#partly by her own husband

[dramarants]

Wanting more homoeroticism in the tension between the show’s leads as the narrative introduces greater intimacy and higher stakes between them, especially in a landscape that lacks queer representation who isn’t a villain or dies within one or two episodes, but also recognizing that core values/motivation for these characters lie in their relationships with one of two major female characters in an on screen sausage fest where the only other woman is a morally reprehensible femme fatale and erasing and/or vilifying female leads in favor of conventionally attractive males is a common practice observed in fandoms that’s rooted in misogyny and justified under the guise of rejecting heteronormativity, thinly veiled double standards, or claiming the woman is simply not interesting enough and not wanting to bolster that mindset

[moonvis]

IDIOTS IN LOVE

Steve Rogers x F! Reader

incl. Natasha, Wanda, Bucky and Tony

Summary: Being in love with Steve Rogers isn’t easy with all the dates Natasha sets him up with. One day you’ve had enough and ask her to set you up, something you’ve never let her before – and a certain blonde isn’t too pleased.

Warnings: Angst to fluff! Jealous! Steve and Jealous! Reader. Misunderstandings. Two blind idiots in love with each other. 4.3k words.

“Okay, I’m off to bed,” You said through a yawn and got up from the chair you’d been sitting in for the past hours, drinking and chatting with Natasha and Wanda.

Natasha took a sip from her glass, before asking, “See you in the morning for our run?”

“Count me in,” You nodded and walked towards the exit, your head facing Natasha, “Goodnight ladies.” The second you faced away, something tall crashed into you, making you trip on your own feet.

“Woah careful, doll!” A familiar voice said, as a hand grabbed you by your waist to steady you, “Are you okay, angel?”

“Steve! Oh- Thanks!” You felt a bit embarrassed as he was still holding onto you, his blue eyes looking down at you with what seemed like concern. His face was close, so very close, and his lips-

“Steve you’re back!” Natasha cheered from behind you, interrupting the moment, “How was your date?”

You immediately felt your heart drop at her question. Steve had been on a date. Again. You took a step away from the super soldier, looking down as he shifted his attention to Natasha, “It was good.”

You snuck out of the room in the blink of an eye, not wanting to hear about yet another one of Steves ‘good’ dates that never lead to a second one. Couldn’t he just choose one of the girls and make it official? That way you had no reason to hold onto the hope that he just might, someday, reciprocate your feelings.

You didn’t see the disappointment in Steve’s face when you suddenly disappeared out of sight.

You woke up in the morning with a burning headache. Partly because of the wine last night, but mostly because of Steve keeping you awake for hours. You always stayed to hear how his dates went, but it was always the same: “It was good, but there won’t be a second one, I’m afraid. Better luck next time Nat.”

Though what if it was different this time? What if he finally found the one? Your thoughts and feeling of regret were interrupted by a harsh knocking on your bedroom door.You knew it was Natasha and got out of bed. The floor felt extra cold this morning.

“I’ll be down in five!” You yelled trough the door and went to get dressed for your run. After swallowing some painkillers for your headache, you left your room to meet the redhead, desperately in need to get some fresh air.

You and Natasha jogged from the Avengers compound and ended up in the nearest park. As you felt the morning sun warming your skin, you felt a little relief lift off your shoulders. You needed this.

The two of you sat down at a bench, kind of like creeps, observing the civilians enjoying their own morning.

A dolled-up lady was walking her dog, or more like, the dog was walking her. You shared a laugh with Natasha at the sight. Your eyes followed her movements, watching as she passed a little girl blowing soap-bubbles. The little one let her tongue out to taste the bubbles, only for her nose to scrunch up in disgust.

“Cute.” Natasha commented from beside you. You smiled and let your eyes wander along with the bubbles flying away, which popped right next to an older couple holding hands. “Aww, look at them!” You commented.

The husband of the old couple, smacked his lady’s butt, growing a mischievous grin on his face. “Now, that’s cute.” Natasha commented this time.

“I know! Old people are the cutest.”

“I can only partly agree with you there. Buck and Steve are quite the old men,” Natasha laughed, “Wouldn’t call them cute.”

You chuckled lightly as your eyes left the old couple. To you, Steve was so much more than cute. He was the kindest, most caring man you’d ever met. He always listened to your small and bigger problems. He was always willing to drop everything to help you out. He was always by your side whenever you got hurt on a mission. You had no doubt he cared for you, and yet… he still went on all those dates like you weren’t even an option. He made you feel so special and loved, and you weren’t even each other’s. Oh, how lucky the one who wins his heart would be.

“Y/N? Earth to--”

“Oh, sorry!” You snapped out of your thoughts at Natasha trying to get your attention.

She gave you a concerned look as she spoke, “Are you okay? You seem down.”

“It’s just my head, it really hurts.” You excused, wiping away a tear you hadn’t noticed before.

“I’m sorry. Should we walk back? We can take it slow.” Natasha asked and got up from the bench, lending you a hand.

You accepted her hand and cracked a small smile, “Thank you kind lady.”

Once you started walking back towards the compound, a familiar figure caught your eye. Steve, with a girl beside him, was walking in your direction.

“Would you look at that! Steve’s on a second date,” Natasha cheered at the sight of Steve and Sharon Carter coming closer, “He said yesterday they wouldn’t go on a date again.”

Natasha was clearly trying to share her excitement with you, but all you felt was a knot tightening in your stomach. You liked Sharon, you really did, but of course she, a Carter,  would be the one to finally win Steve’s heart.

Natasha was waving at the pair, just to make sure they saw the two of you. The jealousy in your body didn’t help much with the headache, making you feel sick, “Nat, I’m just gonna go, okay?”

You weren’t in the mood to stand around and wait for Steve to arrive with his new love interest, you didn’t even bother to give Natasha a smile, “You can wait for them if you want. I’d like to have some alone time anyways.”

Natasha wasn’t sure how to react, starting to feel like it wasn’t just a headache bothering you, “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you later.” You left without taking another look back, leaving Natasha to start worry about you.

You didn’t see Steve’s expression go from excitement to concern as he watched you leave Natasha behind.

Back at the compound, you fall down onto your bed, soft sobs rocking your body. You’re tired of loving a man you’ll never have. You have his friendship, but your heart is still not satisfied. Now that Steve has found a beautiful woman like Sharon, maybe you can finally try to move on.

You roll onto your back, looking at the ceiling as your tears dry out. What are you going to do?

Then, it hits you. Natasha.

Just a soft knock on the door and a hug later, the redhead asks what she can do to make you feel better. You let out a sigh and ask away, “Could you help me, maybe… find a date?”

Natasha wasn’t sure she heard you correctly, but when you nodded, her face lit up in excitement, “Of course! It would be my absolute pleasure!” She didn’t even ask why you wanted a date all of a sudden, she was just happy you’d finally give her matchmaking a chance.  

“Oh my god! I have so many guys in mind. They would all be so lucky to have you Y/N. I have to pick one worth your time though!”

You chuckled as you listened to Natasha ramble on about who to pick for you, a feeling of excitement growing in your stomach. You were finally ready to give someone new a chance.

As the moon shone through your window, you thought about what tomorrow would bring. Natasha had already picked out a date whom you’d meet tomorrow night.

Busy in thought, you suddenly felt your stomach growl. Slipping out of bed, you put on a pair of slippers and wandered out your door towards the kitchen. Truth be told, you had been avoiding going around the compound in fear of meeting Steve, which also meant skipping dinner.

You fixed yourself a bowl of cereal and let your thoughts wander back to your upcoming date. What dress would you wear? Maybe the blue one? No. What about the white, the one you knew Steve loved so much?

“Hey.”

The sudden sound of a voice made you jump in your seat. As you choked on your cereal, you felt a hand patting your back.

“I’m sorry for scaring you. Are you okay, angel?”

You looked up to find Steve looking down at you. Damnit. You managed to embarrass  yourself in front of him again.

“I’m fine, thanks.” Your voice sounded hesitant, your eyes going back to your cereal. You listened as Steve made himself a cup of tea behind you, not a single word shared. You felt awkward.

You hoped he would just make his damn tea and leave - but of course not. The man sat down, right beside you, half facing you as he took a sip.

“So…” Steve began, and you felt yourself wanting to disappear. You were in the mindset of moving on a few minutes ago, but here he sat, the man you were so in love with, alone, giving you all of his attention. “How’re you doing? We haven’t talked much since, well, yesterday.”

Steve’s voice sounded hesitant, and you knew, that he knew, that something was up. The two of you hung out every single day, so not talking for 24 hours was unusual.

“I, uh… I’m okay. I’ve been a bit tired lately, that’s all.” You lied, and you didn’t sound very convincing either.

“Nat told me about your headache earlier today, at the park-”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You interrupted him, a hint of annoyance in your voice. You really didn’t want to talk about it. Especially not think about the sight of Steve walking alongside his new girl.

You hear Steve let out a sigh at your answer. You were hoping he’d let it go, though you knew Steve too well. The blonde put down his cup and turned his body fully towards you this time, “Y/N,” His voice sounded serious, “I know something’s up, more than just a headache, and it worries me. So, please, what is going on? Did I do something?”

You didn’t know you had it in you to be angry with Steve Rogers, but when you felt your blood boil, there was no going back. You jumped out of your chair and looked at him with rage in your eyes, “Why do you care, huh?”

You saw the immediate hurt in Steve’s eyes, his expression shocked at your sudden outburst. You didn’t care though, “It’s been a fucking day, and you’re worried about me because I haven’t talked to you yet? You haven’t even been home! The last time I saw you, quoting Natasha, you were on a second date with Sharon! Shouldn’t you be with her now anyways?”

“Y/N-”  

“No! Why the fuck do you sit here and talk to me like I’m the only thing you care about, like it matters how I’m doing? It doesn’t make any sense! You’ve always been like this, yet I’m just a friend sitting around while you go out and fuck all the girls Natasha find for you!” Your breath is heavy, tears threaten to spill from your eyes,

Steve was reaching out a hand to you but retracted it as tears streamed down your cheeks. You pointed a finger at the man, your teeth gritted together as you spoke, “And lastly, I am under no obligation to tell you anything about my feelings! So please, stop treating me like I’m your fucking girlfriend!”

Without taking another look at him, you spun around and left the room. As you disappeared out of sight, you ran down the hallway to escape into your room, not wanting Steve to follow. It was when you shut your bedroom door, you realised what you just did.

You yelled at Steve, for the first time ever. Worst of all, he hadn’t done anything to deserve it. That night, never ending sobs were rocking you to sleep.

As you stormed out of the kitchen, you didn’t see the look of heartbreak in Steve’s eyes. They carried more worry than before, confusion and a load of regret as he started to catch on to what was going on with you. It was all a misunderstanding, and he felt like the biggest idiot in the world.

Getting ready for your date was supposed to be fun and exciting, but after you yelled at Steve last night, nothing seemed to cheer you up.

You regretted every single word you yelled at him. He came to check up on you, but all he got in return was your anger. Though maybe it was for the best, now he had no reason to care about you anymore. You were an asshole. The thought hurt like hell, but you chose to use it as an excuse to ease your feelings.

You dressed up in a white beautiful dress, paired with a pair of white heels. It was Steve’s favourite outfit of yours – he had told you so with words, but his eyes when he looked you, oh, they said so much more. That's were you got the nickname angel from.

It was time to give the outfit a new association, perhaps, the first outfit you wore out with your new potential love interest?

As you walked down the compound hallway to leave, familiar voices came from the kitchen. You knew snooping was wrong, but you couldn’t help listening as it was Steve talking.  

“I’ve been a fool Buck,” Steve sighed, “What am I gonna do?”

“It’s all a big misunderstanding, right? Just tell her everything and I’m sure she’ll understand. Y/N always understands.”

“Yeah, tell her I’ve been going on a new date every week for the past year so that I can forget about her?” Steve groaned, “It sounds awful.”

It did sound awful. He really wanted to get rid of you huh? You didn’t understand why but his words hurt. “-so that I can forget about her.”

You sniffled and was ready to sneak past them, not wanting to hear anymore, but of course, both men noticed your presence. Stupid super hearing.

“Y/N?” Steve asked and walked a little closer to where you were standing, “Wow, angel, you look-” Steve gave you the same look as he always did when you dressed up. He looked at you in awe, which you usually loved, but now, you hated it.

“Princess, you look beautiful!” Bucky commented and walked over to kiss the top of your head, “Where are you headed off to?”

“Oh, I-” You looked at Steve, then shifted your attention back to Bucky, giving him a shy smile, “I’m going on a date.”

The words felt relieving to get out in front of Steve. Now he would know not to treat you like a girlfriend, since you were trying to see someone else, right?

“Oh, really?” Bucky sounded surprised, but you ignored it, “Have uh-” You noticed as Bucky gave a quick look at Steve, before plastering on a big smile, “Have a nice one then! Can’t wait to hear about it!”

“Thanks Buck,” You smiled, “I gotta go.”  

As you rushed out of the room, you didn’t see Steve clenching his jaw and fists. He was irritated at himself for letting it come to this. The feeling of jealusy made him feel sick.

It was an hour into the date, and you were actually enjoying your time. The guy Natasha had set you up with was an agent you had met before during some mission, Christopher. He was cute and had such golden retriever energy - he made you genuinely smile for the first time that day. Apparently he had been smitten with you for a while now, and to no surprise, Natasha knew.

As time passed by, it was time to head home. Both of you had work in the morning anyways. Cristopher followed you all the way back to the Avengers Compound, giving you a kiss on the cheek, “Thank you for giving me a chance Y/N. I had a really wonderful time. Will I see you again?”

Busy with your date, you didn’t see Steve standing nearby, observing the whole thing. He was tense, saddened and growing more and more jealous as he watched you laugh with the other guy.

Steve had come out to get some fresh air, to clear his head, but was interrupted by your arrival. You looked so beautiful, and the sound of your sweet laughter made his knees weak. Oh, how he wished he was the one who caused it.

The morning after your date with Cristopher, you felt the best you had in the last few days. You hummed as you entered the kitchen, the smell of something delicious hitting your nose, “Oh, what’s that smell? It’s amazing.”

“’I made pancakes, so I hope you’re hungry!” Bucky cheered and handed you a plate. You accepted it gladly and sat down at the table next to Natasha and Wanda to your left, and Tony to your right.

“Hey girl, you seem happy. I’m guessing the date was a success?” Natasha asked as she took a bite of her breakfast.

“You finally went on a date with Steve? Rhodes owe me money-” Tony started at the information.

You almost chocked on your first bite of the pancake. Why would he even think that? Didn’t he know Steve was dating Sharon?

“No, Tones, wrong,” Natasha corrected him, “She went with that guy Cristopher. Remember that agent who wouldn’t shut up about her?”

“Oh yeah! The guy who was blabbering about Y/N almost as much as Steve does!”

Steve was blabbering on about you?    

“Anyways, tell us how it went? When’s the next date?” Wanda asked, eager to know.

You chuckled a little nervously, “Well, you see--” You stopped talking as soon as Steve entered the kitchen, shocked to see his fallen shoulders and saddened eyes.

You observed as he grabbed a plate of pankakes, before heading over to the counter to make his morning tea. It was weird not hearing a good morning, or getting greeted with his soft smile. You had no idea what was bothering him, and it killed you inside.

"Y/N? You were saying?" Natasha questioned, as you had left them all hanging.

Your eyes didn't leave Steve's figure, even though he was facing away, "It uh... The date was good."

You watched Steve's whole posture tense as you spoke. Oh, how much you wanted to ask if he was okay. You just didn't feel like you had the right to. The last time you spoke, you were yelling at his face.

"Come on! Give us the details!" Tony pushed.

You shook your head, suddenly not wanting to bother Steve with details of your date. You plasteted on a forced smirk, "You'll have to wait and see if we weet again."

"No come on!"

As Steve was facing away, you couldn't see the tears forming in his eyes. You couln't see the absolute heartbreak on his face from the thought of having lost you. He really felt like he had lost the most important person in his life - and you didn't even know he saw you as such.

Over the past few days, you hadn't shared a single word with Steve, and it was starting to drive you crazy. You didn’t even face each other while in the same room - it was a good thing you hadn't shared a mission yet.

All you wanted was for Steve to be happy, and to be his friend again, so with that, you decided it was time to apologize for your behaviour – even if he wouldn’t forgive you for being such an ass, you knew it was the right thing to do.

Your palms felt sweaty, and your mouth all dried out as you stepped outside his room, “Okay… here goes nothing.” You knocked on the door, feeling your heart thump rapidly against your chest.

When he didn’t answer you knocked twice, then again and again. Giving up, you asked Tony’s A.I. for help, “FRIDAY, where’s Steve?”

“In the gym ma’am.”

You let out a sigh, “Is he… okay?”

“From what I can tell, he seems distressed and angry.”

You felt a knot in your stomach. It was 8 pm, and Steve never worked out in the gym that late unless he was upset, “Fuck… Thanks FRIDAY.”

Earlier that day, Steve had been walking past the door to your room at least five times, with the intention to make up. Though the super solider was way too nervous to bother you and chickened out. It was killing him not having your company every day. He missed you. So, with his emotions changing from heartbreak to anger, and the heavy regret from not telling you the truth and let your relationship come to this, he escaped to the gym.

You entered the gym and carefully closed the door behind you. It took you seconds to see Steve by the six destroyed punching bags on the floor, the seventh about to face the same faith.

Steve’s back was tense, and you could see the anger he was feeling in every punch. You felt the knot in your stomach from before tightening, your palms even more sweaty. Taking a deep breath, you walked up to him; it was time to face the music.

Speaking of music, before you knew it your ears were singing a high-pitched tone, your head hurt and your whole back was facing the cold floor beneath you.

“Oh my god!” Steve rushed to your side, worry in his voice, “Are you okay? I’m so sorry Angel!”

You blinked a few times before looking up at the concerned man above you. Putting a hand to your head, you groaned out due to the pain. Releasing deep breath, you let Steve help you up, “I guess I deserved that.”

You had been so smart to come up behind the Captain and stand in front of the punching bag. Because of Steve’s quick and hard punches, he failed to notice you in time, and punced the bag into you, sending you flying to the floor.

“Seriously, are you okay, doll?”

The concern in Steve’s voice made you forget why you came her in the first place. You only nodded and let him lead you to sit down on a bench. He didn’t let go of your hand as you both sat down.

Steve let out a shaky breath. It was clear it had scared him when he saw you flying in the air, and it was all his fault too. You could see the guilt on his face. He still cared so damn much.

You had enough of Steve feeling so down because of you, he didn’t deserve a second of it, “Steve I’m okay. I’m the idiot for creeping up on you like that… Also, I kinda deserved it after how shitty I’ve been treating you.”

“What are you talking about?” There was confusion in the Captain’s eyes.

“Just… let me talk.” Suddenly you had the courage to just get it out. You took hold of both his hands and looked deeply into his blue eyes, “I’m so sorry Steve. I’ve been an absolute asshole towards you.”

Steve opened his mouth to say something, but closed it as you shook your head, “Let me continue. You’re my best friend and I have so much love for you. You’ve been nothing but good to me, and I was yelling at you for it. Thinking about how good you treat me, your friend, I can only imagine how good you treat Sharon. She’s very lucky and I wish you guys the best.”

Your gaze fell from Steve and down into your lap, “I… I’ve been jealous. With all those dates you’ve been on… Why couldn’t you just pick one the girls and get it over with? I…”

“Cause none of them were you.”

You looked up at him, shock in your eyes, unsure if you heard him correctly. Steve plastered on a small smile, his eyes so soft as he looked into yours, “Y/N, there’s nothing between Sharon and I. The other day, when you saw us at the park, we were walking back from visiting Peggy’s grave. It was only a coincidence we were there at the same time.”

“Oh… but what about your date the day before? You said it was good?” You asked, feeling almost ashamed.

“You left too soon to hear what I told Nat and Wanda. I had a good time, but I wasn’t interested. I’d have way more fun with someone else there with me…” Steve’s voice was low, his hand coming up to caress your cheek, “I can’t hold it back anymore Y/N. I love you; I always have. And those stupid dates?”

Tears were streaming down your cheeks at his confession. Never in a million years would you have thought he loved you back.

Steve chuckled lightly, a hint of sadness in his eyes, “I went on those to get you off my mind. I never belied you could love me back, you’re way too good for me, Angel. Though every damn date I went on, I just couldn’t get you off my mind. Every time they wanted me to come home with them, I only thought; No, I can’t do that to my best girl.”

“Steve…” You felt so stupid for not having confessed your feelings earlier. All this misunderstanding could’ve been avoided, “I love you too. I love you so damn much Stevie.”

Steve breath caught in his throat, not sure he was hearing you clearly, “What?” The word came out weak, like he was scared to wake up from a dream, “What about--”

“Cristopher?” You giggled, “Oh, I had a nice time with him, but you know, he wasn’t you.”

Steve laughed loudly and you joined in. Both of you realised how stupid and blind you had been. You loved each other.

Steve caressed your cheek again, his thumb stroking over your soft skin. The look in his eyes were different than before; you knew it was love. His features, his voice, all soft, “Can I… kiss you?”

You only nodded and let him lead you towards his lips. The kiss was gentle, but a firework erupted inside of you. It made tears fall from your eyes, his too. Pulling away, Steve kissed the top of your head before speaking, “My beautiful, Angel. I can’t believe I finally have you.”

You threw yourself forward and let him wrap his strong arms around you. His embrace felt like home.

It felt so right, and finally, your heart was satisfied.

You didn’t see the tears continue to stream down Steve’s cheeks. You didn’t see the huge weight being lifted off his shoulders. He was so damn in love with you, and he already knew that someday, he wanted to call you his wife.  

THE END! Thank you so much for reading, feedback is very much appreciated <3

[mariasont]

Please, Don't Prove 'Em Right - A.H

a/n: my girl sabrina can do no wrong and i have been listening to this song on repeat since it came out so i just absolutely needed to write a fic about it

masterlist

pairings: aaron hotchner x fem!reader

summary: aaron hotchner is a busy man and he tends to disappoint you by missing important events

warnings: angst (sorry in advance), aaron is like not a great husband, reader is also an imperfect character, reader is a girl boss though

wc: 1.2k

You were in your best dress. More expensive than you'd ever think about buying for yourself, but it had been a gift from Aaron. You had fought him on it, scolding him for spending so much on a dress you were sure to only wear once. But he had insisted, telling you that this opportunity was once in a lifetime and that it would be a sin for it to not be celebrated with a dress that made you shine like a ruby.

He was right, partly, you were shining--glowing, sparkling, glittering--as you moved through the library. It was beautiful, to say the least--all opulence and history that was almost too much to absorb. The marble floors almost seemed to amplify the conversations around you, the clinking of glasses, the swish of overpriced gowns and tuxedos.

Your eyes settled on the tiered desks fitted with bronze reading lamps, now repurposed as a station for hors d'oeuvres and champagne. The circular arrangement of desks, once centered around knowledge, now facilitated hushed gossip and the discreet laughter of society's finest.

You could almost hear what they were thinking: there she is again without her husband, that poor thing always by herself, and your personal favorite—does he even exist?

You wanted to be angry, to scold their prying eyes, for putting their noses into something that had nothing to do with them whatsoever. But could you really blame them? Every event you attended you told the same story--my husband is a busy man with an important job--a line you had grown tired of repeating. 

And that was all true. He devoted most of his time to saving lives--how could you find fault in that? How could you complain to having a husband whose very essence was self-sacrifice and heroism?

This evening was set to be an exception; he was in New York for a case, and the Pulitzer Prize ceremony was not something he would miss. He had given you his word.

You understood his passion for his job, completely, because you held that same passion for your own. You dedicated years of your life to your journalism, investigating corruption at its highest levels. This is exactly how you ended up here tonight, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for that very work. A Pulitzer Prize.

The term once seemed like a fantastical concept to you, a lofty accolade reserved for the likes of JFK, Bob Dylan, Robert Frost--icons, not someone as ordinary as you. Yet, against all odds, you find yourself among the select few, a nominee for an honor that has only been won by 1,512 individuals since 1917, a fact Spencer had supplied you with.

Someone was speaking to you, saying your name. Almost without thinking, your hand found a flute of champagne, taking a generous sip before turning to face them.

"You look stunning, and a well-deserved congratulations are in order. Everyone back at the office is cheering for you." It was your boss, her stilettos adding inches to her already imposing frame.

The flattery didn't quite mask her usual coldness, it was all too artificial. She wasn't your biggest fan, and she had made that clear from your first day. Still, you mustered a smile and thanked her anyway, taking another sip of champagne, hoping to drown away her nauseating voice.

"It's too bad your husband couldn't be here," she began, and you had to resist the urge to rip out her extensions. "This is an incredible accomplishment, but he's quite the busy man, as you say."

"Yes, he is busy, but he'll be here tonight," you replied, flashing her your best smile as you smoothed the red fabric that suddenly felt too tight. "He's actually here in New York on a case."

"Oh, how great. I can't wait to put a face to the name." You could tell by the look she shot her own husband that she didn't believe a word from your mouth. "Anyway, I have to go speak with an academy representative, but I'll see you and your husband at the ceremony?"

You responded with a nod, not dignifying her with words as she left, her giggles a bitter sound. You hated her. And you were ready to make her eat her words when your husband, who looked absolutely incredibly in a suit, showed up.

But then it was dinner, and you found yourself alone, surrounded by a table of important people whose names you couldn't remember. The seat beside you was empty and suddenly that omnipotent, cloud-nine feeling you had vanished with the time that passed.

The text you sent piled up, feeling a little juvenile, like you were back in high school again getting stood up at prom.

Let me know when you're close!

Is everything going okay?

Call me if you can.

An onslaught of anxious thoughts skyrocketed around your mind as you mechanically chewed the fancy food that only seemed to upset your stomach further. What if something happened? Was he okay? Did the case go wrong? Did he get in a car accident on the way here?

You were a bundle of nerves, gnawing on the inside of your mouth as your heel tapped up and down against the floor. But this wasn't borne from concern for his well-being; deep down, you were certain he was fine. The truth was simpler and sharper: he wasn't coming.

You should have been prepared, should have braced for this, but you were convinced that this time, this occasion would be an exception.

You name was being called, but this time not by someone wanting to extract prying information or stir speculation, no, this time it was carried across the crowed, wrapped in the microphone's static hum.

Your head snapped up, fingers ceasing their fidgeting as you struggled to mask the shock and avoid the gaping, breathless look of a fish out of water.

You had won.

People were clapped, but it seemed far away as you made your way to the stage, hands coming from all directions to offer pats on the back and handshakes of congratulations.

You had won.

Your feet were carrying you up a small set of stairs. You were trying to remember how to walk--left, right, heel, toe. There was a bright light on you now, prompting a slight squint and you worked to keep a smile on your face as you accepted the award.

You had to be dreaming. Had to be. There was no other explanation.

You were on display now, under the intense stage lights. Your body was on autopilot, stepping behind the podium, words flowing out of your mouth--a speech you had rehearsed over and over again in the slim chance that you would win. And here you are.

But the more you spoke the more you seemed to deviate from the script.

You paused, voice catching as you tried your best not to let the tears fall--your makeup was too pristine for smears.

"But tonight, as I accept this honor, I am reminded that while we may seek comfort in the presence of others, our truest strength comes from within." Your eyes dart around the audience, clinging to the slim chance he's there, that he showed up. "It comes from knowing that when we step into the moment, we step in with conviction, with passion, and sometimes, with a singularity that says we are enough."

The final words of your speech hang in the air, a brittle hope that disappears as quickly as it surfaced. He proved them right, and no amount of applause can drown out the sound of your heart breaking just a little.

part 2

taglist: @hotchhner @khxna @readergf @sarcasm-and-stiles @edencherries @aurorsworld @princess76179

[desireangel]

Dark Cherry [5] | Aemond Targaryen

Aemond Targaryen x Fem!Reader

Summary: after months of a marriage that hardly harbours the passion that you'd dreamed about, you stumble across the reason for your husband's indifference and decide enough is enough. Aemond will learn just exactly what he's been missing out on.

Word Count: 6k

Warnings: MDNI 18+!! canon divergence!!! Angst!! Aegon is a little shit and doesn't understand boundaries, talk of and allusion to sex, past infidelity, grovelling, Aemond is scared of his emotions, talk of pregnancy and trouble with pregnancy. Talk of miscarriage (not reader's!). Please let me know if I have left anything out!

Author's note: thank you for bearing with me!! I have been busy but my final exam is on the 8th of Nov, and I'm taking a day off from exam prep for my birthday before then, so things should pick up soon on my end. please, once again, let me know your thoughts!

Masterlist

The tea room was silent when he stepped in the next morning. Aemond had been the first to arrive, woken from a shallow sleep at the first stream of sunlight that broke through the curtains. Sleep didn’t come easy to him lately and there was hardly any doubt in his mind as to why. 

It was unlike the Dowager Queen to be late anywhere. Especially when she had been the one to tell him of her plans to discuss certain matters. Embarrassing, really. It was utterly humiliating and pathetic that your marriage had become a problem for more than just yourself and your husband. 

Alicent hadn’t kept him waiting for long and Aemond had barely settled into his seat by the time she had stepped through the door. Greeting her with a stiff nod, Aemond watched as she made herself comfortable, looking ever as poised and elegant as she always did. He wondered if she ever tired of keeping up appearances, even when alone with her own children. 

“Your wife,” she cleared her throat, smoothing out the creases of her dress on her lap. “Aemond, I expected better from you. You are not Aegon; I thought you would be an honourable husband.”

Sucking in a breath, Aemond refused to meet her eye. Only partly out of shame but more so because he knew Alicent could read him better than anyone. She would know his apprehension, she would know his guilt and his shame and all the heartache that came with it. And she would only make it worse. 

Disappointment was all that Aemond could feel from her. It wasn’t new as such. Only, until now he had watched as she stared at Aegon with those eyes. Never himself. In fact, Alicent was nothing if not dismissive when it came to her second son and the feeling of letting his mother down created a whirlpool of uncomfortable sensations in his stomach. 

Wary of his own failure and unsure of how to receive her chagrin, Aemond locked his jaw and kept his head held high. 

“Did you call for me so that you could scold me, mother? For not having a perfect marriage–as if yours was?”

Alicent frowned at him. “You already know I am disappointed. But this is getting out of hand. People gossip–”

“Let them,” he turned away. “I don’t care for it.”

“You should. At least for the dignity of your wife and the threat of scandal on the entire family,” Alicent spoke clearly, with confidence and with reprimand. It was the tone she had only ever used on Aegon and Aemond felt a bubbling of distaste to be on the receiving end of it. “People are questioning your union. Give them a reason not to.”

He scoffed, annoyed at being pestered on something that was already making him lose his stability and his clarity. It had his head falling back and he pinched at the bridge of his nose. “What scheme are you preparing now, mother?”

A look of regret and sadness washed over Alicent’s features and she stood, walking around the table to take a seat beside Aemond on the settee that he sat on. She reached for hands with a tenderness that he had not felt from her in years and it almost made him wretch from the agonizing unfamiliarity. He watched Alicent collect her thoughts, her eyes flitting across his face. 

“You must give her a child, Aemond–” 

A knock from the guard at the door, followed by an announcement of your arrival had them turning to face you at the door. Alicent sighed, wondering how Aemond would take to hearing what she had to say in your presence but greeted you softly and invited you to sit down. 

Aemond couldn’t help himself. His gaze followed your every move and his chest tightened uncomfortably when he noticed how you avoided even looking in his direction. Knowing her son better than anyone would credit her for, Alicent saw the longing and regret in the furrow of his eyebrows and the pursing of his lips. It seemed as if he was a young boy again, desperately yearning for the affection she did not know how to properly give him. 

The seat just across from where mother and son sat was empty and you let yourself settle into it, apologising for interrupting them mid conversation and for arriving late. “You wanted to discuss something with us, Your Grace?”

“Yes,” Alicent didn’t let go of Aemond’s hand. The air grew tense and she cleared her throat before speaking, worried glances shared back and forth from you to Aemond. “I am not here to counsel your marriage but it has been several months. I have discussed the matter of your childlessness with Aegon and some other Councilmen.”

Struggling to find the words to say, you were thankful that Aemond had spoken first. It was exactly what you had expected to hear from her. It was surprising she hadn’t said it sooner. You wondered what exactly Aegon had to say about it but quickly realised that she probably only mentioned the King’s name for formality’s sake. 

With tense shoulders and his gaze locked on you as you continued to avoid meeting his eye, Aemond’s voice was a calm contrast to his frustration. “I understand what my duty is, mother, but we are in the midst of a war. A pregnant wife followed by a new child would be untimely and impractical.”

Hoping you didn’t take his words to mean something that they did not, Aemond refused to look away from you, watching as you frowned. “If my husband does not wish for me to carry a child, Your Grace, I cannot force one upon him.”

At the tense silence that followed, you finally met Aemond’s gaze. A silent challenge that he understood as clear as day. He shifted, turning to his mother with an indifferent expression.

A child. Aemond wished for children of his own to love and adore; he wished to be the father he never had. For the first time since the wedding, Aemond could imagine making you a mother and being made a father by you. It was a sweet thought that had something stirring underneath his skin. 

What he had said was exactly what he believed and there was no hidden meaning to his words. He wasn’t making excuses and it was truly just the worst possible time to bring a baby into the world. But from the way your face had fallen, Aemond cursed himself to dragonfire for speaking as he had. 

“It is difficult,” Alicent sighed. “And I hate to burden the both of you. But if you have not yet come to be with child and it continues like this, I am afraid we will have to look to other options. You may be the second son, Aemond, but we still need the security of your heir.”

Alicent didn’t mean to be insensitive in reminding Aemond of his standing. She knew he was ambitious and being born second will forever torment him. But she was never good at weaving her affection for her children into her words. 

“Other options?” you asked. Instantly, from the pitiful look that Alicent gave you, you wished you had stayed silent. 

Somehow, Aemond hadn’t thought about that. He waited for Alicent to respond. 

You could see the way that your mother-in-law looked at you. With pity and an unspoken apology. She had spoken to you only two nights prior yet it felt like the conversation had never happened. Not with how she silenced any talk of Alys within the walls of the Keep and not with how she had all but avoided you ever since. 

It was easy for them to disregard everyone else. Those who were not born being given and served. You were the daughter of a lowly lord and there was no peasantry in your childhood but it was nothing compared to how pretentious and entitled the lords and ladies of the court could be. You supposed it was only a matter of time before they noticed the weakness your marriage had become for you and pounced upon it at first chance. 

Aegon, who had sauntered into the tea room with heavy steps, sat down in the chair beside you. He grinned at the suffocating tension. “Before anyone complains of my tardiness, I apologise for it. A… restless night lends me to later mornings. You would understand brother, had you been tending to your wife as your duties would call for.”

A hum and a glare was all Aemond had for his brother. It was pointless that Aegon would even be present for the makeshift Council meeting that this had become. 

Ignoring Aegon further than the slight bow of your head in greeting, you faced the Queen without letting your head drop. “What do you mean by other options, Your Grace?”

There was nothing that could have made it easier for Alicent to say it but she reached out and squeezed Aemond’s bicep in an attempt to comfort him through the ultimatum she was giving him. 

“There are grounds to annul the marriage,” Alicent was almost whispering. “Since you have not yet come to be with child. And word that your marriage was never consummated has been travelling through the halls.”

A lie. Your marriage had most definitely been consummated but you assumed that should the King wish it, it would be as easy as his signature and his word to have everyone convinced. “You’ll have me cast out?”

Aemond was stiff as he shook his head. A surprise to you; you figured it would have made sense for him to take his out where it was presented to him. But instead, when you finally met his eye, he was glowing with a quiet anger. 

“Absolutely not,” he grunted. “We will try for a child. In any circumstances, I will not have my marriage annulled. I will not dishonour my wife in entertaining such a suggestion, mother.”

As if he hadn’t already dishonoured his wife. You wanted to scratch him for saying that but he had taken a stand for you and you had to appreciate that for what it was. 

Aegon snickered from his seat beside you. “There are other ladies who may bare you a child with more ease, brother.”

“I wish to do it,” you muttered, barely giving Aegon more than a sideways glance before you focused your attention on Aemond. He was not pleased, that much was obvious. “We will try–I wish to have a child.”

Laughter from the right side of you, loud and obnoxious. “With a husband who is repulsed by you? There are many Lords who–”

Aemond stood, one hand instinctively moving to rest on the handle of the dagger strapped to his side and the other tightly balled into a fist. He wouldn’t use the weapon but it was a natural response for him to rest his hand there. Risking a glance your way, Aemond felt nauseous at the fallen look on your face. “Enough, Aegon. Mind your tongue.”

Alicent looked dejected, her eyes flitting between her sons before returning to you. “It must be this way. If your body cannot take to pregnancy, then we must find someo–”

“And if it is me? If it is my body that fails to create a child even if you force another wife upon me?” Aemond turned to you, scowling when Aegon rested a comforting hand on your back. You gently shifted so that he wasn’t touching you.

“It is not you.” 

A deep frown and a glance at the walls was enough to know Aemond had shared in your thoughts. It was most definitely him - just not in the way he was making it seem. It was Aemond who had not sought out your intimacy enough to give your womb the chance to bear fruit in the first place. 

“We cannot know that for sure, mother.”

“Well,” Aegon ignored the pleading look that his mother sent him. “If your seed could take with Alys Rivers then you are surely not the problem, Aemond.”

In the silence you could hear Aemond draw in a long breath. He looked to you first, seemingly as shocked as you were in that moment, shaking his head when you straightened in your seat. There was a panic in his eye, a pink flush on his cheek as he swallowed his nerves. 

The room felt a little like it was spinning, and an emptiness grew as you took a moment to understand Aegon’s words. When the King placed a hand daringly on your leg as if he were comforting you, you didn’t even think before pushing it away. You looked to Aemond, who watched you blink away an onslaught of tears but you refused to drop your head, no matter the shame and humiliation that prickled under your skin. 

There was a waver in your voice when you spoke, forcing the words past the lump in your throat. “She is with child?”

“It is not possible,” Aemond was quick to respond. “I did not-we did not-”

“You didn’t fuck her, brother?” If he weren’t the King, Aegon worried Aemond would have murdered him. “Because that is not what I have heard.”

Alicent pinched at the bridge of her nose, grimacing at the vulgarity with which he freely spoke. “Leave, Aegon.”

He protested meagerly before a sharp look from the Dowager Queen had him sulking his way out of the room. You watched him leave, slightly perturbed at the way he was provoking Aemond, rubbing it in his face (and by extension, yours) that he had enjoyed the strain in your marriage without having to speak it. That he had enjoyed you because of Aemond’s shortfalls.

“She cannot be with child,” Aemond took his brother’s empty seat, placing his hand on your arm, holding you almost desperately. “And if she is then it is not mine. I have not laid with her in such a way.”

When you pulled away from him, you noticed him visibly shrink back. He knew you would not believe his truth but he needed you to. The mistakes had been made, and Aemond would undo them if he could. Only, there was no changing things now. And he would carry the burden of his adultery until his last breath but he would find a way to give you all the stars in the sky and all the cherries that blossomed if it meant you would give him another chance.

“Alys is no longer carrying a child,” Alicent clarified. “The servants spoke of her pregnancy. Before your marriage existed and before she had first returned to Harrenhal. She spoke of the child being yours but it did not survive in her womb.”

Before your marriage existed. 

It still left a bitter taste in your mouth. “Does she remain at the Red Keep?”

“She is in the servants quarters,” Aemond answers, carefully. “I will send her away. It should bring you some peace.”

Nodding silently, you ignored how certain he was of her whereabouts and returned your attention to Alicent as she focused on her son with a pitiful look. You knew little about Aemond but you knew that if he understood her pity, he would hate it. “We will do our best, Your Grace.”

Awkwardly, Alicent stood and collected herself. “I have also arranged for the servants to shift your things to Aemond’s chambers. Perhaps it may help to stay closer to one another.”

Aemond grimaced. Had it really come down to his mother having to take such actions? He felt sick. If he had known the option was there, he would have arranged for it himself. The look on your face, however, told him you wouldn’t have accepted it. But you couldn’t argue with Alicent. Instead, you let out a breath and nodded with a smile that barely reached your cheeks. 

The evening came by quickly. You had reluctantly been sorting through your belongings as they were shifted, helping the serving staff to place your things without disturbing Aemond’s too much. 

A feast to welcome the Lord Pennrose, whom you had never even heard of, was being set as you organised your dresses, fitting them into the wardrobe that had been moved to sit beside Aemond’s. The maids who had been tasked to do so were hesitant to let you help but you had insisted that anything was better than spending the time listening to tiresome Ladies drone on about gossip and pester you about your personal affairs.  The task was something that helped clear your mind and keep you distracted from the worry in your chest at the thought of the Queen’s kindly worded threat.

This was all you had. And if your marriage were to be annulled, it would be the end of not only your dignity but your chances at a secure life. 

Your stomach had been churning without break since you had understood the extent of Alys and Aemond’s past relationship. And while she had been pregnant with his child before you had even met Aemond, it filled you with a sorrow you could not explain. A jealousy for she had been carrying his child, as you were chastised for being unable to do. It was all the more difficult knowing the child had not made it through to birth, something you were ashamed to admit a small part of you was relieved at. 

You willed that part of you away, instead focusing on the fact that it was not you who had failed to do your duty. But it was your husband, who had refused to give you a fair chance to even try.

A knock at the door and Ser Tunsley had entered to inform you of the King’s presence. You sighed. Aegon was forever trouble and you were of half a mind to think that you had only encouraged his flame of indecency and immaturity by letting him into your mouth. 

He was brazen, to continue seeking you out after Aemond’s wrath had left him clutching his stones and waddling for days. 

Aegon let out a whistle, his eyes running over the expanse of the room, lingering on the empty chests that had been used to carry your garments into Aemond’s chambers. “My brother is an imbecile. If it takes instruction for him to let such a comely wife into his bed then he is truly senseless.”

“Why are you here, Aegon? We are unaccompanied.”

“I’m quite sure that if you were my wife,” he grinned, coming to stand directly in front of where you sat perched on the edge of the bed. Aegon let the backs of his fingers glide across your cheek, chuckling when you pushed his hand away with a glare. “You would be kept full with my seed. No matter. Should Aemond’s not take, mine would suffice.”

Swallowing thickly, you shifted so that your back was facing him. From where you had sat, your face was almost in line with his pelvis and you wondered if Aegon truly believed you would indulge him in such a way once more. “Do you not have responsibilities to tend to, my King?”

“No one would be any wiser,” he ignored your question. “Silver-haired, violet-eyed babes. Not even Aemond would know.”

“Do not be ridiculous, Your Grace. I would be more of a sinner in the eyes of the Seven,” you reasoned. “And I do not wish to–”

With a laugh, Aegon fell backwards onto Aemond’s bed. The mattress dipped under your leg from his weight. He reached out, pulling at your arm and grunting when you refused to move. “That is not how you felt when you let me enjoy that pretty little mouth of yours.”

“It was a mistake.” Feeling sick, you stood abruptly. “If you would take your leave, my King, perhaps I may rest before tonight’s feast.”

“Lies.”

“My husband will not be pleased to know that you are here and we are alone-”

“No, he would not be pleased.” Aegon rolled his eyes. “I have paid the price for that once already.”

Provocation came naturally to Aegon. In fact, you were half convinced that he revelled in it. Truthfully, he was well aware of how he would trigger Aemond’s anger. But it was so fun for Aegon to push and push, knowing that his brother could not subject him to anything of consequence merely because of the crown that sat atop his head. 

Somehow, Aegon had moved so swiftly that you had barely noticed until he was standing in front of you. There was a perpetual mischief in his eyes and a boyish lust that had you stepping back, only to fall onto the bed once again. He bent forward, resting his hands on the mattress, fists curling around the linens that were at either side of you. 

You gasped. “Do not.”

His breath reeked of wine. It wasn’t surprising. Aegon glanced over his shoulder, looking to the door before his face fell to the space beside yours. His lips ghosted over your cheek, as if he were choosing not to press them to your skin and you moved to push him away, releasing a relieved sigh when Aegon grunted and stumbled away. 

“I see,” he straightened with a toothy grin that almost made you feel sick. “You have regained your loyalty to your husband. A shame-”

The sound of the door shutting interrupted Aegon before he could finish his sentence. Your heart dropped and when your gaze met your husband’s eye from where you sat, dishevelled and hardly looking the part of innocence, you shook your head quietly, hoping he would understand. Aemond’s jaw ticked in response and he faced Aegon, squaring his shoulders and letting his hand rest on the dagger in a wordless threat. 

He had entered so silently that neither of you had noticed his presence. Aegon cleared his throat, jutting his chin upwards. “Not to worry, dear brother. I have not defiled your wife agai–”

“Get out, Aegon.” Aemond was eerily composed but the challenge in his stance gave away his anger. “There are Lords of the Council looking for their King.”

With a huff, Aegon stalked towards where the Prince stood. “I was merely offering a favour should you fail her once more. A Targaryen heir is a Targaryen heir regardless of whom it came from, no?”

It turned Aemond’s stomach. He’d had enough of these games but Aegon, despite how Aemond had just seen you refuse him, wouldn’t relent in his chase for Aemond’s humiliation. Forever taunted by his brother to no end, he wondered just how he could excuse himself for cutting Aegon’s tongue from him. Or even his cock, as Aemond had already considered such a punishment the last time he had caught Aegon alone with you.

Aemond was ashamed to admit that a part of him feared you would take Aegon for what he was offering. In the way you had turned to Aegon to satiate your desires when he was too much of an arrogant fool to push aside his ego. He had no right to hold any anger at you; not when he had first done the same to you. But it ate him up from the inside out and Aemond was certain he would not have peace from it any time soon.

Narrowing his eye, Aemond’s hand flew out to grab the collar of Aegon’s tunic. He hissed out his words, his anger seeping through his threat. “You will not bother my wife anymore, Aegon. Or you will bleed for it. Do you understand?”

“I could have you whipped for threatening me. Or worse.”

Aemond was unphased. “Do you understand?”

His calm, stoic resolve was transparent and Aegon was of enough sense to understand that it only made Aemond far deadlier. So with a grunt of acknowledgment, Aegon jerked away and nodded, barely throwing you a sideways glance before he was gone. 

When the two of you were left alone, Aemond let out a long breath, moving to take a seat beside you. His shoulders were taught and you noticed the stiffness with which he moved, betraying the emotions he was so accustomed to keeping under a tight lid.

“He is an idiot,” you murmured. “A witless fool.”

Your husband let out what sounded almost like a laugh. “I cannot argue with that. Are you alright?”

A storm of guilt and disgust waged in your stomach. The idea of your tryst with Aegon was unnerving and you wondered where your repugnance was for the King only one week ago. He was a bully, a cad and he had little shame in how he behaved with you. 

“I am fine,” you answered. The two of you sat at the edge of his bed, facing forward. Husband and wife, shoulder to shoulder but still somehow worlds apart. “But it is bothering you. Nothing untoward happened. He only spoke with me.”

It was an invasion of your space. And it was a bit frightening the way that Aegon had no regard for the boundaries of your privacy nor the boundaries of decency and honour. But it would only anger Aemond more to tell him of this. And you were sure that Aegon would back off under both his brother’s threat and your rejection.

Alys and her lost child had plagued your mind since you had left the tea room. And when you looked at Aemond, you can see it had done the same to him. But when Aemond looked at you, he was upset and he was insecure and you could see it all in the way he locked himself up and gave you a simple nod. 

A pang of concern had you hesitantly reaching a hand for his. “I know there is distance between us. But I meant it when I said that there would be no more of those games. If that is what bothers you.”

When you finally turned to really see him, to take in the colour of his eye that reminded you of the violets that bloomed in the gardens back home. Aemond was a master of hiding himself away behind masks but he let his distress seep through the cracks, his eye holding thousands of unspoken apologies and fears. 

Ten seconds must have passed as you simply tried to make sense of what you were seeing, to figure him out. Because Aemond may always know exactly what to say when faced by Lords and Ladies of title about matters of politics and philosophy but he was always clueless as to how to look at you and speak the truth of what he wishes you knew. 

It was all inside of him. The way Aemond’s heart had pounded so hard when he had first met you that it terrified him into seclusion, or the way he failed to keep protecting himself from the threat he became to himself because of how he craved affection. 

At first it was easy to ignore, when Aemond refused to spend any longer by your side than appearances required of him. When he came to your bed, forcing himself not to enjoy you as his beautiful, tempting wife while he spilled inside you as was required of him. Or when he wished to show you all the ways your body could fall apart only to be pieced back together by him and nobody else but bit his tongue and resisted the urge instead. 

But there came an almost unrecognisable point when Aemond just could not do it anymore. Not when you had decided that you needed more from him and had shown him how you wanted him. Only for him to panic and take it as a challenge, bring Alys back to frighten you away and tempt you even more. 

Control was all Aemond had known over his own emotions and even those of the people around him who were becoming easier for him to manipulate how he pleased. But it was slipping through his fingers and when Aemond was alone at night, nothing other than his own hand and imagination, his mind was entirely under your control and you had no clue of it. 

Feeling scared and out of his depth was nothing new to Aemond. But this was different. This time, he couldn’t escape it and in trying so hard to run away from it, he had only created a cesspool of fucked up mistakes for which the consequences were all too much for him to handle. 

The biggest problem of them all was that Aemond wanted to explain. He wanted to tell you that for you, there was a fire inside him that he once wished to quell but he no longer wanted to put it out. A flame that Aemond had become desperate to be consumed by. And that he could see you were burning in the same way for him and he wanted to protect that blaze so that it would continue to grow until it consumed you too. 

Aemond didn’t know how to tell you. He didn’t know how to make you understand. 

He didn’t know how to make you realise that he was sorry. That he would do whatever it took to gain back your affection; if he ever had it to begin with. 

If it meant sharing all of himself with you, Aemond would learn how to do it. If it meant having you by his side at every hour of the day and every hour of the night, Aemond would do it. If it meant giving you a child, Aemond would give you many. If it meant giving you whatever you wished to wear or to eat, Aemond would dress you and feed you with his own hands. If it meant having Alys dead, Aemond would hold the dagger himself. 

“I regret all the pain and humiliation I have caused you,” he murmured. Aemond brought his hand to your cheek, dropping to kneel at your lap, grazing the knuckles of his fingers across your soft skin. “I would change everything if I could. I regret it.”

Aemond could no longer hide behind all the confidence, all the teasing and the feigned indifference. But he didn’t know why the words were so painful. The truth lay heavy at the end of his tongue but his lips wouldn’t let it pass. 

I am sorry. 

You shivered under his gentle touch. “If you are sorry, you must say it. And you must mean it. There is much pain to overcome.”

There was a flash of something untold in his expression. The way Aemond looked at you, as if he were begging you to understand that it was so difficult for him to give in, had you reaching for him, sliding down so that you could be level with him. You couldn’t have resisted the unexplainable force that pulled you to your husband, as if you would choke and suffocate on the feelings that balled up in your throat if you were not close to him.

Hands cradling his face, your fingertips brushed against the strap of his eyepatch. Aemond’s lips parted in a silent gasp, growing rigid under your touch and when you looked at him, asking him without saying the words, he knew he needed to let you see him for how he is. Honestly and willingly. So Aemond nodded, eyebrows furrowed as his good eye gently shut. 

“It is more than just the pressure to create an heir. I want to put this agony behind us Aemond,” you said, leaning forward so that your forehead was pressed against his. Each exhale of Aemond’s breath mixed with yours, warm and inviting as you held him softly. “I want to be the only one for you. I want us to be secure. I want us to have a family. I want you to love me–to try and love me at the very least. But you need to let me know if you are truly sorry so that I may find it within myself to forgive you.”

Rich, deep blue caught the light of the lamps, glimmering when you removed the leather that covered the sapphire in place of an eye. It was a beautiful shade and it was pretty against the tone of his skin and the silver of his hair. You had seen it from afar by accident but here, Aemond was closer to you than he had ever been. Vulnerable and honest, his heart aching just as yours did. The sharp inhale and quiver of his lip sent a sharp sadness to your gut. 

Aemond’s moved ever so slightly against your own with his heavy breaths. You let your fingers trace the bottom of his scar, a small, hesitant smile finding your lips as you spoke. “You are beautiful Aemond. Truly. You never need to hide your true self from me.”

Words that meant more than just what they were. 

“I am-” Aemond’s words caught and he swallowed as he opened his eye to hold your gaze. “I am sorry, my love.”

“Thank you,” you smiled, shuddering as he gently nudged forward, his lips so close to yours that you could feel an anticipatory tickle. “I am sorry too. We can work on forgiving each other together.”

“You never needed my forgiveness,” Aemond’s lips touched yours so lightly it may well have been a breeze from the open window. “I am yours in every which way, even in your pain and regret. In my own, as well. I can only show you how I will treasure you as I should have from the moment I first kissed your knuckles. And if it takes a lifetime to earn your forgiveness then so be it.”

A rush of heat and your lips finally met. For the first time since your wedding, sharing air and reaching to be closer, closer. Aemond’s kiss was heavy, his hands reaching for your waist, pulling you impossibly closer, as if he intended for you to become one with his body. You were dizzied by the passion that he showed you, just from his lips upon yours, greedy and grateful and holding a message that was clearer than it could ever be in spoken word. 

Clutching at the back of your dress, Aemond’s hands were warm and heavy wherever he touched. You needed more of it, whimpering delicately when his lips pulled back, only to move to the crevice of your neck, leaving hot kisses on your skin that had you shuddering from the lingering sensation. 

Groaning, Aemond pulled back only as far as necessary to respond to the knock at the door, pulling you up swiftly and running a tender hand across your hair to put it back in place. You were flustered, chest heaving and eyes wide, looking at him in a way that had Aemond’s blood rushing to his cock. Gods, you were beautiful like this and he thought of how he wished to see this form of you for the rest of his life. 

It was your maids at the door, blushing profusely as they reminded you of the feast that they had returned to prepare you for. You sighed, stepping away from your husband, who had turned swiftly to place his eyepatch back on. Aemond’s grin didn’t falter when he stepped away to give you some privacy and you thought briefly about how his smile may be your favourite sight in the world. 

Relief and excitement and a little bit of dread overcame you. It would not be an easy road ahead, but you realised that if you both tried then perhaps this was a step towards a new direction. One in which you could feel the passion and the possibility of love simmering underneath the healing you had left to do. At least now, you hoped, you would have your husband by your side.

tagging: @padfooteyes @thedyingwriter @mamawiggers1980 @queenofshinigamis @ewanmitchellfanatic @nurtargaryen @happinessinthebeing

[flowerandblood]

The Price of Pride (16/?)

[ canon • Aemond x Royce • female ]

[ warnings: sex content, unprotected sex, targcest stuff, smut, the angst, sexual tension, imprisonment, abuse of power ]

[ description: Prince Aemond finds a solution to the disproportion in the number of dragons between Dragonstone and King's Landing: he decides to find dragon blood and, like his half-sister, train dragon riders. He takes as his target the daughter of Daemon Targaryen and Rhea Royce, whom he abducts and imprisons in the Red Keep. Slow burn, darkish, insolent, arrogant Aemond. I have combined several requests here: (dragon blood female & prisoner female). ]

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

_____

She didn't know if there was a worse humiliation for a man than being forced to fuck his wife in front of other people – on top of that, if he was listening to mockery from his own brother. She didn't know what to do to help him, so she simply covered his ears so that he couldn't hear what Aegon was saying.

He had always been a twat.

He'd been lying with his first for years, surely imagining it was our mother.

Say, cousin, does he cuddle up to your tits too?

Does he suck on your nipples like a little baby?

She knew he was saying it to hurt them both and was furious that he had partly succeeded – she felt pain and discomfort at the thought of her husband returning to the embrace of another woman, the woman he trusted, the woman he desired, the woman he felt safe with.

The realisation that nothing he had experienced with her was new to him filled her with sadness.

She knew, however, that her husband was suffering more now and it was him she should focus on.

She prayed that Aegon's words didn't reach his ears – he was truly focused on his task, preserved in the embrace of her arms, cuddled into her breasts simply pursuing his peak, treating her body like his own hand.

He had to do this, and she begged in her mind for him to simply come, moaning softly, wanting to give him courage and deafen whatever was leaving his brother's mouth.

She felt a squeeze in her throat when he lifted his head, when she saw his gaze full of sadness and regret begging her to comfort him – she took his face in her hands and let their lips melt together in a wonderfully warm, tender kiss.

She sighed loudly when she felt his warm seed finally spill inside her, and he groaned quietly, moving inside her for a moment longer.

It wasn't until everyone had left and they remained alone that he burst out crying like a small child.

She wasn't surprised – she herself had been horrified by how cruel this spectacle had been, and wondered if this was how his brother had treated him all his life.

She finally understood why he hid behind a stony face, why he was cold and aggressive, why he was endlessly anxious to prove his worth – whatever he did, what he suffered in the end was humiliation.

She stroked his body and embraced him, lying behind him on the soft bedding, singing him the lullabies that her nanny used to sing to her when she was still a little child. Her voice must have been to his liking, because eventually he turned in her arms and cuddled his face between her soft breasts, demanding more.

So she sang for so long until she finally felt him fall asleep.

She flinched and twisted in her place, awakened in the middle of the night from a deep slumber as she felt his hand on her waist – his lips placed a soft, warm kiss on her neck while his fingers slid slowly between her thighs – she sighed, not opening her eyes, unsure if it was a dream or not, feeling his fingertips sink into her delicate, silky folds.

"– mmm –" She hummed, feeling a pleasant tickle in her lower abdomen as his fingers began to play with her little bud, trailing around it in lazy, slow strokes, slowly building tension deep inside her.

"– shhh – sleep –" He whispered in her ear, placing moist, gentle little kisses on her face – his other hand slid under her body and closed over her breast, teasing her hard, popping nipple, his fingers between her thighs soaked in her wetness.

"– ah –" She moaned as she felt his hard manhood hit her buttocks, then again and again – she sighed as his hand gripped her silken thigh and spread it, lifting it slightly upwards, the swollen, thick head of his erection pushed against her slit, opening her wide.

"– Aemond –" She mumbled out as he began to groan along with her, slowly sliding all the way into her, imposing an aggressive, fast pace on her at once. His fingers slid down from her breasts to her throbbing womanhood – while the tip of his length rubbed the spot deep inside her again and again, his fingertips stroked her little pearl from the outside.

She squirmed, clasping her hand on his arm, panting loudly along with him, listening to the way their bare hips pounded against each other with loud, sticky splats.

"– yes – yes, yes, yes, yes, please –" She begged, feeling that she was so wonderfully close, his hot, accelerated breath on her face telling her that he wanted nothing more than for her to come.

"– shhh – come on, soak my cock – thaat's it, there we go –" He whispered tenderly into her ear as her fleshy walls pulsed around his hard manhood in spasms of pleasure – she threw her head back, moaning sweetly along with him, feeling her moisture run down her thigh when, after a few messy, sloppy thrusts, her husband filled her with his seed with a sigh of relief.

She swallowed hard when he put his arms around her and hugged her back to his torso, entwining their legs together, leaving his throbbing length deep inside her.

"– can we remain like this? –" He asked quietly, and she nodded.

"– yes – I want to feel you –" She muttered, and he hummed contentedly, placing a warm, affectionate kiss on her bare shoulder.

She thought that she was going to experience nothing but rest until sunrise, but as soon as her husband awoke, still before dawn, he turned her gently onto her stomach and used her body to his heart's content.

"– ah – mghm – g-gods –" She mewled, half sunk in sleep, clasping her hands on the soft bedding beneath her, feeling the sweet tension in her loins again as he pounded into her from behind with loud smacks of their hips, hitting her little spot again and again.

"– sleep –" He breathed out in a voice heavy with desire, their bodies hot and throbbing, his swollen erection thrusting hard between her soft, warm thighs, not letting her escape.

She gasped as she came with him, listening to his groans of pleasure, unsure how many times he had done this to her – when she awoke, her cunt was all sore, leaking with his spend.

"– how many times have you taken me through the night? –" She mumbled, snuggled into his bare chest, trying to count in her thoughts.

Three?

Four?

Probably four, she thought.

"– I don't know what you mean – I slept like a little baby –" He murmured softly, running his fingertips down her back, not opening his eye.

She huffed quietly, knowing that he did this because he wanted to regain control over the situation, that he couldn't allow their closeness to be associated with the humiliation he had suffered because of his brother.

"– how am I supposed to fly on Sheepstealer today if I struggle to even sit down? –" She asked resentfully and heard him sigh heavily.

"– you had no objections then –" He grunted.

When, she wanted to ask to tease him further, but she didn't dare.

She raised herself on her elbow and shook her head, amused.

"– you must promise to let my poor, aching womanhood rest –" She said softly.

He pressed his lips together, tracing her bare, girlish body with the gaze of his healthy eye.

"– for how long? –" He asked uncertainly, unhappy.

She stroked his head with her fingers, looking at him with tenderness, his gaze fixed on her face gentle.

"– one night should be enough –" She replied.

He hummed under his breath and nodded.

"– mmm – very well – you have satisfied me many times tonight – you deserve to rest –" He muttered, and she placed a loud, lingering kiss on his cheek.

"– let's eat together –"

Despite the unpleasant events of last evening, the thought that they would be having a morning meal together for the first time filled them with good mood – her husband, dressed only in a linen shirt and breeches, sat down at the table as she headed for the seat on the other side, putting her nightgown over her shoulders.

"– what are you doing? –" He asked, grabbing for the bread, looking at her in surprise. "– take a seat by my side – unless I'm terrifying you so much –"

She smiled at his words and moved towards him, sitting down in the chair right next to him.

She wanted their closeness to be based on his desire – for him to know that he had control over what was happening between them and that she would not impose on him even as his wife.

It was the first time she'd seen what he ate in the morning – it didn't surprise her that he reached for scrambled eggs – a source of protein and strength he needed before sparring and training. She smiled under her breath as she herself reached for a platter of oatmeal, pouring it into her small bowl before pouring warm milk over it.

They ate in silence, but it was a pleasant kind of it, devoid of discomfort or tension – she couldn't help but smile, catching him glancing at her once in a while, the expression on his face gentle and content. She reached out her hand to him – he hummed under his breath and grasped her fingers in his, stroking her soft skin with his thumb.

So this is what her days will be like now, she thought, feeling nothing but peace for some reason.

"– I have a gift for you –" She said lightly.

He blinked and cocked his head, his smirk indicating that he was curious and excited.

"– mmm –"

She quickly ate a few spoonfuls of her porridge and rose from her seat, walking to one of the chests that had been moved to his chamber the day before.

Her Prince had wished her to have some of her belongings in his quarters, so that when she spent nights with him she could stay in his room in comfort.

She reached deep and smiled under her breath as she felt a long object wrapped in the fabric – she took it out and approached him – he wiped his hands in the white cloth, swallowing loudly at what was in his mouth.

She pulled the material off in a sweeping motion, and to their eyes appeared a long dagger specially made to her order – she had hunted many times with her cousin in Runestone and knew what proportions would be right for a man of his stature and height, making sure it would fit his hand well.

Her husband took her gift in his hands, completely surprised, gazing intently at the handle, which ended with the head of a dragon that had small sapphire stones inserted in the place of its eyes.

"– Vhagar –" He muttered, noticing in the beast's features a resemblance to his dragoness, which was no coincidence.

"– I drew her for the smith as best I could –" She confessed, and he looked at her, something in his gaze from which she felt a pleasant warmth in her heart.

He was touched.

"– it's a beautiful, thoughtful gift – of course that's what I received from my wife –" He said softly, taking her hand in his, lifting it to his lips, placing a delicate, tender kiss on her skin.

"– I also have a gift for you, ābrazȳrys – but I'm afraid it can't compare to yours –" He said, and she smiled with excitement and nodded.

"– wait for me –" He said and rose from his seat, moving towards the door, leaving the chamber.

What was this if he couldn't keep it in the room?

She waited for him for several long minutes, and when the door finally opened and he stood in the threshold, she noticed a small ball covered in fur in his arms, making a squeaky, high-pitched sounds.

It's a puppy, she thought in disbelief.

A hunting dog.

She got up from her seat and ran over to him, gushing with joy, reaching out her hands to him – her husband handed her the pup, who barked loudly and started wagging his tail – he had long, loping ears, his belly and paws were white, his back and sides brown and black.

"– I thought we should set off on a hunt together someday – when I saw him, I found you had the same eyes – I couldn't resist that pleading look –" He hummed, folding his hands behind his back, clearly pleased with her reaction.

"– hello, little one – ah, you're so sweet –" She mumbled as he licked her with his tiny pink tongue, squirming in her arms with excitement.

"– iksis ñuha ābrazȳrys biare? (is my wife happy?) –" He asked, and she threw him a joyful, bright look.

"– kessa (yes) – emā vēttan nyke olvie biare, valzȳrys (you have made me very happy, husband) –" She said softly, coming up to him – she stood up on her toes, placing a warm, wet kiss on his scarred cheek, from which a grimace of satisfaction spread across his face.

Her husband was to provide her little friend with an education so that, in fact, her dog could accompany them on hunts – the Prince burst out laughing when she said she would name her hound Daemon.

"– at last there will be a Daemon in my life whom I will be able to love –" She grunted, gently combing his hair after the bath – she longed to help him care for it herself and tie it at the back of his head, finding it a very private and intimate task, perfect for a wife.

She saw that, at the word love, he gave her a long, drawn-out look in the reflection of the mirror, but did not say a word.

She didn't care what he felt for her.

He was making her happy.

"Will you fly with me… to Harrenhal?" He asked suddenly in a voice strangely quiet and uncertain, as if for some reason he feared her refusal and rejection.

She threw him a quick, surprised glance, braiding the front strands of his snow-white hair with a black ribbon.

"Of course. My place is by your side. Always." She said without hesitation and placed her hand on his shoulder. She smiled warmly when his fingers caught hers, pressing her palm to his full, moist lips.

"– kirimvose, zaldrītsos (thank you, little dragon) –" He whispered, as if ashamed of his own words. "– kirimvose syt issare sȳz naejot nyke (thank you for being kind to me) –"

She blinked, feeling her heart squeeze at his words, so childlike, simple and sincere, guessing how difficult it had been for him to get such an embarrassing confession out.

"– iksā sȳz naejot nyke tolī, lēkia (you are kind to me too, big brother) –" She said softly, throwing her hands on his shoulders, leaning in so that her lips placed a gentle kiss on his temple.

When they were both ready, as planned, they set off on horseback to Vhagar's lair to soar into the sky on their dragons and fly over King's Landing – there was something beautiful in this act of unity, in the proof that from now on they were creating something common, together.

The meeting of the Small Council, which took place after their return, proceeded in a tense atmosphere – her husband made no sign of what humiliation he had suffered the day before, but his rage and desire for revenge was evident in his tense figure and sinister gaze.

His brother paid for rising from his bed with excruciating pain, so he was again given large quantities of the milk of the poppy.

"Now that the future of the Kingdom has been secured by marriage, we must take measures to take back Harrenhal from the Blacks. Daemon is gathering his forces there, ready to set out any day to his wife's aid. We must face him before the two armies are united." Said Otto in a voice full of calm and conviction about the rightness of his own words.

The Prince nodded.

"My wife and I will move at the head of our army in a few days to finally resolve this matter. I count on my sister and Dreamfyre, though not eager to fight, to defend the keep in our absence." He said coldly, and his grandfather nodded.

"I will see to it."

The rest of the day, which her husband spent on his duties, she spent in her chamber, playing on the floor with her new little pup – she knew she would have to return him to his guardian for the night to sleep with the other dogs, but now she could enjoy being with this sweet, innocent creature.

She liked how well thought out this gift was – not only did her husband show that he knew her nature, but he also gave her something to bring them closer together in the future, to give them another reason to spend time together.

This thought comforted her in the moments when her imagination showed her his face snuggled into the bosom of some pretty, mature, tender woman.

Did he love her?

Maybe he still does.

She blinked as the door to her chamber opened and her husband's sister, Queen Helaena, stepped inside – she rose quickly and bowed, surprised by this visit.

"I am sorry." She said, playing with the rings on her fingers. "For what happened to you last evening."

She nodded, accepting her words in her heart.

They had never spoken to each other before – after her son's death, it seemed to her that she had lived in a land of her own mind, unable to bear reality.

Her eyes lit up at the sight of her baby dog, who ran up to her on his short paws, squealing and whimpering, begging for attention. She smiled, looking up at her with an expression of childlike joy on her face.

"A puppy. Can I pet him?" She asked softly, and she nodded, throwing her a hearty, genuine smile.

"Of course, Your Grace." She said calmly, and seeing that the Queen sat on her knees on the ground, scratching Daemon's back, she did the same, taking the seat opposite her.

"My brother. He has changed." She said, however, not looking at her, but at her pup, busy combing his fur with her fingers.

"I don't follow, my Queen. Do you mean your lord-husband?" She asked in surprise.

"Aemond. Before he imprisoned you, he was on the path to his own destruction. There is a fire flowing through his veins that burns him from the inside everyday, however, he began to control himself for you – he doesn't want you to look at him like our mother does. With regret and resentment." She said calmly and gave her a long, dreamy look, then turned her gaze away again, as if distracted.

"Do you like to embroider? I like it a lot. Preferably all sorts of insects." She said lightly, suddenly changing the subject.

She blinked, feeling her heart pounding like a mad, unsure of how to behave, figuring she would simply follow the course of her thoughts.

"Unfortunately, I'm not talented in this aspect. Or maybe I didn't have a good teacher." She said honestly.

"I can teach you. It's not difficult if you master the technique properly." She replied, allowing Daemon to climb onto her thighs, content to recline comfortably in her lap.

"Very well." She replied without thinking, recognising that she should not refuse her.

Helaena did not look at her, but smiled broadly, as if her words made her happy.

"Your son will have your eyes."

She froze, looking at her in disbelief, wondering if she had heard correctly what she had said.

"Forgive me, Your Grace, but I do not understand." She muttered.

"I can see you holding him in your arms. The future king."

She swallowed hard, feeling the drop of a cold sweat run down her back.

"And my husband?"

"He is not beside you. All I hear is the sound of water."

She looked at her, feeling as if she froze, her heart stopped beating for a moment.

He is not beside you.

Why?

"What do you mean, Your Grace?" She mumbled in a trembling voice.

Helaena lifted her gaze to her, her face suddenly serious and fully focused – they both shuddered as the door to her chamber opened, and her lēkia stepped inside.

"Sister." He said cautiously, standing between them – Helaena, however, rose immediately without looking at them, her eyes widening again.

"– keep her close –" She said to him and walked away, leaving them with expressions of disbelief on their faces – her brother turned to follow her, concerned.

"What was that supposed to mean?" He asked when the door of her chamber closed behind her.

She shook her head, shrugging her shoulders.

"The death of her son has caused her to close herself off in her mind. She is lost." She muttered, herself not believing what she was saying, unable, however, to shift this burden onto him.

"What did she tell you?" He asked further, stepping closer to her, tense, his hands clenched into fists.

"She expressed her grief and sorrow for what her brother-husband did to us." She replied, thinking that telling him only part of the truth wasn't a lie after all.

All I hear is the sound of water.

"Never mind." He said, wanting to quickly change this uncomfortable topic.

"I have come to announce to you that summoning you to my chamber every day is tedious. I expect you to wait for me in my bed every evening." He said in an official tone, as if he had just presented her with some royal decree.

She smiled wearily and nodded, taking little Daemon's in her hands.

"Very well. I will take my friend back to his brothers and sisters and come to you." She said softly.

He hummed, pleased with her answer and left, leaving her alone.

She clenched her eyelids and burst into sobs as soon as the door to her chamber closed behind him.

He is not beside you.

All I hear is the sound of water.

So where will he be while she is caring for their child?

With his mistress in a hot bath?

She swallowed hard, looking down at her trembling hands, trying to calm herself, realising only now that Aegon's words had sunk into her heart like a thorn.

She preferred not to let him see her tears, so she cried until she calmed down – she recognised that prophecies and dreams, even if they contained a grain of truth, did not represent the full picture.

Surely there was something she could have done, she thought, trying to reassure herself, walking to his chamber in only her nightgown and a thin robe thrown over her shoulders.

Her husband was lying on his bed when she came in, holding a book on his thighs, which he was looking through curiously – he lifted his gaze to her when he heard her footsteps and hummed, his eye expressing gentle contentment.

"Come here." He murmured softly, drawing her to him by her hand when she was close enough, making her fall against his chest.

"– how is your little cunt? – did it rest properly today? –" He asked lightly, pulling the material of her nightgown up – he gently sunk his long fingers into her silky folds from the side of her buttocks, making her involuntarily smile with amusement.

"– yes – I am grateful to you for your understanding, husband –" She said softly, placing a warm, tender kiss on his cheek, while his other hand was stroking her back in lazy, slow motions.

"– mmm –" He said, spreading himself comfortably beside her as she lay on the soft bedding on her back, stroking his jaw with her knuckles.

He is not beside you.

She swallowed hard, feeling a squeeze in her throat, thinking that she cherished that face, those lips, those eyebrows, those cheekbones, that chin and nose.

"What are you thinking about?" He whispered, seeing that her thoughts had drifted far away.

She blinked, pressing her lips together, feeling warm tears begin to run down her cheeks one by one, his loud gasp told her he was surprised.

"– what's it? – look at me, ābrazȳrys – where are these tears coming from? – tell me –" He muttered with sincere worry, lifting her chin with his finger, as if he was afraid that something had happened that would make him suffer her rejection.

Could she have asked him about her?

Of course not.

He will be furious.

"I can't. It's a subject you certainly don't want to discuss with me or anyone else." She muttered wearily and heard him swallow hard, his hot breath enveloping her face.

He was silent for a long moment, as if hesitating, and then she heard him open his mouth.

"You are my wife. I allow you to ask me anything you wish. I know you will not deliberately offend me or cause me discomfort." He said slowly, his voice trembling slightly, betraying his anxiety.

She looked at him surprised, whooping with tears, meeting his concerned, sad gaze.

This was not what she had expected.

She licked her lower lip, dry with stress, wanting to find the right words, the right way to tell him what was bothering her and not discourage him at the same time.

"What Aegon said. Then. He was referring to a woman who was important to you. Who you trusted. Who you kept coming back to. I don't know what I expected, but hearing that you did the same things with her that you do with me hurt me. Maybe because you are my first. There was no one before you."

"And the servant boy?" He asked dryly, looking at her sternly, wrinkling his brow – although he looked as if he was frustrated, his fingers trailing down her neck and cheek softened his expression.

She blinked and shook her head, wondering what that had to do with anything.

"I was desperate. I wished for someone to make me feel good, to make me feel safe. After all, you know it – you were there. You gave it to me yourself." She whispered.

"And there you have your answer." He replied calmly.

They looked at each other in silence, just being and breathing.

You have your answer.

He was desperate.

He wanted to feel good.

To feel safe.

He had no one to turn to, no one to go to, so out of desperation he went back to the brothel, to the woman who gave him comfort, to forget, at least for a moment, what he was experiencing inside himself.

She nodded, accepting his words, and he sighed quietly, as if relieved, obviously afraid that she would try to continue the subject further.

His hand slid down to her warm cheek, wet with her tears, which he brushed away with his thumb. She felt a pleasant sensation in her heart as he leaned in, his forehead pressed against hers.

"– there's no point in dwelling on the past – not when there's a shared future ahead of us – yours and my fate – no one else's –" He whispered, as if he was telling her his secret, something he was ashamed of.

Yours and my fate.

No one else's.

Something in his words, in the way he said them, made her feel relieved. She smiled softly and he drew in a loud breath, looking at her for a moment, only to cup her face in his hands and sink his fleshy lips into hers in a hungry, aggressive kiss.

She moaned into his throat, clasping her fingers in his hair, teasing his mouth with hers with sweet sighs of delight, thinking of how much she adored his scent, his closeness, his touch.

"– hāedar –" He breathed out into her lips between the loud clicks of their saliva, as if he was saying the words of a prayer.

She let his hands tear off her nightgown, let his head lean down, let his lips clamp greedily on her puffy nipple, sucking on it with his loud grunt of pleasure, her fingers pressing his body against her breasts.

She sighed as his lips traveled higher, placing wet, sticky kisses on her collarbone, on the hollow of her neck, on her jaw.

"– I want you inside me –" She mumbled, and he broke his caress, throwing her a surprised look.

"– I exaggerated last night – I don't want to cause you pain –" He said uncertainly, stroking her hot cheek with his broad hand.

"– I want to feel you – just be gentle –" She said, throwing her arms around his neck, spreading her thighs in front of him without shame.

She was his wife after all.

No more encouragement was needed – his hands immediately slid down to his breeches, untying them, after a moment releasing his heavy, swollen erection that hit her lower abdomen.

"– come here – there you go – shhh – easy –" He whispered as he guided his long manhood to her slit and with a slow, lazy thrust he opened her on the head of his cock, pressing his forehead against hers, looking down at what he was doing to her.

"– sadly, this poor cunt won't get any rest tonight – mmm –" He gasped out as he gently slid all the way into her – she moaned, feeling her aching walls pulsing around his hard length with desire, thinking that all she wanted was to be one with him.

Don't go where I can't follow you, she thought, looking at his face, his misty gaze full of hot lust, feeling the soft, steady thrusts of his hips as he rooted into her with the quiet clicks of her wetness.

"– does it hurt? – I'll stop, just say a word –" He whispered, stroking her cheeks, her shoulders, the sides of her waist and her buttocks, as if he couldn't decide what was more dear to him.

He leaned over her as she shook her head and kissed her in a way from which her heart fluttered in her chest like a bird – his moist lips brushed hers in a wonderfully tender, sweet caress, his thumb stroking her silky cheek, holding her close.

She closed her eyes, concentrating only on that, on his scent, his loud, warm breath, his sighs, the fleshy structure of his full lips that melded with hers again and again, his hard, pulsing erection stretching her slick core.

"– my lips never touched hers – never caressed her down there –" He whispered into her mouth, making hot shiver run down her spine, her cunt giving his length one, greedy squeeze – they both groaned into each other's throats as he shyly quickened his pace, thrusting into her more confidently, hitting the sweet spot deep inside her fleshy walls.

"– then, in the library – it was my first kiss –" He breathed out with difficulty, slamming into her harder and harder, his hips bumping against her buttocks with loud slaps.

She sobbed into his throat as his full lips sunk into hers again, the loud clicking of their saliva all around them in the utter chaos of their tongues and teeth.

Then, in the library.

It was my first kiss.

"– don't leave me –" She mewled into his mouth, feeling the wonderful tension building in her lower abdomen, a pleasant, tickling sensation running through her nipples, her fingertips and her throbbing, leaking womanhood.

"– never –" He breathed out, pressing his lips against hers in a more violent, passionate kisses, matching his thrusts, rough and deep, evidence of his pure lust – his hand ran lower, between her thighs, his thumb finding her little bud, all swollen with desire, brushing it with circular strokes.

"– I love you –" She cried out, feeling that her peak was approaching, that she was about to experience the strongest fulfilment of her life – she heard him sigh in surprise, his cock throbbing hard inside her in response, pounding into her with sticky clicks of her moisture.

"– I love you – I love you – I love you –" She sobbed loudly, feeling tears run down the sides of her face, clasping her fingers over his soft buttocks – his gaze was hot and dark as he looked down at her, his mouth wide open in disbelief, his hips slamming into her as hard as if he had lost his mind.

"– me – me too – f-fuck, I love you too – ah –" He exhaled and gasped, feeling her warm cunt begin to clench on his cock in delight, sucking it inside, her sweet whimpers of pleasure making him just come with a loud grunt, all welted and sweaty just as she was.

"– good gods, hāedar –" He breathed out and fell on top of her, as if he didn't believe what they had just done and said.

And yet.

Her walls were sore all over, but the feeling of fulfilment she experienced now, when he was deep inside her, when she smelled his scent, when she heard his heavy breath, was irreplaceable.

He gave her neck a little, tentative kiss, panting hard along with her, his manhood throbbing softly deep inside her, filling her with the remains of his seed.

He wanted to slide out of her, but her hands clamped down on his buttocks.

"– no – not yet –" She mumbled, and he sighed as if relieved, with a gentle thrust sinking deep into her body again.

They lay like this in silence, just embracing each other and breathing, taking comfort from their closeness, from the warmth of their bodies.

She ran her fingers through his hair, stroking his back with her other hand and closed her eyes, wanting to remember this, this moment, them, together, happy.

I will always be by your side, she thought.

I will save you.

_____

Author's note: The dog she got from her husband is a Beagle. Aemond saw the servants carrying some puppies walking down the courtyard and, looking at one, thought "gods, he looks at me like my betrothed". He thought that she probably felt lonely in the Red Keep and perhaps she would be happy to have a companion.

[murdockbarnes]

you'll have to stop the world just to stop the feeling

pairing: eloise bridgerton x fem!reader

summary: eloise bridgerton has successfully chased away a flurry of lady's maids. has she finally met her match?

wordcount: almost 3k

warnings: fluff, angst, no happy ending. 18+ minors do not interact. nothing explicit, but still.

A/N: eloise is aged up in this, around 24. partly inspired by this gorgeous artwork and good luck babe by chappell roan.

i try not use y/n in my fics but i started writing this over two years ago and a good chunk of it was already written using y/n, so i am just too lazy to change it now. sorry it that bothers anyone! any feedback would be greatly appreciated. have a great day!

*not edited, all mistakes are mine*

viscount bridgerton was worried. a slew of lady's maids and none were strong willed enough to deal with his storm of a younger sister, eloise. of course, he loved her passion dearly, just not so much when it felt like he had to look for a new lady's maid every other week. the last lady's maid lasted two days. anthony just hoped the new one would last a little longer.

eloise was proud of herself - she had just broken her personal record: two days. in the years since she had made her debut, she had driven away at least 20 lady's maids each year. it wasn't that she enjoyed tormenting them, it was just that she hated society's expectations of her and her sex. she hated the lady's maids on principal, it was nothing personal, even though they did make her life easier. she had thought that anthony would finally give up, so imagine her surprise when she went down to the drawing room only to find her mother sitting with whom she guessed was to be her new lady's maid.

"you must be joking" eloise scoffed.

"eloise-" violet began.

"quite the contrary, ma'am," you began as eloise's eyes once again slid over to yours. "i am to be your new lady's maid. my name is y/n y/l/n."

"don't bother getting too comfortable, miss y/l/n" eloise flashed you a sugary sweet smile before turning on her heel and departing.

the next few weeks saw you exhausted, as eloise did everything in her power to vex you enough to make you quit. but you were determined. each night, after whatever ordeal she had put you through for the day, whether it be going shopping and swiftly disappearing into the crowd, sending you up and down multiple flights of stairs to look for something she had with her all along, or whatever torture she thought of that day, you would smile brightly at her before departing for the night.

that night, right before you closed the doors to her room, you saw her crack, saw her frown. eloise was understandably confused. you should have given up by now, you should have broken and quit. yet, here you were two months into this arrangement. the longest yet. to be really quite honest, eloise was running out of ideas to scare you off.

another ball passed with more judgement from the mamas of the ton. eloise could feel their eyes burning into her back like the power of a thousand suns. she was just exhausted of this constant routine and wished she could escape. and she wanted this blasted dress off her.

you started unlacing the back of the dress, your fingers accidentally brushing her soft skin, goosebumps appearing in their wake. as you brush her hair and see eloise's reflection in the mirror, a prominent frown between her brows, you realise this ball must have taken more of a toll on her for her to be so docile with you. you blow out all candles save one, and even when you exit, eloise is deep in thought in front of the mirror.

hyacinth was debuting this season, and violet swears the effort to find both hyacinth and eloise husbands is taking years off her life. she loves how fierce and passionate her daughters are, but she wished it was easier to find them husbands, as at the end of the day she wants to see them happy with their own little family.

eloise is forced out to promenade with hyacinth, and as always, her lady's maid is to be her shadow. eloise is perturbed to see her so unbothered by her antics. when she crosses the street boldly in front of an oncoming carriage, so does she. when she takes a detour and leaves hyacinth and her own lady's maid behind, she follows. as she looks over her shoulder to see her walking a few paces behind, her foot hits the stump of a tree and she goes tumbling down.

the pain radiates up eloise's leg, and she feels hands on her in seconds. the next moments are a blur and eloise does not remember how she finds herself in her bed, a physician standing at the end of her bed claiming a broken foot, and her mother and youngest sister fretting over her.

"i'm afraid the foot is broken, lady bridgerton," the physician finishes his examination and wraps her foot in a bandage.

"how long will it take to heal, doctor?" violet asks worriedly.

"two to three months, my lady. possibly even more, depending on the severity."

"she'll miss the entirety of the season! maybe even more. can nothing be done?" violet queries. eloise, on the other hand, feels as though her wish of an escape has actually been granted.

"i'm afraid not, she must try to keep her weight off of it as much as she can. there is not much else that can be done, it will take time. maybe the countryside and fresh air will help, away from the busyness of the ton and the social season."

violet does not miss the way her daughter's face lights up. eloise, sensing her mother is about to refuse, speaks up.

"please, mama, i promise i'll be good. i'd be bored to death here anyway. at least at aubrey hall i'd get to enjoy the library." eloise can see the hesitation on violet's face, but she can see the moment she relents.

"alright, but your y/n is going with you."

eloise's smile drops but she knows arguing will just result in her stuck in london. so she agrees ruefully.

it's just you and eloise in the carriage on the way to aubrey hall, the rest of the bridgertons busy with the social season. you help eloise to her room, making sure she is comfortable before leaving to go make arrangements for dinner.

the short walk up the stairs to eloise's room that she insisted on staying in took a lot more out of her than she expected. her foot really was in a bad condition, that was true, but not bad enough that she would need to supervised at night too, she thought.

she's just settled into bed with a book after you helped her get ready for bed after dinner, when you walk into the room again, this time in a nightgown of your own, and a thin rolled up mattress, pillow, and sheets in hand.

"i'll be fine for the night, you can go," eloise says, briefly looking up from her book, slightly irritated.

"i'm sorry, miss bridgerton," you begin, already setting up your sleeping area for the night. "but i'm under strict instructions from the dowager viscountess and the viscount. i am to constantly be by your side, should you need anything, and that means sleeping in the same room as you."

you see as the irritation begins to bleed into her face, brows closer together, a slight frown on her lips.

"can't you just tell them you did and not actually sleep here? i'd quite like some privacy."

"my apologies, miss bridgerton, but i can't. i take my job and my duties to you and your family very seriously. i wouldn't do anything to jeopardise the trust your mother and brother have placed in me."

"i do not care about any of that! i just want a moment's peace from you!" eloise bursts out, red splotches high on her face. she makes a move to get out of bed but the pain in her leg flares up. within seconds, you are by her side, warm, gentle hands carefully positioning her foot back on the pillow.

"i'm afraid i have to disappoint you, miss. but i'm here to stay."

days in the countryside slipped into a routine. you would wake up first, prepare breakfast for eloise, along with a book. you'd get her ready for the day, and then station her by the large windows, refuse her when she wanted to walk around, and help her should she rebel anyways.

you confused eloise. why had you still not budged? and despite your stubborn moments, why did you always otherwise treat her with gentleness? here, in the countryside with less people around, she had seen you smile more. your hair was in a slightly looser updo, and your usual uniform not as strict. more than a few times, eloise found herself looking much too closely at you.

last night for instance, when you came back with your bedding after getting eloise ready for bed, in a thin, worn shift that hung loosely off your frame. the fire illuminated your silhouette through the thin shift as you stood facing it, getting ready for bed. eloise found her concentration completely off her book, a funny feeling in her chest. she could feel her cheeks heating up and her heart beating faster. she had never felt like this before, this flustered. she only prayed the candlelight was dim enough for you to be unable to make out the blush she was sure was on her face.

it confused her even further. being the analytical person she was, she read into every look, every touch. did she leave you as flustered as you did her? did you also feel this shortness of breath, this disappearing heartbeat?

she feels your fingers gently run through her scalp. everything feels different since that night. she can't help but try to look for clues, discern your expressions, your emotions, feelings. did you also feel this foreign feeling? she had bathed with the help of many a ladies' maids, but why does it suddenly feel so intimate? as though baring her unclothed body to you was akin to baring her heart out flat? the thought terrified and thrilled her at the same time, that you might truly see her, understand her and her feelings better than anyone.

the lukewarm water trickles down eloise's back as you gently move her hair and run the washcloth over her shoulders. you're kneeling by the bathtub, steadfastly refusing to make eye contact with eloise even though you feel her eyes on you. you switch to focus on washing her legs next, taking precaution to be extra gentle with her healing foot. your mind has just drifted to the thought about how intimate giving a simple bath to your employer can be if you harbour specific feelings for them, when eloise's hand, warm from the bath, wraps around your wrist. you finally make eye contact, and the desperation and emotions you find in her eyes knocks the breath out of you.

warm, wet hands cup your face gently, and you feel drawn to wherever they are pulling you to. you wait with bated breath, afraid that she'll stop, afraid that you would stop feeling her breath on your face, noses a hair's width apart. instinctively, your eyes close, and then you feel the softest pair of lips you've ever felt on yours. the perfume from her bathwater clouds your senses as her lips run over yours a little clumsily, but the hunger in the kiss makes up for it. you have never felt this kind of unadulterated desire in any other kiss before.

you kiss back with the same amount of hunger, tongue running over the seam of her lips, silently asking her to grant you permission, and she does. your fingers sink into damp hair, the feel of which you know all too well, as hers map the curves of your face and neck, and dare to go lower. a finger runs against your collarbone, taking advantage of the first few buttons undone and splaying against your sternum. you let her pull you into the bath with her, uncaring of your dress getting wet. when she further unbuttons your dress, you don't protest, letting her hands explore.

when you pull away after what feels like hours, there is a soft smile on her face, unlike her usual smirk, blush high on her cheeks and lips swollen, hair damp and skin glowing under the lamplight. you have seen her in many situations but you think she has never looked more divine.

things change between you after that. stolen kisses and casual touches behind closed doors, not a moment out of eloise's bed at night, going to sleep with the feel of her lips on yours, her taste still in your mouth. eloise grows more confident with her touches, no longer hesitant to mess up your appearance during your stolen moments, her hands slipping beneath the hem of your shift. as her foot heals little by little, she shows you further into the estate, taking any chance she can to leave your lips swollen and your cheeks hot. everything is so picture perfect that you are afraid of the bubble bursting when you do have to inevitably return back to ton.

and, inevitably as predicted, it does. the season ends with eloise's foot still on the mend, but her family's return to the countryside, while she finds that a joyous prospect, means distance between you both. still, it's not bad, you two still get to spend most of your time together, and you both master the art of stolen moments. it is not until the next season rolls around that the bubble is well and truly shattered.

a suitor starts pursuing eloise earnestly, and eloise doesn't seem entirely opposed to the idea. you know she was still trying to get over penelope's marriage to her brother, and the end to their future plans of spinsterhood. the spiral it sent her on had caused a rift between the both of you, but there was nothing you could do to bridge the distance, no matter how hard you tried; eloise had retired to her thoughts ever since.

eloise spent less time with you, and you found yourself spending more time with her footman, john, in an effort to distract yourself when thoughts of eloise consumed you entirely. john was a good man, he made you laugh and forget your problems with eloise, if only for a moment.

eloise walks into the drawing room and finds her mother and you, so reminiscent of that first day. instead of irritation or apprehension this time, her chest fills with knots. she hasn't spoken to you properly or spent time with you in weeks. she was too preoccupied in her own thoughts and refused to let you in. you won't meet her eyes now and the heavy feeling keeps growing heavier. you feel worlds apart. she never meant for the distance to happen.

"oh, eloise dear, come here," violet exclaims. "oh this is most wonderful news. y/n is getting married!"

"i- what?" shock colours eloise's voice. "to whom?"

"to footman john. now don't be impolite, eloise, isn't it just marvelous news?"

"yes, marvelous indeed." she chokes on the words, the fear of losing you coming to life. she was so scared, preoccupied with wallowing in her spinsterhood without pen, that she pushed you away. she feels her throat start to close up. "excuse me, mama, i just remembered i have to do something."

you watch with worried eyes as eloise departs, and follow after her, seeing if she needs anything. after all, that is what your job is, and it was stupid of you to think you that your relationship with her, whatever it may have been, could ever amount to anything more.

when you walk into her room, you see eloise pacing around, clutching her chest, tears streaming down her face.

"i do not want to see you right now." hurt colours her tone.

"eloise, i-"

"you do not get to call me that! you do not get to shatter my heart and then call me that."

"what do you want me to do, eloise? you cannot expect me to sit around waiting for you while you search for a suitor for yourself." you burst out, tears of your own now making a path down your cheeks. "you can't expect me to chaperone your promenades with suitors, bear that hurt. you cannot expect that of me. not when you don't want to give us a chance, not when you don't want to give us a future."

"i- that is not true."

"if that is not true, then tell me what i am to you. tell me that you are not considering marriage with any of your suitors. how long will you keep denying yourself love, deny what you and i are? marrying any of these men will not solve anything, even though i know you think it will. i love you, eloise, i gave my entire heart to you. can you say it back?" you have moved closer to her, eyes pleading with her to respond.

but she doesn't, turns away from you. "i can't, you know i can't."

you never thought words could hurt this much. the sting of tears is still fresh when you see eloise for the last time. "then this is goodbye, eloise. i hope you manage to find happiness."

when sir phillip kisses her at the altar, her mind drifts to her last kiss, a few years ago now. the ghost of soft lips on hers, feathering light kisses across her cheekbones and eyes, of lips curving into a gentle smile against hers. she feels the wrongness of this one, the stubble rubbing against her chin, slightly rough lips. but she'll drown herself on it nonetheless, choke on it until it erases her memories from her mind, takes with it that fateful final day. she can't turn back time, so she'll settle for this, the ghost of a soft kiss and gentle arms around her.

[least-carpet]

rotating jin guangyao and his problems

chewing up jin guangyao in my head... this is another one that's been in the drafts forever. throwing it out there because I'm out of gas.

the broad outlines of these thoughts are:

jin guangyao pursues AND values relationships with people he considers to be Good, particularly lan xichen and qin su

which. like. normal.

what's weird is that they're so good that he can't ever disclose the bad things he's done, because they are Good and they would be Disgusted and they might not Love Him anymore.

you'd think they would be safe because they are Good, but that's not how this works.

so he's fundamentally constructed these prisons where he can't get closer but also can't get away

ughhhh I can't articulate it but something something about how he's created these relationships which he fundamentally can't disclose certain important things, areas of violence or vulnerability, without losing them

sooooo they're kinda hollow!! they're hollow relationships!!

I think for lan xichen a lot of distance can be chalked up to the physical distance demanded by their respective responsibilities

like "we would be closer if we could"

so it's a distance that also allows for a continual mutual idealization and doesn't feel bad because there's an outside source

but for qin su? especially during and after rusong's assassination?

like—even setting aside the question of whether or not he killed the kid—they're having different emotional responses to his death because rusong, while he was alive, must have been a source of terrible ongoing anxiety for jin guangyao, who is deeply paranoid about any of his secrets coming to light.

so an ending to that kind of anxiety is a relief, even if he didn't kill his own child.

but relief mixed with grief presumably wouldn't match qin su's emotional experience of rusong's death.

so they're not emotionally in sync, and she doesn't understand why. her husband has also withdrawn from her in a number of ways (because of... the secret incest...)

idk it just seems emotionally horrifying

I also think this is partly why you get such a wide range of takes on jin guangyao, even from people who like him. because people who do this type of thing are sometimes doing it to manipulate people into staying with them, and if someone has done it to you, the tactics are very recognizable (such as during the confrontation between jin guangyao and qin su, where he's desperately trying to control the outcome of her finding out about the secret incest)

anyway what a guy! the inside of his head probably sounds like the soundtrack to a horror movie 100% of the time, huh

[forever--darling]

one of us | neteyam x avatar!reader

summary: when a person's life hangs in the balance, sometimes there is only one thing to do, one thing to ask of the great mother. a consciousness transfer, but the question remains: are you strong enough to pass through the eye of eywa? lots of feelings emerge as the only option left becomes the sole possibility

pairings: neteyam x avatar!reader

word count: 11.8k

warnings/notes: finally, swearing, major angst, mention of sky people, mention of death, mention of an afterlife, lots of feelings (all mostly sad), crying, more heartbreak, with sad fluff, we're so close to the end (2/3)

series masterlist | one of us: part seven | requests are currently open for now

All energy is only borrowed, never permanent, and one day you have to give it back.

It hadn’t taken long for Neytiri and Jake to make it to the camp, the pathway completely imprinted in his memory. He couldn’t talk the whole ride as the only thought that seemed to reach his mind was a suffocating amount of guilt. The same guilt that once had rotted away in his stomach years ago when he was still a dream walker, when the sky people had long since invaded Pandora, and when he was still working under Quaritch’s terms.

That guilt almost killed him when he gained the trust of the Omatikaya people. When Home Tree was destroyed, Grace was killed, and the great war brought many warriors home to their Great Mother. Not many were sparred and those that had looked to him for the answers, the mighty Toruk Makto. It wasn’t easy and often it took guidance from many to get him to where he was today but now here he was in that forest, that same perilous feeling overtaking his senses. 

He had known you were sick, not the full extent of it or how long it had been going on but he knew. Which meant as an adult, who had been watching over you, he was partly responsible. Responsible for the outcome of your life, the effect it had on his children, on his son, on his wife, on the people. He had let other commitments cloud his mind; the sky people, the new technology they were bringing back to the planet, and how they were getting closer to the village every day. He decided to focus on those things rather than checking in on you. Whatever happened he was partly responsible. As they stopped near the lab, the grey confines of it taunting him, he also knew where he was responsible, Max and Norm were too — if not more. 

Jake slid off of the direhorse, Neytiri behind him as he approached the large steel door coated in scratches and dents — it somehow stood in this environment and within these elements. Neytiri stiffened at the sight of it, every part of her screaming to rush back into the forest away from the very place she deemed as evil and foreign. She had no motivation to step foot into the metal box but the thought of you, the real you left her heart clenching in her chest.

Worry was the sole reason why she followed her husband, clinging to his back. It was that along with the fact that Jake would need someone to keep him grounded. As he stared at it, the cage it had become, he felt all of his frustration come to the surface as the terrified thought crossed his mind that you were dead. Raising his clenched fist to the door, he knocked, the loud sound echoing across the trees. 

The first compacted door opened and they moved inside. Neytiri felt her anxieties heighten as they stepped fully into a small compressing box. Jake stared forward through the glass of the second door, gaze locked on a human man standing in a white lab coat near the keypad for the door. He was so small, so weak, so angering. As the air decompressed in the box, the scientist clicked the keypad and the second door slid open.

Jake didn’t waste a moment. He stalked in there as if he owned the place. It felt so strange under his large blue feet after having once rolled across these tiled floors. The sight of the lab brought so many memories back to him; the link pods, the screens — so many memories, most of which he didn’t find comforting. 

Max appeared on the other side of the room in his own lab coat, a worried kink in his brow. At the sight of him, Jake snarled not afraid to use his intimidating statue as he walked across the room, “Where is she?” 

The demand was sharp, cold, and uncommon to be directed at Max, as he was one of Jake’s closest confidants for almost twenty years. Max blinked in surprise up at the Olo’eyktan, and at the sight of Jake in this space, he got his own flashbacks of the first day. The first day, all those years ago that Jake got his avatar. Oh, how things had changed since then. 

“Where is she?” he asked again, tone just as cold as it was before.

“She’s in the back room, but—” 

The two Na’vi’s pushed by Max, bending down as they moved through the doorway into a smaller more compact hallway. Max hurried after them in a state of panic as Jake refused to shut his mouth, all of his fears taking flight in ugly ways.

“What, you think I wouldn’t have realized what was going on? In case you have forgotten this isn’t my first rodeo. I used to do this and an avatar doesn’t just collapse like that unless a link process is interrupted or something is fucking wrong. So, tell me what the fuck happened!” 

The room opened up in front of them with a single curtain pulled over the area to provide more privacy. Jake could see the outline of Norm’s body behind the curtain bent down and saying something. Max unable to fully find the words to calm Jake down or provide an explanation other than the truth, plucked the blue curtain into his grasp and pulled it aside.

Norm’s head snapped up in their direction, his eyes widening slightly at the site of the two tall Na’vi within the lab. He was wrapping a blanket around your exhausted frame and as the couple’s eyes fell down to the wrangled weak body, both of their shoulders dropped in devastation. The harsh furrow in Jake’s brow fell away and he found himself gripping onto the doorway to stay upright. The sight of you brought an image of Grace in her final hours to the forefront of his mind and it was difficult to swallow.

You sat, your body stuck to the mattress, slumped down as if you couldn’t even sit up. Two or three blankets were pulled up to your chest where wires stuck out connecting to monitors nearby. Jake's ears flickered at the sound of their beeping and found that the numbers of your heart rate and blood pressure should have been stronger.

IVS were hanging up beside you, the large needle lined into your arm. Your skin was ashen, sunken in, all color completely drained with large purple circles pressed along the skin below your eyes. They were barely open and he wouldn’t have believed you were actually alive if it wasn’t for the twitch in your bony finger and the steady beeping of the monitor beside you. 

“She had a seizure while in the link pod. We were able to get them to stop but she is very weak,” Norm answered and stepped back from your crumbled form. One that felt less like you every day. 

“Oh, Great Mother,” Neytiri found herself crying as she moved forward and fell to her knees at the side of the bed. 

She wished to be anywhere but there, but the sight of you had masked all of the discomfort and the rage that was interlaced deep within her bones. Instead, all she could feel was the ache in her chest from the broken looks of her children at your avatar form that had been completely motionless in her son’s arms. She felt herself aching for the soul that was slipping through the fingers of Pandora. Her eyes took in the unfamiliar but familiar face and cried, tears welling up in her widened eyes. She found herself scanning your nose, your closed eyes, the high lift of your cheeks, and the shape of your jaw. It was you, without a doubt. 

Jake was able to find his voice again, this time with a newly added edge to it, “Why was she in the link pod in the first place?” 

“What?” Norm’s eyes narrowed in confusion, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Why was she in there?” Jake was becoming hostile at that point. “If you knew she was sick, if you knew it was this bad, how could you let her keep doing this? Especially with the strain that it already was putting on her weak body.”

“Ma’Jake, please,” Neytiri asked, her voice gently sweeping through the tension of the room, gaining the attention of his rigid eyes. She tilted her head towards you, and they all watched as your head lulled from side to side at the many voices that filled the room. Your breaths were shallow, taking up too much energy that you couldn’t even open your eyes. 

Jake lowered his voice slightly but the edge remained as he glanced back and forth from Norm to Max, “You should have stopped her.” 

“You don’t think we tried? You don’t think we didn’t say something to her every day, warning her of the risks, demanding her to stop?” Max became defensive then as he stepped closer to the towering figure of one of his closest friends. His eyes narrowed, the same worry that filled Jake’s, reflected in his own. “She is not a child anymore.” 

“You mean she’s not your child,” the Olo’eyktan corrected and just like that, all previous feelings were ripped from the room, leaving it in painful silence. 

Both Max and Norm’s heads dropped for a moment as a thought crossed their mind — maybe they hadn’t tried hard enough. Maybe they should have powered down the system even if you ended up hating them. Maybe they should have done more to protect you even when you were never their child, their full responsibility to bear. Maybe just maybe even though you grew up before their eyes into a grown woman, they should have taken into account that it didn’t mean to cut you loose from support and guardianship altogether. 

Max shook his head, almost as if he was going to regret what he was about to say, “No, she’s not.” 

“She may not be yours or technically a kid anymore but when she is living under your roof, you need to have some responsibility. When she is living under your roof, she is still a child,” Jake sighed, feeling the anger start to dissipate as he sent another glance at you, at your human body. At the very body, he hadn’t seen in almost two years, not like this, not this small, this different. You had grown and would be nineteen in the next year and it showed — you had become an adult under everyone's noses. If only you had the ability and the time to make it. “How much time does she have?” 

“We can’t know for sure but based on her state and how weak she is… Weeks? A month or two maybe?” Norm admitted, the state of how he found you in the link pod still pressed firmly into the front of his mind. Your faraway gaze, rigid body, and trembling lips. Your lips shook as if you were asking for time to kiss you and grant you treatment. You were barely there and laying in that damn bed, you were barely there. 

“She doesn’t have a few months, not with the sky people invading. We could have serious trouble on our hands in two months. The sky people are coming, they are getting closer every day and I need a plan. A plan to protect my family, my people, and my land. I need a plan and I am not going to put a sick young woman in the line of fire. I won’t.”

Jake shook his head and stepped further into the room, looking around at the medical supplies and the neutral-colored walls. The sterile smell filled his nose. It all reminded him of the V.A. hospital when there was a big hole blown through the middle of his life. That’s what the lab reminded him of and it sent a shiver down his spine. You couldn't stay there, not like this. He wouldn’t allow it because whatever the fuck they were doing wasn’t doing shit. Even with medicine and science on their side, it had done nothing. He wasn’t about to lose another person because of his actions — he wouldn’t. 

“She can’t stay here,” he suddenly said, eyes set on his wife, “We can’t leave her here. I won’t.” 

Max stepped forward trying to get closer to you but Neytiri stood blocking him, “Jake, you can’t just—”

“You’ve done enough.” 

The two scientists’ mouths dropped, and both of their glares widened at the tall Olo’eyktan — a man who day one had never thrown caution to the wind in his life but since becoming a leader had taken on a new role to be deliberate in his actions, think accordingly, and communicate in a way to not piss other people off. It was like that persona was gone from that room for a moment and instead it was an overprotective parent who thought they had all the answers. He was bossy, haywire, and everything that resembled a father.

Somehow his cold tone and his rapid decision weren’t justifiable enough for Max. He had seen the impossible, and as a scientist, he had detested and forced himself to not believe it. Max had seen the impossible in Jake, in the consciousness transfer, in the balance of the world that had managed to change one man's life. He had seen the impossible with the Omatikaya people but at that moment with your life hanging in that very balance, he could only look to science, in the concreteness that was medicine.

“Jake, listen to me, she is sick. This isn’t just another dress-up game where she is going to run off into the forest to become something else. She won’t survive this.” 

“Are you fucking serious?” he snapped, eyes narrowing even further until they resembled golden crescents like the morning sun that crept through their tent every morning, “This has never been a game and you know that. To me, it wasn't and it sure as hell isn't to her. If you saw her out there, the way she is when she is in that body, you would know that. Except that I think a part of you already does, knows how much she wants it, and that scares the hell out of you. Especially since there is nothing else you can do for her, and it sucks. It really does... but do you hear me when I say we can do something? The people can save her.” 

“What like you saved Grace,” Max shot back, the words cruel and unnecessary and he watched as Jake’s face went slack. For a moment the short scientist reveled in the image, “I know it has happened, the unexplainable. Because what you witnessed... what happened to you was the unexplainable, but Jake that's what? A one in a million. You're the exception, we all know that, but she's not you. I don't like the odds, not when I have seen it. Her virus, her illness, and I am deciding to combat it with medicine. I am choosing science’s side.” 

Neytiri felt her teeth bare, sink into her lower lip, fangs glimmering from the white lights of the room. As a growl left her throat, she stepped forward protectively towards her mate, “And your medicine has done nothing. It’s done nothing!” 

At that point with two pointed gazes locked down on him, Max couldn’t help but glance your way knowing that every word they spoke was true. Any worse, you could be slipping away, out of their fingers, by the end of the week. If you hadn’t been getting better with the months of treatment they had been doing, the antibiotic and the fluids, what else could they do to help you? There wasn’t another option, and he knew right then science or not this was your last chance.

Norm looked from you to Jake and within that mutual stare, they shared an understanding, a silent understanding. Stepping forward, his palm fell to Max’s shoulder, “This is her only chance."

"Norm—"

"She’s not going to get better because she hasn't yet and you know that. This is her last chance. And yes, god forbid, Eywa forbid that it doesn’t work, that we somehow lose her... at least it will be on her own terms and in a place, she’d want to spend her last moments.” 

The words everyone had been avoiding were out in the air and it struck a chord, one that left them all in silence and complete denial. Only, because no one expected this. When you had been given your avatar six months prior, no one thought to think this is where you would end up, chained to a bed with the only thing to save you being that body. No one thought either that you would have fallen in love with the forest, the people, and the eldest son of the Olo'eyktan either, but you did. It happened. It all had happened and now it was beginning to unravel in front of them and suddenly they were being faced with a choice.

You were dying and the sky people were coming. Another war was soon to take place and Jake and Neytiri were making plans for the future Olo'eyktan. Neteyam would be Olo'eyktan one day whether you would be there to see it or not. It all was happening and none of them would have thought that when it was, you would be in the middle of a whispered conversation with the Mother herself.

Max wiped his eyes from behind his glasses and sent one last longing look to you. You once had been the little girl who'd sit on his lap for hours staring at a digital image of an avatar's brain with complete awe. Now there you lay, all grown up and possibly about to get the life you had always wanted. Your choice had been made up about the life you wanted as soon as you had entered that avatar body. And your choice would be his choice.

“Just, if you’re going to do it… The consciousness transfer, do it sooner rather than later. If you want her to survive it, you will do it as soon as you can. She's already lost a lot of energy.” 

It was the last thing anyone said and as Jake nodded to Max, reassuringly, his tough-guy act dropped immediately. Almost like they had come to a mutual understanding: one father to another.

From that moment on, there was a continuous movement of people in and out of the room. All bustling as they worked to disconnect your monitors, pull out the IVS, wrap your body up in blankets to keep you warm against the cold air, and secure a mask tightly over your face. Then just like that, you were ready and leaving as if it was always how it was destined to be. You, leaving. Norm and Max each took you in for one last time as Jake and Neytiri exited the lab, both hoping they would never have to be there again.

Jake couldn’t help but stare down at you, so small in his arms, so unlike the warrior he had gotten the privilege to watch the last six months. You had transformed just as he once had, gaining the wings like an Ikran, and you would fly away, not daring to look back. Evident in the lingering glances you sent his son and how you absorbed every part of the forest, you would give anything to be transferred into your other body. Then more so as with each night you spent in the forest, in your avatar body, the longer you would stay awake. Like you were hoping to forever prolong the linking process to that one still moment in time. Now, after all this time, you could have it.

As Jake climbed on his direhorse, he heard the shift in your breath along with seeing the small tremble in your body — the first sign of movement he had seen at all. Glancing down at you again, he found your eyes softly staring up at him, through heavy lids. He glanced at Neytiri then back down at you, taking your tiny cold hand in his own. He stared at his five fingers and compared them to yours as your soft voice filled his ears. 

“Don’t let Neteyam see me like this.” 

“She’s very weak,” Mo’at expressed, honestly as her fingers danced across your closed eyes.

From the moment you were brought back to the village, in your human form, it was like you were finally awake. Finally, seeing the world as more than a recurrent fever dream. It was a world you had only ever witnessed through another pair of eyes and someone else's skin. Somehow the forest had become so much more than a training ground to you over that time. However, you realized then, that no matter how many times you had seen it before, it would never top being able to see it with your own eyes. The ones you had been born with.

It was a dream that had been painted on your soul from the moment you had come onto this planet and as you stared up at the luminescent green foliage while you rode on the back of the direhorse, you felt as if your life was complete. Like Eywa was watching over you, reaching out her arms and promising you that whatever happened you would be okay.

Staring up past the trees to the black-coated sky littered with stars and planets, you felt a new kind of peace wash over you. Your breath had evened out and you blinked slowly, entirely entranced by the skyline scattered with constellations. The constellations that resembled the ivory spots speckled across his nose and his body. That's all you could think about — the ivory-speckled sky and how it reminded you of the glow that would overtake him at night.

Please, Great Mother, protect Neteyam and his ivory-scattered face. 

As soon as you got back, Neytiri distracted the kids, allowing Jake to get you to Mo’at without anyone seeing. Partly to prevent panic from appearing in the village, but mostly to stick to your one and only request. Don’t let Neteyam see me like this. Those six words served as a confirmation to Jake. A confirmation that once again only served the greater suspicion that there was more going on under the surface. Deeper feelings were involved here whether the two of you had admitted it, and Jake wasn't sure how he hadn't seen it before. But maybe he had.

The lingering gazes. The light touches. Neteyam sneaking out of the tent at night, for months. His attitude suddenly improving. He was always cautious around you when Jake was close by as if he was afraid of the Olo'eyktan connecting the dots from the softness he displayed to you or the look in his eyes, which was less than innocent. It all had been there but for months, Jake Sully had been turning a blind eye to it all. Despite his duty as Olo'eyktan to accept the arranged marriage that would be pushed onto his son along with all the other responsibilities, he let the interactions and the feelings play out in plain sight.

Now, he was going to willingly do what any Olo'eyktan would and protect the last wishes of a member of his clan. He was making a split decision based on the six words he never thought you would have openly admitted. That it was and always had been Neteyam for you. How it was the one son of his that had been promised a throne and a chosen future mate, the one son you couldn't have willingly. Somehow it filled him with a sense of deja vu, as if when he saw you he was looking at a mere reflection of the person he used to be. Alongside that, a repeated history. The outsider and the chief's chosen child. Somehow under all of his turning a blind eye, you and Neteyam had not only become Jake and Neytiri but were being torn apart for it.

For a while, Jake stood in the corner of the room, Neytiri appearing after a while closing off the tent from any onlookers. The majority who would have been her own children. She stood next to Jake, her hand comfortingly finding a place on his shoulder.

They had watched as Mo'at closed her eyes and let the feelings of Eywa guide her. She took in many deep breaths as mumbled words escaped her mouth in the form of tongues. Then just as quickly as it had begun, her eyes were reopening, leaving her meeting with Eywa as Jake liked to call it. She glanced at the couple before her and spouted what he could only hear as bullshit. She’s very weak. 

“Well help her goddamn it!” 

“Jake!” Neytiri hissed as the tone of his voice emitted not only a glare on her face but a chip in her tone. 

From outside the tent, four dark statues lingered in the dark, near the side of the healing tent. Light poured out of the bottom bathing Kiri and Lo’ak’s faces in slivers of warm light. They lay on their fronts, chins leaning along their hands as they held their breaths, desperate to unravel what they were looking at. They could only see the outline of their grandmother, the Tsahik’s side from the confined view they had. With Spider and Tuk sitting on the other side of Lo'ak, the eight-year-old hugged her knees to her chest in a state of confusion. When her parents left, she had spent the whole time berating her older siblings with questions about you — were you okay? What had exactly happened? Were you coming back?

All questions with answers none of the older siblings had.

Neteyam crouched on the other side of Kiri, leaning his ear close to the side of the tent, trying to understand the mumblings from inside. His heart had shattered and he felt as if he had been cut open, exposing everything he was feeling to the gaping air. It made his stomach twist at the thought and he was starting to feel sick.

The sight of your avatar collapsing in his arms was still very present in his mind — as well as how his father had avoided him the second he returned forbidding anyone from seeing you, the other you. Your human body and the current body that held everything that made you, you. It was hard to imagine you any other way. For six straight months, he was memorizing every detail of your blue features just in case his golden irises would be deracinated from his face. Now all he could think about was what you really looked like, what you were born to look like.

Lo’ak leaned closer to his sister, voice breaking and coming out in low mumbles, “What did she say?” 

“Shh,” she hushed back, bumping her brother in the side, harsher than she intended too. 

“She’s weak, that’s what Mo’at is saying,” Neteyam spoke up softly, the words acting as needles as they ripped holes into his skin, “She doesn’t know if they can save her.” 

Kiri glanced up at Neteyam and felt her shoulders drop disappointedly as his expression came to light for her. How pain-stricken he was and how utterly shattered his voice sounded as it echoed in her ears. She felt Eywa there at that moment, filling her entire body, as she witnessed firsthand how strongly her brother felt for you. It had blinded him out of nowhere and a pit formed in his stomach at how sudden it all was. Over time, that dread and that fear had drifted off into the wind as if they had rolled off his back while flying through the sky.

Then there was you. How you had become a slight wreck over your feelings for the future Olo'eyktan. She could still feel your own confession lingering in the back of her mind. How shy you had gotten, how ashamed you had been when she had found out you liked Neteyam, possibly loved him.

Somehow under all of the excruciating lectures, stubborn-filled disputes, and contemptuous glares, two souls had found one another, deep within the forest under the phosphorescent green of the trees. 

She blinked and looked away, letting the prospect of the two of you fade away, leaving nothing but an imprint of dust in its wake. They all instead directed their attention back to the tent, ears twitching in unison and tails swishing anxiously as their father’s voice filled the air. 

“She’s dying, don’t you see that? One of our own is dying,” Jake pleaded then, his anger melted away like icicles in the warm temperature and all that was left was a puddle of desperation and fear. “So, please help her. Do the consciousness transfer. Do it, if it means the possibility of saving her life."

As Mo’at glanced down from your shivering human form to the empty blue vessel beside you, she knew what he was asking of her. He was right and it would have to be in Eywa’s hands now. The very hands you had tried to get yourself in weeks ago when you appeared in the doorway of her tent pleading and begging for her to consider. To think about your request, ask Eywa to guide you and herself to an answer. Tsahik, without much consideration or even listening to Eywa's plan or will, denied your request. Even when Jake Sully, Toruk Makto, had once come to her with the same request, and even when she saw so much of him in you, including a strong heart, she denied the request.

When Mo’at looked at you, she saw a young woman. A young woman with all the reasons and desires in the world to ask for this request and to ask for the opportunity to change her life. Your soul's existence depended on the opportunity to live life fully as a Na’vi, and That’s why Tsahik couldn’t accept it. Your whole life.

A young and prestigious life she didn’t want to be cut short not when there was still so much time. She feared that Eywa’s will wouldn’t be what was hoped by the rest of the clan, her family, so she denied you. For fear of taking the light out of your eyes as well as the light out of her grandchildren. 

“She’s weak so we must do it tonight. The more strength she has the better,” she finally spoke looking from Jake to her dutiful daughter, “Alert the village. We need everyone, do you understand? We need all the support we can for this. An hour and then we go.” 

The couple, the clan's leaders, the two everyone looked to in a crisis felt the weight on their shoulders deepen. Anxiety formed, pushing down on their tracheas as it all began to feel too real too fast. But panic couldn't happen. Freaking out couldn't happen. There wasn't enough time for it and there sure as hell wasn't room for it.

Jake took Neytiri’s hand in his and walked towards the entrance of the tent, all strength, and will of his own feelings lost. As they stepped out, the tent's flap falling shut behind them, a rush of air fell from his mouth. Neytiri, able to feel his energy deep within her bones, wrapped her arms around his broad torso. Her chin found a place against his shoulder and they stared forward at the rest of the village, the forest, their home, and everything in between. They listened to one another’s hearts and stood there for a brief moment, letting their breaths linger into one before Neytiri unwrapped herself around him. 

As she did, they both were startled by the sound of rustling as well as a soft groan of a very familiar prominent voice. They shared a look with one another, communicating the same conclusion as they stepped around the tent to where the sound had come from. It wasn't a surprise to find their four children squatted and laying around in the dirt, ears pressed close to the tent. Suddenly all their movements stopped as they felt the shadows looming over them, blocking the moonlight and concealing them in darkness.

All four heads then tilted cautiously and were met by the scariness of their mother, who stood with a hip popped out and arms crossed over her chest. Her stare only hardened further when she found her youngest, no more than eight years old, sitting there, a pained expression on the child's face. Neytiri looked over her shoulder at Jake but he merely shrugged as if he wasn't surprised at all by the sight in front of him. He held his arms to her; a silent signal that he was leaving the situation for her to handle.

Inhaling, her lips parted, ready to scold them not only for eavesdropping on a conversation not meant for their ears but for letting Tuk hear every word, something she could barely process at her age. Before Neytiri could get a word out, she found her youngest staring up at her, large eyes widened with fear and sadness, bottom lip quivering.

Tuk’s eyes filled with tears and slowly began to fall, drenching her innocent face, “Is Y/N going to be okay? What happened to her?” 

The other three older siblings’ bodies stiffened unwillingly, ears dropping back while their own theories and assumptions were formed. But even with their thoughts and concerns, they all found themselves peering up to their mother, who seemed to be all-knowing and often had the right thing to say in moments like this. It was a mother's intuition and they all stared at her, asking for an answer that was far better than any of their own. They all held their breath as they watched the glare melt away completely from her face while she opened her arms welcomingly for her youngest child. 

“Oh, my prrnen (baby),” Neytiri cooed as Tuk reached up to be pulled up into her mother's arms. As her small innocent face met her mother's neck, her tear bubbles collapsed, letting her salty tears fall freely upon Neytiri's skin. “Know this, that whatever happens, Y/N will be okay. She will be at peace one way or another. I don't know what's going to happen, but that is not something for us to worry about right now. Our Great Mother has a plan and whatever comes of it, everything will be okay. Do you understand me, maite (my daughter)?” 

Hands rubbing softly at Tuk’s back, her gaze fell to the rest of her children and their anxious eyes. They looked to her as if a mother could solve the world’s most significant problems and she wished at that moment she could. She wished she could take all of your pain, all of your sickness, all of the limitations your body held away. She wanted more than anything with her children’s eyes boring up at her that she could promise you life to prevent their suffering.

“The ritual is in an hour,” Jake said then, gaining the three older children’s attention as he tried to wrap his head around how he wanted to handle this situation. He couldn’t bear the idea of them being at the consciousness transfer and watching with the possibility that it wouldn't work. He couldn’t watch every hope and every fiber of light in their bodies fade away at the sight of what could be a final send-off. “Whatever you need to do, I suggest you do it now because there is a chance you won't be able to later.” 

“Can we see her?” Kiri asked then, sitting up to hug her knees to her chest, voice pleading, “Please? Can we just sit with her and talk to her. Dad, I can’t go the ritual without having said—” 

“Fine,” he interrupted her, his heart constricting with grief at the sound of his daughter’s broken voice, “Fine, yes, you can see her. But none of you will be at the ritual. Do you read me? I don’t want you attending the transfer.” 

In perfect sync all of their eyes widened in shock, ears pulling back in dejection as their father's command fell straight into their laps. Lo’ak sat up quickly, in complete disbelief, “But—” 

“No, but anything. I don’t want any of you there, do you understand?” 

That edge had returned in his voice and Jake took two seconds each to drill his gaze into his children, trying to make it stick within their minds, so that no matter how many times the thought appeared to go against his words, the remembrance of his stone cold glare would stop them. He couldn't be sure that it would work, especially as he caught the look on Lo'ak's face. It was the same look he gave whenever he was given orders or asked to do something against his own troublesome consciousness. It was passive, him nodding his head as if he was listening though he never took anything serious his father said. It was the same exact look Jake was getting then.

“Do — you — understand?” 

He spoke slower and finally got the response he wanted. All three of his older children nodded their heads while Lo’ak verbally respond with, “Yes, sir.” 

Neteyam could only stare up past Jake, huffing quietly. It was loud enough to catch his father’s attention anyway. Jake narrowed his gaze down at his oldest but the young warrior wouldn't falter. Instead, Neteyam matched him with the same expression.

No gunmetal would warp at that moment as Neteyam felt every inch of anger and frustration ball together. The order for them to stay away during the ceremony left him astonished and pissed off. His father still saw them as children and felt like he had this responsibility to protect them. But other than Tuk, none of them needed his protection. They had grown up and that was something he obviously couldn't accept.

Somehow it only filled Neteyam with more spite because there was nothing left that needed to be protected. Every innocence had been stolen and he couldn’t remember the last time he had been treated like a child, free of any responsibilities. For years he had been viewed and trained like a serviceman, kept on a shelf until he was needed. His whole life he had been ordered around; Go pick up an extra couple of hours of training. Watch over your brother. Learn how to use a gun. Take on extra challenges with other warriors. Heck, marry and mate with a woman of our choosing.

They had every part of him. They had taken every piece of him and he had willingly let them. For years he had been ordered around as if he was incapable of thinking for himself. In reality, they couldn't afford him to think and make decisions for themselves because it would go against what was best for the clan.

Some things never changed though. He stood just outside the healing tent, where the Tsahik was trying to save the only woman he has ever had feelings for, and he was expected to follow commands again. He was supposed to let them put him back on the shelf and wait for further instructions. Your life was hanging in the balance and they were asking him to be absent from the ritual that would decide what would happen. He couldn’t do that.

His hard-set gaze met Jake’s, refusing to back down. He watched then as the Toruk Makto dismissed him and instead sent one more look to each of his children. He nodded in the direction of the healing tent, “Go on.” 

One by one, they all stood silently and began to approach the tent, with dread being the only thing evidently strewn across their faces. Neytiri slowly set Tuk down, wiping what was left of her tears, that motherly smile occupying her face as she watched the rest of her children approach the tent. As Neteyam stepped by them though, the thought of you the only thing guiding him forward, Jake’s eyes found Neytiri’s. She hadn’t seemed to understand what he was trying to say, but she turned to give him her full attention anyway at the obnoxious way he cleared his throat. 

Her ears flickered curiously then as his stare frantically began to flicker back and from their oldest son to her. Lo’ak and Spider had stepped into the tent with Tuk waiting by the doorway, clearly contemplating if she wanted to go inside herself. Neytiri then found herself looking at Neteyam who was getting close to the entrance. She felt the thought kick in at what Jake was referring to or rather what you had asked of him. Him was the key term, but Neytiri felt her brows draw forward on her forehead in exasperation at his clear hesitation. The Toruk Makto had no problem lecturing his sons until their ears bled but being able to break the worst news and offer comfort to them might as well have been foreign, especially in their older years. He was terrified of it and Neytiri found it utterly ridiculous.

As Jake didn’t show any signs of calling out to Neteyam, she huffed out and shook her head at her husband, narrowing her gaze at him. The words very bad were communicated vexingly through her eye contact. She sighed then as she called out to Neteyam, “Maitan (my son)!”

Neteyam’s ears perked up at the sound of his mother’s voice and just as his hand grasped around the tent flap, so close to where you were, he pulled back to face her. She waved him over, and with frustration and confusion, he stepped away from the tent. Kiri, who was just about to enter, noticed the interaction of their mother pulling him aside and decided to wait, in favor of watching the conversation play out instead.

“What?” Neteyam questioned, the sharpness of his tongue not unnoticed.

Neytiri’s initial reaction was to smack him upside the head for it, but she held back knowing the sharpness was nothing but a reflection of how he was feeling. He wasn’t trying to be difficult or disrespectful. He just didn't have the energy or the care anymore to be any other way.

Neytir's gaze softened, the same one she had spared moments ago as she clutched her youngest in her arms. Neteyam noticed it right away, the look she was giving him. He would never admit it, but he knew his mother better than the rest of his siblings, and at the sight of her eyebrows drawing together softly, he felt his stomach drop. The lines between them displayed feelings of stress and disappointment. She wore it across her face — how badly she wished to offer him the moon and the stars. 

As her hand reached for his shoulder, that’s when he figured it out for sure. Why she had stopped him from entering, her shared looks with Jake, the way she was trying to steer him from the tent. It all made sense and a low growl took everyone by surprise as he peered over his shoulder at Kiri and the opening of the tent.

When he looked back at his mother, he felt his fists clench at his sides, “She doesn't want to see me. That's what you are going to tell me, aren't you? You pulled me aside because she told you she doesn't want to see me. ” 

“Yes,” Neytiri admitted slowly. 

A pin dropped and within a beat of time, as if only a second had passed, Neteyam resurfaced but angrier and more annoyed than before. He stepped back out of her grasp, and her hand was left dangling in the air as his tail whipped back and forth aggressively.

“No. Fuck that!"

“Neteyam!” she hissed, taking a hold of his arm and yanking him back despite his best efforts to escape her. He didn’t dare overpower his mother though or do anything that would disrespect her. Instead, he let her hold his arm too tightly, while her glare drilled holes into the side of his head.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I wish more than anything that it didn’t, but who would we be if we denied her wishes.” 

Her wishes. 

She spoke as if you were already dead and he felt himself tense under her words, his entire body becoming rigid. He closed his eyes for a moment as if trying to breathe through the pang in his chest. To calm himself down, he held his breath deep within his lungs for almost a minute before he released it. When he did, he felt the heartbreak creep up within his body until it was past his throat and on the tip of his tongue. Then he broke right in front of her.

“Her wishes? Do you even hear yourself right now, sa’nok (mother)? You're acting as if she has already died and is with Eywa. How can you just... No, damn her wishes because if there is a chance that I could lose her I am not going to stand out here and let her... I can’t just stand here and let her go into that ritual without telling her how I feel.” 

“It was not my choice, ma‘eveng (my child),” she whispered cooly, as Neteyam was starting to appear frantic.

The choice isn’t mine to bear.

He clenched his eyes shut again, suddenly stained with the memory of you standing within the mauve tendrils, beautiful face barring every raw emotion of your soul to him. Tears suspended in your eyes for a second as he felt every possible pain rip open in his chest, a pain so horrible it let his flaws and deceptions take over. He had hurt you right back and he knew just as everyone once would that he was no warrior. No perfect son. No perfect soldier. No man worth bearing the sins of the world. Your words crept back into his mind.

Then I will bear it. 

Neteyam, the way I feel about you is consuming.

“This is fucking bullshit!”

Just as Neytiri was going to comfort her son, try and offer any encouraging words she could, she felt his arm be pulled from her grasp. He was stepping away from her and her motherly gaze that was slowly suffocating him. He stared hard at his father as he passed him, sarcastically thanking him for all of his help in this whole thing, before stalking away in the opposite direction of the healing tent, his family, and you. 

They all watched him go and Kiri found herself stepping away from the tent in favor of going after her older brother. She nodded at her parents reassuringly, “I got it.” 

She took off in his direction, picking up her pace to catch up with him. As Jake and Neytiri watched them go, she huffed over at Jake, crossing her arms over her chest intently. That worried line in between her brows had formed again as her mind began to ramble with questions if what she was doing for her children and her people were right. Neteyam was the one she thought about long and hard, wondering if what they were doing was right. She felt like she had failed him or rather they all had failed him. As no one had ever made it easy on him from the moment he was born. There was not one sole point in time where they considered things from his point of view, his life, his future, or how once he had been full of childhood dreams. Instead, they just deemed them as improbable outcomes.

It was as if Jake could read her mind, all starting from that stressful line on her forehead between her brows. “He can’t be there. He will never forgive himself if he watches her….” 

“And he’ll never forgive us if she somehow dies and we never let him say goodbye.” 

Kiri chased after her brother, letting her parents' voices fade behind her. Her eyes narrowed at him as he walked in front of her or rather stomped in front of her. His braids swung from side to side, his back muscles tense and rigid. She could see every twitch of annoyance and frustration in his form, displayed on his back like any true man would — never demonstrating it out loud or through words but rather through body language.

Picking up her steps, she called out to him but he ignored her as he made it through the village. He was making a move for the forest, but Kiri knew that if he did disappear into the lush greenery, who knew when he would be back. There wasn't time for it.

“Neteyam, stop!” she finally yelled, firmly grabbing onto his elbow and yanking him back. 

He hissed at the way her nails dug into the skin of his forearm and let his feet come to a stop. Staring forward at the forest, his means of escape, a loud sigh fell from his lips. Unable to push the pain off his face, he refused to look at her, and instead tilted his head to the side, his broken gaze falling to the ground.

“What? What do you want?” 

“You can’t just storm off like this,” Kiri admitted, slightly out of breath from chasing after him, “Not right now and not like this. We need to stick together when something like this happens, so you can't just leave. Because believe it or not, everyone looks to you as much as they look to Dad during a crisis. Your presence is important, now more than ever. That, and I don't think you should be alone.” 

Scoffing he shook his head, denying her admission. More so, he wouldn’t stand there and let her give him that same pitying stare his mother couldn’t wipe from her face. “The fact that you would use my future title against me right now, are you serious? Tell, me Kiri other than that the people need me why I should stay. Y/N doesn’t want to see me, so what’s the point?” 

“Do you even hear yourself right now?” Kiri’s hand fell from around him, suddenly feeling angered by his words and his tone as if he was brushing you off like it was the only thing he could do when around other people, “I mean what the hell is wrong with you? You can’t even admit that you have feelings for her, can you? Seriously? Nothing, at all? Neteyam, she could die, she could not survive this transfer and you still can’t fucking say it out loud.” 

His shoulders dropped, her voice cutting through him like a knife cuts through flesh, with resistance but then giving away. The more things she said, the easier it was to get through to him past the bullshit and the fear. Exhaling, he finally turned around to face her, his little sister, and felt his words get caught at the sight of how sad she appeared. Her eyes displayed every form of grief and anger, and it was all pointed straight at him. 

“I can't,” he responded, his confession wearing her tight expression away, “If I say it, it will become real. Everything these past six months will be right there in front of me. Every night spent together, every argument about her training, every reaction, and feeling she brought out of me. Except if I admit my feelings for her, it would also mean that I have to admit that I am losing her. I will be admitting that she is sick and dying, and I can’t accept that Kiri. I can’t..” 

Kiri stared up at her brother, eyes wide and wallowing in unshed tears as every friction and pause in his voice spoke to everything he was saying. He was barring a part of himself to her at that moment which he had never done before. He was looking past the perfection that was expected of him and let his insecurities ring out in the air and while it was killing him to his very core, a part of him felt relief. 

“Kiri, she’s not mine. She never was and I didn't have the thought to even ask. We could never be together so why even say anything to her, but I guess now, it doesn't even fucking matter, does it? All that duty and expectations bullshit means nothing because she is slipping away right in front of us. And now that I realize that, she doesn't even want to fucking see me."

She sighed, one that was brought out from deep within, as she took a hold of his arm again. This time gently almost like if she pressed any harder, he would break. Or he would get scared, sink back into his shell, and close himself off from the rest of the world.

“Neteyam—”

“What is that?” he shouted, pupils dilated and crazed as his eyes became drenched in tears, he wished would never fall. 

“Neteyam, please,” Kiri cried then, gripping his arm harder to get his gold eyes to lock with hers, to get him to calm down as his breathing was erratic pulling and prodding at his chest as if he were trying to self-destruct right before her eyes. “You need to try and understand what she is asking of you.” 

“I won't do this. I have to see her.” 

She shushed him then, his cries falling silent upon his tongue, “Brother, you have never seen her like this, do you understand that? For six months, you have only seen Y/N in her avatar body and as one of us. You have never seen her in this true form, in her human body.” 

“I don’t care about that, Kiri, you know that,” he replied, brows drawing down on his face as he tucked his bottom lip in between his front teeth. 

“Okay, but she’s also sick, very sick, and I can’t imagine that the last time she'd want you to see her would be like this. Not as this weak, shell of a person she doesn’t even recognize as herself anymore,” Kiri explained carefully, her tears starting to fall without her even realizing as she gripped harder onto Neteyam, “It sounds like she knows what could happen, what’s at risk here. It’s not that she doesn’t want to see you. It’s that, she would rather have the last time you saw her be from earlier. She’d be okay with the fact it was in the forest, in your arms, and in her avatar body because it would mean you would remember her that way, at that moment.”

Her words had struck him in the chest harder than any blow he had ever gotten in his entire life. It was worse than when he had collided with one of the floating mountains on his first Ikran ride, or the time when he had gotten the shit beat out of him early on his training days. It was even worse than when Lo’ak had beat the shit out of him hours ago. In fact, it felt as if it was worse than all of those things combined.

She’d be okay with the fact that it was in the forest, in your arms, and in her avatar body.

Neteyam bit down on his lower lip, reopening the wound that Lo’ak had put there earlier as every single word of that one sentence made him recoil. If the last time he saw you, talked to you, was in front of that tree screaming at you as you finally told him how you felt. The way I feel about you is consuming. No, it couldn't be. That would be complete and utter bullshit. He sure as hell wouldn’t stand by and let the last time you saw him be there, under that tree not only rejecting your heart but his own feelings. 

Neteyam had been selfless his whole life until it had come to you and he wasn’t about to return to the person he was before you, refusing to listen to his own feelings and what he wanted. At that moment he was choosing to be selfish, to choose himself and to choose you over some last dying wish. He knew it was wrong, so wrong, but it didn’t stop him from stalking the healing tent for the next half hour, watching as each person came and went. His bottom lip at that point was rebleeding and torn to shreds but he needed something, some sort of distraction from the fears that were starting to take over his body.

There were fifteen minutes until you were going to be transported to the site and another fifteen before the ritual would start. Neteyam watched from afar he as Mo’at walked out of the tent, her hands full and her gaze seemingly distracted. She disappeared far into the village and Neteyam snuck out from around the side of the tent he had been standing for nearly a half hour. Having the darkness to disappear into, he slipped into the tent unnoticed. With no one following him, he close the front lapels of the tent and turned slowly on his heels.

He felt his entire body freeze, hands clenching at his sides while his breathing suddenly sped up. Dim lanterns encased the room, emitting a soft glow and he felt all sanity escape him at the sight of the avatar body that had been in his grasp only two hours before. The only you he had ever known. It looked so cold without your animated expressions, that familiar pinched line in between your eyebrows, or the tiny divots of your dimples that appeared when you smiled. It was you and had been the you he had given himself to completely but at that moment it wasn’t you at all. Its eyes were closed and already having been prepared for the ritual, the body was wrapped up in blankets to be transferred.

His eyes then took in the much smaller form laid a few feet away from it, all bundled up, chest rising and falling with each deep breath that was inhaled. He cautiously walked forward and as the soft glow brushed along his face, he felt as if his body was at a standstill, all air pulled from his lungs.

Completely unmoving, he finally saw you for the first time — the real you and his entire world was shifted on its axis. You were all soft lashes, smooth skin, and glistening full lips. With your eyes fluttered shut, he wondered what color your they were, the opening of your soul. He wanted you to open them. He wanted to see if they matched the ones he had been staring into for six months. Other than that, the slope of your nose was smaller and your eyebrows were different, more prominent, and the markings on your skin were completely dissimilar to the ivory specks he was so used to admiring.

Somehow though, even with an entirely different person in front of him, you were entirely familiar — all of his favorite parts of you were the same, and just as you had looked earlier that night underneath the mauve tree, there in that tent and in that body, you were ethereal. And you were his even not officially, you were. Ma’ Y/N.

Tears once again resurfaced after the countless times he had reeled them back in that day. Slowly, he sunk down onto his knees beside you and listened to the way you breathed, trying to memorize the sound of it for as long as he could. Glancing down to your side, he found his eyes flickering with interest at the sight of your hand, limp across the blanket. Five fingers, smaller than his own, just as your other always had been. Staring down at it, he couldn’t help himself and before he realized it, he was reaching for it. Engulfing your smaller one in his, he watched as it slipped into his with ease as if it was meant to be there. He felt a type of warmth fill his chest then as your hand twitched in his. 

Tilting his head, he looked back up to your face and found himself taken aback at the sight of two small doe-eyes peering up at him. They were so elegant and nothing like he had expected but somehow he would commit them to his memory then and there. They scanned over his face like it was the first time you’d ever seen him and he felt his heart rate speed up when they had narrowed slightly. Your brows knitted together to bring back that pinched look he had just been reminiscing about seconds before.

The sight of you staring at him felt almost scrutinizing and based on that furrow in your brow and the slight frown that occupied your glistening and completely temptatious lips, this was without a doubt you. He knew then that it didn’t matter which body you were in, which form whether human or avatar, it would always feel like this. With you, he would always feel this. 

“Hm, so this is you. Well it's nice to finally meet you, Y/N Y/L/N, all of you," he said suddenly, voice low and so soft it comforted you in more ways than one.

A few moments ago when you had felt a sudden pressure on your hand and the warmth of calloused skin, you couldn’t help but stir from the sleep that had suddenly overtaken you. You didn’t know who to expect when you opened your eyes, but it definitely wasn’t Neteyam. You never thought it could be but as you looked up and adjusted to the light, sure enough, it was.

He was there, staring down at you just as clearly as he had been in the forest among the mauve tendrils of the Tree of Souls. At first, you couldn’t deny how the feeling of his hand wrapped around yours resembled a hug and all the consolation in the world you needed. However, despite the affectionate look about him you couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing there. How he could have been there when you deliberately had said he wasn't allowed to be. You didn’t want him to see you like this and definitely didn't ask for him to come and see all your insecurities looming over you just before the consciousness transfer.

That was when the annoyance set in, evidently by the furrowing together of your eyebrows and the downward curve of your lips. You stared up at him, not knowing if you even had it in you to speak to him. He chuckled out, hand squeezing yours, feeling as if you had captivated him completely at that moment.

“Look, I can tell by the way you're staring at me right now, that you're angry I'm here."

Your lips parted as if you were going to reply, and you watched as Neteyam leaned closer as if he needed to hear your voice. The reassurance that it was still you in front of him, the same person. But as you inhaled, he could feel the way you were struggling to even do that, breath.

"Nete— "

His hand squeezed yours again, reassuringly, his unshed tears were so clear to you then, like uncut glass in the soft lighting from the lanterns. “No, don't. Don't say anything. You have already said everything you needed to. You had your chance, now it's my turn. It’s my turn to talk.” 

With his eyes earnestly staring down into yours, you exhaled the breath you were holding and let your chest relax, parted lips closing with ease. You nodded then, letting the pinched look leave your face as if you were alleviating his anxiety with it. It was his turn then to breathe, his words jumbled across his tongue, adding weight to his mouth as he couldn’t dare look away from you. Finally, as you offered him an encouraging smile, he felt all of that weight be lifted off. 

“Look, I know you didn’t want me here not like this and especially not now, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t leave things the way they were. I wouldn’t do that to us, Y/N, because you deserve more than that,” he said, stumbling slightly while completely worried that everything was coming out wrong. But based on how it felt so right in his chest and the tears gathering in your eyes, he knew it was more than enough. "I don't know what's going to happen but I do know that you deserve more finality than that because you're everything. How you make me feel is everything and I just needed you to know that.”

His eyes were soft, looking at you as if it really were true, that you were everything. That you were the entire world, his entire world. Fully in that tiny spindle of time, it was like he was finally unveiling his entire self to you — every piece, sliver, and makeup of who he was was reflected in his eyes. No more walls, no more guarding or holding it all inside. There at that moment, it was the real Neteyam Te Suli Tsyeyk’itan staring back at you. 

Curling your lips into a small smile, not enough to show your teeth, you could taste the tears that were slipping down from the inner corners of your eyes, finding a place within your smile line. With batted breath, you watched his eyes trace them to only find yours again. Relief filled him at that moment at the sight of them streaming down your face because they weren’t a sign of heartache, grief, or mortification of the situation. Most importantly they weren’t a reflection of fear or doubt about what was to come — it was as if you were completely content in your point in life right there with his hand wrapped around yours. No, what was inevitably laced within those pretty tears of yours was a complete abundance of love.

Neteyam felt as if that look had reached past his chest, taken the pieces of his heart graciously and purposefully, took them, and then, with the warmest touch, put them back together again. It was like Eywa’s plan for him wasn’t to become his father’s soldier or to save the Omatikaya from the invading enemies. His will, his purpose was to be here with you, like this. 

Leaning forward, you felt his palm connect with the side of your face, cupping your cheek like he had wanted to do so many times before. His thumb brushed along the glass of the oxygen mask and you couldn’t help but close your eyes and release more tears. Reaching up, your small hand circled around his wrist and held it there, able to feel his pulse under your fingertips. His eyes flickered to the touch before they found yours again and he suddenly couldn’t help himself any longer, not when he was finally able to see everything so clearly. 

He cleared his throat, voice overcome by emotions as a single tear of his own slipped from the corner of his eye and down into his upper lip. It was the first tear he can even remember touching his cheek in years — a tear that had and always been promised for you.

“I see you.” 

Your eyes widened slightly in surprise while the breath you had taken in felt like it had gotten lodged in your throat. More tears escaped from yours but your smile didn’t falter, not for one second, and you knew if that was the last thing you ever heard, you’d be happy. If it happened right there in his arms you could be okay with that because his words had somehow sanctified your soul. Sounding different, sounding so much more than when he had said it earlier that morning willed every bad thing away. In fact, it was everything, he was everything. 

You squeezed his wrist in your hand as you stared up at him, eyes gleaming like it was the first and last time they ever would, “I see you.” 

It was iridescent, the only way to utterly describe the sight. Mauve tendrils of neon light bathing skin in light as the forest's phosphorescent green pulsed beneath the people's bodies and feet. Pulsing to the heartbeat of their Great Mother. Pulsing in sync with their swaying bodies and stifled groans. It all reached deeply within their bones; her and her power. They cried to her, prayers and pleas kissing their tongues as the bioluminescence of the ground was prominent where their queues were connected.

Before Mo’at within the tendrils and the night sky, the atokirina was coated in white and floated in the air above in swarms. Thereupon the pulsing ground of the tree with bulging roots, two bodies lay wrapped within the confines of Eywa. The neon green phosphorescence rectifying as the Mother accepted the two bodies on her beloved soil. Evidently how the small fingerlike tresses of the ground lifted and wrapped around each body, grounding them completely. The same tresses that connected each person there to the entity of Eywa. 

“The Great Mother may choose to save all that she is in this body,” Mo’at spoke, watching the tresses grow across the avatar’s body eventually pulling the queue further into the ground creating a direct neural link to the back of your human neck. 

Eyes fluttered to a close, and you were finally relaxed, instead listening to the sound of your slowing heart. Norm stood in his avatar form near your human body with Neytiri as Jake sat on the other side next to the form they all hoped you would wake up in. His fingers brushed the strays hair out of its face and glanced over at your human body, taking note of the gentle rise and fall of your chest. He shared a look with Neytiri, a shared look of worry as both of Mo’at’s earlier words hung in their heads. She is very weak. It only brought flashbacks of Grace and filled him with the worst dread. That feeling was only exemplified when the ritual began. 

Everyone bathed in the green light, connected arms, all being interlinked as one with Eywa were able to feel her as well as each other. They slowly listened to Mo’at’s words chanting out in the air and repeated them in synchronism back at her, eyes closed focusing on the feeling channeling within one another.

“Ting mikyun ayoheru rutxe, ma Nawma Sa’nok (Hear us please, Great Mother).” 

Mo’at raised her arms high into the air, “Srung si poeru, ma Ewya (Eywa, help her).” 

“Pori tireati, munge mì nga (Take this spirit into you),” the crowd chanted back rolling their necks and their shoulders as one back and forth. 

No matter how many times Norm and Jake had witnessed the ritual, it still left them too stunned to speak; the overwhelming sensation of the voices in unison, the connection of the neurons through the ground, and the overriding presence of Eywa. It all was so much to process even more so while trying to pray to Eywa herself. To ask for forgiveness, for mercy, for her to return you even when you were weak and sick. Ask and beg that she give this one thing to all of those that loved you.

The phosphorescent green reflected back in his eyes as he glanced down from you to your human body now completely covered by tresses leaving barely any sliver of real skin showing. Mystified he watched as the atokirinas floated down from the sky and with the lightest touch surrounded your avatar body — the purest souls watching over you and serving as a positive sign of what he wished to believe.

Finally after what felt like hours of chanting and praying, and looking into the sky for Eywa, Jake felt his attention shoot up to Mo’at. He watched as she spun in circles, arms flailing in the air, eyes rolled to the back of her head, repeating the Great Mother’s name in constant tongues. She could feel her and she could hear her. He was focused then as Mo’at’s voice grew silent out of nowhere like a switch had been flipped. Her eyes returned to normal, her arms dropped to her sides, and her voice fell quiet.

Glancing down at the two bodies before her, she raised her hand to the rest of the people, her voice loud and commanding, “Lu hasey! (It is finished).”

The crowd became silent and all as one found themselves holding their breaths as Mo’at bent down examining your human body closely, her hands raised over your face. Jake held his too as Neytiri stepped forward, hands dropping to the mask around your face. With the uttermost delicacy, she reached forward and pulled it up and off, the sound from releasing the compaction was a gust of air. She laid it down on the ground next to your body as her eyes swept across your beautiful young face, relaxed, gone of any pain.

Her large hand cupped your face; like a mother, she leaned down and connected her soft lips to your forehead, right above your eyebrow. A maternal comfort you had never known or experienced, something Jake had mentioned often to her over the last half year. She let her lips linger a little longer, channeling all of her affection and devotion for you, offering it to Eywa. 

Leaning back her eyes opened again and her hand left your face with one final touch. She looked up to meet her husband's eyes and Jake felt the anxiety worsen in his stomach as she offered him an ensuring nod. He took a deep breath and looked down at the young avatar before him. He leaned over it, tracing every point of its face with his eyes, her ivory-kissed skin, and long eyelashes.

It was the same face of the young woman Jake had had the pleasure of knowing over the last six months. It was the young woman, he felt had become a part of his family. The face of the woman who had captured the attention of his children and left them astounded after seven years of knowing you. He looked down and saw the face of the woman who had managed to get his eldest son to fall in love. It was the face of you, the young girl who had been entirely and always enraptured by this planet and this world — a woman who was always meant to become a part of the Na’vi. 

His fingertips ghosted over your cheeks, the lightest of touches as the atokirinas could be seen all around you. Waiting and waiting, he felt his breath and hope leave him all at once as seconds passed and then a minute. He felt the time frame leaving, falling to a close, and his heart sunk into his stomach. Glancing up at Mo’at expectantly, disappointed, she urged him back down to you with a simple nod, asking him to wait a second longer.

Live or die?

One of us? Or one of them?

Letting his head tilt back down to you, Jake held his breath, his pointer finger brushing against the skin right below your eyebrow, delicately. His gaze zoned in on yours so seriously, he felt his throat well up waiting, begging Eywa. Just as his pinky pressed along your skin, the pair of eyes popped open, coating his sight in yellow and gold, flickered with specks of the lightest green he had ever seen.

one of us taglist is not working the best right now and I have over the limit of people asking to be tagged (it says it's fifty) so, for now, I am just not going to have a taglist because I can't tag everyone and it's taking a lot of work to figure out.

[powerpuffobsession]

The whole Eden Lucifer-Adam-Lilith-Eve situation is kinda creepy. I see serious groomer undertones in it, given the difference in Lucifer's and humans' life experience (and to extent, maturity) at the moment

Imagine that you are an adult experienced angel who is present during the making of Eden and the birth of first humans. You also apparently want a wife. And to be a part in creation of Eden. What do you do? Find some female angel to marry and live your life with? Find an actually helpful way of working alongside elder angels?

Nope, instead you meddle with the lives of newborn and inexperienced humans in the most destructive way possible.

You could have helped them sort out their disagreements and actually taught them proper ways to behave. But you don't. You groom the naive female human into trusting you and then you encourage her cheating on the male human, causing trauma and insecurities to corrupt his personality in his first few years of living (the most influential in shaping a person's mentality). Thus you become partly responsible for the vengeful monster he will become in the future

More than that, you take away the female human's chance to live safely in paradise or on earth. Because of aiding you in your not-so-well-thought-out-plan (she didnt have any other choice, you and the male human were the only company she had), she is doomed to be allowed to only live in hell the rest of her life. And you knew that no one in heaven was going to give her the benefit of the doubt

As icing on the cake, you don't stop just on grooming and encouraging cheating, you don't leave the male human alone after you've already did him dirty and abandoned him... you come back and corrupt his new wife for some unclear reason (because your "whimsical" ideas of how you'd do a project elder angels know better how to carry out, are never even elaborated upon).

As a result, you doom not only these three babies in adult bodies but also the entire humanity to a terrifying life of fighting sinful outbursts, suffering, surviving, dying and risking ending up in hell where they'll be suffering for an eternity

I'm not sure if writers will ever hold Lucifer accountable for all this in a proper way. Probably not. But thinking about how much he fucked over first three humans makes me wish more depression on him

At this point, Lilith leaving Lucifer is not surprising. Imagine if after maturing and gaining life experience (and already giving birth to Charlie) she realized how her husband was practically using her. That could be why she left after doing her job of raising Charlie until she became an adult that can survive on her own

(I mean, it could be true if hazbin hotel was good at having the characters live through consequences of their actions and not just making Adam a scapegoat who is supposedly like Stella v 2.0 - evil ever since he was born and already inventing patriarchy with his very first breath. Like, all humans are selfish jerks when they are newborn - that's what parenting is for, shaping something more pleasant out of all that selfishness) (notice how the writing only focuses on how Adam was "bad" back in Eden)

(That also gives me a reason to judge angels in general - just a few narrative details really show how little they cared about the first humans' wellbeing and future. It's their fault too that Lilith ended up in hell and had to make some sort of deal to get a chance to visit her home/ Adam became an immature mentally unstable murderer/ and Eve... dunno, we haven't seen her yet)

[dyns33]

Family's House

Next episode of Alfie Solomons and his wife dayly life as idiots in love

Y/N knew how to keep a house. Or almost.

In any case, she knew how to manage on her own, cook, clean, do the laundry, but that didn't mean that she loved these activities, or that she did them perfectly well.

However, since she was married, it seemed important that she behaved like a good wife who took care of the household chores, so that her husband could rest when he came home from work.

And with his "work", Alfie needed a lot of rest.

Since he was not very trusting, he didn't like the idea of ​​letting a housekeeper hang around unsupervised at their house, but he had found the sister of one of his loyal employees who could come by three times a week to take care of the cleaning, laundry, dusting, checking the silverware, and other things that he didn't care about at all.

On top of that, he often insisted on cooking. Maybe he was afraid that his meals would be poisoned, or he had noticed that his wife's food were too salty or overcooked, but in any case, even if he was gifted, that also annoyed Mrs. Solomons a lot.

"I could do it !" Y/N insisted, who also didn't like coming home and finding herself in front of a frightened girl, who didn't know that her boss wasn't the type to punish someone because the forks were put away wrong.

"And when would you have time, love ? You're often with me at the bakery, to help me keep the accounts, check that everything has been done properly and stop me from killing everyone."

"I'm not there as often as you."

"And the employees regret it. I think they're plotting. Ollie's been making me walk a lot lately, he knows my back doesn't like it, and that you'll take my place if I'm bedridden. Little vermin. I heard about an election project."

"Stop, I'm serious."

"Me too, love. For the plot, and the fact that I don't care who cleaned the house, as long as it's cleaned."

Maybe he didn't care, but the Candem harpies did. Y/N wanted to convince herself that she didn't care about their opinions, but that wasn't entirely true.

She wanted to be a good wife, for everyone to know that Alfie Solomons had made the right choice in marrying her, and that they were very happy.

Of course, it was also good to have a cleaning lady. A sign of wealth. But she couldn't help it, she needed to feel useful, and to show that she cared for her husband. In her family, they took care of each other, even if it wasn't always in a conventional way.

Since he was an excellent husband, Aflie had noticed her nervousness. He had first thought that she was bored. That was partly why he gave her work at the bakery, but also because he trusted her, that she was very talented, and that he liked to be with her all the time.

Since that didn't seem to be enough, he made the mistake of asking Tommy for advice. Except that since he didn't consider Thomas to be the best at relationships, or at keeping secrets from his sister, he talked about horses.

"Why ? Are you planning to buy a horse ?"

"Well, you see dear Tommy, maybe. You guys like these devil's creatures, and I love my wife. I was thinking of getting a mare, I found a charming one, adorable, but a little crazy. Agitated. Oh, I know what you're going to say, she senses that I'm not comfortable, all that bullshit, but no, she's like that with everyone. How can I calm her down ?"

"If she's naturally like that, you won't be able to. But you can always try to talk to her nicely, stroke her head and blow on her nose." Tommy answered seriously, not understanding what they were talking about and really lovng horses.

"… Yeah, I'm not sure she'll appreciate it."

The moment he put his hand on her head and complimented her, Y/N stared at Alfie with a dark look, as if she had perfectly understood what he was doing and why. He was certain of it when she stood up, leaving the room after blowing on his nose.

"Damn witch." he mumbled, thinking he was completely under her spell.

With her problem not resolved, Y/N took the time to consider the situation while remaining calm. It was not necessary for her to do great things to be a good wife.

Cleaning his shirt after work, preparing a good meal from time to time, lighting a fire in the fireplace in winter by offering a pillow for his back and tea. Simple gestures, but very important.

It was the middle of the afternoon when she decided to do all this before Alfie returned. Nothing impossible.

But in the end, she burned the dinner, missing even a simple loaf of bread, she broke plates, one of which had belonged to Alfie's maternal grandparents, she almost set fire to the carpet, and her husband's favorite shirt fell into the mud, in the middle of the street, after Cyril barked cheerfully, making her jump as she wanted to hang it on the windowsill.

So Alfie found the house in this state, with his wife crying in the middle of the living room, her hair disheveled, full of flour, and her dress covered in soot.

"It reminds me of the war." was the only thing he could think to say, looking into the distance before approaching, his hand gently caressing her shoulder. "So, love, did you lose a battle ? What happened ?"

"… I wanted to please you."

"It's a success, I love seeing my wife sobbing."

"You're still not funny. I can't even make bread. I ruined your shirt, the carpet… I broke one of your plates. I'm a horrible wife, you're the one who should be crying."

He could have answered right away, but Alfie Solomons knew his wife well. She had many qualities, just as many reasons why he had fallen in love, and one of them was that Y/N was a stubborn woman.

Worst, she was a Shelby, so she was worse than a mule.

So he took a deep breath, forcing her to stand up so that she sat on his lap like a child, letting her finish crying and talking nonsense before speaking.

"Treacle. Listen to me carefully. First of all, I am a very funny man."

"Medium funny, and often without meaning to." she mumbled, her head nestled in his neck.

"True. In any case, I'm not a man who gets attached to stupid things like a shirt or a rug. I'll buy others. Same thing for the plate. I have lots of memories with my grandparents, I don't need a plate, I have lots of plates. I can go and break all the family's china."

"No."

"As you wish, love. For cooking, I admit that I would love to come home and enjoy a meal made by you with love. But if you don't like cooking, I love cooking, and I love watching you eat what I cooked for you. You don't know how to do it ? I can teach you. My bakery may be fake, but not my talent. My breads are the best in the country, my mother's recipe. Family secret. But we are married, so I can let you in on it."

"… You're really not angry ?" she asked shyly, feeling a little ridiculous, a feeling she didn't like at all.

"It would be very tempting to tell you that you deserve a punishment and to spank you, but no, treacle, I'm not angry. I appreciate that you wanted to do all this. You are a perfect woman, at least the perfect woman for me. I am fulfilled. And I don't tell Ollie and the others, but I also think that you do a better job than me at the bakery. Mutiny always lurks."

No doubt she got that from her family, the business sense and the ability to work perfectly. To compensate, Y/N was simply not good at being a housewife, and Alfie didn't give a damn.

He gladly kicked the clichés, the old ideas and the gossips of Candem who dared to criticize his wife or make fun of him because he rolled up his sleeves and went into the kitchen.

Why wouldn't it be normal for a man to take care of his wife ? A good husband had to recognize all the work done during the day, and in thanks, he could cook, massage the poor feet of his sweetheart, and make tender love to her in the marital bed.

And Y/N really had a lot of work with him and his company. No one could deny it.

Just having to put up with him was already a full-time job. He himself wasn't sure how she managed it, or why she loved an old fool like him.

"It's true that you're crazy, we're going to burn the house down !"

"No, love, we're going to make a brioche."

"Not if you keep holding my butt like that, instead of watching the oven !"

"My nose will know. While my eyes and hands can't resist the sight of my wife, kneading dough, wearing only my apron."

"I don't even remember how you convinced me to do this."

"A lot of charm and the promise of a heavenly tasting brioche."

"I'll eat it alone, after throwing you naked in the street."

"It wouldn't be the first time, treacle. If I promise to stop kneading your beautiful behind, will you let me taste our work with you ?"

"I'll think about it."

The brioche ended up burning, because despite his promises, and his shrewd nose, Alfie was particularly distracted when Y/N leaned over to grab a dish.

But it wasn't her fault, and since he didn't stop kissing her, she didn't have time to think that she would never be completely good at keeping house. It was already wonderful that she knew how to keep her husband on the right tracks.

[penkura]

Plz do a Husband corazon + child Law for mother's day 💐💛

Y E S omg I love Corazon, he'd be such a great husband and father. 🥺 On par or even better than Sanji imo.

I hope you don't mind that Corazon and the Reader have a biological daughter as well, I just thought it would be cute!! I also made this a modern AU one, because damn it, Corazon deserved to be happy. :'(

(Note: This is out of order from all requests simply due to the theme. I have made progress on the others!)

Corazon would have a whole plan, partly put together by thirteen-year-old Law and your toddler, Evangeline. Your daughter would draw you a card, while Corazon and Law focused on making you breakfast and of course, it would go all kinds of wrong.

You wake up to hushed shouting between your husband and adoptive son, Law telling Corazon he's going to burn the bacon and to stop smoking while he cooks. Your husband retorts that it's fine, nothing bad is going to happen. He's not going to set anything on fire, unlike at Christmas. For a few minutes you lay there on your phone, listening to your family down the hall. Evangeline eventually comes into your bedroom, pulling on your blanket and calling for you to pay attention to her.

“Mommy, mommy!”

You roll over and lift her up into your bed, giving her a tight hug while she laughs and returns it. What a joy she is, that last nearly three years have been a blessing with her and Law around, you wouldn’t change it for the world. Yes, some people have given your small family odd looks—what are two twenty-six-year-olds doing with a toddler and a teenager?—but you’ve learned to tune them out and ignore them. It didn’t matter what others thought, they could assume you’d had a teen pregnancy all they wanted. It wasn’t the truth, but some wouldn’t even listen or believe you. After all, you’d tried to explain it to your coworkers when you and Corazon adopted Law just before Evangeline was born, but even those close to you didn’t understand it.

“What’ve you got there, Evie?”

“Your gift!” She beams at you and holds the card she’d made out, the biggest grin on her little face. Just as planned, it’s a card she scribbled together, you can recognize your husband’s handwriting to make the words legible, but it’s still adorable that she tried so hard to make you something. There’s a cute little drawing of your family in the card, making you smile and hug her again,

“Thank you, Evie! I—” you’re stopped by the smell of smoke before the smoke detector goes off and kick off your blanket, running down the hall with your daughter in your arms and hearing Law yell that everything is fine, though you’re at the kitchen doorway before he finishes speaking. “What is happening?!”

Law turns to you and points at Corazon, who is waving a towel over the completely burnt bacon to try and get the smoke and smell out the window. “He burned breakfast again!”

“Not like you were helping, little shi—” Corazon stops himself when you send him a glare and cover Evangeline’s ears, shaking your head at him. After the one time she said ‘bastard’, you’d been very watchful of what words were said in your house, “Look, it’s fine! We can salvage it!”

“No, we can’t! It’s burnt black!”

Corazon ignores Law’s complaints for the moment, coming over to kiss your forehead and smile at Evangeline. “Did you give mommy her card?”

“I did!”

“That’s my girl!” Evangeline giggles while Corazon turns back to kiss you as a proper good morning. “Happy Mother’s Day.”

“Thank you, beloved.”

You’re briefly interrupted by a fancy bouquet of flowers being shoved between the two of you, Law looking away shyly as he holds them there for you, his own gift for you for the day that makes you almost cry and heart ache. He’d been with you as your son for the last three years, but this was the first time he’d given you anything on this day. You’ll never truly take the place of his mother, like Corazon won’t really take his father’s place and Evangeline his sister’s, but you’re glad for the smallest bit of progress that has him viewing you all as his family, and you hope for him to continuing viewing you all in that light, even as he grows up and out of your home one day.

“…Happy Mother’s Day.”

Crouching down enough to be eye level with him, you give Law a kiss on the forehead and a smile.

“Thank you so much, Law. I love them.”

[loveisanimaginarydagger3000]

Good Luck, Babe! (5)- Nothing More Than His Wife

Wanda Maximoff X Reader 18+

Inspired by the song 'Good Luck, Babe!' by Chappell Roan

Summary: Returning to Westview after twelve years away causes you to look back on your secret love affair with Wanda, to remember the intimate moments you shared together before her refusal to accept her true self drove the two of you apart, leaving you to pick up the pieces of your broken heart alone.

What happens when you reunite with the woman you've been trying so hard to forget, forced to watch her suffer in an unhappy marriage that was slowly drowning her, still too scared to confront her true feelings?

Chapter 5- 4.3k Words

Good Luck, Babe! Masterlist

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 6

Twelve Years Later

A defeated sigh tiredly left her lips as her eyes gradually fluttered open, adjusting to the dark room as mere slivers of moonlight peeked through the gaps in the curtains, only partly illuminating her shared bedroom. The light reflected off the gold band wrapped around her finger as she adjusted her position on the bed as quietly as she could, her despondent green flickering over to the clock, noticing how it had just gone past midnight before letting her gaze drift to the other side of the bed, taking in the sight of his short blonde hair as he slept peacefully, an occasional snore escaping him.

Wanda couldn’t stop the other sigh that fell from her lips, her fingers pushing back her auburn locks carelessly before holding her head in her hands, trying to untangle the mess of thoughts swirling around in her head as she struggled to sleep. The weight of the day pressed heavily on her shoulders as she thought back to the argument she had with Vision, his words and the ring on her finger a reminder that she was nothing more than his wife, nothing more than a mother to their children, the one thing everyone told her should be enough. It should be. She was supposed to be lucky to have this; a ‘loving’ husband, a family of her own, a large house and a steady income, she should be grateful but she wasn’t because this wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted more, she wanted… to be loved, to be appreciated, to be seen. She just wanted to be seen again, her mind unable to stop herself from thinking back to the last person who ever made her feel this way.

Her heart fluttered at the thought of you, your soft, playful and casual smile that you always offered her, the way your eyes overflowed with mirth and joy as you teased her and did everything you could to make her laugh and smile, to make her feel as though she was the only thing in the world that mattered. 

The warmth and longing that wrapped around her heart was quickly stripped away as she continued to think about you, the wound on her heart that had never healed making its presence known as that broken look in your eyes resurfaced in her mind, the way despite your world was crumbling around you, you still tried comfort and care for her.

Your soft words painfully rang around her head, haunting her as the guilt of that day consumed her, that familiar nauseous feeling stirring inside her as she sighed once more, giving in to the thought of that day. She hated herself for hurting you, she regretted choosing others over herself that day and lying to you, for saying she didn’t love because she did- no, she didn’t, she couldn’t face the truth. She still couldn’t. It was engraved into her, her mind punishing her for wanting to be different, to be something other than normal. It was wrong, yet she still wished to think of you that way, needing an escape from the unfair world she was stuck in.

She missed you. Her mind, her body, her heart, had missed you, her entire being craving you in every way possible. She longed to feel your soft fingers brush back her hair, to tuck it behind her ear and gaze at her with love overflowing from your eyes, to smile tenderly at her as she propped her head on your chest, listening to the steady beat of your heart to help her relax. She needed to feel your laugh stir warmth in her as she endured your light-hearted teasing, to feel the blush rising to her cheeks, tinting a vibrant pink as you would continue to tease and torment, making it up to her with a delicate kiss or a more sinful one, not that she minded. She also missed playing with your fingers, a habit you didn’t judge her for as she grew anxious about something, simply offering yourself to her comfort and console her, something she desperately needed now. She just wanted to be understood.

At the conflicting emotions flooding through her and overwhelming her confused mind, she groaned quietly in frustration, sliding her hands down her tired face before checking on Vision to make sure he hadn’t woken up, a snore confirming he hadn’t and causing her to swiftly sneak out of the covers, pulling a dressing gown over her shoulders to cover her body as she made her way over to her drawers. Carefully, she opened the wooden furniture as quietly as she could, pushing away the various clothes hiding the small box tucked away at the back, her fingers gently wrapping around it before pulling it out, holding it close to her chest as she slipped out of the bedroom, making her way downstairs to sit outside on the patio chairs.

The gentle glow of the moon was enough to illuminate the items in the box as she slowly opened it, matching polaroids filling it to the brim as she felt tears prick at the corner of her eyes at the nostalgic feeling bubbling inside her, the whirlwind of emotions the photos stirred in her making her exhale a shaky breath. Her fingers trembled as she picked up the first polaroid, a sad smile gracing her lips as she admired the pictures of the two of you, remembering the event as though it happened yesterday.

A click caught her attention as she turned away from the sunset, Wanda’s brow raising at you as you leaned against the pillows in your truck, camera pointed at the brunette as she let her gaze savour the sight of your cocky smile as another click sounded around the car.

“Have you ever thought about modelling?” you mumble from behind the camera, a comfortable silence briefly wrapping around the two of you as you waited for the photo to print out, Wanda’s shy but equally amused smile enough to tell you her answer. You loved how the two of you didn’t always need words to communicate, a simple look, touch, or shared smile was enough as you stared at her, taking in her expression.

“What do you think?” she mumbles sarcastically as she turns around to face you, naturally shuffling her body closer to yours as she peers over at the polaroids you had taken of her without her realising, her green flickering from photo to photo, smiling fondly at the one of you sticking your tongue out whilst she slept on your chest, the peaceful look on her face as she relaxed with you.

“I think you have,” you mumble playfully, encouraging her to straddle your waist as she settles there comfortably, wrapping her arms around your neck loosely as you peer up at her, adoration evident in your eyes whilst you admire every feature on her face. “Because you are the most beautiful woman in the world,” you murmur after a moment, too busy getting lost in those enchanting green, convinced they were hypnotic as you always managed to lose yourself in them.

“Flirt,” she mutters, the blush on her cheeks and the shyness tinting her tone letting you know your words caused butterflies to swarm her stomach, her smile growing that little bit wider as you lean forwards, letting your lips ghost hers whilst your hand moves the camera to the side subtly, waiting for the perfect moment to snap a picture.

“I’m just telling the truth,” you whisper, your free hand caressing her hips whilst one of her hands cup your jaw, thumb brushing over your cheek gently, a glimmer of love briefly appearing in her eyes before she pushes the thoughts away, stopping herself from letting the words spill from her lips at your enamoured look. Instead of confessing, her lips meet yours tenderly, a smile breaking out on both of your faces as she hears the familiar click of the camera, her lips pecking yours once more before she tilts her head to look at your hand trying to balance the camera in a good position, her eyes rolling at your actions and love bubbling inside her.

A single tear fell from her eyes gracefully at the memory, lingering on her cheeks until her trembling fingers reached up to brush it away, to brush away the pain of remembering you brought her as she placed the polaroids down, the smiles on your younger faces almost mocking her for what she didn’t have anymore. She didn’t have you and… she never would.

***

Your eyes drifted from the endless road in front of you as you passed the large metal sign stating ‘Welcome to Westview’, a small smile creeping onto your lips as you returned home after all those years away, your head tilting to the side as soft pants met your ears over the quiet music. Lucky’s tongue was sticking out of his mouth as he waited impatiently in the seat next to you, his golden ears twitching back when he heard the sound of the window opening next to him, his adorable face poking out of the car as you drove through the streets of Westview, nostalgia crashing down on you like a tidal wave.

Every building you passed by dug up unexpected memories, the small town being somewhere you had explored every corner of in your youth either with Natasha or…her, the memory of the brunette causing an ache to settle in your chest, reminding you of how she left a scar on you.

You would be lying to say you hadn’t thought about the other woman, Wanda having consumed your thoughts far more than you would have wanted over the last twelve years, somehow still owning a piece of your heart despite everything that had happened. It still hurt, the words she said to you, they still plagued your thoughts and tormented you, but you tried your best to push them away, to focus on yourself and your life instead of the possibilities you could have had with her, the life you had always longed for.

You knew it was unfair to think about but part of you hoped she still thought about you, that you still haunted her thoughts the way she did yours, a deep sigh escaping you as you shook the thoughts away. No, you wanted her to be happy, to have moved on from you and hopefully find the life she always wanted, even if you still hadn’t found your true place in the world yet, your time in England ending on a sour note.

Before you could even feel bitter about the events of the last couple months, your gaze caught sight of the old convenience you worked at as you stopped at a red light, the way the old building had been abandoned and fenced off completely caused a suffocating cloud of longing to wrap tightly around you, blurring your thoughts together as you yearned for things to go back to the way they were, for things to have never changed and forced you to grow up. You wanted to be young and in love again, to have no care in the world as you drove down the streets in the middle of the night, singing your hearts out like you were the only people to exist. You wanted to feel free again.

It was wistful thinking and you knew it was, an almost mournful expression taking over your face as your youth slipped away from you like a melody fading in the distance, your thoughts drifting away from you until you heard the car behind you beep as you hadn’t moved, the light now green. You apologised by raising your hand and swiftly driving, keeping your gaze focussed on the tarmac in front of you instead of the memories picking away at your thoughts, trying to stay concentrated on making your way to your new house.

The rest of the car ride passed by smoothly, your thoughts trained on the brief traffic surrounding you and the music softly spilling from your speakers until your new truck pulled up into a large driveway, your gaze taking in the house you had just bought. A small sense of hope and excitement bubbled inside you at the idea of a fresh start, at the fact you were home, a genuine smile stretching across your lips as Lucky’s tail starts to wag, ready to get out of the car and explore his new home.

You secured the car and opened the door, the golden retriever eagerly hopping out and sniffing around the grass nearby until he eventually followed you to the front door, your fingers digging through your pockets to find the key as you heard a few raised voices next door, your gaze briefly flicking over to your neighbours house and watching as a blonde man stormed his way out of the house, dressed up smartly and looking as though he was late for work. You were curious as to what had happened, your eyes watching his tense movements until it looked like his head was turning your way, your gaze snapping away immediately, not wanting to intrude. Instead of staring, you twisted the key in the door, deciding you would introduce yourself to them at a more suitable time as you let Lucky run into the house, his tail seeming to never stop wagging as he ventured across the house, the boxes in your car waiting to be unpacked.

***

A heavy breath left you as you carefully placed down another heavy box, your hands wiping away the sweat building on your forehead as you panted slightly, your eyes taking in the sea of cardboard boxes filling your living room, the occasional sound of Lucky’s squeaky toy filling the quiet house as he played in the other room. After bringing in another box filled with various items, you decided to take break, walking through to check on the bundle of fluff as he sat on the rug you had just set up, your eyes rolling as he had an expensive bed literally in the corner of the room to sit in before making your way through to the kitchen, grabbing yourself a drink to refresh yourself.

The cool water was pleasant as you sipped it, your feet naturally taking you to the window at the front of your house as you stared out into the neighbourhood, taking in the few houses you were near. You briefly tried to guess things about the people who lived in each house to pass the time, your gaze inevitably drawn back to the house with the arguing couple earlier, a puzzled expression taking over your face. You weren’t sure why you had this pull to them, why you were so desperate to know more about them, the curiosity eating away at you as you continued to stare for a moment, getting lost in your thoughts when some movement caught your attention, your hand placing down the water as you observed her.

Her auburn hair stood out to you, her slender fingers pushing back her locks tiredly as she locked her door, her face hidden away from you as she turned to walk down her drive, her body language clearly defeated. A small wave of sadness trickled down your spine at the woman’s despondent figure as she climbed into her car, waiting for a moment as she collected herself, clearly struggling with her home life before starting the car, something undecipherable clouding your thoughts as she drove away, almost leaving you feeling alone.

You sympathised for the mysterious woman before pushing away the strange sensation stirring in the pit of your stomach and the odd sense of familiarity she caused before deciding to take a longer break from unpacking and take Lucky for a walk, part of you wanting to see how much things had changed and admire places that were still the same, needing something to distract you from the image of your neighbour.

A nostalgic smile was engraved on your face for the next forty minutes as you strolled down street after street of your old home town, your eyes taking in the way old stores you would visit had changed or refurbished, your feet subconsciously taking you towards Natasha’s old house, knowing that Melina and Alexi still lived there. You smiled fondly at the familiar house, memories of how you would sneak in and out of the window at the back making you chuckle, the stupid rebellious things you and the redhead did without people knowing, always amusing to you. You continued down the street, going past the old hideouts you shared with Nat where you drank for the first time, smoked for the first time, got high for the first time, doing all sorts of things together before you had to leave. Your smile dropped a little as you remember how hard it was to leave her, the two of you staying in contact as much as possible but struggling to as life inevitably got in the way, responsibilities and adulthood taking precedence.

After exploring a little more, you started to head back home, taking the quicker route as the two of you were growing tired and eventually found yourselves back on your new street, watching mindlessly as a red car drove passed you, only concentrating on it once you saw it pull up into the drive next to you, your curiosity peaking.

The sight of two young brunette boys jumping out of the car made your brows raise a little, the way their wide grins and elated expressions were directed in your direction as you passed their drive, well, more Lucky’s direction as they ran down the path to say hello to the golden dog.

“Can we say hi?” One of the boys said, his tone polite but clearly laced with excitement at the presence of a dog, Lucky sitting down, body wiggling as his tail wagged, knowing he was about to be fussed about, his tongue hanging out his mouth almost comically as the boys grinned at him.

“Of course,” you say softly, crouching down next to Lucky and lowering yourself so you were at a closer level to the boys, smiling at them as your fingers ran through silky fur, “He’s extremely friendly.” At your words, the brown haired boy who asked you the question immediately reached out to pet Lucky, the other one clearly more timid as he slowly let his hand approach the golden tufts on the dog’s back, his smile tugging up that little bit wider at the soft feeling. You couldn’t stop the chuckle that escaped you at the first boy gushing over Lucky, the boy’s hands squishing his face up adorably as he looked around as though he was in a dog’s version of heaven, the attention making his tail somehow wag even more as you watched tenderly at how the boys interacted with your pet.

“You’re just so cute,” he mumbles as his small fingers play with fur, your hand motioning for the boy to offer his hand out to Lucky, knowing he’d immediately offer him his paw to hold. “That’s so cool!” The boy continues as he shakes Lucky’s paw, his smile practically reaching his ears as excitement bubbles wildly inside him, his teeth on show as he grins, having fun until the sound of his mother interrupts the moment.

“Dorogies, come on, we need to go inside,” their mother shouts from the front door, stepping down the drive to find out what had distracted their boys so much, the corner of her lips lifting up at the sight of Tommy shaking the golden retrievers paw, Billy’s mouth stretched into an elated grin as they interacted with someone, her gaze eventually landing on who they were talking to.

Twelve years of sadness, longing, hope and hurt crashed down on Wanda at the sight of you, the whirlwind of emotions crashing through her almost stealing her breath away as her smile dropped, disbelief evident in her eyes along with a conflicted look, the expressive green unable to hide the confusion coursing through her. It couldn’t be you, you couldn’t be here. She had hoped for this moment for years, dreamt of being with you one more time and having love and affection wrap around her heart tenderly, but now that you were here, crouching at the end of her driveway and looking at her boys with a soft look, she desperately wished she’d never see you again. She couldn’t cope with this, the way you stirred up all those buried feelings again, the way you made those feelings real again. It was as though the emotions that tormented her for over the last decade were a mere ripple compared to the tidal wave that crashed down on her, the sight of you a constant reminder of everything that had happened, a reminder of everything she wasn’t supposed to want.

The guilt, the regret, and the heartbreak echoed around in her mind as she stared at you, a pained expression engraved on her face as she felt her throat tighten like it did all those years ago in the empty car park behind the convenience store. She didn’t want to relive it, she didn’t want the emotions that she let fester deep inside her flood through her, to make it impossible to do anything other that long for what she had in the past with you.

Why did you have to come back?

At the sound of an angelic voice, you lifted your gaze away from the two cheerful boys, tilting your head up to gaze at the woman who had captivated your attention since you arrived, the curious expression and playful smile on your lips washing away immediately at the sight of those green eyes you could never forget.

The world around you faded away, the chatter from the twins a distant murmur as your mouth parted in shock, the sight of a familiar but changed face staring back at you with an equally broken look stirring something deep within your gut as you kept your gaze locked on her eyes, the green still just as hypnotic as you remembered. Gazing into her eyes was enough to tear open the stitches on your heart you spent years trying to heal, your mind feeling overwhelmed as you didn’t know how to feel.

You wanted to feel happy, to smile at her as you had missed her. You’d missed staring into those captivating green, getting lost in each shade and swirl whilst feeling the smooth and soft strands of her hair between your fingertips as you played with them or tucked them behind her ear. You missed the way her smile and gentle laughter blessed your ears and eyes, the way such a simple movement stirred such joy from you, just being with her, just being able to admire her was enough for you. You missed her, fuck, you’d missed her from the moment you said goodbye.

Despite how you partly wanted to feel happy, you couldn’t, old wounds brutally resurfacing as your mind flashes back to the day everything around you fell apart, to when you had to stand and stare at the woman you loved and learn that she was too scared to ever love you, that she didn’t think you were worth the risk of loving. It tore you apart, it tore you apart then and it still does, the memory of the pain that seared your heart crawling down your spine as you offered her a look that conveyed every single emotion you felt.

Her expression only added to the hurt and agony wanting to drown you as she looked at you as if you were a ghost from her past coming back to haunt her, an old dirty secret nearly revealing itself. It broke you, to still feel like a secret as she looked to her boys, trying to keep her voice composed, to hide the tremble in her words as her gaze inevitably flickered back to you.

“We need to go inside now, Dorogie,” She mumbles to the twins, trying to quickly place a mask over her conflicted face before her children notice as well as trying to cover up the small glimmer of disappointment at the way their faces dropped at having to say goodbye to Lucky and yourself.

“Can’t we stay a few more minutes?” Tommy complained, hugging Lucky as to try and convince his mother to give into his wish to play longer, her eyes struggling to stay off you as your expression dropped, her pain evident on your face unlike hers.

“No Tommy, come on,” her voice holding no room for debate as a stern motherly tone tints her words, the twins swiftly saying goodbye to Lucky before waving goodbye to you, a small smile quickly lifting your lips for them before dropping, watching helplessly as she slowly starts to turn away from you, the boys running off into their house.

“Wanda,” you call out without even thinking, her name falling from your lips after all these years and odd sensation, your voice making her pause, turning briefly to look at you, your eyes seeing straight through the mask that was rapidly crumbling away before you.

“I’ve got to go now, I’m sorry,” is all she says before turning her back on you, your form standing at the end of her drive despondently as you watch her walk away from you, tears building in the corner of her eyes. Helplessly, you let the ache in your chest grow with each step she took, the pain amplifying as she shuts the door, trying to close herself off from you and the longing look in your eyes as you stand there, trying to repair your heart once more all alone.

[a-hazbin-reader]

Can I request how Alastor would be when wifey was giving birth to any of the kids??

Alastor X Reader Headcanons

✅️Romantic

❌️Platonic

TW: Childbirth?

Description: 👆⬆️

When you go into labor, Alastor is probably in an overlord meeting or something when he gets the news

On the outside he's very calm, simply nodding and standing up while dusting himself off

"Ah, my most sincere apologies but I really must be going! Carmilla, your assistance would be deeply appreciated!"

Carmilla immediately gets the hint and ends the meeting early, Zestial and her daughters trailing behind her

Of course all the other overlords are curious af but Alastor doesn't give them the satisfaction of an answer

"Is it your pretty wife, radioman? She having the baby already?!"

Velvette is shoving her phone in his face and already opening up all her social media apps, Alastor simply walking around her

"Another time, my dear Velvette~"

In fact, he's all laid back smiles and effortless charm just like always, despite everyone else around him panicking

Charlie

"Charlie~ My dear, you must calm down! My wife is the strongest woman I know! She will be fine..!"

He instills confidence in everyone else around him until he's actually alone with you

Husk is the only one who sees through his facade but doesn't comment on it, simply sliding Alastor a single shot to knock back

He refuses to let anybody in that isn't strictly necessary, so Charlie is booted out, and Niffty has to be escorted out like five times

He tries to convince Zestial to leave, but at that point, he's much too focused on you

His grip on your hand is just as tight as your own and his smile is strained with worry, his usual air of confidence has now turned into quiet anxiety

Alastor's lips are nearly pressed against your temple as he whispers soft words of encouragement and apologies to you, rubbing your hip soothingly

If you're in a lot of pain or the birth is extremely traumatic for you then he'll feel guilty and give Lucifer a few dirty looks because it's partly his fault too

He is very soft and gentle with you throughout the entire labor process no matter how you treat him, he's only worried about you and the pain you're in

"This is all your fault! You did this to me!You terrible man!!"

"I know, darling... I'm sorry, please forgive me."

Once you've given birth then he's wiping sweat from your forehead and telling you how proud he is of you, cooing at you and trying to make you smile even though you're exhausted

"Even when you've been through such an ordeal, you're just as beautiful as ever, darling~"

Of course he's super interested in the baby too, checking them over and just watching you hold them with a lovesick expression

Your husband is also eager to hold his child, singing you to sleep while rocking the baby in his arms

He dotes on you and the baby, making sure every need is taken care of and crawling into bed to join the snuggles if you let him

He absolutely doesn't leave your side until you're practically begging him to give you space, and even then, he's reluctant to leave

"Darling, surely an hour is too long? Can't we shave it down to thirty minutes and I'll bring you back some jambalaya?"

He has the biggest, sweetest, most earnest look on his face. You almost forget he's a cold-blooded killer and a demonic overlord

"Make it forty minutes and bring me an extra pillow, please?"

"It's a deal~"

It's so sweet and domestic that it makes his teeth hurt, but he wouldn't trade it for the world

[smolvenger]

It's Christmas, After All (Loki x fem! Reader Oneshot)

Summary: It seems you are spending Christmas alone...until Loki joins you.

Word Count: 4987

Warnings: SMUT!! 18+ (Thigh riding, blowjobs, sex on a chair and table, doggy style, p in v sex, orgasm denial), Spoilers for Loki season 2, lots of angst in the beginning with loneliness until it becomes tooth rotting mega indulgent fluff. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, y'all!

DICK-Tionary: Smut starts at "Gladly" and ends at "Panting, you held onto each other as he helped you down."

A/N: Hi there @loz-3!! I am your Secret Santa for @fictive-sl0th's event! Happy Holidays and I hope you enjoy it and don't mind how super indulgent and wild it gets! Happiest of holidays to you!!! :) I hope it makes you happy this season and all year around!!!

A03//My Ko-Fi//My Etsy Shop//Masterlist//Wattpad

Taglist: @evelyn-kingsley @jennyggggrrr @five-miles-over @fictive-sl0th @ladycamillewrites @villainousshakespeare @holdmytesseract @eleniblue @twhxhck @lokisgoodgirl @lovelysizzlingbluebird @raqnarokr @holymultiplefandomsbatman @michelleleewise @wolfsmom1 @cheekyscamp @mochie85 @fandxmslxt69 @skittslackoffilter @mischief2sarawr @loz-3

It should be a special day. 

But here you were. Doing the same things as normal. Your same coffee. Your same breakfast. Your same place. Scrolling the same apps on the same phone. The same sky. The same weather. Only with some festive decorations around the place. Once it had cheered you up to see lights amid the gloomy weather. Now it made the place seem gaudy.

Social media was all the same. Smiling, happy people with their families and significant others and friends. How was it that people had big friend groups in real life as adults and did things together constantly? It felt like no matter how hard you reached out at work….they weren’t interested. You saw one girl from college with her husband and two little kids all in matching pajamas. You wished partly to get one of those pajamas. Because no matter what tacky red plaid set you got, you at least belonged to a group that all wore the same set. That you were included. One of something.

It didn’t feel like a holiday or a special day. Especially not Christmas- the day that was supposed to be the best of the year. To think you didn’t have work. Then at least you would have something to do, to get your mind off everything. 

But no. Only quiet, lonely, long hours on a day of gathering and joy. Only there was no one to gather with. And the joy you were trying to make yourself feel…was nothing.

You were living on your own with a roommate. And she was off with her boyfriend to be all heart eyes and then eat casseroles with his family.

Your parents had booked a trip. They said they were sorry but next time they would bring you. And off they were at some tourist spot. You wished you could go- as tacky as the place was, as much as you had seen it top to bottom… it meant you could at least play cards and drink wine and cook meals with them on this holiday.

All of your friends lived far away in other places. Some were doing amazing things. Incredible jobs and opportunities. Greatness was reached for them…..but not for you. Some lived in town but grew apart- getting married. Or onto their own lives. Regularly posting pictures about their own “best friends.” Best friends who weren’t you.

You had befriended the Avengers, but off they went to either save the world or to their own families to celebrate. You knew Thor and Loki would go to Asgard for a feast with their family to commemorate Yule. Much less Loki- the handsome, charming trickster god probably had better things to you than deal with you...at least any more than friendship. A tiny one began between you two as you talked. But no…you were overthinking. What would he even see in you? You likely weren’t even his type! At least he didn’t notice your ogling when he was in the room. But…he was a god. He could have whoever he wanted….and not likely you. 

You looked down at the texts you sent over to your sister and her husband. They were the only true, close friends in town you had. 

“Hi there Sydney! I'm just asking- could I come over for Christmas? I want to just hang out!”

It was sent and Read on December 20th. No reply.

Then at the text over with your brother-in-law.

“Hey, there Sam! Can I come over and celebrate with you guys? I can bake something and bring it over! Plus I can’t wait to see your faces when you open my gifts!”

Sent December 22nd. No reply.

Once you have done everything together with your sister. Then she got married and suddenly…she had someone else. And you had no one. You then still tried to reach out to them. Going to movies, enjoying little family dinners, hanging out, and even sleeping over at each others’ houses. 

Now…nothing. You looked at another text you sent them.

“Hey, Sydney! I’m free tomorrow- want to watch that movie we both discussed for the longest time seeing?”

Sent on December 18th. Read. No response. 

It was like you no longer mattered to them anymore.

You wanted to yell at them. You wanted to march over to their place, open the door, and scream at both of them. Throw an angry tantrum like a child. How dare they ignore you. Leave you alone- they were all you had. The only live friends they had outside of a bunch of superheroes and gods who were always busy. You wanted to throw something at them. Yell that they never replied to your messages. That suddenly you were ignored and unimportant. That they were all you had and accusing them of treating you like dirt. Call them out for their shortcomings as you cursed and called them harsh words. You wanted to tear them both apart. 

But…that was Destroying what good relationships you had with your sister and your brother-in-law. At least that’s what your mother would say. 

But…you knew there was a chance they were both working on Christmas with their jobs. They worked night jobs and slept all day. They refused to go to things you planned to do with them due to “needing to sleep.” They had to make ends meet and It wasn’t fair on their end.

Yet on Christmas, it wasn’t fair on their end. 

You ruminated more on them. Sydney and Sam, spend their days sleepily cuddling, binging streaming shows, cooking, and working nights. Discussing baby names and having one when they clearly couldn’t afford the rent increase. Their impracticality and sometimes immaturity. yet you loved them. But it was like they were in a bubble. Wrapped up in their little world. At least, Happy and in love. You wanted to be in love, to be loved, wanted, included….and here you were…alone.

Unloved. Unwanted. Unincluded. 

You knew if you watched any Christmas movies, you would be surrounded by images of people smiling in groups. People were with their spouses, lovers, friends, and families all smiling and happy. Even if there was conflict like in any movie and someone was left in solitude…later they would all hurry in full of chatter and laughter and smiles.  Because belonging, being wanted, was now just a fantasy.

You sat down on the couch and cried. What was worst of all - It was your favorite holiday. The lights, decorations, hope, music, food, beauty, joy- yet you were spending it alone. 

Because you weren’t wanted anywhere by anyone. 

You were spending it and closing the year as a failure. A lonely, awful failure. 

The tears rolled down, making you gasp for breath and continue to sob. Curling up in the fetal position on the couch, crying, crying away until you were gasping for breath and snot running down your nose.

You heard some talking outside. It was colder- though a couple you knew, Mr. and Mrs. Malloy, was walking around. They lived in the big house across the road. They were dressed in their designer furs holding portable cups that you knew were homemade chocolate-peppermint espresso. Mr. Malloy with his brown hair, sharp green eyes, and a face that looked more like Handsome Squidward than an actual person. Mrs. Malloy with long, shiny red hair that was soft and full of products and curled to perfection, and her face was perfectly done with makeup products that were three times your car insurance. You could already smell the cologne and perfume from in your house. They smelled of money and loved to flaunt it to everyone. 

As they strutted, a stranger walked by. Hands in pockets. A tall man in a big red puffer winter jacket with a black beanie hat that hid the top of his head walked by. It was hard to make out his face. They accidentally bumped into him.

“Watch where you’re going, asshole!” barked Mrs. Malloy, gripping her cup with her designer gloves. “I almost got coffee on me!”

“I’m sorry,” voiced the stranger. He bowed his head down, genuinely ashamed.

A decent person in the Malloy’s position would have acknowledged and accepted the apology. Perhaps even laugh it off- the coffee was still untouched and their clothes intact. Assure the stranger it was alright.

The Malloy’s were not decent people. 

“Sorry doesn’t cut it! Just leave!” sneered Mr. Malloy.

The couple huffed and walked away past him. Taking sips from their drinks. Their noses up in the air. 

The stranger behind lifted an ungloved, white hand towards them. His fingers swirled in the air. Then he fled to the far corner to watch.

 Then as Mr. and Mrs. Malloy looked down their cups, sensing something was off. When they did, they let out a scream.

Out of the lid, instead of steaming espresso were a lot of tiny brown snakes that slithered out of the cup and down onto the ground. You let out a gasp where you stood watching. 

The couple tried to stomp at them, but in vain- the tiny snakes were as invincible as cockroaches. Mr. and Mrs. Malloy screamed and ran away to their three-story house in fear.

You burst into laughter so much your cheeks hurt and your face felt warm.

It then hit you- you knew only one person even capable of that.

The man returned from his corner, his face turning to see you. He gave you a wink. You gave him a smile and a wave. 

With a tilt of his head, the jacket turned to a dark brown peacoat and his hair was long, dark, and curly. An ivory face with cheekbones that could cut steel and sweet blue eyes. Hands casually in his pockets. The most beautiful man in all the realms you had ever seen.

At once, you threw on a jacket. You hurried to open the door. Loki walked to you with a smile.

“You’re here?!” you asked.

He gave a shrug

“If I have to tolerate my father’s Yule feast for one more minute, I was going to go mad,” Loki announced.

You took a step closer to him. The air was chilly, though not cold enough for snow.

“But why here? Why me? You could go anywhere….” you mused.

He let in a tight breath, raising a hand to brush through his curls.

“I may be a god of lies and deceit…but I…I didn’t want you to be alone today, my dear,” said. “And you, a great beauty of Midgard, alone on an auspicious day- it didn’t seem right.”

Chest fluttering from the complement. You…in just your sweater and jeans, a great beauty?! Yes, he could flirt and charm a statue to blush. That was his nature. Compliments rolled off him like his magic. You better not think any more of it.

Your whole self was bursting with gratitude and happiness. To have company, especially on Christmas of all days. To not be alone anymore.

Wiping off a few stray tears, you ran forth and tackled him in a hug, crying and laughing as he hugged you back. Accepting it. You were both lonely souls, not wanted, not chosen. So it was fate that a god should cross paths with a mortal with whom he shared so much of his pain. 

“Come inside and get warm,” you offered.

He smiled, looking at the grey sky. The ground was grey with gravel and green from the grass.

“Let’s make something to get warm from,” he suggested. 

With a flick of his hand, the temperature shot down. You shivered further into your coat. Then it began to snow down big, white puffs. You smiled, letting a hand out to feel them. How soft they were! Their tiny, intricate patterns where none were the same. A small laugh came out despite you. 

“It’s beautiful! Now it really feels like Christmas!” you praised. 

You didn’t realize the god of mischief looking at you, the white flakes falling on his dark hair and the rims of his long eyelashes. A softness on his features. His own heart picked up at the happy look on your face. His smile was soft.

“Alright- now let’s go inside,” you offered.

His hand reached up magic pouring through and around.

 His magic went around in little golden slivers that went around the place. You gasped as it transformed everything it touched. Your jaw dropped at the transformation.

 It was turned into a perfect Christmas home- a crackling fireplace grew from the wall with two green stockings. A turkey dinner complete with every side dish you could name was served on the table. Its delectable smell made your mouth water. A record player opened with the overture of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet, the beautiful, playful, and mischievous music ringing through and sounding better than any ho-hum Christmas song the radio blasted ten billion times. Because it was from him. From Loki.  And as you looked at the tree, with even more glittering gold decorations around it, a few resembling the horns on his helmet, a beautiful star sparkled on top. You gasped when you saw the skirt- there were piles of presents in green wrapping paper with gold ribbons. They weren’t there before. 

You went to one like a little child full of both innocent greed and wide-eyed curiosity. You picked it up and shook it, feeling something in there. 

“Are the gifts…real?” you asked.

“Of course- and a good portion of them are for you!” he replied.

The music moved onto the second part of the ballet’s first act- “Un fete du noel.” Soft strings and flutes over repeating lower strings full of anticipation and joy. 

“Oh, but Loki…I..this is…so much, I-”

“If it weren’t for you, I’m sure I’d be either strangled to death or stuck in a tree of my creation! And I promise you they aren’t all pranks. Only one-quarter of them.”

“Thank you!” you gasped.

You went up and hugged him. So overjoyed, you pecked him on the cheek. He blinked in surprise. As you turned around, the god himself blushed pink. 

Giggling, you picked up a present. The pranks were ones that were empty until the ribbons became little sparkling fireworks that made you laugh. 

Then there was one that was empty when suddenly your clothes were transformed from your plain sweater and jeans to the fancy Christmas outfit of your dreams. It was a deep green dress made of velvet with a fitted waist and a long skirt, like something the ladies of White Christmas would wear. You felt….felt beautiful in it.  You smiled at him in thanks. 

They own were things you long craved for, and wanted. Beautiful things. And practical things. Things outside of your budget. Things that would help make life easier. Or a little beautiful. The very things you wanted. If you wanted it desperately there it would be laid. Lovely, lovely things. You were crying- but tears of happiness. 

Loki merely sat on the couch, smiling at you. Beneath his peacoat was his average Midgard wear. A shirt and brown khakis that were both deliciously tight. A tie that made him seem like a professional office worker. As he eventually took off the coat and rolled up his sleeves, you stifled the urge to gawk at him.

“Oh, and your presents!” you gasped to Loki.

“I’m out of my father’s palace, what more could I need?’ he asked smoothly.

You felt warm and tingly inside but ignored it.

“Oh no! You deserve something too! I…I got you two gifts! They were on sale and I couldn’t pick just one.  I hope it’s…it’s alright!” you offered. 

You ran into your room. The music still tinkling, moving onto the Dance of the Snowflakes. He used his magic to open the curtains to see the window. The beautiful snowy day. People ran out to play, children giggling. To think…though he was a Frost Giant and feared, his magic could do a little good.

 You emerged out with two boxes. One small and one big in red wrapping paper. He opened up the smaller box and found a set of fine brushes and combs. He grinned at them, testing the bristled with one of his beautiful, long fingers. 

“I didn’t know how you cared for your hair- I always thought it looked nice- I thought you could use some!” you suggested.

He gave a small laugh looking at them. 

“They’re perfect! I could always use them- Mother used to scold me for not tending to my hair! These I will treasure,” he assured you.

He then began to open the second bigger one. His eyebrows lifted as he got to the box and removed the lid. Inside was a thick, knitted black scarf. He smiled at it, testing it by wrapping it around him. It fit around him like it was made for him.

“You know me well, my dear. Thank you,” he replied. 

With grumbling stomachs, you went over to the table. He conjured black cloth napkins and had one placed delicately on your lap. It was like being at a much fancier restaurant than being at your apartment. 

You sat down and enjoyed the dinner- the meat was tender and full of flavor. The sides were all of your favorites, hot and freshly made. The desserts and sweets were full of powdered sugar that melts in your mouth. You had to suppress the sounds you made at tasting them. Loki had to remind you to slow down and taste it, enjoying it.

You showed one of your favorite Christmas movies. He asked questions and you laughed and explained everything. He looked at the commercials that played on the TV and then one featured Santa Claus. He tilted his head at it.

“Hmm, he looks like my father. Father was one of the inspirations for this Claus figure- did you know that?” he commented.

“Really! Though- Santa Claus is much nicer! I assure you!” you promised him.

The fire roared and it was quiet. He conjured two mugs of mulled wine. You sipped and smiled at the hot, spicy drink. The alcohol burning you a little, but relaxing you. You both let out a cheer for the holidays. The sun outside began to set early as it always does on a winter day. You both chatted- about Thor, your family and work, about the Avengers, the gifts, all sorts of things. He then looked around the place, finishing the wine with a last sip as he sat on the chair. 

“Loki…I cannot thank you enough. I know I said thank you a hundred times today- but…why did you do all of this….for me? Not just to get away from Odin, but…you didn’t have to give me all of these gifts and a nice meal and make my place pretty…”

He cupped his mulled wine mug with both hands.

“Because…because…my dear, because….” he began to stutter.

He paused. His blue eyes were big, but never left yours. A god full of magic…and he was nervous!

“I really don’t know how to say this,” he continued. 

Your throat went tight and your heart raced wildly. Wondering if this was a dream.

“But I feel sometimes…you and I…are tied together. No matter how hard I try to stop, you always appear there in my head. At every time of the day. You….you who have stayed by my side. Listened to me. Cared for me…And I find I want to return to you. Even if I had to crawl on my knees to get to you, I would. Because, my dear, I…I have…soft feelings for you, my dear…tender feelings…”

Unable to take it, you set down your mug and grabbed his shoulders, pulling him into a kiss. were on him like an animal. His hands reached over to your waist. You kissed him- tasting the hot spiced wine he had been drinking. His hand went to you.

It wasn’t long until he had backed up. He sat on a chair and at once you straddled him. 

His breath hitched- he was getting hard and you felt him right on your pants. You held his face and kissed him. He was groaning as you did. There were wet noises from the kissing.

“Dear girl, darling, sweet girl…I want to take you on each surface and ruin you in every way,” he said.

“Then start here- with this one,” you offered with the chair. “Ruin me then.”

With a flick of magic, your clothes changed. You were in deep green lingerie of a babydoll and high lace stockings and a lace thong you were certain was green too. He was only in black pants and a santa shirt that was wide open, showing his delicious wide chest with black chest hair and six-pack.

He smirked at you and said one word.

“Gladly.”

Holding onto him, you ground against him as you kept kissing his neck, his shoulders over his shirt. He moaned at the touch. You went to his neck-sucking on as you touched each bit of him. His large, delicious hands feel the lingerie on your mid body and your legs. You heard him chuckle. 

“I see my little pet is eager,” he began.

He set you on his thigh and you gasped.

“Here you go- ride this first. Get yourself ready- and I want those sounds of yours loud. So I know what pleasure I can give you.”

You began to roll your hips. He moved it up and down, eyes brimmed with lust as he watched you.

You let out one moan- his leg hitting your thin panties, already getting wet. Then as you grinded on his leg again, you let out another louder one like he commanded. You saw his erection even on the darkness of his pants as you did. His hands touched your body beneath the babydoll, squeezing your hips. Then going up, holding both of your breasts, squeezing and feeling them.

His chest was revealed- wide and strong pectorals, with a little hair. Abdominal muscles with a six-pack made of ivory. You rode his thigh for another minute, letting your thong get ruined with how soaked you became. Then you leaned forward, grinning. You began to kiss his chest. Then you used your tongue and licked it. The hot skin beneath you, a little salty from his sweat. He moaned in turn.

“Yes…I like that…that too, my dear- keep…keep going…”

You then stopped, smiling at him.

“I have to thank you first…for everything you did today,” you giggled.

At once you got on your knees, eagerly finding the zipper of his pants and undoing it. Out sprang his large cock, white pearls dripping off of the tip. So hard it was touching his stomach.

“See…see what effect you have on me, pet? What you do to me- even when you just smile at me…we need to take care of that…”

“Yes…let me….” you grinned.

You set your lips around his cock and began to suck at it. He let out a groan. His hands find the top of your head. You sucked at it like it was candy, as saltier than the rest of his skin. As you did, you swirled your tongue over the tip and he hissed out your name. He began to experimentally thrust a little inside you. Though your eyes burnt, you took as much of it as you could- for he was a god even with the size of his length. His shudders through him.

“Yes…good girl, my good, good little mortal- taking your god's cock in your pretty lips, on your knees- yes-good fucking girl,” he voiced out. 

You felt him tense up, a small release as he gasped. You then went up, wiping off his cum that dripped down from your mouth. At once you got up and had him watch as you swallowed. His own body stilled. His cock still raging hard. One of the benefits of being a god- he was always horny and ready and didn’t take long to want more after he came.

“Norns,” he voiced in awe.

Then you mounted him, still hard.

You kept at it, lapping up his skin- kissing him on that delicious chest and on his shoulders. You could feel yourself get even wetter as he did.

“My darling-I-I cannot take it-I- have to be inside of you…” he breathed out, his voice raspy. 

His hands gathered your skirt to your waist and he ripped apart the thong of your own creation. Your wetness cold from the sudden exposure. You wrapped your legs on the couch to mount him. At once you plunged inside. You let out a cry from the size as you adjusted. You began to ride him- your breasts bouncing. 

“Ah- ah!oh-oh-Loki- fuck, yes- there-yes, I love-I love you-fuck!” you were moaning’

“Yes-yes-take your god like a good girl- all of it-all of me-”

He groaned and made a small sound. As he pounded away. You felt yourself speeding up, the high, about to reach bliss when….when he stopped. His hands are on your waist.

“I want to take you like a whore now,” he said. “Would you like that?”

“Yes…yes please,” you said. 

He picked you up, legs around. He kissed you, still tasting himself on your lips and breath. Your hands still fisted around his curls. still around and brought you to the table. The plates and silverware made a sound like a crash as they fell to the floor as he shoved them aside. 

He had you bend down over it. He let out a guttural breath with a smile at the sight of your bare ass over it for him. He gave you a strong spank and you let out a small yelp. Gripping the table on the other end for what was about to happen. 

“Who is your god?” he asked.

“L-Loki is.”

He spanked you again. You let out a cry.

“Who gave you all of this-?”

“Loki did!”

“And you will pay back by being my obedient little girl, will you?” he asked.

“Yes, yes please-”

He thrust inside you from behind. You let out a cry. His breaths were low pants. He pounded in, the table shaking. What plates and silverware and food there was shaking with it. Your hand became a tight fist as he pounded on. It was so rough, hard, and filthy, you couldn’t help but love it. 

He pulled you roughly up, your own moans with each filthy thrust of his.

“Yes-even here- you will take…take your god's cock in every way. Yes- yes, there-fuck-norns-what you-you do to me-your god,” he hissed out, his breath right behind you.

You felt it bubble up again. You let out another moan as you tilted your neck behind him, feeling it.

“Yes-yes Loki- Loki-please…please- I’m about to-to cum, please, let me-let me cum-” you pleaded. Your own folds inside shaking from the power.

“No…wait…”

He pulled out of you. You let out a small sigh. Your body shaking. Taking so much. Desperate for release.

“When you cum, I want to see it,” he breathed out.

He flipped you around and positioned you to wrap your legs around him. You embraced him. At once he entered again. Then thrust into you, slow at first. 

“Eyes on me. No one else- watch me. I want you-want you to look me in the eye when you cum. So no man. No god- no one can give you this pleasure-”

He began to pound into you again on the table, you bounced Your breath was hitching in high gasps.

“Ah- oh- hmm-yes-yes there-oh gods-Loki-”

“Eyes on me, darling-look at me-”

His hands then wandered to your clit. So powerful and large, they began to strum it. You let out another moan.

“Look- at-me,” he commanded.

You were so hazed you forgot- his voice commanding-your had your eyes focused on him. His jaw tightened, fighting his own release too.

“Eyes. On. Me- who gives you pleasure?”

“You do!” you cried out.

“Say my name, darling-”

He fiddled with your clitoris faster, you fought it, it was finally going to break at this rate.

 You let out a shout. It was building up in you. He pounded you into a fury. So many quick deep thrusts, the table going wild.

“Yes- say it darling- say it, I’m cumming- yes- cum with me- look at me- look at me- yes, I feel it- I’m going to-going to cum- I command you- say it- say my-say my name!!”

You let out a breathy cry of “Loki!” as it broke on you and you climaxed so hard his face and the room spun.

Panting, you held onto each other as he helped you down. He conjured you a glass of water to sip on. 

“Are you ok?” he asked. “It was a lot.”

“It was perfect. Presents, a meal, and an orgasms- you’re spoiling me rotten already,” you teased.

He smiled and chuckled at the phrase. You both got in blankets snuggling before the fire.

So much time had passed it didn’t occur to you that your phone dinged with an alert. You picked it up. An hour ago, your sister and her husband sent a reply saying they were sorry since they fell asleep and now saw you and that you were welcome to see them. You let out a laugh.

“Would you like to, my dear?” he asked.

“Not in this…” you gestured to the babydoll. “But I do want to keep it…I have my favorite gift to enjoy tonight?”

“The ravishing little number you have on?” he asked.

“Oh no…it’s a handsome gift, tall, dark hair, blue eyes,” you giggled as you wrapped your arms around him.

“Merry Christmas, pet,” he whispered.

It was indeed.

[pvrkacciosan]

Moment we share

Synopsis: Holding your child for the first time is the best feeling in the world, sharing the moment with others is even better.

Pairing: Charles Lelerc X fem!reader

Warnings: Fluff! (idk,)

Word count: 924

You were utterly exhausted but you didn't want to move, largely because your whole body was aching from labour and partly because you were so infatuated with the little baby in your arms, a genetic copy of you and Charles, that you couldn't bring yourself too move.

Being at home helped, your husband was a rock of solidarity in the moments when your body wouldn't yield to your commands.

"She's perfect" Charles was hugged into the side of your bed, contently watching your daughter. Rosa Leclerc was going be a force to be reckoned with.

You shifted, trying to ease the ache building in your muscles, Charles observed you quietly from where he now stood.

"Let me take her" he didn't want to force you into letting her go again so soon,

Much to his surprise you lifted the bundle of blankets up, Charles stepped closer securing his arms to support his daughter.

You bit back the smile as the worry line on his forehead appeared, stressing over the littlest of things,

"Is this right?" He looked to you for support, the knowledge tugged something inside the hollow of your chest.

"Yeah you're fine" His shoulders were almost rigid and it took Charles a few minutes to ease into a posture that look at least half way comfortable.

"She's looking at me" Charles whispers, his voice soft.

"Hi baby" he cooed, pulling the blanket back to see her face.

Rosa yawned and as you watched Charles you were almost convinced your husband was going to combust on the very ground on which he stood.

There was a soft knock for the door, before it was pushed forwards. The muttering of French coming from the women to the people behind her. Charles family had come to visit the new Leclerc.

Your family had already been in, having been here since the moment you were hit with contractions. A home birth was always a plan for you, his family had respected your time frame and had appeared not a second before you asked them to.

Charles's mum shuffled into the room, his brothers falling in after her, tumbling over one another to be the next to hold their niece.

Charles turns to meet their stares, Rosa tucked tightly into him.

"Oh my.." his Mum leaned closer to her son, being respectful enough to not grab for your daughter as your mother had earlier. Something which had initially annoyed both you and Charles.

Despite the infant, his mother came across to your bedside, allowing his brothers that access to watch Rosa.

"How are you my darling?" Charles mum has always been lovely with you from the moment he brought you home to meet her. You need that now. Since your own parents had not been as kind, her gentle voice was soothing in a way you had once upon hoped your own mother's to sound like.

"I'm sore, but I'm fine now that's she's here"

She passed her gaze back to her three sons, practically melting over your daughter, Arthur pandering over her little fingers which gripped around one of his.

She began to unpack a bag onto your bed,

"He loves her so much", Continuing to watch your fiance, you sighed in relief when you watched her unpack tubs of homemade foods, the smell wafted across to the men.

Arthur's head popped up, he wandered across,

"Hey Y/n, you feeling okay?"

He subtly reached for a small tub of soup, his mum was quick to slap at his hands,

"Hands off, they're not for you"

Arthur grumbled but settled down into the new armchair in the corner of your room.

The conversations went on, with Charles passing Rosa between his family, each cooing and taking this moment with her.

With every moment that passed you could feel yourself wanting to drift into the embrace of sleep, Charles swirling small circles into the skin of your shoulder with the pad of his thumb was only aiding in the effect of needed sleep.

Lorenzo was smiling, making faces at Rosa, the infant laying in your mother in law's arms. Snuggled in, despite Charles conversation with his mum and youngest brother.

Your eyes were drawing heavier by the second, Pascale noticed your state, her eyes softening, she sat upright, carefully keeping a hold of your daughter.

You tried to pry your eyes open, to ask if she needed anything, but Pascale simply smiled at you, before turning to her other two sons,

"Y/n is tired, let us take our leave now." There was no room for error in her words, Arthur looked about ready to protest, but one glance your way and he nodded.

Charles squeezed your shoulder softly rising from beside you to kiss your head and walk to his mum. Pascale handed her son his daughter,

"Get some rest, Y/n you deserve it we'll be downstairs if you need anything"

Once they left it was easy to slip into the drag of the warm duvet, changed out from the towels which had previously covered your body.

Just as you had begun to drift off once more, a vibrating notification came from your phone, reaching for it you switched it to see the photo Charles had sent you from the other room.

Rosa was snuggled up into Arthur's chest once more, sleep drawing her own eyes shut.

Charles messaged popped into the screen not a second later.

. Like mother like daughter.

You couldn't breath past the swell in your throat, it was moments like this that had you realizing just how much you loved Charles and the life you had both made together, to the life you would continue.

To every little moment you would share as a family. 

.

.

.

Taglist: @80sloverry @unofficial-journalist @celestialams @mirrorball-6 @love4lando @ironmaiden1313

[flowerandblood]

The Lost Haven (7/16)

[ modern mafia • Aemond x niece • female ]

[ warnings: uprotected sex, incest obviously, smut, the angst, manipulation (partly unintentional), violent description of suicide attempt (blood), injection of a sleeping drug, violence, imprisoning, uncomfortable conversations, bad, bad things ]

[ description: The vacation from eight years ago still haunts his memories and doesn't let him forget what happened between him and his niece, the daughter of his sister and Harwin Strong. Their paths separate and he immerses himself in his father's mafia world until the day she calls him for the first time since those events. Sexual tension, dark, dangerous, withdrawn, thirsty Aemond. ]

Author’s note: As promised, this is another, this time official modern version of The Fall from the Heavens. In this version, Daemon is not related to the family, but is simply Rhaenyra's husband and the leader of the second gang, Alys and Larys are also not related to each other, but Larys is Harwin's brother. I will partly refer to the original series, hiding some easter eggs, and some will be a completely new, fresh plot. As in every universe, only Aemond calls her Rhaenys and this is not her real name (she is unnamed character and the others also do not know that he calls her that). There will be a lot more brutality and angst in this version, so watch out. You can read this as a standalone story.

Series & Characters Moodboard Aemond & Rhaenys Moodboard

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

_____

He could have become a father.

Could was the key word in his life: he could do a lot of things theoretically, but for the most part the line between what was accessible to him and what was not was clearly drawn.

He couldn't escape the world that was consuming him.

He couldn't change who he was.

He couldn't marry his niece, at least in the light of social morality.

But he could become the father of her child because she hadn't taken the pill.

This news thrilled him so much that for a moment he forgot that his own father was dead.

And the complications that came with it.

Looking at his body in the morgue, he thought that perhaps a good thing had happened: Viserys looked sick and tired, his face expressing relief.

He was with his first wife now, the one he really loved, he thought with regret, and felt a squeeze in his heart, seeing his niece's face in his mind then, as she laid beneath him, panting loudly, seared, warm and wet only for him.

He grunted, shifting from foot to foot, recognising that he shouldn't be thinking about it right now.

Only Rhaenyra, Helaena and his mother wept over his body.

Neither he nor Aegon shed a single tear.

The next day he felt excited like a small child and terrified at the same time: it was the first time he was to see the University from the inside, to talk to the professor and on top of that, to see her, again.

If it worked out, they would study together.

Perhaps they would even go on excavations, just like when they were children.

Maybe there was some part of their lives that they could get back.

He texted her that he would come and was relieved when he spotted her silhouette waiting for him in the car park. As soon as he stepped out of the car he felt uncertainty and fear, wondering if this was a good idea.

What if his grandfather found out?

If he was putting her and himself in danger?

He involuntarily reached into the pocket of his jacket, wanting to soothe himself with a cigarette.

"There's no smoking allowed on University premises." She said, furrowing her brow, making his hand drop in a gesture of helplessness and impatience.

"Are you fucking serious?"

"Yes. Let's go. We'll find my professor in the teachers' common room, he's just having a break between lectures." She sighed, ignoring his tone and demeanour, moving ahead.

He had to admit that the whole campus impressed him: the lawns and the huge park around which the gigantic nineteenth-century brick building towered were full of students sitting on the grass, reading books and talking to each other.

They had no worries except their exams, he thought regretfully, concluding that they didn't even know how lucky they were.

The conversation with the professor was overwhelming for him: he had never been able to find himself talking to strangers, even less so when he couldn't leave or defend himself when he heard a difficult question.

The man sitting in front of him was not a man transporting cocaine by ship, but an old man with big glasses who was telling him that if he were able to participate in the excavations, part-time studies would be possible for him.

"Well, if that's the case, then please prepare yourself for the exams. Then we'll see what comes of it." Said the professor and stood up, nodding, letting them know that their meeting was over.

"Is that it?" He asked in disbelief, looking at her with big eyes, wondering if it was a joke, but she only smiled.

"Yes." She replied. "Thank you, Professor."

As they left, he felt discomfort at the thought that he didn't know how to act. He guessed that he had interrupted her class and should leave, but that meant there was no telling when he would see her again.

He wanted to simply spend some time with her, but he didn't know how.

"If you'd like, I'll wait and drive you home." He said offhandedly, glancing at the poster hanging on the wall right next to him, hiding his hands in his trousers so she wouldn't see them tremble.

She blinked and looked at him, surprised.

"No need. Mum will pick me up." She muttered quietly, as if embarrassed. He felt an unpleasant sting of disappointment at her words and in a subconscious reflex he wanted to hurt her because of it, if only a little, to be sure she felt what he felt.

"They pick you up and drop you off like a little girl?" He asked with a sneer, glancing at her, but the smirk disappeared from his face when he noticed the way she looked at him.

She was angry and bored.

"Ever since someone put a rape pill into my drink, yes." She said coldly, and he froze, thinking he was an awful person.

How could he forget about it, say something so ill-considered after what had happened to her?

He suddenly realised how it worked in his mind, how he reacted involuntarily to pain wanting to automatically cause it to another person, even if they didn't deserve it.

This thought terrified him.

Some part of him wanted to make it up to her, to prove that there was a part of him that wanted to change.

"Do you know who did this? I can take care of it. For your comfort." He asked, feigning indifference, involuntarily scratching his chin, unable to look her in the face.

"Larys Strong."

He looked at her, furrowing his brow.

"What?"

"I already told you. He was telling me about my father."

"But it wasn't him who put it into your drink, it was one of his people, right?"

"He asked me if I wanted a drink. I said no. Then he ordered water for me. I took a few sips from it and struggled to get to the bathroom."

He looked at her, feeling how slowly a picture that seemed to him to be just scattered shards suddenly came together, the fact that Larys had dragged her there was never supposed to be an accident, and his grandfather knew about it.

This is the last time you interfere in their affairs.

They hoped she'd call for Daemon.

That, knowing his explosive nature, there would be a shootout in which they would kill her step-father before Viserys died, so that he and his half-sister's businesses could then be easily taken over.

"Son of a bitch." He hissed out, feeling that he was breathing heavily through his mouth, that his hands were clenched into fists, that his heart was pounding like mad.

Only after a moment did he realise that his niece was looking at him with big eyes, horrified that what was happening in his mind had not escaped her attention.

"Don't interfere. Go home." She said, making him feel a squeeze in his heart for some reason.

"And when are you going to teach me?" He mouthed, realising only after a moment that he sounded like a little boy. She shook her head, as if she didn't understand what he was saying.

"What?"

"For the exams. I need you to help me. How do I reconcile what I have to do at night with studying if I don't know where to start?"

He watched as she sighed heavily and ran her hand over her face, praying that she would agree, that she would not abandon him, that she would not leave him in the dark room that was his heart.

His little lamp.

Yes, he thought, feeling a pleasant, gentle warmth in his chest.

That's what she was to him.

"Okay. Okay, I'll help you. I'll pass you the study books somehow." She decided at last, distraught and tired, making him swallow loudly with relief as he looked down at her.

He wanted to touch her.

He wanted to embrace her, to kiss her, but it seemed inappropriate.

Not after what he'd done to her.

"Can I touch your hand?" He asked in a trembling voice, feeling like an idiot, a weak, quivering child begging for a moment's attention, a moment's tenderness.

She looked at him in a way from which his throat tightened with affection, her hand extended towards him made him grasp it in his own.

He watched, breathing hard, elated as his fingers entwined with hers in a pleasant, soft embrace, her skin warm, smooth and soft, exactly as he remembered it.

He felt both moved and aroused at the same time by this sight, by the feeling of her bare body in a way that was not purely sexual, yet so intimate, private, reserved only for someone close to her.

"Walk me out." He whispered.

To his delight, she didn't let go of his hand until they reached his car. He couldn't find the words to say goodbye or thank her for what she'd done, feeling only shame, so he just got in the car and drove away.

He knew it was wrong.

He knew it was wrong and he couldn't stop.

The forbidden fruit tempts most, he remembered her words and swallowed hard, driving ahead in silence, wondering if that was indeed all this was about.

The thought that maybe not terrified him, because it meant that there would be no moment in his life when he could let her go, allowing her to live at last.

It meant that he would devour her, choke her in his own darkness.

The next day, everyone was nervous: the meeting with the notary was going to be groundbreaking. Otto was certain that Viserys had divided his wealth equally between each of his children, which would mean that Rhaenyra's share would also belong to Daemon.

"I don't think he would leave his daughter the brothels or the clubs where the crimes took place to avoid burdening her. This means that a real estate company and our money laundering business could fall to her. We will have to make steps to take it over, peacefully or not." Said his grandfather when he spotted him standing by his car alone having a cigarette.

He nodded, feeling discomfort and uncertainty, not knowing what he should answer.

"You are not yourself since the death of your father. What's happening to you?" Otto asked, looking at him with a raised eyebrow, making him press his lips together in displeasure.

Another fucking interrogation?

"I'm tired." He said coldly, taking a drag on his cigarette impatiently, looking at his family home, wondering if his father would take it away from his mother.

"Where were you the night he died? When Aegon woke up, you were not in the room."

He froze in mid-motion, letting out a loud puff of smoke through his nose, feeling his lower lip begin to tremble, his heart and stomach clenched in fear.

He couldn't remember if he had ever felt peace.

Maybe then, that night, when he felt the warmth of her body and fell asleep beside her, drunk and happy, he thought with regret.

"With my niece."

Otto laughed low, shaking his head.

"This is no time for jokes, Aemond. I don't want you to hide anything from me." He said slowly and calmly, as if trying to explain something to a small child.

He looked at him in a way from which his grandfather's expression changed, twisting in a grimace of shock and disbelief.

"Good God. What did you do to her?" He mouthed.

He grinned involuntarily at his question in a way from which Otto swallowed hard and clenched his eyes.

"Have you completely lost your mind? What has that poor girl done to you, hm? What if she tells her parents, accuses you in front of everyone? For God's sake, you're her uncle." He hissed quietly, stepping close to him and looking around, as if he wanted to make sure no one could hear him.

For some reason his dismay, his disgust, his disappointment gave him satisfaction.

The fact that he was arousing such feelings in him and other people seemed to him the most natural state he knew.

"We were just talking. About the past and the future." He lied, knowing that his grandfather didn't believe him, that he'd seen in his gaze what he'd done to her, what he'd done to her twice, and how fucking pleasurable it had been for him.

He decided that he wouldn't try to explain to him that she had peaked with him each time.

He wouldn't believe him anyway.

"We'll talk later." He hissed as his mother, Helaena and Aegon came out of their house, saying they were ready.

When they arrived Daemon and Rhaenyra were already waiting for them inside in a large, spacious office with windows overlooking the great city skyline. The notary greeted them, offered them coffee and tea, and then showed them to their seats.

He tried not to look at Daemon, feeling his gaze on him, knowing what he thought of him and that he had every right to do so.

He felt bad about it, but fuck, he wanted to be close to her and have a family with her.

He wanted to be able to love her.

Just her, just this one time in his life.

Was he asking for so much?

The notary, in the presence of the lawyers of both parties, unsealed the envelope in which was secured his father's last will, which he knew he had consulted with his grandfather.

Nevertheless, he felt anxious, felt the cold sweat on his back, a complete, tense silence all around them.

And then he began to read.

"I, Viserys Targaryen, present my last will as follows. I bequeath our family home to my wife, Alicent Targaryen, which will belong to her until her death, and then pass according to her will to one of our children. I bequeath all my other estates and properties to my children Aegon, Aemond, Helaena and Daeron to be shared equally between them. All of my investments and all premises under my business that I owned I pass to my daughter, Rhaenyra."

He stared at him dully, feeling as if he had gone completely deaf, his heart beginning to pound like mad as his hand clenched into a fist, his grandfather beside him twisting in his chair, shocked.

"This is some kind of misunderstanding." Otto said, on the other side Daemon laughed out loud, hiding his face with his hands.

He mocked them, he thought.

His father had mocked them for the last time.

He didn't understand why he felt tears burning under his eyelids, why his lips were trembling, why he expected anything else.

His appreciation, his trust, a gesture that would indicate that he understood what he was doing to ensure the well-being of their family.

Did he really think that he was taking money out of people by force, that he was cutting their faces to please his grandfather?

Yet it meant nothing.

Everything he did, everything he became apparently only made his father disgusted.

Because he was disgusting.

They all were.

"Unbelievable. We're not going to leave it like that. I'm sure this is Daemon's doing. FUCK!" Growled his grandfather, sitting in the passenger seat beside him, slapping his palms against the dashboard of his car.

He drove ahead, feeling a complete emptiness, feeling neither disappointment nor anger, wondering if he should pull over and hit one of the trees.

He wanted his father to see him as a cold, unbreakable man, one who would always defend his and his family's interests, one who could make sacrifices.

And he didn't even notice it.

All the wicked things he did turned out to be worthless.

He destroyed himself for nothing.

He had nothing.

In his mind, in his heart, in his wallet.

A fucking property by the sea.

"We will attack their family. If our clients find out, no one in the industry will care about us. We have to show strength, we have to act." Otto said, and he swallowed hard, feeling the cold sweat on his back.

We will attack their family.

We have to act.

His grandfather called a meeting in his office, which was to be attended by him, his brother and his mother. He paced around the room gesticulating, speaking quickly, Aegon as well as his mother sat in their seats flooded with tears.

He thought they looked pathetic.

"We need to give him a warning. Force him to come out with another, more acceptable offer for us." Said Otto, circling the room with his hands placed on his hips, analysing everything.

"You saw him. He laughed. He knows that he won." Mumbled Aegon, all swollen from crying.

Otto stopped and pressed his lips together.

"Leave me and Aemond alone." He said finally, making him freeze, his heart pounding like crazy.

Some premonition told him what he would want from him even before it left his mouth.

He was not mistaken, and as soon as his mother and brother left, his grandfather began to speak.

"Does Rhaenyra's daughter trust you?"

He stared dully ahead, answering him with a protracted, uncomfortable silence, feeling like throwing up for some reason.

"Aemond."

"No."

"No, what?"

"Don't drag her into this."

His grandfather pressed his lips together, leaning over him, resting his hands on his armrests.

"She's been dragged into this for a long time. If we don't take our chances, someone else will." He said calmly, making him feel an unpleasant sting in his heart.

"You knew."

"What?"

"That Larys had plans for her."

"I knew that he would act. Daemon's presence on the scene isn't to his liking."

"He put a fucking rape pill into her drink." He said coldly, clenching his hands into fists.

"It wasn't about rape there, at least that's my opinion. However, now, if he sends his people to her University, I cannot vouch for what will happen to her. With us she will be safe. We would lock her in a room in our house for a few days and treat her with respect as if she were our guest. My issue is with Daemon and Rhaenyra, not with her. Her harm is not my desire."

He looked at him, feeling a void in his mind, no longer knowing for himself what he thought of this, what was right and what was not.

"Are you going to let everything you've worked so hard for be taken away from you? For this man to laugh in our faces? What are we to use to maintain the estates your father left you? Even if we sell some of it, how many years will it last? We have to think about our future. I trust you to do the right thing."

He pressed his lips together, swallowing hard, thinking with disbelief that if he didn't, the part of himself that he had lost, that he had killed to become who he was, would turn out to be a sacrifice in vain.

Some part of him naively wanted to believe that she would understand.

"Only me and Helaena will have access to her room. I will be by her side the entire time, and my duties for that period will be taken over by someone else."

Otto smiled in a way from which he felt discomfort in his stomach and nodded, patting him on the shoulder.

"That's my boy."

He looked at his phone, at the message he'd sent her while sitting in his car two streets from her house, wondering how he could be doing this to her.

She wanted to help him change, she made an attempt.

Perhaps she was pregnant.

Hundreds of feelings mixed in his head, fear, grief, disgust, sadness, hatred and despair devoured him from the inside, forming one black mass from his thoughts.

She's not coming, he thought with a strange calmness.

She was not naive.

Daemon had certainly warned her not to trust them.

He'll return home and tell his grandfather that it just didn't work out.

But what will happen to them then?

They will have nothing to buy new goods with, or they will buy them, but they will have to raise their prices.

They will stop being competitive in the business.

They will lose customers.

They will go out of the game.

They will cease to count.

They will have no way to pay the police.

They will go to prison.

He shuddered, hearing rustling and someone's footsteps, his eyes big when he saw her breathless, flushed figure, her dark, loose hair in disarray.

She looked so beautiful.

He opened the door, unable to believe that she'd run away for him, just for him, watching as she pulled her backpack down quickly and handed it to him.

"Take this and get out of here." She muttered, but he only looked at her lips, parted in accelerated breath, soft and full.

He thought with horror that he wanted to feel her.

He wanted to be reassured.

He wanted to make love to her.

"– come here –"

"– I have to –"

"– come –"

"– I –"

"– it won't take long –"

Her gaze full of warmth, affection and trust, her parted lips, her hand that allowed him to pull her closer made him feel like his cock would explode with desire.

"– good girl – such a good girl –" He praised her when she sat on his lap at last, closing the door behind her. He slided his hands to his belt, panting hard, releasing his fat, long erection, leaking with desire at the mere sight of her.

He could only watch in disbelief as she took off her shorts, wordlessly allowing her to guide the thick, glistening head of his manhood against her slit, all pulsing with heat, slowly sinking it into her body.

He gasped at the ease with which she welcomed him into her warm, moist interior, how simple and proper it seemed.

It made him forget for a moment who he was and what he was supposed to do.

All that mattered was her, her face, her eyes, her forehead pressed against his, her warm buttocks under his fingers, her swollen, sweet lips, her slick tongue invading between his teeth, her little cunt that convulsed around his throbbing cock in ecstasy.

"– fuck – fuck, baby –" He muttered, unable to express otherwise how good she made him feel, why his hips were pounding into her so fast and so greedily, why he couldn't slow down, why he wanted it so desperately.

"– ah – G-God –" She mumbled, making him gasp, pleasant, tickling warmth in his lower abdomen.

Her soaked pussy squeezed and sucked him inside, making him pant loudly into her puffy lips, feeling his whole body grow hot, in some subconscious, natural reflex returning to where he felt good, where he felt safe: back deep, deep inside her.

He knew it wasn't just about sex: there was too much tenderness in in their movements, the touch of their hands too thoughtful and too gentle, too soft, their embrace too close, too intimate, their moans too helpless, too vulnerable.

"– Aemond –" She mewled into his throat on the brink of orgasm, bringing her clenching, moist, fleshy walls to the point where he felt a squeeze in his testicles, indicating that he was close too.

"– do you hear it? – do you hear how well you take me? – only you – fuck –" He gasped, listening to what he was doing to her, to his own niece, how loudly her sweet, little cunt clicked as he rooted into her again and again, how perfect she squeezed his cock, how warm she was, how wet she was, for him, only for him.

"– where? –" He muttered, wanting to be more responsible this time, slamming into her with a quick, sharp, deep thrusts of his hips, helplessly chasing his own fulfillment that he so desperately needed.

He didn't want to hurt her.

Never.

"– here – right here, uncle –" She breathed out and something in her words, in the way she said them made his body quiver as he reached his peak inside her, panting hard along with her. He gasped, resting his head against the backrest, trying to be quiet, feeling their bodies pulsate and shiver against each other.

He snuggled her face to his neck, feeling a wonderful pleasure and relief as his warm seed filled her insides at last, her scent, her closeness, her hot, pulsing interior calming him.

It felt so good.

So right.

"– I think I'm in love with you –" He whispered in a trembling voice, stroking her bare buttock with one hand, sliding the other between the seat and the gearbox, feeling the needle syringe under his fingers, from which he slipped the cap.

I'm sorry.

He heard her draw in a loud breath at his words, but he didn't let her answer.

He was afraid he would change his mind then.

"– forgive me –" He mumbled in trembling voice, heartbroken, her body tensed all over as he jabbed the needle into her neck and let the sleeping drug spread through her insides.

She whined quietly, terrified and surprised, reminding him of a small, innocent animal. He embraced her, feeling the remedy take effect after a moment, and her body relaxed in his embrace, a faint, weak cry escaping from her lips.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

"– shhh – shhh, sweet girl –" He hushed her tenderly, feeling his whole body tremble as tears of shame, disgust and regret ran down his cheeks along with the knowledge of what he had just done to her, his soft manhood still pulsing deep inside her.

He used her because she trusted him, because she wanted to help him, because she really cared about him.

He sobbed quietly, closing his eyes, and cuddled his face against her neck, feeling her fall asleep, thinking that he wanted to take it back, that it was a mistake, a mistake, a mistake, that he just wanted her to forgive him.

Maybe he could carry her home?

Leave her at the gate and run away?

But what if someone found her unconscious, what if she fell ill from the cold, what if someone abused her in his absence, hurt her?

He realised that there was no way back.

Despite this realisation, he treated her body with gentleness and tenderness: he lifted her and slid out of her slowly, placing her shorts over her hips, laying her on the seat beside him, fastening her seatbelt. He took the unruly strands of hair from her face with his trembling hand, looking at her through tears, whooping with his own cry.

He thought she would never forgive him for this.

When he got home he went inside through the back door, carrying her in his arms, cradling her to his chest. He told his bodyguards that no one was to disturb him, ordering them to inform his grandfather that everything was sorted out.

"Aemond?" He heard his mother's voice behind him and stopped in half-step, looking at her over his shoulder with big eyes.

His mother was looking at him with her mouth open, disbelief and horror in her gaze.

"– Aemond – what is she doing here? –" She muttered, placing her hand on her chest, trying to calm herself down, breathing loudly as if she were going into some kind of panic attack.

"– we'll sort it out, Mum – don't worry –" He whispered. His mother furrowed her brow and shook her head.

"– you kidnapped an innocent child –" She said with regret and pain from which he felt a squeeze in his throat.

She was disgusted with him.

He understood her.

He longed for her to think of him like that.

He desired to suffer.

"– yes –"

He took her to the room where he had spent his entire youth until he moved into his flat and laid her gently on his bed, sitting down beside her, covering her carefully with the duvet. His hand rose slowly and hesitantly to finally stroke her soft hair, her face calm, immersed in deep sleep.

Vhagar, whom he had taken with him from his place, rose from the floor and ran up to them, sniffing him and the newcomer he had laid in his bed.

"– good girl – you will watch over her with me now, hm? –" He asked, stroking her soft fur.

Vhagar squealed, shifting from paw to paw beside him, concerned, as if she sensed that her sleeping state was not natural, something in her scent, in the drug he had given her made his dog restless.

Even she knew what he had done to her, he thought with regret.

He pulled off his shoes and placed them on the ground, laying down beside his niece, putting his arm around her. He pressed his forehead against hers, inhaling deeply her scent, letting his fingers run over the soft skin of her cheek, thinking that he was surely doing this for the last time in his life.

He felt a sting in his heart at that thought, his eyebrows arched in pain as he pressed her body against his, weaving his hand into her hair, burying her head in his neck, trying to calm himself.

"– I will always watch over you –"

In the morning he was awakened by her babbling: she was mumbling something under her breath, her hand clenched on the material of his black Tshirt, he could feel her trying to stand.

"– shhh – lie down – don't get up –" He whispered in a trembling voice, feeling only horror, only despair, only shame.

She would never forgive him for this.

"– where – mghmm –" She muttered, involuntarily falling into his arms again, recognising him and his scent, her fingers closed on his back, snuggling into him in a tender embrace from which he felt his body begin to quiver.

"– easy – easy, little one –" He said, kissing the top of her head again and again, her hair wonderfully soft and smooth under his hand.

"– what's happened? –" She asked, and he remained silent, as he had no idea what to answer her.

His lack of words clearly worried her, for she raised herself on her arm again: she looked around, her gaze hazy, dreamy, her brow furrowed as she did not recognise where she was.

"– Aemond – what's going on? –" She asked wearily, slowly understanding that something was wrong, her breathing louder and heavier, her eyes large and filled with fear.

He lifted himself onto his arm, moving closer to her, his free hand stroking her cheek as he pressed his forehead to her temple.

"– forgive me –" He whispered in a weak, trembling voice, thinking he sounded pathetic.

She sucked in a deep breath and squealed, covering her mouth with her hand as if trying to stop the sound, her eyelids clenched shut as she cried out loud, bursting into tears.

"– oh, baby –" He muttered pleadingly, kissing her red, plump cheek, embracing her tightly despite her hands trying to push him away. "– it will only last a few days, I promise –"

She pulled out of his embrace, moving away to the other end of the bed, looking at him with wide eyes, catching her head with her hands as if she couldn't believe what was happening, her mouth parted wide in a heavy, terrified breath.

"– I – I let you – you touched me, and then you – oh God – oh my God, no no no no no no –" She whimpered hiding her head between her knees, wrapping her arms around herself as if she was trying to create a fortress, and he could only sit and watch, trying to remember that he needed to breathe.

"– we just need to talk to Daemon – I promise no one will hurt you –" He muttered quickly, but it seemed to him that she wasn't listening to him, plunged into complete hysteria.

"– I helped you – I ran away for you – I brought you books just as you asked – so why did you do this to me? –" She mumbled out, choking on her own tears, her fingers clenched on her hair as if she wanted to rip it out.

He felt like he was drowning, like he was sinking deeper and deeper to the depths with every breath.

"– I know – I know, baby, I'm so sorry – but my father left us no choice – fuck, I know you understand me –" He choked out with difficulty, looking at her hopefully, for some reason naively believing that she would find justification in her heart for his horrible act.

She, however, looked at him dully and froze, her trembling hands raised at the level of her cheeks, her lips parted in a half-breath.

He was sure that she was going to say something, that she was going to shout in his face that she hated him, that he was a monster, a nobody, a disgusting creature, everything that he so needed to hear in order to find himself in the state to which he always returned in the end.

She, however, turned her back to him, hugging her body and face to the wall, tucking her legs under her chin and froze so still.

"– Rhaenys? – please – please, say something – I didn't mean to hurt you, I swear –" He mumbled, trying to touch her calf, but she flinched and moved further away from him, as if his touch had burned her.

He burst into sobs, thinking that her silence, her wordless rejection was worse than any word from her, and he was like a child who longed for the parent he had failed to look at him with a sympathetic eye again.

"– please – please, say something –"

But she said nothing.

For the next few days she did not look at him, she did not answer his questions, and when he tried to touch her she moved as far away as possible, hiding her head between her knees.

He took away her phone out of fear that she would try to contact someone and all the things out of his room that she could use to hurt herself or others.

She ate and drank only the things Helaena brought her.

When he tried to feed her, she would snatch things from his hand and throw them at the wall.

On the one hand he felt rage at that moment, a subconscious need to hurt and punish her, and on the other he felt relieved because he wanted to suffer, because he knew he deserved it.

"– you have to eat –" He sighed, looking indifferently at the big stain of soup on the wall and the shards of the broken bowl thinking it was them.

Like the shards that couldn't be put back together again.

"– what did it feel like, cutting their faces? – did you feel like the Mighty Vhagar then? –"

Her voice, cold and harsh surprised him and made his heart stand in his throat, his body stop breathing for a moment, as if expressing its desire to die of shame.

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, feeling that he was trembling, and met her gaze, sad, tired, aloof, embittered.

"– I had no choice –"

Lie.

"– you are lying –" She stated dispassionately. "– I don't want to see or hear you – I want you to pretend that you don't exist, just like you did with me for eight years – you're good at it –"

He lowered his gaze, feeling a complete void in his mind at her words, and got out of bed, kneeling on the floor to pick up the pieces of the broken bowl as if nothing had happened.

The only being she touched was Vhagar.

He watched from the sidelines as these two slowly established a relationship with each other. His niece would reach out to her, lying on his bed, and his dog would lean out and sniff her from afar without touching her, looking at her with big eyes.

Vhagar did not like strangers and was fussy, but apparently her calm approach and the fact that she did not impose herself on her made his dog express interest in her. When she would get up to reach for one of his books on the shelf, Vhagar would rise and follow her, keeping an appropriate distance, looking at her curiously.

She would lie down in her place only when his niece sat back down on the bed.

He first saw them lying together when he came home late one evening. He had shopped for her, bought her favourite sweets knowing that she would not eat them anyway, and when he walked into the room he saw her lying with Vhagar on her dog bed.

She was crying and cuddling into her fur as if she was a big teddy bear, and his dog, despite the fact that she usually got up at the sight of him, just looked at him with big eyes, not moving from her place.

Something about the sight broke him, and although he knelt down next to his niece and wanted to touch her back, he stopped mid-motion when he heard his dog growl at him for the first time in his life.

She knew.

Daemon and Rhaenyra's fury was great: the very next morning after it turned out that she had disappeared there had been an incident at one of their clubs, where his sister's husband had stormed in with her son and several men, threatening to shoot everyone present if he did not find out where his daughter was.

As planned, it was relayed to him that their child was safe and that Otto was waiting for contact from him when he had cooled down to discuss everything calmly.

As proof that they were not lying, they gave him her backpack – the same one in which she had brought him books.

Due to what happened, after his father's body was burned, there was only a short funeral ceremony in the cemetery, attended only by his mother and sister: his grandfather was afraid that Daemon's men, who had been watching them all the time, would lead to a shooting if they appeared there even for a moment.

Despite his niece's reluctance, he spent his days in her presence, sitting on the mattress on the other side of the room where he slept at night. He knew she didn't want to feel him next to her, but he preferred not to leave her alone knowing how frightened she was.

He suggested several times that they could go out together for a walk in the garden, but she didn't even look at him.

She was simultaneously closer and further away from him than ever before.

One night he was roused from sleep by someone's scream: he pulled himself up on the mattress, involuntarily reaching for the penknife in his sweatpants and looked around the room, only after a moment noticing her shivering figure sitting on his bed.

He sighed quietly and swallowed hard, trying to calm himself.

"– Rhaenys? – Rhaenys, what happened? –" He whispered, and she twitched at his words, turning towards him, looking at him with big eyes, all drenched in tears.

"– did you have a bad dream? –" He muttered, but she answered nothing, her lips parted in a heavy breath, her fingers clenched on the sheets.

"– hey – hey, baby – it's okay –" He whispered, rising slowly from his seat, tentatively approaching the bed. She raised her shoulders in a defensive gesture and moved away a little, but when he sat down next to her and raised his arm she didn't push him away.

Slowly he placed his hand on her shoulder and stroked her skin reassuringly, with the other cuddling her face into his neck.

"– shhh – easy – easy, little one – no one will hurt you –"

She was silent, and he prayed that this moment, her warm body in his embrace, his nose snuggled into her soft, fragrant hair, would last forever.

"– I'm not sure I want to live anymore –" She mumbled out finally, startling him, his stomach knotted tight in discomfort and horror.

"– no – don't say that – it won't take long – my grandfather is in contact with your mother – they will soon come to an agreement and you will return home –" He said, forcing himself to be calm, stroking her shoulder and back with one hand, the other combing his fingers through her hair, rocking her in his arms like a small child.

"– you broke my heart –"

Her words, the way she said them, what they meant made him gasp aloud, trying not to burst into a sudden sob of despair and grief.

He had broken her.

"– forgive me – I regret this like nothing else in my life, I swear – I will spend my life trying to make it up to you –" He muttered, tentatively kissing her warm temple, her cheekbone, her ear, everything that was familiar to him, beloved to him, his.

"– I love you – I love you in every sense of the word –"

"– I don't believe you –"

He pressed his lips together, swallowing hard, feeling a sort of high-pitched, trembling squeal come from his throat as if he were a little girl, tears one by one began to run down his cheeks to the top of her head, his fingers tightening on her delicate flesh.

"– I understand it – and I don't dare ask for it –" He whispered with difficulty, sinking his face into her soft, warm cheek, feeling that he was not the only one who was crying.

Her body trembled in the embrace of his arms, her small hands clenched on his shirt in a gesture that testified at once to her anger and her suffering from which his heart was breaking.

"– that feeling I had inside me was the only thing that allowed me to breathe – and you took it away from me –" She howled into the skin of his neck, and he burst out sobbing at her words, not knowing how he could react differently to what she had said.

"– I love you – I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you so fucking much –" He mumbled out in a breaking voice, cuddling her tightly into him, placing loud, wet, hot kisses on her face, her jaw, her neck, her arms, leaving sticky, wet marks on it.

He heard her sigh full of pain and pleasure, feeling with shame that his erection swelled all over and hardened, pulsing painfully under the material of his sweatpants, betraying how much he longed for her, how much he yearned for her.

Her quiet moan surged through the skin of his neck as his broad hand slipped lower, sliding tentatively under the material of her shirt, touching her naked back at last, her bare skin, making them both tremble, breathing heavier and louder.

"– I love you –" He assured her, running his fingertips over the wonderfully smooth skin of her back, making goosebumps appear in the places he ran his fingers over. Her body snuggled into him tighter, allowing him to feel her breasts hidden under her tshirt against his chest.

"– you hurt me –" She sobbed through her tears in a breaking voice, at which his lips clung even harder to her shoulder, his kisses even more greedy and wet as his lips again and again brushed and teased the delicate structure of her skin.

"– no more – I swear – all I want is you –" He breathed out, feeling lust and desire pulsing through every nook and cranny of his body, filling his lower abdomen with a pleasurable, tickling tension from which his heart pounded like mad.

He moaned helplessly when he finally felt her warm, puffy lips brush his neck, her cheeks wet from tears as his hand pressed her closer.

"– please – please, baby, please –" He mumbled out, wanting only to feel her again, without her being just an empty part of an incomplete whole.

However, as his hand tentatively slid from her back to her buttock, she pulled away from him suddenly as if burned, hugging her back to the wall and shook her head.

"– no – no, no, no, you're doing this to me again –" She cried out loudly, looking at him with big, terrified eyes. He shook his head, heartbroken, leaning down, placing quick, warm kisses on her bare knee, stroking her calf with his palm.

"– no, I swear – I want you so badly –"

"– your grandfather told you to do this? – to soften me up so that in case my mother didn't agree he would get shares in her companies through me? –" She blurted out, wrinkling her eyebrows, breathing loudly. He swallowed hard and shook his head again, shocked, understanding how far her lack of trust went and who she now saw him as.

"– no – I was the one who demanded that I could be by your side – that no one but me could bother you – to make sure you were safe –" He muttered, trying to calm his breathing, feeling like his whole face had swollen from tears.

"– I want to go to sleep – I want to go to sleep –" She mumbled out and turned her back to him, hugging herself to the wall again exactly as she did then, the first time, making him whimper, choking on his own tears. He pressed his face against her back, wailing loudly, his fingers clenched on her waist.

"– I'm sorry – I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry – please, don't reject me – I promise I'll be good now – I'm studying, I'm going to take my exams, I'm going to go to university – please, be there for me – it doesn't matter without you – my life doesn't matter if I can't share it with you –" He whined like an animal into her shirt and heard her weep loudly, but she answered him nothing.

However, she did not push him away or tell him to step back, so he fell asleep cuddled into her body, and the next day she again did not speak to him or look at him as if this conversation had never happened.

In her presence he cried all the time and didn't even hide it anymore.

Looking at her, he saw exactly as if in the reflection of a mirror who he had become and what he had sacrificed.

However, it turned out that his grandfather was partly right in his assumptions: Daemon just wanted to kill them all, but his wife didn't feel like risking her daughter's life for a fortune and was willing to talk to them if they let her see her.

"– tomorrow you will go with us to meet your parents – perhaps we will come to an agreement and you will return home –" He said, swallowing hard, standing over her small figure sitting on the sill of his window, looking out at the setting sun.

Her profile was gentle and pleasant, her eyes surrounded by a fan of dark lashes large and bright, her lips seemed wonderfully soft, full and sweet, made only to be caressed.

She closed her eyes, resting her temple against the glass, and did not even bestow a single glance on him.

He prepared himself for the fact that she would answer him nothing and wanted to sit down on the mattress, going back to reading one of the textbooks she had brought him, but he froze when he heard her voice.

"I'd like to take a bath." She said.

He swallowed hard, looking at her over his shoulder.

"Of course. I'll call Helaena." He replied, wanting to go out into the corridor.

They never left her alone.

For her own safety.

"No." She said and looked at him.

"I want ten minutes alone."

He looked at her, feeling anxiety and doubt in his heart, but he couldn't say no to her.

"Very well. I'll wait by the door."

She nodded and stood up, taking the towel that belonged to her from the chair and went outside. He followed her, walking towards the bathroom next to his room – she looked at him with frustration as he took the key out of the lock and shook his head.

"No. I won't come inside, but I won't let you lock yourself in." He said. She swallowed hard and nodded, and he closed the door behind her.

He leaned against the stair railing, hearing the sound of pouring water, and looked at his watch, sighing heavily.

Ten minutes, no more.

He heard her step into the bath and closed his eyes, thinking that perhaps this was just another ordeal they had to wait through together.

He wanted to believe that she had seen his sadness, shame and remorse, that by his behaviour and calmness he had proved to her that he was capable of being different, for her, only for her.

However, ten minutes passed, then eleven, and she still did not come out of the water.

He didn't want to invade her privacy and make her uncomfortable, but he felt impatient and became concerned that he didn't hear any movement in the room. He walked closer and knocked, sighing heavily.

"– Rhaenys – time's up –" He said matter-of-factly. He pressed his lips together when he heard no sound on the other side and knocked a second time, louder this time.

"– Rhaenys – please –" He sighed, running his hand over his face, deciding that whether she wanted it or not, he had to do it.

"– I'm coming inside – cover yourself –" He said, grabbing the door handle and stepped into the room.

It seemed to him that what he saw before him was some kind of frame from a film, not reality: the snow-white tiles around her head and dark hair, her half-open eyelids and mouth, her hands lying on the edge of the tub, her slit wrists and the crimson water in which she lay, his sister's T-shirt on her body.

He looked down and saw a tiny blade from a bookbinding knife lying on the floor.

For a moment he just stared at it, afraid to move, thinking it wasn't really happening.

"– Rhaenys? –" He muttered, approaching her slowly, but she didn't even flinch, staring ahead as if she was thoughts somewhere far away.

"– Rhaenys, what have you done? –" He mumbled as if he was afraid that if he said the words too loudly they would turn out to be true, and yet it could not be true.

"– God, baby – oh my fucking God –" He whined, pulling her by the shoulders out of the water with a loud splash of red liquid that spilled out.

He sat down on the floor, placing her between his legs, letting her head and back rest against his chest, his fingers tightening on her wrists in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

"– baby, what have you done? – hm? – what have you done? –" He whispered to her ear in a trembling voice, kissing her soft, warm face, feeling the initial shock begin to be replaced by a growing panic and the realisation that this was really happening.

He began to breathe loudly, as he always did when he was terrified and when he needed help calling out to the only person he trusted.

"– MUM! – MUM, HELP ME! –" He shouted like a helpless, broken child and burst into tears, clasping his fingers tighter on her wrists, resting his forehead on her shoulder.

"– oh God, oh God, oh, God, no, no no no, please, baby, please, please, don't leave me –" He whimpered, rocking her in his arms, cradling her to himself, again and again kissing her bare shoulder, her long neck, her sweet cheek.

He heard someone run up the stairs, the screams of his mother and sister at the sight they saw before their eyes made him look at them.

"– Mum –"

Even though he knew his grandfather would be furious, he and his mother called the ambulance. While waiting for the paramedics to arrive, she provisionally bandaged her hands together with Helaena, as well as dressed her in a clean shirt and underwear.

He did not let her out of his arms for a second, and when the ambulance arrived he told his mother that he would go with her.

He looked at her as he sat in the car, feeling his hands were sticky with her blood, thinking it was his fault, his fault, his fault.

She just wanted to run away, she just wanted to go home, but she didn't know how.

He made her do this.

When they arrived at the hospital it turned out that her condition was critical: because of how little she had eaten she had become anaemic and needed a quick blood transfusion.

"– take mine –" He said without thinking, and when the doctor asked him what blood type he had, it turned out that he and she had the same.

He could have done something that mattered.

He could have saved her.

He held her hand, lying on the bed beside him, staring dully at the ceiling, the other clenched again and again on the soft ball as he watched his blood fill the plastic bag.

When the doctor came inside, he asked him about what he had been thinking about for a long time.

"– there's – there's a possibility she's pregnant – and –" He mumbled, not knowing how to put it into words. The man looked at him, surprised.

"– she's definitely not pregnant – the tests didn't show it –" The doctor replied, and he swallowed hard, feeling for some reason a great disappointment and sadness.

If he became the father of her child, he could be a part of her life.

He would have an excuse to talk to her, to see her.

He tightened his fingers around hers, stroking her soft skin with his thumb, trying not to cry, thinking he deserved it.

What child would want to be born into such a world?

When it was all over he informed the doctors who they should contact, giving them his half-sister's phone number. Before he left the room, he handed her back her phone and slipped a letter into her locker, which he wrote hurriedly on a piece of paper with a pen the nurse had lent him.

For his own conscience he waited in the distance, watching as Daemon's Mercedes pulled into the car park, he and Rhaenyra ran inside the building without noticing him. He sighed heavily and licked his lower lip, glancing at his phone, seeing twenty missed calls from his grandfather. He dialled his number and put the phone to his ear, feeling strangely calm and relaxed.

"She's alive?" He heard Otto's voice on the other end.

"Yes." He replied dispassionately.

"Thank God. Why didn't you call for me? You ruined everything. Our doctor would have taken care of it. You…" He continued, but he hung up, not feeling like listening to his smart-ass bullshit.

His mother picked him up from the hospital.

"How is she? Will she survive? Have you contacted Rhaenyra?" She asked quickly as they set off, afraid that anyone would notice them.

He swallowed hard, leaning the back of his head against the backrest, looking at the road with empty eyes.

"I gave her contact details to the hospital staff. They arrived, I saw it with my own eyes. She's safe now." He explained.

His mother breathed out loud, her big brown eyes simultaneously terrified and full of relief.

"You did the right thing, Aemond. No money is worth it. This poor girl." She muttered, shaking her head, trying not to cry and concentrate on driving.

"I destroyed her."

Alicent looked at him, then back at the road, her mouth open slightly in an accelerated breath.

"What do you mean?"

He pressed his lips into a thin line, feeling his brow arch in pain and shame.

"I went to her room the night my father died. We had sex, Mum." He muttered in a breaking voice, covering his face with his hand and burst out crying like a little boy.

His mother sighed loudly, shocked, twisting restlessly in her seat.

"– but – why – did she – did she want this? –" She asked in a trembling voice full of terror, indicating that she really believed he might have raped her.

He was not surprised.

"– yes – but I don't think that makes it look any better –" He mumbled, tightening his fingers on the base of his nose, leaning his head forward.

"– we did it twice – and then a third time before I –" He didn't finish and cried out loudly, making his mother breathe heavily as if she was in the same state as him.

"– oh my God – oh my God, Aemond, what have you done – she's your niece –" She choked out finally.

"– I know, Mum –" He mumbled, running his fingers over his face, thinking he already understood where her desire to end her life and this perpetual sense of unfulfillment and emptiness came from.

"– me too – I'm no saint either –" She muttered finally, looking up at him with big eyes. "– me and Criston –"

He swallowed hard and shook his head, recognising that it wasn't the same.

"– I know, Mum – you won't hear a word of condemnation from me –"

His mother drew a loud breath and wept, as if she felt both relieved and sad at the same time.

"– nor will you hear them from me, son – since you both wanted it, it was simply a mistake of youth – you are both lost and have sought comfort – but it must not happen again – do you understand? – for your sake and hers –" She said with confidence and conviction that this was the best possible decision.

"– I keep thinking about her – since that holiday eight years ago – I've tried, but I can't stop –" He choked out at last, wiping his red cheek, feeling as if he were ten years old again, complaining to her that someone had beaten him up at school.

Alicent ran her hand over her face before placing her palm over his.

"– sometimes – sometimes we have to leave certain things to ourselves – the shameful desires of our hearts – and fulfil them when no one sees – do you understand? –" She asked in a trembling voice, and he nodded.

"– yes –"

"It is not love itself that is sin –" She said finally. "– but what we do with it."