#pebble stone siding

[protestooucopa]

Siding Exterior Seattle

Large arts and crafts gray two-story mixed siding exterior home photo with a shingle roof

[qinzimos]

Craftsman Garage - Large

Example of a substantial detached three-car boathouse in the arts and crafts style

[shadyfestivalperfection]

Fifth Time’s The Charm~Oneshot

Summery: Every date gets interrupted before they can steal the deal. By the fifth one, they’re both so wounded up, it turns explosive-in the best way

Characters: Bucky Barnes x F!reader

Vibes/warning: Sexual tension, mutual pining, flirty banter, interrupted make out sessions, smut, tension building.

Note: All characters except y/n are not mine.

||Master List||

🌙 Date One: Rooftop Romance & a Falcon Crash

Bucky’s hand is warm as it slides over yours, his vibranium arm resting on the rooftop table like it belongs there.

The rooftop restaurant is quiet. Just a few candle-lit tables surrounded by fairy lights, with soft jazz playing through overhead speakers. The skyline behind him glows like a dream. And Bucky?

He’s in a button-up. Sleeves rolled to his forearms. Hair tied back. Eyes locked on you like he still can’t believe you said yes to dinner.

“So,” you murmur, swirling the wine in your glass, “this is… kind of perfect.”

Bucky smiles. “I figured if I’m going to ruin someone’s night, might as well do it with a view.”

You roll your eyes. “You’re not ruining anything, Barnes. Though I’m still not convinced this isn’t some weird pity date.”

He leans forward, eyes twinkling. “Sweetheart, if this were a pity date, I wouldn’t have rehearsed what to say in front of my mirror five times before picking you up.”

Your heart flips.

It’s funny—everyone sees Bucky Barnes as the brooding soldier, the stone-faced assassin, the Winter Soldier. But here, tonight, he’s just Bucky. Soft-spoken. Charming. A little shy. And very into you.

“So… what’d you rehearse?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.

He groans, covering his face with his hand. “Nope. That was supposed to stay buried.”

You grin. “Come on. You owe me at least one line.”

He groans again. “Fine. I was gonna say…” He sits up straighter, exaggerating the delivery. “‘You look beautiful tonight, doll.’ And then maybe something cheesy like… ‘Nothing in this city shines as bright as you.’”

You blink. “That’s… actually good.”

“Right?” he says, pleased. “Sam told me it was too much. Said I sounded like I was

quoting a romance novel.”

You’re about to respond—something flirty and appreciative—when your phone buzzes on the table. You glance down, but Bucky shakes his head.

“Don’t check it. I’m trying to live in the moment.”

You nod. “Me too.”

You don’t even notice how close you’ve gotten until his knee brushes yours beneath the table. His eyes drop to your lips for just a second. And your breath catches.

He leans in.

You lean closer.

He’s inches away. One hand rising to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. His voice drops—

“I’ve been wanting to do this since the first time you handed me a cup of coffee in the break room—”

CRASH.

A loud thump echoes above you. Then—

“Shit! Sorry!”

You both jump as something heavy hits the rooftop ledge and rolls, a few pebbles scattering across the floor.

Bucky’s eyes go wide. “No. No no no—”

“BUCKY!”

You turn to see Sam Wilson—in full Falcon gear—tangled in his own wings, skidding to a stop right in front of your table.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bucky hisses, standing up.

Sam grins sheepishly. “Hey, man. Didn’t know you were up here. Testing some tech. Kinda… overshot the landing.”

You just blink. “That’s… impressive. Actually.”

Bucky runs a hand down his face. “Sam. I swear to God.”

Sam glances between the two of you. “Oh. OHHHH. Shit—were you two—”

“Yes, Sam,” Bucky snaps. “We were on a date.”

Sam’s mouth opens. Then closes. Then he shrugs.

“Well… my bad. I’ll just… backflip off the side and leave you to it.”

“You do that.”

With a whoosh of his wings, Sam vaults back off the building—leaving behind only a couple of knocked-over chairs, one blown-out candle, and the unmistakable sound of Bucky’s teeth grinding together.

You burst out laughing.

Bucky glares at you—but it’s mostly mock offense. “Glad you’re enjoying the death of our first date.”

You reach across the table and take his hand again. “Okay, it was interrupted, not dead. Honestly? I like that he crashed it. Now you owe me a second date.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

“Mhm.” You squeeze his hand. “Next time… somewhere Falcon-proof.”

His grin is soft. Wicked. “Anywhere you want, sweetheart.”

You smirk. “As long as I get that kiss you were about to give me.”

His eyes darken. “Oh, you’ll get it. Trust me.”

🎬 Date Two: Movie Night & Third-Wheel Steve

The sound of a movie plays quietly in the background, but neither of you’s really paying attention.

You’re curled up on Bucky’s couch, under a fleece blanket, one of his old sweatshirts hanging off your shoulder. He sits behind you, legs spread, body warm and solid, and you’re tucked between them like you belong there.

Spoiler: You do.

“I swear,” you mumble, reaching for more popcorn without taking your eyes off the screen, “if this ends with another crash landing, I’m suing Sam for emotional damages.”

Bucky laughs into your shoulder, breath hot against your skin. “This one’s Falcon-free, I promise.”

“You said that last time.”

He groans, playful. “C’mon, don’t hold that against me. It was one crash.”

“It was our almost first kiss, Barnes. That’s a felony in some states.”

He leans closer, lips brushing the shell of your ear. “You want me to make it up to you?”

Your breath catches. “Yeah. I do.”

You twist in his arms, shifting so you’re straddling his lap, knees on either side of his hips. The movement is smooth. Bold. A little reckless.

But he doesn’t mind. In fact, he looks thrilled.

“Well damn,” he says, hands gripping your thighs through the thin fabric of your pajama shorts. “Is this part of the movie, or…?”

You smile, teasing. “Bonus content.”

His eyes flick to your lips, then back to your eyes. “You’re killin’ me, doll.”

And then his hands slide up your thighs, fingers curling around your waist. You can feel him underneath you—hard, hungry, ready—and you’re barely even kissing yet.

His voice drops, rough with restraint. “Tell me to stop now if you want to.”

“I don’t want to,” you whisper, breathless.

That’s all he needs.

His lips crash into yours—hot, intense, a kiss you’ve both been aching for since the rooftop. His tongue teases your bottom lip, and you open for him, moaning into his mouth as his hands tighten on your hips. You rock forward instinctively, and he groans, hips bucking beneath you.

“Fuck,” he whispers, “you’re gonna make me—”

BANG. BANG. BANG.

A heavy knock slams against the front door, startling you both.

You freeze.

“No,” Bucky mutters against your neck, lips still brushing your skin. “No. Not again.”

“Ignore it,” you whisper, grinding against him a little just to tease.

He groans. “Oh, sweetheart. You’re gonna kill me.”

BANG. BANG. BANG.

“Bucky!” a familiar voice calls from the hallway. “I brought pizza!”

You pull back, blinking. “Is that—?”

“STEVE,” Bucky growls.

You scramble off his lap, cheeks blazing as Bucky nearly explodes off the couch.

The front door swings open—of course he still gives Steve a key—and there stands Captain America himself, smiling, holding two pizza boxes and a six-pack of root beer.

“Hey,” Steve says, totally oblivious, “movie night?”

Bucky’s expression is somewhere between a murder charge and emotional devastation. “STEVE.”

Steve blinks. “What?”

Bucky gestures wildly. “What does it look like?!”

Steve finally notices your flushed cheeks, the messed-up blanket, the very awkward distance you’re both now keeping.

“Oh,” he says.

There’s a pause.

Then: “Should I… leave?”

Bucky looks like he wants to throw him through a wall. You try not to laugh.

“Probably,” you say, standing and adjusting the oversized sweatshirt. “Unless you wanna be very scarred tonight.”

Steve holds up the pizza hopefully. “I brought pepperoni?”

You groan. “Okay, fine. But I’m picking the movie and you’re sitting at the other end of the couch.”

Bucky mutters something under his breath about “damn super soldiers and their terrible timing,” but you give his hand a squeeze as you walk by.

When your eyes meet, he mouths:

“Next time. You’re mine.”

And something about the heat in his stare tells you next time’s gonna be very worth the wait.

🖼️ Date Three: Art, Anticipation & An Unwelcome Mission

The Met is unusually quiet for a Saturday evening. Dimmed lights. Velvet ropes. Elegant, whispered conversations.

But Bucky’s not paying attention to the Monet in front of him.

No—he’s watching you.

Your dress hugs your curves too perfectly. Your eyes shine every time you pause in front of a new piece. And when you tilt your head, smiling at some abstract sculpture like it just told you a dirty joke, he damn near loses his mind.

“You’ve been staring at me for the last ten minutes,” you murmur, not even turning around.

“You make it hard not to,” he replies, stepping closer, voice low. “You know that dress should be illegal, right?”

You smirk, still pretending to focus on the painting. “So arrest me, Sergeant Barnes.”

His fingers brush your lower back. Soft. Teasing. “You sayin’ you want me to cuff you, sweetheart?”

You shoot him a warning look, cheeks heating. “This is a museum.”

“This is foreplay,” he corrects, voice deep and delicious in your ear.

You nearly choke on a laugh. “You’re insufferable.”

“And yet…” His metal hand slides down your waist, resting right at the curve of your hip, “…you still came out with me.”

You turn to face him, caught in that pull he always seems to have over you.

“I came because I like the way you look when you pretend to care about art,” you tease.

He raises an eyebrow. “I do care. Especially about the nudes.”

“Bucky!”

But you’re laughing, and he’s leaning in—smirking, dangerous, beautiful. The tension between you crackles like electricity in the air.

“I need to kiss you,” he whispers. “Right now.”

“Not in the middle of the sculpture room.”

His smirk grows. “Then come with me.”

Before you can protest, he takes your hand and tugs you down a quiet side hallway labeled “Staff Only.”

“Bucky,” you hiss, half laughing, “we’re gonna get kicked out—”

“I’ll make it worth it,” he says, pulling you into the shadows.

The hallway is dark. Silent. Cold stone walls and empty echo. And Bucky?

He’s all heat and hands and hunger.

His mouth finds yours like it’s been waiting too long. You melt into the kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck as his hands grip your hips and press you against the wall. His tongue slips into your mouth, and you whimper—soft, needy—hips rocking forward just slightly.

The sound he makes? Absolutely feral.

“God, doll,” he groans, grinding into you. “You keep makin’ those noises and I’m not gonna make it to date five.”

You gasp against his lips. “Then make this one count.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. His lips travel down your jaw, nipping along your throat. One hand slides under your dress, brushing the inside of your thigh—and you know if anyone catches you right now, you’d be banned for life.

And honestly? Worth it.

Just as his fingers start to trail higher—

Bzzt. Bzzt.

His phone vibrates hard against his chest.

Bucky groans like he’s in actual pain. “Ignore it.”

But it buzzes again. And again.

And then your phone starts to vibrate in your bag.

You both freeze.

He curses softly, reaching into his coat. The moment he checks the screen, everything changes.

His entire posture shifts. Military. Tense. Ready.

“What?” you ask, straightening, heart dropping.

“It’s Sam,” he mutters, already walking back down the hallway. “HYDRA hit a black site in Berlin. Nat’s down. Cap’s calling us in.”

You’re suddenly cold all over.

He turns back to you, jaw clenched, eyes apologetic. “I have to go.”

“I know,” you say quietly, following him.

“This isn’t how I wanted tonight to end,” he admits, pulling you into a brief, fierce kiss that tastes like regret.

“I know,” you whisper again. “Just… come back in one piece, Barnes.”

He cups your face, thumb stroking your cheek. “You too.”

And then he’s gone.

You’re left standing in that dim, forgotten hallway—heart pounding, skin still tingling from his touch—wondering what the hell it’ll take to finally finish one damn date with him.

🌧️ Date Four: Rain, Restraint & a Damn Phone Call

It starts as a simple walk after dinner.

You and Bucky wander through downtown Brooklyn, hands tangled together like you’ve been doing it for years. The streets are damp, slick from a light drizzle that started an hour ago, but neither of you care.

You’re laughing. Warm. Buzzed off good food and wine and him.

He keeps sneaking glances at you like you’re the most stunning thing in the entire city. And truth be told, the way the rain makes your dress cling to your curves? He

might be right.

“You cold, doll?” he asks, pulling you a little closer under his umbrella.

“Not with you like this,” you reply, and rest your hand on his chest. It’s firm, warm even through his jacket, and you feel the way he subtly leans into your touch.

“Careful,” he murmurs. “You say things like that, I’m gonna have to press you against this brick wall and make out with you like we’re in a damn movie.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Is that a threat or a promise?”

His smirk could melt steel. “Why don’t we find out?”

And that’s all it takes.

You stop walking.

Grab the front of his coat.

And pull him into the nearest alley.

“Holy shit,” he laughs, stunned, as you shove him gently against the damp brick. “You’re serious.”

“I’ve waited long enough, Barnes,” you say, pressing your body to his, looking up through soaked lashes. “Every single date, someone or something gets in the way. Not this time. I want you. Right now.”

He growls low in his throat, both hands grabbing your waist with barely restrained hunger. “You’re gonna be the fuckin’ death of me, sweetheart.”

Then he kisses you—hard.

Tongue, teeth, rain-slick lips. It’s messy and desperate and hot. One hand slides down to your ass, gripping it like it belongs to him, while the other slides up under your dress, metal fingertips dragging fire across your thigh.

You whimper against his mouth, grinding into him. He’s already hard, pressed right against your core, and the friction makes your knees damn near give out.

“You feel that?” he rasps against your throat, dragging his mouth down to your collarbone. “That’s what you do to me. Every time.”

You moan, tugging at his belt. “Then do something about it, James.”

The way he groans at that—your real name for him, full of need—it’s feral. You feel him fumbling to push your panties aside, fingers sliding through your slick folds, and—

RING. RING.

You both freeze.

The loud, shrill ring echoes in the alley.

“No,” you gasp, panting. “No. Don’t you dare—”

He pulls back just enough to glance at his phone, face wild with frustration.

“Ignore it,” you plead, nails scraping down his chest.

“I want to, believe me,” he groans. “But it’s Sam.”

You nearly scream.

He kisses you again—fast, deep, like a fucking apology—then answers the call with a snarl in his voice.

“What?” he snaps.

You can hear Sam on the other end: “Uh… hate to ruin your date again, but we’ve got a situation.”

Bucky closes his eyes and lets his head thunk back against the brick wall.

You adjust your dress and sigh, already knowing the answer.

⸻

Fifteen minutes later, you’re back at his place, soaked and pissed off, watching Bucky gear up like he’s going into war. (He is. Kinda.)

“I’m starting to think the universe hates our sex life,” you say flatly, arms crossed.

He gives you a tight smile as he straps on his thigh holster. “I’m gonna kill something just for interrupting us.”

You walk up to him, grab him by the collar, and pull him in for a slow, intense kiss. Your lips barely part, breath warm and heavy between you.

“When you come back,” you whisper, “you’re not getting another first date.”

He nods. “When I come back, you’re getting every inch of me.”

Your cheeks heat. “Bold talk for someone who’s gotta run.”

He presses his forehead to yours, voice ragged. “I’ll be back soon. And when I am… we’re not stopping.”

You don’t say goodbye.

You just let the promise hang between you—thick with tension, soaked in heat, and aching to be fulfilled.

💥 Date Five: No More Waiting

He doesn’t knock when he comes back.

He storms through the front door, drenched in rain and adrenaline, chest heaving like a man who’s run straight through hell just to get to you.

And when he sees you—curled up in one of his shirts, waiting on the couch with wide eyes and bare thighs—he stops.

You rise slowly, heart thudding, drinking him in. His hair’s wet and messy, jaw tight, dog tags clinking as he drops his gear to the floor.

“Bucky—”

“No more interruptions,” he growls, striding toward you. “No more missions. No more waiting.”

You don’t speak. Just back toward the bedroom.

He follows.

You barely make it through the door before he has you pressed against the wall, kissing you like it’s the last oxygen on Earth. Tongue, teeth, need. You moan into it, fingers already tugging at his shirt.

“Off,” you breathe. “Want to feel you.”

He rips the shirt over his head in one fluid motion, muscles rippling as he tosses it aside. You press your palms to his chest—scarred and strong—and slide down, mouth open as your lips trail kisses across his pecs, down his abs.

But he stops you with a growl, metal hand in your hair.

“Not tonight, doll,” he says, voice rough with control. “Tonight’s about you.”

He lifts you easily—like you weigh nothing—lays you gently on the bed, and kneels between your legs.

“Bucky—”

“You’ve been so damn patient,” he murmurs, dragging your borrowed shirt up your torso, kissing every new inch of skin he exposes. “Four. Fucking. Dates. And every single one? Ruined.”

His mouth ghosts over your navel. “I haven’t touched you the way I want to.”

“Then touch me now,” you whisper.

He looks up at you—eyes dark, starved, desperate.

“Oh, sweetheart… I’m gonna do more than that.”

And then he slides your panties down your legs and devours you.

His mouth is sinful—hot tongue swirling, slow licks that make your hips jerk, breath catch. He doesn’t rush it. He feasts. Like you’re dessert and he’s been starving.

“Oh fuck,” you moan, back arching as his tongue circles your clit.

He groans into you, loving the sounds you make, the way your thighs shake around his head.

“Let go, baby,” he murmurs against your heat. “Come on my tongue.”

You do.Hard.

Your climax crashes over you like a goddamn wave, and Bucky doesn’t stop. He guides you through it, tongue relentless, even as you squirm and gasp from overstimulation.

“Too much—” you whisper.

But he pulls back, just enough to kiss your trembling inner thigh. “Too much? Or not enough?”

You blink, dazed. “Bucky—”

“I need you,” he growls, standing, shedding his pants, revealing just how ready he’s been. “Been dreaming about this. About you. Every fuckin’ night.”

He climbs over you, forearms braced beside your head, his tip sliding along your still-wet folds.

“You want me?” he asks, voice thick.

“Yes. Please—”

He sinks into you in one smooth, slow thrust, and everything else disappears.

Your moan is filthy, and his? It’s practically a growl.

“You’re so fuckin’ tight,” he hisses, forehead resting against yours. “God, you feel perfect.”

He starts to move—slow at first, deep and steady—rocking into you like he’s savoring every inch.

“You take me so good, baby,” he whispers, kissing the corner of your mouth. “Like you were made for me.”

Your nails dig into his back. You wrap your legs around his waist. “Harder.”

He obeys instantly.

His thrusts pick up speed, power—his metal hand gripping your thigh, keeping you spread wide as he pounds into you with deep, possessive strokes.

The headboard hits the wall. The bed creaks. The room fills with the sound of skin, breath, moans.

“Fuck—Bucky—yes, just like that—”

He leans down, nipping your jaw, your throat. “You’re mine,” he groans. “This pussy? Fuckin’ mine.”

“Yours,” you gasp. “All yours.”

He kisses you then—hungry, messy, like he’s claiming you—and slips a hand between you to rub your clit, fast and perfect.

You shatter around him a second time, crying out his name, your entire body trembling. He follows moments later, burying himself deep, moaning low in your ear as he comes.

He doesn’t move for a moment.

Just holds you, breathless, bodies tangled, hearts racing.

Eventually, he rolls onto his back and pulls you with him, cradling you on his chest.

“Worth the wait?” he murmurs, brushing your hair from your sweaty face.

You hum, nuzzling into him. “Absolutely.”

He presses a kiss to your forehead.

“Next time,” he whispers, “we skip the date and go straight to dessert.”

You laugh softly, eyes fluttering closed.

And for the first time in weeks, nothing interrupts the night.

-The end

(Yes, I know that I said I don’t write smut. I am not good at it. But… I gave it a shot to see how it goes.)

[casekiell]

Exterior - Stone Large mountain style beige two-story stone exterior home photo with a clipped gable roof

[fishervk]

Front Yard Concrete Pavers DC Metro

Inspiration for a large contemporary partial sun front yard concrete paver landscaping in spring.

[odetothebrogueking]

DC Metro Concrete Pavers This is an illustration of a medium-sized, full-sun concrete paver backyard landscaping.

[jinwoosbabyboo]

��𝚛𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗', 𝙵𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗' 𝚠/ 𝙽𝚘 𝚂𝚊𝚏𝚎𝚝𝚢 𝙽𝚎𝚝

My headcanons of the lads men with a clumsy reader [Requested by: Anon]

𝚉𝚊𝚢𝚗𝚎

this man is damn near giving himself an anxiety attack worrying about you when you're not with him

covers the corner of the table with his hand when you lean down to pick something up

cuts your food for you now because you cut your finger one time and gave him a heart attack

his reflexes have sharpened from having to catch you every time you trip

keeps a pair of sneakers and flats in his car in case you drink when you two are out because he knows you'll stumble and fall in a pair of heels

would switch out his sharp cornered coffee table for an oval shaped one because you kept hitting your knee on it

places all your extra pillows on the floor on your side of the bed after you rolled off one night

keeps first aid kits everywhere because you're a walking hazard to yourself

does not let you grab a glass from a shelf you can barely reach

doesn't let you carry more than one bag because you tried to make one trip with the grocery bags and fell head first into a wall

𝚁𝚊𝚏𝚊𝚢𝚎𝚕

still laughs every time you trip or fall "are you okay?" "stop laughing!" "I'm sorry the noise you made was funny"

holds your hand or waist when you walk up/down the stairs because you've fallen one too many times

if you drop something at the table he'll pick it up for you

gets rid of the rugs you somehow keep tripping on

is fighting for his life trying to keep you off the counters when you can't reach something

you slipped in the shower one time and gave yourself a concussion now he won't let you shower alone

subtly childproofs his house

is always confused whenever you trip, fall or get stuck "now how the hell did you do that?" "I don't know Raf help me!"

constantly pretends to toss you stuff "Think fast!" " STOP IM NOT GONNA CATCH IT!" he's already cackling on the floor

side steps you to throw you off balance on purpose; always catches you when you start falling

𝚇𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚛

you fell down the stairs once and now he happily carries you up and down them whenever he's with you

covers the corner of the table with his hand when you drop something and lean down to pick it up

also showers with you now after you slipped one time

doesn't let your carry more than one plate

gets a google home or Alexa so you can speak to turn the lights on because you tend to run into walls looking for light switches

grabs everything you can't reach after you pulled an entire shelf down on yourself in public

sends you check-in texts to make sure you haven't hurt yourself when he doesn't see you (not that you'd admit it anyway)

is so used to your clumsiness he can almost sense when something is about to go wrong

secretly finds your clumsiness cute and now he has another reason to have you in his arms at all times

𝚂𝚢𝚕𝚞𝚜

Sylus is probably the perfect man to be with because his evol would be perfect for protecting you

places his hand on your head when you lean down to pick something up to stop you from bumping it on anything

buys you fluffy slippers to wear around the house so your pinky toe stops banging everything in the house

wraps his evol around you when he catches you climbing on something

you cut yourself with a knife once and he hid them for only him and the chef to use after that

has the twins keep an eye on you when he's not around

replaces any tables with sharp corners for smooth edged tables

has his shower renovated with pebble stone flooring so you don't slip

takes your heels and carries you when you start stumbling

keeps a hand on your waist when going up or down the stairs

is so used to you falling all the time its almost like his evol acts on it's own to catch you

uses your clumsiness as a reason for why he should go with you everywhere

gets rid of every rug in the house and opts to get heated floors because you keep tripping on the rugs, but he knew you'd complain about the cold floors

[vbecker10]

Omg, could you please do a Loki story where Jotuns are basically space penguins, so now Loki has a crush on you and is frantically and meticulously looking for the perfect pebble to give you while Thor just watches and laughs.

The Pebble and the Frost Giant

Pairing: Loki x female reader (y/n)

Summary: Loki is trying to deny his feelings for you so he doesn't ruin your friendship but when he passes an area filled with pebbles and small rocks, he's unable to resist the urge to bring one back for you and tell you he loves you.

A/N: OMG! This is the cutest ask ever, I literally had to write it the second I got it. Most of the time it takes a week or so for me to get an idea from an ask but this one was pretty instant. Thank you so much for sending this, I really hope you like it! 💚

Also, I absolutely love the movie The Pebble and the Penguin! If anyone hasn't seen it, you should! 🐧

"Come on brother," Thor pats Loki on the knee and the younger prince looks up from his book in annoyance.

"I'm not going," Loki resumes reading as if Thor isn't there.

The older Asgardian sighs, "We've got at least an hour until the jet takes off. Let's go down by the water."

"I'm perfectly fine here," he licks his finger before flipping the page. Thor grins and pulls the book from his brother's grasp. "Give it back you oaf!"

"Just twenty minutes," Thor holds the book over his head.

"This trick worked much better when we were children and you towered over me," the younger prince easily reaches up to grip the book.

Before Loki can pull it free from his brother's grasp, Thor yanks it back and tosses it to the ground at their feet. "This is uncalled for," Loki bends to pick up the book but suddenly falls back, landing hard on the jet floor with a grunt.

"Is there a problem?" Thor asks with a smirk.

"No," Loki looks down at Mjolnir as it rests on top of his book. He stands, flicking his hand to produce a second book from his pocket dimension in a haze of green smoke. "I'll just read this-"

Thor chuckles as he pulls the book free from Loki a second time.

"Seriously?" The God of Mischief asks with a defeated sigh.

"Twenty minutes on the beach and I'll leave you alone for the rest of the night," Thor offers.

"For the rest of the week," Loki counters.

"Fine," the God of Thunder agrees and Loki's second book vanishes as the two brothers step out of the jet.

Thor and Loki walk down by the water in silence, the older Asgardian's eyes drift up towards the clouds floating by while Loki scans the beach in boredom. He looks down to check his watch when he's suddenly distracted by a small pile of tide polished stones ahead of him. Without thinking, he leaves his brother's side and begins walking towards them.

"Where are you going?" Thor asks but Loki doesn't answer. He's too focused on the scattered rocks in front of him.

He kneels down, picking up a stone from the top of the pile, looking at it closely then tossing it to the side. "No," Loki mumbles to himself as he picks up a second then a third rock. "No," he shakes his head as he examines each for a few seconds.

"Loki," Thor comes closer, standing over his younger brother as he discards a handful of stones. Without a word, Loki gets up and moves to a nearby pile. "Okay seriously, what are you doing?"

"None of these are good," Loki answers, dusting his sand covered hands on his pants.

"They're rocks," Thor chuckles, amused by his brother's sudden obsession.

"Yes but there has to be one here that's good enough," Loki says. "Not just good, no, it needs to be perfect," he adds in a quieter tone.

"You're not making any sense," he follows the younger prince to yet another pile. "Perfect for what?"

"For who," Loki responds vaguely.

Thor thinks as he follows his brother along the beach, trying figure out who Loki is referring to. To say he has few friends is an understatement, there's really only one person who even comes to mind. "Do you mean Y/N?" Thor asks.

Loki nods, his attention stolen away by an almost perfect stone. Almost isn't good enough though, he thinks as he tosses it towards the water in frustration.

"Why do you need to find one for Y/N?" Thor asks as Loki sits on the sand and picks up a handful of rocks, throwing each away one at a time. "Does she collect rocks? I've heard some Midgardians do that. I wonder if that's more interesting than collecting stamps like Jane does?"

Loki doesn't answer this time, too lost in what he's doing, what he needs to do. I have to find it, he thinks. I don't have time for Thor and his ridiculous line of questions. It doesn't matter if he understands why, Norns I don't even understand why but that doesn't matter now. All that matters is finding Y/N the perfect stone. It can't be too big or too small, the size of her palm should work. It can't be broken, no cracked edges or holes, that won't do either. It needs to be perfect because- his frantic thoughts are cut off by his brother shouting.

"Norns! I know what you're doing," he stands over his brother who shifts to stay out of his shadow.

"I doubt that," Loki says without looking up from the stones in his hand. Because I don't know what I'm doing, he thinks.

"You're in love with Y/N," the older god announces when Loki gets up again to continue down the beach.

"Don't be absurd," Loki denies the truth he hides from everyone including you as he kneels down and begins the process of picking up each stone in the new pile one at a time.

"You are!" Thor laughs excitedly. "This is a Jotun thing."

"What Jotun thing?" Loki looks up at his brother.

"I know this! I read about it when we were younger," Thor says then sighs as he thinks. "I can't remember the technical term for it but when Jotun men are in love, they bring their potential partner a stone as like a proposal."

"What?" Loki asks as he sits in the sand and looks up at his brother. He had never heard of this tradition before now but he also knows very little about his Jotun heritage. When he was a child, frost giants scared him terribly so he never studied them. Now that he knows the truth, he is almost too afraid to learn what horrid tales about them were accurate and which were only made up stories.

"Penguins on Midgard do it too," Thor continues excitedly as he remembers what he read centuries ago. "Ahh! Pebbling, that's what they call it. You're pebbling, you can't help it, it's like an instinct Jotun's have."

"That's ridiculous Thor. I'm not pebbling, or whatever you want to call it, because I'm not in love with-" Loki tries to argue with his brother but the words die as he finally finds it. The perfect stone for the most perfect woman on Midgard, Loki thinks as he turns it over in his hand. Norns help me, my brother is right and I'm not sure I'll be able to hide my feelings for her any longer.

Loki opens your office door after knocking and you get up from your desk as soon as he steps inside. "Hi," you greet him happily, meeting him in the middle of the room. "Welcome back."

"Thank you," he smiles when you wrap your arms around him. "I'm glad to be back," Loki says but what he really means is that he's glad to be back with you.

You rest your head on his chest and his hands settle on your back, holding you tightly to him. You could stay in his arms forever and sometimes you think Loki might let you. He doesn't let go first, he never does.

"You know you spoil me with these hugs," you tell him and he chuckles. "You're going to make me think I'm special cause I'm the only person that gets them."

He rubs your back lightly with one hand, "You are special."

You blush and slowly drop your arms, taking a step away from him. You don't want to let go but if he keeps talking like that, you're afraid you'll do something stupid like kiss him.

Loki's heart pounds in his chest when he catches a glimpse of your blush despite your best efforts to hide it. "I have something for you," he says, clearing his throat.

"You do? You didn't have to do that," you tell him as a smile spreads across your face. You can't help but feel excited by the idea that Loki thought of you while he was away. He never brought anything back for you before.

"It's nothing big," he says with a shrug, "It's actually probably stupid." This was a bad idea, he thinks. How could I possibly think she would accept a silly rock and suddenly be mine? I never should have listened to my idiot brother. Loki puts his hand in his coat pocket, running his thumb over the flat edge anxiously.

"I'm sure it's not stupid," you tell him, putting your hand on his arm. "What is it?"

He sighs and you can tell he's nervous which you find both adorable and interesting. You've never seen him act so unsure of himself and it really makes you want to hug him again.

He pulls a palm sized flat stone out of his pocket. It's perfectly circular and a pale gray with a hint of a blue when it catches the light. "I found it on the beach while we were waiting for the jet," he tries to steady his hand when you take it. He knows it's just a simple rock but the Jotun part of him is truly desperate for you to accept it, to accept him.

You smile and take it from him, bringing it close so you can study the smooth stone, "Loki it's so pretty."

"Really?" he asks in disbelief.

"Yeah," you nod quickly, your eyes still on the gift as you walk over to the window and turn it on the light. "Oh, look! it sparkles in the sun," you giggle.

He breaths a sigh of relief and walks over to you. "You like it?"

"I love it," you reach up and kiss the god's cheek lightly without thinking. "I'm sorry," you apologize quickly but when you look up at Loki you're completely surprised by his reaction.

His cheeks redden and he smiles. "It's quite alright," he tells you, his eyes never leaving yours.

You giggle, suddenly feeling even more nervous than you would have if Loki had seemed uncomfortable with the kiss and take a step away from him. Turning your back to him, you move to your desk but you can feel him following you, "I'm gonna keep it right here so I can see it when I miss you." You place the stone in between a photo of your friends and a mug your nephew made you.

"You miss me?" he asks.

"Yeah... when you're away on missions," you suddenly worry this conversation is going to lead to you accidentally telling your friend you love him if you don't figure out how to keep your mouth shut.

"I miss you when I'm gone too," Loki moves a bit closer to you until he's right behind you.

You turn to face him again, "Really?" You can't help but not believe him. For months you've been hoping he might care for you the way you care for him but its been so difficult to get past all of his walls.

He nods, "Always Y/N. The second the jet takes off, I start counting down the minutes until I can see you again."

Now it's your turn to blush deeply when he reaches out to take your hand. When you feel his fingers intertwine with yours, you suddenly get enough to courage to open up a bit more. "I try to plan my meetings around when I know you'll be back," you tell him. "This way I'm free to see you as soon as your home."

He chuckles and cups your cheek, "I would storm in here even if you were in a meeting with Fury just for one of your hugs."

You giggle knowing he's not lying.

"Y/N," he says, "Since we're being honest, I need to tell you one more thing." You bite your lip but the way he smiles relaxes you instantly. "I want to be more than just your friend, I want to take you on a date." I want you to be mine because I love you, he almost adds but he doesn't want to scare you away.

You're unable to form any words at first, looking up at Loki nodding which causes him to laugh a little nervously. "I'm not sure if that's a yes," he says.

"Yes!" you finally find your words but then they flow a little too freely. "I love y-" you stop and correct yourself hoping he won't notice your slip. "I would love to go out with you."

He strokes your cheek gently, moving closer to you as he puts his other hand on your lower back. "That's not what you were going to say," he smirks, the confident Loki you know returning swiftly.

You shake your head and bite your lip, suddenly losing your nerve.

"Fine, I'll go first," his lips are inches from yours. "I am hopelessly in love with you darling."

As soon as the words leave Loki's lips, you press your lips to his, closing your eyes and gripping the fabric on the back of his jacket. He kisses you back and when you finally break the kiss and chuckles, kissing your nose lightly. "Go on, say it," he smiles, holding you close.

You giggle, "I love you too, Loki."

A few weeks later, you walk with Natasha and Wanda through Central Park on the way back from lunch. You nod as you listen to Wanda complain about Tony, agreeing with her when you accidentally kick a rock on the path in front of you. You stop to take a look at it and smile.

"What are you doing?" Nat asks as you bend down for a closer look.

"I don't know, I just thought this one looked cool," you tell them.

"The rock?" Wanda asks.

"Yeah," you pick it up and turn it over in your hand. It's not very large but the rough stone is heart shaped and such a deep gray it's almost black. "I think Loki might like it."

"You two are so weird," Nat laughs.

You smile and put it in your pocket, "That's why we're such a cute couple."

I hope you liked this!! Please like, share and comment if you did 💚💚 Please let me know if you want to be added to my taglist!

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[bekkathyst]

BEKKATHYST 2024 Giveaway!

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[beloveds-embrace]

(Poly mercenaries 141 x princess reader, time loop au

Masterlist | Part One | Part Two | Part Three)

The night stretched out before you, dark and endless, the sky yawning open like the mouth of a beast, its hungry maw swallowing the stars of ypur hope and happiness one by one. Clouds rolled in thick and heavy, smothering the moon in a suffocating embrace, leaving only the barest slivers of silver to carve shadows across the battlements. The wind howled, a low, keening thing that wound through the stone corridors like a mourning mother, wailing for something long lost.

Except there was no mother to cradle nor mourn you, and instead, you were left longing for an embrace you had only dreamed about.

You stood at the edge of it all, hands curled around the frozen parapet, your fingers numb where they gripped the crumbling stone. The cold bit at your skin, but you barely felt it. There was something else pressing against your ribs, something deeper, heavier, clawing at your insides like it wanted out.

You wanted to scream. You wanted to tear at your own chest, to crack open your ribs and let it spill out, let it bleed into the night, let it take you with it.

Instead, you just stood there. Silent. Watching the darkness stretch out in front of you, a vast nothingness where the horizon should be.

My fate…

Ghost found you like that, his footsteps swallowed by the wind, a phantom emerging from the night as if the darkness itself had conjured him.

You didn’t turn. You didn’t have to. His presence was a weight at your side, solid and unshakable, something that should have been comforting but only made the knot in your chest pull tighter.

There is no saving hand to pull me out of this nightmare.

“What do you want?” Your voice barely carried over the wind, brittle and worn, as if speaking was just another burden you had to bear.

“To talk.” He said simply, after a few seconds of letting the silence hang.

A sharp, humorless laugh scraped its way up your throat. It was a jagged, broken thing, brittle as the ice forming in the cracks of the stone beneath your palms. “What could we possibly talk about?”

Ghost didn’t answer right away. He didn’t need to. He just stood there, watching you with the same quiet intensity that had always unsettled you, like he could see past skin and sinew, past bone and blood, down to whatever ugly, raw thing was buried inside you.

“The weight you’re carrying,” he said at last. “I know what it’s like.”

Your fingers dug deeper into the stone, nails scraping against the frost. A thousand memories clawed at you from the depths of your mind, hands reaching, grasping, dragging you under. You swallowed hard against the rising tide, against the pressure building behind your ribs, against the suffocating knowledge of what was coming. What will always come.

“No, you don’t.” Your voice was hoarse, edged with something dangerously close to desperation. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Ghost turned his head, the faint glint of moonlight catching on the bone-white of his mask. Dark and fathomless eyes locked onto yours.

“No,” he admitted with a heavy sigh, a boulder letting tiny pebbles roll off it. “But I know what it’s like to feel trapped. To carry something so heavy it feels like it’s crushing you from the inside out.”

The words hit you like a blacksmith’s hammer to glass, and for a moment, you couldn’t breathe.

Your pulse thrummed in your throat, uneven and frantic.

“…And how do you manage it?”

A long silence stretched between you, thick as smoke, suffocating in its weight.

When he finally spoke, his voice was rough, low. “You don’t,” he huffed. “Not really. But it’s easier when someone knows it’s there.”

The breath you had been holding left you in a quiet, shuddering exhale.

Something inside you cracked. A fault line splitting open, raw and bleeding, a wound too deep to ever truly heal.

You turned away before he could see the tremor in your hands, not answering him. Yet you did not pull away from the heavy hand that settled on your lower back.

The next day, the training yard pulsed with the sound of combat, the sharp clash of steel on steel echoing against the stone walls. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and sweat, torches flickering like fireflies in the encroaching dusk.

You had not expected Soap to drag you here- his grip firm but not forceful, his expression unreadable save for the glint of something dangerously playful in his eyes. He pressed a wooden sword into your hands as if he expected it to be an extension of your own body.

“Ye need to let off some steam, lass,” he had said, his grin sharp as a whetted blade. “Let’s see what ye’ve got.”

You scowled down at the weapon, turning it over in your grasp as if it were foreign to you. In truth, it wasn’t. Kyle had made sure of that.

“This is ridiculous.”

“Humor me.”

Then, without warning, he lunged.

Your body reacted before your mind could catch up. The sword snapped up to meet his strike with a crack that rang through your bones, the force of it reverberating up your arm.

“Johnny-“

“Focus.”

His voice was low, edged with something almost serious beneath the usual lilt of mischief. He moved with the ease of a man who had long ago turned battle into a dance, each step precise, effortless, meant to lure you into his rhythm.

But Kyle had taught you better than that.

Soap pressed forward, relentless in his pursuit, his strikes calculated- each one meant to chip away at your defenses, to pull you from the depths of your own mind and into the present moment. And for a while, it worked. The world shrank down to the space between you, to the swift parry of blades and the hurried breath leaving your lungs.

He was fast. But you had learned patience.

A feint, a sidestep- his sword arced just wide enough for you to slip past him, your movements honed from nights spent training in the shadows where no one could see your failures. Kyle’s voice echoed in your memory, steady and instructive.

“Wait for the opening. Someone will overextend. Someone always does.”

And then-

Soap slipped.

Just barely. A misstep, a fraction of imbalance, but it was enough. You pivoted on your heel, catching him off guard as you drove the wooden blade forward in a strike that should have been impossible for someone with your supposed lack of experience.

He fell.

Not hard, not gracelessly- just enough to land sprawled in the dirt, a stunned laugh escaping his lips before he could stop it. His sword clattered beside him, momentarily forgotten.

The sight was so absurd, so unexpected, that something in you cracked- an uncontrollable, sharp bark of laughter tearing itself from your throat. Not the polite, measured sound you had been trained to offer at courtly affairs, nor the brittle, hollow one you used when masking your fear.

A real laugh.

Raw and nguarded- like the first breath after drowning.

Soap lay there for a moment, blinking up at you, his expression shifting from shock to something unreadable. Then he grinned, wide and victorious, as if he had won something far greater than a simple sparring match despite losing.

“There she is,” he said, voice warm and undeniably fond. “Thought I’d lost ye for a moment.”

The words struck something deep within you, a place untouched by kindness for longer than you cared to admit. Your laughter faded, the sound slipping through your fingers like sand.

Because for a brief second, you had forgotten.

Forgotten the weight of inevitability pressing against your ribs, the slow march toward your own doom. Forgotten that no matter how much warmth you found here, no matter how much these men made you feel something other than fear-

The noose was already waiting.

The library was a sanctuary of forgotten knowledge, steeped in the scent of parchment, ink, and candle wax. The towering shelves stretched toward the vaulted ceiling, their wooden spines whispering secrets of eras long past. It was the kind of place that felt untouched by the chaos outside its doors- unmoving, unwavering, eternal.

But you knew better. Even the strongest walls crumbled eventually.

Gaz sat hunched over a heavy wooden table, surrounded by a fortress of books and scattered documents. The candlelight cast flickering shadows across his face, highlighting the deep furrow in his brow, the quiet intensity in his eyes. His fingers traced over lines of text with purpose, as if the answer to everything lay buried within ink-stained pages.

“Still at it?” You murmured from the doorway, reluctant to step inside and disturb the peace- as if your presence alone is an unwelcome blight.

He looked up, startled at first, but his expression softened the moment he saw you. There was exhaustion in the curve of his mouth, but warmth, too- a small, steadfast thing you wished to cling to.

“Someone has to figure this out.”

Your stomach twisted. He was still searching for a way to fix things, to find the root of the rot before it consumed everything. You had known he wouldn’t give up easily, but seeing him like this- dedicated, determined, unrelenting- it was almost too much to bear.

You weren’t worth the effort.

You stepped inside, the floorboards groaning under your hesitant weight. The room felt too still, too safe. It was an illusion, just like everything else.

“And if it’s too late?” you asked quietly, not sure if you wanted to hear the answer.

Gaz didn’t even hesitate.

“It won’t be.”

His certainty twisted something sharp and aching in your chest. “I don’t know how you do it,” you whispered after a moment of stillness. “Hold onto hope.”

For a moment, he just looked at you. Not with pity, not with doubt- just quiet understanding. When he finally spoke, his voice was steady, unwavering.

“Because someone has to.”

He reached for another parchment, but as he did, his fingers brushed against yours. The touch was fleeting, barely there, but it was enough. Enough to steal the breath from your lungs, to send a shiver through your bones.

Gaz didn’t pull away immediately. His eyes searched yours, something unspoken lingering between you.

“I promised I’d stand by you,” he said, quieter now, as if the words carried more weight in the hush of the library. “No matter what.”

Your breath hitched.

No matter what.

But he didn’t understand- none of them did.

Because when the time came, when the accusations struck like a blade to the gut, they would have no choice but to watch you die.

You swallowed hard, forcing the thought away, forcing yourself to focus on something else- anything else. Your gaze flickered to the mess of papers spread across the table, the careful notes he had scribbled in the margins. Names. Dates. Rumors.

He wasn’t just trying to stop what was coming.

He was hunting for the source.

“You’re searching for the ones who started the rumors.” You murmured, not a question, but an understanding.

Gaz nodded, pushing a book toward you. His handwriting marked the page, sharp and precise.

“Someone planted them carefully,” he said, low and angry. “The accusations, the whispers of treason, the claims that you’re planning to overthrow the king- it didn’t spread on its own. Someone wanted this to happen.”

You swallowed, the bile rising in your throat. As if you didn’t know- though you wondered, distantly, if they were the same people who might have thrown you into this cruel loop.

“And?”

He sighed, raking a hand over his face. “And they’re careful. Too careful. Most rumors start with someone- some courtier, some servant, someone who benefits from the chaos. But this? It’s like chasing smoke. Every trail leads to nothing.”

A chill curled down your spine.

“Then maybe that’s the point.” You said softly.

Gaz’s jaw tightened. He had thought the same thing.

“It’s deliberate,” he agreed. “Someone in the castle wants you to fall. And they’ve been planning it for a long time.”

The weight of his words pressed against your ribs, heavy and suffocating.

For all his searching, for all his determination, he didn’t see it- he didn’t realize that the trap had already been set.

That it was already too late.

(Yet despite that, you know that he would not stop even if he had known. And so you left and returned, bringing back a cup of tea for him. He deserved far more- but this was all you could do.)

Another day, it was Price who came to you in the garden.

The gardens that were a graveyard of wilted roses.

Once, this place had been a sanctuary. In the warmer months, the air had been thick with the scent of fresh blooms, petals kissed by sunlight, the gentle hum of bees floating lazily between flowers. You used to come here to breathe, to exist in a world that did not demand anything from you. But now-

Now, everything was withering.

The frost had crept in, coiling its fingers around every living thing, stealing the color from the world. The roses were brittle and shriveled, their once-soft petals curling in on themselves like dying embers. When you reached out, brushing your fingers along one, it crumbled at the barest touch, disintegrating into dust, carried away by the wind.

How fitting.

Price found you there, his heavy coat drawn tightly around him, boots crunching softly against the frost-kissed ground. His presence was a steady weight in the silence, solid and unshakable, but even that couldn’t chase away the cold sinking into your bones.

“You shouldn’t be out here.”

His voice was soft rumble, edged with something worn and knowing.

You didn’t look at him. Didn’t lift your gaze from the dying flowers. “Does it matter?”

“It matters.”

Two words, simple and certain. Two words that made something in your chest ache.

A bitter laugh curled from your lips, barely more than a breath of sound. “I’m tired, Price.”

Not just from lack of sleep, though that, too, gnawed at you. It was deeper than that. A tiredness that sat in your marrow, that wrapped itself around your ribs and squeezed until you could barely breathe. The kind of exhaustion that came from carrying something too heavy for too long.

Price sighed, stepping closer. His coat was pulled tightly around him, his breath misting in the cold air, but the warmth of him was unmistakable. “I know,” he murmured. “But you don’t have to do this alone.”

For the first time, you turned to him.

And for the first time, you let him see.

The dark circles beneath your eyes were deep into your skin, your face drawn and hollowed out by something more than just sleepless nights. You had always been quieter than others, but now there was a distant, almost vacant look in your eyes- like you were already halfway to somewhere else, somewhere no one could follow and they couldn’t pull you back from. A ghost walking among the living.

Price’s gaze swept over you, his expression tightening. Concern. Worry. Something sharper and heavier.

“I don’t… really have a choice.”

His jaw tensed, fingers curling into fists at his sides. “There’s always a choice.”

But not for you.

Not for the girl cursed to die over and over again.

Not for the traitor they were about to name.

And still- they didn’t know.

They felt it, though. In the way your already rare laughter had faded into something thin and distant. In the way your silences stretched longer, heavier, pressing down on the spaces between conversations. In the way your shoulders had begun to bow under the weight of something unseen.

They were worried.

Gaz had been watching you with sharp, searching eyes, digging through more books and newspapers, speaking in hushed tones, chasing whispers of something that was already too close to stop. Soap had tried- tried so hard- to drag you back into the present, to make you laugh, to remind you how to live. Even Ghost, so often a shadow himself, had begun hovering a little too close, studying you with a quiet intensity that made your breath hitch.

Still, they didn’t know what was coming.

They only knew that you were slipping.

Price was still watching you, his eyes dark with something unreadable. And then-

Warmth.

He didn’t pull you in abruptly. He wasn’t forceful. He just opened his arms slightly, a silent offering. And when you stepped forward, when you let yourself fall into him, he held you.

Strong, steady arms wrapped around you, anchoring you in a world that had long since started to unravel. His coat smelled like smoke and leather, the comforting scent of something unwavering, and you couldn’t bring yourself to stop the tears that rolled down your face. He didn’t speak, didn’t tell you it would be okay- because maybe he knew.

Maybe he felt it, too.

That this moment, this warmth, this small reprieve-

-was all you would get.

And then the dreaded day came, falling like a heavy stone in a well.

The throne room was suffocating.

The air pressed down on you like a vice, thick with the sickly-sweet scent of burning candles and the cloying perfume of the nobles. Their whispers slithered through the silence, a chorus of hissing snakes, their words curling around your throat like a noose.

You knew this moment.

You had lived it before, a thousand times over, the script written in blood and fate. You had stood here before- countless times, in countless lives, wearing different faces, speaking different words. But it always ended the same. But knowing did not make it easier. Knowing did not stop the cold, skeletal hand of terror from clawing up your spine, did not stop your breath from shattering into uneven fragments in your chest.

The king sat upon his throne, a figure carved from cold authority. His gaze, never once kind, now bore into you with something so unbelievably cruel. And then-

“You stand accused of treason.”

The words struck like a blade, slicing through flesh, through bone, through soul.

A violent shudder wracked through you. The world tipped, spun- became too loud and too quiet all at once.

“No-“

Your voice barely made it past your lips, hoarse and broken, a dying thing gasping for air. Your vision blurred, the candlelight smearing into gold and red, into something awful and wrong.

This couldn’t be happening.

Not again.

Not again.

(Please.)

You staggered back a step, heart hammering against your ribs like a caged animal, panic flooding your veins like poison. Every breath burned, sharp and ragged, too shallow, too fast, as if your lungs had forgotten how to work. You knew it would come and yet-

Please, no-

They were there, as well.

Price stood frozen, his broad frame locked in rigid tension, eyes dark as storm-tossed seas. His jaw clenched so tightly you swore you heard his teeth grind, his hands curling into fists so tight they trembled.

Soap was shaking his head, disbelief flashing across his face, lips parting like he wanted to speak, to demand an explanation, to fix this-

Beside him, Gaz’s brows had furrowed, horror flickering over his features before morphing into something darker. His gaze darted around the room, searching for the why, searching for the who, searching for the lie. Searching for the moment where everything had gone wrong, where he could still undo it.

And Ghost had gone still.

Not just physically, but something deeper- something inside him had frozen over, locked tight behind the bone-white mask. His hands flexed at his sides, fingers twitching, as if fighting the urge to grab a weapon, to intervene.

But they couldn’t.

No one could.

The horror clawed at your chest, cold and unrelenting. Your stomach lurched, bile rising in your throat. Your legs wanted to give out beneath you, but you forced yourself to stand.

“Please.” You whispered, but you didn’t even know who you were begging.

But before you could get more than that single word out, the guards stepped forward and cold, unyielding hands seized your arms. Chains closed around your wrists, and metal bit into your skin, heavy and final.

“No-“

Something inside you broke anew.

The breath fled from your lungs in a shattered, strangled sob. The weight of it- the steel, the accusation, the fate you could never outrun- crushed you, suffocating, drowning.

You thrashed before you could stop yourself, instinct taking over, panic overriding thought. Your body moved on its own, jerking, twisting, trying to escape, but the hands held firm.

“Don’t do this- please-“

The fear in your voice was raw, desperate, but the words fell on deaf ears.

No one spoke, and no one moved.

You turned, wild-eyed, to your mercenaries- please, please, please-

But the realization was already sinking in, slow and heavy as death itself.

There was nothing they could do.

Your knees buckled, but the guards held you up and began dragging you forward.

You gasped, sucking in a breath that never quite reached your lungs. Your fingers curled into fists, nails biting into your palms as your body trembled violently, the panic like hands around your tender throat.

You knew what would come next.

You knew the pain, the blood-

You knew the ending. And still-

“I don’t want to die.”

The words escaped in a whisper, barely more than a breath, a fragile, broken thing lost in the vast, unfeeling void of the throne room.

No one answered.

The chains pulled you forward.

And in that moment, as the weight of a thousand past lives bore down upon you, as your mercenaries looked on in disbelief and fury-

You knew.

It was already too late.

[wrenisrad]

I Prefer Hiding in Plain Sight

pairing: Azriel x Reader (mainly towards the end)

word count: 1k

c/w: angst, feelings of inadequacy, they're idiots your honor

“Life may shift,” You recall Rhysand telling you, after you had barely turned twenty, surrounded by your friends– your family, who had serenaded you with a horrendously off-pitch rendition of Happy Birthday. “But we will forever be that same, count on it.”

And as much as you wished you could have relied on the comforting words of your friend, they had failed you, slowly, but surely they turned into something different. Something unrecognizable. Gone were the days of simplicity, laughing at Rita’s, or having a Sunday dinner with everyone in attendance. 

Now, handed to you on a brandished, dirty plate, were days of being brushed off and constant cancellations made of weak excuses, a; “Feyre wanted to have a night in,” “Elain wished to go for a walk,” or the simplest, “Nesta needs me.”

 It seemed as if the presence of the ever-shining Archeron sisters dimmed your own light, leaving you abandoned and rusted. All of the love and time you had given your family, left to rot. They had left you to rot. 

It was to be expected, you had had a gut feeling whenever Mor had brought the two elder Archeron sisters to the House of Wind, when, despite your injuries as severe– if not more so as theirs, everyone had rushed to them. No matter how hard you would attempt to convince yourself in the middle of the night, that you were ‘just getting used to them’ or the like, there was always a lingering pit of jealousy that would slowly rot in your heart every time you were excused. 

Even now, sitting upon the ledge of a hidden cliff, legs dangled along the side– something that would have sent even Azriel into a spiral a mere two years ago, you had been left alone. To be frank, you weren't sure anyone noticed you had left. Not when a part of you could practically feel the joy reeking from the house, making your nose curl. 

In truth, you hated yourself for it, for the jealousy and pettiness. It felt dirty, making your insides burn with the feeling that you were being childish, that you were being ridiculous. The thought circled over and over in your head until it had made it spin, forcing you to shove your thumb against the middle of your brow bone. 

Though a cool, soothing tendril follows, wrap around your finger and lessen the sharp pain. Opening your eyes to find the source of the alleviation, you see a silken shadow shyly curling in on itself, a kid caught reaching into the cookie jar, not the weapons of destruction and peril most saw them as. Though, as endearing as the shadow was, it could only mean one thing.

Azriel was here.

“What do you want?” You murmur softly, looking down and dragging your fingers against the scattered pebbles around the cliff, plucking one up and flicking it, listening to the satisfying click…click..click as it ricochets off the base of the cliff, attempting to fill the void of the silence. 

“Checking up on you,” A familiar rumble, Azriel sits himself beside you and tenderly wraps a wing around her. “Are you alright?” 

“Just…peachy.” You grit out, trying not to curl in on yourself just like his shadow had just done, trying not to seep up the warmth of his attention. As you reach for another stone, Azriel gently picks up your hand, running a thumb over the back of it. His eyes look up at you kindly, expectantly. This is where you usually lay all your cards on the table, where you tell him that you’re not okay and that everything hurts. 

A part of you screeches to fight it, to take your hand back and look away. But the louder, gentler part of you yearns to soften into his touch. 

And so you do. 

You curl up to his side, burying your face into his shoulder and letting out a shaky sigh. Wrapping your arms around his bicep and squeezing your eyes shut, fighting the warm tears threatening to seep from your lashes. 

“I love you.” Azriel murmured softly, stroking your thigh, causing rapid flutters in your stomach. “You’re my best friend, and you will never not be my best friend.” 

“Then why are you never around?” You croak out weakly, wincing at the desperation in your voice, it's unnerving. 

“I don’t…I don’t know.” Azriel began, “Maybe because I felt a duty to Rhysand and Feyre? But even so, I still let this happen.” “You’re fine, Azriel.” You murmur, barely noticing him tense at the use of his full name, rather than an affectionate ‘Az.’ Even tense, he still found the strength to soften, just for you. Pulling you even closer, he lays his head against yours, lips idly resting on the crown of your forehead. “It’s not fine, love. It hurts you, and I refuse to do so any longer. Because you mean everything to me, alright?” He whispered, squeezing you tightly against his chest. “I'll talk to Rhysand, why don't we go to Svenda’s tomorrow, just us?” 

It wasn’t revolutionary, but it was a start, and that was the most important thing. “Alright.” 

At your agreement, Azriel smiled, a quiet, genuine smile. The two of you sat in comfortable, golden silence for an unknown amount of time. The tense atmosphere melting into intimacy and nearness, the warmth of it all making your eyelids heavy, eventually drifting to sleep. 

When you woke in the morning, you were tucked into bed, just how you’ve liked since you were a child. Eyes blearily scanning the area, before landing on a note, propped up on your bedside in a comfortingly familiar script. 

I’ll meet you here before Svenda’s, 6:00 pm. Wear something nice.

And you swear your heart did not flutter. 

©wrenisrad on tumblr

reminder that plagiarism is illegal

A/n: sorry if its rough, I haven't actually written in a year lol, hope we like it? Also, I cant remember where I got the borders from, I downloaded them a while ago, so if you recognize them could you please comment who the artist is so I can properly credit them!

[temis-de-leon]

.

Going out with your friends from class sounded like a fantastic idea when you accepted the invitation days ago. After a too-long sleep marathon with Belphie, you were well-rested and in need of escaping the house, so going for a walk and getting some fresh air was way more tempting than you would ever admit out loud.

And it wasn’t like you were regretting your decision, not entirely, anyway. Sure, it was the fifth time you yawned in fifteen minutes, and no amount of harmless gossip could keep your attention, but the chairs were comfortable, the wind smelled like the baked treats from a nearby shop, and the background music felt like a lullaby.

Judging by your friends’ faces, thankfully, your tiredness came across as more endearing than annoying. You’d make sure to apologise properly once you were a bit more conscious, but for now, you would give yourself the satisfaction of feeling the softness of the cushioned backrest while the comforting voices around turned into white noise.

It wasn’t until one of them gently shook you awake that you realised you had fallen asleep in the first place.

“We’re going to the bathroom real quick” said the succubus with a hint of amusement, barely rolling her eyes when you silently raised a thumb before laying back again.

This time, you forced yourself to stay awake, painfully aware of your vulnerability each time you were left alone for one reason or the other. You had friends, fans and an entire group of the most powerful demons behind your back, sure, but not everything was nice, and it was wise to keep an eye open.

An even an ear sometimes.

Less than a minute had passed when the familiar sound of feathers and soft caws landed beside your head and hurriedly begged for your attention, but it wasn’t until the hard beak poked your cheek that you finally decided to fully open your eyes.

“Hi!” you offered softly, unable to hide your smile any longer. The crow jumped in excitement, eager at your recognition.

“Hi” it responded with its high, strangely nasal tone.

You weren’t sure if the crows had learned to talk on their own or if Mammon had taught them the easy words, but it never failed to make you giggle. You wished, however, that you could differentiate the birds so you could call them by their given names, but if they weren’t bothered by it, then neither were you.

A sudden brightness in its clenched foot made you sit straighter, and you tried not to coo when the crow offered the object, immediately dropping it in your open hand without a second thought.

“What do you have there…?”

“Hello” it said, nuzzling the corner of your lips with its beak.

The second of the two words it knew, probably.

You caressed the object carefully and took little time to realise what it was: a stone. Although grey and pokey in some places, it shone slightly iridescent under the light, showing the rainbow when you tilted it at a certain angle but resembling a normal pebble in any other position.

Now, who could’ve sent you a pretty rock via crow, you wondered…?

The image of Mammon giving orders to his pets for such a silly reason made you giggle, again making the crow bob its head with joy.

Suddenly, too soon, you heard and recognised the voices of your friends coming out of the bathroom. Not wanting to hear their teasing about your relationship with the second brother, you quickly closed your fist around the stone and swiftly hid it inside your pocket.

Dating a thief certainly had some perks.

“Tell him I said thank you” you whispered to the crow, placing a kiss on top of its head before letting it fly away.

Your friends returned and sat by your side, excited by your state of wakefulness. What they didn’t know, however, was that your mind was too occupied to fall asleep again, thinking of available places in your room for your new gift.

For a demon like him, Mammon could be such a romantic…

.

.

Main Masterlist

Taglist: @ilovecandys2010 @ollieoven @kingofspadesdelusion @whimsybloom

[mimiii-3]

saboteur has been on my mind recently and lives rent free.. What will happen IF batsib escapes with darling to spite the batfam for neglecting them? Like get rid of every tracker, remove all traces that they were there, move to a place far away that they won't be able to find both of them? Like a far away country or something..

I like the way you think!

…

Saboteur: Two Most Wanted

Yandere Platonic Batfam x GN Neglected Reader

Notes: typical yandere themes, platonic friend/sibling relationship between darling and batsib

…

What if batsib, reeling from the family confrontation, snuck darling out of the manor…

🦇

Being the least favorite Wayne has its perks. You can snoop around the bat cave, explore the manor grounds, and more without a single glance your way. That includes finding the weak point in the manor’s security system.

You slip through a small pass tucked between a dying tree and a thorn-covered shrub. You duck your head and run across the inembellished yard. You stop just below a barred window, the yellow light peeking between the iron rods.

You reach down and grab a small handful of pebbles to throw at the window. Each pebble ricochets lightly off the window, falling to the damp grass below.

It isn’t until the eighth stone that you see movement behind the window. Darling, a meek little thing, peers down at you from their prison. Their eyes light up when they see your face.

“Good,” you think. Bruce and the others must not have told them what you did. You raise your hand and point to the nearest back door of the manor.

Darling nods in excitement before disappearing from view. You briskly walk to the back door that nears the East side of the manor. You crouch behind a potted plant and wait for Darling.

Darling approaches the door and waves excitedly. You return their smile before holding up a pair of garden shears. Darling nods and readies their hand on the doorknob.

Darling wears a collar with a tracker in it. You’ll have a small window of about thirty seconds to cut the collar off before Tim is alerted. The bat boys kept the collar breakable in case of an emergency.

You breathe out slowly then mouth ‘now’ to Darling. Darling throws open the door and slips a finger between the collar and their neck. The shears easily cut the collar and you toss it back into entryway.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” Darling squeals in delight before hugging you. You shush them quickly and grab their hand. The two of you dart across the yard, back to the opening you found.

You drag Darling through the dense wood behind the manor. Your car sits on the side of the road, nearly invisible sitting in the dark of night. You usher Darling into the passenger seat then make your way to the driver’s.

The car roars to life as you turn the key in the ignition. You press your foot against the gas pedal and fly down the empty road.

Darling turns to you, tears brimming in their youthful eyes. “Why did you save me?” Darling sniffles pathetically, “Tim said that you left me.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes at Tim’s blatant manipulation. You were gone less than a day and he already tried to ruin your friendship with Darling. You gather your thoughts before pacifying Darling, “No, Button. You know I would never leave you. I just…needed to get away for a little. That’s all.”

You watch them visibly perk up after hearing the nickname you gave them. Darling wipes their eyes with the sleeve of their oversized sweater. “Well now that I know you still like me, where do we go from here?” Darling reaches for your hand on the armrest and holds it in theirs.

A mischievous smile makes its way across your face as the car merges onto the highway. You peek at Darling out of the corner of your eye, “What do you think about Metropolis?”

…

Extra Notes: batsib has a friend (or love interest????) in metropolis they think might help🤭

[ssour-apathyy]

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋ between moonlight and you

caitlyn kiramman x reader, tooth-rotting fluff! very brief mention of blood, kissing, reader gets a small injury, use of y/n

word count; 1,249

summary; a routine that you aren't mad about starting: being snuck into Caitlyn Kiramman's bedroom

a/n; oh to be a young woman in the arms of Caitlyn Kiramman. also "hot chocolate" is what brits call cocoa (?) just an fyi. warm chocolate drink. that thing

The night air was cool and crisp. The moon hung high in the sky, casting a soft glow over the city of Piltover. The streets were unusually quiet, save for the occasional passing of an enforcer on patrol.

The Kiramman mansion was large and imposing, and there was once a time that it would send a chill through your body, and a twist in your gut. Recent events, though, had resulted in the building causing your stomach to flip for a different reason.

You had waited by the tall, imposing fence for what felt like hours now, your heart thumping wildly in your chest every time an enforcer got a little too close, causing you to dip behind the pillar. You squinted up at the moon, checked it's position with your hands, and made your move. The bars were a little slippery thanks to the dewey air, but you were becoming a seasoned pro at scaling the metal. Slinging yourself over the top, you winced a little as one of the spikes caught your thigh, tearing your pants and nicking your skin.

You let out a little hiss as you landed, quickly checking the damage before moving forward, re-tracing the all-too familiar path in your head. You dipped into a small space between two perfectly sculped hedges just as two enforcers passed by, waited 10 seconds, and continued on your way.

Once you got to the spot below the window, you took a little pebble from out of your pocket and threw it, the stone bouncing off the glass with a quick tap. You waited, and waited, shuffling your feet a little awkwardly as you glanced around to make sure the coast was still clear.

The sshhhhtt sound of the window sliding open caught your attention, and you looked up to see Caitlyn peering down at you. "You're late" she whisper-yelled, arching an eyebrow.

You gave her a sheepish grin, gesturing down at the torn material. "I had a... uh, mishap."

Her eyes gave you a once-over before she rolled them, a smile taking over her face as she leaned away from the window. She was only out of view for a moment before the makeshift rope-ladder cascaded down the side of the building. You grasped hold of it and ascended, taking hold of the hand she offered to help you inside.

She moved quickly, pulling the ladder up and sliding the window shut, the room falling into a comfortable silence after the soft thud of it closing. The room was dimly lit by the lamp to the side, the grand marble pillars causing long shadows to dance across the walls. The first time you entered it was intimidating, but now there was nowhere that you felt more comfortable.

You were drawn out of your thoughts by warm hands sliding around your waist, settling to wrap across your stomach. You smiled to yourself as Caitlyn hugged you from behind, resting her chin on top of your shoulder. "I missed you" she confessed, her voice soft and hushed.

You breathed out a soft laugh, leaning yourself back into her touch. "You saw me a few days ago" you teased, resting your hands over the top of hers and tilting your head to look at her.

She mirrored your movement, her nose brushing against your own as she turned to look at you. The look in her eyes made your breath hitch in your throat, the air growing heavier — as if the entire world had shrunk down to the space between you. Her eyes traced over your face, drinking you in as if she was committing every line and bend to memory, and in that moment — you felt infinite.

"A few days is too long" she murmured, lifting one hand to cup your face and softly drag her thumb across your cheek bone. She tilted upwards, and your eyes fluttered shut as she pressed her lips to the space between your eyebrows. It was sweet, tender, and caused every muscle in your body to relax as you basked in her affection.

She took a half step back and grasped your hand tightly in hers, pulling you with her as she led you to her large bed. She maneuvered you to sit at the end and knelt down in front of you, moving your leg to the side slightly so she can take a look at where the fence caught you.

Her eyebrows creased as she spotted the small dribble of blood, and she delicately swiped it away with her thumb. "Are you hurt?" she breathed out, the warmth from her palm seeping through the material.

You shook your head. "No. S'just a scratch" you mumbled, cupping her cheek with your hand and drawing her gaze back up to you with a soft smile.

Caitlyn slowly surged upwards and took your bottom lip between her own, kissing you with such softness that it caught you off guard. You held her face between both your hands as you flopped backwards against the soft sheets, pulling her with you as she took the opportunity to crawl up your body and settle herself on your waist.

The way Caitlyn kissed you was intoxicating. It was slow and steady — assured — like you had all the time in the world and there was nowhere else that she'd rather be than with her lips on yours. It was full of hunger, but not the hurried and all-consuming kind that you'd often find associated with foreplay, no. There was no expectation here. Kissing you wasn't just a gateway to something more, Caitlyn would happily spend hours like this, slotting your lips together like they were designed to fit perfectly.

She pulled away from your mouth to pepper kisses across your chin, pressing her lips to the underside of your jaw as you let out a breathy laugh. She mimicked your sound, pulling away from your skin to gaze down at you with a sultry smile, slowly leaning back in to—

Knock Knock Knock

Caitlyn pressed one finger against your mouth and bit her lip, sitting back up on top of you.

"Caitlyn" her mother's voice echoed through the solid doors, and your heart pounded in your chest as you prayed to Janna that they didn't creak open.

"Yes?" she called back without a single waver in her voice. It was always impressive how she could switch on when she needed to, as if she wasn't straddling a girl that she had snuck into her room, and wasn't just inhaling your soul through your mouth five seconds ago.

"There is hot chocolate ready for you downstairs, come and get some before it gets cold" Cassandra called out from behind the, thankfully, still closed doors. It was quiet for a moment, and you thought maybe that she had already left.

"and there is a spare mug for your — friend — too" she added, before you heard her footsteps fade down the hallway.

It was like slow motion as Caitlyn turned to look back down at you with a gleam in her eyes. Your lips were parted below her finger, eyes as wide as saucers as you choked out a disbelieving laugh.

"Nothing gets past that woman" she grumbles, her lips quirking upwards. You let out another soft laugh, firmer than the last, and she follows you down into a fit of giggles. Both of you laughing together, as she moves her hand from your face and leans down to kiss you again.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

The Keys Of Heaven [Chapter 1: He Will Come Again In Glory]

A/N: I've had this idea since I saw Conclave in October, but I never imagined it would coincide with an ACTUAL papal conclave 😅 Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy "volcano fic" at long last!!! 🌋❤️

Series summary: Three years ago, Father Aemond Targaryen performed a miracle. Now he is a cardinal, a media sensation, and a frontrunner to be elected pope. You are a nun who has been brought to Vatican City to assist with the papal conclave. But when your paths cross by happenstance, you must both reckon with your decision to join the Catholic Church...and what you want from the future.

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), references to abuse and violence, volcanoes, bodily injury, death, peril, scheming, pining, some drugs/alcohol/smoking, Catholic trivia you never asked to learn, kangaroos!

Word count: 6.6k

🦘 A very special thanks to my Aussie slang consultant @bearwithegg (any mistakes are mine) 🦘

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @mrs-starkgaryen @chattylurker @lauraneedstochill @ecstaticactus @neithriddle

🗝️ Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🗝️

“Are you responsible for the koi?” a man asks.

You whirl, spilling pellets of fish food across the pebble pathway, sand-colored tuff made of volcanic ash. Cardinal Targaryen is standing there, and of course you recognize him immediately. His hands are clasped behind his back, his head is tilted thoughtfully to the side. He wears a gold cross, a zucchetto upon his still-blonde hair, and a cassock, scarlet to symbolize the blood a martyr is willing to shed for the Faith; it has exactly thirty-three buttons, one for each year Christ spent on earth. You grin proudly. This is a promotion, an escape from doing the washing in a basement full of spiders. “I sure am, Your Eminence!”

“Including that one?” He points: by the edge of the pond, a large red-and-white koi is floating with dull, dead, lidless eyes.

“Oh no,” you moan, taking a closer look. “No, no, no, it’s rooted. This is not good.” You turn back to the cardinal. “Please don’t tell Sister Augustina. She already thinks I’m an idiot because I don’t know how to work a fax machine.”

Cardinal Targaryen chuckles. “A fax machine?”

“I didn’t think people still used those.”

“I didn’t either.” He’s still watching you closely. “Have we met before?”

“I don’t believe so, Your Eminence.” You saw him arriving at the Domus Sanctae Marthae this morning—rolling his luggage, handing over his phone, sequestering himself from the outside world—but it was other nuns who tended to him, not you. You had been assisting Cardinal Bogdi Marcu of Romania, who probably has first-hand experience with stegosauruses and mastodons.

“You remind me of someone, but I can’t recall who...” Cardinal Targaryen studies you for a little longer, then beams benevolently. “Well, the Lord commands us to be compassionate, and so I will help you hide the evidence and spare you from Sister Augustina’s wrath.”

You should protest—surely this is beneath him—but you are so overwhelmed with gratitude that for a moment you forget this. “Oh, bless you!”

As the cardinal scoops the deceased koi out of the pond with two large, cupped hands, you use your fingers to dig a makeshift grave under a lemon tree. It is December, and the Vatican Gardens are not dead but slumbering, the air cool and the sky grey, the soil soft and dark and damp as you burrow until you hit the impassible layer of clay beneath. Cardinal Targaryen lays the koi to rest in the trough, then together you hastily inter it. When the hollow has been filled and the dirt smoothed, he looks around the nearby flower beds for a large stone and finds one, places it atop the koi’s clandestine crypt, and stands back, admiring his work.

“Now you will escape all suspicion,” he says.

“Thank you, Your Eminence.”

“You may call me Aemond.” He bows his head in greeting, holding his hands behind his back again. His speech is formal and measured, crafted in English-taught boarding schools, just a ghost of Mediterranean inflection like the lingering pink of a sunburn. “I’m Cardinal Targaryen of Greece.”

You tap your own left cheek, indicating his scar. “I know who you are.” But you would even if it wasn’t for his mutilation, his eye that was permanently stitched shut. Three years ago when he was thirty-eight, the same age you are now, Aemond commandeered a fishing boat and saved a group of fifty tourists from a volcanic eruption on Santorini, where he was a priest at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist. He instantly became a pop culture phenomenon—news interviews and televised sermons, statements on current events and viral memes—and was made a cardinal soon after. Miracles are so rare in the modern world; those who wield them must be elevated to prove the magic still exists.

You give him your name, and the cardinal—you cannot bring yourself to think of him as Aemond, too informal, too intimate—surmises: “You’re here for the conclave.”

That is sort of true. “It’s such an honor.”

“Hm.” He is scrutinizing you again, his remaining eye sharp and blue and fascinated. “Are you certain we haven’t met before?”

“I don’t know where we would have, I’ve never been to Greece.”

“Perhaps on one of my diplomatic missions. The Philippines, Indonesia, Colombia, Japan, China, Bangladesh.”

You smile. “Never been to any of those either.”

“You’re from Australia.” Your accent makes this apparent. He’s touching his chin, he’s determined to puzzle it out. “Which part?”

“Up north in Queensland, originally. But I’ve mostly lived in Sydney for the past fifteen years.”

He shakes his head, mystified and frustrated by it; not much eludes him. “I visited Sydney once but it was forever ago, I was just a kid.” He is still thinking. On other pathways through the gardens, red dots of cardinals are walking off their flights from six different continents, murmuring solemnly to their colleagues or lost in the solitude of prayer. “How was this arranged, you traveling to the Vatican?”

And so you tell him the most abbreviated version: Mother Maureen Ashwell of the Sisters of Charity of Australia wrote to Sister Augustina, a friend for decades, a pen pal of sorts, and asked if she could use you. When the cardinals convene each time a new pope must be elected—ten years since the last conclave, or twenty, or thirty—there is a great need for labor, and particularly the labor of women, anonymous and thankless and uncomplaining: washing, cooking, serving, scrubbing, safeguarding, the endless, ever-patient matrilineal caretaking. Sister Augustina acquiesced, and so you flew to Rome with another nun from your convent, Sister Rhaena, who is very young and very in awe of everything all the time. Whatever affection Sister Augustina has for Mother Maureen has not translated to you. She scowls, she huffs, she loathes how you fold clothes and make beds. When Rhaena playfully tried to give her the nickname of Sister Tina, she received a pair of cuffed, ringing ears in return.

As you speak, Cardinal Targaryen gazes at you fixedly; and then his jaw drops open in amazement. “Dear God,” he says, his remaining eye wide and starry. “You’re the girl from the beach.”

~~~~~~~~~~

How old must you have been? It comes back like sandbars revealed by low tide: you are around nine, and Aemond perhaps twelve, and you meet when your parents have—separately yet providentially—planned family vacations to Sydney for the same week in December, when the Northern Hemisphere is shivering and the South is in the early days of summer.

You drove ten hours south from Toowoomba, he flew over nine thousand miles east from Athens, and you fall into step together on wet sand that collapses into the shape of your footprints. And while your respective siblings are elsewhere—getting slathered with marshmallow-white sunscreen, being fished out of the rough waves—you and Aemond build sprawling sandcastles and decorate them with seashells, and make banners out of dried seaweed impaled on pieces of driftwood, and share the picnics your parents packed: you have Vegemite or tuna sandwiches, meat pies, Tim Tams, Granny Smith apples, and Illawarra plums, while Aemond contributes soft triangles of pita and a platter of accompaniments, tzatziki, hummus, other spreads made of feta cheese or eggplant or fish, the cold crisp relief of a Greek salad wet with olive oil.

You find each other each morning of that week, an infinitesimal eternity. He is the first boy you see as a man—his shadow tall, his voice patient and wise—and there is a powerful pure drive to be close to him, a phantom longing for something you don’t know exists yet. You make him smile and laugh; he loves the way you say sanger instead of sandwich, and esky instead of cooler box, and togs instead of bathing suits, and defo instead of definitely. You tell Aemond you want to move to Greece with him. He tells you he wants to marry you one day. He weaves you a ring made of seaweed greener than any emeralds, but you leave it on your nightstand before going to sleep and wake to find that your mum has thrown it away because it smelled like the ocean, salt and sun and eons of lives coming full circle in the depths.

On your last night in Sydney, the four parents arrange to have dinner together at a pizza place by the boardwalk, and you hear them chuckling as they make light, patronizing exchanges: too bad long-distance phone calls are so expensive, awfully sad for them to have to say goodbye, kids have such short memories, they’ll get over it. As Aemond leaves with his family—he’s the last one out the door, glancing back at you again and again—you watch him vanish into the inky darkness and the glare of the streetlights, and from a little black radio beside the till there is a song playing, maybe Dylan or Joel or Springsteen, one you’ve never been able to remember well enough to find again.

And when you arrive home after an impossibly long day of driving and open your suitcase, the seashells you hid in the bottom have been jostled and crushed until only the dust of them is left, and the loss hits you, sharp and deep, and you begin to sob so loudly your mum comes running, thinking you must be bleeding to death.

~~~~~~~~~~

He finds you where you are plating the antipasto to be ferried to the cardinals—cured salami and prosciutto, tomatoes, olives, pepperoncini, artichoke hearts, ribbons of fresh basil, and cubes of provolone and mozzarella glistening with olive oil—and tells you to follow him. You want to listen, and you have to anyway; in the Church all men outrank all women, and the distance between a cardinal and a nun is particularly vast, a transcontinental flight, the depth of an ocean.

You step away from the plates, looking back at your compatriots. Sister Augustina is glaring at you, bruise-blotched hands gnarled but steady, eyes like a basilisk’s. Sister Rhaena’s lineless face is alight; Tell me everything he says! she mouths, as if Cardinal Targaryen is a celebrity she’s had tacked to her bedroom wall since she was in secondary school...and actually, that might not be too far off the mark. The other three nuns you find yourself working with most often—Sister Penny from the U.K., Sister Nuru from Kenya, and Sister Helvi from Finland—watch you leave with puzzled, transfixed stares.

At first you’d found it impossible to use his given name, but now that you remember him, it’s very difficult not to. You have to remind yourself that you are not alone, not children on a beach where roos hop in the rust-fire dawn; you are in the midst of one hundred and six cardinals, plus a few who are eighty or older and therefore ineligible to vote, yet have nonetheless come to lend their wisdom to the deliberations. Some of their faces you know, many others you don’t, even after hours of research before your arrival in Vatican City.

You say as you trail Aemond uncertainly: “Cardinal Targaryen...?”

“Sit,” he orders when he reaches his table, pulling out a chair. You peer back at the nuns again. Sister Rhaena is exuberant; Sister Augustina looks like she’d enjoy burning you at the stake. You drop sheepishly into the red velvet chair and shrink under the intrigued gazes of the four cardinals who are seated with Aemond. You recognize Cardinal Orlando Almazan of the Philippines and Cardinal Luckson Louissaint of Haiti, whose large dark eyes roll to Aemond as he sips his wine and smiles to himself. Aemond tells his allies as he sits down beside you: “This is Sister Sydney.”

“Welcome, Sister Sydney!” booms a chubby man in his fifties, a warm perpetual flush in his full cheeks, salt-and-pepper hair, a short tidy beard.

You titter and bow your head, deferential. Your hands are clasped together in your lap, resting uneasily on the white wool of your habit. “Thank you, Your Eminence, but that’s not actually my name.”

“Are you from Sydney, Sister?” Cardinal Almazan asks; he is a small quiet man who is easy to lose in a crowd. He is presently doling out lollies and bikkies with labels you’ve never seen before; he must have brought them with him from the Philippines. He slides one over to you. Jelly Straws, the colorful package reads.

“We met there as children,” Aemond says. “About thirty years ago. And we hadn’t seen each other since.”

“C’est pas vrai!” Cardinal Louissaint exclaims as the others chatter incredulously. “Really? Is it possible? And now you find that you have both come to the Church by different paths? Incroyable.” He introduces himself with a broad grin and another curious glance at Aemond.

“How fortuitous for the Lord to bring you together again,” Cardinal Almazan says. He tells you his name and gestures for you to open the Jelly Straws.

“Yes,” Aemond muses, almost like it’s an afterthought, as if divine intervention hadn’t occurred to him. While you’re still hesitating, he rips open the Jelly Straws and takes a green one for himself, crystals of sugary coating snowing down on the table. “Mmm. Watermelon.”

“Aemo, give me a mango one,” the loud salt-and-pepper haired man says, holding out an open palm. And you recall abruptly, like something shattering against the floor: Did I call him that on the beach? I think I might have.

Aemond tosses him an orange Jelly Straw, and then tells you, pointing at the man: “Kazimierz Nowak of Poland.” Then he indicates to the last attendee, fluffy brown hair and round glasses, composed, bookish, mid-forties, the second-youngest cardinal here in the dining hall of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the residence of the cardinals for the duration of the conclave. “Shane Campbell, American by birth, now serving in Mongolia.”

“Easiest assignment,” Cardinal Nowak mutters as he tears open a package of Sky Flakes, and the other men chuckle.

“Kazi, you are being rude again,” Cardinal Almazan scolds him, but he’s smiling. Unfamiliar snacks rotate around the table: Fudgee Barr, Kopiko, Super Stix, Hello Panda. Cautiously, you take a pink Jelly Straw from the package and pass the rest along. It tastes like strawberries, sweet and summery, golden sun beating down like it has in every other December you’ve ever lived through.

Cardinal Campbell tells Kazi: “I would happily die by arrows or being roasted over a gridiron if it would at last win me your esteem.”

“You could just lose four fingers like Jake,” Kazi suggests. He waves to a cardinal at a nearby table: Jacob Green, a Brit serving in Iran. You know his face; last year his capture and torture by a militant group was widely publicized, as well as his commitment to remain in Iran after the Church paid a hefty ransom and arranged for his safe release.

Cardinal Campbell holds up his hands and ponders them. “Which fingers could I spare?”

“Start with the ring fingers,” Cardinal Luckson Louissaint says. “You won’t need them.”

You all laugh, and Rhaena appears with plates of antipasto, including one for you. She cannot disguise her excitement; she is glowing with it, she is beaming, she almost drops Aemond’s serving on the floor as she goes to set it in front of him. “Thank you very much, Sister,” Cardinal Almazan murmurs as she scurries off again.

The men begin to eat. They speak with great familiarity and have nicknames for each other: Aemo, Kazi, Lucky, Lando, Cam. You pick up your fork and peer nervously around the dining hall. Many cardinals are watching you now, some amused, some fond...but others are frowning.

“Eat, Sister, eat,” Lucky urges you. He is short and round and has a gruff voice and hands calloused from the sort of work most cardinals abstain from. “You are in the right place, I promise. This is the kids’ table.”

Cardinal Orlando Almazan, Lando to his friends, appears startled. “I’m sixty.”

“That’s mid-twenties in cardinal years,” Kazi says. “Hey, Lando, did you ever watch that show I emailed you about?”

“Oh, it was awful.” He spears a chunk of salami with his fork.

“What show?” Aemond asks.

“Cribs,” Kazi says, and the others snicker.

“So wasteful!” Lando laments. “All those bedrooms, bowling alleys, movie theaters, garages for ten cars...all I could think about was the good those resources might do elsewhere.”

Kazi sighs. “You can’t look at anything without seeing orphans.”

Lando opens his hands. “And is this such a failing?”

“Well, it’s not very interesting.”

Lando grins. “Interesting men make poor cardinals. We figured that out in the 1500s when they kept murdering each other.”

“Might be a good tradition to revisit,” Lucky jokes, but in a very low voice. And he nods towards a table across the room, where several cardinals are glaring and hissing conspiratorially amongst themselves. You recognize some of them, older men with forceful fields of gravity: Bernardo Ferrari of Italy, Florent Auclair of France, and Matej Jahoda of the Czech Republic, a favorite to be elected pope.

Kazi says: “Jahoda thinks he is entitled to lead the Church because atheists killed his family.”

You are horrorstruck, a palm pressed to the white wool over your heart. “Did they really?”

“Prague Spring,” Aemond tells you, a phrase that carries with it vague connotations from Modern History in secondary school: 1960s, Eastern Bloc, Soviet invasion, self-immolations, tanks and smoke in the streets.

“It is very sad, what happened to his people,” Lando says softly.

“Yes, of course, but you cannot buy the Chair of Saint Peter with tragedies,” Lucky replies, then winks at Aemond. “Although perhaps you can earn it with miracles.”

“It wasn’t a miracle,” Aemond demurs, as he is expected to. To agree would be sanctimonious, prideful, unholy. No cardinal may campaign for himself, nor be seen to covet the papacy. It is disqualifying to be perceived as ambitious; and so those who want it most become good at pretending.

Cam leans across the table to whisper to Aemond: “Jahoda calls you The Cyclops.”

Aemond smiles as he crunches on a hunk of cucumber. “For something to be a monster, you have to be afraid of it.”

You take shy nibbles of your antipasto. On the other side of the dining hall, Cardinal Jahoda rolls his eyes and glowers at you and Aemond, then turns to say something you can just barely hear to his companions: “He will do anything for attention.”

“What was that, Cardinal Jahoda?” Kazi shouts across the void, and a hush ripples through the men dressed in red, the women in white or blue or black—depending upon which order they belong to—skittering soundlessly on the outskirts as they fetch water and wine and bowls of pancetta and pea risotto, the next course. Over one hundred souls wait to see what will happen next. The lines have been drawn and the frontrunners are no secret: the conservatives favor Jahoda or Leopoldo do Carmo of Portugal, the moderates are split between Jacob Green and Gideon Saati of South Sudan, and the liberals by and large are planning to vote for Aemond when the cardinals are locked in the Sistine Chapel.

Slowly, Cardinal Jahoda rises to his feet. He is an imposing man with iron-grey hair, broad shoulders, and large hands that could have gone to war if he’d chosen a different vocation. His voice is not gravelly like Lucky’s, but clear and deep and colored with a strong Czech accent. “Brothers, this is a time for reflection and solemn prayer, not fraternizing.”

Aemond stands. Enraptured gazes follow him, eyeglasses are put on; some cardinals smile, others glare, others only observe, opening their hearts to be swayed in either direction. “Cardinal Jahoda, surely you do not believe that our sisters are fit to prepare our meals but not to share them with us.”

Jahoda is dismissive, as if Aemond is a child to be shushed. “Ah, you do nothing with pure intentions. Do not pretend you care for her.”

“You are upset,” Aemond says with mock earnestness, and there are chuckles in the audience. “Perhaps you are lonely and in need of better company. Perhaps you would like to invite one of the other sisters to join your table.”

“God has ordained different roles for us. I would not presume to alter them.”

“And this is the thinking that has left our Church in such a precarious state,” Aemond says, and there is a chorus of responses: groans and objections from the conservatives, cheers and water glasses thumped on the tables from the liberals, the moderates splitting the difference. “You would not presume to question anything, and so you are content with an institution that stands still as the world keeps moving.”

“The Holy Father, may God rest his soul, was a progressive,” Jahoda counters, sparring with words like blades that clang together and slice just millimeters from the blue shadows of veins. “And for all his triumphs—serving the poor and the destitute so faithfully, welcoming with open arms migrants and refugees—he failed to strengthen the Church. Millions around the world are leaving Catholicism to become Evangelicals. The Vatican is deeply in debt. Recent press coverage of the Holy See has been marred by misinterpretations and vagueness, mixed messages, claiming to champion human rights while enabling China and Russia—”

“Concessions must be made if we are to have inroads to reach the people of these nations.”

“And so you would negotiate with tyrants.” Jahoda gives Aemond a hard, searing look, as if this is a betrayal. “Appeasement is not the solution to our problems.”

“Neither is alienation from modernity! We can choose to challenge ourselves and our Faith in order to meet the needs of the time we live in and reinvigorate the Church. We can explore the possibility of ordaining female deacons, we can extend blessings to same-sex couples, we can make celibacy optional for our priests as so many other religions have done already, we can do more to protect the climate which will in turn save countless human lives, we can allow the divorced and remarried to participate in communion!”

But this is too much: the conservatives are jeering and the moderates look startled, as if a fire alarm has just gone off. The liberals are gamely trying to drown out the opposition with cheers, applause, bangs of fists and water glasses against the tables. The nuns clutch their rosaries. You exchange a glance with Rhaena, who stands nearby carrying a bowl of risotto she’s completely forgotten about. She is mesmerized by Aemond. She mouths to you: Can you believe him?

You can, but you can’t; he’s exactly the same as the boy from the beach, he is so different, he is still watchful and clever, he is sharper and bolder and scarred.

“Brothers, brothers, please!” Cardinal Blaise Seaborn is pleading. He is the dean of the College of Cardinals, responsible for summoning them for the conclave and presiding over the proceedings. He is eternally flustered, his hair in disarray and his cassock rumpled. “We can discuss these matters in the general congregations tomorrow. Now is not the time. You’ve traveled so far and you must be exhausted. Please, I implore you, take your seats and finish your meals that the sisters have worked so diligently to prepare.”

Jahoda waves a hand flippantly as he lowers himself back into his chair. “You cannot understand, Cardinal Targaryen. But it is not your fault. You do not have the wisdom. You’re just too young.”

And as Jahoda retreats, Cardinal Auclair leaps up from the same table and strides to the center of the dining hall. He is tall and lean like Aemond, white-haired since his thirties, fiendishly quick, a fox, a peacock, a mercenary. No one would ever vote for Florent Auclair to be pope; it is well-known—yet never said aloud—that at home in Paris, there is a widow he has taken a special interest in and three children that share his aquiline nose and small, icy eyes. But this does not mean he is impartial. In your corner of the room, Lucky is drumming his knuckles heavily on the tabletop. Kazi passes you a half-eaten Choc Nut.

“Your Eminences,” Auclair begins with a sweep of his hand. Cardinal Seaborn peers around as if searching for someone to stop this, as if it isn’t his job. “The Holy Father was known for his humility and his gentleness. Let us now bring balance to the Church with a leader who is strong, and experienced, and attuned to the ancient history of our Faith. Not an idealistic youth.”

“I wonder about this fixation upon age,” Aemond says, and all eyes snap back to him. Cardinal Seaborn looks on wearily, feebly. “We believe in a Savior who redeemed the world at thirty-three, but a man at forty or fifty is not fit to lead His flock?”

Auclair is incensed. “You compare yourself to Christ?!”

“You pretend to know my mind!” Aemond thunders. “And the gifts that God has bestowed upon others. There is no greater arrogance.”

Auclair mocks venomously: “What is the saying? He who enters the conclave as pope leaves it as a cardinal.”

“And I have voiced no such aspirations.” But he has led Auclair into the trap of speaking them to life, and now they are loose in the air like fireflies and no one can forget them.

Auclair switches to Latin, and Aemond follows him seamlessly. Then Auclair pivots to French, a language that many of the cardinals have at least some proficiency in, and Aemond hesitates; you have the impression he can understand most of what is being said, but Auclair talks so swiftly—surely this is intentional—and Aemond stumbles over his words when he tries to defend himself.

Lucky surges up from the table and meets them in the middle of the dining hall, assailing Auclair with a deluge of French. Aemond gracefully retreats. As the emperors stand back, the gladiators bloody the floor. Now the cardinals are in uproar, a deafening rumble of palms and fists against the tables, an incomprehensible storm of languages. Kazi and Cam are bellowing to cheer Lucky on. Lando looks at you, smiles placidly, shrugs, takes a bite of his risotto.

“Cardinal Louissant, please!” Cardinal Seaborn begs. “Please, Brothers, let us return to our seats! This is no way to honor the memory of the Holy Father!”

The cardinals fracture away from each other, Auclair returning to one side of the room, Lucky to the other. Auclair hisses at Aemond as he withdraws: “Even your hero Saint Thomas Aquinas agreed that pride is the most reprehensible of the seven deadly sins.”

Aemond says: “And fortunately for you, Your Eminence, lust is the least.”

“Le salaud!” Auclair roars, and again the cardinals erupt into chaos. “Le crétin, la bête!”

As the dining hall is engulfed in jeers and laughter and applause, Aemond stands by his chair and sips his wine, cool, composed, too statuesque to be human. You gaze up at him and think: What happened to that boy from the beach? Cardinal Seaborn physically places himself in Auclair’s path to stop him from crossing the midpoint of the room. Sister Augustina is crossing herself.

“You still need one more miracle to be a saint, Targaryen,” Auclair seethes as Cardinal Ferrari coaxes him back to their table. “Surely that is what you dream of. No throne on earth is high enough for you.”

Aemond does not reply. He sits as if no one has said anything and eats his risotto, neat but famished forkfuls. Lucky, Kazi, Cam, and Lando give him encouraging thumps on the back. In return, Aemond flashes them a sly, crooked smirk. Then he turns to you. “Tell me about the work you’ve done with the Sisters of Charity of Australia.”

It’s a command, not a request; still, you deny him. You stand, casting a wary glance at Sister Augustina, who is lurching towards you on jolty, arthritic legs. “I really must go serve dinner with the rest of the sisters, I’m only here in Vatican City with Sister Augustina’s blessing and I fear she is dangerously close to revoking it.”

Aemond’s companions wish you goodnight, but he’s not quite done with you yet. “That’s not why I did it,” he says, indicating to the seat he led you to. “To prove a point.”

“I know, Aemond.” And you should have called him Your Eminence or Cardinal Targaryen, but you didn’t, because he’s not just a cardinal. He’s your friend.

As you depart, Aemond picks up a pack of chocolate-flavored Sky Flakes from the table and offers them to you. “Bikkies, right?”

You grin. He remembers. “Too right.” You take the Sky Flakes; you’ll share them with Rhaena tonight.

But when dinner is over and the dishes have been cleared, Aemond finds you again, this time at the threshold between the dining hall and the corridor that leads to the stairwells and the elevators. The Domus Sanctae Marthae—Latin for Saint Martha’s House—is essentially a hotel, built in 1996 by Pope John Paul II for guests to Vatican City and to house the College of Cardinals during a conclave. It can accommodate one hundred and thirty-one souls in small, spartan rooms: no televisions, no radios, no computers, no cellphones, no worldly distractions, no undue influences upon the cardinals’ meditations. They are to listen to the whispers of God, not journalists, not family or friends, not bribes or threats or pleas, not even the crowds of faithful Catholics that gather in Saint Peter’s Square with handmade signs and flickering candles.

Aemond asks, spotting the plain iron medallion hanging from your throat: “Who are you wearing?”

“Saint Agatha.”

“Bona of Pisa would have been better. The patron saint of travelers. Or perhaps Mary MacKillop, the patron saint of Australia.”

“Yes, Aemond, you’re very smart.”

He chuckles and watches you, and even when he doesn’t say anything you feel no instinct to leave; this is unfinished. His hands are clasped behind his back again, as if he is afraid of what he will do with them if they are untethered. A scarlet torrent of cardinals lumber past as they journey to their rooms. Rhaena, curious but not wanting to intrude, loiters a ways down the hall as she waits for you.

“I still remember saying goodbye to you, isn’t that mad?” you tell Aemond. “We were with our families at that pizza place, and it was dark outside, and as you left it was like you vanished into the white glow of the streetlights. And there was some song playing...I don’t know, I’ve never been able to find it again. But it was sad, and I think it had a harmonica.”

Surely he thinks you’re a bit gone for holding on to that moment from almost exactly twenty-nine years ago; maybe he’ll even think you’re making it up. But instead, Aemond gazes off into the Red Sea of cardinals—a lava flow, a bloodrush—and then after a while he comes back to you. “It’s a Bruce Springsteen song,” Aemond says quietly. “It’s called Atlantic City. If you look it up when all of this is over and we’re no longer sequestered, I think you’ll discover you recognize it.” And as you stand there, speechless and thunderstruck in your spotless white wool, he begins to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sydney.”

“Defo,” you reply; and when Aemond blinks at you, stunned, you smile.

He smiles back, touches the gold cross that hangs from his neck, turns away from you and is lost in the gore-red current.

~~~~~~~~~~

Everyone agrees he is smart, but how far has that gotten him?

He has leapt from one island to another: born on Nisyros, educated at British boarding schools and seminaries, and finally assigned to Santorini, and it is here that he waits to become someone. The Church has been the refuge of superfluous sons for two thousand years, a throne that requires no inheritance, a ladder to material comforts, security, status, power, fame, immortality for those who climb high enough. And what is the price you must pay? A relatively painless sacrifice when one considers the rewards: you may not marry, you may not have children, you may not experience romantic love if you are still under the belief that such a thing exists.

He came to the Faith through his mother, Irish by birth and always yearning for somewhere that was cool and wet and green. But perhaps its roots cannot thrive here in the dry air and volcanic soil. Of Greece’s ten million inhabitants, only one percent are Catholic, and while that number grows with each new wave of refugees from Lebanon, Syria, or Iraq, he finds himself languishing in scenic Mediterranean irrelevance. At the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, he ministers to sunburned tourists and dozing old people. He has a plan, but it’s happening so slowly; and patience is a virtue but he has no illusions that he possessed many of those.

It’s summer, hot and glaring and the height of tourist season, when he feels the earth shift beneath his feet as he is ruminating on his disaffection at the Old Port of Fira. Across a narrow strait of the Aegean Sea, he sees the sky change color above Nea Kameni, an uninhabited island and popular site for hiking and sightseeing. Because he was raised on Nisyros, he knows what signs foretell an eruption. Because he’s been on yachts with his boarding school friends—sons of dukes, daughters of prime ministers, bottles of vodka and MDMA pills—he knows how to sail.

It’s late in the day, nearing dusk, and so most of the tours are already back; but there is at least one group left on Nea Kameni, and he knows this because he can just barely see their boat moored to the dock and thrashing on suddenly murderous waves. And then the crater of the volcano explodes, and smoldering rubble pours down onto the dock, and the boat is crushed and they are stranded. He can almost hear their screams. He can imagine the lethal red heat of the lava that will soon be swallowing them like Jonah was wrenched into the belly of a whale.

For the very first time in his life, Aemond could almost believe in God, in divine intervention, in miracles; because in the scorching black plumes of poison rising from Nea Kameni, he sees the white of the smoke when the College of Cardinals has elected a new pope.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Should we have a cuppa?” you ask Rhaena as you place a kettle on a hotplate in the small kitchenette. A corner of the ground floor of the Domus Sanctae Marthae has been set aside for the nuns, each bedroom containing two single-sized beds; you and Rhaena are roommates.

“That’d be lovely.” She sighs as she sits down at the table and rips open the package of chocolate-flavored Sky Flakes. She looks exhausted, shoulders slumped, eyes puffy.

“You alright?”

Rhaena nods. “I’ve just been flat out since the second we got here. And I still have another load of washing to get done tonight. Did you see those spiders in the basement?”

“Oh yeah, heaps of them.”

Rhaena shudders, then perks up when she takes a bite of a Sky Flake. “These are good though.”

“I’ll help you with the washing.”

“Is he like you remember?” she says, and you know who she means. Light floods back into her face; gravity lessens in her bones. She is sitting up straighter. She is entranced. “Was he the same way as a boy? So clever and fearless and magnetic?” Then Rhaena gasps and glances worriedly at the third nun in the room, whom she had forgotten about: Sister Augustina is at the opposite end of the table, collapsed with her head resting on her forearms, her body eerily motionless. She’s always doing this.

You smile. “She’s asleep, Rhaena. She can’t hear us.”

Nonetheless, her voice drops to a whisper. “She won’t stop hitting me.”

“I’m sorry.” You pull back your sleeve to show Rhaena the discoloration of a bruise left by one of Sister Augustina’s clawlike hands. “Keep your distance as much as you can. I’ll try to distract her.”

Rhaena gives her unconscious tormenter one last mistrustful look. Despite Sister Augustina’s mortal faults, you have compassion for her. Wrath comes from pain, a vivid red like stoked flames or fresh blood, and something terrible must have happened to her: a lost loved one, a suffering nation, betrayal, rejection, abuse. But she’s still in the Church, she still has faith, and you find that beautiful. She wears a black habit and a medallion depicting Saint Zita, the patron saint of servants, housekeepers, and lost keys.

Rhaena prompts you: “Well?”

Her question still burns in your skull, low like embers: Is he like you remember? “It’s difficult to explain,” you say slowly. “Sometimes he’s just like that boy from the beach. And then in other moments he looks like a stranger.” He is cunning, he is prideful.

“He would make an extraordinary pope, don’t you think?” Rhaena says wistfully as she nibbles on her Sky Flake. “He’s so well-versed. He’s young, he’s charismatic. And he’s performed a miracle. The lava stopped when he held up his hands, that’s what the tourists he saved told the reporters. What other cardinal can say that? Who else could claim to have been chosen by God?”

Your reply is vague, and not only because you’re supposed to believe God alone will decide who the next Holy Father will be; you aren’t sure how you feel about Aemond being pope. “We’ll have to see what happens.”

“And we get to witness it...right here, where Saint Peter founded the Church two thousand years ago...” Rhaena is in awe of your good fortune, Sister Augustina and the spiders and the endless chores notwithstanding. “What was it that you said to Mother Maureen to convince her to send us to Rome?”

You haven’t told Rhaena the real reason why you’re here. It would hurt her, you think; you are like an older sister to her, or perhaps even a mother, a resurrection of the one she lost to a postpartum hemorrhage when she was a girl. Engraved on her plain iron medallion is Saint Jerome, the patron saint of orphans and abandoned children.

So you lie. “Papal conclaves are so rare, maybe once every ten or twenty years. I won’t have many more opportunities to see one. When the Holy Father passed, Mother Maureen and I were discussing it, and I mentioned how fascinated I’d always been by the process and how I would love to assist with a conclave someday. And she made a call to Sister Augustina that same night.”

Rhaena smiles warmly. “Mother Maureen is so kind.”

She really is. “We are very fortunate to have her.”

You pour boiling water into two cups with one teabag each—Yorkshire Tea, of course, brought in your luggage—and let them steep. Then you turn to contemplate Sister Augustina, still sleeping.

“Don’t,” Rhaena pleads.

You smirk guiltily. You can’t bring yourself to exclude her. It’s not the right thing to do. “Sister Augustina, would you like some tea?” you ask loudly. She doesn’t stir.

“Leave her alone,” Rhaena begs you. “She’ll just find something to snap at us about!”

You try again: “Sister Augustina!”

She still doesn’t move. Now you and Rhaena are perplexed; it’s never been this difficult to rouse her before. You go to Sister Augustina and prod her shoulder, then scream as she spills bonelessly across the floor.

She’s dead.

[heich0e]

"I find you exasperating."

You go out of your way to step on a particularly dry looking leaf along the path—stained a deep, golden colour and curling at the edges where it rests waiting for the weight of your foot—just to hear the way it crunches beneath the sole of your shoe. At your side, Kakashi's attention is still on the book in his hand, the pages spread open only with his thumb and pinkie finger while the other three support the cracked spine. He doesn't spare you a glance, but he does deign to respond with a curious little hum.

"That's an awfully big word."

The lazy way he says it is enough to irritate you, but his condescending words are almost too much for you to bear. You stop in your tracks, fists curled tightly at your sides, and the white haired young man doesn't so much as slow in recognition of it.

It's fall in Konoha, and while the days are still warm and bright, the breeze that whisks through the village's winding streets is cool. The annoyance you feel prickling under your skin is enough to insulate you from the chill. To numb you to its bite.

You swoop down, dragging your hand lightly along the path to retrieve a handful of small, smooth stones—no larger than the tips of your fingers. Without a moment's contemplation, you launch one at the back of Kakashi's head, and watch as it bounces off dully.

He keeps walking.

"Irksome."

Another pebble hits the ground after ricocheting off the back of his headband.

"Vexatious."

The next makes contact with his right shoulderblade.

"Antagonistic."

He catches this one—just like he could have caught any of the previous three—without even turning around to watch you throw it. His hand, the one not holding his book, shoots up to protect his ear before the pebble can make contact. He holds it pinched between his thumb and forefinger for a moment, still leisurely walking away from you, before he flicks it to the ground.

"You're being so childish today," Kakashi calls back over his shoulder. "Are you sure I'm the antagonist here?"

You hear it then, the smile in his voice, and even though it would only serve to legitimize his accusation it almost makes you stomp your foot petulantly.

"Kakashi!"

Finally, he turns to face you, and even though his mask conceals most of his expression, you can tell it's hiding a grin beneath it. He tilts his head to the side, as though waiting for you to continue.

"How many times have you read that stupid book?"

The familiar novel is closed now, and his page marked, though you're not entirely certain when he did either of those things. He glances at the paperback, as though considering it carefully.

"How many times am I allowed to admit to before you call me a pervert?" he asks.

"You are a pervert," you answer, immediate and sure, while slowly walking towards him to close the gap he put between the two of you. "And you would be even if you were illiterate."

"That's not very nice of you to say," he says, tipping his head back and sighing profoundly as though your insult caused him great pain.

"It's the truth, though."

Kakashi peeks down at you from the corner of his eye as you stand by his side. Without thinking, you reach out and grab the sleeve of his jacket, averting your gaze.

It's quiet for a moment. Just the two of you, the fall breeze, the scattered pebbles, and that atrocious romance book.

"You've been gone for a month," your voice is quiet when you finally speak again. So soft it risks being carried away with the wind.

Kakashi didn't even tell you he was leaving before he was sent off on this last mission; you had to find out from another shinobi the next morning, and all they could tell you was he was gone and they weren't sure when he'd be back.

This isn't unusual with Kakashi. It's happened more times than you care to count. Missions that force him to leave the village at short notice are unavoidable—assignments like that to be expected for any shinobi, but particularly for one of Kakashi's rank.

It doesn't make it any easier.

You've thought about bringing this up to him before. Thought about asking him to tell you when these sorts of things come up. Thought about explaining to him how awful it feels to be the last to know. Thought about telling him what those long days apart feel like in this village without him.

But you don't.

Part of it is pride, you think. You're too stubborn to be the one to show your hand like that. To be vulnerable in front of him in such a mortifying, humbling way. Somehow the mere idea of making any of those admissions seems more embarrassing than trailing along behind him tossing rocks at the back of his head.

Another part is fear. You don't want to be the one to speak this thing between the two of you into existence. To give it shape. To breathe life into it by giving it a name. You and Kakashi have always lived in intentional ambiguity. A certain uncertainty. You're not quite friends, you're not quite lovers, you're not quite anything at all.

You're just the one who's left waiting for him to come home.

And then there's the last part—the biggest part—that holds you back. The part you don't quite know how to explain. The part that tells you to bear the pain of missing him, to swallow down your longing, for his sake if not your own. The last thing Kakashi needs is the burden of knowing his duty makes you ache while he's away. That his absence keeps you awake at night. He's got enough he needs to shoulder without you adding to the weight, and this is the least you can do to try and help him carry it.

You let his sleeve slip from your grasp.

"Sorry," you mutter under your breath, shaking yourself from your momentary stupor.

"Are you acting out because I haven't given you enough attention?" Kakashi asks, only his voice is different now than it was a moment prior. Sincere in a way that upsets you more than when he's being intentionally annoying.

You finally bring yourself to look at him, but only to shoot him a narrow-eyed glare.

His own gaze is disarmingly soft when you meet it. Unexpectedly tender. Perceptive in ways you usually choose to overlook.

So much so, in fact, that you're too stunned to even flinch when he taps his book against your forehead.

"Ok, ok," he says with a shrug, spinning on his heel and continuing on down the path at an idle pace, leaving you dumbfounded in his wake. "If you wanted to borrow it, you could've just asked!"