#mama a GUN behind you 💜

[loseractivities]

hes so happy mama a gun behind YOU💜

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

In The Gloomy Depths [Chapter 7: Sapphire] [Series Finale]

Series summary: Five years ago, jewel mining tycoon Daemon Targaryen made a promise in order to win your hand in marriage. Now he has broken it and forced you into a voyage across the Atlantic, betraying you in increasingly horrifying ways and using your son as leverage to ensure your cooperation. You have no friends and no allies, except a destitute viola player you can’t seem to get away from…

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), parenthood, dolphins, death and peril, violence (including domestic violence), drinking, smoking, freezing temperatures, murder, if you don’t like Titanic you won’t like this fic!!! 😉

Word count: 5.2k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @nightvyre @mrs-starkgaryen @gemini-mama @ecstaticactus @chattylurker, more in comments 🥰

💎 Thank you for reading (and tolerating all my nautical puns)! 💎

How can love be a curse? How can it be something to fear, to condemn, to break?

She has dreamed of him all her life. First he was a protector, almost fatherlike, and then a remote, bewitching phantom as she crept into adolescence, and then when Harwin Strong died Daemon sailed over Saint George’s Channel to offer her solace in England, and at last the fantasies she never would have confessed to anyone were fulfilled, two marriages and four children later. Rhaenyra remembers what he told her in the mist-draped lakeside cottage where they met in secret, crossing paths like an asteroid striking a planet: My wife means nothing to me. She’s not like us. She is young, and weak, and afraid, and I could never respect that kind of person. Her father owns the last Connemara marble quarry in the world, and I needed a son. But the only woman I want is you.

Aegon fires the pistol as he chases her through the corridors of A-Deck, and when she shrieks nobody hears, or if they do they don’t appear to rescue her; the ship is full of people screaming, sobbing, clawing for their lives against wet walls and locked doors. He shoots and misses again. There’s something wrong with his hands. He keeps fumbling with the gun and almost dropping it, hissing in pain as he squeezes the trigger, and there’s blood staining his fingers.

Good, Rhaenyra thinks. I’m glad he’s hurt. I hope he’s dying.

She sees an open room and ducks inside, slamming the door behind her and barring it with the weight of her body as Aegon rams it with his shoulder. Rhaenyra is surrounded by the trappings of another family who purchased first-class tickets: chairs with velvet upholstery, a faux fireplace, paintings by Rousseau and Boccioni and Homer. The lights flicker and the steel beams of Titanic groan, low and disastrous. There isn’t much time left.

“Daemon!” she yells as loudly as she can. If he hears her, he’ll come running. I have to get to a lifeboat. I have to live for my father, for Jace and Luke and Joffrey, for the children I will one day give Daemon.

Rhaenyra struggles with the lock as Aegon batters the door and it quakes on its hinges. Just as she latches it, he fires the pistol through the door. Wood cracks and splinters; a bullet pierces Rhaenyra’s ribcage like a blade. There is unbearable pressure, and then a sharpness, a pain she believes she cannot stand until it keeps getting bigger, deeper, ripping her open and filling her with dark wet weight like the ocean surging into Titanic. She crumples to the floor. When she coughs, blood spurts out onto her lips. Rhaenyra wipes it away and then stares at the red on her palm.

I can’t die now. My life just became what it was supposed to be.

Aegon punches a hole through the mangled door large enough for him to reach in and unlock it. Then he stands in the threshold looking down at her, his hands shaking but his eyes hard, fierce, unflinching. Rhaenyra has never seen him like this before. She didn’t know he could be good at anything.

“How the fuck did you get on the ship?” Rhaenyra snarls as she scrambles away, hacking up more blood. The black opal ring Daemon gave her gleams like onyx or obsidian, something born of heat and earth and insurmountable, ancient gravity.

Daemon and I were made for each other. The same blood, the same bones, the same will to carve treasures from the bleakest places.

Aegon follows her across the floor, slow stalking steps. He doesn’t answer; instead, he shakes his right hand a few times—steadying himself, casting out tremors like demons—and then grips the pistol with it. He raises the gun, the barrel aimed at Rhaenyra’s face.

“Daemon?!” she screams, but he isn’t here. Then she asks, sudden desperate confusion, her blue eyes wide: “Why are you doing this?”

Aegon’s voice is calm. “Because she can’t be free unless you and Daemon are gone.”

That girl? Daemon’s sad, stupid wife? I’m dying because of HER?

“Father never loved you,” Rhaenyra seethes, red on her teeth, blooddrops spilling from her lips like rubies. Her eyes are cold, glinting sapphires, pools of freezing water that only needs minutes to stop the heart. “Just like Daemon never loved her.”

“I know. And I used to care. It almost killed me, it almost ate me alive. But now I’m better. And I finally know exactly who I’m supposed to be.”

Aegon pulls the trigger.

~~~~~~~~~~

As Daemon descends the Grand Staircase, you crawl down towards the next landing, your head spinning, your hands empty, writhing on your belly like a snake.

The dagger???

But you can’t find it, and you don’t have time to stop and search. Daemon is only a few steps behind you. When your palms hit B-Deck, you try to drag yourself upright, grappling for the banister; but before you can get your feet under you, Daemon kicks you and sends you hurtling down the next flight of stairs. You tumble towards C-Deck, clawing in vain for something to break your fall. Your head strikes the English oak wood and you hear your father’s bewildered voice as he sat at the dining room table in Lough Cutra Castle: Where are you going? When will you be back?

Never, never, never; and now from somewhere below you recognize the roar of rushing water.

“You were going to kill me?!” Daemon taunts as he bears down on you like a storm. Blood soaks his throat and the white shirt beneath his black suit jacket. His eyes are bright, feral, monstrous. “After all those times I spared you when I could have drowned you in a river or a hot bath or the sea? You’re so fucking useless. You really can’t do anything right. All you had to do was shut up and endure, and you could have lived to be an old, old woman with all the comforts my empire afforded you. Now, my dear, you will never see another sunrise. And when Titanic sinks, you’ll be buried with her.”

Down, down, always down towards the ocean floor, you crawl faster away from him as his footsteps grow louder.

“Help,” you moan weakly. Aegon? Anyone? But the only reply is the echoing of your own voice and the sounds of the dying ship: breaking metal, distant screams, gushing torrents of seawater.

You crash into C-Deck and again try to stagger to your feet, but Daemon is here, shoving you as if from a cliffside or off a balcony. And as you plummet down the Grand Staircase towards D-Deck—where the First-Class Dining Saloon is, where Thomas Andrews once assured you that Titanic was unsinkable—it is not hard wooden steps you collide with but swirling ice-cold seawater. You plunge beneath the currents and then come sputtering up to the surface, your white wool coat drenched and threatening to pull you below again like an anchor. You struggle to shed it with arms that are rapidly going numb.

I’m so cold, I’m so cold, if I don’t get out of the water I’ll be dead in minutes—

Daemon’s fingers close around your throat and he forces you under the waist-deep water. You thrash and try to push him away, to pry him off of you, but your muscles seem to have disappeared, they have been scraped off your bones and now you can only wait to die, your breathless lungs burning as your body freezes. You have a sudden vision of Daemon in his firelit study at Lough Cutra Castle, marveling at a shard of Larimar dredged up from the Caribbean Sea and quoting the first known treatise on gemstones, written by Theophrastus in the time of Alexander the Great: Of things formed in the earth, some have their origin from water.

“No!” you scream through the depths, bubbles rising up to air you cannot taste. You claw at Daemon’s hands, but you cannot wound him, cannot get a grip on him, and hasn’t that been true since you married him five years ago?

The dark, freezing water makes you want to give up. It makes death feel easy, painless, inevitable. You imagine faces you’ll never see again: Draco, Aegon, your parents, Fern. You hope Carpathia will be here soon to rescue the survivors. You wonder what will happen to Aegon’s paintings.

Through the water come the muffled booms of explosions, four of them, surely something catastrophic, the ship splitting in half or a distress flare misfired or boilers bursting and shearing through what’s left of the hull. Then Daemon’s hands vanish from your throat and someone is hauling you up out of the icy currents, they are freeing you, they are disinterring you from an oceanic grave.

“I’m here!” Aegon is shouting as you burst into open air, gasping and flailing. He drags you towards the Grand Staircase where you can climb out of the flood, but you’re looking for Daemon. He is a few yards away and floating face-up, one hand clasping his chest and a gurgling sound leaking from his throat. The water around him is turning red. He’s fading, but he’s not dead yet.

“Aegon, he’s still—”

“I know. I’ll take care of him once you’re out of the water. I don’t have any more bullets left.”

“I want to do it.”

“We need to get you dry and warmed up—”

“I want to do it,” you say again, and Aegon lets you go.

You twist off your black opal engagement ring and throw it into the water beside Daemon. Then you place both of you hands on his chest and push him beneath the surface, Aegon standing just behind you with the barrel of the pistol in his grasp in case he has to use it as a club. The glacial seawater froths and whirls as it rises over Daemon’s hemorrhaging chest. He startles—a death rattle, a late rite—and resists feebly, gazing up at you with glassy, disbelieving eyes. They ask: How did this happen? I was supposed to kill you, remember? I own you. I own jewels trapped in subterranean darkness all over the world, and you are the very least of them.

“Draco isn’t yours,” you tell Daemon as you force him under. “Rhaenyra isn’t yours. And I’m not yours either. Now sink and die and make me free.”

He twitches, he bares his crimson teeth at you, but after all this time finally Daemon is the weak one. The rising water flushes maroon around him, his skin goes a frail and translucent bluish-white, his heart is drained until the chambers are cold and grey and empty. You hold him beneath the water until the bubbles roiling up from his nose and mouth disappear. He will never touch you again, he will never hurt anyone, he will never bruise or break or ensnare or captivate. And who will inherit his mines scattered across the planet?

Draco. His only son. And my family and I will act as trustees until he’s eighteen.

“We have to go,” Aegon is saying. He must have taken off his coat before he went into the water after you. He stands shivering in only his white shirt and green corduroy pants, the ocean now lapping at his chest.

“Rhaenyra?” you ask.

“She’s gone. I’m sure.”

“It’s over,” you say softly, feeling weight like stones roll off of you, feeling warmth like sunlight on your face.

As if in reply, the listing ship groans and the lights flicker again. “Not yet,” Aegon says, grabbing your hand. “Let’s hope there’s a lifeboat left.”

You wade to the steps and climb out of the water. Aegon helps you wring out your soaked hair and the skirt of your gown, then snatches his black wool coat off the steps where he left it and puts it on you. You race up the Grand Staircase to C-Deck, and then B-Deck, and then the A-Deck landing where you find your green handbag with Aegon’s tiny aluminum lighter still inside.

“I think you dropped this,” Aegon says when he spots the dagger on a nearby step, still covered with Daemon’s blood. He wipes it clean on his corduroy pants and then passes it to you. When you hesitate to take it, he grins. “Who knows. You might need to stab someone else tonight.”

“I never want to draw blood again.” But you accept the dagger and place it in your handbag, the captive gemstones glimmering there: amethyst, tiger’s eye, black opal, emerald, ruby, bloodstone, sapphire like the North Atlantic Ocean that is swallowing Titanic down into her cold, crushing belly. Then you ascend one last flight of steps to the Boat Deck, passing the bronze cherub statue and the ticking clock, stealing a glimpse up at the dome of glass and wrought iron that will soon shatter when the sea punctures through it like a bullet or a blade.

Outside the night air is so frigid that ice crystals begin forming in your hair, and the hem of your blue gown begins to stiffen as it freezes. You are barefoot, you only now realize, and if splinters from the pine planks of the deck needle their way into your flesh you won’t be able to feel them. There are only two lifeboats left on this side of the ship, one of which is already being lowered down to the sea. Officers are still directing women and children into the other. Benjamin Guggenheim and his companions are very drunk, clumsily herding frantic first-class passengers towards the boats. The string quartet is now playing The Merry Widow by Franz Lehár.

“Come, come quickly, Lady Targaryen!” the officers shout when they see you, knowing by your gown that you belong here, perhaps recognizing you from strolls on the Promenade Deck or when you and Daemon boarded Titanic in Cork with much fanfare. Aegon helps you into the lifeboat, his wounded hands cradling yours. Another distress flare is shot into the sky, metallic rain, doomsday portents.

We’re going to be alright, you think. We’re going to survive this.

��Darling, you’re sopping wet!” one of the women in the lifeboat exclaims, and they all begin to fret over you. There are dogs here, a Pomeranian in one lap, a Yorkshire terrier in another.

“Get her under a blanket,” Aegon is saying. “Keep her warm or she’ll get pneumonia. Give her a lifebelt.”

“We will, we will,” another lady shimmering in jewels—a mother of two boys in heavy coats and blue-striped pajamas—promises him. “We’ll take good care of her.”

You turn back to Aegon. “What?”

He tells you, his voice quiet: “Petra, they’re not going to let me in.”

“No, no, you can’t stay here—”

“Women and children only!” an officer booms, then begins waving several shrieking maids towards the vessel, just moments from launching.

“Aegon,” you say, horrified. He’ll die if he stays. He’ll drown or he’ll freeze and he’ll be entombed at the bottom of the Atlantic. “No.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“No you won’t,” you sob, then look desperately at the officers. How can I change their minds? “He’s a Targaryen, he’s a first-class passenger, he must be allowed aboard!”

“A Targaryen?!” one of the officers says distractedly as he battles with the rigging. “I know all the Targaryens on Titanic, and he’s not one of them!”

“Just look at him,” the other officer mutters, meaning: He isn’t dressed like someone with castles or mansions or titles or mines. He can’t be someone who matters.

“He is,” you plead, tears stinging on your cheeks as they freeze. “He’s Aegon, he’s a Targaryen, please, he can’t be left behind—”

“Women and children only!” the first officer barks at you as the other pushes away a group of panicked young men in black suits trying to bribe their way into the vessel. “And if you want to stay here with him, that’s your business, but get to it so the rest of us can try to make it off this ship alive!”

“There’s more than enough room for him, for Christ’s sake, there are dogs in here!”

“There will be other lifeboats, love,” one of the women tells you as she drapes a scratchy wool blanket across your shoulders, but you don’t believe that’s true. The maids are climbing into the lifeboat; the officers are beginning to lower it with sharp lurches that make the occupants gasp.

You reach for Aegon, your hands catching on his drenched shirt, the thin layer of ice cracking beneath your fingers. “No, no, Aegon, I can’t go like this.”

“You have to,” he says calmly, and he holds you face still and touches his lips to your forehead, a kiss goodbye, gentle and lingering.

“No—”

“You have a kid. You have to go. Draco will be looking for you on Carpathia.”

“You deserve to be free too.”

“I’ll stay out of the water for as long as I can,” Aegon says like a vow. “I’ll try to find something to float on. And once Titanic goes down…maybe the lifeboats will come back to pick up any survivors.”

The water is too cold. I’ve felt it, I’ve been paralyzed by it, once you go under you only have minutes. “You can’t…you won’t…”

“Petra,” Aegon says, and his eyes turn desperate. He knows it’s his only chance. “Make them come back for me.”

“I will,” you swear to him.

And he pries your fingers off his shirt and rips away from you before your resolve can weaken. High above and through tears that blur your vision, constellations of stars gleam like diamonds.

~~~~~~~~~~

He runs to the other side of the Boat Deck, searching for lifeboats that haven’t launched yet. He can’t find any. There are swarms of passengers weeping, shouting, jostling, and officers trying to restore order. Pistols and flares are fired, chairs are tossed overboard for passengers to cling to as they float. But Aegon knows that won’t be enough; if they stay submerged, they will die.

I need something bigger. I need something I can lie on. A door or a dresser or…

He shoves through the crowd to get to the ship’s railing. Below, the ocean has gotten so much closer. He sees a lifeboat bobbing in the waves, just far enough away that someone brave enough to leap could not get to it. Inside, along with perhaps twenty first-class women and maids, Aegon recognizes Laenor Velaryon and his ever-present Parisian friends. They are puffing on cigars and toasting glasses of brandy, celebrating their good fortune. They must have successfully bribed their way aboard.

“Fuck,” Aegon sighs, his breath fog in the frigid air.

How am I going to stay out of the water long enough to survive until I’m rescued?

Then he replays the evening in his mind—his first night with Petra, perhaps his last night on earth, red silk and candles and oil paint and the warmth of her beneath his hands—and Aegon gets an idea. He sprints back to the Grand Staircase and soars down to B-Deck, seawater ankle-deep on the floor. He splashes through the corridors to the staterooms once occupied by Daemon Targaryen’s wife and child, now rid of him, now waiting for what will come next. Aegon hurries through the sitting room, passing the taxidermied tiger head above the fireplace and the large, heavy chest where Daemon made Petra lock up the art she bought in Paris.

She didn’t remember to put the real Picasso’s paintings in a lifeboat, but she saved mine, Aegon thinks. If I make it out of this alive somehow, I’m marrying her the second we dock in New York.

He goes to the bedroom, finds what he needs, carries it with him as he returns to the maze of hallways. Now the icy water is nipping at his knees.

~~~~~~~~~~

The ocean is calm, the lifeboat rocking placidly on inky surf. The women comfort their children and their dogs. You take Aegon’s aluminum lighter out of your handbag and light yourself a cigarette, then pass it around so the other passengers can thaw their lungs with hot plumes of nicotine, here in the early hours of the morning when it feels like you’ll never be warm again. The officer who took command of the vessel—the same one who shouted at you and refused to admit Aegon—is rowing vigorously as you and several other women help him, staring horror-struck at Titanic as she goes down by the bow.

“We have to get away from the ship,” the officer keeps saying, and he sounds genuinely petrified. A woman in a glittering gold gown steers with the tiller. “Or she’ll suck us into the water with her.”

There are shadows of other lifeboats nearby, also fleeing from the condemned Titanic, that miraculously colossal and opulent triumph that everyone had told you was unsinkable. You wonder which one Draco and Fern are in, undoubtedly cold and frightened but safe.

Aegon deserves to live too. I have to find him, I have to save him.

Now there is seawater flooding over Titanic’s deck at the bow, where you and Aegon saw third-class passengers—now dead, or very soon to be—kicking around pieces of the iceberg that they didn’t know had doomed them. The ocean surges higher, covering B-Deck, and A-Deck, and finally the Boat Deck, where the towering funnels collapse and you can hear shrieks and guns firing. You know you won’t be able to see Aegon from here—you won’t be able to tell if he made it into a lifeboat somehow, or if he is one of the figures that falls from a lethal height into the waves, or if he is crushed or shot or trapped below deck and drowned—but still, you cannot stop looking for him, peering through the night to where Titanic glows in her spotlight of white-gold electric luminescence.

As the bow sinks, the stern begins to rise, higher and higher until the tension cracks the ship in two, and the passengers you share the lifeboat with wail and sob as the ship’s lights blink out for the last time and the gravesite goes dark. Women call out the names of their husbands, fathers, brothers, adult sons, knowing they must be dying. You can only watch with tears streaming down your face, thinking: How could he survive that? How could I have left him?

The stern bobs for a while in the nightscape sea, a shade, a phantom, and then it plunges into the ocean. The water—indifferent, dispassionate, not a mortal but a titan, here long before humans and destined to outlast them, not unlike the treasures of the earth—gulps down metal beams and pine planks and split bones and shredded flesh. There are screams, so many, so pitiful, so loud they fill the sky, and the howling women in the lifeboat cover their ears and those of their children so they will not have to try to exorcise the sound from their memories later.

As soon as the stern has been consumed by the depths, you say to the officer: “We have to go back to look for survivors.”

“Are you mad, Lady Targaryen?” he snaps at you; but there are tears in his bloodshot eyes. “We’ll be mobbed if we sail into that. They’ll pour into the boat until we go under too. Do you want to freeze to death with them?”

“People will die quickly. They are dying already, the water is cold enough to kill in minutes. If we start rowing towards them now, most of the passengers will be dead by the time we get there. And then we can rescue anyone who’s left.” Please still be alive, Aegon.

“Not a chance in hell,” the officer says.

You turn to the other women. They blink back at you in dazed, timid terror. “It’s murder to leave your men behind,” you implore, you beg them to agree. “Help me row to them.”

But the women only weep softly to themselves and look to the officer to tell them what to do. He smirks at you victoriously, an expression of no humor but rather grim, fearful misery that could drive someone insane. In the lap of one woman, the Pomeranian whimpers.

I can’t leave Aegon, you think. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

You open your green handbag and pull out the dagger, the blade pointed at the officer. He shouts and bolts away from you, incredulous, furious.

“You’re threatening to kill me?!”

You shake your head. “I’m offering you a gift.” You turn the dagger around so the officer can grasp the handle. His gaze catches, transfixed and wondrous, on the gemstone spheres like perfectly aligned planets. “This dagger is worth more than you would make in a decade of work. Go back for survivors, and it’s yours. Refuse, and when we are rescued and my son inherits my husband’s fortune, I will make it my life’s work to destroy you. I will follow you anywhere on earth. I will ruin you. So take the dagger as payment and break my curse, and let us save the people who are left.”

The lifeboat sways in the small, serene waves, and the stars revolve high above in a moonless sky, and you and the other women wait for the officer to reply. After a minute or more—we have to go back now, right now, we don’t have much time—he finally lifts the dagger from your open palm and tucks it into his belt.

“Fine,” he says, picking up his oar again. “Let’s go. I cannot abide your damnation. I’ll be haunted by enough ghosts already.”

He and several of the other women row into the throng while you find the flashlights stored in the bottom of the lifeboat, then perch at the bow searching for Aegon. Instead you see hundreds of bluish corpses floating in their lifebelts, dead men and women and children, some of them first-class or crewmembers of the ship but most of them third-class passengers: Italian, Polish, Greek, Syrian, Russian, Chinese, Irish, discarded people, good for dying in the operations of mines or factories or railroads and little else.

“Aegon!” you shout over the water, but he does not answer. There is only the mist of your own words and the sound of cold currents rippling as the lifeboat cuts through them.

Your group saves two people from the sea, both nearly frozen to death and unable to speak: one man floating on a table washed out of a dining room, one little girl clutching her dead mother. Then a long time passes with no living souls to salvage.

“Have we done enough now, Lady Targaryen?” the officer asks you gravely. “Have you seen a sufficient number of the dead to assuage your wrath?”

“Not yet,” you say, steely, your eyes fixed on the water as the flashlight illuminates lifeless faces, scraps of wreckage, nothing, nothing, nothing. And then the light settles on him.

When the stern of Titanic went under, so did Aegon: there are ice crystals in his hair, and his clothes are freezing to his skin, and his lips are blue, and he’s shivering violently. But unlike over 1,000 other passengers, he didn’t stay in the depths long enough to perish as the cold stopped their hearts and lungs. He had something with him, a life raft, a second chance, a treasure mined not from some far-flung crevice of the earth but from the bedroom where he uncovered you, where you found each other and never wanted to go back to the way life felt before.

Aegon is sprawled across the oval-shaped mirror that once stood beside your bed, the fractured glass reflecting the stars that glimmer in the night sky. His ravaged hands cling to the wooden frame. And when the beam of the flashlight skates across his face like moonshine, Aegon knows you’ve come back for him, and he reaches for you until your hands link with his and help pull him aboard.

~~~~~~~~~~

Carpathia arrives an hour later, just before four in the morning on April 15th, and as the sun rises over the North Atlantic Ocean you and Aegon find Draco and Fern on the bow deck, where stewards are distributing blankets and tea to the survivors. Women wander the ship pleading for help finding their lost loved ones, weeping endlessly for their brothers, their fathers, their husbands. Your tears have stopped entirely.

Carpathia’s passengers are generous. They offer in charity their food, their clothing, even their rooms. Children share their books and toys with Draco. Fern teaches him how to play marbles; you read him The Story of Saint Patrick. A doctor onboard disinfects and bandages Aegon’s hands, and assures him that he will be able to play viola again, not now, perhaps not even soon, but one day.

That first afternoon, as you and Aegon are taking a stroll on the Boat Deck, you spot a man painting a scene of the sunset: gold, tiger’s eye, ruby, red beryl. Aegon shows him some of the portraits from his scuffed leather portfolio…though, of course, one in particular is not suitable for mixed company. The man is so impressed that he insists Aegon must not be deprived of the ability to create such beauty for lack of supplies, and gifts him an easel and some paper, brushes, and oil paints.

It’s difficult with his sore, bandaged hands, but Aegon still wants to try, and when his brush begins to shake he asks you to help him. Aegon explains things to you as you steady his hands: chiaroscuro, scumbling, alla prima, glazing, impasto, a foreign language that will soon become familiar. Already, you are learning. And as Carpathia sails into New York Harbor on the evening of April 18th, Aegon takes a paintbrush and draws a circle around your ring finger in vivid, sapphire blue, a worthless gift of no gleaming gems or metal, a vow that means everything.

It’s been years, but Aegon remembers the way to his mother’s house. He leads you, Draco, and Fern to the doorstep of the Hightower mansion on Fifth Avenue. He knocks and a butler answers, a middle-aged man who gapes at Aegon in shellshocked disbelief.

“One…one moment, sir, if you’d be so kind to…to…to just wait here, please,” the butler stammers, then disappears inside. A few minutes later, a different man appears in the threshold. He must be Aemond, tall and white-blonde and precise in every movement, his left eye concealed by a black leather eyepatch. His remaining eye, a clear alert blue, darts to where Fern is holding Draco on her hip and then to you and Aegon, his bandaged hands resting so lightly on you they could never leave a mark.

Then Aemond’s face softens, and there is a kind sort of relief that seeps in, and you imagine your parents will look the same way when you return to Lough Cutra Castle. “You’re home,” he says quietly.

And Aegon smiles and replies: “We all are.”

[joonslfttiddie]

Home

Chapter 32: Gifted...

💜Fic Pairing: OT7 x OFC

💜AU/Genre: Reverse Harem/Polyfidelity/Ghosts/AMBW

💜Warnings: Mentions of Arson/Fire/Anxiety Attacks/Death of Main Characters/Murder/Adult Language/Sexual Activity/Stalking/Cancer/Loss of Parent/Ghosts/Explicit Smut/Ejaculation/Oral Sex/Nipple Play/Death of Main Characters/Unprotected Sex/Hate Crime/Blackouts/Orgy/Mention of Gun/Breath Play

*Warnings are for entire work; not chapter specific*

💜Rating: MA

💜Word Count: 3789

*FLASHBACK*

"Didn't I tell you that you drink too much?"

My mother eyes me as I'm pouring my nightcap.

"Mom, you make me sound like an alcoholic. Even my doctor says a glass of red wine a day is good for the heart."

"Well, whatever, I just worry about you. You need to make an appointment with your doctor, just for a check up."

Clean. That's the best way I can describe my mother's scent that creeps into my nose as I hug her from behind, placing my glass on the counter next to the sink, making sure to handle her frail frame gently.

"Yes, ma'am. I'll call in the morning. AND, I'll do a cleanse, just for you, okay. No alcohol for a month," I concede, resting my cheek on her shoulder.

"Don't do it for me, do it for yourself. I know your liver is screaming for a break and more water."

"Dang, ma!"

Our laughter fills the kitchen just as my sister enters the house.

"Sis, come get your mama," I acknowledge Jasmine as she's placing her keys on the hook, then removing her shoes and purse.

"No, come get your wino of a sister," Mommy quips.

"All I heard was wine. Gimme some!"

Mom's jaw drops as Jasmine's coming around the corner, causing us girls to erupt in laughter.

"You heifers get on my nerves together. T, don't play around with your health and call the doctor's office first thing because it'll be hard to get someone after lunch. Ask them to do a urinalysis. Jas, wash your dishes if you decide to eat dinner. I made the sausage, gravy, and rice you guys love."

"Deh," we say in unison as Mommy, in passing, tucks a clump of Jas's curls behind her ear with one hand and grabs my cheeks with the other. She calls over her shoulder as she's ascending the stairs.

"Also, y'all need to avoid taking the interstate in the morning. And don't be in here doing all that cackling, you know I have another round of chemo tomorrow."

It wasn't uncommon for mom to warn us of things or worry over us. Yes, most mother's want to try to protect their children, but this goes beyond that. Our grandmother had the same gift that is said to be bestowed upon the women of our family by age 30, having skipped me as I'm already 34. With this gift, Mom and Granny had a history of predicting things in our lives and shielding us from danger. Not that she considers herself a psychic or anything, Mom just has 'a feeling' sometimes. She would alert us of dangers and things yet to happen in regular conversation, like there was nothing odd about it. And she could always read us like a book.

"Tia."

On my way to my room, I stop abruptly in front of my mother's bedroom door when I hear her calling for me.

"Ma'am?"

Sitting propped up on a mountain of pillows, she puts her book on the bed and motions for me to move closer. I already know the drill as her hands are extended, so I go to stand next to the bed, leaning over for her to hold my face in her hands. She first looks into my eyes, shifting from one to the other. It's almost as if she's looking through me. Closing her eyes, she takes a deep breath in through her nose and releases it through her mouth.

"I just wanted to check in on you again. Don't be too worried about your doctor's visit. It's not anything life threatening but you do need to get checked out."

"Will I need to get a shot or something? Medicine?"

"Probably just medicine. You'll be okay," she reassures me then opens her eyes. "I've been meaning to ask you, do you still have those dreams?"

Even without the details, I know exactly what she is talking about. The dreams that feature the same seven men, guiding, helping, and comforting me as I sleep. I'm curious as to why she's brought this up even though she asks every few years.

"Yes, ma'am...I had another one a couple of days ago. Why?"

"No reason, really, I just thought about it. You are gifted, Tia, and I, honestly, believe those men are assigned to you, to keep you safe. Just know that if you ever encounter some sort of danger, your love will protect you."

"My Love? Like my man? And gifted? I'm already years past thirty so if I was gifted, it would have shown by now."

"I'm not quite sure, T. I just see you experiencing new beginnings... fate... home... seven... death... love... purple... fire... hate... rebirth." Her brow furrows and she closes her eyes again, tilting her head ever so slightly before she continues to speak.

"Ma, wha-?"

"Shh..."

Whenever she gets like this, something big is coming. She can never tell us when, but she definitely gets us prepared for what's to come.

"Something will come after you, or has come...something dark and spiteful. There will be a fire, or there has been a fire?" She quickly releases me, fanning her hands as if she'd been burned. She just looks at me but I can't read her expression as it's a mixture of worry and confusion with a hint of fear. "Baby, you've always been a tough nut to crack, since the day I brought you into this world. Sometimes, I can't tell if you're coming or going but you are something special, the universe knows that. You're going to experience a great loss, or you already have? I don't know, Tia, but you will have your happily ever after."

"Okay, well, I'm not scared at all," I tease sarcastically.

"And you shouldn't be. No weapons formed against you shall prosper," mom begins to pray over me ending it with an 'amen'.

"Amen. Well, I'd better get to bed, too. Are we still getting pancakes before your appointment?"

I love getting on her nerves, joking and picking with her to make her laugh. Maybe that's my toxic trait, resorting to humor to not focus on the seriousness of situations.

"I wish! We can stop to get you some but unfortunately, I'll only be having a small, bland meal before."

"Boooooooo! No, I'm kidding. You know I'm going to eat what you eat...let's suffer together."

"Girl, goodnight. Get outta my room with your silly self. And, try to stop stressing so much. Even the Lord needed seven days to create heaven and earth." She catches what she just said and can't help but to laugh at herself. "Seven... the number of completion."

I chuckle lightly before stepping towards the door.

"Yes, ma'am. Night night."

*PRESENT DAY*

Another POV

"Please, try to be quiet when you're sweeping this room as someone is sleeping," Jungkook advises and the technician nods, his plush lips curving up at the corners.

The door opens slowly, allowing the beautiful young man to enter the space. He seems to float around the area, gracefully running his device across every surface. Jungkook can't seem to peel his eyes off of the young man as he steps past him, making his way to the armchair near the bed. Having not left Tia's side for more than a few minutes since she was discharged from the hospital this morning, he takes her hand before sitting in the chair he'd drug to her bedside. He and Taehyung have decided that one of them should be with her at all times and Jungkook takes this opportunity to stare at her sleeping features, barely noticing the man now standing next to him.

"A real life Sleeping Beauty, huh?"

Jungkook meets his eyes, "Yea, she is beautiful, isn't she?" Looking back to Tia, and kissing the back of her hand before he continues, "I could just stare at her like this all day."

"I see why! My goodness, she is breathtaking." Hoping to not cross the line, he asks, "Will she be okay?"

Glancing up to him again, Jungkook could have sworn he had tears in his eyes. "Y-yea...she'll be okay, she just needs to rest and stay hydrated." Just as the technician is about to speak again, Tia's phone vibrates. Snatching it from the nightstand before the sound can wake Tia, Jungkook takes the phone answering it as he walks out of the bedroom.

The young man, as if enchanted, keeps his eye on her sleeping face. Her smooth, golden brown skin seems to glow, her lips full with a slight sheen, he is drawn to touch her. Tia's eyebrows scrunch and she moans lowly, giving the man an excuse to rush to her side. After quickly placing his equipment on the floor, he takes her hand into his.

What the fuck am I doing?

He can't deny the pull he feels but knows that he has free will, being able to walk away whenever he wants. But he doesn't want to. Like Jungkook said a moment ago, he could stare at her all day long.

"Jimin!" A voice whisper shouts from the bathroom.

He drops her hand and turns on the spot to face his colleague.

"Shh!" He tries to hush the man before he wakes Tia, but is unsuccessful.

"Who are you," the small voice asks from behind him. Jimin looks around to see Tia staring back at him.

"Hey, sorry to have woken you up. We're here to sweep the house for any hidden cameras or listening devices."

"Where is JK?"

"JK?" As Jimin is asking her, Jungkook returns with some fruit and water.

"Hey, babe, I'm here. I'm glad to see you up. How are you feeling?"

"Okay, I guess. I'm a bit groggy and my head is banging."

"John said you'll probably feel that way for a few hours. He said that you'll probably be lethargic, too, and to call if you need something for nausea. Your memories may come back all at once or in spurts, but try to not stress yourself out. Here...take this," he hands Tia a couple of red and white tablets, "Hopefully, this will help with your headache."

She takes the pills, and washes them down with the water. Jimin doesn't realize he's stuck in place, watching this interaction between the two until Tia speaks, looking directly at him. He sees her mouth moving but doesn't hear what she says. He jerks himself out of his trance and says, "Ah, sorry, what was that?", asking Tia to repeat her question.

"I said what's your name?"

"Oh, Jimin...Park Jimin."

"Nice to meet you. Was that you holding my hand a minute ago?"

He's blushing red and rubbing the back of his neck, embarrassed, having been caught. Nodding his head, he admits his actions.

"I'm sorry...you just looked so beautiful, and you were moaning, and your brows were tense. I didn't know if you were having a bad dream or if you were hurting. I'm sorry, I just felt compelled to comfort you. Forgive me if I overstepped-"

"We are so sorry, ma'am. We'll just finish searching this area, then we'll be out of your hair," the other man cuts Jimin off to apologize.

Unintentionally ignoring the other man, Tia's focus remains on Jimin.

"Thank you...Jimin. You didn't overstep at all," Tia shows her gratitude and the way his name falls from her lips is intoxicating.

Jungkook's POV

Thankfully, Tia slept through the entire process of getting her discharged and home. I don't think I would have been able to stand the void look of confusion in her eyes or her staring at me like a stranger. Not again. Thankfully, I'm off duty during the day today and get to spend it caring for Tia. Taehyung will be back after he takes care of some things at the office and, luckily, he's the owner of the business, so he'll be able to take a few days off to be here as well.

Tia is still sleeping when I answer the door for the technicians to come in and sweep the house. There's something about one of the men that causes my heart to race when he's near. I feel an immediate connection to him, almost like a long lost brother. Unable to tear my eyes from him, I watch as he practically dances around Tia's room, something so elegant in his movements. The only thing that can take my attention from him is Tia's peaceful features and I have a seat to further take them in.

As we converse briefly, I swear that I see tears in his eyes and I can't help but to wonder if he's possibly experiencing the same attraction to her as me and Taehyung. As I open my mouth to ask, Tia's phone vibrates across the bedside table and I quickly grab it before it wakes her. I rush out of the room to answer the call.

'Hello? Tia?'

"Hey, Brandon. Tia is unavailable at the moment."

'Oh, my bad. You must be her boyfriend. Hey man, I was just calling to check on her after hearing about what happened. I got called to the police station to give a statement about a past employee.'

"Yea, I appreciate you checking in on her. She's past the critical part and is home resting now. Would you like to leave a message for her?"

'Yeah...yeah. Could you tell her...tell her that I'm so sorry for what happened and what she had to go through. I fired him shortly after we started on her reno. After I had caught him doing some suspicious things, but I should have said something or reported him, I don't know. Like I said, he was suspicious but I had no proof of anything. I didn't know what else to do but to let him go.'

Of course I already know the details of this case but I listen anyway, making my way down to the kitchen.

'I'm not innocent in all of this as I was inappropriate at times and said some things about her when she wasn't around, but it was just locker room talk, you know? Men being men. I promise, I never meant for anything bad to happen to her.'

"Look man, I get what you're saying but making sexual jokes and references about a woman is not locker room talk. You being a dick and acting spiteful because Tia rejected you is more accurate. Men being men? Don't ever generalize your behavior as a 'man' thing. I'm nothing like you because real men don't do shit like that. I'll give her your little message, and you can go ahead and delete her number, bro. There's nothing else for you to talk to her about."

I end the call and slide her phone into my back pocket before rummaging through the fridge for something light for her to eat and some water, thinking of John's recommendations. In one of the cabinets, I find a bottle of Tylenol and take a few in case she has a headache before I go back upstairs.

Tia's POV

I'm in between sleep and consciousness when visuals flood my mind. I can't tell if I'm dreaming or not, and my heart breaks seeing Jungkook and Grey cry. What happened? Am I dead? There's a warmth that suddenly covers me like a warm blanket, and I feel a sense of peace. Is it coming from the person holding my hand? Is it Jungkook? Taehyung? Whoever it is, they give off the same comfort as them.

When I open my eyes, I'm still not sure if I'm dreaming when I see a man standing next to my bed, his back to me, strong yet beautiful. Mom taught my sister and I to trust our gut, that our intuition would never steer us wrong, so even though I can't see his face, I feel comfortable as my body is reacting as if I know him. He feels familiar. The sharpness of his jaw line is the first thing I notice as he's turning to face me, followed by his pillowy lips and breathtaking features. I swear, my heart skips a beat when his eyes meet mine.

When Jungkook walks in, my mind wanders as we're talking, unable to take my eyes off of the unknown man. I can recall bits and pieces of what happened last night and I know that I had to go to the hospital, but the details are vague. He starts telling me about what John had said regarding my recovery but stops to trace my line of vision, meeting the man standing a few feet away.

"Who are you?"

Jimin...again, I feel like I've said his name a million times. So, it was him radiating the same energy as the other two.

"Thank you, Jimin," is all I can give him at the moment and with a forced smile reassure him that he's not overstepping my boundaries.

Jungkook offers me some of the fruit he brought up but I don't have much of an appetite at the moment, and I can feel my headache getting worse by the minute. Not even 10 minutes later am I in the fetal position on the bed, awaiting the moment my skull splits in half. Thankfully the other technician has finished the sweep in here and is outside in the work van. I think there's something vulnerable about suffering and I didn't want him to see me this way but I'm comfortable with Jungkook...and Jimin. Fragmented memories are swirling through my mind, searching to land on their specific string of experience.

"Oh my God, baby...I'm so sorry," I say between tears, unsure if I'm crying because of the searing headache, the visual of my loved ones sad because of me, or both.

"Shh...it's okay, baby. I know. I know you didn't mean it."

Jungkook is kneeling next to the bed, kissing the back of my hand and rubbing my butt, trying to console me. Being that my eyes are closed tight, I don't see when Jimin comes over to kneel next to him.

"May I?"

Assuming he got the go ahead from Jungkook, I almost melt when his hands caress my scalp and firm circles rub across my temples. This doesn't alleviate the pain completely but it's definitely relaxing. This in combination with the booty rubs calms me enough that I end up falling asleep.

"Jagiya, wake up, love...you need to eat something."

I awaken to Taehyung's gorgeous face and I'm enthralled but unable to show it much as I'm still in pain. It has subsided a ton, but is definitely lingering.

"Hi, Tae. Are you done with work?"

He still blushes and gives me that boxy smile whenever I call him by his nickname. He is so fucking cute.

"Yeah, I just had to speak to a few customers and move some appointments around. How are you feeling?"

"I feel like shit but not as shit as earlier. I missed you."

"I missed you more, and I'm glad you feel less shit."

"Also, I'm so sorry about last night."

"No need to apologize...we know it was the medicine making you like that. Here, sit up. I brought soup. Koo told me you haven't eaten much."

I'm able to sit up and have a few spoonfuls of the soup, the rich warm broth heats me from within. After taking more medicine, I scoot over to make room for Taehyung to lay with me, and bump into a sleeping Jungkook. Thankfully, I don't wake him but it does cause him to stir, he grabs my hips, pulling me to lay flush to him. With hushed voices, Taehyung and I converse with our foreheads together.

"So?" He questions me, wearing a knowing smirk, my thumb grazing over the slight stubble along his cheek.

"So? So, what?" I'm genuinely confused.

"Jimin?"

I pull away for a moment to fully search his features for any indication of anger or jealousy... nothing. He only smiles and wiggles his eyebrows at me. So he and Jungkook talked while I was sleeping.

I snicker and playfully cover his smile with my palm and say, "Yeah? What about him?"

"Koo told me about you guys giving each other 'bedroom eyes'."

"No one was giving anyone any kind of eyes. I mean... he was handsome and sweet."

"Yea, that's not the way Koo described him. He said he was fine as fuck and looked like he was sent from heaven, on some Keyshia Cole type shit."

We burst into silent laughter, trying not to disturb Jungkook as he has to work tonight.

"Oh my God! Stop, stop, stop...my head hurts," I whisper yell to him, still wheezing.

"Oh shit...my bad. I read somewhere that an orgasm will help relieve headaches," Taehyung apologizes while still smiling and rubbing my head with his thumb, his comment only causes us to laugh more. Once we finally settle down, he kisses my forehead and asks, "Bath time?"

"Ummm," I agree, never turning down a bath, nuzzling my face into his shirt. The scent of his cologne makes me clench my thighs in an attempt to cease the throbbing. Bitch, you could have died just yesterday and you're thinking about fucking?! I allow Taehyung to assist me from the bed to the bathroom, struggling to fight against the weakness and lightheadedness. He holds my arm firmly as I step into the empty tub, sitting me down slowly.

"Lay back and try to relax a bit," Taehyung advises as he starts the water, adjusting it until he finds the perfect temperature. I move my hair to drape over the lip of the tub before I lay back. Leaving briefly, he comes back to sit behind my head. I'm assuming he went to get a hair tie as he's now collecting my strands to put them in a bun atop my head.

I'm practically drooling when his hands leave my hair and begin to massage my neck. Applying firm pressure, using water as lubrication to slip from the base of my neck up into my nape. With his thumb still rubbing circles in my hair, his free hand is massaging my shoulder. My eyes close on their own, moans flowing from my nostrils.

"You like that, huh?"

"Uh huh," I nasally respond, allowing my head to rest against his palm.

Noticing that the water is now covering my breasts, Taehyung pauses his massage to turn the water off, coming back to start where he left off.

"Have you spoken to Koo about the suspect they arrested last night?"

"I haven't but I know that's a conversation that needs to happen. Since I've slept most of the day, I don't think he's had the chance to bring it up."

"How are you feeling about all of this, like, now that he's been caught?"

"Honestly, I feel free and light. I feel like I can exist without having to look over my shoulder, you know? But, mostly, I'm just glad he wasn't able to hurt me or the people that I love."

Taehyung gently moves my head to the other side to massage my other shoulder. I open my eyes as I hear the bathroom door opening to see a groggy Jungkook coming in, hair a mess atop his head.

"Hey, Sleepyhead! Did you sleep well?"

A/N:

Thanks so much to @moonleeai for beta reading this chapter! 💜

[awritingcaitlin]

💜Find the Word Tag💜

I was tagged by @legiomiam for the words: needle, thread, grin, and toast

Tagging: @pinespittinink, @samplewriting, @tananaphone, @clockworkgalaxies and @nanashi23 for the words: layer, excuse, book, smooth, and hour.

Snippets are from The Brewing War

❇THREAD(S)❇

Rinnie stared at her layered books, supplies, and clothes in her trunk. It was half-full so far and she’d rather be shopping. She wanted to pick up some casual wear for Berthingtonn and she needed to buy new boots. Plus, she could stop at Temple.

Mind made up, she pulled on her soon-to-be-replaced boots and left.

Two hours later Rinnie walked out of the last of three stores carrying half a dozen bags floating behind her on slender threads of telekinesis only practitioners could see. She’d bought a variety of clothes for her stay in Berthingtonn and replaced her boots with another enchanted pair, donating the old ones to be remade into something else. The new ones didn’t have buckles on the top, but she might modify them later.

.

🩸NEEDLE🩸

“Does your mom have a set schedule?” Taryn asked as Rinnie set the brush down.

“No. She never keeps one. But her excuse is that she’s an oracle. When I do it, it’s considered irresponsible,” Rinnie muttered the last bit absently, grabbing the needle. “Here, prick your finger.”

Taryn didn’t say anything else about schedules and took the needle from Rinnie. Rinnie had her smear droplets of blood on the trigger, around the muzzle, and right around the newly placed mirrors.

“You can go wash that off,” she told Taryn.

Taryn went to the washstand. Rinnie began linking Taryn to the gun within the spell. The sights needed to understand the target Taryn was thinking about and show her the actual target the bullet would hit, not an apparent target. 

.

💜GRIN💜

Adler conceded and took three bowls. “I’ll give one to Mama Cass and send Paul in here for his,” he said. “You get those patrons theirs.”

Riela scoffed and took all the bowls except his back. “This is my job, Nathaniel,” she replied with an almost patronizing grin.

Adler rolled his eyes and went to the table where the others were sitting. Then he realized he’d forgotten a spoon. He started to turn back when Riela showed up, an extra spoon in hand. She handed it to Adler and sat next to him.

.

🍻TOAST🍻

“Ladies and… boys,” Mama Cass began, in a smooth, commanding voice.

“Gentlemen?” someone from the crowd offered.

“Not one of you out-town, shit-breathing assholes’s a gentleman and y’all knowwit!”

The crowd replied with laughs and jeers.

Mama beamed. “On this night forty years ago the Tipsy Tom opened for business, and if you don’t think that’s reason enough to toast, then you can talk to Mr. Lubbock over there about getting the fuck outta here.”

[fantasmalforces]

@maximuses SAID: son of a – son of a gun, son of a freaking gun. -> mama and buffy

💜 most popular girls in school // ACCEPTING 💜

“Keeping it PG for the baby, Mama?” Buffy quirked a brow as she looked over at Målingen from where the mutant was settled comfortably on a beaten-up sofa. The tar-like body of the infant squirming in her arms sifted a bit, looking towards the sound of her voice. “I don’t really think there’s a need for it. She can’t understanding anything you’re saying. Infants don’t understanding language. They only understand tone, and even then, their responses tend to be guided by the emotions they sense from their parents.”

Buffy moved up, hunching over and raising a leg to scratch at herself behind one oversized, droopy ear. “She’ll understand that you’re mad or frustrated. She won’t understand what upset you or how you respond to it. Her whole focus is squarely on the fact that you’re upset and nothing else. Babies’re really simple like that. Makes them easy to care for in that sense.”

It had seemed to simple raising Alice. She responded more to people’s emotions than anything else. Sure, she cried when she was hungry or uncomfortable, but keeping her happy otherwise was really quiet simple beyond that. If she saw other people enjoying their food, she’d eat it. If she saw other people enjoying their naps, she’d happily join them and lay down so easily. If she saw others enjoying bath time, she offered no fuss in joining them in the tub. Now that she was older and learning about independence, she was a lot less compliant. But infancy had largely been without complication.

“Baby talk aside, you’re only frustrated because you’re overlooking something simple. Change the variability factor to 0.5 and increase the sensitivity factor by 50%. You’ll get more accurate results like that and you won’t have to calibrate after every storm that rolls through.” A pause, and Buffy perked up again. “Oh, and don’t forget to pump once you’re done. You’ve been doing pretty good avoiding mastitis since you started. Don’t wanna fall back into that old pain again.”