#i immensely look forward to burning you at each and every possible chance

[fiveredlights]

daniel and max ocean 11's style heist to take back his monza trophy when?

[paper-n-ashes]

sparks and embers - chapter 1

Characters: Poe Dameron x Original Female Character, Kylo Ren x Original Female Character

Story Tags: Explicit (18+), Canon Compliant/Divergent (Set after TLJ), First Person POV, Love Triangle, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Porn with Plot, Hurt/Comfort, Kylo Ren hates Poe Dameron

Summary: Alexys is a doctor living a life of exclusivity on Raxus, hoping to survive through a peaceful existence, concealing herself from those she believes would use her, or kill her. When fate intervenes and instigates a perilous journey she'd been desperately trying to avoid, Alex finds herself caught in the middle of two sides in both war and love.

Preface: Let me say, I am immensely nervous about this. After months of back and forth inside my mind, I’ve decided to go for it and begin the long process of moving my long running series to Tumblr, along with changing the name (something I’ve wanted to do for a long time). I hit a big emotional road block after over a year of writing and posting, so I’m hoping this move will eventually get me back into the swing. But for now, I’m looking forward to revisiting the beginning of this space love triangle.

If you’ve already read the saga, absolutely NO pressure to read again. Each chapter will be edited a little, but no major plot points will change. To any newcomers who find themselves interested, the story is already posted on AO3 if you are desperate to continue. Otherwise if you prefer reading on Tumblr, or simply like the forced breaks between chapters, I’ll be posting a new chapter every couple of days. I know it’s not written as reader insert, but I just couldn’t make the story work out in any other fashion. I poured a lot of love and heart into Alexys so I hope you’ll give her a chance.

Chapter 1 - Crash Landing

Words: 3.4k

Chapter Tags/Warnings: descriptions of severe injury including blood and bone, medical procedures 

Read on AO3

~

I felt it before I heard it.

A booming crash of metal and glass, sending a shattering vibration through the walls and furniture around me. After the years of mostly silence I’d become accustomed to, the noise that came pummelling into my ears almost made me shriek in surprise. It was short lived, coming and going in a flicker so quick I had to wonder if it was real at all.

Lights began to flash, blinking rapidly in uneven time. The mixture of harsh beeps indicated something was faulting my electricity circuits, plunging me into the darkness of night over and over.

I could only question myself again at the plausibility of this being a dream, but the slow, increasing creak emanating from beyond the walls of this building brought me to a certainty.

Something had crashed outside.

Fear radiated through my limbs, leaving me stuck where I was standing for a few moments, before an uncontrollable urge of selflessness and honestly, curiosity, forced me to move and exit the safety of my clinic.

There wasn’t really a way to prepare for what I saw not metres away from my front entrance. A ship, an X-wing of some variety, was wrecked into itself, varying metals twisted and curled over each other, flames beginning to billow out from the creases. I could feel the heat of them rise as I cautiously stepped forward, taking in the scene with wide eyes. Only seconds had passed when I saw it – the movement of something – no, a person, demanding my attention. The pilot of this battered machine had been thrown just beyond the edge of its hull, broken transparisteel smattering the ground around them.

Hm, the Resistance should probably investigate their flight safety measures.

That thought quickly flittered away when the pilot moved again, this time with a painful moan echoing into the atmosphere. The switch inside quickly flipped, and an all too familiar feeling of conviction flooded through.

This is your cue Alexys.

I raced quickly to the pilot and knelt on the ground before them, fingers carefully removing the black and red helmet with both urgency and restraint as to not cause any more possible damage to their head or neck. The moan I'd heard just moments before let me know this person had some kind of airway, but it was pertinent I assess further. With the helmet gone I noticed the short, lightly waved black hair of a man, his eyes pulled closed, a few bruises and smudges of grey soot smattered over his face. His chest was moving, laboured breathing with the occasional heave on inhale.

At least he’s breathing.

“It’s alright,” I insisted. “I’m here to help you.”

There wasn’t any discernible response from the pilot other than a groan that withered away slowly, and that in itself was worrying. Kneeling over his body, I placed two fingers under the line of his jaw, halfway down, trying to feel for a pulse. I could sense the thump of blood under my fingertips, but it was too slow, too faint, too uneven.

Not great, but it was enough for now.

I began to scan over his body, knowing it was time to assess what was giving him reason to cry out in pain. There were severe burns on his left arm which had caused some of his flight suit to stick to the skin, with more scalds reaching down to his torso and abdomen. His right arm was almost definitely broken with the limb morphed into an irregular angle almost halfway along.

Without being able to look at them directly to ascertain whether I was going to be able to move him, I pressed on his hips gently, silently praying he hadn’t broken his pelvis. He muffled softly, but anyone who had actually shattered the bone would have screamed. As my eyes continued to scan down, it became obvious all too suddenly the shattered edge of his right femur bone poking out of the orange flight suit.

Kriff, this is not ideal.

I wanted to kick myself for not noticing it before, but there was no time, not with the very real possibility of him bleeding out in front of my eyes. My feet moved under me, racing back to the clinic room, knowing where the bandage and splint lay waiting, along with the anaesthetic injections I had stocked in the pharmacy cupboard.

He was certainly going to need them.

Within minutes I was back to the ground with the pilot, clicking together the injector handle and vial, piercing the needle straight into his thigh above the fracture site. I wouldn’t be able to wait for it to dull most of the pain, so internally, I braced myself for the scream I was about to elicit from this poor human's chest. The second I started to wrap the bandage around the splint, a piercing wail echoed through the air, almost causing me to hesitate. Still, my hands continued to haphazardly wrap the white material around his leg, pushing through the guilt it ignited. 

Suddenly, the noise stopped.

My eyes darted to his face as his head slumped over on its side. “Hey!” I shouted into his face as I scrambled back to the top end of his limp body. “Hey can you hear me? Open your eyes if you can hear me!”

There was no response.

I pinched at the muscle on his shoulder, harder and harder to elicit any kind of reaction. Nothing. My hand pulled into a closed fist and grinded against his sternum. “Come on, open those eyes if you can feel this!”

Still nothing.

Again I took check of his breathing, chest still rising and falling, yet shallow and with little power. His heartbeat had begun to race, but through my fingertips I could feel the strain in the muscle. Something was seriously wrong, even more so than his other injuries. Something internally. If I didn’t get him into the clinic, he was going to die.

In a snap decision, I chose to forgo an attempt to run back and locate the hover-stretcher. It would take too much time to set up and power on, time this man didn’t have. I would have to move him myself.

How the hell am I going to do this?

With my arms hooked and locked under his armpits I began to drag the pilots hefty body backwards towards the clinic behind me, thankfully only a few meters away, barely making it past the entryway when a roar of flames overtook the X-wing. I looked up to see the blaze almost completely engulfing the ship, a ferocious heat searing into my eyes and face. With even more urgency I heaved the body into the large clinic room, getting up and slamming the door just in time. Just before a house rattling explosion sent shockwaves into the atmosphere.

Lucky didn’t seem to be an appropriate feeling considering the situation I was in, but at least no one had died. Yet. With my last bit of brute strength, I hoisted the pilots limp body onto the closest hospital bed, noticing then the trail of red liquid I’d brought along with me.

Oh no no no.

With him still lifeless, I tugged at his body and limbs to lie flat on the bed, scurrying to my medical trolley and hauling it back to where the pilot laid, ragged breaths still thankfully escaping into the air. Snatching the heavy shears from the top drawer, I began to tear through the thick fabric of the flight suit, unclipping and removing as much of the life support vest and belt as I could. I had to be careful not to rip away the fabric that melted into the burns scattered all over his body, the number of them increasing as I peeled away the suit, starting from his legs, up to his abdomen and chest over to his upper arms. His torso was in full view now, a smattering of dark hair over his pectorals, underneath which showed the bruises of his crash’s impact.

Oh he’s definitely got some broken ribs.

As my gaze scanned over his skin, I could finally isolate where all that blood had escaped from. A deep penetrating wound just below the last rib on his left flank. As I registered his quick shallow breaths and the uneven rise in his chest, it became obvious.

Collapsed lung.

Whatever had pierced through his chest had poked an extremely damaging hole in his lung, the pleural space now filling with air, leaving no room for his lung to expand. My following movements were swift and calculated, almost automatic. A pointed scalpel was soon in my hand, poised to cut. But I couldn’t help but hesitate. It had been so long since I’d had to do this. And yet, somehow, concern for this stranger’s life was quick to weave it’s way through, dissolving my fear into pure resolve.

I made my incision in between the 4th and 5th ribs, using a clamp to push into the underlying tissue and past the pleural cavity, a gloved hand then entering to check I’d made it through. With an instinctive confidence, I guided the chest tube between the layers of tissue, undoing the ratchet of the clamp to an immediate rush of air. The pilot’s chest heaved in relief, along with my own.

One crisis averted.

But there was more to do. Connecting a drain to the tube, I haphazardly sutured it in place, before flying to the pharmacy cupboard. My stock of bacta was limited, returning with an already prepared vial into the pressurised injector, reminding myself I would need to use it sparingly if this stranger was going to make it through the full extend of his injuries. I had cursed at myself only a few times in the years past at being so far removed from a higher level medical centre that would be overflowing with bacta and medical droids that could help in exactly this kind of situation, but the thought had never burned me so badly. There was no way to know if I could keep this man alive with the resources that yesterday I had been more than comfortable with. I would just have to try.

I injected some of the bacta solution throughout the surrounding area of the wound and covered it with heavy dressing, knowing the bleeding would quickly be curbed. Unfortunately, the wound itself would take a few days to fully close, only ever being able to afford lower quality bacta. Before moving on to the burns, I placed some basic monitoring, lines extending from electrical dots over his chest, wrist and neck to the data monitor above the bed. As the numbers lit up on the holo screen, I felt myself breathe a small sigh of relief, having prepared for a much worse result. His heart rate was better, oxygen levels returning to normal, blood pressure not optimal by any means but high enough to sustain his life, for now.

After securing an oxygen filter over his battered face, I continued to inspect and clean as many of the small and more sizeable burns dotting his body. Even with the many I had uncovered, the one extending from his shoulder past his elbow was the one of most concern. Third degree and extremely unhappy looking. If I wasn’t quick to treat this, it could leak even more fluid from his already compromised circulatory system. I was thankful he still remained unconscious when I began to slowly shed the charred material melted into the skin layer. I couldn’t help but shudder as I remembered the initial scream this man had let out, knowing I would be hearing it now if not for his comatose state.

Covering the immense scald in as much salve as I could spare, I began to wrap it in protective antibacterial bandage, soon moving on to protect his many blisters and deeper burns with dressings. Glancing at the monitor screen, he was still stable, and swallowed hard. Now it was time to attempt possibly the most daunting part of this patient’s treatment.

His femur was still sticking through the tissue of his thigh, slightly dried dark red blood creating lightning strike looking lines extending from the wound.

I need to get some blood into him before moving this.

I quickly got to work on an IV cannula, his poor blood pressure making it significantly more difficult than it should have been. Two bags of O- blood were all I had, and a wave of dread coursed through me with the thought of that not being enough if this all went wrong. My fist squeezed the fast flow pump of the IV line, pushing fresh blood urgently into his system, making his blood pressure rise only slightly. With the last of the red liquid trickling through the line I wheeled over the portable X-Ray. It was so old the mechanical arm screeched at me as I positioned it into place over the pilot’s leg. The bone had to be at least somewhat in place before getting the bacta to work its magic or this guy might walk with two uneven legs for the rest of his life.

If he actually made it through the rest of his injuries, that is.

Shaking my arms out at my side, I sucked in a few deep breaths to build my stamina. Unfortunately, this stranger was stuck with a small framed female to attempt reducing his severe fracture. With one last inhale, I drew the courage to pull as hard as I could horizontally at the knee joint, digging my fingers into a vice grip around the limb and yanking it towards me. To my relief, the fractured edge of the femur to slipped back into the hole it was peeking out from, settling back under the skin.

Thank all the stars in the galaxy he’s not awake for this.

I quickly pressed the image button on the X-ray to assess the progress I’d made. The faint white lines of bone edges were stark enough on the grey background of the image. The fracture wasn’t reduced even nearly enough. I prepared myself again, with another deep breath I pulled hard. This time my efforts were forced into angling the lower portion of bone to try and lock it back into place. The grinding of bone edges could be felt through my fingers, pushing myself to pull even harder, creating more space between the fracture in the hope of giving a fighting chance of lining up the splintered edges. My muscles were whining, begging for this to be over, tears of exhaustion soon stinging at the edges of my eyes.

With one final twisting motion there was a sudden click.

Finally.

My relief was short lived.

It was slow at first, before racing faster. A stream of dark red blood pooling at the wound the broken bone had made.

Oh maker no.

Within moments the pace of the blood quickened. I shot my hands to the open flesh site, pressing down hard in an attempt to disturb the flow. The liquid quickly covered my gloved hands, already sure I’d sliced into the femoral artery. The pressure of my hands into the area made the blood spurt out onto my arms, my clothes, my face, everywhere. The monitor was screaming, blood pressure falling quickly. Wiping some of the hot coppery fluid away from my left eye, I slid my fingers back into the gash, moving desperately to stop the overflow before the man lying in front of me bled out, knowing it would all be my fault.  

You have to do it Alexys. He will die if you don’t.

The voice nagged at me, pleading to do what it wanted.

He’s with the Resistance! If he survives, if he contacts them, they’ll find me. And they’ll know.

It is time to decide. His life. Or yours.

Seconds ticked by fleetingly, numbers flashing on the monitor trickling down, the speed of blood flow from the pilot’s leg stubbornly keeping it’s intensity.

Everything I’d done to get here, to isolate myself so no one could find me. It would all amount to nothing. My easy, albeit lonely life, would be gone. All because of this stranger.

But I couldn’t let him die. Not like this.

In one flash, I removed my hands from inside the wound, ripping off my gloves and placing two palms at either side of the leg. With closed eyes, I willed the energy out of the depths of its slumber. From the darkened corner of my mind I pulled it back into existence, opening the gate I’d locked it inside for so long, letting it finally burst through and fill up my brain. From there it down through my neck, through my chest and down my arms, right to the end of my fingertips. Its warming glow was almost comforting, friendly. I would have basked in it for a while if not for the life that hung in the balance before me.

Through the pads of my fingerprints I pushed the stream outwards, connecting past the skin of this innocent human being, and felt the overwhelming heat of pain and dimming of energy.

Hurry, he’s dying.

I began to map out the tissue of his leg, frustratingly slowly, starting at the smallest of capillaries, weaving and winding through the flesh, connecting them through the maze of fat and muscle. I could feel the sweat forming on my forehead, my breathing forced and harsh. The vessels grew bigger as I pushed the energy through, skipping past broken points of other smaller injuries. I could fix them later.

Finally, I felt a molten warmth radiating close to where the maze had guided me. Racing to it, I sensed something pushing me back, the pressure of escaping fluid holding my efforts. I’d found the cut, but now I had to somehow knit it back together.

You’re taking too long.

The alarms of the monitor started to echo with a hollow ring inside my ear, fading until I could hear almost nothing. The world around me was blurry, only the image of vessel tissue and all-consuming redness visible in my minds eye. The energy I was expending began to burn me - I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer. I reached out with it, what felt like many hands grasping desperately at the severed edge of the vessel, frantic yet delicate, pulling whatever tissue I could hold back into place.

Several fringes connected, the pressure pushing forcefully against me, making it harder to hold. I couldn’t help but begin to shake at the strain, the sound of my own heart pounding over the slowing heartbeat of the pilot. My grip was already beginning to fade before I started to sew the pieces of artery back together, an ache growing behind my eyes as I pierced an invisible needle through the tissue, over and over, still clawing at the unsewn edges as I made my way around the tube.

I was so close, the tension of the fluid still being driven out of the broken seal almost overcoming me. The unseen thread had almost made its way full circle. I was almost there.

My entire body rattled with exhaustion and pain. One final thread wove itself around the artery, its abrupt closure alleviating the strain on invisible fingers that had been clutching it all together.

You did it.

The energy dissipated quickly in a rolling wave, letting it retreat back into my mind, scampering to the secluded area of my brain, hidden once more. I felt light suddenly, dizzy, the world coming back into focus, screaming alarms growing louder. It was too much, all at once.

A sharp pang of fatigue enveloped every part of my senses and I faltered back, knees giving way, slumping to the floor.

Then, there was only darkness.

~

Next Chapter

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[hes-writer]

Ruin

Summary: im not sure how to summarize this without spoiling the story

Warning: angst, bits of fluff here and there

Word Count; 4158 words

A/N: the long-awaited part 6 of the Tarnish series! A collab with @devilinbetweenthesheet-s. My attention span is short itself so I've decided to split it up into two parts.

UNEDITED

___

Harry tried to see the brighter side of the situation because it truly was something to look forward to. Having the chance to get to know Halo was something that he should be grateful for. As Y/N said, Harry did not deserve to be a part of her life, despite the fact that he was the father. And somewhere, somehow— he understood where she was coming from.

Harry honestly wouldn’t know what he would do if the roles were reversed; if Y/N were the one to have been cheating on him. He would not have a clue if Harry would be as kind to her as she was with him. If an outsider were to assess the situation between Harry and Y/N, they would definitely choose her side to be in favour of. So far, Harry still wasn’t able to pinpoint what exactly Y/N had done wrong for him to be swayed by an illicit affair. Was there even a moment in time that he could vividly see where he made the decision to just up and betrayed her trust? Because if there was; either his memory has gone to shit or Harry was more of a jerk than he served himself.

To put things into perspective, Y/N was the perfect partner and Harry had somehow lost sight of that by cheating on her. Don’t get him wrong; Camille was good, great, even. Yet Y/N was an amazing woman who knew exactly what she wanted. Coincidentally, those were the same type of things that Harry needed, too. As much as it pained him to say it, Camille’s rejection of their own little family made him rethink his decision-making process. Harry has learned more about himself in these past few months than he did in his entire lifetime.

For starters, he cleared it up that he had absolutely no excuse for cheating on Y/N except the fact that his retention span lasted a good few years before he was in search of something fresh; something new and exciting. Maybe it scared him just how serious she was in having a family in the future that his subconscious thought that Harry needed one last hurrah to get the infidelity out. Besides, divorces are more complicated when there are children involved.

Secondly, being with Camille was an infatuation that lasted for a long, three years—beginning while Harry was in a relationship with Y/N. Feelings were still there for sure, but he just didn’t know if it was enough to make him stay, especially when Y/N and baby Halo were right there waiting for him. They actually weren’t; Harry just liked to pretend that they were so that he could justify the consequences of his actions.

Camille was trying to make things work with him; Harry could see that. However, there were only so many things that she could do to improve their relationship before she had to change the choices that she had made years prior. Camille really didn’t want to say that she had refuted the idea of not having kids for the sake of making a relationship prosper, but maybe it was what she had to do to make him stay. She wanted a happy life with someone who wanted the same things as her. Harry wasn’t the man who shared a mutual agreement and she was pushed to question her options.

Nonetheless, Camille and Harry stuck with each other because they were all they knew for the past three and a half years. It was definitely ironic for Harry to say that he couldn’t just leave a three-year relationship behind for another woman; because he had done that before. Now, he was a hypocrite too? His ego cannot take it.

____

Connor wrapped his arms around Y/N’s middle as she washed the dishes in the sink. Their water heater was broken so the stream that came from the faucet sometimes teetered from freezing cold to extremely hot. Right now, she was scrubbing the sponge on the porcelain as quickly as possible while the water was at the right temperature.

Y/N turned her head to the side, pressing a kiss on Connor’s cheek. He rested his chin on her shoulder, bobbing up and down as she moved her arms.

“Is this really a good idea, baby?” Connor asked, staring at the way her lashes fluttered in a pregnant pause, taking a deep breath.

She nodded, reaching over slightly to rest the wet dish on the drying rack. “Halo deserves to at least know her real father,”

And it was true. What kind of mother would Y/N be if she kept a secret like that from her own daughter? The past two years was a constant ping-pong battle of reaching out to Harry and sharing the news to him; then, Y/N would be hit with a shot of realization, wondering if this would ruin his current lifestyle.

“I understand. What if he leaves again? Hate to remind you but Harry left you once before, don’t think he’ll hesitate to do so again,”

She froze at Connor’s words. Y/N was aware that he only said that in good faith, to remind her of how hurt she was at the time and just how long it took for her to be able to finally breathe again.

One side of Y/N urged to still defend Harry. She wanted to turn and around, yell at him because Connor doesn’t know Harry as she does. Harry wasn’t the type to build a child’s dreams up only for him to personally manhandle the heart and crush it in his fist. There was a reason why he was a godfather to so many kids; Ruby, Arlo and Jackson—because he was capable. Harry was a nurturing father who put himself on the back burner in favour of making sure that the little ones were safe and secured. He had no problem being third if it meant that the kids were first, then Y/N, then him.

It all sounded so good in Y/N’s head; so well-rehearsed and very well thought out. The monologue that had somehow stuck in the sides of her brain like a script taped to the wall, ready for the time it needed to be recited. The shredded pieces of paper also reminded her that Y/N might’ve known Harry before, but she certainly doesn’t anymore. In fact, she knew just as much as Connor did.

Just like Y/N had grown and evolved into a new person, Harry was not the same guy he once was when they were together.

“I told him the consequences if he did,”

Connor pulled back, stepping away from her. “But wouldn’t it be better if we didn’t take that chance? Who knows what he might do. . .” He trailed off, grabbing a dry rag to wipe the water dripping from the dish.

Y/N took a leap of faith in letting Harry in. He was a wild card. He could promise one thing but would mean another. Or he could recite a vow and completely annihilate the person as he did with her. Yet somehow, Y/N couldn’t resist the opportunity to give him one chance. Maybe it was because a small part of her craved to re-create a happy family that they had always wanted.

“It’s a risk. I know that” Y/N rinsed a cup, swirling the water in circles. She felt like that whenever Harry was around.

“So why are you still doing it?” Y/N opened her mouth to answer, “And tell me the truth this time, yeah?”

Her boyfriend stared at her with an unreadable emotion in his eyes, lips drew taut in a straight line and arms were crossed over his broad chest. The pressure was immense on Y/N’s shoulders. She was torn between admitting what she had buried deep below the sand or simply glossing over it like a figure skater. Nonetheless, Y/N was on thin ice.

For years, she had flicked away the remaining feelings that stayed with her. But they were persistent in sticking by her side. It wasn’t like Y/N could completely erase Harry from her life--from who she was. She still dressed like him, evidenced by the matching pair of Gucci loafers she chose not to wear for the night in fear that he would coincidentally be sporting the same footwear.

Furthermore, they had a child together! Halo was the spitting image of him. It was hard not to be reminded by a man she once loved when their little baby was both of them mixed in one. So did Y/N still love Harry? She couldn’t deny how much her heart fluttered seeing him stutter over his words at the park. Y/N just wasn’t sure if it was from anxiety and nervousness or excitement and anticipation.

Unbeknownst to the couple, Harry had sneakily closed a sleeping Halo’s bedroom door. His trek back to the kitchen was slow, slightly afraid of the awaiting talk he and Y/N--and possibly Connor-- have yet to have. Harry wanted to be there for Halo and for Y/N every step of the way, but he knew that Y/N would not allow him around if his intentions were to cater to a relationship with her. She was already tolerating him as is.

Standing behind the thin wall that acted as a partition from the hallway to the kitchen, Harry carefully placed his hands against the barrier to steady himself. He didn’t know if his legs could take whatever answer would spill from Y/N’s mouth. If she admitted her true feelings, he would stumble and melt into a puddle. He would be confused, but Harry wouldn’t be opposed to it; he was in a relationship after all. If she denied it--which was the more likely option--, his heart would break silently in his chest.

Harry numbed himself of the guilt raking at his ankles. He was well aware that this was a private conversation but hey; it was not his fault that he had ears straining to listen to Y/N’s reply.

“Do you still love him?” Connor followed up, voice grim. Almost fearful to find out the truth. Harry was, too.

Y/N paused her thoughts as well as her actions, flinching at the sudden intrusion of Connor’s question. She flinched, yelping a little and jumping backwards when the broken water heater subdued the filtering liquid into a burning hot splatter on her skin. Connor picked his feet up in alarm, grabbing at Y/N’s wrist to see the minor injury on the back of her palm.

“Ow!” Y/N whisper-shouted, soothing the ache by situating it between her thighs before shakily showing it to Connor; the doctor.

“Let me see, baby,”

Harry peeked his head around the corner, almost losing his cover with the way his feet instantaneously wanting to move towards a hurting Y/N. Good thing he caught himself. Surely they would put two and two together and realize that Harry was eavesdropping.

That decision came with a laceration to his heart. Harry got a first-class ticket to register that the couple was everything he and Y/N were. The pet names, the domesticity of their actions. The caring glances and constant check-ups.

Deciding to come out of hiding, Harry almost had a heart attack when he turned the corner and was met face to face with Connor. His brows had dipped in worry, face determined to grab some cream to apply to the burn from their first-aid kit in the bathroom. Harry guessed that his whizzing thoughts failed to hear the quiet instruction.

The man jolted in surprise, stopping quickly in his tracks, “Oh hey! Is Halo asleep?” Connor gave him a smile despite the confusion etching in his forehead. Harry nodded dumbly, lips pursing like a fish. “Y/N’s just burned her hand, nothing too serious though,”

He looked over his shoulder to see Y/N eyeing the both of them suspiciously, still clutching the burnt skin close to her. “Oh, I see,”

Connor smacked a firm hand on his shoulder, stepping around him to grab the cream. Harry walked towards Y/N, noticing that she was soothing the painful ache with ice wrapped in layers of tissue. She was softly hissing through her teeth once in a while.

“You okay?”

She tilted her head at him, appearing to be dazed out in her thoughts. “Yeah, uh, nothing too bad,”

Harry kept his distance, leaning on the other side of the counter. He started off by saying, “Thank you for giving me this chance,”

Y/N graced him with a smile, standing up straighter when Connor appeared with a tube in his hand. Harry watched as he unscrewed the cap, placing it beside her. He squeezed a bit of the cream unto his fingertip before applying it directly on Y/N’s skin. She winced, wanting to pull her wrist away from his grip but Connor didn’t let her, “It’s gonna be fine, baby,”

He pressed a kiss to her temple, continuing to rub circles on the burn until Y/N visibly relaxed through slouched shoulders and less shaky breaths.

Harry was staring at them like a kicked puppy. He was fussy and frustrated all in one. He wanted the attention that Y/N was giving Connor. He wanted to be Connor, but both of them were too wrapped up in their little love bubble to notice Harry’s squinted eyes and pinched brows.

He was frustrated because even if he wasn’t the direct cause of her pain, Harry had somehow found a way to continue hurting her and Connor was always there to pacify his wrongful actions. Harry hated that this was how fate had planned his life.

Harry cleared his throat, raising a fist to his mouth, “Think I should go,” His thumb pointed over his shoulder, “Uh thank you again,”

Y/N snapped her head to him, gaze lowering in a timid manner as if she forgot that he was even there in the first place. Connor was the first to reply, “Alright, man. See you whenever,” He capped the tub, shoving it in his back pocket to return to its place.

She leaned on her tiptoes to press a kiss on his lips, muttering something in his ear that had Connor teasingly wrapping his hands on her hips. Harry looked away, taking long strides to the entryway instead.

“Harry, wait!”

He shuddered at the memory of the words that had changed his life when Gemma told him the truth. Harry’s shoe was half-way one when he turned around. “Yeah?”

Y/N was holding a folded brochure, “Halo has a recital this weekend for her dance class,” She handed it to him, “Maybe you’d want to go? You can bring Camille if you want but I think it would be better if you didn’t. She’s still new to this and I don’t want her asking too many questions until she can unders--,”

“I’ll go,” Harry cut her off, unfolding the folded paper. The venue was about twenty minutes away from his place. It was only an hour-long considering the skill set of two-year-olds but it was a fun way for parents to cheer on their little ones. Harry’s previously sour mood was now replaced with giddiness at the sight of his daughter in a pretty pink tutu, twirling on her feet. He was sure that Halo was born to become a performer like him.

She sighed in relief, puffing her cheeks out cutely, “It’s a private dance class. Pretty high end so the security should be okay,”

And there it was again. The constant reminder that Harry was otherworldly to some people. As much as he loved living his lifestyle, he sometimes wished that he was a normie. That was a lot to ask for considering his current situation with his daughter, but a man can dream.

“Got it,”

Y/N leaned over to show him the back of the leaflet, “Just show them this ticket and security should let you in. Halo wanted me to give that to you because she was too shy earlier. I know it’s short notice but I guess she was comfortable enough to ask you,”

Harry blushed at the admittance, mentally patting himself at the back for making his daughter feel at ease in a short amount of time.

“I’ll be there,” He pushed his heel to adorn his sneakers. Y/N bit her lip, she looked hesitant, “It’s okay if you don’t want to go, by the way. I can explain that you’re busy. She’ll probably understand,”

He placed a hand on her shoulder. Harry wasn’t going to ruin his progressive relationship with his daughter on ‘probably’. “Y/N, s’alright. No problem, yeah? I’ll be there,”

___

Where was he?

It was two days after the dinner and Harry’s promise of attending Halo’s recital was vanishing with each passing second. Every time the hand of the clock ticked to indicate that another minute had elapsed. Harry still wasn’t jogging through the carpeted middle of the small theatre to where Connor and Y/N were seated. Two empty seats were left at the end of the aisle to aid Harry--and possibly Camille--a smooth arrival without creating any distractions.

There were only five minutes left before the stage crew were to dim the spotlights illuminating the room. Y/N was checking her watch what felt like every second, clicking her phone on and off once in a while worried that something may have happened to Harry. Maybe security wouldn’t let him in. The gnawing feeling at the pit of her stomach suggested that Harry just forgot the event tonight but Y/N would cross the bridge when they got to it. Regardless, her nerves were left unsettled as swallowing proved to be more difficult with the way a sip of her water had her gulping audibly. Connor wasn’t there to lend a soft hand on her upper back to help her breathe.

Speaking of, Connor had taken the initiative to visit Halo backstage. The ballet teacher was growing weary of the way the little dancer ran out from beside the stage to stop in front of her parents, asking, “Where’s Hawwy?”.

Halo had done it three times in hopes of receiving an answer aside from, “He’s not here yet,” Y/N tucked a fallen strand of hair from the otherwise sleek bun from beside her cheeks. Her daughter’s form slouching as her pretty eyes watered slightly, “He’s not coming? You told me he was coming, mama,”

Y/N glanced at Connor nervously, being met with an ‘I-told-you-so’ look which didn’t really help the situation. Luckily, the teacher had approached them with a clipboard on hand, searching for the ballerina. The teacher had suggested that one of them stay with her behind the curtain until the show began. Connor volunteered.

“Better hope he comes or else we’ll have to deal with the consequences. I really don’t want to see her heartbroken before of a promise he couldn’t keep,” Connor muttered, following the woman but not before thumbing circles on Y/N’s flushed cheek.

Y/N knew that he meant well. She also didn’t want to comfort a heartbroken Halo because Harry failed to show up where he promised he would be. And now, with a little less than two minutes before showtime, Connor was sent back beside her. Parents were being ushered to find their seats before the lights dimmed and it would be difficult to maneuver through knees and legs.

“Is he here?” Connor questioned, draping a hand on her shaking knee. Y/N shook her head, casting another glance at the auditorium doors. He waved at Halo who peeked her head between the silk curtains, wandering eyes looking at the empty seat beside Y/N.

“No. Hasn’t texted or answered his phone either,” Y/N was about to dial Harry’s contact once more in a desperate attempt to reach him. However, the dimming lights indicated that it was too late. Connor laced their fingers together, offering apologetic eyes and a tight-lipped smile; they would have to nurse a broken heart later tonight.

_____

Harry was in the middle of buttoning his patterned shirt, staring at his reflection in the mirror to silently judge his fashion choice for the night. Was it too much for a kids’ ballet recital? He deemed that it was, stretching his arms to remove the fabric adorning his chest, moving to grab the pink, flamingo patterned shirt instead. He took his time, granted that he had about an hour before the recital started.

He smoothed the fabric over his broad shoulders, pausing when Camille walked in. Harry locked his green eyes at her through the mirror as she walked to their shared bed, sitting at the foot of it.

“What d’ya think?”

She hummed in response, absentmindedly nodding in agreement when Harry asked if it was good. Both Camille and Harry had talked about his relationship with Halo as soon as she landed at the airport. He didn’t want to keep any secrets from her. Fortunately, Camille was very understanding of his situation, offering him support and encouragement to build a bond with his daughter.

What Camille didn’t reveal was that she was a bit antsy of Harry’s relationship with Y/N. She meant everything she had said to him, but it was no guarantee that Harry would ignite another connection with his ex-girlfriend. Not that Camille didn’t trust him. It was just a bit concerning because she believed that how a relationship starts is how it will end. Harry certainly had a history of straying away from his present partner.

Harry was currently in their walk-in closet, finding a pair of slacks that weren't too formal or casual. Camille mulled the thoughts in her head. She loved Harry dearly and would do anything for him. Well, anything except having children of their own. He had mostly accepted her decision, only wincing a little when the topic of a family was brought up by mutual friends and family once in a while.

Truth to be told, Camille was scared. She was afraid that Harry would leave for Y/N because she had Halo. They were the family that he had always wanted and although Camille wasn’t too keen on giving him the same; she was debating on it.

“How’s this, Cam?” Harry retreated with two pairs of pants. On one hand was a pair of straight-leg skinny jeans that he hadn’t worn in years. The other held brown, corduroy, striped slacks. “Or this one?”

She bit her lip, standing up slowly, walking over to him. “What do I think?”

He nodded, innocently jutting his bottom lip at her as he looked back and forth.

Camille swathed her hands on his shoulders, ghosting her mouth over his ear, “I think I like you better without them,” Her finger traced his collarbone, swirling at the dip of his throat. “Without anything,”

Harry gulped harshly. He felt Camille unbuttoning his shirt, gliding her palms downwards until she was cupping his bulge, “Camille, wait,” He flicked his watch to check the time. It took twenty minutes to get there, maybe even more with traffic and parking.

She dragged him to the bed by the ends of his opened shirt, locking her lips with his plush ones. He rested a knee on the mattress, his hands at the back of her head as Camille continued to pull him down.

Pulling away, Harry panted, “What are you doin’?” He laid his creased forehead on hers.

Camille supported herself on her hands, moving her face back until she was able to get a clear view of his perplexed expression, “I was thinking that maybe we could. . . try having a baby, H,” Her voice was soft, almost timid and she was doing her best not to break eye contact to show her sincerity.

Harry gasped in surprise, “Wha--? Really? Are you serious?” His tone gained a pitch as excitement enthralled his senses. The smile on his face was wide and reached his bright eyes. “Baby, are you sure?”

Camille nodded, grinning softly. “Yes,’

“Oh my--this is. . .,” Harry pulled at the locks of his hair, pacing around the room. “This is great! Our own family. Jesus. I can’t believe it,” Tears sprung on his corneas.

He kneeled between her legs, taking her wrist and pressing a gentle kiss on her skin, murmuring ‘I love you’ repeatedly.

“Are you going to keep doing that?” Camille asked, spreading her legs rhetorically. Harry observed her position, nodding enthusiastically.

Another glance at his watch indicated that Harry was absolutely pushing it with being late to Halo’s recital. Yet one enchanting kiss from Camille wiped his thoughts clean. He was getting what he wanted; a family of his own.

___

Let us know what you thought! The seventh part of the Tarnish series will be uploaded on Patreon on Sept 29!

___

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[sapphicknightaesthetic]

Prompt #2: The winds call me back to you

Ireland had proved to be more than Eivor had bargained for. She sailed home on the wind-tossed sea, wondering if the trade routes, outposts, and alliances she forged would prove to be worth it in the end, compared to their exorbitantly high cost. She remembered Barid’s eyes, soft but desperate, pleading with her to ensure  King Flann’s allegiance with his last breath, paired with an intensity of his love for his son. He had built a thriving city all so that Sichfrith could prosper...

“...Valhalla need not be a place, Eivor. It can be a legacy…”

She thought about her own legacy. Her intention had always been a life dedicated to fighting for honor, for the glory of her people, for some measure of peace where she no longer needed to pick up her axe to defend them at every turn. But is that what England had given her? She had spent much of her energy and immense skills at the whims of others with political aims and goals, not always aligning with her own. She had placed more than one puppet king on a throne, often needing to choose between the better of two evils. Was this honor? Was this a legacy worthy of entrance to Valhalla? 

Eivor felt exhaustion roll through her like the tide, filling every crevice. She felt unsure of her place in the world, and just needed the comfort of home. Of Randvi. That was her raison d'être, as Estrid would say. Her reason for being. If she fought for the betterment of her clan, if she made connections and alliances to ensure their safety, that was all that mattered. She shook the sad cobwebs from her mind, determined to have a genuine smile for her wife when she returned. She leaned against the firm wall of the longship, and fell into an uneasy sleep.

Birna shook her shoulder. “Come on Sunbeam. Home time.”

Eivor’s eyes fluttered open, she blinked sleep back to its void. “Have we docked?”

“Not yet. We’re just around the bend.”

“Thanks for waking me, Birna.”

“I’m so glad to be rid of Ireland! Those Druids were something else, eh? Giving decent Pagans a bad name.”

“Mmmm.”

“Eivor, I don’t mean to pry. But you spent a lot of time with that red haired witch...what’s her name…”

“Ciara. I did. What’s your question, Birna?”

“I’m just wondering if you made any Druid magic of your own in that wet bog of a land?”

Eivor rolled her eyes. Birna knew full well she hadn’t, though this question seemed to pop up after every major journey they undertook. Eivor had tried to tell her multiple times that she would never be unfaithful to Randvi, that she could not bed anyone for the sake of it if her heart wasn’t in it. The concept had been lost on Birna, and so the questions had persisted. 

“You know I didn’t.”

“I’m just checking. You do have a type, Sunbeam. That red hair burns like fire.”

Eivor grinned ruefully, shook her head, and turned to look at their surroundings. They were just passing the trined point in the river that led to Grantebridge, the ruins of Duroliponte looming to the Southeast. One more bend and they’d be home. She wondered if Randvi would be there waiting; she had sent Sýnin ahead with a note. The evening was well on its way, Randvi might even be asleep. She pictured their bed, warm and soft, furs piled on top of them as they snuggled together, limbs entwined. More and more, this was what she wanted. The return home was always worth it, and was always something she looked forward to, but lately she no longer wanted to return, she only wanted the simple everyday fact of her and Randvi together, because she had never left in the first place.

She watched, wistfully, as the crew lowered the sails and started rowing, this part of the river too narrow to traverse safely. Her heart rate increased as the Raider’s hut roof became visible, growing closer with each stroke of the oars. She felt a swell of pride as more of her village emerged from the lowland fog. Her village . She had built this place from almost nothing, discarded hovels of canvas and sticks. Sigurd may have claimed it as theirs, but Eivor had been the one to turn it into something to be proud of, something worth protecting. She leapt to the back of the ship’s tail, standing on a ledge. “...Valhalla need not be a place, Eivor. It can be a legacy…” This was her Valhalla, and it would never be complete without the person at it’s centre, at its heart. 

Eivor realized then that while she was proud of Ravensthorpe, Ravensthorpe, much like her former idea of Valhalla, was only a place. Randvi was her true home. She’d go wherever Randvi was, without question. Their love, with all of its storied history of waiting, longing, and hiding, was her legacy. She saw copper hair, cloaked against the oncoming chill of the evening, waiting like a beacon between the posts of the village entrance.

The ship glided silently up to the dock, and Eivor immediately leapt off, running as fast as her exhausted legs would carry her. She grabbed Randvi, lifting her off the ground in a tight embrace, spinning her around. She inhaled Randvi’s scent, spice and fire blending with earth and ink and smoke. Her heart beat Randvi’s name in fast repetition, her hands holding onto her wife as tightly as she dared without hurting her.

“My love,” Randvi whispered, as she held fast to Eivor. “How I’ve missed you.” Her hands caressed the back of Eivor’s newly shaved head, luxuriating in the velvety feel. 

Eivor couldn’t speak, she did not want to break the moment with words, but slowly set Randvi down, quickly finding her mouth and communicating everything she couldn’t say with a long, slow kiss, paying attention to the feel of Randvi’s lips, the warmth of her mouth, the teasing nature of her teeth. 

Claps and pats of hands landed on her back and shoulders from the crew as they walked past the pair. Their hearts never failed to be happy for their Jarl, for the love that she had found and fought for. For all of her sacrifice, for the enormous work she had devoted to make their lives better, they gladdened at the sight of Eivor and Randvi together. They knew how hard her road had been, how much she had suffered, often silently, from such a young age. Her happiness was their happiness, and they showed her whenever they could. Birna let out a whistle. 

“You better get her to bed, Jarlskona.” Birna wrapped an arm around Petra, who had walked down to meet her wife when she saw the familiar Raven sails from her hut.

“Leave them be, love. I’d better get you to bed.” Petra wrapped an arm around Birna’s waist.

“You’ll hear no complaints from me, Petra. Good night, Sunbeam!”

Eivor and Randvi watched them leave, as Eivor sent them off with a wave. Randvi turned back around, seeing the edges of something in Eivor’s face. “What’s wrong, darling? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine. I have a few cuts and bruises, nothing to worry about, my heart.”

“Thank you for sending Sýnin. I have a bath prepared. And some roast boar, thanks to Petra.”

Eivor felt overcome at the thoughtful care Randvi showed her in all things. “Randvi...thank you.” Was all she could manage. 

Randvi smiled at her, her wife was always so ready to display gratitude, a custom she never tired of, but she furrowed her eyes, wondering what was troubling her usually contented drengr.

“Let’s get you home.”

 

Randvi and Eivor sat in deliciously scented hot water. The worry and tension Eivor had carried home with her evaporated into the steam drifting to the longhouse ceiling. A satisfied smile now constantly fixed on her face. 

“This was a great idea, possibly the best you’ve ever had. And that’s truly saying something.”

“I aim to please, my Jarl.” Randvi felt self-congratulatory at the obvious change in her love’s mood. Years of observing Eivor, of seeing her come home in different states of health and happiness, of finding different ways of tending to that glorious body and soul made Randvi an expert in the proper care and maintenance of her physically ferocious wife. But one truth prevailed among her experience: Eivor always recooperated faster with a bath. 

“Are you ready to talk about Ireland?”

Eivor exhaled. “I will do my best. It still feels...fresh.”

Randvi sat up in the bath, giving Eivor all of her attention.

“You know I went to Ireland to help my cousin, Barid. And I did help, although Barid fell in battle. His High King did not heed Barid’s warnings. We were able to beat the Druids back, but I have been wondering if his death was needless, no matter how good and glorious his end. He died a hero, and is no doubt in Valhalla, but had his words been listened to, he would still be the King of Dublin, and his son would still have his father.”

“It is not up to us to change fate, Eivor. It sounds like the Nornir gave Barid a good death. What else can we ask in this life?”

“The love of the most beautiful and intelligent of women, for a start, at the very least.”

Randvi rolled her eyes and laughed, pleasure and embarrassment mingled together. When she looked back at Eivor, sorrow still crept in the periphery. “Is that all that troubles you, Eivor?”

“The Druids of Ireland are much like us, trying to carve out a life for themselves, trying to hold onto their traditions and culture, though the Christians would willingly wipe them, and us, away if given the chance. There was an extremist faction, the Children of Danu, that were causing all the strife while other Druids were forced to live in fear and even secrecy. It made me wonder if we will ever truly pacify this land. The Christians make no room for anyone else. I…I had to kill a Druid priestess who I thought was my friend, all for a Christian King who would rule over all. Was that honorable? I feel...stained, Randvi. I wonder if the decisions I’ve made in my time here are hurting our people, rather than truly helping. She was misguided, angry, she caused a lot of pain in the land there. I think King Flann Sinna saw the error of his ways in his treatment of the Druids, and he will make amends - he said as much. But these Christians...they can be false as well as unyielding. I’m not sure how far he can be trusted.” 

Memories of Fulke and King Aelfred made her skin prick involuntarily. The Norse and Danes were often met with a great deal more than suspicion and hostility, labeled as barbarians and savages for their voracity in war. But there was something honest and forthright in them as a people; they hid nothing, they lived openly and celebrated the customs and cultures of all who chose to live among them. Sharing resources through a community was their way, regardless of the people that community comprised; yet this was not the way of the Christians. From what she had seen, they feared all outsiders. She was unsure if this was unique to Anglo-Saxon Christians or not, but from all she had experienced, she was not keen to go looking for other examples. 

Randvi found Eivor’s hand under the warm water, and stroked soothingly. Her love never lost sight of the broader view and what it meant for her people. It was one of the many things she adored and cherished about her. She took Eivor’s fingers and brought them to her lips, kissing them lightly. 

“These are large questions, my love. Too large to confront in one night. But I promise I will help you as much as I can in our time come in this land. You try to take care of so many, Eivor Varinsdottir. I fear the world is too big, even for your very broad shoulders.”

Eivor felt her heart flutter. After all these years, after all this time, being with Randvi made her feel like she was falling in love with her over and over again. She never stopped falling. 

“But maybe, just for tonight, you can let me take care of you?” Randvi leaned forward, kissing one cheek lightly, then the other cheek, her nose, her chin, across her forehead, until she found Eivor’s lips, nipping lightly, until Eivor pulled her forward and kissed her with earnest desire. She opened her body, as Randvi lay on top of her in the bath, relishing the closeness after too many months apart. 

Eivor leaned her head back slightly, looking into Randvi’s eyes, darkened to forest green between her desire and the dim candlelight around them.

“Barid said something to me, before the Valkyrie came to claim him. He told me that Valhalla need not be a place, that it can be a legacy.” Eivor held Randvi’s gaze, needing her to feel how much she meant what she was about to say. “I think perhaps for me, it is not so much a legacy, as it’s you, Randvi. You are my home, my Valhalla. After all of our time in England, all of the campaigns, the politicking, the alliances we have paid for with sweat and blood, we could walk away tomorrow and I would not care. The winds always call me back to you, wherever you are.” 

Randvi felt strangely vulnerable, though deeply moved. She felt her heart race to echo and return Eivor’s sentiment. If Eivor ever left Ravensthorpe, Randvi would follow without hesitation. She used the moment to lean down and kiss Eivor again, with unashamed love and lust and pride and longing and hope. Their lives together had not been easy, but it had been worth every moment they had paid. 

She felt Eivor’s hands slide down to her lower back, holding her closely. She felt a hot rush in her center, and decided it was time to leave the bath. 

“Shall we adjourn to our chambers, my Jarl?”

Eivor smirked, knowingly. “Indeed, my Jarlskona.” 

Randvi made her way out of the bath, as Eivor followed suit. Randvi spied some new blade slices over Eivor’s body, and some fresh bruises getting ready to bloom; she’d be sure to kiss them all later. She took Eivor’s hand and led them naked to their bed. Their bed . A place she was never tired of acknowledging. 

Eivor pulled Randvi to her, wrapping her in strong, solid muscle. “I missed you, Jarlskona.”

“And I you, my Jarl.” Randvi pressed her teeth against Eivor’s neck, nipping and sucking her way along the tender flesh under her chin. She heard Eivor’s breath catch, and a gasp after she released skin from her teeth. She moved a hand, cupping Eivor’s sex, feeling the wet traces of her want on her fingers. Eivor bowed her head resting it on Randvi’s shoulder, her breathing deepening with anticipation. This fierce drengr, terror of England and Ireland, great Jarl of a proud clan, was made vulnerable and soft with a single touch. It was a power Randvi knew only she wielded, and she never took it for granted. 

She brought Eivor to the bed, guiding her down. “What would you like, darling?” She purred in a way that drove Eivor wild.

“You. I just want you.”

“I am yours, Eivor.”

And the sound of those words, said by the only woman in the world she needed to hear them from, snapped Eivor out of the worry she brought home with her. As the sounds of their love-making filled the longhouse, Ravensthorpe sighed relief, and for tonight at least, everything was well in the world.

[loki-hargreeves]

Kylo Ren x Reader [SMUT] - On The Throne

Warnings: filthy smut [!!18+!!] it’s definitely a bit on the darker side, force choking, oral sex (m!receiving), riding, size!kink, dirty talk, over-stimulation, bruising, crying (just from pleasure, love), cock-warming Word Count: 4,4K Summary: Supreme Leader Kylo Ren wants to see you in the throne room. You suspect that he is going to punish you for your mistake, or worse, that he thinks you’re a spy. Your suspicions aren’t so far off, though you get a punishment you had previously only dreamt of. Author’s Note: I was thirsty, so this happened. Please enjoy! <3

THIRD POV

“Commander Y/N,” A robotic voice pulled Y/N out of her thoughts. She had been working on her station, deep in thought, as a squad of Stormtroopers had approached her. The moment she heard her title and name, she put her work on pause and turned to face the troopers. Whenever she had six Stormtroopers by her side, it meant something serious was going on and she didn’t dare disrespect them by making them wait.

“Yes?”

“Supreme leader Kylo Ren wants to see you in the throne room. Now.”

Supreme leader Kylo Ren

Hearing his name phrased like that made her heart leap to her throat. Ever since Kylo Ren had become the supreme leader, things had changed in the final order. The dark Prince was even more stern and determined than before, which many had thought was impossible. He was angry, yes, but there was something incredibly hot about it. Y/N knew it was shameful, but she liked it – a lot. She wondered what Kylo wanted to see her about. Moments later, she realized what it must’ve been about, and she frowned.

“Of course,” Y/N muttered and left her station, walking between the Stormtroopers. They were all armed and they seemed to keep an eye on her, almost as if they had a reason to watch out for her. Their odd behavior made her feel even more nervous about this meeting. It couldn’t have been good if she was escorted in the throne room like a criminal. “What is this about?” Y/N tried to make small talk with the Stormtroopers to ease her nerves. After all, she was a commander. It would be disrespectful of them to blatantly ignore her words.

To her surprise, none of them replied to her. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t like it. Someone must’ve painted red over her name. The very people that would listen to her words without doubt were now treating her like she had disgraced the entire order.

They arrived behind the large doors that led to the throne room. By now, Y/N felt warm underneath her uniform. Her nerves were like daggers twisting underneath her skin. If Kylo Ren had any reason to doubt her loyalty, he would surely kill her.

The guards opened the door and revealed a large, red hall. In the middle of it was the iron throne and of course, the supreme leader. Kylo Ren sat on the throne comfortable as the knights of Ren stood around him protectively. All eyes were on Y/N as she was gently pushed forward to walk even closer to Ren, who looked at her with a piercing gaze, making her feel vulnerable. They kept eye-contact even when she sunk down on her knee, kneeling before her Supreme leader.

The Stormtroopers didn’t enter the room. Instead, they stayed in the corridor as the doors were closed, leaving Y/N’s back. She felt scared, even though she knew she hadn’t done anything too bad. Only a mistake during their latest mission which eventually cost them valuable information, but it wasn’t entirely her fault either. Nothing that should get her into serious trouble.

Then again, Kylo Ren was unpredictable.

“Commander,” Kylo finally broke the silence, never tearing his dark brown eyes from her skin. His voice echoed lightly in the room. He could sense how nervous she was. It was almost ridiculous. “Do you know why I called you here?”

Did he have any idea what he was doing to her? Y/N didn’t like to admit it, but when he spoke with such authority, it did things to her body. It was stupid, but she liked it a little too much. “I suspect it’s about my miscalculation during the latest mission, sir.”

“Well yes, that too,” Kylo shrugged, almost taunting her by now. That too? What did he mean by that? Did he make her that nervous on purpose? Did he enjoy seeing how she was shaking within her own skin?

Y/N raised her gaze from the floor, and she narrowed her eyebrows, confusion spreading on her face. “What do you mean, sir?”

The knights of Ren were dead silent. It was almost creepy how they stood there, watching, without making a sound. It only added to the intensity of the situation.

“As you know, we have a spy among us,” Kylo got to the point.

He couldn’t seriously imply that she was the spy. Y/N had been exceptionally loyal to him, even when many others in the order doubted him. She didn’t understand how anyone could possibly doubt her.

Kylo continued, “and your little ‘mistake’ was useful to the rebels. It almost looks like you did it to help them escape.”

Y/N’s cheeks were burning from embarrassment and she wanted to hide her face, but that would surely look suspicious. Yes, the mistake wasn’t anything to be proud of, but it was humiliating to be accused of helping the enemy. “Sir, I’m truly sorry for my wrongdoings, but I assure you, I am not the spy you’re looking for!”

“That’s exactly what a spy would say,” Kylo sighed. He sounded bored, but then again, his voice was always blunt and emotionless. It could mean anything, and it surely stressed her out further. What was she supposed to say?

Tears stung the corners of her eyes. Y/N was good at holding them back, but the sting was there whenever she was under immense pressure. By gritting her teeth together, she regained her composure. She needed to prove her innocence, one way or another. “How can I prove your doubts otherwise?” Y/N wanted to know.

Kylo knew it wasn’t her. He felt that she was genuinely afraid of the false accusations, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t drag it out a little longer. He liked her presence. He wanted to see how far she was ready to go to prove she was innocent. “What are you willing to do?” Kylo wondered.

His question made her eyes widen slightly. Kylo noticed the change in her expression and he almost smirked as he realized where her mind went. Dirty girl…

“I’ll do anything, sir. I can even hunt for the spy! Just give me a chance, I’ll prove you wrong, s-sir!” She offered seriously. Kylo looked at her frightened expression and he knew if he cared more, he would’ve felt sorry for her. But he knew she was more than just afraid. She was much naughtier than he thought and now that Kylo knew, he couldn’t simply forget about it.

All of a sudden, Kylo Ren tilted his head, looking at one of the knights, Ushar, and he nodded. Just like that, the Knights stood up straight and marched towards the entrance, leaving the Supreme leader alone with the commander. Their heavy steps echoed in the hall and disappeared as the doors were shut once again. Somehow, it made Y/N even more afraid. Was this it? Was Kylo Ren going to kill her? She wished it wasn’t that severe, but she felt a punishment coming. She also felt a knot forming in her stomach which she hated. Why did the situation turn her on? She was risking losing it all!

“I know you’re not the spy, commander. But I can not excuse your ‘miscalculation’. I’d say it’s your greatest mistake by far,” Kylo revealed the truth to her and even though he was speaking to her in a dismissive tone, it made relief wash across her entire being. Thank stars, she thought.

“I’m so sorry, sir. I’ll make up for it, I promise!”

“Oh, I’m sure you will,” Kylo said smoothly, sending shivers down her spine. Even when he spoke with such a monotone voice, it became clear that there was a sexual undertone to his words. They made Y/N feel vulnerable before him, as if he somehow knew about her darkest desires. “Come closer,” Kylo demanded her.

Y/N couldn’t believe what was going on. Truly, she didn’t know what was happening, but her heart was racing. It was only her and the supreme leader in the rich hall. He sat upon his throne and looked down on her which made her feel dirty. Slowly, she stood up from the polished floor and walked towards Ren, unsure how close he wanted her. With every step she took, the more nervous she became. Her heart was pounding in her chest and the heat between her legs grew worse.

She waited for him to tell her to stop when she neared the steps to the throne – but he didn’t. “Am I close enough?” Y/N dared to ask him. She noticed how much quieter her voice was now that it was only them and they were only a few feet away from each other. Surely, he could hear her heartbeat by now.

Kylo extended his arm and all of a sudden, Y/N felt an invisible grip around her throat, cutting her airways. Her eyes widened with fear and her hands reached her throat, trying to grab the force that was choking her which obviously didn’t work. Her feet let go of the ground and the force made her entire body levitate in front of the supreme leader. Her legs went numb from fright as Kylo pulled her body closer until his physical hand was around her delicate neck. Once he was the one holding her, he lifted the force which allowed her to breathe – which she did. Her feet rested on the highest step and she stood right in front of him. “Now you’re close enough.”

What was happening?! Y/N’s mind ran in circles as she stood there with Kylo Ren’s gloved hand wrapped around her neck. She didn’t even fight it. In fact, what had just happened made her stomach clench from lust. Gosh, Kylo Ren knew. There was no way he was oblivious to how horny she was because of him.

“You have an awfully dirty mind, Y/N,” Kylo referred to her by her name. It gave an illusion of the moment being even more intimate than it already was. If anyone was there to see them, surely the entire order would talk about it. She was ashamed as she heard that, but she was also excited. By now, Y/N wanted him so bad that she couldn’t possibly give into her shame fully.

“What are you going to do about it, sir?” Y/N wondered, somehow daring to ask him that. She didn’t know where the boost of confidence came from, but she liked it. And so did Kylo.

He gripped her neck tighter and pushed her down, so she fell on her knees by him. Then his hand travelled to her hair, pulling it out from the bun so he could grab her tighter. From that angle, Y/N suddenly noticed a bulge hiding underneath his black robes. Holy fuck, she thought as her eyes froze to stare at Kylo Ren’s huge bulge. Knowing exactly where this was headed blew Y/N’s mind away. It felt like she was on cloud nine and her mouth began to water at the thought of tasting Kylo. It was so wrong, so unprofessional but it excited her more than anything ever before.

“Show me just how sorry you are,” Kylo encouraged her to touch him. By now, he was almost in pain because of how hard he was. It had been a while since he had taken care of his feral needs. His eyes had been on Y/N for a while and he had wanted her for a long time now. It was finally happening and surely, it would ease him from the stress he carried.

“With pleasure, sir,” Y/N’s eyes darkened with lust as her hands immediately began to tear his clothes away from around his cock. Seeing how excited she was to suck his cock made Kylo smirk a little bit. She really was desperate, wasn’t she? Finally, she had pushed his robes and pants aside, revealing his huge cock that was pulsing with need. Pre-cum was leaking from his tip and he could hardly sit there and wait. Luckily, Y/N didn’t waste much time as she finally grabbed his shaft and brought his red tip to her lips. The moment her lips closed around his tip, Kylo’s grip on her tightened and he let out a low, animalistic growl.

Encouraged further by his reaction, Y/N pulled her lips away for a moment. She pressed her tongue at the base of his cock and followed a prominent vein as she licked up his length, until she reached his tip again. Before she took him into her mouth again, she spat on his cock and ran her hand up and down his shaft, feeling how his cock hardened even more under her touch. She felt every pulsing vein and ridge underneath her hands. As she worked on his huge shaft with both her hands, she took his tip into her mouth again and tasted his salty pre-cum on her tongue. Kylo was huge, easily the biggest cock she had ever seen before. Just the thought of feeling him inside her made her wetter and even more happy to suck him off. This was definitely not what she had expected, but she wasn’t complaining.

“That’s it,” Kylo grunted as “good girl, sucking my cock like a slut,” Kylo snarled dirtily. His words did magic on her. Y/N almost moaned as she heard that. Something about the way he spoke to her turned her on furthermore. She wanted to be his good girl, his little slut. His.

Y/N took more of him into her mouth, bobbing her head up and down while looking directly into his darkened eyes. She hollowed her cheeks around him and made Kylo’s muscles tense. He pushed his hips up to push himself deeper into her throat, making her moan around his cock. If she kept that up for much longer, he knew he’d cum soon. As tempting as it sounded, he didn’t want to cum just yet. He wanted to spill his seed deep inside her walls instead.

Kylo pulled her head away from his cock, stopping her before he could come. Without saying a word, Y/N knew what was about to happen. The look in Kylo’s eyes said it all. Almost instinctively, she knew what to do. Kylo let go of her hair as she stood up, her hands working on unbuttoning the buttons of her uniform jacket.

As she undressed herself right in front of him, Kylo slowly jerked himself and kept his gaze on her body. He knew she looked amazing and that her figure was astonishing but seeing her naked was different – even better. Her clothes scattered on the floor and eventually she stood before him in her underwear only. She unclasped her bra and let it fall somewhere on the floor, revealing her perked nipples to Kylo. She loved how nude she felt in front of him, physically and emotionally. It’s like there wasn’t an aspect of her Kylo couldn’t stare right into and she loved that feeling.

“Fuck,” Kylo cursed underneath his breath. He couldn’t take the strip tease anymore. Instead of waiting for her to get rid of her black underwear, Kylo let go of his achingly hard cock and grabbed her underwear. He tore the thin material down her legs and then grabbed her hips, harshly pulling her body on his lap. Y/N lost her balance as Kylo pulled her so forcefully, so she had to grab his shoulders for support. His grip would surely leave bruises on her skin, but she didn’t mind that at all.

Her pussy was dripping wet and throbbing in sync with her pulse. She was more than ready to be fucked mercilessly, but nothing could have possibly prepared her for the monstrous size of Kylo’s cock. He pushed his tip inside her and then pulled her body down so he could sink deep inside her soft warm walls.

“Fuck- Kylo!” Y/N whined in pleasure and pain as his cock spread her walls like never before. By now, she was so enthralled by the pleasure that she completely forgot how to address him correctly and frankly, she didn’t care. She sank down on his cock and by the time she sat on his lap, it felt like he could easily tear her apart. If Kylo didn’t have such a death gaze on her, silently reminding her that he was in control, she would’ve rubbed her pulsing clit to ease some of the pain. They had barely gotten started and she was panting.

“So beautiful, all mine,” Kylo murmured deeply as he ran his hand down her neck, his fingers pressing over her pulse. She bit her lip as Kylo wrapped his hand around her throat again and pressed lightly, enough to make it harder to breathe but not impossible. His other hand held her waist tightly, keeping her pressed down on his cock. Her tits were right in front of his face, which gave him an idea. As she began to ride his enormous cock, Kylo slid his hand up her waist until he cupped her breast. It didn’t take long until his skilled fingers pinched her nipple painfully, making her moan loudly as she rode his cock. It was the most beautiful sound he had heard in a long time and he wanted to hear more. He wanted her to scream in pain and pleasure as his cock pierced her body.

“You’re so big!” Y/N whimpered in a haze. She felt like she was dreaming. Her walls hugged his cock so tightly and it felt amazing. Every roll of her hips made her whimper and moan.

“You’ve been such a bad girl. You know I could punish you in a much worse way for what you’ve done…” Kylo growled, reminding her of why she got herself in this situation. Not that it mattered, she seemed to enjoy it a lot, almost too much to be considered a punishment.

Y/N knew she should’ve been ashamed, but in that moment, it made her happy she had done that. If she hadn’t, she doubted she would’ve ended dup riding her Supreme leader’s massive cock on the throne itself. Nevertheless, she played along “I’m sorry I’ve been so b-bad…so sorry!”

Kylo squeezed around her neck and pulled her face right next to his. For a moment, he choked her so she couldn’t breathe, just long enough so he could whisper, “say it like you mean it, you little whore!” and then he eased his grip which made her gasp. He wasn’t playing around.

Y/N rolled her hips on his cock faster and rested her head in the crook of his neck. Kylo was wearing his robes and he must’ve been warm. She could smell his cologne through his clothes, and she felt the heat radiating from his body. It was driving her wild. “I’m so s-sorry! I promise I won’t let anything like it happen e-ever…again, ah!” Y/N tried to apologize between her moans.

Kylo bucked his hips to meet hers which made it much harder for her to speak. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as Kylo grabbed her hips with both hands and began to pound into her wetness. her breath got lost for a moment as the sudden force intensified the pleasure and pain she felt. Kylo felt how her walls squeezed around him tighter, revealing that she was close. He wasn’t done with her yet; she was going to be sorry.

Kylo pressed two of his fingers on her pulsing clit, pressing down harshly which made her body jolt in surprise. Without warning, he began to rub her needy clit while fucking deep into her, surely overwhelming her. “Is that what you wanted, huh? For your Supreme leader to fuck your dirty hole? To be treated like the little slut that you are?” Kylo growled to her, his voice deep and raspy from his own pleasure. He wanted to fuck her harder and to spill his seed into her womb.

His nasty words only made her moan into his neck. She struggled to form thoughts by now. But she knew she had to reply to him, “y-yes, sir!”

Gosh, she sounded so alluring. Y/N’s voice was weakened by the raw pleasure Kylo brought her and he could hear that his size was taking a toll on her. It took all her strength to keep herself together on his cock and to not fall apart. It filled Kylo with a sense of pride. Y/N tilted her head slightly and pressed her lips on Kylo’s neck, hoping to drown her moans by kissing his skin. She was convinced that all the Stormtroopers and the Knights of Ren could hear them, but she didn’t care. He was warm and his body, just like hers, was covered by a layer of sweat. Her cool lips felt amazing on his neck, so he didn’t stop her from kissing him. Somehow, she found his sensitive spot immediately.

Y/N could feel his cock all the way in her belly and his fingers that rubbed circles on her pearl made her mind spin. She was close and she wasn’t sure how long she could hold it.

Kylo could feel how close she was, “Just cum. I won’t stop until I do, so that’s on you,” Kylo warned her mercilessly. He knew that his touch would make her scream if he could overstimulate her. In fact, he wanted to do that. He wanted to pound into her walls after she reached her high, to tease her little clit which would surely be too much for her to handle. Kylo also knew that he was much stronger than her, so she couldn’t push him off even if she wanted to.

What he said felt like a threat. Y/N was afraid she couldn’t handle his tempting torture if she came now. Kylo was already pushing her body to the edge! “I can’t…” She cried against his neck, tears forming in her eyes.

Kylo knew that and he didn’t care.

“Oh yes you can!” He growled sternly and replaced his fingers with the force. As he fucked his cock into her dripping wet walls, he used the force to capture her clit and to rub circles on it. His huge hands regained the tight grip on her hips as he continued his torturous pace. Y/N rolled her hips against his, but her moves became sloppy as she struggled to keep her orgasm at bay. Then finally, she came.

“Kylo!” Y/N screamed his name in delight as her body collapsed against his. The work towards her orgasm had drained her of her energy, but it was worth it. Never before had she felt as euphoric as she did now, sitting on her Supreme leader’s lap with his cock deep in her pussy and the force rubbing her clit just the way she liked it.

“That’s right! Cum all over my cock, you little whore. Just like that!” Kylo groaned as he kept pounding into her, now chasing his own orgasm.

Tears rolled down her face as the pleasure quickly became too much. Y/N held onto Kylo’s body tightly almost for dear life as he continued to push her to an edge she had never reached before. Every thrust, every rub felt like another orgasm followed by another. Even something as simple as breathing became hard after a short while. “Kylo! I can’t! ‘S too much!” She screamed, knowing fully he wouldn’t stop. A part of her wanted to push him off, but the other part of her loved it and wanted him to continue until she was a screaming and crying mess underneath his touch.

“You should’ve kept that in mind when you were doing such a poor job!” Kylo used her mistake against her. He had to grit his teeth together as he was so close. Having her shaking body on his lap only pushed him closer to his edge. Ever so weakly, she tried to push herself off him, but it was useless. She didn’t really want to get off, but her body was working against her mind.

Her torture didn’t continue much longer as Kylo finally came. He pulled her as close as he could, burying his cock deep inside her as his cum leaked inside her. Kylo bit Y/N’s shoulder in order to silence his growl of pure and raw pleasure.

Y/N moaned with him, enjoying how it felt to be filled with Kylo’s cum. It made her feel so dirty, but also all his. The thought of surrendering herself completely to him was thrilling.

Instead of being pushed away as soon as he got what he wanted, Kylo kept her close. He didn’t want to pull out and frankly, Y/N didn’t want to leave.

Neither of them dared to speak a word as they came down their highs. Y/N enjoyed her place on his lap and the feeling of being full of his cock and cum. Although she feared it was a one-time thing, she wished to return to that feeling over and over again.

Eventually, Kylo tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling her head back just enough so he could kiss her. It wasn’t a loving kiss, but it was passionate and harsh. Their teeth nearly clashed by the force of it. Y/N didn’t fight it as Kylo pushed his tongue inside her mouth, asserting dominance even after he had split her in half by her pelvis.

As they broke the kiss, their eyes met. Because of his force gifts, Kylo could sense what she was feeling. The poor woman liked him way too much. Honestly, she should’ve probably hated him, but she didn’t. Kylo liked that about her. Instead of running away from trouble, she ran towards it. “You’re such a dirty girl. I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”

“I have, sir. As I said, I won’t ever let that happen again,” Y/N repeated herself. Her words were drowsy, and she was tired. Fucking Kylo had drained her from all her energy. It was far too tempting to just lean against his chest and close her eyes, but she was afraid it would make him push her away. As much as it sucked, she had to remind herself that this was her punishment.

Perhaps the hardest thing wasn’t to take the fucking, but to walk away from him afterwards.

Author’s Note: Here go you! I hope you liked it :) Your feedback would be highly appreciated <3 

[xivu-arath]

the taste of salt

for @synnthamonsugar! you requested, among other things, the possibility of savathun and lavinia conversing, and this idea just about consumed me afterwards (and shoutout to nem who managed to mention this exact same idea idly during lorechat and terrify me immensely). I also just associate these two with you at this point, as I think you were the one to point out lavinia had met savathun at the end of her journey to me!!

anyways, I think it’s only been this year that we’ve known each other but I’m very glad that we’ve met!

(AO3)

“My nephew died,” the witch continues, as if talking about the weather. “Just a little while ago.”

“Oh,” Lavinia says, before she can think better of it. “I’m sorry.”

Lavinia is in a cage. She worked that part out very quickly. But it is a cage made like a dream, and it works like a dream, and that makes it difficult to resent. Either the witch is not there, or she is, and might well have always been. Lavinia has tried thinking of her in other terms, even by the few names she can dredge up from pre-Golden Age myths, but they slide off as if oiled. The witch refuses all other titles.

Today – if there are days here, as the only way she can tell time is by the witch’s visits – the tea the witch pours for them both is a dark, smoky blend that she remembers from her time as a student, poring over every new secret and mystery in the archives.

It is also a blend that no longer exists; the plants, the supply chain that brought it to the city, the process and the knowledge behind it all lost, excised by a raid by one species or another. One infinitesimal loss out of trillions. Yet here it is, rewound, warming her hands. The flavour makes her eyes sting, and when she is done blinking the feeling away, the witch is watching her, smiling.

The witch’s eyes are very green, and pin her like knives.

“I really must thank you, Lavinia. You’ve been such a help. But you won’t mind a change in plans, will you?” she says, the question relentlessly rhetorical.

(Lavinia still wonders about Nasya. What things would have been like, if she could have gone with her. Would things have been different, or would she be a pawn in a different set of schemes?)

But at least someone is listening. Someone cares about the truths she has uncovered. Someone who very much does not want to be discovered.

“My nephew died,” the witch continues, as if talking about the weather. “Just a little while ago.”

“Oh,” Lavinia says, before she can think better of it. “I’m sorry.” The mention of family has jarred her out of any sense of caution, even with her thoughts scrambling for how long a while could possibly mean in such a place, what else she might possibly glean from such a short statement. She still has to say something.

“How kind of you.” There is something heavy and ill-fitting about the words as she says them, but the smile remains. “It wasn’t entirely unexpected,” she adds, almost confiding. “He was a clever child, but precocious. He took risks. It made him much like his father, though they would both have hated to hear it. You know how family is.”

Lavinia bites her lip, thinking of her mother, voice shaking through each syllable of her names when they argued. “I am sorry about your nephew, but I don’t see what this has to do with me –”

“We had made a great deal of plans, and it is up to me now to carry them through,” the witch continues, serenely ignoring her input, and her eyes glitter with what has to be laughter. “And it has occurred to me that you’ve been rather neglected here, after everything you’ve brought to my doorstep. You have been wasted for far too long, haven’t you? By your City, of course, and the Reef after that.”

Lavinia swallows, and sets her cup down. The flavour of home has encountered a large lump in her throat, and cannot seem to get past.

“I do,” says the witch, pensive, “hate to see waste.”

“I’ve told you so much,” she says, shying away from her certainty of how terrible a choice – was it a choice, really? – it was to do so. “I’ve told you everything I know. What more could you want with me?”

Maybe it’s still the thought of her mother, and the City, and an entire beautiful, ransacked planet she’ll never see again, that makes Lavinia fling the teacup right at her captor’s face.

The tea spills in a beautiful, gleaming arc. The cup catches on nothing as the air stutters, and she tastes salt and seawater for an instant – and then the world resumes.

They are sitting at the table. The wind howls and makes the branches of the trees outside tap at the windows. The fire crackles. The teacups sit, now empty.

“Feeling better, dear?” the witch asks dryly.

Her shoulders hunch. “No.”

“But you had to try it, anyways, didn’t you? Even though you’ve already learned the rules for this space.” She is still speaking more slowly, thoughtfully, and Lavinia finds she hates it. The conversational pleasantries and veiled condescension are... well, not fine, but they are a game Lavinia has a chance at keeping up with.

This is the witch slowly baring the blade of her intellect, and it is terrible – because of how deliberately she does it, because Lavinia is afraid and yet at the same time, she’s blundering towards trying to understand –

“You too are bound by your nature, after all.” The witch’s eyes are impossibly bright now, almost burning. She is reminded of the auroras over areas blasted by radiation, their very brilliance an implicit warning. “So our cycles continue onward.” She leans forward, and Lavinia scoots back without meaning to.

“If I had left you with the Nine, yours would have ground you to dust by now.”

“And captivity is so much better,” she says, desperately bold. If the witch needs her for something else, she’s scarcely going to get rid of her now.

The witch beams, and Lavinia knows she has somehow set her foot right back into another trap. “In this case, you’ll find it is.

“Tell me, Lavinia. How would you like to go home?”

All her fleeting bravado drains away. “Home? You can’t mean – I’m an exile. The City cast me out. I can’t go back.” It’s the first thing that comes to mind, even if this whole unfortunate journey started to fix that, to prove something so true and important the City would have to allow her to return....

“Oh,” the witch says. “I think your knowledge is exactly what they need right now. Your City will be grateful enough to welcome you back with open arms.”

Questions boil up with more than a tinge of urgency, and Lavinia chokes them down. Either the witch won’t answer them, or she will, and those answers will lead her further astray. She has to stay focused, clear-headed. Never her strong suit when cornered, but she rather thinks all the perilous situations have toughened her nerves just a little since she had crept into the Cryptarch’s vault. Would she have stared down those Guardians, maybe –

(Rambling again, Lavinia. Focus.)

It’s rather like phrasing the right question to get her master’s approval – not a task she was very good at to begin with – but the stakes are so much higher. Her pulse pounds in her ears. “Just sending me back for my own sake would be another waste, wouldn’t it?”

The witch smiles at her like the most terrifying grandmother she’s never had. “It just so happens that I am in need of an envoy to the City, since my last one was so rudely killed –”

“Killed?”

“Do keep up, Lavinia,” she says impatiently, and several pieces fall together in quick succession. Her nephew. Of course. “You’ll have a far more merciful reception than he did. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Lavinia almost wishes she had the simulated tea back just so she could busy herself while thinking very, very fast. Why would an enemy of the City – and she refers to the City and the Reef with such airy distance, like they are such small things – want to speak to it? There’s no question that going to the City on her behalf would be a bad idea. No question that, just as before, she has little choice.

So much for luck.

“And what would I be saying?” Her voice doesn’t quite waver. The witch is offering her what they both want. “As your envoy.”

“All sorts of things. Some of them may even be true.” The witch’s eyes narrow, and Lavinia feels the threat in her drifting attention.

“I’ll do it,” she says quickly, before she can think long enough to regret it. She can hear her master and Rahool and Ikora Rey all despairing of her in the back of her mind. So quick to make choices, so reckless. “Take me back.”

“First,” the witch says. “You must speak my name.”

She reels. “What? But – but you haven’t told me your name. I don’t know it.”

The look she gets is pitiable and mocking, a teacher exasperated by a favourite student. “Surely that shouldn’t be a problem for you. I’ve given you more than enough to find it.”

With growing dread, Lavinia realizes that this is true. How many enemies of humanity have notable relatives? The only ones she can think of are Oryx and his sons, all dead. But Oryx had sisters somewhere out beyond the solar system, circling with their armies and fleets out in deep space....

“Savathûn,” she whispers. “You’re Savathûn.”

“The pact is made,” Savathûn says, and her smile is decidedly sharp-toothed. “Let’s get you to where you belong.”

The warm and pleasant cage of a room shreds itself apart, and Lavinia tastes salt for the last time.

[talesfromtinytonka]

Prompt 4 - Baleful - A Prince’s Palace

(Author’s Note: A Realm Reborn and Palace of the Dead Spoilers. Contains some descriptions of death and decay some may find uncomfortable).

Drip. Drip. A steady droplet of unclean water fell upon him from the damp stone of the ceiling hanging high overhead. He had felt its obnoxious presence disturbing his sleep for some time, he thought, but it was only now that his body wished to awaken and move in agreement. The lalafell groaned a raspy, annoyed sound as his sleepy mind became reacquainted with the movement of his limbs in an attempt to get up. Every muscle in his body seemed to ache as he pushed upwards from the cold stone floor with his hands, his eyes looking down into the hazy darkness of the room in confusion. “Where am I?” the man thought, trying to recall the events of the night before. “Was it…a party?...Yes, I remember now…I must have drank too much.” The monetarist let out a curse as he struggled to get back up and find his composure once more. He knew himself to be quite bad at holding a drink, especially when attending celebrations. Though his mind was shrouded in aching fog, he was certain that the night before had given cause to much celebration.

It took considerable effort for him to finally stand, his joints creaking as pain shot up his body like a fire. The lalafell yelled out in frustration at his own soreness, calling out for a guard to fetch a chirurgeon. His refined voice fell on no ears, however, as it bounced upon the walls of the strange room he found himself in. “Curse those worthless Brass Blades…where in the hells am I?!” The lalafell looked around the dark room he was in. In all his years serving on the syndicate, Teledji Adeledji had never seen a room like this in the royal palace. The walls were dark and fairly damp; a strange, ethereal glow emanating from their cracks to produce just enough light to make out the dimensions of the room. Teledji took a step forward, nearly falling over once again as his feet seemed to delay their response to his command. Cursing once more, the lalafell managed to stumble up against a wall, his hand wiping the sweat off his face as he focused again on the events that had come to pass the night before. “The party!” Teledji recalled. “I must have celebrated the ‘unfortunate’ passing of the Sultana by the Scions hands a little too much…I’ll make my way back out to the court proper and call for assistance.” Teledji brushed his hands upon the matted hair of his goatee, shuddering at the sensation of filthiness upon him. Someone would pay for the state of this place as soon as he was back in clean clothes, he thought.

Teledji walked along the side of the room, letting the wall keep his shoulder steady as he used his hand to guide him through the darkness. The room had hallways, it seemed, which led only to more rooms of similar darkness and texture. He contemplated the purpose of these rooms: were they for storage? Perhaps an abandoned corridor from the damage of the calamity? Teledji grinned as he thought about the treasures and secrets that might lay hidden in the palace that would one day be his, lost to the passage of time. The thought of riches and power called out to him like no other mistress, all soon to be his with the success of his careful scheming the night before. Lord Lolorito and the other monetarists would have no choice but to kneel before him and the power of his Omega device, and no Scion would be left to challenge his excavation of the Cartenau Flats. Not even Raubahn, the blind bull of Ala Mhigo, would stand in his way. His thoughts lingered on the name coldly as he continued to guide his way back to civilization.

It was in the discovery of his third identical room that Teledji seemed to hear the grinding of something out in the darkness. The sound made the lalafell curious, and so he stepped in further to investigate. The noise had become quite loud to him before his eyes could make its source out in the darkness of the room. Before him stood a flowing, dark specter, its dark-as-night cloak flickering with an otherworldly glow of ominous magic. Teledji jumped in place, letting out a muffled eep as he backed away slowly. The grinding noise, as Teledji had learned, seemed to come from the unmistakably sharp and long claws beneath the creatures robed sleeves, scraping and clicking amongst each other in menacing anticipation. As the creature began to turn Teledji stumbled against the wall, throwing any chance of silence to the wind as he attempted to run away screaming. “Somebody!! Anybody! HELP!” Teledji screamed, calling out the names of any guard or Crystal Brave he could recall. “A voidsent!? In the palace!?” He thought, doing whatever he could to make distance between himself and the creature.

Teledji ran through room after room, no longer aware of where he had been or not been before finally tripping and falling to the floor. He laid on the floor, his body shuddering as he took a deep breath and listened in for the sounds of the creature. The moments seemed to pass like hours as he waited for any sign of his impending doom, a sign that never arrived to his surprise and great relief. The specter, it had seemed, had lost track of him. Teledji sighed in immense relief and began to sit back upright, but not before noticing a curious sight: His robes, tattered and dirty as they had become from this place, were soaked in blood down the entire front. As the lalafell went to touch the dried blood, his memory seemed to come back to him. “R-Raubahn! That’s right! Raubahn tried to attack me! I must have followed the blades down here to apprehend him as he tried to escape…why on earth would they have left me down here!?” Teledji grew angry as he stood back up, regaining his balance against the wall. No royalty should ever be made to deal with this, he thought. Teledji took a deep breath and tried to recompose himself for what he knew to be required ahead: There would be no empire if he did not escape this place, and clearly the idiotic guardsmen of Ul’dah could not be relied upon in this case.

Knowing now that the path before him was dangerous, the monetarist made his movements far more careful as he sought to follow the walls in the opposite direction this time. The darkness down here was certain to obscure his movements from other creatures, he thought, and it was highly unlikely he would have been willing to venture too far down into these catacombs in the prior night’s hunt for Raubahn. Some time passed as Teledji wandered the labyrinthine halls and rooms around him, completely lost to any sense of direction. As Teledji continued to explore, he eventually found a room unlike the others he had seen before, adorned in a blue light with soft glow. As he made his way into this room, he was surprised to see that he was not alone; the glow seemed to emanate from a torch-like fixture in the corner of the room, and beneath that fixture sat a man with his back turned to the lalafell. The man wore the telltale clothes of a poor man of Ul’dah; his Highlander complexion provoking a smile of relief upon Teledji’s face. “You there! Refugee! Help me to safety and I will pay you your weight and more in gold!” The man failed to respond, mumbling under his breath repeatedly. Undeterred, Teledji sought to provoke him further. “Up with you! Are you lot from Ala Mhigo all this lazy?! Fine! A palace for you and yours, just get me out of here!” Teledji grew angry at the man’s lack of response and stumbled forward to grab the man by the shoulder. Finally, the man turned, revealing a throat slit and caked with the blood blackened and crusted over by time. Teledji let out a shriek and backed up as the man looked into his eyes, the top corner of his face simply gone from his hairline to his empty eye socket. “Executed….I….I can’t….I w-was…” The man looked to Teledji, his one remaining eye pleading in horror as an effluvial scent of rot escaped his open mouth.

Teledji took off, unable to bear the sight of the man any longer as he ran down the halls and rooms screaming. “T-this place has gone mad! SOMEONE! ANYONE! PLEASE HELP!” The reality of the danger he was in had finally set in his mind, the endless passageways of this place seeming to close in on him like a prison. Teledji would bound his way through a room only to find other creatures as foul in appearance as the ones he had seen, all seeming to pay him little mind as he continued to scream for help. As he rounded a corner into a one-way room, he tripped, flying up into the air and falling upon the uneven stone floor with a sickening rip behind him. He struggled to stand, rolling over on his back as he tried to get up. Looking down, Teledji let out a fresh scream of fear: his lower half had begun to come undone, his waist connected to his torso by only a few sinewy threads of muscle and a cracked spine, the blood and flesh exposed by the separation dark and flyblown with larvae squirming in and out. Teledji thrashed his upper body in instinctual fear, smashing himself against the floor in any desperate attempt possible to free himself from the disgusting rot that had seemed to so suddenly grip his lower half. There was no relief in his mind as he finally freed himself from it, dragging himself with his hands out of the room as he tried in futility to find his escape from this nightmare. “This isn’t possible…I should be dead….I should be dead!” Teledji closed his eyes and begged for himself to awake in his bed, his hands pulling and dragging him out of determination to leave.

As Teledji dragged himself towards the sounds of fighting that now echoed the halls of this place, his mind gained clarity through the madness of his current predicament.

“I….I a-am dead.”

The lalafell remembered all too clearly now the events of the party, how Raubahn had treated the news of his beloved Sultana’s death. The last moments that he could remember were the burning of steel; the sensation of the numbness of his lower body as his back hit the ground, or so he thought. Teledji knew now that the truth was far more sinister than that. That night had not been last night by any stretch of imagination, and though he had no count or idea of how long it had been, he remembered now what was to come. As Teledji looked down the hallway to the shimmering of armor against the glow of the darkened rooms, his eyes lit up with knowing fear over glimmering hope. The Warrior of Light he had condemned to regicide was coming, as he had come so many times before, and there was nothing he could do to stop him. As the man dashed down the hallway towards Teledji and brandished his axe high in the air behind him, intent on repeating the cycle once anew, Teledji could only let out but a few cowering words. “N-No…S-Stay back! Not Again!”

[snowbellewells]

A Cottage by the Sea

Here we go!! My first @cssns entry of the summer. I hope that those who were expecting two simple one shots from me in the event this year, won’t be too upset that I ended up with a different fic than I intended to start out with - one that will probably have at least four more parts to it. My original idea just would not work, so I pulled out this headcanon that I’d been mulling over for some time...and it simply grew from there.  Here in the Prologue, it’s going to seem more straightforward Lieutenant Duckling, Enchanted Forest au, but the supernatural elements will come if you stick with me. My intention is to update every other Tuesday until this story is ended; meaning you should have Part One on June 23rd.

I hope you’ll enjoy - and I’d love to hear what you think of this first part...

***Immense thank yous to @searchingwardrobes for this cover art that I am absolutely in love with, and to @tornadoamy for looking this over and giving me early feedback as a beta. And to the @cssns event and mods for giving me the opportunity to flesh out this idea I’ve harbored for so long - and for so much fun and entertainment the previous two summers, and coming up in this one as well!***

Can also be found on AO3

Summary: Princess Emma has always been drawn to the shores of Misthaven, where the sea meets the shore near her parents’ castle. When an unknown boy washes up on the sand, with eyes as fathomless and blue as the waters that brought him to her, he soon becomes Emma’s best friend, her partner in crime, and her other half.  But the tides give and the tides take away, and as her blue-eyed boy sails in her father’s navy and risks all in defense of those who made him family, unexpected danger and challenge will try to tear them apart, and might well show him just where he came from that day he first appeared to her from the sea…”

by: @snowbellewells

~~~prologue~~~

The land around her parents’ castle had always called to Princess Emma. The open spaces and craggy cliffs she could see in the distance as they plummeted into the churning sea, were windswept and wild much like herself. Though she had always been cared for and beloved, the sole heir to the kingdom of Queen Snow White, Emma also felt the desire to run free, as if she were destined for more than curtsies, crown fittings, and learning to smile demurely. Naturally, she adored her happily devoted, perfectly paired father and mother - just more so when they were teaching her to ride or aim a bow than when they were reminding her once again that she must exude patience and diplomacy at even the most interminable state dinners. She valued her kingdom and its people, understood the honor of her role in it, but that knowledge and affection failed to negate the fact that she often wished just as strongly to rip the fancy curled updos and jeweled tiaras from her head and run streaking like a loosed cannon along the wet sand at the ocean shore she could see from her chamber window, hair streaming behind her and cool, salty air on her face. All the proper princess etiquette and worries left behind.

The easiest - and her most favored - cure for that feeling of wanderlust and burning energy within was for either her mother or her father, or both whenever possible, to take her walking along the water’s edge in the evening. Emma would almost swear the Queen and King enjoyed the calming getaways almost as much as she did, both as a moment to be free of so many fussing, crowding, obsequious attendants and hangers-on, as well as to feel the open air of the world outside their palace cleansing them. She knew - though from nothing more than history and bedtime stories - that her parents had once lived and thrived out of doors, falling in love on the run as rebels before her mother regained the kingdom she had been born to lead. Both her mother, once a legendary bandit, and her father, who had started life as a humble shepherd, seemed to appreciate the chance to escape the castle walls of stone and venture out on their own with their adored and wild-hearted little girl. It concerned neither of them that Emma was bold and adventurous, bucking the traditional prim and dainty image of feminine royalty; in fact, they might have treasured those traits in her even more for how they harkened to what each loved most in the other.

One such evening, however, Queen Snow had been kept well into the twilight hour in a council meeting over trade routes and revenue, along with Emma’s father, and even Red, her godmother. Waiting impatiently, Emma fretted that she wouldn’t get outdoors and down to the shore at all, as she sat in the wide, cozy window seat of her tower room, looking out over the waves crashing up on the sands. She took in the lights of ships in their harbor, the mist and waves, and she longed to be closer - to be part of it all. In fact, she was mischievously contemplating whether or not she could scale down the outer walls in her nightdress and robe, and get to her usual walking course alone without being detected, when the door to her room opened behind her.

Snow White entered in a pleasantly flushed bluster of activity. Charming followed her with an indulgent smile, happily sweeping his daughter up into his arms as she ran to him in an excited blonde blur. She might be nearly 10-years-old, but he could still swing her up in his arms and twirl her through the air and all around the room as easily as he did when she was but a babe. Giggling happily, Emma threw her arms around her Papa’s neck and revelled in the exuberant joy of his affection.

When he put her down again, she immediately hopped around him excitedly tugging on his hand. “Can we go out for our walk now, please? Down by the shore… can we? Can we, pleeease?”

The King shook his head with a rueful chuckle, having known this would be her request the moment they set foot in their daughter’s room. She was made for the out-of-doors, an enchanting sprite of waves and sky, and he found it nigh as impossible as ever to disappoint her if her wish was within his power. “You’ll have to ask your mother this time, Sweetheart. I have more meetings, stores to check for the winter, applicants for aid to hear, a few more hours of work this evening yet.”

Snow smiled at him over Emma’s tousled blond head, nodded her agreement to a short jaunt while there was still light, Emma squealed with glee and danced an excited little jig before scampering toward the door, pulling at her mother’s hand impatiently, determined to hurry her along, Queen or no.

“You and Granny had better have cocoa and biscuits waiting for us when we return, Charming,” the dark-haired monarch grumbled, appearing stern, but the playful spark in her eyes told her husband she wasn’t really that upset. He was assuring they had what was needed for charitable giving to those less fortunate throughout the kingdom once harvests were over for the season; it would take but a moment to let the head palace cook know his wife’s wishes before continuing with his tasks.

“Anything for you, Dear,” he playfully mock-bowed before happily accepting a sweet kiss on the cheek and following his wife and daughter from the room. He was off in one direction; Marco and Jiminy both waiting down the hall to help him judge numbers, ask questions, and take notes, while Emma and Snow went in the other, headed down the stairs to the first floor side entrance and quickest path to the shore Emma was so anxious to reach. Charming supposed that many might think it strange he was not more troubled by letting his beloved and his only child wander outside the grounds alone, but his Queen could more than take care of herself. And if he knew Snow’s trusted bodyguard at all, the Huntsman they had long ago freed from Snow’s stepmother’s control, he would not be far if they had need of him when David could not accompany them - whether he was in view or not.

~~***~~

They were hand in hand, Emma’s shoes in her mother’s grip, as she skipped with exuberant satisfaction at her side, toes squidging with the exquisite feel of the wet grains of sand as she did. It was all Emma had wanted all day, from the moment she’d gotten dressed and shared breakfast with her parents and godmother, informal as they had no visitors in the warm, cozy castle kitchens. Throughout her interminable etiquette lessons with the Blue Fairy, and studying with her tutors, she had wanted nothing more than to be carefree by the water like this, and she was beside herself with excitement to be there at last.

Ruffling her daughter’s hair, Snow let the worries and concerns of meetings, treaties, budgets, and protocols slide from her shoulders while the evening breeze caressed her face. Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes for a moment and laughed into the wind right along with her precious child. Perhaps she had needed the escape just as much.

Then, with a sharp jerk, Emma’s smaller hand tugged from hers with a cry of surprise. “Mama, look there!” she called, her fingers slipping from her mother’s grasp as she began to pelt across the sand in alarm. “A boy! A boy just came out of the water!  He’s hurt!”

Immediately, Snow White’s focus was sharp, snapping back into full awareness, scanning ahead of them to where she saw a dark, bedraggled shape, not much larger than Emma, lying on the lighter colored beach. Emma had run forward in such concern that she had already almost reached the small shape, and her mother quickly gathered up her skirts and jogged forward to catch her, not sure yet what to expect. “Emma! Wait! Be careful!” she warned, though she already knew the caution would fall on deaf ears. Emma was fearless for her own safety, and had a soft spot for any person or thing injured or in need; she wouldn’t be stopping if she thought she could help.

Nearing the indeed soaked, disheveled, and unconscious child, Emma had already fallen to her knees, trying to shake and urge the unknown person back to awareness. The queen’s concern for her daughter’s safety instantly melted into compassion for the waif who didn’t move, didn’t speak, and barely seemed to breathe. For a child of his seeming height, he was frighteningly thin, his clothing threadbare and torn, hair too long, nearly hiding his closed eyes as soaked to his skin as it was. The Queen’s maternal heart ached for him, wondering how he came to be in such a state, alone and washed up from the sea. Taking Emma’s hand to stop her jostling him, Queen Snow could only hope they weren’t too late to save this mere boy’s life. It was only just beginning.

She looked up, wondering how they could get him back to the castle and trying to gauge how far they had traveled from the gates. Just as she was vaguely considering whether or not she could call one of the birds she was able to use as messengers - a gift that had served her often throughout life - when a tall shadow materialized from the woods bordering the shore, before she even needed to call out. Her long time bodyguard, Graham, Snow realized with easy relief; she should have known he would not be far, and regardless of the necessity - or lack thereof - in this moment she was glad he was there. This child needed help, and they needed to get him to a physician as soon as possible.

The Huntsman scooped the still-motionless boy up easily and began to carry him back the way they had come. Snow and Emma hovered on either side in anxious worry. As soon as they got him home to safety, they would bring him around. They had to. They had to have found him for a reason.

~~***~~

Once the unknown boy had been carried back to the castle, his slight form hardly causing the Huntsman to strain himself, bundled down before the warm hearthfire of the kitchens, boneless still, but changed from his wet rags into a old castoff tunic of the King’s (long enough to be a nightshirt on the lanky youth) and covered in numerous blankets, it took little time for the youth to come back to himself. 

Emma hovered anxiously next to the little stranger she had found, feeling oddly protective of “her boy” as she was already thinking of him in her head. She only paused in her agitated fidgeting to briefly take a cup of cocoa for herself and return the supportive hand squeeze offered her by their friend Red, Granny’s actual granddaughter and Emma’s frequent babysitter and playmate as well as her godmother.

Of course, Doc, the castle’s rather unofficial physician, had been sent for upon their return, but as the child before them began to stir of his own accord, Emma let herself hope that it would prove a mere precaution and their charge would be just fine. Heavy-lidded eyes blinked open slowly, as if still weary and reluctant to revive. When finally the thick, dark lashes parted to reveal rather stunning, unbelievably sea-blue eyes, Emma gasped at the shock that ran through her. Even as the boy’s widened in equal surprise and alarm, his eyes fixed on her gaze for several endless moments before darting around his surroundings, clearly unsure where he was or what had happened.

“Shh…. sh… hush now…” Emma felt her own tense muscles loosen as her mother’s voice calmly bathed the scene in gentle comfort. The Queen, soft and careful, and looking for all the world in that moment just like any other mother hoping to reassure her frightened child, stooped down to eye level with the boy they had propped up in a heaping nest of pillows and quilts by the fire. She reached out to softly brush his dark hair off his forehead, but froze when the boy flinched back like a startled animal. Instead, she only added in the same low, sweet croon. “You’re safe here. No one is going to hurt you… It’s alright now.”

The youngster’s eyes continued to cast about him for several tense moments, but then he seemed to finally register the calm surrounding him and accept that he would be alright. The tentatively crooked smile he offered back to the Queen sparked a bit of hope in all who were gathered around him. And when a steaming cup of cocoa was pressed into his hands by Granny with a brusque but concerned admonishment to “drink up, it’ll warm your insides” before the cook bustled off again, he seemed to come back to himself even more at the scent which wafted up into his face of chocolate and their family’s customary hint of cinnamon.

Emma could practically see interest light up those expressive eyes, but the child hesitated rather than bringing the cup to his lips for a taste. Darting from Queen to Princess uncertainly, he seemed to be gauging whether or not it was truly acceptable for him to take a drink.

“Go ahead,” Emma urged, smiling in what she hoped was reassurance. She wasn’t known for her patience, and she couldn’t know that this youth had never experienced hot cocoa, nor many pleasant treats at all, in his young life. Hoping to encourage him, she lifted her own mug to drink and then smacked her lips at the delightful taste, making Ruby laugh and her mother shake her head at her dreadful table manners. The boy’s face, however, lit with a bit of humor and happiness that it had not yet held. “It’s good, I promise,” Emma added with a grin. “You’ll like it.”

Almost as if he could resist no longer, the boy tipped his cup and took a sip of the warm, rich beverage at last. Then, it seemed he discovered the powers of liquid chocolate that everyone else in the room well knew. His eyes widened in delight, and he tipped his head back to get every last drop as he quickly guzzled down the rest, making Emma giggle, and him startle guiltily as if he’d done something wrong.

“Don’t worry,” Emma assured, reaching out innocently to lay her hand on his, “You can have some more, right Mama?”

Queen Snow White’s eyes were a bit misty with unshed tears, having already met Granny’s gaze over Emma’s head and Ruby’s as well, the three women piecing together things Emma in her sheltered, loving world could not yet know about what this youngster must have gone through. His reactions and his guardedness spoke volumes, even in silence. Nodding simply, not sure at first that she could speak around the painful lump in her throat, Snow finally managed to agree, “Yes, for tonight at least, our new friend may have all the hot cocoa his heart desires.”

~~***~~

The boy’s name, it turned out, was Killian Jones. He did recall that much once he regained his bearings, as well as the fact that he had possessed a father, mother, and older brother in a happy little house before his mother had seemingly vanished from his young life, and they had sent sail on the boat he had been on before washing ashore. No matter how many questions they asked or how he tried to call more forth, he remembered little else of what happened to his mother or father. He knew he had been told she fell ill and died, but all he could bring forth in his mind’s eye was that one morning he had awakened and she had vanished from his life as if she never existed at all - just a pleasant dream. His elder brother Liam had been on the boat with him, and Killian had shed tears that broke all their hearts when he recalled the day his brother had been swept overboard and lost to him forever. But as to what had become of his father, and how he had been sentenced to the life of hard labor he had clearly endured afterward, there was nothing but a blank and questions.

 As days and weeks, then months, and finally years went by, he remained with them at Misthaven castle.  Though far from a young prince, Killian was raised as a member of the royal household, growing up side-by-side with Princess Emma. They appeared to be quite close in age, and joined by the fact that she had found him and seemed to take Killian on as her own, he and Emma were quite inseparable - the best of friends and as “thick as thieves” as Granny always lamented when they were underfoot or stealing berries meant for tarts and pies on the royal dinner table.

As they reached adolescence, the King and Queen began to wonder where Kilian would be happiest as he came of age. The young man they had come to adore almost as a son had several skills: he was invaluable in the stables, exuding a calming force over the horses and evincing a knack for their training and care; he was quite good as an extra hand in the kitchen when Granny was understaffed or had more visiting mouths than usual to feed (for all her tough talk the aging widow had a soft spot for the boy and would no doubt have mentored him as a cook). Killian was bright; genuine knowledge and curiosity made him a voracious reader and student, honestly gaining more from the princess’ many esteemed tutors than Emma ever had and enjoying the study much more. He would have been easy to train as a page or diplomat, but none of those options seemed quite right.

It was not until his fifteenth birthday that the way Killian hoped to take became clear. It might have seemed improbable to most, knowing that the sea had once nearly swallowed him whole and claimed his life, but to Emma who knew him better than anyone else, it made sense. Those restless, wandering waves held an appeal, a mystery and adventure, and perhaps even still some bit of himself that her friend needed to claim. He stated his intention to join her father’s Navy with a proud certainty. And Emma’s heart swelled with equal gratification, but also fear. The sea had given him to her, but it wanted to take him back again…

It had taken them all such a long time to show Killian that he was welcome there, truly a part of their loving extended family. At first, Killian had shrunk back - shoulders hunched, head bowed, breath coming quickly in frightened pants - any time he might accidentally drop and break a dish or he reached for a second roll at the table, making it clear was that he had been punished and berated, to the point that he cowered like a whipped dog whenever he feared he might have put even a toe out of line. Princess Emma knew that her parents suspected beatings and physical abuse; it was clear in the concerned way their eyes met in silent communication whenever Killian reacted with the intense fear and apology he often showed in his bearing; she sadly had to agree that they were quite probably correct. She shuddered to think of how he might still be suffering under some cruel captain’s mistreatment, miserable, stranded and helpless to change his situation if it had not been for the shipwreck which brought him to Misthaven instead. There had been no question for any of them that he must stay, when they had learned of his indenture and how he had been orphaned and abandoned. She couldn’t have been more glad that all in the castle were in agreement; Emma had already decided that “her boy” needed to stay there with them, where he was safe and she could be sure he was happy and free. Neither of them were small children anymore, but Emma’s care and affection for him had never changed.

For so long before Killian’s arrival, she had been the only child in a palace of grown-ups: rulers, dignitaries, staff - a whole caravan of people who doted and adored, but very few who could be peers, to play with, talk to, and simply understand her. As the days had flowed into one another, turning into months and years until most people could hardly remember when she and Killian were not linked, they  were practically siblings in every way that mattered. The princess knew that she didn’t intend to live - not could she imagine - her life without him ever again.

And then, seemingly in the mere blink of an eye, they were fifteen and moving from playing tag amongst the grape arbors and lilac bushes in her mother’s gardens and slipping out of the interminable poise and etiquette lessons which Emma detested yet was never allowed to miss, to the stage where Killian was serving as her partner while she learned the waltz and other ballroom dances she would need to master for formal balls and ceremonies. Not only that, but as they edged into adolescence, Emma’s heart thumped against her chest differently than it used to as Killian led her gracefully through the steps. Even as her heart seemed ready to ricochet from her body, the warmth of Killian’s skin where they touched and the utter safety she felt in his hold half intoxicated her. As awareness spun her head round, uncertain what to do with it or how to proceed with these strange new feelings suddenly flooding her, all Emma could be certain of was the pang of loss she felt at knowing that Killian’s desire was to soon join her father’s naval fleet. At fifteen, he was at last of age to sail as a cabin boy and begin to work his way up in a ship’s ranks. Though she knew that had long been her friend’s desired course, Emma’s heart still ached to see him go.

However, her parents could not deny him the chance to seek such a worthy ambition. Indeed, they were proud of Killian, happy to help him secure a place on one of their finest vessels and make certain he knew their confidence in him and their faith that he would succeed. All too soon, after years with him at her side, it was the day Emma’s confidant and companion was set to sail on his first voyage. Though she knew in her head that the kingdom was in a time of peace and that it was a mere routine mission, her heart could not ignore the fact that sea travel always came with risk. Not only that, but she would miss Killian terribly.

Still, goodbyes had been said, all was made ready, and she was left on the dock, waving goodbye as the best friend she had ever known met her eyes and waved back. His pretty blue eyes, that had long since begun to speak to her as ardently as his actual words, expressed a potent blend of pained anxiety at leaving his adopted family and the life he had known and excitement for the adventure ahead on the waves that stirred his blood. She stood there long after the rest of the crowd seeing him off had dispersed and gone back to the castle, watching as the naval ship bearing “her boy” (as she sometimes still in the deepest and most secret depths  of her heart thought of him) became a small dot on the horizon before fading from view entirely. 

And only then had the journey truly begun...

Tagging: @searchingwardrobes @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @cssns @tiganasummertree @hollyethecurious @darkcolinodonorgasm @winterbaby89 @shireness-says @snidgetsafan @let-it-raines @therooksshiningknight @spartanguard @mayquita @thisonesatellite @stahlop @whimsicallyenchantedrose @thislassishooked @drowned-dreamer @ineffablecolors @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @kday426 @lfh1226-linda @carpedzem 

[kidney9-9]

Petty Chapter 4 (Peter Parker)

Hi, hope you enjoy this chapter of Petty, I loved writing it! In this chapter, Peter Parker and Reader meet again and bring the two to a point they can’t stand each other. I don’t own this gif, credit goes to the creator.

Taglist is open! 

Series Masterlist

Peter Parker x Reader  Warnings: cursing and slight violence Word Count: 1.7k

You were stuck on that day, rethinking everything after your cousin had passed out. You didn’t even know what to do now, with Peter glaring at you, every chance he had. You felt guilty even more than possible, but you were trying to convince yourself not to be. It was just something you couldn’t hold back. You would tell yourself, “Peter deserves it, don’t worry” but that never worked out. You groaned at yourself, shaking your head. It all made you feel stupid now, compared to how you did that because you thought Peter was dumb.

Mandy refused to talk to you now. You were alright with it, knowing she would probably drive to your home in the middle of the night to randomly take you out to roller-skate. It was something she always did to you, whenever your actions affected her in a negative way. Whenever she did something like that to you, she’d apologize by taking you out roller skating as well. It was a fun tradition to end a feud.

Your mom was disappointed in both you and Mandy. She wouldn’t have known about it in the first place if Mandy managed to shut up. Your mom would just stare at you at dinner now, instead of talk about things, something that made you feel even worse and more uncomfortable. Your mom was one of your best friends, so it was off putting whenever she was in the same room as you now.

You scrunched your face up, remembering how she muttered his name at you before you left for school this morning. “Peter Parker…” Something you would usually scoff at but now you’d want to throw things everywhere and cry at the same time. He still pissed you off, no matter what. But that guilt was immense.

You would just pass him through the hallways. Something that was usually normal, but now intense. He’d glare at you, slam his fist into a locker, but never made any action to just talk to you. It wasn’t something you’d expect from a superhero, and it made you think. Were you his villain of high school? You cringed at the thought, but then you sighed. Were you the villain of your own story as well? Was Peter the villain? Nothing made sense, but you couldn’t stop thinking about it.

If you were a villain, you were at best a shitty D-list one.

You could have kept quiet about everything. Something that sounds so easy, but it just poured out of you, like you were in a Shakespearean parody. The antagonist villain is always defeated in movies now. But Peter made no play against you. Nothing to take revenge against you.

That just made you feel more guilty. If he did do something, you would somehow theorize and conclude that what you did to him was just. At the same time, you couldn’t just say “Sorry, you’re probably going to be held back.” As well as, “Sorry my cousin blackmailed you.”

By the time you reached your locker, you sighed in relief. He wasn’t here for some reason. He was usually in this hallway, just staring at you, but this morning he wasn’t. You opened your locker, glancing inside to look for your notes for history, but frowned in confusing. Nothing was there. At all, it was just completely empty.

You felt a dread of anxiety pulse through you. You needed those notes for history today, it was important. It was the pre-exam, and without those notes today, you would be fucked. Some stupid test to make sure you knew everything before the actual exam, but the teacher graded it as well. It was worth 10% and without it, you cringed at just thinking of the score.

You shoved yourself more into the locker, just pushing your head in to see better, as if you were hallucinating. You glanced at the top of your locker, furrowing your eyebrows when you saw a paper tapped on it. You pushed yourself out, ignoring people’s looks and stares at you, ripping the paper out. You clutched it hard, slamming your locker shut, and pushed your back against it.

You opened the paper quickly, ignoring the tape falling to the floor. You squinted, reading it over again. “Music room in 10 minutes.” What the fuck? You crumpled it, shoving it deep down in your pocket, glancing down the hallway. Class started in thirty minutes, so you had time. You knew it was Parker, definitely.

The music room was huge. Last year the school decided to tear down the wall into another classroom, to expand the music room. It acted as a small assembly room sometimes, but normally it was just for music. You walked down the hall, feeling nervous as you started to turn the corner to enter the room.

People smiled at you, greeting you as they usually did in the hallway, but you didn’t respond. You were too nervous, wondering what would happen. You trembled, setting your hand on the doorknob. You shook your head at yourself, slightly scoffing. Like he would do anything on schoolgrounds right? Before you could open the door though, someone from the inside did.

You let go of the doorknob, surprised. No one walked out, so you pumped yourself up for half a second, before stepping in. You cleared your throat slightly, glancing to whoever opened the door. You knitted your eyebrows, not seeing anyone.

“You need to fix my grades.” You jumped at his voice, spinning around in panic. Peter stepped forward, and you wanted to groan at him. He was in his Spiderman costume again, something you just didn’t agree with, seeing as how he was at school, and now with people just outside the room. You tilted back, hitting the door slightly to close it.

“I can’t! And stop- you’re being dumb” You paused, waving your hands out in front of you, just more concerned that his identity would be completely revealed, “Stop that shit.” You pushed out, finishing your sentence.

Peter shook his head back at you, glancing down to his suit. He didn’t have his mask on either. He pushed out a few hours before school, doing an extra shift around the neighborhood, knowing crime rates had gone up in the past month. “I need you to change them back!” He retorted, letting his anger get to him.

He couldn’t believe you were the reason that he was failing a fucking English class. “I don’t understand why you even did it in the first place! Are you just a bad person? That enjoys seeing others like this?” He ranted again, stepping closer to you. He pushed out a plastic bag he was carrying, filled with your notes and objects from your locker. He dropped it between the two of you.

“Peter…” You trailed off, staring down at the bag. “It’s just- I thought it was dumb, that essay you wrote. I know you’re Spiderman and it’s supposed to be a secret, but when you go and write about Spiderman? No, that’s just not safe. I was just pissed off that’s all?” You ended your weirdly apologetic statement with a questioning tone.

Peter stared at you in astonishment. “It’s dumb?” He repeated, throwing his hands up in irritation and anger. You raised your eyebrows back at him, nodding. “As well as you just fucking flying into the school! You know how many times you could have been caught? And what the fuck is that name?” You ranted back, as if feeling his anger flow into you.

Peter felt himself stutter in anger back at you, as the two of you got even closer to each other. “The name? Spiderman? Fuck- I’m sorry that name bothers you to the point you illegally ruin my chances of graduating! You’re such a fucking bitch!” His words came spitting harshly at you, making you shake your head quickly.

“I’m a bitch? Please, what should my superhero name be? Dog-Girl? What’s my superpower, barking?” You scoffed back sarcastically.

You just then realized how close he was. You blinked back at him, feeling heat rush to your face from his closeness and anger. You two were close enough to just almost breathe in the other. It made you have a weird reflection, knowing you probably shouldn’t be arguing with him now. You sighed lightly, watching as Peter shivered at the feeling hitting his neck.

At the same time, you two stepped far back from each other. He glanced down at the plastic bag again, frowning at it. “Since you fucked up my grades, enjoy this fucking gift, Dog-girl.” He muttered, raising his hand to the bag, and activated his web-shooter.

In an instant he shot it out, watching as the solution sprayed itself across your items, “No!” You shouted out, watching as it melted itself into everything, attaching to the floor. You scoffed back up to Peter, rolling your eyes. You needed those notes for history, it was the only thing that could save you today.

Peter felt his heart drop at his actions. It was just a moment of anger, but he could see the pure feeling of lost on your face. Even if it was just for a history class, he felt guilty. Even the people he didn’t like, for example, Flash, wouldn’t have done that. It was just like you did to him though, he didn’t know how to feel now. The two of you stood in silence, until you spoke up.

You licked your lips, squeezing your eyes closed. “You know superheroes have an unspoken rule of hierarchy. Something everyone knows, it’s common sense. Iron-Man would be at the top, something everyone can agree on. He- he almost is seen as an angel, someone who has wings that can cover the whole world in one swoop.” You paused.

“And you? You’re nowhere near him. The only thing that might connect you two, is that your wings are the size of a chicken’s, never going to be able to fly, watching him in envy. You’re never going to amount to anything Tony Stark does.”

Peter didn’t know what to think about other than your words the rest of the day. It burned, stung into him, as if an actual spider had bit him. Even though it was funny that you compared him to a chicken and the wings, he knew that your words held a truth to them. He didn’t know if he could live up to anything of his mentor and father figure.

But at the same time, he’ll die trying.

--

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[xiubaek-13]

Let Me In - Part 2

Prompt: “If I knock politely will you let me in? I’ll make it worth your while”

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader

Word Count: 4,950

Warnings: Vampire AU, smut, blood, mentions of death, murder & torture.

A/N: Part 1 was in my Halloween drabbles from a long ass time ago. I continuously got requests for a second part so it finally came into being today. Let me know what you think, comments help me greatly given the large breaks between posting for me, they help me work out if I’m still any good at this writing business.

“S-so, a-are you g-gonna k-kill me?” You stutter out, your fear making it hard for you to get the words out.

He smirks and steps back, freeing you from the wall. Before you can even think about regaining some semblance of composure he kneels on the floor and sinks his fangs into the dead man’s neck. Your eyes widen as you stand frozen to the spot, unable to blink, run, anything. It takes all you have just to remember to breathe.

He drops the corpse back to the floor when he’s finished feeding, licking his blood-stained lips as he sets his eyes on you again. “I think you’ve bought yourself some time.” He steps closer to you, caging your body between his arms, your back pressed back against the wall. “Convince me to let you live, but your case had better be compelling since you wasted my time earlier.” His dark gaze feels like its searing lines into your flesh as you feel it travel from your eyes to your lips, throat, & chest before raking back up to your eyes. “You still haven’t let me in.” He smirks.

What was that stupid saying that you used to say to your friends? Mark me down as scared and horny. That’s pretty much where you were right now. Terrified for multiple reasons (vampires were real, one sent a madman to kill you then killed said madman in front of you and was maybe, probably, most definitely doing to kill you) but also horny. It was impossible to deny how attractive Baekhyun was, both before when you thought he was human and now as he pinned you to the wall. Your mind is racing, jumping between freaking out about your impending death and lewd comments about his lips, hands, hips. If it had the capacity to take on anything else it might also be disgusted with itself for allowing lust to creep in at a time like this. 

Somewhere deep down in your psyche a thought sparks. Draw this out, stay alive as long as you possibly can. The longer you are alive, the closer you are to sunrise. Make it to sunrise and escape. It wasn’t much to go on but it was the best you could think of. There was no way that you would overpower him with strength. If you wanted to win here then you were going to need to be smart and bide your time. Use every advantage that you could and the sun was a powerful one. His ego might just be another.

“I want to know more about you.” He raises one brow in response.

“Why?” 

You inhale, steeling your nerves as you say the words that will change your life forever. “In the bar before, we talked. I liked that, liked getting to know you -” the words were not untrue. The bar had been nice. You’d captured the attention of the man every person, men and women alike, desired but he had only had eyes for you. You had been sitting at the bar enjoying your Old Fashioned when Baekhyun had first approached you. At the time it was immensely flattering but in hindsight you were probably just easy prey. You were alone and no one else had been paying much attention to you. “- but now that I know that you’re well, not human, I feel like that was all lies. Tell me about you first. Then I’ll let you in.” 

He shifts back and considers your words. “Why should I tell you anything at all? I could just compel you to let me in and use you until I’m bored of your body.” His tone betrays him. He might be impatient and used to getting what he wants but from the way his tone shifted when he said he could compel you, you could tell that doing so would ruin the fun for him. 

So you played with fire, figuratively speaking of course. Standard negotiating probably wouldn’t work here because a) you were terrified and b) impatient vampire. You weren’t trying to get out of sleeping with him either. You were attracted to him even through your fear and there was no denying that you wanted him. All you were trying to gain was time. The closer it got to sunrise, the higher your chances of survival were. 

So you tried to match his ego to unnerve him.“Where is the fun in that?” You shrug. “If all you want is a body to fuck, then why ask me to convince you to let me live? Surely it’s better for you with a willing participant.” You take a step forward, avoiding the dead body on the floor, and advance on Baekhyun as you continue to speak. “One that wants you, that begs for you, that needs you.” You lick your lips as you finish, your words affecting you more than you thought they would. “Why put it all of the effort at the bar when you could have simply locked eyes and told me what you wanted me to do? I think you enjoy the hunt so why spoil it now? What harm is there in telling me about yourself when I’m just going to die anyway?” You shrug. 

Baekhyun takes a few steps back and looks at you, really looks at you. His eyes narrow as he takes you in and tries to work out your ploy. “Interesting tactic little one. Futile though.” He smirks and turns away from you, heading off towards your kitchen. 

Left with the corpse just behind you, you decide to follow him rather than rush out the front door. Baekhyun has already proved that he is faster than you so you probably wouldn’t get very far and even if you got to a neighbour in time there is the very real possibility that they’d die and it would be your fault. 

As you enter the kitchen you spot Baekhyun mixing drinks. He points at the two armchairs you have in your makeshift reading nook, a place that has brought you comfort over the years. If there was ever a place for you to fight for your life then this would be the one place that would bring you strength. You make your way over to one of the armchairs and sink into its comforting embrace while you wait for Baekhyun to finish making drinks.

“I’ll play your game for now little one but don’t push your luck.” He says as he carries two drinks over, handing you one once he is close enough. You notice that he’s made the same drink that you were having at the bar. “You’re not wrong, compelling a mark kind of ruins the vibe but if I have to do it, I will.”

“Noted.”

“Asking me to tell you about myself is a bit vague given my lengthy existence so why don’t you try something more specific? I’ll let you ask as many questions as you want but there is a price for my answers.” He smirks.

“Name it.”

“Each time I answer you, you must remove an article of clothing. Once removed I’m free to touch the unclothed area. When you run out of clothing, your question time ceases and you submit yourself to me to have you as I please.”

You gulp as you try not to let on how appealing his price sounds. The logical part of your brain tries to yell over the burning lust that is taking over your senses about the dangers involved here but as far as you see it your options are die in pain or die in pleasure. Given the choice, you will avoid pain at almost any cost. He thinks he has you trapped, like a cat cornering a mouse but you aren’t so sure that you’ve been beaten yet. Not that he needs to know that.

“I accept your terms.” You say before taking a sip of your drink. The whiskey soothing any errant nerves. 

You see Baekhyun’s eyes darken with desire as he sits opposite you, a smug look on his face now that he thinks he’s won. “I’ll give you a point for not forcing an unnecessary negotiation or rebuttal upon hearing my price.”

“You said not to waste your time. Your terms are not unsurprising and it did not seem like it was up for negotiation when you delivered it.”

“Smart woman.” He relaxed into the armchair, swirling his drink in one hand as the other beckoned for you to begin your questioning.

“How much of what you told me about yourself at the bar was true?”

“All of it.” He states bluntly, chuckling at the surprised look on your face. “I do work at a law firm in town with 8 others, it’s how we exist in human society. I don’t have traditional family as such anymore as I’ve long outlived them. I do prefer to go out at night for obvious reasons beyond my control and I find great beauty in the night.” 

Baekhyun was right, he had told you the truth, just a very short version of it. Should that make you trust him any more? Probably not, but it did instil a small amount of something in you about him. He could have just lied about everything in order to lure you away but he chose the truth. In some weird way that counted for something. 

“No lies, you just never bothered to dig deeper at the time.” He purred, eyes roaming your body as he waited to see what you would remove.

You slipped out of your leather jacket and draped it over the back of your seat. Baekhyun groaned impatiently when he saw the long sleeves that remained covering your arms. Victory, it would seem, was not yet within his grasp. Begrudgingly he took another sip of his drink as you laughed internally at his reaction.

“Is your normal pattern to trick someone into letting you into their home then you kill them?”

“No. My clan and I have tried many things over the years. Let’s see. There was compelling which was just too easy and made our existence dull, posing as missionaries which weirdly enough worked better than it should have… not that I’ll ever let Suho know that. Next was outright frenzy where we razed a town, feasted and moved on - that was one of the early ones.” He grins as he reminisces. “Where was I, oh yes. We told people we were vampires - that one was particularly popular in the 2000’s, we’ve pretended to be injured or dead then attacked the person who was kind enough to try and help us, also too easy in my opinion but effective. You humans are gullible.” He chuckles. “We also tried to use blood banks but supplies could not sustain our hunger without detection, so then we tried setting up our own donor systems but that was a logistical nightmare and more red tape than you should ever have to deal with as an immortal. Roleplay was a fun one, biting is a real kink for so many people - who knew? - and now the current approach which is an amalgamation of past methods - seduction and pleasure followed by feeding.” He finishes his account of vampiric blood sourcing by licking his lips, his fangs hidden from your view. 

If you hadn’t seen them plunged into the neck of the now deceased man in your entryway you could be fooled into thinking that the man sitting across from you was just that, a man. But you had seen them and you knew they were real. You also knew the telltale signs of an impatient man and Baekhyun was most definitely impatient. 

For an immortal being who could remain as still at the night he was fidgeting and tapping his glass more than any vampire should. Whether it was hunger or something else causing it you didn’t know. The erratic movements were unsettling and causing your nerves to return. His gaze pierces yours as he waits.

You set your drink on the floor and stand, moving your arms behind you as you unzip your skirt, letting it fall to the floor, revealing a small amount of flesh at the top of your thighs, your garter belt and stockings covering most of the unveiled skin.

You hear him inhale, something he does not need to do. “You’re just going to leave it on the floor like that? Little one, it will crumple.” His voice is rough as he chides you.

You smirk and turn away from him before giving him what he wants. You step out of the skirt, bend at the hips and collect the discarded piece from the floor. You can feel his eyes on your ass as you bend forward, leaving little to the imagination. Only a small strip of fabric prevents him from your sex.

After you place your skirt on the back of the chair, on top of the jacket, you sit. Your brain doesn’t register the movement but before you can cross one leg over the other Baekhyun is there, kneeling between them, his hands on the uppermost part of your thighs where the skin is exposed. 

“You,” He growls. “do not know the fire with which you are playing with.” You can see the tips of his fangs now. Your body betrays you as you feel heat and want rushing to your core and your eyes close. His fingers trace patterns into your thighs, ghosting near the edge of your panties and down your inner thighs which only builds your arousal. 

“You’ll beg for me to fuck you before you’re fully undressed little one. Why deny yourself what we both know you desire?” He grazes his fangs along the column of your neck as your core clenches around nothing. 

When you open your eyes he is back in his seat swirling his drink like he had never moved. The absence of his touch left you wanting. Your stubbornness is the only thing keeping you from rushing through your questions because Baekhyun is not wrong, you want him - badly. “Are you going to kill me?”

He cocks his head as he ponders your question. “Honestly haven’t made my mind up yet. Before this current bargain I was just going to fuck you and drain you, the only variable there being if I let you enjoy it or if I let you feel pain. Now… I’m not sure. You might be interesting enough to keep alive for now. It all depends really.”

Your fingers expertly undo the buttons of your blouse and you shrug out of its sleeves, leaving you clad only in your underwear and heels. “On what?” You ask. The lines of this little ruse are starting to blur for you. The original plan to keep Baekhyun talking in order to reach sunrise is fading, leaving only images on the vampire taking you every which way, giving you pleasure you could only dream of. 

“On you little one.” Baekhyun’s voice comes from directly behind you. You feel his hands moving down your sides, one snaking between your legs and gripping your inner thigh and the other splayed over your stomach. You feel his fangs drag over your throat and you shudder. “You might just convince me.” You feel his presence disappear and know without turning around that he is no longer standing behind you. You can feel where his hands were on your body, the ghost of his touch remaining. 

As you look around you can’t spot him anywhere. You know he’s still in the house because why would he leave now? You make your way to the various rooms in your home as you search for the vampire but he is nowhere. You start to feel frustration overtaking your lust as you call out. “Baekhyun! Where are you?” 

His voice sounds from a room that you had already checked, your bedroom. “This game needs to continue in another room little one.” You make your way back upstairs to your room as he speaks again, his voice closer this time. “You are far too indecently clothed to be in a sitting room.” 

As you enter the room you see him leaning against your bedpost, his eyes roaming your body. Your ears register the sound of him moving past you but your eyes do not. The door closes behind you and he appears to have not moved. The fear inside you spikes back up as you witness a modicum of his power. You’ve been toying with him when all along he could just snap you like a twig.the thought terrifies you but you try to push your fear down. It will not help you now.

You saunter towards the bed only for him to hold up a hand and stop you. “I believe you asked a question little one. You know the rules.” Left with only a few options you step out of your heels and continue towards the bed.

By your count you have three questions left before this little game ends and you plan to use them to ensure that whatever happens after doesn’t hurt you and might just lead to you keeping your life. You aren’t going to bother with asking more about his past. You are pretty sure you know enough, he’s been undead for quite some time but from looking at him you would guess that he was in his 20’s when he was turned. He can be cruel - you have not forgotten the madman he compelled earlier - he is determined, overconfident, smug, impatient and alluring and he has made you crazed with lust. 

“How do you want me?” you ask sultrily as you reach the foot of your bed.

Out of the corner of your eye you see him remove his jacket and place it over the chair at your dresser. His shoes and socks are next, then he starts to unbutton his shirt as he moves behind you. You can feel him standing behind you but he does not touch you. He lets the anticipation build, he knows this game has almost reached its end, he is one step closer to getting what he wants from you.

“Naked and wanting.” He confesses. “Reveling in the pleasure I give you, begging for more.”

Your bra drops to the floor, making him groan. “And what will you do to me?” You ask, before he can say anything to alter your train of thought. Your mind is set on one path and one path only now. You want him. You want him to make you forget that you were ever afraid of him, that he ever posed a danger to you, that he is anything more than an incredibly attractive man with eyes only for you.

“Everything.” He whispers in your ear. His hands cup your breasts, fingers lightly pinching your nipples. “I’ll make you feel pleasure like you’ve never felt before. Make you beg for me to never stop fucking you, for me to bite you. And I will, once you beg for it.”

A moan escapes your throat, giving away just how aroused you are. Your hand brushes against his crotch as you move to undo your garter belt and you feel how hard he is for you. He stops your hand and completes the action for you, sliding the stockings down your legs and off your feet. He spins you and pushes you down onto the bed, removing the shirt from his shoulders and undoing his pants as he kneels at your feet. 

“Why me?” you manage to say as you watch him undress, your eyes taking in the lean planes of his body. He wasn’t wearing underwear you muse as your eyes are drawn to his cock, hard and waiting to enter you. His eyes follow yours and he grins when he realises where their gaze has not wavered. Shuffling back of the bed far gracefully than he has any right to, he moves back into a standing position so that he can remove his pants. 

Fully naked, he moves back to his position between your legs. “What’s the point of being immortal if you deny yourself the simple pleasures in life?” he responds as he kisses your ankle, before moving up your calf, to your thigh, hip, breast, neck before finally reaching your lips. “I find beauty in the night and I take what I want. Right now, that is you.”

His lips crash into yours in a kiss that is so desperate that you don’t register the ripping of your panties until you can feel him, all of him flush against your skin. His body doesn’t emit heat, rather it is cool to the touch but it isn’t a bad feeling. Rather it is refreshing in comparison to how hot you feel. His mouth works against yours, the lip ring providing a new sensation for the kiss.

When he breaks the kiss to allow you to breathe you see the dark fire in his eyes, his desire palpable. “You’re mine now little one. I told you your game was futile, that you would give in to me and here we are, your wet little cunt begging for my cock. Do you think you deserve pleasure after how long you made me wait?”

“Yes.” you breathe.

He looks amused. “Oh? And why is that?”

“I was scared of you. There was no desire to let you in before we talked more but now, now I want you even though I know part of the truth about you. You said it was better if the other person was willing, well, now I am.” You laid out the truth for him. You were no longer scared of him even though you knew he could still inflict the worst pain imaginable on you and kill you. What you felt now was desire so strong that nothing, not even fear of death, could break through.

He grinned, baring his fangs to you. “You, my dear, have proven to be far more interesting than I gave you credit for. There is one thing I didn’t tell you though, something that will make what is about to happen much more pleasurable for you. Vampires can direct the blood flow of any body that they are in contact with. You think you want me now? Wait until you feel as though you’re on fire, your skin burning with need as I taste you. You’ll beg me to drink your blood from wherever I please. And I will.” 

You shuddered at his words. Desire pouring through you, making you feel as though you were drugged. “Kiss me.” The words left your mouth without any thought. Baekhyun leaned down and his lips closed over yours gently, seeing if you were going to try and get away from him. When he realised that you weren’t going anywhere he intensified the kiss, increasing the pressure and igniting your senses. 

He ran his tongue along the seam of your lips until you opened your mouth, allowing your tongues to work against each other. You could feel his fangs grazing your lip but it did not scare you, rather it made you want more. His hands roamed your body as the two of you kissed, teasing your nipples and brushing near your core, never where you wanted the friction the most. 

“Please” you moan.

“What do you want little one?” he teases.

“Touch me.” His hands grip your thighs, spreading your legs wide for him. You try to roll your hips, desperate for any sort of friction but you don’t achieve the contact you’re after. You whimper as the frustration builds. You want him to touch you so badly, you need your release and soon.

“Patience little one.” He chuckles. “As flattering as it is to see just how badly you want me, I want to savour this. His eyes drift down. “You look delectable.” He shifts his body down the bed so that his face is level with your dripping centre. 

He slowly drags his fangs from your thigh, up your leg, and moves over your centre, to the other thigh. The sensation makes you whimper as you try to grind your hips, but he holds you down with his hands as you try to find some friction to help you along. “Please” You breathe.

Smirking he moves back to where you need him the most, flicking his tongue against your clit. Your mind goes blank at the sensation as he repeats the motion, deepening the pressure he’s applying until you moan loudly. If anything, it only serves to spur him on, attaching his lips to your clit as his tongue presses and swirls around it. Your hips would have been bucking into his face if he wasn’t holding you down.

He pauses for a moment to confess “You are fucking delectable, I could do this all night.” before resuming his feast. You bite your lip as he rolls his tongue against you, his fangs lightly grazing your clit and sending a whole new wave of pleasure flowing through you. You never expected his fangs to draw such a response from you but you felt yourself moan louder every time they grazed over your clit. You could feel his eyes watching you as he pleasured you, taking in every reaction and building his actions on that. Your arousal builds as he alternates the pace and pressure of his tongue, and increases the feel of his fangs against you. 

“Fuck” you whimper. The sensations are building too quickly and you can feel your release approaching with haste when he detaches his mouth from you. You look down at him and he smirks at you before you can utter a complaint, not breaking eye contact as he pushes one then two fingers into your wet heat. 

You can’t stop yourself from moaning his name as he starts to move his fingers back and forth in a steady rhythm. “You like that?” he growls as you clench around his fingers. “Little one, you are so wonderfully wet. Just for me. You love it don’t you? You love how my fingers feel, how my tongue feels and most of all you love how my fangs feel against your clit. Don’t you?” His pupils are so dark and blown out with lust as he lowers his skilled mouth back to your bundle of nerves.

The combined sensation of his long fingers, skilled tongue and sharp fangs become too much for you. He moans against you as he works, curling his fingers inside you and fluttering his tongue against your clit. You writhe on the bed as he increases his speed to a level that a mere human could never achieve and right before your orgasm hits, he sinks his fangs into you. The pleasure was so intense, so overwhelming that you sobbed his name as he helped you ride out your high. You were too far gone to realise that he was tasting you, really tasting you now that his fangs penetrated your flesh. You felt no pain, only white hot pleasure. 

When he released you he looked up at you, mouth and fangs dripping with a mixture of your juices and blood. Your body still tingles with aftershocks of your orgasm and you feel like you’re on fire. You should be spent but you only want him more. 

God you wanted to him to fuck you.

He flips you over, positioning you on your knees. He grunts as he enters you in one fluid motion. He meets no resistance given how ready you were for his cock. He grips your waist tightly as he sets a brutal pace, the only sounds in the room are of skin hitting skin and cries of pleasure. 

“You fit my cock perfectly. Look at how much you want this, at how badly you want a vamp to fuck the life out of you.” He grunts in between thrusts. 

“Baekhyun. Fuck” You moan when he hits your g spot. 

You had never felt pleasure like this before. You’d had great sex before but this was on a level of its own. Baekhyun had had an unknown amount of time to perfect this act and hone his skills and he was not disappointing. He moved between a pace that felt more like what you were used to and then a pace faster than you could have ever imagined. 

“This.” He growled, “Is how a vampire fucks you.” and lifted your body up so that it was flush with his, tilting your head so that your throat was exposed for him. He ran his tongue along your neck, making you moan deeply as you recalled the feeling of his fangs.

“You want it don’t you?” He asked as he pounded into you. “Want me to sink my fangs back into your flesh as I fuck you?” You couldn’t form words to respond to him, only moans of want and pleasure. He grazed his fangs along your neck and you writhed against the touch.

His fangs pierced the skin of your neck and the sensation barreled you over the edge. Everything was heightened and a feeling that you had never experienced before flooded your system. You felt full, alive, and like you were about to explode. You shuddered and cried out as your orgasm ripped through you harder than last time as Baekhyun chased his. 

The last thing you saw before you blacked out were his eyes, now a deep red as he stared down at your form and smiled. “I think I’ll keep you.”

[fortheloveoffanfic]

Mended

Keanu Reeves x reader (A/n- have y'all ever read Keanu's Ode to Happiness? I love it but it's also kind of sad. I saw a couple interviews on it and but also made my own inferences. Also, I don’t really know how to feel about this, so don’t hate me if I end up deleting it. It took weeks to even give it a name. Anyway, I should stop with all the rambling and yeah.....feedback appreciated and you know, I’ m scared to post this one, so be gentle please and thanks)

"Is this how you really feel?" Y/n asked softly, frown evident on her subtle beauty. He hated that frown, he hated to think she might be sad, or angry or disappointed or really, anything that wasn't happiness. Keanu placed one of his large hands over hers in her lap. She still held the book, it looked huge in her small hands, and her eyes searched his, for an answer, but not just any answer, the truth.

In that moment, Keanu regretted asking her to read it, but then again, lots of people had read it. But he didn't think they had ever asked him about it, what had driven him to write something so blatantly melancholy. He didn’t think he’d ever want to talk about it either. Instead of speaking, he just shrugged his shoulders.

"You're not going to tell me?" Her brow creased with worry and she swallowed tightly, "Because you can. Do you really hate yourself?" At the words, her voice broke and Keanu swore that he could hear her heart start breaking too. Not because of him, but for him.

Keanu shrugged again. It was funny he thought, how millions of people had probably read his poem before, but none looked him differently. They still saw an ever humble man who was kind and light hearted. They saw someone who had persisted through hard times and had overcome pain. They never saw the man behind it all, the one who was scared to love again, who feared that he would never have the things that would matter most it the end. The man who craved the normalcy and comfort of having someone to go home to and children who looked up at him.

Since he wrote it, and even before, Keanu had wrestled with the darkness in his head. The ever-existing storm cloud that said it was too late. That he wasn't going to get the happy ending, and that he was doomed to be alone, with only brief, barely committed relationships as his only salvation. But then he met her. Y/n. It didn't happen like it did in the movies, they didn't look at each other from across the room nor did their hands randomly touch in the most dramatic of ways. None of that.

He had meet her at a meeting for a potential project, the movie adaptation of a popular book. She was the author's assistant and a writer herself. In fact, just a year after they met, Y/n had managed to publish her own book, quickly becoming a household name. The journey to their relationship had certainly been a slow burn, growing from an awkward, tension riddled friendship to the moment where he finally took a chance and kissed her, right at her front door, after a fun dinner in the city. He hadn’t expected her to reciprocate his feelings, but she did. 

Flash-forward to six months later, Y/n had significantly brightened his life and they had a lot in common, including a love of literature, a shared enjoyment in giving back to the community and travel. Keanu had fallen for her, he loved her, more than he thought was possible and when he looked at her, he knew that Y/n felt the same.

She had given him so much; a safe space, comfort and love, so much so that he had almost forgotten about the darkness that had lived in his head, and to some extent, his heart. Y/n had chased it away, opening the windows and bringing warmth, light and a new perspective. Keanu hadn't thought about it for so, so long, that now, the person who wrote that poem was but the distant memory of a lonely man. “Well?” She asked, breaking him out of his thoughts, shifting so they sat knee to knee.

“I used to,” he squeezed her fingers and tears welled in her eyes, “I thought that my life was over before I had even gotten to do the things I wanted to. That I had missed out on everything. Sure, I had chased my dream, but what about everything else? What about something like this," Keanu emphasized, lightly squeezing her fingers. "I had started thinking that everything that had happened was my fault and that I was being punished. That I had to be punished and that punishment was the loneliness, the pain of the memories and everything else," quietly he sighed and Y/n could see the distance in his eyes as he remembered things she wished had never happened to him. "I felt.....broken," his voice was thick with emotion and Y/n had to bite back her tears.

Y/n’s hand rose to cup his cheek, her finger swiping under his eye, “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Y/n’s frown deepened and her expression was enough to speak volumes on her immense love for him, “I mean it every time I say that you can talk to me about anything. Anything Keanu.”

“I know,” he breathed, taking the book from her hand, setting it on the coffee table in front of them, bringing his hand around the back of her neck, urging their faces together, their foreheads pressed to each other’s, “But I don’t feel like that anymore. You put me back together Y/n, even before we became us,” he gestured between them. “You fixed a broken man."

Y/n chuckled quietly, “I didn’t fix a broken man,” she corrected wistfully, “I reminded a hurt man that he deserves more than he lets himself have.”

“He’s still very grateful,” Keanu’s thumb caressed her jaw, “I love you baby,” his lips were soft against hers and their kiss felt filled with love, adoration and thankfulness, as if he needed to show her, prove that he was grateful. Y/n had loved him, she was patient when he needed her patience, forgiving when he pulled away, thinking that they wouldn’t work and she was always there, even if she was miles away; she did everything to show him that she was with him, on his side. A lighthouse in the storm, the love he had longed for.

"I love you too," Y/n returned, her lips still pressed to his, "Please, don't ever hide what you're feelings from me. Whatever it is, we're in it together, promise?"

Keanu cupped Y/n's face in his hands, the tips of his fingers brushing her hair, "I promise," he confirmed, pulling her into another slow, breath stealing kiss.

[inforapound]

Ease The Dawn Part 2, Ch.4

A/N - Thank you so much for reading. Short chapter this week. Chapter 3 here.  Incredible cover by @silly-bullshit-collector​. It is absolutely beautiful and I love the meaning in the ruins and symbols. 

Pairing - Ivar and Aethelswith

Words - 1,800

The sky seemed so low, like one could reach up and touch it. It's greyness made the sea look dark and cast a dull hue over everything but her. Bouncing on her toes, she stood in a bright cream dress, stretching to see over the shoulders of the men receiving the ships. With a guard on either side, she waited, ready to run into her lover's arms.

The three weeks he had been gone had been agonizing. Her routine had remained the same but the space next to her in the bed felt as stark as the pit in her heart. Laying at night, she would blink up into the black of their unlit room, wondering at what point her spirit had become so devoted. It was earlier than she would admit, even to herself, thinking back to their small canvas world.

Perhaps, it had not been a moment at all, instead, a slow leak in their defenses. Far more than loneliness or curiosity, they had craved knowledge of each other in those early days. Both yearning for some form of belonging. Was she really that surprised? They were young and inexperienced, thrown together on opposite sides of a war and starved for affection. The more they shared, the easier it came, stripping away the pain of their pasts. She just felt there was something in telling another person one's story that took the venom out of a sting. At some point, some moment, some candlelit evening, the shame was finally shed and an opening created, allowing the other to slip right in.

Alone in their bed, the weeks he was gone, she would eventually close her eyes only to find him there, resting behind the lids of her eyes, the image of him sometimes sitting holding up a piece of her parchment to the light. She adored the way he studied her sketches, his sharp eyes absorbing every detail. Often uttering soft praise under his breath with a gentle nod of his head. Her heart would soar. How could she love him so much?

The fate of her husband passed less and less through her thoughts as the days crept by and her worry grew for her beloved. Any child of God should be laden with guilt; their insides should burn yet having asked for the death of Burgred, she felt nothing.

There was a power to Ivar's love that had strengthened her, allowing her to lift her head high; she was no longer a ghost. All Burgred had given her was humiliation and pain, worse and more fatal, he stood between her and her love. He deserved death and death delivered by Ivar and for that, she would never repent.

—

Sitting on a crate, near the edge of the ship, Ivar's blue eyes found her. His expression was flat and even at a distance, she could see the weariness in his form. The sea had drained the colour from his skin leaving his features drawn and dower.

With a clatter, he was lowered, his feet finally touching the dock. Darting between the thralls she slammed into his chest, cheek to his leathers, she wrapped herself around his waist, squeezing her eyes shut. Raising his tired arms, he enclosed her small body, embracing her back. Touching his lips to the top of her head, his own eyes closed as anguish flashed across his face. Shifting, he dropped his cheek to her forehead, still not uttering a word.

"I did not think it possible to miss you this much," she said, pulling away and peering up into his cool blue eyes. "I counted each day until you would return to me."

Responding with only an exhale, he dipped forward, pressing a chaste kiss to her lips.

"Ivar?" Her brows scrunched as she searched his expressionless face.

"Come," he whispered, "let us go home."

—

On the edge of their bed, Ivar sat bare-chested, the glow of candles throwing warm light across his smooth skin. His defined muscles looked particularly developed under a sheen from his hot and much needed bath. Wrapped in a thin drying towel, his narrow legs hung over the side of the bed; his puffy, gnarled feet looking out of place. Gripping the edge of the mattress, his head hung forward, eyes closed as if his mind was attempting to free a burden too heavy to carry.

"Ivar?" Crossing the room, she knelt on the floor, reaching forward to grab his hand. "My love, please tell me what it is."

Not responding, he remained still.

"You have barely spoken since your return and said nothing throughout the meal. Ivar," her voice pleaded.

Opening his eyes, he did not lift his chin but gazed at her from under his brow. Admiring her long lashes and the way her peach-coloured lips were parted, waiting for him to respond. The enormity of his ache for her was overwhelming, causing him to shiver, but he did not reach for her. He wanted to suffer looking at her beautiful face. How he had missed that delicate mouth and its taste of a life still far from reach. Closing his eyes, he yearned to disappear, even from her, fade into black and force away the memory of England.

"I failed," he whispered, looking up.

There it is, he thought, watching her forehead crease out of the corner of his eye. One more reason he loved her so. She had the patience and control of a Goddess. Never forcing or prodding him, just waiting, sitting with his fury and somehow understanding his vicious words were never for her.

"I failed," he swallowed with difficulty, wetting his lower lip with his tongue. "Burgred lives."

Pressing her lips together, her soft blue eyes darted back and forth between his, silently asking why.

Looking down, he grunted, the sound rattling in his throat. "You are with a cripple Aethelswith. One who could not even pull a weasel from its hole."

"Do not speak that way," she breathed reaching up and placing her hand to his cheek.

"However," he lifted his eyes to hers, so cold, she nearly pulled her hand back.

"However?"

"Regardless, I have determined the best date for our wedding." His eyes intensified. "The entire voyage home, I thought on it, selecting the perfect day. Exactly one month from tomorrow."

The revelation caused her to drop her hand and sank back onto her heels.

"Four weeks will be enough time to prepare for a ceremony. Do you not agree, Aethelswith?" he pronounced her name with a hiss.

"Ivar," she murmured under her breath.

"Aethelswith," he mimicked, causing her to snap her eyes back to his. "He is a ghost. Gone."

"Ivar."

"Ivar, Ivar. What, Aethelswith? How can he possibly prevent us from marrying? Hmm? Unless you want him to."

Inhaling slowly, she filled her lungs, staring back at his hard face. "Please understand..."

"Oh!" he snapped. "Understand?" he grated out a laugh. "I have been more than understanding."

"I did not swear vows to that despicable man, I swore them to God. To God, Ivar. You are asking me to break vows to God."

Clucking his tongue, he grinned, a mask of condescension sliding over his features. "First it was Burgred and now it is God. Your sacred God still stands between us? This does not bode well for our future, Aethelswith. Nothing can stand between us."

"Precisely!" she rushed not saying another word. She could tell he wanted to war and she knew she did not stand a chance with his forked tongue.

"You are telling me, Aethelswith," he shook his head, "that you are too pure a Christian to marry me, but not too devout to ride my cock."

Scoffing she looked away, shaking her head, disgusted.

"Yes?" Tilting forward, he stared. "Oh, I will respect your divinity, my sweet. I will honour what you hold holy," his voice crooned. "I will not lay with you until we marry."

Looking up, she flinched, not realizing he was so close. Glaring at him, she no longer wanted to sit on the floor at his feet and pushed herself up to stand, swatting the grit off her gown.

"I hope you never find yourself in a situation Ivar, where you must choose me over your Gods."

"Why would I?" he quipped, fluttering his eyelashes.

Air rushed from her noise. "And, you are voracious. You are going to refuse me? I know kings keep whores and slaves but starting before we marry is tad arrogant. Even for you."

"So, which are you, hmm? My slave or my whore?"

Like being hit with water, she shuddered but did not miss the flicker in his eyes as his aggression dissolved, leaving him just looking dejected.

"Ivar," she whispered.

"Is that what you think?" he squinted as if fighting an image in his mind. "That I will one day take another? Look for comfort or....," he could not even say it, "....with someone other than you? You think I would do that?"

Dropping her eyes, she could not look at him, his hurt only making her own worse.

"Thank you, Aethelswith," his expression steadied.

Looking back up to his face, she watched the poison return.

"Thank you for speaking out of anger. I find it is when people are most truthful." Inhaling loudly, his bare chest rose and fell, goosebumps spreading across his flesh. "Yes, this will help me immensely to keep my word. Along with the fact that for the first time, you look a little less beautiful."

"Ivar," she whimpered.

"Get out."

"Pardon," she pressed her hand to her chest.

"Leave Aethelswith," he looked away. "I want to dress for bed."

"I always help.."

"I want privacy!" he shouted continuing to stare at the wall.

"For the night?" her voice cracked and for an instant, a moment, so did his resolve. His brows creased, and she watched him battle his need to reach for her. Closing his eyes, he swallowed.

"You can return once I am in bed," he looked back to her.

Feeling too stunned to react, she knew the devastation would later feel like an open wound. Turning away, she walked to the door, slowly dragging it open. Stepping over the threshold, she pulled the door behind her, hesitating to peer back through. Frozen in place and staring at the ceiling, she could see his face twisted in pain, and she felt panicked, unsure of what to do. His words, this does not bode well for the future, rang in her mind and she felt the heat of tears rising behind her eyes. For the first time, she was afraid to leave and let him stew. She wanted to scream, remind him that they wanted the same thing. Instead, feeling bare in her nightgown, she turned toward the hall, closing the door behind.

.

Next chapter

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[clansayeed]

Things Worth Keeping, or the Annual Raines Corp. Fourth of July Charity Gala

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil)

⥼ Summary ⥽

Kamilah takes great care in preserving some of the more sentimental articles of clothing she's acquired over the years. Nadya realizes she might have a historical costume kink.

word count: 2,775 rating: teen+ content warnings: language, brief political discourse, implied sexual undertones, implied kink

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽ 

So it turns out every time there’s an event that requires Kamilah’s attendance (specifically requires, since the Awakening Ball was both some weird vampire-political obligation and her wanting to see Marcel again) the mannequins come out.

Only for costume events though.

Or… she’s decided ‘every’ just because what are the chances she’s lucky enough to behold the sight of Kamilah Sayeed in period wear twice in one year? Apparently very good, very good indeed.

The vampire takes it upon herself to explain while fussing with a few collars and sleeves rumpled in transit. Nadya takes it upon herself to listen intently — takes everything in her willpower not to take notes. “Indeed one comes to terms rather early on that all objects are replaceable and their worth is only what the owner projects upon them,” which is quite a lot judging by the little smile Nadya sees peeking at the corner of Kamilah’s lips as she works, “and because I have had the misfortune of losing things I once coveted, I see no harm in preserving that which has stayed with me.”

Nadya adjusts her seat on the couch; makes sure the lid on her travel mug is secure otherwise she’ll never be allowed to drink in the front room again. “Is that a really fancy way of saying ‘I think it’s really pretty and I want to keep it that way?’”

Kamilah goes still. Not the tense kind of still that makes Nadya want to stuff her words back in her mouth but the kind of still she’s come to understand will reap very wise rewards. If she’s patient enough.

She’s learning to be patient enough.

“I suppose if you wish to bring the sentiment down to the simplest terms… yes.”

And oh man even that little agreement has Nadya buzzing excited.

“I’m so excited — this is gonna be so much fun!”

“What it will be, Nadya, is a gross exaggeration more akin to a serial drama than the real thing.”

“Wow, grumpy pants. Where’s your sense of patriotism?”

“In the same gutter as the ideals on which this nation was founded.”

Okay, fair point. But that brings up a very good series of questions all scrambling to make themselves heard. Which goes about as well as it always does and leaves Nadya tongue-tied and mute.

More than a few times Kamilah throws subtle looks in Nadya’s direction. Totally discreet and casual — done while circling a dress here, adjusting a cravat there. And each time she asks some variation of “Are you sure this is how you wish to spend your evening?” Nadya gives her the same answer.

“There’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.”

The final time Kamilah is just close enough to turn crisp on her heel and bring them face to face. Her deep honey eyes roam Nadya’s face and spare no detail; like she’s one of those pretty dresses Kamilah’s kept after all these years.

It makes Nadya feel small and big, whole down to the tips of her toes but also just a sliver in Kamilah’s long long life. Which is a lot to feel for someone of her size. Maybe too much.

Cool, soft lips on her forehead force Nadya to open eyes she didn’t know she was squeezing shut. No longer scrutinizing, now the vampiress allows them both a rare glimpse behind the mask. To the concern she guards close and reserves for those she cares about.

Adrian, Gerard, Marcel… Nadya.

She cares about me that way. Holy cow.

“You truly mean that.” Kamilah says and it isn’t a question. Kamilah isn’t in the business of asking stupid questions to which she knows the answers — that’s Nadya’s ball game.

“Of course I do.”

“Forgive my surprise.”

“Always.”

It’s just a kiss. People kiss all the time, all over the world. But those people aren’t Nadya and they aren’t kissing Kamilah so they couldn’t possibly know how wonderful and important and loved each one makes her feel.

Along with all the other things that make her squeak when they part. It’s impossible to miss that look in Kamilah’s gaze.

“While I enjoy your company immensely Nadya… I may have to ask you to leave,” even though the trace of her finger over Nadya’s lips kind of contradicts that, “as I do have to attend a conference call before the night is through.”

Nadya doesn’t even care that her pout is a little childish. “I thought you took the day off for this.”

“I took a half day for this. You were the one who insisted on losing an entire night’s productivity to help me choose my attire.”

“I’ll be quiet?” There’s no harm in trying, right? Thankfully Kamilah still seems more amused than anything.

“You misunderstand.”

Does she, though, because there are only so many ways to take the sudden closeness. Kamilah’s hands braced atop the back of the couch pinning Nadya between the cushion and her permanence, the contradictory darkness in her bright eyes with their lowered lashes, and oh my god that smirk…

Then Kamilah’s leaning in to whisper in her ear and she’s just—just jello, absolute jello. “I had hoped to be finished by now, yet I keep finding myself distracted.”

Jello or not though Nadya will always be Nadya.

“I—I can leave, if… if that’s what you want.” I know work is important to you. I know schedules are important to you even though your organizational methods are outdated and frankly anxiety-inducing. I know you have a lot to get done and only so many hours of moonlight to do it…

Kamilah doesn’t answer. Instead just taps the underside of Nadya’s chin with her pointer finger and gives a smile in reward when the human lifts her head obediently.

“What do you want, Nadya?”

You know what I want, she would normally say, but if she did then all their… all their training would be for nothing. And don’t memories of that (as recent as, uhm, three in the afternoon today) make her zone out somewhere over Kamilah’s shoulder.

Seven mannequins; still headless, still creepy. Four beautiful ballgowns and a priceless Egyptian kalasiris†, a definitely custom-tailored zoot suit, and…

Holy broad stripes and bright stars.

“I asked you a question.”

Oh yeah, she’s definitely wearing that.

Kamilah doesn’t have to remind her twice. Nadya leans forward what little she can; basks shamelessly in the one thing in the entire world she knows she’s earned—

The way Kamilah looks at her with absolute pride.

“You. I want you.”

Its so fulfilling to see all her hard work come together in one place, on one night, and with the promise of fireworks to come. There’s just something about fireworks. She loves ‘em.

Jax lets out his fifth heavy and long-suffering sigh of the minute. A personal best, but Nadya’s having too much fun to ruin the night by telling him.

Unfortunately her hoop skirt makes it hard to sidle up for a hip-check. Cue sigh number six.

“You know I’m technically the hostess for this thing, right?”

“Are you saying you’re the person I complain to?”

She huffs. “No, I’m saying that your grumpy face is personally offending me.”

She can’t tell if he’s purposefully avoiding her eyes out of spite or shame — then a roaring yelp of laughter from the dance floor draws Nadya’s attention out to where Lily and Maricruz spin fast-paced and free; held together by just their hands and their shared looks of ‘I couldn’t care less where I am so long as it’s with you.’

At least that gets a little smile out of Mr. Grumpy-Pants.

A costumed server stops at the pair of them and offers his tray of goodies up like sin. Nadya spares two quick glances over either shoulder — thankfully Adrian has donors to schmooze and Kamilah hasn’t arrived yet — before she plucks a cheese cube carved in the shape of the Liberty Bell.

But it isn’t enough that Jax has to act so unhappy the entire gala — now he’s stealing her snack and eating it himself?! Where’s my purse, where’s my stake?!

What else can she do but gape? He doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed, just chews and chews and swallows while trying to ease the itch in his legs caused by the borrowed hose.

“Lily warned me you might make bad choices.”

So what? I’m a grown woman, I can make bad choices if I want to. “Are all of you in on some big conspiracy to keep me from cheese?”

“If it’ll spare you future pain, yeah.” Which — she wasn’t expecting that. Nadya can’t help but feel her face soften. One look down her way though and he rolls his eyes. “Stop it.”

“You hate my party. You steal my cheese. What’s next, burning my crops and delivering a plague onto my house?”

Jax looks appalled — which is a real shame. That would have gone over so well with Lily. “I—what?!”

Nadya just waves it off though. “Forget it. Just…” oh hey look, time for her own sigh, “forget it.”

“It’s not you. It’s these tights.”

“They’re hose.”

“They itch.”

“Imagine wearing them all the time.”

Nadya is totally enjoying her frilly not-period-accurate-in-the-slightest ensemble but of course Adrian is the only one who looks really right in his whole get up. It’s a good thing he has to wear modern suits and styles or else he’d be pegged for a vampire right away.

Her boss pulls her in for a one-armed hug, expertly outmaneuvering the skirt but he probably has experience with that, huh? And his smile only widens as he takes in Jax in all his colonial glory.

“They were good in the winter, obviously. Though I’ll admit once I didn’t feel the weather anymore the discomfort really presented itself as a problem.”

Jax just rolls his eyes. “Why do I feel like you throw this thing just to say shit like that?” Which— she can tell he’s trying to be sarcastic but Adrian definitely goes tense beside her.

“I ‘throw this thing,’ as you say, because my own personal wealth can only go so far, and most of it is immaterial. But every donation is material, and that maximizes the good I can do with it.”

Nadya nods eagerly. “There’s like six different scholarships in STEM research alone, I think a dozen in the business sector, and when we get to our goal tonight —” she knows they will, Raines Corp. history states they always do and Raines Corp. never had her to push them above and beyond, “— the company’ll have enough to match the city’s bid for the abandoned tunnel reconstruction project.”

If he ever read the minutes she sent him after every Council meeting he’d know this, but when Jax said he didn’t do paperwork he meant he really didn’t do paperwork.

But it’s enough to get his attention. “And what happens then?”

Adrian shrugs. “I postpone it. The most I can do without getting politicians involved is five years but I figure… that should be long enough to either relocate the former Clanless and break even, or fortify the Shadow Den enough that any efforts won’t cause structural damage. Unfortunately Vega’s interim replacement hasn’t officially made her views on such things known, but I think with time —”

It’s—as Lily would put it—freakin’ cinematic. How Adrian’s voice fades away to a buzzing in her ears and Jax’s reply sounds like a mouthful of cotton. The music dims and the lights aren’t as bright except where they fall on her when she strides through the open double doors.

Now let it be known that Nadya firmly believes Kamilah looks amazing in anything. Her power suits, a crimson dress from centuries gone, the plum kimono she uses as a nightgown… Honestly she’d probably somehow make a banana costume look sinfully sexy.

No. What? No. Moving on.

And even though Nadya knew the moment she laid eyes on the uniform it was the non-negotiable choice — her brain put some weird filter on itself to keep her from imagining just what that looked like. Probably to try and keep her sane.

Because the real thing… there are literally no words.

Adrian’s laugh comes both from behind her and a million miles away. “Would you look at that. Now that is a sight that brings back memories.”

“Wow, color me surprised.” Jax deadpans.

Adrian is a close personal friend of the New York Historical Reenactment Society (surprisingly not a bunch of vampires… if there was ever a group suspect but no, she’s checked) and most of them are in attendance tonight. They make Nadya look like her dress—a gift from Adrian, rental only—was bought at a cheap pop-up Halloween store.

And Kamilah makes them look like a middle school theatre cast. There’s just something about the fabric, the way it fits her and the way she carries not just the uniform but her own body inside of it that makes her look authentic. No one would believe her; not with the freshly-oiled leather and polished brass buttons, but Nadya’s chaotic-dumb brain really wants to scream “take a look at the real deal, ya posers!”

Kamilah’s hand rests on the glossy hilt of her saber as she approaches. Eyes passing right over Adrian — probably used to the sight — and sparing Jax absolute no dignity in the soft “ha” she gives.

“I didn’t know we could wear uniforms.”

Kamilah raises an eyebrow and tucks a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. “You… have one?”

“No,” sigh number seven, “but I would’ve tried to find one. Anything to get out of these tights.”

“They were useful during winter.”

Adrian laughs and gestures to her eagerly. “That’s what I said!”

Kamilah wasn’t ignoring her, not on purpose. That’s made obvious the second she finally does take in every skirt and frill, every pearl in her necklace and lets her eyes linger where Nadya’s chest heaves against her corset.

“Nadya, you look as beautiful as ever.” Then Kamilah takes her hand and kisses the back of it with a soldier’s courteous bow. Where’d I leave that dumb lace fan…?

She’s about 99.9% sure Kamilah holding her hand is the only thing keeping her standing right now.

Adrian snickers. Nadya couldn’t care less. “Careful there, General Sayeed††. Your lady seems about to swoon.”

Thankfully the woman takes heed and pulls Nadya close, possibly the most public affection they’ve ever had holy crap on a cracker, resting a hand on the curve of her hip. Yet she looks at Adrian with… what is that, mild annoyance?

“You know very well I was not named General until nearly a century later.”

Jax mouths his silent counting — blanches; “You were a General in the Civil War? You know what — of course you were.”

“A discussion for another day, perhaps.” Kamilah dismisses him just shy of pushing him out the door; lucky for Nadya both he and Adrian take the hint and fade into the cinematic background.

It’s just Nadya and Kamilah now.

“Hello.”

“H-Hi.”

Long fingers brush a strand of Nadya’s hair aside feather-light. “You do look… stunning, Nadya. You look stunning. Blue becomes you yet again.”

Blue? She’s wearing blue? Because her face is scarlet. “You — I mean — wow like…” words Nadya — words, “you really wore that and…” And fought in it?

Kamilah’s nod is curt. “In a sense. My skills were best suited to espionage, sabotage and the like.”

“Of course they were.”

“Though I’m gladdened to know the uniform still becomes me.”

As if it ever wouldn’t. “You look perfect in, like, everything.” But Kamilah’s not a fan of those kinds of blanket statements, so she tries again a little bit more from the heart. “You make a uniform look really good, that’s what I mean.”

The hand on her hip presses down then; important and as on purpose as everything else Kamilah does. Through the fabric right underneath her hand a familiar purpling not-at-all-bruise sings sweet on Nadya’s skin. Of course Kamilah knows where the love bite is. She was the one who gifted it.

“I may be the soldier…” Kamilah pulls her close; a hold of stone — she leans down to ghost a kiss at Nadya’s jaw (and knows it will drive her wilder than wild) and whisper in her ear.

“But you’ll be the one taking orders.”

Nadya’s last coherent thought?

She really needs to find more chances to get Kamilah in costume.

NOTE: While this fic technically exists in the Oblivion Bound universe it works standalone as well, I think. The only references are brief and to Maricruz Espinoza, a vampire original character and girlfriend of Lily, and a sort-of reference to the fact that Marcel survived in my fanfiction. Hopefully it still reads well!

[iwhumpyou]

BTHB: It’s All Your Fault

Rose - requested.  Origami rose - filled.  As a reminder, anyone can request any square, any character, any universe!

Thank you!  Also, you can’t give me choices, my dear anon, I am really bad at those!  (By which I mean I did both your asks because I have no self-control.)

Masterlist.  Kyran.  (Taglist: @i-see-so-many-beautiful-stars​.)

~#~#~#~#~#~

“I command you to stand before me,” Rae said, in an impressive tone of voice.  The light around the orb flared before dying down to reveal a young woman standing on the pedestal.  Rae took a large step back, nearly flailing, and Gabriel gasped out loud. 

Kyran frowned.  That didn’t look anything like the Demon King. And judging by the wings on her back, that woman had been an angel before her death.  He could objectively see that she was pretty.  She had curling red hair, ethereal skin, and sparkling green eyes that rested on him for a second before turning to his left.  She was staring at Gabriel with a slightly dopey expression on her face – Kyran knew what that meant.  He’d seen it in the mirror so many times.

He turned to Gabriel, about to make a joke about the dead having no taste, but was taken aback by the angel’s piercing gaze.  “What?” Kyran said, resisting the urge to cross his arms, “Do I have something on my face?”

Gabriel snarled and looked like he was ready to rip Kyran’s throat out, but clenched his fists and restrained the impulse.  Kyran rocked on the balls of his feet, ready to make an escape just in case Gabriel’s self-control wasn’t up to the mark.  “No remorse at all,” Gabriel hissed, “Even when confronted by your victim. Pretty callous, even for a demon.”

Kyran exchanged a glance with the dead angel, who looked just as confused as him.  “I’ve never seen that woman before in my life,” Kyran said honestly, but was cut off by Gabriel.

“Don’t give me that bullshit!” Gabriel growled, “You can’t lie after you’ve already told the truth!”

“Told the truth about what?” Kyran was seriously puzzled, “Just because I’m a demon doesn’t mean you can pin every crime in the world on me.”

“Kyran,” Rae said softly, the first time she’d said his name since…since he confessed to Elizabeth’s murder. “That’s Elizabeth.”

Oh.  Well, he’d screwed that up royally.  Elizabeth was still regarding him with a politely confused air and Kyran took a moment to see how he could fix this.

“Ah, Elizabeth,” Kyran nodded.  His heart was thudding in his chest.  “Looked a bit familiar.”  He turned to see Gabriel’s face twisted with unholy rage.  “You can’t expect me to remember everyone I’ve killed.”

It took Adam and Lilith to hold Gabriel back and Rae was looking at him like he was the devil come to life.  It stung a bit, but Kyran had chosen this path and he was a big boy.  He’d see it to the end.

The end would probably be strangulation-via-Gabriel, but Kyran was trying not to think about that.

“Let me go!” Gabriel struggled violently and even the hulking crusader had difficulty holding him back, “He killed my fiancée and my unborn child and he doesn’t even remember them!”

Adam and Lilith didn’t look like they could keep Gabriel contained much longer and Kyran shifted slightly, ready to teleport.  But a cold, clear voice interrupted the rising tension.

“What unborn child?” Elizabeth said, her voice echoing around the cavern.  Gabriel stopped fighting almost immediately and turned in the direction of her voice like it was a homing beacon. 

Kyran viciously squashed the tendril of jealousy that rose up.

“Elizabeth,” Gabriel said softly, “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Elizabeth asked, descending from the pedestal.  She no longer looked quite as radiant – in fact, she looked distinctly annoyed.

“I couldn’t save you,” Gabriel whispered, dropping to his knees.

“Excuse me?” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, “I couldn’t save me and I was a much better fighter.  What, exactly, did you think you could do?”

Gabriel opened his mouth, saw the expression on his dead fiancée’s face, and closed it again.

“And besides, Zane is one of the most dangerous angels in the world,” Elizabeth said softer, “You wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

Gabriel again tried emulating a fish, but this time Kyran joined him.  He’d always thought that the mad prince’s interest in Gabriel was unhealthy but he hadn’t fit the pieces together.  Of course Zane would see the crown princess as a threat to be eliminated. And he was the prince, he could manipulate or silence any number of eyewitnesses – and if he’d blamed an innocent demon, the entire community would’ve followed him.

Kyran began to seethe as he thought of the smug prince and how much trouble he’d orchestrated throughout the years.

“Wait, what?” Rae asked, narrowing her eyes, “What does Zane have to do with anything?”

“He’s my murderer, I’d say he has a lot to do with everything,” Elizabeth frowned, “That is what we’re discussing, aren’t we?”

“What?” Gabriel said, sounding strangled.  Kyran strategically started to withdraw into the shadows.  “But Kyran’s the one who killed you!”

Kyran froze when all eyes turned to him.  Elizabeth tilted her head to one side and studied him.  “Hi,” he said weakly.

Elizabeth scowled, “Do you really think I could’ve been killed by someone like him?”

“Hey!” Kyran said indignantly, but was cut off by Gabriel’s raised voice as they both delved into an argument.  He was a demon, thank you very much.  He was capable of tricking any angel, even one who looked like she could punch his lights out.

“I think I can trust my memories,” Elizabeth said frostily.

“You’re dead!” Gabriel argued back, “How do we know you aren’t delusional?”

“Are you calling me delusional?”

Kyran discreetly backed up another step.  There was quite a lot of arguing for a supposedly happy couple.  When Adam and Lilith shifted their focus to the fight, Kyran took another step back.  Rae’s wary gaze finally left him to land on her dead almost-sister-in-law and Kyran stumbled back a few more steps.  He intended to get the hell out of here – he’d promised Rae to deliver her to the orb, and he’d delivered her.  He didn’t have to stand here while his house of cards collapsed around him.

“And where do you think you’re going?”  Kyran froze as the immense wrath of a dead angel focused on him.  “I’m not done with you yet,” Elizabeth hissed, ignoring Gabriel and stepping towards him.  She stopped when she was face-to-face with him and while Kyran had never really been afraid of angels, he could make an exception for this one.  “Why are you going around claiming credit for my death?” she asked, and this close, her aura blinded him.  Dead or not, angel wings still burned.  “And what’s this about an unborn child?”

“Um,” Kyran stalled, flicking his eyes from Rae’s shocked face to the look of dawning realization on Lilith’s.  Shadows pooled at his feet and rippled up his legs, distorting his form for a moment before they settled, but it wasn’t enough.  Several responses ranged through his head, from it wasn’t my fault and ask your lover to oops and I did it for fun. 

“Answer me!” Elizabeth seethed, stepping closer.  Kyran refused to screw up his eyes – he would not admit that level of weakness in the presence of an angel who wanted him dead – but he started blinking every few seconds, unable to focus on Elizabeth with the searing halo of light around her. It gave the impression that he was lying, but that was nothing new.

“Could you repeat the question?” Kyran asked weakly. ��This was not good.  Kyran had thought of a variety of scenarios in which the truth would come to light, the most common being that the true killer would step forward, and he had devised plans for each of them.  Gabriel would hate him till the end of time, whether he deserved it or not. Unfortunately, he had never anticipated that his supposed victim would come back to life. 

“Why did you tell me that you killed Elizabeth?” Gabriel stepped forward until he stood at Elizabeth’s side, his arms crossed and his wings fully extended, “Why did you tell me she was pregnant?”  Kyran stared at him blankly in shock, unable to comprehend the righteous tone of Gabriel’s voice.  Why did he tell Gabriel what he had so badly wanted to hear?  The shock began to dissipate and was replaced by anger.  And anger, Kyran could work with.

“Why?” he whispered, tilting his head to the side and focusing on Gabriel’s face.  It gave him a migraine to look directly at that shining light, but it was worth it to see the expression on his face.  

“Why did I confess to a crime I didn’t commit?”

Kyran pressed forward until he was standing nearly nose-to-nose with Gabriel.  The aura burned him even through the shadows but Kyran was willing to endure the pain, if it meant causing some more.  

“I don’t know, Gabriel,” Kyran hissed, “Why would I possibly do that?” 

“I don’t –” 

“It wasn’t like I had an angel determined to make me confess,” Kyran cut him off, “Whether it was the truth or not.”

“I didn’t force you to do anything,” Gabriel snarled, “I wanted you to tell me the truth.”

“I did tell you the truth,” Kyran snapped, “Multiple times.  You ignored it.” 

“Demons lie,” Gabriel said, but there was a flicker of doubt crossing his face.  Kyran could see Elizabeth silently watching out of the corner of his eyes. 

“You didn’t want me to tell the truth, dearest angel mine,” Kyran said, and the endearment sounded like ash in his mouth, “You wanted me to tell your truth and nothing and no one was going to get in your way.”

“I didn’t force you,” Gabriel repeated, but he looked a lot less sure.

Kyran raised an eyebrow, politely disbelieving, and when that didn’t have enough of an impact, he spoke. “You forced a half-liter of holy water down my throat,” Kyran enunciated clearly.

Elizabeth gasped softly, but Kyran kept his gaze on Gabriel.  There was a steady flush in his face and anger had disappeared into embarrassment and guilt.  “But why did you tell me she was pregnant?” Gabriel asked softly, so low that Kyran could barely hear him, “Why did you make yourself into a monster?”

“I trusted you,” Kyran whispered back, just as softly, letting all the hurt he had felt then to creep into his tone, “I thought that, no matter what our differences, you wouldn’t try to take advantage of the shackles.  And you broke that trust in the most horrific way possible.”  He couldn’t look at Gabriel’s aura any longer so he closed his eyes and hoped that the rest of them didn’t see the grayish tinge to his skin.  The aura still burned through his eyelids but he had to finish before he could teleport away.

“I said the things I said because I knew it would cut you to the bone,” Kyran said, “And I wanted you to hurt as much as I did.”

With that, he flickered away, reappearing in a shadowy alcove on the other side of the cavern. The effort he expended was nearly enough to cause him to collapse but he tucked himself into the alcove and used the last of his magic to weave a protection ward before he allowed himself to slip into the darkness.

~#~

Gabriel stared in the empty space where Kyran had just been.  Kyran, whom he hated, whom he chased, whom he…he forced to confess. Gabriel remembered Kyran’s eyes, suspiciously bright as he wove a story of horror and visceral disgust.

Gabriel had done that. Gabriel had done that to himself.  He remembered Kyran’s words, ‘be careful what you wish for’, echoing in an unending loop.

“Well, Gabriel, you’re as hopeless as ever in social interaction,” Elizabeth sighed, “At least that hasn’t changed.”

I haven’t changed, Gabriel wanted to argue as he turned to the image of his long-dead fiancée, but he knew that was a lie.  The Gabriel that Elizabeth knew wouldn’t have tortured a demon to get a confession.  The Gabriel that Elizabeth knew wasn’t a monster.

“I’m – I’m,” Gabriel choked. He wanted to say sorry but he had the feeling that wasn’t what Elizabeth was looking for and, more importantly, the person to whom the words had to be said had just vanished into thin air.  “I – Zane,” he changed topics, “Are you sure?”

“Dead certain,” Elizabeth gave him a wry half-smile, “He drove the sword into my heart himself. That was his satisfaction, I suppose, to look me in the eyes and watch me die.  My own brother.  I would’ve never believed it.”

“Half-brother, technically,” Lilith spoke up, “And trust me, he’s definitely changed.  Now, no one will bat an eye at the story of him killing his own sister.  And besides, Gabriel, he’s really obsessed with you.”

“There’s a difference between obsession and being crazy enough to kill your own family,” Adam protested, “Are you really telling me that you knew it was Zane all along?” 

“I suspected it wasn’t Kyran,” Lilith shrugged, “Let’s be honest, the guy enjoyed pissing people off and he enjoyed being a troll.  Huge step up to eviscerate a pregnant woman in cold blood.  Plus, he was really angry when he said that.  I’d never seen him that angry before.”

“Wonderful, Lilith,” Gabriel said sourly, “Brilliant deduction.  If only you could’ve brought it up sooner –”

“Oh, do shut up, Gabriel,” Rae snapped.  All of them fell silent to stare at the angel.  Elizabeth, Gabriel noted, looked almost proud.  “Like you would’ve listened,” she snorted, “Kyran told you a thousand times that he didn’t kill Elizabeth and you didn’t care.  So yes, he hurt you after you hurt him.  Now unless you want this to end in an infinite circle of revenge, help me find him!”

“What?” Adam responded.

Rae rolled her eyes. “Was no one listening to Kyran?  This cavern blocks magic.  He teleported us in but he said it was too difficult to teleport out, which means he’s still here.  Ergo, we need to find him.” 

“Why?”  The word spilled unbidden from Gabriel’s lips. Perhaps it was selfish, but Kyran had made him think, for half a year, that his unborn child had died with Elizabeth. A little son or daughter that he would never get to hold, to sing to, to play with.

“Because, you dolt, you need to apologize,” Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at him and yes, Gabriel had forgotten how terrifying his fiancée could be when she put her mind to it.

“Yes, ma’am,” Gabriel muttered weakly, joining the rest of them in scouring the cavern.  He was wrong.  All this time, all that energy and hate…Gabriel almost felt empty without it.

Zane was the real murderer. The prince that had spent the last year hunting them down.  Oh, gods, Gabriel had slept with the man that had murdered his fiancée.

Kyran had to have known. And had to have laughed, long and hard, whenever Zane showed too much interest in Gabriel.

Gabriel continued to think uncharitable thoughts about the man he thought was a murderer, his fingers skipping across the rock as he tried to find someone who didn’t want to be found.

A skip.  A second of empty space where there should be none. A harsh wheeze coming from the stone wall.

Because the gods didn’t hate Gabriel enough already.  He straightened up and looked for someone, anyone else, but they’d all moved out of view.  Of course it couldn’t be easy.

Gabriel sighed and closed his eyes.  Unwittingly, a memory began to play out on the inside of his eyelids, a bottle he’d filled with holy water as he watched Kyran toy with the others’ orders.  The glee when he’d passed Kyran the bottle and the laughter singing in his veins when he carefully, nonchalantly gave the order.

The visceral pleasure of seeing Kyran choke and choke and choke on the only thing that could make the demon feel pain.

A pleasure stripped to agony in seconds as Kyran, in true demon fashion, turned the torture back to him.

It was Kyran’s fault. Demons lied, Gabriel knew that, and it was a harmless trick really.  How could he break a trust that never existed?  It was Kyran’s fault.

And hopefully if he kept telling himself that, he might actually believe it.

“Kyran?” Gabriel asked softly, half-hoping to hear the demon’s snide voice snap back.

Silence.

“Kyran?” Gabriel repeated, “Can you hear me?”

No answer.  Gabriel felt around the edges of the illusion, hoping this wouldn’t end with his face clawed off.  He took a deep breath, and plunged through the fake wall.

It was pitch black inside, but the alcove was small and cloth was the first thing his fingers found. He groped through the darkness blindly, catching hold of a too-thin arm and fingers pausing on jutting ribs.

Gabriel swallowed. “Kyran?” he asked again, harsh, slow breathing in his ears.  “I’m going to pull you out now.”  No response. 

Gabriel took a measured breath and tightened his grip before slowly, carefully easing Kyran out.  The demon was too light and something in Gabriel’s heart stuttered at the idea that it could be his fault.

In the light of the cavern, Kyran looked even worse.  His skin was almost gray and Gabriel could see the dark circles under his eyes.  He knew that the demon had spent hours and hours helping Rae find the orb, even as they refused to talk to him and spurned his presence.

“You found him!” Gabriel turned to see Adam skid to a halt.  His voice tore everyone else from their search as Gabriel carefully laid the demon on the ground.  Lilith stepped forward with her jacket to tuck under Kyran’s head and, for a moment, everything was silent.

“Is he hurt?” Elizabeth asked softly.

“Probably exhausted,” Adam replied, giving her a side glance, “Finding this place wasn’t easy. And neither is teleporting five people in one shot.”

“Demons heal quickly,” Lilith added, in a small voice.  He didn’t know who she was trying to reassure.

“We need to find a way out of here,” Rae said, the steel still in her tone.  Gabriel turned to look at his sister – Rae had been so sure that the Demon King would be able to grant her wings.  They had worked for months to find the orb.  They had pinned their hopes on this.

But instead they got Elizabeth.  His long-dead fiancée, the warrior princess once adored by her people, the heir to the throne.  Elizabeth, who was murdered by her own brother, by a man that Gabriel had once loved, by the madman who’d pursued them – pursued him – with rage and obsession.

Gabriel wished he’d known the truth earlier.  He wished he hadn’t found out at all.  He wished that Kyran really was the murderer and betrayal and guilt and horror wouldn’t sit on his chest, heavy and suffocating.

“This is a sealed cavern,” Adam said, “How are we supposed to find a way out?”

“If there was a way in, then there has to be a way out,” Rae said, firm, “We need to find it and get out of here.  We got what we came for.”

No.  No, they didn’t get what they came for, because what they came for was not here.

“Alright,” Lilith shrugged, turning back to resume the search, “Let’s find a way out.”  Rae and Adam fanned out as Gabriel leaned against the stone wall and braced his arms on his knees.  Elizabeth looked at him, and at the demon unconscious on the floor, and at him again.  She opened her mouth, met Gabriel’s flat stare, and closed it, before joining the rest in their search.

Gabriel closed his eyes and let his head thud against the wall.

~#~

Rae had searched the entire cavern twice over by the time Kyran stirred.  Adam was now trying to chip away at the stone and Lilith was murmuring spells, both to no avail.  Gabriel had finally gotten up, but kept his search as far away from Elizabeth as possible.

Rae had pushed and prodded and knocked on nearly every inch of stone and frustration and rage and the suppressed scream that this had been her one chance were rising up.

She had loved Elizabeth like the sister she’d never had.  And she was overjoyed that Elizabeth had come back to life.  That Kyran wasn’t the vicious murderer he claimed to be, that she could have her snarky, sarcastic friend back.

But Rae had come here for her wings and, once again, she left empty-handed.

And now she was trapped in this cavern, unable to be alone, unable to scream and rage her feelings out.

But then Kyran groaned, low and hoarse, and it was enough to distract her.  She hurried to his side, kneeling silently as he twisted and pushed himself up, digging the palm of his hand into his eye.  His face was scrunched up, and he looked no more rested than before.

She heard rather than saw everyone drift closer, abandoning their fruitless search.  Kyran blinked at her with one eye, before rubbing his face and shifting to cross his legs.  “Let me guess,” he rasped, “You didn’t find a way out, but you did find me.”

“No,” Rae said quietly, gently, because he had a right to be angry at her.  She had a right to be angry at him, too, but right now it was his turn.  “We searched for you.  And when we found you, we began searching for a way out.”

“Of course,” Kyran chuckled hollowly, “Couldn’t rely on a demon, after all.”  He shifted, half-raising to stand on his knees.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.  After he opened his eyes, he extended a hand to Rae.

“What?” she asked.

“You do want to leave, don’t you?”

“You said it was impossible to teleport out,” Adam pointed out.

Kyran regarded him. “No,” he said, “I never said it was impossible.  I said it was difficult.  No warding on this earth has ever stopped me before.”

“How difficult?” Gabriel asked, his face expressionless.

“Don’t worry, dearest angel mine,” Kyran said, and his words felt like poison, “We’ll all get out of here in one piece.”

He raised his hands in invitation, and raised his eyebrows in challenge.

Rae clasped the hand closest to her, and Lilith took his other one.  Adam took Lilith’s free hand, and Gabriel Rae’s.  She could feel Gabriel’s grip tighten as Elizabeth took his other side.

Kyran closed his eyes and began to frown, his skin growing paler.

“Is anyone particularly attached to the structural integrity of this cavern?” he asked casually.

“What are you doing?” Adam asked quickly.

“Nothing,” Kyran replied, “But the warding is woven into the cavern’s walls and I can’t break one without the other.”

“You didn’t break anything when you teleported us in here,” Lilith argued.

“That was easy.  That was drawing a curtain back and slipping through,” Kyran said.  His eyes were still closed.  Rae could feel a tingle between their clasped hands, and the sensation passed to her grip with Gabriel.  “This is taking a battering ram to the front door.”

Kyran did not look to be in any shape to act as a battering ram.

“Are you sure?” she asked sharply, and Kyran’s eyes flew open.

“Have I ever failed you?” he asked, his tone light, and the words pierced her like daggers.

He closed his eyes, exhaling harshly, and the world disappeared.

When it reappeared, they were standing in their house – Adam stumbled into a table with a clatter, Elizabeth stared at their surroundings with wide eyes, and Gabriel let go of her hand to catch Kyran, who had crumpled, limp, the second they’d arrived.

An undead princess. An unconscious demon.  Guilt, and regrets, and secrets.

All Rae had wanted were her wings.

~#~

Magical Curse.

[sixqueendom]

One-Shot: All My Love, Catherine

This one-shot was inspired by this drawing by the talented Zara (@you-need-a-jello-shot). It depicts a sleeping Anne and Kitty in front of a laptop in bed, however before I read the caption the drawing automatically made me think of Cathy and Kitty, so I decided to roll with it! Side-note: I know from doing research that Thomas had apparently asked for Elizabeth's hand in marriage within a month of Henry's death, before being rejected and going on to marry Catherine. I decided to overlook this fact for the sake of this fanfic, wanting to keep focus on Cathy's feelings for him (it's not clear whether she ever knew about Thomas's proposal to Elizabeth). A huge thank you to Blue (@pen-and-a-microphone) for being my dedicated Beta-reader for this fic and for all your help and support throughout! She deserves full credit for Cathy's love letter, which she helped me write in a mix of modern/Tudor script, through looking into Catherine Parr's actual letters. As always, the link to read on AO3 is included below if you’d prefer to read on there.

AO3

Fanfic Masterpost

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

Cathy had known it would be a bad idea.

 And yet, here she was, wide awake at 3am, engrossed in an online article. Realising she wasn’t getting much writing done, she’d had every intention of going to sleep, resigning from her desk to the warmth of her bed. That was, until she’d let her mind drift momentarily to the past once more and flipped open her laptop, spurred on by a silent yearning to see their name, to read those familiar words and remember. As if those words would be enough to satiate her grief, to bring her some comfort. Oh, how she regretted her decision now, as a solitary tear trailed down her cheek; that ever familiar ache, that hollow emptiness, forming in her chest.

 It was then that she heard a hesitant knock at the door, as the youngest of the Queens tentatively poked her head in. Kitty knew that she could always rely on Cathy to be awake at this ungodly hour of the morning, and occasionally sought out the writer for solace when she was struggling to fall asleep, not wanting to disturb Anne. 

 “Hey,” Cathy said softly, giving a weak smile as she quickly brushed away the tear, praying Kitty didn’t see. “Can’t sleep?”

 The younger girl shook her head as she approached the bed. 

 “I have never understood how you can sit up reading and writing at this hour…”

 Eyes wide, her heart skipping a beat, Cathy frantically closed the article she’d been reading. 

 But not quickly enough.

 She didn’t miss the flash of concern in Kitty’s eyes.

 “Cathy…”

 But already, even with her head bowed, Kitty could see the writer’s lip trembling, her hands clenched into fists as she struggled to fight the emotions threatening to overwhelm her. As she let out a sob, Kitty immediately slipped into bed beside her, wrapping her in a hug. 

 “I can’t help it. I just…”

 Cathy felt like a schoolgirl, caught in the act. What a disappointment she was. An immense sense of guilt suddenly weighed down on her shoulders and she squirmed slightly at Kitty’s touch, feeling disgusted with herself. 

 “It’s okay,” Kitty reassured, rubbing her arm. “You don’t need to justify anything to me. You have every right to miss him.”

Cathy had to admit she was surprised by Kitty’s mature reaction. Sure, the girl was an adult, but she’d only ever experienced men as predators. Cathy didn’t think Kitty would be able to comprehend how she felt, not about Thomas. But the reaction, though calming, did nothing to quell her disappointment in herself, her frustration.

 “Do I?” Cathy’s face twisted into a grimace. “After everything he did?”

 It was somewhat of an emotional tug-of-war for Cathy, something she found herself constantly fighting with. Of course, undoubtedly she missed him, her true love. Nothing could ever dispel the love she had for him. Yet, that love was something she’d always felt guilty about. It felt wrong, disrespectful even, to yearn for him. Despite showing such care and compassion for her, he’d also committed some admittedly wicked deeds, earning him an egregious reputation with her fellow five Queens, all of whom despised him to varying degrees. If they knew what she was doing, they would be appalled. How could she possibly still harbour feelings for a man who was so cruel, particularly to one specific girl in his care? 

 Yet, despite all that, here was sweet Kitty, being so understanding and impartial. True, she had never had any involvement with him, but surely she felt some discomfort on the subject, given it had concerned Anne’s beloved daughter? Everyone knew she would come to her cousin’s defence. 

 Realising how selfish she was being, Cathy made a feeble attempt to compose herself, exhaling shakily. After all, it had been Kitty who was seeking her comfort.

 “I’m sorry,” she sniffed, wiping away the tears that stained her cheeks.

 The younger girl only nuzzled in closer, resting her head on the writer’s shoulder.

 “Don’t be silly. Your feelings are valid, Cathy. You’re allowed to miss him just as much as you do Mae. You’re allowed to grieve. Just like Jane is about Edward, or Catherine about Mary.”

 Cathy noted how she’d carefully missed out Anne and Elizabeth in a bid to be sensitive.

 “But they were innocent.” Cathy gripped her bed cover, balling her hands into fists once more, gravel in her voice.

 Even soft, kind words couldn’t douse the burning resentment in her chest.

 Kitty took a moment to contemplate. She couldn’t forget that, despite the events that had transpired later, Cathy had been devoted to Thomas well before Henry appeared on the scene. She had fallen head over heels in love with him, yet, upon Kitty’s execution, Henry had found himself requiring another Queen. And that honour - if you could ever call it that - fell to Cathy. She’d had no choice in the matter, unless she wanted a swift exit via the executioner’s axe, in which case, there’d have been no hope of reuniting with Thomas later on whatsoever.

 She’d married Henry to survive. 

 After the King’s death, Cathy had finally been reunited with her love and her life seemed so much brighter, filled with so much promise. They’d started making plans for their future together. But fate had other ideas. Just days after delivering their beautiful daughter, Cathy would succumb to what would later be known as childbed fever, the very same fate that took Jane. Once again, Cathy had been ripped away from Thomas. Only this time, it had been permanent.  

 It was just never meant to be. Life could be so cruel and twisted like that.

 Despite all of this, Cathy hated herself for missing him and their potential future together, all the “what could have beens”. So, she locked herself away in her bedroom, where she searched tirelessly for any information on her little girl, and, like tonight, anything to remind her of Thomas.

 Kitty rested a gentle hand on hers.

 “He may have done some bad things in the past, but it’s not like you condone his actions. Besides, you can’t keep dwelling on what happened; it’s done now and there’s nothing that you can do about it. It was almost five hundred years ago! This is meant to be our fresh start.”

 When the Queens had initially been reincarnated, relations with Anne had been stiff and difficult. Cathy had tried to avoid contact with her as much as possible, distancing herself and trying not to initiate unnecessary conversations, fully understanding her bitter resentment. From the corner of her eye, she’d often caught Anne casting a sharp glare at her, and she’d always thought she deserved it. Eventually, Anne had confronted her, throwing all of her feelings about Cathy and Thomas out into the open, tearing open old wounds. Cathy had acknowledged all the terrible things that Thomas, and she, though unintentionally, had done. Much to her relief, they had called a truce and decided to put their differences aside. Now they had a rather amiable friendship, although deep down Cathy knew Anne would never be able to fully trust her. Not that anyone could blame her. How could she expect her to after what had happened to Elizabeth? What Cathy had allowed to happen?

 That autumn day still haunted her; she could still see Thomas struggling with Elizabeth as they fought over one of her dresses. It hadn’t taken long for him to overpower her, snatching the dress from her grasp and cruelly shredding it into pieces, all whilst the girl sobbed. It made her feel sick now, having stood and witnessed it all, restraining Elizabeth as her husband ruined her favourite gown. She could still hear the girl’s distraught cries echoing in her ears. 

 She’d never forgiven herself.

But it didn’t stop her from missing him. How, when she had served in Princess Mary’s household, they’d exchanged love letters; how’d she’d look forward to receiving them, her heart fluttering as she carefully opened each one, reading his sweet words, over and over. The letters inevitably stopped once she married Henry. Thomas was consequently removed from court and sent away to war. She had desperately wanted to write to him, but it was just too risky. Any hint to suggest promiscuity and she’d be next in line to be executed; she’d learnt that lesson from Kitty’s unfortunate demise. Yet, Thomas had still waited for her. He waited four years for King Henry’s death, to be reunited with her.

 Despite Kitty’s reassurances, Cathy found it impossible to forget, to put what happened aside and focus on her, in the here and now. It was true: they had clearly been reincarnated to have a second chance at life, since each of their previous lives had been corrupted by Henry and his abuse. But with a new life came old memories. They had never faded. Everything remained vivid, as clear as if they’d only happened recently. And Cathy clung to them dearly; she didn’t want to forget. She never wanted to forget the beautiful daughter she’d brought into the world, but never got the chance to see grow up. She never wanted to forget Thomas, his kindly face and sweet letters. She didn’t want to forget the blissful life they had started to create together, before her untimely passing. How could she, when it all made her who she was today? Thomas had shown her what it was to be a true wife, to be loved unconditionally. Mae, her sweet little girl, ultimately made her a mother, albeit for the shortest of time, but also drove her motivation to write and research. With Thomas, she had finally been able to breathe. For too long, she had been silenced by Henry, stifled. Unable to be herself. But Thomas had loved her for who she was.

 Exhausted, Cathy released a weary sigh.

 “I just wish it wasn’t so hard,”

 After a moment, she wriggled free from Kitty’s comforting touch, delving underneath her bed. She lifted up a loose floorboard, revealing a stash of neatly folded papers. Letters.

 As Cathy clutched one in her hand, slumping back on her bed beside Kitty, the girl recoiled a little. She’d already guessed what they were, who they were to and how personal they would be. But to her surprise, Cathy offered her one.

 “I sometimes write to him or Mae when I can’t sleep,” she admitted, her lip twitching. 

 When Kitty didn’t move, Cathy gave a reassuring smile.

 “It’s okay. You can read it.”

 Kitty tentatively took the letter and unfolded it carefully. As she began to read Cathy’s elegant writing, she felt a lump form in her throat.

My Dearest Thomas,

 As Lord Tennyson once wrote: “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”. I make likeness with him when it comes to my feelings for you, for I regret not one moment we were together. I was truly blessed by the time we had, though it may not have been as long as we desired. Though, I do ask myself, would forever have been long enough? I don’t think so. I am, therefore, eternally grateful for the time we had, to have been blessed with your love and kindness for so long. 

 Every day I awake to birdsong, and I think of you. How I would rise eagerly as early as the sun, waiting for your letters. Your words, written not only in ink but most truly impressed on the heart, were treasured by me.

 Now, I wake and realise, with most wondrous sadness, that you are no longer with me.

Some comfort I may take through these letters, as they impress upon me a sense of calm, a grounding force amongst a chaotic world. The 21st century is breathtaking and frightening, somehow all together. How fast, loud, and massive the world has become cannot be written, nor relayed in terms you might understand. Yet, the sun still rises and falls, and the stars still shine. I only wish you hither, in my arms, to share in these beauties. 

 I can only pray we are reunited again. This time, I hope it is for eternity.

 All my love, Catherine

 As she read the last sentence, Kitty sniffed loudly, moved to tears. Cathy’s words were so eloquent and beautiful, resonating deeply with her. Quite frankly, it broke her heart. Was this true love?

 She finally got the courage to glance up at Cathy, who was still staring, glassy eyed and longingly, at the letter in her hand. As if she thought reading her words would make them become real. Kitty solemnly rested her head on Cathy’s shoulder.

 “You’ll see him again, someday,” she murmured. “I know you will.”

 At that, she closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep. 

 In the darkness, Cathy nodded, nuzzling close as she finally found peace. 

 She found herself running through sunflower fields, the sun streaming down upon her, the warm heat of summer on her skin, a little girl’s squeal of laughter in the air. Every so often, she caught a flash of a white dress billowing in the breeze; black curly hair in pigtails. 

 “Can’t catch me!” the girl cried with a giggle. 

 As she reached the edge of the field, Cathy stopped in her tracks, holding her breath. Only now, in the stillness, could she hear the birdsong. And there, in front of her, their little girl atop his shoulders, was Thomas.

  Her family.

Finally, she was home.

[chocoluckchipz]

Marked by Fate

                                    Read it on A03, FF.net, WattPad

Marinette’s soul mark wasn’t a ladybug for nothing. She was supposed to be lucky, and despite everything in her life that said otherwise, today she would be because today she’d finally do it: she’d catch that mysterious person in black who’d been leaving flowers and random presents at her balcony almost every day for the past year. Not that Marinette hadn’t tried to catch them already. She did and failed too many times to count, but that didn’t matter. Today, she would succeed. Today she wouldn’t fall asleep. She couldn’t fail anymore because now catching that person had become important.

That’s why as soon as the sun went down, Marinette hid behind the greenery that covered one of the walls on her balcony and waited. It took longer than she’d expected, but when the moon was high and bright, a black silhouette appeared on her neighbour’s roof. They sneaked down to her balcony and placed a red rose by the entrance to her bedroom, then stood and listened. A moment later, the person turned around and looked at her through the thickness of the greens. Her body tense, her heart racing, Marinette forgot to breathe as she stared back at the intruder, the light of the full moon making it possible for her to clearly see them.

It was a young man. A very handsome young man. He wore black clothes on what looked like a slim and well-toned body. His jaw, from what Marinette could see, could probably cut diamond. His messy hair almost shone under the moonlight. A black mask covered half of his face, but he still looked handsome. He’d probably look gorgeous without it, especially with those mesmerizing, electric green eyes that were now locked on hers.

The man grinned and bowed. “I see you finally managed to stay awake, my Lady.”

Her cheeks warmed. No one ever bowed like that to her. Or called her their Lady.

The man stretched out a gloved hand toward her.

She took it hesitantly. “You must have mixed me up with someone else. I’m no Lady. I’m a seamstress. A baker’s daughter.”

He stepped closer, slowly raising her hand to his lips. “You’re a Lady to me.”

Her cheeks burned when the man placed a lingering kiss to her knuckles.

He grinned. “Allow me to introduce myself. Chat Noir: your loyal knight.”

“That’s a weird name.”

He laughed. It sounded like wind playing with little bells on a sunny day in the garden. “I’m afraid it isn’t my real name. And I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that just yet. But let me tell you how immensely happy I am we meet at last.”

Feeling braver and remembering why she was here in the first place, Marinette pulled her hand back from him and said, “I’m glad I finally caught you as well, Chat Noir. I wanted to thank you for all the presents you’ve given me. Especially for that medicine for my mom and all those beautiful fabric cuts for my dresses. Oh, and for flowers. I loved the flowers. So, thank you.”

He beamed. “I’m glad you like them.”

She cocked her head to the side. “I do wonder though, why do you keep bringing me presents? It’s not like I can give you anything back.”

“What do you mean?” he teased. “You’ve left me plenty of treats in return.”

“So, you’ve been doing this for croissants, cookies, and macarons?”

His lips twitched in amusement. “Not really, but they were greatly appreciated.”

“Then why?”

Chat Noir leaned forward and whispered, “Isn’t it obvious?”

Marinette shook her head, her eyes wide and locked on Chat’s.

“It’s simple—” Chat Noir stretched every word, his voice as sweet as honey, as he got a hold of her hand again, “—I’m in love with you.”

Marinette’s heart speeded up as Chat’s lips brushed against her skin. Tingles all over her body, she stared at him in shock. “What?”

“I’m in love with you, Marinette.” His smile brightened up the darkness around, the soft expression on his face. “Have been for—I don’t know—five, maybe six years now? And falling deeper and deeper with every passing day.”

Her face would get severe burns, she knew it. Her mind was probably already fried because she had to go and say the stupidest thing ever. “But you’ve been bringing me flowers only for the past year…”

Chat nervously chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck, his smile lopsided. “Yeah, sorry about that. I was away a lot before.”

No, she was totally flabbergasted because how come from millions of questions his confession had raised did she manage to ask, “Why do you leave them here? Why didn’t give them to me during the day without the mask on?”

Chat Noir dejectedly sighed. “Social etiquette. My father would’ve heard about it and sent me away again to ‘help me remember my place and keep my head clear.’”

A memory jumped into Marinette’s mind, a memory of Adrien, the son of Duke Agreste. When they were fourteen, he’d helped her out of a pond once. He even scolded Lady Chloe for pushing her in just because she stood in the place that spoiled brat wanted to take. The shirt Adrien took off himself and gave her to cover her shivering body was Marinette’s greatest treasure even now. As was the basket in which he brought her fruits and candy the next day when she got sniffles. She heard his father punished Adrien for that; they shipped him to a boarding school in a neighbouring country. He came back only during the summers, returning permanently only a little over a year ago. Marinette was lucky to catch a glimpse of him from time to time since she was working as a seamstress in his father’s mansion. She’d heard from Nino, one of Adrien’s guards and her best friend, Alya’s, fiancé, that Adrien was still just as kind and amazing as before, and he’d become quite handsome too. However, that didn’t matter because Marinette stayed away. There was no way, she’d cause him any more troubles after the kindness he’d showed her.

“So, you’re a noble?”

“Yeah. Had the bad luck to be born there.”

“It isn’t bad luck,” Marinette protested. “You have it much easier than most of us.”

“True, but I pay with my freedom for that,” Chat Noir countered. “I can’t do what I want. I have a list of rules to live by. My father decides my future for me. I can’t even be with the woman I’m madly in love with because she is of a lower social class. A load of crap if you ask me.”

Marinette looked to the side, her heart pounding. She kept quiet for a few moments, then whispered, “Then I suggest you stop this. With the flowers and presents.”

Chat frowned, taken aback. “Why? You said you liked them, didn’t you?”

“I do like them,” Marinette replied, her voice soft, a wistful look in her eyes. “There were days that only the hope of getting a flower in the morning kept me going. And days where it was the best thing that happened to me. When I was sick or sad, I’d keep them close by to smell the aroma and forget my problems. I still have every single one of them pressed but… I want you to stop now.”

Chat’s sight fell down, his voice cracked. “I—I don’t understand—”

“I’m getting married,” Marinette said. Her smile was shaky as she looked at him. “And I doubt my future husband would love it if his wife continues to accept presents from a stranger every night.”

Chat Noir flinched, his body going stiff. His eyes widened, eyebrows knitted in a frown. “You getting married? Why haven’t I been told about this—” He threw his hands over his mouth, but it was too late.

“You’re asking around about me?”

He swallowed, shifting his sight to a side. “Just one person and nothing too personal. Basic stuff everyone knows: your favourite colour, dessert, flowers. You know, stuff like that to help me with choosing the presents…”

Marinette crossed her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes at him. “Name the traitor.”

He was quick to respond, leaning towards her with a smug look on his face. “Only if you marry me instead of whoever you’re planning to marry now.”

Marinette made a face. “I’m not marrying a stranger.”

“Then I’m not telling you the name of the kind person who is helping me woo the girl of my dreams.”

They stared at each other for a few moments before Marinette relinquished. “Okay, fine. You can protect them. It doesn’t matter anyway, because all your efforts are wasted. I’m accepting Luka’s proposal tomorrow evening.”

Chat shook his head. “You don’t love him.”

Marinette wanted nothing more than to wipe that smug grin off his face. “Maybe I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I think I should know better whom I love and whom I don’t—”

“You’re in love with Adrien Agreste, the Duke Agreste’s heir.”

Marinette pulled back, her cheeks flooding with crimson. “H-how do you know?”

“My sources told me.” Chat Noir walked closer, stopping in front of her. Slowly, he reached forward and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. His voice was quiet. “Marinette, please, tell me, are you accepting this man’s proposal only because you know you can’t be with Adrien?”

She looked away.

“Marinette, please—”

She shook her head, turning away. She wished she could deny this, but the truth was she did plan to accept Luka’s proposal because there was no way she could be with Adrien, and Luka was a good man. She was sure she’d be happy with him.

“Don’t do this, Mari,” Chat begged. “If you don’t love him, don’t marry him. It won’t end well.”

“It’s just a crush, Chat,” Marinette whispered. “It’ll go away, and Luka is sweet and kind. I’ll be happy with him.”

“Are you sure about that?”

She barely exhaled. “I am.”

“What about me, then?”

Marinette looked at him, frowning. “What about you?”

Chat took her hand with both of his and said just as quietly. “I just confessed my love to you, and I know for sure I’ll never be happy with anyone else.”

“Chat—”

Not letting her hand go, Chat Noir kneeled before her. “You’re the most beautiful, kind, smart, and brave person I’ve ever met, Marinette. Please, give me a chance. Marry me. I promise I’ll make you happy.”

Her heart skipped a beat. This couldn’t be happening. This gorgeous man couldn’t be saying what he was just saying, and even if he did…

“Chat… You said it yourself: you’re a noble. You can’t marry me.”

He shook his head, his eyes full of hope locked on hers. “There is one way. My father is huge on traditions, and before Mom died, she made him swear he’d allow me to marry my soulmate, no matter who they are. If I can prove to him we are meant to be, he’ll let me marry you.”

Marinette sucked in the air. An old tradition, a crumb of magic their world still retained from what it used to: the soulmate marks. Everyone had one ingrained on their backs. They were believed to tell the future, define their wielder’s fate. They were also only a half of a picture, the other soulmate carrying the second piece to a puzzle on their backs, something that either contrasted or added to the first one. Once the first kiss between the soulmates was shared their marks merged, creating a whole picture, now painted on both of their backs. Only, these days it was rare to find a soulmate. Sure, there were plenty of people who did, and Marinette had always dreamed of finding hers but…

“I’m not kissing a stranger to find out if we are soulmates.”

Chat puffed. “But I’m hardly a stranger. I’m a handsome knight who spent the last year proving his affection to you.”

Marinette would lie if she’d say it wasn’t tempting. If anything, she’d end up kissing a handsome man… right before she planned to give Luka an answer to his proposal. It wasn’t right. She couldn’t. “It can hardly be considered knowing each other.”

To her surprise, Chat settled down on a floor and patted a place by his side. “Okay. Then, let’s get to know each other. Ask away. Anything you want to know, apart from my identity.”

Marinette hesitated. “Chat—”

“I’m not giving up,” he said. “This might be the only chance for real happiness for both of us, so, I’m not giving up without a fight, Marinette. All I’m asking for is a kiss to see if we’re soulmates. If not, I’ll disappear, and you’ll never hear from me again, so ask me whatever you want to know. I have all the time in the world… until sunrise.”

Marinette giggled. He kind of looked adorable, and really, what harm would it be if she just sat down and chatted with him? None, right?

“Okay,” she agreed, settling down. “Let’s start with… Oh! You claim you wanted to get my attention. Yet you never stopped by to talk to me? Why? Wouldn’t it be easier for you to get me to notice you if we’d actually talk?”

Chat pouted. “I was going to stop by in a few weeks. On your birthday, actually. I even got you a gift already.”

“Oh. What did you get me?”

“I’d like to keep it a secret for now, in case I’ll be allowed to gift it to you. But I promise, you’ll like it.”

“Ah, so you’ve planned to sweep me off my feet.”

He grinned. “I did.”

She smiled bittersweetly. “Sorry for spoiling your plans.”

“I’m not complaining,” Chat replied. “I found out about the proposal because you told me, and now I have a chance of marrying you. It might have been too late if you haven’t caught me tonight.”

“I see your spies have failed you this time?”

Chat frowned. “They did. I must have a word with them.”

Marinette laughed. “Don’t be too hard on them, though. Luka proposed just this evening, so no one apart from me and my parents knows yet.”

Marinette lost count of how many hours they’d spent talking. Surprisingly, considering their drastically different upbringings, they’d held a lot of similar beliefs and dreams. Their goals matched perfectly, and disagreements happened only in a few non-essential issues such as which frosting was better on a chocolate cake. Marinette insisted it should be vanilla with strawberries in between layers. Chat preferred chocolate with little pieces of walnuts. In the end, they decided that whatever it was, the big family they both wanted would enjoy both.

Somewhere along the way she’d become his Princess. He: her Kitty, mostly due to the ungodly amount of cat puns that reared its ugly head soon after she allowed him to rest his head in her lap. It was worth it, though. His hair was unbelievably soft, and the noises he made when she let her fingers brush through it, Marinette wasn’t sure she’d ever forget. Talking with Chat came naturally. Being with him was comforting and somehow familiar. She knew she could trust him with her life. Somehow, she felt it, and when he spotted the sun peeking through the horizon and asked her for the umpteenth time for a kiss, she agreed.

“I love you,” Chat whispered, pulling Marinette close.

Barely awake, she leaned in and whispered back. “I think I’m falling in love with you, too.”

He smiled, gently cradling her face as he brought her forward, leaning in himself. When their lips touched the world around Marinette exploded. His lips were warm as they moved against hers. Sweet, yet electrifying. One of Chat’s hands shifted to her back, pulling her closer to his chest, as the other got into her hair. She melted against him, wrapping her hands around his neck. Gosh, he smelled so good. Divine even. He felt even better. So hot…

And how was she supposed to marry Luka after a kiss like this? Marinette regretted it already. That damn soulmate mark better work, or…

The skin on her back tingled when Chat pulled away.

“Can you feel it?” he asked, his voice breathless and raspy.

She nodded, not being able to speak.

“Can you check mine?” Chat rushed to pull his shirt over his head and turn around to reveal a perfectly toned back with her cherry blossom and her ladybug soulmate mark smack right in the middle. Only now there was a black cat with its paw in the air completing the picture. It almost looked like they were playing together.

Marinette held her breath, running her fingers on his skin, following the lines of the flowers. Then, closing her eyes, she leaned forward and placed a kiss to the kitty’s nose.

“It’s there, right?” Chat asked again. “Please, tell me—”

“It’s here.” Marinette smiled against his skin. “Your black cat saying hello to my ladybug.”

Chat stilled for a moment. Letting go of the shirt, he swirled around and wrapped Marinette in his arms.

“I love you so much, Mari. Will you marry me now?”

She couldn’t help but smile. “I will.”

He kissed her gently. One, two, three times. She smiled against his lips and only when the first rays of the sun fell on their faces Chat pulled away.

“I should go. My father wakes up with the sunrise, and I’d better be home by the time he’s awake, so I can speak to him about this before he leaves for work. I’ll send out an official marriage proposal as soon as I can, so don’t you go agreeing to marry anyone else before that.”

She sleepily smiled at him, melting into his embrace. “I already promised you. How can I agree to someone else’s proposal now?”

He pulled her closer, smiling into her hair. A moment later he swept Marinette in his arms and brought her down into her room, laying her on her bed. A parting kiss to her forehead and he was gone, only a tingling on her lips and her back reminding her that perhaps it all wasn’t a dream.

The next time she opened her eyes her parents stood above her head with the most worried expressions on their faces. According to them, there was a woman downstairs waiting for Marinette to validate the mark on her back, accompanied by a dashing but very nervous young man who insisted he was her soulmate and he was here to officially propose.

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Happy Birthday, @corgi-likes-chat ! All the best and be always just as awesome as you’re now. <3