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netherfeildren · 2 months ago

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Busy, Dying. Part 2;

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: In an in-between place called his life, Joel Miller is alone. In search of a cure. In need of a miracle. In want of God.

Can I interest you in a cure for loneliness? She'd asked him in a language without words. Taking it is the easy part. Letting her go is impossible.

-OR-

an a/b/o soulmates AU

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No Outbreak AU, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Soulmates AU, Infidelity, Cheating, They're behaving badly and doing things they shouldn't be doing idk, HEA!!!!!, Angst, Fluff & Smut, Scenting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Group Therapy, Social Experiments, Explicit Sexual Content, Dom/sub Undertones, Complicated family dynamics, Discussions of self harm, Depression, Existential Angst, He’s a loser your honor!!!

Word Count: 6.3K

Read on AO3

Part 2;

It is your own conspiracy that if you say the words three times in the mirror—I am so alone I am so alone I am so alone—the feeling will go away. Banished ghost.

You commit yourself to this practice religiously for three weeks before you feel you must absolutely return to the meetings held in the basement of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church or you might just die.

The first Friday back, you watch him. He blunders around the crowd, struggling to find a seat when he rushes in late that evening, trying to sit as far away from you as possible and, to his great misfortune, ending up right behind you. Squashed between two old ladies, his big body comically trying to fold itself into the tight rows. You laugh at him the whole way through the meeting.

He’s like a raging bull after that. Scowly and unapproachable as the omegas in the group inevitably make their meager attempts to talk to him. It makes it all the more irreconcilable, a man like that here in a place like this—all the while with a wife at home.

You wonder about her.

“That one has a bad temper,” Maria warns as the two of you watch him. They seem to know each other in some way outside of this church, and it takes everything in you not to beg for details. “Big and hairy like a bad, lonely dog.”

You say, “I think he’s shy.”

She watches you very peculiarly after that, and tells you, “You’re lost, girl. Joel Miller isn’t what you need finding you.”

But you know this, you assure her, and you continue to avoid him.

The following Friday, he’s the one playing the disappearing act. The next week, as well—no show. You start to dread even your own shadow, wondering where he is, wondering if he’s ever coming back, if he has children and how old he is. Wondering if he wonders about you. Wondering why you’re so obsessed.

Too full of curiosity for your own good, you hover when he finally appears once again. Circling him and Maria, desperate for any sort of information.

His wife had been sick, he says. He’d had to take her to the doctor.

You wonder if her sickness might be his baby—sick to your stomach at the thought of it yourself.

Finally, the week after, the two of you break your fast from one another.

“You’ve been ignoring me,” he says, coming up from behind, ambushing you once again at the dessert and coffee trough. This is supposed to be a safe space, yet it feels anything but with him near.

“No I haven’t.”

“You’re not supposed to tell lies in church. It’s a sin.”

“I don’t believe in sin.” You turn to face him, and your stomach hurts.

He’s got on a dark green fisherman’s sweater—well worn but knit sturdy. A thing that looks as if it’s been his for years.

You’re feeling thin-skinned and unable to face him today, and for no good reason. You don't know this man. You have no right to punish him with your silence, no right to be angry, to wonder about him. But that sternness from before, the one that looked too heavy for him to carry, has been wiped away from his face now, and in its place he only looks very earnest, like he really wants to talk to you. And it’s only that, well you don’t know him, yes, but you’d felt that you needed to, or that you would. That you were meant to find him in this place, and you’re angry at yourself and at him at how wrong you’d been, still even after all these weeks of radio silence while he’d been busy caring for his sick wife.

“Me either,” he gives a small huff of laughter, shoving his fists into the pockets of his dark jeans.

Setting the donut in your hand back on the table—rude and gross, but it’s an afterthought—you wipe your sweet sweaty palm against your hip, appetite all gone now. The basement is suddenly unbearably hot, your heart beating in your throat.

“Anywho, I gotta run. Somewhere to be—” you mumble, brushing past him. There’s a sudden rush of itching heat burning its way up your chest, your throat, ants crawling over your scalp. The room is stifling, your limbs leaden and too many bodies; so many disgusting, clashing scents: pheromones, and desperation and such terrible loneliness, and him at the center of it, ambrosial.

You’ll have to recite your mantra more faithfully in the mirror every night, not a single miss. Remind yourself, I am so alone, so that the feeling might go away, and you’ll forget him and the way he smells and his eyes like amber green river stones, more quickly.

“Whoah, hold on,” he calls after you, following to the exit and up the steps to the world outside of this church. You’d brought a coat today, unable to enjoy the cold the way you usually do, uncharacteristically chill, aching limbs, miserable in the biting morning air. He calls your name, and you clutch the wool against your chest, trying to hurry away from his much longer legs and pace as he catches up.

Suddenly, though, you change your mind. Whirling around to look up, you stop your running, and he’s right there, so close. “I haven’t been ignoring you. You were gone.” Mind changing again, your gaze falls, unable to hold his eyes. You watch his left hand flex like he wants to do something with it.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

A scoff. “What are you apologizing to me for?”

“You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met in my entire life.” He says it quietly by way of explanation, like another apology.

“You must not have met very many interesting people.”

It feels hot and cold at the same time out here. Your stomach still hurts. Your eyes ache as if you could cry, which is ridiculous because you have absolutely no reason to cry.

“Maybe not,” he says very low. It seems he’s drifting closer, like you’ll float away. A car honks its horn loudly somewhere in the background, and you still can’t look at his face. His own coat is clutched in his fist and now the honker is shouting too, expletives and God’s name being taken in vain.

“You should go back in there,” you tip your chin at the depths you’d just fled from, stealing a quick glance at his face, “Find someone else who’s interesting.”

He grunts once, a wordless no and lifts his coat to drape it over your shoulders—you decide you’re even colder now, you don’t think you’ll ever be warm again—and takes yours from your listless grip, draping it over his elbow.

This man. “Aren’t you here to get to know people?” You demand, finally looking up at him angrily.

“No,” he shakes his head. “Let’s go for a walk.” His palm at your bicep urging you towards Arlington and the garden sends all sound skittering out of your ears. He reminds you of your earlier words, that he might like to walk, and you can hear yourself agreeing while you look up at the muted light of the late November afternoon leaching through the cloud cover. Through the wool and cotton you feel your skin sucking heat from that singular point of contact, warming you entirely.

It had been blisteringly cold last night, the alluring taste of incumbent winter in the air, and a vicious frost had ermined all the tree trunks within the Boston Public Garden, roughened the surface of the grass.

Joel chooses a quiet spot by the pond, the willow weeps above your head and all around the two of you the sharp autumn air is lightly laced with the fragrance of leaf rot. An elderly couple floats serenely in a lone swan boat at the center of the pond, not a ripple in the surface, as if they weren’t really there.

Helping you to sit, he gently pulls his coat from your shoulders, laying the garment for you to rest on protected from the frigid ground and carefully looping your arms through your own coat now, he pulls the excess fabric of his up, draped over your shoulders once again, leaving you securely enveloped from the cold.

“Here, let me help you,” he says, and the sudden gentleness in his voice makes you want to burst into tears. His character, that of some matryoshkin sort, one embedded in another in another, never knowing which is the realest one, the truest one, which will come next. Angry snarling dog one day, a gentleness that burns the next. You have the sense that a person could know him for decades and still never reach the center, never cease to discover more.

Sitting before you—you perch alone on the island of his given coat—he tilts his head, leaning back braced on thick arms to look up at the swaying vines with just an impression of brilliant yellow-green, as if that were the color of the air. A sudden breeze stirs the softness of his hair, lifting a stubborn cowlick, and at that exact moment, the cloud cover parts on the face of the sun. In the brilliant shaft of buttered sunlight, his dark curls glint with specks of purest silver, leaving you wishing you could touch the fan of fine lines at the corner of his eyes, feel his age with your fingertips.

“You’re angry with me,” he finally says, head still tilted towards the sky. You watch him very closely, learning. His voice is deep, quiet. He looks tired, the violet shadows beneath the brilliant hazel eyes. Still beautiful, the full, slightly sulky curve of his mouth surrounded by dark beard. He is everything, all of him, masculine.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Finally, he looks at you, too. He’s got a big head, proportionate to his big body, that falls back heavily. You can’t help smiling at him, it feels too natural.

“Now you’re honest.”

“I wouldn’t tell a lie here,” you say, and he sighs like you’re a supremely difficult little omega, too impossible to be reasoned with. But turning back to the sky, eyes closed now, there’s a smile across his mouth also, and you wish the two of you could sit here and laugh forever in this moment.

The silence between the two of you is marvelous enough to be unnerving. Settled beneath his great coat, you’d never believed you could feel the cold so little—learning every fine detail that makes up the man. Even inches away from him, he seems utterly unattainable, each of the two of you existing on your separate islands—you trace the woolen edge of his coat against the ground—some twenty years your senior and married. But the cold has given you such a feeling of grounding buoyancy. You’d awoken angry, miserable, so full of despair you would’ve been sick with it if it were possible. And now—you hadn’t felt this alive or awake in years, perhaps your entire life. He is a marvel, and there are bubbles in your head threatening to take you floating away, and yet, your feet are firmly melded to the ground in reality.

How attractive, how delicious the prospect of intimacy is with someone who you know will never grant it. It fills you with something ferocious or hungry or snapping, something pathetic that makes you want it all the worse. And he, with a gravitational pull too strong to even think of escaping.

Yes. You hadn't felt so happy in years.

“How old are you?” Breaking the silence, you ask him.

“Forty three.”

“You have a brother.” He nods. “I have one too.”

“Do you speak to yours? I don’t.”

“He calls me once a month. It’s all he can bear of me.”

“Mine won’t speak to me.” He sounds sad saying so.

“Why not?”

“I hurt him. Scared him.”

“My brother, he says my whole life is papier-mâché. My values are all wrong, I’m a crowd-pleaser. It’s probably true.” You’d felt it impossible to better yourself, and yet still, you tried for him. “How did you hurt him?”

“You can’t change a man, only make him more secure. Depending on his character that may then bring happiness or strength or success. Tommy’s failure of this in me was more than he could bear, also.”

The willow becomes your confessional. “I spiked my own drink once just to see what it would be like. A doctor told me afterwards that I have self destructive tendencies. I want to hurt myself, but I don’t want to actually feel the hurt, which makes me all the more addicted to it. A supernumerary on the stage of my own life, too afraid of hurting and hungry for it at the same time.”

The heel of his left hand, you notice, is bearing down on an old acorn burr, and yet he seems not to feel the pain.

He’s looking at you very intently now. Some glimmering streak in his eye. It almost looks aggressive, and a muscle flutters madly at the edge of his jaw. He straightens, sitting up to face you. The acorn burr is left flattened and disfigured in his wake.

“The last doctor I saw told me I was depressed. I never went back after.”

“Are you?”

He laughs surprisingly full of humor and then instantly serious again. “Probably. I’ve been watching my life, scratching at it trying to get in. I can’t. It’s right there.” The matryoshka shuffles, locked in his melancholy one moment, spilling brightness the next.

You want to understand him so badly your hands shake with it.

“What’s your favorite thing about your work?” You ask him.

Where does his wife think he is right now?

“That’s a nice question. Maybe…” he thinks a moment, “Getting to make things that’ll go in people’s homes. The idea that something that came from me will be surrounded by a family.”

You can’t help yourself. “Why aren’t you at home?” You ask him imploringly, unbearably sad for him, sick with need, desperate to understand what it is he’s doing here, and all at once, utterly certain of what it is you are. “Don’t you love your wife?” The question is posed with no bravery, and yet it still comes out into the world demanding.

He clicks his tongue, taken aback, a shocked breath, maybe even a small, reproving smile. A hundred different emotions coming to life across his face in that single moment.

“I don’t know,” he finally answers. “I remember loving her. Maybe. At best? She’s a stranger. At worst? An excuse?” But he says it like a question. He’s asking you, not telling, for he isn’t even sure of it himself. You’ve caught him off guard.

“No…” the click of his tongue snapping you to attention, “That's too generous. We’re trapped in a box together, but completely strange to one another.” It suddenly feels like he shouldn’t be telling you this—about her. You’re sure he shouldn’t be.

“Do you hate each other?” You ask anyway. There’s something…your only example of love and marriage being two people who had always hated one another and filled the home where their children lived with more hate. It’s difficult to fathom something different than what that had looked like.

If you were truly brave, you’d ask if he has children, too.

“No,” he says immediately, a non option, his brow furrowed. “That would take too much effort.”

Now you understand. He’s alone anyways. The feeling of urgency within you mounts. You’re frightened by this moment of discovery.

“You’re Southern. Your accent…” You can’t discuss this anymore, needing to change the subject.

“Texas.”

“When did you leave?”

“Long time ago.”

“Do you miss it?”

At his, he laughs like the question is ironic. “No. Where are you from?”

“Sometimes it feels like I can’t even remember.”

And as if he’d pulled the feeling straight from your mouth, he tells you that he understands what that’s like, and you can’t help it when you reach for his hand, being as careful with him as you would any shy creature, needing to hold him.

“I’ve never been in love,” you tell him, childish look of recklessness and valor coming across your face as you pick up on the earlier thread of conversation you’d frightened yourself with. “It seems too daring, even grotesque.”

He thinks he wants to capture that look in a bottle and take it everywhere with him. His entire body throbs with a heartbeat and the shape of your hand fits his as if every joint and muscle and soft ligament had been specifically designed for him to hold, filled suddenly with a terrible sense of foreboding. Looking at you, one just knows there’ll be a broken heart.

Your small thumb smooths gently over his large one, and he marvels that such an exquisite creature would touch him. God, but you’re beautiful. Your touch, soft and enticing and painful all at once. No one had ever been so gentle with him.

“Won’t you tell me a secret?” You beg.

He will. He might give you anything in this moment. In the weeks he’d been kept away, he’d desperately counted the days and minutes until he could return to that place of worship and honesty.

“I think about you,” voice hushed, the shaking of the leaves not loud enough to mask the soft breath you suck in as he gives you his confession. He maps the architecture of the small hands in his grasp, fingers tracing fingers, uncured clay fragile before the heat. He feels tired and strangely spent, almost drunk on your touch. His thumb slides upwards, marveling at the softness of your wrist, and then there, beneath the shivering distraction of your pulse and his disturbing search, the unlocked fragrance of your scent gland. It drifts towards him slowly like smoke rising from sleep.

The air seems to pulse between the two of you with heat and premonition. That singular moment before everything goes terribly wrong, he can see it in your eyes. Such vibrancy, excitement, recklessness turned danger.

“We should…” you feel him begin to pull away, grappling to hold on to the moment and his hand, “We should fuck.” He takes himself back, letting you go. Where else was this being led?

He cringes away from you. “Excuse me?”

“Sex. You’ve had it before.” His mind reels. His body’s reaction at hearing your mouth say these things, the way it shapes them, the soft, full lips wrapped around the words.

Looking away, he watches the pond’s couple help each other out of the swan. In his periphery, he can see you begin to bristle at his silence.

“Don’t be peevish. It’s unbecoming.”

He can’t help feeling angry. “I’m not. I’m old enough to be your father.” And you laugh at him. You’re deviating paths now, going opposite ways and angry at one another for it.

“We could pretend that—if that’s what you want,” you say, voice husky and seductive. A small palm smooths up his thigh and his gaze snaps fire at you, hand clamping painfully at your wrist, fingernails digging at your gland, disturbing more of that gorgeous scent into the air.

You make a pained sound. He needs to leave. He needs to never see you again.

“Don’t be disgusting,” he shoots back, hot everywhere.

“Don’t be a prude.” He flings your wrist away, and you cradle it against your chest as if he’d hurt you. The heat turns to guilt pulsing through his limbs.

Warring to wounded then, your eyes. You wrap your fingers around your discarded wrist. “What if we lose everything? What if tomorrow’s the end of the world? What if we’re so thoroughly cured of our loneliness after all this is done, we never feel like we need another person this way again?”

His muscles tense with the need to flee or attack, the thought of you needing him, of being needed in such a way—he’s like some creature coming upon its mate.

Despite his age, he had never tried to truly seduce anyone. He had never truly wanted anyone. Not in any real and base sort of way. Desire for him had been a mute and ordinary thing. But he could have you now, turned into a thing he’d never been before, he could mount you and rut you into the dirt like an animal. Never so much a product of his designation as he feels in this instant.

He can’t even form word, and your body seems to pulse against his with embarrassed heat and indignation.

“Have you ever even fucked an omega?” You spit at him meanly.

“We shouldn’t be talking about this.” Voice carefully restrained, each syllable off his tongue is measured with his tenuous control.

“Tell me anyways,” you demand, shoving his coat off your shoulders being the thing that almost makes him lose it.

“It’s cold. Put that back on.”

“Tell me.” And he shouldn’t. You should have no sway over him. No demand of his honesty or anything else that belongs to him.

“Once. Only because I wanted to know what it was like.” He’s man enough to admit to himself the embarrassment he feels telling you this.

But it seems to quell some tremor in your eyes, and you sit back, palm petting at your throat as if you’re trying to soothe yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you say, gaze averted, glassy, delirious look there. “I’ve always gotten my feelings hurt easily. I’m—” you shake your head quickly, sucking on your lip. “...too sensitive. Sometimes I feel like I’ll float away if I don’t find anyone to hold me down.”

He should tell you that you’re not, wants to, but the image of you weak and pinned beneath him churns in his mind. Whole body aching suddenly, needing his hands on you before he does something truly heinous—he straightens abruptly, abandoning your reassuring warmth. Feeling suddenly cold despite the sweat dotting his spine.

Without another word he turns to leave you there, alone, while the swan pair watches from across the pond as the two of you part ways.

The next morning he awakens stiff and burning, his cock a brand of heat against his stomach. And works his entire day in a static haze, lavender spots at the edge of his vision where all he can think about is how you smell and the way your hand feels in his. By five o’clock, his fingers ache, spasming painfully from gripping his tools too hard. Breaking his weeks-long habit, he decides to attend the Saturday night meeting, full of constrained energy and sullen moodiness. Reasoning that a pretty, young girl like you wouldn’t waste her weekend in the basement of a church abandoned by God.

And is sick to his stomach with equal measures elation and dread when he spots you sitting amongst the crowd of metal folding chairs—wearing his coat. He doesn’t hesitate even a little when he claims the seat next to yours.

The two of you sit in strained silence the entire meeting, the other alphas and omegas surrounding throwing alarmed and intrigued glances your way as the tension brews hotter and more frenzied.

His body hurts. This is a painful kind of lust.

He listens to the speakers tonight with only half an ear, instead, occupied with the memory of what you’d looked like the other week eating a jelly and cream filled donut, imagining what your mouth would look like smeared with his blood and come. He can smell your body, how hot and trembling nervous you are. So unlike all that blistering, innocent valor from yesterday.

The omega with the cruel husband turned sick one is taking her turn again tonight. Now that he looks at her, she has hair that at one time was vibrant red, now turned a softened copper threaded through with white. Time is such a painful, slow thing, Joel thinks.

“Have you ever been with someone you knew you were too good for?” The omega asks the room, while the one beside him begins to shake, knee jolting nervously.

You’re anxious, and it makes him angry that you should be made so by his actions.

Too rough for forbearance, his palm clamps down tightly on your knee, holding it still, and you make some supplicant whimper at the back of your throat. Almost imperceptibly, you draw away from him, the line of your shoulders growing rigid, and a wild, irrational sense of loss steals his breath.

He’s been so busy lately, distracted. He’s hungry, overstrained, anxious himself. He doesn’t mean to be brusque with you. He just can’t help himself.

Would we be here if we had? Someone lost in the crowd pipes back.

The woman laughs, she has a kind face. “Me either.” You shove his palm off your leg as if it burns. “But there was someone… once. A chance, maybe. Someone I didn’t choose but should have. We were friends. We came very close to being happy.”

And he suddenly feels a wave of desolation so overwhelming wash over him. He turns to look at you, your vibrating profile, so pretty, and he’s gentle this time when he touches your knee. Just to feel you. How terrible, he thinks, to only come very close to being happy.

The speaker changes, and then it’s Maria’s voice talking to them all. Joel still can’t look away from you as you, in turn, refuse to look at him. “Stop, Joel,” you whisper. But he can’t.

“At the start of this, we usually discuss a second option for those of you who aren’t able to find what you’re looking for in this. Sometimes it’s not so simple,” Maria tells them.

A miracle move on drug, she calls it.

The group’s coalition is sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, one testing a cure for loneliness. Something they think of as pilled perfection, something to numb the pain of loss. Any emotional wound, now with the potential to be a thing of the past. The young omega handing out the pamphlets had promised an easy cure, it seems this is what he’d been referring to. And if the potential side effects included an inability to hold on to any sort of emotional attachment afterward, well, the encounter groups they’d targeted thus far were grateful for it in the end anyway. They were all alone after all.

“It’ll help you let go of everything you can’t let go of,” Maria tells them. “Help make you forget. Help make you un-lonely. We’ll be holding a session Wednesday morning for anyone who’s interested in being part of the trial. Our sponsor company, Firefly, is very happy to welcome as many of you as possible.”

Beside him, you whisper, “Only a coward would take that option. What a cheat.” He hesitates, perplexed and wounded by your words.

“You’ll never have to grieve or miss something you can’t get back, ever again. I know that for many of you, this is the ultimate fantasy,” Maria says.

“I think it sounds like something to help let go. Like what I came here for.”

You exchange cards. Now it’s your turn, the wounded look.

When Maria’s through, bidding the group goodnight and setting them all free to mingle, you’re up and out of your seat before he can get a word in. He watches you go as if he were some sort of abandoned lapdog, only for a second, before he’s once again, striding after you.

You weave almost drunkenly through the crowd, first heading towards the exit, then to the beverage station, then correcting and veering towards the back hall where the restrooms and catechism classrooms are.

Gaining on you, he takes you by the elbow, pushing you deep into the darkness of the long hallway. Going far enough the din of desperate socialization turns a quiet murmur. You’re really in the belly of the beast now. So quiet and dust infused it feels as if it’s been years since a soul stepped through here.

“What’s wrong with you?” Your face glows with fevered sweat.

“I’m sick,” you mumble on the tail end of a whine when he shakes your arm into responsive compliance. “Let me go. Stop,” you fight, trying to claw away from him.

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. I threw up all night. And you have the personality of a snarling dog more than a man. Has anyone ever told you that?” Shoving at his chest now feebly.

Ignoring your caterwauling, he takes you in entirely. “You’re not sick,” he says again, sure now.

There’s a timeless hunger gnawing at his gut. Joel suddenly feels more himself than he think he’s ever felt in his entire life.

Dragging you high against his chest by the collar of his own coat, he brings the tip of his nose slowly to the valley of sweet fragrance at the side of your throat. Inhaling deeply at the flushed, swollen scent gland there. The sound of your toes scuffing against the floor excites him even more.

“You’re not sick. You’re going into heat,” he says slowly; gathering the overwhelmed, shivering creature as gently as he can in his arms.

Your fingers claw at his own throat in return, as if digging for his own answering scent. “No. But it’s not time. I had one not so long ago.” You sound on the verge of tears, and he makes a deep, soothing sound in his chest. “My blockers...I— I can’t be. It’s not time yet.”

“It’s a breakthrough heat.” His other hand comes around to the small of your back and ever so slowly, he presses your hips closer to his. “It’s mine. Because of me.”

“No.” You shove back with renewed strength suddenly, spinning around to scurry deeper down the dark hall and then careening on weak legs into an abandoned classroom.

Heart beating madly at the prospect of the hunt, he takes a singular calming breath before he’s prowling after the sound of your crying.

“You need to not run from me right now. It’ll make my rut come faster,” his deep voice comes from somewhere in the dark unknown.

You scramble around the children’s desks, weaving your way clumsy with disorientation to the far end of the classroom. You don’t want to go into heat right now. You can’t. Not with him. You need to be safe and alone in the confines of your warm, comfortable bedroom, far away from the temptation of him.

His heavy, panting breath sounds closer and there’s a shriek in your throat like a struggling kitten.

“You want me to lose my self control. That’s what this is, isn’t it?” There’s a loud crash as he shoves one of the little desks out of his way, followed by your answering shriek. And then he’s here, coming up behind you but finding mercy enough to hold himself back at the last moment, panting as if he’d just run miles fighting against himself.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry. Come here, baby. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s okay.” He takes a step closer, and the slowing of his breath and soothe of his voice calms you in turn. “You’re only going into heat, that’s all, sweet girl. I’ve triggered it for you and I’m sorry. Let me come to you.”

You let out a high and harried sound, palm smoothing over your throat over and over again. “Joel,” you say once.

“I’m here. It’s okay.”

“It’s only that—”

“What is it?”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m embarrassed.” A helpless tear spills out over the edge of your eyelid.

“You’ve nothing to be embarrassed about with me. Ever. We understand each other, you and I. Don’t we?”

And he’s right of course. You’d picked his face out of the crowd in instant recognition, after all. “I’ve had heats…but I’ve never—never had a, a heat with someone. With an alpha.”

He’s utterly silent and you feel deranged enough you’re almost certain you can hear the pound of his heart inside his chest.

“You’ve never had a knot take your cunt?”

“No.” You swallow. “Never.”

You hear a muttered fuck, and his breathing goes quick and shallow and then even again. He has better control over himself than you do at this moment.

“Then how?”

You flush full of heat, embarrassed. “T—toys,” you stutter. “Medication to help ease it.”

When he steps closer, only calm accompanies him. All is suddenly quiet. You want him. Your disjointed mind, overwhelmed by too many confusing emotions had gone into overdrive for a moment, but now, with the scent of hot, aggravated alpha surrounding you, it’s obvious this was all you’d needed to calm down.

You can feel his hot breath against your forehead, the wash of heat on each exhale and the lingering scent of sweet musk at his inhale. You touch his cheek with shaking fingers and feel him turn ever so slightly into your palm, and then he’s bending slowly.

First, it’s a soft, wet nudge of his mouth, your bodies held apart. Then his strong nose bumping into the side of yours, the splendor of inexperience turning to knowing, a nuzzle. Coming in again hungry, with the slick of tongue now, and the deep inhale of shock at first taste. Your breaths rush through one another, and you feel yourself backing away in maybe fear, more likely overwhelm, but his mouth follows your retreat and then his palms are at your waist, tugging you into himself, pressing you tightly to his body with a ragged groan.

“Your mouth…Your mouth is so beautiful,” he says.

Everything in your lower belly cramps in painful agony, and you scratch at his arms and neck without much strength, trying to climb higher and take more of him into your mouth. Oh, you want this so badly. You want it to be everything you’ve dreamed of so obsessively the past weeks. Nothing else in the world exists except for your two mouths pressed together.

His lips burn a wet path across your cheekbone, sliding to the side of your neck to suckle at your scent gland. “Fuck.” His scraped teeth along the patch of sensitive skin. “Have you had sex before?” The question is gentle, understanding, his tongue tasting your sensitive earlobe, head ducking suddenly to give a sharp bite at your breast.

“Yes.” His erection is pressed firm at your belly, hot even through his jeans and your sweater. His large body radiates heat. At your back, his palm finds the edge of your top, sliding underneath to make first contact, blistering skin against blistering skin.

“But not an alpha.” He says it smugly, the bastard. Palm sliding down to your rump, tucking you more tightly against his hard cock. You shake your head at the crook of his neck, fingertips twisting in the back of his hair. Your breath comes in wet little pants that sound too pathetic to bear.

“It’s going to feel so good,” he promises, rubbing slow circles low on your back with that wide, strong palm. “It’s different. It’s…” That palm slides lower, squeezees the curve of your ass. “It’s ordinary if it isn’t with someone…special. If there’s not the possibility of—”

You tell him you understand what he’s trying to say.

“I think it’ll be so good between us,” he finishes.

At the waist of your skirt, his fingers press between your skin and the stretch of your tights, forcing his large hand into their confines. Your breath skips into his open mouth, panting into one another he cups you between your legs and suddenly all you can focus on is the tight ache there, the nylon soaked obscenely between your thighs. His arm around your back squeezes you tighter to his chest and his fingertips are pushing past lace edge to feel the slick swell of wet cunt.

“Oh, Joel. Not here,” you moan. “Someone will come in.” He’s circling your clit, so sensitive and so swollen it hurts. You tug him impossibly closer, and he presses you back into the cold stone wall. “We can’t in a church.” Your protestations sound weak even to your own ears as you spread your legs wider for him.

“I don’t give a fuck.”

He takes your mouth again, sucking deeply, groaning even deeper when he presses inside of you to the first knuckle. “Tight, baby,” he breathes into your neck, his hips slowly grinding into your pelvis.

He feeds you more, then presses a second finger, holding still for a second, then another. Panting like a rabbit caught in a trap with three of his too thick fingers stuffed in your overstretched cunt. The sound of popping seams moves up your spine.

“Can feel your little cunt shaking around me. Jesus—” he groans. It’s all mine, whispered into your hair.

Suddenly, there’s the open and close of a door nearby. And then the sound of someone’s voice calling your names. Joel huddles you further into the dark corner, confined by the protection of his body, his fingers still moving in and out of you, stretching you well enough to burn as he presses as deeply as he can and with the utmost gentleness, pets lightly at the painfully sensitive mouth of your cervix. Humming in satisfaction at the feel of you.

“Right there?” He hums.

You’re crying, clutching at him even more tightly. Your name sounds again, being searched for, like a warning.

“If I fuck you, nobody else ever will.” His voice is so dark it’s menacing. It’s recklessness, verging on a lie. Maybe it’s hope.

Pressing lightly again, petting, petting, he pulls his fingers back a little, the loud sucking sound of your cunt trying to hold onto him, and you’re coming for him, crying into his neck, sucking on his scent gland so that the taste of him floods your mouth. The sound of a door opening, and you hear him growl at someone to fuck off in a very scary voice, his fingers never ceasing their steady thrust inside of your clenching sex, and the frightened slam of a door.

“It’s alright. You’re alright. That’s my good girl,” he pets and soothes at you, pressing a kiss to your temple, your eyelids, your mouth again and again.

Part 3;

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

Updates Blog

#busy dying fic #vic fic #joel miller #joel miller x you #Joel Miller fanfiction #tlou au

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kiyo-cant-write · 2 months ago

Note

hi hi! jade req again, kinda toxic this time

can we get jade with a reader who’s really easy to manipulate and they know it? idk if it makes sense but like jade realizing reader isn’t oblivious to his manipulation, just kinda self-destructive and hopelessly into him

jade thought he was being slick because reader wasn’t calling him out on anything, but he overhears their conversation and finds out that they’re fully aware jade is a ton of red flags but is still staying anyway, and his reaction to that

i really hope this makes sense! idk how to word it

jade w/ an easily manipulated reader ✧･ﾟ

Aw! Thank you for another request! I love Jade and Octavinelle so much! I hope that I did your idea justice. Please let me know if you'd like another request in the future! Onwards to the story! ^^

Summary: Jade Leech has been stringing [Name] along for fun and due to the instruction of Octavinelle's Housewarden. He thought he was doing well... but it seems [Name] may have had ulterior motives.

TW/CW: Toxicity but the standard Fish Mafia kind

Notes: established "relationship", they/them pronouns for the reader, the reader is Yuu/Ramshackle Prefect, the reader is described as human and younger than Jade/frosh, ADeuce if you squint, implied to be post-Azul OB

Guest Stars: Deuce Spade, Ace Trappola, Grim, Azul Ashengrotto & Floyd Leech (referenced)

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

Jade Leech

As much of a sadist as Jade can be, he's not exceptionally cruel outside of what he deems as the necessity for his purposes.

He is a bit smug when he thinks he has [Name] under control.

Jade is pretending to be "honor student Jade Leech."

He acts as their friend and support albeit for the Lounge.

He pretends to care, to do everything to help them.

He smiles at them, speaks politely, and even "affectionately."

They trust him and they tell him things they shouldn't.

He will use those bits of information when the time comes.

Every time they have an inkling of doubt, he squashes it.

His surprise is evident when Floyd points out that it might not be the case this time, but Floyd is Floyd and doesn't explain.

Wanting to make sense of this discovery, Jade observes [Name].

He watches to see if [Name] really has caught onto him.

Jade is intrigued and what he finds does not disappoint.

He is surprised to find that they caught on long ago.

But they stayed? Why?

Because they "love" him?

Why would they love the guy trying to string them along?

It didn't make sense to him. He felt a tug at his heartstrings.

Did he feel bad about this?

He didn't know what to do.

Jade starts to avoid [Name] after realizing their feelings.

He retracts further into his honor student persona.

[Name] will not win this fight. He will not be bested by a freshman.

The battle has just begun and Jade needs to bury this sinking feeling in his chest. What does it mean anyway?

Floyd serves as a live studio audience to Jade's struggles.

Jade is an observer. That had been his role for so long, that he wasn't sure when it began. Ever since he was young, he would watch and calculate while Floyd was the type to rush into things, be impulsive, and just a tad stupid at times, at least when they were young. Jade never intended to make his observations a skill, but sooner or later, everything becomes an asset.

That's what his father had always said.

His mother worried about the sadistic streak in her son, but she couldn't do anything to prevent its development. Jade was, after all, a member of the Leech family. He and Floyd would join the family business sooner or later unless they wholly refused its offer.

"[Full Name]," Jade mused to himself, "How interesting."

Azul had been the one to ask him to pay extra close attention to Ramshackle's Prefect in case they strayed too far from things, or got into any trouble. The magicless human that had saved others from themselves, they interested the owner of Mostro Lounge. Jade had simply agreed with Azul's request, observation was his skill, after all.

It had never been meant to evolve, and certainly not into this.

Jade watched as this person fell for his polite words hook, line, and sinker. It was almost too easy. They were shockingly trusting, telling him all sorts of things he could use to be downright evil if he wanted to be. It wasn't time for that, not yet, but one should always guard their secrets (perhaps not as much as Azul, but at least a bit).

He didn't need to do anything unless the moment called for it.

At the time, it had not been necessary.

That was weeks ago.

Azul hadn't given further instructions and, to be fair about it, Jade didn't want to earn that octomer's ire. Not today, anyway. He and Floyd were troublesome, yes, but not stupid.

So, as Azul had instructed, he was trailing the Prefect until told otherwise (or until it became boring, whichever arose first). Though their reactions had been predictable, he could argue that things were getting boring now.

Floyd would have given up ages ago, he was sure of it.

[Full Name] was currently spending their time with their classmates, Ace Trappola (easily swayed by competition and bets) and Deuce Spade (note: gullible as a child). Jade had kept an eye on the three of them (and Grim) because of their closeness. It was rather irritating how buddy-buddy they were. He had worked a bit to get [Name] alone those few times they had spoken privately.

Standing away from the trio, Jade listened in on their conversation.

"[Name], I don't think that this is good," Deuce told them, clearly worried for their friend's mental state, "You need to be more careful. Don't you remember what happened to me and Ace?"

"I fucking remember!" Ace chimed in, "It sucked. Don't trust fish."

"Nya! Fish are food, not friends," Grim told them, "Especially eels!"

"Ah... You guys..."

Jade almost wanted to chuckle at Grim's words of "wisdom" but he withheld it, knowing that he mustn't give away his position. Not yet.

"You shouldn't trust Leech-senpai," Deuce continued, "Do you not remember how he and his twin brother acted before?"

"THEY TRIED TO KILL US, [NICKNAME]!!" Ace interrupted Deuce, earning him a glare from the navy-haired boy, "Sorry, Deuce-chan."

"Don't call me that."

What Deuce was doing could only be described as glowering.

"Lighten up and help me convince [Nickname] not to get themselves murdered by a shady eel and a shadier octopus!" Ace told him, slapping Deuce on the shoulder, "Just because they're better doesn't mean they're changed fish! Fish are suspicious!"

"Ace, do you have some fish-related trauma outside of campus that I should know about?" Deuce asked him, "It's starting to seem—"

"FOCUS ON [NICKNAME], DEUCE."

Ace's reddened face was a sign that Deuce was on to something with that fishy nonsense. Jade Leech would remember that fact.

Fish trauma. Noted.

"....Okay," Deuce agreed, turning back to [Name], "Do you want to tell us what you've been doing with Leech-senpai? We're worried..."

Deuce trailed off for a moment before he added a Deuce-typical offer.

"I can fight him if you want me to. They're messing with my friend."

"N-no thanks, Deuce... I don't think I need that," [Name] said, laughing at the antics of her friends and roommate, "Honestly, I know he's not being honest with me... But I don't really... care?"

The words surprised Jade but he refused to give himself away. There was more information to be gathered, for his own needs and Azul's.

They don't mind my dishonesty? Heh...

"I have never been more concerned for you than I am right now," Ace said, tone lacking its usual goofy undertone, "Do you want me to tell Mom and Dad about anything? They would help..."

Ace wasn't sure what to do but this was a worry. So frantic to say his sentence Ace neglected to register his misnomer for Vice Housewarden Trey Clover and everyone's favorite senpai Cater Diamond. He could lay awake and think about that later.

Deuce clearly felt similarly as he reached out to put a hand on [Name]'s. He wasn't good at solving problems of the emotional variety but he could be a support. Or, he would try to be one.

"Even if we can't say anything helpful... We can be here to listen."

"I appreciate it, but I'm fine," [Name] tried to assure them (but it wasn't working), "I just... I like Jade-senpai... and if this is how... he will talk to me... then I am okay with it. I've just been going along with all... that."

Jade felt time stop for a millisecond as he processed the words. They had been "playing along"? They didn't fall for every trick? Perhaps this was more interesting than he had thought. Still. He didn't like being bested, perhaps he needed to up his game...

"[Name], that's not good... I don't think..." Deuce managed.

"I wish Mom and Dad were here..." Ace mumbled.

"[Name], don't leave me for a fish! It's not even tuna!"

Grim clung to his human with small paws, tail swishing.

Jade was baffled not by those that Azul had previously controlled but by [Name] themself. They were something odd amongst the students of Night Raven College. They didn't shy away from his... methods.

But they said they liked him. He wondered if that made him feel something. He wasn't one to like other people, stay around them long... especially these landfolk.

It was a foreign concept.

Oh dear. [Full Name], you've managed to intrigue me now.

To the concern of Deuce, Ace, and Grim, Jade Leech wouldn't be letting his human prey go any time soon. Not for Azul, or his brother... This was something he was pursuing now. For better or worse.

I hope they're prepared to best me once more.

What would they say if I said I "loved" them? ♪

Imagine the rest for yourself~

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

Thank you for reading! Likes and reblogs are appreciated! Do NOT repost my writing/headcanons as your own >:c Check the top of my blog for the inbox status and read the rules before requesting. This is not a twst-only blog! ^^

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thyras · 2 months ago

Text

→ the bearer of fruits

PAIRING → mairon | halbrand | annatar (sauron) x f!elf!reader

WORD COUNT → 8.9k words

WARNINGS → 18+ mdni - dark!reader, mentions of abuse (sauron kind of manhandles reader and threatens her, while she throws stuff at him), mentions of trauma, some fluff (if that can even be associated with him), manipulation, dark deeds, unprotected p in v, implied smut, handjob, pregnancy

SUMMARY → after your husband’s departure of Eregion, you are left hollowed and sorrowed. you find solace in your work and planting your seeds until an unexpected visitor shows up at the gates of Eregion.

AUTHORS NOTE → wow this took ages to finish, sorry about that. i've been so busy with school and mom life that i just was so drained of inspiration for this part. i wanted to touch more on reader and his background as it really defines how their relationship works. they are very hot and cold with each other, she may be really dark at times, even darker than him at times, but she is good at hiding it and even can suppress it. idk i hope you guys enjoy as well be reviving up in the next few parts. @sansaorgana you asked me to tag you, so here you are my friend ❤️

FIC MASTERLIST → NEXT PART

The fire crackled against its fuel as you flipped through a volume from the First Age. You had dove into anything that could take your mind off the sorrow you felt with his departure again. This time, you thought of starting to sow some seeds for your husband’s plan. For weeks, you had been coming after all the smiths had gone home, and you would be left in silence, hoping that one person would see you.

Which had not happened once.

Your hand fanned across the page. The silver band on your finger caught the light and shined its beautiful blue hue in the moonlight. A smile crept up on your face as you twisted it around your finger. The bluish inscription appeared in Sarati lettering, the ancient written form of your kin.

You rarely spoke Quenya anymore, but the inscription on the ring was something you always remembered.

Fairest of maidens, in the moonlight, you shall find me, for we are never truly parted.

You had been there in that elven forge of old when he crafted the ring. When you bound yourselves in mind, body, and soul. The Beauty of the Woodland was no more, for she had become his Wicked Beauty.

You snorted softly at the name. The Beauty of the Woodland. That’s all you had been to your kin, a goddess crafted by the Valar and sent to honor your family with your fair beauty. Your life before your husband had been nothing but pure subjection to fill that role and heal your kind.

For you were perceived to be an emissary of Valar in fair form.

But that was hardly true; you were just an elf gifted with refined beauty, which a woman of no consequence birthed. No fair powers filled you other than the gift to heal.

As you had done with him in those days.

The morning was bright, reflecting on the golden leaves down onto your glittering hair. You pushed some behind your ear as you bent down to gather some fungi to take back with you. You had ventured alone early in the morning, not a wise thing, but with years on you and a keen sense for danger, you always carried a blade concealed in your sleeve.

You started humming a sweet song while moving through the woods, peeling off fungi and picking medicinal weeds you could not grow. Your humming grew into a lovely, silvery song.

You hesitated a moment, though, when you reached for a mushroom nestled in a small patch by a tree. A certain iciness came over the forest, the gloominess of a rain cloud crawling over the once bright forest. You stood up and swallowed hard as the eeriness fell even more over the forest.

The hairs on the back of your neck rose suddenly as if you turned and looked behind you. Nothing. Your pulse raced. Your hand reached under the sleeve of your robe for the blade. Your eyes closed as you took a few shallowed breaths before a shadowy breath crossed your ears. Its disembodied voice caused you to shiver. You took a few breaths before opening your eyes and throwing the blade at a tree behind you.

You turned and saw nothing but the shining blade in the tree. As the sun was shining once again and the iciness over the forest lifted, you walked over and pulled your blade out before saying some Quenya words to the tree in sorrow for the damage.

You turned and went back to pick the mushrooms quickly. The darkness was gone, but you still felt its lingering touch on the shell of your ear—the caress almost as seductive as the taste of the finest wine or fruit. You licked your lips as a dark smile rose on your lips.

The darkness had touched you as a little girl; watching your father turn mad at your mother’s lovers, killing her in front of you, had changed you before you even were a teen. In later years, you plotted to kill the man for killing your mother.

Each day, you waited.

And watched.

Until you struck one night, holding a pillow over his face as you plunged his dagger into his heart. The pillow muffled his screams. You leaned in and spoke;

“For the Valar have forsaken you, Commander, and I am their justice.” You paused and took the pillow off so he could look into his daughter’s dark eyes. “See my face, and know it is I who have ended you.” The shocked look crossed his eyes before the light of the Valar left him.

You had been so dramatic in the following days, playing the part of a grief-stricken daughter. Only to hold back the triumph and satisfaction of ridding this world of the man who abused you and your mother enough to stray.

You returned to the road that would take you to your village. It would not take long to get back into the confines of those walls.

Your cage.

Your shackle.

It only brought more blackness to your heart lingering there. But you could hardly protect yourself on a long journey to find another set of kin. Your feet stopped as you felt a whisper of a breeze and turned to see a man walking, well limping, just ahead of you, hand covering his leg as the fabric of his pants was tainted with blood. His reddish hair glistened in the golden sun, much like a flame would as it would against its fuel. The strands were long and braided on the sides.

He stumbled, and you raced to grab his frame before he hit the ground. The weight of him caused you to collapse onto the dirt road. You looked down to see he was an elf, from what kin you did not know. His face was of the fairest beauty, someone to rival even your own. He smiled weakly.

“By the Valar,” he breathed hoarsely. “Have I reached Valinor?” You shook your head and told him your name and that you were a healer. He repeats your name back as if it was the sweetest of nectars. His hand reached up to touch your cheek, eyes fluttering as he swallowed hard.

You looked down at his leg and saw the deep puncture of something in his upper thigh. He had fashioned a tourniquet above the wound to stop the blooding, no doubt. His eyes looked up into yours, pleading almost.

"Boar," he breathed hoarsely again. You nod and smooth your hand across his clammy cheek in a comforting gesture.

"I'll get you well again; it's the least I can do." The man nodded, and you smiled before trying to help him get up. He tried greatly not to put all his weight on you as you walked, but it would only cause him even more great pain. So when you reached the outskirts of your village, you signaled for a couple of men to help you get him to your home.

Once the stranger was laid on the bed, you thanked the other men and began mending his wound. Throughout that time, you could not help but feel the warmth of his eyes on you, watching as you cleaned and worked tirelessly in your craft.

"You are so beautiful," he said through labored breaths, "like a star from the heavens." Your face warmed, and you finished bandaging his leg carefully. He reached up his shaky hand to push some of your hair behind your ear. The touch sent shivers down your spine and caused you to look over at him. You knew he was probably delirious from the blood loss and infection. He would not remember a thing when he woke up, but you prayed he would.

"Get some rest; I'll be here when you wake." You smiled, took his hand, and gave it a light kiss of reassurance. A smile touched his battered lips before his eyes closed. You laid his arm across his chest and rose out of your chair to start the clean-up.

Hours later, when he awoke again, you sat a bowl of stew next to him on the small table and a glass of wine. He sat up, took the bowl, and began eating eagerly as you moved back to the small kitchen.

"Thank you," he said, inclining his head to you.

"You're welcome," you paused. "You should be well enough to travel by morrow's eve; your kin must be worried about you." Something in his eyes changed as he lowered the bowl to his lap. His eyes turned dark like yours had when you murdered your father. A touch of your darkness rose as his did.

"I have no kin," he said softly, his eyes still staring at the bowl in his hands. You nodded before turning back to the worktop, where you continued to mash your herbs.

Silence grew over you both until he spoke again moments later. "They perished in the war." You nod. Many of your kin had as well, but again, it was not even sorrowful to you. These people had stood by and let their commander abuse you and your mother.

"I'm sorry," you said with fake sorrowfulness. “To lose one's kin is a tragedy that most of us do not heal from.

"You speak as if you know of this," he said, reaching to grab the glass. You nodded in an ever-convincing gesture toward his question. If it was not for the darkness of the hour, you swore you saw a nebulous smile touch his lips.

"My father died in the war; his company was ambushed, and before the rest of the force could reach them, they all but perished." You lied while staring at him in those dark eyes as he watched you. Your secret still hidden.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, inclining his head toward you. But before he could continue, you spoke again.

"Don't be; he was an arrogant, abusive man." You flashed him a dark smile. He could not help but chuckle. "I was more sorrowful for the men under his leadership, and I thanked the Valar for freeing me of his abuse." You looked down at your stone, knowing you had already told him too much of your despise of this place and its memories. But it felt good to touch the darkness again, that part of you that you forced into submission to keep your facade of the virtuous, sweet, elven healer.

You heard him stand up and move over to you. His fingers cupped your chin and brought your face to meet his gaze in the dim light of the candles. His eyes were dark as night and full of desire, and you gave him an equally dark smile.

His grip tightened on your chin, and you let a sharp breath fall out as you closed your eyes. His hot breath crossed your face and sent shivers down your spine. Before his lips could meet yours, you pushed on his chest. Your hand was placed against his fluttering heart as his gaze watched you, waiting for you to make the next move.

"I hardly know you,” You said, giving him a playful look. “And it would look less than virtuous for you to be seen touching me." You continued, fingers gripped onto his shirt as you raised your brow to taunt him more. The darkness in his eyes seemed to come alight with an animalistic presence. A growl rumbled through his chest as you ran your fingers down his chest. “Now, you would not want to take a fair maiden’s virtue?” you said with a fake pout. The mischief in your gaze made a nebulous smile touch his face again. It sent your pulse racing as every inch of you heated up.

“Temptress,” he breathed. Releasing your chin and running his warm fingers down your neck. “For you have deceived an even greater deceiver.” In an instant, you had your fingers wrapped around his throat and backed up against the wall. A blade hovered above your fingers, cool Valinor silver pressed against his jaw. You felt the tension in his neck as he swallowed and lifted his chin to give you better access to the skin, his eyes closing as you leaned in slowly.

“You think you have deceived me?” You said, watching his eyes flicker open when a laugh of disbelief left your lips. “I knew you were watching me. The second I walked into those woods. I played the fair innocent maid, oh so sweet.” You tightened your grip as you leaned in to run your tongue against the skin of his jaw. His muscles tensed under your grasp again, your teeth grazing his chin. “I bet the singing got you real hard.” You tempted, his eyes closing again as his nostrils flared. “Hard enough to do my bidding and be rewarded with a taste?” Your lips ghosted over his. His hands kept perfectly still next to him, fists clenching as he struggled to stay calm against your grasp.

“Little one, you have no idea who you are bargaining with,” he growled.

“I have an idea,” You run the blade just underneath his jawline. A trickle of black blood fell to no surprise to you. You leaned in and lapped the sweet nectar, coating your lips as you took in some of his essence. It tasted godly, giving you a taste of his malice and power. You craved more and wished to allow this being to cover you in it so you could know what true power felt like, not the innocent power of one's flesh but the over someone's mind and soul—morphing them into what you wanted. “So what shall I call you, my lord? Or do you want me to scream out your true name as you have your way with this fair maiden?”

He reached up and pushed more of your hair out of your face. The touch was so gentle for a man who had murdered so many of your kin. You should have been scared of him, terrified even. But you knew you were just as black-hearted as he was, which probably drew him to you.

You were an expert manipulator and temptress.

A true dark widow leading any unsuspecting man to her web of deception. This time, though, you had caught the Great Deceiver in your web; he was yours now. Your two dark souls were finally connected, yearning for release and pleasure.

"Mairon,"

The clinging of a glass brought you out of your musings before looking over at the source of the sound. Celebrimbor strode up the staircase with a glass of wine for the both of you and a pile of parchment between his left arm. "May I join you?" he asked as a smile touched his lips.

You nodded and motioned to the chair. Finally, your plan bore fruit. He set a glass down in front of you. You reached and brought it to your lips, drinking the liquid as he moved to lay his papers out on the table across from you. Designs, no doubt, for more rings. You turned back to your reading, delicate fingers turning the large page as you read the old words.

"I see you have taken an interest in First Age magics." You look up at him as he took a drink. "It is a delightful read, even for someone who was there."

"I never experienced those magics, only the ones to destroy." You said truthfully, but you hid your dark smile at the mention of the shadowy being who had taught you many of those dark things.

“I forget myself. You lost all your kin to him.” You gave him a sorrowful look before turning back to reading. Celebrimbor raised a brow at you as your left hand moved across the page. His gaze fell when the moonlight from the window caught your ring, causing the inscription to reappear. He moved to pick up your hand as a missing piece of his puzzle had probably been solved, but before you registered what he was doing, he had the ring of your finger in haste.

Your body weakened with age, and signs started to appear on your once beautiful, serene face, showing how your choice to stay in Middle-Earth had affected you. The air in your lungs grew cold, and your mind became lonely as you could no longer feel his power and dark thread against you—the life force to your beauty and enhanced healing abilities.

Celebrimbor watched you shift and change, then glanced down at the ring. Even more surprise crossed his face as he stood and walked quickly to the window, hoping to see how it worked. But the inscription all but faded as it was not connected to your essence anymore. Your husband's blood had given you vibrant beauty for the rest of your days, but only if his gift was placed upon your finger.

The bond you shared and promised to keep had been laid into that ring, blood mixed with blood. His vow was recited and dropped into the molten Valinor silver ore as you recited yours. He forged it under the starry, moonlit night in love and promise for more. Thus, it created the final piece of your bond, gave you access to some of his abilities, and gave the beautiful silver its blue hue.

The Valar were displeased with his creation and choice to massacre your people, citing that if he genuinely were remorseful for his deeds, he would return to Valinor to pay for his crimes. At the same time, you paid for yours in loneliness and longing for the Undying Lands that you would never meet.

You both turned your backs and knew no road to redemption did not leave you separated from one another. So you both agreed to cleanse and heal this world in your image so that you may sit upon your thrones and finally have peace from the looming threat of the Valar’s wrath.

You were sure he had just felt the parting, and soon, his shadowy form would be upon you—or worse.

"How–ho–" he stuttered out as he tried to get the blue hue to show again. Your frail body stood and snatched the thin silver ring from his hand before slipping it back on, and you shifted back into your youthful, beautiful form again.

The air in your lungs returned, and you felt a tear fall from your eye. The comfort of his mind and soul returning, the pain of silence and separation becoming too much. You gave the little thread a soft tug to tell him it was alright and just part of your plan. "Teach me," His eyes were blown wide almost as he moved over to the table quickly almost knocking the wine glasses off. "Tell me everything or show me how you did it,"

"I did not do anything, Lord Celebrimbor," You said, covering your hand so he would not have another chance to snatch the ring off your hand. "It was a gift from my late husband to torture me," you said with slight anger; though this was about to be a clever story, your beloved was probably about to be very disappointed in you slandering his name.

Celebrimbor looked at you, confused. "His dying wish was to see me live an immortal life tied to this." You hold up the ring to him. "For being unfaithful to him. It is my shackle, my lord, and I doubt you wish to craft something as such." You look back down at your book, hiding the pain in your face as you tell such lies about your husband, but this was needed to keep Celebrimbor going. Keep him thinking about the other rings, sowing your husband’s dark web in even his absence.

"But you wear it proudly? And your reaction earlier tells me he means more to you." You cursed at your earlier slip in disguise, but no one had ever tried to take it off your finger. So it caught you off guard, and your mask had faded. You had not expected him to do that.

"I wear it because my immortality depends on it; my gift to heal depends on it. I wear it so I can live." You finally look up at him, and your eyes gaze into his. "Wouldn't you do the same, my lord?"

"But you have used your ring for good," You held back the snort at his comment. "Healed Eregion for centuries and been an utmost loyal friend to my family." All for your husband's benefit, he had an in and a watchful eye here. He had what he wanted, and you had a warm place to sleep while you waited for him.

"You flatter me, my lord," Your eyes turned back to the page as he touched your shoulder.

"I am sorry, my friend; I did not mean for my impoliteness. Forgive me." You placed a hand over his and smiled softly up at him, your charming, deceitful self on full display.

"It is quite alright." He released you before going back to his chair. He picked up a quill and began scratching out notes. You returned to your reading until a cool breeze entered the room from the window, causing your senses to heighten as you felt the shadows come to life. A small smile touched your lips, knowing he was about to play one of his little shadowy games. His ghostly hand wrapped around your throat, fingers trailing against your soft skin.

"Don't worry, there is an illusion over you," his voice said against your ear. "You will appear to be reading."

"And what do I owe the pleasure, husband?" You felt the pain on his form at how you did not hide your irritation, or it was coming from him for another reason. He was not allowing you to see where he was for whatever reason.

“Can a husband not check in on his wife?” You swatted his shadowy hand from touching you. The Black Speech curse that floated across sent a nebulous smile, touching your lips, knowing he was not in the mood to play games. But neither were you.

His hand moved back to your throat, hand tighter as his lips went to your ear. “You would do right to remember who—“

“I tire of these excuses, husband.” You closed your eyes, trying to keep yourself in complete control. “I also tire of these lies, " he growled.

“You are such a burdensome woman,” he said as his fingers grabbed your hair, yanking it back. You could see the dark embers of his eyes encased by his shadowy form. “Always speaking of things she knows nothing of.”

“But that’s why you love me,” You reach up to touch his shadowy face. “Without me, your immortality would have been oh so tiresome.” you teased. Your finger ran across where his cheekbone would have been. “But you’re right; I am only some innocent maiden who knows nothing of the plan she helped mold.” Another growl went through his shadowy lips, fingers tugging even more on your hair, pulling a whimper from your lips.

“We both know you are far from innocent, little one.” You had to laugh at that. “For you deceived the Great Deceiver at his own game,” you hum as his hand ran down your chest, ghosting over your breasts and down to your ripened core. You grabbed his wrist and held it up.

“It would do you good to remember that,” you growled. “It would also mind you well to tell me where you are.”

"Sowing seeds,” you rolled your eyes at his even more cryptic answer. "Just as you are, my little temptress," His shadowy lips wrapped around your ear. "Though I warn you if he touches you or your ring again, I will take pleasure in killing him right now.” You whimpered at the thought and bit down on your bottom lip as his hand met your skirt again.

“You spoil me, husband,” his dark chuckle filled your ear. “Do not forget that I can only stall for so long," you bit back at him. “He will keep hammering me about the ring,” he hummed in answer to your statement before the brushes of his tongue ran across the shell of your ear. Your walls and stomach fluttered in anticipation of your reunion once again. He was playing dirty, but whenever did he not?

"I'm aware," he whispered before nipping at your ear. A whimper left your lips in response. Through this whole interaction, you had not as much as glanced at Celebrimbor through the illusion until now.

He was working away, taking a sip of his wine occasionally. Utterly undisturbed by you and your husband’s interaction. “Only if he saw you right now,” your husband breathed against your shoulder. “In all your dark glory, wanton with desire for the very man they fear. Oh, the scandal it should cause.” He kissed your shoulder lightly before moving up your neck and back to your ear. “That innocent elven maiden disguise you have carefully constructed, completely broken against my cock.”

His lips nipped at the sensitive tip while his hand ran back to your stomach, cupping it softly.

"I will it," he breathed.

And like a gust of wind, he was gone. Illusion falling.

The lingering sadness mixed with his words caused another set of tears to fall onto your face.

He willed it.

Sunrises turned into sunsets, and each day felt like an eternity. Since his appearance that night, you had grown longingly for him even more, knowing he was still alive and well, to some extent.

But you had waited centuries with even less uncertainty. It was always a game of patience.

Though you had grown tired of it now.

You tried your best to distract yourself with the mundane tasks of being a healer, such as setting broken bones and healing minor cuts. Sure, your assistants could do such things, but it helped busy your mind and distract you from the aching in your heart as you longed for his touch and his breath on your ear.

It drove you mad when he tortured you in the night, shadows bringing you almost to the brink, only to leave you hanging like he wanted to build up the tension of your separation. You had many a thought to take your ring off so you could stop the torture, but you knew that was not the brightest idea. He would only make it worse for you after he arrived.

You bared it, though.

As you awoke this morning, something in the air told you today would be different. The air was crisper and tasted like the electricity of a storm rolling in. A smile touched your lips as you felt the lingering touch of his caress on your lips. You brought your thumb to meet your bottom lip as he had the night before, tracing across it in sweet memory. Your heart filled with what little warmth you had left in it, only reserved for the dark shadow that filled your dreams and drove you mad with his ghostly touches.

You threw the blankets off your body and got out of bed, feet walking across the stone floor toward your balcony doors, opening them to see the bright morning light into your chambers. Back when you had a semblance of pureness in your heart, you would have probably enjoyed this sight, the singing of the birds flying across the river to the sounds of the city waking up.

But that had long left you.

You found solace in the dark, stormy days and long, cold winter nights. Something about them made you feel like he was there with you after settling into Eregion. The only warmth you sought was his embrace and the dark aura that always seemed to follow him, encasing you and bringing out the life in you. Never light, just life.

He completed you in so many ways, just as you completed him.

Your arms leaned against the railing as you took in a familiar scent, one you had not smelled in many centuries—blue daises. They used to grow around that first city you and your beloved made your home in. The name had long since been forgotten through the ages. But you could always remember that smell.

When you both tried to seek peace and redemption for your dark souls, you settled down into a slower way of life. One where you tried to suppress the darkness and power-hungry souls that lived in you both, hoping it would be enough, wishing that your deeds to help the people would wash your slates clean. When there was still a tiny part of you both that was still pure of heart.

As always, you had taken on a life as a healer, and your husband did what he did best.

Created.

He created beautiful things for you at that time—things you still had tucked away in the soft confines of your jewelry box, even if they did burn when they touched your cold, dark being now. But nothing surpassed the ring you wore on your finger even though it was both your undoing.

His fingers pushed your loose strands behind your ear as you sat on one of the many flower-covered hills surrounding the city that you both had made home. Your cheeks warmed against his gaze. It was not uncommon for you both to find solace away from the city limits, as you both kept to yourselves in hopes that your dark souls would find the space to heal.

“Tell me about your day,” you asked; a smile touched his lips as he looked down at your hand, reaching to take his. “I know he has you busy, as you are so gifted.” Your husband nodded and he began to tell you about his day. You hung on his every word and gesture, getting glimpses of what he would have probably been like before his corruption. The brightness in his eyes, playful and gentle touches that he would give you at times.

You had noticed that darkness falling away in his eyes the more he did good.

The more he healed that dark part of him.

“I do have something for you,” he said, bringing you out of your musings. You raised your brow in suspicion. He moved to cup your chin, pulling your face to meet his briefly as his pillowy lips moved against yours. A giggle escaped your lips as he broke away and laid his forehead on yours. “I promised you that you would never want for anything; if you asked, it would be yours no matter the cost.” Your fingers moved to cup his face and nod.

“I remember,” He released you before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a beautiful piece of jewelry. Blue stones hung in a setting that looked reminiscent of the blue daisies that surrounded you and grew in front of your home, that you had tended so carefully to over the years. The stones shined in the sun's light and pulled you in more. It was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen.

“Crafted for my beautiful wife,” you turned and lifted your hair so he could lay the necklace on you and clasp it closed. “Forged with silver from Valinor and blue gems of the mountain. All made for the beautiful woman meant to wear it.” He leaned in and kissed your neck as your fingers touched the stones, his fingers skating across your stomach and caressing the white silken fabric you wore.

“It’s beautiful,” you breathed as his lips lapped at the skin of your neck and down to your shoulder. “Thank you,” He hummed against your soft skin and continued to nip and suck on the skin he exposed when his fingers pushed down the silken fabric that rested on your shoulders, exposing your skin to the warmth of the sun. “I want to remind you that children come up here, my love.” He did not reply with words but with a grip on your breast before pulling you into him. His other hand traveled down to your core, only to make a symphony leave your lips as he fucked you into a withering mess as he always did.

You both lay bare against the warmth of the swaying grasses and flowers, intertwined still as your post-coitus bliss still hung against you both. He slid one of the blue daisies behind your ear as you kissed him passionately, fingers moving up to cup his face as he wrapped his arms around you.

Hearts and souls as one, once again. Full and warm.

“I have been thinking,” he started as he propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at you. The sun had become your greatest friend in your time here, you glowed again and seemed to fill with even more peace than he had ever seen in you.

“That is never a good thing with you,” he glowered down at you as you made the jab. “But go on,”

“I want to forge you a ring,” he breathed. “One that will bind us immortally.” You swallowed hard and moved to place your hand on his cheek, his head leaning into it as his lips kissed your wrist softly.

“We have been here before, love,” you started as he sighed. “Our hearts are still so black that even the slightest taste of power could set us off.” He continued to lay his head in your hand, only now his eyes were looking at yours.

“I know, and we have worked so hard in trying, but–” You cut him off with a passionate kiss.

“No more talk of this,” you breathed against his lips. “We promised to leave it all behind. We have built our own little bits of peace here. They have not noticed or wish to not meddle in our progress.” They, being the Valar, which you both wished to please in this time, hoping they would renounce both your crimes and allow you to live in a world of bliss and longevity together.

Though you felt that lingering wish for power and control deep inside him still. The lingering tendrils of Morgoth’s weavings were still embedded in him, fighting with the pureness that was trying to show itself again. “I know you wish to lavish me something so great, but it would be a creation built in the dark. The magic used would not be of light as we wish but of darkness.”

“Divine,” he breathed, leaning into you again. “Let’s try,”

The hairs on the back of your neck stood as that once eerie feeling resurfaced. Telling you the peace here would be limited once again.

Limited it was.

The darkness crept back in.

Slowly at first, only with signs that were noticed by you. His mind elsewhere while yours tried to keep on moving forward. Late nights in the sitting room doing whatever had been consuming his mind, to the irritation he had about his work.

On one occasion, you walked down to see him muttering to himself and scratching away at something. You moved over to him and placed your hand on his shoulder causing him to jump as he had been so consumed by his task. Your eyes swept the page to see designs for a ring. Your ring.

“I thought we were behind this?” You said, trying to take the parchment from him, causing him to rip it from your hands, tearing the parchment in half. His eyes darkened as a growl rumbled in his chest.

“And I thought you trusted me?” You looked at him, bewildered by the boiling temper in his eyes. For the last few centuries, nothing but a lovelorn look had been in his eyes.

“I do, but love, this ring does not prove my love and loyalty to you.” you breathed, holding up your half of the parchment. “It will only drive you down a path I cannot follow.”

“Cannot follow?” He yelled. You flinched and looked down at your feet, hoping not to upset him more. He moved over to you and wrapped his fingers around your throat. “You follow me; remember, I took you from that place and gave you the revenge that you sought. All because I love you.” Tears kissed your cheeks as he tightened his grip, dark eyes blazing.

“I love you too, but they will take you from me if we do this.” You cried. “A separation greater than any we have experienced before. Do you want that for me?” He sighed, loosening his grip on you, and ran his finger across your cheek.

“Then let me just make you this one ring so even if we are ever parted, you will still feel like I am there with you.”

That one choice, one singular choice, had changed your relationship forever. You agreed and he forged the bonding ring and the darkness now awoke in you again after centuries of it being only a quiet hum.

He grew obsessed and consumed by the desire to create more rings to bring order to this world. You watched as he drove himself mad with this all-but-consuming task.

Power over the flesh.

He kept saying. In those times he did not seek your comfort, grew cold and distant towards you. Each time you would walk to that hill and the flowers would wilt and die against your touch until there was none left. A personification of what was to come.

You stopped going until the darkness in your heart returned. Things began crumbling in your lives; he lost his temper more, filled people’s minds with his sickness, and fell so much further into his obsession.

The day everything changed, you watched as he stood in the doorway and told you he was going back to Fordowaith and taking up his place in Morgoth’s wake so he could finish his work. He asked you to come with him, take your place by his side, and be his queen, but you told him no.

You told him that there was no path you would not follow him. Told him that you would continue the plan, but you would do it your way. A way that kept you together.

You left him standing there.

And went on your way.

You stood back up and turned back towards your chambers, the sun becoming too much for you as your mind dove even deeper into the maddening memories. It was too much at times, and you tried not to let it affect you, but it did.

It broke you to part yourself from him, but you knew somewhere in your heart he would find you again. And he had.

As you got ready for the day, your hands skated across the fabric over your stomach. The skin had yet to stretch, but you knew they were nestled deeply in your womb.

The greatest creation he had ever made.

You had known for a bit as the dizzy spells overcame you and heightened smells that sometimes nauseated you. Life grew a little brighter in his absence, but not enough to quench the need to feel him there beside you, sharing in this joy.

After your musings had ended, you got right to work and attend to your duties. You made your rounds and finished just before lunch. You started back to your home when you felt the lingering pull of that dark thread crawling up your spine. You turn and see guards walking up the road with a man on a horse.

Your heart nearly leaped out of your chest when you saw him. The coppery strands glistened in the sun as he continued towards the gatehouse. You moved out of the way and watched as his green eyes met yours, a smile touching his lips as your face warmth. Your heart fluttered in your chest as you bowed your head in response before he passed, and you were only left with the lingering warmth of his shadowy thread wrapping around yours.

You rushed back home, knowing he would probably visit after speaking with Celebrimbor.

But nothing came of it.

And the night rolled in with not much as a word. The claps of thunder and flickers of lightning filled your darkened chambers. With the rain spilling moments later.

And you could not help but add tears to the sound of the pattering rain.

Heart aching at his rejection, yet again.

Slap.

Your hand connected with his face, sending shivers down your spine as his elven head turned in response. Hand shooting to his face as you seethed with anger. Your pulse raced as he looked back up at you, eyes burning with a fire you had never seen in him before. You stare at him with your seething gaze. He was so stunned by your reaction that he moved up to you with a pace unmatched by any mortal being. His fingers gripped in your hair, yanking your head back. Those elven eyes seared into yours as he snarled at you.

You did not flinch or pull away from his grasp. The pain was only temporary, and the satisfaction of seeing the red mark coming up on the pale face caused a smile to touch your lips before you spoke.

"You dare not hurt me, husband," His hand gripped harder, pulling at your roots. You struggled not to whimper at the action like you always did. Your desire to not give into his temptation and prolong this argument until he was buried deep inside you and taking you like the feral animal he could be at times. Though this time, you knew he was deprived and wanting, so this would only make his restraint last so long before he gave in to his desire to control you.

"Do you want to test me?" He growled. "Because I have killed people for less."

"And I've killed people for the fun of it, my lord," your eyes burning now as his grip loosened just a tiny bit. A chuckle left his lips, knowing you were fully capable of wreaking havoc on entire cities and his heart. "You leave without a word and only appear in my chambers again when you see fit. In a whole new disguise, may I add." You spat out at him. "What web are sowing now?"

He released you and moved past you into your chambers, speaking words that were inaudible to you. "I am protecting you," he finally said.

"Protecting me?" you say in disbelief as you move over to your desk where your books and papers are. "That's all I get?"

"The less you know, the more believable you can be." You gripped a book. The anger in your bones at his lack of faith in you had you seething for an even grander fight. You wanted to slap, punch, or kill him for even believing you could not be believable at your own game. You had spent centuries here building relationships and trust that it was laughable for him even to consider himself of more importance than you at this moment.

Your hand gripped the thick leather volume harder before your anger boiled over, and you tossed it at him, but before it could hit him, he pushed it out of the way with his abilities.

"The more believable I can be?" You roared. You grabbed more and continued to throw it at him, anger surging even more. Your pent-up heartache at his mistrust poured into each onslaught. His eyes watched you as he moved out of the way of your blows, books, quills, and jewelry box hitting the wall behind him. The pain in your eyes did not affect his emotionless face in the slightest. "Are you doubting my skills?"

"Are you doubting my judgment?" He roared back at you. "Because as I see it, you questioning me tells me they have gotten into your head." You moved quickly and pushed him over onto your bed, using all the darkness in you to overpower him. He sat up, looking at you with disbelief at your action. You had never dared to touch him in anger in all the centuries. Sure, you had been close before, but this was different. He was questioning your loyalty to him.

"How dare you question my loyalty," Tears touched your cheek. "How dare you threaten me and treat me like one of your little puppets when all I have ever been to you is faithful."

"That's not what you told Celebrimbor," he taunted, trying to sit up, but you moved to straddle his hips, holding him in place before wrapping your fingers around his neck.

"If you believe the words of a lie," You growled at him. "Then surely you've gone mad." You leaned down over him, the other hand pulling up the skirt of your nightgown over your hips while delicate fingers hungrily searched underneath his robes.

“This argument bor—” his train of thought stopped as your hand found what it was searching for. Your eyes watched as his closed against the grip of your hand. Fingers sliding up the length till your thumb traced against the tip, pulling a low hiss from his lips.

“This bores you?” You taunted, pumping lightly against the hardened flesh that filled your grip; his hips arched into your tugs as you rolled yours softly with your motions against him. You finally lean into his ear, motions growing. “If this bores you, then you have gone mad.” The tension lines in his neck tightened as you ran your teeth against them, nipping the pale skin as you went. You were in control for the moment, trying to get him to remember who he belonged to.

Your strokes grew in intensity as you could tell his peak was coming, his deprived state causing his body to fail him. “My sweet,” You breathed into his ear. “My oh so sweet Mairon, in all those centuries apart, you still believe you have control.”

His eyes opened, and he growled as he quickly had you on your back, his painfully hard cock at your entrance. His eyes burned into yours as he thrust into you quickly, pulling a moan from your lips as you closed your eyes. He leaned down to your ear. “Control is only an illusion, wife. I let you believe what you want, but you bow to me, no one else.” You whimpered against the sickly, sweet words. His thrusting grew in intensity as he took pleasure in the way you silenced the control over him, letting him take you as he saw fit.

You were a devious creature that was as slippery as a serpent. But he was only but a mirror of that. He never had to command your mind or inflict his magic on you. You surrendered so willingly, already kissed by the darkness ages before he crossed your path. Desire drove this relationship at times, a sickly sweet desire he had never fully understood until he felt those hips against his fingers, guiding you through the movements. It was maddening as the sounds of your climax repeated over and over throughout that tiny home in that long-forgotten elven city. The night you both had given your souls to each other.

After that, there was nothing he would do for you. He would murder whole cities and move the oceans just to please you. He only wanted to give you everything you desired—jewels, clothes, even a child.

The thrill of the chase, of the fight for dominance, never bored him. Even if he told you otherwise, these ‘arguments’ were sometimes needed to remind you who pulled the strings to your heart and who pulled his. The anger and heartache only fueled your desire to seek control and dominance over him, trying to hold him close to you as if he would sleep away into the abyss again.

You had left before.

And it broke him.

You sought the rational solution to lie in wait. Let them come to you. Build relationships, reputations, and trust in those you wish to subjugate.

Greed had chased you away. He paid dearly for that and spent centuries as a pile of omniscient form of liquid goo. As he regained his mind, he thought of you and how he wanted to find and surrender himself to you—telling you how you had been right. He would never doubt you again.

But you had taken your ring off.

You took the one connecting piece off, and you were nothing more than a distant memory in his mind. He had no idea where you were or if you had perished. He sometimes cursed himself for using the ring to bind your bond. But he never thought you would unbind yourself to him.

So when your mind disappeared again, it weakened his weakened state even more. He needed to feel you, and it angered him that you would even think that was a smart idea, but he had asked for trust in those first years.

And trust was a two-way street.

Your whimpered pleas for more brought him out of his thoughts. He looked down at you, all unmade under his fingertips. Hair tousled and lips swollen from biting down on them. You looked so beautiful and ethereal as he drove you mad with lust. Your fingers clawed against the linen of your bed, silver band shining in the moonlight as he tore you down with his thrust. Only to remake you once again.

It was not long before you both reached your respective highs. Climax found you both as calls of your names filled the stone walls, echoing into your hearts. His lips moved with yours as you gripped your fingers in his blonde hair. Delicate fingers took their time to ruin the perfectness of the strands. A memory finds you, causing a giggle to leave your lips. The last time he appeared like this was when he first saw you. Though his hair was much different back then, you felt slight sorrow at the choice of blonde hair.

“Red suits you more,” you breathed against his lips. “This,” your fingers moved over the shell of his ears, running up to the pointed tips, causing him to hum at the stimulating touch. “Is how I remember you each and every time I close my eyes,”

He chuckled. “I can change it,” you shake your head.

“No, my sweet Mairon,” you grabbed his face. “I am selfish and wish to be the only one to gaze upon that form.” He hummed and kissed your lips again briefly. Eyes locked as you both sunk into your post-coitus bliss. When the thought crosses your mind. A smile rose on your lips again. “Lord of Gifts,” you breathed, pulling him out of his thoughts. “I have a gift for you.” You took his lip between yours and sucked down on it.

“What kind of gift would be greater than gazing upon my wife?” Your face warmed before you ran your fingers across his cheekbones. You felt the tickle of uncertainty touch your heart. It was still so early, and you could be wrong in your assessment. But deep in your heart, you knew that you both had created something in the light of that morning when he had willed it.

“The gift of creation,” A darkness flashed across his eyes as you spoke. That earlier worry filled his cold heart. “The fruits of our union.”

“Divine,” he breathed, but you cut him off.

“You are not happy?” He sighed and ran his fingers through your hair. He smoothed out the strands as he tried to find the words to tell you how he felt. In truth, he did not know how he felt. All kinds of emotions crossed his mind until he spoke again.

“It will grow on me; I’m concerned.” You nod, and a weak smile fills your lips before moving to sit up. Fingers running through your hair as you struggle with what to say to him. This was not the reaction you had expected at all. In your belief, you thought he had wanted this as much as you did. His change of heart was sincere, but that was not the case.

“You willed it,” You whimpered. He caught your chin, bringing your gaze to his. His gaze was as soft as he could ever get it to be. Tears brimming in your eyes as you both searched for the right words. He knew you were hurt, and you could sense the fear of the unknown on his dark thread.

“Like any father, I’m surprised and shocked that it happened so quickly,” he finally said. You stifled a loud laugh of amazement at his statement, knowing it was probably not the best right now. But to know he was surprised was shocking; you did not even know he could be that.

“I did not know the Dark Lord could be stunned for words.” A thin smile touched his lips, fingers pushing your hair behind your ear.

“There is a first for everything,”

#halbrand x reader #sauron x reader #the rings of power #rings of power fic #halbrand #trop fic #annatar x reader #annatar #trop #rings of power #sauron

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gyuswhore · 7 months ago

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Never Shall We Die (2)

«« Nothing is too outlandish when it’s a life of liberty on the line. »»

PAIRING: kwon soonyoung x reader

PLAYLIST: right here!

pirate lingo glossary (pls refer!)

SYNOPSIS: Deadliest pirate on the high seas or a damn fool? The stupid King and his men have snatched Hoshi's precious pirate ship with their too clean, too soft hands; grounds to question his own vices. Except, when he and his crew land in the quarters of a navy ship, revenge on their roster, they stumble across a princess in its gallows. Hoshi wonders if he's just struck gold, or if you'd become the final tread to his downfall.

GENRES: pirate!au, enemies to lovers, slowburn, angst, fluff, smut [minor dni], some pirates of the carribean vibes but ? idk

WORD COUNT [full fic]: 48.1k

Part 1: 17.07k | Part 2: 15.2k | Part 3 [final] : 15.8k

@highvern's out of context comment box: new fear unlocked: hoshi with explosives, victorian ankle moment, HATE HIM (need him carnally), hoshi covered in soapy water would distract me enough, strip for me pirate mingyu [hes litrally taking off his jacket], your honor hes a bitch, freaks!, mingyu crushes hoshi's head like a grape, WONWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, massive dick, the way i literally gasped like an old scandalized woman

masterlist

WARNINGS: slowburn, plot heavy, happy ending bc no angsty endings in this household, being taken hostage, knives, bombs, and guns, mentions of blood, mentions of SA (does not happen and it is not explicitly mentioned), alcohol, mentions of death (patricide), hoshi is ✨selectively moral✨but kind of moral nonetheless, side character death, [pls lmk if im missing something its alot] smut tags in following parts

[AN]: part 2 !!!! ty for reading pt1, hope you guys will enjoy this too <3 as always, ty to @highvern for beta-ing and sitting through this entire thing lmao <3 happy reading, and remember to tell me what you think !!

THE FOREVER EMPTY DECK, for whatever reason, was occupied when you trudge up the stairs in an attempt to free yourself from the stuffiness of your quarters.

You make out Seungkwan sitting cross legged on the floors, very carefully pouring himself a bottle of something unmarked into a bowl. Chan is there as well, very meticulously explaining a happening to…Hoshi, who sits by with an interested expression, mouth turned into a frown with his brows furrowed. Chan is using his hands as he continues, unaware of your presence.

“Oh!” Seungkwan calls you out by name, causing the rest of the clique to turn their heads to you. “Come have a drink!”

“What’s this?” Hoshi starts. He’s smiling, but his reddened cheeks give away his very obviously intoxicated state. “Has miss princess decided to grace us with her presence?”

You ignore him, acknowledging Chan when he asks why you were up at this hour as you sit between him and Seungkwan.

“Just needed some air,” you mumble.

“Well,” Hoshi is loud when he spills half the drink out of the cup he was pouring it into. “Air pairs well with rum.”

He holds out a cup of the liquid for you, swaying slightly from the effort of holding it far out towards you.

“I am a lady.” You resist the effort to turn your nose up.

“Okay lady, bottoms up!” he slurs.

When you continue to keep your hands folded, he retracts his hand with what you think is a prominent scowl, but it looks more like a disappointed pout if anything. He takes a dejected sip from the cup.

“Come on, just one!” Seungkwan tries to convince you.

“Leave her alone, Kwan, miss princess is too good to be drinking with pirates,” Hoshi chides.

You aren’t sure if it was meant to be a jab at all, considering the strange switch in behaviour he seems to have adopted as his drunk persona. You watch in silence as he reaches over to plant a big kiss on Seungkwan’s cheek in affection, grabbing his head strongly. He yelps, pushing his captain off with a face.

But regardless of what he meant, the defiance sparked within you anyway, and you find yourself gripping the neck of the poorly dusted bottle that sat in the middle amidst even more bottles, cups and twine. The motion has all eyes on you, even as you bring the bottle to your lips, preparing yourself for one of the dumber things you’ve done.

Locking eyes with Hoshi’s sharp ones over the bottle, you chug it of its remnants, ignoring the fiery burn and the trickles of liquid that trail down the corners of your mouth.

You hear Seungkwan and Chan cheering, Hoshi remaining stoic as he refuses to be the one to look away from above the bottle.

By the time you’ve slammed the bottle back onto the hardwood, you’re struggling to maintain your vision and you’re forced to tear your eyes away from the man that sits across from you, unwavering.

Resisting the urge to vomit, you can only smile weakly at Seungkwan and Chan who are overly excited over your endeavour, clinking their own cups as they down another one in your honour.

It kickstarted your spree in any case as the night commenced, continuing to accept refills as you sip slower than before, savouring the taste that you couldn’t really say you enjoyed. The feeling, however.

Seungkwan and Chan took longer than you’d expected to pass out, noting the way they continued to clink and drink with no regard.

Hoshi seemed to need little to be washed away, something you found yourself silently snorting at, even as both boys continued to snore quietly behind you.

“What’s so funny?” Hoshi asks, taking a sip from his cup.

You snap your head up, drunk and hot. You consider shaking your head to indicate a null, but you can’t say you have much control over yourself at the moment.

“You take so little to get tipsy,” you comment with a little giggle.

“What makes you think I’m drunk?” he asks.

His red face? The uncharacteristic warmth he’d been treating you with all night? Who knows? But right now you ignore his question, zeroed in on something. He’s wearing one of his stupid linen shirts that are always buttoned too low, the ones that make it impossible to keep your eyes on his face.

Your eyes find the distorted slash of tissue that resides on his chest, right over his left peck, right over his heart. You’ve noticed the scar on multiple occasions. Not that he seems to ever try to hide it. You decide to mention it.

“How’d you get that?” you whisper. It feels right to talk like that; the deck is silent, the sea is calm in her regard to pushing the ship where it needs to go. Your legs are pulled up to your chest, cheek on your knees.

He follows your gaze to his scar, coming round to answer you with a drunk, dopey smile on his face. “Got hungry.”

Possible, but you also get the feeling he wasn’t about to give you a straight answer if you pushed anyway. But your gaze remains on his chest, ingraining the ridges of the scar to memory.

And with every moment that passes, it looks less and less like a scary altercation of someone trying to carve his heart out, and more like he may have fallen off his horse while riding. Accidentally cut himself with a steak knife at the supper table. Took a bad blow during a practice sword fight.

And with every moment that passes, the backgrounds of your mind’s pictures turn from the rugged sea to the grassy training grounds of the palace, the hay and brown of the stables, the silver glints of the dining hall. The thuds of rusting cups and cheap sailors rum turn into clinks of wine glasses, Hoshi’s hand wrapped around the stems, skin free of every scar and darkened slash.

And with every moment that passes, you imagine what this deadly, ferocious pirate would look like if his life was a little different. If his life was a little like yours. Would he be able to be a better match against your father, would he have taken every missed opportunity to become a ruler that you only wish you could be? Could he lead a kingdom as well as he leads his beloved band of pirates?

There’s not a thought of what you’re doing in your mind as you find yourself reaching over, not to the bottles that lie empty, but to the pirate captain’s hands, taking his rough calloused palms in your soft, unscarred ones.

He does little to resist, letting his hand fall limp in yours.

“What’s this one?” you ask, tracing over the biggest scar that slashed across his knuckles.

“Piece of wood sticking out of the mast.”

It’s an older scar, clear with the way his skin has settled into the healed wound like it’s always been that way.

“This one?” you ask, tracing over another nick.

“Fell on glass.”

“This one?”

“Punched Mingyu.”

You frown at that, looking up at him and in accusation.

“I apologised,” he defends.

Was it strange that a pirate captain would apologise for assaulting his crew? Slightly, yes. But you liked to think you understood Hoshi a little better than you’d first met him, and that he considered his crew more like his family than anything else.

Never in a million years, in your pirate hating household, would you have thought that the deadliest band of pirates would soon be the ones you’d be sharing drinks with, tracing scars with, feeling somewhat secure being alone with.

Entrusting to save your future with.

You turn his hand over to his palms, now staring at a fresher looking gash that seems to still be healing. It looks painful, the redness yet to fade into its darker hues.

“What about this one?” you ask, being extra careful to not touch the wound.

Hearing him let out a small laughing exhale, you look up.

“Thought you’d recognize your own work.”

And then you remember.

The spray of blood in the air as your dagger made its first ever maim at your hands.

“Oh,” you breathe out.

When you look up from your hunched position, you’re closer to Hoshi than you’d initially thought. He went from an arms length away to brushing shoulders with you, his palm remaining cradled in both of yours.

“Do you regret it?” he asks as he looks at you like he’s gotten lost somewhere in your face.

His breath hits your face in a delicate fan, the smell of alcohol mixing from your own mouth.

Glancing down at his scarring wound, you look back up at him with your lips in a tight line.

“No.”

He smiles, less of disbelief and more of contentment, a pleasant look on his face as he reads your expression.

You felt like you’d passed some kind of test.

“Good.”

And then you’re so close you can barely make out the tip of his nose, his warmth infiltrating your own. You can smell him past the rum, a faint woody scent that makes your head spin. You push up to the alcohol.

Your stomach is on fire as you expect the final push to come, the eager build in your chest becoming near unbearable.

Just as you’re about to flutter your eyes closed, ready to take whatever he might give you, you find his face disappeared.

Hoshi turned his face away, your face infiltrated by the cool breeze once more. Your palms are cooling as his warmth retracts from them as well, leaving you cold and confused.

Blinking, pushing your chin closer to your chest, you attempt to catch your bearings, catch the notes in the air as you feel him move to his feet quickly.

“Get some sleep, it’s late,” he announces in a low, gravelly voice before trudging towards the staircase. He seems to have sobered up.

All that’s left on the deck is your empty palms, the stinging sea spray, and two snoring pirates.

HOSHI SPENT THE REST of the morning trying to sleep off the imminent feeling of spontaneous combustion.

The tingle in his right hand refuses to go away, even when he plunges the darn thing into a freezing bucket of water next to his cot, assuming his wound was acting up.

He sleeps fitfully, the frustration that simmers refuses to let him have a staggering moment of peace. His head is as dense as a whale, throbbing in the seeping light. The sounds of the sea, ones that once brought him calm, were now triggering an irrational reaction from his entire being.

Swinging to his feet is easy, it’s the aftermath of such a reckless action that has him stumbling like a fawn. Slipping into his boots, he thuds to the lower decks, to the storage area where all of the rations are.

And where all of the alcohol is.

He bumps into Minghao on the way down, who’s filling his canteen as he keeps morning watch on deck.

“Go sleep, I’ve got it,” he says to him, and Minghao does little to refute as he makes a beeline for his beloved hammock.

It’s too early for anyone to be awake, despite the afternoon sun that lingers. He takes full advantage of it as he hauls the first crate of rum up to the deck.

There isn’t an inch of hesitation as he lifts the death juice and sends it splashing into the ocean. He stares for a moment as heavy bottles disappear under the water, still full of the very thing he’d shoot his crew for wasting a single drop of.

Even more determined than before, he goes back down into the brig, this time lugging two more crates of rum, all to be met with the same fate, going down to touch the bottom of the ocean.

With every echoing slam of the wood hitting the water, he feels himself freeing.

But you plague him anyway.

Lifting a particularly heavy box, he thinks of how close you had gotten to him on this very deck. How he could breathe in your exhales. How he could feel the tactile of your fingertips tracing over every mauled slash on his hand. How you consumed his mind in ways he couldn’t fathom.

It was the rum. The rum was doing this to him.

At least, that’s what he’d chosen to blame.

Who was he to deny the effect you seemed to have on him?

The answer was that he was a pirate, especially with the way he chalked his muddled brain to not having had a woman around for so, so long.

He’d considered indulging once they reached Port Ash, slipping away for an hour into one of the beaded doors of women ready to give him what he wanted. The thought seemed like an unwanted remedy.

Every solution felt fruitless, a balm that only seemed to make the itch worse. Even as he commits a sin as heinous as feeding perfectly good rum to sea foam, he only does it in the hopes that the sea will take it as a sacrifice, to give him the kind of peace his being has begun to crave.

Hoshi has been moved to insanity.

Even as he feels the cool cylinder of Jun’s revolver on his temple, he pushes the last crate overboard as his final answer.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he hears Jun ask.

When he turns around, the revolver remains stationary as it now points into the smack middle of his forehead. He has an audience, Mingyu’s face has leftover sleep on it, a mildly horrified look on his face. Chan looks like he could slice his own Captain’s throat open.

“Where’s the rum?” Mingyu asks in an airy voice, disbelief prominent.

“The rum’s gone.”

“Why is the rum gone?”

Hoshi doesn’t answer as he moves Jun’s loaded gun out of his face and makes his way back to his cot downstairs, in no mood to squabble with his too sober crew.

There’s calls of his name that follow him all the way to below the deck, even as he snatches a stray hat on the floor, placing it above his face in the hopes that he was relieved enough to sleep.

It’s snatched away as Mingyu stands above him like an angel of death, his hat in his equally deathly grip.

“Did the spirits possess you?”

“No,” he replies begrudgingly. “But good sense has.”

“Captain,” he hears Chan begin, looking about five seconds away from committing a murder on the seas. “You know I can’t fight sober.”

“Learn.”

“What is this about? Where was the rum at fault?” Jun grits.

Hoshi swings up once again. If Mingyu was an angel of death then he was the king of hell.

But he has no threats left to give, his menacing soul left with the rum. There is only a snarl that turns into him dropping his head, sighing a loud, loud sigh.

He tells his crew a sad affair as he expresses his sorrows like a eulogy. Blaming the rum was stupid, but it was what he had done. And now the fruit of his decisions sit forgotten in the reefs so far below.

His crew is not happy when they find out, in any case.

“But what did the rum do?”

“Kissing beautiful women is part of life’s pleasures!”

“I have half a mind to make you fish it all back up.”

Mingyu has simply crumpled onto the floor in his heartbreak, Chan has his face in his hands. Hoshi doesn’t look up to witness Jun’s reaction.

The crew would get over the lack of alcohol on board, perhaps a morbid brawl or two to help them get by, but what was more concerning was whether it did anything for Hoshi at all.

At the very least, he knows he won’t go around kissing people sober, but when it comes to the matter of the war inside his chest…

A phantom ache throbs across the scar on his chest.

Perhaps his heart would finally be the next to go.

PORT ASH WAS A depraved man’s heaven.

One that could easily become his downfall if he doesn’t play his cards right.

Too covered was suspicious, too much of the opposite was an open invitation to all the drunk and debauched population of Ash; pirates, criminals and councilmen alike. You were comfortable enough in what you were given to put on, to become the perfect blend in the rowdy, barely lit streets of the brothels and bars.

Despite everything, Seungkwan assured you that no one would bother a woman flanked by obvious pirates, for whatever reason that may be. If it were up to you, you would’ve remained on the ship, safe and buried in your quarters, but the threat of an ambush on the docks plagued the crew enough to risk bringing you directly into the dragon’s den.

Jun disappeared quickly, ducking behind an unmarked curtain with a nod to his captain. You could only assume this was where he’d obtain his remaining supplies for the explosives he seemed to be so good at creating. You’ve awoken to multiple median bangs during the night, so you can only assume he knows what he’s doing to a certain extent.

“Jun said it might take a while, so we might have to wait on him a little bit.” Hoshi stands at the front of the group, addressing his crew.

“Spread out, do whatever. Don’t linger, don’t drink yourselves to death—” he sends a pointed look at a shifty Chan and Mingyu, “—and meet back at the ship at six bells or we’ll leave without you.”

The announcement doesn’t seem to apply to you. You’re sandwiched between Hoshi and Seungkwan as they lead you into the throng, to wherever it was they were to pass the time till it was time to return.

If Ash was anything, it was alive. Men and women scatter in all states of drunk and sober, arms latched with their partners for the night as they let the oil lamps carry them to their abode for the night. It’s a wilder Hasry, a scarier Hasry.

The nighttime does nothing to help your nerves, every single face shrouded in the half shadows, seemingly resembling every person you’ve ever met in the Kingdom.

It makes you feel better that both men are pressed against your sides, as strange as the thought sounds in your head. Safe between two pirates.

“Nobody’s tried to kill you yet, I’d call that a record,” Seungkwan comments, but it’s not directed towards you.

Hoshi scowls as you shift your gaze from Seungkwan to him. The usually nonchalant pirate captain looks…cautious. His eyes dart around the crowded streets, like he was looking for familiar faces all the same as you.

Your eyes land on his curled lips and force down a shiver. This was the first time you’d been around him since that drunken night, since you’d promised to never drink again.

He doesn’t mention it, so neither do you.

“Captain Hoshi Kwon? How wonderful of you to show your face again!”

A woman’s voice rings shrill amidst the loud buzz and hollers of the streets, emerging like a white ghost from the throng. Dressed to the nines, face painted intricately, fan clenched in her hand that perches on her hip. She’s joined by another gaggle of women that crown behind her, displaying a rainbow of coloured gown and fans, but holding the same disdained look.

The pirate captain freezes beside you, and you feel Seungkwan’s hand on your back burn.

He seems shaken at the sight of the new woman initially, but puts on a smile you’ve only seen a few times. One that dazzles with his teeth on display, eyes squinted.

“Delilah!” he exclaims, almost too happy to see this mystery woman. “How’ve you been?”

“Who did that? I’d like to send them flowers,” she refers to the scar above Hoshi’s heart.

“Jellyfish don’t really like me, learned that the hard way.”

His answer seems to only annoy her. Delilah has a wicked snarl on her face, threat in her stance. “When was the last time I saw you?”

“Uh,” Hoshi stumbles.

“The Crowded Inn, was it? When I fell asleep to a promise and woke up to an empty bed?”

“Our dear captain seems to have thrown memory at sea,” one of the girls behind her calls out, followed by a collective giggle.

Hoshi looks cornered, at a loss for words as he attempts to save face. Regaining his prior easygoing expression, he continues.

“There’s no promises after I’ve had a drink or two, you know that, Delilah.” It scares you a little how easily he can inject all the sugar and honey in the world directly into his words, flirting his way out of the predicament.

Except, she doesn’t seem to be buying it, because as soon as the words leave Hoshi’s lips, you hear a loud thwack and a blur of colour. You gasp before you can help it, covering your mouth in shock.

There’s a reddenning mark on his cheek in the shape of a hand. Hoshi remains face scrunched, coming round, hand slowly coming up to touch his no doubt stinging cheek.

Your reaction seems to have roused this woman, because she sends you nothing but a look laced with pure venom, completely ignoring Seungkwan who stands aside doing nothing to help his captain.

“Where’d you pick this one up?” She asks, her fan now shucked open, fanning herself even in the pleasant weather. Her pale face, red lips, dark eyes all remain on your shabby form, a hint of a smirk on her face. “Is she as disappointing of a performer as she looks?”

That seems to do it, as you watch Hoshi’s facade of a cheeky bed trotter image drop to something with more depth.

“Delilah,” he says, warning in his voice.

“Ah! Looks like I’ve struck a nerve.”

You watch Hoshi take a step forward and you’re suddenly hyper aware of the crowd of people that continue to pass and linger, reminding yourself of the repercussions of causing a scene in a place like this. Turning slightly, you attempt to push Seungkwan to do something.

“Captain,” Seungkwan says, a casual but careful voice. A starting attempt at calming things down.

“That’s enough,” Hoshi says, ignoring Seungkwan’s warning. “Quit pretending you weren’t warming that privateer’s bed right after I left.”

There was no reason for you to say anything, do anything. But when you find yourself pushing forward, leaving Seungkwan’s hold, you can’t stop. Perhaps he’d have punched Seungkwan, his own crew, if he’d done the same as you were right now, but you’d like to think you know the pirate captain enough to assume he’d react less so with you.

There’s a shift in the woman’s jaw as she watches you wrap your arm around one of Hoshi’s, trying your absolute best to mimic a bright smile.

“We should go,” you announce, the stretch of your cheeks unfamiliar even to you. You turn to catch Hoshi’s stare, he’s looking at you like you’ve grown an extra head. “Right, Hosh?”

“Go on then, Captain. Your little princess awaits.”

You flinch without meaning to. Princess.

This woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about, at least, that’s what you recite in your head as your trio goes back to pushing walking through the streets. She doesn’t know who you are.

“She doesn’t know,” you hear Hoshi say under his breath, but you hear it loud as day.

You exhale, “I know.”

“Sorry about her. And him, “ Seungkwan says, before turning to Hoshi. “I told you not to get involved with that one, she’s a menace.”

You’ve let go of Hoshi’s arm at this point, now simply watching him attempt to calm himself down as you walk. He doesn’t reply to Seungkwan’s jab.

You feel strange, a feeling you can’t exactly pinpoint. You’re too aware of yourself, in a way that’s different than just the fear of being recognized. Shifting your eyes to your attire, your usual linen skirts and corset, an added grey shawl for your own anxious sanity.

The woman’s voice rings in your head. Shabby.

“You didn’t let her get to you, did you? She’s always been vile, she can’t live without being a bitch about something every five minutes.”

Seungkwan’s grumbling goes in one ear and out the other as you don’t answer. He seems to read you better than you thought he could. He sighs.

“Congratulations Delilah, you’ve made a princess feel shabby,” he says in a sarcastically chipper voice, one that earns a hiss from his captain for being too loud.

Before you know it, you’re being led down a flight of stone stairs and you’re informed that it was an underground pub of sorts. Something about his undertone told you it was probably more, but you ignore it as the darkness is let alight beyond the musty curtains of the basement entrance.

It’s a sizable expanse, a bar on one of the long ends of the hall, busy and overflowing with mugs, jugs and plates. Wooden tables and chairs, almost all of them occupied by patrons of all kinds that do nothing to regulate their volumes. It smells like a rancid mixture of alcohol and people, but you push past as you find yourself seated on one of the wooden seatings in the corner.

“I’ll go get us drinks,” Seungkwan announces as he walks up to the bar. You watch as he’s greeted by nearly every passing customer, all smiles.

Hoshi sits beside you like a begrudged toddler, arms crossed and glaring at nothing.

“Didn’t realise how popular you were around these parts,” you comment, scanning the crowd in excruciating detail, blaming force of habit as you do.

He clicks his tongue, and you can’t see him, but you can almost visualise his grimace.

A too clean councilman that has his hands on the upper thighs of an outlandishly dressed woman. A man so grimy and dusty who has nothing but an array of empty jugs for company. Another flock of fan yielding, hair towering, gown exploding women that swarm a man you cannot see past the bodies.

It’s organised chaos, immoral yet is the only thing that seems to work on this island.

Another entrance is being made from the curtains that block the pub from the outside, you steer your eyes automatically.

Looks like he could be a pirate, beyond just the dark hair and chiselled face. He has a girl under his arm, a pretty brunette that giggles at his side as he whispers something in her ear. She’s wearing something similar to you, a corset and a linen skirt, and a pirate's hat that’s too big for her that’s perched on her head.

Subconsciously, you feel better about being so severely underdressed.

Hoshi sits up next to you and you glance over your shoulder to assess his shift. He’s also staring at the couple that’s just walked in. You briefly wonder if this was going to be another showdown.

The man catches Hoshi’s eye from across the room, and you notice how his smile falls a little.

“Who’s that?” you ask quietly.

Your question is answered when the man himself begins to walk towards your table, leaving the girl at his table, a confident strut as he makes his path.

Hoshi rises next to you before you realise what’s happening, and you have the sudden urge to call out for Seungkwan.

“Why are you getting up?” you hiss. He doesn’t answer, yet again.

“Captain,” the man greets.

“Captain,” Hoshi replies.

Captain. So he was a pirate.

“Hm. That’s not gonna go away, is it?” The man comments with a smirk, eyes trained on the scar on Hoshi’s chest.

“Wonder who’s fault that is.” Hoshi’s voice is levelled.

Oh. Was that scar his doing?

“I hope you won’t mind if I don’t apologise?” The smirk on his face remains as he continues, motioning towards his own cheek, eyes trailed on the side of Hoshi’s face. “Looks like you’ve got enough enemies without me trying to carve your heart out.”

Hoshi doesn’t answer as he grimaces, a frustrated blink and a hand that runs over his sore cheek.

“Delilah was quite adamant on having your head on a pike after that,” the stranger adds with a chuckle of his own, before trailing his eyes behind Hoshi. Right where you sat watching the two men interact. “Perhaps she does have some consideration left.”

“Delilah cared more about looking like a fool than she ever did me leaving. You’d know all about that wouldn’t you, Wonwoo?”

There’s a flash of irritation on Wonwoo’s face at the jog of a memory. “Handled it better than you did. At least I wasn’t walking around with a handprint on my face.”

“No, no you weren’t. Just a leash around your neck,” Hoshi’s own eyes darted towards the girl seated at Wonwoo’s table, a silent jab.

Wonwoo’s face morphs into something a little more dangerous than just irritation, his jaw tightening as he takes a step forward. They’re nearly nose to nose.

To your surprise, Wonwoo smiles. “I guess brothels don’t teach many manners after all. My mistake.”

For the second time that day, you spring from your position in the shadowed table, giving up on praying for Seungkwan’s arrival. The man seems to have disappeared somewhere along the barline, and you curse both the men that stand before you for their horrid temper management skills.

You don’t have to do much, however, as you find Wonwoo pulling away by himself. At least, you thought so, finding a hand wrapped around his upper arm. The brunette spares neither of you a glance as she simply murmurs furiously under her breath, hand now on her lover's chest as she pushes him to move back from the brewing altercation.

Hoshi doesn’t seem to be breaking, remaining standing with his eyes shooting daggers at the man that’s reluctant to walk away from a budding fight.

Being gentle wasn’t going to work right now, and you weren’t feeling so soft anyway. Instead, you reach over to grab his wrist tight, positively yanking him back as hard as you could.

“Wh—ow!”

He slams into the seat next to you, deadly eye contact with the other captain broken as he winces at the impact. When you glance up, Wonwoo is gone.

“You said to blend in, how is this blending in?!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“You were two seconds away from drawing knives,” you hiss. “We’re in a pub, for goodness’ sake!”

Despite your irritation, and with the newfound information that rests in the back of your head, it’s difficult to keep your eyes off the scar that stands against the lamplight of the pub.

Someone did try to carve his heart out.

Context for an altercation that could lead to something like that remains unknown, and you doubt you’d ever get a straight answer from him if you asked—as always. Besides, you forget they’re pirates.

Hoshi goes back to simply ignoring you as he festers in his grumbled silence. Choosing to keep his arms folded and staring straight ahead. You make no moves to entertain him.

“I guess brothels don’t teach many manners after all.”

This mystery captain’s left you with enough ammo to keep you wondering for days. What on earth was that?

As if Hoshi’s (and yours) mood wasn’t sour enough, your attention is brought to the front of the room where another entrance is being made, quite loudly so. You very quickly recognise the gowns and fans and shrieking giggles of women as Delilah and her posse.

You note the woman herself is nowhere near.

“Fucking hell,” you hear Hoshi swear under his breath. He’s sitting up, eyes darting around the room, almost like he was trying to find a hiding spot. You doubt he's too excited over another conversation of similar nature, let alone a matching mark on the other side of his face.

The women hadn't seen him yet, and were approaching far too quickly for him to get up and leave anywhere to hide. A quick scan of the room yourself and you realise there’s only one remaining option.

They didn’t seem to recognise you for your title before, and you assume the current extent stays within simply being another seductress in the pirate captain’s company. You push the sickening feeling away as you realise you might have to play the part.

So you do the sensible thing and push Hoshi’s head under the wooden table, forcing him to leave his seat and crouch beside your legs. In a split second, you’ve lifted your linen skirt and draped it over his hunched body.

This would have to do.

And it seems to have been the right move because as soon as the man is out of sight, you find the opposite end of the table more occupied than you ever would have been comfortable with.

“Oh! You’re that Hoshi’s girl aren’t you?” one of the women who's made themselves comfortable asks, fan in front of her mouth and nose as you note her sharp eyes.

“Uh,” you laugh nervously.

“Oh, nothing to be embarrassed about,” she assures, a snap in her voice.

Another woman decked out in a green ensemble speaks in a teasing voice, “We’re all quite accustomed to his…mannerisms.”

The table erupts in a fit of giggles and cackles and you’re forced to laugh weakly along, hyper aware of the man that sits under your skirt right below. You try not to flinch as you feel his clothes brush against the side of your calf.

“So, tell us,” she says, taking your hands in hers, a contact you really wish you could break free of. If only you weren't quite as terrified of the women seated at your table. “How far along in heaven has this man taken you?”

She spares you an answer as you gape with square shoulders. She fans herself in a whimsy as she looks like she’s reminiscing. “He’s almost as good of a pirate as he is a beast in bed, I don’t think I’ll ever forget that night.”

“Quite generous with the tongue too, if you know what I mean.”

The pirate captain’s breath hits your bare knees in its own fan, goosebumps almost immediately erupting across the expanse of your skin. You fail to suppress a shudder.

Goodness, this man stays busy.

“Oh look at her, she’s gotten all flustered!” one of them laughs. You take it as an opportunity to slip your hands out of the tight grasps of the bold ladies. “It seems he’s taken to a newer liking. How innocent.”

These women seem to like talking more than they wish to hear a word from you, of course, you couldn’t tell them anything they already didn’t know. Of which, according to their interests, you knew nothing of it anyway.

“Don’t get too attached now, we’re all mere expendables in this busy pirate’s—”

Slam!

Rum. You smell rum.

It’s like you’ve been transported back onto the main deck, the smell of rum mixed with….with—

“Ladies!” Seungkwan announces, slamming bottles of alcohol on the table with a force unnecessary. “Funny seeing you again.”

For a moment you may have even thought Hoshi had clambered up to the table to announce himself, and you feel a hand fly down to your skirts.

He’s still there, head now actively leaning against your knee. You pray the man hasn’t fallen asleep as you attempt to greet Seungkwan.

“Took you long enough,” you grit through a sickly sweet smile.

With your hand somewhere on Hoshi’s upper back, you guide him with you as you make space for Seungkwan next to you.

“The—oh!” Seungkwan is quick to notice the breathing lump under your skirt as he sits himself next to you, but manages to compose himself with a cough. “Long line. What were you ladies talking about?”

One of them smiles big as ever, slowly lifting themselves from their seats, “We were just…leaving. Wonderful speaking with you!”

And with that, you can finally feel your breath coming back to you, the table significantly lighter with the lack of colours, perfume and humans.

Releasing a long exhale, you let your shoulders drop and lean backwards.

“Are you going to explain why the captain is hidden under your skirts?”

With a jolt, you're forced to consider his presence under the table, scanning the room to find the women gone from the pub altogether.

Hoshi emerges from under the fabric, and shuffles over to the other side of the table to sit down, bringing an instinctive hand towards the fresh bottles on the table. Halting, he instead reaches for the jug of water on the edge and pours himself a helping.

You refuse to look at him. Refuse to acknowledge the red in his face. Refuse to acknowledge the sudden cold under your skirt.

Seungkwan’s stare is burning holes into the side of your head, even as he uncorks one of the bottles as an offer. You also refuse; both to look him in the eye and the drink itself.

Bottle to his lips, he moves his glare to his captain, who sits nursing his water like it was something stronger.

“I haven’t gotten an answer yet,” he finally breaks.

Instinct has your eyes lifting to meet Seungkwan’s inquisitive one’s, answers frozen in your throat.

“Why are you asking like you don’t know who they were?” Hoshi snaps.

“I can understand not wanting a matching handprint on your other cheek!” he refutes. “But how do you decide the solution is to dive into yet another woman’s skirts?”

Your only solace to the heat that prickles your body is the way Hoshi himself flushes.

Seungkwan sighs as he takes another sip of his drink, eyeing Hoshi’s still red cheek. “I’m starting to think you deserved it.”

Hoshi makes a motion like he’s about to send his half full cup flying into Seungkwan’s face but stops short. Perhaps he’s realising he’s become the problem child for today.

You contemplate telling Seungkwan about Wonwoo and the near pub brawl you would’ve had to deal with, but decide it to be a story for another time. Besides, you weren’t about to risk mentioning his name while it was still fresh.

You realise just how unstable this island can turn a person; not just the pirate captain.

Because as you look at Hoshi on the other side of the table, you find how difficult it is to look away.

“YOU NEED TROUSERS.”

“What?”

“Oh don’t look so scandalised, you’ve been prancing around with pirates for goodness’ sake.”

Seungkwan haggles with the stall owner over the price of padded coats, blankets and an array of other things the crew would need. The journey was only going to take the ship further North, and it was only going to get colder as you neared the icy water of the Green Islands.

Seungkwan’s suggestion to buy you trousers came out of the blue, but it seems you couldn’t refuse when you find both Hoshi and Chan (who joined you after he was tired of the others) agreeing.

“You can’t possibly stay warm in linen,” Chan argues. “Trousers are the only way you won’t freeze your limbs off.”

“Too much airflow in a skirt,” Seungkwan agrees, eyes closed, head shaking solemnly. “Captain would know.”

“Hm?” Chan looks at him confused.

“Fine!” You snatch the folded brown lump in Seungkwan’s hands. You keep talking in a louder than necessary voice in the hopes that Chan won’t ask any more questions. “I’ll wear them.”

“Perfect! Now we need to get you boots.”

“I have boots!”

“Warm boots!”

“But—”

It was difficult to argue with Seungkwan once he’s got his mind set on something. But that paired with the loud noises of the Ash port market was sending pulsing throbs across the sides of your head. You simply surrender as Seungkwan leaves Hoshi to pay the vendor before pushing you across the street to where a stall held boots and slippers for sale.

In the midst of his bargaining, Chan had disappeared into the throng, returning with a steaming plate of something that smelled doughy and delicious.

“What is that?” you ask as Chan shoves the tray in front of you.

“Whatever they are, they’re delicious. Try one.”

He was right, one bite of the warm, soft goodness covered in syrup had you taking a moment to ponder. It melts in your mouth, barely registering the rest of the group scarfing down the tray like it was their last.

“God, you can never get them this good on the mainland,” Seungkwan cries. “We’ll get another tray before we leave.”

Speaking of leaving, you turn to ask about the time.

“How many bells has it been?” you ask Seungkwan whose cheeks bulge with the amount of dough balls he’s stuffed in. He looks like a child caught stealing when you ask.

“Oh—”

“Five,” Hoshi answers instead, eyes remaining on the pile of goods that he’s gathered to remain in his line of sight. You suppose there was no delivery system here like in Hasry, and you doubt how secure it is to be walking around with a pile of supplies on this island in particular.

“You need to hurry, I told the rest of them to meet at six bells.”

Seungkwan’s quick to wrap up, but not before shooing Chan away for another tray of those sweet dough balls for the journey. You manage to whisper to him to bring extra.

By the time Seungkwan’s done with the last vendor, dropping the giant coil of rope onto the already large pile of supplies, you begin to wonder how you were supposed to get all of this to the ship.

“Shove those in a bag and carry some of this,” Hoshi says to Chan who has returned, brandishing another steaming tray of the sweet treat. He grumbles as he complies, complaining about how the sticky sweet syrup was going to ruin the inside of the pack.

You look a little lost as you attempt to help, all three men grabbing their share of the load.

“Let me hold something,” you attempt, reaching for a wrapped pile.

You watch as Hoshi snatches it before you can grab it for yourself. “Keep an eye out instead.”

“But—”

“Here.” Chan drops the pack with the now rolling dough balls inside. “Snacks for the walk too, how lucky.”

There’s a light push from behind you as Seungkwan urges you to move forward, face slightly obstructed with the tower he’s holding in his arms. “Go on, straight and then left. We’re close to the port anyway.”

You’re left feeling slightly useless as you remain caged with Chan in front while Seungkwan and Hoshi follow you from behind. The walk is short, but crowded nonetheless.

It’s only later in the night, which means the crowds in the bustling streets and alleys of Ash only multiply, clear with the case you’re pushed into right now. You pause in front of a particularly busy patch, needing to take a breath before following Chan’s fearless footsteps.

It’s immediate suffocation, bodies on all sides as you try your best to not lose Chan in the midst of the crowds. Perhaps they were right to keep your hands mostly unoccupied—it would’ve been impossible for you to not completely lose yourself here.

Gaining a rhythm of walking with the crowd before moving slightly against to near your exit, you’ve almost made your way out.

Just as you find the bend leading to the open air of the port, you hear a distinct rip sound from behind you.

If your skirt was airy before, it was a windstorm now.

Craning your neck at an impossible angle, you find the bottom of your skirt ripped so high up the back of your knees are out for the population of Ash to see.

Gasping loudly, you halt in your tracks. A horrible mistake, because you’re only being bumped and shoved by the evermoving bodies.

“Why are you stopping?” Seungkwan hisses, before realising what’s just happened. “Uh oh.”

“I…”

Both Seungkwan and Hoshi push past the throng making their way out of the crowd, leaving you there frazzled and practically naked

You barely consider that they’ve just left you there as you scramble to cover your calves with what overlapping fabric you had left, registering the threats and curses being sent your way for being the idiot that stops in what is essentially a fast paced parade.

The rational part of your brain checks out, refusing to consider that perhaps the back of your knees were the least scandalous thing this island has seen, especially after the conversations you’ve had in your short time here. But alas, a few months of the pirate life wasn’t enough to push the princess out of you, and you stand like a paralysed fool about to get stampeded.

Just as you’re convinced you’d die here, embarrassed and utterly panicked, you feel a body press up from behind you.

It was too close to be a bystander pushing past, which was saying something since most of these patrons were practically climbing over your form.

You whip your head back to look at the person who’s invading your space more than usual, hands tight around your upper arms in an effort to push you forward.

Hoshi stands behind you as his body covers the ripped damage of your skirt, eyes trained in front to survey the crowd.

“Come on, I’ve got you,” he grunts, pushing to get you to move your legs. You stumble in the beginning, still not registering anything.

He was helping, but with the way you can feel every dip and shallow of his chest and abdomen pressing into you, you can’t help but think he’s only made matters for your already speeding heart worse.

Your legs move automatically, letting him steer you wherever. Trying not to think about how his entire front is pressed onto your back like a mould. He’s so close you can even smell him despite the crowd.

Like your head isn’t spinning enough.

By the time you’ve exited the main rush of people, you’ve begun counting your minutes.

Emerging to the bend that leads straight to the docks, you find the rest of the crew already there, running sprints to get all the new supplies to the ship that remained a few yards away.

Despite having left the crowd behind, your exposure remained, which meant you’d have to be tailed all the way to the ship. You curse your luck as you watch Jun quirk an inquisitive brow at the both of you stuck like you’ve been glued.

You pray you never have to show your face here again, because the looks don’t seem to stop until you’ve reached the ship. Perhaps the crowd where nobody was paying attention was better.

In any case, you respond to Minghao’s questioning noise with half shut eyes and a joint sprint towards the stairs leading to the lower decks.

Hoshi keeps behind until you’ve gotten to the heavenly doors of your quarters, springing inside before Hoshi could register looking lower.

It’s silent for a few sparing moments as you breathe tightly, convincing yourself that you were alone and uncompromised. You're pressed up against the door, almost like you’re afraid the entirety of Ash would barge through to witness your calves.

“I’ll handle the boys, don’t worry about that,” you hear Hoshi speak from the other side of the door.

There’s nothing you could do other than slide down the door in a beyond dramatic fashion, head in your hands as you grip the strands like you were moments away from ripping them off. Every instance of your upbringing flashes before your eyes, every crack of your mentor’s canes on your thighs and calves, every waking pain in your back from the impossible postures, every bruise and nick on your feet from being stepped on and trodden over.

Despite the ridiculous nature of the situation, you feel your eyes grow heavy with tears.

Was this panic?

Taking in the circumference of your cramped quarters; the unmade bed, the strewn clothes, the thrown covers.

It was nothing. Yet, at the same time, it was everything.

Amidst the pile, there’s a glint of metal where your knife lies on your nightstand, the tiniest smear of uncleaned blood on the blade. From your position on the floor, you find the half broken lamp discarded under your bed, shunned from your sight. The desk in the corner is empty, save for the staggering mountain of letters from your father.

The only suggestion of normalcy, yet the one you itch to be rid of the most.

The letter opener necklace that was exchanged for the ring on your finger sits warm against the valley of your breasts, a reminder of the first weapon you plucked from this very room. The weapon that began it all.

The smell of gunpowder fills your nose, the forever echoing bang of Jun’s revolver as you took that child sailor’s life with your own two hands.

You lay like that, on the cold floors of your quarters. Refusing to touch the court appointed comfort of your bed, for fear of reigniting the guilt with a fire stoked.

You aren’t sure if you sleep, but you do dream.

LIDS OPEN, EYES WIDE, but nothing to perceive.

It’s a pit of obsidian, unrelenting and unproposing in its press against your lungs.

The familiar ball of prickling embers makes itself known in the pit of your stomach, rising and penetrating your senses in ways worse than even the darkness. It's alarm, dread and swivet; the concoction sticking to the walls of your lungs, throat and mouth.

And then there’s pressure.

Something envelopes you from behind, an unidentified lump that pulls you into something warm and sturdy. There’s another pressure at your stomach, another pull keeps you grounded between a wall built just for you.

The air is perfumed, something beyond a flower or an incense. You know what it is.

And then you're falling, slipping into nothingness and landing between sheets warm enough to suggest you never left.

The scent remains, and this time, Hoshi towers over your frame in something that might have been domineering. But with the distinct feeling of a wet mouth over your collarbone, a small whisper of words unintelligible, you melt like frost in front of a fireplace.

“What?” you question his muttering, hands hovering just above the expanse of his covered back, barely touching.

He rears his head like a gentle beast, wet lipped and zeroed in on your face. His response comes in the form of his lips enclosing your own.

He tastes like rum.

OPENING THE DOOR TO an expectant Seungkwan, you only wave off his reference to you looking like you have one foot in death’s mouth, grabbing the stack of clothes and boots he delivers.

He leaves you alone, something you cannot decide is a blessing or a curse as you take in the unchanged state of your quarters.

Sleep gives you nothing but more troubling images to keep your mind utterly occupied, so you take what you can control in consciousness.

You drop the clothes on a cleaner corner, yanking one of the thinner pairs of dark brown trousers to change into from your still torn and tattered skirt.

Moving inside the room, you pick the littered papers, ropes and rags on the floor, swerving and crouching with more vigour than necessary.

Hoshi’s scent sticks to you.

Grabbing the pile of letters on your desk, you shove them in a sack and throw them under the bed.

Hoshi holds you like he might die if he doesn’t.

Ripping the covers off the bed, you fold them into a giant ball of fabric, hoisting it into your arms as you strut to the door.

Hoshi’s lips have left a bruise on your chest.

The late morning sun combats the chill in the air, the salt sticking to your hair.

Hoshi’s mouth is hot and wet on yours.

Hoshi stands before you, manning the wheel on the deck.

You halt in your tracks.

He turns to register you with your arms full and shielding most of your body.

Clearing his throat, he states, “You’re up.”

Eyes darting, you respond. “I’m up.”

Somehow, his presence makes you forget the audacity of your own brain to stew the play it did. Depositing the sheets on the floor of the deck, you attempt to look for a reasonably long coil of rope.

In your pointed distraction, you miss how distracted the pirate captain has also become.

His elbows, initially perched on the wheel, slip in a comical manner, unintentionally pushing the wheel to the right.

You don’t expect the minor lurch of the ship, landing on your bum with a yelp when you lose your footing all of a sudden. Your elbows take a worse hit, spiking pain across your upper limbs at the hard contact.

His hands are pulling you to your feet before you can register what’s happened, coming round as you open your eyes to an open mouthed captain.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” you grunt, dusting off your brand new pants as you move past him, refusing to make eye contact.

Picking up a coil of rope, you bring one of the ends to a mast on the end of the ship, stepping on a crate to tie it around the pole. By the time you’re stepping off the crate to tie the other end to the opposite mast, you find it already done, the pirate captain tightening the knot from across the ship.

He meets your eyes for a moment, before you step in the direction of your piled sheets, breathing in a heavy inhale.

Untangling the mess, you pull them over to the suspended rope, throwing the sheets over with a grunt. You’d only ever seen the palace maids do this when they’d beat the carpets to oblivion, dusting the ages of dirt.

“I just…”

When you turn around, the pirate captain is closer than you anticipated, hands encased around a smaller slab of wood. He trails off when you turn to face him, like he hoped he could speak to the back of your head instead.

You take an instinctive step back, putting space between the both of you. You bring your expectant eyes up to him.

“I just wanted to tell you to ignore what happened at Ash.”

You flush, stuttering, embarrassed at your previous predicament all over again. “Oh, um—”

“Wait no!” he drops the wood onto the floor, hands flying as he waves them all over, seemingly as flushed as you are. “I meant—what Delilah and the others said. I just– they’re horrendous gossips—”

“What are you trying to say Hoshi?”

He falters.

“I’m trying….” he exhales. “There’s nothing on my roster. Nobody. You aren’t expendable or disposable or whatever it was she said, you aren’t a used rag—”

“What am I then?”

The question is tumbling out of your mouth before you can help it, stoned jaw and tight fist.

“What?”

“What am I then? If I’m not expendable or disposable, what am I then?”

“You’re…”

Taking a step forward, you move back to your initial spot, closer to him, chests almost touching.

“I’m?”

“You’re a princess and I’m a pirate!” he blurts, his previously apprehensive face morphing into something intense.

You huff a short breath, an incredulous stretch to your lips. Of course.

“What is that supposed to mean?” you ask in a low voice.

“Like what it is,” he heaves, chest inflating and deflating like he’d run the course of the deck about thrice. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

If your ears weren’t deceiving you, it sounded more like he was trying to convince no one but himself.

You take a step closer as he takes a step back.

His face is scrunched ever so slightly, eyes blinking quicker than normal. The sunlight blurs the edges of his features; his usually sharp, stinging stare is hazy, the slant of his nose curvier, the ridges of his lips blending into your muddled perception of his face.

The only thing dividing you is the silence, the bore of your stare and the war in your mind. You cannot speak for him, but you also aren’t a fool.

“Everything they say about you is wrong.”

“What?” he asks again.

“You don’t have a deadly bone in your body. You’re a coward that hides behind his knife and his big bad pirate ship that you can’t even defend.”

For once, he remains speechless while you persist.

“To think we spent all these years trying to subdue you, push you to the edge,” you can feel the anger seep into the hottest centre of your bones. “All for you to be some scared sailor all along.”

“Your father ruined my life,” he says. It’s a strange voice he uses, one that’s somewhere between disbelief and a warning.

“And mine with it.”

He laughs, blinking rapidly, backing away even further, running a hand through his hair. Coming around, he looks over his shoulder. He looks like the man you met the day your life fell apart, a strut in his step that runs your blood cold.

“Are you sure this has nothing to do with you simply wishing to spite the man?” He walks back over. “Prance around with the filthy pirate he hates just for the fun of it?”

“Oh and you haven’t just been itching to ruin the kingdom’s beloved princess.”

Your mouth seemed to have a mind of its own, spewing the accusation with a vigour you never realised you possessed. Lies. Lies. Lies.

This was your own deteriorating mind’s doing. You were the debauched princess painting lewd pictures of a pirate in your mind. It was your heart that couldn’t stand being near the man for longer than necessary. It was you that had the scripture somewhere in your chest, the tiniest speck of a daydream, that perhaps this inner turmoil didn’t end with just you.

Did you want to be another woman he doesn’t have to remember?

You don’t know. All your mind registers is the unbearable twist in your chest, and how it feels like you can’t do nothing about it.

You’re used to getting your way, and you hate that your mind seems to have drifted away from you.

Hoshi’s expression is nowhere in your mind, too preoccupied with sucking in inhales and trying not to begin spiralling right on the main deck.

“You’re projecting.”

Eyes snapping up like he’s proposed to sink the ship itself, you feel yourself hit a mental wall. And a physical one as you feel the brush of the suspended sheets against your hair, having taken an unconscious step back.

He’s cornered you. Yet again.

“Everything about you screams vulnerable,” he says, moving closer. “Not very sharp to show in front of a pirate.”

“Hoshi.” A warning. A sharp, hurtling sting of fear.

“What? Big bad pirate too emotionally removed? Beloved princess trapped and defenceless on unfamiliar lands?”

He’s moving closer, too close.

“I take it back,” he says. “Perhaps drunken Ash does speak the truth—”

Not a familiar plane on his face, like the pirate king had absolved a long held mask. His eyes mortified you, his stance was a walking threat.

Despite the morning sun, the cave of the hung sheets, the shadows of the high masts and the towering gloom of the pirate captain creates enough darkness to throw a shadow in your mind.

It’s like the day his crew dropped on the deck for the very first time. The emotions you wished you’d never have to feel again.

“Stop.” A whisper.

“Itching to ruin the kingdom’s beloved princess—”

“Do not move any closer!” you shout, eyes squeezed shut, hands fisting the suspended sheets so hard you can feel your fingernails dig into your palms. Scarring.

The world halts, and you feel the darkness beyond your eyelids, lighten. The air is forgiving, cool and blowing.

When you open your eyes, you’re alone.

THE WAR ROOM LOOKS the same, but everything has changed.

For one thing, you were significantly more bundled up with coats and lined boots. The cold of the green islands wasn’t the creeping frost you’d anticipated. You simply woke up one day without feeling in your fingers and toes, fog in the air as you breathed.

The coat wasn’t nearly as thick as it needed to be, but you doubt you would’ve found anything better even at the ports. The green islands weren’t meant for life.

“You need to get into the hold unnoticed, and as quickly as possible,” Minghao says. “We don’t know what’s gonna happen after the exchange is made but we know we can’t help you once you’re on that ship.”

Clenching your jaw, you nod tersely. It was high stakes, you couldn’t hurt any of the soldiers to keep it clean; planting a bomb where a King resides was difficult—princess or not.

“Getting you out of the wreckage is our job,” Hoshi says, and you pointedly refuse to look at him. You weren’t quite convinced. “We’ll be on Tigress by the time the bomb goes off. Leave nothing of importance on this thing, we’ll be blowing it up too.”

“You need to get in the water as soon as that bomb goes off,” Jun says. “Their priority is gonna be you and your father. You need to make sure they can’t find you when they realise the ship’s sinking.”

The ship the King should be transported in was the same as the very naval vessel you sat in right now.

“They might be on one of the smaller ships,” you say.

“Why?”

“You know what the ships that hold royals look like, they aren’t risking you having that advantage.”

If your father was bringing out all the guns of deception to take down these pirates once and for all—which you don’t doubt he was—every move you were about to make was based on assumptions. Assumptions that might as well cost this entire crew’s heads.

“Do you know what those ships look like?” Minghao asks.

“I’ve only been on them a few times, but never in the hold,” you say. “I think I’ll figure it out well enough, they’re all the same more or less.”

There’s a blanket of silence, a quiet regard to how utterly unprepared all of you were. Limited information and the most important man’s head at the butt of the target; your bow pulled too taut, too wobbly, your arrow too blunt.

“Are you sure we can’t risk shooting a couple of ‘em in the head?” Chan asks from across the room, running a tired hand across his face.

Sighing, you ignore the burst of fog erupting from your mouth, answering, “I can convince an entire Kingdom their King drowned, but I don’t know if I stop them from trying to find his body. Imagine their surprise if they find a supposedly drowned man with a bullet in his head.”

“It’s fine,” Hoshi interrupts, eyes downcast and arms folded. He leans against the wall of the war room and you can’t help it when your mind flashes to that stormy night. Your hands finding refuge on his chest, the heat of the moment.

Nose flaring, you look away, the rage hurtling up your throat like vomit.

“We’ll just have to figure it out. Stay vigilant, we all know what’s at stake. We all know what we have to do,” he continues, a glance around the inhabitants of the room.

Something about it almost insinuates an underlying question of trust, a confirmation to sweep an unanswering room.

“The bomb’s done,” Jun says, and heat crawls up your entire being. “I made a couple extras, I’m gonna chuck ‘em out into the water for a test and that’ll be it.”

Somewhere on this ship lies the bomb that would kill your father, and if you didn’t do your job like you were supposed to, it might as well kill you all.

YOU LEFT YOUR SOUL on your bedside table the moment Seungkwan entered your quarters with a rapt knock, informing you that the ship was nearing the rendezvous point.

It had only been a few hours since that meeting in the war room, and it felt like only a week since this had all begun.

Seungkwan invites himself in as he continues to talk. You aren’t sure if he’s doing it to calm you down or not, but you appreciate it regardless.

“Keep those trousers on and make sure you look good. You have to look like we cared while we kept you prisoner,” he says, and you can’t help but smile just a little. “Take anything important—pocket it, give it to us. We’re not gonna see this ship after we’re done.”

The idea is strange, that your home for so many months would soon be forgotten, resting on the frozen ocean bed for eternity. You think of what you wish to keep, eyeing the stack of letters on the desk. You won’t be able to keep them on you if you were going to be jumping into the ocean at some point.

Collecting the smaller pile, you hand them to Seungkwan. “You might have to take a dip in the ocean too, but at least you may have a chance to skip that bit if luck’s on your side. Keep these for me?”

Seungkwan smiles as he takes the stack of letters, pressing them to fit inside his coat. “Aren’t these all from your father?”

“Yes, but…” you trail off. “I’d like to remember them in case I forget why I did what I’m about to do.”

Seungkwan stands in front of you, an unreadable expression on his face. “You know this can’t work unless we trust one another. All of us. The entire crew.”

“I trust you,” you say. “Pirates are impatient. If you wanted me gone I wouldn’t be here.”

He sighs, almost like he was dissatisfied with your answer. With a laugh you ask, “Did you want me to say no?”

“No, it’s just,” he starts. “I wasn’t going to bring it up but, since we don’t have time…I don’t know what’s going on with you and Hoshi but…”

You stiffen at the mention of his name.

“I need to make sure you aren’t about to do something rash because of him.”

Your corset lies on the sheets, and you snatch it off, a bite to your movements.Your coat is already off, your linen shirt is the only thing that covers your upper body

“It was my mistake. I misunderstood. I won’t be letting it affect anything tonight.” You push the loosened corset over your head, too frustrated to unlace it and lace it back up. Your fingers are freezing cold, even too much for your palms to bear as they come in inevitable contact.

Beyond yourself, you continue to grit through your chattering teeth, the pulses of irritation in your brain only encouraging you to spill. Turning around, back now facing Seungkwan, you fiddle with the strings on your corset as you rant.

“I can’t say the same for him, but you can ask.” Your arms are bent at a strange angle, but you attempt to make the loops and knots anyway. Having never had to do this by yourself ever, you’d found a practice after your peculiar situation. You were alright, but the cold was making it near impossible to simply loop the string through the existing holes.

“He seems to have a lack of emotional control, of course, you’d know, but I can’t say I find it too charming,” your grunting front he effort as you speak.

Seungkwan seems to have noticed your struggle because you feel a pair of warmer hands replace yours, unlacing the loop you’d just made only to loop it again, tighter this time. He takes the liberty to tie the final knot, tighter than you’d usually have it but you’re too busy to correct him.

“I don’t think I need to explain what happened, your captain seems to be content with the way he is,” you scoff slightly before continuing. “I’m not quite sure what else I was expecting. Actually, I do know what I was expecting, but again, that’s just seems to be my fault—”

“I’m sorry.”

It’s like an entire ocean’s worth of ice water has been poured down your back. Perhaps being buried under the glaciers of the Green Islands would be more forgiving.

Turning around, you find the hands on your waist do not move, Hoshi’s face coming into view instead of Seungkwan’s.

The room is bare besides the both of you, the door to quarters closed. You don’t know when he came in nor when Seungkwan left, but he stands before you now, hands touching you where you shouldn’t let him. But you do.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, his eyes locked in on yours.

“W-what?” you breathe.

“I’ve been quite stupid.”

“Have you?”

It sounds like he breathes out a laugh, but composes himself. “I didn’t realise I was cornering you on the deck the other day. I’m sorry for making you feel unsafe. I’m sorry for everything I said.”

Every fibre of your being wants him to suffer, to withhold your forgiveness. But then you realise where you are, in the middle of an ocean that’s been designed by the heavens to kill.

“Thank you for saying that.” You don’t have the courage to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry too. You aren’t…you aren’t what I implied you were. You’re right. I was projecting.”

“I don’t want us to go out there walking on eggshells around each other,” he says as his breath fans your face. Warm. “We have to come out the other side. All of us.”

You nod slowly.

“You have it the hardest out of all of us, I just…” he trails off and you feel his fingers tightening on your waist, even through the material of your corset. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone. No matter what you lose, I think it’s safe to say you’ve gained me. All of us.”

The thought of not making it out alive has you flexing your numb fingers in front of you slightly. You might die. This crew might die. Your crew might die.

The man that’s begun to mean more than just a saviour might die.

Not considering your frozen fingertips, or the absurdity, your body moves on its own.

In a split second, your iced lips are in contact with the pirate captain’s warmer ones.

You don’t doubt they’re cold as well, but they differ from yours enough for them to feel like the only warmers you need.

Your hands have grabbed his face, light brushes against his skin as you tiptoe to reach his lips. They’re soft. Softer than you could’ve ever imagined on a pirate, and you find yourself forgetting where you are for a moment as you feel the plush of his mouth against your own.

Pulling away first, your noses still brushing, you whisper to him through the creaks and groans of the drifting ship. “I had to do that. Just in case.”

“In case?” he whispers back.

“In case… we don’t make it.”

It only takes him a moment to remove his hands from your waist. For a heartbreaking second, you think this is him pulling away from you. Again.

And then both of his arms are looping around your waist, pulling you into his chest hard, your lips slamming into each other even harder.

He takes the liberty to move his mouth against your own, hot even in the cold air. Moving with a restrained pace, yet appropriately desperate nonetheless. The cold tip of your nose brushes against his cheek and he pulls away to hiss.

“God, you’re freezing.”

The discovery only seems to urge him to pull you impossibly closer. If your lungs weren’t already occupied, you wouldn’t have been able to breathe. Despite it all, you find your arms coming up around his neck and shoulders, one hand finding refuge in his light hair.

You might never need a drink of anything ever again, not with the way his mouth alone seems to have you drunk and deranged, begging for time to stop so he’d never stop kissing you, never stop moving his beautiful, glorious mouth against your own.

There isn’t a thought in your mind as you pull away for wretched air, eyes closed and breathing heavily.

Hoshi places his forehead flush against your own, both of you exhaling into each other’s faces, still holding you so tight it hurts. It’s warm, his breath seemingly defrosting the formed icicles on your face.

“Hoshi,” you slip from your mouth instinctively.

“Soonyoung,” he breathes, and it takes you a moment to realise he’s talking. “My name. Soonyoung is the name my mother gave me. I want you to have it.”

Opening your eyes, you register his face so close to yours. His eyes are screwed shut, he’s still breathing heavily.

“Soonyoung,” you repeat, hands finding his face again, stroking his cheek with your thumb. “Soonyoung.”

He opens his eyes.

“I like it. It’s very you.”

He smiles and you can’t help but think how beautiful he looks when he does, and when he leans forward to give you another elongated peck, one that has you chasing his lips again. He relents for one more.

“Well, Soonyoung, can I give you something too?”

He looks at you expectantly.

Reaching up to the back of your neck, you find the knotted bind of the leather cord that hangs from your neck. Undoing it, you bring the charm out from under your shirt, leaning forward to tie it around his neck this time.

He stares at the charm that dangles down his front as you give it a light tug, “A letter opener. So that’s what you were getting from that lady at Hasry.”

“You knew when I left?” you ask, brows furrowed.

“I was more worried about you wandering off than I was about anything else, what made you think I didn’t know exactly where you were?” He has a cheeky smile on his face, one that you’ve never seen without an underlying threat or the usual glint of unhinged in his eyes.

You can’t help but grin, of course he knew.

“If you wanted a letter opener as a weapon, you should’ve just asked.”

“Aren’t knives just bigger letter openers?” you ask with a soft chuckle.

He responds with a chaste kiss on the tip of your nose before saying, “Since we’re exchanging gifts—”

“You started it.”

“And I’m ending it.”

He emerges from one of his many pockets with what looks like a bracelet in his hands.

“That’s—”

“From Hasry,” he confirms. “I bought it for no real reason, never even wore it.”

He rolls one of the pink and blue beads between his thumb and forefinger, and you remember it sitting at the stall in Hasry like it was yesterday.

“Didn’t realise I only bought it because I saw you looking at it.”

The twist in your heart is the worst it’s ever been, even while he holds you closer than anyone ever has, you feel the need to squeeze him beyond measure hoping it’ll fix the turmoil in your chest.

He attempts to take one of your hands, in an obvious attempt to slip the bracelet on your wrist.

“Wait.”

Hoshi stops.

“Keep it,” you say as you grab his wrist, pushing the beads down his hand so it sits on his wrist instead.

“But—”

You cut him off with a kiss. “A reason for you to come out of this alive.”

There’s a silent understanding between the two of you as you stand in each other's arms.

“We still have much to talk about. But I think this is alright for now,” you say.

“We will,” he confirms. “But when we go out there and put everything on the line, remember you aren’t just a princess anymore. You’re a pirate, too. So fight like one.”

THE COLD HAS COATED the deck in a fine layer of ice, one that makes it a hazard to simply walk on. Your boots feel unstable and it takes a conscious effort to plant your feet firmly on the wood to ensure you don’t fall like Chan almost has the last four times and the one time he did.

It’s less foggy than you’d anticipated, and you can see Mingyu and Minghao working overtime to ensure the giant ship doesn’t hit one of the absurdly large icebergs that float in the freezing water, the crow’s nest occupied by Hoshi himself as he peers through his telescope. It was strange seeing him use it, you’d begun to think he only kept it like an accessory.

He yells something from his place high up; it’s unclear, but you know.

And then you see it, the naval ship with the unmistakable flag that ripples proud in the cold air. Your family crest is barely decipherable, but knowing what lay ahead was enough to have you taking significantly deeper breaths.

Your father’s—the King’s— ship bobs in the water with a near empty main deck, not a soul on board.

You hold your breath, and as one of the blocks of ice are swerved, you find a second ship. The indicative jolly roger is nowhere to be seen, but it's obvious what ship that was.

The Tigress stands proud with her years of darkened wood, the unmistakable figurehead at the prow in the distinct shape of a fanged siren.

And only a smaller sailboat away, lay a flat of ice.

Another white flag with the royal crest, lines of uniformed soldiers that stand at attention like protectors of the ice, a pattern of dotted blues. The admiral stands next to your father, who’s donned his own Naval uniform complete with a purple cape pinned at his shoulder.

The purple cape of a victor that returns home from battle. The purple cape he’s donned before the battle has even ensued.

The King has noticed your arrival, his face becoming clearer the nearer the ship gets to the block of ice that would act as common ground.

And then the ship stops, you turn around and realise the rest of the crew has their eyes on you, expectant.

“We have a message,” Mingyu says, looking at you but handing the thing in his hand to his captain.

In your fixation, you did not notice the small boat that had floated near the ship, bearing a scroll with the royal seal.

Hoshi reads it, lips tight shut and jaw clenched.

In the next few minutes, all seven of you are cramped into a single, tiny wherry to be rowed onto the iced land. None of you speak, none of you acknowledge the other. The canister that Jun had given you presses against the side of your bare hip, your knife strapped inside your boot.

That was it. That was all you had.

But there was some confidence in it, the way the entire crew was asked to present themselves at the exchange was enough to tell you there was truth in what you presumed of your father’s plans.

He had knives of his own up his sleeve, and he intended to provoke his worst enemy while looking him in the eye.

As the boat reached what was a hardened shore, the crew stepped off the boat one by one. Very carefully, you stepped on the block of ice as the group moved forward, reaching a point where you stood parallel to the other rigid party.

In a purposeful attempt, you were kept in the middle of a herded circle, shielded by the crew as Hoshi stood front and centre, the crew’s mouthpiece. You can’t help but swallow, the ringing in your head growing louder than ever.

There’s a loud voice that plagues the sheets of ice, and your stomach flips so violently you lose both your vision and your hearing. You take an unconscious step back before you feel a hand on your back.

It was Chan, who whispered, “Keep it together. Calm down, it’s okay.”

It was the obvious response from him but you find yourself calming in any case.

“The crown commands you, Hoshi Kwon, to bring forth Her Royal Highness, the princess, at once.” Your father’s right hand man, the royal advisor, and his more trusted friend speaks for the throne, his voice recognizable as it rings on behalf of his king.

From standing behind him, you watch as Hoshi simply raises his fist to place at his hips.

“Captain. Captain Hoshi Kwon,” he corrects, before continuing. “And my hostage will not be brought anywhere till I have my money ship.”

“As proposed by Hoshi Kwon, His Majesty, The King will cooperate in the exchange of Her Royal Highness, the princess for said ship.”

“Give me my ship first.”

“Hoshi Kwon—”

Hoshi groans loudly, loud enough for the other party that stands multiple feet away to hear, before continuing, “This is why I despise dealing with you insufferable lot, why must everything be so formal?”

But you knew what game he was playing at, the deadliest pirate on the seas does not comply with government officials so easily, and he wasn’t about to drop his masquerade now.

“You know what,” Hoshi starts, and you see him eye the wooden boat you had just reached the island on. “We do it this way.”

There’s a pause.

“Me and my harmless little crew will sidestep back over, zip our way to our ship and leave you with your precious princess. Is your royal highness majesty in agreement?”

“Hoshi Kwon is commanded once again to bring the princess forward.” There’s less formality in his tone now, and you realise very quickly that there was no other way to separate yourself from the crew.

“Hoshi,” you whisper under your breath, hoping he would understand. Taking the risk, you move forward in the little space you had, hand very gently placed on his back.

There’s a pause before he speaks, “Fine. Have your princess.”

Turning around, back facing the crowd, he makes eye contact with you before moving to discreetly meet the eyes of his crew. “Let them take you.”

That’s the last thing you hear him say to his crew as you find a larger shadow approach from behind Hoshi.

“Ho—”

Hoshi grabs your arm harsher than he usually would, dragging you forward in his attempt to present you, but you find that Hoshi’s turned back was taken as an opportunity, the dozens of soldiers having already made their way across.

If you hadn’t heard what he had whispered to the crew, his shocked face would’ve fooled you too. He looks like he wasn’t expecting the way the crew was immediately surrounded by swarms of armed soldiers, guns perched directly at each member of the crew. He looked like he wasn’t expecting to be cornered.

But you liked to think you knew this man, and he had once told you to never turn your back to an enemy. Too much to be a rookie mistake of his, so you trust him.

And then you’re being tugged by someone who’s not from the crew, the distinct feeling of softer, more respectful hands that wrap around your elbow, urging you forward.

You find it within yourself to not look back, sending a prayer to every entity in the world to keep them safe, to keep the trust in your heart that they knew what they were doing.

Eyes downcast, you know immediately who you’re being led towards, and when you stop, bracing yourself to meet your father’s eye, you find yourself feeling nothing.

“Are you hurt?” he asks in his strange form of greeting. No embrace, no sign of relief that his daughter and only heir was alive and well.

“No, sir,” you reply, shifting your eyes back down to your shoes.

“Go back to the ship with the guards. We leave as soon as I’m done with this lot.”

Your stomach jolts, but you bite your tongue and let yourself be led to one of the smaller boats. The canister burns against your skin.

Seated in the smaller boat, flanked by guards, you can’t stop your neck from craning to look at the scene behind you.

Far away, on the other side of the glacier, the pirates are being ordered to strip themselves of their weapons.

Hoshi’s dagger glints against the sunlight and you spot Jun’s revolvers in the pile.

Hoshi looks up and catches your eye, face unchanged.

“You’re safe now, your Highness,” one of your guards assured you, taking your gaze as a fearful look back instead of one laced with something else.

Please be okay.

As soon as you're led up to the main deck, your eyes dart. It doesn’t take long for you to figure out that your father had not chosen to take one of the smaller ships as you’d expected of him. Instead, you stand in an exact replica of the ship you had just disembarked, except for the flag that fluttered with your family crest.

You’re pushed into one of the quarters in the lower decks, hearing the distinct click of something outside as you find yourself in the mostly barren indoors.

It looks like a colder version of your quarters on the other ship, the same dimensions, the same window that displays the clear waters of the Green Islands. Except it’s only occupied by a single bed that’s pushed into a corner, stripped of its sheets.

It looks like a prison cell.

When you turn around to try for the door, you try to wrench it open but it refuses to budge. You can’t help but question how many times you’ve landed yourself in this exact situation.

Why on Earth would they lock you in? Did they suspect you of something? But whatever for?

You give up, turning to untuck your shirt from your trousers, feeling for the bomb against your hip to make sure it hadn’t slipped. After that, you crouch down to check the inside of your boot, despite feeling the dagger this entire time, you couldn’t help but need to check.

There was nothing you could do, not when you knew nothing of what was happening on the other side of the door. The window gleams, and you find yourself bolting towards it, peering through the glass to check for any bodies that may land in the water, praying your father would keep them alive.

Hang them publicly. Guillotine them and suspend their heads at the gates of the palace. Just keep them alive for tonight.

The sun is proving a sorry resource of time, especially when you can’t tell how long it’s been since you were shoved in here. The sun seems closer to the seas when you hear the jingle of the lock.

Nearing the risk of whiplash, you turn to the door to find your father walking into the room. He walks in, his cape gone, immediately turning to lock the door from the inside once again.

Once he comes around, he stands with his hands clasped in front of him, eyes boring into your soul.

“It seems the pirates have changed you,” he comments, eyeing your new trousers that you sport. It was strange, a woman in trousers, let alone a princess.

“Not at all, sir,” you respond.

“Your newfound friends are strapped into the brigs, finally subdued and ready to stand trial for their crimes.” His voice is rough, and he looks older than when you last saw him months ago.

He acts in less alarm than you would’ve thought, assuming his definition of ‘friends’ was simply a sick way to prod at you than any indication that he suspected an alliance. But you fight the effort to let out a sigh of relief; they were in the brig, they were fine, they’d stay alive in time for you to get to them.

“I thought David less than for a fool,” he refers to the Admiral as he talks. “He proved me quite incorrect when he showed up on some shoddy fishing boat with a message from a pirate. Like some messenger boy.”

You don’t answer as you simply stare at the toes of your boots. It was foolish to dare make eye contact with him.

“A stupid proposal from a stupid pirate,” he chortled in a genuine laugh. “That pirate ship was easy bait. If only you hadn’t gotten yourself roped in like a simpleton.”

His sentence ends with a harsher undertone as he blames you for something you couldn’t possibly have controlled.

“In any case,” he continues, the gruff in his voice clearing out. “What’s a pirate to a King?”

Everything in you screams at you to halt your already moving tongue, yelling about how horrible the idea was.

“He’s more of a man than you ever could be.”

The ringing in your ears becomes a sounding blare, your vision going white at the sides. Your hands shake and you don’t know why you keep staring your father in the eye.

There’s a furrow in his brow, eyes unyielding and face stoic.

It’s silent for goodness knows how long as you wish you could sink in that very moment.

“That load of filth’s done more than just put you in trousers, is it?” he grits through his teeth. He’s seething. “Henley had said you were acting strange when he saw you at that port market, it seems he was right.”

“No matter,” he continues, exhaling loudly. “It only makes my job easier.”

He unclasps his hands, pulling his white gloves at the fingertips.

“Perhaps we may live in a world where princesses prance around with pirates, but that won’t be the reason I fulfil my duty as King today.”

He slips them off his hands entirely.

“I tried shaping you into something worthy of the throne for so many years, and I’d begun to realise that perhaps, not everyone is fit to be ruler after all.”

Was he about to strip of your inheritance? The crown was why you were born. Despite everything your father had put you through, the throne was your god given right.

“Unfortunately, I cannot simply renounce your title. Not without reason,” he continues as he takes a step closer to you, dropping the gloves to the floor soundlessly. “And while perhaps the court may not consider inadequacy as enough reason, I’m quite sure an exchange gone wrong would be enough, even for them.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, dear daughter, that our time together has come to an end.”

And then his hands were around your throat.

[AN]: HEHEHEHEHEHEHE rb or send an ask telling me your thots as always, one part left to go!!!!!

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