#i need to stop asking that every time i post something here once in seven weeks it's not like anyone repliesaksjdjfashdf

[arabellasleopardcoat]

Lookalike (Daemon Targaryen x Reader)

Summary: Inside the highest tower of the Red Keep, lives a girl with long silver hair...

Warnings: Oh man. What a trip. Rapunzel, innocence kink, daddy issues, cursing, mature language. Light groping, kissing. Daemon, and all his usual warnings. Manipulation. I tried to make it whimsical. You know, a fairy tale.

Requested: Yup. For the bingo. Daemon + retelling of another story. Posted it early because I couldn't sleep last night so I stayed up finishing this.

Once upon a time, in a far away land called Westeros, lived a King and a Queen. The Queen was a beautiful woman, with hair made of spun silver and gold.

The King and the Queen had a daughter, a bright girl called Rhaenyra. They loved her deeply, but as many powerful men behind him, the King could not help but wish for a son.

When the Queen had carried Rhaenyra, her pregnancy had been harsh. She had struggled to fall with child, and when she had, she had been sick the whole time. The Queen was not too sure if she could withstand another pregnancy.

“My love, I need my heir.” The King said to her. “You must help me and try again.”

“But husband, you know we cannot. The Maester said pregnancies were too rough on me."

“If I can't have my heir, I fear I will lose my throne!”

So the Queen decided to try again. Soon, she was with child. Yet, the Queen could feel something was different, this time. She got twice as large as she was when she was carrying Rhaenyra, her body ached even more. Only the hottest baths could soothe her abundant pains.

“This pregnancy is not normal, not normal at all.” Said the Maester, when examining the Queen. “I fear the delivery will be hard.”

And hard it was. For there was not one baby but two. A girl and a boy, a moon and a sun. The parents only found out when the Queen was unable to deliver the baby, and the King, believing it to be his precious heir, ordered the Maester to cut her open.

Wailing into the world they came, shrieks so loud they rose half the Red Keep. Every bell in the city was toiling for them. The King named his heir Baelon. The girl, the little moon, was forgotten. That was you.

Too young to know it then, your first hours were spent in your sister's arms, both of you forgotten in favor of the new heir. But it was barely hours at all when your little brother passed away.

At the funeral, the King was the picture of despair. His Queen was dead by his hand, his heir lasted no longer than a day. Now a father to a baby girl he didn’t know how to care for, and an unruly maiden.

Perhaps, sensing his despair and hoping to offer some words of comfort, and Arryn cousin took you from him and gasped:

“By the Sevens! If she is the very image of Aemma as a babe.” No one took in consideration that this Arryn cousin was not, in fact, older than the Queen.

“Is she?” The King asked, on the verge of tears. Your father could not stop remembering your mother’s face, as the Maester aided your entrance into the world. Her cries haunted him even in his sleep. He was turning into a decaying corpse, from inside out, guilt rotting him alive. “Rhaenyra, come here.”

“Father?”

“Does she look like your mother?”

Your sister squinted at you. You yawned, a toothless, sweet thing. Rhaenyra wasn't very knowledgeable about babes, but she liked you. You had grabbed into her finger the first time you had seen her, tiny fingers turning into the most adorable rings.

“She has her beauty.” She answered, politely. The King hummed, an idea sparkling into his head. Soon, the highest tower in the Red Keep was being repurposed, and the Hand relocated.

Nine and ten years later, that brings us to you, in a continent named Westeros. Inside it, Seven Kingdoms. Inside them, a city called King's Landing. Inside the city is a castle. In the castle, a tower. In the tower is a room. In the room, a girl. You.

You stared at your reflection, squaring your shoulders. You gave yourself a big smile.

“Father, I want to try claiming a dragon.” You repeated to the mirror, before shaking your head. “No, no. Too disrespectful. Lord Father, I was wondering if I could go and try to claim a dragon?”

The reflection did not answer. You frowned. You didn't like groveling, but you weren't too sure of what else you could do. Perhaps, sending him a note would be better.

As the youngest sister of the heir to the Iron Throne, you had led a sheltered life. Even more so, as the spitting image of his late wife, according to your father. When looked in the right light, your eyes were the same shade hers had been. And the way you spoke did resemble the short, clipped speech of the Vale.

No one dared question those things, even though your accent had been ensured by your father by providing you with tutors only from that region. The King was very protective of you, set on expiating his guilt over the death of your mother by ensuring your safety.

All of your care had been provided by him after her death. Viserys knew nothing about child-rearing, but refused to let any servant touch you beyond the wet nurse. You grew into a child, and your father didn't even know how to cut your long, silver hair.

Years passed, and soon you learned to take care of yourself. Used to long hair as you were, you never thought about cutting it. Instead, your mind was preoccupied with more urgent matters. For example, how could you get out of the Red Keep.

Sometimes, your father's protection turned overbearing. Unlike your older sister, you were not allowed to leave the castle. Nor had you been allowed to partake in the activities other young ladies did. The only way you had managed to know the world around you had been through your books and observations.

Your rooms were in the tallest tower in the Red Keep, ensuring you would be kept safe from intruders and even invaders, if such a thing ever came to pass. You had double the guards Rhaenyra and Viserys did. Instead of providing his new Queen with a sworn shield, he had chosen to devote all the Kingsguard to you.

While you knew your tower had been used for other things before, it had clearly been refurnished. Now, it worked as a castle of its own, inside which you had a tiny kitchen, bathing quarters, rooms, and a library. The idea was that you would never need anything outside it. A tiny universe, just for you. You had plenty of space for your books and trinkets, but it made for a lonely existence.

Each time there were unknown men roaming the Keep, you got sent back to your tower. Your father didn't like the idea of you being married off or corrupted by them. You were too precious, too good. He had said that when the day came, he would find you a good match. One that, you suspected, would keep you close to home. Perhaps Aegon, or one of your cousins in the Vale.

If you married at all, of course. Your father had gone through a phase of encouraging your faith in the Seven, in the hopes of you deciding to be a Septa. If you did, the King would be most pleased, for it would mean you would never suffer the same fate as your mother.

You wanted neither. What you wanted more than anything was to see the world, do the things Rhaenyra told you happened outside the Red Keep. And according to you, it would all get started if you got your own dragon.

With a dragon, you would be protected. Your father always used your lack of one as an argument for denying you the experiences ladies your age had. Your egg had not hatched, but if you claimed one, you would surely be allowed to leave.

Unfortunately, what was required to be able to bond with a dragon had been deemed too dangerous for you. King Viserys had banned you from the dragon pit, arguing that dragons could be unpredictable.

Today, you had been sent back to your tower due to an impromptu visit from your Uncle Daemon. You knew the man by reputation only, by how much he angered your father. If there was one person who you were prohibited from speaking to, it was him.

You had heard the rumors, of course. A few years back, after your mother's passing, he had taken Rhaenyra to a pleasure house. Whatever had happened inside was between her and him. To your father, though, it was enough to keep you away from him.

Smile. Square your shoulders. Try again to assert yourself. You eyed your reflection once again, wondering how you could convince the King to let you try to get a dragon. Outside, something scraped against a rock, again and again. Curious, you went to the window.

On the very base of your tower, there was a man hopelessly attempting to climb upwards. He was very dashing, sporting the same silver hair you did, only much shorter.

“Who are you?” You asked, slightly frightened. In truth, you were not used to strangers being so close to you. Your father always said men were dangerous, and that outside the Red Keep there were aberrant creatures, mean and ruthless, that hurt young maidens for their enjoyment. “Step away from my tower, or I shall call my guards!”

The man ignored you, choosing instead to stab a sword between the rocks that made up your tower. You screamed, alarmed.

“Stop that! That's not allowed, you are damaging my tower.”

The man ignored you, trying to use his sword to climb. He grunted in exertion. You ran towards your chambers and filled a jar with water. Then, you ran back to your window and dumped it on his head.

The man shrieked and fell down the few meters he had managed to progress. You laughed, startled.

“Aren't you a fearsome thing?” He muttered to himself. Then, he looked up at you, with the most purple eyes you had ever seen. “Please, Princess. Help me out.”

“Why should I? You are an intruder.” You glared down at him, not even entertaining the notion, but deciding to play along regardless. In truth, you were curious about him. And starved for companionship.

“I am being chased.” He screamed up at you, frantically looking behind him. “Please, help me.”

You leaned down towards your window, bracing your arms on the edge of it.

“Bad business, that.” Your voice was cheery and woefully uninterested. This was the most exciting that had happened to you in years, you were not about to stop it. But at the same time, you did remember all of your father's warnings. There were people out there that were not kind.

“Damn it, you are just like Aemma. Pair of cynics.” He cursed, and started to try to retrieve his sword. Your eyebrows raised.

“You knew my mother?”

The man looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun with a hand. He squinted at you. His bone structure reminded you of someone.

“I did.”

Your mother. A cynic. You smiled. No one had ever told you about her, not beyond all those polite things everyone said about the dead. How kind she was, how beautiful and learned. It did nothing to make you feel closer to her, these empty platitudes. They were generic, they could be talking about any woman.

Your father never went beyond that, either. The Aemma he talked about was an idolized version of her, a woman frozen into a perfect state of likeness to the Mother. He didn't allow anyone to contradict him, not even Rhaenyra. When you were younger, she had told you your mother had been hesitant about having another pregnancy, and struggling to carry another baby to term. Your father had banned her from visiting you during the next six moons.

But this stranger was speaking of her as if he knew her well. Your heart ached to know more about your mother, know the real her. It was enough to help you make your choice. You gathered your hair and threw it down the window.

“Come up then.” You ordered.

The man looked at the mass of hair in bewilderment. He touched a strand of it, fascinated by the way it picked up the light. He did not move.

“Use it as rope. You won't hurt me.” Were all men so dumb? Surely, if this one was so slow, he could not be a threat.

“Of course. Magic hair. Fucking Viserys.” The man started to climb. He got quickly inside, panting with exertion.

“You know my father, too?” Your body tensed. This, you did not like. What if he was one of the men that were supposed to visit the castle today? One of those who corrupted and hurt young maidens?

Your heart started to beat harder and harder. You tried to convince yourself he might not be a bad man. Perhaps, he had met the King through your mother. Regardless, you turned away from him, keeping your voice and posture deceivingly calm.

“Would you like some water?” You did not wait for an answer, starting to move towards the kitchen. You reached into a cabinet, as if searching for a cup.

The man followed. You could hear his footsteps on the stone floor.

“I do know your father.” His voice was strange. As if he were realizing he was making a mistake but couldn't pinpoint why. Uninterested, you took out a cup. “He is a great King.” He added, hurriedly. Just in time for you to grab a pan, turn and smack it against his head as hard as you could.

The man dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. You hiked up your skirts and rushed to his side. Kneeling by him, you took a closer look at his sword and grinned. You had seen it before. In your books. That was Dark Sister, Visenya's sword.

You had caught Daemon Targaryen. What better proof to show your father that you were not helpless? You tied him to a chair and gagged him for good measure. Then, you pushed him inside your bathing quarters. Only then did you call for a guard.

“Could you summon my father? I need him.” The guard bowed, but didn't speak. Most of them didn't. Your father said they weren't allowed to.

Despite not receiving an answer, you knew your father would be here soon. He always came when you called. You placed a kettle in the fire. Before it could boil, King Viserys was already there.

“Dear.” The King kissed your forehead. You tried not to wrinkle your nose at the smell of herbs and milk of the poppy. Your father always smelled like a medicine cabinet. “As beautiful as your mother, like always.”

You smiled.

“Father. Tea is not ready yet, but sit.” You pointed to your small parlor. When you were a child, the two of you had used to pretend you were a great lady, hosting tea parties there. It had been how he had taught you courtly manners.

The memory was bittersweet. Your father was good to you. He had raised you as best as he could, loving you more fiercely than any of his other children. It was not your intention to upset him, but you knew this topic would do exactly that.

“Were you lonely, my heart?” The King settled on one of the loveseats. You sat across from him.

“I did miss you.” You gave him a coy little look. “But I asked you to come for something else.”

“Do tell.”

“Father. I think I am ready to claim a dragon.” You rushed to say, almost tripping over your words. Already, you could see how his expression was clouding over, a storm raging behind his eyes.

“You know you are not.” The King answered, sternly. “It's too dangerous.”

“I can handle myself.” You fought for your tone to remain even. If it came out too angered, your father would say you were hysteric or having a tantrum, and refuse to take you seriously. So was the curse of being a woman.

“My heart, you have never stepped out of this tower.”

And you had not. But what did dragons care about one's knowledge of the world? You had read about dragons bonding with babes, sharing their cradle with them. To claim one, being well traveled or wise was not required. One had to be chosen, that was all.

You raised your hands in the air, palms up, as if placating a beast.

“I don't want you to get upset, Father. I wanted to prove to you that I am capable, too.” You got up and opened the door to your bathing quarters. “Do not be scared.”

The bound Daemon was still gagged, inside the tub. This time, though, he was awake. Upon seeing his brother, he immediately started screeching and squirming, making up a ruckus.

“Shh.” You said to him, kicking the tub a little. He was turning out to be a very annoying guest. “As you can see, Father, I caught him.”

“And you put him in the tub.” The King said, perplexed.

“He was dripping water all over my floors.” But your explanations fall on deaf ears, since your father has already moved on from his shock. He grabbed Daemon's shirt, forcing him to sit upright.

“Haven't I told you this tower is out of limits?” The King barked at him. “I will throw you into the deepest, more dark and humid dungeon I can find, and then I will…”

“Father.” You did not like being ignored. Daemon was a secondary concern, you just wanted to know if you were allowed out now.

Yet, your father seems to think the issue was an entirely different thing.

“Oh. Sorry, dear. What father meant is that Uncle Daemon has been very bad.” He gave him a shake for good measure.

“I can tell.” Your tone was flat. “Have I proven myself enough to be allowed to try to claim a dragon?”

The King let go of Daemon. He turned towards you and tenderly started checking you over for injuries.

“I would die if something happened to you.” He answered, evasive. You didn't need to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking. It was too dangerous. It was a no.

Five more long days went by. Poor you, having to stay all day in your tower. After Daemon, your father had now deemed it too dangerous to allow you to roam the Red Keep. It was the tower and nothing more. All you could do was sing Old Valyrian songs and look out the windows. Sometimes, birds would chirp from above, and you would feel slightly better, as if they were singing with you.

Perhaps it had been your song, what had led him to you. Perhaps it had been his own guilty consciousness for a sin long forgotten, or a sliver of empathy for the lonely girl in the tower up above. Whatever it was, before the sixth day came to an end, Daemon appeared under your window.

“Princess, Princess, let your hair down.” You heard him say. You walked to your window, curiously. Daemon was back!

“Come down if you want to be free.” The Prince ordered. “I do not have much time.”

His words stilled you. Freedom. Your father often said freedom was a dangerous thing. If you let people make their own choices, it was much more likely that they would choose unwisely. That was why you were kept in the tower, safe from the world and bad decisions. As long as King Viserys controlled your life, you would be protected.

But what if you left? What if you ran, jumped out of your tower and made your way to Dragonstone to get your dragon? You imagined a version of yourself, dress fluttering in the wind like a flag as you ran, barefooted in the sand. You imagined yourself feeling the sun in your face, having your first cup of mead or watching a parade.

Then you imagined yourself tripping and falling into the sea. You didn't know how to swim. No one saw the need to teach you such a thing. You imagined yourself at the parade, getting robbed. You imagined a man, trying to hurt you. What if people out there, what if Daemon, were truly as wretched as your father said they were?

Your face must have shown your distress because Daemon, impatient, shouted something more.

“I won't hurt you.” The Prince raised his hands in surrender. “I will not tell you I am a good man, but I will take you to Dragonstone.”

His honesty was what sealed the deal. You threw your hair down, grabbed one of your warmest cloaks, and shouted for him to loop your hair around a branch and not let go.

Daemon obeyed. You jumped, and as your feet hit the floor, you wished to be able to say you didn't look back. But you did. And as you saw the silhouette of your tower getting smaller and smaller in the distance, you couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness deep in your chest.

Noticing how quiet you have gotten, Daemon adjusts your cloak and gives you a grin.

“Do you want to ride Caraxes?” He asks. You match his grin, sadness nearly forgotten. There is a whole world out here, begging to be explored. You can be sad later when the adventure ends.

Caraxes is the most bewitching creature you have ever seen. He is red and serpentine, looking so much like the drawings of dragons you used to do as a child. You nearly scream in excitement.

Daemon whispers to him to stay calm, but Caraxes seems to sense your happiness, for he keeps trying to correspond your loving pets.

“Oh, by the Seven Hells.” The Prince pushes you towards the saddle. “If neither of you stop the tail wagging, we are going to get caught.”

“And we don't want that.” You agree, kissing Caraxes' scales one last time.

Caraxes gives another excited, full-body wag. He seems to be preening under the attention. Daemon must not praise him very much, which is a shame.

“You are such a good boy. So pretty, too.”

Caraxes preens even more. It makes his body shake, tail hitting against the floor in an ominous beat. Daemon groans.

“Enough, enough.” The Prince grabs you by the waist and gets you up in the saddle. You shriek in laughter. Caraxes appears to be happy about it, too, since he starts spreading his wings. “We are going to get caught.”

Daemon jumps into the saddle, hugging you tightly to him. You squirm, unused to the closeness of another human being. When your father and Rhaenyra touch you, it's never like this.

Daemon feels overwhelming, in the best kind of way. His chest is firm, and his smell surrounds you. His arms around your waist hold you tight, but remain loose enough to not hurt you. Your hips fit snugly against his, and make something you can't yet name stir in your lower belly.

It's different. It's strange. You want it to stop. Why do you feel so nervous, as if Caraxes was suddenly dropping down and not barely getting ready to fly?

“Soves, Caraxes.” Daemon orders, careful not to scream in your ear. “Are you alright, little Princess?”

You cease your squirming, hoping that he doesn't notice whatever is different with you.

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“You keep squirming as if there were ants inside your bodice. Are you uncomfortable?” The Prince snickers by your ear, pressing a soft kiss right by the top of it. What happens next is impossible to hide. Your body gives a shiver, all of your hairs standing up. The sensation is as confusing as it is pleasant.

“My stomach feels funny.” You complain, knowing that it isn't exactly that, but close enough that he probably won't question it.

“Funny how?” Daemon kisses behind your ear. You make a hurt, confused noise. You have been kissed before, but never there. In your experience, kisses are not this devastating.

“Funny.” You refuse to elaborate because while naive, you are not dumb. This must be precisely why your father wanted you away from men. If they were able to inflict so much pleasure, it was no wonder why maidens let them do whatever they wanted to them.

“Does it hurt, little Princess?” One of his palms goes to your lower stomach, pressing slightly. “Here?”

You squirm. So he definitely knows.

“Yes.”

“Hurts? Or…?” Daemon's hand goes dangerously low, nearly pressing between the parting of your legs. You squirm more. He brushes something that makes you jolt, delighted.

“We shouldn't.” You answer. It would be much more convincing if you were not relaxing into him. He laughs right in your ear, but retracts his hand.

Even with his hands away from your most sensitive areas, you still feel worked up. Your bodice is too rough against your skin, the way Caraxes moves under both of you makes the area between your legs tingle.

You keep your eyes firmly on the sky in front of you. As it starts to change into pinks and yellows, the feeling ebbs and starts to fade. You feel sleepy, so you recline more against Daemon. A tiny yawn escapes you.

“Tired?” Daemon brushes your hair back, much more tenderly than your father would. With your father, the touch is always harsher, more possessive. As if he is always grasping to the last threads of Aemma he can hold. With Daemon, it feels like he is actually touching you.

You hum, soft and sweet.

“Sleep, little one.” He kisses your cheek. “I'll wake you up when we get there.”

The next time you wake up, it is in an unknown bedroom. At first, you panic. The canopy over the bed looks too similar to the one in your tower, and you wonder if perhaps you dreamed it all. Daemon, Caraxes, the flight, your feelings. Then, you get even more scared because the more you look, the more you realize this is not your room.

You get out of bed. You are still dressed in the same dress you were wearing earlier, but your shoes are gone. The door is closed. Fear grips at you. What if Daemon has sold you to someone evil and rotten, as your father says people outside the Red Keep are? What if he is the evil man?

You rush to the door. It opens easily. There is a hallway that looks much like the ones in the Red Keep, but there is no one there. You scream in fear.

Another of the doors opens in the hallway. Daemon, in a sleeping shirt and breeches, runs out.

“Princess!” He hurries to your side. You are crying, you realize, as he wipes away some of your tears. “What is it?”

“I woke up alone, and I didn't recognize…” You sob, softly.

“Oh, little girl.” Daemon scoops you in his arms. “I should have thought of that. I am so sorry.” He presses a kiss to your forehead, and you look at him, eyes swollen from your crying.

The world had impressed you during the day, but now that the night had fallen, and you found yourself in an unknown castle, you were afraid. What if there were monsters lurking in the hallways? Or if you needed something? What if someone hurt you?

“I do not want to go back there. I am scared.” You rubbed your eyes. Your hands dug into his arm, not wanting to let go of him.

“Do you wish me to keep you company while you fall back asleep?” Daemon asked, gently smoothing your hair down. You must look a mess, and would find it embarrassing were it not for the fact that being alone in such a big place terrifies you. At this point, you would do anything to keep him here.

“Please.” No more words are needed. Daemon doesn't want you to beg, nor does he want anything in exchange. It's comforting.

One of his hands goes to your shoulder blades, leading you back to the room. Daemon tucks you in and sits by your side.

“I'll stay until you fall asleep.” He says, smoothing down your frown with the gentlest touch. Daemon starts to hum in High Valyrian, softly. You know the melody. It's about flames and burning together. Almost against your will, your eyelids start to drop.

“Don't… Don't want you to go.” Your body feels so heavy, as if sinking into the mattress. With great effort, you manage to curl your fingers around one of his.

“Oh, Princess.” He says, interlacing your hands.

“Stay.” You order.

Daemon lets go of your hand, and you whine, awake instantly. You go to sit up, but he shushes you.

“Shh. I am just… Let me.” He slides under the covers, behind you. You close your eyes, trying to relax against him. It's no hardship at all. Now that the candles have been blown, the light is low and Daemon feels so warm against you.

He starts to trace your features. Finger meets brow, temple, cheek. Thumb brushes nose, then lips. Idly, so very idly, his voice mutters near your ear.

“How many mouths has yours kissed?”

The question startles you. You suppose there is no harm in telling him, yet there is a tinge of embarrassment over it, too. It has finally dawned on you what this new, uncomfortable, thrilling feeling is. Desire. You lust after Daemon.

“I have…” You answer, softly. You do not dare speak it out loud. Not when you rather know exactly how far the two of you are. “How about you?”

“I have lost count. Twenty, perhaps more so.” Daemon says it so casually, as if it did not matter at all. But to you, it does. What are you, compared to this man? How could you want him in such a manner, having so little to offer?

“What makes it special, then?” There has to be a reason for him to bother with kissing all these people. Perhaps, to him, all kisses feel as devastating as his does to you.

“The person, I would gather.” The Prince answers, softly rubbing your back as one would do to help a child fall asleep. You frown. It does make sense. You know what love is, after all. Being in love with someone, or at least desiring them, must make it special.

You would like to kiss him, you think. Daemon is handsome, and his touch does not feel as damning as other's do. He has already provided you with pleasure, even if unknowingly.

You make a wish, then. For your first kiss to be special, with someone you like and that knows what they are doing. If not Daemon, at least someone like that.

“Was your first special?” You ask, curious.

“No. She was terrible. Sharp teeth and all.” Daemon moves your hair aside, exposing your neck. You barely get any warning before he is taking a bite out of your nape. For a playful gesture, it's oddly painful. Your body tenses, and you try to fight it, but Daemon's hands are like a vice around your waist. “Like this.”

With no other choice, you ride it out. Pain is nearly unfamiliar to you, beyond small cuts or painful cycles. It's scorching red and hot, making you break into a sweat. Daemon forces you to take, and take, gently holding your hands in his. It's only after that you go limp under him, twitching slightly, that he lets up.

The aftermath of pain is sweet, you learn. Daemon kisses around the painful bite and blows a raspberry behind your ear. Now that he has let go of your nape, you find out that the pain was not so bad. You are not even bleeding.

“You are such a good girl.” Daemon praises. “So strong. I'm so proud of you.”

You preen as if you were Caraxes, delighted to make him feel proud of you. Daemon smiles against your temple, as if amused by you, and presses a little kiss there. It’s so tender, and so loving, a sharp contrast to his earlier behavior. It makes you feel as if you were once again on dragonback.

“Could you kiss me?” The words escape out of your mouth, without any real thinking. You know they are the wrong thing to say as soon as they leave your mouth.

Daemon pulls away from you. A hurt, confused noise leaves your throat, hands desperately searching back for his warmth.

“Oh, little Princess.” Daemon mutters, tone full of regrets. “I should not.”

“Why not?” You complain. You are not used to being denied so. The only times others do not bend to your will, you get what you want by your own means. Case in point, leaving your tower. Your father had said no, so you had ensured it happened by other means.

“I have done…. What I have done to you, why I took you…” Suddenly, it is as if an icy hand has taken hold of your throat and started to suffocate you. Betrayal settles over your features, overpowering it all.

“You are only doing this to piss off my father.” You say, shocked. Daemon raises his hands, trying to interrupt you, but you halt him with an imperious wave. “You had no intention of taking me to the dragons. You sought to ruin my reputation, as you did Rhaenyra's.”

“No, Princess, no.” Daemon shakes his head. You get up from the bed, angered. He does not try to stop you. “I swear I didn't mean for anything untoward to happen.”

“I bet you said that back then, too.” You retort. You have half a mind to do something crazy. To grab the fire poker and smash his head with it, to set the whole place on fire. You want to make him hurt.

“I… I did mean to anger your father.” Daemon admits, still trying to placate you. It only makes you wish to scream and scream and never stop. “But I do think it is a shame not to let you even try. Dragons are your birthright. Denying you is unnatural.”

You glare at him. You are unconvinced of the truthfulness of his words. Your father was right. You were unprepared for the world, and it couldn't show more. Daemon has tricked you as easily as if he were taking candy from a babe.

“I'll take you there regardless. I promised to.” His eyes are pleading, but you do not wish to hear him, or see him any longer. Instead, you sit in front of the vanity and look at yourself.

The long, silver hair. The scared eyes. The night, the first you have of freedom, is spent utterly cold and miserable. You stare at yourself and stare at yourself until you think you are going mad.

Daemon does not say a word. He doesn't leave the room, either. Perhaps he falls asleep at some point, perhaps he does not.

You look at your reflection again. You look at your hair. Silver, like his. The lovely color Daemon loves so much. Long, and braided back, flaunting your maidenhood and youth. Forever your father's little girl, never allowed to grow, to love, to lust.

A braid that long won't allow you to claim a dragon. You are more likely to set yourself on fire or trip on it. It's that thought that gives you the determination needed to do what needs to be done.

In the first drawer of the vanity there are a few miscellaneous ribbons. There is also a pair of scissors. You grab it, and grab your braid. You chop it off. As it falls from your shoulder, you feel a weight lift off from you. No longer your nape is heavy with the weight of all these expectations laying on you.

There is a woman staring at you, from the mirror. She looks like she is getting ready for war, eyes alight with determination. You stare at the contours of her face, mesmerized by what you see. All traces of Aemmas's ghost are gone from your reflection. You look more like yourself than you have ever done.

Daemon is up at sunrise. He may have been watching you chop all your hair off and expose the lovely bite mark that now mars the skin of your nape. He may have been sleeping. Whatever it is, he doesn't say a word about your change of appearance, choosing instead to dress in silence.

“Off we go.” He says, briskly, leading you out of the castle. Daemon points to a hill in the distance. “But after that, you are on your own.”

You are suddenly filled with doubt, the determination you had felt when looking in the mirror dissipating under the morning light. Your stomach clenches. Your legs are sore, unused to the exercise of riding. The bite on your neck burns.

"I do not feel ready to claim a dragon.” You say to him, as you get closer and closer to the hill. You feel like a fool. What if your father is right? What if you end this escapade with nothing to show but a ruined reputation?

“You are.” Daemon answers, barely paying attention. It makes you angry beyond belief. To make your mood known, you stomp over a few leaves, grinding them to dust under your heel. Ugh. Why were you looking to him for reassurance in the first place? It was not like Daemon wanted to help you. He just wanted to make himself feel less guilty over trying to cause a scandal and kill your father from the fright.

“I am not.” It’s almost as if you can hear the voice of your father in your head, telling you exactly why no dragon would bond with you. You are a fool, you are a little girl, you…

“You are a Targaryen.” Daemon interrupts your trail of thought with a squeeze to your nape. Right over the bite. It makes your knees nearly buckle. “You were born ready.”

“But what if it isn't enough? What if they see me, and don't want me? I am not brave, like Rhaenyra, or cunning like you or learned like my father. ”

“They will.” Daemon says. “Because you are strong here.” He taps your sternum. “And your father is a fool for not seeing it.”

You look at him. Past the guilt, past the acting up to get your father's attention. His eyes are nervous, but they hold the same steely determination yours had earlier. Daemon believes in you, you realize. You look up at the hill and think to yourself, it is time to see if you can claim a second dragon.

[rafeskai]

Life as We Know It — Rafe Cameron

Chapter Seven

Two opposites must navigate love, loss, and unexpected parenthood to discover the meaning of family.

Summary: When tragedy strikes, two very different individuals find their lives unexpectedly intertwined as they become the guardians of an orphaned child. As they navigate the challenges of co-parenting, balancing careers, and confronting their pasts, they discover that family can form in the most surprising ways. Through heartfelt moments and unexpected humor, they explore what it means to build a life together—one step at a time.

Pairings: Rafe Cameron x Reader

Warnings: Character deaths & angst.

Author's Notes: I'm gonna post the epilogue and bonus scenes after this! Get ready!

Masterlist: Here

The next few weeks passed in a blur of routine. A new normal, one that felt both comforting and overwhelming in equal measure, began to take shape. You and Rafe had settled into a rhythm of sorts, with Willa at the center of it all. The house, once filled with tension and unspoken words, now carried the sound of laughter—her little giggles as she played with toys, the rhythmic hum of Rafe humming softly as he prepared dinner, and your voice singing along to a song just to get her to smile.

It was a strange blend of happiness and grief.

On the surface, everything appeared to be falling into place. Willa was thriving. Her laughter was more frequent, and the little spark of her personality was shining through with each passing day. But underneath it all, there was still the ache. The absence of Sarah and John B. lingered in every room, in every corner, like an uninvited guest. It was most noticeable in the quiet moments—the stillness that would creep in after dinner, when the house would settle, and Willa was fast asleep in her crib.

At night, Rafe and you would sit together in the living room, the empty space between you both palpable. Sometimes, you would talk, but it was often just the sound of the TV or the quiet clinking of wine glasses as you both tried to make sense of everything. Both of you, in your own way, were learning how to process the grief of losing Sarah and John B. while simultaneously trying to be the parents Willa needed.

There was no guidebook for this, no rulebook that could teach you how to grieve for your best friend while being there for her child, no instructions on how to love a child who wasn’t yours by blood but had stolen your heart all the same.

It was on one of those quiet evenings that the realization hit. You had just put Willa to bed, tucking her into her crib while Rafe stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable.

“You ever think about them?” Rafe asked quietly as you turned to face him.

You leaned against the doorframe, crossing your arms, eyes staring off toward the window. “All the time. It doesn’t really feel real yet, you know? Like… they’re just gone. I still expect to get a text from Sarah telling me to pick up dinner, or John B. calling to complain about something. But none of that’s happening. It’s like I’m stuck in this weird in-between place.”

Rafe nodded slowly, his gaze falling to the floor. “Yeah. It’s the same for me. Every time I go into town, I expect to see John B. standing at the docks or Sarah laughing somewhere. But they’re not there. I keep thinking I’ll see them, and then… I don’t.”

There was a heaviness in his words, a weight that neither of you had truly acknowledged out loud.

Rafe’s eyes met yours, a flicker of something unspoken in them. But before either of you could say more, there was a loud creak from the hallway—the unmistakable sound of Willa’s little feet padding across the floor. The distraction was enough to pull both of you out of your heads.

“She’s up again,” you muttered, half-smiling. You started to make your way toward her room, but Rafe stopped you with a hand on your shoulder.

“I’ll get her,” he said softly, almost as if he were offering more than just the simple task of comforting her.

You nodded, stepping aside to let him go. Watching him take the lead with Willa felt like a breath of fresh air. He was natural with her—careful, gentle, even though you knew the weight of everything still hung on him, just as it did on you.

The next few weeks continued in much the same way. Days blurred together as the three of you navigated the waters of parenthood. You did your best to keep your emotions in check, but at times, you found yourself breaking down when you were alone—alone with your thoughts of Sarah, John B., and what they would have wanted for their daughter.

You saw it too in Rafe. There were days when he would retreat into himself, the weight of his father’s abuse, the responsibility of being a father figure for Willa, and the grief of losing his sister bearing down on him all at once. He was more distant some days, lost in his own head, and it was hard to reach him. On those days, you couldn’t help but feel the distance between you widening.

But then, on other days, he would open up a little more. You would catch him smiling at Willa in a way that made your chest tighten, and you would catch a fleeting look between the two of you—something deeper, something undeniable, but neither of you was ready to face it.

It was during one of these quiet evenings, a few weeks after the ruling in court, when you and Rafe found yourselves alone in the living room again. The weight of your grief still lingered, but now, it was different. You were both becoming accustomed to the rhythm of your new life, even if it was hard. Willa was playing in the corner, and Rafe was scrolling through his phone, but the silence between you was now loaded with something you both refused to acknowledge.

You leaned back against the couch, watching Willa, when Rafe suddenly spoke. “I don’t know what I’m doing half the time,” he admitted, his voice low. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be her father figure… but I’m trying. I don’t want to mess this up.”

You turned to face him, surprised by the vulnerability in his voice. “You’re doing fine, Rafe. Better than fine. You’re all she has right now.”

He exhaled deeply, looking at you for a moment. “Yeah, but I can’t keep pretending like I don’t see you. I can’t keep pretending like I don’t feel something more than just… this.”

The words hit you like a thunderbolt. Your heart skipped a beat, and before you could form a response, Rafe stood up abruptly, running a hand through his hair. “This isn’t right. You’re grieving, I’m grieving, and we’ve got Willa to think about. This—this thing between us, it’s just too complicated.”

You stared at him, your throat tightening. “Rafe…” you whispered, not knowing what to say next. You did feel it. That pull. That undeniable connection that had been building between you both for weeks. But was it the right time? Was it right, when everything was still so raw?

“I don’t know what to do with it either,” he muttered. “But we can’t keep ignoring it. I don’t know if I’m ready for this, for us... for her.”

And so, there you were—on the cusp of something new, yet still trapped in the grip of grief. Neither of you ready to face the truth of what was brewing between you. But one thing was certain: something had changed, and no matter how hard you both tried to deny it, the feeling was becoming impossible to ignore.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

The morning came too soon, dragging with it the weight of yesterday’s unspoken words. The quiet tension that had settled between you and Rafe the night before lingered, thickening the air in a way that made it hard to breathe. You barely slept, tossing and turning, your mind racing through the things you didn’t say, the things Rafe didn’t say. Everything was so… messy.

You were standing at the kitchen counter, preparing breakfast for Willa, trying to get into the rhythm of your routine, but your thoughts kept drifting to him. To what he had said. To what you felt in your chest.

Rafe walked into the kitchen, his eyes heavy, hair unkempt. It was clear he hadn’t slept much either, his posture stiff, like he was walking on eggshells. You exchanged a quick glance, and for a split second, you both seemed to be holding your breath, unsure of where to go from here.

“I’ll make coffee,” Rafe muttered, moving to the counter to prepare the pot, his back to you.

You nodded quietly, not sure if you should say something, if he even wanted you to. The silence between you both was so thick now, every word felt loaded. The air smelled of coffee brewing, the soft hum of the kettle, and the soft sound of Willa’s babbling from the living room. But it all felt so distant.

“You okay?” Rafe’s voice broke through your thoughts, quieter than usual.

You turned to face him, studying his expression. His usual walls were up again, that guarded look in his eyes that he wore so often when he was trying to hide something from the world. It made your chest ache, seeing him like this.

“I should be asking you that,” you said, trying to keep your tone light, but it came out softer than you intended. “You didn’t sleep either, huh?”

He glanced at you over his shoulder, giving you a tight smile. “No, not really.”

The silence returned, but this time, it felt a little more fragile, like something was about to break. You could feel the weight of the words hanging between you both, words that neither of you was ready to say aloud.

Willa’s giggle interrupted the quiet tension, and both of you turned at the sound. The sight of her, laughing and playing with her toys, was a small relief, a distraction from the heaviness that had crept in. But even as you watched her, something in your chest ached.

You cleared your throat, forcing your mind back into the present. “I should get Willa dressed, get her breakfast ready.”

Rafe nodded. “Yeah, I’ll take care of the coffee. You know she likes it when I make her pancakes.”

You smiled, a small, genuine smile that felt foreign after the events of the night before. “You’re spoiling her.”

Rafe’s lips curled into a smirk, his usual cocky edge slipping back into place. “Hey, she deserves it.”

There was a brief moment of normalcy—small talk, familiar routines—but it wasn’t the same. The dynamic between you both had shifted, and you weren’t sure how to navigate it.

You went to Willa’s room, finding her still in her pajamas, her little hands reaching for the toys scattered across the floor. You scooped her up, settling her in your arms as you began to change her, the soothing rhythm of dressing her bringing a sense of comfort amidst the storm inside your mind.

As you worked, your thoughts drifted again, back to the conversation with Rafe. What were you both doing? You had spent so much time trying to keep the lines clear between friendship and responsibility, but now those lines were blurry, tangled up in grief, responsibility, and something more. Something neither of you was ready to face.

When you returned to the kitchen with Willa, Rafe was already plating pancakes. Willa squealed, reaching for the stack with tiny hands, and Rafe chuckled softly, placing a plate in front of her. The warmth between the two of them was undeniable. It was moments like this that made everything worth it, didn’t it?

But still, that thing between you and Rafe hung in the air, like a thread waiting to unravel.

You sat down at the table, pushing your plate aside as Willa dug into her breakfast, messy syrup smudging her cheeks. Rafe joined you at the table, not looking at you directly, but you could feel his presence next to you, the space between you both full of the things left unsaid.

The silence was comfortable for now, but you knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long.

“Do you ever think about Sarah and John B., like, what they would want for her?” you asked, the question slipping out before you could stop it. It felt like the right thing to say, like an opening to talk about the things neither of you were saying.

Rafe’s shoulders tensed for a moment, but he didn’t look away from Willa, watching her eat with intense focus. “Yeah,” he replied, his voice a little rough. “All the time. I think they’d be happy with how things are going. They’d be happy she’s with us.”

“I hope so,” you said quietly, your voice trailing off as you stared at Willa, wondering if she could ever really understand what had happened. What had been lost.

You cleared your throat, trying to change the subject. “I need to get to the store later. Willa’s almost out of diapers.”

Rafe nodded. “I can go with you. It’ll give us a chance to—well, you know, get out of the house for a bit. Take a break.”

You were about to respond when Willa’s giggle interrupted once again, drawing both your attention. She had managed to squirt syrup all over the table in her attempt to scoop up the pancake, making a mess. It was impossible not to laugh, and you both found yourselves chuckling together, momentarily breaking through the tension that had built up.

But even as you laughed, the realization hit you like a weight.

This was your new life now. The uncertainty, the grief, the joy, the overwhelming responsibility. And somewhere deep inside, you knew that things had changed—maybe forever. The question was, what would you both do with it?

You looked at Rafe again, at the small smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he cleaned up the mess Willa had made, and for the first time in what felt like forever, you weren’t quite so afraid of what would come next. You couldn’t ignore it forever, the pull between you both.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

The sun hung high in the sky, casting a warm glow over the streets as you and Rafe walked side by side into the local grocery store. Willa, snug in her stroller, was contentedly gnawing on a teething ring, oblivious to the undercurrent of tension between you and Rafe. The quiet hum of the air conditioning and the sound of shoppers milling around filled the otherwise tense silence.

You grabbed a basket, but as soon as you looked down, you realized you were already second-guessing the list in your head. Diapers. Milk. Fruit for smoothies. Frozen vegetables. Simple things. Yet your mind was so distracted that you had to pause for a second, mentally organizing what you needed.

Rafe pushed the stroller ahead, his hands gripping the handles firmly, his posture stiff, like he was trying to avoid looking at you too directly. You could feel the weight of the unspoken words between you both, like a heavy fog that neither of you had the courage to clear.

“Anything else we need?” Rafe’s voice broke through the quiet, a little sharper than usual.

You glanced at him, noting the way he was trying so hard to keep it together. You couldn’t blame him. The last few days had been full of emotional roller coasters, and now here you were, trying to navigate the mundane task of grocery shopping like everything was normal when everything wasn’t.

“I think that’s it,” you answered, trying to keep your tone light. “Unless you want anything special?”

Rafe shook his head. “No. Let’s just get through this and get back to the house.”

His words were clipped, and you bit back the urge to comment on his attitude. It had been like this for days now: distant, cold, like he was closing off any room for vulnerability. You wanted to reach out to him, to break through the wall he was building, but you didn’t know how.

You moved through the aisles, grabbing items on the list, each movement mechanical. The only sound between you was the soft rolling of the stroller as you passed the rows of canned goods and produce. Every now and then, you’d glance over at Rafe, trying to gauge his mood, but he kept his eyes ahead, focused on nothing in particular.

“Willa’s starting to get fussy,” you said after a few minutes, noticing her starting to squirm in the stroller.

Rafe nodded absently. “Yeah. Let’s get the last few things and head out.”

You grabbed the milk and some frozen meals, trying to focus on the task at hand. But every time you looked at Rafe, your chest tightened. It was so hard, pretending like nothing had changed between you. Pretending that everything was just as it had been. But the kiss... and everything that had followed after... it had changed something.

Before you could say anything else, Willa started fussing more, her soft cries filling the store. You turned to Rafe, a little frantic.

“I think she’s hungry.”

Rafe froze for a moment, then looked down at Willa, his face softening just slightly. He reached down, adjusting the straps on the stroller to give her a bit more space. “Alright, we can stop at the café on the way back. Get her something.”

You both moved toward the checkout lanes, the silence stretching on, but there was something different in Rafe’s eyes now. A flicker of softness, a crack in the wall he’d built. You tried not to notice, but it was hard to ignore.

Willa continued to fuss as they packed the groceries into bags. Rafe had that look again, like he was still processing something, but he didn’t say anything.

As you approached the counter, the cashier gave you a kind smile, scanning your items without a second thought. It was a stark contrast to the tension in your chest, but you forced a smile back, nodding at her as she packed up the last of your things.

Once the transaction was complete, Rafe took the bags without hesitation, moving toward the door. You followed behind, your mind a jumble of confusion and frustration. When you reached the car, you both stood for a moment, the groceries in the trunk, but no one moving.

You stood beside Rafe, looking down at your shoes, unsure of what to say next. The air between you felt charged, heavy with all the things you hadn’t said, the things you couldn’t say.

“You know,” Rafe started, breaking the silence, his voice quieter than before. “I don’t know how to... how to fix all this.”

You looked up at him, surprised.

“Fix what?” you asked, your voice small.

He ran a hand through his hair, sighing deeply. “Everything. I don’t know how to make this work. Us. This whole... situation.”

You stood there, the weight of his words sinking in, and for the first time in what felt like weeks, you finally said something that felt honest, raw.

“I don’t either,” you admitted, the words spilling out before you could stop them. “But I don’t want to make things harder for you. Or Willa.”

Rafe met your eyes then, and for a moment, there was something in his gaze—something soft, almost vulnerable. “I know you’re doing your best. I know you’re here for her. For both of us.”

Your heart skipped at the sincerity in his voice, but it was quickly followed by a wave of confusion. Because part of you wanted to reach out, to tell him how you really felt, but you couldn’t shake the fear of what that might do to everything you had worked for. What it might do to Willa.

“I don’t want to mess this up, Rafe,” you whispered, looking at Willa, who was now calm and sucking on her pacifier in the backseat. “I don’t want to mess her up.”

He was quiet for a moment before he exhaled a slow breath. “I don’t think we will. We’ll figure it out... together.”

It wasn’t a promise, but it was enough. For now.

You both climbed into the car, driving back to the house in a silence that was more comfortable than before. 

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

The house was quiet, save for the soft hum of the air conditioner and the occasional creak of the floorboards as you moved around the kitchen. Willa was napping peacefully, her little body curled up in the bassinet, oblivious to the tension that had been hanging in the air between you and Rafe.

You had just returned from the grocery store, and as you set the bags on the kitchen counter, you noticed Rafe standing in the doorway, watching you. His eyes were unreadable, but there was something different about the way he was looking at you—less guarded, more open.

“You need help with those?” Rafe asked, his voice quiet but steady.

You glanced up at him, surprised by his offer. Normally, he'd keep to himself, sticking to his routine without offering much assistance, but something had shifted. You nodded, handing him a couple of bags.

Together, you unloaded the groceries in silence, the rhythmic sound of cans and boxes hitting the counter the only noise between you. You both moved in tandem, a comfortable choreography born from living together for the past few months. But despite the ease of the task, the air felt thick with something unspoken.

Finally, Rafe broke the silence.

“You know,” he began, his voice hesitant but firm, “On the drive back, I’ve been thinking a lot about... everything. About us.”

You paused mid-task, glancing over at him. Your heart skipped a beat as you watched him struggle with the words, as though each one weighed a thousand pounds.

“I don’t want to make this harder than it already is,” he said, his voice low. “I know we’ve both got baggage... and... I’m not exactly the best at this whole thing. But I... I want to try, [Y/N]. I want to try with you. With this... with us.”

You froze, your hands stilling as you processed his words. The intensity in his gaze made your stomach flip, and for a moment, all you could hear was the beat of your own heart.

“I... don’t know what to say,” you whispered, your voice barely audible.

Rafe took a step closer, his presence commanding but not overwhelming. “I’m saying that I want something more. Something real. I don’t want to keep running from it. From this.”

You could feel the raw sincerity in his words, the vulnerability he rarely showed. It made your chest tighten, and for a moment, you wanted to reach out to him, to pull him closer. But the fear of what this could mean—what it could change—held you back.

“You don’t have to say anything right now,” Rafe added quickly, as if he was afraid of pushing you too hard. “But I need you to know that I’m not gonna mess it up. Not this time. I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but I’m trying. I’m trying with you, with Willa... with everything.”

You swallowed hard, the weight of his words settling deep within you. Part of you wanted to argue, to tell him that it wasn’t that simple—that you couldn’t just forget the past. But another part of you was listening to him, seeing the sincerity in his eyes. And maybe, just maybe, it was enough to believe him.

“I’m scared, Rafe,” you admitted, your voice shaky. “I’m scared of what this could mean. What if we mess it all up? What if—”

He cut you off, taking a step forward, his hand gently resting on your arm. “We won’t,” he said firmly. “We’ll take it slow. Together.”

For the first time in a long while, you felt the weight of your fears lighten, just a little. You looked at him, really looked at him—at the man who had been so closed off, the man who had fought to protect Willa, the man who had shown you a side of him you hadn’t known existed.

“I don’t want to be scared anymore,” you whispered, your hand reaching out to brush against his. “I don’t want to keep pretending that this doesn’t feel right.”

Rafe’s eyes softened, and he took your hand, his grip firm but gentle. “Then don’t,” he murmured. “Let’s stop pretending.”

You leaned into him, your heart racing as you closed the distance between you. The tension that had plagued the air for weeks finally began to dissipate, replaced by something warm and real.

“I’m here, [Y/N],” Rafe said softly, his breath warm against your forehead as he pressed a kiss there, tender and full of meaning. “I’m not going anywhere.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

The kiss had started slow, tender, a quiet acknowledgment of everything you had both been holding back for so long. The kind of kiss that said more than words ever could. Rafe’s hand cupped your face, the warmth of his touch grounding you as you let go of all the fears and doubts that had kept you from this moment.

You kissed him back, more fiercely now, your body moving closer to his, as if you could erase all the distance that had once been between you. The connection between you was undeniable, electric, and suddenly the weight of everything else seemed to disappear—just for a moment, just for this time.

Rafe’s hands slid down your back, pulling you closer, and you let him, feeling the heat building between you. It felt natural, like it was always meant to be like this. And then, in a blur of desire and need, you were in his arms, his lips trailing along your neck as your hands tugged at his shirt, pulling him closer still.

But before you could lose yourself in the moment, a small, sudden cry from the other room sliced through the air, sharp and unrelenting.

“Willa...” you breathed, a pang of guilt washing over you as you pulled away from Rafe.

He froze too, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his expression conflicted as he glanced toward the door. “She... she’s probably just waking up,” he muttered, though the uncertainty in his voice was unmistakable.

Another cry, louder this time. It was followed by the sound of small hands hitting the sides of the bassinet, desperate and frantic. You both exchanged a brief look, the desire lingering in the space between you, but reality had already set in.

Rafe cursed softly under his breath and stood up, grabbing the hem of his shirt and pulling it over his head in one swift motion. You quickly followed, adjusting yourself and standing as well, feeling the absence of him already, though you couldn’t ignore the ache in your chest.

“I’ll get her,” you said, your voice still breathless from the intensity of the moment. You took a deep breath, trying to steady yourself as you made your way to the nursery.

Rafe hesitated for just a moment, as if unsure of what to do, but then followed you. When you reached Willa’s room, she was indeed wide awake, her little face scrunched up in distress, her tiny hands reaching out for comfort.

“Hey, hey, Willa, it’s okay,” you cooed softly, lifting her from the bassinet and cradling her against your chest. “You’re alright, sweet girl. I’m here.”

Rafe lingered in the doorway, his gaze lingering on the two of you, and for a moment, it felt like everything was right. The warmth of the love you shared for Willa seemed to wrap around all three of you. But even in the quiet moments like this, the pull between you and Rafe was undeniable. The intimacy that had just been interrupted now hung heavily in the air, unanswered, unfinished.

“I think she’s just hungry,” you murmured, bouncing her lightly in your arms as you moved toward the small kitchen area. “I’ll feed her.”

Rafe nodded, his eyes still on you, though now there was a softness there. The tension between you had melted, but it hadn’t disappeared. It lingered, a silent promise between you both that things were about to change.

He walked up to you and gently brushed a stray lock of hair behind your ear, his touch tender. “We’ll get back to that,” he said quietly, a playful yet earnest glint in his eyes.

You smiled, your heart racing in your chest, both from the emotions swirling inside you and the overwhelming sense of longing for more. You hadn’t expected any of this—hadn’t expected things to escalate so quickly, or for the intensity of your feelings to come flooding to the surface. But it felt right. In that moment, you knew it was just the beginning of something deeper.

“We will,” you promised, gazing at him with more certainty than you had in a long time.

And as Willa nursed in your arms, her cries now subsided into soft, contented suckles, you both stood together—quiet, connected, yet aware of the complicated path you still had ahead. But for now, it didn’t matter. In that fleeting moment, it was just the three of you.

© 2024 rafeskai | All rights reserved. This fanfiction is a work of fiction inspired by characters from Outer Banks, and no part of it may be reproduced or distributed without permission.

[vivwritesfics]

Hooked On A Feeling

Aus Grand Prix Special

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES, READ AT OWN RISK

1.8K

Series Masterlist

AUS GP, 2025 (two years after the beginning of the story):

You don't you stress until you've tried to wrangle two hyperactive seven year olds into a car. "Liv, c'mon. We're going to see you dad."

For the fifth time, Olivia climbed out of the car. She ran back towards the house for something she definitely didn't need. "Muuuuum," Milo called from the back seat. "Can we go now?"

"One second, Milo," Y/N called as she put their things in the trunk of the car. As soon as she shut the door of the trunk she was back in the house, calling for Olivia. "Liv, let's go!" She called up the stairs.

"But I need my hat!"

When Y/N arrived at Olivia's bedroom she was searching through her drawers. "What hat, Livvy?" She asked as she searched through the top of her wardrobe, where Olivia couldn't reach.

"The one uncle Lando got me for Christmas," she said.

Y/N knew exactly what hat Olivia was looking for. It was custom made bucket hat, made to match Daniels helmet with a 3 on the top. Olivia had worn it for every race they had attended, had almost lost it in the wind at Bahrain.

Y/N knew exactly where the hat was. Olivia had taken it in for show and tell at school and it was still in her bag. She pulled it out of the flower decorated bag and handed it to Olivia. "Ready to go now?"

She nodded and followed her future step-mom down to the car. While Y/N locked the front door, Olivia climbed into the back of the car beside Milo. Y/N climbed into the drivers seat and the three of them set off.

The year before the four of them had travelled to the Grand Prix together. Daniel had driven, singing along to the music Y/N had put on. It was one of her favourite memories. This year he had driven up with Scotty James. She couldn't be mad, she had seen the videos of them having so much fun posted all over social media.

As they drove along, the music stopped and her phone started ringing through the hands free system in the car. Y/N used the button on her steering wheel to answer and Daniels voice came through. "Hi honey, are you guys on your way?" He asked.

"We're about half an hour away, Danny," she called. From the back of the car the kids let out a chorus of 'hi's'. "Are we meeting you at the Red Bull hospitality?"

"Yeah, hun. Max and I are waiting."

There was a quiet hi, from someone Y/N could only assume was Max. "Tell him we all say hello," she said to her fiancé, who quickly passed on the message.

"Baby, I've got to go," he said. "Love you guys!"

"Love you too!" The three of them replied before the call ended.

Just as she had said, they arrived at the hotel half an hour later. They could have stayed home and watched the live coverage, but they wanted to give Daniel as much support as they could, so Daniel got himself booked into a hotel room with enough space for all of them.

He had been there since Wednesday, due to media duties and such. Y/N stayed back to work and get the kids to and from school. But they had all taken the Friday off to watch the first of the practices from the Red Bull garage.

They checked themselves into the hotel room, getting the key Daniel had left by the front desk, and headed to the track. There was no point in driving, and it was close enough that they could walk.

Milo and Olivia led the way to the track. Y/N made sure they all stayed together as they walked. It was incredibly busy as they pushed their way through towards the paddock.

Actually, it was Scotty that spotted them. He waved Y/N over and she moved the kids through the crowd, towards him. With Scotty's help, they got into the paddock. "You have much traffic on the way up here?" Scotty asked as he led the three of them over to the Red Bull Garage.

She shook her head. "Not until this point," she said, keeping one eye on the kids as they led the way once again. They were just too excited, there was no point containing them. "How is he feeling?"

It was Daniel's second year back in the Red Bull, and everybody knew he was nervous. He had seen just how quickly Red Bull had tossed their other drivers to the side. He'd managed to secure a contract for another year, but that could all change with the snap of someone's fingers.

They got to the hospitality unit, where Daniel was waiting outside. He took pictures for fans and signed the things that were shoved in his face. Staff parted the fans like the red sea to allow Y/N, Scotty and the kids through.

Olivia immediately ran to her father. "Badger!" He called as he hugged her.

He held his other arm out for Milo, who joined the hug. "Hi dad," he said, grinning.

Milo didn't realise what he had said, not right away. And Daniel sure wasn't going to make a big deal out of it. It was Olivia who giggled at her future brother. "You just called him dad," she laughed, and Milo's face scrunched up in embarrassment.

"No I didn't," he insisted.

"Yes you did! Yes you did!"

But Milo went running to his mother. Olivia let go of her dad and went inside of the hospitality unit to find her Uncle Max. Daniel turned his attention to his bride to be. "My lady," he said as she stepped towards him.

"Danny." She was aware of the cameras on the two of them as she stepped towards him. Flashes went off, videos were recorded on fans phones as she pressed her lips against his and wrapped her arms around his neck.

The two of them never had much a chance at privacy. There very first kiss all those years ago was televised. They'd tried, to give her and the kids a normal life, but their attempts were futile. They'd given up.

With his hand on the small of her back, Daniel let her and Milo into the hospitality unit. "Are you hungry?" He asked, immediately going to fix her and Milo something to eat. He would have gotten Olivia something, but she was eating a muffin as she spoke to her uncle Max, no doubt about karting.

The family of four spent what time they could together before Daniel jumped in the number 3 Red Bull car for the first practice session. This one wasn't about speed, Y/N had come to learn. It was about testing different set ups, not about setting the fastest time.

FP2 that afternoon was about showing what you could do. And Danny did. Y/N, Olivia and Milo watched on as Daniel set the fastest time in FP2 over and over again. He and Max raced each other. Not in the literal sense, but it was a competition between the two of who could get the fastest lap.

After FP2 they were free to head back to the hotel. Daniel drove them back to the hotel. While Milo and Olivia took turns in showering and getting changed for dinner, Y/N and Daniel laid together. He sat on the bed and she laid against him, her hand against his racing heart. "How are you feeling about tomorrow?" She asked quietly.

Daniel sucked in a breath. The smile that played on his face wasn't a smile at all. It was more of a grimace as he looked up at the ceiling. "Nervous, definitely. But I'm glad you guys are gonna be there to support," he said and leaned down to kiss her.

They had a lovely dinner that night. It wasn't often that all four of them got to go out and do things like this, not with Daniels racing schedule. They had a wonderful time. The kids ordered whatever they wanted, which meant the biggest deserts in the place. Daniel was a lot stricter with what he was eating, considering it was a race weekend.

After their dinner, the four of them headed back to the hotel. Bellies full and incredibly happy, they quickly fell asleep. Daniel held Y/N through the night. He missed her on race weekends like this.

She woke up first. Bile rose in her throat and she struggled out of Daniels grip. As she had every morning since Wednesday, she got up and ran to the bathroom to throw up.

In the close quarters of the hotel room, everybody could hear what was happening in the bathroom. They all woke up to the sounds of Y/N throwing up into the toilet. Daniel was up and out of bed in an instant. He raced to her and immediately held her hair out of her face, rubbing her back soothingly as she heaved.

"Baby," Daniel said softly as she sat back on her heels and wiped her mouth. Tears touched her eyelashes, as they always did when she threw up.

Daniel opened his arms, but she didn't throw herself into them. Instead she washed her face and cleaned her teeth, just as she had every other morning. "C'mon, Y/N, speak to me," he said softly.

She shut her eyes, steadying herself against the sink. "I think I'm just sick," she said and turned to walked out of the bathroom.

But Daniel stopped her. He grabbed her arm softly and pulled her into his embrace, his hand moving up and down her back. "You'd tell me if... right?"

She nodded her head, letting herself rest against him.

They didn't see the two little heads peaking into the bathroom. "Mum?" Milo called, somewhat timidly. Daniel hadn't heard him speak like this in years.

Y/N and Daniel pulled away from each other. They looked at the kids as they walked into the bathroom. "Is everything okay?" Olivia asked, eyes holding concern.

Both she and Daniel nodded. "It's nothing to worry about, guys. I promise." she said.

They all stayed in the bathroom just a minute longer. Y/N was the first to leave. They all followed her out and crawled back into their beds.

But Y/N and Daniel didn't sleep. They laid there, waiting for the kids to fall asleep before Y/N turned towards him. "I think I should go and get a pregnancy test," she whispered, snuggling close to his chest.

Daniel couldn't hide the way his face lit up.

Taglist (CLOSED): @biancathecool @rewmuslupin @prettiest-at-the-party @hellowgoodbye @cassie0sstuff @spideybv28 @andydrysdalerogers @aundercover @lou-bean28 @landossainz @purplephantomwolf @ggaslyp1 @layazul @phantomxoxo @minkyungseokie @gills-lounge @hollie911 @annispamz @lily-ann-b @cixrosie @notyouraveragemochii @charli123456789 @amalialeclerc @teamnovalak @tallrock35 @teenwolf01 @chiliwhore @darleneslane @sava207 @thatsusbitch @formulaal @leptitlu @angiesw0rld @yunakynn @landosgirlxoxo @msolbesg @cherry-piee @catmouseggy @bathedinheat @chanshintien @ilove-tswizzle @woozarts @evie-119 @trouble-sistar @mysticalnightenthusiast @lewisvinga @spilled-coffee-cup @starkeyellow @fxrmuladaydreams @viennakarma @radiator101 @lightdragonrayne @angelxxrose @millinorrizz @xemiefx @ellies-world61 @the-depressed-fellow

[gentrychild]

An anon who was rereading Anyone asked me what would have happened if Izuku didn't like eggs and how you tell a supervillain you don't like what he made and that you want something. I have bravely tried to answer said ask but Tumblr laughed at my pain, so here is it, on a new post.

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

When confronted with the super villain Izuku had accidentally broken out of the most secured prison in the country, a man who had basically walked out of said prison as soon as he hadn’t been restrained anymore, Izuku did the only thing any rational person would do.

He ran like hell. No shoes, no plan, nothing except Full Cowl roaring in his veins and he fled.

At least, he tried to.

Strong tendrils stopped him dead, then hands picked him up by his shoulders and suddenly, his feet weren't touching the ground and he was forcibly brought to the kitchen table.

''No, no, no,'' All for One said with the tone one would employ with a disobedient pet or a very young child. ''Your breakfast is going to get cold and we have so much to talk about. Sit. Enjoy the eggs. If you don't like them, I can make something else.''

And he dropped him on his chair, before putting the plate in front of him. Then, he sat at the other end of the table, facing Izuku, his own plate in front of him and he started to eat. Slowly, his manners perfect, while Izuku was dying of sheer stress over there.

Then, he looked at Izuku. Then at Izuku's plate.

''You're not eating?''

Izuku looked at the man who had literally reduced people to paste last night and then at his plate of eggs and bacon, then back at the lunatic who was probably going to skin him alive soon enough. He needed to do something, to get the time to find a way out of this mess.

Now, any reasonable human being would have eaten a bit of eggs and bacon – well, eaten the bacon in Izuku’s case – but he had just woken up, was in a pre-caffeinated state and truly, Izuku had never claimed to have the slightest working relationship with sanity.

“I don’t like eggs,” he blurted out.

The supervillain, the very same man who had literally gone through a prison riot of fellow villains like he was running through wet paper, was startled so badly by those four words that he dropped his fork.

“What do you mean, you don’t like eggs???” he asked like this was a ludicrous notion, like everyone’s favorite breakfast should be eggs and bacon.

“Never liked them,” Izuku lied, by pure spirit of contradiction, far more developed than for most people, for it had been left with quite the amount of room after the disappearance of all his survival instinct.

And it was indeed a lie because, once upon a time, it had been his favorite comfort food, but when he had been a kid, during one of those weeks where his mom was gone and the neighbor supposed to watch over him was busy forgetting his existence, he had gorged himself on it at every meal until he had gotten so sick of it that he had been unable to eat them ever again.

All for One watched him with something that went beyond annoyance, it was the patented look of someone who knew one was messing with him and the words “You’re a goddamn liar” were probably fighting to be left out but he had no proof that Izuku was bullshitting him and if even if he somehow had a lie-detecting-quirk, Izuku would keep denying it because he probably wasn’t making it out alive anyway so why deprive himself of the chance of annoying his would-be-killer?

And actually, why wait?

“I prefer waffles,” Izuku informed him because, after all, All for One had offered him to make him something else.

All for One stared at him without saying anything, probably thinking about all the ways he could have killed Izuku back when they were in Tartarus. Meanwhile, Izuku gave the illusion to be staring back at him when he was actually thinking about the fact the window made a faster exit but All for One would have the time to catch him before he landed seven floors lower while the door offered him more options.

All for One eventually abandoned his plate and started to rummage through the cupboards, going straight to the place where Izuku and his mom usually put the baking ingredients. Either everyone organized their kitchen the same way, or All for One had broken in so many homes that he was just a pro at using any kitchen he found himself into.

“Do you have flour?” the lunatic called out. “I can’t find it.”

Izuku had already flowed out of his chair and was making his way to the door by walking backwards, trying to radiate nonchalance and not the need to RUN AWAY WITHOUT LOOKING BACK.

“Try the highest shelves,” Izuku helpfully suggested, his hand on the doorknob.

It was where his mom put the heaviest pots and pans they usually didn’t use, since everyone in this household needed to climb a chair to access it. With a little luck, they would all fall on All for One.

Izuku left the apartment, not even bothering to fully close the door behind him, and he ran. He was in his pajamas, had found his sneakers by the door and they were still in his hands as he booked it out of his neighborhood as fast as Full Cowl could carry him and he didn’t stop until his building wasn’t in sight anymore. Then, he stopped on a bench, the couple flirting on it deciding they could do that somewhere else when they saw him approaching, and he put his sneakers on, took a deep breath, and decided to run some more, still in the opposite direction of where Todoroki was living, and then, he would figure out a plan.

Unfortunately, liquid shadows chose this moment to appear right in front of him, revealing All for One, who was holding a bag from Waffle Palace in one of his hands.

“I didn’t find any flour or sugar so I just ordered in.”

Some people would have screamed or been startled but Izuku had already ripped the bench from the ground and thrown it at All for One. The villain batted it away with his empty hand but it didn’t matter because Izuku was already half way through the park, or at least until black tendrils grabbed him and yanked him back.

 “Your waffles are going to get cold,” All for One sternly informed him before grabbing him by the back of his shirt and he warped again, this time with Izuku under his arm.

[psychesalcove]

For the 100 event could I request Leo with the prompt: ֶָ֢”I’ve been trying to get ready for like an hour and a half, because i know you're going to look so good and I need to try and match up” :D

✧.* leo valdez x fem reader

my posts are completely race and body type friendly (unless stated in title) so no descriptive words here of someone's skin tone or body shape!! feel free to interact:)

part of psyches, 'in memory of those who chose the sea' event

-> want to participate in the event?

an: thanks for requesting my love!! i love this prompt with leo so so much oh my gods. i also made this a fem reader, so i hope none of you mind. love ya 🩷🫶🏻

you stood infront of the mirror on the wall as you double checked your makeup and hair. leo and you are heading out soon to meet the rest of the seven for dinner at some college restaurant–bar that percy recommended.

well, you would be on your way, if leo wasn't still in the bathroom.

you brushes a light finger over your cheek to level out your blush more before yelling out to leo. 'leo baby! we need to leave soon if we wanna meet them in the parking lot,"

all you got in response: muffleed sound of shuffling and something falling off of the counter in the bathroom. and, leo yelping. you rolled your eyes affectionately at him, pulling out your phone from your purse to quickly text the group chat that you'll be a couple minutes late.

after you made sure the text went though, you walked over to the bathroom and knocked on the door. knowing leo was always okay with you coming in, you opened the door and was met with quite the sight.

skincare products were all over the counter; along with hair gels, brushes, and even some makeup. you opened your mouth and blinked at the sight. leo grinned sheepishly at you. 'hi amor. i promise that i'll clean up the mess,' he said, eyes flickering over to the counter.

'hon, what are you doing?' you laughed, stepping more into the room. your eyes drifted over to leos hair; which was covered in hair gel. 'leo!' you gasped. 'love, what were you trying to do?' you laughed again, taking account of the amount of gel in his curls.

'amor,' he wined. 'stop making fun of me,' he turned on the sink and cupped his hands to collect water in them.

'i'm not making fun of you, love. just wanna know what you're doing,' you giggled, watching him as he dumped water onto his brown curls and started working the water though the hair. 'so, what are you doing?' you repeated.

'baby, i've been trying to get ready for like an hour n' half because i know you're going to look so good and i need to try and match up,' he explained focus still on working the water through his hair.

your heart midly felt like exploding from the confession. 'hon, you realize that i think you're the most handsome person i've ever seen, why would i need you to match up with me?' you asked as you moved to assist leo with his hair.

leo whined again. 'amor, i love you, but please,' he said, leaning into your touch. 'both of us know you're the more attractive out of us,'

'leo, do you not realize how many girls stare at you in public on a daily basis?' you asked, finally getting the rest of the gel out of his hair.

he tilted his head to the side like a confused puppy. 'nah, they're all looking at you amor,' he said, waving his hand in dismissal to your statement. you shook your head at leo not believing you, knowing every word you said was true; girls were all over him.

you kissed his cheek. 'we'll talk when we get home, we're gonna be late to dinner' you said as you grabbed a towel from a shelve and starting drying his hair in quick motions. once you were done, you kissed his lips with a quick peck before walking out.

you grabbed your purse as leo got the car keys, both of you making your way to the door. 'leo don't forget your flannel, you're gonna get cold if you don't bring it; like last time,' you scolded.

[sc0tters]

Burn | Matt Rempe

summary: you thought you were prepared for your relationship with Matt, but nothing could prepare you for what would come.

request: yes/no

warnings: swearing, light mentions of cheating.

word count: 0.79k

authors note: I am currently avoiding writing another fic, and I saw this idea come in (you told me to write something for Matt) and I was in the mood to rip up a relationship...

You knew it was stupid to fall for him.

You were the one who said you wanted nothing serious. You swore getting involved with a rookie was only going to end in heartbreak for you, the warning signs were all there. Matt was going to get attention and you couldn't blame him for that, he was pretty and a boy.

That was all three months ago and now you were in love. Matt had you feeling like the only girl in the world and it was everything you needed from a relationship, the protection and comfort had you feeling seasick.

Matt couldn't help but grin as he watched you appear from the bedroom "hi pretty girl." He opened his arms wanting to embrace you "nice to see you awake." Mat added as he kissed your neck feeling you melt into his touch.

The hockey player was confused hearing your silence "you okay?" He asked as he cocked his head "just feeling really weird right now." You hadn't been sleeping properly for weeks so now that you were awake before noon was a surprise for you both.

He watched you shrug "you want to talk about it?" The hockey player pulled you onto his lap "not right now." You shook your head as he went to ask you follow up questions.

But you stopped him as you raised your hand "I just want to sit with you and enjoy this morning." You explained making him nod as he agreed with you "love you sweets." He mumbled kissing your temple as he sighed pulling you in closer.

It had been this rollercoaster of emotions trying to not get caught up in the mess you now found yourself in. After the boys won the conference game you both drank a little too much only to end up back in his apartment and in between his sheets. It was his return from the summer break when you told him that you were pregnant.

It seemed like your reality was ripped from you like a bandaid against your skin. With each month that progressed you two grew further apart. Conversations that were once about getting an apartment for the two of you turned into mere checkups about your baby.

The gap between you both grew larger with every moment that passed. By the time you processed what was going on and how your relationship had screwed up, you were too late. Seven months pregnant and he was seeing you once or twice a week because he was leaving early and only coming home when you were beyond fast asleep.

Despite that all, things were going to fall apart eventually. Even when you swore that staying was the best thing for your baby. Nothing could have prepared you for the fact that Matt no longer had only one girl in his life, he had two.

You had caught him through a twitter post, he was on a roadie and he was with some girls. Nobody was kissing anyone and to the untrained eye most people would have sworn that they were just friends. But you knew that look all too well, it was how Matt once used to look at you. Back at the start, you were in that (false) sense of security.

Even with your swollen ankles and misty eyes, you still knew what to do as you pulled your suitcase out and shoved your clothes into it. You called into work sick as you needed to leave "baby?" Matt called out hearing the sounds from your room "what are you doing here?" He added as he cocked his head seeing your phone on the table.

In the chaos of everything you sniffled wiping your nose on the back of your hand "leaving." The baby stuff your had bought was already in a pile as your mind was frazzled "I know about the girl." His face dropped as he felt his eyes grow wide.

His silence gave yu everything you needed to hear as you sighed "I knew I was stupid letting myself love you." You spat as you got up "I am sorry." All he could do was apologise, Mat had played out every possibility, none had him getting caught.

So as you pushed ahead of him he couldn't help but sit there in silence as he frowned not knowing what else he could do as he was left with the message "go fuck yourself."

The humid air of New York hit your skin as you placed your bags on the ground as you felt your stomach cramp up "fuck." You gasped looking down to see that your blue dress darkened like it was wet.

You were having this baby, with or without Matt by your side.

[acewritesfics]

I'm Late | Jay Halstead

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader

Request: From anon

Fic Type: Imagine. Can be read as a prequel to Baby Halstead

Prompt: "You're my voice of reason but right now I need you to shut up." 

Warnings: Mentions of feeling sick, period talk, pregnancy.

Word Count: 1,921

JAY HALSTEAD MASTERLIST | TAG LIST SIGN-UP

⚠️ THIS IS A REPOST FROM MY MAIN BLOG @/DLMLUFICS. UNFORTUNATELY, I HAVE TO DO IT THIS WAY. MORE INFO IN MY PINNED POST.

As Y/N studies the file Trudy handed her as soon as she entered the station, she is slouched over with her elbows resting on her desk and her fingers massaging her temple. She finds it difficult to focus on the written words on the papers, and the more she tries the worse her nausea and headache becomes. 

Jay ends their conversation with Atwater about their weekend plans and turns to face his girlfriend when she doesn't respond to a question, he's asked her. His face furrowed into a worried expression. She didn't look well last night and this morning, her mood was all over the place, and she had been strangely quiet since they had their morning shower together. 

"Are you okay?" he asks after he gets her attention. 

"I'm fine," she sighs as she shoots up from her chair and rushes out of the bullpen and into the restroom, a wave of nausea washing over her once more. 

Jay wasn't the only person who noticed the odd shift in Y/N. He steps out from behind his desk as Kim gets up from hers, assuring him she'll go check on her. As he sits down, he nods, silently thanking her. His concern for his fiancée has him unable to concentrate on the file in front of him. He leans back in his chair, monitoring the entrance, nervously chewing his cheek, and tapping his pen against his knee as he waits for her to return. 

Y/N is slumped over one of the toilets in the restroom, unsure if the bile in her stomach will come up. She shuts her eyes and wills her stomach to stop churning and her head to stop spinning. 

"Y/N?" From the doorway, Kim's quiet voice can be heard. 

She stands up and braces herself against the cubicle's metal walls as her head spins, calling out to her from the end stall, "In here." 

"Are you sure you're alright?" Kim asks, her expression apprehensive. In comparison to five minutes ago, Y/N looks worse. She nods her head before swinging her head side to side. The brunette detective steps forward to comfort her. "What's wrong?" 

She informs her, "I'm late." 

"Late?" Kim questions her. When Y/N gives her a look, Kim's eyes widen in surprise. "How late are you?" 

"About 2 to 3 weeks," she responds, recalling last night when she realized her period was late. She never kept track of it, but every month, give or take a few days, she always got it around the same time. However, it was never this late.  

She first reasoned with herself that she might not have remembered having it two weeks earlier since she's been so preoccupied with work, the upcoming wedding, and the drama going on between her parents. But then she remembered back to seven weeks ago. She'd gotten her period the Monday before her, and Jay went away for the weekend. She was down to her last two sanitary items when it ended the Friday morning they left for the cabin. She made a note in her phone to get more when her period started next. That Friday night and Saturday had been spent mostly in bed and there might have been one time they forgot to be careful. 

"Do you believe you might be?" 

"Maybe. I'm not sure," She breathes. 

"Have you spoken with Jay?" 

Shaking her head, Y/N "It might just be pre-wedding jitters, right? When you're under pressure, periods can be late." 

"Is Jay still going out with Will tonight?" Kim enquiries. 

She nods, "He is. Will said something about it being bachelor party business." 

"Well then, how about a girls' night at your place?" Kim suggests. "I'll provide the snacks and pregnancy tests, and you can order some pizza and choose the movies." 

"I don't have a choice, do I?" Y/N asks, looking at her anxiously. 

"Hell no," Kim smiles.  

She asks jokingly, "What would I do without you, Kim Burgess?" 

"Crash and burn," Kim responds. "This is what best friends and work partners are for. Now, let's get back out there before Jay bursts in with guns blazing." 

Kim leads Y/N out of the restroom, then let's go of her when they reach the bullpen. Jay is still waiting warily at his desk when Y/N approaches him. Her legs are crossed in front of her as she leans on his desk with her arms folded across her chest. 

Looking up at her with the same deeply concerned blue eyes as before, he asks, "Everything okay?" 

"I've got a headache but it's finally going away," she tells him, and it's not a lie. "Kim is coming over tonight while you're out with Will. Bachelorette party business." 

"You know, we could disappoint them both, forgo the bachelor/bachelorette parties, and just spend the night together, just the two of us," he proposes, a hopeful look in his eyes. Jay is still unaware of his brother's plans for his party, and a part of him is afraid to find out. 

"And rob them of their duties as best man and maid of honor?" she asks, smiling and feeling considerably better than a few minutes ago. For the time being, she pushes her possible pregnancy to the back of her mind as they focus on wedding talk. "We'd break their little hearts, and I don't think I can handle Kim staring at me with those puppy eyes." 

He concurs with her, saying, "I don't think I can handle seeing them too." 

She reassures him, "It was a wonderful suggestion, though. Perfect even." 

He smiles again, this time with a mischievous glimmer in his eye, "Maybe next time." 

"Next time?" she asks, pretending to be upset, knowing he was joking with her.  "Honey, I may not be the first person you said, 'I do' with, but I'm damn sure going to be the last." 

He chuckles, "I meant in 40 years when we renew our vows, and the kids are all grown up." 

Her smile falters a little at the mention of kids. Jay catches it, but Hank exits his office with a piece of paper in his hand before he can say anything. 

"Halstead, Upton, I need you two to go check out this person," he orders, handing Hailey the piece of paper. 

"I love you. Be safe," Y/N instructs Jay as he gets up and puts his jacket on. It was something the two of them say often before they leave the district without each other. 

"I love you too and I will," he responds, kissing her lips briefly before following Hailey down the stairs. Y/N returns to the file on her desk, now that she can focus better on it. 

Later on in the evening, Y/N sat by herself on the couch as she awaited Jay's return from his night out with his brother. Before Kim and Hailey, whom Y/N had invited when she and Jay returned to the district, forced her into the bathroom, she managed to spend a significant portion of the night avoiding the two pregnancy test boxes that were sitting on the kitchen counter. Hailey didn't require much persuasion once Kim explained what was going on; she immediately agreed to whatever Kim had planned. It was a two-on-one situation, and Y/N regretted agreeing with Kim's plans for tonight. 

Just as they were about to find out the results, Jay called Y/N to let her know he was on his way back home. Kim and Hailey both agreed that they should leave so that she could talk to Jay alone but made Y/N promise to keep them in the loop. After the two left, Y/N became too anxious to look at the tests herself and left them sitting on a paper towel beside the bathroom sink. 

It felt like an eternity passed before she heard Jay's key in the lock and the door opening. She stands up and moves around the coffee table to meet him halfway.  

"Hey, can we talk?" she asks him, her voice wavering with nerves. 

"Yeah. What's up?" he asks, the bright smile on his handsome face fading as he takes in her nervous appearance and voice.  

Biting the inside of her cheek, her head is flooded with 100 different ways she can bring up the pregnancy tests in the bathroom. She starts rubbing her hands together, to give them something to do and to stop herself from pacing a hole in the floor. She's never felt so anxious about telling someone something before.  

"Talk to me," he gently tells her when she remains quiet, too far inside her own head. Jay looks at her worried and takes her hands into his. He strokes the back of her hands with his thumb, calming her slightly. "What's going on? Did something happen tonight? Are you feeling sick again? Did your headache come back? Are you-" he begins to ramble only to be cut off by her finding her voice again. 

"I love you so much, Jay. I really do. You're my best friend, the love of my life and," Y/N starts, her voice thick with nerves. "You're my voice of reason but right now I need you to shut up." 

"What's going on?" he asks, letting her words roll off him. "You've been acting weird since last night." 

Her mind blanks as she tries to find the words to tell him that on top of becoming a husband in a month's time, that he almost might possibly be a dad also and the tests to determine whether he will be a dad or not are currently on the bathroom counter waiting to be looked at.  

Getting an idea, she hurries into the bathroom, leaving Jay standing there confused by her actions. He doesn't recall a time that he's seen her like this, ever, and to say he isn't concerned would be the biggest understatement of the century. 

She comes back holding the test in her hands and tells him, "I can't bring myself to look at them." 

The look on his face turns from one of concern to a look of surprise. "It would explain a lot."  

She nods agreeing with him as she sits on their couch. He moves to sit next to her. "If the tests are positive, the only thing that's going to change is that we're going to be parents." 

"And if they're not?"  

"Then we can try when we've settled into married life." 

"I love you," she says looking at him, still avoiding looking at the tests.  

"I love you too," he smiles, kissing her softly. He takes one of the pregnancy tests from her, "Ready?" 

She nods again. They both look at the tests in their hands, both having the two small pink lines come up.  

"Looks like we're getting married and having a baby," Jay says looking at the test in her hands, seeing that one is also positive.  

Y/N looks at him, seeing a small smile on his face. "Are you okay with that?"  

"When I proposed, I said I wanted to do it all with you and that included starting a family. It's just happening a little sooner than we expected. So, I'm more than okay with that." 

"How did I get so lucky?" she smiles lovingly at him.  

"I ask myself that every day," he says kissing her again, his hand moving to her belly. "You're going to make an amazing mom." 

She covers his hand with hers, her smile growing, "And you're going to be an incredible dad." 

TAGGED: @mrspeacem1nusone - @halsteadbrasil - @allisonargent144 - @cs-please - @alexxavicry - @nicole-19s-world

[swordbisexual]

A Promise

Rolan Week Day Seven

In which Shaxibis returns, and Rolan has never been gladder for it. 2.2k words.

(finally, they do the deed)

(cross-posted to AO3)

--

Rolan squints at the polished brass turret gear before him, then selects a slim pick from the box he’d found tucked away on a high shelf built into the wall of the tower’s mezzanine. Carefully, he slides the pointed end of the slender instrument into a pin-sized hole, where he’s almost positive a switch is hiding that can switch the turret back on at his command.

Almost positive.

Energy crackles out and zaps his fingertips, making him drop the pick and swear a blue streak the likes of which he hasn’t used since Avernus. The turret hums, and if he didn’t know better, he’d swear the damn thing was laughing at him.

He’d like to hit it with a burst of chain lightning, but he promised Shaxibis that he would get to work on unlocking the tower’s defensive secrets right away. True to form, she’d gotten a bit greedy in asking for her repayment: “We’ll need all the firepower we can get when it’s time to fight for this city,” she said when she’d returned from helping to move Lorroakan’s body to a more discreet location. (Where, Rolan shudders to think; all he knows is that Shaxibis looked all too pleased to enlist Karlach’s help in the matter, and that the name “Lucretious” was mentioned.) And when she’d looked up at him with those bright, canny eyes, and pursed her lips in thought, he’d once again been unable to say no.

The sun has nearly set, though, and he’s not going to make much more progress before night falls. Blinking, he yawns, and the day settles in to his tired limbs so heavy and leaden that he nearly lays down on the floor beneath his feet to take a nap right then and there.

He has some dignity left, though.

He’s down to just a shirt and trousers, his robes having gotten too heavy and warm as he fiddled with the turrets and swore at their obstinance. Plucking the robe up from the hand rail where he’d draped he, he throws the rumpled blue and crimson fabric over his shoulder before hoisting himself up the floating cabinets and shelves that lead back up to the library floor.

Most of the mess from before has been taken care of. Not by his own hand; Shaxibis enlisted the whole of her adventuring retinue earlier that afternoon, thrusting brooms and mops and scrub-cloths in every available hand before leaving with Astarion and Gale to do gods knew what in the Sorcerous vault. Rolan sent them all back to the Elfsong within the hour, mumbling his thanks and wishing dearly that he had something more to offer than a little gold for them all to buy as many drinks as they could stomach. That seemed to be more than enough, though, and he was left once more in blissful peace and quiet as he waited for Shaxibis to return.

The grand throne-like seat that Lorroakan favored still stands before the library’s largest window. It’s impressive, but it looks uncomfortable, impractical, and like a hideous waste of perfectly good books. Rolan only uses it to drop his robes in a pile before he finds a far more modest settee shoved up against the wall. He collapses along the settee’s length with a groaning sigh, pressing his hand over his eyes, only wincing a little at the pressure he accidentally puts on his bruised brow.

“Oh, thank the gods, you’re here.”

Rolan nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound of Shaxibis’ voice. “Hells.” Only through a remarkable feat of balance and desperation to preserve his dignity does he keep from tumbling off the settee entirely; he braces his hand on the cushion’s edge as he sits up to see her striding across the library floor. “I thought I’d sealed the portal shut.”

Shaxibis stops long enough to look over her shoulder and rock on her heels. “Well. You didn’t.”

He doesn’t know the exact mechanics of the enchantment Lorroakan used, but he can guess at it well enough, and with a few gestures and muttered words, the shimmering circle in the air crackles and folds in on itself. “There.”

Shaxibis turns an impish grin back on him. “What, I don’t get to leave?”

Wincing, he scrubs a hand down over his face and groans. “I… damn it all. Give me a moment and I’ll open it back up again.”

When he opens his eyes again, Shaxibis is only steps away, and her stride has only grown more purposeful. She shakes her head, the traces of that grin still lighting up her whole face, and in an instant, she has one knee on the settee’s edge, one hand on his shoulder. “Don’t bother.”

Has he imagined this happening? Of course he has. But the picture was always vague, fuzzed at the edges, with only shadows and light shaping the colors that he knows must be present: his own flame-tinted hand outlined against dusky storm cloud purple, a curtain of white falling around his face. It’s always been only a wish, a hope, a dream he’s not bothered to put much stock in lest he end up disappointed, over and over again.

In reality, there are far too many layers of clothing between them both. Shaxibis is still in the doublet and leggings she’d done battle in, singed and torn in spots. That doesn’t keep him from feeling the full warmth and weight of her when she sits astride his lap, though, and almost immediately he’s hard, his hips rocking up against her and heat tightening like a coiled spring just below his navel.

She tilts her head and slants her lips over his, cupping his jaw in her hands before trailing her fingers back through his hair to pick loose the tie holding the top layers of it back from his face. As she traces the seam of his lips with her tongue, she loosens his hair and runs her fingers through it, tugging only just enough to pull a pleasant little sting from his scalp, which serves to pull his lips open to let her in on a soft gasp. She rocks her hips to grind down on his cock, and he feels her tail wind around his calf as if of its own volition.

Well. Two can play that game.

He’d like to loosen the buttons that hold the front of her jacket together, but her chest is pressed to his and gods, she’s so warm and solid and soft all at once. Instead, he pays her in kind for setting his hair free; the buns at her ears are held in place with leather ties and bent brass pins, and he only has to slide out the latter to loosen the former, and all of it falls, forgotten, to the floor. Her hair is warm and damp with sweat, but he doesn’t care; that he’s carding it through his fingers is more than enough, and with it comes the scent of the soaps and oils she’d used to wash it: some earthy, heady mix of herbs and vanilla and pepper, and it’s perfect.

She is perfect.

She is also still, to his great consternation, wearing all of her clothes. Not to mention the fact that he’s still in his, and he’s never been in a greater hurry to remedy that fact than he is now.

She breaks the kiss, resting her forehead to his long enough to take a deep breath. “No one’s going to disturb us?”

Rolan opens his mouth to answer, but then she grinds against his cock again, the damnable woman, and he sucks in a gasp and plants his hands firmly on her hips to hold her still as best he can. “If they do, I have several magic missiles to send them right back out.”

Shaxibis laughs. “Not a thunderwave?”

His fingers find the first button at the bottom of her doublet, and he starts to work it loose, then the rest, one at a time, from the bottom up. “A thunderwave would send you out the door.”

She shrugs the doublet off, and without needing his help or even suggestion, pulls her undershirt up and over her head. “Now that would be awful.”

Any witty rejoinder he might have had dies in his throat at the sight of her bare from the waist up. He’s seen most of her like this before - the party to celebrate the refugees’ rescue from the threat of goblins and the Grove comes to mind - but he’s not seen all of her, and he never knew just how much so little fabric could conceal. He runs his hand up her middle, her skin soft beneath his fingertips, and finally palms the curved underside of her breast. She hums and smiles, and when he passes his thumb over the pebbling tip of her nipple, her eyelids flutter and lips curl up in a flushed, lazy smile. He circles her nipple again, drawing it up to a point, and with every pass she rolls her hips a little deeper, chasing a pleasure that he, very suddenly, needs to touch and taste for himself.

“Up,” he says, and when she only presses down a little more, a smirk playing at the corner of her lips, he grunts and swiftly pinches her nipple between forefinger and thumb. She gasps, sharply, and tugs on his hair in response, which only stokes the flame building in his belly. He shifts his weight beneath her and braces a hand at her lower back, twisting to shove her to the side. “I said up, godsdammit.”

“This is over,” she quips brightly, but she’s still leaning back to lie down on the settee and tug him to lie above her. “Easy mistake to… oh.”

Pleased triumph flushes through him from his chest outward as he wraps his lips around her peaked nipple, though his smug satisfaction is soon replaced with a moan when her thigh bumps up between his, teasing his stiff length with the barest pressure that sends his head spinning. He doesn’t know whether to work at her trouser lacings or his first, and so he just reaches down to cup her between her thighs, pressing the heel of his palm to her mound and his fingers to her clothed core. Her answering groan hums against his lips, and her fist at the back of his hair tightens and tugs.

She’s the one to reach down first, plucking loose her own trouser laces and pushing the waistband down til he reaches up to tug it the rest of the way. Her tail is coiled around his thigh, now, and his looped down at her calf, and all he can manage is to roughly push his own trousers down just enough so that his cock springs free, and as he kisses a hot, open-mouthed line up from her breast to her collarbone, he lines himself up to her slick, tight heat, holding still for only a moment before he starts to slowly slide in.

Gods above and hells below, but the way she feels is so much more than he could have imagined. He buries his face into the crook of her neck and breathes in deep as she takes him in, her own small gasp a sweet song in his ear when he’s fully seated inside. She is hot and soft and sweet against him, around him, and as he slowly rolls his hips in another thrust, her hands are at his back, the calluses on her fingertips skating down his skin and the points of her nails curling in and scraping a line up his spine that makes his whole body shiver.

He lifts his head enough to look into her half-lidded eyes, and he cradles her face in his hands, unable to form the words that catch in his throat and course through his veins. For once, the constant barrage of worry, the constant stream of words and thoughts for the future, all feel a distant second to the here and now in his hands.

He doesn’t last long; he can’t, not when she looks up at him like this, soft and full of wonder, like her own words are, for once, not enough. He moves to pull away, but her tail only squeezes tighter, holding him close, and he spends himself with one last heady, panting thrust.

When words return to him, they’re still not the ones he wants. “Promise,” he mutters against her skin, his lips grazing the sticky sheen of sweat on the side of her neck.

Her throat bobs beneath his lips, and once more, her words hum against him. “Promise?”

“That you’ll keep coming back.”

There was a time, once, that he would have asked her to do the opposite. And he knows that she knows it; her knowing shakes as a soft laugh beneath his chest, her breath skipping through his hair. But all she does is trace her nails up his back, til he shivers and pushes himself up to his elbows to look down at her, to see her face gone soft and adoring. “I promise.”

[prime-adeptus]

EX MACHINA – DOTTORE X READER

Not once have you strayed from your true purpose—if this is what your creator made you for, then you will fulfil it until your body breaks down.

CONTENT.⠀18+ only, minors dni. HORROR / DARK CONTENT UNDER THE CUT; gender-neutral reader; unhealthy relationship, psychological and emotional manipulation, possessive and obsessive behaviour, non-consensual body modification, conditioning and mindfuck, drugging, kidnapping, sadism, descriptions of anxiety attacks. Dottore is simply referred to as “The Doctor.” DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT | ~2.5k words

A/N.⠀dedicated to my beloved @hiperacid2! this is my first horror/dark fic and it was challenging to write, but i hope you like it, my fellow kindred and kuro hater (/j) // @angelshub @bitchcraftinc @kentocidal

CROSS-POSTED ON AO3

You follow his orders.

If the Doctor tells you to kill, you do so in cold blood. If he tells you to steal something for him, you bring him everything he needs. If he is not pleased with you, you recalibrate and retry the next time he needs you. Like a dog obeys its master, you obey your creator and he rewards you with his praise. Not once have you strayed from your true purpose—if this is what your creator made you for, then you will fulfil it until your body breaks down.

The halls of Zapolyarny Palace’s science wing are silent save for the sound of your footfalls and the occasional murmur from lower-ranked Fatui agents pass by. They do not look into your eyes nor do they greet you. It is not important whether or not they greet you. An agent’s purpose is to do the duty given to him, much in a similar vein to yours, and it is his responsibility not to be hindered by trivial things. The coat you’re wearing covers the lower half of your face and is heavy enough to withstand the unforgiving winters of Snezhnaya, but even then, the air within the walls is cold.

For a reason you haven’t been able to find yet, your body seems to be having difficulties regulating its temperature recently. Perhaps you’d ask the Doctor if he could fix the issue when he’s less occupied with his latest project.

The doors to his laboratory slide open the moment it detects your facial features. It’s dark inside the laboratory; the sun has not yet risen, the only light at this time of day comes from the main city, and frost settles on the glass panes of the window. As you enter, you find that the Doctor is hunched over his desk and that the room is in complete disarray. Papers are scattered across the floor. Beakers and other glassware have shattered into pieces, some of their contents spilling out on documents the Doctor spent hours organising. Your gaze scans every corner and you reach for your sword, about to unsheathe but stop when he speaks up.

“Ah, you’re here, Seven.” He drums his fingers on the surface of the desk, the telltale sign of his impatience. A sigh leaves his lips as he turns around to face you, his lips pursed in dissatisfaction. “Seven, my dear Seven, my prized unit 70-Y…”

He steps closer and closer until your faces are mere inches apart and you are staring directly into his mask. There is a strange sensation that travels across your system and once more the temperature beneath your skin spikes in pinpricks of static. Your ears are ringing, your hands are beginning to shake but they’re out of your control. You can’t comprehend what type of error it is and it only gets worse with each passing second. It can’t be an error; the Doctor never makes any mistakes, so it must be a flaw on your end.

“D-Doctor?” you stammer—another error you don’t recognise. “What… What happened?”

“You’ve grown incompetent,” he replies. You can’t tell whether he sees you malfunctioning in front of him or if he’s simply ignoring it for the matter at hand. “My commands for you were quite simple, were they not?”

Your lips part as you try to respond, but no words come out.

“You don’t understand.” It’s more of a statement than it is a question. “My research has been stolen, Seven. You’ve failed your mission in keeping my laboratory exclusive to us.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper. You try to continue, but your body is unstable, swaying until you find yourself falling to the ground. Your legs don’t move the way you need them to; it’s as though they’ve become rubber and can no longer hold your weight. Weakly, you push yourself up into a sitting position and look up at him. Your vision blurs and instinctively you narrow your eyes to try to focus, to reach out to him. “I…”

“You don’t feel well, do you?”

You can’t see him clearly. Something is different about his tone—the irritation has transitioned into something akin to amusement like he’s aware of something that you aren’t. You don’t understand. You don’t feel. That’s something only humans and animals are capable of. He despises having a human assistant; he needs something beyond human, so he created you. It is the only information about your ‘birth’ that you know. 

He lets out another sigh, tone dripping with annoyance once again. “What a bore.”

You detect him staring down at you in the same way he does with his failed projects. You have witnessed firsthand what he does to some of them. They’d get abandoned, their lifeless bodies piled atop each other until it was time for them to get disposed of. Emotions are unknown to you—it’s an area you haven’t explored, but when he ordered you to disassemble all of them with your own hands, you wondered if it could be compared to what humans describe as fear.

Irked and impatient, he clicks his tongue. “Find the thief and kill them. Do not fail me again.” He strides past you and toward the doors, ready to leave but not before he spares you a displeased glance over his shoulder. “And clean this up. You know I hate clutter.”

The Doctor does not return to his laboratory after the incident. 

For the past couple of days, you’ve been trying to find the Doctor so you could report your findings but he’s nowhere to be seen. While it’s not unusual for him to go off somewhere without a word, it is out of routine that he doesn’t have you follow him. If he has been sent on a mission by the Tsaritsa, you would know either from himself or one of his segments. You consider asking his fellow Harbingers, but you have also been forbidden from interacting with any of them aside from the Director. All there is to do is your objective and the disposal of the culprit as soon as you can.

The investigation has been difficult. There are no fingerprints you can scan, no notably suspicious trails left behind, and not enough of anything to form a hypothesis. All you know is that the Doctor’s journals are no longer where they are supposed to be. You consider interrogating the guards but decide against it. They cannot provide useful information, not when the responsibility for surveillance is yours. 

The only thing clear so far is the motive. Whoever broke into the laboratory needed the Doctor’s notes for a reason, whether it was to expose the moral ambiguity of his experiment or to take an idea for themself. Yet there is no evidence of a break-in; the windows aren’t broken and the security system hasn’t been tampered with. If the culprit truly had intentions of stealing or exposing him, they would’ve taken his most valuable research of all: his studies of the Gnoses. The door to his private library remains locked as well, which simultaneously proves the point and does nothing at all. 

You walk through the halls of the palace in silence, attempting to note anyone with suspicious behaviour to no avail. Every face starts to look the same, every voice seems to be monotonous, and the static buzzing beneath your skin returns once again. The discomfort seems to increase with every passing minute of inactivity. Your body feels heavy as if you’re slowly shutting down, out of energy. Have you neglected your self-maintenance? Why have there been errors in your system today?

No matter. Those aren’t of concern now—you’ve been given a mission to complete and you can’t fail him again.

Setting your destination to the laboratory, you decide to do another investigation. There must have been something you missed. A bloodstain, a fingerprint, anything the culprit could’ve left behind in their wake. As you make your way inside, you spot something on the Doctor’s desk that wasn’t previously there: a newspaper. It doesn’t appear to be recent; the date on the corner of the page indicates it’s over a year old.

That’s unusual, you note. He doesn’t like to keep anything unrelated to his work and research. 

The article seems to be about an aristocratic family’s activities which makes it all stranger considering his disdain for them. ‘The patriarch, 47, has now become a priest at the Church of Celestia. His heir did not attend the ceremony, most likely due to their dispute with their father earlier this year,’ it says. The names written in the article are mostly unknown, but as you continue to read, you find that something is off.

One of the people in the images looks just like you. Could it be that the Doctor modelled you after them? And if their reputation precedes them just as much as the article describes it, why haven’t you heard of them?

The newspaper nearly rips in half from how hard you clench your fists. You don’t understand why you did it. You aren’t supposed to have a physical reaction. You aren’t supposed to malfunction, and yet your system is out of your control again, the odd sensations spreading across your skin like frost does to water. There is something wrong with you, with everything. But there isn’t supposed to be—he wouldn’t lie to you, would he?

“So, have you figured it out yet?”

The Doctor steps into the laboratory with his arms crossed behind his back, walking with confidence and satisfaction. His expression melts into a scowl when he approaches you. “Hm. Your optical cybernetics aren’t working well anymore. You should’ve been able to detect me coming in.”

“There wasn’t a thief,” you whisper shakily.

“That’s right!” He grins. “And the heir?”

You choke out, “I… I don’t know.”

It couldn’t be you. No. It’s not possible. You’re an android created by the Doctor, the second of the Harbingers. You’re his assistant, his servant. You have always been here with him.

“Has my precious assistant gained sentience?” he coos mockingly, “A flaw in your code, perhaps? An error or a malfunction?”

“That can’t be,” you breathe. You’re suddenly aware of how unfamiliar it is to inhale and exhale, and how it feels as though there’s something lodged in your throat that is suffocating you. “Y-You made me. You never make mistakes.”

He ignores your words as he smiles at you wickedly, his eyes widening. “Isn’t it fascinating to discover something new? To feel something new?”

“How…”

You feel weak. Exhausted. Everything hits you like a storm and you can’t even figure out what any of them are; all you know is that you are afraid. The same man who built you will be the same man to break you.

“I’ve replaced some of your organs with artificial ones. Not sure what you’re missing here.” He feigns annoyance and clicks his tongue, a sound you’ve found to make you feel overloaded. There’s too much happening, too many truths, too many lies. You don’t know what to believe.

“W-Why?”

“Why?” He laughs as if your devastation is humorous to him. His voice echoes throughout the room in a way that makes your skin crawl. “To sate my curiosity, of course! And, well, I have a… fascination with you, Seven. Or should I say—” his laughter dies down and he leans forward, the smile never leaving his face. Then he says a name—your true name, and everything comes crashing down once again. 

It’s too much. It hurts. Your breathing is out of order, your mind (you have a mind) is in tatters and all you can do is wail as he rejoices in your torment. There’s a stinging sensation in your palms; when you look down, you find that you are bleeding from how hard your nails have been digging into your skin. Out of fear, you scream and cry until your voice is hoarse, until your energy has been drained, until there is nothing left. When you’re finally quiet and sobbing sporadically, the Doctor kneels beside you and pulls your hair back, forcing you to crane your head to look up at him.

He grins. “I suppose I can consider this hypothesis to be true.”

A sharp, biting pain pierces your neck. The world around you spins and slowly disappears behind a haze. Your limbs feel weak, boneless. Your body succumbs to the poison in your veins, and as you fall farther and farther from the light, the void takes you in its embrace.

You are alone with a woman you don’t know. She is the very epitome of holiness, bringing you warmth and comfort, but there is a sorrowful air about her. You try to ask, try to talk to her, but you can’t speak. With a smile, she holds you in her arms like a mother cradles her child, and she cries. She mourns for her child as droplets of her tears land on your skin, a mark of her grief. She whispers apologies to you, tells you that home doesn’t feel the same, and you mourn together with her over the loss of her only child.

Your world shifts, and you find yourself with a serpent. 

It hisses at the air, bares its fangs to something you can’t see. It wraps itself around your frame and softly nudges your cheek with its head, an attempt to comfort you when there is nothing but its presence and yours. It speaks to you in a language you can’t understand with its forked tongue. It coils around your throat when you sleep, both a warning and a reassurance that it won’t leave you alone.

You feel fondness and fear for it at the same time.

Your eyelids slowly flutter as the lid of your sleep pod slides open, exposing you to the bright lights of the room. A masked man is sitting beside you, his lips curved into a joyous smile when he sees that you’re awake. Something is familiar about him, but you can’t quite put your finger on it.

You feel strange, like you’re forgetting something. It doesn’t make sense. How can you search for a memory you’re not even sure exists? You want to ask, but a glance downwards steals away your attention. Your hands — they’re mechanical, sleek and black metal that goes up to your elbows. Your fingers are long and sharp, undoubtedly made to be weapons. Curiously, you bring it to your eye level to take a closer look; they resemble claws with their pointed tips and sharp edges.

“My dear Artiglio,” he says, watching as you push yourself up into a sitting position. “Are you ready for your first mission?”

Of course. How could you have forgotten?

You serve the Doctor, your creator. With the gift of life and lethality he bestowed upon you, your purpose is clear.

If the Doctor tells you to kill, you do so in cold blood. If he tells you to steal something for him, you bring him everything he needs. If he is not pleased with you, you recalibrate and retry the next time he needs you.

You follow his orders.

[swiftllama]

January Compliments ☀️🔍

[Compliments Masterlist]

Hello everyone and welcome to the first Compliments Post of 2024! Hope the year has started off well for you all, and if not, then I hope this post can at least provide a little bit of joy to your day 🫶

We may be only one month in but the boys have been delivering since the very first day 🙌 So let’s get into it shall we! :-

January 2024

Ian’s 2023 Wrap Up

So to start us off, first day of the year and Mr Sunshine was already tugging at our heartstrings with his wrap up of 2023, and who made his 2023 what it was? Well Anthony of course 🥹

STOP IT! RIGHT NOW! 😩

LIKE WHAT IS THIS??? IM MEANT TO COPE WITH THIS??? HOW???

The fact the WHOLE post is Anthony - from the photos to the caption! EVERY SINGLE PHOTO HAS ANTHONY 😭 Also don’t even get me started on the two unseen photos and the fact they’ve been kept from us till now. How dare 😤 AND the fact the first person he thanked was Anthony! Like yes he’s thanking and appreciating many people with this post but come on now, from the pictures alone it’s clear who made his year. This is just SO SPECIAL! Especially coming from Ian, who isn’t normally a big one for sharing his emotions (I think we’ve seen a change with that recently though), but this is BIG!

Anthony also in return left a sweet comment :-

“proud of you buddy.”

CRYING 😭 They kill me these two, couldn’t even go one day without being sappy to each other - not that I’m complaining. And as much as I would love to just sit here in this gooeyness, we’ve got a lot to get through so I must move on 🥲

LEGEND OF ZELDA RAP (Flashback)

So they reacted to the classic Legend Of Zelda Rap in this Flashback eps and got a few little compliments thrown in :-

-

[discussing the scene of Ian dressed as Link winking at the camera that spawned a viral gif]

Anthony: “That for some reason was a clip that went viral- or a gif that went viral.”

Ian: “Yeah, it’s like horny posters.”

Anthony: “Yeah.”

Ian: “Yeah.”

Anthony: “I see it way too much.”

[shoutout editor Kortney for this 😆]

Ian: “Gotta say, never looked better.”

Anthony: “That’s true.”

Anthony agrees 😏

-

Erin: [asking Ian if he had spicy time in the Link outfit like Anthony said about the Assassin’s Creed outfit in their 2 Truths 1 Lie eps]

Ian: “I did not have spicy time in the Link outfit because that outfit was very tight, there was not much of a range of motion in it.”

Anthony: “Right. Well you could be a pillow princess in that.”

Ian: “I’m not a pillow princess.”

Anthony: “Oh really?”

Ian: “Yeah.”

Anthony: “I’ve heard otherwise.”

[look at each other and Anthony laughs]

Ian: “Oh yeah, cause canonically we had sex for seven years.”

Anthony: [laughs] “In the Food Battle lore.”

Ian: “Yeah. Canonically in Food Battle, we’ve had sex for seven years. You know every crevice of my body.”

Anthony: “Of your anatomy.”

Ian: “Yeah.”

Anthony: “Anywho…”

Ian: “Wow, this went a weird place.”

Anthony: “Back to looking at Link in his prime.”

Ian: “Back to me looking freakin’ HAWT.”

Anthony: “Yeah.”

Just them casually discussing the fact they’ve canonically had sex for 7 years and then Anthony once again agreeing Ian looked hot in the Link outfit… I don’t think I even need to say anything.

-

Anthony: “Oh! And I just want to give a shoutout to myself.”

Ian: “Oh, [sings] shoutout to myself.”

Anthony: “I painstakingly added those fucking stars [in the scene] for some reason. I thought they were so necessary.”

Ian: “Yeah, no, that was sick.”

Ian giving Anthony a little compliment for his hard work 😊

…

Speaking of the stars it was also something Ian brought up again later when they appeared in the video again :-

Ian: “Stars. Stars.”

Anthony: “Oh yeah. Stars. We got ‘em in there.”

Very cute how he wanted to shoutout Anthony’s work again ☺️

-

Erin: “That’s Anthony?! [as Ganondorf]”

Ian: “Yeah.”

Anthony: “Shut up. You knew that was me.”

Erin: “That’s crazy.”

Ian: “You didn’t know that was Anthony?”

Erin: “Where’d your, like, jaw go?”

Ian: “What do you mean? He’s got an epic jaw.”

Ian got so defensive on Anthony’s behalf here, I love it! Reminded me of the moments from Who Meme’d It when Anthony was defending Ian 😌

And that was us for this video!

Moving on…

SOUP!

Gets a big title cause why not!

But yes, soup! So Ian has gotten into making soup this year and on that same Friday we got the Flashback, that evening we were blessed out of nowhere with these stories :-

THE WAY I SCREAMED WHEN I SAW THESE 😩

Like this is the cutest, most domesticated shit ever! They kill me!!!!

And okay yes when that first photo was posted I thought Ian was right then and there cooking it for him, Ian then responded with this :-

Let me live in my fantasies Ian! 😤

But regardless of Mr dashing-my-dreams Hecox, I’m still of the mindset they were hanging out that day and that’s when Ian gave him the container of soup.

Evidence :-

This photo only. That I believe Anthony took 😌

Also I try not to make these posts too shipper-heavy so that everyone may enjoy them if they’re just here for the friendship alone, so I’ll just leave this other little post I made here about some other thoughts I had on this soup situation that isn’t in the friendship realm 🤭 All cool if that’s not for you though!

VidConfessions

So 7 months later Vidcon finally decided to post this little interview they had with them lol. And even with such a short video we still got a few complimentary/cute moments :-

-

So Anthony was being his usual self and finding Ian the funniest person alive as always. There was a couple moments where Ian gave his answers and you just hear Anthony’s laugh in the background 🥰

Q: What are the last three things you Googled?

Ian: “Jared Leto cult…”

He’s a cutie ☺️

…

And it happened again!

Q: What’s the cringest thing you’ve ever done for views?

Ian: “I mean like our whole channel’s cringe.”

Anthony, once again: [laughing in the background]

Love him and how much he loves Ian and his humour 😊

-

This was just one wee last bit I thought was cute :-

Ian: [signing out the video] “This has been Ian from Smosh, that’s right, the channel that is 17 and a half years old that’s doing sketch comedy again with my best friend Anthony.”

Can never resist them calling each other ‘best friend’ so of course had to include it!

Making of Pokémon In Real Life 2024

So they brought back the classic Pokémon In Real Life sketch, and from that obviously we got the BTS. Only a couple little moments from this one but just wanted to include them cause they were silly 🤓

-

Ian: [sneezes] “Sorry. Your hairspray.”

Anthony: “Ohhh… he’s allergic to me [smirks].”

👀 Don’t know what that was about but alrighty, Anthony…

-

Ian: [cuts his finger and there’s a dot of blood]

Anthony: “Oh my god, dude. Are you okay?”

Ian: “No, I’m not okay. Trigger warning gore.”

Anthony: “Do you need someone to suck out the blood?”

Why did this just turn into Saltburn? Don’t know what Anthony was on with the these two moments but I won’t question it 😝 And despite saying ‘someone’, he was definitely offering to suck the blood from Ian’s finger himself 🤭

Pokémon In Real Life 2024 Watch Party

Of course with the sketch and BTS we got a livestream, which gave us some cute and complimentary moments 😊

To kick off this livestream I just wanna point out that they were wearing matching colours with Anthony’s jacket and Ian’s hoodie, plus matching Smosh Pokémon hats which is very cute 😊

-

Ian: [apologising for getting annoyed in the BTS due to the background noise messing up their filming] “Dude, this video. This Pokémon video. I apologise if I looked very angry in the behind the scenes.”

Anthony: [laughs] “You didn’t look that bad. Honestly, it amped up accurately.”

Erin: “The compilation of you getting angry, it was pretty funny.”

Anthony: Yeah, so it was justified. People knew why you were angry.”

Love the reassurance from Anthony here so that Ian isn’t worried about how he came across in the video.

-

[take their hats off]

Ian: “How’s my hair? Is it weird?”

Anthony: “Is mine weird? Yours is fine.”

Ian: “No, I feel like yours is like, yours has like a messy chic to it, you know.”

Them just complimenting each other’s hair - here for it! Also Ian’s added compliment of “messy chic” 😄

-

[playing Pokémon quiz]

I&A: “Jinx.”

Crew: [laughs]

Anthony: [smiles and points to Ian] “Jinx.”

Ian: “That’s our favourite. Favourite Pokémon.”

Funny because it’s both the Pokémon’s name and they said it at the same time 😝 Cute how Ian also got in that that’s their favourite ☺️

-

[complete the quiz]

Anthony: “Dude, 100 percent, bro.”

I&A: [high-five]

Of course always gotta include the highfives 😌

-

After the quiz they go on to play a Pikachu x Sonic crossover. Anthony plays a round and then Ian goes to play but can’t get the controls to work for him so Anthony’s showing him what to do 🥹 I don’t feel the need to include what they said here as it’s just Anthony saying what buttons to push but just wanted to include a little description of what was happening at this moment 😊

-

Ian: [completes the game]

Anthony: “You won the game.” [clapping]

Just another little cute moment I wanted to include of Anthony clapping for Ian 🙂

-

[playing Pokémon Among Us]

Anthony: [playing the game well]

Ian: “Alright, I hate that you’re like kind of eating.” [as Ian kept dying]

A begrudging little compliment from Ian there 😄

-

[signing the livestream off]

Ian: “Happy New Year, hope the holidays were a fun time for you and you had some eggnog and sat by the campfire…”

Anthony: “Roasting chestnuts.”

Ian: “Roasting chestnuts.”

Anthony: “Or chestnut. I’m not making any assumptions.”

Ian: “….What?”

Anthony: “Just if they don’t have more than one chestnut.”

Ian: “Ohh, okay. I don’t know if you could buy a singular chestnut but…”

Anthony: “I think there’s a way.”

Ian: “Go off king.”

Just a silly little one to end on because I wanted to include Ian calling Anthony ‘king’ 🤭

Can I Guess Who Slapped Me?

So the video of Anthony getting slapped finally dropped! And it was everything and more, especially when it came to moments between Ian and Anthony so let’s jump right in :-

-

Right off the bat we had this as the description for Ian…

👀👀👀

Now onto the actual slapping…

-

The moment that got us all was just before Ian slaps him he slowly started caressing Anthony’s face so obviously that had us all going crazy! Including the cast and crew!

Anthony: [after the slap] “Oh. Wow. Uhhh, this person thinks they’re hilarious.” [laughs]

Cast & Crew: [laughing]

Ian: [Trying not to laugh]

Anthony: “Uhhh, who would do that? Who would caress my face and slap me out of nowhere?”

Ian: [boops Anthony’s nose]

Anthony: “Uh, it feels like an Ian move to me… Did you just boop me? Um, that feels like an Ian move.”

Kiana: “That is correct.”

Everyone: [celebrating and applauding]

Anthony: [puts his hands out and Ian high-fives him]

Angela: “Friendship always wins!”

Ian: “Well done. Well done. Good job to you.”

Anthony: [bowing]

Ian: “There we go. There we go. That’s the only one you truly needed to get right.”

Anthony: [laughs]

So true Ian! That was the most important one he needed to get right! And I just want to point out how Ian was only the 3rd person Anthony got right, and of course he knew it was him right away with his cheeky little joke of “this person thinks they’re hilarious” 😝 he knew the second Ian caressed his face that it was him cause they truly just know each other that well ☺️ Live for Angela yelling “Friendship always wins!” after he got it right too! And can we also talk about the totally unnecessary, but very, very cute little nose boop Ian threw in there just cause he wanted to! Obsessed!

-

A little bit later in the video during Duran’s round of slapping Anthony another little moment happened that I just wanted to include cause I thought that it was funny and showed how silly of a mood Ian was in, I think Anthony being blindfolded was playing a part in that and he gained a little extra layer of confidence to just fuck about with Anthony 😆

Anthony: [standing with his butt pushed out waiting to be slapped]

Kiana: “The stance is great. The stance is great.”

Ian: [runs over and pretends to go in to slap Anthony’s butt]

Anthony: “Why’s there wind?”

Cast & Crew: [laugh]

Hehe 🤭

Anyways! That was it for the slapping video but I did also want to include something that came off the back of it and that was…

Bonus

Anthony dedicating a whole Instagram post to Ian slapping him :-

Obessed with this though! The fact he went out of his way to make a post specifically about Ian slapping him over anyone else, plus that caption! ‘only ian would slap me like that’ - truly the cherry on top of it all 😌

Jacksfilms Confesses His Biggest Regret

So they had Jacksfilms on as a guest for Flashback to react to some of his old videos and an old collab of his the boys had been a part of.

-

Jack: [talking about how he moved to LA after he graduated] “…And that’s when I started collaborating with some, then, very big YouTube channels.”

Anthony: [looks at Ian] “Yeah, back then we were big.” [elbows Ian and Ian elbows him back]

Them just being silly 😄 loved the little elbowing of each other too 😊

-

Jack: “I remember I was in college, I was like out hanging with my friends. I just got 50,000 subs on YouTube, baby. And one of my friends just like took the air right out of my tire, or sails, whatever, and was like ‘Uh, yeah, did you know that Smosh has like a million now?’.”

Ian: “Pffft.”

Anthony: [silent laughs] “Noice!” [high-fives Ian] “Noice!”

Again, just more of them being silly. Plus high-five!

-

I should have mentioned at the start of this section that Ian is in a tshirt-dress for this video as a reference to Jack as it’s got tweets of his printed on it. Anyway, as a result his legs are out obviously, and that’s relevant to this next part :-

Anthony: [talking about how there’s always an audience for every kind of content, it’s just about what kind of audience you want to have]

Ian: “That’s true. And you want this audience.” [pointing to show off his legs]

Anthony: “You want this.”

Ian: “You want the audience that accepts this.”

Anthony: “This is what you want. This is the audience that we have. And we are very happy with this audience.”

Ian: “Exactly.”

Anthony: “They’ve been begging for this.”

And we’re more than happy to be the audience for it! 😌 (As is Anthony considering how many times he was checking out Ian’s legs during this video 😉)

Anthony also had this to say about YouTube’s hate for Ian’s attire 😤

-

Jack: [talking about a sponsorship he done with other youtubers to test out a new workout program]

Ian: “Did you get Jaaaacked?”

Anthony: [looks at Ian with a smirk and high-fives him]

Second high-five for this video! Also Anthony just quietly complimenting Ian’s pun 😄

-

Ian: “Do you [Jack] have any regrets? Any videos that you regret making?” [smiling]

Anthony: “You look so happy saying that.” [smiling] “This is happiest I’ve seen you all episode.” [laughs]

Just thought it was cute how Anthony seeing Ian smiling made him smile and laugh 😊

And that was it for another Flashback!

No1 Ian Fan Strikes Again

So Anthony was back at it! The Smosh team was out celebrating one of the crews birthday - Erin posted this to her story. Now I’m sure there were probably multiple photos and videos taken this night but what was the only thing Anthony shared from it? That’s right! Ian of course!

He’s obsessed with that boy and I love it! 😌

Ian also reshared and replied to Anthony’s story which you can find here

Making Of “MrBeast Copycats Have Gone Too Far”

So the BTS of the MrBeast Copycats Have Gone Too Far sketch offered us a few little moments :-

-

So this seemed to be a very high-five, hand-hold heavy BTS. Think they were just in one of those moods where they want any excuse to touch each other 🤭😉

[Finishing off their little video introduction]

Anthony: [goes in to high-five Ian and grips his hand]

Ian: [high-fives Anthony back and also grips his hand in response]

I&A: [still holding each other’s hands] “Let’s go shoot this shit!”

-

Ian: [messing up his line] “I’m having a trouble! I’m having a trouble…” [facepalms]

Shayne: “That’s so funny. ‘I’m having a trouble’.”

Anthony and Courtney: [laughing]

Anthony: [to Ian] “Are you having a trouble?” [puts hand on Ian’s shoulder]

Ian: “I’m having a trouble. Words.”

Anthony: [laughs]

I know they were (lovingly) poking fun at Ian here, but the wee glimpse of the shoulder touch from Anthony to Ian is what got me ☺️

-

I&A: [In character but joking around]

Ian: “There’s a twist. There’s a twist.” [puts hand out to Anthony] “There’s a twist.”

Anthony: “There’s a twist.” [takes Ian’s hand and grips it]

I&A: [still holding hands whilst lightly pushing/tapping each other and repeating “there’s a twist”. They then start scissoring their fingers together, before gripping each other’s fingers and pulling the other in closer to them whilst now repeating “getting twisted” and manically laughing]

Well… that was… something… 👀

Told you they were just looking for any excuse to touch each other. But hey, wouldn’t be a Smosh BTS if Ian and Anthony weren’t flirting with each other 😜

-

And to finish off this high-five heavy BTS, I’ll leave you with this :-

Ian: [talking about how Anthony injured himself by dropping a laptop on his foot and how he should take an Advil but Anthony doesn’t take Advil so he doesn’t know if it’ll help]

Anthony: “I don’t care about the pain, I just want the throbbing to stop.”

Ian: “He doesn’t like throbbing.”

Anthony: “I don’t like throbbing. I like pulsating.”

Ian: [laughs] “I hate both of those words.”

Anthony: [laughs] “Yeah, usually I say throbbing or pulsating member…”

Ian: [acting disgusted]

Anthony: “Speaking of members thank you so much being a Smoshtastic or Smosh Royalty member!”

Ian: “Yeah! Thanks for being our throbbing members.” [laughs]

Anthony: “Our pulsating members.”

Ian: “Yeahhh, throbbing members.”

I&A: [high-five]

Um… thanks boys, I guess… happy to be a throbbing and pulsating member… 🥴🤦‍♀️ They high-fived so I had to include it, don’t blame me for what they said! 😩

-

And on that’s note that brings us to the end of January! Hope you all enjoyed reading - I’d say it was a very good start to the year in terms of content, and the boys very much delivered in terms of complimentary moments so can’t complain 😌

Thank you all again for reading and I shall see you next time! 💖

[radioactivepeasant]

Snippets: Free Day Thursday (Second, sillier part to follow Friday)

Poll Results: Trespasser Jak

Picking up from HERE, Jak and Daxter have been taken back to Spargus

The drive back to the city was not quiet. Every couple seconds, the kid with the amulet he shouldn't have had was pointing to something else, talking a mile a minute to the fuzzy orange thing. The red rock bluffs fascinated him. The crocadeer on the clifftops fascinated him. The frith-rotted cactus was interesting to this stranger.

Jak started to lean out of the seat again, trying to take in every speck of the horizon.

"Will you stop that?" Damas asked irritably, "You're going to fall out, and I'm not turning this car around to go get you. What are you so entranced by, huh?"

Jak's enthusiasm wasn't dimmed in the slightest. "After they took us to Haven- I thought there was nothing left out there but wasteland!"

"You're in the Wasteland," Damas reminded him.

"Nah."

Jak stood up despite the driver's protests and clung to the turret gun to watch a flock of birds.

"This place isn't wasted. It's alive."

"And you won't be if you don't sit down right now-!"

Damas’s headache only multiplied -- exponentially. once they had actually returned Spargus.

The stranger gawked at everything, sometimes lagging as many as ten behind to look at the most mundane things. Forges. The communication hub/post office. Leapers. A stray chickalope he tried to pick up-!

Getting him into the Gate District garrison building took five minutes longer than it should've, by which time Damas’s patience was almost completely gone. It was all he could do to keep some modicum of professionalism as he herded the boy and the talking spirit thing into a clean, well-lit room for interrogation. He left them with a stern warning to wait there until someone came to figure out who they were.

Then he left to make a very strong pot of coffee. He wasn't going back in there without it.

He quickly decided that needed another kind of drink when he returned ten minutes later only to find Jak, barefoot, sitting on top of the table like a moody teenaged gargoyle. That ratty blue winter tunic was tied around his waist now, and the loose scarf and oversized undershirt didn't quite cover a surprising amount of scars for someone his age -- or maybe not so surprising if he was an Heir, given the proclivity of Haven to put those through the wringer-

No. No jumping to conclusions.

Old burns on the soles of his feet that looked roughly six to seven years old -- a childhood accident or stubborn adventure, most likely -- were the most benign of them. Damas saw old, healed clawmarks, and strange fractal-like patterns not unlike those struck by lightning, crossing his upper arms, shoulders and chest. Here and there he saw raised lines -- the telltale sutures of do-it-yourself shrapnel removal. Regardless of whose blood flowed in his veins, this kid was a soldier. And it looked like he'd been a soldier for a depressingly long time.

Damas pushed the thoughts from his mind and took a seat in the chair the trespasser had ignored.

"Alright. Let's get this over with as quickly as we can, shall we? I have a lot of work to do today."

"Oh...kay...?" Jak gave him a puzzled, wary look and scooted back across the table to rest his back against the wall. "I mean, I can't answer everything, and half of what I do tell you won't sound believable, but that's honestly not my problem."

Patience, Damas. Inhale, slowly. You're just stressed. You can't kill him if he's related to you.

Damas took an exaggerated breath and folded his hands on the top of the table. "I don't much care about your activities in Haven. My agents deliver news regularly enough. No, I want to know how you opened a locked door with a Seal of Mar on it."

The kid looked surprised, and then intrigued.

"Mar? Wait, really? He made it out here too?" Jak looked almost impressed. "Huh! Guy got around!"

"Answer the question."

The orange one answered in the kid's stead.

"Jak here's got the distinct misfortune of being descended from the guy-"

*Allegedly," Jak interrupted. His voice was distinctly harder than before.

"What "allegedly"? Dragging me into the frickin nightmare tomb wasn't enough for ya?"

"Everything we know about that guy we got from Krew, or Samos," his companion argued, "And most of the Oracles didn't bother to warn us that Samos was lying to us our whole lives. So no, I'm not taking that on faith."

Clearly this was a sore spot for the young man.

It just so happened to also be a very sore spot for Damas.

They were just going to act like they so happened to "conveniently" let slip that this boy was supposed to be related to him? Did they think he was a fool?

"What are you playing at?" he snapped, startling them both. "Do you think I am so easily taken in?"

"What-?"

"Tell me, boy," Damas said, much more quietly, "What makes you either brave enough or stupid enough to try to pull that story with me?"

And Jak blinked at him with eyes that were a little too familiar. Wide. Full of shadows and pain and anger but still clinging to the vestiges of innocence. He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head.

"Um. Who? Are you?"

If this was a con, the kid was a decent actor, Damas had to give him that.

"You're telling me you're a survivor of the House of Mar."

"No? I said other people told me I was related to that guy. People with a vested interest in controlling me."

Jak scoffed bitterly and spread his arms wide.

"Little "abandoned" orphan boy kept isolated to train as a soldier, so he wouldn't know what they planned for him. Wouldn't run. And then magically suddenly he's heir to the worst city on the planet? Give me a break. The guards in Praxis's lab came up with better lies than that."

Damas wanted to agree with the kid. He wanted so much to agree with him. Whatever else he might be, clearly Jak was not the kind of person who bought into delusions of grandeur. In fact, he sounded like he actively resented the thought. Damas could appreciate that. Rot, he could even sympathize with the kid.

But.

He had opened a sealed door.

And the river-weasel had just said something about a Tomb.

He really really didn't want to be right, but if they could give an accurate description of the Tomb at some point, that information would be pretty hard to fake.

"Why did they think they could pass you off as Haven's heir?" Damas asked bluntly.

"Because I can make old Precursor crap work, I guess? And the Oracles like me." Jak folded his arms and shrugged. "They're useless when it comes to actually protecting anyone, but at least they tried to help after the fact. More than most hu'mens did."

Oh. Alright, okay. Maybe he's a sage prodigy and he's never been trained. That would make sense-

"Pal, the Oracle called you a "chosen one". That's gotta mean something."

"Chosen for what? Time looped torture?" Jak's entire posture had become rigid. He was beyond agitated, but Damas couldn't quite pin down if it was anger or fear or something closer to grief.

"....I...sorry." The orange one looked down, clearly ashamed. "That's- fair point. I won't bring it up anymore."

Damas didn't want to hear another word of this. Not one. Without stopping to think lest he talk himself out of it, he drew a knife from the back of his belt. The boy tensed even further, looking like he might snap as he watched Damas pull a sheet of paper haphazardly from the notepad that came standard in all the interrogation rooms. Damas ignored him and placed the tip of the blade to the pad of his thumb, pushing until two large drops of blood dripped onto the paper. The boy's tension eased slightly, but he still looked vaguely alarmed.

Damas wiped the blade and, steeling himself, held it out hilt-first to Jak.

"Your turn."

Jak glared at him.

"Are you nuts?"

Damas remained stonefaced. "You want to prove those people wrong? Blood comparison. Computer will be able to identify if it matches old records or not."

"Then why'd you cut yourself?" Jak challenged.

"Control sample," Damas answered shortly, staring until the boy gave in and set the blade against the tip of his little finger.

He declined to specify whether he meant for or against.

Jak twisted his pinkie between his fingers and let a single drop of blood fall onto the paper. He narrowed his eyes at Damas.

"And this is supposed to take...how long?"

"Two months if they're not busy."

Jak unfolded his legs and slid off the tabletop. "Months?! What good does that do me? They'll probably have found a way to guilt me into going back to Haven by then!"

Hm.

Damas leaned back in his chair and studied the boy with a new perspective.

"You're a runaway. Aren't you?"

Jak scowled and folded his arms.

"I'm not! I'm just...there's something I have to do out here. And I can't go back yet."

Suspicion trickled in cold at the back of Damas’s mind. He folded the edge down over the bloodied paper and tucked it into his belt.

"And what," he asked warily, "is this "something" you intend to do?"

The boy's ears dropped, broadcasting uncertainty despite his belligerent posture.

"I...don't know yet. There's just...something was calling me. And I can't leave until I know what it is."

This boy was going to be a walking migraine trigger, wasn't he? But unfortunately there was a reasonably high probability that he was Damas’s kinsman, which meant that under no circumstances could he just toss the kid back to Haven and say "not my circus, not my moncaws".

Just get through this until the blood tests come back. Who knows, maybe the guy will find a place here in the meantime. Or he might decide to fight the squid and die horribly. One step at a time.

Damas opened the door and beckoned to one of the district guards down the hall. Commander Shui left her subordinates immediately to respond.

"Sir?"

Damas nodded back towards the trespasser.

"Have someone show him to the showers. Once he's cleaned up, see if you can't determine his age."

Shui glanced at Jak, but never lost her stoic expression. "Understood. Is he a candidate for the trials?"

Damas ignored the harsh whispering between the boy and the...okay that was called an ottsel apparently. Didn't have those out in the desert.

"I doubt even he knows. For the moment, we will proceed as though he is a refugee."

He sighed.

"I have matters to attend to. Inform me if he causes any problems."

Jak wasn't sure how to feel about this turn of events. Six days of maddening dreams of eco comets and a broken string of beads. Five days of something pulling on his eco core, or his soul, the way the Precursor Stone had.

He wasn't sorry for leaving Haven in the middle of the night. The Grand Council had been getting more and more vocal with their more...Praxian...views on his right to life and liberty, and Samos just kept telling him to focus on what was "more important", fighting metalheads and new Krimzon Deathbots.

When the Call took him down that ancient eco mine, it had felt like an escape. He'd told himself he'd go back after he found what was at the end of the tunnel. And he'd meant to, if only because he thought he had nowhere else to go. After all, Daxter had built a life in Haven. He had a mentor. A girlfriend. A whole business!

But regardless of all the pretty lies Samos and Onin and Ashelin filled his ears with, Haven was not Jak's home. He would not take responsibility for their evil. And even if he was descended from their founder, they all let Praxis kill whatever blood relatives he might've had! They decided the line of Mar had no say in government, so who was Jak to contradict them?

It was strange -- almost unfathomable -- how his perspective could have changed with a rebalancing of eco. The Oracle down in that desert temple, it had pushed through old scars, given him access to light eco, when he'd thought the substance didn't exist anymore. The constant aches that ruled his every waking moment when it was even slightly cold out, the irritability, the burning in his core, it was gone.

How had he become so accustomed to at least low levels of pain as a daily companion? Jak hadn't realized how bad his condition had been until it was gone. And his mind felt clearer than it had in months. Maybe even years. Home was far behind them now. Sandover was forever lost to them, along with all remains of Jak's innocence. Because of Onin. And because of Samos.

Without his thoughts dulled by pain and lack of sleep, Jak thought of his heartfelt thanks to the manipulative old sage and wanted to be sick.

And now he was on an island, eighty nautical miles from Haven. A wild, living, sanctuary of Wastelanders and open wilderness. They called it "wasteland", but Jak couldn't understand why when it was so beautiful.

That Call still pulled at his heart, told him he wasn't done here yet. And he was relieved, because the longer he spent under clear, blue, sky, the more he hated the thought of returning to that corrupted city.

Just because he'd told Ashelin it was worth saving didn't mean he belonged to it.

Damas -- the angry man he'd startled when they came up out of the catacombs -- left, and a well-built woman about his height entered the interrogation room.

"Holy crap, a lady Sig!" Daxter hissed in his ear.

The Wastelander did have a prosthetic eye -- her left, not her right -- of the same make, but that was really the only similarity. She carried herself like Ashelin -- someone in command, used to cooperation if not obedience -- and that alone put Jak on-edge. He met her searching gaze with a hard stare, determined not to be the first to flinch.

"Hm." The woman clicked her tongue disapprovingly.

"I see what he means. When's the last time you washed?"

"Do pools of water count?" Jak asked. If there was sarcasm in the tone, so what? "Expendables don't get time to wash."

"Eesh." The woman curled her lip. "Well that's not going to fly in my garrison."

She turned to shout down the hall, "Strom! Get the rookie to the showers before the flies move in!"

"Oh rot you!"

[supper122]

FROSTTALE: Master Post

Frosttale is an au I made over two years ago now, and quite a few things have changed since i made the original concept on discord. At this point nearly every character has a finalized design and the story is complete, so i think its time i made it more mainstream!!!

Opening Cutscene:

Long ago, two races ruled over earth: humans and monsters

One day tragedy struck, a blizzard worse than any before it struck the human village and the humans believed the monsters to be the cause.

The humans fought the monsters, and sealed them into a cave, using magic to curse them with eternal cold

Many monsters suffered, and more died.

PRESENT DAY:

Legend has it that a furnace powered by seven human souls could stop the winter and break the ice barrier that seals them underground

MT. EVEREST, 202X

They say those who climb this mountain may never return.

(Thingy of chara falling into the underground blah blah blah game starts)

Ok so time for the changes!!!

this au centers around everything being cold, duh.

The most major change is that undyne is dead due to the extreme temperatures, and that drives nearly every other change in the au.

Alphys found her goop stuff after she died, scooped it up and saved it. Since then has been secretly using the royal scientist funds not for technological development but in an attempt to revive undyne.

One day, papyrus is walking around in waterfall, looking for undyne in a hope that somehow, he could find her (he doesn’t know that she’s dead, sans told him she’s just missing). Alphys sees him, and sees an opportunity (he has a similar body shape to undyne), she persuades him to come to the lab, then she knocks him out cold (see what I did there)

Papyrus wakes up a few hours later tied to a table and has a couple of wires and containers hooked up to him, most notably two labeled “remains” and “DT”

Due to the fact that he’s tied down papyrus is stuck there.

A few minutes later Alphys walks into the room and tells him that he will be ok, and tells him that if the procedure works, papyrus can be part of the royal guard, when papyrus asks what the procedure is, Alphys doesn’t answer.

Slowly, papyrus goes back to sleep, and the vials are all injected into him.

Once he wakes up again, he is now in a bed in a room that is similar to undynes, and is wearing a suit of armor also similar to undynes clothing.

Alphys walks in and tells papyrus that she cannot tell him where he is, and that he will stay here for the next few months.

Over the next few months papyrus is nurtured by Alphys, but notices something, Alphys is getting increasingly more stressed, and is now preforming daily checkups on him, and soon papyrus starts to notice something else.

Flesh.

Papyrus is growing flesh on his bones.

Flesh with scales.

And something else, papyrus feels much more determined and stronger in general, along with the sudden ability to be able to summon and throw spears as well as bones now.

However, the flesh doesn’t completely cover him, only parts of his limbs and face. He also loses vision in his left eye and needs an eyepatch, soon the changes stop.

Alphys realizes that her attempt at bringing undyne has failed and slowly realizes what she has put this innocent monster through. she leaves the lab and takes after her mentor, jumping into the core and killing herself.

Alphys has created Papyryne (name is a wip lmao).

Papyryne never found the key to leave the true lab, and has turned to be the caretaker of the other amalgamates, He has a lot of physical traits of undyne, while keeping most of the personality of papyrus, meaning he is now actually able to do the good deeds he once wanted to do. He makes the true lab look nicer, and treats the amalgamates like family

During all those shenanigans Sans has become very very lonely and quite depressed. He looks for papyrus everyday and can’t find him. He spends most of his time in his house or the judgement hall, or at least, he did.

Sans does end up meeting toriel, and in fact is at the door when you fight her, However sans never made his promise to not kill a human to toriel, as he feels that if there is an opportunity to melt the ice, he should take it.

After you leave the ruins, sans will have run away and back to his house. As you go through Snowdin, all of papyrus’ puzzles are completely frozen over and easily passable, and there are no monster encounters.

When you reach snowdin, no one is there either, they all either left or died, sans and papyrus, being skeletons, are the only ones who were able to survive the cold.

The river is completely frozen solid, and the ice cube machine is backed up with ice. When you reach the area where you would normally fight papyrus, sans will sneak up on you and start a battle.

The battle is different depending on weather you killed toriel or not. If you haven’t, sans is simply fighting you out of obligation, and the fight is very easy. After a few turns of acting and sparing, sans starts to cry a little. He doesn’t want to kill anyone, stating the underground has lost enough, and spares you. If you attack, the screen turns black and then you go back to the overworld. no sans in sight. If you do not attack, sans will not say anything, and go back to his house.

If you did kill toriel, the fight is a bit harder, but after a few turns, sans will run away regardless of what you do to him.

Entering waterfall, everything is frozen over, and again there is no life to be seen. There are two places of intrest, the old tem village (the new one will be mentioned later) where you can grab some nice items, and the village.

Upon entering the main area (the one with the save point and houses) you will encounter all three ghost characters, alphys was too obessed with reviving undyne to build mettaton, and undyne wasnt alive to need a training dummy (mad mew mew still happens post game btw).

Mad dummy forces the other two to attack you, napstablook being shy and mettaton being generally depressed (due to lack of body) dont really care too much, but fight you for their cousin anyways.

At the end of waterfall, they fight you one at a time (mirroring the multiple undyne fight segments). You can spare them by promising MTT and Mad Dummy that youll get them bodies (witch then becomes a pacifist quest), and letting blooky show you dapper blook.

Entering hotland youll notice everything is mostly ashen and gray, most of the lava having been turned to stone. You begin by passing through alphys's lab (nothing happens there... yet) and making your way to where MTT resort would have been, youll notice that as you enter hotland (now called "The Refuge" by most monsters) you can encounter monsters from anywhere in the previous areas.

Approaching the MTT resort location, youll instead find a bustling town called "New Snowdin", featuring Grillbys 2, a closed down nice cream stand, a royal guard sign up center, and... a massive cemetary.

In the cemetary youll find graves for muffet and lesser dog, as well as memorials for alphys, sans, and papyrus (the latter two being presumed dead by the public)

When attempting to enter the core, the door will be locked and have a sign saying "ROYAL GUARD ONLY", promting you to visit the sign up center.

You can sign up to the royal guard and enter the core, eventually getting on the elevator to the castle.

When you reach the top, youll be met by a hill, climbing on top of it youll find sans, he will explain that youre standing on top of the judgment hall, its been covered in snow

He says that for a long time, monsters have hated the king for his "wait out the humans" idea, and activley tried to revolt, promting the closing of the core to the public. He says that you are the final human needed, and sadly, you must die.

He then sends you off to asgore.

When you arrive, asgore brings you in for tea, sitting down with you in front of a large unpowered furnace with seven heart shaped slots, and explaining youre the first person willing to do so in quite some time.

He then escorts you to the barrier, and the fight begins. During the fight, your hp will drain very slowly due to the proximity of the barrier, being that it is what emmits the cold.

At the end, he reaches his final bit of hp, and then does something drastic.

You may have noticed a lack of flowey while reading this and thats because, well, he doesnt exist. flowers dont grow in these temperatures, and even if they could, alphys wouldnt have made him.

Asgore turns his back, and swings his trident, destroying the containers of souls, destroying them.

A second phase begins, he is now much powerful and has much more health, but eventually soul segments similar to those omega flowey has occur, and you can eventually defeat him.

You are then given the option to kill or spare him, if you kill, you recive the six souls and can break the barrier, if you spare, he takes you in as his own, and the game ends with you going to sleep in his castle.

This means that yes, there is no true pacifist run (but there is something similar...)

(Almost) PACIFIST EXCLUSIVE EVENTS:

If you have spared everyone, the elevator to the hill will collapse, bringing you to the true lab, where you can meet papyryne, he will treat you with kindness... at first.

He eagarly shows you around the lab, introducing you the amalgamates who he has lovingly named Puppy, Birdy, Snowy, Goopy, and Whispy.

However, as he shows you around youll begin to notice times where the font he is speaking in changes, and he becomes more agressive.

You can see the following entries on the walls:

Entry 1:

I found what I believe to be undynes remains today, something’s off though, it isn’t dust… it’s goop

Entry 2:

I’ve stored her remains down here, I plan to begin doing tests on it, seeing how she could have possibly gained DETERMINATION

Entry 3:

The DT extractor broke today, it will be a while untill it is fixed

Entry 4:

The memory heads keep looking around my shelf, spouting nonsense like “still there” or “don’t forget”

Entry 5:

The DT extractor is up and running again, I’m preforming some diagnostics, then tests begin tomorrow

Entry 6:

This is impossible

Entry 7:

I’ve made a discovery, in undynes remains, although there is only a fragment… her SOUL… is still there.

Entry 8:

The tests have been stopped, I’m attempting to recover some old files about the amalgamates

Entry 9:

Just as I thought, the records show that monster souls, when in their weakened state, can fuze, the most dominant soul taking the consciousness

Entry 10:

I took a small portion on undynes remains today and gave it to one of the amalgamates in their food, so far, nothing has happened

Entry 11:

It’s no problem, I simply need a bigger sample size, and perhaps a more stable monster with a complete soul, unlike the amalgamates

Entry 12:

I found a shyren today, I’ve lured it here and and captured it, I will be preforming the same experiment I did with the amalgamate

Entry 13:

…

Nothing is happening

Entry 14:

The shyren lost Vision in one eye today, though I am not sure if this is related to the experiment

Entry 15:

The shyren has been knocked out for 3 days now, I’ve hidden her body in the bathroom

Entry 16: I beleive I have found a new candidate for an experiment, this next experiment could be very very interesting.

As you are about to leave with him, freeing him from the lab, undyne takes over and he fights you. the fight is difficult by interchanging blue and green soul mechanics, the final attack using a combination of both.

You are forced to spare, as you cant damage him, and his fit of rage will end, he then will leave the lab with you and youll fast travel back to snowdin, reuniting him with sans.

You can then go back to the elevator and everything else will play out the same, with some additional sans dialouge at the end.

GENO EXCLUSIVE EVENTS:

You have to do like. a shit ton of grinding in hotland. You also have to do the ghost quests so you can kill them.

You reach level 14 and thats the highest you can get, you then take the elevator.

Once you reach the hill, you meet sans. He doesnt say anything, and a fight begins.

"it was a nice day today"

"can you see the snow sparkling in the light?"

"..."

"of course not"

"no one like you would stop to appreciate that"

"it was already bad down here, why did you have to make it worse"

"..."

"not much of a talker..?"

"me neither"

"but..."

"heres the thing"

"you see... king asgore needs one more soul"

"and youve got a nice one ripe for the taking"

"so... heres what im going to do"

"i am going to fight you"

"and i wont stop..."

"...UNTIL HELL FREEZES OVER"

then you fight, and at the end a similar cutscene to the one in UT will play, exept he doesnt ask papyrus if he wants anything.

you then go to asgore, and everything will play out as normal, exept you arent allowed to spare him.

EPILOUGE:

Holy fuck, that took so long to write. pleasepleaseplease if you have any questions feel free to ask, and i dont usually ask but if you liked it please reblog, i spent a lot of time on this.

ill be posting designs soon, and fanart would be much appreciated!!

sans design

[headfullofpresley]

𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝐓𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 | 𝟐.

Pairing: Elvis Presley x reader

Word count: 7,1K

Summary: Elvis realises you aren't as clueless about what you are as he thought when you confide in him about your past. With revenge on your mind and a heart that needs healing, there's nothing else he can do but be there when you make the decision to embrace the part of you that's always been hidden.

Warnings: vampire!Elvis, flashbacks and background information on reader's life, murder and gore-y scenes, angst, blood consumption, use of the word "cross-breeding"(?), small mention of suicide, that's itttt i think!

A/N: since i don't have time to post this weekend and i can't stop writing for this, here's part 2! y'all think reader will believe elvis when he finally tells her who he really is? and you think she could beat elvis' ass during training next chapter? 👀

masterlist | story playlist | part one.

August 10, 2012 – 3:25PM

August was your father’s favorite month. The heat mixed hellishly with the humidity of New Jersey wasn’t something you enjoyed yourself, so you never understood why your father did.

To others it may have not seem like he did, as he always sat underneath a parasol whenever the sun was out. Your parents had been feeding you the lie of your father having an extreme sensitivity to sunlight and even some UV lighting- it had a name, but you were young and clueless, too occupied with other things.

Simpler, teenage things.

You never questioned why it was your mother who worked seven days a week to put food on the table nor why you heard your father leaving the house in the middle of the night on some days. Maybe you should have.

You wished you would’ve asked why August was your father’s favorite month- he would’ve told you it was because you were born on the 10th day. He had never felt more alive, more human.

 

You never did quite like your birthday. You had a few friends from school but you could’ve done with a simple dinner with your parents just as well- your mother had other plans, though.

She decided that you’d only turn thirteen once and you deserved a party. You were grateful, you just hated whenever the house was too crowded. And right now, it was exactly that. The backyard was filled with people- the few friends you had, some family members from your mother’s side, neighbors.

Never once did you wonder why your father’s family never visited, or why you weren’t supposed to come into the living room whenever he was having friends over. But you were getting older and you were starting to become more curious.

You had always trusted your parents and believed every word they told you, but lately you felt as if they were keeping secrets from you. And you were starting to think it had something to do with you- in that case, you had a right to know.

“I’ll get you another piece of pie, grandma,” you told your mother’s mother who was sitting next to you in the backyard, getting up the same time as your father did to make his way into the house. Your grandmother ignored you which didn’t bother you all too much- for some reason, she never liked you and although she never said it, she didn’t do much to hide her feelings.

Creeping past your mother, who was too busy talking to some of her friends, you silently made your way into the house and down the hallway that led to the living room. You recognized the voice of your father and those of a few other men- neighbors, family friends. It made you slowly halt your movements, making sure they didn’t see you standing near the door opening.

“Beaumont and Harris have been spotted in Montclair. It’s not safe for you to stay here any longer, Richard. It’s not safe for her,”

You heard George, your next door neighbor and father’s best friend, say. There was a hint of panic lingering in the back of his throat, but the urgency in his voice was more dominant. He sounded worried. When your father spoke, he sounded calm to unknowing ears.

But you knew your father. He was worried too.

“I know, George, I know.. but.. not today. Now is not the time,” you were frozen in place as your father heaved a deep sigh and you stood pressed against the wall, fighting the urge to peek around the corner. “We’ve been keeping them at bay for years, we can do so for one more night,”

“Your time is up, Rich. You have to tell her,”

“No,” your father raised his voice, shutting up everyone else in the room and making you hide your mouth behind your hands, holding your breath. “Not today, not tonight. It’s her birthday- she’s only thirteen years old. She isn’t ready for this yet, maybe she never will be and maybe that’s for the best. It’s.. it’s best if she never finds out,”

“If she never finds out, she’ll be in more danger and you know it. She deserves to know,”

Know? Know what?!

You were starting to get nervous now. It was obvious that they were talking about you. They knew something you didn’t and this both frustrated you as much as it scared you.

“I decide if my daughter finds out about what she is or not. You take care of keeping the big city guys and the Council away and I’ll take care of my family,”

With your father showing dominance, the conversation ended and the shuffling footsteps that moved around the room got you to push yourself off the wall and back into the backyard. Your father caught a glance of you just when the screen door shut behind you- still, just like all your thirteen years of life, he couldn’t read your mind.

And if things worked out the way he wanted them to, meaning you’d never find out about your true self and trigger any of your abilities, he would never be able to get inside of your head.

 

You went on with your day like nothing happened and so did everyone else- you hung out with your friends, thanked your company for their presents and for coming and helped your mother clean up the mess and do the dishes when everyone left after dinner. You didn’t mind the fact that everyone left, spending the night watching a movie with your parents and trying to forget about the conversation you overheard.

But you couldn’t, it was all you could think about when you were laying in bed that night. You heard your parents talking to each other in muffled voices as they went to bed, but you couldn’t hear what they were saying. As much as you wanted to eavesdrop on their conversation, your mind was scrambled and you were tired from thinking too much and too hard.

You weren’t strong enough to win the battle with your body, slowly but surely drifting into a deep slumber.

 

Present Day

You awakened to the soft melodies of Clair de Lune being played by someone on a piano. Despite the throbbing headache you unfortunately had to deal with, the music wasn’t unwelcomed.

The bed you found yourself in was unfamiliar to you and while you had to get used to your surroundings for a few minutes, you could take a wild guess who the soft mattress belonged to. You had been wanting to get close to the raven haired stranger that had a knack for saving you every time you got yourself in trouble, but you never expected to wake up inside of his penthouse with a truly breathtaking view of the city.

You simply couldn’t explain your reasoning for wanting to be around him, but it was like you were drawn to him out of your control. Even now that you woke up with a hangover and it felt like someone was pounding the inside of your head with hammers, he was still all you could think about.

Putting your messy hair up with the hairclip you found in your purse, you stepped out of the heavenly soft bed and out of the room, following the sound of the piano that was still echoing gently through the penthouse. You tugged the white button up you had slept in down a little more, luckily you were a lot smaller than the owner of the house and his shirt looked like a dress on you.

“Good morning, Aaron,”

Elvis had been getting lost in the music and didn’t hear you walking down the stairs and into the living area where he was sitting at the piano, but as soon as he heard your voice, his fingers halted on the keys of the piano.

He tried not to grimace at you using his middle name, although that was kind of his own fault- when you and him exchanged names before he allowed you to have his bedroom for the night, he figured he couldn’t exactly tell you his first name. Especially not after the comment you made. He had kind of hoped you were too young to even know who Elvis Presley was, but unfortunately for him, he was more famous than he realised at times.

“Good morning, Y/N,” he smiled at you, his eyes following you as you walked closer to him and sat down next to him on the bench at the piano. “I’m sorry if I woke you,”

You hummed, shaking your head. You brought one hand up to the piano, ghosting your fingertips over the keys. Elvis was surprised as you lifted your other hand as well, playing a little bit of the song he just ended.

“Debussy,” you whispered as you stopped again, way too soon for Elvis’ liking. He looked at you, smiling softly as he saw the fond smile gracing your own features. “Claire de Lune was the first thing my father taught me on the piano. We used to drive my mother crazy with it,”

“Your father has good taste,” Elvis said, his smile widening a little as you looked at him with a hint of surprise in your eyes when he put his hand close next to yours on the keys. He slowly resumed the song, ignoring how it felt as if there was a fire ignited in his bones when his skin touched yours- he was pleasantly surprised when you played along, your fingertips following his lead.

You weren’t a terrible player, but you were rusty. It had been over ten years since you even sat down at a piano and your new friend here seemed like he played nearly every day. His fingertips were graceful and light as they danced over the keys of the instrument, never missing a melody not even when his eyes were on you.

Before the song could pick up intensity, you slowly removed your hand and let it join your other that was resting in your lap. Elvis smiled showing his teeth for a second as he put his other hand on the keys as well, effortlessly and perfectly playing the entire song as if he had done this for a thousand years, as if he had composed it himself.

You had to bite your tongue to stop yourself from bursting into tears the entire time. After your thirteenth birthday, you hadn’t played nor listened to the piece of music. It brought back too many memories- all good memories at first, but they’d always morph into the horror-like ending of your parents’ lives. If you had lost your parents due to an illness or simply old age, you could’ve given your grief a place. But the way they had met their end was something you wouldn’t wish upon anybody, not even your worst enemy.

So lost in thought, you didn’t realise the song had ended nor felt the tear that managed to roll down your cheek from the corner of your eye. Elvis didn’t even hesitate or hold back as he took his hands off the piano and thumbed your tear away, making you stumble back into reality and look at him again.

“I was that bad, huh?” he grinned at you, hoping to make you laugh. Because something told him the entire mood was to shift soon enough- he was going to have to tell you about what he was, what you were and what it meant for your future.

For now, he succeeded in it though and he found himself laughing along with you. He liked the sound of your laugh, it was contagious. It was better than music.

“No, you were great. Amazing. Just brought me back to Jersey for a little while,”

He never expected for anyone to be transported to New Jersey when hearing Clair de Lune- most people aimed high and opted for Paris, Prague, or any other sophisticated European city. Elvis didn’t judge and nor tease. He needed to get this conversation rolling, needed a way to bring up the topic, and you basically kicked open the door yourself.

“You’re from Jersey?”

You nodded as you smiled at him, wiping away another tear that escaped before swallowing the forming lump in your throat down. You didn’t want to be emotional, but you had always been bad at hiding your emotions. It was like you felt things a hundred times more intense than others- your mother had always blamed it on puberty, but she knew better.

“Yes, from Montclair. It’s small and there was never much around to do, not like in the city anyways, but I had a good life there. At least for a little while,”

Elvis reached out his arm in front of him, placing his hand atop of the piano as he looked at you so intensely that you found yourself unable to look away from his blue hues. He was trying so hard to just get into your head and see your childhood memories for himself, but even now that you were in his home and vulnerable, he was blocked.

You weren’t opening up to him, wasn’t asking for help because you weren’t in danger- it frustrated him that he couldn’t use his abilities to get a glimpse inside of your head, but it also intrigued him.

It was refreshing to feel curious about what someone was thinking. It's been a while since he'd been in such a position, as most people he came across were like open books.

“What happened for it to turn bad?”

You inhaled a deep breath of air, straightening your shoulders a little as your fingers tugged at the shirt you were wearing nervously, breaking eye contact with him as you looked down. You never told anyone about your parents- after your thirteenth birthday, you pushed down the trauma so deep that it left you thinking it had all been a dream on some days. A cruel nightmare that was all a figure of your imagination.

But on nights where you woke up screaming in horror and feeling like someone had punched a gaping hole in your chest, you knew it was anything but your imagination. You didn’t want it to be real and you figured if you’d simply never speak a word to someone about it, you could keep pretending it was all a dream.

You didn’t want pity, didn’t want people (and especially not people in the medical field) telling you that they understood your pain, sorrow and grief. Because they didn’t. Nobody would ever understand; but right now in this moment, sitting here at a piano with a complete stranger that helped you escape a few gnarly situations in the past few weeks, the words rolled off your tongue before you could swallow them down.

Because maybe, just maybe, Aaron could understand what it was like to experience a great loss like yours.

“I lost my parents,” you told him as you slowly raised your head, meeting his eyes. “They were murdered right in front of my eyes,”

 

August 11, 2012 – 3:00AM

You startled awake by the sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs and glass shattering from what you guessed was the hallway. Sitting up with your heart beating frantically, your mother didn’t give you the chance to go downstairs as she bursted through the door and dragged you out of your bed.

The look on her face worried you- she wasn’t crying, nor did she give away her inner turmoil with any other expressions. Her face was set into concetration and determination like stone, pulling you out of the room and into hers.

“Mom, what’s going on?!” you screamed in fear as you heard the sounds of struggles coming from downstairs- it sounded like several people were breaking down the house. Not seeing your father in the bedroom, you realised he was one of the people. “Where is Dad? What’s happening?”

Your mother didn’t say anything. Instead, she quickly opened the doors of her wardrobe and pullled a duffel bag out of it, walking over to her window to throw the bag down in the bushes near the front porch. She turned to you and grabbed your shoulders, squeezing harder than usual. You didn’t know at the time it was the last time your mother would be able to touch you, hold you.

“Go next door to George and Lilly. Your father and I will be there soon,” she saw the hesitation in your eyes, mixed with the fear and panic, and it made her heart shred to pieces. She was promising you something she wasn’t sure she could keep. “We’ll explain everything to you, Y/N, I promise you. But for now I need you to do as I say and go,”

You were crying, shaking your head. You didn’t want to leave your parents behind and deal with whatever was going on downstairs. It wasn’t going to end well- you just knew it.

You didn’t hear footsteps coming up the stairs and doors swinging open and closed- when the bedroom door of your parents’ room was kicked in, it nearly flew off the handles and it made your mother drag you to the window for you to climb out of and make your escape. But she wasn’t fast enough and neither were you- your mother was ripped away from you faster than you could blink.

You didn’t recognize the man that had stepped in the room and you were frozen on the spot as you watched him and your mother fight. You knew your mother was a tough cookie, but she was also a small and petite lady and she was no match for the rugged looking criminal that managed to get in the house.

Because that was all you thought he was; a criminal.

Until he ripped into your mother’s neck with his teeth, tearing a piece of her flesh off and spitting it out on the carpet. You couldn’t move or cry or scream; all you did was stand there and watch with horror as your mother’s neck was snapped with a flick of the man’s wrist. The thud of her lifeless body hitting the floor made you snap back to reality and reaching your hand behind you, your fingers came into contact with the wooden baseball bat you knew your mother kept hidden behind the curtains.

The sight of the man slowly and confidently making his way over to you like a lion would approach an unknowing gazelle was one you were never going to forget. Your mother’s blood dripped down from his chin, his eyes a shade of crimson that made a chill run down your spine.

It was only when he parted his lips and let out a growl that you noticed fangs poking out and you realised this was more than just a violent home raid.

“You’re coming with me, little girl,”

They weren’t here for jewelry or money or any other valuable thing. They were here for you.

“I don’t think so, creep,” you spat at him, not giving him time to respond as you swung the baseball bat to his head with as much force as you could. It got him distracted, stumbling back a little as he grabbed his head. You didn’t wait to see what would happen next, running past him and out of the door.

Trying to survive yourself, you didn’t have the chance nor time to take one last look at your mother. You thundered down the stairs, ignoring the pain you felt when you stepped in a piece of broken glass that was shattered all over the floor as you made your way into the kitchen. You grabbed the biggest knife you could find and just as you turned around, the same man from before was right in front of you- faster than you could imagine.

There was no mark of you hitting him with the bat, which was now in his hand because you dropped it in your frantic state of mind, but somewhere deep down inside you had already established that you weren’t dealing with a normal human being here.

And you didn’t know how to take out whatever the hell he was, so you went with the first thing that came to mind. Reaching out your hand with the knife in it in a swift move, you pushed the pointy blade right through his Adam’s apple, making him drop the baseball and cough up blood as he stumbled back against the kitchen table. Your body felt as if it switched to automatic pilot, grabbing the baseball bat from the floor and running into the living room where you heard your father fighting the other intruder.

Hitting the other guy on the back of the head as hard as you could, it got him to let go of your father. But nothing could’ve prepared you for the sight of your father’s face when he turned around to look at you- just like the one you had just stabbed in the throat, he looked unhuman.

His eyes were red as veins crawled underneath his skin, pointy fangs disrupting his usual warm and gentle face. His Genesis shirt that he always slept in was ripped and stained with blood.

“You need to get out of this house, you hear me?” your father grabbed your arms, already leading you to the front door. His face had returned to its normal state. He knew that he wasn’t able to compel you to forget this- it was a good thing that you weren’t able to let vampires inside of your head, but right now, he hated it more than anything in the world. “George and Lilly will know what to do. Baby, I’m so sorry about all of this, I’m so sorry for not being able to explain, but soon.. one day.. it will all make sense. I love you, but you need to go,”

You refused, trying to stop your father from pushing you further out of the living room and to the door by planting your feet against the floor as firm as you could. You were grabbing onto his ripped shirt, not wanting to leave him behind. But you had to, you knew you had no other choice when your father’s attacker was getting up and angrily making his way over to the both of you.

 

Much to Lilly’s dismay, George wasn’t going to sit back and wait. He knew something was wrong and he should’ve done what he did sooner. Even if it was just a few minutes earlier, he could’ve prevented all of this.

“This will get you killed, George!” Lilly yelled angrily as she ran after him to your front door. She was human and couldn’t stop him when he kicked down the door, letting the entire thing fly off the handles and land on the bottom of the stairs.

When George saw your father in an unfortunate position in the other vampire’s grip, he made his way over to get involved. The second intruder had seemed to recover from the knife you put in his throat and focused his attention on George, ripping his heart out in a split second. Lilly had grabbed you to console you but now you were the one catching her in your arms as she let out a bloodcurdling scream, watching her fiancé not even having a chance to fight for his life.

“W-We need to.. to g-go.. go, Lilly. Run!” you whispered breathlessly, trying to push her out of your arms and out of the house. The two intruders didn’t spare you the sight of twisting your father’s head in a gruesome manner.

Before his head was torn off and you left the house, you tried to open yourself to him and him only. You filled your mind with nothing and no one but your father, mentally screaming his name over and over again.

“Avenge me,”

Hearing his voice only seconds before his head dropped to the floor made your blood run cold and tears stream down your face. He had done it, he managed to telepathically communicate with you- you didn’t know how you were able to avenge your father as a young human girl, if you even were human, but you felt you owed it to your parents to get revenge.

You didn’t know anything anymore- not who you were, not who your parents were or about the kind of life they lived, but as you let yourself get dragged into a car by Lilly, you promised yourself you would never let anyone get inside of your head ever again.

A promise you didn’t know then you wouldn’t be able to keep.

 

Present Day

“Lilly blamed me for George’s death. We lived together in Washington for a few years, hiding as much as we could- we didn’t know if it was just those.. two.. or if there were more,” you sighed deeply, messing with the charm bracelet around your wrist. “I guess she either couldn’t face me every day anymore or the loss of her partner was too much for her.. she took her own life when I was 17. Thinking back on it now, I wouldn’t be able to live with someone like me either,”

Elvis frowned, his hands reaching down to grab yours as he shook his head at you. You allowed him, looking at him as he squeezed your hands softly- the both of you felt a tingle of electricity crawl down your spines, but neither of you gave it away.

“Your parents’ death wasn’t your fault, Y/N. Neither was George’s. You went through something traumatic- for a thirteen year old girl, you did the right thing. You did all you could do,”

You smiled softly at the empathic gleam in his eyes. This didn’t feel like the pity you hated getting from other people. He didn’t tell you he understood and that in the end, you’ll be okay.

Something told you that he was the right person to confide in. The right person to tell about the things that you have seen in your childhood home that night, things that other people would consider you absolutely crazy for.

“It was my fault, I know it was, and it’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life,” you told him, tilting your head a little as you gave him a soft smile. “Because they weren’t there for my parents.. my mother and father were.. collateral damage. Those men wanted me,”

Elvis opened his mouth to speak but at the same time you twisted your hands around in his grip, your palms connecting and your thumbs gently pressing onto the back of his hands. Unknowingly, you sent him a flashback of that gruesome night and Elvis saw your father getting murdered with his own eyes and you being dragged out of the house.

He could literally feel your pain and while he had wanted so badly to get access to your mind, it was nearly overwhelming now. There was grief, sorrow, anger, guilt… and then, Beaumont and Harris.

Masquerade guys.

He didn’t have time to confirm it was truly them- the images flashing before his eyes were so chaotic and rushed that it was hard to make out who was who and as you let go of his hands, it was gone all together.

He was blocked out once more.

Elvis sucked in a breath of air as he watched you get up from the bench and walk over to the floor to ceiling windows to look at the city below. “Do you think they wanted you because of what your father was?”

He asked you the question you’d been asking yourself for years. You couldn’t think of any other explanation, but you had never talked to anyone about this except for Lilly. She didn’t tell you much, though- she much rather avoided you as much as she could, never answering any questions you threw her way. The only thing she told you was that she lost the love of her life and that he’d still be by her side if it wasn’t for your “stupid mother and father cross-breeding”.

You had never wanted to believe your own assumptions about your father after that night, but the older you got, the more things started to make sense.

You were starting to realise that there was a bigger reason for your father to never expose himself to sunlight, and him leaving the house for “work” after the sun had went down.

You knew what your father was, but part of you was still hoping it wasn’t so. It couldn’t be- stuff like that just didn’t exist. But it did, and you had seen it with your own two eyes.

“Yes, I think so,” you whispered, gazing at the greyish sky outside and the tall skyrise buildings surrounding the one you were currently in. People and cars looked like tiny little ants from this high- it made you feel strangely safe. Like nothing and no one could hurt you up here. Maybe you were naive to trust the man at the piano so quick, but if he wanted to hurt you or had any malicious tricks up his sleeve, he would’ve done it by now. Besides, it wasn’t like you had much to lose anymore.

“Are you a vampire, Aaron?”

Elvis stopped in his tracks as he was making his way over to you, standing a few feet behind you as he stared at the back of your head. For at least a few seconds, you had rendered him speechless. Here he was, thinking that he was the one who was going to bring up the dreaded topic and inform you that you might not be human yourself and all this time, you were already aware.

Aware, but in denial.

“What makes you think I am?” he then questioned, his voice low but calm. Any worries that he had melted away when you slowly turned around and looked at him with a small smile on your face.

“First of all, you’re not denying it and… the way you show up and then disappear just like that again,” you snapped your fingers before crossing your arms in front of your chest again. “My father was pretty good at that too. And second, you’re not calling me a crazy bitch for calling you a vampire,”

He bit his lip to hold back a soft laugh- even in a situation like this, despite all the pain you’d gone through and he assumed you were still experiencing today, you had a sense of humor.

It only made him more drawn to you.

Rubbing the back of his neck a little, he nodded and slowly made his way over to you. “I am. And so was your father,” he told you the obvious, standing in front of you now and looking down at you due to your height difference. It didn’t feel demanding or dominant, he was only looking at you- really looking at you. You felt as if his blue eyes had access to your insides and could pick apart your soul. “Do you know what that makes you?”

Yes. No. Maybe.

“A freak?” you questioned with a feigned amused tone in your voice, not wanting to look weak and shed another tear in front of him. But he was making it hard for you- with the way he was looking at you and smiling at you as he shook his head, his fingertips caressing a strand of hair behind your ear, it made you want to break down into a million pieces. Right there in his arms.

Instead, you just gazed at him, softly biting your tongue.

“No, honey- it makes you special,”

You hated how weak you were and how easy it was for your knees to turn wobbly and your guard to come down around him. You allowed it when he planted a soft gentle kiss on your forehead and then… he hugged you.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had been hugged and held. The last man to do so was your father on your birthday, but this felt like it could grow into a complete different kind of love.

 

Half human, half vampire.

According to Elvis, it was the rarest specie to wander the earth. Vampires were undead creatures that were turned by the blood of other vampires- in any and all cases, they had been human once that were gifted abilities and immortality upon their ressurection. Unlike human-vampire hybrids, vampires could only be made this way and not be born naturally.

Women falling pregnant by the doing of vampires was rare, but not impossible. The activity in itself was extremely dangerous to the human and the pregnancy even more so, because the child grew faster than a human baby. Elvis told you what he knew about it, which wasn’t an awful lot, so you took his word for it when he thought out loud and assumed the duration of such a pregnancy was somewhere between 4 to 6 months.

Your mother never told you things about her pregnancy in great detail and you figured what she did tell you had probably been lies to keep half of your identity a secret.

 

“So, if I’m half… vampire- why do I still get hangovers?” you questioned with an irritated sigh, taking the painkiller and glass of water Elvis handed to you when you sat down on his couch with him.

He laughed softly as he leaned back against a couple of decorative pillows, watching you throw back the pill and shudder when you gulped down the water. He took the glass from you and put it on the coffee table, looking at you.

“I’m guessing your vampire side has to be triggered, or ‘activated’, so to speak. Vampires complete their transition by drinking blood, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’d be the same for you,”

You pulled your legs up and wiggled your feet underneath you, placing a pillow against your thighs as to not flash the man in front of you. You thought about his words for a little bit, humming softly as you placed your elbow on the back of the couch and rested your head in your hand.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,”

He frowned and shook his head, crossing his arms as he stretched his legs underneath the table. “No,”

“No what?” you raised an eyebrow at him as he sighed deeply, looking at you with a hint of worry in his eyes.

“Don’t you think it’s a little.. too soon? I mean, I’m all for it but we don’t know much about what you can and can’t do yet. Maybe it’s best if we wait- give yourself some time to come to terms with this,”

You lifted your head off your hand and leaned forward with your elbows on the pillow- your fingers automatically found your charm bracelet again as you twirled it around your wrist, your eyes following the movement.

“I think I’ve already come to terms with it, whether I want to or not. I made a promise that I’d get revenge for my parents and maybe I’ll get myself killed trying, but I have to try,” you told him, mustering up the courage to look him in the eye and take a deep breath. “And to be honest, Aaron, this isn’t your decision to make,”

He knew it wasn’t his decision to make. But what if this was dangerous? If he what he saw was right and vampires from the Masquerade club were really involved, they had a storm coming. Because the Masquerade meant the Council and the Council wasn’t exactly known to be flexible nor open minded.

They had their rules set in stone and they weren’t meant to be broken. Cross-breeding wasn’t allowed, as it “disrupted the balance of nature” or whatever bullshit those ancient vampires believed in.

He didn’t have the right to persuade you to make another decision on this. He knew what it was like to lose both parents in a violent death and while he had given it a place with time, it didn’t mean that it stopped hurting. Seeing the determination in your eyes, he got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen.

You were quick to follow, throwing the pillow behind you back onto the couch. You stood by his marble kitchen island as he moved around from the fridge to the counter, squeezing a bloodbag empty in two glasses. Turning around, you swallowed nervously at the sight of the crimson fluid that had once coursed through someone’s veins. He held out the glass in front of you, but before you could take it, he pulled his arm back.

“If this takes, your life is going to change, Y/N, I’m assuming drastically. You’re going to see some shit and I mean… heavy shit-“

“Been there, done that,” you interrupted him, reaching your arm out to him. You had already seen the worst you could when you were thirteen, you didn’t think it would get any more gruesome than what was already imprinted in your brain.

Elvis sighed heavily, nodding- he handed you the glass, which you quickly took before he could take it away again. He clinked the rim of his glass against yours before bringing it to his lips.

“Bottoms up,”

 

To him, it was nothing but a quick breakfast.

To you, it was the strangest thing you’d ever done.

It tasted exactly how you’d think blood to taste; slightly salty and very metallic. But you powered through it, chugging the amount Elvis gave you down in one go and then the taste was slowly but surely changing to your tastebuds.

The metallic hint of the blood melted away like snow in the sun and as the last contents of your glass hit your tongue, it was sweet. It was difficult to explain, but it was even more intense than any sweet food you ever ate. The grimace you had been sporting on your face disappeared and as you put your glass down and licked your lips, your hangover was ancient history.

“My headache’s gone, but I don’t feel any different,” you complained, worried that it hadn’t worked and you were still your old self. Elvis looked at you with an amused smile as he put his glass down and gently grabbed your shoulders from behind, guiding you to a tall mirror near the living area.

Any blemishes or imperfections that would pop up on some days and ruin your day were nowhere to be seen- instead, your skin was glowing. Your dark circles that were the result of your messed up sleeping schedule were traded for veins dancing underneath your flesh, your eyes intensely red as the whites of them had now turned black. You could’ve sworn even your hair had a little more shine to it.

You were beautiful in a somewhat creepy way and Elvis seemed to think so as well. Smiling, he brought his hand to your chin and pulled down a little, your lips automatically parting. Your heart skipped a nervous, and perhaps an excited, beat as you saw your new set of teeth. You hadn’t even felt them come through, nor did you feel any of the other changes on your face- it was like it had always been there. Like it was supposed to be there.

With a feeling like somewhat of the weight you had been carrying around for all these years was lifted, you realised this was the real you. You also felt closer to your father, even more so than you ever had.

“How do I change it back?”

“Put your mind to it, focus on it- always works for me,” Elvis told you as he looked at you through the mirror, watching your eyebrows knit together in concetration as you tried to do what he suggested. It took a few seconds, but it worked. Even as your vampiric features faded away like they had never been there in the first place, your skin was still more perfect and looking more alive than before.

“Thank you, Aaron,” you told him as you turned around to face him instead of looking at each other through the mirror. “For these past few weeks and for listening today and for… this,”

You pointed at your face, focusing on letting it shift again and he laughed, nodding to confirm to you it was working because you barely felt it happening. “You don’t have to thank me- it suits you. Besides, you got some avenging to do and how convenient that revenge is one of my favorite dishes to serve,” he joked, grinning at you as he grabbed your finger and pulled it away from your fangs you were poking. You laughed softly at both his words and action, but couldn’t stop the blush on your cheeks when he kissed your finger. “But honey... call me Elvis, okay?”

You tore your eyes away from his lips and the way his perfectly white teeth were visible when he flashed you a smirk- you squinted your eyes at him, before rolling them playfully and pulling your hand out of his grip.

“You wish,” you joked back, assuming that he wasn’t serious. “He’s still the better looking one,”

He raised his eyebrows as you walked away from him and back toward the window, reaching your arm out to the ray of sunlight that peeked through the clouds to see what would happen.

Just earlier today, he had been doubtful about telling you who he really was but now he couldn’t wait to see the look on your face when you’d find out.

He was going to postpone telling you for a little longer though, because right now he needed to give you some basic training on how to actually be a vampire and introducing you to Joe and the others.

The little, unimportant things could wait.

taglist: @breadsquash @generoustreemystic @woundmetender @returntoelvis @prayerstopresley @ab4eva @marriedtopresley @steph-speaks @wonka-gifs @notstefaniepresley @ellie-24 @dollksj @webbedwebs @re3kin @wivette @eliseinmemphis @18lkpeters @rosepresley @septembersghost

[leopardfang15]

Hi :)

You wanted Percy x reader asks so here I am

I'm not sure if you like this but I would like Percy holding or interacting with his first (newborn) child because it's just so sweet and he would be the best dad. He would make them toys and get excited every time they learn something new. And maybe the baby having his eyes cause they are the prettiest green.

Or

Percy x reader/OC spending a nice date in the park/at the lake, maybe it ends in watching the sunset. Percy tinkered something for reader (either something useful or something nice) and in turn reader also surprises him with a thing they made themselves.

Or (I have too many ideas)

Grog accidentally breaks Percy's glasses and now he struggles with his poor eyesight so the next day reader takes him into the city to find an optometrist to get new ones made. Can either be sweet or funny or both.

I wouldn't mind you writing one or all of them, you choose :)

Authors Note: so I only did 2 but I will definitely do number three at some point. I just wasn’t quite feeling it right this moment and I really wanted to post this. Anyways, enjoy!

Ansuya was exhausted, understandably so. She’d faced down dragons, vampires, giants and so much more, and the thing that caused her more pain than anything else was a mere seven pounds, five ounces and twenty inches long. Like many a foe, he had been screaming and covered in blood. However, that was an hour ago.

Now, Percy’s son was resting peacefully in his arms. He’d been cleaned up and wrapped in a soft blanket that Ansuya had made. It was dark blue like his favored coat and had the De Rolo crest stitched on in shiny, gold color thread. The creator of both the blanket and child had followed her son’s example and gone to sleep. Percy took a moment to marvel at the woman who’d given him such a precious gift. Her dark skin had been cleaned of the sweat that had drenched her body and she’d been changed into a clean robe. Her bedding had also been switched out and her black hair had once again been tied back. She’d been so exhausted Percy doubted she’d wake up before dawn as had been her ritual since long before he’d known her. He had no plans to wake her. She’d earned her rest for fighting so hard to bring their son into the world.

A slight movement from the bundle in his arms brought Percy’s gaze down. Their son had a mixture of his parent’s complexion, far darker than Percy but still lighter than his mother. He had some wisps of dark brown hair on his head, an adorable nose and ten little fingers and toes. Percy kept counting them. Logically he knew the number of fingers and toes wouldn’t change, but that didn’t stop the tinkerer from doing it over and over again.

Percy created a lot of things; fire arms, traps and other weapons. More recently he found himself crafting children’s toys, a music box, a cradle and a small mobile with little dragons. He found those to be quite fulfilling but this little person in his arms, cradled to his chest?

This small boy was his proudest and most beloved creation.

——————————————————————————————-

(AN: time for story 2)

The light gleamed off the lake and made it sparkle in the midday sun. Percy and Ansuya managed to find a shaded spot to lay out their blanket. Percy offered to sit closer to the water since he knew it reminded her of home but she teased that she didn’t want him in the sun too much.

“We don’t need you looking like a boiled lobster because your delicate skin couldn’t handle the rays.” She said, caressing his cheek. Percy rolled his eyes but the small smile betrayed his amusement and that her concern for him was appreciated.

Now they sat, back against the tree with the remnants of their lunch neatly packed away in their basket. Ansuya was resting her head on Percy’s shoulder while he ran his fingers through her hair. She’d let it out of its customary braid so that Percy could stroke the curled strands. Ansuya took a deep breath and nuzzled further into Percy’s shoulder.

“Keep doing that and I might think you’re trying to burrow under my skin.” Percy said, his chuckled slightly jostling her.

The dark skinned woman smiled and pressed a soft kiss to his neck. “There’s a thought. I’m just glad we did this, it’s nice to get away.”

“Yes,” Percy said, pressing a kiss to her head. “I enjoy spending time with you that isn’t interrupted every five minutes.” He said, grumbling at the memory of Scanlan walking in only to start teasing him while he was spending time with Ansuya. The bard hadn’t walked in on anything particularly interesting but the didn’t stop Scanlan from relentlessly teasing him.

Ansuya chuckled. “It also helps you. You’re so much more relaxed.” She said, sitting up so she could rub his shoulder. She could feel a lot less stress in him. She couldn’t hide her smile at how he nearly melted at her touch.

“Yes well, you do have that effect on me.” He said, looking at her with warm, green eyes, lighter than her own. A faint blush then dusted his cheeks as he reached into his coat pocket. “I-I made something for you.”

Ansuya shifted away from him so he’d have space to show her and ended up sitting with her legs crossed opposite him. Percy pulled out a metal rod with some leather wrapped around the middle, seeming to be a hand grip. At first the monk was confused but then Percy pressed a small button and then the rod extended and revealed a sharp blade at one end.

“It’s a spear.” Percy said before seeming to mentally cringe at his own statement. “Obviously, but this will be easier to carry and much easier to conceal. I can make you a holster, similar to my own.”

Ansuya carefully took the weapon from Percy’s hand and looked it over. It was simple, no extra details or design. She tested the weight and balance while she continued to listen to Percy.

“To be honest it’s just a prototype. I’d need you to test it along side the original and it is still untested in combat. I simply require your input to refine it so I can make the necessary adjustments.”

Ansuya stopped listening as he started going over who she could possibly spar against to give it a try. She could only picture in her mind’s eye Percy, working down in his workshop for days or even weeks. The long hours he no doubt spent drawing up plans and testing the release and retracting of the device, let alone a blade that could slide back into the pole itself. Not to mention how long he spent learning how to forge a simple spear, let alone something this unique. He’d spent all that time, sweating in his forge, to make something for her? Her heart felt fit to burst with love for this man who was still babbling.

“Perhaps we could ask-“ Percy was stopped mid sentence when Ansuya pulled him in for a kiss. He was shocked but melted into the kiss easily enough. Ansuya broke the kiss but rested her forehead against his, smile so warm it rivaled the sun.

“Thank you, Percy. No one’s ever done something like this for me, spent so much time with me in mind.” She blinked away her tears, not wanting to fall apart on him. “I wish I could- oh!” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of cloth. She smiled at him, a bit shy.

“I know lots of nobles have these and you probably have a bunch but, with how busy we’ve been I didn’t think you had one like this.” She placed her gift in his hand.

Carefully unfolding it, Percy gasped. It was a simple, white, silk handkerchief. What was extraordinary about it, to him, was the de Rolo crest embroidered in the corner. He ran his thumb over the stitching, taking in the image created by shimmering, gold thread. He looked back up at her with her shy smile. She was so beautiful.

“Thank you, my dear.” Percy said, folding her gift with swift fingers. “I’ll always treasure it.

[lunanoc]

im intrigued by literally every single one of your wips but i want to know about the dmbj time travel and abo ones (and also the sleep fic, if you need an excuse to talk about it 👀)

to be honest i've had a look at what these wips are because i didn't even fully remember some of them, so the abo ones are actually just two versions of the same thing 😭 so since someone else asked, the abo one explanation is here"

"dmbj time travel" is the first ever dmbj i ever started writing waaay back when i hadn't even finished the dramas yet and it shows. i want to fix it because i like the basic idea behind it, it just needs A Lot of reworking because the characterization is uh. yeah. so no snippets from this one even if it's technically like 14k or something

it's supposed to be canon time travel where for some reason (i'm not sure yet since it's getting revamped) post-restart yucun wu xie, xiaoge, and pangzi transmigrate back into their own bodies from the start of canon (so think even before jin wantang comes to wu xie with the copy of chen pi ah si's silkbook) except none of them know the other two remember. it's supposed to feature, among other fun things:

wu xie and existential crisis #476, is this real life or it is just snake fantasy?

unresolved sanshu tension™️ part 3 because good things come in threes because wu sanxing is still around at this point, and for all he's resolved most of his grievances about his uncle, wu xie doesn't quite know how to face him, partly because their relationship carries so much baggage, partly because he knows how shrewd wu sanxing is, which leads into wu xie rushing into wu sanxing's shop with the silkbook becoming a 4d chess conversation where both parties are aware on different levels that the person they're talking to is hiding things. something something wu xie notices wu sanxing test for a face mask etc

because pingxie are established at this point, and because so far no one else has remembered anything except wu xie, xiaoge angst™️ the remix and wu xie thinking he'll have to love him from afar again

which leads into sand sea wu xie™️ the remix, because if he's gone that far back, why not take on the wangs earlier than planned

the scene that's the reason why this even exists an excuse, wu xie and xiaoge (who didn't meet in front of wu sanxing's shop like the first time bc wu xie was too busy playing 4d chess with himself) realizing at some point on the trip to the seven star palace that they both remember because wu xie decides to test their shared knocking code language on a whim. and then xiaoge looks at him. and they both have A Moment that they can't express because they're not supposed to know each other

another scene where they're both bastards who decide to troll pangzi when they meet with him, partly to test whether or not he remembers too (he does), which leads to pangzi sussing them out eventually and yelling at them, then hugging them

i don't really have much of anything else mostly because they do eventually go back to their own time, because i don't really see the point in rewriting canon, i'll think about it someday. maybe

the sleep fic is kind of the sister fic to the sleep xiaoge pov one and it's pretty unoriginal because it's been done 50 times already i am deeply unoriginal unfortunately , it's the "wu xie has insomnia after ten years later" fic. my personal take on it is wu xie, after book 8, went from mild to severe depression, and then spent the next five years after that in go go go mode where he essentially forced himself to shutdown as far as his own basic emotional needs went. and like a lot of people who suddenly stop after not allowing themselves to for a long time, things start coming out of the woodwork. so once xiaoge's back and he's finished tidying up in hangzhou, the iron triangle move to yucun, and suddenly wu xie can't sleep. he never had insomnia that severe before (and if he did he'd just take sleeping pills and be done with it), but now he either can't sleep, or when he does he has nightmares

xiaoge eventually notices wu xie doesn't look well (among all the other things he's noticed) and is increasingly tired, so he tries to help in his own ways. eventually they get together. i wish it was more thought out than that 😭

[porcelain-flower]

Hey guys it's Esther, formerly feitansporcelaindoll. I know I've been away for awhile. Something happened and I wasn't sure if I should make a life update but here it is. Well for starters, I was being accused of some heinous things and because of that I deleted my tumblr.

I was busy dealing with life and my marriage. August of '23 I logged back in, messaged a certain Feitan mutual to ask how they were doing, only for them to essentially say "people said you're a groomer, so I can't talk to you anymore. Bye" and was promptly blocked. So I messaged ANOTHER mutual asking for clarification and was immediately blocked by them as well. Needless to say I was completely confused and caught off guard. Even though I was bored and pretty much done with the HxH fandom, I WAS going to keep my page active for those who enjoyed my content. But these people ruined that. So my page is gone and I will not be making any further content. In truth it was a hyperfixation, an escape from my abusive marriage. But now I'm in a healthy relationship and I don't need an escape.

Yes while you were busy accusing me, I was dealing with my narcisstic, emotionally and sexually abusive, gaslighting husband of 7 years.

And for the record, groomers abuse, manipulate and exploit. I NEVER did that to anyone.

No. It was happening to me.

While you were accusing me, I was dealing with my abuser. And I was scared every minute. He was narcissistic and controlling, to the point that he forbade me from getting tattoos or even cutting my hair. He gaslit me and constantly tried to coerce me and demand sex, despite my refusals. Seven years I dealt with this. Eventually I found the courage to leave him. The day I did, he had followed me to the store beforehand. I packed some essentials and found a friend's house to stay at. I was there for only a week because he found out who I was staying with and starting texting them and dropping off unwanted gifts at the house. So I found somewhere new to stay. I went back to my ex's house one weekend, when I knew he'd be gone, to get most of my stuff. I was terrified so I had my best friend come with. Then my ex came home unexpectedly. I wasn't going to risk being alone with him so I kept her by my side at all times.

But he wouldn't let me grab my belongings in peace. He put his arm between me and the doorway, stopped me from leaving and forced me to talk to him when all I wanted to do was grab my stuff and go.

Finally I got away and moved back to my home state. But the fear was still there. Every time I saw a car that resembled his, I froze thinking he'd followed me again.

I couldn't even give him my real address or phone number. That's how terrified I was of contact with him. I still am.

The day I got the last of my belongings, my ex made it very clear he wasn't letting me go so easily.

You don't know how terrifying it truly is to be married to someone you don't want to be with anymore and they're refusing to let you go. You do not know what real manipulation looks like.

A year after I had left him, he messaged again, asking if I was ready to come home. It took him a few more months to realize I wasn't coming back.

This is what I endured while you were spreading lies about me.

And I'm not playing dumb or playing victim. I have NO IDEA what I said or did that made people think this of me. And who did I supposedly groom?

Unfortunately we live in a world of guilty until proven innocent. And no one was mature enough to message me, show me proof, or let me know what was going on or being said about me so I couldn't even defend myself at the time.

Well there's no coming back once you've been accused, even falsely accused. I won't be active on here. This will be my only post. I'm locked out of my instagram fan page because I cant recover my password. I still have my personal page for those who knew me well enough to message me there. But I won't do fandoms or fan pages ever again.

The two people I talked to the longest and trusted the most were the fastest to accuse me and block me. Funny how that works.

And Hxytun I do wonder why you deleted all your Fei content as well. I was nothing but a friend to you. I listened to every rant, good or bad. Every conversation about your parents, your brother, you move across states.

Excalibur/feitansblood you're no better. You were a petrified little highschooler so I did my best to listen and give you advice because I knew how hard HS was for me. I was only ever a friend, to BOTH of you. And this is how you repay me. You yourself literally called me "mom" because I gave you advice like a mom would. Although I should've known you wouldn't have my back, seeing as you're pretty much Hxytun's lapdog and do anything they say. It's sad really. Also the fact you've been lying about your age on your accounts is shitty. Even a couple years ago when you were 15 you had your age listed as 19 so you could view explicit content. That's called catfishing btw.

But my heartfelt thanks to those who believed me and supported me. Makes me have a little more faith in humanity.