#i think ash mentioned once that in the time hes been on here hes only hit it a few times | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

inknopewetrust · 15 days ago

Text

Soak

Summary: Jack knows how to cure the remnants of a difficult day.

[Jack Abbot x Doc!Fem!Reader] [WC: 3.8k]

Warnings: 18+!, themes of The Pitt and ED happenings, established relationship (married), non-sexual bathing, heavy angst, Jack is a romantic through and through and a total wife guy, mentions of therapy and trauma related to work.

You thought you’d long forgotten what it felt like to be loved—to be in love.

That intangible feeling of knowing that the nervousness of devotion meant something further omitted itself, taking residence in catacombs of empty recollections. It was amassing eons of ashes without realizing how quickly time had passed because sorrow struck with a heavy hand.

The simplistic goodness of love became harder to grasp when the abandonment grief stole from it.

Love. To be loved, or love, sounded so… childish.

Or the need for it, rather, that boiled inside of you like the most warranted reward you could not catch in the palm of your hand. It slipped through, time and again, at the sake of someone or something else you’d never saddle up to. Perhaps love was of importance and priority rather than devotion and emotion. It all hung the same way in the end.

It’s the ghosts that manifest when the whiplash fades away who spur periodic devastation in the face of hardship.

When you met with ghosts, it was hard to recall what they may have looked like before. Time was a cruel fiend as it masked the memories that had once been placed upon pedestals and preceded to maul them with a grisly sheen. Yet when moments of great pain cement themselves to torture you for years, it’s far too easy to remember the lasts compared to the firsts.

But time struck you with a thunderous arrow.

Cracking across the sky for your ears only, it lodged itself in your chest and forced laborious breaths to steady a foundation unearthed by fate. Today had just been “one of those days.”

The kind where you forget that love cocooned around you. Where against devastation, a healer sat in the mist.

The department riddled itself with the calling of a executioner. Perhaps at your hands, according to some of the distraught families that passed through the halls of the ED. But you knew deep down it wasn��t any fault of your own. You tried. You tried so hard to save them. However, when a MVA comes crashing through with three carloads of victims and little hope for recovery, the grim reaper sits in the shadows waiting for the right time of emergence.

And then his scythe cuts the sound of a monitor going flat. The sound never escapes you.

The sound, and the words of the families consumed by grief, also linger far longer when the shift doesn’t seem to end. One turns into two, then three, and so forth until the relief of the day shift greets desolation with a kind smile and knowing statement of “rough night?”

But it’s not enough to make the horror disappear completely. You hear it when you transfer your charts to Collins, in the turn of your lock against your locker. You see their empty eyes behind your lids as they close at the first sight of sun after twelve long hours. And you feel their hand going lax in yours when Jack’s crosses the center console to try and say “I’m here.”

It doesn’t ground you in the way he hoped it would. The silence calcifies at a stop light seven blocks from home.

If the radio hadn’t been lowly playing a pop tune, you would have heard the sound of your blood pumping through your veins. The shallow breathing of chaos; a tense worry growing in your chest that the world was unraveling too quickly. A rising panic in your soul.

Jack’s thumb grazed the back of your hand.

“What are you thinking for breakfast?”

You didn’t hear him. Lost in that endless swirl. His voice was sunken to an abyss.

“Hey.” Jack moved your hand gently. He said your name as you blinked, clearing away the fog.

“Sorry,” you said sheepishly. “I was… what did you say?”

Jack dismissed your apology. “It was bad day. You don’t need to apologize.”

His hand in yours filled an empty cavern. It filled up like liquid in a jar and made your heart ache at your ignorance. Jack didn’t do anything. He was here. He was trying to comfort you. The bad days didn’t cancel out the good ones and Jack too carried with him the scars of a past he would much rather forget.

But the sun rose again on another day and no matter what, you just had to keep going.

“Do you want to talk about it?” The light still hadn’t changed.

“Not really,” you admitted. “But I’ll probably make an appointment to talk to someone about it.”

Jack nodded knowingly, thumb drawing comforting lines continuously along the back of your hand. The light changed to green and for a moment, you were appreciative that his focus transitioned back to the road.

“That’s good.” Was all he said in reply.

You wet your lips in anticipation of speaking more but the words halted in your throat. Breathing in shakily, your free hand ran fingers over your forehead. Jack squeezed the one he held.

“It’s ok,” he said so softly you could barely hear him over the spin of the tires against asphalt.

It’s ok. Not “you’re going to be ok” or the “situation that is completely not normal is ok” but the “it’s ok” not to be whole. That the cracks under your skin were natural after trauma. Your chin trembled as you became overwhelmed by the agony stored inside of you.

Jack hated that he couldn’t do anything more to soothe the hurt. Because when you loved someone with every fiber of your existence, the pain they carried fused with your own.

Love encompassed something larger, abstruse. It was a feeling buried deep inside of you that only awakened at the moment of greatest necessity and Jack always seemed to let that emotion bloom. It unfurled in the palm of his hand and he held tight on to it knowing what time could do if he was not careful. Jack was cautious. He walked a fine line between giving too much and never giving enough but he tried—and that’s all he was asking of you now. Try. Breathe. Breathe.

And when the tears fell four blocks from home, he let you cry in the car. He forgot about breakfast, about how nice sleep would be in a few hours.

Jack didn’t shush you. He didn’t push you to wrap up your emotional plea for the sake of the car parking in the garage. He turned off the engine and pressed the garage door closed with the remote which further shut away the world beyond.

It was just you and him and your sorrow.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed. Five minutes, ten… but the tears did end like they always did. They dried up and left you empty again.

“I just don’t know,” you started when you felt sturdy enough to talk, “how many more kids I can see die on my table.”

Suddenly, you hated being a pediatric physician. You hated that all of the kids that came into the ED found themselves in a room with painted animals and some of them saw their joyous faces and others never had the chance. You hated that parents blamed you for ending a life that had barely begun and you couldn’t fathom understanding an ounce of why they always seemed to place the blame on you.

You tried. You tried and wasn’t that enough?

“It’s their little fucking hands. Their little fingers and toes and eyes that have the life sucked out of them and I’m the last one they see.”

Jack listened. He didn’t push.

“And the parents today,” you groaned at the thought. Inhaling in a wet, unattractive noise to clear your senses, your body was overwhelmed by its impassioned overture. He loved you enough not to care.

“God… I’ve never wanted to quit until today.”

“Today was a bad day,” he repeated.

“Today was an awful day,” you corrected.

“You’re going to carry it with you forever.” You knew his intrusive stare was targeting your face but ignored it. “You’ll never forget the ones who don’t get to see tomorrow.”

“I keep thinking,” you shook your head a little with a self-deprecating laugh, “about how I, we, get to go home after a family’s world is changed so drastically. And I pretend that nothing happened and that it’s normal to see this every other day and pretend that when I close my eyes, I don’t see them every time.”

“No one’s asking you to pretend,” Jack reminded you. He didn’t. He just coped differently.

Sometimes he stood on the rooftop wondering if life would be different if he stepped off in the opposite direction from which he came. He saw the world disappear from the gazes of his vets and the ones he saw in nightmares fueled by the hot smoke and sands of a place far from home.

“But I don’t know how to function otherwise, Jack. I can’t separate them anymore and I don’t know how to get back on track.”

“You said you were going to talk to someone, yeah?” He moved his head to catch your attention and those light, hazel eyes bore into you deeply. He needed that confirmation that you were listening and understanding him.

“Yeah,” you nodded.

“Then it’s not your job yet. Okay?” He looked at you expectantly. “It’s not your job yet. It’s not going to change without help but until you get that help, talk to someone who knows how to help you, then what more can you do than breathe? I am here, baby. I will always be here.”

You stacked the tasks. Heal, heal, heal. Find a solution, be “normal,” and find something else to bide your time with while the struggle remained.

Jack brought you back to earth. Back from the endless orbit and to the ground where he could be the one to help for what little hours of peace you were granted.

He brought your hand to his lips and kissed your knuckles, then the dorsal and your wrist before turning it over and pressing into your palm repeatedly. Back and forth, back and fort, soothingly.

“Just breathe for me, alright?” He mimicked a slow intake of air before exhaling. Jack nodded at you to copy and you did. Once, then twice, and another.

“That’s it,” he encouraged.

You breathed in, then out. Over and over until the tremble of your hands ceased enough that it wasn’t the only thing he felt. Jack pressed the pressure points until your hand was pliable and unfurled with tension.

Focusing your attention to the outside of the car, you looked out into the garage through the windshield and viewed the streaking wet remnants of water lingering behind. You hadn’t even noticed it on the way home.

“It rained?”

“Snowed,” Jack said.

“Badly?”

“Don’t worry,” Jack’s voice gained levity. You saw a flicker of a twinkle pass by his gaze when you looked toward him now. “You have the precipitation levels beat today.”

“I’m basically a prune at this point, I suppose.”

“Eh.” He let go of your hand and unbuckled his seat. “You’re a pretty prune then. The most beautiful prune I’ve ever seen.”

You shook your head at him, letting your seatbelt come undone too. “You don’t have to flatter me because you feel bad.”

“I will flatter as I please,” Jack scoffed. “You’re mine and I will compliment even if you’ve pruned the most prune-y you’ve ever pruned.”

Like routine and an attempt to lessen the burden of grief, both of you exited the vehicle and opened the doors to the back seats where your bags stored themselves on the way home. As you met Jack’s eyes across the space, he had both bags gripped in his hands before you even were given the chance.

“Jack,” you lamented.

“Go inside,” he nearly ordered. “Go change and I’ll meet you in a second.”

You sighed, holding onto the door as if it supported all of your weight.

“I can carry my own bag.”

“I know.”

“Then let me?”

He pondered it for a brief second before disagreeing. “I’ve got it.”

“J—“

“Are we really going to argue over a bag?” He asked. “Go,” he motioned to the entrance to the house via the garage. “I’ll put these away and then I’ll come find you.”

Jack wasn’t going to take the objections you stored like ammunition to a greater folly. His stubbornness had faults but he wore good intentions in the moment.

“Fine,” you faltered. “Alright.”

“Good.”

As you lingered a moment longer, the tiredness of it all washed over you quickly. You shut the door and felt relief take hold upon crossing the threshold into your house. It smelled like the two of you. It felt like the both of you. It calmed when endless cycle of catatonic winters brought forth a dome of doom.

The car door closed with a beep not long after. Jack deposited the bags in the mud room along with his badge that lay in a tray beside the door. He place it atop yours and paused at the pink tint that faded into the white letters of your “doctor” plate.

It carried home. It always did.

The echos of home held sounds of you. And while his hearing wasn’t what it was twenty years ago because of the lingering legacy of service, he still knew what was you and what the ringing was. The sound of the lights going on in the bathroom that left a small hum burn through the room—you. The sounds of shoes clattering to the floor and a drawer opening in the dresser of the bedroom—you.

His life was filled with the symphony of you and even on the darkest of days, he listened to nothing but.

You felt the water run over your fingertips from the faucet. Warm and greeting, it was a luxury of the morning.

The house you had learned to love was a concession made of you both. A sanctuary of space; somewhere to heal and to love and to rest that met the untraditional needs of a unconventional household. The bathroom was one of those places. The vanity stretched across one wall with a golden, warm lighting cascading across its speckled white marble and a Spanish cedar wood beneath it.

It was spacious and accommodating. But as you looked up into the mirror and at your reflection marred from the day, your eyes caught the tub, seldom used, in the background. The porcelain often sat dry—an inconvenience because of its deep edges and lack of grip. Even in your own pampering you avoided it as habit from Jack’s own difficulties using it.

But he had insisted on it years ago. He said that you’d use it one day and still the days were far and few between that you did.

It caught your eye now, however.

You thought about what it would be like to fill it up and see the steam roll off the top of the water in swirls. The tendrils reaching and floating to the ceiling quietly while your back would rest upon the smooth, cold ceramic.

“The pipes might be rusty.”

Jack’s voice bit through the stream of water coming from the faucet and your eyes darted to the doorway.

He stood leaning against the frame with his arms crossed at his chest. Peering at you with knowing eyes, you half-figured he knew every thought that passed through your mind at any given moment. You turned off the sink.

“I’ll just take a shower.”

“Why?” His brow furrowed. “We have a tub for a reason.”

“Yeah but it’s—“

“A really nice, expensive, tub.”

“And really excessively tall.”

“It’s a soaker.” Jack walked into the bathroom and pulled a towel from a cabinet adjacent to the shower. “They’re supposed to be big.”

You watched him moved about. “If this was another day, I would have made a joke about that.”

��I can’t wait to hear it when a better day comes.”

It was his turn to turn on a faucet. The tub creaked to life with a coarse turn of a golden cross lever. He knew you liked the water set hot, so he turned it warm enough to warrant a longer bath. He opened up the shower door and pulled out the stool from inside of it and place it beside the tub and sat down.

“What are you doing?” You pivoted to rest against the vanity while he sat there in his black shirt and cargo pants. At least, you thought, it wasn’t his dirty scrubs.

“I’m waiting for you,” he said frankly. “Come on, take off your clothes.”

He saw the way your shoulder’s sagged as your body began to take the brunt of mental pain. You challenged him to change his mind with one look but he wasn’t going to budge. The stubbornness of Abbot men ran deep within his blood.

This is what love was.

He held out his hand from his place on the stool and beckoned you. You breathed in, and then out, just as you had in the car.

And then his hand enveloped yours once again.

“You know,” Jack started lowly, “it’s not a bad thing when someone wants to take care of you.”

His hands traveled to your hips and lifted your scrub top slowly. His touch melted warmly into the skin of your stomach and around the sides of your waist while his legs parted and brought you to stand closer. You loved the feel of his hands on your body. Not now for pleasure, but to know that he was there. He’d always be there if you let him.

“And somedays, all I want to do is make sure you’re ok. So when you’re not, I want to take care of you.”

Therapy was doing wonders for his communication.

“It’s a pity this doesn’t have a door,” you motioned down to the tub as it began to fill near the halfway line.

“Like those old fuckers have?” He looked at you with a joking offense. “I’m gray, not ninety.”

“You know what I mean.” You knocked his shoulder with your fist. He rocked back then toward you in return jokingly. His hands pulled at your top and you helped usher it over your head.

“I would rather not be alone.”

“I’ll be right here,” his eyes laid heavy into yours.

“What if I help you?” You proposition as his grip moved to your pants. He slid them down slowly. “I can help you too. We’ve never tried it.”

“Because I’d rather not end up a patient with a description of ‘one-footed man who ate shit trying to get into a tub not made for him.’ It just doesn’t seem… right.”

You unclipped your bra and handed it to him. He put it on top the pile growing in his lap of your clothes. Instead of ogling you further, as you removed your panties and then your socks, he turned to the edge of the tub and poured soap in. Jack stirred it with his hand as the warm water radiated up his arm and the bubbles began to form around it.

Your hand found his shoulder as you tried to carefully maneuver into the tub without incident. Jack’s other hand shot out, guiding the small of your back into the water.

“Are you sure?”

The softness in your sad eyes poured into his heart. He sighed, admiring the way the bubbles hid you from view as you pulled your knees to your chest and rested your head on them.

“It’s kind of lonely in here.”

“Baby,” he let out a small chuckle. “You really want me in there?”

You nodded. The hand he had left in the water retreated and crumpled your clothes into a ball. While he was still preparing his protest, he caught the back of his shirt behind his neck and slipped it off gracefully.

“I might die for real this time.” Only people who faced actual death could joke about that.

“Well then I really don’t know what I’d do with myself,” you turned and watched as he stood to remove his pants.

“Waiting for a show?” His hands paused at the button.

“I like looking at my husband. Can’t a woman admire a handsome man?”

His lips curved into a smirk. There was a way you always distracted yourself from the flood and it was through him. Jack knew it, because he had been guilty of it too. But there was nothing telling him that when he reached the edge of the tub and you rose with your body dripping with soapy water and helping him the best you could into it, that you were trying to have sex to forget about it all.

It wasn’t healthy, for either of you, to fall into that habit.

Without incident, he slipped into the position behind you and you settled back down between his legs and for the first time, Jack was appreciative of the purchase. It was relaxing and it was peaceful and he wasn’t going to worry about how the hell he was going to get out of it.

You moved the soap bubbles between your hands in front of you while his arms rested on the tub’s edges. As he relaxed, he knew that if his eyes were to close for an extended period of time, he’d be out like a light. But you kept the water moving. Mildly lapping with every listless sway of your hand and the cupping of bubbles to be brought back down to the water.

After a few minutes the sounds ceased and though he had closed his eyes, he sensed the way you shuffled back toward him and carefully, as if not to spook him, leaned backwards against his chest.

And suddenly, you were at peace too.

Love floated into the spaces left cracked from the day. It caressed your arms and folded over your shoulders to hold you tightly together and feel each other in a moment of quiet reflection. A tidal wave breeched your shores again. Jack felt your body trying to ignore it. Tears slipping through your closed eyes as he nudged his head to an angle that now rested against yours.

His mouth close to your ear, hot breath against the side of your face.

“Just because we can’t save everyone doesn’t mean we are any less deserving of a good life,” he whispered.

Your hand cleared itself of soap underneath the water and drew back up to the side of his face, gliding across his features to leave a trail of wet and back to his hair where the strands were a little damp.

“I love you so much.”

A beat.

“I love you,” you breathed.

“You are a good doctor, a great doctor,” Jack affirmed. “One day or twenty of them don’t decide that you’re not.”

You thought you’d long forgotten what it felt like to be loved—to be in love.

That thought was easily forgettable now.

A/N: jack abbot has been eating at my brain for weeks like a parasite and i needed to write for him so badly - also not proofed yet so don’t assassinate me

#jack abbot x reader #jack abbot #the pitt x reader #the pitt x you #jack abbot x you #jack abbot x female reader #x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #the Pitt #the Pitt fanfiction #the Pitt fanfic #jack abbott x reader #jack Abbott

920 notes · View notes

back2bluesidex · 8 months ago

Text

Slide - The Series [Masterlist]

Pairing: Producer!Yoongi X Lyricist!Reader

Theme: Angst, smut, unplanned pregnancy. Fwb to ?.

Type: Drabble Series

Summary:

"I can see the pain in your eyes I don't wanna say that I'm God, but I'll take you to heaven if you die"

Alternatively,

You would go back in time and fall in love with Yoongi over and over and over again even after knowing that he would never once be yours in any of the timeline.

Warnings: extreme angst, unplanned pregnancy, mentions of depression, so much pining, unrequited love au, NSFW!!

Listened to Slide by Chase Atlantics

Minors do not interact!!

Masterlist | Patreon (For early access)

A/N: here is the masterlist. the story is gonna to back to the past and then come back to the present. hence, I have classified it. Hope it makes things easy to understand. also, this is gonna be very fragmented. I will not go into detailing much - as in the details of their jobs, family and stuff like that. this story will mainly revolve around Yoongi and reader's feelings towards each other and their bad decisions. That's all. AND please tell me if I have missed anyone's name in the taglist despite being requested. thanks <3

Taglist requests are closed for now

One time for the present ~

1. Slide - The Beginning

You would go back in time and fall in love with Yoongi over and over and over again even after knowing that he would never once be yours in any of the timeline.

2. Slide - The Ultimate Decision

Worst decisions are always driven by anger and alcohol; but sometimes those are also driven by Love.

3. Slide - The Other Side

No matter how much Yoongi had been trying to compile his focus and pour it all on Gyuri, his mind kept reeling back to you.

4. Slide - The Consequence

You are no different than the cigarette between his lips - half-burnt and waiting to be turned into ashes bit by bit with time.

5. Slide - The Dream

You have been so selfish and as a result - you get punished.

6. Slide - The Regret

For the first time in his 31 years of life - Min Yoongi is regretting. And the reason behind his regret circles around you.

7. Slide - The Trial

You have some questions and Yoongi has no answer.

8. Slide - The Vacation

Yoongi finally finds an answer to all of his questions.

9. Slide - The Realization

Yoongi dreams of you... dreams of a family with you.

10. Slide - The Reconciliation

“There was never a time when I wasn’t yours.”

11. Slide - The Finale

Tonight when he kisses you, it’s not a goodbye, rather it’s a promise of forever.

Two times for the past ~

1. Slide - The Prequel

You would never think twice before picking Yoongi up from streets even if it means losing your own sanity in return.

2. Slide - That Night

You would give yourself up willingly again and again if it means Yoongi will stay close to you. for whatever purpose.

Special Chapters ~

1. Slide - The Christmas Gift [Meant for Patreon only]

The third Christmas with Yoongi turns out to be something unexpected.

Permanent Taglist:

@phenomenalgirl9 @chimchimmarie @coffeedepressionsoup @meowstake @vonvi-blog @nochuel @chimmisbae @i-have-no-life-charlie @mikrokookiex @jjk174 @lallataegi @savageyoongi @jwnghyuns @parapiop7 @futuristicenemychaos @purpleanchorcrown @armystay89

Requested Tags:

@ktownshizzle @ilys00ga @marihoneywk @yoongisoftface @sugaslittlekookies @joonwater @geminiml95 @ramicherie @wobblewobble822 @amarawayne @avawants2havefun @artemisdoe @jimintaemin @cuntessaiii

1K notes · View notes

formylovetodaryldixon · 3 days ago

Text

"Now and forever." Daryl Dixon Imagine.

Summary: Your life together is paused with a fight a few hours before the dead start walking, and it forces you two to embark on a journey through that new world apart until Daryl and you reunite with the fall of Woodbury.

A/N: Hi. Obviously this story is way different from the storyline with the Governor, and I wanna clarify that nothing happens to Maggie here :( I had to include Merle. I want to believe that he could be good, although I think I'll do a second part 'cause the interaction between Daryl and you is really little, just because I wanted to write something. It's 6 in the morning and I have to get up at 8 so second part soon! I hope you like it. And we're launching a new nickname from Daryl!♥

“At some point a sorry ain’t gonna be enough.”

You always hated the comparison, but in your mind, you knew Daryl Dixon was fire behind his cold apathy—warm, passionate when he wanted, protective, yet dangerous, with the ability to burn down everything in his path—that's why, aware of his own power, Daryl always lived without emotions, without freedom, flying solo so as not to unleash his true nature and turn everything to ashes. You were always a flight risk, you felt everything too much, but you were always the light—never the shadow—of a loving military father who died fighting before the end of the world. And alone, you left home, taking his memory and his gun hidden in your waistband with you, landing in that seedy bar forgotten by God himself, where the ex–military man and owner—the person who sacrificed himself for you that night—took you in like a daughter, offering you a job that helped keep you on your feet, right in the place where you met the charming Merle, and his baby brother, the young Daryl Dixon.

Dirty, his sleeveless shirt always bearing a grease stain from the repair shop where he worked, intimidating even without saying a word, but his motorcycle was the perfect, perpetual example of the bad boy, the one who made bad decisions, with a tragic past and the physical and emotional wounds to prove it.

However, without any attempt at seduction, with that spark of fire in his serious gaze and a ray of light in yours, it became common between you two to spend the night together where everything was intense, somewhat sweaty, but less heavy, less lonely, less sad when you started talking and laughing and Daryl began to open up. And from never having anything, Daryl went to feeling full, complete, to feeling like he had everything—although always harboring that thought in the back of his head that at some point he would ruin it all—and boy, he did. Feeling that ridiculous sensation of falling deeply in love was overwhelming at first, difficult to digest and accept, until Daryl Dixon knew in his rusty heart that you would always be the only one, that there would be no one after you, ever. Now, and forever.

The idea of marriage was always something distant and foreign to you, until you felt the ring on your finger and someone in your circle mentioned your new last name. Everything stayed the same for a long, long time, but it was also like living in an eternal honeymoon, without overwhelming emotions, only peace in your worlds that had once been fractured by the pain of the past.

Life was good, never ordinary and even fun.

“Hey, asshole! Dinner is ready!”

“Fuck ya!” Merle's voice echoes through the place, and you laugh quietly as you wait at the beginning of the hallway that connects to the kitchen, looking down the hall toward the place where Merle lived, his own kingdom, as he called it, the only place you hadn't managed to invade, as he used to say with a snort. “I’ll be there!”

You let out a chuckle as you turn around to go back to the small kitchen, where Daryl, standing at the counter next to the sink, looks at you with his usual serious disapproval.

“How long will ya do that?”

“Oh, come on. Please don’t take away the only fun I get from living with your precious brother.”

You return your attention to the vegetables on the cutting board as Daryl hums a response, not entirely in agreement with the twisted and strange relationship you'd formed with his brother. But as his body presses against yours from behind, with playful hands around your waist and his forehead on your exposed neck, you know that those displays of affection always came laced with love, replacing the words Daryl was still clumsy with.

"Ya two disgust me." Merle makes a monumental effort not to spit on the floor when he appears to sit in one of the dining room chairs, making you roll your eyes as Daryl pulls away from you. "At least got the decency to lemme know if yer gonna make porn in the kitchen."

Daryl lets out a low grunt without saying anything, having learned to ignore him, the only way to stop the fire before it spread.

"Make porn?" You wrinkle your nose. “The only porn in this house is the one you watch every day: one day your hand will fall off.”

Both of you knew the path opened up for the endless sexually charged jokes he could make, but Merle chuckles, letting the opportunity pass. As the midnight winds down, Daryl’s hand rests almost lazily on one of your legs on the couch, gazes focused on the TV as his brother strolls through the house on his way to a day that’s just beginning for him.

“M' leavin'. Don’ wait up for me.”

Daryl doesn’t even bother to look at him, his voice flat.

“No one does.”

You chuckle as a blank expression spreads across the elder Dixon’s face, but Merle still hadn’t learned to let things go.

“Yer so sweet ya make me wanna throw up.” Part of him meant it, though in his tin–hearted heart as you used to call it, he cared enough for his brother, and you. “But when ya got yer first kid, do sum right for once and name it after me.”

“I’d kill myself first.”

Merle’s laughter echoes in the room until he leaves. But there, that thought was settled, like a cloud heavy with rain, wondering if there would ever be kids, but it was all a matter of perspective; you either loved the rain or hated it.

“Do you want to make porn in the kitchen?”

Daryl chuckles, and happiness fills his blue eyes in a second. He was happy, completely, like he'd never been in his life. But it was the little unresolved issues that piled up, his inability to speak properly when friction arose between you two, his destructive fears, the enemy that lurked in his thoughts, your own insecurities: all of them brought fire and brimstone to a home that seemed indestructible.

"So what the fuck keeps ya here then? The fuckin’ door's right there if ya wanna leave so badly!"

You didn't even remember why you two started fighting in the first place. Maybe it was the unspoken things, the misunderstandings, the challenge in his voice for you to be the one to end it all because Daryl knew he wouldn't be able to, the intensity of his emotions, or how quickly you could walk away with a cold stare and empty, tearless eyes. The silence is deafening until your sigh fills the room, nodding before heading for the door.

"Someday, a sorry ain't gonna be enough, Daryl, if you're even capable of saying it for the first time in your life."

You leave, and he doesn't try to follow, too proud to trample his manhood with a plea, a pride that was built in him with merciless fists that collided with his body until it forged a single thought in his mind, a cursed memory of his parents burned into his head, an unbreakable rule: men don't say sorry, they don't say please, men don't cry or beg.

Sadly, the city turned into hell that night, in just a couple of hours. The chaos, the groans, the police sirens, the gunshots, the cries for help and the excruciating pain. The phone left on your nightstand burned the bridge path behind you, forcing you to continue only forward, alone again. However, the desolation of the world ended for you when a community appeared, suspiciously perfect, like a cruel illusion in the desert when you're one step away from perishing: Woodbury. They had a system, hierarchies, and even order, but one day, on your way to work as a doctor's assistant, a voice caught your attention while it froze your heart.

“Fuck. Me. Right. Now... ain't ya ma lil' brotha's bunny.” The looks on both of your faces are equally incredulous, always underestimating each other's fervent desire to survive, even if you two cared for each other. “I thought ya'd be underground by now, darlin'. Or ya'd be a walker's lunch.”

“I'd never give you that satisfaction, asshole.” A sarcastic smile appears on your lips, and your gaze rests on the memory of what had once been his hand, raising an eyebrow. “I see your hand finally fell off like I told you. I warned you, didn't I?”

Merle Dixon hated the crumbs of pity to the point of repulsion and anger, but he found none in your sincere gaze, with you relieved to see that at least he was still alive, and a genuine smile spread across his own lips.

But everything always felt unstable, like walking through a landmine, almost waiting for it all to explode—until eventually it all did after a while, when two women walked through the front door during a heavy night, but towards opposite directions. One blonde headed to the governor's room, while the green–eyed woman was forced to exist in a cell, unaware of the other's existence. No one was supposed to know about her, but the young woman became a poorly kept secret that shattered your calm when you snuck in and she asked for a shred of your sympathy, ultimately uttering a name you thought you'd never hear again, just to show you she had a family.

“We need to get out of this fucking place now, Merle.” Your voice sounds impatient and scared, almost like your racing heart that you can't stop.

He stops walking around the little room of the house.

“Not as fast as ya did when ya left ma brotha.” Merle laughs, but without a hint of fun.

“You have the intelligence and empathy of a fucking rock, stupid asshole.” You let out a sigh, almost in resignation. “I'm not going to leave a woman at the mercy of a sick person. Doesn’t matter that he helped me. Either I'll get her out of there or at least I'll die trying.”

“Hey. Thanks for mentionin' yer dyin' to see ma lil' brotha.” Merle laughs again, wistfully this time when he sees you have the same expression. “'kay. I'll help. How ya wanna do this, honey?”

You swallow, fighting the lump in your throat.

“That woman, Andrea, do you think she can be trusted?”

The darkness of the following night deepened until the dawn began to claim its place, and the colors of the fire spread across every corner of that community, disappearing into the empty sky, bullets whizzing by until everything returned to absolute silence, where the world was once again dangerous only from the monsters stalking the forest. Daryl's people, they managed to infiltrate and break the seemingly unbreakable pillars of Woodbury, and their community and yours blended together until they merged for the common good: to survive, to live in peace even in the ruins of that world.

There were so many people in the woods, free at last. Young people, adults, families, children.

“Bunny?”

Behind you, that stupid nickname in his deep voice makes you gulp, but always full of affection and this time without that fake touch of sarcasm Daryl always used to tease you, promising to never hunt rabbits again just so your pet's soul could rest in peace. Seconds or a lifetime, the relentless time would never have allowed you to be ready for that reunion, and life doesn't stop, so you turn around.

The moment your gaze met Daryl's, the ocean in his eyes reawakened in a second, bringing with it tears he held back until he reached you. His free hand clasped your waist as the relief of seeing you again mixed with his fear of never seeing you again, forcing him to drop his forehead against your shoulder for a moment before pulling you into a hug. Your hand, which wasn't holding your gun, holds the side of his head, all under the confused and even stunned glances coming from the side of his group, people searching for answers in each other's eyes.

Daryl pulls away, just enough to press his forehead against yours, hand on your face now.

"I knew ya were alive, bunny." He whispers, because Daryl feels his overwhelming feelings creating a lump in his throat, blocking all strength in him, even in his voice.

You let out a small laugh that turns into a sigh.

"Your hair has grown out."

Daryl chuckles too, finally feeling the warmth of your body slow his wild heartbeat.

Back in the arms of her own husband, the place where she belonged, Maggie nods in your direction, a weak, trembling smile on her lips that remains even after Rick, their leader, leads the way for the others, toward a real community. The road is long, but not eternal, though somewhere in the middle, you go a little further to help the lonely, weary grandfather who lost his family the night it all started, and an arm like Max did in a past war, the bar owner, the man who made a nest for you in the center of his home.

“She’s stronger than I thought.” Merle exhales, standing next to his brother, both of their gazes on you. “A pain in ma ass all this time, but (Y/N) is family, ain’t she? so I can’t talk too much shit 'bout ma favorite sister–in–law.”

Daryl inhales, but all the already polluted air in the world doesn’t seem enough to fill his body.

“She won’t forgive me for what I did. I can see it in her blank stare.”

Merle purses his lips, deliberating whether making a joke to be true to his nature and mocking the pain of others, even if it came from his own brother, is the right thing to do at that moment. But even he and his inability to empathize can see a bit of Daryl's broken gaze, and for a second, as Merle swallows painfully, his younger brother's eyes take him back to when Daryl was just a child, right to the moment when he understood that the pain he experienced for the first time was only the beginning of something much worst.

Daryl had the same sad, resigned look, just when Merle thought he'd never see it again: it was the same intensity, only with a different kind of pain. No, even more so. Much worse. That's why Merle doesn't say anything even after you all reach the prison. The sight takes your breath away, but when the gates close and seal the place, it doesn't feel like a prison at all, with the duty to lock you up, deprive you of your freedom, but rather a place where you can flourish again just when the world seemed doomed to wither.

The long day ends when the cells are occupied, almost all of them. Only a few members of Daryl's group remain standing in the cold place that once served as a visiting room for prisoners.

"I ain't sleepin' with ma baby brotha an' his annoyin' wife. No roommates this time, damn it. M' tired of that shit."

"Merle!" You chide him, like a child learning how to behave when the thought of abandoning him on another rooftop seems looming again, but the bossy tone in your voice is enough to shut him up, relieved that he doesn’t resent them too much to bring the subject up again, with him raising his only remaining hand in a gesture of harmlessness before retreating when Hershel tells him there’s one at the end of Corridor G. When he finally disappears, the discomfort is replaced by surprise that shines like the summer sun at that sweltering season on the others’ faces, even Daryl’s, a few feet away from you. “Sorry, everyone, he is still learning to pee outside like a good dog. Please don’t kick him out.”

You were even funny, and even though you didn't know it, people would soon love you.

Rick clears his throat, still shocked by the revelation that the most unsociable person in that place had feelings, even a wife, a person he called by a nickname that seemed covered in glitter when his personality was as hard as a rock.

"Uh, I guess you don't need a room of your own, do you, (Y/N)? I mean, you and Daryl..."

No one hears or senses your sigh.

"No, of course, it's fine like that."

Another throat clearing comes from the side, and the woman with short hair approaches. Carol.

"You're the only one who hasn't eaten yet." Her gaze is gentle, so soft and filled with maternal love. "Why don't we go to the dining room? I'll get you some more comfortable clothes, too."

You nod, hoping to delay the awkward moment as much as possible.

“Thank you.”

You step back to leave beside her and the hallway feels cold, walls still foreign to you.

“So you and Daryl…” Carol laughs, trying to lighten the moment, but even the sound she tries to contain is sweet.

“What can I say? I've always had a soft spot for bad boys.”

She nods.

“But he's not really bad.”

You shake your head confidently.

“No, he's not at all. In fact, he's one of the best people I've ever met.”

Carol looks at you fondly.

“And yet he hurt you.”

“Yeah, he did.” The pain you thought was forgotten somewhere in your chest awakens abruptly, and you have to swallow to dispel the lump that forms in your throat with the radical idea of ending things there so you don't suffer like you did again. “Do you know anything about that?”

She nods, gently so as not to cross the line.

“It may sound strange, but Daryl is my best friend. Crazy, right?” Carol opens her eyes a little wider, needing no words to tell you that this was something crazy, even for her, and you both laugh. “I don’t know him as much as you do, but I know Daryl can be a toxic soul sometimes, hurting people, even though he doesn’t mean to or even want to. In fact, it makes sense why he kept yelling at others at first. I mean, I don’t condone it, but now I understand that he was dealing with that fear that grew in his chest as time passed: the terror of never seeing the person he loves the most again.”

Her voice remained gentle, warm, and yet, it conveys the pain of her own big loss.

“I’m so sorry, really.”

“Thank you, honey.” Carol smiles, her words short but heartfelt, though the memory of her baby still brings tears to her eyes. “Listen, Daryl Dixon can be cruel sometimes, but he’s not a cruel person, not when he wanted to move heaven and earth to find my Sophia, the same thing he tried to do to find you. The only reason why he never left us was because I begged him not to, so I’m sorry. Sometimes we act inappropriately, but that doesn’t define who we really are. I lived with a cruel person, and Daryl is definitely not that.”

Your shoulders slump, but it doesn't feel like defeat: it feels as if with that sigh, you were able to let go of a tiny bit of pain that seemed to have been lodged in your chest forever. And when only scraps of food remain on your plate, you leave the room until you find his slightly open cell, but covered with a blanket. Daryl straightens after placing his crossbow against the wall the moment you fully enter, but his shy, even scared gaze avoids looking you directly in the eye, not when the terror of losing you just as he found you feels suffocating.

A candlelight flickers and casts shadows against the walls.

"M' sorry, m' really sorry, bunny." His low voice trembles, but his body continues to move closer to yours. "I've wanted to tell ya m' sorry since that night."

You want to take a step back, but you remain in your place.

"I still remember what I told you that night."

There's no reproach in your voice, no hatred, and Daryl stands before you, nodding, trying to be brave.

“I know, ya were right, but please don’ walk away from me, don’ leave me, m' beggin' ya. Been dead all this time without ya.” His nervous hands cup your face when you don't step back, calloused fingers holding your skin gently, bringing his face closer to yours when yours leans toward his in response, your hands clutching his bare arms. “Jus’ be my bunny again, okay? Lemme prove ya this time I’ll be better.”

Your thumb glides over his skin, and Daryl can feel the electricity of that small but powerful gesture.

“Okay.”

#daryl dixon imagine #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon twd #daryl dixon x y/n #daryl dixon x female reader #daryl dixon x you #daryl dixon

184 notes · View notes

sunlightmurdock · 8 months ago

Text

Ashes, Ashes | One | Bradley Bradshaw

masterlist | prologue | next chapter

Synopsis: In which Maverick didn’t make it home after the Uranium mission. He’s missing, presumed dead. There are things that have to be done — someone has to take care of the house, the bills.

So, Maverick’s daughter is back in Fightertown for the first time since she was in elementary school. There’s a gaping hole in both of their lives now, and somehow, the world’s supposed to just keep on turning without him.

Warnings: bradley bradshaw x minimally descriptive oc avery mitchell, age gap (23/33), smut, angst, hurt / comfort, mentions of character death, mourning, military inaccuracies. This entire fic and my blog is an 18+ space, minors do not interact. Do not repost.

…

Crossing the threshold into Maverick’s home doesn’t come naturally to either one of them. This place is something that they had both left behind. Outgrown. It’s solely his. It’s not their home and it has never been, until now. Now, Avery, at least, is stuck here until things are figured out.

On that fourteen hour drive down to San Diego, she’d had a lot of time to think. How long is a person supposed to wait for a body to turn up before they go ahead and throw the funeral without it?

Three paces into the hallway, brown wood floors and white walls, she is met with a smiling family picture. Only, she’s not in it.

Because, it’s not a picture of Pete’s family. Pete doesn’t have a family. Pete Mitchell has a daughter from a one night stand with a married woman.

This picture is of a real family. Hung on the wall opposite the front door is a picture of Nick and Carole Bradshaw holding their infant son. He’s bald and gummy. They’re grinning and showing him off like a prize trophy — so proud of him even though all he did in those days was drool and pee himself.

These days, their infant son is up to more important things. Their infant son grew to an upsettingly grand height and is carrying two of her bags in one hand behind her today.

“C’mon, Mitchell — these are heavy.” Bradley huffs softly from behind her, reminding her that she’s standing stationary and blocking his path.

The nickname stings. Avery’s last name isn’t Mitchell because her biological father had wanted it to be. It’s Mitchell solely because her mother’s husband knew she wasn’t his and would rather die before letting her take his name.

She shrugs her duffel bag closer to her body and turns left. Bradley huffs under the weight of her luggage, watching her walk her cute butt in completely the wrong direction. “Wait, where are you going?”

Not struggling at all under the weight of her single duffel bag, she turns slowly to face him and frowns slightly. “My room.”

Avery doesn’t remember Bradley. Not in her own memories, anyway. She knows he was around, she’s seen him in pictures but the image in her head doesn’t match. Not quite right. Like puzzle pieces bent and forced together.

He’s taller than he looked at his high school graduation, which sits pictured and framed above Mav’s mantle. Older, but that’s to be expected. Up close, he looks more like his mother than his father. A slight bump in his nose and scars, nicely healed, but jagged and raised nonetheless dusted his cheek and his throat.

Even with all those differences, there’s a very slight familiarity to him that makes this all feel a little bit less suffocating.

Bradley’s brows draw together. He gives a small nod in the direction of the spare room. “That’s… I usually stayed in that room.”

“Oh.” Avery realises with a hum. With Bradley being ten years your senior, the room was his long before it was hers. With him growing up so close by, it was probably his much more frequently than it was hers, too. It’s not like she had ever kept anything here anyway. It’s just a guest room that she would occupy every now and again.

There’s a brief quiet between the two of them.

“I just figured you could take the big room. ‘Til you get settled. I’ll go home once your car is fixed, if that’s what you want.” Bradley adds on. That sad little look on her face, right in front of him, is killing him.

The big room. The loft room upstairs. Avery thinks about it and finds herself pretty sure that she’s never even been upstairs in this house.

“You’re staying too?”

Oh. Yeah. He hadn’t addressed that point yet. Truthfully, he hadn’t even been planning to stay. He hasn’t even packed an overnight bag. But, from the second that she had stepped out of the car and looked up at the house with that look on her face, he hadn’t even considered leaving her here alone.

“Just ‘til we get your car fixed,” He offers with a small shrug. “I’ll be here to run you around until then.”

Like he’s doing this for her sake. Natasha has her own life to get back to and Bradley can’t stand the thought of going back to his apartment alone.

“Okay,” Avery agrees, turning to peer down the hall towards the spare room. It’s nothing special — it really never felt like hers, anyway. “Alright, I’ll take Pete’s room.”

Pete. She calls Maverick ‘Pete’ now.

Bradley just nods, shifting the weight of her bags and nodding for her to head for the stairs. All the floors in this house are tan oak. The entryway is now herringbone. With the help of a friend, Pete had done the entire thing himself.

Of course, as they walk silently across it, neither one of them would know that. Neither one of them was speaking to him last May, which was why he had needed a project in the first place.

Natasha’s outside on the phone. Bradley’s footsteps thud on the wood of the stairs behind her, following her up. She stops at the top, leaving just enough room for Bradley to stand there behind her.

The door to Maverick’s room is open. His bed is made. There’s a book thrown on top of it, the spine cracked and used, the pages yellow from years out in the sun.

“No way is he still trying to fucking finish War and Peace.” Bradley steps around her and heads straight for the book. Pete started this book before Bradley finished elementary school. Bradley twists and looks back at her. “He always gets bored and stops reading, then forgets his page and starts again.”

Another slow nod. One foot in front of the other, her shoes along the tan oak floors. Her fingers trail the white walls. Maverick wouldn’t have minded. This place was always messy before. It’s not now.

This house is vacant and quiet, but it’s far from empty. It’s filled to the brim, practically pulling apart at the seams with everything that Maverick was and planned to be. He was finishing War and Peace — he made it to chapter 253 this time; further than he had ever made it before.

Suddenly, Avery’s throat is thick with the knowledge that all she knew Maverick to be, is now all that he’ll ever be. An absent father, a fantastic pilot, a lousy cook. A thousand more things that she’ll never know.

Four days of knowing, a fourteen hour drive down here, and it’s a book that stings like a cold slap to the face, reminding her of why exactly it is that she’s here.

Fire burns behind her eyes, blistering and stinging as Bradley sets her bags on the floor with a soft thud.

He turns with his attention completely on the book, his fingers extending towards the peeling cover of the paperback. His fingers curl around its weathered pages and he lifts it tenderly, examining the front at first.

It’s too early to start this process bawling her eyes out, and Avery refuses to let Russian Literature be your downfall, again.

That thick feeling sits in her throat like a stack of weights as she sits down on the end of Maverick’s bed. The mattress is soft, taking her weight without a squeak of complaint. Maybe he finally listened to her and got a bed that wasn’t so harsh on his back.

It’s been almost two years since she had even set foot in this house last. If she had known that Maverick was going to be gone this soon… she sits and thinks to herself about if she would have maybe visited more. Probably not.

“I’ll change the sheets and stuff, then I’ll get out of your hair for a bit.”

Lifting her head, she blinks at him. He has already started to pull back the comforter and strip the bottom sheet from the bed, awkwardly forcing her onto her feet again.

Mobile once more, Avery turns slowly to take in her surroundings. This is Maverick’s room. It’s his house, she was prepared for that much — but this is his room. The last thing she wants is to be alone in it all night.

“Oh. Sure,” She nods, setting into motion to help take the sheets off.

He’s so methodical about it, like none of this phases him at all. But then, she hasn’t seen how he has been for the past few days.

“I was thinking of just ordering food tonight, since I’m kinda tired — and Pete never had groceries. Would you want… to maybe join?”

“Sure.” Bradley nods, tugging the pillows out of the cases. He glances up to her with a strictly polite, neutral smile. Quiet settles between the two of them until the bed is just a bare mattress and uncovered pillows.

Then, there’s a moment of total stillness between the two of them. Her gaze flickers up, meeting his, and the realization settles between the two of them.

Maverick’s favourite cologne was a French thing that some woman in the eighties had liked. Citrus in the shade of cypress wood. The scent fills the room like he’s standing between the two of them.

Bradley glances down at the white sheets in his hands. The snowy white peaks of those mountains, Maverick’s aircraft spiralling into them, engulfed in flames. In a sick way, Bradley hopes that he didn’t manage to eject. At least then, it would have been instant. Maverick wouldn’t have felt anything.

Avery watches his adam’s apple bob in his throat from the other side of the bed. The last you had heard, Mav and Bradley weren’t on speaking terms. She wonders if this is as weird for him as it is for you.

“I’ll put these in the washer. You can… unpack, or whatever.” He decides finally, already taking one step backwards, headed for the door. She stands there, blinking at him. Even with those steeped, broad shoulders, he makes it through the doorframe unscathed before he turns to check where he’s going.

He probably knows this house inside and out, just like he knew her dad. Once.

When it comes to wracking her brain and trying to remember Bradley Bradshaw, Avery can’t ever come up with anything. Maybe a glimpse, here and there. A blue t-shirt with green stripes. His school backpack accidentally left in the backseat of Maverick’s convertible beside her shoddily installed car seat.

Truthfully, her experience with Bradley Bradshaw is limited. He’s just as real to her as any of the other guys in the stories she grew up hearing about. Her very own Peter Pan is downstairs right now, trying to figure out Maverick’s ancient washing machine, just so that he doesn’t have to stand up here and stare across at her.

He can’t hide from her forever, though. Evening comes, and so does hunger.

He stares down at the pizza between the two of them as he chews through a bite, brows drawn together slightly. He hates thin crust pizza — it’s the worst kind of pizza. But, when she had suggested it, he had agreed with a tight-lipped smile.

Natasha has gone home. It’s just the two of them, now. Sitting in this unchanged, all too familiar kitchen. Avery has barely unpacked. She set up a couple of things in Maverick’s bathroom, but it doesn’t feel right to be in the big room upstairs. That wasn’t ever her space to claim.

She chews absentmindedly at the bite she had taken. The TV in the living room is off. The record player is coated in a layer of thin dust already. It’s dead quiet. The kitchen light is dim above their heads.

There’s a chip in the corner of the table on Bradley’s side. It’s there because Bradley was running through this kitchen when he was four years old and had tripped and knocked his front tooth out right here. His thumb trails the tiny mark, wondering how his teeth had ever been that small.

Wondering why she isn’t angry with him, too.

Maverick had picked him up that day, turned him around and held Bradley while he cried, stemming the blood and quickly introducing the concept of the tooth fairy. He had done all that he could, and Bradley still found a way to resent him for what had happened to his own father.

Bradley hasn’t ever done a thing for Avery. Except maybe pay for this pizza. And here she is, calm as can be.

The sauce base feels tangy and coppery, and the cheese makes him want to puke. He sets the slice down on his plate and wipes his hands on the paper towel beside him.

Finally, he lifts his head and looks at her. Her hair is up differently now, tucked out of your way after an afternoon of manual labour upstairs, tidier than it had been earlier. She’s wearing a stretched out old t-shirt. Bradley assumes she got it from a boyfriend.

Really, he doesn’t think she looks that much like her old man. He would really have to search for the resemblance. But, briefly, when she offers him a polite smile across the table, he knows that you’re Mav’s kid.

“I’m sorry.” Bradley blurts out. They both look across at each other, equally surprised that he has spoken.

“…For what?” Avery asks quietly, lips tugging into a small frown.

“I’m sorry that I’m here and he’s not.” He’s just got to say it. He knows she probably wouldn’t bring it up on your own, but there’s a big elephant in this room. Bradley knows what it’s like to sit in her spot, and not know how to talk about it.

It’s his fault that Maverick didn’t make it home.

She stops chewing. That last bite sits in her mouth, doughy and dry all of a sudden. She stares across at him, awkwardly making herself swallow down the last of her bite of pizza and picking up the paper towel to wipe at her mouth.

“We weren’t that close.” She tells him, like that’s supposed to make him feel better. It doesn’t. It’s like a blow to the chest. She’ll never get the opportunity to fix things, because of him.

But, he knows what it’s like to be told how to grieve. He just dips his head and nods awkwardly. “Right.”

“I got a call from an admiral the other day,” She picks up the slice of pizza and pick at its toppings. There’s no one here now to tell her not to play with your food. Mav never really cared anyway. Bradley watches her, unhungry. “Invited me down to Miramar. He said he was a friend of Mav’s and that he could talk me through… this whole thing. How it works.”

Bradley rubs a hand over the neatly trimmed hair above his lip. It feels like he has swallowed a golf ball, sitting here like it’s normal to be discussing the measures.

He knows how it works. It won’t be as simple as it was with his own father. At least Maverick had afforded him something to bury. For her, there’s nothing.

“I’ll have to be there around eleven.”

“Sure,” Bradley nods, scratching at the back of his neck. His legs tingle with stiffness. Clearing his throat, he shifts in the little wooden chair and stretches, knocking his foot into hers under the table. “Oh. Sorry. I’m sorry.”

Her teeth press into the inside of your cheek. Maverick hadn’t ever described Bradley as this nervous.

“It’s fine.” She hums, pushing back in her chair and standing up from the table. “Well, I’ve been up since like… four, so I might just hit the hay.”

“Sure.” Bradley breathes out, hands braced on his thighs, eyes focussed on that tiny chip in the corner of the table. “Yeah. Goodnight.”

The downstairs bedroom seemed bigger when he was a kid. The twin-sized bunks on the carrier feel bigger than the wooden-framed bed that Maverick put in here. Bradley’s shoulder is practically hanging off the side, and the old frame creaks with each movement he makes.

It’s not like he would be sleeping much anyway. When he closes his eyes, the only thing he can see is the fireball Maverick’s plane had turned into as it fell.

Bradley’s hunched over the coffee pot by the time that Avery wakes up. He hears her coming down the stairs and straightens up like he wasn’t three seconds from throwing the stupid thing at the wall, clearing his throat and turning around.

It occurs to him that he should have put a shirt on. This isn’t his place. It’s hers, now, he guesses — either way, he hadn’t considered making her uncomfortable. He folds his arms over his naked torso as she strolls into the kitchen, hair mussed and rubbing at her eyes.

She’s wearing big socks and the same big t-shirt she had worn to eat the pizza last night. He can’t tell if she’s wearing shorts or not.

“Morning,” He offers up, making her lift her gaze from busily tapping at her phone. Her gaze lands squarely on his navel — more so, how low his shorts sit on his hips and the way a soft trail of brown hair ventures from there to his bellybutton.

Blinking, she finds his face.

“Coffee machine’s broken, we can stop somewhere on the way to base if you like.” He leans down a little bit, like an awkward teenager shrinking away from a family picture. She locks her gaze on his, trying not to glance back down at his muscles.

“Oh. That’s not broken — if you hit it hard enough, it’ll work.” She heads right for him, fuzzy socks padding across the floor so softly that it really does startle him when she grabs the copy of War and Peace that now sits on the kitchen counter, and slam the book right into the side of the coffee machine.

He whips around as the machine whirs to life. Avery the book back down gently, and look up at him. He sets his jaw, brows knitted together, searching her face.

Maverick never taught Bradley anything like that. In fact — Bradley always, always was taught the opposite. You never take the easy way out; if something’s worth fixing, then you fix it right.

Then you, you on the other hand, beat the thing with the heaviest book you can find? He just doesn’t get it.

“Well. Thanks.” He guesses, turning his bemused expression back to the brewing coffee.

He hadn’t been expecting you to do that. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, given the way he’s still glaring at the machine. That coffee pot is older than you are, and Mav never taught him that trick?

“So this guy, the one who called me,” Avery skims her fingers along the cool granite countertop, just to have something to do, “He was the guy calling the shots up there?”

Bradley blinks. He doesn’t know how much she knows about the way all of this works. He knew everything there is to know long before he ever enlisted, but that was because he wanted to know.

“Um,” Bradley grabs his mug and takes a step back for her to get herself one. “He was our mission command so, kind of. He gives orders — but, y’know, everything happens fast, it’s… it’s hard to call the shots from back on the boat.”

“Did he like Mav much?” She asks, head tucked inside the fridge door as you scan for anything to make her coffee a little less black. Nothing. A couple of beers and a block of good German cheese. She swings it shut with a resigned sigh, wondering if she’ll be here long enough to need groceries.

The thought flashes across her mind — what’ll happen to this place when she leaves it behind?

“Uh... No, not really.” After a routine training presentation at the very beginning of their attachment, Admiral Simpson had once become so agitated by Maverick that he snapped his own reading glasses in half. Mav got a good laugh out of it, at least.

“Great.” Agitation creeps into her tone as she curls her fingers around a plain white coffee mug. All of his kitchenware is plain white.

“What?” Bradley tilts his head, trying to catch a glimpse at the look on her face, stuck between whether she’s sad or pissed off.

It’s an easy answer, rolling off of her tongue with a shrug of her shoulders and a deflated sigh. “People usually put us in the same boat — if they don’t like him, they don’t like me.”

That’s something that he thinks he can understand. There’s not an instant dislike, but there’s a pity that he finds in the eyes of people who once knew his father.

He screws his mouth up, shaking his head and reaching for her without thought. His palm claps against her shoulder, platonic and soothing, but the first time he has touched you nonetheless. “I’ll be there. He won’t say a thing.”

Glancing upward, while his palm lingers on her shoulder, her eyes flit across his features. He doesn’t know quite what she’s searching for, or whether she finds it. His fingers squeeze softly against her skin before the touch is gone all together.

They drink their coffees in parallel, both subtly miserable in their silence but comfortable in it anyway. It’s difficult to prepare for a meeting like this — she doesn’t have a clue of what to expect.

Bradley wears black jeans and boots with a plain white t-shirt, which convinces her not to wear the more formal dress she had thought she’d have to wear. She slips into his passenger seat in a skirt and Mary Janes.

He drives a loud, blue vintage Bronco. It sparkles inside and out, and makes her dusty old car look even worse.

Bradley settles behind the wheel to the sound of chilled seventies music, the radio turned low. He drives with three fingers curled around the bottom of the wheel and the other hand resting absently on the stick shift.

Even though he seems calm enough behind the wheel, she watches him chew at the inside of his cheek for the duration of the drive. Gears tick away inside his head. His knee only stops bouncing nervously when it’s time to press his foot against the pedal.

He’s not as good at pretending as he thinks he is; she silently appreciates that he tries, either way.

Bradley, truthfully, spends the entire drive thinking about the last time he was face to face with Admiral Simpson. ‘Son, I’m doing this for you.’ He had sworn, face sullen, uttering the exact same words Pete Mitchell once had when delivering the words that had torn Bradley from him the first time.

Only, Admiral Simpson wasn’t pulling Bradley’s papers — he was just putting him on a month long bereavement leave. His protests had fallen on deaf ears once again, as they had fifteen years ago. He’s now a week into that leave, but it feels like longer.

It turns out that when sleep is cut from the equation, everything feels a lot longer. In his own apartment, his routine has been getting up at 2am after hours of tossing and turning, going for a run all the way down to the docks, coming back and showering, then waiting for the sun to rise.

Last night, he’d been awake in that creaky old twin bed, struck by the realisation that if he spent all night tossing and turning — one, he might actually break the old bed frame, and two, the squeaking of it would definitely keep Avery up.

All it had taken was the focus of trying to sit still for so long to finally knock him out. It was the best that he’d slept since the mission.

He kind of hopes that it’ll take him a while to figure out something to do with her car; at least that way he’ll be able to sleep at night.

“You ready?” His voice startles Avery from her daydream, the engine cutting out with a jingle of the keys as he stretches forwards in his seat to shove them into his pocket. “We’re headed just over there.”

“Yeah, let’s get this over with.” She’s stepping down and swinging the heavy door shut before she’s taking her next breath, leaving him to catch up to her.

His long strides have him at her side before long, reaching ahead of her to pull open the glass door to the post headquarters.

This process has already been easier with him at her side. He’d coolly handed over his service ID and greeted the guard at the gate by name, and he stops her from turning sharply down the wrong hallway with a soft bump of his shoulder against hers.

He catches her forearm as she tries to blow right past the front desk, his grip loose but firm.

“Rooster.” The woman behind the desk stands up sharply, looking sharp in her service khakis, her entire face creased with a deep worry. She’s older, maybe around Mav’s age. “I heard, I’m so sorry.”

Rooster loosens his hold on her forearm, his lips flattening into a line. He stands up straight, his interaction with the woman nothing if not totally polite. His thumb trails across the bend of her wrist as he nods his head towards her.

“Thank you,” He says softly, seemingly unaware of the way Avery has stiffened in the presence of this woman. “We’re, uh… we’re just here to see Cyclone, Lynn.”

Her warm, brown eyes whip towards Avery, widening. Recognition floods her features as she pieces together who the girl at Bradley's side must be.

Her boots hit the ground, Avery's lips parting slightly as she realises that this stranger is headed right for her. Bradley feels Avery's arm tug in his grip and turns his head, taking note of the way she's trying to shrink behind him.

Lynn is a hugger by nature, and she was a good friend of Mav’s for a long time. She means well, but Bradley isn’t going to let her touch Avery when he can see how unnerved it makes her.

“We’re a little late. I’ll catch you at the O-Bar this weekend?” His fingers uncurl from her forearm and his palm falls flat between her shoulder blades, giving her a gentle nudge and silent permission to avoid Lynn's hug.

The woman stops and there’s another polite, departing exchange between the two of them while Avery continues down the hall.

Bradley catches up to her as she raps her knuckles against the doorframe, fingers trembling when they come to settle back against her thighs.

“Miss Mitchell.” A chair scrapes along the tiled floor, Cyclone’s signature rumbling voice carrying out into the hallway. His boots tap across the ground, his face creased with sincerity and his hand outstretched when he notices Bradley standing behind the young woman he had arranged this meeting with. “Bradley Bradshaw.”

Avery checks back over her shoulder, glancing briefly at the man behind her, who has assumed his best bodyguard impression.

Standing tall, his uniform crisp and his greying black hair combed neatly, Admiral Beau Simpson slips his palm into hers and shakes her hand curtly. The sunlight catches on his shining name badge, his face heavy with lines and sharp angles.

Letting her hand go, he then reaches to her right to shake Bradley’s. Bradley’s chest bumps her back as he leans into the handshake.

Avery steps away from him, angling yourself closer to the doorframe. “He just gave me a ride here. Is it okay if he comes in?”

“Of course,” Cyclone is far more polite to her than he has ever been to Bradley. “Anything you need. Please, take a seat.”

It feels a little bit wrong standing before his boss in jeans, and sitting before him. Everything about this feels a little bit wrong. Bradley rests his chin against his fist.

Avery sits in the chair beside him, shoving your trembling hands under your thighs, straightening up and trying to look as brave as you can.

It shouldn’t be this stranger sitting beside you in this meeting — your mother should have come with you.

“Miss Mitchell,” The admiral takes his seat on the other side of his desk once again. “I want to first express my deepest condolences. Your father was a good man, and a… extremely skilled pilot.”

Bradley almost scoffs. Even now, Cyclone can’t manage to compliment him, not really.

“We are forever grateful for his service, and the sacrifices he made on behalf of our country. I understand that this is an extremely difficult time, and I’d just like to say that I’m going to personally make sure that this process is as easy as it can possibly be.”

Avery blinks at him. Jet engines rumble on outside of the window. People bustle on outside of the closed office door.

Cyclone glances towards Bradley.

“When a man is lost in action, our resolve is to initiate a search and rescue effort as soon as possible,” The admiral explains, leaving out the part where that search and rescue effort had been delayed by seventy-two hours after Mav disappeared. “We’ve been working tirelessly, and our efforts to locate your father are ongoing.”

Her brows knit together, lips pursed, unimpressed.

“But— he’s dead.” She frowns abruptly, rendering Cyclone suddenly quiet. “He’s got to be. It’s been a week. No food, no water, sub-zero temperature. What’s the point in looking?”

Bradley grits his teeth. He looks across at her, her words like a jolt of ice-cold water, the muscle in his jaw ticking. There’s nothing in her expression, no fear or sadness. Pete deserved more than that.

“The point is to bring him home.” He bites from her side, staring straight ahead at Cyclone.

She shoots him a look. When it’s clear that she isn’t going to say anything else, Cyclone clears his throat to continue.

“Miss Mitchell, we do have to prepare ourselves for the other outcome. If recovery efforts are unsuccessful, in two weeks time, he will be listed as formally ‘Missing in Action’. If that’s the case, we will honor him with a memorial service and all of his service records and personal effects are delivered to you.”

She drags her teeth across her plush bottom lip, swallowing hard and giving a small nod of her head. Closing her eyes for a moment, she pictures the moment that this is all over. She can get out of here and pretend it never happened.

“Okay. Two weeks?”

“This is going to be a longer process,” Cyclone warns her. He’d heard that she had come down specially for this, and he doesn’t want to mislead her about the time frame. “The recovery mission, if unsuccessful, will be suspended in two weeks’ time. After that, we’d like you to be local for the investigation.”

“Investigation?”

“Of ourselves. To ensure that the Navy had performed its due diligence, that kind of thing… I’d expect us to be here for a good few months.” He explains.

After that, it’s like Bradley can see a switch flip for her.

She’s biting at the inside of her cheek so hard that she must be tasting copper, picking at the seam of her skirt and breathing like she’s trying not to cry.

He’s still confused when he’s all but chasing her across the parking lot, listening to her try to control her breathing.

“Hey, hey, hey,” He tries, approaching her cautiously as she crowds herself against the passenger side of his car. “It’s alright. We’ll get through it, it’s just a couple of months.”

“I— fuck. I don’t want to be here. I-I— I’m going to have to find a job, and I’ll have to call my mom, and— and my friends, and—“

“Hey,” Bradley mumbles, resisting the instinct to throw his arms around her. His brows draw together as he reaches out and squeezes her bicep, bending his knees so he can catch her eye. “It’s alright. I’ll take care of it.”

Avery knows that he’s just trying to be nice, but really, she’s sick of nice. It’s all that Maverick ever was and it left her with no idea of who he really is. “Of what? There’s so much that I have to—“

He nods, closing his mouth, swallowing dryly. Thinking of what he can, feasibly, take off of her plate for her. The idea sparks in him.

“You need a job. I can get you a job. Um, your friends, we can call them and bring them down for a weekend?” He squeezes again at her bicep, nodding his way through his plans, trying to will the tears in her eyes not to spill over.

She sniffs, turning her gaze towards the ground. The lump in Avery’s throat burns and bobs as she tries to swallow it away.

Mav really is never coming back.

“I don’t want to go back to his house.” It comes out as a whimper, and really just reminds Bradley that she is in the same position that he was when he was just a little younger than her. It’s a scared kid type of feeling, being all alone in the world. Being in an empty house had made it even worse.

He licks his lips and glances towards the skies, watching the sun pass behind a cloud.

“You could stay at my place, for a night or two.”

…

#bradley bradshaw #bradley rooster bradshaw #miles teller #bradley bradshaw smut #rooster bradshaw imagine #rooster x you #bradley Bradshaw x reader #bradley Bradshaw x you #bradley Bradshaw x Mitchell!reader

403 notes · View notes

tovibeornottovibe · 2 months ago

Text

Do You Trust Me?

Eris Vanserra x Healer!Fem!OC (Cleo)

Eris catches Cleo just at the wrong moment; she's on her cycle and she's in agony. For some inexplicable reason, he feels this intense urge to help her, so he does. He struggles to deal with his own vulnerability, and to reconcile how he feels about her with what he expects from himself. [3.9k words]

warnings: major angst, menstruation, misogyny, mentioned sexual assault (in Eris' own internal monologue), toxic masculinity (sorta), it's a bit of a heavy one

Prefer to read on Ao3?

read the first part of this series here! (it's much fluffier than this one, i promise)

Cleo is picking pieces of ashwood out of his abdomen as though they aren't bothering her. Each one she plucks out and sets down in a bowl beside her fills him with such relief that he’s struggling to keep his breathing steady. Dart, as repulsed by the wood as he is, has curled himself in his bed on the other side of the living room, keeping a careful eye on the two of them as she kneels at his side, so close he can feel her breath against his too-hot skin. Her focus is almost absolute, her movements so precise that she has not once nicked his skin or poked the slowly healing wound.

But Eris has been trying to figure out what’s wrong with her for the past ten minutes.

When she opened the door for him, her eyes were heavy, like she was somehow exhausted in the early evening, and she afforded him only weak smiles and lazy responses. She hasn’t even asked him how he got stabbed (it was some prick with too much time on his hands and a penchant for spilling secrets. Unfortunately, Eris had underestimated his swordsmanship and thus, here he is). The usual warmth in her eyes is significantly dulled. She wears loose, faded clothes which are clearly too big for her. Every now and then, her jaw clenches and her hands falter slightly. And she’s washed out. Like she’s sick.

Fae don’t get ill. Ill fae die or else live in misery for the rest of their existence. That would be… unfortunate, and just his luck. He supposes slowly and excruciatingly killing one of the few people he actually likes spending time with is the Mother’s revenge for his lack of piety.

Petty, old cow.

He feels the tweezers grip the last splinter left and he lets out a sigh as she pulls it out. Delicately, she brushes her thumb over the skin near the wound, which stings but it’s not nearly as agonising as having ash in his body, checking to see if she got them all. Judging by the fact that he can relax his muscles, even with the bowl of splinters nearby, she did.

“I think you’re good,” she says quietly, her voice rough, as she withdraws her hand and sits back on her calves. “Can you—?” Swallowing thickly, she nods her head toward the bowl, briefly managing to meet his eyes before she looks away again.

Somehow, he’d rather stick all of those splinters back in his body one-by-one than have her endure whatever is happening to her.

With an easy flick of his wrist, he burns the contents of the bowl and the last, fleeting feelings of physical discomfort vanish. Immediately, Dart pads over and, after sniffing at the bowl, as though to check that the ash really is gone, pushes Cleo’s hand up and sits by her side. She pats him tenderly, her kind eyes so achingly tired that the sight makes Eris’ heart clench—he despises that.

When he sits forward, he instinctively clutches at his side and her head snaps towards him. “Can I heal this one?” she asks, already moving towards him, ready to over-exert herself more by using her magic, but, and he has no idea what comes over him to make him think this is in any way acceptable, Eris catches her hands before she can reach his wound.

Immediately, he regrets it.

Cleo has the textured hands of someone who works for a living. It isn’t like he doesn’t know this already, but this is different. It’s deliberate, unadulterated contact which is short, quick, and he releases her as soon as he possibly can. Almost flinches away from it. Even dealing with her hands on his skin when she’s healing him has started to get unbearable and it’s stupid, like he’s never been touched by a female before.

He chalks it up to stress, to needing just this one thing, place, person, where he doesn’t have to restrict. Restraint loses him so often these days. As the Autumn Equinox gets closer and closer, the power boiling in his bones gets hotter and hotter. Something has to slip sometime, and he guesses it’s now.

“Leave it,” he says, earning him a frown. “What’s wrong with you?”

He doesn’t care that it sounds like she matters to him. She does. Cleo is important to him and truthfully, if it turns out that she is, in fact, sick, he’s going to move heaven and earth to find some kind of a cure. Bribe whoever he needs to bribe and kill whoever tries to get in his way.

Cleo cannot die. He won’t allow it, Mother be damned. He’ll take Her out too if he has to.

She blinks like he’s asked her something impertinent then waves him off. “I’m fine,” she says. “Are you sure you don’t want me to—?”

He stops her bluntly. “You aren’t fine. You look like you’re about to keel over.”

At that, she scoffs, and the sound almost thrills him. “Thanks, might as well have told me I look like shit.” She doesn’t. Eris isn’t sure she’s even capable of that. “You’ll have to make sure you keep that clean…”

“Stop it,” he snaps and she flinches, but he’s so worked up that he continues. “Are you ill? Is that what it is?”

Okay, he sounds a little panicked. Is he panicking? Or maybe just worried? Yes, that’s it. Just a healthy amount of concern for someone he cares about. Not utter, crippling anxiety at the idea of her dying. Not at all.

Her face visibly softens. “No,” she says gently, “no, I’m not ill, Eris.”

Dart shifts with her when she untucks her legs from underneath her, stretching them out as she leans against the arm of the sofa, and it hits him. The faintest, barest scent of blood. Not his own. Hers.

The pieces slot together very, very quickly. The tiredness. The paleness. Her discomfort and inconsistent mood. Panic drains out of him almost as quickly as it came and he grimaces, more at himself than anything else.

“It’s your cycle,” he murmurs, bracing his forearms on his knees and rubbing the worry off his face. His wound hardly hurts him as he moves. “Oh, of course it is.”

Cleo lets out a hum of confirmation. “You know,” she says, looking at him, half-smile on her lips, “for a clever male, you are interminably stupid sometimes.”

Probably. He can’t even feel insulted, the overwhelming sense of relief is too strong to get anything else.

“Aren’t you supposed to be resting?” he asks. What little he knows about cycles is informed by the unintentional glimpses of what his mother’s are like, and she practically knocks herself out for a week so she can get through the pain. For the whole day, every day, a handmaiden looks after her and soothes her if she wakes up. Yet, here Cleo is, seemingly not in indescribable agony?

“Yep,” she replies, popping the p, as she turns so her back is against the sofa and a shaky breath escapes her. Increasingly, her voice becomes strained. “But you were an excellent distraction. You don’t think you could get stabbed again, do you?”

In any other circumstance, he would laugh, maybe throw out a snide comment, but he’s quite suddenly gripped by the urge to comfort her. No, to look after her. That knocks him so completely from all his pain and all the rest of the things on his mind and replaces them with this intense need to do something.

She catches him staring at her and, with Dart lying across her lap, barks a low laugh. “It’s just blood, Eris,” she says.

“It’s not that,” he replies quickly. Too quickly.

It’s that he doesn’t know what to do. He always knows what to do. Eris always has some kind of plan, or else he can respond to anything and everything which gets thrown at him, but now, he’s at a total loss. This is not something he had ever considered; cycles are female business, and he figured it would stay that way. He’s never had a long-term lover, certainly not one which would expect him to be available to her for any sort of emotional comfort and if he ever had to get married, it would be to some viper who he could rid himself of as soon as he was High Lord. He would simply take a contraceptive tonic (illegal but useful in Autumn) so he would never have a child, let alone a daughter. So, to say he’s clueless is an understatement.

Cleo lets out a regulated, slow breath, tipping her head back against the sofa cushions and closing her eyes. “Do enlighten me then,” she says weakly.

It’s instinct that makes him move, which is strange, because Eris ignores almost every instinct that occurs to him. Instincts make him do things like flinch and gag and make him feel things such as desire and fear which are plainly useless to him. His instincts threaten the carefully crafted aloofness which protects him from all things.

But Cleo’s house is the place where he can’t afford to do that. Here, their relationship, that protection, is based on instinct, and it is her who provides it for him. She sees how he reacts, and if it’s wrong, she corrects it. He barely appears on her doorstep if he’s of sound mind, only in the direst of circumstances where he has no other option. Being here is a calculated risk that only makes sense to him when he follows those irritating, natural instincts of his.

He pulls himself off the sofa and crouches next to her. He doesn’t dare touch her again; he might find himself incapable of stopping.

“Tell me how to help,” he says quietly, like perhaps if she doesn’t hear him, he might not feel such a compulsion to stay.

She eyes him. “I’m fine. Really,” she says, the way she shifts her legs betraying her discomfort. “I’m a big girl. I’ve been doing this every six months for a couple of centuries now.”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look after yourself.”

For that, she shoots him a look. That’s the line she always uses with him when he feels guilty for accepting her aid. Not that he’s ever explicitly told her he does, she just tends to know these things. Annoyingly.

He says, “Let me help you,” and he doesn’t know why.

Maybe it’s because he feels indebted to her. Maybe it’s because he can’t stand the sight of her suffering. Maybe she’s actually been tricking him this whole time and he’ll find out that his brothers are right behind the front door, ready to haul him in front of his father. If that’s the case then she’s done such an excellent job of making a fool out of him that he might even be impressed.

Or maybe it’s just because he’s remembered something.

He’d been wracking his brain for anything he could think of to soothe her and he caught it in the corner of his memories. Sometimes, the handmaidens bring his mother warm towels for the pains. He knows it relaxes the muscles. It isn’t often he uses that knowledge for noble purposes, but he is uniquely talented when it comes to producing heat. He has his uses beyond politicking and plotting, you know.

But Cleo shakes her head. “You don’t need to, Eris.”

“I want to.”

Half-bemused, half-pained, she hits him square in the chest with one single word: “Why?”

His response comes immediately, but it doesn’t feel true. “You heal me all the time. It’s only fair—”

“I don’t help you because I want something in return.” Why do you help me then, Cleo? Because, to this day, he cannot work it out. It’s unfathomable to him. He reasons that he would never, ever do the same, and that’s why Cleo will always be a better person than he is. “You don’t owe me shit.”

“Fine,” he says firmly, “I don’t owe you anything. Let me help anyway.”

It’s exasperation she gives him next. “You can’t do anything. It’s not like pain tonics—why are you looking at me like that?”

Ignoring how his heart stutters in his chest, he asks, “Do you trust me?”

A moment’s hesitation, then, “Cauldron, Eris, you really don’t understan—”

“Not what I asked, Cleo.”

“Gods. Yes, I trust you,” she says sharply, “but it doesn’t matter because nothing will help. I have tried everything! I just have to wait it out. There’s no magic…” Eris lets her trail off while he continues to look at her, totally unimpressed. There’s something to be said for being the most patient male in the world.

“Are you finished?” She tuts at him and he takes that as a yes. “Good. Now stop arguing and tell me where you’re in pain.”

Begrudgingly relenting, Cleo mumbles something that distinctly sounds like fucking asshole, saying through gritted teeth, “It’s here—” she runs her hand delicately across her lower abdomen before going to pet Dart once again, her movements rhythmic, repetitive, “—but I’m serious. You can’t do anything. I wish you could.”

Eris doesn’t think, he just does, or else he’ll stop himself and let her suffer. A muscle ticks in her jaw when he gets closer, but she doesn’t stop him, not even when he pushes the hem of her shirt up with a warmed hand and presses gently against her skin exactly where she showed him. Immediately, she shifts under his touch, lets out a breathy sigh and closes her eyes. Dart moves out of the way as Eris sits beside her.

“Better?” he asks lowly, just a hint of smugness creeping into his tone, because he was right and she doubted him. Instead of glaring at him for it, she just nods and places her hand over his, moving it ever so slightly downward so that his little finger brushes against the waistband of her trousers. Then she keeps her hand there like it’s nothing, like it’s normal, and compulsively strokes up and down the back of his with the pad of her thumb.

After a few, quiet minutes, she seems to relax, but he doesn’t move. He lets her use his heat however she likes, waits it out with her until she tenses again and her grip on him becomes ironclad. The pain comes in waves, sometimes with long gaps, other times with prolonged periods of what seems like total agony. He doesn’t know what he can say to calm her, so he keeps his mouth shut and watches her work through it with a furrowed brow.

This is worse, he decides, than almost everything his father has ever done to him. He hates it, hates that all he can do is sit with her, provide her with only the smallest amount of relief, when she can quite literally bring him back from the brink in a matter of minutes. It looks exhausting. Every time her breath hitches, his heart lurches.

“Cleo,” he says, hoping she might have the strength to look at him. That’s the other thing that gets him. Cleo is disproportionately strong, she can endure hours and hours of using her magic, can manoeuvre him without difficulty. He’s not certain she can even lift her head right now. “Is it getting easier?”

Her eyes stay closed as she shakes her head. The next time she gets a rest, she asks so very quietly, her voice rough, “Do you—Could you—I… my back?”

Again, he doesn’t think. Trusting that she can go without his hand just for a moment, he wraps his arms around her and pulls her towards him into his lap with her knees either side of his hips. He shuffles so his back is against the coffee table and his legs are against the sofa, a more relaxed position so he can hold her better. She offers no resistance when he presses her against his chest, his hand un-demandingly firm on the small of her back while his body heats the rest of her.

She sags against him, her forehead planted on his shoulder while she curls her hands into his shirt, pulling so much that she’ll probably stretch the fabric.

“Comfortable?” Eris asks practically into the shell of her ear. All she does is hum confirmation, so he says, “Okay,” and goes back to waiting with her.

He stays very, very still. Torn between this horrid need to soothe her and all the things he has been taught to think, Eris knows he needs to remind himself why he can never, ever do this again. Knows he needs to get it all out. So, instead of letting himself rest against her too, instead of allowing himself this moment where it is just him and Cleo in intimate selflessness, something within him snaps; he makes himself think the kind of vile thoughts which make his father proud.

Cleo’s so weak that it occurs to him he can do anything to her. The most stubborn female he’s ever met trusts him so much that he can move her however he likes, touch her wherever he wants and she wouldn’t be able to push him away. Might not even want to. He wonders if she is so desperate to be touched that she’d just take whatever he gives her, whine and beg him to keep going like a bitch.

It would be so easy. She’s already on top of him, already pressing her chest against him. He can tell, she’s not wearing a bra, and even if she was, it wouldn’t matter. She can’t stop him, can’t stop his hand from dipping below her waistband just to see how she would react, if she would object.

He can take and take and take. He already does. He drains the energy from her when she heals him. She makes herself so vulnerable in front of him that he can remind her why she should never, ever allow someone like him access to her like this. If he wanted to take his pleasure from her, use her in the way she unwittingly offers herself to him, he could. He could prove why she shouldn’t trust him at all like everyone expects him to.

But the thought disgusts him so thoroughly that he feels unclean just for considering the possibility.

A choked sob bubbles up from her throat and she fists the fabric of his shirt to the point where she’s pulling it off his shoulder. He can feel her spiking panic as the pain starts again. Eris just tightens his grip, shushes her gently and says, “You’re doing so well. It’ll pass soon. Breathe.” The tenderness in his voice surprises him, but it comes naturally.

The idea of her attempting to go through this alone makes him so upset that he forces himself to think of almost anything else, and his mind takes him back to the worst place it can.

Eris can ruin Cleo’s life if he feels like it. He knows so much about her: he can use her brother against her; blackmail the both of them for information; can turn them against each other. He can paint her as a spy and get her fired. He can plant evidence which will have Thesan arrest her. He can let it slip that he knows her and let rumours run wild. Perhaps even her friends will think she’s a whore for letting him into her house in the middle of the night. No one would be able to dispute him. It’s his word against hers, and he has the prestige to discredit her.

It terrifies him that she has given him such power over her and it’s worse that he can formulate a plan for exactly how he would do it. Step-by-step, he can see it unfolding right before his eyes. He wonders if she has ever thought the same, if she has contemplated using what little he has told her against him, but he knows that she hasn’t. That isn’t the kind of intelligence she has. The Autumn Court would drown her. The Autumn Court will drown her.

Despite himself, even as he recoils inside, Eris pulls her impossibly closer and rests his chin atop her head. Instinct once again grips him and he wants to press a kiss against her hair. He wants to inhale her scent and have it cling to his clothes.

At the same time, he absolutely, unwaveringly wants to get as far away from her as possible. He wants to hurt her and leave her and then come crawling back when he needs help. He wants her to view him just as pathetic as he would feel doing that, and he wants her to help him anyway, for her to prove to him that she needs him just as much as he needs her. Eris wants Cleo to struggle with it like he burns when he allows himself to think of her.

Desires like these are the ones he ignores.

For the better part of an hour—an hour he doesn’t have but gives willingly—they’re locked together. When he whispers soft words to her, she relaxes and lets the pain wash over her, just moves through it like water, and slowly, slowly, it subsides. She doesn’t tell him but he can see just by how she rests against him that she wants to sleep, that the sheer effort of breathing and dealing with it has stolen what little energy she had left.

Whether or not that’s true doesn’t matter to him; he’s making the decision for her. He waits for five minutes, listening for a hitch in her breath or for her to tense, but she doesn’t. Cleo’s eyes are closed and she’s halfway to sleep already.

Wordlessly, he hikes her up and stands. She just clings to him and mumbles something unintelligible. Dart follows him as he rounds the coffee table and carefully carries her up the stairs. There are three doors leading from the landing and he guesses which one is for her bedroom first-time.

Usually, Eris would take in every detail, note which books are on the shelves and what fabric the bed sheets are made from, but he has only one concern, and that’s making sure Cleo is asleep before he leaves. He lays her down gently atop the covers—pulling them over her feels far too familiar an act for him to do—and stops Dart jumping up on the bed and jostling her.

When her eyes flutter open, he almost sighs in frustration. “Sorry…” she breathes out. As she talks, a piece of her dark hair falls across her face.

He shakes his head, pushes her hair back behind her ear and says, “Just rest, Cleo.” She nods and closes her eyes again.

By her side, he waits until he sees her breathing even out, then he leaves her door ajar behind him so Dart can get back out. He makes sure Dart has food and water before he winnows back to Autumn.

In his private quarters, he sits and counts.

One.

Two.

Three… all the way to ten.

Then he hauls himself back up, strides to the kennels and sneers at any and every guard who has the audacity to look at him. He takes all twelve of his smokehounds out, heads to a place far enough away from the Forest House, and he has them kill something for him.

a/n: somewhat of a little character study into Eris? not too sure how to feel about it at the moment, but here it is

taglist for the series (let me know if you wanna be added!): @rcarbo1 @corvusmorte

#eris fanfic #eris vanserra #eris x oc #eris x reader #eris vanserra x oc #eris vanserra x reader #eris vanserra fanfic #eris vanserra fluff #eris vanserra angst #eris x you #oh my god so much angst #eris acotar

185 notes · View notes

fyodoro · 9 months ago

Text

ೃ༄ JUST AN INCH AWAY…

ft. Alhaitham, Scaramouche, and Wriothesley

… who said making out was the only way to escape such a predicament? neither of you, apparently. but if it works, it works— even if it wasn’t intentional.

gn!reader, suggestive but not rlly bordering on smut, puzzles gone wrong, forced proximity and enemies with tension type thing, lots of kissing, lots of making out, profanity, harbinger scara, akademiya/academic rival alhaitham | wc : 5.4k

a big thank you to @vxnuslogy for going over scara’s bit for me cause i’ve grown vv unfamiliar with his character over the years, so thank you vee !!

ALHAITHAM (1.7k wc)

”I swear to Archons, the second I get out of here I’m burning your thesis to ashes.”

Alhaitham’s unbothered expression didn’t falter. “Such a bold assumption. You really think you’re capable of escaping without me?” he reviled, using the split-second your mind went blank as an opportunity to shove you away to an adjacent wall.

Your brows furrowed, hand clutching your side in response to the fleeting moment of pain. “You better do something if this bruises, asshole,” you sneered.

”What sense does it make for me to do something about someone else’s problem?” he retorted, gray strands gone astray as he ran a hand through them.

This might’ve been the most stressed out you’ve ever seen him, you think. It makes plenty of sense, too. You wouldn’t be shocked if he was living out his worst nightmare right now. Two of the things he hates most— you, and a problem he can’t solve— is all he has to work with right now.

Actually, calling this his worst nightmare might be the understatement of the century.

“Two Akademiya students trapped in a cell… oh, all the possibilities. Did I mention they hate each other? That’s a key detail if I do say so myself.”

”I’m trying to focus here,” he said, tone as cold as the very peak of Dragonspine.

You squatted down beside him, watching his skillful hands work with the broken device that got you trapped here in the first place. “You’re trying to focus, I’m bored. You don’t wanna spend your potential last minutes alive with me, and vice versa. Let’s face it, neither of us are winning here, so you might as well stop being a buzzkill for once.”

”These won’t be my last moments alive, but they might be yours if you don’t pipe down.”

You frowned without another word, surveying his working hands as they meticulously fidgeted with the dysfunctional rune. They’re… nice, you think, oddly enough. The thought alone made you wanna gag, but it wouldn’t be the first time you noticed them.

It also wouldn’t be the first time you noticed his nose scrunches whenever he’s concentrated. You’ve seen it plenty of times, but in this instance, it’s different— you’ve never seen it close up before. Every other time you just happened to catch it from across your shared classroom amidst a lesson, or the Akademiya’s library. No matter the case, there’s never been an appropriate time to tease him about it.

Does this count as an appropriate time? Probably not, but your mouth thinks otherwise.

“You’re gonna have bunny lines by the time you’re 24 if you don’t stop doing that.”

For a moment, he stops. His darkly lit nose inhaled deeply before turning to you, exasperation evident in his eyes.

“That’s hypocritical, you do it more than me.”

You didn’t waste a second to fire back, eyes locking in on his with jest. “So you confess? You’ve been staring at me, hm?”

“Do you hear yourself? You admitted the same thing just a moment ago,” he breathed, voice hitching in his throat from the intense irritation he was feeling. He opened his mouth hastily to speak again, but closed it just as fast, resuming his repair of the broken device.

You scoffed, standing back up to stretch your limbs with a yawn. Just how long has it been now? Minutes? Hours? There was only so much longer you could take, and your patience was running just as thin as Alhaitham’s.

“Surprise, surprise… you’re doing it again.”

“When we get out of here, I’m sending you to those Kshahrewar scholars. Maybe they’ll be able to install a mute button on you.”

“I just think you’re jealous of me. Y’know, people actually like me, but I know that’s not the case for you.”

“Fortunately, I couldn't care any less about anyone’s opinion of me. Unlike you, remember?” he reminded, looking up at you from the corner of his eye. “You had a breakdown in the library because you eavesdropped on a group of Amurta students calling you a stuck-up know-it-all.”

Your teeth clenched together, brain stuttering over its thoughts. “That’s because I’m not! I didn’t even know any of them, they were just making stuff up—“

Alhaitham’s ears tuned you out, index finger clicking the last piece together on the rune, getting it to light up successfully. He wiped beads of sweat off his forehead before picking himself up off the ground with a small huff.

“That’s why I was so upset, okay?” you finished, arms shrugged in a defensive manner. Your lips were pressed into a straight line, and your brows only raised at the realization— he wasn’t listening to a single word you said.

“Save your breath,” he started, gesturing to the supposedly fixed mechanism. “We’ll be out of each other’s sight soon.”

“Ohoho,” you chuckled dryly, “not soon enough.”

You crouched down to the newly repaired rune, fidgeting with it as the symbols changed. Not a single one made the small cell’s bars budge, let alone lift. Slapping a hand to your forehead, you groaned in defeat.

“Well my good friend, aren’t you just a genius,” you taunted.

“If you had a sliver of patience in that dense head of yours, you’d have known to wait another minute or so.”

“In my defense, you never told me to wait,” you spat. “In fact, it sounded like you wanted me to try it out just so you could call me a fool.”

He closed his eyes, rubbing his temples immediately. “Don’t twist my words. The only one making yourself look like a fool is you.”

“Archons,” you cried out. “All of this could’ve been avoided if you weren’t such a dickhead.”

“And we could’ve had a peaceful time in here if you knew how to shut up.”

“The only way you’re getting me to shut up is if you make me. Otherwise, it’ll be a hot, sunny day in Snezhnaya when I decide to listen to you.”

That was Alhaitham’s final straw.

“Make you?” he spoke, tall frame slowly moving down towards yours on the ground. The only source of light came from a lone torch beyond the bars that enclosed your cell, and the tiny blue light that glowed from the rune. “Just how can I ‘make you’ shut up?”

You shrugged, taking a moment to note how much closer he was compared to before.

“Not a clue my dude, not a clue,” you said, mischief lacing your voice. “Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Oh, you know… unless you have a bright idea.”

You tilted your head to the side, smirking as confliction appeared on his face. His brows have been furrowed for some time now due to your antics, though right now, they looked as if they were slanted out of focus, not fury. The lack of light made it hard to see his eyes clearly, but you swear you caught a glint of desire hidden within them.

He grabbed the back of your head with a solid grip, closing the gap between your faces as his lips took over yours.

Your eyes shut out of instinct, though his remained half lidded for a few more seconds. He didn’t miss how speedy you were to kiss back, not to mention grab onto his gray locks. You tugged on them, hard. It was just the push he needed to pull your body closer to his, leaving no more space between you two.

Contrary to his cold attitude, his lips were warm, wait— no, he was warm. His body warmed yours, heat rushing to all parts of your body as he moved his hand down from the back of your head to your lower back, holding on tightly when you moved against him.

Paired with the heat of the moment, the action pulled a small moan from your lips. Alhaitham’s quick thinking allowed him to slide his tongue past your lips at the opening. You didn’t give any pushback, eagerly accepting the wet muscle with a quiet whine.

Hands flew everywhere— his hair was nothing short of a mess, and you were sure yours wasn’t so neat either. Each time you broke away for air was cut short by Alhaitham, who couldn’t bear a single second without attacking your lips. The only noises that filled the confined room were his grunts and your quiet whimpers, though an occasional moan was thrown into the mix.

You felt his strong arms move you back, attempting to push your back against the ground for better control. However, his efforts went to waste as you yelped, breaking the kiss to turn around and fiddle with something.

“Oh shit,“ you uttered under your breath. “Look at what you pushed me into.”

He moved away from your body, taking a minute to catch his breath before averting his attention to behind you. What he saw was something be couldn’t believe he forgot about— the rune that got you both stuck in the first place.

As if on cue, it began to blink, followed by thick bars lifting into the ceiling. You laughed loudly, feverish look still apparent on your face from what happened moments prior.

“You—“ he started, standing up from the cell’s floor in embarrassment. “You are not to speak of this, we are not to bring this up again, got that?”

Extending a hand out to you, he helped pull you off the ground begrudgingly. You scratch the back of your head sheepishly, looking at anything that wasn’t Alhaitham.

“No promises?”

He could only scoff at your response, exiting the cell that he so desperately wanted to escape from not so long ago with a frown. Before he could reach the stairwell that led you down here, he turned back to face you.

“Are you coming?”

“I— uh…” you stumbled over your words, trying to make sense of everything that just transpired. “Yes! Don’t go without me, you hear?”

He rolled his eyes. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

If this ever happens again, you can only hope your “undying” hatred for Alhaitham won’t waver afterwards. Now you have to bicker with an asshole who just so happened to have had his tongue in your mouth… not to mention he might be the best kisser you’ve ever met.

Great.

SCARAMOUCHE (1.3k wc)

The room was tight, stuffy, and so hot.

Well, maybe the heat you felt was your own body temperature. It’s a natural reaction, you think. Yeah, a very, very natural reaction to being in such close proximity with someone you just so happened to find attractive.

Pushing your bubbling feelings aside, you acknowledge the situation at hand.

“This is your fault— all your fault!”

“My fault? Did you forget who set off the wrong mechanism?” Scaramouche barked, furious eyes narrowing in on you. “Incase you somehow forgot, allow me to refresh that poor little memory of yours— it was you,” he hissed, the faint shadow of a smirk etched across his lips added a venom drip onto his words.

You rolled your eyes with a scoff, one that could most definitely be heard from the outside of the small chamber you found yourself trapped in. Seriously, who in their right mind thought it’d be a good idea to send you and the 6th Harbinger on a mission together? No, scratch that. Who thought it’d be a good idea to send him on a mission with anyone besides his masochistic subordinates?

The Tsarsita, apparently.

Searching for any sign of an exit, your hand brushed against Scaramouche’s. For once, he landed on the same page as you.

“What do you think you're doing?” he spat, swatting your hand away as if it were a mere little fly.

You backed yourself against the wall defensively. The old bricks only extended a few feet wide; just a mere foot away from the other side, too. Unfortunately, this is physically the closest you’ve ever been to the Inazuman, a fact that made you sick. Archons, did it have to be him? Of all people, why was he the one you were trapped with?

“I’m trying to get us out of here. Y’know, so I don’t have to stare at your wretched face any longer.”

“No one’s forcing you to stare at anything, moron.” Groaning, his head motioned back to hit the wall behind it. “Look! So much dust, so much dirt, and it’s all right in front of you!” he sneered tauntingly. “How about you count every little dust particle your eyes can see while I get us out of here?”

You hadn’t even realized he’d been drawing closer and closer the longer he spoke. Unintentionally, probably. Still, there was hardly any space to begin with, and now he literally had you cornered.

That part may be intentional, you think.

“I’d rather count every single split-end from that hair of yours, since the darkness wasn’t kind enough to hide them for you.”

He deadpanned at your rebuttal, “Oh, like that has to do with anything.”

“I’m sure I’ll still be counting even after we get out of here,” you tauntingly whispered, face unconsciously growing closer to his. “If you’d open your mind for a moment… I’d recommend seeing a barber when we return.”

“You little—“ his voice came to an abrupt stop, gleaming eyes sharpening in the dimly lit room as he gritted his teeth.

“Little what? Go on, don’t cut yourself off now,” you mocked, a grin of michief creeping onto your features. “Am I a little bitch, or a little pest? Oh, maybe you had something more creative in mind? Come on now, don’t keep me wai—“

Before you could finish your sentence— hell, before he could think, his lips lunged at yours, capturing them between his own as he pinned your hands on either side of your head firmly.

Your eyes were blown wide, pupils dilated in shock as you processed what was happening. The Balladeer was kissing you. He went from taunting you… to… kissing you…? And it felt good? You didn’t think you hated it. No, you definitely didn’t hate it.

Kissing back slowly, you gripped onto the hands that restrained yours for better support. Oddly enough, his hold loosened, opting to intertwine your fingers instead.

He felt something. Heat, maybe? Yeah, that must be it. It was hot. Obviously his mechanical body wasn’t immune to the dangers of overheating, especially when it’s pressed up against an even warmer body. It wasn’t like anything he felt before— of course he felt himself craving more.

He broke the kiss briefly to hoist you upwards, moving his hands down to signal you to jump. Without thinking, you wrapped your legs around his slim frame instinctively. His hands that went from yours, to beneath your knees, now kept a firm grip on the plush of your thighs as the kiss deepened.

Small snippets of air was all you needed to keep going, something Scaramouche didn’t understand. Every time you pulled away for a gasp of air, his brows furrowed in judgment. Humans, he thinks to himself. Not even lust can cloud their senses. The string of saliva was all that connected your bodies. That is— if you didn’t count your hold around his neck or his now wandering hands.

As he dove back in to resume, you felt yourself pushed against the wall— harder, somehow. The force had you groan, now feeling just how dirty the small room was. Scaramouche couldn’t give a shit, of course. Instead, he thought now was the perfect moment to trail his lips down to your neck.

Your head lolled back, allowing him all the access he needed. He nipped and nipped— creating a pattern between sucking, biting, and kissing. Honestly, you were too dazed to care if he left a mark at this point. You let your thighs tremble in his hold, aching from both the thrill and the need. Letting your head rest against the wall entirely, you—

Bump!

Both yours and Scaramouche’s eyes widened, only to close tightly at the sudden light. He turned away from you, squinting at the brightness that came in the other direction. “What the…”

Oh, the door lifted.

“How did it—“

The Balladeer’s hands dropped from your body, retreating to his sides. You still kept a hold on him— limbs not showing any sign of letting him move freely, but you were just as perplexed as him.

“Let go.”

“If you drop me and I break something, you better pay for—“

He rolled his eyes, forcing your legs off of him and sliding down to escape your grip around his neck. You fell, hard. Grumbling to yourself, you stood back up on your own two feet with annoyance.

Freedom was just a foot away, yet neither of you moved an inch. Scaramouche’s eyes darted from you, to the wall behind you, catching the key to the chamber’s doors.

Of course.

He pressed his hand against the loose brick. “Your head was right here, correct?”

“I’m pretty sure… yeah?” you answered, turning around to examine his actions.

He slapped his forehead in agitation, laughing to himself. You were starting to catch on now, understanding what caused your escape route.

“I can’t believe it,” he breathed, chuckling. “You were so needy, your big head somehow pushed the brick that opened the doors.”

For once, you ignored his insult. “Then— can we get out of here before it closes again?”

His eyes darkened, returning to his menacing aura. You gulped, feeling less cocky after the predicament you found yourself in a minute prior. He pointed his index finger at you— as if he were about to order you around like one of his subordinates.

“Only if you agree to never speak of this to anyone, you got that?”

You nodded slowly, itching to get out of here and complete this mission in another few hours. “Okay… okay.”

“Good,” he started, turning his back to you. “We can finish this later, but that’ll be it.”

That was, in fact, not the last time such an encounter occurred between you both. But hey, there’s a thin line between hate and love, right?

Surely it wouldn’t be a problem to dance on that line a little longer…

WRIOTHESLEY (2.3k wc)

How in Teyvat does the very Duke of the Fortress of Meropide forget his keys? Better yet, how did the lock on the outside of the cell click on its own?

“This place is haunted, it’s gotta be,” you wailed, dramatically flopping yourself down on the cell’s stiff mattress. “Hey, Great ol’ Duke, I’ve got an idea for you.”

The hands that were previously fiddling with the lock on the other side of the cell came to a halt. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before darting his eyes in your direction.

“Oh, sure. Please, tell me, what are you scheming this time?”

“Me? Scheming? Just how little do you think of me?”

He huffed, giving his attention back to the matter at hand: getting out of this cell and far, far away from you.

“I don’t think anything of you, but I do know,” he grumbled, cursing himself for never gluing the keys to his hand. “And what I know is that you should’ve been out of here the moment your sentence ended. But instead, you thought it’d be fun to stick around and climb the ranks amongst the gardes here.”

“With ease, if you don’t mind adding that bit on.”

“I do, actually.”

“Whatever,” you whisper to yourself, staring up at the ceiling that reached so high above. By now it was a view you were sick of, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

All you wanted to do was give Wriothesley his daily dose of torment. Instead, you wound up following him into an old cell, one that he meant to clean up before the door slammed shut, effectively locking the two of you back up. Both yours and his blood ran cold at the realization: you were trapped— together.

“This might be the worst day of my life,” he said, stone-faced.

“You and me both, Duke.”

He slid down the wall next to the cell door, legs spread out as his head hung low in defeat. “We’re gonna be here for a while before someone gets us outta here.”

“And the thinker of the year award goes to… Wriothesley! Congrats, you figured out the obvious,” you cheered, sarcasm dripping from your voice. “I’ll get you a medal sometime soon, don’t worry.”

“Aren’t you a thoughtful one,” he deadpanned, sick to his stomach from your presence alone.

“Aren’t I?” you mused.

He let out a deep sigh, wishing he had someone else to keep him company right now. Sigwinnie would be his top pick, with the Traveler coming as a close second. But you? Yeah, you weren’t even last on the list of people he’d pick; not a trace of your name could even be found on it.

The goal was to tidy up some old cells, maybe a few of the bathrooms too if he was feeling up to it. Unfortunately, nothing comes according to plan for Wriothesley when you're in a three mile radius. You’ve made it your life’s goal to annoy him to bits— torture him to bits, as he thinks of it. So when he saw you making your way down the same hall as him, he tried to make a beeline out of your sight.

Key word: tried.

He tried, and failed miserably.

He pats his pockets down once again, making sure he didn’t miss his keys the last four times he checked. To no avail, there was nothing. Awesome— great, he thinks. This might be the worst mistake of his life.

“You do realize…” he began, standing back up to peer outside the strong bars. “If you hadn’t followed me around like some annoying pest— which you are, by the way— there might’ve been someone on the other side of these bars to alert someone sooner.”

You laughed at the seriousness in his voice. “You must be really deluded to think that I’d ever bother helping you out in any shape, way, or form.”

“That’d be a charge,” he informed, as if he knew every little detail in Fontaine’s code of law. “Reckless endangerment, that’s what they call it.”

“Yeah, they call it reckless endangerment. I like to call it minding my own business.”

He scoffed, crossing his arms from across the room. “It’s a miracle you’ve yet to face another trial.”

“I’m wounded,” you cried out, sitting up from the hard mattress. “To believe you’d think I’d ever commit another crime… I feel my heart breaking already.”

The poor performance you put on was entertaining, he’d give you that much. As much as he disliked you, even he couldn’t deny the intriguing aura you carried. Would he admit it out loud? Absolutely not. But thinking of a foe’s positive trait couldn’t hurt, right?

Maybe a little…

Staring off into nothing, you missed the moment Wriothesley treaded closer to you. Snapping out of your daze, your eyes shot up at his, shifting from a gaze to a glare in a millisecond.

“Visiting hours are closed, come back another time— but keep in mind they’ll still be closed.”

“Not visiting, just trying to take a seat that isn’t on a filthy floor,” he corrected, gesturing to move from the middle of the bed to the end.

“You sure you don’t need a check up from Sigwinnie?” you laughed dryly, finding humor in his train of thought. “Seriously, what makes you think I’m sharing a bed with you?”

“Don’t make it sound like that—“

“Like what?” you cut off, grinning to no one but yourself. “Like we’re sharing a bed all night? Like we’re gonna snuggle up next to each other because we’re so deprived of warmth? Oh, maybe you’re thinking it’ll end up with us—“

He lets you ramble, ignoring each word that slips from your lips; allowing his brain to replace the sound of your voice with the sound of a fly that’s been buzzing in his office all day. No longer caring about close proximity, he plopped himself down on the bed with a soft grunt.

“What do you think you’re doing?” you sneered, shoving his annoyingly muscular frame away from you.

“Laying down,” he said, letting his arms spread out across the bed— one of which landing behind you. “I might as well get comfortable for the time being.”

You glared down at him, feeling your eye twitch at his antics. “Well now I’m not comfortable thanks to you. I’m sure the floor would be far more welcoming, don’t you agree?”

“I only agree with the voice in my head, wanna guess what he’s saying?” He stared blankly at the ceiling above as he spoke, starting to feel exhaustion cloud over his mind.

“Not really.”

“Too bad, I’m telling you anyway.” Moving the hand behind your figure, he pointed at his head. “He’s telling me you should shut up before I’m forced to do something about it.”

You laughed meekly, “Well, isn’t he just a little comedian in the making.”

“There you go. See, it wasn’t that hard, was it? I knew you were capable of saying something with an ounce of truth.”

“That was sarcasm, Duke.”

“Doesn’t change the fact you said it, so…” He sat up slowly, now plastered to your side as he stared daggers into you. “I don’t care.”

You shifted in your spot, goosebumps crawling up your skin at the room’s sudden change of mood. As much as you hated the man (for no apparent reason other than conflicting personalities, if you may add), it didn’t make you blind to his looks— body— his charm.

Those factors only fuel your hatred, actually.

Over the years, spoiling Wriothesley’s day has become a part of your daily routine. Every day you woke up with the same recurring thought: ‘What’ll piss him off today?’ and ‘How will he respond today?’

Whenever you don’t run into him, you can’t help but feel disappointed. "Maybe tomorrow,” you’d say to yourself at day’s end, thinking of all the ways you can get on his nerves later.

You hated him so, so much. You only hated him more when he wasn’t a part of your day.

“Getting a little close there, arentcha?”

“You’ve yet to push me away, too,” he noted.

You stared into your lap with an unreadable expression. “Don’t get the wrong idea or anything, you’re just a good— decent substitute for a heater.”

He hummed, going silent for a minute or so. For once, it felt… peaceful between you two. If peaceful was even the right word, which you and him both doubted.

Tense might be a better way to describe the atmosphere.

“If you’d prefer a better heater…” he started, voice trailing off as he furrowed his brows at his thoughts. “I can improve myself, if you don’t mind.”

If you don’t mind? You were taken aback in confusion, unsure of what he was implying. “What are you talking about? How… how would that even work?”

His lips press into a thin line for a second, a second that you regretfully missed. When you do look at him, he’s no longer glaring at you— just staring. It was hard to make out the emotions written across his face. Unsure? Confident? Both, somehow?

He took a deep breath. “Like this,” he said before diving in.

Grayish-blue eyes shut tightly as his lips locked onto yours. Your lips parted farther in shock, giving his tongue access almost immediately. This isn’t an opportunity anyone can come by quite easily with Wriothesley— or you for that matter. Wanting those bragging rights more so than he himself, you indulged in his feverish kiss while you could.

But oh— he was right. It was so much warmer now, no longer feeling the chills you felt earlier. You hated when he was right, despised it, even. The strong feelings only escalated the kiss further, and Archons… not once did you think Wriothesley of all people would be able to turn you to mush so easily.

Your lungs burned for oxygen, as did his. You both pulled away for a moment, staring into each other’s clouded eyes without a thought.

“I don’t mind,” you responded to his question from before. “Well— as long as you don’t mind.”

He opened his mouth to speak, only to get cut off by you pouncing on him. You were no longer at each other’s sides, turning at an awkward angle to indulge in one another. Now, you had him pinned down to the old, bare mattress, moving your lips against his with far more rhythm than before.

Kissing back, he managed to motion his wrists out of your grip, leaving you to stutter over your movements before settling your hands on either side of his chest, still straddling him. As for him, his hands didn’t hesitate to hold onto your hips.

In all fairness, this is a pretty effective way to get each other to shut up. It kept your mouths busy, not to mention it was hot, something you never thought you’d hear yourself think regarding Wriothesley.

Your hands moved to his bi-colored locks, tugging on the gray and black strands to keep yourself grounded as his hands explored your body. You hate that you’re enjoying this as much as you are. It’d be a different story if this were anyone else— then you’d bask in the pleasure without complaint. But this is the man you swore you wanted dead for years…

Much to your dismay, that thought only added more thrill to the situation.

The kiss was wet— messy. Every break for air was spent uncovering every little detail on his face. He has nice eyelashes, you think. His eyes also look really fucking pretty when they’re half-lidded like this. Going back in, you felt a soft squeeze on your ass, which was soon followed by Wriothesley breaking the kiss.

You looked down at him with a curious gaze, brow lifted in both annoyance and wonder. Before you could ask what’s wrong, he pushed you off him in one swift motion.

Yelping in surprise, you sharpened your glare. “The hell was that for? If you wanted to stop, you coulda just said that!”

“Check your pocket.” he demanded, now standing up with his arms crossed over his chest.

“My pocket?” You stared at him in disbelief, a flurry of emotions sworming your brain.

He didn’t reply, only staring you down harder than before. With no other option, you dug your hand into your back pocket, eyes widening the second you felt metal.

Right… that’s how you got into this mess in the first place.

Chuckling awkwardly, you revealed the ring of keys to Wriothesley, holding them up besides your face in embarrassment.

He didn’t move, only glaring at you even more now that you’ve been caught.

“So…” your voice dragged out, eyes trailing down to the floor. “I may or may not have stolen these from you when you weren’t looking. Y’know, before we got stuck in here. And… I may or may not have… uh, forgot? Yeah, I forgot I had these.”

You stood from the bed shamefully, planting the keys in his hand without a glance. He stood still for a moment, too baffled at the absurdity of the past— what was it? Hour? 30 minutes?

He cleared his throat. “I think it goes without saying that I’m getting back at you for this. Later, that is.”

You nodded your head, mentally noting to avoid him at all costs for the remainder of the week— no matter how much it conflicts with your usual routine. The keys jingled from across the room, where Wriothesley was now finally unlocking the cell door.

“I’ll be on my way,” you chirped, attitude doing a complete 180.

Before you could exit the run-down cell, someone gripped the back of your shirt.

“Not so fast,” he chuckled darkly. “You’re coming with me.”

You gulped, blood draining from your face at his words. “Oh, am I now?” you mocked quietly, not a bit of confidence to be heard in your voice for once.

“We need to pick up where we left off, don’t we? I can throw my pay back in, too.”

At least you and him have an… ethical… way of shutting each other up now…

#genshin impact #genshin #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #gi x reader #genshin fluff #scaramouche #wanderer genshin #scaramouche x reader #wanderer x reader #scara x reader #alhaitham #alhaitham genshin #alhaitham x reader #wriothesley genshin #wriothesley #wriothesley x reader #genshin wriothesley #dor writes

811 notes · View notes

stunie · 10 months ago

Note

Since you mentioned being intro Dabi... 👀 I bet he gets pussy drunk really easily. Fingering you? Eating you out? Fucking you (in any position fr)? He's hooked and it keeps him going for hours 🤤🤤🤤

(⸝⸝⸝-﹏-⸝⸝⸝) i’ve been awaiting a dabi thirst nonnie !! kissing u up n down

pro hero!f!reader x dabi

explicit smut (18+), overstim, cum eating, jealous? dabi, ‘doll’

Every second Saturday of the month at exactly 11 PM, Dabi would find you waiting in this alleyway without fail.

It was a schedule the two of you never broke. Not once. In his entire year of doing this with you, he’s never spent a single second by your side besides the one night each month, and for good reason. You’re a pro hero, and him? He’s a villain. An infamous one, at that.

“You’re early.” He states matter of factly, hands leaving his pockets as he heads towards you, and you give him a look. “You’re early too.”

It never takes the two of you very long. Your clothes are tossed aside, something you can worry about later. It’s a last minute decision you made before he got hissy and impatient and decided to just burn them to ashes like last time. The very next minute, he’s already got you bent over, your forearms pressed against the wall of the alleyway as he bullies his dick into you.

Always such a greedy and sloppy cunt for such a sugar sweet hero, he thinks. You’re bracing yourself against the wall, teeth sinking into your arms to muffle the moans he’s drawing out of you, but it doesn’t seem to be working very well.

Dabi never really cared how loud you got. In the off chance that the two of you got caught here, you’d be the one facing repercussions— you’re the hero. He takes full advantage of that, angling his hips to pummel against the spot that has you gushing all over him the next second, whining that he’s being way too rough.

He’s grabbing at your chin right after, looming over your figure as he mocks you. Strings of “Where’s that sidekick of yours? The one always looking at you up and down? You two were all over the news,” and “You guys dating? Gonna come home to him covered in marks, huh? smelling like smoke? One look at you and he’ll know just exactly whose dick you were crying under, doll.”

The way your walls clench around him in response only riles him up more, scary grin tugging at his staples as he fucks you with strength. With the way you’re squeezing— got his dick feeling suffocated with how tight you’re clenching, it doesn’t take him much longer to dump his first load into you.

One glance at the clock and there’s still time.

He’ll take you in every position possible, right there in the alleyway. He’ll have your legs on his shoulder, your back slamming against the wall with a deafening squeal when he eats you out just like that— mixture of his cum and your juices dripping dribbling down his chin.

He’s gotta use you up— well beyond your limit. He only gets you once a month, after all.

pt 2 kind of

#dabi smut #mha smut #dabi x reader #touya smut #touya todoroki smut #eviewrites #mha x reader #my hero academia smut #🦢— mail !

857 notes · View notes

carolmunson · 10 months ago

Text

blood machine.

emperor geta x senator's daughter!reader songspiration: in keeping secrets of the silent earth 3 | coheed & cambria

did not once plan to write for this guy but here we are. also like, is it historically accurate? no. like, not even a little. (hell is mentioned and technically hell wasn't 'a place' until 400 BC but like WHATEVER.) am i making a semi effort? sorta kinda. have i been a little stoned every time i've worked on this? well, yes.

summary: when what was supposed to be a diplomatic dinner before a much bigger and lively feast becomes a marriage offer, all of the wine you drank turns to ash in your mouth. haters to haters, bay-bee. tw: 18+, drinking but like -- idk it's ancient rome, tension, fighting, some mild body shaming (??), a literal threat of domestic violence but again it's ancient rome so like i don't think they cared, two stupid little bitches who hate each other. mentions of war and ultimate distaste for the poor. reader kind of has lady macbeth vibes. my little evil queen.

Wine is poured, golden chalices exalted. You are a vision and he is a toad looking creature of a man that only his mother could love. Not quite his brother, never quite measuring up the same way -- always trying to puff his chest. It was easy to tease him, ego easy to bruise -- little brother. You’d spent time in your childhood tagging along with your brother and the other kids to taunt him, pathetic and whimpering. 'Tale teller!' you'd jeer, every time he'd run off to his mother to blubber over how mean you all were. And you were mean.

But people grow, as they do. And so did you -- still mean, but in a different way. Listening to meetings, reading maps, keeping tabs on new republics, on potential uprising. The poor -- the fucking poor. Finding new ways to keep them occupied so that they'd stop trying to find ways to be powerful. Powerful like you. Powerful like the man at the head of the table with a plum to his lips. And as it has been said, a man in possession of a good fortune and power, must be in need of a wife. It became clear when you arrived that this was not a business dinner before a grand feast, your parents simply forgot to mention what this was really about. Your best linens, your hair coiffed, your best jewelry, you should have known it had been a ruse the moment you got there. His home on Palatine just sparkling the way the gold on your fingers did, candles in the halls and stairways glittering when they hit the rubies and pearls on your chest and ears. When your father veers the conversation from politics and business to marriage you both choke, stern eyes glued to your mother's painted face. A business dinner where you are currency -- more than worthy. Just a few months shy of being eligible when Caracalla was, regrettably, forced to marry Flavia at the last moment. It would've been nice to have the gang together again in some capacity. Could've bullied the toad to assasinating himself if you were lucky enough. Total power. Complete upheaval. The more you thought about it, the more of it your craved. The pit in your stomach grew, if it wasn't with his brother -- even though you bore no attraction -- there was not a point at all. Geta didn't think nearly as critically, didn't hit hard enough, didn't strategize correctly. You'd never even seen him pick up a sword -- but then again, that made sense. You very rarely spent time in his palace, much prefering the festivities of Caracalla's close by.

You listen while your mother goes on and on about his grace, tongue dipped in honey while she blabbers. She mentions how handsome he is, his valiance in leadership, how honorable he's become as he's taken the place of his late father -- you can't help yourself but laugh. The giggle echos and bounces through the high ceilings, floating against the archways, getting caught in the drapery by the open hall. His eyes flick to you over his goblet, catching in the candle light, an aggravated sneer plaguing his face. He looks like a pig when he does that, you think to yourself.

You know that business, for the most part, is a man's game. But it does not deter you from doing your best to try and wager yourself out of this. Ideas drip into your mind while the drone of the conversation turns to fuzz in the background. How can you sell that this is a bad idea? It will bring less publicity, less of a threat, less resposibility if married to someone with equal nobility. Certainly not an emperor. Especially not one like this. So petulant, so competitive, so eager for a war he does not know how to plan, so temperamental, so weak, so conniving, so consumed with the colosseum that he doesn't think of what should be done around him. It's his voice that brings you back to attention.

"And why is it she hasn't been taken for a wife then, at this age?" he asks, brow quirking in your direction. You let out of huff of offense while he sips his wine, metal clinking as he places it back down. A smirk flits across his features at the remark, "Is something wrong with her?"

Your father, sweating with embarrassment, looks over at you and back at the emperor, "Well she, she's of course beautiful." Geta winces, cocking his head to the side with a shrug. Your father sighs, desperate to try to find a better angle, "She um, she -- she has great wits, Ceasar, unmatched. She knows her duties as a wife, but -- a great thinker. She could -- she could be helpful!" "Wits," he mumbles sourly under his breath before leaning back leisurely in his chair, "Great thinker? Very surprising." "August--" your father starts. "Co--" you correct over a sip of wine, "Co-Augustus."

Geta tosses you another sour look, tongue running over his teeth before clicking it behind his lips. You shrug while swallowing. "Semantics, Publius," you wave a hand at him. A hush falls over the room as his gaze snaps up at you, blanching at the disrespect of being called by his first name. Your mother hides her face in her napkin with a groan. Your father leans his temple against his fingers, eyes closed in frustration. "Mind how you address me," Geta corrects with a stern pull to his lips, eyes glittering with rage. Your eyes catch over the mountains of food before you, holding your glass out as one of his servants pours you another glass of wine. "Is that not what your mother calls you?" your voice feathery, but certain. A vein begins to raise and pulse in his neck while his shoulders round forward.

"Please apologize, dear," your mother mutters, putting the napkin back on the table, "Tell -- tell the emperor what it would mean, to be -- to be wed to someone of such calibur."

Your eyes stay on his, challenging him while your mother begs you to say something to make amends. Another sip of wine passes your lips, "No, shan't."

Your mother scolds you, your full name escaping her with embarrassment tainting her tongue. Sweat beads at your father's forehead while he changes the subject, doing aything to try to keep his good favor with both sides of the imperatorship.

You grin into your goblet at the sight of Geta's face -- reddened with anger and frustration at the brazen disrespect. But it was fine to continue to be an enemy if it meant you would leave these regal walls and never have to step foot in them again. And if you did, it would be as another senator's wife, visiting his brother in another house where you'll laugh and drink wine and cheer when he's killed.

Even his posture is revolting, hunched over while he listens to your father speak. Now going on and on about paper work that doesn't interest you if it doesn't have a say on who is next on the list to conquer. Your eyes glaze over in boredom while pomergranate, honey pudding, and dates are placed on the table. Rose wine replaces the red to sweeten the tongue -- you're sure your parents wished it were true.

It's not very long after dessert is served that your parents start again.

"As you know, she does come from a family of very fertile women," your father encourages. You quickly swallow the bite of date you'd taken to interrupt, nearly choking, "Excuse me, I'm not sure this is appropriate dinner conversation."

Geta looks at you while you speak, scanning you and then lingering on the dessert in your hand, "Her hips are quite sizeable -- big enough to bear multiple childen, that's certain. Is that her only sell?"

Anger bubbles under your chest, but warning looks from both of your parents keeps your sharp tongue between your lips. The grip on your goblet tightens, jaw clenching while your pass another sip through gritted teeth. You let a seething breath out through your nose. "As I tried to explain before," your father continues, "She is very on the pulse in terms of the political climate and, and, and great with strategy." "I'm not looking for a wife who tries to strategize for me--" he responds coolly. "From how the empire has not expanded since your father's death I would guess that perhaps you should be," you snap back smartly. His posture straightens, chains and medallions across his chest glinting in the candle light. The room quiets itself again, only the sound of untensils and cups being put down or collected filling the dead air. The soft scrape of metal, the rustle of linens while servants and guards alike avert their gaze downward.

"Leave us," he states, voice pungent with authority. You stretch your neck on both sides while the servants depart, already bored with the back and forth. Already moved on from the eventual scolding and potential exile that won't get put into motion because you are simply too friendly with the rest of the upcoming generals and politicians. One rogue idiot who barely has the power his brother has, that his father never trained into him, could not dole a punishment that is worth your genuine fear.

You sigh, hearing the staff make their way down the long stone corridors into the grand halls to prepare for a more formal party with other higher status families. More likely a collection of offerings for him to choose from, other parents trying to arrange a marriage with the empire's most powerful and eligible bachelor. It would be one of the few times the brothers would have to engage with each other, which you're sure put Geta more on edge than normal.

"Senator, please take your wife to the grand hall to be seated," he commands, his voice lower, delving darker. The vein in his neck continues to pulse, forearms straining against the golden cuffs over his wrists, "The guards will accompany you."

You watch as your parents rise, bowing their heads before following the guards out of the room and through the blood red drapery hung from gilded valances. Geta's eyes stay hardened on you, and yours him, while you rise as well, taking a few steps around the large wooden table toward the exit. "Not you," he says, not turning to face you, "You will stay." "It is not appropriate for me to be unaccopanied in the pres--" "Do not speak," he huffs, hand coming up to silence you, "Your voice grates on me." "Then you can imagine what your own voice does, Augustus," you say without thinking, letting the insults flow out of you like the fountain water in the courtyards. He pushes away from the table, steadily walking towards you with enough vigor that the bottom of his cape starts to billow behind him. On his way, he pulls a sword from a guard's holster, dragging it so the tip grinds against the stone, making your jaw clench at the shrill sound.

"What happens to those who speak against me?" he asks, steps clicking against the floor from the studs on the bottom of his sandals. He begins to stalk around you, circling while he waits for an answer. "Execution," you respond, keeping your eyes on the drapery just twenty feet ahead of you. "What else?" he asks, you can feel his breath behind you, the whining grind of the sword against the stone making your shoulders tense. "Exile," you answer, a laugh bubbling out of you, "But I can't imagine your brother agreeing to either of those. You'd really banish me, Publius? Because I was a little mean to you?" When he appears in front of you again, your lips stretch into a sickeningly sweet smile, sarcasm staining your tone, "But we're such old friends."

He cocks his head to the side, taking a step closer with the sword between you, "Oh, I wouldn't do that to you."

He leans forward, enough that you can smell the rose wine on his breath. His voice quiet and menacing, "Though -- it could be that the senator said something to offend me tonight at dinner. It could be that perhaps he -- spoke poorly of my dear brother or my late father. Something just dastardly enough to sour my brother's respect for him." "And you expect Caracalla to believe that?" "In what way does it benefit me to lie about it?" he challenges, "And even more so -- with your father exiled, where does that leave you?"

You swallow thickly, not giving him the satisfaction of replying while your look into his now wild brown eyes. Flashing with mania and endless possibility.

"A peasant," he spits.

"If it keeps me out of these halls I should be lucky, no?" you fire back, looking at him from under furrow brows. He continues to circle you, dragging the sword again. The click, click, click of his shoes keeping time in your head. "I'm sure my brother would be happy to keep you as a pet in the meantime," he laughs to himself, "Or we could put you in the colosseum, you think you'd fare well?" "Better than you could, that's certain," you cross your arms over your chest, "Could never stand up and fight like a man, even as a kid. Your father would be embarrassed."

The grinding gets louder as he presses harder down, causing small sparks to fly from the edge of the sword.

"If you were to be chosen, would ever even attempt to learn respect?" he asks sharply, "Or would it have to be beaten into you?" You snort, "At least you're the funnier brother, you have that going for you." You can see him out of your periphery, the way he pulls his cheeks in, the roll of his shoulders -- he's losing patience. "What, would you prefer I called you Geta? Augustus? Ceasar?" your eyes roll. A soft cackle comes from his through, canines showing in a gleeful smile, "No, no -- from you? I'd much prefer something more respectful." Click, click, click. The grind of the sword. The rose on his breath. "Dominus," he nods with the threat, "Dominus et Deus."

"You disgust me," you respond quickly. "As a husband and as emperor is that not my title, already?" he shrugs, looking at you like it's obvious.

"You are nobodies Lord and God, you are a petulant -- sniveling -- repulsive little brother who is only where he is by being lucky to be born," you glower.

"You still see me as a child, femina," he tuts, "I promise you, what ever Caracalla has told you is a tapestry of made up stories. You could hang it on the tallest arch and it would hit the floor ten times over."

"I do see just a whining child before me," you hiss, "I'm sure you'll run to your mother after this, too."

His chuckle turns to a low, dark laugh from deep in his chest. It crawls up your spine and rings in your ears, mixing with the grating 'shhhhhhinnnngggg' of the sword on the ground.

"If it were fate that there was union between us," he asks from behind you, "What would you say to that?"

You look straight ahead, hearing the click of his shoes. The heat of the torches on the walls billowing onto your face while you keep your eyes on the drapery, still closed -- still keeping you here.

"It would be a fate worse than the hottest hell," you confess, your voice not wavering.

The whine of the sword stops, sheathed into his belt. The click of his shoes halts.

Quiet.

Rose wine on his breath, you feel it on your skin now, his chest against your back while he closes the space between you. A hand reaches up to push the hair from your neck, the other gripping the fat of your hip to pull you ruthlessly against him in a thud. Your eyes shut, bile crawling up your throat in disgust. His nose coasts against the shell of your ear, making you tilt your head away while goosebumps rise on your arms. Through a knowing grin he whispers, the words burrowing deep in your chest in loathing and a glimmer of fear: "I pray every moment of it burns you."

#emperor geta #geta x reader #emperor geta x reader #emperor geta x you #geta x you #gladiator 2 #gladiator ii #gladiator 2 fanfiction

651 notes · View notes

fioiswriting · 1 year ago

Text

Reunion | Sequel

[Part 1]

Summary : After the Battle Above the Gods Eye, Daemon returned victorious. Aemond was presumed dead, though his body was never found. Three years later, you've mourned your former husband and are ready to move on. But it seems that some ghosts from your past have come back to haunt you, and that the dead aren't really dead after all...

Rating : Explicit 18+, MDNI

Pairing : Aemond x Velaryon/Strong!niece!Reader

TW : unprotected sex, breeding kink, mention of characters death, angst, possessiveness, p in v sex, oral f receiving, dom/sub undertones, mention of war, AU where the Blacks won the war, anxiety, Reader has a child, grief, fluff, pregnancy, not proofread.

Reader is Rhaenyra and Harwin’s daughter so I imagined her with dark hair like Jace, Luke and Joffrey but feel free to imagine her as you want of course <3

Words count : 9150

Author's note : Hello everyone!! Sorry for the wait, I've been very busy, but here's part two of Reunion (or at least the first part two, let's call it part 2.1 hehe). Thank you again for all you kind comments and the love you've given my fanfic omg!! Spoiler alert: this is the happy alternate ending! But I've got another bittersweet alternative ending planned 😈 If you think the first part was good enough on its own and the sequel may break the vibe, don't force yourself to read!! But if you need a happy ending, here it is <3 The plot still doesn't make any sense, but hey, we're here to have fun so enjoy ❤️

English is still not my first (or second) language, so sorry for the grammar mistakes <3

When you wake up, the first thing you feel is the reassuring embrace of his arms around you. You don't want to move, not even when the sunlight tickles your face through the opening between the wooden shutters, trying to make the moment last endlessly. But the growing anxiety in your stomach chases away the illusion of your fleeting happiness.

You close your eyes a little tighter. Perhaps if you try again, perhaps if you try harder, the world around you can fade away.

Perhaps you can wake up again, in a different reality.

But it's inevitable. You know that now you're awake, it's only a matter of time before the two of you have to say goodbye forever. Your breathing becomes heavier, and you have to fight the tingling sensation at the corners of your eyes.

Why have the gods decided to be so cruel to you? They grant you one last taste of his skin on your lips before taking it from you, again.

Haven't you given enough?

Could they not show you mercy?

You who had forgotten him, you who had begun to turn a new page, to seek comfort in the arms of the cold, far away from the fire and the ashes, why did you have to touch the poison that would once again stain your soul?

Behind you, Aemond buries his long nose in your hair. His hand absently caresses the skin of your thigh, just where the edge of the linen tunic you put on sometime during the night when you were cold ends. The fabric is pulled up, revealing the outline of your bottom, and you can already feel your uncle hardening between his thighs, but you don't move.

If you move, you'll make everything more real. Tangible.

You'll speed up the process of losing him, of him slipping through your fingers.

How can you let him go, now that your heart is full again, now that you feel complete in a way you haven't felt for over three years?

How can you let him go, now that your body has retrieve the extension of itself in the arms of the man who was the cause of your torment, your moments of joy, your pain and, paradoxically, your happiness?

"I know you're awake."

You hold your breath and Aemond inhales into your hair. His hand moves down the inside of your thigh, along the hollow that joins it to your groin. He doesn't venture any further.

His thumb rests there and brushes your skin, trying to arouse the desire in you with gentleness.

Subtly.

He doesn't want to hurry, he doesn't want to rush you.

Not when he's been harbouring the impossible fantasy of waking up with you in his arms since the day he nearly died.

He presses harder against you, as if he doesn't want to let you go, as if he wants to be one with you again, and you feel him pulsing against your buttocks, under the linen cloth that has been pulled up a little higher. He says nothing, but he is pleading, needy, in his gestures, which is rare for him.

Something has changed, after all, and perhaps something has changed in him too.

"I am awake, indeed, " you whisper in a voice that is still half asleep. The lump in your throat betrays the feeling of anxiety gradually creeping into your body, and Aemond seems to notice. Under your tunic, his hand moves up along your belly until it nestles against your chest, close to your heart. His thumb draws small circles, once again trying to bring you back to him.

Trying to calm your mind.

"Let us forget for a little longer," he whispers, his clenched jaw resting over your head. "Please."

And you know he never begs.

Aemond takes and doesn't ask.

Aemond believes he is owed everything and never gives in return.

Hearing him beg breaks something inside you, because this is the first time he does so.

Usually it was you, it was always you, begging for peace, begging for more, begging him not to leave you.

Part of him is as desperate as you are; part of him also dreads the moment when you will have to part again. Forever. It's comforting to know that his feelings are sincere, just like yours.

" Make me forget, then." You reply, moving your lower loins back against him, giving him tacit permission to explore your body once more. His fingers move down to your breasts, which he covers softly with his hand, his thumb skimming over a nipple to make it hard. You let out a gasp between your parted lips.

His hand slides lower, his palm flat against your lower belly, his fingertips brushing the light patch of hair at the top of your mound. You feel the familiar warmth growing between your thighs, in your core.

He sighs against the back of your skull, his head tilted forward. His lips search the skin at the nape of your neck, behind the long hair that has become tangled during the night, while his fingers intimately explore the secrets of your body that he knows all too well. The remnants of last night's lovemaking still smear the insides of your thighs and folds, but it doesn't matter; his fingers easily find the little bundle of nerves that they tease until you close your eyes, until your hand grips the damp, shabby sheet that covers the ragged mattress in the inn where you've spent the night.

Just the both of you, in the comfort of anonymity.

"Let me taste you". His voice, still husky, tickles the back of your neck and you feel him shift behind you. When you feel the warmth of his bare chest, against which you're nestled, leave your back, your body automatically tries to move back against him. You still need him. You still need him to chase away the lump of anxiety in the pit of your stomach and the voices that keep reminding you that you're only postponing the fateful moment. Your hand slips under your white tunic and wraps around his wrist to force him to stay there, to hold his fingers against the source of heat spreading from your core. Your hips are demanding, grinding against his hand. "On your back," he insists, and stands up on his forearms.

With reluctance you turn over. You obey, lying on your back, your hair spilled around your head on the flat, uncomfortable pillow on which you slept badly. The white tunic that serves as your nightgown is pulled up, crumpled, just above your crotch, which it barely conceals.

Aemond has swung over your body, silvery strands loosening from the braid that holds his hair behind his head and sliding down his shoulders, falling in loose loops on either side of his face, tickling your cheeks.

His lilac-tinted blue eye glows with a predatory gaze, a ray of light catching in the sapphire he hasn't removed from his socket.

He captures your lips with his own, begging for access. Aemond marks your jaw and throat with light kisses, sucking at your collarbone to make the violets of possessiveness with which he likes to adorn your body bloom. His lips travel down your chest, playing with one of the two small nipples raised by the cool air and by desire, and continue their journey past your navel.

Your heartbeat quickens as he settles between your legs, spreading your thighs to admire the part of you he covets so eagerly. At the same time you bend your legs, your gaze falling on him, on his unravelled hair, on his eye that locks with yours. He is so close to you, so close to your warm centre, and you know that between your folds the sweet nectar that your uncle longs to taste is already flowing.

But his lips trace the inside of your thighs instead, where the skin is soft and tender, and gradually they reach the hollow that connects them to your most intimate part. He takes a malicious pleasure in building up the tension, in savouring every millimetre of you like a fine delicacy, with only the tip of his lips brushing against your skin.

His thumbs spread the tender flesh of your womanhood and then he places a chaste kiss on the very centre of you. His tongue is shy at first, tracing the slit that connects your entrance to your little knob, collecting the evidence of your desire.

As his tongue wraps around your nub, your hands grip the sheets, knuckles white.

Aemond drinks from your essence like a thirsty man, his nose buried between your folds, rubbing your pearl.

The tip of his tongue catches what drips from your opening, and then the flat of his tongue tastes your slit, working its way up to the little nub gorged with desire.

He maintains the same rhythm, revelling in the moans that escape from your half-open lips. Soon his middle finger begins to draw circles against your entrance, the first knuckle sliding inside, then the whole finger. Your head is thrown back and immediately your hand buries itself in his silvery hair, gripping his braid in a messy bun behind the top of his head. Forcing his face against the most intimate part of your body, forcing his lips to work on your wet warmth, you seek more contact.

Aemond adds a second finger. He can feel you tighten around him as he searches for that particular spot, as his tongue continues to play with your bundle of nerves.

As he devours what is his, utterly his.

His fingers, the ones that aren't buried inside you, close around the flesh of your hip in a possessive grip. "Come for me," he whispers against your womanhood, his eyes lifted to you. "I know you can do it."

Your breathing becomes more erratic, faster too. You tighten the grip of your fingers in his hair, your thighs pressing either side of his face, and he collects the sweet taste of your release on his tongue with a hum.

You feel like you're floating. The waves of warmth still wash over you, less and less intense, your breast rising and falling as you catch your breath.

Your hand tucks a lock of his hair back behind his ear as Aemond lifts his face towards you, and you rest your hand against his cheek. His parted lips still glisten with your desire smeared across the lower part of his face. He stares at you without moving, his deep, regular breathing the only sound to break the silence that has followed your release. You stay like that for a moment, his gaze burning into yours. At any moment he might pounce on you. At any moment he might close the tiny distance separating your mouths and press his lips against yours like the starving man he is.

It's you who makes the first move. You taste yourself on his lips and your tongue entwines with his in a fiery, demanding kiss.

Straightening up, Aemond creeps between your legs, his hand on the underside of your thighs, holding them apart. He is still completely naked from the night before, he has not bothered to get dressed after your lovemaking, so you can catch a glimpse of his erect manhood, slightly curved. He wraps his hand around to guide it towards your still sensitive wet entrance.

He slides into you easily, in one slow movement. The haste of the night before, the urgency of the reunion, has given way to the tenderness and laziness of the early morning, and Aemond rocks inside you slowly. His hips undulate, punctuated by long, deep thrusts, in an illusion of domesticity.

But the damp sheets, rough against your skin, the discomfort of the hard mattress beneath your back, remind you that your lovemaking is anything but domestic.

For Aemond is still the enemy, for Aemond is supposed to be dead.

For your family is probably looking for you at this very moment, worried that you have not returned home for the night.

But you push those thoughts away. The weight of your uncle's body on top of yours soothes the knot that forms in the pit of your stomach at the thought of time slipping away, at the thought of having to leave him again, at the thought of this being the last time you will taste his lips, his skin.

Aemond is gentle, and that is rare enough to be worth mentioning. He has never been so gentle, so soft, in the limited time that you have been married.

Between you, there had been the devouring, consuming passion, the power play that in your submission had granted you dominance.

Between you it had been raw and devastating more than gentle and tender.

His fingers run the length of your body to your core, combining his slow, deep thrusts with the movement of his fingers against your clit.

There are only few words exchanged between you, as if you were both afraid to break the grace of the moment.

His panting, noisy breath echoes in the silence, skimming the skin of your throat, then mingling with yours as the shadow of his lips brushes against yours. He rests his forehead against yours, your hand cupping his cheek, sliding behind his neck, and you are transported into a cocoon of intimacy where nothing else exists around you.

There is only his body against yours, warm and reassuring.

There is only him inside you and the slow movement of his hips.

There is only your breathing, blending in the space that separates your mouths.

"Do you know how much I've missed you?" He whispers against your lips as you close your thighs around him. "How much I dreamed of this tight little cunt?" You swallow his words. Your hips meet his as he pushes against you. He is reaching deep inside you. Despite the intimacy of the moment, his body oozes power and darkness, and you can't help but be drawn to that side of him that complements yours so well.

You can't stop your body from aching for him.

"You could have been my queen," he says as his movements grow stronger. He won't last long, but neither will you. He's inside you, where you like to feel him, and your walls clench around his member. "And I would have set the whole world on fire for you." He thrusts. "Burned it to the ground" He thrusts again. "All for you." And again.

The old wood of the bed creaks with each of his movements.

You seek out his lips, just to brush them against yours.

Without sealing the kiss.

"And I would have accepted," you answer with a whimper. "I would have been your queen, qybor." In another life, you think you would.

In another life, in another universe, you would have been his queen.

A grunt escapes his lips and lands in the hollow of your ear. Aemond straightens on his bent elbow, right next to your head, and he plunges into you one last time, with more power, more vigour, just as his new position allows.

You close your eyes.

A second wave of warmth is about to engulf your body.

And you wait for it, you welcome it.

"Look at me when I come inside you," he growls hoarsely as his seed pours deep inside you, into the most intimate part of your body. "Look at me as I fill you up."

Your eyes lock with his, fiery as ever. A final moan escapes between your lips and you seal them to your uncle's in a feverish, wet kiss. You hold him in your arms for a moment longer, as if to allow yourself the luxury of illusion for a brief instant.

You delay the fateful moment a little longer, fighting the minutes that inevitably slip through your fingers.

"Stay inside me just a little longer," you whisper, burying your head in the hollow of his neck where you can feel the rapid rhythm of his pulse. His arms close around you, holding you tight against him, and you hear him purr against the hair on the crown of your head. He rocks you gently.

The silence welcomes you both into its embrace and you savour it like a treasure. Your body aches in the sweetest way, your insides throbbing around his softening manhood.

And around you, nothing exists anymore.

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

"I've changed, you know." His hoarse voice vibrates against you, but you refuse to meet his eyes. You keep them closed.

You're not sure if Aemond has really changed. Aemond is ruthless, cold, brutal, calculating, merciless. Cruel. You're not sure if Aemond can ever change, but he shows unusual tenderness, and maybe, just maybe, you allow yourself to doubt. You indulge in the illusion.

Perhaps Vhagar's death has broken something in him.

Perhaps it's true, perhaps he's not the same man anymore.

He's not sorry for what he has done. He never will be. He's too proud, even if you can catch the glimmer of remorse that colours his icy eyes when he is not looking at you.

Does he think of your little brother? Is he haunted by the memory of him, as you have been for so many years?

Does he think of the innocents he killed without flinching, the blood he spilled in the Riverlands that now stains the burned grass?

Is his sanity slowly being eaten away by the atrocities he has committed with his own hands?

He has changed. You are not sure if he's changed for the better or for the worse, but he has indeed.

Daemon has changed too. So has Rhaenyra. So has Jace.

You too have changed.

For war changes people, war makes them weary and wary, it shatters something in the body that will never be the same again. It hollows out the roundness of the cheeks, it deepens the dark circles under the eyes, it fades the sparkle of childhood that remains in the eyes.

Aemond seems to be waiting for an answer, but the words remain stuck in your throat. I know, you want to whisper, I know, but suddenly you've forgotten how to speak. His thumb draws the soft line of the underside of your breast.

The future terrifies you more than ever. You had made peace with your past, you had come to a conclusion that, even if it pained you, had given you some respite.

Seeing your uncle alive had reawakened your demons.

Spending the night in the embrace of his arms had revived everything you had buried deep, deep down.

The past had returned, creeping towards you, gnawing at the corners of your heart and at what remained of your sense of stability and certainty.

Now you are plunged into doubt.

Just as you were a little over three years ago, when you were informed of his death, when you had to learn to live with the choice that had never really been given to you.

Just as three years ago, when you noticed a familiar lilac-tinged blue in Rhaegar's eyes.

Like when you had to live with the memories that haunted you, that were slowly eating away at what little sanity you had left.

Like when you finally decided to leave for the North.

Aemond seems to sense your anguish, because his fingers get lost in your hair.

"What are we going to do now?"

Finally, you dare to utter the inevitable words that have been hanging on the tip of your tongue since you woke up, words you've swallowed so many times this morning. You immediately blame yourself.

Saying them only makes them more real.

They tear at something in the imaginary cocoon you've built for yourselves. You bury your face against his skin, breathe in his scent, as if you never want to forget him.

For you know how fleeting memories can be.

You remember how his face faded with each passing day.

You don't know if you'll ever be able to experience it a second time.

"We could leave," Aemond replies, as his fingers venture to your jaw, caressing the line of your cheeks with the back of his knuckles.

He's so pragmatic, as always.

Even in this situation.

Even now.

It makes you want to shake him.

"We could run away," he says again. His gaze, fixed in the distance, falls on you at the same moment. "To Essos. Pentos. No one would know who we are." You close your eyes, and let his hoarse voice lull you into silence. "To start our own family, the three of us."

You know he is not serious. Even though he looks at you with such insistence, with that flame that flickers in the centre of his iris.

You relish his fantasy, this impossible dream.

But you can't leave your family; Essos is not Winterfell. There, they knew where to find you. They knew you were safe. They knew you were sheltered between the walls of the northern castle, under the heavy furs, under the protection of Cregan Stark.

Essos is the unknown.

You cannot let your mother lose her only daughter, not after everything she has already lost.

The itch is familiar, tickling at the corners of your eyes. There was a time when you thought you'd lost that sensitivity. When you thought the war had left you cold, incapable of feeling anything. Incapable of crying.

"You know I can't." Your nose rubs against his milky skin, made clammy by sweat. You keep your eyes closed because you feel the weight of his cold gaze on you, his furrowed eyebrows as he stares at you blankly, his lips pursed in a long, thin line. You don't have the courage to meet his accusing gaze, let alone the wounded look on his face as you crush all his illusory dreams into dust.

When did you become the more pragmatic of the two?

When did you become the one responsible for bringing Aemond back to reality?

It used to be you, the one who filled your mind with unrealistic dreams, the one who dreamed of stories and fairy tales, back when you could still dream. "They need me, you know that."

A sneer stretches across your uncle's lips as he swallows a chuckle that sounds more like an ironic growl. You feel his whole body tense against yours, a sign that he's holding back his annoyance.

A sign that he has something to say, that he's upset, but doesn't quite know how to put it into words.

"Like they needed you back then?" he replies scathingly, bitterness on the tip of his tongue. "When they used you as a bargaining chip to achieve their ends, hm?"

Your red cheeks burn with shame, as if he'd slapped you. You don't move, merely swallow hard. You know there's something right about what he is saying, but you don't want to admit it.

You've done your duty.

You've done what is expected of you as a daughter.

It was not a question of them using you. It never was.

It was your duty, only your duty, what you were always meant to perform, wasn't it?

And yet a small voice in the back of your head had already given you a similar speech, a few years ago, but you had tried to silence it.

You refused to let Aemond admit it. You refuse to allow him to do it. He had no idea, no right to criticise your family when he'd acted like that.

When he has done what he has done.

He has no idea what it is like to be a daughter.

You don't answer, and silence falls between you again.

You wish so desperately that he could go home with you; that he could tell them that he's sorry.

You wish it were easier.

There is no one left to wait for Aemond but you, but his son, you know that. His family has been decimated, as has yours in some ways, though you still have your parents and your older brother.

For your uncle, there's nothing left but the shadow of his existence, the shadow of who he once was, long ago.

You let your hand trace the side of his throat, your nose buried against it, your lips hovering over his skin. You lean against him, your body on top of his, pressed together as if you were afraid to let him go.

"You could come with me instead," you whisper, but you refuse to meet his gaze. There's something shameful in the words you've just spoken aloud, something naive, and your burning cheeks are proof of your embarrassment.

Almost imperceptibly, he clenches beneath you, holding his breath. This is a bad idea and you feel stupid. Naive to have dared to suggest something like this.

His voice purrs in a hm that vibrates against you. He's about to say something. He searches for words. "You know that -"

"I know." You cut him off sharply - a little more than you would have liked, your eyes raised to silence him.

You know what he thinks.

He thinks that Rhaenyra will never be his queen. He thinks he will never bend the knee to his eldest sister and her authority, which he doesn't recognise.

He thinks that with the death of Aegon, with the death of the children his brother fathered with Helaena, the throne belongs to him.

And you are aware of his ambitions. You know how perfectly the conqueror's crown fits his head. You know how it sets off the sapphire embedded in his eye socket. You remember the look of greed in his eyes every time he stared at the Iron Throne, you remember the look of pride on his face every time he scorned anyone who dared to question his decisions as Prince Regent.

You know how mercilessly he made the soldiers at Harrenhal kneel, forcing them to contemplate their impending deaths. You know the terror he has sown throughout the Riverlands.

Even in the Seven Hells you could have found more mercy than at the hands of Aemond Targaryen.

Aemond may have changed, but you're not sure he's changed enough to put aside the pride that is consuming him from within.

You take a deep breath. "You don't really have a choice, qybor."

Fearing his reaction, you curl into a fetal position, your back to him, your knees drawn up to you. You close your eyes. You wait for his frustration.

You wait for his sentence.

You know that he is aware that he has no choice.

He has only two options: swallow his pride or sink back into the abyss, disappear into the dark meanders of oblivion.

Rhaegar needed his father, of course, but you found him a father in Cregan Stark.

That was a sacrifice you were willing to make.

There was no way you would give up what family you had left.

For Rhaegar needed his grandparents and his uncle even more.

Behind you, you feel your uncle's hand slip under your tunic and around your body, pulling you against him. He presses his bare chest against your back, tucking your head under his chin. His hand caresses your stomach, then his fingers brush the base of your breast.

"You know she will never be my queen. You know the throne belongs to -" But he lets the words drop without finishing the sentence, the knowledge of what he was about to say hanging in the air between you.

As long as he remains alive, will the embers of war never truly be extinguished?

You don't know, but you accept the risk.

You close your eyes, as if you're about to jump into the icy depths with both feet.

"The rest is up to you, Aemond," you whisper, barely audible. "And if you have truly changed, then you will know how to make the right choice."

He says nothing.

You savour the last few minutes of illusion you have left.

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

The fear of making the wrong choice never really leaves you, but your mother chases your fears away, as she so often did when you were a child, tucking one of your dark curls behind your ear. She has her distinctive little smirk on her lips, the one that pulls the corner of her lips up towards her nose.

The same one Lucerys had, you think sadly.

You still miss him, even after all this time, and sometimes you wonder what kind of young man he would have become.

"You're a clever girl, my sweet clever girl," she whispers against your forehead as she cradles you in her arms. She's as beautiful as ever, as gentle with you as ever, despite the years, despite the wear and tear of war that has hardened her features and hollowed her cheeks. "And I know you have made the right decision." She lifts your chin with her forefinger to look into your eyes, and you feel like you're turning back into that shy, insecure girl who disappeared somewhere in the violence of the war all those years ago.

"And if it should turn out that you were wrong... Daemon will be there to intervene. You know he is just waiting for that." You roll your eyes at her attempt at humour, and she plants a kiss on your forehead.

For a split second, you truly are that carefree little girl again.

But behind your mother's humour lie fragments of reality that make your laughter bitter.

The news of your husband's survival remains a hazy blur in your mind. Sometimes you're not sure if this conversation really occurred or if you're dreaming.

You're not sure if what's around you, if the night you spent in Aemond's arms, is real or an invention of your sick mind.

Sometimes you're not really conscious of the events or how long they lasted, the lump in your stomach grows back, and once again you're destined to carve half-moons marks in the palms of your hands to soothe the tension in your body.

You told your mother first because you knew she'd be more understanding. As a mother, as a woman, she knows the meaning behind certain silences, the weight of words, the unspoken words that float between sentences.

You know she can understand your pain and your doubts, but also your love and your compassion.

She was shocked when you told her that her younger brother was still alive. She smoothed her dress, paced back and forth, then took the time to sit down, her eyebrows furrowed, her eyes riveted to your face, looking for clues that would betray what you were thinking, what you might be hiding. She was afraid that he had hurt you. She was afraid that he would rip you away from her, just as he had once ripped your little brother away from her.

Her fingers had gently taken your hand and her thumb had drawn little circles on the back of your hand to comfort you. She listened to you first as you confessed everything.

Where you were that night when you didn't come home.

Who you were with.

And then she took you in her arms. She reassured you. Soothed you.

You had been so afraid of disappointing her, of disappointing all of them, that the tension paralysing your body had finally loosened and you burst into tears.

Things had proved more complicated with Daemon. When he learned that his nephew was alive, that he wasn't forgotten forever in the deep waters of the lake near Harrenhal, he refused to believe you. He was furious. He said he had seen him fall, that he was the one who had taken his life, tearing the sky apart.

You didn't know where to look, and it was in your mother's eyes that you sought support, comfort, anything in the face of your stepfather's rage. You could feel on you the look of disappointment of your brother, Jace, as he held his shoulders up and his chin high. He wanted to prove that one day he would be a good king. With his jaw clenched, he said nothing, looking at you as if you were suddenly so foreign to him. He probably didn't know what to say, for fear of being clumsy, for fear of unintentionally hurting you, even more than by his lack of support.

You know it wasn't his fault.

He simply couldn't understand.

The words stuck in your throat and you found yourself unable to speak, pearls glittering in the corners of your eyes while you waited impatiently for the final blow.

The final death knell that would seal your disgrace in everyone's eyes.

After all you'd endured.

Daemon stood before you, his eyebrows furrowed, his eyes hard. He was staring at you as if you'd committed the ultimate treason, and you knew he was controlling himself to keep his anger from exploding. "You're going to bring him to me," he had hissed, his hand closing over your shoulder.

" You will lure him here and he will be put to the sword." His tone left no room for argument. With the tension growing in your stomach, you sought your mother's compassionate look to calm you. You could see the fury in your stepfather's eyes, and also a mixture of fear and feelings of betrayal. You knew that, deep down, he was afraid for you because he considers you his daughter. Because Baela and Rhaena are like sisters to you.

It was his reaction you feared most, not your mother's. His fingers dug into your skin, the floor slipping out from under you, the room swaying dangerously, and your mother had come to your rescue, trying to calm things down with her usual diplomacy.

You can't quite remember the words your stepfather said; in anger he muttered something that sounded like are you really thinking of becoming his whore again? and the words hurt like hell, but you tried to swallow the pain.

Endure, hold your head high. That was what you had learned.

Your mother had suggested you go back to your room or spend some time with Rhaegar, her fingers gently stroking your dark locks, and as soon as you left the throne room you could hear their voices echoing through the door.

They were arguing.

Over you.

Because of you, again.

You took a deep breath and returned to the gardens, where your two stepsisters were making your son laugh by playing with him. They had fun running around in the damp grass to the applause of Baela's little daughter, who clapped her little hands in delight.

Your fingers were still trembling when you joined them.

In the end a solution was found, for your mother feared losing you a second time.

She remembered what had happened to Laenor, your father, when he had grown tired of the court.

She remembered what had happened to Helaena, your sweet aunt, when she could no longer bear to suffer.

It was her worst nightmare to see you torn from her again, now that she had the chance to hold you in her arms every day, to protect you again, to see you grow again.

It was her worst nightmare to see her only daughter, her only daughter and the second of her only surviving children, taken from her.

You and Jace were all she had left of her own blood.

After long negotiations with Daemon, you had managed to bargain for your husband's life in exchange for strict conditions; increased surveillance, no bonding with a new dragon, no carrying of weapons, and the assurance that he would be executed if there was the slightest doubt about him. You proposed that you and he leave the capital, with your son as well. To return to Dragonstone. To start over on a new, blank page in a book that was already too damaged.

For you, it was also a way to ease the tensions between your family and Aemond, and perhaps find a more intimate life with your husband and son.

Rhaenyra had declared that this was the best solution: a guarantee for her to have you by her side again, a guarantee for her that you would be there.

You had been afraid of Aemond's reaction, afraid that his ego would not bear it; that he would refuse, that he would rather sentence himself to his own death than to an existence as a prisoner within his own family, condemned to live as a shadow of the man he had once been in exchange for seeing his son grow up.

But in the end, wasn't he doomed to live as a shadow of the man he had once been, anyway?

He would never be the rider of Vhagar again.

He would never be the ruthless Prince Regent again.

He would never again be the second in line to the throne, the second son greedily waiting for fate to turn in his favour.

He hadn't been all of that for a good three years, lurking in the cold, gloomy corridors of Harrenhal like a lonely monster.

And if he went back, if he rejected your proposal, he would have condemned himself to eternal solitude at the side of a witch you would rather forget.

He had no choice, for he would never be that Aemond again.

When you joined your husband at the meeting place, you were relieved to see him swallow his pride and accept. It was difficult, but you convinced him.

For Rhaegar, for his son.

Aemond had suggested that you run away, far away from everything, and you almost hesitated. Running away would have allowed you to forget, of course.

But your deepest wounds had begun to heal. You had begun to be able to face the ghosts that haunted King's Landing, the ghosts that haunted Dragonstone.

To stop there was tempting, and yet so frightening at the same time.

The unknown terrified you. You needed familiarity now, something to fall back on, for you were so tired.

Now you can't help bringing your thumb to your lips, nibbling the skin at the corner of your fingernail with the tip of your teeth as you walk away from Rhaenyra. A handmaiden brings you Rhaegar, and you struggle to breathe.

You inhale.

You exhale.

The thick tuft of brown hair makes you smile. The sight of your son is enough to give you the courage to walk with a more confident stride. It's as if you were filled with new strength, for you know that he needs you more than anyone else. And for him, you've promised yourself to stay strong.

As soon as you reach him, you kneel and plant a kiss on his plump cheeks.

He's growing up so fast that sometimes you wish you could stop time.

"There's someone who'd like to meet you, sweet boy," you explain, and you can recognise your mother's inflection in your own voice. Sweet boy. Rhaegar looks at you with big, round, questioning eyes, and you wonder if he senses your anxiety, because he takes your hand between his tiny fingers.

"Who, muña ?" he babbles, striding down the cobbled path in the middle of the gardens, hopping on his clumsy little legs, and you smile at his carefree attitude. He stops to watch the bees foraging, bends down to pick up a flower and gives it to you. He's always so curious, so full of life. He's a ray of sunshine that brightens your dull days. You finally understand your mother, the agonising fear she has of losing you. You finally understand the horror she experienced when she lost her four other children.

You also finally understand why Helena threw herself from Maegor's Holdfast.

The thought of what Daemon did still revolts you, and you can't imagine anyone hurting your boy like that.

You turn around. Rhaenyra is still there, in the distance, her crown on her head, her hands crossed in front of her on the heavy fabric of her dress, watching over you. She won't move, a comforting, discreet presence.

A stone bench awaits you by the fountain, on which two cushions have been arranged. A dessert buffet has been set up under the gazebo and you immediately spot your favourite cakes, the strawberry one, the blackberry jam one, and you look down at your son. He hasn't noticed them yet, or he would have already run over, dipped his finger in the whipped cream and stolen a blueberry from one of the tarts, his innocent expression on his face.

He is definitely a lot like you. Mischievous and clever. An angelic air. He is an easy-going child who never throws a tantrum.

Who understands quickly, too.

"I love you. I love you more than anything, you know that, don't you, young boy?" your tone is soft, and you kneel down in front of him, your hands on his small shoulders to emphasise the seriousness of your discussion. You search for your words, hesitating. How do you tell a three-year-old that his father, his dead father, is back from the dead and about to meet him?

Of course, Rhaegar knows that his birthfather was valiant, that his birthfather rode the greatest dragon in the world, that his birthfather died in battle.

But there is so much he doesn't know, so much he will inevitably learn as he grows up, and it is precisely that future that frightens you. You hug him as if you're afraid of losing him.

"Princess."

The deep voice of your sworn protector echoes behind you, and you straighten your skirt.

You know he is there.

You know you will see him the moment you turn around.

Your heartbeat quickens.

Aemond Targaryen stands behind your sworn protector, surrounded by two guards. His hands are bound in front of him.

It is so strange to see your uncle in this vulnerable position. He who for so long has been on the other side, he who for so long has been the one who bent others to his will. He looks at you harshly, and you almost feel the need to apologise.

But you know it is a matter of caution.

You know that Daemon, you know that Jace and even your mother would never have agreed to bring him in if such precautions hadn't been taken.

You admire his resilience, his determination. You admire his ability to hold his head high, to be confident, despite the fact that he is being treated like a common prisoner, about to be sentenced to death.

You struggle to swallow the lump that has formed in your throat.

"Who's that, muña?" Aemond's eyes leave you and immediately drop to the small figure that has appeared beside you, reaching for your hand, huddling against your leg, shy and worried.

Immediately, your husband's icy gaze, his lilac-coloured eyes, soften.

"Thank you, Sir Rowan. You may leave us."

Despite the worry on his face, your sworn protector nods, unties his prisoner's hands and walks back to your mother, accompanied by the other two guards. You watch them leave, and a strange silence fills the space between you and your uncle.

He doesn't look at you; his eyes are riveted to your son, whom he observes with wonder. He looks as if he is admiring the most beautiful and fascinating discovery he has ever seen. You look down to see Rhaegar's reaction, and he seems as intimidated as he is hypnotised by that gaze, by that blue and purple eye so similar to his owns, by this man looking at him as if he were one of the most marvellous things in the world.

"Gods, he's perfect," Aemond murmurs as he looks up at you, emerging from his trance. He comes closer to embrace you. And for once, there is something other than his usual brutal possessiveness and ferocity when his arms close around you.

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Aemond is shy at first. Awkward.

He's shy and amazed as he follows your son's every move with his good eye. From time to time, his gaze rests on you, as if to make sure he's not dreaming. As if to make sure he is doing right, seeking your approval.

Rhaegar is shy too, at first.

When he sits on your lap, he snuggles up to you, buries his face in your neck, one of your locks curled in his chubby little hand and he rubs it against his nose. From time to time, he turns to give his father a curious look, recognising his own eyes in the unfamiliar face before him.

Aemond's expression grows gentler, a softness never seen in his features before.

Once he has tamed the stranger, the little boy pecks at the blueberries in the tart in front of him. He shakes his legs, hitting your knees in painful little jabs, and your arm wraps around his body to hold him down.

Rhaegar loves cake, and the sugar may be coaxing him, for he's regaining his appetite for talking.

"He really does have my eyes," Aemond whispers incredulously, and his voice, still foreign to his son's ears, causes the little boy to lift his head.

" It is definitely the only thing he has inherited from you," you reply, teasing him with a small smile at the corner of your lips.

Soon Rhaegar finishes the blueberry tart, the cream smeared over the bottom of his face and the tip of his nose.

"He inherited that from you, that is certain." Aemond grins, pointing with his long chin at the boy's voracious appetite for cakes and pastries.

You have to pinch yourself to make sure you're not dreaming. That your husband is really standing in front of you, with your son, like a normal family.

That he was truly trying to tell a joke.

This form of domesticity is so alien to your relationship, and yet so pleasant, that you find yourself thinking that perhaps you have made the right decision, indeed, if every day can be like this.

"Your muña deserves some cake too, what do you say, little one?"

Rhaegar giggles. Aemond cuts a slice of your favourite cake, the one with the strawberries, and puts it on your plate.

You blush. After all these years, he hasn't forgotten which one is your favourite.

You can't even really whisper a thank you because this apparent domesticity, this feeling of completeness, this interlude of happiness makes you uneasy. Anxious.

You have the feeling that at any moment you'll be plunged back into the horror of what you went through all those years ago.

You have the feeling that at any moment the Gods will be cruel and snatch away this happiness that you've barely been able to taste, leaving only the memory of its sweet taste on your lips.

You breathe in and out, as you often do when you feel your palpitations rising in your chest.

"Do you... do you want to take him on your lap?" you ask your uncle with shyness, your hand stroking Rhaegar's thick brown curls. Aemond looks at you as if you have spoken in a foreign language. Lips parted, he is about to say something, but not a sound escapes his lips. His lonely eye travels from you to your son, from your son to you, in silence.

"I don't know if -"

You can hear the doubt in his voice, and it's almost touching to see him lose his confidence in front of his own son, to see him so nervous and unsure of himself.

You let out a little laugh, not in mockery, obviously, just full of tenderness.

You know what he's thinking.

He's afraid of frightening him.

He's afraid of harming him.

"You won't hurt him, Aemond."

He answers nothing. He still doesn't like to look vulnerable, unsure, and you know it has to do with his childhood. With all he has kept bottled up inside him all these years. He will need time.

Your eyes fall back to the little boy sitting in your lap, and you draw his attention to yourself by stroking the curls on his forehead.

"Do you want to go to Aemond for a while? To kepus?"

you correct yourself immediately, and Rhaegar nods in agreement.

You are amazed at how easily he slips off your legs to run to his father, to pull himself onto his lap, when only a few hours ago he was so intimidated by the presence of this stranger with the eyepatch.

Your uncle automatically puts his arm around his waist to make him feel comfortable, his new role taking root in him. His fingers reach for the cloth on the table, and he wipes Rhaegar's face, who can't help but burst out laughing at his father's clumsy gestures.

For a split second you are lost in contemplating the horizon, the stillness of the sea. You taste the sea breeze on your face.

And then you turn your head towards the cobbled path where the guards and your sworn protector are still stationed.

Your mother is no longer there, and you notice that you have not at any time felt the need to seek comfort in her presence.

You smile, for in the end you know you've made the right decision.

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Dragonstone, 6 months later.

When you walk the corridors of the place that saw you grow up, you are no longer haunted by the ghosts and their incessant cries. A kind of peace has settled over you, a return to the pleasant familiarity you've waited so long for.

You still think of Luke, of course. Of Luke and Joff and little Aegon and Viserys, your brothers you will never see grow old.

But you no longer feel their disapproving glances at every step you take. You are no longer kept awake by their cries, by their tears, by the remorse that twists your stomach.

You no longer blame yourself.

Perhaps you've finally learnt to make peace with yourself.

The heavy door of the bedroom you share with Aemond is half open, and you slip your head into the doorway, piqued by curiosity.

Snuggled on your husband's lap, Rhaegar is staring at the pages of a large book, the corners of which you can guess are horned, the cover worn, from being carried everywhere. You can imagine the jam stains that mark the paper with children's fingerprints. You know exactly which page is missing, the one you and Aemond accidentally tore out and hid so the Septa wouldn't notice, so many years ago.

It is a book about dragons, the very one the two of you used to read hidden under the table when you were so young and innocent, long before the torment of war.

Without a sound, you lean against the doorframe and contemplate for a moment the perfect vision before you.

You don't have the cruelty to disturb them.

"This one is Vhaegar!" shouts Rhaegar, and you hold your breath, searching Aemond's face for any hint that might betray his reaction. The mention of his former dragon is still a sensitive subject for him, you know it.

"Yes, that's Vhagar." he pauses. "She was brave."

From the corner of his eye, Aemond spots your silhouette in the faint glow of the corridor, and his attention lingers on you for a moment. He's almost embarrassed to be caught in such a vulnerable, intimate moment, but you smile tenderly to encourage him.

"And big!" the little boy adds, energetically raising his arms to the sky to emphasise his words.

"Yes, and big." There's a suspended moment of silence where the words hang in the air, and then your husband gently ruffles his son's hair. It's a tender sight to see them bond like this, and your heart fills with happiness.

Taking a step forward, you step into the light of the room and Rhaegar expresses his joy at seeing you. You smile back at him and approach the chair where Aemond sits, your son on his lap.

Your uncle's hand instantly rests on the curve of your belly, which he still stares at with the same protective instinct, the same fascination, as the day you told him the news. His eyes sparkle.

"Your daughter is restless today."

He looks up at you, not without lingering for a moment on your breasts and their new shape.

"My daughter?" he asks, one eyebrow raised inquisitively.

"I'm convinced it's a girl. You reply, smiling wryly, and take a seat in the armchair next to the one where Aemond and your son are sitting, facing the fireplace. "And she took after her father, given her temper," you tease him, your hand on the top of your rounded belly to soothe the baby growing there.

Rhaegar's eyes close slowly. Nestled against the chest of the man who, just a few months ago, was still a stranger, he fights sleep, he fights to stay awake, but tiredness quickly overcomes him. And then he falls asleep, his mouth half open, the movements of his breath making his chest rise and fall rhythmically.

Aemond finally gets up. You follow his movements with your eyes as he approaches you, the child in his arms, and he plants a kiss on the top of his head.

"I'm going to put him to bed. I'll be right back." He straightens and lowers his voice.

"I wouldn't fail in my duty and neglect my wife." The heat rises to your cheeks, turning them red at the implication of what awaits you tonight. You're already wet between your thighs at the thought.

But you nod in agreement and watch him walk away.

You are left alone in the silence of the room. The only sound around you is the steady crackling of the fire.

It's strange, you think, to be back on Dragonstone, in the familiarity of the stones you've spent most of your life between, after getting used to the idea of not surviving the war.

To the idea of dying from a broken heart.

To the idea of dying, the umpteenth victim of the vicious spiral of conflict that has torn your family apart.

And yet here you are.

With your own family.

For once you have hope for the future. You hear the cries of your little brother, lost in the storm so long ago, but they are quickly replaced by the laughter of a happy memory.

And finally, you have the absolute confirmation that you have made the right decision.

*** *** *** *** ***

Thank you so much for reading!! <3

Tag list : @minttea07 @queenofshinigamis (I'm tagging you since you asked for it ❤️)

#aemond x reader #aemond targaryen #Aemond Targaryen x reader #aemond x you #aemond fanfiction #aemond targaryen fic #aemond x y/n #aemond x fem!reader #aemond targaryen x you #aemond x niece!reader #aemond targaryen fanfic

991 notes · View notes

nanamimizz-archived · 5 months ago

Text

𝚩𝐔𝐓𝐂𝐇𝚬𝐑𝚬𝐃 𝐓𝚶𝐍𝐆𝐔𝚬. 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝚶𝐍𝚬

“𝐨𝐡, 𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞-𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧, 𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐞 𝐯𝐨𝐰𝐬.”

You cannot lie in the presence of The Harmony, the great choir compels you to speak only truth. It does not help that Sunday can break your barbed tongue and leave your pride in pieces.

tags: 3.2k wc // inappropriate work relationships // abuse of power // sacrilegious themes // established dynamics // nsfw // petplay dynamics // bisexual reader// mention of incest// afab reader// // coercion // fingering // mentions of penetration // dacryphilia // mindfuckery // sunday is a FREAK //dead dove do not eat // this is kinda fucked up fr…..damn….

author’s note: happy birthday to my bestest friend 🫶🏼 @prettyboykatsukii - this is late as hell im so sorry pookie. sunday lowkey thinks he jigsaw who's gonna tell him.

When you first come to the Penachony, weathered and panicked the head of the Oak Family - Mr. Sunday was as much of angel as his visage. The halo upon his white hair was like a king's crown to you, it shined in your eyes like scraps of food do for a stray dog.

It's what you were, when you had first met Sunday and he would never consider himself a charitable man before looking into your wet, tearful eyes. You were accepted with much more ease than you thought - given an amicable smile and chilling sound of your name on Sunday's lips as he bade you a farewell. It was clear from that first interaction that your stay was not freely given.

You were put to work, swiftly and decisively as your tasks always where in line with your specialty of technology and hacking . The sword of which you wielded for the IPC, in where you served the Stonehearts to generate more wealth than you ever saw. It's the very sword you used to stab your employer in the back, and the blade that you fell on.

Now you wonder what is colder, the gold of his gaze or the steel of your sword as it pierces your spine?

The present is uncaring in your questions, letting them turn to ash on your tongue as you are brought back to the inescapable problem you are placed before. It's been only a month since you arrival to Penachony, a month where after years of being on the run you have built some semblance of a normal life.

Seeing Mr. Sunday was supposed to be a once in a life time chance, never to be repeated again but here you are. Like a mouse trapped in between the paws of indomitable lion who's skin is stronger than steel. You grip the arms of the chair with enough strength the veins in your hands show through the skin.

"Are you nervous?"

You don't say anything, keeping your gaze on the clean white tile beneath.

"You shouldn't be. You've been a loyal member of The Family," something sharp phases through the gold of his eyes, "like a stray dog that knows how well they have it now. Gratefulness isn't a quality most have these days. Wouldn't you agree?"

The question is heavy and hot with accusation like hot iron. For only a second does your gaze dare to meet his, and once you do it's like you are a deer enraptured by the dazzling lights.

"Yes, Mr.Sunday...I would say so."

Sunday smiles as golden as the sun.

"This most agreeable perspective of yours is why we have become fast friends, no?"

You don’t have many friends - not even during your time at the IPC, but there’s a chill down your spine that makes you agree. Your eyes are downcast and you do not dare to raise them. It's hard not however, no matter how much dread Mr. Sunday inspires in you he attracts your gaze like honey to vermin. Never once could you ignore the luster of beautiful things, divine things - it's the weakness Diamond exploited and you think yourself smarter than to fall for it one more time.

How wrong you are, how utterly foolish.

You feel like you have cotton mouth so you dare not speak, only nodding your head.

"And, it is because of our fast friendship I trust you will most amendable with answering a few of my questions - correct?" He asks you, a certain measure of assurances in his tone that makes you swallow the lump in your throat. You fight to find your voice and succeed, if only just.

"What type of questions-"

"Whichever I deem fit - that seems the most fair, wouldn't you agree? I am the one who allowed you in." Sunday speaks, picking at a nonexistent lint on his perfectly creased pants. It's difficult to come up with what to say in retaliate to that, so you say nothing and bow your head.

"Now, let us begin."

There was a change in the air, you feel like in the way the air brushes against your neck and the ache you feel in your robotic arm. The cold that nips at your nerves and the electricity that zaps at the humidity of your eyes. You have felt this once, just the once. When you had stayed, bearing witness to the Stonehearts delegation on the matter of adding another stone to their priceless collection. You recall Diamond and their brilliance and find that Sunday overshadows the former completely like the moon blocking sun.

"Oh Triple Faced Soul, please sear her tongue and palms with a hot iron, so that she will not be able to fabricate lies and false vows."

Once the words have let his full lips, you wince at the overstimulating pain your eyes are victim too as a rainbow like tinge takes over your vision. There is a heat to your hands and tongue, a ringing in your ears that almost drives you mad.

"I see you still have a glaring incompatibility with the memoria," He frowns as if this is something so greatly inconveniences him and not you, "No matter, that can be remedied in time. It is rather fortunate that I am as patient as I am."

"What did you do to me?" Your voice is thin and face twisted in agony - it's a shame you miss at the cool smile on Sunday's face as he watches how you fail at trying to withstand the beginnings of the trial he aims to put you in through.

"As head of the Oak Family I have been blessed with unique abilities by our aeon. That's not so hard to comprehend is it? After all you've been in the presence of a aeon's power before." He explains calmly, hands folded neatly in his lap as he watches you from his seat at the desk in his room. You blink away involuntary tears and hiss out.

"How did you know about that?"

"About your past? Do you think the Family so welcoming to the point of complacency? I would never turn a blind eye to the details of all those that want to join - lest villains make use of this weakness and rot the wood from within." There's a steeliness to his words that makes you wince like a struck dog and you bow your head even bringing your chin to your chest to acquiesce to his words.

"What are you going to do to me? Going to try to trade me off to the IPC?" You hiss, tasting the salt of your own tears - when did you start to cry? As the ringing is only intensified.

"Maybe, if you fail my test." Came the measured response to your accusation. Through the teary film over your gaze you miss out on the way Sunday's hands tighten on the arms of his chair and the heated glint in his golden eyes. You glaring at him, eyes tinged a violet read with am attempted frown that ends up looking like more of a pout. You are a sight for sore eyes - and Sunday thinks of all the ways he can keep your misty gaze on only him.

"Fine," you say sharply as you hear the ringing turn into the edges of a harmonious choir in your ears. "Begin your fucking trial - ah!"

Strange and ravenous heat sears your tongue, like if you drank coffee straight from the boiling pot than letting it cool in your mug. Sunday as risen from his seat and stands in front of you now. Tall and looming with a displeased look on his face and the feathers by his head ruffled.

"Language." You whimper out an apology, sniffling away the tears that want to fall from the scorching of your tongue. He crosses his arms behind his back and you don't see how tightly his fist in clenched, impeccable white gloves wrinkling.

"The trial is simple. I will ask you questions and you will answer honestly."

You narrow your gaze at him, almost petulantly.

"And if I don't?"

A cool smile graces his handsome face, earrings clinking with the tilting of his head as he looks at you with the visage of utter benevolence, hiding the wickedness beneath the veil - "Then I will punish you for the crime of deceiving The Family."

The truth burns down your throat bitterly as you swallow the threat. The second shoe has dropped, and what a fool you were to think that your labor would be enough to pay off the debt for you have accumulated. Through out all your life you have learned so many lessons and bore the weight of so many lashings - each craved a fact of life into the marrow of your being that you never thought you would forget. That there is no true kindness in this universe, no mattered how glided the lips that utter the promise of salvation - you will never have it without paying with something of your own.

"So what? Do you want me to spill my guts out to you now?" Sunday answers your question with a elegant quirk of his lips before his eyes turn focused and narrowed.

"In a sense," He turns to look at the table where strewed across the appropriate oak wood where files - somewhere on them you know your name is on there, written in more blood than ink. “We both know that the IPC circles Penachony like a predator does it’s prey. I merely wish to be insured of your loyalty to The Family and know what is you want from this place.”

(The dove turns, beak and talons sharpening into that of a raptor before you and the choir sings louder in your skull.)

“Now….WHAT DID YOU COME TO SEEK IN PENACHONY?”

The ringing makes your skull shake in your skin and your teeth grind against each other so hard you can hear one tooth crack. The rainbow tinge to your vision swirls and you feel it, the overpowering presence of a aeon - Xipe, The Harmony is here. Here in this room, where you are pinned beneath their lidded gaze you cannot stop the words that spill from your lips as more salty tears and snot run down your face.

“I…wanted…to escape -“ You gasp out, each word like acidic bile on your lips as you gasp. The choir only grows, louder and louder and you wonder if you are going to bleed from your ears at this rate.

“ESCAPE FROM WHAT?” You hear his voice, sterner than it was before - no longer doused in pleasantries and platitudes. Your head aches and throbs, and you feel like you are going to vomit as you stutter out your honest answer.

“From the IPC -“you stop to sob and your vision fizzes like film being burnt, “Didn’t want to belong to them anymore.” The memoria in the air, in the room you are in swirls in your head and you see them - the visions of your childhood, of when you were poor but free and not chained to the desk where you slaved away for hours and days and months and years. The visage makes you ache, and you know you are crying in the terrible ugly way that makes you feel too vulnerable.

The swirling rainbow in your eyes comes to a halt, the choir softens it’s singing and the pain in your head eases. It’s a hum now and the Xipe’s eyes which were barely open, close shut as before. THEIR presence is gone, no longer in the room.

All that is left is you and Sunday.

You feel something touch your face, blearily eyes blink to focus and you don’t realize it but it is Sunday - staining his gloves with the salt of your tears as he gazes upon your ruined face.

“You want to be loved. That is why you left isn’t it?” He asks and your lip trembles when the realization hits you. He knows - he saw the same swirling visions of a life you lost, one where you had a family and a name and a home. He saw that you lost it and in the labyrinth of grief you fell prey to the lies of the deceiver like so many do. You wonder if Sunday pities you, Sunday wonders if you can tell how much he covets you now - more than ever.

His thumb rubs away a tear streak and his eyes - golden like the moon on your home planet glow hot.

“You have passed my trial, and for that you have earned a reward for your endurance. Would you like that?” Sunday asks and you nod limply. You would take anything after that, anything would be better than being a tortured by an aeon. There is a gentleness in how he is handling you now, even going as far as to cup you chin in his palm like you are worth the delicate care. Like you are something to treasure. It feels nice, you lean into his touch blissfully.

“Words. I need words.” Sunday does not falter, even as his heart tightness as the sight of your obedience leaves him wanting.

“Yes. Yes please - anything after that.” The words are stumbling out your mouth and there is a haze in your eyes that makes something in him stir at your desperation. He pulls his hand away and you whine like a dog not yet done being caressed. You are silenced by the words he commands of you.

“Remove your pants.” Your hands are shaky but you obey, like a mutt being taught a new trick. You only manage to undo them, and bringing them down to a little past your knees before Sunday touches you. He still as the gloves on - now wrinkled and stain with your tears from where he had cradled your face with the tenderness of a lover. The gentle caress had been enough to excite you, it’s been years since you have been touched to softly, so gently - you had forgotten what it felt like. His hand goes to your thigh and squeezes the flesh with his thumb rubbing at it softly when he feels you tense beneath him.

“Be at ease,” his voice is melodious next to your ear as he brings his lips to your cheek. “Take your reward with grace, and keep behaving - you might find a beautiful song in your future. I know well how much you enjoy music.” Beautiful white hair and emerald eyes appear in your mind and you don't miss out on his amused huff at the flush on your face at the thought.

Whatever you were about to say dies on your lips as you moan lowly at the feeling of his fingers pressing against your clothed cunt. Just the feeling of them is enough to make you fidget - body still on overdrive from before and in return you are earned a hand grasping your thigh and pinning you in place beneath him.

“Take your reward. I am not fond of repeating myself.” He orders you, tone sterner than before and you hear him make the clicking sound of pity as he takes in how a merely caress is enough to make you tremble. He keeps petting you, with gentle and even strokes as you moan his name softly - until you feel how your cunt soaks through your underwear enough that Sunday can see the shape of your clit. You whine when you feel his thumb press against it and spread your legs for him without being told to when you feel the circles he rubs into it.

“Well done, good pet. I much prefer you like this.” He utters, transfixed and focus on the wet look of pleasure on your messy face. Your mouth drops open and any hint of that harden criminal that you are falls apart exposing yourself to how desperate you are. Sunday can see the way you shudder at his praise than his touches and he rewards you by pulling your underwear to the side and exposing your center to the cold air of his office. You whine but he hushes you, and slides his fingers down the mound of tacky curls at your pubic bone and slips a still gloved finger inside of you.

You keen and it reverbs in his office like an opera house.

“Noisy thing you are - you’ll ruin my gloves.” Sunday speaks but you are not listening, eyes cast down to where his finger disappears inside of you and staining the white satin blend of his gloves a dark gray with your slick. Your hands grip at the arms of the chair, your metal hand making the wood creak and dent as he slips in another finger inside, going in deep to press against the bundle of nerves at your upper wall. You mewl his name, the polite honorific of mister in front of it like always makes the tent in his pants more obvious to you as you keep your gaze on his bulge. You flutter around his fingers the longer you stare it and your mind wanders with all sorts of dazed and lustful thoughts.

Would his cock be as beautiful as the rest of him? Would flush the same way his ears are right now? How would it feel inside of you - oh, you want it inside you so badly. Even more so you want to watch it bob against his stomach with you inside of him, flushed and leaking against his stomach as you service Mr. Sunday for letting you stay, for being so kind to you -

You cum at that final thought, gasping his name and letting your fist hit the side of the chair weakly as your body coils around the pleasure flowing between your thighs and down onto your seat. Your body feels lax and weightless as you slump into the chair, looking at him with a hazy look on your face. Sunday looks at you with what is your approximation of tenderness and vicious satisfaction. He pulls his fingers out, removes his glove and pockets the stained fabric into his coat. His bare hand brushes some hair away from your neck, thumb on your pulse as he nudges his head to a door in the corner of the room.

“You have given me what I wanted and in return I will give you what you want - a place to belong to, one carved solely for you at my side. You are mine now, do you understand?”

The “yes” you say tumbles past your lips before you can think it. You crave it now you think, more than ever. More than you have ever wanted before you. You are riding a high you think, as you pull up your pants and walk past Sunday to go into the door he pointed you out to you.

You don’t think you ever want to sober up, your hand grips the doorknob and you look back at him over your shoulder - eyes still glassy post orgasm and a hungering in your stomach for more of his touch and his command. The door opens and you swallow around your thoughts. The night continues with more pleasure, more touching and Sunday is going to spoil you rotten you think as you lay his stained bed sheets shuddering from the shocks of pleasure in your heightened system.

‘Yes’, you think as you feel something go around your neck and feel the cool press of a tag against your clavicle. ‘This is what you came to Penachony for.’

#lamb.writes #sunday x reader #sunday smut #hsr x reader #hsr smut #im so tired goodnight

192 notes · View notes

gingernut1314 · 1 year ago

Text

Demons and Claws pt. 1

Summary: Nightmares have been plaguing your dreams night after night. You can't sleep. Not in the silence. Not in the dark. You can only think of one person in your fear who can put you at ease and you go running for him.

Warnings: gender-neutral reader, fluff, mild anime spoilers (Chopper mentioned)

Word Count: 1.7K

Tag list: @fanaticsnail

A/N: I am flabbergasted I was able to write this as short as it is--cause Oof can I go on and on, buuutt here we are! 😂 I hope you all enjoy!! 🩷 (Updated style to match like fics Jan. 15th, 2025. No words have been changed)

↞ to One Piece Masterlist | Request Rules | Blog Navigation ↠

You started awake, sweat coating your skin and sheets a tangled mess around your legs.

A dream. It has just been a dream. Is what you tried telling yourself. What you told yourself as you yanked and pulled the sheets back over yourself tight, tucking them just under your chin.

A demon’s face. Bloody screaming and crying. The undead. Your friends turning their backs on you.

It had been more than some dream--it had been a nightmare. A mix of all your worst nightmares mixed into one. Nightmares you had started having more often after joining Luffy’s crew.

After seeing your nightmares come to life--seeing that they were living realities that existed in your world.

Nami, whose bed lay just across the way from yours, murmured in her sleep, rolling over onto her other side. It broke through the deafening silence of your shared quarters like some blessing, but as soon as she settled back in, that silence surrounded you again.

Silence like the tomb. Like the dead.

Your nightmares flashed through your eyes again and you shoved yourself upright, chest heaving up and down as fear crawled its way into her heart.

Too dark. It was too dark in this room. Too hot and too quiet.

Did something just move in the corner? No. That was just Nami’s treasure chest. A figure standing by the stairs? No. Just the lamp.

A loud noise sounded through the room. A sound that had you clutching at your sheets tighter at its sudden echo.

Snoring. It was just one of the boy's obnoxiously loud snores piercing through the walls of the Merry.

Your mind thought over the collection of bodies stuffed into the room just next to yours. Your captain must have been the one whose snore was monstrous enough to filter into your room, having found he was the most notorious snorer.

It couldn’t have been Sanji’s or Choppers, both of their snores too breathy to ever truly reach you. Usopp was the next runner-up, his snores nasally with a tendency to get stuck in his throat.

Zoro’s snores were loud and chest-rumbling, but this particular snore, which shook through your room once more, was definitely your captain's.

And though it was your captain’s snore, you thought of the green-haired swordsmen. Of how you had found him a month ago wandering around in the backyard of your home looking for the docks, which had been miles away. He had been very adamant about not being lost, though he hadn’t denied your offer to show him the way.

He was a man of little words, but his humor had been dry and you couldn’t help but laugh--to gravitate towards him.

The docks had been a mess when you two finally made it there. A mess of pirates looking to raid your home and to kill off Zoro’s own crew. He had taken them on with ease--protected you against them, though your being with him had only brought the first of your nightmares to reality.

By the time you had helped fend off the pirates from invading your island alongside the Straw Hats, your home had been burned to nothing but ash by one of the pirates who had slipped away.

And despite the rest of the Straw Hats being wonderfully supportive, Zoro had been the one who had been by your side every step of the way. Had sat with you while you cried for your losses. Had taught you a special way of remembering and respecting the dead, which you two partook on the dawn of each week.

Your room fell silent once more. A silence that had your eyes scanning over the room for every last little monster that could be lurking in the darkness.

Zoro fought by your side--kept you from harm's way and he was the only one you could think of to run to when the demons and shadows came calling for you.

With a mighty breath in and out, you hopped out of bed, feet running over the soft, robin’s egg blue carpet that lay over the floor, shifting to polished hardwood just before the stairs. You rushed up them, feeling as if clawed hands were just inches away from grabbing you around your ankles and yanking you right back into the darkness you were fleeing.

You burst out of the door, shutting it behind you as quietly as you could so as to not wake Nami up.

The storage room was just as dark--just as threatening and you rushed for the door that led into the kitchen.

Though moonlight shone through the four, arching windows, illuminating the space dimly, you still felt those clawed hands reaching for you. Hands that sent you rushing once more out of the kitchen and onto the deck. Chilled, salty sea air hit your nose as you crossed the course floor, all but lunging for the hatch just next to the mast.

You flung it open, taking your time to carefully find your footing on the ladder that was built into the mast, which continued downward into the belly of the Merry.

Descending downward, you were met with more darkness, though a small night light had been set up, giving off enough light for you to see around. You seemed to remember the boys arguing with Usopp about it’s being there, but you weren’t quite sure of its true origins.

The air was never once still as you silently hopped to the polished floor, snores of all kinds filling your ears.

The boy's room was cramped. There was no better word to describe it.

The small room had been fitted with two couches and a table you didn’t think the boys truly needed. Swinging in the far corner, layered on top of each other like sardines, lay the fast-asleep men of your crew.

As you grew closer, the louder the snores grew and the less you could think about the nightmares that had chased you out of your bed in the first place.

The first row of boys, closest to the far sitting couch, was made up of three hammocks. Chopper, being the smallest, lay in the top hammock, snoozing away like the precious angel he was. Next was Zoro, who slept with his hands behind his neck and his ankles crossed over each other. And below him lay Sanji, whose long limbs spilled out over the horrible, near burlap sack-like material that made up their hammocks.

You made a mental note to make them all some proper hammocks as soon as you got supplies from the next island you all landed on.

As carefully as you could, you climbed up onto the fine, blue fabric of the couch and walked over it so you could stand next to Zoro’s hammock. You looked him over. Looked over his is peaceful features--his slack jaw, which rumbling snores fell from and his sleep-tousled hair.

Carefully, as if approaching a rabid dog, you gently laid a hand on his hard-earned bicep and gave the swordsman a firm shake.

“Zoro.” You called on a tone just above a whisper. When he didn’t stir right away, you shook him a bit more harshly, his name falling from your lips in the same manner.

“What the hell--” He began on a hiss, but when his dark eyes snapped open to find you standing there, he huffed out a heavy breath. “...can I help you?” He asked, his voice rougher and deeper from the sleep you had just pulled him from.

“I…” You started, biting your tongue from finishing your thought. You felt yourself grow embarrassed. Embarrassed that you had run all the way down here. Embarrassed that you had woken Zoro up from his deep sleep which he needed.

It was childish really. You couldn’t handle a silly little dream? You were a grown adult. You could deal with it yourself.

A demon's face. Bloody screaming and crying. The undead. Wicked, clawed hands. Your friends turning their backs on you. Your family’s death--

“I had a nightmare.” You breathed, your voice wavering the slightest bit. Zoro blinked at you. A long blink that looked as if he was slowly thinking over your words.

“...okay.” He said after what felt like an hour had passed you by.

“Zoro.” You huffed, annoyed at his absent-mindedness.

“What?” He asked, equally as annoyed. Asked a little too loud for your liking. You shushed him, placing a finger over his lips which he only swatted away, ever the more irritated. “I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”

“You’re insufferable.” You whispered harshly, eyes narrowed down at him. “This was a mistake.” But before you could make your way back over the too-nice fabric of the couch you stood on, Zoro grabbed your wrist.

“You know I’m not a mind reader.” He said, his voice growing softer as he pulled you back in. Your body, despite you wanting to still be huffy and puffy with him, relaxed against his strong hold. “Just tell me what you want me to do about it.”

“I just thought…I think I would sleep better in here.” Zoro watched you for a moment, dark brown eyes scanning over your face carefully as if to catch anything he might be missing.

“Like on the floor?” You huffed and Zoro rolled his eyes. “Where then?”

“You’re going to say no.” You went to pull your hand from his grip but he held firm.

“Just say it already.” He urged you, that annoyance filtering back into his voice.

“Can I sleep in your hammock--with you? Please.” You blurted out before you could think too much about it again, “You make me feel safe.”

A sharp yelp escaped your lips as Zoro reached over, grabbed you around the waist, and hosted you up into his hammock.

You heard Chopper stir above you, but soon his soft snores fluttered from his nose once more.

Zoro tucked you into his side, wrapping you up in his strong arms and resting his chin on the crest of your head, a deep breath escaping his nose.

“Next time, just say that first. Could have been back asleep by now.” He grumbled, his voice evening out as sleep slowly fell over him for the second time that night. You nestled deeper into his broad, scarred chest, feeling instantly at ease in his arms. Feeling safe--protected from the demons waiting in the darkness for you.

“Thank you.” You whispered, brushing your fingers over the warm skin of his side.

“Whatever. Go to sleep.” You did as you were told, letting the rock of the sea, the chorus of snores, and Zoro’s strong presence lull you back to sleep.

Next ->

More like this: Couldn't Sleep? {Robin x GN!reader} ⋆ Just Trying To Sleep {Luffy x gn!reader} ⋆ How Can I Be Of Service? {Sanji x gn!reader} ⋆ Feeling Generous {Nami x gn!reader} ⋆ Nightmares {Usopp x gn!reader}

643 notes · View notes

hhhecates · 3 months ago

Text

# — pairings: xiao x gn!reader

# — characters: gender neutral reader, xiao

# — summary: takes place during the 2.7 quest Perilous Trail. What if you manage to dive after him and get the both of you out of the chasm? What if you're tired of him constantly treating himself like he's expendable?

# — warnings: angst, mentions of xiao's past, xiao's suicidal tendencies ofc, xiao cries (yes this is totally a warning)

# — tags: hurt/comfort (?), canon compliant, drabble, emotional

# — notes: this is quite an old work, and to be honest for a long time I wasn't even sure I ever wanted to post my writings and drawings on tumblr again. After much deliberation I've decided to come back. I really love xiao and that never once waned in the years I've been absent from tumblr. I understand that his character now has lost a lot of popularity, but still, I wish for the people who love him like me to be able to enjoy new fanfics, giggle over fanarts and maybe even gather together to share hcs and just have fun. I hope this ficlet finds you well.

They call his name and suddenly his eyes snap open, from gentle surrender to frenzied searching. From the acquiesce that comes with the knowledge that his duty has been performed until the last of his breaths, to the wretched way that last breath catches in his throat and seemingly sets him ablaze.

Staring back at him is a gaze as dark as the abyss that threatens to swallow him whole, equal part unyielding and volatile, equal part selfish and selfless.

"What do you think you're doing? Why- why are you still here?" his voice, a tiny, mangled thing, rips from his throat in an ungraceful, desperate way that's unbecoming of him.

"What do you think? To get us out of here of course. I have a plan!" They shout, the determination in their words almost makes Xiao recoil, bile rises in his throat.

"So did I, that's why I used the last of my strength to teleport all of you out of here, or so I thought." his tone, usually poised and sedate, tempered by thousands of years of torment and endurance, now instead teeters on something much more raw. If they weren't falling to their death, maybe they'd wince at the indignation that seeps into his words like gangrene spreading in his bloodstream.

"I wasn't planning on leaving you behind from the beginning, even if you didn't care for making it out alive from the very beginning."

Something in Xiao, frail and precarious, already hanging in an equilibrium of desperation and reverence, snaps, his throat burns when he shouts, gritty and soiled, like blood stubbornly staining his fingetips and clinging to his nails.

"This... This was the only way!"

"NO, STOP IT." They rebuke him. There's an unfiltered sort of rage in their voice, one that drops all pretense of reason. It makes him stop and begs for attention.

"I HATE IT. The way you look around, wondering who you have to die for today, everyday. That you believe you are nothing more than testament to purpose. Like it's your duty to let this purpose take you apart and dismember you." selfish acrimony wavers, until it is extinguished, and all that remains in its ashes, is grief.

"You gave yourself up so easily."

"I GAVE EVERYTHING-" Xiao howls disjointedly, so incredibly vulnerable, so terribly human.

"EXACTLY. And you still don't believe you deserve anything more than damnation for that. Still don't reach your hand out for fear it will stain my own with shame and make me collateral damage of who you think you've become."

"I can't save you." Xiao slurs, lips sticking together, like his mouth is sealed with cotton. It sounds like a confession. How ironic it is really, when Xiao pleads, a God, the Conqueror of Demons kneels before the altar of a human and pleads for something that frightfully resembles forgiveness.

"You are right, you are not my salvation.

I am.

Nobody is going to save me, make me believe that there's something more to me than rotten effort and spiteful thoughts.

I am salvation, and so are you." They look at him like there's triumph in crashing when they should be soaring.

"You are salvation.

Even if I can't convince you of it.

I can't call your name in a kinder way and expect you to recognize it as yours. But I refuse to let you believe that you're nothing more than perdition." They reach out their hand, willing for the gesture to seem expectant, when they all too well know that the tremble in their fingers spells imploration.

They see it, the way his pupils narrow in hesitation.

They don't see it, but they know it, he's turned away, hair obscuring his face, Xiao cries.

They wonder if it's the first time it happens, if tears obstinately made their way down his face when an evil god made a weapon out of him, if something akin to relief diluted in salt gathered in his eyes when Morax freed him from his enslavement, if regard towards his fallen companions could be expressed in silent tears as he roamed the quietude of Guili Plains at night. Then they remember, the way he told them that tears are nothing but an insult to a Yaksha's duty.

Xiao reaches for their hand they wonder if it's presumptuous to think that Xiao cries for them or for himself.

Header credits to kiochisato

#xiao #genshin xiao #xiao x reader #xiao fluff #xiao angst #xiao imagines #xiao headcanons #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact xiao #genshin fanfic #genshin fluff

90 notes · View notes

writingpandagoth · 20 days ago

Note

Post war severus is my favourite. So imagine. He survive but noone know and he diaspear to another country. But he was in relationship with y/n and she think he’s dead. After years they accidentaly meet.

Okay sooo I just want to say:

I actually had this story written down some time ago...and I thought,

Post War? check. ✅

Actually alive and not dead? check.✅

Angst with a turn that hurt me writing it?✅✅

So I guess here it is then.

I hope you enjoy and its somehow what you wanted and imagined.

( TW: Mention of Blood )

Ashes and Echoes

It’s been eight years since the Battle of Hogwarts.

Eight years since the world rebuilt itself from blood and rubble.

Eight years since you stood over a shallow, government-dug grave with your hands shaking and your mouth too dry to say goodbye.

Eight years since you buried your heart.

Severus Snape.

You hadn’t planned to return to France. The continent still carries too many ghosts, too many shadows of where the two of you sometimes vanish during holidays but a rare ingredient had led you here—a highly specific strain of powdered dragon’s blood only cultivated in a remote village near the Pyrenees. The kind of thing only eccentric potion masters deal in.

And you’re no stranger to eccentricity.

You'd heard whispers in your professional circles. Quiet mentions of an unnamed reclusive potioneer tucked into the south, brilliant, secretive. No name. No details.

You hadn’t thought anything of it.

Not until you stepped into the shop.

The bell above the door gives a soft chime as you walk in, not announcing you so much as acknowledging your presence like the sigh of something ancient and tired. The interior is warm, dim, and alive with the scents of dried herbs, parchment, and faint incense. Old magic.

The kind you recognize.

You take one step in, and then another. You almost call out.

Then you see him.

He’s standing at the back of the shop, back turned to you, sorting through a tray of ingredients with the same slow, deliberate precision that once drove you mad with affection. His hair is shorter now. His frame thinner but the posture—the quiet gravity of him—is unmistakable.

The floor tilts under your feet.

“…Severus?”

He freezes.

The room holds its breath.

Then, slowly, like a man surfacing from deep water, he turns.

You forget how to breathe.

It's him.

Older. Alive.

Alive.

Your stomach lurches. Your hands go cold. There’s no mistake. You know that face. You know that man. You’ve traced his skin in candlelight and screamed his name into pillows. You’ve dreamed of him, prayed for him, grieved him.

“You’re alive,” you say, and the words don’t even sound like yours. They sound like someone else’s nightmare.

His lips part. He says your name like it means something. Like it hasn’t been collecting dust in his mouth for nearly a decade.

“(Y/N)…”

The sound of it cracks you open.

And then the fury rushes in.

“How dare you,” you whisper, voice trembling with rage so sharp it cuts your tongue.

“How fucking dare you.”

Your voice hits the shelves harder than any spell. Bottles rattle in their places. The air thickens, like the magic in the room recognizes your fury and dares not move against it.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t even flinch.

He just watches you.

And somehow, that makes it worse.

“I buried you,” you hiss, stepping closer. “I stood over your grave. I watched them lower a box into the ground with your name on it. I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. I hated everyone who didn’t mourn you like I did. I hated myself for not saving you.”

His mouth opens. A breath. A thought. A weak beginning of a justification.

You cut it off before it can live.

“Don’t you fucking dare try to explain this. You let me believe you were dead.”

You see something flicker in his eyes. Guilt. Regret. Or maybe just the weight of everything he’s refused to face for years. But you don’t care.

You’re too far gone. Too far deep into the pain you’ve carried like a second skin.

“I stopped sleeping,” you whisper. “I stopped living. I stopped everything. I let the world move on while I stayed in that moment—your blood on the floor, your name in my mouth, your death replaying in my head over and over again and all this time—you were here.”

“I thought it would be best” he finally says, and the words land like ash.

You laugh.

Not a real laugh. A hollow, shaking, awful thing that sounds more like heartbreak than humor.

“For who?” you snarl. “For me? Because if you thought that was mercy, Severus, I hope you burn in the peace you bought with my grief.”

He looks down at the table, jaw clenched. Like he wants to disappear again. Like he’s still so good at hiding from things that hurt.

You stare at him—this stranger with a familiar face. This man you would’ve followed into hell… who chose to let you rot in the ruins of a war you both survived.

“I came here for dragon’s blood,” you say, your voice a blade.

You pull a small pouch of Galleons from your cloak and toss it onto the counter.

“Keep the change. Buy yourself more silence. It seems to be the only thing you value.”

You turn before he can say another word.

The bell above the door rings again as you walk out, the sound hollow behind you.

—

The door to your room at the local Inn slams shut behind you. The walls feel too small. The air too still.

You don’t cry.

You’re past that now. Past the tears. Past the shaking. You’re running on fury and exhaustion and the kind of grief that doesn’t even scream anymore—it just exists. A constant pressure behind your ribs.

You pull your bag open, casting a few quiet packing charms. Cloak. Journal. Vial of wolfsbane extract you’d picked up earlier that morning. You move like muscle memory, like instinct, because if you stop to think, you’ll break.

And then you hear it.

A knock at the door.

You don’t answer.

A pause. Then the door creaks open slowly.

You don’t turn to face him. You don’t want to see his eyes. Not now.

“I shouldn’t have let it happen that way,” he says, his voice low, rough. “I told myself I was protecting you. That disappearing would sever the danger that always followed me. That you’d be safe.”

You shove your wand case into your bag with more force than necessary.

“I watched people I cared for die in that war. I watched you bleed for me. I couldn’t let you waste the rest of your life waiting on a man whose name would always be cursed.”

You snap the clasp on your bag closed. The sound cracks through the silence like a spell.

“Say something,” he pleads.

And you do.

“No.”

You lift your bag onto your shoulder and finally turn to face him.

Your eyes are dry. Your mouth is set. You are ice and ruin and every woman who ever carried grief quietly.

“I don’t want your reasons. You gave me silence, Severus and now I’m leaving you in mine.”

You walk to the door. His eyes are desperate now. Pleading.

“Oh. Just so you know, you didn’t just leave me in silence to grieve” you say as you reach for the door, not even turning back. „You left your daughter too.”

You open the door and step into the hall without looking back.

His breath stops.

His lips part—but no sound comes out.

Only silence.

—

The cottage feels smaller when you return.

It’s warm and lived-in—books stacked on the kitchen table, a tea cup left out from earlier, a crooked drawing tacked to the fridge. It smells like lavender and sugar and parchment. Home.

But today, it wraps around you like a cage.

“Mom?”

Her voice comes from the sitting room, uncertain, questioning.

You force your body to relax, to smooth your face into something resembling normal.

She peers around the doorway with wide, intelligent eyes. “You’re back early.”

You smile, just enough to make it believable. “Change of plans.”

She crosses the room and hugs you around the waist. She doesn’t cling—she hasn’t done that in years. But she holds on, and that’s worse somehow. She knows something’s wrong. She always knows.

You brush a hand over her hair and kneel in front of her.

“Everything okay here?”

She shrugs. “Yeah. Professor McGonagall helped me with my essay. She says I need to be more ‘precise.’” She scrunches her face into a stern imitation of Minerva, and it pulls a real, painful laugh from your chest.

“Sounds like you had fun.”

“She made pumpkin tart.” She pauses. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

The question hits harder than it should.

You hesitate.

“No,” you say, finally. “But I found what I needed to.”

She tilts her head. “Are you sad?”

You blink. “What makes you say that?”

“You look like you’re smiling with your mouth, but not your eyes.”

And gods, doesn’t that just shatter you. You pull her into a hug again, tighter this time.

“I’m okay,” you lie. “I’m just tired.”

She believes you. Or at least, she pretends to. You pull back and tuck a curl behind her ear.

“Go get ready for bed, alright? I’ll come read with you in a minute.”

“Okay,” she says softly, and disappears down the hall.

Only when she’s gone do you let yourself sit down on the edge of the couch. Your limbs feel heavy. Like the weight of the last eight years has finally caught up to you.

He knows now.

And now you have to live with the aftermath but you don’t regret telling him.

—

Severus doesn’t sleep.

There’s no point. The moment your words left your lips, the concept of rest became foreign. His mind plays them on a loop, vicious and unrelenting.

“You didn’t just leave me in silence to grieve. You left your daughter too.”

Your daughter.

His daughter.

A little girl who had

Eight years of growing up without him. Of birthdays missed. Of scraped knees he never kissed, nightmares he never soothed.

He doesn’t even know what she looks like. Doesn’t know her name. Doesn’t know anything.

And all that because he left.

He stares at the wall until morning.

And then he runs.

He leaves the apothecary door unlocked for the first time in years. He doesn’t even bother to change. Just throws on a cloak, pockets his wand, and starts moving.

You didn’t say where you were going.

But you didn’t need to.

You’d never stay in France. Not after that. Not with their daughter to protect and a life to return to. Severus apparates back to England the second he steps outside with nothing but a name in his mouth and a storm in his chest.

He scours every village he thinks you might’ve passed through. He checks records, follows cold trails, stumbles through quiet towns with desperation burning behind his eyes.

But there’s nothing.

By nightfall, he’s half-mad with desperation.

You covered your tracks well.

Which means you had help.

Which means only one person could know where you are now.

Minerva.

Of course. She was always your friend, your confidante. The one person who never treated either of you like lost causes.

If anyone knows where you are now, it’s her.

He apparates again but this time straight to the gates of Hogwarts before he can second-guess himself. The sight of the castle nearly stops his breath.

He hasn’t been back since the war.

Since the blood.

Since his almost-death became a hiding place.

The wards recognize him but resist him. It takes effort to push through them. As if even the magic is reluctant to let him return.

When he reaches her office the door flies open before he can lift his hand.

Minerva McGonagall stands in the doorway with fire in her eyes and she is not pleased to see him.

She doesn’t speak just stares at him with her Wand raised at him

“I should curse you where you stand.”

Her voice is low and shaking—not with fear, but with fury. The kind of fury that doesn’t need volume. The kind that comes from eight years of cleaning up the mess he left behind.

“Minerva,” he begins, but his voice fails. It comes out rough. Raw.

She steps aside, enough to let him into her office.

“Don’t you dare say my name like you still have the right.”

He looks at her, the lines on her face deeper, her eyes sharper. She looks like she’s aged and sharpened all at once. A sword honed on heartbreak.

“Did you knew,” she says.

His brow furrows.

“Knew what?”

She stares him down like he’s a ghost she’s debating banishing from the world entirely.

“That she was pregnant when you died.”

The words are a slap.

“I didn’t,” he says, and it’s the truth. The one truth he still has. “I didn’t know.”

Minerva studies him. Hard. As if searching for a crack. And then—

She sees it. The devastation behind his eyes. The hollow ache that’s turned his voice to gravel.

“Eight years, Severus.”

Her voice drops to a whisper.

“She buried you. Carried your child alone. Raised her alone. She had to build a life from the ashes. And you—” she swallows, fury and heartbreak twisting into something jagged— “We believed you dead but in the end you have just vanished.”

“I thought I couldn’t give her what she needed.”

“And that makes it better?” she snaps. “You thought disappearing would save her, so you left her in hell alone? You let her grieve you. You let me grieve you. And now you want what, forgiveness?”

He doesn’t answer because he doesn’t know. No apology could reach deep enough. No excuse could be sharp enough to cut through what he did.

“I don’t expect forgiveness,” he says finally. “I want… I need to try to fix what I did.”

Minerva’s jaw clenches. Her wand lowers a fraction—but her spine stays straight, her eyes fixed like twin blades.

“And what exactly do you think will happen if you do?” she says. “You think you can show up and fix eight years with a few words and a tortured look?”

“I don’t expect anything from her.”

“Good,” she bites out. “Because she owes you nothing.”

Silence stretches between them. Thick. Charged.

“But,” Minerva says eventually, voice softer now, heavy, “she’s not hiding from you. She’s protecting her daughter. That girl has grown up loved. Safe. Happy. And if you go to them now, Severus, you better be sure.”

He looks up at her.

She steps closer. “You don’t knock on that door unless you intend to stay. If you leave again—if you walk away from that child the way you walked away from her mother—don’t you ever come back.”

And there it is. The line drawn in stone.

His choice.

He nods.

—

The garden is quiet in the late afternoon sun.

You sit on the grass, knees tucked beneath you, watching your daughter lean over the flowerbeds with focused determination. She’s got her little herb journal open beside her, carefully sketching the shape of a blooming foxglove.

“Foxgloves are dangerous,” she says, glancing back at you. “Pretty, but toxic. Like powdered moonstone when it’s not diluted.”

You smile softly. “You’ve been paying attention.”

“Of course I have,” she grins. “One day I’m going to be a Potions Master just like Dad was.”

Your heart aches but you smiled.

You raise a brow. “Is that so?”

She giggles and goes back to sketching. You watch her, warmth and pride fluttering in your chest. She’s bright. Brilliant and so much the man who you believed dead.

You’ve worked hard to give her safety and structure. And love. Some part of you still aches when she asks questions about him that you answer without hesitation. Or when her eyes—his eyes—look up at you filled with softness when you read to her.

A breeze rustles the tall grass. The scent of lilac clings to it.

Then, behind you—a knock.

Your body stills.

You rise slowly, brushing dirt from your skirts, heart already beginning to pound. You glance back at her. “Stay here, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.”

She hums in acknowledgment, lost in her sketch.

You walk through the back door, across the wooden floor, and toward the front of the house—wand at the ready. And when you open the door—

Your breath stops.

Severus stands there like something out of a memory. The cloak. The hair. The expression—uncertain and raw.

“Severus.”

You don’t hide the surprise in your voice.

He doesn’t speak right away, just looks at you.

You don’t know what it is—exhaustion, maybe. Regret. Something heavier than he’s ever worn. But you see it all.

“Minerva?” you say quietly.

He nods.

You step back. Just slightly. “Then come in.”

The house is quiet. There’s a kettle warming on the stove, faint music from the wireless. The fire’s already been laid for the evening.

You say nothing as you guide him into the sitting room.

His eyes find the photographs over the mantle first—faded but carefully preserved.

One of the two of you, from years ago. A rare, unguarded moment. He remembers it. The way your hand curled around his. The way you’d laughed when the camera flash surprised you both.

Then the children drawings showing all signs of different process through the years.

His gaze sweeps the room. His old books line one of the shelves. A worn robe—his robe—neatly folded on the back of a nearby chair. Potion bottles with his handwriting. The very first cauldron he had.

And it hits him like a thunderclap, like drowning in light and memory and grief.

He sinks into the armchair, unable to speak.

You watch him from the doorway, arms crossed. Guarded.

“You may have been gone to us” you say simply. “But to us you never left.”

He stares at the fire, silent.

Then it happens. His shoulders shake.

And he weeps.

Not the quiet, noble kind. Not the sort he can bury behind pride.

He breaks.

You look away—not because you’re cruel, but because it’s too much. Because if you watch him cry, you might start too.

He cries like the grief has finally caught up to him.

You say nothing. You let it wash over the room, let it fill the silence he left behind all those years ago. You don’t move toward him. You don’t touch him.

You wait.

He wipes at his face with the back of his sleeve, and when he speaks, his voice is hoarse and low.

“I was supposed to die.”

He says it like a truth he's carried every day since the war.

“That was the deal. That was the plan. Dumbledore’s grand finale. My purpose was to get Potter to the end… and die for it. No redemption. No reward. Just—closure.”

You don’t interrupt. Your arms are crossed tightly, bracing yourself. Because you know whatever he says next will hurt. But you also know he needs to say it.

“I was ready for it,” he continues. “I wanted it. I thought… I’d done enough damage. That maybe death would settle the debt.”

He pauses, staring down at his hands. “But I lived.”

He says it like a confession.

“I woke up in a safehouse. Some Order stragglers pulled me out. Didn’t tell anyone. Thought they were doing me a favor. A second chance.”

He lets out a bitter laugh.

“But I didn’t know how to live with that. I didn’t know who I was, without the war. Without Dumbledore pulling my strings. I was just… Severus Snape. And I hated him.”

You say nothing. Your fingers curl into your sleeves.

“I tried to come back but it was to late and I told myself you’d be better off,” he says, voice trembling now. “That mourning me would hurt less than living with me. I thought… if I came back, I’d taint what little you still had. I’d be a shadow you couldn’t escape.”

He looks at you, finally. Not pleading. Just raw.

“I didn’t know about her,” he whispers. “If I had—Merlin, if I had—”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t need to.

You’re standing in the ruins of it.

He swallows hard. “I don’t expect forgiveness. I don’t expect you to want me be part of her life or yours. I just needed you to know… I never forgot you. Not for a second. I didn’t wanted to destroy us.”

You don’t speak at first.

His words settle in the space between you, thick with sorrow and a lifetime of could-have-beens. You sit across from him, heart pounding behind your ribs, throat tight with everything you’ve carried for the last eight years.

And then you breathe.

Slow. Steady. Shaking.

“I’m not angry,” you say quietly. “Not really.”

He lifts his head, surprised.

“I’m hurt,” you continue. “I’m devastated. You left me in a darkness I barely crawled out of. You left me to grieve you when I needed you most. You disappeared, Severus. I mourned you. I buried you. I loved you through the silence and the pain and the bloody war that never ended for me.”

Your hands are trembling now, but you don’t hide them.

“I’m angry because I loved you, and I never stopped. And I hated you for making me keep loving you, even after you were gone.”

You meet his eyes then.

“I would’ve lived my whole life grieving you knowing you died a hero but finding out you were alive and I had to raise our daughter without you…that hurt more than you dying”

He sucks in a breath but he says nothing.

The silence carries on between the two of you for what seemed hours before your voice broke it.

“Her name is Eileen.”

There’s something sharp in his eyes. Recognition. Pain. Wonder.

Your voice is tight, shaking now for the first time since you saw him again. “I gave her the name of the one person I knew you came from. I gave her a piece of you, because I had nothing else to give her from you.”

His head lifts.

“She was born six months after I buried you.”

He closes his eyes.

“She has your hair. Your eyes. She’s sharp and stubborn and brilliant. She corrects my potions instructions and memorized half of Magical Drafts and Potions before she turned six.”

He opens his eyes again—wet, wide, breaking.

“She took her first steps holding onto the edge of your old robe.”

“She has a picture of you in her room. One of the few I ever took of you and every night without missing one night, she talks to it. She tells you about her day, about what she learned or who she wants to be.”

Your voice cracks but you don’t stop.

“She writes you a birthday card every year ever since she was able to do so and lights a candle for you. She draws you as a knight, a king or as a dragon-tamer because to her that’s what you are. She cried the first time she saw the war memorial in Hogsmeade because she didn’t understand why you weren’t on it.”

You take a breath, then another, and it feels like your ribs might shatter.

“She asks me to tell her bedtime stories about you,” you whisper, “Where you’re a professor at Hogwarts and you sneak home every night just to kiss her forehead before going back to fight monsters and brew the best Potions in the whole world.”

“She doesn’t know the man you were, doesn’t know fully just what you did but she says heroes don’t need to be perfect—just loved. And by Merlin’s name she loves you with every part of her soul.”

He is crying again. Silently grieving what he missed.

This time you don’t look away.

“I won’t lie to her and I won’t pretend any of this didn’t happen but I’m not going to close the door on you… not if you’re here to stay.”

You lean forward, eyes locked with his.

„But if you want to stand in this house like you belong, if you want to be part of her life and mine then you fight for it, Severus. You bleed for it if you have to.”

He nods. Eyes full of tears. Hands trembling like a man waking from a long, cruel dream.

“I will,” he whispers. “I swear I will.”

#fanfic #severus snape x reader #severus snape #harry potter

99 notes · View notes