#parental death referenced

[hood-ex]

Also, I can't buy this "fear of heights" thing Dick's suddenly going through because we're literally talking about the man that jumped 105,000 ft to the ground for fun. Like you can't take someone who previously had a skydiving hobby and then, out of nowhere, be like, "Actually, he's scared of jumping and riding in planes now." Like what are you talking about 😭? There better be a damn good reason for this.

[sforzesco]

ascanio and louis xii

so

Milan Undone, Contested Sovereignties in the Italian Wars, John Gagné

extremely bold of louis xii to assume that ascanio, who has a reputation for conspiracy, wouldn't turn around and say 'fuck you,' after all of that™

(Ibid.)

it IS funny how men in power keep thinking they can put him on a leash like, pal. the odds are NOT in your favor

[salemsimss]

cię nie opuszczę aż do śmierci

[ollieofthebeholder]

to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest): a TMA fanfic

<< Beginning < Prev. || AO3 || My website

Chapter 52: June 1996

If this is what most primary schools are like, Gerard thinks, he’s astonishingly grateful to his mother for teaching him at home. For a given degree of “teaching”, anyway.

Martin insists it isn’t, and he’s told Gerard about the school he went to in Devon before he and his mother moved to London—he actually seems to miss it—but Gerard isn’t convinced. The whole building seems tired and sagging, but it’s also extremely clinical and impersonal. Everything is cinderblock and grey tile and plain doors with mesh in the glass. Bells bristle on the walls like boils, and all in all it seems more like a prison than a place of learning. Of course, Gerard isn’t entirely certain they’re all that different anyway.

The actual meeting takes place in the gymnasium, which has a wooden floor but is otherwise made of the same depressing cinderblocks as the rest of the building, and there is an almost coyly twee sign reading Support for Parents Alone Raising Kids, the capitalized letters obvious and adorned in glitter to make the SPARK stand out. The parents in question, mostly mothers, sit on metal folding chairs in only slightly better shape than the gymnasium. The kids in question, however, are currently being shooed outside.

Gerard does not want to go outside. He caught a glimpse of the playground on the way in, thank you very much, and it looks like a tetanus shot waiting to happen. Rust and concrete and sand and nothing particularly exciting. He’d much rather stay inside and listen to the meeting, or go hole up in the library—surely this place has a library. But Martin is tugging him outside, and, okay, he’ll play along.

Gerard’s a bit surprised, but he really likes this kid. Part of it is that he’s not immune to a bit of hero-worship and Martin tends to look at him like he’s some kind of minor god, but mostly it’s just that…well, Martin is a genuinely nice person. He’s amazingly brilliant for a seven-year-old, a fast and voracious reader—he’s read even more books than Gerard has—and he’s got, so Gerard thinks, the voice of an angel. His fondness for poetry is a bit of an irritation, but again, he’s seven, he’ll probably grow out of sentimental nonsense like that. Anyway, if Martin thinks they should go outside with the other children, Gerard will let him take the lead. After all, this is his first time being here; Mrs. Blackwood has been attending, and bringing Martin, for several weeks now.

Gerard isn’t sure why his mother agreed to come, actually, since his dad’s been gone at least five years now and she definitely doesn’t need any support in raising him, but she did and he already knows better than to question her actions.

There are about a dozen kids that spill out onto the playground and scatter to the corners. Several of the girls run over to pick up skipping ropes; most of the boys begin kicking a ball around. Others race for the climbing structure or the rickety slide. None of it appeals to Gerard.

“What do you usually do?” Gerard asks Martin, who hasn’t run to join any of the groups. He assumes Martin is waiting for him to choose what they’ll do, but surely Martin has a favorite activity.

Martin scuffs his shoe against the concrete, a bit shyly, and doesn’t look up at Gerard when he answers. “I, um, I like the swings.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Gerard lies. Like everything else on the playground, the swing set seems to be comprised of metal and rust, and he isn’t entirely sure what the point of them is either. Just to sit on them? It doesn’t sound like his idea of fun, but if Martin likes them…

There was a bit of a drizzle this morning, but it’s cleared up now; still, the pavement is damp in places and there are a few undeniable puddles where the yard sags and dips. Gerard is thankful for the new—well, new to him anyway—boots he bought at the secondhand shop last week; though worn, they still have deep treads that keep him from slipping as they head across the playground. He’s still wearing a three-piece suit, which he hates, but…baby steps. Sooner or later he’ll be able to save up enough of his pocket money to buy the clothes he wants to wear, and maybe eventually his mother will get the hint and stop dressing him like a small professor. They’re not upper class, whatever she says about her ancestors, and Gerard is pretty sure that the rich assholes who come to buy rare books from his mother can see through his outfits clearly enough. They know he’s trash. He might as well dress like it.

Martin rounds a teeter-totter that looks even more unsafe than the rest of the playground equipment and stutters to a halt, nearly making Gerard trip over him. He’s about to ask what’s wrong when he sees it, too. Someone else got to the swings first.

Someone else is a girl who’s either very young or very small for her age. Gerard finds himself envious of her outfit, not because he wants to wear that exactly—he can’t imagine anyone wanting to wear that many colors at the same time—but because she very obviously picked it out herself, because no way would her mother (he assumes it’s her mother) select something like this for her. She’s wearing a shirt with orange and white horizontal stripes, bright purple dungarees with tiny pale lilac flower buds printed all over them, and hot pink high-top sneakers with glittery laces, and her hair is pulled into two bunches on either side of her head and secured with something with bright, slightly translucent blue balls on the ends. She has a puffy gold star sticker under each eye like some kind of war paint, and she’s staring at the swing with narrowed eyes and her hands on her hips like she’s challenging it to something.

Gerard assumes they’ll be moving on to find something else to do, but to his surprise, Martin clears his throat. “Um, hi.”

The girl starts and whirls on them. Her scowl somehow deepens, and her fists come up in front of her. It would be intimidating if she wasn’t so tiny, but as it is, Gerard isn’t impressed.

“What?” she demands.

Martin gives her a smile that seems a bit shaky and indicates the swings. “Um, can—can we join you? O-on the swings?”

The girl considers this for a minute, then eyes the swings before looking back at Martin. “There are only two.”

“That’s okay, you two can have them,” Gerard says quickly before Martin can offer. “I’ll just watch or something.”

He’ll watch, all right. He’ll watch long enough for Martin to make friends with this new girl and forget he’s there, and then he can slip off inside. He’ll probably feel bad about that later, but at least he’s not abandoning Martin with no one to play with if he and Miss Thing here get on.

“Well…okay.” The girl lifts her chin almost defiantly and sticks out a hand towards them. “I’m Melanie.”

“I’m Martin, and this is Gerard,” Martin says, taking her hand and shaking it. “It’s nice to meet you, Melanie.”

“Uh…yeah…hi,” Gerard says. He, too, shakes her hand when she offers it.

Martin smiles, a bit more confidently this time. Melanie doesn’t exactly smile back, but at least she’s not scowling. “You can have that swing. I’m going to get on this one.”

“Okay.”

Martin goes over to the swing indicated and circles it for a moment, then leans forward to snag the chain. Gerard isn’t sure why until he notices the twin puddles directly under both swings. He realizes that generations of feet scuffing at the ground have worn a bit of a dip that allows water to collect, and Martin is worried—most likely rightly—that his mother will have kittens if he gets his shoes muddy. Once Martin has the swing in hand, he maneuvers himself so he’s facing away from it, takes a deep breath, and gives a little hop. Somehow he settles into the seat correctly without falling; it immediately swings backwards, and Martin holds on desperately and tries to kick his feet to straighten himself out and keep from swinging over onto Melanie’s side of the swings.

Melanie tries to do the same, but Gerard realizes very quickly that it won’t work. Apart from the fact that she’s shorter than Martin, the seat is somehow higher than the other side. If she leans forward without stepping into the puddle, she’s going to fall face-first into it. Gerard tries to figure out how to tell her that without making it look like he’s being a bully. Then, as Martin finally gets his trajectory more or less under control, Gerard notices that the swing has been wrapped over the top bar of the swing set.

“Well, duh,” Melanie says when he points this out. “Otherwise your feet get wet.”

“Yeah, but you can’t reach it. Hang on.” Gerard manages to plant his feet on either side of the puddle and tosses the swing a few times until he manages to get it over the top, with a rattle and a clank. Once it settles, he pulls it back and hands it to Melanie. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” Melanie eyes him suspiciously for a minute, but takes the chains in either hand. She tries several times to haul herself up into the seat, but doesn’t quite manage it, and on her final try nearly gets dragged into the puddle. She manages to brake herself and backs up, then looks over at Gerard. “Can you hold it steady for me while I get on? Please?”

The please is clearly an afterthought, but Gerard doesn’t care all that much about politeness, and he’s a bit surprised to be asked anyway. He takes the chain and holds the swing as requested.

It still takes Melanie two or three tries, but she finally manages to get herself settled. Gerard holds on for just a second, until Martin swings out of the way, then lets go and steps to one side. As an afterthought, watching Martin’s still-wobbly swing, he catches his chain and manages to stop him, then straightens him out before pulling him back and letting him go as well.

“Thanks, Gerard,” Martin says happily, kicking his feet in their battered trainers forward.

“Thanks, Gerard,” Melanie echoes.

Gerard blinks. “Uh, yeah, sure, no problem.”

He watches for a few moments. They seem happy enough, and he’s about ready to try to slink off when Melanie asks, “Is this your first time coming here?”

“Not mine. Mum’s been coming for a few weeks,” Martin answers, his sentence punctuated with the tiniest of pauses every time he reaches the acme of his swing and pumps himself backwards or forwards. “It’s Gerard’s first time, though.”

“Oh.” Melanie twists her head to study Gerard with a frown. The action makes her swing start twisting slightly, and she hurriedly turns to face forward again. “But aren’t you brothers?”

“No.” Gerard tries not to sound appalled at the idea. It’s not that he doesn’t like Martin, he does, but he wouldn’t want Mrs. Blackwood as a mum any more than he would wish his mother on another child. He comes around and catches Melanie’s swing to stop it twisting before it slams into Martin and straightens it out, then gives her a little push when he lets go. “My mother is friends with his.”

“Oh,” Melanie says again. She doesn’t tuck her feet as far under herself this time when she reaches the top of her arc, and Gerard instinctively takes a step back and gives her another little push when she comes close enough. “So you don’t have a dad? Either of you?”

Martin shakes his head, but doesn’t elaborate. Gerard’s not surprised. He’s only known Martin about six weeks, and in that whole time, he’s never heard him mention his dad once. He gives Martin a push as well—it’s only fair—and tells Melanie, “Haven’t for a while. Mine died when I was about your age. I don’t remember him too well, really.”

“How old are you?” Melanie asks suspiciously.

“Ten.”

“I’m seven,” Martin interjects. “But I’ll be eight in August.”

“I’m seven, too,” Melanie says. “My birthday’s not until November, though.”

Martin kicks his feet out to push himself backwards. “‘Not yesterday I learned to know / The love of bare November days…’”

“Robert Browning?” Gerard hazards, catching Martin lightly and pushing him forward, then shifting to do the same for Melanie.

“Frost.”

“Who’s that?” Melanie asks. She tips her head back to look at Gerard, then squeaks as the chain momentarily goes slack and nearly topples her backwards. Gerard instinctively starts forward to catch her, but she manages to correct herself.

“Robert Frost? He was a poet,” Martin explains. “He wrote lots of really great poems about nature, especially winter and autumn and all that. He was American, but he lived in a pretty part. Mrs. Dooley taught me about him.”

“Oh—you go to school here too?”

“Yup. I just started this term. I was in Mrs. Tisdale’s class.”

“I was in Mrs. Brown’s. Maybe we’ll both be in the same class next year.” Melanie glances at Gerard as she reaches the end of her swing. “Whose class were you in?”

“My mother teaches me at home.” Gerard tries not to sound superior.

Melanie grunts. “Figures.”

Gerard decides to turn the tables a bit. “What about your dad? How long has he been gone?”

“He isn’t. He’s inside.” Melanie stops kicking her feet, and Gerard notices her hands tighten around the chains, even as her chin drops to her chest. “Mama just died.”

Okay, now Gerard feels like a little bit of a jerk. Martin stops kicking his feet, too, and his face, when he looks at Melanie, is creased in sympathy. “I’m sorry, Melanie.”

Melanie looks up as she begins to slow, and there’s an almost angry look in her eyes. “I’m not going to forget her. Not when I’m ten and not when I’m ten hundred.”

Gerard almost corrects her that “ten hundred” is a thousand, but one look at the reproachful expression on Martin’s face and he swallows that. “I, um, I thought you were younger than seven, actually. It’s been five years almost. And he worked a lot before that, so I never really got to know him all that well. I’m sure you’ll remember your mother better.”

Melanie sniffs. She clearly means it to be defiant, but it sounds more like she’s about to cry. “She’s worth remembering.”

Martin gives her an encouraging smile. “Why don’t you tell us about her?”

Gerard grabs Melanie’s swing again and pulls her clear of the puddle. “Why don’t we go inside first?”

“We’re supposed to be outside,” Martin protests.

“I’m big enough to be responsible,” Gerard boasts. “We can go sit in the library.”

Melanie slips out of the swing and hops to one side. “If Mrs. Dooley is there, she’ll let us.”

“Well…” Martin wavers.

Gerard tugs Martin away from the puddle under his swing. “C’mon, Martin, don’t you trust me?”

It’s maybe a little bit unfair, but it works. Martin’s eyes widen briefly, and he slips out of the swing instantly. “Of course I trust you!”

“Come on then.” Gerard takes Martin’s hand and reaches for Melanie’s, too; she eyes him suspiciously, but accepts it.

The teenager who’s supposed to be watching them doesn’t notice them slipping inside, which is just fine with Gerard. They tiptoe down the hallway—the doors to the gymnasium are open and they don’t want to get caught—and to the only other set of double doors, with a brass plaque on the left one reading LIBRARY. There’s a light on inside, and when they pull it open, they’re met with a plump, matronly woman who greets them with a smile and open arms. She seems pleased to meet Gerard, and she readily directs them to a tiny cluster of chairs.

“There’s no one else here,” she says, her Scottish accent thick and heavy, “so you can be as loud as you like. I’ll let your parents know they can find you here after the meeting, but meantime, you three just settle down and enjoy yourselves, you hear?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Dooley,” Martin and Melanie say in unison with matching smiles. Mrs. Dooley laughs and bustles away.

Gerard looks at the two kids he’s inexplicably saddled himself with and wonders, for a fleeting moment, how he let things get this far. He wanted to be alone.

By the time his mother comes to collect all three of them, with the explanation that Mrs. Blackwood and Mr. King are in deep conversation and will meet them out front, he wonders why he ever thought that would be the better option.

[whumptywhumpdump]

Random update for my Adam series! Really, this is just me processing my own feelings and throwing them on the poor boy as usual...

Cw: well... grief and referenced parental death, overall just a bit of angst.

---------------------------------------

Grief

At first, he'd think about them all the time and feel the walls closing in, his world crumbling around him. His eyes would tear up immediately, and it was a struggle to not break down. The pain was all consuming and incapacitating. Nothing else seemed to matter in the face of it.

Adam knew he had been happy, but he could simply not remember the feeling. He'd lie awake for hours wondering why and feeling tears run out the corners of his eyes and into the shells of his ears, soak into his pillow. He could see people worried about him, he was worried about himself. And yet, it didn't seem to matter because his family was gone.

After a couple weeks he started thinking maybe that was just how the rest of his life would be, he would just forever feel like this.

But he didn't.

Time went on and without realizing, suddenly Adam didn't feel bad all the time. Of course, that was what made him feel bad then, he wasn't supposed to feel better so soon was he? It had barely been a month, how was it that he went a whole day without crying? How was it that he felt happy with the choice of lunch at the house?

His brain felt like two different people, one desperately trying to feel better and another wanting to hold on to his pain. He didn't know which one to follow.

But the weeks kept passing and his choice apparently went away with them. He still thought about his family near constantly, and the thought of them still made him sad, but it felt different now. Where before he thought his chest might cave in and drag him down into darkness, his sadness now felt more contained. It didn't leak into the other aspects of the life he was building as much.

He could be helping with chores, reading, getting ready for sleep, laughing at something (he could do that again), and think of his parents, of Hannah, and the sadness would still come, he would still wonder why but his body wouldn't crumble, his laughter wouldn't stop.

The memories of the ones he lost could now live with him, and so he could keep on living.

He did not know that yet, but there would come a day where even the thought of them would be less frequent and so much more life would have happened since, that he would hardly even notice.

---------------------------

Unsuspecting taglist attack! (Lemme know if you want to be included or taken out of it):

@boxboysandotherwhump @deluxewhump @aseasonwithclarasblog @angst-after-dark @ashintheairlikesnow

[curlicuecal]

playing science telephone

Hi folks. Let's play a fun game today called "unravelling bad science communication back to its source."

Journey with me.

Saw a comment going around on a tumblr thread that "sometimes the life expectancy of autism is cited in the 30s"

That number seemed..... strange. The commenter DID go on to say that that was "situational on people being awful and not… anything autism actually does", but you know what? Still a strange number. I feel compelled to fact check.

Quick Google "autism life expectancy" pulls up quite a few websites bandying around the number 39. Which is ~technically~ within the 30s, but already higher than the tumblr factoid would suggest. But, guess what. This number still sounds strange to me.

Most of the websites presenting this factoid present themselves as official autism resources and organizations (for parents, etc), and most of them vaguely wave towards "studies."

Ex: "Above And Beyond Therapy" has a whole article on "Does Autism Affect Life Expectancy" and states:

The link implies that it will take you to the "research studies" being referenced, but it in fact takes you to another random autism resource group called.... Songbird Care?

And on that website we find the factoid again:

Ooh, look. Now they've added the word "some". The average lifespan for SOME autistic people. Which the next group erased from the fact. The message shifts further.

And we have slightly more information about the study! (Which has also shifted from "studies" to a singular "study"). And we have another link!

Wonderfully, this link actually takes us to the actual peer-reviewed 2020 study being discussed. [x]

And here, just by reading the abstract, we find the most important information of all.

This study followed a cohort of adolescent and adult autistic people across a 20 year time period. Within that time period, 6.4% of the cohort died. Within that 6.4%, the average age of death was 39 years.

So this number is VERY MUCH not the average age of death for autistic people, or even the average age of death for the cohort of autistic people in that study. It is the average age of death IF you died young and within the 20 year period of the study (n=26), and also we don't even know the average starting age of participants without digging into earlier papers, except that it was 10 or older. (If you're curious, the researchers in the study suggested reduced self-sufficiency to be among the biggest risk factors for the early mortality group.)

But the number in the study has been removed from it's context, gradually modified and spread around the web, and modified some more, until it is pretty much a nonsense number that everyone is citing from everyone else.

There ARE two other numbers that pop up semi-frequently:

One cites the life expectancy at 58. I will leave finding the context for that number as an exercise for the audience, since none of the places I saw it gave a direct citation for where they were getting it.

And then, probably the best and most relevant number floating around out there (and the least frequently cited) draws from a 2023 study of over 17,000 UK people with an autism diagnosis, across 30 years. [x] This study estimated life expectancies between 70 and 77 years, varying with sex and presence/absence of a learning disability. (As compared to the UK 80-83 average for the population as a whole.)

This is a set of numbers that makes way more sense and is backed by way better data, but isn't quite as snappy a soundbite to pass around the internet. I'm gonna pass it around anyway, because I feel bad about how many scared internet people I stumbled across while doing this search.

People on quora like "I'm autistic, can I live past 38"-- honey, YES. omg.

---

tl;dr, when someone gives you a number out of context, consider that the context is probably important

also, make an amateur fact checker's life easier and CITE YOUR SOURCES

[madamcoheed216]

Yellowjackets Theory

THIS THEORY CONTAINS SPOILERS AND IS UPDATED AFTER EVERY EPISODE!

So my theory is that the scientists are Walters parents, this Alex is Walters birth name and he altered the birth records, and Walter is working with Melissa to blackmail Shauna and ultimately the whole team.

1. He very heavily implies that he is an orphan/doesnt have living parents after Misty questions him about Svetlana

2. He also, at multiple points, has said that he knows more about Misty and the Yellowjackets than she thinks, but only uses Adams death as an example.

3. His comment about owning a boat to leave the country by illegal means.

4. “Sherlock to my Moriarty”- Moriarty is considered to be evil/bad and Sherlock’s rival.

5. Upon meeting for the first time, Misty straight up asks if Walter stalks everyone in their Citizen Detectives group or just her.

6. Callie’s friend Ilana says that puzzles are for serial killers. Later in the season, Walter is shown putting together a giant puzzle while drinking milk (considered the trait of a psycho/serial killer in pop culture). He also sends Svetlana a puzzle in the nursing home.

7. Edwin and Hannah are a confirmed couple and Hannah admits to having a teen pregnancy. The actors are 37 and 39 IRL. Walter doesn’t have a confirmed age but could be older or younger than the girls and still fit.

I believe that Walter became obsessed with finding out what really happened to his parents because he was probably told that they were *killed by wolves* or something along those lines. That’s what leads to him getting into true crime and becoming a citizen detective. Eventually, the internet and Reddit happen and he’s able to learn more about the Yellowjackets, this team of girls who crash landed near where his parents were last seen alive. The helicopter scene is of Walter either having gone to the crash site prior to the adult timeline or going to the site here soon, given that it is roughly October in the AT, and if the helicopter was for rescue, the trees would be white or barren not changing colors. Walter targets Misty because she’s a sad individual incredibly desperate for human attention. He stole Shauna’s DNA to try and frame her for Lottie’s murder.

Walter either found the DAT tape among Natalie’s belongings in the storage unit and pocketed it before giving the keys to Misty

OR

The tape was thought to be gone, just like Jackie’s necklace, which Lottie had. Walter could’ve found the tape at Lottie’s compound at some point.

Edit: A friend on Discord mentioned that Walters last name (Tattersall) could be a reference to the Inheritance Games books. The first book was published in September of 2020 and the adult timeline starts in the fall of 2021, so it is entirely possible, especially if you are familiar with the books and the character being referenced.

[sammydem0n64]

Scarlet and violent love having canon kill counts. I have a proposal for Dead Meat YouTube.

[currently-becoming-potatoes]

List of words for the computer:

LONG POST- more under the cut

STANFORD- Pulls up a file on Stanford Pines, written by an unknown scientist. It discusses his extra finger and praises his intelligence, as well as calling him the “next evolution in the human species”.

BILL CIPHER- Takes you to the Wikipedia page for the Eye of Providence. Also took me to a Sesame Street video about a Jazzy Triangle and a Square. Not sure what prompted the change.

STANLEY PINES: Takes you to a list of EBay listings for brass knuckles.

FIDDLEFORD: Takes you to the music video for Cotton Eye Joe by Rednex.

SHERMIE: Nothing. I sure do wish we got some lore about Grandpa Pines.

GRAVITY FALLS: The text on the computer reads “never heard of it” and the red light on the bottom turns green.

ALEX HIRSCH: Leads to Google Images for “flannel”. Huh.

WEIRDMAGEDDON: Pulls up an article from the Gravity Falls Gossiper about how nothing happened at all and there was no apocalypse.

DISNEY: Screen reads “rat.gif censored for your protection”

SOOS: Leads to a page of writing from Soos himself, referencing many things (including Tad Strange being gay and madly in love with Woodpecker Guy. Love wins!!!)

DIPPER: Leads to a creepy yellow parchment with a message from Bill Cipher himself trying to trick Dipper into blinding himself by staring at the sun for 13 hours straight! Silly! (Also if you keep clicking on it, the page gets darker and blurrier until it implies we've gone blind)

MABEL: Causes stickers to appear on every available surface. Clicking it enough times leads to message “lab now fully Mabelized”.

WENDY: Leads to a note from Wendy that mentions a way to ward off evil triangles written in the bottom corner of the book.

GIDEON: Makes a web recording of Gideon scatting play. It ends with “I love you forever Mabel”. Please shut the fuck up you little creep.

TAD STRANGE: Plays a video of bread with smooth jazz in the background.

TOBY DETERMINED: Leads to a Google search for a restraining order. Holyyyyy shittttttt

WHO ARE YOU: “I could ask you the same question”

SEASON 3: “Season Two”. I guess that’s that lol

This was about all I could find. Please reblog with anything else you can discover! Thank you, fellow Gravity Falls enjoyers!

And make sure to give some love to all the wonderful folks down in the comments! Many of these answers and tips come from what they've found. I can't list everyone, unfortunately- I didn't expect this post to get popular- but, to everyone who's helped out, THANK YOU.

FURTHER EDITS:

BLIND EYE: Pulls up an optometrist’s eye exam. Each line reads “WKHBOOVHH”. Too lazy to translate atm.

PIÑATA: Bill Cipher getting beaten to death /hj

MASON: A note from Dipper listing several anagrams of Gravity Falls characters’ names. You can check in the comments for the answers.

AXOLOTL: “You ask alotl questions”. Thanks for the pun, Alex, but I’m kind of losing my mind rn

MYSTERY SHACK: Leads to a Google search for Confusion Hill, the real-life Mystery Shack!

MYSTERY: “?”

MONSTER: Leads to several YouTube videos for “There’s a Monster at the End of this Book.”

VALLIS CINERIS: Leads to an analog-horror-esque video of Baby Bill and his parents, who have been blotted out by static, and a voice repeating “WHY DID YOU DO IT” over and over again until you stop the video.

PORTAL: “Portal.exe has been deleted. I bet you could build a new one.”

GIFFANY: You need to put it in multiple times. Several warnings about breaching firewall, followed by a message from GIFFANY saying “SOOS! I still love you!” or smth like that, and then GIFFANY herself briefly appearing onscreen. Trying again after that summons her more. Also lets you download some ZIP files.

DORITO: Summons an image of a spinning Dorito, followed by the most cursed image of Bill Cipher I have ever seen.

GOD: A short video of an axolotl in a tank with a Bill Cipher statue plays. This is Alex’s axolotl, shown in the Book of Bill countdown.

REALITY: “Is an illusion”

FILBRICK: “I’m not impressed”

CARYN: “I knew you were gonna write that”

GLASS SHARD BEACH: Leads to an image of the New Jersey Hell Hole.

ANY CUSS WORD: Pulls up a paper reading “NOT S&P APPROVED. WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT WITH SOAP” with an image of soap below.

MATPAT: Leads to a video of MatPat next to a conspiracy board, holding the Book of Bill. He tells us we’re on our own.

BABBA: Plays an audio recording of Dipper singing BABBA. Not Disco Girl, a different song.

CRAZ: Leads to the Jem and the Holograms theme.

XYLER: See above.

AD ASTRA PER ASPERA: Shows us two new journal pages from Ford and Mabel, studying the Cipher statue. They’re definitely worth the read, I teared up looking at them.

ANSWER: “Question”

QUESTION: “Answer”

SEASON ONE: “Season -1: Antigravity Falls”

SEASON TWO: “Season 1” …maybe scratch what I said about Season 3. Or don’t. Things are starting to damage my brain.

CURSED (got from @slimslamflimflam decoding the candle! Thanks!): Shows two pages talking about the dangers of drawing triangles, with the bottom of the second page showing several drawings of Bill and the words “HE IS COMING, RUN”

THE UNIVERSE: “Hologram”

RIZZ: “Life privileges revoked. Now releasing poison gas.” This response is repeated if you type in SKIBIDI or FORTNITE.

BABY: Shows an ultrasound of a fetus Bill Cipher, captioned “Look at what’s growing inside you! See you in nine months, papa!”

JOURNAL 3: “The Journal for Me”

PACIFICA: Leads to a note from Pacifica calling Bill Cipher “ick” and telling us to follow her on social media under “Platinum Paz”

PLATINUM PAZ: Pulls up an image of Northwest Manor with the llama symbol overlaid and a “NW” logo beneath. There's also a short story beneath!

LOVE: Leads to an audiobook of “The Love Triangle”. Need to read later.

BLENDIN: “The time agent lost and presumed incompetent”. Uh…?

SCARY: Leads to another audiobook of a cheesy Goosebumps-esque horror novel written by Bill himself, apparently.

DIVORCE: Shows you the logo of the bar Bill went to after his fight with Ford… Billford bitter exes confirmed

ROBBIE: Leads to the cringiest messages ever. He’s such a failure I love him

CONSPIRACY: Leads to a video of a man losing his mind over the countdown counting up. I feel so seen. (I have been informed that his name is Charlie Day, he's an actor from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and that one meme, he had a quote on the back of the Book of Bill, thanks to everyone who explained that to me, I'm sorry, I'm uncultured)

RAT: “Thurburt’s number?”

BLANCHIN: Leads to a YouTube video on how to blanch vegetables.

TJ ECKLEBURG: “Never mention that name again.”

NOTHING: “Something”

SOMETHING: “Nothing”

BURNSIDE: “Burned inside.” Well… at least we know what happened…

WADDLES: Leads to the pig placement network!

THERAPRISM: Pulls up a sign from the theraprism regarding an emergency situation. The code reads "THE OLD ONE".

SHAPE: Pulls up an article on Plato, triangles, and Ancient Greece. This article is presumably written by Bill.

LLIB and BILL: THIS leads to the Sesame Street video every time.

WEIRD: Shows a video of a frightened Weird Al panicking about being trapped in a computer. Sorry, man...

CLONE: Pulls up an image of Paper Jam Dipper, a warning about not getting him too close to liquids, and an option to print.

TRIANGLE: ")" or "Tri harder."

THEYLLSEE: "Is seeing believing?"

DEER TEETH: "For you, kid!"

LIFE: "Life: 72% complete. Now loading: death."

DEATH: "Life's goth cousin."

PINES: "A good family tree."

OWL TROWEL: A slab of hieroglyphs, translating to an ancient ad for an owl trowel.

SCALENE: "Life form not found." EUCLID has the same outcome.

WELL WELL WELL BEING: Some assorted notes from Bill's Theraprism file. These include his greatest love and fear, his art therapy notes, and notes on his phobias. Three clicks is required to read them all.

BOO BERRY: Offers a poem on the meaning of life! Wow! I feel so enlightened!

LOVE YA BRO: Shows us a doodle from Stan of one of his and Ford's Sea Grunks adventures, and another code on the back. It translates to "Kings of New Jersey." I've been told it lets you download the code as a font.

SORRY: Reveals the repaired Backupsmore photo, with a note from Fiddleford about his and Ford's growing friendship. Fiddauthor fans, we are eating well tonight!

HORROR: Pulls up an image and report on The Always Garden, which is essentially a cheap Italian restaurant hidden in the backrooms.

HOLOGRAM: "Universe."

NAITSUAF: Pulls up a page that looks like it would be from the Book of Bill, in which Bill tries to convince us to sell us his soul. Clicking "ARE YOU READY?" pulls up a contract where we can sell our soul to Bill (with an alarming amount of coded fine print. Will need to translate later). You can print this document out, back out, or sign it right there on the web. Hitting "SIGN" causes the words "PLEASURE DOING BUSINESS WITH YOU!" to appear, and the document to close. In other words, I no longer have a soul.

IMSTILLONYOURMIND: Plays a recording of the ocean, with Stan faintly talking in the background. Poor Ford ain't quite over the divorce yet...

HOTXOLOTL: Pulls up a "MOST WANTED" doc on the henchmaniacs.

SEVENEYES: Pulls up a faded polaroid of The Oracle with text on the back that reads "LEAVE HIM. Escape to dimension *blurred out*. It's against the rules but it's the only reality where you'll be safe from him." The code at the bottom (once again decoded by the powerhouse that is @slimslamflimflam) reads "Set a course for Dimension: R34LITY." Is another Cipher Hunt in the makes? Only time will tell, hehehe.

JUST FIT IN: Plays an old commercial with a few moments of speech in the glitches at the end.

EVEN HIS LIES ARE LIES: Shows a transcript from a therapy session at the Theraprism. Bill discusses his relationship with Ford and cuts off the session when someone brings up his parents.

NOT A PHASE: Shows a Google search for "black hair dye stained an entire bathroom."

PAPER IS BOOK SKIN: Instantly downloads a page of fleshy pink paper with the word "ENJOY" written on it!

SHAVE YOUR GRANDMA: Pulls up a few more pages about the human life cycle.

LIES: Pulls up an image of "The Game of Lies" board game, with a long stretch of text from (I assume) Bill, ending with "LIE UNTIL YOU ARE NOT LYING ANYMORE." Someone has some issues...

SAY BAAAA: Pulls up a neat little rhyme about being Bill Cipher's obedient flock of sheep. The code at the end translates to "Black Sheep."

ONE EYED KING: Plays a video of a hypnotist's spiral, with Bill proclaiming "YOU WANT TO PLEDGE YOUR SOUL TO BILL CIPHER" in the background. There is also morse code that translates to "NAITSUAF", leading to a previous discovery- the soul contract.

TANTRUM: Pulls up a transcript of a spat between Bill and Time Baby.

TITANS BLOOD: "HOOT HOOT! Password please!"

CURSE WITTEBANE: Pulls up an image of a Bill Cipher ouija board.

FORDTRAMARINE: Pulls up several rejected files from Ford trying to convince us Fordtramarine exists.

SUCK IT MERLIN: Pulls up a tapestry of Bill riding a unicorn. The code at the top reads "DAY MARE VS NIGHTMARE."

HEY NERD: Plays a commercial advertising things such as a Bill Cipher calendar, the Scrubba-Bill, a severed hand, and the entire Cygnus-XIII galaxy. Half of the image can be found in the Book of Bill.

DESTRUCTION IS THE FORM OF CREATION: Pulls up a frantic page of notes from post-portal-shit Fiddleford. A sticky note at the bottom has a code that reads "Unreality."

RUBBERHOSE: Plays "The World is Small Ever After for All."

IRREGULAR: Shows us Bill's mugshot in color. The code below reads "No prison or attention span can hold him."

UNREALITY: Offers a guide by Bill on how to become immortal.

GUN: "Oh yes oh yes oh yes they both."

ABUELITA: Leads to a video on vacuuming the walls.

YES: "What's McGucket's favorite soda?"

NO: "Your loss..."

REPEATEDLY CLICKING STAN: This stuff deserves a section of its own, away from the OG Stan stuff. It takes you through several Ebay listings on various Stan-ish items until you get to a page written by Bill about Stan's secret shames. "Ex-wives" further confirms our theory on Stan and Eda's relationship, as well as revealing many other bits of lore. "Fears" is somewhat goofy to be honest. "Secret Shames" reveals that Stan is a fanfiction writer and that his mother is the only member of his family who truly loves him outside of Ford and the kids. "Unreported Crimes" is somewhat goofy as well. "Failed Products" basically confirms that Stan is that world's Alex. "Lowest Moments" is genuinely depressing, and "Darkest Thought". Well. I'm not spoiling it lol. And the bit on "How He Beat Me" causes Bill to get more and more frantic/angry the more you click it! Comedy GOLD!

DIPPY FRESH: Leads to a Reddit post of the Burger King Kids Club.

MEOW: Leads to a TikTok of a man playing the Gravity Falls theme on that cap keyboard.

HELP ME: Pulls up another video of Alex's axolotl and the tiny statue. Rip Bill ig :/

R34LITY: Pulls up several photos of the henchmaniacs in live-action, captioned "They found a new home."

JOURNAL 1: "The journal of fun."

JOURNAL 2: "The journal for you."

FBI: "Your webcam is on. We are watching."

BURNED INSIDE: Shows an image of a charred Oregon Parks badge and nametag on the ground.

HECTORING: Plays a silly little country song!

OROBOROUS: Pulls up two journal pages about Fiddleford buying Ford an axolotl to keep him company, and Bill subsequently telling Ford to get rid of him. There's also some code on the first page that reads "CHONKY BOY." Ford, you wonderful dork.

[tovibeornottovibe]

Before Someone Misses You

Eris Vanserra x Healer!Fem!OC

As a result of his father's heavy-handed parenting style, Eris is mere moments away from death. He can't think straight; the faebane and the blood loss is making him delirious. With what little strength he has, he winnows to Cleo's backdoor and practically collapses into her arms. Unfortunately for him, his usual restraint is severely impeded and yeah, he's so fucking in love with her, even if he can't admit it to himself. [4k words]

warnings: implied/referenced torture, swearing, implied sexual situations, mentioned Beron Vanserra (yuck)

Prefer to read on Ao3?

part 2 here!

“Eris, Eris, you need to breathe. Just look at me, okay?”

He’s trying. Really, really trying. His eyes don’t seem to want to stay open, his head feels full, heavy, and his saliva is thick in his mouth like molasses; he can’t swallow it. He can’t tell if he’s going to throw up or pass out. All he knows is that he’s bleeding on Cleo’s floor and leaving a gory trail behind him as she props him up and leads him to her sofa. And now he’s bleeding on her sofa too.

Shame. The cream-coloured cushions suited her living room so well.

Eris is vaguely aware that she’s positioning him so she can get access to all of the lacerations across his torso, and that her dog is sitting patiently beside him, out of the way but close enough, worrying after him. He winces when she grips his chin and moves his head, lets out a ragged, wet breath when he tries to shift.

“Don’t move,” she says. He figures she talks like this with the fae she treats on the daily. Very to the point, but with a touch of tenderness. Delirium has hit him so hard that he manages to convince himself that she might actually save said tenderness just for him. Well, it’s a nice thought to go out with if this does turn out to be his last day alive. Ah, and he still had so much more to do. 

“You need to stay awake. Can you do that for me?”

Cleo has a soothing voice. It’s rich and has none of that sycophantic tartness that the females of his own court tout at every opportunity. When she berates him for not taking care of himself—namely, for not seeing a damn healer immediately, for the love of the fucking Mother—she might as well be singing a lullaby…

“Please, Eris.”

He hums what he thinks might be some kind of response and makes the effort to open his eyes. Sometime between him falling into her arms and him falling onto her sofa, she had removed his shirt and started cleaning his wounds. They’re mostly cuts from a knife, but it’s the faebane making him feel so fuzzy. He can feel how his magic putters out in his veins. Courtesy of his father. Something, something, researching the effects of high dosages. What little he had managed to regain in the hours between being dumped in his rooms and now had been used up winnowing to Cleo’s doorstep at daybreak. The Dawn Court is further away than he thought and it had felt like wading through mud.

Usually, her cleaning him up hurts. The alcohol she uses burns but it’s effective and the blinding sting helps keep him focused. This doesn’t even register. He can’t feel where she’s pressing the cotton to his skin. Can’t feel where she’s holding him down to keep him from thrashing. Doesn’t even know if he’s capable of thrashing.

The dark waves of her hair fall over her face and she uses her bloodied hands to brush it out of the way. She hasn’t had it cut for a while and the length suits her. It probably reaches her mid-back now.

“What did he give you?” she asks, that slight tenderness hidden beneath a roiling, constrained kind of anger which makes him equally pleased and sickened. If it were anyone else, them seeing him in this state would have been mortifying, worthy of threats and promises never to tell a soul, but it’s Cleo, so it’s fine.

Eris attempts to form the word faebane, but his lips won’t do what he tells them and his teeth are suspiciously static. Whatever he chokes out registers with her, and she leaves him for a moment, presumably to dig through the cupboard under the sink where she keeps miscellaneous substances like selenium solution. Keenly, he feels her absence. He closes his eyes.

This is a quaint, little middle-of-a-terrace house in a quiet part of Thesan’s city, mostly untouched by Amarantha. Small, but comfortable. A kitchen made for no more than three, a dining table with tasteful chairs, a clean living room, artfully furnished and perfect for her. Though he has never been upstairs, he imagines her bedroom is similarly decorated with classy, understated furniture. There’s a patch of a back garden where she grows herbs and her dog, Dartagnan, can bound about in the sunshine. Here, even he can see the benefit of seasons. He’d go as far to say it's idyllic. 

Perhaps she’ll construct a funeral pyre for him somewhere nearby. Dart will find sticks for her to add to the pile. The birds will sing while his body burns. It could be worse. He could be at home.

Nudging at his hand which hangs off the sofa limply—his muscles aren’t doing much for him at the current moment—has his head lolling to the side and his eyes fluttering back open again. Dart is sniffing at the blood on his forearm. He slowly pats him on the head, running his fingers through his fur, and even in his state, he can hear his tail start to swish against the floor.

Dart makes for a good distraction, and Eris stays awake until Cleo returns and kneels at his side. 

“Am I going to have to force this down your gullet?” she asks, though a response doesn’t come to mind. Anything she says right now feels like coming in from the cold and sitting in front of the hearth. “Fuck, okay, fine.”

She pulls his jaw and opens his mouth and he lets her. One of these days, she’ll cup his face and it won’t be to pour medicine down his throat. Even when she’s treating him, particularly if it’s his face that needs healing and she gets so close to him that he can feel her breath against his neck, he thinks about whether or not she’d let him seduce her. Eris knows she’d suit burgundy. He wonders if she knows how to dance. If not, he could teach her—ack!  

As soon as the foul-tasting antidote hits his tongue, he feels his magic begin to purge the faebane from his veins, burning it out of his system, and for the first time since yesterday afternoon, he can breathe properly. He lets out a sharp sigh which catches in his throat. He flexes his hands, bends his knees, the feeling coming back to them, and manages to sit himself up despite the stinging of his wounds. At that, Cleo’s relief becomes evident on her face and she sits back on her calves, looking up at him. Dart, visibly brightening from Eris’ movement, rests his chin on the sofa cushion and nudges his side again. He goes back to fussing him.

“If you had left it another hour, you would be dead. You understand that, right?”

For a moment, he pauses. His imminent death isn’t even top five on his list of things to worry about.

He flicks his attention to her, and her short-lived relief has been replaced by a quiet, seething kind of rage which somehow makes him feel guilty. It’s not something he’s used to and he decides that he fervently hates it. Cleo is so open with her emotions. She has no mask. No ulterior motive. She just is who she is. They would eat her alive in Autumn, but here, in Dawn, it’s normal not to exploit your neighbours’ weaknesses. You wouldn’t even gain anything but a sour reputation if you tried.

“It’s a good thing I came when I did then, isn’t it?” he says without any of his usual sneer. She would kick him out of her house. Has kicked him out, on more than one occasion, for being an asshole.

“Yes, very good,” she spits, pushing herself up, gathering the bloodied rags littered across the sofa. “You need to get inoculated if your father is going to keep poisoning you.”

He can’t do that and she knows it in the same way she knows not to heal his wounds, only to stop them bleeding or getting an infection, because his father likes to see the results of his handiwork. She’s smart enough to have worked that out without him needing to tell her. She’s smart enough to be able to do a lot of things and he wishes he could steal her away for himself, kids himself that he wants her only for her mind. If only he could convince her that she’s wasted here, but even he knows that she isn’t. Cleo does good work. Cleo helps people. Cleo is far too good a person to be in his consistent company.

“I doubt he’d use the same poison twice,” he says. Dart huffs at him as he swings his legs over the edge of the sofa, almost relishing the subsiding ache in his joints. He leans back against the cushions while she cleans her equipment with a flick of the wrist and sends him a glare. 

“One of these days, he’s going to kill you,” she says gently, like she was breaking some bad news he wasn’t already aware of. She perches in front of him on the coffee table and tilts her head, assessing the way he moved in case she needed to heal some unseen injury. Internal bleeding is a favourite of his father’s. “Or else you’re going to die on my sofa and trust me when I say that will be a difficult one to explain to the guards.”

“Shall I provide you with a note to let them know it isn’t your fault?” he drawls, but it’s tinged with something sincere. All of this frank discussion makes Eris uncomfortable. The idea that she might actually be upset if he died sits uneasily in his chest and makes his stomach flip. 

Dart hops up on the sofa, which he isn’t allowed to do, and rests his head in Eris’ lap. When Eris scratches behind his ears, his tail starts again. His smokehounds would eat him alive too. Or else protect him within an inch of each of their lives. Softie.

Cleo drags a hand through her hair, pulling at the tangles she finds. In turn, he shakes the thought that, even when she’s worried, annoyed, angry, she is incontestably beautiful. These are unhelpful things for him to spend his time on. He shouldn’t even be sitting here. He should have already winnowed back to the Autumn Court. Should be preparing to make a miraculous appearance at breakfast and scare his father into thinking that he can truly recover by himself. Should be attempting to reassure his mother that no, he really is fine, no need for concern. Alas, he’s here, lavishing her dog with attention and ignoring the fact that he likes the smell of her living room now that the coppery tang of blood has been cleared away with her magic. 

Eris Vanserra considers himself to be many things, but a fool isn’t one of them. Perhaps he should start reevaluating.

She winces when he shifts and it pains him. “You don’t need me to lecture you,” she says, “but for the love of the Mother, Eris—”

“—see a healer immediately. Yes. I know,” he finishes for her. 

With the haze of the faebane gone, his body recuperating however much blood he lost, he can look at her, really look at her. The tan of her skin seems a little deeper compared with the last time he was here. The definition in her muscles is just a bit more pronounced. She wears a frown which he wants to wipe off her face, and a matching set of a pale green vest and pair of shorts which reveals so much skin he reasons that she simply cannot be meaning to wear that in public. In Autumn, just the fit of her shorts around her waist would be indecent, let alone the cut of the vest. Truly, Dawn Court fashion confounds him.

“You’re in your pyjamas,” he says. He needs the normality of a conversation before he can steel himself to go home.

She raises a brow at him and he takes that as a victory. No more of that frown. “You’re shirtless.”

His state of undress suddenly becomes very, very apparent to him. It’s so pleasantly warm in here that it doesn’t make too much difference to him. It must be summer in the Solar Courts. “I take it my shirt is thoroughly ruined?”

She shrugs. “I’m told ‘tattered and bloodied’ is very in at the moment.Torture-chic.”

He huffs a laugh despite himself; Cleo has that kind of morbid, absurdist humour which appeals to him. It probably has something to do with the fact she deals with dying fae every day.

“Do you want another one or are you planning on scandalising your servants?”

“Firstly,” he says, emphasizing his point by putting up a finger, “they’re maids.” She rolls her eyes as if to say, like that makes any difference. “Secondly, I don’t think any of your shirts will fit.”

The corners of her lips tip up into a ghost of a smile. “Ah. Hang on.” She stands and Dart promptly does the same, meaning to follow her around like a lost puppy as usual. Eris, for just a second before he gets a hold of himself, misses the comfort. In his absence, his cuts start to throb. Cleo calls that the placebo effect and it is infuriating that he’s susceptible to it (“Everyone is, Eris. That’s why they did research on it. If it was only the case in insufferable, idiotic, half-dead—” “Okay, enough. No need to injure me further.” ). She stretches and he averts his eyes from where her vest rides up and shows her midriff. “I’ll be back in a mo’,” she says.

And she disappears upstairs, Dart padding after her. Unequivocally, he does not watch her go, busies himself with taking in the full-extent of what his father subjected him to. It’s not a pretty sight, and though Cleo cleaned him up as much as she could, he’s going to gain some more fairly unpleasant scars. By his guess, it’s going to take a week, maybe more, for these to heal. It was either him or Caelan, and he somewhat finds Caelan tolerable, so he took the knife for him. He had better remember that when the time comes, he thinks.

Though Cleo knows far, far too much to be safe, she doesn’t know anything about his plans to overthrow Beron, and she certainly doesn’t know it’s mere months away. With the coming Autumn equinox, he will crown himself High Lord. Dramatic intent never hurt. After that, he can visit her any time he likes. Maybe she could even come to him…

Cauldron, he’s fucked, isn’t he?

This is all for afterwards. He can’t think like this now. Not when his freedom is so close he can almost taste it and one wrong move will spell not just his death but those of everyone who is counting on him to depose his father. Every spy, every guard in his employ, every maid, cook, and gardener who warn him of his father’s whereabouts and look after his mother when he can’t. Every damned faerie in his damned Court who are sick of Beron’s rule. And Cleo. They’ll probably come for her too for daring to be kind to him all those years ago. 

So, failure isn’t an option.

Eris is broken from his reverie by a white shirt hitting him in the face. He might hate himself for noticing, but it smells like her: freesias and ginger. It is concerning that he has that piece of information tucked away in his brain somewhere. 

He pulls the shirt off his head and glares at her while Dart settles himself next to him. She shoots him the kind of smile that would make his heartbeat dangerously fast if he had the blood to spare. Just as he’s about to pull the shirt over his chest, he hesitates, because this is another male’s shirt. He swears if Cleo has some horribly charming and horrendously attractive partner/lover/whatever else in her life he is going to—

“Relax,” she says, drawing out the word. “It’s my brother’s. He left it here a couple of months ago.”

Damn her for reading him so well. 

Damn himself for being so obvious. And damn the Mother Herself for making him feel so happy about it. He’s the Heir to the Autumn Court and a general threat to anyone stupid enough to cross him—it’s a wonder no sentry of Thesan’s has picked up his presence in the Court—he cannot and will not carve out time in his day to feel content. 

Instead, he starts doing up the buttons and stands, maybe just a little too close to her to be friendly. The slight height advantage he has makes it so she has to look up at him. He enjoys the angle more than he cares to admit. 

“You shouldn’t go around telling members of other Courts when Thesan’s council members sleep on their sisters’ sofas,” he says, working out the roughness in his voice. 

“Why?” she laughs, then she gasps. “Don’t tell me you’re planning on kidnapping my brother and holding him for ransom.”

Eris leaves the top two buttons of the shirt undone. “I hadn’t been,” he says, “but now that you mention it…”

“He’s always wanted to see the Autumn Court, you know.”

“Yes, he’ll get a splendid view from a dungeon cell.”

“You had better give him the finest rags money can buy.”

“They’re all woven from the finest jute, I assure you. The rats who chew the holes have three square meals a day and the shackles are covered in the most exquisite rust that only severely cuts into the skin.”

“Excellent,” she says. “I’ll be sure to tell him you have a surprise for him next time I see him.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

Frankly, Cleo’s brother is a prick, so, if she wanted him put in a dungeon, he would do it for her. Not that he’s offered. Yet.

She lets out a little chuckle and some kind of irresistible impulse wracks through him. 

They’re so close he can see the flecks of green in the blue of her eyes.

If he doesn’t leave soon he’s going to do something stupid like leaning down and kissing her. Then, if he got that far, he might do something even worse like slipping his hand under that fucking vest and finally, finally finding out what she feels like, tastes like, sounds like if… No. So what if he finds her attractive? So what if he hasn’t had a dalliance in years because he can’t stomach the thought of it? It won’t matter if his father kills him or scents her in his hair and goes to great lengths to find her and make him suffer for opening himself up, for being weak.

He tamps down every lingering, heated thought his brain bombards him with and tightens the defenses Cleo so easily pulls down every time he sees her.

“I should return before anyone notices I’m gone,” he says, but he doesn’t quite reach his desired level of harshness. In fact, he almost sounds disappointed.

It irks him that he can’t tell if Cleo feels the same. Instead of perhaps confessing her undying love for him, or calling him some profane name he’s never thought to imagine, she slips past him, straight to the backdoor which leads out to her garden, and gestures outside. “After all this time,” she says, “you’d think you’d know where the door is.” When she opens it, the songs of early-morning birds float through.

The walk feels too short, and he’s finding himself on the threshold of the house far too soon. 

Eris takes a deep breath, inhales the pleasant scent of mid-summer in the Dawn Court, of the flowers which border the back wall of her house and the wisteria tree which hangs over the brick separating the garden from the alleyway in cascading violet. 

He turns back. Slightly. Doesn’t fully turn his body. Their eyes meet.

“Thank you,” he says. Any other words die on his silver tongue. 

Cleo leans against the doorframe. For a moment, she flicks her gaze to the garden, then back to him. She swallows. “You know you don’t have to thank me, Eris,” she says softly, then she smiles again. “Just bring a good bottle of wine next time maybe?”

“You say that like I plan on these visits.”

She exhales a laugh and crosses her arms. “You know what I mean. Now, go, before someone misses you.”

Right. 

Mask on. He wears his ego like armour and his arrogance is sharp like the finest blade in his repertoire. Anyone who makes the mistake of being in his way, of impeding his progress, meets the business end of his endless influence, and no one will find the skeletons in his closet unless he wants them to. He takes what he wants and makes no apologies. He’s a Vanserra; blessed by the Mother with fire and the coppery hair to prove it; he’s born to scheme and lie and cheat his way to the top; he’s built for blood, to betray, betray, betray until he gets what he—

“Eris.”

 Cleo’s hand wraps around his arm before he can take a step. 

This is… they don’t do this. There’s rules for touching each other within the exclusive context of making sure he survives the night. On her sofa, there are no boundaries. Cleo does what she needs to and he lets her because he knows what’s good for him and she’s terrifying when she’s disobeyed. But, this, her hand, on his arm, stopping him, this is stepping over the line. The heat of her seeps through the shirt and it takes a lot of effort not to shiver from the contact.

“I meant what I said,” she continues, her touch lightening a fraction. “Be careful.” He opens his mouth, but she cuts him off. “Promise me you won’t get yourself killed.”

Oh.

Someday, not today, but sometime in the near future, she’s going to say something like that and he’s going to kiss her senseless. For now, he’s settling for her hand on his arm. 

So much for taking what he wants.

“Do you truly think I’m stupid enough to—?”

She narrows her eyes at him and he shuts his mouth. He shuts his eyes like the idea physically pains him.

“You really want me to promise, don’t you?” he asks.

“Yes.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs a long, heavy breath. Composes himself.

“I promise you,” he says, leaning toward her slightly, his voice low, “I won’t get myself killed. Happy?”

Whatever she searches for on his face, she seems to find. Satisfied, she lets go of him. The lack of pressure around his bicep feels wrong.

“Very,” she says. “Okay. Go.” A nod to the little wooden door that leads to the alleyway and out of the wards which surround the house. “And take pain tonics if it gets too much. I don’t care if they’re illegal in Autumn. That’s a shit law and you should repeal it.”

He plans to.

They don’t say goodbye. They never do. Some traditions will never change. There’s too much finality in the word, and they settle for no farewell at all, like the next time they see each other will simply be a continuation of the previous meeting. On-going. A constant in the background. 

With every step, he rebuilds his mask. By the time he’s home, it’ll feel normal again. Like second nature.

Even as he enters the alley, Eris doesn’t look back. Still, he knows she’s watching him go, and she won’t go back inside until she’s sure he’s winnowed away. 

a/n: am i potentially going to make this a series of one-shots? maybe

[s-brant]

The Calm Before the Storm

With the family coming from Dragonstone to visit after the birth of Y/N’s first child, Aemond must control his impulses and be civil with the Velaryon boys for the sake of his wife. (or judas part five).

9k (18+)

Warnings: smut, targcest, lactation kink, oral sex (male receiving), facefucking, switch aemond, strong language, hints of yandere (so basically canon) aemond, death, and referenced violence.

-

Their footsteps echo in the hallway as they make their way to the private rooms her mother and father are staying in for the next few days. Her husband's shoulders are squared, his posture straight, the entire way there. Ever since he woke up this morning with the knowledge that Daemon, Rhaenyra, Jace, and Lucerys are here, he hasn't allowed himself a moment to relax. If it weren't for the three-week-old babe clutched against her chest, she'd reach out to take his hand or rub up and down his back.

Without turning her head to look at him, she says, "You need not worry. My brothers simply wish to meet their niece."

The doors to their chambers come closer and closer—

"I am not worried," he says. "Your half-brothers pose no threat to me."

The long conversation they shared last night as the babe suckled at her mother's breast proved otherwise. It was late enough that their servants had gone to sleep, so neither of them felt the need to speak in the language of their ancestors to keep anyone from overhearing. They spoke quietly in the common tongue to not wake their daughter from her milk-drunk trance.

He confided in her that he didn't feel comfortable having his daughter around her half-brothers without him present in the room. At first, she had been offended. She looked at him like he had struck her and bit her tongue as she fought the urge to say the first nasty thing that came to mind. It had to do with his brother. It was a snarky comment regarding her reluctance to allow their daughter to be alone in his presence, but she stopped herself before she could say it. No matter how much she loved them, he had reason to be wary of them after what they did.

The guards hold the doors open for them and announce their presence as the couple enters the room. The first thing Y/N sees is her mother and father standing together, the former with a hand cradled on the underside of her heavily pregnant belly. Then, it's her half-brothers sitting on the couch behind them. And, finally, her youngest brothers, Viserys and Aegon, play together on the carpet-covered floor.

"My sweet girl," Rhaenyra says in greeting with a bright smile and holds out her arms.

Aemond, ever the attentive husband contrary to the assumptions from her side of the family, is already reaching to take the babe from her arms to allow her the chance to embrace her mother. A quiet, "Thank you, my love," is muttered under her breath as she passes their daughter off to him, trying not to ogle him in the presence of her family. Seeing him with Daenaera, cradling their small child against the body she knows so intimately, never fails to make her stomach flutter.

What she doesn't notice due to her preoccupation with her mother is that her brothers are staring daggers at Aemond from where they lounge on the couch. As always, he doesn't miss a thing.

Jacaerys in particular has the more sour expression between the two of them, seeing that he is older and more knowledgeable about the ins and outs of marriage, but it does little to intimidate her husband. Aemond simply stares back with a blank face, daring him to say or do anything to provoke him in the presence of his wife and child.

Next, he turns his attention to Lucerys while Y/N is greeting her parents. The younger of the two is less angry and more frightened. Ever since what happened between them at Driftmark, they've never been able to let their guards down around one another. And now that the young boy he maimed has grown into a man, one who rides the largest dragon alive and has bested Criston Cole with a sword, Lucerys has often anticipated retaliation of some sort whenever they meet again.

But he made a vow to his wife. He swore that he would not harm either of her brothers, and it was not something he took lightly. It wasn't a means to end their argument, it was real. For her, he would leave them be...unless they swung first. In that circumstance, he cannot deny that he would revel in the opportunity to get revenge. His vow to her did not mean that he would befriend her brothers, or that he cared about them. It only means that he cares more for her and their daughter.

Aemond never breaks his eye contact with Lucerys as he stands by in silence. The mischievous glint in his remaining eye seems to say, "I won." The tiny, shifting weight of the newborn cooing in his arms is proof of that.

Before anything can be said between the two of them, Y/N pulls away from the embrace shared with her parents and turns to him to say sweetly, "Māzigon, valzȳrys. Ivestragī zirȳ rhaenagon zirȳla." Come, husband. Let them meet her.

The little girl fusses in his grasp when he walks over to the three of them without speaking a word, and this causes Y/N's brows to pinch together in concern. Her hand comes up to stroke the top of her head, fuzzy with wisps of silver hair, to soothe her as Aemond hands the babe off to her grandsire. Although he does not cry, his eyes become glassy at the sight of his daughter's child.

Daemon says, allowing her little fingers to curl around his pinky, "Gevie." Beautiful. His eyes shift to look back and forth between Y/N and Aemond before finally settling on the former. "She has your lips and nose." A pause, and then he looks at Aemond. His tender expression hardens a little, but he keeps it contained. "I see you in her as well."

He hums in appreciation of the comment—a rare compliment, perhaps—but is quick to correct him.

"She is the image of her mother," he says softly and valiantly fights a smile when his eye abandons his uncle to look upon her little face.

The harshness that is always present in Daemon's gaze when Aemond is near softens at this as though he has been presented with a new side of him. Throughout their marriage, Daemon has made no secret of his distaste for her husband. Not only because of his scheming grandsire but because of his history with her half-brothers. With every raven sent to King's Landing from Dragonstone, he made a point to ask her how he had been treating her, promising that he would be there on Caraxes with haste should he mistreat her. But this...Even though she has told him countless times that she is happy with her marriage, this is the first time he has truly seen it.

Next, Rhaenyra holds her. It's almost effortless how she falls back into the motherly role once a babe is placed in her arms. Having birthed five children that survived beyond the womb, it is second nature to her, and it won't be long before the sixth comes along.

"What is her name?" her mother asks.

This brings a smile to Y/N's face.

"Daenaera."

-

Dinner with the entire family, both the Green and Black sides, is never a dull event.

She sits with Aemond to her right and Daemon to her left, little Daenaera sleeping with her head on her shoulder. Both Alicent and Rhaenyra advised her to give the babe to a servant to allow herself to enjoy the night, but she politely refused. Her little girl often had trouble if neither she nor Aemond was near, so she is held to her chest with one arm while the other reaches for the fork beside her plate.

The last time they had a dinner all together was before she married him. It's a little different tonight seeing that Viserys is not well enough to attend, but there's a new member of the family to bind both sides together this time, so the night has progressed without issue thus far. How could anyone be compelled to argue or incite violence with an infant present at the dinner table.

It was a calculated decision on her part, which Aemond clocked instantly. His lips fought the urge to turn up at the ends in a slight smirk when she insisted upon keeping the babe with her. She knew that he would refrain from any impulsive behavior regarding her brothers with her at the table. His cunning, devoted lady.

Aemond watches her as she struggles to hold their daughter up with one arm while she reaches for her cup of wine. He's readying to scoot back from the table and take Daenaera from her arms, but he's halted by the sound of her brother's voice.

"Sister, if you won't let the servants help, please allow me to hold her while you eat."

His one eye shifts its focus away from her to find the source of the offer.

Rhaenyra says, "How kind of you, Jacaerys." She then turns to look at her daughter past Daemon, leaning forward into the table. "You should take him up on the offer, my love, you must be tired."

The younger princess hesitates for a second and glances at her husband as though to tell him to keep his composure, then nods.

"Here, let me bring her to you," she says to her brother who was already prepared to walk around the table to their side. "If she wakes, she will not be easily soothed by anyone but her father."

It is true. For some reason, only the Gods may know, she is most comfortable being held and talked to by him when she's crying in the dead of night. Y/N is a close second, but no one makes her feel quite as safe as her kepa does. Even now, when she's too little to speak or walk or show a hint of personality, she knows that he will cross any line imaginable to safeguard her and her mother's lives.

The comment brings him pride, and it's difficult to refrain from smiling to himself when he hears it. Despite all their attempts to frame him in their minds as an uncaring husband—he didn't pretend not to see the comments Daemon made in letters she left out in the open for him to find—he has proven otherwise. He knows it must pain them, especially her father, that there are no excuses for them to look down upon him.

"You must support the back of her head with your hand or your arm," she says softly to her younger brother as she transfers the babe into his possession. "There—like that."

It takes little time for her to circle back around to their side of the table and take her seat beside her husband. From a glance, she can tell that his body has tenses from the sight of Jacaerys holding Daenaera. It isn't as though he's deluded enough to think her brother would wish to harm their child or act in an unbecoming way in her presence, despite his grudge he knows his nephew well enough to know that. Yet, it makes him squirm in discomfort all the same.

What if he accidentally hurts her? What if she wakes from her nap to see a new, strange man holding her and is frightened? Would anything be able to stop him from taking his child from his arms and glaring at him for inadvertently upsetting her?

It isn't until Aemond feels his wife's right hand settle atop his clothed thigh under the table that he is snapped out of his thoughts. Gods, he feels so unlike himself when he takes a step back and analyzes his thoughts at the present moment.

He always swore to himself that he would not care this deeply when the time came for him to take a wife and sow his seed, but, as he has been forced to realize again and again, he does care. In fact, he cares so deeply that he doesn't know what to do with himself when anyone is close to either one of them. It's possible that his vow to remain detached from his feelings, to focus solely on his duty as a husband and father without complicating things, was another defense mechanism unknowingly put in place to protect the part of him that always cared too much.

As the others talk amongst themselves and pick at their food, she leans in to say softly, opting for the native language of their family over the common tongue to keep it as private as can be, "Nyke gīmigon bisa iksis qopsa syt ao." I know this is hard for you. Her eyes soften, and she can feel the hard muscle of his thigh relax a little when she strokes it gently with her thumb. "Yn emā gaomagon sȳz." But you have done well. There's a pause, and then she mutters quietly enough that no one else can hear, "Perhaps I may express my gratitude after dinner."

This makes his body go still.

Since it is his blind eye that is closest to her, he cranes his neck a little to allow him to see her face. The expression he wears is virtually unreadable to everyone else in the room, but she can see the fire she lit within his body from gazing at him alone. Seeing that their lives have been consumed with doting on Daenaera in the time since she gave birth, only opting to hand her off to servants for the night to allow them time to rest, they haven't had the energy or urge to engage in any sexual activities. Not that she can be on the receiving end of anything for two moons, but that doesn't mean she cannot satisfy him.

Aemond's brows furrow a little, then he mutters, chancing a glance around the table to ensure nobody is listening, "We cannot."

Her lips twitch up on both ends into a slight smile.

"There are other ways," she says softly, careful to keep her tone hushed and words ambiguous in meaning.

From the outside looking in, they appear to be a happy couple, so taken with one another that they are lost in a conversation that causes them to ignore their surroundings. In a way, that perception is true, but the topic being discussed isn't what anyone would guess.

He doesn't respond to this verbally.

Instead, he hums to himself and turns his focus back across the table to where her brother is cradling their daughter in his arms, but she knows she got under his skin. A second after he looks away, his hand finds the one she is resting on his thigh, and he weaves their fingers together. The sole reason he didn't say anything back to her was because he knew he wouldn't be able to control what would come out of his mouth if he let himself speak. As peacefully he and Daemon have managed to co-exist today, Aemond does not think he could say any of the things he says in the privacy of their bedchamber in his presence without causing a brawl.

Jace smiles down at the babe and says, not to anyone in particular, "She'll make a fine queen, will she not?"

Rhaenyra's head turns to look upon the two of them, and it's clear to see the warmth this brings to their mother's heart.

It's Alicent, however, who responds.

"Yes." She looks at Rhaenyra, saying, "We have had our share of difficulties, as all families do, but Daenaera is a blessing."

The effect it has on her mother is clear in her. Y/N's eyes linger on her for the better part of a moment before they find Otto sitting next to her, doing his best to mask the displeasure evident in his expression at the notion of Rhaenyra or her children ascending the throne. Aegon, on the other hand, seems as though he couldn't care less. Although they rarely dwell on the matter of succession to avoid fighting, she and Aemond have both agreed that he does not want the position or the duty it entails. He would be content to live the rest of his days as he does now, drinking himself into oblivion and fondling any servant girl left alone with him for too long.

The hand resting on Aemond's thigh squeezes at the rare sight of their mothers getting along.

Rhaenyra says earnestly, fighting off a smile, "It gladdens my heart to know that we are both grandmothers to this beautiful babe."

There's a distant flash of longing in her eyes in the second she takes to pause, then rise from her seat with her cup raised. The last time she toasted someone at dinner, it was to Alicent, but, this time, she turns toward where her daughter is sitting beside her husband.

"I raise my cup to you, brother," she begins. "For your devotion to my sweet girl. As the Queen said, we have had our difficulties as a family in years past. Yet, I find I can sleep soundly at Dragonstone knowing my only daughter and grandchild are undoubtedly safe and contented at your side." Her cup is raised higher. "To Prince Aemond. You have my gratitude."

At first, he is frozen in his seat and unsure of what he hears. How could this be the same woman who demanded he be "sharply questioned" after one of her bastard sons maimed him for life? Then, as he takes in what she says, he has to fight the urge to doubt them. His immediate assumption is that this is a facade being put on for the sake of bettering her appearance, but when has his half-sister ever cared for appearances? One glance across the table at Jace's dark brown hair answers the question for him. So, he thinks, if it isn't to make herself appear gracious, seeing that she is too confident in her position as heir to deem it threatened by anything she does, it must be genuine in some way.

It goes against everything he knows to admit to himself that Rhaenyra is being anything but ambivalent toward him or Aegon, and yet...He inclines his head to her in a gesture of acknowledgment and gratitude. It's all he can think to do until words find him, and they eventually do. A lengthy moment passes then—

"You have my gratitude as well, sister," he says, although strained, to Rhaenyra. It comes as a surprise to everyone watching after all that has transpired in the past. He then looks upon his wife with a tenderness few ever receive from him. "For having her."

-

As soon as the door shuts behind the servant who gently took Daenaera from her arms, Y/N has Aemond pushed up against it with her arms wrapped around his broad shoulders, and their lips connected in a kiss.

After they dined, Rhaenyra felt a sensation in her body that she knew all too well and apologized to her daughter for having to hurry back to Dragonstone on such short notice. She made certain to apologize to the Queen, asking her to pass along the message to the ailing, bedridden King Viserys if possible. This saddened Y/N, of course, but she cares for the comfort and health of her mother. She agreed it was better that they return to their ancestral home at the first sign of her impending labors. Seeing that this was a possibility, they brought her midwife along for the trip, so the Princess is soothed by the knowledge that her mother is to be well taken care of on the journey home.

Her mother is the last thing on her mind now, though. All she can seem to think about is the man she has trapped between her body and the door to their chambers.

Aemond kisses her hungrily, his hand cupping the back of her neck and head to keep her from pulling away as he delves his tongue into her mouth. He is careful when touching her, however. His hands slide down the sides of her hips to gently squeeze her bottom, but not too forcefully. She gave birth three and a half weeks ago, and the maesters were strict in their instructions to wait five at the very least to encourage healing.

Knowing this, he feels compelled to stop her despite the ache of his erection pushing at the fabric of his breeches.

He parts from her for a second to murmur, "I will not bed you in this condition," before lurching back in to kiss her again.

It almost makes her chuckle into his mouth, and she flattens her palm against his chest. It descends against the taut, muscled abdomen hidden beneath his clothes and continues until it reaches what she seeks. Beneath her palm, he pulses with need after three weeks of nothing but the comfort of his own hand.

"Mmm," she hums against his lips as her own tilt up at the ends in a grin, "I'm afraid your body does not know that, my love"—The tips of her fingers reach for his belt with a confidence she does not have to question—"and, as I said, there are other ways."

As if to punctuate her statement, she unclasps his belt in a matter of seconds and pulls from the buckle until the leather band comes free from the loops of his pants. The very same belt that he instructed her to bite down on the last time he fucked her. The sound of the buckle clattering on the floor echoes through the spacious room as she moves to sink to her knees, but he stops her.

Her brows raise in a silent question directed toward him. His answer is equally as silent.

Aemond begins to undress her, starting with the top layer of her dress and patiently working his way down to her underclothes until she is standing nude before him. She knows without having to ask that he does not intend to push the boundaries of their agreement with the maesters by taking her too soon after giving birth. He simply wishes to see her in her entirety. If he will be laid bare, so will she.

Once her clothes all lie in a pile on the floor, she returns the favor. Her gentle touch lights a fire in the pit of his abdomen, but he holds still and watches her undo the buttons of his doublet until the garment comes loose around his torso. It takes little time for the pile of clothes on the floor to grow, and she cannot help but stare at his nakedness with flushed cheeks as though she hasn't seen him like this countless times. Now that there are no more layers left to separate their bodies, he leans in to kiss her again. Slowly, drawing it out for the sake of savoring the moment.

To her surprise, he lays a sweet peck on her lips, then dips his face into the crook of her neck.

"Aemond—" she warns, not wanting to become too aroused without a way to satisfy herself, but he is too starved from not touching her for the past three weeks to care.

His teeth nip at the delicate skin of her neck, leaving a mark visible for everyone to see as he sucks at the sweet spot that never fails to draw a breathy moan from her. She can feel his mouth curling up into a smirk when she, as though on cue, lets a stifled sound of pleasure escape. It isn't the first time he's left a love bite somewhere that couldn't be hidden beneath her clothes. Every other time, she was quick to scold him once the blissful haze of post-orgasmic bliss receded, but she doesn't feel so angry this time.

It's been far too long since she's had the opportunity to get upset over something like this.

Those desperate kisses descend the length of her fragile neck and go down, down, down until he's crouching to take one of her nipples into his mouth.

"Wait," she says, whining in sensitivity, and braces a hand against his chest. "It's going to—"

His arms pull tightly around her waist to keep her from moving away before the first drops of it touch his lips. The relief of the milk letting down causes her to let out a sigh, but paired with the inherent eroticism of him doing this, she has to press her thighs together to quell the dull ache felt between them for the first time in weeks. Her hand had fallen to his chest with the intention of pushing him away out of embarrassment, but the sound of him groaning in approval gives her a reason to pause.

Does this...arouse him? He has always had a fixation with her breasts since before she was pregnant, but perhaps it's shifted into something stronger with the changes in her body after birthing a child. She cannot deny that it feels good—not only due to the relief it provides after going all day without feeding the babe but because of how perverse it feels.

The hand on his chest moves to slip her fingers beneath the leather strap of his eyepatch and toss it to the side. Then, she cradles the back of his head with it, playing with the soft strands of silver hair as he continues to suckle at her breast. It's a strangely thrilling sensation. Her lips part to allow her a shaky inhale, and she feels the hands gripping her waist squeeze hard enough to leave a bruise behind.

Ignited with a new sense of confidence from having a typically strong, dominant man in a position of vulnerability, she asks, "This is what the rider of the largest dragon in the world enjoys behind the comfort of closed doors? Feeding from his wife's teat like a helpless babe?" There's a second of pause, then—"Hmm."

He can hear a smugness in the tone of her soft "Hmm" he would often fuck out of her or swat his hand against her ass as punishment for, but he cannot bring himself to do anything about it at the present moment. No, he just lets her nipple slip from his mouth and moves on to the other. The sweet taste of her breastmilk on his tongue makes his cock twitch where it sits, heavy and hard, against her belly. While he is distracted, she reaches down to grasp it.

The sudden stimulation makes him suck harder at her breast in response, and she chuckles under her breath. Her thumb brushes over the tip of him a few times, just for the sake of teasing him, before she begins to pump him at a pace that never fails to send all of his blood rushing down. The hand cupping the back of his head pushes his face harshly into her chest in a desperate bid to bring them as close as possible without having him inside of her.

Another moment passes, yet the lust surging through her has yet to be sated by what they're doing. It matters little to her that she won't be getting anything in return. With how rare physical intimacy is for them as of late, she is eager to indulge in everything they've been kept away from.

"This isn't enough," she says through a sigh.

Her fingers slip into his hair to get a good grip, then tug to pull it taut from his scalp in a way he's done to her many times. This brings him far enough from her breast for their gazes to meet across the limited space between them, and his eye widens a little at her impertinence. As quickly as it widened, it narrows at her. Now that he isn't preoccupied with her breasts, which are no longer as heavy and full with milk as they had been before he worshipped them, he can think clearly enough to decide that she needs to be put in her rightful place.

All it takes is a pointed glare from him for her grip on his hair to release. With how quickly she retracts her hand, one would think he burned her, yet he just looked at her. He remains silent and straightens his spine to bring him back to his full height. This only intimidates her more. With him looming over her, his eye not blinking as he stares, she cannot resist the urge to look away from him.

To this, he makes a quiet "Tsk," sound at her.

Her chin is quickly snatched up by his callused hand, forcing her to meet his gaze and hear what he has to say next. Their faces inch closer until—

"Kneel."

Her knees are kissing the cold floor in a matter of seconds. His hand never leaves her chin, keeping it tilted up to prevent her from breaking eye contact.

He nods at her in encouragement, then drops the hand holding her chin back to his side.

"Go on," Aemond commands.

Not wanting to provoke him any more than she already has, Y/N wraps her fingers around his thick cock to help guide it past her lips. But, first, she takes a moment to stroke him, keeping the fire blazing within him burning in the time it takes her to let a string of spit drip from her mouth onto his tip. It makes the movement of her hand pumping up and down the length of him much smoother. The hand that fell back to his side reaches for the back of her head, though, so she keeps her hand firm around the base of his length and dips her head down to put her mouth on him before he grows impatient.

A muscle in his jaw clenches as he watches those pretty lips wrap around the tip, smeared with a mixture of his precome and her spit, and sucks just hard enough to elicit a quiet moan. Then, slowly, never looking away from him, she takes as much of him as she can fit into her mouth until she feels him in her throat.

When she first did this, she thought it quite awkward. Although he assured her he had enjoyed himself, she knew she wasn't keeping the correct rhythm the whole time, and she had to take a few breaks to breathe. After the first time, she decided to make it her mission to perfect the vulgar act. It only felt fair considering how skilled he was with his face between her thighs. So, she did it all of the time—waking him from sleep with her throat clenched around him, dropping to her knees in a secluded corner of the library, and, most often, when she dragged him back to their chambers after watching him train with Ser Criston.

Somehow, he had been foolish enough to admit to his older brother how frequently his insatiable wife does this. Aegon had goaded him into it, imploring him to accompany him to the Street of Silk night after night. He droned on about the things these low-born whores would do for the right sum of coin. At last, after hearing him comment on how they are more willing than their wives to partake in such "undignified" behavior, Aemond said under his breath, "Speak for yourself." Although he was pestered for more details, he refused to provide them. Naturally, Aegon made all sorts of teasing remarks for the next couple of days and hasn't been able to look at Y/N the same since.

The hand wrapped around him pumps what remains of him that she cannot fit in her mouth, her other hand gently cupping his stones and stroking them the way he likes. With ample experience under her belt since they were wed, she breathes calmly through her nostrils without having to pull away to allow herself to rest. This allows her to fully devote herself to his pleasure.

And while she is singlemindedly focused on what she is doing, Aemond is losing himself in the haze of warm, wet pleasure.

Targaryens have always been likened to Gods walking amongst men, and how could he deny such a claim with how he feels at this moment? Not only did Vhagar choose to bind herself to him but so did this beautiful creature kneeling before him. Most of the people inhabiting this keep pray on their knees to the Seven, but she prays to him, and with every caress of her mouth, he is pushed a touch closer to the heavens.

Her head bobs in a practiced rhythm, and when she pulls away, leaving just the tip between her lips, she hollows her cheeks to suck harder. If she could, she would smile in satisfaction at how his head tips back in a groan.

"Aōha relgos iksis bē hae sȳz hae aōha orvorta," he says. Your mouth is almost as good as your cunt. High praise as far as she's concerned. He has made it clear to her on many occasions that his favorite place to be at any given moment is inside of her. "Fuck..."

The last bit was muttered under his breath as he pushed her head further down his length until the tip of her nose grazed his stomach. He can feel her gagging, throat clenching and unclenching around his cock, and forces her to remain this way for another second before releasing her. Yet, even after this, she doesn't retreat to take a breath. She simply opens her eyes to look back up at him and relaxes her jaw to open her mouth to him as much as she can.

He knows without having to communicate verbally what she's urging him to do, and it's a wonder he doesn't spill into her mouth in a matter of seconds at the mere thought of it. There's a glint of mischief in her eyes—which he responds to with enthusiasm, taking hold of both sides of her head and guiding every fluid movement. It's more gentle at first. Rather than roughly fucking her mouth the second she gives him the go-ahead, he takes the time to enjoy it and commit every sensation to memory. There's something intoxicating about the power she allows him to hold over her.

Both of her hands slide up his thighs to seek stability, her fingertips digging into the muscular flesh hard enough for her nails to leave crescent-shaped indents in his pale skin. With each thrust, his pace picks up, and soon her spit is drooling out of her mouth onto his sack. Those once gentle thrusts turn rough and unforgiving the longer he spends trapped within the warm, wet channel of her throat. And though he is the one leading, she looks just as hungry for it as she had when she set the pace. If anything, having him hold her head in place to rut into her mouth like a wild beast makes the lust wreaking havoc on her healing body worse. What truly makes it insufferable, however, is knowing that she cannot have him after this. Not to the extent that she craves so badly.

Her lashes flutter with the effort it takes to keep looking up at him like he's a God while she gags on him and takes deep breaths in through her nostrils. Her spit is dripping from the corners of her mouth and onto the floor, his manhood entirely soaked in it too. All the while, Aemond is making noises unlike anything she has heard before. Due to his naturally reserved disposition, he often stifles the moans and grunts that try to leave his lips. But, sometimes, when he's too overwhelmed with pleasure to recall the world that exists beyond it, all of those lovely noises flow freely.

Right now, as she reaches up to give his stones a squeeze with her free hand, he's whimpering, gasping, and grunting all at once. Not only is he a feast for her eyes, he's a feast for her ears as well. Gods, she has never wanted anything as badly as she wants him right now, and the frustration of knowing she cannot do more than this drives her to work even harder. To perform for him as though she's getting paid.

The vibration of her soft moaning around his cock pushes him closer, dangerously closer, to the climax threatening to barrel into him at a moment's notice. Somehow, he hangs on. Not for anyone's sake but his. It has been too long since he has been allowed the privilege of being intimate with his wife, so he tries to stave it off for as long as possible. But, fuck, she's making it difficult—with those sultry eyes looking up at him through her lashes, cheeks hot to the touch under his palms, and mouth swallowing around him on the upstroke of every thrust. He cannot bring himself to look away from her, and that is what brings him to the edge.

"I'm—" he tries to give her a warning, but she doesn't need nor want it.

She continues at this pace for another ten or so seconds, intent on milking him dry, until his cock begins to twitch in her mouth with the onset of his climax.

Her lips remain closed around him, determined to catch every drop as his seed spurts into her mouth in pulses of warmth that trickle down her throat. As it always is, the taste is slightly salty, though not unpleasant enough that she can't swallow it all. It isn't until he is grabbing her by the shoulders and guiding her away that she removes herself from him, letting it slip out of her mouth as it softens, still shining in the dim light with her saliva.

When she looks up at him, it is clear to see that he is utterly spent. A job well done as far as she is concerned. Aemond tends to have an impressive amount of stamina when he fucks her, and sometimes they can continue round after round without him having to stop, but she managed to subdue him with her mouth alone tonight.

His chest rises and falls with the rapid pace of his breathing, and she can see by looking into his eyes that it'll take a moment for him to come back down from such a high. It's as though he's in a trance of some sort, staring down at her and panting for air. It only takes a second or so for the trance to break at the sound of her voice.

Her delicate hand slides up the length of his thigh and over his abdomen as she asks in a doting voice, "Do you feel better, my love?"

Without answering, he dips down to heft her into his arms, lifting her and holding her against his body with one hand on the small of her back and the other beneath her right thigh.

As he walks in the direction of their bed, she is giggling and asking him what he is doing, yet he offers no reply. Not until he has her laid down on the mattress. A second later, she feels the bed shift with his weight when he crawls in beside her and pulls the sheet up to their waists. The warmth of his body, solid with lean muscle against her soft, womanly figure, instantly keeps the breeze blowing in from the open windows at bay.

"Hold me," he says, already moving to lay his head atop her breast. "Kostilus." Please.

A second later, one of her arms is wrapping around him, keeping him cradled as close to her as physically possible, and she can feel him loose a heavy sigh of relief he's been holding onto all day. His head fits perfectly into the crook of her neck. Every few seconds, she lifts her hand to rake her fingers through his hair. The silver strands are silken beneath her touch, scented with a hint of lavender from the bath they shared before falling asleep last night. Noticing that it is still tied back in his typical, half-up fashion, on her next pass through, she pulls it free and combs gently until there are no tangled pieces left.

For a while, they lay together with nothing to fill the silence but the sound of their quiet breathing. His head rises with every inhale, her breast a soft cushion for his cheek to nuzzle up against. Neither of them wants to be the one to speak first for fear of ruining the peaceful moment, but, inevitably, she gives in.

His neck cranes to allow him a glimpse of her face before she starts speaking as though they share one mind, as though he knows what she'll say or do before she does it. When she thinks about it, they've always been that way.

"I'm proud of you...You have every right to feel slighted by them all for what happened at Driftmark, I will not deny that," she says, pausing for a beat afterward. The tip of her thumb brushes across his lower lip as she looks down at him with nothing but love in her eyes. "And you still didn't let it stop you from enjoying our time together as a family."

Hearing her lavish him with such praise brings a flush to his pale face, and he must resist the urge to avert his gaze sheepishly. He manages, though. After all, he's faced much more daunting challenges than looking at his wife as she tells him how proud she is of him. If these are the only challenges he has to endure in this new chapter of his life, he'll be eternally grateful. He has spent his whole life yearning to prove himself—as a son, a dragon rider, a prince, a swordsman, and now a father. Because of this, her approval and praise mean more to him than she'll ever know.

The thumb pressed to his lips is given a tender kiss before he moves on to her index finger, then the next, the next, and the next. His larger hand is clasped around her wrist with his thumb pressing into the center of her palm to allow him to maneuver her hand however he sees fit. Once the last kiss is placed against the small pad of her pinky finger, he releases her wrist from his grasp to lace their fingers together. Aemond holds on as though she is the anchor keeping him grounded to their world, always there to draw him back before he disappears too far into the darkness that has dwelled within him since the day he claimed Vhagar.

Unable to accept it without diverting some of the attention away from himself, he takes it as his turn to praise her.

"You were clever in keeping Daenaera at the table for dinner," he says. A half second later, he utters the next words into the soft skin of her breast. "You see right through me."

Although he can barely see it from the corner of his eye, her lips curve up at the ends in a soft smile.

"I always have, haven't I?"

To this, he responds with his usual hum of acknowledgment and brushes his nose against her peaked nipple. His lips press against the skin just beneath it in another kiss, but he's careful not to stimulate her. It would be cruel to arouse her even further with no way of sating her desires. The next two weeks will pass, albeit slowly, and then he can properly bed her the way he wishes to tonight.

His arms pull tightly around her waist. If she had any hopes of escaping his embrace tonight, it's now clear he has no intentions of entertaining them. No, he will hold her prisoner if he has to. He will do whatever he must do so long as it means he gets to keep her, and the thought of this brings a barely-there smile of relief to his face.

"Sleep," he murmurs, pulling the sheet further up to keep their bare, entangled bodies warm. "Tomorrow, when the babe is taken for her nap, I will take you to visit Vermithor. You cannot ride him yet, but he will be glad to see you. It's been too long. The dragonkeepers have told me he has grown restless."

This makes her smile too.

"I would quite enjoy that."

With that, she relaxes beneath the weight of her husband's body lying atop her and nuzzles her face into the pillow the way he had her breast a moment ago.

It takes little time for the pair to be pulled beneath the veil of consciousness, their breathing evening out into slow inhales and exhales that are hardly audible over the fire crackling in their hearth. For once, all is peaceful in the Keep. Their families dined together as one, the children have been put to sleep by their nursemaids, and the night has descended into a type of quiet so rarely found in a place like King's Landing.

As night descends upon them, the only people still awake within the walls of the Keep are the servants readying themselves for bed after a day of tireless work. While the royal family had been served platters of freshly cooked meats and goblets of the most expensive wine, the smallfolk working beneath them quiet the rumbling in their stomachs with whatever scraps remain if they are so lucky. If not, they eat a plain stew of some sort, accompanied by slightly stale bread and a cup of ale to wash it down. But even that is considered generous as far as lowborn citizens of King's Landing are concerned. Servants within the keep live comfortably compared to peasants living in the city beyond the walls.

Far from where the servants reside, in the stillness and silence of the night, King Viserys slips further into a state of delirium where he lays alone in his room in Maegor's Holdfast. Since his lady wife, Queen Alicent, left to retire to her chambers for the night, he has been muttering into the empty room and talking to ghosts. At last his frail, trembling hand lifts from his chest and toward the sky, reaching for what he could not have as long as he remained alive. With his last breath, he calls out for his love, Aemma, and his suffering is ended at long last as the Stranger comes to take him.

Despite this, the night remains quiet and peaceful. For no one can know that Viserys has passed in his sleep until the servants come to wake him in the early hours of the morning, but, once news breaks among the staff and Queen Alicent is informed of her husband's death, the calm before the storm comes to an end. Soon, dragons will dance, and she will not waste any time in securing her eldest son's birthright. Not after her husband spoke his name in his final hours.

It isn't until an hour after sunrise that Y/N is roused from a deep sleep by the light shining in through the windows that remained open all night.

She sighs and presses her cheek into the pillow in defiance of her current state of consciousness, wanting to steal another couple of moments of rest before she's ushered into the bath by her bright-eyed young handmaidens. But, after lying there for a second or so, her eyes flutter open. The sun has fully risen, she realizes with a sense of urgency. Her feet quickly kick the sheet from her body. Her hand reaches behind her to feel where her husband should be resting beside her only to find the mattress cold and empty.

How had she not felt or heard him leave?

"Aemond?" she calls out drowsily and pushes herself up into a sitting position, looking around the room in confusion.

No answer.

"Nyla?"

No answer.

Nyla is always the first to arrive and aid her in getting dressed for the day, intricately braiding her hair to her head in the fashion her mother wears, not that which Queen Alicent and Princess Helaena prefer. But the sun has already risen, she should have come in to wake her and Aemond already if they had not risen on their own accord...

Y/N abandons the bed and makes for the chair her robe, a rich shade of red embroidered with accents of gold and black, is draped over. Seeing that she is nude, it's the quickest way for her to cover herself and protect her modesty before leaving the room to inquire about why no one thought to wake her as they have every morning since her wedding. Something is wrong, that much she knows. She feels it in her gut and the very air surrounding her.

Rather than find Aemond, she'll first head to the nursery where Daenaera has been sleeping all night. Her husband is capable of taking care of himself, their daughter not so much. If something truly is amiss as her intuition is telling her, the babe comes before her husband—he made her come to that agreement the day she was born.

But when she tries to pull the doors to their chambers open, they do not budge. Thinking it a mistake of some kind, she tries again, and they refuse to open no matter how hard she pulls at them.

Her closed fist begins to knock at the door, soft at first, then harder and harder until she is forced to bang on it in hopes that someone will come.

"Hello?" she yells, pounding on the door with both fists. The thought that she is trapped, forced to stay away from her weeks-old child...It makes her efforts double in intensity. "Why have I been trapped in my room?"

No answer.

"I need to see my daughter! Let me out—"

The sound of Ser Erryk's voice interrupting her plea for freedom pulls a deep sigh of relief from her chest. Of all the men sworn to protect their family, he and his brother have proven the most loyal and kind. Surely Erryk will help her.

"My sincere apologies, Princess," he says, "We have been instructed to keep everyone confined to their rooms until further notice. One of your ladies will be up to bring you breakfast and dress you soon."

Her brows furrow at this.

"And under whose authority am I to be held prisoner in my own home?"

There's a long, drawn-out stretch of silence that follows, and it makes her stomach churn with dread. Something is wrong. This is not normal.

When he does not respond after a moment, she calls, "Ser Erryk?"

He clears his throat.

"Our lord hand is the one responsible, my lady. I am only doing as I've been told."

It takes her the better half of a moment to conjure a response. She is too shocked to put anything into words at first, but, then, her mind runs wild.

"What has happened? What could possibly warrant this?" she asks. After another dreadful stretch of silence, she resorts to shouting. "Tell me! That is an order from your Princess, an heir to the throne no less!"

Despite being strictly ordered not to divulge any critical information to anyone aside from the Hand, Queen Alicent, and her children, he cannot allow her to sit here and suffer in a prison of her making. He has watched her grow up and served her since he was first sworn into the kingsguard. She deserves the truth even if she cannot be freed from her room to do anything about it.

"The king has died. Princess Rhaenys is confined to her room as well by the orders of the Hand. I cannot say more. Forgive me, my lady."

Before she can even process what he has said, Erryk turns and walks away from her door, leaving her frozen in her place with her closed fists hanging at her sides. They have been anticipating this for the past five years, yet hearing it still shocks her.

The king has died, which warrants every lord and lady in his court to be kept out of the way as they make the necessary preparations before it is announced to the city...but it does not warrant the imprisonment of any members of the royal family. Surely, this is a mistake. Surely, there has been a miscommunication regarding who is to be kept from roaming the keep. If Aemond is not here, he must be permitted to go where he pleases, so why cannot she? Why cannot Rhaenys?

A cold chill runs down her spine when the realization of what's happening hits her.

Her feet are carrying her across the room before she can blink, bringing her to the opened windows that overlook the courtyard where people come in and out of the gates to the Keep. What she finds, she does not want to believe, but she's witnessing it with her own two eyes. Lord Caswell is being ripped from his horse by members of the Kingsguard and dragged like a dog through the dirt in the direction of the castle doors.

There is no other explanation for why Aemond is allowed to roam free while she and Rhaenys are held prisoner. There is no other explanation for Lord Caswell to be violently assaulted by the kingsguard for trying to leave the Keep on horseback. There is no other explanation for Ser Erryk apologizing to her. He wasn't just apologizing for locking her in her rooms...

They are usurping the throne.

-

Oh it’s about to get goooood. Let me know if you liked this chapter. I’ve had it in the works since before season two aired but I wanted to wait to finish/post it.

Tag List: @m-indkiller, @tinykryptonitewerewolf, @hopebaker, @bcon24, @eleganttravelercloud, @aemond-targaryenx, @the-blue-banshee, @saramayu, @merakiaes, @its-sam-allgood, @grungegrrrl, @singitoutgirl26, @scarlettmoon98, @cicaspair418, @itisjustwhatitis, @cl-0-vr, @d34d-4c1d, @hargrovehoe, @vainillasmil157, @leahjean, @captainweirdo42, @magnificantmermaid, @dark-night-sky-99, @kaicyl, @ladybug0095, @bellaisasleep, @blackravenart, @isaxbella749, @reneki, @heylosers06, @izzicle, @bucky-thorin-winchester, @hangmanscoming, @harrypotteranna23-blog, @fan-goddess, @glame, @muthafuckingstargirl, @barnes70stark, and @shintax-error.

[ataliagold]

If Love Was Contagious I Might Be Immune To It

For @steddie-week day 2, prompts "hands" and "touch starved".

Title from an unreleased Noah Kahan song.

Pairing: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson

Rating: T

W/C: 1916

C/W: Referenced death of a grandparent.

Tags: angst, hurt/comfort, Steve is touched-starved, Steve has bad parents, platonic soulmates Steve and Robin, Eddie Munson is a sweetheart

Summary: Steve's early life is mostly devoid of love - until Eddie Munson.

___

He’s eight years old, and his wrist is broken.

It’s the first time he’s broken a bone, but it certainly won’t be the last.

Steve cries silently in the school nurse’s room. His father hated it when he cried, always told him to man up, to grow up, to act like a Harrington.

He tried to keep the tears in, he really did, but his arm is throbbing and his wrist is turning a funny colour and he wishes he’d taken Tommy up on his offer to sit with him and wait for his mom to turn up but he’d wanted to be tough, tough like his dad, and he’d told him he wasn’t a baby and he’d be fine.

So, while he loses the battle against the tears cascading down his cheeks, he stays tight-lipped and quiet.

His mom arrives eventually. Steve sits there, clutching his wrist across his stomach as the nurse explains to Janet Harrington what had happened, that Steve had fallen in P.E, that the bone was definitely broken and he needed to go straight to urgent care.

Janet nods. Turns to Steve, expression tight and unreadable, and gestures quickly for him to follow her out to the car.

Steve quickens his pace behind her, little legs carrying him along behind the click-clack of her heels.

He reaches for her hand with his good one.

Knows he shouldn’t, knows he isn’t supposed to keep trying to touch because he’s a big boy now, he doesn’t need to be held and coddled anymore.

But he’s hurting, and he wants his mom.

She tightens her hand around his almost in surprise, squeezing sharply.

“For goodness’ sake, Steve,” she hisses, dropping his hand again like it’s something bad, “do you want all your friends to see you like this? Act your age.”

Steve snatches his hand back to his side. Blinks through the new flood of tears in his eyes, swallows thickly, keeps his gaze on the hard tiled floor.

He’s eight years old, and his mother doesn’t want to hold his hand.

*****

He’s fourteen years old when his grandma dies.

Smoking with Tommy behind the bike shed at the school, they are quieter than usual.

The funeral is this weekend. Steve’s never been to a funeral before.  His mom ordered him a suit the day after they got the news, the reality of it barely sinking in before he was being stood in front of the mirror in the store while a man wrapped a tape around him, taking his measurements while his mom tapped her foot behind him.

He wonders what will happen when his parents go away, now that he can’t go and stay with grandma. He’ll miss her. He’ll miss her like hell.

No more baking, no more helping her plant flowers in her sunny backyard, no more taking slow walks to the park with her little yappy dog.

“Sorry,” Tommy mutters eventually, stomping the butt of his cigarette into the dirt.

“Huh?” Steve asks, not looking up.

“You know. About your grandma.”

“Oh,” Steve waves a hand, cigarette between his fingers. Nonchalant. Unemotional. Harrington. “S’fine, she was just some old lady.”

Tommy sniffs, raises an eyebrow. “It was your grandma, man.”

Steve shrugs, forces a smirk. “Reckon she left me anything in her will?”

He burns as he says it.

He doesn’t want money. Doesn’t want things. He just wants his grandma back.

Tommy snorts out a laugh, shakes his head, punches Steve lightly in the shoulder. “You’re a dick.”

Steve takes a long drag on the cigarette, blows the smoke out towards Tommy’s face. His friend swears and shoulder charges him, wraps his arms around Steve’s waist and the two of them start to wrestle.

Here, with the stench of tobacco on his breath, grunting as he tightens his grip on Tommy and shoves him roughly aside, Steve thinks this is the closest he’s been to a hug for a long time.

A silent tear tracks down his cheek, and Steve wipes it away before Tommy can see it.

He’s fourteen years old, and his best friend would rather punch him than hug him.

*****

He’s seventeen years old and in love with Nancy Wheeler.

Nancy holds his hand, sometimes. She kisses his cheek, smiles shyly when he wraps an arm around her waist, lets him touch.

But only sometimes.

And that’s ok, Steve thinks. He knows he can be too much, that he asks for too much, that ever since he was a little boy all he wanted was for someone to hold him, and now that he’s older, to hold someone in return.

He had to keep that in check. Had to keep his touches few and light – just a brush of his thumb over Nancy’s hand where he wanted to interlock their fingers, where he wanted to squeeze her tight to his chest and burrow his head into her shoulder and turn himself inside out for her.

He dreams about the creature that came out of the wall, sometimes.

Wakes up sweat-drenched with his pulse galloping, feels across the bed for Nancy’s hand because he keeps sneaking into her bedroom at night to sleep because he can’t handle being on his own right now.

She wakes. Holds his hand briefly, tells him it was just a dream, rolls over, lets his hand go. Faces away from him.

Steve tells himself it’s fine. His heart is still pounding, he’s still trembling slightly, but it’s fine.

He wishes Nancy would hold his hand a little longer. Wishes she’d tuck herself closer to him, press her lips to the back of his head, hold him until he’s able to fall asleep again.

But he’s a man now. He’s a Harrington, and he doesn’t need to be held.

Nancy had nightmares sometimes, too.

She’d cry out in her sleep, and Steve would carefully wrap an arm around her, murmur into her ear, tell her she was safe, that he had her.

When Nancy woke, she’d push him away. Tell him she needed to breathe, that she needed some space.

Steve tried to give her space. Tried other ways to try and help Nancy feel better – then came Tina’s party, then came the drink staining Nancy’s top and a cold bathroom and bullshit.

Steve was seventeen years old, and his love was bullshit.

*****

Steve is nineteen years old, and he has the best friend in the entire world.

He and Robin are glued at the hip. She hugs easily, drapes herself across him, nudges him with bony hips and elbows and grabs his hand when the lights at Family Video flicker because she knows that still terrifies him.

Steve’s not used to it.

To having someone reach for him, to pull him into a hug, to voluntarily reach out and touch him like there isn’t something wrong with him.

And so, he never reaches for her first. Always lets her initiate contact, because he never wants to be too much, not like how he was with his mother, with Nancy.

She’s standing next to him at work now. Shuffling through returned tapes, letting out a bored huff, leaning back on her elbows on the counter.

The bell above the Family Video door chimes.

Steve doesn’t look up until Robin pokes him in the ribs, until she waggles her eyebrows at him.

“Look who it is,” she whispers, with zero subtlety.

He doesn’t have to look to know it’s Eddie.

Because they’ve been playing this game for a while, Robin doing her best to bring the two of them together, to nudge them from this painful will-they won’t-they situation into something more serious.

The truth is, Steve’s head over heels for the other man.

And he doesn’t know what to do with that, doesn’t know where to put it, because he doesn’t want to half-ass anything ever again – if he’s going to love Eddie, he wants to do it with everything he has, but everything Steve has always seems to be too much for everyone else.

If he ruins what he and Eddie already have, this easy friendship, it would put a strain on his relationship with the kids too, and everyone had already been through so much, he couldn’t…

“Oh my god, dingus,” Robin groans.

Eddie’s wandered on past the counter after shooting Steve a grin, headed for the sci-fi section tucked away in the corner.

“What?” Steve huffs.

“I can literally see the little cogs turning in there,” Robin flicks her index finger against the side of his head. “For the sake of my sanity, just talk to him. Please.”

“Fine,” Steve harrumphs, tossing a case to one side. “But if this goes badly, I’m blaming you.”

Robin smiles wide, reaches for his hand, squeezes it gently, encouragingly. “Go get him, Stevie.”

Steve is nineteen years old, and he finally has someone to hold his hand, even if not quite in the way he’d been longing for.

*****

Steve is twenty-two years old, and sometimes he’s so overwhelmed by love for this man that it stops him in his tracks.

He’s draped across Eddie, the two of them on the couch with the TV quietly playing something in the background but Steve doesn’t hear it.

His head is on Eddie’s chest, ear pressed to his heart, listening to the soothing rhythm of his boyfriend’s pulse.

Eddie has his arms wrapped tightly around Steve, one hand tracing gently up and down his bare back, fingers tracing over moles and scars and the ridges of his spine.

Steve breathes him in. Presses his head further into Eddie, like he could burrow into him. Wanted to, sometimes.

Eddie’s chest vibrates gently as he chuckles.

“Y’ok there, Stevie?” he asks, and kisses the top of his head.

“Mmmm,” Steve manages, voice muffled by Eddie’s chest.

It had taken him a long time to realize that Eddie wasn’t going anywhere.

In the early days of their relationship, Steve had been…restrained. Muted, afraid to overwhelm the other man, trying to carefully seek out where Eddie’s boundaries were, work out just how long he could hug him for, just how many kisses were too many, when Steve was starting to step over into being too damn much…

Three years later, and he still hadn’t found that boundary.

Eddie took everything Steve had to give him and poured it back tenfold.

He’d smile into Steve’s mouth when he kissed him, run his tongue along the seam of Steve’s lips until he let him in, he’d trace every mole and blemish on his skin with his fingers and then his mouth until Steve was squirming and laughing under him, he’d stroke and hold and squeeze and give and take.

Steve had so much love to give, and Eddie was hungry for it.

They’d been lying here for hours tonight. Skin to skin, Eddie warm and pliant under Steve, humming happily when Steve tightened his hold on him, when Steve’s breath puffed over his collarbone.

“Stevie?” Eddie asks eventually, hand resting in chestnut locks, nails scratching gently over Steve’s scalp.

“Yeah?”

“You ready for bed, sweetheart? You gotta get up early for work.”

Steve sighs, tucks himself back into Eddie’s chest. “Little longer?” he murmurs.

Eddie smiles. Lowers his hand to the back of Steve’s neck, massaging the muscle there, feeling the moment Steve sinks further into him.

“’Course, Stevie. As long as you like.”

Steve is twenty-two years old, and he finally has someone to hold him.

___

[littlemisspascal]

Creature Comfort

Pairing: Marcus Acacius x Female Reader/OFC

Word Count: 7.6k

Summary: 

Waiting out there is General Marcus Acacius. A real man of flesh and blood, strength and power. The legendary Atlas Lion himself.

Your husband-to-be.

Rating: M / 18+ only

Warnings: Language, at least a million historical inaccuracies, referenced smut, references of blood + war + death, weapons, too many lion/animal references and metaphors to count, reader has self-esteem issues, arranged marriage, domestic life, cameo of reader's parents, switching povs,

- Reader has no name and no physical traits described in detail. Reader wears clothes such as a toga + wedding outfit

Author Note: This started as me simply wanting to write a fic where Acacius is compared to a lion and Reader's his wife and then it quickly led to me having a complete emotional breakdown that caused me to quit writing entirely for several months. Not one of my finest moments, but 🤷‍♀️ that's life I guess. It's nice to finally toss this fic out here, hopefully someone somewhere enjoys it 🧡

Special thanks to @wheresarizona for putting up with my emotional highs and lows and answering some questions about Rome for me and for just being an overall too-nice-for-this-world person I'm lucky to have met on here 💗

The morning of your wedding you can barely stomach your breakfast. Nerves are natural, your mother assures you, watching with a critical eye as the female servants of the house help dress you.

Your impending ceremony has severed your protection of your family’s household gods, leaving you spiritually defenseless until you’re officially wed to your husband. Maybe that is the true source of your worries, dark spirits playing wicked games with your heartstrings. Or maybe it’s your mother’s looming presence coupled with her stubborn determination to see you safely married off, analyzing every inch of your bridal outfit to root out the tiniest of imperfections, that has your stomach tied up in knots. 

The wreath atop your head is thick with summer blooms, their scent potent and almost sickly sweet, tickling the inside of your nose. You’d sneeze if not for the veil covering your face, attached to a headband beneath the tangled greenery, its deep yellow color identical to the slippers donning your feet. 

You’d personally woven your tunic on your family’s loom, a task expected of every new bride, intertwining every fiber into tangible proof to show your husband you were ready for the responsibilities of managing his household. Linen had been your initial choice, but your mother insisted wool was the better material to repel the forces of evil. The garment is heavy beneath your matching white stola, but rather than irritating there’s something oddly comforting about the weight. Almost like a warm embrace.

It’s tradition for weddings to take place in the home of the bride’s father. You can hear the arrival of guests now outside your room. Friends and relatives and other miscellaneous people here to witness and celebrate the union. Every minute brings you closer to a new stage of your life, and if not for the servants’ steadying hands, your weak knees might send you crashing to the floor. Fainting would surely be interpreted as a bad omen, derailing the whole ceremony before it even truly began.

You suck in a quiet breath, shoving down the worst of your anxieties. This day–your wedding–has been on your mind practically your whole life. You’d learned from a young age the importance of marriages arranged between families for political and financial purposes. You’d also learned you wouldn’t be the one choosing your future husband, that decision would be made by your father alone. 

Of course, you’d be lying if you said you didn’t imagine marrying someone who was your own choice. Someone kind and handsome and as loyal as your household’s guard dogs. Someone who loved you above all others.

But waiting for you out there isn’t the imaginary stranger who's starred in your most intimate dreams. Waiting out there is General Marcus Acacius. A real man of flesh and blood, strength and power. The legendary Atlas Lion himself.

Your husband-to-be.

When the pronuba arrives to accompany you to the ceremony, the servants disperse but your mother lingers a beat longer, running her fingers over your shoulders to smoothen out non-existent creases. Neither of you mention the shiny gleam of her eyes or the trembling of your hands. 

Then, with a firm nod of her head, your mother declares, “She’s ready,” and leaves without another look to join your father’s side.

Your mother is not prone to lying. If she says you’re ready, then ready you must be.

You take another deep breath before linking your arm through the elder matron’s, but it’s the gentle patting of her hand on yours which calms you most. A reassurance of good things to come.

Stepping out into the atrium, you’re met with a packed crowd, locals and soldiers mixed as one, craning their necks for a glimpse of you. Their clothes resemble yours and the groom’s, another tactic to confuse evil spirits, but human eyes only need to spot your yellow veil to recognize you as the bride. And as for Acacius…

Well. To mistake the Atlas Lion for another would be as foolish as mistaking fire for water. He is unique in all the world.

You see him standing at the altar with the high priest, clad in a purple toga embroidered with a lion’s head in golden thread. A reward in honor of the general’s triumphs in warfare. The placement of the lion above his heart is deliberate, you suspect. A warning of what lies beneath the surface. A guarantee all the tales of his savagery and blood lust passed from mouth to mouth from the battlefields to the city streets are true.

Is it terrible that a part of you–an inane, minuscule scrap of a thing you’ll never verbally acknowledge, not even under oath–is fervently captivated by the notion? You should be listening to the high priest’s prayers to Juno, paying attention to the omens he reads in the entrails of the sacrificed ram upon the altar. But Acacius’ brown eyes, burning with the radiant June sunshine and something else distinctly dangerous, put a flame to your focus and narrow your vision to one central, all-encompassing point.

Is it terrible that you can meet a lion’s stare without a modicum of fear? You wonder how many have been able to say the same, if anyone else at all.

The priest deems the relationship blessed by the gods, carrying on with the proceedings, oblivious to your state of mind. He asks Acacius to make certain his intentions, if you are an acceptable wife. 

Acacius draws himself up to full height, an immovable mountain firm in his convictions. “She is mine to me,” the timbre of his gravelly voice drags over you, eliciting a shudder down your spine you pray the elder matron does not notice. “I will want no other.” 

Then it is your turn, and your voice is only a little hoarse when you confirm, “He will be my husband. My only choice.”

The slightest quirk of a smile curls the corner of Acacius’ lips. Instinctively, you return it with a small grin of your own. And even though he can’t physically see your face behind the veil, you think, somehow, he does see you.

It’s only after signing the marriage contract with crimson seals that the pronuba places your right hand in Acacius’, officially uniting you as one. The general’s palm is callused, fingers thick and gnarled from past wounds, but you can’t find it in yourself to hate them, or recoil, or do anything else than keep holding on.

“Raise the veil,” the priest says.

You swallow, the fingers of your left hand spasming against your side, then slowly reach for a fistful of the yellow fabric. Pulling it up over your head, you carefully watch the lines of Acacius’ expression, heartbeat fluttering at the way those brown eyes widen, taking you in for the first time. Absorbing everything like it might be his only chance. Like you’re something wondrous worth memorizing.

Acacius starts leaning forward, sending every last thought in your head scattering with his nearness. He’s massive, radiating such intense warmth, thumb stroking a line of heat along your wrist. There’s a fire igniting in your chest, lungs choking on the smoke, yet you’re trembling when he cups your face, the quietest of whines escaping your parted lips.

Please, you start to beg, the whooshing of blood thundering in your eardrums, plea–

Acacius swallows the silent plea with his own mouth, kissing you like a starving man. This isn’t love–no, it’s too soon for such sentiment–this is carnal passion, roaming tongues and clashing teeth like you’re no better than animals committed to the hunt of this new territory, this new taste. 

The eruption of applause yanks you back to reality. You tear yourself away with a choked gasp, and it’s satisfying seeing the heave of Acacius’ broad chest with each ragged inhale as you both struggle to catch your breaths. You did that. You’re the reason for the flare of lust in his eyes and smear of spit across his bottom lip. 

You’ve heard people say no man’s looks can compete with Adonis’ striking beauty. A fallacy, you realize in that moment upon seeing General Marcus Acacius in purple and gold, dark curls caressed by the gentle breeze, a constellation of freckles along the tendons of his neck, hardened by violence yet holding your hand so heartachingly sweet.

The rest of the world can have Adonis. 

And as for you–boldly and selfishly, you’ll keep this man. The legendary Atlas Lion himself.

Your husband.

~~

The wedding feast afterwards is a blur of lavish food and wine, the jovial notes of flutes accompanying fescennine songs with interjections of salutations shouted from inebriated lips. Every touch of Acacius’ hand against your arm, your waist, everywhere sends sparks skittering along your nerves. It’s as bewildering as it is thrilling, like you’re balancing on the edge of a precipice, and you wonder if this is what Icarus felt moments before he flew too close to the sun. Falling, falling, falling…

You can only hope you meet a different, kinder fate.

When the sky begins to change and darken with the promise of encroaching evening time, you find yourself standing in the middle of your childhood home, trying to etch into memory everything from the slope of the roof to the tiny cracks in the stone floor. All the noises and voices seem to fade away, granting you this moment to yourself.

Once you step outside, there will be no familiarity to cling to. You’ll be escorted by the crowd of guests to Acacius’ secondary home—smaller, but no less grand than his main domus in Cosa. A port city to the south you’ll have to learn to navigate from square one—and then, once alone with the general, taken to his bed. His body will be another, far more intricate labyrinth you’ll need to learn and recognize the details of.

A new city, a new spouse, a new chapter of life with new expectations…

It’s overwhelming to say the least.

Your eyes cut to Acacius across the room, widening when you catch him already watching you. Something in your chest aches upon realizing you don’t know him well enough to read his face. If he’s angry, pleased, or just totally indifferent. But you can’t look away. Caught and cornered.

Like prey, you think, loathing the thought as soon as it forms. A lion cannot have a mouse for a wife. Imagine the shame of being an unworthy partner of one of Rome’s highest-ranking generals. Your name dragged through the mud, an embarrassment to your family and a blight on Acacius’ esteemed reputation—to say nothing of how the gods would react to your ruining of a blessed union. You’d be as insignificant as the fleas on a dog’s pelt in their eyes.

You must be stronger. Braver. Better.

Where Icarus fell, you must fly. 

Maybe Acacius senses this change stirring within you, or maybe he grows impatient with this lengthy staring contest, either way he suddenly draws closer, weaving between bodies until he comes to a stop in front of you. Purposefully within grabbing reach. The ache in your chest lessens at that, replaced by a spike of adrenaline as awareness dawns.

“Is it time to leave?” you ask.

“It is,” he answers. Then, quick as lightning and just as unexpected, he pinches your waist. 

You jerk away at the teasing touch, gaping like a fish. “Do you touch all women in that manner?”

“No.” A smug smirk spreads across his handsome face. Relishing his next words. “Only the woman who belongs to me.”

Possessive brute. Your eyes narrow even as heat envelops your body, toes curling in your shoes. 

“You haven’t taken me yet. My body has no claim.”

Acacius’ jaw clenches at that. Like he’s holding onto his restraint by a mere thread. It’s practically tangible, a siren song tempting you to flex your claws.

“Answer me this, general, because it remains unclear to me.” Tilting your head, exposing the column of your neck for his hungry gaze to feast upon, your tone is deliberately provoking. “Are you a passionate man of action? Or merely a man of empty words?”

“Bite your tongue,” his tone is low, closer to a snarl than actual speech. You almost believe he’s angry, if not for the glint in his brown eyes, aroused and impressed by your antics in equal measure.

“I’d rather you bite it.”

The fragile thread snaps.

Acacius is on you at once, his large hands seizing hold of your arms. You wrestle against his grip, delivering a solid kick to his shin that draws an irritated hiss. He puts up with your struggling for a bit longer, unaffected by your inexpert blows to his torso, then ends it with a harsh tug, pulling you flush against his brick wall of a body. He sticks his face in your neck, breath hot and ticklish, mouthing at your thrumming pulse with blunt teeth. Oh gods. You slump against him, letting his thick muscles take the brunt of your weight, mind sinking like a stone in the overflowing well of new and overwhelming sensations. Desperate for more, more, more.

The deep rumbling of his chuckling vibrates through your bones, and you have the deliriously greedy thought of cutting out a piece of yourself to store the sound there. 

“You’ve caused quite a scene,” he murmurs into the underside of your jaw, sounding just as wrecked as you feel. But beneath the raspiness, you detect the unmistakable lilt of amusement. 

“It’s tradition,” you breathe, conscious of the numerous stares watching your every move, including your mother’s. Your pretending of resistance must have been satisfactory enough for her to not intervene.

Acacius leans back just enough to look at you, cradling you in the cage of his arms and chest. You place your hands upon his waist, absently clutching the purple-dyed wool between your fingers.

“Tell me how to call you.” It’s not a request.

“What?” Yet another tradition to appease household gods is meant to happen later after you had arrived at the threshold of Acacius’ home and smeared the doorway in oil and fat. He would ask you your name, to which you answer, taking your husband’s and modifying it: where you are Marcus, I am Marcia. And at last, excluding the event of a bad omen occurring, he would carry you inside. Your brow furrows, not understanding why he’s changing the order of things. “Shouldn’t we—”

“Not the name tradition wants, nor the one your parents and the gods assigned you,” he interrupts. “Tell me how I will call you when we’re alone.” 

Oh.

You bow your head to hide your smile, pleased to have a choice. Your eyes fall upon the golden lion head.

Oh.

“Where and when you are Leo,” you tell him, trailing a finger along the perfectly stitched mane before tapping the spot where his heart resides. “There and then I am Leaena.”

~~

{His bride is too innocent, too unaware of the ruthless nature of the Empire’s politics to endure what is expected of her as a general’s wife. This marriage should never have been blessed by the gods.

Still, Acacius can’t stop his gaze from following her every movement, intrigued to know the thoughts running through her head. Can’t stop himself from touching her either, drawn to her warmth, the rightness of her body in his hold. The ceremony was mere hours ago, yet seeing her in his bed, flesh bare and soft and trembling beneath him, the woman has already become the most important treasure of his life. His to worship and protect for the rest of his days.

“Gods, you really are massive all over,” she blurts out, seemingly without thinking, feeling the press of his hard cock against her. Then immediately averts her eyes with a nervous giggle, insecure of her own inexperience. “Could–could we take it slow?”

“That’s fine, my leaena,” he assures her, kissing the corner of her mouth, addicted to her taste dangerously fast. She won’t last, he thinks, scraping his teeth along her neck. They’ll swallow her whole. “I’ll make you feel good. I’ll take care of you.” And he sees it, the exact moment the apprehension slips aside and trust rises to take its place in those big, expressive eyes. She wants this—wants him.

It’s an impulsive, raw need that has him leaning down to kiss her, licking deep into her mouth, craving something he doesn’t know the name of. Repentance, maybe, for the hell coming her way in the coming months. Or maybe he’s just a selfish man who wants this, wants her, more than he deserves. 

She rips him out of his thoughts by grabbing fistfulls of his curls, tugging until they’re even closer pressed together, opening up for him impossibly wider. 

Maybe he’s wrong in his initial assumptions of his bride.

Maybe she’ll be the one to take care of him.}

~~

Cosa matters a great deal to the Empire. A strategically defendable port with close connections to sources of timber and other supplies necessary for maintaining a vast army of fleets. The city itself was built upon a hill, high enough that on a clear day one could see miles of the Tyrrhenian Sea’s coastline. The crashes of the blue-green waves against the limestone cliffs.

Accompanying Acacius into the forum provides you with opportunities to observe the city’s layout. Enclosed within an imposing circuit of walls, the community has put careful thought into every corner of limited space, separating private houses from the sacred temples and civic buildings. Necessary architecture only, no spare room for the entertainment of a theatre. 

Cosa is significantly smaller than the size of your birthplace, drenched in the scents of sea salt and fish, yet there are elements of opulence if one looks close enough. Pearl necklaces adorning necks and solid gold bracelets fastened around wrists. Chairs carved from precious woods, embellished with touches of silver or bronze. Acacius’ curule seat in his tablinum is made out of pure ivory, its legs resembling a lion’s paws. A gift from the Senate after a successful military campaign.

The majority of Acacius’ hours in the public square is split between the basilica, the curia, and the comitium speaking with the aediles and magistrates. Offices of elected officials which exclude women from entry–not that you have much interest in politics anyways. 

The marketplace quickly becomes your favorite place outside of your domus. A variety of stalls clustered together bustling with activity. Haggling becomes second nature to you, and when you can’t get the price you want you make trades with your weavings. 

Still. Cosa is a small enough city where you’re easily recognized as someone new by the locals. More than once you’ve experienced lingering glances, examining everything from your clothes to your hair. More than once those eyes have made your shoulder blades curl with the instinct to somehow fold into yourself like the little crabs that occasionally wash up on the sandy coastline.

A week after settling in, a man in the bathhouse grabs at your palla before you can enter the women’s section, pulling harsh enough to send your mother’s brooch clattering to the ground. You press a hand over your pounding heart, scrambling backwards a few steps, all too aware of the heavy veil of silence that has fallen over the room. 

Acacius calmly appears at your side, soundless in his approach, filling the whole place with his commanding presence. 

A blink. That’s all it takes.

One blink and suddenly the man’s blood spatters the stucco wall as Acacius slams his skull against it repeatedly until he no longer resembles anything human. Just a gruesome muddle of scarlet and bone, life thread severed by the jaws of death. 

Acacius releases his hold, then points a bloodstained finger at you. “She is mine. Anyone who touches her will face my retribution. And I won’t hesitate to add another soul to Dis Pater’s realm.”

~~

Living under the roof of your parents, you’d thought of home as a physical structure. A place to stay in a world full of constantly moving parts. 

Marriage has taught you home is so much more. It’s the soft notes you hum as you spin and weave wool. A kiss pressed to your temple as Acacius moves past. The scent of fresh citrus each morning for breakfast and the sweet taste of fine wines. Plans to visit the coast. A bowl of seashells. Gazing up at constellations when the moon is high. Feelings bubbling up, spilling out, casting shadows on the walls and slipping beneath the bed sheets. It’s the warmth of another body, touching, feeling, familiarizing, until two halves become an inseverable one whole.

Home is learning to be loved and to be in love. 

~~

Acacius doesn’t receive many guests in his tablinum, preferring to settle his business affairs in the public offices, yet he still keeps a cushioned stool in front of his desk. You sit there, elbow propped on his desk and chin resting upon your fist, watching your husband search through his shelf of scrolls. The mosaic floors have been recently cleaned, colors popping vividly in the patches of sunlight sneaking in, and the painted scenes of nature adorning the walls are masterfully done, but you can’t bring yourself to look anywhere else except him.

“Where did your name come from?” you ask, breaking up the quiet.

Acacius pauses, glancing back with a raised eyebrow. “It was my father’s name. And his father’s name. And his father’s father’s name and–”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” Your scolding is softened by the smile pulling at the corner of your mouth. Acacius keeps looking at you, smirking like he finds the whole thing amusing. “The Atlas Lion. A moniker as frightful as that, it must have an origin.”

He chuckles that deep, rumbling laugh of his. “Wondered when you’d finally ask.”

His tone is light, still smirking, but you see through the cracks of the facade. See the hesitation in the lowering of his eyes to the floor, see the slight furrow in his brow that only appears when he’s worried he’s upset you. He’s nervous—it’s so obvious and so dearly human that it aches. It looks absolutely wrong on the face of a man known throughout the Empire for his larger-than-life confidence.

You watch him warily, unsure what to do, what to say beyond his name. “Acacius.”

Your husband faces the scrolls again, and for a moment you’re afraid the fragile moment’s broken, but then he tells you the story behind his name. ‘Story’ is too soft a word though. Stories are for parties and entertainment, full of humor and unfolding drama and moral lessons. Acacius doesn’t tell you a story. No, he tells you his truth. 

Acacius doesn’t mince words, describing the hellish months of military training in grueling detail. He tells you, in an almost detached manner, how he’d been a different man back then. Scrawnier, unused to bloodshed, restless, but above all else, near feral with the need to prove his own worth. 

“It was General Meridius’ idea for soldiers to train as bestiarii.” There’s something about the way he says the name—full of respect. Admiration for a superior. But you think you detect a note of something else laced within the syllables too. Something almost…sad sounding. Grieving, perhaps. It’s gone in the next breath. “Face to face with wild beasts, you either become an expert with your weapon fast or you die an unglorified death in the arena.”

For all the nights you’ve traced meaningless patterns along the large scars gouged into Acacius’ shoulders, you didn’t ask about them. Assumed they were the result of a too-close enemy with a too-sharp weapon. A blade or spear, something man-made. Never occurred to you to think of fangs and claws as weapons too.

Blinking sharply, you sit up straighter, stuttering, “W-wait, are you…is that where…” There’s a swarm of questions buzzing in your head, stinging the back of your throat when you try to voice them. Finally, you manage to choke out, “So, that’s how you got your name? You actually fought lions?”

Acacius finally turns around at that, only to surprise you by shaking his head. “I did fight lions—and bears, boars, even a pair of hyenas once. But that’s not why they call me the Atlas Lion.”

He trails off, tension in the wrinkled lines of his expression your hands itch to smoothen out. You hesitate to rise from your seat, unable to tell if drawing closer would lighten your husband’s mood or worsen it. Moments like this–where he’s loosened the reins of his tightly controlled emotions, offering a glimpse of an ordinary, flesh and blood mortal man who’s been chewed up and spit out a dozen times over– are few and far between. Delicate like fine glass, requiring just the right handling.

“To prove I was ready for the army, I had to pass a test,” he explains. “I fought everything that attacked me. I stopped thinking, stopped feeling. Nothing mattered except the next stab of my gladius. And when they started throwing men into the arena, I didn’t even notice.” Acacius exhales a ragged breath. “I stopped seeing people as people.”

“What do you mean?” you ask, voice barely above a murmur. 

There’s another pause, time seeming to slow down, seconds stretching lazily like a plump housecat, and then Acacius crosses the distance, close enough your knees graze each other, head tilted back to peer up at him. He says nothing, even as his thumb brushes over your chapped lips.

“Acacius.” Your body trembles, edges of your vision starting to blur. You lean into his touch. The center of your universe.

“I mean,” Acacius says, eyes on your mouth. Your lips part unthinkingly, letting his thumb slip inside, pressing lightly against your bottom teeth. “We’re all just animals, my leaena. Red tongues and hands.”

~~

The air is cool this time of night, seems to press against your skin like a damp washcloth. Cleansing you from the inside out with each deep inhale. 

Acacius stands in the courtyard, bronze skin painted in streaks of moonbeams and starlight, hair tousled by fitful hands. His absence from bed had stirred you awake, and a part of you wonders if these midnight musings are a regular occurrence you’ve only just now become aware of. Not all dreams are sweet after all, especially for soldiers. 

“A nightmare?” you ask, a hushed inquiry disrupting the still of night.

“A memory,” is all he offers. 

“Oh.” 

He hasn’t looked at you yet, brown eyes boring holes into the distant moon. Maybe you should return to bed, give him space and privacy to sort himself out. But your bare feet stick to the floor and you can’t pull your eyes away. Noting the rhythmic clenching and unclenching of his hands, the rising and falling of his chest with each breath.

You try to ignore the disappointment gnawing at your heart, hurt that Acacius won’t share his internal burden with you, even in the cover of darkness where it’s just you and him. 

He’s revealed the truth of his name with you. Encouraged you to lick and bite and mark every inch of his flesh as your own. But tonight he’s put up a wall you can’t climb over. 

Maybe that’s why you stay. You’re a glutton for punishment.

Somewhere else in the city, a dog begins to bark. It’s a harsh sound, all teeth, defending its territory from a threat, and you flinch despite the distance. Unsurprisingly, Acacius doesn’t so much as even twitch. 

What is surprising though, is that he chooses then to finally speak.

“There are victories yet still to come,” he mutters, a tremor to his voice you’ve never heard before, like he’s standing on unsteady ground. And there’s this look in his eyes that unsettles you, haunted by something only he can see. “That’s what they always say.”

They?

Stepping closer, you gently bump your hand against his. A knot unravels in your chest when he blinks back to himself, pinky hooking onto yours. A tether securing him home with you.

“Who says that?”

“The Emperors.”

You don’t know what to say to that. Don’t know what words will build his wall higher or what ones will knock it down–if that’s even possible. 

“What are they like?” Your mouth makes the choice for you. “Geta and Caracalla?”

You’ve never been to Rome, never seen the ruling brothers in person. All you really know about them are the stories and rumors from the mouths of travelers gossiping in the marketplace. Sometimes nice things are said, sometimes…not so nice things. 

“They’re…” Dark brows draw together, mouth pulling downward in a frown. Acacius finally looks at you, the brown of his eyes lost in the dark, but not the sharp glint of fear. Tumultuous and excruciating, you feel it cut deep. “They’re fire and water. Two opposing forces unfit to inhabit the same space. It’s only a matter of time before one prevails over the other.”

You swallow, nervousness swelling in the pit of your stomach at the flat, doomed sound of certainty he speaks with. “And then what happens?”

“The Empire will either burn or drown." 

“And us?” you ask tentatively. “What will happen to us?”

Acacius doesn’t have an answer.

~~

A Roman naval ship is spotted just as dawn breaks, drawing a sizable crowd by the time it docks in the harbor. There’s a sense of wrongness associated with the lack of an official fleet, and that unsettling feeling is multiplied tenfold when it’s announced there are numerous injured soldiers aboard.

Acacius attends to them, ensuring each gets medical attention while also gathering information from the head officer in charge. You stand at the back of the crowd, heart in your throat, seeing but not truly processing. Blood, so much red. Expressions of young men scrunched in pain. The grim, motionless bodies of those who didn’t last the final hours of the journey.

“Steel yourself.” A feminine voice warns, and you turn with a blink of surprise upon seeing the high priestess at your side, unused to encountering her outside her temple walls. The sea breeze ruffles the red and white ribbons in her braided hair as she holds your gaze, calm in an almost preternatural way compared to the surrounding commotion. “You are a general’s wife. To express your fear in public is to express doubt of the Empire’s dominance and your husband’s own prowess.”

Her words sink like a stone in your stomach. “I’ll be better,” you promise, the acidic taste of shame burning the back of your throat.

“Stronger,” she corrects, fierce blue eyes rivaling an ocean storm. “You must be stronger than your greatest fear.”

You can only nod, imagining one of the corpses wearing your husband’s face. 

~~

{With every inch of territory the Empire gains, its list of bitter enemies grows exponentially longer. Not every threat rising up in defiance stems from foreign soil though, Acacius was forced to learn that the hard way. He’s seen the effects Rome’s constant warfare and rotting politics have had on its subjects, witnessed people turn against their masters’ hands like rabid dogs hell-bent on stripping flesh from bone.

Rebels are dealt with just like rabid dogs, too. Caught and decapitated in a public spectacle. Crimson rivulets flow from their remains, discoloring the city’s streets reminiscent of a spilled wine stain, seeping into the very foundation itself. 

Then come the speeches in the comitium from Cosa’s magistrates. Addressing the huddled masses with sickly sweet, empty promises of better times to come. Lying through their teeth, scared the next outburst of internal strife will end with their own severed heads tossed into the sea.

Acacius’ attendance is mandatory, yet he only pretends to listen while standing on the stone steps behind the speakers. His wife’s shoulder presses against his, their hands firmly locked together, unbothered by the harsh ridges of his battle-hardened palm grazing against her smooth skin. A simple comfort he’d long believed himself unworthy of ever indulging in.

“It tears you up inside, doesn’t it?” His wife’s voice is just a faint murmur, so quiet there isn’t a chance anyone else hears her, but the knowing note in it has his chest tightening with a stiff exhale. “Like a thorn in your soul. Even from Rome, Geta and Caracalla control your tongue.”

“There is a time for a general to speak his mind and there is a time for him to keep his head,” he reminds her frankly, careful to maintain his facade of blank detachment. “It’d do you good to remember your place.”

Her sharp inhale is torturous to his ears. She reacts to his blunt discipline like a physical blow, shoulders sagging, lips pressed together in a thin line, practically rolling over and exposing her vulnerable underbelly. Acacius hates that look. Hates even more he’s the cause of it. He thinks impaling himself with his own blade would hurt less. 

Nudging her shoulder drags her gaze reluctantly back to him. And this is not the appropriate setting for levity, Acacius should bite back the smile curling at the corners of his mouth—but for his wife, his divine leaena, he’s a sinner on his knees desperate to be in the warmth of her good graces again. “You are fond of this general’s face, yes?”

It’s not the offering this goddess deserves, but it’s enough to begin mending what he’d torn, soothing the worst of the sting. She smiles, an amused, uneven little twist of her mouth she once confessed being insecure about before he kissed away all worries from her mind. There’s something undeniably perfect about it, like the first rays of sunlight after a bleak winter. 

“Of course I am. But…” She bites her lip, caught on something. He squeezes her hand, and it seems to be the needed boost to force the words out from the cage in her throat. “Even the Atlas Lion must want to roar sometimes.”

Acacius should be annoyed with her ability to read him–it’s a weakness, and any weakness in his personal experience is a promise of death’s swift arrival. It isn’t safe, for either of them. But she’s done the unthinkable, worming her way into his ugly, greedy heart, treating it like something tender, something lovable. And it was too damn easy how quickly she filled up every vacant space in his head. From the moment she lifted her veil he’s been enraptured by her essence. Starving for every scrap of attention she’s willing to give. His wife has become a critical piece of his life, as vitally essential as the breath in his lungs and the sword hanging at his hip.

It’s dangerous, what she’s done to him.

But it’s far, far more dangerous, what he’d do for her.

Her eyes widen with surprise when he leans in, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead, but he feels the way she relaxes against him with easy acceptance. Believing she’s safe with him, ignorant of the threats closing in on all sides. Every day drawing nearer and nearer still. 

That will have to change, he swears to himself. Her survival depends upon it.

“Yes,” he says at last, and it’s the most honest he’s been with himself in years. “Sometimes he does.”}

~~

Acacius places one hand on your shoulder, the other settles on your hip. There is nothing delicate about his touch, no hesitation about maneuvering your body into a proper defensive stance. Feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent, pugio held in a strong grasp.

“Lower your arm, always aim the blade at your opponent,” Acacius instructs, slipping into his alternate persona as a leader on the battlefield like a second skin, his critical eyes zeroing in on all the mistakes that will get you killed in a moment of danger. “When you hold that dagger, you must hold it with the intent to spill blood, my leaena. Words alone aren’t enough to protect you.”

You swallow, fingers flexing around the hilt. It’s a daunting experience, learning to sever someone’s life thread from an expert on the subject. You’re grateful for the privacy of your domus’ courtyard, concealing your clumsy movements from outsiders who’d undoubtedly laugh at each ungraceful slash and lunge. You resemble a fool, sweaty and fledgling, undeserving of your husband’s calling. The only women you’d seen fight with weapons were gladiatrices at festivals, an exotic and unusual form of entertainment which never failed to attract large crowds. Your mother claimed they brought shame upon womankind, yet when Acacius had asked you to learn, you’d accepted without delay.

She’d disown you immediately if she could see you now. The thought has your stomach churning, a sour taste on the back of your tongue.

“We’re wasting time,” you say, voice hoarse. “I’ll never be strong enough to pose a threat to anyone.”

Acacius clicks his tongue at you. “Never say never, my leaena. You’ll tempt the Fates.”

The courtyard is quiet besides your breathing, and the streets beyond the domus’ walls are empty this time of day. You’re keenly aware of Acacius’ nearness, the slight frown pulling at his lips, like he’s trying to understand your thoughts, and you want to fight him. Howl and claw and lash out like the beast he seeks to bring to light from your depths. But there is nothing there. 

“I’m not like you. I can’t be.” His head tilts, still uncomprehending. You gesture at him with your empty hand, the rippling muscles straining the fabric of his sleeveless tunic. “The Atlas Lion. Devourer of the Emperors’ enemies. Ferocity unmatched amongst Rome’s army of warriors.” You then gesture at yourself, forcing the ugly words past your teeth if only so he’ll give up this futile endeavor. “I’m just me.”

The air shifts between you and him, a thick, cloying tension weighing heavily upon your shoulders. It’s only the knowledge that there’s nowhere in all of Cosa you could hide from your husband that keeps you anchored in place even as your heartbeat gallops away. Acacius’ brown eyes darken, thunder clouds blocking out the sun.

And then his callused hands are on your face, palms rough along the underside of your jaw, fingers pressing into the skin, squeezing. Claiming. An inescapable hold. 

“Do not,” he starts, voice low and gravelly, a snarling darkness you’ve never heard before and never want to again, “ever speak so poorly of yourself again. How can you think of yourself as anything less than magnificent? How can you not know of the power you wield over me? You’ve made me live again. My heart, long cold and numbed by the trials of war, beats again only for you. There is nothing more valuable to me than your wellbeing–not wealth nor fame, nothing. Is it clear to you yet? You have tamed the Atlas Lion body and soul. This general heeds your every call.”

You shudder, dazed and captivated by his close proximity, his devotion. Intoxicated, that’s what you feel. So caught up in a fog of mindless pleasure you fail to notice him guiding your hand up, up, up until the pugio’s blade is put to his throat. 

“All that I am is yours,” Acacius says, hushed now, a secret between lovers. The dagger pierces skin, a thin trickle of blood oozing. You flinch, eyes widening, but his hold remains firm. “Which makes you the most dangerous creature of all. And for that reason, my leaena, you will and you must learn to fight.”

He shoves you backwards a step. It’s not his full strength, more surprising than hurtful, but something inside you uncoils, teeth gnashing. A feeling sparks in your bloodstream, erupting into a wildfire at the look of pride in Acacius’ eye when you reflexively point your pugio at his heart. 

You swipe at him, again and again, driven by this new source of power. And through it all he holds your gaze, the brown of his eyes as sharp as the blade in your hand. Neither one says I love you, I’d take a bite out of the world for you but neither one needs to. 

Actions have always been louder than words.

~~

“Do you ever think about what’s out there?” you ask one night in bed together. Acacius reclines against the headboard, staring at you through half-lidded eyes as you drag your fingertips over his bare, scarred skin in meaningless patterns. 

Would anyone believe this man was the Atlas Lion? A wild, virulent beast compliant and disarmed beneath the gentle stroke of your touch? 

No. You think not.

“Out where?”

You bite the inside of your cheek, thumb catching on a particularly rough patch of damaged skin left of his hip bone. Every battle he fought, every combatant he faced—Mars laid fresh claims to his body with each fresh cicatrix.  

Claims you challenge the only way you know how. Scrapes of your nails breaking skin and tender presses of your mouth licking up the crimson pearls of blood.

“Beyond the Empire’s borders. Somewhere without war.”

Acacius’ brow creases, gaze alert now, looking at you as if you’ve spoken a different language. “Without war…” he repeats slowly. “My leaena, there is no place such as that. Discordia’s reach is far, farther than the Emperors could ever conquer in their combined lifetimes, stirring up strife deep in the hearts of even the mildest of men, and it will always find an outlet one way or another.”

“Oh.” You clear your throat. It’s not the response you had hoped for, but it’s the one you should have expected. Acacius isn’t the type of man to indulge in far-fetched fantasies of softer living. Can’t be, not with all the horrors he’s witnessed and played a part in crafting. 

“But,” Acacius pauses, and his hand covers yours. Not holding or moving it, just staying there. Feeling. “If somewhere without war did exist…” he smiles, a soft and little thing reserved just for these quiet moments. “I’d do whatever it took to get us there.”

~~

The wool for your new palla has been carded and spun into yarn. It stretches and winds around the teeth of your wooden loom, weighed down by terracotta scales. 

You’re alone in the domus. Acacius had been summoned by the magistrates for an urgent meeting, and you try not to let fear interfere with your work, an aggressive wasp buzzing at the back of your mind. Your touch remains light when pulling at uneven sections, its intended shape coming together bit by bit. The whooshing of a racing heartbeat echoes in your ears.

So long as there is land outside the Empire’s borders, the Emperors will expect Acacius to conquer it in their names. His time in Cosa is trapped in an hourglass, never quite knowing when the last grain of sand will slip away, summoned back to the front lines for another campaign. Another brush with death. Another chapter added to his legacy.  

You feel the sand’s effects sometimes, a sinking sensation threatening to drag you down when you walk with him through the market. Coarse and gritty, scratching your skin as you fall asleep in his arms. Piling so high it chokes you, the cursed inevitability of it all.

Another loop of wool around teeth. Tension taut and held firm. The muscles of your arms burn with effort, left foot tingling uncomfortably from sitting too long with little movement. Cosa’s awake and thriving in the warm weather, echoes of voices drifting in with the breeze, but you’ve never felt more alone. A feeling you dread becoming intimately familiar with sooner or later.

Later, you pray selfishly, desperately, achingly to the Fates. Make it later. 

So long as Acacius breathes he will always walk two paths—the path of a general and the path of a husband. And it’s a priority of yours–a requirement as his wife–to find a way to be okay when those paths split and you’re truly left all alone. You must then nurture the tiniest flame of hope one step, one trial, one lonely night at a time. Burning fiercely until every last shadow of doubt is purged from your mind, and the only thing that remains is the steadfast belief he’ll return to your side.

Then you must prepare yourself to do it all over again and again and again…too incapable of challenging the Emperors’ insatiable greed, too mortal to stop the sands of time.

You roll your shoulders once finished, scrutinizing the piece for errors. Later you’ll detach the palla from the loom to cut and tie off the loose end-threads of dangling wool, and later still you’ll take it to the fuller to be washed then to the dyer to be colored. You wonder if Acacius will like the shade of golden yellow you have in mind. If he’ll even be in Cosa to see the finished product or a thousand miles away in the heat of battle. A tremor racks your spine at the thought.

But then the front door opens with a quiet groan, and the cheerfully hummed notes of Acacius’ favorite song float through the house. You smile, heartbeat settling into its natural rhythm with the knowledge he’s here with you. The war has not stolen him away just yet.

“Come, my leaena,” he calls out, and you can hear the grin in his voice without having to see it. “It’s a beautiful day. Should we spend it by the coast?”

There’s an urge to close your eyes, to sink into this moment for all its worth, but sand is rising around your ankles. A reminder of all temporary things. 

Your legs can’t move fast enough, drawn to your husband’s side. 

Just a little bit longer. Another hour, another day. 

You reach for Acacius’ hand, tangling them together, pulling him closer. Always closer.

Another call of my name.

“Let’s not waste a single second.”

[whatdoidosatoru]

steal me away

sebastian (stardew valley)/f!reader | read it on ao3 from a young age, you had a distinct presence in sebastian's life. throughout your childhood, your awkward years, your adulthood… you were always there. always with him, only in different forms. wc: 3k tags: grief/mourning, implied/referenced death, very mild sexual content, pregnancy, fluff, more fluff, more fluff

you were five years old when you stole sebastian’s ice cream. he was so close to crying, his bottom lip already quivering and eyes filled with fat tears, but you were quick. swiftly sticking the chocolate scoop into his face, shocking him into silence, you managed to keep the peace. he took turns licking the sweet treat with you, trying to race your tongue to get more ice cream into his belly. robin looked at the two of you from her window, smiling as she witnessed her son finally making a friend. she’d seen you around, always dragging your grandparents around by their sleeves, trying to see everything pelican town had to offer. she knew then that you’d be good for her sebby, that you wouldn’t let him hide behind her again. and she was right, of course.

you dragged him along to play in the sand, to swim when the waves ruined your sandcastles, to pick up cool shells and sea urchins drying by the tide pools. he enjoyed it, despite the slight frown on his face, but even that disappeared when he saw you grin as your small hand held a purple stone, shiny and polished from the relentless water, just for him.

you were nine years old when you stole sebastian’s comic book. he finally got his own room, after two years of pleading with his mother to let him be in the basement, after months of renovations to make it livable, after weeks of calling your grandparents’ landline almost bouncing on the balls of his feet. you walked in, completely awe-struck. it was so cool. it was almost like being an adult, just a step away, right? having your own room so separate from your parents, it practically meant he was his own person to nine year old you. and that was insanely awesome. you wanted to spend every free moment in there, but your grandma wouldn’t let you. instead, you were allowed lazy weekends on his floor, lying on your backs reading books or hanging upside-down from his bed and talking nonsense until you got called for lunch. after the meal, you’d return almost immediately, jumping into the comic book you were reading while sebastian tried to figure out if anything was different with you.

robin had explained to him that you were slowly starting to feel the loss of your parents, you were coming up to the age when all your friends had parents to teach them about life. she’d warned him not to ask you much about them, not to make you feel uncomfortable or sad. robin didn’t want him to hurt you. so he took it seriously, he observed you to see if you got sad, and every time your lips lowered from a smile, he made it his mission to make you laugh again. he pretended to chase you around his room, squealing and giggling as you held his comic book high above your head, thinking you had the upper hand when the boy only wanted to keep you laughing.

you were eleven years old when you stole sebastian’s breath. spending almost every day together, there was no way you wouldn’t discover music together. sebastian got his first phone, and with the old computer that sat on his big, sturdy desk, you browsed the internet and downloaded all sorts of songs to listen to later through his wired earphones. you’d spend evenings just lying in the grass, listening to the whiny boys sing about heartbreak as you pretended it related to you.

oh the pain of being eleven was almost unbearable. but you had the sun setting behind the mountains and the moon casting its silvery light on your faces as you watched shooting stars in the summer. you had the sound of cicadas in the trees and the gentle hum of water. you had each other. you experimented with your appearances then, taking a black eye pencil you begged your grandma to buy you in zuzu city and trying to imitate the guy you saw on sebastian’s computer. it was worth getting poked in the eye, for that month both of you mastered the art of smudged black eyeliner, strutting around the town with your newfound style. sebastian felt his cheeks warm up whenever you’d swoop your fringe to the side, felt his breath hitch when he saw you put on those black and purple fingerless gloves and adjust the studded belt on your jeans before fixing his hair. 

you were fifteen when you stole sebastian’s first kiss. you’d just started going to the saloon the previous year, pretending to be adults with your extended curfew and your first bra. it was a big deal in your house, grandma felt like weeping every time she saw you discard another bloodied pad into the trash. her baby girl’s baby girl, all grown up now. she missed your mom in what had become a constant underlying sadness, pushed down for your sake. but these were the moments she should’ve been here to witness. your first time riding a bike with no training wheels, your first tooth falling out, your first period, first bra, first spot on your forehead that almost hurt when you tried pushing it back where it came from. grandpa baked a cake for every single one of those occasions, throwing himself into the kitchen to avoid facing his own grief.

and sebastian? he kept the habit of observing you whenever you were together. he noticed when your brow would furrow for no apparent reason and poked your cheek occasionally, getting you to talk about music and movies, making plans for your birthday parties and talking shit about all the homework you had to do that week. and it worked. every time it put the spark back into your eyes, making him sigh in relief. your fridays were still spent at the saloon with sam and abby, the four of you weirdos learned how to mess around with the pool table, making up your own rules and causing poor gus to shake his head every time one of you ended up climbing on the edge of the damn thing. it was finally summer, which meant a longer curfew, which meant grandma and grandpa didn’t tell you off when you’d stumble inside the farmhouse way too late for fear of not getting enough sleep on a school night. which meant… the nights were yours. at fifteen, you owned the whole world, you and your friends against the universe.

sebastian had taken up smoking, sneaking a cigarette or two a day to stay on demetrius’ bad side. it almost invigorated him, the fact that he was doing something forbidden. and his exhilaration made your heart beat faster. he walked you to the gates of the farm, stubbing out his last cigarette of the week before bidding you goodbye like always, but one thing made it different. you reached down to hold his hand, hooking your pinky finger around his, and pulled him closer. it took exactly one moment for him to decide it was a good idea, lean in, and accept your kiss. you closed your eyes first, blindly pressing your lips to his. they were sticky from the sugar in your drinks, sweet, and soft as you clumsily kissed. the blush that spread over both your faces was a pretty red color, matching that of your new earrings you’d got as an early birthday gift from your grandparents. reluctantly, you let go of sebastian’s hand and pushed the gate open, disappearing into the farmhouse as he nearly started skipping on his way home.

you were eighteen when you stole sebastian’s virginity. it was a marathon session of solarion chronicles, sam and abby were all but falling asleep at the table in the center of sebastian’s room, the only reason why they lasted that long was to not disappoint the birthday boy. he loved exploring the storyline with his favorite people, snacking on all the shit sam could sneak out of joja’s warehouse without getting into trouble, drinking your grandma’s famous cider. she’d pretended to be annoyed when you’d asked to ‘borrow’ a couple of bottles, but she had known you were responsible enough, and just trying to have some fun in the stretch of time you had before you. you were playing as a wizard that day, casting your last spell to defeat the boss alongside your friends, and the next thing you remember is lifting your head with a spell card stuck to your cheek. there was a blanket thrown over your shoulders, the lights were dimmed a little, and it was surprisingly quiet.

sam and abby had gone home, sebastian said, lifting his gaze from the comic book he had in his lap. you yawned, apologizing for falling asleep, but he waved away your apology, he always had. now that you were alone again, already having checked with your grandparents if it was okay to sleep over at sebastian’s, you could shuffle over to him where his back rested against the bed frame. now that you were alone again, you could straddle his lap and get comfortable with your head against his chest, right before he lifted your chin and kissed you again, kept kissing you until your face got warmer than ever. now that you were alone again, he could wrap that blanket around both of you, pulling you closer against him as you deftly unbuttoned his jeans and yours, moving your hips against his. now, since you were alone again, you could let your voice show him how good it felt when you were entangled in every way, connected with your bodies and souls. and in the morning, after a couple more times of repeating almost the same routine, you woke up in his tight embrace, softly kissing his chest.

you were twenty when you stole sebastian’s heart. he’d thought about it before, but it was a terrifying thing, making a significant step forward. you’d shared everything until that point, so maybe his fears were unfounded, but ever since he was five years old and clutching to his mother’s jeans, he couldn’t stop thinking about the odd girl that came to live with her grandparents at the farm. he couldn’t help but befriend her, though it might be more accurate to say let her befriend him or let her drag him by the hand to wherever she wanted to go. and he loved every day since. even when he’d been a grumpy teenager, even when he’d been overthinking his every choice in life, even when it had fallen upon him to make sure you were okay and didn’t feel ‘inadequate’ for not having a mom to teach you things, when you’d confided in him about a crush or two, when he’d vented to you about his family. you were there for him, had been ever since that day. he’d even forgiven you for that ice cream.

by his twentieth birthday he was more certain in you than anything in his entire life. he’d stopped romanticizing the big city long ago, now only indulging in an occasional trip there with you behind him, wrapping your arms tightly around his waist as he sped along the highway to the viewpoint where he’d put down the picnic blanket and enjoyed the stars with you. and you? you were sure he would stay in your life until the end, the question was whether he wanted the same as you. you’d dreamed about waking together every day, about dancing in the kitchen to the songs on the radio, about raising little void chickens together and riding horses around your grandparents’ farm. you’d even planted a coffee plant together in the greenhouse, jokingly naming it your ‘baby’.

everyone in town saw you for what you were, idiots in love, but nobody was stupid enough to push you into something you weren’t ready for. that night, just before the dance of the moonlight jellies, sebastian hid the bouquet behind his back as you walked over to where he waited for you. he was finally sure, finally ready to grab you and never let you go again. so when he asked, when he extended the hand holding the colorful bouquet, when you screamed in excitement, sebastian could hear his heartbeat echo in his skull. you jumped into his arms, witnesses be damned, and kissed him deeper than ever before. that night, you watched the moonlight jellies while holding hands, you sat on the edge of the dock and leaned against each other, finally feeling like every piece of the puzzle fit exactly right.

you were twenty-four when you stole sebastian’s last name. your grandma was a crying mess. she fussed over the way your veil trailed down your back, tried keeping herself busy so she wouldn’t fall into a pit of sadness again, not on your wedding day. sebastian waited at the altar, the widest grin you’d ever seen plastered on his face. he kissed your cheek when you finally reached him, keeping it chaste for everyone gathered to celebrate your love. the vows were a beautiful song of devotion. you did your best not to spill any tears, glancing over at your grandparents holding hands. sebastian held you close, kissing you for the first time as your husband, taking you through the crowd shouting their congratulations with a gentle hand on your lower back. after the day of performing at being a human for others, you said your goodbye to grandma and grandpa, getting ready to join sebastian in your first ever apartment, away from parents of any kind. you inhaled grandpa’s scent, the herbs mixing with the natural scent of the farmhouse. you’d miss being around them so much, but it was a new chapter of your life, and they were fully behind you, cheering on your every decision.

your mother would be so proud of you, grandma said, i just know she’s looking down and smiling at you. with tears in your eyes, you kissed her working, calloused hands. she cried as you walked into the apartment, turning around to walk back to the farmhouse hand in hand with grandpa, small steps carrying them home. the next morning you danced in the kitchen, you woke up to the smell of coffee and sebastian’s smiling face as he handed you the mug. you were already filling up the place with plants, starting with the coffee plant you’d planted with him in the greenhouse. now it was in a big terracotta pot in the sunniest corner of your living room. you kept stealing, this time not from sebastian but with him. you stole moments in the middle of busy work days, stole kisses when you’d bring him another cup of green tea while he was in online meetings with clients, stole happy giggles from his throat when you’d spend evenings curled up on the couch watching ridiculous movies you’d enjoyed as teens. you made the apartment truly yours.

you were twenty-seven when you stole a part of sebastian, but gave back something better. your belly got a little bigger with each passing week. sebastian’s lips tugged into a wide grin every time he’d catch a glimpse of your slightly awkward waddle through the apartment. it’d been a rough time, with both your grandparents being ill and you not being well enough to help out with the farm. luckily, the townspeople were ready to pick up shifts on the land, learning quickly what it meant to be a farmer. it was hard work, sometimes unforgiving, but the land gave back more than it took. much like you. on a cold wednesday morning, sebastian rushed you to the clinic where a midwife had been called in, almost the entire day spent in pain and anticipation. your husband tried his best to keep you grounded, jumping to your every whim, doing everything he’d read about in the previous months.

that evening, you welcomed a baby girl into this world. she had your eyes, that much was clear. even as exhausted as you were, you could see the similarities between her and your grandma. all the features she’d always told you reminded her of your mother – reflected in your own child. the first stop on the way from the clinic was the farmhouse. a few gentle knocks on the front door got the poorly old man excited like you couldn't remember seeing him. he wiped away tears as you handed him his great-grandchild, cooing at her while sebastian helped out around the house. grandma whispered old lullabies as the baby slept, sending your mind into a sea of nostalgia, reminiscing how you would hear those same melodies when you were little, only arriving at the farmhouse still wondering why your parents weren’t with you. you kissed your grandparents on the way out, ready to introduce your baby into her new home, not knowing the next time you walked into that farmhouse, it would be to make it your own.

you were in your thirties when you stole a small tooth from under your child’s pillow. it was an exciting affair, sebastian was all but giggling as he slid some money to replace the carefully placed tooth. the farm was thriving, now under your skilled hand and the help of a lot of dedicated people, it was a place that gave every day. it was the place that had raised you, let you run around the flower beds and fruit trees while hiding from your grandma when she had wanted to wipe your strawberry-stained face. now the cloth was in your hands. you chased your child around for who knows how long as sebastian was busy preparing dinner. he laughed at the sight of you playing in the orchard, thanking the universe for allowing him this life. you shook your head in faux exasperation, lifting your head up at the sky, silently asking your grandparents to look down and see how you’re honoring their memory. by being you. by being happy.

[juletheghoul]

dignitas

a/n: I don't even know what to say, honestly. I made a really honest post a few days ago about some hardships I've been experiencing and the support I received brought me to tears so many times. I don't think I can ever really put into words how grateful I am for this community, all I can say is thank you, and that I hope you all know what you mean to me. Hope you enjoy 💕xo (ps. I googled wedding practices in Ancient Rome, and girls used to be married off as young as 14-insane I know-)

Warnings; 18+ no minors, vague but big-legal age gap, piv sex, dirty talk, parental fluff, Marcus being a total suck for his daughter, pregnancy and baby stuff, childbirth and some graphic descriptions of pain, brief mention of infertility, **character death / grief** allusions to underage sexual abuse (typical of the time), sexist violence against a slave, **angst / hurt / comfort** Girlwife is putting her foot down, and her husband is here for it, bullshit politics, let me know if I missed any!

This is the fic I referenced in this preview

Pairing: Marcus Acaciusx F!Reader

word count: 7.3k 😅

reblogs are appreciated

Masterlist series masterlist Ko-fi

-

He crouches down, heart in his throat at the sight of her standing on her own two feet. 

“Come, that’s it my little flower–” He holds his hands out, shifting to his knees before them, his wife holds her up, keeping her steady. He claps his hands, getting her attention and when she smiles big his heart melts. 

“Go on Diana, go on–” Her mother encourages, helping her with the first two steps before carefully letting her go. He watches her little form sway, watches as her mother hovers behind her. Diana looks down at her feet before toddling over, taking her first steps. He holds his breath, nodding and smiling at her until she makes it into his arms. His body fills with light, pride and emotions swirling wildly. 

“You have done it!” He gets up, twirling her. Her mother, his wife, stares at them in awe, tears shining and he goes to her, gathering his whole world in his arms. 

-

She’s running, it felt like not a moment ago she was small enough to fit within both palms of her fathers hands and now she’s running!

“Diana! Slow down little love, you will hurt yourself.” Her giggle echoes through the house, setting the dogs to chase after her as she covers much of the ground in the peristyle. 

Marcus beams at her, crouching down and holding out his arms for her as she speeds up, stumbling and falling down but getting back up  just as quick before the dogs can lick her face and crashes into his embrace. He burrows his face into her neck, kissing and tickling her until she screams with joy.

“Papa!” She screams, joyous and happy.

“Yes my little sunbeam, look at you, running! Gods above, where has the time gone?” his eyes glaze while she squirms within his grip, already eager to be back on the ground. Her attention lands on you then, turning from her father who watches in awe as she runs towards you, little robes and brown waves rustling. 

With a huff of laughter she collides with your legs, her arms outstretched and you lift her up, resting her on your hip. The dogs chase each other, excited and happy.

“You are a wild little thing, my feral child.” You kiss her full cheeks, relishing the sounds of her voice, the giggles that escape before she yawns. “Time for your rest–” Marcus has reached you then, and he presses his lips to the crown of her head again before you hand her to Sabina–the matronly woman who has become her nurse. 

Marcus watches her go, curled up against Sabina, head resting on her shoulder. 

“She is getting too big, growing far too quickly.” 

“She is indeed, getting wilder and bolder every day. She is too like her father.” 

He huffs out a laugh, wrapping himself around your back to lay his chin upon your shoulder. You can almost hear the crinkle in his eyes. 

“Is she now? And here I thought she was the very picture of her mother.” He presses his lips to your neck, “I have some matters to see to, but I will try to be very quick. Shall we take advantage once I am finished?” His hands squeeze at your waist and you cannot help but sigh, and turn in his arms. 

“If you can be quick, then taking advantage sounds like a wonderful idea.” Your hand slips down, sliding over his robes until you cup his manhood, giving it a little squeeze. The low rumble that comes out of his mouth makes your heart race. 

“Don’t keep me waiting.” You press a chaste kiss to his mouth, so innocent compared to where you hold him and he smiles into it. 

“Understood, my Sun.” 

When he finds you after having completed his work, Diana screams in your arms, wriggling to be let go. He grins, resigned to have missed his window of opportunity.

“Yes yes, very well.” You put her down and she runs to him once again, warmth fills your whole being to see them together. She is a tiny little slip of a thing in his arms, her hands barely cover his cheeks but he looks at her as though she hung the stars. 

He speaks to her softly and presses kisses to her temple, he listens to her baby babble, the words she can speak clearly now and the ones she cannot yet pronounce.

“You had a very short rest today my little love.” His words are soft, but you laugh at them when his eyes find yours. He smiles and a little sadness creeps in then, sadness that you cannot give him more of this, more babies, more little ones to carry on his name. It is a tragedy that you cannot give him a boy. 

“We will need to get you more robes soon, you are already getting too big for these. Shall we go to the market?” He holds her up above his head and they are mirror images of each other, his hands holding her up towards the heavens, and her arms outstretched towards him, both bursting with the same smile. 

“What say you, my love?” He lowers her, smiling at her screaming giggles. 

“I say yes, she is growing very quickly indeed. We should get more of the oil I use in her hair as well.” He nods, and after the preparations are made, you set out with your family. 

-

She grows like wheat, one minute she is a bundle at your breast, and the next she is up to your hip, arguing with her father over a horse. 

“But, I need one.” She pleads, seven years old and determined.

“Do you?” He smiles, entertaining her. You know in your heart he will give in, he always does, but he requires her to give him a good reason before inevitably spoiling her.

“You have asked, you have begged, and now you tell me that you need one, but you have not yet given me a reason as to why.” He sits at your table to your left, breaking his fast as he looks over some letters. She sits at her own place to his left across from you. She looks to you and you can see your own frown on her face but you shake your head. 

“Do not look to me, Diana, it is your father who decides.” You smile, it is all a game that she will eventually win. She lets out a sigh and your smile widens.

“Father, you know I am learning, and I would like to learn on a horse that knows me. If it is my horse and not yours then I will learn all the quicker.” He nods sagely, setting his letters aside and picking at his bread. 

“Yes, that is a good reason but will you care for it? You must feed it, brush it and bond with it.” 

She nods as he speaks, hopeful. 

“It is not just about getting one, riding it for a few days and then leaving it in the stable for others to care for it. It is a living thing, and it requires love and attention and food and I expect you to do your part.”

You reach for his hand and his eyes find yours, you give him a look, one that you hope he can read as ‘remember her age’, he takes a breath, smiling to himself and you know you have been together long enough that he understands what you are thinking. 

“I do not think to leave the sole care of this horse to you Diana, you have your studies and lessons, you have your duties with your mother and you are still quite little.” She frowns and he laughs, “You are but seven, not seventeen. If I were to get you this horse, you must promise me, swear to me here in front of your mother, that you will feed, brush and water it daily. This means you will wake up with me, we will go to the stable together for your lesson and once you are done, you will brush, feed and water it.”  

She grins, despite herself and he narrows his eyes, the game still very much afoot. 

“Diana.” He tries to be serious, tries to put the steel into his tone and for a moment it works, she straightens up and wipes the grin away, nodding at him with her big brown eyes. 

“You must swear it, little love. You must swear that you will do as your father says.” You chime in gently, and she nods faster. 

“I swear it father, I swear it. I will do as you say. May I please have a new horse?” She pouts, and the deal is sealed. He sighs, the corners of his mouth lifting and you catch her eye, gesturing for her to go to him and she does, flying out of her chair to hug him tightly. He laughs, all of the toughness leached away by her little hands, by her smile and by her kiss on his cheek. 

“Very well, we will go by the end of the week.” He relents, letting her hug him, and hugging her in return. “If you are finished breaking your fast, you may go and start your lessons.” She nods, skipping away, laughing loudly. 

“You are a cloud.” You smile at him, pushing your plate away. 

“When did it happen? I used to inspire fear and unquestioning loyalty, obedience.” He shakes his head, half laughing, half astounded. You take his hand in yours, and press it to your mouth. 

“She has made a lump of honey out of you Marcus, there is no other way around it.” 

“She? I think you will find that you have your own part to play in this.” He lets a bark of laughter out at the shocked expression on your face, pulling you from your chair to sit across his lap. 

“Do you not think yourself spoiled? Do you not realise that you yourself have turned me into this?” His arms wrap tightly around you, and you roll your eyes, goodnaturedly. 

“Have I? Have I tamed you, General?” You run your fingers through his curls, more grey than brown now. His eyes are soft, kind and full of love. He doesn’t respond right away, instead his gaze bores into yours, the same honey brown as Diana.

“I would say more than tamed.” Diana screams laughing from somewhere and he smiles wide, his soul fed by her happiness for a moment before his hand cups your cheek. 

“I do not have the words for what you have done to me, for me–I do not have the words to describe the depths of my love for you.” 

You press forward, kissing him with all of the words you yourself cannot speak, pressing your love into him. His hands sweep softly along your back, your lips skimming against his when you pull away to breathe. 

“A lump of honey–” You laugh when he digs his fingers into your sides, euphoria thrumming through your veins. 

-

He finds you teaching Diana how to sew, the both of you hunched over a torn robe, Sabina in tow and the expression on his face gives you pause.

“Diana, my little flower, your mother and I have some important matters to discuss.” He gestures to Sabina and she steps forward. 

“Why don’t you come with me, little one, let us go and raid the cellar for some honeycomb.” Sabina smiles, urging her to follow but Diana frowns, sensing the wrongness of the situation. She looks at you for a moment, clutching at your arm. 

“Go on, let me speak to your father.” You smile, keeping your composure for her benefit despite the way your heart races. She nods, carefully handing you her needle and thread and you put everything aside. Sabina holds her arm out for her, Diana gives her father a quick hug around the middle before leaving the room. 

“What is it? What is the matter?” A fear grips you, some unknown danger lurks through your lungs, threading through your ribs and curling around your heart. 

“Peace, do not fear.” He takes your hands in his, pressing them to his lips and you take a deep breath.

“Is it another war? Will you leave me again?” Memories of his injury resurface, the wound that almost took him from you, the scar that greets you whenever he undresses. Tears gather at the thought of him going off to fight once more, with him older now, they threaten to fall but he shakes his head and pulls you close. 

“No, Gods above, no my love. There is no war–” you sigh into his neck, relief pulling a few tears down your cheeks. He wipes them away, but the frown on his face remains and the relief is short lived. 

“Tell me then, what troubles you?” 

“There is a man, a Legate, who is known to have a heavy hand with his slaves. I am not on friendly terms with him but there are some in this house whom I purchased from him.” He sighs, squeezing your hands in his. You follow along, grateful all over again that he treated the people in your house with dignity. 

“I have been informed that he has a child on the way by a slave, a child he does not want.” He frowns and again, you try again to understand his meaning. 

“I have purchased her.” He comes out with it. 

“You have purchased her? A slave?” You feel nothing, it isn’t something you ever question, from personal experience you are aware of the way they are treated in your home, of the respect afforded to them by both you and your husband, and by your daughter. Your confusion is in why he feels the need to explain himself to you. 

“Yes, I have paid a hefty sum for her because I feared for her life.” He lets out a heavy breath, “Sabina saw her in the market not a day ago, and not only is she quite young, she also had…injuries.” His gaze turns steely, and the implications hurt you. 

“You bought her, to spare her.” He smiles under your hand, but it is a tired, weary thing.

“I could not bear the thought of this young girl fearing for her life, it made me think of my own daughter, of you when I first saw you.” Your heart melts a little, the softness of him, the anger he has for what has been done to this poor girl. 

“I just want her to be safe, I want her child to be safe.” You don’t respond, instead you pull him in, pressing your face into his neck. 

“You are a good man, Marcus. My heart fills with joy that she will be safe here, that her child should survive.” Your fingers thread through his waves and his expression softens, “did you imagine I would be angry with you?” It’s not an accusation, more so a need to understand him.

“No, but you are my wife, this is your house and I would honour your wishes,” He kisses your wrist, “and the purchasing of a girl expecting a baby, the prospect of there being another child in this house warrants your consideration.”

“It is thoughtful of you to consider me, but I see no harm in it. So long as this girl is here for her safety, it is not as though the child is yours. It is not as though you have feelings for this girl—“ 

“Gods above, no my love. You know that is not my way. You know that you are above all others, that you alone hold my love and my interest. She is practically a child herself—“ You laugh, calming him with soft touch.

“Yes Marcus, I know. I trust you, implicitly. Let the girl come, let her be safe and let her child live a good life here—it would be good for Diana as well.” You press kisses to his cheeks, the relief of knowing there is no war is too great to worry about anything except the tight squeeze of his embrace.

-

She is so much younger than you had imagined and the sight of her almost brings tears to your eyes. Quietly she stands, her little belly just starting to show, her eye purple and bruised and anger only adds to your heartbreak. 

“Sabina will show you to your new quarters–make sure she rests, bring her fresh water and food.” You can feel the anger coming off of Marcus in waves, the state of her, the obvious fear–when you’d first entered into Marcus’ service you had been fearful too, but Sabina herself had assuaged you of it. Marcus had been cold, but never cruel.

“I can work Dominus, I can be useful–” He stops her, shaking his head. 

“There is no need, you must rest and heal. I will call for a medicus to see to your health and the child, peace, there is no expectation of you.” You stepped forward, doing your best to smile soft, she stepped back slightly and again your heart wilted. 

“Peace, when all is well and you have rested, I will bring you some things to help with the skin. Some oils and ointments leftover from when I carried my own child.” She frowns in confusion before bowing her head. 

“Gratitude Domina.” Sabina nods to you both, and takes her away. 

“Did you see her eye? I fear that is not her only injury.” He practically fumes and you soothe him with your touch.

“I saw, there are some faded bruises on her arms, some poking out just at the bottom of her tunic–” 

“She is a child.” He turns, the weariness on his face, the fury. “I fear to know her age. I fear what the medicus will say.” He pulls you close, rubbing at your back. 

“We must be gentle with her, assure her that she is not required to serve in that fashion.”

“Sabina will inform her. It was never my way, you were the exception.” He smiles, small and full of fondness, pressing his lips to yours. 

-

When the medicus arrives a week later, her eyes bulge in fear.

“Do not fear, it is only to see if you are healthy and if the child is in good shape.” You sit with her on her bed, comforting her while Diana has her lessons. Although still weary, you can see that Sabina has assured her that you are not anyone that she must fear, that although Marcus has his reputation, inside this house he gives just as much respect as he expects. 

“I will stay with you.” She squeezes your hand for a moment, nodding at you before letting go. 

The Medicus asks her questions and you learn that her name is Vesta. He asks about her first blood, about when the child was conceived. He asks her age, and when she timidly says fifteen your stomach drops. She should have been married, she should have been courted and treated gently but she is a slave, and slaves are not often afforded kindness. You worry about the toll of the pregnancy especially with the size of her, still so small that the birth would surely be a concern. 

You hold her hand as he does his examination, smile reassuringly when he measures her belly and when he does the more invasive check. 

“Everything right now is as we want it to be but you must eat more, we shall have to monitor the growth as your hips are still quite narrow, Gods willing everything will turn out.” She smiles, placated but doubts of your own take root within, her hips are small and if the child grows too large, the birth will be very difficult.

-

The sun shines brightly, shafts of light filter through the olive trees that grow taller and taller within the peristyle. Diana sits with you in a little bit of shade, the two of you continuing with your sewing. She huffs when she does not get the stitch just right. 

“Patience, little love, it will come to you with time and practice.” She nods, lip caught between teeth as she continues. Her head lifts when Vesta finds you, her belly growing seemingly by the minute. 

“I have brought you fresh water, Domina, and some fruit as well.” The tray is heavy and you frown, taking it from her and setting it down on the little table beside you.

“Gratitude, but as Marcus and I have told you, we do not require anything of you but rest.” 

“I must be useful, I cannot just sit idle.” She bows her head, “I am filled with gratitude at the kindness you and the Dominus have shown me but I want to earn my place–”

“Enough of that, your only task is to heal, and grow that child. With what the medicus has advised you need to be very careful.” You guide her to sit, pouring for her, ignoring the protests. “Peace Vesta, this is not new to me.” You smile. 

“Is it painful?” Diana puts her sewing things away and moves closer, inquisitive, and it hurts to know they are not very far apart in age. 

“Sometimes, my lady. Mostly I feel that I am full of stones.” They smile at each other. 

“Is that how it was for you, Mother? Did I feel like stones?” 

“You, my child, felt like a storm.” You kiss the top of her head and she beams, she has always loved hearing about her birth. Vesta winces, her hand lands on her belly and after a moment she lets out a sigh. 

“Are you well?” Diana frowns, and Vesta nods. 

“Yes, it has started kicking and sometimes it startles me a bit.” Her face has healed, in truth she is a lovely girl, hair dark as night, eyes the green of fresh laurel and skin golden as though from days spent in the sun. “Would you like to feel?” 

Diana nods quickly, jumping at the chance and the picture of them together fills your heart with something, you are old enough to be her mother. You could almost imagine it then, an older child, one that was happily married to a good man, happiness, the thought of a grandchild. It shocks you, but in an unexpected, happy way.

“I feel it!” Diana smiles wide, her fathers dimple shines on her face and you let them have the moment. 

Later on, when Diana has gone riding with Marcus, you sit with Vesta alone. 

“Domina, may I ask you something?” She helps with the sewing Diana had not finished. 

“Speak freely.” 

“I–I would ask about the future of my child, once it is born.” She looks up, worry clear on her face. “Will the child be permitted to remain? Or will it be sold off?” You frown, noticing the way her hands shake and all at once you are reminded of the way things are in most houses. 

“Vesta, you and your child are to remain here, together.” When you level your gaze at her, she breaks down into tears, heavy sobs clawing at her throat. You take the needle and the cloth from her, sitting beside her to gather her into your arms. “I know it is difficult to believe, but you must trust me when I say that you are safe here.” You stroke her hair, letting her cry into your shoulder. 

“I myself came to this house as a slave.” She looks at you in shock, eyes red and you cannot help but laugh, “I speak the truth, when I came here I was just a slave, older than you and scared of how I might be treated. Marcus has always had a reputation for brutality. He was cold, he was reserved, but he was never cruel. You can speak to anyone in this house, he is a good man, he is a loving husband, he is a wonderful father, and he will not hurt you or separate you from your child.” You wipe her tears away, “The only thing he requires from you, is respect, and he will give it right back. We all have our place, but within it there is dignity. You never need fear of unwanted advances again. Understood?” 

She sobs for a moment, taking in the knowledge that despite the things she has survived, the indignities she has suffered, life here will be better. She nods, and you continue with your sewing.

-

Diana takes to her, whenever she isn’t busy with her lessons, whenever she has a spare moment she sits with Vesta, listening to her speak about the baby and about her life up until arriving in your house. You are grateful that she spares your daughter from the more brutal details, and you rejoice in the fact that she has another young girl to speak to. 

Marcus has Diana’s baby things brought into Vestas chambers, despite her insistence that they are too fine. He waves her concerns away and a small chest is brought in, full of small robes along with the cradle. 

He buys the teas and potions recommended by the midwife to aid in her birth, he makes sure the oils for her skin are on hand and seeing him care for her as though she were another daughter only makes your love for him grow.

“Will you be this way when Diana marries? When she is with her husband and with child?” You lie with him, naked in bed one night and he groans. 

“Gods above, I cannot imagine my baby marrying.” He grimaces, “She is not yet ten years of age, we still have years yet.” 

“It sounds as though you are reassuring yourself.” You tease him, smiling at his discomfort, “It is terrifying to think that soon she will be of the age for such things, proposals and a marriage, she will leave us–” He pulls you close, stopping your musings with a loud groan into your neck. 

“Please my love, do not torture me.” He sighs, pressing his lips to your neck, “I cannot bear the thought of our little girl being a grown woman. Time is moving far too fast, can we not stop it for a while? Bask in the joy of it all?” 

“If only it were possible to do so.” You cradle his head, massaging his scalp softly. “We are in the midst of joy Marcus, we are blessed, we have a beautiful daughter and a loving home. You are here, Rome is peaceful, what else could we ask for without tempting the Gods?” 

“You are right, of course.” His hands sweep up, stroking at your hips, your belly until he palms the weight of your breast.

“What would I do without you?” His lips move across your neck, his tongue tasting your skin as his thumb strums softly at your nipple. Arousal pools low in your belly at the slow steady sweep of his thumb, and when he lowers his head and takes the other in his mouth it pulls a moan from you. 

“I feel as though I have not touched you in ages–” His warm breath against the wet peak of your nipple sends a shiver down your spine, you let out a low laugh, lip caught between your teeth as his own tease at the sensitive peak. 

“Ages? Are you sure it has not been a mere week?” You scratch at silver scruff on his cheeks. His kiss moves to the valley between your breasts, smiling his mischievous smile. 

“A week is an age, I need you constantly.” You laugh, pulling him up for a kiss. 

“I remember a time when you had me daily, scarcely let me have a moment's rest.” His playful shock makes you laugh, “Now I must content myself alone–” You laugh harder when he buries his face into your neck, his scruff tickling you. 

“You wound me–” He settles between your legs, fitting himself into the wide spread of them. His cock slips between the lips of your sex, hard, hot and heavy enough to pull a steady flow of arousal from your cunt. 

“Have I been neglectful of you?” He shifts, coating himself in you.

“Oh yes, exceedingly so.” The pout is an exaggerated thing and he bites at your lip.

“My poor, empty little wife,” with a shift, he reaches down and notches the blunt tip of his cock at your entrance, “let me redeem myself—“

A mutual sigh fills the room when he sinks himself inside you to the hilt. The moon shines in through the window, casting dark shadows across his face as he holds himself above you. Even after all of the years you’ve spent together, the deepening of lines on his face, the way the silver has overtaken the dark brown of his hair, the slight softening of his middle—it does nothing to hinder his beauty. Even now, the strength in his arms, arms that you’ve touched and been held by a thousand times over still make you dizzy with want. 

His pace is unhurried, languid, decadent. 

Your mouth opens under him when you pull him closer, needing the weight of him and he obliges. You sigh when his hand lands heavy on your thigh to shift it higher, up onto his ribs. His tongue tastes of honey, of devotion and you drink his passion down like fine wine. 

Your heart pounds, a loud boom in your ears, a pleasurable pulse in your cunt, a warmth flooding the corners of you with every heavy stroke of his cock. He huffs out a low laugh, cocky and confident at the way your hips cant up to meet his rhythm, his eyes a lust-blown black when he thrusts harder.

Your arousal for him is a river between your thighs, a holy fountain. It soaks the hair at the base of his cock, it rings loudly with every snap of his hips, a vulgar hymn at the altar of your cunt. 

Sweat beads in his hairline and between the press of your bodies, you feel it at the base of his skull when you clutch at him, his breath a damp pant into the crook of your neck. The pleasure builds like a fire in your core and he fans the flames, his steady stroke turns into a heavy grind and the pressure of it at your clit is almost enough.

With fingers gripping his hair like talons, you focus on the pleasure of it, shift your hips and spread your legs a little wider and it’s perfect.

“Yes, yes, yes, just there—“ with a clench and a heavy sigh the dam breaks and it flows like water. His low groan only heightens it, a heavier push to get deeper still, a firm grip on your thigh; all of it only intensifies the climax.

-

As the months progress, so does her pregnancy and your fears for the birth.

Your affection for her grows as well, swells within you with every laugh you share, with every meal she takes with your family, with every smile that blooms on her face. Marcus takes to her as well, in a fatherly way. It is evident in the way he cares for her, the way he considers her needs the same way he considers Dianas but whereas you enjoy her company and rejoice in her finding peace within your house, Marcus harbous anger that she has been put in this position. 

He focuses on the preparations, calling for the midwife and her attendants to have rooms in your home once it is clear that labour is imminent. He hides his fears in practicality, hides his anger within his focus. 

-

It is not the knock that wakes you, rather Marcus’ reaction to it. All his time in Rome's army had made him a light sleeper, and the slightest disturbance could thrust him into full alertness. You felt him stir, felt the shift of him sliding out of bed, heard soft words exchanged at the door. 

“What is the matter, Marcus?” You rise, wiping the sleep from your eyes. 

“Vesta’s labours have begun.” With a candle given to him by the attendant at the door, he lights the one in your room before handing you your robe to dress. 

“I will go to her, she will need support.” You had already discussed it, and he nods, listening as he dressed and splashed water onto his face.

“I will wake the midwife.” 

-

Her face is pale when you find her, eyes bulging in fear as she paces around her chamber. Sabina rubs her back, keeping pace with her as she moves and you almost feel the echo of your own labours when she clutches at her belly in agony. 

“Breathe, Vesta. With me–” You take a deep breath in, guiding her. She nods, watching and syncing her breaths with yours. “Good, let us continue with the walking, it will help. Has the water come yet?” 

“No Domina, it is just pain, low and sharp but it does not last, it comes and goes.” 

“Okay, let us walk throughout the house, Sabina, would you please make her some tea?” You take over, threading her arm through yours to keep her steady. 

“At once, Domina.” She moves quickly, leaving you with the young girl as you both make your way slowly down the dark hall. 

“I am scared.” Her voice is whisper thin, but you did not need her to voice it out loud. Her fear is palpable and how could you blame her? Your eyes drift to the size of her hips, to the slight frame of her. Despite your own fear, despite your own silent prayer to all of the Gods you pat her hand softly and speak with more confidence than you feel.

“I will be there with you, the midwife will guide us and we must be brave, yes? Now, have you thought of a name?” She lets out a shaky breath, smiling before focusing on her breathing once again. 

“If it is a girl, I thought maybe Flora.” 

“That would be a lovely name, and for a boy?” The light coming through the windows is a deep blue, dawn is creeping up on the horizon. 

“For a boy, I am torn. I like the name Atticus, as well as Linus.” The house is quiet, the low shuffle of your footsteps echo throughout the hallway. Diana will be up soon, moving about her chambers in preparation to feed and water her horse. You are still not sure whether you want her to be present for the birth of Vesta’s child, no matter how much you know she desires it.

“Those are also very fine choices.” 

“Which would you choose, Domina? If I may ask.” 

“For a boy? I confess they both have their merits, I do like Atticus, it is a strong name, they both are.” Sabina greets you with the tea at the mouth of the hall, carefully handing it to Vesta. She takes it with a grateful nod. 

“I think you are right, Atticus is my first choice.” She smiles, wincing through another grip of pain. 

“Sit, rest and drink while we wait for the midwife.” You guide her to one of the more comfortable chairs in the room where you took your meals. 

When Marcus finds you a few hours later the sun has risen and despite the pain gripping her regularly, her water has not yet come. The midwife is with him when he finds you rubbing her lower back. You almost laugh at how awkward he is, a nervous shifting of his feet, some mumbling words of encouragement for her before taking his leave. 

“Deep breath in, that’s it.” She has a surprising amount of strength in her grip around your hand, you can feel the blunt ends of her nails pressing deep, leaving little half-moon marks in their wake. She nods, trying her best to listen when the pain grips her. They come quicker and quicker as the sun follows its path, stronger too. Sweat beads on her skin, her dark hair sticks to her neck and to her brow. 

The midwife checks Vestas progress between short walks throughout the room. She sends her outside for fresh air, and makes her drink the tea. Her good spirits, her easy smiles despite the pain you know she's in inspires a flame of hope. The Gods have been good to you after all and your faith in them whispers of how it will be once she has made it through her labours, of the glow of life that will fill her just as it did for you once Diana had come into the world. 

The flame dwindles slightly at the sight of the blood in her water, the corruption of it is a test of that faith but you meet it head on. You face her dead on, meeting her terrified, laurel-green gaze and speak to her with a confidence you do not feel. The midwife does not panic, she speaks with authority, guides her to the birthing stool and the real fight begins. 

Her screams echo through the house, they fill every corner of it. 

With a damp linen you wipe at her brow, speaking to her softly as she does her best to push the child out but as the hours pass, that little flame begins to flicker. 

“You’re almost there Vesta, you are so close–” You tie her hair back, wipe the tears from her reddened cheeks. 

“I am going to try to use my hands, the pain will be great but for now it is the best chance we have.” The midwife catches your eye, and you feel it in your heart that it is worse than she is letting on. Vesta grits her teeth though, and you keep it inside. 

“I am ready.” Her lip trembles, her eyes fill with tears and so do yours, but she grits her teeth and pushes anyway, showing an amount of bravery that few people twice her age possess. The midwife encourages her as she screams through the pushing, the blood drips down her arms and pools on the linens below. 

It is an eternity, the push, the pull, the blood–and then a baby screams and your heart rejoices. Vesta smiles through her sigh, but her colour drains and she wilts like a crushed flower in your arms. 

“Vesta, Vesta do not sleep–wake up, you must hold the child, you have done it!” She does not respond however, and you use all the strength you can muster to hold her up as the midwife works feverishly to stop the steady river of blood from between her legs. 

“Domina–” It is a breathy whisper, a moment of clarity between a sightless flutter of her eyelids. 

“Vesta!” Her colour scares you, and the frantic movements of the midwife do nothing to bring her back to full wakefulness. 

“Vesta!”

-

The Gods are many things. They are generous, they have bestowed you with a happy home; a loving, devoted husband and a healthy child. They have plucked you from a life of servitude and made you Lady Acacius, wife of the General of the Roman army. 

They are merciful, they have guided your husband through countless battles and wars and made him victorious. They have blessed him with the love of the Emperor and the respect of the people of Rome, and made him a wealthy man. 

The Gods are also cruel.

All of the generosity, all of the gifts and blessings, every wonderful aspect of life must be paid for and they do not accept anything less than blood. 

She is smaller in death. Younger still than the picture of her you hold within your mind. The gauze covers her from head to foot but it does not move, her breath does not disturb the sheer fabric, her breast does not rise and fall with the breath of life. Her laughter, her easy smile is a ghost that haunts the corners of your house, her short life echoes in the cries of her son. 

Marcus handles everything to do with the procession, he arranges for her body to be burned, for all of the rights and proceedings required for a person after death. He spared you the details, and you were grateful for it. 

Diana’s grief for Vesta is an immense, untameable thing. It was a hurt you could not fix, a want that Marcus could not indulge. Seeing the gravity of it on her face, hearing it in her cries somehow seemed to magnify your own grief, it gained a new aspect. Her pain gave your pain dimension.

Atticus so resembled his mother that it was sometimes hard to hold him. 

Harder still was the little bit of reluctance within Marcus to get too close to the boy, a fear that he couldn’t hide whenever he held him—a slight crease between his brow, the careful way he cradled him so opposite of the natural connection he held with Diana from the second she had come to this world. There were aspects to that too, his feelings towards this orphaned boy. Reluctance of course, but also pity, empathy, a fierce protectiveness and above all, love.

-

The grief was still a sharp blade between the ribs when the letter came, and all it did was twist it, scrape it against your bones and bleed you dry.

“This must be a jest, a very poor jest.” Atticus sleeps against your breast, a long piece of linen wrapped about your middle holding him to you. 

“It is no jest my love, he is quite clear.” His tone is indecipherable and the glimpse of that more strategic aspect of him fills you with anger. 

“He writes to collect his son—“

“Atticus is not his son.” He sighs, resigned and tired rather than angry.

“In all truth, Atticus is his son—regardless of how we may feel about it.” He raises his hands to forestall the rage burning within. “He does have the right to claim him, take him and raise him as he sees fit.”

“Raise him? He did not even want him! He sold his mother to you without a second thought!” 

“I know, it is a difficult situation but we must think about this. In the end, he is the boy's father.” 

He sets his letters down and you can see a glimpse of something, that love you knew was there, that space within his heart—within his soul for another child shining through the anger and practicality; shining through the logic.

“No.” The blood in your veins boils, fizzles and cracks and lights up your bones with the injustice of it all, your hands cradle the small bundle at your breast almost involuntarily, an unconscious protection. His frown deepens.

“He is—“

“No Marcus. No.” Tears of frustration gather in the corners of your eyes, fed and watered by the shadow of grief that follows you like a cloud. Atticus moves and when you look at him Vestas face is so clear in his, her black hair a soft down on his head.

“I am a good wife, Marcus, I have never disobeyed you, never dishonoured you or questioned your word. Not during my servitude, and not during our years as husband and wife, but I will not stand for this. This child, Vestas' child, belongs in this house. She died here, bringing him into this world and I gave her my word that he would stay. I have said my prayers and made the sacrifices so that he may live here, loved and well-cared for and neither you, nor that man will take him from me.” The ire of it burns within your breast, shines out through your steady, unflinching gaze. 

He does not respond and the silence between you fills the space. You do not fear what he may say, you do not worry about what he may think, the anger and the grief are too big for that. He sighs, heavy and resigned before giving you a small, proud smile. 

“Very well, my love. He will stay.”

-

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[alessiathepirate]

Squid Game

THE SEARCH: Hwang Jun-ho x fem!reader

Summary: The search for Gi-hun takes its toll on her. Luckily, someone's there to help.

Notes: English isn't my first language. I apologize for any mistakes I may have made while I wrote this short story.

Warnings: swearing, mentioned death and guns, mentioned and/or referenced trauma and PTSD

●●●

She was dreaming again - that was the reason why she tried to avoid sleep ever since Gi-hun went missing.

--because she was always dreaming about him: him dying, him being alone, him being scared after all that trauma... And her dreams always pointed out her self-blaming - she wasn't supposed to leave him alone, she should be there with him...

Her dreams were troubled once again - with nightmares. She was dreaming about Gi-hun and the marble game, which he failed so he could save another player's life...

That was another reason why she was scared for Gi-hun: because she knew his own life wasn't important to him anymore. She knew it, because she felt the same way.

She woke up to someone shaking her awake. She felt hands grabbing her shoulders, she heard a voice calling out for her - yet she couldn't identify the person; not immediatelly anyway.

Tears were running down her face, blinding her; she could barely breathe; and she could still hear gunshots even though she was no longer asleep.

"Y/N..." she heard her name once more, this time clearer. "You're alright. It was just a dream. Y/N, can you hear me?"

She was shaking - God, she was shaking so badly she barely knew where she was or who she was.

Still, one of those hands gently touched her face, turning her head so her eyes could meet someone else's.

Her lips started to tremble.

"You're okay now. You're awake."

Her fingers wrapped themselves around the hand on her face.

"Jun-ho?"

Reality suddenly hit her and she could feel shame climb up her throat.

She stared into his eyes as he nodded, his lips curled upwards into a faint smile. She swallowed hard as she let go of his hand. Her fingers were still trembling, but she put her hands down and pushed herself upwards into a sitting position. Her blanket fell onto her lap.

"What time is it?" she asked quietly as she raked her fingers through her hair.

"It's almost midnight." Jun-ho said as he grabbed a water bottle from the small desk in the corner of the cabin; he gave it to her, then joined her on the floor.

As she drank she slowly looked around.

They were alone, although she could hear the henchmen, Woo-seok and Captain Park talk outside.

They were probably fishing, she thought. They needed something to do and the Captain needed a distraction after she almost punched him. He would've deserved it though, since he didn't want to look for the damn island late at night. He really should've said a thank you to Jun-ho, because he was the only reason why he didn't get a black eye.

As she put the bottle aside she noted a map and a marker on the desk, under the light of a flashlight. Jun-ho must've been working on finding the island and Gi-hun, when he noticed her trembling in the corner. She was really thankful for his help: for waking her up and for the search.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" she asked as she pointed at the map. "I could've helped."

"Because Woo-seok said you are barely sleeping." Jun-ho looked at her from the corner of his eyes. "And I agree with him."

She didn't want to meet his gaze.

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not." he argued and he sounded like a parent who's about to scold a child. "You barely eat, you barely sleep... I know you want to find Gi-hun more than anything, but you need your strength for it."

Her fingertips started to play with the edges of the blanket. She didn't say anything - she didn't know what to say.

Jun-ho was right, of course he was; but it was impossible to eat and sleep peacefully when guilt and fear was killing her from inside.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"About what?" she asked.

"You know what."

She knew - of course she did.

The nightmare was still being replayed in her head, again and again. She could see Gi-hun losing all ten of the marbles, she could hear the gunshots...

One of her hands shakily reached up to wipe away the tears.

When she took too long to answer, Jun-ho turned to look at her, and seeing her crying again made him regret his question.

"I'm sorry... we don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." his hand landed on her thigh and before he could pull it away, her hand was on his.

She look up at him, her eyes glassy and her lips once again trembling.

"I dreamt that he died." she said after she swallowed. "That's all I can think about - what if he's dead? He's playing those stupid games again and I'm not there..." her voice sounded angry as she spat those last few words. "I'm not there with him and we promised, we promised that we'd never leave each other..." she took a deep breath. "Gi-hun saved my fucking life more times than I can count. And now I failed him... I'm failing him every single moment when I'm not with him." the tears were burning her cheeks as they ran down her face and landed on the blanket. "Why can't it be me who's in there..."

She was full on crying by then, her body was shaking.

It was a pain so deep and unbearable... And nothing could help. Her heart ached, her whole being felt numb and heavy.

She just wanted it to end - all of it.

Jun-ho let go of her thigh and put both of his hands on her cheeks, his thumbs wiping away the tears. He made her look him in the eyes.

"Don't say that..." he put some locks of hair behind her ears and then went back to wiping away the tears - since they just didn't want to stop falling. "It's not your fault. None of it. You had no way of knowing what would happen at that party."

Gi-hun didn't let her go in with him. He wanted her to stay in the car with Jun-ho. He wanted her out of danger's way.

She should've fought harder.

"And you didn't fail him..."

"Yes, I did!" she shouted. "I fucking did..."

Jun-ho held onto her tightly, not letting her wiggle away until he was sure she's fine.

"You played Russian roulette for him!" he argued.

She just blinked in surprise.

That was how she met him again - Jun-ho. He wanted to arrest her after she won the game of Russian roulette against the Salesman. And later, when Gi-hun arrived he almost shot Jun-ho for keeping her in cuffs.

"You played Russian roulette, so that guy - that Salesman - wouldn't go after him." Jun-ho repeated. "You didn't fail him. And he knows that. He almost shot me for you."

She continued to cry quietly and he let her. He let her cry it out as he pulled her close, so she could hide her face in the crook of his neck.

She wrapped her arms around him, letting the blanket fall between them, since she finally had someone to talk to, to be honest with. Someone who understood the concept of loss and uncertainity.

"Thank you..." she whispered as she felt his fingers massage her scalp.

"It's nothing." he said. "And I promise you that we'll find him. Okay?" he felt her nod so he continued: "But I need you to get some sleep for that."

"I'll try." she mumbled.

They changed positions. Jun-ho leaned against the wooden wall of the cabin, while she rested her head on his shoulder. Their knees were touching, and she was sure it had been a while since she felt this kind of comfort.

Right then, she needed him.

Her crying slowly died down and she felt like she could both breathe and think again.

"Jun-ho?"

"What's wrong?" she found the panic in his voice adorable - and it felt great to know that someone cared.

"Nothing's wrong, I just... never really apologized for handcuffing you to the bathtub."

She felt his chest rise as he began to laugh, and the sudden change of mood in the cabin felt nice.

"I handcuffed you first. You have nothing to apologize for."

She felt a small smile tugging at her lips.

"I also apologize for accusing you of being one of Them; and for trying to shoot you." she said as she remembered him sitting in the bathtub as she pointed his own gun at him.

Jun-ho chuckled. "I kind of did those first too."

She couldn't help herself - a small, barely there chuckle left her mouth too.

"Well then... thank you, for being here."

Jun-ho didn't answer for a while and she felt ashamed for being so outspoken. Yet a few seconds later he kissed her forehead and she felt a rush of sudden heat run through her whole body.

"Of course, I'll always be here - if you need anything..."

Jun-ho continued to stroke her head; gentle touches caressing her scalp, her neck and then later on: her back. Slowly but surely her eyelids became heavier and heavier - until she fell into a dreamless, peaceful sleep.

Tomorrow she'd wake up with her head on Jun-ho's chest - and somehow her blanket would be over them, keeping them warm.

Tomorrow she'd wake up with a slight feeling of shame, yet she'd have a new reason to keep on going for.

Tomorrow Woo-seok would give her an all-smile thumbs up.

Tomorrow she'd continue the search with a new amount of hope, knowing she has someone who'll help her every step of the way...