#men when they consider the unimportant FIRE FIRE FIRE

[chikaoofka]

The circumstances surrounding Cassius' "death" (disappearance) were incredibly muddled and hard to follow even for the people who were involved... It all happened late at night in the middle of a snowstorm, visibility was low, an apparently unrelated party (Cockerel) getting a broken nose, and an apparent thousand other coincidences leading to the death of both Cassius and his father. The issue: only the body of Christopher Turever Jr. - Cassius' father - was recovered! This led to a strange cooperation between Edgar and Cassandra - the new "co-"proprietor of the local newspaper (though she had been managing the place for a while up to this point) - aiming to cover up whatever really happened in the favour of pushing a narrative that Cassius was the man to die that day. It was an easier story to push, yes, Cassius' apparent depression was visibly worsening, as opposed to the apparently stable Christopher... What if the people cried murder!? Not to mention Cassius (once) was a valued member of the community - imagine the paper sales!...

anyway here's a funny image where neither of them can know if they'll get away with it since neither of them can see Christopher's face ... I do imagine they succeed but I don't know if it's really THAT important? It's fun to consider though. Edgar and Cassandra get along surprisingly well, but maybe it was just the circumstance. They stopped talking after the funeral was officially past...

[musamora]

the dreadful need in the devotee — bungo stray dogs oneshot

content. f!reader. poetic prose, discussions of mortality and death, existentialism, suggestive themes, allusions to greek and abrahamic myth, romanticized unhealthy relationship dynamics, possible continuity errors. notes and translations at the end. not proofread. 3.8k+ words. ⟶ features fyodor dostoevsky. this work is a sequel to another oneshot! reading it's not a requirement, but is encouraged. this is also a collaboration with @yonseibananamilk! please check out her half of the collab ٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´-

would you like to see more? fill out the taglist or comment under this post.

The fire of Pyramus danced within its hearth, the crackles a plea for freedom. Wooden shelves shimmered in a spectrum of amber hues. The light married abstract shadows with the spines of ancient books, stories lost to civilizations no historian could neither name nor describe. However, the harsh rays softened as they reached the two huddled on a sofa in the corner.

The domestic flame of your shared nocturnal nook chiseled at your features. Meadowed plains melded into the hills of your cheeks before they dipped back into low valleys nestled on the cusp of your nose or at the curvature of your cupid's bow. Fresh streams fringed the waterline of your eyes, fluttering lashes portraying the underbrush that beckoned him, barely obscuring the mystery hidden beneath the murky brook. Such a delicate canvas, framed with messy hair, made his sick heart thump at such vulnerable dishevelment.

You drank every word of your book with reverence while he could hardly focus on the one he held. The careful movement of your fingers as you turned the page tainted his thoughts into fantasies where they instead traced the expanse of his skin—it was repulsive.

But he dreaded an infallible demise the moment you chose to lay against him, not a thought to the difference in your stations. That heated sensation of unfamiliar tenderness, shrouded from the world, only to be acknowledged in an unimportant room in an unimportant place, thumbed him with a sentiment he could not adhere a title to. You were powerless in the scheme of everything that enveloped you, yet held no regard for fear or fate.

Instead, you smiled.

He hid the quiver of his limbs as his finger brushed the underside of your chin. Your face craned upward, and he realized he had been parched for a taste of the features he had so painstakingly mapped to memory. Your eyes closed with leisure as you leaned into his touch and—

He cracked his eyes, unable to open them as they strained to readjust to the merciless glare of his monitors, their caustic luster a stark contrast to the imprisoned fireside of his daydreams. His muscles cried out when he stretched. The quiver in his limbs recurred in spasmodic vibrations, worsening the cramp of his hands as he flexed them. It was a relentless ache that had become all too familiar to him.

You were a distraction. He had lost whole minutes of time to fanciful delusions with you and that damning grin of yours at the center. In his preparations, he toyed with the idea of dispatching you to a remote location outside the ire of societal destruction before ridiculing himself upon further examination. If another one of his subordinates had become such an issue, he wouldn't have hesitated to snuff them out—you had to be the human incarnate of temptation, the ultimate test of his faith.

Men who had traversed the path before him did not do so without trial. He had scrutinized the warnings their stories contained—Adam, Samson, Saul—men who had strayed from their noble path only to lose their kingdom. Fleshly pleasures lured many a good man to condemnation, for how could such sweetness be considered a mortal sin?

The fallen had once been beautiful creatures of virtue, and you were but a testament to the scars left in their descent. It was temporary—you and the fragmented thoughts your presence created would pass in years' time. He only had to be patient.

A knock at the entrance to his workspace interrupted his internal toil.

"I'm not interrupting, am I?"

Patience would be easier said than done.

"Not at all."

Because you dissipated thought and reason from his frenzied mind the moment you blessed him with even a mumble. Your voice was the otherworldly harmony that strained atop his ballad of misery. Not the corrupt inflections he had become accustomed to over centuries of time, but rather a sincere, artless tune that only he was ordained to hear and that he alone could descry. He would only admit one fact—human companionship was a merciless mistress.

For he knew you were your happiest at his side as his right hand, but he could not understand the reason—it brought harm to your so-called "doorstep," and the workload was laborious at best. But even in this isolated instance, when the crooks of your smile didn't entirely brush the banks of your eyelids, a noticeable ease settled in your bones at the sight of him hunched over a desk. An ease he returned, albeit underneath the veil of his carefully crafted mask.

"The preparations for the cannibalism event are almost complete," you continued, maintaining an unusual manner of professionalism as you handed him a set of stapled documents and receipts. "I just need to receive your approval before sending out the orders." His eyes crossed each section without too much consideration for their actual contents, affirmed in his trust of your intellectual capabilities when it came to outlining critical components of his plans with the ire of a scrutinizing eye. 

"Thank you. These will do."

This was usually the time that you would dive head-first into a heated discussion about the latest novel from his collection or scurry off with a courteous farewell to complete the enormous amount of tasks you often procrastinated, but instead, you lingered. Your brows furrowed, locked in contemplation as your eyes stalled on his screens—schematics for his future "trip" to the European detention facility, Meursault. He cleared his throat, which luckily broke you from your daze.

"It'll be weird." You ran your thumbs across your knuckles, teasing at your bottom lip as you shifted from foot to foot. "Moving to a new hideout, I mean." The palms of your hands shifted to skim the dust and grime-coated surface of his barren shelves, toying with the clumps of debris that gathered on your fingers as your mind returned to its baseline. What did your thoughts stray to in times when they left you stranded, out of his reach, as they became more challenging to discern? He could only pray, in some twisted part of his dark mind, that they were a reflection of his own—then maybe those fantasies could be justified.

Outside his internal ramblings, he hummed lowly, acknowledging the truth behind that sentiment. Neither of you shared an attachment to the four walls that surrounded you—it was no home. It held none of the warmth or affection such a term required, though the idea of a home was foreign to you both.

Under those clouded waters, your eyes held a look he both adored and disdained. That muted hesitation had returned, like a criminal stood on trial, unable to utter a word of the truth lest they condemn themself. And you knew too much and said far too little. If you would surrender to your impulses, push him or pull him close so that, in some fashion, his conscience could be alleviated and he could refocus—but it seemed you were stuck within the same cycle of indecision.

You parted your lips, faltered, and closed them again, second-guessing yourself as you fiddled with your fist. But upon further inspection of your nervous disposition, he spotted an object that had been hidden in your back pocket. A book. He raised a brow as you slowly pulled it out.

"You've offered me so much reading material in the past." You handed him the book. Its cover was weathered and cracked; a once vibrant hue faded into a dark, timework brown. The delicate, diaphanous golden letters that spindled across the spin dulled with age but continued to catch onto the fluorescent light. "So I thought I'd return the favor. It's a book I've had for as long as I can remember."

"Poetry?" He couldn't withhold the amusement in his tone. You were such an adorable little woman—his heart squeezed in indescribable fondness at the incredibly fitting genre. The book cradled in his hands was even more charming, if possible. Several translucent tabs and disorder marks stacked the contents of the book, defining a distinct difference from his own analytical annotations. Part of him wanted you to leave sooner so he could delve into the contents away from distraction and be allowed to soak up every delectable notation.

"For wherever you plan to go. I hope you might find some use out of it." Your face softened. "I know it's helped me."

He huffed but knew that he was ultimately endeared. "Thank you, моя дорогая. If you enjoyed it, I'm certain I'll find it an enticing read."

A tremor trickled down your spine at the unexpected sound of his mother tongue. His thick accent sounded like velvet to the ears, but you quickly nodded and sent him the courteous farewell he had initially expected—but he couldn't allow you to leave without answering one more question.

"Which one should I read first?"

You paused, prodding the question around in your mind. The answer you stumbled upon was bold, and you contemplated your choices as your nails methodically drummed across the doorway's threshold. It was a risky choice, but one you had to take.

"Browning's Sonnet 22." Your expression could have locked him there for eternity. "It's my favorite."

And you left. You left, and indecision haunted him once more.

An abhorrent, unsightly torpor flooded within him like the Neva itself, the warmth of the Russian summer smearing any presence of intellect or acumen from his person. His limbs lay heavy from the sweltering heat as the underbrush tickled at his perspiration-laden skin, allowing him a momentary reprieve as he observed the breeze push against the bountiful flora that edged the bank of a creek older than he was in a homeland he had no way to return to.

"Федя."

He roused from the rush that engulfed his body and replaced his idleness, his mind ravenous at the mere whisper of such an intimate, almost forbidden name. Soft hands replaced the roughened roots of creekside plants, trailing his arms until their owner came into full view, beckoning him to lean forward with the purse of your lips.

You were somehow even warmer than the summer sun, and he melted like a tempered candlestick at your sheer touch, lips chasing your own as you drew away with a smirk and a laugh. The collision of your bodies onto the hardened ground drew the breath from his lungs, but he allowed himself to find it once more in your embrace, nose buried in your neck as he resisted the urge to indulge in mortal temptations and simply allowed himself to revel in the innocent embrace.

"Федя," you cooed. Your hands roamed the expanse of his hair, outlining the edges of his nape in a rhythmic motion that started to lure him into a dreamless sleep. 

That was until the sensation started to fade, and he felt the familiar stomach-dropping sensation of falling. His eyes shot open as the idyllic naturistic scene dissipated from view to leave a void. Only you remained, but he paled as even you started to fade, reassuring him with a pitiful smile that he had become far too acquainted with.

"I'm sorry, Федя. You'll have to go one without me this time."

Your presence melded until your touch was like the chill of an algid frost—it was like the expiration of a dying star, crumbling in on itself until it rematerializes once more. From dust, you came, and to dust, you shall return. The contact was the biting notion of where and who he was, with every incapability and flaw that marred his flesh. It whipped at his skin, burned at his eyes.

He shook as you slipped through his fingers, drifting out of his grasp as he looked around for something to hold onto, anything to help either of you escape from—

"That must be a pretty good book you've got there."

The blinding aura of his circular cell was not a sight he wished to become accustomed to, the chamber he had been "forced" to occupy with the French prison. And to his utter dismay, it had been the lousy half of the Port Mafia's former Double Black that had stirred him from his waking nightmare, Osamu Dazai. The bandaged man looked like the cat that had caught the rat; his eyes narrowed as if he had finally pinpointed the Russian's weakness. An unseemly smirk drew across his pale face.

"You've been staring at the same page for the past five minutes, Fyodor," the detective crooned, splayed on on his bed with his head dangling at the side at an uncomfortable angle, almost like he wasn't locked in a high-stakes match of chess. "Your eyes haven't moved an inch. Leaves me to wonder what could possibly be so enticing about that book. You should lend it sometime!"

"I'm simply concerned for the well-being of your fellow agents," Fyodor sneered cooly, allowing his demonic mask to slip back on with his signature smirk. "I just can't help but worry for them. I'll be sure to pray for a swift, painless demise."

"Hmm, I'm sure."

But the suspicion of the detective didn't matter. Fyodor had ensured that you had no connections to one another, and your identity was completely erased once you went underground years prior. So, for the time you remained hidden, you were safe, and that terrible concoction of his mind would not come to fruition. You were in the midst of correcting course on any minor deviations from his plans if the smoothness of his operation was a testament—but in other moments between consciousness and sleep, he wondered if you shared these same thoughts. The split seconds that expanded into hours of dreams he wished never to wake from. 

He couldn't help but linger on the horrific scenario that cast an ever-present shadow over his every thought. It was a possibility, and he shuddered to think of the notion that it would someday become a reality. But this was his one opportunity, and he wouldn't waste it.

He glanced down at his book. In truth, he wasn't much impressed by the pages anymore. This was one of the many books with copies in his personal collection, but it lacked the vitality he had become attuned to. It had been your book of poems that revitalized him, yet he was unable and unwilling to bring such a valuable item into a place such as this. He would not risk the desperation of his opponent at finding his weakness, nor the capabilities of the Special Division for Unusual Powers in finding a connection to the book's owner—so it was contained somewhere safe and sound, where no one else could find it.

That book had opened a separate world that consumed him, body and soul. But that poem that you had recommended—you were quite the romantic, weren't you? His face had flushed during his first reading and the several times after it, though your annotations were even more telling. But it only made the pressure on his heart increase, and he swore it would implode. Perhaps that was an underlying medical condition of his previous host.

And for the first time in centuries, he wasn't quite sure what he would do when he saw you again.

You dislodged yourself from the rubbled remains of the airport, fortunate to have been located further from the destruction Ame-no-Gozen created. The walls around you stood firm, but the roof caved in from pressure above, leaving only a sliver of room to escape to the intact remainder of the roof. Your hands ached and blistered with every inch of your ascent, halted as you took time to cough out the debris that generously clustered at the bottom of your lungs. You looked utterly worse for wear but couldn't find the time to mind given the circumstances.

After what seemed like hours of excruciating climbing, you made it to the top—but, of course, the fabric of your pants decided to snag onto a metal panel that had stubbornly remained intact.

"Oh, come on," you groaned, sitting down to tease and tussle with the ornery piece of cloth. It had been a restless last few weeks, and you simply wanted to sleep. You huffed as the shrapnel decided to release its grasp on your pants, but as you were about to stand back up, you took notice of the shadow before you.

There he was.

You could recognize Fyodor's striking eyes anywhere, even when he was clad in the attire of a fresh body without his signature hat and cloak, but you found that you didn't care much for the finer details when he was finally in front of you. His presence had formed a vacancy in your everyday routine, and for the first time in years, you found yourself completely alone. Even when there was work to be done and plans to create, the majority of his usual subordinates were killed as collateral—not that they had even been much company. But would you be forced to fall into the same line?

The question nauseated you, but you had known the possibilities when you took his hand for the first time. If there was a time for you to part ways, whether at his accord or your own, this would be it. This was your crossroads. But you knew as you slipped your hand into his, outstretched for you to take, that he wouldn't be letting go. The grip he had held you like it was a sin to part. It seemed your fears were unfounded since when you slipped your hand into his own, outstretched for you to take, you knew he wouldn't let you go. The grip he had held you like it was a sin to part.

You stood with his help, a contemplative tilt to your brow—but you couldn't stand the silence that continued to persist. So, in the echoes of his formulaic destruction, you allowed yourself to breathe. A release of that suspension and hesitation, unfurling your burden as you lifted your aching hands to cup his face, delighted in the widening of his eyes at the unbalanced scale between you tilted to the other side.

"Федя," you spoke, the sensation of the word foreign to your lips. A spark returned to his eyes as if you whispered the secret to raise him from the dead. "Are you alright?"

The wind rushed through him, breath tumbling with the breeze as it coasted along the metal platform you stood from. Despite reason pleading with him to run from your proximity, he instead chose to intertwine his fingers with one of your hands. He pressed kisses into the curve of your palm as he lined every scar and bruise with a tenderness that soothed your aches.

"I am."

He didn't need to utter another word—your brief separation had only strengthened your unified understanding of one another, with each crying gesture serving as the final touch. No more trials. No more secrets. The look in his eyes was one of stories. Eyes that had witnessed every dismal aspect of human nature, both in the past you shared, and in the past he traversed alone. But they had become worthless stories to him; the minuscule glimpses of resolution that had served as a sign from God of the promised end turned into the delusions of a desperate man as he found the reflection of the end in front of him—you. In every step he took since your destined encounter, you had been what he was searching for. His hope. His future. His reality. That fraudulent resolution was no longer at the end of a perilous tunnel but right before him.

You understood that the intimacy of your "relationship," with whichever label others tended to tack it with, could never be shared with another soul. Those voiceless, indulgent whispers and subtle, crinkled smiles were mere productions of your shared devotion. But more so, the hummed resonation of your souls spoke the loudest. They had remained empty for such stretches of time, so neither of you knew what to make of it when you somehow poured from your empty cups into the creation of a fulfilling bond. Your only comfort was the notion that this—this was the reason you were created. For each other.

He remembered the moment he laid eyes on you, the sensation that his long-time friend had turned foe, death no longer a temptation out of his grasp but a certainty he could not shake. Your straightforward disposition beckoned him, and he then understood why he had been made with a capacity for love despite acting as the immortal incarnation of its antonym. He had never once felt a need for fruitful devotion, not to some unseen voice from the skies, untouched by the heart and mind of humans, but instead for the one person who would take his heart to the grave with them.

He was immortal, whether by chance or fate, but it was your ability to shake off the temptations of fear that immortalized you in the end. Never once had you allowed your rift in mortality to halt the blossoming kinship between you, prodding at the walls of his solid foundations until they cracked and eroded over time. Fyodor chuckled—he thought he had a capacity for patience, between you were a godsend in comparison. He was the proclaimed "Demon of the North." The man sent to spread the wrathful will of God across the nations. So it was no wonder he had been so tempted when met with a force of benevolence, one which he had rarely witnessed and never known. He could never claim to be worthy of mortal worship when a creature like you stood before him.

You shivered at the sudden touch of his hands as they traveled across the exposed skin of your waist, soft despite his habits. They traced the contours of your figure like a sculptor transfixed on the finest marble. Time had not been merciful in his centuries alone—but it stilled for this moment. For the moment your lips met, and your odyssey was finally over. The spread of his touch was revolutionary, roaming with a cardinal fervor within this wasteland of human misfortune. It sparked a revolt within your mind—your union was taboo, but nothing had ever felt as destined to be.

The muscles of your face tendered as his thumb outlined the brushwood of your lashes. Your eyes drifted shut in a manner that wordlessly pronounced your insomnolence. He kissed a smile against your forehead as you parted, cradling your face as if you were his world. This was an intimacy that could not be replicated, and his mind shattered at the notion of loss.

"Never wander somewhere I can't follow," spoke the desperate man.

You flashed him a cheeky grin. "You won't be able to leave if you want me to stay."

He leaned in, lips close enough to brush. "I won't leave. Not ever again."

And he dipped back in for another taste, addicted to the ambrosial quality of your lips as he buried himself in the shrine of your arms. 

дорогая = dear федя = fedya

TAGLIST: @ruru-kiss @miloofc @osarina @meiluvrr @suru1990 @honeymoon38 @saeandscaralover @dazaisms @v4mpash3 @coffeeofsamu @just-another-crack-artist @snowsilver2000 @chyozai @justcallmesakira @little-miss-chaoss @himikoslove @osameowdazai @deepseafragments @aureatchi @tirasamu @kelperspelt @squigglewigglewoo @lovesick-fairy @zyilas @ishqani

a fyodor fic! very original for me, i know. nana and i planned out this collaboration months ago, and were luckily able to schedule it for the chapter release. again, please go check out her side of the collaboration! speaking of chapters, that update was certainly something. i'm intrigued to see the further development of atsushi and akutagawa through the end of this story arc, since it feels like they've switched roles in regards to the desperation, if that makes sense. and, of course, it was interesting to see fyodor express such strong emotion in reaction to atsushi, and i'm excited to see it unfold in the next installment! feel free to discussion discourse below :D

© MUSAMORA 2024 — do not repost or modify my works for any reason. do not steal graphics w/o explicit permission. reblogs are appreciated.

[yearningaces]

Declan x reader Defender of Chickens

Disclaimer: Declan is my own OC, he is a Hallewell. He's a fucked up lil guy but we love him

TW: animal death mentioned, decapitation, murder(Not really graphic)

Declan is not a good man.

He isn't a 'man' either, he muses. If he is not a good man though, then he is a creature.

Less than that, he is a Hallewell. He is what good men hope to avoid, and what evil men are stalked by in the darkness before their impending end.

He isn't a good Hallewell either though, he supposes he isn't a 'good' anything. He just is.

However…

As the Hallewell remains knelt on the earth of your doorway, gazing into the night sky above, he supposes he doesn't have to be good. He can simply be yours, instead.

The stars are gone tonight, concealed by clouds in the dark expanse of a night sky far above. The world below lies concealed, offering him the only cover he would ever appreciate. Darkness. Pure and unwavering darkness.

The lights of your home have extinguished at this hour, which is for the best.

Declan remembered when he arrived at your doorstep earlier that evening, finding you to be concealing prior shed tears, he was gentle in his embracing of yourself. His burly form was soft, and tender as he guided you to your bed. Declan was gentle as he tucked you in, shifting the blankets with care, ensuring you were as comfortable as you could be as he sat beside you. 'Who causes you grief? What blood must be shed?' He'd asked, his voice always as it ever is when speaking to you, a low soothing rumble.

The Hallewell's hand twitched on the hilt of his dark sword that was resting in his hands as he remembered how warm your cheek had been in his palm.

'It was nothing of concern', you had told him in such a trembling tone. 'I'm simply being sensitive, worry nothing of this', you had said, and oh how that alone lit a fire in his chest, howling out from the bars of his rib-cage at the thought of anyone telling you that your discomfort, your emotions were to be brushed off. As if unimportant.

At the time though, he only smiled softly, biting back his desire to bare his fangs towards anything and everyone who had ever so much as looked upon your form, as if they were worthy of such a sight as his heart. While stroking your cheek with his thumb, Declan spoke far softer than his lungs demanded. 'I cannot help if you do not say, my heart.'

'It was only the fence for my chickens… I woke this morning to find it was torn, and one of the hens was missing. It was no doubt a predator of some sort, searching for an easy meal…' Declan remembered your expression as you spoke of your small flock. His eyes drifted to the coop and the hen house from where he resided before your doorstep. Those chickens gave you enough eggs for yourself and to sell. You cared for them, so now here he sat upon the earth before your home. Watching over your chickens. Your flock, and by extension his.

His mind drifted once more as your trembling voice remained in his mind, seared into his head as if branded by iron and fire. 'The Fisherman's son came to my stall at the market today, he looked happy as he asked of my chickens, Declan we've never spoken before… I didn't know what he meant but it made me wonder something terribly paranoid.'

Declan considered your uneasy words and tone. You were such a wonderful creature, truly. His lovely human, his own beating heart. He was proud he'd kept face when he was seated before you, not once did his voice rise above a low murmur given your state. 'Alright, my heart, I hear your words. I understand your flock is important to you, and it is important to me,' The Hallewell gazed out to the patched portion of the fence, then to the dark treeline beyond. His attention grasped while the memory of your conversation rings in his head.

'I will watch over your flock tonight,'

Declan stands, silent as the grave he is ready to dig as the rustling of the underbrush grows louder

'But, Declan, it's the middle of winter and there is no guarantee anything would even occur-'

The Fisherman's son -Rory- not that his name matters much to a Hallewell, creeps out from the underbrush.

'It will be alright, my dove. I'll merely remain to watch over your flock.'

Declan stalks towards the boy, no more than his twenties, hands already tearing at the patched fencing, unaware of what is coming in the darkness.

'I will merely be rid of any predator that comes scratching at their coop.'

Rory freezes as his hands grasp the fencing. Feeling his mind screaming in the panic of a trapped animal under the blade.

'I would sooner throw myself into the bottom of the nearest well than let anything happen to your flock that you tend to so diligently.'

The blade swings down before a sound can rise from the now bleeding lungs of the Fisherman's son.

'Your flock is vital to you, is it not? Do your chickens not provide you with eggs, and feathers, and meat, and fertilizers? They are yours and by extension, they are mine to guard.'

Declan tears his sword out of the hot-blooded corpse.

'Allow me to be your guard dog, wont you?'

He strikes again, one swing of the dark metal, and the head is severed.

'Let me do this for you, just for tonight.'

Declan's expression is nothing short of sadistic glee as his smile widens, fangs sharp and eyes alight with the glow of malice and delight. The Fisherman's son, the red-haired hot-blooded fool of a jester at best. He'd often be on the receiving end of Declan's ire due to his subtle disregard for you, your work, your livestock that was often your main resource at the markets you enjoyed setting up a stall at. He'd done this for what? Petty pride? A way to lessen the competition of his own fathers stall? No matter, the answer never was of importance to the Hallewell. Better still, the issue was resolved.

With a quiet 'cluck' of the familiar-sounding hens that approached the commotion, Declan knelt by the fence and looked over at the chickens. "Ladies," He greeted in the way that so often seemed to amuse you. His eyes roamed the animals. Your flock. Something you had deemed important and now such notion was engraved into Declan's very bones as well. These creatures were to be shielded as readily as he did so for you. He knew the notion was one you'd laughed off, but he also knew how attached you were to these feathered things, after all, you cared for him, the wretched feathered thing he was, why not a chicken as well? While he would never understand, he knew you cared greatly for your animals, and as such he would ensure they would remain protected if only so you had no reason to mourn their early passing.

"Your predator is gone, now keep quiet tonight, our solace must be allowed uninterrupted rest." Declan looked down to the still-warm corpse, and reaching down to the severed throat of the Fisherman's son, he tore a strip of flesh, holding it to the fence as one of the hens was close enough to peck at the sliver of meat, grasping on and pulling it into the coop as the small flock gathered for the midnight snack. "Well done, ladies," Declan observed the hens before standing to properly dispose of the body, only so you'd never worry.

When the deed was done, and Declan's stomach sat full, did he finally re-enter your home. His dark sword was placed by the door, freshly cleaned and polished, his heavy boots left behind as he stalked through the dark home with familiarity.

Your room was silent and warm. Blessedly, you laid with peace it appeared to the Hallewell as he stood by your door.

Ever so slowly, Declan approached your bed, feeling as though he was approaching something far more vital than himself. His heart, laid upon blankets and cushions of your own throne as you slept. Declan felt his malice and hatred melting away from the inside of his rib-cage. Your very presence seemed to soothe some inner part of him that he had never previously known to be anything but loathing and ferocity, yet… Seeing your peace, your comfort despite knowing he was so close. You rested, despite knowing of the blood-stained and wretched thing that loomed and lurked within the walls of your own home, laid out within your own nest, content and safe.

Declan felt something in him wrench at the very idea alone, and seeing you, knowing these things… It only drew him closer.

The Hallewell orbited your presence as a devout worshiper would their solace. The brute of a creature, stained with the evil of the world, tainted with the deeds he had relished in, and never once regretted. Yet despite his very nature, you allowed him to be within your temple of gentle touch, and soft words, feeding his yearnings and his howling pleas for something kinder.

He almost didn't know what to do with himself as he edged closer, towards the side of your pristine resting place. Declan slowly, silently lowered himself to his knees before your bed. His hands resting upon the soft blankets, his forehead placed atop his hands. Declan felt his mouth moving without any noise of his silent words rising, in fear of disturbing your slumber. "My heart, my solace, my everything. You will not again have another tarnish the lands you have so diligently tended to. Never will another place their wretched form upon your home, in harm of your own nor yourself. The jester foolish enough to attempt so will never stain your lands, though his blood will feed them. I swear to you, and should another be shameless enough to try, their head will be placed atop a pike and left before the beds of flowers as a message to any other who might wish to do the same. Rest gently, dear dove, I will see to it, I will see to it all."

Declan will remain right where he is, he will not move as if a statue made of stone fit for nothing more than to be a visage of a human guised beast at worship before its personal devinity, and he will hardly breathe as he listens with bated breath for each beat of his own heart that lies within your own chest, whereas his lies only with visions of you.

Rest well.

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

There are a lot of theories out there about the true identity of the last hero, but I think the one that makes the most thematic sense is that he was a member of the original Night’s Watch. See the last hero’s identity is shrouded in mystery but his deeds live on forever and he is attributed with having led to the defeat of the Others. The legends show that his actions are famous, but the man himself is forgotten.

This seems quite close to what being a member of the Night’s Watch entails. The Watch’s vows dictate that members, who are the sword in the darkness and the fire that burns against the cold thus directly marking them in opposition to winter and the Others, shall hold no lands, wear no crowns, and win no glory. They are known to the rest of the kingdoms as those who guard the realms of men, but their identities and individual triumphs are largely unimportant.

This is a shared parallel between the members of the Night’s Watch and the last hero. We don’t know anything about his name, house, or background. Even the title ‘the last hero’ is merely an identifier - note that it’s in lower case. So it would make sense that the last hero’s identity is to remain anonymous if that was the entire point of it all; he was a man of the Night’s Watch and thus, indirectly, swore a vow of anonymity. And better yet, we don’t even know who his twelve companions were. We know only that they rode out with him and died in the process. However we do know that in the north, there are two figures who are directly identified as having been responsible for the ending of the long night: the last hero (as per folk tales narrated by Old Nan) and the Night’s Watch (see the Night that Ended). It could be that the legend of the last hero and his twelve companions is a glimpse of the NW’s last stand.

I also think it’s interesting that we have various last hero parallels in the text who are members of the Night’s Watch. We first have Waymar Royce who seems very last hero-y in the AGOT prologue. Then we have Jon Snow who is implicitly identified by the narrative as a last hero figure. And it gets even more interesting when we consider that Jon has at many times stated that as a member of the night’s watch, he is to remain a shadow among all shadows. His greatest deeds are to go unnoticed and his name is not to be spoken in the halls of men. His deeds could live on, but his name won’t; even more interesting when we consider that Jon, due to his bastardy, technically doesn’t actually have a name to begin with. And what makes Jon’s connection to the last hero so poignant is that while the last hero’s name has been lost to history, Jon has a whole thing about being a lost and forgotten prince/king.

But there’s a rather unexpected last hero parallel in Sam Tarly, also a member of the Night’s Watch. Sam is not magically special, nor is he marked as someone with a particularly important bloodline or destiny. However, he is the first person in thousands of years to slay an Other. And he did that using a shard of dragonglass, which provides an interesting callback to the last hero’s dragonsteel blade. There’s also the parallel of both heroes being the last men standing after an Other attack. But interestingly enough, there’s a slight deviation in that though we still do not know who the last hero was, we do know of Sam the Slayer.

So it’s entirely possible that the last hero was one of the members of the original NW. And this makes for a rather interesting foil in another character who is explicitly stated as having a relationship with the Others - the Night’s King. It’s interesting if both figures have some background with the NW due to the dichotomy that arises. The last hero kept his vows and wore no crown and got no glory, but the Night’s King very directly broke his. The last hero protected the realms of men, while the Night’s King embarked of a path of destruction. And he was, quite famously, a member of the Night’s Watch (and is even identified as having been the 13th lord commander). But it’s interesting that while we don’t really know of the Night’s King’s true identity, we are actually given multiple clues by the narrative. We’re even told that he may have been a Brandon Stark - thereby having a name which the last hero doesn’t. But even then, just as it was with the last hero, the Night’s King has deeds which live on forever even though his name (very deliberately) has not.

[kiramiel]

THOTD Idea or Prompt or Whatever I just need this out of my Head

Rhaenyra took a deep breath and exhaled sharply through her nose, very reminiscent of her dragon. Right now, she envied Syrax her freedom. Her golden beauty could take off into the sky, and none would dare oppose her, with her fierce fiery breath and her giant size, while Rhaenyra was confined by her dreadfully human body and the expectations human society had for her.

As she watched a Lannister and whoever the other one was dissolve into a fight that would have more place in a pub than in royal company, Raenyra was once again both bitter and relieved that she wasn’t born a man.

On the one hand, it would have solved nearly every problem in her life, but on the other, she would be one of those arrogant creatures who thought more with their genitals than with their heads, and considered themselves entitled to anything they might wish simply because they so happened to be born with a cock. Rhaenyra would have liked to think that she would be intelligent enough not to be indoctrinated into this human fallacy of thinking if she so happened to be male, but looking at her family, those with fire in their blood who called themselves dragons, she was confronted with reality. Even Targaryan men were still, at the end of the day, men.

Disappointing, but Rhaenyra had long learned to live with disappointment.

She scanned the crowd with an irritated gaze, so very tired of these people who thought themselves worthy of being tied to her. She was a dragon, and before her were nothing but prey animals hoping to jump beyond their station. The thought of one of them thinking they had the right to stand by her side, the right to her life and her body and her title, was sickening. She would rather set herself aflame than take one of these squabbling, greedy things into her bed and call them husband.

She was about to give up on this whole endeavor, jump upon Syrax’s back and proclaim this tour a failure to her father, when something caught her eye. Or rather, someone.

A man. With dark hair that curled almost down to his shoulders and gimlet grey eyes that reminded her of the glint of sword, swathed in furs of black and silver.

There was something different about him, Rhaenyra noted, tilting her head in interest, her sharp eyes catching on the way he rolled his shoulders like a dragon narrowing on moving prey. It should have made him look uncomfortable, but instead, it managed to make him look like he was loosening his muscles for a fight.

She realized with some surprise that despite his quite frankly impressive stature, taller and broader than even the largest of her guards, she hadn’t noticed him until now. A moment later, as the guards forcefully escorted the two still-shouting men out of the hall, she understood why. Where the crowd around him laughed and tittered and gossipped behind their hands, moving and swaying as the ocean, he alone stood unmoved. Like an iceberg at sea, solid and so, so—

Cold.

That was it, Rhaenyra thought. There was a coldness in his eyes and ice in his veins, she could feel it. His presence prickled against her senses, a chill like a winter breeze, so reminiscent of the blazing fires that were her family and yet so different at the same time.

She stood slowly, disregarding the last vestiges of the previous commotion and the way the hall went silent the second she moved. She descended the steps with slow, measured footsteps, almost predatory in her grace. The world fell away around her, becoming an unimportant, grey mass. Her eyes never strayed from his face, and he withstood her attention without a flinch, when so many men before him looked away in discomfort.

“I am a dragon, Lord Stark,” she spoke quietly. “I am fire and blood and brimstone. I am chaos and madness and men burned to ashes for their sins. There is dragon fire in my blood and magic in my bones.” She tilted her head, and looked him over. Predatory. Accessing. “You are ice. I can feel it in you.” Her eyes met his again, this time challenging, “My question to you is this. Will you temper me, will you cool my fury and make me stronger, or will you melt under the flames, unable to withstand the heat?”

The world held its breath as Lord Stark considered her, his head unbowed and his eyes steady. When he spoke, it was as if his words held a physical weight, forcing attention even from the most unwilling listeners. “I am a Stark, your highness. I am of winter’s breath. I am creeping ice and a slow death for those who defy me. I am the lack of mercy in a winter's touch and the freezing death of all things living. I am the sharpness of jagged ice. Stark’s don’t melt,” he said as if writing truth into the fabric of the universe, “merely reform to accommodate the circumstances.” His eyes were intense, steady, not the raging fires she was used to. “And for you, my princess, it will be an honor to shape my ice into a shield and sword, so that you may wield them against your enemies.”

Rhaenyra smiled wide. It was unladylike, but she couldn’t help herself. Lord Stark didn’t seem to mind. His own smile was small but sharp, an edge of a blade where hears was a baring of teeth.

“Well then, Lord Stark, shall we put your words to the test?” She extended her hand, deceptively delicate, and he took it with a bow of his head.

“If that is your wish, my princess.”

Don’t know if this will ever become anything but we’ll see.

[multific]

Back Home

Greg Lestrade x Reader

Warnings: kidnapping, human trafficking.

"Damn it, Sherlock!" Lestrade banged on the table, knocking over an already empty mug. 

"I told you Inspector, once I'll have any information about the woman, I'll let you know, I'm working on another case which is much more important than some woman fr-" Sherlock stopped as he noticed the fire in Lestrade's eyes. He missed something. Of course, Sherlock would miss something, Lestrade was going on pure emotion, while Sherlock was not.

"What is the name of the woman Sherlock? The woman you deem to be so unimportant, what is her name?" Greg managed to choke out, but his anger only grew. 

Sherlock still didn't know what he missed.

"I can't recall." he answered truthfully, but he only gained a bang on the table as Lestrade turned his back to the man, holding his head in his hands.

"Her name is Y/N Lestrade, Sherlock."

"Your sister?"

"My WIFE." yelled Greg as he turned back to look at the detective. "My wife, Mr Holmes, has been gone for over three days, you know how that feels? And the worst is that I have to go home to my two year old son every day and not have her there." Sherlock now saw what he missed. He missed out on who the client really was. He thought this was the case of a cheating wife, but no, now he saw it all. And even he wasn't sure why, but now, the case on his walls wasn't so interesting. "So, I will ask one more time, where is my wife, Mr Holmes?"

"Have you considered... that she might be cheating?" Sherlock knew he was now on very very thin ice, he could see Greg clench his hands, ready to punch. "No, she is not cheating, just wanted to be sure." because Sherlock is an asshole, no other reason.

---

You knew you shouldn't have opened the door. You were soo dumb. Why did you have to be always so nice to others? Why did you have to be so naive? 

They could have hurt your son. But thankfully, they just took you. You tried to fight, but they were stronger, and they outnumbered you.

"You will be sold for a good price." is what you heard before you were hit in the head and knocked out.

Turned out, there was this group, that kidnapped women from their homes in order to sell them on the black market.

There were about five other women with you in that dodgy basement. Chained to the wall.

However, at that point, you didn't know who to trust. You recalled a case your husband had that he told you about when the men sent in one of their own to stay with the victims, pretending to be one. And you couldn't help but think one of them could be the same.

So, you stayed quiet and hoped Greg and his detective friend would be able to get to you quickly.

---

That evening Greg arrived home only to find the nanny and Tom in the living room. She left soon after Greg arrived, leaving little Thomas with his dad.

"I'll find her I swear." he told his son as he carried him to bed. "I love you so much and Mommy loves you too." Greg said as he kissed his son's forehead and put him to sleep. That evening, he gave his son extra kisses.

---

"To be sold?" Lestrade looked at Sherlock in disbelief as they made their way to a warehouse. 

"Yes, they are selling women as slaves, all types of women so that the police would be thrown off, now, while I'm not too sure who they sell them to, I'm sure they will have a list of clients somewhere, they can't be tipped off or they will destroy it." explained Sherlock and Greg nodded.

He was finally getting you back.

---

You were quiet as a mouse, some men even joked how you must be a mute and how it will cost them money as your value would decrease. 

But you didn't care.

All you cared about was Greg and you son, Tom. 

You needed to find your way back to them, but you still hoped Greg would be able to find you first. 

You couldn't possibly come up with a plan to escape. Every corner there was another man, with a gun.

But this really began to take a toll on your mental health. You were exhausted and you really didn't want to wait until any 'buyers' are interested in you.

Then you heard gunshots, people yelling and soon a team of policemen barged into the warehouse.

Everything happened so fast, soon a young officer asked you about your side of the story.

"Where's my wife? Y/N!" you heard Greg call out and you just ignored the young deputy and rushed to your husband.

With tears in your eyes, you hugged him close to your body. You could barely breathe, you cried so much that day.

But finally you were back home.

Holding Thomas again, you could tell he very much missed you. His hold on you never loosened as he made you promise to never leave him. And you intended to keep that promise.

Greg showed you the new safety features he installed into your home, so you could feel safe finally.

You were in the kitchen making tea for yourself when Greg joined you, moving his arms around you, holding you close.

"I missed you so much Darling. I'm so sorry, this happened."

"It wasn't your fault and I'm ready to put this behind myself. Maybe later, I will talk about it, but for now, I just want to get back to normal, with you and with Tommy."

"Of course." he kissed your neck, completely understanding, not wanting to push you. He got everyone locked up. He got the list and everyone was safe now. 

His heart was finally at ease as he held you close while you prepared the tea, not letting you go even for a second. You loved to feel his warmth around you, after the many cold nights in that basement, you were finally home. Greg kept on kissing your skin, his affections and regrets clear from his actions.

"I will never let anyone take you away from me ever again. If I have to burn London down to make sure no one hurts you, then so be it."

You smiled, knowing he was exaggerating but still loving everything he said.

"I love you Greg."

"And I love you, Sweetheart."

He turned you around and trapped you in between himself and the stove, pulling you in for a heated, long kiss. 

Oh yes, you were definitely home.

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~Masterlist~

ˇAO3ˇ

                DO NOT REPOST OR TRANSLATE ANY OF MY WORKS

[darburrit-o]

Couples things… several men in the books and (many men) IRL put their bastards before their legitimate children to certain degrees of success. It depends entirely on the public perception of the parent and child when determining the success of that move. Fire and Blood mentions, especially early in the dance that Westeros was split, which I can gather means the whole bastard thing isn’t as important to the Common Folk or the lords who back Rheanyra, as it is to the greens (for obvious reasons). But the statement that men almost never put their bastards in the line of succession is factually incorrect irl and in the book. (This is a digression but the difference between an unfavored bastard and a favored bastard often times was the affection or political placement of the parent, by that logic, it would be Very typical for Rheanyra to try to legitimize her children). Also it ignores the presence of legitimized bastards in a society in which infant mortality, death in child birth, etc will make heirs harder to come by, making bastards necessary. Secondly, the consideration of Rheanyras bastards becomes unimportant when we consider a couple outside forces. First, Rheanyra is of royal targaryen blood, IRL and in the book the problem men have with bastards is they aren’t theirs, it’s about the continuation of a blood line. This is why a man’s bastard could be placed in the line of succession and a woman’s bastard wasn’t, the woman’s blood and line were worthless. In Rheanyras case, she is the noble and inheriting blood, meaning it doesn’t matter who the father of her children is, because they all carry the noble blood through her. Adding Targaryen purity just means that Rheanyra is an even better option because Alicents children are less inbred than Rheanyra.

Meaning on the question of do Rheanyras bastards inherit would be complicated, but only because Laenor claimed them as his own, meaning they have legal rights as his legit children even if we the viewers know they are not.

All of this to say, the bastard question doesn’t matter. Rheanyra is the succession in question, who takes the throne, Rheanyra or Aegon? (Whether or not her bastards inherits doesn’t matter cause she has like 10 kids that’s a BONUS in the Middle Ages lol, also half are gonna die before 20 anyways from just the risks of medieval life but I digress) Both are legitimate children of the king, Rheanyra is from the first wife, Targaryen blood on both sides, and was appointed heir by viserys, three points in her favor. Aegon is the first born son, which is one point, but is the strongest point. (The second strongest point is Rheanyra is chosen by the king, which + the first born + established older family = full blown 50/50 civil war)

We the viewers focus on the question of Rheanyras bastards because the show does. The greens rightfully pick that as the weakest link in Rheanyras claim to slander her as many women were and will be slandered. Aegons support comes from his legal rights and the way the people of Westeros look down upon Rheanyras perceived infidelity, not because her bastards somehow take away from her legal right to the throne. Which she has. ALL of viserys children legitimate or not have a claim to the throne, see Maegor, the blackfyre rebellions. Whether or not her children are bastards only effects Their inheritance. (If this were a man the fact that he sired bastards would be a bonus = fertile, masculine, powerful)

So really the whole debate about Rheanyras children is irrelevant because it’s a smear campaign by her political adversaries, and doesn’t have legal bearing on HER inheritance.

And really the whole debate is unneeded because from maegor and the blackfire rebellions we also learn the truth, which is it doesn’t matter who your daddy is, it matters if you can win the war. So inheritance is a scam because if I can force, it I can get it.

I’m ready for season two so people stop discussing misconceptions on the blending of fantasy and medieval inheritance laws which are already The Most Confusing, and instead on what really matters, the horrors of war. In this essay I will-

a thing that i really hate about team black is how they say that we can’t really be mad at Rhaenyra for having three bastard children as a woman, because men have been doing the same thing all the time and no one cared.

But they kinda always forget about a very important detail; Whenever men had bastard children, they pretty much never put them in line for inheritance. They were aware of the fact that some random children they had with some random women are somewhere out there living their lives. And they didn’t care. They didn’t put their lives in danger by saying “oh, yeah, they are my legitimate children” even though the children look nothing like their mother or something. And whenever they *do* have their bastards live with them, they always admit that they are their bastards and never put them higher than legitimate heirs to their house.

Like Ned Stark has always been like “hey, that’s my bastard son, Jon, he is living with us at Winterfell. We raised him, fed him and treated him right, but when it comes to inherit Winterfell, my legitimate son with my wife Caitlyn, Robb, who is the true heir to house Stark, will become the next Lord, not Jon”

Rhaenyra, well, did the exact opposte.

And if you say “oh, but she’s a woman, she can’t do that, since people will get angry if she admitted to having bastard children with a man that is not her husband!” I will say, as a woman myself, no matter how cruel that might sound: that’s Rhaenyra’s problem. She knew damn well that when a man and a woman have sex, it’s the woman that gets pregnant. And if she really wanted to have children, she could’ve had sex with someone that slightly looks like her husband. Like, what the hell did she, a blonde white woman, expect her children to look like, having sex with a dark haired white man?

Because that’s the world she lives in. A cruel and unfair patriarchal world. And she does absolutely fucking NOTHING to change it. She doesn’t fight for women’s rights, doesn’t call out this patriarchy that somewhat caused the war itself, she doesn’t do anything to get rid of it. So that’s on her

[bitsandbobsofwriting]

Intense Training has some... unwelcome lasting effects;

Arthur and Leon aren’t all that fond of thunderstorms. Merlin figures this out and proceeds to mother them relentlessly (they love it, really).

Part 2(final part)

Merlin loves storms. 

He always has, ever since he was a babe, and he likes to think he always will, likes to think that nothing could ever take this joy away from him. Even better is when it thunders as well as rains. Hunith had always thought it odd that the booming rumbles of distant lightening made baby Merlin giggle, as opposed to cry, but she considers it one of the magnificent oddities of having a magical baby, and speaks of it as one of his many unusual, probably magical, but harmless quirks.

So he never minds that Arthur dismisses him early on those blustery, ruinous days. He begs Gaius for the evening off, or at least for a list of chores to be done outside, and he bounds out into the rain. He’ll walk as far from the city as he dares, slipping in puddles and running through wet grass until the stone walls of Camelot are out of sight. 

He doesn’t wear a jacket, he removes his neckerchief, sometimes he even takes his boots off; he lets the cold seep into his very bones, but he loves it, he loves feeling like the rain isn’t separate, but a part of him instead. Or maybe it’s the other way around, maybe the rain isn’t part of him, maybe he is part of the rain. That’s even more comforting after he comes to Camelot, to think that he isn’t important, he has no ridiculous destiny and he isn’t magical or immortal or charged with the protection of men that would see him burn. He is the rain, and that’s it, nothing more, nothing less. A singular drop surrounded by a billion more drops. 

They can’t burn him when he's the rain.

And then the thunder comes. The echoing yell of a world releasing energy, pure and beautiful and bigger than everything else. Merlin thinks it’s the enormity of it all that comforts him, the impossible power and unstoppable force of nature, coming and going as it pleases, untouched by the cruelties of men, by pain, by prayers, by fire. Sometimes he think’s it’s magical, and that’s wonderful, to be connected to something that he loves so much. Other times, he think’s it’s just the weather, nothing magical at all, and that can be equally wonderful: to love something so normal, to love something that will never be hated in the way that he is. Or would be, if they knew what he was.

One day, Merlin will learn that the weather is his to manipulate and he will have to stop himself from thundering the world away to rubble. But until then, he can be content in the knowledge that when he stands beneath thunder, he is nothing more than an idiot giving himself a cold, only for the pure, unadulterated joy of feeling unimportant in a universe that will continue to do what universes do best. Simply exist.

He always comes home with red cheeks and a dripping nose and shivering limbs. He always has to sit himself in front of the fire for a few hours to warm up, and Gaius always scolds him. Though, after Merlin’s first (and only) attempt at explaining why he would never stop doing this (”I don’t really know, Gaius, I just... I feel... part of something.”) he lays off, simply makes sure that the hearth is roaring through the night, and a spare set of clothes has been hung out to warm for when he gets home.

It isn’t until Arthur, grumpy at Morgana’s murmured promise of an approaching storm, points out Merlin’s unusual excitement, that the Warlock actually notices a difference in the Pratt-y Prince’s demeanour:

“I don’t know why you’re always so excited for storms, Merlin, they always manage to give you a cold and then you complain for days.”

Merlin raises an eyebrow, firstly at the outright lie of his complaints. Getting sick by any other means, sure, he’ll complain, he’ll complain until the cows come home, he’ll complain like he’s paid to, but he never complains of storm sickness. Never ever. Secondly, at Arthur’s tense posture; he’d been perfectly happy this morning, and he hadn’t spoken to his father, been beaten in training, or had to write a speech, so nothing could’ve upset him.

Merlin goes back to folding the other man’s clothes, his face turned towards the window so he could see the clouds rolling in:

“I love storms, they’re... I don’t know, relaxing.”

He knows that it’s much more than that, but he also knows that Arthur would never, could never, understand. Arthur just scoffs at his explanation and begins pacing around in the space behind his desk:

“That’s ridiculous. The rain drowns crops, ruins infrastructure...-”

Merlin pauses once again, ignoring whatever it is The Prince is complaining about as he mentally rectifies his previous statement; Arthur has a ridiculous amount of pressure on himself. Perhaps it’s not the same as having a Dragon, amongst various other Magical Beings, tell him the whole world is on his shoulders, but it's... proportionally equivalent, he supposes.

“-Merlin are you listening to me?”

He jerks his head up in surprise, his eyes wide and confused:

“Huh? Oh. No, sorry. It’s not just that.”

Arthur tilts his head, and Merlin gets the distinct feeling that it’s mocking somehow:

“What’s not just what, Merlin?”

Merlin sets the tunic down softly, his brows furrowed in thought as he tries to figure out how to articulate his thoughts in a way he’d never bothered to for Gaius:

“Storms. Being relaxing. It’s not just that. It’s like... a storm will happen. It will rain, it will be windy, there’ll be lightening and thunder, no matter what you do. And it’s... huge, and unstoppable, and powerful. They make you feel so small, like you don’t matter at all in the grand scheme of things, but not... not in a bad way. Standing under a storm, where things happen just because, and there’s no way to stop it or reason with it or force it to bend to your will... it just... it takes the pressure off I suppose. Makes me feel like destiny and the Gods and everything else terrifyingly inevitable about the world doesn’t matter. I feel a part of something, but a part so small and insignificant that nothing I do, nothing I mess up, could ever stop the world from going on living...-”

Arthur stares at him in shock. He’d never really considered it like that before, but he supposes it’s comforting, in an odd, morbidly nihilistic kind of way. After a few long moments, Merlin’s cheeks pinken slightly and he awkwardly looks away, uncomfortable with the idea that he’d maybe let on more than he’d meant to. Shown more of his innermost... he didn’t want to call it wisdom, but... wisdom, than he had intended. As much as Arthur knowing who he is, fully, is something Merlin is desperate for, at this point in their odd not-friendship-according-to-Arthur, it’s maybe best to keep his mouth shut:

“-I mean... something like that. Maybe. That probably sounded stupid. I guess I just like the noise, It’s satis-”

Arthur holds a hand up to stop him rambling and tilts his head, pulling a face as if to say “I’m disappointed”:

“When did you get so... deep? And since when have you payed any attention to Gods or destiny?”

Merlin tries his damndest to keep the apprehension off his face as he shrugs, forcing himself to look down and continue to fold clothes:

“I don’t know, when I got to Camelot I suppose,-”

He mutters the second part, almost as if Arthur won’t supposed to hear it, though he does:

“-life was so much bloody simpler when I lived in the arse-crack of nowhere.”

Arthur snorts in amusement, pushing down the curiosity and understanding that was probably the best he was going to get out of his mysterious manservant. At least for now. The Prince hums thoughtfully, going back to his paperwork as he monotonously responds:

“Hmm. Well you can stay here this time, I need you to proof-read a pile of my paperwork and keep the fire going as long as I’m awake, it’s meant to be a cold night.”

Merlin’s work halts as he whips his head up, fixing Arthur with an annoyed, almost upset looking gape, a complete contrast to the thoughtful, though somehow tense serenity from a few moments ago:

“Can’t I do the paperwork tomorrow? I’ll even wake up early for it!”

Arthur raises an eyebrow:

“That’s all well and good, but I don’t want to have to wake early, Gods know you’re incapable of coming in quietly, and I don’t trust you to take it back to your chambers safely, even if Gaius were to oversee you. And even then, I still need you for the fire.”

Merlin huffs and drops the tunic he had in his hands, ignoring Arthur’s frown at the new creases as he crosses his arms:

“I can be quiet! Arthur, I’m usually in your chambers for ages before I actually wake you up. And aren’t you the one that always bangs on about being a perfect knight? Can’t you keep your own fire lit?”

Arthur clenches his jaw, and Merlin gets the distinct impression that he isn’t happy with the servant poking holes in all of his excuses:

“I’m a Prince, Merlin. That’s why I have you to do fires for me. And check my paperwork, and polish all of my blades, which I expect to be done tonight.”

Merlin rolls his eyes at the new excuse, mainly because he’d polished all of Arthur’s weapons only last week and only one had been used since then. He glances out of the window, face falling at the rapid speed of the clouds. It was only going to be a short storm; coming and going before he gets dismissed. He sighs, frown deepening as he picks up and tunic and begins folding again, sulkily this time, petulantly responding:

“Fine. Prat.”

Arthur visibly relaxes at Merlin’s surrender, sitting back at his desk and making a few changes to whatever it was he’d been working on earlier. Merlin notices this, because of course he does, and he glances between the approaching storm and Arthur assessingly:

“You’re not... scared? Are you? I mean, it wouldn’t be shameful if you were, most people are a little put off by-”

He’s interrupted by Arthur’s quiet laughter, and the next time he looks back at The Prince, he’s met with genuine confused amusement:

“I’m not scared of storms, Merlin, don’t be ridiculous. I’m a Prince, I don’t cower from anything. It’s the exact opposite, actually, storms make me... I don’t know, restless, on edge.”

Merlin settles slightly at that, and raises an eyebrow:

“And that means you need my company because...? You know, if you’d just asked me to stay because you wanted me to then I wouldn’t put up a fight, but coming up with excuses? Come on, Arthur, I thought you didn’t cower from anything?”

Arthur quickly throws the closest quill at Merlin’s head, snorting at the splodge of ink that appears on the side of his nose before schooling his features once again and replying in the regal voice that he uses when Merlin challenges his station:

“They’re not excuses, Merlin. If you can find someone else that’s willing to take your position this late at night, be my guest. I’ll be up late and that time might as well be taken advantage of.”

Merlin thinks for a few moments, holding in his smirk at the way Arthur’s shoulders tense with the obvious hope that Merlin won’t call his bluff and fetch someone else:

“I mean... I could tell George I plan on just... not serving you tonight. He’d be up here like a shot to make sure your soft bottom remains comfortably seated and warmed. Something tells me you would punish me for sending him your way though.”

Arthur tenses even further:

“Who’s George?”

Merlin just grins to himself and begins folding again:

“Another servant, a real suck up. You’d love him for all of five minutes and then you’d get bored.”

Arthur relaxes, and Merlin decides he can go without one small storm, especially if it means Arthur almost admitting that he was fond of his company. Though, deciding he can go without is very different to not missing it entirely, so when the first crack of thunder (closely followed by the roaring wind and rain) has Arthur clench his jaw and bury his face even deeper into his paperwork, it has Merlin gazing wistfully at the window. 

It’s not until the third or fourth loud rumble that Merlin gives up on the pretence, folding the last tunic haphazardly and rushing halfway across the room before he remembers himself, forcing his legs to walk slowly towards the window. Arthur stares at him in quiet appraisal whilst the manservant practically vibrates with excitement, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that Merlin’s admittedly adorable display was being watched. Merlin’s hand reaches almost subconsciously for the latch, and before Arthur can regain his senses and yell at him to stop, the window has been opened an inch, the frigid air rushing into the room as Merlin sticks his hand out the gap, waving his fingers in the windy downpour.

The room quickly turns cold, but when Arthur gets uncomfortable (both with the cold and the noise and the next crash that he knows is coming) Merlin just relaxes, loosing all the tension in his shoulders. Arthur raises his eyebrow when he notices Merlin’s neckerchief clutched in his other hand, and the top of his tunic hanging unlaced.

The next round of thunder forces a giggle from Merlin’s throat, but Arthur lets out a quiet curse, stiffening in his seat and snapping the new quill in his hand with the force of his grip. Merlin doesn’t notice, and Arthur decides he’s had quite enough:

“For fucks’ sake, Merlin, shut the damn window, do you want to freeze?”

Merlin brings his hand inside and shuts the window with a snap, seemingly brought back into his mind from... somewhere else. He whips his gaze around to look at the Prince, and Arthur forces his gaze up to his face and away from the goose-bumps on his exposed neck. Merlin quickly wipes the rain from his hand onto his trousers, smirking and raising a mocking eyebrow:

“I didn’t know you cared, Sire?”

Arthur rolls his eyes and turns back to his paperwork:

“I don’t, I just don’t want to freeze alongside you.-”

He tenses as another rumble of thunder echoes in the sky, and Merlin frowns at the way his hand twitches towards the dagger hidden on the underside of his desk:

“-Go on then. You’re clearly not going to get any work done until you’ve soaked yourself through. Go... stand in the courtyard or whatever it is you do; you’ve got half a candle mark to contemplate your insignificance then I want you back here actually doing something useful, I don’t care how sick you make yourself.”

Merlin grins, Arthur’s previous jumpiness forgotten as he sprints out the door without another word. Arthur bewilderedly watches him go... apparently Merlin hadn’t picked up on the mocking tone The Prince had applied and was actually going to... stand in the middle of a storm for thirty minutes. The blonde huffs, annoyed, before stomping over to the hearth to poke some life in it, hopefully before Merlin got back. And not because he didn’t want Merlin to be cold, he didn’t care about that, but Merlin surely wouldn’t be able to light a fire safely if he was shivering and dripping. Again, not that Arthur cared if Merlin was shivering, he just needed to prove that yes, he is the perfect knight, and he's capable of lighting a fire.

Hmm.

When he finally gets it going, Arthur can’t force himself to sit back down at his desk, knowing that in this state he was going to get even less work done than Merlin. He’s weeks ahead anyway, his father won’t notice if he skips one night’s worth of signatures. Instead, he finds himself wandering towards the window, despite his muscles growing more and more tense with every step closer to the howling wind. He stands as far from the glass as he can manage whilst still being able to gaze down into the courtyard, his arms crossed protectively over his chest.

It doesn’t take him long to spot Merlin, despite the darkness. It’s late in the night at this point and storming, no one’s outside but him; there's not even a guard patrolling or a torch flickering to draw Arthur’s gaze away from the lone man stood right in the centre of the cobbled courtyard. His hands hang loosely at his sides, his sleeves rolled up and his boots discarded somewhere to the side as he tilts his head to the sky; a glance to the small table by the door tells Arthur that Merlin had left his neckerchief behind. The Prince looks back to Merlin, and he can just about tell that the servant has his eyes closed, though his mouth is stretched into a wide grin as he allows himself to be pelted by freezing rain and biting wind. 

Arthur can’t look away, and despite his restlessness and need to repeatedly hit something with his sword, he finds himself calmed by Merlin’s look of utter bliss, as if the other man didn’t have a problem in the world and knew for sure he never would again; it felt like that knowledge, that feeling, was bleeding into Arthur’s own soul. He suddenly understands, just a little, of what Merlin meant earlier, though he refuses to admit to himself that he enjoys watching Merlin’s body endearingly shake with laughter at every crash of thunder and fork of lightening, especially considering the noise of the former has Arthur jumping in his boots (he won’t admit that, either).

He finally looks away when, like clockwork, thirty minutes after he’d left, Merlin bends to pick his shoes up, and walks back towards the castle doors; Arthur sighs, shaking his head and mentally arguing with himself for a few moments before sighing again, a little more aggressively, and walking towards his wardrobe. He pulls out the simplest clothes he has: an old sleep shirt, slightly too small for him, a pair of riding trousers that he’s never worn, and some thick socks. He doesn’t bother folding them, knowing Merlin would just laugh at his attempt (not that he wasn’t going to laugh at him anyway, doing this, proving that he cares), he just dumps them in a pile in front of the hearth before moving to the space behind the main door.

He’s not quite sure why he’s standing there, but it’s a nice place to be. Which he thinks is stupid, but who is he to question it. His feet want to be here, and his eyes want to be on the door, and his hands want to be on his hips (though they’d rather like a sword as well, but beggars can’t be choosers).

When Merlin finally walks in, shoes in hand, he’s shivering just like Arthur knew he would be, though seems perfectly happy, ecstatic even. That is, until he sees the chair behind the desk sitting empty, at which point he promptly frowns. Arthur clears his throat and Merlin whips around, his wet hair flinging water across the room; Arthur huffs and wipes it from his face, staring at Merlin expectantly when the servant doesn’t move, just gives him an odd look:

“Arthur... I really don’t think anyone is out to attack you at the moment.”

Arthur quickly frowns and shakes his head, glancing once more to the window before asking in a slow voice, as if he were talking to a child:

“Why on earth do you think I’m preparing for an attack??”

Merlin’s eyes go wide as he glances around the room, his stare pausing momentarily on a million little clues before focusing back on Arthur. The adrenaline has worn off slightly now, so his jaw grows tense from the effort of not chattering his teeth in his shivering, and he crosses his arms tightly across his chest:

“Well... you’re stood where you’ll see whoever comes through the main door and the antechamber door before they see you, you’re protected on one side by the wall, you have a good line of sight to both windows, and you currently have...-”

He looks around Arthur’s immediate vicinity quickly, brows furrowed, before he focuses back on the Prince:

“-no fewer than four weapons easily within reach. You’re in the best position to be in if you’re anticipating an attack.”

Arthur stares at him blankly for a few moments before giving in and allowing his gaze to wander to the room, finding that Merlin is... absolutely correct:

“Huh. Well spotted Merlin, I’ll make a good tracker and hunter of you yet.”

The servant scoffs, tightening the hold he has around his torso and frowning slightly at the puddle growing at his feet:

“Absolutely not. Look, I know you said I had to work, but I don’t suppose you’ll mind if I pop to my room to grab some dry clothes quickly?”

Arthur rolls his eyes, quickly breaking himself from his stupor and stalking quickly towards the desk, refusing to allow Merlin to see his pink (not from embarrassment, he’s just cold) cheeks:

“I knew you wouldn’t think to grab some on the way back, because you’re an idiot, so you can borrow some of mine. They’re in front of the fire.”

Arthur still refuses to look up as Merlin stares at him with wide eyes. The servant’s gaze slowly, ever so slowly, moves to the haphazard pile of clothes in front of the fire and his gormless look of shock quickly morphs into a happy smile; Arthur is grateful to find that he doesn’t say anything, just grabs the clothes and rapidly changes. The Prince makes rather a considerable point to keep his eyes focused on the papers in front of him, though who could blame him when his gaze jumps up as something, perhaps the movement in the fire, catches his eye. He draws a sharp, though thankfully unheard, breath when instead of the fire, his eyes find Merlin’s bare, broad shoulders. He would flush, if he weren’t already the colour of his cloak, and if it were the physique, as opposed to the criss-crossing lash scars, that he was focusing on.

The Prince is one moment of silence away from exclaiming and demanding an explanation, though the next crash of thunder has him actually yelping. Perhaps those scars have something to do with the Gods and destiny Merlin briefly touched upon earlier, but Arthur’s nerves are shot, his thoughts running a mile a minute, and his hand is clenching and unclenching around a phantom sword, so he rather intelligently decides that the incomplete game of noughts and crosses carved into Merlin’s back is something to be talked about at a later date.

Merlin obviously notices Arthur’s sudden, brief distress, freezing in place slightly though not turning around; he quickly corrects himself, making an effort to look as though he weren’t rushing as he finishes changing before turning around to face Arthur with a worried, then thoughtful expression.

Arthur, who has even more trouble stamping down his flush at the sight of Merlin in his clothes, and filling them quite nicely. Why oh why did he think this was a good idea?? His thoughts are quickly interrupted by Merlin walking closer, slowly, that thoughtful expression still on his face:

“Are you sure you’re... ok?”

Merlin wisely chooses to swap out the word scared for the work ok, perhaps thinking that Arthur is more likely to be truthful if Merlin’s question doesn’t immediately assume weakness. Arthur catches himself, prodding his own mind into gear before he stares for too long, and clears his throat:

“Uh, yeah. Yes, I’m fine, like I said, storms put me on edge.-”

Another crack of thunder almost shakes the room, and Arthur’s voice jumps as it strikes. He shuts his eyes tightly, willing the juddering, ragged feeling in his chest that’s shortening his breath and tensing his shoulders to go away. Merlin just steps closer, his voice coming out just a little softer, though Arthur can’t find it in himself to be annoyed when he opens his eyes again:

“I think I understand. Not fear, just... jumpy energy?-”

Arthur forces himself to look at his servant, giving him a tight smile and gulping, despite the dryness of his mouth. Merlin returns his smile, though his is a lot easier, and nods, gesturing over to the small table by the fire:

“Game of chess? Might give your tactician’s brain something to focus on.”

Arthur thinks about it for a few moments, but there isn’t really any choice; his brain had been filling with strategies and his fingers had been itching to feel the smooth wood of his old chess pieces the moment Merlin had suggested the game. He nods once, abandoning his paperwork for once and all, moving stiffly across the room to settle by the hearth as Merlin sets the board up.

Arthur doesn’t realise until the storm has long passed, Merlin has long gone, and he’s all tucked up in bed, that he hadn’t jumped at any of the remaining thunder. He laughs slightly to himself at once again being reminded that Merlin seemingly knows him inside and out, more than Arthur knows himself, in such a way that he’d managed to trick Arthur into not noticing something that had been giving him problems his entire life.

He thinks, rather selfishly maybe, that he should demand Merlin stay with him during storms more often.

~

Unfortunately, the next time a storm graces Camelot with it’s presence Arthur, Merlin, and Sir Leon are out on some ridiculous quest.

Merlin supposes that it’s a nice, rare, upside that he isn’t the only one to think it ridiculous. Uther had demanded they go (really, he’d demanded that Arthur and Leon go, but he should have known that there was no keeping Merlin away) when reports of rabid animal attacks had been coming in from a village a little too close to one of his favourite Lord’s estates. They wouldn’t have minded so much if it was about protecting the citizens as opposed to some arsehole’s family wealth, but this frustrated them, especially because the accruement of said wealth had put the aforementioned village far below the poverty line. Even for such dark times as these.

(If each of them individually brings what they can to help out, coin and cloth from Arthur and Leon, and surplus medical supplies from Merlin, no one points it out.)

They’d sorted the attacks out easily enough; a tiny, sick wolf pack that just needed a few, easily healed flesh wounds and some scaring off (after much begging from Merlin that they don’t kill them), but it was late when they began their return journey. If they’d kept going through the afternoon they might have made it most of the way back to the city before the rain started, but the pre-storm humidity was a horror to ride in, especially under so much clunky armour, and the horses were suffering as well. Stopping in the local inn is the only option, really, though getting three rooms was impossible, and they had to settle with one room that had only two beds.

Leon had immediately volunteered to take the floor, ever the gentleman, but Arthur just scoffs at that and gestures vaguely at Merlin:

“Nonsense, Merlin will be perfectly happy to take the floor. I insist that you have the bed.”

If it were just Arthur and Merlin arguing over who got the bed, Merlin would have argued longer than he’d slept, but he's happy to concede to Leon, maybe because he knows that it would piss Arthur off so much. Though he’d barely laid his bed roll on the floor before Leon drags him to his feet by the arm and fixes him with a stern look:

“Don’t be ridiculous, the bed’s big enough for the both of us, and it’s only one night. We can share, I won’t have you sleeping on the wooden floor when there’s so much room.”

If either of them notice Arthur tensing momentarily at the idea of them sharing a bed, neither say anything; though perhaps Leon raises an eyebrow and perhaps Merlin looks away with pink cheeks. The servant’s thoughts are quickly drawn away from the possibly awkward situation as a sudden gale whistling through the buildings outside reminds him of the humidity, of the approaching storm. He glances at Arthur out of the corner of his eye as he organises his pack neatly in the corner, rummaging around to make sure he’d packed the mini, travel chess set he’d invested in. He doesn’t pull it out quite yet, but is instantly reassured when he feels the wood grain under his fingertips, murmuring as he wanders back to his side of the bed:

“Storm’s coming, I’d hoped we would be back in Camelot just in time but it’ll be over us tonight.”

Arthur freezes for only a moment, but Merlin’s attention is instead drawn to Leon behind him, who lets out a low, annoyed growl. He doesn’t turn to look at the knight, figuring that he’d be even less likely than Arthur to admit some kind of weakness (not that it is a weakness, they’re just... stubborn, hard headed, thick skulled knights), instead, he tries to formulate some plan to get them playing chess against each other whilst Merlin... does something else.

In the end, he gives up on being clever. The first rumble of thunder echoes across the landscape, a few miles away, and Arthur is pacing up and down the innermost part of the room whilst Leon sits on one of the beds, long legs stretched out in front of him and his back pressed harshly against the wall. They both hold their hands tensely: Arthur, at his side as he strides, five paces forward, five paces back, again and again, and Leon in his lap. Merlin can tell that the older man is having to use every bit of his focus to keep from flinching, and if his unnerving stillness didn’t worry Merlin, then his magic screaming at him about his friends being worried!! Full of adrenaline!! Waiting for a fight!!... definitely does.

He sighs, pulling the game from his pack and dragging the bedside table away from the wall by a few paces, positioning it between the beds as he sets up the board without another word. Leon eyes him almost wearily, but Arthur sends the servant a look that's only mildly panicked, and Merlin doesn’t understand until the Prince’s gaze jumps briefly to the other knight. He sighs, again, and glances at Leon:

“Neither of you are going to sleep if you’re this tense. We all know that logically, that wolf pack doesn’t need to worry us anymore, but you two need to use up some of that restless energy.-”

He finishes setting up and moves out of the way, grateful to see Arthur sitting down in his place almost automatically as the servant shoos Leon into the spot opposite him:

“-Play until you’re tired, I’m going to... see if I can find anyone to help stock up our supplies before we leave in the morning.”

Leon doesn’t question Merlin’s stupid excuse, probably because he’s so caught up on being grateful for the stupid excuse he’d given them. Arthur doesn’t question it because he knows they packed more than enough supplies, and Merlin just wants to stand under the thunder for a little while. Both of the knights know that the other isn’t bothered by the wolves anymore, both of them know that the other is actually bothered by the thunder, but an easy excuse means they don’t have to acknowledge it.

It doesn’t take long for the game to be underway, and Merlin hangs around, pottering uselessly around the room until he’s sure the two of them are fully engrossed in the strategy before he quietly exits the room. Arthur was right in the assumption that Merlin just wants to enjoy the storm, but he doesn’t want to move too far away from his Prince, not when they’re outside the relative safety of the Citadel, so he only walks beyond the village border for about five minutes before he stops in a clearing.

He’d left his neckerchief and jacket back in the room, and as per usual, he discards his boots somewhere to the side, standing in a clear puddle as the heavens open. It’s rare that thunder strikes before the rain, but Merlin enjoys it nonetheless, appreciating the transition from cold to cold and wet. He’s soaked through in a matter of seconds, and he decides that with Leon and Arthur safely bundled up a ten minutes’ walk away and too... unnerved to come and find him, it’s a safe time to let a little of his magic escape. 

Patterns appear in the rain and puddles rise up to form foxes and bears and squirrels, bounding around the clearing silently, a slight golden sheen to their figures. Merlin laughs, head filling with nothing but thunder and magic feeling nothing but the rain as he tilts his face to the sky. The white flashes of lightening replace the golden reflection in his eyes with silver before he closes them, willing himself to forget about everything, flexing his fingers and forcing himself to just feel. He knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that perhaps allowing himself to get this wet when he doesn’t have a lit hearth or more than one spare set of clothes to get back to is stupid, but he doesn’t care.

Kilgharrah has been... on edge recently, bugging him about Morgana (who Merlin has absolutely no intention of hurting. At this point he’s considering telling her of his magic just to spite the scaly bastard), and Uther seems to be growing more and more manic in his hatred of magic. That, of course, is only solidifying Arthur’s hatred. Merlin’s been sleeping less, his nights (and sometimes his days) plagued with nightmares, especially with Arthur’s recurrent questions about his secrets, obviously, but not overtly, based on his brief exposure to Merlin’s bare back a few weeks prior. This is just what he needs.

He feels a little guilty, enjoying himself so much when he knows Leon and Arthur are probably freaking out back at the inn, but he so rarely does anything for just himself; he knows that the only way to make sure he doesn’t grow to resent Kilgharrah and the Druids and even Arthur, is to let himself get deafened by thunder and blinded by lightening and smothered in rain.

~

It’s maybe an hour later, when he realises that he’s calf deep in muddy water and his lungs hurt, that he decides with a sigh that he should head back. Chess may distract the other two for a little while, but it won’t work all night and this storm isn’t letting up any time soon. He uses a little magic to keep himself warm—this isn’t the ideal time to give himself pneumonia—but doesn’t repel the water, both because that would be distinctly suspicious, and because he doesn’t want to.

Leon and Arthur are part way through a second game when he finally walks into the room, shivering and creating mini puddles with every step. Though he quickly finds that he was correct in his early assumption. The thunder is loud now; the centre of the storm is raging right above them, and Leon’s leg bounces as Arthur is once again clenching and unclenching his hand around a phantom sword.

They had both jumped up and reached for weapons when Merlin shut the door behind him, deliberately louder than when he’d opened it, but they relax when they see that it’s just him. Leon turns slightly pink, sitting down and focusing back rather pointedly on the game, but Arthur just stares at Merlin with wide, almost pleading eyes. Merlin frowns slightly in worry, pursing his lips as he thinks. His back-up plan is... a little riskier, but Merlin knows that he won’t be able to get to sleep knowing that these two would remain awake and on edge all the way through until dawn. He quickly changes into his other clothes and grabs a blanket to wrap himself in before crouching once again in front of his pack, rooting around in the bottom again before pulling out an old, worn looking book. He holds it up and turns around again, facing the others who stare at him curiously:

“Either of you read The Oresteia Trilogy?-”

They both frown, shaking their heads as the game between them is all but forgotten:

“-They’re meant to be good. A series of tragedies written by some foreign poet or something, set in another land. I haven’t had a chance to start them yet, fancy listening?-”

Leon raises an eyebrow, and even Arthur—is spite of his desperation for any sort of distraction—looks mildly put off, but the next rumble of thunder, accompanied by a particularly harsh wind that shakes the window pane, has them flinching again. Arthur almost sends the chess board flying, but Leon catches it and Merlin rolls his eyes at their stubbornness, pushing the table back to it’s original position and jumping on the bed, sitting in the middle with his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and the book open in his lap:

“-Come on, it might take your minds off the... wolves. If it’s too boring I’ll start telling you the stories my ma used to read to me.”

Leon gives in first, sitting down and pressing himself to Merlin’s side, hands clenched tightly in his lap. Arthur sighs, sending a tense look to the window before sitting on his own bed, ignoring the space Merlin had left next to him. Merlin rolls his eyes before beginning to read, his smooth voice acting as a good enough distraction, at least for now. 

The two knights sit tightly, neither looking at Merlin as he reads, but every glance the servant throws their way shows that they are listening; their expressions, though a little tense, are clearly reacting accordingly to the happenings of the play-turned-book. Leon falls asleep before Merlin reaches the twentieth page, but he keeps reading, shuffling up the bed slightly so the taller man’s head can fall comfortably onto his shoulder. Arthur doesn’t say anything when Merlin lowers his voice, but he does use it as an excuse to swap beds, pressing himself to the servant’s other side and refusing to make eye contact as Merlin briefly smirks at him.

Arthur barely notices the rumbling in the sky, though neither is he really paying attention to the actual plot anymore. The young Prince’s mind wonders away from the story, Merlin’s voice floating as a nice backdrop to his stream of consciousness, giving continuity in a situation that would otherwise have him almost hysterical. His thoughts are calm, but scattered, until finally his mind reminds him of Merlin’s scars, a regular thought these days. He interrupts Merlin without looking at him, without even really thinking it through:

“Merlin?”

His voice is soft, and when he still doesn’t jump at the next thunderous echo from outside, Merlin wordlessly shuts the book and turns his attention to the Prince, careful not to jostle the snoring knight too much:

“Yeah? Everything ok?”

Arthur frowns and nods, but still doesn’t look at the other man, biting the inside of his cheek before he gives in and asks:

“I know you’re... obviously not fond of talking about it, but... what happened to your back?”

Merlin sighs and looks away, tensing slightly but only taking a few moments to react:

“Do we really need to have this conversation?”

Arthur turns to look at him with furrowed brows, focusing his concerned gaze on Merlin’s turned cheek:

“No. I won’t... I would never force you, Merlin. I won’t deny that I’m desperate to know, but I want you to know that we... can have the conversation, if it’s what you want. I know we’re not... I’m the Prince, and you’re my servant, but I’d like to think that we... trust each other.”

Merlin meets his gaze and smiles softly, and the two of them relax, just a bit. The servant nods:

“I do trust you, Arthur. Maybe not with everything, not right now, you’re not... ready, for some things, I think. But this... I suppose. You’re not going to like it though.-”

Arthur frowns at the idea of his younger servant telling him he wasn’t ready for something, but frowns even more at Merlin’s last words; mainly at the slight implication that, had Merlin not said anything, Arthur wouldn’t have minded the horrific lash scars on his servant’s back. He nods in understanding though, taking the book from Merlin’s lap and placing it gently on the bedside table; he hesitates for only a moment, and blushes only slightly, before he takes Merlin’s hand in his own and nods at him to continue:

“I got them as a child, that’s why they’re kind of stretched and wonky. A few of the older folk, they were the only ones and they’re long dead now but... anyway- they stole me away into the woods one night, insisted that I needed punishing for being a bastard, among... other things. I don’t think they intended to kill me, but they probably wouldn’t have been disappointed if I’d died.-”

Arthur looks horrified at that and Merlin can tell he’s about to start yelling, so he gives a comforting, though tight smile, and hurries to continue; quietly, so Leon doesn’t wake:

“-The rest of the villagers were furious. I suppose everyone had started off wary when I was born, but they grew pretty fond of me in the end, and in a small village where people died regularly and there wasn’t any nobility around to impress, they stopped caring pretty quickly that I was a bastard. Except those few old traditional folks of course. They were shunned; they weren’t hurt or driven out, and they were still given food and things, but no one spoke to them, no one went out of their way to help them anymore, all the kids were kept away from them. Especially me.-”

Merlin sighs and looks away, a far off look in his eyes as he gazes to the opposite wall:

“-Once I healed up, no one spoke of it ever again. I guess no one wanted to think about the fact that the people who had been looked to for stories, advice, experience, had... had whipped a child so hard it had scarred.”

Arthur squeezes Merlin’s hand, and the servant absentmindedly thinks about the fact that Arthur has remained unresponsive to the raging storm outside. This is how to do it, he supposes. Chess, complicated storylines, and traumatic childhood memories:

“I’m sorry, Merlin. You... it’s unfair that you have a permanent reminder of something so cruel.”

Merlin gestures vaguely at his back with his free hand as another crack of thunder fails to catch Arthur’s attention. He forces a smirk onto his face:

“Ah, what can I say, they make the ladies swoon and impress the gents. All I’ve got to do is flash my childhood trauma and I get crowds of people wanting to court me.”

Arthur laughs quietly, nodding in agreement seemingly without realising it as Merlin raises an eyebrow. The Prince quickly schools his face again, though he looks more curious this time, as he stares at Merlin out of the corner of his eye:

“Why don’t you? Court anyone, I mean. I’m fairly certain that both Guinevere and Lancelot, when he was here, have taken fancies to you. And I hate to admit it, but I’ve caught at least two of my knights eyeing you at some point or another.”

Merlin just snorts, squeezing Arthur’s hand again. The action catches the Prince off guard, as if he’d forgotten they were holding hands, but he gulps and squeezes back anyway. The other man looks to him with an assessing stare, extending the silence for a few moments before slowly answering:

“I think I’ve got too many secrets to be courting anyone. It would feel like... lying, even if only by omission.-”

He smirks and shoves Arthur slightly with his shoulder:

“-That, and I’m far too busy looking after you. I think any partner of mine might have issues with me having to bathe and dress and feed the Kingdom’s Crown Prince.”

Arthur blushes and looks away, but he does laugh, nodding along with the knowledge that Merlin is probably right. Something almost like pride swirls in his stomach at Merlin’s admission of not courting anyone because he was too busy with Arthur. But then again, something uglier, more like guilt and curiosity and selfish frustration swirls along with it at Merlin’s admission of secrecy. Too many secrets means more than just the scars on his back. More than Arthur knows about. He pushes that particular feeling away and grabs the book again, pushing it into Merlin’s hands before sliding down on the bed, taking a chance and resting his head in Merlin’s lap as he closes his eyes:

“Keep reading. That thing is so unendingly boring it’ll have me snoring like Leon in minutes.-”

Merlin shakes slightly with silent laughter and rests his now free hand in Arthur’s hair. The Prince is aware of the next crash of thunder, but it doesn’t make him jump, his heartrate doesn’t spike, his hands don’t clench. His next words come quietly, almost a whisper:

“-Thank you, Merlin. You didn’t have to do this, you could’ve just gone to sleep. Thank you.”

Merlin responds by soothingly scratching his nails along Arthur’s scalp as he continues to read, and true to Arthur’s word, the Prince is asleep only a few pages later. Merlin sighs, a content smile on his face as he tosses the book over to the other bed and shuffles down slightly, wrapping his arm around Leon’s shoulder so the knight’s head falls to his chest. In the grand scheme of things, against a wall with one knight under his arm and another on his lap is definitely not the worst place he’s ever had to fall asleep. To be perfectly honest, he finds the weight comforting, the knowledge that his companions are safe able to reach him even in his sleep. It’s pretty warm too, which more than makes up for the lack of a hearth and his still sopping hair.

Like Leon and Arthur, Merlin is asleep within minutes.

~

End of Part 1!!

Link to Part 2 is at the top!!

I hope y’all enjoy this, it took me so long to write but I really did love doing it!! Thank you to those that voted for it!!

[wri0thesley]

Nat😫😫😫 I'm just reading your naoya posts and I cant😫😫😫 why do I love this arrogant man😫 is it possible to write something of a connected fic to your arrangement story about how he feels jealous over a similarly docile reader (doesnt have to be connected if you dont want tho!!). like he hears about how the reader has been getting marriage proposals from other men since naoya hasnt given an affirmative to your family,,,, and now the reader is forced to consider other candidates (although she still cant atop thinking about our favourite princely asshole) and naoya cant handle this thought lol he deserves to know what angst and the pain of yearning tastes like😌 I hope this wasn't too confusing aaaa😭😭 I love your writing, and im glad youre in this jjk brain rot too🤧

patience - naoya x fem!reader (1.5k)

arrangement // patience // my jjk masterlist

warnings: naoya remains an asshole. submissive reader, arranged marriages, mentions of murder, talk of adultery. pining/angst. not sfw, minors dni!

naoya hates that he can’t stop thinking about you.

Naoya hates that he can’t stop thinking about you.

Oh, he’d meant it when he’d spat ‘pathetic’ and ‘useless’ and ‘worthless’ at you – your bloodline was unimpressive, your lack of cursed technique tragic, your clan elders absolutely idiotic for sending a nobody like you to tempt him. But . . . something about the look in your eyes, the meek little bow of your head, the way you’d listened to every one of his orders with a soft little gasp and a desire to follow them to the latter . . .

He hasn’t told your family that he’s not interested in you, but word gets around the jujutsu community when someone is looking for a spouse. After all, they’re determined to retain blood purity, to keep techniques in the bloodline – your family soon hear that Naoya is still considering all of his options. That other pretty young daughters from other bloodlines have been to see him.

(Naoya rejects them all, for frivolous reasons that he doesn’t want to admit are frivolous. He hadn’t liked the look in that one’s eyes. He didn’t want his children to inherit the colour of that one’s hair. That one had walked two steps behind him, not three--).

You haunt his thoughts. You and the bow of your head, the bite of your lip, the way you’d looked with tears brimming in your eyes. The suggestive curve of you beneath your kimono.

Ugh.

He hears, too, that your family have been exploring their other options. They’d seemed thrilled, at first, that Naoya hadn’t utterly swept you off the table – but six months have passed, and they want their daughter married and out of the house and fulfilling her duties.

He hears about your marriage proposals through that same grapevine. He hears that other men say you are pretty and quiet and obedient, that you will make a fine wife, that you will listen to commands and give soft smiles and raise children like you ought to--

And once, he smashes a glass from gripping it too hard as some nobody in the Kamo clan mentions that he’s going to ask your family for your hand in marriage.

You say no. He hears, too, that your elders are growing frustrated with your dismissals of proposals. They have left behind the thought of marrying you into the Zenin clan, but clearly you’re still clinging to the idea that Naoya might want you despite what he’d said.

He doesn’t, he tells himself, when he wraps his fist around his cock and pumps it and thinks about your look of surprise as his come splatters across your face.

He doesn’t, he tells himself, when he compares a young lady sent to entice him with you. When she looks him in the eye and he thinks that you would never do that, that you would keep your head bowed, that you’d be deferential as he needs you to be.

He doesn’t, he tells himself, as a servant cleans up the shards of glass that he shatters and he asks the Kamo clan member if perhaps he would like to spar, and he hits him just a little bit too hard so he ends up wheezing and doubled over on the training mats as Naoya stalks out of the room.

It’s not his style to pine. He has the pick of every eligible young lady in jujutsu society; he should not be hung up on such a worthless, pathetic little thing.

He hears of another proposal. This one, apparently, hasn’t been rejected straight-out – this one, you seem to be considering. Other members of the Zenin clan don’t understand why his jaw sets at the news.

“You didn’t want her, did you?” He asks. “You didn’t seem keen after the meeting.”

One of his other distant cousins, an upstart too big for his boots, grins.

“That was before she was hot property, though,” he leers at Naoya. “Our golden boy doesn’t like the idea of people coveting his trash--”

Naoya has struck him before he can think and stalked out of that room, too. Something about you has truly opened the can of worms that is Naoya’s violence, and he refuses to admit to himself that it’s because he wants you.

It’s not because you’re hot property – though, certainly, the way other men talk and laugh about you and the knowledge that you’re wanted serves to set a fire within him. It’s because he can’t stop thinking about you.

He tries courtesans. He chooses pretty, well-mannered ones who look a little like you – but their eyes when they look at him are glassy. They’re not the same as yours, brimming with life and want and confusion at the position you’ve found yourself in and the way your body responds to Naoya.

He doesn’t admit to his mistakes. He doesn’t think ‘I should have accepted the proposal, I should have joined the clans’ – instead, he thinks ‘I should have fucked them then and there. I should have made them scream my name until their reputation was ruined and everybody knew they came apart on my cock. It’s their fault that I can’t get them out of my brain.’

He walks with fists and teeth clenched and snaps at every servant who dare looks his way. Naoya has always been unpleasant, but he’s downright impossible with his spine in knots and his eyes narrowed.

He’s going to have to do it. He’s going to have to contact your family, ask for another audience, if only to get your fucking face out of his mind--

He’s not expecting to come across you before he’s even made the call, standing in one of the gardens of the Zenin estate. You’re wearing the same kimono you had first visited him in, and he hates that the sight of it makes a throb low in his belly as he remembers seeing it crumpled on his bedroom floor. He swallows as he stalks towards you and you turn, your pretty eyes widening – he sees the flash of memory, the flash of desire. He wonders if anybody would dare speak to him if he took you right here, in the garden--

An older man opens a door behind you.

Naoya recognises him only vaguely. The Zenin estate is swarming with various, less important Zenins; this one’s a great-uncle, perhaps? Or a cousin thrice removed? He’s someone unimportant in the grand scheme of things, save for the way that he walks up to you and wraps an arm around your waist.

“Ah,” the man with his hands on Naoya’s property says. “I see you’ve met my betrothed.”

His heart stops cold. He’s nobody. Unimportant. Nothing.

He’d called you the same thing; an ‘act of charity’. So why does the sight of an arm around you attached to a man too old and not powerful enough to be a threat make Naoya feel like he’s chewing rocks? Naoya manages to spit out a;

“Congratulations.”

“Yes,” the old man (great cousin? Naoya doesn’t make a habit to remember people he can’t use later on) says, pulling you closer, groping at your hip through the kimono as you keep a sedate, smile on your face without looking directly into Naoya’s eyes. “You’ll be seeing her around a lot. I hope she didn’t bother you.” A squeeze to your ass, this time, shameless. “Say hello to the future leader of the clan, sweetheart.”

(At least this man’s on Naoya’s side, he tries to console himself, but it doesn’t work.)

“H-hello, sir,” you say, and your voice is as tremulous as he remembers it. His cock stirs. He hates this.

“Sorry to bother you,” he inclines his head politely and tugs on your arm, pulling you away, leaving Naoya kissing his teeth and trying to not simply slit the man’s throat with the knife in his hakama and take you for his own.

What had the scum said? ‘You’ll be seeing her around a lot’. He supposes, then, that you’ll be sequestered in one of the other chambers in the Zenin estate--

A slow smile spreads across his face.

You wouldn’t say ‘no’ to your clan leader, would you? And . . . your future husband is old. Any Zenin is a Zenin, is it not? Even if a son is born with Naoya’s features, Naoya’s technique . . . nobody would say anything to him about it. And you’re in reach. Close to him.

He only needs to get you alone before the wedding to make sure he gets to take your maidenhead. He hates the thought of another man’s filthy hands on you, but accidents happen all of the time--

And then you’ll be a widow. You won’t be expected to marry for a while. And if you’ve already borne fruit and proved yourself – perhaps Naoya will even play the chivalrous leader and lower himself to take you for his own.

Yes. Just a little patience.

This is an arrangement he can get behind.

[howthesleeplesswander]

Considering he had devoted the last decade of his life to preparing to fight for the justice his father deserved, admittedly, Kazuma had expected to be entirely unprepared for what came after.

What would he do when the driving flame that had spurred him for so many years was finally quenched? The thought had crossed his mind on more than one occasion, but it was unimportant. Trivial. A question to wrangle at the appropriate time.

With that time now upon him, Kazuma found his assumption had been partially correct. Layers upon layers of unforeseen circumstances resulted in things unfolding in ways he could have never expected. For just a moment during that fateful trial's conclusion, he'd felt equally lost as he felt relieved, happy, ashamed. But no sooner had the final gavel sounded did a new fire ignite in Kazuma's chest.

It burned just as brightly as its predecessor, illuminating his only path forward: to be the hand that delivered justice to men like Lord Stronghart. At long last, his father's honor was restored, and his spirit could finally be at rest. Fighting to achieve that same peace for others would be his new purpose.

He'd been prepared to make it happen by any means necessary, just as before. So imagine his surprise when the very man he'd attempted to send to the gallows readily agreed to maintain their mentorship after the fact.

Thankfully, Kazuma wasn't one to flounder even in the most uncertain waters. A lifetime of discipline proved a powerful boon: for no matter how strained the air between himself and Lord van Zieks felt at times, Kazuma was undaunted. He poured his all into every task, no matter how menial, never satisfied until he'd exceeded expectations. Even now, after hours of sifting through the towering stack of paperwork on his desk, the scratch of his quill never faltered or slowed. The sunlight through the window dwindled in tandem with the sounds of the office's staff as they took their leave for the night, yet Kazuma's attention was astute as ever—

At least, until his mentor's voice demanded it, instead.

It was the first time either of them had disrupted the drone of pen on paper in hours. Immediately Kazuma looked up, ever prepared to be put to the task. But rather than adding to his work, Lord van Zieks bade the opposite. Strange, considering their shared relentlessness—near ceaselessness, even—towards their work.

"With all due respect, I see no reason why I should retire from my work any sooner than you from yours. I'm of the opinion that midnight oil is meant to be burned." Between his schooling and his personal studies in preparation for coming to London, countless sleepless nights had never stopped him when there was more work to be done. And there always was more work to be done.

Yet as he spoke, he flexed his hand around his quill, only noticing how stiff it had become now that he'd finally stopped. A glance at the complete darkness out the window betrayed how late the hour had gotten.

"I've no other engagements for the evening." Not to mention that he was nearing the finish line, now—the stack of paperwork was only a quarter of what it had been when he'd started. They could wait until tomorrow, technically, but there was no reason they had to. "If you must depart, however, I can finish here and lock up for the night."

@howthesleeplesswander for Kazuma !

The first case that Kazuma Asogi had taken in London had been monumental. Not to mention far over his head — very much by design of the man who had appointed a fledging prosecutor whose interests lay so dangerously close to the Reaper trial. And there was no doubt that Asogi was suffering for it now.

Apprenticing under the former Reaper of the Bailey had its benefits, certainly. The courtroom was hardly ever dull, what with the dramatics that Barok employed to capture the attention of judges and difficult-to-sway jurors.

Drowning in legalese, however, required little imagination and provided even less entertainment. And yet it was a part of the prosecutor's profession as much as the time they spent in the Old Bailey, and thus Barok pushed it mercilessly as he did every aspect of their duties. To grow into the role of the prosecutor Asogi intended to be, there was hardly room to moan and to drag his feet. And he took it well for the most part, poring over the paperwork, writing and reading and reviewing case reports cover to cover, and filing every report demanded of him, no matter how trifling Barok's request.

Barok's commendations were few and far between. Not for lack of performance on Asogi's part; it was merely the manner in which Barok had been taught when he, too, had been young and training in this merciless occupation. But the meagre praises were more than he would have offered most, should they find themselves under his tutelage. ( There had been none, until Lord Stronghart had handed Barok's first and only disciple to him, leaving him little choice but to take a nameless man under his wing. ) But, still, in the heart of Asogi's apparent flawlessness lay the very evidence of his limitations.

❛ Asogi. ‎❜

Much like his father, Kazuma was a man of action... but this Asogi was younger, less practised in his work and much less measured in his emotion. As much as Kazuma was driven by his ambition, he proved at times helpless to its whims — unable to direct it, taken over by it.

( ... they were similar, in a great many ways. Stronghart had surely known when he'd called upon Barok and delivered Asogi's fate and future into the prosecutor's hands. From the outlook of the Reaper trial, he had been counting on it. Relying on another abandoned, angry heart to deliver an innocent man to his end. Just as Barok — for all his studiousness and all his then-perceived shrewdness that he thought had been impressed upon him by the blood, sweat and tears poured into this profession — had done. )

Barok felt wearier than ever as he watched Asogi toil away at the stack of papers on his desk. His own attention was fading fast, and his quill had slowed to a feeble scratch for over the better part of an hour. Asogi, meanwhile, had shown no signs of slowing. He was near machine-like in his determination.

Still too young, still too strong-headed, to recognise that his persistence and his perseverance could be his own failing.

❛ ... you've done more than your fair share of work. It would be best to retire for the evening. We will continue in the morning. ‎❜

One must know when to rest. Barok, too, had work to put into learning his limit. When he had worked alone, there had been less need for it; he alone suffered the consequences of his at-times unreasonable doggedness.

Now, he was not alone. As much as he and Asogi struggled verbally to come to terms with it, they had to consider one another — to do more than than simply coexist. To work with one another.

Perhaps it was guilt of years past, too, that indebted Barok to the task of keeping after Asogi's health. ( Guilt that held him to the oath Genshin could not himself keep, when Barok had sent him to the gallows: to look after his beloved son. ) Nonetheless, this was his apprentice; the man was under Barok's care, whether or not he liked it.

[mothandpidgeon]

The One That Got Away -- Part 2

Part 1

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Dave York x F Reader

Words: 3495

Rating: E 18+!

Warnings: Dave York, violence, guns, masturbation, fingering, choking, shoe kink, slapping, spanking, unprotected p in v sex

Summary: Five years ago, before you cut and run, you had one last job with Dave. And one final name on your list.

a/n: I had no plans of expanding on this (Part 1 was written for @autumnleaves1991-blog Writer Wednesday picture prompt) but once again, this took a life of its own. Thanks as always @pascalslittlebrat for giving this the green light!

MACAU, 5 YEARS AGO

There were three things you knew.

First, the target was some Eastern European oligarch named Stanislav. He liked women so Dave had tapped you for this gig. You would deal with the target up close and personal.

Second, Stanislav knew he had a lot of enemies so he brought a lot of friends with him. No matter where he went, there were armed guards, staff, friends who were also rich or powerful or corrupt. It was likely you would have to deal with some of them too.

Third, after you’d killed Stanislav, gotten past his posse, out of the casino, and back to the safe house, Dave was going to make you cum at least four times.

You and Dave had a good thing going. He was meticulous and thorough in his work but you discovered that wasn’t where those qualities ended.

He’d looked you up and down before you arrived at the penthouse suite where Stanislav was hosting some party. You were wearing something that hugged your curves and a wig, high heels and make up. You knew Dave would allow himself exactly two minutes to think about what he’d do to you when this was all over, all the ways he’d have you, and then he’d switch his mind off to focus on the mission at hand.

Between your outfit and the observant security detail, it had been decided that it would be wise to go in unarmed. Less of a chance od tipping anyone off before the two of you got through the door.

You split from Dave as soon as you got in and it didn’t take you long to get to chatting with Stanislav. Your fingertips touched his wrist, you bit down on your bottom lip, you let him whisper into your ear. Dave kept an eye on the situation from across the room.

It wasn’t difficult to slip the drugs into your target’s glass. And it didn’t take much convincing to get him to invite you to a more private place once he’d drunk it down. In less than five minutes, he’d be dead. Until then, you’d let him paw at you. What a way to go.

Right on schedule, Stanislav was gasping, terror in his eyes, clutching at his chest. He sunk to his knees, grasping at the air, pulling at his collar. His hand slid inside his shirt and you saw him yanking on the chain around his neck. Shit. He was wearing a panic button. Of course he was.

Your heart started pounding. Within seconds one of his goons was bursting in, gun drawn.

“Something’s wrong with him!” you cried, covering your mouth with your hand.

He rushed to Stanislav’s side. You took off your shoe, gripped it around the middle, and thrust the heel into the body guard’s eye with force, twisting his wrist with your other hand. He cried out and you came again with the shank of your pump over and over until he dropped his weapon, his face a mess of blood. Poor bastard. You used his gun to put a bullet in him just as one of his friends was charging in.

His weapon was pointed right at you and you whipped around to fire but he jerked forward and fell to the floor. Dave was behind him with a gun he must have lifted off of another unfortunate guard, his eyes looking wild. You wiped your bloody shoe on the dead guard’s coat and slid it back onto your foot.

“Thanks,” you managed as you skirted past Dave.

You had enough knowledge of the suite to get to the exit before more of Stanislav’s men arrived. Dave was right behind you as you went into the hall, both trying to keep your pace casual. As soon as you hit the stairwell you pulled off the wig and shook out your hair. Dave put his jacket over your shoulders and rolled up his sleeves. He had a pair of glasses in his pocket. These weren’t the best disguises but they didn’t have to get you far. You ditched the wig in a trash can once you’d gone down a few floors, out to the landing, and then caught the elevator.

As you snaked your way through the casino floor, you tucked your face into Dave’s neck, doing your best drunk girl wobble. His arm curved around your back, guiding you towards the exit. And soon you were home free.

Now that your work was done, all that was left was your adrenaline. You were ready to let it out and you knew Dave was too because this had become your little routine.

The first time it had happened, you had barely finished a job. Dave cornered you in the elevator, your heart still racing, gun still clutched in your fingers. He’d nudged his knee between your legs and pressed his mouth against yours. You knew he was married but you didn’t stop him. You’d wanted him the same way he’d wanted you. And you’d just killed five people. That kind of made things like fidelity and sisterhood seem unimportant.

By now, though, things were slow and careful, controlled. You and Dave weren’t pouncing on each other but he would nod his head for you to follow him to his bed once you were back at the safe house.

“Take that dress off for me, baby,” he said. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, his legs open so you could stand between them. You turned around allowing him to unzip you and you stepped out of your dress.

“You can leave those on,” he said when you went to kick off your heels. You grinned.

Dave’s dark eyes took you in and he ran his fingertips under the strap of your bra to loose it from your shoulder. He repeated the motion on the other side, his hand barely grazing your skin. It gave you goosebumps. You wanted to devour him but you liked it when he unwrapped you like a present.

“Take off your shirt,” you told him, running a finger along his chin.

You liked it when the corner of his mouth twitched into a wicked smile.

“Yes ma’am,” he said. You bit down on your lip. He took his time unbuttoning his shirt and revealing his skin. He was in good shape considering his age but you liked the soft edges around his body.

Dave pulled you in to nuzzle at your breasts as he unhooked your bra and you slid your palms over his broad, smooth shoulders. He rolled one of your hard nipples between his teeth and you moaned.

“That’s what I want to hear,” he growled.

He spun you around, tracing his hand around the curve of your ass down between your legs. You were already so wet that he could feel it through your panties. Dave peeled them down your hips and then sat you in front of him between his legs. He held you against his chest, one hand pushing your thighs apart so he could stroke you. You could already feel yourself pulsing as you swooned under his touch.

You heard him undo his belt with his other hand and he held his palm open in front of your lips. “Spit,” he demanded.

You could feel him behind you pulling at himself with his wet hand in time as he touched you. Dave rubbed you gently, teasing at the spot that you liked the best. He knew that it made you lose your mind, slow and careful winding you up like a toy.

“I can’t wait to get into this pussy,” he breathed into your ear.

When you bucked against him, he let go of himself and put his hand around your throat, sticky with spit and precum. Dave gripped tight. You trusted him and you had signals in case he got too rough but, as much as you enjoyed his careful touch, you liked it when things went a little too far. There was something that thrilled you as Dave squeezed and your vision went hazy. You knew he was capable of going all the way, and not in a theoretical sense. He’d killed people with his hands around their throat.

“That’s right,” he rasped and as you hit your high he let go and you gasped and shook against him.

He continued to swirl his fingers over you until you were writhing and you wrenched his wrist away.

“I think you can do that again,” Dave said.

He slid his palm over your wet lips, the heel of his hand rocking over your already overwhelmed clit. You moaned when his middle finger went inside of you.

He worked at you like this, heat twisting once again in your belly. Dave was holding you close, his weeping cock pressed against the small of your back. His thick finger seemed to double the sensation between your legs.

This time when you came, Dave bit at your neck, grunting. Your heart was pounding in your ears.

“Turn around,” he instructed.

“Can’t I get a minute to catch my breath?” you complained, still drunk on the bliss spreading over your body.

He set you on your feet and you turned, finally able to admire his ripe length. You set your foot on the bed between his legs. You’d noticed a while back that Dave had a thing for heels. So much so that you started packing them in your bag even when the job required something more practical.

Dave traced his hand down your shin and slid them over your shoe, his fingers still slick with you. As he smudged your arousal onto the leather he let out a hum and you saw his cock twitch. You moved closer, the toe of your pump just barely grazing his shaft from base to tip. There were still hints of dried blood on the heel which somehow disgusted and aroused you at the same time. Dave’s eyes drifted shut.

There was something else Dave liked but wouldn’t admit to. With an open palm, you slapped him across the face. His eyes shot open, shaken from his reverie. He snatched your wrist, tight, his gaze darkening from desire to danger.

“You’re gonna fucking get it,” he said with a sinister smirk.

He wrestled you face down onto the bed and then clamped your ankle in his hand, sliding you across the sheets until your lower body hung over the side.

“I make you cum and that’s the thanks I get?”

His hand connected with your ass. You knew it was coming but still you cried out.

“Quiet,” he demanded.

He pulled you up by your hair, the sting delicious, and put his fingers in your mouth until you were practically gagging. You loved getting Dave riled up like this.

You weren’t so introspective that you thought about why you and Dave treated each other this way. You were sure he didn’t slap his wife around in the bedroom and you would kill any man that did half of the shit that made you wet for dave. Was it some kind of penance? You both knew you didn’t deserve soft and sensual. It might have just been that your senses were completely dulled. After years on the job, it took an awful lot to make you feel anything. Or possibly it was just the release. How else were you supposed to forget about the things you’d done?

Dave pushed into you and you arched your back. He grabbed your hips hard enough that you knew you’d have bruises where his fingers dug in but he stayed motionless within you.

“Lay still,” he said when you wiggled your hips around him earning you another slap on the ass.

It was torment, his thick cock sheathed in you when you wanted more. You wanted him to drive you out of your senses. Suddenly, Dave pulled back and then snapped his hips against you. He thrust into you relentlessly. The wet noises that came between the two of you were making you feral.

You felt the tension pool again moaning as his hands travelled up to massage your breast and then wrap around your shoulders for leverage so you were feeling every inch of him.

“Is this what you wanted?” he grunted.

You felt like you were already close to hitting another peak.

“Say it,” Dave demanded.

That made you fall apart and you buried your face in the mattress to muffle your moans.

“You liked that, huh?” Dave said, his hips still moving without slowing. “Turn over I want to look at that pretty face when I cum.”

You were still shuddering as you laid on your back. Dave kissed you with urgency, his fingers massaging between your legs to make you gasp. He slid into you easily with a groan.

Dave bent your leg and gripped his hand around your shoe once again and took up his pace.

This was your favorite part, watching this man who was so disciplined, so steady, shudder and break inside of you. He lost the rhythm of his hips, his brow furrowed, and he made noises you knew he couldn’t control. He pulled out and spilled all over your shin and the top of your foot and watched his cum drip down to your shoe as his chest heaved.

You sat up on your elbows enjoying the expression on his face where he went blank, his mind completely destroyed.

He kissed you again, hard, his teeth raking your bottom lip.

“Get in the shower. I’m not done with you,” he breathed.

When you were both spent, your bodies practically giving out, you collected your clothes and you left. You and Dave never slept together. You didn’t need him for that.

/ / / / / / / / /

When the job in Macau was over and you’d gone home, you were exhausted. Every job was the same cycle of emotions. Excitement, the thrill of the hunt, the anticipation as you held your breath and fingered the trigger. It was quickly followed by darkness, self-loathing. You wished you could erase it all from your memory. But it was a living so you pushed it down and got back to work. That’s where you were, at the bottom of the roller coaster, when you went to pick up your next gig, to see which sorry son of a bitch was going to eat it next.

You’d get a call on your burner with a location to meet your contact somewhere where you wouldn’t draw attention– a park bench, a busy coffee shop. Today you were meeting him at a bus stop across town. He was already sitting patiently and he didn’t make eye contact with you. This was how it worked, you both went by first names that were probably fake, you tried not to look at one another, you kept it short and clean.

He slid you an envelope of cash which you threw into your bag. The rest of the money would be wired into an account when the job was done. Next came a file with a name and some information to get you started along with a picture. Usually you just threw that into your bag, too, but you were alone in the bus shelter so you cracked open the folder.

The person in the photograph you had only seen once but you recognized them immediately. You stopped breathing.

“What is this?” you asked.

“It’s a job.”

You stared at the photo. It was like all of the others, the subject unaware that they were being watched. The woman was good looking with dark hair in soft curls over her shoulders, beautiful bronze skin. It looked like she was on her way to work, wearing a neat blouse and dress pants. It put a knot in your stomach.

“Who’s job is it?” you asked.

“What’s it to you?” he replied and you could hear the impatience in his voice. “Do I need to tell the client there’s a problem?”

You frowned and shoved the file into your bag on top of the envelope.

“Nope. We’re good,” you said and you walked away.

You felt dirty. You wanted to go home and climb into the shower. It wouldn’t change the fact that you’d just accepted the job of killing Carol York.

Your bag sat at the center of the kitchen table for hours like it had been contaminated. You stared at it, leaning against the counter and holding onto a cup of coffee you felt too nauseated to put to your lips.

You’d never felt all that shitty about fucking her husband. Sure, somewhere deep down where your humanity still resided, there was a voice that told you how despicable it was. It was bad enough that Dave surely lied about what he did for work. But he was a big boy, you told your conscience. What he did and what he said to her were outside of your control.

You’d certainly never wished any ill on the poor woman. You weren’t jealous, you didn’t hate her. Whatever you and Dave had going on, it was like your work– it didn’t exist outside of those moments when you were on a job.

What had Carol York ever done to anyone? Maybe she forgot to sign a permission slip for a school trip or she’d gossiped about someone in her office. This hit wasn’t about her. It was to get to Dave. That’s what happened, you pissed off the wrong person and you found yourself in a file. But after all of the shit he’d put her through, whether she knew about it or not, it seemed unfair that his wife should have to pay for what he’d done.

You finally worked up the nerve to take the file out of your bag. You looked at it again, at the picture of Carol. You could see why Dave had married her, how the two of them would fit together in a family portrait.

You’d killed a lot of people without a second thought and you’d done it in all types of ways. You’d heard them struggle and beg. You’d seen the look in their eye as they realized that they were about to die, the fear and then the resignation and then acceptance. And you’d seen the light go out of them. It was simple once you got over the first few kills. But you took no pleasure in it.

Maybe that was what had drawn you and Dave together. Killing chipped away a part of you that other people couldn’t understand. It wasn’t like you could build it back by being with him but it was at least a good distraction, a way to remind yourself that you were human and living. A way to forget that actions had consequences. There was no good or bad in this game.

But that was just something you told yourself. There were people who didn’t deserve to be at the other end of your gun. Carol was one of them.

You went over to the stove and turned on one of the burners. You carefully dangled the corner of the photograph over the blue flame until it caught and you watched it curl and burn until her whole face had been engulfed and turned to black ash. When the flames licked close to your fingers you dropped the last of it into the sink.

You weren’t going to kill Carol York. You couldn’t do that to her. You couldn’t do that to Dave either.

You’d thought about getting out of the game before. Everyone broke eventually. But it was impossible to quit. There were two ways out of this life and both of them were ending yours. For some reason seeing Carol’s face in your file was what pushed you over the edge. Most likely, if you didn’t kill her someone else would. But you couldn’t.

You gave yourself three days to plan so you didn’t have time to chicken out and change your mind. You bought fashion glasses with clear plastic lenses at the mall. You got hair dye. You collected the cash you had on hand including the new envelope that had come with Carol’s file. It was enough to get you going for a good while. You already had passports and IDs with your face and somebody else’s name. You had to be prepared in this business.

You didn’t tell Dave. You didn’t warn him or say goodbye. You were doing him enough of a favor and he ought to be grateful for that.

You went to the bus depot, paid cash for a Greyhound ticket heading out of state, and just like that you were gone.

-----

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[agent-cupcake]

Beastie and the Bard

Fire Emblem Three Houses - Dimitri x Reader - Chapter 9

Word Count: 11,631

I bet you thought I’d forgotten about this. Nope, not yet. I actually have a fully fleshed out framework for where this story is going with a scene by scene breakdown. You can read the previous chapters on my blog or on AO3

This chapter takes place during the first part of the month before the Battle of Garreg Mach. 

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 1

There was something surreal about sitting in the classroom again, the desks arranged in their neat rows and Professor Byleth facing you all from his usual place. Not even a week had passed since your last class, since your last private conversation with Dimitri, but everything had changed. Peace, whatever dregs had been left of it after everything that had happened, was utterly destroyed. Any illusion of safety behind the old stone walls of the monastery was waved away into smoke. No more laughter, no more fun. The monastery swarmed with word of Emperor Edelgard’s treasonous claims and threats, words weaponized to spread disquiet.

It was almost a relief when Professor Byleth said it, confirming something that everybody already knew. “There is going to be a battle,” he told you all, his voice striking the silent room without any particular cadence. “Scouts report that the Imperial army led by Emperor Edelgard will be here by the end of the moon.”

By the end of the moon. You tried to calculate the days but knew that it wasn’t any more than three weeks. Less, actually.  

“So soon?” Ingrid asked, her voice breathy with the shock you felt echoed within yourself.

“This plan has been underway for longer than we could have guessed,” Professor Byleth said. He winced, an odd tick of an expression. “I’m sorry for not seeing this sooner.”

“We don’t blame you, Professor,” Annette said. “Who could have known, right? We all thought...” she trailed off, but there was no point in continuing. You had all thought, you had all been so distracted.

“We can’t let ourselves get caught up on that, Annie,” Mercedes chided.

“You’re right,” Professor Byleth said. “Now, we must prepare for what is to come. Before we begin, does anybody have any questions?”

Nobody said anything. You scanned the faces of those you could see. Dimitri and Dedue sat in front of you, giving you only a profile glimpse of drawn expressions of exhaustion. Of those sitting in your row, nerves cast a sickly pallor over Ashe’s freckled cheeks, painted shadows beneath Annette and Mercedes’ eyes. You wondered how you looked. Tired, probably. You felt as if you hadn’t slept all week.

“Right,” Professor Byleth called, folding his hands behind his back in something akin to parade rest. It was interesting how quickly he had traded a mercenary’s unrefined motions for the more commanding stances of a general. “Dimitri, have you heard any word about what’s happening in Fhirdiad? Seteth’s reports indicate that they’re hesitating in committing any troops to defend Garreg Mach.”

“My uncle is blind,” Dimitri responded with obvious distaste. “He rejects reality. Foolish man.” Although nearly everyone knew of Rufus’s incompetence, Dimitri’s genuine and open scorn for the man, his uncle, was shocking.

“According to my father,” Felix added from behind you, his tone far more measured, “there is opposition within that prevents the regent from committing any men. Not to mention, the Kingdom troops are already spread thin along the western border.”

“Um, excuse me,” Ashe said, nervously raising his hand as if this were a normal class. “There is good reason for that. Professor, may I?”

“Please,” Professor Byleth said, motioning Ashe to continue. He looked from face to face nervously, fidgeting awkwardly in his seat. You were close enough to see the red rimming his eyes, the white skin on his chapped lips. But he spoke and his voice was steady enough, his gaze even as he addressed the class.

“Lord Lonato named me as his heir,” Ashe said, “although I have not yet claimed the title, the Church has allowed me to remain informed about what is happening in his territory. I am… I’m afraid there seems to be some conflict over how the western lords intend to act. After what happened, many of them have been actively rejecting Church aid. Should this become an all-out war-”

“They intend to betray the Church,” Dimitri said, turning and narrowing his eyes at Ashe. “No—to betray their country, is that it?”

“There could be another explanation,” Ashe said.

“I’m sure there is,” Professor Byleth said, motioning to calm them. “What you’re saying is that we can’t count on the western lords for help.”

“Yes,” Ashe answered, his shoulders slumping somewhat. “I’m sorry.”

“I cannot help but wonder if that was the intention,” Dedue said.

“What do you mean?” Byleth asked.

“It is merely speculation,” Dedue began hesitantly, like he was unsure if he should be voicing his opinion. “However, it seemed strange that Lord Lonato would raise a rebellion in the manner he did when he did. Unless he had outside support with considerable sway-”

“You think the Empire is behind Lord Lonato’s betrayal?” Mercedes asked.

“As I said,” Dedue told her, his expression unreadable, “it is merely speculation. But it would explain a great many things. Faerghus is more divided now than ever, it is difficult to believe that is a simple coincidence.”

“Duscur, Lonato, the Church,” Dimitri said, “the infection of the Flame Emperor’s touch has been festering in the Kingdom for far too long. And they would choose to ignore it rather than fighting for their country. Have they no honor?”

“Does any of this matter?” Felix interjected, clearly annoyed. “Even if the Empire did have something to do with the failed rebellion, Lonato is dead now. We can’t waste our time wondering about the motives of a dead man. We need to focus on the problems at hand.”

Dimitri raised his chin imperiously in reaction to that statement, although he didn’t object, turning to face the front again. Ashe sunk back in his chair, pressing his shaking hands flat against the table. Felix’s cruelty was expected at this point, but Dimitri’s was still a fresh wound. You could understand that. You put your hand over Ashe’s, pleased at how steady it was. Your eyes met and you nodded to him, hoping the show of support was enough. His lips quirked in what could almost be counted as a grateful smile.

“About that,” Sylvain said, breaking the tension somewhat with his easy tone. “I received word from my father. He said that he’d send men, but they still won’t get here in time. It’ll take an entire moon for any sizable force to get here. Best case scenario, the Empire forces are delayed, and we can bolster our numbers.” He didn’t continue with the worst-case scenario, but he didn’t need to. The little helpless shrug was more than enough.

Byleth nodded thoughtfully. “This will be a decisive battle, but we’ll be in need of fresh soldiers after the fact no matter which way it goes.”

“Win or lose, you mean,” Felix said dryly.  

“We won’t lose,” Annette said. “With the Professor on our side, we’re definitely going to win. Right?” Her blue eyes jumped from face to face, searching desperately for confirmation of her plea.

“Right,” you agreed, trying to unravel the knot of fear and dread tangling in your stomach. You had to work past that, to remain strong. “No matter what, we can’t let the Empire scare us into submission. If we do that, we might as well give up before the battle even starts.” Could they hear past the conviction in your voice to the weak wobble that laid beneath? At the very least, Annette smiled in return. That was enough.

“We will win,” Dimitri said. “When I have her head in my hands, there will be peace. For all of us.” Even in profile, you could see the sickly smile he wore as he considered that. Compared to any regular expression of joy or pleasure, this was a ghastly, inhuman expression. One you had seen before.

“Dimitri, when was the last time you slept?” Professor Byleth asked, tilting his chin up as he considered the prince.

“Slept? I...” Dimitri replied, his eyes snapping upward and the smile dropping. A moment later, his expression froze over. “That is unimportant.” Even for Professor Byleth, this was dangerous territory.

“What about your last meal?” Professor Byleth pushed.

“That is no concern of yours,” Dimitri said, meeting his eyes evenly. “And assuming it was… I have no appetite.”

“Oh, so is that your plan?” Felix called, his voice dripping scorn. “You’re going to kill yourself before that girl can do it for you?”

“Felix,” Dedue said, a warning in his voice as he turned to scowl at him.

“Shut up, dog. I’m tired of your sycophantic denial,” Felix snapped. “Wake up, boar. If you want to lose your mind, do it on your own time. Right now, there are more important things to worry about.”

“Hm,” Dimitri said in response.

“Felix, calm down,” Ingrid said, her worry clearly etched into a frown.  

“You’re telling me to calm down?” Felix asked her. “Am I the only one who understands what’s at stake here? You want me to spare the feelings of a mad boar… For what? How is pity for him going to save the lives of the people here? What good is compassion against an upcoming war? This is a farce.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Dimitri said, standing with the sharp scraping of wood on stone. “I recommend you all prepare yourselves. We will crush the enemy as soon as they dare to enter through the gates. And as soon as Edelgard draws near... I will have my revenge.”

Dimitri let that ominous threat hold in the still air. Dust motes played in the light streaming in through the windows, disturbing into a frantic swirl of a dance as he left the room with a swish of his blue cape. Dedue followed with a hurried, “Pardon me.” The doors shut behind them, but not before allowing in a chilly draft of cold wintery air. You didn’t even think about it, pushing away from the table with dread settling like ice in your heart.

“You’re going to go after him, aren’t you?” Felix accused, pinning you in place with his glare.

“What?” you asked, feeling the attention settling on you.

“Give me a break,” Felix said, his lip curling back in outright disdain, “you’re not fooling anybody. You’re as bad as that boar’s lapdog, constantly following him around as you do.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” you said slowly, carefully.

Felix scoffed. “Anybody with a set of eyes can see the truth. If he’s the boar’s lapdog,” he said, nodding towards the door Dedue had just departed through, “then you’re his bitch.”

You recoiled as if he’d physically struck you. It felt like it, almost. Heat built up urgently behind your eyes, ringing with the pulsing stream of blood in your ears. Like the first time you’d been punched in the face, you just felt stunned.

Did he know the extent of your feelings? You supposed they had been transparent from the start; you were an idiot to believe you’d ever fool anyone. All the same, thick shame began to congeal in your gut, rising up like bile. “That’s a terrible thing to say,” you said into the ensuing shocked silence, your voice soft with pained shock, light and airy in order to get past the swell of tears in your throat.

“Felix, that’s enough,” Sylvain said in warning, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. Felix shook off Sylvain’s hand by standing up, glaring at him, too.

“You’re all fools. You think you’re being kind, but all you’re doing is enabling him to destroy himself,” Felix said. “We don’t have a chance of winning if we spend all of our time worrying about a mad boar. Tell me when we’re actually going to discuss something important. Until then, I’ll be training.” He turned on his heel and left without any further objection.

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 2

There weren’t enough knights to do everything that needed to be done in preparing Garreg Mach for the impending battle. That meant that many of the less intensive tasks fell to the students to complete, including evacuation of civilians.

Those who had the resources to do so were able to get out practically on the day of Edelgard’s betrayal, like wildlife that could smell a storm before it broke, people scattered away from the encroaching doom. Others weren’t so fortunate. They were poor, they had families, they had settled their lives in Garreg Mach as surely and firmly as the old stone walls.

Getting those people to safety was absolutely essential and important, but the reality of the matter was grim. The friendly territories of the western kingdom and along the Alliance and Faerghus border were quickly becoming packed with refugees. Not just from Garreg Mach, but from the northern Empire. Asylum seekers from the Imperial recruitment and cruelty.

Most of those people were used to the mild winters in Central Fódlan, so those who were forced further north into the kingdom weren’t accustomed to the harsh conditions. Already, there were rumors of entire camps of refugees left dead from exposure. Or bandits, the Kingdom was still rife with lowlife thugs like Miklan. And that wasn’t even to mention the fact that the civil unrest had already left Faerghus without enough resources over the winter months.

The Alliance wasn’t much better, most of their energy was put into fortifying their own defenses and the little wars of internal conflict. You had never paid much attention to how divided the Alliance was after Duke Riegan’s death. Claude insisted he could get a handle on it, but there was only so much he could do for the time being.

That was the general feeling in Garreg Mach. There was only so much you could do. Only so much anyone could do.

You helped load another family onto an overpacked cart with only the most essential of their possessions. Families of the soldiers got priority, and this caravan was thick with children. Despite the hapless sounds of crying children and soft weeping, there was a hush over the once lively square. A somber farewell.

Having done all you could, you stepped back. You couldn’t help but focus on a young girl towards the back. She had a ghostly white face and clutched a doll to her chest with hands still round and dimpled with baby fat, her mother’s arm draped across those tiny shoulders to keep her from bumping into the strangers they would be traveling with. Tears glazed those sweet baby blues, exhaustion ringed the young mother’s eyes. Her husband, a young soldier who had hung around to say goodbye, would be staying and risking his life. He kissed both girls with the desperate fervor of a man who knew, on some level, that this was goodbye forever.

You wanted to believe that this was the best thing, and it was, but you knew what it was to be displaced at such a young age. You knew what it did to people. You knew what goodbye forever felt like. Selfish as it was, you felt almost as if you could see yourself in those glassy young eyes. It was just all too familiar.

Thinking of your mother, as always, was a painful thing. After realizing the magnitude of the situation, you had sent several letters to her nurses and the man you had left in charge of your Fhirdiad estate to warn them of what was coming. Right now, you held onto the belief that the battle at Garreg Mach would stop the war from invading into Faerghus, which meant that your mother was fine to stay in the country mansion. Besides, you worried about what the city would do to her system, she was already in such a poor state.

But that was a worry for another time.

The horses were kicked into motion and the cart rolled over the smooth cobblestones to the great somewhere else. You hoped the goddess went with them, keeping them safe. When they fully disappeared through the gate into the cloudy winter sunrise, you turned on your heel to return to the monastery. After such a long night of patrolling and a morning of packing up civilians, this was the last thing you wanted to do, but you had already put it off too long.

If you were a good person, or even a good leader, you would have visited your company the moment you had any solid news about what was happening. But you weren’t. You didn’t.

Not all of the soldiers employed by the Church stayed in the monastery, which was reserved primarily for the knights and those with high standing in the militaries of the three countries. In a section wedged between the monastery proper and the town of Garreg Mach, a large camp of barracks had been laid out for all of the other soldiers. The organization of it was a bit strange, considering most of them had separate allegiances and very few of them reported to the same generals. Lady Rhea would be considered their High Marshal in theory, but that was just about the only unifying force. Each battalion of soldiers was employed to serve whichever student Officer they had been assigned, so they worked both as an independent, almost mercenary-like group as well as military personnel.

You had always felt awkward with your own battalion, unsure of how to command or treat them. Lieutenant Avery was basically the leader of your company. There was no question of the men’s loyalty, your authority wasn’t the highest to those men, even if they were technically yours to lead. That had never bothered you, not in the way it should have. Only recently had you begun to feel shame about the fact. So many other students had been found to have traitorous Imperial soldiers under their command, a massive embarrassment to the Church as well as cause for distrust of the students themselves.

The vacancy of the empty barracks segmented for the Imperially sourced companies was hostile. Urgent intensity passed between the men who were still hanging around in thinning groups, performing the first of the day’s chores or hanging around in hunched clusters, creating an atmosphere so oppressive you almost found it hard to breathe. They were in a strange place. Staying pitted them against their country, but to leave would be a betrayal against the Church. Nobody trusted them either way, forcing them to congregate only among themselves. That was what Edelgard had done. Verbal poison, the warfare of the mind, turning everybody against one another. Unifying a country, it seemed, required mass division first.

Your men were placed in the no man’s land at the outside of the Kingdom barracks. Professor Byleth had offered you several companies of Kingdom patriots, but you hadn’t felt drawn to them like you were to Avery’s Wyvern Co. They were fresh soldiers among the large array of companies out for the Church to hire, only having arrived shortly before the year began. In truth, you weren’t even completely certain that they were soldiers to begin with. Avery was a strange person with a mysterious background and you truly believed he was a good man,  but there was something about him that lacked the shine and polish of a soldier.

Not that it mattered much to you. You liked him; you liked the men. Amidst the dark and oppressive atmosphere of the barracks camp, he and his men sat around a fire, eating breakfast, and chatting among themselves.

“Fancy this!” Avery called as you approached, his grin lit up in brushed orange and distorted by the smoke of the dancing flames. “And here I was just wondered what had happened of our dearest Captain.” The complete disregard of proprietary and respect was utterly inappropriate, but it was clear that Avery never meant anything strange by it. What was strange to you was how easy-going he sounded. Compared to the rest of the Garreg Mach, it was like laughter at a funeral. You didn’t mind it. This task was dour enough without a bad atmosphere. “Why don’t you sit?” Avery offered, gesturing to the bench seat by him. “Have you eaten? I’m sure there’s still more...”

“I’m fine, thank you,” you told him, sitting. “I’m… sorry to not have visited sooner. You’re all doing well?”

“Better than you, it looks like,” Wendell, one of the men who had been wounded in the Sealed Forest, told you. After your concern for his injuries following the battle, he seemed just as loyal to you as Avery. “If you don’t mind me saying, of course.”

“Wen,” another man, Euston, scolded dryly. “You can’t say things like that to a young lady.”

“She’s our Captain,” Avery said, lightly hitting Euston across the back of the head. “Show some respect.”

Euston laughed, undeterred. “You’re one to talk, worrying about her like some kind of mother hen.”

“Is it wrong to care? This past moon has been difficult,” Avery said. Everyone sobered up at the reminder. Difficult was probably an understatement. “You were there when the Emperor revealed herself, weren’t you?” Avery asked you. “I heard what happened. The prince-”

“Dimitri’s fine,” you said, avoiding his eyes. “And I…” You meant to say that you were fine, to reassure them that their captain was steady and sure. But you couldn’t. “That’s actually what I’ve come to talk to you all about. As I’m sure you’re all well aware of by now, there is going to be a battle. The rumors are true. Imperial troops are estimated to arrive by the end of the moon.”  

Avery whistled, a quiet rumble of dissent waving over the men. “That soon? She must have been planning this awhile.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, hating to think of it. While you were carelessly training and falling in love and having your heart broken, she was sowing chaos, arranging a war. “And I’m sorry for neglecting you all. I should have done this sooner.”

“That doesn’t bode well,” Euston said.

“If you wish to leave, you’re free to do so,” you told them, your voice raised as you forced yourself to look from face to face, to not shy away from this task. Every expression you acknowledged was set in various degrees of stony to bemused, as if they couldn’t believe what you were saying. “I’ll personally pay you three moons’ wages… More if you act as an escort for the civilians leaving Garreg Mach. You’ll also get a glowing recommendation for your service thus far.”

“The odds are that grim, eh?” Avery asked. Everyone was watching you, waiting for your answer.

“Um…” you began forcing yourself not to clam up under the pressure. “Yes. A-and no. The chances of victory are… Well, nobody really knows at this point. But even if we win, this is a full… a full-on military assault. Edelgard… Emperor Edelgard means all-out war. The Church is just the beginning. I won’t force anyone to fight, I know that none of you ever signed on for allegiance to the Kingdom, or even the Church.”

That began another wave of grumbling, words you couldn’t quite make out as that information was digested. The fire was dying, but the rising sun illuminated enough for you to see the uncertainty on every face, the doubt. You were confirming things they already knew.

“If there’s going to be a war anyway, where would we go?” Lester asked loudly. He was the other one who was wounded in the Sealed Forest. You didn’t like to think of yourself as buying forgiveness to assuage your guilt for his injury, but you did know he had an affinity for chocolate. “Seems like a victory here is our best bet to avoid that.”

“Yeah,” Euston agreed. “War seems like it would be… annoying. We came to the Church because they give us the easy life. Or, they did before this mess all started.” General assent followed his words, heads nodding.

“I’d never forgive myself if I left you here, Captain,” Wendell said. “I may not care that much for the Kingdom or the Church or anything, but I like you. Never known a noble who was so...” He waved his hand, at a loss for words. “You know… The point is, I’m staying.”

“Wendell…” you said, your voice half choked. “Thank you.”

“So, does anyone want to take up our generous Captain on her offer?” Avery asked. Silence met his question, a resounding answer in its own right. You swallowed down the lump in your throat, hating to feel the pressure of tears at the back of your eyes.

“Thank you. It is… my greatest honor to lead you all,” you said, feeling that the words weren’t enough but knowing it was the best you could do. To them, a company of seasoned men, what were you? A slip of a girl pretending to lead them. And yet, they would follow you.

“When this is all over, you’re gonna owe us all a drink,” Euston said. “I’ve always wanted to try that plum liquor they make in Morfis.”

“When this is over, I’ll owe you all a hundred drinks,” you said. “So you’d better all make it, okay?”

“Yessir,” most of them said in unison, touching forefingers to their brows or giving you half-salutes. You let out a heavy breath, glad to be done with that and feeling far better than you had upon arrival.

“I’ll be off, then,” you said, standing up and stretching. The sun had risen, but the sky was miserably gray and cloudy. One of those days. It seemed like all days were one of those days.

“I’ll walk you back,” Avery said, standing.

“You don’t need t-”

“Come on,” he said without waiting. You waved to the rest, even getting some smiles in return, before hurrying to match his stride.

In a way, you were glad for the company. The tension among the battalion camp was just as uncomfortable now as it had been on the way in, but now people were moving around. There was an endless supply of jobs anymore, always something for someone to do.

“It was good of you to offer that,” Avery said.

“Do you think any of them will accept?” you asked. Nobody had spoken up at the moment, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t in private. You didn’t fault that.

“No, we stick together. No matter what.”

“They’re very loyal to you.”

“Like I said, we stick together,” Avery said. “You never asked what we did before we came to Garreg Mach, or why.”

“I didn’t think it was important,” you responded.

“I can’t tell if you’re too naive or too kind,” Avery said, shooting you a sideways smile. “When you picked us, I was braced for the worst type of brat, that’s what we signed up for. But you’re not that. Sure, you’re incompetent, but I know you mean well.”

The casual jab hurt, but the praise leveled it out. Somewhat. Besides, he was right.

“Even if you were the worst of them, we’d have taken it. It’s like… penance. But you’re not, so I figure I should give you a chance to decide you want men like us following you.”

“I don’t care about your past,” you said.

“We were criminals,” Avery said, acting as if he hadn’t heard you. He wasn’t looking at you anymore, his eyes forward and expression schooled into a serious mask. “Damned good ones, too. We all came from villages near the Almyran border, grew up on the backs of wyverns, always dreamed of being accepted into Gonerill’s army. I got my own company before I really realized it; the fight with the Almyrans is pointless. Fighting for fighting’s sake. You lose limbs and lives in what amounts to little more than a game, there’s nothing respectable or sane about it. So, we, my men and I, deserted.”

“Oh,” you said, stunned by the confession.

“After that, we terrorized people, thinking we had some sort of right to do it because at least we weren’t liars like all of the nobility who toss lives away like trash. We only took from the rich and called it justice.” Avery sighed regretfully. “The things we did… the things I did... “

“It couldn’t have been that bad,” you said doubtfully, trying to imagine somebody like smiling Wendell doing what Avery was describing.

“I destroyed people’s lives,” Avery said. “Because of me, children lost their fathers, women lost their husbands... One day I looked at what I had done, what we were doing, and knew that I was damned. I came to the monastery to beg forgiveness, to serve the children who I might have ruined.”

The two of you were approaching the front gate. Cold shivers had crept up your spine, over your arms. Bandits had killed your father, ruined your mother. Ruined you, in a way, even if it was liberation.

But Avery didn’t know that. Besides, it couldn’t have been Avery. To believe in such a coincidence was too awful, too cruel. Avery was a good man, you believed that.

“Now you know who it is that serves you, Captain,” he said, stopping and facing you. He didn’t have the face of a bad man. His skin was leathery and crinkled from too many years in the sun and the line of his nose was an uneven mess from being broken a time or two. He surveyed you with a neutral expression, waiting for your judgment.

“Thank you for telling me,” you said carefully, willing yourself to not become emotional. “I think… I’m not the person to forgive you, but… But it would be really hypocritical of me to judge you. A man I lo―care about quite a bit is in a similar position, looking to the goddess for help and forgiveness, and I… What else is there? As long as you keep trying to be a better person and… Um… I don’t think any less of you. I’m grateful that you trust me.”

Avery measured that response for a long moment before he finally spoke. “Then it is my genuine pleasure to serve under your command.”

“And I’m going to be better,” you told him. “I know I’ve been a poor captain. Most of the time I feel like a child, but I… We can both be better, right?”

“I’d like to think so.” Avery smiled, encouraging you to do the same. “Have a good day, captain. And consider getting some rest”

“I will,” you said. Consider it, at least. Sleep was evasive these days. Besides, there was so much to do. Still, after Avery left, you did take a moment to breathe, to consider what he told you. It didn’t change anything, did it? Yet somehow, you felt more hopeful. And distraught. It seemed the world was insistent that you not let go of your past, throwing it back in your face like this.

But there wasn’t much time for contemplation like that. You hurried back to the monastery, determined to make the most of this ugly gray day.

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 3

Six days had passed since Professor Byleth had called you all together to discuss the state of things. You felt the passing of each hour acutely, the countdown dragging the monastery closer and closer to uncertain ruin. Yet, at the same time, it seemed as if the clock was crawling along, prolonging the nightmare-ish state.  

Felix hadn’t so much as looked at you since that disastrous last confrontation.

Dimitri only occasionally showed up when he was summoned.

And you were silly. Stupid, even. Why you felt the need to volunteer yourself to go get him to come to the meeting today, you didn’t know. He was more likely to listen to Professor Byleth anyway. But you did. Of course you did.

The vaulted space of the cathedral was nearly always filled with those who thought to pray for aid from the Goddess. Devoted and questioning alike gathered up to pray for their souls, to pray for their loved ones, to pray for some measure of comfort. Everywhere buzzed with word of Emperor Edelgard’s proclamations and the size of her forces and the fearsome strength of her military, whispered rumors dripping in like poison along with the prayers.

Dimitri spent a great deal of time in the cathedral. Nobody really knew why, people whispered about it like it was some great mystery that a man half mad would think to reach out to the goddess for guidance, but you thought you understood. Avery’s desire for penance was fresh in your head, and you could remember Dimitri’s words that night in the Goddess Tower, almost like a melody you couldn’t quite shake from your head.

“The goddess just watches over us from above… That is all. No matter how hard someone begs to be saved, she would never so much as offer her hand. And even if she did, we lack the means to reach out and grasp it. That’s how I feel about her.”

And you knew that he was the one most affected by Edelgard’s betrayal, the one suffering the most pain. You kept your promise that you wouldn’t tell anybody of his true connection to the Emperor, but it haunted you. The moment of her mask falling away had cut some integral thread of forced composure that Dimitri had been clinging to as a lifeline, and without it he’d fallen victim to the very worst parts of himself. He spent so much of his time reaching towards the goddess for a lifeline because, despite the brutal killings you had seen him commit, he was weak.

You were weak, too. Although you had a reason to seek him out, your feet took you to him because they always did, they always brought you to him. You were so, terribly weak.

Upon passing through the gate of the cathedral, it was impossible to miss Dimitri. Everybody gave him a wide berth of space when passing, casting him nervous side glances, and whispering to their companions in hushed tones. He stood alone like an exhibit in a museum. Rumors had spread about Dimitri just as quickly as they had about Edelgard. Rumors of madness, of insanity. It was upsetting to hear, heartbreaking that he was viewed as little more than a spectacle, but you shrugged them off. It didn’t matter what people thought, or at least you couldn’t blame them. They were ignorant and afraid, and while Edelgard was still far away, Dimitri was right in front of them.

He, as had become usual, stood in his grand stage of empty space. A position he could occupy for hours without break. Dimitri’s uniform wasn’t as neat as he had usually kept it, and his hair needed to be cut. Your heart softened upon seeing him. A foolish, stupid feeling. Unwanted entirely. You knew that things had changed and could keenly remember the many times he’d snapped at you for doing what you were about to do. Whatever tenderness that had been cultivated within him before now was gone. Withered away like flowers in the frost, a sweet melody played sour on an out of tune lyre.

But you refused to stop, and you especially refused to be frightened of Dimitri, or believe that he would do anything to hurt you.

It was better to stick only to present concerns. Such as the fact that he was muttering to himself again. Words you couldn’t quite hear over the hushed noise of the devout. Dimitri’s lips moved with a rhythm that made it seem like he was speaking to something, someone. The dead, his dead. You had heard him use their names once, addressing people who were long gone and buried. Glenn, father, stepmother. He stopped whenever someone was close enough to pick out details, but you heard them all the same.

Melancholy intermingled with a deep, bone-grinding fear at seeing him like this. Many poems or songs you knew spoke of insanity, but none of their descriptions truly matched the broken man in front of you. They saw the afflicted through the eyes of a romantic. In other words, a lovely lyrical lie. What most of them had in common, however, was an eventual tragedy. With every fiber of your being, you swore to not allow him to become victim to such a fate.

You had failed once. You couldn’t handle another. You were weak.

“Dimitri?” you asked, striding up to him with a level of cheery confidence you weren’t so sure you felt. The eyes of a crowd of outsiders followed you now that you had broken the bubble of space surrounding the prince that frightened them so, watching as if you were approaching a beast in the woods unarmed.

Dimitri didn’t respond, either ignoring you or lost in thought of whatever he’d been muttering about. You would have preferred the former, because at least then he’d still be with you, not sunken down into some dark void that you couldn’t possibly reach him in. Unfortunately, you suspected it was the latter, what with the way his blue eyes were ringed with deep shadow and glazed over. You couldn’t even imagine the last time he must have slept. According to Dedue’s careful vigilance, he spent his days in the cathedral and his nights on the training grounds, throwing himself into combat practice so intensely nobody dared intervene. Not even you.

“Dimitri?” you asked again, a bit louder, daring to reach out a hand to get his attention. The touch startled him, and for a moment you were almost afraid that he was going to strike out. He didn’t, although you could tell by the way his body was coiled and poised that it had been a close thing. But he didn’t, and that was all that mattered.

“What is it?” Dimitri asked in the clipped and cold tone of an accusation. The familiar blue of his eyes was flat when they found focus on your face, his stare without any recognition for your feelings or softness for who you wished you were to him. It hurt, it still hurt. Maybe it would always hurt when he looked at you like that, maybe your heart would never scar over and allow you to recognize that this version of him wasn’t truly who he was. You began to rack your brain for a proper verse about the pain of looking in the eyes of someone you loved and seeing nothing in return but stopped yourself. There was no song or lyric that could explain the piercing ache of such a feeling. With him, with your mother, you knew that so very well.

“The dining hall is serving cheesy Verona stew,” you said.

Dimitri grunted dismissively, turning his face from you. That, of course, was not nearly enough to actually stop you.

“See, I asked, and nobody seemed to know if you’ve eaten in the past few days,” you continued.

He said nothing.

“And I know for a fact that you like cheesy Verona stew.”

Nothing.

“Plus, you won’t be able to fight or anything if you’re starving, so-”

“What, exactly, is it that you want?” Dimitri abruptly snapped, fixing you again with a look you refused to believe was a glare of murderous intent. Despite that firm belief, the expression was threatening enough to push you into taking an unconscious half-step away in physical recoil.

“I was worried-”

“I’m fine,” he insisted in a raised voice. Not shouting, just authoritative. It made your stomach drop anyway. At your reaction, he lowered his voice, shaking his head in a jittery way as his eyes cast downwards, a hand raising so he could press a finger against his temple. The headaches he had once told you of must have reached a new level of agonizing. “As soon as her blood is drained from that treacherous heart, everything will be fine… We’ll be fine... So leave me be.”

Overexposure drained those muttered words of much of the power they used to hold but hearing the man you’d seen nearly break down over death speak so casually of gratuitous violence created its own type of deep-set horror. Not to say that was unexpected. You’d heard him say much worse since he learned of the Flame Emperor’s true identity.

“Okay, I-I’m sorry. The Professor is calling for a council and requests that we all attend. I was thinking that you should eat something beforehand. It might make you feel better, you know?” you explained. “But if you’re not hungry, th-that’s fine. The meeting’s in an hour.”

“I understand,” he snapped, cutting you off.

“We could go together, if you wanted,” you offered.

Dimitri gave you a flat look and for a moment you were sure he was going to shout at you. But he didn’t, which was somehow worse. “I’d rather you leave me alone.”

“You don’t need to be alone. It’s not healthy,” you told him quietly. “Before, you told me that you would talk to someone, that you would… Don’t you remember?”

For a long moment, Dimitri didn’t respond. You had no idea what was going on behind the storm of his eyes, the conflicted dance of anger and pain. “Why must you continue to torture me?” Dimitri finally asked, his voice low and throaty. “None of it meant anything, don’t you understand that? It was not my place to tell you those things. I have but a single purpose, to be distracted was my most grievous error. So leave me be.”

He turned away, once again facing the front of the cathedral.

“Okay,” you agreed, almost inaudible with the way your throat had swollen up. “I’m sorry.” Dimitri’s eyes closed, but he didn’t respond. That might have been for the best. You turned on your heel and left the cathedral, feeling the dozens of eyes track each step, whispering. Always whispering, talking, lying, always, always-

On the bridge, you faced the harsh wintery wind, hoping that the sharp bite of its touch would hide the true reason for your watering eyes and red cheeks. Because you were weak. Because you were in love with a man who was fated for tragedy. Because you knew goodbye forever and there was nothing that you could do about it.

Time ticked on, seconds became minutes, minutes you didn’t have the luxury of wasting. You turned you back to the cathedral and the wind and acknowledged that you had at least done as you were told. Just like a soldier would. Just like a knight.

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 4

Even with war hanging heavy on the horizon, even with your heart heavy and breaking, the mundane chores still had to be done. Until coming to Garreg Mach, you had never so much as thought about doing the dishes. It left your fingers pruning and hands chapped and dry, but the ritual of it felt satisfying. Taking something dirty and making it clean. You and Ingrid stood above the sudsy, steaming basin; your uniform sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

The two of you made some small talk at first, but it was clear to see that she was preoccupied. You’d have loved a distraction from your Dimitri-centered thoughts―and under different circumstances, you might have tried anyway―but there was really nothing to say. Dimitri’s harsh rejection the day prior still burned hot and horrible in your chest. If you thought about it, you’d probably start crying again.

“I feel as if I owe you an apology,” Ingrid finally said as you worked a particularly tough bit of grime from a plate. That brought you up short, looking at the blonde to try and figure out what she was thinking to say that so suddenly.

“An apology?” you repeated after a moment.

“For what Felix said,” Ingrid clarified, her eyes casting down towards the water.

You stiffened at the reminder. Out of everything that had been happening lately, you had almost forgotten about that incident. No, you had willfully been trying to forget about it. “You don’t have to apologize for that,” you told her.

She sighed. “It’s always been up to me to clean up after them. His Highness, Sylvain, and Felix... I tried to talk to him, but he won’t hear it.” Ingrid paused. “He doesn’t mean it. I doubt that’s any consolation, but-”

“I know,” you said, cutting her off.

The Boar’s bitch. Goddess, that was cruel. But it wasn’t even entirely untrue. That was the worst of it, to have something you held as holy pulled out from your heart and exposed for the appraisal of eyes that would defile its sanctity.

“I don’t know the details of what happened between Felix and Dimitri to make him so angry, but it changed him,” Ingrid said, picking up a tin mug to begin washing. “After Duscur… Well, everything changed. Felix used to adore Dimitri. He followed them everywhere like a lost puppy.”

“Them?”

“Dimitri and… And Glenn.” Pain twisted Ingrid’s voice with the name. “He is… was Felix’s older brother.”

“Dimitri’s mentioned him,” you said. Dimitri talked to him, actually. Glenn was one of the dead, a victim of the Duscur Tragedy. From what you had gathered, Glenn had been the knight ideal. And, if you weren’t mistaken, Ingrid’s betrothed. You tried to imagine the girl you knew being promised to any man, but the image just didn’t compute. It was almost as strange as trying to imagine a younger, softer version of Felix.

“Losing him was hard on all of us,” Ingrid continued. “I can’t say I don’t sympathize with Felix’s pain... but that doesn’t excuse what he said.”

“It’s fine,” you said, focusing especially hard on the plate you were scrubbing.

Ingrid didn’t respond to that, although you could feel her eyes jump up to watch you every so often, her mouth opening before closing again. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of waiting, she said, “I don’t mean to pry, but you and Dimitri…” Your entire body tensed up, shoulders hunching and the silverware you’d been washing slipping back into the basin with a splash. Of course, you’d been waiting for a question like that. But you hadn’t been ready, either. “I know the two of you were close,” Ingrid said, as if she hadn’t noticed your reaction. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I… Well, I suppose I know what it feels like to have your heart broken. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”

“Thank you,” you told her stiffly, fishing the fork out of the murky water. There was more to be said, the words piling and pooling up on your tongue and ready to spill out, but before you could speak, the pantry door was flung open, a tiny figure emerging.

"Counting all the way up to numbers I don't even know. And more! Flour and sugar and rice and grain galooore-"

"Annette?" you asked, watching her spin on her toes as she closed the door behind her.

"GAH!" With a graceless turn, Annette whirled around, a hand clasped over her mouth and the notepad she was holding crashing to the floor. Recognition flashed through her wide blue eyes after a moment of horrified shock and she lowered that hand to her chest. “Oh, it’s you!” she exclaimed. “You scared me!”

“Sorry...” you responded, exchanging a glance with the equally bewildered Ingrid.

"Oh, well, it’s fine,” she said, trying to play it off. “You didn't… hear anything, did you?"

You were about to lie, mostly to avoid upsetting her, but Ingrid beat you to it. "You were... singing?”

Annette winced, "I can explain! I was taking inventory for Seteth and got very focused and the song just sort of came to me and… and…" She deflated. "I don't suppose you would pretend that you didn't hear that, would you?"

"Why?" Ingrid asked.

"Because… because…" Annette said, flustered. "Because if everyone finds out that I sing to myself they're all going to think I'm that weird girl who makes up stupid songs about counting and food and then they’ll all whisper about me behind my back about how weird and stupid I am!"

"It's not that weird to sing while you work,” you told her.

"Do you?" Ingrid asked, looking at you curiously.

"Well… not around people…" you answered. Everybody in your class knew about your affinity for music on account of that day Sylvain stole your book of songs, but you didn’t advertise the fact that you enjoyed making music, too. Especially not to the knight ideal like Ingrid. Music was impractical.

"See! It is weird!" Annette exclaimed. "Now you're going to tell everyone, and they'll all think I'm a total freak who sings about flour and sugar and-"

"Annette…" Ingrid cut in, frowning in concern.

Annette continued on like she hadn’t heard, her rant getting progressively more distracted, "And they're gonna look at me and laugh and never take me seriously because of the stupid childish songs and-"

"I didn't know you liked music," you said, interrupting her.

Annette blinked, focusing on you. "I don’t really tell people. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

"If it makes you happy, I don't think it's embarrassing," you told her.

"She's right," Ingrid said seriously. "I don't have any interest in music, but the song wasn't that bad."

"That bad…" Annette said, frowning. "So it was still bad. I knew it. Oh, this is just the worst!"

"It wasn't!" you told her quickly. "I liked the melody; did you compose it?"

"Well, yeah," she said, fidgeting with her notepad.

"That's really amazing, Annette,” you said enthusiastically. “I'm no good at writing music."

"Oh, it's not that impressive," she said, waving her hand.

"I'd love it if you could teach me some time," you said. "It might be a nice break from-" you waved your hand around generally, your voice trailing off.

“Well, if you really want to, I guess I wouldn’t mind,” Annette said. “As long as you promise to never, ever tell anybody what you heard today.”

“I promise,” you vowed.

“As do I,” Ingrid said.

“That’s a relief,” Annette said, finally picking up her dropped notepad. “Are you free tonight?”

“I have patrol duty with Ashe,” you replied, frowning. “Maybe tomorrow?”

“Sure! I’ll have to let you know when, though. There’s so much to do.” Annette sighed. “Speaking of which, what was I doing…?”

“Inventory?” Ingrid offered helpfully.

“Oh, right! That!” Annette responded, her trademark bounce returning. “Well, I’d better go, then. I’ll see you tomorrow!”

You and Ingrid said goodbye, but Annette was already out of the kitchen. Seconds later, there was a loud crash right outside the door and Annette’s muffled voice demanded to know why there was a box in the way where people were walking. It left your heart feeling oddly light. Everything else could change, but Annette was still a whirlwind mess of drive, clumsiness, and quirk.

“If you have patrol, you should probably get going,” Ingrid said. “I don’t mind finishing up here.”

“Oh, right,” you said, quickly drying off your hands. “I hate being out in the town these days, it’s so empty and creepy.”

“Do you want to switch?” Ingrid asked, raising an eyebrow. “I have guard duty tomorrow at dawn.”

“As enticing as that sounds, I think I’ll pass,” you told her, your face scrunching up at the very idea of it. It was one thing to be cold and miserable at night but being cold and miserable with the memory of your soft, warm bed fresh in your mind was worse.

“I suppose it was worth a try. Be on your guard,” Ingrid told you. “And be safe.”

“Thanks,” you said. “I’ll try.”

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 5

“Ansel’s stories are great!” you insisted, walking side by side with Ashe on your nighttime patrols. With the curfew, there were no other people wandering around, but that wasn’t the only reason for the uncomfortably hollow feeling in Garreg Mach. With each passing day, the small towns that littered the outskirts became ghostly haunts, shops closing up and merchants who sold anything other than weapons and supplies packing up. Outside the realm of his torch, the once lively was a depressing and frightening place. But having company helped. It helped a lot. “I love the characters.”

“I didn’t say they’re bad,” Ashe responded quickly. “But... they’re mostly romance. They shouldn’t be shelved by the stories about knights, someone could accidentally pick one up and have no idea what they’re in for.”

“There are knights and heroes, too,” you pointed out. “Besides, romance is integral to the plots of most hero stories. What’s worth fighting for more than love?”

“You’re starting to sound like Sylvain,” Ashe told you, laughing.

“Don’t you fight for love?” you asked, only slightly defensively. “Love for your country, your family, your friends… Isn’t that why people fight? We’re all driven by passion, don’t you think?”

“Huh… I guess that’s true. But... wait, that wasn’t my point! I-” Ashe’s words abruptly cut off as you turned a corner. This street, a main thoroughfare with some of the few remaining open establishments, was well lit. A crowd of people congregated at the far end. “What’s going on over there?”

You blinked, caught off guard by the sight. “Is there some sort of event?” you asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Ashe said. “Besides, the curfew...”

“We should go check it out,” you said, all amusement from your conversation going stale and cold. You had a very bad feeling about this.  

Ashe quickly put out the torch, following after you as you approached the crowd. There was a sense of dread in the air. There was a crowd, sure, but their voices weren’t loud enough, no laugher could be heard. It was just tension and raw, crackling energy. Most of the people were soldiers, men and women from other battalions. Some villagers. The entire crowd smelled of urine and liquor and the desperate vinegar of excited sweat. You tried to cut your way into the group, standing on your toes to see what they were all circled around. Nobody paid you any mind, too focused on what was happening to make way.

“Is that… His Highness?” Ashe asked, his voice loud above the noise.

And it was. Standing in the impromptu ring created by the surrounding crowd, Dimitri faced off against five other men. One of them was wearing Imperial fatigues. Another wore clothes you recognized as being an unkempt and dirty Faerghus soldier uniform. All of them had a wild, drunken look and anger and bloodlust.

“-known that your association with that Duscur beast would rub off on you,” the Faerghus soldier was saying. “I refuse to follow a monster into battle, let alone lead my country.”

“I see,” Dimitri replied. Despite the many voices rumbling around the square, his was easy to make out. “You have betrayed your country, trading one monster for another. How does that feel?”

That made the other man wince, but his fury was far more potent. They were ganging up on him, this was an ambush.

“Ashe go get help. Professor Byleth… Guards… anyone! Hurry!” you told him, your voice quivering with urgency. He blinked, his eyes wide and frightened, but nodded.

“I’ll be quick.”

With Ashe running off, you tried to steady yourself with a deep breath, forcing your hands to stop shaking. “Let me through!” you demanded, trying once more to cut your way through the crowd. People shifted, although you took more than one elbow to the ribs, bodies pushing back against you. “On behalf of the Church of Seiros, I demand that you let me through!” That finally worked. Sort of. You broke out into the front of the group, a hand on your sword hilt. “This i-is… an illegal act of violence against the crown prince of Faerghus… Disperse now!” Jumbled and nervous, your words were still able to get the attention of the group of men. Dimitri turned, meeting your eyes for a half-second with a look of surprise. And then his face darkened, his jaw clenching as he looked away.

“What is this?” the Imperial asked mockingly, “Another student? Maybe a friend of yours, crown prince?”

Dimitri said nothing, not even looking at you.

“The guards will be arriving soon!” you threatened.

“Faerghus law allows any Faerghus soldier challenge his superior, nobility and royalty, to a fight,” the soldier said. “It’s up to him if he wishes to accept the terms.”

“What do you say, beast prince?” the Imperial asked. “Do you have any honor left, or have you abandoned that with your humanity?”

“Honor?” Dimitri asked, sounding amused. “Coming from one who wears the colors of the Empire? Tell me, do you act on behalf of that woman?”

“I act for myself,” he responded. “And for justice. My brother was one of the men you slaughtered in the Holy Tomb. I saw his body, creature. You’re no prince, you’re not even a soldier. You’re a monster.”

“And your gang of traitorous vermin?” Dimitri asked. “They agree?”

“Faerghus is better off without you,” the Faerghus soldier said, eliciting sounds of agreement from the others.

“Fine,” Dimitri said. “I accept your challenge.”

“No!” you shouted, lunging forward. Or, attempting to. A man you hadn’t even noticed shot an arm out to keep you from entering the informal circle, pulling you back.

“Don’t interfere,” he said, holding your arms pinned so you couldn’t go for your weapon. His breath was hot and sour on your ear, making you shudder in disgust. “I have money on this fight, girl. Five to one… the pretty boy’s ‘bout to learn a lesson he won’t forget.”

“Dimitri, stop!” you begged. It didn’t even occur to you to be worried for him. Only about what he would do.

The Faerghus soldier went for him first, pulling a knife from his stained coat and lunging at Dimitri with wavering, drunken posture. He was a large guy, the type that expected to win fights based purely on his size and raw strength. Dimitri sidestepped the attack, grabbing the man’s beefy arm as he did to misdirect his momentum and contort the arm behind his back, twisting him around and sending him staggering to the ground.

Dimitri had gotten hold of the knife during the exchange, but he didn’t bother using it. When the large man made to grab Dimitri’s legs, Dimitri kicked him in the chest. Bones crunched. Loudly. Dimitri kicked him again, the choppy strands of his blond hair flipping and falling with the motion.

Despite the shocking display of efficient brutality, the Imperial went into attack. His knuckles glinted with metal as he drew back his fist.

“Watch out!” you called, but the warning was unnecessary. Dimitri whirled around, grabbing the Imperial’s hand before it could make contact and slamming it flat against the side of the building. He drove the knife right below the band of metal ringing the Imperials fingers, pushing it into the grout between brick until the handle was flush to the man’s skin. The Imperial screamed, immediately trying to pull the knife free, but it was stuck. He tried to lash out at Dimitri, but the prince easily ducked beneath the attack.

The other three men bunched in a group, ganging up on Dimitri together. The tallest stood in the center, a short man on his right and a heavy looking guy who’d picked up a broom as a makeshift weapon on his left. All you could see of Dimitri the back of his uniform and the fluttering cape on his shoulder, so brilliant and vividly blue.

Ducking out of the way of the broom’s handle, Dimitri took a fist to the face from the shortest man. Despite the successful blow, the short man was immediately rewarded with a brutal backhand that sent him to the ground with a fleshy kind of crack.

Dimitri didn’t hesitate, throwing his body at the man holding the broom. The wooden handle split into two pieces beneath Dimitri’s gauntleted left hand, his right elbow slamming against the heavy guy’s face while he was distracted by the loss of his weapon. The heavy man’s face immediately exploded in a bright spray of blood, sending him stumbling back and tripping onto the ground, clutching his face desperately.

The tall one tried to attack with a straight right, but Dimitri spun out of the way, swinging the broken piece of broomstick handle in an arc at his head. The wood broke on impact with the guy’s skull. While he was stunned, Dimitri’s fist easily connected with his stomach. He dropped with a heavy “umph” of a groan.

Breathing heavily, Dimitri turned from them, dropping the short length of broomstick handle with a clatter of wood on stone and tossing his sweaty hair from his brow. Blood dripped from his nose, staining the ashy pale of his complexion, dribbling over his chapped lips.

The Imperial was the only one standing, having managed to free himself. You hadn’t seen what he’d done to get out of the trap, but the knife remained in the wall and his hand was in a ruined state, too covered in blood for you to see.

Dimitri faced him, his chest heaving and a gruesome smile on his face. Blood dripped into his mouth, staining his teeth red. With wild eyes, he surveyed his final opponent.

Had Dimitri done this on purpose? Ensured that the Imperial would be the last to face him so he could savor it? Something about the expression on his face made you think that sickening thought. Taking advantage of the way the grip keeping you still had slackened in horror, you stumbled forward.

“Dimitri stop!”  you shouted.

He ignored you, moving towards the last man with the predatory gait of a killer. You didn’t even think about it, lunging at him and wrapping your arms around his middle. Doing that could have killed you, you knew that. His reflexes were faster than you could ever hope to move. But your blood pounded steadily in your ears and your pulse made your throat feel swollen and men you hoped weren’t dead littered the ground. You needed to make him stop.

Somehow, it worked.

“Unhand me,” Dimitri demanded, prying you off of him despite your attempts to hold fast. The violence of it pushed you back several steps, but you managed not to fall. “This Imperial traitor asked for a fair fight. Have I not granted him his wish?”

“You’ve won!” You looked at the glowering Imperial who was wrapping his hand with a ripped piece of shirt. “Yield, please. You can’t fight, your men are down… Please, stop this.”

“No,” he said, pulling the fabric tight with a wince. With that, he swung, his arm arcing clumsily towards Dimitri who easily caught the fist, twisting it with enough force to make the main shout in pain. The movement forced the Imperial to fall forward, but Dimitri caught him with a grip on the front of his uniform, pulling him close.

“Dimitri,” you pled. “You can’t kill him. Please.”

“No? Even though he follows that wretched woman?” Dimitri asked. “Even when he would have gleefully killed me in an honorless fight?”

“Please, just yield and leave. Please,” you begged of the other man. “Dimitri, you’d let him go if he yielded, right?

“This foul creature does not deserve your pity,” he said.

“Please?” you begged again.

“Fine,” Dimitri allowed, his lip curled as he looked at the man. “I’ll let you go free. Provided you deliver a message to your master.”

The Imperial sneered, answering by screwing up his mouth for a second and then spitting. The glob of saliva landed squarely on Dimitri’s cheek. Dimitri accepted it with a cold, empty patience, letting it slide down his face without any reaction. “I’ll accept death before I do something for a beast like you,” the Imperial said.

“Very well, I shall be glad to deliver,” Dimitri responded. “You and your gang of cowards are not the first men I have sent to the Eternal Flames. But you already know that, don’t you? Your face is not even worth remembering. Just as I have forgotten your brother, you too will die a meaningless death.”

A strangled sound of rage left the Imperial’s mouth, his face twisting in genuine hatred as he fought the hold Dimitri had on his uniform. Blood had already soaked through the makeshift bandage on his hand. And Dimitri was going to kill him. That sickening smile was gone, all emotion sapped out. His expression was cold and cruel. The act of killing made him dark. Empty.

“Dimitri!” a familiar voice called, breaking the tense scene apart. The crowd, whatever remained of it, parted for Professor Byleth’s confident stride, his green eyes focused solely on the prince. Ashe hurried behind him; his cheeks colored with a flush of exertion. Dimitri’s grip on the Imperial slackened, some awareness seeping into his eyes. Finally, he wiped the spit from his cheek, catching some of the blood from his nose. It left a rusty streak on his pale skin.

The Imperial took advantage of Dimitri’s distraction. His nails made contact with Dimitri’s face for a second before the prince reacted, throwing him away with unnerving ease. What was left was four distinct and angry short trails of red high on Dimitri’s cheekbone.

“It seems you’ve been spared,” Dimitri called as the man scrambled to get upright. But he had landed poorly, swaying dizzily like he hit his head. “This time.”

“What happened?” Professor Byleth asked you, forcing your attention away from the horrific scene. You cleared your throat, trying to calm your mind.

“They challenged him to a fight,” you said. Byleth’s lips formed a line, but he nodded. “And he accepted.”

“These men were Imperial vermin and traitors,” Dimitri added. “They wished for a chance to take me out and failed.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Vengeance… Vengeance is for the strong. They were too weak to attain it.”

“You didn’t need to accept their challenge,” you told him, belatedly realizing that you were crying. Shaking, too. Trembling so hard you felt it in your bones. “You’re… you’re better than that.”

“Am I?” Dimitri asked. “Tell me, would it be honorable to keep another man from his revenge? I allowed him a fair chance, and he was unable to follow through.”

“Still…” you muttered, looking around at the carnage. Already, guards were surveying the downed men. Checking for pulses. Killing men in battle was one thing but killing them here in the dark and dingy streets of a nearly abandoned town. A place that was supposed to be a refuge, to be sacred. It was like you couldn’t breathe, like the world was closing in on you.

This wasn’t Dimitri, was it? The man who had kissed you, who had held you, who had made you laugh. The man you were in love with.

“If you can’t stomach reality, you have no place here,” Dimitri said, stalking past you. Professor Byleth attempted to stop him, but that didn’t matter. Dimitri was a force of nature, like a storm or a fire, without reason or restraint.

Besides, the guards for calling for Professor Byleth’s help, likely asking for advice on how to handle this situation. How were you supposed to handle this situation? What were you supposed to do?

“Are you all right?” Ashe asked, peering at you with a look of concern. “Let’s go back to the monastery, the guards can take care of this.”

“Okay,” you agreed. Your ears were ringing. It sounded like screaming. It smelled like blood and fire and the tangy, sour, stale sweat that reeked of pain and fear. Was this any more or less horrific than what you had already seen? You already knew the violence Dimitri was capable of, you already knew the depths to which he had descended.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You look really pale…” Ashe said.

You felt a little numb. Empty, cold, like everything had been drained out and replaced with cotton.

“Ashe?” you asked, but your voice sounded far away.

“Yes?” He looked so concerned, so earnestly worried for you. That was good, nice. You could hold on to that.

“What do you think it is to be honorable?”

Ashe blinked, clearly confused, but his answer was quick. “Honor is doing what’s right.”

“Who defines what’s right?” you asked.

“I’m not so sure this is important right now,” Ashe said, looking around. You ignored it all, the noise and the people and the carnage and the fear and the disgust, focused only on the one question. “Perhaps we should wait until we’re-”

“Please?” you asked. That word was etched into your tongue.

He looked like he was about to argue but relented after a moment. “I suppose the goddess defines what’s right, so do those who lead us,” Ashe said. “But knights also must follow their hearts. To follow all of those things… that’s honorable.”

You closed your eyes, trying to comprehend exactly what he said. That definition definitely made sense. Honor both was and wasn’t. Nebulous and strict. If you doubted what you knew, you’d lose it entirely. It was better to let it be, you decided that long ago.

Letting out a shaky breath, you nodded. “You’re right.”

“Are you okay?” Ashe asked again.

“Yeah,” you said, nodding. It wasn’t a lie, exactly. You just had to ignore this, shove it from your mind. Focus on other things. “Let’s go back to the monastery.”

[pumpkinov]

Where the Dust Settles

You can read Chap. 1 here and Chap. 2 here

Portia Collins, the sole survivor of Vault 111 has lost more than most. With the Institute defeated, she sets her sights to the next big jobs - unification of the Commonwealth wastelands and the large warship docked at the Boston Airport. More work for the General of the Minutemen, who is finding herself increasingly alone as her companions move on with their lives. John Hancock, the Ghoul Mayor of Goodneighbour is struggling to find his footing in the new political climate of the Commonwealth, and is finding a surprisingly vocal supporter in his local Minuteman General.

Chapter 3. Do you wanna come over, and kill some time?

Portia meets with an adoring audience, Hancock gets high. They walk home together.

Portia’s headache was back, and this one was a ripper.

She briefly considered decapitation, and settled for a stimpak. Two and a half years in the wasteland, and this was still the grossest part.

Well, maybe not the grossest, but she still hated it. She poked the needle through the delicate skin of her elbow and decompressed the vial, feeling the weird cold sensation of something entering her bloodstream. She’d left Preston, Nick and Piper at the Dugout Inn and headed straight home. Not that she spent much time here anymore, but Home Plate was hers and she could relax here, at least a little.

She sat in her arm chair, waiting for the Stimpak to work. It didn’t take long, the headache was already less crushing than it had been before. There was a stack of paperwork upstairs on the desk that she needed to look over before the final meeting tomorrow. And oh Jesus Christ what was she going to do about fucking Hancock.

He was right, of course he was right. She just hated being put on the spot like that.

And there was no way she could skip on the socialization of the night - the General of the Minutemen summons you to walk the dangerous roads between your settlement and Diamond City, and doesn’t even bother to speak to you?

She sunk a little lower into her battered chair, allowing herself a moment to scrunch her face up. She could have a cry later, maybe, as a treat. But right now, there was work to be done. Portia put her shoes on, grabbed her coat and her scarf, flicked off the lights and stepped into the market of Diamond City. It was snowing again, lightly for now. It lay across the ground, shimmering under the string lights running off the roofs in the square. She breathed in the noodle smell wafting in the air, and for a moment she felt a little lighter.

She was greeted at the door of the Dugout Inn by Nick, who was smoking out the front.

“Hey there kid,” his yellow eyes burned bright against the darkness creeping in from the corners of the old park. “How’d it go today?”

Portia sighed, and dug around in her pockets for a cigarette, “It went pretty good.”

“Is that so?” the old synth looked over at her, she could hear the faintest of whirr’s as his eyes focused on her. “Heard John had something to say at the end. He dropped past my office earlier.”

“Oh. Yeah, he did.” Portia lit her cigarette and inhaled, staring up at the sky. The snow was starting to land in her hair. “He’s right.”

Nick nodded slowly. “He is. But folks around here, they like their town the way it is. It seems pretty unlikely anything will change.”

She chewed on her lip a little, rolling her cigarette between her fingers. “Yeah, I tend to agree with you.”

“Most smart folks do.” Nick agreed.

“You knew him when he was a kid, right?” Portia asked suddenly, “What’s the Mayor’s deal?”

“John?” the detective seemed to deliberate for a moment.

“Yeah, is he all bark and no bite?”

More whirring, as mechanisms hidden under the plastic pulled Nick’s mouth into a smile. “Oh no, he bites. But under all that bark and all that bite, he’s a bleeding heart.”

Portia rolled her eyes, and Nick laughed.

Inside was even busier than the Third Rail had been last night. It was hazy inside, steam rising off everyone’s clothes dampened by the falling snow. The coat rack near the door was overburdened, but Portia had no choice but to dump her coat and scarf on top of the pile, it was a million degrees with all these bodies and the fire going. People reached out to her as she passed, she fixed a smile on her face as she desperately looked for a familiar face. But no Preston, no Piper. She almost reached the bar before being cornered by a woman, a trader from The Murkwater Construction Site to the south. There was a Minuteman checkpoint nearby, and they had helped defend the settlement from a supermutant raid a few weeks earlier. She grabbed Portia’s arm, desperate to tell her how her men had defended the farms, how they had saved this woman’s home.

“That’s the Commonwealth Minuteman ideal, to be ready at a minute’s notice,” Portia gritted her teeth, subtly trying to pull her arm out of the woman’s grip but it was a vice. Then came the wash of shame and guilt - this woman just wanted to tell her how much she appreciated the work Portia and her group had accomplished. And all she, Portia, the fucking General wanted to do was get away. It took her fifteen minutes before she was finally released - after which another family wanted to pass on their thanks for the Minutemen’s work protecting Oberland Station. A man touched her shoulder; he wanted to tell her that his son had died defending the Minuteman checkpoint near the entrance to the Glowing Sea, and how proud he was that his son had died doing something so honorable.

By the time Portia’s hands collided with Vadim’s bar, she was emotionally wrent. Vadim placed a glass of whiskey down on the bar for her, stopped and considered for a moment, then left the bottle. Portia stared at it for a moment - tempting, really. But she made the responsible decision, and knocked back the glass instead. She turned to face the room, leaning her back against the bar. There was a flash of red in the corner, and her eyes chased it without really thinking. There was something so distinctive about the mayor. He wasn’t particularly tall, or muscular, but his presence filled a room. He moved with his shoulders - they were broad for his frame, emphasized by the ridiculous frock coat he wore everywhere. He swiveled around, almost if her gaze had summoned him. He looked over, and winked. A wicked smile spread across his face, and he turned back to say his goodbyes to his captive audience, two women with drinks in their hands and fire in their eyes; before making his way towards Portia.

She watched him approach, feeling the heat creep through her stomach as he made his way through the crowded bar. Interesting response, best ignored. There was no time for nonsense like this. She wrapped her hands around the whiskey bottle Vadim had left on the bar and moved away, spotting Piper near the door. Was she avoiding him? Maybe.

Another few hours of greeting people, of being seen, and Portia was finally free. Preston had appeared, and eventually shooed her out the door, bundled in her coat and scarf, hands still wrapped around her untouched whiskey bottle.

“You look like you need a sleep, it’s fine, I can handle this!”

“I need a fucking coma.” Portia replied to him after he’d closed the door to the inn. She leant her forehead against the wooden door for a moment, before turning around and almost screaming.

“Mayor, do I need to make you wear a bell?”

He grinned, “Are you trying to collar me now?”

He was sitting on the stone wall, a cigarette between his lips and a jet canister in his hands. The snow had stopped, but the air was bitingly cold. Portia briefly considered her options, before heaving herself up to sit next to him. She nestled the whiskey bottle between her thighs as he handed her the jet. She turned it over in her hands, glancing around. There was no one else around, and she raised it to her lips and took a quick breath in.

There was the sound of rushing blood in her ears, and everything fell away for a moment. All she could feel was the freezing cold of the stone under her ass, which was steadily going numb.

It only lasted a moment, bit by bit the rest of the world returned. She opened her eyes to the sound of Hancock laughing, almost a growl in his throat. “What?” She asked blearily, pushing the little plastic container back into his hands.

“I’ve never seen someone look like they needed a jet hit as badly as you did when you walked out.” He chuckled, inhaling his cigarette deeply.

Portia hummed a little, the afterglow of the jet slowly working it’s way out of her system. “I fucking miss weed, man.”

“Weed?”

“Cannabis, it was a plant, you dried and smoked it.”

“Oh right, yeah I’ve heard of that.”

Portia sighed. “I smoked a lot of weed back in the day. I can’t believe that fucking scorpions survived the end of the world, but no more pot.”

Hancock slid the jet canister back into his coat, blowing a stream of cigarette smoke into the night sky. “If you’re looking for other things, I have enough daytripper to help you avoid reality until next week.”

Portia chuckled, and shook her head, “Mayor, not all of us can function on jet fumes and mentat dust.”

He grinned at her, “Heh, yeah it’s a skill I’ve spent years honing. I didn’t pick our General as a habitual drug user.”

Portia smiled a little thinly, “You all seem to forget before I went into the deep freeze I had a whole life, you know?” Hancock slid his hand back into his coat, this time producing a cigarette, which Portia took. “Is your coat the nuclear wasteland version of Mary Poppin’s bag?”

“None of that made any sense.”

“It’s an old story, she flew around on an umbrella and put kids up the chimney. It’s, uh, unimportant.” She saw his expression and laughed a little. “I’ve seen you pull a fucking shotgun out of the coat, how do you keep so much stuff in it?”

His eyes flashed again, “You’ll have to get me out of it, General.” He leant over and lit her cigarette, before returning the lighter to the bottomless coat, and sliding off the wall. He held his hand out, steadying Portia as she dropped down to the ground with him. They moved down the street, their breath and cigarette smoke rising in front of them.

“I hadn’t planned on my punch at the entirety of Diamond City,” Hancock said casually. “I was just thinkin’ and I just … said it.”

“Makes sense.” Portia was focused on her boots shuffling through the snow, “I should have realised dragging you back here was gunna stir some feelings up.”

He laughed, low and deep. “Sure stirred something up.”

Portia felt her stomach spike again, and frowned at herself. She lifted her chin and aimed for a professional tone, trying to shake the intimacy out of the moment. “What are you hoping to achieve, Mayor?” She noticed they were walking close enough for their arms to brush against each other; she took a slight step away from him. If Hancock noticed her abrupt shift in energy, he didn’t react.

“Honestly, General? I don’t know. I don’t expect them to go back on what they voted for all those years ago. But I also can’t resist reminding them of who they’re fucking with.” He stared straight ahead, and Portia found herself staring at his face in profile.

High cheekbones, the faint outline of lips still left in the scars of exposed muscle on his face, his dark eyes shone in an otherworldly way. There was a twitch in his set jaw.

When he had greeted her in Goodneighbour two years ago, she’d found his face confronting, upsetting; a constant reminder that she was in a completely different world. Now his face was almost comforting.

They’d reached the front door of Home Plate now, Portia turning the whiskey bottle over in her hands. Hancock glanced at her, the wheels in his head turning.

“Is this … is this your house?”

“Yeah.” Portia was distracted, digging her keys out of her coat pocket and unlocking her front door. Then the penny dropped, as she pushed her front door open and she felt the warmth behind her shift forward slightly. She spun around barring the door with her arm. “No, no absolutely not!”

He was grinning across at her now, leaning an elbow against her door frame. “One drink?”

“In my house? No way.”

He pulled an expression of mock hurt, “Don’t you trust me?”

His body was inches from her, the warmth radiating through the layers of her clothes. “In general? Sure - in my home? Nope. You’ll never leave.” Shit

“Is that a threat or a promise, General?” He grinned slowly, before shifting his weight off the wall and standing up straight again. “Fine, one drink, in the freezing night air?”

Portia stared at him for a moment, he stared back. He was always fucking smiling. Sometimes she couldn’t tell if he was flirting with her, or mocking her. He was still close to her, she could smell him. Smoke, and something heavier. Patchouli, maybe? Or something close to it. She rolled her eyes, and let her arm drop.

“I am going to regret this, aren’t I?”

He followed her through her doorway, reaching his arm out to close her front door behind them. “General, I am nothing but a gentleman.”

She stared over her shoulder at him, “If I catch you in my underwear drawer, I’ll break your arm.”

His laugh drifted out the door, before it snapped closed.

[teresa-of-ficwill]

In the name of love (Geraskier)

Summary: Jaskier did not remember where but one day he heard a proverb that said something like "if you fall in love with a witcher - you will die." Then he considered it utter stupidity but now... It turned out that it was not just a proverb.

Or the story of why witchers don't fall in love.

The count begins

Jaskier couldn’t say when it started exactly. When Geralt became not just a fellow traveler; not just a source of inspiration; and not just his main income but someone who mattered. Mattered a lot. Julian couldn’t remember, no matter how hard he tried, when exactly he began to be torn between the choice: to write a ballad about the exploits of the witcher or a love song to him. Jaskier was careful, of course. Singing about the love of an abstract girl for a very specific witcher is not so difficult, so he used this light image without a twinge of conscience.

In fact, Julian was not timid in matters of the heart but in the situation, with Geralt, he preferred to kept silent. Jaskier understood perfectly well that the witcher didn’t look like a person who needed a relationship. No, of course, Jaskier didn't need it either. But it was before… before he fell in love with Geralt.

Julian had plenty of sex in his life: he was in demand not only among women but also among men of different ages and wealth but just having sex gets boring with time. It happens sometimes. You fall in love and suddenly you want something more than an affair for one night or a few weeks. You want kisses, hugs, warm words, and confidence that the person you love will be by your side no matter what.

Jaskier wanted all this. At first, these desires were unconscious and sometimes slipped into his mind but they could be ignored. Well… no more. He was in love. He was in love so much that when Geralt once again opened the doors of the house of tolerance, Jaskier felt all the shades of such inappropriate jealousy. He could follow the witcher and take a girl or boy for the night in order to somehow distract himself, but Julian didn’t want to. He didn't want just sex anymore. He wanted love. And who would have thought that this would be the greatest tragedy of his life?

“I love you,” without any prefaces, without an introduction and even without a hint of logic Jaskier said when they once again spend the night in the forest. He had no idea why he was doing this because only recently he vowed to be silent about his feelings forever. But Jaskier, to be honest, has never been a consistent person. He kept his promises and vows but not in front of himself. He was always careful but only if it was not about Geralt. In general, if you think about it, he was a rather controversial person.

The witcher looked up from the fire and raised an eyebrow, apparently expecting a continuation but there wasn’t any. Because the only thing Jaskier was capable of now was to maintain silence and somehow keep the violently beating heart in his chest.

“Repeat,” Geralt said and his voice sounded rougher than it should. Julian twitched his head slightly.

“I love you,” he repeated and silence hung up in the air again. For the first time in his life, he had nothing more to say. And this, perhaps, said a lot.

Previously, it wasn’t difficult for him to talk about his love for a certain lady for hours, just to drag her into bed, but when it came to Geralt Jaskier simply had no words. Not a single sensible thought in his head, except for the one that he had already said, but in it was all the sincerity of his bardic soul which he spent in vain in his youth. It contained all his feelings, all his jealousy, all the despair that was inside him.

He gave himself up completely, without a trace, by just one simple phrase which was customary to underestimate. He allowed the hellfire to get into the forest of his soul and burn it to the ground, not missing a single tree. He opened up in some desperate hopelessness to a man whose silence was hurting more and more with every passing second. Like a red-hot knife between his ribs but Jaskier liked the pain too much to pull it out.

“Do not waste words.”

“I have no more words.”

There was a strange tingling sensation in his wrist but Jaskier was too busy with a fire in his forest to notice. Geralt looked at him without taking his eyes off as if he was looking for something. Studying him. As if looking for a catch where it cannot be by definition. As if waiting for a pod from someone who was not capable of it.

“I'll hurt you.”

“I'm already hurting.”

Julian used to like this feeling but now it was too serious to enjoy. Now it was like a punishment, a load, a fragment of an accidentally broken mirror stuck in his heart. Everything was changing so quickly that even Jaskier couldn’t keep track of it. When did sympathy turn into love? When did it happen? When did it start to hurt? He didn’t understand. All his consciousness was enveloped in a haze, as if in delirium. As if he was dying. Does love feel like this?

He remembered deciding that he wanted a relationship, that he wanted to be happy. So, at what point in time did it start to hurt? It hurt without reciprocity and Geralt was like treatment. A medicine that wasn’t available to him.

“It’s already started, huh?” asked the witcher in such a tone as if he were signing a death warrant for Julian.

Jaskier scratched his wrist. He didn't know what Geralt was talking about but whatever it was it had already begun. His brain was in a fog, the feelings hurt, he needed treatment.

Julian missed the moment when the witcher walked around the fire and sat down next to him.

“It’s my fault,” the man said, taking Jaskier’s hands in his. “If I had not loved you, this wouldn’t have happened to you,” Geralt rolled up the sleeve on the bard's left hand. He looked down. Dark blue, swollen veins covered his wrist, lightly touching his palm, and climbed further up the arm. They took up a little, only a third of the forearm but the bard understood that it would be getting only worse. He couldn’t know for sure but he guessed with some tenth sense. It would only get worse from now on.

Julian had a poor understanding of what was happening because his head began to ache. Any thoughts caused pain and consciousness floated away, not allowing him to focus on anything.

“Will I die?”

“I'm sorry.”

Jaskier wanted to say that he was sorry too but thinking was so damn hard. For some reason, death didn’t frighten him. He felt like on drugs, everything around him seemed unimportant. Everything except Geralt.

“When?”

“When the poison reached the heart.”

Julian nodded but he didn't understand much. He should have had a dozen of questions but there was not a single one in his head. He felt bad. He couldn’t think.

“It hurts,” Buttercup whispered, feeling tears streaming down his cheeks. He didn’t cry. Well… he didn’t want to. His consciousness was too cloudy to control his body.

“Let me help,” Geralt asked and the bard nodded, not understanding what he was agreeing to at all but now it didn't matter. Nothing else was important except the witcher sitting near him.

The man leaned forward, their lips met and Julian took a truly deep breath for the first time in an unknown amount of time. His head cleared slightly when he answered, tangling his fingers in Geralt's hair. The witcher growled and pulled him closer, wrapping his strong arms around him. He kissed roughly as if the man was angry with him but Jaskier knew he wasn’t. The pain in the head dulled and the body begged for more. A lot more. The bard wanted Geralt inside; as deep as possible; as close as their bodies would allow.

The witcher ripped off the bard's clothes without worrying about its integrity. It was pretty cool outside but Jaskier didn't feel - Jaskier was in a fever. The pain that seized his whole body went away with each new kiss, with each new mark, with each new breath that they shared.

Geralt prepared him quickly, took roughly but, for the bard, this felt like the best sensations in the world. The pain was replaced by pleasure and there was just as much of it as there was pain before. Julian moaned as loudly as he could, cut off his voice, scratched the witcher's back, and seemed to be going crazy. Everything was on fire inside but it was a good fire. The fire that warmed, not the fire that burned.

Conscious returned almost completely when Jaskier came. Geralt made a couple of deep thrusts and came next, pressing their lips together. The world was no longer shrouded in a haze but consciousness was still floating somewhere, allowing fatigue to take over. The bard remembered how the witcher hugged him and covered them both with a blanket so that they do not freeze at night, and then there was a blissful emptiness.

To be continued

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[hongism]

mists of celeste ➻ one

➻ pairing: ??? x fem reader ➻ genre: space au, pirate au, space pirate!ateez, angst, eventual smut ➻ Word Count: 4.5k ➻ Rating: M ➻ Warnings: language, violence, guns and weaponry, blood, future warnings tba ➻ summary: Sneaking aboard the ship of a renowned space pirate may not have been the best idea, but you’ll have to make do with what fate has handed to you 

⇐ previous | next ⇒

mists of celeste act one ➻ part one

‎

"You said that you're with the military? I don't recall the military having ships as small as yours." If possible, your eyes would roll all the way back in your head at the man's comment. Instead, you plaster a smile on your lips, gaze flitting around the bridge as you do. 

 "Yes, Ambassador Salvadore. They sent me on a transport ship, as I am here to relieve the captain of his duties—"

 "That is not necessary, Miss."

 "—on military orders, Ambassador." Your grin continues to stretch as you gauge the state of the bridge. It is severely lacking in terms of soldiers, which is good for you on multiple fronts, but the ambassador before you is proving to be more difficult than you first anticipated.

 "Well, that is quite unfortunate then, seeing as I will never have a woman command my ship even if on supposed "military orders". Which division did you say you were from?" The ambassador is too much of a skeptic; he must be old enough to have witnessed – perhaps even taken part in – the First Military Revolt in 2143 when the first female Fleet Admiral was inaugurated, but you don't have time to argue politics with an old man.

 "I'm afraid you don't have a choice, Ambassador. It's military orders, whether you like it or not. We are beyond the days of sexist remarks about women commandeering ships, are we not?" You bite out. The smile on your lips falters a bit, and the older man's gaze hardens on you. 

 "Where are your papers? I need proof of your purpose here, as well as a written record of your orders." 

 One hand slips down your thigh, brushing the holster where your pistol sits, but you bring it back up upon second thought. 

 "Papers were not given, sir. The HMS Revenge is less than 50 thousand megameters from Eros and as such, my commander did not think it necessary to send me out with papers." You bring your hands behind your back to resist the urge of putting a bullet between the ambassador's eyes, clasping them tightly and glaring at the grey-haired man before you. Whether he believes your words or not is unimportant, because he can't seem to stay focused on the topic at hand anyways.

 "Where is your seal? What rank are you? Your division? The name of your commander so that I can have a word with him once we dock on Eros again?"

 "I am wearing my seal, sir, along with my uniform. As for your other questions, I believe that if it were a man standing before you, you would ask nothing of him, Ambassador. Thus I do not feel inclined to answer any of your questions." The old man's eyes rake over your form, and once again, you feel your fingers itching to reach for your pistol as he stares. Biting down hard on the tip of your tongue, you push the desire back and grin back at the man. The uniform you're currently wearing fits awkwardly – baggy at the shoulders and waist, along with sleeves that keep falling past your wrists when you let go of them, and overall it's a bit obvious that the uniform did not originally belong to you. The excuse you can think of on the spot is that you were given a recycled uniform, but considering how stubborn and skeptical Ambassador Salvadore is, you don't think you'll be able to slip through with that lie.

 "Your uniform looks like it was taken from the garbage," the man states, confirming your concerns. You sigh then open your mouth to retort but he cuts you off before you have the chance. "You are one soddy excuse for a pirate, girl. One woman against an entire crew? A fool's errand if anything. Not at all some grand heist."

 "I am not a pirate," you spit back between gritted teeth. "I am merely here on military business. Nothing more, nothing less."

 "You see, Miss, that is actually not true. You cannot be here on military business because I would've been informed beforehand. No one elected to inform me of a change in the captainship, however. Thus, you must either be a pirate of another sort of criminal." The man takes a few steps forward, risking to be within a couple feet of you now, and you note the lack of weapon on him. He walks with a slight limp, no doubt a bummed knee from early military days that he never had surgery on, and his left foot drags a bit along the floor as he walks over. "Besides, your face looks quite familiar, Miss. Have I seen you on a bounty paper before?"

 "I highly doubt that," you whisper. Eyes dare to meet yours, and you pass a sinister smirk his way before uttering your next words. "I make a note to not leave anyone alive once they've seen me." His eyes widen. 

 "Grab her!"

 You bring your hand to your holster with the intention to use the weapon this time, but somehow the man is quicker. Well, his men are quicker. One comes from behind you – the guard who brought you to the bridge when you boarded – and another comes from your right, grabbing your arm before you have the chance to pull out your gun.

 "Cute trap, ambassador. Think of it all by yourself?" 

 "In fact, I did. Didn't take much thought since all pirates are the same."

 "This is a mistake, ambassador. You really don't want to be doing this, I promise. And I'll remind you again: I am not a pirate." You don't waste your time struggling against the grip of the men around your arms. Instead, you glare at the old man in front of you as though it'll get you out of this predicament faster. You get what you asked for, just not in the way you were wanting or expecting. The cool touch of a gun barrel finds your temple.

 "Then you're a fugitive. Or a criminal. A pirate is no different. You all bleed the same, so there's no point in making useless distinctions."

 "You bleed the same too, ambassador."

 "Kill her." 

 You brace yourself for the worst, hoping at least for a swift and painless death, but it doesn't come right away. The ground quakes underneath you, then everything jerks for a moment. In a split second, the lights dim and flash red, sirens begin to wail throughout the bridge, and you spot the captain scrambling to return to his post. The ship wobbles, and as it does, your captors lose their balance. You seize the moment, yanking your limbs from their grasp and slamming the back of your head against the man behind you. A sickening crunch follows along with a scream of pain. The man on your left is already beginning to recover his balance so you have to work fast and swing your elbow against his jugular before he can fire his gun. He crumples under the attack and clutches at his throat while you swing around to deliver a similar blow to the soldier behind you as well.

 "Captain, report! What is happening?" The ambassador yells, scampering back as you grab the gun from the man beside you. 

 "I can answer that for you," you huff. Your chest heaves from the sudden burst of exertion, and you rise to your feet slowly. The ship lurches again, sending the crew careening backward, but you steady yourself by ducking down. "You're being boarded by actual pirates. And in my time in the black seas, I've only seen one crew use this boarding tactic."

 "Who? Tell me now, girl!"

 "Give me control of the ship now or you're not getting out of this mess alive," you say, taking several steps towards the ambassador.

 "Absolutely not. I would rather see this ship blown to pieces before she falls into the hands of a pirate."

 "She'll be in the hands of a pirate regardless!" You argue, and your tone grows incredulous when the old man glares at you.

 "They're pirates. They don't stand a chance against soldiers from the Royal Military," he sneers before turning on his heel and walking towards the captain. 

 "Holy fuck… it's the Scourge of the Black Sea." It's another crew member who mutters the words, gun no longer aimed at you but just past your shoulder, and you whip upon hearing the name. You had seen the Scourge's file many many times, yet none of the pictures included in it were accurate in the slightest now that you are face to face with the man. 

 Kim Hongjoong, barely older than you yet still the most notorious pirate in the galaxy. Scourge of the Black Sea, a moniker that serves him well, but seeing him before you now changes that. First of all, he's not nearly as tall as you pictured him to be. The files never shared details about his height or hair color or anything like that, but you somewhat expected the infamous Scourge of the Black Sea to be of intimidating height; however, the three men standing around him are all taller than him, although not by a drastic amount. Still, you weren't expecting the man to look as young as he does. Someone with a track record like his surely would seem much older than his profile depicts him to be. You can't call him out for his age since you are younger than him yourself but after years of expectations about what this infamous pirate would be like, you feel a bit let down. His gaze is piercing and harsh, but a gleam in his eyes shelters playfulness. Behind that sharp gaze lies dark eyes, so dark they almost seem black from the angle you're standing at. Beyond that though, you don't find yourself scared at the sight of him at all.

 He doesn't look your way, in fact, he glances past you as though you don't exist. Someone else is looking directly at you, however, and it's his gaze that redirects your focus. You don't recognize him – or the other two men with the Scourge for that matter – but he has distinct features. Cat-like eyes, upturned and wide, alongside a captivating smile that's a bit too bright for your liking. His grin is strange, but hair even stranger – a solid head of black except for one section at the front of his head cut out like a slice of pure white strands. His gaze doesn't falter, remaining locked on yours as you continue to analyze him. It's almost as though he seems to know you and who you are, a knowing quirk in his expression. 

 "More fucking pirates on my ship!" 

 You maintain a stare with the man beside the Scourge rather than turning to look back at the ambassador again.

 "Now, now..." Hongjoong cuts through the terse silence across the bridge, voice booming throughout the room with little effort. He takes one, then two steps forward, the jacket around his shoulders sweeping back with the movement. It's only two steps, and yet you feel the intimidating aura radiating off of the man in those small movements. "All I want is what's in the cargo hold. Give me what I want, and I'll spare your men."

 "Open fire soldiers!"

 "I guess we're gonna do this the hard way then," Hongjoong mutters as the soldiers scattered throughout the bridge raise their weapons. That's your cue to duck out of the way. As fascinating as the boy with cat-like features may be, you would rather not be riddled with bullets because you were too focused on staring at him. You have no doubts that the Scourge would shoot right through you, and you're going to have to move fast to get what you're wanting without trouble from him. You push forward, running directly at a soldier off to your left, then the gunfire begins to ring in your ears along with the alarm. 

 It doesn't take much effort to wrestle the gun from its owner. One swift kick to the side of his knee and a fist to his nose suffices, and the weapon falls into your hands. You slam the butt of the gun against his cheekbone, not waiting for him to fall to the floor before you're pushing past him to get into the captain's cabin. 

 "Fucking hell," you curse under your breath when the door snaps shut behind you. 

 Gunfire and alarms still ring outside the door. You aren't sure how long the gunfire is going to last, but your getaway ship leaves when it's over meaning that you need to move quickly. Papers are strewn all across the captain's desk, but the ones you're looking for won't be lying about. You drop the rifle to the desk and squat down to be eye level with the drawers, clicking the first open. 

 "Where are you?" You mutter to yourself as you file through the mess in the drawers. Digging to the back, your fingers close around a bundle of papers. You yank them forward, seeing a neat red ribbon tied around the middle along with a wax seal placed directly over the thread. It bears the Royal Insignia of Eros. You sigh at the sight, one finger trails over the ridges of the wax, and you read the words across the front to yourself. "Papers of Free Travel and Safe Conduct. Signed by the king." A small, raspy laugh escapes your lips. Despite the chaos of gunfire and alarms blaring around you, you can't help but feel a wave of calm wash over you.

 "Put the papers down, pirate." You glance up, eyes fixating on the door, and spot the ambassador glaring you down. You tuck the letters into your shirt, your free hand gliding across the desk to grab for the rifle you set down. 

 "Sorry old man. I'm leaving with these papers. It doesn't matter whether you're dead or alive to me." You lift the rifle and point it at the man's head without hesitation. "Cross me, Ambassador Salvadore. You won't live to see the end of it."

 "The papers or your life," he spits back, shakily lifting his own pistol. Perhaps you were wrong about his endeavors in the military previously, or maybe he's just that terrified of you. 

 "Did you misunderstand me? Step aside. The pirates with the Scourge already killed all your men, didn't they? My guess is they're on the way to the cargo hold and plan to kill every soldier along the way. Do you want to join the corpses?" You let the gun slip down a little. The ambassador quakes under your movements but shakes his head once you finish speaking. "Then step aside."

 He does as told, moving away from the door as you keep your gun trained on him. You don't dare look away from him, too wary of him being trigger happy or trying to jump you once you get closer to the door. The cool touch of metal hits your back, and you feel around for the touchpad beside the door. 

 "Why are you doing this?" He asks once you lower your gun.

 "I want my freedom. I don't care what I have to do to get it."

 "So you're going to kill me anyway then?"

 "No. I'll leave that for the Scourge. They say he doesn't take prisoners." You turn away, slamming your palm against the door control. As it slides open, you pass one last glance to your dear ambassador. Eyes stretch wide as he lifts his pistol again, and you're forced to duck away as best you can. Either you're too slow or he's too quick. The resounding echo of a pistol shot follows, and you barely register that you've just been hit until a burning sensation sears through your right arm. If not for the adrenaline coursing through your veins, you would be crumpled on the ground in pain. It's a good thing for that too because you don't have much time to sneak aboard your getaway ship. 

 The ambassador doesn't follow you out, and you don't stop to check your wound before darting after the trail of dead bodies. 

 "Shit shit shit," you hiss under your breath. Warm blood begins to trickle down your arm, making the fabric of your ill-fitting uniform cling to your skin. If your studies of Kim Hongjoong's tactics are correct, he should've docked his ship along the corridor to the ballistics bay, and your studies must be accurate because there is one living person near the end of the corridor. Guarding the docking station. With a gun. Just your luck. 

 "Hongjoong, there's a—" You chuck your rifle at him, catching the man off guard, and he stumbles back to dodge your weak attack. Killing him would be foolish and far too suspicious, but you're doomed in hand to hand combat with a gunshot wound in your dominant arm. "Fuck. There's a girl here, she's—" You cut him off again, sweeping a foot under his and bringing him to the floor. His gun clatters to the side. You bring your left hand down in attempts to punch him, but he catches you by the wrist before you can make contact. The fabric of your sleeve slides a bit, you panic, and with frantic movements, you try to pull out of his grasp. The two of you freeze where you are and merely stare at each other for a moment. Then he grabs for his gun again, whipping a leg up to rail you in the side. You hiss at the impact but manage to kick his gun away before he can grab hold of it. 

 "Seonghwa? Seonghwa, repeat." The voice comes from the man's form, no doubt the wristband that glows as the audio comes through. You scramble for your pistol, crying out in pain as your muscles flex at the spot of your wound, but manage to bring the butt of the gun against the man's temple before he has the chance to respond to his captain. "Seonghwa. Are you there? I repeat, are you there?" 

 You sit up, a slight stumble in your steps as you get back to your feet. The man – Seonghwa, most likely – doesn't move, but you can see the staggered rhythm of his breaths as his chest heaves. He'll get away with a headache and minor concussion at best, which is better than being dead for certain.

 "Shit." The voice crackles through Seonghwa's wristband, and you can barely hear it over the still-blaring alarms in the ship. "Yeosang, come in. Go check up on Seonghwa. Kill anyone in your way. We aren't here to make friends." You step over the man's unconscious body, glancing into the ship on the other side. 

 "Cargo bay, cargo bay. Surely you have signs on your ship, Scourge," you mutter as you step onto the foreign spaceship. "Can't be much different than a military ship, right?" You slip your pistol back into its holster, right hand still dancing over the grip despite the pain radiating from that arm. The adrenaline is beginning to wear off, and the more you walk the more you feel the pain. Thankfully, the ship is smaller than anticipated. It's only a short trip to reach the cargo bay, no elevators either, which surprises you. You had initially imagined that the infamous Scourge of the Black Sea would have a ship that's a bit more difficult to sneak onto and carry stowaways, but perhaps you overestimated him.

 The cargo bay is littered with boxes. Some are stacked all the way to the ceiling, while others remain strewn about, all evenly spaced. Despite the volume of boxes, there isn't much space left in the bay. No doubt, they'll decide to make port on one of the trading planets soon to sell off all the stolen cargo, meaning that you'll be able to escape then. Hopefully with relative ease too because otherwise, you're going to be trapped on the ship of one of the most merciless pirates in the galaxy. 

 Slipping between the rows of boxes, your gaze trails over each label. Guns, ammunition, meats, produce, textiles, spices, crafting tools – there seems to be a box for every object in existence. You pause beside a box labeled fabrics and thumb at the clasps, clicking them open to reveal the contents. It's only about half full of spools, more than plenty enough room for you to fit inside, and it would be marginally more comfortable than a crate full of guns. You glance around the cargo bay first, eyes scanning the walls and ceiling for any signs of cameras before you duck into the crate. 

 It's a tight fit, a bit too cramped for comfort, but of course, comfort isn't a luxury you can afford to bitch about at the moment. The searing pain radiating from your right arm is a bigger concern, especially considering that it is getting worse and worse with each passing moment. You bring a finger to your arm, feeling around for an exit wound on the opposite side; however, you can't find one despite all your prodding. Meaning that the bullet is still lodged in your arm.

 "Fucking shit," you curse under your breath. Your arm falls to the bed of fabrics limply. One fucking ambassador with a shaky hand is not going to send you to your grave because of a damn bullet in your arm, and you'd sooner tear the bullet out with your own fingers.

 "Deliver the boxes here!" The sudden intrusion of voices stops your fingers from reaching for the wound, however, and you instead press your left palm over the wound in attempts to slow the bleeding. "If you're done getting beat up by soldiers, that is." The voice no doubt belongs to the Scourge, but the next one is less familiar. 

 "She wasn't a fucking soldier. I told you that." A grunt follows along with the thud of something heavy. It takes a few moments for you to realize that the "she" is, in fact, you, and the person Hongjoong is speaking to must be the man you clobbered at the docking station. "No way she was military. She had a uniform but when we were fighting, I caught her arm and there were chains branded on the inside of her wrist." Your eyes widen despite only seeing darkness around you. Subconsciously, you tighten your grip around your wound, the image of chains branded onto your skin the only thing you can see. 

 "You still got your ass handed to you."

 "Yeah well, maybe she ought to join the crew since she's able to kick my ass."

 "Why would a military traitor be of any use to me?" Silence answers the question, and Hongjoong continues speaking, his clear voice ringing loudly in your ears as though he's right next to you. "Who says that military traitor won't betray me too?"

 "I don't recall you saying that about our dear Royal Betrayer when he joined the crew. Besides, a prejudice against the military does not equal a prejudice against any sort of leadership."

 "Oh, is that so? Would you like to go back onto that ship and get her? If you're so adamant about her joining my crew, why don't you do that?"

 "No sir. I wouldn't like to do that. I am merely trying to be logical. We've lost over half our crew in the past two months, either due to death or desertion. Hongjoong, you really need to consider bringing mo—"

 "You need to consider your position on this ship," Hongjoong cuts in, voice dropping in volume and turning to venom. "You are Lieutenant, not Captain. I am the Captain. Is that not clear?"

 "Crystal clear."

 "I will consider bringing more crewmates in when I deem it necessary. Understood?"

 "Yes, Captain. It was merely a suggestion. Nothing else." Quiet falls between the men, air so tense you could cut it with a knife even from your position in this crate. "What of the survivors, Captain?"

 "Kill them all. Destroy the ship as well. I don't want to see a single trace of the HMS Revenge. We got what we needed. Nothing else matters." 

 You shift and twist in the crate, trying to adjust into a more comfortable position only to slam your arm against the side of the wood. A sharp hiss escapes your lips before you can stop it. Teeth sink into your lower lip as you attempt to contain the sound but the damage is already done. 

 There's silence outside the crate.

 Your heart thrums loud, erratic beats against your eardrums.

 Two seconds meld into five, then ten seconds pass in silence. You hear no sounds of movement, no scraping of shoes or thumps of boots. 

 "You don't have to do this, Hongjoong," the second voice speaks at last. "As you said, we got what we needed. We can just leave now."

 "I do have to do this, Seonghwa. If I don't kill a man every now and then, no one fears me."

 "What of the trail of corpses aboard that ship right now? Is that not enough fear for you? Do you think their families and friends wait at home afraid of you?”

 "I gave you an order, Lieutenant."

 "Yes, Captain." Footsteps resound, the clanking of boots against metal flooring, and the sound grows fainter until you can't hear anything except the thud of your heartbeat in your ears and the rasps of your breath. You don't risk lifting the lid of the crate yet, not until you're absolutely certain that the two men have left the cargo hold. You lie in the darkness, listening to nothing except the faint sounds of your own breathing for god knows how long. 

 When you finally creak the lid open, there is only more darkness surrounding you. The lights throughout the cargo bay are dimmed, leaving you to feel your way around the crate to little avail. The blood on your hand has grown sticky from the length of time you've been lying there but at least the steady flow of blood has subsided to a slow trickle. You grab at one of the spools of fabric in your new home. Tearing a long strip of the material off, you try your best to bandage the wound without being able to see it or have both hands to do so. It's awkward and shitty, no doubt barely a knot keeping it together, but it's just enough pressure to alleviate some of the blood flow. 

 The steady loss of blood has left you dizzy. You crawl back into the crawl with heavy limbs, barely able to close the lid back just enough so that you can still breathe some fresh air. Time seems to stretch on forever, the darkness simultaneously keeping you up and helping you fall into slumber. You finally slip into sleep between the throbbing pain in your right arm and the stinging memory of a hot brand being pressed against the inside of your left wrist, along with the words "filthy fucking traitor". You fall asleep with one hand resting over the place where you tucked the stolen papers into your shirt, the folds of the letters easing your worries enough to let you sleep.

✧  ✧  ✧

a/n: on god, y'all are probably like pleASE calypso no more series istg you don't have the tiME but oh well i may not have the time but i've got the enthusiasm :D ((jk pls don't scalp me i'm just trying to have fun here)) but also hello hello thank you for reading!!! i really hope you all enjoyed it and please let me know what you think of it and feel free to send an ask if you have any questions/feedback/just overall love for me bc i’m really anxious to know what you all think!!!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

[peachyteabuck]

trouble looks for me [thorkyrie x reader]

summary: valkyrie has no choice but to break a promise, so you have no choice but to misbehave. thor, well, he’s just along for the ride.

pairing: thor odinson x valkyrie x reader

words: 6,666

trigger warnings: sub!thor, brat taming, spanking, degradation, orgasm denial, creampies, strap ons

ask box / masterlist / commission info / ko-fi

It starts at the restaurant. Valkyrie had been working non-stop to fit in everything she had needed before the end of the fiscal year, leaving you and Thor with her for weeks on end.

In combination with Valkyrie’s strict rules, this also meant you and Thor had touched each other, let alone made each other cum since…Oh god, you can’t even remember…

You’d both gotten a text from her that day, telling you to get ready for a fancy dinner and that she would pick you up at precisely seven.

That left you with five hours to get ready which, to some may have been a lot, but for you…

As with most men, Thor doesn’t take long to get ready – even if it took him a solid forty-five minutes to choose the correct pair of panties (he settles on a baby pink pair with a small, white bow. By the time he was tucking his pristine white shirt into them, you were just finishing up your eyebrows and foundation – let alone had you picked your outfit.

You had narrowed it down to three dresses – a deep blue, thigh-length long-sleeved one with a deep V-neck and makes your legs look superb, a little black dress with tiny straps that leave nothing to the imagination, or a baby pink, floor-length gown with a fitted top that shows off your shoulders and tits and whose skirt flows behind you just as waves recede from a beach at dusk.

(It doesn’t take you long to choose that last one, to say the least. Plus, it matches Thor’s panties. How couldn’t you choose that dress! How!?)

You gingerly place it on the bed as you go back to your bright vanity, placing your numerous eyeshadow pallets and lipstick choices in front of you so you have an accurate view of your make up-related choices for the night. You’ve done looks like this before, played the cute, coy girl many times. Still, you like to make sure everything is perfect – the eyeliner and the eye shadow and your brows and your lips and your highlighter. It all has to be perfectly placed on your face to ensure maximum balance between “totally gorgeous” and “totally fuckable.”

It was ten minutes to the approximate time Val had said she’d pick you up when you’re notified of what could possibly be the worst news ever.

Hey loves, so sorry but a colleague needs some more convincing on a budget proposal. He’ll be joining us tonight for dinner.

You groan loudly, but immediately cease when you receive another text.

That means you both need to be on your best behavior.

You smirk as you go back to adjusting the bracelet Val had gotten you during your vacation to Boca last year. No matter what, no matter who joined you and your lovers, tonight was going to be fun, and whether or not this a blew back in your face was not a problem.

Well, at least not your problem, and at least not now.

You finish getting ready with the fire of vengeance deep in your stomach, jaw set and eyes narrowed as you get the text from Valkyrie saying she was outside waiting with your dishonorable guest (your words, not hers).

You greeted the older man with a curt nod bordering on polite. Luckily, he pays more attention to Thor, moving to shake his hand despite the award angle.

If it were any other context you’d spit in his face, make a passive aggressive comment, something more than all but ignore him as you cross your arms and slump against the fancy leather seating with a small huff. Either Valkyrie pretends not to notice, or she’s too busy allowing Thor to work his patented charms to watch your every move.

Either way, it makes your sour mood that much worse.

The car ride is long, meant originally so that Val could tease you and Thor while she drove (and because all of the closer restaurants may or may not have you banned for life, but that feels like an unimportant detail as you huff and pout in the back of the car). The ride, one you fully expected to be electrifying and fun and full of very unsubtle teasing, is mind-numbingly boring. Valkyrie and the Mystery Man are talking about numbers and other things you don’t care about, the former obviously trying to keep her cool as a man who thinks he knows more than her attempts to explain something she has a master’s degree in. You’re sure that if she could channel you during a particularly bad day to scream and claw at him she would, but no. She’s a professional woman at the top of her field attempting to expertly yield power. For Valkyrie, there is no lashing out; there is no way to regain control once she loses it.

Part of you respects her immensely for this: you acutely know what it’s like to be belittled and demeaned by people who should know better. She’s a bisexual woman of color in a predominately white, male field. Her job is hard, dealing with the men she works with harder. You and Thor listen diligently to her post-work day rants and desire for revenge, help her destress in any number of ways. This part of you wants to snap his neck so he never bothers her again, taking your rightful place as the devil forever keeping watch over her shoulder.

The other part of you wants to snap his neck so that he would leave you and your lovers the fuck alone. Is it too much to ask that you have a nice dinner with Valkyrie and Thor – a dinner where the only thing that could mess with the night’s activities is you!?

As you listen to the man explain what a “tight job market” is again, you wish you could bang your head against the tinted, bulletproof glass so hard you would pass out.

Yes. You think. Yes, it is much too much to ask.

It’s not even thirty seconds later when you get the most magnificent idea. Thor’s not paying attention to you, either, watching the world pass by outside as he thinks about…whatever it is runs through his mind when he’s trying to block out people’s voices.

You wait for the conversation to become loud and thick with tension to strike – knowing neither of the people in the front seat will be paying much attention to whatever it is will happen between you and him. When the time is right, you run your hand over his clothed cock, skin alive with electricity as you feel it twitch.

“You shouldn’t tease me like that,” he hisses low in your ear. “It’ll get you in trouble.”

You just smiled, painted lips twisting into a faux pout and big eyes widening purposefully. “You promise?”

You continue to tease him, sneaking your hand into his pants just to hear his breath hitch. You lean once more, just as your fingers brush over his lace-covered cock.

“I’m getting wet just thinking about you,” you whisper. “Thinking about you coming in your pants before this fancy dinner.”

“If you do that, I’ll cum,” Thor growls lowly, desperate to keep it from Val’s ears.

You smile just as before, leaning close so your perfectly painted lips touch the shell of his ear. “Is that a dare?”

He narrows his eyes at you, trying to remain subtle as Val and the unexpected guest talk about break evens, or something equally boring.

“Seriously, you could get in trouble if you keep doing that!” he whispers, voice pointed.

You just look at him, eyes ablaze with mischief. “Oh, so it’s a challenge.”

Thor just glares at you before turning to look back outside, biting his lip and trying to find a distraction as your hands go down his pants. “Does it make you hard,” you whisper back. “knowing I could do anything I want to you right now? Does is make you hard knowing there’s nothing you can do to stop me?”

Thor’s jaw tenses, but he says nothing back.

“C’mon,” you tease. “Don’t you want to have a little fun with me?”

He shakes his head but says nothing. You huff, baring your teeth a little while you stare daggers into him.

Thor only speaks when Valkyrie’s tone becomes pointed once more, easily covering his own voice. “S-she’ll catch us!” he hisses.

You roll your eyes, fully aware there’s no way either of the people he’s talking about how any interest in either of you. They’re both stubborn, bullheaded, determined to win whatever standoff is happening between the two of them. To consider that they would just turn around to check on you or Thor is ridiculous, to say the least.

There’s no reason they’d look back and see you with one hand down Thor’s pants, the other spread across his thigh; there’s no chance they’d see his eyes screwed shut and his lips barely parted or your wicked grin.

Still, you fun is cut short when the restaurant pulls into view, making you wretch yourself away from Thor while he tucked himself back into his pants and tried to calm the deep blush that had spread across his face. It’s useless, though, because as Valkyrie hands the keys to the valet neither she nor the unwanted guest take a single look at you.  

You roll your eyes as you’re seated at a rounded table in a far corner of the restaurant, you and Thor on one side with Valkyrie and her colleague on the other.

It’s annoying, so annoying. Watching her pay attention to that man, that fucking colleague instead of you. She promised – she promised! – that all of it would be over, that her deadline and goals were going to be met and done and finished and she’d put away her work life for one night to pay attention to you!

(And Thor. But whatever.)

She and the…male…are talking in that tone you recognize from those mind-numbing political dramas Val loves so much. It’s nice, courteous, but fake enough to be sold on Canal Street and threatening enough that it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up straight.

Needless to say, you don’t like it very much, don’t like it very much at all. You have this indescribable urge to use your perfectly done, almond shaped matte nails to claw into his face – marking him for all to see how easily he was taken down by little ole you.

A similar itty bitty voice wants to fake a medical emergency and order an UberX and to get as far away from him as possible and then fake a slightly more extreme medical emergency every other time you are forced to be around him. There’s just something…slimey about him that you can’t place, like cooked chicken that’s gone bad. It makes you wrinkle your nose each time you have the misfortune of catching him in your eyeline. Thor notices, his face softening as he takes a drink from his glass of ice water.

“You see it, too?” he asks, ducking his head low so to remain unheard by the slimeball in question.

You wrinkle your nose, angling your neck back to whisper in his ear. “I can feel it.”

Thor lets out a small snort before turning back to his first course. You don’t know what he ordered, and don’t care to pick at what Val ordered for you. It becomes obvious halfway through Val’s salad that neither of them – neither of the high powered people in front of you – are paying you any mind. The coworker asks Thor what he does for a living and he’s given the usual lie, that Thor’s a grad student. He doesn’t ask you anything, only giving you a once over before licking his lips and taking a long drink of his expensive red wine.

If you ever wanted to kill someone, right then was the peak of those urges.

It doesn’t take long for you to become a tad more comfortable, a tad of tenseness falling from your shoulders. Almost worse than being uncomfortable, you had become bored. And that, simply, will not do.

The easiest target, Thor, remains unphased by your change in demeanor – either not noticing or choosing not to react. It doesn’t matter his reasoning, you know he’s simple, uncomplicated prey. If the years you’ve known him hadn’t proved that, the incident in the car certainly did.

The next hour or so passes in a blur, the man leaving just before dessert; citing some work emergency or needing to get back to his wife and kids or something else you don’t care to pay attention to (though you do notice he doesn’t offer to pay his portion of the check. Even Valkyrie seems annoyed about that). He’s waved away with a curt goodbye, tense words of rehearsed professionalism exchanged as he waits for his UberX to arrive. It’s uncomfortable to say the least, and you silently rejoice when he finally exits the building.

The second he’s out of sight, though, you’re grabbed by the back of your neck and dragged so your nose touches Val’s.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” she hisses, teeth bared and jaw tense.

You’re stunned by the action, but not enough to not give her a small, wicked smile along with a small, “no.”

Just as Valkyrie’s about to retaliate, the waiter comes around the corner to deliver the dessert menu. She lets go of you immediately, pretending (just as the scrawny waiter is) that no one witnessed the interaction as the waiter begins to rattle off the night’s specials. The three of you choose something different with the same fake smile plastered over your face, one that drops the second he returns to…wherever it is waiters and waitresses go once they’re done talking to customers.

Val turns to you once more, grabbing your knee through the fabric of your dress – a warning. “Just you fucking wait until we get home. If you keep being a brat, you’ll regret it.”

You don’t respond, instead taking a sip of your ice water in a cup that’s one step down from a wine glass. You’re exactly where you want to be, why would you apologize, try to walk back your actions or plead for forgiveness? Now that Valkyrie was giving you the attention you were playing for, there was nothing you felt the need to explain.

The rest of the meal is nice, easy – you all ordered different desserts and pass spoonfuls of each dish between the three of you. It’s nice and sweet, a direct contrast to the sharpness Val had demonstrated just minute before. All three of you continue in your happy little bubble all the way home, cute and smiling and confusing the old heterosexual couples in the restaurant as you sit and leave together.

It all melts away, though, when you get inside the house.

The second you cross the threshold; Val grabs you by the arm and pulls you close to her. You yelp, more in surprise than pain – either way, she ignores you.

“Get your ass in the bedroom and stand at your place, facing the corner, while I wait for you,” she hisses, teeth barred. You whimper when she pushes you away, stumbling up the steps as you scutter off. You fear if you stay or so much as mumble a dissent, she’ll issue a much harsher punishment than the one she’s already planning. Given the anger in her face, you shudder at the thought.

Thor remains just inside the door, hands at his side and awaiting instruction.

Val only turns to him when you were out of sight. He stands there, cock hardening once more in his dress pants while her eyes bear into his.

One of her hands goes to cup his cheek, thumbing over his light stubble. “How are you so well-behaved and she’s like that?”

Thor just gives a small shrug before following the woman he loves up the stairs, trailing behind her as she navigates the prime wood floors despite her high heels and sour mood.

When she arrives in the room she exhales slowly through her nose, not necessarily happy to find you in the place she specified – but at least she hasn’t been disappointed once more tonight.

“Turn around,” she instructs you. You huff and cross your arms over your chest but do as you’re told. “Now, watch what could happen to you if you chose to behave.”

Valkyrie goes to unlock the special drawer at the top of her custom dresser, the solid gold key held on an anklet she wears all day every day. From it she takes Thor’s special collar – the deep blue one with solid white trimmings and PROPERTY OF BRUNNHILDE engraved into a small placard that rests in the center.

Thor accepts the mark of ownership[ with ease and it makes you want to roll your eyes. He’s always one to give in easy, who lives to be dominated. At the first sign of Valkyrie’s dominance, he opens his mouth eagerly for a gag, wiggles his ass for spankings, tilts his neck back to be choked. It’s pathetic, and Val loves it.

“Aw, I’ve barely touched you,” she smiles. “Why are you already opening your mouth, you needy thing.”

Thor just whines high in his throat, pleading up at her as he keeps his position on the floor. He wasn’t asked a question so he can’t respond, can’t speak – all he can do is sit there and hope she takes pity on him and gives him whatever it is he wants, needs.

For now, though, she’s got something more pressing to deal with. She sighs before turning to you in the corner, your nose pressed where the two white walls meet with arms at your side. Below your feet is a light pink mat demarking where you are supposed to be, where Val makes sure you stay when you’re waiting to be punished. If you had done something less bad you might have been able to face outward, but no. Not only had you behaved incredibly poorly, you had dragged Thor into your pitiful little game.

Thor – Val’s golden boy. He’s the apple of her eye, the sun after a storm. Thor’s always good, always perfect; always follows rules and does the right thing and never, ever talks back. He’s always her first pick as a plus-one for parties because he’s so wonderful and charming and can make any man or woman or pet fall head over heels for him. He’s like a fucking golden retriever and you hate him for it.

The worst part about that special, untouched crystal tchotchke of a man is that you’re never allowed touch him, to smudge him with the oil that pools on the pads of your fingers. Each time you see him – all shiny and new like a Tiffany bracelet just out of the packaging – you feel like a child dragged to a fancy art museum, forced to keep her hands in her pockets as adults gaze at timeless works of art.

It infuriates you, and she knows that.

Valkyrie pushes you down to the ground, teeth barred. “Get on your knees and keep your hands behind you, you stupid slut.”

You do as you’re told, bratty façade breaking away.

“Aw, look,” Valkyrie coos to Thor, sarcasm dripping from each word. “Our dumb little whore can follow directions! Isn’t that surprising?”

Thor, always one to follow directions, says nothing in return.

Valkyrie hmms happily at his obedience before turning back to you.

“Are you nervous, baby girl?” she asks. You nod slightly. “You should be. You’ve been a very bad little slut.”

Silently, one hand moves to cradle one side of your jaw, while the other pulls back just to land on your cheek in a sharp SLAP!

You cry out at the sharp pain but still squeeze your thighs together to quell the deep heat in your center.

Valkyrie laughs, lips forming into a sneer. “Just a little pain is getting that little pussy wet, isn’t it?”

Your mouth goes off faster than your brain can process. “I’m still turned on from fucking with your baby boy in the restaurant bathroom.”

SMACK!

Valkyrie slaps the other cheek, speaking over your cries of pain. “If I hit harder, will you be a good girl?”

You cower, too terrified to respond.

“Hm…” Valkyrie hums, unimpressed. “Do you like being punished?” she asks, looking down at you with har arms crossed.

You shake your head.

Val just smirks. “So if I checked right now, you wouldn’t be wet?”

You gulp and cast your eyes downward. Still, she continues.

“You’re such a fucking brat,” she spits. “Do you even know why?”

She doesn’t wait for a nonresponse before continuing.

“It’s because deep down you’re just waiting for someone to put you in your fucking place.”

You gulp, but don’t deny it.

“Stand up,” Val hisses, watching as you struggle to get to your feet. As soon as you’re back on your feet she strips you, taking off your dress and then your shoes, leaving you in your lingerie.

Doesn’t even take the time to notice you matching Thor…she really is pissed.

“Spoiled little slut,” Valkyrie hisses. “You just need someone with a firm hand to teach you a fuckin’ lesson, don’t you?”

You swallow, petrified. “I’m sorry.”

Val raises a single eyebrow, but keeps her arms folded. A small victory. “You’re sorry?”

You nod. “Yes.”

She narrows her eyes. “Sorry what?”

“Sorry-“you hesitate, terrified of saying the wrong thing.

“Daddy,” Valkyrie instructs.

“Sorry, Daddy,” you mumble.

She narrows her eyes once more and you scramble to correct your mistake.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” you say, straightening your back to enable you to look her dead in the eyes. “I’m sorry for being bad, Daddy.”

Valkyrie just hmms, tapping her foot against the hardwood  floor. “You know that alone isn’t going to convince me to forgive you, right?”

You cower away from her, shaking your head. “No, Daddy.”

“Well,” she sighs, looking to Thor – who just gives her a light shrug, just as before. Like most men, he never knows what to do with you. “I’ll just have to take you over my knee, won’t I?”

You gulp. Over the knee always lead to something more – something worse. You’re terrified to find out what that might be.

Val sits herself on the bed, gesturing for you to lay yourself across her thighs. You give her a sneer but do as you’re told, laying your naked body across her legs as you wait for your punishment to officially commence.

She runs her perfectly manicured nails over the supple skin of your ass and back, watching as goosebumps form and a shiver runs up your spine. One hand rests on the back of your neck, holding you in place, while the other ghosts over your center.

When you whine, harsh slaps are laid against your ass, at least ten in quick succession. She ignores your cries as she yanks your head back by your hair as she sneers.

“You brats just love trying to get under my skin, but the moment I tease you, suddenly I’m the bad guy?” Valkyrie laughs while staring down at you. “Don’t act like you’re not getting exactly what you wanted, baby.”

For the first time that night, you bite your tongue and stay quiet.

“So now she wants to listen,” Val smirks. “Now the little brat wants to shut her filthy whore mouth and open her little ears.”

You whimper, curling into her as she continues to spank you until your ass is burning. Tears are threatening to fall from the corners of your eyes when she stops, pushing you off of her and back onto the floor.

“Enough punishment for you,” Val says, turning back to Thor. “I’m gonna focus my attention on someone who actually deserves it.”

The man in question remains in position across the room – him leaning on his heels with hands palm-down on his deliciously thick, bare thighs.

Fuck, what you wouldn’t do to ride him.

Valkyrie cups his scruffy cheeks with one hand, the other moving to run through his perfectly tussled hair.

“You wanna be my good little whore?” she asks, gazing down at his wide eyes.

Thor licks his lips, nearly jumping out of his skin with his red cock bouncing against his stomach. “Yes, Daddy. I want to be your good little whore.”

“And you’re going to be a good boy and do as you’re told. Aren’t you?” she asks, smiling as she watches him fight back a moan.

“Yes, Daddy.”

Valkyrie smiles, cooing. “See? It’s not that hard to be good, is it?” She lets out a faux sigh, tutting. “I don’t understand why some sluts just can’t get it into their dumb little brains that it’s better to behave.”

Neither of you say anything, the silence heavy; you have nothing to say, no retort at the tip of your tongue. Your whole being is zero-d in on Val as she instructs Thor to shed her of her black, lace panties – but not before making him leave a kiss there.

“You’re going to eat me out,” she says, backing up against the wall. “But remember, you’re not allowed to touch me unless I tell you. And good little whores do as they’re told, isn’t that right?”

You can see Thor swallow around his heavy tongue, eyes blown with lust. “Yes, Daddy. Good little whores follow instructions.”

Valkyrie just smiles. “Good boy. You may begin.”

Thor dives between her thighs without hesitation, Valkyrie moaning unabashedly as he licks at her clit, drinking her juices like nectar from a forbidden fruit.

“Is it turning you on?” Valkyrie laughs as you whine from your place across the room. “Watching my boy eat me out against a wall?”

You gulp and nod best you can, desperate to please.

“Good girls don’t like this kind of stuff,” she says, lips curled into a fake smile. “But you’re not a good girl, are you?”

You’re nearly shaking as she moans, pressing her center further against his face.

As soon as he’s given permission Thor throws one of her legs over his shoulder as he spreads her folds with one hand and grips her hip with the other.

“Aren’t you a good little slut,” Val murmurs, pushing Thor’s hair from his face.

He moans, eyes screwed shut. His hand leaves her hip to push one, two fingers into her. “Yes, Daddy, I’m your slut.”

Val’s own screams are broken, loud – he’s excellent with his hands and finds that spot inside of her easily, coaxing her to her peak with ease. As she comes down from her high, panting, Thor looks up from her legs, silently begging for praise with glazed-over eyes.

She grants it to him when she catches her breath, rewarding him with sweet low words that melt like butter on Thor’s golden skin.

“Such a pretty boy for me, aren’t you?” she coos. “So well-behaved for your Daddy, so good at following instructions and making Daddy feel good.”

You growl silently from your place on the floor as praises fall easily from her lips, wishing you could get that same treatment. You know you don’t deserve it, especially after the stunt (or stunts) you pulled tonight. Still, you wish you were the one on your knees, being coddled by Valkyrie as you gave her as much pleasure as she could ever want.

Val clears her throat one last time before speaking again, legs still a little shaky. “Now, I’m going to tie you up so you can sit there, dripping, while I give my good boy whatever he wants,” she tells you, getting out the rope.

You whimper as Thor moans loudly, holding your wrists out obediently as she walks over to you.

There are times you want to push and push – but the threat of being tied up and discarded into a corner while Thor gets all the glory while you’re denied or punished (or both) further whips you right into shape. Somehow you had missed stopping at the edge, had jumped off the cliff with no parachute. So you accept your fate, wait as Val bends down to tie your wrists.

“It’s a little too tight,” you whine, flexing your hands.

“I know,” she tells you plainly. “I don’t want you running off like last time.”

By “last time” she meant one of the first times she had ever tried rope play (not only with you, but in her life). As many inexperienced riggers have undergone, she looked up mid-orgasm to find that you had wriggled your way out of your bounds and were able to get yourself off. She was mad at you, of course – wouldn’t let you live it down despite how long it had been since that night.

She was mad at herself, too, though. Valkyrie is not a woman who enjoys feeling as if she has failed, especially when it comes to you and Thor. The sight of you writhing freely on the plush carpet in pleasure instead of tightly wound while a vibrator was placed just out of reach was something Val had thought about for weeks before she had found a night with enough time for the precise execution she felt necessary.

All three of you were sitting on the floor of the bedroom. She had Thor hold you as she followed the instructions she had memorized, eyes trained on the rope as she weaved intricate, functional patterns over your skin while she tied a vibrator in place. You struggled the whole time, but Valkyrie didn’t mind. She liked it quite a lot, actually – always revels in how your will to fight never ceases but your ability slowly surrenders to whatever bonds or complex mental game she had set for you.

She was fucking Thor with the new dildo she’d bought for his birthday when she heard something she knew she shouldn’t: you, moaning. Not whimpering, not whining, but moaning. Without regard to how Thor felt about the matter she pulled out so she could see why you were making noises associated with unfettered pleasure instead of merciless teasing.

She found you, fucking yourself against the vibrator with eyes rolled to the back of your head.

Valkyrie shudders at the thought, at failing once more. For her, falling short has never been an option – in academics, in her professional life, and, now, with you.

So she checks the ropes, then rechecks them, before leaving you on the floor alone once more, allowing her to return to her other, more obedient lover with the security of knowing your arms and legs are bound.

Thor watches the woman’s every move, still on the floor but holding infinitely more freedom than you do. His eyes are glued to her form, watching her like trapped prey watches a predator as it awaits its impending death.

Then again, is Thor prey? Is he the one tied up, awaiting judgement day? Or is he the sweet little pet of some apex predator who sees the ocean floor she prowls as a playground.

“What do you want, baby boy?” Valkyie asks, trailing her perfectly painted almond-shaped nails against his chiseled chest.

Thor gulps before answering. “I, I want you to ride me, Daddy.”

Without further discussion, Val grabs him by the collar and pushes him onto the bed, practically devouring him as her lips meet his. When she pulls away Thor chases her – and is met with Valkyrie’s firm hand pressing him back onto the sheets he had changed that morning.

You can see his eyes – the helpless, dazed that washes over his face as he realizes his pinned to the sheets.

“You want me to ride you, baby boy?” she purrs, teasing him.

Thor nods and stutters out a small “please,” pulling his head back to expose his neck.

Valkyrie just chuckles, moving to bite bruises into the tender skin there, still avoiding the place he wants her the most.

The man under her moans lewdly, fingers digging into the sheets with knuckles going white.

Valkyrie lets out a small laugh when she moves away – finally able to take in the most beautiful sight she’s ever seen. This is that art piece in that museum you were bemoaning earlier, the thing she made sure you’d never damage.

When she aligns his aching cock with her center you nearly explode, desperately wishing you could be riding Thor’s face or groping Val’s tits or something that isn’t you being unable to touch either of them.

The ache between your legs only worsens as you watch Val grind her hips, as you watch Thor’s large hands grab everywhere he can.

“You want to come inside me?” she asks, breathless as she fucks herself onto your shared lover’s cock. “You want to eat your cum from inside my pretty pussy?”

Thor groans, eyes screwed shut. “P-please, please I want to-“

“Shh,” she coos, “It’s okay, baby boy. It’s okay, just do what you wish. This is your reward.”

Thor nods, whispering a slurred “thank you” before fucking into her harder, using everything he can find inside himself to chase the ultimate pleasure.

“C’mon baby,” Val coos. She’s close, you can tell by her strained voice and God all you want is to be up there, kissing her or rubbing her clit or doing anything to help her feel pleasure.

But no – you just have to watch as her stomach contracts and Thor whines at the feeling of her orgasming pussy on his close cock, babbling as he comes with a deep groan; his whole body tensing as his eyes screw shut and mouth hangs open. Even from your shitty angle on the floor you can tell how beautiful he looks, how beautiful they both look as they come together. You’re both jealous and remarkably happy – wishing you could be up there with them but thankful you’re so much as allowed to watch the other two people in your relationship.

It doesn’t take long for them both to dissolve into an overstimulated puddle, each of them trying to catch their breaths as you await the next stage of your seemingly-never ending punishment. It comes after what feels like forever, when Val nudges him to move over.

Thor lets out a frustrated groan but rolls over, leaving room for what the woman on top of him plans to do next.

Valkyrie moves to grab a toy and its matching harness from its special drawer in the walk-in closet, where each dildo is arranged in ascending order by size and girth with the harnesses. It was one of the chores Thor was made to do the morning after along with changing the sheets and restocking the water/snack minifridge that remained in arms reach of the bed. Valkyrie prefers a tidy home, one where she knows where everything is because everything is in its place.

Being the hurricane of a woman that you are, though, these moments of bliss are minuscule and fleeting – days full of shopping for clothes and trying dessert recipes you’d found online and annoying Thor by moving things just out of place.

It’s one of those little things you do that drives Val insane, one of the things that drives her to fuck you as hard as she currently wants to.

When she’s got the toy snug against her skin she stalks over to your place on the bed. You’re forced onto your back, knees forced to your chest to allow the woman on top of you easy access to your dripping center.

“Aw,” Val laughs. “You get so wet for me, don’t you?”

You nod, trying to give her your best innocent doe eyes. “Y-yes Daddy.”

Her smile reaches her temples as she enters you at an achingly slow pace, keeping you bent in half as she watches your face like an eagle watches a muskrat, as she watches your eyes roll to back of your head and you whine for more. “I know exactly what you want, princess. Know exactly what you need-“

She grunts as she begins to fuck into you harder, reveling in the sounds of your dripping pussy each time the toy bottoms out. It’s loud and pornographic, mirroring the depth of your moans.

“I-I-“ you stutter. “D-Daddy p-please!”

Val just smirks, reaching one hand out so she can snap to grab Thor’s attention. With no words exchanged between the two of them, he grabs the large cordless vibrator and switches it to the highest setting before handing it off.

Even if they were speaking, the screams that erupted from you as the toy was pressed to the most sensitive part of you would drown them out. Your loud babbling and the tears flowing from your face only push Val to fuck you harder, not letting up even as you squirt once, twice onto the covers – soaking the bed and your thighs and Val’s toy and her thighs and probably the mattress. She only pulls out when you beg in the broken voice she loves so much, when you finally give into her demands and apologize.

“I-I-“ you whimper, some last part of you holding out. Val knows this, knows she just as to wait one more moment before you’ll finally give in.

Still, she gives you a little nudge off the edge of the cliff. “C’mon love,” she murmurs into the sweaty skin between your shoulder blades. The contact makes you shudder, and she knows she’s got you right where she wants you. “It’s okay, just tell me what’s on your mind.”

You swallow what little spit is left in your dry mouth as you desperately attempt to speak clearly. “I, I’m sorry, Daddy.”

She smiles wide, kissing your temple. “I forgive you.”

You lay there, twitching, as Val pulls out the thick toy from your dripping center. Somehow you find it in you to choke at the empty feeling, to reach a hand out in a pathetic attempt to bring her body back to yours. It doesn’t work – Valkyrie has to put the toy in the bathroom for Thor to clean later and needs to grab water and a snack for the both of you. Still, you make small, sad noises as she walks from your shaky line of sight.

Thor does his best to comfort you, draws a lazy hand across your sweaty stomach and draws random patterns on your bare thighs. “She’ll be back soon,” he tells you breathily. You know he’s right – Val always returns back to you whether she’s traveling to the kitchen or Dubai. That doesn’t make it any easier to hear the patter of her footsteps become quieter as she leaves, though.

It feels like an eternity when she returns, holding a tray with a pitcher of ice water, cups, forks, slices of strawberry-vanilla cake Thor had made after you requested it oh-so-sweetly a day prior, had given him puppy eyes and jutted your bottom lip out. Val places the tray on the floor in front of you and him, pulling you into her lap as you two eat in silence. Only occasionally does she steal a bite from either of you, leaving kisses on random bits of skin while telling you how good you two did, how proud she is of both of you.

When you’re both finished Val puts it all aside on her nightstand, allowing you and Thor to lay down with her.

“Are you going to be a good girl for me next time?” Val asks as you snuggle into her side. Thor wraps himself around you, large body warming yours. His arms, thick as your head, are long enough rest on Valkyrie’s hips.

You leave a kiss on her bare ribs, smiling. “Not a chance.”