, trying to continue the facade, the masks, you’ve both shared through the last few years.

Levi’s nostrils flare before he steps out of the dance circle. Other couples eager to meet for the next song flood past you, obscuring the two of you through a battling undercurrent.

It’s dangerous, is your first line of thought.

He should be behind me.

By the time you wish to reverse the order, to protect him, you're met with the crisp air of the night sky. Flames flicker against stone walls, illuminating the rose garden and shrubberies that curl around it. The dark sky twinkles with budding stars.

Levi stands with his back to you, your arms tethered at the wrist. For a moment he stands there, head bowed.

“Why are you avoiding your suitors?”

It’s a question you wish you could take back as soon as you say it. When he turns, the familiar scowl people know the prince for comes into view. He’s often seen as a snob, nose upturned at everyone but himself — and you.

“Of all people, you are not allowed to judge,” he growls, catching you off guard. “You swore off suitors when you swore to protect the crown. You needn’t answer to anyone’s call.”

“Because I answer to yours,” you defends yourself, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Yes, so why can I not answer in return?”

When your brow knits, he takes a few steps forward. He enters your orbit in haste, his hand running through his wild raven hair.

“I send parchment for your arm, I bring you to court to dance, yet you’re somehow so damn blind to it.”

“To what?” you ask under your breath, your body growing numb.

If he implies—

No, that cannot be the truth.

Yet the more he speaks to you, he looks like that boy you left behind all those years ago. Not the prince, but Levi — the boy who has never once offered affection to another woman yet still begs of you to see him.

Levi moves another step forward, his boot slipping under the hem of your dress, and stops himself when he gets too close to your lips. You feel his hot breath pulse across your face, causing heat to rise through your body.

His eyes flicker across your face, as if searching for a sign to stop. When you stare wide-eyed in return, lost in your own feelings — gods all of the feelings you’ve swallowed down, down, down when it came to all the people wishing for his hand — for the first time since you were young.

“Command me.”

When he whispers, lightning jolts through your veins. Commanding someone of royal blood is a death sentence. Yet you know what he’s asking — why he’s asking.

“But you are my prince.”

“I am only a man,” he corrects in a murmur, shaking his head, “and you are more holy than any damned crown so I cannot take — but I beg of you, to ask.”

Everything turns to ash in your mind. Any panic, any worry, any doubt that his feelings could be reciprocated — they culminate to this moment.

This, where you can look up at Levi Ackerman, the prince who stole your heart, and command.

“Kiss me, Levi.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice.

Levi gathers you in his arms, his push forward so intense that you both stumble back into the dark corner of the castle’s exterior. His palm cradles the back of your head as he kisses you, drowning in the taste of you, and he practically moans at the mere feeling of it.

You try to keep up, kissing him back with equal impatience. Pulling and pushing you meet him kiss for kiss, your hand nestled upon the cool surface of his cheek. He swears under his breath, a curse only for you, before he ducks his chin and deepens the kiss.

The moan that slips across your tongue causes the hand at your waist to grip it tighter.

Although it’s a foreign feeling, you find your mouth opening when his lips part, your tongues meeting in the middle. It feels wrong — but the feeling quickly fades when his thigh wedges between yours and presses.

Levi pulls away, face flushed and eyes hazy. You both pant, your chests touching as you seek a stolen breath in this finite space between you.

Yet you can’t stop looking at him.

“I want nothing more than to have you,” Levi confesses. “All facets of you. I won’t jeopardize your knightship, but I wish to court none other.”

His forehead drops to yours.

You melt at the feeling, the intimacy, despite how you should pull away and do your duty as his sworn protector. You swore off marriage, but to be courted by one of the royal family…

It would be nullified.

If you wanted him, is what Levi has been trying to say this entire night.

“Then choose me,” you decide finally, softly, against his lips.

Although your eyes are closed, you feel it: a rare smile from the prince himself.

“I already have,” he promises. “I just had to wait for you to choose me, too.”

#levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman x you #levi ackerman x female reader #levi x reader #levi x you #aot x reader #aot fanfic #snk fanfic #levi ackerman fanfiction #levi ackerman fanfic #levi ackerman fic #hallosleepover 24 #medieval au #medieval au fic

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pinescent-and-gingerbread · 5 months ago

Note

I was wondering if you could do a little drabble where the reader breaks her leg in an accident and Arthur goes to help her by picking her up and taking her home. Please I want Arthur to hold the reader like a princess! 🥺💞

Here you go sweet anon! 🍑

Yes this was supposed to be a drabble but I got a little carried away as always and this ended up being a bit longer than expected. I hope you won't mind!! 🙏

˖✧To pick up a Peach

✦ Pairing: Arthur Morgan x Fem!Reader ✦ Warnings/Tags: Description of a broken leg and physical pain, otherwise this is pure fluff. Arthur being the sweetest gentleman he is in high honor. ✦ Words: 2,4k ✦ a/n: I don't know why but I got carried away with this one and I ended up really loving it. I changed it just a little bit and made Arthur carry you to the doc, cause you know, he wouldn't let you go home without minimum care. He's like that. I made the reader some sort of farmer's daughter AU? Anyway, hope you'll still like it, Anon! Credits. Arthur's pic is mine. Other pics are from Pinterest. Little doodles made by me.

You were screwed.

That’s the thought that was stuck in your mind. Your horse, which the stableman had sworn to you was a gentle and peaceful creature, turned out to be a wild furious animal who was extremely nervous and appeared to have only one idea in mind: go back to where it belonged, the plains of the Heartlands.

You were simply on a ride to Valentine. You would often go there with your sisters on Mondays and Sundays to sell what your family had harvested in your native town, Emerald Ranch, setting up your little stand next to the butcher’s. Usually, these trips were pleasant and you had grown to like them, relieved to see something else than the gloomy and weird atmosphere that had settled in your village.

But your treacherous companion had decided, after an encounter with a snake somewhere near the Twin Stack Pass, that enough was enough. After rearing up as if his life depended on it, he took off at full speed, ejecting you with a crash to the ground, making the wicker basket containing all your precious products fly up in the air like a colorful firework of fruits and vegetables.

An ominous, muffled creak as your body lands.

Stunned, breathless, it took you a few seconds to regain your composure, long gone and galloping off with your horse.

Of course, that had to happen the only time you had decided to ride alone for once.

Your left leg, broken. The fruit of your labors and harvests, your perfect peaches, flawlessly ripe tomatoes and carrots, promising seeds, and beautiful flowers, scattered and smashed on the floor. Your dignity, gone.

Lying back on the dirt, hair spread like a star around your head, surrounded by an indescribable substance made of crushed fruits and flower petals reduced to a mush, you looked like the religious figure of Bad Luck.

On top of that, being a lonely young woman, unarmed, and hurt in the open clearly wasn’t an ideal situation. Any man with bad intentions could easily do the worst thing to you in your state.

You tried to get back in a sitting position. Every movement was igniting the pain in your broken bone, deep inside your calf, spreading it through your entire body like a burning trail of powder. You let out a short pained grunt, followed by a curse. Slowly tugging your skirt up your knee, you took a worried look at your leg.

It looked bad.

Painted with deep colored bruises kind of bad.

The sight of it along with the incessant stabbing pain coming from it made your heart beat faster, and you did your best not to pass out from the nausea that was flying over your head. The panic of not feeling your toes anymore didn't helped at calming your heart rate.

There was no way you could walk back to any town in that state, or contact the rest of your family already waiting for you.

Yes, you were screwed.

Tilting your head backward, you looked at the sky, in an attempt to prevent your threatening tears from falling, or to throw a desperate call to the Heavens, you didn’t really know it yourself.

A muffled sound suddenly made its way to your ears. It looked like your involuntary prayer had been answered sooner than you would have expected.

It was the sound of hooves.

You snapped your head in the noise’s direction and noticed an approaching form on the road, raising a cloud of dust in its wake, coming towards you. Your only hope. You were praying, for real this time, that this upcoming stranger was a gentleman and not a bad man.

Praying, praying, praying.

Praying again as the man was at voice’s reach, and as you screamed and begged for help.

“M-Mister!” Your voice sounded even more pitiful than what you had planned, and a bit hoarse from the pain. Your ego protested, but screw it, he probably was your last chance. “Mister, please! I broke my leg! I can’t… I can’t…”

Apparently, shouting didn't seem to help the nausea. The more you were getting air out of your lungs by screaming the more your head was feeling dizzy.

Luckily for you, the lonely rider had heard your desperate breathless words and was heading towards you, stopping his horse in a skillful maneuver before dismounting, his two boots hitting the ground.

“What happen Ma’am, d’ya need some help?” He asked you, voice powerful and worried frown on his face.

“My horse got spooked by a damn snake and he ran away… Making me fall and I… I think my leg broke…” Your tone was pained and way weaker than his as you did your best to explain the situation, a single tear now streaming down your cheek.

The pain, the panic, the frustration from having a month’s worth of work destroyed in just mere seconds… You couldn’t hold it anymore.

Slowly approaching you, the man lowered himself in a crouching position to take a better look at you, and talk to you at the same eye level. His deep blue eyes studied your broken leg, surely not missing the disturbing, alarming color the bruises were taking, your skin an odd mix of purple and green now. It didn’t seem to disgust him though, his face stoic as he scanned your wound.

“Alright Miss jus’... Don’t move too much.” He advised you in a softer tone. You could see he was truly concerned about your state. “What’s with all this mess? You trynna make some soup or what?” He asked in a deep sarcastic tone, as if amused by his own words.

You drily chuckle, which revived the pain you were still feeling in your bone, making you cut your laugh and groan a bit, your own features contracting in a pained expression.

“It is… It was my crop… I was going to sell it in Valentine…” You explained once again, feeling shame and exasperation hitting you. You were feeling so angry from this waste, so angry at yourself to be the only one responsible for it, you couldn’t prevent more tears from falling, trying hard not to let yourself go into sobs.

“Ah, shit… I’m sorry for ya.” He exhaled, contemplating the scattered and mashed jelly-like matter composed of what was once your yield, pieces of peaches and broken carrots lying there, like on a battlefield. His gaze came back to yours, full of compassion and probably pity for your state, before continuing. “Don’t worry Miss. I’mma take you up to the Doc, in Valentine. ‘Was goin’ there anyway.”

You nodded in order to thank him, feeling so relieved life had put him on your way.

“Okay, I’m gonna help ya get on ma horse. It’s gonna hurt a little but we have to.” He warned you, getting completely down on his knees by your side.

You didn’t dare to move from one inch. He slowly wrapped an arm under your shoulders, his hand grabbing your side. Even more carefully, his other one slipped under your legs, and he gently lifted you up bridal-style, as if you weighed nothing, a fallen leaf in a gentle breeze.

As if he was carrying injured people all day every day.

Your broken member didn’t like it as much as you did though, and you hissed in pain from feeling your own weight pull on the wound as your leg was hanging in the air. He noticed, and spoke again while getting up, just as easily as if he wasn’t carrying an entire person in his arms right now.

“Gonna be okay Miss, hold on a lil’ longer.”

As if taking his words in a literal way, you encircled his waist with your arms and rested your head on his chest. His work shirt was used and dirty, rough against the skin of your cheek, but right now it just felt heavenly to you compared to the dusty rock of the floor. You sighed, feeling calmer and way better now.

If you had brought up your gaze, you could have seen how a slight blush was spreading on the tan skin of his cheeks the moment he felt you getting comfortable in his arms.

You heard him call for his horse with a short whistle and a sharp noise from his teeth. His mount obeyed right away, getting closer to both of you in a happy trot. You wish your horse could have been as gentle as this one. He looked like a really strong and powerful, but very sweet on the inside animal. A bit like its owner, now that you were thinking about it.

As carefully as if you were made of porcelain, the man in question let go of your legs, and you took support on your valid one. He then picked you up again, by your waist, and lifted you on the saddle, helping you to get settled and as comfortable as possible. His large hands were very soft on you, cautious, caring. You could feel how his touch was light and measured, calculated to make you feel the least pain possible.

“You take the saddle, else your leg would get too bumped during the ride.” He explained before hopping behind you, grabbing the reins by bringing his arms from both sides of you.

He was basically enveloping you, his large frame keeping you warm and steady. Against your shoulders, you could feel his biceps, and thanked the Lord once again this man had good intentions with you because there was no way you could have resisted this mountain of muscles.

The silence fell as your gentle savior spurred his horse into a slow pace, keeping him calm and cold-blooded. You mentally thank him for it, every movement from your leg, even the tiniest one, would ignite the flames of your pain again.

The ride to Valentine was a quiet, peaceful one, just like it was supposed to be from the start. Your eyes kept closing and opening as if you were on the verge of falling asleep, but still needed to be alert until you'd be safe and sound in town.

You only had exchanged a few words with the man, your names, and where you lived.

Arthur Morgan didn't look like the kind of man to have the longest conversations but his presence was reassuring nevertheless. His heavy breathing, his body around yours, the calmness of the plains… It was all making your pain less vivid and way more bearable.

Once in Valentine, Arthur rode straight to the Doctor, and got off first, tying his horse's reins around the fence.

“Here we are, Miss. Let's get ya checked up for good, shall we?” He said while standing right next to the saddle, opening his arms to pick you up again, a gentle smile on his face, as if telling you all your worries were behind you now.

If you thought this man was going to let you walk alone to the doc’s office and head off to his own business, you were damn wrong.

Even through your terrible state, a grin curled up your lips and mirrored his own expression. You let your tired and injured body sink into his solid one, and he carried you in his arms once again.

His scent ran through your nose as you breathed, traveling all the way down your veins to your lungs and everywhere in your body, enfolding you and your soul. It was a strong smell, not a delicate one like those gentlemen would carry with their cologne, but you liked it regardless. A mix of leather, sweat, tobacco, and this early dew scent, the one you can smell just before dawn, earthy and herbal, as if he had been sleeping under the stars for months.

The smell of the outdoors.

Arthur opened the door with one foot, and entered the Dr Calloway’s office with you in his arms, careful not to let your leg get knocked while walking through the door. The doctor took care of you right away, ordering Arthur to put you on the chair in the little room where patients were treated.

His muscled arms dropped you, his hands gentle and attentive, as slowly as if you were a newborn filly he could hurt or scare away by using too much force. There was such kindness, such gentleness and care in his gesture that it left you feeling all bubbly on the inside.

You kept on looking at him during all the time it took for Dr Calloway to treat you, waiting for him to just go, but he didn’t. He stayed, casually leaning his back against the wall to leave some space for the doctor, his eyes voyaging from your injury to your face, then away from you, as if he was feeling guilty about staring at you like this. It made you giggle.

You paid the doctor, thanked him goodbye, and before you could process it, here you were, freshly gifted with two crutches and a wooden splint around your injury in front of his door. Perfect. For a farmer family, a hurt worker was a curse.

“You gonna be okay now, Miss? D’ya need another ride home?”

Arthur’s deep voice dragged you out of your thoughts. This man was so special. He looked used, strong, and intimidating, but had been nothing but kind and delicate with you. Right now, his deep azure gaze was staring right at yours, making you feel even weaker in the knees than you already were.

“Oh, don’t worry, my family is already here. We have a wagon and all. Besides, you have done plenty for me, Mister Morgan.”

“Ah, don’t ya worry. 'Did what any man would have done seein’ a pretty lil’ lady like ya hurt on the ground.” He answered with a subtle grin.

Before you could realize it, his hand was reaching out for a strand of your hair, and his fingers brushed against it.

You froze, feeling a dark red settling on your cheeks, your eyes looking back at his in surprise and disbelief, searching for an explanation, even if your heart didn't want it. It wanted more of it, no questions asked.

“You hum… You still got some… pieces of peaches or somethin’ in your hair, Miss…” He explained himself, his voice a little less self-assured than before.

You blushed even more. You indeed must looked like a total mess after your accident, and mentally noted to go fix yourself as soon as possible.

“Oh, God I…” You started, feeling embarrassed and flustered, words mixing and blurring in your mind instead of lining up properly. You just sighed, closing your eyes, giggling a little. You then spoke again, keeping your tone as calm as you could. “Thanks again, Mister Morgan.”

“Please, jus’ call me Arthur.”

“Alright, Arthur. Thank you, for everything. I don’t know how I could thank you enough.”

“You know, maybe I could come someday, at your farm I mean, and buy some of your stuff. You could give me a rebate on those, unless everythin’ you sell actually looks like jam…” He added with a mischievous, low chuckle, gaze sparkling.

“Hey! My crops are perfect, Mister. I promise you won’t be disappointed.” You said back in an equally amused tone, a toothy smile completing the picture of your precious blushing face.

“I'm sure I won’t be, lil’ peach.”

His voice had turned just as soft as his touch had been when carrying you; for Arthur, you really were starting to become his sugary, soft, and delicious favorite fruit.

#I really need to calm myself when people request drabbles but I can't #I knoooow I SHOULD learn to restrict myself but eeeeh #I'm already quite restricted into my everyday life so I let myself get carried away when I write oopsie #arthur morgan #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x female reader #arthur morgan x you #arthur morgan fluff #request #pinefic

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gnocchibabie · 5 months ago

Text

Desire and Blood (Chapter 3)

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Targaryen/Strong OC (Jaenara Velaryon)

Tags: AU - canon divergence, enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, Targcest (uncle/niece)

Wordcount: 4.7k

Summary:

Against all odds, the love between childhood friends prevails and the Dance of Dragons is avoided.

However, peace comes at a cost. With the unexpected proposal of marriage between Alicent Hightower's son and Rhaenyra Targaryen's only daughter, can love truly blossom between sworn enemies? Or will Jaenara Velaryon be reduced to a mere pawn?

Love may yet arise where enmity once thrived, but Aemond's relentless pursuit of power threatens to shatter everything they hold dear, including each other.

A/N: You can find the previous chapters on my masterlist!

If you are liking this series, please consider showing some love on my AO3 posting of this fic :) thank you x

!!! This chapter contains dialogue in High Valyrian, which will be designated by bold and italics...enjoy :)

A week had slipped away since Jaenara and her family had settled into King’s Landing. She found herself passing time by discussing plans for the upcoming coronation with her mother or entertaining little Aegon and Viserys. Occasionally, she rode out on dragonback with Baela and Rhaena, savoring the freedom of the skies above. When she was up amongst the clouds, the princess forgot all about what her life had become down below. Sitting atop Aetherion, it was as if nothing else mattered.

Yet above all, Jaenara found herself occupied with a careful dance of avoidance whenever Aemond Targaryen crossed her path. She had escaped several close calls, ducking into unoccupied rooms whenever she saw the prince at the other side of a hallway. Jaenara had often wondered to herself if she could continue to keep up this game of cat and mouse well into their marriage, but the prospect of having to constantly hide from the man who was to be her husband did sadden her. Ever so slightly.

Currently, the princess found herself in the castle gardens walking shoulder to shoulder with Helaena. Jaenara had not had as much alone time with her aunt as she would have liked, and was eager to reconnect with the one member of the Targaryen-Hightowers she could actually stand to be around. Helaena seemed to be pleased with the company, though it was difficult for Jaenara to tell at times. Her aunt had always been a somewhat emotionally distant person, even when they were children.

“My mother tells me that the planning for Rhaenyra’s coronation is almost finished?” Helaena inquires.

Jaenara and Jacaerys had both been closely involved with the planning of their mother’s name day ceremony. The preparations had proven to be stressful, even now plaguing the princess’ mind. Temporary discomfort is a small price to pay for mother to sit the Iron Throne - Jaenara had told herself. Though, she could not say she felt the same way about the looming, permanent discomfort she would soon find herself in…

Rhaenyra had even tried to include Aegon in the ceremony planning as well. An offering for the position he had given up for his older sister. Though he had seemed less than interested, opting to disappear for hours at a time instead. Even now, Jaenara wondered where her uncle often took off to, leaving her sweet aunt and their children alone. She questioned if she would be condemned to such a fate as well - Aemond fluttering about doing gods know what while she was left to care for their babes alone. The princess decides it is best not to mull over such depressing possibilities that she may soon enough find herself in.

“Yes, her name day will be here before we know it - just a short week away. Though I find myself anxious about the festivities.” Jaenara finally responds.

“I understand,” Helena breathes, “I am not one for crowds either.”

“Well then we must stick together until the whole ordeal is over.” Jaenara reassures her aunt. And herself.

“I would gladly,” Helaena giggles, “Though when your wedding day arrives, my brother will stand at your side, not I."

Jaenara sighed - another formality she had been dreading heavily. She’d venture to guess that the moment her mother’s name day passes, planning for the wedding will begin immediately. The princess knew that her scarcity of interactions with Aemond would not last for much longer. Not if either of their mothers could help it.

Jaenara felt she had little to discuss with her betrothed. What else was there to say?

Helaena came to a halt, bending down to pick up a large, green beetle. Jaenara winced - she had never been one for bugs, save for the pretty butterflies she had often chased with her aunt in their youth. She watched as the beetle began to travel up Helaena’s arm. Jaenara found that Helaena looked serene, her blonde-white hair picked up by the breeze and a content smile on her lips. The princess decides to take advantage of the peaceful moment to ask her aunt a troubled question.

“What is it like? Being married, that is.” Jaenara’s face grows serious.

Helaena removes the beetle from her forearm with a gentle touch and places it on a leaf below.

“It doesn’t really feel like anything,” She says, though her aunt does not sound particularly bothered by the dreary thought, “Aegon does not pay me much mind. Save for the times we have…done our duty.”

Jaenara clears her throat awkwardly.

“So, I suppose it is not so bad. I am free to do as I please. As he is. Though I think Aemond will make a better lover.” Helaena finishes. Jaenara looks at her aunt as if she has three heads and scoffs. She looks back at the princess with a coy look on her face.

“What a terrifying thought.” Jaenara sounds defeated as the two women resume their walk. A calm silence passes over them once again, as does the gentle breeze.

Helaena looks as though someone is speaking to her and finds herself gazing up at the sky for a moment - and then to her niece.

She smiles, as if the clouds have told her a secret.

— — —

On the far side of the Red Keep, The One Eyed Prince begins to lay the groundwork of his plan to put his soon-to-be wife on the Iron Throne. Aemond has decided he must get in the good graces of his family - especially Jacaerys - if he is to carry out familicide without raising any suspicion that he had a hand in it. Something easier said than done, Aemond knows. Any amount of decency he could afford the heir and his brother would be met with scrutiny. A few kind words will not undo years of victimization dealt on both sides.

Aemond clenches his jaw as he searches for his nephews throughout the grounds of the Red Keep. Locating them had proven to be challenging, though not as much as finding their sister. Aemond knew that Jaenara had been purposefully avoiding him. One evening, he had even caught sight of her ducking into her mother’s chambers when he had turned a corner, entering the same hallway as her. Her elusion frustrated the prince. If he could not speak to the princess and build up a rapport with her, then she would assuredly be the first to point her finger at him when news of Jace’s murder came about.

Just when Aemond is about to give up entirely, he spots Jacaerys and Lucerys in the training yard, wooden swords in hand. Aemond lurks back for a moment, watching them practice their drills. Their moves are quick and calculated, proving that his nephews had become even more skilled fighters during their time away from the Red Keep. Though their moves had a certain unrefined quality to them. Aemond finally moves from his spot, drawing nearer to the princes. Lucerys spots him first and mumbles a curse under his breath, as hid older brother turns to meet Aemond’s eyes. Aemond smirks at the boys, and he can tell it takes all of Jace’s strength not to throw down his play sword and saunter off.

The prince stands tall over his nephews, to hide the uneasiness he feels about approaching them. He’s pulled his long, sleek hair into a bun. His own sword, a practice blade worn smooth from countless hours of swinging, hung loose at his side

The air is tense around the group and a short silence hangs over them. Clanking of wood and metal and grunts fills the yard as the princes all stare at each other.

Aemond finally clears his throat and breaks the quiet.

"You're both too cautious," he remarks in a voice that carries authority but also a hint of patience. "Don't overthink your strikes. Let them flow naturally. It's about instinct as much as it is about technique."

Jacaerys narrowed his eyes skeptically. "You must think of us as fools, uncle. Why would we listen to you? You do not practice the habit of fighting honorably - Luke and I’ve both seen that.”

And what would you know about fighting honorably? Aemond remarks to himself.

Where is the honor in gouging out a boy’s eye?

He inhales a deep breath to calm his rising frustration.

Lucerys, ever the more reserved of the two, held his ground but watched Aemond with a cautious curiosity.

Aemond knows he should not make the jest, but before he can stop himself, the words fall from his smug mouth.

“Fools? No - I only see two Strong boys before me.”

Both of the brother’s harden their gaze. This time, Jacaerys does take off, with Luke trailing behind.

Fuck.

“But!” Aemond is quick to add to his lecture, desperate to keep the boys where they are, “Honor in battle is not always as straightforward as the songs would have it. There are times when survival demands unconventional measures.”

“And how,” Jace has stopped and turned to face his uncle once more, “would you know anything of a real battle?”

“You forget I train with Ser Criston Cole.” “You forget we trained with Daemon Targaryen.”

Aemond chooses to bite back another remark about how - despite training with one of the realm’s most formidable soldiers, the brother’s still lacked the necessary knowledge and skills.

Instead, he walks back towards their place in the yard and motions for the Velaryons to follow him. Jace stares at him a moment, lets out an exaggerated huff and mutters, “Come on, Luke.”

At their return, Aemond demonstrates a quick feint, his movements precise. “You’re signaling your intent with your movements, Jacaerys. And Lucerys, you hesitate before every strike. Be bold, but calculated. Like this," he continued, demonstrating a fluid series of strikes and blocks. Luke, with a touch of reservation, takes up a fighting stance in front of his older brother.

Aemond nodded approvingly. "Let's try it again. And this time, don't hold back."

For the remainder of the afternoon, Aemond guided them through drills and techniques, offering pointers in between bouts. Slowly, the initial wariness between the boys and the Targaryen prince faded, replaced by a grudging respect for his skill and knowledge.

When the sun had begun to dip into the horizon, the three young heirs sheathed their swords. Aemond found a rare smile breaking through his usually stoic demeanor. He did not find any joy in the times he sparred with Aegon, which had been few and far between lately. His brother had no real interest in learning and bettering his skills. And Criston Cole was becoming predictable - through no fault of his own. Aemond simply had no one else to spar with that was anywhere near his level. He found unexpected fulfillment in teaching his nephews.

Jace finally deposits his wooden sword with the others in the training yard, Luke following suit.

With a huff and an expression that makes the prince seem physically pained he tells his uncle, “Well. That was rather…I did not think I’d ever see the day where you would give us any kind of genuine advice. Nevertheless, I am…grateful for your counsel uncle.”

“Yes. Thank you, Aemond.” Lucerys adds curtly.

Aemond gives them a nod as acknowledgment.

Naive fools.

With that, Jace and Luke begin their journey back into the Red Keep. Aemond watches the boys stride away side by side. He almost resigns himself to turning in for the day, when a thought suddenly enters his mind.

“Do you know where I might find your sister?” He calls after them.

Jace remains silent continuing his walk. Aemond rolls his eyes.

She has sworn them to secrecy.

Lucerys seems to take some sort of pity on his uncle after their shared afternoon - much to the dismay of Jace, “I think she spoke of spending time in the gardens…” the younger brother’s sentence trails off when he sees the look Jacaerys gives him.

Aemond nods gratefully, though no one sees it, and sets off towards the gardens, his mind already racing. He knew spending time with Jaenara was another crucial part of his plan he needed to begin sowing the seeds for. As much as she may detest it.

The believed that if he could convincingly pretend to be infatuated with his niece, to the extent that she truly believed his feelings were genuine, it might help divert suspicion away from him regarding her brother’s eventual murder. She may even come to defend him, when the time comes. Though this would prove to be a challenge.

“You can expect a union that does not harbor any illusions of love” Aemond’s own words from her first evening back at King’s Landing echoed in his mind.

Aemond lets out a frustrated groan and picks up his pace.

When he reaches the gardens, Aemond finds Jaenara and his sister seated on a weathered stone bench in deep discourse, while their ladies-in-waiting linger nearby, amusing themselves.

The distant laughter of the two maidens surprises Aemond and stirs a hint of a smile on his face. He couldn’t remember the last time his sister had laughed so freely. It was then, he realized, he had never heard Jaenara genuinely laugh. Everything she let out in his presence was nothing more that a scoff or dry laugh. This, he thought, was a nice change of pace. Happiness suited her.

I should leave them. Aemond’s resolve falters for a moment, and he pivots for a swift and silent retreat. Yet, his sister catches sight of him before he can vanish.

"Aemond!" Helaena's voice rings out, compelling him to sigh and reluctantly turn back to face them.

Helaena's eyes glint with mischief as she waves a hand, beckoning him over. Meanwhile, the fleeting smile on Jaenara's face vanishes, replaced by an indifferent gaze.

"Aemond," his sister greets again, her tone laced with curiosity. "Where have you been?"

"Just sparring with your brothers," Aemond replies, his gaze drifting towards Jaenara.

The surprise in Jaenara's eyes is evident and impossible to conceal.

"With Jace and Luke?" she questions, her voice tinged with disbelief. "You seem…unscathed. I trust the same can be said for my brothers?"

"It was just a training session - nothing if not civil. I only meant to give them a bit of advice," Aemond responds, a smirk playing upon his lips.

Helaena suddenly springs to her feet. "I don’t believe you two have had many opportunities to speak as of late. I will leave you to catch up" she suggests, a faraway look on her face. "I must attend to the children." Her lady-in-waiting follows closely behind as she departs.

Jaenara starts to rise, offering to assist, but Helaena insists she stay. Aemond can't help but conceal his amusement at Jaenara’s desperate state.

The princess exhales sharply and resumes her promenade through the gardens, without so much as a glance over her shoulder at Aemond. With a huff, he follows behind her, as her lady-in-waiting mirrors.

The prince wishes he could dismiss the attendant, wishing for a moment alone with Jaenara to speak without restraint.

He thinks of another solution.

Aemond peers down at his niece and lets High Valyrian fall freely from his lips.

“You have been avoiding me.”

Jaenara does not remove her eyes from the path in front of her.

“You have not sought me out.” She retorts, her tone cool and collected. Aemond lights up. He had not expected his niece to be fluent in their mother tongue, and hearing her voice enunciate the ancient words caused something unknown inside of him to stir.

“I am now,” he replies evenly, “ And I have to say, I had not expected you to be so fluent in Valyrian. Not even my brother speaks it so well. That idiot can barely piece together a single sentence.”

Jaenara laughs, “I am a Targaryen. Every Targaryen should speak their language. Understand their history.”

Aemond nods, “Something we can agree on, niece. Though I have to say, you speak it better than I thought a-”

“Then a bastard would?” Her words are laced with a bittersweet acknowledgment that catches Aemond off guard. His niece had never spoken the truth of her parentage in front of him - or anyone for that matter. In truth, Aemond found him unsettled from her acquiescence. Though he understood the only reason she dared to acknowledge the truth now, is because no one around them had a clue what she was saying.

“You’re not laughing, uncle. Very unlike you - you who never passes up an opportunity to remind me of my blood.” Jaenara still seemed unfazed, her attention drifting to a cluster of blue irises at their feet. She bends gracefully to touch the silky petals, and Aemond finds himself captivated by the way her dark hair spills like a cascade of black silk over the blossoms. He clears his throat.

“You are to be my…ābrazȳrys (wife). I no longer wish to humiliate you over things out of your control, such as your parentage.” Aemond’s voice is steady and controlled, betraying his inner turmoil over making such remarks.

Jaenara lets out a laugh, though it sounds hollow. Much unlike the laughter she had shared with his sister. Her lady-in-waiting shifts uncomfortably behind them. “Actions speak louder than words, Aemond.” The princess rises from her spot amongst the flowers, turning to face her betrothed.

Aemond is filled with a stubborn determination at hearing her challenge, and takes a few steps towards her - until he can feel his niece’s breath fan over him. He stares down at her, and finds that he enjoys how she does not shrink under his gaze.

“Pār nyke jāhor gaomagon.” - Then I will act.

Jaenara laughs again, but it is quickly put to an end.

“I do not know why you laugh, Jaenara. I am being sincere.” His gaze is hard.

She considers his words for a moment, and turns back to the garden path. The princess returns to the common tongue.

"Come along, it is growing darker," Jaenara says, her voice carrying a hint of finality as she resumes their journey along the garden path. Aemond follows silently, his mind still processing the weight of their conversation. The sun dips lower, casting long shadows across the estate grounds, while a cool evening breeze stirs the leaves of ancient trees. When the couple finally reach the stone archways and paths of the Red Keep, Aemond speaks up once more.

“You will have breakfast with me. Tomorrow” It is not a question, though his tone remains soft..

“I will?” Jaenara asks, an eyebrow raised in defiance.

“This is me taking action.” He offers her a wry smile.

Jaenara exhales and looks to her handmaiden, who skillfully avoids her gaze. “Fine. I will see you in the morning” She stomps off to her chambers, lady-in-waiting trailing behind. The princess does not get to see the small, honest smile that settles on Aemond’s lips.

— — —

Early the next morning, Jaenara awakes to a polite knock on her chamber door. Alora, her lady-in-waiting, entered cautiously, offering a sheepish greeting. "Good morning, Your Grace."

The princess rubbed her eyes wearily and yawned. "Good morning, Alora. And please, call me Jaenara when it is just us. No need for formality in the privacy of these chambers." she replied with a tired attempt at a smile.

"Oh! Yes, my lady—I mean, Jaenara," Alora stumbled over her words, feeling conflicted over addressing a princess so casually. "Um... Aemond - the prince - sent me to assist you with dressing. He wishes to have breakfast with you?" She sounds uncertain.

Jaenara sighed lightly and pushed herself to her feet. "Very well. Let's not keep him waiting," she said, giving Alora a reassuring glance.

Alora deftly combs out Jaenara's long, ebony hair, swiftly braiding half of it and letting the rest fall down her back. As the princess gradually awakened, she engaged in light conversation with the younger girl, easing her nerves.

With gentle assistance, Alora helped Jaenara into a splendid dress—its upper half a deep shade of black, its lower half a rich crimson. The sleeves were wrought with golden embroidery. Once satisfied with her handiwork, Alora guided Jaenara to the dining room, where Aemond awaited their arrival.

“Thank you, Alora. I think that will be all for now.” The princess smiles at her lady, dismissing her. Jaenara hesitantly pulls out a chair across from Aemond.

“Good morning.” She offers. An honest attempt at niceties.

Aemond hums, sounding pleased. “Good morning.”

It remains quiet for a while, as the two begin to serve themselves and take a few bites of the breakfast that has been prepared. The prince steals glances at his niece, observing how her dark curls frame her face. Watching her spoon her food gracefully. Noting how her dress clings to her.

At last, Aemond ventured to break the quiet. “That dress suits you well.”

The princess pauses her cutting of a sausage. Jaenara had not expected to hear that kind of comment so early in the morning. And no less from Aemond of all people. She narrows her eyes at him.

“What?” She asks, as if offended.

Aemond pauses, mid-bite. “I only meant it as a compliment. The Targaryen colors agree with you.”

Jaenara continues with her meal, deciding that pretending as though she had not heard her uncle was the best course of action.

Why did he say that? Does he mean to mock me?

The prince breaks the silence once more, wanting to change the subject. "I hear your mother's name day preparations have been finalized."

Jaenara swallows a mouthful of food and clears her throat. “Um…yes. I believe so. Everything should be in place by now. The ceremony will be in…five days? I believe.”

"My mother seems unusually eager for the occasion," Aemond remarked. "She and Rhaenyra have been quite chatty lately."

“You’ve noticed too?”

“It is hard not to.” Aemond admitted.

Jaenara shrugs, “True enough. Well, they seem happier anyway.”

Aemond only hums in agreement. “My mother, although…she seems to be even more excited about the wedding than the coronation ceremony.”

Jaenara sputtered on the ale served alongside their meal.

A smug grin spread across the prince's face.

“Oh? Is that so?” She asks as nonchalantly as she can.

“Oh yes,” Aemond sounds amused, “I hear her and Rhaenyra have taken to planning a few things.”

"What!?" Now Jaenara could not hide her surprise. Her outburst drew the attention of nearby servants, and Aemond grinned at her fluttering.

“Um - I only meant. I had not known they were already planning the ceremony.” She finished, dabbing a napkin to the corners of her mouth.

“Well someone has to. We certainly have not spoken about it.” Aemond remarks.

Jaenara almost feels guilty. She searches Aemond’s eyes for any indication of regret or sadness over their lack of time together.

“Well then…what would you like to discuss about it?” The princess makes an attempt to turn to the matter.

Aemond considers the question. “What kind of cake would you like?”

Jaenara lets out a true laugh at that, catching Aemond off guard.

“If I must tell you,” She says while catching her breath, “I am fond of lemon pastries.”

Aemond makes a noise of agreement. He recalls that her mother favors the sweets as well. “Then we shall have them.”

Jaenara looks up from her meal and the couple lock eyes. She stares intently into his, trying to decipher his unreadable expression.

What are you doing, uncle? She is left to wonder. Jaenara feels a crack begin to form in the walls she had put up to keep Aemond out. But the fracture is filled as quickly as it appears when she considers that Aemond is simply playing his part. Putting up a charade. The princess looks at the man before her, and can only seem to remember the cruelties that he has dealt. Her heart hardens.

"Why do you care?" she questioned, her tone accusatory. Despite their heartfelt conversation in the garden the day before, Jaenara only continued in her struggle to believe in her uncle's sincerity.

“Because I want to care.” Aemond is taken aback, though he makes an effort to sound earnest.

The princess scoffs and takes a swig of ale. She rises to her feet.

“I am full.” she declares, signaling an end to the meal and perhaps to their conversation. Jaenara stands and walks the length of the table, drawing near to the door but coming close to Aemond.

That strikes a chord within the prince, “You are about as stubborn as a damn mule,” he mutters under his breath.

The retort is not lost upon the princess’ ears. Jaenara spun around abruptly, facing her uncle where he was currently still seated. "Excuse me?" she exclaimed incredulously.

"Damn it," Aemond whispered to himself, closing his eyes briefly.

“And here I thought you were being truthful yesterday when you said you no longer meant to belittle me.” She bites.

Some unseen force compelled Aemond onward. He reached out and gently but firmly grasped his niece's wrist.

"I only meant..." He struggled to find the right words. "Gods, you're infuriating."

Jaenara felt a stirring within her at his touch, but she pushed the sensation aside, focusing instead on his words. "I’m infuriating?"

Now, Aemond raises his voice. “Yes! Infuriating. I am making a sincere effort to get to know you, and I am met with nothing but resistance. There is nothing we can do to change the marriage we will soon find ourselves in,” He rises from his chair, hand still gripped around Jaenara, “but I am making a sincere attempt to make it more bearable. For you.”

A part of Aemond understood that his words were primarily to uphold a facade, to maintain the illusion of feigned interest in his niece. Yet another part of him recognized sincerity in his sentiments. He couldn't help but feel pity for Jaenara. This thought had crossed his mind repeatedly—in the quiet of his chambers, in the stillness of the night, and even yesterday as he watched her depart from the estate gardens. She had undoubtedly drawn the short straw amidst their betrothal.

Jaenara Velaryon was being forced to marry Aemond, a scarred and flawed second son by his own reckoning. While Aemond had initially perceived the proposal of marriage to his own bastard niece as an insult, he couldn't deny the faint attraction he harbored towards her— a sentiment he was certain she did not reciprocate.

The princess regarded her uncle with a peculiar mix of curiosity and contemplation, allowing his words to sink in. Jaenara's relationship with her uncle had always been incredibly strained — tense. Yet, as she observed the furrow in his brow and the genuine anguish in his eyes, she sensed a truth in his earnest plea. She reflected on her initial hopes—that they might spend their lives avoiding each other, barely exchanging words. Yet, standing before him now, she reconsidered. If Aemond—of all people—could muster some semblance of kindness, however feigned, Jaenara resolved she could reciprocate. Even if it was nothing but a lie.

For in the convoluted dance of courtly alliances and familial expectations, sometimes even the semblance of civility could hold more weight than honesty in securing fragile peace.

With hesitant resolve, she reached out, gently clasping his hand in hers. Aemond feels goosebumps form on his skin from the additional contact.

"Aemond," she began quietly, meeting his gaze squarely. He makes an effort to memorize how his name sounds on her lips.

Gods be damned, he thought.

"I apologize. I hadn't fully appreciated your efforts. You are right. For this marriage to have any chance of contentment and peace, we must find common ground. We must make an effort to get to know each other."

The princess finished her apology, her words hanging in the air between them. All Aemond could manage in response was a silent nod, fearing that his mouth would betray him if he were to open it.

Jaenara withdrew her hand from his with a slight hesitation. "Well…I should be going. I intend to meet with my mother to discuss our impending wedding. There is much to plan," she added, her voice faltering slightly as she hurried out of the room.

Aemond stood there, taking a deep breath to calm his racing heart. He glanced down at the hand that had briefly held his niece's, flexing his fingers thoughtfully, a mixture of uncertainty and determination swirling within him.

A/N: As you may have noticed, this chapter is structured a little differently! I decided to make these changes for narrative purposes/so everything flows better. Because of this, I will be revising the previous two chapters, so the next chapter may take a little longer to come out (I also have a job interview coming up, so I will be doing a lot more than just brainstorming and writing now T-T) Anyways! As always, thank you for reading :)

Tags: @toodlesxcuddles

#hotd #house of the dragon #aemond targaryen #hotd aemond #aemond one eye #aemond targaryen fanfiction #aemond targaryen imagine #hotd fanfic #house of the dragon fanfiction #aemond targaryen x oc #aemond x oc

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undressrehearsal · 4 months ago

Text

right back where we started

summary: ellie is on tour as the opener for a popular band. she begrudgingly passes through the hometown that she had sworn she would never see again and runs into the one good thing she left behind.

tags: some sad stuff, ellie has daddy issues, mentions of alcohol, modern au, not rockstar ellie but that same kinda genre???, no smut in this one sorry this is all setting the scene, this is another shorter one 3.6k words

a/n: listen. I'm gonna level with yall. life's been fucking insane. it's been what 3 months since I posted something?? and it's because 1. my fiancée and I are buying a house 2. and planning a wedding 3. I work 45 hour weeks (at a job I hate so much omg) 4. I'm writing a book and 5. I'm preparing for a p major surgery (I go on tuesday)

so yeah, life's been insane. but I missed writing fics. I'm writing my book so I never stopped writing but writing a lil fun fic just hits different yk?

anyway enjoy and look forward to a few (I'm thinking 3?) parts of this

love yall. reply and lmk if you wanna be added to my tag list. also I'm posting this on my phone so the formatting might be fucked lmk

part 1

Ellie couldn’t remember the last time she had been in this city.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She could remember exactly the last time she had been in this city. She had watched it disappear in her mirror when she had driven her bike west three years ago in search of the horizon. She had hoped she would find something more once she got there - more than the dingy dorm room she had loosely called home and the classes that had made her eyes glaze over; something more than playing at the bar’s open mic nights, her guitar hard to hear over the noisy din of drunk students and drunker professors; something more than a future that had been planned for her by the time she was in high school.

Her dad had kicked her out after she dropped out, of course, but that was fine. She had planned to leave that night anyway; she had kept a packed bag hidden underneath her bed for months. She hadn’t seen him in three years, either, and she planned to keep it that way.

But when she woke up and saw the city outside the bus window, silhouetted against the rising sun, something in her chest rose to her throat and refused to be swallowed back down.

She hadn’t missed it - but as she looked down at her shaking hands, Ellie figured her body must not have gotten that memo.

The band she was traveling with were still sleeping; she could hear the singer snoring in her bunk, could see the bassist's leg sticking out into the aisle. She had never been a morning bird - back at her shitbox apartment, you'd rarely catch her up before noon - but something about being stuck on a bus for days made her restless. It was her first time touring - after three years of playing at open mics and taking small jobs singing at the senior center - and she wasn't used to feeling her own bed constantly shifting beneath her.

Which is how she always ended up pacing the length of the bus, tapping her fingers against her thighs as the confined world around her slept, waiting desperately for the driver to pull off to whatever venue they had booked. She wasn't sure what the band did before their shows in the evenings, but she didn't stick around long enough to ask. Maybe it was rude, but she couldn't force herself to hang out with the band who only chose her because their usual opener had “flaked” on them - which was how they described it when the opener couldn't travel with them for several months after their mother had just died.

So, yeah, Ellie couldn’t find it in herself to feel bad about it when she rushed off the bus as soon as it parked, not even sticking around to let the band know where she was going. They wouldn't care either way. Hell, they were probably so hungover they wouldn't wake up until their show started in several hours.

The driver - his name was Zachary (never Zach) and he was the only one who paid her any mind - helped Ellie hoist her bike down from the rack on the back of the bus. The band had teased her about bringing it, bitching about how it showed she didn't want to hang out with them. She had been tempted to tell them they were right, but she couldn't really risk losing the first real gig she’d gotten. She lifted the seat and dug her helmet out, waving to Zachary as he disappeared back into the bus to get his own well-deserved rest.

The purr of the bike was a familiar comfort beneath her. Lowering the visor of her helmet to block out the sun, she squinted at the streets sprawled before her. She realized, with dizzying familiarity, that she was in the next neighborhood over from her old apartment. Hell, she had watched a few shows at the venue she was playing at - something in her stomach clenched.

Fuck, she needed coffee.

With the wind cold against her bare arms, Ellie let the world fly by, the city waking up around her. Her phone remained snuggly in her bag; she didn't need directions here, the familiar streets leading her down well-worn paths, winding all the way back to a life that was no longer hers.

It was muscle memory that led her back to the coffee shop she had frequented as a student. She looked up at it, a glow around its worn brick from the rising sun, and something tightened in her chest. They had replaced the patio chairs - the old ones had been practically falling apart three years ago - but otherwise it hadn't changed.

Ellie cursed under her breath, swallowing around the foreign lump in her throat, and climbed off her bike. When she took the steps two at a time, it felt like somebody else had taken the wheel. It was a familiar stranger that opened the door.

The smell hit her first. They say that scent has the strongest tie to memory, and the smell of burnt coffee beans hit her like a punch. There had always been a sweetness underneath it, something she had never been able to place but thought might be honey? When she stepped up to the counter, she could even smell the milk they were steaming.

The barista - a young girl with faded pink hair tied up into space buns - looked up from her phone and said, in a voice teetering on the edge between cheerful and bored, “How’s it going?”

Ellie took her in briefly, noting the brown corduroy overalls and the star-shaped nose ring, and was comforted knowing that this place was just as queer as she had left it. She would bet money on the fact that if she peeked over the counter, this girl would be wearing beat up Docs. She was young enough to be a student - probably an English major, if she had to guess.

She always ordered the same thing - iced mocha with oat milk. She had never understood why her dad drank his coffee black.

The barista - her tag said Dianna She/Her/Hers - eyed her as she rang Ellie up, brows quirked. When she smiled, dimples caved her cheeks. “I haven’t seen you around before. Are you a student?”

Ellie fought the urge to groan - this girl was just trying to be friendly (and was probably trying to decide if Ellie’s flannel meant she was gay or was just a bad fashion choice), but the last thing she wanted to do after failing to sleep on a bus and waking up at the ass-crack of dawn was to make small talk.

Still, she smiled and said, “I used to be.”

She paid and stuffed the remainder of her cash into the tip jar. When Dianna thanked her, her cheeks were as pink as her hair. Ellie could feel her eyes lingering on her as she walked away, nodding awkwardly in thanks.

This place really hadn’t changed in three years. The coffee shop had a reputation of students writing all along the walls - over a decade ago, they had simply stopped trying to paint over it, so the walls were littered in signatures and drawings and claims of call this number for a good time. Scattered poetry was written along the edges of the windows, an incredibly detailed Sharpie drawing of a cat peeking over the top of the doorway. When she searched for it, she found that her own scrawled handwriting was still there, small letters where nobody would think to look, right underneath the thermostat: Find me where the sun sets east. Don’t forget me.

She swallowed the lump that threatened to choke her and stepped away. Her eyes stung from sleep deprivation and nothing more.

Ellie scanned the room and found that, to her annoyance, nearly every table was taken. Students huddled around notebooks and laptops, engrossed in their work or else on Netflix to avoid studying. Professors blinked wearily, clutching their own cups of coffee as though they were lifelines holding them to this realm. Ellie could see the spot she had frequented herself - a booth tucked by the window, where she could write her songs in a dingy notebook without anyone looking over her shoulder.

Now, there was a guy with his cheek pressed to the cold surface, snoring lightly.

Ellie jumped when Dianna called her name, holding out a cup so filled with coffee that it trickled over the side and down the glass. Ellie took it gingerly, holding it in careful fingers to not spill any more on the countertop.

Dianna held onto the cup for several seconds longer than necessary, her fingers - cold from the glass - lingering on Ellie's. When a crooked smile pulled at her lips, her brown eyes sparkled. There was a teasing tilt to her voice when she said, “I hope to see you around, Ellie.”

Ellie gave her what she hoped was a friendly smile - judging by the way Dianna’s cheeks bloomed pink, she must have succeeded - before turning away. She almost felt guilty for the relief she felt when she found there was no phone number left on her glass this time. She was never sure whether it was nicer to ghost somebody or to send a gentle rejection through text, and she did not have the energy for that decision.

She turned, searching for an empty seat to slouch in and try not to fall asleep into her coffee, when her eyes found you.

You hadn’t changed a bit.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true either. You had changed - anybody would in three years. You had changed your hair, and now you dressed differently than she remembered - you used to bitch so much about how you couldn’t dress how you wanted, and now, looking at you three years later, she was happy to see that you were finally dressing like all those pictures you had saved in your little Pinterest folder of “outfit inspo.”

Ellie could see the mark of three whole years, but truthfully, you hadn’t changed. You were slouched over a laptop, leaning way too close to the screen, and you still had that pinch between your brows when you concentrated, the one that she used to run her thumb over; she could still feel how soft your skin was beneath her fingers.

She should have ignored you - she should have gone to slump in a corner of the coffee shop like she had planned, trying not to fall asleep into her cup and pretending to not notice you even as her eyes kept cutting across the cafe to find you again. She should have pushed the memories away just like she had pushed away all of the other memories associated with this city - hell, she should have never come back to this city in the first place. There were too many memories here that she had spent three years, a thousand miles, and an ocean of whiskey running away from.

And yet Ellie found her feet carrying her over to your table of their own volition. She walked the tightrope between who she is and who she once was, chasing a memory of the only good thing she left behind.

You didn’t look up at her as she approached. You kept your head bowed over your laptop, your bottom lip stuck between your teeth. There was no reason for you to look up - Ellie could have been any nameless stranger coming to bother you when you were clearly just trying to work.

But Ellie had never been good at leaving well enough alone. Which is why she hesitated for only a moment before reaching out and tapping lightly on your shoulder. She had to bite back a laugh when you jumped, pulling your headphones from your ears and swiveling around to look up at her.

She’d be lying if she said her heart didn’t do an embarrassing acrobatic jump when you met her eyes. And she had always been a terrible liar.

“Hey,” Ellie said, trying her damnedest to keep her voice steady; she only somewhat succeeded. She cleared her throat, lowering her voice when she said, “Remember me?”

Satisfaction bloomed warm in her stomach when your eyes widened, taking in the sight of her. Truthfully, she must’ve looked like shit; she had had to take a disturbingly brief shower at the last rest stop - the water apparently didn’t get any warmer than antarctic - and she hadn’t looked in a mirror for a few days. She had forgotten to pack her brush, so her hair must have been standing up at odd angles. And God knew what the lack of sleep was doing to the ever-growing shadows under her eyes.

But none of this stopped you from running your eyes down her body, cheeks pink when you finally looked up to meet her eyes again. And Ellie couldn’t stop the slow smile that spread across her face, her own cheeks growing warm. It wasn’t intentional when her voice dropped another octave, nearly a murmur when she said, mostly to herself, “Yeah, you remember me.”

“Holy shit, Ellie?” You jumped to your feet, a smile pulling at your lips as you gripped her arm. The familiar shine in your eyes did something funny to her stomach that she was way too stubborn to name. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I was just, uh- just passing through town,” she found herself saying, rubbing at the back of her neck. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but explaining to you the actual reason she finally came back to this hell-hole town suddenly seemed daunting. “Wanted to check out some old haunts, I guess.”

And then you just… looked at her, for several long moments - long enough to make Ellie squirm. Your eyes bore into hers, searching for something that she had buried three years ago.

You jumped, and whatever spell that was floating between you broke when your phone buzzed from where it still sat on the table. You scooped it up and flashed an apologetic smile to the glaring student a few seats away. Swiping at the screen, you cursed under your breath:

“Fuck, I have to get to class.” You looked back up at her again, a question behind your eyes, and Ellie had never wished so hard that she could read minds. You hesitated for only a moment before saying, words rushed, “Do you want to walk with me?” Before Ellie could respond, you continued, picking up your cup and fiddling with the straw, “It feels like forever since I’ve seen you and I want to catch up. But you’re probably busy, so you don’t have to-”

“I’d love to,” she cut you off, trying to smother the smile that pulled at her pink cheeks. She failed drastically when you smiled back at her.

After asking for a to-go cup from Dianna - thankfully no number written on the plastic cup either, despite the way the barista eyed Ellie as she left - she followed you out the door and back into the blinding morning sun. The mid-October air bit at her cheeks, creeping under her flannel; the cold coffee in her hand made her fingers sting, but you were already walking away, so she grit her teeth and followed.

And it was like you both just fell back into place, aligning with each other as though that empty space had never existed. You were working towards your graduate degree, Ellie discovered, and were working as a TA to get through; the class you were heading to was the dreaded public speaking class that you taught around your own curriculum. You laughed as you talked about some ridiculous speech a student had recently presented, and Ellie had forgotten just how much she liked the sound until it was burying behind her ribs again.

Ellie didn't tell you exactly why she had come back. When she’d left, you had known she was chasing a dream - it was the main reason she had presented when she broke up with you. The idea of long distance was too hard - too complicated - and Ellie didn’t want anything tying her to this town.

Even so, her body still wanted to fall into old habits. She told you about her roommate and how, when Ellie had been up too late writing a new song or her roommate had had a late shift at the hospital, they would play truth or dare until they were too drunk to stay awake, and her fingers brushed against yours, muscle memory making her reach for you. Ellie told you how she had visited her sister, Sarah, while passing through Houston, and she wanted so badly to lace your fingers together. She wanted to wrap her arm around your waist - hell, she even wanted to grab your ass right where everyone could see, just like she used to. She tucked her free hand in her pocket.

“You still haven’t told me why you came back,” you said, coming to a stop in front of the Communications building - it was just as tall and ominous as Ellie remembered. Her stomach lurched at the site, remembering all the speeches she had to make in her own classes. She supposed Public Speaking wasn’t a useless class now, considering she didn't stutter when she had to speak in front of an audience now.

Ellie shrugged, dropping her cup into a trashcan without looking at you. “Like I said, I’m just passing through-”

“Bullshit,” you said, but there was no malice behind it. You tilted your head to meet her eyes and smiled at her, even as your eyes held something unreadable. “The Ellie I knew couldn’t wait to get out of this shithole - her words, not mine. She wouldn’t simply pass through - she would go out of her way to stay in the next town over. So,” you crossed your arms, “what changed?”

Before, if you had ever crossed your arms at her, Ellie would reach out and gently pull your arms away from your chest, pulling you into an embrace. She wanted nothing more than to pull you into her, instinct unaware of the three years and a thousand miles that had separated you. Instead, she leaned against the wall of the building, the brick biting into her back. “Nothing’s changed. Trust me, if it was up to me, I wouldn't be here.”

For only a second, your face twisted into something unreadable that pulled at Ellie's stomach. But you quickly schooled your expression, tilting your head, your smile soft. “Listen, I have to go - if I'm too late, these fuckers are just gonna try to skip. But we should meet up later - I want to catch up.” When Ellie opened her mouth to say you had been catching up, you continued, “Really catch up. I want you to tell me everything - it's been years, so we have a lot to cover.” You looked at your phone and cursed. “Look, my last class ends at 3:25. Meet me on the green after?” For good measure, you stuck out your bottom lip and added, “Please?”

Ellie had never been good at resisting that look - she had given into you so many times from that look alone. She had to bite back the sudden, stupid smile pulling at her cheeks, so she pressed her lips together and looked away. After three years, you still made her cheeks flush without trying.

“Okay,” was all she could say.

Without warning, you rushed forward, wrapping your arms around her neck briefly. Her hands hovered at your sides, unsure of where to go. Feeling your body pressed against her again - feeling the warm brush of your breath against her neck - short-circuited her brain, leaving her gasping on dry land.

Before she could figure out where to put her fucking hands, you murmured in her ear, “I really did miss you, Els,” and pulled away, just as quickly as you had come. Ellie's mouth hadn't even caught up to her brain by the time you were gone, the door closing softly behind you.

Later, after she had had a proper breakfast from McDonald's, she was still thinking about you. Seeing you again had opened up a bottle that she had sealed away, and the cork wouldn't fit back into it. Her fingers itched with the memory of your skin beneath them. When you had hugged her, she had smelled the shampoo that you apparently still used, and she remembered how it had felt to have your head on her chest, breathing you in as she pressed a kiss to the top of your head. And your lips next to her ear - that opened a whole subcategory of memories that she tried desperately to push away.

She was only here for the night. She lost count of how many times she had to remind herself.

Ellie was stopped at a red light, leaning her bike from one foot to the other, when she felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She glanced at the blinking crosswalk sign - twenty seconds, so she still had plenty of time before the light turned green - before fishing her phone out. She had to squint against the sun, straining to make out the screen. She nearly dropped the phone when she saw the familiar name popping up on her screen, fumbling to open the text.

There was a screenshot of an Instagram post from the venue she was going to play at. The band's name was in bold letters, stars pasted around a grainy picture of the group. And in small letters underneath - like an afterthought - was her name: Ellie Miller.

And underneath, in all caps:

YOU'RE PLAYING AT THE HAWTHORNE?????

Her face flushed all over again. After all these years, you had still kept her number.

tag list: @macaroni676 @ellstronaut @elliewilliamsmiller0 @elliescoolerwife @letsreadsomesins-shallwe @liliflowers-blog @filtered-sunlight

#ellie williams #ellie tlou #ellie the last of us #ellie x reader #ellie x fem reader #ellie x you #ellie tlou2 #ellie the last of us 2 #ellie miller #the last of us #tlou #tlou fanfiction #tlou2 #the last of us fanfiction #ill have to add this to my masterlist when i get back to my computer in a few days

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frickingnerd · 1 year ago

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dearly despised soulmate

pairing: katsuki bakugou x gn!reader

summary: you never wanted a soulmate, trying your hardest to keep it a secret that you're katsuki's soulmate. but he eventually finds out that you're the one he's been looking for all this time…

tags: soulmate au (soulmates first words are written on your body), reader doesn't want a soulmate (but bakugou does), injured katsuki & reader, fighting a villain together, angst with an open ending, soulmate reveal, emotional!bakugou, protective!reader

you didn't want a soulmate.

especially not katsuki bakugou!

while everyone had always looked forward to meeting their soulmate, you had always dreaded the moment you'd meet yours. his first words were engraved on your skin and while most people had something like a simple "hello" or a compliment they'd receive from their soulmate like "woah, you're beautiful!" the first words your soulmate would say to you weren't nearly as pretty:

"get out of my way, loser!"

you never looked forward to meeting the one who'd say those words to you and had sworn to yourself that if you knew who your soulmate was, you'd stay as far away as possible from him!

though on the day you met katsuki bakugou, you realized that would be hard to pull off, since your soulmate was your classmate. and not just that, since living together in the dorms, you two crossed paths quite often.

despite that, you tried your best to ignore katsuki. you refused to talk to him, no matter the situation. even when he asked you something, you'd turn away or let someone else do the talking for you.

and for quite a while, it worked. katsuki tried to get you to talk to him time and time again, but never quite realized why you were ignoring him. he even got as far as making the connection that he called you a loser the first time he spoke to you, but never realized that there might be more to it.

he never even considered that you were his soulmate. because his soulmate was someone sweet and caring, someone he looked forward to meeting one day. at least, that's what the words engraved on his skin made him believe:

"let me protect you this time!"

katsuki was always the strongest, always the one to save and protect the people around him. but the thought of someone doing the same for him… he should hate it, but he longed to have someone who would stand up for him and have his back.

the day katsuki found out you were his soulmate was the day he almost lost you too.

class 1A was split into groups, sent out to help ambush a group of villains. katsuki rushed in like always, but this time things went horribly wrong, as he ran right into one of their traps and got himself injured.

you had rushed after him, knowing he'd do something reckless like that. but with katsuki injured and the two of you split up from the group, you were the only one who could protect the two of you, while you had to wait for backup that might never come…

and that's when you turned to katsuki and said those words he's been longing to hear all this time:

"let me protect you this time!"

you flashed him a smile, trying to assure the injured boy that you had what it takes to defeat those villains. and you really did defeat them! though not without getting severly injured yourself.

as you dealt the final blow, the last adrenalin in your body wore off and you finally collapsed in pain. with the last of your strength, you desperately crawled towards katsuki, who had his hand reached out towards you.

"s-see…? i… protected you…"

your voice was shaky. speaking was exhausting and you barely had the strength to do so. it broke katsuki's heart to see you like this.

"dumbass…" he huffed, trying to hold back tears from seeing you like this. "you never had anything to prove to me…"

he inched closer, reaching out his hand towards you. he could almost touch your hand. almost.

"i thought that… i'm a loser…"

you mumbled out, with a faint hint of a smile on your lips. katsuki wasn't sure if you were trying to tease him or if his words had really hurt you that much.

"you're not a loser… you're my soulmate! you're the most amazing person out there…"

katsuki continued to crawl towards you, before he finally collapsed. he was too weak to move. he had almost reached you, but he couldn't hold you yet. oh how he longed to hold you right now…

"you should've… told me that sooner…"

you slowly reached out your hand towards him and bakugou did the same. just a few inches. a few centimeters. your hand almost reached each other. but almost wasn't enough.

"i think that… it's too late now…"

katsuki's eyes widened at your words. he raised his head with what little strength he had left.

"what do you mean?"

but he got no answer.

"h-hey… what do you mean by that?"

still, no answer.

"damn it, dumbass! answer me!"

tears began rolling down his cheeks. despite begging you to answer, he knew you wouldn't.

"please…" katsuki sobbed quietly. "i just found you… i can't lose you already!"

but no matter what he said, his words didn't reach you. you were right. he should've told you sooner. if only he had known sooner...

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ventisnumberone · 5 months ago

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ੈ✩‧₊˚ You can service me..in a different way.. ੈ

Tartaglia x Maid! Reader

Synopsis: Your a maid who works at one of the hotels of Liyue, your job is usually pretty boring but there’s rumors of a strong, handsome and dangerous Fatui Harbinger staying in the nicest suite of the hotel.

(lowercase intended 🤬)

Tags: modernish au! this is gonna be 𝓕𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓚𝓨. afab reader, dub-con i think?, impact play, praise, degrading, semi-public(?), pussy eating, fingering, breeding, claiming, lowkey blackmailing,squirting, you call him sir, childe is a degenerate 😒, reader is lowkey a bimbo, one misogynist, picture taking with out permission, prostitution if you wanna call it that i guess?

ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩

You were just a simple little maid with a simple life cleaning up after people paying high amounts of money to stay in Liyue’s number one hotel. Who knew rich people were so dirty? You have to put with these snobs bullshit everyday without blowing a fuse. You just smile and do what your asked no matter how frustrating it is, and it is. Always dealing with gross old men commenting on your cliche maid outfit, and how fitting it is they put a woman like you for the job of cleaning up after them. the only joy you get out of this job is hearing about the vast range of people who check into the hotel. it can go from a dilf on vacation who all your other hotel staff friends are thirsting over to those gross ‘creepy serial killer’ vibe people. However today there was talk about a person who rented out the most expensive suite, the staff has suspected this mystery man is a harbinger for the fatui. You scoff at the thought of a crazed murderer staying at your place of work. You didn’t want to believe this guy was actually that dangerous and capable of doing such heinous crimes but you kept an open mind. Two days passed of the mystery man checking in had gone by and rumors were spreading faster and faster. People have been saying he smells like blood and are scared to service his room. In the break room the maids are gossiping about how attractive he is but are too afraid to clean his room. your ears perked up at their conversation, it was still early in the morning so you had been sipping on some tea and browsing a newspaper sitting on the sofa in the room. Three maids were shamelessly talking about this poor man when you had enough and butt in saying, “y’know if you guys want me too i can go up to his floor and just clean his room if you guys don’t want to? i don’t mind at all.” you say nonchalantly. they share a look before they nod giving you a slightly concerned look. ‘What’s the big deal? why are they making such a fuss about this guy..? they are saying how hot he is one second and then the next how scary he is..’ you think mentally rolling your eyes. a few minutes pass and your done with your coffee and you go to grab a cleaning cart and make your way to the elevator. As you climb up the floors anxiety starts to set in. ‘why am i getting nervous he’s just a normal guy…everyone is just freaking out…calm down y/n…’ you think while slightly chewing on your bottom lip subconsciously.

you finally reach the top floor of the hotel and the elevator doors open, you push your cart to the end of the hallway. you realize there’s only 1 occupied room on this floor so that must be his. you reach the door of the man’s room and you notice their isn’t a card on the door saying no to cleaning service so you unlock the door with your key. you gingerly push the door open and see a tall, muscular ginger staring at you. “oh-! sorry-! i didn’t know anyone was in here-! so sorry..” you stammer as your cheeks flush. you didn’t expect the man everyone was talking about to be so…hot? you go to leave but the man speaks up. “you don’t have to leave you know..you can clean or whatever i just am doing work..so i really don’t mind.” he says a slight smile tugging at his lips. you could have sworn he looks you up and down. “uh..okay? as long as you don’t mind..i’ll be quick.” you say pulling your cart into the room. you begin cleaning and the man begins to fill out papers. you start sweeping the floor and emptying trash cans. you’ve only cleaned a room with a guest present once before so this was a pretty awkward situation. you bent down slightly to grab a bit of trash off of the floor unintentionally giving the man a full view of your white lacey panties. the man looks over at you and blushes slightly. Unknowingly you continue cleaning. you start to make the bed when you look over at the man who’s physique looks so good from the back. unfortunately your staring at him for a little too long and he notices and turns around to look at you. “you know…it’s rude to stare dear..” he says with a faux pout. “oh-! n-no i wasn’t trying to- i was just spacing out-!” you say with a stutter trying to justify your actions. the man gets up from the desk and walks over to you and tilts your chin up with his hand to make you look up at him. you look up at through your eyelashes and a blush dusts your cheeks. “i see you bending over for me dear, your not very slick…how about you remove those pretty panties of yours for me? hmm?” he says with a smirk. “wh-what-? i can’t do that-!” you say taken aback by his words and charisma. you consider it, but just show him a shocked expression. “hmm..no fun..how about this? what if i give you an extra ‘tip’..if you do this for me, how does that sound?” he says winking. your mouth falls open slightly and you glance down to his crotch to reveal a tent in his trousers. “oh what a dirty mind you have…i wasn’t talking about that kind of tip..but if you want that i can have that arranged.” he says pulling out a leather wallet and pulling out a large sum of mora. “sir…i can’t take your money..i will admit you are very handsome but this goes against our policy..” you say bitting on your bottom lip nervously. “i won’t tell if you won’t girlie…” he says with that same devilish smirk. “fine…but i could get into serious trouble for this-!” you say before grabbing the mora from him and skidding your panties off your hips and balling them up in your hands. the man holds his hand out gesturing you to give them to him so you comply. you’ve never been with a guy with this much dominance and overall confidence. “you can continue cleaning…i’ll just be here watching…” he says look at you admiring your curves. you go over to the bed to finish making it, you feel the cold wind from the ac graze your bare pussy and you whine a little at the feeling of being so exposed. you can’t help but feel your core tighten around nothing as you think about what this guy will do to you in the awaiting moments.

you finish making the bed and you notice the man get up from the chair he’s sitting in. he walks over towards you and grabs your hips from behind and bends over to whisper in your ear. “y’know girlie…your really starting to turn me on…and i can see you getting wetter by the second..how about i do you a favor and make your cute little pussy feel good? would you like that?” he says, his hot breath tickling your ear. “y-yes sir-” you say before he roughly flips you on your back and spreads your thighs apart lifting your dress a bit to reveal your glistening cunt on display. he dips one of his long fingers into your hole earning a whimper from you. he leans his head into your cunt to lick a long stripe on your pussy, he adds a second finger into your hole and gives your clit a kiss. he wraps his lips around your little bud and sucks on it lapping his tongue on it. your thighs are wrapping around his head and your tugging at his gorgeous ginger hair. your squirming and moaning out for him. he lifts his head up removing his lips from your clit to deliver a harsh smack to your thigh. “stop squirming so much.” he says glaring at you. you stop moving around and pout. he gives his attention back to your pussy. he curls his fingers inside you hitting that spot inside of you that makes you scream. you haven’t had that spot hit before, this guy is an expert. you start babbling nonsense, your head feels foggy and you scream feeling your release approaching. “s-sir-! i’m gonna-! agh fuck~!” you moan out. “there you go baby…cum on my fingers…” he coos with that signature smirk. your vision goes white as your release hits you like a truck, you squirt for the first time and drool runs down your chin. you have a death grip on the sheets of the used to be made bed. you pant as your vision restores. you chest heaves as you look at the ginger between your legs. “ahh..i’m sorry-! didn’t mean to do that…” you pant. “it’s all good girlie…you taste delicious by the way..such a good girl.” he says sitting up. “now i think it’s your turn to service me huh?” he unbuttons his shirt, and takes off his belt and sliding his trousers down. you remove your dress following his lead. your sitting up on the bed admiring his physique. “ tsk tsk..girlie you know it’s rude to stare…how about we do something about your naughty behavior..yeah?” he says before flipping you over on the bed so your on your stomach and face is buried into the pillows. you feel him unclip your bra and pull it off you before he pulls his boxers down. “are you ready girlie?” you feel his tip brush your folds. “y-yes…s-sir..” you mutter. you feel his large cock enter you and you gasp. you didn’t know he was this big. he pushes the rest of his length into your hole. he waits a second before beginning to move letting you get adjusted to his length. a few seconds pass before he slowly starts thrusting. he grabs your hips to steady himself.

“oh my- god- sweetie your so tight..!” he groans. “if i didn’t know any better i would think your a virgin…fuck-! but- hah~ then again your still so slutty~ so..you can’t be one~..” he groans as he thrusts faster into you. you can’t help but moan at his harsh words. “i can feel you clenching your cunt on my cock~ slut~!” he teases. he continues to fuck you hard. his cock hitting your g-spot making you scream. “ah..fuck girlie i’m gonna-” he says before cumming deep inside you. “s-sir-! i’m gonna c-cum-” you scream. “call me tartaglia slut.” he says rubbing your clit. you heart sinks at the name. the rumors were true. your being fucked by a fatui harbinger. “what’s the matter? finally figure out who i am? hm?” he says pinching your clit. “tar-tartaglia~! oh my fuck-!” you squeeze your eyes tight before cumming around his cock. your a cock drunk babbling mess, drool dripping down your chin. staining the pillows, your hair is messy and your too fucked out to care you just got railed by a murderer. “cmon let’s get you cleaned up..and by the way..i took pictures of you so if you dare tell anyone about my identity i will leak this to your boss.” his casual tone sent shivers down your spine. but you knew this wasn’t going to be your last time seeing him.

“by the way i’m keeping your panties.”

ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩

this lowkey kinda sucks but i wanted to post smth hope you liked it 💋💋💋

#smut #genshin smut #tartagalia smut #tartaglia x reader smut #tartaglia #childe x female reader #childe x reader

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twignotstick · 7 months ago

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Flowers for Venus

She's here~ 🩵

Note: This story is based on @cupcakeslushie 's Empyrean Weeping au. These characters are not my own, and this story is in no way canon to the main story. I really made a lot of assumptions here, so this must be emphasized.

Tags: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, ROTTMNT, Venus de Milo (TMNT), NOT MY CHARACTERS, Empyrean Weeping AU, experimentation, mental issues, perspective shifting, intentionally written to be confusing or leave out information at times, they are all family your honor

Warnings (if there's anything I should add here, tell me please!): childhood trauma, abandonment issues, physical violence, repeated mentions of medical(?) procedures

Words: 6,472 ��

Summary: Venus had one person in her life, and that was what mattered. Until she didn't.

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

“I'm going to fix your body.”

The young turtle gazed up into the glass chamber before him, observing the mangled, underdeveloped, and weak body within. The vitals displayed around it were at acceptable levels; nowhere near as good as needed to survive out of the chamber, but acceptable considering the circumstances.

Not acceptable to the young turtle in front of it.

“You should be out here, learning with me. Being my sister. So I'm going to fix you.”

The turtle within the chamber did not stir- only breathed, as blood was forcefully pumped through its nonfunctional veins.

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

“Huginn and Muninn helped me find more books to help you!”

Three- he had realized that the body in the chamber may not yet know his name, and so he introduced himself not long ago- bounced on the balls of his feet. He had one book clutched close to his chest, with others strewn about the workspace he had made around the chamber.

“Yokai biologists have very interesting methods! I plan on attempting some of them soon- Pops said he is going to get me some more materials before I try. He said that Witch Town will probably have what I need. The fusion of biology and mysticism is incredible! Oh! Oh! And!”

He dropped the book that he was holding on the floor carelessly, tripping over his own feet as he ran over to a table to show the body's closed eyes another. This one was thicker.

“Muninn says that this one was written by a human! ‘Mary Shelley’. It's called ‘Frankenstein’. I believe that's a name too- the surname of the main character. I haven't read it yet, because I haven't had time to. However, maybe with your improved cognitive function as of recently, it could be beneficial for me to read it to you!”

Three got no response, but he could have sworn that a part of the body's brain scan spiked.

“I can't start now. I have to finish my work on the developmental errors in your lower arm, but as soon as I finish that and find what I need to find, I'll start! I'm really curious about human literature.”

Three got to work, as the mind within the chamber grew curious.

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

She didn't quite know what time it was, but she knew what was supposed to happen at this time. The voice was supposed to make noises in the room- Three, that was his name- and he was supposed to talk to her. Her? She thought that sounded right.

Three had told her about pronouns. He had said that since she was biologically female, it was assumed that she would go by she and her. Just like he was male, and went by he and him.

He had said that her name was Five.

Even so, Three liked calling her Vee, justifying it with the reason that they “matched”. Five didn't quite understand where the name came from; perhaps how her name was spelled? F-I-V-E, that was what Three had told her. T-H-R-E-E, that was his. But he spelled Vee as V-E-E. Maybe that's why they matched. Both had two E's in their name.

Their names were numbers too. One, two, three, four, five. She wondered why she was Five, and he was Three. Where were One, Two, and Four? Were they there, but she couldn't hear them? Was Pops another name for One? Pops and One weren't anything alike. She wished she could ask all the questions she had in her mind.

She wished she could see. Maybe that would explain why Three hadn't spoken yet.

Just when she was starting to believe that he may not speak to her this time, Three made noise. She couldn't see, but he stumbled through the door and sat down in a chair near her with a smile on his face. He looked at her, she could feel it.

“I'm sorry I'm home late, Vee. I met a new friend today! But don't tell Pops. He's a human.”

Five knew that word. Weren't those bad?

“Timothy isn't like other humans, though. He's nice! He showed me some insects and told me their names. Surface bugs are very different from normal ones! I think I might ask Huginn and Muninn to retrieve me some books on surface entomology. I can tell them that it's biological research.”

Entomology. That's a big word. What does that mean?

“Entomology means the study of insects, by the way. It's a very interesting branch of science. Timothy said he has books that tell him the names of different insects at his house. Oh, and a house is where humans usually live. Not a lab, like we live in. Or… a glass chamber, like you live in! Though, technically your chamber is within the lab.”

The lab. She wondered what the lab looked like.

“I think that I may be able to replace your eyes soon. I've been developing a prototype, hopefully it shouldn't take me too long to finish! From there, I just have to work really hard to get your other physical errors fixed, and then you can come out here! Maybe I can even bring you to meet Timothy!”

Timothy. That was a nice name. Not as good as Three or Vee, though. They matched. Though, maybe Timothy matched too. She didn't know how to spell Timothy yet.

Maybe they could match anyway.

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

Three stumbled in today. Vee couldn't see it, of course, but Three had tripped, holding in tears. His chest just wouldn't stop hurting. Pops had said he could walk it off, so that is what he tried to do.

He couldn't walk much longer, falling to the floor in front of Vee's chamber. She enjoyed hearing the sound of his breathing, but she never liked it when he breathed this heavily. That meant he was hurt and crying. That meant Pops had done an experiment or a test. That meant Three didn't have the power to work on her body. He would always apologize for that. Of course, that never stopped him. She always heard him working.

“...V-Vee…”

That is her name. He loves to remind her of that.

“M-maybe…” Three gasped deeply, holding the breath for longer than he should before slowly releasing it. “Maybe if… I finish you… he w-won't do this to m-me anymo-ore…”

Vee couldn't feel his eyes on her. Until she could.

“I've shown him y-your guts alr-ready, though… maybe he won't won't w-want to v-vi…vivi…”

That's not how he's supposed to say her name. It's Vee.

“...Vee? Vee~”

That's right.

“Veeveeveevee…”

Is that right?

The mumbling of her name faded away, turning into slow rasping breaths.

She didn't want him to be hurt and crying anymore.

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

“I want to make you as strong as One is. Or, at least, he should be. I haven't met One. Or Two. Or Four. But Pops says that it's impossible for you to be that strong. You're a box turtle, designed for defense. Anyhow, it's more important that I develop your muscle mass enough for you to stand independently first.”

Vee wondered what One, Two, and Four sounded like. Maybe their voices were jumpy and squeaky like Three's was now. Maybe they were sweet, like his was before. She wondered what Pops sounded like.

“Four is a box turtle like you. He developed properly, but don't feel bad! He got stolen away, so really, he got the short end of the stick! You're living the life of luxury.”

So many types of turtle. Did that mean they couldn't match anymore?

“I showed Timothy some sketches of my work with you. He got this really weird look on his face, and I thought he might not believe that I could fix you. But, he promised that he did believe in me! And he said he can't wait to meet you!”

Surely, he was just jealous of Three's hard work.

“I'm still working on your eyes. They're causing me more problems than I thought they would, but I think I'm getting closer to a functional product! It's just taking a while to find a good base that can survive the transfer.”

Eyes. One more sense. He taught her the five: touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing. She had hearing- or at least, she believed she did. She didn't know what else this could be. To have two senses would be marvelous.

Three's voice went away, leaving a rubbing sound. He had told her what that was. It meant he was “rubbing his hands together”. It was a “nervous habit”.

“Pops told me… he told me that talking to you was ‘fueling my delusion’. I know that, logically, you're comatose. Your body isn't supposed to work right now, for the sake of your life.”

That made sense. She was hurt. Three said that if she came out of her coma as she was now, she would die. Dying wasn't a good thing.

“But I really want you to hear me. Even subconsciously. So- so that way, when you do wake up, we'll already be friends! A-and you'll already know so much about me, so I just need to know about you!”

That sounded nice. Vee wanted to tell him about herself. Maybe she'd know just what that meant by the time she got the chance.

“I promise I'm going to fix you soon. It'll be no problem!”

Vee liked that.

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

Three was hurt and crying again. But this time, he didn't come to collapse by her chamber. He was far away, in the workspace. Vee didn't want him to be hurt and crying anymore. Three had said that hurt could mean dying. Three couldn't die yet. Vee still had to tell him everything about herself.

He wasn't even saying her name this time. He was saying the human's. He was hard to hear, so quiet, so far.

Timothy.

I'm sorry, Timothy.

What does that mean?

I'm so, so sorry.

What does that mean, Three?

Please, Tim.

Three?

Please forgive me.

I'm sorry.

I'm so, so sorry.

Three?

Three, please. She wants to understand. She wants to know you.

I want to know you. Talk to me, please. Tell me everything. Tell me about Mary Shelley. Tell me about entomology. Tell me about One. Tell me about Two. Tell me about Four. Tell me about Pops. Tell me what you're working on. Tell me how you want me to be better already so I can hold your hand and talk back. Let me hold your hand.

Tell me what's wrong.

“---ee? Vee, I'm ---y, I'm here, plea--- calm down. I'm here, please. Do I need- do I need to sedate her? I-”

He's not crying anymore. He's talking to her.

“Vee? Five?”

That's right.

“Should I read to you? W-Would you like that?”

She would.

“P-progress report 13. May 23rd. It happened today. Algernon bit me.”

Flowers for Algernon. Surface literature. Of course he would read surface literature now. He was just thinking of Timothy.

Every time Three would read this specific story to her, he would explain that the first few progress reports were intentionally written with poor spelling and grammar. He would spend the whole time explaining the correct way to write the sentences, up until the writing became legible. Then, when the writing returned to its sorry state, he would resume his corrections.

“I visited the lab to see him as I do occasionally, and when I took him out of his cage, he snapped at my hand.”

Vee knew the end of this story.

“I put him back and watched him for a while. He was unusually disturbed and vicious.”

It never ended nicely. They always had to die.

“May 24th. Burt, who is in charge of the experimental animals, tells me that Algernon is changing.”

She didn't want anyone else to die.

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

Something was different. Where once there was a lack of anything, now there was something. Something Vee didn't have the knowledge to understand just yet. She couldn't understand light. She couldn't understand color. Now, it was right in front of her.

A blur of a color she didn't know the name of, green, with a dash of another, purple. Three's voice came from it.

“Eyelids are open. Should be working. Just one last test-”

Three grabbed a small blur- a silver flashlight- and shined it into her eyes. Her muscles instinctively tried to close her eyelids, but there just wasn't enough power behind it. They stayed open enough for Three to see the pupils constrict.

“Yes. Yes! YES! They work! Yes!”

Three sounded happy. That was good. Maybe he looked happy, too. Vee didn't know what happy looked like yet.

“...I have to show Pops. I have to show Pops! Wait! Stay right there!”

Three left the room, and Vee thought deeply. “They work”. Three had said that her eyes “didn't work yet” before. So that must mean that they work now. That meant that she was seeing. This was what she had been looking forward to ever since Three had attempted to explain the abstract concept of seeing.

This was it.

Those colors. The nameless ones that she didn't know- the ones she didn't even know how to identify as colors- that was Three. That was the face of the voice who had been her only comfort for all of time. That was the face of the person she wanted to comfort. The voice that she heard crying and hurting. The person she wanted to hold the hand of.

The door to the room opened again, and Three returned with a taller figure. Vee had never heard him before, she was sure of that when he got close for her to hear his breathing. Maybe she could have seen him before. He was tall, and covered with new colors. She couldn't name them, but they were gold, blue, and magenta.

“Look! Look! Her eyes are functional now! They constrict and dilate! Watch!”

Three held the light to her eyes once more, and her pupils shrank again.

The new voice only grunted.

“She's so close to completion now! Th-there are only a few more developmental errors, and she just needs a little more muscle mass-”

The tall figure lashed out at Three, as another color, magenta and pink, writhing, latched around Three's throat. He was held off the floor, just a few feet. His happy breathing stopped.

“You have obsessed over this project for too long. Your progress has been agonizingly slow, and this is what you have to show for it?”

A new voice. Deeper. More menacing.

Pops.

Three gasped for air, trying to respond.

“I suppose I must also involve myself. Your inefficiency up to this point will not be forgotten.”

The writhing mass slammed Three into the floor as the tall figure walked away, shutting the door behind himself.

Three heaved shaky breaths from his spot in front of Vee's chamber. He almost sounded like he was crying and hurting.

Was this what crying and hurting looked like? Curling over yourself? Was that what she was doing? She was supposed to be hurting. She didn't think she was crying, though. Could you hurt and not cry?

Could you cry and not hurt?

Three moved onto his knees, placing one hand on the glass. His face looked different, as if the light reflected off of it differently. His eyes looked at her. For the first time, she could feel and see it.

“I'm going to get you out soon. Then… then you can be here with me. And Pops will be proud. And I'll have you, my sister. Forever, and ever, and ever. And no one will take you from me.”

Three smiled, leaning against the glass and falling asleep.

That sounded nice.

-----------🕷️-----------

“What is this?”

Vee stood over Three at his workbench, looking down at the sketch he was working on. It looked familiar, like other ones he had made, but the notes around the margins were different.

“Oh, it's another collar for Big Mama. She has someone joining the Nexus who has some immunity to electricity, so I have to work on an alternative design…”

“How does it work?”

Three looked up at Vee as she smiled softly. She loved doing this. Getting him talking about the things he knew about.

“Okay, well, since the regular electric shock won't result in what we're going for, I have to find another method of keeping the fighter in line. So- so this collar is designed to tap straight into the nerves in the neck- focusing mainly on the more secondary nerves, but also creating a pathway to the spinal column if needed. With this, the nerves can be pinched all at once, effectively paralyzing the wearer!”

Vee looked over the sketch, resting a hand on the desk next to it. “And why is this collar shaped so differently?”

Three brightened again. “Oh, well, for one, to create a visual distinction that makes it easier for Big Mama to know what type of collar it is. But also, because the specific yokai has… no neck? Sort of? They have shoulders, but it would be somewhat easy for them to slip a standard collar off. So, alternative design! And this one can be green.”

“Very good. I'm sure Mother would appreciate the change in aesthetic.”

The stone in her pocket began to glow.

“Speak of the Devil, I suppose.”

Five slipped her mask on quickly, then answered the call. “Hello, Mother.”

“Turtley-boo! Hello! Where are you, my dear? I couldn't find you!”

“I had to deliver this week's recording to Three. I'll be returning home shortly.”

“I would hope so! Everything here is always such a tissy-tassle when you're over at that terrible place. Oh, do come home quickly, please. Your mama is getting lonely.”

Vee looked to Three, and they exchanged a soft look, even behind Vee's emotionless mask. “I'll be there in a moment, Mother.”

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

This was wrong.

This was all wrong.

She was supposed to be worried about being taken from him.

What could she do, now that he was taken from her?

Four was gone. Then Two was gone. Vee thought, surely Three wouldn't be that dumb. Three was smart. He cared about her. He wouldn't leave her.

So where was he now? On the surface, living with rats and humans.

And she was left behind. Stuck under the thumb of a spider that claimed to be her mother. Forced to witness the violent aftermath that had come when Three disappeared, as Lord Draxum berated her and her mother for letting Three get such delusional thoughts in his head. Ideas that made him weak and stupid. Hopes that his family cared for him.

But he left his family, didn't he?

She was supposed to be his sister.

And he left, in search of a family that didn't even know his name. His face. His voice. That voice was supposed to be hers. The one who took care of her. The one that fixed her.

Draxum may have caused her birth, but Three gave her life.

Didn't that matter to him?

She had been so scared of being taken from him, Vee didn't even consider the idea that he may be taken from her.

Fighting against him was something from her worst nightmares.

This couldn't be happening.

This was all wrong.

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

Empty apologies.

He left, all because of a stupid dream he had been chasing. He left the family he had because of some dumb idea of a family that he had romanticized in his head. He left her.

Maybe he never cared about her anyway. She was just a toy to pass the time.

She wasn't real, anyway. Just a monstrous body given life.

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

“Hi, Vee!”

Four approached her, sitting down cross legged on the floor beside her. He examined the blade she had been sharpening with an odd fascination.

“Where'd you get that?” He asked innocently.

“From Mother.”

Four straightened. “O-oh. Guess I shoulda… guessed that, huh?”

“Maybe.” Of course he should have. Who wouldn't recognize one of Big Mama's weapons?

“Hmm…” Four rocked back and forth, holding his feet. “Do you feel alright with me calling you Vee? I know that's what Donnie calls you, but I know he has like… a thing with names.”

“I’m Five,” she said bluntly, looking up at Four for a moment. “But I don't mind being called Vee.”

“Cool!” Four smiled, almost as sweetly as she remembered Three doing. “What's it short for?”

Vee paused and looked back up at Four. “Sorry?”

Four blinked. “...Vee. What's it short for?”

She squinted. “It stands for the roman numeral for Five. It isn't ‘short’ for anything.”

“Oh. Well, that's not right.” Four shook his head disapprovingly. “You need to match with us!”

That made Vee think. “Match?”

“Yeah!” Four shifted to sit on his knees. “See, cause I'm called Mikey. That's short for Michelangelo. He was a human artist in the Renaissance. And Raph is Raph, short for Raphael. And Leo is Leo, short for Leonardo. And Donnie is Donnie, short for Donatello!”

Vee put her blade down on the ground, giving Mikey all of her attention. “So they match because they're all artists?”

“Well, and since they're from the Renaissance, and since we've all got nicknames!” Mikey grinned. “Do you… want a name that matches with ours?”

“Yes.” Vee answered before she could really think about what she was saying. “I-I mean, I don't really need one, but-”

“Sweet!” Mikey patted his hands on the ground. “Now, what names could work… Genevieve? No, that would be Jenny… Vivian? Nah, that's not good enough. Oh!”

“What?”

“Well, I know all of our names are from artists, but, uh, what if your name was from a piece of art?”

Vee thought for a moment. It was certainly true that she wasn't like the other turtles. Obviously, her name would have to reflect that.

Though, maybe being a work of art wouldn't be so bad.

“Sure. But tell me the name before I agree to anything.”

Mikey's expression suddenly shifted to a more serious one. “Of course. How about… Venus de Milo?”

Venus de Milo.

“...what is it?”

“It's a statue from ancient Greece. She sorta got her arms ripped off, but she's still incredibly beautiful and detailed, and a very widely known masterpiece! Wait, lemme see if I've got internet-”

Mikey fumbled with his phone, desperately trying to gather some internet signal in the depths of the Hidden City. Meanwhile, Vee simmered in the thought. A statue, broken, never to be truly as it was before. And yet, it was beautiful, not just because of what it still had, but because it had lost. It had persevered. Because something so beautiful was never truly perfect. That was what allowed it to be beautiful instead.

Maybe that beauty made it perfect, anyway.

“I like it.”

Mikey's eyes flitted up from his hunch over his phone. “Oh? Great!” He corrected his posture. “How ‘bout you try it out? Introduce yourself to me!”

Vee cleared her throat, checking her own posture out of habit. “Hello, Michelangelo. My name is Venus de Milo. You may call me Vee.” She extended her hand for a handshake. Mikey met it vehemently.

“Perfect! Now, you match with all of us! Man, the teamwork and collaboration on this mission is gonna be on point!”

Venus smiled, turning the interaction around in her head.

Maybe she could be a masterpiece.

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

Donnie loved to talk. Vee always knew that. But, for too long, she had never noticed how much he loved to be listened to; to have another directly engaging in the conversation. Once she learned that, she learned that she had a love for listening.

It was sometimes hard for her to understand her own wants without comparing them to the wants of others. She loved to listen because Donnie loved to talk. She loved to spar because that made Raph happy. She loved to ask questions so Leo could explain the nonsensical movies he showed her. She loved to eat because Mikey loved to cook.

But right now, none of that really mattered. Donnie was talking, and Vee loved to listen.

“Splinter told me that I could make him, as long as I make sure he doesn't turn, like, evil or anything. Though, honestly, if a robot uprising were to happen, I think it would be smart to just accept fate.”

Donnie was cleaning up some sort of schematic on a bean bag as a movie played on the TV. Vee sat next to him, not paying attention to the film at all. Screams about hot food went in one ear and out the other.

“So these are the plans you have so far?”

“Exactly!” Donnie brightened, then slumped as he came to a realization. “He's actually based on a design I made before you got out of your chamber. P-... Draxum destroyed that one, though.”

“Oh.” Vee slumped a bit as well. “I wish I could have seen it. Maybe I'd be more helpful now with these designs.”

“Uh, y-you don't have to worry about it!” Donnie waved his arms frantically. “It was my fault you were stuck in there anyway.”

“No it wasn't.” Vee looked at him blankly. “It was Lord Draxum's fault. He made me faulty. You helped me. You fixed my body.”

Donnie flustered, scratching at his neck. “W-well, not really. I didn't even-”

“You gave me my eyes. You gave me purpose.”

He looked at his sister, hands shaking almost invisibly where they gripped his sketching paper. Something strange came to his eyes- a shimmer, one that she knew. “I-I'm-”

“If you say you're sorry one more time, I might just rip your tongue out.”

“But I am! In more words than I can say, I am! You cared about me so much, and I just left you without a second thought. No apology I can give can ever make up for that.”

Vee sighed, shaking her head, looking at Donnie with tired eyes. “You're right.”

Donnie's nervous energy evaporated and he stilled.

“No apology will ever be enough. When you apologized to me, I didn't forgive you. When you apologized to me, I hated you.”

Venus paused, questioning whether or not she should continue. When Donnie gave no reaction, she decided to.

“When you tried to explain what had happened, I hated you. When you asked for my help, invited me in, told me you wanted me back, I hated you.”

Genuine tears started to well up in custom built eyes.

“B-because… because I couldn't believe you. You left me, and that was what was real. That was what mattered.”

Donnie took a breath in, as if to add something, but ultimately decided against it.

“Part of me still doesn't believe you.”

Months of worrying. Months of waiting. Months of simmering in hatred for the one person she had convinced herself she could trust. Months of wondering, “Would he have stayed if I had been better?” Months of unbridled rage towards her creator, who couldn't have waited just a little longer to make her right. Months thinking of her other so called “brothers” who stole her brother away.

He said no one could take her from him. So why would he throw her away?

“But you showed me otherwise.”

She never knew how to put these things into words. There was something difficult about bringing her thoughts out in that way. Because of this, she could never really tell Donnie how it felt when he first showed her that room he had prepared, which he left mostly empty for her to decorate herself. She could never explain how it felt when Splinter traced her stitches, complimenting how wonderfully they framed her features. She could never properly thank Raph for expressing his admiration for her fighting style. She couldn't express the joy she felt when she saw Leo do something that would make him feel embarrassed hours later. She could never say anything more than “It’s great” when eating one of Mikey's meals, one that should make a food critic cry.

“So you don't need to apologize anymore. You showed me how you cared, and that's all that matters now.”

Vee grabbed Donnie's hand, and the two shared a wordless understanding.

You can cry and not hurt.

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

Vee woke up to the sound of someone else moving around the lair. All of her brothers were still covered in blankets around her, and a blank tarp hung on the wall stood in front of her that she vaguely remembered watching a projected video essay on before she fell into slumber. There was only one person missing from the scene…

As she pushed herself to her feet and walked into the hall, Vee came face to face with a still bonnet wearing April.

“Oh, morning, Vee!” April greeted energetically. “What're you doing up already?”

“This is a normal time to wake up, isn't it? You're awake.”

April hummed. “I guess you're right. I'm just used to the guys sleeping in super late. You hungry?”

Vee nodded, following April silently into the kitchen. Just a short time ago, she would have wanted to cut April's head off, purely because of her human existence. Now, she felt a strange, foreign comfort around the human. Not quite like she felt with her brother, or her other brothers, but something akin to it.

April started loading up the toaster, grabbing some spreads and setting them out on the counter.

“Got any plans today, Miss Milo?”

Vee chuckled. “It's Miss de Milo, and, uh, no. You got any plans, Miss Neil?”

April laughed in turn. “Actually, I do. And since you don't have any, I was hoping you might help me out with mine.”

Vee nodded, letting her continue.

“I brought some stuff from my place to do a spa day, slash makeover day. Figured you might want to join in.”

Vee thought for a moment. “I know what a spa day is, but what is a ‘makeover’?”

“Well, it's like,” she hesitated, “it's when you put on a ton of makeup and wear fancy clothes and stuff. Not because you're not pretty, but it's just… it's a way of making yourself feel good, y'know? You've worn makeup before, right?”

“No.” Vee shrank slightly. “Mother said that it would be a lost cause. That's why she gave me the mask instead.”

“Oh.” April shook her head, scrunching her nose. “Oh, no, no. That's not gonna work. You are going to be pampered, Miss de Milo. That is an order.”

April strode out of the kitchen, and Vee followed slowly behind. Before she could see where April had gone, there was the telltale sound of a pillow being thrown into someone's face.

“Owf- wha- hey! What was that for?” Leo grumbled through the grogginess of waking up.

“We've got a busy day ahead, boys! Gotta eat breakfast so we can get to work!”

“Busy day?” Mikey asked, slightly more cognizant than Leo. “What are we doing?”

“Makeovers. All of us!”

Vee finally caught sight of April in the hallway of the living room as she saw Donnie jumping up from where he was laying. “Are we gonna do nails?!” He shouted excitedly, running up in front of April. “Can I pick the colors?”

“Of course you can, bud. Just go eat some toast first,” April responded, patting his shoulder.

Donnie hurried to the kitchen followed by his brothers, who were all still wiping the sleep from their eyes. After that, breakfast went quickly.

Raph drug a stool into the bathroom in front of the mirror, where Vee was instructed to sit. Soon, she was surrounded by her brothers and April, with a large makeup bag in the human's hands. She put the bag down on the counter, taking out a liquid foundation in the perfect hue for Vee's skin.

“Where do you even find this stuff? Party City?” Leo asked, taking out another foundation from the bag that matched his own skin.

“No,” April scoffed, preparing her workspace, “I get it online. Its makeup, not face paint. It just happens to be green. Are you complaining?”

“No, ma'am.” Leo quickly shut himself up.

“Good. Now, let's get some jobs set straight.” April started gesturing to the brothers one by one. “Donnie, you're in charge of picking colors out, and themes. Mike, you're executing Donnie's ideas, because his hands are way too shaky. Raph, my bag's in the other room, go pick something out. You'll know what I mean when you get there. And Leo, you're in charge of music and talking. Tea spilling, gossip, whatever.”

All of the turtles nodded in response, and Raph walked out to find April's bag.

“Now, Vee.” April put her hands on Vee's shoulders, looking her straight in the eyes. “You just sit here, close your eyes, and relax. We've got it all handled.”

“Okay.” Vee hesitated, closing her eyes slowly, before shooting them open again. “Wait!”

April hummed, hovering the makeup sponge she had prepared in the air.

“Can you, uh… can you leave my stitches? Not cover them up, I mean.” She couldn't help casting a glance at Donnie, who gave a timid smile.

April relaxed. “Course, Vee. Now, close your eyes and let us work our magic!”

Vee complied, and she found herself surrounded by sounds. A strange nostalgia filled her chest.

“What we thinking, D?”

“How about, uh… this?”

“Ooo! Perfect! Can I get, uh… that one first?... Thanks! Okay Vee, I'm gonna grab your hand now. It's gonna be cold!”

“What am I supposed to even talk about? I don't have any tea.”

No need for sight. Hearing those voices, comforting her. With a slight drone of music alongside.

“How about your date with Usagi?”

“Wh- April! It wasn't a date!”

“Hey! No shoving! This is a delicate art, Leo!”

“Ugh, fine.” Another shove.

“Hey! No shoving me either! I didn't even say anything!”

“Yeah, but April's busy, Mikey's busy, and you gave me a weird look.”

“I gave you a normal look. You obviously went on a date. Vee, you know?”

Vee laughed just a bit, trying not to move and disturb April's work. “Donnie's right. It was pretty clearly a date.”

“No, it wasn't!”

“Just tell us what you did, Leo.”

Unlike before, she had other senses. But somehow, removing this one made her feel comfortable. Knowing that someone else was taking care of her felt so good.

When she felt Donnie's scar covered, calloused hand grab onto hers, the comfort felt warmer.

“We didn't even-”

“Hey, April? How's this one?”

“I think it's great, but how ‘bout you ask Mister Manicure?”

“Oh. Mike?”

“That's perfect, Raph! You got any accessories?”

“Maybe in my room… lemme go check.”

The sound of heavy footfalls walking away.

“Alright, I'm gonna be working on your eyelids, so it's gonna feel a little weird. Just try to stay loose.”

“Ooo, you are gonna look so good!”

Vee allowed the sound to envelop her entirely.

“Listen, we didn't go on a date, we aren't even a thing anyways.”

“I'm going to fix your body.”

“Usagi would be very hurt it he heard that. You wanna tell him, D?”

“You should be out here, learning with me.”

“I can text him right away-”

“NO!”

“Being my sister.”

“Just admit it, Leo! You're down bad for the bunny!”

“He still hasn't admitted that?”

“No, Raph! Because I'm not ‘down bad’!”

“So I'm going to fix you.”

“Okay, keep the volume down. I gotta concentrate…”

Time passed shapelessly. Vee interacted in the conversation when asked, but otherwise, she let the noise flow over herself. Before she knew it, she was being told to stand up and having fabric pulled onto her arms, with a ribbon being tied over her shell.

“Okay, okay, just a few more touches-”

“You've been doing ‘a few more touches’ for five minutes, Donnie. She looks great!”

“SHH! Don't rush perfection, Nardo.”

Vee blushed. “You really think I look perfect?”

She felt Donnie's eyes on her. “You always have.”

Mikey awed. “Okay, okay, okay, now you can look!”

Vee opened her eyes, just as Donnie moved to the side so she could see herself in the mirror. She saw that the fabric put on her was a dress, very light blue and with flowery embroidery patterning on the bottom of the knee-length skirt. Her claws were painted with pastel colors, with a light blue backdrop behind white daisies, each having an undertone of a different color: reddish-pink, blue, orange, purple, yellow, and green. On her face, a soft blue eyeshadow was put on her eyelids, with small painted daisies incorporated into her eyeliner. Similar flowery bows were placed down the length of her braided mask tails. Donnie quickly shuffled behind her to put a necklace on her neck, with a daisy shaped pendant.

Vee found herself speechless, staring at the stranger that had been pulled out of her own skin.

“Is it alright?” April asked hesitantly.

As she rubbed her lips together, Vee forced herself to look up at the ceiling. She waved her hands at her face.

“Oh- Oh! Its waterproof! You're good!”

“It is?!” Vee squeaked, struggling to hold herself together.

“Yeah, yeah, it is!”

“That's s-so cool!” Vee finally let her tears loose, still waving at her face while nervously laughing.

“You like it? Do you like the flowers? It was Donnie's idea!” Mikey asked, beaming as bright as the sun.

“Yes! Yes, I do, thank you!” Vee paused in her flapping to look over her hands again, and the dress, and her face.

Her flowers.

When she looked to Donnie, he looked as if he couldn't be happier.

“Well that's good, cause they cost me my dignity,” Leo groaned, despite the smirk on his face. “By the way, I call next.”

April patted his shell. “Alright, Leo. We'll make you pretty so you can look good for Usagi.”

“Great, because I- Wait! HEY!”

Vee was laughing loudly now, wiping her tears delicately with a single finger. The argument slowly turned back into background noise, as Leo sat on the stool instead, squabbling far too much for April's liking. Donnie recruited Vee for color picking and inspiration searching.

And so Vee let herself exist there, not worrying about mattering or being wanted. Not worrying about if the one she cared about was hurt or crying. Not longing for another sense to experience the world with. Not questioning if she may be taken away for good. Not asking if she really had a family. Not wondering if she did something wrong, or if she even had the right to call herself alive. Not waiting for someone to talk to her.

She had her flowers, and words could never compare.

○●○●○●○

Finally, she is here. I went a little wild on this. There are just so many parts of Vee's story that I can't wait to see. She's my little brainworm 💖

I'm glad that I can get this out before the @tmntaucompetition ends, especially since EW is in the finale. Go vote for them!!! I love them so dearly :)

I'm going to edit the first chapter of my own iteration, (currently titled Second Shot), and post that soon. I simply must get my boys out into the world, especially after discovering @dluebirb's TMNT AU family reunion. Lord knows they need friends.

GO VOTE IN THE TMNT AU COMP! AAH!

Broken Brothers (and How to Fix Them)

#tmnt #tmnt au #rottmnt #tmnt fanfiction #teenage mutant ninja turtles #save rottmnt #unpause rottmnt #tmnt au propaganda #tmnt separated au #fanfiction #fanfic #twig writes

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deandoesthingstome · 8 months ago

Text

Exactly What His Heart Meant

Pairing: Pornstar!August Walker x Pornstar!Reader

Summary: August Walker has wanted you forever. You want him, too. It's perfect.

Word Count: 7.4K

Warnings: This is Pornstar!AU, okay? 18+ ONLY Drug and alcohol use, mentions of a three-way, generic anal, bad business practices, oral sex (F & M receiving), vaginal fingering, anal fingering, P in V missionary and doggy style, sex toys, pegging (gasp - yes I'm going there), aftercare. Love.

A/N: I am nervous, okay? This is not your average everyday August Walker, but I love him and I hope you do too. I have been wanting to do this since forever. I've posted a few blurbs in WIP tag games here and here. I gushed about the song that kicked the whole thing into high gear and the fic title is taken from "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" - Rod Stewart. Both songs can be found on the playlist.

Bonus points if you can find the nods to other HC characters. There is definitely one, maybe two or three if you squint hard. (These points don't get you anything, sorry.)

Playlist: Listen to the music of the night on Spotify here.

Header and dividers by me.

August owned his entrance like no other. The studio made sure to send a PA ahead to prep the DJ and once he heard the first strains of “Night Fever” spill out of the club, he stepped out of the shadows and headed to the entrance, ready to start his decent down into the lights and glitter and debauchery as soon as Here I am sounded through the speakers and a spotlight made its way to him.

The already celebratory crowd went wild as he struck the iconic pose and thrust his hips in time to the rhythm. He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face if he tried, no matter how he had protested his employer’s choice for him. He would have sworn on any stack of bibles he didn’t like disco and abhorred polyester, yet here he was gyrating away. First time for everything. Starting with enjoying this awards night and after-party.

Each one prior had a story already attached to it from the beginning of the night, starting with his inaugural ceremony and guaranteed newcomer award, and trailing through the end of every relationship he thought would be the one. He finally stopped assuming because they said yes to the event after a few months or more of dating, that meant they were saying yes to him forever. The next few years were brutal and lonely, not that he couldn’t find some starfucker to take home at the end of the night, but that wasn’t what he craved.

Tonight was Club Retro themed. Award ceremony glamor as usual, but a costume change was required somewhere on the way from the venue to the after-party if you wanted to really up your game. Arrive in club gear of whichever era you wanted, but arrive dressed to impress nonetheless. He wasn’t the only actor a studio had convinced to go for the Travolta look, but he was probably the most surprised to find himself exhilarated by it and the attention it received. He kept all three pieces of the white suit, but he ditched the dark blue shirt altogether. Maybe he didn’t have a full head of hair, but the ‘stache and chest hair on display held 70’s swagger and he was running with it.

He grabbed a glass of champagne from one tray and a pill from another and set off into the crowd in search of the rest of his crew. He caught glimpses of the fresh-faced sweetheart who’d just inked a new deal grinding on the studio’s number two out on the dance floor and knew his plan to link them up had worked. The fans would eat them up, he knew it.

Knew it better than the owner, who wanted August to break her in. Ethan had begun making some really bad casting and scripting decisions and August was glad his contract was coming to an end. He was starting to feel like he wanted to just blow the whole studio up, let loose with all the bullshit he knew about his boss and how he ran his business. The industry could be awful, plenty of horror stories, but August had initially thought he’d found a place to call home.

What he’d begun to uncover about Ethan Hunt could fill a manifesto that would take the place down. And as crazy as it sounded, though he was tired of breaking in new talent, he wasn’t ready to be the reason all his friends lost their jobs. Not everyone was in a position to land on their feet. Regardless, at least now, with the sweetheart and the roughneck on a solid trajectory he wouldn’t be in the middle of something if tonight panned out the way he hoped.

Though, to be honest, it wasn’t looking good. He’d found his crew and then scanned the room for her with no luck.

“She hasn’t shown up yet,” his agent purred in his ear. Kelis was always down to party whenever he had an itch no one else would scratch, and he appreciated how decidedly non-attached she always was. No clingy phone calls or pouting over non-existing anniversaries. It aggravated him, though, that she was looking to seduce him here, tonight of all nights. Especially because she knew where his mind would likely be, but it didn’t stop her from begging for his cock every now and then. He could tell she’d gotten the hint his look gave by the way she toned it way down to answer his next question.

“A few from her studio have shown up but she wasn’t with them and they wouldn’t tell me where she was. It was all very secretive. So at least let me have my way with you on the dance floor if you won’t take me home tonight. Please?”

He relented and found himself having the time of his life. Song after song flew by as he grabbed water then whisky, a line, then water, another line, then whisky, water, whiskey, whisky, water. Dancing with Kelis gave him a chance to forget about his frustration with his studio and everyone, here or not, for the moment. He let himself be free and felt a weightlessness he hadn’t in a long time. No call sheets waiting at home. No scenes to prep. No “scripts” to read. Tonight and the next two weeks were his and his alone. Time for some decisions.

He noticed the crowd had begun to thin, and realized he wanted some fresh air, so he peeled himself away from Kelis with a promise-to-return kiss and tap on the ass. He took the elevator to the rooftop bar and found himself a little amazed at the streaks of light just beginning to emerge in the distance. Time had really flown while he was having fun.

He was about to head towards the drinks when he spotted her leaning against the railing in the opposite direction. The white-golden hair flowing behind her was an obvious wig. He’d seen her step to the stage to accept multiple awards tonight (or is it last night now?) and she had looked just as gorgeous with her natural color as she did all done up in her Farrah waves now. An unexpected jolt of excitement coursed through his veins as he realized she’d also opted for a 70’s look, complete with a scandalously (though by whose standards?) short metallic silver skirt with slits on either side and what he assumed was a matching top, though with her back to him as she peered out over the awakening city, all he really saw where the two thin silver chains that criss-crossed across her back. They looked like they would hold nothing up.

But she was alone and he knew it was now or never, so he strolled around the roof-top pool to step up beside her.

"I’m glad I finally found you. I wanted to congratulate you. It's not often a producer gets awards for both behind and front of camera work," he opened.

She turned her head and beamed a dazzling smile in return before thanking him and offering her own congratulations along with her hand and then a surprisingly friendly hello hug.

“I saw you nailed Best Male Performer and Best Anal again. Your Missionary: Impossible series was a true stroke of genius. I wish I had thought of it first.”

“So she’s not immune,” August thought as he peeled himself away from her warm body. “She remembers my name.” At least she recognized his star status. Maybe she hadn’t forgotten him. He pressed his lips to the back of her hand and trained his eyes on her through his lashes.

“You know I’d love to have you join the cast,” he spoke as he finished the hello hand kiss and lifted his head to gaze directly at her. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen eyes that scream ‘spy’ quite as much as yours do.”

“And I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a producer acting for another studio. You’ve got balls to ask, that’s for sure,” she laughed, tossing back the rest of her whisky before grabbing another off the tray passing by.

“Where’ve you been all night? I tried to find you right after the ceremony, but you disappeared and I had to run for a wardrobe change.” August tossed a casual grin and motioned at the cheesiness of his costume, though inside he was kicking himself.

The point of engaging wasn’t to offer her a part. How ridiculous! He’d been doing that for months now and she wasn’t biting. No. Tonight he was going to get answers. Why had she consistently denied him another shot with her? It had to be more than just the technicalities of trying to untangle ownership and percentages filming another studio’s producer would bring. She broke into his train of thought with an explanation of her quick and sudden departure from the award banquet and why she hadn’t arrived at the after party locale for what had to be at least a few hours.

“Already prepping material for next year. We had a newcomer attend with the studio tonight. He’s an absolute stud. Looking to get his name out there so we filmed his first scene backstage.”

August’s hopeful heart sank a little. He couldn’t expect her not to keep putting out material just because his advances might finally be successful, but it would take all his cool charm and guile to woo her if she was already cock-drunk tonight. He put out another feeler.

“You look well put back together already,” he commented, eyes tracing her figure with obvious intent.

“Oh not me. No, I was directing. Looking to nab that ‘behind the scene newcomer’ award next year,” she beamed, her smile still welcoming. “No, Mikey did a little gonzo three-way for his first official movie with Darkk Angel. We’re releasing it next week after a quick trip to post and then have him lined up for three more scenes next month. I’m wondering if we can talk AVN into a “most prolific” award.” Her laughter was infectious and he found himself with a wide grin, verging on goofy in spite of his aim.

“You’ve never directed? How have I missed that?” August sought to focus attention away from whoever this Mikey kid was and back on her completely, then mentally kicked himself again for admitting something that could only make him look desperate and maybe a little creepy. From his statement, and along with all the official asks from his agent, she had to think he was a stalker, completely obsessed with her.

Not that he wasn’t. Not since that very first time. Her “first’ anal scene. He understood she had to be a little overwhelmed at that shoot with so many people on set. She had clearly already fucked the director (for a scene) and was now just taking on a few actors who were already on a rise. It was his last commitment to the old studio and then he was off to a new contract with Hunt. God, he wished he could have taken her with him. As it was, the only thing he kept was her scent that lingered not long enough.

"You know, I've asked my agent about another scene with you more times than any other actor. He never has a good enough reason to tell me no. What gives?" August inquired.

She debated telling him the truth. That she was completely enamored of him despite, only having met once, and afraid to ruin her own fantasy. Yes, she thought about him often. She’d be lying if she said otherwise.

But what if he refused her counter-offers? What if he didn't play the way she had come to discover she wanted sometimes, needed even?

She could accept if his big dick in her pussy or ass was all he'd agree to again for one scene. But she wanted more. More than a scene. More than a spectacle.

"Industry's hottest stars finally fucking again!" she imagined the trade headlines would scream, not bothering to temper her own ego about her status.

And which studio got the rights? His or hers? Of course she would never give up the rights to those shots, those stills, that video. It had been years since any studio other than the one she owned had any rights to any images of her. Why August Walker didn't make the same professional move she had was beyond her, but at least she could play the upper hand if it came down to it. It was power to own the rights to your own material and that power trumped his studio contracts. Or at least she'd make that case. Plus Ethan Hunt was a little bitch and she’d be damned if she contributed to his profits in any way.

Still, she couldn’t get past the concern that having his big dick in her ass again would ruin her for anyone else ever again. It wasn't the size. Hell, she'd had two almost equal to him in there just the other day.

No. It was the fantasy. Not only what she already knew of his prowess, though if she’d improved over time, and she knew she had, he had to have gotten better too. But also what she imagined she knew based on the stories she'd heard. Stories about his true personality as well as the image she made up in her head based on tidbits of their past and innuendos of his present.

On set, she'd heard he’d become a bit of a prick. Even worse when the storyline called for Daddy. Not that it didn't make her wet to watch. And daydream about. Calling him Daddy, mmmm.

Except that wasn't her. Not her kink. Not her need. Not really.

And off set? Well, lips are usually loose in the industry, but somehow very few factual stories about dating August Walker were out there. Most of what she'd heard was easily dispelled rumor.

No, he wasn't into animal play. Either kind. Good.

No, he didn't force his partners to sleep in separate rooms after finishing. Why would someone even start that rumor? To what end?

Her private private detective had tracked down the source and verified quickly. It was a little bit of column a, a little bit of column b. The studio was looking to cash in on the mystery and intrigue of their dashing playboy, and a jilted date wanted more. Who wouldn't want more of him? But that choice was self-sabotaging to say the least.

She was well aware that some women, and men for that matter, liked to imagine their favorite actor to be the world's largest asshole. No, not that way.

That was the way she liked to imagine him. And the basis for her declination. He'd never say yes. She was sure of it.

And yet here he was. Blushing at the mere mention. Maybe she should have countered with that when he first started seeking her out. But she hadn't been ready to give up the rush she felt every time a message from Hunt Club studios appeared in her inbox.

August felt the heat rise in his cheeks and knew someone out there would say he was blushing, but August Walker does not blush.

As she leaned in, he swiped another surreptitious peek at her gorgeous and barely covered tits, though he was so smooth no one could have seen this time. Not that it mattered. He was right about the thin silver chains holding onto barely anything up front. Where she found tissue paper thin metallic material, he had no idea but her nipples showed through what little fabric there was making up the plunging neckline of the deep-vee tank, as if they weren’t also practically peeking out of the top as it was. She had them on display for a reason. But he was trying to make a move here. Trying to differentiate himself from the rest of the industry players and hangers-on hoping for a hook-up after the awards.

Champagne and liquor had flowed all night, powder cut, pills popped. He was tipsy but it was really the sunrise inching its way into the sky behind her, here on this rooftop bar next to the pool full of drunken, naked bodies, and the angelic halo circling the crown of her head that had him staring back into her eyes in no time, enraptured. Well, that and her reply.

“I have certain … desires that I’m not convinced you’d be amenable to and I didn’t want to alienate you.”

He went on to ask, no - insist, she explained her terms, right here right now. And she obliged, clarifying that she didn’t intend to be filmed at all. That her interest in climbing into bed with him was related only to the burning desire she’d felt to track him down, beg him for more, practically every day since that shoot. And the thing that convinced her not to bother was the never ending stream of talent she’d seen draped around him months, years later.

But she wouldn’t, couldn’t deny that she wanted him. Wanted to relive that moment and then build on it. Take the scene farther than was written. Fuck him right off the page and into her life forever. It was indescribable the way he felt listening to her narrate her desire to own him. She was only mentioning the bedroom, but he got the feeling she meant the heart as well.

Still, she was being mysterious with the details, so August began to mention specifics. What he wouldn’t do.

"I won't lick your boots," he'd said with a grin after a shorter than expected list, still wavering on if he actually meant to convey the opposite.

"Maybe not," she replied before leaning in and whispering in his ear as he tilted down to meet her. It was clear from her next sentence that she’d finally figured out he’d say yes. He was practically begging for it right here in front of these few end-of-the evening stragglers. "But you will take every inch of me."

Negotiations had already begun and this was just ink on the dotted line. Along with a string of consent questions with compatible answers and now she knew his safeword and he knew hers. It wasn’t what it used to be. Because things can change. But not his desire for her.

He brushed past her non-binding handshake and drew her in for a confirmation kiss, hands gently pulling her waist towards him. “You still smell the same. It drives me crazy,” he admitted before pressing his lips to hers with a smile. Then he broke the kiss, which had begun to turn lascivious even for the nature of the event, afraid they’d never make it off the roof-top if he didn’t.

He gave a deceptively shy smile and knowing nod to Kelis as he passed her on his way out with the true object of his desire draped along his arm.

She sent her limo off with whatever crew was left at the party before climbing into the back of his. They had no sooner pulled away from the curb and begun to make their way to his hi-rise apartment building than the driver’s shield went up and she went down, unzipping his trousers and slipping her hand in to coax him out.

She had gotten incredibly better at sucking dick in these interim years. But it was like she was finally home. Like her mouth opened magically around him to hold him close and taste his skin. It took everything in his power not to blow his load down her throat in the car. He wanted to be in her pussy when he came and there wasn’t much he wanted more at this moment.

He managed to pull her off and get her back on the seat, legs spread and ready to take his shoulders as he slipped his tongue deep inside her core. Moving the floss she’d bothered to pull on out of his way wasn’t hard in the least. He had her screaming by the time the limo pulled up outside his building.

August draped his suit jacket over her shoulders before he helped her out of the car and into the lobby. When the elevator doors closed around them, she turned and pressed him back into the wall, staring up at him with hunger and power equally.

“That’s the last time you call the shots tonight. I’m taking my shoes off as soon as we walk in your door, so you can’t accuse me of asking you to lick my boots. But you will be on your knees and you will put your mouth back on my pussy and do that one more time before anything else happens tonight. Understood?”

He stared down at her with amusement that morphed into understanding that ended in solemnity before the ding at his floor broke the silence.

“Yes ma’am,” he finally replied, resigned to her whim. He opened the lock with practiced ease, nothing shaking out of fear but only vibrating with anticipation. How had he missed her meaning all those years ago?

“I wish I could show you how this feels,” she’d whispered in his ear as he held her chest tight against his. “But it’s nothing compared to how it feels from behind.”

At the time he thought she had meant for him to turn her around, still on top of him but back to chest. So he did. And she liked it. She came like a banshee and that squeeze is something they can’t fake. That’s what wins the awards anyway. The audience knows it’s acting, but when they can tell it’s something the actor actually wants, when the chemistry is kinetic, the high is so much higher.

Clearly she’d had so much more in mind. When she came back down, he made sure to check the front door lock before he turned back to scoop her quivering body into his arms and carry her down the hall to his bedroom.

“Don’t think I’m anywhere near done with you just because I’m a wreck right now,” she called to him as he set her onto his bed. “Where are you going?”

“I would never think you’d consider that enough for an evening. I want to freshen up, if you don’t mind. May I?” August quirked an eyebrow awaiting her response and it was clear he’d come right back to the bed if she forbade it. No questions asked. But she allowed it and that only made him ache for her more. He’d be quick.

“Damn right you will!” she called out after him before ridding herself of her own garments.

Her hand must have found its way to the soaking mess between her legs and this is how August found her when he stepped out of the bathroom a very short while later, rubbing a towel over his head after peeling it off his body. He watched her luxuriate in the slippery slide feel of her fingers dipping in and out, rubbing, pinching, pumping, pumping, pumping.

He dipped carefully onto the bed. He had no desire to startle her out of her joy, he only wanted to witness it up close. He crawled alongside her and watched as her chest heaves softened and listened as her sighs became longer. When she finally opened her eyes on a deep inhale, he smiled at her.

“May I join you?” So respectful.

“Kiss me,” she commanded, and while he heeded she lifted his arm and guided his hand between her legs. “And touch me,” she whispered into his mouth.

He obeyed. His fingers drifted through her folds and made use of the slick that remained to press up into her. One, two, one, two. And now three. And now she’s grinding up against his hand and breaking the kiss to demand more and he’s giving it to her but it’s not enough, is it?

“More,” she cried out. “Fuck me, August.”

He was grateful at that moment for two revelations from the rooftop. He already knew his own status, testing often despite Hunt’s lackadaisical studio regulations. But she had shared that her studio adopted the standard of routine and regular testing early on and therefore she knew exactly what her status was, too. And, coupled with the fact that she had the implant, she had no qualms going bare. All these things led to the next thing he was grateful for and that was the feel of her pussy wrapped all the way around him as he slipped his prodigious cock deep inside her.

He mused he could do this all night. Or rather all day and into the night, when the moon began to rise again. Because it wasn’t night at all. It was broad daylight now and it was streaming in through the mirrored windows. Nobody could see it, even if they did find themselves on level with the height of his apartment. But no curtains meant he could see the way the sunlight brightened her face and it made him want to see all of her.

“Will you take it off, too?” he asked, staring down at her while he pistoned his hips into hers and felt her open and warm around him. “Please?”

He wasn’t used to begging. As much as he wasn’t a blusher, he definitely wasn’t a beggar but he found himself wanting to do anything for her and she wanted him to beg. Or at least ask nicely. And he wanted to obey. For the first time, maybe ever, August Walker wasn’t in charge.

She obliged and pulled the wig off easily. It wasn’t even pinned on, there was so much bang to cover the cap. All that meant was she was able to free her natural hair with ease and he was thankful. Now she lay bare before him and he got to take a good long, up close and personal look before she took it all away.

Faster than he would have preferred she slipped back and eased him out, but turned just as quickly to take him in her mouth. August let his eyes fall closed while he relished the feeling of her mouth around his cock again, but just when it started feeling really good, it also started feeling too good. If she continued he was going to come and he really meant it when he decided he wanted to be inside her for that. And not her mouth.

“Please,” it was practically a whisper. She almost hadn’t heard. But she let go with a pop and asked.

“What was that?”

“Please,” he begged again, raspy but with sound this time, voice hitching as she took him back in her mouth for just the briefest of sucks.

“What are you asking for?”

When he pleaded again with a cracked voice, she smiled as she let go.

“What is it, August? Huh? What do you want? Or not want?”

“Please…please don’t.” he stuttered as she continued to toy with him. Dick in and then out of his mouth with no concern for his predicament.

“Say it, August. Ask nicely.”

“Don’t make me come,” he begged, even as she sank to wrap her lips around him once more. “Please.”

“If that’s what you want. You only have to ask. Nicely.” She was so proud of him and he could feel that. Could tell she’d do anything for him. And let him do anything for her.

“Let me fuck you,” he asked. “Please. Just ….”

“Don’t bother saying it, you and I both know 5 minutes turns into 20 in no time,’ she laughed with him as she lay back with her legs spread wide for him. He stayed kneeling between her legs and watched her face explode with pleasure as he rocked deep and strong inside of her. He wasn’t trying to overcome her, wasn’t looking to establish any kind of dominance. Not on purpose at least. Because the fact of the matter was, that no matter how much he wanted to let her be in charge, it just came so naturally to him. It was hard to drop that mantle. Especially while fucking into her and watching her fall apart around him.

Then she shook her head and through sheer will, dragged herself back from the precipice to snake an arm up his chest, fingers drifting to his neck and drawing him down against her.

“Kiss me again, August,” she commanded and he obliged with no hesitation. It wasn’t that he couldn’t resist and instead put her right back in the trance his cock had caused, but he didn’t want to. They’d agreed on this night. Agreed what it would mean. He was finally getting what he’d craved all these years. And so was she.

Their tongues tangled while his fingertips traveled over velvety skin, her legs wrapped around hips, his thick member pistoned in and out of her wet and slippery cunt that she controlled so well. She hadn’t been wrong. August imagined he could stay like this forever if she’d let him, drowning in her glory, ego stroked with every gasp and whimper and cry of hers. It was music to his ears. He’d heard enough fake moans and pants over the years to know what the real thing sounded like and he never wanted to give it up.

When he felt her squeeze tight around him for the second time, he began to slow, sure that more than twenty minutes had passed but completely uninterested in confirming his suspicion. No, he wanted her on her knees again.

“Can I have you from behind?” he murmured in her ear after kissing his way along her cheek and neck. “Just for 5 minutes.”

She could feel his grin, but before she could compose an appropriate response, he’d shifted, changed tempo and hit a different spot that had her howling and fighting the urge to beg him for more. Even then brief respite she’d have while they switched positions should allow her to gather her wits and tamp down her desire to just let him rail her into the next day. Because tonight was for something more. So she pushed him back away from her, flipped and pulled herself to all fours while crawling towards the center of the bed.

With a seductive glance over her shoulder, she called to him, “Come and get it, stud.”

Five minutes in heaven. That’s all she was going to allow him. She pressed her chest down into the bed and let him drag her hips into the air, flesh captured under his strong fingers. She screamed into the sheets as August directed her pleasure with practiced skill and just when she felt she couldn’t hold on any longer, he slipped a saliva-coated thumb into her ass and sent her reeling. He’d timed it perfectly.

“You’re done,” she fought through her haze to flip to her back and clarify. “We still have a deal, right?”

She watched him stroking himself lazy and slow to stay hard while his eyes blinked shut with relief almost involuntarily.

“Yes,” he replied, his exhale full of yearning. “Will you show me?”

“Show you what, August? Hmm?” she asked with a tilt of her head, pleased he was finally ready to give in to what he’d already agreed to back on that rooftop.

“Show me how it feels.” It wasn’t a question, yet still not a command. He’d never dare to command her. Not until she was ready for him to. And that wasn’t tonight.

“I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that since we met.”

All those years. All that time. August closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and told himself it’s fine. It’ll be fine. He pulled back a bit from the ledge that he wanted to step over for missing her meaning all along. As if she could read his mind, she spoke from somewhere that felt like a dream.

“I’m glad you waited though. I wasn’t ready either. I was trying to get over my nerves and thought a little brazen tease directed at the top talent on set would help. But I’ve discovered I really do like sharing that experience, knowing I can make a man feel the way he makes me feel. Make him understand how much better it is when it's from someone who cares."

When he opened his eyes, she was pulling herself up to her knees to meet him. He felt her hands trace along his chest as she pressed her lips to his. It was almost sweet, but definitely a relief. She really did want this as much as he did.

For a mini-eternity, they let their tongues tangle and hands roam. August shivered as her nails traced down his back with the perfect dig and smiled into her lips as he thought about the red lines he’d be left with the next day. He cradled the nape of her neck as even on knees he towered over her and let a hand drift down the soft skin of her side and around her waist to cup her ass.

When her hands finally landed in the same spot on him, he felt another layer of tension release as she caressed and squeezed each cheek with passion. She broke the kiss and nuzzled down his chest, landing on her elbows before him. With eagerness, she took hold of his still invigorated member, gave a few soft strokes, and then put him back in her warm, wet, inviting mouth.

But this blowjob had an ulterior motive that August felt as soon as it turned sloppy and her saliva began to drip and pool around him. With a now slick hand, she slipped her fingers off the base of his cock and in between his legs, tracing past the waxed-bare skin off his balls and teasing his entrance.

She circled and smoothed and kneaded until he finally felt a finger ease past the first ring of muscle and he had to put a hand on her head to slow the bob that was already threatening to pull his orgasm too soon. Surely she didn’t want that, did she?

August dropped his head back with a groan of pleasure as she let her spit drop onto her fingers again before pressing a second digit inside, just beginning to open him up to all her possibilities. It already felt so, so good. If this was all she did for him, it was worth it, but not really what he wanted. He’d had a few other lovers tease him like this, but he always stopped them short, still too nervous to let them go all the way to where he needed.

He’d kept this part of himself secret, shared it with no one, tested it only when alone. He knew it was stupid to hide this craving, especially given how exposed he allowed himself to be on film. But this was something different. Something personal. Private. That’s what he told himself. And he let his stature in the industry dictate the type of man he was in a bedroom, with a woman but without the cameras, for far too long.

His head was spinning as her tongue licked his length and her fingers teased and touched. She was pressing and pushing deeper and when she finally found his spot it took every ounce of willpower to maintain composure. He still wanted more of her, still didn’t want to come yet.

It dawned on him then that she hadn’t brought an overnight bag with change of clothes for the morning or toys for the evening. Just her ridiculously sexy wisp of an outfit and a tiny clutch that couldn’t have hidden even a bottle of lube, let alone the tool she needed to fulfill their bargain. She’d promised him he’d take every inch of her. Could she really have meant only this? Was she expecting him to come as she beckoned inside him?

“I can hear your thoughts, August” she purred up at him with a smile, mouth off his dick, but fingers still toying with him. “I don’t want to stop here either. I’m sure you can help me out, can’t you?”

She felt him tense and knew he was weighing the pros and cons of admitting what she had guessed when he agreed to take her home immediately without offering to make a stop along the way. August had his own equipment. No doubt about it.

“It’s okay,” she soothed, removing her fingers completely and returning to her knees to kiss him hard and deep before speaking to him on his level. “You don’t have to hide anymore. Show me what you need.”

She watched the seas of his eyes storm with fear before settling into calm as she held his gaze with no judgment, no mockery. She kissed him again, licked into the space between his lips and felt the passion as he held her tight, almost holding on for his life while he kissed her back.

When he finally broke free, he stepped back off the bed and opened the nightstand to remove a bottle of lube before he moved across the room to a mirrored armoire. He opened the doors and removed a sleek, black box which he brought back to place slowly on the nightstand, clearly deep in thought. And then he hesitated, hands resting on the lid of the box, head down.

“I don’t…” he started, and she felt a small ache in her heart. She had never seen him so vulnerable. Not that she spent much time alone with him at all, but this was truly a side she hadn’t quite expected after everything she knew about him.

“We can take our time, August,” she spoke with a careful tone and no desire to spook him. He remained still and she felt reassured he wasn’t running, not in his mind or his body. When he spoke, she had to stifle a small laugh for fear she would send him running from misplaced shame.

“I only mean, I don’t have a harness for you.” He turned, fingertips of only one hand still on the closed box, eyes scanning hers for understanding. And she understood completely.

She moved closer to the edge of the bed and grinned at him. “Oh, August. Oh baby, this is what has you worried? You think I can’t make it good for you if I’m not wearing it?” She watched this new layer of tension begin to melt away as he registered her words. “August Walker, I meant what I said and I can’t wait to fuck you however I can. And believe me, I know how to make it good.”

She waited for him to relax, to speak, to return to his usual manner and let her back in. Then she took a calculated breath, dropped the timbre of her voice, and called to him.

“And you’re going to let me, aren’t you August?”

Her eyes dropped just in time to see the twitch in his still hard-cock and she knew he was back and ready to let her have him. He flipped the lid to the lacquer box with one finger and revealed a small treasure trove of devices, any of which she’d be thrilled to treat him with. With no idea how prepared he really was, she let him choose.

“Will you start with this?” August handed her not the smallest, but not the largest either and she accepted willingly. “It’s been a minute.”

With complete understanding she led him back into bed on his knees before grabbing the lube from the nightstand and setting about her business. Kisses first. Deep and hungry. She wanted his tongue down her throat and he obliged while she held the dildo and lube in one hand and stroked his rock hard cock with the other.

Before too long, she’d dropped the toy to the bed and flipped the lid to the tube, using proprioception to drop several dollops onto her open hand before reaching between his spread legs while still commanding his kiss. Her fingers smoothed the viscous fluid over his entrance and dipped a little in with a finger before she reached for the prosthetic and smeared the rest around the tip and down the base.

Her lips left his reluctantly as she ordered him to hands and knees while she maneuvered behind him. With practiced skill, she massaged and manipulated her fingers inside him once more, listening for the moans and groans that told her he was ready for her to place the tip alongside a finger and ease the toy inside. She watched him carefully, moving slowly and waiting for him to relax fully before she slipped the whole thing in and he took it with the sweetest grunt.

“You’re doing so good for me, August. Just like I knew you would. Does it feel good?” she questioned, while gently pulling and pushing, twisting and pressing, smiling when he answered in the affirmative. With each motion she listened for the sounds that would tell her where and how it felt best and she was quick to learn his needs.

“Fuck…just like that,” he begged and hitched back into her, already wanting more.

“Impatient,” she teased lightly as she shifted to the side so she could both lean over to capture his lips again and still work the toy in and out of his slowly writhing body. She kept him wanting, shifting the speed and direction, for as long as he could last before he finally begged for the real thing.

She left him face down and ass up while she switched gear, careful to add more lube to both him and the larger phallus. But when she was ready to finally give him what he wanted, she paused for just a moment to consider orientation. She was certain positioning him to face the mirror would be too much for this first time together, but there would be others, she was sure now.

Other times to see the exquisite pain she knew would soon drip down his face as she wielded the apparatus and gave him every inch he asked for. She ran a hand up his back and grabbed onto his shoulder for more leverage as she worked him into a frenzy. He was bucking back into her and the moans that drifted from his lips were music to her ears. All the practice and care she’d taken, learning how to please a lover this way were paying off.

She knew how it felt, knew how he was riding each high and low. Watched him relax into his pleasure, at times letting her control him completely before he shifted his hips and dug into the bed with hands and knees to find purchase that would allow him to grind hard onto the sizable dildo she brandished with expertise. She’d go all night like this if he wanted.

As his circuits finally broke, she could see the waves of pleasure begin to ripple along his spine. He was coming furiously hard, perhaps harder than he had in a long time, no matter how many uses this toy of his had gotten on his own. She was that good at sensing and feeling and pushing and pulling exactly how and when and where he needed.

And August definitely needed. That much was abundantly clear as he collapsed fully to the bed, panting and gasping for air as he rode the waves of his lingering orgasm. She could see him twitching and knew the feeling because it was exactly how she felt after everyone of the orgasms he’d given her tonight. Like an explosion of sensation she never wanted to come down from and she’d given that to him finally.

She left him to catch his breath and stepped to the bathroom to run warm water over a soft washcloth and grab a fresh towel on the way back. When he was cleaned and dry, she tucked into the covers with him and pulled him to her, guiding his head to her chest.

“You feel okay? Need anything else right now?” she asked him quietly as her hand drifted up and down his back.

“I wanted to come inside you,” August admitted with an exhausted sigh.

“We’re gonna have a lifetime of that.”

Everything HC Taglist: If this isn't your thing, no hard feelings? (as always, let me know if you want on or off; if you've asked and your aren't here, try me again but know that Tumblr sometimes doesn't let me tag everyone.)

@sillyrabbit81 @mayloma @geralts-yenn @raccoon-eyed-rebel @kebabgirl67 @beck07990 @itsrubberbisquit @sweetdreamsofgelato @liveoncoffeeandflowersss @alexakeyloveloki @marantha @aireraume @angelmather1 @lizzystuffsthings @enchantedbytomandhenry @omgkatinka @littlefreya @avengersfan25 @just-chirpin @thesaucynomad @valacirca @henryownsme @summersong69 @foxyjwls007 @peyton-warren @irishavengersassemble @brattymum96 @ellethespaceunicorn @juliaorpll78 @martha-oi @cardierreh15 @cinnamoroll-things @caramariehurst @zombicupcake3 @openup-yourmind @shellyshellshell @nickfowlerrr @greensleeves888 @misshinson @thelastsock @princessaxoxo @justjulie1105 @minimin1993 @agniavateira @sammat97 @meb79 @kittenofdoomage (as always Rhi. Smooches!)

#august walker fanfiction #august walker #august walker x reader #pornstar!august walker #pornstar!AU #august walker fanfic #august walker!AU #exactly what his heart meant #deandoesthingstome #mine

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simplyraeblue · 1 month ago

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hunter and hunted (jjk)

college (summer) break au: a fic in which y/n is pining over Yuji's older brother Sukuna, while unbeknownst to her, Choso is doing the same thing for her. contents: sukuna x reader, choso x reader, modern college AU, yuji and choso are brothers, sukuna and yuji are brothers, smut warning, fem reader

chapter warnings/tags: no smut this time, swearing, angst, not really any warnings but prepare yourself y'all A/N: not gonna lie, as I started this I was thinking it was gonna be so good but then i edited it and now I hate it but don't have the energy to fix it ദ്ദി(ó﹏ò｡) I promise the last part is gonna be better than this

index part thirteen | part fifteen

part fourteen word count : 3,531

with how great things were going, you’d begun to regret signing the lease on your new apartment. Sukuna had been… tolerable, and your relationship with Choso was progressing to a comfortability you’d greatly miss. while watching Yuji and Megumi make out on movie nights wasn’t your favorite thing ever, you knew you wouldn’t ever escape from that even if you did move out.

considering you’d signed your lease just yesterday, you figured tonight would be the night to break the news to Choso. of course, you’d already let it slip to Yuji pretty soon after you’d found the right apartment but he’d sworn himself to secrecy – after beginning on his knees for you to stay. you’d thought of the perfect plan: ply Choso with a homecooked meal, wine, and a new lingerie set you’d splurged on to soften the blow.

you had been worried all day about how he’d take the news – would he be supportive or be distraught? hopefully the former. if Choso had begged as Yuji had, you knew you’d end up staying for him, even if you had to gain some sort of independence.

so here you were, wrapping up the hefty dinner you’d cooked for your boyfriend with time to spare so you could change and get ready for his arrival. you’d instructed Yuji to take him on some “errands” just so you could get everything set up and surprise him. the dining table, now set with dinnerware and already filled glasses of wine, looked cozy as you lit the candles adorning the top of it. hell, you’d even found a jazz lofi playlist to have in the background.

as you primped your hair and makeup a little bit, you eyed the lacy black teddy laying on your bedspread. while black wasn’t necessarily Choso’s favorite color, he sure did wear a lot of it so you hoped he liked your choice. you gently slipped it on and adjusted your breasts to make them stand out a little more – of course, as a distraction for Choso.

throwing on a loose and flowy dress over it to cover up for now, you opened your bedroom door to go wait for Choso and stopped in your tracks.

“put that wine down, it’s not for you!” you shouted as you stomped over to the dining table – Sukuna froze with the glass halfway to his lips as he heard your voice. he was still stunned as you snatched it from his hand before setting it gently back in its place. “you’re not supposed to be here, I thought you had plans?”

“I did, canceled ‘em because I didn’t want to go anymore.” Sukuna shrugged, but his face still showed a hint of confusion. “what’s all this for?”

you fiddled with your fingers as he stared at you – this wouldn’t do. no one was supposed to be home tonight, leaving the house to you and Choso to have alone time. Yuji hadn’t argued when you suggested he stayed at Megumi’s, and you’d thought Sukuna would already be half drunk with his friends by now.

“you need to find somewhere else to be.” you stated as you crossed your arms, hoping he didn’t ask any more questions.

“this a date or somethin’?” Sukuna asked as he raised a brow, a smirk playing on his lips. “any special occasion?”

“not a special occasion, just wanted to do something nice for Choso.” you briefly answered before grabbing his shoulders and pushing him backward towards the door. Sukuna didn’t fight with you as he started stepping back, a low chuckle rumbling from his chest. “as I said, you need to go. I can’t have you here when he comes back.”

“why? because it’ll be too awkward?” he shot back, a playful grin spreading across his face.

“there’s no reason for it to be awkward.” you replied, crossing your arms as if to emphasize your point.

“but you’d be surrounded by two people in love with you.” Sukuna countered, his words hanging heavy in the air.

your footsteps stilled, the impact of his statement sinking in. Sukuna’s gaze sharpened at your hesitation, and he leaned in slightly, a softer expression replacing his earlier playfulness.

“don’t… don’t say things like that.” you stammered, heat rising to your cheeks. what was he talking about? he didn’t love you; you had spent so long convincing yourself of that just to cope. “you can’t possibly mean that.”

Sukuna tilted his head, his expression a mix of curiosity and amusement. “why not? what if I do?”

your heart raced, and you struggled to find your voice. “because it’s… it’s not possible. you can’t just throw around words like that.”

he stepped closer, the teasing glint in his eyes replaced with something more serious. “listen… I know what I did. and I’m truly sorry. you deserve a far longer apology than this, but I need you to know that I am sorry. I’ve put in the work, I’ve been going to therapy and figuring shit out – and one of the many things I learned is that I do love you.”

his words hung in the air, and a storm of emotions swirled within you. this was the worst possible time for this. Sukuna should have apologized long ago, not on this particular night when you’re waiting for Choso to come home.

oh shit, Choso. you quickly glance away at the clock – he’s going to walk through the door any second now.

“Choso will be here soon.” your voice cracked as you tried to reign in your emotions. if Sukuna truly wanted to apologize, he could have picked a better time to do it. “please, if you really feel bad about the past, then respect my wishes and just go.”

“look, I know it’s complicated but-“

“no, it’s not complicated; it’s not fair.” you snapped, harsher than you had intended. Sukuna stepped back, as if you’d physically pushed him, and stared at you in shock. “you should have apologized ages ago, you should have figured your shit out before you hurt me. I mean, physically and mentally hurt me, Sukuna.”

“I know, I know, and I want to give you a better apology but-“ Sukuna started again, only to pause when you raised your hand to stop him.

the sound of keys in the door made your heart sink to your stomach. Sukuna picked up on it too after you’d stopped him from rambling, and he steeled himself for who was going to walk through the door.

when the door swung open, Choso stepped inside with a bright smile that faltered as he noticed you two. “um, what’s going on?” his smile dropped completely as he scanned the room and noted the romantic setting.

“it’s not what it looks like.” Sukuna told him, crossing his arms over his chest as you sent a glare his way. like that didn’t sound incriminating.

“I was trying to surprise you, but Sukuna was just leaving.” you explained as you gave Sukuna a light shove toward the door. you silently wished he’d drop everything and just leave your conversation behind.

to your surprise, it was Choso who wasn’t ready to let it go. he immediately came to your side with a gentle hand and cupped your cheek. “are you okay?” he asked softly, concern etched across his features.

Sukuna tutted, he rolled his eyes. “why wouldn’t she be?”

“because we both know you and how you act.” Choso snapped, his protective instinct kicking in.

“I was just apologizing to her for-“

you quickly raised your hands up to stop Sukuna from continuing, heart racing at the thought of him exposing everything right here. “just apologizing for interrupting, right?”

Sukuna gave you a quizzical look, confusion flickering in his eyes before he shook his head. “you can drop the act if you’re doing it for my sake. it’s not like he doesn’t already know what happened.”

what?

you felt your heart sink at Sukuna’s words, panic surging through you. “what do you mean he already knows?” you demanded, shooting a nervous glance at Choso. his expression shifted to one of guilt, eyes wide and mouth agape as he met your gaze. “what does he mean, Choso?”

“wait, he never told you?” Sukuna asked, a low chuckle escaping him. when you shot him an icy glare, he gulped and offered a sympathetic smile. “Choso knows about what happened. he heard you yelling at me in the kitchen one night, and even gave me the death glare when I caught him standing at the top of the steps afterward.”

Choso… he knew? all this time? that argument felt like it had happened ages ago, a memory already blurred in your mind. you turned back to Choso, unable to hold back the tears welling in your eyes. “you… did you really know? for that long and you never thought to say anything?”

“yes.” Choso’s answer was short and direct, but his lips parted as if he wanted to say more but couldn’t find the words. silence stretched between you, heavy with unspoken thoughts and emotions.

“why didn’t you say anything?” you pressed, your voice trembling.

Choso’s gaze dropped to the floor, a flicker of regret passing over his features. “I didn’t… I didn’t want it to change things between us. you were opening up to me, and I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“opening up intimately?” Sukuna questioned, and you whipped around to face him.

“stay out of this.” you snapped, but Choso was already taking steps forward toward him.

“you shut your mouth.” Choso growled as he pointed a finger at Sukuna. Sukuna only rolled his eyes in response, but when he glanced at you and took in your distraught state, his expression hardened.

“listen, what happened in the past was a mistake, on my part.” Sukuna started, his voice tense as Choso glared at him and you looked away. “and I’m truly sorry. I’ll spend every day apologizing if I need to – but if you want to be angry about it, take it out on me. don’t do this in front of her.”

Choso chuckled darkly, his finger pressed against Sukuna’s chest now. “like you’re one to act high and mighty. I should have kicked your ass the moment I found out it was you who hurt her like that.”

you were frozen, mentally and physically, as your gaze focused on the floor. this was exactly what you’d wanted to avoid from the beginning. did Yuji know? or the others? had Sukuna and Choso talked about it? there were too many questions swirling in your mind for you to even begin comprehending.

“and you can still kick my ass if you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that I love her.”

“no you don’t, you can go to all the therapy you want but it doesn’t change who you are.”

“I’m working on it, give me a fucking break.”

you’d had enough. the night was beyond ruined, your makeup now smeared down your face as the two of them argued as if you weren’t there. this wasn’t healthy, and guilt gnawed at you. you shouldn’t have gotten involved with Sukuna, and you shouldn’t have fallen for Choso… all of this was your fault.

“I’m moving out.” your soft confession cut through the tension, making both Choso and Sukuna turn to you with wide eyes.

“what?” Sukuna asked, his voice low, but before he could think to move towards you Choso was already at your side

Choso’s expression softened, a stark contrast to the anger he’d had on display. “you don’t have to do that, angel. we can figure it out.”

you looked up at him, your heart aching. you wanted desperately for things to be okay or to start all over – but you couldn’t. you’d ruined things. sure, Sukuna had hurt you and Choso had hidden his knowledge of what happened, but it was you who caused all of it.

“I signed the lease yesterday. it’s done.” you confessed as Choso’s eyebrows furrowed, sadness washing over his face. “I thought… I thought it was for the best, but now I know it is. I can’t be the reason this house falls apart. if not for your sake, then Yuji’s. he needs his brothers.”

“I’ll go.” Sukuna’s voice broke the tense silence, drawing your gaze away from Choso and towards him. “this is my fault; I should be the one to move out.”

“yeah, maybe you should since-“

“enough.” you bit out to interrupt Choso, who now looked hurt. “enough fighting, enough tiptoeing around it, enough of this.” you gestured between the two of them. “I should have never gotten involved. Yuji is my best friend; I won’t tear his family apart.”

Sukuna fell silent while Choso reached for your hands, enclosing them in his. “if you hadn’t gotten involved, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you.” tears shimmered in his eyes as he looked deeply into yours, and your heart felt like it was fracturing like glass.

“I do love you. but… I can’t do this.”

and at that moment, the last piece of your heart shattered.

the silence that followed was deafening, the weight of your words hanging in the air. Choso’s grip on your hands tightened, his expression a mix of anguish and disbelief. “please don’t say that.” he whispered, his voice cracking. “we can work through this together. we love each other.”

you shook your head, tears spilling down your cheeks. “love isn’t enough right now. there’s too much pain, too many complications. I can’t be the cause of any more hurt, not to you or to Yuji.”

Sukuna shifted, his expression unreadable. “you think leaving will solve everything? running away won’t make the problems disappear.”

“it’s not about running away.” you replied, your voice trembling. you looked away from Choso to Sukuna, stunned to see his eyes glossy as he stared intensely at you. “I need to step back and let you both figure this out without me in the way.”

Choso’s face fell, and he looked like a lost puppy. “I can’t imagine my life without you.” he said softly. “you mean everything to me.”

your heart ached at his words. “I know, and it kills me to say this. but staying would only hurt everyone in the end.”

with a heavy heart, you stepped back towards the door, creating distance between the three of you. “I need to go. I’m going to go over to Megumi’s for now, and meet up with Yuji.”

as you turned to leave, Choso reached out, desperation in his voice. “wait! just give me a chance to fix this.”

you glanced up at Sukuna, who only gave you a small supportive nod, before looking back to Choso to see the pain etched on his face. “you deserve happiness, Choso. and I hope you find it… with or without me.”

with that, you walked out, your heart in pieces. you breathed in the cold air to steel yourself before starting to the journey to Megumi’s. you knew it was going to be a long night, debriefing your best friend and crying yourself to sleep, but it had to be the for the best.

right?

you had done something stupid; you told yourself that over and over as you walked down the street. sure, Choso and Sukuna didn’t have a brotherly bond, different parents and whatnot, but because of Yuji, they were brothers. and then you came in.

first, you thought Sukuna actually liked you, and then that got fucked up. then, you go and fall for Choso, the other brother. and of course, somehow that got fucked up as well. maybe that one wasn’t anyone’s fault, but you couldn’t stick around to see how you’d mess it up further. he deserved better than that. hell, you’d even say Sukuna deserves someone right for him.

and what was it with Sukuna dropping a love bomb? surely, he just didn’t know what love truly was; he didn’t love you. how could he? when he’d hurt you as much as he did, whether he realized it or not.

but Choso loved you. and you really did love him. had you ever gotten to actually say it? the words “I love you”? did he know how much it was truly breaking your heart to walk away?

you hadn’t realized you were crying silently until you saw Megumi’s face when his front door swung open. soft, sympathetic eyes, the same ones you’d already seen from two others today. it made you sick; you didn’t deserve it.

“I – hic – where’s Yuji?” you hiccupped as you asked, and immediately Megumi called out behind him before letting you step into the apartment.

Yuji came almost running around the corner, phone pressed to his ear, and he looked almost relieved to see you. almost. “yeah, she just got here safely. of course I’m gonna take care of her. okay, I’m hanging up now.” Yuji ended whatever call he had been on before rushing over and enveloping you in a hug. “what trouble have you gotten yourself into now?”

“he loved me.” you whispered through sniffles, clutching the fabric of Yuji’s sweatshirt between your fists. Yuji shushed you as he motioned towards Megumi to come and join the hug as well. while Megumi wasn’t big on physical contact – with anyone but Yuji – he didn’t hesitate and you soon were wrapped up by both of them.

“should I call Nobara?” Megumi questioned in a hushed voice. you shook your head in answer, even though you knew he was talking to Yuji.

“don’t wanna bother her.” you told him, but Yuji sighed. you knew what he was going to say next, so you continued ahead of him. “fine, call her. I know you’re going to do it anyway.”

after Megumi disappeared to make the call, Yuji pulled away to hold onto your shoulders and look at you. “what happened? talk to me.” he urged as you wiped away the tears and snot smeared on your face.

“I really fucked up, Yuji.” you cried. “he loved me, and I messed up your family, and I should have never thought I could be happy because look what I did.”

Yuji fiercely shook his head at you, lips set in a firm frown. “you didn’t mess up my family. you do deserve happiness, haven’t I always told you that. besides, Sukuna was wrong to tell you he loved you but he-“

“wait, Sukuna?” you cut him off, brows furrowed in confusion. “how did you know?”

“Sukuna was the one who called me, and told me to make sure you were safe. I thought you would’ve known that?” Yuji raised an eyebrow, as confused as you were now. you were stunned – what exactly did Yuji know? “he told me what he said, and what happened between you and Choso because of it.”

you couldn’t find the words you wanted to say – that you weren’t upset about Sukuna. truthfully, it was the least of your concerns. you had been referring to Choso the entire time. but Sukuna had called Yuji?

“I think you should sit down before we continue this conversation.” you muttered as you averted your gaze, silently prepping yourself to tell your best friend everything that had happened from the moment you first stepped into his house.

needless to say, it was a long night as you gave Yuji and Megumi a recap of everything – including what happened with Sukuna. even all the brotherly love in the world couldn't stop the sound of Yuji yelling at Sukuna on the phone in the other room. even Megumi had been clenching and unclenching his fists on the couch next to you as you both listened in on the conversation.

when Yuji had felt somewhat satisfied, he’d returned to your side, and promptly pulled you into an embrace before murmuring apologies like water rushing from a dam. in the end, you were consoling him, both of you becoming puddles of tears together while Megumi bore witness.

and at the end of it all, you’d heard the words “it’s not your fault” enough to last you a lifetime. but, no matter how many times Yuji said the words, they never stuck with you. because losing Choso was your fault.

it was all that mattered to you now. the mental image of Choso’s heartbroken expression flashing through your mind all night, even as you tried to fall asleep with tears still in your eyes.

you had to let it go, eventually. if you had just fallen for him first, none of this would have happened – but it did. it had all happened, and the past was still there, sitting in that house and soaked into the walls. and it would follow you, even if you had gone back when your feet wanted to carry you there.

you’d move forward, try to move on – it was all you could do to try and give Choso better. and maybe, only in your dreams, you’d find each other again eventually.

that dream was the only reason you fell asleep that night, looking forward to meeting him again as you closed your eyes.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . taglist: @nighttwingg @sweetsformysoul @casualpoetrytaco @lvingd3adg0rl @haikomaiko @csolya @deathlypink @sad-darksoul @elisedylandy @jinxiewritings @aldebrana @ravester @futuristiccurlyhair @san-it-is-i-guess @marie-is-in-the-dark @llovergirlll @iseeyouuu @makingtimemine @spicykimchii @shxhari @ratcoone @mollyrocks420 @willybillyletsgetsilly @distinguishedpenguinbread @ren-ni @sugar504 @runfrme @sukuna-for-life I hope I got everyone, and I hope the tagging worked for all of you! thank you so much for liking this enough to be tagged, it means the world to me! IF the tagging didn't work, try turning on notifications for when I post just in case! ♡ if you'd like to be added to the taglist let me know! ♡ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .

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mingkismain · 7 days ago

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Detective Kim - hongjoong x reader

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

an; finally got inspo to write again!

hongjoong x fem!reader

genre; smut, pwp

word count; 4,091

warnings/tags; pwp, piv, unprotected sex (as i always say don't do that), sort of meandom!hongjoong (SORT OF), non-idol!au, little bit of choking, quite literally one (1) ass slap, lil bit of degradation, pet names (babe, baby), creampie, overstimulation, if i missed anything lmk <3

MDNI - smut under cut

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it wasn’t unusual for you to have to bring in a body during night shift, but a double homicide was definitely a little weird.

You’d been working for the county coroner for about three years now, and in that time you had only had one other double homicide, and that one was on your very first night shift.

You could’ve sworn this one only came in because your coworker made the mistake of wishing you a slow shift, ultimately cursing you to a nightmarish shift. While it wasn’t as bad as you thought, the scene where the bodies were found was about 30 minutes from your office, which meant this trip would take at least an hour, which meant you lost at least an hour of possible sleep.

Great.

“I’ll make sure to wish him a slow shift next time he’s on nights,” you grumbled to yourself as you loaded up the coroner van. As soon as you were done checking the stretchers and making sure you had enough gloves and body bags (plus your camera), you pulled out of the garage and made your way to the scene.

When you arrived, local and state police were already there waiting for you, Detective Kim walking up to your van to greet you.

“Ah, so good to see you!, sorry it’s under these circumstances, but always a pleasure to see you,” Detective Kim stuck his hand out for you to shake.

You smiled, “hi Hongjoong, yes sorry I have to see you here too, we always seem to meet at the worst times!” You tried to keep the mood as light as you could, as the unknown of the scene inside was starting to make you nervous. “What do we have here?” You hopped out of the van, grabbing your camera and some gloves, walking with Hongjoong to the front door of the scene. It appeared to have happened inside a townhouse.

He kept up with you, pausing so you could capture your photos as you two walked, “so apparently there was a 911 call made by a neighbor, they had heard a lot of banging coming from this unit and it was originally a noise complaint. While the person was on the phone with dispatch, they said they heard gunshots. We’re still figuring out the details, but we needed you to come in and do your work before we started ours.” Once you two had made your way to the first line of crime scene tape, you were met with a policeman holding a sheet of paper.

“Before you two go in, sign this please.” He held the clipboard out in front of you, it had the scene log on it. “Make sure we know who is coming in and out of here. We don’t know what happened yet, but better safe than sorry.” You and Hongjoong nodded and each signed your names and what departments you two worked for. You then snapped a shot of the scene log for your own evidence folder.

You continued to talk to Hongjoong as you made your way through the front door, snapping more photos as you moved inside, “so they heard gunshots, anything else? And where are the bodies?” You moved to the living room, finding bloody footprints, snapping a photo with your scale and being careful to not step on them.

“The local police are still gathering their witness statements, so I really don’t know what else they heard. But I think it was a couple, a male and a female. I think the man was dealing with some shady people, then his girl got caught up in it. Oh, and the bodies are upstairs. Whenever you’re done down here we can go up to the bedroom.” He trailed behind you, watching as you photographed from the living room to the kitchen, eventually going to the stairs.

Once you made your way to the stairs, you started to notice bullet holes and marks in the walls leading up to the hallway. You grabbed some photos of those as you continued up the stairs, “Joong, which bedroom are they in?”

His ears perked up at the little nickname, people rarely used it on him but whenever you said it, he would feel his face flush. He cleared his throat, “go up the hallway, second door on your left. I’ll be right behind you.” You nodded and continued up as you photographed the hallway upstairs, finding even more bullet holes and a couple of shell casings. As you entered the bedroom, you saw the two bodies, the woman was in bed, the man was face down on the floor.

Hongjoong stood behind you, “Jesus.”

You turned around, brows furrowed, “have you not been up here yet??”

“No, I seriously was waiting for you! I didn’t want you yelling at me if I touched anything! I remember how you were on that suicide scene not too long ago!”

You huffed, “well thank you for not touching anything, but are the weapons secured? Do we even know if this guy had a gun? Has anyone done ANYTHING prior to my arrival???”

He stifled a laugh, “yes, the cops secured the scene for you, they have the gun in an evidence bag downstairs, but we can give you a description and everything when we’re heading down again. And don’t worry, we took our own photos before we moved the gun.”

“Thank you, remind me when we go down please.” You began to move into the room, being mindful of where your feet were placed.

The room wasn’t a bloodbath, but it certainly wasn’t spotless. You started with the man, as he was closer to the door. He was lying face down, feet closer to the door. It looked as if he had been running. You took photos of him as is before getting up close. Once you finished with overall shots, you put your gloves on and began to move the body, turning him over so you could get a clear shot of his face. It looked as if he had been shot in the back of the head, with the exit wound dead center of his forehead. You opened his eyes to check for other injuries, and to document in your photos. As you moved him so he was now on his back, you found more wounds scattered throughout his torso.

“Oh my god, Doc is gonna have a field day with this guy,” you snapped photos of every single bullet wound. Some had exit wounds, but a few did not, which meant your coroner was going to have to search for the bullets during the autopsy.

Once you were done with the man, you moved to the woman in the bed. She seemed to have a less painful demise, as she only had two bullet wounds. One straight to the heart, and one slightly to the left of the kill shot.

As you continued to move the body so you could clearly assess her, Hongjoong stood by the door, “what’s it looking like?”

You stood at the foot of the bed, taking more pictures of the woman, “looks like he was the one in the altercation. I think she may have woken up, but whoever was chasing this guy must’ve gotten her pretty quickly. She only has two wounds, and I think he’s got at least a dozen holes in him.” You turned around to face him, “can you come back downstairs with me? I need to get my body bags and stretcher out of the van.” He nodded and followed you down. You handed him the two bags you brought and went around the back to grab your stretcher. Since there was only one and both the decedents were relatively small in weight, you could fit both of them on the one stretcher and call it a day.

Before you went back inside, you found some of the local cops. “Listen, I need some big strong men to help me with these people in this house. How many of you want to have the honor of helping lil’ ol’ me?” You batted your lashes at the cops.

Don’t ask what sexism can’t do for you, but what it CAN help you with. You damn well were not about to haul two bodies down some stairs on your own.

Hearing that you needed strong men made them start puffing their chests, one out of the group piped up, “sure doll, me and Chris here can give you a hand. Do you have extra gloves?” He grabbed his buddy by the vest, volunteering him to help with the dead.

You put on a big fake smile, “of course I do! Here, take these and let’s go!”

They followed you into the house, Hongjoong behind them with the body bags still. He had watched you with the cops and may have started ruminating on it. He was a strong guy, right? He alone could’ve helped you with the bodies? What the fuck?

Pushing those thoughts to the side, he stood in the doorway again, watching you and the cops handle the bodies into their bags. Once everyone was zipped in, you and one cop handled a body down the stairs, while Hongjoong and the other cop carried the other bag behind you two. Once they were loaded onto the stretcher, you got them into the van, closing the door behind you. Before you got on your way, you gave the cops your work email so they could send you photos of the gun from earlier.

You thanked the cops and sent them on their way, Hongjoong hung out by your van for a second, “I’ll meet you back at your office.”

“What? Why?”

He huffed, “because you aren’t going to be able to move two bodies on your own that’s why!”

“They’re both pretty light Joong, it's fine, really. You probably have other cases sitting on your desk—”

He sighed your name out, “seriously, quit it, I’m not changing my mind. Plus, I really don’t wanna go back to the office yet. I’ll meet you at YOUR office in a bit. Drive safe.”

“You too.” You spoke as he walked off, you hopped back into your van, plugging your directions in.

While on your drive you contemplated why Hongjoong’s mood had shifted towards the end of the scene. Sure you had only known him for two years, but that felt like enough time together to know that tonight was a little strange.

“Maybe he’s dealing with shit outside of work,” You thought out loud. Maybe the bodies in the back would perk up with some advice.

Unfortunately, neither the dead nor the living had anything insightful to say as you pulled back into your office garage, Hongjoong already in a parking spot out front. Once he saw you parking, he made his way to the garage door. He barely said a word as you got the stretcher out of the back.

“Where do you want it?”

Your eyebrows raised, “huh?? Oh, the bodies. Um, put them over there for now, I have to get their weights, but I need to put them on separate tables for that.” You shook your head. The fuck? He knew what he was doing phrasing it like that.

He literally does NOT, you just haven’t been laid in ages. Wake up.

While you busied yourself with the toe tags, Hongjoong made his way over to you, leaning in to see what you were writing down. He was so close you could smell the cologne on him, it’s amazing that after a scene as gross as that one and now being in the morgue with more dead bodies mere feet away, he still smelled so delicious. It took a lot of willpower for your hand to steady as you finished with the last tag, turning around and nearly bumping into him with how in your space he had gotten.

“Sorry hon, was just curious. I don’t get to see this side of the investigation too much,” he moved out of your way so you could go place the toe tags with their respective bodies.

Was it a full moon tonight? Why am I sweating when this morgue is literally 50ºF. I hate it here.

As you finished with the toe tags, you moved to grab the storage trays out of the freezer for the bodies. You figured you could weigh one of them on the stretcher and the other on the tray, then move them both to trays for storage until autopsy. You motioned for Hongjoong, “Joong, come give me a hand please?”

This time there was no hiding the flush to his face as he walked towards you; though he could blame it on how cold this damn place was. Regardless, he made his way over, helping you weigh the bodies. Once all that was done, you rolled them into storage, shutting the door and double checking that it was locked. You sighed as you headed back to the van to collect your camera so you could upload your photos and hopefully sleep the rest of your shift.

Unfortunately (or maybe not?) Hongjoong followed you to your desk inside.

“I thought you were just going to help with the bodies?” You unloaded your camera bag as he rolled up an office chair next to yours.

He took off his coat, putting it on the back of his chair, “yeah, but now I want to see your pictures. Crime scene rarely shares with the detectives. I don’t know why, but they’re so weird. It’s like a little cult over there, they never wanna give us anything even though it’s usually OUR cases they’re helping with.”

You let out a small sigh, “alright, fine. You can look at mine, but I’m kicking you out after that. You’re cutting into my sleeping time.”

He laughed, “listen, I’m cutting into my OWN sleep time, but I get lonely at the office, it’s different from here.”

You focused on your screen, beginning to label all your photos in numerical order. “What do you mean?”

He leaned in, looking as you labeled, “oh wow you’re great at this. It’s just different. Here you’re on your own sort of, it’s only you on night shift, not a lot of overhead really, it’s comfier. At my office it has the same vibes as a fraternity house sometimes. There’s more than one person each shift, and everyone is fighting for the same promotion most times, so you really don’t know who you can trust. It sucks most days, but I love the actual work I do.”

You blushed at his quick compliment about your photos, the day you can take a compliment normally is the day your praise kink dies. Regardless, you continue to listen to him vent about his office as you catalog your work. By the time he was done ranting, you had finished with your photos, Hongjoong leaning over your shoulder the entire time you were working, eventually moving so close to your screen that your heads were lined up next to each other. But you blamed the closeness on him manually zooming in instead of waiting for you to do it on the computer. Now that you were done with labeling, you could spend more time looking at the pictures with him. He never moved his head, if anything he got even closer to you, putting the hand that was originally resting on the back of your chair, now resting on your shoulders. He stood out of his chair in favor of practically leaning over you.

You tried to crack a joke, “Joong, I think you need glasses, you’re so close you’re going to fall into my screen,” you let out a nervous laugh as you both turned your heads to each other. The eye contact you were now holding made your body temperature skyrocket.

He continued to hold eye contact, breaking for a second to look at your lips, “Sorry doll, I didn’t want to bother you too much and ask you to zoom in on every single picture.”

You thought about how he said doll, then it hit you, “is that what this attitude change was caused by?? Because I asked some stupid local cops to help me move BODIES? You cannot be serious right now Hongjoong.” You were still technically under him in your desk chair, yelling up into his face. He gave it right back to you, one hand moving to your upper thigh, giving it a squeeze, “yeah that’s what this was about! Why were you flirting with the cops? You didn’t need to do that and you know I would’ve been able to help you with the bodies myself!”

The hand on your thigh did little to distract you, “oh my god you and your fragile ego! We would’ve dropped the fucking bodies had it just been us two! Don’t read into it too much! The flirting meant jack shit!”

He sighed heavily, the hand on the back of your chair moving to your chin, pulling you in for a rough kiss. Pulling away, he said, “it didn’t feel like jack shit to me, do you do that on all your scenes?” He lifted you out of your chair, dropping you onto your desk, going back in for a heavier kiss. “Whore yourself around so the men can do the heavy lifting? I wonder what else you offer so they can do your dirty work,” He pulled you into him by your waist, a hand snaking up to the back of your head, pulling your hair so you would look at him. You bit back a moan, not wanting him to have the satisfaction of knowing how hot you were getting.

He gave your hair another tug, “answer me pretty girl. Do you act like that at all your scenes or just when you know I’ll be around?”

You tried to even out your heavy breathing, looking into his eyes, “I do it on most scenes, regardless of if you’re there or not. It’s not my fault you can’t handle it.” His grip in your hair loosened, you thought this would be the end of it.

Clearly you were wrong.

He tilted his head and smirked at you, pulling you off of the desk in favor of bending you over it.

Thank god this office didn’t have any fucking cameras.

You braced yourself with your arms but not for long, you heard movement behind your back before your arms were taken out from under you. Hongjoong had taken his belt and secured your arms behind you with it. He then moved to unfasten your pants, dropping them along with his. He bent over you so he could whisper in your ear as his hand snaked down to play with your already throbbing clit over your panties.

“We’ll see who can handle what. I don’t think those other cops ever get to see you like this.” You turned your head away from him, trying to hide the fact that he was making you feel fucking amazing, but he was having none of that. Instead of going for your hair again, he brought the hand that wasn’t on your clit to your neck, grabbing you tightly, making you arch off the desk. As he brought you up to him, a moan escaped you and it immediately drove Hongjoong up a fucking wall.

“Aw see baby, you can’t hide from me, I know what you like. It’s too easy,” he emphasized ‘easy’ with a stronger hold on your neck, making your vision fuzzy for only a moment before fully dropping his hand in favor of going to rip your underwear off. He brought you back down to the desk with a huff, getting rid of his underwear in the process.

He took his cock out and began to line himself up with your entrance, you only wish you could’ve seen his face when he finally slid into you, but you were too busy squeezing your eyes shut. You could hear him let out a shaky moan, “jesus fuck you feel so good, it’s a wonder we didn’t do this sooner,” you gasped as he bottomed out inside of you, even though you didn’t get a chance to see his cock, he felt heavy inside of you, thick and long, practically touching your cervix.

Once Hongjoong felt you were adjusted to him he began to pound into you, moving you up and down the desk. He held onto your still secured arms for leverage, grunting into your ear as he did so.

Leaning down to bite your ear, he growled at you, “say it.”

In your nearly fucked out state, you had no idea what he was talking about. “What?” You managed to get out through several moans.

He repeated himself, bringing a hand to slap your ass as he did, “say it. Tell me you’re a whore. My whore.”

At the mention of him calling you his whore you swore you could’ve flooded the office, you felt yourself tighten around him as he said it. Earning another, rather loud, moan out of him.

Through broken whimpers and moans, you managed to say it, “yes, fuck yes! I’m yours Hongjoong,” you let out another particularly loud moan, practically drooling onto your desk, “your dumb whore.” You were pretty sure you came as you said that, body feeling a little more weak and a lot more sensitive, but he continued to fuck you through it, bringing you to that sweet spot of overstimulation.

Hongjoong must’ve felt it too, he leaned down to leave a kiss on your shoulder, “aw what’s the matter baby? Haven’t been touched in so long it only takes a couple hits to get you there? Don’t worry, I’m close too.”

He in fact was not close.

He continued to pound into you, switching up from fast and hard to slowly dragging his cock in and out of you, it was torturous at this point. He was driving you crazy, you felt like you were close again, he made it even worse by bringing his hand back down to your clit to rub it again, harder and faster than before, making your legs shake so badly. You were beginning to get so overwhelmed by all the pleasure, you could feel tears running down your face, landing on your desk. You were sure you were going to pass out if he didn’t cum soon, the pleasure beginning to make you feel lightheaded.

You could hear Hongjoong’s groans and moans getting louder behind you. He reached down to undo the belt from your hands, freeing you to brace yourself on your desk again. You pushed yourself up, arching your back and making him fuck you from a slightly new angle, sending you both right to the edge.

He bit your shoulder and moaned loudly, “baby, babe I’m close, so close, where do you want it?”

You shivered at his words, reaching back to grab his hair, “inside—haah—fuck inside please!”

He moaned and cursed your name, “fuck, fuck! coming, oh my god i’m gonna—” he groaned as he released inside you, triggering you to come again, legs practically giving out underneath you. Hongjoong felt you slipping and held your hips up while you both rode your highs out. Once your both caught your breath, he pulled out of you, making you both shudder as he did so.

As you turned around to redress yourself, he was doing the same, he reached down to you and gave you a deep kiss, but this one was softer than the earlier ones. Once you both were redressed, your work phone rang.

You groaned, answering the phone, “coroner’s office. Huh? Uh huh.” Hongjoong stood close by, trying to listen in, “alright, where are you? Do you have a name? No? Alright, do you at least have race and sex? Weight? Rough estimate is fine. Alright. I’ll be out in under an hour. And what was your name? Got it. See ya.” You hung up the phone, scribbling the last bit of info down.

Hongjoong spoke up, “what was that about?”

You reached for your jacket that read ‘coroner’ on the back, “another death, apparently this one was a suicide. I think it’s in your jurisdiction if you wanna come out with me.”

He followed your lead, reaching for his jacket, “I guess aftercare will have to wait till later huh.”

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this was also crossposted to my ao3 :3

please do not repost or translate my work

#ateez smut #ateez x you #ateez x reader #ateez #kpop #kpop smut #ateez fanfic #ateez fic #hongjoong #kim hongjoong #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong smut #ateez hard hours

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