#let me post about queen just once then ill shut up

[arachred]

at what point am i considered a queen historian

[my5unday]

Helloo everypet 💜 today me, @octonauter and one of our friends (who i dont think has tumblr) worked on the second chapter of that evil vinnil angst fanfic from a while ago err have fun reading 😭

(ALSO PLSS TELL ME YOU GUYS KNOW ABOUT THE JK ROWLING BLACK MOLD THEORY 😭😭)

It was the coldest day of the summer but the most humid, tere was a negative and uncomfortable energy that clung to the air of the petshopt. It was awfully quiet.. Apart from Sunils WICKED giggles. The other pets were huddled around the campfire singing the campfire song. “C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E S-O-N-G SONG” they chanted in unison. Sunil was in a secluded corner of the day camp, scheming up an evil plan. He felt that Vinnie had disrespected him immensely by launching him into the ocean then giving him cpr in front of Youngmee, Sue, Jasper.. YOU GET IT. To get back at him, Sunil had the grandiose idea to grow black mold in the petshop and give Vinnie black mold poisoning, because he is deathly allergic to it [most people are.. I think.. But hes worse]. Sunil used his magic to create black mold spores on the corner of the day camp he stood in front of. He then used his magic even more to speed up the spread of the black mold. He let out a wicked laugh, excited to get his revenge on that green goblin.

Speaking on thr vinnie, no one had seen him in two days. He hadnt showed up to the day camp at all. All the pets just assumed that vinnie had just stayed home. He heard coughing from the other side of the room, volient and deadly, sickening and heartstopping. He turned around, pennlyling collasped on the floor, clutching her stomach. The animation meme black goo poured from her mouth. The pets payed no mind to this and continued singing the camp fire song because it was more important than penyling not succumbing [cucumbing[cucumber] to a slow and painful death [C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E S-O-N-G SONG! 😁😁😁😁😁😁😁]. She was expenspensible in the senseless world. A baby panda like her was all too rare in the cat and dog world. Sunil rushed to Penny lings side, dousing the fire so the pets would shut the up for once. They all groaned in annoyance. Despite gaining this illness less than ten seconds ago she was dawned with the heroin chique, her facial struture bolden and cheeks caved in gibing her that sickly starving model look. “Oh my John Eclipse penny ling! What in dogs name happened to you?” Zoe asked, appalled and honestly disgusted. Pennyling tried to respond but only coughed violently in response. She became delirious and suddenly got the urge to write on-twitter…

“Fetch me my cellular, heathen!” Pennyling shouted like a queen, and Zoey quickly did as she was told, believing this request to be her dying wish. She snatched the cellular from Zoey and began writing her first tweet on her account “PLMofficial” [Penny Ling Moulding]. Her first tweet read “The mold would NEVER bless trans people #moldingout #themoldsaves #jesusmolds #moldlovesmeyesIknow” The mold had turned Penny Ling PROBLEMATIC!! Zoey starts to feel weird as the mold starts to corrupt her brain 2. The animation meme black goo pooled at the corner of her mouth as she became chronically online. Zoey snatched the phone off Pennyling and read her tweet. “Wait.. IM TRANS! IM TRANS AND SHES SAYING THIS ABOUT ME” Zoey yelled in her mind. Chronically online rage consumed her.. “I… I HAVE TO RATIO PENNY LING!”

SHe typed furiously on her own phone and  whipped up a horrible comment that we don[t get paid enough to show and PLMofficial Was so offended she spiraled into depression within 10 seconds and  typeda undercover compliment comment to self medicate her self.

¨fr¨ the comment read, and penny smiled to herself.¨ Inally, someone cares…………..”she said, but she realizwd she forgot to switch accounts! Üh oh wrong account she posted and became mad at ZOey for tricking her [she didn really but pennyling was delusional] And a fight started brewing!

***

Blythe meanwhile was in her room, eyes red from being awake for the past 3 days. She had a twisted smile on her face, one of pure insanity. Huddled underneath her blanket she clung onto her phone which was scorching hot from over using it, the extreme heat burning off her fingerprints. She was playing dressed to impressed, desprate for the role of top model, refusing to eat or sleep until she achieved her goal. Everyone was worried about her, Youngmee, Sue, Jasper, Mrs Twombly, her father, all the pets owners and cousins and all the kigs’ horses and all the king's men havent seen her since this addiction started. Mr baxter decided enough was enough and forcibly burst down her dor with a machine gun. Instantly exploding into pecices “blythey, this HAS to stop!” he cried “DAD not now! Im playing roblox.” he unplugged her phone wich had been running on -1 percent and she let out a shrill shreik. He slung her over his shoulder and marched out the door. “Your going to rehab!”

at the pet shop, all the pets starting to place bets on whod survive the fightn when all of a sudden… “GUYS! COME OVER HERE YOU GOTTA SEE THIS!” Russel shouted. Everyone ran over to see Blythe being forcibly pushed into the back of a cop car!? “RELEASE ME I WANT MORE MORE” Blythe screamed as the cops finally managed to shove her in and lock the car door behind her. As they drove off, Youngmee, Sue, Jasper, Mrs Twombly, her father, all the pets owners and cousin and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men stood there in shock when a somber voice broke the silence. A group of government official looking peeple walken up to the crowd. “We’re sorry, everyone,” they said, “but vinnie’s body has been found.”

Blythey sat in a room of the rehab facility, sitting on one of those loungey chairs at therapy. Her rehab guy began asking her questions. “So, Blythe, tell me when this addiction first started.” Blythe looked at the rehab guy with an ellie and mason LOOK 💜 “Four days ago.. A uh… talking lizard introduced me to the game” Rehab guy gave Blythe a confused look. “A talking lizard showed you dress to impre-?” “YES! 😁😁😁🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰😜😉😉😜😜omg😜😜😜😜😜😉🤯💅💅💅💅” she replied, instantly excited over the mention of the game by name. Rehab guy began writing notes in >*~-THE BOOK OF NOTES-~*<. “Blythe, you have a serious addiction to roblox games, in order to get you under control….” The words seemed to blur out after that in her mind. Her fingers began pointing to the assortment of clothes around the rehab room. “Blythe.. Blythe.. BLYTHE!!!” rehab guy yelled, finally catching her attention. “What are you doing??” he asked, to which Blythe replied, “Dressing💅up..” Blythe addiction had worsened to the point she thought the real world had turned into Dress to Impress, perchance a side effect of her withdrawal. She had to be strapped down to a stretcher as she began to lash out when the game was taken from her and she halucinated themse before her “NO! NO ! A FUR COMBO! I WONT LOOSE TO A FUR COMBO!” she screeched. And was locked away in a paddedroom.

[plasticfreckles]

how aforementioned fictional men from this post would react to the fact that my prof failed my paper WITHOUT EVEN READING IT

(we're still in love obvs bc ive had so many breakdowns about this over the weekend that theyve kinda fused into one long-winded breakdown just lemme have this my sanity is holding on by a thread and its getting thinner by the second)

jaal ama darav: would still not have this problem, but would let me cry into his chest tentacles and go to my university and cause a scene my guy

liam kosta: well guess what bitch we're having takeout and boba and comfort movies and SO MANY BLANKETS AND STRING LIGHTS

saren arterius: would have either bribed prof and/or uni so this would not happen, but if it DID happen theyve got another thing coming honey

thane krios: ok now he'll help. help me write long sentences and also intimidate the prof bc wow are you a dishonorable shitbag sweet chalupa jesus

zevran arainai: murder now? too late already did it you're welcome oh they already marked it failed in the system? no problem let me just [daggers the servers] now lemme smash

banck trevelyan: we are now having a mental breakdown together we're writing a new paper and it only says [prof is a whorechild] its very cathartic

dorian pavus: the audacity on this professor. runs them out of their job faster than they can say "failed"

jackie welles: ok now they're getting beat up within an inch of their life he said he'd catch a case if the prof didn't let me pass and they didn't so now he's gotta back his words up with action its really on the prof your honor

johnny silverhand: assuming the place had not been nuked prior to this event would do it then even if he told me to shut up, stop crying and cowgirl up earlier. (could also just mean you're too dumb for this degree shit. - well YEAH but they could've figured it out BEFORE im about to start my thesis paper thankyouverymuch)

goro takemura: that would mean that really, the arasaka goon he got to write my paper for me failed, so they're getting run out of their job so far they may as well just live in a cardboard box. also blackmail the prof

river ward: damn girl that sucks. need a hug? want me to run for another pizza? drive you to a different library? like tell me what you need and youll have but you'll need to tell me (river i dont KNOW what i need) damn girl that sucks. need another hug?

dorn il-khan: the sucker is so dead he'll find a way to get into lunia and kill them again bc obviously dying once wasn't enough for them to get their shit together

rasaad yn bashir: would go to the prof and just talk at them until they read the fucking paper

data: honestly would just download the grading guide and do it himself also add the fact i was failed without having been assessed into the profs file dont worry about it its fine

thranduil oropherion: bitch NOT ONLY did they assign THE QUEEN a paper they FAILED her?! lemme drag their ass to mordor ill drop their disgusting head into the firepits myself and it will not be attached to their body anymore

kim nam joon: damn girl that sucks. want me to check if there's a place you can report it to? because that doesn't sound normal. are we sure they're not on a power trip and you just got to deal with it? anyway we'll fix this together and you'll pass don't you worry about a thing

dustin bates: wow they FAILED you without doing their fucking WORK? [drops track about aint-shit opportunist bastards and capitalism commercializing education like bitch i paid 160€ in this assumed free education country for a degree the least you could do is do your fucking job]

the apocalypse dj: ["accidentally" backflips into the prof so they drop their notebook and it breaks wow looks like karma's a bitch huh]

[storiesforallfandoms]

tabloid bs ~ eminem

word count: 1822

request?: yes!

@imaginesforjohnnydepp​ “hi! i was wondering if you could do an age gap eminem x reader imagine where the reader is a singer and is the daughter of a very successful actor and singer and there are rumors of her parents not liking marshall making the rounds in the tabloids?”

description: in which she decides to shut down bullshit tabloid rumors regarding her boyfriend and her parents

pairing: eminem x female!reader

warnings: swearing, age gap (totally legal though, we’ll say the reader is about 25)

masterlist (one, two)

Being the daughter of two incredibly famous actors meant you were in the spotlight from a young age. Paparazzi, crazy fans, fake friends, none of it was new to you by the time you decided you wanted to try your hand in singing.

You were nervous at first, worrying that either you’d only blow up because of who your parents were, or that everyone would shut down your career because of who your parents were. You were happily surprised to learn that everyone genuinely liked you and your music, despite your parentage.

As your career began to skyrocket, you were contacted by none other than Eminem asking to make a song with you. Apparently he was so impressed by your talent that he wanted to get in contact with you and ask you himself for a collab, something that he only did with people who ended up becoming close friends of his (Skylar Grey, Rihanna, 50 Cent, Ed Sheeran, etc. etc.).

You ended up following this trend, except in a much more extreme way. You did end up becoming close with him, but not as just a friend. Within a month of doing your collaboration you found yourself going on a date with Marshall, and within a year you were basically living with him.

The press had a field day when they found out. You were 20 years younger than Marshall, and he was only two years younger than your mom. Of course people didn’t react to kindly to this at first, but it wasn’t as hard to ignore these things as you expected it to be.

The thing that was hard to ignore, though, was the constant stories that were published about your parents hating Marshall, and hating your relationship.

This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Your parents loved Marshall, both as a musician and as their daughter’s boyfriend. Your dad and Marshall got along really well, and your mom basically viewed him as a new best friend from the moment he walked through the door.

These rumors were harder to ignore when they were brought up so often in interviews and during livestreams or Q&As. You were starting to get annoyed with it and you wanted to make it stop.

Lucky for you, the person interviewing you at that moment gave you the perfect segway to shutting those rumors down.

“I know this is a bit of a private topic,” she started, “and if you don’t want to talk about it we can just move on, but there’s something circulating in the rumor mill regarding you and your boyfriend.”

“Of course there is,” you said, rolling your eyes in a playful manner. You were trying to remain lighthearted about it all, but you were feeling the annoyance bubble up inside of you already.

“There’s a story going around that you blew off your dad’s birthday because he wouldn’t let you bring Eminem to the celebration.”

You felt your face heating up with anger. Oh, so now the media was trying to present you as a bratty singer now too? Saying you skipped your own father’s birthday due to your boyfriend?

No, they were not getting away with that one.

You pulled your phone from your pocket and quickly opened it. The interviewer looked at you in confusion as you scrolled through your pictures before holding your phone towards the nearest camera.

“Here’s a picture of me and my dad two days after his birthday,” you said. “It was taken by Marshall, because the three of us had a special celebration alone. My flight home was delayed and I had to miss my dad’s actual birthday, in which my boyfriend was actually invited to, by the way. Dad specifically asked if Marshall would be coming, even jokingly told me that I had to take him. So no, I didn’t purposely miss my dad’s birthday because of my boyfriend, I would never miss dad’s birthday on purpose.”

“All you had to say was no,” the interviewer mumbled, regarding her notes to move along to the next question.

“No,” you said. “I’m not keeping this one short and sweet. I’m tired of all these stupid, untrue things being said about me and my boyfriend and my parents. Mom and dad don’t hate Marshall, I don’t purposely not see my parents because of him. There’s no hate at all between any of us, and it makes me angry that tabloids make those accusations without any evidence just for clicks. This is someone’s real life, not just some fiction for someone to fuck around with.”

“You sound very passionate about this.”

You scoffed. “Of course I am! Ever since Marshall and I have started dating people have been saying shit about him and my parents and I don’t understand why. There’s never been any ill will between my parents and Marshall, not even any implied ill will. People just like to make up stories so they have a good headline to get views and get people talking.”

“Well, although nothing has been ever been confirmed, you can’t say you don’t understand where those rumors came from. No one wants their kid dating someone who is basically their age, no matter how famous that person is. It’s only natural for a parent to be protective over their kid, especially from such an older person that may just be taking advantage of them.”

Your eyes were wide with shock. You could barley believe what this bitch was saying. She was really trying to spin the story and say that Marshall was trying to take advantage of you, a literal 25 year old adult?

You stood from my chair then and began trying to pull the microphone off of yourself. The interviewer looked at me with concern before trying to stop you.

“I’m done here,” you declared, pulling at the wire once I found it.

“You’re going to break the mic!”

“Send the bill to my people,” you retorted. “I’m not sitting here and having someone tell me that the guy I’m dating is trying to take advantage of me just because he’s older, or hearing you spill some bullshit about my parents. Newsflash: if someone is happy publicly with their relationship, then maybe they’re actually happy. No tragic behind the scene stories or ulterior motives, just two adults who are in love.”

You finally got the microphone off and basically threw it at the interviewer before turning and leaving the room.

~~~~~~

You stayed at Marshall’s place that night, still partially fuming from the interview. You didn’t tell him specifics (especially not that you walked out in a fury the way you did), but you told him it didn’t go well.

You were awoken the next morning to your phone ringing. When you checked it, you saw your dad’s face and name light up your screen. You groaned when you noticed how early the time was before answering. “Hello?”

“Good morning sweetie,” came your dad’s voice. “Have you been online yet?”

“I haven’t even been out of bed yet,” you responded. “Why? What’s going on?”

“You’re trending for walking out of your interview.”

You sat up in the bed so quickly that it woke Marshall. He rolled over and looked at you in confusion as you put your dad on speaker and started frantically opening your Twitter app.

“Dad, you’re on speaker. Marshall is here,” you told him as you started looking.

“Good morning, Marshall,” your dad said.

“Morning,” Marshall responded, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “What’s going on that has (Y/N) wide awake at 8am?”

“She’s trending.”

“For what?”

There it was, your name at the top of the trending list. When you clicked on it, the first thing that popped up was your interview from the day before.

“Fuck,” you breathed. “I can’t believe they actually posted. It was so bad, I thought they’d just delete the footage and never think of it again.”

“You think too highly of people looking for a good scoop, honey.”

The title of the video read Singer (Y/F/N) Goes Off On Interviewer while Talking About Parents and Boyfriend Eminem. The entire interview was included, luckily enough, including everything leading up to your storm out. Marshall watched over your shoulder as your dad waited, silently, for you to see it all.

“You didn’t tell me what was said,” Marshall said. “Why didn’t you tell me they were saying that shit to you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you responded. “I mean, it did matter, but by the time I got here I didn’t think it would matter anymore. Like I said, I thought the footage would be deleted and long forgotten.”

You were nervously biting at your nails as you scrolled through Twitter to see what people were saying. You were expecting a wave of hate and people believing that you truly were a bratty singer, until you started to see how much praise and love you were getting.

“Imagine trying to frame (Y/N) as the bad one in this situation when the interviewer literally said Eminem is trying to take advantage of her”

“Never believed those rumors about (Y/N)’s parents and Eminem. They’re all too tightknit for (Y/N) to date someone her parents hate”

“The way she told the interviewer to bill her for the broken mic that’s QUEEN SHIT”

“It doesn’t seem too bad,” you said as you continued to read. “A lot of people on my side.”

“Oh, I knew no one was against you on this one,” your dad said. “I just wanted to let you know you’re trending, and let you know I’m proud of you for finally putting an end to those rumors. It was getting really tiresome to read why I hated Marshall on any given day.”

You chuckled slightly. “Thanks dad. I’ll call you and mom later. Love you.”

“Love you, too, honey.”

Your dad hung up and you decided it would be for the best to put your phone away for a while. Even though you weren’t getting any negative attention for this, you were still overwhelmed by the fact that the interview went up at all.

You settled back into bed beside Marshall, taking your place in his arms where you loved to be the most.

“I’m proud of you, too,” he said, kissing your forehead. “I didn’t realize my girl was so badass.”

“Yes you did.”

“Maybe I did.” You giggled as you nuzzled your head into his chest more. “You know how much I love you, right?”

“Of course I know, babe. Don’t let that shitty interviewer and her bullshit get to you.”

“Oh she’s not,” he said. “I’m well aware your parents love me and I’m not taking advantage of you. I just wanted to remind you.”

I chuckled and shook my head. Shortly after, I drifted off to sleep, feeling proud of myself for what I had done.

[sukifans]

aahhh I’m so excited I love your writing!!! your sokka “help me” fic is one of my favs ever I seriously think about it at least twice a week. in a similar vein, would you be able to combine prompts 10 & 12 for sokka x fem!reader? thank you!!! :)

SOKKA + “can i try that new chapstick? i wanna have a taste” + “i hadn’t noticed but my sweet, funny, goofy best friend is kind of hot, especially since they’ve been on this fitness kick”

⇦ 𝘔𝘈𝘚𝘛𝘌𝘙𝘓𝘐𝘚𝘛

“nastiest skank bitches” Group Message

loml: ladies, i need a girls night

loml: desperately

babygorl: god i’m down, this semester blows

fugly slut <3: i’m in!! always here for a girls night 🥰

loml: y/n??

you: gals. pals. as much as i would love to...

fugly slut <3: ughhhhhhhhh

babygorl: you better not be blowing us off for sokka again istg

you: 😅

loml: TRAITOR BITCH

fugly slut <3: HOES BEFORE BROS

babygorl: WHORE

you: bruh.mp3

you: he’s coming by after the gym to help me with my physics homework!!! I NEED THE HELP PLS I PROMISE ILL BE THERE NEXT TIME

babygorl: lying is a sin y/n

babygorl: sinner

loml: if sokka’s gonna b there maybe she’ll be sinning in........ other ways...... ahaha

loml: fuckboy_emoji.jpg

fugly slut <3: when you gonna tap that fr

you: NEVER LITERALLY NO EW

you: HE’S MY BEST FRIEND

you: UNLIKE YOU RATS

fugly slut <3: he do b kinda yummy tho liiiike 👀

you: STOP

loml: yeah he’s hot sorry queen

you: HE’S NOT HOT

babygorl: i almost hate to admit it but...

babygorl: his biceps 🥴

fugly slut <3 emphasized “his biceps 🥴”

loml loved “his biceps 🥴”

you: hey! i hate u guys! jsyk!

fugly slut <3 disliked “hey! i hate u guys! jsyk!”

babygorl disliked “hey! i hate u guys! jsyk!”

loml disliked “hey! i hate u guys! jsyk!”

babygorl: uh huh yeah sure

loml: yall hear sumn?

NEW MESSAGE from sokka :^)

“hey i’m omw up!”

you: whatever you guys suck

you: i gtg

fugly slut <3: AND YOU SWALLOW

babygorl: bye girly!! get that bestie dick!!

loml: save a car, ride an engineering major >:)

you: desgostang.jpg

You dropped your phone onto the bed next to you with a groan. Your friends really and truly could be such freaks about your relationship with Sokka—or lack thereof. They’d been especially adament ever since he started some stupid bet with Zuko about who could get the most “gains” by graduation, incited by Aang making the mistake of commenting on Zuko’s more pronounced muscle mass.

Idiots.

That’s what Sokka was. Your idiotic best friend, who was funny, and sweet, and intelligent. You loved him, of course, but not like that. And he was not hot.

Definitely not.

The pounding on your dorm door interrupted your musings before Sokka let himself in, dropping his gym bag on the floor and kicking off his slides. His hair was loose and still damp from his post-workout shower and he wore slim joggers with a loose muscle tee.

“Hey!” He smiled brightly when he spotted you sitting in your bed. “What’s up?”

“The usual.” You moved your legs out of the way so he could flop down onto your mattress. “How was the gym?”

Sokka groaned. “Cardio. I’m already sore.” He stretched his arms up to fold behind his head, pulling his muscles taut.

Hm. He does kind of have nice biceps...

You shook yourself internally. Thoughts like these had been creeping out of your subconscious for weeks now, no thanks to your rabid friends.

“My leg’s been killing me, though,” he continued, rubbing his opposite foot across the skin that covered that metal pins and plates holding his bones together after a nasty break in high school. The leg often still gave him problems, ranging from the dull ache he could ignore on the day-to-day, to throbbing pain that left him limping.

You frowned, looking away from his arms to meet his eyes. “You should probably rest up before you hurt yourself,” you said.

“I’ll be fine.” He shrugged and propped himself up on his elbows. “Gotta catch up to Zuko, y’know.”

“Why? You’re already taller than him.”

“So? I wanna be more yolked, too.”

You rolled your eyes. “Buncha dumbasses.”

Sokka quirked an eyebrow. “You want this dumbass to help with your physics homework or not?”

“Haha,” you chuckled nervously, “just kidding, buddy! I meant Zuko and Aang. You—definitely not a dumbass. Nope.”

“That’s what I thought.” He shot you a smug look as he pushed up to sit cross-legged across from you on the bed. He held his hand out with a dramatic, world-weary sigh. “Alright, give it here.”

You opened your laptop to pull up the website that hosted your homework practice problems. “You know I love you, right?”

“Mhm,” he hummed, grabbing a notebook and pen from your desk to work out the math as you handed over the computer. He paused before standing to retrieve his bag, plopping it on your desk chair so he could root through it and pull out his glasses case. You felt your cheeks warm a little when he set the frames on the bridge of his nose.

Fine—he was kinda cute. You could concede that without having to dig too deep into your somewhat jumbled feelings for your best friend.

But you would certainly not “tap that.”

Well...

No. You would not.

You watched his eyes flick over the screen as he tapped the pen against his chin, catching the cap between his teeth while he thought about the formulas he’d learned in a past semester. He nodded to himself and started scribbling out a diagram and the math to go with it. You found yourself a little mesmerized by the way he simply just knew what to do, confidently scratching away at the paper as easily as one might write the alphabet. Your eyes trailed from his long fingers and calloused hand sweeping over the page, up his toned arm (lingering on his bicep a little longer), and to his face. He chewed at the inside of his cheek in concentration, sometimes parting his lips to murmur the logic to himself.

For someone who often said a lot of stupid shit, he sure had a pretty mouth.

You considered what he might do if you snatched a fistful of his shirt and yanked him into a kiss. Would he shove you away and leave? Awkwardly but kindly reject you? Or, would he kiss you back—throw the work out of the way and grab your face to coax you in deeper? Maybe push you back onto the bed and—

“Okay, so basically—”

Jesus Christ, get a fucking grip.

“—from the problem and draw it out like this to apply the formula, yeah?”

Sokka looked to you expectantly and you blinked at him as your face burned. “Sorry, I zoned out. What did you say?”

“C’mon, I know you hate physics but you gotta at least pay attention to me if you wanna pass,” he teased, shifting close enough that the sides of your bodies pressed together. Was it getting warmer in your room, or was it just your best friend?

He launched into the explanation again and you nodded along while internally willing the blood to leave your cheeks. Even as your thoughts ricocheted around inside your skull he managed to break it down in a way that somewhat made sense. He sat back and watched as you slowly worked through the next problem. You glanced up when you heard a soft pop to see him applying chapstick.

“Is that a new flavor?” you asked.

“Yeah, chocolate orange or something.” He held the tube out to you. “Wanna try?”

Fuck it.

Before your rationality could catch up you pressed a hand to his cheek to turn his head and pulled him in for a kiss. Your lips only slotted together for a brief moment before you pulled back to stare wide-eyed at each other. You could feel the fire creeping from your cheeks down your neck, mirrored in the reddening of his tanned skin.

He blinked. You blinked.

The chapstick slipped from between his fingers. Rationality arrived late.

You bolted.

“Uh, see ya later!” you shouted as you threw the door open and rushed out of the room.

“Wait, (Y/N)—“

You didn’t stick around to hear the end of his desperate call. Even thought it was your dorm and you were barefoot you still raced down the hall, wincing at the sound of a door slamming behind you.

“(Y/N)!”

Damn that lanky bastard. You were booking it and he was already hot on your heels. You barreled into the door leading to the stairwell and almost made it down the first step when he grabbed you around the waist and yanked you back. Despite your struggles, the arm hooked across your middle was unyielding until he pushed you into the corner and crowded you against the wall, hands caging you in from either side. Your heart was racing and you weren’t sure if it was because of your escape attempt or that he was close enough you could smell his body wash and deodorant. It was almost enough to make your head spin.

“Sokka, I-I don’t know why—I’m sorry, please, I shouldn’t’ve—“

“(Y/N),” he said firmly and your mouth snapped shut. “Why did you run away?”

“Uh, I—well, um...” You shrunk down against the wall and swallowed hard. “I-I don’t know.”

“You didn’t even give me a chance to respond.”

“Look—“ You paused and stared at him once you processed what he said. “What?”

He laughed, dropping one of his hands to brush against your cheek before threading into your hair to cup the base of your skull. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

With that he surged forwards and kissed you enthusiastically, making you gasp into his mouth. You balled your hands into the front of his shirt to keep yourself steady as you melted into him. His free hand pressed into your lower back to bring you in closer. His tongue slipped out to tease at your bottom lip and he chuckled when you had to quickly grab his shoulders as your knees almost buckled.

“Get that,” he murmured against your lips, pressing his forehead to yours as the two of you gasped for air.

“Oh,” you breathed, “that.” You hummed happily when he kissed you again, his stubble scratching against your chin and under your palms when you cupped his face.

You both looked up when a stairwell door somewhere above you slammed open, followed by a group of jostling male voices. Sokka grinned when you glanced at him with wide eyes and shiny, swollen lips. You tried to hide behind him as the clamor bounded closer and closer. The group of guys rounded the next flight and gave shouts of recognition upon seeing you two standing against the wall.

“Sokka!”

“Hey, man!”

“Hey, guys,” Sokka said, holding his hand up in greeting.

“What’s up?”

“Oh, is that (Y/N)?”

“Nice, dude!”

“Ah, yeah...” He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck and you raised an eyebrow at his turned head. They all cheered and congratulated him, slapping his back as they passed and disappeared down the next set of stairs. When Sokka met your eyes again you cocked your head.

“Who were they?” you asked.

“Honestly, I’m not sure.”

“Sokka.”

“My reputation precedes me, what can I say?”

“Mine doesn’t.”

“Well—“ he suddenly became very interested in the underside of the stairs above you “—my reputation may or may not involve talking about you. A lot, apparently.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t do it on purpose!” he interjected quickly, taking your hands in his. “It’s just—I dunno, I guess I think about you a lot, so...”

“Oh.”

“Fuck, okay, that sounded weird.” You laughed a little at his embarrassed floundering. “I just mean, like, things that remind me of you or, y’know, stories that involve you...” he trailed off, flushing at your amused smile. “Stop it!”

“Stop what?”

“Making fun of me!”

“I didn’t say anything,” you giggled, hooking your arms around his neck.

“You’re still laughing at me,” he whined, lips turning into a frown. His hands slipped back down to your waist.

“You’re cute.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Without preamble, he ducked down and hoisted you over his shoulder as you shrieked in protest. “Sokka! Put me down!”

“No can do, baby; we have unfinished business to attend to.” He said as he marched you back in the direction of your room.

“You’re gonna finish my physics homework?”

“Nope.”

Oh.

A/N: 2k words bc, again, i have no self control. thank you for the request!

ATLA TAGS: @hotgirlazula @octophopi @blazedbakugou @protect-remus @akiris @sunflowerazula @wooscottoncandyhair @chewymoustachio @ohno-caroline @sunflowerr-mami @1vitamin @ladylizzieofdarbyshire @u-4iia @nymeria-targaryen @tommy-braccoli @dizzy-miss-lizzieeeeee @a-sloppy-bitch @nomin-rights @siriuslyslyslytherin @starryncn

SOKKA TAGS: @fiantomartell @avatarayeaye @zvkta @sher-lockedmarvel @grandmascottlang @captainshazamerica @yuesallura

[drwcn]

CQL!AU: Everyone is an orphan except Wei Wuxian, and the Twin Jades are dark practitioners. Needless to say, that changes things. (canon what canon) 

Master Post

~

[1-3]

[1] Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan were the ones who died early. Wei Changze returned to Lotus Pier to become the guardian and regent of his best friend’s son and heir. 

Lotus Pier was black and white. Lifeless. 

That was the first thought that crossed Cangse Sanren’s mind when she and Wei Changze docked at the port, swords in hand, and their little son in toll. 

The people mourned. Posts were temporarily closed, the market suspended. Windows and doors of their bustling riverside town were firmly shut, with white and black drapes hanging from its sills and fluttering in the wind. 

Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan were dead. Two young cultivators, parents, taken from this world too young, gone before their time. 

“A-Ying, come child,” Cangse extended a hand to the boy who glanced around at the unfamiliar place with timid curiosity. 

“A-niang, what’s going on?” 

“No questions. You must behave yourself today.” Cangse brought her son closer to her, watching her husband’s usually smiling, gentle face pull taut into a mask that betrayed none of the grief he felt underneath. He held himself taller today, shoulders pulled back, spine rod-straight and jaws clenched. She’d forgotten, after all these wonderful years of travelling the world with their family, that this place was once his home. 

“Er’shixiong,” a man greeted them at the pier, flanked by a party of younger Jiang disciples, all appropriately garbed with white sashes around their waist. “Cangse-daozhang.” 

They had spoken in depth about returning. Cangse knew there was nothing she could do to stop him; Changze’s devotion to Jiang Fengmian ran deeper than she understood. It was never herself that Yu Ziyuan should’ve resented; though however misplaced Madam Yu’s jealousy had been, it was a moot point now.  

Chang’ge, I will not ask you to choose between your love for him and your promise to me. If Lotus Pier is where you wish to go, I will go with you. I cannot promise however that I will always stay. That — is not my nature. 

Thank you, Wumei*. I understand. 

They found Jiang Wanyin, the little lord, and his sister Jiang Yanli, in their mourning robes, kneeling and crying before their parents’ funeral altar.  

Wei Changze sunk to his knees beside them, and folded his body until his forehead hit the ground. “Shixiong,” he spoke to the spirits. “I’ve come back.” 

“Who are you?!” The boy Jiang Cheng, five-years-old and hurting, blurted out rudely through his tears. His sister held him from behind and gave a trembling nod of deference to the older man. 

“Wei-shishu.”  

Beside her, clinging to her skirt, Wei Ying looked up and asked quietly, “A-niang, are we going to stay?” 

Cangse Sanren, the favoured fifth pupil of Baoshan Sanren herself, smiled down quietly at her only child and smoothed back his hair. “Yes, A-Ying we will. Lotus Pier is home now.” 

(JC 5 yro; WWX 5 yro; JYL 8 yro)

[2] When Qingheng-jun’s respected mentor died - murdered - he made a very different choice. He turned his back on his clan and his responsibilities, and escaped into the wild with the woman he loved. They were just an ordinary family, living away from the chaos in a paradise of their own. But even Eden eventually falls, and nothing gold ever stays... 

Take A-Huan and A-Zhan and go! Do not stop until you are safe. Do not turn around. Do not come back. 

Shijie! You’re injured! Let me help you - 

Zhao Ming! Zhao Zhuliu, you listen to me: their names, Lan Xichen for the older, and Lan Wangji for the younger. It’s what their father and I wanted for them. 

Shijie - jiejie - 

Now go! Go! 

A-Niang, come with us! A-Niang, don’t go!! A-Niang!!! 

The forest burned like the autumn sun at dusk descending from the sky, red and golden and glorious. A single figure stood amongst the flames, corpses littered at her feet. Bichen fell from her grip, barely making a sound as it landed against dampened earth, soaked with Lan blood.  Those who fought her were dead, but she feared that she did not have long either.

“Rong-gege,” Qiu Baiti collapsed onto her hands and dragged her body towards the man who lay still amongst the carnage, arrows piercing his front, his sword Shuoyue still clutched tight in his left hand. 

Lifeless eyes remained open, as though he could not rest. 

“Rong-gege,” Baiti called helplessly, crawling to him and laying her head down against his chest. There used to be a heartbeat there, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost hear it again. “Wait, don’t go without me...” 

She was so tired and bled from so many places. It was not until a sharp cry and a familiar face descended from the sky that Qiu Baiti realized the inferno which surrounded her was not yet hell. 

"Qiu-jiejie!" Cangse rushed forth, almost tripping over the corpse of a dead Lan disciple in her haste. “Lan-da’ge, he -” A horrified gasp drowned the rest of her words. 

“Cangse...you’re here...” 

Cangse gathered her bosom sister into her arms and immediately drew upon a torrent of spiritual energy from her core, channeling them into her fingertips to heal her friend. She could tell that whatever combat Qiu Baiti had been through, it had already taken the little life inside her, and now hers was following it to the other side.   

“Hold on, I can save you - hold on -”

“Cangse - Cang - stop, it’s too late.” Qiu Baiti lay limp there.  

Death, it drew near, but she was ready. She closed her eyes as a slip of tear escaped beneath her lashes. "I did this to him, to all of them... if I hadn't...it’s all my fault. I was the one they wanted; he was just trying to protect me. A-Huan, A-Zhan...."

Trembling and in near hysterics, Cangse sobbed, “No, don’t say that! Where are the boys?” 

“Safe. A-Ming has them...you mustn’t tell anyone. Not anyone, promise me. Not even Lan Qiren. Especially Lan Qiren... Rong-gege trusts his brother, but I - I - promise me - promise -” Qiu Baiti gasped for breath, gurgling blood in her throat with each laboured attempt. 

“Qiu-jiejie, please - don’t - I - I promise.” 

“Good...Cangse...” Qiu Baiti clutched her hand and smiled, a crimson wound cutting across her pale, beautiful face. “Good.” 

And then she died, with the red of the forest flames still in her eyes. 

Cangse held her friend - dear, damned, dead - and allowed a scream to tear through herself. From the depth of her grief, she released a pulse of unrestrained spiritual energy that rippled through the dense woods as though the storm of her anguish could not be contained. And like a measly candle-light assaulted by the winter wind, the forest fire was extinguished in an instant. 

The sun was gone, and the night was dark.  All was quiet, but there was no peace to be found. 

 Cangse buried Lan Cenrong and Qiu Baiti in two unmarked graves side by side beneath a tall oak tree. She sifted through the bodies and the grime and collected the spiritual weapons they left behind — Shuoyue, Bichen, Liebing (cracked in two places) and the strings of Qiu Baiti’s shattered guqin — and stored them away in her qiankun pouch. She hoped one day that she would find Zhao Zhuliu and the sons Lan Cenrong and Qiu Baiti had left behind, and return these items to their rightful owners. 

It was not until three years later, not too far from her shifu Baoshan’s sacred temple nestled in the snowy mountain peak, where Jiang Yanli had been brought to strengthen her health and train as Cangse’s direct disciple, that Cangse perchance came across Zhao Ming again. 

He was accompanied by two youngsters, two beautiful jade-like children who called him jiufu. Cangse was not surprised in the least to find that both of them have learned the technique for which their mother and jiujiu were hunted: the core-melting hand. 

(LXC 9, LWJ 6 -> LXC 12, LWJ 9 ) 

[3] They called her “The Little Queen”. Wen Qing never wanted to be Sect Master, or Deputy Sect Master, or Regent Sect Master. She just wanted to live quietly with A-Ning and Wen-popo and study the art of healing that her parents practiced. But alas, life had other plans. 

Wen Qing was a month short of her tenth birthday when her life changed forever. 

Wen Ruohan, her father’s older cousin, who’d always been close with her family, had come to visit Dafan. Wen-bobo didn’t have siblings, and her father Wen Ruotian was as close as a brother to him, more than any other Wen descendent of their time. 

Wen Qing liked Wen Ruohan well. He was doting and found her intelligent. Her parents chose the simple village life, but they often spent New Years and holy days at Nevernight at Sect Master Wen’s behest and invitation.  

When Wen Ruohan came to Dafan and told her folks that there was a piece of the Yin Iron inside the Stone Fairy, her father had been eager to help, though weary he was of those powers he could not understand. 

He’d been right to be afraid. 

The extraction had gone horribly wrong, and the rebound of dark energy had eviscerated all those near by, her mother, her father, and Wen Ruohan himself. It was by the skin of her teeth that Wen Qing managed to yank her baby brother Wen Ning out of the way. Then, without thinking, she caught the vile, wretched thing as it sailed through the air. It landed in the palm of her hands, and there she stood, regarded with fear and bewonderment from all those in witness as the cursed item, which burned the life out of cultivators much older and seasoned than her, quieted in her small hands. 

The Elders said she had...a nature affinity. For what, they could not say. 

Wen Qing was brought back to Nevernight and given the name Yuefan: to exceed mortality. Within days, the heavy crown of Sect Master of Qishan Wen was placed on her head. 

It was then that she learned that her Wen-bobo, with no inclination to marry and bind himself to another, did not leave behind a legitimate heir. His young sons, 4-year old Wen Xu and 2 year-old Wen Chao were born to him by women of ill repute.  They were kind, good boys, but they were infantile and illegitimate. Wen Qing felt for them, but she could not change their fate. So for the time being, she accepted what she had to. 

The adults did what they could for her, but there was no one in the cold, vast palace of Nevernight to mind her or nurture her. She stood alone upon the towers where the eternal flames, fuelled by Qishan Wen’s combined spiritual energy, burned in their iron brazier, and watched over the lush volcanic mountain range that was hers to govern and protect. Those beneath her - servants, disciples - feared her and her unknown powers. Those advising her - Elders, mentors - had their own agendas. In any case, they stopped seeing her as a child the minute she held the Yin Iron in her hands and lived to tell the tale. 

It was a secret, they told her. She must guard it well. 

The Chief Cultivator Jin Guangshan sent his ambassadors to congratulate her succession. Gusu’s Lan Qiren and Qinghe’s Nie Heqiu both arrived consecutively to pay their respects to their ten-year-old colleague and fellow Sect Master. 

There was a momentary rumble amongst the Wen Elders about whether Nie Heqiu’s older son Nie Mingjue would be a good match for her someday, but as he too was set to inherit, the idea was put aside as quickly as it was brought up. 

Then came Yunmeng’s regent Wei Changze, bringing along an entourage of Jiang disciples and a boy one year her junior, the son he conceived with the revered Cangse Sanren. 

Wei Wuxian. 

Wen Qing liked him enough. He was spontaneous, agreeable, and clever, and he found her aloofness fun to provoke. They would’ve both been satisfied with the arrangement had she not met Yunmeng Jiang’s young Jiang-zongzhu some years later, and had he not crossed paths with the vengeful and infamous Lan Wangji. 

But life, as the gods have planned it, must have its mysteries. 

(WQ 10, WWX 9) 

TBH?  

Note: 

Wumei - fifth sister, Wei Changze’s nickname for Cangse. 

Details of Cangse and Wei Changze’s name as well as Qingheng-jun and Madam Lan’s name can be found here .

jiufu 舅父 - maternal uncle, formal.  

[numptypylon]

Epilogue

I added a short epilogue to Reunion and Intersection today, but I also wrote a much longer one, full of fluffy comfort, to get through the angst-writing in the first two chapters. It’s unedited, unfinished and ridiculously self-indulgent, and I don’t think it really goes with the story, so I elected to not post it, but I’m attaching it here, under the cut, for those interested. Keep in mind it’s a reject for a reason though; this is what my writing looks like in the explorative phase where I’m looking for the point, and in this case I didn’t really find it XD

~2K under the readmore

Callum got there early. A lot of people eyed him warily, but a letter from Queen Janai was a good smoother-of-grumpy-elf-tempers.

No-one had seen Rayla, so… she was probably not here yet.

He went to the inn, bought a large room, lit a roaring fire in there, activating the Sunfire rock he used to keep warm at night under the covers of the bed, and calling for the tub to be filled. It had the usual Skywing heating arrangement, only needing a good Fulminis to heat the water.

He resisted flying out to find her. He risked missing her again, and her leaving town before he got back.

It was about… hitting the point of intersection.

So, he waited at the city gates. He didn’t have to wait nearly as long as he expected, considering the distance she would have had to traverse. Maybe she had recovered and had travelled faster than he thought.

It was definitely her though. A small, lone figure on the mountainside.

He intended to wait for her until she got to him, but then she stopped to lean against a tree and he realized that she had not recovered and was up there sick in the snow… and that resolve evaporated like it had never been.

Like he would ever let her struggle alone a moment longer than she needed to.

 **

 It was a measure of her exhaustion that she didn’t notice him until he was basically right in front of her, and even then, her reaction was so much slower than usual.

It still… it was hard to believe it was real. For her too, surely more so.

He numbly pulled his scarf off, packing it around her neck and head. He grazed her cheek and felt it and she felt it and… she felt it, because the tears that had built up in her eyes spilled over at his touch, slipping down her dirty and flushed cheeks.

She looked ready to drop, and felt it too, when he put his arms around her and her disbelief gave way to relief. Whatever ridiculous level of stubbornness had kept her upright for the last day and night of walking through snow and up mountains when she should have been in bed… fell away and she slumped almost completely in his arms.

She sobbed hoarsely for a bit, and he let her.

And she let him, when his hand cupped the back of her head and her hair tickled his fingers and it hit him too that… it was really real, she was here.

They needed to… get to the inn though, so he pulled away and wiped his face. They could… and probably would… have a longer cry and a longer hug later. But she was sick and cold and there was a roaring fire and a filled bathtub two minutes of flight away.

“Let’s go,” he said. “I knew you were coming this way and that you were sick. And I booked a room for… you.” For them both, he hoped, but-

“What?” she blubbered. “But… aren’t… aren’t you mad?”

“I mean, of course I am, but… that’s not really… that can wait.”

“I’m…” she laughed weakly, more tears spilling over. “I’m so happy to see you and there’s… so many things I would like to say and… and I’m such a mess right now and so tired and I’m just… I’m so tired I cried earlier just because a stupid pine branch hit me in the face and knocked me off my sled and it continued down the mountain without me and I’d have to walk instead and-“

“Hey, hey!” He stroked down her flushed, wet cheeks, along fresh scratches where presumably that branch had hit her. Sledding, huh… she always was extremely resourceful and oh so daring. And that explained how she got here so fast. “Rayla, it’s okay. You can rest first. I’ll take care of things… of you. For as long as you want me to, but… definitely for the next few days.”

“How c-can you… are you… here-”

He leant his head against her forehead, relishing in the feeling of contact, even if her skin was clammy and too-hot. “That’s… complicated,” he said. “And also simple. You called me here. I came.”

“Manis. Pluma. Volantis.”

 **

 She staggered, when they set down, steadying herself on his shoulder, and Callum was glad he had elected to land in front of the inn instead of at the city gates.

She definitely wasn’t well yet, her breath rasping in her throat, her forehead beading with sweat, cheeks and ears flushed. The fever had maybe broken, but it hadn’t quite left. And she was exhausted, trembling with the effort of staying upright, her eyes dull and glassy.

People were staring, when they went inside, but the innkeeper came over and recommended the soup of the day, and their house-made herbal tea blend with Sky Yak milk, and assured them it would be brought to their room shortly, with a look of very obvious sympathy at Rayla.

And then the door shut behind them.

“I owe-” she started, but he cut her right off.

“No. You’re owed,” he said tightly.

“Owed what?” She sounded… nervous.

“Soup. Hot tea. A warm bed and a fire someone else made. General fussing. Love. Forgiveness. Kindness. A damn break, for once.”

“L-love?”

“Yeah, love.”

Her clumsy fingers fumbled at the clasps of her armor. They were still ice cold when he touched them, the skin red and no-doubt sore.

But she for once didn’t resist any help he gave, sinking gratefully into the tub he had prepared. A warm bath was possibly not great for her fever, but… it was pros and cons and he needed to warm up her hands and feet.

She was barely conscious when he helped her back out of the tub, so he just put her down on a towel on the bed, drying her hair as best he could. He at least managed to get her awake to pull off her own wet underwear and pull his clean night shirt over her head.

 **

 “Callum?” she asked, because… she wanted things, and she could have them. “Stay with me? Please.”

He pressed against her back, warm and real.

His hands engulfed hers, big and soft and familiar.

Full of real little details that her brain hadn’t accurately recreated.

The callus at the side of his right index finger, from his charcoal pencil. The scar from a clumsy sparring accident at the second knuckle.

His voice when he said her name and when he told her it was okay.

His kinda… snuffling non-snoring sleep-sound.

And new things, that she hadn’t known to add.

His arms, still skinny, but stronger than they had been.

His too-long hair flopping over his ears.

And things she had yet to find out.

 **

 “Morning-“ she muttered, as she woke, feeling warm. And her throat felt a lot better, too and most of that sticky, gross fever feeling was gone, although there was still some sluggish daze, everything just a bit vaguer and floatier than it should have been.

“Afternoon,” Callum corrected lightly, but there was something not so light underneath. “You slept for… 14 hours. I bet you’re hungry.”

“I bet… you were worried.” That was a long time to worry and not wake her to assuage it but just sit in it, watching her sleep.

She reached out to stroke his furrowed brow. Her hands were bandaged though, so she couldn’t touch him properly. She didn’t remember, but did recall something about Callum saying he had called a doctor, and then she must have conked out pretty hard and slept through it.

She clenched and released her hands experimentally. Seemed alright except for being stiff and sore?

“What’s wrong with me?” she asked, staring down at the thick bandages.

“Except for the illness that nearly killed you because you’re such a massive dummy? Lots of things.” He took her hands, starting to unwind the bandages. “For your hands, hopefully only frostnip. I’m supposed to check that, when you woke, take you back to the doctor if there’s signs of deeper frostbite.”

There was some thick ointment, probably the reason for the bandages. Her hands looked reddened, the fingers a bit swollen, but… not so bad. Nothing was white or black or blistered, so really, nothing to worry about, where frostbite was concerned.

Callum wasn’t satisfied with a visual inspection though, cupping her hands in his, methodically checking she could feel all her fingers and make a full fist.

“I think it’s okay,” he said, breathing out, relieved. He did tend to catastrophize- “No… no risk of amputation this time-” His fingers slid across her left wrist, the faint whitened scars from where the binding had dug into her skin and where the sunforge blade had burnt her.

“It’s definitely okay,” she said. “Barely hurts.” She cupped his face, feeling his skin just fine against her fingertips. “It’s not like back then, okay?”

“How do you feel today?”

“Better. Way better. I’m ready to go, if-”

“What?!” He stared at her in disbelief. “Absolutely not. You didn’t hear what the doctor said. But I did, she got here while you were sleeping. And absolutely not.”

“What-“ Was it not just a regular bug?

He breathed, slowly and deliberately. “You’re okay, it’s a regular winter infection going around. But you did a number on your own immune system with the hypothermia and mountain climbing and… she said you were undernourished, dehydrated, stressed and critically exhausted. And that you would do well to take a week or more to fully recover, during which you should eat and rest plenty, stay warm and keep stress down. Does that sound like your regular travel, to you?”

Well… not so much.

“So, I’ll ask again, how do you feel today?”

“Tired,” she sighed. “My hands are stiff and achy. My throat hurts. My legs are wobbly. My head feels full of snot.” She smiled, despite all that. “My heart is happy to see you. It’s okay if you’re- I know… that it’s complicated.”

“It is. We have… some things to talk about. Promise you won’t leave until we do?”

“I promise.”

“Okay. Then, I think we should put the complicated things away for a few days. Until you’re better and it doesn’t hurt your throat to talk. Because… we have a lot of talking to do.”

“You don’t… need to stay. For those few days. If it’s hurting you to-”

He sighed heavily. “It does.” Yeah, he couldn’t say that it didn’t. Being around her with so much… unresolved. She didn’t want that for him. She didn’t… want to have those long and hard conversations right now either, when she was still tired and fevered and liable to burst into tears at the slightest provocation. “But it would hurt me more to leave. Didn’t it hurt you? To leave?”

“Yeah.” So, so much.

He reached out to pack his scarf around her throat more closely, the soft, warm knit a soothing feeling against the raw ache.

“Lie down, okay? Be sick? I’ll read you a story. It has murder and dismemberment in it, I asked the innkeeper specifically.”

[kaz11283]

44 and 45 for writing prompts?

44) Close Your Eyes

45) Will You Marry me

Your Favorite Suprise

Warnings: fluff

Characters: Your favorite God of Mischief, Nat, Clint (brother, I know I have a weird problem ok?), Steve, Tony, Thor

Summary: you and Loki had been dating for a while now it only made since that he wants to take the next step.

Announcements: Ah yes, while I should be working on the next chapter of my series Im doing a Loki Request list...makes sense to me. I have decided to start posting a chapter a week and I have decided to start posting The chapters on Fridays. But I'll probably still be doing one shots and drabbles randomly during the week along with request. *its like really early in the morning here so if I am not making any sense i will probably post another update soon.* love you guys, thank you for the request! 💚💚💚💚

Loki Masterlist

~~~~~~

Loki had been distant all day, he wasnt in any of the normal places that he normally would have been. You had checked in the library, his room, even the lab none held signs that the god had been there all day.

"Guys, have you by any chance seen Loki?" You asked walking into the living room where your brother and Nat were wrestling, for some unknown reason, Thor and Steve sat watching.

"Tall guy, wears to much green, pointy hat?" Clint choked out from a chokehold. Sometimes you wondered if you were really the oldest with the way he acted.

"Last time I seen my brother he was heading out to the large balcony on the top floor with a rather heavy looking box." Thor called over his shoulder. "No no no Hawkman, you odviously doing it wrong. Let me show you." He said getting up walking over to the two on the floor.

"Whatever, he'll know where to find me I guess." You said jumping over the back of the couch sitting down next to Steve.

"Hey! No jumping on the furniture. I swear its like I live in a house full of kids between you and Parker jumping and flying around." Tony yelled from the kitchen door.

Steve rolled his eyes and looked at you. "Thor is trying to show them some Asguardian fighting moves. Nat picked up pretty fast, your brother on the other hand..."

"He does better in a roost high above the ground. Only reason I use to hate fighting with him is because he could climb higher than I could." You laughed.

"Ok Lord Thunder if you can do better be my guest." Clint took a step back allowing Thor to stand in. Thor gave a bellowing laugh and got in a fighting stance.

"My people invented these moves I can easily take down Nat."

After a few rounds and Thor definitly losing causing the room to howl with laughter at his confusion Loki walked in.

"So the man of mysteries returns. Where have you been darling." You asked as he came to stand beside you.

"Just working on a suprise for you my dearest." He laughed leaning down and kissing the top of your head.

"Please stop, there are young eyes in the room." Clint groaned from a recliner across from you causing you to roll your eyes.

"Yeah, if your going by shoe size." You mocked. Turning to Loki you looked at him. "What does the god of mischief have up his sleave for me?"

"Come dear, I would rather show you." He offered you his hand and you walked from the room.

He lead you to the room where the balcony was located and turned to you. "Close your eyes."

"Ummm why? You planning on pushing me off?" You laughed realizing that he had a serious look on his face. "Nevermind." You closed your eye, as soon as they were shut you felt a cloth wrap around your head. "If you wnted something like this all you had to do was ask." You smirked.

"Oh nine realms y/n. Get your mind out of the gutter for just a little bit." You couldnt see it but you knew he was rolling his eyes. "This is serious." You could hear the smile in his voice.

"Ok fine, serious, I can be serious for like 5 minutes. I cant guarantee the comments that will follow after the time is up though." You laughed.

"Sometimes I feels like I'm dating your brother." He huffed taking your hand and leading you onto the balcony.

"We are basically the same person, I just look alot better than he does in a cat suit." He let go of your hand just after walking out of the door and disappered.

"You know that mouth is one of my favorit things about you." He whispered in your ear cauing your heart to flutter. "Always quick to the punch, it never fails." He said kissing the side of your mouth.

"But my absolute favorit thing about you is your willingness to over look a persons flaws, to give everyone a chance, even if they dont deserve it. You have such an open mind forgiving everyone that you feel need forgiving. Looking for the good in a person and giving that person hope that maybe there is hope left for them." This time he brushed your hair from your neck kissing you behind the ear sending a shiver down your spine.

"Loki you was never a bad person-" you saod trying to defend him aginst hisself

"I brainwashed your brother." He countered. "You didnt just do it for me though. You stood up for Wanda, for Bucky, you stand up for the underdogs that wouldnt have a chance other wise."

"Wanda needed a family, Bucky was Steves best friend and I seen how it hurt him for eveyone to be aginst him. Also brainwashed. Im kinda seeing a pattern here though." You smiled.

"Y/n, honestly would you jusy be quiet for a few more minutes." He sighed.

"Ok, lips are sealed. Continue telling me how great I am." He sighed again pulling you closer to the middle of the balcony.

"You have been my light in the darkest tunnel I had ever been in. When the others shut me out you were always there to let me know I wasnt alone. I could travel to all nine realms and never find another soul as caring and as trust worthy as you, who holds me at night when nightmares wake me up, who actually seen good in me and who has made me a better person." You felt him reach behind you and untie the knot from the blind, you kept your eyes closed as you felt him grab your hand again this time there was a slight pull. "Darling you can open your eyes."

When you opened them you were awestruck with the sight in front of you. Farie lights had been hung from the rafters causing a warm glow around the balcony, ivy and white flowers hand been drapped on the walls givingbthe whole place a cozy feel. You looked at Loki noticing him kneeling in front of you, you opened your mouth to make a comment but quicky shut it not wanting to ruin the moment.

"Y/n Barton there is no one else I would rather travel the nine realms with but you, I would walk across time and space to see you smile. Would you please do me the honor of being my princess? My Queen? For all eternity? Will you marry me?" He pulled out a small black box for his pocket and opened it revealing a silver band entwind with a beautiful type of black metal a small emerald sat nestled between the two holding the jewel in place. Your eyes shot up to his and tears started to flow. You didnt trust you voice in that moment son you simply shook your head.

He was on his feet in no time easily slipping the band on your finger before wrapping his arms around your waist pulling you close to him. You placed your hands on either side of his face pulling him into you for a kiss. "Yes." You mumbled aginst his lips as he smiled into the kiss. "A million times yes!"

"We are going to have a wedding!" Thor yelled from the open door causing you both to jump. You looked up in time to see everyone that had been in the living room crowed around watching the two of you. "Lady y/n, a fine sister you will make!" Thor beamed picking you up into a crushing hug.

"You can have her! Ive had her as a sister long enough." Clint said beside you as he leaned down to kiss you cheek. "Congrats sis."

"You knew didnt you?" You smiled.

"Of course I did. Hes kinda old school, asked if it would be ok if he asked you. Nice guy, once you get past the whole mind control thing." You smacked his in the chest.

"In my defence you did try to shoot me woth an arrow that exploded." Loki said wrapping his arm around your waist.

"Ill take back the approval to marry my sister." He saod looking straight at him.

"No you wont, ive already said yes. Besides he really makes me happy. Truly honestly happy." You smiled looking up at Loki giving him another kiss.

~~~~~~

Tag list:

@kgirardin

@sophlubbwriting

@supbeeches

@high-functioning-lokipath

[skybristle]

day 4. Let's go. ill make a cohesive post Probably later but NOT NOW im just going with my brain below cut for spoilers

been holding it in this whole time but my gay senses are now activated. Black raisin's voice does shit to me i am a RAGING homosexual. Sorry /lh 'i am,,, indebted to [hollyberry]' wildberry what do you MEAN??/ HELLO??? EYES EMOJI,,,,,,, wait wahhh thats so cute actually. Sobs and screams and cries and throws up. More reasons to be a hollyberry cookie stan forever and ever and ever. Don't fight me on this omg crunchy chip IS part raisin. once again on my idea him and black raisin are besties. Source: dude trust me. MIGHT elaborate on this later im not feeling the brainrot rn PV gonna bring up the truth,,, oooo king cant wait for this bitch to blow up uh oh uh oh. Clotted cream dont spill dude let PV do it i will kill you no hesitation with my bare hands. DAMNIT. also the music stopped UH OH. UH OH. THE MUSIC CHANGED. UH OH. pv breaking out the distressed sprite. Uh oh. i kinda get clotted creme's pespective but like. Wouldn't it be easier just to,,,,,,, Deal with dark enchantress and then DESTROY the soul jam????? and even then, you're dooming the ancients to death when they've lived so long considering themselves immortal. golden cheese would have his HEAD for even voicing the thought. CACAO GO KING GO KING GO SLAY SLAY KILL THAT TWINK KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL. clotted cream shut the FUCK up OHHHH SHIT. hb i love you but maybe let this one slide. Let peepaw kill. As a treat. granted i do think his perspective is probably biased due to the whole affo deal but like. Still. DONT DRAG PV INTO THIS. he was JUST ABOUT TO TELL THEM ON HIS OWN TERMS this could have been AVOIDED. oh my GOD clotted cream be PATIENT Oh my god PV's speech. Eats this up sooo hard. Oh my god i need to write an essay on PV and WL im actually deranged. EXPECT THAT SOMETIME OH MY GOD NOOOOOOOO POLYCULE DIVORCE /JOKE. but seriously ougghhh thats so sad. poor PV but also king you had it coming. extra ouchie for fanon when he ALREADY got chewed out by messenger for this exact reason. He's losing everyone. God. FUCK. punches and screams and sobs and kicks. Help im actually being pushed to almost tears by the COOKIE GAME. FUCK CLOTTED CREAM SHUT THE ACTUAL FUCK UP OH MY GOD> FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU KILL KILL KILL. I hate him so much oh my GOD. talking top slot over affogato jesus CHRIST. nooooooo hb her asking for extra strong juice is sooo fucked awww black raisin being so eager to help she accidentally breaks things. Love you queen so much she is so true all of the time "The kingdom is in Caramel Arrow Cookie's good hands" YASSSSS. queen is SLAYING. and making out with her canonical wife and girlfriend [magnolia cookie] /LH okay the ancients are making up its okay :] but MAN was i fucked up for a hot minute. I just really dont like how gc is absent and isnt learning with them. ill have to figure out a way to write her in and move around the council later. messenger would also be very important in this i think and they'd probably be back by the time gc's chapters are said and done with. ill have to think on it oughhhghgh,,, the final cutscene with the three heros. Falls down. Falls over and dies. OH MY GOD THEY ARE **MOCKING** the cheese fans. shes BARELY visible in this cutscene asset. but also wahhh thats so cute. OKAY. IM DONE. takes one million emotional damage and dies. My fanon is going thru a LOT of changes trust me after this

[phoenixyfriend]

The Naruto/Frozen Crossover

So I was planning on just doing an image ID thing for this post, but apparently the formatting on desktop is such a mess that it’s easier to just make a new post that’s text only. I can also like. Bulletpoint it so that it can be a little neater. All ideas were made with @firebirdeternal​‘s help, because they are the most efficient enabler I have.

Also I added some bits at the end.

Under a cut, because it’s Long As Heck.

I originally had two options: either Mid-teens Elsa and Anna being transported to ninja land sometime pre-canon and running into Haku and Zabuza... or just like. Born as a Daimyou's daughters.

Spoiler alert, we’ve got nukenin and I’m a sucker for an intrusive crossover, so transported to ninja land it is.

Suggestion from Birdie:

Mechanism for crossover: Elsa ices over a Wishing Well by accident after having Wished for someone else who understood her, Anna and her fall in and get Ice Mirror Portaled to Ninjaland, falling out of an iced over pond near a shrine that Haku recently prayed at for similar lonely child reasons?

Which I like! They don’t end up there soon enough to run into Haku, because I want a dramatic chase first, but I like it.

Obviously, Anna is forced to learn about Elsa's powers because it's the only thing keeping them safe

Or at least alive

(Elsa will do ANYTHING to keep Anna safe, and if that means she has to get her hands dirty...)

...neither of them knows Japanese, so, you know. There’s that.

I'm thinking that they end up in/near Kiri at first

And they aren't FAST ENOUGH to get away so Elsa panic-enchants a giant reindeer made of snow to run away across the suddenly-frozen ocean.

She and Anna have to ride and Elsa is probably crying the whole time.

Oh shit this is like. RIGHT after their parents die, I forgot. So that’s a thing! They are in mourning and all that fun stuff.

Point is, they use the powers for a Self Defense thing and BBY Haku is just !!! "Master can we rescue them for Ice Cousin reasons?" Zabuza: Yes, and only for those practical reasons and not because I collect endangered children like people collect pokemon cards.

I imagine that maybe they track rumors of a Yuki-onna down, or the Giant Snow Reindeer rides by and Haku’s just like Wat

The girls just tag along with Zabuza because. Like.

Do they like him? No. Do they trust him? No. Do they enjoy the fact that he considers them pathetic civilians? No.

However, Haku is Baby.

Zabuza is REALLY annoyed at them being Useless Civilian Royals “but Haku likes them so I guess they can stay.”

Age at meeting, three years pre-canon:

Zabuza - 23

Elsa - 18

Anna - 15

Haku - 12

Elsa is 90% anxiety/depression master combo BUT if Zabzua protects her then she's WILDLY dangerous so like. Whatever

Elsa's bingo book nickname options, uninspired:

Winter Witch

Winter Queen

Ice Queen

Snow Queen

Something about a Yuki-Onna maybe

She's Very Stately and kinda breakable but Winter is her Bitch

I mean like, the fact that, if protected, she can shut down the agriculture of a fucking country? That's an S-rank even if she's not that useful in a fight.

She's like. Jinchuuriki-level destruction. Generally speaking she wouldn’t. But she could.

Elsa: What the fuck is a chakra? Elsa: my snow monsters are self-sustaining. Elsa: I'm gonna build us a house.

Zabuza has NO idea how her powers work and it is INCREDIBLY frustrating but “there’s no chakra cost to keep these things going and we have shelters on demand” is too convenient to question after a while.

Haku: Delicate, deadly, incredibly fast ninja work. Elsa: I can't dodge a kunai but watch me wreck your entire country's ecosystem in under a day.

Elsa is a siege weapon.

Meanwhile, Anna is really, really into the physicality of ninja practice.

She's clumsy and she's not very good at ninja stuff, but she sure is determined!

Anna also gets on Zabuza's nerves because she keeps insisting that Haku get to be a kid.

Anna: Let's make flower crowns! Zabuza: No, he needs to train, not- Anna: FLOWER CROWNS

Consider: Haku saying Elsa-nee-sama and Anna-hime.

Or just calling Elsa “onee-sama.”

Anna is also younger than Elsa and way more Fun so she probably gets adjusted to Anna-chan or Nee-chan.

If Zabuza calls Elsa “Hime-chan” or “Elsa-hime” or, Sage forbid, “Elsa-sama/dono” then he’s VERY MUCH making fun of her and he’s probably getting his soup frozen that night.

At one point, Elsa... tries to like. Convince herself to have a crush on Zabuza or Kakashi or something until Zabuza just puts a hand on her shoulder and asks "do you even like men?" "...that's an OPTION?"

Zabuza urging her to try and ask out a Cute Kunoichi and Elsa's like.... I can't decide if she's bright red and a useless lesbian or uncomfortable and ace.

I am SO invested in the siege weapon thing.

SHE IS THE SQUISHIEST WIZARD.

It's not her fault that every single other combatant on the continent is Massively Dangerous in melee! She took a very traditional back-line build!

Enemy: Doesn't it GRATE to protect someone so pathetic, Zabuza? Zabuza: She literally froze an entire castle of enemies to death because they harmed her sister, so. No.

Most Ninjas: Sharp Knife. S-Rank Mega Ninjas: Gun. Elsa: High Yield Explosive Rocket Launcher. Literally loses fights to the Knife People, because she can't bring her power to bear on that scale. But if you can give her Time and Prep? No contest.

Long distance AoE

Like  you know how Nagato is literally dying of starvation due to illness and can't walk, but he's also capable of leveling powerful villages more or less on his own?

Elsa is the same Vibe.

It’s like sealing a bijuu in a civilian.

She's honestly both more and less powerful? Like it'd be hard for her to kill everyone in Konoha in the snap of a finger? But also, she could starve out the Country of Fire in a summer.

She WOULDN'T, but she could.

I always read Elsa as gay or ace but my brain keeps trying to ship her with dude ninjas and I have to yank it back on a child leash.

People insinuate that Zabuza is interested in Elsa and he's just "What? Ew she's like five."

"I'm eighteen."

"Five."

BUT

Elsa! Might mistake trust and companionship for a crush!

I can see THAT happening despite gay/ace.

Also like. I don’t think Zabuza is straight.

So mlm/wlw solidarity?

And Haku is probs genderqueer.

So Anna is THE TOKEN STRAIGHT.

Anna is like, the Straight Friend who will go to the mat for her queer friends. Like vicious. In-your-face barking like a mean dog at people who were being bigots.

You know how Elsa in the second movie uses her powers to make toys for kids out of ice?

Okay, so her practicing by making things with Haku.

But yeah, Elsa can't really do "throws ice senbon," but she can do Delicate Geometry Things since she apparently, canonically studies math for fun and loves fractals.

Haku: I can trap you in a prison of ice mirrors, and you are at my mercy. Elsa: LOOK AT THIS CASTLE I MADE???

Haku wants to do Pretty Things like Elsa

OH.

Elsa makes... snow bunnies..

For the ninja distraction reasons but also because it's a Soft Thing that makes her feel better about, uh, everything. And Haku likes bunnies.

Zabuza still takes The Dirty Missions but Elsa gets upset when he does something that hurts innocents and Nobody wants Elsa upset. Even Zabuza doesn't want Elsa upset.

When Elsa gets upset, overnight accommodations are suddenly Very Uncomfortable for everyone except her and Haku.

And then Anna gets upset, which makes Elsa even MORE upset.

And then things just keep getting colder.

Zabuza doesn't want Elsa upset for many reasons, not limited to: "Is actually capable of killing me from outside of Sword Range if she's mad enough, even if it’s not that easy" and "the Small Children would be unbearably sad if she died and honestly so might I."

She's more of a friend than a ward and he's not entirely sure he's okay with that.

Zabuza: "Ew, friendship."

He has absolutely no idea how to have a social interaction with people he isn't Bullying, Raising, or Threatening to Kill.

Elsa and Anna have no trouble convincing people they're related, at least. Different coloration with almost identical bone structure.

A tendency to burst into song when they feel emotions.

Identical weird accent that nobody can place.

FOOD

The girls are royalty, they don't know how to COOK.

But they also want food from HOME.

It's a lot of trial and error.

More error than not, since they have both no knowledge and also a language barrier to overcome. It probably takes YEARS before they can describe things like Unfamiliar Flavors well enough for people to say "OH that sounds like spearmint."

When they run into something they know that’s familiar, it’s life-changing.

Chocolate is more common in the elemental nations than in Arandelle and Anna may or may not cry about it.

Anna is loudly bossy, even at Zabuza.

Zabuza is gruffly commanding, to everyone.

Elsa doesn't actually like being in charge, but when she talks, people LISTEN.

(Haku is just happy to be here.)

Elsa radiates two things: Anxiety, and Natural Command, and she basically just fluctuates between those.

"I don't want to be in charge but also I'm vetoing this."

So, obviously, the main reasons that Zabuza keeps the girls around is that Elsa is a living siege weapon and he thinks she could be convinced to help him run a revolution in Kiri, and also that the Ice Queen schtick is like. Really good for Haku and Zabuza can’t really say no to the kid.

HOWEVER, Anna is clumsy and messy and all that, so Zabuza starts training her in Ninja stuff. Elsa joins in on the “I need to know how to Run Fast to get away from fights I don’t want to have in the first place,” but Anna’s the one that’s like “TEACH ME HOW TO SWORD.”

It’s honestly not that hard to teach her, she’s just really, really, REALLY enthusiastic.

Once or twice someone asks why she’s so bad at this yet running around with an A-rank nukenin and Zabuza’s just like “I’ve only had her for a year and a half, shut up!” because it’s not that he’s a bad teacher, it’s that she was a very pampered civilian until like a week before he met her.

He should get a MEDAL for even getting her to low Chuunin.

Zabuza: I'm taking a job from Gato Elsa, who has Training in economics and politics and bureaucracy: I have a better idea.

This is actually not entirely what I’d do but I wanted to make the joke first ANYWAY here’s an actual plot or something.

Oh, also by this point everyone is Canon Ages so Elsa’s 21 and Anna’s 18 and Zabuza’s 26 and Haku’s 15.

Elsa is getting paid to keep the water from interfering with construction, by way of....

ICE COFFERDAM

Elsa with Haku as her Guard while Zabuza is off running his own mission? Which Anna begged to go on because Cool.

Elsa also kind of keeps her involvement on the ice front semi-secret by claiming she’s there as an engineering consultant.

LISTEN canon made her like geometry, I can ENTIRELY believe she’d be excited about the bridge-building.

Gato has hired someone else on the danger level of Zabuza, who is Threatening to Team 7 + Haku? But then when things look bleak Anna and Zabuza arrive and then Scary Sword Man is on our side and oh dear that's a lot of blood.

Which, you know, fun!

Birdie suggested Raiga which I’m not feeling but I do feel the need to bring up as an option.

It’s also not Kisame BUT

Kisame: [giant lake dome filled with sharks]

Elsa: uhhhhhhhhhhh...

Giant lake dome: [is now a giant ice dome]

Anyway

Gato: I'm hiring an army. Elsa: [giant ice wall around his compound] Gato: ... these guys can walk up walls! Elsa: [adds snowman guards] Elsa: ... Elsa: [adds a ceiling]

Just puts Gato's entire mob in a fucking snow globe.

Zabuza shows up twenty minutes late with (Throwing) Star(buck)s just like "Oh, they dead? No? Want 'em to be? Okay cool I'm gonna go pick up Haku, I'll be back in like an hour."

Anna would... LOVE Naruto

ENERGETIC FRIENDLY GOOFBALL

"I found us a baby brother!" "No, we already have Haku." "BUT LOOK AT HIM."

Anna is only a year or two older than Itachi.

OH RIGHT

I wanted to make a joke about how Naruto also vibes with her because he's less judgmental that she can't really... talk properly.

Sasuke is Judgy and Kakashi is Paranoid and Sakura is Uncomfortable.

Meanwhile Naruto is just like "And I Shall Scream."

Anna, who learned Japanese from Zabuza (rude) and Haku (uber polite): WELL FUCK YOU, GOOD SIR Naruto: YEAH WELL FUCK YOU TOO, LADY Elsa, overly formal: I am... so very sorry.

Anyway, generic missing nin fights and all that.

Elsa gets injured in the process and after a variety of arguments, Naruto manages to convince them to take her to Konoha for medical attention.

Elsa is... usually the one getting injured.

Zabuza and Haku are FAST and Anna is at least learning (even if she’s only been doing it for three years), but Elsa is The Squishy Wizard.

If someone throws a kunai... she can’t... really dodge...

So yeah, gut wound.

Normally they find a nukenin medic to patch them up but Konoha is reasonably close and has some of the more skilled medics on the continent and they DID technically help the Konoha nin so like. Gah.

That’s Zabuza’s final thought. Gah.

Just “Fuck it, let’s save the ice queen.”

Elsa ends up in a half-literal-ice stasis state on the way there and it’s happened before (it is not the first time she’s been stabbed), but it’s always terrifying.

Especially to the Konoha genin who are just like WHAT THE HECK IS THAT.

So they get to Konoha, there’s a whole bunch of stuff about extradition treaties and “you are bringing a literal WMD of a woman into our town” and “we can’t just let MOMOCHI ZABUZA in.”

Anyway, it ends up being that Zabuza has to wait outside the village while Elsa is treated inside, and one of the Teenagers goes in. Obviously, it’s Anna, because Zabuza is INCREDIBLY UNCOMFORTABLE with letting Haku enter a village that’s known for having lots of bloodlines, and anyway, Anna’s the sister.

Bunch of stuff, she’s healing, etc, and then one day Anna comes in and is told “your sister had a bad reaction to the anesthetic, we couldn’t save her, I’m sorry, she’s gone.”

She flips out, gets shown the corpse, flips out MORE, gets escorted out to the village walls where Zabuza and Haku are waiting.

Horrified reactions

Zabuza doesn’t want to admit that it’s EMOTIONS because this is his FRIEND, he is clearly just upset about losing the living siege weapon.

Haku is just super confused and goes “But she’s not dead.”

“What.”

“She’s not dead, I can feel her, I can always feel her, it’s like sensing but just her, because we’re both ice. She’s alive, somewhere over... there?”

And points right in the direction of the Hokage Mountain, which for the purposes of this fic and also Drama is where ROOT headquarters is.

YEP we absolutely have that plot point.

Is Danzo overused as a plot device? Probably. Am I going to diabolus ex machina him anyway? Ye.

They kick up enough of a fuss that the Hokage gets called down.

He wouldn’t, normally, he’d leave it to a couple of skilled jounin and call it a day, except Naruto got involved so like. You can’t. Ignore that.

There’s lots of shouting.

Just like. A lot.

And then part of the mountain explodes!

AS ONE DOES

Elsa comes flying backwards out of the hole, catches herself on a spontaneous ice slide, gets to her feet.

Girl is swaying like MAD.

There are absolutely ANBU (both fake and real) coming after her.

At least one of them gets speared through by an ice spike.

Anna runs up to her, tries to hug her, gets batted away.

Elsa’s staring at her in sheer TERROR and starts muttering something about how Anna died years ago, this isn’t real, etc.

Nobody except Anna understands most of it, but Haku picks up enough to translate when Anna’s freaking out.

Elsa starts doing her Ice Castle thing in the middle of Konoha as a coping mechanism, mostly so she can get Up and Away and Shielded By Ice.

This is not a good look.

Especially because she’s singing, which Zabuza always thinks is a bad omen because it means shit is getting real and one or both of the girls are about to get a powerup or be beaten even harder than otherwise. When they start singing, things get More Dramatic And Extreme).

(Zabuza does not like Disney Musical Rules)

Danzo shows up.

There’s a bunch of arguing.

All the medics insist that nothing she was given at the hospital should have caused amnesia, psychosis, hallucinations, delusions, etc.

It’s. Not hard for Hiruzen to guess what happened.

Namely that Danzo, upon finding out that chakra dampeners didn’t do shit since none of Elsa’s powers come from chakra, decided to keep her drugged up and start using genjutsu to make her more malleable.

Because like. An injured WMD just showed up in your village. What are you supposed to do, not try to kidnap her and turn her to your side? Like, come on. What was he supposed to do?

Not that, Danzo. Literally Not That.

IDK how it gets resolved, probably Anna getting to her with the power of love, because Elsa is ultimately Super Disney.

I also don’t really know where to go from there other than “Maybe Jiraiya can get you home, but also I’m pretty sure Zabuza wants you all to get the hell out of here and take over Kiri” but who knows.

Also

IMAGINE ELSA MEETING GAI.

Imagine Ino getting a puppy crush on Elsa.

IDK that’s it for now.

[whereisten]

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Part 1 | Part 2 Preview | Part 2

Summary: After a fun-filled graduation night, your heart is torn between your two best friends, Ten and Lucas. A fire is ignited between the three of you that isn’t as easy to calm as it was to start. And this lustful fire, just like any fire, spreads and seeks to destroy anything in its path, for there is no telling what Ten will do for you, or rather, to you.

Pairing: King!Ten x female reader (as well as Prince! Lucas)

Genre: Royalty!AU, love triangle, angst, smut, fluff

Warnings: manipulation, possessiveness, blackmail, cheating!, character death, mention of blood, mention of self-harm, alcohol use, smut!: threesome, unprotected sex, penetration (v and a), oral sex (m and f), hand job, fingering, fondling, c*eampie, biting, bdsm (paddle use, choking, rope use), orgasm denial, overstimulation, semi-public sex.

Word Count: 20.9k

Taglist: @suhweo @5shotsamericano @alreadyblondenow @khiphoptrash-0 @adorejaehyn @08skrr @ateez-babygirl @cherriesaries @suhfluffy @starlightdustsposts @agnessvaltersen @krispysun @montersloth @galadrielbeth @cafe-lectura @Jiyoungiejae @labelleetoilex3 @ceruleanskies @neo-cult-ure @goldensky @verasloggia @jaewalking @hhaechann @commentgirl @uwusofties @toffee-reads-and-writes @generalkpopwhore @kawaiimusiccollection @ainigmatikos-posts @kkuljungwoo​ @kaiwatabe​

A/N: PART TWO is HERE!! Thank you all for your support for part 1!! We appreciate it so much! We hope you enjoy part two, the finale to this adventure. We are so excited, once again, for you guys to see what happens! We had so much fun writing this and would love your feedback💕

——————

[JANUARY 1896]

It’s the night of the Chinese festival. Kids run about the town as folks put up their decorations and line up delicious and colorful foods for all that walk by. The air is light, with everyone laughing and talking as they enjoy each other’s company.

Friends meet from all over the land, as all kingdoms come together to celebrate the turn of the new year. 

You’re dressed in a beautiful red dress with gold adornments, leaving Ten’s mouth agape once he opens the door of carriage to help you out. Seeing you in your bright and dazzling outfit under the lantern lights makes his heart flutter. Your gold eye shadow brings out the depth of color in your eyes, the ones that looked around nervously.

“You look amazing, my love.” Ten states as you take his hand and fall onto his chest lightly.

He gives you a light peck on the cheek, but you move away and let go of his hand soon after, hoping that you didn’t move too quickly while in front of the other attendees.

The last thing you wanted was for everyone to be able to see or even speculate that your marriage was in trouble.

You walk slightly ahead and force a smile to the onlookers.

“Hello, hello.” You say to everyone that bows while standing poised with both hands in front.

Ten also forces an awkward smile as he is left behind.

You look over the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of the tall man that neglected to speak to you for the last few months. Oh, how you missed him and his letters. You missed his warmth, for Ten’s coldness only grew to annoy you more and more as your time together increased.

You start to frown slowly, but in an instant, you see his bright smile. He holds Rosé’s hand and reaches for a lantern from a store owner. He hands the beautifully detailed lantern to her with the brightest smile on his face and wide eyes.

You heart begins to shatter. You wished you could have that moment with him, you wished you could be the one to kiss him when the fireworks went off later that night. Rosé was so lucky, she had no idea.

Ten quickly steps forward and takes your arm into his hand from behind, guiding you to the left and distracting you.

He knew you had spotted Lucas so he took you away as fast as he could.

“This way, honey.”

You and Ten enjoy some of the food provided by local chefs. It’s the finest food you’ve ever had, as they worked diligently to provide for you two, the highest royals in the land.

But you can’t focus on the flavors, you still think of Lucas’ face. Even with the loud drums and strings that play throughout your entertaining dinner set, you can only see his smile.

“What’s wrong? Are you displeased? Waiter! This food is no good! Can’t you see how upset my wife-?” Ten waves over the servant.

“Ten! No! It’s great, amazing actually.” You put your hand over his and turned to him, your eyes big as you try to stop him.

“It’s fine, calm down..please.” You whisper to him.

Ten frowns. “Then what’s wrong? You look like you’re unhappy. It’s not good for us or for the people.”

“It’s nothing..I was just lost in thought Ten, I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize, sweetheart..I love you.” He forced a smile and brought his fingers to your chin. A moment passes when you look into each other’s eyes.

His calm demeanor shifts at your hesitancy.

“Do—you love me?”

“Of course..” you turn your head away from him and look back at your food.

“Then say it.” He holds your chin again, this time placing his thumb on it to bring your attention back to him with a little more force. 

His eyes are dark, his tone is low as he speaks through gritted teeth.

“I—have to go to the ladies room.” You stand up instantly.

Ten exhales loudly. “Seulgi! Please escort our Queen to the nearest bathroom.”

Seulgi walks up to you and quickly places her hand around your arm to guide you, but you pull it away. 

“I don’t need..your assistance. I’m not a child.” You look from her and back to Ten, who knew what he was doing. He wanted her to watch you and make sure that you don’t find Lucas.

“You look a little ill, darling. She’ll go with you to make sure you don’t fall out. I know you and corsets don’t exactly get along.” Ten flashes a small smile when he sees your look of disbelief and nods towards Seulgi.

You turn to leave but Ten calls you again.

“Oh, and my love..”

You turn back to him. 

“Yes, Ten?”

“Hurry back before the fireworks.” he winks and takes a sip of his wine.

The two of you walk slowly to the bathroom as you think of a way to escape her. That’s when you see a dance going on between a group of teenagers. They hold hands and move in a tightly knit circle around a large dragon.

You take this as your opportunity to scurry away from Seulgi, ducking under the joined arms quickly and putting yourself by the large dragon in the center.

The immense dragon spins around quickly and moves up and down to the music and cheering.

“Your majesty!” You hear her call out, but you duck again and shimmy around the dancers.

When you look behind you, you see that she’s looking for you on the opposite side of the circle so you run underneath the linked arms again and away from her.

About five steps away, a store owner hands out decorated dragon masks, so you swiftly grab one and bow.

You place it onto your face by pulling the string  around your head. Luckily for you, the town is crowded with thousands of people so you’re able to slip away and into any corners without anyone really noticing you, the Queen.

You walk around, searching for Lucas while avoiding Ten, Seulgi, and the rest of the servants. It’s difficult to breathe behind your mask, but you’re not focused on that, you’re focused on finding him.

You eventually see what looks to be the back of Rosé’s head, but you don’t see her giant counterpart. So you step closer.

Suddenly, you’re snatched up by the arm and dragged into a dark alleyway.

Shit.

“Hey!” You yell as the large hand squeezes you.

You try to identify the man but he wears a mask similar to your own.

“How dare you hold me, the Queen, like this? Unhand me right now!” You have a fit as you believe that it’s one of Ten’s men that has dared to touch you.

“Shhh!!” The man pushes you into the wall and tears his mask off.

Your heart drops when you recognize the beautiful brown eyes that look into your own deeply.

You take your mask off slowly and stare at him for a moment. He bends down towards you, keeping you locked in between his strong arms with his hands placed flat against the wall.

“Lucas..where have you been? Why have you been ignoring me? Wait, how did you even know it was me?”

“Shhh..just kiss me.” He leans down and places his lips onto yours, drawing you into a kiss full of passion and longing.

His tongue traces over your bottom lip as you lean into him more.

You wrap your arms around his waist to pull him closer to you, your shoulders raising as your eyes shut.

His face leaves yours, steamy breath decorating your bottom lip as he looks into your eyes.

“Lucas..that’s not enough..you ignored me.” You lick your lips.

Lucas still stares at your lips. “What do you want me to do, y/n?”

“I want you to write letters to me..tell me..”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me..you love me” you look into his eyes as your heart races because of his close proximity.

“I could write a million letters proclaiming my love for you, y/n. But it wouldn’t matter. You still belong to him. We aren’t meant to be together, can’t you see?”

“I..I don’t care. I need you, no matter what happens, I’ll always need you.” You hold the side of his face as you whisper.

“Please..y/n. I love you, but we can’t do this anymore. One of us will get hurt.” Lucas pleads, but looks out to the side, carefully watching for anyone that walks by and peaks in. He looked worried, like he was contemplating spending any time with you.

And the truth is, he was worried especially after Hendery’s threatening visit. Hendery topped it off with a challenging duel to assert his devotion to the King, but as hard as Hendery fought, Lucas overpowered him. Nonetheless, Lucas wouldn’t tell you this as he wouldn’t want you to worry.

“It’s best that we stop this.” He exhales.

But you want him so badly. You want to feel him hold you in his arms again. You want that feeling of sunshine running through your veins as you make pure love.

“Fine. But first put my heart at ease, Lucas, don’t just ignore me. Look at me and tell me you don’t care, tell me you don’t love me and that you want this to end. Tell me that your heart does not tremble as mine does when I’m with you.”

He turns to you and looks into your eyes, his mouth falling open but no sound comes out.

He shakes his head slowly and closes his eyes while sighing. “You know I can’t do that.”

So you kiss him again. Your arms circling around his neck this time as you press your lips into his hard. Your teeth clash as the kiss becomes messier, your lips becoming red.

The two of you kissed as a feeling of frustration filled your bodies. You couldn’t be together honestly, yet you couldn’t be away from each other. Lucas tried to ignore you unsuccessfully. It tore him apart when he had to stop writing letters to you. He tried to distract himself by hunting and fulfilling his duties, and by being a good husband to Rosé and giving her happy nights. But at the end of it all, he always missed you.

Lucas stopped the kiss, pulling away to look into your eyes filled with tears.

“I missed you.” He says before giving you the softest smile.

You feel your face become hot. “I missed-“

“Has anyone seen the Queen?!” You hear a man shout.

“Put your mask back on.”

He states before putting his on.

“W-what?”

Lucas only takes your mask out of your hand and places it onto your face then tying it for you.

He takes your hand and leads you out of the alleyway. 

“Hold your head down.”

You both hurry past the crowds, working your way to wherever Lucas was taking you.

People gather to the river where they will get the best view of the firework celebration that is to happen soon.

But the two of you move in the opposite direction.

After about 10 minutes of brushing past hundreds of people and into an empty area outside of the market, you finally reach a gazebo.

It just the two of you there, everyone has gathered over a thousand feet away and towards the river where music is playing while people cheer and dance.

Lucas tears his mask off and sits down onto the bench in the gazebo. You take your mask off too as he holds your waist and brings you down onto his lap.

You resume your kiss, breathing heavily as your body moves back and forth onto his growing bulge.

He reaches under the many layers of your dress, laughing out as he struggles to find your thighs.

“I know..it’s a lot.” You laugh.

He smiles widely. “But it’s beautiful...you’re beautiful.” He looks into your eyes while pressing his fingers onto your slit.

You hiss at the contact, your hips instantly moving faster.

He fixes his pants down his legs as you lift yourself up slightly. His free cock now presses against the skin of your inner thigh. You wish you could see it or even touch it, but you had to move fast. Surely, Ten and his men would be combing through the crowds now looking for you or even Lucas.

“Fuck.” Lucas whispers through a staggered breath as you lower yourself onto him.

You kiss him hard as you grind down on him, his fingers gripping your legs hard, pressing into the soft skin.

He licks your neck and kisses it softly, careful not to leave any marks. He would tear your dress off and decorate every part of you with kisses if he had his way, but he knew it was impossible for tonight.

Just being close to you for this moment was enough. Red made you look gorgeous and the night lights and makeup you wore made you look like an angel that graced the earth.

You moved up and down faster, your mouth falling open as that familiar feeling started to return.

Lucas brought his hands onto your ass now, pushing himself deeper and deeper into you as you cried out.

“Shhh.” He tried to shush you as your moaning grew louder. No one was close by, and the commotion would’ve covered any noises the two of you made but he had to be sure.

He grunted into your ear, his teeth lightly grazing your neck as he also got closer, his pre-cum spilling into you.

He places two fingers onto your clit, rubbing it slowly. Your chest falls and you can’t hold back any longer.

“Yes..” you cry out, moving faster. Some of your hair falls out of your bun, you can’t form coherent sentences as Lucas dick commands your wet flower, pushing against your sweet spot repeatedly.

You begin to make out again, your lips covered in spit as your tongues dance.

“Lucas!” You moan loudly, but the sound of the fireworks booming through the night sky covers your noise.

Your eyes shut tightly.

He curses as he releases into your trembling body, holding you down onto his hips.

The fireworks still blow up and out into the sky while you relax.

Your heart rate normalizes and you pick yourself off of him. You sit beside him, legs weak and chest still heavy.

He fixes his pants and clears his throat.

“I love you, y/n. I love you so much. I would never abandon you.”

Lucas contemplated telling you about Ten’s demanding letter, but it wasn’t the right time.

“We must be careful, should we continue.”

You smile and kiss him once more. Nothing mattered in that moment. You just wanted to enjoy the fireworks with him, for you knew that the fireworks were meant to bring good luck to any couples that stood beside each other as they went off to bring in the new year.

Maybe you would receive a blessing. Maybe..the two of you could end up together.

After several minutes of enjoying each other’s company, you both decided to head back to your spouses, departing in opposite directions.

You made sure to wipe yourself clean in a restroom, then fix your lipstick and hair before heading out towards your carriage.

People started to disperse as the celebrations calm down after the fireworks. They made their way back to their own carriages, smiling and laughing, but you heard a commotion as you got closer to your grand carriage.

You flinched as you heard a screeching scream. You picked your dress up and walked faster, your smile fading from your face.

“What’s going on?” You asked a man in the crowd that circled around your carriage.

“Oh!...your majesty, excuse me.” The man stepped out fo your way as did several other men that stood in front. 

You heard the thunderous crack of a whip and another screech followed by a woman crying.

You looked closer and saw that someone kneeled on the ground, their back was naked and littered with red slash marks.

“Oh no..” you ran forward when you saw Ten watch as one of his men pulled his arm back to deliver yet another blow to the poor girl.

Your eyes widened when you saw who the person being attacked was.

Seulgi.

“Stop!” You threw your body over hers before the man could whip her once more.

“Halt!” Ten called to stop the man.

“And there she is..” Ten says softly, a smile creeping across his face as he watches you hold Seulgi, her blood staining your expensive dress.

You start to cry, looking into her cherry-red face wet with tears. “I’m so sorry, please forgive me.”

“What are you apologizing for? She’s the one that’s incompetent and cannot complete a simple task for her king.” Ten raises an eyebrow. 

You become furious. He took his madness out on someone innocent and in front of many people. He humiliated and hurt her all because they could not find you.

You snap your head up to look at him through angry eyes. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

The crowd gasps and Ten’s eyes grow, but his face still displays an evil smile.

“How dare you talk to your king like that!” You hear his mother yell.

“You wretch! You should be punished!” She steps forward.

“Mother..calm down..shes our Queen after all. She’s allowed to express herself.” Ten speaks calmly.

He walks over to you and crouches down.

You hold Seulgi tight, covering her body as she sobs into her hands.

“It’s my fault, your majesty, I shouldn’t have abandoned you. I failed you, please, I must receive the lashings as punishment for my incompetence.” She says in between sniffles, her body shaking out of fear and immense pain from her burning wounds.

Your heart breaks at the sight, you’re the cause of all this. You were the one that abandoned her. “No..no, it’s not your fault, I was the one that slipped away, I was the one that lost you. I’m so sorry.” 

“Go away!” You yell out at the people that still crowd you and watch the drama unravel.

They quickly disperse into all directions and leave.

“And where exactly did you slip away to for all that time, y/n?” Ten turns to you.

“I got lost, there’s thousands of people here, Ten..but how could you do this?”

“And what about Lucas?”

You look up at him slowly, a moment resting between his question and your answer, but you are quickly interrupted by a soft voice.

“He was with me, your majesty.” Rosé walks quickly towards the three of you, Lucas following behind.

She lied to protect you, or rather, to protect Lucas.

Ten stands up straight and looks past Rosé and onto Lucas.

“That’s good to hear..it seems he understands the importance of being beside one’s spouse once the fireworks light up the sky on this special night.”

Ten smirks and turns back to you. “Get up, we have business to tend to back home.”

You obey his order as to not piss him off any more. You don’t dare spare a glance to Lucas but you can feel his eyes on you, how sorrowful they must look.

“Irene! Get her cleaned up and out of my sight!” Ten says before squeezing your arm and taking you to the carriage.

He helps you inside and sits beside you before the two of you endure a long and silent drive back home.

Once you get back home, Ten takes your arm and practically throws you inside. You quickly turn to him and close your fists tightly.

He pushes you into the wall, pressing his body into yours. “Do you take me for a fool? Huh?! After all this time, do you think I’m just some foolish schoolboy still?”

“I think you’re crazy! Wait, no, I KNOW you’re crazy!” 

He takes your jaw into his hand and brings his lips to yours, forcing a kiss onto them.

You slap him and watch as he backs away.

“You expect me to love you after that? You embarrassed an innocent woman, Ten! And on the night of the Chinese festival of all nights, how can I love you?! You keep me caged like some kind of animal! I can’t take it anymore!”

Ten rubs the spot you slapped him and grows furious, fire roaring through his veins.

“You were supposed to come back to me! We were supposed to kiss as we bring in the new year together!”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t find my way back, but you have to understand, I didn’t do it on purpose. It was an accident.”

“I know what it is..” Ten exhales and walks around the foyer.

“I’ve been too lenient, I’ve been too giving. I am not a king, I am a weak fool that falls for the same person over and over. The person that never stops taking advantage. The person who I just can’t say no too.”

“Ten..” you shake your head.

“But I know what I’ll do..I’ll release you..I’ll let you go, like the caged bird you feel like you are. You will be free.” Ten swallows hard..he walks into the guest room and sits down. You follow him and watch as he pours himself a glass of scotch.

“You will no longer be Queen, you can leave me..”

Could Ten possibly be letting you go? Could you be with Lucas after all?

You sit down on the chair adjacent to his.

Ten gives you a moment to protest, but once you don’t, he begins to grow angry again. He thinks that you do in fact want to be free from him since you do not call him a fool for saying such outrageous things. He knew he’d never let you go, but seeing your eyes grow with hope made him irritated.

“You can be relinquished of all royal titles and live as a beggar, you’ll never see your family again, but that wouldn’t matter, right? Just as long as you have Lucas..”

Your eyes flicker up to him.

“Ten..”

“But poor Lucas and his family, they’d have to live and eventually, die in poverty..hmmm so sad.” Ten downs the liquid and slams the glass onto the table. He gives you a sarcastic smile.

“I...despise you, Ten.” You stand up and head for the door, but Ten rushes after you spinning you around before grabbing a fistful of your hair.

His lips smash into yours once more as his hand pulls your hair pin out, your hair falling loose.

You kiss him back, biting his lips on purpose but not pushing him away as you did before. 

He bites into your neck as he listens to you whine. Your hands scrape at his back, scratching him through his shirt as he groans.

He breaks the kiss off and tears away the fabric of your dress, revealing your breasts and exposing them to the cold air.

“Do you want to know what I was thinking when I watched her be punished?”

“What?” You say before he sucks your nipple as the two of you stand in the foyer, angrily embracing each other.

“How badly I want to punish you in ways you’ve never been punished before..”

Ten flips you around, pushing you into the wall so your back is against his chest.

He kisses you from behind, but quickly bites into your shoulder while grabbing your hair and pulling back roughly.

“And the way you spoke to me in front of all those people..that was the icing on the cake, sweetheart.” Ten’s gravelly voice enters your ear.

He unlaces your corset and slides down what’s left of your dress with one hand while his other hand holds both wrists tightly and over your head.

He then presses his fingers onto your clit, immediately rubbing circles into it as you cry out his name.

He bites harder into your shoulders, breaking the skin to draw blood.

“Fuck!” You moan at the mixture of pain and pleasure.

He fingers you as his cock presses against your ass, your head falls back, you close your eyes and focus on the way his fingers stretch you out so wonderfully.

Ten pinches your nipple with his other hand, but continues to suck hard onto you shoulder.

Your essence runs down your wavering legs. You can’t think or even speak straight.

“Yes..T-Ten..right..there.”

You’re so close, you clench around him but he takes his fingers out and spins you around to face him.

“Did you really think it would be that easy?”

He kneels and gives you a smirk as he looks up at your disappointed face.

Ten was never like this, he always made sure you came no matter what, but now he was denying you. 

You lock eyes as he sucks his fingers clean.

“You’re cruel.” You whimper.

He chuckles and runs a hand down your abdomen, adoring your soft skin and the way you fidget.

“Oh, you have no idea.I’ll show you crazy, my darling. Yes, tonight, I’ll drive you mad, just as mad as you’ve made me.”

He holds your legs by the crook of your knees and places them over his shoulders, his head now in between them and hot breath fanning over your soaking entrance.

He licks slowly as he watches you moan.

Your hand goes to the back of his head, and runs through his hair.

“Oh, my love. I would be a fool to let such a sweet thing go.” Ten whispers then licks in between your folds.

His kitten licks drive you crazy, you can’t help but grab onto his hair tighter.

“Please Ten..”

But he continues to go slow, watching you above him as you play with your nipple and mutter out curse words. He won’t push in further, but he allows the tip of his nose to tickle your bud.

He flattens his tongue, working his way past your folds as you shake.

You’re needy to the point of tears, but Ten doesn’t budge.

“Oh fuck.. let me cum please.” You whine again.

He finally dips his tongue in, swirling it around as he kisses your slit. You move your hips against his face, feeling the bridge of his nose press onto your bud.

“Yes..” your head falls back.

Ten applies pressure to that one spot he knows will make you go crazy, and just as you’re about to cum he pulls his face away from your pussy, kissing your thigh while your chest falls.

“You don’t deserve to cum.”

He yanks your arm and drags you upstairs to the bedroom.

“Do you..remember..the first night we fucked sweetheart?”

“How could I forget?” You breathlessly let out, your legs still weak from being close to your climax not once, but twice.

“The safe word..what was it?? Ah yes, gold.” Ten pushes you onto the bed.

“On your stomach, hands behind your back.” You turn over as he demands, your ass up and ready, but little do you know what Ten has planned for you.

Ten takes silk rope that was placed inside 

the nightstand and ties both of your wrists together.

You squeal as he tightens it so tight, you know that you won’t be able to shimmy out of it if you tried.

Ten holds the back of your neck as he leans down to whisper into your ear.

“Ass up at all times, if you falter, you’ll be like this all night.”

You nod. You’d do anything to cum at this point.

Ten then ties two silk ropes around your ankles, each rope leading to your wrists. You can no longer separate your legs from your arms. You’re open for him and restricted, unable to close your legs or move your arms. The ropes are right, you can feel the blood pressure increases, but a part of you likes it. 

The image of Ten over your bound body only makes you ache for a release even more. You want to feel him inside you, running his veiny cock against your walls.

Ten rubs his hand over your ass teasingly, just barely touching it to trace the roundness of it.

He pulls his pants down and pushes into you in one swift move, you can’t adjust in time and whine loudly at the sudden penetration.

Your body falls forward, but he grips your wrists and brings you back to him, grunting as he reaches your depths and runs his length along your soothing walls.

“Ahh!! Ten!”  You scream as he pushes into you again, ramming his dick into.

“Don’t be so surprised, sweetheart, I told you I would punish you. But you’re so fucking wet, I’m beginning to think you’re enjoying this.”

Ten pulls out slowly, groaning at the way you clench and twitch around his length.

Your feet and hands go numb, the tight rope digging into your skin to leave a mark.

“You look so pretty like this, all tied up for me. If i could have you like this all the time, I’d be overjoyed.”

Ten growls then slams into you once again, this time, letting your body fall onto the bed while you moan.

He pulls you by your hair and whispers into your ear, pinching your nipples so your eyes fly open.

“I hope it’s not too much for you.” He states in a mocking tone. 

He pushes your head forward into the bed again, drilling into your body as his skilled hips fail to miss a beat.

The sounds of skin against skin and your moans fill the air, making you feel weak. The tingly feeling in your stomach just begging to be eased.

“Ten..please..I’m almost-“ you say through staggered breaths.

“I’m gonna..”

“Do you want to end up like Seulgi? Don’t you dare cum without my approval.” He growls and moves even faster.

It’s hard to hold back, but you’re not exactly sure what Ten is capable of anymore. You follow his orders as tears run down your cheeks. You bite your lips and try not to cum as he coats your walls with his own essence and holds you fast against him.

He pants and lays his body on top of yours.

He pulls out, but replaces his dick with his fingers, pushing the cum that has leaked out back into you.

He looks at the side of your face as he fingers you, looking into your eyes before giving your cheeks a light peck. His hair has fallen into his face, his exposed shoulders shining in the dimly lit room with sweat. He’s incredibly gorgeous, even when he’s angry.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart. A king never disappoints his obedient queen at the end of it all.”

Obedient being the key word.

“Ten..baby, please.” 

“Shhh...it’s too late to beg, stay here.”

Ten leaves the room, your body still on the bed, aching in your strenuous position.

He comes back in not too long after, however, retaking his position behind you.

“Ahhhh..my beautiful queen, how will I let the world...” he takes a breath before continuing, traces of sarcasm echoing in his tone. “And any other man..know that you are mine?”

You breathe heavily. 

Then feel a sharp slap to your butt. A wooden paddle sends you into the bed, your voice letting out a crackling cry at the unexpected hit.

“No..no..keep your body up, sweetheart.” He puts his arm under you and brings your body back to its original position.

He then smacks you again, but with less force.

“See? Here I go, going easy on you again.”

Another smack, you shut your eyes tightly and feel your slick run down your legs.

“Look at you..getting turned on by this.” He swings the paddle onto you again, but with as much force as he did the first time.

He grabs you by your hair before you can crash into the bed.

“Oh my god, Ten!” You cry out.

He slaps you again.

“There we go..now we are getting the reaction that we need..your skin is magnificent, especially in this bruised tone.”

You sob, but you won’t give him the satisfaction of saying the safe word.

He delivers another blow as you yelp.

He becomes hard again at the sight of your entrance dripping and ass irritated.

He moves behind you and places the paddle down. His fingernails dig into your hips as he drags your ass towards him, this time he pushes into your asshole slowly.

“Ten!”

He grunts then pushes into you all the way. “So tight. Just like the first night.”

He moves in and out at a steady pace, your breath leaving you with each thrust. You whimper and struggle against your restraints, but he feels amazing, you don’t want him to stop.

He leans forwards and pushes two fingers into your mouth, his hips increasing in speed.

“Ahhh..fuck.” Strings of cum enter you once again.

That night, Ten teased you endlessly, playing with your body like it was a toy for a spoiled child on Christmas. Keeping it in weird positions as he fucked into you over and over. Choking you while denying you of release, your makeup was smudged and messy as you cried from over-sensitivity. He took his frustrations out on you all night and you wondered how he was still so energetic.

And when he finally let you experience your long awaited orgasm, your hands loose and scratching at his back, your ankles over his shoulders as he pushes into you from above and kisses your lips like he needs them to survive. You came hard, your eyes rolling into the back of your head. Shortly after, you fell asleep as he cleaned you up.

The next day, you couldn’t walk. Your bum, wrists and ankles were littered with painful bruises. Your neck and chest also had too many love bites for you to count. It was safe to say you’d be in the house for a while. No one could see you like this.

Your eyes squint as the sunlight burns through the thin curtains.

Ten walks into the room. “Good morning.”

He gives a small smile then scoops you off of the bed.

“W-where-?” You rub your eyes.

“Is a man not allowed to take his wife to the bath?” Ten looks onto you with furrowed brows.

He places you down into the bath filled with water and rose petals. Usually, your maids helped you bathe while Ten was out of the room, but here Ten was being the caring husband he should be.

“That was the hardest I’ve ever gone, darling. You are clearly fit to be my wife after all.” He says as he washes you down. He sits on the side of the tub and massages your body with warm water, and expensive soap he created far away in the mountains just for you.

You moan and bite your lips. His touch is soothing, his hands move over your breasts and your abdomen slowly, and soon, the apex of your legs.

“Ten-“ you draw in a sharp breath.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Join me..please.”

And so he joins you in the oversized, luxurious tub, making love to you once more as water splashes onto the floor, your legs around his waist, your hands running along his soft back. Ten moans as he feels your fingers delicately trace over the scratch marks you gave him last night.

“I’m so happy you’re mine.” He whispers as you drift into sleep again.

————

[MARCH 1896]

Ten holds your hand tightly as the two of you walk into a tea shop.

The store owner immediately bows to both of you. “Your majesty, welcome! Allow me to provide you with the finest tea in the land. I would’ve been more prepared had I known of your visit, I do apologize.”

“No need to apologize, thank you for welcoming us.” You cut in before Ten can make a snarky comment like he always did to people below him.

The two of you sat down to enjoy delicious tea from all over the world. Some spicy, some incredibly sweet, and some so refreshing, it felt like you were drinking liquid happiness.

“Which ones do you prefer, my love?” Ten turns to you as you wipe your mouth with a napkin.

“I like..the Wuyi Narcissus..” you breathlessly let out, suddenly becoming weak and dizzy. Your heart beats rapidly, almost like it’s threatening to burst through the cage it’s in.

Blood rushes to your head as you lean over, your vision blurring and hands releasing the tea cup you held.

A crash sounds as the fine china splatters all over the floor, a commotion follows.

“Y/n? Y/n! What have you done to her?!” Ten holds your body and shakes you lightly, but you’ve already passed out completely.

Later that day, you wake to find yourself laying on your shared bed. Your eyes flutter open to see a man with glasses and a small smile over you.

“I don’t care if no one has ever been sickened by his tea before, I want that man dead by sunset!” Ten yells outside of the room.

“What-what happened?” You ask the man that seems to have just taken your temperature.

“Sweetheart! You’re okay..” Ten rushes over beside you.

“I promise that man will not see another morning for hurting you like this.”

“Ten..what are you talking about?” You still feel very weak, your hands and feet are numb.

“Bring him in!” Ten yells outside of the room.

Two guards drag the tea shop owner inside your bed room and make him kneel at the foot of your bed by kicking the crook of his knees.

“Ahh! Your majesty, I did not poison you! I swear by it! I would never-“ the old man cries, his eyes are bruised, swollen and blood runs from the corner of his mouth.

“Shut up!” Ten slaps the man hard with the back of his hand, making him fall forward and cry louder.

“Ten!” You cry out and reach for him.

“Please..please don’t.” Youre voice is barely above a whisper as you still struggle to breathe normally.

“this bastard poisoned you!”

Ten walked back towards you.

“Actually, that may not be the case.. your majesty, now that you are awake, may I ask you a question?” The man with the glasses beside your bed cuts in.

“My name is Kun Qian, I am the royal family’s physician.”

“Hello, Doctor. Yes, you may ask me anything.”

“When was the last time you experienced menstruation?”

Your eyes widened at the doctor asking such a private question, but then you really thought about it. You hadn’t seen your period for some time.

“It-it’s been quite a while, doctor.” You look up at him and nod your head.

“As I suspected, based on your temperature and low blood pressure, it seems as though you are pregnant.” He gives you a smile and looks back at Ten. 

“A heir is on the way!”

Your mouth falls open as anguish covers your entire body. You weren’t ready to be a mother, you didn’t think you could even carry a baby. Hell, it was only the first few days or so and you had already fainted.

Your brows are knitted as you stare at the doctor, then look back at Ten.

He smiles from ear to ear, then leans down to pull you into a big hug.

“My love! We are going to have a baby!” He exclaims then pulls away to see your reaction. You still look dumbfounded, clearly not as excited as he is. 

Ten frowns slightly, then turns back to the men in the room.

“Leave us!” He yells and they quickly scurry out of the room.

He turns back to you. “Well, don’t look so thrilled, sweetheart.” A sarcastic smirk falling over his face now that the room is empty.

“I..I am excited..I’m just nervous.”

“Please don’t worry, my love..” he rubs a hand slowly on top of the blanket covering your belly.

“I will ensure that you receive the best care throughout this pregnancy and after. As well as our dear child. They will be the most spoiled baby on Earth. Do you trust me?”

The answer was no. Ten was aggressive sometimes and words were just words. You weren’t sure what he was capable of.

“Darling?”

“Y-yes..I do.” You nod, and give him a reassuring smile to ease his concern.

“I would like to rest now, Ten.”

Ten nods before kissing your hand and leaving the room. He felt like he was on cloud 9, he ran through the house like a child that was just gifted a dog to chase and play with.

You rested your head onto your pillow and stared at the ceiling, thinking all sorts of things.

The night of the Chinese Festival..it had to have been then.

But which man was the father of the baby growing in you?

Ten believed it was his, but you weren’t sure, for little did he know, you too had been unfaithful.

————

[MAY 1896]

You sit and have tea with Ten’s mother.

“How do you feel?” She asks, faking concern.

“Well..I’ve had better days.”

She sighs and takes a sip from her cup.

“I don’t understand what my son sees in you. You can barely handle a pregnancy, how can you handle a nation of needy people?”

“You’ve said that before. How do you expect me to react?”

“I don’t expect anything from a weak girl like you, I know I’d only be setting myself up for disappointment. You came into his life out of nowhere. Your family barely has a respectable lineage. He could’ve gone with someone like that gorgeous Yoona from the Im Estate. But instead...he’s fascinated with you. And why? I’ll never understand.” She shakes her head.

You place your tea cup down loudly and exhale. “Why do you hate me so much, mother?” You say with venom in your tone. You’ve just about had enough with her for she always treats you like you’re less than Ten. She practically threw her hatred in your face since the day you met her.

“Oh, is it that obvious?” She chuckles then takes another sip.

“Well, quite frankly, y/n..I knew you were a lustful wretch from the minute I met you by the look in your eyes..even at your young age, I knew you wanted to corrupt my son, my baby. I knew you were gonna enslave him with your body, taint him and make him forget all that he’d learned.” She spits out while leaning forward.

You stare blankly and look at the table, trying to calm your nerves.

“You’re a whore, y/n, and I just know you fucked that fool, Lucas. That mistake of a man that was birthed by a disgusting prostitute. She threw herself onto my husband in order to take his money. And you’ve done the same to my naive Ten because you are just like her..a whore.”

You chuckle and leaned forward as you remembered catching her son all those times, in the stables, in the library.

“The only whore in this house is your son! He’s just like his father, your cheating bastard of a husband. All he does is stick his penis into anything with a heartbeat! And yet the King ended up with you! A hateful and downright evil bitch! Bless him for being relieved of your presence finally in death!” You lash out.

The queen backhand smacks you so hard, you placed your hands flat onto the table to hold yourself up straight.

The queen gasps and shoots up from her chair. She huffs. “If you ever dare open your foul mouth and speak to me like that again, I’ll see to it that your tongue is removed and fed to the wolves! I can’t kill you, for your death would ruin my son, but I will hurt you, child. Do not..mess with me.”

Seulgi runs over and helps you up from the table after the queen leaves.

Your back aches in pain as you stand up from the dining room table. You press your hand into the small of it and wince. 

Your belly was so huge, you couldn’t even walk 10 steps without the need to stop and take a breath.

“I believe you should rest in your room, your majesty.” A maid helps you up the stairs and towards your bedroom. She was the one to always hold your hand and help you through any cramps you felt. You rarely saw Ten. He was always away for some trip or completing tasks in town, writing orders, or even hunting with other men.

You found it quite odd that he promised to give you the best treatment, but neglected to even check in with you on some days.

“Where..is my husband, Seulgi?” You move up the steps slowly.

“I-I am not sure, Miss, I believe he is out of town at the moment.”

You sigh. “Of course he is.”

“A letter came for you today, your majesty, I have placed it onto the desk in your study.” Seulgi changes the subject quickly, for she knows of Ten’s true whereabouts. She knows that he is actually in the very same castle that you’re in, only, he rests in a room far away on the other end of the large mansion, laying in bed with his favorite servant, Jade.

She knew that your pregnancy would be in danger if you ever discovered this.

“I would like to go there now, I will rest later.” You tell her. You put Seulgi in charge of collecting letters and hiding the ones that were  closed shut with a distinct label. She didn’t know who the letters were from, but even if she had her own assumptions, you knew you could trust her of all the maids to stay quiet.

“Yes, your majesty.” 

Once in the study alone, you open the letter from your beloved Lucas.

Your mouth widens into a smile as you read it and rub your irritated cheek.

Dear y/n,

I am delighted to know that you are doing well. Please continue to rest, eat, and sleep well. I wish I could be there to hold you and feel the subtle kicks of our child. I can imagine how cute it will be already, with your beautiful eyes and my dimples. The baby is so loved , it does not even know. We will provide it with everything that it needs and more. It will have the most caring parents known to man. Once the delivery is successful, I will pick you up and we will run away from this place together, raising our child in the sunniest place for the rest our lives. We will finally be together, my love. All three of us. I promise to see you soon.

                                       Yours Always,

                                                    Lucas

A tears drops onto the paper. Your heart swells with joy when you think of finally living your life with your true love, Lucas. Carrying a baby was painful, but knowing that he loved you and planned to take care of you made it easier.

You wouldn’t have to deal with your careless, self-centered husband, you could finally be happy.

You clutched the letter to your chest and brought it with you to your room, holding it tightly as you fell asleep with a smile on your face.

————

[One Day Later]

“Your majesty...” Jade rushes into Ten’s study.

“What are you doing?! You know we can’t meet here!” Ten quickly stands up and walks close to Jade. 

With shakey hands she lifts up a piece of paper to him.

“I am so sorry, your majesty, but I was cleaning the Queen’s quarters when I came across this letter. It was under one of the pillows on the bed!”

“Shhh..quiet down, you’ll wake her.”

Ten grabs the paper from her and looks into her eyes sternly. “And what gives you the right to read through our Queen’s personal documents, Jade?”

“I-I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but recognize the name at the bottom.”

Ten raises an eyebrow, but then proceeds to read through the note. 

His face grows angry, his grip on the paper tightens as his knuckles become white as snow.

‘Our son.’

The audacity of this man. Ten thinks to himself. 

“How dare he..” Ten scoffs, he begins to lose it slowly, he can’t even form coherent sentences or words to express how upset he is. So many thoughts run through his head. Had you and Lucas really fornicated that night when you disappeared at the festival? 

Lucas wouldn’t be a fool to call the baby his child if this wasn’t the truth, for this was the only time that you had slipped out of Ten’s sight.

How dare he. Ten thought Lucas would’ve stopped it all. He thought he would’ve been a decent friend and left you alone like he asked, but he disobeyed his order and still continued to keep in touch with you.

How dare you. Oh you...you lied to him. His sweetheart, the one he loved so dearly with all his heart. He gave you everything, the world, and anything else that you could possibly ask for. You took advantage of his kindness, you took him for a fool once again.

And the worst part is, he still loved you. You could stab him in the chest with a sword while daunting an ice cold expression, and he’d still adore you.

And the fact that the two of you planned to run away together made everything worse. The child that he was so excited to welcome and raise into the world with you, would be snatched away from him by his own best friend.

He doubted that even being murdered by you was worse than what he felt right now.

“What will you do?” Jade whispers.

Ten sighs, his eyes narrowing. He knew better than to lash out like some sort of maniac. So he decided to stay cool and calm, he was notorious for that. No matter how difficult a situation be for him, he always remained calm. He was feared by all for this very reason, his silence and unreadable smile made him nothing short scary.

“It seems..Lucas and I will need to have a talk.”

He hands her the paper. “Put this back where you found it, then wait for me in the room at the end of the hall.”

Jade nods quickly and takes the paper from him before turning around.

“And Jade...I have no patience today, if you’re not naked and on your knees in five minutes..I will have no choice but to punish you..again.”

“I understand, your majesty.”

————

[JUNE 1896]

Ten gives your cheek a light kiss as he leaves your side.

“I’ll be gone for a few days, sweetheart, try not to miss me too much.”

“You’re always gone, Ten. I stopped missing you a long time ago. Now, I’m just used to it.”

“Ahhh, darling, don’t be so harsh. You know how it is for the King.” Ten straightens his arms out as his servant cleans his uniform of lint.

“I have to be here, I have to be there..the kingdom needs me.”

“And what about me? I’m carrying your baby, some care would be nice, what if I need you?” You were irritated at Ten today and couldn’t control your emotions as the contractions kept you up all night.

“My baby?” Ten quickly caught himself. “Don’t you mean our baby?”

You roll your eyes and lay back down in the bed as Ten smirks.

“I’ll have Seulgi bring you some tea for the pain.” He says as he exits the bedroom.

————

[JULY 1896]

“You have another letter, your majesty.”

You quickly take the letter from Seulgi and wave her off. “Thank you, you are dismissed.”

It was the first letter that you received from him in about two weeks, so you were more than excited to read it.

Dear y/n,

I apologize for taking so long to follow up with you. I have successfully escaped the Park Estate. Do not be worried, my love, for I only ran away to get settled before the baby arrives. I have taken several trains to get to where I am right now. It is beautiful, perfect even. I cannot think of a more suiting place for our family to thrive. I look forward to taking you here and being with you all the time. I am far enough so that no one will recognize me. Please promise me one thing, if Princess Rosé sends for me, do not tell her or anyone else in the kingdom where I am or about the letters that I send you. You are the only one that knows of my location. My mother and brother do not know and likely will not be asked for me, but when you get here safely, I will, of course, inform them as well. I am beaming with excitement. I cannot wait to see you again.

                                      Yours eternally,

                                                      Lucas 

———————

[AUGUST 1896]

You’re resting in your chambers, a heat flash making you too dizzy to even comprehend what time it is. You wish you could see your mother and father, but Ten’s mother has kept them from entering the premises, claiming that they would only add stress for you.

Ten sent your parents away to a different district where they would be in charge of finances. You thought it was unnecessary for them to be hours away from you, but Ten deemed them the right and only fit for the job.

A servant enters the room and calls out to you.

“Your majesty..”

“Yes..” you say groggily, squinting as the sun flight hurts your eyes.

You rub your belly and wince. “What is it?”

“Princess Rosé has come to see you, she says it is urgent.” Seulgi states with a look of worry.

“Let her in, please.” you sit up straight, preparing yourself for what is about to ensue.

Rosé comes rushing into your room.

“Your majesty! I cannot find Lucas!”

You furrow your brows. “What?”

Rosé sobs. “No one has seen him in two months...I thought he was visiting another city, but it turns out he never showed up. Your majesty, what if something’s happened to him? I am so worried..I.”

“Shhh...please, sit on the bed. We will find him, I’m sure he’ll be back from whatever trip he has taken soon enough.”

It hurt you to lie to Rosé like this, but it’s what Lucas asked of you.

He made you promise not to tell anyone the truth.

“It’s just..he’s never done this before, he’s never left and not even written a letter to me..oh, your majesty, I miss him so much.” Rosé cries hard into her hands.

You lean forward and rub her back. “He’s okay, Rosé, perhaps he needed some time away.”

She looks up at you. “You’re right, I think I left him too often. What if he doubts my love for him? He’s been so sweet to me, what if I’ve broken his big heart?”

Your eyes tear up as you think of the man you and Rosé both knew. Lucas loved everyone so deeply, he was a tall glass of love ever flowing, brightening anything and anyone he came into contact with.

It was a pity that someone as nice as Rosé would have to be hurt by both your actions.

Ten struts into the room. “What’s the matter?”

“I can’t find Lucas, I think something has happened to him, it’s been two months!” Rosé cries harder.

“Oh no..oh dear.” Ten steps closer before locking eyes with you, as if to ask if you knew anything about Lucas’ whereabouts.

You shrug your shoulders and shake your head as you pat Rosé’s back.

“Lucas, my dear friend. I’m sure he is hiking somewhere, going on some grand adventure like usually does. But do not worry, I will send out any and all of my men in search of him. We will speak to the countrymen and ask if they’ve seen him so we can trace his steps. We will search far and wide, even outside of the kingdom, Rosé. We will find him.”

“Oh, your majesty, I am forever in your debt.” Rosé stands up and bows to Ten.

But Ten watches your eyes, anxious to see how you react to his words. You wipe your eye of a tear and mouth “thank you.”

—————

[SEPTEMBER 1896]

“Doctor Qian...I might just rip this baby out myself..he dances like his father, and my belly is blessed to be the dance floor.” You wince as another contraction sets in.

The doctor lifts the stethoscope and his head from your stomach.

“Well, your majesty, I’m afraid you don’t have just one dancer in there.”

Your eyes grow large.“W-what?”

“There are, in fact, two heartbeats coming from your belly.” 

“Doctor..what are you saying?”

“It looks like you’re in a considerable amount of pain because you’re pregnant with twins.”

He gives you a big smile.

You gasp. “Oh..my God.”

Ten walks into the room, fixing his pants as he steps in.

You scan him up and down while he smooths his hair back and breathes heavily.

He never made it to your appointments on time..even if he was already in the very castle that they occurred in.

“I’m sorry I’m late, any news doctor?” He says as he walks to your side of the bed.

“Yes, I was just informing your wife of her pregnancy with twins, your majesty.”

“Twins?!” Ten gasps, he immediately smiles from ear to ear, new found hope flooding his head. Could you possibly be pregnant with his child also?

“Yes, that is why she is in so much pain.”

“Sweetheart, that’s amazing.” Ten bends down to give you a kiss, but you turn your head.

“Doctor, when is the delivery date?”

Ten’s smile falls and he stands ups straight before rolling his shoulders.

“Late October or Early November, your highness.” The doctor snaps his briefcase shut, turning to bid you and Ten a farewell.

When the room is empty, you turn to Ten.

“Where were you, Ten?”

“Doesn’t matter, darling. I’m here now.” Ten shimmies off his jacket and sits on the edge of the bed.

“It does matter, because while the doctor is informing me of my health and the health of our CHILD, you’re off doing God knows what!”

You grip the sheets to hold in your anger.

“I can smell that bitch on you!” Your voice raises.

Ten moved over to you quickly, grabbing you by the throat and squeezing it slightly. His eyes full of pure anger.

“You’ve got some nerve, woman! I’ve given you everything you ask for, yet you lay here on the most expensive bed in this continent and all I hear from you are complaints! Be grateful for once and I may just want to spend time with you!”

He releases his grip and stands up before smoothing his pants.

You stare at him in shock. You contemplate tearing him apart with words, but you calm yourself. You needed to rest and keep your heartbeat stable to ensure the safe delivery of your babies, the ones you would soon raise with Lucas.

Ten walks to the door.

“You should rest and make sure my children are healthy..”

He looks at you over his shoulder. “Because if they aren’t...I’ll have your head put on a stake.”

—

Later that week, you receive another letter from Lucas. He tells you once again that he is safe and doing well, and is longing to see you.

You reply with a letter.

My dearest Lucas,

The doctor has informed me that I am pregnant with twins! Oh, how excited I am for you to meet them. They will have your laugh, your smile, your warmth. I love you, I wish you were here to take care of me. Ten has been absent on most days, leaving me to endure this pregnancy alone, even on the most painful nights. I know that if you were here, you’d be beside me through it all. Nonetheless, I pray that you are prepared for the twins. I will do my best to ensure their safe arrival. I look forward to reuniting with you soon and running away from this dreadful place, you will relieve me of my ties to this insane man and bring me to a paradise filled with true unconditional love, and we will live happily forever. My love, I need you..more than ever. Please be safe.

                                        Yours Truly,

                                                  Y/n

After sending your letter off to a post office Lucas had given you the address of in another letter, you decide to walk about the castle for a while. The doctor advised you to take walks every now and then, but to not pressure yourself.

You head to the planetarium that Ten had built in just for you about a year ago. Back when Ten was caring and genuinely sweet, he did things for you just to see you smile. He knew you loved to look into the sky when you rested under the cherry blossom tree together, so he’d decided to get you a room where you could gaze together and hold hands just like you did in the old days.

You sit there and gaze at the stars, silently praying for a safe delivery that both you and your children would survive.

When you’ve spent an hour or so in the room, you finally get up and walk back to your room. You stop just after you pass by one of the rooms in the hallway. A loud groan escapes the door.

You lean in close and hear the whimpers of a woman as well. Your brows furrow. Surely, your servants wouldn’t be fooling around in your house.

You slowly turn the handle of the door and peak into the room.

Your heart drops at the sight and sound.

Ten makes love to Jade on the bed, thrusting his dick into her as her head falls over the edge of the bed and her legs spread further

apart. He sucks her neck and moans while a male servant enters him from behind, holding him by the waist as he pushes deep into your husband’s ass.

The man doesn’t see you as he throws his head back and looks to be on the brink of his climax.

A hand flies over your mouth, falling open.

You don’t make a sound, but Ten feels a gust of wind when the door opens up a little more.

He looks up at you, locking his dark, lustful eyes with your teary ones as you stand there in shock. Their bodies are naked, sweaty. Their moans and groans flood your ears.

But unlike the first time you caught him, he doesn’t stop. He pushes into her harder, still keeping eye contact with you.

He grabs her neck and begins to choke her, however, you just can’t seem to stop watching it all happen.

Her face begins to turn red, her eyes fly open and when she gets the upside down image of you in the doorway, she only chuckles.

Her voice gets louder as she cums. 

“Oh! Oh, yes! Your majesty! Yes!” Her body shaking on the bed. Ten cums soon after, choking her harder as he watches you and grunts. The man behind him slams into Ten one more time before releasing into him and gripping onto his waist with his fingernails.

The audacity of them all. You clenched your fists, then slammed the door shut.

You wiped your tears with one hand and held your belly with the other. You tried not to cry too hard, for you didn’t want to stress yourself out, but Ten really ruined you. He didn’t care for you or love you, he only lusted after you. He only wanted to possess you.

That night, you kept yourself from crying by re-reading Lucas’ letters and dreaming of your wonderful life with him.

Ten had the nerve to bring breakfast to you the next morning.

You took the tray and threw it on the ground.

“Do you really think I’d eat something from you? You’re a revolting liar!”

“Oh? Revolting? Nice. Haven’t heard that one from you yet.” Ten sits on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah..well you really brought out my creativity after what you did yesterday.”

“What’s wrong? Are you jealous? You looked like you liked it..did it remind you of the first night?”

Ten taps the blanket with his fingers, slowly pushing them into the apex of your legs. “the night when Lucas and I played with your body? Ah, yes, we took turns entering and filling it up with our seed? It’s a shame he’s not here for us to do it again..”

His voice is laced with lust as he gazes at your swollen breasts.

“Don’t TOUCH me!” You move your leg and brush him off.

“So what? You’ll never let me touch you again? You’re my wife, darling..I have to touch you..kiss you..fuck you.” Ten gives a sadistic smile that you wish you could erase from your memory forever.

“You will NEVER put your dick in me again.”

“Then what good are you as my queen? We have to create a family..even after this pregnancy, there should be more, no? That’s what the people want, my love.”

“And if I leave you?” You say through gritted teeth.

Ten chuckles loudly. “Leave me? The king? I guess our children will be motherless, how sad. ‘Til death do us part,’ sweetheart, did you forget?”

“Why do you keep me around? You have people that give you what you need, because clearly, I am not enough..why do you hurt me?” Tears start to fill your eyes, making his apparition blurry.

“They’ll never be you..I love you..I need you, you’re mine and I’ll die before I let you go.” Ten runs his finger down your neck as he whispers.

“It feels amazing..having you here..to myself.”

“You’re pretty when you cry.” He wipes a tear.

“I hate you, Ten.”

Ten takes your hand and kisses it, laying it on the side of his face as he pouts.

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

————

[NOVEMBER 1896]

You hold Ten’s hand tightly, letting out another blood-curdling scream. Your hips feel like they will shatter at any moment as you deliver your children.

But after several hours of grueling contractions and labor, you deliver two beautiful girls. Ten let you choose the names so you chose Yīngtáo for Cherry and Kāihuā for Blossom as Lucas had suggested in a letter to you once.

Ten rocks one twin in his arms as he tears up. You rock the other in your arms and smile at her.

“Oh, y/n..they’re beautiful.” Ten sobs.

You smile. “I know..”

Your nurses take the babies away and into their care room, where they are bathed and fed. The doctor also checks their vitals to ensure that they are healthy.

It’s just you and Ten in the room after it’s been cleaned up.

Ten lays down beside you, pulling you into his arms. You’re too tired to push yourself away from him, so you welcome his embrace by relaxing your body.

Your head rests on his chest, rising up and down slowly and steadily. 

“You did well, my love.” Ten says softly.

“Yeah..I guess I did, even after all the shit you put me through.”

Ten chuckles lightly then sighs. “That night of the Chinese festival..it was so long ago..and look at what has happened. We have been blessed with not one, but two healthy babies. How can we tell which is which?”

“Well, I’m sure it will be easier to differentiate between the two as they get older..”

“No, my love. How can we tell which child is mine..and which child is his?” Ten says slowly.

Your eyes open as you sit up straight and look at Ten.

“His? What are you talking about?”

Ten runs his fingers down your back and the look on his face makes your skin crawl, his eyes low as he daunts a proud smirk.

“I know about everything, my love. I know what you did last summer. I know that you had sex with Lucas several times...even on that same night that I lost you.”

Your mouth falls open, but Ten doesn’t give you a chance to speak, his hand still running up and down your back.

“And..I want you to know...I forgive you...whether or not they’re mine..I forgive you.” He kisses your cheek.

“I will raise them as my own, for you have just made me the happiest man on Earth.” He whispers into your ear.

“Ten..” your eyes still wide after the shock. Ten knew that you and Lucas were engaging in and affair, and he didn’t tell you until now. How was it that he was so calm? Why did he keep you alive after learning of your whereabouts that night? 

“Everything is all right now. I love you, my darling. I love our children.” Ten nuzzles himself onto your neck and pulls you closer to him as he drifts off into sleep quietly.

Your eyes fill with tears, but you quickly wipe them away and remind yourself of the last letter Lucas sent you. 

He said to meet him at the cherry tree next week at a specific time. That is when he will come to your rescue and take you and your kids away. You smile and close your eyes, dreaming once again of your love.

————

[One Week Later]

It is after midnight when you creep out of your chambers. Ten had once again disappeared but you didn’t care where he was. In fact, you are beyond thankful for his neglect tonight of all nights. This evening you and your babies would run away with Lucas.

The palace was basically dead. The servants were working downstairs on the first floor. Normally, you and Ten had the top floor to yourselves for the evening. If you ever needed to call for a servant, there was a bell that could be rung that could be heard across the residence. 

It was the last thing you needed. You didn’t pack much into your small bag. You removed your sleepwear and put on a pair of pants and a loose-fitting shirt. You put a cloak over yourself and bundled your sleeping girls up in your arms. You prayed they stayed peacefully asleep. You ran away quickly, knowing it would be stupid to leave Ten a letter.

You run towards a servant’s exit to the gardens that were right outside of your bedroom. You knew that no one would cross paths with you up until this point. You let out a sigh of relief and looked down at the babies. They still slept peacefully. You smile down at them and exit through the gardens. 

You enter past the schoolyard you once frequented, amazed and saddened at the sour turn your friendship with Ten and Lucas had taken. You spot the cherry blossom tree in the distance and see a man leaning against the back of it, a baby stroller right beside him. Lucas was already waiting for you and your heart swelled with happiness. 

You say, “Lucas…”

As you get closer and closer, Lucas slowly turns over and you see…

Wait.

“Darling,” Ten starts with a wide smile on his face, “Fancy seeing you here of all places in the middle of the night. Quite careless of you to expose the girls to the elements so soon.”

You back away. What is he doing here? How did he know you were-

Ten clicks his tongue. “Were you expecting someone else?”

You are stunned to silence. You couldn’t think straight. Where was Lucas, you thought. Perhaps he was late. What if he was still on his way to the rendezvous point? And now that Ten was here, you wouldn’t be able to get away with Lucas. You hope Lucas is stealthy and he avoids detection. You could arrange another meeting time. Find another way to escape.  

You try to make up an excuse. “I-”

Ten raises his arms. “Your arms must ache from carrying both of the girls. Allow me,” he says as he takes Yīngtáo. 

He cradles her and continues, “What brings you here, y/n? You have one chance to answer honestly.” 

His nurturing smile at his daughter fades as he looks at you. “Don’t test me.”

You sigh as you cradle Kāihuā. “I’m leaving, Ten.”

Ten laughs. “You are? Are you walking on foot with my daughters to the next town?”

You sigh. “Enough, Ten. I’m leaving. With Lucas. You have kept him and I apart for too long. This,” you say, “Is not a true marriage. If you loved me at all, you would let me go.” 

He caresses your cheek. As quickly as you flinch, he removes his hand from you. “Oh, sweet, foolish y/n. How do you explain my presence in the cherry blossom tree? Exactly at midnight.”

“You must’ve followed me…” You start.

He smiles. “‘You will relieve me of my ties to this insane man and bring me to a paradise filled with true unconditional love, and we will live happily forever’.”

Your heart sinks as he reads the words you wrote to Lucas. Ten found one of your letters. Did that mean he got it before Lucas could receive it? But how, you wonder. 

He pouts. “Insane? Me? Is that how you really think of me?” 

You are tempted to snap at him but don’t want to alarm your babies. You take a deep breath and reply, “What would you call an unfaithful spouse who won’t let you go?”

He laughs. “You’re one to talk about infidelity.” He then coos as he looks at your daughter, “You are just as flawed as I am. That is why we are a perfect match, y/n.” 

You scoff. “We are not meant to be, Ten. I’m leaving with Lucas. No matter what you say. Have us banished from the kingdom. Tell everyone you banished me. I’m sure your mother will be thrilled.” 

Ten shakes his head. “Oh, no, no. That just won’t do. Where will you go?” He fakes concern in his voice. 

“You don’t have to worry about that,” you say. 

Ten continues to mock. “Well, it will be hard for you to go alone. Especially since Lucas won’t be joining you.”

Your stomach churns. “What are you talking about?”

He beams. “He will remain in the kingdom. In the most permanent sense, sweetheart.”

You frown in confusion and fear. “Ten, what-”

He continues, reveling in what he will share with you. 

He recites, “‘Once the delivery is successful, I will pick you up and we will run away from this place together, raising our child in the sunniest place for the rest of our lives. We will finally be together, my love’.”

Ten also got a hold of Lucas’ letters to you. How long had he kept this hidden, you wondered. And your eyes widened at another realization. 

Ten says, “Ah, y/n...y/n...You underestimate me. I must admit that hurts me deeply. Did you really think this charade would go unpunished?”

“Ten…What did you do?” You ask shakily.

————

[Flashback - JUNE 1896]

Lucas brushes Hazel’s mane at the Park Estate’s stables. 

“Your Highness,” one of the servants calls to him.

He looks up at the servant and freezes up at the sight of Ten beside him. 

“His Royal Majesty Ten Lee seeks an audience with Your Highness,” the servant says.

Lucas nods stiffly. “Thank you. You are dismissed.”

The servant departs and Ten stands there, an unreadable smile on his face.

“It’s been a long time...brother,” Ten begins.

Lucas steps away from Hazel and approaches his half-brother. “Your Majesty, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Ten replies, “I’ve missed our friendship.”

Lucas scoffs. “Have you now?” 

Ten shakes his head. “Remember that I am your king, brother. I won’t tolerate you speaking down to me.” He nods his head over to his team of guards, which included the ever-hostile Hendery. Hendery flashes a condescending smile at Lucas. 

Lucas was still nursing the cut under his chin that Hendery gave him from the first time he visited. Lucas chose not to mention anything to arouse suspicion from the Parks. When they inquired, he said that it was from a sparring incident and they all left it at that. 

Ten continues, “Let’s go hunting.”

Lucas begrudgingly accepts and joins Ten and his men to go hunting in the nearby forest that Lucas was most familiar with. The two brothers take their bows and arrows to hunt for deer. It is a tense and quiet walk. 

When they finally see targets, Lucas eases up and is thankful for the distraction. 

Ten shoots at a deer in the distance but misses. The deer scurries off. He hisses. 

Lucas can’t help a chuckle. Hunting was never Ten’s strong suit.

Ten turns to Lucas. “Something funny, Lucas?”

Lucas shakes his head, smiling. “You’re still terrible with a bow and arrow.” 

Ten recalls the times he and Lucas went hunting when they were kids. He laughs. “I’m afraid so.” 

Lucas had his reservations about Ten. He resented him for marrying you, cheating on you, neglecting you during your time of need, and keeping you away from him. But deep down, he still had affection for his best friend. That connection didn’t just go away, especially since they were actually bonded by blood. And part of him ached for Ten because soon, you and Lucas would leave and never see him again, your friendship permanently severed. 

Lucas does his best to put on a good face. He and Ten regale about their adolescence and their shenanigans in the palace. Ten asks about Rosé and his time in the Park Estate. Lucas asks about the kingdom and how his reign is progressing. He even politely asks about you, acting like you two hadn’t spoken to each other since the festival. Ten replies that you are well and are expecting to deliver the baby sometime in October or November. Lucas pretends to not know this information.

“Congratulations, Your Majesty. A royal heir,” Lucas starts as he aims his arrow in search of a target. 

Ten only watches Lucas now. “Indeed, y/n has made me the happiest man. The baby is just the beginning for us, Lucas.”

Lucas evens out his expression so Ten doesn’t catch onto his irritation. However, Ten knew what he was doing. 

Ten continues as he readies his bow and arrow. “I think I’ve found my first kill for the day, brother...” He turns to Lucas, whose back is to him. Ten positions his arrow against the bow.

“Oh?” Lucas asks, oblivious, focused on finding deer. 

“Take a look,” Ten says quietly. He closes one eye shut and focuses his aim. 

As Lucas turns to face Ten, Ten releases the arrow, striking Lucas. 

Very near to the heart, as Ten anticipated. 

Lucas groans as he falls down to his knees. “What have you done?!” He quickly falls on his knees, blood seeping out of his wound. Lucas loses even more energy and falls to the ground, face first. 

Ten walks over to Lucas. Lucas slowly crawls away, attempting to evade his hunter. “You know, I had my doubts about today. Coming to see you, inviting you to the forest, and making you the prize of this hunt...But I can’t take any chances, Lucas. y/n belongs to me. It’s time for you to know that. Soon, she will see it, too.”

Lucas gasps heavily, “Help...me…”

Ten laughs. “Do you think anyone here is on your side, bastard?” 

Lucas feels faint. He is about to lose consciousness, knowing that he is very near to his end. He was torn between wishing to be saved and ending his suffering. But through all of this, he could only think of you and his child. Tears fell from his eyes. He had to fight until the end. He continues to crawl but he is fading with each passing moment. 

Ten barks, “Hendery, Doyoung, pick him up.” 

Ten’s guards appear. Lucas can only see their shoes. Hendery and Doyoung pick Lucas up off of the ground. Hendery quickly pushes Lucas against the nearest tree. Lucas loses his breath at the harsh contact. 

Hendery quickly pulls the arrow out of his chest and Lucas yells in agony. Hendery can’t help himself, pulling out a dagger and stabbing Lucas right in the heart, turning the dagger slowly and torturously. 

Ten shakes his head. “You were supposed to wait for my order, Hendery.”

Hendery pulled his dagger out of Lucas’s bloody chest. He lets go of Lucas’s body. It falls to the ground like a chopped down tree, heavy but lifeless.

Hendery backs away and bows to Ten. “My apologies, Your Majesty.” 

Ten nods. “Doyoung, prepare the crate. We’re going home, gentlemen.” 

————

[Present - November 1896]

The twins slept in the carriage now. 

“What did you do to him?” You whisper loudly, hot tears streaming down your face. You knew it in your gut that Ten got to Lucas. 

“What had to be done, dearest,” Ten says. 

“Where is he?” You ask, dreading his answer.

“Right underneath us,” Ten says as he looks down at the grass.

You slowly process his words. You look down to the ground and realize Lucas was buried right underneath the tree that started it all.

You stumble and fall to the ground. “No…”

Ten continues, “Lucas is dead, y/n.”

You shake your head. “Ten, you wouldn’t…”

He responds, “You were straying. I had to intervene.”

You refuse to listen. “You...are many things. You are not a killer.”

He finishes, “I would do anything for you, y/n.”

Images and memories of your true love flash into your mind. Lucas’s welcoming smile when he meets you the first time. The horseback riding. The first time you made love before Ten entered the room at the party. The days in Wanderlust. Your last night together at the festival.  You sob, trying to control your volume. “No, no, no. Please, God, no...Ten, what-”

“I did it for us, angel,” Ten says as he bends down and raises your chin to look at him, adoring your gorgeous face as you weep.

You pull away. “You killed him...Ten, that’s an act of treason. You can’t get away with this.”

“I can. And I will, y/n.” He gets you up off of the ground. “Come along now. The girls will soon need to get fed again.”

You pull yourself away from Ten. “Don’t touch me. I will never let you touch me again.”

Ten laughs. “You would be smart to obey me, y/n. Or I will take the twins away from you.”

Tears staining your face, you grasp the stroller handle and your knuckles turn white. You want to lunge for your monstrous husband but know that regardless of your status as queen, Ten always had the last word. You knew he could take the girls away from you. He was as good (well as evil) as his word. 

Ten leads you back to the palace. He offers to handle the stroller but you refuse to let go of your babies. They were your reason to continue living this never ending nightmare. It was up to you that they didn’t grow up to be like their “father”. 

————

[DECEMBER 1896]

You silently mourn the death of Lucas, cursing at the heavens for taking away the most heavenly creature from you. The Park Estate and the Kingdom of Hearts have continued their search parties across the continent for Lucas. Ten, unironically, was at the forefront. He made sure they looked everywhere. The last place they would look was where Lucas’s remains laid: the cherry blossom tree. 

The search teams were losing hope and Princess Rosé was inconsolable. Your heart ached for her as you knew the truth. So you did what you could and listened to her when she came to visit. You could not leave the palace under your concerned husband’s orders. You theorized that the pressure of becoming king overwhelmed him and he ran. That at the very least he was safe and starting a new life. You and Rosé knew that was a load of bullshit. Lucas would have at least sent a letter, apologizing. That was the kind of person he was. 

You continue to nurse the babies. You channel all of your energy in taking care of them, checking in with Doctor Kun daily. You drink the best herbal teas. Your diet is consistent. You couldn’t starve yourself. Even if every bite of food was no longer savory, you continued to eat. You had to sustain yourself for the sake of your children. Ten is thrilled that you have invested all of your time as a mother, as you should’ve from the start. 

If you allowed yourself to think about anything besides the well-being of your children, you knew your mind would wander to a dark place. 

You are reading a book on motherhood in the library one day while the babies are napping. Seulgi comes to you.

“Your Majesty, a letter has arrived for you,” she says.

You shoot Seulgi a look as you take the letter. “Did His Majesty get a hand on this?” 

Seulgi’s eyes widened at your hostility. “Your Majesty…”

You sigh. “I trusted in you, Seulgi...Ten got his hand on my personal letters. And I know he got to you.”

Seulgi panics. “I am so sorry, Your Majesty. I wanted to protect you but the king threatened the safety of my family.” Tears well up in her eyes. “If it were up to me, I would be fiercely loyal to you. Only you. But as long as the king reigns, I have no choice.”

You get up from your chair and put your hands on Seulgi’s forearms. “I know.”

Seulgi hiccups. “Your Majesty?”

You say, “I understand. You don’t have to worry. I know that you are a good person. You have always stood by me. You’ve taken a beating for me, for heaven’s sake. I still carry that with me to this day.”

Seulgi shakes her head. “I would do it again, Your Majesty. You have always been kind to me.” She had worked in the palace for over ten years, ever since she was a little girl. “Without you, the palace would be hell.”

You smile at Seulgi, “I appreciate that. And there’s no need to worry. The personal letters have ceased so if His Majesty inquires about the letters, you can hand them over…” You have given up on keeping secrets from Ten. He was right. You truly underestimated how vile he was. 

Seulgi shakes her head. “His Majesty has not seen this letter, Your Majesty...And it’s better that he does not.” She bows. 

You realize what she says and quickly dismiss her. You open the letter. 

Dear y/n,

I am so sorry to write to you as you are still nursing your children. I congratulate you and your husband for the safe delivery of your daughters. I implore you: if you know anything that the palace has not admitted to the public about Prince Lucas’ whereabouts, please tell me. I fear that something terrible has happened. He wouldn’t have run away. He was committed to staying with the princess. He wouldn’t have disappeared without sending us a letter after the fact at the very least. I await your response.

Many blessings,

Kahei

Lucas’ mother and the rest of his family were also kept in the dark. Ten forbade you from reaching out to them again. It was a part of his threat to take the girls away from you. And even if you dared send them a letter, you feared for their safety and yours. You wondered just how long Ten would keep the charade up. He could easily have Lucas’s remains moved and found anywhere he commanded. Why keep everyone in the dark about his status? He was a sick man. 

You complied with Ten’s orders but refused to lie in bed with him. You were thankful that the twins needed to be fed every few hours throughout the night, as well. Ten was displeased but he couldn’t deny you from protecting his daughters. For they were his daughters. Soon, they would be weaned and you two could get back on track, he thought. You needed time to forget Lucas and you would, he firmly believed. 

Ten continued his affairs throughout the palace. It was a game to him: a game of where can I sleep with the help without my wife knowing. But he got sloppy sometimes as his lust overtook him more times than he could count. You caught him several times without detection and simply resumed your day. Ten fucked Miss Oral in the kitchen at 4 AM? Okay. Ten had an orgy with nine other servants in the garden? Ambitious. Ten kept that little tart Jade on after so many months? You were disappointed but not shocked. 

It infuriated you but it wasn’t like you didn’t know the truth. 

And then, the next blow was delivered.

————

[2 Weeks Later]

You finish eating dinner alone in your chambers. The twins are being bathed by the servants. Ten is away on another useless search party. It was like a pageant for him. The public would say, “The honorable king is unrelenting when it comes to searching for his lost childhood friend.” A touching story. You resisted the urge to punch a wall. 

Seulgi hands you another letter. She bows and quickly leaves you to read in private. 

My dear daughter,

I pray this letter finds you well. I don’t know if you have been receiving my letters as you have not responded. In case they have disappeared due to the distance, I should tell you that His Majesty has transferred us to the Western continent and we only just caught wind of your delivery. How we wish to meet our grandchildren. How your father wished it more than anything. y/n, I am so sorry to say this but your father has passed from tuberculosis. I miss him so much and I wish more than anything for us to be together to mourn him. We have buried him the day I write this to you. Please, if you receive this letter, send for me. Or come to me, if you can. I miss you and love you, always. Many blessings to you and my beautiful granddaughters. 

Love,

Your Mother

You fall down to the floor and wail. Seulgi and Irene quickly run into the room, having been nearby cleaning the other rooms. 

“Your Majesty, what’s wrong?” Irene asks. 

Seulgi rubs your back. “Your Majesty…”

“My f-father,” you say between sobs, “H-he’s gone.” You shake yourself off of the two women. You shake your head as you look down at the two women.. “Did you two know?!”

Irene shakes her head. And so does Seulgi. 

“Seulgi...Did. You. Know?!” You demanded as you took the glass pitcher of water and threw it to the ground, the glass shattering all over the marble floor. You stand there, barefoot. 

“Your Majesty, don’t walk over the-” Irene starts. 

You don’t care. Nothing could hurt as much as the pain you feel inside. Not only did you lose the love of your life. Your freedom. Your happiness. You lost one of the only people in your corner who had been stripped from you because of the king and that crone’s orders. You walk over the glass, the shards piercing your feet. 

Seulgi runs over to you. “Your Majesty, stop. Irene, get the first aid kit immediately!” 

Irene runs off to get the kit. Seulgi tries to put her arms around you.

You shrug her off and say quietly, “My father was dying and you mean to tell me no one knew?” 

Seulgi shakes her head. “King Ten was always there when I collected your mail and I could never deliver their letters to you. That is the truth. Please, Your Majesty, you have to believe me.” She cries again. “If I had known...I would’ve told you. I-”

“Of course,” you stop her, “Of course, my beloved husband knew. That witch of a mother of his also knew...Those two will really stop at nothing to strip every person I love away from me.”

More servants rushed to your chambers.

You yell. “Leave! Get out! Run along and tell the king his queen is acting up if you haven’t already. In fact, I demand his presence. So go get him up from whatever bed he lies in and yank his dick off of whatever pussy it resides in.” 

A couple of servants run to get the king, astonished at your behavior.

Seulgi and Irene quickly disinfect and bandage your feet. “We will call Doctor Kun to tend to your wounds this evening,” Irene says.

Ten returns, his hair disheveled and bites apparent on his neck.

You look up at your husband, who stands at the door in shock at the sight of you.

“Husband! How nice to see you!” You said as you laid your bloody feet up on the bed.

Ten only looks at you in dismay. “What happened to your feet? Who is responsible for this? I will have them-”

“Oh, shut up,” you start, “I did it.”

Ten looks at you in shock. Your eyes looked so lifeless, so defeated. He almost didn’t recognize you. “Why?” He asks, pathetically.

You show him the letter. “I got this letter before anyone else could get to it. I wanted to see how my parents were doing. Since you and your mother have moved them away from me, I figured it was about time I got an update, no?”

Ten sees the letter in your hand and turns to Seulgi.

“Do not take this out on any of our servants. This is between you and me. Now, I’ve received news of my father’s passing. That’s interesting...Do you know why? Probably because I never got news of his sickness, much less that you transferred them to the fucking western continent.”

Ten pushes past the servants and his shoes crush the broken glass into tinier pieces. “y/n, I was going to tell you but I wanted to ensure your safe delivery first and-”

You raise your hand. “You took them away from me. My parents. And now my father’s dead. You just couldn’t be the only one fatherless, could you?!”

“y/n, I will not allow you to-”

You cut him off. “I’ve had enough of your games, husband. I have been so damn complacent. Meanwhile, you’ve probably fucked every maid in this room…”

The female servants, apart from Irene and Seulgi, couldn’t meet your eye, confirming your thoughts.

“Am I a joke to all of you?” You ask everyone in the room. “If it weren’t for me, you would all be rotting in the dungeon because of His Majesty’s intolerance for ONE miniscule mistake.” You grab the glass of water on your nightstand and break it. You hold one sharp piece of glass. 

Ten tries to calm you down. “y/n, I-”

You hold the piece of glass in your hand, quivering. “You will send for my mother and for my father’s casket. We will give them a proper burial in the kingdom. It is the least you can do, Your Majesty.” 

Ten relents, fearing you for the first time. You simply needed time to digest the news and he would give it to you. He would abide by your wishes and bring your family back to the kingdom. 

————

[JANUARY 1897]

Ten gave you the distance you needed. You didn’t give a damn where he was so long as he left you alone. Your mother arrived, along with your father’s casket. Your father was given a proper royal burial. Your friends of the family attended. Ten stood beside you and your mother. The crocodile tears were provided by Ten’s mother. 

You were able to see your mother more as she moved back into your childhood home. She helped you take care of the twins. 

The time apart from Ten gave you more time to think. 

Perhaps you weren’t as trapped as you thought. 

Your animosity faded for you still had appearances to maintain. Ten believed you to forgive him for his indiscretion with your father. Like there was nothing else to be forgiven. 

Ten continues lazing around with the servants but his favored servant remains to be Jade. Jade slowly gets it into her head that she can one day get rid of you and take your place. Ten never planned for that. You were number one in his heart. 

Ten and Jade lie together in a bedroom in the first floor west wing of the palace. 

“I love you, Your Majesty,” Jade whispers into his ear as she snuggles herself closer to him. 

Ten only grunts, imagining you to say those words again. How he longed to hear your words of affection directed towards him again.

Suddenly, his heart and abdomen grow bigger. “J-Jade, I...I feel ill. Hand me a glass of water,” he starts. 

Jade gives him a glass of water and he downs it. The pain he feels only worsens. It felt like he was being eaten from the inside out. All over his body. He starts roaming his hands all over his naked body, trying to feel for what is gnawing at him. 

“Ahhh,” Ten yells out in pain. “Jade, there is something wrong with me.”

“Your Majesty!” Jade yells as she gets out of bed. “I will call the doctor.”

Jade runs out the door. Ten lies in bed, his body burning from the gnawing sensation he feels inside. What was wrong with him, he thought. An hour or so passes and Jade still has not returned.

“Jade!” Ten calls out. “Anyone!” His voice has fallen weak. He cannot move because the pain is too agonizing. 

The door opens and you enter. “Why, hello Ten.”

You look absolutely radiant. Better than you have looked in months. You are beaming with a joy he had never seen you have. You wore a green ball gown, like you were ready to tend to visiting royals. You hadn’t dressed up this nicely since you conceived the twins. 

“I ran into that little tramp of yours and she told me you were ill so I thought I would come tend to my poor, poor husband…” You coo, mimicking the way he patronized you for so long. 

“Darling! Please help me, I am in pain. Get the doctor,” he grunts out word for word. 

You sigh. “Now why would I do that?” 

He looks at you with wide eyes. “Wh-”

You sit on the bed beside him, increasing his discomfort at the sudden movement of the bed. “Now if only Jade was around...She would’ve called the doctor for you. She would do nothing short of murder for you if you wished it. But...Jade is indisposed. In the most permanent sense, sweetheart.”

“y/n-” Ten starts.

“You two enjoyed rolling around in the hay so much...So I thought it fitting that she’d die the way she would enjoy most.”

Ten looks up at you in horror as you ruffle his hair.

You finish, “Consumed by the earth itself.” 

Ten cries out. “y/n, help...me...Please…”

You quickly get off of the bed. “It hurts a lot, doesn’t it?” You ask. 

Ten is furious but his pain overpowers any emotion. He only cries. He doesn’t have the words. 

“Are you familiar with the Gu poison?” You ask, softly. 

Ten’s eyes widen at the word “poison”.

You continue. “It is incredible how it’s created. You see, venomous snakes, scorpions, and centipedes are collected into a jar. They have to fight each other for survival and ultimately devour each other. The last creature standing holds a concentrated toxin. The toxin has no taste so someone can easily slip it into your supper and you would never know it was laced with poison. It takes up to ten days for it to act. And look now, on our dear old friend Lucas’ birthday, the poison has taken effect. It was meant to be this day.” 

“You bitch-” Ten spurts out.

You check your nails and shut the curtains. “Do you really want our last moments together to be so full of hatred?”

You tie one of his silk ties around his mouth. He thrashes about but you overpower him. You take the other silk ties and tie them around his arms. 

“You must want to know what it feels like to be tied up, don’t you? You certainly loved doing it to me,” you continue.

Ten continues to writhe in pain. He feels himself slowly fading. It was torture. He would much rather get stabbed in the heart. Any death must have been better than this feeling: he felt like he was being eaten alive. Tiny little creatures were gnawing at him from the inside. He wanted to rip his flesh open and take the critters out.

You sigh. “My father’s death was the final straw, Ten. I wanted to kill you the moment you told me Lucas was six feet under the cherry blossom tree but you had me under your thumb. I’m not going to take it anymore, dearest.”

Ten cries. “y/n, please...I will do anything...Please save me…”

You say, “You promised a lot of things to me. But you failed me. Time and time again. Fucking anything that moved. And I can’t take this anymore. I was ready to leave. You could have let me go and still laid with any woman you wanted. But no...You wanted to possess me...like some doll. And you killed Lucas, the true love of my life. You and your mother have pulled the strings of our lives for too long. This is the end.”

Ten manages to say, “y/n-“

“I have had it, Ten,” you say. “I know where the antidote is but I’m afraid it is impossible for me to get it now.”

Ten cries. “No…”

You sigh. “It’s buried with that harlot. Such a pity. She really left you in the lurch, didn’t she?”

That was how you planned to spin it. Jade, the jealous servant, who wanted to take your place, threw herself into a jealous rage and poisoned the king. You had her confession letter prepared very nicely. You wondered if you hired the same scribe who Ten hired to imitate Lucas’ handwriting. Either way, that scribe kept their mouth shut when they saw the fire in your eyes. 

Ten cries loudly but his screams are muffled by the silk tie. 

“Now, I would be with you during your final breaths but that wouldn’t look good for me, would it? You certainly wouldn’t want me to take the fall for a crime that the commendable Jade committed?”

Tears stream down your face now as you finally release your suppressed emotions. “You brought this on yourself, husband. All of this. You’ve brought me to this point with each betrayal. Now accept the consequences.” You walk out of the room, not a servant in sight. 

Ten lies in bed and thrashes around, his eyes red and teary with angry veins as he screams loudly. Unfortunately, no one hears him because his rendezvous points with his multitude of lovers were always away from the majority of servants.

All he felt was agony. Surely, any death would’ve been better than this. His heartbeat dwindled and his last thought before he succumbed to his death was of you being taken by him the very first time at the graduation party.

————

[Three Days Later]

The Kingdom of Hearts was once again in mourning. The people mourn the death of King Ten. He was a strong presence, just like his father. The young King was destined to expand the kingdom and its wealth, but his life was cut short due to poisoning. Found by you, his dead body was found in the west wing, tied up. You found a letter from one of your servants, confessing to the crime. She was in love with His Majesty. She quickly disappeared with the night. Now, there was a bounty for her head and her family was under watch in case she returned or made contact with them.

His Royal Majesty is survived by you, his wife, the Queen, and your twin daughters, Princesses Yīngtáo and Kāihuā.

The funeral procession was beautiful. People from all over the continent gathered to pay their respects for the fallen king. Flowers from all over the continent were tossed over his casket. He was laid to rest in the Royal Cemetery beside his father.

Ten’s mother was inconsolable. She lost her husband and her son. You were also inconsolable. You wept and wept. Nothing was holding you back from mourning who you've lost.

You lost a lot in a matter of months. You lost Lucas. You lost your father. Hell, you lost Ten a long time ago. Nearly everything you once treasured vanished in the blink of an eye. 

You could finally let it all out and it worked to your benefit. No one would dare suspect you of foul play. Not even former Queen Lee.

You had tea with her after the procession.

“y/n, you really loved my son,” she says between sniffles.

You sip your tea, feeling calmer now. It took her so long to realize that you weren’t the wretch she thought you to be. But maybe that was just her spiked tea speaking. She would probably return to hating you, tomorrow

Or would she?

You are the sole ruler of the kingdom now. Until you marry again. Then again, who said you had to marry again? There was no official law that mandated you to. 

The queen was complacent now because you were in charge. It was in her best interest to be on your good graces.

But after years of enduring her insults and for her hand in omitting to tell you about your father's illness, you were afraid that that was no longer an option.

“Mother,” you begin, “You should know that the little slag Jade was not responsible for your son’s death.”

Ten’s mother nearly drops her cup of tea as she shakily puts it down.

She openly glares at you now. “What are you saying, y/n?”

“Do you really think Jade was smart enough to get the poison to put into Ten’s supper? There is only one thing she excelled at and it was fucking your son. He loved to fuck her like the little whore he was.”

The queen got up from the table and was about to grab you. “You take that back, you little wretch.”

You refused to cower away from this crone. Her baby boy was no longer there to shield her now. You had the power. 

She is about to slap you but you grab her arm. She tries to wriggle out of your grasp. 

“I poisoned your son, Mother. I exterminated that beast before he hurt me again. He fucked all of the servants behind my back. He killed Lucas. He lied about my father.”

“You’re the damned beast,” she says as she spits in your face. She bawls. “My baby...What have you done?!”

You don’t flinch. You take a napkin and wipe away the spit from your face. “It is not in your benefit to defy me, Mother…”

“Shut up, you insolent wench,” the Queen removes herself from your grasp and attempts to lunge for you. You trip her to the ground.

You continue, “I have to wonder...how much you knew…”

Ten’s mother opens her mouth and closes it immediately. It is all in her eyes. 

“You hag,” you say, “I’ll take that as a confirmation of my suspicions.”

You place your foot over her back so she can’t get up. “Does the term Gu poison ring any bells?”

The queen’s eyes widen in shock as she looks up at you.

You add, “I believe you tried to poison Lucas’ mother that way once upon a time…”

“How did you know-“

“Surely, Ten brought you up to speed on my visits to Wanderlust. In fact, I’m sure you were the first person prepared to set the town ablaze so long as Kahei burned, didn’t you?”

“Don’t mention that whore’s name in my palace!” Ten’s mother pushed herself and yanked you by the leg so you stumble.

Seulgi runs in. “Your Majesty, are you alright?”

You regain your footing and you kick the woman’s legs away.

The former Queen barks at Seulgi. “You were outside this whole time, girl? The queen is at her wit’s end. Someone needs to detain her!”

Seulgi stands there, awaiting your orders.

Ten’s mom grabs Seulgi by the arm. “What are you doing, you worthless fool? This woman poisoned the king. She admitted it. Arrest her.”

Seulgi shakes herself off of her. “You must be hearing things, madam. It must be from your age.”

Ten’s mother was an irritable crone. One of her biggest triggers was any mention of her age. 

“Girl,” Ten’s mom begins again about to yank Seulgi by the hair. She quickly backs up.

Seulgi speaks up, “I’ve served this household since I was thirteen years old. You have never called me by my name. You have beaten my mother more times than I count. You have paid my family insufficiently. Your abuse and condescension made you an unfitting Queen. Your son was the spitting image of you in terms of how he treated the staff. The minute news came of his passing, I breathed a sigh of relief. Because Queen y/n is now in charge. She cares about her people and her servants. Unlike. You.”

Ten’s mother yells, “Insolent vermin, you are!”

Seulgi bows. “I will be outside the door if you need anything, Your Majesty.” She leaves you with the Queen.

Ten’s mother grew more livid. “You have turned the help against me, have you not?”

You shrug. “A little kindness goes a long way, Mother. It’s unfortunate neither you or your son have possessed it.”

Ten’s mother is about to lunge at you again when she clams up and clutches her chest. 

“y/n...my heart…” Ten’s mother falls over. You simply stand there.

After a few minutes, you tell Seulgi to alert the servants that the queen suddenly died of a heart attack. It was sudden and as you and Seulgi tried to get her up, it was too late.

————

[February 1897]

Ten and his parents were united in death. Now that they were out of the picture, it was time to announce the findings of Lucas’ remains. It just so happened that you found a letter in Ten’s study, confirming his instructions to bury Lucas under the cherry blossom tree.

It turned out the scribe you hired before had indeed worked with Ten. The scribe had also imitated Ten’s handwriting rather well.

Princess Rosé was beside you as the servants uncovered Lucas’ remains. 

Lucas’ body was decomposed a long time ago. But specialists confirmed that his body was severed into many pieces, like he was a piece of meat. 

You and Princess Rosé cried together. You felt some of your guilt leave your body. Now Rosé could move on, just as she rightfully deserved. 

You two had dinner and then walked around the palace grounds together.

“I don’t know what I would’ve done without you, y/n,” she says as she sniffles.

You squeeze her hand as you walk together. “Thank you for everything, Rosé. You’ve been my rock throughout this whole process.”

It was true. Although you and Lucas had cheated, you never harbored any negative feelings toward Rosé. She didn’t know that you and Lucas were in love when he entered the arranged marriage with her. She was never malevolent. She trusted her husband and believed the best of him. She protected him at the festival when she knew he had run off God-knows-where. It was unfair to her. 

You wished you could keep your distance from her because you didn’t want to keep living a lie with her.

“I know you and Lucas met the night of the festival, y/n…” She admits as you walk through the rose garden.

You stop in your tracks. 

Rosé hasn’t let go of your hand, even after admitting this. “Originally, when he disappeared, I thought he’d run away to meet with you…”

You listen to her, afraid to say something that will anger her.

But Rosé, ethereal and gentle, looked at you, calm. There was sadness in her eyes. “I know he loved you.”

You cry, about to apologize like you wanted to for so long. “Rosé, I-“

She says solemnly, “I know…When I realized you never ran away to meet him, I realized that something was wrong. As much as you two hurt me, I...couldn’t stop loving Lucas. When we were together, he was so kind, y/n. He just pulls you in with those eyes and that smile. You know this more than anyone.”

You nod shyly. “I do.”

“I would’ve let you two run off. You would’ve had to evade my vengeful family for all of your days but at least, you would’ve been together.”

You weep, astonished at Rosé’s kindness. “You...I don’t deserve your kindness.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t. But you need it more than ever.”

You two hug and continue your walk. You make it to the weaponry room near the stables where you overhear some of the guards drinking.

“A toast to our fallen king,” a man begins. 

“To our fallen king,” the other men continue. 

“Now we are subject to the whims of His Majesty’s unhinged wife,” the first man continues.

The men matter and some laugh, making derogatory comments about you. How they would still bed you, regardless of how insane you were. 

You and Rosé eye each other in confusion and quietly move closer. The men sit at a table with a box of spirits. 

The first man you recognized as the head of the army, Hendery. “At least, the Queen cannot fuck that prince again. His Majesty saw to it.”

Your heart clenches as do your fists. 

The guards clink their bottles together. “Hear, hear.”

Hendery continues, “And I ended him with that final blow, didn’t I?”

The guards cheer. As you hear this news, you carefully scan the room. You recognize all of the guards. None of them appeared to be shocked at the news. You wondered how many of these men were present the day of Lucas’ murder.

Rosé scares you then. Her complacent nature had completely shattered. She grips the wood of the room tightly as her knuckles whitened.

You still didn’t have the full details of what happened the day Lucas died. But it seemed the Lord had smiled down at you and decided to give you the truth.

Hendery commands the room, only stumbling every now and then from how inebriated he was. “His Majesty shot him like any deer in that forest. Very near to the heart. His Majesty had improved greatly in his archery skills. He was able to put it to practice, at the very least.”

He continues as the men’s cheers become all muttered and incoherent from the alcohol.

“And then Doyoung and I picked up his body and pushed him against a tree. And I stabbed him really neatly in the heart. And now, no more Lucas.” He laughed.

Rosé pulls you away now. “y/n, he must be punished.”

You open your mouth in disbelief. “What?”

Rosé retorts, “I know you had a hand in Ten’s death. So why should this be any different?”

“What?” You ask her. How the hell did she figure it out?

“Lucky guess.” She shrugs. “Your reaction was the confirmation I needed.”

Sweet Rosé was not to be underestimated you thought. She could be as cold and calculating as the next person. 

“Come on,” she goaded, “You want to end his pathetic existence as much as I do.”

Of course you did. It was all you could think about the minute he admitted to fatally stabbing Lucas. 

You shake your head. “You can be better than me, Rosé. I can do this on my own.”

Rosé takes your hand and leads you to the stables. “Your hands already have enough blood on them. Let me take some of that burden.”

You protest more but Rosé won’t have it. The gears in her head were moving a mile a minute and you had no idea what she had in store for Hendery.

A few hours passed and the men slowly left the weapons room. Hendery, to your and Rosé’s luck, remained behind. 

A sad excuse of a human being, you thought. He was a bully in high school. Belittled the women around him. It blew your mind that he married and procreated. 

You would see to it that his family is taken care of when he is gone.

Princess Rosé awaited him. “Commander,” she began.

Hendery stumbles and upon seeing Princess Rosé, he gives her a lewd smile. “Your Highness, what are you doing here alone so late at night? It’s dangerous for a princess to be unattended.”

She plays him. “I’ve never felt so safe, having the commander of the royal army with me.”

Hendery slides his arm around her, groping her bottom. Rosé flinches and hides her distaste. 

Hendery replies, “Allow me to escort you back to the palace.”

Rosé shakes her head. “Actually, there is one place I wanted to go. With you.”

Hendery smiles wide, like he’d successfully gotten the biggest kill in a hunt 

Rosé leads him to the stables, where you wait in the shadows. 

You trip Hendery as he walks in. “Wha-“ He starts.

He groans in pain as you quickly tie rope tightly around his right leg. 

“What are you-who is that?” Hendery asks, dazed.

“It’s His Majesty’s unhinged wife, of course,” you say, echoing his words back at him.

Hendery sobers up as you bring a lamp close to your face. “Y-your Majesty?!”

Rosé takes the other end of the rope to an occupied stable, where Lucas’ horse Hazel resides for her visit. 

She greets Hazel quietly and Hazel nuzzles her, trusting her completely. It seemed Hazel had added Rosé into her circle of trust. Rosé ties the other end of the rope around Hazel’s left hind leg.

“Alright, girl,” she whispers, “We’re going to go for a ride.”

Hendery panics as he sobers up even more. “What are you doing?”

You swiftly bind him with rope so he can’t use his arms. “That’s for you to find out, commander.”

Hendery is about to speak up by you bind his mouth shut as well. 

Rosé gets up on Hazel. “y/n, will you join us?”

You nod. “I’m ready.”

You get up on Hazel and sit behind Rosé. She spurred Hazel forward with her heels. Hazel starts off slowly, moving out of the stables.

Hendery feels his body move forward as the rope pulls him. 

You and Rosé ignore Hendery’s protests. Rosé beckons for Hazel to run faster. You make it to the grassy field where the horses can ran freely. Hendery already suffers burns from the traction. Hazel has trampled him a couple of times now. He is losing consciousness. 

Rosé pulls her last trick and pulls the reins back to stop Hazel and Hendery’s body slips right under and she steps right over him. Spooked, she tramples him even more. 

“Well?” Rosé asks you.

You get off of Hazel and check on Hendery.

His body lied there, bruised, lifeless. His right leg was positioned awkwardly having broken a mile back, at the very least.

“He’s dead,” you confirm.

You and Rosé already planned to pin the murder on Doyoung, for he was just as responsible for Lucas’s death. Doyoung wanted to overthrow Hendery for a while and the guards confirmed it when questioned. 

Doyoung was sentenced to death by decapitation. 

Rosé returned to the Park Estate. You both continued your friendship, retiring from your murderous tendencies. As you have avenged the man you loved.

————

[June 1897]

Months have passed and the kingdom celebrated their beloved Queen’s birthday. You were still in mourning but everyone was relieved to see your enchanting smile again. The kingdom had a strong and capable leader in you.

As the citizens adored you, the palace staff grew to respect you. No whispers of “simpleton Queen” ever slipped from their mouths again. Most respected you. The skeptical ones feared you. No one dared to defy you now so long as they treated you with respect.

Seulgi had always been your most loyal servant so you elevated her position in the household. She and her family could live comfortably, as well. You made sure all of your trusted servants received fair payments.

You tracked down Miss Oral and the other servants who Ten fucked around with. Just as they themselves were loose, their lips were even looser. You dismissed them all from the palace. As for Jade’s family, you pardoned them for they didn’t sleep with your husband multiple times.

As for the guards who knew about Lucas’ murder, you had them dishonorably charged from the army. Most of them were slackers anyway, uncommitted to protecting the kingdom. They only cared about their titles. You needed to hire truly honorable men for the army and you knew just the right person to lead the new wave.

You welcomed Kahei and her family to move into the kingdom. They lived next to your mother and became friends. Only you and your mother knew of the actual identity of Lucas’s family. To everyone else, you claimed them to be distant relatives that you looked out for. Kahei and her family were also given the royal treatment. In a matter of time, you would let them join you in the palace, where they rightfully belonged. Beside you.

Yangyang was in the running to be the next commander of the royal army, outranking several of the other guards, much to their dismay. You knew it was a matter of time before he was given the official title.

Rosé visited you from time to time. You have become close friends, much to the shock of the public. It was believed that mourning the loss of your husbands brought you closer together.

If they only knew the true hell you both endured.

You had no plans to remarry. Your heart remained with Lucas. Even if there were only memories left. Lucas was buried, per his family’s wishes, in his summer home in Wanderlust. You told Rosé about Lucas’ true origins and instead of punishing you and his family, she befriended all of you. You, the twins, Rosé, and Lucas’ family went to visit Lucas’ grave and decorated it with flowers.

It was a bittersweet summer. You were in Wanderlust with Lucas, just not in the way either of you had hoped for. You knew he was with you in spirit and just like Kahei told you the first time you visited her, you two could meet again in the next life.

Hopefully, without the menacing presence that also lingered in your memories. Ten must have been an evil incubus that escaped hell, but you hoped that you sent him back to suffer, eternally.

Fin.

[lorelylantana]

Compulsion

Ao3

This oneshot was inspired by this post by @snooze-zzz

Oneshot rating: G

His father wasn’t happy when Link was called to his office, a scowl etched into his brow. Link stepped in and stood at attention, expecting his father to grumble about some last minute change to the guard’s rotation before assigning him to a troop to fill in the gaps left by such shifts. Link had been knighted only recently, and as the most junior member in his unit he was expected to pick up this sort of slack. Link didn’t mind, a little sleep lost was a small place to pay to quiet that writhing feeling in his chest. It wasn’t silent just yet, but he was getting closer. When his father got up to walk around the room, Link made no move to maintain eye contact, standing at attention. It was a test of sorts, teaching Link to hold his position until told otherwise. It took some practice to tamp down the instinctive urge to turn towards the speaker, but he was getting it. So when his father walked behind him, he thought he was just checking his form.

“Do you think this is a game, son?”  the Captain’s words were cold, dripping with the kind of disappointment that would make any child’s blood freeze. Link’s pulse began to race. His face flushed, but his training held and he stood rooted to the spot.

“Sir?”

“Do you know how many fourteen year old knights there have been in recorded history?”

“One, sir,” Link answered, bracing for a lecture.

“Right, one. You are the only knight to ever be sworn in so young,” his father continued, coming around to face him again. Link almost flinched when he saw the quiet rage in his father’s eyes. This wasn’t going to be the ordinary scolding for being late to the mess hall or having a spot on his armor.

“I had to jump through a lot of hoops for you to be allowed to swear in early. I stuck my head out for you because I had faith in you. You told me you could handle the responsibility and I believed you. I don’t appreciate you dragging my name through the mud with this little stunt and I definitely don’t appreciate you going back on your word.”

Link racked his brain, still completely at a loss to the ‘stunt’ the Captain was referring to. He’d looked after his armor meticulously, arrived early for morning drills, he even took time out of his break to have a barber crop his hair to match Hyrule’s military regulation, leaving his neck uncovered for the first time in years.

Then again, he did break one of the sparring dummies yesterday, a swing of a sword that landed a bit too hard. The drill sergeant laid into him for that, sending him to run laps while everyone else got a water break.

“I can fix the dummy, sir.”

That was the wrong thing to say apparently, because when his father’s face contorted even further. The Captain shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You knew perfectly well that tattoos visible in uniform aren’t allowed, let alone one blatantly disrespecting the royal family, so what possessed you to undermine the sacrifices made to get you here?”

Link’s hands were shaking behind his back. He couldn’t remember the last time his father was so angry with him, and he still had no idea what he was being reprimanded for. He didn’t get a tattoo as far as he remembered, and he didn’t drink, so it wasn’t a memory lost to wine. 

Justified or not, the Captain’s anger stung after Link tried so hard to uphold the high standard his father held him to. He had been proud to meet that standard, but it was hard to hold his head high when his captain and his father looked at him with such disappointment, whatever the reason turned out to be. He felt his face heat with shame and his throat close. 

The Captain sighed when his son failed to answer, and Link knew that he had fallen in his father’s eyes, and that thought alone was enough to bring tears to his eyes. 

“I don’t understand,” he whispered, his knight’s countenance cracking at long last, “What did I do?”

His father shook his head, refusing to look him in the eye, “If you can’t be honest and own up to your own actions, then I have to put you on probation. Pack your backs and come back when you’re ready to stop treating the knight’s oath like a joke.”

Link saluted, maintaining his silence in a desperate attempt to regain his composure, though he couldn’t stop a few childish tears from leaking out in what would be his last show of emotion for a very long time.

The sun was setting as Link started down the road south to Castle Town where he’d stay the night, wondering what he’d tell his mom. His stomach twisted in dread. He didn’t want to see the inevitable disappointment on his mother’s face. He still didn’t know what he’d done wrong, but whatever it was had to be so obvious that any denial would read as insubordination, so he doubted she would believe any defense he could muster.

He wanted to scream that he didn’t think knighthood was a joke. In truth he wouldn’t even consider it an ambition. He supposed it was an instinct, if anything. Perhaps it was because he was the son of the Captain of the Royal Guard, but that answer tasted wrong in his mind, like it was far too trivial an explanation for the growling dissatisfaction in his chest. 

He’d always had fun swinging the wooden swords his father brought home when he was small, but time and again Link would be overtaken by some deep set sense of urgency to learn and hone any skill he could use in battle. He would be seated at the dinner table or doing his chores when something that tasted like an elegant, tempered version of panic would consume him and demand he rush outside to practice his sword forms. His mother scolded him for it at first, but couldn’t bring herself to reprimand him after she saw how distraught he would be if she stopped him, so she left him be, only calling him in if it was bedtime or if he scraped a knee.  If he couldn’t find a sword, he’d pick up a broom and pretend it was a spear, or he’d make a claymore out of an iron hammer. He’d go hunting even though he’d have to drag a buck along on the ground because he was too small to carry it himself because standard targets simply wouldn’t cut it. Anything he could use to practice he would.

At first it was just repeating basic swings and perfecting technique, but after a few years passed there chime began to sound in the distance when he took up his arms, and soon after that ring grew into words reverberating in his head. At first, Link had thought the voice, ancient and vaguely feminine, was that of the Goddess. He didn’t think that now though. She, if the voice was, in fact, a she, felt isolated, personal. Link had the distinct impression that the voice was interested in him and him alone, and he didn’t think the White Goddess Hylia would play favorites, least of all with him. There was no praise or scorn from the voice, only instruction flavored with an odd sort of affection that felt older and steadier than the land itself, and Link, still driven by a baseless devotion, did as he was told. 

When she told him to hone his agility by shadow sparring on a fence, he obeyed. When she told him to climb Mount Floria to strengthen his body and spirit he obeyed. And when he was told to visit the Spring of Courage to pay homage to his predecessors he obeyed, whoever they may be. Then old and forgotten combat arts were whispered in his ear, and Link began to fight unlike any man or beast in thousands of years. 

It wasn’t long after that his father returned to Hateno on leave and took note of his progress. The Captain made a blithe comment that Link could hold his own against a royal guard, and once again the urgency rose, not to take up arms, but to head towards Hyrule Castle. He’d begged and pleaded with his father, swearing up and down that he would uphold the knight’s standard both in and out of combat, the voice reassuring him all the while.

When he was sworn to Hyrule’s service and he settled into the Military Training Camp the voice quieted down. He felt a tad lonesome without her, though he didn’t miss the mind numbing sensation so close to terror that always preceded her voice. It had been relaxing to train and talk and go about his life without a sense of foreboding shadowing his every action. He was where he needed to be.

As he walked further and further south he could feel it growing again, pulling him back the way he came. Link thought back to his childhood, wondering when this feeling, so much like a sickness, first came to him. Now that he thought on it, he was quite certain the first taste of this compulsion came to him at the late Queen’s funeral. 

Yes, he remembered it clear as day. He had been outside the cathedral in Castle Town bearing lilies on his family’s behalf, since his father was guarding the ceremony and his mother had taken ill that day. Once the priestesses had concluded their rite there was a bid for all those in attendance to leave their offerings if they so wished, and when it was Link’s turn to approach the coffin he caught sight of Princess Zelda.

She was so small, smaller than he was, and though no tears fell Link saw her quivering ever so slightly. The sight of her green eyes and sun bright hair was so familiar even though he’d never seen anything like it. She looked up to meet his gaze, and within her green eyes Link found a fleeting epiphany tinged with nostalgia. In that moment Link could feel something deep within the earth beginning to rumble awake, dark and devastating. He’s certain that’s where his fixation began, and after years of contemplation he deemed the swell in his chest at the sight of her protective, though the nature of such devotion was lost on him. 

Link had come up on Hyrule Cathedral then. He stood there a moment, wondering if he should seek Hylia’s guidance before heading on his way. Who knows, perhaps the voice would return to him and give him an objective to work towards, something to drown out the devastation in his chest.

“You are not to leave that spot until dawn breaks, Zelda. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Father.”

And there she was again, all snow white and burning gold in the light of the setting sun. He could see her glowing faintly in the firelight of the torches around her, kneeling in the middle of the Cathedral’s garden to pray. Possessed, he stepped closer to the wrought iron fence that separated them, drawn to her like a moth to any warm, bright light.

 It had been years since he’d seen her shaking at the loss of her mother, but she somehow looked more hopeless and alone kneeling there in the grass. That observation tore at him, momentarily eclipsing his own desolation. In that instance Link wanted to be there by her side, if only to provide a moment’s reprieve from the storm they were trapped in.

His wish struck through him light a flash of lightning as though granted by a higher power.

Link spun around on the street and walked right back to the gate, retracing his steps, though he had no intention of returning to the Military Camp. He didn’t know where he intended to go, only that there was a white hot tether curled around his heart and soul dragging him back north, relentless and daunting. 

He walked on into the night, after the people of Hyrule settled in to sleep and doused the fires lighting his way. The darkness mattered little, because whatever drove Link’s feet, it wasn’t his sight. He walked past the Camp he’d left not hours before, keeping out of the nightwatch’s range. He didn’t know what he was doing, but he didn’t need interruptions, and the guard would just get in his way. No one entered the Lost Woods without a death wish, at least, not before tonight. The fog of the ancient forest was potent, laced with an old magic, but it parted for Link, yielding to a more powerful, primordial force. It was a familiar feeling, Link realized as he passed between two seas of swirling white. He could hear her chime as she led him into the warmth of the Korok Forest. He didn’t hesitate to walk up to the sword where it lay in stone. The massive tree before him began to shift, but Link paid it no mind as he took hold on the blade and pulled. 

The blade came free effortlessly, but Link tumbled back, overtaken by visions of death and destruction and ruin.

He’d heard whispers of a fabled apocalypse brewing beneath the land, but Link hadn’t listened too closely. They were only rumors, inconsequential when compared to the mind consuming drive to become a better warrior. Link had trained himself for years, mastering every weapon he could find, all in preparation to wield this sacred blade of evil’s bane.

But it wasn’t enough. It was nowhere near being enough to stop the horrors the voice in his blade spoke to him of. 

Link didn’t return home after that. He couldn’t, because he knew that if he faced his father and mother just once he would break down, and that wasn’t an option anymore. He needed every hour he could get, and with the Calamity looming over the horizon he couldn’t justify something so selfish. He had to protect the Princess, he had to protect all of Hyrule, and weak as he was now he didn’t stand a chance. With the blessing of the Great Deku Tree he remained in Korok Forest, learning skill after skill. He trained dawn till dusk, sleeping in the Deku Tree’s hollow and cooking meals from the mushrooms and herbs the Koroks gathered for him. 

He appreciated the little forest spirits, their antics helped cheer him when the weight of it all began to crush him.They were helpful in small but essential ways. They mended and refreshed his clothes, told him their stories and sang their songs, and when his hair grew long they found him a band to tie it with. He asked them to send messages to his family that he was still alive even though he had no idea if they were successful. They would listen to the whispers of Hyrule and tell him which monsters were causing the most trouble so Link could gain some real battle experience. Hestu helped him pack enough provisions to make a pilgrimage to Thyphlo ruins, where he stayed day and night until he had mastered fighting blind, and then he returned to the Korok Forest to fine tune his skills until his seventeenth birthday.

He could slow time, and move faster than an arrow in flight, but he still wasn’t satisfied when the Great Deku Tree spoke, his voice painfully similar to his father’s.

“You must leave now, Hero, go and face your destiny.”

Link didn’t look up from his swings, the sword humming in his hand, “I’m not ready.”

“No one ever is, child,” the tree said, sadness and affection melting into one another, “you must go nonetheless. The princess needs you to be her strength. The land of Hyrule calls for your aid. You must answer their call”

The sword whispered in agreement, so he sheathed the blade and said his goodbyes to the forest children before emerging from the fog for the first time in months. He stopped to look at the Military Training Camp, wondering if he should visit his father. He thought better of it, continuing on his way. Even if they allowed a deserter within the barracks, Link didn’t think he could hold himself together in the face of the family he had left behind.

Link’s father stood at attention behind King Rhoam’s throne. He was Captain of the King’s Guard, which meant he had to watch over the weekly constituency. The King sat on a throne while the Princess occupied a plush, though less ornate, chair placed to the right of her mother’s vacant seat. He’d received the promotion a year after his son went missing and he accepted, since he no longer had a reason to stay at the Military Training Camp.

It took him three months to realize his son had disappeared.

When his wife asked after their Link’s whereabouts upon his return to Hateno on leave the Captain had been annoyed, at first. It was easier to believe that his son was simply acting out, surely to return once he’d felt he made his point, then to face the truth. That flimsy belief didn’t hold out for very long, because deep in his heart he knew better. Link had made a mistake perhaps, but he’d never run from the consequences of his own actions. The tears of his distraught wife hammered home the heartbreaking reality. 

Whatever had befallen his son, he wouldn’t be coming home.

There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t regret how he’d sent his son off that final time. He should have told his son that he loved him, protocol be damned. 

There were countless reminders of his son that tore at him. Small things. The Captain would be on patrol and he’d see a doodle of a young man wielding a winged sword that the children of castle town must have scrawled on a wall. He opened a drawer to find a scrap of fabric from the tunic Link was wearing when he left the Training Camp, and he would return to his office to find honeyd apples and other treats his son loved the most. The universe seemed intent on haunting him, and he knew he deserved it. 

He was so proud of his boy, but his final act as a father was to push Link to tears.

A chill went down the Captain’s spine, and he snapped to attention, kicking himself for letting his mind wander when he was supposed to be protecting the most important people in the kingdom. His time as a soldier had tempered his instincts, and he could sense a quiet, oppressive strength that would make a Lynel cower spread throughout the room at the sound of light footsteps padding towards the center of the room. A quick glance around the room revealed that his subordinates felt the same, shifting from foot to foot and hand twitching towards their weapons.

“State your business, boy,” came the King’s command, loud but not enough to drown out the ferocity leaking out from the diminutive hylian standing in the center of the Sanctum, his feet planted on the royal family’s crest.

Link said not a word, only reaching over his shoulder to pull the Master Sword from its sheath. The guards moved to intercept him, but he drove the tip to the ground before they could come close. The Captain stepped forward, swallowing his fear while he drew his sword to face the intruder.

“Stop!”

 The Princess’ voice rang out with an uncharacteristic authority, bypassing the King himself to halt the guards’ assault. The adrenaline seeped from the Captain’s blood, and he took a good look at the swordsman. 

He knew those eyes, their tearstained image had been burned into his memory for years. His son was taller now, though still on the shorter side. His hair was longer, much longer and swept back in a ponytail. The scrap of fabric the Captain had taken to wearing around his wrist was a perfect match for the tunic his son wore. The Captain’s sword clattered to the ground. Link was alive.

His son was alive!

But as he looked at the man his son had become, he felt some of that joy slip away. It was still there, but it was tainted by the realization of just how much Link had changed. Children grow, the Captain was well aware of this fact, but his son wasn’t just grown, he was distant and restrained. He stood less like a man and more like a statue carved to scare off malevolent spirits and sinners.

“Go to him, Zelda,” the King’s voice barely registered as the Captain struggled to reconcile this stoic, intimidating figure with the giggling, infectiously bright child he had raised.

Link hadn’t expected to run into his father so soon, his resolve was beginning to crack at the sight of the hesitant, regretful joy on the Captain’s face. He clenched his fist around the Master Sword’s handle, suppressing the urge to throw himself in his father’s arms and never leave. But then Princess Zelda stood before him in all her gentle radiance, fate given flesh, and he held onto her. Her presence banished any doubt within him. Link could feel her slumbering power, pulsing softly with the rise and fall of her breath. She felt like sunshine, and looking at her reminded him that this is where he needed to be. She too had destiny woven into the very fabric of her soul, the only other one of his kind.

Link knelt on the stones before her, laying the magnificent blade he commanded at her feet.

“That’s it then,” the King said, and the Princess nodded.

“Yes, it’s the Sword that Seals the Darkness,” she said, voice shaking, “We’re running out of time.”

“Not necessarily,” Impa piped up, “the fortune teller stated that the wingcrest would appear on the Hero’s body when the time drew near, I see no such mark.”

The Captain made a choked, distressed sound, but no one paid him any mind. All focused on Link. His hand was indeed blank, but after a moment’s confusion the Hero lowered his head before his princess, brushing his hair to one side so she could see the back of his neck. Her fingers brushed across his skin, sending a warm shiver down his spine. Link found himself relaxing under her hand, the touch felt like sending water from a hot spring rushing down his back and soothing the restlessness writhing inside him.

“How long have you had this?” she whispered, her fingertips lingering on the crest. Link could feel them shake slightly and felt a surge of protectiveness course through him. 

“Two years, eight months and six days,” the Captain answered. 

The King turned to his Captain, nonplussed, “You know this young man?”

“He’s my son,” was his broken reply. King broke into a smile.

“Well what do you know? You must be very proud of your boy today!”

“I’ve always been proud of him, your Majesty,” the Captain replied, “Always.”

Link took a shuddering breath as he felt some of the guilt from the last three years melt away, but his face remained stoic.

“With such a son I imagine you’d have little choice in the matter,” the King laughed, deaf to the thick emotion in the other man’s voice. Link felt the Princess’ hand stiffen before she drew away, a chill replacing the gentle heat he was already starting to miss.

“Rise, Hero,” she commanded softly, and he obliged without a word, sheathing his sword and taking his place by her side, the disquiet that had clawed through him since childhood finally satisfied. The Captain followed the divine pair as they declared the constituency over and the arrival of the Hero of Hyrule was announced, hopelessly at a  loss.

The night was quiet when Link was headed to his assigned quarters below the Princess’ tower, much like the evening he was called to draw the Master Sword. He had put his hand on the door’s handle when he heard steps approach.

The Captain approached his son with caution, consumed with hatred for his own cowardly hesitation. After years of grief, his son stood before him yet again, and here he was, trying to dredge up the courage to give his boy the apology he deserved. He didn’t know how to approach Link like this. He wasn’t his son anymore, it seemed, but the Hero of Hyrule, the answer to the prayers of thousands. Here stood the Knight who Seals the Darkness, the paragon all aspired to the second they took up a sword.

Looking at his son felt like looking over the edge of a cliff, but it was his eyes that concerned him most. The blue eyes passed down from his mother lacked the good nature and mirth once found there, a trait shared with her. Instead there was an emptiness, a great void between the Captain and the Hero far too wide to cross.

No. Now that he looked closer, it wasn’t a void, it was a wall, and that broke the Captain’s heart all the more. Deep down he knew that he couldn’t reach his son like this, but he owed it to his family to try.

“I’m sorry,”

He’s not sure what he expected, he still hadn’t heard his son’s voice, and drawing Link in for a hug felt like crossing some unspoken but no less potent boundary that legendary blade had cut around the Hero. The Hero of Hyrule nodded in acknowledgment of his words, and the Captain didn’t feel like pushing further would be fair on his son, so he nodded his goodnight and walked further down the path with a heavy heart to write a letter to his wife, not sure what exactly to tell her happened to their little boy.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Eye of the Storm 8

Warnings: nonconsensual sex (series), unwanted touches, prolonged eye contact which makes me wanna believe in the Church and all it’s saint to ask for absolution.

This is dark!Thor and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You are a new servant at the palace of Asgard but the job isn’t so easy as you thought.

Note: Yay another chapter of the Asgardian bitch boys causing trouble for our reader (much like @lokislastlove​ is causing trouble in my dms)

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

Your days with Loki passed swifter than those with his brother. Your work was mostly uninterrupted as Loki left early and returned in the late afternoon with some tasks to attend to as he ate dinner. His orders were few as you brought his meals without prompting and he was content to his privacy upon bathing and retiring. 

In the time you spent as the Prince's chambermaid, you began to think it far preferable. Even if you were a pawn in his game, his treatment almost atoned for his purpose.

It had been less than a week since you had last seen the king and since Loki insisted that the king marry, it was his responsibility to see it through. Every single detail. It was Thor’s way of punishing his brother’s impudence. As the queen had arrived days early, the wedding was pushed forward. No longer scheduled for the day after her planned arrival, it was to be the day of. 

On the day of the nuptials, you brought up Loki's breakfast and he was already awake. He ate at his desk as he flipped through a ledger, an emerald robe around his slender figure. You stood by the door, ready to clear his plate when he was done.

He turned to you as he wiped his hands and stopped you from stepping forward as he turned a palm out to you.

"You know what day it is?" He asked.

"The day of the wedding, your highness," You answered.

"It is," He smiled as he stood and crossed to the large wardrobe against the wall. He pulled open the right door and reached inside. "All the palace staff will be hard at work, in fact I did have to pull a few hands from the streets to fill in the holes in the roster." He turned back, a length of forest green silk hung from his grasp. "My footman Bradin will continue to see to my brother and so I shall require you to act as my cup bearer."

"Cup bearer?" You echoed. "But--"

"Firstly, you must put more effort into holding that tongue," He warned. "Secondly, it is a formal occasion, not some feast, so you shall stand by, diligently, and keep my cup full. I have faith I should be wanting for wine quite often."

"Yes, your highness," You dipped your chin in deference.

"And so you shall wear my colours," He neared with the dress, "I shall provide you a belt as well and you might forgo that stained monstrosity," He pointed to your apron. "Your duty is simple, I've seen you faced with far greater. You will serve me and you will keep silent. Understood?"

"Yes, your highness," You answered.

Loki had a way of speaking which was gentle yet patronizing. He expected what he said to be heard and his desires to be appeased. He was far more subtle than his brother but in a way, it suggested he was far more dangerous.

He held out the garment and you took it from him. You folded it over your arm as he adjusted the belt of his robe and gripped his lower back as he stretched. He turned away, seemingly done with the conversation.

“You may clear the dishes and go change,” He commanded as he strode to the door of his bath chamber. “I expect you ready within the hour. Do await me in the receiving chamber. You might sit on the balcony and enjoy the sunlight in my absence.”

“Your highness,” You accepted and he disappeared through the door.

Those times when you left upon your own had become so foreign and were just another facet of serving Loki which felt strange. You couldn’t gripe however, even if that gnawing in the back of your mind never quite let up. It was like limbo. You didn’t expect to be in the prince’s employ forever and the inevitability that the king would put his foot down made you ever uneasy. It was only a matter of time and the minutes, hours, and days did seem to move quickly.

🌩️

When Loki found you on the balcony staring down at the ground far below, he frightened you. You turned to him and bowed your head. He was dressed in a black jacket trimmed in a similar gold to that around your waist. His dark attire made him look even taller and his green eyes seemed to glow as they carried their usual imperious glimmer. They took you in and he arched a brow.

“Presentable,” He remarked. You didn’t expect anything more as he flicked two fingers in a signal for you to follow him as he swept back through the archway. “The ceremony shall begin shortly. You will go to the feast hall and aid the other servants in the last of the arrangements as I ensure that the bride and groom make it to their vows.”

You nodded, thankful not to to be forced to sit through the long and tedious wedding rites. You’d heard that nobles tended to take hours to read them aloud whereas peasants could be married in a matter of minutes.

He spun back to you and brought his hands up just before your shoulders. You stopped short as he framed you with his fingers and squinted. He snickered as his facade finally cracked.

“You do know my brother is going to be mad at the sight of you,” He slithered. “Oh, I can’t help myself though. He has been rather unbearable in your absence. More than usual.”

You pursed your lips and lowered your lashes. A servant would never dare speak ill of any noble, even if humoured by another.

“Don’t you fret, he will have a wife to keep him in line and she is not the type to abide his nonsense,” Loki assured and turned once more as he led you across the room. He opened the door himself and ushered you through to the corridor. “Oh my,” He shut the door behind him and hovered his hand just beside your arm as he looked at you once more, “I did a terrible job at guessing. It is rather… snug.”

“It fits,” you assured him as you touched the silk across your stomach. “Thank you, your highness.”

“So long as you can pour wine, I suppose it does not matter,” He said. “Well, my dear, you best be off and I must hurry if I am to meet the cleric. Ugh, I do despise weddings.”

He waited until you moved to part. You listened to his footsteps mirror your own as they faded down another corridor. Soon enough you could no longer hear them and as you reached the stairs, you paused. You weren’t stupid enough to trust Loki but you truly couldn’t guess what he was up to.

🌩️

The feast hall was a flurry of activity. Instead of the long benches formerly facing the trestles, each guest was to be seated in their own cumbersome yet elaborate chair, with only a few of the further tables lined with cushioned stools. The golden cutlery, freshly polished was laid out carefully, and silk streamers were braided and twisted along both tables and columns.

Melora was among the hive of workers. She looked you up and down as you helped cover the last table with an ivory table cloth trimmed in silver and red. The king’s chair would be hung with his sigil and the new queen’s would wear her own.

“We’re all very curious about what has become of you. We only ever sight you when you’re sleeping or waiting on the cooks,” She said. “I see the king does treat you well.”

“It is the prince’s generosity,” You assured her. “I’ve since been reassigned.”

“Pity,” She gave a sarcastic frown. “I’ve recently been placed in a new posting as well. I get to sweep the upper floors now, I might just see you upon your own duties.”

“Perhaps,” You smiled, shrugging off the tinge of envy in her tone.

You carried on and found yourself in a sweat as Agnes called for the servants to assemble in the corridor. The high collar of the dress was damp, though even your bare arms felt smothered from your excess. As before, servants were selected to be servers and you were sent to stand at the table just to the left of the marriage dais. 

Loki would sit there with several of the high lords, a generous vantage of the bride and groom. You were suddenly nervous as the other women lined up with their ewers and a silence seeped into the airy hall. It was as if every single servant was holding their breath in anticipation.

When at last there was a sign that the feast was about to commence, you stood rigid and stared at the door along the other end of the hall. Your head snapped back however as another opened opposite it, hidden just behind the couple’s dais. 

You watched as a woman entered, her skin a rich brown and her eyes as dark as onyx. She wore a bejeweled scarf along her hairline, a swath of braids overflowing beautifully down her back. She walked with shoulders back and head high, the king emerged just behind her. Neither appeared happy.

You looked away at once, your eyes on the chair before you, where the prince would sit. The woman, the queen you assumed, Calla, whispered something as a chair scraped, followed by another. You felt the heat of another’s gaze and ignored it. Don’t look, don’t look. You knew it was Thor watching you, even with his new wife right beside him.

The king cleared his throat. “Bradin,” He called to the footman who shut the door they’d come through, “You may permit my guests to enter and have the kitchens commence with serving.”

Bradin voiced his acquiescence and descended from the dias to march across the hall. He had the doors opened and announced the commencement of the wedding feast, though all you could hear was the crowd without buzzing with impatience. You tilted your head and looked down to the double doors as the nobles began to pour in, you kept your attention on them to keep from acknowledging the king.

Loki appeared at the end of the table though you hadn’t seen him amid the influx. He traipsed along the empty chairs and dropped into his with a flourish. He let out a sigh and reached for his goblet, all courtesy for other guests was gone. He held up his cup, an emerald shone from his middle finger.

“Dear maid,” He called over his shoulder. “I daresay such tedium did make me thirsty.”

You stepped forward and poured. Loki turned his cup as you finished and glanced over at you. He leaned back in his chair as he craned to see you.

“I do like that colour,” He mused. “You might keep that dress.”

“Thank you, your highness,” You lowered your chin and set down the ewer before stepping back.

Loki sat straight and watched the other nobles as they searched around for their seats, directed by the servants in livery appointed to the task of sorting the bodies. It was some time before all had stilled and yet they continued to chatter. The ruckus continued until a horn blew from the front of the hall and all looked to find their king standing beside Bradin who held a twisted golden horn.

Thor squared his shoulders and peered staunchly around the room, his subjects in communal awe and shame. He barely looked a man on his wedding day. 

“I will make it brief as we’ve all been so impatient for this feast,” Thor began. “So I will do no more than welcome my wife and queen, Calla, to her new kingdom and home. May the fates make our marriage a long and prosperous one.”

He raised his glass to Calla and drank. Fandral stood to your right and cheered, encouraging the rest of the nobles to break out in an uproar, clinking their cups and hollering. Thor sat and his wife attempted a smile at him. You wondered how he’d so quickly built such a wall between them as the woman hid her irritation with a sip of her own wine.

Servants appeared with trays full of food and the frivolity began. Guests were all too happy to indulge in both drink and roasted elk. Loki picked at his plate as he seemed disinterested in much of the affair. He sent the occasional glance to his brother, you suspected to make sure he had not riled his wife, and then returned to poking at his supper.

He placed his fork down and beckoned you forth with a finger. He grabbed his cup and held it for you to fill. You took the pitcher and poured carefully. You felt a brush along your thigh and then fingertips pressed to your hip. You looked down as Loki gripped your hip and purred a thank you.

The pitcher hit the lip of the cup and you spill some onto the prince’s dark trouser. You righted the jug and set it down as you reached for the cloth napkin untouched on the table.

“I’m so sorry, your highness,” You sputtered. “I didn’t--”

You began to daub at his tunic hem where crimson droplets had speckled and your hand thoughtlessly slipped lower as you tried to mop up the rest in his lap. He grabbed your hand and held it against his crotch, just for a moment, then slowly nudged it away.

“Now, now, your thoroughness does exceed propriety,” He was smirking as you recoiled and his green eyes flitted over to the royal dais. “What shall people think?”

Your gaze followed his and you found Thor watching you. His expression told you he had witnessed the entire disastrous encounter. You wrung the napkin in your hands and apologized once more before you stepped back against the wall. Loki took another napkin and chuckled as he wiped himself dry.

You bit your lip as you stared at the legs of the prince’s chair. You wanted to dissolve into air. Wanted to be nothing. You fought not to show your distress. 

“Oh, my brother is a simple man,” Loki spoke over his shoulder, “Even a wife cannot distract him so long.”

You looked up again. Loki nodded to the royal table and once more you dared to peek. The king had one arm around the back of his wife’s chair and the other fought hers in her lap. He groped her thigh as he pressed his lips to her cheek. His assault was out of place as he barely seemed to notice her at the same time as his eyes clinged to yours. As your gaze met his, he grinned and hugged Calla until she slapped his arm.

“Oh, this might have been a disastrous mistake,” Loki sneered. “But it is no longer my mistake.”

You shook your head and glared at Loki. You weren’t surprised that this marriage was much more than political ploy for him but you were repulsed by how easily he used those around him. You were a servant, you were meant to be used but Thor? His own brother? For all your distaste of the lecherous king, you couldn’t help but pity his familial binds.

“More wine,” Loki called as he raised his cup again. “And this time, do try not to make such a mess.”

You came forward and filled his cup again. Your eyes went back to the dais without thinking. Thor still watched you and his grin only grew as he caught your gaze. The hand not thrust between his wife’s legs went to the back of her head and he turned her forcefully. He pushed his lips to hers, the entire time he never looked away from you. 

You weighed the pitcher and lowered your head.

“Your highness, I should fetch some more wine,” You raised the ewer as you spoke.

“Oh, please do,” Loki bid. “Before our king decides to consummate his marriage before the entire court.”

🌩️

The rest of the feast went on much the same. Loki kept finding reasons to call for more wine and his fingertips found new places to dance as his eyes taunted his brother. Thor was trouble enough as he harassed his own wife who was less than impressed by her new husband. You wondered if it were too late for her to absolve the union.

Thor and Calla’s departure marked the end of the day and at last the guests could retire, many drunk and stumbling. You were starting to think they cared more for the nine courses and casks of wine than their own king.

You followed Loki through the corridors, weaving past the inebriated and the loitering. He seemed little affected by his indulgences or the evening as a whole. Yet the more you stared at his shoulders, you found yourself wholly irritated by him and the royal will. 

You were tired of it all; you didn’t want to be another plaything for these spoiled brats, you’d only come to sweep and change linens. You were entirely ill-fit to do both.

Loki swept into his chambers and you closed the door behind him. He went to the chaise and sat heavily, leaning on his hands as he looked at you and smirked.

“What a night. More amusing than I could have expected.” He said.

You didn’t say anything. You stared back at him and he lifted a brow.

“What is it? You do seem to be holding something back, dear maid?”

“No, your highness,” You lied as you folded your hands together. “I am merely awaiting my next task.”

“I prefer boldness to impertinence,” Loki’s smirk fell, “So I suggest you speak whatever has turned you so sour.”

“I am only curious, shall I ready your bed? Draw you a bath?” You hissed, filled with a haughty breath. “Or perhaps you are more like your brother than you would admit and you’d prefer me on my knees?”

Loki blinked and his lips parted. He nodded and hummed as he considered you. He stood, slowly. His steps were deliberate as he neared and stopped before you. He reached up and played with the collar of the dress around your neck. He leaned in and lowered his voice.

“Not tonight.” He said, “This has been quite the day. You are exhausted. You are not thinking.” He took your chin between his index and thumb and made you look him in the eye. “I command you to go and rest for there will soon be another day upon us and much work to do still.”

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Eccentricity [Chapter 14: Love Keeps The Monsters From Our Door] [Series Finale]

A/N: Thank you for your encouragement, enthusiasm, laughter, rants, screeches of anguish, and unapologetic thirsting for “sexy undead Italian man” Joseph Francis Mazzello. I hope you love this conclusion more than Baby Swan loves pineapple pizza. 💜

Series Summary: Potentially a better love story than Twilight?

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “Til I Die” by Parsonsfield. (The #1 song I associate with this fic!)

Chapter Warnings: Language.

Word Count: 7.7k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence @some-major-ishues @haileymorelikestupid @youngpastafanmug @simonedk @rhapsodyrecs​

Mercy

We have to stay in the Vladivostok palace until her transformation is complete, and I hate it.

The floors are cold and sterile and every clang of noise ricochets off them like a bullet. The earth outside is stripped bare and hibernal. There is no green to interrupt the bleakness of the sky, the cruel absence of color: no spruces or hemlocks or bigleaf maples, no evergreen forests, no verdant fields, only a grey that bleeds from the sky in sheets of hail and driving rain. This land is a stranger. So many of the faces, too, are strangers, although they try. Honora sits with me—her large dark eyes, like mirrors of mine, polished and wet with aching pity—and braids my hair. Morana invites me to bake homemade bread with her. Austin tries to make me smile. Cato visits me as much as he can, because he feels responsible; or maybe he would do it anyway, maybe lessening suffering is as instinctual to him as bloodshed is to so many of our kind. And when Cato is with me, I do feel a little better, like my story might belong to somebody else, like it’s a name I can’t quite remember, like it’s a transitory moment of déjà vu I can catch glimpses of but never touch. And yet, still, I send him away.  

I don’t want to be with Cato. It’s painful for him to be around me, I can see that. It’s painful for Rami, and for Ben, and for Joe, and for Lucy and Scarlett. It’s even painful for the Irish Wolfhounds that Cato found locked up for safekeeping in Larkin’s study; they skulk around the palace vigilantly but leave great swaths of uninterrupted space around me like open water. So I conjure up a mask of brave, hopeful acceptance and wear it everywhere I go.

Joe says very little, never leaves the girl he calls Baby Swan’s side, dabs her scorching skin with washcloths soaked in ice water and murmurs in sympathy when she screams through the unconsciousness, from beneath the ocean of fire we all know so well. He nods off sometimes, snatching minutes of sleep like fireflies in a jar, before jolting awake to make sure her heart is still beating. When Ben isn’t checking on them, he’s with Cato, helping to draw up plans for the future, reminiscing about the past with slick eyes and clinking midnight glasses of whiskey. Scarlett sprawls across the desk in what was once Larkin’s study and spends hours on the phone with Archer as she gazes up at the ceiling, telling him how to care for the farm animals and the garden, reassuring him that we’ll be home soon, whispering things to him that I try not to hear; and I know she wouldn’t want me to anyway. Lucy weeps delicate, ceaseless tears as she perches on the staircase landing and Rami entombs her in his arms, never having to ask what she needs from him. And I wander meaninglessly through the echoing, unfamiliar hallways like a moon without a planet.

I know what they all think about me, perhaps even Rami, for I keep it buried as deep as all skeletons should be: that I’m irrevocably kind, effortlessly forgiving. That I’m as incapable of bitterness as I am of aging. But they’re wrong. It’s a choice, and it always has been, ever since a late-November dusk in 1864 when madness eclipsed mercy. Every day I choose whether to surrender to the beckoning, malignant hatred that lurks in the back of my bedroom closet, in the dusty and ill-lit loft of the barn roped with cobwebs, in the twilight tree line of the western hemlocks crawling with shadows that whisper through fanged teeth. Every day I decide whether to become a monster. And it has never been harder to remember why I don’t.

My future is unimaginable. The nights are endless. I feel black, razored seeds of what I am horrified must be bitterness burrowing beneath my skin and taking root there. I am consumed by infected, fruitless questions that I can’t silence: Why Gwilym? Why Arthur? Why Eliza and Charlotte? Why is it always fire?

The first words that Gwilym ever spoke to me, as I unraveled from unconsciousness under a grove of sycamore trees with smoke still clinging to my unscarred skin, rattle around in my skull like windchimes beneath thunderous skies. His voice was colored with an accent I couldn’t place, and yet it sounded like home: You’re in a dark place right now. But you don’t have to stay there.

That might have been true once. That might have been true in the ruinous autumn of 1864. But now I can’t find my way out.

Seventy-three hours after our arrival in this barren corner of the world, Charlie Swan’s daughter  wakes up as a vampire. Her heart is perfectly still, her skin faultless, her senses sharp, her mind as impenetrable as ever; at least, that’s what Lucy says when she finds me. And Lucy tugs at my hand, wearing her first smile in days, insisting that I have to come meet the newest member of our coven, to welcome her. I don’t know how to tell Lucy that I’m afraid I don’t have it in me to love this girl, that I don’t have it in me to love anyone but ghosts. And yet—compliantly, yieldingly, expecting nothing but disappointment in the monster I have become—I follow her.

The door is already open to the Swan girl’s room; chattering, beaming vampires flood in and out like the tides. I step inside. And I see the way that Joe looks at her, the way that Ben does; and all those seeds that I had feared might be bitterness blossom into nothing but open air.

It’s Not A Fucking Wedding (A.K.A. 13.5 Months Later)

The ocean is a universe. Its arms are not ever-expanding, spiraling galaxies of suns and planets and nebulae and black holes, this is true; its belly is not a vacuum of inhospitable oblivion, its bones are not invisible strings of gravity, its language is not a silence older than starlight, older than eternity. But the ocean is a universe nonetheless, its borders tucked neatly around the seven continents, slumbering there until the next hurricane or tsunami or ice age comes conquering; and inevitably equilibrium is restored—like defibrillator paddles to a heart, like naloxone to an addict’s blood—and our two worlds can coexist side by side once again.  

The ocean’s arms are sighing waves, bubbling and brisk, grasping and retreating in the same breath. Its belly is swollen with life from immense blue whales down to swarming clouds of single-celled, sun-hungry phytoplankton. Its language is ancient whispers; not parched and blistering and brittle sounds like the desert’s but cool, serene, supple, engulfing. And I can hear them all, if I listen closely enough. I can hear the sentient whistling of orcas, the breaking of waves against rocks, the scrabbling of sand crabs beneath the earth, the gruff distant barks of sea lions, the rustling of evergreen pine needles in the breeze. And I understand now why it was always so easy for vampires to be introspective, to lapse into thoughtful, unhurried silences. I could imagine spending decades just sitting here with my knees tucked to my chest and my hair whipping in the brackish wind, watching the seasons roll by like a wheel.

Joe was coming back from the gravel parking lot. I turned to watch him: red U Chicago hoodie, messy dark auburn-ish hair, a pizza box clasped in his hands. The GrubHub delivery driver was returning to his car with the toothiest of grins.

“Buon appetito!” Joe announced, dramatically presenting me with the pizza box. It had become our post-finals tradition each semester: pizza at La Push beach, half-pepperoni, half-pineapple.

“Grazie, sexy undead Italian man. Your accent is getting so good!”

“I know, right?! I’m on a twelve-day Duolingo streak. I can’t let that little green owl dude down.”

“I’m impressed, I’ll admit it. I gotta brush up on my Welsh. Why’s the GrubHub driver so cheery?”

“I tipped him $500.”

I smiled, opening the box and lifting out a semi-warm slice of pineapple pizza. Elastic strands of mozzarella cheese stretched like rubber bands until they snapped. “Aww, really?”

Joe plopped down onto the cool, damp sand beside me. “No. I lied. We’re actually having a torrid love affair.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “How could you possibly have time for all that?” Between school, business ventures, family activities, and me, Joe was very rarely unoccupied. And he preferred it that way.

“I’m so glad you asked. I’m very speedy, if you recall. And that’s just one of the exclusive services I offer. I am a man of many talents. I make people’s wildest dreams come true. Who am I to deny the GrubHub delivery man the wonderland that is my spindly, annoying body?”  

“You are the fastest,” I said, winking.

“Oh shut up! I mean, uh, uhhh, silenzio!” He pointed his slice of pepperoni pizza at me reproachfully. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not the fastest at everything.”

“Whatever you say, mob guy.”

He lunged for me, pinned me down in the crumbling sand, both of us laughing wildly as the crusts of our pizza slices bounded off and were snatched up by diving, screeching seagulls. He growled with mock savagery, braced his hips against mine, kissed his way from the corner of my jaw to my lips. That oh-so-familiar commanding, craving ache for him came roaring to the surface; and now there was no bittersweet edge to it, no inescapable backdrop of lambent numbers ticking down from five or ten or fifteen years to zero. Now there was only the calm, unurgent promise of forever.

“Joe—!”

“You have besmirched my honor, Baby Swan. I am left with no recourse but to refresh your clearly flawed memory and prove you wrong.”

“Public indecency? That’s illegal, sir.”

“Okay, you gotta stop stealing my catchphrases. It’s extremely difficult for me to come up with new ones. I’m almost a hundred years old, you know.”

“Alright, I guess you’re not bad in bed for a basically-centenarian.”

He smiled down at me, his dark eyes alight, the wind tearing through his hair, one palm resting on my forehead, uncharacteristically quiet.

“What?” I asked, worried.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just really glad we’re a thing.”

“You better be. You’re kind of stuck with me now. You’ve stolen my virtue, you’ve made me fall in love with your entire demented family, you’ve forced your torturous immortality upon me. I’m not going anywhere. Unless you ever stop funding my pineapple pizza addiction, of course.”

Joe chuckled as he climbed off me and took my hand in his, pulling me upright. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, by the way. Your insistence on being a sort-of vegetarian. It’s embarrassing. You’re the wimpiest vampire ever. You’re a disgrace to the coven.”

“I eat animals!” I objected.

“Yeah, when you have to.” And Joe was right: I steered clear of flesh outside of the two or three times a week when I hunted. For environmental sustainability reasons, I mostly consumed deer or rabbits; although the very occasional shark was my guilty pleasure. Joe gnawed on his second slice of pizza and peered out into the overcast, dusky horizon, wiping crumbs from his stubbled chin with the back of his hand. “We only have one more of these left,” he said at last, a little sadly. “One more finals season at Calawah University. One more celebratory dinner at La Push.”

“We’ll just have to get used to a new view. Pizza by the Chicago River, maybe.”

Joe looked over at me, thoughtful again, smiling. He had received his acceptance letter to the University of Chicago three weeks ago. I got mine eight days later. “It won’t be hard for you to leave Forks?”

“It will be. Once upon a time I didn’t think that was possible, but I will miss Forks. And not just because of Charlie and Archer and Jessica and Angela and all the Lees. But it was hard to leave Phoenix, and I’m sure one day it will be hard to leave Chicago. Just because change is hard doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.”

Joe nodded introspectively. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

“Don’t quote classic rock songs at me, mixtapes boy.”

“You love my mixtapes,” he teased, circling his left arm around my waist, pulling me in closer, touching his lips to my forehead. Mint and pine and starlight sank into my lungs like an anchor through the surf. “And that saying actually goes all the way back to Seneca, my dear.”

“Don’t tell me he’s still philosophizing in some cloudy corner of the world somewhere.”

“Not to my knowledge. Although that’s an intriguing thought. We need more famous vampires. Caligula would have made for very interesting conversation. Lincoln, Napoleon, Cleopatra, Shakespeare, Dante...I guess it’s possible that anyone is still around. Maybe we should turn Meat Loaf. You know, for the good of posterity.”

“Is it not enough that they’re already cursed with student debt and global warming?”

Joe cackled, took my face in his palms, kissed each of my cheeks one after the other, then nudged my nose with his. “You ready to go, Baby Swan? I suspect we’re expected to participate in some holiday festivities tonight.”

“I’m ready,” I agreed. We threw our leftover pizza to the seagulls, disposed of the grease-spotted cardboard box, and walked back to my 1999 Honda Accord with our pulseless hands intertwined.

The evergreen trees along Routh 110 fled by beneath a sky freckling with stars. Sharp winter air poured in through the open windows. And I could feel that it was cold, in the same way that I could feel the warmth on Forks’ rare sweltering days; but there was no discomfort that accompanied that knowledge. Pain only came when the sky was unincumbered by thick clouds churning in off the Pacific, and then it felt something like staring into the sun had as a human. Sunglasses helped, but the surest remedy was avoidance, was surrender. And what an inconsequential price to pay for forever.

“Wait,” I said, spying the mailbox that marked the start of the Lees’ driveway. “They still deliver mail on Christmas Eve, right?”

“Uh, I think so, why...?” And then he remembered. “Oh, yeah, let’s check!”

I pulled up beside the mailbox and Joe leaned out, returning to his seat with a mountain of Christmas cards and business correspondence and advertisements from Costco and Sephora. He sifted through them until he found a single white envelope from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. It was addressed to a Mr. Benjamin August Hardy. Joe held it up to show me as we drove down the driveway, the Lee house coming into view and ornamented with a frankly excessive amount of multicolored string lights and inflatable reindeer.

“Oh my god!” I squealed, drumming the steering wheel.

“You want to be the one to give it to him?”

“Are you serious?! Yeah, can I?”

Joe passed the envelope to me as I parked my geriatric Honda, which Archer had pledged to keep alive as long as physically possible. In return, Ben let him and Scarlett borrow the Aston Martin Vantage no less than once a week. I dashed out of the car, up the steps of the front porch, and into the house that bubbled over with the sounds of metallic kitchen clashes and frenetic voices and Wham!’s Last Christmas.

“Ben?!” I shouted.

“Hi, honey!” Mercy called from the living room, where she and Lucy were putting the final touches on Scarlett’s gown. Scarlett was playing the part of semi-willing victim, wearing gold heels and an impatient smirk and her hair out of the way in a milkmaid braid; her train of vivid red lace billowed across the hardwood floor. From the couch, Archer and Rami were playing Mario Kart on the big-screen tv and nibbling their way through a tray of homemade gingerbread cookies.

“Oh wow,” I said, clutching the envelope to my chest, mesmerized. I kept waiting for Scarlett to start looking like a normal person to me, and it never happened. Tonight, in the glow of the flameless candles and kaleidoscopic Christmas lights and draped in lace the color of pomegranate seeds, she was Persephone: a goddess of resurrection, a face that death himself could not pass by unscathed. “You’ve outdone yourself, Lucy. Seriously.”

“One day I’m going to get you out of those thrift shop sweaters,” Lucy threatened me, placing a pin in the fabric at Scarlett’s waist.

“Yeah, okay. Let me know when that shows up in one of your visions.”

“Bitch,” Lucy flung back, snickering, knowing how improbable that was. I still appeared in her visions extremely infrequently, and then only when I happened to be standing next to whoever the premonition was actually about.

“Language, dear,” Mercy tutted, inspecting the hem of Scarlett’s gown.

Joe arrived beside me, his arms still full of mail. “ScarJo, I almost didn’t recognize you! Why do you have, like, no cleavage or fishnets or thigh slits?”

“Why do you have like no eyelashes?” Scarlett replied. “See, I can ask unnecessary and invasive questions too.”

Joe frowned, wounded. “What’s wrong with my eyelashes?”

“Lucy, darling, I think it’s just a tad uneven on this side,” Mercy said, showing her. “Maybe by half an inch...?”

“No, seriously, what’s wrong with my eyelashes?!”

Mercy replied distractedly: “Nothing, honey, you’re perfect just the way you are.”

“Mom!” Joe groaned.

“It really is gorgeous,” Mercy marveled as Lucy flitted around her to investigate the hem situation. “And so Christmasy. So perfect for the season. Scarlett, dear, you were right after all, and I’m so sorry for doubting you. I’d just never heard of a red wedding dress before.”

“Mom, it’s not a fucking wedding!” Scarlett exclaimed, for probably the thirtieth time since Thanksgiving. “It’s a nonbinding, informal celebration of an egalitarian romantic partnership. Will somebody please inform this woman that it’s not a wedding?!”

“Yes, yes, of course, whatever you want, sweetheart,” Mercy conceded dreamily.

Joe pointed to Archer. “Isn’t he supposed to not see the dress until the day of or something?”

“What a great question!” Archer replied, still deeply invested in Mario Kart. “You see, that would be the case if this was a wedding. However, I’ve been informed in no uncertain terms that it is most definitely not.”

Scarlett grinned triumphantly at Joe. “There you have it.”

She might snap petulantly, and she might complain, but Scarlett wouldn’t be doing this if she didn’t want to; we were all intimately familiar with the futility of trying to force Scarlett into anything. The not-wedding, as improbable as it seemed, had been her idea from the start. And she wasn’t doing it for herself. She wasn’t even doing it for Archer. Scarlett was doing it for her mother.

The first six months had been hell for Mercy. She didn’t resent me, as I had feared she might; Mercy made that clear, and Rami confirmed it. But she was gutted. She wouldn’t speak of Gwil, wouldn’t listen to us talk about him, locked every photograph of him away in dark drawers, wandered around with a remote, uncanny, unseeing smile until she walked straight into walls; and then she would blink inanely up at them, as if they had dropped out of the sky rather than been built by her own hands. She baked hundreds of cakes and almost never slept. She told us she was fine every time we asked, which was more or less constantly. But on the very rare occasions when she was left alone, Mercy would unfailingly end up in the field behind the Lee house, gazing out into the forest of western hemlock trees with tears snaking silently down her cheeks, the muted light of the cloud-covered setting sun flickering red and furious on her face like wildfire.

And then one afternoon, a package had arrived from Arviat, Canada, where Cato and the rest of the surviving Draghi had relocated shortly after the rebellion at Vladivostok. It was five feet tall and another three wide, and what we found after carefully peeling away all those layers of foam padding and packing tape was a portrait of Gwilym so skillfully painted that it could have been mistaken for a photograph. Mercy had stared at it for a long time—ignoring Lucy’s attempts to guide her away, deaf to any of our concerns—until she at last picked up the portrait herself and said, quite evenly: “I think we should hang it in the living room, don’t you?”

Things had been better since then—very, very gradually, and yet unmistakably—and Gwil’s portrait remained mounted above the living room couch like a watchman, his eyes sparkling and blue, his faint smile stoic and fond and omniscient. But even in the wake of Mercy’s continued improvement, none of us kids were about to risk another agonizingly despondent Christmas. So the solution was obvious. We would keep Mercy preoccupied with what thrilled her more than absolutely anything else: the pseudo-weddings of her children. Rami and Lucy had already secretly volunteered to go next year...and after that, who knew? And there was one other thing that was making Mercy’s burden a little lighter these days.

Charlie sauntered into the living room, wearing an apron covered in cartwheeling Santas and wiping white dust like snow—powdered sugar? flour? baking soda?—from his ungainly hands. He was palpably proud. “The sugar cookies are officially in the oven. And I managed to fit them all on one baking sheet, isn’t that great?! Cuts down on dishes!”

“Why, yes, I suppose it does!” Mercy said, alarm dawning in her eyes. Had my beloved father placed the globs of dough too close together? Would we end up with one hideous, giant monster-cookie? Only time would tell. Providentially, Archer and Joe could be counted on to eat just about anything.

Joe sniffed the air, his forehead crinkling. “What’s burning?”

“Nothing should be burning,” Mercy replied, almost defensive, forever protective of Charlie and all of his profound, incurably human imperfections. Sometimes I thought that she preferred him that way, that he was a link to a simpler world in the same way I had once been, that he was a puddle of memory she could drop into, that maybe he wasn’t so unlike her first husband Arthur. “Not yet, anyway. The cookies need at least ten to twelve minutes at 350.”

“Wait, 350?!” Charlie exclaimed, horrorstruck. “I thought you said 450!”

“Oh, this is tragic,” Scarlett said.  

“I can fix it!” Mercy trilled buoyantly, breezing off to the kitchen as Charlie followed after her with a fountain of apologies. She shushed them away affectionately, patting his chest with her soft plump hands, chuckling about how luckily they had fire extinguishers stowed away in almost every closet just in case. And there were other reasons for that besides Charlie’s perilous baking attempts, but he didn’t know them. Now the record player was belting out Queen’s Thank God It’s Christmas.  

Archer lost another round in Mario Kart and exhaled a great, mournful sigh. “Hey, Baby Swanpire, can you do something about this guy?” He nodded to Rami. “This is criminal. It’s nowhere near a fair fight. He knows every freaking time I’m about to toss a banana peel.”

Rami smirked guiltily up at me from the couch, not bothering to deny it.

“Do you mind?” I asked him.

“Not at all,” Rami replied. “I want to show this loser I can beat him even without the benefit of mega-cool extrasensory superpowers.”

“Rude!” Archer cried.

“So rude,” Scarlett agreed, smiling.

“Okay, here we go.” I sat down beside Rami, still holding Ben’s envelope in my right hand, and laid my left against Rami’s cheek. And I felt a fistful of numbness—like instant peace, like milk-white Novocain—pass from my skin into his, rolling into his skull, deadening whatever telepathic livewires had been ignited there in the August of 1916. The effect would last anywhere from thirty minutes to a few hours; and it worked on every vampire I’d met so far.

“Whoa, trippy,” Rami murmured. “It’s still weird, every single time.” He peered drowsily around the room. “It’s...so...quiet?! You guys really live like this? No one is constantly bombarding you with sexual fantasies or romantic pining or depressive inner monologues? How do you function?! Now I’m alone with my own thoughts, that’s actually worse!”

“Hurry up and beat him while he’s all freaked out and vulnerable,” Scarlett told Archer.

Archer laughed, picking up his Nintendo 64 controller, radiant with the promise of vengeance. “Yes ma’am.”

“Any good mail?” Lucy asked Joe.

“Yeah. Coupons and a ton of Christmas cards from random people. The vet sent us one with alpacas on it, so that’s cute. Oh, and here’s one from our favorite Canadians.”

Joe held up the card so we could all see. The picture on the front showed Cato and Honora sitting on a large velvet, forest green couch with a hulking Christmas tree illuminated in the background. The others were arranged around them: Austin, Max, Ksenia, Charity, Araminta, Akari, Morana, Phelan, Aruna, Adair, Zora, Sahel, and a few new faces I couldn’t name yet. They were all wearing matching turtleneck sweaters. And every single one of them was smiling.

Joe cleared his throat theatrically and read the text on the inside of the card:

“Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

(Oh, and Scarlett, congratulations on your not-marriage.)

- Cato Douglass Freeman”

“That bastard,” Scarlett muttered.

Rami offered me his controller. He had just slipped on a banana peel and rocketed off a cliff. “You want a turn?”

“No, thanks though. I have to talk to Ben. Is he around?”

Rami shrugged ruefully. “I would help, but my brain is temporarily broken.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes, taking a gingerbread cookie from the tray and biting into it as Lucy batted crumbs from the red lace dress, exasperated. “I think he’s out in the hot tub.”

“Cool. I shall return.”

Joe took my spot on the couch as I departed, shoveling cookies into his mouth, seizing Rami’s controller and kicking his feet up on the coffee table.

I opened the door to the back porch, and frigid December air rushed in like an uninvited guest. The field was coated with a thin layer of snow, the animals safe and warm in the barn, the garden slumbering. And in the spring and summer, when blossoms of a dozen different varieties came open beneath the drizzling grey skies, Mercy’s calla lilies didn’t bother my allergies at all. Nothing did anymore. Ben was indeed in the hot tub, puffing on his vape pen, wearing only a beanie hat and swim trunks.

“What flavor is that cartridge?” I asked as I approached. “Gummy bear?”

“Close. Strawberry doughnut.”

“Ohhhh, yum!” Ben passed me the vape pen, and I took a drag as I kicked off my boots and sat near him on the rim of the hot tub, slipping my bare feet beneath the steaming, roiling water. Then I handed his vape pen back. “So. Guess what I have for you.”

“Uh.” He glanced at the envelope. “Jury duty.”

“Better.”

“Someone I hate has jury duty.”

I flipped the envelope around so he could see the University of Chicago logo on the front.

“Oh god,” Ben moaned.

“Don’t you want to see what it says?”

“Not really,” he admitted, grimacing.

“Come on, Ben. Open it.”

“Nah.”

“Why not?!”

Ben sighed. “Look, if I open it and it’s bad news, it’s gonna make Christmas weird. Rami will know. They’ll all know. They’ll all feel bad for me and it’ll be pathetic and depressing and awkward. You can look if you want to, just don’t tell anyone else yet.”

“It’s not going to be bad news,” I said, tugging at the floppy top of his beanie hat. He swatted my hand away, but he was smiling grudgingly.

“You have positively no way of knowing that. Unless Lucy’s had a vision I’m unaware of.”

“She hasn’t. You know she never sees anything important.”

“She saw you coming,” Ben countered.

“She saw human-me and Joe in love and gobbling down pretzels at a Cubs game. So I’d say there were at least a few minor details missing.”

“There’s no way I got in,” Ben said, his green eyes slick and fearful and now fixed on the envelope. “We can’t all be geniuses like you.”

“That’s an unfair accusation. I’m far from genius. I’m just obsessed with the ocean.” I’d written my senior thesis on the feeding habits of Pacific angelsharks, and my advisor was still trying to figure out how I, an amateur scuba diver at best, had managed to get so many quality photographs with my underwater camera. The secret, of course, was superhuman agility and not needing to breathe.

“I fucking hate calculus. The MCAT wrecked me. I got a 517.”

“And their median score is a 519, so I’d say you still have a fighting chance. Plus you have like eight million volunteer hours.” Ben had spent the vast majority of the past year either in class or at the hospital. The psychiatrist-in-chief, Dr. Siegel, had been more than happy to take one of Gwil’s foster children under her wing. Every human in Forks except Archer believed that Dr. Gwilym Lee had drowned in a tragic boating accident while he and Mercy were on vacation in Southern California, and that his body had never been recovered. The town had held a wonderful remembrance ceremony and dedicated a free clinic at the hospital in his honor. “Now open it.”

“You do it,” Ben relented finally. “My hands are wet. Go ahead, open it up and tell me what it says. And then kindly euthanize me to end my immortal shame.”

“That wouldn’t work,” I pointed out, tearing open the envelope. I pulled out the tri-folded piece of paper inside, flattened it against my thighs, and read the typed black text.

“...Well?” Ben pressed, vaping frantically.

I looked up and smiled at him.

“No way,” he whispered.

“I hope you like pretzels and bear-themed baseball teams, grandpa.”

And for a second, I thought he might bolt up out of the hot tub, hooting victoriously, splashing water all over the back porch as he danced around bellowing that he’d gotten into one of the best medical schools in the world, that he would be following me and Joe to Chicago. But that wasn’t Ben. Instead, a slow smile rippled across his face: it was small, but perfectly genuine. Pure, even.

“Goddamn,” he said, watching me. Venom doesn’t just resurrect or ruin; it forms a bond that is simultaneously intangible and yet immense. It’s an evolutionary adaptation, a way to facilitate stability and the building of covens in an often violent and ruleless world. And now that he had turned me, Ben had family here in Forks in more ways than one.

“Gwil would be so proud of you, Ben.”

“I hope so. I really do.”

The back door of the house opened, and Joe stepped outside. He studied Ben for a moment, and that was all it took for him to know. “Benny!” he shouted, elated.

“I know, I know. Fortunately, I look amazing in red. Thanks, supermodel genes.”

“This is going to be so fun!” Joe said, sprinting over to wrap Ben—who was characteristically lukewarm on this whole physical displays of affection business—in a hug from just outside the hot tub. “We’re going to go furniture shopping, and eat deep-dish pizza, and find apartments right next to each other, and mail home Chicago-themed care packages, and get you hooked up with some gorgeous Italian woman...or whatever you like, I guess I shouldn’t assume. Women. Men. Gang members. Marine mammals. Jessicas. Whatever. There are options.”

Ben laughed as he playfully shoved Joe away. “Sounds like a plan, pagliaccio.”

“Oh my god, stop learning Italian without me! You realize you have to tell Mom now.”

“I will,” Ben agreed, with some trepidation. “I’ll wait until after Christmas.”

“It’ll be hard for her,” I said. “But she knows it’s what you want. She knows it’s what’s best for you. So she’ll get through it. I think it would be worse for her if you didn’t get in, if she had to see you unhappy.”

Ben nodded, exhaling strawberry-doughnut-flavored vapor, gazing up at the stars, Orion and Auriga and Lynx and Perseus reflected in his thoughtful jade eyes. “She’ll still have Rami and Lucy and Scarlett here with her. And Archer. And Charlie.”

“Especially Charlie,” Joe said, grinning.

Mercy would have to leave Forks eventually, of course. The Lees had already been here for nearly four years; they could stay another ten, perhaps fifteen at the absolute maximum. And there had been a time when ten or fifteen years seemed like quite a while to me, but now it felt like I could doze off one afternoon and wake up on the other side of it, like swimming a lap in the sun-drenched public pool back in Phoenix. We would find a new home somewhere after Joe and I finished our PhDs, after Ben finished medical school, maybe Vancouver or Buffalo or Amsterdam or Edinburgh or Dublin or Reykjavik. Wherever we went, I hoped it wouldn’t be far from the sea. But Mercy couldn’t bear to leave Forks yet. It was the last home she had shared with Gwil, the last house they would ever build together, and leaving it would make his loss all the more irrevocable. She would be ready to leave someday, but not today.

In the meantime, there would still be visits for breaks and holidays. Scarlett and Archer had the shop to keep them busy, a brand new eight-car garage that held a virtual monopoly on both the Forks and Quileute communities. Lucy had opened a bohemian-style clothing boutique downtown, which confounded most of the locals but attracted more adventurous customers from as far away as Seattle. Rami was interning for a local immigration lawyer and entertaining the possibility of applying to U Chicago’s law school in another few years. And Mercy had the farm; and she had Charlie. He had asked her for cooking lessons to try to help rouse her a few months after Gwil’s death, and it had grown from there. If it wasn’t romantic just yet, I believed it would be soon. And there were moments when I thought my father might have figured something out, when his eyes narrowed and lingered on me just a little too long, when his brow knitted into suspicious, searching lines, when the hairs rose on the back of his neck and some innate insight whispered that we weren’t like him and never could be again. But then he would chuckle, shake his head, and say: “You’ve gotten weird, my gorgeous, brilliant progeny. But Forks looks pretty good on you.”

“Can I talk to you upstairs?” Joe asked me suddenly; and did I see restless nerves flicker in his dark eyes? I thought I did.

“Sure,” I replied, climbing down from the hot tub. “Ben, are you coming inside? My dad is trying to bake Christmas cookies and failing miserably. It’s pretty hilarious. Not that you should be the one to critique other people’s kitchen-related accidents.”

“I do enjoy your company a lot more now that I don’t want to murder you and slurp you down like a Chick-fil-A milkshake,” Ben said. “Yeah, give me a few minutes and I’ll be there.” And as Joe and I headed into the house, I saw Ben pick up the acceptance letter that I’d left on the rim of the hot tub and read it for himself with incredulous eyes, grappling with the irrefutable fact that it was his name on the opening line, that he had somewhere along the way become the sort of man who dedicated his immortality to saving lives rather than ending them.

In the living room, Scarlett was back in her yoga pants and absolutely brutalizing Archer in Mario Kart. Rami and Lucy were entwined together on the loveseat, murmuring, giggling, feeding each other pieces of gingerbread cookies. In the kitchen, Charlie was leading Mercy in a clumsy waltz to Meat Loaf’s I’d Do Anything For Love, and each time he fumbled his steps or mortifyingly trod on her feet she would cry out in a peal of laughter brighter than the sun she had learned to live without. Joe spirited me up the staircase, into his bedroom—which, honestly, was more like our bedroom now, in the same way that my room in Charlie’s house had become Joe’s as well—and closed the door.

“You’re in luck,” he said. “Your dad totally ruined our song. Now I can’t hear it without thinking about some moustached guy in plaid trying to seduce my mom.”

“It’s the best Christmas gift I could ever ask for. Meat Loaf is vanquished. Oh, just so you’re aware, Renee and Paul are getting an Airbnb and coming up for New Years.”

“Cool. Do they still think I have a super embarrassing sunlight allergy and will break into hives and asphyxiate and that’s why we can’t visit them in Florida?”

“Yup.”

“Spectacular. Also, can you please tell me what’s wrong with my eyelashes?”

“They’re just a little sparse, amore. But I still like you.”

“Well, I am only moderately attractive, you know.” Then Joe steeled himself, taking a deep breath. Uh oh. He was definitely nervous. I still couldn’t believe I had the power to make him that way, but here we were. “So I get that we’re doing presents with the whole family tomorrow morning, and you do have some under the tree, so don’t worry about that. But there’s one I wanted to give to you alone. You know. With just us. Without an audience. Or whatever.”

“...Okay...?” A secret gift? A naughty gift? “I hope it’s a new vibrator.”

“Shut up,” Joe begged, laughing. “Here.” He reached into the drawer of his nightstand—our nightstand—and produced a small blue box topped with a turquoise bow. It wasn’t a ring, I was sure of that; I didn’t feel especially attached to the idea of marriage, and neither did Joe to my knowledge. How could rings or papers seal commitment when you already had eternity? I was right: the mysterious present was not a ring. When I removed the lid and emptied the box into my palm, what appeared there was a small plastic airplane.

“What is this?” I asked, amused but puzzled.

“Are you not college educated? It’s a plane.”

“Well, yeah, I can see that. But it’s also like two inches long.” I scrutinized the plane. “Are you magically transforming me into a tiny, tiny, little plastic person? Is that my gift? Because I actually got you something good.” And I really did: there was a collection of vintage Chicago Cubs photographs from the 1910s and 20s downstairs under the Christmas tree, packaged in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer wrapping paper.

“We’re going on a trip,” Joe said, grinning. “The day after Christmas. It’s just a short trip, nothing huge, don’t get too excited, we’re not going to Mt. Everest or Antarctica or anything. I think you’ll still like it. But I don’t want you to know where we’re going until we’re there.”

“How will that work? Considering the tickets and signage and pilot announcements and obnoxiously noisy other passengers and all.”

“ScarJo’s going to fly us.”

“Really?!” We were taking the jet. We almost never used the jet. “What’s in it for Scarlett?”

“She found out that Archer’s never had In-N-Out Burger before and is very much looking forward to initiating him into the cult of deliciousness.”

“Oh nice. I could go for a vanilla milkshake myself, now that Ben mentioned them.”  

“Obviously I’m gonna buy you all the milkshakes and animal-style fries you want. Bankrupt me, bitch. But we have to get one other thing taken care of first.”

“So it’s somewhere they have In-N-Out Burger...” I pondered aloud. California? Texas? Las Vegas? I felt a brief but unambiguous pang of homesickness for Phoenix. But there was nothing there for me anymore.

“Stop,” Joe pleaded. “I’m sorry. I’ve already said too much. Please forget that. Get a traumatic brain injury or oxygen deprivation or something.”

“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m rather indestructible at the moment.”

He smiled wistfully. “I wouldn’t want you to be any other way.”

There was laughter downstairs in the living room. I could detect the aroma of a fresh batch of sugar cookies baking in the kitchen, mingling with the cold night air and pine trees and peppermint candy canes. I loved Christmas. The entire world smelled like Joe. The U Chicago décor, classic rock posters, and Italian flag were now interspersed with National Geographic pages and photos of the two of us together. The Official Whatever You Want Pass hung in a small, square picture frame on the wall above Joe’s bed. Our bed.

“How real is it, Joe?” I asked quietly. I climbed onto my tiptoes, linking my hands around the back of his neck with the tiny plane still tucked between my fingers. “Seriously. The wishes thing.”

“The world may never know. Akari never met me as a human, so she wouldn’t be able to say. But if I had to place a bet...” He shrugged, grinning craftily. “Kinda real. Kinda not real. Just like vampires, I guess.”

“I am alarmingly glad that you’re real, mob guy,” I said, abruptly somber. “I never thought I’d meet someone who saw me as remarkable, who could make me see myself that way. And it’s miraculous. And it’s terrifying too, honestly. Being a thing with you. Falling for someone you could have for centuries and lose in a second.”

“It’s the scariest thing there is,” Joe concurred, taking my hand to lead me back downstairs.

Joseph

Scarlett looks like a goddess, and she knows it. But she’s not one of those magnanimous, fragile, harp-plucking, pastel-colored goddesses. She’s ferocity and wildness and crimson like blood, and that’s exactly why Archer loves her. And as they stand in front of the Christmas tree with their hands clasped together—ivory on bronze, snow on sun—with matching sprigs of holly in Scarlett’s hair and pinned to the jacket of Archer’s suit, reciting truths but no promises, I can’t help but watch the other faces in the room: Rami, Lucy, Ben, Charlie, Mom with her beaming smile and shining eyes, the woman I met sixteen months ago and now can’t fathom life without. And it occurs to me for the first time that love, in its cleanest form, isn’t something that changes people as much as it allows them to become who they truly are.

On the evening of December 26th, as soon as the sun dips beneath the western horizon, we board the jet in the Forks Airport hangar. It’s much easier for Scarlett to fly at night; otherwise she has to wear two or three pairs of sunglasses on top of each other, and even then it’s still painful, it still feels like blinding needles burrowing into the jelly of her retinas. That’s not a wrench in my plans or anything. It needs to be night where we’re going, too.

Vampire hyper-acuity notwithstanding, FAA regulations require Scarlett to have a copilot, so Archer joins her in the flight deck with his newly-minted license and spends most of the journey flipping through the latest issue of Motor Trend. As we begin our descent, he peeks back at us and teases: “It’ll be your turn eventually, guys. Scarlett and I did our time. Rami and Lucy can go next year. And after that...unless Ben happens to find someone worthy of a not-wedding...” He wiggles his black eyebrows.

“Bring it on,” I reply casually. “Fake wedding are my jam. It’ll be ocean themed. Or Roaring ‘20s themed. And we’ll all do the Cha-Cha Slide in the living room and shame Ben as a bonding activity.”

“Mercy can set up a mashed potatoes bar,” Baby Swan adds.

“Yeah. With pineapple.”

“No. Not on potatoes.”

“Yes on potatoes.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Too late,” I tell her, touching my lips to the knuckles of her cool, steady hand.

We touch down at a small noncommercial airport just outside the city, and Scarlett and Archer stay back to secure the plane as Baby Swan follows me outside. And she realizes where we are as soon as the wind hits her, as soon as her eyes soak up the sand and cacti and cloudless night sky like rain swallowed up by parched earth.

“Phoenix,” she whispers, smiling like a child.

“But wait, there’s more!” I announce in my best Billy Mays voice. I take the little glass bottle from my pocket, walk across the runway to the naked desert, crouch down when I find a suitable spot, and fill the bottle with dry, sandy earth that crumbles in my palms. Then I seal the bottle with a tiny cork and bring it back to give it to her.

“I know what it’s like to have to leave home,” I say. “You’ve had to say goodbye to Phoenix, and soon you’ll have to say goodbye to Forks, and next will be Chicago, on and on forever. You’ll always be leaving the places you learn to call home. Every five or ten or fifteen years, we start over again. Like a snake shedding its skin, like a hermit crab swapping shells. Like the water that travels from rain to seawater to mist and then back again. But now you can always have a little piece of home with you, and maybe that will make it easier.”

She takes the glass bottle and shakes her head in disbelief, in wonder. Because this is exactly what she wanted, what she needed, even if she didn’t know it yet. “Joe...how did you...?”

“What’d I tell ya? I’m a talented guy. Now you have to dance with me.”

She laughs. “Oh no. Hard pass. I don’t dance.”

“When we’re alone in my bedroom you do. So just pretend we’re alone now. In, like, a really really spacious, sandy bedroom. With probably some lizards.”

“Fine. But only because I’m willing to degrade myself for milkshakes.”

She slides the glass bottle of Arizona earth into her pocket and takes my hands. She’s still a pretty terrible dancer, honestly. She hasn’t lost that. And I love that about her. I love damn near everything about her. And it took me a long time to figure out what exactly her subtle yet peerless cocktail of fragrance is, because it wasn’t somewhere I’d ever been. The scent that drifts from her pores—the scent that now lives in my bedsheets like a shadow or a ghost—is sunlight and heat and clarity and resilience and wisdom older than the pyramids. Her scent is the desert.

Now she’s mischievous, her eyes gleaming with the reflections of the Milky Way and the full moon and the stars that are dead and yet eternal, just like us. “So what, you think you’re Vampire Boyfriend Of The Year material now or what? Some dirt and In-N-Out Burger? That’s the height of your game? Is this what I have to look forward to for the rest of my perpetual existence? I totally should have pursued that polyamorous triad with Scarlett and Archer when I had the chance—”

“Yeah,” I say, very softly, smiling, tilting up her chin to kiss her beneath the universe and all its eccentricities. “I love you too.”

[justice4harwin]

Light’s Corruption-Chapter II

Pairing: DarklingxAlina

Summary:With few friends at the Little Palace, Alina must work to win the favour of her fellow grisha and their commander, who makes her feel light headed every time she sees him.After training in Os Alta for two years, the king grows tired of waiting and demands the Sun Summoner joins a western post near the Fjerdan border along with the rest of The Second Army to test her abilities.Something happens. Suddenly, Alina wants blood to run down the rivers and those who stand in her and The Darkling’s way will be blinded by her light and swallowed by his shadows.It won’t be pretty.

Part 1 here

TW: Mentions of/referenced sexual assault

Tags: Like last time, I’m taking the liberty of tagging the people who commented/liked/rebloged my post where I asked if anybody would wanna read a story like this, but ill do it in the comment section cause a friend told me tumblr doesn’t forget to notify that.

Again, if you don’t want to be on the tag list, please let me know, or if you’re new and wanna be added, let me know too.

Hope you like this :D

Chapter 2: Queen Tatiana

 Alina allowed the light to caress her, embrace her, gentle, phantasmagories touches that seemed to be thanking her for finally accepting it.

Her eyes opened, and all she could see was gold. Looking down, she noticed the power came from her palms, which were facing forward at her sides. A dome of light had formed around her, at least five meters in diameter.

She laughed in disbelief. She felt so strong, as if nothing could ever come her way.

She felt truly alive for the very first time.

So, this is what is like, uh?

“Miss Starkov?” she heard a distant voice, and turned to see The Darkling approaching her dome, eyes squinted.

She wasn’t sure what would happen if he touched the light, but she wanted him to see it, she wanted him inside with her.

She stretched out a hand, and slowly, the man stretched his own. After a tense moment of resistance, she felt his fingers grasping hers as he passed through, and then the rest of him.

He looked around, a new gleam to his eyes that lit up his features almost as much as her power lit her.

“Very impressive for a first time, Miss Starkov.” He congratulated her, his tone almost admiring. He looked her in the eye. “Very impressive, indeed.”

“Alina,” she found herself saying, elated at both her flowing light and his praise. “please, call me Alina.”

Smiling gently, he tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear, his hand softly travelling down her neck, leaving goosebumps on its way, until it came to rest on her shoulder.

“You and I are going to change the world, Alina.” He said, with such passion is made her knees week, before turning serious again and squeezing her shoulder for a moment. “Now, make it shrink.”

“How?”

“Call it to you, as if receding the day into night, until only two small orbs remain in your hands.”

She nodded, focusing. Gently, like a mother soothing a scared child, she called the light back inside of her.

She felt like she was petting it, hushing it, telling it was time to rest.

Slowly, the dome began to shrink, and then more, and then more, and then she had to blink several times to get adjusted to the natural light of day.

She lifted her hands, one small orb of light in each, and smiled as brightly, looking up at The Darkling, who couldn’t seem to keep his eyes away from hers. His chest moved up and down in rapid motions, his gaze so wide there was almost no grey in there. There was a frenzy in his gaze, something primal yet profound, and Alina felt like he could be the one to burn her instead of the other way around.

Finally, she closed her hands into fists and the lights disappeared. She felt almost drunk, the satisfactory hum of her power now coursing through her body, giving her a new sense of confidence so foreign to her.

“You are magnificent.” The Darkling breathed out, startling her, making her cheeks burn.

“It was just my first try on my own.”

“And look around you. Look at what you can do.” He gestured with his arms.

She did, and found the grass turned black, the water of the lake smoking, some steam coming up and forth. She was definitely not putting her hand in there.

“The gardeners will hate me.”

He chuckled quietly, taking a step closer, until their chests almost brushed with their breaths.

“Maybe.” He said, taking her hand again. “But all of Ravka will love you.”

Slowly, he lifted her hand, still way too warm due do the use of her powers and bought it up to his cold lips. Alina held her breath before releasing it again, heart hammering in a way she didn’t fully comprehend.

“I don’t need all of Ravka.” She said, without thinking; a new habit around this particular man, apparently.

“Oh?”

Kiss me.

She thought, and he seemed to have guessed it, for he began to lean forward.

“ALINA STARKOV! I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU ALL OVER THE PLACE! I ALMOST HAD A HEART ATTACK AN—SAINTS!” Genya, who had been marching towards her with a big scowl, her white kefta willowing behind her like a snowstorm, came to an abrupt stop. “What have you done to this place?”

“I can summon now!” she exclaimed, beaming at her. Genya was the only one who knew of her little,…problem.

The tailor looked around, evidently impressed.

“Remind me to stay on your good side.” She took notice of The Darkling and immediately straightened, bowing slightly. “Forgive me, Moi Soverennyi, but the queen has extended an invitation for the Sun Summoner to have tea with her and her ladies.”

The Darkling nodded once, casually dropping Alina’s hand. By the way Genya’s eyes barely flickered, Alina knew she now suspected something.

“Of course, Miss Safin. Who am I to keep the queen waiting?”

They smirked at each other, and Genya held out her arm for Alina to entwine with. On her way, she quickly snatched the forgotten letter.

Alina didn’t look back to see the damage she had caused, but to see if he was still there, but The Darkling was already marching up to the stables without a second look in her direction.

“Here.” Alina offered the paper to Genya, who gave her an apprehensive look. “It’s the last one; I swear.”

Hesitant, Genya took it and hid it inside one of her many pockets as they continued their path towards the Little Palace.

“You stink, you know?” she said as they entered and began to walk through the corridors that led to the stairs.

Alina was aware. Her face felt hot and wet, and she couldn’t wait to get out of her clothes.

“Does the queen really want to have tea with me?”

“Unfortunately.” Genya sighed as they began their eternal ascension towards Alina’s bedroom. “It’s mostly so she can show you off to her friends as if you were a shiny ornament, and to get some intel for the king. So, be careful of what you say.”

“Will you be there?”

“Fortunately for you, yes. But I’ll be mostly by the bitch’s side.” She gave her friend a sideways look. “Do you know tea etiquette?”

“You… take the cup and drink from it?”

“Saints.”

“What? Why? It’s just tea.”

Genya opened the door and pushed her inside, slamming it shut and shooing her towards the waiting bathtub.

“Maybe she’s also expecting that. She does love to have a laugh at people regarding those things. HURRY UP OR WE’LL BE LATE!” she yelled, clapping her hands and taking out a blue dress from her wardrobe.

Alina did her best with the insufferable little buttons, almost ripping them off and exhaling in relief when it fell to the floor. She took off her boots next and the pleasure was even grander. How she hated to be sweaty.

Soon, she was naked and inside the bath, which smelled of lavender. She scrubbed her legs with the sponge.

“Can I come in?” Genya asked from the other side of the curtain.

“Yep.”

The woman, as usual, wasted no time.

“Did you wash your face already?”

“Yep.”

She knelt by the tub, behind Alina, and began to disentangle her mass of her with hard yanks.

“Hey!”

“Oh, I’m sorry; but if you had been where you were supposed to be we wouldn’t be going against the clock.”

It was true that she was meant to spend some time in the library learning grisha theory, but she had forgotten all about that as soon as her eyes shot open in the morning and decided to become what she was meant to.

“Sorry; I wanted to try something on my own.”

“You weren’t really on your own, were you?” the redhead asked carefully, twisting Alina’s hair from one place to the other.

“General Kirigan found me.” She hesitated for a moment. “He was actually the one who helped me summon.”

“I thought you had done it by yourself.” Her friend sounded confused.

“I did! He just,…gave me some words of encouragement.”

“Words of encouragement?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.”

“What?

“Nothing.”

“What?!”

“Up.” Genya held a towel for Alina to wrap herself in, and quickly took her back into the bedroom and sat her at her dressing table, getting to work on her face.

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing.” She said as she ran her expert fingers over her face, fixing and making her look presentable. “Now, I’ll run you over the etiquette really quick. So, keep up, Starkov.”

“Yes, Miss Safin.”

After a moment of severe silence, they both laughed.

  Much to Genya’s apprehension, Alina refused to wear a dress, and insisted on taking a clean, silken kefta instead.

“If she wants me to dress pretty only to make my ignorance funnier, she’ll be disappointed.” Alina said as she took a belt. “The kefta will remind her who I am.”

“I don’t think she’ll care either way.”

“I can accidently blind her as a reminder.”

Genya laughed at that, shaking her head and taking her friend’s arm and leading her towards the Grand Palace.

They took some corridors which avoided the throne room Alina had seen only the first time she had arrived, which, come to think about it, she realized it was the only time she was inside that place at all.

They soon arrived at a grand double set door; the handles made of pure gold. Alina frowned. One could feed all the orphans at Keramzin for a few weeks with that.

Two guards opened the doors for them, and the young women entered, heads high and shoulders back. Alina had refused to relent her hold of Genya. She didn’t care if the queen felt insulted by it.

The woman in question sat upon a ridiculous golden chair, resembling of her own throne. There were two servants in white on either side holding trays. Down the steps of the queen’s chair-because of course she had to be set up on a dais- there was a small, round table almost full.

There were seven or eight women of various ages, all dressed finely and speaking faintly to each other.

When Alina entered, the room became silent. The queen shifted her blue eyes to her and raised an eyebrow, quickly taking in her clothing and her arm around Genya’s.

Letting go of her friend, Alina took a step forward and bent respectfully.

“Moya Tsaritsa. Thank you for the invitation.”

“Of course, Miss Starkov. I have been waiting for some time with our Sun Summoner for quite some time,” she spoke, her voice forcibly airy, as if she wanted to try and be some sort of ethereal creature. “alas, the general has kept you busy with all kinds of training.”

“He has, Your Highness. But it’s all for the good of Ravka.”

“It is so good to know you care so much about your country, Miss Starkov.” She said the last two words with a special accentuation, as if to belittle her due to her lack of title.

Alina did her best to smile.

“Don’t we all, Your Highness?”

“Of course, dear, of course.” She gestured towards an empty seat at the table, almost directly underneath her, between two middle aged women. “Please, have a seat.”

Alina could feel Genya moving in a different direction behind her as she approached the queen.

She sat down as gracefully as she could and smiled at the women around her.

An older woman clad in green smiled back.

“Tell me, Miss Starkov, how do you find Os Alta so far?”

Before Alina could answer, the queen spoke up:

“Well, that is quite rude of you, Lady Popovich. You have yet to let me introduce yourself.”

Lady Popovich looked down; face flushed as she uttered an apology.

As Genya conducted some male servants towards them, they shared a look.

“Miss Starkov; allow me to introduce you to Lady Tanya Popovich, to her right…” Alina did her best to remember their names, but as the queen introduced each of the ladies, she also launched into a small monologue about each of them. Alina couldn’t help but notice how she liked to talk highly of them, only to put in a small jab in the middle before finishing with some apologetic, merciful tone and moving on to the next one.

The servants placed a small plate filled with water in front of each woman, and the Sun Summoner couldn’t help but notice how all the women at the table and the queen had shifted their eyes towards her.

With a blank expression, Alina dipped her fingers delicately into the water and then used the cloth set to her left to dry them. Standing against a wall, Genya hid a smile as some of the ladies’ disappointment became evident.

The door busted open, and a young woman in pink rushed in. Her cheeks were flushed, her blond hair just a little bit messy.

She curtsied.

“Moya Tsaritsa, my deepest apologies.” She had a nice, gentle voice.

“Lady Anastasia, for a moment I thought you might desert us. It is unseemly to be late.”

“It will not happen again, Your Highness.”

“No. It will not.” She said, curtly, then nodded to the only chair available. “Sit.”

Lady Anastasia hurried towards the table and sat, quickly washing her hands. She looked up, and Alina thought she knew her from somewhere.

Then it hit her. She had run into her just days before in the maze, fooling around with Nadia.

Discreetly, Alina swiped her finger across the corner of her mouth. Lady Anastasia’s eyes grew large for the briefest moment before she wiped her mouth casually. Then, she sent the other woman a minuscule smile.

They all waited in silence as one of the servants handed the queen her cup of tea, and only after she took her first sip did the other servants approach the table.

Alina took in the smell. Was that peaches? She had never had peach tea. She was used to herbs and such, but fresh fruits were too rare in Keramzin and The First Army to use it for tea.

The servants laid out silver platters with sweets of all kinds, most of which she had never seen, and shot a look at Genya, who made an almost imperceptible sign with her hand.

Wait.

Everyone looked up at the queen as she took her first sip and contemplated the cup with fake, dramatic anticipation. Finally, she looked at her audience.

“Please, help yourselves. The tea is delicious, and the pies smell divine.”

Only then did the other women began to eat. Some had more water poured into their cups, but Alina always preferred a strong drink, no matter the taste.

She noticed how all the hands reached out for the pies instead of the biscuits or cookies, just like Genya had warned her. Apparently, the guests would preferably eat whatever the queen felt like it that day, and the rest tended to remain untouched and later thrown away.

“Miss Starkov,” the queen spoke, finishing a small slice of pie and handing the plate to the other servant behind her. Her eyes were slightly narrowed. “how have you been adjusting to life at the Little Palace? I imagine it must be quite the difference compared to an army camp.”

“Or an orphanage.” Snickered a woman across the table to Lady Anastasia, who frowned but then smiled slightly, not saying anything.

“I’m still settling, Your Highness.” Alina sat straight and looked her in the eyes to address her. “It’s quite the big change of scenario, but so far I’ve been adapting well enough.”

“I heard that you had a small incident with one of the Squallers about a month ago.” She said, with fake innocence. “What was her name, Genya?”

“Zoya Nazyalensky, Your Highness.”

“Oh, yes, I remember her from the last Winter Fete. So talented, so beautiful.” She said, looking pointedly at Alina at the last part.

She resisted the urge to tell her she wasn’t the one with a Tailor working on her stupid face day and night.

“Yes, Zoya and I were training with Botkin.” Alina admitted, wanting to smile at the memory of Zoya coming out of The Darkling’s chambers in tears. “It was hand to hand combat; she’s got far more experience than me, and I got hurt; but it was nothing.”

“I was sure I heard she had used her power on you.” The queen placed her fingers underneath her chin. “I believed that to be prohibited during combat training.”

Alina didn’t know what to say; she wasn’t sure what the woman sitting to her left and above her wanted to get at.

“It was an accident on her part. Sometimes, our powers just,” she flickered her fingers, a steam of light rolling over them and disappearing, startling the other guests. “come out on their own.”

She wanted to turn back so she could see Genya’s face, to know if she had given the right answer or not; but breaking eye contact while talking to the queen of Ravka was considered rude.

“And yet your general saw it fit to send her away.” She said, pretending to be confused.

Alina kept on hesitating. Something told her that, not matter how much she disliked Zoya, this was not the right time and place to give an honest opinion.

“She’s part of The Second Army, Your Highness. A lot of us are always being re-assigned somewhere or called back.”

“But you have not.”

“I—I’ve only been training for a few months. Zoya’s had years.”

“Besides,” a soft voice spoke up, and everyone turned to Lady Anastasia. “there is only one Sun Summoner; sending her out without sufficient training would put all of Ravka at risk, would it not?”

“Indeed, Lady Anastasia.” The queen had to concede. “You are very smart, are you not?”

Lady Anastasia bowed her head humbly.

“I simply enjoy all kind of knowledge, Your Highness.”

“So well educated, so modest and pretty, such an extraordinary lineage.” At this, queen Tatiana turned back to Alina. “The House Gusev extends back to the days before The Fold was formed; they even had a few monarchs on the throne.”

“A long time ago, yes.” Replied the blonde, hurriedly.

“And yet,” the queen squinted her eyes, and Alina already felt sorry for the young woman. “you remain unmarried. It is such an odd situation for you, dear. The years do go by,” she touched her face and smiled. “well, for some of us at least.” She laughed airily, and Alina really, really wanted to tell her that she couldn’t pull that off. She sounded ridiculous. “So, I assume you must have at least one prospect. What could possibly be wrong with you?”

“Nothing is wrong, Your Highness.” She replied, her cheeks red. From the distance, Alina thought she saw her eyes glistening with tears. “My father is very strict. He will not let just anyone wed his youngest daughter. And to be quite honest, I do not believe he wants to give away his youngest one yet. Seeing Zasha wed Galina and move out of our home was hard for him.” She finished with affection, earning several soft smiles.

As far as Alina knew, it was rare to see same sex marriages in the nobility, and it required a long process which involved plenty of paperwork. Regarding the royal family, it was prohibited.

The queen leaned back on her chair and stretched out her right hand. A small plate with the cup of tea was set upon it, and she took her time with the second, small sip.

“Well, I imagine you must be eager to start your new life. Marriage is such a bliss. I shall talk to your father about it soon.”

Lady Anastasia opened her mouth, but the queen was faster.

“Lady Yelena, would you please grace us with another one of your arias? You have the voice of an angel, my dear.” The woman sitting on her left stood up. "A moment. Genya, please take care of that ugly mole above her lip; it is most distracting."

Well, it seemed as if Alina were safe now, at the cost of that poor woman.

She didn’t dare to look at Genya for the rest of the event, for she could feel the queen’s eyes on her, analysing her every move.

Each lady bowed to the queen, uttering a respectful "Moya Tsaritsa", and the summoner did the same, aching to get out of that place.

 The sun was setting when the queen finally decided she had had enough company for the afternoon. Alina was more than relieved to stand up; her butt hurt, her legs protested and her back cried.

"I should escort miss Starkov back to the Little Palace, Your Highness." Genya stepped forward.

"I am sure she can find her way back on her own." Interrupted a new voice.

Everyone turned to face the king and bowed, giving the expected greeting. His sleazy eyes drifted to the redhead, who stood stiff with both hands clasped behind her back. Alina looked at the queen, who didn't seem too happy either.

"If I may, Your Highness?" Alina took a step forward, not even knowing what she was gonna say. She felt sweatier than she did earlier in the gardens. "General Kirigan insisted that Miss Safin remain with me for this night. My training today was most …aggravating, and he saw it fit that someone helps me recover."

"Aggravating?" he asked, seemingly suspicious.

"In a good sense, Your Highness. I've shown quite the improvement today, but I'm afraid it's taken it's toll on me." Alina wasn't sure where all that came from, but she had a feeling The Darkling just might be a tad amused by her, and that only made her want to smile and reveal her charade.

"You do look plainer than usual."

You're one to talk.

She smiled humbly, and the king grunted.

"Very well, then. If General Kirigan insists."

"He does, …Moi Tsar."

How she hoped the king didn't bring the subject up with The Darkling.

"You are both dismissed then, but Miss Safin will return to her duties at dawn."

Both women bowed and left the room.

Alina casually held on to Genya's elbow as they hurried out of the Grand Palace, looking around at all the ugly paintings of Lantsov ancestors.

Once outside, the chilly air hit them both, but Genya continued to pull her along across the dark.

"You didn't have to do that." she said quietly.

Alina shrugged.

"It's nothing, really." she swallowed, giving her closest friend a sideways glance. "I've, uh, heard some rumours about the king and-"

"The queen usually keeps me too busy during the day, so his attention won't drift during the night." said the redhead, as if talking about the weather. "But sometimes it's inevitable." She looked at Alina, both now at the entrance to the Little Palace, illuminated by lanterns. "Thank you." she said, softly, looking into Alina's dark eyes with sincere, deep gratitude.

"It's nothing, really." the brunette felt uncomfortable. On the one side, she wanted to jump at the king and claw her way into his heart and rip it out for doing what he did; on the other, she knew there was nothing to do to help her friend. "It's just one night."

Genya sighed and drew her into a hug.

"One single night free can be a marvellous gift."

Alina smiled, returning the embrace.

"So, …I'm guessing we're having a sleepover? I never had one back at Keramzin! All the other girls were older than me and wouldn't let me join in!" she tried to cheer the mood.

Genya parted, quickly wiping her eyes.

"Neither have I, and I would love that." she turned serious again. "But first, we need to talk."

 A/N: Hope you liked it!

Click here for part III

[farfromsugafanfic]

Heartbreak Weather

Genre: Weatherman!Jin, Metropolis/loosely based off comic books, Rivalry, soft Enemies to Lovers

Pairing: Jin/Male Reader

Warnings: all the sexual tension lol, hurricanes

Synopsis: The rival weatherman at Channel 5 just so happens to be Kim Seokjin who you just so happened to have had a thing with in college. Sort of. When a hurricane brings the two of you back together again, the forecast calls for love and dredged up feelings.

﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

"Will you please turn that off?" you asked, taking a sip of your coffee. Normally, you took it with a little vanilla-flavored creamer, but much like that morning's coffee, you were bitter.

"Aw, why? Seokjin looks so cute in his turtleneck this morning," one of the writers said, fawning over the Channel 5 weatherman. "Maybe you should start wearing turtlenecks. It might boost our ratings." 

You rolled your eyes as the red light came on indicating that you would soon be on camera. You set your coffee to the side and stepped in front of the green screen. 

"Good morning, Metropolis," you said. "You can expect some light rain on your commute today. It should clear up by lunchtime though and it will be partly cloudy for the rest of the day. You watched as the map viewers saw at home shifted as you shifted the topic. "As you know, a hurricane is forming a few hundred miles off the coast. We are currently predicting landfall early next week. I will be traveling to Diamond Beach as the storm approaches to give you the most recent updates. Thanks for watching Channel 4 News, now here's Andrea with traffic."

The red light switched from you and onto Andrea's camera on the other side of the studio. You let out a sigh and walked back to your desk away from the main set. 

"You went to school with him, right?" the same writer asked, still watching Seokjin on the screen. His station gave him more screentime because he was so well loved in the city, often they pan to him coming back from commercial breaks and whenever there was a view question or poll. 

"Yeah," you said. There was only one university near Metropolis that offered a robust meteorology program and most of the city's weather people came from it. You and Seokjin had gone through together, even graduating at the same ceremony. 

"Wow, was he still so stunning in college? Like, I don't think I could've focused if he was in my classes."

"Depends on who you ask."

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

5 Years Earlier

"Having trouble focusing?" you asked Seokjin as you noticed his dark eyes were no longer looking down at the computer screen. 

"Hmm, it's a bit hard when you look at the screen like that," he said, smirking and turning around to lean against the desk. "Tell me, what's a guy gotta do to get you to look at him like that?"

"Be a warm front." You watched as a warm front moved towards the city while a cold one moved simultaneously from the other direction. 

"What if I'm a hot front?" He turned to face you, his hip still leaning against the desk, but his body was close enough that it brushed yours as he moved. 

"Seokjin, stop." You clicked a few more times and turned to flip through your textbook. "It's a storm for sure. A thunderstorm or tornado. Shit, it could be anything, how are we supposed to figure this out."

"Its the weather, not heart surgery. We can be wrong fifty percent of the time and still good at our job."

"But, if we're wrong fifty percent of the time, we'll fail this class."

Jin sighed and crossed his arms as his eyes lingered down your body. "Listen, Y/N. We both know that you're going to stress about this for twenty minutes and then figure it out like you always do. Now, come on, let's take a break."

"And do what?" you asked, letting out a breath between your teeth, not tearing your eyes away from the screen.

"I don't know. I have a few ideas though" His breath was against your ear and his body heat radiated against your own. 

"Seokjin, this can't happen."

"Why not?"

"Cause I need to focus on school. I'm here on a scholarship. I can't risk distractions."

Jin sighed and looked down at the weather map on the screen. "It's a thunderstorm," he said. "The currents aren't strong enough for a tornado and based on the patterns, its the most logical." 

You quickly wrote down the answer and his reasoning, realizing that he was right. How he surmised the answer so quickly, especially when he was barely paying attention baffled you. 

"All right, now, come on," he said. "I'm taking you out for lunch and you can't deny me that. I know you're hungry."

"Fine," you said, shutting your textbooks and allowing the computer's screensaver to come on.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Just hours later that same night, you found yourself looking up at the ceiling of Jin's bedroom. Soft cotton sheets wrapped around your torso and they felt softer than even the best sheets you'd ever owned. His shirtless form was turned away from you and you resisted the urge to reach up and run a hand through his dark hair. He'd let it grow long recently, the ends of his hair beginning to grow onto his neck.

"Stop staring at me," Seokjin said, you could hear the smirk in his voice. He turned around to face you. His eyes were calm and soft like the sheets, but you couldn't help but feel the sadness. The knowing.

"How'd you know?" Your voice was small.

"I could feel it. Your eyes hurt, you know?"

You did know. You knew how much it hurt Jin to see your eyes wander down the shape of his torso. That the way you always reached to push his ill-fitting glasses up the bridge of his nose hurt. That knowing he couldn't reach out and sneak his fingertips underneath the hem of your sweater.

"I'm sorry."

"I know, it's okay."

"It's not, Seokjin. We need to move on. Forget about each other. It's best for our futures."

"You know that's not true."

"Seokjin, we both want the same things in life. We'd be competing with each other for every job. We'd rush to get the story before the other. It wouldn't last."

"We don't know that unless we try."

"Seokjin, I don't want to give myself the chance to hate you."

You got up from the bed and buttoned your shirt, pulled on your trousers, and tied your shoes. Seokjin watched you, didn't try to stop you as you headed towards the door. Gripping the doorknob, you walked out and back down to the sidewalk below. 

Following that day, you didn't see Seokjin again. Sure, he still sat a few rows in front of you, he still presented in class, you glanced over his name in the paper when it was announced he was taking over the weather position for Channel 5. You saw him on billboards and on Reddit posts. Yet, you never met allowed your eyes to meet his again. Unless it was through the warm, freshly printed Metropolis Daily.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Nearly no one was heading east towards Diamond Beach. Westbound traffic was full of cars heading into the city to weather the storm, while eastbound only consisted of a few cars. Mostly media and others who couldn't drop everything and run from the hurricane. 

You could just make out the Channel 5 van ahead of you. Focusing down on your laptop which was tracking the conditions minute by minute, you tried not to focus on the fact you would likely run into Seokjin. 

This certainly wasn't the first time a hurricane or tropical storm caused you and Seokjin to collide like convergent fronts. Every year you found yourself at Diamond Beach trying not to watch his broadcast from a few meters down the beach.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Two Hours Later

"Hello, this Y/N Y/L/N reporting for Channel 4 news. Hurricane Roke is expected to make landfall later tonight. Most of Diamond Beach and the surrounding areas have been evacuated as Roke is currently a category four storm. I will be monitoring the storm and providing updates through Twitter throughout the night and I'll be back on the beach at 5am. This has been Y/N Y/L/N covering Hurricane Roke. Now, back to the studio."

You felt Jin's eyes on you as you gave your report. He was about two hundred feet down the beach. He wore a similar coat to your own and even with his hood pulled up you could feel the way his eyes cut through you. 

Once the red light on your camera went off, the one on Seokjin's came on and he began his report. It was nearly identical to yours, Seokjin adding his own flair and charm. Like you wished you could. 

Seokjin finished his broadcast and your filmographer began to pack up. "I'll see you bright and early in the morning?" she asked, her hair catching in the wind and obscuring her face. 

You nodded and helped her pack up the camera and other supplies, working quickly to prevent it from getting damaged from the wind or rain. Walking up the beach and back to the hotel felt like it took forever, especially with the heavy filming equipment. 

Your filmographer had already checked in earlier and headed to her room, carrying the camera and filming equipment. You kept the portable meteorological tools, already anxious to set it up in your room. Jin and his filmographer came in just as you got to the front desk. 

Giving them your name, you handed them your ID and the company credit card. The receptionist furrowed her brow and glanced up at you. 

"It looks like your room was accidentally double booked," she said. "I apologize, but due to the current situation, would you mind sharing?"

"Uh, sure, that's no problem. Who am I sharing with?"

The woman squinted at her computer. "Kim Seokjin."

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

"You're not even going to look at me?" Seokjin asked as the two of you set up your computers. He'd let you have the desk while he took the counter of the kitchenette. 

"Not until I get this setup."

Seokjin sighed and pulled out his phone. Service was already finicky, but he managed to pull up Spotify and got music to play. It was soft, as not to disturb your neighbors in the packed hotel. 

You smiled as you heard the familiar tune "Dancing Queen". Jin was a fan of older music and the two of you used to listen to ABBA's Greatest Hits when studying together. 

"You still listen to this?"

"Of course," he said. "It makes me happy."

It made you happy too and when you finished setting up your computer you peaked out the window. The storm was still a couple of hours from landfall, but the trees were already swaying wildly. 

"It's going to be a big one," Jin said, glancing at you and catching your eye. It was the first time you'd truly looked at each other since the day you'd left him on his own. It felt like a lightning bolt skewered you in half. 

"Yeah," you said, sitting down on the bed. "It is."

You traced the seams of the comforter with your index finger. The song switched and this time it was "Can't Help Falling In Love With You". 

Jin finished setting up his computer. Your screen and his looked nearly identical showing a map of the coastline and the storm approaching. He sat down beside you, closer than you would've thought an acquaintance would sit. 

"We should go to bed. Early start tomorrow." His voice commanded you to look at him. "Let's not fight over the bed." Placing down the two extra pillows down the center of the bed, he went to the bathroom to change.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

The storm was in full force when you made your way outside. The four of you: you, Jin, and your two filmographers tried to get onto the beach, but the sand cut your skin. Various debris already littered the beach. Mostly seaweed and tree branches, although you noticed a few shoes and patio furniture from the nearby condos.

"The hotel said we could report from outside," you said. "It'd be safer."

Jin chewed on his cheek and glanced out at the beach. The two filmographers began to set up their cameras and you did you best to ensure your hair didn't fall into your face. You stood away from the wind, finding it hard to breath with it blowing onto your face. 

"Seokjin! Stop!" His filmographer yelled, abandoning his equipment, he rushed towards the other man. You turned to see that Seokjin had taken off towards the beach, seemingly want to report from there no matter the circumstances. 

You looked over at your coworker and she gave you a curt nod, ensuring that she would watch over the equipment. She dragged both cameras inside the lobby one at a time. Giving her an empathetic look, you took off running towards the beach, hoping to catch up with Seokjin before he got entirely soaked. 

When you came to the edge of the beach, you saw that Seokjin was already halfway out, his filmographer not far behind. You sighed and continued out, knowing he was determined to give the report from as close to the middle of the storm as he could.

The filmographer neared the middle of the beach, fearing going any further. When you caught up to him, you stopped to catch your breath, even though it was nearly impossible with the wind. Your breath was swept away as soon as you drew it in. 

"He's crazy," the other man said. "I have no idea why he's doing this." 

"He always has to go the extra mile," you said, rolling your eyes. "Even if it's stupid and dangerous."

Seokjin turned back to look for his camera operator, only to see him halted halfway up the beach. Seokjin was three-quarters of the way up the beach now, reaching dangerously close to the rough tide. He noticed you still running towards him and smiled before a gust of wind knocked him off his feet.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤

Your chest constricted when you saw Jin get thrown off his feet. He landed a few feet away in the sand. You ran as quickly as you could, falling to your knees beside him. 

"Are you okay?" you asked, looking him over. 

His eyes looked up at you, obviously taking in your features. Yet, his lips said nothing. 

"You crazy bastard! What the hell were you thinking? Rushing out here like that? You of all people should know how dangerous that is." You could barely catch your breath between words as you placed your hands on his arms to help him sit up. He didn't budge, however, his eyes just locked on your face. 

"What are you doing?" you asked, sighing and dropping your hands from his hands, looking down to meet his eyes for the first time.

He smiled when you finally met his eyes and leaned up to connect his lips to yours. It was brief due to the circumstances, but it felt like lightning coursing through your veins. 

"I ran cause I knew you would chase me."