#masters of the air original female character

[bandagesandloveletters]

Lilla Thornton (Masters of The Air OFC)

Note: A little introduction to my newest original female character for the Masters of The Air universe. Look out for all her adventures in the weeks to come. Word Count: 895 words.

Glass plasma bottles clicked against each other as they moved inside the chipped wooden crate marked "Medical Supplies". Pyramids of morphine syrettes threatened to spill with every second step heavier than the opposite. In a different setting, desperate hands would be grabbing at the morphine, like kids to a bowl of candy. It was a highly sought-after substance on the frontlines by medics, but in the ghostly quiet hallways of the on-base infirmary, no one dared to steal from what supplies graced the stockroom. 

In the middle of the infirmary's hustle and bustle lay a heavy oak desk, out of place and odd for its surroundings but very fitting for the occupier who worked upon it, hour after hour.

Thud! Rattle! Clunk! The wooden crate came to rest upon the paper-laden desk as dainty hands rifled through its contents, determined to find the item that she so urgently needed.

"Ah-ha!" the gentle rasp with a Texan accent piped up as she grasped what she was looking for in her left hand. "There you are, you little rascal."

"Still talking to the medical supplies, I see."

"You know me, Nora. If a seasick-riddled boat journey across the pond can't change my ways, it will never happen," Second Lieutenant Thornton chirped as she turned to stand before the friendly face.

Lilla Thornton was a petite girl from Fredericksburg, Texas. Although she was small in stature, she had a big personality. As head nurse, the tiny Texan often had to drum up morale as her fellow medics worked tirelessly on wounded men evacuated from the battle-damaged aircraft returning from missions into occupied Europe. It was almost like working on a production line; as soon as a patient was stable, they'd be moved to a more suitable bed within the infirmary, away from all the chaos.

A no-nonsense kind of girl, Lilla was known for throwing herself into her work, placing it on top of her list before pleasure. Her time at Thorpe Abbotts was a perfect example of this practice. As her nurses clung to the men of the 100th every Friday at the Half Moon Inn, the young Lieutenant would spend her night taking stock of supplies and rolling bandages. Even back home, she'd rather spend her weekends studying or helping her father run the family ranch than travel the hour into Austin to go drinking and galavanting with her friends.

Growing up, she had to learn and take responsibility more quickly than most girls. At the age of seven, her dear mother Tabitha passed suddenly of an unknown illness that doctors were trying to grasp a better knowledge and understanding. Lilla was the eldest of three siblings, meaning any extra time she had after her classes were finished was spent working to bring in extra money to aid the family finances.

Her father, a cripple who couldn't work, always encouraged the brunette to follow her heart, and on the 18th of August 1941, Lilla Thornton joined the Army Nurse Corps. With a passion for helping those in need and a hard-working ethic, Army life came as easy as learning to crawl as an infant.

Training started at Brooke General Hospital, San Antonio, Texas, before she was assigned to the Eighth Air Force as a breakaway unit in September of 1942. A single gold bar sat proudly upon the collar of her dress uniform and the new role of head nurse upon her shoulders.

At Kearney Army Airfield, Nebraska, Lilla made friends with a fellow nurse from Louisiana. Like Lilla, Nora was a serious person putting just as much dedication into her role as a nurse as the Texan girl did. Nora and Lilla forged a friendship that would stand the test of time.

Thrusting the two bottles of saline towards the medic, followed by some syrettes of morphine, Lilla raised an eyebrow in question at the female before her.

"This should be more than enough for now. You don't happen to have any chocolate in your magic box, Lieutenant Thornton?" Nora’s Southern drawl emphasized certain words as she asked the smaller female. 

Holding up a finger, Lilla turned and began to search through a heavy oak drawer connected to her desk before producing a foil-covered article. Chocolate had become a rare commodity, especially with all the rationing the Americans faced while living in England, and what they could get a hold of tasted far from what they were used to back home. 

"This is my last ration for this month. It better be for a good reason you’re looking for some. You owe me one, Nora."

"You got my word, Li. If you have the time, can you check on Lieutenant Payne? I think he's coming down with pneumonia."

Looking up from her clipboard at the mention of one of the navigators, Lilla nodded. It was apparent there was some kind of bug going around the base. She’d already treated a few men with similar symptoms.

"I don't have long left until I've finished my shift here, but I'll be round as soon as possible. Just make sure he's kept warm until I get there."

Returning her attention to the crate of supplies, Lilla sat down behind the desk to begin the final stock check of her shift.

[winniemaywebber]

The exhaustion of living a double life is causing Olive to unravel. Between taking care of her grandma Pearl in 2021 and a gaggle of hungry, homesick airmen in 1943, Olive is spent - even more so when she realizes that her secret cannot be kept as such for much longer.

Part 9 of Honeysuckle Rose, coming soon.

taglist: @sagesolsticewrites @blakelysco-pilot @hephaestn @manonsmanicmind @derry-rain @archival-hogwash @butterfly9012 @ptvstvrrr @lestweforget5 @claireelizabeth85

[luminouslywriting]

Chapter 12—Mastermind (MOTA Fic)

A/N: The moment you've waited for has arrived....so sit back, enjoy, and let me know what you think! Reminder that my requests for this fic are open and I want to know what YOU WANT to see :) So please let me know! Thank you!

Abe hadn’t liked basic training all that much.  He hadn’t ever been scared though.  He had never been afraid of the dark—though he did hate thunderstorms.  He just simply didn’t scare easy.  But standing in front of Robert Rosenthal—someone who very much knew that he did not belong here and was not old enough to be here—oh he was scared and very very doomed.

But Robby’s stern demeanor lifted ever so slightly as he gave a tight smile to the other guys.  “Abe, buddy it’s been a while.  Couple years, hasn’t it been?” 

“Uh yeah!” Abe answered, a little too quickly for Robby’s taste.  “Great to see you too, who are your other friends—” 

“Oh you two already know each other?” Nash asked, a grin bubbling onto his face as he looked between Rosie and Abe. 

“Grew up down the hall from each other,” Rosie said with a grin. 

“No way!” Nash exclaimed.  “The odds of that are so small!  I guess war does have a weird way of bringing people together.  Well, Abe—this here is Pappy and this over here is Speitz!” 

“Great to meet you, I gotta get going.  Probably have an inspection or something—” Abe started, going to take a step in the other direction.  

“Oh, no, no, no—we should take a walk and catch up!  In fact, I think I insist!  After all, you’re like a kid brother to me!” Robby said jovially. 

Abe could only bear the grin painfully on his face as Rosie’s iron grip settled on his shoulders.  “Yeah, great!” 

Yeah, just great.  Figures, he runs away from home to join the military and he gets sent to the one base in the world where Robert Rosenthal is assigned—and that guy was just too good of a guy to just let Abe live his life and make his own mistakes.  Yeah, he was definitely going home and his life was officially over.  

As soon as the duo was out of earshot, Rosie just looked at Abe with a flabbergasted expression.  “What the hell were you thinking?” he asked, nearly shoving at the kid in worry.  “You’re not 18!” 

“Keep it down!” Abe hushed in a panicked tone, glancing around to see if anyone noticed it.  No one seemed to spare the two of them any glances, so that was a minor win. 

“No, I will not!  You’re just a kid!  You shouldn’t be here!” Rosie crossed his arms in a pointed manner. 

“Listen, I want to be here!  Daniel signed up—” 

“Daniel is 18.  You’re—you just barely hit sixteen. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you and you think that coming over here is gonna be fun—” 

“No!” Abe exclaimed in a forceful tone.  “I came over here because I was sick of reading the death reports and watching parents hang up flags!  I want to do something about it!” 

Rosie just stared at Abe for a long time, trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do with this kid and what his obligation here was.  And then it absolutely hit him.  There was a solution and it had nearly insulted him earlier.  And her name was Ruth Sharpe and she just so happened to be on the base. 

He let out a deep sigh—and prayed silently that Abe wasn’t going to hate him after he did this.  “Come on.  There’s somewhere we can talk.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ruth was just in the middle of typing up another report when a knock on the door to her office caught her ears.  Letting out a deep sigh, she curled her fingers over the last of the keys on the typewriter to finish up her word and then leaned back.  “Come in—” 

She had no sooner said the words that Robert Rosenthal came hauling in, holding none other than her brother Abe by the crook of the elbow.  Her brother Abe—who was wearing an identical uniform to Rosie.  Her brother Abe, who had been missing for months now and the family had presumed they wouldn’t be able to find him, even with Ruth searching. 

And now here he was, standing in her office looking like a fish out of water. 

“What are you doing here?!” Both Sharpe siblings blurted at the same time. 

Almost immediately, Abe knew that he was utterly screwed.  Ruth rose so quickly from the chair, Abe thought he was going to get whiplash from watching her.  The last time he had seen her this angry was the potato debacle of 39’ and Sarah had gotten a potato straight to the nose.  He wasn’t eager to have that be repeated. 

She crossed so quickly to him that he was certain he was going to get slapped but then she was flinging her arms around him tightly and letting out a deep breath.  “Oh you stupid, stupid, stupid, little boy!  What the hell are you doing here?!” She demanded, shoving out of the hug and holding tight to his shoulders with a scrutinizing look. 

“I think I oughta—” Rosie started, gesturing at the door. 

“Did I say that you could go?” Ruth demanded, gaze flickering to him.  “As far as I know, you were in on this entire thing—” 

“That’s not true!  I brought him to you, didn’t I—” 

“Oh my God—” Abe burst out, glancing at the two of them in annoyance. “You two are still so bad!” 

“The point is that you ran away and now you’re here!” Ruth hissed.  “I mean, what—” 

“I’m a Navigator, Ruth!” Abe snapped.  The words fell like beating drums against Ruth’s ears and she stumbled backwards, unable to know if she was correctly hearing him.  “And I’m a damn good one!  I don’t want to go home, I want to stay here—” 

But Ruth’s mind was already racing.  Because if she ousted him to Harding, then it would reflect poorly on her and that meant that she would get a reputation for trouble and scandal and that wasn’t what she wanted on her record.  There was also the fact that Abe would likely hate her for the rest of her life if she took him away from the one thing that he wanted and she didn’t particularly like the idea of her most precious baby brother hating her. 

There was also the fact that he would, as siblings tended to do, oust her to their parents.  At which point they would demand that she come home because the boyfriend was entirely fictitious and that meant that she should be focusing on other problems.  

Ugh, this was a damn mess. 

“Okay,” Ruth breathed out. 

Abe’s jaw dropped and Rosie craned his head upwards, as if he was having trouble hearing her.  Rarely, if ever, did Ruth respond so simply or without a fight about anything.  “I’m sorry, did you just say—” Rosie started. 

“No, he has to stay.  If he gets found out, even if one of us turns him in, they’ll assume that the other person is in on it.  And at least if he’s here, he won’t sneak away again and I can keep an eye on him,” Ruth said heavily. 

“How would you—” Abe started in confusion.  

“She’s a JAG-Corp Lieutenant,” Rosie mumbled out.  “Lawyers for the military.” 

“I know what it is!” Abe said in slight annoyance.  “But you said—” His gaze drew back to his eldest sister, the military uniform she was wearing, the lack of a ring on her finger.  “You said you were here for a man?  And I thought you were working on women’s causes?” 

Ruth’s eye twitched ever so slightly and this may have been the only time Robert Rosenthal had ever seen her so annoyed in his entire life.  “Ah yes….about that….I—” Her gaze trailed onto Robby and she knew that she was going to kick herself for this later.  “I’m here because when Robby told me he wanted to be a pilot, I knew that I needed to get sent over to Europe too.  So I got here before him.” 

“You—” 

“That’s not—” Rosie’s jaw dropped but then Ruth was looking at him with what he could only describe as a pleading sort of look.  “I mean—” Damn his sensibilities and desires to not make a woman upset with him.  Especially one that dealt with Court Martials.  “She just didn’t want anyone to know that we’re actually friends now.” 

“Wait!” Abe exclaimed, wide-eyed as he was looking between the two of them.  “You’re friends?” 

Ruth blinked, once, then twice.  “Yes,” she said slowly.  “Clearly.  Why else would he bring you straight to me?  And he already knew that I was here, so obviously we are friends.” 

“Yep,” Rosie’s voice died in his throat along with any common sense. 

“Oh this is great!” Abe exclaimed. “I can’t wait to tell—” 

Immediately, both Ruth and Rosie were frantically shaking their heads at him and telling him that he needed to keep his mouth shut about that.  “I don’t think we need to tell anyone about that.  What we do need to figure out is what the hell we’re doing with you.” 

“I thought that you—” Abe started. 

“No, she’s right,” Rosie let out a deep sigh, leaning against the wall and looking over at Abe.  “You’ve got to keep up appearances.  It won’t take long for everyone to realize that you two are siblings.  Family resemblance and last name—and whatnot,” Rosie added.  

Ruth thought for a moment, biting down on her lip at the thought that was blooming in her mind.  “You said you’re a Navigator?” 

“Well yeah—” Abe answered. 

“Then I’ll talk to Kidd and have you transferred into Rosie’s plane—” 

“Woah, woah, woah—” Rosie’s head snapped up just as quick as she had said those words.  “You can’t just—” 

“If I were a pilot and Daniel showed up here, I would want him in my plane,” Ruth said in slight defeat.  “And I hate to say it….but you are the only person or pilot in all of Europe that I’d trust my brother’s life with.” 

Rosie blinked at the words.  There was no backhanded compliment there, no biting tone that usually accompanied Ruth’s words.  This was an older sister asking him to take her brother and protect him.  Because she couldn’t be up there herself.  And as an oldest sibling, he understood that desire to protect his younger siblings on a deep and personal level.  

“Okay,” Rosie mumbled out, barely able to make sense of the turn in conversation. 

“And that way, you can keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t—you know, oust himself as a sixteen year old High School dropout,” Ruth said, gaze turning back onto her younger brother.  

“Ruth—” Abe started. 

Ruth let out a sigh and took a step forward, placing a hand on her brother’s cheek.  “You are such a troublemaker.  You know you have everyone worried sick about you?” 

“I didn’t mean to make you all worry.” 

“It’s my job to worry, you little shit,” Ruth said, giving him a small smile.  “At least now that you’re here, I can…keep an eye on you too.” 

“You won’t be able to protect me up there, though,” Abe said in a small voice of realization. 

Ruth just grimaced, then glanced at Rosie. “Why do you think I want you in his plane?  Now you look tired and you clearly need something to eat.  Get to the mess hall.  Rosie can take you.” 

Rosie didn’t even really want to argue with her at this point.  “Afterwards—” 

“You and I will have to have a talk,” Ruth agreed, suddenly feeling very tired.  “But later.” Just as Rosie was about to escort Abe out of the room, Ruth caught onto Rosie’s arm.  “Thank you,” she murmured in a quiet voice. 

He couldn’t help the small smile that crossed his features.  It was the first time she had ever thanked him.  And she seemed very genuine.

[noneedtoamputate]

I donated doubled red blood cells today, so I had plenty of time to think about yesterday's MotA episode and think up an OFC who is friends with Ken. Just friends. They start off as friends and end up as friends with nothing in between. Just to show it's possible.

I need to finish Chapter 9 of my big fic and maybe I'll write it.

[makairodonx]

Concept art of Keiko Yamamoto’s innate ability to conjure/control the Four Elements of Water, Earth, Air and Fire, along a pictogram of her world’s Elemental Magic System, which functions similarly to Janken or “rock-paper-scissors” (Water at the left, Earth at the bottom, Air at the top and Fire at the right) and the Four Elemental Gems (the Sapphire of Water, the Emerald of Earth, the Diamond of Air, and the Ruby of Fire) which were once mined by the Dwarves of the Black Mountains and were scattered across the different lands of Aetherasia, and which allow the sorceress to cast powerful elemental spells with her staff.

[queers-gambit]

Tower Scrolls

prompt: during the Siege of Eregion, Elrond barters for his fiancé's life, and her life's work.

pairing: Elrond x intended!female!reader

fandom masterlist: The Rings of Power

word count: 4.1k+

note: brain go wonky, don't take this too serious

warnings: we got angst! we got drama! we got spoilers! i think it's more hurt and comfort, but to each their own! there's cursing, character injury, canon-complicit character death, blood, depiction of abuse and torture, violence, is this a reader insert? i don't know anymore, but i think so. oneshot, filler, very abrupt ending.

Fire rained from the sky. Ash snowed on once white-sand buildings. Tension permeated the air. Blood irrigated soil.

Eregion was under attack.

Elves screamed in despair, Orcs snarled from outside the city walls, and no matter where you turned, you were trapped in this never ending barrage of violent misfortune. To the best of your ability, you manned the city walls and ordered the citizens of Eregion to find shelter, tunnel out of the city, or pick up arms and fight - fight for their homes, their families, their lives.

It was nearly a natural succession of power after dedicating majority of your life to Eregion and Lord Celebrimbor; a common presence, friendly face, such an outstanding ally that few hesitated to take your command. Yet you were met with resistance, some Elves rejecting your orders in favor of this "Annatar, Lord of Gifts," apparently sent from the Valar themselves to aid Celebrimbor in his creative work. They thought he was Lord of Eregion now, and since you were loyal to the previous Lord - who Annatar claimed had lost his ever sharp mind - you were looked upon with the same frown.

So, you did the only thing you thought you could do.

You protected your Lord, almost to the extent of your life. Too many had already fallen, you refused to follow; insisting on remaining with Lord Celebrimbor for the duration of his efforts so long as Annatar was in Eregion. The immortal being wasn't keen on the idea, but Celebrimbor was much soothed around you - so, he agreed, on the condition that your Lord finish his work on the Nine Rings.

After escaping before, Annatar thought the best suited idea would be to chain Lord Celebrimbor to his work bench; knowing you did not have the means to break him free and feeling it was a safe move. However, as you witnessed, the will of the Lord of Eregion was by far stronger than that of The Deceiver.

"I cannot!" You begged your Master. "No, you will not ask this of me! The audacity you possess - "

"You must!" Celebrimbor insisted, taking your cheeks in hand to smush your lips in a pucker. "Listen to me - listen! You have always known right from wrong, but now is not a time for rationality, it's a time for action. He mustn't get the Rings, I need you to run with them. Run away - far, far away from here, use the tunnels - "

"I will not abandon you," you snarled, "nor will I abandon this city, not while she still stands!"

"This is bigger than us, bigger than Eregion," Celebrimbor tried to convey his severity, forcing the Rings in your hand - but you were stubborn. For all the traits he loved, he despised your pigheadedness the most - despite admiring it once upon a time. So, he managed to convince you to cut just his thumb off after originally asking you to take the whole hand so the cuff could slide off, but he downgraded to just his digit for the same desired effect.

"Go," you begged him, tears in your eyes as you wrapped his hand with a clean(ish) cloth to staunch the bleeding. "Go, please, before He returns. Do not look back, my Lord."

"Come with me - "

"I'll hold Him off to give you more time. Now, go. Go!"

It wasn't easy, but Celebrimbor left you behind. No sooner had you confirmed his escape did Annatar return; surveying the workshop and you with sinister eyes.

"Where is he?"

"With luck? Far from here. With hope? Even past that," you answered, stood in the middle of the room - looking as if nothing could phase you. All a lie, of course, but Sauron didn't need to know you were close to pissing your pants out of sheer intimidation. "So... You're Him? I have to admit," you gestured at him, "it's a bit of a let down."

"I have many names - "

"Oh, spare me the personal lore all of Middle-earth knows," you snipped, offering a stale look. "You need a new story."

However, Sauron smirked and circled you, taunting, "I know you know where he went. I know you know where the Rings are, too."

"Then have a look in my mind, see for yourself," you smirked back, "go ahead and see that I purposefully did not ask and my Lord did not tell. Go on, if you do not believe me, have a look and know you are wrong - " You were cut off by your own gasp when Sauron's eyes rolled before he brandished a sword to pierce through your foot and into the floor.

"Where. Is. He?" Sauron seethed in your face; hot breath fanning the fly away hairs.

"Away from you," you managed to grit, the sword in too deep to yank free by yourself. "You'll never find them," you laughed without humor when Sauron's anger got the best of him; storming through the workshop, tearing it apart, searching in vain for Nine Rings that were not there. In his anger, you obtained a series of fresh blemishes as he threw anything he could to the sound of your amusement.

Yet any glimmer of hope in your chest was doused, all traces of faith and humor vanishing when guards lead Celebrimbor back into the workshop; discovering the destroyed forge and you, pinned by a bloody foot in the midst. You couldn't move from your place as the guards surrounded Sauron with the intention to apprehend him, yet you saw the threat before anyone else. You begged the guards, your kin, your brethren, to back away, to take your Lord and flee! You begged them to run. You begged them to listen, to hear you!

But it was too late.

Sauron turned your people on one another and had them slaughter each other before disposing of the final guard himself. You screamed at Celebrimbor to run, nearly tearing the blade through bone as you attempted to reach for the man who had taught you your entire life. The man who gave you a chance. The man who built you a home. The man who introduced you to your intended. The man you loved like a father.

But Sauron's grasp extended to all.

Celebrimbor was beaten senseless, the Dark Lord trying to pry information about the Nine from him by any means. Yet your Lord did not budge... And that's when Sauron turned to you. "Please, no! Don't! She doesn't know anything! I swear, please, spare her!" Celebrimbor pleaded when Sauron ripped the sword from your foot before knocking you to your knees; bowstring pulled back, arrow armed and aimed at your calf. "She doesn't know amything!" Celebrimbor screamed as your first tear fell.

"But you do," Sauron narrated, loosing the arrow into your flesh. You tried to subdue your screams, but the immortal took to alternating between shooting you and Celebrimbor with arrows; though his struck lethally, yours struck painfully. To Sauron, you were a plaything; a token to negotiate with, attempting to withdraw information by offering you harm, thinking it was enough to break Celebrimbor.

He was mistaken.

You panted as blood dribbled from the corner of your mouth, wincing as Sauron's boot came down on your knee; smearing his heel into an open wound with you flat on your back. "She... She doesn't know," Celebrimbor tried again. "She is... She's the Lady of Eregion now, and I would not curse her with such a burden as you have me!"

"Oh, a promotion?" Sauron mused, glancing at you - but you saw his underlying desperation.

"Eregion is no more," you whispered, head lulling on the floor to meet Celebrimbor's eyes and smile sadly. Blood lined your teeth. "It would've been the honor of my life should I have been able to defend your city, my Lord."

"Our city."

"How touching," Sauron's eyes rolled.

"She doesn't know," Celebrimbor repeated in anger.

"I know," Sauron nodded, "I looked in her mind. Still, the bond between you is greater - perhaps, you'd be more inclined to share with her?"

"He'd never," you chuckled in delirium, "he'd never sacrifice this world for the likes of you." Another arrow thumped into your shoulder, making you groan as Sauron angrily tossed the bow aside. Fearing your life was soon to be extinguished, you whispered, "I-I'm so sorry, my Lord. I failed you."

"No, do not say such a thing," Celebrimbor insisted, Sauron stalking over you before squatting in front of the Elven smith, "for it is I who failed you..."

Sauron sighed, sounding condescending yet soft as he reached over to stroke Celebrimbor's cheek, "Look what you have done to yourself."

You didn't care for his poisoned words, knowing your time was limited - just like Celebrimbor's. Yet the Dark Lord tried one last tactic: mercy. He promised to end your joint suffering should the location of the Nine be revealed. Your Lord was defiant still. So, Sauron tried gaslighting, and when that didn't work, he begged, "Please."

Still, it did not work and Celebrimbor affirmed his time was ending... So, naturally, after he plucked up a spear, Sauron threatened, "There are ways of keeping you both alive." In Sindarin, he added, "Friend." To the look of horror on Celebrimbor's bloody face, Sauron offered, "Must I show you my mastery of that craft as well?"

"'Craft'?" Your Lord chuckled ruefully. Then he spat, "Your only craft is treachery. So pure, it shall betray the very hand that forges it."

Sauron stepped over your limp, bleeding form too casually, quietly seething, "Your words are empty."

"No," Celebrimbor insisted, sitting himself up slightly. "No, hear me. Hear me!" Your dimming eyes widened as your Lord found his feet, back against the stone pillar he had once slumped against as support. "Shadow of Morgoth! Hear the dying words of Celebrimbor! With only Y/N, Lady of Eregion as witness!" You didn't move, you couldn't... You were defeated, you knew there was no way Sauron would let you leave this tower alive. So, you listened and bore witness for as long as you were capable of doing so. "The Rings of Power shall destroy you. And in the end, I foresee one alone shall prove your," he shouted, "utter ruin!"

"NO!" You screamed when Sauron turned, shouting in anger as he strode over you and stabbed Celebrimbor with his spear. You could only watch in fearful disgust as the Dark Lord, still in fair form, hoisted the Lord of Eregion up the stone pillar as if a flag on a pole.

Celebrimbor was in obvious pain, mouth agape, blood dribbling from his slathered lips. Sauron's words were still heard despite the low, quiet register, "You're wrong. I am their Creator." He growled, "I am their Master!"

"No," Celebrimbor's head shook as if pitying the immortal. "You are their... Prisoner. Sauron, Lord..." He trailed as his life's light was snuffed, "of the Rings."

You let your grief manifest in tears, watching as Celebrimbor's eyes found yours - conveying his goodbye as he mouthed one last apology... Then deflating as his soul, as promised, vacated this form to return to the shores. You didn't voice your note of Sauron's single tear, just staring at your Lord in disbelief - until the Dark Lord planted the end of his spear to the ground, staking Celebrimbor above all.

"N-No, no, wait!" You begged, trying to turn over onto your stomach to pull yourself across the ground. "No, please, please, take him down - get him down from there! Please, do not - do not leave him up there!" You cried out as arrow shafts were irritated back to life, reaching blindly - helplessly - upward as if you could reach the Lord of Eregion from his hoist.

Sauron watched you for a moment, the Orcs heard marching up the tower. With a swift swing of his leg, Sauron kicked your jaw - effectively knocking you out and overturning your body to your back; splayed out as if on display... Similar, but not akin, to Celebrimbor - whose pooling blood soaked into your gown.

Through your unconsciousness, Sauron eventually ordered Eregion be razed to the ground, every Elf slaughtered, and the Elven leaders be brought before him - unharmed. He gave specific instruction for every scroll in Celebrimbor's workshop to be torched; his way of punishing you for your insolence over supporting and protecting Celebrimbor.

When you awoke, the tower was quiet. You stiffly lifted your hand to your jaw; rubbing it tenderly, letting your sight refocus and being acutely aware of every feeling in your body.

"Fuuuuuuuck," you whimpered, trying to sit up but being unable due to protruding arrows. You went limp again, feeling a single twinge of anger you had to wake up because your eyes caught sight of and stared at Celebrimbor.

You failed...

You gasped shrilly when hands seized your upper arms and heaved; lugging you over the shoulders of two Orcs as a third swiped at the arrows to break them in the most painful way possible. Considering their brutish nature, you would've thought they'd have lopped your head off and moved along - but instead, they began carrying you towards the door.

"Wha-What's happening?" You asked through a slur, feet dragging under you, spying one of the Orcs gathering scrolls and tomes you spent your life writing alongside Celebrimbor in their dirty arms. "Wait - wait - what're you doing? What're you doing!?"

"Quiet!" An Orc snarled, dropping the hilt of his dagger to the soft part of the base of your head where it connected to your neck. You were silent out of sheer pain.

Down the tower you were drug, brought into the devastated courtyard where Orcs snarled at you from all sides; the two that carried you dropping you on your shattered knees. You were held at knifepoint as Orcs streamed from the tower and dropped your scrolls and tomes in several different piles a short distance away. Head injury caused your sight to blur in and out, but you knew what they were doing... What they intended.

"Please, please, don't do this," you whimpered, hearing several Orcs laugh. "No... No, no, no, no, please! Don't - " You had no more fight as collectively, your records were so extensive that several piles were made, few set ablaze.

All around you, Elves were slaughtered mercilessly, bodies left behind where they fell; the sounds of the city dying with them as the Orcs ran out of the innocent lives to claim. You could only watch. Before you, the Orcs tossed banded lassos around the decorated statue of Faenor, evident their desecration knew no bounds.

Yet hope sparked... The blade at your neck tightening when you perked up upon seeing several Orcs leading few saved Elves into the courtyard - your fiancé one of them.

"Elrond!" You cried, the Orc snarling a hiss as the hand in your hair yanked back. You struggled to the point of blood draw when Elrond's sight casted on you - trying to escape his captors, but being held back.

"Y/N!" He called back, the High King Gil-galad at his side and finding you amongst the rubble, too. The King muttered something you couldn't hear, but to Elrond, he understood the Sindarin word: wait.

"Hey!" You snapped, blade drawing a line of blood from your neck; pressure mounting as he pressed closer. You growled in annoyance.

Faenor toppled to the ground, shattering the heart of any Elf left to witness - Orcs mounting him, ravaging for hidden and seen treasures. With Gil-galad, Elrond, and other survivors, the Orcs moved inward as if to ensure the Elves had a front row viewing to the incineration of their culture.

"Y/N," Gil-galad called to attention, earning several snarls and hisses, "where is Lord Celebrimbor?"

"Dead," you whimpered, Orc growling at you in reprimand.

Elrond's eyes swept over the scene and swiftly understood the impending doom. The largest of the scroll piles was before the Elves now, an Orc pacing around it with his torch alight, tears down your cheeks as you couldn't look away as if in a trance you did not realize.

"No, Uruk! No!" Elrond begged when the Orc went to drop the flame; you struggling against your captor, both hands around his meaty wrist.

"No!" Gil-galad's beg echoed around you.

"That is the full record of Celebrimbor's works," Elrond tried to make the Orcs understand potential ramifications. "The wisdom of all who ever dwelt in this place, all accounted by the Lady Y/N, whose work cannot be found outside Eregion! Its value is beyond jewels or even blood! Take our lives," Elrond gestured to himself and the King, you struggling again on horridly abused knees, "but leave it be, I beg you."

Perhaps you were far too used to people listening when your fiancé spoke because you eagerly sat forward best you could while thinking perhaps the Orcs would listen to Elrond. Imagine your acute and heavy despair when the Orc laughed manically and turned to shove the torch into the bundle of fragile parchment. "NO!" You sobbed uselessly, watching the last of your life's work go up in flame.

You fought against the Orc's grip as Gil-galad snarled, "Cowardly traitors!"

"You fucking bastards!" Your head reared back to (painfully - nobody wins with a headbutt) break the Orc's nose. He released you as other Orcs were wrestling Gil-galad to the ground, able to pick up a blade and take out three too-close enemies.

It was the first time Elrond heard such language fall from your lips, but all he could register was the Orc punching you in the jaw in an attempt to subdue you - blood spitting to the side, seemingly darkening a bruise already blooming. He's never felt such rage.

Elrond fought with his bare hands; elbowing the Orcs behind him, punching the ones before him, fighting to get closer to you. He got ahold of a torch, screaming in white-hot anger as he set the Orc that hit you ablaze; dropping the torch and taking you into his embrace.

"My love," he breathed in your ear, able to peck your cheek just as the snarling Orcs forcefully ripped you out of his arms. "No, no!" He tried to reach out for you, but both were wrangled in.

"Please, don't! NO! No, no, no!" You gasped when Elrond was taken in custody, yet it wasn't you who saved him.

Another Orc reminded, "No! Lord Sauron wanted their leaders unharmed."

"Well, what about her? She looks injured," A different Orc growled, jostling your shoulder and pointing his dagger at your throat. Elrond was forced to his knees as you were, facing one another.

"Lord Sauron did that, said to discipline her should she resist," the Orc answered in a hiss, others shoving more Elves into the courtyard - including Arondir from the battlefield. A blade was held to Elrond's throat as your head bowed in the heat of the bonfire; being ripped up by your hair and forced to turn to watch the flames. The Orcs noticed the pair of you seemingly cared more about the literature than your lives, so, they thought you should relish in this moment.

So Elrond was held in a similar position, but his sight was on you; watching you crumple into despair while more Orcs tossed the last of the scrolls into the flames. Your life, since a youthful student, had been spent intermittently in Eregion under the care of Lord Celebrimbor, whom you thought of as an adoptive father, learning heraldry. He let you work at his side, keeping accurate, detailed record of his philosophies, ideas, processes, and creations for the histories. Yet, now, they wafted into the air as ash - lost to this Age, never to be recovered or duplicated or seen again.

Once more, you dropped your head, earning a backhand to the temple. Gritting your teeth, you let the Orc force your head up but shut your eyes tightly, defiantly; hearing their breathing turn ragged. "Cut her eyelids open!" An Orc barked.

"That's not what Lord Sauron said," another seethed with refusal.

"She's resisting!"

An Orc scoffed and stabbed your thigh with a dagger, eyes flying open as you gasped in pain. "There! See!" It laughed, holding you in a chokehold as tears leaked down your cheeks. Elrond struggled and shuddered against his captors, hating the sight of you dismantling yourself emotionally, but to witness your abuse, he hated more.

Then, from a short distance, a horn bellowed.

"Dwarves!" King Gil-galad identified, the Elves rejuvenated by the surprise (and delayed) arrival of aid. In tandem, they began to resist; yourself included by ripping the dagger from your thigh and driving it into your captor's ribs; praying flesh came too when the blade was ripped free.

He grunted and shoved you forward onto your chest and hands, able to flop over to watch your approaching demise - only to discover Elrond surging up to the Orc and snapping its neck with his bare hands.

"Elrond!" You gasped when the Orc fell to the side... Dead.

"C'mere," the half-Elf you intended to marry panted, reaching down to yank you onto your bloody feet; catching you on his chest when your weight buckled. "I got you, I've got you, love, you're safe," he whispered, hoisting you into his embrace before turning for the stream of Dwarves. "Durin!" He greeted jovially.

But when the Dwarf turned, it wasn't the ginger prince Elrond knew like a brother. The dark haired Dwarf heaved a sigh, informing, "The Prince... Is in mourning," before rushing off into the fray.

"'Mourning'?" You repeated in a daze. "Over Disa?"

"His father, perhaps?" Elrond guessed, tightening his arms to lift you and turn away from an Orc rushing forward. He blocked the enemy's advance, trying to keep secure hold of you - leaving an opportunity for you to use the last of your strength to drive your dagger (still in hand) into the Orc's throat. "Good girl," Elrond praised as the creature fell, panting from exhaustion. "Can you still fight?"

"I can barely stand on my own, Elrond," you whimpered, gripping his neck and shoulders in a vice grip to remain upright.

He nodded, "Right." With a sniffle, he lifted you again and rushed for an alcove, depositing you in rubble before caressing your face. "How bad?" He asked softly.

"Enough."

"Let me see - "

"Elrond, there's no time," you snatched his hands when he attempted to reach for your skirt, "the city is under attack, it's falling to Sauron - you need to help them. Go, go fight."

"I won't leave you."

Your ears rang with the same words you told Celebrimbor.

"You have to, this is bigger than any of us," you repeated what you'd been told.

"Elrond!" Gil-galad was heard calling, Arondir appearing in the mouth of the alcove.

"Over here!"

When the High King arrived, he paused to take in the sight of the pair of you. "Good," he panted, "you're both alive. The Dwarves are aiding our escape, we must leave now... The city is fallen," he directed at you.

"You should all go," you sniffled.

With confusion, Elrond snapped, "Without you?"

"I've business to see to in the tower."

"The tower will fall," Arondir explained, slowly lowering to a squat to put himself on your level. "Whatever you think is left is lost, my Lady."

"Celebrimbor's in there. I was taken before I could get him down."

"'Down'?" Gil-galad repeated, "What does that mean?"

Tears filled your eyes, telling the trio what Sauron did to you and your Lord; the King insisting hope was lost and it was time to go. "I cannot walk," you whispered, shaking your head, "and my injuries surpass - "

"I will carry you," Elrond rushed, holding your cheek gently, "I will not leave you behind."

"No... She will walk," Gil-galad stepped forward, revealing his Ring of Power, Vilya. You were unsure what his intention, but Elrond moved behind you to let you lean back into his chest as the King chanted his prayers.

Yet you passed out before fully healed.

"My King - "

"She's alive," Gil-galad soothed Elrond, the hand hosting Vilya laid to your forehead, "just exhausted. She's been through much, far more than I care to fathom. Sauron took it easy on her, he used mortal weapons against her."

"He didn't intend to kill her?" Arondir questioned.

"He needed her alive - whatever the reason," Gil-galad frowned.

"Will she wake?" Elrond worried.

"I have faith she will, trust in the Valar," the King nodded. "Now, if you intend to fight another day, we must go. Now."

And so, the Lady of Eregion was smuggled out of the smoking city in the arms of the Elf she loved, leaving behind all she knew and created. By the Third Age, at least one scroll written by her hand could be found in every library of Middle-earth; and in the Great Library Elrond built for her, detailed accounts of Lord Celebrimbor's work as recalled and honored by his adopted daughter, future Lady of Imladris.

requesting rules and masterlist

TROP masterlist

[sarah-yyy]

Jie jie LGIEF rec post rec post rec post!!!!!!!

what: transmigration period drama // still airing (we're on ep 22 atm) // 32 eps, roughly 35 mins eachwhere: viki // netflix // wetv (standard disclaimer that i don’t watch with subs so i don’t speak to the quality of eng subs) why: this show is so fun ohmgod!! the costume designs are SO PRETTY and everyone looks bomb af!! ding yuxi is so good in this!! he plays a 姐姐控 demon hunter who falls in love with the first non-jiejie girl who is nice to him, it's a+++. if this show ends strong, it's going to be one of my favourites this year. do not do not do not let the terrible title put you off 🥺

ANYWAY let's go. meet ling miaomiao:

(how pretty is this entire wedding look ohmygod 我又沦陷了)

read a bad web-novel and ended up transmigrating into it while leaving a bad review (😂) - not as the female lead (mu yao-jiejie), but as the evil second female lead, lin yu, who is always trying to sabotage the main character's relationship with the male lead (liu-dage).

that's these two btw:

mu yao-jiejie comes as a package with her didi, mu sheng:

massive jiejie complex on this boy. has two goals in life only and that is: stay by jiejie's side + protect jiejie with his life.

the mu family are v prestigious in the demon hunting circles, but had their entire family massacred by a demoness years ago, so it's just these two siblings left. 🥺

in the original novel, lin yu ends up marrying mu sheng (not by choice) and is tortured(?) by mu sheng in return for all the grief she caused mu yao. massive BE for lin yu. massive BE for everyone actually. we did say it was a p terrible novel, didn't we?

miaomiao is Not Here for this. she doesn't want to be lin yu!! she wants to go home!! the system assigns her a task that will help her to do that - make mu sheng fall in love with you. 😏👌🏼

but my girl endures!! mostly because it's her only way out of this!! cue fun shenanigans with her trying to increase mu sheng's positive sentiments towards her (which started at like -200% 😂)!

mu sheng starts like this:

but miaomiao looks like this-

-on like a daily basis, so is it really mu sheng's fault that they become master and disciple! is it his fault that he has to give her a ring! what choice does he have but to become super protective over her 🥺:

it's all out of his hands!! he's got no choice!! who wouldn't fall in love with her!!

there are a few more plotty things in between but i'll leave us all off with just this for now. this show is incredibly fun and entertaining to watch, the plot is relatively simple and moves quickly, the leads are both a+++ in this (i actually forgot i was really into ding yuxi until yyxh), and overall just a very enjoyable watch!! 10/10 would rec!! START THIS SHOW BUDDIES!!!!!

(idk if the demon thing is considered a spoiler so i won't go into that but ahhhhhhhhhhh that's a huge huge huge selling point 😭 can y'all just take my word for it and start watching 😭)

eta (NOT SPOILER FRIENDLY): i've finished the show now!! there's very mixed reception to the last few episodes - those who enjoyed it really enjoyed it, those who didn't really didn't. i personally think this was a HE (but there're arguments for OE-leaning-HE; think: the untamed) and enjoyed how it ended? there are constraints over what you can do with a transmigration show, and i thought they managed to wrap it up nicely?? the last few eps were probably a bit rushed and PERHAPS we could've used a 5 min epilogue with them being cute in the real world but i enjoyed whatever we got!! still a good show imo!!

[fourraccoonsinacoat]

Fall for Me | One Shot

Pairing: Astarion x Dark Urge

Rating: Explicit NSFW18+

Chapter Count: One Shot | Read on AO3 Word Count: 8,048

Title: Fall for Me - Sleep Token

Summary: Takes place during the events of Baldur's Gate 3 during Act 2. Explores the romance between Astarion and the Dark Urge as Astarion realizes there's a depth to his feelings that he's been trying to deny. Tags: Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Fluff, Humor, Idiots in Love, Mentions of Violence, Soft Astarion, Spoilers for the Dark Urge and BG3 in general, Dark Urge as Original Female Character.

Author Note: Well…this got a bit out of hand. It started as me wanting to write about the moment Astarion realizes he's in deeper than he thought with this relationship, then morphed into me wanting to explore his headspace while being intimate, and then just devolved into absolute filth. I have no excuses. This fic precedes another of my fics called "Faint of Heart," which can be found on my account.

Astarion woke to a cold and suffocating darkness. A scent of wet decay hung in the air, eerily familiar, and all around him the silence screamed.

The night was distinctly void of the mundane sounds that had become commonplace during their journey. Even as they trekked through the Shadowlands towards Moonrise Towers, their nights usually bristled with distant howls and the whispers of skeletal trees as their limbs tangled and clacked in the wind. Now, however, there was nothing but a heavy and stifling quiet that set his nerves on edge. An anxious sense of wrongness stirred in his gut as he tried to get his bearings.

Where was he? Last he remembered, their group bedded down on the outskirts of an abandoned town called Reithwin. They intended to explore the decrepit buildings and shadowed ruins the next day as they pushed towards Moonrise.

Astarion sat up and blinked into the clawing darkness, squinting as if that would somehow bring the world around him into focus. Even with his darkvision, nothing manifested except the ever-expanding gloom all around him.

He ran a hand across the damp floor and shivered against the deep chill that engulfed him. He cast about for his belongings but found none, only a cracked tile floor slick with mildew and grime.  

He heard a metallic clatter in the darkness as he shifted around and suddenly tuned in to a weight around his right ankle. An icy dread began to rise in his throat like bile as he hesitantly reached out and touched the shackle, fastened tight.

No…

Panic shot through his heart like a stake and his mouth went dry. He realized with a vile shock why he recognized the scent of old rot which saturated the air. It was the smell of stale rat blood mixed with years of filth and dirt.

He was back in the kennels. Back in Cazador’s grasp.

The realization nearly made him vomit as terror and confusion twisted in his stomach. Astarion hadn’t needed to breathe in over 200 years, and yet that didn’t stop his chest from tightening nor his lungs from seizing. Panic swept through him. He tried to gulp down air as a constricted and choking feeling pressed over him. Eyes wild, Astarion desperately tried to catch sight of something…anything in the relentless gloom.

How? Why? What in the hells had happened?

His mind wheeled, fueled by a horrifying sense of upheaval. He didn’t recall being attacked, but that didn’t change the situation he now found himself in.

He had to get out. He couldn’t be here. This couldn’t happen. This wasn’t right.

Except…it was. Because this was how his life had always been. He’d never escape. Never be free. Cazador would always find a way to drag him back. His master would never let go. He would always find Astarion, no matter how far he ran.

Thou shalt know that thou art mine.

Cazador’s fourth rule burned in Astarion’s mind, haunting and vicious. He stifled a sob, swallowing it back down and gritting his teeth until his jaw ached. He needed to figure out what had happened, because if he was here then…

Eli…

His stomach lurched as a fresh wave of dread nearly choked him. Where was Eli? If Cazador had been able to seize Astarion, had he taken her, as well? Guilt flooded his mind as it raced, trying to piece together some sequence of events that made sense. None of it seemed logical, but he was too panicked to dwell on the irrational nature of it all.

If Cazador had Eli…

But Cazador didn’t know, he couldn’t know…how Astarion felt about her. Hells, Astarion didn’t even understand his own emotions when it came to Eli. She was…something to him. More than nothing, so much more than nothing.

If Cazador had her…if he turned her…hurt her… Gods, what had Astarion done? He’d put a target on her, and of course Cazador would find her and take her. Because that was what he did. He destroyed anything that brought Astarion even a moment of happiness. How could he have been so stupid?

“Eli?” Astarion called quietly into the darkness, unable to mask the distress that clawed at his throat.

The voice that answered struck him numb with fear.

“Foolish boy. How easy it was to deceive your weak mind.” The cruel mockery in Cazador’s voice caused Astarion to flinch as if he’d been hit.

“What did you do with her?” Astarion hissed through bared teeth, dreading the answer.

“Nothing. Because she is nothing.” Cazador’s voice reverberated in the darkness as if he were everywhere at once.

Astarion didn’t understand whatever game his master was playing, and so he remained silent; shivering, though not as much from the cold as the trepidation.

“You’ve always possessed such a feeble mind, so easy to bend and break,” the voice bit from the shadows. “Did you honestly believe you’d escaped? That you’d been abducted? I planted such an absurd fantasy in your head that I had my doubts as to whether you would believe it. But your incompetence never ceases to entertain.” 

Astarion’s eyes went wide and he froze like a prey animal that had only just sensed a trap. A slow, creeping horror slithered up his spine at the thought of what Cazador was insinuating.      

“None of it was real, you pathetic little wretch. You’ve been here, the whole time, trapped in an illusion of my design.”

Astarion was going to be sick.

“I thought it was time to pull back the curtain, before you got too attached. To remind you that you are mine, and that will never change. Because who would want something as miserable as you?”

He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t need to breathe, and yet he couldn’t. His throat burned with bile that came up from his churning stomach. Hot tears seared the corners of his eyes and his brain felt as if it were on fire.

It hadn’t been real… None of it… He’d never be free…

You are mine. 

_______________________________

Astarion gasped awake, as if he were a man drowning who’d finally come up for air.

His chest heaved as sweat cooled against his skin in the night air. He rolled onto his side, coughing as the memory of vomit receded. He felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and wiped at the ones that had already trailed down his face.

Sitting up, Astarion shivered as the nightmare withdrew, glancing around his darkened tent anxiously as the ghost of Cazador loomed in his mind. He was alone, and though night in the Shadowlands was grim, it was not nearly as oppressive as the darkness in his dream.

A feeble hazy moonlight leaked through the murky tree canopy outside, casting a dim sheen through the pitch of night. Shadows bobbed and weaved on the walls of his tent, cast by drooping and swaying trees. The snarl of an animal sounded somewhere far off in the distance, and Astarion sighed as he tried to settle himself.

His nightmares were dipping into parts of himself he’d rather not acknowledge, preying on fears he wasn’t ready to face. He frowned, stomach knotting as residual feelings of fear and loss flashed through his mind like grease catching alight in a cook pan. He ran a hand through his white curls, recalling the anguish he’d felt in the depths of his dream. He’d felt so small. So fearful and alone. It made him restless.

Astarion stood and exited his tent, stepping into the chill of the night. Their campfire had burned to embers, the light barely able to cut through the murky darkness. The hour was either exceptionally late or achingly early, and the camp was still. Astarion was the only creature stirring in the gloom.

Memories, unbidden, jerked into his mind. Nights spent lurking in silent shadows, looking for a hapless target to bring back to the mansion. The endlessness of his putrid life was the only thing he thought lay before him. More decades of pain, torture and misery. The uncaring hopelessness of it all crushing every scrap of faith and every desperate prayer he had within until all that remained was a broken shell. Unfeeling and brittle.

He hated how wretched and pathetic he’d been. Used up and miserable. He never wanted to feel that way again. And so he fled from those memories, seeking distraction and solace, until he came to stand at the entrance to Eli’s tent.

Astarion paused just outside the mouth of the tent, apprehension twisting in his gut. He was being silly and foolish, he knew. Eli was fine. She’d be asleep in her bedroll and Astarion would feel like an idiot who’d allowed himself to get worked up over a godsdamn nightmare.

Gently, he pulled back the curtain that hung across the tent mouth and peered inside. As predicted, Eli was fast asleep with her back to the entrance. Astarion watched her shoulder rise and fall slowly as she breathed and felt the gnawing tension inside himself loosen its grip, just a bit.

Stupid. This was stupid. He was stupid. Gods, he wanted to hold her…

He wanted her to look at him like he meant something, like he was worth something. He wanted to lose himself in her, like that first night when they’d created their own pocket of nowhere. Free from Cazador and all of his miseries, free from the pain and the fear. Just them, wrapped up in hushed whispers and sweat and lust…and something else. Something different and needy and fragile. Something he’d never felt with anyone else.

“Astarion?” Eli’s voice pulled him back into the world and he blinked, focusing on her as she turned over to face him.

Of course she was awake. Eli’s sleep had become even more restless and fleeting since the night she’d woken him in a panic and he’d had to restrain her. He’d watched over her as she writhed, witnessing her loss of control as the thing within clawed for the surface. It had reminded him of how Cazador would wrest control of his spawn, forcing them to do as he commanded without resistance. He’d realized then that he feared losing her. That he cared and desperately wanted her to overcome whatever this monster was.

He was struggling with the realization, but that didn’t make the truth of it any less real.

“I’m sorry, my dear.” Astarion spoke quietly, shaking his head as if that would rid his mind of its cluttered thoughts. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Without pausing to dissuade himself, he crawled forward into Eli’s tent and sat next to her bedroll. He had allocated absolutely zero thoughts to what he would say or do next, but that wasn’t necessarily uncommon for him these days. Things had been working out for him so far, so why shift strategy?

Eli sat up and watched him curiously. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, waving off the concern that was growing in her eyes. “I’ve just been unable to sleep, what with Gale one tent over and snoring like an ogre with swamp lung. So, considering our current arrangement, I thought I might share your tent for the remainder of the night.”

Astarion’s words flowed with well-practiced ease and charm, as if he hadn’t just made that entire excuse up on the spot. He smirked at Eli, who was still fixing him with a skeptical stare, and fought down the sudden anxiety that was rising in his chest and urging him to back out of the tent.

Eli had become rather versed in reading Astarion and it was something he had not quite come to terms with yet. On one hand, it stroked the egotistical part of him that desired attention and affirmation to have someone so attentive to him that they could peak behind the pomp and bluster he so often put forth. On the other hand, he felt as if a part of him was at risk of being snatched away or trapped if someone was able to pull back the roguish mask he’d so carefully crafted. He felt unbalanced, oscillating between moments of vulnerability with Eli and moments where he slammed his walls back in place.

A part of him wanted to tell her why he was really there. That the thought of her, the thought of them, not being real had shaken him to the point where he physically needed to see her. Just to put his mind at ease. He didn’t understand it, himself; the feeling that had driven him to seek her out after he woke. And so he kept his mouth shut and didn’t elaborate, fearing that Eli may think him rather pitiful.

Eli continued to watch Astarion, dubious yet silent, before she sighed and shrugged. “Alright then. If you don’t want to tell me what’s really going on, that’s fine,” she said, then patted the space next to her on the bedroll. “You’re always welcome, you know.”

Astarion felt a strange pang of…disappointment twist in his chest. He’d honestly expected Eli to press further for an explanation that wasn’t clearly pulled out of his ass. But she didn’t. It was disarming.

He moved to her side and situated himself as Eli laid back down. She watched him for a moment as he fluffed a pillow and settled, then she closed her eyes with a deep breath and said nothing more.

“Thank you,” Astarion said quietly as his eyes danced across her restful face.

He felt a sense of unease, unused to having his boundaries respected in such a way. Eli had never been the sort to prod at him for explanations, or to prod at anyone, for that matter. As someone with their own menagerie of secrets and internalized darkness, she tended to allow others the leeway to decide how much or how little they wanted to share. Still, they’d been…indulging in one another rather frequently these days, and Astarion was realizing that while their nights together were a lot of fun, he wanted something…more.

The problem was he hadn’t any idea what that “more” was. And gods did it frighten him. The last thing he wanted to do was give someone else control over him, not after he’d so recently regained a taste of freedom. Over the past 200 years, every relationship he’d ever been involved in had been nothing more than a means to an end with Astarion either playing the role of manipulator or the one being manipulated. Attachments were leverage, giving someone a hook they were able to dig their claws into in order to gain ground. Isolating himself from connecting with others was how he had survived.

And yet, as he watched Eli drift back into sleep, his eyes found her hand resting near her pillow. A longing came over him and, carefully, he reached out tentative and slow until his fingers brushed gently against her own, quietly connecting. Questioning.

Eli’s eyes opened, sleepy but curious. She watched his fingers lightly caressing her own, and with a small smile took his hand and tenderly wove her fingers in between his. Moments like this, made up of soft touches and careful affections, were becoming more common between them. And the intimacy of these moments never ceased to fascinate Astarion.

To Astarion, intimacy had always involved passion and lust. It was created in the pressed spaces between fervent bodies as they worked one another towards ecstasy. It was fleeting and vanished just as quickly as it emerged.

This, however…this was different. This was calm and soothing, and it lingered almost like a promise. Always available to be restoked and explored.   

“I…” Astarion began, hesitating for only a second before he steeled himself and pressed on. “I dreamed I was back at the mansion. Back under Cazador’s control.” The name was spoken on the edge of a growl, his red eyes fixed on their joined hands.

He paused, thinking through what to say next, and Eli allowed him the silence to collect his thoughts and continue. “He mocked me,” Astarion spat. “Saying that all this was an illusion. That I hadn’t escaped. That you were an illusion.”

He glanced cautiously to her face, and when his eyes met hers, he found understanding there.

“Well, you came to the right tent,” Eli smiled, voice playful though not dismissive. “I’m something of an expert on nightmares. We can even compare notes, if you like.”

She squeezed his hand lightly and repeated his words from the night when he’d kept vigil over her as she fought against the dark madness within herself. It was unexpectedly touching and Astarion felt something twist where his dead heart was.

“As for whether or not I’m an illusion,” Eli said as she propped herself up on her elbows, slinking closer to him, eyes locked in to his own. “We can thoroughly investigate that claim, if you’d like,” she whispered, a sly question lingering in her gaze.

Astarion smirked, rising and leaning in to close the space between them. He untangled his fingers from her own and placed his hands on her shoulders, fulling intending to roll her to her back and ravish her while she squirmed beneath him. Astarion had come to Eli’s tent with no expectations beyond wanting her close, but he certainly wasn’t about to turn down the opportunity to get even closer. They were good together. Really. Fucking. Good. And already desire was clouding over his mind as he bent to capture her mouth with his own. He had tasted her many times before, and yet every time they came together after a prolonged absence it felt fresh and raw. Rejuvenating and wild.

In all of his time as a thrall to his master, Astarion had never bedded the same person twice. Every night was a new conquest, new prey for him to stalk and tease until he’d gathered just enough information to get him through the evening and to get his target back to the mansion. The encounters always played out very tactically on his end as he gathered just enough surface-level drivel to ensure his quarry was seduced into the trap. Once Cazador came for his prize, Astarion would never see the poor wretches again, and that was fine by him.

With Eli, though, it was so different. There had been nothing tactical about any of it after that first night, and even during. The ecstasy of freedom, of choosing to give of himself rather than being forced, was intoxicating. They would explore one another, finding comfort in both familiarity and discovery, honing in on the things that drove the other mad and had them coming undone in the throes of rapture. They were becoming known to one another, intimately and completely. Perfecting and exploring and discovering every time they were together.

It was both enthralling and terrifying, being known like that. Being laid bare as Eli unraveled him just a bit further every time, uncovering parts of himself that had been left dormant and untouched for so long.

The anticipation of it all was already causing a firm swell to build below the waistline of his trousers as he pressed into the kiss. His tongue darted and teased at her lips, gently prodding between them and beckoning her closer. One of his hands had slipped to the small of her back as the other pressed into her shoulder, gently guiding her so that he could tuck Eli below him and crawl on top.

Eli, however, seemed to have other plans in mind and resisted his direction, pushing back into him and maneuvering the both of them until he was on his back with her legs straddling his waist. She never broke the kiss, rocking forward on her knees as she took his hand from her back and pinned it to the ground above his head, her fingers lacing in between his own. He growled into the kiss and playfully ghosted a fang over her bottom lip, causing her to hum needfully into his mouth.

And then her lips were gone, leaving only the hot impression of longing against his own as Eli trailed her lips from the corner of his mouth to the shell of his ear. Her breath was tantalizingly warm, brushing against the sensitive skin there, causing a shiver to course down his spine before it pulsated up into his firming dick. His free hand came to rest on her hip and he fingered mindlessly at the hem of her pants. He wanted her to sit back onto his groin so he could roll his hips up into her and rut his straining cock in between her legs. Hells, he wanted to be free of their clothes so he could sheathe himself inside her warmth and watch her ride him while he speared her over and over as she screamed his name until her throat was raw.

But then all thoughts and wants were lost to a white hot flash in his mind as Eli bit down on the tip of his ear, careful not to break skin but sharp enough to fire lightning off into his veins. His hips snapped up, needing to feel her as his cock throbbed. His left hand was still pinned above his head by one of hers, and he felt his nails digging at the skin of her knuckles while his right hand desperately tried to pull her hips down against him. He choked off a whine in the back of his throat and closed his eyes as his head rolled back against the ground.

She laughed breathily into his ear, and oh gods it was undoing him already. This was dangerous. She’d been paying attention, noting all the things that set him off and applying them expertly until she had him writhing. It was a wholly new experience for him and beneath his fervor and lust was a seed of trepidation.

When it came to sex, there had always been two ways the experience would play out. Either he would maintain control over the situation, or he would disassociate as his various partners had their way and used him to their satisfaction.     

But this. This was new. And while it wasn’t unwelcome, the fact that she’d worked him into this position so easily was setting off alarm bells in the back of his mind. He felt exposed. Vulnerable. He hadn’t realized how freely he’d given of himself these past few weeks, how far he’d let her explore and how attentively she’d done so.

How known he truly was.

And then she was letting go of his hand while her lips returned to his own, pressing soft and affectionate kisses into them. She carded a hand into his hair, careful to avoid his ear which was still tingling and overstimulated. He felt a shudder of both relief and disappointment roll through his body as the high passed, missing the sensuality and hunger of it all while relaxing into a more settled state of mind.

Astarion’s eyes were still closed, and the throbbing in his dick had not subsided. He felt her breath back at his ear, though not as close as it had been earlier.

“I just want to make you feel good,” he heard her whisper, sending sparks back through his veins. “Show me how.”

His eyes fluttered open to find hers gazing back at him, sweet and attentive. He felt her fingers twining through his hair and sighed contently, a small smile on his lips.

“You’ve been doing a magnificent job so far, darling,” he crooned before pulling her back down into another wanting kiss.

He smoothed his hands along her sides, repositioning her atop him until she was flush against him. He ran one hand down her spine, firm and slow, while the other gripped the back of her head, encouraging her to melt into him as their tongues explored each other’s mouths and their bodies squirmed, searching for friction. The hand at her back moved to squeeze her ass before he pressed her down against him, desperate for pressure against his groin.    

“My only critique so far is there are entirely too many clothes between us,” he breathed against her lips. The hand on her ass gripped tight as he pressed and rubbed his thick erection into her hips, driving the point home.

“Allow me to remedy that,” Eli said with a quick kiss.

And then she was gone, hiking his shirt up and licking warm and wet kisses down his belly towards his waistline. Her hands were undoing the fastenings of his trousers and his head was beginning to spin with the implication.

That wasn’t… She didn’t have to…

He felt Eli slip her hands beneath his smallclothes and tug, pulling both his trousers and underwear down until his erection was free. He sighed from the relief, feeling the fullness bob and twitch expectantly. Eli was dragging her tongue down from his bellybutton towards his aching cock and fuck…he couldn’t remember the last time someone had offered to do this for him.

His hand was in her hair, then, tugging gently for her to look up at him.

“That’s not what I was implying, my dear. You don’t have to…” Astarion’s protests trailed off when Eli’s eyes met his, full of lust and playful longing.

He’d sounded almost sheepish, even a bit apologetic, as a sting of guilt wormed its way into his gut. Astarion should be the one giving pleasure, that was how these things always went. That was what he was good at…what his master had made him for…

The thought struck out at him unbidden with a nasty sense of shock and disgust. Cazador had created him for the pleasure of others, taking every opportunity to viciously remind him that what he wanted and how he felt never mattered. It was a belief that had been bolted to his soul after decades of torment, and one it seemed he still carried, even when he wasn’t in his master’s grasp.

“Astarion,” Eli said, softly pulling him out of his spiraling.

He blinked and refocused on her as she pressed her lips gently against the taunt skin over his hip bone, drawing an eager hiss from between his teeth as his dick jerked. Images of her mouth around him, warm and so godsdamn wet and tight, were firing off in his brain and…fucking hells, when had he fallen so completely for her?

“Right now, in this moment, nothing would make me happier than to get you down my throat and thoroughly satisfy you.” Eli smirked at him, hands on his bare thighs and lips a mere breath away from his cock, red and full and beginning to leak.

Her eyes were glittering with a mischief that was intoxicating, but there was affection there, too, soothing and comforting. He shivered, furiously trying to shut his brain down as thoughts collided in explosions of need, guilt and desire.

He’d thought himself so smart, charming and seducing her into his bed. Laying a trap and then walking her into it with such confidence and glee, only for him to find himself just as ensnared. He’d used her, manipulated her, and then drowned himself in her and gods above, if he didn’t want to do it again and again.

“But if that’s not what you want…” He stiffened at Eli’s words, catching the undercurrent of concern in her voice as she shifted and began to move back up his body.

He stopped her, sliding his hand from out of her hair to cup her cheek while he brushed a few silvery strands from her eyes with the other. Now was decidedly not the time for him to have an internal crisis of feelings. Not in the middle of the night with his dick out, pants halfway down his legs and Eli saying such obscene and beautiful things to him. There’d be time for personal reflection later.

He wanted this. Wanted her.

“I want it.” He almost felt embarrassed at the raw desire that slipped through his voice, heavy and breathy. “Gods, you have no fucking idea how much…”

He stopped himself before he could elaborate more and completely mortify himself.

“It’s just been a long time since anyone offered,” he concluded. He wouldn’t admit he couldn’t remember the last time someone had pleasured him like that.

Eli considered him for a moment, expression thoughtful, and for a brief moment of panic Astarion wondered if she had changed her mind. About him and about all of this. But then her lips twitched up into a tender smile and he felt his soul shudder.

“Please.” Astarion breathed.

Eli ghosted a few featherlight kisses near the base of his cock before whispering, “Well, when you ask so sweetly…”

And then her mouth was on him and Astarion’s head rolled back as he made a noise he was entirely too obliterated to be ashamed of.

She took only the tip at first, sucking down onto the head as her lips slid back and forth over the swollen ridge. Her pace was slow, and it was both agonizing and exhilarating. His thighs clenched as a heavy pressure throbbed deep in his groin, sending shivers and tingles spasming out through his legs and up into his belly. His hand was back in her hair, grabbing and encouraging, careful to not be forceful, while his other hand fisted the bedroll.

He both heard and felt Eli laugh low in her throat, the vibrations of it tingling down his shaft and setting his nerves on fire. He’d managed to kick his trousers off, spreading his legs apart so she could nestle between them and absolutely destroy him.

Eli began sucking him down further, slowly sheathing himself into her mouth. He shut his eyes, growling as her warmth and spit enveloped him. He responded by hitching his hips up into her, wanting more, wanting her full of him. He felt her hands on his hips, directing him to rock up into her mouth at a languid pace. He fell into the rhythm, fucking into the suction. She flattened her tongue, applying pressure along his shaft every time he thrusted in before dragging her tongue tip along the sensitive skin when he pulled out.

The growl in his throat grew into a lewd moan that shamelessly filled the tent, leaving no one who was awake in camp to wonder about what was taking place. He could not have cared any less about who heard, and in fact he welcomed it. Let them all listen as Eli, savior of the Druid’s Grove, conqueror of Grymforge and scourge of the Absolute went down on him and fucked him senseless with her perfect fucking mouth. He was the only one she’d do this to, the only one she’d pleasure. No one else got to experience this, see her like this.

He was hers.

The thought set off a wave of arousal so potent that he felt his cock spasm in response, leaking precum that Eli’s tongue then swirled across his tip as he continued to rut into her. The pressure between his legs was mounting as a possessive and greedy emotion seized him.

“Darling…oh gods, darling, not yet…” Astarion wasn’t going to last like this, but he was not ready to be undone. Not yet.

He opened his lust-blown eyes and a feral groan tumbled out of him at the sight of Eli between his legs, sweaty and fervent and his. Leaning forward, he cupped her chin and encouraged her off his dick. Her eyes met his and the mixture of arousal and craving in her dilated pupils slammed into him so hard his chest hitched.

Nobody looked at him like that. Ever.

He needed more.  

Wordlessly, he pulled her up to him and their mouths crashed together in a wild and wanton kiss that was all tongues and teeth. He could taste himself on her, salty and pungent and it drove him mad.

They only separated for a moment as Astarion pulled Eli’s shirt up and over her head before removing his own. Then, they were tumbling back onto the bedroll, Astarion still pinned beneath Eli as their hands greedily explored one another.

He began fumbling with the buttons of Eli’s pants, the last barrier between them, and licked into her mouth as she moaned desperately into their bruising kiss. She was writhing on top of him, bent over him and straddling his bare torso as her hips rolled against him shamelessly. Undoing the buttons, he slipped his hand beneath her underwear and ran a teasing finger between the lips of her swollen clit.

Eli whined and gasped as his touch and Astarion laughed with wicked mirth, gliding his finger back and forth between her wet folds but never going deeper. She was soaked, worked up into a frenzy and it emboldened his ego to no end.

“I didn’t realize sucking on my cock could make you so wet,” he purred with no small amount of self-satisfaction.

His finger traced a circle along the rim of her pulsating clit, earning a high-pitched moan that shuddered out of her throat and went straight to his dick. She tried to reposition herself, needing his fingers in places they weren’t.

He grinned at her distress, earning a reproachful bite to his lower lip that did nothing to dissuade him.

“Less working your mouth and more working you – oh fuck!” Eli cried out as Astarion pushed two fingers up into her, burring them deep.

She bolted upright, arching her back as her mouth fell open and her head fell back, a slew of profane and needful curses tearing from her throat. He felt her clamp down on his fingers, hands pressing on his chest for balance as she brazenly rode his fingers.

He gazed up at her as his fingers stroked and hooked at her throbbing walls, causing little twitches and spasms to filter throughout her body. Her skin glistened in the foggy moonlight that seeped in through the walls of the tent, sweat-slicked breasts bouncing with each thrust of her hips as her head lolled, eyes shut reverently as she worked to satisfy herself. His dick bobbed against his belly with each roll of her hips, and he could feel a warm trail of precum rolling down the edge of his hip. His erection was so stiff it verged on painful, and when he felt her walls begin to flutter around his fingers, he knew he couldn’t wait any longer.

He pulled his hand back from within her core and the gasping whine that erupted from her lips nearly choked him.

“I’m sorry, my sweet,” he crooned, wrapping an arm around her back as he braced himself with the other and sat up. “Bear with me for just a moment. I dare not make you wait any longer.”

Astarion tipped her back and laid her down, yanking both her pants and underclothes off in a swift motion. He settled his hips between her legs, the head of his cock pressing agonizingly at her entrance.

He hovered above her for a moment, drinking her in. She was a gorgeous mess, eyes blown wide with craving and skin flushed hot and pink. Her chest was heaving as she gazed up at him with a look that would have stopped his heart if it weren’t already still. Adoration beamed back at him as she smiled and Astarion felt a twisting deep in his chest.

He knew then, with absolute certainty, that whatever was between them was so much more than anything he had planned for it to be. It terrified and amazed him. Welling up emotions within himself he wasn’t sure how to grasp or understand. He didn’t want to hide from it, though. He’d been hiding and skulking and manipulating for too long.

He wanted something more. Something real.

Astarion bent down, kissing Eli deep and longingly. Hoping that even just a shred of what he felt could be communicated through the embrace. She sighed into it, eyes closing and hands carding into his hair before they slid down to his back. He shivered as her fingers traced tenderly over the scars there, careful and deferential.

Breaking the kiss, he hooked an arm under her left leg and rested it up on his shoulder, pressing it forward and stretching her apart. Lining himself up to her warm core, he rested his forehead against her own and felt her squirm impatiently beneath him.

“Fuck, Astarion, please.”

That was all it took. He pushed inside of her, body shuddering at the enveloping and soft warmth. He felt his abdomen clench, waves of arousal rocketing down his legs and up his spine as he sank into her to the hilt. Astarion groaned, pulling back before he buried himself again, then again, then again. Eli gasped with each thrust, arching her back and angling her hips for a better position. The leg he’d pulled over his shoulder tensed and squeezed, pressing down on him as he snapped his hips up and into her. A low growl rose up, unbidden, from his throat. He was throbbing and needy and she felt so fucking good. Warm, wet and tight as he pressed into her walls and felt her contract around him. Their eyes were locked in and a rapturous shudder ran the length of his spine as Eli’s face contorted in ecstasy, her mouth opening in a silent and delirious cry.

He pulled back again. Her eyes were begging. Another thrust, making her back arch up as she bucked her hips into him, needing him deeper.

He was entranced with her face and the raw longing he saw there. He plunged in again, drawing a high squeal from her that turned into a breathy rasp as she closed around him and shook against his body. Her eyes never left his, and he drank in every mewl and cry as she looked at him with so much affection and craving that Astarion was tempted to duck his head and hide from the level of vulnerability she was giving him.

But he didn’t. Couldn’t. No one else got to see this. No one else would see Eli – hero, warrior, leader, fledgling legend that she was – shivering and squirming underneath him as he pumped into her. This was all for him, and him alone.

She was falling apart, losing herself in the thrill and the ecstasy, every sob for more spurring him on as he stared into her enthralled eyes. Her hands were everywhere, desperately running up and down and all over, clutching and pulling him closer while she pushed at the small of his back, directing his thrusting pace into one she could match with euphoria-inducing turns and twists of her hips.

The wild and undone look in her eyes coupled with the unrelenting throbbing of his cock was near enough to drive him mad. Electric jolts shot down his legs from his groin with every plunge, and his muscles felt as if they would seize at any second. It felt amazing. She felt amazing, and gods she was looking at him like he was the gravitational pull of the universe. It tore at his seams and pulled a centuries-old ache from his dead heart.

He wanted to be someone to her. Someone important. Someone she needed.

It was agonizing and frightening, that feeling. The last time he’d even remotely felt anything near to it, he’d been locked away and isolated in a coffin for over a year. Punishment for such sentimental wretchedness.

Astarion grit his teeth, clawing his way back from the memory and pushing it all down. Those were things left for later. Not now. Not when Eli was crying out and babbling about how incredible he felt, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him down for a kiss that he swore was going to set him on fire.

The pressure was building between his legs again as every muscle below his chest began to tense. His mind fixated on the lewd and wetly rhythmic sounds coming from between them and he could feel her slick arousal all over his groin and lower torso. His mind began fuzzing, triggered by all the erotic sounds and the building stimulation threatening to explode in his core.

He wanted this. He wanted to feel her cum beneath him. He wanted to feel himself truly and completely let go for the first time in centuries.

He pulled back from their kiss, the hair on his neck pricking in response to the small whine that left Eli’s throat as he did so.

He continued to pound into her, hard and measured, dick pulsating inside of her as the buildup became nearly unbearable. Beyond the pounding of blood in his ears he could hear himself grunting with each thrust, deep and animalistic and so fucking needy as the delirium mounted all around them.

Astarion leveled his eyes with Eli’s, face hovering above hers, and smiled at the unabated and desperate look she was giving him.

“Do you really want me that badly, darling?” he asked, panting and nearly out of his mind with wonder at the sheer amount of desire coursing between them.

There was no teasing in his question, no flirtatious overtones or hidden meanings. He needed to know.

“Yes,” she breathed, and the world narrowed.

“Gods, Astarion, I want all of you,” Eli nearly cried, arms tightening around him as she came near to climax. “Not just this,” she moaned, pressing her face into his neck as her back arched off the ground. She was shaking she was so close.

“I want you with me,” she whined into his ear and the desperation in her words was intoxicating. “In all the ways that matter,” she continued, her voice raw and teetering on the edge of bliss. “…with me. Please!”

Astarion clung to her like a man drowning, eyes closed and face pressed into her hair. The scent of her was everywhere and he reveled in the frantic intimacy of the moment, blindly grabbing at her upturned hips and bottoming out into her with a force that sent lightning zipping through his veins and stars bursting behind his eyelids.

The pressure between his legs released and Astarion came with all the subtlety of a smokepowder barrel blowing alight, all the muscles in his legs and lower torso seizing and relaxing in bursts.

“Gods, Eli. Fuck!” he cried out against her, swept up in the climax as the world fell away.

Eli followed, her inner walls contracting around him, bolstering his orgasm as she shuddered and cried out for him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed tight, wanting him full and solid as she came with him inside.

Astarion moved his hips in a circular motion, gentle and sensual, letting Eli ride out the last of her orgasm as the both of them came down. They were a tangle of arms, legs, sweat and ragged breath, neither willing to let go of the other as a hush fell over the tent. They rested in the quiet, laying in each other’s arms, content in the intimate sense of togetherness. He could feel her racing heart beat beneath her skin as he rested his head under her chin, her pulse lulling him into a comfortable daze. The scent of the blood in her veins was hot and sweet and he reveled in the thrum of life that surrounded her. A life he was growing more and more attached to…

Suddenly, Eli snorted and Astarion’s eyes snapped open curiously. He lifted his head and quirked a brow down at her as she tried and failed to suppress a fit of giggling. He tensed, unsure and more than a little confused by her bizarre response to what he thought had been a rather exhilarating experience.

She squeezed his bicep reassuringly, a delighted grin settling on her face.

“Sorry,” she laughed quietly. “I was just thinking, there’s no way anyone in this camp is still sleeping. We’re going to have to apologize in the morning.”

Astarion’s eyes softened as the corner of his mouth twitched up fondly. He then made a show of rolling his eyes before he buried his face back into her neck.

“You are quite mad, aren’t you?” he mumbled, unable to keep a smile out of his words. “I’ll go to my second grave before I apologize for what we just did.”

_______________________________

The sounds of muffled shuffling outside the tent woke Astarion the next morning. He tracked the sound with his ears, unwilling to open his eyes and rouse himself from his sleepy haze.

Eli lay pressed up against him in his arms, her head nestled near his chest. He’d pulled a blanket over them at some point during the night in an effort to retain the warmth coming off her body. Considering his undead nature, he could only sap her body heat from her, rather than contribute to it, and that fact bothered him a bit more now than it had in the past.

He traced a finger lazily across her back, feeling the ridges and divots of multiple angry scars she had no memory of earning. Eli’s body was a war story, just as damaged as her broken mind with twisted scarring and gnarled blemishes that held their secrets close. They were the remnants of a brutality that was difficult to reconcile with the person he’d come to know Eli as, and it made her all the more beautiful for it.

He didn’t mind her brokenness, and he was comforted by her imperfection. He knew all to well what it was like to be torn open over and over…

The clang of a cookpot being hoisted over the camp’s fire caused him to flinch, and Eli stirred, yawning into his bare chest.

Astarion opened his eyes, blinking as they focused in the gloom. Early morning shadows crept along the walls of the tent and he could now hear Gale’s distinct and nervous muttering as the wizard went about his morning routine, preparing coffee and some manner of breakfast near the center campfire. There was another voice, too, hushed and careful, as if the speaker didn’t want to be overhead.

“Oh, would you two stop squawking like a pair of gossipy hens!” Karlach’s voice boomed out over the hushed muttering, both scolding and amused in tone. “You both are just jealous it wasn’t either of you causing that racket last night. Hells knows I am,” she bemoaned.

“Is that what Gale and Wyll are prattling on about?” Lae’zel’s voice barked from over near her tent. “Sex can provide excellent relief from the stresses of our chaotic situation. It is both a healthy and helpful activity, though I am assuming neither of you have much familiarity with its benefits considering how you chatter like scandalized adolescents.”  

Eli cut off a laugh in the back of her throat and Astarion smirked.

Gale and Wyll had begun to boisterously protest before Karlach interrupted, clearly directing her next statement in the direction of Eli’s tent.

“They might as well get out here so we can properly taunt them for not inviting any of us!”     

Eli rolled onto her back then sat up, shrugging the blanket off and arching her spine in a fluid stretch, arms raised. Wordlessly, she then bent down, kissing him with a tenderness that made his chest ache, before she leaned away and stood, beginning to dress.

“Sorry, Karlach, but I draw the line at superheated engine that could melt my face off and angry unstable bomb that could level a small city when considering who I sleep with.” Eli pulled her shirt over her head and turned to wink at him before she unfastened the tent flap and stepped out into camp.

Karlach’s boisterous laughter greeted her and Astarion frowned as the tent flap fell back into place, leaving him alone with thoughts he needed to sort through.

Denial wasn’t going to work any longer. And gods, was he in trouble.

[kataraslove]

how do you feel about people saying Katara post the show was just a “house wife” and a “baby maker”? I personally think it’s super stupid and fucked up…while I do understand the criticisms for the comics ESPECIALLY the promise. TLOK criticisms for her character are pretty damn dumb to me…honestly the only thing I can get is the critical for her not being at Jinoras ceremony.

something that the original show does really well is present the dichotomy of katara; she's hot-headed, stubborn, determined, argumentative, protective, a fighter and a warrior. at the same time, however, she's presented as compassionate, kind, caring, nurturing, a healer. atla does an incredible job to avoid caging katara into one facet, unlike other media that tend to restrict their female characters who present feminine personalities into the group's resident healer/mother teresa figure. fighting and healing are core tenets of her identity. she uses both of these aspects of her identity to win the war, to save the lives of her friends and family, and most importantly, connect to and honour her decimated culture.

i don't think tlok makes an attempt to capture the fighter aspect of her identify, hence where the argument that "she was reduced to a healer" comes from. yes, she's incredibly old. yes, she deserves to rest after a lifetime of fighting. however, you could make the argument that toph and zuko are still in active combat mode during their old years. it's an all or nothing scenario; either everyone in the remaining gaang deserves a fight scene or no one gets one. so i can see where that criticism stems from. however, much of the criticism also stems from the fandom's refusal to correlate power with healing; to see how being a healer is an honour in it's own right, especially in the atla world where it's the equivalent to being a doctor (and katara would be the most renowned doctor there is).

katara does not deserve a shoe-horned fight scene where she's going to be tossed down in the snow five seconds later (like zuko) or where she's going to complain about her back problems (like toph). i can go on and on about how toph’s depiction in tlok is another form of sexist writing, but i think this post highlights it perfectly well and captures everything that i wanted to say.

if it were up to me to write tlok katara, i would:

have spent more time exploring her role in the white lotus. how much input did she have on korra’s training during the south, because i doubt caging her up until she’s 17 and delaying her spiritual journey is something that katara necessarily would have agreed with. i imagine that she would have (should have, at least) a lot of sway in the decisions surrounding korra as a world leader and legendary hero [per avatar legends]. if not that, even as korra’s waterbending master, the companion and spouse of the previous avatar, and the mother of the only airbending master in the world, would be enough to earn her decision-making title.

actually have her take part in the council of elders, especially during the civil war in book 2. no bryan konientzko, a tumblr post explaining that you can see her on the council of elders while your show is airing isn’t enough. we should have gotten katara’s perspective on the independence war currently happening with her tribe. particularly, it would have been an excellent opportunity showcasing her leadership abilities that we saw in imprisoned and the painted lady, encouraging her tribe to fight for their justice and independence.

expand upon her relationships with her children and grandchildren. yes, the legend of korra isn’t about katara or any of the former gaang members. but jinora, tenzin, kya, and bumi are all important characters that should be defined by their respective relationships with katara, much like how they’re defined by their relationships with aang. bryan and mike shy away from featuring former members of the gaang to avoid nostalgia bait, but there comes a point when deliberately avoiding the presence that your original characters play on their successors ends up hindering the success of your show. i think katara should be a critical character in the subplot between her and aang’s children, providing her perspectives on her husband’s parenting and relationships with their children.

have her actually leave the southern water tribe. if toph can leave the swamp to stop kuvira, and zuko can leave the fire nation to stop the red lotus, then why was katara constantly portrayed in the southern water tribe? there was an excellent opportunity to have her attend her granddaughter’s air mastering ceremony. i actually disagree with claims that the writers were avoiding having katara and zuko in the same scene specifically because of zutara; i think they didn’t want any of the former gaang in the same place. hence why we don’t ever have zuko and toph meet, or katara and toph (i know toph mentions katara by name, but i truly believe that that was a throwaway line serving as a substitute to appease the audience’s thirst for old gaang interaction. kind of like a, “here you go!! toph mentions her. now shut the fuck up.”)

give her a statue representing her bravery, courage, and determination. this one’s self-explanatory.

she didn’t need to be present at the bloodbending trial if the focus was for the avatar to take away yakone’s bending (and her being a bloodbender, i mean.. there’s NO WAY for anyone else to suspend yakone if she’s there). but i do believe the show should have mentioned something about katara not being able to there last-minute, due to tensions in the south or whatever, and how they cannot delay yakone’s trial even by one week.

i disagree with criticisms that katara became a “baby-making machine” for the air nomads. there’s no substantial support that katara and aang had children solely to repopulate the air nomads. there’s contrary evidence, in fact:

tenzin was the only airbender. if katara’s purpose was to serve simply as a baby maker, aang would have tried to have more children. from a writing standpoint, i think the narrative would have gone out of its way to portray kataang’s family as only having airbenders, or having more airbenders than non-benders or waterbenders.

we would have seen a lot more children in a relatively short time period. bumi, kya, and tenzin have sporadic age gaps, indicating that their conception wasn’t really at an urgent pace, but something that katara and aang took their time with, due to life events and circumstances.

as for whether the show turned katara into a “baby-maker,” by highlighting her family relations over her career prospects, i disagree. i don’t think we’re shown anything about katara in the legend of korra; i think we’re presented with limited information about her on all aspects. from a family perspective, all we know is that she had three children with aang. the narrative goes one step further to even separate her from the family conflict, such that the cloudbabies do not pull her into their grievances with their father and childhoods. kya and bumi’s overall arcs are about embracing their father’s legacy, while tenzin’s arc is about moving away from his shadow. from a career perspective, we know that katara at some point banned bloodbending, became one of the best waterbenders and the greatest healer in the world, then trained korra. in fact, katara’s relationship that is given the most narrative weight is her relationship with korra. i can understand if people’s criticisms are her being reduced to korra’s mentor and a healer, but i will not be able to understand the baby-maker or housewife claims simply because there is no proof.

if we’re examining tlok katara, i think there are many criticisms to be held, many missed opportunities and abandoned threads, but i do not agree with fandom extremes that she was ever presented as a “baby-making housewife turned healer.” i disagree with claims that tlok emphasized katara’s legacy as only having children (particularly her one airbender child). especially because tlok goes out of its way to separate her role in her children’s life, instead emphasizing her role in korra’s life. narratively, we get more exploration of toph’s storyline with her children than we get with katara.

as for the shitty gene yang comics that mischaracterizes just about every member, even momo and appa, i’ve got much to say on that. i think the only comic worth exploring is north and south, and katara’s portrayal in that. rather, there’s a particular criticism of katara’s portrayal in north and south that i want to rebut.

[eddiemunsonsmum]

This is Babysitting Club, not Hellfire Club

Eddie Munson x Original Female Character

Summary: Eddie volunteers the services of Babysitting Cl- Uh, Hellfire Club when a friend needs someone to watch their child for an hour. Eddie tries to run a campaign while taking care of a 4 year old and is relentlessly bullied by said child as a result.

Tags: Fluff, Joking, Banter, Eddie gets bullied by a 4yo, Comedy (I hope), pregnancy, friendship, Hellfire Club, References to spice, Unhinged DM!Eddie loses the plot.

Words: 6.7k

A/N: This story sits somewhere between Anticipation and Fuck You Maureen but should be able to be read as a standalone!

~~

“You’re sadistic.” Mike Wheeler said flatly. A pinched expression on his face as he glared at his Dungeon Master from under thick brows. 

“I’m fun.” Eddie corrected, not looking up from tracing his finger down the columns of numbers on his side of the DM screen blocking him from the other players.

“He’s self-indulgent.” Jeff corrected again, sharing a knowing look with Grant and Gareth as the two of them nodded in agreement.

“Hey!” Eddie shouted suddenly, eyes stern as he looked up at them over the top of the screen. Their outlines were illuminated by the afternoon light that filtered through the dining room window behind them. Their faces obscured by the shadows cast on them. “I’ve been through a lot this year.” He defended weakly, eyes softening as he turned them back to his notes and the boys around the table muttered about ‘letting him have this one.’

Silence descended on the room once more as Eddie honed in on his notes. Not noticing as a lone figure crept up beside him and began staring at them as well.

“What’s that?” A voice asked suddenly from right beside his head.

Eddie jumped involuntarily. Easily startled these days. 

He was grateful for once that his natural fright reflex was flight and not fight so he had not lashed out as he looked down into the wide, innocent eyes of his 4 year old neighbor, Jack.

“Jesus Christ!” He let slip, breathing hard as the kid giggled at the fact that he had apparently frightened the adult in front of him.

“That!” He repeated when Eddie didn’t answer, little finger pointing to the numbers Eddie had been studying.

“Sorry!” Jack’s Father John called as he entered through the open front door and closed it quickly behind him. “He got away from me.” He explained sheepishly as he tugged on the kid’s arm. “Come on, leave Eddie alone.” John chided gently, giving a wave to the table before heading off.

Eddie watched them walk towards the back of the house where his girlfriend Karmen was trying to work in her office. Turning back to his friends and noticing all eyes in his direction, waiting for an explanation.

“Karmen babysits.” He said with a shrug. “A lot.” He added under his breath as he picked up his pen and tried to figure out where they’d left off.

~

“The door is locked.” Eddie smiled smugly as a collective groan rolled around the table at his words. A satisfied chuckle falling from his grinning lips as he watched his club come to terms with the plot twist.

“Why are they always locked?” Gareth growled, placing his head in his hands.

“Because it would be a pretty boring game if you could just go wherever you wanted.” Eddie said with a shrug. “So the way I see it, you have two choices.” He began. “You can–”

“No!” Karmen shouted angrily, interrupting his words and making his head snap around in time to see her rounding the corner into the kitchen. Frustrated hands grasping at the air as bare feet stomped on the hollow flooring.

“It’s just for an hour, please!” John begged, practically on his knees as he followed at her heels. “Forty-five minutes, tops.” He lied, making Karmen bark out a laugh as she turned on him.

“I’ve lived your forty-five minutes Marston and I’m not keen to live it again!” She countered, turning away from him.

“It’ll be different this time, I promise.” He assured her, slumping heavily on the counter as she opened the fridge and fished around inside it. 

Eddie watched on silently, eyes raking over her back as she grasped at nothing in the cold shelves. Trying to look busy so she could put distance between herself and whatever John was requesting.

She settled on a bottle of cold water. Taking it out even though she hadn’t really wanted it and setting her eyes on her friend again.

Eddie rolled his entire head with his eyes, turning back to the guys and shaking it as he held up a finger. Letting them know he would be waiting for the argument behind them to resolve before he continued. He held up his calculator, letting them know that he was going to figure out his equations for the next part of the campaign now and if they had anything to work out themselves, now was the time.

“Look John, even if I wanted to, I have too much work to do. I haven’t finished settling the accounts.” Karmen argued from behind his back, slamming the fridge shut and twisting at the cap of her bottle.

“But you work for me…” John argued meekly. “I don’t care if it’s not done.” He lied again through gritted teeth.

“You told me you needed it done by tomorrow.” She snipped, pressing the bottle to her lips and pausing before taking a drink. “Unless that was a lie?” She added, watching the color drain from his face as she took a sip of the beverage.

“No…” He answered bashfully, looking away from her. “It wasn’t.”

“Right.” She nodded, smiling sarcastically as she wiped at her wet lips with the back of her hand. “So it’s gonna’ look bad on you when it’s not done.” 

“This is more important than–”

“Don’t lie to me again. It’s not worth it for you.” Karmen warned, cutting him off with a scowl as John shut his mouth tight and took a calming breath. A grimace-like smile on his face as he pressed his hands together and pointed them at her as if he was in prayer.

“One hour.” He promised, tilting his head towards his son who had followed them back into the kitchen and was sitting just shy of the counter. His little hands moved a ceramic duck around in the air. Making little quacking noises for it as he played with the breakable object he’d taken from the shelf in Karmen’s office.

She huffed at the sight. Wanting nothing more than to take it back and remind him for the thousandth time that not everything was a toy.

She looked to John with a frown, waiting for him to say something and shaking her head when he didn’t.

Useless.

She thought to herself. Ready to open her mouth and rant about how she had to do everything for everyone when Eddie piped up, surprising her.

“I could do it.” He said from his place at the table. Not looking up from his notebook as he continued to punch equations into his calculator and pen down the answers.

The couple in the kitchen stopped bickering at his offer. Both turned to him with incredulous looks on their faces as they waited for the other shoe to drop. 

The punchline.

Eddie placed down his pen, swiveling so he was sitting sideways. One arm leaning on the table and the other on the back of his chair. He looked at them both, frowning at their skeptical expressions. 

“What?” He asked after a long moment. John’s eyes flicked to Karmen’s before he shrugged lightly and turned back to Eddie.

“You wanna’ watch my kid?” He asked. “You know that’s what we’re arguing about.” He added with a scoff. Convinced that Eddie had misread the situation.

“Sure.” Eddie answered with a shrug. “If you need someone.” He added nonchalantly, turning back to the table and realizing the whole club had raised their heads like gophers in the dirt. He narrowed his eyes at them all, watching as they went back to their character sheets one by one. 

“What do you think?” John asked Karmen. Mocking the way she scrunched up her face at his question by imitating her. “What?” He asked with a laugh. “You have an opinion on everythin’ but not this?” He asked, gesturing towards the dining table.

“Offer’s expiring.” Eddie sing-songed. Wanting to snatch it back immediately with the way John had sniped at Karmen. 

But he wasn’t offering to help him. He was offering for her.

“I think you don’t have a choice.” Karmen replied finally, placing down her bottle of water and leaning her hip against the bench. “Unless you don’t want to go.” She said scandalously. A mocking pout on her lips.

“Ugh.” John grumbled as he turned back to Eddie who was busy ignoring them for his own sanity. “Fine!” He said loudly, catching the younger man’s attention. “But if Karmen goes out, Jack goes with her.” 

“Cute you think you have control over that.” Eddie murmured, placing his pen down for the second time and turning back to them. “Whatever. Bring him over here.” He said flatly, gesturing to the space beside him and looking up to see Karmen smiling at him from the kitchen.

He knew she’d cave into the begging and pleading soon enough and he wanted to offer an alternative. Knowing that once she had agreed, there was no chance in hell that John would choose Eddie instead. He’d had to offer before she did.

“He’s a child.” John said frankly as he scooped up Jack and ripped the duck from his hands. The kid protested loudly at the absence of his 'toy'. 

“You can’t just put him down and expect him not to move. He’s not gonna just sit there while you do your thing.” He said, holding up the ceramic as an example of Jack not doing what he’d been told.

“Are you trying to talk me out of it?” Eddie asked, irritated. 

The other man didn’t answer. Instead plopping Jack down in the space between Eddie at the head of the table and Dustin on the other corner.

“Be good for Eddie please?” He asked Jack quietly as he placed the duck on the table in front of Eddie’s DM screen. 

The toddler ignored him completely as wide eyes looked over all the small exciting things on the table in front of him.

John stood back, crossing his arms as he watched for a minute as if waiting for Eddie to launch himself at Jack and tackle him to the ground or pull some drugs out of his pocket and give them to the toddler to play with.

When that obviously didn’t happen he took another few steps back. Eddie watched with an annoyed expression the entire time before finally, John waved goodbye to them all and left out the front door.

“Alright.” Karmen said loudly, walking up behind the boys and petting Jack on the head as he looked up at her with a little grin. “Come on Jack.” She coaxed, jerking her head back towards her office. 

Eddie watched them, confused before realising suddenly that she didn’t think he was serious. That he knew she’d cave and he was just fucking with John for his own amusement.

“Kam…” he said hastily, placing a hand on her arm to stop her from walking away and catching her attention. “I was serious.” He assured her, stifling a laugh at the look she gave him. 

“What?” She asked candidly, making the guys around the table chuckle. 

“Yeah, what?” Mike repeated, leaning around Dustin to look Eddie in the eye as he raised his brows in question. “You’re in the middle of a session.” He said, waving his hands over the table as if Eddie had forgotten what they were doing.

“So?” Eddie asked, feeling defensive of their questions.

“So….” Dustin began slowly, trying to be as gentle as possible. “I think maybe Mike’s concern is that you won’t be able to run the campaign as efficiently as you’d like while taking care of a kid…” He said, rolling his hands as he spoke.

“Yeah and what do you know about taking care of kids anyway?” Garreth piped up, a nod of agreement murmured around the table.

“Oh my God you guys.” Eddie griped, once again rolling his entire head with his eyes dramatically. “Will you stop?” He asked with a smile as he shook his head sarcastically in their direction. “You have bigger problems right now than my concentration. If you don’t figure out what you’re gonna do about this door and that Undead Goldhoarder chasing you then none of this is gonna’ matter.” He said frankly, pushing himself up from the table and swooping Jack up with arms around his middle.

Jack didn’t protest, instead swinging his legs excitedly at being picked up as Eddie turned to Karmen.

“Go.” He said softly, flicking his head back towards the hallway as he turned around. “Please.” He added, softer. Sitting himself down and placing Jack on his lap. One arm slung around the toddler’s stomach to keep him in place as he picked up his pen. He knew she wouldn’t walk away until she saw them all sitting harmoniously.

“Okay…” She agreed, reluctant. “But come and get me if he gets too much.” She said, sighing as Eddie waved his pen at her without looking up.

“Alright.” He announced as he heard the door to her office close. “What’s the plan?” He asked, looking around the table with a wicked smile.

~~

“No! No Jack!” Eddie chastised gently. “Choking hazard.” He explained firmly as he pulled one of his dice from sticky fingers. “Nothing on this table is for eating, kid.”  

“But this is where we eat food?” Jack replied incredulously.

“Well, it’s also where we play games sometimes.” The Dungeon Master said as he dragged the kid back, closer to his torso. His right hand scribbled on the page of his notebook. His body tilted sideways to try and keep Jack’s stubby arms from being able to grab anything else on the table.

“Why do you play games?” The toddler asked, sounding bored as he gave up trying to reach for the table and slumped bonelessly against Eddie’s arm. Somehow making him even harder to hold.

“Because it’s fun.” Eddie sighed, rubbing at his eyes as he restarted the equation he was trying to do for the sixth time.

“You’re a dad-ult.” Jack said pointedly as Eddie stifled a laugh.

“Ad-ult.” He corrected. “And adults like to play games too.”

“Adult.” Jack repeated. “Did you know I’m bored?” He asked immediately afterwards, one of the guys chuckling at this candidness. Eddie couldn’t see who it was from the angle he had to sit to keep the kid on his lap and write at the same time.

“Oh yeah?” He asked, not surprised. “Well I’m getting bored of holding you so– Stop licking me!” He exclaimed suddenly, pulling his arm away from the kid’s mouth and gagging as Jack’s wet lips cackled at the reaction.

“Alright.” Eddie groaned, slipping his hands under the kid’s armpits and holding him up above his head with surprising strength. “Does anyone else wanna’ hold this thing?” He asked, jiggling the kid around and watching as five pairs of eyes looked away quicker than he could finish his sentence.

“He can sit with me for a bit.” Dustin offered from the next chair over, catching Eddie’s eyes and realizing he was the only one still watching.

“Right Jackie, go sit with Dustin please.” Eddie instructed, placing the child on the floor next to him and shooting out an arm to grab the back of his shirt and stop him from sprinting off.

Jack lurched back as Eddie’s hand fisted in the fabric. Catching himself on unsteady little feet and turning back to Eddie with large glaring eyes as he grumbled about wanting Aunty Karmen because Eddie was boring.

“With Dustin please.” Eddie said flatly, ignoring the insult and steering the kid towards Dustin’s waiting arms.

“Hey there little guy.” He said cheerily as Jack let himself be lifted onto someone else’s boney knees.

“You talk funny.” He said bluntly.

“Jack!” Eddie hissed angrily as the little one looked up at him with a confused expression.

“What?” He asked obliviously. Not sure what he did to deserve the dad-ult’s ire.

“Kid you can’t just… Just point stuff like that out, it’s rude.” Eddie explained, teeth ground together as a flush rose on his cheeks. Angry eyes daring the toddler to try it again as Dustin chuckled, jostling Jack on his lap.

“It’s fine dude, honestly.” He waved it off but Eddie still felt compelled to apologize on the kid’s behalf and reiterate to Jack that it was rude to point out things that people couldn’t change about themselves.

“Is ‘annoying’ something that people can’t change?” Jack asked in response as Eddie blinked at him in stunned silence.

“Yes.” He answered simply, tone quiet and dangerous as the kid seemed to heed his unspoken warning. Either that or he had decided that Eddie was right and it would have been rude to point out how annoying he was. “Alright.” Eddie said after a moment of silence. Finally finished his equation and ready to move on. “Are you guys opening the door or not?” He asked tiredly, giving them a moment to make a decision.

“I think we all agree we want to open it.” Jeff answered for them, a murmur of agreement moving around the table as Eddie nodded, taking a breath and readying himself to speak.

“Okay.” He began holding up his hands to articulate his words. “The weary travelers are given a choice. When faced with such a bold decision, it would be wise to take a little longer to make up one's mind as you never know what kind of dangers are lur–”

“Eddie, now you sound funny.” Jack exclaimed, his pudgy finger an inch from Eddie’s nose as he giggled at the man’s expression. The group around the table bursting into fits of laughter.

The Dungeon Master looked up at them all exasperatedly before turning back to Jack.

“I… Yes I’m..” He started to explain, giving up as Jack turned his attention on something else mid sentence and the laughter from the club began to die down. Eddie sighed to himself, holding up his hands once more and trying again. “-dangers are lurking behind the–“ He stopped, dropping his arms to his sides and huffing indignantly as the cackling reared up again.

“Really? That’s all it took?” He deadpanned. “I DM for you guys for a fucking year but a toddler points out I’m using a ‘funny voice’ and it’s hysterical?”

“Sorry dude it’s just… Like he’s right. I don’t know, his comedic timing was on point.” Gareth laughed out, the others agreeing with the sentiment as Jack looked around excitedly at the group he had made laugh. Slapping his palm eagerly against Jeff’s as the man held it up for him to high five across the table.

“I like Aunty Kam’s friends!” Jack said with a grin as Eddie turned to him in exasperation.

“They’re my friends.” He argued, tone a little more wounded than he’d intended.

“Oh?” Jack balked, looking up at Eddie sceptically as the guys around the table broke into roaring laughter once more at the statement. “Are you sure?” He asked frankly, bending forward as Dustin’s chest pressed against his back. The teen, not able to help physically doubling over, he was laughing so hard.

“No.” Eddie answered tersely, narrowed eyes stopping on each of them pointedly as he waited for them to stop having a good time at his expense.

Eddie had been bullied quite a bit in his young life but he was quickly learning the hard way that no scornful words from someone that disliked him could ever feel quite as brutal as the honesty of a small child that didn’t realize they were hurting feelings. 

“How long has it been?” He asked suddenly, pulling up his arm to check his watch and realizing he hadn’t looked at the time when John left. He only had a guess to go by based on what time his friends arrived and how far into the session they had been.

“About  ten minutes.” Karmen answered from behind him, a sly smile on her face as Eddie turned to look at her with guilty eyes. “Are you done yet?” She asked with a laugh. “He’s a handful when you’re trying to concentrate isn’t he?” 

Eddie turned back to Jack, watching as the kid bounced up and down on Dustin’s knee, picking up everything he could find within his grasp and asking questions about each item before discarding them anywhere but where he’d picked it up from. Seemingly oblivious to the battle Eddie was fighting between his brain and his heart. 

Doing what he wanted to versus what he knew was right.

He sighed aloud, plastering a fake smile on his lips before turning back to Karmen.

“Nope, not done.” He answered cheerily. “We’re fine here, thank you.”

She raised a brow at him skeptically, watching with folded arms as Jack lunged for Eddie’s calculator. Misjudging the distance and launching  not only the ceramic duck off the table but the calculator too, sending it hurdling with lighting speed. 

Karmen winced as the duck hit the ground, smashing into three pieces at Eddie’s feet. While the electronic device continued to sail in the air for about a foot before being stopped by the object in its path.

The person… In its path.

Silence descended on the room as Eddie doubled over. Hands fisted together in front of his crotch where the calculator had just connected. The device fell from his pelvis to the floor beside the broken duck with a large clunk. The sound of broken plastic as the back of the battery pack popped off, didn’t do much to stifle the long wheezing groan of pain Eddie let forth. 

Both of the batteries flew out of the compartment in different directions. One of them hitting against the leg of the table and rolling under Dustin’s chair while the other landed in front of Karmen’s feet. Rolling slowly to a stop as it hit against the side of her bare foot. 

She stared down at it for a second, eyes flicking up to watch as Eddie decided his pride wasn’t worth saving and he took a knee, gasping in pain as he shuffled over, pulling a piece of duck from the denim and resting a forearm heavily on the edge of the table.

He pressed his face into it and huffed out a long shaky breath.

His shoulders were shaking and Karmen couldn’t tell if he was actually crying or just pantomiming as he recovered from the blows to his dick, his knee and his ego.

“Oops.” Jack said loudly after a moment of collective silence. All eyes in the room bar Eddie’s turning to the boy as he shrugged in an exaggerated manner. “Sowwy.” 

A sniffing sound from behind them had the boy turning. Locking eyes with Karmen along with everyone else in the room as she pressed her lips together harshly, eyes watering as her shoulders shook, breath erratic as she tried her darndest not to laugh. 

Losing the battle abruptly and barking out a strangled sound that snowballed quickly into hearty laughter at Eddie’s expense.

The rest of the table followed suit and doubled over against the wooden top in hysterics. Rambunctious laughter that shook the game board and threatened to topple all the little characters in the middle as they hollered heartily in response to Eddie’s pain.

The shaking table rattled the Dungeon Master’s teeth. He pulled his face away. Bracing his forearm on it and pushing himself back up onto his feet now that the pain in his crotch had begun to subside.

He slid backward into his chair. Resting his elbows on his knees and placing his face into his palms as he waited for everyone to calm down. He stared down at the broken duck under his feet. Feeling about the same as even Kam laughed at his expense.

He jumped at the feel of a hand on his back. Looking up and expecting to see her standing there but the space beside him was empty. He looked down instead, locking eyes with Jack who had slipped off Dustin’s lap in the chaos and was staring into Eddie’s dejected brown orbs with his bright blue ones, wide and full of wonder.

“Sowwy Eddie.” He said again, sure this time that the man could hear him. “Can I still play?” He asked softly, large eyes suddenly bashful as the laughter around the table died down and Eddie levelled him with a tired stare.

Eddie held a sigh deep inside his lungs as he forced himself to fix his face. A grin splitting across it from ear to ear as he winked at the kid and nodded with feigned excitement.

“Don’t worry about it Jackie.” He said softly, sitting back and motioning for the kid to jump up on his lap again. “Of course you can.” He added, turning to Karmen as she walked up beside him. An apologetic smile on her face as she handed him one of the batteries and bent down to pick up the calculator and the pieces of duck from the floor.

She handed him the device. A legitimate warm smile on her features. He took it from her, noting the way her eyes sparkled as she raked them up and down his figure before swiping his bangs out of the way and placing a wet kiss on his forehead.

She didn’t care about the duck and she was thankful.

Jack held up grabby hands at her as she pulled away, making her chuckle as she did the same for him. The kid giggled and squirmed as she held him in place for longer than she had Eddie. Making a show of the kiss being extra sloppy just so he would exclaim disgust and wipe it away after she pulled back.

Jack did just that. Looking up at her annoyed as she ruffled his hair and retreated to the back of the house. Leaving the group sitting in silence as they all eyed Eddie warily and waited to see what would happen next.

“Alright.” Eddie sighed, one arm wrapped around Jack’s middle as the other grabbed hold of the bottom of his chair and scooched it forward. The grating sound of wood scraping on wood reverberated around the room as he looked up at them with the same fake smile he’d given Jack. Although this one was somehow a little more unnerving. “Roll.” He said simply. Picking up his pen and going back to his equations. This time manually as he was still missing a battery somewhere.

The guys looked around the table, catching gazes, shaking heads and shrugging until Dustin cleared his throat, piping up for all of them and asking:

“Who?”

“Whoever is opening the door.” Eddie answered, not looking up from his notepad.

“I’ll do it.” Mike volunteered, pushing himself up from his chair and reaching for the dice he needed. He looked around at the others hesitantly, pausing for a moment before jiggling the piece of plastic in between his palms and letting it go over top of the board. All eyes around the table watching as it halted on a number and Eddie looked up from his math. A small huff through his nose as he flicked his eyes to Mike and smiled widely.

“Dead.” 

“What?” Mike yelped, making Jack laugh against Eddie’s forearm as the man smiled up at the teen. Nodding once before looking away and addressing the rest of the table.

“Who’s up?” He asked as Mike began to protest.

“What do you mean dea–” 

“Oh sorry.” Eddie interjected quickly. “You’re dead.” He clarified. “Your character is dead. Who’s next?” He asked again, the collective silent horror of the club around the table making Jack’s giggling at Eddie’s candidness seem a lot louder than he actually was.

“But… But we don’t…” Jeff began.

“Know what dangers lurk behind the door?” Eddie asked, staring at him pointedly. “No, I wouldn’t imagine you do because you didn’t let me finish.”

“That’s not fair!” The young Wheeler shouted, thrusting a hand towards Jack. “He cut you off, not us!” 

Eddie hummed softly in agreement, tilting his head and leaning over slightly to look down at Jack who turned to look up at him at the same time. Eddie frowned at the kid for a second, his lips quirking into a smile as he winked at him once more.

“You did interrupt.” Eddie agreed with a sigh. “So what do you think, my little assistant DM?” He asked, bouncing his thigh to drive home that he meant Jack.. “Do you think Mike should get another turn at opening the door?” He asked, raising his brows and waiting for him to reply.

Jack stared at him with awe-filled eyes, mouth falling open as he gasped in excitement. Twisting abruptly away from Eddie and making strong eye contact with Mike as he threw his hands up and shouted:

“Dead!” 

“Atta’ boy.” Eddie laughed, nodding to himself as he grinned for real this time. Pushing himself up onto his feet and holding Jack around the middle. The toddler screamed in glee as Eddie held him parallel to the table. Describing Mike’s character piece and instructing the kid to remove it from the table however he saw fit.

A little hand swiped against the plastic, the character flying across the room as the calculator had and pinging off the glass of the dining room window as Eddie laughed maniacally and Mike screeched about following the rules. 

“There are no rules here anymore Wheeler.” Eddie laughed, voice boarding on unhinged as he flopped back down into his chair and replaced Jack on his knee. “The first rule of my campaigns is to respect the DM.” He said snarkily, sitting back against the chair like an entitled King and smirking as the group rolled their eyes in his direction. “Which all of you, break consistently.” He added, tone commanding. “So let’s try it your way then.” He added. “Rules are out the window. Like Mike’s Paladin.” He smiled sarcastically, a chuckle rounding the table at the joke as Eddie set dark eyes on Dustin next. The kid snapped his mouth shut in an instant and tried to pretend as though he hadn’t been snickering.

“Roll.” 

~~

John pulled the squeaking handbrake on in his work truck and removed the keys from the ignition. Opening the door he jumped from the step and slammed it behind him in one swift motion. Sighing to himself as he turned towards the road that divided his and Karmen’s houses. 

His errand had taken a little more than two hours. Which wasn’t too bad. But he had promised Karmen an hour. So he knew she would have something to say about being right. 

He twirled his keys around his finger, looking up at the feel of moisture falling from the sky and frowning at the clouds as he realized it was spitting. He sighed again, placing his keys in his back jeans pocket and pulling his jacket closer to himself. He rested his gaze in front of him again, checking for traffic as he reached the sidewalk. 

He crossed the road, starting to walk across the grass towards the front steps when movement caught his eyes from the driveway. He turned to look for the source, tilting his head in confusion as he spied Karmen sitting in the driver's seat of her car with her head in her hands.

He stopped walking, watching her for a second before his gaze was pulled towards the house. A chorus of frenzied yelling and maniacal laughter made him raise his brows as he watched what he could see of The Hellfire Club around the table through the dining room window. 

Eddie was on his feet, pointing at one of them with a deranged expression only egged on by Jack on his shoulders. Fistfuls of wild curls holding him in place as he moved his own little mouth in tune with Eddie’s. Both of them yelled at the table as the guys seemed to shout back, protesting something and quickly losing a battle they weren’t prepared for.

John blinked at the scene in front of him. Taking a step towards the house and changing his mind as he turned back to Karmen. Veering off the grass and onto the path towards the car.

He knocked against the glass, startling her and making her jump as she looked up at him with anger in her eyes and jerked her head towards the passenger seat.

He nodded, rounding the car and opening the door, intending to slip into the seat out of the rain and grumbling as he instead used moist hands to gently remove her paperwork from his path, placing it on the dash as he sat inside before closing the door with a thud and turning to her with pursed lips and expectant eyes.

“Sounds like everyone is having fun.” He said carefully after a moment of silence. Her own worn out eyes eating him alive as she stared at him with a wry expression. 

“Mm.” She hummed, turning back to the paper in her lap. “They’re loud.” She explained simply, knowing he didn’t actually ask but also that the next question out of his mouth would be why.

She ignored the way she could feel his eyes boring into her cheek as he waited for her to say more.

“I’ll pay you back, you know?” John said softly when he realized she really wasn’t going to say anything else.

“I do the payroll, you will definitely be paying me for this.” She said with a laugh, leaning towards the pile of papers he had stacked on the dash and flicking fingers through them as she searched for something.

“Yes.” He chuckled, watching as she began to lose her grip on the paper and pushing them closer to her. “But I meant all the babysitting.” He clarified, sitting back in the chair and studying the hands in his lap as he saw her head whip around in his peripherals. 

He could feel her staring as he had been at her. Not daring to look up until he saw her look away and knew she was sitting back in her own seat, staring out of the windscreen as the small droplets of water raced one another down the glass to the bonnet.

“Eddie will be a good Dad.” He said as he lifted his head, turning to look at her and watching as she scrunched her nose at his words, eyes watering as they flicked towards him and they finally caught each.

“I told you not to lie to me again.” She whispered, shaking her head as he scoffed at her.

“You don’t think he will be a good Dad?” He asked incredulously as she leaned closer and slapped her hand against his arm.

“Of course I do!” She snapped playfully. “He will be a wonderful Dad.” She added angrily. “Don’t lie to me that you think he will be a good one.” She explained, making him balk.

“I’m not!” He justified, shrugging at her with an open mouth as she shook her head disappointedly. “He will be a good Dad!” He said again, damn near shouting it.

“Okay John.” She said sarcastically, making a face as she imitated his accent. “Father of the Year.” She said with a dragged out Southern drawl. Swinging her forearm wildly as if she was a caricature of a redneck in a cartoon.

“Fuck you.” John laughed, pointing a finger at her face before lowering it to point at her belly. “Not you.” He clarified. “Just you.” He nodded, raising it back up to point at Karmen again as she tried to slap it away with a handful of papers and they both laughed at the absurdity of her fanning him with them in an effort to get him to move.

“Seriously though.” She said as she lowered the papers to her lap. “I appreciate it.” She said softly as John smiled at her earnestly. “But I will never let you watch my child.” She added, grimacing as the words came out and opening her door before he could react. Slipping from the car and stopping outside the window to point down at the papers she’d left on her seat on the way out. 

“They need to be done by the morning.” She said, raising her voice through the glass as John stared up at her in horror. The click of the doors locking made him swivel in his seat as he pulled at the handle and nothing happened. 

He turned back, mouth falling open as he watched Karmen already ascending the front steps hastily to get herself out of the rain. Her keys jingling in her hand as she went.

~~

Click

John’s eyes snapped open at the sound, sitting up abruptly and knocking the makeshift blanket of paperwork from his body as he turned to look out the window, ready to yell at Karmen for locking him in but instead making strong eye contact with Eddie who smiled at him amusedly.

“She forgot about me, didn’t she?” John asked flatly as Eddie took a step back so he could open the door and let himself out.

“No comment.” Eddie replied, as the other man shook his head. Leaning back into the car and gathering his work before stepping out of the way of the door and watching as Eddie closed it and relocked it with a set of keys that were definitely not his. A fluffy blue heart dangled from them as he jiggled them in lock and clicked it over.

“I could have suffocated in there.” John griped.

“Pfft.” Eddie scoffed as he stepped back again, leaning against his own car as he made room for John to move past him. “You would have been fine until morning.” 

“Speaking of morning.” John grumbled. “What time is it?” He asked, taking in the fact that it was dark along with Eddie’s half dressed state. 

No shirt, boxer shorts and an open robe that showed off the scars down his chest and neck. A pair of pink slippers that were several sizes too small just barely protecting his feet from the wet ground.

“Like… Ten?” Eddie guessed, bringing his hand up to look at his watch and sighing as he remembered he had taken it off to shower after Jack fell asleep and never actually made it to the shower before Karmen had ambushed him with thanks for being such a good babysitter.

He smiled to himself at the memory as John gaped in response.

“What?” He exclaimed. “Ten?” He asked. “Where’s Jack?”

“Asleep in our bed.” Eddie answered quickly. “Which is why I was asleep on the couch.” He explained, as if John had that information already. “Until Kam scared the shit out of me by shaking me awake and telling me you were stuck in there and I had to let you out because you’d kill her.” 

“I hate you both.” John replied with a nod. Eddie nodded back in understanding as the other man huffed in exasperation “But thanks for the nap.” He added, holding up the stack of papers and handing them to Eddie with a smile. “Tell Kam these need to be done by the morning.” 

“Will do.” Eddie replied, oblivious to what he had just agreed to. John sniggered to himself and started on the short journey back to his own home. “Tell her to bring Jack over when she drops off the paperwork.” He added over his shoulder, watching as Eddie gave him a sarcastic salute before heading back towards the steps and inside the house. 

He stared at the paperwork for a long minute. Shaking his head as he realized it had been written on quite a bit and he flicked through it briefly to see that John had actually completed it for her. 

He sniffed out a laugh. Sitting it on the counter as he walked into the kitchen. Hanging up her keys on the fridge next to a small black and white picture dated one week earlier.

Eddie smiled at it. Pressing a kiss to the tips of his fingers before placing them gingerly on top of the sonogram.

“I hope you have as much fun playing DnD with me as Jack did.” He whispered to the baby in the picture. “But I don’t think the guys are gonna’ like that the Assistant DM slot is going to be permanently filled.” He chuckled, taking his hand back. “Eh, they still have six months to get used to the idea.” He said with a shrug.

He turned away, heading down the hall towards the bedroom to let Karmen know he had completed her side quest and was ready to go back to the main storyline now. 

~~

More Notes: Karmen did not intend to leave John in there for more than 10 minutes. Just FYI. But pregnancy brain is a bitch. 😂

I started writing this one 2 years ago just so I could use the title because I thought that was fun. It took a long ass time but it's finally here and I really hope you liked it.

Read the rest of the series here :)

This series is so personal to me, so it means the world to me when someone let’s me know they enjoy a work from this series. If you guys liked this please pleaseee consider letting me know via comment, reblog, message, anon ask etc.  

Tags: @3ddi3-daydreamer @micheledawn1975 @munson-blurbs @wheels-of-despair @browneyes528 @stevemunsons

[hephaestn]

sky set to burst.

robert 'rosie' rosenthal (masters of the air) x maggie hurley (original female character) teen and up audiences · f/m · word count: 20.9k · chapters: 4/?

read on ao3 / tumblr tag

In the quiet of her farm, Maggie seeks to shelter her heart from further loss. Relentlessly committed to duty, Rosie is determined to avoid distractions. But fate, unpredictable as it is, weaves their paths together, forcing them to defy everything they stand for.

[bandagesandloveletters]

Hi! Hello! Welcome to my Masterlist for my Masters of The Air works. I can't wait to add more and more to the list and, of course, for you all to enjoy!

My inbox is also now open for any questions or requests!!

Ao3. East Anglia's Angels (MoTA OCs)

BoB Masterlist

Harry Crosby

Wildflowers and Chides - (Harry Crosby x reader)

Rosie Rosenthal

Crackling Ember's and Quiet Conversations - (Rosie Rosenthal x Lila Thornton)

John Egan

Coming soon

Ken Lemmons

coming soon

Everett Blakely

coming soon

[vixstarria]

Bloodbang Chronicles - Chapter 8 - A little bit of murder

Chapter summary: Astarion does something he shouldn’t have, but hey, can you honestly look into big sad wet cat eyes and blame him?

Chapter word count: approx. 3.9k

Chapter CW: Astarion’s past abuse and trauma. I don’t get too graphic, because this is not that kind of fic, but reader beware.

Previous chapter | Series masterlist | AO3 | Overall masterlist

Series summary:

Five years have passed since the confrontation with the Netherbrain. Astarion and his warlock lover, Asmodea, are living it up in Baldur’s Gate, running a cabaret. Their life of decadence and debauchery seems idyllic, until Asmodea’s patron disrupts it with a proposal. One that seems too good to be true. One they cannot refuse.

Pairing: Astarion x Original Female Character

Genre: Humor / adventure / smut

Rating: Explicit

Asmodea was onstage when she saw the man.

Clothes that were seemingly simple but too pristine worn with what she recognised to be outrageously expensive wyrmhide boots, immaculate hair and beard, a smug smirk and an air of not having a single care in the world.

Another resident of the Upper City who thought he was slumming it by visiting their establishment. She knew the type.

He would harass the dancers, try to proposition her, be a loud nuisance and generally act like he owned the place. The staff, in turn, would rob him blind overcharging him for drinks that they’d spat in or worse.

It was annoying, but ultimately worth it. He would be tolerated until he grew violent or started upsetting the other patrons. Until then, he would be expected and encouraged to spend as much gold as he had on him. She knew and understood this dance.

What she didn’t understand was why Astarion was all over him.

A too sweet, too seductive smile plastered on Astarion’s face. Thigh brushing against thigh, a finger running down the man’s chest. He was actually making an effort to seduce him. It didn’t make any sense. He considered himself above that - he typically treated their potential bedroom ‘guests’ with an air of near-indifference, albeit making it clear that he was available - they had to come to him themselves, if they wanted him. She could not fathom what was going on now. This man wasn’t even attractive, and even if he had been, they never did this without coming to a prior agreement together first, never.

Astarion leaned in to whisper something in his ear, and the man, impossibly, grew even more smug than before, and reached down to grab Astarion’s ass with one hand.

Astarion swiftly slid out from the man’s grasp, and left the theatre. He didn’t as much as glance in her direction.

After a short eternity, which she knew actually took about two minutes of her act, the man took off in the same direction as Astarion.

Whatever this was, she trusted Astarion, but damned if she had to wait a single second longer than she absolutely had to, to find out the explanation behind it all.

Neither had re-appeared by the time she was done with her act, and so Asmodea walked, trying to appear casual, in the direction they disappeared.

She entered the vestibule. There were some people there, none of them Astarion or the mystery prick. She approached the hostess stationed there.

“Has Astarion passed through here by any chance?” Asmodea asked her.

“I think I saw the master head towards the restaurant some time ago.”

Asmodea nodded her thanks and proceeded towards the bar and restaurant section of the establishment.

He wasn’t there. Nor, after a cursory glance, was he in the kitchen. Something told her to avoid drawing attention to the question of his whereabouts, and she did not ask anyone else about it.

She refused to search upstairs. Wherever he was, and whatever he was doing, it couldn’t be in their private apartments. She would not even entertain that thought, albeit her mind was rapidly spiralling towards a multitude of unsavoury conclusions.

On a hunch, she made another turn, walking past the pantry, past the wine cellar, until she rounded another corner and stood near the door to the basement.

The door stood slightly ajar. No sounds came from beyond.

Her heart pounding with a sense of premonition, she passed through the door and descended the stairs.

Asmodea observed the scene before her.

A mangled, bloody corpse, its limbs bent at impossible angles, lay in a puddle of blood on the ground. Blood was everywhere. The floor. The walls. All over Astarion’s mouth, dripping down his chin and his neck, covering his hands. The front of his shirt was soaked with it. Which was all quite uncharacteristic - he wasn’t a messy eater.

Astarion sat on a table in silence, his hands on his knees, smoking and contemplating the corpse.

“Where did that cigar come from?” she frowned.

“He had it on him,” he answered without looking up. “I figured why let it go to waste.”

His voice was dull, distant. He had gotten better over the years, though he still slipped back into this state sometimes, and when he did it was caused by one thing, and one thing only.

“Someone from the past..?”

Astarion took another drag and nodded, still not looking at her.

“One of Cazador’s guests. I remembered him. And he remembered me...”

He said the last sentence with a wince and a scowl, and Asmodea took a step towards him as her heart clenched, reaching out.

“My lo-”

“Don’t,” he said quietly but firmly, finally looking up at her.

“Alright,” she said, keeping her distance. “Okay.” She regarded the body again. “I guess let’s just try to figure out what to do with this corpse, then.” She ran her fingers through her hair, tugging on it hard. “You know, it’s almost funny - we used to leave corpses everywhere we went and it was no big deal. Remember the mercenaries we killed the moment we entered Rivington? No one gave a hoot. Now suddenly every time there’s a little bit of murder - it’s a big problem…”

Astarion silently took another drag and shut his eyes, listening to the sound of her voice, not really taking in anything she was saying, as she continued to blather.

“Astarion?”

His name on her lips got his attention, and he looked up at her again, questioningly.

“Did he have any friends waiting for him upstairs..? Is anyone going to come looking for him?”

Astarion shook his head.

“He said him being here was a big secret,” he managed. “Like he wouldn’t be caught dead at a place like this.”

For that, Asmodea kicked the corpse.

“Fucking cunt,” she spat.

That got a giggle out of Astarion.

“I have an idea,” she said. She was about to head back upstairs, but hesitated, looking at Astarion. “I don’t know if you realise, but you’re covered in blood,” she added softly. “Can you wait here for me?”

Astarion looked down to survey his clothing and hands.

“I’ve made a bit of a mess, haven’t I, darling?” he said absentmindedly. “His blood is filthy,” he added. “I shouldn’t have drunk it…”

“Well,” Asmodea said, thoughtfully, looking around them, “it’s a good thing most of it is outside of both of you, then.” She tried to smile at him reassuringly. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Thank you, love,” he said quietly.

Smoking, as Astarion had discovered by chance thanks to a practical joke by Halsin, was one of the few mortal indulgences that affected him whatsoever. He hated the smell of tobacco, detested the way it sank into his clothing and skin, and hardly ever partook, but it was undeniable that it had a calming effect on him. The shirt he was wearing would need to be burned now, anyway, and his skin was already soaked with other things that would need to be scrubbed away vigorously.

The cigar would have been calming, anyway, if all his senses hadn’t become razor sharp from the fresh sentient blood coursing through his body. In the dimness of the basement, he could make out every individual hair in the dead man’s scraggly beard. He could pick out and concentrate on individual sounds and voices within the thrum that was emanating from upstairs. The reek of piss and shit coming from the corpse was, unfortunately, also, enhanced. He wondered idly how many of Cazador’s victims had emptied their bowels in terror as they were dragged away by the ghouls or whilst being drained by him. Most of them, he hoped. It certainly put a damper on the experience. Astarion grimaced and forced himself to stop breathing aside from the inhales and exhales necessary for the cigar. After two centuries of trying to appear alive, breathing - redundant as it was - was a difficult habit to break.

He had bumped into other attendees of Cazador’s ‘events’ before. He hadn’t cared much for most of them. They usually avoided or pretended not to recognise him – perhaps not wanting to be acknowledged in turn, or trying to afford him some dignity. Perhaps they assumed his involvement with Cazador had been a temporary arrangement, and that he had simply done well for himself and managed to get out of that line of work. He didn’t dwell on it.

It was unpleasant, yes, but decades and centuries of dissociating and distancing himself from whatever had been occurring at the time had blissfully blurred his memory and glazed over any details, and granted him a near apathy.

He couldn’t remember many of the details of what took place over the years. Rather, he remembered his emotions, the feelings caused by his experiences, and the mental contortions with which he tried to cope. Though he couldn’t make a proper timeline of his descent into whatever he had become, he remembered the progression.

He had tried to enjoy it, at first. Tried to act like it was his choice. Tried to make the best of it. That didn’t last.

When that failed, he continued to hold on to his mortal persona for some time - still being Astarion, the Astarion he had been when he lived - but under the guise of a world-weary, wisened, sardonic whore. It wasn’t easy. He could barely remember himself prior to vampirism now, but he knew that magistrate-Astarion and whore-Astarion were a grotesque and unnatural concoction. He couldn’t keep that up for long, either.

And so, in his mind, he became an actor, putting on his best show. He was a good actor, he told himself, a great and dedicated one - so dedicated that he didn’t ever break character, but simply went on through his days and nights, playing the role. All the while waiting for the curtain to fall, to finally be able to remove the mask, look around him, and ask, incredulously: ‘Now wasn’t that something..? Did you see me? Can you believe I had it in me? Wasn’t I magnificent?’.

He still tried to please, back then. Still hoped to achieve some reward for his efforts. Still thought that if only he was good, if only he did better, something would improve. It had to improve, didn’t it..? He couldn’t have been stuck going through the same motions perpetually, night after night, with occasional breaks in the routine only to be subjected to creative humiliation and torture? It had to come to an end, eventually? There had to be some meaning to it all?!

The idea of the actor was eventually set aside, together with his hope. This was when he finally stopped praying to any gods, too.

No curtain would fall. No salvation or recognition would come. There was no meaning or purpose. This was simply his existence now.

He accepted that he was to be a puppet. Less than a slave. Less than a dog.

There was some solace in that - if he had no agency, he could not be held responsible for any of his actions. He didn’t belong to himself. He could stop caring.

Once he set aside his scruples, he strove to remove chance and effort from his nightly hunts. He worked out the optimal routines - his mind a winding flowchart of possible lines and actions, their corresponding gestures and expressions, and all their possible outcomes. He was barely there - only enough to steer his body or to react accordingly to anything unforeseen or out of the ordinary. As the years went by, there were fewer and fewer such situations - his marks had always been so predictable…

He applied the same to sexual acts. He honed and perfected. Whatever needed to be done, he would do, and he would do it flawlessly. He was talented, he had discovered, and, though he was more akin to a potter glazing his 1000th urn than to a sculptor producing a masterpiece, he found some measure of a twisted fulfilment in his craft - a certain pride, not at what he was doing, but rather at the very fact that he could do it, and how well he did it. He may have been a tool, but he was the best tool for the job.

A part of him always remained tucked away somewhere in a corner of his mind, seething with rage and hatred – at Cazador, at the gods, at his siblings, at his targets and his own self – and waiting.

There was a certain comfort and dignity in this distancing.

In the meantime, no matter what was happening, it wasn’t him, and it wasn’t happening to him. It was just his body being used as Cazador’s marionette. It could speak and move on its own, but it wasn’t him. Never him. He was elsewhere, behind an impenetrable shield. Until he wasn’t.

Instances that managed to drag him out of that hidden corner were always disastrous. It happened less often as the years went by.

One such incident was the gur children. No matter how many times he repeated to himself that he had no choice but to follow direct orders, the guilt and shame he felt would not leave him. 

Or the occasional sweet and innocent victims he chose to woo and take back to Cazador, in place of the usual filthy and vulgar vagrants he typically went for. The ones that died for no reason other than him wanting to touch someone clean for a change, someone who would be gentle and timid. They still filled him with remorse. 

And then, for entirely different reasons, there was this bastard whose cadaver was now sprawled on the basement floor with its throat torn out.

They’d ‘met’ not long before Astarion was snatched by the nautiloid. He was some minor patriar that Cazador had deemed useful enough and wanted a favour from. And so, as a gesture of goodwill, Astarion had been lent out to him.

That, in and of itself, wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and Astarion had barely batted an eye at the arrangement - indeed it was sometimes a welcome change. It meant that he might get to sleep on clean sheets for a change, and that he wouldn’t have to go out into the city and make an effort to find a victim, if nothing else.

The man had turned out to be a sadistic psychopath that had never intended to return Astarion to Cazador to begin with. Accustomed to facing no repercussions for his actions, he assumed he could simply pay Cazador for the broken toy that was too damaged to return; instead keeping it to do with as he pleased, to discard once he grew bored of it.

In a way, his sadistic inclinations had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He wanted to take his time. So much so, that by the time he was finishing with the first round, he hadn’t yet inflicted any irreversible damage. Astarion’s regeneration was noted as a curiosity, but written off as some kind of unknown magic.

At an opportune moment when he was left alone, utilising a habitual disregard for dislocated joints and torn flesh, Astarion managed to escape.

He ran and crawled, shaken and terrified, weeping, to Cazador. For protection.

This was the part that he could not erase from his mind. Being reduced to seeking aid from his very tormentor. Begging him for reprieve and rescue from the hands of another.

Protection was, indeed, provided, if only to prevent one of Cazador’s possessions from being permanently mutilated. Astarion was still punished for disobeying, as a matter of principle, but at that point Godey’s ministrations were almost a welcome relief. It was good to be ‘home’.

The fragments of his shattered ego and self-respect, which by that point had already been fractured and glued back together so many times he’d lost count, took much longer to rebuild than his broken skin and bones.

Well, Cazador was dead now, as was this dirtbag. Astarion only wished he hadn’t died so quickly.

Astarion took another slow drag, letting the smoke linger in his mouth.

He missed Halsin, he realised.

The scent of the cigar’s smoke was enough to bring up memories of the druid, yet different enough in flavour to whatever Halsin had favoured smoking to highlight that no matter what Astarion wished at that time, he was not there with him.

Yes, he missed him sorely in that moment.

He missed the calm assuredness and endless empathy. His impossibly unabashed way of being open and genuine. The infuriating way in which Halsin made him want to be better. He missed his stupid tree trunk arms and the warmth of his ridiculous, decidedly unelflike, hairy chest, too. The judgment-free comfort of it all.

Astarion was by no means a small or weak man, especially for an elf, but there was something about being made to feel delicate in comparison to someone else, in a way which did not imply danger but rather highlighted the safety and security one was in, which gave an unparalleled measure of peace.

He loved Oddie with all his being, but some qualities she simply did not possess.

Where was she, anyway?

He had no idea how much time had passed. He took a look at his surroundings, as though abruptly sobering up from a stint of hazy inebriation.

The blood was drying, and felt cold and tacky on his skin, beginning to itch. He felt unclean. He had torn at the man’s throat by instinct, without thinking it through, and now regretted it. The thought that his blood was now inside of him, part of him made him want to retch.

Was he forever intertwined with Astarion now?

Had Cazador carried borrowed parts of 7,000 souls within himself? Were these fragments released back to their original owners upon his demise? Were they made whole again then?

Was he whole?

Astarion took another drag, and froze.

He could have tested whether he was capable of creating his own spawn on this wretch. He might have had him as his own. Had him grovel at his feet, had him listen to his every word with bated breath, followed every command. Who better, than this scum?

Well. It was too late now.

He exhaled.

Oddie would have found out then, as well. And potentially every other vampire they ever encountered.

No.

Astarion shut his eyes.

No, he repeated to himself.

Astarion heard the sounds of an animated conversation and looked up, bemused, when he realised who it was Oddie thought to bring down with her.

Well… That’s certainly thinking outside the casket.

Lucretious cut herself off mid-word once she came into view of the murder scene. She looked at the corpse, looked at Astarion, looked at Asmodea, looked back at the corpse, her eyebrows rising, impossibly, even higher on her forehead, before looking at Astarion again, placing a hand on her hip and tutting.

“Don’t you know that smoking kills, love? You better put that filthy thing out.”

Astarion obliged the necromancer.

The Circus of the Last Days was back in town, and Lucretious had been making guest appearances at the theatre - in part to promote her circus, in part to enjoy a change of scenery and audience.

“I hope you didn’t bring me here to ask if I can put him back together the way he was before - you’ve had a bit too much fun with him for that.”

“Hmm? Oh, no, no, we’re err… quite happy to see him in the state he’s in, actually,” said Asmodea.

“That’s a relief, I make an awful mortician. Did you perhaps want a new waiter then? His head may need to remain backwards, but that’s half the charm of it, if you ask me.”

“Actually, I was wondering if perhaps you might want him.”

“Ah! Oh my!” the necromancer said, considering the body more closely now. “All this, for me? Darling, you shouldn’t have!”

She approached the body, and carefully nudged it with the toe of her boot.

“Not to look into a gifted horse’s mouth, but I do prefer my men more stiff. This one’s still oozing.”

“I would not presume to provide you with a gift in this condition, of course,” Asmodea said, carefully. “I simply could not allow it to come into your possession in this state. It would first need to be… peeled. And cleaned. Until it’s completely unrecognisable.” She looked at Lucretious questioningly.

“I see…” the necromancer said, thoughtfully. “I can concoct a little something I call my ‘piranha solution’ - will strip the flesh straight off the bone. It’s all highly toxic, of course… Does that gentleman with the… lights and explosions,” she said, referring to Matrim, “live here? You will want to move him elsewhere, unless you’re not particularly fond of him either. In fact, close the whole theatre on some pretence for a day or two, if you can.”

“If you pull on those two torches, you will unlock a passage into the sewers. I don’t suppose-”

“Say no more,” Lucretious waved her hand dismissively. “Lucille, Jacob and Boris won’t mind. I’ll take over once they’re finished.”

Asmodea breathed a sigh of relief.

“I don’t know how we could possibly repay you.”

“Please, darling,” Lucretious laughed. “A new servant, and I didn’t even need to rob a grave to get them. I’ll put the bones into a luggage when I’m done, so no one wonders why I entered with three skeletons and am leaving with four, and everyone will be none the wiser.”

Later that night, Asmodea sat on the edge of the tub as Astarion scrubbed vigorously at his already pristine hands.

“We will have fists and investigators breathing down our necks in no time,” she sighed.

“It doesn’t matter,” Astarion said absentmindedly.

“Of course it matters! You and I may be professional liars, but can you guarantee that all the guests and everyone who works here will say the right thing if questioned?!”

“It doesn’t. Matter,” Astarion repeated with a scowl. “Fists and investigators can be bribed, witnesses can be coerced into silence, no one will ever find the body now, and even should all else fail, we will have Wyll on our side.”

Asmodea winced. When had she become that which she had always despised?

“He was a patriar,” she reminded Astarion.

“And believe me, his family will be very happy he’s dead,” he said, finally letting go of the soap. “They might initiate a cursory investigation after some time, for appearances, but they will only be relieved when nothing turns up.”

“I hope you’re right…” she said. “But now we have to leave the city for some time, within the tenday if it can be helped. I’d rather not be here if that flying elephant shows up.”

Astarion only leaned back against the tub and nodded.

“How did you get him down there, anyway?” she asked as they lay in bed later.

“Why that was the simplest thing in the world.” Astarion snorted with contempt. “I told him there was a more exclusive club downstairs.”

“And he believed you..? He honestly did whatever it was he did to you, and then thought that you would willingly offer him more..?!”

“Of course he did. His kind think that everything in the world is made for them. He walked there himself. All I had to do was kick him down the stairs.”

Part 9

Thank you for reading!

Find the fic on AO3 as well.

Tags:

@littleenglishfangirl @something-pithy @darlingxdragon @tragedybunny @spunky-89

@lariatbunny@whiskeyskin @asterordinary @wingsy-keeper-of-songs @spacebarbarianweird

@brabblesblog @littlejuicebox @icybluepenguin @snowfolly @ayselluna

@mj-bites @bardic-inspo

[luminouslywriting]

Chapter 13 (Mastermind)—MOTA Fic

A/N: Admittedly, this one was a lot of fun! I had a great lake day yesterday but that also means I'm behind on writing and answering requests haha! They're still open though, so feel free to keep sending me stuff! I'm going to try and catch up today, if I can! As always, let me know what you think and enjoy!

Ruth’s hands didn’t stop shaking after they left her office.  They didn’t stop shaking when she dug through her bag looking for a cigarette and a lighter.  They didn’t stop as she lit the thing—though her hands were rattling as though she was part of some jazz quartet or something.  They didn’t stop shaking as she inhaled the smoke in a rapid breath, unable to get ahold of herself. 

For a moment, it was all she could do to just sit there in her office and stare at the paperwork she was supposed to be doing.  All thoughts of work had melted away into worries that were building and compounding about Abe.  

Any appetite that she had worked up was long gone and she would take the promise of an empty stomach and a cigarette over having to socialize in the mess hall.  What the actual hell had Abe been thinking?  He was just a little boy.  A little Jewish boy who, if caught, would surely be found out that he had lied on his forms and he would be killed or worse.  Ruth couldn’t even take the thought. 

There was a pull in her stomach that seemed to knot itself up tightly.  She wanted to throw up, wanted to scream and punch the wall, wanted to make all of this just go away.  But she did not have the power for that.  

And so for the first time in a long time, Ruth Sharpe let a small whimper slip from her lips and she couldn’t help the fact that the tears came spilling out of her eyes.  Like a dam overflowing, Ruth was simply overwhelmed. She wasn’t one to cry easily, wasn’t one to get emotional.  But she had failed in her most simple of all jobs—being a sister.  

Maybe if she had stayed in the United States, she would have been able to stop Abe from running away and trying to join the military.  Maybe she could have protected him a lot better than any efforts she could give at the current moment.  Ruth Sharpe, shark lawyer, JAG-Corp member, felt totally helpless.  And it wasn’t a feeling she liked. 

So Ruth let herself blubber for a solid five minutes.  She let the tears spill from her eyes, she let the emotions run rampant and all of the ‘what ifs’ swirl around in her mind.  And when she glanced over at the clock, almost exactly at five minutes from when she began her emotional breakdown, Ruth straightened up her back. 

She dabbed at her makeup and at the tear-tracks.  And then she got back to work.  Because what else was she supposed to do?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Although Glenn Dye’s party was in full swing, Ruth had little patience for the entire thing.  It was great for that particular captain that he got to go home and that 25 missions could, in fact, be done.  But for everyone else, Ruth didn’t really see a point in celebrating.  After all, there was another mission to be run in the morning. 

Staying out late and celebrating the new arrivals and Glenn Dye didn’t seem like the best use of time, in her opinion.  And her sour mood wasn’t helped by the fact that Helen and Tatty absolutely insisted that she let loose and came to the party. 

Ruth had never particularly cared for parties, even her own.  Her mother had always thrown the best birthday parties and holiday parties—but Ruth would rather be in a corner with a book or in a good conversation than in a room full of people.  And that was thus evidenced by Ruth’s lack of enthusiasm at the current party. 

In the midst of her grumbling and occasionally sipping at a gin, someone came running up to her, tugging on her arm.  Ruth wasn’t even surprised to find Abe, grinning as he encouraged her to come and meet his friends.  

“Aren’t you—embarrassed or something?” Ruth demanded in slight annoyance. 

“Embarrassed? Why would I be embarrassed?” Abe asked, giving her a strange look.  “You’re JAG-Corp AND you outrank them.  I get to brag!” 

As Abe brought her to a stop in front of the new recruits—a few of whom she vaguely recognized from the inspections done earlier that day—there was a slight look of fear that gave rise to pride in her chest.  “Uh, Abe—” One of them started nervously. 

“This is my sister!  Ruth!” Abe exclaimed proudly, a wide grin on his face. 

Ruth didn’t even blink as her gaze turned onto the men curiously.  “The uh—the scary—” One of them started, earning an elbow to the ribs and a wince.  “The lawyer lady is your sister?” 

“I can see you’re just as charmed to meet me as I am to meet you,” Ruth retorted in a steel tone.  “Your names, soldiers?” 

“Ruthie—” Abe started in a slight warning tone. 

“Nash,” The one in the middle piped up. 

“Speitz.” 

“Pappy.” 

“Is it true that you grew up down the hall from Rosenthal?” Nash questioned, gaze flickering between the two siblings. 

A tight smile found its way onto Ruth’s features.  “Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.  Why?  Are you looking for blackmail?” 

“Be nice, please,” Abe mumbled. 

“Oh look, here’s Twinkle-Toes now.  Just like Senior Prom,” Ruth said, letting out a sigh at the sight of Robert Rosenthal dancing his way over to the group.  He continued his moves right up until he nearly bumped into Ruth, a panicked expression crossing his features quickly. 

“Uh, I didn’t see—” 

“You?  Not paying attention?  I’m shocked,” Ruth said dryly.  

“I’m sorry, you said prom?” Pappy questioned, leaning forward. 

Both Ruth and Rosie gave each other a withering gaze.  “Oh yeah!” Abe exclaimed, cutting them off before either could speak.  “They went to prom together since their dates both had the flu!” 

“Anyways,” Rosie expressed in a louder tone.  “What have I missed?” 

“Well I’m eying broads and Pappy here’s trying to dour the mood,” Nash said, gesturing at his friend. “So in other words, nothing.” 

“Sour,” Rosie and Ruth said at the same time—immediately giving each other an incredulous look of annoyance.  

“What?” 

“The word, it’s sour,” Rosie corrected. “Sour the mood is what you mean.” 

“No, no,” Pappy insisted.  “All I said is that it’s not a good sign for us.  One crew making it merits a blowout bash?” 

“I’m gonna grab a drink—” Abe started. 

“You are not 21,” Ruth hissed, gaze withering onto her brother. 

Rosie gave a grin as Abe frowned.  “For you, Ruthie!” Abe exclaimed, hurrying off. 

“That kid is such a menace,” Ruth murmured, shaking her head as Abe dipped off to the bar.  “Drink for me—yeah, he’ll take a sip out of it.” 

Nash didn’t respond and everyone followed his line of vision.  “Oh don’t bother them—” 

Ruth glanced over—following the line of sight onto Helen and Tatty.  She nearly snorted, amusement spilling onto her features.  “Good luck with that.” 

Before Nash could so much as ask what she meant by that particular comment, Abe returned.  This time, he was accompanied by Major Egan and Major Cleven and Ruth felt as though everything in the universe were aligning to try and take her out today. 

“Ruthie!” Bucky exclaimed in a peppy tone.  “Baby Shark here was just telling me that you’re his sister!” 

“Oh good God,” Ruth pinched the bridge of her nose as Abe looked smug, snugly standing between the two Majors as if he had picked out two sixth graders to protect him from bullies on the playground.  

“Baby Shark?” Abe questioned, glancing over in their direction. 

Bucky just flashed an award-winning smile.  “You know,” he said, gesturing at Ruth with his head.  “Because she’s a shark.” 

“Gentlemen,” Major Cleven cut in, shooting Bucky a warning glance.  The last thing that they needed when they were trying to meet the new pilots was to anger Lieutenant Sharpe and start a ruthless verbal battle. 

Ruth plucked the drink out of Abe’s hand and made her getaway before anyone could stop her.  Her head felt like it was pounding and honestly?  The last thing she needed was to put up with Abe, Robby Rosenthal, and Bucky Egan in one sitting.  That was too much for her sensibilities and she didn’t have the patience for that at the moment.  

Returning to the bar, Ruth found Jack Kidd sipping on a drink and she let out a deep sigh.  “Push me down the stairs of the tower next time we’re up there?” Ruth questioned, gaze locking onto him. 

Kidd, to his credit, choked on the drink, eyes going wide.  “That’s uh—that’s an extreme reaction.” 

“See the shrimpy kid over there in between Cleven and Egan?” 

“Well yeah.  What about him?” 

“That’s my brother.  And the new guy with the worm on his face and far too much hair gel is his favorite neighbor and my rival from school.” 

Kidd blinked at the scene up ahead, shaking his head.  “That’s awful luck, Ruth.” 

“Don’t I know it,” Ruth exhaled, taking a sip of her gin.  “If I have to put up with those two and Egan, I think I might just….court martial everyone on this damn base.” 

“Duly noted,” Kidd retorted.  “You didn’t know your brother was coming?” He added, curiosity brimming in his features. 

“Not really, no.  And I wouldn’t expect him to end up on the same base as me either.  God must have a really good sense of humor when it comes to me,” Ruth said lightly.  “Who knows?  Maybe I’ll rub off on you and you’ll start having this sorta luck too.” 

“Don’t you dare!” Kidd exclaimed.  “I’m tired enough of Egan’s bullshit and the rest of what we’ve got going on to have that sorta luck.” 

“Relax, I won’t start prayin’ for that,” Ruth insisted, a small grin on her features.  “Any way we can get my brother in Rosenthal’s plane?” 

“Why?” 

“Kid brother, I tend to worry.  At least with Rosenthal, he’ll be with someone I’ve known most of my life.” 

Kidd gave a nod.  “Shouldn’t be too much of a problem.  I’ll get him transferred there before tomorrow’s mission.” 

“Thanks, Kidd.” 

Before he could reply to that or ask any further questions, a slightly tipsy Harding had made his appearance, calling out for his boys.  And unfortunately for Tatty and Ruth, they knew that they were included in that same line-up—after all, Harding communicated with the Red Cross as much as he did with the Majors.  

“My boys!  Listen up! I just had a mood-killing conversation with Doc Stover, and he thinks you sissies could be getting flak-happy.” There were groans of disagreement from the men and Harding gave a firm nod.  “I told him war is war, and the longer you go at it, the more it screws a man up.  And it’s been that way since the first caveman son of a bitch picked up a club and went after the other.” 

“Cain and Abel, you mean,” Ruth mumbled, earning herself an elbow from Kidd—though she wasn’t necessarily wrong. 

“Did cavemen go for head-shrinking?” Harding questioned.  “Damn sure not.  What counts is that you soldiers show up ready and able to fight.  What you do between battles…” Harding trailed off and Ruth couldn’t help the fact that her jaw dropped at the insinuation of fraternization being alright. 

“I like your style, sir!” Bucky exclaimed. 

“Oh you’ve gotta be shitting me,” Ruth hissed out. 

“Aerial combat like this hasn’t been around since the cavemen, sir,” Red piped up. 

“Well of course not, Red.  Every war has its novelties,” Harding turned, eyes catching onto the decorations.  He soured, a frown painting onto his features.  “Who the hell decorated for this fiesta?” 

“Well I put together a committee, sir,” Crosby mumbled. 

“The damn plane looks like it’s in a nosedive!” Harding exclaimed.  He mumbled some more before ushering the group closer together.  “You know how we could end this whole thing tonight? We fill up one of our first with as many 500 pounders as she can hold and we bomb the hell out of Hitler’s hidey hole.  I’m sure that Red and Bubbles could locate that mustached little fu—” 

“That’s against the rules of conduct,” Ruth’s voice cut cleanly through the crowd, effectively silencing Harding and sending chills down the spines of several of the men.  “And quite frankly stupid.  After all, we’re aiming to kill the soldiers, not the innocent kids and families of Germany.”

Harding blinked as Ruth approached him, almost having to take a step back to process the fact that she was in front of him.  “War is war, sweetheart.” 

“Oh shit,” Kidd breathed out. 

Before Ruth could so much as verbally end this entire thing with Harding, Bucky had taken it upon himself to speak up.  “Well now who’s flak-happy?” Bucky piped up. 

Both Ruth and Harding’s glares set on Bucky at the same time.  “Who?” Harding questioned. 

“I believe you’ve had enough to drink for the night, sir.  There’s a mission early in the morning and I doubt you want the men flying into combat without your instructions,” Ruth said in a steel tone. 

“But—” 

“Red, please escort him back to his cabin.  Egan—” Ruth turned, gaze falling on him.  “A word?” 

Bucky let out a slight grumble, following Ruth a short distance away from the crowd of men who were now talking.  “What?” He questioned. 

“Cleven talked to me earlier.  And now I’m seeing what he means.  I’ll ensure you get a weekend pass for tomorrow.  I can handle Harding for the weekend.  You need a break.” 

The foul stench of alcohol stung the air in front of her as Bucky let out a snarled breath of annoyance.  “I don’t need jack-shit from you.  What do you know—” 

Ruth’s hand sharply cut through the air, slapping against his face.  Everyone had heard it and wisely chose to avoid eye contact with the fuming Major at the moment.  “That was me holding back and being polite—your men need you at your best.  This?  This is not your best.  Take a break, re-center, relax….whatever the hell you need to do to get your head back in the game.  Then you come back and you lead your men through it.  Understood?” Ruth demanded, crossing her arms.  

“I don’t suppose it’s up for negotiation?” 

“Not a chance, flyboy.  Now get going.” 

“Okay…..Mama Shark.” 

She made a slight movement and he dashed away.  Ruth just pinched the bridge of her nose.  She had a sinking feeling that tomorrow was going to be an utter shitshow. 

But there was nothing to be done about that now. 

[eleni-cherie]

a thief's origin✨ || bts • kth - chapter 0.5

"you're afraid I won't wait." "I'm afraid you will."

a criminal and a doctor should be as different as the sun and the moon - but unexpected things happened every day. like him finding his safe haven in her.

© 2024 | eleni_cherie

»»»

masterlist: here

— genre: thief au, gangster comedy, adventure, romcom, humour, angst, fluff, sexual tensiON, slowburn, mutual pining, strangers to friends to lovers s2f2l

ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE. CHARACTERS NOT NECESSARILY LIKE THE REAL PERSONS. ALSO VERY UNREALISTIC PLOT LOL - JUST PRETEND READING A MANGA/COMIC OR WATCHING A FILM, REALLY.

SUGGESTIVE THEMES. MENTIONS OF VIOLENCE & BLOOD (BUT NOTHING TOO GRAPHIC, IT'S STILL A COMEDY!)

»»»

19th October

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Taehyung watched Jimin return to their hide-out with evident disappointment settled across his face. Another indicator being the deep sigh which followed right as he closed the door behind himself.

He perked a suspicious eyebrow at Jimin, exchanging a glance with Yoongi then who was sitting across from him and sharpening his sword. "What happened?"

Jimin plopped next to him, sulking deeply. "Guess Bella won't help us out."

"I'll pretend being shocked," Yoongi snickered under his breath, only earning an annoyed glance from the younger one before he fell back into sulking.

Taehyung only rolled his eyes out of Jimin's sight and cleared his throat then. Trying to set the right tone to cover the fact he wholeheartedly agreed with Yoongi's sarcastic stance.

Why would Arabella Valentine help them out if it didn't benefit her?

That wasn't her style.

"Did she say why?"

"Yeah.." Jimin shifted in his seat, running his fingers through his light brown hair, "She prefers going after a rich heir in Cyprus." Mild jealously flickered through his features and Taehyung could tell but chose not to mention.

"Seriously, why are you so whipped for this woman?" he eventually wondered out, "She's manipulative and you can't trust her. I don't get it."

"Plus, she's screwed us over countless times.." Yoongi added with a mumble. Both now looking at him expectedly.

Pursing his plum lips, the thief in question fumbled with his fingers for the right words. "Well, first of all sh-"

"Don't you dare say 'she's hot'," Taehyung quickly countered, shooting him a serious glare to which Jimin only chuckled bashfully.

"Well, she is, but that isn't the main reason.." 

The anew sigh leaving his lips filled with awe and admiration this time, gaze wandering out the window into the sunlit capital of Argentina. A dreamy look on his eyes with possible hearts if he was a cartoon character, Taehyung was sure.

"You guys wouldn't get it.. I like that she's so sneaky and always keeps me on my toes. She's dangerous and mesmerising. She's.. she's simply one of a kind," he eventually settled.

And perhaps they really didn't get it because all they were able to see in her was a competitor, another thief who might occasionally help them out. But only for a price - which was usually betraying them with all the loot.

"It's kinda cute though. He's the literal definition of fool in love," Yoongi plainly stated then, trying keeping a straight face although they could see the ghost of a smile on his lips. His tease pulling Jimin out of his little daydream.

"Anyway," the master thief said then, dismissing his older friend's comment, "That means we need someone else to get us in there."

"We don't know any other female professionals though."

"At least, not personally."

All three fell into deep thoughts.

This wasn't good. They needed a woman to pull off this coup. Only women were invited to the embassandor's gala as it was specifically to celebrate female achievements. It was their only chance to get in the embassy.

- Well, not the only one, but surely the easiest one. Two would sneak in as staff members and the third one had to be among the guests. To keep an eye on the embassandor and the ball hall while the other two were breaking into the office room. And to be one of the guests he'd need to be the cavalier of a lady.

"The party's in a week, we need to come up with something. We're running out of time."

"Why did you only ask her now, if we knew beforehand-"

"I was sure Bella would be in.."

The oldest one shrugged, putting his katana aside. "Maybe we should just cancel it and instead go for a different coup."

At this, Jimin shot Yoongi an irritated glare before laughing out. "You're giving up too easily! I'm sure we'll fi-" Pausing himself mid-sentence, he faced Taehyung then who gulped at the mischieviously wide grin on his lips. "Say, what about your doctor fri-"

Before he could even complete, Taehyung already cut him off with a harsh glare. "No, forget it."

Jimin whined. "Why?"

Dumbfounded at the new level of idiocy his best friend had reached, the gunman exhaled with a huff. "Are you seriously asking? She's a civilist. I'm not getting her involved in this and besides, I doubt she even got time."

"How do you know, you haven't asked her?"

"She's an assistant physician in her second year, she's just working non-stop."

"Then a reason more for her to get out of the daily grid!" Jimin exclaimed, thrilled about his brilliant idea, "And didn't you say she's always curious about our work and finds it exciting? Yes, just imagine how thankful she'd be!"

Taehyung, however, was less and less inclined to the nonsense idea of getting Cassandra involved in this. He always tried his best to keep their friendship seperated from the rest of his life - or at least as seperate as possible. And he grew frustrated with Jimin's irrational enthusiasm.

"You can't be serious, this is way too dangerous for an outsider. What if something goes wrong?"

"Taehyung's right," Yoongi, who had been silently listening to their argument, eventually intervened, "She's completely unexperienced. We can't effort it."

"Guys, you're such naysayers!" Jimin groaned then, throwing his hands dramatically in the air, "This coup we'll be like walking into a candyshop, nice and easy. She won't need to do anything but look pretty and mingle with the other guests. That's it. She won't be anywhere near the action where we -" His finger wiggled between himself and Yoongi. "- would be."

"Wait, you and Yoongi are breaking in?"

He smirked. "Of course, since she's your friend you're gonna be her escort."

Taehyung became pale, all colour drained from his face. He and Cassandra in fancy attire in the middle of a ballroom? The thought making him swallow with an irrational flush colourings his cheeks.

"I mean.. putting it like this.." Yoongi mused with a small smile, earning a side-eye from Taehyung.

"You're seriously changing your mind on me now?"

The swordsman shrugged, sliding his katana back into its shealth as he had finished the sharpening, being content with his work. "I didn't think about the fact that she'd indeed not be directly involved in the heist. Her only role would be to get the third one - you - inside. That's it."

"Unbelievable," Taehyung dragged out a breath, shaking his head. 

He didn't like admitting it, but they had a point. Still a pretty dumb point, in his opinion, but nevertheless, a point. If they wanted to go through with the plan, the young physician was their only option in the moment. At least until he could come up with a better one. And he would try his best to do so.

"You guys really mean it, huh?"

"Look, Tae, I get it," Jimin said then, grabbing his shoulder with a sympathetic smile, "It's not like I'm keen about getting an outsider involved either, but she's our only option right now. And I wouldn't suggest it if I believed she could get in actual danger. You know me, I'd never endanger anyone on purpose. Especially not a pretty woman."

Of course Taehyung knew that. He knew Jimin for half of his life by now, he knew he wasn't reckless or mindless towards others. Only towards himself. And his look of appeal made Taehyung eventually sigh in defeat, nodding.

"Maybe she won't agree anyway," Yoongi argued then with raised brows. Partially in an attempt to calm Taehyung's mind. "What then?"

But Taehyung could only laugh out dryly at this. Already knowing her answer.

»»»

21st October

Barcelona, Spain

Cassandra's eyes widened while alternating between Jimin, Yoongi and Taehyung, the latter one standing in the background with crossed arms and an annoyed scowl.

"Me?" She pointed at herself, still processing and not believing their surreal proposal.

When she had left the hospital after an early shift, the only thing she'd expected to find at home was her left-over food and the rest of a tv show which had been left in the middle - wishing her hospital life would've been just half as entertaining as in the show.

She hadn't expected, however, to find Taehyung and his friends waiting for her in front of her entrance door.

Now thinking about it, considering they were thieves and could break into anything they wanted, it was quite nice of them respecting her enough not to break into her apartment and instead wait outside.

"Cassandra, Cas," Jimin sighed in pity ploy, engulfing her hands in both of his. Taehyung only rolling his eyes in the back at the sight of his friend working his usual charms. "We wouldn't ask you if we weren't desperate. I swear, we wouldn't let you get in any danger. You just need to enter from the main entrance, have a good time at the gala and then leave again from the main entrance. That's all."

She blinked again, feeling her heart-beat picking up in excitement.

Was she even allowed to get excited? Shouldn't she be panicked and call them crazy?

She should, but for some insane reason she wasn't. She was indeed considering this.

"Just for the record, I was against this idea," Taehyung barked in, "Seriously, feel free to say no."

"Don't influence her!" Jimin's head snapped back. Making Taehyung scoff and look away again.

Cassandra took a moment to think about it. Although she was certain her answer was already set, she still tried staying objective and weighing out all factors.

"If I do it.. you'll keep me safe, right?" She timidly peeked up, seeing a smile spreading on Jimin's features.

"Of course! Well, not me directly.." His head returning to Taehyung with a smirk, "But Taehyunghie will. Considering he's unrivaled with his gun and good in combat, you'll be in good hands."

She smiled, knowing all that very well.

Her brown irises wandering to her friend who was about to protest again, but instead folded his lips when meeting her warm stare.

He already knew her answer anyway. That was why he was so against it in the first place. She might've not been naive enough to mistake her films for reality, but the way Jimin set it, it sounded exciting and risk free. Besides, she was someone who always helped others and only a blind person wouldn't see how much in need they were of her right now. Jimin had practically thrown himself to her feet after all. 

So he sighed, giving her an affirming nod. "I'll protect you, Cas."

She smiled gently. "I know."

If she didn't trust Taehyung, she wouldn't have even considered it.

Content with his sincere answer, she faced Jimin again. "I'll do it."

"Great!" he cheered and jumped onto his feet, pulling her with him before engulfing her into a tight hug. Making Cassandra laugh out as she hugged him back startled.

They must've been indeed quite desperate, she concluded.

"Y-you said it's next friday though. And where?"

"In Budepast at the French embassy," Yoongi, who hadn't tried persuading nor hindering her from participating, but instead had stayed pretty neutral next to Taehyung, said.

He'd been taking a look around her apartment instead. Small eyes growing round when seeing the film posters Taehyung had mentioned to them.

"You can travel around Europe freely, right?"

She hummed in affirmation.

She had always wanted to see Budapest anyway so that wouldn't be an inconvenience. However, she recalled her schedule.

"I'll need to pull in some favours and switch shifts then.."

Taehyung instantly straightened at this. "If that'll be a problem, we're gonna look for someo-"

"No, no, I'll do it. Don't worry," she giggled, seeing him shut his mouth and going back to sulking.

In all honestly, she felt quite flattered by his concerns. But she trusted their word that it wouldn't get dangerous for her. 

And a fancy gala at an embassy? Who would say no to that? It'd be the first time she ever attended something like this. 

Her smile dropped at this realisation. Now, this was actually concerning.

"It's gonna be so fancy.. " she mumbled. Chewing on her lips.

She didn't have any fancy clothes. Of course not, why would she? She had a few good clothes for special occasions and celebrations, but in no way would they be enough for an embassador's gala. She'd need to buy something, but did she even have money for a suitable dress for such an event?

She started mildly hyperventilating.

"Hey, hey, don't worry. Just wear a nice dress. It doesn't have to be some expensive designer piece, no one will tell," Jimin ensured her, patting her shoulder with a cheerful smile, "It's not the Milan fashion show. The people at the gala won't be able to tell the difference."

"Okay," she nodded when another question popped up in her mind. "But how will I even be allowed to enter? I don't have an invitation after all.."

At this the three thieves only exchanged a glance before their lips tucked into cheeky grins.

"Please, that's a piece of cake. Don't let that trouble you." Jimin winked.

»»»

26th October

Budapest, Hungary

It was 8 o'clock on the dot when Cassandra stepped out of the elevator that evening. It'd been awhile since she'd spent a night at a hotel and it felt odd.

The only good thing was that it was a rather small vintage one, meaning no cameras inside and not many guests as she made her way out of the old but well-preserved building. The reception at the foyer was currently empty, facilitating her departure. And she remembered to turn her face away from the camera at the entrace. Just like the guys' had instructed her. It was one out of only two, the other one being at the back entrance that led to the backyard.

Even if it wasn't their main intention to save her from embarrassment when choosing that hotel for her - the practical reasons being it not having much security and its suitable location - it saved her from nosey people wondering where she was heading to in such a fancy look. She had already felt insure enough, not being used to wearing anything but scrubs or normal clothes. She didn't need employees or guests' talking while walking around in a floor-long dress, heaving the fabric with her fists not to step onto it.

Cassandra knew there was no going back now that she had already exited the building. And she wondered if Taehyung would be there as settled.

The last contact had been back in Barcelona, when they'd given her location and pick-up time, keeping the risk of leaving traces as small as possible.

For all people knew, she was a mere tourist. Which she was, in a way. At least she'd passed the past two days by wandering around the city to all the touristy spots, making the most out of her trip there and acting unsuspicious.

Much to her relief she spotted Taehyung waiting at the end of the street. He was leaned against a black limousine with tinted windows, not having noticed her yet as he was too preoccupied with texting the others on a burner phone to see the startled expression on Cassandra's made-up eyes. 

His dark brown hair was combed back with the side parted, except for a rebellish curl that was falling on his forehead while he was hunching. The black tuxedo he wore perfectly underlining his tall and sturdy stature. Its suit jacket left unbuttoned and hanging losely over the black dress shirt he was wearing underneath it, adorned by an equally pitch-black neck tie.

Describing his appearance as 'handsome' felt like the understatement of the year. She needed a stronger word than that to express her exact thoughts in that moment. 

Of course she always thought of him as a good-looking guy with an enchanting smile, from the very first glance she'd laid on him. She wasn't blind after all. However, seeing him in such a fancy attire for the first time left her breathless. Just like that very night many years ago when their eyes had met for the first time. 

Usually she only saw him in casual fits. Loose shirts, wide trousers or big hoodies. Like a normal guy. However, she'd use anything but 'normal' for him right now.

Taehyung looked like straight out of a runway or no - a film! A spy movie!

Like a real-life James Bond.

And that realisation made a hot rush run through Cassandra's veins.

She inhaled sharply, about to move when his head perked up as if he had heard her screaming thoughts and their irises met. Both staring at each other, perplexed.

His lips parted, unintentionally allowing his eyes to wander over her dress all the way down and then up again.

Cassandra was standing there, a vision in dark vibrant green. Embroidered leaves and flowers covering her torso, flowing from her waist sporadically down the tulle fabric. Glistening faintly under the streetlamps, like an emerald. Contrasting her silky-shining coppery curls cascading over her shoulders.

First he hadn't been sure if it was really her or a mythological forest nymph, having lost her way to the magic world and instead found her way there to him.

But soon he realised that it was indeed Cassandra. And that he was holding his breath.

"Hey, cool guy," she eventually breathed out. Interrupting their little staring contest.

He swallowed, forcing his lips to move into a casual smile. "Hey, Doc."

With uncertain steps, she walked up to him and he pushed himself off the car. Holding the passenger door open for her.

"You.. you look.." He was flustered, to say the least. His mind on overdrive as he tried not to turn awkward, but he feared he was doing just that by stuttering and blushing. She looked even more stunning from up-close. Finally, he managed clearing his throat. "You might get a cold."

With a small laugh, she looked away and folded her arms in front of her décoleté. It was warm enough during the day, but now that the sun was setting, a coolish breeze was indeed picking up which the thin straps of her dress surely wouldn't shield her from. Especially not as her back was completely open, aside from the straps crossing and forming a bow on its lower half - which had taken her a solid ten minutes to tie on her own.

Taehyung catching that detail as well, looking away shyly. And Cassandra's insecurity only grew, misinterpreting his behaviour. 

She started seriously regretting all her choices in this moment. Back then she'd thought that if this was her only chance to wear a beautiful long dress, then so be it!.

- Why didn't she go for a simplier dress? Preferably in an ordinary colour like black or creme with long sleeves and maybe even a turtleneck, if dresses with turtlenecks even existed.

She feared making a fool of herself again.

"Uhm, no it's okay. I'll survive, don't worry. I didn't have anything suitable to wear on top and didn't want to show up in a random jacket.." she mumbled. About to enter the car when she felt something being slid over her shoulders, causing her to still. And she saw his suit jacket laying on them.

Her lips parted, her cheeks chrimson red by now. She held the collar together with one hand.

"Thank you," she quietly said, seeing him only offering her a quick nod before they bothed entered the parked limousine.

The French embassy was in the city centre, close to Danube's bank. An upmarket part with lots of cultural sights. Meaning the traffic would keep them from arriving there fast.

They remained silent for most of the drive, both unusually tense. Only stealing glances at the other when thinking they wouldn't notice.

"We can still turn back. I can return you to the hotel," Taehyung offered, glancing at her hopefully before redirecting his focus onto the road in front of them.

They were almost there, he could already spot the long line of expensive vehicles lining up to enter or depose guests.

"Again, don't feel obligated. You don't have to do this. I'll find another way to get in."

The young woman shook her head though, the grip she had onto his blazer to keep it from sliding off, tightening.

"No, I'm okay." And she was. Slightly nervous, yes, but also incredibly excited. "And besides, I got my lucky charm."

His brows knitted at her, seeing a toothy grin on her features and a small teddy bear dangling from her fingers next to it.

"Isn't it cute?"

He couldn't help but chuckle. Somehow he wasn't surprised she was  into superstition or at least lucky charms. And her beaming face was  adorable.

"Very cute actually."

"I know it's ridiculous," she sighed then with a coy smile as she looked down to the teddy bear in her folded hands, "And I don't really believe in superstition. But I figured, it wouldn't harm."

Shaking his head, he tugged at the golden necklace underneath his collar. "What do you think this is?"

Her eyes widened. "So it's also your lucky charm?"

He shrugged. "So far I always had luck, so it could be this. I always wear it after all." He tucked it back in as memories surged his mind. He tilted his head at her with a smirk then. "So it must bring me some luck. Don't you think?"

Cassandra smiled at him with a fond look, knowing how much it meant to him. And it was nice catching a new glimpse of his life from behind the curtains of his usual secrecy. She enjoyed collecting all those pieces of random information about him.

"By the way," she said then, stuffing the small stuffed animal back into her purse, "I got your postcard a few days ago. The one from New Delhi."

"Huh, you only got it now?" he huffed with a raised brow, "I was there a month ago."

"Well, it's quite far away, on the other side of the globe.. Was it fun there?"

"Curious as always.." He grinned, amusement in his eyes as he peeked at her. "But yeah, it was. Also far too warm though."

Cassandra giggled at his whining, remembering he didn't do well in temperatures over 25°C. Would explain why he was walking around with a thin coat in winter.

"Maybe next time don't do a heist in a hot subcontinent."

"It wasn't a heist," he plainly stated. Knowing far too well that would only intrigue her more. And indeed, she leaned over with curious eyes. Her eye make-up intenser now for the gala than her usual one, making her doe eyes appearing even bigger than usual. "No? What else did you do there?"

He simply shrugged with a cocky smirk, remaining quiet which he knew would drive her mad.

"Don't be so annonying," she groaned and puffed her cheeks in a childish manner, "You mentioned it, now you gotta tell me."

"Oh, do I?"

"Of course."

"Let's say we were on a little treasure hunt."

Her eyes grew even rounder. "Treasure hunt? Like Indiana Jones or something?"

"Or something."

And he bit back a laugh when hearing her scofd.

Taehyung entered an side-street behind the embassy then, deciding it'd be better to park there for an easier escape later.

He unbuckled his seatbelt then and got out. Walking around to help her out of the car by offering her his angled arm, which Cassandra gladly accepted by hooking hers around his elbow. Making their way towards the embassy.

Another uncommon thing for her, stilettos. She usually didn't wear anything that was higher than two centimetres and even then it was usually boots or sneakers. She just hoped her walk wasn't as wobbly as her legs felt in that moment.

It only now really downed to her that this was really happening and anxiety made a surprise appearance after all.

"Remember what I told you? About the cameras?"

She nodded at his question, recalling his and the guys' little prep talk. She'd taken notes. "One left at the gate, two left in the courtyard, one right at the entrance and one over the staircase. And another two in the ballroom, at the side of the stage."

His lips tucked into a lopsided smile. He was impressed. "Good girl."

The praise caused Cassandra's lips to press together, feeling her cheecks blushing along. She never knew words of affirmation could've such an affect on her. 

However, she also felt quite proud of herself. She'd done her best to memorise everything after all, not wanting to screw it up.

She had to turn her head away from them in case something went wrong and Jimin wasn't able to loop the security footage. It was a worst case scenario, but they had to be prepared for everything. And Taehyung surely didn't want risking her getting recognised on any footage.

Turning a corner, the embassy's aristocratic building came into full focus then. It was in a long row building which covered the whole block. Tall, rounded glass windows on the ground level, above them a terrace on the first level. The entrace was two tall rounded gates adorned with ornatements of metal. Between the two gates, a plaque that said 'Francia Köztársaság Nagykövetsége'.

- Overall, it looked indeed like a building where only the french would have their embassy in.

Taehyung pressed his in-ear monitor then to activate it. "Guys, we're about to enter."

"Cameras all set," Jimin answered from inside the building, "Have fun!" And Taehyung could hear the smirk in his friend's voice. Mumbling a quick 'thanks' before turning to Cassandra, catching her staring at the building with the line of well-dressed important people behind security guards.

Her steps slowed until she caused them both to stop, Taehyung giving her a questioning glance. "Just say the word and I'm driving you back," he whispered as he covered her hand that was wrapped around his arm. Giving her a soothing smile, only earning a wary one from her.

"I.. I just feel a little silly in this outfit, you know? I'm not used to anything but my normal clothes and.. I'm afraid I'm not fitting in. People might already be staring at me." She was looking around as paranoia briefly took over her while they passed by the iron gates. Perhaps she was only searching for excuses.

Her words made him frown as he also looked around, not noticing anyone looking funny at her. And he should, if it was the case, he was trained in observing people.

"Cas, calm down. You don't look out of place at all, you look.." His voice suddenly got caught in his throat as she her glance returned to him, looking expectantly at him. And the way the streetlights gleamed in her chestnut-coloured eyes made his mind blank out for a moment. He stuttered. "You look.. fitting."

Cassandra arched a brow at him, cocking her head. "Fitting?" She giggled, dumbfounded. It was so random, it genuinely distracted her from her worries. "Thanks, I take that." 

She took out the invitation and the fake ID Jimin had sent her way then. And Taehyung was astonished how naturally she looked while passing both to the security guard. If she was nervous - which he knew she must've been - he couldn't tell. The guards passed her the documents back and they entered. Going through the metal detectors and towards the corridor to the courtyard then.

The courtyard wasn't too big, or at least the numerous people in their gowns and tuxedos made it appear smaller. The building's facade was just as cream white there as outside from the street. A big french flag lazily waving in the night air over one of the side entrances, which was covered by a curved construction out of glass with everyone lining up in front to enter.

Cassandra put on a serious face again and closed her eyes. Taking in a deep breath. "I'm better than everyone else. I'm better than everyone else. I'm -"

"What?" His brows furrowed in confusion at her weird mantra.

"Getting mentally into my role. Can't look like a misfit among all those snobby people," she explained with a grin and Taehyung let out a genuine laugh.

This woman surely was full of surprised.

He nodded in approval before tucking her towards the entrance.

"Smart. Come, let's go inside."  

»»»

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT CHAPTER!

next chapter: 0.6 here

Don't forget to like, comment & leave feedback!♡ It motivates me to keep writing :)

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[houndofsevenhells]

“The Hound That Lies” (Sandor Clegane x Original Female Character)

SUMMARY — The hour of the wolf comes and a certain chambermaid still cannot fall asleep. She goes out for a walk to cure her insomnia and runs into none other than the Hound. Drunken confessions and deep introspection ensue.

AUTHOR’S NOTE — This is the "Upstairs, Downstairs" of the Red Keep that nobody asked for. Told from the perspective of another person, but very Sandor-centric. It's mostly written due to my deep adoration for him as a character. English is not my first language so if you spot any mistakes that is my fault alone.

WORD COUNT — 5,032

Masterlist

My days as a palace servant in King’s Landing started before dawn and stretched late into the night, sometimes well past the hour of the bat. The servants of the royal palace all had their place and duties and nobody stepped one toe out of line; not unless they wanted to be subject to strict punishments–or a fate even worse than that.

The royal household of king Robert Baratheon, first of his name, consisted of the usual army of servants. Aside from us, the household staff included the royal guard, the captains, the marshals, the grooms, the pages, and the Kingsguard. Those, however, stayed in the barracks and in their own palace quarters. Truth be told, we rarely saw them at all.

The army I belonged to was an army of another quality, though those in charge of it still drilled and ruled their subordinates in a way no lesser than the most sadistic of the captains. 

The first layer of those closest to the king, and therefore to gods themselves, were the seneschals, the chaplains, the stewards, the cupbearers, and the chamberlains. Then there were the wardrobe masters and the raiment mistresses, who ruled the realms of the royal garments. Under them was the head maid, who held her own regiment of nearly a hundred chambermaids that scrubbed floors, mended clothes, stripped the beds of the dirty sheets, delivered sheets and clothing to and from the laundresses, and did everything else under the sun expected of the servants of the highest quality and the lowest breeding.

The kitchen staff I knew very little of and they equally knew very little of us, the waiting staff, but we all uniformly hated the lady’s maids. They were the nobility of the servants and rarely deigned to acknowledge us, the chambermaids, for anything more than lowly serfs.

Ever since I came to King’s Landing, there was hardly any disturbance in my daily routine. As the servants we had very little money and very little spare time to spend it. Most of us lived in the servants’ quarters in the lowest parts of the keep–those that had their own families and lived in the city were considered lucky.

Most nights, if I could allow myself the luxury, I tried to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. But that night, the night when I met Sandor Clegane, sleep just would not come to me. I tossed and turned until the hour of the wolf, when finally I was too fed up with myself and I went outside to the palace gardens to take a walk. 

Most of the time, even the foulest of guards would leave us serving girls well enough alone, but still I took a sharp dagger with me and hid it beneath my skirts. As I wandered the gardens alone, I tried to be as silent as possible. Taking in the air as a cure was one thing, but being an airhead would be another. And I have lived too long to allow myself to be stupid.

“Walkin’ around at night, girl? Are ya that reckless or that stupid?” A gruff voice startled me and when I turned around, a half-burned face of Sandor Clegane was right there before me, looking down on me with a sneer. 

I swallowed hard and my hand went straight to the hilt of my dagger. I felt it underneath the fingertips and it made me feel marginally safer. But the man in front of me was huge, at least two feet taller than me; his presence dark and frightful.

“Oh,” I said, trying to make my voice sound normal. “It’s just you.”

“Just me?” He scoffed and took one step closer. The smell of wine immediately hit my nose. He had a bottle with him and now paused to take a swig from it. “Now, I ain’t arguably the worst you can meet in those gardens at night, girl, but what in seven hells do ya mean by ‘just’?”

“I meant…”

“Hm?”

I took a deep breath and forced myself to look him right in the eye. The Hound and his menacing presence in the keep were just one of those things that one had to get used to while working for the royal family. The Baratheons and the Lannisters were united as one family now and all of us had to get used to the change of regime. 

Not that serving under the Targaryens and the Mad King had been such a privilege. 

But the fact of the matter was, I have served under the Mad King’s rule and survived. I was not about to let a Lannister dog push me around.

“Nothing. What are you doing here?” I asked.

Clegane scoffed again and for a second I thought he would try to hurt me, but then I noticed he was swaying a little and I exhaled. Most of the household staff knew that a drunk Sandor Clegane was much less menacing than a sober one. And because Clegane was never sober, usually he would release his anger in the training yard–not on the serving girls. Which was still more than what could be said about the noble Kingsguard.

“Same as you,” Clegane grumbled. “Can’t sleep. Too much to drink, too many voices, too many memories.” He looked away from me then and I thought that would be the end of our conversation, but it would seem we must have found each other on one of his chattier nights. “You get nightmares, girl?” he asked, his attention back to me.

“I do,” I replied before I could help myself. 

But that was why I was there, wasn’t it? I doubted he would remember that conversation the next day, let alone in an hour, so I decided to talk to him a little. Maybe we would bore each other to tears and then I would finally fall asleep.

“What kind?” he asked.

“What?”

“The nightmares.”

“Oh,” I sighed, “Most nights I just lay awake, full of fear, before the nightmares even happen. So most nights I just take a walk instead.”

“Does it help?”

“No.”

He laughed at that, if his particular kind of bark could even be called a laughter, and nodded as if he knew exactly what I was talking about.

“So you go out and you find me here.” He looked at me more closely and leaned forward. I did my best not to cower before him. It was not his face that frightened me. It was the height and the sheer bulk of the man that did it. Even dressed in a lighter dark surcoat instead of his usual heavy armour, Clegane could strike fear into the hearts of men with little effort.

“What do your nightmares tell you, girl?” Clegane asked and I frowned at the forwardness. 

“I do not wish to say,” I muttered. “I do not know you.”

What I meant was, I did not trust him at all. Just like the Grand Maester, Clegane was a Lannister creature. It was known. After what the palace household had lived through during the sack of King’s Landing, I would never trust a Lannister with anything.

“But that is my point, isn’t it?” Clegane took a long drink from his bottle. “You don’t know me. I don’t know you. So. You can tell me anything. You have a secret,” he pointed to me, “I have a secret.” He touched his own chest, swaying a bit once more. “I won’t tell another soul, but I know you won’t, ‘cause I’ve seen you here before, girl. No one who’s lived in this bloody place half as long as you have could survive by spilling secrets.” His half-burned lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. “Or am I wrong?”

I thought about what he said and then I thought about what I saw after the sack. I only survived because I was small enough to hide in the cupboard in the pantry where the head maid stored the cleaning supplies. “Mouse” is what some of the other chambermaids called me, because I would scutter from place to place, always quick and always silent. Being a mouse had saved me that day. Mostly it saved me from the Mountain That Rides and his men.

But Sandor Clegane was not his brother, this much I knew. Just like the current king was not his horrible son. Most household staff avoided both, if they could help it–the crown prince and his horrible shadow were always together, but if you looked closely, you learned quickly that they couldn’t be further apart. I have never seen the younger Clegane hurt or kill a girl, but I have scrubbed the floors in the royal apartments where the Mountain did the unspeakable to the poor Princess Elia.

“You are not wrong,” I admitted. “I think… It sounds about right.” 

I was grateful that the gardens were shrouded in darkness, because the memories of that day brought tears to my eyes that were now threatening to spill.

“So spit it out.” Somehow, Clegane’s voice made it easier to control myself. “Do ya want to sit?” 

He walked past me then, quickly and remarkably quietly for a man of his size. He sat down on the grass and I followed his lead. 

“The night is dark, girl. No one will see you, no one will see me, no one will hear us.”

My blood ran cold then and I scolded myself for being so foolish. Was he…?

My hand went back to my dagger. I looked at his neck, then to his armpit.

It must have shown in my face, what I was thinking of, because he sneered again and took another swig of his wine, before adding:

“I meant for a conversation, fuck’s sake. If I wanted to, I could’ve killed you ages ago. Why would I bother now?” He paused. “Oh. It ain’t the killin’ you’re thinkin’ of. No, I don’t do that either, girl. I’m no raper.”

‘Unlike my brother’ hung right there in the air above us, unsaid.

I sighed and I settled on the grass beside him. Clegane took another long drink from his bottle, then passed it to me.

“No, thank you. I must refuse.”

“You must?” He scoffed. “A proper little thing, ain’t ya…”

I pursed my lips in distaste at being called that. It felt too familiar for the chance acquaintances we were.

“I used to drink a lot,” I said, finally brave enough to make my tone as harsh as I really wanted it to sound. “But I do not, not anymore. I used to drink to hide my troubles. But the problem with drink is, your troubles remain just where you left them and they haunt you the next day.”

The Hound frowned and when he spoke next his voice was heavy with surprise, but devoid of judgement:

“You used to drink a lot?” He raised a dark brow. “I’d have never thought to picture that.”

“Why, because I’m not a soldier like you?” 

I knew better than to call that man a knight, but I was tempted just to show my lack of regard for the Lannister dog.

“Nah, I suppose that doesn’t matter.” He looked away then. “So what stupid things did you do to finally make you shake the habit?”

I was surprised by the question; by the suggestion of kinship between us. But I realised there was one, whether I liked it or not.

“My mother,” I hesitated, and the Hound’s dark eyes were on me again. “My mother was a mean drunk. But when she did not drink, she was even meaner.”

Clegane looked at me then and I saw a glint of recognition in those dark, angry eyes. But then, the hour of the wolf was the darkest part of the night. I might have been mistaken.

“‘D ya fuck any strangers?”

“Not enough wine in this keep to make me fuck you, if that’s what you’re after.”

He let out a laugh. The hoarse sound of it was grating like a crunch of broken glass.

“Yeah, that ain’t what I’m after, don’t flatter yourself.”

“Well, I am glad to hear we understand each other.”

“That what you were looking for when drinking, little one? Understanding?”

“Sometimes.” I sighed. “Sometimes I drank just to feel something. You know how it is. Everyone is drunk in a tavern, everyone pretends to be each other’s friend. But that isn’t so. Strangers are not your friends, they could not be farther from it.”

“Aye, they care about nothin’ and no one other than themselves.” The Hound nodded. “Drink and pleasure, little one. That’s what the world is to ya when you ain’t careful.” He took another swig from the bottle. The smell of wine hit me again and I turned my head away. 

“And you said awful things, too, did ya?” he asked.

“Hateful things,” I whispered. “That is why I stopped. It did me no good.”

“Hateful things…” The big man rolled the words on his tongue like he was curious. “Pretty little thing like you, eh?”

“Pretty things can still be poison.”

He smirked darkly at that.

“Yes, they can. You have the truth of it, girl.” 

He was silent for a while and I turned my head towards him to check if he was still there. He was. He was looking at the guard standing beside the closest entry to the garden. The guard looked young and utterly exhausted. He swayed from time to time and Clegane seemed very amused by that.

“Yeah, usually it’s knights and us soldiers drinkin’ to forget.” He pointed at the guard. “Like him there. The men that drink too much and go around lookin’ for fights. We drink our cheap wine and our ale and then we go around lookin’ for nothin’ but trouble. Sometimes fightin’ people we’re not supposed to. Sometimes… Other things.” He took another swig.

“Sometimes I would even lay with strangers to feel better. To feel something.” 

I did not know why I said that, but that got me his attention, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and say it all:

“To feel something other than my feelings. Other than dread and sadness. But that did not happen. In the morning, my nightmares were still present.”

“I understand,” he replied and it was my turn to be shocked. “Wantin’ to feel the warmth of someone’s touch.” He said that so bitterly that I almost felt the bile in my own throat. But there was sympathy in his voice, even though it was hard to read his face, half-covered with the burn scars.

“Aye, someone to take away your pain, even if for a night.”

“Yes,” I said, surprised. “That… That was it. How…?” But then I hesitated. Of course he would understand what that was like. He wore the worst thing that had happened to him right out there on his face. There was no hiding from it, no covering it. He had to wear it every day and live with others looking upon it always. 

I felt like a fool for even asking, but the question hung there in the open. Finally, Clegane spoke:

“I know it. You thought someone would care about you, keep you warm, but in the end they never did. Did they?”

“No.” This time my answer came easier. “They never did.”

“Aye, nobody cares about people like us, little one. We are the servants. We’re here to serve.” He chuckled darkly and pushed the empty bottle away. “People don’t care a lick for ya, only for what you can give them. And when you give it… Well, then you’re no better than those slaves in Essos.”

“Is that how it feels for you?”

He turned to me so quickly that I flinched and for a second I was afraid he would attack me. But all he did was look into my own eyes; long and intently. His eyes were ones that must have seen much, but mine own had turned hard over the years, too. They no longer belonged to the girl who came to King’s Landing with songs in her head.

“Yeah.” Finally, he leaned back. “What of your family? Do they care so little about you?”

I was not always a palace maid and I had not always worked in a household as grand as the royal palace. I was born as a Rivers, in a poor hovel in the Riverlands; a ghastly place north of another village that most likely no longer existed. My mother was a drunkard, a local busty tavern wench, and due to her reputation I also had two older half-sisters. They despised me as much as I despised them.

Scrubbing floors and mending clothes had been my daily bread since the moment I could walk and take care of my own needs–that was the day I finally became useful. That usefulness took me out of that gods’ forsaken village, until little by little I travelled from the Riverlands to the Crownlands, moved from house to house in search of my own destiny, and from dusk till dawn I scrubbed and cleaned the nobles’ messes. From a lowly laundry maid at the age of seven, I worked my way up on my hands and knees, until the skin of my hands perpetually blistered and cracked from soap and lye.

“No,” I replied, my tone harsher. “There is no one.”

The Hound still looked at me like he was trying to read my face for lies. But there were none. I had no reason to lie to him. I told myself once more that he would not remember we ever had this conversation come morning.

“I have no family either,” he said grimly. “No family to speak of.”

I knew the Mountain was not dead, otherwise we all at the palace would have heard of it long ago. To now hear the admission from Clegane’s own mouth that the brothers despised each other was striking. 

“So no one cares whether we live or die,” I concluded. “I imagine that is why we accept whatever people give us. It is either that, or…” I think on it. “That, or the emptiness.”

“Aye.” His voice was softer now. “But people do bad things all the time. It ain’t the end of the fuckin’ world. Not even the end of your life. So you’re still allowed to want things.”

I frowned, trying to piece together the confusing shreds of that thought. The wine must have finally run to his head.

“Are you saying even monsters deserve to be loved?”

He laughed darkly and there was little joy in that bitter sound.

“Aye, little one. Mayhaps you are a bad person, I don’t know ya. But all of us are, in a way.”

The truths he gave me struck something within me. 

“By the gods, you are honest.” I sigh. 

“I’m a lot of things, girl. Honest, for all my faults, is one of them.” He paused briefly. “A hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And he'll look you straight in the face.”

We sat in silence a while, but then the big man had more questions for me:

“Don’t you ever have any desire to drink again? There must be a time when you think to yourself, just one, just to forget, just to numb the pain, just for tonight?”

I considered that. Then decided to remain truthful:

“Yes. I do sometimes, yes. But then I remember how miserable wine made me feel the next day and how much pain it caused me. And how much shame it brought me. The things I did… Remembering helped me not to drink again.”

I looked up and there was a strange, wistful look in Clegane’s eyes, as though he were remembering something.

“But it did feel good while it lasted, did it not? At least, for a time, you had no aches, no hurts, you did not feel. You could forget your pain for a while, did that not feel good?”

“Ah,” I smiled sadly. “But that is why the drink is so treacherous.”

“Aye,” he agreed with a smirk. “A cruel mistress.”

I nodded. 

“But it did make me forget,” I admitted. “Then I felt ashamed I forgot. And then it ruined me and I had let it, gladly. But in the moment, when you drink, yes, that is true. You forget the bad things. That does feel good. It is a perfect poison for those in pain and misery.”

I realised then that it was the sense of no judgement I was getting from conversing with the Hound that really drew me into this talk. He did not judge and he repaid me with honesty. That was so much more to offer than the monstrous kinds of misplaced affection I had found in King’s Landing over the years.

“Is it too much to ask that you tell me your name, girl?” 

The way he asked seemed like a taunt, but there was a strange tenderness in that scarred face that made me feel at ease, even as his dark eyes studied me so intently.

“Laina Rivers.”

“Laina Rivers.” He seemed amused by that, a faint smile playing on his scarred lips. “A pretty name for a bastard.”

I gave him a sharp look.

“There is a sad irony in that,” he said, obviously not afraid of my silent threats in the slightest.

He smiled and there was no humour in that half smile, but the anger in him had settled at least.

“So who was your father?” he asked. “What great lord fathered you and left you in the world to fend for yourself?”

“I do not know.” I stumbled through my words a little, because his bluntness struck me once more. “But I hate him sometimes. For doing so.”

The Hound nodded and then the anger resurfaced in the unburnt half of his face. The other still showed nothing. But there was another layer to his anger now; as though there was just a touch of sadness underneath it.

“You never sought after him? You don’t even know who he is?”

“No.” I shook my head. “My mother told me very little. And she was always angry when I asked. So I stopped asking. I was a skittish child, always desperate for her to love me. I wanted to please her, to be a good daughter. Especially since I had two sisters to compete with.”

“And did it work?” He sneered. “Did your mother love you?”

“Not the way I wanted her to,” I replied, my voice barely louder than a whisper. What was that strange power he possessed that made me want to confess to him so easily?

“She loved me in her own way, I believe. But she was not kind. I think she despised having bastard daughters, despised us for being bastards. Even though that was not our fault.”

“No, it is not your fault,” he agreed and hearing that almost brought the tears back to my eyes. 

There was sadness in his voice, I could hear it for true. The masks were starting to come off.

“It is never the fault of the child,” he continued. “Yet they have to suffer. That just shows how this fuckin’ world is, ain’t it?”

I remained silent, but he still expected me to say something. And I was too interested in the conversation to leave now.

“What about your own parents? Did they love you?”

For a long moment, Clegane remained silent, as though he wanted to give me a different answer; considered it, to avoid giving the real one. But it did not seem like his heart was in it. Finally, he spoke, with some hesitation:

“No, my father did not love me. And my mother, well – I do not know if she hated me, loved me, or just did not bother to see that I existed at all.”

It was so hard to hear that I could not speak for a long while. 

“When did you get these scars?” I asked carefully.

“I was seven.”

He knew I knew then, or at least that I suspected, and now had my suspicions confirmed. I straightened my back and he waited for me to say something, but I would not. I would not intentionally harm him with my words now, I refused. Even if he was a Lannister creature.

“But you are true-born, are you not?” I said instead, frowning, and tried to reconcile what he said with my own conviction. 

His laugh was like snarling dogs in a pit.

“That does not guarantee a parent’s love, little one. My father was a lord, you know. And a cruel, bitter man.”

That was not the moment to remark on his own bitterness and so I held my tongue.

“No, I suppose being a lord’s son does not guarantee it,” I muttered. “But for the longest time I thought… I thought that if only I had a real name, if I was true-born then maybe my mother would be kinder. Maybe she–”

“No, if she cared, she would have loved you no matter what.” The Hound sighed. My mouth nearly gaped at that answer. 

“There are many bastards who are not high-born and who still have good parents,” he said. “It is not about your name or birthright. It is about whether there is hatred in a person’s heart. And by your account, your mother did not have much love in hers.”

I sat there in shock at the profound truth that came from this man’s mouth. 

“I misjudged you,” I admitted and immediately felt my face grow hot with embarrassment.

“Aye.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “I am used to it.”

“But,” I said, “that is also why I left the Riverlands. I went from place to place, finding work and getting good at being a maid. I was looking for something to replace that love. And when I came to King’s Landing… Well, now I work in the palace.” I laughed bitterly. “A lot of fucking good it got me.”

He laughed then with me, a deep and harsh guffaw.

“Aye, King’s Landing. The place where every man and woman goes when they think their talents would amount to something. So many people lie and die in this stinking hell, so many more become lordlings and queens and kings… Aye, they all think they’re something special. Something more.” He pauses and looks at me with a mixture of bitterness and amusement. “Did you fall for their lies, too?”

“I did.” I nodded. I felt ashamed for having been so naive.

“You are not alone,” he said, almost like he was mocking both of us. “This place chews people up and spits them out like they are nothing. It’s the worst of men, the biggest of fools, the lowest of scum that the Seven Kingdoms have to offer. All gathered here for the pleasure of the royals.”

I wondered then how come he was not afraid to say what he thought; why did he said it so openly. All my life I had obeyed every rule and strict guidance of my superiors. I received a lashing once and I still bore the scars of it on my back. I vowed never to let my tongue waggle ever again.

Any palace chambermaid found gossiping, or behaving in a way unbecoming of a decent lady, would be punished–or worse, thrown out and left without income, forced to leave His Grace’s employment with a stained reputation and no way to fend for herself. 

So I decided to ask:

“How is it that you are not afraid to just speak your mind? This place is crawling with whisperers. Don’t you have a lord or a master that would punish you for speaking so?”

The Hound smiled, almost as though he was amused at the thought.

“Why should I be afraid? They are all afraid of me.” He shrugged. “Who cares what these nobles think? The people who know me already know I speak my mind, and the ones who don’t have heard stories. And as for my master, I have none. I have no one to answer to besides the king, and he doesn’t care a lick about the likes of me.”

“I think I have heard the stories,” I admit.

“Aye. A famous man, me.” He leaned towards me, his voice hard again. “You know why they call me the Hound?”

I shook my head, though my eyes went to his chest where the sigil of his house was plain as day on his surcoat – three black snarling dogs on a yellow field.

“It is because I hunt down their prey for them. Anyone they ask me to, I ride them down. Criminals, traitors, even children… I have cut down many in my life and only some of them were monsters.”

We were silent then, until he spoke again:

“Many different names they call me, but I mislike that one the most.”

“I understand.”

“Do you now?”

“I do. Of course I do. A hound is a dog used for hunting and it is an animal, not a person. The man sitting here with me is just that, a man. Not a dog.” 

He is rendered speechless after that and we look at each other for the longest moment.

“How old are you, girl?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You speak with the knowledge of someone older, yet you are small and slight and so I wonder…” He reached towards me and I forced myself to stay in place. For some reason, I knew he would not harm me.

Clegane touched my shoulder and it was as if to check that I was real.

“I am old enough,” I said, slightly amused. “And I hope to talk to you again sometime. But it will dawn soon and I must go back to my duties.”

“Aye.” Clegane smiled at that and I smiled back. “Fare-thee-well, Laina Rivers.”

“Fare-you-well, Sandor Clegane.”