#i want to eat glass thinking about matthias helvar sometimes

[justanoasisimagines]

Not when I'm around

Summary; Matthias is smitten with you. However, your oblivious. It's funny how things work out sometimes... Pairing; Matthias Helvar x Female Reader WordCount; 530 Credit goes to @cafekitsune for the banner and the divider A/N - Requests are open! Feel free to drop an ask.

Matthias observed you as you interacted with customers. The way you seemed friendly and familiar to the frequent punters. The way you had them eating out of the palm of your hands. It was no wonder why Kaz had hired you. "Don't you have anything else better to do with your time?" Matthias smirked. He'd been busted, but who could blame him? Not when you were the most beautiful woman in the world. "No, why, have any better ideas?" You wiped a glass clean. Matthias enjoyed the mischievous grin slowly appearing on your face. "There are always ways to spend your time, but right now, I have to work. Gotta earn my keep somehow" With that you returned to attending to customers, with a spark and a spring in your step. Matthias sat back and watched in awe. The Crow Club was packed, as usual, all of the crows were dotted around the room. Kaz rested on the balcony, overseeing things. Matthias hadn't moved from his place at the bar, surveying the room, all the while keeping an eye on you. He knew you could handle yourself, but that didn't mean he wanted you to. Not while he was around. "When are you going to tell her?" Jesper questioned as he slapped him on the shoulder. Matthias turned to glance at him before his eyes instinctively found their way back to you. "I've been trying to. I thought I was being clear but perhaps not." Matthias took a sip of his drink. It was difficult to hear amongst the constant chatter, yet Matthias still found himself being able to spot your voice out. Matthias had never heard a more angelic sound. "Then you are not being clear enough. You need to keep trying because a little birdie tells me she is crazy about you" Matthias didn't want to believe Jesper's words, he didn't want to get his hopes up. Could you reciprocate his feelings? Only in his wildest fantasy perhaps. Suddenly Matthias watched a local drunk grab you. Within a second, he'd jumped from his chair towards you. No one would disrespect you, not as long as Matthias had breath in his body. Taking hold of the man's arms, he dragged the man away from you. Fire coursing through his veins. "You do not touch her." Matthias placed himself between yourself and the man. "What is your girl or somethin' I don't think so." Matthias grabbed the man by his shirt pulling him off his feet. "Don't let me see you in here again!" The main scrambled, tripping and stumbling. "I could have handled him you know" Matthias smirked as he glanced over his shoulder. This was the moment. Two slow steps Matthias took towards you before cupping your face within his hands. "I know, but you don't have to, not while I'm around." You leaned up and pressed a kiss on his stubble-covered cheek. Not missing the pink hue that rapidly dusted it. "Come, keep me company" With your hands entwined, the Crow Club returned to usual. However, high on the balcony Inez passed Jesper some coins. If only you two could have held out just a little longer.

[retvenkos]

OK so i just had the horrible thought of: (tw//depression, selfharm mention)

what if matthias never became a druskelle and... i have Thoughts. to say the least.

first off, he would literally be such a different person. my first q would be, "is his family dead?" is yes, this story is even more tragic than that of his canon timeline.

bc i have the idea/headcanon that becoming a druskelle gave him a purpose/something else to focus on rather than being swallowed by his grief of losing his ENTIRE family.

but w/o this sort of crutch... matthias would fall right into that pit of despair. i dont think he would harm himself or anything bc in my head, i believe its seen as "wrong" to harm oneself over something like that.

i feel like fjerdans as a society are very much "move on and let it go" kinds of people. (i can expand on that: i personally headcanon that when something tragic happens that the person is allowed to visit the ice court or some kind of place of worship to djel and "give" her their grief. in this sense they may seem very dismissive but its a way for them to move on and live)

so when matthias' family dies, he does this. he goes and prays the grief away. but it doesnt work. and so he thinks everyone around him has lied his whole life. hes a child with no family so he already feels MASSIVELY displaced and doesn't know who to turn to.

i think he'd be really lost and that hurts to think about because he really found his people with the other crows. even with all of their differences, the crows ARE his people. and it makes me sad i thought this cursed AU up JGDSBJGSDBGJ

rowan!!!!!!! your mind is so powerful,,,,,

i 100% agree that matthias used being a drüskelle as a way to Not Deal with his emotions on a heartbreak level, but rationalize in his mind that he is doing something, because he's learning how to avenge them. honestly, i think that his family being killed by an inferni is a big reason why he mistrusts grisha - the drüskelle training certainly informs his decisions, but i also think that for a long time, he was able to justify that what the drüskelle are saying must be true, because look what happened to his family. (which, complete sidenote, but i think that's also why nina saving him and also having been a soldier whose life was torn up by the fighting makes such a perfect catalyst for his transformation. it is yes that he ~loves her~ but also that like,,,,, he begrudgingly sees how similar they are, and also can't reconcile the fact that a grisha saved him. that not all grisha are the same! that not all grisha are the people who killed his family! idk. there's just,,,,, a lot there.)

and i agree that without a family - without some scaffolding when he's young and without some purpose afterward,,,,, matthias would flounder. he'd definitely have a rough go of it - and judging by how angry he was when he was a boy, i'm not entirely sure that he would search for purpose in benevolent ways like rebuilding his town. i honestly think that whether he is taken in by the drüskelle or not, matthias' quest for purpose in life would always lead him to taking revenge on grisha. i imagine there has to be fjerdan grisha hunters that aren't drüskelle. and maybe they're not hunters per se but slavers - like they sell grisha to kerch as indentures or sell them to the wandering isle for their blood in a quest to "rid their land" of grisha or something. i think that matthias - young and angry and looking for some way to get rid of the anger in his chest - might just fall into that. i mean, we already know he's malleable, based off of how jarl brum was able to influence him, so it's not a stretch that someone might find this boy and use him for their own nefarious purposes. even though matthias' family gave him morals and a heart, i think it would be easy for him to fall in with a crowd that like and,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, not to say that what the drüskelle are doing is okay (because it's not, dear God it's not),,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, but i think without the religious influence, matthias would be a much harsher character to literally everyone. redeeming him would be so much harder, because he'd literally hate everyone, imo.

he'd hate the grisha for what they did. he'd hate his country because it did nothing to save him. he'd hate the people who underestimate him. he'd hate the people who hate him. he'd probably even hate the people he's worked with his entire life, because he knows it's not the life his parents would have wanted him to live but what can he do? and most of all,,,,, he'd hate himself.

honestly, this is a cursed au but it makes me think sO. MUCH. about how society shaped matthias but beyond that - how he latched onto this idea of religion that really gave him purpose and a way to subconsciously deal with a lot of Stuff that he didn't want to work through. it gave him a way to file it away and push it under the bed - get the thoughts away before they ate him alive. without that religious influence, and becoming jaded and malleable,,,,,,,,,, matthias helvar would certainly not be an easy character to swallow (relative, of course, to his already difficult-to-handle nature).