#not tagging this with the show's tag. they already know all of this :)

[notjustjavierpena]

Ok so someone said Pedro is so husband in Gladiator 2 and I was wondering if you would possibly do a Marcus and pregnant!wife fic?! Please 🤍

Restless

Main Masterpost | Support a disabled creator

A/N: This was so fun to write and I hope you like it! Just fyi, this is not a part of my series Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia.

Summary: Being heavily pregnant makes it hard to sleep.

Pairing: Marcus Acacius x f!reader/you (no y/n)

Tags: Pregnant reader, kisses, a general devoted to his wife

Word count: 1k

Link to this work on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60543115

Restless

Since entering the final stages of carrying your child, nights in bed have been restless. You lay awake most of the time, drifting off on your side only to wake up not long after with a foot pressing against your ribs. It is a strange paradox how something so unpleasant can offer you comfort at the same time, serving as a reminder that your baby is healthy and strong. You’ll take watching the sunrise each morning if it means knowing that they are well, even if it means exhaustion from the lack of rest. 

Tonight is no different. You are yet again caught in the realm of the awake, carefully turning over from side to side as you beg God Somnus to show you mercy and grant you some sleep. However, just as your eyes start to flutter closed, you are startled awake by another swift kick to your insides. 

“You are as restless as your father,” you speak quietly and with affection to the life within your belly, pressing your hand over the spot. You glance at Marcus as you say it, already aware of how he is stirring from his slumber because the littlest of things can rouse him. After all, he is a light sleeper, old habits making him as vigilant in bed with you as he is on the battlefield. 

“Another night on slumber’s battlefield?” Marcus asks while sleep still clings to him. His voice is rough, rumbling through his chest as he speaks. 

You nod with a sigh, reaching for your husband’s hand to guide it to rest on your belly. His voice joining yours has woken up the baby even more, and they seem even more enthusiastic in announcing their presence to their parents, “It seems like your child is preparing for a campaign of their own. Feel.”

“My child?” He asks with a fond smile, another jab at his palm making him gently trace patterns across your belly. 

“During nights like these, they’re your child,” you tease lightheartedly and earn a gentle smile, a twinkle in his eyes. 

“I suppose that’s fair,” he chuckles quietly but it is interrupted by another spirited kick. He sucks in a breath, talking quietly as if mostly to himself, “Every time I do this… I still can’t believe—“

“Neither can I,” you say dreamily and rest your own hand on top of his. You guide his palm over the curve of your swollen belly, “But they’re really in there. Feel this. Here’s their back and this… this must be the foot that’s keeping me from sleeping.”

Marcus’ calloused palm is warm as it skims across your stomach, feeling its way around to picture the growing bundle inside of you. His eyes are filled with uninhibited wonder, a joy that seems to be more frequent on his face after Goddess Juno granted you this blessing so soon after your union. He shifts on the bed to bend down and kiss where he has just felt a particularly enthusiastic kick. 

“Listen to me, little one,” he murmurs softly against your skin, “Your beautiful mother is doing all the work bringing you into the world and into my arms. The least you could do is grant her some rest.”

“I don’t think it’s going to happen. I think they’ve inherited some of your rebellion,” you begin but Marcus looks at your face with feigned outrage. He crawls up to hover over you. 

“Their rebellious spirit is directly from you,” he argues with a charming smile, palms flat against the bed on either side of you. In return, you reach up to cup his face and drag him down for a sweet kiss. He smells like olive oil and metal from his armor, proof of him being in the sun all day during today’s training session. He should be exhausted but he kisses you like he isn’t. 

“Then you should know how to tame them just like you tamed me, General,” you bite back with a mischievous expression, a high-pitched giggle interrupting your attempt at an attitude because Marcus maneuvers you onto your side again, this time facing away from him. He crawls up behind you, scooping his arm underneath you so he can cradle your full belly with both hands. 

“Close your eyes,” he tells you, splaying his hands on you until the warmth of his touch starts to calm everything in your body and mind, “Focus on your breathing. In and out. Slowly like the tide.”

You can feel the gentle change in the room, both Marcus and the baby falling into sync with you as sleep comes knocking for all three of you. He talks in a quiet whisper even on the verge of slumber, his chest rising and falling against your back while your belly mirrors it, “That’s it. You’re safe, my love. My heart, my strength, my guiding light.”

“Tell me about our baby,” you murmur softly, eyelids growing heavy until you capitulate and close them. 

“Our baby,” he begins, pressing a kiss to your shoulder, “Will be as beautiful as their mother. When they laugh it’ll be with your laugh, and when they smile, everyone will think of you in an instant. Perhaps, they will be granted the courage of Mars. Or perhaps the wisdom of Minerva, a real strategist.”

His hands continue their slow and gentle pattern over your stomach, lulling you even closer to the edge of sleep. You relax further into his embrace, letting his words wash over you as he continues, “And as for me, I hope they will inherit my heart. I hope to pass on my sense of duty and purpose. They’ll be honorable, stand firm, and protect the ones they love.”

“Marcus,” you say without knowing why. 

“They will be loved,” he adds as if it is the most true of all, his forehead resting against the back of your head, “Loved beyond comparison, beyond comprehension. By us and even the Gods themselves, and they will never doubt this. They will find it to be as certain as Sol and Nox ensuring each day and night.” 

“I like that,” you smile sleepily, barely awake anymore. 

“Me too,” you hear him say just before sleep finally claims you, his voice a calming echo that tells you he’s telling the truth.

.

.

If you would like to follow my writing then go follow @notjustjavierpena-fics and turn on notifications 💖❤️

[hyperfixationwizard]

Hi!! Thank you for tagging me, that's very sweet :)

Last Song: Darkness at the heart of my Love by Ghost (I listen to it while I sleep lol)

Favorite color: dark blue

Last Book: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, I just started it. Unless we're counting comics/webtoons then it's Wayne Family Adventures S3, I just finished catching up on that last night

Last Movie: X-Men: Apocalypse (started rewatching it for Date Night like, three weeks ago. We still haven't finished it, oops?)

Last Show: Young Justice S1, the dc hyperfixation is getting my ass

Sweet/spicy/savory: all of them, depends on my mood, but often savory :D

Relationship Status: very very happily in a relationship with my beloved girlfriend, @anothercrisis !! I love her so much dude you don't even know <33

Last thing I googled: Internet speed test, apparently

Current hyperfixation: Xmen (specifically Cherik) and dc (specifically the batfam, found family my beloved <3), I assume Arcane is gonna join soon whenever Crisis and I watch the new season lol

Looking forward to: the fucking weekend, I just got back to work after vacation and I'm already counting the days. Also date night :))

Tagging: (no pressure ofc) @anothercrisis , @mylarena , @alexgalaxyboo , @empresscirque , uuh I keep forgetting who all I know on this platform so. Anyone else who wants to you may feel tagged too <3

ten people i'd like to get to know better

tagged by: @megkuna thanks <333

last song: the phantom of the opera

favorite color: muted green

last book: uhhhhhh oh man i really need to start reading books

last movie: phantom of the opera which i watched with a friend

last tv show: the original star trek which i also watched with a friend

sweet/spicy/savory: sweet, i love sugar too much

relationship status: single and not looking, i'd rather just have more friends

last thing i googled: "how to know if skincare routine is too harsh" my pimples hurt in a Different way now :(

current obsession: probably still mob psycho 100 but it's not what it used to be. yay depression

looking forward to: when my family finally moves into the new house

tagging: @scarecloud69 @disorganised-thoughtss @daneonrainbow @lawful-goof @officialkarinuzumaki @leo-probably @vychodocech @umkayonninay @mocha-blossom @spageddy29 no pressure though <3

[simpingforheros]

I need more of the Jason Todd wife’s story cause you ATEEEE

Jason Broke What??

Pairing: Jason Todd X Female! Reader

Summary: Dick played stupid games and won stupid prizes, but at least he got to see his sister in law’s ass.

Warning: 18+, NSFW CONTENT, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, Not Proofread . Female Pronouns and Anatomy, Dirty talk, Degeragtion/Praise, Violence Against Richard Grayson, Smut, Fluff, Comedy, P in V, Illusions to Anal (fem receiving), Voyeurism, Oral (p and a) (fem receiving), Fingering (fem receiving), Implied Heavy Petting, Nonconsensual Peeping Tom, Masturbation, and plot twist.

A/N: Part 3 to Jason’s Girl?? And Jason’s Wife?! . And again, I'm sorry to keep harassing you Pookie, @jjenthusee, but I feel its only right that you be tagged in the conclusion of this trilogy because you started all of this.

A/N: IM BACK, BABES! You miss me? I miss you all. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers during my break to take care of my family. Also if this fic seems rough, I was writing this in my car during break. Also, I know one of my big no-nos is accepting requests for full fanfics but I had an idea and if the masses want to see more of Dick's misery then I wanna feed yall.

*******************************************************

The holidays were everyone’s favorite time of the year. Especially Bruce and Alfred’s. Surprisingly, Bruce developed a love for them later in his adult life due to his years of constantly having to play Santa to his growing hoard of sidekicks. Now with a manor full of teens and children from multiple different backgrounds and cultures, Alfred proposes a family trip to their private ski resort.

Everything was going smoothly. Tim, Bernard, and Stephane were enjoying ice skating along the frozen lake while Duke, Cass, and Damian were skiing down large hills and mountains trying to out do the other. Bruce and Selina were of course mostly confined to their bedroom, only venturing out for a dinner date or to spend time with the family, while Alfred enjoyed taking a break from everyone doing whatever he delighted himself in doing.

Everyone was happy..

Except for Dick. This year was one of the worst for him. Kori started officially dating Roy Harper after some mission she was involved in with the Outlaws and Barbra didn’t want to see him anymore. And to make matters worse, Jason and his wife of a year were all over each other.

Dick couldn’t even do anything without his brother being there, unintentionally rubbing his healthy love life in his face.

Wanted to go skiing? Jason was already there. His large hands were sturdy on (Y/N)'s back as he was showing her as she was balancing on a snowboard. Her curves were highlighted in the snow by her red snowsuit that just so happened to match Jason's black and red suit. Her eyes light up through her snow goggles as she successfully maneuvers around the terrain with Jason's loud praises.

Wanted to go ice skating? The Todds were already there stumbling over each other as Jason's normally composed stance wavers in his ice skates as his blushing wife giggles and helps him slowly adjust to the new feeling of unease. For a viglieante, he certainly didn't skate like one. Dick wasn't exactly fond of witnessing his younger brother purposefully comp a feel of (Y/N)'s perky ass as he 'stumbles' into her.

Even relaxing in the main room of the huge million dollar cabin was impossible as the moment the moon shines bright in the sky or the sun barely kisses their existence, Jason and (Y/N) were so domestically in tune with the room. It was almost like witnessing a Hallmark movie.

The couple would be in the kitchen with Jason preparing a simple soup with her propped up on the counter, ready to taste the soup when he offered her the wooden spoon. A mischievous glint in her eyes as she looked up into his own as she hums at the taste. Dick nearly cringes when he witnesses Jason's sideways smirk as he flexes his hand on her hip.

Sometimes the couple would be sitting on the sofa near the fire. A thick wool blanket wrapped around them as they relaxed into each other. Dick tries not to acknowledge them. Not to recognize the softness of Jason's features as he lazily enjoys his wife's nails lightly scratching his scalp. Not to recognize her plump lips curving deeper as the blanket shifts slightly and Jason's hand caresses her thigh higher than he should. It was especially bad when they would whisper into each other's ears before the pair would hurrily go to their room in a whisper of an excuse of faux exhaustion before giggling as they lock themselves away.

Thankfully, they did those sinful acts of love away from Dick at least. .. Or so he thought.... ++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It was a skiing accident that started the whole ordeal.

The Bat family had been skiing down the steepest hill they could find out of Stephanie and Damian's petty competition that everyone decided to get involved in. The only members that weren't there were Alfred, who demanded that none of the family ever mention putting him in skiis anywhere near his presence, and the Todds.

Much to Dick's relief, (Y/N) was feeling a bit nauseous and decided to stay behind along with the concerned Red Hood.

Unfortunately, the friendly competition took a turn when Dick accidentally sleds over a rock which caused him to fly off his skis and tumble down the hill. The fiery ache in his arm gave the acrobat a headache as he desperately hoped he didn't break his arm in a lame skiing accident.

"Son of a bitch!" He curses as Bruce skies down to check on him.

"Are you alright?" His adoptive father asks as he carefully helps him up. Dick's eye watering as he jerks his injured arm away from Bruce as he accidentally brushes against it.

Bruce notices the jerk and immediately takes the arm in a gentle grasp as he clinically flexes and prodes at the appendage. Dick nearly cursing as Selina and Damian come down to check on him.

"I don't think its anything too serious," Bruce says as he pulls away. "At worst, you probably have a hairline fracture in it. Alfred would have to check it out just to make sure."

Selina, acting as the pseudo- stepmother figure she was, gently places a hand on Dick's shoulder as she ask, "Do you need me to drop you off at the cabin?"

The eldest son shakes his head before grumbling, "I can make it back on my own. I could use some alone time anyway."

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Unfortunately, Dick doesn't find Alfred when he comes back to the cabin after walking back in the cold snow. Only a note reading,

'I've gone to an event at the main resort tonight. Please contact me through the main resort hotline and I promise to get back to you- Alfred'

"Fucking great..." Dick groans as he decides to just head to bed. His body aches from the trauma of the fall as he drags his feet up the large staircase and up to the main hallway towards the suites bedrooms. It wasn't until a faint but familiar sound that caused the fatigue in him to melt.

The familiar sound of breathlessness that he had only heard one angel sing before. (Y/N)...

As he discreetly walked down the hallway, the melody of whines and moans filled his ears along with the familiar sounds of slurping and squelching.

The cracked door to Pandora's Box calling to him as he hears the whimpers of, "Fuck, baby...."

"Ah not there! Its so embarrassing...."

"Jason, more..."

Dick peers into the door to see something that he wished he could snap a picture of and keep forever just like he did those videos.

Sprawled out on the bed was her in all of her glory. Her skin glowing in perspiration and pleasure as she lays with her cheek pressed against the mattress with her round globes of flesh in the air. Her eyes clouded with tears and desperation as she looks over her shoulder to her lover as her glossy lips whimper.

Jason was only in his tight black boxers as his hand squished the soft flesh of her cheek to the side. His eyes staring back into hers with the same pathetic lust and dominance that he always had as he eats her out from behind. His nose appearing and disappearing in the crack as his tongue plays a cruel game of tag.

His slow, lugritive strokes down to her puffy clit interchange with the rough darting over her pulsing hole before sofly licking up to her puckered hole. His fingers never leaving her neglected as he would hold her pussy open before lazily playing with her clit in between licks.

"Jason, quit being a tease..." She whines before yelping as he roughly pinches her clit. His mouth pulling away from her as she whines.

He begins to slowly tease her folds as he scolds her softly, "I didn't ask for you to be ungrateful."

Her hips jittering to regain some friction before he smacks her ass as he continues. Her whimpers of pain causing Dick's own cock to jump in his pants as he tries to ignore his brother as he kept his eyes on (Y/N). His hand slowly releasing his cock from his ski pants as he continues to watch the scene before him.

"Here I am trying to take care of you after you've been sick all day and all I get in return is some sass." Jason scolds cruelly before he inserts two fingers roughly into her cunt. Her cheeks burning hot under her tear stained skin as her body welcomes him with a sicking squelch as she mumbles.

"I-i'm sorry baby..."

Jason's gaze softens before a mocking look of sympathy appears on his face as he begins to thrust his fingers into her. The slight curve of his hand memorizing her body as he instantly found her G-Spot as she cries in pleasure.

"It's okay, Ma." He coos as he presses open kisses to her shoulders and back as he begins to brutally pound her cunt with his fingers. Her eyes jumping back into her skull as he continues to assault her senses as he says.

"You can't help it that you are sick as a dog in the mornings and then a raging whore at night...Afterall," Jay whispers as his mouth slowly decends back down her body. "Little bit isn't making this easy for you, is she?"

She desperately nods as she tries to roll her hips back to meet his hand as he chuckles at her. "It's alright. I'll take care of you, Baby, but I want you to take care of me too. We are family..."

His mouth instantly attacks her puckered asshole just as she seizes up and orgasms as her eyes roll back into her skull. Her desperate sobs turn into overstimulated whimpers as Jason doesn't let up on her abused holes.

It wasn't until she was still that he raised up and pulled his boxers down. His smirk grew to a shit-eating grin as despite her tired face, she wiggled her hips, ready for him to take her.

"Ass or Cunt?"Jason asks as he jerks his bright angry cock.

Her lips curl in a lazy grin as she says, "Both."

"That's my girl." He says as he lines his tip up with her pussy as he slowly pushes in.

Her whimper along with his groan of relief as his hips slowly meet hers. His upper body bends down to meet her lips in a deep kiss as his hips meet her ass. His hand slides around the plushness of her hip to rest on her lower stomach as he whispers to her mouth.

"Maybe it's not too late to give Little Bit a sibling."

She giggles before she presses another peck to his lips before he rises back up to place his foot adjacent to her knee. Not giving her any more time to adjust, his hips begin to slowly thrust into her quivering body as his hand keeps a tight grip on her asscheek, spreading her open. His cerulean eyes trained on the creamy ring that was slowly developing on the base of his thick cock as he disappears deep inside her.

"Jason..." (Y/N) whimpers as his pace begins to increase.

"God, how is she still so tight?" He groans as his hips begin to snap into hers, his eyes wide as he watches her ass ripple at the growing intensity of his thrusts.

Dick's own hand tries to match the pace as he tries to imagine he was the one fucking her instead of Jason. That he wasn't the one pathetically fucking his fist outside of his brother's room with his other arm possibly fractured.

Her face contorting in pure ecstasy as her manicured nails tear into the comforter. Her wedding rings shining in the low light of the room as Jason's own wedding band disappears in her hair. His grip looks unforgiving as he forces her head deeper into the mattress. His free hand stretching as his thumb circles her ass with light pressure as she cries into the plush bedding.

"Fuck you look so pretty." Jason moans as he slowly fucks his thumb centimeter by centimeter into her ass as gently as he could as his hips abuse her cunt. "I wonder how much prettier you would look with my cum dripping out of his cute little ass and pussy. You think everyone will notice you limping?"

He chuckles as he manages to fill her to the first knuckle as he stops his pace to grind into her, letting the feeling of him invading both of her hole and filling her sink in.

Her hips trembling as she tries to create more friction as her sobful begging wasn't even intelligible as he kept her head down. From the impossibly growing slick on his thighs, it was obvious that her orgasm was coming again and soon as Jason's free hand releases her hair and instead pulls her up flushed against his chest.

Her wanton cries filling the room as she was now exposed for the first time to the room. Her bare breast were littered in dark hickies as Jason's hand comes to paw at her tits. Her arms reaching back as one tangles at the nape of his neck and the other cupping his ass, encouraging him to continue.

"Please..." She begs as trembles in his hold. "Please fuck me...fuck all my holes please. I'm yours to do as you please..."

Jason smiles softly before kissing her cheek. "Good girl...that's my good, sweet little wife..."

His praises never end as his hips begin to snap into her at a brutal pace. Both of their voices became higher in pitch as they began to get lost in each other.

"That's it. Take it. Take it all. It's all for you and you only."

"You're doing so good. No one has such a soft, loving heart and cunt like yours..."

"I love you so much."

"I love you too" She manages to reply back before it hits her.

It was then that she screamed out Jason's name as her coil snapped inside her. Her eyes roll back again as her walls squeeze his cock as he follows her with a rough cry.

Dick quickly covers his mouth as his own orgasm hits him after he managed to not make a mess and not be discovered so far.

The base of Jason's cock is a mess as their releases flow down and drip before the pair calms down with a soft kiss on each other's lips. His cock pulls out of her as he massages her lower stomach gently as he pulls away. His eyes shone in pure admiration and concern.

"You okay?" Jason asks softly as he cups her face.

Her tired eyes staring at his lovingly as she whispers. "Yea...Can I have some water before we go again?"

They both smirk at eachother before Jason pecks her lips as he mumbles. "You're insatiable."

He stands up from the bed as she collapses into the pillow. He pulls on his boxers and heads to the door before Dick even recognizes out of his lust full daze. He didn't have time to react as Jason swings open the door to the pathetic sight before him.

Dick 'Motherfucking' Grayson was peeping into his brother's room. Watching his brother making love to his wife. And jerking off to it.

Before Dick could explain, Jason's face twists in anger as his cold glare indicating that this maybe Nightwing's last day on Earth.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

And like that Dick tries to run away back down the large stair case as Jason chases him to beat his ass. Karma is an ugly bitch because just as the front door was opening, Dick violently twists away from Jason's grasps so hard that he tumbles down the stairs with a large crack and several gasps indicating the end of the vacation.

And that was the story of how Jason broke Dick's arm and little Richard after he caught him being a weirdo.

+++++++++++++

A/N: I swear I'm not a Dick Grayson hater, but I think its kind of tradition now to always rip on him in this miniseries. I hope y'all enjoyed it and please comment what you liked and didn't like about this. I swear I'll actually start cleaning out my drafts soon.

+++++++++++

@simpingforheros fanfic. I DO NOT CONDONE OR CONSENT TO MY POSTS OR WORKS BEING PUBLISHED, PLAGERIZED, STOLEN, REBLOGGED, OR COPIED ONTO ANY OTHER WEBSITE OR BLOG.

[washoping]

Welcome distraction

── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ──── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

Emily Prentiss x reader

summary: Emily notices you're having a hard time working on your assignment, so she decides it's time for you to take a break.

tags: smut, teasing, praise kink, sex

f/f │ 2.9k words │ ao3

a/n: english isn't my first language so all typos and mistakes are mine!

── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ──── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

The room was heavy with the weight of yet another long exhausting day of studying. The clock was ticking past eight already as you tried to use the last drops of your energy on the assignment you were working on. The laptop screen casted a cold blue glow over your desk that was embarrassingly messy compared to what it was usually like. The neatness you were accustomed to was replaced by notebooks, notes, pens and highlighters scattered all over, piled on top of each other, a half-drunk coffee mug being the cherry on top.

Your eyes felt tired. They were burning from hours of reading. The words on the screen had started blurring together what felt like ages ago but you had tried your best to just power through, telling yourself you’d be done soon. But every tick of the clock on the wall next to you felt like a reminder of just how much you still had left to do.

A quiet knock at the door broke through your concentration, making you look up from the screen your eyes had been glued to for hours. It took you few seconds to adjust. You saw Emily standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, taking you in with the warmest of eyes. The softness in her gaze when seeing you made you feel like she had been waiting for this moment, to force you away from your screen.

”Hey”, she said, her voice a gentle murmur. ”You’ve been at this for hours already. How much longer are you planning to go for?”

You exhaled, rubbing your eyes, feeling glad about your decision not to wear makeup today.

”I’m just trying to finish this section, but I still have a lot left. It feels never-ending.”

You thought about the amount of work there was left to do. It felt like you had been writing the same damn sentence again and again for the past few hours, making no progress, because you were exhausted. That was something you couldn’t tell Emily. Nor the fact that you could feel a headache forming in the distance as well.

Emily stepped closer, her gaze sweeping over the mess of notes, school supplies and the stained coffee mug on your desk. You half-expected for her to make a comment, to be disappointed in you and the fact that you hadn’t taken care of it. But instead, she didn’t really show any emotion. She just turned her gaze to you instead of the mess.

”Is the assignment due tonight?”

You shook your head, feeling your cheeks heating up a bit after hearing the commanding tone of Emily’s voice. You could guess what was coming. It was crazy what her voice alone could do to you. You felt nervous all of a sudden.

”Not technically”, you answered with your own voice trembling a bit. You escaped Emily’s eyes by turning your gaze back to the open document on your laptop’s screen.

You heard Emily chuckle softly and could imagine the slight smile forming on her face without even looking at her. She walked to you, her hands settling on your shoulders. You shivered and felt your breath hitching as her thumbs started working into the tense muscles on your shoulders and upper back. It was so easy to melt under her touch almost immediately. Your eyes closed, involuntarily. Emily’s hands made it easy for you to forget about the assignment. Like magic.

Slowly she moved even closer to you and it sent shivers down your spine. You bit your lip, trying to keep your composure.

”Then it can wait, honey”, she whispered, her breath warm against your ear. You couldn’t help but lean against her head a bit to recover from the shivers her whisper caused. ”You’ve been at this all day. The assignment will still be here tomorrow, I promise. But I need my baby right now.”

”Em”, you protested quickly, not knowing if you really even wanted to protest. Your voice sounded unconvincing, even to yourself. You let yourself lean back a bit further when Emily’s hands continued massaging your shoulders soothingly. ”I really should finish…”

Before you could go on for any longer, Emily stopped you.

”Babe, it’s 8 pm”, she said more firmly this time around and the authoritative tone in her voice sent the butterflies in your stomach flying. She was always hot, but this demanding bossy side of her made your brain mush. ”You’re done for the day if I say so.”

You opened your eyes to look at her, torn between your sense of responsibility and the pull of her insistent gaze. You were turned on. She was standing so close you could smell her perfume, feel her warmth. So alluring. For a moment there you forget about the screen in front of you.

”But I’ll feel better if I get a little bit more done today”, you still tried to insist, even though your tough demeanor act slipped away further and further with each press of Emily’s fingers on your skin.

And then she stopped completely.

She didn’t start arguing, didn’t say anything - instead she moved to sit beside you in the other chair in front of your desk, her chin propped in her hand as she started watching you. The determination in her eyes didn’t disappear, it just was quiet now. It still told you that she was willing to wait as long as it took. Emily wasn’t one to give up if she wanted something.

And she wanted you.

You looked at your screen, feeling her gaze glued to you while you did. It was nearly impossible to focus with her sitting so close, her presence so strong, her perfume filling your nostrils. You were screwed, but you couldn’t admit your loss in this game so easily.

Out of the corner of your eye you noticed Emily’s hand caressing along her own cheek. Her fingertips tracing the curve of her neck, then dipping lower, coming to rest on top of her breast. The subtle movement was enough to pull you out of your so-called focus, your eyes flicking to her involuntarily as she gently massaged her own breast through her shirt. You couldn’t believe your eyes.

”Emily”, you murmured now wide-eyed, your voice half-pleading, half-warning.

”Yes?” she asked, sounding completely sweet and innocent while her fingers travelled from cupping her breast to her legs, stroking the top of her thighs back and forth. You couldn’t help but steal a look again, right when she moved her fingers closer to her… ”Something wrong?”

”I… I can’t focus when you’re doing that”, you admitted with an unsteady voice, nodding towards her, looking at her fingers now resting on the waistband of her trousers. You needed her to move them inside them, and her panties. To hear her gasp, moan, anything. You needed her so bad your pussy clenched.

Emily raised an eyebrow, her signature move when teasing you. A mischievous smile tugged at her lips.

”That’s too bad”, she said, not taking her eyes off you for a single second. Her other hand came to the collar of her shirt, stretching it just enough to reveal a hint of skin at her collarbone. Her eyes didn’t leave yours. She was fully aware of the effect she had on you and she wasn’t about to stop. You wiggled in your chair, feeling so turned on that it was starting to get a bit difficult to sit still.

You looked back at your screen again, determined to push through the last section no matter what. But you should’ve known it was impossible already. Emily shifted closer, her hand now brushing over your arm, gliding with that familiar gentle pressure that left your skin tingling for more.

”Em, please…” you whispered with your breath catching as she moved even closer, her lips nearly brushing against your cheek now. You expected a kiss. A peck on your cheek. Maybe her hands on your shoulders again? Anything, any contact.

But no. Instead of all that Emily slipped down from her chair, sinking gracefully down on her knees right in front of you. You felt her hands on your knees and your heart rate picked up when she gazed up at you with her big brown eyes from down there. You would’ve done anything for her.

”Emily…” you mumbled her name again. Your fingers came to grip the edge of your chair as her hands trailed upwards, a clear sign to her that you had finally given up. She took her sweet time, not hurrying one bit.

”Yes, baby?” she asked innocently with a smirk on her face, inching even closer to you, her hands gripping your thighs as her eyes remained locked on yours. She stroked your thighs, her hands slowly but surely making their way underneath your night shorts you wore around the house. Easy access. You bit your lip as you felt Emily’s fingers kneading the soft skin, making their way closer and closer to your heated center. You knew you were wet. Without a question. Emily felt the warmth radiating from you and flashed you a smile laced with satisfaction at seeing you giving in.

You opened your mouth to try another weak protest but right when you were about to say something Emily’s fingers touched you through your panties and instead of words, a moan escaped your mouth. With your eyes closed you slapped the lid off your laptop down, no longer giving a damn about the assignment.

”There you go, finally… that’s my girl”, you heard Emily saying, hearing the huge smile on her face from her voice. She won and she was so happy about it.

You moaned, trying to move your hips on the chair so that Emily’s fingers would touch you again. You needed the contact so bad, but clearly she wasn’t done with the teasing yet. She grabbed the waistband of your shorts, ushering you to lift your hips a little so she could pull them off, leaving you in your panties.

”Oh baby, you’re absolutely soaked”, she chuckled when she saw how your arousal had stained your white panties with a wet spot. She touched it with her thumb, pressing the fabric against you to saturate it even more with your wetness. You squirmed. Every tiniest thing she did turned you on more and more.

When you saw her pressing her lips against the wet fabric you had to bite your lip in order to stay quiet. She looked up at you while pressing a gentle kiss on your pussy through it.

”I can stop if you really want me to”, she still dared to tease you.

You felt helpless. You swallowed hard, barely able to hold back another gasp as Emily planted another kiss on your pussy through your panties.

”I… I don’t… please… don’t stop.”

Emily smiled, pressing one final little kiss on the damp fabric before pulling it aside with her fingers and coming in direct contact with your pussy to give it a single long lick. You sighed out loud. Finally.

”Now, just relax baby and let me take care of you”, she whispered as she she settled between your legs properly, her free hand coming up to your breast to grab it. Her fingers didn’t waste any time pinching your nipple in between them, giving it a little twist. You gasped and decided to quickly undress, throwing your shirt off to the floor next to your shorts.

Air escaped your lungs as you looked down at Emily between your legs. The way she was so lovingly looking at your exposed body made it impossible for you to stay still. Her adoring eyes roamed all over your body, appreciating every single part of it. Your hips bucked, needing contact.

Emily looked up and saw the way you begged for her with your eyes. She knew that look. Her hands wandered from your boobs to your lower stomach, gently massaging it, then moving to the insides of your thighs. Before you could say the now familiar word ’please' again, her mouth finally latched on your pussy. She moaned as she tasted you and god, it was the most beautiful sound you had ever heard.

Your eyes closed and your hands flew to Emily’s hair, using your tight grip on it to keep her head exactly where you needed it to be. You caressed her scalp, the back of her neck, her hair. She gave you no mercy and worked around your clit like a game of hot and cold. Her lips came close to it and when your hips thrusted forward trying to guide her mouth to touch it, she pulled away. She wouldn’t stop teasing you.

You whimpered in frustration.

”Patience, my love”, she spoke. She knew you didn’t have it and it was especially torturous right now when she had been teasing you for a good while already.

She pressed her mouth against you again, careful not to touch your clit. Her chin rubbed against your wetness when you started to grind your pussy against her face. Her steadying hand came to your stomach, pressing down on it to make sure you would stay still and not slip further down the chair’s edge you were sitting on. When she made sure you wouldn’t fall she moved her hand to grab yours, intertwining your fingers quickly. You grabbed her hand back tightly - maybe a bit too tightly, but you couldn’t control yourself. Normally you would’ve had sheets to grab, but Emily’s hand was the victim now. You loved it when she held your hand during sex. It made the connection you felt to her even deeper.

”Oh god, just…” you spoke with a trembling voice.

”What, baby? Speak up. Tell me what you need”, she spoke as slowly as she could, making you feel her warm breath on you.

”I need you to… ah! To stop teasing me and just suck my… my clit already”, you whimpered breathily with your eyes closed, biting your lip afterwards. You were sure you would come like this too in no time, but you needed it. Emily laughed amusingly and the next thing you felt was her flicking your clit with her tongue and then sucking it, releasing it from between her lips followed with a wet sound.

You began panting, no longer in control of how your body behaved at all. You wriggled and moved your hips against Emily’s face. She moaned as she ate you out like her life depended on it and it just fired you up even more. Your free hand grabbed her hair again, pushing her closer to your pussy.

Incoherent moans and whimpers escaped your mouth as Emily picked up her already quick pace. She alternated between rapid flicks and bold strokes, which made your head spin. When you least expected it, she suddenly stuffed her tongue inside you as far as she just physically could, causing pressure against your asshole with her chin at the same time.

Your thighs clamped down as a result. Emily’s face was between them and for a second you were afraid you hurt her, but when you opened your eyes and saw from her eyes that she was clearly happy to be right there with your thighs pressed tightly around her head, your worries disappeared. Emily’s tongue flew back to your clit to play with it.

”I’m about to come”, you announced out of breath, your eyes glued to Emily’s.

”Come for me, baby. Feel good and come for me”, she murmured against you, her face buried in your pussy.

And you did as you were told. Panting Emily’s name out loud again and again, your eyes rolled back and your back arched as a strong orgasm hit you. You rode the wave, thrusting against Emily’s face that was now covered in your wetness.

”You look so, so pretty like this… My beautiful girl, I’ve got you”, she praised you when you were trying to come down from your high, your chest heaving up and down. She stroked the soft skin of your thighs, supporting you through the aftershocks and shivers of your orgasm. It was a powerful one, all thanks to Emily’s teasing.

”Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me”, you chanted repeatedly, your breath still coming in stutters. Emily got up from her knees to reach you, her hands caressing the skin of your arms in a comforting manner. They moved to grab your face between her hands and she crashed her lips against yours in a kiss that took your breath away. You tasted yourself on her lips as she kissed you, long and passionately.

”Wow”, you whispered, your forehead against Emily’s. She laughed, the sound warming your heart while you tried to slow down your breathing and heart rate. You wanted nothing more than to give the same back to Emily, so when you had calmed down from your orgasm, you kissed her again. You let your fingers slide down her body and when they touched the waistband of her trousers, she laughed again.

”Oh hey, hey… don’t you have an assignment to work on?” she asked with a huge smirk on her face, letting out a delicious moan as your fingers found their way inside her underwear. You smiled. Fuck the assignment.

[sadplaguedoctor]

poker face

⤷ sevika x fem!reader

summary: while sevika gambles, she figures a pretty little bird perched on her lap might do her some good.

tags: suggestive themes, gambling, lesbian sevika, timid reader

Sevika leaned back, sprawled confidently in her chair, one booted foot resting on the leg of the table, her other planted firmly on the ground. Around her, the bar thrummed with the low murmur of voices and clinking glass, air thick with smoke and the faintest scent of sweat and whiskey.

In her hand, she held a pair of dice, rolling them thoughtfully between her fingers as she surveyed the crowd with that sharp, intimidating expression, as though every face and every movement was just another game to win.

Then, her gaze landed on you, lingering for a second longer than it should— her lips quirking up into that dangerous smirk she wore so well.

“What’s the matter?” she drawled, voice low and rough, each syllable dripping with confidence. “Lost already, or just watching?” She cocked an eyebrow, her smirk tugging wider. At your silence and the subtle smile on your lips, she knew she got you hooked.

“You can sit with me, you know. I don’t mind a little company.”

The seat she was referring to was of course, her lap— a bold invitation, issued with an easy, casual pat on her muscular thigh. She looked at you with dark eyes, gleaming with a mixture of amusement and challenge, and there was no mistaking that this wasn’t a mere suggestion; Sevika was rarely one to ask without expecting a yes.

Her metal arm rested at her side, it’s weight almost matching her aura— solid, unyielding, and powerful.

“Come on, pretty,” she chucked softly, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table, dice still clutched between her fingers. “I’m not going to bite. Well, not unless you ask nicely.”

The reason she was so interested in you was unbeknownst to her— all she knew was that the way you stood there so timidly, hands clasped in front of you as you watched intently at the way her face contorted while she spoke, made her run imagination run wild. She wanted to see what you could handle.

Bashfully, you nodded with a smile, ducking your head down as if to subtly hide it for a moment. Sevika shifted slightly, adjusting to accommodate, her arm coming around to rest on the lower half of your back, guiding you down onto her thigh with a hum of approval— her eyes intense as they ran over your body like a wild animal sizing up it’s prey.

“Stay close,” she murmured, leaning in so her lips were inches away from you cheek, the warmth of her breath fanning across your supple skin, “luck’s better when you’re close.”

With that, she raised the dice, her focus fully on the table, but every so often she glanced back, her smile faint and confident. A few players at nearby tables were watching, perhaps out of envy, or out of confusion and awe. Sevika rarely showed interest in anyone like this. The way she carried herself set her apart from everyone else in the room. And yet, it was clear that her attention was singularly fixed.

“You ever played before?” she asked, her metal arm shimmering as she gestured towards the table. She gave you a sidelong glance, mouth twitching with a hint of merriment when all you offered her was yet another silent nod from left to right. You were shy, she liked that.

“It’s a simple game. Just keep your head, stay sharp, and know when to call a bluff.”

With a quick flick of her wrist, she tossed the dice, sending them skittering across the table. She watched them intently as they clattered to a stop, revealing her next move. The other players murmured, some of them visibly impressed, others more cautious as if weighing the risk of going up against her. But Sevika paid them no mind. Instead, she tiled her head towards you, eyes locking onto yours with a wicked heat that was hard to ignore.

“See? All it takes is a little credence,” she said, a touch smugly, reaching over to rake in a small stack of coins she’d won. After, her cold fingers came up to brush your cheek, briefly, but deliberately, a spark in the touch. “Stick with me and you’ll learn a thing or two about luck.”

There was an underlying thrill to her words, a leap of faith, a surrender to the unknown. And Sevika, true to form, had that air of someone who always kept her cards close, who revealed only what she wanted you to see. In her eyes, there was something intense, something daring you to lean in closer, to take a chance on whatever danger and excitement came next.

Then, she leaned back, letting her arm stay wrapped around you snuggly, protectively. Her voice dropped low. “Relax,” she whispered, her gaze holding a fierce light.

“The night’s just getting started.”

i have no idea how to gamble, so ignore the fact that i brushed over everything about it. also, first work here on this new blog! my first sevika work in general. something about her this season has me going feral i swear it’s insane, i just had to write her and get it out of my system (it didn’t work).

[simp-ly-writes]

"Always, Sweetheart."

─────── · · A Black Ops 6 FanFic

Pairing: Russell Adler x Fem!Handler!Reader

─ · · SUMMARY: You were a handler of operators out in the field and Russell Adlers was your best and yet the biggest pain in your side with his constant flirting and desire to get under your skin. Yet as soon as someone else tries to annoy you or heaven forbid- flirt with you, it gets shutdown right away.

─ · · TAGS: men being dicks, female pronouns, no use of (y/n), protective!Russell, jealous!Russell, mutual pining, enemies (strong annoyance) to lovers, confessions, pet names, suggestive themes, hurt/comfort.

─ · · MASTERLIST | TAGLIST REQUEST | WORDCOUNT: 2,477

─ · · A/N: I was going crazy looking at all the fan art. Don't think I will be coming fully back to COD like I was before, but I had to write something for this character. Hope you all enjoy!

─────── · ·

"Officer Adler!" you yell, bursting through the heavy oak doors and into the office space. Fellow agents, officers, and handlers all look towards you and then back at Adler frozen in time and space.

Adler takes a drag of his cigarette before waving his hand in a silent command for everyone to leave you both. Hands quickly pick up their belongings and feet scatter out before the doors enclose you both.

The man in question makes no further movement simply leaning against the corner of a desk, a smirk setting upon his features as his glasses slip down his face to watch as you near, hands gripping a manila folder.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" he says in an even tone, observing the curves of your face that have fallen into a serious frown. "We have already gone over this before, agent. You cannot call me such, such-"

"Such what, honey?" He teases further, cigarette sitting between his lips as he leans closer and into your space. You take a half step back, pinching your brows together before letting out a breath. "The pet names, Adler. They have to stop, we are both professionals."

Adler hums out in contemplation, taking one last drag from his cigarette before putting it out in the nearest ashtray. He nods his head in direction to the folder in your hand. "No. Before this," you wave the folder around to further prove your point, "we are sorting this thing out. I need to hear you say you won't do it any longer. It causes way to many issues."

"Issues about what? If someone is bothering you, you'll let me know right?" Adlers face drops, hands forming into fists, his stare already demanding names.

"Yes of course! But it makes me appear less assertive in my role, Adler. I have other operators I have to account for since you left and I can't have the newer ones thinking they can disrespect me in any way!" you try and explain, a hand gripping your hair as you stress.

Adler stands, gently taking your elbow before his fingers trail up your arm and towards your hand and head where he eases your grip from your roots. Before he can go to fix your hair you shake his touch off with a huff. "This is what I mean, officer," you say, throwing the document on the now bare desk.

"Well then maybe you should drop your other agents, (last/name)," Russell counters, arms now crossed against his wide chest. A few buttons to his navy shirt undone as you do you best to not look at the skin showing underneath.

"See you would have been my only operator as you have demanded in the past but as soon as you left, you failed to see that I still need to put food on the table so what little choice did I have but to be given new recruits?" you retort, falling into the nearby swivel chair as you stare at the door.

Adler crouches down, blocking your view. His hand twitching to pick up your chin to see your eyes once more. "Hey, look sweeth-(last/name). I can't apologize for my reasons for leaving but I will apologize for leaving you with no other options."

You nod your head before meeting his eyes once more, "So no more petnames?"

"No promises," is all Adler can say before leaning over you to reach for the documents you threw earlier. You lean back into your chair, hands gripping the arms, "You know you could have just asked me to get those for you?"

"Yeah but I got them anyways." You roll your eyes, "Hey- none of that now," Adler shushes you before looking back down at the files. You watch as his large hands grip the corners of the page, careful not to bend them before flipping it to the other side, a series of photos close to falling out as he tips the folder towards you to stop them. "I'm not a child in need of reprimanding, save that for the field workers."

"Never said you were but seeing you leaning back in that chair while doing that plants some images in a man's head," Adler's familiar smirk haunts you once again in the daylight. "Fucking hell," you swear underneath your breath.

"So, why am I being shown these? I already completed this objective..." Adler closes the folder, placing it gently back on the desk.

"Yeah, thats the issue. You see, Adler, we needed more information on those guys. Not for you to shoot them and the information with them!" you yell, swearing that your voice rippled the coffee in a nearby cold cup.

"Well, I'm going to let you in on a little secret off the books."

"And what secret would that be out of your many?" You lean forwards, playing with a ring on your finger. Adler stares at the movement before turning his back to you.

"I already knew all that information years ago, just had to make sure nobody else got to it."

─────── · ·

You thought that after that whole fiasco with your officer Adler, thing would have cleared up since then but it seemed that life had thought differently.

You were in a board meeting with your fellow operators, their handlers, and council members. One of your officers, Roger was sitting beside you, a notebook shared between the two of you as you both passed notes back and forth on the meeting that was dragging on into your lunch break.

"Well if they are planning biological warfare we have to meet metal with metal! If we are acting as moderates or even submissive what the hell room does that leave the enemy to operate in! They need to be neutralized long before those chemicals get out of the port, fuck the rest of them!" A board member yells from the top of the table as you lean back gaining a headache from it all.

Roger places a hand on your shoulder, his head tilting down to your ear, "You holding up alright?" he asks politely, turning his head for you to whisper your answer. "Yeah, just need this meeting to be over or at least to be paused. We are getting nowhere with all this shouting and violence."

The officer nods to your answer. "Yes, we have been circling over the same-"

"Oi! Do you to have something to share? Or are you both gonna keep whispering sweet little nothing into each others ears? Should I tell Adlers' that your cheatin' on em'?" Another handler chimes in, sending a toothy-white smile in your direction.

The other men around the table laugh as you lean on the table, threatening to stand. Roger makes no sudden movement in his chair, face set in a glare directed to the senior member at the unprofessional comment. Sighing you pick up your notes and crack your neck before reading your own radiant smile, eyes holding daggers picturing to stab through his eye-sockets.

"That will not be necessary, Paul," you spit out his name, "Nor is any of this discussion. We have all made no process since eleven! If we display strength with the military we risk our agents already operating within the operation and civilians. If we sit back and let it happen, we also risk a potential nuclear war. Our best option, which none of you men have brought forward and is embarrassing for our field is that we don't ship ourselves alongside the weapon, that way we can determine who has it, where it is meant to go, and where we want it to go."

You are nearly out of breath by the end of your speech as you stand and begin to walk towards the doors, Roger's hot on your tail as nods his head before all the members on behalf of you both, leaving the room in silence.

As soon as the door closes behind you both, you lean against it. "At times, I wish I had a dick like the rest of them but then I remember it's what makes them this way," you explain before picking yourself back up and continuing down the hall.

Rogers laughs, his eyes crinkling as he bumps your shoulder. You look up, casting him a smile as well. "You have a way of saying things, sweetheart. Would leave to see more of that mouth outside of work," Rogers says causing you to stand still in the hall as people walk around you both.

Turning to face your agent, your smile has turned into a glare once more. "Get back to work, Rogers. I expect a full report from last week still that I have yet to receive. Your co-worker has already sent theirs in with misinformation, I hope to not see the same things on yours. And please remember this, I. am. not. your sweetheart."

Turning back on your heels you continue further down the hall, Rogers left with your words before a whistle has you nearly breaking a heel by how much you want to throw it in his face. Russell. fucking. Adler. Standing there with that smirk yet again as he leans up against the break rooms entrance.

He holds out a hand, shaking it in a silent ask to carry your belongings. You shove them into his hand while using your other to press against his chest and to move him out of your way.

He does not budge, simply looking down at your lingering touch with a softening smile. "I am not in the mood, Adler. Please let me through," you use an overly sweet tone, you can feel him tense from underneath you.

"Hey, though I do love that tone when seeing you in a good mood. I do love viewing your rage. Lay it on, whats on your mind?" Adler asks, hand now resting atop your own.

"Move first and we'll sit and talk," you counter to his nod. Adler drops your touch, arm moving to welcome you into the empty space as everyone had already cleared back for work.

Coffee in hand, sandwich in the other, you took to your seat. "I'm so sick of men constantly stepping all over me when I worked just as hard- no. Fucking harder for this position and I still get treated like a little girl in their fathers suit and it does not help when after three hours of men shoving their dicks on the table a younger one then gets the audacity to be asking to see my mouth while calling me Sweetheart," you complain, downing the rest of your coffee before slamming the cup against the saucer.

Adler appears even more tense then you, his hands grips into fists allowing the veins across his forearms to appear most prominent. "Give me a name."

"Pardon?" you ask, embarrassed that you had became so easily distracted.

"Give. me. a. name, please," Alder asks once more, his eye staring deeply into your own. "Hey, whats wrong, sharing is a mutual affair," you reach across the table to grasp one of his hands, surprised when he pulls away. He's never done that before...

"Nobody gets to say that shit to you, not when I'm here. I'm sorry that you had to hear that, sweetheart." And for some reason you don't feel disgust except an overwhelming feeling of comfort as the word dances through your ears. You try and fake annoyance but Adler only takes that as further fuel against whatever man had wronged you so.

"Theres no need to apologize, Adler. I already told Rogers off-" you should not have said that, already regretting your words and Adlers chair screeches against the tiled floors, the door being slammed behind him as he storms off to find Rogers.

─────── · ·

The next time you are working with Rogers, he does not even look at you unless you command him to. He does well to hide his face to the best of his ability but it is hard not to notice the black eye or scarring underneath his chin. Tisking to yourself, you tell the agent his next meeting point in the south Mediterranean sea before setting off on your next mission, to find Adler.

It did not take long as he was already waiting in your office. First aid it open and displayed across the documents on your desk. He did not hiss or move as he poured the anti-bacterial fluid over his wounds, his teeth gripping a bandage in wait as he had yet to acknowledge your presence.

"Alder," you scolded like a tired mother before taking the wraps from his teeth and standing between his legs, gently wrapping his hand before pressing a kiss to your work that had both of you chuckling.

"You didn't have to do that, you know. Could have gotten you suspended-"

"You really think they would suspend me, honey?" you blush, shaking your head and taking a step away yet Adler catches your elbow, standing, chests touching as he leans down to get a better look of your face.

"All I'm saying is that you have to take better care of yourself, officer," you retort, eyes quickly casting to his lips before holding his gaze.

Alder smiles, hand now cupping your cheek as you allow yourself to lean into his touch. "Are you sayin' you care about me, (last/name)?" he teases, eyes already knowing the answer by the way in which they crinkle, mirroring your own.

"I care for all of my operatives, Russell Adler."

"But am I really just an operator to you, sweetheart?" his words now nearly a whisper upon your lips that part in wait.

"Well there's only one way to find out-" and his lips were on yours. His hand now holding the back of your head, nudging it upwards as you curved into his touch, hands gripping his shirt and around to his waist. Russell's other hand moved to grip your waist, thumb rubbing circles into your side as you felt his smile upon your lips.

Pulling away, lips puffy and eyes starry as you panted for air, Adler barely gave you anytime to breathe before he was kissing you again. Any papers on your desk were thrown to the floor before Russell was picking you up by the back of your thighs and placing you on the desk, legs spreading to keep you both close.

Standing back to full height, Adler looked at you sprawled out before him, hands morning their way up from the ankles that kept him locked into to place, up to your calves and towards your thighs and lower torso. Your breath gasped as his hands teased at the skin between your waist and shirt, skin tingling, his touch lingering with shared desire.

"Kiss me again," you pleaded.

"Always, Sweetheart."

─────── · ·

─ · · A/N: If this is recieved well may make another one... 🤷

[sevikas-biceps]

Just to add on to this. Someone might've mentioned it in the tags, but I wanted to put my take on this thought.

[TLDR: me agreeing with OP and then explaining something vaguely Marxist lmao]

Do note that the power imbalance is also there. Yes, the two of them have their own views regarding the situation [Vi being accustomed to the reality of things, Caitlyn having to be shocked into experiencing it firsthand (and even then not the whole scope of this systemic issue)]—but their subjective experiences don't change the fact that, from a complete bird's eye view, the conflict of power exists.

We see this multiple times in the show. We see this already laid out for us, in several instances, in Season 1.

In what mad world will I trust someone like you? // Someone like me? You enforcers are all the same: just asshole criminals in fancy uniforms. We're here because I'm hungry. Do you know what prison food is like? No. Of course, you don't. Well, that place does look like it has bodies buried in the basement. // You don't know anything. You know what your problem is? // Please, tell me. // You expect everyone to give you what you want. What is this place? // It's where the kind of people you Topsiders don't wanna think about wind up. I know you have your reservations about me. This only works if we can learn to trust each other. // It doesn't work. It never has. You Topsiders always find a way to screw us. // I suppose Topside is to blame for all your misfortunes. // ...not all of them. // We aren't monsters, you know. We're people. Just like you. // You don't know anything about me. She makes...potions. Helps people here with...with...this. // ...shimmer. Why would you take something that does that to you? // I just...wanted to feel what it was like...to be somebody. To make other people afraid. Let's go. I think Vi would be happy to see a friendly face. // No! You...you go on ahead. She...she knew me when I was still...anyway, I don't want her to see me like this. Just tell her I'm sorry...about everything, okay? You used to live here...who's Powder? // My sister. I thought she died, but, now...I have to try and find her. // How do you know if your sister is alive or dead? // It's hard to check up on people from inside a concrete cell. // What, you don't have parents? // No! They were killed by enforcers. I knew it was a mistake trusting you! // You've been a real picnic yourself. Vi tells me I can trust you. You get a pass back Topside—that's it. ...it's beautiful. // If your people had your way, it'd be rubble and ash. // It's a misunderstanding. They think you work for Silco. // Your people hunt us! Like animals! Silco pays them to do it! // That's not possible. You're wrong. // Say that one more time. Ekko! She believes what she's saying, okay? We could beat Silco with this. // That won't solve things. // Easy for you to say! Your people aren't dying all around you! // Ekko...it's wrong what's been done to you. You'd be well within your rights to keep it. I couldn't blame you. But, if you do, the cycle of violence will never stop. This is our best shot at setting the record straight. This city needs healing—more than I ever realised.

[Whew. I actually had to rewatch several episodes just to get the dialogue IFBJKFBF]

Now, back to the topic at hand.

Let's start with the obvious. Whether explicit or implicit, all of these lines trace back to the systemic oppression being done by Piltover against the Undercity.

Vi was wary of Caitlyn in the beginning because she's an enforcer, and enforcers were the people who'd killed her parents. And it's not just that, either. Vi knew about Grayson and Vander's deal. She has witnessed both Piltie and Trencher working together to keep peace between the two cities. Yes, she'd been angry about it (reasonably so), but even then, she realised why such a thing needed to be done. She was even ready to sacrifice herself just to spare her siblings the inevitability of being the scapegoat. This implies that Vi knew there was at least a good soul out there, a sympathiser—who might yet grant her some kindness on the upside.

But then that sympathy got that very same person killed. And here, we finally know for true that good people don't survive the games of life. You don't get as far as you do in your existence without committing violence. The same also holds true for Vander: her father, who'd shifted his morals and priorities to protect his children; her father, who'd also sacrificed himself in the name of their family.

What does that show her? Being good gets you killed. Being good isn't enough.

Huck demonstrates this incredibly well. I just wanted to feel what it was like to be somebody. To make other people afraid. Prior to his reappearance in Ep6, we don't know anything about him save for the fact that he'd made deals of his own in the Undercity—but this is enough to tell us that he, like almost everyone else, is involved in some kind of illegal business. What does that say? Being good doesn't support your life. You have to tamp down the purest parts of you to be able to survive and thrive. If you're not somebody, if you're nobody, then you're worthless. You die. You're nothing. And everything you do is forgotten.

Even those in Piltover knew this. Caitlyn is a glaring example, what with the drastic shift in morals in Season 2; Cassandra is another good model (see this post of mine); Jayce had to adapt to the demands of high society, seeing and acknowledging the points made in Mel's little lessons on politics; Viktor once had to lie low in the Academy, and use subterfuge to achieve even just a fraction of his own potentials and ambitions; the list goes on.

Being good just doesn't cut it. Ekko implies this best: Vi tells me I can trust you. He's mistrustful of Caitlyn not just because she's a Topsider, not just because she's (still and admittedly) largely ignorant of the harsher realities of their cities—but because she'd've been raised on the very same ideals others she knew have also exhibited. What else does Caitlyn know but the life she lived in Piltover? What she knows as 'right' or 'wrong' is vastly different from what someone like an Undercity child would perceive as 'right' or 'wrong'—and being 'good' isn't enough, because the scales of measuring such a thing were already horridly skewed to start.

So, how does this support the idea that there's a pattern of abuse in Vi and Caitlyn's relationship?

The abuse itself starts on the political level. And this is so, because this was the basis of their relationship in the beginning. No strings attached. Get me out of this cell, and I'll give you the clues to your investigation. Lead me to this criminal, and I'll help you find your sister. I'll forget you're an enforcer for a while. I'll pretend you're not a convict yourself. We can work together. Somehow. The nature of their births had already dictated how they were to behold one another in this relationship. It will always hold a shadow over their heads. Even with the deterrent of romance mixed in, this dichotomy will persist.

OP mentions this:

Cait is Vi's only access to safety and food, she's isolated, she has to constantly prove her loyalty to Cait and renounce any ounce of lingering feelings she has towards the only family she has left, she's left in constant state of anxiety because of it.

There will always be a side to Caitlyn that would never understand how life was like for Vi, or for Ekko, or for Huck, or for Jinx, or for everyone else in the Undercity. That's not an accusation. It's just a statement of truth. Even despite the fact that Caitlyn had tried to set things right (evidenced by her efforts to convince Ekko to return the hexcrystal, and later on her talk with Cassandra to speak in favour of their case at the Council meeting), none of that matters because she herself undoes all that she worked for. All that Vi had tried making her see was for nothing.

That's where it becomes abusive. That's where their relationship, past the political layer, gets cruel on a personal level. Caitlyn, even if she didn't mean to do so and even if she doesn't realise it, had taken advantage of Vi.

You Topsiders always find a way to screw us.

Many others have said this in recent posts: it's Us versus Them.

Over the course of the first act of Season 2, we constantly see Vi in Piltover or surrounded by Piltovian individuals; which makes sense narrative-wise, but on a symbolic level also represents her isolation from all that she knew and had been built by (as a person) in her past. There's also an element of grooming present—in the same way Silco had groomed Powder into becoming Jinx. Caitlyn had slowly worn away at Vi (you can argue this as their relationship being developed, but still) and, for better or for worse (worse), trapped her into a situation where her choices leaned only in one direction and one direction only (Piltover or Zaun?).

Caitlyn abuses her power in this relationship. Whether Caitlyn herself realises this or not, whether Vi realises this or not, is irrelevant—what matters is that such a thing had happened at all. Being good fails. You can't have your cake and eat it. Caitlyn has to make the choice: her mother (Piltover), or her lover (Zaun)? Similarly, Vi does the same: her people (Zaun), or her lover (Piltover)?

You can't be good, one way or the other. It's just not enough, anymore. You have to breach something here, you have to commit an evil somewhere there—because being good gets you nowhere. Not when you're at this point of your life. Being good won't help you catch Jinx, being good won't stop the terrorist attacks from happening, being good won't bring your mother back. But being good would just make your people hate you, being good would make you a conspirator to the crimes against them, being good wouldn't sate your lover's need for vengeance.

That's where Vi and Caitlyn's relationship becomes toxic.

That's where the abuse sets in.

not to be the friend who's too woke but I genuinely feel that the only reason the fandom has such a visceral reaction to people calling Vi and Cait's situation domestic violence is because Vi is butch. yes, DV is more than just physical harm, it involves repeating patterns of abuse, all of which can be found in their relationship. Cait is Vi's only access to safety and food, she's isolated, she has to constantly prove her loyalty to Cait and renounce any ounce of lingering feelings she has towards the only family she has left, she's left in constant state of anxiety because of it.

[romana-after-dark]

Dead Dove December 2024

Hello everyone! This December I’m hosting a multi-fandom event that I’m calling, Dead Dove December! From 12/01/2024 - 12/31/2024 I’m encouraging others to create something that expresses their deepest and (most importantly) darkest desires. I will be reblogging all pieces of art or fanfiction, and will post a masterlist in January. or whenever i get around to it. i have not even done the pride masterlist bc I'm a disaster! But most importantly this will be for funsies.

I hosted this last year with just oscar/pedro Characters but Logan is my special guy so he's here now too <3

Details below the cut…

What is Dead Dove Do Not Eat?

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, or DDDNE has its origins in one of my comfort shows!

The phrase comes from a meme referencing the 2003 Arrested Development episode "Top Banana", in which Michael Bluth opens a paper bag labeled "DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT" and, upon discovering that there is a dead dove inside the bag, says, deadpan, "I don't know what I expected." - fanlore.org

In short, what you see in the tags is what you should expect to see in the fic. This can apply for any type of fic, including the fluffy ones, but it’s usually associated with darker themes. That being said, this is your warning that this is a DARK THEMED EVENT. If you aren’t comfortable with darker topics like non-con, excessive violence, blood/gore, death, toxic relationships, 18+ age gaps, and more, then I encourage you not to participate in this event.

How to Participate

For the month of December, post your Dead Dove fanfiction or fan art on your blog. Use the tag #deaddovedecemeber2024 and tag me. You can also send a link via ask or DM if you like! I will not be posting anything for you, just reblogging and linking. At the end of December I will post a masterlist with links to everyone’s works! Side Note - Since Tumblr doesn’t really allow for NSFW art, you can post your work on Twitter or any other site that allows it and just send me that link so I can add it to the masterlist.

Rules

You MUST be 18+ to participate. I will be checking your blog/social media to be sure. Please make sure your age is easy to find. If I find that you’re a minor or if your age isn’t readily present I will be blocking you and you will be unable to participate. You can just add that you are over 18 if you don’t want your age out on the internet. As the creator and promotor of this event, I need to know I’m not interacting with minors given the nature of this event.

The work MUST be dark in some way. There’s no limit to how dark your work needs to be or can be, but it needs to contain some sort of dark theme in order to qualify. If non con isn’t your thing, dub con via stockholm syndrome or brainwash can let you write a more comfortable scene while still remaining dark. Fics and art do not necessarily need to be NSFW. last year a friend even did cnc, where it was seemingly dark but then ended with it was Marc and reader ding a scene. Dark reader or oc is an absolute yes.

Your work MUST have an Oscar Isaac, Hugh Jackman, or Pedro Pascal Character. It can be x reader, x oc,xcanon character, crosoversec. If you want Joel Miller fucking the ghoul from Fallout (or both of them fucking a reader)you can even though Eddie doesn't exist in any Oscar Pedro Hugh content. If you want Marc and Logan to fuck, go nuts. Got a series you're already writing, and wanna submit a dark chapter or a dark Au to it? That's fine too! We're pretty open here. No rpf.

Do NOT post anything before 12/01/2024. I will not count submissions prior to that date or after 12/31/2024. Masterlsit will be posted in January.

Your work MUST contain the proper tags. I won’t police how detailed your tags should be, but, for instance, if your work contains non-con, and you didn’t tag non-con then your work will not qualify. Please be inclusive in your writing where you can, but aware of POC queer and disabled people.

You may submit no more than two (2) pieces. This can include a fanfic and fanart, two fanfics or two fanarts. This is to allow someone to write a piece and make a work of art to accompany it. You can also work with another creator together.

I’m not going to yuck someone’s yum, but there are some things I’m just personally not comfortable with and since I’ll be reading/viewing/promoting all of these, I have a few things not allowed in the event. The list of what’s NOT allowed is shorter than the list of what IS allowed so here’s a list of the things that will NOT be tolerated in this event:

No underage/aged up minor content - To clarify, this includes things popular ships like - TLOU 1 or "Show Ellie" x Joel or Miguel O’Hara X Gwen Stacy. No "ageing up" minors for the purpose of a fic.

No Bestiality - To clarify, monsterfucking does NOT count as bestiality (at least to me). For example, werewolves, venom, Khonshu, e.t.c. are all allowed.

No Real person fanfiction. Can’t include Oscar, Pedro, or Hugh. This is not a moral judgement or me looking down just not in my comfort zone

No incest - To clarify, step-sibling/step-parent relationships are permitted as long as everyone is 18+. Different age of consent in your state or country does not apply here, and frankly I'd prefer 21+ but I know there are younger people than me who write so I'm not gonna say you gotta write like that. Selfcest relationships are also allowed (like Moon Knight or Miguel with his alternate self, e.t.c.).

No necro/snuff. Plain and simple.

I have final say in what I want to promote. Is TLOU 2 Ellie an adult and not technically Joel's ctual kid? Yes. technically it fits all the rules but it gives me the ick so I'm not gonna accept it. I cannot possibly prepare for all scenarios, and i want to just be able to have fun here with yall.

If you’re unsure if something is allowed or not, you can send me a DM or an ask for clarification prior to posting.

You can use any prompts you want or none, you aren’t tied to any one idea but here are some to get the ideas flowing if you need them!

Also, you can absolutely use a fic to inspire your art, or art to inspire a fic! Your inspiration piece, whether yours or someone else’s does not have to be from December, but you MUST obtain permission from the original creator before I promote your work. Most creators are happy when their work inspires others, and all my fics are open to being used for inspiration, but please reach out to the creator first.

I’m very excited! This is my second year hosting this an I've hosted other events by myself or with friends so I'm happy to keep going, this time with Hugh Jackman bc i can't get Logan out of my head.

Dividers and header made by the amazing @melodygatesauthor

Please consider reblogging to spread the word!

I don't reall know many people in the logan/hugh jackman fandom so I'd love if this was an oppritunity to get to know yall too!

Dark prompt list to come, also check out #deaddovedecember2023 to see what last year had!

[respectthepetty]

Petty, I have a wild ass Jack and Joker theory, and I need to know what you think because we often end up in the clown car together, lol.

There's been a lot of talk/fears about Joke (and Toi Ting), now that we know character death is on the table - I'm not worried Joke will die (I am terrified they will gut us with Toi Ting but oh I hope not). I'm not saying that Joke isn't about to feel so responsible for what has happened that he's gonna get reckless with his life, because I absolutely think he will.

I think he's absolutely about to do some very stupid shit that could be his life in real danger as penance.

But I've been thinking for a while - since your initial posts about Hope and Save and their names - that Save is going to die. And now that I just skimmed a post that basically said that Joke and Save are the same character in different fonts and Save's guilt in episode 10, I'm absolutely positive.

Save is going to die.

Hope will live, because he has too. Without hope, we have nothing. (I also have a tangential theory that Save will die to save Hope, so...)

Thoughts?

Why not a third secret option? Why can’t everyone live? Since the show killed Jennie’s character, and the man who tried to run away with his few dollar bills died too, let’s just believe everyone remaining will survive! Even more, if Boss survives, then everyone BETTER live because no shitty father should survive when the possibility of a child dying is on the table. So I'm going to aim high because

Fortune Favors the Monkey King

Move over, Kitty! I'm driving this clown car straight to the opera house.

Because this is a Chinese opera.

We already know there is a Chinese influence in this story, as @veemark pointed out about the meal Joke ate with Jack and his grandma.

So with that in mind, in the fourth episode, when Nang punished the men for hurting her people, she drew the "09" stick (but she said nine-zero), which meant the men had to perform the Chinese opera of the Monkey King, which people in the tags thought was sooooo ridiculous!

In that same episode, Jack received his fortune, which was number 9 and stated, "When the fool changes black to white, the fate of the forgiver will change"

Now, skip to episode 9 when Joke gets "The Fool" card and changes the fate of Jack, the person who forgave him, so Jack's fortune was right.

Now, in episode 9, we also get the iconic team name "The Four Little Pigs"

And this is where the light bulb turned on because this is Journey to the West.

Journey to the West is an epic Chinese story that is 100 chapters long about a group of heroes having to complete a certain amount of tasks to achieve enlightenment.

The main character is Tang Sanzang who is basically a saint who wants to bring good to all the land and who everyone is in love with and wants to marry. We are introduced to him in chapter 9 of the story. He is the heart.

The first person he meets on his journey is the Monkey King, aka Sun Wukong, who was so great at being the best trickster that he became overconfident and ended up getting put in heavenly jail for 500 years. The first chapters of the story are actually about him. He is foolish, but he is also the mastermind.

He has a daughter, Yuebei Xing. She has her own story, Journey to the South. She is a badass. She fights monsters and lives to tell the tale.

The Monkey King is easily the most powerful of the bunch, but Tang Sanzang doesn't like the Monkey King's methods because they are immoral, so there is a gold ring involved that keeps him in check.

Or maybe it's this ring.

I think it's the second ring because a goddess, who keeps helping them along the way, helps them with the ring too. She is also cool.

Along the journey, they meet Zhu Wuneng, aka Pig. He is a smart fighter but he is greedy and selfish so he keeps taking shit he isn't supposed to, which constantly gets them in trouble. He is human nature (the world).

There is Sha Wujing aka Sandy, who was once a god, but shattered a crystal and ended up banished to earth to be a mortal. He is conformity without thought (the moon).

And finally, there is Bai Long Ma, who is a horse that they ride for transportation. He is human will (the star).

There is also a princess somewhere in there who must be saved from a marriage.

The group meets obstacles along the way, and lots of crazy shit goes down, but after 14 YEARS they finally come to the end of their journey.

And on their journey to achieve enlightenment they meet a squire whose loved one is kidnapped with the possibility of murder and another squire who is murdered and his wife is pissed about it because she did everything to make sure he wouldn't be harmed.

Now, if you gasped because you think Hope (or Save) will die, well . . . the number 14 fortune was Hope's.

The fortune was given in episode four which is the same episode Jack got his fortune, but it seemed like Hope's fortune played out in the same episode when he found Joke right across the hall staying with Jack.

But the thing is, in the Chinese story, regardless of which squire it is, they don't just need the Monkey King; they need the Monkey King's help.

So the Monkey King goes to the underworld to get the loved one back and succeeds (both times). But he still needs to save our saint!

Remember, the group has to do a certain number of deeds to bring peace to the land, so the group goes in to save their leader, and the ONLY reason they make it out is because all of the people they have helped along the way (especially the people the Monkey King has helped) return the favor and save them.

By saving others, they saved themselves.

So . . . I don't think anyone else is dying. However, it's been YEARS since I read a very condensed version of this story in Asian Rhetorics, and @journeytothewestresearch's blog helped me piece some of what I forgot together.

So I could be wrong, and everyone dies.

But I don't think so.

*fingers crossed that fortune favors the bold Monkey King*

[lover-of-mine]

Anna baby we got new stills!! I am very curious why so many of Buck's outfits have been brown. The flannel he's wearing in the loft??? Blue and red and brown??? I'm thinking they tell Buck Maddie is pregnant, and it gets Buck thinking about a family (adding to his already immense longing), add in the pictures on his fridge and he is so close to understanding what he wants! But anyway! What is with the brown????

Hello baby!! So, the brown. I was talking about the brown with @stagefoureddiediaz literally yesterday lol. But current theory is that they are playing with both the stability and growth attached to the color when put in a positive light and the sense of isolation when we put it in a negative light. Buck doesn't wear brown a lot pre-season 7, his neutral color is grey, but ever since he came out he has been in a grey/sepia scale. The only instances me and Kym could come up with at the top of our heads was when Chim kicks Buck out and he has to move back with Maddie and the grocery store fight.

It plays into movements in Buck's life he needs to figure out alone, in a sense. Only Buck can break his own patterns and using a color that's attached to both stability and growth, like who he is for Eddie in 710, and loneliness, the grocery store, is fun because only Buck can allow himself to grow, he needs to do this for himself

Brown was also very attached to Tommy, Buck hasn't worn any brighter colors, like he would do his blues and red in previous seasons, this season yet, except for his costume, and I think it also plays into the way Buck forces himself to be what his partner wants and fails to consider what chipping away pieces of himself will do to him, like the way Tommy doesn't know he doesn't like basketball or the way Buck never complained about the "Evan" thing or the way Buck didn't know Tommy is gay or was engaged before or all the tiny ways they showed us Buck and Tommy didn't really know each other. And that plays into the way Buck was dimming himself while trying to find himself in the relationship, while trying to make dating Tommy something transformative, especially because while doing that, he was negating parts of who he is.

The brown hoodie is the first time we are seeing Buck in plain brown too, he's usually in a pattern or a textured fabric, and the mopping around and the very obvious stress-baking on "faded" colors with Jee in a literal rainbow, probably leading Buck to talk to Maddie and Chim in the red and blue will be interesting if that's the correct sequence of events. Because it will allow Buck to start bringing that color back to his life.

He's back in his self-discovery blue and that red with Buck is attached to emotions, trying to get in the right direction when it comes to his feelings, like trying to let go of Abby, his speech about love, a few moments in 208, Buck, actually as a whole works for Buck to try and figure out his own feelings.

But he's not in the true red, so, as pointed out to me by Kym, it's almost as if he's locking himself. He's not ready to have the revelation yet, But he will be back in blue, that's a good step, he will probably work his way back to his blue, being in it when he's ready for Eddie.

I will taglist this one (interact with this post if you wanna get tagged)

@sparkedblaze @caw-salem @dreamofsomepiphany @100ceruleaneyes @linus-lucy @chaosqueery @gina-spike @chimchiminie98 @elvensorceress @singitforthegirls @dangerpronebuddie @182daysof @steadfastsaturnsrings @sparklespiff @inell @miles--to--go @jesuisici33 @wolfdeans @lunarsolar1 @joshwritesfics @glasscities @kejfeblintz @stagefoureddiediaz @mosaicstardust @eddiedisasterdiaz @hermioneindisguise @queerprincesseddiediaz @lookforanewangle @becausebuckley @lemotmo @thenainitaldisaster

@dingdongfries @angelcamael

[zepskies]

Omg, welcome back, lovely!! 😍

(More comments on your lovely comments below):

Such a sweet fic. At first, I felt a little bad because I can feel Dean justifying all the insecurities he has about himself, the self-hate was only 2 steps away. But I believed in her, I knew that she was not hesitant. I knew she was upto something.

Aww thank you!! Ah, you know Dean. Always so self-deprecating. I didn't get too deep into "why" he starts fretting already when he sees her gone, but for all those reasons you mentioned. I felt like anyone who knows Dean, knows why he goes there in his mind all too soon to "did she regret it already?"

She was upto celebrating his birthday. That melted my heart. Ofc she wants to celebrate this man. He should be celebrated every day, especially on the day he was born. And she baked him a pie. For his birthday. All those doubts he was having, they flew out of the window.

That she was!! Sneaky girl. 😉 And she got him good! Dean does deserve all the pie and celebrating him that he can take, even if he doesn't think he deserves it. 🥧

And I loved how stunted Dean was that he had to show his appreciation and his thank you by kissing her. He was at loss of words. He's never had that. He doesn't even remember when was the last time he celebrated his birthday.

He was shocked, wasn't he? 😂 It's crazy how little their birthdays are talked about or celebrated on SPN. Like I get it, they're trying to tell a lot of story, but there's nothing much centered around their birthdays, implying that they don't really celebrate them. 💙

Thank you for such a sweet fic. You have no idea how much I needed this. (And also, I'm really very sorry for having disappeared. I'm trying to get some time to catch up on all those lovely fics you've written. I promise it'll be soon. I can't wait to read them. And thank you for not removing me from your tags.) Keep up the good work.

Aww you're very welcome! 🥹 That's part of the reason I write and share -- in case anyone needs the same dose of escapism as I do. 💕

Don't apologize, hun! Real life always comes first and I hope you're well, but I'm also glad to see that you're back! If you do get a chance to read other stuff I've shared in the meantime, I would absolutely love it. 😉

Restless Nights

Pairing: Dean Winchester x F. Reader

Summary: After a tryst you instigated in the backseat of his Baby, you and Dean have started something new. He’s just not sure that you’re as “all in” as you claimed to be.

AN: As promised, here's a bonus one-shot to follow Maybe More Than Enough, though it can be read as a stand-alone. This is based on a request from @lacilou, one of my lovely Patreon members!

Bonus! It fulfills the @spnfanficpond monthly prompt. (Can’t give it away until the end though!)

Request: A Dean story based on the song “I Remember You” by Skid Row.

Word Count: 1.2K

Tags/Warnings: Angst, fluff, implied mentions of sex, bit of a twist ending… 

Dean woke to the sound of pouring rain hitting the roof of the bunker.

It must’ve been some torrential downpour, because it took a lot for him to hear anything of the outside world from inside this place. Good thing the old heaters kept out the January cold, too. Nothing worse than frigid rain.

Blearily he cracked his eyes open, unearthed an arm from where it was tucked under his pillow, and carefully raised his phone to check the time, trying not to let the light from the screen burn his retinas in the still dark room.

4:00 a.m.

He groaned. Goddamn it.

He turned over onto his other side to face where you should’ve been lying next to him. He frowned when he saw nothing but the sheets pulled back and a dented, empty pillow.

No matter how he fought it down, a small tinge of worry, and the beginnings of disappointment churned in his gut. His brows furrowed.

Did you regret it already?

After his first make out session with you (turned more session) in the backseat of his Baby, you two struck a tentative agreement to figure what this could be—more than hunting partners, allies, and friends. Despite the fact that you kissed him first (a fact he didn’t easily let you forget), afterwards, you’d been a little hesitant about what came next.

“We take it day by day,” he’d told you, with a sizzling kiss that stole your breath. “All I know is…this feels good.”

It felt right. You had definitely agreed with that.

Dean sighed through his nose, turning back onto his other side. It wasn’t unusual for him to be a light (restless) sleeper, but the handful of times you’d joined him in his bed had been beginning to make his nights calmer. He was actually starting to sleep through until morning.

What’s more, after years of looking into your eyes and seeing all the possibilities of what if, he was finally getting to make those images solid, and real. He could touch them, taste them, feel them under his calloused hands. He finally had you for real.

He looked past your empty spot in his bed and didn’t see your phone, or any of your rings on the nightstand. They were the first things you put on in the morning, and the last things you took off at night.

If those were gone…

His disappointment was settling high in his chest now; an ache approaching pain.

Until he heard the light sound of bare feet padding back toward the bed. Your hand slid gently up his arm, and after the surprise wore off, the corners of his lips tugged upwards. Your hair was a bit wild and frizzy. It tickled his neck and shoulder when you leaned in to kiss his cheek.

“What’s this?” you whispered, swiping two fingers between the crunch in his brows. Dean relaxed with a small smile.

“Nothin’,” he claimed. His voice was deep and rough with sleep. “Had an appointment to get to or something?”

You smiled and settled into bed, embracing him from behind. He turned onto his back and welcomed you over, with an arm curling around your waist. He rested his hand on yours when it smoothed across his chest.

Subtly glancing down, he didn’t find any of the silver you wore on the daily, including the ring with a small turquoise stone he’d bought you a couple weeks ago, on a hunt in Denver. That one, you now almost never took off.

“I put them away in a drawer,” you said, wiggling your fingers under his hand. Your hand felt dry, and a little like you'd been handling something dusty. Had you been up reading in the library again, lost track of time? “When I woke up, I saw one fell off the nightstand. Have a feeling it had something to do with the bedframe knocking against it.”

At that, Dean couldn’t contain his lazy smirk.

“My bad,” he said, sounding anything but sorry.

You laughed, shaking your head. You still laid a kiss below his shoulder before you settled back down. He gave your waist a gentle squeeze, pressing a kiss of his own to your forehead. A deep breath fell from between his lips, and his eyes closed.

A question was on the tip of his tongue. Where you were, why you got up. Was it something he could help with? Or was it one of those moments you needed to have alone, not unlike the times you gave him to settle with his thoughts, after a hunt gone sideways. If it was important, you’d level with him, wouldn’t you?

So he let it be.

In the morning, you somehow once again managed to get out of bed without him feeling it. He didn’t hear you either. Curiosity led him down the hall and glancing inside the cracked door of Sam’s room. It was empty, his running shoes gone from the side of his bed. Dean rolled his eyes.

All right, Lance.

Oh, wait, that was biking. …Whatever.

Dean’s next path inevitably took him down to the kitchen. His stomach was already percolating—in need of good coffee and (hopefully) good food.

The smell wafting from the kitchen surprised him, however. Cinnamon apples?

He turned the corner, and there he found you.

The fuck?

You looked a bit of a mess. Your hair was thrown up into a haphazard bun, and you’d stolen his apron. Though in his eyes, you made it look better, the white fabric hugging around your curves like you were Rachel Ray or something. You were frazzled when he came downstairs, but happy to see him. You beckoned him over and sat him down at the small kitchen table.

“Sweetheart, what’s going on here?” he asked, eying you curiously.

“Just stay there!” you called from the kitchen. He heard you opening the oven, cursing when you nearly dropped something.

What the hell were you doing baking before 9:00 a.m.?

He turned to ask you what was going on (and if you needed help), but before the words could come out of his mouth, you came over and carefully set down the pie in front of him. The rich aroma, the golden flaky crust, the flecks of cinnamon and glossy apples peeking out from the divots in said crust—it all had Dean’s mouth watering, and his shocked gaze fixed on the shiny pastry.

He startled a little when he felt your hands on his shoulders, sliding part of the way down his arms. You kissed the side of his head.

“Thought I wouldn’t remember, did you?” you teased. “Happy Birthday, baby.”

Dean’s throat constricted. He tried not to show it, but your gaze gentled when he finally met yours, like you were seeing through all his layers anyway. He realized then what you were probably working on last night, and he really couldn’t fucking believe it.

He’d forgotten his own birthday. Couldn’t see much use in celebrating, when year after crappy year…

But he closed a hand over yours on his shoulder, and he brought your hand to his lips.

Every word he couldn’t yet say to you was etched in that single gesture.

AN: Short and angsty sweet! lol And the monthly prompt was "pie!" 🥧 For Dean of course. 😂

Hope you guys enjoy this one! 💜

Join Patreon 🌟 For early access to new stories, bonus content, first looks at upcoming stories, send me requests, and more!

Dean Winchester One-Shots 

Dean Winchester Masterlist 

Main Masterlist 

Dean W. Tag List

@hobby27 @kazsrm67 @jacklesbrainworms @foxyjwls007 @mostlymarvelgirl

@wincastifer @iamsapphine @roseblue373 @this-is-me19 @emily-winchester

@spnexploration @deans-spinster-witch @deans-baby-momma @iprobablyshipit91 @sanscas

@globetrotter28 @adoringanakin @teehxk @midnightmadwoman @chevroletdean

@agalliasi @chriszgirl92 @lyarr24 @ladysparkles78 @spnfamily-j2

@deansbbyx @sarahgracej @chernayawidow @mimaria420 @stoneyggirl2

@fics-pics-andotherthings-i-like @waywardxwords @waynes-multiverse @twinkleinadiamondsky @ajjustice

@my-stories-vault @kayleighwinchester @rizlowwritessortof @samslvrgirl @tortureddarkstar

@tmb510 @syrma-sensei @artemys-ackles @malindacath @mrsjenniferwinchester

@jc-winchester @charmed-asylum @fromcaintodean @k-slla @jackles010378

@deanbrainrotwritings @urfav-tz @alwaystiredandconfused @mrlonelycat @deans-daydream

@deanwinchestersgirl87 @rachiem4-blog @sweettimelady @leigh70 @aylacavebear

@jays-bonnie-on-the-side @kmc1989 @ghostslillady @siampie @rubyvhs

@winchestergirl2 @a-lil-pr1ncess @winchester-whiskey @spnbabe67 @cheynovak

@megara0224 @yoongi-holland @illicithallways @perpetualabsurdity @deansimpala

@jessjad @impala-dreamer @k4marina @atenea585 @king-of-milf-lovers

@g0ldfishd00dles @10ava01 @sixxteenbullets @tayl0rfanatic @everything-is-all-clear

@masked-lost-girl

[always-just-red]

@lunariadew asked: 'Can you write a poly fic maby like a feel good fic or date night or something with all the boys! I’m greedy and I think there’s not enough poly fics as there should be'

Nothing profound this time around! Just some good old-fashioned shenanigans. I've wanted to do a fic with all the boys for SO long (Infold, hire me to write a sitcom-style show for the guys, PLEASE) I've kept it platonic since it's early stages; it's open to interpretation about how many sparks are flying and between whom exactly..... 👀 But if ppl want more of this, I'm all over it. Platonic or romantic? I'll play it by ear!

Game Night

L&DS Boys X Reader

Summary: The most important men in your life can manage one evening together, right? For you? Please? Pretty please?

Genre: Fluff + humour

Warnings/Additional Tags: f!reader, some swearing, a lil conflict, non-canon (I know some of the guys probably know each-other but we're pretending they don't 😇)

| Word count: 4k | Masterlist | Opt-in to my taglist here!

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Love and Deepspace. All work is my own, so please don't repost or plagiarise!

“Rafayel… what do you think this is?”

The artist stands at your open door, wearing a self-assured smile and one of the flashier outfits you’ve seen him in, and that’s really saying something. Between you is a bouquet of lilies, petals curled like frozen licks of fire that compliment— deliberately, if you had to guess— the warmer fires within his eyes. Those eyes narrow at your question.

“What do you think it is?” he says suspiciously, lowering the flowers.

“…Game night?”

You’re not sure why you phrase it so tentatively. You know what it is; you’re the host. You open your door wider, stepping aside to give Rafayel a better view of the apartment behind you, and the remainder of his smile sinks.

“Hi,” Xavier calls out, and you don’t have to see him to know he’s giving a wholesome sort of wave.

“Hi…” Rafayel answers, barely more than a whisper as his eyes flit between everyone else in the room, because he’s the last to arrive. “Game night, yeah,” he nods assertively, “I knew that.” Then a deep breath: “Can I, like, put these somewhere—”

“Kitchen counter,” you gesture.

“Got it.” He doesn’t have to be told twice.

Closing the door behind him, you watch as he skirts past the lounge and makes for your kitchen, where another bouquet already lies waiting. He zeroes in on it. “Looks like mine’s not the only heart you’re breaking tonight, huh, cutie? What are these—” he pokes at a petal— “daturas?”

“They’re her favourite,” speaks a distinctly low voice.

Rafayel doesn’t look up. He plonks his bouquet on top of the other and winces: “They’re really not, though.”

“He’s right,” you chip in, giving Sylus a sheepish smile, and now Rafayel looks up, beaming.

“She likes roses,” Zayne says, with the calm confidence he’d quote a medical journal. On the sofa beside him, Xavier nods, and you grin at them both.

“Noted,” Sylus chuckles.

Rafayel’s less convinced. “Since when?!”

“Since forever, Raf. I like lilies too, so I didn’t say anything, ‘kay?” You beckon him back to the lounge, ignoring his splutters of disbelief. “C’mere, let me introduce you to everyone.”

The man slinks to your side like a reluctant shadow, and your hands find your hips. “This is Zayne. Xavier,” you point out, putting faces to names; Rafayel’s heard stories about each. Then you nod towards Sylus. “Over there’s Skye.”

From his place by the window, Sylus lifts a hand in greeting.

“So… yeah,” you finish. Oh, wait! “Guys, this is—”

“They know who I am,” Rafayel shrugs, his fame apparently heavy on his shoulders. He glances around the room for validation, but he gets none, so he tries again. “You do know who I am, right?”

“Sorry,” Xavier admits with an awkward smile, glancing back at Sylus: you?

The man has to think about it. You know for a fact he’s traded more than one of Rafayel’s paintings for a profit, but he smirks and gives an even more exaggerated shrug than the artist himself.

Really?

“You’re Rafayel,” Zayne states plainly.

“Yeah! See, I told you, cutie—”

“You slipped on a paintbrush and checked yourself into Akso, right? The nurses still talk about it.”

Rafayel’s enthusiasm drains. He looks conflicted as he mulls over the additional information. “In, like, a good way?” he hazards.

Zayne stares back at him, wielding silence like a scalpel before cutting deeper with a: “…sure.”

You bite back a smile. Leaving the two to discuss the finer details of Rafayel’s notoriety at the hospital, you wander over to the kitchen, where you fish out a vase from the back of a cupboard. You fill it, set it down on the counter, then reach for Sylus’s bouquet. There’s a black satin ribbon; you untie it.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, sweetie?” asks the man himself, joining you discreetly.

The others can’t really hear you— they’re still talking. “What,” you smirk, retrieving your scissors from a drawer, “you worried Xavier’s gonna arrest you?”

Sylus laughs lowly, quietly. “That’s adorable.”

“Good.” You pick up a flower and trim a leaf from the stem. “Because even if he wanted to—” you wave it, just short of his face— “I’d protect you, ok?”

He regards the flower beneath his nose. Smiles smugly. “These can be toxic, sweetie.”

“Really? Whoops.” You put it down, then snatch up a lily from Rafayel’s bouquet. “En Garde!”

“These too.”

“What the hell?”

The flame-red flower drops from your fingers, and Sylus laughs more sincerely. “Stick to roses, kitten. Or…” He moves his hand over his deconstructed bouquet, his Evol pruning the rest of the leaves from the stems. A tendril of it gathers the flowers, delivering them to him so he can hold them out to you with a flourish. “Live dangerously. Who am I to judge?”

You take them, then plop them into the vase. “Cute.”

“I’m here all week,” he grins. “You’d better wash your hands, hmm?”

With a hmph of agreement, you turn to the sink. You spend half a minute, rubbing soap and warm water over your hands, and when you turn back around— still drying them— something is different. The lilies are gone. Sylus is looking at you, innocuous.

“Real mature, Skye.”

He makes no effort to defend himself. You’re about to tell him that his magic better extend to making flowers reappear when your attention is whipped back to the lounge. The voices from that side have raised, so you lean forward on your kitchen island, watching their owners in a sort of stakeout.

“I take it you have a plan,” Sylus whispers, leaning with you.        

You look at him. He looks back. “The plan is for hosts,” you scold, “not guests.” He’s much too close so you step away, reaching for the vase of daturas and holding them threateningly out, like you’re not afraid to use them. “Go back to the guests, deserter.”

Sylus lifts his hands in surrender, smirking in a way that says he knows he’s met his match. You shoo him further, back into enemy lines, then resume your stakeout. Xavier is sharing his own “embarrassing” medical story— talking about a time where he once passed out from exhaustion while fighting at your side, and you think it’s supposed to make Rafayel feel better.

It doesn’t, of course, and even Zayne is gazing down at the floor, self-conscious.

Sylus meets your eyes across the room, signals with a tip of his head: now's a good time for that master plan, sweetie.

Right. Your plan. Your master plan, yeah.

…

“You should have picked the doctor.”

Sylus’s words are near-silent: for you, not anyone else, and you pretend you don’t hear them. “But no,” he carries on, because he knows you can, “you just had to have the artist.”

“It’s Pictionary!” you snap, drawing all eyes in the room.

Lounging beside you, Sylus feigns an amused surprise, as though he hasn’t just been trying to illicit that exact reaction. On the other sofa, Zayne and Xavier stare, taken more genuinely aback. You give a smile of apology.

“Guys, concentrate!” Rafayel clicks his fingers at you. He’s stood in the centre of the space by a large drawing pad, and he goes back to frantically sketching on it. The drawing is… interesting. Abstract. Maybe even beautiful? But you don’t have a clue what it is.

“Thirty seconds,” warns Zayne, studying the little egg-timer he’s guarding.

You tilt your head at the drawing. There’s maybe a— wait, where did those extra colours come from? Where did he even get those pens? Anyway… there’s a circle. “A globe?” you guess. “Earth! No? Umm… oh! The sun! The moon!”

Rafayel shakes his head with every suggestion, adding even more intricate, unhelpful scribbles. Is that a fifth pen?! You nudge your other teammate, calling for back-up.

Sylus regards the drawing listlessly. “A unicorn.”

“What?!” Rafayel’s tone has reached a pitch that almost makes you wince. “No! C’mon, are you even trying?”

“No,” Sylus lilts with a pleasant smile, lifting the drink he’s been nursing to his lips.

You kick his foot. “A bowl of fruit!” you exclaim, determined to make up for the lack of enthusiasm. “A plate? A plate with food? Breakfast! Lunch! Dinner!”

“Time’s up,” Zayne interrupts, and it’s a mercy, really; you deflate with a sigh.

Rafayel puts his hands on his hips as he takes a step back to observe his work. He tucks four fine-liners back into his pocket— purses his lips as though he really can’t see a problem— and he’s keeping you all in suspense.

Sylus is up in an instant, stealing a card from where it’s been discarded on the coffee table. He reads the answer, then rolls his eyes. The original pen was also abandoned, so he plucks it up, then strides to the drawing pad.

He draws an oval. Then a triangle.

“A fish! A fish!” you cry out.

“You’re good at this, sweetie,” Sylus grins. He puts the lid on the pen with a click before dropping it into Rafayel’s hand.

“Is it my turn?” Xavier asks, trying to relieve the tension of the room. He gets up and smiles as Rafayel passes him the pen. “Your drawing is pretty. The composition is really—”

“Don’t,” Rafayel says. “Like, thanks? But don’t.”

“Fair enough,” Xavier chuckles.

You all prepare for the next round: Zayne handing you the egg-timer, Xavier re-organising the stack of prompt cards. Sylus takes a photo of the drawing pad before ambling back over— a moping Rafayel in tow— and they both sink down either side of you. You glance at the latter, giggling. “A fish, Raf? Really?”

“So I didn’t just wanna draw you some basic fish, ok?” The artist crosses his arms with a pout. “But fine, enjoy mediocrity, I guess.”

To your left, Sylus raises his glass in toast to the notion. There’s a noise: Xavier tearing the used page from the pad. You look up. “Xavier, can I have that?”

“Sure.” He brings it over to you.

You look at the drawing again, holding it at arm’s length and rotating it experimentally. You’re seeing a lot, but nothing that screams ‘fish’. There’s a circle, still. Oh! “It’s a fish bowl! Wait, wait, wait— is that Reddie?”

“Yeah!” Rafayel beams.

“Aww!”

The renewed team spirit drops off with Sylus; he’s on his phone, not paying attention. He seems to sense your scrutiny because he peers up, gives a ghost of a smile, then returns to whatever he’s doing. Meanwhile, Xavier is ready for his turn, so he signals for you to start the timer. You give him a thumbs up as you turn it over. “Go!”

He starts drawing.

“A car,” Zayne guesses after all of five seconds. Correct. Next. “A river? No. Oh. A snake.” Yes. “A cupcake?” Also yes. (In fairness, he was never going to struggle with that one.) “A person? Ok. Oh, a scientist, no? Ah, a doctor.” Yes again, and really— what?

Zayne continues to list correct answers, though thankfully, that’s the last of the coincidences. You watch on, vaguely in awe, until you feel your phone buzz in your pocket. You check it casually, aware that Sylus is next to you, looking down at it too.

It’s a text from him: The drawing… Can I have it?

You glance up at him subtly, meeting his eyes and giving a discreet yet firm shake of your head. He frowns. You’re not having this debate here, now, so you let your gaze return to the drawing pad while idly retrieving your drink.

A few seconds later, there’s another text: Found buyer

Then another: Quarter of a mil

You almost choke on that drink.

“Umm… cutie?” Rafayel asks, poking you. He points at the timer you’ve left on the coffee table, and the top half is empty.

“Shit, yeah. That’s time!” you call.

Xavier stops drawing. The small, crude sketches behind him have reached double digits. He looks really proud. “Great! How many was that?”

His eyes find you. Zayne and Rafayel’s, too. Were you supposed to be counting? Uh—

“Eleven,” says Sylus, and it’s way too smug to be a lie.

“Awesome!” Xavier flips the drawing pad over to where you’ve been tallying point totals. He adds eleven marks to one side. “That’s—” he counts both— “ah, thirty-three to nine.”

A silence falls over the room. Unsure of what else to do, you give a half-hearted round of applause and Xavier laughs awkwardly, still humble, despite it all. “I think we’re kinda done with Pictionary, yeah?” you suggest, rising from your seat. “I should probably get started on food, anyway.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.”

The insistence came from Xavier, and you freeze suspiciously; he’s never turned down free food.

“You’ve already done so much,” he explains, “setting this all up for us. You should relax, really! Leave it to me.”

The word ‘relax’ is not synonymous with the image of Xavier anywhere near your kitchen, but he’s looking at you so earnestly, blue eyes brimming with warmth, and what are you supposed to say? No thanks, Xavier— I value my life? Everyone’s watching you. Gods help you. “That’s really sweet, Xavier. Thanks.”

Your fellow Hunter’s smile widens even more. He heads off to the kitchen, a spring to his step that makes your heart sink with dread. “Actually—” you glance at your ex-teammates— “could you two go help him? Zayne and I’ll tidy up over here.”

Rafayel and Sylus do as they’re asked, even though their expressions remind you that cooking is not, typically, a three-man job. It’s tactical, though. You wanted a moment alone with Zayne. “Are you ok?” you ask, once the others are out of earshot. “I know this must all be a lot. The guys can be, well… yeah.”

He knows what you mean, right?

Zayne has slipped away from the couch; he’s crouched on the floor, collecting a few prompt cards that have wandered astray. He glances up at you, pushing his glasses back on his nose. “I’m ok,” he assures with a fond smile. “Thank you, though.”

“You’re welcome.” He hands you the cards and you slot them back into their deck. Then you turn to the drawing pad. “You and Xavier make a good team, huh?”

The doctor straightens to his full height. “Mmm. It helped that we didn’t spend the entire game comparing the size of our… drawing abilities.” 

You laugh unashamedly. The pen’s still at-hand, so you pick it up— reward another point.

Zayne chuckles.

“Food’s gonna be a while.”

You both turn, following the voice back to Sylus, who has apparently decided he’s had his fill of kitchen duty. What was that— a minute? He seems to have anticipated your dissatisfaction, because he’s brought a bribe with him: the box of chocolates that had come with his bouquet. It’s already open and he holds it out, tempting you.

He’s right— you don’t know when you’ll next be eating— so you select a heart-shaped chocolate, popping it into your mouth with a smile and a muffled: “thanks.”

Sylus smiles back. Then he holds the box out to Zayne. “Doctor?”

It takes a nod of encouragement from you to prompt Zayne into taking something. He chooses a white chocolate truffle, mumbles his own thanks, but Sylus doesn’t relent— not yet. He shakes the box slightly, incitingly, and he doesn’t move it away until Zayne takes two more.

Your physician shoots you a surreptitious smile as Sylus falls back onto the couch, content he’s won your hearts, and that he won’t be sent back to the kitchen anytime soon. His long fingers lift another chocolate from the box, and he meets your eyes as he slips it slowly past his lips, humming likes he’s enjoying himself.

You cross your arms, unimpressed. He gives you the least convincing look of innocence you’ve ever seen.

There’s an exclamation from the kitchen: “Hey, where did my flowers go!?” 

Shit. You hastily push the drawing pad aside then scurry over to assist Rafayel. You don’t have a plan, exactly; it’s not like you can help him look for them. “Umm… they’re around, Raf. I moved them somewhere safer, that’s all.”

“Where?”

“Uh—”

“Does it matter?” Sylus speaks from behind you, because he and Zayne are close at your heels. “She said they’re somewhere safe.” He leans on the kitchen island. “Don’t you trust her?”

Rafayel scoffs. “I trust her plenty.”

“So prove it. Drop it.”

“Skye,” you caution, “stop.”

Sylus does stop, but not because you asked. He’s done enough already, hasn’t he? Rafayel is bristling with indignance— a lit fuse— and behind him, Xavier sneakily checks the trash can, looking relieved at what he doesn’t find. He gives you a subtle glance: Where actually are the flowers?

You lift a shoulder an inch: Beats me!

There’s a soft, almost imperceptible crackle, and it draws your eyes to the vase of daturas between you all. They’ve caught light— their petals twisting, darkening, within larger flowers of fire.

“Rafayel!” you gasp. “No, no, no, the fire alarm!”

The torched flowers are encased, all of a sudden, in a fine layer of shimmering frost. Sylus blinks down at them, unmoved by their destruction. Zayne’s hand is still outstretched, snowflakes etched over his palm. Then something… odd happens. The ice doesn’t stop. It spreads over the rest of the kitchen island, to all of your bewilderment.

“Zayne?” Your voice is fraught with worry, but you don’t give a damn about your kitchen.

The man winces, and you so rarely see him out of control. The silver-white patterns have crawled up his wrist, and the ice continues to spread; even Sylus steps back. Sharp, jagged crystals start to form— inching out towards everyone.

“Zayne!” you try again.

His chest rises as he drags air through his teeth; it looks like it hurts, but the ice does stop. The others are still, suspended by momentary uncertainty, and you rush to Zayne’s side, taking his hand.

“What the hell was that?” Rafayel remarks, shaking away his surprise and thawing an icicle that’s way too close for comfort.

“He wouldn’t have needed to use his Evol if you hadn’t used yours.”

It’s Xavier, strangely— you would have expected Sylus. The Hunter’s tone is gentle as always, but there’s something behind it, this time: a frustration that lends an edge.

Rafayel hears it too. “Hey, I’m not the one who started this!” He points to Sylus. “He—”

“Has been lighting fires all evening,” Xavier finishes. “But at least his were only figurative.”

Sylus laughs, and it’s the kind of laugh where you just know he’s vying to make things worse. “Look at that,” he says, “the boy next door can bite.”

Xavier’s eyes sharpen. Beside you, Zayne slips his hand from yours. It’s an instinct you know well. This moment is volatile, and you have to be ready. It could go a dozen different ways; it’s just waiting for a spark.

“Guys,” you manage to get out, “please, just… everyone, take a breath, ok? Everything’s fine, we just have to—”

A spark.

There’s smoke. Actual smoke. “Xavier, behind you!” Zayne alerts.

It’s creeping out of the oven and Xavier turns— eyes wide— to open its door before any of you can stop him. Thicker smoke billows out, filling the air, and you all scramble away from it. The fire alarm triggers. You think Rafayel’s shouting something, but you can’t really hear him. Then Sylus is shouting. Maybe even Zayne. The alarm is piercing your ears and making you dizzy— or is it the smoke?

You feel a hand on your shoulder and suddenly everything changes.

There’s cool air, brushing over your skin, and it’s dark; you’re outside the building. You can still hear the alarm, shrill but further away, and your window is easy to spot: there’s a red light flashing behind it. Sylus leans into your vision, saying your name.

“Stay here,” he tells you, “alright?”

He’s gone in another moment, lost to a flicker of crimson-black darkness.

Gods, you’re so stupid.

…

You sit on a short wall outside of your building, and the street is full of people. You recognise most of them: neighbours. Every single one is mad at you. You’re all waiting for the alarm to cut out— for the all-clear to be given. The fire wasn’t that serious in the end, but there’s still a procedure. You would know; this isn’t exactly your first evacuation.

The guys are safe, which is good, because it means you can kill them later. They’ve all gotten lost in the throng, and your neighbours can keep them. Maybe they’ll kill them for you.  

“Hey, cutie.”

You were staring down at your feet, but you look up at Rafayel’s voice. He’s coming towards you, evoking a sense of déjà vu, because he’s clutching a bouquet of flame lilies. That’s… the bouquet of flame lilies. How?

“Skye gave ‘em back to me,” he explains, chuckling at your expression, and he’s close enough now to hold the flowers out to you. “I don’t know where he was keeping them. His Evol’s weird, huh?”

“Yeah,” you say timidly, taking the bouquet and gazing down into the petals; they still smell sweet.

Rafayel sits next to you, shuffling close, and he leans his head on your shoulder with a tired sigh. You want to be mad at him. You really, really do— but you’re suddenly not.

“I’m sorry, Rafayel.” The admission barely makes it out of your throat.

You feel his head lift. “You’re sorry?”

“I know it was just a misunderstanding,” you speak into the flowers, “but tonight… wasn’t what you were expecting, I get it. I mean, I kinda threw you into the deep end with all this. You didn’t know you were gonna be around other people, and I—”

“Whoa— cut that out, yeah? You’re killing me, cutie. I spend the whole evening causing trouble, and you’re gonna take all the blame? Nope. Not happening. It was a collaborative effort at least, ok?”

You giggle. “Ok.”  

“Good.” His head slumps back down on your shoulder, and yours tilts to rest against it. “Thanks, though. Really,” he whispers, so quiet you almost don’t notice.

Footsteps and familiar voices draw you from the intimacy of the moment. The others are wandering back to you, having finally escaped the veritable mob of your neighbours. They all look tired.

Xavier settles down on the other side of you, and Zayne sits beside him. Sylus takes a seat next to Rafayel with a huff, but he’s not half as unhappy as he’s pretending to be.

All of you sit in silence, gazes flitting between your window— where there are still glimpses of moving figures— and everyone else who’s been evacuated. For the first time all evening, the quiet isn’t tense. It’s peaceful. Easy.

“We’ll do better next time,” Zayne speaks softly.

Next time? You scoff. “Do any of you actually want there to be a next time?”

“I had fun,” Sylus chuckles. He’s taken his coin from his pocket, and he flips it, amusing himself.

“I had fun too,” Xavier grins.

“Cooking again, Xavier?” quips one of your neighbours, as they happen to pass by.

The man beside you laughs, but you can tell it’s forced. Your hand finds his; you give it a little squeeze, letting him know that it wasn’t his fault. His heart was in the right place. It’s always in the right place.

You nudge Rafayel away from you so you can sit up straighter, your free hand rubbing your arm, caressing prickled skin. You’re about to ask for a jacket when something heavy drapes over your shoulders. It’s a coat— still warm— and its owner is stood behind you; you didn’t even notice him get up.

“Thanks, Sylus,” you smile.

All eyes turn to you. What are they—?

Oh.

[water-to-drink]

How They Became Attracted to You

(Characters): Al haitham, Ayaka, Kaeya, Chiori

(Synopsis): First meetings with the most popular or influential students at the academy

(Tags/Warnings): gn!reader, reader is an artist, school au, reader is a transfer student, possible ooc Chiori, (if I missed something lmk)

(Word Count): 1.4k

(A/n): If you all like this then I’ll make a part two, just tell me which characters you want to see

🦅Al haitham🦅

🦅 The first and only one to best him in a test, a geometry test to be specific. He only came in at 99% while you come in at a perfect 100%

🦅 At first refused to believe that a mere art nerd could get a better score than him and so with as much delicacy as a bull in a china shop Al haitham came up to you and asked you how you got your score

🦅 Being randomly approached by the school’s smartest student you were very nervous and told him that you just did what you learned from class. Seeing that you won’t give him the answer he asks for you to tutor him which you agreed to go it, mostly because you were very nervous under his sharp gaze

🦅 While tutoring it became apparent that you sucked at explaining things to him, don’t get him wrong he already knows the material he just wants to know how and why you got a 100. As these sessions went Al haitham saw how your hands would glide across the paper, the delicacy almost amazed him

🦅 Slowly but surely Al haitham realized that there was more to your shy exterior. You were sassy and quick witted, you could even match his intellect on many topics, he finds himself feeling that he on an equal level with you.

🦅 Now he looks forward to your tutoring sessions, recently you two won’t do any tutoring just do your homework and talk about anything on your mind, the same mind that he finds so interesting and beautiful

🪭Ayaka Kamisato 🪭

🪭 The two of you have seen each other in the hallway before and after classes. She would always see you with a sketchbook in your hands or drawing in it. You didn’t take up too much real estate in her mind, the poor girl has too much going on as the daughter of the Kamisato family. That was until one day where Ayaka was leaving cram school and her chauffeur was stuck in traffic, she was approached by an older man

“What’s a girl like you doing out so late?”

“I’m leaving cram school, sir.”

“Cram school? You kids work so hard, I can show you a good time.”

“Uh, no thank you, sir.”

“C’mon, don’t be so stuck up, live a little-”

“What’s the problem?!”

🪭 There you are, yelling at the top of your lungs, she can tell that you’re scared but you still yell drawing more attention to yourself and the creep in question. Once a lot of people are watching the scene the creep walks off leaving you and her alone

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I am. I’m sorry that you had to step in.” Ayaka bows her head

“Don’t worry, I saw that you were uncomfortable so I decided to step in. See you around.” You waved goodbye as you walked off and her chauffeur pulled up

🪭 Later Ayaka came to learn that you didn’t know of the prestige that came with the Kamisato name. You came up and scared off the guy of your own volition, thinking that she was just an ordinary girl who needed to be rescued and that is what she’ll continue being to you

🪭 It wouldn’t be hard since you two are in different grades, you being her senior by a year. You would both meet up in a quiet cafe you work at, she learned that it was your family’s business and work there to help your family and to earn some pocket money. The two of you got so close that you even let her look through your sketchbook and Ayaka was amazed by your skills

🪭 When you offered to draw a portrait of her she jumped at the offer. So one day at your family’s cafe you presented her a drawing of her. You drew her as a swordswoman dressed in traditional Japanese clothing and armor, she profusely thanked you and framed it the moment she got home

🪭 There are some nights where if she can’t sleep mainly because of nerves she’ll take your drawing and look at it, thinking about you would quell her anxiety and give her the best of dreams. Just don’t tell her brother, she’s afraid he’ll scare you off

❄️Kaeya❄️

❄️ Is the complete opposite of his adopted brother, he’s known as the school’s flirt and a total playboy. He makes girls and guys alike go head over heels for him, and you, the new transfer student, is on his radar

❄️ He lives for making innocent things like you into a flustered little mess. So when he sauntered over to you and threw his usual flirty remarks, he wasn’t met with a sheepish face nor an oblivious one. No he was met with a look of disgust

❄️ Without saying anything you walked away from him, leaving him bewildered. Did he do something wrong? Everyone falls for him. Refusing to take this laying down Kaeya decides to find out why weren’t you under his spell

❄️ And so he began to make an attempt to learn more about you, your likes and your dislikes, or your hobbies. At first you would just ignore him when he would try to strike up a conversation and after a few weeks he decided to make a deal with you

“Are you serious?” You asked

“Dead serious. We’ll act as friends and if you still can’t stand me in 2 months, then we’ll stop. Does that sound good?”

“Only if you promise to leave me alone after?”

“If you still can’t stand me.” Kaeya threw his signature smirk

“Ugh fine! But no flirting!”

“I make no promises~”

❄️ The two of you tried to act as friends, before it was awkward but soon you got used to his presence and you slowly began to come out of your shell, finally showing your true colors after about 3 weeks of “friendship”

❄️ Kaeya finds himself laughing at your jokes, actually laughing and not the fake laugh he would do when he’s trying to fuck somebody. Now Kaeya’s heart thumps whenever you would laugh at something or wave at him in the hallway. Oh gods, is he in love?!

❄️ He wishes he didn’t have the reputation he has, he wants more than your body, he wants your heart

🪡Chiori🪡

🪡 The president of the sewing club. Chiori and her club members have made various designs, many of them for the theater group whenever they’re putting on a performance. However the best designers have their slow movements, not being able to come up with any designs that are up to their standards. That is what plaguing Chiori

🪡 One day she finds a random sketchbook in the sewing club. Curiosity getting the best of the young seamstress she flips through the book, there she sees the most beautiful character designs, the obvious inspiration from big names like Chanel, Gucci, and Thierry Mugler, but the person who made these designs are unique to them. It all gives Chiori a surge of inspiration

🪡 Immediately she opens up her own sketchbook and begins drafting up some designs, some are amazing but others don’t compare to the designs in the mysterious sketchbook she found. She must find the person who made this

🪡 She hears the door opening and when she turns her head, she sees you looking a bit embarrassed.

“Uh, I left my sketchbook here, have you seen it?”

“Yes, I have.” Chiori picks up the book and hands it to you. “I looked through it.”

“Wait, what?!”

“And I like what I saw, can I make the designs in this book?”

🪡 So every Tuesday you would go to the sewing club and let Chiori bring life to your designs, the two of you would talk about various fashion styles and designers. Chiori is very impressed by your vast knowledge on how different styles and cultures arose, she might even say it rivals her knowledge (but she won’t)

🪡 The more time you two spend together the more Chiori likes you, she would look forward to your presence right next to her talking her ear off about your characters as she worked. Normally she would play music but the sound of you rambling is more than enough for her

🪡 In the privacy of her room Chiori would often find herself drawing up designs for wedding garments for her and yours wedding, she can’t wait for the day you to call her “my wife”

[9mo9]

i havent gotten anything on my gfm in a month. i lost my job & have been applying but i got terribly sick and its gotten bad (+ couldn't attend interview today). i suspect it might be covid again & ill try to get a test to confirm. i have several bills coming up, like rent on thursday. proof + more info under cut ❤️��🩹.

PAYLINKS HERE ! // rb + do not tag !

my bills!

weekly rent is $365~*

my phone is $25.15

my moms phone is $25.15*

my brothers (🪨) phone is $15*

$125 for credit cards [monthly]

$91 for storage unit [monthly]

*im forced to try to pay for these all in full despite everything. rent slowly goes down every other week, which is why its estimated above. i got 🪨 a phone & service bc he cant rly apply for jobs without it and no one else was bothering. its the only shot in the dark i had to not be the only one pulling money in :( in the future. sadly my moms 📱 payment is glued to mine since i got service as a teen. ive been trying to divorce my number from that acc and get service elsewhere but id need to buy an unlocked phone and im too broke for that 😭!!

my sick! (tmi ahead)

getting sick is always scary bc im very immunocompromised. last time i got this sick it was with covid and it almost killed me. right now i have a horrible cough, throw up balls of phlegm + spit, fever, cant taste much, can barely breathe sleep & eat. i fear going to sleep because i straight up stop breathing. hot tea, cough drops & cold water seem to help but my limited supplies are almost out. i cant do much when im sick, especially not get interviewed. im still applying for jobs even now bc im really hoping i gws but im quarantining myself until i know im better.

my kitty 🐈

i need to take him to the vet so he can get his remaining rotting teeth out, get a checkup & try to get him a cat inhaler bc i suspect he has asthma :') he's showing signs again that he has a tooth loose. last time he clawed at his mouth bc of the pain and hurt himself more. im trying to avoid that this time! hes my old man baby and if we hadnt gotten evicted i would've been able to take him back already.

if you read all this please consider helping me out 💔!

[vidavalor]

<<I tend to think he just saw it all as more space for his books! 😂>>

Oh, babe, he definitely saw it as that, too. 😂 I'm in total agreement there! There are so many books in this shop that the weird, not-often-used rooms in S2 that we saw still just had them piled up everywhere. When I say they have a bedroom up there, I mean that there's a room of books which have been parted enough for there to also a bed.

There was, once, likely even a bookshelf running horizontally on the wall above the bed but Aziraphale got rid of that after the time they rocked the bed into the wall hard enough that Crowley got a mid-coitus concussion from a falling dictionary. Kidding. (Maybe? lol).

I also assume it's the location of Aziraphale's alluded to, ahem, private collections. It probably has a closet which has become home to a variety of random bits and bobs of Crowley's wardrobe going back decades, if the tie & shoes he gave Gabriel are any indication, and the things he doesn't keep at his flat. It's cozy, awash in books, and otherwise pretty normal. We can't see it yet, though, because they would like us to still be theorizing regarding its existence, as you wisely said.

<<It's probably been left so ambiguous because it wasn't important to the show at the time, and they figured it would give us something more to analyze/speculate on and write fanfic about!>>

Exactly. I'm dead serious. Like... we're going to see more of the bookshop but we are in what will be the last bit of the series and that was always the way it was going to go. Doesn't matter if it's a full season or a movie-- it's how they've been doing this since the start. What we see when is by design-- flashbacks, parts of the bookshop, all of it. It's partially an audience engagement tactic. It was in the book, too, but it's even more so in the tv series because that medium is especially great for a story like this.

I think that by telling the story out of chronological order and by being a little coy about what they show, the audience is engaging with its themes more as a result of also trying to solve the puzzle. It makes it more fun for the audience and it's also a more engaging way to tell the story for the people doing so because something we're seeing and when we're seeing it becomes significant to seeing the story.

Everyone can tell it's going to have a good ending to a point that they just basically told us what that ending is lol and they can because that's not at all what's driving interest in the story. No one is like what will the ending be?!; they're all what happened in 1941?! The juice of the story is in the flashbacks.

So, giving the audience that kiss in The Final 15 and leaving them knowing that Crowley & Aziraphale are going to be fine in the final season and what's in the flashbacks in The Finale? What's the twist to upend how we see what we're watching? It has to be that this isn't new because that would single-handedly rewrite all the flashbacks for some people.

What's going to make us see the scenes we've already seen differently once we get to the end of The Finale? If The Vavoom was their first kiss and was back in ancient times, is what.

I really, really think that they're about to drop a single scene that is going to make basically every single fanfic in this fandom need an AU-canon divergence tag and it's going to be amazing. Showing in 2.06 literally the worst kiss they'll have had and will ever have and writing the scene in such a way that half the audience is going to think this is new... but all after planting the seeds earlier in the season via The Vavoom for the twist in S3 when it's shown that it's very much not new? Perfect. 😉

It's not just the kiss-- the whole elevator cliffhanger to me was perfect. Because here we are, ages after the season aired, still chatting about wtf is actually going on in this show lol. There is no actual consensus about what we've been watching and that actually results in us all exploring it more deeply while we attempt to figure it out. It's a thousand times more fun.

Speaking of the bookshop, theories on what could be upstairs?

ooooo the BIG QUESTION.

so we can see a bit of the second floor in all these pics:

basically all we know for sure is there are A LOT MORE BOOKS, both stacked around the railing and on the circle of shelves. neil has decided not to comment on what else might be there (YET 👀) but he’s confirmed that much.

apart from that, we can see from the outside that there are six windows on the second floor:

i’m going to assume they’re part of the shop because they’re Very On Fire when the rest of the shop is on fire. SO. taking all that into account, you end up with something like this:

where the thin grey circle is the railing and the brown one is the bookshelves (as you can see in the first pic, it doesn’t circle all the way around!)

the rest is a complete mystery. i mean i’m sure the actual set was empty because they didn’t need to fill it, but in theory there’s room for some interesting stuff! with the first floor for scale i can imagine a whole flat built around that circle of shelves — a bed aziraphale never sleeps in, comfy chairs, every other angel knick-knack he’s encountered in his life. in my personal headcanon it’s all books and hoarded items covered in dust, which he leaves for authenticity.

thank you for asking!! i’d love to hear other people’s thoughts if they want to share :)

[damn-stark]

Chapter 29 A dot Targ. A dot Vel. (REPRISE)

Chapter 29 of Moonlight

A/N- Its good! I’m so proud!

Warning- talks of pregnancy, ANGST, fluff? violence, blood, swearing, and death. SPOILERS!! FOR FUTURE EVENTS OF HOTD, USING FIRE AND BLOOD, long chapter.

Pairing- Aemond Targaryen x Velaryon!fem-reader, Cregan Stark x Velaryon!fem-reader

Episode/Pages- 515-520

(If you want to be tagged let me know)

————

*A FEW YEARS BACK*

“There. We drop from the top of this cliff and fall right into the water. There’s no rocks below, there’s no way to get hurt. It’s a straightforward jump that’s not high whatsoever.”

Perhaps it was easier for you to say it, you have jumped from the cliff multiple times already, but to your brothers, Daeron, and Helaena? For them, the jump from the small cliff is like being high in the sky and jumping off your dragon's backs. The big body of water that glimmers like gems against the sun's reign is dull and grey in their eyes, and the target is small and an unattainable feat.

“You can walk back down,” Aemond interjects and directs at his little brother. “That’s what Jacaerys and Lucerys are doing. You don’t have to jump if you don’t want to.”

Daeron steps forward an inch to drop his brown eyes on the body of water below and gulp with fear.

“We can hold hands and jump together,” Helaena offers her little brother. “That’s how her…” Helaena pauses and points at you and then points her eyes at Aemond standing beside you. “…and Aemond do it.”

Said boy looks away out of embarrassment but doesn’t argue because it’s true. Every time you come to the top to jump down you do it hand in hand. Never have you done it without each other—yet maybe today might be the day considering Aemond might want to show off to Aegon.

“Yes,” Daeron says shakily and peers over his shoulder before he lifts his hand off his side and starts to reach out for his older sister.

However, it’s in his attempt to seek support that suddenly Aegon sprints forward. “Don’t be such a coward!” Aegon exclaims. “You’re a man with balls not a girl with a cunt!”

Before you can stop him, he shoves past Aemond and you to throw his hands out and shove Daeron off the cliff.

“Aegon!” You snap and run to the edge, whilst Helaena lets out a shocked gasp, and Aemond trails after you.

“Why would you do that?” Aemond remarks to his brother as you all watch Daeron screaming from the top of his lungs before he hits the water with a big splash!

“What’s wrong with you?!” You exclaim and snap your eyes to Aegon, but he just flashes you a cocky smile before he walks back a few paces and then runs forward to jump off the cliff himself and land beside his brother.

“Jacaerys!” You call out as you keep your eyes on where Daeron hit the water. “Check on Daeron!”

Your brother shoots you a thumbs up and walks in the water to do as you asked, and luckily he doesn’t need to assist. Daeron resurfaces with a big gasp of air as he wipes his face.

“Daeron! Are you okay?!” Helaena asks loudly, but she gets ignored as Daeron spins around and begins to splash Aegon out of spite. However, as expected, Aegon only finds his brother's reaction humorous.

“I told you not to invite him,” you quip at Aemond with a side glare. “Of course, he was going to do some shit like this.”

“I thought he’d behave,” Aemond mutters. “Besides, I didn’t invite him. He found out and invited himself.”

You sigh and roll your eyes. “Whatever, do you want to go next?” You ask and throw your hand out to offer it to him. And at first, he looks at your extended invitation and hesitates for a few seconds, so you think today will be the day he refuses your assistance, but alas, he thankfully doesn’t give in to his self-consciousness about being judged by Aegon and puts his hand over yours and make you smile at him.

“Ready?” You make sure to ask as you secure your hold around his hand.

Aemond nods and you proceed to walk back a couple of steps before you both run forward at the same time and jump off the cliff together hand in hand just like you always do. When you hit the water with a big splash and sink in the depths of the deep body of water, you let go of Aemond’s hand and open your eyes, catching him struggling to find his composure for a moment.

Only for a moment though because he’s quick to calm down and stop flailing his limbs around, letting his heartbeat come to a calm beat, and finding the moment to open his eyes and come face to face with you and your close-mouthed smile as you’re the center of each other's attention.

He tries to mirror your sweet gesture, but his smile is not as grand or excited as yours. There’s a warmth in his smile as sees you being so giddy, but he can not reflect that joy you carry because this, the depths of these waters aren’t his favorite; he feels like he’s playing with death by being down under for so long, but for you? This is basically your natural habitat. You were given the name the Siren of Driftmark for your singing ability, but what no one knows is that you’re basically a siren when you’re in the water.

You can hold your breath a long time and that’s something that was self-taught just to be able to dive down and collect stuff off the surface, and be able to mingle with the sea creatures that call these waters their home. Honestly, if it were up to you you would live here if you could, but alas you need air, so after you swim around him you resurface and take a breath of air without failing to grin brighter than the sun shining above.

“Come on, Helaena!” You encourage her whilst you see Aemond resurface and take a large gasp of air from the corner of your eye.

“Maybe I should go push her,” Aegon taunts, but you quickly snap around.

“Don’t you dare you ass!” You remark and push him, but alas he just laughs it off.

You respond to his maniacal laugh with a scoff as you turn away from him and look up again. However, Helaena is not in sight anymore.

“Helaena?!” You call out with worry.

Albeit only a few seconds later she shows up again as she runs toward the edge and jumps off with her fingers pinching her nose.

When she hits the water you swim toward her right away, but she resurfaces quickly and looks at you with relief to be alive. “I’m okay,” she reassures you as she breathes heavily.

You grin at her and nod. “Great. Would you do it again?”

She shakes her head and scoffs. “No.”

You giggle at her response and grab her hand to swim to shore together. Once your feet hit the sandy ground you find Daeron sitting on a rock with his eyes on the water before him.

“Are you okay?” You make sure to ask as you break away from Helaena and crouch down beside him.

“Yes,” he sighs and blinks as he turns his head to look at you. “It was not so bad. It just looked further when I was up there.”

You smile softly and nod in comprehension before you raise a quizzical brow. “Would you do it again?”

Daeron scoffs and nods softly. “Yes. It was fun.”

You beam at him and nudge him playfully. “See, I told you it was not so bad!”

Daeron smiles shyly and rolls his head down as he averts his gaze. “Yes I suppose you were right,” he echoes you before he meets your eyes with that sweet smile. “Just don’t let Aegon push me this time.”

You shake your head and pat his shoulder to reassure him. “No, never. I won’t let him come close. Swear.”

——

*NOW. TUMBLETON*

The stars in the night sky are dancing and mingling with the moon. The breeze is cool, colder than any that’s been felt yet, keeping the warm bodies in their tents to preserve heat and also sleep off the nighttime activities that have been transcending for the past week.

Overall the night is at last calm, giving the army of men a peaceful night. However, it’s in that silence and peace that they are easily able to feel the ground beneath them starting to tremble. And even if they can’t mistake it for anything absurd like all the men getting piss drunk, they don’t question the earth, yet.

With not a moment to spare, more and more men start to wake up when they hear the sound of faint rumbling echoing in the distance. They try to play it off as some distant storm coming their way, but that rumbling grows louder, going from rumbling to it sounding like a thousand storms of thunder clapping on the ground, making the ground shake even more violently and once and for all luring them out of their tents.

Albeit it’s a good and bad thing that they did. It’s a bad thing because they’re met face to face with death, but it's also a good thing because they can alert everyone of death rolling in on them in the shape of two large dragons that dive from the sky unleashing waves of fire upon their tent grounds that engulf the once darkened campsite in a raging firelight and drown out the soft and bright light of the moon and the stars.

From there on it's impossible for anyone to mind their business and ignore the sound of chaos outside, the firestorm falling upon them, and the wave upon wave of screaming men all charging toward them. Now they have to get up and dress for a fight, or get up and walk out whilst they’re dressing to grab any weapon they can or grab their horses to have some fighting chance.

And some men do have a fighting chance—Those men far from the initial line of fire can quickly dress and grab what they need to meet their attackers. However, those men caught under the dragon's shadows are nothing more than ash and bones, especially as you and Astraea make a sharp turn and fly low, descending a fiery death as you fly directly toward the main tents because that’s where you’ll find him; Daeron Targaryen.

Many would call you a Kinslayer for directly killing your uncle Daeron. You’ll forever be marked as one in the history books. All your great achievements will be watered down to that single fact especially because you’re a woman, but here’s the thing, you don’t give a single fuck what people in a hundred years think of you. All you care about is killing one man at this very moment, and you notice him just as you’re flying directly toward the main tents.

Daeron is standing outside, half-dressed with his silver-blond hair standing out like a sore thumb against the wild flames feeding on the bodies, the tents, and the ground around him. He stands there with his dark eyes on you and your dragon charging directly at him. He’s there and as his figure reflects in your eyes all the deaths you’ve endured; Lucerys, your grandmother, Jacaerys, Viserys, Joffrey, and even Aemond—Even his own brother's death flashes behind your eyes as if he was the sole cause of their deaths. As if he himself killed them with his bare hands.

And in some messed up way your mind does see him as the sole cause of their deaths because there’s no one else to blame; Aegon is dead or lost somewhere, you can never truly blame Aemond, and anyone else can never compare to the man standing before you. The Hightower and Targaryen boy whose family took away everything good. It’s because of his family that all of your own family is gone, and all that you knew is dead along with them. So yes, you blame him. You want him dead. You want to see his flesh melt off his bones. You want to give his mother his head so she may feel your mother's pain and the pain you have endured as well.

It would satisfy your thirst for revenge just enough to get off the field and watch from a distance to not make Cregan, Ser Cane, and Addam worry. Daeron is all your anger wants. He’s all your desire locks on. Daeron.

Daeron.

Daeron.

“Dracarys,” you growl as you lean forward and grab onto the handle with a vice grip.

Astraea clicks from the back of her throat as she builds up fire before she blasts her burning flames on Daeron and the path behind him.

Nevertheless, just before the flames can hit Daeron and the ground, the boy jumps out of Astraea’s aim.

You immediately snap your head around as Astraea flies forward, and soon thereafter catch him pushing himself to his feet to be able to run away and hide in between the crowd all running from the dragon's wrath.

“RAHHH!” You cry out enraged and hit the handles of your saddle. “<Turn Astraea!>” You command in Valyrian as you nudge the handles to the side. And without needing to be told twice Astraea makes a quick turn, whipping her tail and thrashing men to the side whilst also destroying tents and clutter in the way of her swinging tail.

When you’re facing the way Daeron ran you have Astraea unleash more waves of fire, catching irrelevant men in the way of your wrath until your uncle is all that you see ahead of you now that he’s not able to hide in the sea of bodies.

Yet before you can give your command to Astraea with your words or through your connection, you unhook all your restraints and push yourself off your seat to swing your leg over the saddle and reach the ladder hanging off Astraea’s side. After that, without needing to be told, your dragon comes to a stop and hovers over the ground of burning bodies to let you descend the ladders and land on an empty spot on the ground.

Daeron notices what you're doing and doesn’t stop running. You look at his path ahead and assume he’s attempting to reach Tessarion, so, considering Astraea knows your deepest desire, she swoops around him, unleashing a line of fire around him to cut him off in his attempts and bring him to an immediate stop before the wall of fire.

You then proceed to watch him, but don’t call out his name. You narrow your glare and start trudging toward him with heavy footsteps and Blackfyre in one hand. And perhaps that sight of you is much more terrifying than being called out because silence is much more threatening. It's tense and deadly because he knows, he feels it on the hairs on the back of his neck and the goosebumps crawling down his spine that you’re coming.

It’s only once Daeron hears you come to a stop that he turns around while he fixes his grip on his own sword, and confronts your piercing glare spewing hatred and a ferocity that he has only heard of until now.

Yet it doesn’t scare him. He doesn’t tense or try to find a way to escape, he stands there with you in a small clear spot surrounded by dead bodies and a wall of fire that stays alive by feeding off some of those dead bodies.

“Goodsister,” he greets warmly, but you don’t even attempt to return a feigned friendly greeting. You breathe out heavily through your nose and tighten your grip around your Valyrian sword.

“It’s been a while. You’re glowing,” he finds some way to be funny, but again, you don’t mirror him. You do respond though.

“I’m not your Goodsister anymore. Aemond is dead.”

Daeron blinks and nods stiffly. “Yes, I know. My condolences, you were married and you were best friends from what I remember. He really loved you.”

You blink repeatedly as one of your heartstrings is pulled at by his words.

“Don’t patronize me,” you hiss and throw your hand out to point the tip of your sword at him. “Fight.”

Daeron swallows back nervously and remains still for a second before he shakes his head. “No, I won’t fight you. You’re my niece and you’re with child. It would not be fair.”

“You have until my Astraea reaches us to swing your sword,” you ignore him and then lift your hand to point your sword at Astraea circling around to return this way. “If you refuse she will unfurl her fire and catch us both with her flames, but,” you suck your teeth and begin to smile a menacing smile. “Only one of us can withstand the fire's fury. You…will burn and Tessarion won’t be able to reach you in time to save you. So choose. You can fight me and have a chance to survive, or die a fiery death.”

Daeron glances at Astraea getting closer and then glances at the army of men you came with before he slowly lets his eyes fall back on you. “And if I fight you and survive, how long until your army of men comes after me?”

You scoff. “Not long. Lord Stark is lurking nearby, and my sworn protector is also close, so,” you pause and hum as you come up with an estimate. “About ten to fifteen minutes, but that’s enough to get close to your dragon. That is if my dragon doesn’t eat you first.”

He hums and nods in comprehension before he chooses to glance at his options again and debate whether he really wants to fight you at a disadvantage, or give up and die.

It is a hard choice given he doesn’t hate you or hold any ill will. It was always your brothers that he was taught to dislike, but his mother never really taught them to hate you. She did bad mouth you and was rude, but she never told her kids to hate you, so he can’t find it in himself to flip a switch and all of a sudden want to kill you.

Yet…he also doesn’t want to die. He can’t die when his men and his own mother need him. He owes it to the siblings he’s lost and their cause to fight. So with a deep breath, he tightens his grip, fixes his stance, and chooses.

“Alright if it’s what you want.” He mutters, making that menacing smile turn to a grin, and without saying a word, causing Astraea to drift and now circle you and him rather than setting you both on fire.

“It’s what I want and it’s what I need,” you grumble and fix your stance before you slowly let out a deep breath.

~~~~~

There’s a breath you take in your lungs, but rather than being filled with relief as the breath of air runs through your lungs something grainy travels into your lungs before you’re overcome with a pressure over your chest.

A darkness also accompanies the pressure as you open your eyes, and all you can do is panic rather than staying calm and thinking about what’s going on or where you are.

You throw your hands out and fling them around to try and remove the heavy grain that’s burying you without thinking about taking steady breaths. You pant, taking in more and more grains of sand bit by bit until a beam of light breaks through the darkness, bringing hope to the desperation and letting you break through the barrier that was on top of you to let you see an endless blue sky.

Yet even as you face the horizon and the freedom it brings, the panic still unsettles your heart as you face an endless sea that you weren’t near mere moments ago and violently cough out the grains that you now know are sand.

It’s all so sudden, the sand, the sea, the blue sky, and the shining sun. You were just…

You don’t remember…

You can’t remember where you were. You don’t—you can’t.

“Hey, hey, breathe. Breathe,” a familiar voice tries to instruct you before their hand falls on your shoulder, but you just bolt to your feet and spin around to swat their hand away in your panic.

Only, it’s when you face the person comforting you that you recognize…your father.

“Father?” You ask breathlessly and step back out of fear.

“Yes.” He nods. “Yes. It’s me. You’re okay. It’s me.”

You shake your head and close your eyes to try and wake up back where you had been, but when you rip your eyes open you still see him and the beach standing behind you.

“No, no,” you keep denying what you see even if you don’t know what’s going on. You just know seeing your father isn’t right. “You’re not supposed to be here,” you say between pants and step back again whilst you reach for your belly for some support. Albeit your hands don’t come in contact with your swollen belly, your hands hit your torso, but there's no bump. It’s gone. The twins…

“What,” you gasp and feel your heart racing in your chest as your panic heightens, making everything around you spin, and making your head hurt. “Where are my children?!”

“Breathe!” Your father yells out over your panic and grabs your arms to yank you toward him so he can repeat himself louder. “Breathe.”

You look him in the eyes and don’t see a stranger or any trick or sorcery. You see the same brown eyes you saw when he was still alive. You see him, the man you loved, and the man you lost. He’s there in front of you. It’s no trick, no dream, no vision. It’s him.

“Father?” You question and blink repeatedly before you stare at him for a lingering minute and then avert your gaze to think back to what you remember last and what brought you to this moment. And even if you assume that you won’t remember, you do. You remember what led you to where you currently are.

“Father,” you breathe out and lift your hands to grab his arms and huff out with relief. “Father!”

“My girl,” he coos and finally offers you a smile as you’re calm now. “Hello.”

You offer him a smile but don’t redirect his greeting. Your eyebrows pinch together in confusion. “My twins?” You ask and he sighs before he offers you an assuring smile.

“They’re fine. You on the other hand…” he trails off and his face falls with pity and heavy concern. “My girl, do you know where you are?”

You blink repeatedly and come up with a quick idea. “I think so. I think,” you pant out and face him with worry. “Maybe I’m dead?”

He breathes out and neither nods nor shakes his head, he parts his lips and gives you a response instead. “Not yet, but you can choose to.”

“Choose to?” You echo and shake your head before probing in more confusion. “I don’t understand. I thought I died.”

He shakes his head. “Not yet, that’s why you can choose. You can pass on and stay here, or you can leave this place. You can also choose to live. That’s the difference between me and you. You just have to know what you want.”

You slowly let go of him and think over his words as if it were some great mystery when what he said and what it meant is clear as day.

“Do you know what you want?” He asks and looks deep into your averted gaze.

“I,” you mouth and breathe out before you drag your eyes up and face him with a sense of confusion on how to answer his question because why would you want to go back?

You did have some great plans you went over with Cregan, but as you’re here, in this great limbo with your father on the beach without any pain or worry, why would you want to leave to suffer?

You don’t want to cry anymore. You don’t want to live through more loss. You don’t want to suffer any more pain. You want to stay here where you can be by the sea, breathing in the salty air, and being with a man you love.

“I don’t know,” you mutter under your breath and look away shamefully as if waiting for him to scold you and try to argue with you. Albeit he just pats your arms before he strokes your cheeks.

“That’s okay, take your time.”

You meet his dark eyes and offer him a thankful smile before you once again look around at where you are.

Your father follows your line of gaze and takes a step away from you to finally probe. “Why did you choose the beach?”

You turn around to face the endless blue sea and answer without having to think about it. “Because it’s where I was always the happiest. It’s where I would come with my brothers and the others. It’s where you taught me to fish and how to read the stars. It’s where you taught me to sing sailor shanties.” You share and giggle breathlessly before you look over at him and finally wonder why he’s here when he should be long gone with the man he never stopped loving.

“Why are you here, father? Shouldn’t you be with your partner Joffrey?” You ask, making him scoff and look out at the peaceful waters that you stand in front of.

“No,” he then answers quietly. “I’m where I’m meant to be.”

You meet his gaze and try to dig deep for the real answer, but you can’t find it in his eyes or find any clue in between his body language, so you accept his answer as it is.

“You know I’m proud of you, right?” He interjects and steals all your divided attention. “You…have come so far,” he muses. “My little siren.” He laughs breathlessly and steps forward to once again grab your face. “You have grown into such a strong and beautiful young woman.”

“Father,” you mouth as your eyes start to fill with tears, making the sight of him turn blurry.

“You are a good mother, and you are a good daughter. Despite all your doubts, you are a good daughter, your mother knows that. I know that. You are just young, you will make mistakes, but the important thing is you admit them and learn from them, but never shame yourself because of those mistakes.”

More tears overfill your eyes, causing them to break out and roll down your cheeks.

“I love you, my girl,” he continues in the same soft and affectionate way as if he didn’t have all the time in the world despite being dead—“you are my greatest achievement. You are what I’m most proud of and I’m,” his voice breaks and tears fill his own eyes. “…I’m sorry for leaving. I hurt you and I’m sorry. You needed me and I left. I tried to come back. I was on my way back to see you, but I…” he trails off and his tears roll down. “…that’s when I died. You believe me right?”

You lift your hands to grab his jaw and offer him a wobbly smile before you nod. “I do. I believe you because I saw it in a vision from a good witch.”

He scoffs in amusement and you giggle before you slide your hands down and proceed to throw them around his neck to pull him in for an embrace.

“I forgive you, Father,” you assure him and unknowingly offer him everything he had been waiting for.

You finally give him the forgiveness that he was waiting for to move on to peace.

“I love you, and I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” his voice cracks as he hugs you back with a tight force. “And I love you more than anything.”

You weep on his shoulder and grip onto him as if your life depended on it. “Father,” you cry and unleash a very shaky and heavy breath that feels like you shed off a weight you did not know you had been carrying on your shoulders.

“It’s okay to be selfish,” he whispers. “No one will shame you for it if it’s what you want.”

You pull away slowly and wipe your tears before you look him in the eyes and continue with a quiver as you talk through your pain. “I don’t want—”

Albeit before you can finish, there’s other people that catch your eye. There in the distance, along the shoreline are your three brothers; Joffrey, Lucerys, and Jacaerys. They’re here too and the sight of them makes you forget the pain you were about to share and the choice you didn’t know if you wanted to make. You were going to debate it, but now as you see your brothers all you can think about is going to them.

“Go,” your father tells you as he sees what you focus on. “They’re waiting for you.”

You quickly look back at him and query. “Are you sure?”

He holds your gaze and stares at you for a lingering second before he nods softly. “I’m sure. Go.”

You offer him one last giddy smile before you peel away and face your beloved brothers. “Joffrey! Luke! Jace!”

All three boys turn to look at you and you throw your hand in the air and wave.

Lucerys is the first to respond with a sweet smile before Joffrey waves you over.

You then don’t debate your choice or look back at your father, you move your foot forward and go to them.

~~~~~~~

*NOW*

A breath unfurls from your lungs and escapes past your lips. Your once deadly grip on your blade's handle loosens, and your feet shift into a fighting stance as you lock eyes with Daeron.

“I am sorry—”

“Shut up,” you grimace and lunge forward to swing Blackfyre at his neck, but Daeron is quick to block your attempts and then push you back, causing you to grunt and then proceed to thrust violently.

However, Daeron then throws his body to the side to avert your action, but you don’t let him collect himself and come up with some alternative. You overwhelm him by swinging your blade again.

Albeit Daeron meets your blade with his once more, causing a sharp clinging to ring out against the sound of men fighting and dying, dragon wings clapping as they flap in the sky, fire blasting out of their mouths, and crying as you hear them fighting.

Nevertheless, it’s while your swords are pressed against each other, and your eyes are locked on one another that you slip one hand off your blade handle and curl your fist to throw him an uppercut that makes him stumble back. After that, you probably would have followed with a kick, but with your belly weighing you down you can’t, so instead, you opt to rush him and throw your blade down. Albeit Daeron follows up by throwing his own blade up to meet your actions before he manages to drop one hand to grab your wrist and try to shove you back.

“I don’t want to fight you. It’s not fair!” He cries out to try and make you listen. “And above all else, you’re my niece. We grew up together, doesn’t that count for something?”

Your eyebrows furrow and your eyes narrow to a nasty glare. “Aegon grew up with my mother and he still took her throne. He was a man capable of thinking for himself. He could’ve fought back, but he didn’t, he still took my mother's throne,” you growl and use your strength to try and push him off you, but his grip only tightens and he pushes back against you, causing you to drop one hand to grab onto his forearm and try to rip his grip off your wrist that holds you captive.

“And you still chose to fight against her. She would have given you a spot beside her!” You cry in anger. “But you still betrayed her and for what? A mother that hardly cares about you? Brothers that forget you exist?” You scoff and shoot him a smirk to try and piss him off, but he’s more emotionally mature. Daeron slides his hand off your wrist instead and then presses it against your chest to shove you back with a strength that’s enough to make you lose contact and stumble back.

You try to quickly find your balance to counter, but Daeron then kicks dirt and ash in your eyes, causing a roaring cry to rip out from your throat and break through all the barriers of noise that surround you, while your sword falls from your hands as you fling yourself around and fall to your knees to try and wipe the trash out of your stinging eyes.

“What the hell?!” You hiss and groan as you frantically rub your eyes.

“Is that what you want?!” Daeron remarks and steps forward, but you manage to crawl away and throw your hand back.

“Don’t you dare,” you snap back and go back to rubbing your eyes.

“You really think this is what Aemond would want?” He throws out as if he knew the man Aemond grew up to be. He only knew a child, he didn’t know the man he was.

“Don’t you dare,” you hiss and drop your hand to blink hard and repeatedly, whilst also feeling your eyes overflow with tears that try to wash out all the trash in your eyes—“don’t talk about him like you know him,” you remark and finally manage to see the ground. It’s cloudy, but you can still see it nonetheless so you continue to crawl away in search of a weapon.

“You didn’t know him,” your voice cracks. “Your mother didn’t know him. Aegon didn’t. Only I did…he was mine and he’s gone now because of your family. Because of you! So shut up.”

“What happened to you?” He asks boldly as he stays where he is and watches you aimlessly move away from him and your sword—“You used to be kind-hearted. You were good and now…”

“I’m everything you and your family made me,” you finish his sentence and feel your breath catch in your throat when you see an intact bow and scattered arrows just beneath a burnt corpse.

“No, no I don’t believe that,” he says as he doesn’t seem to notice the way you’re starting to pull at something.

“The girl I knew is still there. You were the Realm’s Golden Girl,” he goes on rambling. “I don’t believe you could have fallen this far.”

You manage to get the bow out so you test your luck with one arrow so as to not risk raising suspicion by reaching for the other arrow scattered further away from you.

“Believe what you want. I do not care,” you grumble and align your arrow with the bow before you throw yourself around and garner his attention.

Daeron sees your intentions and tries to quickly react, but without thinking too much about your aim because of your blurry eyesight, you let the arrow go, and in that flash of a second after the arrow flies through the air, you manage to pierce Daeron through his eye.

And as soon the arrow hits his face you gasp with surprise while he freezes in place as he’s overcome with disbelief over what just happened.

Yet it’s while he’s caught in his paralyzing shock that you drop the bow and hastily push yourself to your feet to be able to run toward Blackfyre abandoned on the ground, giving Daeron the push to snap out of his stupor and finally realize he’s in agonizing pain and also targeted for another attack.

Although the arrow pierced through his eye makes him slow, he’s still dealing with his paralyzing shock which doesn’t let him be as fast as he wants to be. Thus he does what he can and throws his hand out as you stride toward him with your hands reeling your sword back, and he stammers, “Wait—”

However, you don’t let him finish his sentence before you swing your sword with every ounce of strength you can muster, managing to cut through his neck and slice his head clean off his shoulders with a loud cry of determination.

When the head hits the ground a loud and solemn cry pierces through the sky in the distance, but you ignore it and instead let out a heavy breath and follow your body forward toward the wall of fire as you stumble due to the strength you used, letting the flames consume you as you stand there in your disbelief.

Killing Daeron didn’t affect you. You don’t feel a twinge of grief or remorse. You’re just surprised it happened. You killed Daeron.

What does that make you feel? Deep inside.

You blink as hard as you can to keep trying to remove the dirt still stuck in your eyes and think about it.

There’s no grief. No guilt or remorse. Do you feel relieved?

No.

Do you feel proud?

You tilt your head up toward the sky and blink repeatedly a few more times to finally rid your eyes of all the gunk Daeron kicked at you to blind you and finally see clearly, and it’s like a breath of fresh air.

You make out the screen of smoke that pollutes the air and completely covers the starry sky and its illuminating light. You see the thick ash that falls down to the earth like snowflakes fall, and in between all that ugly pollution you find your answer to your question, and it’s a no. You don’t feel proud, you only feel a hunger for more. You still feel…unsatisfied. Like you’re missing something.

How funny, killing Daeron was supposed to satisfy your thirst for blood for a while, just until you reached Kings Landing and sought revenge for what the Smallfolk did to your mother and the dragons. Albeit not an ounce of that thirst is satisfied.

So it’s true what they say? Killing out of revenge won’t satisfy someone?

Well…it has to. It has to mean something!

Thus you bring your head down and walk out of the fire with your chainmail burning red because of the heat, and your fur cloak burning behind you as you walk over and collect Daeron’s head off the ground.

“Goodbye uncle, it was nice knowing you,” you mutter to his bleeding head without meaning a word as you lift it to look at him in his lifeless brown eye. “They’ll remember you because of me,” you add before you drop your arm and roll your shoulders back as you let out a deep breath. You then walk away from the small empty space and walk over dead body after dead body littered on the battlefield ground and reach a boulder that stands at the center of all the chaos.

Before you climb on the large boulder though, you look down at the head you carry and force pride upon yourself. You think about the wave of encouragement and hope all your men will feel upon seeing Daeron’s head, and that fills you with excitement and more pride that you couldn’t muster before.

And it’s only once those emotions now rush through you that you start to climb the boulder without caring if you’re dragging Blackfyre against the stone, or that blood is staining your hand. You climb the boulder and reach the top, seeing multiple banners spread throughout the thick of the battlefield all waving the same red three-headed dragon against a black background, and you think of her, your mother, and your Queen.

She won’t have to worry about Daeron or his dragon anymore. It’s not the guarantee she needs to end this war, but it’s one less piece of the board. You can win and she will ascend her throne.

You believe it with your whole heart and it’s that belief that overflows your running heart with enthusiasm and malice.

“The Daring is dead!” You make your voice boom, catching the attention of your men and your enemies before you throw your hand up to show off the head like a trophy, causing an eruption of cheers and gasps alike.

“BLOOD DRAGON!”

“BLOOD DRAGON!” The cheers of your alias scatter around the field, causing goosebumps to spread over your skin and a smile to spread on your lips.

“FOR—” you cut yourself off as a large shadow casts over you, making you roll your head back and catch Daeron’s cobalt dragon, Tessarion torpedoing toward you with its mouth open.

Yet even if you do see the potential danger, you don’t turn to run or shield yourself because you know and feel Astraea behind you, flying directly toward the threat to protect you. Besides, Tessarion can’t burn you with her flames like she thinks she can, so you welcome the rain of fire with a wicked smile

Even then as the fire barrels over you, you basically just get scraped because Astraea rams into Tessarion and shoves her to the ground with a loud boom that shakes the ground and makes a crater.

“<Good girl,>” you praise your dragon even if she can’t hear you before you rip your attention away and search for Addam and Seasmoke.

Luckily, or maybe not so luckily you spot him in the distance caught in a dance between Seasmoke and Vermithor.

You look out for Silverwing, but you don’t catch her anywhere, it’s just Vermithor against Seasmoke, but is that really relieving?

Not in the slightest because Vermithor is the largest dragon. He has more battle experience than Seasmoke, and much more power in his fire and whatever hits he throws. He could find a way to kill Seasmoke if his rider is smart enough.

All while Tessarion is now riderless and smaller. Without a rider, she’s aimless in this fight, so you need to help Addam and Seasmoke first. You can then worry about Silverwing and Tessarion if they turn out to be a threat.

Therefore, you descend the boulder with haste and turn in your dragon's direction, seeing at that moment as if having read your thoughts, Astraea leaving Tessarion stranded and struggling on the ground so you can meet each other halfway, and hastily climb her after sheathing your sword.

“<Let's go help Seasmoke and Addam,>” you tell her while you shove Daeron’s decapitated head into a saddlebag. Albeit was there really a need to tell her what you wanted? Astraea had already met up with you without needing to be told, and she knows what it is you want and your desperate desire because she feels it too.

~~~~~~~

“Jace! Luke! Joffrey!”

There’s nothing that can stop you. No obstacle, no force, or divine intervention. There’s only them at the other end of that sandy beach as if they’re encouraging you to the big finish line. They call out your name with excitement and big smiles, only further exciting your already racing heart, and fueling your encouragement already running at high speed in order to let you reach them out of fear that they are a figment of your imagination.

“Jace!” You call out again with tears running off your face and joining the windy breeze. “Joffrey! Luke!” You say with a wobbly grin illuminating your once gloomy face.

Once you finally break through all the barriers that stood in between and cross that finish line to reach them, they can’t hold their excitement either, they run to you as you run to them and throw your arms around each other while you all laugh a quivering laugh and grin as you’re overfilled with joy.

“You're all here,” you say with a whimper and cling onto them tighter. “I missed you.”

“We missed you too,” Joffrey offers you some consolation before you all pull away, letting you crouch to grab your youngest brother's shoulders and look at him with pity.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to save you, Joffrey.”

Said boy offers you a half smile and shrugs. “It's okay, I had a great death.”

You frown and he sighs before he closes the gap to wrap you in an embrace that just involves him and you.

“Don’t forget me,” he says with a quiver. “And tell Mother I am sorry. If you decide to return that is. Will you?” He doesn’t let you give him a response to his previous comments before he bombards you with a heavy question and pulls away to look at you with an impatient stare.

“Joffrey lay off her,” Jacaerys warns your brother, making you stand up and slowly drag your eyes up to face him. “Don't start crying on us. We know,” he breathes out. “We know all the guilt, the shame, and the longing, so just don’t repeat it.”

You laugh softly and nod before snapping your attention to Lucerys. “Luke,” you greet him softly, making him offer you a sweet and childlike smile.

“I missed you,” he tells you and steals a small breath from your chest.

“I,” you breathe out. “I missed you too.”

Lucerys smile widens before he walks over to wrap his arm around your waist, letting you wrap your arm around his shoulders.

“Are you here to stay?” Lucerys now presses, causing you to sigh and drop your head whilst you all begin walking forward along the shoreline, unbeknownst to the fact that your father is no longer behind you or waiting for that matter. He’s passed because it was your forgiveness that he was waiting for and now that he has it he can know peace. He would help you find the answer to what you want, but that’s something he can’t assist with, that’s an answer only you can come up with.

“I don’t…know…” you trail off and lift your head to look at the blue sky with wonder and confusion.

“I…am so sick and tired of just feeling agony, of losing people, and losing parts of me in this war that staying is more tempting than I care to admit. But on the other hand, I have people depending on me to continue fighting. So,” you pause and swallow back the lump that forms in your throat. “I don’t know.”

Jacaerys hums and you stop walking, causing your arm to slip off Lucerys shoulder whilst his arm also slides off you as you linger behind with your head down and your eyes full of tears.

“Would you,” you pause and hear them come to a stop and shift around against the sand to look at you and wait for the rest of what you were building up to say.

“…would you be mad if I chose to stay here with you all?” You ask and draw in a shaky breath before you slowly face them with tears running down your cheeks. “Would it be selfish of me to trade my pain for an eternity of happiness here on this beach with you? Because I want to…I want to stay. I want to be happy and laugh again. I want to be with you, I don’t want to go back and live on without you!”

Jacaerys and Lucerys share the same pitiful look before Jacaerys steps forward to speak his peace. “I would drag you back because you have the chance we didn’t, but,” he sighs deeply. “If staying is what you want. If that’s what will make you happy, who am I to keep you from happiness? Besides, life here would be a little less boring with you.” He says and offers you that ever-so-heartwarming smile that brightens this moment just a little more.

“I,” you part your lips as your heart yearns to be with them, but before you can give them your answer, water splashes over the side of your face and that of your brothers. When you look over at where the water came from you see that Joffrey was the mischievous culprit.

“Of course it was you,” you remark lightheartedly and push aside the choice you were going to make to run over and grab Joffrey and throw him over your shoulder.

“No, let me go!” He exclaims between laughs, but you run deeper in the water to drop him and make a big splash that makes him burst out laughing even harder.

Lucerys and Jacaerys then join in on the harmless fun in the water as they see you and Joffrey getting carried away; choosing to splash water on each other and or shove each other in the water like you would on those hot summer days when you were young.

For a while you get everything you just said you wanted; you laugh like you haven’t laughed in months. You flash a beaming smile and forget all about the chaos that is your life outside of this limbo. For a moment as you’re having fun with your brothers in the water, it's almost like your heart is set on a decision.

You want to stay. You want to live in this happiness under the sun. You don’t want to wake up under a cloudy sky without your brothers. You want to stay with them for as long as you can. And almost as if to solidify your choice, there in the distance shining in your eyes like the bright sun is your beloved, your Aemond…

~~~~~

*NOW*

Beneath your most desperate desire lies another need. A wicked need just fueled by anger and hate.

A rather unnecessary need to see through because your fight is outside the walls and all the fighting men that are inside Tumbleton’s walls are coming out to join the fight, or are already affected by the chaos the surprise attack caused.

Yet as unnecessary as the need is, the need is still a rather burning desire to rain fire on the entire town as if they’re single-handedly at fault for being taken and sacked by the enemy.

The need makes you itch to follow through with it. The need screams at your mind to tell Astraea to make a sharp turn and fly toward the town. You feel a pressure building within to unleash all that you have balled up inside you, but…you have more control than easily giving into that specific desire, besides, Addam needs your help and that takes priority. So, you continue to fly toward him at a quick speed while also thanking the fact that this fight is taking place at night because Astraea can take cover through the shadows that the wildfires and scattered firelight leave untouched.

Albeit you also grow to resent that night because it makes it harder to see Vermithor and Seasmoke fighting. You can see them tangled on the ground, and you can hear them snapping at each other while they also growl and cry, but this cover makes it difficult to make out their figures so you can know where to hit. And it’s not like you can unleash a blast of fire because Addam could get hurt in the process. You have to rely on Astraea, and you have to strain your eyes.

Much to your conflicted mind though, when you get close enough, you see that Vermithor’s saddle is empty. Ser Hugh is not strapped on his dragon, and you can’t say that he’s crushed, burnt, or eaten because there would be evidence on the saddle or lack thereof, but the saddle is intact. So does that mean…Vermithor is fighting out of his own will? He has to be. And is Ser Hugh dead?

That’s a question you don’t ponder or care to learn the answer to now. Right now you scan the scene as much as the visibility allows you to, finding an opening on Vermithor’s belly.

An attack there would give Seasmoke wiggle room to get out of the entanglement.

Hence you nudge the handles on your saddle down to try and guide Astraea in that direction, but it seems she was already thinking the same thing because she tucks her wings and completely head butts Vermithor’s belly, bringing both male dragons to an abrupt stop, and then forcing Vermithor to unlock his jaw off Seasmoke’s wing to snap back and try to throw his jaw down on Astraea.

Alas, your dragon bites down hard and swings her head to the side, creating a deep gash on Vermithor’s belly that makes him bellow out in pain.

Seasmoke then sees his opening and slips away from Vermithor. You look over and see him try to rise, but his wing is too battered to use, he can’t pick himself off the ground.

“Addam!” You call out as loud as you can so your voice can be carried out. “Addam!”

Said man catches wind of his name traveling through the breeze and his attention falls on you.

“Jump off the dragon!” You try to tell him as Astraea and Vermithor are fighting. “Jump off!” You shout at the top of your lungs as you also try to motion with your hands so you can get your point across and so he can continue to have some fighting chance.

“Addam! Jump! Please!” You continue to plead before you throw your hand out to offer to him and let him know that you will help him. You can get out of this together.

Alas, Addam holds your pleading gaze and shakes his head as he understands well what it is you’re trying to say. He doesn’t try to yell out his response, he just hits his chest with his fist the same way you tap each other's chest with your own fists.

“No,” you mewl and clutch onto your handles to try and nudge Astraea toward Addam and Seasmoke. However, just as Astraea pulls her jaw away from Vermithor’s belly, from the cover of night falls a blast of fire that unfurls over Astraea and you.

It’s a good thing that you don’t burn or else this is where you would have met your end. The only thing that happened was that you were caught by surprise so much that your heart leaped. Besides that and the rest of your fur cloak burning off, Astraea and you come out unscathed.

Actually, your dragon just comes out more enraged, so as Seasmoke is aiming for her neck, she snaps around as the fire is dying out to be able to whip her tail and throw him off his intended path.

“Addam!” You yell out without paying any mind to what happened or Tessarion’s possible retaliation. You turn your body against your saddle to search and find Vermithor shifting his focus back to Seasmoke.

“Addam!” You call out desperately, hurting every possible muscle aligning your throat to get your voice across, and actually manage to catch his attention.

Addam snaps his head to the side and his eyes fall on you. You can see his dark brown eyes through the cloud of debris that floats in the air and the scattered light that finds room in between you both, and you have the need to continue trying to get your plea across, but you know he’ll just ignore you, so you just narrow your gaze to a more determined look and offer him a small smile.

Addam returns your smile and holds your gaze for a second longer before Astraea throws herself in the air to tackle Tessarion while she tries to regain her balance, and shoves her to the ground.

You trust Astraea to fight so you turn your head to focus back on Addam, catching at that moment Seasmoke biting down on Vermithor’s neck with so much force that the bronze dragon begins to gush out blood.

Your eyes brighten with glee, and your first thought is to search for Addam.

Nevertheless, as you’re searching, Vermithor then counters the attack and clamps his jaw hard on Seasmoke’s throat before, with one forceful yank, rips Seasmoke’s head clean off his neck.

Your eyes peel back with shock and horror at that moment, but you still try to call out for Addam. You still continue to search for him, but you can’t find him. Once again your attention is pulled away, and this time it’s by Tessarion tangling her body around Astraea and rolling her on the ground.

You quickly bend over your saddle to avoid being thrashed around in the midst of the dragons rolling on the ground, whilst Astraea lets out a sharp cry as she swings her claws on any part of Tessarion she can reach, causing the cobalt dragon to stop in her actions and unleash Astraea from her hold.

Once your dragon has her feet on the ground you sit up and notice Tessarion struggling to get up so you look away and frantically search for Addam.

This time though you don’t find his face. You don’t meet his eyes. You see the headless corpse of Seasmoke bleeding out on the ground but no sign of Addam trying to find a way out, so you panic. You shouldn’t, there’s a high chance he was unharmed, but you still panic, so without caring about Vermithor dragging himself away, or Tessarion and Astraea still at each other's throats, you unbuckle yourself and hastily unmount your dragon to run through the blood-soaked ground.

You trip and fall on your hands and knees, staining your skin and your chainmail gown of dragon blood that lets out steam due to how hot it is, but you don’t stop to linger, your mind and your heart don’t let you stop. You run and run as fast as your body can let you, feeling your chest rise and fall quickly with heavy pants, and feeling your heartbeat quicken bit by bit as you approach Seasmoke’s saddle and fail to see Addam walk out unscathed or minimally injured.

“Addam!” You call out in hopes he’ll assure you he’s fine as he hears you approach him, but you don’t receive a response. Besides, all the calamity already surrounding you, his voice doesn’t rise over the clamoring.

Which is why you go again. “Addam?!”

You wait for a response but once again you fail to get one, so instead of quickening your pace, you slow down and focus on your pounding heart rather than ignoring the panic that makes it race with so much haste.

“Addam?” You call out weakly and press your hand on Seasmoke’s corpse to run it over his scales as you approach the saddle.

You don’t want to expect the worst due to Addam’s lack of response but you have already lost so much. You’ve been the butt of death's joke so many times that you prepare yourself mentally to face tragedy.

“Addam?” You whisper as you start to round the corner and stay connected to Seasmoke to try and spare your poor heart from what may await you.

Yet you can’t avoid the truth forever because if Addam is injured he might need your help. So with a few heavy breaths, you slip your hand off Seasmoke and finish turning that corner to finally come face to face with the saddle, and see Addam lying on the ground. You don’t pay attention if his back is moving with every breath, your eyes go wide as you gasp and a heightened sense of panic shoots through your heart, causing you to break into a sprint.

“Addam!” You call out with that sense of panic laced in your voice.

When you reach him you continue to not listen for his breaths. You don’t take note of his neck bent at an odd angle, you just see blood leaking out from a gash on his head and work to unstrap him from his saddle.

“It’s okay,” you assure him. “You’ll be okay. I will put pressure on the wound. I know how to do that. I can do it until we reach a healer.”

Once again the response is silence, but you don’t care, you manage to unhook him from his saddle and hook your arms under his arms to drag him back onto the stable ground.

“You did great, you know that?” You continue as you use all your strength to drag his heavy body back with you. “I killed Daeron, I took his head and I want to,“ you pause to groan. “…give it to his mother. Which sounds cruel, but alas I do not care. She deserves it for what she caused, don’t you think?” You ask and lay him down on his back, catching the way his eyes are half-lidded and the blood running out of his gash is no longer bright crimson, but dark.

“Addam?” You call out and lose every ounce of warmth that was building up in your voice as you wanted to be oblivious. “Addam?” Your voice cracks and your heart slowly sinks down to your stomach, but you don’t come to any conclusion yet. First, you turn his head so it’s not bent at a concerning angle, and then, rip a long piece of fabric from your gown's skirt to wrap it around his head and apply pressure on his wound.

“You’re all patched up,” you strain to say as he remains motionless and with his eyes half-lidded. “Addam? Did you hear me?”

You bring your hands down from his head and press them on his chest to shake him gently so he can wake up, but he doesn’t even twitch. Thus you press your palm over his heart and wait.

Wait. And wait.

You even hold your breath as if that was in the way of letting you feel a single beat of his heart, but even in the silence that surrounds you and him, you fail to feel his heart thump under your palm. There’s not even a weak and soft thump, his heart is still. Lifeless…

“Addam?” Your voice quivers and you proceed to drag your hands up to grab his shoulders and shake him gently. “Addam?!” You croak, but there’s not even a groan or a pained gasp. He lies there breathless with his eyes lifeless and dull.

“A…Addam,” you keep calling out in hopes something will change when you know the truth. You had known it since the moment he failed to respond to your call the first time because even though there was a chance he was just unconscious then, you knew deep inside that life wouldn't treat you that kindly and death wouldn’t spare someone you loved just for you to suffer less. Yet you still tried to cling onto some fragment of hope. You wished desperately for there to be a positive outcome, but…there isn’t. Addam is dead…that's what all his wounds mean. He’s dead.

“Addam!” You cry and shake him again, but like before there’s no response so you let go of his shoulders and lift your hands to stroke his face still kept warm. “Please,” you plead, but not to Addam, to life, to destiny, the gods, or death. You pleaded to any divinity that existed so they could provide you with a miracle and not steal the life of yet someone else you loved.

Alas, they also ignore you and you're left on your knees having to cradle Addam’s body in your arms and continue to be ignorant of the fact that lies before you. “Please. Please!” You bellow out and tilt your head up, causing your glossy eyes and tear-pampered face to glisten under the light of the scattered fires on the battlefield.

“Cregan?! Cregan!” You call out and strain your throat as you do so, but he doesn’t come. There’s not even a glimpse, so you drop your head and face Addam’s lifeless face feeling powerless and useless.

“I’m sorry,” you weep and press your forehead on his. “I’m so sorry, Addam…why did you have to leave me too?”

You draw in a shaky breath and close your eyes as you rock his body back and forth with you.

You would cry harder, you would plead with every fiber of your being. You would be mad, and try to curse life, but you have already lost so much. You faced death so much that this time you feel so worn out. You can’t keep pleading for some miracle or for life to be just. You accept death even as your heart aches, even as your throat hurts with how much you’re crying, and even through the way your chest tightens and tightens to the point it feels like you can’t breathe.

When you let him go you do so without your usual fight because you don’t have the energy to keep falling apart every time you lose someone. You can’t do it again, so you press a kiss on his forehead, wipe your bloody hands over his face to close his eyes, and leave him next to Seasmoke.

“Astraea,” you call out with a shaky breath and walk away from Seasmoke and Addam to try and search for your dragon since you hear her moving on the ground nearby and hear Tessarion mewling out like an injured cat. You don’t care to look for Vermithor, you just have one dragon in mind so you can fly off the battlefield.

Alas, when you walk past Seasmoke’s corpse the first thing you notice is Cregan in the distance. He steals your attention, and you steal his too, but unlike you, he’s hit with fear when he sees the blood that covers your body because from where he stands he doesn’t know if it belongs to you or not. All he sees is blood and it seems like all he’s filled with is panic because you catch his lips part while his brown eyebrows knit together.

Now you should somehow show that you aren’t the one wounded, but the moment your eyes fall on him and you see that he’s looking right at you, you point your eyes behind you with a sorrowful look before you face him again and break into a more heartbroken sob whilst the agony you’re under heightens.

Yet you’re not paralyzed. You take a forward to try and meet him halfway, but the moment you do you catch the glimpse of something glistening against the firelight in the distance, so you look. You don’t know why, but you do, you stop in your tracks and look over. That’s when your breath catches when you notice an archer aiming his arrow at you.

There’s no mistaking it. His arrow is way too small to hurt Astraea or any of the other dragons, and due to all the beasts nearby, no one dares to be close. No one except him, so there’s no mistaking it. The archer is aiming at you, you meet his hardened gaze under the orange-yellow light of the flickering fire and make out his determination clearly because you have reflected those emotions in your own eyes many times before.

It’s why you know that it’s dangerous and impossible to break, and it’s why you try to throw yourself on the ground to hide and be able to throw off his aim, but the man quickly lets the arrow go. And just as you turn away to throw yourself on the ground, the tip of the arrow scrapes along the side of your head, making panic and shock hold you in place. All the while Cregan feels his breath catch and a paralyzing fear wash over him.

He wants to yell out your name and warn you to duck, but the archer is faster than he is at catching his breath and pulling himself back together after seeing the love of his life being hit on the side of the head. The archer actually manages to send off another arrow before the great fearless Lord of Winterfell, and you could react, managing to pierce the arrow right above your left breast, just inches from hitting your heart.

This time Cregan bellows out your name when you hit the ground as if startled out of his paralyzing shock and sprints over to throw himself on the first horse he finds to ride it towards you at full speed, fearing that the archer will go after you and finish the job he started. Yet perhaps his fear is now misplaced because your wounded dragon finally seems to be hit with the knowledge that you’re hurt and snaps her neck around, finding the archer responsible right away, and piercing her glare into him before blasting a ball of fire in his direction without needing to be told.

Astraea acts on her own will a moment too late to spare you from being hit, but she does counter out of anger, and pain that she doesn’t physically feel but feels through your tethered connection, managing to catch the archer on fire as he accepts his fate.

Once the archer is dead and no longer a threat, Astraea walks over to you and sniffs your unconscious body before she mewls out as if calling out your name. When she doesn’t get a response she nudges you to turn you on your back and then nudges you again as if pressing for a response, for a sign you’re okay, but your eyes remain closed and you continue to not move a muscle.

However, just like you, Astraea remains defiant on accepting a tragic reality and instead tilts her head to watch you closely. When she catches your chest moving with the breaths you take she backs away, and then flaps her wings to push herself off the ground and fly toward you to scoop you off the ground with her claws before Cregan can reach you.

He was right there, he was about to jump off his horse, but Astraea scooped you off the ground first.

“Astraea!” He calls out desperately. “Put her down! I can help her!” He tells your dragon and walks toward her, but as he gets close Astraea snaps at him as a warning before she turns away and flies off without caring that her wounds are bleeding or that the man she knew you trusted was there. She just thinks about you getting better and flies away to some place she knows you’ll be safe.

Or so she thinks…

~~~~~~

Even though you saw your father and your brothers in this limbo as you lie between a state of life and death, no one shines brighter than him, Aemond.

Many people would shame you for feeling such joy and putting him on such a high pedestal after the pain he has caused you, but how can you play the victim when you’ve hurt him too?

Besides, they wouldn’t understand how deeply you love him, and how much you miss him despite loving someone else and securing your future with your other lover.

No one will ever understand that he is the love and loss of your life and that’s okay because no one but one another needs to understand your intertwined souls.

“I will be back,” you tell your brothers breathlessly over your shoulder and don’t wait for their response. Your heart and every muscle in your body drive you to Aemond’s waiting embrace.

“<My love,>” he coos in Valyrian as he entangles his arms around you and holds you against him, letting you find solace in the sound of his beating heart that truly beats like no other.

“Aemond,” you whisper and nuzzle your face against his chest to breathe in his scent lost to your memory over the months he’s been dead, and time you’ve had away from anything that could smell like him.

“Aemond,” you say again, but this time your voice trembles as you grin and cry.

“I’m here,” he whispers against the top of your head before he presses a kiss on it and nuzzles his nose against your head.

Neither of you proceed to move away. You stay in each other's embrace until your hearts and your breaths are in sync, and you’re familiar with each other's warmth once again.

“Is this really how you see yourself?” You ask as you cup Aemond’s face and stroke his cheek with your fingers.

Aemond grabs your hand and drops his head, causing you to cover his eye and scar for a brief moment. When he lifts his head back up the scar that was left over his eye is gone, and the sapphire is replaced with his eye.

“I never minded the sapphire though,” you assure him as you move your hand back to his cheek. “I thought you looked sexy with it.”

Aemond scoffs and smiles timidly at the ground.

“But I know you never liked it,” you add and regain his attention.

“I missed you,” he says as he presses a kiss on your palm. “It’s not the same without you by my side…but even then…I was cruel to you…I hurt you even though you were the one that I loved the most.”

You sigh and take in his words before you interject. “I hurt you too. I’m not innocent.”

Aemond holds your gaze and doesn’t respond. He swallows thickly before he continues. “Perhaps, but I never should have done anything to hurt you or drive you away. I’m sorry. I wish…I could take it all back.”

Tears well in his eyes, making your heart ache. He was not one to cry so when he does it feels like a knife to your heart.

“I’m sorry too,” you don’t let him take all the blame even though he was avoiding yours. “Will you forgive me?”

His eyes narrow for a brief second before he nods gently and then presses you. “Will you forgive me?”

You smile at him and nod. “Of course.”

His lips twitch to a smile before he drops his forehead on yours and simply basks in your presence.

“We’re together now,” you whisper against him. “And we’ll never—” you cut yourself off as the sound of a girl laughing behind you cuts you off.

You want to ignore it. You’re going to ignore it, but then there’s a manly yet soft voice speaking that steals your attention, making you pull away from Aemond. When you peer over your shoulder you see two beautiful young women with white-silver hair and a tall and slim young man with them with the same colored hair.

Now they shouldn’t be familiar, you have never seen them in your life, but when you study their faces and their colored eyes, you recognize them. From head to toe, you know that they are your children; Aerion, Daenerys, and Daenys.

They’re not dead or in any state of in-between. You know that. You know they’re here by the sheer power of your mind and it’s need to keep you fighting.

Your mind wants to keep you away from making a choice that will seal your fate, and how better to spark your motivation than to show you a glimpse of your children?

The children you love the most, the children you are willing to give your own life for just to keep them alive. It’s true you have been selfish lately, you have put them last, but you want to get to know them. You want to watch them grow up. You don’t want to lose them, but they’re getting away. They’re walking away!

“Wait!” You shout and throw your hand out to try and stop them, but they don’t stop, they keep walking so you try to go after them.

Yet before you can get far, Aemond grabs your hand and stops you.

“What are you doing?” He asks, making you turn around to face him with panic that slowly falls as your face softens.

“I,” you breathe out and pause to look back at your children.

“What do you want?” Aemond queries.

You watch your children, you see them smiling and talking amongst themselves as they get further away and there’s no debate on what you want. Not anymore. Your choice is clear because of them.

“I want to meet the twins,” you say as you slowly start to slip your hand away from Aemond’s grasp. “I want to raise my children. I…I want to live!”

.

.

.

.

.

A/N-No break next week is a good one!

Tagged- @namelesslosers @stargaryenx @chainsawsangel @lauftivy @winxschester @cloudroomblog @llarue @padsdarlg @sofietargaryen @gracielikegrapes @dreaming-of-the-reality @itzelpeyton @patdsinner33 @mrsdominickstark @elaena-aerrin @todoroki-slut @snh96 @urmomsgirlfriend1 @nifujiswhore @sweethoneyblossom1 @kaetastic @lightdragonrayne @squidscottjeans @oh-you-mean-me @wallacewillow0773638 @icefrye19 @thescottpack @fiction-fanfic-reader @crazymusicgirl104 @r-3dlips @strangersunghoon @just-pure-trash @ethereal-athalia @missyviolet123 @callsignwidow @xunquish-blog @tabathastan @weepingfashionwritingplaid @answer-the-sirens @silverlightsaber @rosey1981 @amortentiaaaa