#im better at it than my mother tongue

[i-sold-my-soul-to-thefandom]

working in an airport is so funny because random white folks will come to me for assistance and then get so impressed at my english like "oh wow you speak english so well, where did you learn it?" well ma'am, my people were colonised

[heartyearning]

Uni student (semi-officially now)

[vogelmeister]

the most pretentious exchange student thing i do is my pronunciation of gouda

[toji-bunny-girl]

Not an understatement I’m not even sure what I’m writing cant even read this I hate this sm 😭

[cringelordofchaos]

"race nonconforming" that's it that's enough tumblr for today

[schoenpepper]

Despite Everything (It's Still You)

Intro: When he looks at you, he sees everything he could have been.

Warnings: bad grammar, awful writing, not proofread, kinda angsty, more platonic im pretty sure cus its not specified if ur lovers, might be ooc idk and idc, everytime i write idia i feel 10 years older because i cringe at my own internet slang

A/N: Done! Last request is finished, hope you like it worm anon. On my end, this is super rushed and it's not like, my fave ever so ehhhh.

Masterlist

Riddle thought he’d found a comrade in you. Out of everyone in Twisted Wonderland, he’d thought you would be the one to understand him.

He sees it in your posture, always straight and never slouching. You’re good with academics, a diligent student. Like Riddle, you’d gone through life with the iron fist of a well-meaning parent, so surely, you understand him, right? You agree with him. You believe that rules are important to be upheld lest society fall into chaos. It’s such a refreshing feeling to find a person who, like him, thinks that structure and stability are core values of a proper community.

But you don’t. You don’t understand. No one does. His consciousness is flickering between ink and reality. He’s slipping into the grasp of the phantom and he feels himself slowly being consumed. He’s being devoured. Right before the overblot, even you had stood against him. Why? Riddle wasn’t wrong, he was never wrong—the rules aren’t wrong. Because if they are, then what did he lose his entire childhood for? So you must be the one at fault. This is your mistake. You just don’t understand. You tell him that the rules and the competence and the structure matter less than people. You try to convince him that there’s a better way of living. Is there?

Riddle doesn’t know why. He’d thought you were a comrade because he saw his own experiences in yours, but he’d never been so wrong. While he was still caught up in the chains of his mother’s words, you’d already broken free from the cage. You help him to reclaim the shards of childish wonder he’d never been allowed to have. You help him learn how to breathe, how to relax. Little by little, you bring him onto your path.

He doesn’t understand you anymore.

Leona doesn’t have any opinions about you. You never really talked to him at first, and he can respect that; you don’t go out of your way for bothersome, meaningless things.

Every time he sees you, you’re sleeping or slacking off. Whatever, it’s not like he can judge you for it. You also have a real competitive streak for spelldrive, and your wit’s not half bad, especially when compared to the muscle heads in his dorm. Clever and snarky, talented and strong. He can respect you. Maybe just barely, and he’ll never admit it, but he sees a part of himself in you. So, a sort-of equal. He’s still better than you though.

The taste of sand lingers on his tongue as it swirls in the air through the storm. There’s a part of himself he can no longer control. It makes him wrap his fingers around Ruggie’s throat and Leona… He doesn’t want this. But he can’t stop. He can still recognize you on the edge of his vision. Weren’t you just like him? At birth, everything good was handed right over to your older sibling, leaving nothing but scraps for you. You found it unfair too, didn’t you? So why are you standing against him? This is his chance to be someone worth more than his birthright. Why…are you not agreeing with him?

Leona tried to stay away from you. But call it his instinct or whatever; he can’t seem to avoid you at all. The second prince of Sunset Savanna is awestruck by your words. You tell him that birth doesn’t determine everything. You tell him that you’d learned from your own past. That you can still make something of yourself without that which was given. You sure are chatty now, but who is he to stop you?

You’re not his equal. You’d long since left him in the dust.

Azul sees you as an opportunity. He likes you, really, because you know how to do business and you find a way to compromise that doesn’t step on either person’s lines.

It’s not difficult for him to find out about your past, and to be honest, he’s greatly delighted to find out about all that you have in common. Did you feel the way he did when he was isolated and bullied? Did you feel his pain? You were an outcast too, weren’t you? But wow, look at you (and him) now! It’s rare he sees someone as diligent as himself, as cunning and as smart. Resourceful and oh so benevolent, you’d fit right into Octavinelle!

He’d steered himself long ago; he would never be weak again. He had long, long since forgotten humiliation and defeat. But he’s here again. This time, defeat was brought by your hands. Azul had thought you were allies. Business partners, at least. Why betray him like this? Don’t you get it? He’s powerful now! Why try to stop him? Why did you succeed? He’s left in the aftermath of heartache and debris. He doesn’t know why he did the things he did, but he’s sure that he was so close to being all-powerful. Perfect. A being so beautiful and flawless and strong… You took that chance away from him.

Azul wants you out of his life—your presence now is only a reminder of everything he could have been, and everything he failed to be. Unlike him, you’ve already moved on. You’ve learned to forgive your tormentors, and most importantly, you’ve learned to forgive yourself. You tell him that it was never his fault, but that revenge was never meant to be the answer.

He finds that he had nothing in common with you, after all.

Jamil is perceptive. Next to the one who’s attracting the attention of the whole room with a bright smile and sunny disposition, he finds a kindred spirit in you.

You seem responsible enough, and like a mirror, he sees you taking care of that person the way he does with Kalim. It’s easy to pierce through your act because he knows how to do it too. Seemingly not too smart, not too dumb, not too strong, not too weak. You’re good at pretending to be average. Like Jamil, you’ve lived a life of servitude. Are you tired of forced humility? Of feeling like your life isn’t worth anything when compared to the one you serve?

He’s tired too. He’s so, so tired. Why was freedom unreachable to Jamil right from the moment he was conceived? Was he unworthy of a life unbound by shackles? You’re looking at him like he’s a stranger. Jamil looks at you like you’re a mirror. A mirror that’s shattered, and damaged, and every piece is covered with ink and regret. You know what he’s been through, so why are you in his way? You should be an accomplice. Do you not yearn to be your own person? The phantom is whispering promises he knows it won’t keep. But nothing is more tempting than just…one day of happiness. Of his own happiness.

Jamil is inevitably drawn to you. You live so brightly; you see your master as a friend. You tell him he doesn’t need to do the same. That the only thing he needs to do is find a way that works for him. And you’re asking about things he hadn’t thought of before. An employment contract? The legal status of slavery in the Scalding Sands? Wait, you’re serving that person out of your own volition in exchange for salary and other related benefits?

In you, he sees a light at the end of the tunnel.

Vil approves of you. Like looking in a mirror almost, he sees beauty and a passionate drive to remain beautiful in every single way.

You’re a person with a consistent goal and a persistent drive to do better and be better; a hard worker with tenacity like that of the Queen herself. You are no potato. You are a diamond that has found a way to shine uniquely, and like him, you are already a master at your chosen profession. And yet, he sees the trophies and the medals are all silver and never gold. It is frustrating, but Vil knows that you as well know what it’s like to always be second best.

He’d worked so hard. He’d tried his very best. Professional music and choreography, styling and costumes. He’d set up a multi-week boot camp for his team members in order to whip them into shape. It’s all swept away by that person. Again. And again. And again and again and again and— No. No more. He will take matters into his own hands. But you stand in front of him with a familiar determination, only this time, you’re determined to stop him. Rook had betrayed him and now, you do too. Is he not worthy of a victory? Not even once? The blot is so, so ugly. But if it means he’ll get to wipe out everything that’s opposed to him, he’ll take that blot and use it to his own advantage. Like the queen who’d disguised herself as an ugly witch in order to take down the princess; everything can be sacrificed for the sake of ultimate beauty. If you’re not with him, you must be against him.

Vil apologizes sincerely for his faults. He knows he was wrong, even if it hurts his pride to admit it. But you accept him so easily, so readily, he can’t believe you’re acting like he’d never even hurt you. You forgive him. You help him accept his losses and continue to strive. Because you’d been in his position before, but you’d grown to be happy and appreciate the wins in life instead.

You are no mirror image of him. You are better.

Idia’s never been this happy before; through his screen is someone who just gets him. You’re good at games, and an introvert too? Score!

It’s not like, ever, that someone who vibes with his genius just comes strolling through his life, so Magicord bears witness to long, late night chats about anything and everything. You’ve got some real fucked up childhood trauma too, big mood tbh. It’s easy to spill his guts out over the internet, because even then, you still don’t really know him. You like the games and animes that he likes, and he’s so glad that for once, there’s a person out there who’s lived through the same villain-arc that he has.

He can’t rebuild the world if so many noobs are trying to stop him. Why? What’s so wrong with wishing for a world that can fit him and Ortho right in? Why is that too much for him to ask for? Why are you, the person he thought was his cool moots, acting up too? Don’t you like Ortho? Bro…no…you’re not actually doing a protagonist monologue rn, are you? Seriously? You think you can defeat him and his phantom through the power of friendship? Lolz, you’re so lame. If the world was a fairytale, he wouldn’t have been born with this dumb curse. If the world was a fairytale, he would never have been trapped in STYX with no way out. If the world was a fairytale, Ortho would still be alive. But it’s not. So he’ll remake it to be the story he’d always dreamt it to be.

Idia thinks you’re 110% cringe, like actually barf-inducing. But you did kinda save him or whatevs, so he can put up with you. Like, begrudgingly yk. You’re just such a weirdo. He really thought you were just like him, but no. You’ve had therapy. That’s like, actually wild. You try to counsel him too, talking about feelings and whatnot, and how to move past grief so that it no longer consumes you from the inside out.

So it turns out you didn’t have a villain arc like Idia did. You’re the main hero.

Malleus finds you absolutely delightful. To see another who can speak to him without fear or nervousness is a marvelous thing that he cherishes.

You are no fae or long-lived species, but he finds you fascinating. You are intelligent and wise beyond your years. You are powerful in your own right. You are familiar, in every sense of the word. Even your experiences seem to be shared. You’d been orphaned too, and experienced loss and grieved. You’d mourned for far too many loved ones who have left before you. Do you see the present as he does? Do you embrace the past as he does?

The world is a sad, sad place. He would like to change it. Into one with happy ever afters, into one where there is no hunger and no poverty. There will be no suffering. In his hands, he will mold the world into one that is kinder to its people. There will be no death and separation. He’s had far too many of those, enough to last his long lifetime. He’s not wrong. So why…why do you stand against him, weapon pointed towards him? The only thing he wishes for is permanence. Do you not see the vision? There is so much sadness in the world, why do you choose to wake from your beautiful slumber and face it head on? No matter. He will help you, even if you deny him.

Malleus is more than happy to take your hand when it is outstretched towards himself. You teach him so many things he hadn’t realized before, like how to cherish the present and treasure each memory more than attempting to find a solution to make them everlasting. He had believed wholly that he was right; that the answer to death was a long period of dreams in which everyone lives in a happy ending. He had believed you to be similar to himself—he is wrong about many, many things.

You’ve always looked to a brighter future than he could even imagine.

[reverie-verse]

Can u do eris x reader with previous az x reader(but he is an ass he just used her for sex to get over mor). So basically eris and yn are mates and they have sex and he discovered she never had aftercare before and yn is so overwhelmed with the love and care she receives that she cried and eris was mad with az and next time he saw him he stabbed him and left.but pls give the aftercare the biggest part in this thanksss

Eris x Reader: My Enemy Didn’t Deserve You.

A/N: I’m trying something new as you can see, I’m creating boards now haha I had so much fun doing this sooooo, I think imma do it more often!😊 I definitely tweaked a few things, this is my second time writing Eris, and I see him as a talker more than full on fist fighter. And again Lestat is how I picture him, I can’t explain it I’m sorry but that’s how I see him😭.

My requests are open! So please do not be afraid to ask meeeee anything! I hope you enjoy it! Also this is kinda long and im sorry 😭

——————————-

You weren’t sure how long you’d been laying on this cushion of a lounge chair, your arm hung over the armrest, some of your hair joining it. You were completely bare, Eris rested between your legs, his lips devouring your sex. You were reading earlier, your book thrown somewhere in the midst of all your clothes. Your moans grow louder by each lick and nip. Eris lets go of your bundle of nerves with a pop, he rests his cheek against your thigh, his long slender fingers already pumping at a delicious pace. Your eyes are screwed shut, your mouth hangs open. Your other hand lifts to grasp at his hair, Eris hums, reaching to grab the hand that held him down.

He tsks. “ Ah-Ah, Y/N you know better”

“ Fuck-Eris-“ You could feel the pressure building in your tummy, you clench around his fingers as he opens you. Prepping you.

“ I haven’t buried my cock in you yet-“

You sucked in a breath “Mother!-” You felt another orgasm edged out of you, your body shook, as the release caused you to become soaked and glistening. You could’ve sworn your saw stars.

“No mother here, only me” He says as he maneuvers himself to his knees, he pushes your legs wider, he lines himself with your entrance. He leaned down briefly, capturing your lips with his. His tongue slips into your mouth stroking against yours. Your hand moved from the armrest, moving between your bodies as you take some of your slick placing it onto him, you grip him pumping him at a decent pace. He groans into your mouth, you greedily take it, swallowing his gorgeous sounds. “ Y/N” he growls, as he pulls back to nip at your lips, his own trailing down to your neck.

“Eris” You whine but not before Eris moves to capture your lips again, it was then that you helped him glide through your folds, slowly, and towards your leaking hole. Eris releases your lips again, your eyes moved to look downward watching him slowly enter you.“ Fuck-“ You whispered, Eris rested his forehead against yours watching your movements not caring how impatient you’re being. You were so open, inviting, your hips wiggling to get closer. You needed him.

“ Needy girl taking what she wants” Once he was about half way in, he took control pushing further in till he bottoms out, the two of you moaning in unison. His hips roll, you hum in an encouraging response. When it came to the bond, it was indescribable, the two of you connected in every way, sometimes it was overwhelming and sometimes it still felt as if it wasn’t enough. You placed your fingers on his neck, some of them intertwining with his hair, you brought his lips back to yours. This allowed Eris to take advantage, he rolled his hips, again, his thrust increasing in pace, drawing out your beautiful noises. He took them with no remorse, relishing in the sound.

He was relentless, his tip hitting each of your sensitive spots, your cervice, your g- spot in every part of you, he could possibly reach. Your skin hot, sweaty, his skin, practically on fire, you swore you saw steam leave him. Eris chuckles out loud at your thought. You couldn’t help but smile into the kiss. Eris used a free hand that was not gripping the armrest, to cup one of your breasts. He kneads it with fever, rolling it the sensitive budds occasionally. He pounded into you at a delicious pace, your mouth opened to release a moan, Eris was quick to catch it, his teeth sinking into your bottom lip every now and then. His groans at the feeling of how slick and wet your gummy walls were, the fluttering around his cock, squeezing him. It drove him mad, in fact it only encouraged him to thrust faster, chasing that high he so desperately wanted you to reach.

The squelching had only made you wetter by the second, you craved Eris who was thrusting with all of his might, his hips starting to sputter and become sloppy, Eris removed his lips from yours, his forehead resting against yours. Eris slid his hand from the breast that he cupped, down to your sweet plush of nerves. His fingers worked quickly, bringing you near another orgasm. The two of you watched your own bodies react to one another, molded into each other. Your breaths intermingle, the both of you fight for air but not exactly caring if you had any, the pleasure was intoxicating.

“ Fuck-“ He swears.

“ Eris!-Oh!-fuck! “You gasp out, your breathing gaining speed, your moans increasing, your head Lullying back again, your body begins to convulse. You released faster than you expected, your orgasm shooting out of you, squirting onto him, it was enough to make Eris release himself. The sight of you so gorgeous and beautiful, he needed to keep a mental image, as he thrusted himself back into, chasing after his own high. As he rocked himself to complete, he eased the soreness, you continued humming, running your hand down his chest. His own climax following suit, your touch was all he needed to push him over the edge. A loud moan leaves his lips, you smile sweetly at the sound.

Eris breathes, his chest and heart working to slow down its pace, he leans back on his knees, unsheathing himself from you, you let out a whimper. Eris looks down at the apex of your thighs, you have completely soaked the material of the lounge chair, your release mixed with his seed. He takes two of his slender fingers gathering the combined orgasms, shoving his fingers into your mouth. You sucked diligently on his slender digits, your hands holding his wrists, you hummed at the feeling and the taste. The two of you connected in almost every way possible.. In the midst of it, he conjures a wet towel, as he wipes your sex clean from the sticky mess. His finger slipped from your mouth, you shuddered at the feeling of the cold material. You hiss, weren’t used to this sensation, and it wasn’t something you experienced before.

“ Eris?” You questioned as you propped yourself up, your eyes watching his movements, his touch delicate, gentle, he took his time. You were confused, your heart already on overdrive, Eris didn’t help the situation by caressing you through the bond. A feeling of love and loyalty. He swore in his mind that you will always be his, no one else. Your eyebrows furrowed as he continued his ministrations and his loving confessions.

“ Hmm?” He replies, he tosses the towel to the side after he finishes, he gives your thighs a reassuring comforting squeeze.

“ Why did you do that?” You asked, his amber eyes meet your own, he watches you closely. He didn’t need the bond to know that you had never had this before, he could see it in the way your body tensed. You were so lax and comfortable until he cleaned you. He wasn’t sure if you liked that he had done so. Over the centuries he had learned from his past lovers that they enjoyed after care, the feeling, the connection, the moment, the time when nothing else existed outside of the room they occupied. Had you not had past lovers who took care of you in this way?

“I supposed I did it because I love you, and this is my way of showing you that I do, that I care for you-“Eris shot another wave of love through the bond, you were struck hard, your chest swelled, your heart pounded at the feeling. Overcome with love and appreciation, with the notion of willingness to be with you. You couldn’t detect a single negative thought or emotion. Didn’t feel disregarded and you didn’t feel like a used object either. Not in the way you had experienced in the past. “-Did you not like that I had? Would you prefer it if I didn’t?” He asks you with the most sincere voice.

“ I-“ Your heart couldn’t take it, tears welled in your eyes, you weren’t sure how to respond. How do you tell the love of your life, the light of your soul, the torment you went through. How do you tell him, that you did enjoy it, that you were taken by surprise is all..but that surprise unlocked a door that you had closed long ago. Old wounds reopened only for him to heal them. Eris pulled you into his arms, it was there, when you felt his comfort, his warmth, his strength and his peace. You felt safe, you felt protected. Your tears left you no sooner, a gentle stream down your cheeks, they rolled off your skin splattered against Eris’s shoulder. He held you tighter as you cried.

His own heart shattering, what had you gone through enough to make you feel this way? Who did this to you? Why did they do this to you? Eris felt that you had been deprived of a sweetest most intimate form of affection, of love and devotion. No one had the right to take that from you. It made Eris’s blood boil at the thought of it all, to be used simply as a means of release repulsed him. Sure everyone once in a blue moon, a male or a female may seek comfort from others, but by the looks of this, it was someone you knew who did this to you often. You must’ve sought out for comfort and were rejected each time.

Eris didn’t mean to growl out loud, but he did, you pulled yourself from the crook of his neck and shoulder to look at him. You placed a hand on his cheek, you could see the frustration, the anger on his face, you could feel him through the bond, it made your skin feel hot, inside and out. “ I-I love you too, I’m sorry that I’m crying, I just- no one has ever done this before..I-I Iike it..” you admitted it quietly.

“ You don’t deserve to be treated with such little care. You deserve more than that, you deserve to have all of the sweetest moments intimacy has to offer. Never apologize for that, no male should’ve taken advantage of you the way that they did-” He lefts a hand, his thumbs swipes at the salty tears that roll down your cheeks, he wipes the pain away, he places a soft but firm kiss on your forehead. You shut your eyes letting his reassurance wash of you, calming you down, easing your pains and worries. The way your body melted, sinking into him. Eris’s jaw tenses. “ Who did this to you?” He whispered against your skin.

“I’m not sure I should tell you..”, you move to pull yourself completely from his arms, you pull underwear on, you grab his tunic and throw it on. Eris was quick to follow you, throwing on his own underwear and trousers.

“ Why not?” His interest peaked, you had finally wiped the last of your tears away, you made your way back to your shared bedroom, you looked for your bathroom, needing to pee. Eris of course was hot on your heels.

“ I don’t know..I’m kinda nervous” You give a small shrug, you enter your bathroom, Eris stays by the door, he heaves a frustrated sigh. A soft smile stretches across your lips. Your heart is swelling again, at the feeling of your mate caring for you. Wishing to know who and what haunted you, to heal you and start over. Appreciate warming your chest.

“ You don’t need to be nervous, I’d rather you tell me now than to find out later, involuntarily.” He speaks out as he leans against the threshold. His eyes scanning your space, the room in which the two of you called your own. A sweet dream, a safe space, a comfort.

“ Alright you won me over with your charm-” the sound of flushing could be heard, followed by washing your hand in the sink. Eris looked at you through the mirror. Your eyes connected “ If I tell you, you must promise me that you will remain calm, and they are still my friends even though they hate me-“ You turned back to look at him.

“They don’t hate you- they are simply mad that the cauldron had paired you up with someone who they think is a monster-it doesn’t matter, I don’t care what they think but if that’s what you wish, then I will do my best”

“ Thank you..” You bowed your head in a nod” Umm-how do I-…Before I met you, before the bond-I was with Azriel. Really it was sort of a-a bedroom relationship..at the time I was in love with him, and he was in love with Mor, he was trying to get over her.. so we slept together..“

“-If he wanted someone for sex he should’ve gone out to a brothel or a club. I’m sure he could’ve picked anyone off the street-“ He growled at the thought of Azriel using you, of all the males in Prythian. It had his bones searing on the inside. His blood already boiled, his skin practically on fire. Rage as one might call it reflects in his eyes. His hands warmed in sensation, fire licking at his fingertips.

“ Eris, hey, It was a long time ago, it was his fault as much as it was mine too, I was madly in love with him, I would’ve done anything back then. It was naive and stupid, I know that now-“ You were by his side holding his face in your hands. Your eyes flickered between his, you reached a finger up to sooth the angry lines that formed on his beautiful face. His body still rigided but relaxes under your touch.

“ He had no right, even if you were in love with him, he had taken you for granted. He knew you loved him, he knew you cared for him. He knew that if he had you, you wouldn’t leave him. The depths he went to, you must’ve laid there afterwards waiting for him to console you, speak with you, laugh with, and nothing-“ Your lips crashed into Eris’s. He didn’t resist or stop you, instead he let go of the words that wished to run out. Your body pressed against him so tightly, he let you guide the kiss, which was unusual but he needed it. Eris turned his head allowing for the kiss to deepen, your tongue massages the roof of his mouth. You let out a soft moan as Eris’s hands curve around your hips, kneading your body as he reaches to cup your ass.

When your lungs could no longer resist air, the two of you pulled back with only an between you.“ I’m not sure I can keep my promise” He says breathlessly, his forehead pressed to yours.

“ Eris” You shake your head.

“ I won’t kill him, I suppose I’ll have to resort to other things” He tells you as he bumps his nose with yours, the urge to kiss you was strong. His thought’s intermingled with pleasure. All the dirty things he could do to you, in various positions, in various rooms, anywhere, you wanted. To think that Azriel was stupid enough to let you go to neglect a gorgeous female such as yourself, it drove him mad.

“You can’t poison him either or use your magic or anything. You’ve always been the one to use your words-“ Eris pulled you into the space of the bedroom, his hands couldn’t stay off of you, he wanted you right then and there, he wanted you to scream out his name like a prayer as one might do in a temple.

“I am a man of my word, I won’t kill him, but I wouldn’t mind breaking a bone or two, if he decides to cross my path or comes near you-“ His eyes grow darker with lust, the smell of his arousal prominent. You allow him to toss you onto the bed.

“ Eris, that’s a bit much, no?” Eris climbed above you, his hands resting on either side of your head.

“ No, not when it comes to you.”

“ Then let me give you a piece of advice.”

“ Y/N”

“Don’t let him win”

____

Autumn solstice was today, guests had already arrived and mingled with one another. Music filled the room, guests danced with one another, smiles adorned their faces. The aroma of the food floated outwards catching the guests who were hungry, friends laughed together as they ate and drank. Everyone seemed to have been enjoying themselves, the atmosphere vibrant and enjoyable. Upon the arrival of the inner circle, this was what they least expected from Autumn. They were truly surprised, they had no intention of coming but with the alliance between the two courts, a visit was required..not to mention they missed you more they imagined. Your absence was truly felt.

Feyre missed you dearly, you were the one female here that helped her transition from Spring, to Night, to Spring back to Night, you helped her ease into her fae body. She was forever grateful. Nesta couldn’t describe the pain she felt when Rhys had sent you off. She hadn’t spoken to him for months, you were the one person that understood her the best. You were patient with her. Cassian missed the way you so easily understood his sense of humor, oftentimes you added to it, which made irritating the inner circle that much more sweeter. He wished he had spent more time with you, his best friend. Rhys on the other hand missed your presence, you were a resilient soul, your strength was something to admire. He often looked to you for the true console just everyone else had.

Azriel struggled with your absence the most, the withdrawal of not having you near took a toll on him in more ways than one. He missed you as a dear friend, just as the others, but there was a deeper rooted feeling. Not too long ago you were attached to his hip. You were there every beck and call he had, every wish and thought he expressed, you filled the void. You there when Mor couldn’t have been. You were there when Elain first emerged in his life, again you tended to every need. Azriel made no move to return the gestures of what you felt back to you, he had never felt romantically attracted to you. You were a means of sexual escape, away to let out all his frustration, his anger, his pain, into. All the females he had craved gave him nothing in return except you. Even with his rejections, you continuously had given him everything, all the love he ever needed, but it was never enough..

The inner circle's eyes scanned the area, they searched for you, their dearest friend, and when their eyes found you, they each held their breath in awe. You stood in the middle of the crowded room, you were radiant, glowing, your hair in an elegantly loose but not too tight style, creating a perfect balance. Your skin adorned simple jewelry, but as simple as they were, each piece crafted in amber. Your dress was unique, the color of Phtalo green, silky material cascaded down your body, the hem barely touched the floor, when you moved, it was like watching a gentle stream of water. You flowed with such calmness it was enchanting, the little gems that were delicately sown on, shimmered as if the sun's light kissed it. You looked as though you lived and breathed autumn, the heart of the court…

“She’s exquisite isn't she?”Eris tenses at the sound of the familiar voice. The male he despised with everything he had in him.

“She is“ Eris replies his heart squeezing with love, his eyes following you as you stop in your tracks, Nesta, Feyre, Rhys, Cassian approaches you. You practically beamed with excitement as they all crashed into you. You had been speaking with Lucien, who also shared the same excitement. It was a sweet moment to witness something he’ll enjoy hearing you gush about later.

Azriel stood next to Eris watching his family closely. As Azriel sees you he can’t help but think- maybe in another lifetime, one where he might’ve returned what you felt. Choosing to have a life of happiness with you rather than to wait for someone else to return his love. That you might be as happy as you are now. But in the end he just couldn’t feel the same way about you- this thought he carried was one that was just-a dream-a wish-but not true to his emotions and his reality. “How is she adjusting?” He asks, no matter what happened, no matter how little he felt about you, he still cared enough to ask as a friend.

“She’s adjusting well.” Eris wasn’t as forthcoming with your information, Azriel figured as much. Eris refused to give him any sort of insight on how your life might be. It was truly none of his business.

“ Do you mind if I speak with her?” Azriel takes a brief look at Eris, who just so happened to already have set eyes on him.

“Feeling regretful are we?” He turns his gaze back to you, you must’ve told a humorous story, the laughter that erupted out of everyone was loud. You were filled with such joy, it practically buzzed through the bond, Eris lips tilted upward slightly. None of them showed you distan or hatred. But Azriel the shadow themselves fringed upon your beautiful soul. Eris sighed.

“ Regretful no, but curious yes. She left the night court to be with you, I can’t imagine it being a pleasant experience” He says simply as if you meant nothing, and only jab at Eris was his goal.

“ You speak of experiences but if I remember correctly her experience with you was just that, unpleasant” Eris retorted, forcing Azriel to remember who the true villain was.

“ You know nothing of what happened between us” Azriel glares at the crowd, he shouldn’t be as frustrated as he is, he was the one who started the argument.

“I don’t?” Eris questions sarcastically, fine let the games begin.

“Yes” He says through his teeth.

” Look at you, upset because I spoke the truth. I thought your court was known for the truth.” Eris tsks as he shakes his head, as if scolding a child.

“I am not Mor, there is a difference between her and I” he replied his jaw tense and tight.

”Is there? Then again wasn’t she sleeping with others to avoid you.” Eris shrugs knowing that this would strike a cord in Azriel. A tit for a tat, he came after you, the least he could was target him the same way.

“ Shut your mouth!” He snaps, the two now facing one another.

“Did I hit a soft spot?” Eris challenges.

” Don’t you ever speak of Mor in that manner-“Azriel growls.

” Yet that’s exactly what you had done to Y/N? No? Did you forget already? Did you take one too many hits to that bat brain of yours-“Azriel shoves Eris forcing him back causing him to bare his teeth “- You made her feel as though she were only good to keep your bed warm, you left her unsatisfied, craving more than just sex, a companionship! -”

“ -She asked to be with me! She asked to be a means of release! She hated seeing me pawn over someone else! So I let her be as in love with me as she was.-” Azriel continues on shoving back Eris, who was waiting for a moment of violence to come.

” -You let her believe you were going to give her more!-“The conversation becomes more heated by the second.

” -I had too!” Azriel argues as if his words really mattered as if manipulation was the only option left for him to pick. The crowd in the room starts to murmur, the music abrupting to a halt, all eyes were on the pair. You and Rhys made eye contact for a brief moment before the two of you moved into action. The Lady of the court, Eris’s mother, encourages everyone to keep dancing, to let the music keep playing. A distraction.

“ No you didn’t, you could’ve told her how you felt instead of leading her down a path that you weren’t going to follow. If I were you Shadowsinger I’d save the manipulation tactics for the battlefield not for the bedroom, at least there we know you can get the job done” He bites back bis fists clenched ready to strike. Azriel clenched his jaw and his hand curled in a tight hold, waiting to see who’d throw the first punch. You were faster, you placed yourself between Eris and Azriel. You placed a hand on Eris’s chest and one outward to Azriel. Rhys and Cassian were right behind you moving to Azriel’s sides. They too also held their hands up trying to stop Azriel from making a mistake.

“ Az” Cassian warns.

“Go back home to Velaris, take the others with you. I have to fix the mess you made.” Rhys orders. He nods his head at Cassian who with the help of Nesta drag him out of the room.

“ I’m so sorry” Feyre apologizes.

You offer her a reassuring sad smile. “ It’s okay, I thank you all for coming. I appreciate it” She nods at you returning your expression, her eyes shooting to Rhys who gave her a sweet smile, telling her in his own way to go back with their family. Your heart shatters a little at the sight of your friends leaving. You wished you had spent more time with them. And you wished that there wasn’t so much hatred between the two groups, even with the alliance.

“ This will not happen again, I can assure both of you. I do hope that you can forgive my spymaster” Rhys says as Lucien pulls Eris away from you, giving him the opportunity to cool down.

“ I hope it doesn’t happen again..as for my mate he can be protective and I’m sure you understand what that’s like” you replied.

“ I do and for that I apologize. I’d hate it if this was to be the reason we lose our greatest ally.” Rhys, ever the politician.

“ I’m glad we can agree on the same point. We need each other more now than ever. This cannot be our downfall”

“ Of course.” Rhys bows slightly, offering you that comforting smile you missed so much. You turned to look over at your mate and his brother. Eris smacked Lucien’s hands away who only glared at him. You sighed deeply, one of ease and relief. You looked at your mate crossing your arms.

“Don't-.” Eris says as fixed his cufflinks after he had shoved Lucien away from him, who now found himself at the food table.

“-I was only going to say thank you.” You gave him a reassuring smile, Eris lifted his eyes to yours. He honestly expected you to rip him a new one. He was surprised, caught off guard, and he felt better. You uncrossed your arms wrapping them around his neck. Eris immediately wound his arms around your hips, pulling you as close as possible.

“He had no right to speak about you the way that he had. He came here searching for a fight, I cannot allow such disrespect in my home and to my mate. You don’t need to thank me. I’d do anything to protect you.” His eyes flickering between yours.

“He walked out of here unscathed, untouched. He had to be dragged back home. But you-you spoke with such strength and courage. You dared him to cross paths with you. You didn’t need to fight him, your words were sharper. You didn’t let him win” Eris’s heart warmed at your words. His chest swelling with love, with respect and with passion. He couldn’t have imagined anyone else by his side other than you. He tilts his head down slightly, capturing your lips with his, he kisses you with such intensity as if to thank you for thanking him. For loving him, for accepting him and for understanding him.

The two of you pull away briefly, your foreheads touching, he whispers to you“ Quite the high lady you’re becoming” the two of you giggle.

“ You’re becoming quite the hero” You replied, Eris shook his head, both of your shoulders shaking slightly as the two of you continued your giggling. Eris loved you more than you could’ve ever imagined. He was quick to defend you, he'd come to your aid you if you needed it. He was there every step of the way. He cared for you deeply, he wasn’t ever okay with anyone hurting you. He hated what Azriel did to you. You looked up at him with so much adoration and love, he cherished it, held it close to his heart. Eris presses a kiss to your forehead. Your eyes fluttered closed, Eris’s mother could be seen making her way over to you both. Now that was someone he knew would never hear the end of it.

[neteyamsilly]

i will soften every edge, hold the world to its best | 3

summary ;; Sullys stick together. You learn the hard way what happens when you don't. PART 2 | PART 4 pairings ;; dad!jake sully x reader, mom!neytiri x reader, sully family x reader genre ;; pure angst and family feels notes / explanations ;; descriptions of blood and violence incoming, beware! shout out to the ppl who predicted the stuff in this chapter LMAO so um... i couldnt tag everybody who asked when i said i would... there's apparently a limit to how many people you can tag. please forgive me 😭 im not taking any tagging requests anymore since i cant do it. so sorry about that,,,, seriously also, thank you so much for 1160 followers! i still cant fucking believe it... daddy issues solidarity 🤙🏻🤙🏻

“Hi there Corporal, you hear me? Yeah, I know you do. As much as I’m charmed by the fatherly love I could give you a big old sloppy wet kiss, we have unfinished business.”

Rain covered the rustling of clothes and the click-clacks of readjusted weapons as concentrated silence hung in the air, thick and heavy like the morning mist swallowing up the forest.

No answer. 

What face could your parents be making right now? Heartbeat in your ears, you tried to hide your shame by looking down, but a jerk on your queue set you straight. the avatar holding you digging his gun sharper in your neck.    

“What, cat got your tongue all of a sudden?” The leader’s stare found yours. “Let me give you a quick remedy.” 

They’d linked your device into another for the sound to be relayed outside and the voice detection range could be wider, in other words, they wanted your father to hear what was happening to you. Your braid was yanked as if the one pulling it wanted to snap it right off your skull, no amount of training could stop the scream torn out of you — all the show just for him. 

The line was deadly still, save for some rustling, crackling static that you could have easily mistaken for hissing.

A ghost of a smile shadowed the man’s face, he extended his rifle to tip your chin up. “Guess we’re gonna have to be louder than that to wake daddy up sweetheart.” 

“Stop!” Father yelled, the unexpected timing of it made you jump. That earned him a group chuckle from the avatars around you. “Stop.”

He talked. He didn’t leave you to fend for yourself in this. Thank Eywa!

“That was fast,” the captor behind you said. 

“Thought you’d have forgotten English by now, playing native.”

“...Quaritch?” 

Quaritch. That awful, awful man from the stories your mother killed? Spider’s father? But… But he was dead. How could sky people know how to cheat death?

“In the flesh.” 

Father’s voice wavered, you’d think he was scared if you didn’t know any better. “That’s impossible.”

“Back from the grave just for you, Jake.”

“Then I’ll just have to put you right back where you belong.”

The squad of avatars openly laughed at that, boisterous, confident, arrogant. 

This was Toruk Makto they were openly mocking. None of them would last for one minute in front of him and yet—

“Quite the teary lovers reunion we’re havin’ here, but you got busy while I was gone, huh?” He looked down at you again, yellow eyes filled with mirth. “I have this tiny bird here we plucked right out of the air. Imagine my surprise to learn she’s yours. Is this the only one, or you got yourself a litter now?”

Silence again. 

“What do you want?”

“Straight to the point as always.” The smug smile momentarily twitched into an unamused, withheld resentment. This man was nearing the end of his capacity to keep taunting. “I don’t think I’ll tell yet. You know I love to be a tease.”

Your ears rotated upwards in treacherous hope at your father's next words. “If you touch one hair on my daughter’s head I swear to god—”

“You exchanged your god for this shithole, Jake. Let’s not kid ourselves now.” Any hint of playing around was gone, now, eyes fixated on something on the ground ahead. “Your daughter will be my guest for a while. Think of it as summer vacation. Don’t worry, unlike the Na’vi, we’re very hospitable.” His thumb brushed over a button. “Until next time.”

“Fucking bastard—”

With one beep, the call was over. Quaritch was touching the band around his neck this time. “Iron Sky, Blue on Actual. We are standing by for extract, over.” 

You began to tussle against the avatar behind your back. “No! No! Let me go!” 

“Be advised. We're bringing in a high value prisoner.”

“Dad’s really gonna flay her alive this time, I can’t wait.” Lo’ak, positioned just behind the flap of the tent to not be seen from the outside as he peeked with one eyeball just in case, was watching his parents vehemently yell at each other in whispers that started out loud, but got hushed probably to not reach him and his siblings. Aggressive limb gestures were flying in the air, and at one point, his mom had tried to run off somewhere and was forcefully stopped. 

Dad was currently pacing around like a wild animal with one hand permanently stuck rubbing his face, and mom turned away from him, holding her forehead. “They’re really going at it, huh?

Kiri was not amused with his insistence to breach their privacy. “What’s so interesting about watching this kind of thing?”

“Catharsis?” He remarked in English, feeling sophisticated. “You remember Spider talking about it? Purification and emotional cleansing through relief that you’re not going through the horrible tragedy, the character on stage is.” 

“You’re normally so dumb.” Lo’ak bore his fangs at her matter-of-fact tone of voice. “Your brain only comes back on when it’s about chaos.”

“I’m petty, and what about it?” A tilt of his head to dare Kiri to ask for her point, then his attention was thwarted by an incomprehensible cry from his mother. She was pushing dad from his arms, furious like Lo’ak had never seen before as the upset man tried to hold her more. “Look at mom and dad breathing fire at each other! You think they’re discussing how to punish her?”

“Stop spying already skxawng, mom will be angry if she sees you. We’re supposed to be in bed.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to listen here!” His ears were tilting at every angle to make out any words that reached to him as nothing but a cluster of broken sounds. “Why did they have to go far?” 

“Because they wanted to be away from peeping toms like you?”

“And you’re still here too, so?” Lo’ak gave his sister a meaningful look. “I know you wanna see too.”

“Ugh!” Kiri shoved out her tongue at him, eyes dead. “And it’s not funny, by the way! They are fighting. Stop being happy about it.”

He knew they were fighting about his older sister, and that she’d get all the heat and fallout from it the moment she was back. Lo’ak’s head was full of what he could get out of it, or what to ask her for in return for helping her out in her detention. So satisfying to be the sibling who wasn’t in trouble. He should do it more, actually. “It is funny when it’s not about me.” 

“You’re sick for taking joy in another’s suffering.”

“Oh, I’m doomed, then.” Kiri took whatever fat was on his thin arm between her thumb and forefinger, and twisted. Lo’ak had to blink away the tears that rushed to his eyes, snatching his limb away from the displeased girl and pushing her away in return — he was annoyed at how much that hurt, why was that so damaging for no reason? “Yeouch! What the hell?”

“Will it kill you to practice mindfulness once in a while?” 

He raised his voice’s pitch to mock the wobbly, ear-scratching whine of yours, and exaggerated his body movements to match, too. “I hate you!”  

“Gross.” She tried to shove him, he caught her hands in the air, pushing her back and getting the spiteful annoyance of his sister as a result. “Dad was actually hurt by that.” Lo’ak’s eyes could roll down the hills by themselves the way that sounded, but Kiri, as always, was bothered so inexplicably. “I don’t like this. I have a bad feeling.”

That bad feeling was the herald of dad’s upcoming cranky ill-temper and what would follow after you inevitably had to come crawling back home with tail between your legs, Neteyam dragging you from the scruff of your neck. Lo’ak was refusing to sleep so he could enjoy the fight. 

“Me personally, am over the moon, ikran duty is so gonna be off my hands. For months.” He halted at the idea that just went off in his head, tail swishing with the hype. “I wanna tell Spider. I’ll go get him.”

“Absolutely not. You sneak off now and they’ll laser-focus all the anger on you!” Kiri was pointing a warning hand at him, but slowly lowered it, one corner of her mouth twitching up. She was holding back amusement. “Hey, you know what? Nevermind, you can go. I want you to go. I have to see this.”

“Ha-ha.” Lo’ak’s tail stuttered, losing enthusiasm. “Attempted murder, much?”

“Guys, what’s going on…”

Upon the unexpected voice that wobbled its way into their conversation, they both looked down to see Tuk gripping her weaved blanket with one hand and dragging it on the floor as she made her way to them, the other rubbing her eyes one by one so sleep dripping from them would fly away.

“See, you woke her up! What do we do now?”

“You woke her up by yelling, why is it my fault now?”

“I didn’t, you—”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did n—”

“Guys…” Tuk pulled on Kiri’s hand, and the foreign object she was clutching the whole time distracted Lo’ak. It must have dug into the older one’s skin that she carefully picked it up to inspect. The ear pieces they took off before they went to sleep. This one was Kiri’s.  “Neteyam’s calling. You didn’t hear…”

Grinning, Lo’ak snatched it up and skipped backwards and put it in his own ear, ignoring Kiri’s hushed yells to give it back now and the groans about ruining it with his stinky, cheesy earwax. He had to keep bouncing around, the girl was chasing him around the tent. “Bro! Tell her she’s sooo dead. Dad’s literally keeping guard in front of the tent—”

“Lo’ak, quit it.” Neteyam’s tremulous answer was harsh. Lo’ak’s smile wavered as he dodged Kiri’s arm and jumped over discarded cups on the floor, knocking over wooden spoons. “I need you to tell me what’s happening over there.”

“Aw, baby’s so scared to come back she needs to make a game plan first?” He laughed, slapping Kiri’s hands away. “I’ll only tell if she gives back my karambit knife.”

His older brother sighed, a bit too exasperated. 

“Yeah, I’m not letting that one go and I’m also making it your problem—”

“Lo’ak, she isn’t here.”

He stopped dead in his tracks. “What?”

“She isn’t here. I couldn’t find her.” Kiri bumped into him, unable to stop herself at the right time to hit the brakes due to how abruptly Lo’ak had stilled. They’d almost tumbled over. “Dad told me to wait until he contacts her and I’ve been waiting for minutes. Now tell me what’s going on over there.”

“Bro, you’re serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be serious, skxawng!” 

He turned to Kiri in disgusted discomfort, who had damn-near glued her own ear to his to hear better. “Forget months, I’ll be free for years. Dad’s not gonna let her take one step off the camp anymore.”

The girl would stomp her foot if she was a couple years younger. “What’s this about?”

And Neteyam would shake Lo’ak from the neck for ignoring him this long while he was fussing. “Tell me already you—!”

“They’re having a fight bro.” He leaned better to peep outside the tent. “Yeah.”

“She came back? Why didn’t you tell me?”

It was uncommon for Neteyam to completely disregard the previous input he’d been given. Lo’ak didn’t understand this level of anxiety. “Are you having a brain fart? Would we be having this conversation if she was here? It’s mom and dad who are fighting.”

It wasn’t that serious — on the contrary, his sister was quite simple to understand. She didn’t want to be found and had changed her place of hiding. End of story. The golden boy’s worrywart nature was keeping him from reasoning. 

“Don’t be a smartass.” Lo’ak practically felt Neteyam’s want to land a loud smack on his back. “Were they only able to reach her, then? Is that why they’re fighting?”

“You’re asking me?—”

The older boy began to grumble under his breath. “This is why I called Kiri.”

Said girl’s ears perked up over picking her name from the static-surrounded line. Lo’ak snorted. “Ouch, bro.”

Kiri shook him from the elbow. “Me? What about me?”

“Great title for your autobiography.”

Kiri raised her arms to give him a beating and Lo’ak was already bolting away from anywhere near her vicinity. The siblings didn’t even take notice of the line with Neteyam going dark as they focused on their own play-scuffle for a while. 

Until Lo’ak bumped into someone.

It wasn’t Tuk. 

Shoulders pulled into himself, he turned around torturously freaked out to find dad standing there like a ghost, his tactical vest packed to the brim and gun hanging from his back the way they wore their bows. 

The blue of his skin had faded into an ashier tone, amber eyes wide and bloodshot, the veins on the normally put together Olo’eyktan’s forehead were bulging, even a socially clueless person would pick up something was seriously wrong. He commanded cold authority of the battlefield simply by the way he stood, immediately triggering Lo’ak into soldier mode.  

He took a few steps back, chin hanging low at the lightless, unblinking stare his father pushed down on him. “Sir.”

All the sleepiness that had Tuk unresponsive and nodding off through Lo’ak and Kiri’s push-and-pull was knocked out of her at the sight, she was now unnerved and frightened. “Dad?”

The man’s intensity was somehow eased by his youngest’s reaction, but he held back from taking her in his arms like he normally would to comfort her, didn’t even care to remark on how they were supposed to be sleeping — how they’d woken their little sister up, instead focusing on Lo’ak. “I want you all to listen well. Your mother and I are heading out for a minute and your grandmother will be with you soon — Neteyam is Oscar-Mike to come back here. Stay put and don’t go anywhere, understand?” His finger pointed accusingly at him. “Don’t cause trouble. Looking at you boy, what I’m saying here is Marine proof. I’m at the end of my wits here, don’t even think about slipping a tail out of this tent.” 

The potent severity of whatever the hell was making him this agitated to the point of a voice so hoarse it was unrecognizable got the wheels in Lo’ak’s head whirring. “What’s happening, dad?”

“One child!” The thundering shout came down on him with the force of a falling mountain, making Lo’ak jump out of his skin. “I need one child of mine to listen to me without asking any questions today!” Dad’s voice broke when Tuk whined, he shut his eyes as if he was in physical pain, and flexed his jaw, shaking his head and pulling the girl in from her shoulders to soothe her. Still no direct hugging. “Jesus Christ.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Lo’ak said immediately, distraught by the over-the-top reaction, hands unknowingly curling into fists by his sides. Whenever that sky people word ‘Jesus’ slipped from dad not having any control between the border of his two languages, the boy knew it was demanding gravitas. “I heard you CFB.”

“Good.” He thinned his lips. “Kiri, please.”

Lo’ak frowned at dad basically asking for her to play her brother’s keeper in Neteyam’s absence in two simple words.

She nodded. “I know dad.”

He caught a glimpse of his mother running in the distance, her father’s bow in her hand. 

Just what was happening? What had you done? 

Eywa, it had to be sky people. 

Dad saw the realization in his face. “Stay,” he emphasized, one final time before he was also gone with the wind. 

Lo’ak wouldn’t have obeyed if it wasn’t for his grandmother arriving just in time, keeping them busy with a story about the arrival of a wounded ikran with no rider.

You realized the gunshot wound puncturing your upper abdomen was there the whole time when the avatars put first aid and later slapped a rectangular sky people bandage on it that helped clotting or whatever it was called, the pain simply not being there had played a big factor in it with the body running on pure adrenaline. 

(Crouching close to you, Quaritch had bragged, “We aren’t so bad after all, huh, sweetheart? It’s called civilization. Your daddy ever taught you about that?”

Civilization, your ass. They needed you. There was nothing well-meaning about what they were doing.

And the nickname had ticked you off, sullying the good memories of father, your head slammed into his nose in full power after a hiss.

“Now my daddy taught me that!” you spat in English as other avatars had tackled you. The man claiming to be Quaritch was smiling as he wiped away the blood trickling down his nose.

What was the point in trying to patch you up if they were going to do this, then?)

You were now a part of an elaborate trap to lure your father in. Bait. The worst position to be in. This was the kind of trouble Lo’ak would get himself in. It was too late to go back now, the mess you’d gotten yourself into had made itself known. 

Think, think! How could you get out of this?

Within the unsleeping forest’s nightly noises chirping all around you, a specific call in the air halted your train of thought. 

It was mom. 

Your parents were here. But how? How did they know where you were, exactly? Dread and expectation pooled in your heart, coexisting in a nauseating mix. 

Father must be thinking that you already caused so much trouble, they couldn’t know you were also hurt, you’d never hear the end of it.

But there was no time to think, the pain you should have been feeling was ebbing its way into your body, and she was calling in the night to inform you to get ready.

All hell broke loose when the man who held you tight from your queue was shot right from the back of his head with an arrow, collapsing right on top of you. 

You couldn’t get away in time to not be crushed by his dead body and promptly got squished between the mossy soil and him, his gun was hurting you, the wound on your stomach getting in the way of you using your core to push the body off. 

How many minutes had passed with you struggling to get him off as a hurricane of bullets roared, you didn’t know (it hurt, pain was climbing towards the threshold) — mom was able to break free from the weight of a whole AMP suit, as you’d heard as a child, a Na’vi was naturally strong, but you couldn’t even crawl out. Panic was a rope tightening around your ribcage as your breathing picked up

All of a sudden, the weight was gone, and the only remaining thing from it was the big gun left from the avatar you found yourself hugging for dear life, eyes wide as saucers. Before you could see whoever had done that, you got hoisted up right back on your feet and tried to run, only to be held tighter and pulled behind the trunk of a tree.

“Hey, it’s me, it’s me!” Clumsy, overwrought hands were cupping your cheeks and — and oh, it was your father. 

You didn’t know whether to be afraid or cry from happiness.

Once he was sure you registered it was him by staring intently in your eyes with that edge of the softness you’d missed so much, his hold shifted to your neck and around your shoulders, and he gave you a look-over, checking for any wounds. Too bad what he was searching for was behind the gun you were holding. “Are you hurt?” He shook you when you were too stunned to answer. “Are you hurt at all?”

“No,” you shook your head automatically, it was weak against the explosions of bullets raining down all around you, but father had picked it up regardless, only focusing on you for the moment.

In the darkness, nobody could see the blood running down your body, that bandage had come out at one point. 

“On my mark, we’re gonna run, okay?” He nodded to you, tomahawk axe in hand coated in a dark substance, commanding your full attention. “Follow me. Ready? Ready?”

You weren’t ready at all, stomach feeling like it was being stabbed at every heartbeat, but you couldn’t tell him that. 

Instead, you ran like hell, moored by father’s taut clutch on your forearm pulling you forward to match his incredible speed dodging roots, bushes and branches. 

Things stopped moving only when you were enveloped in mom’s embrace, consciousness almost flying off from the relief that washed over you. Kisses were peppered along your hairline and forehead, her mumbling your name in gratitude blending with your panting. Tears burned bitter in your eyes, but you couldn’t cry, not when father was looking at you like that, chest rising and falling. You instantaneously remembered why you were holding that gun at the intensity he was radiating, tail escaping between your legs and letting mom hold you. 

At least this way he wasn’t able to objurgate you.  

Over her shoulder, you saw three ikrans instead of two. Heart soaring, you were skipping towards him in pure astonishment in a heartbeat. “Hey buddy!”  

His head lowered down towards you in bird-like movements. In this angle, it looked like he was giving you a razor sharp-toothed big grin. 

“He brought us here,” your mother said. The hand you were going to pet the ikran with stopped midway at her dejected tone. “You have passed Iknimaya, I take it. On your own.”

You didn’t know what to say, feeling immense guilt at having made her this disappointed over it. If this was any normal situation, any normal fight at all, you would have shot back with, ‘Well father told me to do it.’

But you were tired. 

Your pain threshold was being threatened, and you needed to get to your grandmother before any of your parents saw the situation you were in and this escalated into the worst fight you were going to get into in your entire life. 

Father’s only response was a dead cold, “C’mon, we gotta get outta here.”

He didn’t talk to you after that. Not one word. 

Squatting on an ikran’s back on a flight with an abdominal gunshot wound you were trying to hide was not an option unless you wanted to pass out midair and was looking for a free dive, so you were all but hugging the poor thing’s neck like a monkey, trusting him to follow your parents while you concentrated on mentally fighting to level out the pain. 

Nonsensical as it was to believe the gun stuck between your ikran’s neck and your stomach was acting as a tampon to lessen the bleeding, you were concerned with how dumb it must have looked to father and mom, how incompetent they must think of you that their daughter didn’t even know how to ride right. 

Got an ikran for nothing. 

Would they be less proud of you seeing how funny it appeared, nevermind that it was to contain your pain all the while not trying to faint?

But no words were exchanged about it. 

Father clamping up right after he’d made sure you weren’t hurt (yikes) had resulted in this awkward trip succumbing in total silence. They had sandwiched you between them, only necessary space for the ikrans to beat their wings freely left, so close that you could discern the scariest look on father yet, deepening the lines of age in his face while simultaneously expressing his barely contained desire to kill someone. 

A ticking time bomb. 

Forget speaking at all, but not only did he never address you until now, he didn’t even look in your direction for once. You knew because staring at him for five minutes straight for him to just acknowledge your existence had proven to be unfruitful. 

And the tears involuntarily streamed down your cheeks with how utterly worthless and alone that made you feel, trapped in this agony you couldn’t help but hide because he’d think you didn’t deserve to complain after bringing it upon yourself. You would rather bite your tongue and bear the pain than stay dreading his reaction. 

Yeah, no, he couldn’t know. 

Mom was looking over at you every one minute to make sure you were okay after her ears picked up on your sniffles, arrows of worry shot from her side sinking down your skin every single time, and you hated to make her this way. 

Your ikran kept comforting you through tsaheylu until you landed.

Father had promptly jumped down, agile and making haste away somewhere, passing you by and giving the cold shoulder. You all but slid off your own ikran, managing to make the gun stay where it should be, as you couldn’t help but weakly call out to him for one drop of consolation. “Father…”

He didn’t stop for you, quickening his steps, but his ears twitched, the tail beating the air ferociously halting and lowering before it returned to the previous motions, and those were the only indications that he’d heard it Lima Charlie.

The man just didn’t want to talk to you.    

And you had to make yourself believe it wasn’t the emotional devastation that had you falling down, but the wound sucking out all your energy now that you had gotten to safety. 

“Ma’ite?” Mom rushed to you. “Ma’ite, what’s wrong? What is it?”

“I’m okay, mom, it’s okay.” You were sitting on the floor, cross-legged. Thank goodness you still had the unbreakable willpower (and not the fear of Eywa put into you by father) to hold your shit together. “I’m okay. Just tired. My knees buckled. Weak, you know?” You swallowed, smiling. “I’m just… Just resting.”

Her gaze full of concern studied you, zeroing in on the gun you clung on for dear life against your stomach. Her hands lovingly brushed your hair, gripped your shoulders and elbows even though you were disgustingly clammy all over. It was grounding, anchoring within the ocean of pain washing over you in waves. 

“Oh, why are you sweating so much? You’re freezing.” You clutched the gun harder in a panic when she grasped it, most likely to put it away. It was the wrong reaction to have, but you weren’t exactly in the position to function healthily. 

Mom, as any other person would, got suspicious from it, her eyes flying up to your owlish ones — blanked out like a frightened animal. “You’re fine now,” she whispered, thankfully attributing it to how disturbed you must be, still not out of survival mode. “You are safe, my daughter. Mom is here.” She cupped your cheek, but every touch to your body hurt now, even when it was away from the gaping wound, still gushing blood, trickling down your hips and getting you scared that it’d be discovered once you stood up. “I’m here.” She searched your soul to know just why you were grimacing at her attempts of comforting. “I will take this now, you do not need it anymore.”

You snapped out of the gradually darkening gray haze mom’s lulling was laying you down gingerly into. “No, please don’t,” your breathing hitched. She was going to see. She couldn’t see. You had to avoid this somehow, as long as you could. Grandmother’s tent. You would make it, you had to.  “I’ll… I’ll just sit here for a while, okay? I need to just… take a small break, and then I’ll… Can you go back? I’ll follow later. Father is angry, I don’t—”

“Nonsense.” Incredulous and enraged suddenly about something you couldn’t put a finger on, and before you could stop her, she tried to haul you up with her by gripping your upper arms — colors exploded behind your eyelids, getting you you to lose consciousness for two seconds, your vision flooding back in a starry kaleidoscope. When mom’s voice reached your ears, it was in staccato exclaims your ears were ringing too much to discern. She was shaking you. 

You weren’t able to sit up straight anymore, leaning forward — mom had caught you, utterly confused and panicked at the same time. And then your head was lying on the crook of her elbow resting on her legs she’d tucked under herself. The moment you’d switched from sitting to straight up lying down was missing from your memories. 

A baby being cradled. Yes, this is exactly what it was like. Gentle arms surrounded you amidst the pulsating sea of agony. 

Your body was letting go, but your arms were vices around the gun, still holding that last line. Don’t let go. Don’t let go. They can’t know. Father will be so mad if he learns. “‘m okay… ‘st restin’…”

When your eyes cleared enough for the surroundings to be only a bit blurry, your mom was looking at the hand she’d just tried to take away the gun with, caked with your blood that had stained it, out of it and perplexed like she didn’t want to believe it. 

Her gut-wrenchingly stunned numbness sent the misery clawing its way inside into overdrive, pulling your consciousness down to the earth from the clouds it was ascending to. “Not mine,” you forced out, but it came out as begging. Everything was falling apart. The plan was so simple, why couldn’t you do anything right? “Not mine. Please. Mom, it’s okay.” 

“No…” Mumbling, she started sharply swaying back and forth, and with one brutally vigorous attack, she ripped the gun away from your arms, and hurled it away — then it was over. Your sob wasn’t due to the motion hurting you, it was all entirely for the broken wail of your mother at seeing the bloodied mess, tears spilling from her eyes as she reached down to press down at the pouring liquid. “No! No! Oh Great Mother! Why did you hide this! Oh, my daughter!” 

“No, mom, I’m fine, it’s nothing. Not my blood. Not my blood, okay?” You reached up weakly and wiped at her cheeks with trembling fingers, your heart got crushed worse than the pain could beat you down at her grief — lungs constricting. Where was all the air?  “I’ll get up. I’ll go to grandmother, don’t cry. Just resting.”

Frantically looking around, she yelled, “Jake!—” but her voice didn’t quite come out, breathy as if she’d been punched in the ribcage seconds prior.

A heartbeat’s worth of nothingness, after which you were full-on freaking out. Only one thought: Father will be angry. 

“No!” You shrieked, and blood swelled in one strong pump against mom’s fingers. She looked down at you in anguish, pupils blown wide, arm tightening around you as if you were a flailing bird. “Don’t tell him! Don’t tell father! He’ll really kill me for this—”

“No, no no no,” she shook her head, frenzied, tone cracked from beginning to end. “Do not say that. Don’t you ever say that—”

But you were struggling in her arms, wanting nothing but to crawl away into a hole, no reason registering whatsoever, only instinct. “He’ll be so angry,” you begged, pleading, pink spit bubbling at the corners of your mouth. The sound of gurgling accompanying the words you forced your whole body to form. “You can’t tell him — you can’t! He already hates me!”

The more you thrashed around and kicked your legs, the more you bled.

“Please, Great Mother!” The more mom lost her mind, hissing and howling hysterically, crazed, hugging you tighter and rocking. “Jake! Jake! Ma’Jake!” She put her temple against yours. “Not my daughter, please, Eywa…”

Why was she being like this? It wasn’t that serious! You were okay!

Delirium claimed you hot as she kept calling his name and her unbreakable hold on you kept you in a cage of a mother’s despair. In your feverish mind, a threat to your life was coming. Weakness spread like wildfire around your body and chipped away at the pain, slowly picking it apart to replace it with drowsiness. “Don’t call ‘im,” you continued to repeat, over and over again. “I’m just taking a break. Don’t call him over. He’s gonna be angry. He’ll hate me. He hates me. Please, mom.”

The sentences slurred together, shortened, wilted away pitifully, your voice died down, tongue deteriorating into only echoing, “He hates me.” A withered away, old flute. 

Your ikran was bellowing in the distance and you looked. The torches on cave walls were illuminating him and finally revealing to you his beautiful color scheme.    

And then your father was here, falling to his knees right beside you, his glistening wide eyes flying everywhere around your body — tracing all the blood, hands hovering above you as if he didn’t know where to start piecing a shattered vase back together.   

It was over.

Fully expecting the chastising you were about to receive to shake the floating mountains so bad the enemy would be able to spot you, you began to apologize — pride be damned, this battle be lost, you’d failed anyway. “Please don’t be mad,” you shuddered, meek and unsteady, tunnel vision flickering at the edges only perceiving him. “It’s my fault—I’m sorry—please don’t be angry—”

“Stop talking,” he ordered, rough and harsh, eyebrows knitted tightly, and out of breath — probably because of how hard he was trying to hold the anger back. You knew. That had to be it. “Don’t speak.”

Ah of course. This was only natural when he had refused to utter a single word at you the whole way, denying you the temporary comfort of a simple glance. 

Even the hand he pressed down so ruthlessly firm on your stomach it might as well be a boulder pinning you down was meant to be punishment, the whines your unbreathing lungs couldn’t stop turned into yowls — you hadn’t even noticed your hands were wrapped around father’s wrist in an effort to push him away, scratching him, but he only added his other hand on top of the other in return.

“Hang on, sweetheart, I got you, please hang on a little longer,” he pleaded, but you were already too far gone, Eywa was cruel to have plugged your ears to the endearment you’d been dying to hear from him for so long, making the last things you were aware father said to you the fact that he didn’t even want to hear you talking. 

And you fulfilled his wish. 

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[megalony]

Say It Again

This is my first Aegon Targaryen imagine, I hope you all like it. any requests and feedback would be lovely.

Taglist: @lunaticspoem @butlegendsneverdie @langdonzvoid @jennyggggrrr @rogmeddows @radiob-l-a-hblah @rogertaylorsbitontheside @chlobo6 @rogertaylors-lipgloss @sj-thefan @omgitsearly @luckytrashgooprebel @scarsout @deaky-with-a-c @killer-queen-ofrhye @bluutac @vousmemanqueez-blog @jonesyaddiction @milanosaurus @httpfandxms @saint-hardy @7-seas-of-fat-bottomed-girls @mrsalwayswritex @rogerina-owns-me  @hellsdragon @im-an-adult-ish @crazylittlethingg @allauraleigh @onceuponadetectivedemigod @ceres27 @avyannadawn  @noonenuts @sleepylunarwolf @coverupps @justagirlthatlovedtoread

Masterlist

Summary: During an awkward family dinner, Aegon is willing to sit back and bite his tongue at his nephew's disrespect. But when that disrespect is aimed at his wife, he cannot stand by.

Enjoy.

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"Are you sure you are well enough to attend dinner?"

"Aegon… I know what you're trying to do." (Y/n) looked down at her hands before she dared to look up at her husband. She raised a brow when he only smiled before attaching his lips to her neck like a starved vampire.

It would be a more fitting excuse for Aegon to say that they couldn't attend dinner tonight because (Y/n) didn't feel well enough. No one would bat an eyelid at them being absent from supper, given that (Y/n) was eight moons pregnant. And it wouldn't be frowned upon if Aegon didn't attend either and stayed to care for his wife. It was a better excuse than saying the future King didn't want to be around his family and would rather stay in his room with his wife and a jug of wine.

"And I know what you are like, dear wife. I seem to recall the maids interrupting dinner last week to tell me you'd fallen." He liked the way (Y/n) groaned beneath him when he kissed her jaw and hovered his lips over hers before pulling back when she leaned up to try and connect their lips.

His hand roamed across the expanse of her stomach and squeezed her curved hip before he shifted off the sofa and stood up. If they truly were going to attend then they needed to leave now before they were late. His mother would have his head if they were late, again.

"They were fussing," (Y/n) mumbled quietly as she held her hands out towards Aegon, a pleading look in her wide eyes to ask him to help her up.

It hadn't been as bad as the two maids had made it seem and (Y/n) flushed in embarrassment from the panic she had inadvertently caused. She hadn't felt well enough to attend dinner last week and when her foot caught on one of the many tables in her and Aegon's chambers, she went down with a thud that alerted the maids. The most damage was done to the table which legs had snapped, whereas (Y/n) only had a bruise or two and a sore hip.

The maids insisted on getting Aegon when (Y/n) felt too sick and dizzy to stand and both Aegon and his mother had come running just as (Y/n) started to feel better.

Aegon had barely left her side since.

"You hurt yourself," Aegon corrected, but he indulged her with a charming smile and gently pulled (Y/n) up to her feet.

His arm secured itself in its usual place around (Y/n)'s lower waist so his hand, clad with golden rings, could spread out against the expanse of her stomach. As much as (Y/n) loved how close Aegon was to her now she was pregnant and how it made it hard for him to keep his hands off her, she was ready to have this baby now. The constant aches and pains, the burning in her chest and the sickness she was still feeling, were growing tiresome. (Y/n) wanted her baby in her arms.

(Y/n) felt her stomach fluttering as if the babe could feel her adoration when Aegon pressed his lips longingly to the top of her head before they entered the dining room, apprehensive of what was going to happen tonight.

Everyone else was just filtering into the room, but at least the King hadn't arrived yet. Then they really would have been late if they arrived after him.

(Y/n) took her seat next to Aemond with Aegon on her right and a soft smile formed on her lips when she noticed her husband inch his chair closer until their arms brushed when he sat down. It was almost laughable how ungentlemanly Aegon sat, he slouched as if he wasn't the future king but an errand boy already tired of his job. His back slouched down in his chair, he brought one foot up to rest on the bottom of his seat and he propped his chin up on his hand.

It was a very enticing pose, one that made (Y/n)'s heart skip a beat, even if everyone else around the table glared and glanced at him with odd looks. Of course no one would say anything, what could they say? He wasn't going to act with etiquette just because people frowned at him.

Just the sight of the food made (Y/n) feel her stomach do summersaults and she knew if she ate a lot tonight it was only going to come back up later. She couldn't eat much, she would face Aegon's wrath of worry later. When a waiter leaned between her and Helaena and placed down a rather large plate of meat, the smell hit (Y/n)'s nose in an instant and her hand moved to press to her nose to try and block it. The smell would usually make her mouth water but now it made bile rise at the back of her throat that was tightening and she was almost gagging at the sight and smell.

"Will you try to eat something, for me?" Aegon's voice was so quiet (Y/n) barely heard the words that dripped into her ear like melted butter. He knew how to tease her and worm his way around her and he wasn't afraid to show it in public, either.

He perched his chin on her shoulder and pressed a butterfly kiss just beneath her jaw, feeling the way (Y/n) held her breath when he did so.

The longer (Y/n) went without eating, the worse she was going to make herself feel and the more she was going to worry Aegon. He had barely gotten through the first few months when (Y/n) hardly ate anything and spiked his worry to a peak.

Everyone knew that (Y/n) was Aegon's one weakness. She could calm him down from the most sour of moods, make him smile when others had only seen him frown and make him laugh when people only saw him cry. When (Y/n) was happy, Aegon was over the moon and when she was ill, Aegon was reduced to worrisome thoughts and troubled nights.

(Y/n) put a few sweet meats and a small lump of potatos on her plate because she knew that as long as she picked at something and tried to eat, Aegon wouldn't worry. And she could feel him smiling into her neck already because she was doing as he so politely requested.

Before a servant passing behind them had chance to reach the table, Aegon reached over and took the jug of wine from his hands with a smile and a curt nod.

He already knew that he was going to need more wine than this to get himself through this dinner.

There was no point them all being here, pretending to play happy families and everyone knew it. Aegon knew his mother hadn't forgiven his father for his lenience towards Rhaeynera and her bastard children and Aegon couldn't blame her. Not that it mattered very much to him, if things went the way his father had always said they would, then Aegon would never be in line for the throne, it would pass to Rhaeynera and her bastard offspring. That was how he wanted it. But something always told him he might see the crown one day and it was a frightening thought.

Aegon filled (Y/n)'s glass and his own but kept the jug very close to his plate, he wasn't sharing when he was going to be consuming a lot of wine tonight.

"Here, cheers."

The sarcasm that dripped from her husband's voice made (Y/n) shiver and she could feel his free hand roaming over her thigh, at any moment he would probably hike her dress skirt up like he normally did just to tease her since they were with company.

(Y/n) took a few sips before putting it down and leaning back in her chair, rubbing her hands over her enlarged stomach.

It took all (Y/n) had not to groan or sigh when she listened to Rhaeynera give her little speech about Alicent. Of course she would now give her old friend praise, but it was too little too late. Everyone knew of Rhaeynera's misdeeds, it was evident any time someone so much as glanced at her disrespectful offspring.

(Y/n) was just pleased that none of them were here in the Red Keep for long, her sons were insufferable and their constant bickering and tormenting was tiresome. Especially when they riled Aemond up for no good reason and that in turn brought Aegon into his brother's defense and he could be crude and ruthless when he wanted to be.

"Let me know when you want to go," Aegon took the liberty to pour himself another glass while his lips tickled over (Y/n)'s cheek and travelled across the shell of her ear, making her shiver.

She wanted to leave already but it wouldn't be polite to go when everyone was in the middle of eating. Aegon always said it didn't matter what everyone else thought or said, he would leave with her from any event if she wanted to go. But (Y/n) didn't want the fuss or the glares or whispers of they left too soon.

(Y/n) found herself drifting off into her own world, all the noises drowning out into static while the only thing that kept her grounded was the feel of Aegon's hand rubbing up and down her thigh. Occasionally squeezing the flesh like he was moulding clay between his fingertips. Leaning to the right, (Y/n) tucked her face into Aegon's neck and hooked her hand around his upper arm. She didn't have to look up to see the smile that danced across his lips, she could feel it when he turned to kiss her head.

But her attention was brought back to the chatter around the table when she heard Aegon whisper something to Jace who was sitting on his right. He didn't mean to rile them up but whatever he had said was clearly taken the wrong way. (Y/n) wouldn't have bothered to listen if it wasn't for Jace who leaned forward so he could look directly at her.

"And what time do you return to the silk streets?"

He spoke quiet enough so that no one across the table knew what he had said, clearly knowing he would be in trouble for being so inpertenant and rude but he wore a smirk that made (Y/n) narrow her eyes in distaste.

She hadn't even been engaging in the conversation yet he had brought her into it to try and rile both her and Aegon and for a moment she thought it was working. She felt her husband tense beneath her and his lips left her head so he could turn to his nephew, but instead of spitting venom at him like (Y/n) thought he would, Aegon leaned closer with a placid, neutral expression.

"Why, do you need lessons in that department? You do know what to do, how to put it in, don't you?" Aegon watched his nephew turn a shade of beet red before a satisfied smirk came onto his face and he turned away to lean back into (Y/n).

He would let the insult slide this time, but he wouldn't stand for it again. They could say what they wanted about Aegon himself and he wouldn't care, he had no self esteem left in him to care what anyone said about him anymore.

But (Y/n)… she was different.

She was Aegon's world and he wouldn't stand for anyone disrespecting her or saying anything degrading about her like that. If his nephews didn't have respect for (Y/n) Aegon wasn't going to be easy on them. Just like with Aemond, Aegon wouldn't stand for them tormenting his brother when that was his job.

When yet more unnecessary food was brought out to the table, it set off another round of tormenting between the boys at the table and the high princes who were not in the mood for games.

A shockwave bolted through (Y/n) and she jumped, sitting upright when Aemond slammed his fist down on the table and stood up low, stooping over like a predator assessing his prey. For a brief moment, it looked like he was going to lunge across he table at his nephews but (Y/n) didn't like the smirk that overtook her brother-in-laws face.

"And a toast, to my nephews. Jace… and Luke." Aemond knew what he was doing. The smile he wore on his face and how he deadlocked his gaze with Luke showed he was doing this as a taunt, a little payback at them both. He raised his glass high while Aegon raised his glass for all of one second before he emptied it. Again.

"Aemond…" Alicent looked up at her son with such pleading in her eyes but it was overshadowed and overlooked before he rounded the table to be closer to them.

(Y/n) could feel him standing beside her chair and she dared not lean back to look at him. She didn't want to know what taunt he was going to press because he had every right to be angry with them, but this was not the place to start a fight. Not at the dinner table.

"What? I'm only giving you a compliment. Don't you think you're strong?"

Aegon lowered his foot back to the ground and pushed up a little higher in his seat, but he made no effort to get up and interfere. His hand moved from (Y/n)'s thigh to reach across and take her hand. Their fingers meshed together and he brought their hands to rest beneath his chin while he leaned to try and see the interaction happening behind them.

(Y/n) could feel the rage seeping through Aegon the moment Jace landed a punch on Aemond's jaw, who surprisingly didn't flinch at all. Instead, he smiled something sinister. And she could feel her husband straighten up in his chair and grab the arm of the chair with his free hand. He wanted to intervene now but he also didn't want to move away from (Y/n).

If a fight did break out then Aegon wanted his wife as far out of the firing line as possible.

The way Aemond pushed his nephew down to the ground with a swift, fluid motion made Jace look like a little child trying to play a grown up game. Aemond didn't want to fight him, he wasn't worth the effort and he wasn't nearly as capable or skilled as Aemond.

Keeping hold of (Y/n)'s hand tightly in his own, Aegon pushed his chair back and stood up, pulling (Y/n) along with him so they could move away from the table and towards Helaena. When they passed Aemond, Aegon reached out and placed a hand on his younger brother's shoulder. As much as he would enjoy seeing a fight take place and watching his nephews finally be put in their place, he knew this wasn't the time nor the place.

"Brother, this isn't the time."

"You've made your point," Sympathy pooled in (Y/n)'s eyes but it was overcome by relief when Aemond glanced at both of them and nodded. He took a step back and held his hands out in front of him, a sign to everyone that he wouldn't retaliate.

"He listens to the whore too. Tell me, how much does she charge you for her services?"

If they'd of just walked away, let the argument go then everyone could retire and the night would be over and done with.

"Aegon-" (Y/n) held her breath when her husband tore out of her embrace before she had chance to hold onto him tighter and pull him back. She didn't care about the slurrs they called out to her, they were nothing but petty little boys egging on for a fight they couldn't handle.

She could feel Aemond's hand wrapping around her upper arm and reeling her back towards him when Aegon lunged.

Before anyone could stop him, Aegon swiftly latched his hand around the back of Jace's neck in a viper grip that took the younger boy by surprise. And with venom flooding through his veins, Aegon threw him down onto the table so hard Jace's head rebounded and slammed back down into the wood, rattling the plates and tipping over a few glasses in the process.

He couldn't stop himself from digging his hand further into Jace's neck and forcing his face down until there would be splinters poking through his skin and rubbing into his cheeks.

"Say it again. I fucking dare you." He spat through gritted teeth, punctuating each word like they were poison dripping from his tongue directly into Jace's ear.

Who did his nephew think he was to talk about (Y/n) in such a derogatory way? Why was he aiming his malice at her of all people?

"Aegon that's enough. Let him go, please." (Y/n) curled her fingers around Aegon's shoulders and leaned over his curved frame until her chest pressed down against his back. He could feel her erratic heartbeat and her harsh breaths pounding against him and it dampened some of the fire raging inside of him.

"I have no qualms castrating you in front of an audience if you talk to my wife like that again."

With a final shove, Aegon slid Jace across the table before he let go and straightened up. He shook his head to rid the silver hair from his eyes and took a step back towards (Y/n) as his chest heaved and his shoulders tensed. He was done with this messed up family. He didn't want anything to do with his nephews or his half sister who could have the throne for all Aegon. He just wanted them and all their troubles, gone.

Aegon barely turned his head to look at (Y/n) who was stood partially behind him on his left before a sudden movement sent him off balance.

In the struggle, Aegon wasn't sure whether Jace had aimed for him or (Y/n) but his weak punch ultimately landed on (Y/n)'s shoulder before he gave her a direct shove, thrusting all of his anger onto her and sending her tumbling down.

A gasp broke free from (Y/n)'s lips and she couldn't help but snap her eyes shut when Jace pushed her back. It didn't take much to offset her balance when her weight was uneven due to the baby and the force of the shove took her feet from beneath her. Both her hands reached out and clamped down around Aegon's arm and shoulder, her nails piercing into his skin when she fell until her back hit the table.

Aegon slowed down the impact but he couldn't hold them both up and stumbled down to his knees. He watched in fright as (Y/n) collided with the table before she slumped down to the stone floor and leaned back into one of the chairs which stopped her from lying flat on the floor.

"Sweetheart? Are you with me?"

Aegon leaned forward and gently cupped her face in his hands and swept his thumbs across her cheeks. When (Y/n) tilted her head back Aegon clicked his tongue and made her look back at him before he pressed his forehead against hers. He watched her eyes switch from side to side until her focus finally settled on his deep violet eyes.

After a minute or two, he felt her hand twitch against his shoulder and her hands shakily move down to hold onto his forearms and a deep sigh rumbled past his lips.

(Y/n) felt his lips smother her temple in a longing kiss that caused his fingertips to press deeper into her skin but when he pulled away, the violence in his eyes was terrifying. Aegon had never been the type to lash out, he bottled everything up and drowned in his sorrow. At one point in his very young life, he had taken his feelings out on the women in the silk streets and he would shout at his mother when he was overwhelmed, but that was as far as it went.

He was too used to pain that the sting didn't even bother him anymore, Aegon would drown his sorrows and take anything life had to throw at him.

But he wouldn't settle for this.

His mother couldn't have kneeled down beside them a moment too soon for as soon as she was next to (Y/n), Aegon left her side, if only for a few minutes. He could see his little nephew backing away towards his mother like a scared little deer about to be hunted for sport and Aegon wasn't having any of it. Jace couldn't get swaddled and soothed by his mother for doing this, not like Luke who got hidden and protected for taking Aemond's eye all those years ago.

The small dagger hidden beneath the belt around his hips had never felt so heavy when Aegon wrapped his slender fingers around the handle and swiped it as soon as he got close enough to his petrified nephew.

A blinding gleam sparkled off of the polished blade in the candlelight and reflected up into Aegon's maddening eyes.

He thrust the blade's edge against Jace's throat and agonisingly slithered it up higher and higher until his head was tilted back as far as it would go and the tip was pressing up into his chin. A small scrape appeared against his otherwise clean, pale skin but Aegon was already envisioning the river of blood he wanted to see coating the floor and seeping into the cracks between the stones.

When he noticed movement out the corner of his eye, something twisted crossed his face and he pushed the blade into the flesh until a small wheel of blood started to pool and taint the reflective metal. Rhaynaera stopped in her tracks.

"Any last words?" Aegon snarled, revealing his pearly whites that matched his crimped hair and his lips widened into a sinister grin.

He had no problem slitting his nephew from throat to groin right here with an audience. If he couldn't learn some manners and he didn't know what respect was then he shouldn't be in line for the throne he had no claim to. He shouldn't be standing here in a family that wasn't truly his by blood and he shouldn't act the fool if he didn't want to risk the punishment he was going to get. Aegon had been lenient, he had let Jace say slurrs to his wife and punch his younger brother, but he drew the line at physically touching (Y/n).

"Aegon leave him alone, stop this."

His mother's words did nothing to apease the fire raging inside his stomach and burning up through his chest. But when he felt his brother's hand on his shoulder and Aemond's whispers in his ear, he could feel a small slither of reason coming back to him.

"It's not worth the chaos it would ensue, you should tend to your wife." Part of Aemond would happily watch his brother disembowel their nephew and see the grief that would overcome their wretched half sibling. But the other part of him, the more sombre and sensible part, knew it was not worth the hassle.

This would cause a scene, a battle between the family and the constant fighting and bickering and torments that would follow if Aegon truly killed his nephew, was not worth it. Not when Aegon had a wife who needed him this very moment who he should focus his attention on.

Aegon punctured the blade into the soft skin beneath Jace's chin and dragged it along the side of his jaw. He relished in the swallowed cry Jace didn't want him to hear and the tears that flushed his tense, shaking face and the way his jaw clenched and his cheekbones popped out. He enjoyed the suffering and his nephew's screwed shut eyes from the minimal pain Aegon was inflicting.

He finally tugged the blade free and swiped it slowly along Jace's tunic, cleaning the blood off before he lowered the dagger to his side.

"If you so much as look at my wife again, I will disembowel you," He sneered each word quietly in Jace's ear so no one else would know what made him whimper in fear. "Leave."

He scuttled away like a rat jumping from a sinking ship and it quelled a small flame inside Aegon.

When he turned around, (Y/n) was already back on her feet with Alicent's arms safely around her in case she needed support or took a funny turn. His mother had never looked more relieved than when Aegon walked back over to her and encased his arms around (Y/n) so he could take his wife into his own arms and out of hers.

(Y/n) let her head fall against Aegon's shoulder and the cool leather was welcomed against her burning skin. But it was his hands feathering up and down her hips that made her sigh and his lips pressed against the side of her temple.

"Are you alright?"

"Hm, I believe so."

When Aegon circled an arm tightly around her waist and slowly began guiding them both out of the dining hall, (Y/n) buried her face into his neck and curled her fingers around his hip.

Aegon wouldn't let anything like this happen again.

[uravichii]

* ੈ✩‧₊* you fell first, but bakugo katsuki fell harder

notes: pls idk what this is ive literally never written anyth like this but ive always wanted to write a fic w/ this prompt,, also im thinking of doing an angst version of this 🤩

genre: fluff, lovesick bakugo + reader flirts w/ him a lot, childhood friends to lovers, tw: BARELY PROOFREAD ‼️

bakugo katsuki doesn't know anyone who annoys him more than you do.

he doesn't believe he's gotten this far in one piece when he's been stuck with someone like you since childhood. there's something infuriating about the way you tug on the strap of his school bag when both you and his mother are insisting that you walk to school together in the morning. it's even more infuriating when he doesn't know what in the world is fluttering in his chest and churning in his stomach when you start tugging on his sleeve instead.

bakugo katsuki has no idea why and when exactly he started doing it, but now his blood boils watching that dorky smile on your face while he carries your bag to school every morning and on the way home too.

"katsuki." you playfully bump your shoulder against his arm and grin, "you love me, don't you?"

"i'm doing this 'cuz you look like a fucking camel with this bulky ass bag of yours." he scowls, trying to ignore the tiny, tingling spark he felt on the fleck of his skin that met yours for a single second. "what hell is even in this, rocks?"

"is your back hurting? let me give you a back massage then. c'mon, take off your shirt and lie down."

he grimaces, a flush of scarlet spreading from his cheeks to the tip of his ears.

"what?" you chuckle. "you know we've seen each other naked before, right? remember when we used to take baths together as children? i even let you touch my-"

"shut the fuck up, l/n."

it's maddening how easily you fluster him, like it's your second nature. a teasing remark and a single wink, and he's all over the place. all he can do is click his tongue and walk straight ahead of you (though occasionally looking back if you're still with him)

bakugo katsuki tries to counter your flirty remarks. he can do better, he swears he can. a multitude of emotions takes over him when he sees a sliver of your underwear peeking through your clothes. his cheeks flush and his nails bury into his palmsー partly from the thoughts racing relentlessly in his head, and partly out of wrath for anyone who would dare to ogle you or loudly point it out to the whole room.

he stands protectively close behind you like a guard dog, obstructing anyone even a glimpse. he speaks in a low voice you didn't know he was even capable of, his breath grazing your skin. "oi. nice underwear." once again, he's annoyed to the brim hearing that faint tremble in his words.

he's relieved and all the same, flustered, watching you realize and immediately fumbling with your clothes, but no matter how many attempts, no matter how much he swears he can be a match to you and your teasing nature,

"nice? i'll let you borrow if you like it that much then."

you are the only losing game bakugo katsuki has ever been in.

what annoys him even more is that for some reason, he's able to bare his soul to you, in spite of the sheer ugliness, the cruelty of it, and the pathetic, endless heaps of insecurities overflowing from him.

he presses his palms against his face in a futile attempt to muffle out his angry sobs. you brush a hand over his heaving shoulder, "it's gonna be okay, katsuki. i promise." when he doesn't flinch nor pulls away, you gently coax him into a light embrace, your torsos barely touching yet emitting such intoxicating and soothing heat onto each other.

"the fuck are you crying for?" he snaps, confused and concerned as to why you're suddenly sniffling with him.

"i know, it's stupid." you hug him tighter. "i swear i'm not making this about me. i justー i wish i knew how to make you feel better."

'annoying,' he thinks as he hugs your waist and buries his tear-stained face into the crook of your neck. "i'm going to kill you if you tease me about this tomorrow, l/n."

"hey, i don't do that." you whisper comfortingly despite the threat. "you know i won't."

he knows you won't.

most of all, it gets on bakugo katsuki's nerves the most when he remembers you've had genuine, actual romantic feelings for him since you were children, and it's not just fickle banter and incessant flirting here and there.

"shit. your fever's still high." he mutters, pressing his large palm on your forehead. it astounds both of you how it almost covers your whole face. mindlessly, he shifts his palm sweetly to your cheek, tucking in any stray hair out of your face. what in the world have you done to have him wrapped around your little finger like this? you have him buying you medicine and checking your temperature with pure and utter concern, feeding you food he cooked specially for your taste, and holding your perfect little hand just because you asked him to.

"thanks for taking care of me, katsuki."

"you're a pain in the ass, l/n."

katsuki anticipates another joke or a flirty remarkー something about ass most likely, but then you look up at him, widely staring, and you speak in the steadiest voice you could muster, "am i really?"

he doesn't answer.

"can i tell you something?" you continue. there's a pang in katsuki's chest when you slide your hands off of his. "i like you, katsuki. i still do after all these yearsー"

"shut up. that's your fever talking"

"no, this is just me talking. even if i wake up tomorrow and don't remember anything i said to you today, i'll probably end up saying the same thing again someday, and my feelings won't have changed at all."

steering clear of your eyes, katsuki starts rearranging the stacks of medicine on your nightstand and adjusting your blanket when your frail hand latches onto his wrist.

"i just need to know if you're actually uncomfortable with me or if i have absolutely no chance at all, then i'll stop. i'll distance myself from you even. if that's what you want."

he would never forgive you nor himself for it.

you laugh weakly and continue, "and then maybe i'll just date todoroki or somethingー"

"fuck it." he hisses. he swings the blanket over your face so he won't have to bear your gaping eyes when he spits out, "dumbass, i do like you. don't ever do that, jesus."

there's half a minute of silence between you, him still distraught over the mere image of you and todoroki, and you still buried in the blanket, sinking everything in. you pull the sheet slowly until your eyes peek out. it's unbelievely annoying, again, how fucking adorable you are, katsuki thinks.

"you do? since when?" you ask in a tiny voice that will echo in his mind for the rest of the day, he knows it.

"does it matter?"

"no?" you pull the blanket over yourself again.

and then another minute of agonizing silence.

"katsuki?"

"what? you need anything?"

"yeah. kind of."

"what is it?" he starts to panic a little, "tell me." your fever completely slipping his mind in the heat of the moment.

"can you tell me you like me again when i get better? i have a feeling i'll remember this is a fever dream, then i won't stop talking about it to you, and it'll be so embarrassing."

his mouth quirks up into a smirk. "how about this," he pulls the blanket off you and leans slowly, your cheeks flushing even hotter. he brushes his hand against your forehead and gently presses a kiss, his heart in shambles when he catches brief sight of you shutting your eyes tight. "i like you."

you open them again to see a devilish smirk on his face, except it's noticeably much softer than the usual one he wears. he kisses your cheek next, inhaling your scent as he presses his lips against your warm skin, "i like you."

you're a whole mess now. it's the feverish heat spreading across your cheeks as his hand makes its way to yours under the blanket, the close proximity of bakugo katsuki, his scent, the immense heat that gets you dazed and hitches your breath when he props his forehead onto yours. it's the years of closeness and familiarity you've always shared with him, now blooming into something more, like a flower that has just learned to face the sun and bask in the sweet, easy morning air.

"i like you." he says again. maybe he is a match for you after all. "if it's the only way to shut you up. i'll tell it over and over again."

you fell first. bakugo katsuki fell harder, much harder. seeing you escape under the blanket again and squealing when he tries to pull it back down, he doesn't remember what is it that he found so terrifying in falling in love with you.

it's you, after all, isn't it? the most annoying little shit he's always loved.

[darlingofvalyria]

❝I am going to make him bow to me, brother. Mark my words.❞

[ Jace does not yearn for you. Does not wish for you. Does not want you. But oh, lies are bitter and brittle under a tongue that yearns to taste. ]

[ +18 MDNI ] [ 4,753 ] [ series masterlist ] | jacaerys velaryon x targaryen aunt!reader (aegon's twin sister), might be small aegon ii x reader but it's one sided on aeg's behalf, sorry.

contains— manipulative reader, targarcest, mild nsfw, angsty - CANON DIVERGENCE - use of bastard, mentions of alcohol and slight phys. abuse (otto's a dick) - sort of non canon compliant, timeline is loosey goosey; in the books, rhae & dae visit kings landing frequently even after moving to dragonstone, so im going by that - nsfw: male masturbation, strong allusions to sex but no actual woohoo, creampie - no kings, no martyrs, no betas. unedited.

a/n— for my boy jace, the prettiest dark haired prince there is. simp!jace you will always be loved by me. comments, reblogs & like at will! + dividers by @danowh0re + accompanied song: SWEAT— HAYZ.

Aegon, under the guise of weighty cups and half-mast eyes, slides beside you, following your gaze as you appraised the entrance of the Strong bastards into the courtyard.

"Are you sure about this, sister?"

"Does wine taste like heaven under grandsire's scolding, brother?"

Aegon snorts. As your twin, the difference between the two of you are more stark than people might think. Though you share the childish, almost babe like features that usually got women to bow down to Aegon— with your doe eyes, the soft cheeks, and the curled pout — where people think Aegon is a horrible mess of a git, your shared grandsire the forefront of this slander, you are quite the opposite. Beloved, dutiful, and innocent in the eyes of many.

It didn't matter that you wore green as prettily as your mother, or that your twin is a mess of wine and women— you were different. You were kind, pretty, and enticing.

A precious flower among green thorns, the smallfolk whispered.

People had even commiserated how, despite the typical Valyrian looks of silver-gold hair and lilac eyes, your Hightower lineage softened your edges. Your looks.

Your personality.

Snort.

"You know Aemond would rather see you insult the little bastard in half, than whatever it is that you are thinking of doing."

You hum as you don't remove your gaze from the dark haired prince, making jokes with his younger brother, Lucerys. From the corner of the courtyard, you and your twin could see Aemond sparring with Ser Criston with more vigour than he usually did, especially at the time of day. Occasionally, he spared the younger Strong bastard a glance that spoke of trying to unearth his insides from his body, no doubt imagining the very same as he swung his blade.

Aegon and you shared a look, stifling laughter, before you focused back on your prey. Jacaerys Velaryon. A name he uses like a shield despite having not a single drop of the sea in his blood. All you had to do was look at the dark hair, the skin and the nose of the First of Men before him.

How your half-sister Rhaenyra can say he was a Velaryon with a straight face is beyond you.

Your gaze might be searing as Jace looks up at the balcony from where you had been idly staring at him for the better half of the time, and you give him a wry sort of smile. A soft sort of smile. An acknowledgement. Just as he makes a nod of hesitant acknowledgement— unlike your brothers, you had not join in on the hostility and mean-spirited comments — you had already turned fully to Aegon as if you are enraptured by conversation.

"It's a contingency plan, my darling Aeg," you say softly as you brush the back of your hand to his face. You are aware of Jace's gaze now focused on you and your twin and you make it good for him. You make a performance. You follow the steps you've practiced so eagerly.

And eager for your soft touch, Aegon's eyes flutter in response. Ever since you were young, and seeing how harsh everyone is of Aegon and his failures, you decided you would be the kindness to him.

Though you do like him, another contingency plan for him wouldn't be so bad, would it? After all, you can bet on a lot of things, but your grandsire's award-winning thirst for power and your mother's malady to anxieties are good tidings to see them planting Aegon on the throne and usurping everything from your dearest, oldest sister.

Aeg didn't need to know that, of course.

What he can know and what he can help with, is making sure Jacaerys was looking as you smiled softly at your brother, your gold and silver spun hair bathed in morning light, and in one of your favourite dresses— a white silver dress lined with black lace and green embroidery of dragons — you were angelic personified. The Maiden come to gather and soothe your dearest brother.

You capture Aegon's face in your hands, ever soft, ever sweet, as you smile at him. He's so deprived of physical touch that doesn't harm him that he sighs against your palms. You do feel a little bad, but you need this plan to work.

"I am going to make him bow to me, brother," you whisper, giving him a soft kiss to his temple. He shudders, hands placing them on your waist, enunciating the kind curves you sport. "Mark my words, that boy king will stifle under my hand and foot. Mother's fears will not come to fruition. All will be well."

"I am older than you," he says softly, half smiling.

A gaze sears at the side of your face, as strong as the concussive heat radiating off a dragon's maw as your thumb brushes across your twin's cheek.

There is that, you think amusedly. No one can deny the little heir is his mother's child. Bastard he maybe.

"And I am better," you whisper, snickering.

"That you are." But his gaze is past you, back at the courtyard, at the reason for the heat in your skin. A spark of jealousy is quick in his mulish blue eyes but you only laugh. Light but loud, echoing.

"Come," you say with finality, taking a step back and offering your hand as you make the conscious choice of not daring even a peripheral glance, and heading back inside the keep. "We shall see them at dinner. The king's orders."

Your brother makes a sound crossbred from a huff and a groan, and you are already making plans to ensure his wine is controlled for the night, lest he makes a fool of himself in front of the King— or gods forbid, your grandsire — and mayhaps ensure the seating arrangement once again with your mother.

But everthing else is background noise; your schemes and your plots, your facades and faces, because a faux Velaryon has made it known that he cannot keep his gaze away from you.

Everything else is moot.

Jacaerys Velaryon, firstborn son of Rhaenyra Targaryen, soon to be Heir to the Iron Throne and Prince of Dragonstone, does not understand himself.

Perhaps you are just eye-catching. Your hair is more gold than silver, but it shifts like a mirage against sunlight. You yourself seem to change under shadows and light, as if you're casting a new spell again and again. Your eyes, your lips, the slivers of presented skin (have you really shown this much skin, all this time?), and your hips.

They sway, like a panther's.

Like a dragon's.

Jace has always known you to be pretty; Helaena has always been his favourite aunt with the fact that she's quiet and doesn't antagonise him like your brothers. Because Helaena simply cared little for him not because he was Rhaenyra's son, or that he didn't look like his father, or because he was a prince of the realm set to become heir once his mother was crowned.

Helaena simply just didn't care about him as a human not as hisn ame or his blood, her thoughts lingering more in her bugs and the fat babes she had with her brother, humming nonsensical under her breath. Not insults.

You were different. You looked. Jace knew you looked but he had never caught you before. It's a dance, he later realises come dawn he is awoken and there is a weight on top of him in rings of gold and silver, breathing softly— alive and so very warm, and from that moment, his — but for now he doesn't know.

Doesn't understand.

Your gaze is weighty, leaving searing imprints like a dragon marking it's favourite horde. But it's so hard to catch.

It started at the training grounds. As if his Uncle Aemond's wasn't enough, there was yours. He knew but could only see once, and even that felt like it was deliberate, a mere nod. As if you controlled how he worked around your sphere, and by gods, were you beautiful. Then you had turned to your twin brother as if he was nothing to you— really, he was, in the scheme of things, you were the secondborn daughter of the Queen, no matter how pretty your visage or blood is, you are a woman and a third child (right after the firstborn daughter and son), and in the other end, Jacaerys was the first son and heir of the Princess of Dragonstone, soon to be Queen. In fact, you should be nothing to him.

He was to become King, and you to be offered to a lord. To be someone's wife, to relinquish your surname and become someone's mother. Rear your new lord husband countless of babes and live your life having fulfilled your sole duty.

It is a fact that tasted brittle and bitter in his tongue, like soot and ash, and he doesn't understand it. You had crossed his mind, idle as it maybe, from time to time, but nothing concrete. You are pretty, you are kind, mischievous at times, playful, and you purposefully don't keep him long in your orbit.

You were just another aunt. Aegon's Twin Flame.

Misbegotten to not even marry your brother.

It was at dinner that night, amongst clinking goblets and fat foods spilling the edges of the table, his grandsire having arrived, even Aegon, rumpled hair and sunken eyes but dressed and suspiciously sober— and you, your mother's favourite, her most affectionate daughter, late.

"Where is she?" Jacaerys heard the Lord Hand asked, but the Queen had no reply, as confused.

And then you arrive, not ten more minutes later, and Jace's entire body had locked.

Though he did not know why or what, he knew you were up to something. You arrived in a new dress from this afternoon— close to it's style, nothing like the Queen's or Helaena's, conservative high necks and pious ever green— no, you came as a surprise with a flutter of a silken hand and an embarrassed laugh, tipping to your father a kiss on the side of his good face.

Even as you sat, it took a good, long while before the chatter would arose again (from your gracious laugh at your father's compliment no less), before everyone's eyes— even Criston Cole's, ever loyal rat — would lift from your visage.

You were ethereal, simply put, in a dress that is not of pious ever green or high collar trim; but in a flutter of what Jacaerys remembers as his mother's gown when she was pregnant with Aegon, and the days got too hot. When the babe inside her, made of pure dragon, had made her a furnace burning from the inside out.

It was the same lightweight material draped over your skins, a thin material bunched up several times so it is not too sheer. Not too inappropriate. Jace doesn't know what the fabric is, doesn't care to, but it looks like flowing water against your body. It moulds to your movements. Your shape is obvious, so are the expose arms, collarbones, your chest dipping low, too low sometimes when you lean over and laugh, eyes alight— Jace's eyes cannot stay away, they are glued to your necklace, to the top of your smooth breasts — and the dress is held together in links of golden dragons, your hair made up in braids, in pearls and small emeralds, with curled strays framing your cheeks and smile, your exposed neck.

It was meant to garner looks, compliments.

But it was the colour that Jacaerys knew it was meant for him.

At the centre of your chest— your bosom that dips, two mounds, so soft looking and the urge to reach over and press his fingers down, see how soft and pliant you really are, hear the kind of noises you make, in pain or pleasure, his thoughts make him hiss, tightening his hold on his wine, pinching nails to skin to ground himself — it starts off a darken green, shifting, blending to a winter green, a bluer green, a seafoam that he is more than familiar with, before escaping the edges in deep water blue.

The colour of his father's house had never looked so good, so charming, so sinful before.

He tears his eyes away from you because it is improper to be staring so, to be looking at you and feel like he is feasting when he is rooted in his chair and still so hungry, especially with the plans of betrothal with Baela, his mother had already asked him if she is ever in his thoughts.

Baela who sits beside him, ramrod straight and keen-eyed, respectable Targaryen lady, a confidant and a good friend. She would make a good queen in the future, he had thought so before. Respectable and fearsome, the best parts of his stepfather and the late Lady Laena.

He shakes his head, swallowing down his slice of veal before he kicks Luke's leg under the table.

His brother yelps, a mournful irritated sound for his eyes had ogled far longer (just like he, but would never admit) on you than was proper, reminding him, and yet when you look up at the sound, your eyes— have they ever been so violet? — lands on him. Again.

When your gazes meet, he is enraptured, but he clears his throat and nods. "You look good, aunt." And because he cannot step, because his thoughts are cloudy and you are looking at him as if you know he can't stop looking at you, as if you can read each filthy thought he tries to stifle, as if you like it, he continues, "The sea green is a nice colour on you."

He can feel eyes on him, even the Lord Hand's. Even Aegon, goblet pressed against his lips, hiding a smirk. He burns, but he doesn't burn as bright when your smile stretches, your lids lower, and he burns so bright he fears he might be on fire.

The flames are licking him and he does not mind, so long as you keep your gaze.

"Thank you, nephew," you hum. "That is so very sweet of you to say."

And Jacaerys blushes, coughing once when he notices his lady mother giving him a look. Knowing. Curious but not probing, not yet. What he doesn't notice is the Queen's perceptive frown as she gazes at her daughter, the Lord Hand's raised eyebrow, or Aegon trying so very hard to stifle his laughter, turning to Helaena as if he is saying something to her.

But what Jacaerys does see is Aemond's intense glare, sharpened and rekindled and suspicious, and Daemon... The Rogue Prince is eyeing you differently. No longer just another Targaryen bleeding Hightower green, no longer just another offspring of the Hightower cunt.

No, Jace can almost see inside his stepfather's brain and see the Valyrian looks. The body of a woman freshly sloughed off the body of a child.

You are pretty and young and Daemon Targaryen is looking at you.

It shocks Jace how much he despises it.

It is for my mother, his thought persists even as he looks at you again and his insides whirl. I am upset for my mother.

Daemon Targaryen can see plainly what you are doing.

You've always hated that about men with good insight, who do not care for what is between your legs, only for your actions. For what it might do for what he cares about.

And Daemon cares for Rhaenyra, for Viserys, for the Targaryen legacy, pure and untainted.

(As if the blood of the First Men is okay to bastardise his bloodline but gods forbid the oldest and greatest of the Great Houses).

And he is now looking at you as if he has noticed the steps and webs you have spun around for his stepson, the direct legacy, and he is amused.

The dinner comes to a conclusion to a small dancing, and your twin, dutiful to you and your orders you had told him as you cleaned and prepared him for dinner; stood up, brushed himself off, and politely asked Baela for a dance— the latter looking so surprised he was fully sober, much less asking for her hand — that she found no excuse, and reluctantly accepted as they pivoted to the centre.

As Daemon continues to look at you, to unravel you as if you are an enemy in a battle map, you stand up quickly and turn to Aemond, smile wide and fake.

Jacaerys won't ask you to dance. He had drawn looks with his compliment, suspicion. Grandsire was right, they are planning to marry him off to Baela to strengthen their cause. Jace will not entertain anything anymore publicly.

Duty bound, honour bound.

But, but, but.

you are not a fool, you know men and their pissing contests. You are a daydream hiding a nightmare.

For the past few minutes, he had noticed Daemon's inquisitive, amused appraisal of you, and his brown eyes (pretty for a bastard's; Ser Harwin's lashes must have been long) had burned a different fire and it gives you an idea, an exhale of relief.

Jealousy can salvage anything.

You just need to push him.

And Aemond is beautiful, a true Valyrian King in visage, the Warrior come alive. You look so much softer when you are beside him.

"Sister?" Aemond looks up at you, curious, confused since the beginning of the night. There is a plot he isn't privy to, and he has been spearing glances at you, at Aegon, at his grandsire just in case he knew anything.

You were unmarried while Aegon had married Helaena. Your time is coming, and he loathes the idea of a betrothal to the Strong Bastard. He had made his complaints known when the missive came from your sister, asking sweet Helaena's hand for your son thinking your mother would have surely betrothed you to your twin.

Neither side knowing you had almost sent back your name, offering your hand.

"It has been a while since you had asked me to dance, little brother," you say, hands behind your back, framing yourself soft and playful. There are so many gazes on you, you play with it well.

"I was ten and one then, mandia sister, a boy."

"Too long," you tease. "Kessa ao daor lilagon lēda aōha mandia, valonqar? Will you not dance with your sister, little brother?"

He hums, acquiescing easily, and standing up. You peel a laughter that attracts a chuckle from the king. This is how you dance around the palm of Viserys I. Men like it when you play a part. Not to cost trouble, not to step over the line.

You aren't the elder sister, the firstborn child. You are means to further a line, not to have any important position. Rhaenyra is the exception only from the womb that bore her. You, like Helaena, are likened to fall in line and act like you like it. Like being a fat, old lord's wife has always been your dream. Bear his babes and suffer the trauma of hanging your life in the balance to produce them into the world.

It makes you burn with rage most days.

"What are you doing, mandia sister?" Aemond whispers against your cheek after having brought you close, dancing through the steps swiftly, keenly. It truly is a shame that Aemond doesn't dance oft.

"Won't you just believe and put your faith in the sister that you adore?" you snipe playfully. It's easy to use Aemond's hair to hide the glance you drop Jacaerys and see the seething glare he burns through your baby brother's head. Lust, yearn, jealousy— they dance and cook in his gaze. You giggle despite yourself.

"Grandsire will not allow you to marry that bastard," Aemond hums, unable to hide his irritation. You roll your eyes. Clever little brothers.

"As much love as I can grasp from my heart for our grandsire, valonqar, I am a dragon. I will take what I want. A tower is nothing to dragonfire. Grandsire oft forgets I am a princess of the realm and he is only a lord." You step back and bow as the song ends, as your father tires and wishes to go to bed. He only stays this long, or even leaves his chambers, when Rhaenyra decides to deign Kings Landing with her presence.

Always more for the heir. More effort, more love, more care.

And what is left for the other daughters of Viserys I?

He remembers Helaena's existence less, and if you do not make it a point to visit him everyday— to entertain him, read to him, laugh at being mistaken for Rhaenyra — you are sure you will be nothing more than a faint dream to him.

Your anger licked dark and green. Inside, it rages.

You watch as Jacaerys Velaryon says something to his mother, a rushed farewell, an excuse— a press of your fingers against your lips as you catch his breeches are tight, that his jaw is clenched — you step closer to Aemond once more, Aegon now drifting away from Baela and back into your orbit.

"Don't worry, little brother, I do not actually desire the Strong bastard. I want his crown."

Aegon giggles breathlessly, eyeing as Aemond's eye widen a fraction before he composes himself. "And what do you need now, sister, to accomplish such a beguilingly easy task?" Aegon snorts softly. There is only a faint scent of alcohol on him. You take it as win. "He's like a green boy from a quick flash of your chest. What more your tits in full display?" He leans close, mean and adorable. "You do not want a husband who is too quick for your own pleasure."

You swat his arm, pinching the soft flesh of his stomach before Aemond fully throttles him.

"Watch your tongue," Aemond hisses, fists clenching.

"It is okay. I take no offense, he is just being silly to rile you up," you placate him, pulling your twin closer to you just as Helaena approaches, shuffling close to your other side, burying her head against your collarbone. You hum, letting her quietly choose which physical affection she can take from you.

The four Green children, missing one. Scales of the dragon they may have, green fire burning from their maws. The four Green children, miss one. Sons and daughters of Viserys I. Nothing more than wombs and seeds for his legacy.

You finally turn to Daemon's probing stare and you keep it. "Keep his family away from him," you whisper to your siblings. You do not care if he understands. At this point, even your grandsire may have an idea for your plots.

And for the crown, for his lineage, no ambition is too small.

If he can send your mother to an old, grieving man after he had butchered his first wife, what ease it is to send a granddaughter willing to dance a scandal?

"I need him alone tonight."

You do not come to him immediately, more than knowing what he is doing. Maegor's Holdfast is a fun little place, with its secrets and tunnels. You had already studied the path to his apartments beforehand, and you are there, against the hidden way, hearing him fuck his fist to the vision of you, your name dripping and spitting from his pretty red lips.

You catching him after the high, chest up and down breathing hard. There is a self-loath, a disgust. You can just read his thoughts. When you enter, he is alarmed, a sword in his hand, guarded replaced to shock at the sight of you.

"Aunt," he whispers, appalled. Lustful. Righteous.

You tilt your head, unsmiling. You guard your thoughts as you approach, hands behind your back, voice soft. "Do you always reach to completion with my name in your tongue, nephew, or is today an exception?"

Jacaerys Velaryon flinches, sword hand dipping. "I—"

You are close, a hair's breadth away. Amusingly, he is struggling with himself. His honour in one hand, his desire in another. He wants to leap away from you and pull you close.

His choice is still open.

You answer for him.

"Would you like to know whose name falls from my lips when I reach completion?" you whisper against his lips. So close but still so far. Your fists are clenched behind your back, nails drawing blood. You cannot fail now. The Rogue Prince might be wandering now, ready to yank you or kill you.

You are a viper in a vipper's nest, and Daemon Targaryen is too late to realise you only want one true victim.

Jacaerys is drawn, the shock of your words melting to make way for the flutter of his eyes and the full shudder of his body as you lick a strip across his bottom lip, staining him.

Break yourself for me, Strong Boy, you think as he opens his eyes and stares at your lips. Break your oaths, your promises.

"Whose?" he asks, voice hoarse.

The surrender is at the hands he has brought first to your hips before he rose it slowly up and up, until his warm palms cupped your jaw, your face, swallowed in his hold. It is a delight to know his hands are bigger than your face, that he is told to tower over you. A boy king grown.

"Yours."

He groans but does not let you go. "I am betrothed."

You still. Such a Good, Strong Boy, resisting until the very fucking end. "I have not heard of such announcements, nephew."

"Mother will announce soon."

"Is that what you want then?" You grip his hands and stride forward until your are chest to chest. Until he can feel every outline of your body against his, until you can feel the hard line of his manhood against your stomach. Until he feels his own body breaking his oath.

"Please, Jace," you whisper, you beg. Your eyes begin to water. "I want you to take me... Only you. I have longed for you for so long. Your mother— my sister betrothed you to me first." He leans back, surprise flitting. "Yes, my love. But my mother had refused. I— I thought you would see it nevertheless. The affection in my gaze, the smile I give only to you. That I am offering my heart, my soul, my body to you. Only to you, Jacaerys."

Your tears are running down now, your voice so soft and so desperate. Where lust had clouded him, it is now tinged with a flattered adoration.

Men are so simple. Boys far simpler.

"I thought you knew," you say at last in a voice as broken as your heart. You take his hands away and step back. He grasps but you turn away, a sob wracks from your chest as fake as when you were a child, trying not to get in trouble with your mother so she can fire the septa that you hated. She had sneered at Aegon's drunken folly and was disgusted by Aemond's fresh wound.

You wanted her gone.

"Aunt, I—"

"It is alright," you cut him off. You turn back slightly, your smile watery, your gaze to the floor. "Aegon did not choose me either, unlovable as I am. Men only want me for my body and nothing more. I-I'll leave you be. Good night—"

You never finish your spiel because he had yanked you, hard, against him, his lips moving against yours— clumsily, not enough practice but aggressive in its desire — pressing you against him as if he is trying to swallow you whole.

Jacaerys is not bowing, not yet. But that night with his seed warm and full inside your womb, his body encased against your own, tightening whenever you made a movement, as if in fear any step you take away from him would slip you so freely from his fingers— his mouth, his lips, bruised by your own making, pressing featherlight soft against the side of your head, your hair — it is not too soon to think the boy king will bend the knee to you and only you.

And maybe the babe you bear him, but there is no need to rush. These steps are delicate but sure.

After all, he has only just cemented the thought that he will whisk you both to Dragonstone at first light, a traditional Old Valyrian wedding.

He will bow soon enough.

For now, you will enjoy your glowing win.

[snipersfucker]

As someone new to transformer fics, I'd love a fic where Mirage and the reader learn what the others name for body parts are (hand/servo, etc.) And obviously Mirage uses it as an opportunity to put the moves on the reader.

yall are so creative with these i legit opened my mouth when i read that...... such a good idea omg lets go (im so deep in that shit i legit remember most robot names for these body parts without having to look em up lmao)

"That's a chassis."

You let out a sigh as Mirage pointed at another part of his metal body. You knew you wouldn't be able to remember all these ridiculously strange names, but still wanted to be a good student, especially because you asked him to teach you.

"Mine's a bit bigger than the ones your little boys have."

And there it was. His constant bragging, showing-off, comments that indicated he was damn aware he was better than humans.

You raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him, not having to look up that much because he was sitting on his... aft. Or something.

"Helm, face plate, optics, pedes, tank..." He kept pointing at random body parts of his, naming them as fast as he could just to get to the most interesting ones he could use to finally rizz you up.

"'m surprised you don't have a diploma for being the best teacher ever, Mirage," you muttered under your breath shamelessly, sarcasm dripping from your tongue as you stood there with your arms crossed on your chest.

He liked the way you said his name, even if it wasn't in a particularly nice tone.

"No speaking unless you're being spoken to, miss," he reprimanded you like a strict teacher would, using his best Optimus Prime voice. Then, before you could talk back, he extended his left arm, putting it right in front of your face. He made a fist but allowed his middle finger to stay up, "What's this called?" he asked you, even though you haven't gone through this particular body part yet.

"Flipping someone off, sir," you answered in an overly eager, sweet tone, as if you were trying to sound like the teacher's pet.

You calling him sir made his spark skip a beat or two.

"Wrong." He lowered his hand and placed it on his metal thigh with a soft clang. He shook his helm in fake disappointment, letting out a long sigh. "It's a digit. And what do we do with digits?" he continued in a teacher's voice, making a specific motion with his servo to encourage you to answer his question, even though he automatically did so in his mind.

We put them inside disobedient girls.

"We flip people off, sir," you responded in a fake innocent, childish tone, straightening your back and smiling widely as if waiting for praise for giving him a good answer. It made you cringe internally but you also thought it was funny so the choice whether to continue talking like that or just leave was easy to make.

He snorted at your words, shaking his head in amusement once more as he brought his servo to your body and flicked your arm gently with his two digits.

"That's what we do with 'em."

"Oh, fuck off." You smacked his servo before he could pull it away from you. Even though you could barely feel the flick of his robot fingers, you still massaged your arm, hoping it'd make him feel at least a little bit bad, and he'd stop bullying you.

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" He raised his optical ridge at your words, not being able to fight back a teasing smirk forming on his lips.

You could kiss me with that mouth.

As soon as the thought appeared in his mind, he immediately got rid of it, not letting it distract him.

"Tibulen, cadulen..." he began naming other body parts, and there was no way in hell you'd be able to remember those. "Glossa..." He stuck his metal tongue out, pointing at it lazily with his index digit.

A question popped up in your head, "You got saliva?"

For the first time, you were actually curious about something, expecting an actual, truthful response, but instead you got what Mirage was best at. Sarcasm.

"Oh, yeah, our saliva's made out of corrosive acid actually. Cool stuff." He shrugged nonchalantly as if what he just said was nothing. "Want me to spit on you so you can get the drill?" he asked overly casually, already slightly leaning in your direction.

He was having so much fun...

You grimaced at his question, even though you knew he was most likely joking. Most likely.

"Pass," you murmured under your breath.

"...But there are other ways you could... feel it."

His time to shine has come which he was very much aware of.

His unnecessarily mysterious tone made you snort quietly, an eyebrow involuntarily raised as you asked him with amusement dancing on your tongue, "Care to share?"

He tilted his head with a very, very sly smirk on his lips, which partly gave you an answer to your question. The realisation almost made your face drop but you contained yourself, and just rolled your eyes at his silent offer, pretending not to notice the heat spreading across your own cheeks.

"No."

"I didn't say anything," he responded in an amused, innocent tone, raising his servos in a defensive gesture.

"Yeah, but your eyes said a lot," you argued, the sudden shift in your confidence making you unable to find the situation as funny as before.

He made an unbelievable amount of butterflies awaken and fly around in your stomach, and as pleasant as it felt, you couldn't show him that.

"Optics," he corrected you immediately, playful superiority in his tone coming back just in time to crush you once more. He leaned in, making the gap between your faces a lot smaller than before. "And I'm pretty sure you're just imaginin' things," he added teasingly, the smirk almost challenging you.

His plan was working.

"Am I?" You tilted your head slightly to the left, your gaze never leaving his blue optics.

The intensity of your eye contact made him back off just a bit, before he shook his head in both amusement and surprise at the sudden comeback of your confidence.

"We're not done yet," he just said, which may have sounded like a warning but you felt like he was talking about something else than this game you were both playing. "I didn't show you everything," he explained, even though this lesson about his anatomy was the smallest thing occupying his mind at the moment.

You refrained yourself from frowning, feeling pretty sure that he'd already named every single body part of his possible, but you didn't want him to notice how little attention you were actually paying. So you just nodded, getting ready to hear more of that very interesting stuff.

"...Ever seen a metal dick?"

Your jaw almost dropped when your brain registered his shameless question. You couldn't even say anything to that, just unsurely shaking your head to show him that you, in fact, have never seen a metal dick.

And you thought he was about to offer to present one to you just now, but he just let out an amused noise. "Too bad."

And with these words, he transformed into a silver Porsche and drove past you towards the exit of the garage, leaving you confused, breathless, and wanting something more...

might make a part 2 for this with smut if you want

[cloudluvrrr]

"...I'm like your mother" Dan Heng x reader

minilial - asked: "Dan Heng with lazy reader so he would always act like a nagging mother and often scold reader"

--

why r the ones w black hair and emo the most put together cahracters dude (and the ones i want)

anyways HERE YOU GO POOKIE 💞

-- in the afternoon - the cardigans

-

you two were and unlikely pair, the most lazy and clumsy person (you) and dan heng the quiet rational one on the express.

-when he sees you lazing (wtf i s that a word) around he'll wack you with paper and drag you along with him to organize the archives (yay)

"this isn't fair" you huffed organizing the information he'd given you form penacony. "just do it, you have nothing better to do" he replied reading a book on the floor. "well your reading a book!" you mocked looking over at him "because I finished all my work, what have you done besides play game on your phone?" he said looking up at you. ".." with nothing to say you returned to your work, mocking him and grumbling under your breath.

-Even though neither of you have energy you two squabble a lot

-often about you doing nothing while he does all the work

-but he loves you beneath all that scolding and hitting

-he'll show it through buying you trinkets 😜or food (both r good)

-

you two were cuddling in YOUR bed (bc he sleeps on the floor like a weirdo) he read a book as you loosely followed along, before he remembered something. "hey did you clean the hallway like i asked" he asked looking over at you, soon realizing you forgot and looked away. "..yes" "don't lie to me, do i have to lock your phone away again. "WHAT NO" immediately getting up to do as your told.

"...I'm like your mother, telling you what to do" he said watching you get up. upon hearing this you stuck your tongue out and went to clean the hall.

-like i said before he often wacks you on the head, or tugs at your cheek/ear.

-when everyone else is gone though he'll kiss your cheek and rub it

'you dont listen to me, its for your own good'

'your not my mom your my boyfriend'

'.....'

-well more often than not he'll find you laying on the couch or sleeping, which he will drag you, and make you help him do something.

-that or he'll scold you for being on your phone too much

-and then you'll insult his phone case

-which ends up in him confiscating your phone and making you read

-but he loves you really, he can't really show it. But when your sleeping he will tuck you in and kiss your forehead. Or leave you credits to spend where ever the express is parked

-its when your awake where the problem begins

'i hate you' you grumble cleaning the windows alongside him

'you love me'

'....not right now'

--

this one is short and kinda bad but I HOPE YOU ENJOYED 😭

dude i got an email from my school

I WILL NO LONGER BE FREE 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔 im old as fuck

THANK YOU FOR 24 FOLLWOERS 😭😭🥳🥳

im glad you guys like my shit posting and bad fics 😍

(btw can u guys tell hwen i post from my computer vs my phone

-- COMMETN LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE I LOV YOU

[milessluvr]

༊࿐ ͎. IM INLOVE WITH YOU!!

݁ ִ ࣪⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ REQUSTED BY MY FRIEND ! SHE HELPED ME ON THIS ! ݁ ִ

࣪⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ WARNING PURE FLUFF BLACK READER USE OF THE N WORD (?) MAKING OUT ADULTS DNI!!

“don’t we look cutee?” y/n said viewing the photos they took at the photo booth.

 "Of course you would think we look 'cute'," Miles sneered, crossing his arms rolling his eyes. ‘‘you’re the one with all the lipstick on.’‘ 

“well duh because it looks good on me” y/n said placing the photos down fixing her brown-ish lip combo.  "

No it doesn't," Miles scoffed, "You're embarrassing yourself." miles pulled out his phone scrolling on instagram  

“meanie.. don’t be jealous that my lip combo looks better on me than you.” y/n said. 

" mami i don’t wear makeup the last time i did your sister forced it on me." Miles said looking down at his girlfriend placing his phone back in his pocket.

"So what... do you want a another photo?" Miles said crossing his arms. 

“Nuh uh you said I’m embarrassing myself !” y/n said huffing and turning away from him. 

"That's not stopping me tho mami.," he said  again, his hands holds yours fingers connecting. 

 he pressed his lips against your own as he wrapped an arm around you to pull you in tighter. 

Miles's lips pressed firmly against hers, holding her close with his free arm while he kissed her. His tongue caressed her lips, tasting the fruit flavor coming from the lip stick as they kissed longer and longer. 

Miles finally pulled away, breathing heavily, a light smirk spread across his face.

“I keep forgetting how much of a good kisser you are.” y/n said. 

"I could say the same for you," Miles laughed softly, running his hands along her body as well. He kissed her nose affectionately and then her lips once more.

Miles smirked playfully and placed a  kiss on her forehead, his lips lingering against her skin lightly. Then he pulled away, leaving her with a playful wink and a smirk.

“Miless we gotta head home or your mother gets mad she’s hella scary when she’s mad..” y/n  said.

"You're right," Miles sighed softly, "If she doesn't whoop me herself, she'll definitely send Aaron to whoop my ass."

“I thought uncle Aaron been stopped doing that ?” y/n said.

"It's not as often, but he still does it." Miles groaned, "I'm pretty sure he enjoys doing it."

y/n giggled hearing miles groan

"Hey, hey, don't laugh at me." Miles scoffed.

“why not It’s funny !” y/n said smiling while saying it.

"Well, it's a good thing I'm handsome then." Miles joked.

Miles stared at you for a few seconds before speaking up, "You ready to go home?’’ miles asked 

“I’m ready to go home we can finish this at home..” y/n said

Miles smirked and offered her his arm. "Shall we?"

“We shall.”   y/n said

[tilebytiles]

settle for a draw - a.t.

summary: you didn't expect to meet a cowboy. you didn't expect to fall in love with him, either. word count: 5.5k warnings: age gap (reader is 20, alex is 25) a/n: im not the only one who sees tbhc alex as a cowboy ..... right </3

You shouldn't have been so surprised to see the figure approaching your parents' farm, riding his trusty steed and kicking up dust as he approached. You lived on a farm, for crying out loud. You knew the rural life was one a lot of people chose; the countryside was beautiful, for one, but it also offered the perfect chance to get away from it all. None of that stopped you from practically gaping as who you could only assume to be a cowboy approached the front gates.

Okay, maybe you were stereotyping by calling him a cowboy, but he certainly looked the part. One hand was firmly clamped down on his hat, preventing it from being swept away by the wind, and the other clutched the reins, guiding his horse forward with practiced ease. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing tanned and muscled forearms, and the undone buttons of his shirt offered you a sliver of his chest, the gold chain around his neck jostling with each movement.

You were content to stare (ogle), but your father came up beside you on the front porch and clicked his tongue. "Should go see what he wants," he said.

You looked over at him. "Me?" He nodded. "But you said-"

"Y/N, if he tries anything with you while I'm standin' right here, I'm gonna rip him a new one and make sure he sees God."

Your father had a funny way of showing how much he loved you.

You descended the steps and hitched your skirts up, rushing over to the front gate right as the dashing stranger slowed his horse to a stop, gently petting its mane. He looked down at you and tipped his hat politely. "How do you do?" His voice was smooth like velvet and deep, reaching the sort of vocal depths that made your stomach tingle.

"I'm fine, thank you," you said softly, lifting a hand to shield your eyes from the sun. "Can I ask what you're doing here?"

"Ah ..." He released the reins to dip his hand into the bag attached to the saddle, pulling out a rolled-up sheet of paper and handing it to you over the gate. You unfurled it and observed the printed colors, taking note of the hastily scribbled markings, presumably by his hand. It was a map. As you looked over it, he said, "Been travelin' for a few days and decided it was best to take a rest. I'm low on supplies, and I wanted t' see if you could help me out any."

You looked back up at him. Your family had never housed anyone outside of your relatives before, but you didn't see why you couldn't accommodate this gentleman. Granted, you'd only spoken to him for ... a minute, max, but he seemed nice enough. Plus, there was a spare bedroom in your house, and your mother was always guilty of making too much food ... You undid the latches and pulled the gate open, producing a thunderous creak. You really needed to oil the hinges soon. The stranger smiled at you, taking the map when you offered it back to him, and stuffed it back into his satchel before swinging one of his legs over and sliding off his horse. He was taller than you, but not by too much. You led him to the front porch, where your father still stood, and asked, "Papa, can he stay for a few days?"

Your father eyed the supposed cowboy for a few long, long moments before finally sighing and nodding. "You better stay away from my daughter," he said, pointing his finger rather threateningly at the man.

The man was at least smart enough to nod quickly. "Of course, sir. I wouldn't ever think o' trying anythin' with her."

Your father slowly nodded in approval before turning to head back into the house, presumably to update your mother on the situation. You watched the door shut, then gestured for the man to follow as you led him around to the back of the house, where the stables were situated. If he was content to remain in silence as you opened one of the stall doors so he could lead his horse inside, you had other plans. "What's your name?"

He glanced at you for a second as he led his horse into the stall, releasing its reins once it was inside. "Alex."

"Alex ... ?"

"Turner."

"That's a funny last name."

He cocked an eyebrow, following you as you picked up a nearby bucket to fill the trough in the stall with water from the pump behind your house. "Well, what's yours?"

"L/N." You dropped the bucket into the grass and began working the pump, your brows scrunching together with exertion.

He crossed his arms over his chest, the muscles in his forearms flexing with the movement. "I could argue that's no better than mine."

"I never said it was."

"You got a first name, miss L/N?"

"Y/N." Once the bucket was adequately filled, you lifted it up (trying to ignore the way your arms already wanted to give out) and hauled it back to the stall Alex's horse was in. "How come you're going to the mountains?"

He watched as you poured the water into the trough - it only filled it up about halfway. Silently, he gestured for the bucket, and you hesitated before handing it to him. He headed for the water pump, but you remained by the stall, leaning against the wooden beam that reached up to the stable ceiling. "I got some friends up there," he said, speaking louder so you could hear him. "Plan to stay a week or two with 'em, then head back home."

"It'll take you a couple more days to get there."

"I know. That's why I'm restin' for a few days."

You immediately noticed how much faster he was than you at filling the bucket up. You wanted to be surprised, but you knew you couldn't - he was a skilled rider, and if he was a cowboy, he likely had multiple horses. He knew what he was doing, and his muscular arms hinted at years of practiced motions such as these. He lifted the full bucket with ease, too, as if it was little more than a bundle of feathers. You wondered if he was showing off, only holding it with one hand while you'd needed two. "What's your horse's name?"

He stepped past you to pour the water into the trough. "Lizzie."

You eyed the horse for a few moments. Yeah, she looked like a Lizzie. "She's pretty."

He smiled at that - a small smile, but one nonetheless. "D'ya wanna pet her?"

You blinked. "Can I?"

He set the bucket down outside the stall and pushed the stall door shut, nodding at you as he did so. "She won' bite, if that's what you're worried about."

You stepped up to the stall door and slowly reached your hand out, letting your fingers brush against the top of her nose. In response to your fleeting caress, Lizzie leaned her head forward, her eyes fluttering shut - a silent encouragement. You gave her a more confident pat on her head, then ran your hand along her mane, marveling at how smooth the hairs were. She truly was a stunning horse.

Beside you, Alex was still smiling; you could see it in your periphery. You turned your head to look at him while still offering Lizzie affection. "What?"

He shrugged. "I dunno, 's just always nice t' see people interactin' with her. She's a real attention seeker, y'know. Don't be too nice t' her, or she'll never leave you alone."

That made you laugh. "Is that how you ended up with her?"

He nodded, reaching his own hand out to scratch under Lizzie's chin. "Found her near my farm a few years back. Poor girl was shiverin' to death - looked like she hadn't eaten in a while, either. I gave her some food an' before I knew it, she wouldn't stop nuzzlin' me, demandin' attention. I didn't see the harm in bringin' in one more horse."

"How many do you have?"

"Countin' her, five."

Five? Your family only had two. Maybe your cowboy theory wasn't so far off. Speaking of ... "Are you a cowboy?"

Amusement immediately engraved itself into his features. He opened his mouth to answer, but right as he did, your mother's voice sounded from the back door of your home. "Y/N!" she called. "Time for dinner! Bring your friend, too!"

Beside you, Alex snorted. "I'm your friend, am I?"

You just rolled your eyes and motioned for him to follow as you left the stables.

As soon as you stepped past the threshold of the back door, the smell of herbs filled your nostrils, urging you into the kitchen to find the source. Your mother had just finished plating and was setting a pot down on the stove when you appeared in the doorway, Alex in tow. She looked over at the both of you and smiled. “C’mon, sit down,” she urged, gesturing towards the dining table. You were both quick to acquiesce - you were hungry, and Alex was starving.

Your father appeared and sat across from Alex, your mother sitting across from you. You picked up your cutlery and began to cut into the chicken breast on your plate; the sounds of forks and knives clinking against plates, along with glasses being set down on the table, filled the room. Your mother’s cooking was divine, as always, and you were content to sit in silence and devour everything on your plate. Your father, however, had other plans, and after wiping the crumbs from his mouth, said, “I saw John’s boy in town today.”

Your ears perked up. “Julian?”

He nodded. “Spoke to him some, too. John’s lookin’ to sell one of his horses. I was thinkin’ to pay him a visit tomorrow.”

Your mother, not wanting Alex to feel left out, asked him, “How many horses do you have?”

“Five, ma’am,” Alex said.

“What’s your name, anyway, boy?” your father asked. You wanted to kick him under the table for the way he said it.

“Alex Turner, sir. My farm’s ‘bout a three-day trip from here.”

“Three days? What the hell are you doin’ out here?”

“Goin’ to the mountains, sir, to stay with some friends o’ mine.”

Your father simply nodded and stuffed a forkful of roasted potatoes into his mouth. You looked over at Alex and asked, "Do you think you could help me with some chores after dinner?"

"Now, Y/N," your mother said, "Alex is probably tired from all the ridin' he's done."

"No, ma'am, it's no problem." Alex smiled softly at you, the kind of smile that made your stomach feel light. "I'll help you."

You returned his smile. "Thank you."

After dinner, you helped your mother clear the table, get the leftovers into containers that went into the fridge, and wash the dishes. Once you were finished in the kitchen, you headed out into the back with Alex in tow. "We have to make sure everything's locked up," you explained as you walked, "and set the traps for the night."

"Gotcha." You were surprised when he didn't question what the traps were for, but you quickly reminded yourself he had a farm of his own; he probably set traps, too.

While you set about making sure the stables, barn, henhouse, and pens were all locked, Alex worked on the traps. Somehow, he knew exactly what to do without you telling him, and as you passed him on your way to the henhouse, your brows furrowed. "How do you know how to set them?"

He looked up at you from where he was sat in the grass. "I have these traps on my farm. They're the cheapest an' the most convenient."

"Oh." Now you felt a bit silly for asking.

Once you were both finished, you made your way back inside, making sure to lock the back door behind you. While you'd helped your mother in the kitchen, she'd told you she'd already made up one of the guest bedrooms for Alex to stay in, so you led him upstairs and down the hall, stopping in front of the last room on the right. "My room's right across the hall," you said, looking up at him, "so if you need anything, just let me know."

"Okay." He smiled at you. "Thanks, Y/N. Have a good night."

"You too, Alex." You watched as he stepped into the bedroom and flashed you one last smile before shutting the door.

•••••

By the time morning came in the form of rays of light filtering through the window and incessant bird calls from nearby trees, you had forgotten Alex was staying for a few days, not just last night. In fact, you’d nearly forgotten about Alex entirely, resulting in you letting out a yelp when the door to guest bedroom across the hall creaked open to reveal a human figure. A ghost? No one had stayed in that bedroom since your relatives came for the holidays. Your house was haunted, you needed to tell your parents -

“Y/N?” The sound of Alex’s voice was like a lighthouse in the storm, clearing the dark clouds that obscured your vision. No ghost - just the man you thought was a cowboy. You made a note to ask him about that again later.

“Oh …” You cleared your throat, crossing your arms over your chest and leaning against the doorway of your own room. “Hey.”

He cocked an eyebrow at you and leaned against his doorway, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He still wasn’t dressed, you noticed. He was like you and ate before getting ready for the day. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

You stared at him, opening your mouth to respond and closing it again when you had nothing to say. Finally, you looked away and mumbled, “I forgot you were here.”

He barked out a laugh at that. “Did you now? Guess I scared ya, huh? Sorry ‘bout that.”

You didn't say a word and quickly headed for the stairs.

You saw your mother setting plates on the dining table, but your father was nowhere to be found. Confused, you asked, “Where’s papa?”

“He went to go talk to John ‘bout his horse, remember?”

Oh. No, you didn’t remember.

Breakfast went by quickly, with neither you nor Alex saying much. Once you were done eating, you went back upstairs to get dressed, then headed outside to tend to your morning chores. Your first stop - the henhouse.

You set down the wicker basket you’d brought with you on the ground and hauled the sack of chicken feed up into your arms, grunting with the effort. You did an awkward little waddle around the yard, scattering feed as you went. Once you were satisfied with the coverage, you set the sack back down by the henhouse, then picked your wicker basket back up. You undid the locking mechanism and opened the henhouse doors, immediately greeted with a cacophony of clucks. “Good morning to you, too,” you hummed, watching as the hens headed down the wooden ramp in a single file line.

As you poked your head inside, examining their nests, you heard a voice behind you. “Any luck today?” Alex.

You straightened up and deposited the few eggs you’d found into the basket. “Just a few,” you said, looking up at him. “What are you doing out here?”

He shrugged, watching as one of the hens pecked at his boot. “I was gonna see if ya wanted t’ take Lizzie for a ride once you were done.”

You smiled at him. “I’d love to.”

His gaze snapped up to meet yours, and he returned your smile. “D’you need any help?”

“Actually, yeah …”

With Alex’s help, you were able to get the rest of your chores done with ease. Having someone help you made it all go by much faster, and you were already dreading the day he’d have to leave. Maybe you would need to remind your father of the idea he’d had of hiring a farm hand.

You stood and watched as he opened the stall door, stepping inside to get the saddle and reins back onto Lizzie. “Is she the feisty type?”

He snorted. “Hell no. She’s a real sweetheart.”

You stepped aside so he could lead Lizzie out of the stall and followed behind him as he took her out of the stables. The two of you (three, technically) headed for the forest behind your house; it was your idea to take the unofficial path you’d trekked with your horse a number of times before. You came to a stop outside the tree line, and Alex held his hand out to you. You knew you didn’t need help getting onto Lizzie’s back, and you knew Alex probably knew that too, but you took his hand anyway, hauling yourself up onto the horse and clutching the front of her saddle to steady yourself. Alex hopped on behind you, his chest almost touching your back as he reached around you to grab the reins. You knew the close contact couldn’t be helped, but that didn’t stop you from blushing at the proximity.

He tapped the side of his boot against Lizzie’s side, urging her into an idle trot as he directed her into the forest. The scene was like something out of a fantasy novel: a couple of downed trees lined the path, covered in overgrown moss; you could make out the occasional cluster of mushrooms; and sunlight filtered down through the trees branches overhead, casting the path you were navigating in an otherworldly glow. You were half expecting fairies to start whizzing by. Behind you, Alex let out a low whistle. “This sure is pretty.”

You nodded. “I like coming out here when I can with my horse.”

“And what’s ‘er name?”

“It’s embarrassing,” you mumbled.

That only piqued his curiosity. “Embarrassin’? How could it be embarrassin’?”

You sucked in a breath before quickly muttering, “Twilightsparkle.”

“Sorry?” His knee bumped against the back of your thigh; whether intentionally or not, you didn’t know. “You’re gonna have t’ repeat that one for me.”

“Twilight Sparkle.”

Silence followed.

And then, in possibly the most mortifying outcome, he guffawed. “Twilight Sparkle?”

“I got her when I was a child,” you said defensively. “I wasn’t exactly a name aficionado.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” he chuckled. “Ain’t that one of the … oh, what’s that show-“

“My Little Pony,” you mumbled.

You could feel him nodding behind you. “Yeah, My Little Pony. You liked it when you were young, then?”

You nodded. Suddenly, you thought it wouldn’t be so bad if a giant hole opened up in the ground and swallowed you. “Twilight Sparkle was my favorite character, so when my parents got me my own horse, it felt fitting. I call her Twilight for short.”

“Just Twilight is less embarrassin’ than throwin’ the sparkle on.”

“You don’t have to keep rubbing it in, you know.”

“Sorry, sorry.” He chuckled again. “Definitely not the worst thing you coulda named ‘er, though.”

You rose an eyebrow and looked at him over your shoulder. “There are worse things?”

“Lot worse.”

“Like what?”

He grew silent, his expression turning to one of contemplation as he mulled it over. “One o’ my friends in the mountains is like you - got a horse when he was a kid. He named ‘im, uh … what’s the full thing …” Another few seconds of silent thought, and then he smiled. “Armageddon the Destroyer. The Third. Dunno where the first two came from.”

It took every last bit of restraint you had to not burst into giggles. “Armageddon the Destroyer the Third?”

He nodded. “He’s still got that damn horse, too. Likes to just call him Destroyer now.”

“Which friend of yours is this?”

“Matt Helders. If ya ever get to meet ‘im, don’t tell him I told you all this. He’ll throw me off the nearest mountain.”

You didn’t think you ever would meet him, but you made a mental note to keep this story to yourself if you did.

The three of you (it was only fair to count Lizzie, you thought) continued down the path, falling into a tranquil silence. You pet Lizzie’s mane and occasionally scratched behind her ears, eliciting a sound that you assumed was her way of showing appreciation.

Abruptly, you asked, “Are you a cowboy?”

There was a pause. “You asked that yesterday.”

“Yeah, and you didn’t get to answer.”

“Hm …” He sighed. “I certainly look the part, don’t I?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess technically, yeah, although, er, I don’t really go around callin’ myself one.”

That was fair, you supposed. “So is it, like, a generational thing?”

“Yeah. My dad was one, his dad was one, so on and so forth … the farm life’s the only thing I’ve ever known.”

“Do you like it?”

“Like it?” He snorted. “I wouldn’t trade it for a damn thing.”

You were going to be sad to see Alex go.

•••••

“I’m taking a bath,” you called down the stairs.

There was a beat of silence, then your mother called back, “Okay!”

It was the night before Alex would be leaving. He’d been an incredibly helpful guest; he’d always helped with chores without having to be asked, and your father thought him especially helpful because he kept you out of his hair whenever you got bored. You’d been taken out on Lizzie a number of times, told dozens of stories from Alex’s childhood and adulthood, and he’d even played songs for you on the acoustic guitar your father owned but never used. For the first time in years, probably, it’d gone a day without collecting dust.

You shut the door to the bathroom and stepped over to the tub, making sure to plug the drain before turning the faucet on and watching as the water began to rain down. As you waited, your thoughts drifted back to Alex - not just the stories he’d shared or the skill with which he’d played your father’s guitar, but the way he made you feel. You didn’t really like it; for one, you weren’t used to feeling that way about people, but you also knew nothing could ever come out of it. He was going off to the mountains to see his friends, and after that, you’d probably never see him again. He was always destined to just be a blip in your world. Plus, you felt incredibly silly for feeling anything at all, considering it’d only been a few days. Maybe you just needed to talk to people more often …

Once the tub was filled, you turned the faucet off and stripped out of your clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor. You stepped into the tub and sank down into the warm water, letting out a sigh of relief; it was an instant balm to your aching bones. You closed your eyes, content to think of literally anything, but your brain kept wandering back to Alex. His perfect eyes, his perfect smile, his perfect beard and perfect chest and perfect arms and perfect legs and perfect ass that you had unashamedly stared at once. Okay, maybe you were ashamed now, but at the time, you'd had to pinch your arm just to get yourself to stop staring like an idiot. You were hopeless.

You had seen him shirtless once. On one of the days where there was too much work and it was too hot to do it all. You were convinced you were going to explode when you saw him, chest and abs bared and sweating in the summer heat. He was probably used to being shirtless in weather like that, but that didn't mean you were prepared to see it. When he'd seen you gawking like a fool, he'd apologized and offered to put his shirt back on, but you'd told him it was okay and that he didn't have to under the guise of not wanting him to overheat. Deep down, though, you wanted to be able to ogle him, just for a little longer.

Were you only physically attracted to him? That thought haunted you like an unseen phantom as you worked shampoo into your wet hair. Of course he was attractive - he had the perfect body, in your eyes - but was that the only reason he appealed to you? You didn't think it was; you knew it would be a lot easier to get over his absence if that was just the case.

He would be gone tomorrow morning.

That became your mantra for the rest of your bath, and you kept repeating it to yourself as you dried off, emptied the tub, and got dressed for bed. He would be gone tomorrow morning. You left the bathroom and headed down the hall, stepping into your room. He would be gone tomorrow morning. You shut your door and let yourself succumb to the warmth and comfort of your bed, making sure to turn your bedside lamp off before drifting off to sleep. He would be gone tomorrow morning.

“Hey. Y/N. Wake up.”

“Huh?” You forced your eyes open and stared up at the partially illuminated figure that hovered above you. "Alex?" you mumbled. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanna show you somethin'," he whispered.

"It's late. Can't you show me in the morning?"

"Nope." He shook his head for emphasis. "Gotta show ya now."

You felt like a parent arguing with their child.

You forced yourself out of bed and slipped your shoes on at his request before following him out of your room and downstairs. You were expecting to go out the front door, but he led you through the back, making sure to be extra quiet to avoid waking your parents until you were both outside. You were both still in your pajamas, and you were still trying to blink the sleepiness out of your eyes. You followed him into the forest behind your house, confusion settling across your features when he suddenly deviated from your usual path and led you to a different part of the forest. What the hell was he doing?

Eventually, he stopped, and you nearly crashed into him. "We're here."

"You dragged me outside in the middle of the night for-" The words died out in your throat as you realized what you were seeing.

You'd never gone this deep into the forest before, so you had no idea a scene like this even existed. The trees opened up in a wide circle, revealing a little pond surrounded by different stones. The grass was soft as it brushed against your ankles, and flowers were scattered all across the ground, practically beaming up at you. You felt like you'd stepped into some pocket dimension.

"Come on." Alex nudged you and stepped further into the clearing, and it was at that moment that you became aware of the blanket tucked under his left arm.

Your brows furrowed. "What's the blanket for?"

You watched as he laid it out in the grass, making sure it was neat and straight and there weren't any rocks hiding under it for your body to find before straightening up and smiling softly at you. "Stargazin'."

Oh. You weren't annoyed at him for waking you up anymore.

You walked over and sat down on the blanket, removing your shoes and setting them off to the side before stretching yourself out. You stared up at the sky, mystified by the sheer number of stars you could see. "It's so pretty," you breathed.

"I was hopin' you'd like it."

You turned your head to look at him as he laid beside you. "Did you find this just for me?"

He nodded, his smile turning a bit sheepish. "I'd sorta stumbled on it the other day when I was out here. I've been meanin' to show it to you."

"Thank you, Alex."

"Ah, don't mention it." He turned his head to look up at the stars, and you stared at him for a beat too long before doing the same.

Silence consumed the both of you, broken by the occasional chirp or drone of some nearby insect. You didn't know what possessed you to shatter the silence and say anything, but after a few minutes, you quietly confessed, "I don't want you to go."

It took a couple of seconds for Alex to respond. "Why not?"

"I don't know." You crumpled up the fabric of your shirt between your fingers. "The last few days have been really nice, and I don't really want all this to end."

"I can't say I'm particularly fond o' goin', either," he mumbled, letting out a sigh afterwards. "I'd like to see my friends, of course, but ... y'know."

"Yeah."

Another minute passed, and then he rolled onto his side, propping his head up on his hand as his elbow dug into the blanket. "Y/N, can I ask you somethin'?"

"You just did, technically," you said, looking up at him.

He rolled his eyes. "Okay, smartass. You know what I mean."

"Go ahead."

"Have you ever ..." He trailed off, his expression growing pensive as he searched for the right words. "You ever left home before?"

You blinked in surprise. You weren't sure what you'd been expecting him to ask, but it wasn't that. "Uh ... no. Why?"

He shrugged, as if to brush it off and act nonchalant, but you could tell he was hiding something. "Just thought I'd ask."

"You're a bad liar, Alex."

"Why would I be lyin'?"

"I don't know. Why are you lying?"

He sighed. "I guess ... I dunno. It'd be nice if I could bring ya with me. I think you'd like my friends."

Oh. There was that fluttering sensation in your stomach. "You want me to go with you?"

"It'd be nice if you could," he corrected. "Way too late for that to get worked out. Plus, your parents might kill me. Or your dad would. Your mom's a real sweetheart."

"She does hate killing bugs," you mused. You thought on what he'd just said. "Why would you want me to go with you?"

He looked off at the pond, growing silent as he tried to figure out how to say whatever was on his mind. You waited patiently, and eventually, your patience paid off. "I think I'm growin' attached to you."

You stared at him. "What?"

He looked down at you. "I said it in English."

You wanted to slap him. "What do you mean, you're-"

"I like ya, Y/N. As in, I think you're cute, and maybe I wanna kiss ya."

If you were going to explode when you saw him shirtless, you were sure you were about to turn into a nuclear bomb.

"Oh," you managed.

He rose an eyebrow. "Oh? Is that it?"

"Well, I mean-" You sat up and turned your head to look at him. "I don't think ... I'd mind it if you kissed me," you mumbled.

He stared at you, his eyes widening minutely before going back to their original size. Now it was his turn to say, "Oh." He cleared his throat and sat up fully, looking down at the blanket you were sat on. He eventually looked back up at you. "So ... can I-"

You cut him off by crashing your lips against his.

It took him no time at all to react. His hand went to the nape of your neck, pulling you closer as your mouths slotted together perfectly. You didn't want this moment to end, but too soon was he pulling away to stare down at you. "Christ," he breathed. He dipped his head down to kiss you again, and again, and again. The onslaught of pecks made you giggle. Your blood was practically singing in your veins.

When he finally stopped kissing you, you smiled up at him. "I didn't realize cowboys were such softies."

He scowled, although you could tell there was no real malice behind it. "What, am I supposed to act all mean an' tough around a cute girl?"

Now it was your turn to roll your eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Call me cute again, and I'll get a big head.

"You'd still look cute if your head was the size of the moon," he hummed, leaning in to kiss you one last time.

You wrapped your arms around his waist and squeezed yourself closer to him, listening to his heart as it thrummed against his ribcage. "The next time you go to visit your friends, you should take me with you," you mumbled.

He pressed a tender kiss to the top of your head and murmured, "It's a deal, sweetheart."

"And I promise I won't bring up Armageddon the Destroyer the Third in front of Matt."

He let out a breathless chuckle and pinched your side, making you yelp. "If you do, I'm leavin' you up there to deal with him."

tags: @elexnorislingtxn / @edandmollydeservebetter / @sagegreensimmr / @billyseye / @supernaturalandpain / @not-a-big-slay

[copajay]

high society

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

masterlist

HAPPY NEW YEARSSS im going through a bridgerton phase rn and was reminded of my quarantine obsession w jane austen and enhypen so here's a jake period piece :P

summary: it's the early 19th century regency era, you belong to a well-known noble family but your father has been noticing a decline in his finances. determined to save the estate and his honor, he encourages you to mingle with any and every suitable bachelor in your town to secure the family fortune through marriage. none of them catch your eye, until you meet park sunghoon...'s stableman. (not proofread)

date: 01/01/24

scenario themes: period piece, rich girl broke dude cliche

idol: jake sim or sim jaeyun of enhypen

concept: fluff

warnings: mentions of hitting women (nothing crazy i swear)

word count: 7.28k

it was a typical sunday morning, you woke up in your satin sheets, calling to your servants to ready you for the day. after getting dressed and having your hair fixed, you made your way down the stairs to enjoy breakfast with your family as usual.

you've always enjoyed a life of luxury. belonging to a dignified household constantly bustling with an array of servants, housekeepers, cooks, and more, you never felt any need to marry.

why go from such a grand, happy estate to a smaller one to live with complete strangers as opposed to the hands that practically raised you? why abandon your daily latin lessons with your governess to listen to your mother-in-law lecture you about producing an heir?

luckily, you were the youngest daughter of six siblings, three girls and three boys. your brothers ensured your family name would survive and your sisters provided your parents with plenty of marriage proposals to occupy themselves with. there was absolutely no reason for you to be wed any time soon.

at least that's what you thought before you sat down to breakfast. "good morning, y/n" your mother greeted. "good morning mother, father." you acknowledged the man sitting across the table from you, occupied with a small journal in his hands.

as you were about to take a sip of your morning tea, you heard your father sigh, exasperated. "what seems to be the matter, father?" your elder sister asked, eyeing the journal.

"i'm simply going over finances. there's no need to panic as it is a matter of little emergency. we will need to find a new source of income by next sunday, and since your lazy and careless brothers cannot be bothered to fulfill their duties as men, it is up to you girls to marry men who can." he asserted.

unaffected, you continued to pick at your breakfast. you have two older sisters who are perfectly fit to wed, why should you worry?

"we have already begun looking for matches for catherine and y/n." your mother noted. your head shot up upon hearing your name, "pardon me?" you exclaimed, "what about arabella? she's the eldest of all of us."

"we have been looking for a suitor for arabella for a twelvemonth now. she is clearly unfit to be a bride, just look at her!" your mother began, prompting your oldest sibling to roll her eyes.

arabella has always been... unladylike to say the least. she sported breeches while horse riding and insisted on discussing politics and sports instead of more suitable feminine topics. it's no surprise most of the men in this age couldn't stand her.

you personally never minded. she did a better job educating you than your own governess, reading controversial female literature to you and encouraging you to avoid marriage for as long as you can, which you gladly did.

unfortunately, you weren't as forward as arabella. you wouldn't dare disagree with your parents like her, recalling how she boldly rejected a marriage proposal from a wealthy lord, angering your father.

you bit your tongue to prevent a protest from leaving your lips. what are the odds you'll actually find someone? all you have to do is push away all the suitors long enough for catherine to find someone. after all, she was a model young lady: quiet, pretty enough, and obedient.

you, on the other hand, could only be described as spoiled and insolent. perhaps not as impertinent as arabella, but you were definitely sassy in your own right. most men found your attitude off-putting and made empty threats to "whip you into shape".

"enough of this discussion. we will be attending a ball tonight in an attempt to mingle with some members of high society. I expect you girls to be on your best behavior. and be sure to invite any potential bachelors to our estate for tea!" your mother rambled.

you were undoubtedly annoyed at the circumstances, but oh how you loved getting ready for functions like these. wearing your nicest gowns, displaying your expensive jewelry and unique hair styles. then, actually arriving at the formal and being able to listen to delightful pianoforte and dance with strangers.

the ball was being held by the park estate, renowned throughout the province for being incredibly wealthy. the parks had four sons, two of whom were already married. which left sunghoon and jay as the biggest targets of every unmarried girl within a ten kilometer radius.

they were quite handsome, but you weren't interested in either. perhaps they'd make good matches for catherine, supplying your family with an alarming amount of wealth and allowing you to remain a happy spinster for the rest of your days.

before you knew it, it was time to ready yourself for the ball. excitedly, you threw on your finest corset and carefully selected your prettiest lavender gown, pairing it with a dainty pearl set.

as you situated yourself in the carriage with your sisters and mother, you couldn't help but zone out as they excitedly discussed meeting the park brothers. "i hope jay asks me for a dance!" catherine giggled, prompting arabella to shift uncomfortably.

she always seemed to react a bit oddly to any mentions of jay. you honestly didn't mind him, he's generous and far more liberal than most men. maybe not liberal enough for arabella, but you suppose nobody is.

by the time you reached the park estate, you excitedly jumped out of the carriage first, rushing into the doors of the large manor. you're not one to be impressed by ostentatious displays of wealth, but by God was this place striking.

marble and gold mosaic lined the interior walls with chandeliers latched onto the high ceilings, illuminating the magnificent paintings along the walls. a group of musicians was situated in the corner of the large room, playing loudly as dozens of ladies and lords conversed, dressed to the nines.

you looked to your left and noticed arabella fiddling with her dress. grasping her hand, you smiled before sighing, "isn't it beautiful?"

she playfully rolled her eyes, "it is, but not beautiful enough to marry into this mad family. don't fall for whatever trap mother and father are attempting to catch you in." she warned.

"yes, yes, I know. can't you just enjoy the ball?" you pleaded. she simply shook her head and announced that she would be heading to the garden for some solitude. as odd as she is, your sister is dear to you and you'd like to see her happily settled down with a good man one day.

turning, you were greeted with the sight of park sunghoon. great. you could see your mother eyeing you in your peripheral vision so now you had to acknowledge him.

"hello, sunghoon." you half-smiled and curtsied. he bowed in response, "good evening, y/n. would you care to join me for a dance?" he asked, extending his arm to you. i'd rather eat dirt. "I would love to." you took his arm.

it's not like you dislike sunghoon. he's a proper gentleman. he enjoys hunting and composing music, he's tall, handsome, and not to mention extremely well-off. but he bored you to no end, and he was very old-fashioned.

you vividly remember overhearing a conversation between him and your brothers, where he proudly claimed he would spank arabella until she behaved if he was her husband. you also remember jay getting quite upset at him afterward.

"i heard your parents were looking to give your hand" he started, interrupting your thoughts. "yes, it appears so." you responded, absentmindedly. "have you met anyone suitable yet?" he carefully continued.

you weren't an idiot. it's apparent sunghoon has had a sort of infatuation with you for a while now. "no, not yet." you sighed. you didn't miss how his eyebrow raised. uncomfortable, you decided to excuse yourself, "I need to freshen up. would you mind pointing me in the direction of the bath?"

"certainly." he responded, sounding rather annoyed. after showing you the way, you practically sprinted out the door in your heels, desperate to get away from the smell of his headache-inducing fragrance.

you spotted a greenhouse and deduced it must be close to the garden, where arabella should be. making your way there, you stopped in your tracks when you heard a clanging noise followed by muffled shushes.

deciding to investigate, you inched closer to the source of the sound and nearly yelped at the sight.

you saw arabella and jay embracing one another. but not just embracing. they were fondling, kissing, grasping at one another. it was quite possibly the most lewd thing you've ever seen.

you didn't know what to say or how to react. so you turned and ran in the opposite direction, praying neither of them saw you. unfortunately for you, you're completely unfamiliar with the grounds and ended up running headfirst into a door.

you fell on the ground with a pounding pain in your temple. sitting up, you looked around for a clue as to where you were but to no avail. you were too dumbfounded at the sight you just witnessed to process anything else.

thankfully, you heard footsteps rushing to where you were and a strong pair of arms lifting you up. "are you alright, ma'am?" the stranger's voice fretted.

"yes, yes I--arabella. OH MY GOODNESS ARABELLA. you have to help me sir." you grasped at the thin, cloth shirt the boy opposite you was wearing.

"who's arabella? what's wrong?" the man asked. you noticed he had a very peculiar accent, one that sounded more akin to commoners. his clothing was quite dirty as well. he must've been a new servant, probably a stablehand.

"my sister. she was--he--jay was... doing something to her." you rasped. it wasn't long before the man began chuckling. "oh yes, they do that quite often."

he slowly released his grip on you and stepped back. "you need not worry about her. would you like assistance heading back to the ball, ma'am?"

he turned around before you even responded, heading towards the manor before you grabbed his arm. "wait. i would actually prefer to stay out here."

you must sound like an idiot. and the puzzled look on the boy's face only affirms that. the truth is you just don't want to have to deal with your mother pressuring you and sunghoon's advances.

"what's your name?" you asked the servant, changing the topic. "jake, ma'am." he responded swiftly. "you need not call me ma'am. y/n will do just fine." you shot jake a smile.

you're not sure why you enjoy this boy's presence so much. perhaps it's his puppy-like eyes or his soft voice. "well, y/n," jake prompted.

just hearing him say your name sent shivers down your spine. what has gotten into you? he's a stablehand. a servant.

"i suggest we go inside as it is exceedingly cold out. we wouldn't want you to develop an illness" he sympathized. he led you into the dimly lit stables, where you could get a better look at him.

he had thick pink lips and long black hair that nearly covered his eyes. his nose was long and tall and he had highly defined cheekbones coupled with a sharp jawline. he was dangerously handsome.

you caught yourself staring at him and got a bit embarrassed before you noticed that his eyes kept darting down at you and away, nervously. you looked down to see your corset was disheveled after your fall, revealing a bit of your cleavage.

screaming, you threw your purse at him while attempting to cover yourself. was this stableboy about to do to you whatever jay was doing with your sister?

he put his hands up above his head as if to surrender and apologized profusely. "i'm so, so sorry ma'am! I meant to mention it earlier but I was a bit apprehensive as I didn't want to offend you-"

you steadied yourself a bit seeing how anxious jake looked. attempting to console him, you held his shaking hands. poor thing probably thought you were going to get him whipped, or worse.

"it's fine. I'm just a bit on edge after... never mind that. could you please explain to me what I saw jay doing with my sister? it is still heavy on my mind." you hesitated.

jake began looking bashful again. "when two people are overcome by lust, they tend to... fornicate." he explained awkwardly. you gasped. you weren't familiar with what fornication actually looked like, but you knew it was a great shame.

"please, please don't tell anyone." you begged him, still gripping onto his hands. "of course, not, ma'am--y/n. it's not my business to tell." he assured.

smiling, you let go of his hands. the two of you stood in comfortable silence for a while, looking out the doors to the stable at the starry sky and beautiful garden underneath it.

jake broke the silence first, "i believe it's time for you to return to the ball. your family must be getting worried."

your mood immediately soured. you wanted nothing less than to return to the ball you were once so excited to attend, especially because it was now a matchmaking event for your parents.

"right." you straightened down your gown. "do you think you could... help me adjust my corset before I go?" you cautioned. the truth is you could've easily fixed it yourself, you just wanted another excuse to be close to jake again.

he shuffled behind you before fastening one of the buttons on your top that had come undone. his hands were shaky yet his grip was firm. your breath hitched as he gently moved your hair to the side.

the tension was palpable, and before you knew it, you had turned around and were face to face with jake. your noses were nearly touching and you felt an electric shock travel from your stomach to your head.

feeling lightheaded, you moved a bit closer. you could hear his breathing speed up.

the next thing you know your lips were touching his. you knew this wasn't right, that this was not only a shameful thing to do as an unmarried woman, but with a stablehand of all people?

but in that moment, you couldn't care less. you attempted to deepen the kiss awkwardly but it was apparent you had no idea what you were doing. he didn't seem to mind though, reciprocating your efforts.

you were interrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching. panicking, you pulled away. you didn't miss how jake seemed to lean in again subconsciously, which almost prompted you to jump back into his arms.

but you were way too terrified of getting caught. without thinking, you ducked behind a bale of hay. holding back a laugh, jake turned to face the front of the stables where arabella and jay walked in. arabella was wearing trousers and a linen shirt that she must've had on under her gown.

"jake, ready two horses at once." jay ordered, sternly. "of course, master jay." jake obediently answered.

"are you sure about this, jay?" arabella whispered, tugging on the boy's sleeve. "we have no other choice, you know my parents won't approve of you." he insisted sympathetically, grasping onto her hands.

were they about to elope?

jake handed jay the reigns to two separate horses. jay simply smiled and thanked him before handing one of the horses over to arabella. "I wish I could've at least told my baby sister." she sighed.

rage built up inside of you. how could she keep this from you? she definitely doesn't have to tell you now because you're going to make it known that you're well aware.

you jumped up from behind the hay like a madwoman, your corset still slightly a mess with straw in your hair. "arabella! how could you?" you yelled accusingly.

yelping, your sister quickly covered her mouth. "y/n, what on earth are you doing in here?" she retorted, still slightly shocked. "never mind that. were you about to elope... with him?" you motioned over to jay.

"y/n, I'm not sure what you think of me at this moment but I assure you it was for the best-" he started. "I don't care. unhand my sister at once." you seethed. "y/n! do not speak to him that way!" arabella defended.

you were furious. arabella, your tomboy and supposed spinster of a sister was secretly fornicating with jay park and now she was planning on eloping with him.

jake looked awkwardly between you and your sister as jay held his head down. you and arabella on the other hand were having a heated stare-down.

"if you stay, i won't tell a soul about this. if you leave, I will tell the entire county and a search party will be sent for the two of you within an hour. it's your decision." you growled.

sighing, arabella shot jay a knowing look to which he nodded in agreement. "we will stay. but if you know what's best for you, you'll be quiet." she warned. you wanted to scoff at her threat, but you knew it would just fan the flames all over again.

jay suggested heading back to the ball as the three of you had been out long enough. after jake led you through the servant's staircase, the three of you joined the party once again, luckily right before it was about to end.

sunghoon caught your eye right as you were leaving, and of course, your mother happened to be right in front of you when he approached you. "y/n! i've been looking for you the whole night. I was hoping to get a second dance," he slurred, it was evident he had one too many glasses of port wine.

"perhaps next time, sunghoon." you grumbled. your mother sent him an apologetic look before waving goodbye.

fortunately, there were two carriages sent to retrieve you and your family after your mother complained that the one was too cramped. unfortunately, mother and catherine jumped into the first one, leaving you and arabella alone in the second.

you honestly couldn't bare looking at her, let alone speaking to her on the way home, so you opted for staring out at the countryside through the small window.

"why were you in the stables?" arabella began. you shot her an annoyed look. "i know you're upset with me, y/n, but you wouldn't understand what it's like to be in love with someone you can't be with. it's unbearable."

"no. maybe I don't. but I do know that it's wrong to leave behind your loved ones. besides, you and jay nearly had an arrangement! was there really a need to go and do all this? mother practically begged you to be with him-"

"and his parents couldn't stand me. they told him he could never marry such an uncouth woman." she sputtered, tears forming at her eyes.

your heart hurt for your sister, but you were still far too upset to embrace her. "the stablehand, jake." you blurted.

she looked up at you, confused. "i saw you and jay..." you explained, prompting arabella to look away once again in shame. "...and I ended up hitting my head on the stable doors somehow. jake came out to help me and we somehow ended up kissing." you admitted, slightly embarrassed.

arabella's mouth opened slightly, before it closed and formed a smile. "do you like him?" she chided like a small child.

that was one of the things you loved so much about your sister. she was never judgemental, always open to hearing whatever you had to say.

"I believe I do." you smiled sadly, "but it would never work. he's a servant for crying out loud."

"do you want to see him again?" she asked, unexpectedly. you nodded before seeing a mischievous glint in her eye. she smiled widely and made a proclamation, "how's this? I help you hide your meetings with jake and you help me with jay. it may not be a long term solution but it would help, wouldn't it?"

"what about mother's obsession with marrying me off?" you huffed. "she's not obsessed with just you marrying. besides, sunghoon alone is wealthy enough to fix our financial woes. let's set him up with catherine, convincing her to set her sights on him." she stated.

springing up from your seat, you held your sister while cheering, "genius! you're a genius!" causing her to laugh and cheer as well.

that night you couldn't sleep. your mind kept replaying the kiss between you and jake. you could still feel the ghost of his soft lips on yours. giggling to yourself, you realized you probably look like a madwoman. yet, you didn't really mind. all you cared about was seeing jake again.

the next morning you mentally prepared yourself as you made your way down to breakfast. all you have to do is fib a bit to your family, it can’t possibly be that hard.

making eye contact with arabella as you waltzed down the stairs, you held back a smile before greeting your parents.

“mother, you’ll be delighted to know that i believe i’ve found my match.” you announced, rather dramatically. your mother nearly dropped her spoon upon hearing the good news, and your father simply smiled and asked, “who is it, my dear?”

“jay park.” you grinned, watching as arabella shot you a mischievous wink from across the dining table. “i was thinking we could perhaps have a luncheon at the park residence today. sunghoon also made it very apparent to me that he has been showing an interest in one of my sisters,”

this caught the attention of catherine.

“which one of us?” catherine yelped. “clearly not arabella,” your younger brother snickered, earning a light smack to the back of the head from your sister.

“he… erm, didn’t say. which is why we must find out today at the luncheon!” you stammered. as unconvincing as you sounded, your parents and siblings seemed to fully believe you, which meant your plan was now in motion.

from that day on, you and arabella were able to make your way to the park’s estate nearly daily by lying.

part of you felt guilty, but that guilt was alleviated as soon as you felt jake’s warm embrace. the two of you would lay in the garden some days, and sneak around the manor on other days, using the servant passageways.

you would constantly cover up for arabella as she would for you. and to your surprise, you witnessed a romance slowly blooming between catherine and sunghoon.

“what are your plans for the future? would you like to start a family, settle down in the countryside? or would you like to move into the city, somewhere in london perhaps?” you asked jake. you were sitting in the shade of a large oak tree behind the park manor with his head in your lap as you ran your fingers aimlessly through his soft hair.

he laughed lightly, “i always assumed I’d be stuck here forever, picking up horse dung.”

you felt a pang of hurt in your chest, being reminded of the harsh reality of being a servant. “surely that can’t be. don’t you have a home? where is your family residing?” you asked.

“of course i have a home,” jake started as he slowly got up from your lap. you immediately felt the cool breeze hit your lap in the absence of his warmth. “it’s in the southern part of town, my parents and brother own a bakery near there, on 5th street.” he smiled to himself.

“why didn’t you work in the bakery?” you prodded. you felt a bit nosy, but you were genuinely curious. “we were hardly making anything, it seems like nobody has enough to even spend on bread anymore. I had to find a job elsewhere and this seemed to be the only option.”

you felt a sense of guilt wash over you. you were so used to your own servants hanging on your every whim yet you never wondered about their livelihood. with income running low, father cut their salaries which you’re sure was already low.

“enough of that.” jake coughed, visibly uncomfortable, “will you read to me?”

you smiled, grabbing the long-forgotten novel in the grass behind you.

everything was running smoothly until the parks decided to come over for tea one eventful afternoon. you happily greeted lord and lady park along with their two youngest sons as they sat down in the drawing room.

you were only excited to see jay so you could cryptically ask about any developments concerning jake. unfortunately, you wouldn’t have any time to as your parents did most of the talking.

“so, i hear that jay and y/n are getting on quite well,” lady park beamed. your mother nodded vigorously in approval while you and jay feigned bashfulness.

“i also heard good news about sunghoon and my dear catherine.” your father added, to which lord park raised his cup to.

it was a typical, and rather boring, conversation until sunghoon decided to pipe in, “i always presumed i would end up with y/n,” he said casually, chuckling to himself.

catherine suddenly looked to mother, shocked. “i thought you were interested in catherine, mr. park.” your mother quipped.

“oh, of course. but that is a much more recent development. i’ve been pandering after y/n since we were kids for christ sake.”

your mother glared at you, clearly upset with your lying but at least you could cover it up by claiming you were too occupied with jay to notice sunghoon’s advances.

coughing awkwardly, your father suddenly stood up, brushing himself off. “lady l/n and i have long thought about this decision, and wanted to ask you personally instead of relying on correspondence.” once he had everyone in the room’s attention, he continued,

“we believe y/n and jay should be wed by tomorrow.”

you froze. you watched as jay and sunghoon’s jaws dropped and the elder parks began to protest. tomorrow?

“as happy as we all are that our children are getting on, don’t you think tomorrow is making haste?” lady park commented, but your father insisted, “we don’t need to plan the grand ceremony just yet, but an intimate procession in which legal and religious matters are sorted would be nice to get out of the way, wouldn’t it?”

you knew exactly why your father was so desperate to get you married by tomorrow as it would be saturday, meaning you had only tomorrow to correct the family finances.

“with all due respect, i feel like this is a bit rushed. jay and i haven’t fully gotten to know each other yet. don’t you think sunghoon and catherine would make a better match?” you suggested, your voice shaky.

“nonsense. you’ve gone over to the park’s nearly every day this week, spending hours there each visit. surely you’ve gotten to know him enough.” your mother insisted.

“then it is set. the two are to be wed tomorrow, let us discuss the details!” lady park shared gleefully.

you couldn’t bare listening any longer. wordlessly, you stood up, heading to your room, passing by arabella who was eavesdropping by the steps.

“she must be nervous.” your father announced after your departure.

once you found your way to your bed you collapsed. what were you going to do? how were you going to tell jake? you felt hopeless.

you heard a knock on your door. then another one, this time more impatient. “come in.” you groaned, ready to unleash your wrath on whoever walked in.

“are you alright, miss l/n? i heard a large slam coming from this direction.” an elderly maid asked innocently.

seeing her familiar face calmed your nerves. she had been working around the house for as long as you can remember, but she looked much more tired now. you thought back to your conversation with jake and realized how little you seemed to notice her condition weaken over time.

christ, you didn’t even know her name.

“i’m fine,” you smiled. “um, could you please set up a carriage for me? if you’d like, i’d prefer it if you joined me.” you suggested.

she looked taken aback but quickly composed herself, “yes of course, miss l/n.”

it wasn’t long before the carriage was drawn and you and your maid stepped inside. “where to, miss l/n?” she asked, “the bakery on 5th street, i believe it is located south of here.”

“pardon me miss l/n, but isn’t fetching bread a servant’s job?” she hesitated. “please just call me y/n, and i plan on doing more than simply ‘fetching bread’” you responded reassuringly.

she nodded and the two of you set course for the bakery. along the way, you decided to learn more about the maid. you found out that her name is agatha, she was aged three and forty, had three kids of her own, and had been working for your family since you were born.

once you arrived, you and agatha stepped into the nearly empty building. the only person you saw was a young man behind the counter who you assumed was jake’s brother.

“good afternoon, ma’am. how can i be of assistance?” the boy greeted, dusting off his flour-covered hands on the counter.

“i’d like to purchase ten loaves of bread.” you beamed. agatha glanced over at you, confused. “that would be ten shillings, ma’am” he smiled. he looked strikingly similar to jake when he did so.

“who on earth could be buying that much bread-” you heard a familiar voice emerge from behind the counter. you were surprised to see jake wearing much more casual clothing than you’re used to seeing him in, holding a loaf of steaming bread.

he stopped upon seeing you, quickly pulling himself together. “my apologies… ma’am.” he nearly whispered before disappearing back into the kitchen. for the rest of the time he popped in and out the two of you did your best to ignore one another.

after nearly half an hour of waiting, your order was finished. as you loaded the loaves into the carriage with the help of jake and his brother, you felt the sudden urge to tell jake about your impending marriage.

unfortunately, you couldn’t find a way to without raising the suspicions of either agatha or his brother, so you thanked the both of them and went on your way. hopefully it would all be sorted out and he’d never have to know.

once alone with agatha, you handed the loaves to her. “please distribute these among the servant’s families, and keep one for your own. I’d like to make a quick stop before i return.” you shared. “of course, where to?” she asked.

“your home.” you answered casually. “miss l/n-”

“y/n.” you corrected. “y/n, is something the matter? i apologize if i’m speaking too freely but you have been behaving a bit oddly today.” agatha nervously shared.

“yes actually, there is a cause for great concern. i am to be wed tomorrow to a man i have no affection for meanwhile i am hopelessly in love with a stableboy.” you stated carelessly.

you yourself are unsure of why you decided to confide in agatha but you felt like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders once you did.

“I’m sorry to hear that. i hope for the best for you always, you know you’ve always been my favorite of your siblings.” she half-joked, lightening the mood.

you couldn’t help but laugh, and before you knew it, the two of you were joking with each other like old friends.

once you arrived at agatha’s house you handed her two shillings. “this is double your salary for the day. take off early, i insist. neither mother or father will hear a word of this, i swear.” you said, clasping her hand in your own.

her expression turned to one of immense gratitude and she rushed to hug you. before you could react, she pulled away, apologizing repeatedly.

you simply pulled her back in, embracing her even tighter. she bid you farewell as she stepped out of the carriage and you began to make your way back as the sun set.

arriving home, you were greeted with the sight of your parents standing behind the front gates, visibly furious.

“where were you all this time? it is nearly dark and you did not notify anyone of your departure. my goodness, and you set off alone!” your mother gasped.

“is this how a lady is to act before she is about to be married? you better correct yourself before jay catches onto this scandalous behavior.” father boomed.

you grumbled a “yes, father” before hurrying inside, back to your chambers. you were surprised to see arabella waiting anxiously on your bed.

“where were you?” she jumped up. “nowhere important.” you shrugged. “christ, i thought you had eloped!” your sister exclaimed. to be frank, you were beginning to consider it as an option.

“nonsense. i won’t be eloping just like i won’t be marrying jay.”

you saw her face drop at the mention of her lover. “sister,” you sat beside her, “i promise you we will fix this mess together.”

“but how?” arabella sighed. “i say we convince sunghoon and catherine to marry instead of jay and i.” you shared.

your sister raised an eyebrow at your proposal, “how on earth will we do that?”

“we have to tell them the truth about you and jay.” you declared. you could see a glimpse of fear in arabella’s eyes, and you would be lying if you said you weren’t a bit afraid yourself. “fine.” she agreed. you held her hand tightly as she confided in you the rest of the night.

the following morning, the park’s estate was bustling, the servants all gossiping about jay’s new match. jake was never one to listen to rumors going around but he was particularly interested in this one, wondering if arabella had finally gotten through to lord and lady park.

“i hear the bride is the youngest daughter, y/n.” one of the cooks shared excitedly. jake froze. “where did you hear that?” he suddenly asked. “from the tailor that was fitting her dress. apparently they’re going to have a small, intimate ceremony at the church today-”

before she could finish her sentence, jake sprinted to the stables and began saddling the nearest horse.

he didn’t know what he was going to do once he arrived at the church, or even what would happen to him afterwards, but he didn’t care. he refused to stand by as you married someone else.

while at the church, you fiddled with your veil anxiously. arabella assured you that she would speak with sunghoon and catherine without mentioning anything about jake.

it was nearly time for the ceremony to begin and you were starting to worry that something had gone wrong.

suddenly, the door to the room you were in burst open, revealing catherine and arabella. “quick! give me your veil and remove your dress!” catherine ordered.

while rapidly exchanging clothes with your sister, arabella filled you in, “the couple agreed to our plan upon hearing about mine and jay’s story. sunghoon made a rather dramatic declaration of love to catherine before jay could even stand at the alter and luckily, our parents decided that these two were more deserving to be wed.”

you let out a huge sigh of relief. you were able to evade marriage with jay, but how much longer could you keep this lie up?

arabella led you down to the area where the ceremony would be held and within a few minutes, catherine made her way to the alter.

the two shared last-minute vows and right as the officiant asked if there were any objections the door to the church flew open.

“stop! stop the ceremony!” a disheveled jake panted. everyone in the room’s jaws flew open except your own. you didn’t know whether to be flattered or embarrassed at his commitment to you in this very moment.

“what is the meaning of this, boy?” lord park boomed. “i’m in love with her, sir.” jake confessed, pointing at your veiled sister. you wanted to dig a hole in the ground and lay there.

jay coughed, nodding his head in your direction, prompting jake to make eye contact with you. as soon as he saw you, his mouth made an o-shape.

you couldn’t take it anymore, standing up dramatically and declaring “he meant me. he’s in love with me and I’m in love with him.”

just when you thought the situation couldn’t possibly worsen, your mother fainted.

at this point the church was a noisy, swarming mess. lady park and arabella attempted to calm your mother after she regained consciousness and became hysterical while your father had to be held back by his sons and lord park from attacking jake. catherine was sobbing in the corner and the officiant simply stared awestryck at the scene unfolding in front of him.

while everyone was distracted, you grabbed jake’s hand and ran out the church doors. the two of you mounted the horse he rode over and ran off in a random direction.

you looked back once to see everyone emerging from the church, frantically looking for you and jake.

“where are we going?” jake asked, clearly on edge. “keep going until we’re too far for them to catch us.” you ordered.

you ended up stopping nearby a small field. dismounting the horse, you noticed a large tear in his shirt. “how did that happen?” you asked, worried.

“your father ripped it open at the church.”

for some indescribable reason, that sentence alone made you both burst into laughter. perhaps it was the ridiculousness of the whole situation.

as jake laughed, you noticed how his nose slightly crinkled, how all his teeth showed, how his eyes closed and his head was thrown back childishly.

you realized just how much you had fallen for him, and how little you could care about your family’s blessings.

“i love you.” you blurted. you quickly placed your hands over your lips as if it would take back what you said. sure it had been implied before, but you had never said those three words to his face. to anyone’s face, really.

“i love you, too.” he whispered, now moving closer to you. the two of you shared a short kiss, breaking apart before leaning back in again.

this time the kiss was deeper, more passionate. his hands travelled to your lower back as yours cupped his jaw.

you felt yourself desperately moving more and more forward, still not feeling close enough to him. he pulled away first, leaving you gasping for air.

“what are we going to do?” he asked, out of breath. “we’re going to get married.” you responded firmly.

grabbing his hand, you hoisted yourself up on the horse once again, patting the seat behind you. “are you sure about this?” he asked, hesitant.

you nodded wordlessly as he seated himself beside you. you charged back in the direction you had just come from.

you, the girl who never cared for marriage, were now determined to fight for your right to marry the man of your dreams.

you made it back to the church within minutes, spotting your both enraged and confused family standing outside.

arabella saw you first, rushing over. “you should have left, y/n. father is going to murder the both of you.” she warned.

you ignored her, walking up to lord and lady park. before you could open your mouth, you felt a harsh grip on your arm, yanking you back, “not only have you sent your mother into a frenzy, you have bought immense shame upon our family with this illicit affair. i am disgusted to call you my daughter.” your father spat.

“don’t speak to her like that.” jake threatened, moving closer to your father.

“enough of this, lord l/n. i have an enormous headache from today. it is safe to say no arrangements will be made between our children. boys, let us leave at once.” lord park commanded.

neither jay nor sunghoon moved, prompting lord park to repeat himself. again, no reaction.

“oh for christ’s sake. i understand sunghoon being a bit hesitant but this girl is clearly not right for you jay-”

“i wish to marry arabella.” jay announced, “and i don’t care if she doesn’t meet your standards. i refuse to leave the church grounds until she is made my wife.”

“neither shall i until catherine and i are wed.” sunghoon chimed in.

“and neither will i until you give my hand to jake and only jake.” you challenged, looking your father in the eye.

“this is nonsense. what has gotten into you kids?” lady park objected. your mother fainted once again, but this time nobody seemed to pay her any mind.

the officiant peeked his head out from the door, “if you’d like, i can officiate the three weddings for the price of just two.”

you saw your father become visibly more upset at the mention of pricing and were reminded of the reason your parents were so adamant on getting you married in the first place.

“father, if arabella marries jay and catherine marries sunghoon, our income nearly doubles. we won’t have to worry about our finances any longer. what is stopping you then from allowing me to marry jake?” you plead, desperate.

“he is a servant. a stablehand, y/n. below a commoner. it was a grave error on your end to even look his way.” he scoffed.

“he’s no longer a servant of mine,” lord park added, rubbing his temples, “not after this mess.”

“then he is now a baker.” you quipped. “pardon me?” your father asked, irritated. “his family owns a bakery so therefore he is a baker. not a servant. i don’t see any reason as to why i cannot marry him now?”

“just let them bloody marry.” lady park cursed just as your mother came back to her senses, causing her to fall unconscious yet again.

“fine.” your father sighed, “but you will not be living on any of my estates.”

“i will give them one of mine.” jay interjected, patting jake on the shoulder.

after that, the ceremony continued. this time with three brides, two disgruntled father-in-laws, and a single annoyed lady (as the other is still passed out).

fast forward to a few months later, you and your parents have reconciled although your father is still weary of jake.

the two of you have settled into your new estate, courtesy of jay. jake is back to working at his family bakery, which has seen a large increase in profit. you also decided to appoint agatha as the head housekeeper in your new home.

jay and arabella are happily married, as are catherine and sunghoon. your family’s finances have improved greatly and you couldn’t be happier for your parents.

you reflected on how drastically your life has changed within the span of a year as you readied yourself for morning tea at arabella’s house.

you put on a simple purple dress and in the corner of your eye, saw the pearl set you wore the night you met jake. grabbing the earrings, you placed them carefully in your ears, reminiscing to yourself in the mirror.

suddenly your husband made his way into the bedroom, placing a firm kiss on your cheek before announcing his departure for work, a tradition the two of you now have.

wishing him luck, you shared one last embrace before you sent him off.